One major problem of Islamic banking in Indonesia today is the high Non-Performing Financing (NPF) with its ratio amounted to 5.68% in June 2016. This paper aimed to identify and examine both macroeconomic and bank-specific factors affecting NPF ratio of Islamic banking. Particularly, it used the panel data regression method with a monthly data basis of eleven Islamic commercial banks in Indonesia. Furthermore, there were two periods examined i.e. from December 2011 to June 2016 (no specific restrictions on economic performance) and from February 2013 to January 2015 (restriction on economic performance). Technically, the dependent variable was NPF ratio (NPF) and the independent variables were Industrial Production Index (IPI), Real Sales Index (IPR), the difference between the BI Rate and inflation (BIREAL), the exchange rate of Rupiah against the US Dollar (EXR), the annual growth of financing (GFINY ), the ratio of financing to total assets (FINTA), the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Return on Assets ratio (ROA), the coverage of loan loss provision (CKPN), and the concentration of financing in the real estate sector (REFIN). The results showed that in the two periods examined, NPF was significantly influenced by the internal factors. In the first period, NPF was significantly influenced by GFINY, CKPN, and REFIN while in the second period, NPF was significantly influenced by CAR, ROA, CPKN, and REFIN. This shows that the quality of risk management implementation, profitability and capital are important factors in reducing the NPF ratio.Keywords: financing risk, credit risk, Islamic banking, panel data, fixed effects model


Pear production has the greatest economic importance next to the apple and plum production in Republic of Srpska (BiH) fruit production. Dominant practice of utilizing wild pear (Pyrus communis L.) seedling as a rootstock typically causes an intensive growth and postpones fruiting. Intensive vegetative growth during the early years influences the formation of long shoots where growth is terminated at time when mixed buds are formed on the tips and then regularly come to be bare at the base. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of date of heading back shoots during the growing season on the growth and development characteristics of one-year-old shoots in pear trees. The study was carried out in pear orchard, age 2 years. The study included three varieties 'Williams', 'Abbe Fetel' and 'Packham's Triumph'. All varieties were grafted on the seedlings of wild pear (Pyrus communis L). Training system is a slender spindle. Newly formed shoots on the central leader were cut back during 2015, and the resultant year-old shoots were analysed in 2016. The shoots were cut back to 5, 10 and 15 nodes (buds) at three different dates during intensive growth. Control shoots were not cut back. The studied varieties had best reaction regarding initiation of new growth points and intensity of new growths in the later shoot heading dates. Intensity of new growth formation is also variety related.


Microplastics (plastic particles ≤ 5 mm) have been studied extensively in coastal areas around the world in several habitats. Nevertheless, understanding and explaining the temporal and spatial occurrence and dynamics of microplastics is challenging. For the first time, three environmental variables were studied at six locations at the same time for each season over a year, along the North and West coasts of Scotland. Surface water was collected with a pole water sampler from the shore whilst beach sediment was sampled using glass jars, and mussels were the target organism collected. Concentrations of microplastics ranged from 0 to 6 ± 1.50 particles per l of surface water. In beach sediment, microplastics concentrations ranged from 0 to 0.37 ± 0.12 particles per g.dw, whilst for mussels it ranged from 0 to 23.81 particles per g.ww. This study was designed to determine the presence of microplastics as well as extend the temporal and geographical scales. We developed a simple, cost-effective and practical tool-kit to collect microplastics from the coastal environment and engaged the public in scientific research. The tool-kit was designed to take into account the latest recommendations for sampling each environmental substrate, whilst being practical for citizen scientists to use. This research demonstrates that using a semi-structured to structured project with a defined sampling approach including the participation of the public with local knowledge can be an effective way to monitor microplastics in the marine environment along the Scottish coastline. This approach, can be adapted to other projects monitoring microplastics to increase the use of citizen science in projects, allowing more studies to take place, more samples to be collected, and a greater understanding of the occurrence and the potential impact of microplastics in the environment.


Suzhou city was the cultural centre of ancient south China. It continues the urban pattern of more than 800 years ago. Suzhou gardens are the essence of Chinese gardening art, as well as the valuable world cultural heritage site. This paper compared the evolution in the distribution and scale of Suzhou gardens among five historical periods, and discussed the influence of urbanization on gardening. It revealed that: (1) The distribution of Suzhou gardens was affected by the layout and changes of the political centre and commercial centre of Suzhou city; (2) The scale of Suzhou gardens was mainly affected by the available land scale within the city and the wealth of its owner; (3) The cityscape of 'half city occupied by gardens' was largely resulted from the rapidly increasing number of small courtyard gardens in the Qing Dynasty; (4) The evolution of Suzhou gardens' distribution and scale affected interior layouts. The evolution and social development of ancient cities can affect the distribution and scale of gardens. At the same time, the popularization of gardening art also optimizes the cityscape.


The effect of ethnicity on sociolinguistic variation has been studied quantitatively from multiple angles. The existing methodological range has uncovered that ethnicity is reflected in various aspects of social life. However, the diversity of existing measures has i) prevented a direct comparison between studies and ii) relied on subjective quantification of social data. This paper introduces a novel methodology that unites previous measures and removes the need for subjective quantification. Specifically, I apply hierarchical cluster analysis to social data collected from an ethnographically-informed Polish-involvement survey to assess the impact of multiple social factors on regional variation for Polish New Yorkers. The analysis identifies the maintenance of transnational ties as the strongest predictor of linguistic variation and reveals speakers' "hyphenated" (Polish-American) identities. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/ vol21/iss2/16 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 21.2, 2015 Ethnic Orientation without Quantification: How Life "On the Hyphen" Affects Sociolinguistic Variation Luiza Newlin-Łukowicz *


Abstract. A major link between climate and humans in tropical northern Africa, and the Sahel in particular, is land use and associated land cover change, mainly where subsistence farming prevails. Here we assess possible feedbacks between the type of land use and harvest intensity and climate by analysing a series of idealized GCM experiments using the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM). The baseline for these experiments is a simulation forced by the RCP8.5 (radiation concentration pathway) scenario, which includes strong greenhouse gas emissions and anthropogenic land cover changes. The anthropogenic land cover changes in the RCP8.5 scenario include a mixture of pasture and agriculture. In subsequent simulations, we replace the entire area affected by anthropogenic land cover change in the region between the Sahara in the north and the Guinean Coast in the south (4 to 20\degree N) with either pasture or agriculture. In a second set-up we vary the amount of harvest in the case of agriculture. The RCP8.5 baseline simulation reveals strong changes in the area mean agriculture and monsoon rainfall. In comparison with these changes, any variation of the type of land use in the study area leads to very small, mostly insignificantly small, additional differences in mean temperature and annual precipitation change in this region. These findings are only based on the specific set-up of our experiments, which only focuses on variations in the kind of land use, and not the increase in land use, over the 21st century, nor whether land use is considered at all. Within the uncertainty of the representation of land use in current ESMs, our study suggests marginal feedback between land use changes and climate changes triggered by strong greenhouse gas emissions. Hence as a good approximation, climate can be considered as an external forcing: models investigating land-use–conflict dynamics can run offline by prescribing seasonal or mean values of climate as a boundary condition for climate.


A modified algorithm of the numerical calculation of adiabatic corrections is proposed. It is based on earlier approaches, introduced by Cencek and Kutzelnigg and by the present author. The adiabatic correction is approximated in terms of overlap integrals between electronic wave functions for a given geometry and for a single nucleus shifted by h. The leading term of error is proportional to the square of h in the original methods. The new approach, while requires the same wave functions as those methods, shrinks the error, so that it becomes proportional to h 4 in atomic cases. Test calculations show, that similar behavior is retained also for two-atom molecules and additional stable decimal digit of the adiabatic correction can be obtained.


Robotics have expanded exponentially in the last decade. Within the vast examples of ambulatory robots, traditional legged robots necessitate engineering expertise and the use of specialized fabrication technologies. Micro electromechanical (MEM) robots are useful for a wide range of applications yet in most cases, difficult to fabricate and excessively intricate. Advances in pop-up laminate construction have generated a model shift in the development of robot morphologies due to their ease of fabrication and scalability from the millimeter to centimeter scale. This research continues to investigate the link between kinematics and pop-up origami structures in robotics. The objective was to design a robot that exhibited efficient and controlled locomotion minimizing number of motors. "Crease", an origami robot that emerges from a two-dimensional sheet into its three-dimensional configuration was developed. By amplifying a simple rotational motion through the geometry of folds in the robot, a complex gait was achieved with minimal motorized actuation. Variations in gait, control, and steering were studied through physical and computational models. Untethered Creases that sense their environment and steer accordingly were developed. This research contributes not only to the field of robotics but also to design where efficiency, adjustability and ease of fabrication are critical.


Sediments in Elk Lake, Minnesota, consist of 10,400 varve layers that provide a precise chronology for Holocene fluctuations in climate and biota recorded in the strata. Progressively greater concentrations and accumulation rates of mercury since ca. A.D. 1875 reflect deposition of anthropogenic mercury additions to the atmosphere. Within the Holocene record are numerous short intervals in which mercury concentrations and accumulation rates exceed the modern values. The highest mercury concentrations formed ca. 8 ka, coincident with a rapid change from cool, moist conditions to warm, dry conditions. A related change in flora from pine forest to prairie caused destruction of organic forest soils and the release of mercury that had been sequestered in them, resulting in a short-lived pulse of mercury to the lake. Accumulation rates of mercury were highest during the 4 k.y. mid-Holocene dry interval and show a correlation with periods of rapid deposition of eolian dust. The mercury was probably bound to wind-borne mineral particles, which were derived from an unidentified mercury-rich source region west of Elk Lake.


