This book examines the global movement of putting more emphasis on students' social and emotional development in education. It provides some order in the unstructured multitude of desirable socio-emotional educational objectives and ambitions that have resulted from this movement and builds on a careful conceptual analysis. It starts out by examining the roots of the movement and discusses different emphases. Next it makes use of instructional and psychological constructs and theories to arrive at meaningful categorizations of major domains and types of social-emotional "skills". One of the key assumptions is that social and emotional attributes are malleable by means of educational interventions. The book reviews available research evidence for this assumption, taking into account psychological studies and meta-analyses. It then creates new evidence based on a new meta-analysis, which concentrated on the effects of educational interventions on skills associated with the conscientiousness factor of the Big5 taxonomy. In the final chapter, the book discusses the implications for educational policy and practice; a discussion in which attention is given to political and ethical questions about the desirability of treating social and emotional attributes as educational goals.

The scope of the book is an integrated discussion of several aspects of the internationalisation process in secondary education in Europe. The European and International Orientation (EIO) in education is dealt with from different national angles and theoretical visions, supported by recently conducted empirical studies in several countries. The book describes national policies concerning EIO, the way in which schools implement these policies and the success and difficulties of the activities that they undertake. A connection is made with ideas of citizenship in a European perspective and the question comes up for discussion if there can be spoken of common European values. Important issues are explored like the tension between national identity and European communality as well as the risk of EIO in increasing the gap between lower and higher educated students. The mission of the book is to not only provide background information to all who are interested in or involved in internationalisation of education, social integration and European citizenship, but to provide recommendations for future practice as well. A central focus in these recommendations is the 'Common Framework for Europe Competence' (CFEC), the first model that offers the possibility to structurally shape the knowledge and skills concerning the European and international developments in the school. Directions for future elaboration of this framework and its implementation in the teaching and learning process in schools are discussed.

With the detailed genomic information that is now becoming available, we have a plethora of data that allows researchers to address questions in a variety of areas. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become a vital approach to identify candidate regions associated with complex diseases in human medicine, production traits in agriculture, and variation in wild populations. Genomic prediction goes a step further, attempting to predict phenotypic variation in these traits from genomic information. Genome-Wide Association Studies and Genomic Prediction pulls together expert contributions to address this important area of study. The volume begins with a section covering the phenotypes of interest as well as design issues for GWAS, then moves on to discuss efficient computational methods to store and handle large datasets, quality control measures, phasing, haplotype inference, and imputation. Later chapters deal with statistical approaches to data analysis where the experimental objective is either to confirm the biology by identifying genomic regions associated to a trait or to use the data to make genomic predictions about a future phenotypic outcome (e.g. predict onset of disease). As part of the Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters provide helpful, real-world implementation advice.

Recent years have seen increasing evidence that the main epoch of galaxy formation in the universe may be directly accessible to observation. An gular fluctuations in the background relict radiation have been detected by various ground-based instruments as well as by the COBE satellite, and suggest that the epoch of galaxy formation was not so very early. Combined optical and radio studies have found galaxies at redshifts above 2. 0, systems that at least superficially show the characteristics expected of large galaxies seen only shortly after their formation. And absorption lines in the spectra of quasars seem to be telling us that most cold gas at early to intermediate cosmological epochs was in clouds having roughly galaxy sized masses. What kinds of new observations will best help us study this high redshift universe in future? What new instruments will be needed? These are questions that loom large in the minds of the Dutch astronom ical community as we celebrate 25 years of operation of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope. Celebration of this Silver Jubilee has included a birthday party (on 23 June, 1995), a commemorative volume looking at both the history and the future of the facility ("The Westerbork Observa tory, Continuing Adventure in Radio Astronomy," Kluwer 1996), and an international workshop, held in the village of Hoogeveen on 28-30 August, 1995."

Fitness and adaptation are fundamental characteristics of plant and animal species, enabling them to survive in their environment and to adapt to the inevitable changes in this environment. This is true for both the genetic resources of natural ecosystems as well as those used in agricultural production.

Extensive genetic variation exists between varieties/breeds in a species and amongst individuals within breeds. This variation has developed over very long periods of time. A major ongoing challenge is how to best utilize this variation to meet short-term demands whilst also conserving it for longer-term possible use.

