Journal articles on the topic 'Lion trainers'

This essay is concerned with the history of wild animal training between the early nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, specifically with circus acts involving ‘big cats’. The author, John Stokes, is sympathetic to the view that such performances are inhumane, degrading to animal and human alike, but rather than simply rehearsing familiar attitudes, he subjects the ‘big cat’ act to a performance analysis based on established criteria, in the belief that, if performance theory is to have the widespread application that its advocates claim, then it should be able to elucidate many different kinds of theatrical event. His primary materials are the myriad biographies and autobiographies of wild animal trainers that were produced during the heyday of their art, and which he finds to be frequently characterized by an unexpected thoughtfulness and breadth of experience, besides being highly informative about performance aesthetics. John Stokes is Professor of Modern British Literature in the Department of English, King's College London. He is a regular theatre reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement and co-author, together with Michael R. Booth and Susan Bassnett, of Bernhardt, Terry, Duse: the Actress in Her Time (Cambridge, 1988) and Three Tragic Actresses (Cambridge, 1996).

Banks and financial institutions of Bangladesh invest a large amount of money for training purposes in building and enhancing capacity of their human resources. But whether this investment is effective or not is a question often asked by the policymakers of these institutions. These institutions usually train their employees by using off-the-job training methods like seminars, workshops, lectures, etc. along with on-the-job training methods to improve the performance of the employees. A lion’s share of training budget is usually used for off-the-job training purposes that add value for the development of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) of the employees’. But the effectiveness of these training methods is often questioned due to traditional lecture-based training sessions. To make the employees more attractive to training programs, interactive and value adding training methods can increase the effectiveness of the training. Hence, this paper aims at identifying the factors that can improve the effectiveness of the off-the-job training methods in commercial banks of Bangladesh. This study used both qualitative and quantitative research methods. A survey was conducted among the bank officers who received off-the-job training with structured questionnaire. A total of 300 bank officers at different levels of the banks were interviewed. Eight leading private and public commercial banks were included in the survey. Factor Analysis was used to identify the factors related to the effectiveness of off-the-job training methods while Multiple Regression was used to identify the relationships between the overall effectiveness of the training and the effectiveness factors related to off-the-job training. Results show that the effectiveness of the off-the-job training methods depends on four significant factors such as, acquiring knowledge and skills, logistics support, invitation of comments by the trainers and participation of the trainees, and participation of the trainees in Training Needs Assessment (TNA). This study suggests that off-the-job training methods can be made more effective by ensuring effective delivery of knowledge, providing proper logistics supports, engaging trainees in training sessions, and ensuring participation of the trainees in training need assessment processes of the banks.

African lion (Panthera leo) cubs are extensively used in South Africa in wildlife-interaction tourist activities. Facilities provide close interaction opportunities, but the welfare impacts on the cubs are unclear. A workshop was held with 15 lion-experienced stakeholders, including government officials, nature conservationists, animal welfare organisations, lion breeders, lion handlers, an animal ethologist, wildlife veterinarian, wildlife rehabilitation specialist and an animal rights advocacy group representative. Individual representatives nominated a range of welfare concerns, and 15 were identified for discussion and prioritisation. The leading welfare concern was a lack of governance and regulation within the industry. Participants agreed on nine non-negotiable practices affecting welfare concerns, which included ethical concerns, such as cubs exiting into the ranching industry (farming of lions for hunting) and the bone trade (lions being slaughtered for their bones, which are exported for lion bone wine) once petting age has passed. Welfare concerns representative of current management practices within the lion cub interaction industry were compared for importance using an online adaptive conjoint analysis survey of 60 stakeholders in the industry. The survey identified the most important welfare concerns to be poor social grouping of cubs, an inability for cubs to choose their own environment and retreat from a forced interaction, a lack of trained and dedicated caretakers, and poor breeding practices. The conjoint analysis survey results produced a value model, which can be used as a tool to score cubs’ welfare in interaction facilities, and it identified unacceptable practices lacking welfare consideration.

Former techniques for the identification of lion individuals (Panthera leo) relied on manual methods of recording data. Such processes have various shortcomings due to the manual nature of recording this data. This research work aims to automate the process of encoding the uniqueness within the whisker spot patterns for each lion individual by non-invasively using photographs. Towards this research work the main bottleneck was the availability of image data for individual lions. The proposed model embeds the uniqueness within the patterns for a specific individual as a unique cluster within its embedding space. This is achieved by using a triplet loss function which, due to its one-shot learning nature trains a deep inception network with less training data. Photographic images are known to have variations in lighting, pose variation, angle variation and other inconsistencies. Since the nature of these issues are nonlinear, it is preferred to create the target model using deep learning techniques. An inception network is trained to generate 128-dimensional vectors unique to each lion. This research paper elaborates on such deep machine learning techniques and other processes that are used to create this model.

Cloud computing is the internet-based technique where the users utilize the online resources for computing services. The attacks or intrusion into the cloud service is the major issue in the cloud environment since it degrades performance. In this article, we propose an adaptive lion-based neural network (ALNN) to detect the intrusion behaviour. Initially, the cloud network has generated the clusters using a WLI fuzzy clustering mechanism. This mechanism obtains the different numbers of clusters in which the data objects are grouped together. Then, the clustered data is fed into the newly designed adaptive lion-based neural network. The proposed method is developed by the combination of Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm of neural network and adaptive lion algorithm where female lions are used to update the weight adaptively using lion optimization algorithm. Then, the proposed method is used to detect the malicious activity through training process. Thus, the different clustered data is given to the proposed ALNN model. Once the data is trained, then it needs to be aggregated. Subsequently, the aggregated data is fed into the proposed ALNN method where the intrusion behaviour is detected. Finally, the simulation results of the proposed method and performance is analysed through accuracy, false positive rate, and true positive rate. Thus, the proposed ALNN algorithm attains 96.46% accuracy which ensures better detection performance.

Attempts sponsored by the Admiralty's Board of Invention and Research (BIR) to train sea lions as submarine trackers from November 1916 to mid–1917, when there was considerable concern about the depredations of U–boats, involved a unique collaboration between Fellows of The Royal Society and music-hall celebrities. The official establishment, with its scientific advisers and somewhat reluctant naval representatives, met the world of music hall and circus entertainment, when sea lion ‘captains’ were called upon to assist their counterparts in the Royal Navy. Admiralty documents in the Public Record Office indicate that in 1916 Professor W.H. Bragg, F.R.S. of Section II of the BIR had been approached by ‘Captain’ Joseph Woodward, a music–hall sea lion trainer, who recommended his animals as a possible solution to the U–boat menace. Woodward's recommendation was taken seriously, and he was in due course taken on by the BIR as a consultant, provider of sea lions and experimenting participant. Experiments and trials took place in public swimming baths in Glasgow and Westminster, at Lake Bala and finally on the Solent, under the general supervision of Dr E.J. Allen, F.R.S., Director of the Marine Biological Association laboratories in Plymouth, and with the regular participation of Sir Richard Paget, Secretary of Section II, and Woodward's brother, Captain Fred. At first the aim was to train muzzled animals prior to meals to ignore fish alongside them in a tank in favour of an artificial underwater sound, after a conditioned approach to which they would be rewarded with food. Training would then be transferred to open water, using a submarine as the sound and food source, which the animals might learn to follow without the distraction of fish or of sounds other than those associated with submarines. Woodward's work consisted of a successful application of the same principle of conditioned response which Pavlov made quantifiable in his dogs, and the trials themselves represented a very unusual alliance between science and the performing arts.

Abstract This article discusses one of Johannes V. Jensens ”Himmerland Sto­ries”, ”Wombwell”, which appeared in Nye Himmerlandshistorier in 1904, as well as some related texts. ”Wombwell” may be said to illustrate how the tradition-bound inhabitants of rural Himmerland experienced the hurried, violent modern world passing by in the shape of the well-known, world-famous English menagerie established in 1805 by George Wombwell, whose successors as a matter of fact toured in Northern Jutland in the summer of 1888. A major issue raised in the text is a longing Wombwell’s magnificent appearance inspires in the minds of three local youngsters, now wishing to escape from their familiar milieu. An equivalent longing motivates the hero’s departure from his childhood setting in popular tales in order to take possession of unknown parts of the outer (and inner) world. In Jensen’s story this aspect is represented by Miss Alice, the attractive lion trainer of the menagerie. Aspects like these are also unfolded in three other texts of Jensen to which ”Wombwell” is compared, ”Løverne” (“The Lions”), ”Circus Rieger” and ”Menageriet” (“The Menagerie”). These texts point to a major generic issue in Jensen’s Himmerland stories, in that he navigates along the borderline between childhood remembrance and fictional creation, or between description and narration. That borderline becomes blurred and even disappears since the process of remembrance turns out to be much more creative than simply reconstructive.

Background and context: According to the World Health Organization (WHO) global atlas which maps palliative care needs worldwide, just over 50% of the palliative care needs reside in Asia. Development of palliative care services in Asia is patchy, with a few high income countries, such as Singapore and Japan, with palliative care services integrated into the health system. In the vast majority of countries, particularly low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), such services are lacking or only available in a few centers. Aim: To develop palliative care services in countries with no services. Strategy/Tactics: The Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN) is a nongovernmental organization which supports the development of palliative care in the Asia Pacific region. Since 2012 , it has developed a comprehensive program to build capacity for palliative care in several countries in the region, including Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Program/Policy process: Coconceptualized and funded by the Lien Foundation, the APHN sends interdisciplinary teams of volunteer faculty to these countries to run a training of trainers program over a period of three years. Major tertiary institutions were chosen as partners, with the understanding that palliative care services would be set up once a team had been trained. An interdisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, social workers and pharmacists from each institution went through the training program together. Individuals with potential to become champions for palliative care in these countries were given further training through a clinical fellowship program at established institutions in the region. During the training participants would be expected to start palliative care services in their institutions, which will become training centers for palliative care in the future. Concomitantly, a program of advocacy for medications essential for palliative care, such as oral morphine, was also undertaken. Outcomes: Six modules of the training course were completed in each of the three countries. A corps of 20 to 30 master trainers completed the training. In each of those countries, one or more palliative care services were started in major tertiary teaching hospitals. Oral morphine availability was greatly enhanced. The master trainers organized training within their hospitals, and also for the public. Other outcomes include the recognition of palliative care as a specialty, the introduction of palliative care into undergraduate medical and nursing curricula, and development of postgraduate courses in palliative care. What was learned: It was important to target institutions which were willing establish palliative care services. An interdisciplinary group of faculty was able to teach and inspire the trainees to take up the discipline. A drug availability program was essential to provide the tools to work with.

SUMMARY The metabolic rate (MR) of four adult California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), two males and two females, was quantified during trained submersion and stationing behavior in laboratory tanks. MR was measured, at rest and for single submersions of increasing duration (1–7 min), by measuring oxygen consumption using open-circuit, indirect calorimetry. Standard MR was measured under conditions defined for basal MR and was found to be 1.9 to 3 times that predicted for terrestrial animals of similar size. Submersion MRs were calculated from the post-submersion oxygen debt and declined to as little as 47 % of standard MR on the longest submersions. This hypometabolic response was proportional to the duration of submersion and was greatest for the maximum duration submersions. Short submersions produced MRs equivalent to measured standard MR. These data suggest that although California sea lions maintain an elevated metabolism under standard conditions, they are capable of reducing their metabolism in response to the needs of diving. Such metabolic flexibility enables sea lions to moderate their oxygen use during diving and to extend their aerobic diving capability.

