Global governance in its myriad forms and actor constellations has decisively demonstrated the potential for rule‐making above the nation state to be liberated from the 'iron cage' of traditional intergovernmental forums and multilateral bureaucracy. To further investigate an increasingly complex global reality, we propose drawing on organisational theories and methods for penetrating the internal dynamics of global governance processes and outcomes. This article begins by mapping out the current use of organisational theories in global governance research. It then turns to exploring the potential for other areas of organisational theory and conceptual development to shed light on the governance dynamics and performance of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS), a significant site of transnational rule‐making and experimentation by private actors. We highlight a paradigmatic shift from 'arms‐length' to 'embedded' models of VSS monitoring and regulation, reflected in new modes of engagement and interaction between rule‐makers and rule‐takers. This new generation of embedded VSS governance is distinguishable by enhanced information provision, learning and knowledge creation. The implications of embedded governance for VSS monitoring and performance are explored with reference to the experience of the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF).


While the organisation of work in maternity care has historically witnessed boundary work between midwives and obstetricians, modern service provision has posed many challenges to professional boundary work, with increasing litigation and risk management practices fuelling the social construction of a 'risk discourse' within maternity care. Drawing upon observational and interview data of an ethnographic study conducted in a UK obstetric-led maternity unit during 2013, this article explores the professional experiences of contemporary 'risk work' and the impact of such 'risk work' upon the professional role boundaries of obstetricians and midwives. Midwives and obstetricians expressed concern regarding risk in childbirth. Obstetricians and midwives perceived control over the childbirth process as a means of promoting risk minimisation, so that risk management was central to the perceived rational management of uncertainty in maternity care. Anxiety over uncertainty, error and blame was associated with dominance of the biomedical model of care in translating and managing risk and a perceived increase in the medicalisation of childbirth. Such 'risk discourse' had consequently provoked boundary work tension, with the perceived shifting of professional role boundaries of obstetricians and midwives within maternity care. As a consequence of contemporary risk work and reconfiguration of role boundaries, the role of the midwife in the twenty-first century was perceived to be in a state of flux. I note that contemporary risk work and the reconfiguration of professional boundaries in maternity services potentially places the midwifery profession 'at risk' of deprofessionalisation, raising concerns for the future role and professional status of midwives.


Against a surprising level of agreement between Clausewitz, contemporary military doctrines and critical war studies on an ontology of war as fighting, we suggest that the study of contemporary warfare needs to focus more on war as processing. Through Jean Baudrillard we argue that at least some of what is referred to as 'war' is no longer characterised by encounters through fighting. We exemplify our argument by how the repetitive battle-rhythm of military targeting strives for perfect war. What remains is not war as an object in itself, but a reified 'war' that obscures the disappearance of that very object. The debate on war contributes to the reification of such a war, as an imperative telling us: 'we have a concept, you must learn to think through it'.


Pedogenic carbonate is common in arid and semiarid soils, and though its stable C and O isotope composition has been shown to reflect local environmental conditions, questions remain about the quantitative nature of this relationship, and the implications for paleoclimate applications. To further address these questions, a climosequence of four Holocene soils in Fish Lake Valley, Nevada (western United States), was instrumented and examined over the course of more than a year. The annual precipitation along the transect ranges from ∼80 mm yr −1 to ∼220 mm yr −1 . Results show that the C and O stable isotope compositions of soil CO 2 , H 2 O, and carbonate change systematically with elevation and climate. However, there was considerable temporal variability in the conditions that affected carbonate isotope values. At the lowest elevation, CO 2 δ 13 C and H 2 O δ 18 O values were similar to that in equilibrium with carbonate nearly year-round. At the midelevation sites, spring through summer CO 2 δ 13 C and H 2 O δ 18 O values appeared to most closely match the δ 13 C and δ 18 O values of pedogenic carbonate. At the highest elevation, the C and O isotopes of carbonate did not reflect the soil CO 2 δ 13 C and H 2 O δ 18 O values measured during the period of study, but they did appear to reflect soil respiration rates during the late spring. The transect shows that arid soil carbonate δ 13 C values strongly reflect variations in soil respiration rates and the resulting concentrations of soil CO 2 . These results also indicate that depth profile sampling may be required to adequately constrain respiration rates, which affect the interpreted atmospheric CO 2 concentrations.