Many animal breeding programs have led to increased performance for production traits but this has often been accompanied by reduced fitness. In addition, the global use of genetic resources prompts the question whether introduced genotypes are adapted to local production systems. Understanding the genetic nature of fitness and adaptation will enable us to better manage genetic resources allowing us to make efficient and sustainable decisions for the improvement or breeding of these resources.

This book had an ambitious goal in bringing together a sample of the world s leading scientists in animal breeding and evolutionary genetics to exchange knowledge to advance our understanding of these vital issues.

Treated wastewater effluents contain high concentrations of particles; many of these particles are large (with diameters greater than 100 m) and consist of densely-packed bacterial cells. Microorganisms occluded in wastewater particles can be difficult to inactivate in chlorine disinfection systems, as the chlorine must first diffuse through the macro- and microscopic pore spaces prior to inactivating the occluded microorganisms. The impact of microorganisms occluded in particles is evident in disinfection, where reduced inactivation rates occur even with increasing doses of the disinfectant. Reduction of occluded microorganisms in plant effluents can be accomplished using filtration to remove the total number of particles, and disinfection to ensure that intra-particle chlorine concentrations are sufficient to inactivate the occluded microorganisms. In addition to addressing inactivation of dispersed microorganisms, treatment systems design and operation should include consideration of the removal of microorganisms in wastewater particles that may pose a health risk in post-treated waters. In this project, a systematic approach was developed to co-optimize filtration and chemical disinfection systems to collectively reduce the concentration of occluded viable microorganisms in treated effluents to acceptable levels. The optimization process was successfully applied to wastewater samples collected from seven facilities, each with different treatment trains. A range of operating conditions was identified that resulted in acceptable treatment based on particle guidelines developed using the existent regulatory framework for indicator organisms. Extension of the current approach to a pathogen basis was considered, but current data are insufficient to adopt such a procedure although preliminary results suggest that intra-particle chlorine concentrations that are sufficient to inactivate indicator organisms may not be adequate to sufficiently reduce concentrations of occluded pathogens.

This project was initiated in response to the establishment of mercury TMDLs around the country and issues raised by this process, specifically concerning the issue of mercury bioavailability. While many of these studies recognize that point sources constitute a small fraction of the mercury load to a water body, a question has been raised concerning the relative bioavailability of mercury coming from various sources. For instance, is the mercury discharged from a wastewater treatment plant more or less bioavailable than mercury in precipitation, mercury in urban stormwater, or mercury in sediments? This project seeks to address this question by developing a reliable definition and approach to estimating bioavailability, by profiling various sources of mercury in a watershed with regard to the species of mercury present and by profiling those factors or conditions in either the effluent or the receiving water that enhance or mitigate the bioavailability of those forms. There were several important objectives relevant to the estimation of bioavailability and potential bioaccumulation of mercury from wastewater treatment plants and other sources in receiving waters. The first was to develop a working definition of bioavailability. For purposes of this project, this definition includes not only methylmercury, the form of mercury that readily bioaccumulates in aquatic food chains, but also bioavailable and potentially bioavailable inorganic mercury species that can be converted to methylmercury within a reasonable time frame. It is concluded that the strength of binding to solids and mercury-sulfur-organic matter associations are major factors in determining the bioavailability of inorganic Hg. A second major objective was to identify those factors or conditions in both the effluent and the receiving waters that enhance or mitigate the transformation of inorganic mercury to methylmercury and its subsequent bioaccumulation. Profiles were developed for various sources of mercury in watersheds, including wastewater treatment plants, with regard to bioavailable and potentially bioavailable mercury, and key factors in effluents and receiving waters that enhance or mitigate it. A procedure to assess the relative bioavailability of mercury from various watershed sources, including wastewater treatment plants was developed and tested using data from a US location. The project also features a literature review of conventional and emerging technologies for the removal of mercury from effluent streams and their effects on mercury bioavailability. A review of the salient aspects of mercury TMDLs completed by EPA and the states is also included. This project concludes that, based on available data and bioavailability as defined in this report, wastewater effluent is one of the lowest among the sources evaluated with respect to mercury bioavailability, along with urban runoff and mining runoff. Atmospheric deposition and contaminated sediments tend to be among the highest sources with respect to mercury bioavailability.