The prediction of future events based on available time series measurements is a relevant research area specifically for healthcare, such as prognostics and assessments of intervention applications. A measure of brain dynamics, electroencephalogram time series, are routinely analyzed to obtain information about current, as well as future, mental states, and to detect and diagnose diseases or environmental factors. Due to their chaotic nature, electroencephalogram time series require specialized techniques for effective prediction. The objective of this study was to introduce a hybrid system developed by artificial intelligence techniques to deal with electroencephalogram time series. Both artificial neural networks and the ant-lion optimizer, which is a recent intelligent optimization technique, were employed to comprehend the related system and perform some prediction applications over electroencephalogram time series. According to the obtained findings, the system can successfully predict the future states of target time series and it even outperforms some other hybrid artificial neural network-based systems and alternative time series prediction approaches from the literature.

Purpose As a result of the deregulations in the power system networks, diverse beneficial operations have been competing to optimize their operational costs and improve the consistency of their electrical infrastructure. Having certain and comprehensive state assessment of the electrical equipment helps the assortment of the suitable maintenance plan. Hence, the insulation condition monitoring and diagnostic techniques for the reliable and economic transformers are necessary to accomplish a comprehensive and proficient transformer condition assessment. Design/methodology/approach The main intent of this paper is to develop a new prediction model for the aging assessment of power transformer insulation oil. The data pertaining to power transformer insulation oil have been already collected using 20 working power transformers of 16-20 MVA operated at various substations in Punjab, India. It includes various parameters associated with the transformer such as breakdown voltage, moisture, resistivity, tan δ, interfacial tension and flashpoint. These data are given as input for predicting the age of the insulation oil. The proposed aging assessment model deploys a hybrid classifier model by merging the neural network (NN) and deep belief network (DBN). As the main contribution of this paper, the training algorithm of both NN and DBN is replaced by the modified lion algorithm (LA) named as a randomly modified lion algorithm (RM-LA) to reduce the error difference between the predicted and actual outcomes. Finally, the comparative analysis of different prediction models with respect to error measures proves the efficiency of the proposed model. Findings For the Transformer 2, root mean square error (RMSE) of the developed RM-LA-NN + DBN was 83.2, 92.5, 40.4, 57.4, 93.9 and 72 per cent improved than NN + DBN, PSO, FF, CSA, PS-CSA and LA-NN + DBN, respectively. Moreover, the RMSE of the suggested RM-LA-NN + DBN was 97.4 per cent superior to DBN + NN, 96.9 per cent superior to PSO, 81.4 per cent superior to FF, 93.2 per cent superior to CSA, 49.6 per cent superior to PS-CSA and 36.6 per cent superior to LA-based NN + DBN, respectively, for the Transformer 13. Originality/value This paper presents a new model for the aging assessment of transformer insulation oil using RM-LA-based DBN + NN. This is the first work uses RM-LA-based optimization for aging assessment in power transformation insulation oil.

AbstractRecent evidence suggests that patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular comorbidities (VC) perform worse across measures of verbal reasoning and abstraction when compared to patients with AD alone. We performed a qualitative error analysis of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III Similarities zero-point responses in 45 AD patients with varying numbers of VC, including diabetes, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia. Errors were scored in set if the answer was vaguely related to how the word pair was alike (e.g., dog-lion: “they can be trained”) and out of set if the response was unrelated (“a lion can eat a dog”). AD patients with 2–3 VC did not differ on Similarities total score or qualitative errors from AD patients with 0–1 VC. When analyzing the group as a whole, we found that increasing numbers of VC were significantly associated with increasing out of set errors and decreasing in set errors in AD. Of the vascular diseases investigated, it was only the severity of diastolic blood pressure that significantly correlated with out of set responses. Understanding the contribution of VC to patterns of impairment in AD may provide support for directed patient and caregiver education concerning the presentation of a more severe pattern of cognitive impairment in affected individuals. (JINS, 2010, 16, 77–83.)

Résumé Empruntées à la linguistique cognitive, les notions de conceptualisation de domaine et de décomposition scénique sont brièvement présentées puis étudiées dans le contexte de la traduction pour expliquer le traitement qui s'opère lors de la traduction. Ce qui est notamment intéressant, c'est le lien qui existe entre la conceptualisation de domaine chez les étudiants et l'accroissement de leur compétence linguistique et traductionnelle. Les données tirées d'études à voix haute effectuées avec des étudiants de niveaux inter- médiaire et avancé nous fournissent une certaine preuve de l'étendue d'une conscience conceptuelle lorsqu'ils traduisent de l'allemand à l'anglais. En conclusion, l'auteur affirme que les modèles de traitement cognitif sous-jacents à la linguistique cognitive peuvent aussi servir à expliquer comment et pourquoi se produisent les procédés de la traduction examinés en traductologie sur corpus, à savoir l'explicitation et la normalisation.

Consumer testing and descriptive analysis were conducted on six commercial varieties of organically grown edamame-type soybean. In the affective tests, 54 panelists rated pods and beans for appearance, and beans for aroma, taste, texture, aftertaste, and overall acceptability on a 9-point hedonic scale and willingness to buy on a 9-point category scale. `Sayamusume' was liked significantly better than all varieties except `Kenko' and `Sapporo Midori' for taste. `Kenko' was also rated higher than `Sapporo Midori', `Misono Green', and `Early Hakucho' for pod appearance. `Misono Green' texture was liked less than that of all other varieties except `White Lion'. In the descriptive analysis, 10 trained panelists rated the beaniness, sweetness, nuttiness, and chewiness of the same six varieties. `Kenko' rated significantly sweeter than all other varieties except `Sapporo Midori'. `White Lion' rated as significantly lower in chewiness than all other varieties. Beaniness and nuttiness could not be consistently differentiated among varieties. The data suggest that consumer liking of bean taste varies, though subtly, among the six edamame varieties tested here and that preferences may differ with gender. Results from descriptive analysis also suggest that panelists relied on texture (i.e., chewiness) and sweetness to differentiate between varieties. These results are particularly important in overall product quality management strategies as chewiness and sweetness may be influenced by production practices and harvest timing.

This article presents an algorithm for the segmentation of retinal blood vessels for the detection of diabetic retinopathy eye diseases. This disease occurs in patients with untreated diabetes for a long time. Since this disease is related to the retina, it can eventually lead to vision impairment. The proposed algorithm is a supervised learning method of blood vessels segmentation in which the classification system is trained with the features that are extracted from the images. The proposed system is implemented on the images of DRIVE, STARE and CHASE_DB1 databases. The segmentation is done by forming clusters with the features of patterns. The features were extracted using independent component analysis and the classification is performed by support vector machines (SVM). The results of the parameters are grouped by accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, false positive rate and are compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO), the firefly optimization algorithm (FA) and the lion optimization algorithm (LOA).

RÉSUMÉL'étude avait pour but de comparer les propriétés contractiles, histochimiques et biochimiques du muscle triceps sural de 13 sujets mâles âgés de 63 à 76 ayant suivi un entrâinement aérobique. Une stimulation électrique fut appliquée au muscle triceps sural des sujets afin de déterminer les paramètres de secousse musculaire élémentaire, de tétanisation et de fatigue. Ces tests ont permis de calculer la tension de secousse musculaire (Pt), la tension TPT, le demi-temps de relaxation (1/2RT), les tensions tétaniques à 10(Po10), 20(Po20) et 50(Po50) Hz et un indice de fatigue (FI). Des échantillons du faisceau externe des muscles jumeaux du triceps furent prélevés par biopsie par aspiration. Une partie de chaque échantillon fut soumise à un examen histochimique afin de mesurer la myosine ATPasique (pH 4,30, 4,58 et 10,00) et la NADH-tétrazolium réductase et de pouvoir ainsi déterminer les zones fibreuses. Le reste de l'échantillon fut analysé afin de déceler l'activité enzymatique des déhydrogénase succinique et phosphofructokinase. D'importantes corrélations furent établies entre les zones fibreuses (ST et FI) et Po10/Po50 et FI. Par contre, pour aucun des paramètres histochimiques, on n'a relevé de lien significatif entre la Pt, la 172RT et le MVC. L'activité des SDH et PFK n'était corrélative à aucun paramètre histochimique ou psychologique. La fait de faire régulièrement des exercices d'endurance ne semble pas freiner le déclin des propriétés contractiles propres au vieillissement. Les activités enzymatiques régulatrices de substrat (PKF) et celles de marqueur (SDH) des muscles squelettiques sont plus faibles chez les personnes âgées que les sujets plus jeunes, et ce, en dépit du fait que les sujets s'adonnent à des exercices aérobiques.

Recent studies of stranded marine mammals indicate that exposure to underwater military sonar may induce pathophysiological responses consistent with decompression sickness (DCS). However, DCS has been difficult to diagnose in marine mammals. We investigated whether blood microparticles (MPs, measured as number/μl plasma), which increase in response to decompression stress in terrestrial mammals, are a suitable biomarker for DCS in marine mammals. We obtained blood samples from trained Steller sea lions ( Eumetopias jubatus, 4 adult females) wearing time-depth recorders that dove to predetermined depths (either 5 or 50 meters). We hypothesized that MPs would be positively related to decompression stress (depth and duration underwater). We also tested the effect of feeding and exercise in isolation on MPs using the same blood sampling protocol. We found that feeding and exercise had no effect on blood MP levels, but that diving caused MPs to increase. However, blood MP levels did not correlate with diving depth, relative time underwater, and presumed decompression stress, possibly indicating acclimation following repeated exposure to depth.

In times of war, the first instinct is to relieve the suffering of human beings. Environmental and animal interests are always pushed into the background. However, warfare strongly affects natural resources, including animals, which makes animal issues a matter of great concern. Certain species have been vanishing at a rapid rate because of wars, often with disastrous effects on the food chain and on the ecological balance. Indeed, belligerents rarely take into account the adverse consequences of their military operations on animals. They even take advantage of the chaotic circumstances of war in order to poach protected species and to engage in the trafficking of expensive animal products. While generating billions of dollars each year, such poaching and trafficking allows armed groups to grow and to reinforce their authority over disputed territory. States have also trained, and continue to train, certain animals—principally marine mammals such as bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions—to perform military tasks, like ship and harbor protection, or mine detection and clearance. Millions of horses, mules, donkeys, camels, dogs, and birds are obliged to serve on various fronts (transport, logistics, or communications) and become particularly vulnerable targets.

The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of drying method on flavor profiles of mulberry fruit using purge and trap (P&T) flavor extraction followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and descriptive sensory analysis using a highly trained sensory panel. Mulberry fruit samples were prepared at different temperatures (−20, 0, 50, and 60 °C). The results showed that more diverse volatile compound profiles were produced overall and had increased levels of benzaldehyde, nonanal, and 3,3-dimethylhexane in Sample 3 and 4, which were dried at higher temperature (50 °C and 60 °C). The mulberry fruit samples that received heat treatment had higher grape juice, raisin, and sour aromatics, while samples that did not received heat treatment were characterized as having cucumber, green/grassy, and sweet aromatics.

PURPOSE Transitioning from two-dimensional to three-dimensional treatment planning requires developing contouring skills. Contouring atlases are excellent resources, but they do not provide users active feedback. Developing countries may not have many radiation oncologists experienced in three-dimensional planning to provide training. We sought to develop a standardized self-guided educational module with integrated feedback to teach contouring skills. METHODS AND MATERIALS All 18 oncology residents at Black Lion Hospital/Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia were trained to contour the level II lymph node station. Residents took a baseline pretest quiz, survey, and contouring evaluation. Residents then watched an instructional contouring lecture and performed three additional cases with integrated feedback by comparing their contours to gold-standard contours. Residents then took a post-training quiz, survey, and contouring evaluation. Paired t tests and analysis of variance were used for analysis. RESULTS Before training, the average number of total cases ever contoured was 2.4 and the average number of head and neck cases contoured was 0.5. Comfort with contouring improved from being “not at all comfortable” to “quite comfortable” after the 3-hour training ( P < .001). The standard deviation between the resident contours and gold standard improved from 72.6 cm3 (pretest) to 7.4 cm3 (post-test). The average percentage overlap with the gold-standard contours and Dice similarity coefficient improved with each case performed, from 27.7% and 0.26 (pretest) to 80.1% and 0.77 (post-test), respectively ( P < .001). After training, 16 of 18 (88.9%) residents produced a Dice similarity coefficient greater than 0.7, the threshold generally accepted for excellent agreement. CONCLUSION This self-guided teaching module was an effective tool for developing level II lymph node contouring skills by providing active feedback and resulted in improved user confidence and accuracy compared with a gold standard. This module can be expanded to other disease sites and countries to further facilitate transitioning to three-dimensional treatment planning in developing countries.