This study traces the activity of an important civil liberties coalition which developed in response to the 1919-1920 "Red Scare", a time when national and state governments used the fear of Russian Communism to justify persecution of left-wing organizations, and mass deportation of suspect radical aliens. The threats to freedom of speech and due process of law were so severe that influential people organized a loose but highly effective civil liberties movement to block passage of draconian sedition laws and rescue thousands of innocent aliens from deportation. The book examines the political strategy and follows its networking from the American Civil Liberties Union and Harvard Law School to the United States Department of Labor and federal courts. The historical narrative provides a basis for the development of a theory of opposition to cycles of political repress, the "libertarian check," and provides an opportunity to evaluate the strengths and limitations of civil liberties in the United States.


BACKGROUND
Tobacco use is responsible for a large proportion of the total disease burden from tuberculosis. Pakistan is one of the 10 high-burden countries for both tuberculosis and tobacco use.

OBJECTIVE
To assess the effectiveness of a behavioral support intervention and bupropion in achieving 6-month continuous abstinence in adult smokers with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis.

DESIGN
Cluster randomized, controlled trial. (Current Controlled Trials: ISRCTN08829879)

SETTING
Health centers in the Jhang and Sargodha districts in Pakistan.

PATIENTS
1955 adult smokers with suspected tuberculosis.

INTERVENTION
Health centers were randomly assigned to provide 2 brief behavioral support sessions (BSS), BSS plus 7 weeks of bupropion therapy (BSS+), or usual care.

MEASUREMENTS
The primary end point was continuous abstinence at 6 months after the quit date and was determined by carbon monoxide levels in patients. Secondary end points were point abstinence at 1 and 6 months.

RESULTS
Both treatments led to statistically significant relative risks (RRs) for abstinence compared with usual care (RR for BSS+, 8.2 [95% CI, 3.7 to 18.2]; RR for BSS, 7.4 [CI, 3.4 to 16.4]). Equivalence between the treatments could not be established. In the BSS+ group, 275 of 606 patients (45.4% [CI, 41.4% to 49.4%]) achieved continuous abstinence compared with 254 of 620 (41.0% [CI, 37.1% to 45.0%]) in the BSS group and 52 of 615 (8.5% [CI, 6.4% to 10.9%]) in the usual care group. There was substantial heterogeneity of program effects across clusters.

LIMITATIONS
Imbalances in the urban and rural proportions and smoking habits among treatment groups, and inability to confirm adherence to bupropion treatment and validate longer-term abstinence or the effect of smoking cessation on tuberculosis outcomes.

CONCLUSION
Behavioral support alone or in combination with bupropion is effective in promoting cessation in smokers with suspected tuberculosis.

PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE
International Development Research Centre.


Cross-reef variations of sea water density, currents and phytoplankton pigments were investigated in the northern Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea. Differential cooling of near- and offshore surface water during cold winter nights results in cross-shore gradients of density (sigma-t) triggering gravity currents which cascade downslope along sandy valleys. Two 4-wk deployments of 3-D acoustic current meters showed that cross-shore currents near the sea bed (35 and 90 m) were 2- to 5-fold higher than long-shore currents, inversely related to surface flow and highly correlated with seasonally detrended diel variations in seawater temperature. Cross-shore flow varied during the course of the night, with offshore pulses of up to 15 cm s(-1) associated with sudden temperature drops of similar to0.15degreesC. Spatial distribution of chl a pigments shows that phytoplankton enriched nearshore waters are entrained in the gravity currents to depths < 300 m. Gravity currents may therefore provide an important and previously overlooked pathway of reef-borne material to the food-impoverished deeper strata of the Red Sea.


This paper focuses on describing the process of enactment of a 'platform', namely, The Thinking Space (TS), as a device for Critical Systems Practice CSP. This is part of a research project that generated a series of findings contributing to the study of the process whereby different systems methodologies, methods, tools and techniques are used in combination. This process is known as Critical Systems Practice (CSP). The study yielded 'defensible generalisations' from a series of research themes explored. These defensible generalisations or contributions relate to three research issues relevant to CSP, namely, (a) pluralism, (b) improvement, and (c) the role of the agent. The learning derived from these research themes led the researcher to formulate the 'transferable problem solving capability' of the study: the enactment of 'platforms' as devices for operationalising CSP. Platforms are defined as 'organisational and intellectual spaces' enacted by actors and evolving with the changing nature of actors' moment-to-moment interactions, by means of engaging in a continuous mutual research endeavour and of engaging in enhancing collective competence, in order to pursue an informed practice (to pursue CSP). The study is the result of reflection and debate, which has been reciprocally enriched by theory and practice. The project was not undertaken to falsify a hypothesis but rather to suggest a path towards developing new understanding on agents' operationalisation of critical systems thinking concepts and ideas. It presents the findings of an organisation-based action research project, where the researcher entered into a real-world situation and aimed both at improving it and acquiring knowledge about the experience. He became, for a period of three years, involved in the flux of 'real-world problems' within an engineering company that invited him to do research by using systems ideas in practice. This paper thus recapitulates on the contributions that this research endeavour had on the three research themes focusing on the emergence of a particular platform, the Thinking Space (TS), as a device for operationalising CSP; the fourth 'emergent' research theme. Concerning the 'transferable problem solving capability' of the study, the TS is one particular device considered to provide evidence for proposing the research theme of 'platforms'.


Auranofin, a gold complex that has been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis in clinics and has documented pharmacokinetic and safety profiles in humans, has recently been investigated for its anticancer activity in leukemia and some solid cancers. However, auranofin's single agent activity in lung cancer is not well characterized. To determine whether auranofin has single agent activity in lung cancer, we evaluated auranofin's activity in a panel of 10 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines. Cell viability analysis revealed that auranofin induced growth inhibition in a subset of NSCLC cell lines with a half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) below 1.0 μM. Treatment with auranofin elicited apoptosis and necroptosis in auranofin-sensitive cell lines. Moreover, the susceptibility of NSCLC cells to auranofin was inversely correlated with TXNRD1 expression in the cells. Transient transfection of the TXNRD1-expressing plasmid in auranofin-sensitive Calu3 cells resulted in partial resistance, indicating that high TXNRD level is one of causal factors for resistance to auranofin. Further mechanistic characterization with proteomic analysis revealed that auranofin inhibits expression and/or phosphorylation of multiple key nodes in the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway, including S6, 4EBP1, Rictor, p70S6K, mTOR, TSC2, AKT and GSK3. Ectopic expression of TXNRD1 partially reversed auranofin-mediated PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibition, suggesting that TXNRD1 may participate in the regulation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. Administration of auranofin to mice with xenograft tumors derived from NSCLC cells significantly suppressed tumor growth without inducing obvious toxic effects. Our results demonstrated feasibility of repurposing auranofin for treatment of lung cancer.


The reverse engineering of legacy systems is a process that involves analysis and understanding of the given systems. Some people believe in-depth knowledge of the system is a prerequisite for its analysis, whereas others, ourselves included, argue that only specific knowledge is required on a per-project basis. To give support for the latter approach, we propose a generic framework that employs the techniques of non-determinism and abstraction to enable us to build tooling for analyzing large systems. As part of the framework, we introduce an extensible imperative procedural language called KERNEL which can be used for constructing an abstract representation of the control flow and data flow of the system. To illustrate its use, we show how such framework can be instantiated to build a use-def graph for a large industrial legacy COBOL and JCL system. We have implemented our framework in a model-driven fashion to facilitate development of relevant tools. The resulting GELATO tool set can be used within the Eclipse environment.


LHCb is one of the four main experiments that will take place at the future Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The data taking is foreseen to start in 2007. The LHCb detector is a forward single-arm spectrometer dedicated to precision measurements of CP violation and rare decays in the b-quark sector. The goal is to over-constrain the Standard Model (SM) and – hopefully – to exhibit inconsistencies which will be a signal of new physics beyond. Building such a large experiment as LHCb is a big challenge, and many contributions are needed. The Lausanne institute is responsible for the development of a common "off-detector" readout board (TELL1), which provides the interface to the copper and optical links used for the detector readout, and outputs them to the data acquisition system, after performing intensive processing. It performs: event synchronization, pedestal calculation and subtraction, common mode subtraction and monitoring, zero suppression. The TELL1 board will be used by the majority of the LHCb subdetectors. We present here a contribution to the RD necessary for the realization of the final board. In particular the feasibility of a mixed architecture using DSP and FPGA technologies has been studied. We show that the performance of this architecture satisfies LHCb electronics requirements at the time of the study (2002). Within the rich LHCb physics program, b → sγ transitions represent an interesting sector to look for evidence of physics beyond the SM. Even if the measured decay rate is in good agreement with the SM prediction up to now, new physics may still be hidden in more subtle observables. One of the most promising is the polarization of the emitted photon, which is predicted to be mainly left-handed in the SM. However right-handed components are present in a variety of new physics models. The photon polarization can be tested at LHCb by exploiting decays of polarized b baryons. If the initial baryon is polarized, asymmetries appear in the final states angular distributions, which can be used to probe the chirality of the effective Hamiltonian, and possibly to unveil new sources of CP violation. We present a phenomenological approach to the study of radiative decays of the type Λb → Λ(X)γ, where Λ(X) can be any Λ baryon of mass X. Calculations of the angular distributions are carried out employing the helicity formalism, for decays which involve Λ baryons of spin 1/2 and 3/2. Finally, detailed simulation studies of these channels in the LHCb environment allow us to assess the LHCb sensitivity to the photon polarization in b → s transitions.


