“Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond.” Ovvero: le influenze del Dizionario Storico-Critico di Pierre Bayle sul Moby Dick di Melville

The aim of this essay is to show Bayle’s influence upon the Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”, showing some aspects of their ideological affinity. A key example of themes directly inspired by Bayle is an untiring research for theodicy, as a plausible answer to the question “Why God allows Evil to exist?”, a question designed to know a dramatic failure in its different solutions

On Solving Large-Scale Finite Minimax Problems using Exponential Smoothing

Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Vol. 148, No. 2, pp. 390-421

An m-leaming game for the study of humanities

Unlike the hard sciences, the study of humanities has not adequately leveraged on technologies such as mobile learning and serious games. Hence, this paper introduces SingaRacer, a mobile learning game to study humanities, specifically, history and culture. The ways in which users might perceive its prospect both as a game as well as an educational application was examined. For this purpose, SingaRacer was evaluated through a user study comprising 52 participants. Their intention to use SingaRacer was generally promising. Implications of the findings are highlighted

Food assistance to tuberculosis patients: lessons from Afghanistan.

Poverty, food insecurity and poor nutrition in the population are important contributors to the burden of tuberculosis (TB). For poor and food-insecure individuals, accessing and successfully completing anti-tuberculosis treatment over an extended period of time is challenging. Food and nutritional support as an incentive and enabler is employed by national TB control programmes (NTPs) worldwide as a means to encourage treatment initiation and adherence and to improve the nutritional status of patients with TB. It also offers a safety net for food-insecure households affected by TB to mitigate the financial consequences of the disease. This paper reports on the primary lessons from the review of the World Food Programme's (WFP's) Food Assistance Programme for TB patients in Afghanistan. It aims to inform the design, implementation and scale-up of TB programmes in settings where food insecurity and malnutrition are prevalent. It also documents qualitative findings that suggest that patients, their families and providers viewed food support as an important asset and an essential element of the national TB control strategy. While the impact on treatment success or case detection could not be quantified, it is likely that the WFP intervention had a positive impact on the patients and their households, therefore contributing to the success of the DOTS-based NTP

A New Class of Theta Function Identities in Two Variables

Copyright © 2010 Nova Science PublishersWe describe a new class of identities, which hold for certain general theta series, in two completely independent variables. We provide explicit examples of these identities involving the Dedekind eta function, Jacobi theta functions, and various theta functions of Ramanujan

An Empirical Study on Factors Affecting Organizational Commitment among Generation X

AbstractThe biggest challenge faced by organizations is the changes in workers’ work attitudes and behaviors. Thus this study aims to determine the factors affecting the Generation X employees’ organizational commitment. 300 Generation X workers participated in this study. Partial least squares (PLS), was employed to examine the structural model and the measurement model for the constructs. Findings of this study reveal that training and development, organizational justice, task orientation, knowledge sharing and compensation and incentives are significantly affecting Generation X workers’ organizational commitment. This study has suggested some recommendations and opens way for future research

Impact of a Social Marketing Campaign Promoting Dark-green Leafy Vegetables and Eggs in Central Java,Indonesia

In order to work towards further reduction of vitamin A deficiency in central Java, Indonesia, a social marketing campaign promoting eggs and dark-green leafy vegetables was initiated in March 1996. The nutritional surveillance system (December 1995- December 1996) found the following. The campaign's messages were well noticed. Consumption of at least one egg in the past week increased from 80% to 92% in mothers and from 78% to 92% in children 1236 months old. It increased in all socio-economic groups and was independent of ownership of chickens. Most eggs had been purchased. The quantity of vegetables prepared increased from 93 to 111 g/person daily and most was purchased. Vitamin A intake increased from 335 to 371 RE/d for mothers and from 130 to 160 RE/d for children. Serum retinol levels increased after the start of the campaign, and were related to egg consumption and vitamin A intake. Because 1. data were collected in such a way that respondents were not aware of the link between data collected and the campaign, and 2. vitamin A status increased and was related to increased consumption of eggs and vitamin A intake, we conclude that the social marketing campaign was successful

Adaptation to high ethanol reveals complex evolutionary pathways

Tolerance to high levels of ethanol is an ecologically and industrially relevant phenotype of microbes, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this complex trait remain largely unknown. Here, we use long-term experimental evolution of isogenic yeast populations of different initial ploidy to study adaptation to increasing levels of ethanol. Whole-genome sequencing of more than 30 evolved populations and over 100 adapted clones isolated throughout this two-year evolution experiment revealed how a complex interplay of de novo single nucleotide mutations, copy number variation, ploidy changes, mutator phenotypes, and clonal interference led to a significant increase in ethanol tolerance. Although the specific mutations differ between different evolved lineages, application of a novel computational pipeline, PheNetic, revealed that many mutations target functional modules involved in stress response, cell cycle regulation, DNA repair and respiration. Measuring the fitness effects of selected mutations introduced in non-evolved ethanol-sensitive cells revealed several adaptive mutations that had previously not been implicated in ethanol tolerance, including mutations in PRT1, VPS70 and MEX67. Interestingly, variation in VPS70 was recently identified as a QTL for ethanol tolerance in an industrial bio-ethanol strain. Taken together, our results show how, in contrast to adaptation to some other stresses, adaptation to a continuous complex and severe stress involves interplay of different evolutionary mechanisms. In addition, our study reveals functional modules involved in ethanol resistance and identifies several mutations that could help to improve the ethanol tolerance of industrial yeasts

Revised Calibration Strategy for the CALIOP 532 nm Channel

The CALIPSO lidar (CALIOP) makes backscatter measurements at 532 nm and 1064 nm and linear depolarization ratios at 532 nm. Accurate calibration of the backscatter measurements is essential in the retrieval of optical properties. An assessment of the nighttime 532 nm parallel channel calibration showed that the calibration strategy used for the initial release (Release 1) of the CALIOP lidar level 1B data was acceptable. In general, the nighttime calibration coefficients are relatively constant over the darkest segment of the orbit, but then change rapidly over a short period as the satellite enters sunlight. The daytime 532 nm parallel channel calibration scheme implemented in Release 1 derived the daytime calibration coefficients from the previous nighttime coefficients. A subsequent review of the daytime 532 nm parallel channel calibration revealed that the daytime calibration coefficients do not remain constant, but vary considerably over the course of the orbit, due to thermally-induced misalignment of the transmitter and receiver. A correction to the daytime calibration scheme is applied in Release 2 of the data. Results of both nighttime and daytime calibration performance are presented in this paper