Influenza viruses are known to be infected through epithelial cells of the upper respiratory tract. The oral cavity is in close anatomical proximity to the upper respiratory tract, and it is conceivable that the viruses could pass through the oral cavity and infect to the upper respiratory tract. Several researchers have suggested that colonization of certain pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus or Streptococcus pneumoniae might affect the risk of influenza viral disease, indicating that oral hygiene and/or condition might play an important role in respiratory viral infection. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether an oral hygiene/condition might impact influenza infection. We conducted a retrospective observational study of Japanese citizens’ regional cohort (N = 2,904) consisting of National Health Insurance beneficiaries who underwent annual health/dental examination with data entries in the Kokuho database (KDB). Trained dentists checked the oral hygiene/condition, and saliva specimens were examined using the LION dental saliva multi-test (SMT) kit. Influenza infection was identified from the diagnosis recorded in the KDB. The correlations between influenza infection and oral hygiene, dryness of the mouth, or various salivary test results were examined by a multivariate analysis adjusting for confounding factors such as gender, age, recent smoking, alcohol drinking, BMI, HbA1c, RBC for influenza infection. The logistic regression model showed that age significantly correlated with influenza infection. In addition, oral hygiene status had a nearly significant impact on influenza infection (p = 0.061), whereby, the subjects with poor oral hygiene had a higher risk of influenza infection than those with good oral hygiene (odds ratio: 1.63, 95% confidence interval: 0.89–2.95). Further, the prevalence of influenza infection was lower in the subjects with saliva weakly acidic and/or containing higher protein level. The results of this study suggested that the maintenance of oral health conditions might be one of the pivotal factors for preventing and reducing influenza infection.

Abstract In this paper, a successful eye-penetration reconnaissance flight by an unmanned aerial vehicle, Aerosonde, into Typhoon Longwang (2005) and the preliminary analyses of the collected data are presented. The 10-h flight is diagnosed through four flight legs. The wind field measured along flight leg 1 provides the tangential and radial wind profiles from the outer perimeter into the eye of the typhoon at the 700-hPa layer. A vertical sounding was taken in the eye along flight leg 2 and the derived surface pressure in the eyewall is close to the estimates made by the local weather agencies. Along flight leg 3, the strongest winds during the whole flight mission were measured. These in situ wind measurements by Aerosonde are consistent with the winds observed by the Hua-lien Doppler weather radar. The maximum 10-min (1 min) wind along flight leg 3 when Aerosonde was flying around the eyewall region is 58.6 m s−1 (62 m s−1). The maximum sustained surface wind derived from this maximum wind speed is also close to the estimates made by the local weather agencies. In conclusion, this successful mission demonstrates that the Aerosonde with a trained crew can play a role in severe weather monitoring and the Aerosonde’s measurement can serve as an independent check for Doppler radar wind retrieval.

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Ein Hornhauttransplantat aus Organkultur darf i. d. R. nur verwendet werden, wenn präoperativ eine Endothelzelldichte von mindestens 2000 Zellen pro mm2 nachgewiesen ist. Die Messung der Endothelzelldichte ist dadurch erschwert, dass in der Phasenkontrastmikroskopie die Zellgrenzen der Endothelzellen nicht immer gut sichtbar sind und die zählbare Fläche durch quellungsbedingte Descemet-Falten limitiert ist. Bislang ist daher keine automatische Methode zur Endothelzelldichtebestimmung in Hornhauttransplantaten verfügbar. Das neuronale Netzwerk U-Net hat sich in der vollautomatischen Analyse von spiegelmikroskopischen Aufnahmen des Hornhautendothels bewährt. Ziel dieser Studie war die Anwendung des U-Net in der Qualitätssicherung von Hornhauttransplantaten. Material und Methoden Das U-Net wurde zunächst anhand von 100 manuell markierten Befundungsbildern von Hornhäuten aus der Lions-Hornhautbank Baden-Württemberg trainiert. Für die Prüfung der Messgenauigkeit des U-Net wurden 100 weitere Befundungsbilder von der o. g. Hornhautbank zur Verfügung gestellt. Diese wurden jeweils von a) einer erfahrenen Befunderin und b) einem weniger erfahrenen Augenarzt manuell gezählt. Die identischen Bilder wurden vollautomatisch über das trainierte U-Net ausgezählt und dieses Ergebnis mit beiden manuellen Analysen mittels Pearson-Korrelation verglichen. Ergebnisse Der Korrelationskoeffizient zwischen dem U-Net und der erfahren Untersucherin als „Goldstandard“ betrug 0,90. Der Korrelationskoeffizient des weniger erfahrenen Augenarztes mit dem Goldstandard betrug nur 0,81. Beide Korrelationen erwiesen sich als statistisch hochsignifikant (p < 0,0001). Schlussfolgerung Die enge Korrelation des U-Net mit dem „Goldstandard“ deutet darauf hin, dass mit dem U-Net, die medizintechnische Zulassung vorausgesetzt, eine effektive Unterstützung in der Qualitätsbeurteilung von Hornhauttransplantaten in der Hornhautbank möglich ist. Dies hätte Vorteile für die Objektivität und die Arbeitseffizienz.

Background To improve early detection of emerging infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), many of them zoonotic, numerous electronic animal disease-reporting systems have been piloted but not implemented because of cost, lack of user friendliness, and data insecurity. In Kenya, we developed and rolled out an open-source mobile phone-based domestic and wild animal disease reporting system and collected data over two years to investigate its robustness and ability to track disease trends. Methods The Kenya Animal Biosurveillance System (KABS) application was built on the Java® platform, freely downloadable for android compatible mobile phones, and supported by web-based account management, form editing and data monitoring. The application was integrated into the surveillance systems of Kenya’s domestic and wild animal sectors by adopting their existing data collection tools, and targeting disease syndromes prioritized by national, regional and international animal and human health agencies. Smartphone-owning government and private domestic and wild animal health officers were recruited and trained on the application, and reports received and analyzed by Kenya Directorate of Veterinary Services. The KABS application performed automatic basic analyses (frequencies, spatial distribution), which were immediately relayed to reporting officers as feedback. Results Of 697 trained domestic animal officers, 662 (95%) downloaded the application, and >72% of them started reporting using the application within three months. Introduction of the application resulted in 2- to 14-fold increase in number of disease reports when compared to the previous year (relative risk = 14, CI 13.8–14.2, p<0.001), and reports were more widely distributed. Among domestic animals, food animals (cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and chicken) accounted for >90% of the reports, with respiratory, gastrointestinal and skin diseases constituting >85% of the reports. Herbivore wildlife (zebra, buffalo, elephant, giraffe, antelopes) accounted for >60% of the wildlife disease reports, followed by carnivores (lions, cheetah, hyenas, jackals, and wild dogs). Deaths, traumatic injuries, and skin diseases were most reported in wildlife. Conclusions This open-source system was user friendly and secure, ideal for rolling out in other countries in SSA to improve disease reporting and enhance preparedness for epidemics of zoonotic diseases.

In this article, by combining/following previous publications, we summarize the history of nearly 100 years of development of the Vietnam seismological network and its achievements in earthquake monitoring and seismological research to contribute to prevention and mitigation of natural disasters and sustainable development of the country. Earthquake observation in Vietnam has gone through many stages of development, the first seismic station was established in Sapa by the French in 1924. In the years of 70-80s of the 20th Century, the earthquake monitoring network of Vietnam consisted of 7 stations, including five stations distributed in the Northern part (Phu Lien, Sa Pa, Bac Giang, Hoa Binh, Tuyen Quang) and two stations located in the south (Nha Trang and Da Lat). In the period from 1990 to 2005, the national seismological network with 24 digital seismographs and short-period sensors was created and distributed throughout the country. Today, earthquake monitoring in Vietnam has made great progress, the new seismological network with 30 broadband stations with advanced earthquake monitoring technology been established completely in 2017. The international cooperation on earthquake monitoring and seismological research is always promoted and expanded, over the past 60 years, IGP has collaborated with many scientific organizations from different countries such as Russia, France, China, Japan, Poland, The United State of America,... and prestigious international organizations as UNDP, PTWC, CTBTO, IRIS, ADPC, RIMES,.. Through these cooperations, many research projects have been done and Vietnamese seismologists have been trained and educated at different levels that help to improve their knowledge earthquake monitoring and seismological research. Besides operating the national seismological network, some local seismic networks have also been established by Institute of Geophysics for many years to monitor and study induced seismicity in some reservoirs of hydropower dams such as Son La, Hoa Binh, Tri An, Yaly, Song Tranh, Lai Chau, Huoi Quang, Ban Chat,...

Several recent oil spills in the United States have had the potential to impact large numbers and multiple populations of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) and pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), namely the Macondo-252/Deepwater Horizon oil spill from April 2010, the Texas City Y event in March 2014, and the Refugio Beach oil spill in May 2015. In each of these spills, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and partners have engaged in significant activities during and following the spills, to both respond effectively to minimize impacts and assess the effects of oil spills on marine mammals. Experience gained during these spills has led to improved preparedness for future events with potential involvement of marine mammals. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has developed the “National Pinniped and Cetacean Oil Spill Response Guidelines,” which are available online. These guidelines provide a broad national overview of response activities, a proposed organizational structure, and considerations to identify, recover, treat, and sample oiled and potentially oiled marine mammals. Further development of a response framework includes regional preparedness plans for marine mammals, based on the national guidelines but with regionally appropriate modifications to reflect local considerations, including species likely to be impacted, geographic concerns, and understanding of local cultural practices. Efforts are underway to improve training opportunities through a national exercise plan and to track trained and qualified individuals for potential deployment. For assessment, NMFS and NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) have partnered to develop the “National Marine Mammal Oil Spill Assessment Guidelines” to facilitate early, efficient, and effective assessment of impacts from oil spills on marine mammals as part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process. This paper will outline the current status of these products and their role in marine mammal assessment and response in the U.S., raise awareness of marine mammals within oil spills, and identify potential resources for marine mammal response and assessment in other countries.

Abstract Objectives The Culinary Health Education and Fitness (C.H.E.F.) program is a 3-year program designed to help children and families in three Oregon counties (Lincoln, rural Benton and East Linn) achieve higher-quality lives through the promotion of physical activity and nutrition. The program utilized nutrition-focused culinary education that included cooking classes and tasting tables to empower families to be self-sufficient in the kitchen, make healthy food choices and increase exposure to fruits and vegetables. The program also sought to strengthen relationships among health-advocacy stakeholders, train future physicians to deliver nutrition education, and to integrate the Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) program at school sites as a sustainable program for increasing physical activity in school-aged children. Methods Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from classes, schools and stakeholders through pre- and post-surveys, interviews, program records, and observation to assess program reach, process evaluation, cooking self-efficacy, physical activity and change in nutrition knowledge. Our mixed methods approach was organized around the concepts of Exposure, Integrity and Intensity (for the process evaluation) and Outcomes. Results The program had extensive reach with &gt;3200 children served at tasting tables, &gt;800 participants in culinary education classes, and &gt;2500 students participated in CATCH at their schools. Nearly 100 community partners, medical students and volunteers were trained to deliver the evidence-based culinary education. The implementation of CATCH increased vigorous physical activity in children. Culinary education courses effectively introduced children to new vegetables and fruits and raised confidence in their ability to prepare healthy foods at home. Relationships flourished through the various meetings, trainings and conferences related to the program. A robust network of health advocacy stakeholders continues to grow across the tri-county area through various activities related to this program work. Conclusions Through a wide array of relationships and community partnerships, the C.H.E.F. program promotes healthy lifestyles and a culture of health in rural Oregon communities. Funding Sources HRSA Rural Network Development Grant.