Music in Bali is one of several case-study volumes that can be used along with Thinking Musically, the core book in the Global Music Series. Thinking Musically incorporates music from many diverse cultures and establishes the framework for exploring the practice of music around the world. It sets the stage for an array of case-study volumes, each of which focuses on a single area of the world. Each case study uses the contemporary musical situation as a point of departure, covering historical information and traditions as they relate to the present. Visit www.oup.com/us/globalmusic for a list of case studies in the Global Music Series. The website also includes instructional materials to accompany each study. Music in Bali introduces the ensemble tradition of Balinese music, reflecting cooperative aspects of the island's social organization. Drawing on many years of study with Balinese performers in the United States and extensive fieldwork in Bali, author Lisa Gold presents contemporary Balinese performance within its cultural and historical context, linking Bali's rich past to its current role in modern, globalized society. She illustrates how new compositions borrow material from earlier traditions while also allowing for individual expression and innovation in vibrant present-day culture. By describing various performances--from a temple ceremony, to a shadow puppet performance, to a masked dance drama--Music in Bali surveys a wide range of performance contexts, from the highly sacred to the secular. It looks at the interconnected layers of the Balinese musical tradition, showing how the island's music, dance, theater, and ritual are intertwined. Music in Bali is enhanced by eyewitness accounts of local performances, interviews with key performers, and vivid illustrations. Packaged with a 70-minute CD containing examples of the music discussed in the book, it features guided listening and hands-on activities that encourage readers to engage actively and critically with the music.


Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT), associated with brain arteriovenous malformations, is caused by a loss of function mutation in either the endoglin (HHT1) or activin receptor-like kinase 1 gene (ALK-1, HHT2). Endoglin heterozygous (Eng+/−)mice have been proposed as a disease model. To better understand the role of endoglin in vascular malformation development, we examined the effect of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) hyperstimulation on microvessels in adult endoglin heterozygous (Eng+/−) mice using an adenoviral vector to deliver recombinant human VEGF165 cDNA (AdhVEGF) into basal ganglia. VEGF expression was increased in AdhVEGF mice compared with the AdlacZ and saline group (P < 0.05) and localized to multiple cell types (neurons, astrocytes, endothelial cells, and smooth muscle cells) by double-labeled immunostaining. VEGF overexpression increased microvessel count for up to 4 weeks in both the Eng+/+ and Eng+/+ groups (Eng+/+ 185 ± 14 vs. Eng+/− 201 ± 10 microvessels/mm2). Confocal microscopic examination revealed grossly abnormal microvessels in eight of nine Eng+/− mouse brains compared with zero of nine in Eng+/+ mice (P < 0.05). Abnormal microvessels featured enlargement, clustering, twist, or spirals. VEGF receptor Flk-1 and TGF-β receptor 1 (TβR1) expression were reduced in the Eng+/− mouse brain compared with control. Excessive VEGF stimulation may play a pivotal role in the initiation and development of brain vessel malformations in states of relative endoglin insufficiency in adulthood. These observations are relevant to our general understanding of the maintenance of vascular integrity.


The purpose of this paper is to begin a reevaluation of the Free Banking Era by developing and examining individual bank information on the population of banks which existed under the free banking laws in four states. This information allows us to determine the number of free banks which failed and to estimate the resulting losses to their note holders. While the new evidence suggests there were problems with free banking, it presents a serious challenge to the prevailing view that free banking led to financial chaos.


Who's Who in Classical Mythology is the most complete and detailed reference book of its kind. It offers scholarly, yet accessible accounts of those mythological tales surrounding such gods as Apollo, Zeus, Athena and Dionysus, and mortals such as Achilles, Odysseus, Jason, Aeneas, Romulus and Remus and Tarquin. It contains over 1200 extensive entries, covering both Greek and Roman characters, providing detailed biographical information, together with historical and geographical background. In addition there are comprehensive genealogical trees of important mythological families and a detailed list of all Greek and Latin writers referred to in the text.


Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is one of the most lethal human malignancies, but its genetic drivers remain little understood. In this study, we report losses in expression of the miRNA miR30a, which is downregulated in ATC compared with differentiated thyroid cancer and normal tissue. miR30a downregulation was associated with advanced differentiated thyroid cancer and higher mortality. Mechanistically, we found miR30a decreased cellular invasion and migration, epithelial-mesenchymal transition marker levels, lysyl oxidase (LOX) expression, and metastatic capacity. LOX was identified as a direct target of miR30a that was overexpressed in ATC and associated with advanced differentiated thyroid cancer and higher mortality rate. Consistent with its role in other cancers, we found that LOX inhibited cell proliferation, cellular invasion, and migration and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. Together, our findings establish a critical functional role for miR30a downregulation in mediating LOX upregulation and thyroid cancer progression, with implications for LOX targeting as a rational therapeutic strategy in ATC.


The creation of innovative platforms is of limited benefit if not implemented properly with careful consideration of regional contexts. Digital health platforms can be a tool that may improve access to quality care for residents of Northern Ontario. The health innovations framework of Chaudoir et al. [1] was used to address patient, provider, organization, and system level factors relevant to the implementation of electronic consultation (eConsult) in the North West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) for Indigenous communities. An environmental scan was conducted through a systematic literature search of three databases and grey literature. For the implementation of eConsult in Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario, it was recommended that: (1) an Indigenous care expert should be consulted to include features that ensure the provision of culturally competent care to patients; (2) further investigation into the role of nurses and nurse practitioners in Indigenous communities should be conducted; (3) the possibility of partnering with provincial Aboriginal Health Access Centres and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine should be explored; (4) the gain of federal government funding and support; and (5) the function of eConsult should potentially extend to act as a centralized source of public health information. Extreme regional diversity is prevalent across Northern Ontario, and additional analyses should be done at a more local level prior to the implementation of eConsult.


In this paper, we report on the effect of carboxyl- and amine terminations on a boron-doped diamond surface (BDD) in relation to pH sensitivity. Carboxyl termination was achieved by anodization oxidation in Carmody buffer solution (pH 7). The carboxyl-terminated diamond surface was exposed to nitrogen radicals to generate an amine-terminated surface. The pH sensitivity of the carboxyl- and amine-terminated surfaces was measured from pH 2 to pH 12. The pH sensitivities of the carboxyl-terminated surface at low and high pH are 45 and 3 mV/pH, respectively. The pH sensitivity after amine termination is significantly higher—the pH sensitivities at low and high pH are 65 and 24 mV/pH, respectively. We find that the negatively-charged surface properties of the carboxyl-terminated surface due to ionization of –COOH causes very low pH detection in the high pH region (pH 7–12). In the case of the amine-terminated surface, the surface properties are interchangeable in both acidic and basic solutions; therefore, we observed pH detection at both low and high pH regions. The results presented here may provide molecular-level understanding of surface properties with charged ions in pH solutions. The understanding of these surface terminations on BDD substrate may be useful to design diamond-based biosensors.


Abstract The issue of how tones are represented and processed when speaking Mandarin Chinese was examined via naturalistic slips of the tongue. The slips were collected from tape-recorded radio call-in programs over a period of one year. One research assistant listened to the programs twice, and another listened to them a third time independently. All the errors judged to be slips by the assistants were reviewed by the author. A total of 987 slips were confirmed and classified according to the system of Garnham, Shillcock, Brown, Mill, and Cutler (1982). With respect to the sound movement errors, it was found that, although errors of segmental phonemes were fairly common, errors of tones were rare. Moreover, the error pattern of the tones was different from that of the segmental phonemes. The relative immunity of tone to production errors is similar to the problem of stress in English. It is suggested that lexical tones in Mandarin Chinese are represented and processed differently than segmental sounds but similarly to lexical stress in English. These characteristics of the Mandarin tones relative to the segmental sounds are described in a model of phonological encoding for a single word, adapted from Levelt (1989).


In distributed machine learning, data is dispatched to multiple machines for processing. Motivated by the fact that similar data points often belong to the same or similar classes, and more generally, classification rules of high accuracy tend to be "locally simple but globally complex" (Vapnik & Bottou 1993), we propose data dependent dispatching that takes advantage of such structure. We present an in-depth analysis of this model, providing new algorithms with provable worst-case guarantees, analysis proving existing scalable heuristics perform well in natural non worst-case conditions, and techniques for extending a dispatching rule from a small sample to the entire distribution. We overcome novel technical challenges to satisfy important conditions for accurate distributed learning, including fault tolerance and balancedness. We empirically compare our approach with baselines based on random partitioning, balanced partition trees, and locality sensitive hashing, showing that we achieve significantly higher accuracy on both synthetic and real world image and advertising datasets. We also demonstrate that our technique strongly scales with the available computing power.


We present the design of a sample sort algorithm for manycore GPUs. Despite being one of the most efficient comparison-based sorting algorithms for distributed memory architectures its performance on GPUs was previously unknown. For uniformly distributed keys our sample sort is at least 25% and on average 68% faster than the best comparison-based sorting algorithm, GPU Thrust merge sort, and on average more than 2 times faster than GPU quicksort. Moreover, for 64-bit integer keys it is at least 63% and on average 2 times faster than the highly optimized GPU Thrust radix sort that directly manipulates the binary representation of keys. Our implementation is robust to different distributions and entropy levels of keys and scales almost linearly with the input size. These results indicate that multi-way techniques in general and sample sort in particular achieve substantially better performance than two-way merge sort and quicksort.