Chemical Analysis provides non invasive and micro-analytical techniques for the investigation of cultural heritage materials. The tools and techniques, discussed by experts in the field, are of universal, sensitive and multi-component nature.

This book examines the global movement of putting more emphasis on students' social and emotional development in education. It provides some order in the unstructured multitude of desirable socio-emotional educational objectives and ambitions that have resulted from this movement and builds on a careful conceptual analysis. It starts out by examining the roots of the movement and discusses different emphases. Next it makes use of instructional and psychological constructs and theories to arrive at meaningful categorizations of major domains and types of social-emotional "skills". One of the key assumptions is that social and emotional attributes are malleable by means of educational interventions. The book reviews available research evidence for this assumption, taking into account psychological studies and meta-analyses. It then creates new evidence based on a new meta-analysis, which concentrated on the effects of educational interventions on skills associated with the conscientiousness factor of the Big5 taxonomy. In the final chapter, the book discusses the implications for educational policy and practice; a discussion in which attention is given to political and ethical questions about the desirability of treating social and emotional attributes as educational goals.

With the detailed genomic information that is now becoming available, we have a plethora of data that allows researchers to address questions in a variety of areas. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become a vital approach to identify candidate regions associated with complex diseases in human medicine, production traits in agriculture, and variation in wild populations. Genomic prediction goes a step further, attempting to predict phenotypic variation in these traits from genomic information. Genome-Wide Association Studies and Genomic Prediction pulls together expert contributions to address this important area of study. The volume begins with a section covering the phenotypes of interest as well as design issues for GWAS, then moves on to discuss efficient computational methods to store and handle large datasets, quality control measures, phasing, haplotype inference, and imputation. Later chapters deal with statistical approaches to data analysis where the experimental objective is either to confirm the biology by identifying genomic regions associated to a trait or to use the data to make genomic predictions about a future phenotypic outcome (e.g. predict onset of disease). As part of the Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters provide helpful, real-world implementation advice.

This collection reviews the latest research on dairy cattle genetics and advanced methods of genetic evaluation and selection. After an overview of genetic improvements achieved so far, Part 1 assesses the problem of inbreeding and genetic diversity in modern dairy cattle as well as opportunities for crossbreeding. Part 2 then goes onto review research on targeting non-production traits such as fertility, feed conversion efficiency and methane emissions as well as resistance to disease and resilience to heat stress. Part 3 then surveys the latest techniques and advances in genomic selection (GS) in such areas as functional annotation and use of sequence variants to improve genomic prediction, as well as developments in genetic evaluation (GE). The final part of the book reviews developments in embryo technologies, gene editing and the way new techniques are being integrated in practice into dairy breeding programmes.

Recent years have seen increasing evidence that the main epoch of galaxy formation in the universe may be directly accessible to observation. An gular fluctuations in the background relict radiation have been detected by various ground-based instruments as well as by the COBE satellite, and suggest that the epoch of galaxy formation was not so very early. Combined optical and radio studies have found galaxies at redshifts above 2. 0, systems that at least superficially show the characteristics expected of large galaxies seen only shortly after their formation. And absorption lines in the spectra of quasars seem to be telling us that most cold gas at early to intermediate cosmological epochs was in clouds having roughly galaxy sized masses. What kinds of new observations will best help us study this high redshift universe in future? What new instruments will be needed? These are questions that loom large in the minds of the Dutch astronom ical community as we celebrate 25 years of operation of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope. Celebration of this Silver Jubilee has included a birthday party (on 23 June, 1995), a commemorative volume looking at both the history and the future of the facility ("The Westerbork Observa tory, Continuing Adventure in Radio Astronomy," Kluwer 1996), and an international workshop, held in the village of Hoogeveen on 28-30 August, 1995.

Fitness and adaptation are fundamental characteristics of plant and animal species, enabling them to survive in their environment and to adapt to the inevitable changes in this environment. This is true for both the genetic resources of natural ecosystems as well as those used in agricultural production.

Extensive genetic variation exists between varieties/breeds in a species and amongst individuals within breeds. This variation has developed over very long periods of time. A major ongoing challenge is how to best utilize this variation to meet short-term demands whilst also conserving it for longer-term possible use.