BackgroundAccurate time-energy budgets summarise an animal’s energy expenditure in a given environment, and are potentially a sensitive indicator of how an animal responds to changing resources. Deriving accurate time-energy budgets requires an estimate of time spent in different activities and of the energetic cost of that activity. Bio-loggers (e.g., accelerometers) may provide a solution for monitoring animals such as fur seals that make long-duration foraging trips. Using low resolution to record behaviour may aid in the transmission of data, negating the need to recover the device.MethodsThis study used controlled captive experiments and previous energetic research to derive time-energy budgets of juvenile Australian fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus)equipped with tri-axial accelerometers. First, captive fur seals and sea lions were equipped with accelerometers recording at high (20 Hz) and low (1 Hz) resolutions, and their behaviour recorded. Using this data, machine learning models were trained to recognise four states—foraging, grooming, travelling and resting. Next, the energetic cost of each behaviour, as a function of location (land or water), season and digestive state (pre- or post-prandial) was estimated. Then, diving and movement data were collected from nine wild juvenile fur seals wearing accelerometers recording at high- and low- resolutions. Models developed from captive seals were applied to accelerometry data from wild juvenile Australian fur seals and, finally, their time-energy budgets were reconstructed.ResultsBehaviour classification models built with low resolution (1 Hz) data correctly classified captive seal behaviours with very high accuracy (up to 90%) and recorded without interruption. Therefore, time-energy budgets of wild fur seals were constructed with these data. The reconstructed time-energy budgets revealed that juvenile fur seals expended the same amount of energy as adults of similar species. No significant differences in daily energy expenditure (DEE) were found across sex or season (winter or summer), but fur seals rested more when their energy expenditure was expected to be higher. Juvenile fur seals used behavioural compensatory techniques to conserve energy during activities that were expected to have high energetic outputs (such as diving).DiscussionAs low resolution accelerometry (1 Hz) was able to classify behaviour with very high accuracy, future studies may be able to transmit more data at a lower rate, reducing the need for tag recovery. Reconstructed time-energy budgets demonstrated that juvenile fur seals appear to expend the same amount of energy as their adult counterparts. Through pairing estimates of energy expenditure with behaviour this study demonstrates the potential to understand how fur seals expend energy, and where and how behavioural compensations are made to retain constant energy expenditure over a short (dive) and long (season) period.

This article analyzes teacher professional development (PD) mandated by the implementation of portfolio-based language assessment (PBLA) in government-funded adult language learning programs in Canada. Through the lens of conceptualizations of teacher learning (TL), the study examined PBLA teacher-trainingmaterials, 247 teacher surveys, and participant interviews pertaining to two contrasting cases. The analysis of teacher experiences in PBLA PD revealed limited theoretical and empirical connections to recent developments in second language teacher education (SLTE). While current SLTE research emphasizes self-directed TL, the PBLA train-the-trainer model demonstrates top-down knowledge transmission with a potentially undermining evaluative component. The hierarchical transmission of knowledge created for teachers without opportunities for knowledge building by teachers contradicts current understandings of TL as a complex sociocultural activity. Limited effectiveness of PBLA as a TL experience may be further diminished by its potential use for punitive surveillance, as demonstrated in the extreme case analysis. As a result of this study, Richards and Farrell’s conceptualizations of TL were complemented with an additional perspective informed by sociocultural theory—TL as dialogic interaction. The disconnect of PBLA vision and practice from current SLTE requires further research and attention from policymakers. Cet article analyse le perfectionnement professionnel (PP) des enseignants tel que mandaté par la mise en œuvre de l’évaluation linguistique basée sur le portfolio (ELBP) dans le contexte des cours de langue pour adultes fi nancés par le gouvernement du Canada. À la lumière des conceptualisations de Richards et Farrell en matière de formation des enseignants, l’étude analyse le matériel de formation des enseignants de l’ELBP ainsi que 247 sondages d’enseignants et des entrevues de participants portant sur deux études de cas contrastantes. L’analyse des expériences des enseignants dans le domaine du PP en lien avec l’ELBP a révélé une pénurie de liens théoriques et empiriques avec les développements récents dans le domaine de la formation des enseignants en anglais langue seconde (SLTE). Alors que les recherches actuelles en matière de SLTE mettent l’accent sur le PP autogéré, le modèle the formation des formateurs de l’ELBP se caractérise par une approche descendante de la transmission du savoir accompagnée d’une composante d’évaluation potentiellement affaiblissante. La transmission hiérarchique du savoir créée pour des enseignants qui n’ont pas de possibilités d’accumuler eux-mêmes des connaissances contredit les conceptions actuelles du PP comme activité socioculturelle complexe. L’efficacité limitée de l’ELBP comme expérience de PP pourra se voir réduire encore davantage par l’utilisation potentielle de surveillance à des fins punitives, tel que le démontre l’analyse de cas extrêmes. À la suite de cette étude, les conceptualisations de PP de Richards et Farrell ont acquis une nouvelle dimension inspirée par la théorie socioculturelle—le PP comme interaction dialogique. L’écart entre la vision et la pratique en ELBP dans le domaine de la formation des enseignants en anglais langue seconde exige des études plus poussées et doit attirer l’attention des décideurs politiques.

One of the crucial issues of our decades is how to stop the loss of biodiversity. Policy–makers need reliable data to base their decisions on. Managing wildlife populations requires, first of all, science–based knowledge of their abundance, dynamics, ecology, behaviour and dispersal capacities based on reliable qualitative data. The importance of dialogue and communication with the local actors should be stressed (Sennerby Forsse, 2010) as bag statistics and other monitoring data in wildlife management could be more precise if local actors, notably hunters, were better informed and aware of their importance, especially in supporting existing and emerging policies at national and international levels. Another essential issue in wildlife management is the conflicts generated by humans and their activities when they interact with wildlife (Heredia & Bass, 2011). A sociologic approach is required to take into account those human groups whose interests are divergent, facilitating communication and collaborative learning among these users of the same ecosytem. Obstacles should be addressed and solutions devised to protect and encourage a sustainable use of this ecosystem in, as much as possible, a win–win relationship. Policy objectives and mana-gement strategies should be discussed and debated among the stakeholders involved, then formulated. Policies can be translated into different types of instruments, economic and legislative, but also informative and educa-tive. As awareness of the actors is a key factor of successful regulation, the regulations should be sufficiently explained and stakeholders should be involved in the implementation of these regulations as much as possible. Finally, the effectiveness of the regulations should be evaluated in light of their objectives, and where necessary, the regulations should be strengthened or adapted to improve their performance (Van Gossum et al., 2010).The various aspects of the processes described above were highlighted in the plenary talk and the five oral communications presented during the session on wildlife law and policy. In his plenary talk, Dr Borja Heredia, Head of the Scientific Unit of the Secretariat of the CMS/UNEP in Bonn, pointed out different sources of human–wildlife conflicts, such as the logging activities in subtropical forests that induce overexploitation and poaching for bushmeat consumption; the problem of predators on livestock and the poisoning of lions in the Masaï Reserve; animals invading the human territory; and game species as a vector of diseases in humans and livestock (Heredia & Bass, 2011). Heredia stressed the importance for wildlife managers to deal with the human dimension; he stressed the importance of successful conflict management based on principles such as a non–adversial framework, an analytical approach, a problem–solving orientation, the direct participation of the conflicting parties, dialogue as a basis for mutual understanding and facilitation by a trained third party. Heredia explained how the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (UNEP/CMS) contributes to confict resolution and in this way increases the chance of survival of these species. The CMS (see CMS website) works for the con-servation of a wide array of endangered migratory animals worldwide through the negotiation and implementation of agreements and action plans. Migratory species threatened with extinction are listed in Appendix I of the Con-vention. CMS parties strive towards strictly protecting these animals, conserving or restoring the places where they live, mitigating obstacles to migration and controlling other factors that might endanger them. Besides establishing obligations for each State joining the CMS, CMS promotes concerted action among the Range States of many of these species. Migratory species that need, or would significantly benefit from, international co–operation are listed in Appendix II of the Convention. For this reason, the Convention encourages the Range states to reach global or regional agreements. The Convention acts, in this res-pect as a framework convention. The Agreements may range from legally binding treaties (called agreements, there are seven) to less formal instruments, such as Memoranda of Understanding, or actions plans (there are 20), and they can be adapted to the requirements of particular regions. The development of models tailored according to the conservation needs throughout the migratory range is a unique capacity to CMS. Heredia detailed inter alia the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, the Great Apes Survival Part-nership, the Agreement on the Conservation of Gorillas and their Habitats, the MoU on the Saïga Antelope, and the Programme for the Conservation and sustainable use of the wild saker falcon (Falco cherrug) in Mongolia.The talk of Sarah Wilks, research fellow at the School of Law, University of Western Sydney, illus-trated the importance of adequate transparency and public consultation in environmental and conservation law and decision making. Wilks (2012) examined the Australian legislation concerning animal welfare and the export of Australian wildlife products and, as a case study, explored the Tasmanian State Government’s recent decision to promote the com-mercial harvest and export of brushtail possums She pointed out that although the Enviromment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation 1999 (EPBC) process intended to be open and co–operative, it is not, in prac-tice, co–operative, public and transparent. The export of possum products requires Australian Government approval under the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (EPBC). Wilks (2012) assessed the Tasmanian Wildlife Trade Management Plan for Common Brushtail Possums developed by the EPBC, the public submissions to the Austra-lian Government, and the Australian Government’s response against the provisions of the EPBC. As a result, she deplored that welfare outcomes, like that of back or pouch juveniles whose mother had been trapped or killed have not been adequately considered either at Tasmanian State or at Australian Govenment level. She concluded by deploring that submissions on ethical grounds could not yet be considered by the Australian Government because the decision to harvest or not to harvest is made at State level, and yet the Tasmanian State legislation is deficient in mandating public consultation.Data on hunting and game resources provide quan-titative and qualitative information on game species, but moreover, game monitoring has shown to be efficient in identifying threats to biodiversity, such as biodiversity problems in agriculture and forest ecosystems, and also to be an early warning in assessing threats from invasive alien species (Sennerby Forsse, 2010). They are an essential tool for game managers, scientists and policy–makers, and hunters and hunter organisations are key resources in the collection of this information.The ARTEMIS data bank was initiated by the Federation of Asssociations of Hunting and Conservation of the Euro-pean Union FACE (see ARTEMIS website) to improve information about game in support of existing and emer-ging European policies. The objective of ARTEMIS is to centralise and analyse, in a coordinated and coherent Animal Biodiversity and Conservation 35.2 (2012)161extending the ban to all waterfowl hunting and not only that undertaken in protected wetlands.The presentation of K. E. Skordas, from the Hunting Federation of Macedonia and Thrace, Research Divi-sion, Greece, illustrated the contribution of the Hellenic Hunters Confederation (HHC) to law enforcement for wildlife protection. It showed how stakeholders, hun-ters, set up heir own Game Warden Service in 1999, through their Hunting Associations, in order to assume responsibility for the control of illegal hunting and wil-dlife protection, in collaboration with the local Forest Service. These game wardens carry out repressive and preventive controls and prosecutions. Besides this initiative, information campaigns are organised by the HHC to improve hunters’ awareness (see website of the Hellenic Hunters Confederation, HHC). Skordas & Papaspyropoulos (2011) analysed the relation between law enforcement, hunter awareness and infringement categories, classed in degree of influencing wildlife protection. They observed a strong reduction in the number of infringements; particularly, they found that hunting out of season and hunting without a license decreased from 23.4% to 7.31% and from 30.12% to 11.8%, respectively.All the talks presented in this session stressed the importance of dialogue in wildlife management as a basis for mutual understanding. Communication and involvement of the local actors/stakeholders are key factors at different stages of wildlife management: when collecting reliable data on which policy–makers may draw up their decisions, when debating policy objectives and strategies, and when implementing regulations and administrative acts