Abstract. Industrial companies often require complete inventories of their infrastructure. In many cases, a better inventory leads to a direct reduction of cost and uncertainty of engineering. While large scale panoramic surveys now allow these inventories to be performed remotely and reduce time on-site, the time and money required to visually segment the many types of components on thousands of high resolution panoramas can make the process infeasible. Recent studies have shown that deep learning techniques, namely deep neural networks, can accurately perform panoptic segmentation of things and stuff and hence be used to inventory the components of a picture. In order to train those deep architectures with specific industrial equipment, not available in public datasets, our approach uses an as-built 3D model of an industrial building to procedurally generate labels. Our results show that, despite the presence of errors during the generation of the dataset, our method is able to accurately perform panoptic segmentation on images of industrial scenes. In our testing, 80% of generated labels were correctly identified (non null intersection over union, i.e. true positive) by the panoptic segmentation, with great performance levels even for difficult classes, such as reflective heat insulators. We then visually investigated the 20% of true negative, and discovered that 80% were correctly segmented, but were counted as true negative because of errors in the dataset generation. Demonstrating this level of accuracy for panoptic segmentation on industrial panoramas for inventories also offers novel perspectives for 3D laser scan processing.


Effects of xanthan on the crosslinking of normal and waxy rice starches using a mixture of phosphate salts (sodium trimetaphosphate and sodium tripolyphosphate, 99 : 1, dry solid basis) were investigated. The starch (158.4 g, dry solids) was dispersed in an aqueous solution containing xanthan and phosphate salts (1.6 and 0.6 g in 280 mL water, respectively), and the slurry was dried overnight at 45°C until the moisture content was less than 10%. The dry cake was then ground into powders and heated for 2 h at 130°C in a convection oven. The pasting viscosity, paste clarity, melting and in vitro digestion behaviors of the starches with modifying agents (xanthan and phosphate salts) were investigated. The heat treated starches displayed enhanced shear stability and reduced breakdown, as evidences of crosslinking. Xanthan (1.0% based on starch solids) enhanced the crosslinking effects in the viscosity profile. Waxy rice starch evidenced more profound viscosity changes than did normal rice starch, indicating it was more susceptible to the heat treatment. The waxy rice starch heated with the mixture of phosphate salts and xanthan exhibited a continuous increase in pasting viscosity without any breakdown. Under a DSC analysis, melting enthalpy decreased but melting temperature increased somewhat as results of the heat treatment with xanthan. In an in vitro digestion analysis, the starches treated with xanthan exhibited decreases in the maximum digestion level, and increases in the resistant starch (RS) content. Dry heating, however, increased the digestion rate and glycemic index (GI) regardless of the presence of phosphate salts or xanthan indicating that the starches were thermally degraded. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007


A business case is in many organisations perceived as a valuable instrument for the justification and evaluation of information technology (IT) investments. This attention from practice has been ascertained by academic scholars, resulting in a growing number of publications in both top academic and practitioner journals since 1999. However, much knowledge on business case research is scattered throughout literature and a clear definition of what actually constitutes a business case is still missing. Therefore, the present paper aims to understand and integrate the current state of research on business cases in an attempt to realise two objectives with clear contributions. First, we tackle the problem of scattered knowledge by organising fragmented knowledge into a newly developed Business Case Research Framework that clearly structures the study field into six dimensions. Second, we identify what constitutes a business case and provide a clear definition to resolve the misunderstanding among scholars. A systematic literature review methodology is performed in a selection of top academic and practitioner journals. Based on the literature findings, we observe that the application of business cases is useful in a broad range of investment contexts. We also find sufficient argumentation that using a business case continuously throughout an entire investment life cycle can increase the investment success rate, that a richer set of information (rather than only financial numbers) should be included in a business case and that stakeholder inclusion is important when developing and using business cases.


Brazil is looking into foreign technology to foster innovation in the country's industrial health complex. Biological plants are being built and partnerships with multinationals have been established with the goal to in license technology, manufacture and supply the population with biosimilars made in Brazil. This article brings up-to-date information on the biosimilar market in the country, with information on the public-private partnerships and regulatory approvals. With two biosimilars approved in 2015 and the ongoing development regarding the local pharmaceutical companies, there is a good window of opportunity to create new businesses in the soon to be 4 th pharmaceutical spender in the world.Â


ABSTRACT This research aims to understand the significance of biological-analogies in fostering novelty by comparing biological-analogies with other design methods for idea generation. Among other design methods, brainstorming was chosen here as benchmark. Four studies were conducted to compare: (i) the levels of abstraction at which concepts were ideated using biological inspiration (represented using biocards) with that using traditional brainstorming; and (ii) the novelty of concepts produced by using these two design methods. Concepts produced in these studies were evaluated for levels of abstraction at which they were ideated, average novelty, and proportion of high-novelty concepts. Results suggest that concepts generated using biocards were ideated at higher abstraction levels than those using brainstorming, but neither were at the highest abstraction levels. The average novelty of concepts produced using biocards was found to be greater than that using brainstorming; however, no statistically significant difference was found in the proportion of high-novelty concepts. We suspect the lack of biological knowledge and cultural difference among the subjects involved in our studies as the two reasons behind the results. The results demonstrate that the design methods substantially influence the novelty of concepts generated, while indicating the need for better training in effective use of biological-analogies.


OBJECTIVES
In this study we examined the anti-Helicobacter pylori (anti-H. pylori) antibodies in patients with autoimmune thyroiditis, with and without different polyglandular involvement, and in healthy controls.

MATERIAL & METHODS
Patients with autoimmune thyroiditis (AT) were divided into three groups: Group A: 23 patients with isolated AT, Group B: 30 patients with AT as a part of polyglandular activation of autoimmunity, and Group C: 7 patients with AT as a part of autoimmune polyglandular syndrome type II. Thirty healthy individuals served as controls (Group D). Anti-H. pylori antibodies were determined first by ELISA for classes IgG, IgA, and IgM, and subsequently by immunoblot for classes IgG and IgA.

RESULTS
ELISA: The number of patients with IgA antibodies in Group A (39%) and Group B (30%) differed significantly from controls (7%, p<0.05). Immunoblot: Anti-CagA antibodies were found in 13% of patients in Group A, 7% of Group B, 0% of Group C, and 20% of Group D. A higher seroprevalence, as compared to controls, was found for IgG to the VacA (p=0.01), 30 kDa (p=0.001), and 17 kDa (p=0.008) antigens in Group A and for IgG to the 30 kDa antigen in Group C (p=0.037). A significantly higher seroprevalence, as compared to controls, was likewise found for IgA to the 17 kDa antigen in Group A (p=0.015).

CONCLUSIONS
A different distribution of antibodies to H. pylori antigens was found in patients with isolated AT compared to patients with AT coupled with a polyglandular syndrome.


In this study a seismic performance assessment of school buildings, which have been built in accordance with template unreinforced masonry school projects in Turkey, has been conducted. For this purpose, the most widely used three template projects have been selected. The seismic performances of these buildings have been evaluated for various earthquake levels. This evaluation has been carried out in compliance with the Turkish earthquake code entered into force in 2007. The effects of material strength and plan features on the performance of masonry school structures have been investigated within the scope of this study. It has been concluded that school buildings with template design are far from satisfying the required performance criteria. For spectral acceleration of 0.80 g, which is expected in a 475 year period in the seismic Zone 1, the average exceedance ratio for life safety performance limit is more than 80% considering different material strengths. Upon evaluation of the results a building capacity index is proposed for rapid seismic assessment of masonry school buildings.


Monomorium Mayr is a speciose, cosmopolitan genus of myrmicine ants that has had a challenging systematic history, comprising numerous lineages whose relationships are problematic. This study employed an extensive sampling of mostly Australian taxa, along with exemplars of other genera of Solenopsidini, to examine relationships among the continent's Monomorium fauna. Sequences from elongation factor 1α F2, wingless and cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) were analysed using Bayesian and maximum likelihood methods. The resultant phylogeny resolved Australian Monomorium into two major clades separated by exemplars from other genera; one comprised predominantly species with 11-segmented antennae (corresponding to Monomorium s. str. in a recent study of Myrmicinae) along with three Paleotropical species. The second clade included Australian species with 12-segmented antennae, two New Zealand species and two from New Caledonia. Two Australian cryptobiotic species were resolved as sister to Clade 2. COI analysis indicated that some species (M. fieldi Forel, M. leave Mayr and M. leae Forel) possibly represent cryptic species complexes. The New Zealand M. antipodum Forel was recovered as a valid species, and is closely related to an eastern Australian population. We resurrect the genus Chelaner Emery for species in the second clade (with 12-segmented antennae) and outline morphological characters to separate Chelaner from Monomorium s. str. Fifty-three species of Chelaner are treated as either stat. nov. or stat. rev.