The use of Platelet-rich plasma (PRP), a platelet concentrate made of autogenous blood, is becoming use in the treatment of some orthopaedic diseases. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of PRP on articular
cartilage defects in a rabbit model (10 subjects). Twenty osteochondral defects created in the femoropatellar groove, were in ten cases left untreated and in ten cases treated with autogenous PRP. PRP was obtained using a double centrifugation of the rabbit's blood harvested before the operation. 30 days after the lesion was made in both knee, the left one in each rabbit was treated by a PRP injection, followed by other two injection at 45 and 60 days. Tissue specimens were assessed by macroscopic examination and histological evaluation, that showed a better healing of the lesions in the knee treated with PRP injections.


Anode materials of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries have been developed towards the aim of high power density, long cycle life, and environmental benignity. As a promising anode material for high power density batteries for large scale applications in both electric vehicle and large stationary power supplies, the spinel Li4Ti5O12 anode has become more attractive for alternative anodes for its relatively high theoretical capacity (175 mA h g−1), stable voltage plateau of 1.5 V vs. Li/Li+, better cycling performance, high safety, easy fabrication, and low cost precursors. This perspective first introduces recent studies on the electronic structure and performance, synthesis methods, and strategies for improvement including carbon-coating, ion-doping, surface modifications, nano-structuring and optimization of the particle morphology of the Li4Ti5O12 anode. Furthermore, practical applications of the commercial spinel lithium-ion batteries are demonstrated. Finally, the future research directions and key developments of the spinel Li4Ti5O12 anode are pointed out from a scientific and an industrial point of view. In addition, the prospect of the synthesis of graphene–Li4Ti5O12 hybrid composite anode materials for next-generation lithium-ion batteries is highlighted.


Major determining factors for survival of patients with oral, oropharyngeal, and esophageal cancer are early detection, the quality of surgical margins, and the contemporaneous detection of residual tumor. Intuitively, the exposed location at the epithelial surface qualifies these tumor types for utilization of visual aids to assist in discriminating tumor from healthy surrounding tissue. Here, we explored the DNA repair enzyme PARP1 as imaging biomarker and conducted optical imaging in animal models, human tissues and as part of a first-in-human clinical trial. Our data suggests that PARP1 is a quantitative biomarker for oral, oropharyngeal, and esophageal cancer and can be visualized with PARPi-FL, a fluorescently labeled small molecule contrast agent for topical or intravenous delivery. We show feasibility of PARPi-FL-assisted tumor detection in esophageal cancer, oropharyngeal and oral cancer. We developed a contemporaneous PARPi-FL topical staining protocol for human biospecimens. Using fresh oral cancer tissues within 25 min of biopsy, tumor and margin samples were correctly identified with >95% sensitivity and specificity without terminal processing. PARPi-FL imaging can be integrated into clinical workflows, potentially providing instantaneous assessment of the presence or absence of microscopic disease at the surgical margin. Additionally, we showed first-in-human PARPi-FL imaging in oral cancer. In aggregate, our preclinical and clinical studies have the unifying goal of verifying the clinical value of PARPi-FL-based optical imaging for early detection and intraoperative margin assignment.


In-use vehicles which are high emitters make a large contribution to the emissions inventory. It is not known, however, whether high-emitting vehicles share common emissions characteristics. We study this by first examining laboratory measurements of second-by-second engine-out and tailpipe emissions from a small number of MY90-97 highemitting vehicles. We distinguish high-emitter types by the behavior of six ratios in low- and moderate-power driving: the engine-out emissions indices (engine-out pollutant to fuel-rate ratios) and the catalyst pass fractions (tailpipe to engine-out ratios) for CO, HC, and NOx. Four general types of high emitter are observed: 1) fuel-air ratio excessively lean, 2) fuelair ratio excessively rich, 3) partial combustion such as misfire, and 4) severe deterioration in catalyst performance in vehicles where malfunctions of Types 1, 2 or 3 are not predominant. We also find that these behaviors may be chronic, or may only occur transiently. The second step is to determine the prevalence of the four different types of high emitter in the on-road fleet. For this we analyze IM240 tailpipe emissions from a large sample of cars measured in the Arizona inspection and maintenance program. We find that all four types of failure are observed with roughly comparable probabilities.