California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) are a highly maneuverable species of marine mammal. During uninterrupted, rectilinear swimming, sea lions oscillate their foreflippers to propel themselves forward without aid from the collapsed hindflippers, which are passively trailed. During maneuvers such as turning and leaping (porpoising), the hindflippers are spread into a delta-wing configuration. There is little information defining the role of otarrid hindflippers as aquatic control surfaces. To examine Z. californianus hindflippers during maneuvering, trained sea lions were video recorded underwater through viewing windows performing porpoising behaviors and banking turns. Porpoising by a trained sea lion was compared to sea lions executing the maneuver in the wild. Anatomical points of reference (ankle and hindflipper tip) were digitized from videos to analyze various performance metrics and define the use of the hindflippers. During a porpoising bout, the hindflippers were considered to generate lift when surfacing with a mean angle of attack of 14.6±6.3°. However, while performing banked 180o turns, the mean angle of attack of the hindflippers was 28.3±7.3°, and greater by another 8-12° for the maximum 20% of cases. The delta-wing morphology of the hindflippers may be advantageous at high angles of attack to prevent stalling during high-performance maneuvers. Lift generated by the delta-shaped hindflippers, in concert with their position far from the center of gravity, would make these appendages effective aquatic control surfaces for executing rapid turning maneuvers.

Abstract Attributable to the rapid growth of information technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) having strong permeability characteristics, huge usage of action and better comprehensive benefits. However, it encourages the development of IoT technology in the detection of structural engineering. Structural health monitoring (SHM) is responsible for identifying techniques and for prototyping systems performing a state diagnosis of structures. Its aim is to prevent sudden civil infrastructure failure as a result of several invisible sources of damage. This paper devises a novel method, namely bat-antlion Optimization dependent generative adversarial network (BALO-based GAN) for monitoring the states of structural health. Here, IoT nodes sense the signals of each channels and sensed data are transmitted to base station (BS) using Monarch-Earthworm (Monarch-EWA)-enabled secure routing protocol that selects the optimal path for the data transmission. After performing the IoT routing, the state of the structural health is monitored at the BS. For SHM, the input signal acquired from the IoT routing phase is fed to the pre-processing step for improving the signal quality for further processing. Then, the feature extraction is performed using fractional-amplitude modulation spectrogram (fractional AMS) for extracting the best features for improving the classification accuracy. The extracted features are adapted by the GAN, which is trained by BALO. The proposed BALO is newly designed by integrating the Bat algorithm and antlion optimizer. The proposed BALO-based GAN showed improved performance with maximal accuracy of 0.912, maximal sensitivity of 0.911, maximal throughput of 0.972 and maximal specificity of 0.913, respectively.

Abstract Objective Despite the access and availability of modern health care, Traditional Bone Setting (TBS) has a big place as alternative health care. Hence, this study was aimed to assess the preference of Traditional Bone Setting and associated factors among patients with a fracture. Results A total of 224 patients known to have fractured at Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa was included in the study. This study revealed that 29.9% of the study participants had a preference for the Traditional Bone Setting. Hospital admission (AOR = 8.158, 95% CI 1.179, 56.439), Traditional Bone Setting center as first port of call after injury (AOR = 0.004, 95% CI 0.001, 0.090), knowledge (AOR = 9.448, 95% CI 1.481, 60.251) and perception (AOR = 0.026, 95% CI 0.003, 0.215) were statistically significant. The preference for the Traditional Bone Setting is high. Hospital admission, Traditional Bone Setting center as a first port of call after injury, knowledge, and perception were significantly associated with the preference of Traditional Bone Setting. In addition to deployment of trained in trauma professionals, working more on awareness creation and training are recommended.

Abstract Background The ability to automatically count animals is important to design appropriate environmental policies and to monitor their populations in relation to biodiversity and maintain balance among species. Out of all living mammals on Earth, 60% are livestock, 36% humans, and only 4% are animals that live in the wild. In a relatively short period, development of human civilization caused a loss of 83% of wildlife and 50% of plants. The rate of species extinction is accelerating. Traditional wildlife surveys provide rough population estimates. However, emerging technologies, such as aerial photography, allow to perform large-scale surveys in a short period of time with high accuracy. In this paper, we propose the use of computer vision, through deep learning (DL) architecture, together with aerial photography and density maps, to count the population of Steller sea lions and African elephants with high precision. Results We have trained two deep learning models, a basic UNet without any feature extractor (Model-1) and another with the EfficientNet-B5 feature extractor (Model-2). We measured the model’s prediction accuracy, using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) for the predicted and actual animal count. The results showed an RMSE of 1.88 and 0.60 to count Steller sea lions and African elephants, respectively, regardless of complex background, different illumination conditions, heavy overlapping and occlusion of the animals. Conclusions Our proposed solution performed very well in the counting prediction problem, with relatively low training parameters and minimum annotation. The approach adopted, combining DL and density maps, provided better results than state-of-art deep learning models used for counting, indicating that the proposed method has the potential to be used more widely in large-scale wildlife surveying projects and initiatives.

Abstract Background Unhealthy lifestyle behaviours contribute to alarming cardiometabolic risk in patients with serious mental illness (SMI). Evidence-based practical lifestyle tools supporting patients and staff in improving patient lifestyle are lacking. Methods This multi-site randomized controlled pragmatic trial determined the effectiveness of a twelve-month multimodal lifestyle approach, including a web-based tool to improve patients’ cardiometabolic health, versus care-as-usual. Using the web tool, nurses (trained in motivational interviewing) assisted patients in assessing their lifestyle behaviours, creating a risk profile and constructing lifestyle goals, which were discussed during fortnightly regular care visits. Twenty-seven community-care and sheltered-living teams were randomized into intervention (N = 17) or control (N = 10) groups, including 244 patients (140 intervention/104 control, 49.2% male, 46.1 ± 10.8 years) with increased waist circumference (WC), BMI or fasting glucose. The primary outcomes concerned differences in WC after six and twelve months intervention, while BMI and metabolic syndrome Z-score were secondary outcome measures. Results General multilevel linear mixed models adjusted for antipsychotic medication showed that differences in WC change between intervention and control were − 0.15 cm (95%CI: − 2.49; 2.19) after six and − 1.03 cm (95%CI: − 3.42; 1.35) after twelve months intervention; however, the differences were not statistically significant. No intervention effects were found for secondary outcome measures. The intervention increased patients’ readiness to change dietary behaviour. Conclusion A multimodal web-based intervention facilitating nurses to address lifestyle changes in SMI patients did not improve patient cardiometabolic health. Web-tool use was lower than expected and nurses need more lifestyle coaching knowledge and skills. The type of intervention and delivery mode need optimization to realize effective lifestyle care for SMI patients. Trial registration Dutch Trial Registry, www.trialregister.nl, NTR3765, 21 December 2012.

This study aimed at investigating the extent to which the Implementation of Higher Education Objectives (HEO) predicts the attainment of Cameroon’s Vision 2035. Specifically, the study was: (1) To find out whether the strengthening of gender equality is effectively ensuring the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation and national unity, and consolidation of democracy. (2) To find out whether the training of trainers and researchers is effectively ensuring the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation and national unity and consolidation of democracy. The study made use of two hypotheses, which were either accepted or rejected after analysis. The quantitative and qualitative (mixt method) design was used for this study. The population of the study consisted of all the final year students (potential graduates: B.Sc, B.Ed, M.A, M.Sc, M.Ed, Ph.D., and HND, etc.) from 14 Higher Institutes of Learning (HIL) in the South West Region of Cameroon. The sample consisted of 370 students chosen at random. 24 teachers were also interviewed. A questionnaire and an interview guide were used for data collection. The questionnaire was validated by 30 students who did not constitute part of the sample. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (statistical tool). Qualitative data were analyzed by using content analysis. The findings revealed that; the strengthening of gender equality is high hence guarantees the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation, and national unity, and consolidation of democracy. Results revealed that factors in favor of gender equality include; Policies adjustment leading to inclusive education, equity and increase in gender access, relatively equal opportunities in Science Departments, a relative change in teachers’ perception towards women education, the relative decrease in favoritism and increase in meritocracy rate in HE classrooms, increase in female leaders, teachers, and researcher to influence decision making leading to a relative balance in the inclusion of male and female students in major school projects, activities and decisions. On the contrary, results revealed that the mean for the training of trainers and researchers were found low as such does not guarantee the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation, and national unity and consolidation of democracy. Results revealed that, factors influencing the low level of Training of Trainers and Researchers in HE include; generally low-quality control and monitoring in HE, inadequate financial, material and human resources to effectively influence the training of trainers and researcher, poor research funding and management, low motivation of staff and students to attend seminars, ineffective research supervision, and duration for learners to gain required skills, poor feedback quality from research supervisors, contribute to the low level of Training of Trainers and Researchers in HE. The researcher concluded that the Implementation of HEO has a direct relationship with the attainment of Cameroon’s Vision 2035 yet some of the objectives are not effectively implemented. The better the implementation of HEO, the more HE can guarantee the attainment of Vision 2035. Some recommendations and suggestions for further study were made. Cette étude visait à déterminer jusqu’où la mise en œuvre des objectifs de l’enseignement supérieur prévoit la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun. Plus précisément, il s’agissait de: (1) déterminer si le renforcement de l’égalité des sexes garantit véritablement la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun concernant la réduction de la pauvreté, l’unité nationale et la consolidation de la démocratie. (2) Déterminer si la formation des formateurs et celle des chercheurs garantissent véritablement la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun en matière de lutte contre la pauvreté, d’unité nationale et de consolidation de la démocratie. L’étude a fait appel à deux hypothèses, acceptées ou rejetées après analyse. Cette étude a fait recours à une combinaison de méthodes quantitatives et qualitatives (approche mixte). La population de l’étude était composée de tous les étudiants de dernière année (diplômés potentiels: licences, masters, doctorats, BTS , etc.) de 14 instituts d’enseignement supérieur basés dans la région Sud-Ouest du Cameroun. L’échantillon était composé de 370 étudiants choisis au hasard. 24 enseignants ont également été interviewés. Un questionnaire et un guide d’interview ont été utilisés pour la collecte des données. Le questionnaire a été validé par 30 étudiants qui ne faisaient pas partie de l’échantillon. Les données quantitatives ont été analysées à l’aide du coefficient de corrélation de Pearson (outil statistique). Les données qualitatives ont été analysées en utilisant l’analyse du contenu. Les résultats ont révélé que: le renforcement de l’égalité des sexes est élevé, ce qui garantit la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun concernant la réduction de la pauvreté, l’unité nationale et la consolidation de la démocratie. Les résultats ont révélé que les facteurs suivants favorisent l’égalité des sexes: l’ajustement des politiques conduisant à une éducation inclusive ; l’équité et l’amélioration de l’accès des hommes et des femmes à l’égalité de chances dans les facultés de science ; le changement de la perception qu’ont les enseignants à l’égard de l’éducation des femmes ; la réduction du favoritisme et l’augmentation du taux de méritocratie en enseignement supérieur ; l’inclusion des étudiants et étudiantes dans les grands projets, les activités et les décisions académiques. Par contre, les résultats ont révélé que les moyens octroyés à la formation des formateurs et des chercheurs étaient faibles car ceux-ci ne garantissent pas la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun en ce qui concerne la lutte contre la pauvreté, l’unité nationale et de consolidation de la démocratie. Les résultats ont révélé que les facteurs suivants influencent le faible niveau de formation des formateurs et des chercheurs dans l’enseignement supérieur: le contrôle et le suivi dans l’enseignement supérieur qui généralement de mauvaise qualité ; les ressources financières, matérielles et humaines insuffisantes pour impacter efficacement la formation des formateurs et des chercheurs ; l’insuffisance du financement et de la gestion de la recherche ; la faible motivation du personnel et des étudiants à participer à des séminaires. L’inefficacité de la direction des recherches, la durée d’acquisition des techiniques nécessaires et les feedbacks de mausaise qualité venant des directeurs de recherche contribuent eux aussi, au faible niveau de la formation des formateurs et des chercheurs dans l’enseignement supérieur. Le chercheur a conclu que la mise en œuvre des objectifs de l’enseignement supérieur a un lien direct avec la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun, cependant certains de ces objectifs ne sont pas véritablement mis en œuvre. Plus la mise en œuvre des objectifs de l’enseignement supérieur est effective, plus elle garantit la réalisation de la Vision 2035. Quelques recommandations et suggestions ont été faites en vue d’une étude plus approfondie. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0817/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