Powdery mildew occurs annually on melons in Arizona. Podosphaera xanthii (Sphaerotheca fuliginea) is the plant pathogenic fungus that causes powdery mildew on cucurbits, such as cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, cucumber and squash. Development of powdery mildew on melons is favored by moderate temperatures and relative humidity, succulent plant growth and reduced light intensity brought about by a dense plant canopy. Existing products as well as some materials under development were evaluated and compared for efficacy in management of powdery mildew on cantaloupe in a field trial conducted during the spring of 2005 at the University of Arizona Yuma Valley Agricultural Center. A high level of disease had developed by the time disease severity data was recorded (June 10). Among treatments, the degree of powdery mildew suppression ranged from modest to essentially complete control. All treatments significantly reduced the severity of powdery mildew compared to untreated plants. Relative performance of treatments on the upper leaf surface differed from that on the underside of leaves. The best treatments among all tested fungicides included Quintec, Pristine, BAS517, Procure and Topsin M + Microthiol Disperss. Good levels of disease control were also achieved by Rubigan and Cabrio. The number of marketable cantaloupes was significantly higher in plots where powdery mildew was well controlled compared to untreated plots. Among tested products, several are registered for use in Arizona for control of powdery mildew on melons. Using a mixture of products or rotating among efficacious fungicides with different modes of action is important to minimize the development of insensitivity by the pathogen population to one or more of these active ingredients.


Background Adolescence is a recognised period of physical activity decline, particularly among low-income communities. We report the 12-month (midpoint) effects of a 2-year multicomponent physical activity intervention implemented in disadvantaged secondary schools. Methods A cluster randomised trial was undertaken in 10 secondary schools located in disadvantaged areas in New South Wales, Australia. Students in Grade 7 were recruited, with follow-up in Grade 8. The intervention was guided by socioecological theory and included seven physical activity strategies, and six implementation adoption strategies. The primary outcome was mean minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day assessed using Actigraph GT3X accelerometers. Outcome data were analysed using repeated measures linear mixed models. Results At baseline, 1150 (93%) students participated in the data collection (mean age 12 years, 48% boys) and 1050 (79%) students participated at 12-month follow-up. By the 12-month follow-up, the six implementation adoption strategies had been used to support schools to deliver four of the seven physical activity elements. There was a significant group-by-time interaction for mean minutes of MVPA per day in favour of the intervention group (adjusted difference between groups at follow-up=3.85 min, 95% CI (0.79 to 6.91), p≤0.01), including significantly more vigorous physical activity (2.45 min, p≤0.01), equating to 27 min more MVPA per week. Summary At 12-month follow-up, the intervention had reduced the decline in physical activity among adolescents from disadvantaged schools. The intervention may assist students to meet physical activity guidelines.


Within the research program of IIASA's Management and Technology Area, the subject of Program Management has been defined as "the general problem of translating ideal, multidimensional goals into achievable goals, and devising the necessary mechanisms for achieving this in a complex organizational situation". Strategic planning and control for health care is an example of such a problem. Since early 1978, research has been conducted in co-operation with the U.K. authorities into some aspects of the implementation of the systematic strategic planning system initiated in 1976 by the ministry responsible, the Department of Health and Social Security. The research has concentrated on the subject of strategic control, or "monitoring".

The study is still in progress, but this paper describing "mid-project observations" illustrates the need for monitoring, describes some research and ideas contributing towards more effective monitoring, and suggests some of the difficulties facing its further development. The work is set in the specific terms of a particular service in one country; but the issues involved are of universal significance, for the development of systems by which large-scale public programs can "learn", gradually but systematically, in a long cyclic progress.


Abstract Quality of life assessment is a central element of clinical trials and related forms of evaluative research. Early efforts to establish appropriate methods of measuring quality of life drew on psychometric principles and emphasised the need for validated measures. However, it is increasingly clear that, whilst still a central requirement of quality of life measures, validity needs to be emphasised alongside a number of other essential properties that have become clearer as the field has developed. Moreover formal psychometric methodology has to be adapted to take account of the specific needs of evaluative research. Research is beginning to develop more appropriate methods of outcome assessment in this area. Further lines of research are suggested to examine psychometric with other approaches to measurement of health-related quality of life.


In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets forth his concept of the good life, or eudaimonia, which must be distinguished from today's concept of happiness in that it is much more systematized, rigid, and carefully nuanced. While Aristotle's system of ethics appears, prima facie, to be an exhaustive moral guide to the good life, it exhibits certain elitist tendencies and advocates certain elitist doctrines which ultimately impact its validity and soundness, thus rendering his basis for the good life untenable.


Rural forests are characterized by different levels of formal and nonformal appropriation by rural communities who have generally managed, shaped, or rebuilt these forest formations over many generations with refined local knowledge and practices related to their use and perpetuation. Rural forests are therefore social-ecological systems that contribute to ecosystem and landscapes configuration, definition of rural territories, and sustainability of local livelihoods. Although some studies have attempted to explain their specificities, in specific geographical and social contexts, their characteristics are not well defined as they encompass highly diversified situations. This lack of comprehension of the identity of rural forests is at the heart of the lack of dialogue between forestry policies and rural forest development. Our major aim is to identify universal characteristics of rural forests as well as specificities that can differentiate them. Eleven situations of rural forests were analyzed by means of detailed, harmonized monographs, from developing and developed countries, and localized within contrasting ecological environments (humid tropics, dry forests, temperate forests) and socio-economic and public policies contexts. Qualitative data were obtained through a common analytical framework and were encoded with an approach based on the collective appreciation of the group of researchers who developed case studies. These were pooled within a common analysis chart and were processed by means of multivariate analyses. Results were further discussed taking into consideration four major characteristics that emerged from this analysis, and which form the identity of rural forests. These are: 1) specific forest structures and levels of integration in agricultural matrices which are linked historically to overall agroecosystem approaches and practices, 2) a multiscale approach to domestication practices from landscape to individual trees inscribed in continuities between "nature" and "culture", natural processes and human techniques of control and transformation, 3) multiple uses of plant species which vary in relation to the commercial or noncommercial status of their products and a reversible nature of these use patterns accordingly, 4) the imbricate nature of rules of access and control between state and customary levels, and between individual and collective levels, requiring specific formal and informal arrangements. Typologies of rural forests can be drawn along each of these major characteristics and provide a reliable system to analyze and understand the functioning of rural forests. Forestry approaches in rural contexts, hence, need to consider variations along these major lines that form the identity cards of rural forests.


The decade 2011 – 2020 has been declared the Decade of Action for Road safety by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The WHO has published baseline road traffic crash (RTC) fatality data for all member nations. The WHO has also suggested five Pillars of Action, mechanisms that may be instigated at the national level within the decade to halt or reduce the national RTC fatality toll.

This thesis demonstrates that the some of the baseline data published by the WHO and derived from RTC reports compiled by national police forces may not best reflect the number of RTC deaths within each nation. Moreover, this data may not be directly comparable between nations due to definitional and other issues identified. Vital registration (death certificate) data which is directly collated by the WHO may be a better measure for international comparative work.

Contrary to some previous studies, no significant association was found between the level of national
economic development (in terms of per capita Gross National Income (GNI)) and health-derived RTC fatality rates for the year 2002.

In multiple regression analysis of factors associated with GNI and presumed causal in the international variation in RTC fatality rates, exposure to risk of crash, percent of the vehicle population which are 2- or 3-wheeled, percent of the population aged 15 – 24 years, per capita alcohol consumption and health spend as a percent of GDP were all significantly associated with RTC fatality rate. No evidence was found to support WHO Pillar 4 in that road user behaviour modification via enactment and enforcement of road safety legislation was not significantly
associated with the variation in RTC fatality rate. The demographic and cultural factors identified may not be amenable to modification. This has implications for the globalisation of remedial actions as proposed by the WHO.


It might have happened so many times that you or someone yours need doctors help immediately, but they are not available due to some reason. The Cancer Disease Prediction application is an end user support &online consultation project. Here, we propose a web application that allows users to get instant guidance on their cancer disease through an intelligent system online. The application is fed with various details &the cancer disease associated with those details. The application allows user to share their health related issues for cancer prediction. It then processes user specific details to check for various illness that could be associated with it. Here we use some intelligent data mining techniques to guess the most accurate illness that could be associated with patient's details. Based on result, system automatically shows the result specific doctors for further treatment. The system can be use in case of emergency. General Terms: Data Mining, Clustering, Classification


1. The concentrations of reduced ascorbic acid present in the tissues of normal rhesus monkeys are of a magnitude in keeping with the values found for other animal species which are incapable of synthesizing vitamin C. These concentrations are subject to distinct increase by prolonged parenteral administration of ascorbic acid. 2. The amounts of vitamin C present in nervous tissue and the suprarenals of monkeys, paralyzed as the result of poliomyelitis infection, are slightly below the normal average when examined at the height of paralysis or in early convalescence. The figures show a tendency for a return to normal or slightly hypernormal levels concomitant with the progress of convalescence. 3. Vitamin C titrations of the tissues of monkeys which had received parenteral injections of ascorbic acid during the incubation period of poliomyelitic infection give different results according to whether such animals develop paralysis or survive without paralytic symptoms. In paralyzed C-treated monkeys the vitamin C levels are practically identical with those of normal C-prepared monkeys. Markedly higher values, however, are obtained with non-paralytic survivors in the early stages of their survival. As the period of survival lengthens normal figures prevail again. 4. The data are discussed in their relationship to the success or failure of vitamin C therapy in experimental poliomyelitis.


Two bioaerosol sampling methods (Andersen sampler and filtration sampler) were compared. The two samplers were used to assess the bioaerosol loads in two swine finishing barns. They were similar in terms of the species of microorganisms sampled. The persistent strains of microorganisms were various species of the following genera: Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Listeria, Enterococcus, Nocardia, Lactobacillus, and Penicillium. However, the use of Andersen sampler resulted in significantly higher bioaerosol concentrations than the filtration sampler. Thus, it appears that filtration sampling can be used for a qualitative survey of bioaerosols in swine barns while the Andersen sampler is suitable for both quantitative and qualitative assessments.