Many animal breeding programs have led to increased performance for production traits but this has often been accompanied by reduced fitness. In addition, the global use of genetic resources prompts the question whether introduced genotypes are adapted to local production systems. Understanding the genetic nature of fitness and adaptation will enable us to better manage genetic resources allowing us to make efficient and sustainable decisions for the improvement or breeding of these resources.

This book had an ambitious goal in bringing together a sample of the world s leading scientists in animal breeding and evolutionary genetics to exchange knowledge to advance our understanding of these vital issues.

This book covers the statistical concepts of sampling in agricultural pest management. These can be summarized as how to obtain sample data from the field and how to use the data in decision-making. Options may include introducing natural enemies, spraying with pesticide, or adopting a wait-and-see approach. Some prior knowledge of pests and how they interact with crops is required of the reader, but only minimal mathematical background is assumed. Worked examples using the mathematical software program Mathcad are also included.

This volume contains the refereed joint proceedings of two initiatives that have been devoted to the formal foundations of complex systems: the workshops WS-FM:FASOCC 2014 and WS-FM/BEAT 2015. The 11th International Workshop on Web Services and Formal Methods: Formal Aspects of Services-Oriented and Cloud Computing, WS-FM 2014, took place in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in September 2014. The 12th International Workshop on Web Services, Formal Methods, and Behavioral Types, WS-FM 2015, took place in Madrid, Spain, in September 2015. The total of 8 papers presented in this volume was carefully reviewed and selected from 18 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: expressiveness of behavioral models; service-oriented systems, and behavioral types.

Imagine easily reading menus by candlelight and impressing your friends by doing so with your own healthy eyes, free from crutches. Or imagine no longer peering over glasses to see people across the room. Won't that be nice? If these thoughts appeal to you, this book is for you Whether your age is 46-ish or 86+, and even if you are only six and just learning to read, this book can be a valuable tool for helping you get past your reading challenges. The methods outlined in this book are simple, easy to learn and just as easy to apply. It does take some time and persistence, but the rewards are huge - a return to natural clear vision, healthier eyes, and easy, glasses-free reading. From the foreword by Ray Gottlieb, O.D., Ph.D.: "I'm pleased to see that Esther Joy van der Werf has written Read Without Glasses at Any Age now. Its publication brings a fresh look at Bates' work at a time when it's really needed. Her book gets straight to the point. It is free of fluff and true to Bates' approach and includes plenty of his original writing about his own and his patients' experiences of learning to see small print without artificial aids. Esther's little book takes just an hour or two to read but success comes by learning, doing and staying with the process until it becomes part of who you are, all day, every day for the rest of your life."

The scope of the book is an integrated discussion of several aspects of the internationalisation process in secondary education in Europe. The European and International Orientation (EIO) in education is dealt with from different national angles and theoretical visions, supported by recently conducted empirical studies in several countries. The book describes national policies concerning EIO, the way in which schools implement these policies and the success and difficulties of the activities that they undertake. A connection is made with ideas of citizenship in a European perspective and the question comes up for discussion if there can be spoken of common European values. Important issues are explored like the tension between national identity and European communality as well as the risk of EIO in increasing the gap between lower and higher educated students. The mission of the book is to not only provide background information to all who are interested in or involved in internationalisation of education, social integration and European citizenship, but to provide recommendations for future practice as well. A central focus in these recommendations is the 'Common Framework for Europe Competence' (CFEC), the first model that offers the possibility to structurally shape the knowledge and skills concerning the European and international developments in the school. Directions for future elaboration of this framework and its implementation in the teaching and learning process in schools are discussed.

Recent outbreaks of a novel avian influenza A virus (H5N1) in Asia, Africa and Europe were a chilling reminder that another human pandemic may occur any time. Such a world-wide outbreak will cause intense human suffering, disruption of social systems, major economic losses, and greatly burden health care services. Several pandemics during the last century, like the 'Spanish flu' (1918), the 'Asian flu' (1957), the 'Hong Kong flu' (1968) and SARS (2003) prompted health care authorities for preparedness planning. This book describes these recent incidents and emphasises the need for more structured planning and preparation for medical emergencies such as emerging infectious disease outbreaks.

In 2009, the NAi-Ymere biennial celebrated the explorer Henry Hudson, whose pioneering travels laid the foundation for the development of New York City. In the vein of the Fort Amsterdam military post he built on Manhattan's southern tip, participants were asked to imagine new ways to transform the North Amsterdam waterfront.