<p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p><p><strong>Background: </strong>Pharmacy technicians are expanding their scope of practice, often in partnership with pharmacists. In oncology, such a shift in responsibilities may lead to workflow efficiencies, but may also cause concerns about patient risk and medication errors.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>The primary objective was to compare the time spent on order entry and order-entry checking before and after training of a clinical support pharmacy technician (CSPT) to perform chemotherapy order entry. The secondary objectives were to document workflow interruptions and to assess medication errors.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This before-and-after observational study investigated chemotherapy order entry for ambulatory oncology patients. Order entry was performed by pharmacists before the process change (phase 1) and by 1 CSPT after the change (phase 2); order-entry checking was performed by a pharmacist during both phases. The tasks were timed by an independent observer using a personal digital assistant. A convenience sample of 125 orders was targeted for each phase. Data were exported to Microsoft Excel software, and timing differences for each task were tested with an unpaired <em>t </em>test.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Totals of 143 and 128 individual orders were timed for order entry during phase 1 (pharmacist) and phase 2 (CSPT), respectively. The mean total time to perform order entry was greater during phase 1 (1:37 min versus 1:20 min; <em>p </em>= 0.044). Totals of 144 and 122 individual orders were timed for order-entry checking (by a pharmacist) in phases 1 and 2, respectively, and there was no difference in mean total time for order-entry checking (1:21 min versus 1:20 min; <em>p </em>= 0.69). There were 33 interruptions not related to order entry (totalling 39:38 min) during phase 1 and 25 interruptions (totalling 30:08 min) during phase 2. Three errors were observed during order entry in phase 1 and one error during order-entry checking in phase 2; the errors were rated as having no effect on patient care.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Chemotherapy order entry by a trained CSPT appeared to be just as safe and efficient as order entry by a pharmacist. Changes in pharmacy technicians’ scope of practice could increase the amount of time available for pharmacists to provide direct patient care in the oncology setting.</p><p><strong>RÉSUMÉ</strong></p><p><strong>Contexte : </strong>Les techniciens en pharmacie élargissent leur champ de pratique, souvent en partenariat avec les pharmaciens. En oncologie, un tel changement dans les responsabilités pourrait conduire à une optimisation de l’organisation du travail, mais il peut aussi soulever des inquiétudes au sujet des risques pour le patient et des erreurs de médicaments.</p><p><strong>Objectifs : </strong>L’objectif principal était de comparer le temps passé à la saisie d’ordonnances et à la vérification de cette saisie avant et après avoir formé un technicien en pharmacie dédié au soutien clinique (TPDSC) à la saisie d’ordonnances de chimiothérapie. Les objectifs secondaires étaient de répertorier les interruptions de travail et d’évaluer les erreurs de médicaments.</p><p><strong>Méthodes : </strong>La présente étude observationnelle avant-après s’est intéressée à la saisie d’ordonnances de chimiothérapie pour les patients ambulatoires en oncologie. La saisie d’ordonnances était réalisée par des pharmaciens avant le changement de procédé (phase 1), puis, après le changement (phase 2), un TPDSC en avait la responsabilité. Un pharmacien vérifiait la saisie d’ordonnances au cours des deux phases. Les tâches étaient chronométrées par un observateur indépendant à l’aide d’un assistant numérique personnel. Un échantillon de commodité de 125 ordonnances était souhaité pour chaque phase. Les données ont été consignées dans un tableur Excel de Microsoft et les écarts de temps pour chaque tâche ont été évalués à l’aide d’un test <em>t </em>pour échantillons indépendants.</p><p><strong>Résultats : </strong>Au total, on a chronométré le temps de saisie pour 143 ordonnances à la phase 1 (pharmacien), puis de 128 ordonnances pour la phase 2 (TPDSC). Le temps total moyen nécessaire pour saisir une ordonnance était plus long au cours de la phase 1 (1 min 37 s contre 1 min 20 s; <em>p </em>= 0,044). Au total, on a chronométré la vérification (réalisée par un pharmacien) de saisie pour 144 ordonnances à la phase 1 et 122 ordonnances à la phase 2. Aucune différence notable n’a été relevée dans le temps total moyen de vérification (1 min 21 s contre 1 min 20 s; <em>p </em>= 0,69). On a dénombré 33 interruptions sans lien à la saisie d’ordonnances (totalisant 39 min 38 s) au cours de la phase 1 et 25 interruptions (totalisant 30 min et 8 s) durant la phase 2. Trois erreurs à la saisie d’ordonnances ont été observées pendant la phase 1 et une erreur à la vérification de la saisie d’ordonnances pendant la phase 2; ces erreurs ont été jugées sans effet sur les soins aux patients.</p><p><strong>Conclusions : </strong>La saisie d’ordonnances de chimiothérapie par un TPDSC formé semblait être tout aussi sûre et efficiente que si elle était réalisée par un pharmacien. Les changements apportés au champ de pratique des techniciens en pharmacie pourraient accroître le temps dont disposent les pharmaciens pour prodiguer des soins directs aux patients en oncologie.</p>