Objectives To explore the beliefs and expectations of patients and their caregivers about home haemodialysis in Italy where the prevalence of home haemodialysis is low. Design Semistructured, qualitative interview study with purposive sampling and thematic analysis. Setting Four dialysis centres in Italy without home haemodialysis services (Bari, Marsala, Nissoria and Taranto). Participants 22 patients receiving in-centre haemodialysis and 20 of their identified caregivers. Results We identified seven major themes that were central to patient and caregiver perceptions of home haemodialysis in regions without established services. Three positive themes were: flexibility and freedom (increased autonomy, minimised wasted time, liberation from strict dialysis schedules and gaining self-worth); comfort in familiar surroundings (family presence and support, avoiding the need for dialysis in hospital) and altruistic motivation to do home haemodialysis as an exemplar for other patients and families. Four negative themes were: disrupting sense of normality; family burden (an onerous responsibility, caregiver uncertainty and panic and visually confronting); housing constraints; healthcare by 'professionals' not 'amateurs' (relinquishing security and satisfaction with in-centre services) and isolation from peer support. Conclusions Patients without direct experience or previous education about home haemodialysis and their caregivers recognise the autonomy of home haemodialysis but are very concerned about the potential burden and personal sacrifice home haemodialysis will impose on caregivers and feel apprehensive about accepting the medical responsibilities of dialysis. To promote acceptance and uptake of home haemodialysis among patients and caregivers who have no experience of home dialysis, effective strategies are needed that provide information about home haemodialysis to patients and their caregivers, assure access to caregiver respite, provide continuous availability of medical and technical advice and facilitate peer patient support.


FGF-23, a novel member of the FGF family, is the product of the gene mutated in autosomal dominant hypophosphatemic rickets (ADHR). FGF-23 has been proposed as a circulating factor causing renal phosphate wasting not only in ADHR (as a result of inadequate degradation), but also in tumor-induced osteomalacia (as a result of excess synthesis by tumor cells). Renal phosphate wasting occurs in approximately 50% of patients with McCune-Albright syndrome (MAS) and fibrous dysplasia of bone (FD), which result from postzygotic mutations of the GNAS1 gene. We found that FGF-23 is produced by normal and FD osteoprogenitors and bone-forming cells in vivo and in vitro. In situ hybridization analysis of FGF-23 mRNA expression identified "fibrous" cells, osteogenic cells, and cells associated with microvascular walls as specific cellular sources of FGF-23 in FD. Serum levels of FGF-23 were increased in FD/MAS patients compared with normal age-matched controls and significantly higher in FD/MAS patients with renal phosphate wasting compared with those without, and correlated with disease burden bone turnover markers commonly used to assess disease activity. Production of FGF-23 by FD tissue may play an important role in the renal phosphate-wasting syndrome associated with FD/MAS.


When Joseph Jimenez joined Novartis, in 2007, the company was facing a big challenge: Its blockbuster drug Diovan, which accounted for more than 20% of the pharmaceutical division's revenue, would lose its U.S. patent in 2012. His senior executives had some ideas for offsetting the loss-about 100 of them. From that list they chose three on which to focus: (1) The division invested significantly in testing Afinitor (a treatment for renal cell carcinoma that was nearly ready for market) in breast cancer. (2) It set up Novartis China Commercial University to screen, hire, and train several hundred salespeople for rapid expansion in high-growth markets. (3) It began to transition to an outcomes-based approach to selling medicine by offering to screen patients for responsiveness to new drugs before they're prescribed. Five years later, Jimenez writes, those efforts are beginning to pay off: Revenue is expected to remain stable even as Diovan gives way to generics.


High-density electronics provide economies of resources and cost savings in many application scenarios. To utilize potentials of electronics the project NEEDS explores the design of stacked chips in order to cope with the new requirements of information and communications systems by three dimensional integration of systems in the timeframe of 5 to 10 years. To reach theses goals, methods and tools from different design domains will be explored and integrated into a comprehensive design framework. The overall objective is to find adequate analysis, exploration and synthesis methods for an optimized 3D integration with regard to the integration technologies in use. Design optimization in this context should be carried out in a holistic manner, i.e. considering a subtasks, and independent of the application domain. Special focus will be given to the optimization of costs and thus also on the assessment of cost-effectiveness of 3D integration. As a project result, methods for 3D integration will be presented and demonstrated as a common development platform. This will strengthen the design competence in Germany for a new class of heterogeneous, highly integrated stacked electronic systems.


Abstract. Aerosol-cloud interactions constitute a major uncertainty in future climate predictions. This study combines 10 years of ground-based aerosol particle measurements from two Nordic background stations (Vavihill and Hyytiala) with MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite data of convective clouds. The merged data are used to examine how aerosols affect cloud droplet sizes and precipitation from convective clouds over the Nordic countries. From the satellite scenes, vertical profiles of cloud droplet effective radius (re) are created by plotting retrieved cloud top re against cloud top temperature for the clouds in a given satellite scene. The profiles have been divided according to aerosol number concentrations but also meteorological reanalysis parameters from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Forecasts). Furthermore, weather radar data from the BALTEX (Baltic Sea Experiment) and precipitation data from several ground-based meteorological measurement stations have been investigated to determine whether aerosols affect precipitation intensity and amount. Small re throughout the entire cloud profiles is associated with high aerosol number concentrations at both stations. However, aerosol number concentrations seem to affect neither the cloud optical thickness nor the vertical extent of the clouds in this study. Cloud profiles with no or little precipitation have smaller droplets than those with more precipitation. Moreover, the amount of precipitation that reaches the ground is affected by meteorological conditions such as the vertical extent of the clouds, the atmospheric instability and the relative humidity in the lower atmosphere rather than the aerosol number concentration. However, lower precipitation rates are associated with higher aerosol number concentrations for clouds with similar vertical extent. The combination of these ground-based and remote-sensing datasets provides a unique long-term study of the effects of aerosols on convective clouds over the Nordic countries.


Abstract. Cloud and aerosol information is needed in trace gas retrievals from satellite measurements. The Fast REtrieval Scheme for Clouds from the Oxygen A band (FRESCO) cloud algorithm employs reflectance spectra of the O 2 A band around 760 nm to derive cloud pressure and effective cloud fraction. In general, clouds contribute more to the O 2 A band reflectance than aerosols. Therefore, the FRESCO algorithm does not correct for aerosol effects in the retrievals and attributes the retrieved cloud information entirely to the presence of clouds, and not to aerosols. For events with high aerosol loading, aerosols may have a dominant effect, especially for almost cloud free scenes. We have analysed FRESCO cloud data and Absorbing Aerosol Index (AAI) data from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME-2) instrument on the Metop-A satellite for events with typical absorbing aerosol types, such as volcanic ash, desert dust and smoke. We find that the FRESCO effective cloud fractions are correlated with the AAI data for these absorbing aerosol events and that the FRESCO cloud pressure contains information on aerosol layer pressure. For cloud free scenes, the derived FRESCO cloud pressure is close to the aerosol layer pressure, especially for optically thick aerosol layers. For cloudy scenes, if the strongly absorbing aerosols are located above the clouds, then the retrieved FRESCO cloud pressure may represent the height of the aerosol layer rather than the height of the clouds. Combining FRESCO and AAI data, an estimate for the aerosol layer pressure can be given.


Social comparisons are an essential source of information about the self. Research in social psychology has shown individual variation in the tendency toward comparison with other people's opinions and abilities, raising the question of whether social comparisons are driven by psychological dispositions. To test the empirical validity of this proposition, Gibbons and Buunk (1999) created an instrument that measures the tendency to engage in social comparison and captures central aspects of the self, the other, and the psychological interaction between the two. The Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (INCOM) comprises 11 core items that have been tested in the United States and the Netherlands. To date, however, no attempt has been made to implement this instrument in a large-scale survey of the German population. To fill this gap, the core items of the INCOM scale were integrated into the 2010 SOEP (Socio-Economic Panel Study) pretest. This paper analyzes the validity of the INCOM scale and discusses potentials for shortening the instrument for continued use in large-scale population surveys. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis as well as scale validation tests (invariance tests combined with external validation techniques) produce acceptable results and confirm the measurement instrument as valid and effective. With regard to shortening the questionnaire, a six-item scale is recommended, which shows excellent model fit and proves to be a reliable and efficient indicator to grasp individual dispositions towards social comparison.


Background Inflammation is associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and coronary heart disease (CHD). Ghrelin, a multifunctional hormone, may play a key role in patients with OSA and/or CHD. The aim of this study was to investigate plasma ghrelin and pro-inflammatory cytokines in patients with OSA and/or CHD and assess the association of these cytokines with ghrelin. Material/Methods Plasma ghrelin, interleukin-6(IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) were measured in 75 patients and in 25 age-, sex-, and BMI-matched healthy control subjects. These patients were further classified into 3 groups (25 with OSA, 25 with OSA and CHD, and 25 with CHD), matched for age, sex, body mass index, and the severity of OSA or CHD. Results Plasma ghrelin levels were increased, and TNF-α and IL-6 were decreased in OSA patients with and without CHD, when compared with controls with similar CHD clinical characteristics (both P<0.05). Further, OSA patients with CHD tended to have higher plasma levels of TNF-α and IL-6, and lower plasma levels of ghrelin than OSA controls (P>0.05). Notably, plasma ghrelin levels were independently negatively correlated with plasma TNF-α and IL-6 (P<0.05). Conclusions Increased plasma ghrelin levels might constitute an independent determinant of decreased TNF-α and IL-6, suggesting that higher ghrelin level may in part represent a compensatory mechanism to overcome the pro-inflammatory effects of OSA. Further large-scale and prospective studies are needed to confirm these effects.


: This paper presents and discusses the results of a research project in Education Sciences, which aimed at identifying and understanding the effects of in-service teacher education carried out in schools, on the educational practices of a school of the 1st Cycle of Basic Education (CBE). The training was organized with small project groups consisting of six teachers and a trainer, and lasted three years. The present study analyzed the narratives of the educational practices of teachers and of reflection in small groups, from one of the Project groups. The analysis highlighted the importance of the semantics of action and reflection upon action as devices for mediating the training and the changes in individual and collective educational practices.


The Supreme Court's decisions in the Turner Broadcasting cases ushered in a new era of rigorous judicial oversight of regulations aimed at shaping the economic structure of the media industry. The Turner decisions, and especially their application by lower courts, have expanded the range of regulations subject to heightened First Amendment scrutiny, consistently granted lower levels of deference to legislative and administrative judgments, and applied a degree of economic scrutiny of regulatory choices unseen since the Lochner era. In this Note, Michael Burstein argues that such scrutiny is inappropriate in light of the quickening pace of technological and economic change that marks the modern information environment. He observes that the technological balkanization of First Amendment jurisprudence has outlived its usefulness and that applying a unitary standard to all activities of a particular type of media fails to focus judicial attention on the entity's core speech activities. Instead, Burstein proposes that courts draw a distinction between regulations that impact content production or editorial choices and those which aim to structure the distribution of information. The former remain deserving of heightened scrutiny, but the latter implicate a long tradition of allowing government regulation to improve the information order. Because government necessarily must make choices among competing instrumental arrangements, none of which implicates a particular normative theory of the First Amendment, such choices are entitled to judicial deference. As technology blurs the lines between different media outlets, this framework should provide the needed flexibility to protect the First Amendment interests of both media entities and the public they serve.


ABSTRACT Employing a panel setting of 88 counties in the State of Ohio over the five-year period ending in 2006, this study aims to investigate the applicability of the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship in explaining the relationships between flagship enterprises, entrepreneurial clusters, and business entry rates. The study confirms the overall positive relationship between flagship enterprises and startup rates, and the negative relationship between entrepreneurial clusters and startup rates. It further demonstrates that the effect of clusters is moderated by local unemployment rates so that higher rates of unemployment weaken the negative impact of entrepreneurial clusters on startup rates. Based on the evidence collected, policy makers should increase support for flagship enterprises in their regions, and would-be business owners should consider locating their ventures in proximity to flagship companies.


A fault in one component of Networks-on-Chip (NoC) based system makes the fault-free connected units out of use and this in turn leads to considerable performance degradation. Many fault tolerant architectures and routing algorithms have already been proposed for NoC but the utilization of resources, affected indirectly by faults is yet to be addressed. It is indispensable step needed to be taken in order to implement the reliable on-chip systems especially with nano-scale technologies. In this paper, we present a technique to recover healthy processing elements for NoC architectures in case of associated routers failure by using the Partial Virtual-Channel Sharing (PVS) approach. The proposed architecture divides the network into cluster regions, where each cluster comprises of two nodes. Each node in a cluster provides a backup data-path for other node in the cluster. Each processing element can use the backup data-path to transmit and receive the packets in case of corresponding router failure. The simulation results show that the proposed architecture has low hardware overheads.


The aim of the present work was to develop controlled release matrix formulation of nifedipine and investigate the effects of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic polymers on in vitro drug release. Matrix tablets were prepared by wet granulation technique using different concentration of hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC), ethyl cellulose (EC), compressible Eudragits (RSpo and RLpo) and their combination in different ratios to examine their influence on tablet properties and drug release profile.Tablets were evaluated by measurement of hardness, friability, content uniformity, weight variation and drug release pattern. Release studies were carried out using USP type II apparatus in 900 ml of sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) with 0.5% (w/v) SDS. The amount of drug released was determined at 238 nm by UV-visible spectrophotometer. In vitro dissolution studies indicated that hydrophobic polymers significantly reduced the rate of drug release compared to hydrophilic ones in 12 hrs and combination of both polymers exhibited the best release profile to sustain the drug release for prolong period of time. As a result, the tablet containing HPMC:EC in ratio of 0.75:1 showed better controlled release pattern over a period of 12 hrs. In selected formulation, the calculated regression coefficients for release models fitted best to zero-order models


Dive Computers are usually integrated in a console or wrist worn. They display dive relevant data such as depth, time and decompression obligations. Continuous monitoring of these data is of the utmost importance for safety when diving. This paper describes a light weight, 300 m water resistant, graphical head-mounted matrix display (HMD), which is connected to a wrist worn diving computer and that gives an exact copy of the diving computer screen. Optical components are included to display a virtual image from a distance of 1.0 m. The monocular HMD only occludes a small peripheral area of the divers field of view thus causes relatively little optical interference. The unique design, which enables attachment to almost any diving mask on the market, furthermore allows outstanding pressure resistance and at the same time cost effective manufacturing.


The current study explored whether education, a proxy of cognitive reserve, modifies the association between episodic memory performance and βeta-amyloid load (Aβ), a biomarker of Alzheimer's disease, in a cohort of cognitively normal elderly adults. One hundred and four participants (mean age 73.3 years) evenly spread out in three bands of education were recruited. Participants underwent neuropsychological assessment, structural MRI as well as PET imaging to quantify Aβ load. Moderation analyses and the Johnson-Neyman technique were carried out to examine the interaction of education with Aβ load to predict episodic memory performance. Linear regressions were then performed within each group of education to better illustrate the interaction effect (all analyses were controlled for age and sex). The interaction between education and Aβ load was significant (p<0.05) for years of education, reaching a cut-off point of 13.5 years, above which the relationship between Aβ load and episodic memory was no longer significant. Similarly, significant associations were found between Aβ and episodic memory among participants with secondary (p<0.01) and pre-university education (p<0.01), but not with a university degree (p=0.253). Episodic memory performance is associated with Aβ load in cognitively normal elderly individuals, and this relationship is moderated by educational attainment.


Objective We studied a telemedicine intervention for persistent poorly controlled diabetes mellitus (PPDM) that combined telemonitoring, self-management support, and medication management. The intervention was designed for practical delivery using existing Veterans Affairs (VA) telemedicine infrastructure. To refine the intervention and inform the delivery of the intervention in other settings, we examined participants' experiences. Methods We conducted semistructured interviews with 18 Veterans who completed the intervention. We analyzed interview text using directed content analysis and categorized themes by hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) improvement (<1% or ≥1%). Results Participants generally reported greater awareness of their blood glucose levels; however, they described dissatisfaction with the telemonitoring interface and competing demands during the intervention. Participants with <1% HbA1c improvement reported that these challenges interfered with their engagement. Participants with ≥1% HbA1c improvement reported new self-management routines despite challenges. Conclusion Despite competing demands and frustration with the telemonitoring interface, many participants demonstrated intervention engagement and substantial improvement in HbA1c ($1%). Differences in engagement may reflect differing capacity to manage treatment burden. Because it relies on existing infrastructure, this intervention is a promising model for addressing PPDM within VA. Future work should focus on optimizing systems' telemedicine infrastructure; while reliance on existing infrastructure may facilitate practical delivery, and it may also limit intervention engagement by excessively contributing to treatment burden.


Digital technology has transformed cinema's production, distribution, and consumption patterns and pushed contemporary cinema toward increasingly global markets. In the case of Japanese cinema, a once moribund industry has been revitalised as regional genres such as anime and Japanese horror now challenge Hollywood's pre-eminence in global cinema. In her rigorous investigations of J-horror, personal documentary, anime, and ethnic cinema, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano deliberates on the role of the transnational in bringing to the mainstream what were formerly marginal B-movie genres. She argues persuasively that convergence culture, which these films represent, constitutes Japan's response to the variegated flows of global economics and culture. With its timely analysis of new modes of production emerging from the struggles of Japanese filmmakers and animators to finance and market their work in a post-studio era, this book holds critical implications for the future of other national cinemas fighting to remain viable in a global marketplace. As academics in film and media studies prepare a wholesale shift toward a transnational perspective of film, Wada-Marciano cautions against jettisoning the entire national cinema paradigm. Discussing the technological advances and the new cinematic flows of consumption, she demonstrates that while contemporary Japanese film, on the one hand, expresses the transnational as an object of desire (i.e., a form of total cosmopolitanism), on the other hand, that desire is indeed inseparable from Japan's national identity. Drawing on a substantial number of interviews with auteur directors such as Kore'eda Hirokazu, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and Kawase Naomi, and incisive analysis of select film texts, this compelling, original work challenges the presumption that Hollywood is the only authentically "global" cinema.


The Long Term Soil Productivity (LTSP) experiment is a U.S. Forest Service led effort to test the effects that organic matter removal, soil compaction, and competition control have forest soil productivity, as measured by tree growth. A replicated experiment was installed on the Croatan National Forest, NC, in winter 1991 and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) seedlings were planted there in early spring 1992. Experimental treatments included three levels of organic matter removal: stem-only; whole tree; and whole tree plus all forest floor, in combination with three levels of compaction: none; moderate; and severe. Plots were split for competition control treatments. Previous analyses, using all live trees in the measurements plots, indicated that competition control was the sole significant treatment effect on tree height for the first 14 years of this study. In this analysis we used height growth for the 10 trees in each plot identified as dominant or co-dominant. Both organic matter removal and soil compaction treatments have had a significant effect on height growth of dominant and co-dominant trees, suggesting that site preparation may affect merchantable timber production.