Perfume is a Japanese “techno-pop” idol trio formed in 2000 consisting of three women–Ayano Omoto, Yuka Kashino, and Ayaka Nishiwaki. Since 2007, when one of their songs was selected for a recycling awareness campaign by Japan's national public broadcaster, Perfume has been a consistent fixture in the Japanese pop music charts. They have been involved in the full gamut of typical idol activities, from television and radio shows to commercials for clothing brands, candy, and drinks. Their success reflects Japanese pop culture's long-standing obsession with pop idols, who once breaking into the mainstream, become ubiquitous cross-media presences. Perfume’s fame in Japan is due in large part to their masterful performance of traditional female idol roles, through which they assume the kaleidoscopic positions of daughter, sister, platonic friend, and heterosexual romantic partner depending on the standpoint of the beholder. In the lyrical content of their songs, they play the various parts of the cute but shy girl who loves from a distance, the strong compatriot that pushes the listener to keep striving for their dreams, and the kindred spirit with whom the listener can face life's ordinary challenges. Like other successful idols, their extensive lines of Perfume-branded merchandise and product endorsements make the exercise of consumer spending power by their fans a vehicle for them to approach the ideals and experiences that Perfume embodies. Yet, Perfume's videos, music, and stage performances are also replete with subversive images of machines, virtual cities and landscapes, and computer generated apparitions. In their works, the traditional idol as an object of consumer desire co-exists with images of the fragmentation of identity, distrust in the world and the senses, and the desire to escape from illusion, all presented in terms of encounters with technology. In what their fans call the "Near Future Trilogy", a set of three singles released soon after their major label debut (2005-06), lyrics refer to the artificiality and transience of virtual worlds ("Nothing I see or touch has any reality" from "Electro-World," or "I want to escape. I want to destroy this city created by immaculate computation" from "Computer City"). In their later work, explicit lyrical references to virtual worlds and machines largely disappear, but they are replaced with images and bodily performances of Perfume with robotic machinery and electronic information. Perfume is an idol group augmented by technology. In this paper, I explore the significance of these images of technological augmentation of the human body in the work of Perfume. I suggest that the ways these bodily encounters of the human body and technology are articulated in their work reflect broader social and economic anxieties and hopes in Japan. I focus in the first section of this paper on describing some of the recurring technological motifs in their works. Next, I show how their recent work is an experiment with the emergent possibilities of human-technology relationships for imagining Japan's future development. Not only in their visual and performance style, but in their modes of engagement with their fans through new media, I suggest that Perfume itself is attempting to seek out new forms of value creation, which hold the promise of pushing Japan out of the extended economic and social stagnation of its 1990s post-bubble "Lost Decade,” particularly by articulating how they connect with the world. The idol's technologically augmented body becomes both icon and experiment for rethinking Japan and staking out a new global position for it. Though I have referred above to Perfume as its three members, I also use the term to signify the broader group of managers and collaborating artists that surrounds them. Perfume is a creation of corporate media companies and the output of development institutions designed to train multi-talented entertainers from a young age. In addition to the three women who form the public face of Perfume, main figures include music producer Yasutaka Nakata, producer and choreographer MIKIKO, and more recently, the new media artist Daito Manabe and his company, Rhizomatiks. Though Perfume very rarely appear on stage or in their videos with any other identifiable human performers, every production is an effort involving dozens of professional staff. In this respect, Perfume is a very conventional pop idol unit. The attraction of these idols for their fans is not primarily their originality, creativity, or musicality, but their professionalism and image as striving servants (Yano 336). Idols are beloved because they "are well-polished, are trained to sing and act, maintain the mask of stardom, and are extremely skillful at entertaining the audience" (Iwabuchi 561). Moreover, their charisma is based on a relationship of omoiyari or mutual empathy and service. As Christine Yano has argued for Japanese Enka music, the singer must maintain the image of service to his or her fans and reach out to them as if engaged in a personal relationship with each (337). Fans reciprocate by caring for the singer, and making his or her needs their own, not the least of which are financial. The omoiyari relationship of mutual empathy and care is essential to the singer’s charismatic appeal (Yano 347). Thus it does not matter to their fans that Perfume do not play their own instruments or write their own songs. These are jobs for other professionals. However, mirroring the role of the employee in the Japanese company-as-family (see Kondo), their devotion to their jobs as entertainers, and their care and respect for their fans must be evident at all times. The tarnishing of this image, for instance through revelations of underage smoking or drinking, can be fatal, and has resulted in banishment from the media spotlight for some former stars. A large part of Japanese stars' conventional appeal is based on their appearance as devoted workers, consummate professionals, and partners in mutual empathy. As charismatic figures that exchange cultural ideals for fans’ disposable income, it is not surprising that many authors have tied the emergence of the pop idol to the height of Japan's economic prosperity in the 1970s and 1980s, when the social contract between labor and corporations that provided both lifelong employment and social identity had yet to be seriously threatened. Aoyagi suggests (82) that the idol system is tied to post-war consumerism and the increased importance of young adults, particularly women, as consumers. As this correlation between the health of idols and the economy might imply, there is a strong popular connection between concerns of social fission and discontent and economic stagnation. Koichi Iwabuchi writes that Japanese media accounts in the 1990s connected the health of the idol system to the "vigor of society" (555). As Iwabuchi describes, some Japanese fans have looked for their idols abroad in places such as Hong Kong, with a sense of nostalgia for a kind of stardom that has waned in Japan and because of "a deep sense of disillusionment and discontent with Japanese society" (Iwabuchi 561) following the collapse of Japan's bubble economy in the early 1990s. In reaction to the same conditions, some Japanese idols have attempted to exploit this nostalgia. During a brief period of fin-de-siècle optimism that coincided with neoliberal structural reforms under the government of Junichiro Koizumi, Morning Musume, the most popular female idol group at the time, had a hit single entitled "Love Machine" that ended the 1990s in Japan. The song's lyrics tie together dreams of life-long employment, romantic love, stable traditional families, and national resurgence, linking Japan's prosperity in the world at large to its internal social, emotional, and economic health. The song’s chorus declares, "The world will be envious of Japan's future!", although that future still has yet to materialize. In its place has appeared the "near-future" imaginary of Perfume. As mentioned above, the lyrics of some of their early songs referenced illusory virtual worlds that need to be destroyed or transcended. In their later works, these themes are continued in images of the bodies of the three performers augmented by technology in various ways, depicting the performers themselves as robots. Images of the three performers as robots are first introduced in the music video for their single "Secret Secret" (2007). At the outset of the video, three mannequins resembling Perfume are frozen on a futuristic TV soundstage being dressed by masked attendants who march off screen in lock step. The camera fades in and out, and the mannequins are replaced with the human members frozen in the same poses. Other attendants raise pieces of chocolate-covered ice cream (the music video also served as an advertisement for the ice cream) to the performers' mouths, which when consumed, activate them, launching them into a dance consisting of stilted, mechanical steps, and orthogonal arm positions. Later, one of the performers falls on stairs and appears to malfunction, becoming frozen in place until she receives another piece of ice cream. They are later more explicitly made into robots in the video for "Spring of Life" (2012), in which each of the three members are shown with sections of skin lifted back to reveal shiny, metallic parts inside. Throughout this video, their backs are connected to coiled cables hanging from the ceiling, which serve as a further visual sign of their robotic characters. In the same video, they are also shown in states of distress, each sitting on the floor with parts exposed, limbs rigid and performing repetitive motions, as though their control systems have failed. In their live shows, themes of augmentation are much more apparent. At a 2010 performance at the Tokyo Dome, which was awarded the jury selection prize in the 15th Japan Media Arts Festival by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, the centerpiece was a special performance entitled "Perfume no Okite" or "The Laws of Perfume." Like "Secret Secret," the performance begins with the emergence of three mannequins posed at the center of the stadium. During the introductory sequence, the members rise out of a different stage to the side. They begin to dance, synchronized to massively magnified, computer generated projections of themselves. The projections fluctuate between photorealistic representations of each member and ghostly CG figures consisting of oscillating lines and shimmering particles that perform the same movements. At the midpoint, the members each face their own images, and state their names and dates of birth before uttering a series of commands: "The right hand and right leg are together. The height of the hands must be precise. Check the motion of the fingers. The movement of the legs must be smooth. The palms of the hands must be here." With each command, the members move their own bodies mechanically, mirrored by the CG figures. After more dancing with their avatars, the performance ends with Perfume slowly lowered down on the platform at the center of the stage, frozen in the same poses and positions as the mannequins, which have now disappeared. These performances cleverly use images of robotic machinery in order to subvert Perfume's idol personas. The robotic augmentations are portrayed as vectors for control by some unseen external party, and each of the members must have their life injected into them through cables, ice cream, or external command, before they can begin to dance and sing as pop idols. Pop idols have always been manufactured products, but through such technological imagery Perfume make their own artificiality explicit, revealing to the audience that it is not the performers they love, but the emergent and contingently human forms of a social, technological, and commercial system that they desire. In this way, these images subvert the performers' charisma and idol fans' own feelings of adoration, revealing the premise of the idol system to have been manufactured to manipulate consumer affect and desire. If, as Iwabuchi suggests, some fans of idols are attracted to their stars by a sense of nostalgia for an age of economic prosperity, then Perfume's robotic augmentations offer a reflexive critique of this industrial form. In "The Laws of Perfume", the commands that comport their bodies may be stated in their own voices, yet they issue not from the members themselves, but their magnified and processed avatars. It is Perfume the commercial entity speaking. The malfunctioning bodies of Perfume depicted in "Secret Secret" and "Spring of Life" do not detract from their charisma as idols as an incident of public drunkenness might, because the represented breakdowns in their performances are linked not to the moral purity or professionalism of the humans, but to failures of the technological and economic systems that have supported them. If idols of a past age were defined by their seamless and idealized personas as entertainers and employees, then it is fitting that in an age of much greater economic and social uncertainty that they should acknowledge the cracks in the social and commercial mechanisms from which their carefully designed personas emerge. In these videos and performances, the visual trope of technological body augmentation serves as a means for representing both the dependence of the idol persona on consumer capitalism, and the fracturing of that system. However, they do not provide an answer to the question of what might lie beyond the fracturing. The only suggestions provided are the disappearance of that world, as in the end of "Computer City," or in the reproduction of the same structure, as when the members of Perfume become mannequins in "The Laws of Perfume" and "Secret Secret." Interestingly, it was with Perfume's management's decision to switch record labels and market Perfume to an international audience that Perfume became newly augmented, and a suggestion of an answer became visible. Perfume began their international push in 2012 with the release of a compilation album, "Love the World," and live shows and new media works in Asia and Europe. The album made their music available for purchase outside of Japan for the first time. Its cover depicts three posed figures computer rendered as clouds of colored dots produced from 3D scans of the members. The same scans were used to create 3D-printed plastic figures, whose fabrication process is shown in the Japanese television ad for the album. The robotic images of bodily augmentation have been replaced by a more powerful form of augmentation–digital information. The website which accompanied their international debut received the Grand Prix of the 17th Japan Media Arts Prize. Developed by Daito Manabe and Rhizomatiks, visitors to the Perfume Global website were greeted by a video of three figures composed of pulsating clouds of triangles, dancing to a heavy, glitch-laden electronic track produced by Nakata. Behind them, dozens of tweets about Perfume collected in real-time scroll across the background. Controls to the side let visitors change not only the volume of the music, but also the angle of their perspective, and the number and responsiveness of the pulsating polygons. The citation for the site's prize refers to the innovative participatory features of the website. Motion capture data from Perfume, music, and programming examples used to render the digital performance were made available for free to visitors, who were encouraged to create their own versions. This resulted in hundreds of fan-produced videos showing various figures, from animals and cartoon characters to swooshing multi-colored lines, dancing the same routine. Several of these were selected to be featured on the website, and were later integrated into the stage performance of the piece during Perfume's Asia tour. A later project extended this idea in a different direction, letting website visitors paint animations on computer representations of the members, and use a simple programming language to control the images. Many of these user creations were integrated into Perfume's 2013 performance at the Cannes Lions International Festival as advertising. Their Cannes performance begins with rapidly shifting computer graphics projected onto their costumes as they speak in unison, as though they are visitors from another realm: "We are Perfume. We have come. Japan is far to the east. To encounter the world, the three of us and everyone stand before you: to connect you with Japan, and to communicate with you, the world." The user-contributed designs were projected on to the members' costumes as they danced. This new mode of augmentation–through information rather than machinery–shows Perfume to be more than a representation of Japan's socio-economic transitions, but a live experiment in effecting these transitions. In their international performances, their bodies are synthesized in real-time from the performers' motions and the informatic layer generated from tweets and user-generated creations. This creates the conditions for fans to inscribe their own marks on to Perfume, transforming the emotional engagement between fan and idol into a technological linkage through which the idols’ bodies can be modified. Perfume’s augmented bodies are not just seen and desired, but made by their fans. The value added by this new mode of connection is imagined as the critical difference needed to transform Perfume from a local Japanese idol group into an entity capable of moving around the world, embodying the promise of a new global position for Japan enabled through information. In Perfume, augmentation suggests a possible answer to Japan’s economic stagnation and social fragmentation. It points past a longing for the past towards new values produced in encounters with the world beyond Japan. Augmentations newly connect Perfume and Japan with the world economically and culturally. At the same time, a vision of Japan emerges, more mobile, flexible, and connected perhaps, yet one that attempts to keep Japan a distinct entity in the world. Bodily augmentations, in media representations and as technological practices, do more than figuratively and materially link silicon and metal with flesh. They mark the interface of the body and technology as a site of transnational connection, where borders between the nation and what lies outside are made References Aoyagi, Hiroshi. Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. Iwabuchi, Koichi. "Nostalgia for a (Different) Asian Modernity: Media Consumption of "Asia" in Japan." positions: east asia cultures critique 10.3 (2002): 547-573. Kondo, Dorinne K. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Morning Musume. “Morning Musume ‘Love Machine’ (MV).” 15 Oct. 2010. 4 Dec. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A7j6eryPV4›. Perfume. “[HD] Perfume Performance Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.” 20 June 2013. 11 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0x5vA7fLo›. ———. “[SPOT] Perfume Global Compilation “LOVE THE WORLD.”” 11 Sep. 2012. 11 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28SUmWDztxI›. ———. “Computer City.” 18 June 2013. 10 Oct. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOXGKTrsRNg›. ———. “Electro World.” 18 June 2013. 10 Oct. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zh0ouiYIZc›. ———. “Perfume no Okite.” 8 May 2011. 10 Oct. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EjOistJABM›. ———. “Perfume Official Global Website.” 2012. 11 Nov. 2013 ‹http://perfume-global.com/project.html›. ———. “Secret Secret.” 18 Jan. 2012. 10 Oct. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=birLzegOHyU›. ———. “Spring of Life.” 18 June 2013. 10 Oct. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PtvnaEo9-0›. Yano, Christine. "Charisma's Realm: Fandom in Japan." Ethnology 36.4 (1997): 335-49.

Introduction The academic area known as food studies—incorporating elements from disciplines including anthropology, folklore, history, sociology, gastronomy, and cultural studies as well as a range of multi-disciplinary approaches—asserts that cooking and eating practices are less a matter of nutrition (maintaining life by absorbing nutrients from food) and more a personal or group expression of various social and/or cultural actions, values or positions. The French philosopher, Michel de Certeau agrees, arguing, moreover, that there is an urgency to name and unpick (what he identifies as) the “minor” practices, the “multifarious and silent reserve of procedures” of everyday life. Such practices are of crucial importance to all of us, as although seemingly ordinary, and even banal, they have the ability to “organise” our lives (48). Within such a context, the following aims to consider the influence and significance of an important (although largely unstudied) professional figure in rural and regional economic life: the country food preparer variously known as the local chef or cook. Such an approach is obviously framed by the concept of “cultural economy”. This term recognises the convergence, and interdependence, of the spheres of the cultural and the economic (see Scott 335, for an influential discussion on how “the cultural geography of space and the economic geography of production are intertwined”). Utilising this concept in relation to chefs and cooks seeks to highlight how the ways these figures organise (to use de Certeau’s term) the social and cultural lives of those in their communities are embedded in economic practices and also how, in turn, their economic contributions are dependent upon social and cultural practices. This initial mapping of the influence and significance of the rural and regional chef in one rural and regional area, therefore, although necessarily different in approach and content, continues the application of such converged conceptualisations of the cultural and economic as Teema Tairu’s discussion of the social, recreational and spiritual importance of food preparation and consumption by the unemployed in Finland, Guy Redden’s exploration of how supermarket products reflect shared values, and a series of analyses of the cultural significance of individual food products, such as Richard White’s study of vegemite. While Australians, both urban and rural, currently enjoy access to an internationally renowned food culture, it is remarkable to consider that it has only been during the years following the Second World War that these sophisticated and now much emulated ways of eating and cooking have developed. It is, indeed, only during the last half century that Australian eating habits have shifted from largely Anglo-Saxon influenced foods and meals that were prepared and eaten in the home, to the consumption of a wider range of more international and sophisticated foods and meals that are, increasingly, prepared by others and eaten outside the consumer’s residence. While a range of commonly cited influences has prompted this relatively recent revolution in culinary practice—including post-war migration, increasing levels of prosperity, widespread international travel, and the forces of globalisation—some of this change owes a debt to a series of influential individual figures. These tastemakers have included food writers and celebrity chefs; with early exponents including Margaret Fulton, Graham Kerr and Charmaine Solomon (see Brien). The findings of this study suggests that many restaurant chefs, and other cooks, have similarly played, and continue to take, a key role in the lives of not only the, necessarily, limited numbers of individuals who dine in a particular eatery or the other chefs and/or cooks trained in that establishment (Ruhlman, Reach), but also the communities in which they work on a much broader scale. Considering Chefs In his groundbreaking study, A History of Cooks and Cooking, Australian food historian Michael Symons proposes that those who prepare food are worthy of serious consideration because “if ‘we are what we eat’, cooks have not just made our meals, but have also made us. They have shaped our social networks, our technologies, arts and religions” (xi). Writing that cooks “deserve to have their stories told often and well,” and that, moreover, there is a “need to invent ways to think about them, and to revise our views about ourselves in their light” (xi), Symons’s is a clarion call to investigate the role and influence of cooks. Charles-Allen Baker-Clark has explicitly begun to address this lacunae in his Profiles from the Kitchen: What Great Cooks Have Taught Us About Ourselves and Our Food (2006), positing not only how these figures have shaped our relationships with food and eating, but also how these relationships impact on identities, culture and a range of social issues including those of social justice, spirituality and environmental sustainability. With the growing public interest in celebrities, it is perhaps not surprising that, while such research on chefs and/or cooks is still in its infancy, most of the existing detailed studies on individuals focus on famed international figures such as Marie-Antoine Carême (Bernier; Kelly), Escoffier (James; Rachleff; Sanger), and Alexis Soyer (Brandon; Morris; Ray). Despite an increasing number of tabloid “tell-all” surveys of contemporary celebrity chefs, which are largely based on mass media sources and which display little concern for historical or biographical accuracy (Bowyer; Hildred and Ewbank; Simpson; Smith), there have been to date only a handful of “serious” researched biographies of contemporary international chefs such as Julia Child, Alice Waters (Reardon; Riley), and Bernard Loiseux (Chelminski)—the last perhaps precipitated by an increased interest in this chef following his suicide after his restaurant lost one of its Michelin stars. Despite a handful of collective biographical studies of Australian chefs from the later-1980s on (Jenkins; O’Donnell and Knox; Brien), there are even fewer sustained biographical studies of Australian chefs or cooks (Clifford-Smith’s 2004 study of “the supermarket chef,” Bernard King, is a notable exception). Throughout such investigations, as well as in other popular food writing in magazines and cookbooks, there is some recognition that influential chefs and cooks have worked, and continue to work, outside such renowned urban culinary centres as Paris, London, New York, and Sydney. The Michelin starred restaurants of rural France, the so-called “gastropubs” of rural Britain and the advent of the “star-chef”-led country bed and breakfast establishment in Australia and New Zealand, together with the proliferation of farmer’s markets and a public desire to consume locally sourced, and ecologically sustainable, produce (Nabhan), has focused fresh attention on what could be called “the rural/regional chef”. However, despite the above, little attention has focused on the Australian non-urban chef/cook outside of the pages of a small number of key food writing magazines such as Australian Gourmet Traveller and Vogue Entertaining + Travel. Setting the Scene with an Australian Country Example: Armidale and Guyra In 2004, the Armidale-Dumaresq Council (of the New England region, New South Wales, Australia) adopted the slogan “Foodies thrive in Armidale” to market its main city for the next three years. With a population of some 20,000, Armidale’s main industry (in economic terms) is actually education and related services, but the latest Tourist Information Centre’s Dining Out in Armidale (c. 2006) brochure lists some 25 restaurants, 9 bistros and brasseries, 19 cafés and 5 fast food outlets featuring Australian, French, Italian, Mediterranean, Chinese, Thai, Indian and “international” cuisines. The local Yellow Pages telephone listings swell the estimation of the total number of food-providing businesses in the city to 60. Alongside the range of cuisines cited above, a large number of these eateries foreground the use of fresh, local foods with such phrases as “local and regional produce,” “fresh locally grown produce,” “the finest New England ingredients” and locally sourced “New England steaks, lamb and fresh seafood” repeatedly utilised in advertising and other promotional material. Some thirty kilometres to the north along the New England highway, the country town of Guyra, proclaimed a town in 1885, is the administrative and retail centre for a shire of some 2,200 people. Situated at 1,325 metres above sea level, the town is one of the highest in Australia with its main industries those of fine wool and lamb, beef cattle, potatoes and tomatoes. Until 1996, Guyra had been home to a large regional abattoir that employed some 400 staff at the height of its productivity, but rationalisation of the meat processing industry closed the facility, together with its associated pet food processor, causing a downturn in employment, local retail business, and real estate values. Since 2004, Guyra’s economy has, however, begun to recover after the town was identified by the Costa Group as the perfect site for glasshouse grown tomatoes. Perfect, due to its rare combination of cool summers (with an average of less than two days per year with temperatures over 30 degrees celsius), high winter light levels and proximity to transport routes. The result: 3.3 million kilograms of truss, vine harvested, hydroponic “Top of the Range” tomatoes currently produced per annum, all year round, in Guyra’s 5-hectare glasshouse: Australia’s largest, opened in December 2005. What residents (of whom I am one) call the “tomato-led recovery” has generated some 60 new local jobs directly related to the business, and significant flow on effects in terms of the demand for local services and retail business. This has led to substantial rates of renovation and building of new residential and retail properties, and a noticeably higher level of trade flowing into the town. Guyra’s main street retail sector is currently burgeoning and stories of its renewal have appeared in the national press. Unlike many similar sized inland towns, there are only a handful of empty shops (and most of these are in the process of being renovated), and new commercial premises have recently been constructed and opened for business. Although a small town, even in Australian country town terms, Guyra now has 10 restaurants, hotel bistros and cafés. A number of these feature local foods, with one pub’s bistro regularly featuring the trout that is farmed just kilometres away. Assessing the Contribution of Local Chefs and Cooks In mid-2007, a pilot survey to begin to explore the contribution of the regional chef in these two close, but quite distinct, rural and regional areas was sent to the chefs/cooks of the 70 food-serving businesses in Armidale and Guyra that I could identify. Taking into account the 6 returns that revealed a business had closed, moved or changed its name, the 42 replies received represented a response rate of 65.5per cent (or two thirds), representatively spread across the two towns. Answers indicated that the businesses comprised 18 restaurants, 13 cafés, 6 bistro/brasseries, 1 roadhouse, 1 takeaway/fast food and 3 bed and breakfast establishments. These businesses employed 394 staff, of whom 102 were chefs and/cooks, or 25.9 per cent of the total number of staff then employed by these establishments. In answer to a series of questions designed to ascertain the roles played by these chefs/cooks in their local communities, as well as more widely, I found a wide range of inputs. These chefs had, for instance, made a considerable contribution to their local economies in the area of fostering local jobs and a work culture: 40 (95 per cent) had worked with/for another local business including but not exclusively food businesses; 30 (71.4 per cent) had provided work experience opportunities for those aspiring to work in the culinary field; and 22 (more than half) had provided at least one apprenticeship position. A large number had brought outside expertise and knowledge with them to these local areas, with 29 (69 per cent) having worked in another food business outside Armidale or Guyra. In terms of community building and sustainability, 10 (or almost a quarter) had assisted or advised the local Council; 20 (or almost half) had worked with local school children in a food-related way; 28 (two thirds) had helped at least one charity or other local fundraising group. An extra 7 (bringing the cumulative total to 83.3 per cent) specifically mentioned that they had worked with/for the local gallery, museum and/or local history group. 23 (more than half) had been involved with and/or contributed to a local festival. The question of whether they had “contributed anything else important, helpful or interesting to the community” elicited the following responses: writing a food or wine column for the local paper (3 respondents), delivering TAFE teacher workshops (2 respondents), holding food demonstrations for Rotary and Lions Clubs and school fetes (5 respondents), informing the public about healthy food (3 respondents), educating the public about environmental issues (2 respondents) and working regularly with Meals on Wheels or a similar organisation (6 respondents, or 14.3 per cent). One respondent added his/her work as a volunteer driver for the local ambulance transport service, the only non-food related response to this question. Interestingly, in line with the activity of well-known celebrity chefs, in addition to the 3 chefs/cooks who had written a food or wine column for the local newspaper, 11 respondents (more than a quarter of the sample) had written or contributed to a cookbook or recipe collection. One of these chefs/cooks, moreover, reported that he/she produced a weblog that was “widely read”, and also contributed to international food-related weblogs and websites. In turn, the responses indicated that the (local) communities—including their governing bodies—also offer some support of these chefs and cooks. Many respondents reported they had been featured in, or interviewed and/or photographed for, a range of media. This media comprised the following: the local newspapers (22 respondents, 52.4 per cent), local radio stations (19 respondents, 45.2 per cent), regional television stations (11 respondents, 26.2 per cent) and local websites (8 respondents, 19 per cent). A number had also attracted other media exposure. This was in the local, regional area, especially through local Council publications (31 respondents, 75 per cent), as well as state-wide (2 respondents, 4.8 per cent) and nationally (6 respondents, 14.3 per cent). Two of these local chefs/cooks (or 4.8 per cent) had attracted international media coverage of their activities. It is clear from the above that, in the small area surveyed, rural and regional chefs/cooks make a considerable contribution to their local communities, with all the chefs/cooks who replied making some, and a number a major, contribution to those communities, well beyond the requirements of their paid positions in the field of food preparation and service. The responses tendered indicate that these chefs and cooks contributed regularly to local public events, institutions and charities (with a high rate of contribution to local festivals, school programs and local charitable activities), and were also making an input into public education programs, local cultural institutions, political and social debates of local importance, as well as the profitability of other local businesses. They were also actively supporting not only the future of the food industry as a whole, but also the viability of their local communities, by providing work experience opportunities and taking on local apprentices for training and mentorship. Much more than merely food providers, as a group, these chefs and cooks were, it appears, also operating as food historians, public intellectuals, teachers, activists and environmentalists. They were, moreover, operating as content producers for local media while, at the same time, acting as media producers and publishers. Conclusion The terms “chef” and “cook” can be diversely defined. All definitions, however, commonly involve a sense of professionalism in food preparation reflecting some specialist knowledge and skill in the culinary arts, as well as various levels of creativity, experience and responsibility. In terms of the specific duties that chefs and professional cooks undertake every day, almost all publications on the subject deal specifically with workplace related activities such as food and other supply ordering, staff management, menu planning and food preparation and serving. This is constant across culinary textbooks (see, for instance, Culinary Institute of America 2002) and more discursive narratives about the professional chef such as the bestselling autobiographical musings of Anthony Bourdain, and Michael Ruhlman’s journalistic/biographical investigations of US chefs (Soul; Reach). An alternative preliminary examination, and categorisation, of the roles these professionals play outside their kitchens reveals, however, a much wider range of community based activities and inputs than such texts suggest. It is without doubt that the chefs and cooks who responded to the survey discussed above have made, and are making, a considerable contribution to their local New England communities. It is also without doubt that these contributions are of considerable value, and valued by, those country communities. Further research will have to consider to what extent these contributions, and the significance and influence of these chefs and cooks in those communities are mirrored, or not, by other country (as well as urban) chefs and cooks, and their communities. Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engaging Histories: Australian Historical Association Regional Conference, at the University of New England, September 2007. I would like to thank the session’s participants for their insightful comments on that presentation. A sincere thank you, too, to the reviewers of this article, whose suggestions assisted my thinking on this piece. Research to complete this article was carried out whilst a Visiting Fellow with the Research School of Humanities, the Australian National University. References Armidale Tourist Information Centre. Dining Out in Armidale [brochure]. Armidale: Armidale-Dumaresq Council, c. 2006. Baker-Clark, C. A. 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