Developing chicken wings homozygous for the talpid (ta3/ta3) mutation are polydactylous and have defects in the establishment of their anteroposterior polarity. We analysed the expression domains of the posteriorly restricted homeobox Hox-4 genes in such mutant wings. The Hox-4 genes are now expressed right across the anteroposterior axis instead of being expressed just posteriorly. This correlates well with the absence of clear morphological differences between the talpid3 digits and reinforces the idea that vertebrate Hox-4 genes are involved in setting up the limb anteroposterior asymmetry.


In this thesis, several subtidal sandy sediments of the coastal ocean are investigated to unravel the structural, ecological and biogeochemical interactions at the microbial and metazoan scales. The first study illustrates the coupling between the bacterial compartment and primary producers. The availability of nitrogen in sediment phytodetritus for seagrass plants was investigated in 5 tropical species from Indonesia. In an in situ experiment, 15N-labelled phytodetritus was injected into the sediment and the appearance of 15N in the roots, the rhizomes and the leaves of the plants was measured over time. The combined efficiency of seagrass canopy-induced trapping and retention of sestonic particles and root-uptake, results in the acquisition of nutrients released upon mineralization of particulate organic matter, giving them a competitive advantage over other primary producers in oligotrophic environments. The second study provides a detailed snapshot of the microbial compartment of a coastal permeable sandy sediment in the photic zone, where the pathways and the fate of C and N were studied in a stable isotopes pulse-chase experiment. This experiment demonstrates the efficient transfer of inorganic carbon and nitrogen to the benthic community through the activities of photo- and chemoautotrophic microorganisms, and the role of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) as a carrier for energy to the benthic microbial food web. The third study focuses on the benthic food web and provides a complementary picture to the second study. Carbon and nitrogen flows within the food web of a subtidal sandy sediment were studied through a dual stable isotope approach. First, the natural abundance of 13C and 15N stable isotopes of consumers and potential benthic and pelagic resources suggested trophic network relying on MPB and suspended particulate matter. Second, the MPB of sediment cores was labelled through a pulse-chase experiment with 13C-bicarbonate and 15N-nitrate. The fate of the MPB was followed in the different heterotrophic compartments. Heterotrophic bacteria contributed most to the total heterotrophic incorporation of 13C. Significant labelling of metazoans allowed us distinguishing between utilization of MPB and phytoplankton derived carbon. The combined natural abundance and deliberate tracer addition approaches thus provided complementary information on the key role of MPB in structuring benthic communities in sandy sediments. In the last study, the relative significance of phytodetritus deposition and autochthonous MPB production for benthic consumers in an organic carbon-poor sandy sediment was assessed in two consecutive tracer experiments. In a first experiment, sediment cores received a pulse of 13C-labelled phytodetritus and the fate of that organic matter was followed in the benthic food web over a period of 72 h. In a second experiment, the MPB was labelled with 13C-bicarbonate and its fate was followed over a period of 96h. Coupled to a detailed survey of the natural abundance of 13C in the different benthic organisms, this study revealed complex trophic interactions among benthic consumers. Relative dependence of consumers on phytodetritus and MPB was estimated and revealed that benthic heterotrophs in these sandy, permeable sediments rely more than 95% on MPB.


A vertical current sheet is a crucial element in many flare/coronal mass ejection (CME) models. For the first time, Liu et al. reported a vertical current sheet directly imaged during the flare rising phase with the EUV Imaging Telescope (EIT) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). As a follow-up study, here we present the comprehensive analysis and detailed physical interpretation of the observation. The current sheet formed due to the gradual rise of a transequatorial loop system. As the loop legs approached each other, plasma flew at ∼ 6 km s−1 into a local area where a cusp-shaped flare loop subsequently formed and the current sheet was seen as a bright, collimated structure of global length (≥ 0.25 R⊙) and macroscopic width ((5–10)×103km), extending from 50 Mm above the flaring loop to the border of the EIT field of view (FOV). The reconnection rate in terms of the Alfvén Mach number is estimated to be only 0.005–0.009, albeit a halo CME was accelerated from ∼ 400 km s−1 to ∼ 1300 km s−1 within the coronagraph FOV. Drifting pulsating structures at metric frequencies were recorded during the impulsive phase, implying tearing of the current sheet in the high corona. A radio Type III burst occurred when the current sheet was clearly seen in EUV, indicative of accelerated electrons beaming upward from the upper tip of the current sheet. A cusp-shaped dimming region was observed to be located above the post-flare arcade during the decay phase in EIT; both the arcade and the dimming expanded with time. With the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer (CDS) aboard SOHO, a clear signature of chromospheric evaporation was seen during the decay phase, i.e., the cusp-shaped dimming region was associated with plasma upflows detected with EUV hot emission lines, while the post-flare loop was associated with downflows detected with cold lines. This event provides a comprehensive view of the reconnection geometry and dynamics in the solar corona.


Background: Methamphetamine is simply made from available chemicals such as pseudoephedrine, this drug was previously used to treat ADHD, and a major contribution to controlling sexual acts in men and women is through the secretion of the GNRH gonadotropin hormone from the hypothalamus. This hormone enters the anterior pituitary through the portal vessels and secretes the LH and FSH hormone. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between chronic methamphetamine consumption on testosterone, LH and FSH in males.
Materials and Methods: In this study, 30 men with chronic methamphetamine dose referred to health clinics in the city for the use of random sampling method and were assessed. The subjects completed the questionnaire of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) and transferred to the laboratory after blood sampling.
Results: The results showed that the duration of taking methamphetamine does not affect the amount of FSH. There was no significant difference observed between different times. However, the amount of methamphetamine consumption affects the level of LH and testosterone levels.
Conclusion: Duration of taking methamphetamine has an effect on the level of LH and testosterone, but does not affect the FSH hormone.
Keywords: Methamphetamine, Testosterone hormones, LH and FSH.


In this thesis the opportunities for designing products that are less resource intensive during use, in different cultural contexts is investigated. The research was divided into four phases: an extensive literature review, an online scoping study, an intensive qualitative study on laundry behaviours, and an international design competition.

The research drew on the background of design for sustainable behaviour, a relatively new field of enquiry concerned with reducing the social and environmental impacts of products during their use. Despite the increasing development of theories to change user behaviour through design, there is a lack of understanding of how different cultural contexts affect behaviour.

An extensive literature review established the current thinking on culture, development, and behaviour. The diverse nature of everyday household behaviour from different cultures and the effect it has on household resource consumption was uncovered and was investigated further in an online scoping study. In the study, participants from the UK, Brazil and India answered questions related to the themes of food, water, energy, materials and government schemes. The findings helped to highlight the differences in household behaviours and led to more detailed investigation of laundry behaviours in three sites in the UK, Brazil and India using in-context interviews, observations and household tours.

From these findings a series of culturally significant and culturally independent factors were established that can aid designers in understanding behaviours in a given context. A set of design guidelines were also created to facilitate the design of less resource intensive products during use. These were then tested with designers in an international design competition answering a brief to design a less resource intensive laundry process.

The research suggested a range of benefits for designers studying other cultures. The guidelines and cultural factors created can help designers to build empathy with users in a given context and boost creative thinking for more sustainable solutions. The research also offered insights into the possibility of, and application for, transferring behaviours between contexts as well as a new understanding of the aspirations of consumers in emerging markets, which could support other theories of sustainable development, such as leapfrogging.


In this paper we propose an algorithm for computing the full lemma of German verbs that occur in sentences with a separated prefix. The algorithm is meant for large-scale corpus annotation. It relies on Part-of-Speech tags and works with 97% precision when the tags are correct. Unfortunately there are multi-word adverbs with particles that are homographs with separated verb particles and prepositions. Since the usage as separated particle and preposition is much more frequent, these multi-word adverbs are often incorrectly tagged. We show that special treatment of these bi-particle adverbs improves the re-attachment of separated verb particles.


In this work, the response of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites subjected to a high-intensity pulsed electric field has been studied. A new fully automated experimental setup was developed that allows for real time measurements of the pulsed electric current and voltage on the carbon fiber polymer matrix composite laminates. The experimental setup included a new custom-built current pulse generator that utilizes a bank of capacitor modules capable of producing a 20 millisecond current pulse with an amplitude of up to 2500 A. The entire setup is controlled through a single Agilent VEE Pro 8.5 program via a computer and USB connections. A series of electrical characterization tests were performed on 16-ply IM7/977-2 and 32-ply IM7/977-3 unidirectional and symmetric cross-ply CFRP composites to assess the ability of the composites to withstand application of a pulsed electric current and determine the effects of the lay-up and thickness on the electrical response. It was found that the electrical resistance of specimens decreased with an increase in the electric current magnitude and lay-up and thickness have a significant effect on the electrical resistance. The 16-ply cross-ply specimens exhibited the largest specimen-to specimen variation in the electrical resistance values among all specimens tested. In addition, both unidirectional and symmetric cross-ply 32-ply specimens exhibited less specimen-to-specimen variation in the electrical resistance as compared to the 16-ply unidirectional and symmetric cross-ply specimens. A decrease in the electrical resistance with an increase in an electric current was observed for all specimens, however, a stronger trend was observed for 16-ply specimens. It was also determined that 32-ply laminates are capable to withstand higher electric current without signs of thermal damage compared to the 16-ply laminates.