Improving costs and scale reflect looming opportunities Solar energy has the potential to play a central role in the future global energy system because of the scale of the solar resource, its predictability, and its ubiquitous nature. Global installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity exceeded 500 GW at the end of 2018, and an estimated additional 500 GW of PV capacity is projected to be installed by 2022–2023, bringing us into the era of TW-scale PV. Given the speed of change in the PV industry, both in terms of continued dramatic cost decreases and manufacturing-scale increases, the growth toward TW-scale PV has caught many observers, including many of us (1), by surprise. Two years ago, we focused on the challenges of achieving 3 to 10 TW of PV by 2030. Here, we envision a future with ∼10 TW of PV by 2030 and 30 to 70 TW by 2050, providing a majority of global energy. PV would be not just a key contributor to electricity generation but also a central contributor to all segments of the global energy system. We discuss ramifications and challenges for complementary technologies (e.g., energy storage, power to gas/liquid fuels/chemicals, grid integration, and multiple sector electrification) and summarize what is needed in research in PV performance, reliability, manufacturing, and recycling.


Superconductivity variations deduced from the x-ray diffraction and the magnetic and heat-capacity measurements in the pseudoternary Sr(Pd1−xTx)2Ge2 layer system [Pd(4d8), T = Co(3d7), Ni(3d8), or Rh(4d7); 0 x 1] are reported. For the BaFe2As2-type tetragonal structure, the degenerate nd7 or nd8 orbitals of transition metal T are split by c-axis squeezed T Ge4 tetrahedral crystal field in the T -Ge layer. For the isoelectronic Sr(Pd1−xNix)2Ge2 system, the superconducting transition temperature Tc decreases monotonically from 3.12 K for 4d-band SrPd2Ge2 to 0.92 K for 3d-band SrNi2Ge2, where major contributions of conduction electrons are from the half filled dispersive three-dimensional (3D)-like upper-lying ndxz,yz bands. For the Sr(Pd1−xRhx)2Ge2 system, Tc decreases to 2.40 K with 25% of 4d7 Rh substitution. For the Sr(Pd1−xCox)2Ge2 system, Tc decreases sharply to 2.58 K with only 3% of 3d7 Co substitution. No superconductivity is expected for SrRh2Ge2 and SrCo2Ge2 with lower density of states in dxz,yz bands due to down shift of Fermi energy EF by one less electron per transition metal. The lower Tc of the present electron-overdoped (nd7 or nd8) compound is due to dispersive 3D-like ndxz,yz conduction bands with weak electron correlation, in comparison with the less-electron-doped (3d6.1) 22-K superconductor BaFe1.8Co0.2As2 or the hole-doped (3d5.9) 38-K superconductor Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 where electron contribution is from less dispersive 2D-like lower-lying 3dxy conduction band with stronger electron correlation.


Retention data for a set of 69 compounds using rapid gradient elution are obtained on a wide range of reversed-phase stationary phases and organic modifiers. The chromatographic stationary phases studied are Inertsil (IN)-ODS, pentafluorophenyl, fluoro-octyl, n-propylcyano, Polymer (PLRP-S 100), and hexylphenyl. The organic solvent modifiers are 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (TFE); 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexafluoropropan-2-ol (HFIP); isopropanol; methanol (MeOH); acetonitrile (AcN); tetrahydrofuran; 1,4-dioxane; N,N-dimethylformamide; and mixed solvents of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) with AcN and DMSO with MeOH (1:1). A total of 25 chromatographic systems are analyzed using a solvation equation. In general, most of the systems give reasonable statistics. The selectivity of the reversed phase-high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) systems with respect to the solute's dipolarity-polarity, hydrogen-bond acidity, and basicity are reflected in correspondingly large coefficients in the solvation equation. We wanted to find the most orthogonal HPLC systems, showing the highest possible selectivity difference in order to derive molecular descriptors using the gradient retention times of a compound. We selected eight chromatographic systems that have a large range of coefficients of interest (s, a, and b) similar to those found in water-solvent partitions used previously to derive molecular descriptors. The systems selected are IN-ODS phases with AcN, MeOH, TFE, and HFIP as mobile phase, PLRP-S 100 phase with AcN, propylcyano phase with AcN and MeOH, and fluorooctyl phase with TFE. Using the retention data obtained for a compound in the selected chromatographic systems, we can estimate the molecular descriptors with the faster and simpler gradient elution method.


This chapter investigates whether a specific grammatical marker can be used to identify specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual Spanish-speaking (SS) children that is consistent with a linguistic knowledge deficit account of SLI. A number of grammatical markers that have been identified as vulnerable to error in Spanish-English bilingual children with SLI (articles, clitics, subjunctive verbs, a derivational morphemes) were tested in monolingual SS children with and without SLI. Results indicated significant group differences between monolingual SS children with and without SLI in all grammatical areas tested. However, children with SLI demonstrated considerable variability across grammatical markers such that one particular grammatical marker could not be identified as impaired in all children with SLI. Theoretical and clinical implications of the study are discussed.


A Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimisation technique has been developed for thermoeconomic optimisation of crossflow plate-fin heat exchangers using offset strip fins. The algorithm takes care of a large number of continuous, as well as discrete variables. The optimisation program aims at minimising the Total Thermoeconomic Cost (TTEC) for a specified heat duty, under given space restrictions. The results are also validated through the graphical representation of the contours for thermoeconomic cost. The effect of variation of heat exchanger dimensions on the optimum solution has also been presented.


Disk subsystem is known to be a major contributor to overall power consumption of high-end parallel systems. Past research proposed several architectural-level techniques to reduce disk power by taking advantage of idle periods experienced by disks. Although such techniques have been known to be effective in certain cases, they share a common drawback: they operate in a reactive manner, i.e., they control disk power by observing past disk activity (for example, idle and active periods) and estimating future ones. Consequently, they can miss opportunities for saving power and incur significant performance penalties due to inaccuracies in predicting idle and active times. Motivated by this observation, this paper proposes and evaluates a compiler-driven approach to reducing disk power consumption of array-based scientific applications executing on parallel architectures. The proposed approach exposes disk layout information to the compiler, allowing it to derive the disk access pattern, i.e., the order in which parallel disks are accessed. This paper demonstrates two uses of this information. First, we can implement proactive disk power management, i.e., we can select the most appropriate power-saving strategy and disk-preactivation strategy based on the compiler-predicted future idle and active periods of parallel disks. Second, we can restructure the application code to increase the length of idle disk periods, which leads to better exploitation of available power-saving capabilities. We implemented both these approaches within an optimizing compiler and tested their effectiveness using a set of benchmark codes from the Spec 2000 suite and a disk power simulator. Our results show that the compiler-driven disk power management is very promising. The experimental results also reveal that, although proactive disk power management is very effective, code restructuring for disk power achieves additional energy savings across all the benchmarks tested, and these savings are very close to optimal savings that can be obtained through an integer linear programming (ILP)-based scheme.


Sitatunga is a rare semi-aquatic antelope occurring in wetlands and swampy environments in northern Botswana. Its habitat range in the Okavango Delta is reported to have decreased over the past 100-150 years. Given the projected global climate change, it is essential to first interrogate available data on sitatunga and inundation levels in an effort to avail baseline data to be used for forecasting the behavior of sitatunga populations and distribution over the next 20 years. Regression analyses were applied to wildlife population census from 1992-2012 and 8 decades river flow data. Visualization for Sitatunga observations was also displayed using proportional symbols in ArcGIS 10.2.2. Actual numbers of sitatunga observed declined from 51 in 1996 to about 13 animals in 2008. However, recovery of sitatunga population from about 13 in 2010 to 29 animals in 2011 occurred. The decline in sitatunga population is regarded as a lag response of this species to decrease in inundation level from 1985-1995. Furthermore, population increase from 2008-2011 followed an increase in inundation levels. Therefore, sitatunga population is vulnerable to potential climate change extreme events. Policy interventions and management strategies are needed to conserve it through establishment of sitatunga corridor in prime habitats of the Delta.


What do neuronal precursor cells and non-neuronal cells have in common? Neither expresses the genes typical of differentiated neurons. Yeo et al. now show what else is in common: expression of certain SCP phosphatases. The SCP phosphatases serve to repress the expression of neuronal genes, perhaps stabilizing non-neuronal differentiation programs or keeping progenitor cells in check as they wait for their call to action. Inhibition of the SCP phosphatase activity increased neuronal differentiation. It appears that SCP phosphatase activity acts globally to silence neuronal genes in neuronal precursors and non-neuronal cells. M. Yeo, S.-K. Lee, B. Lee, E. C. Ruiz, S. L. Pfaff, G. N. Gill, Small CTD phosphatases function in silencing neuronal gene expression. Science 307, 596-600 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Abstract The Rough Rock is a coarse-grained fluvial sheet sandstone which outcrops across northern and central England. It is interpreted as a braided river sandstone on the basis of sedimentary structures, internal erosion and growth surfaces. This study reveals that the Rough Rock represents more than a single phase of deposition and that internal erosion surfaces may indicate anabranch avulsions or more significant river avulsions. Detailed outcrop profiles are presented to try and distinguish the styles of deposition and the nature of internal bounding surfaces and channel geometry. The Rough Rock Formation contains a very large number of first and third order bedding contacts, which represent the migration of dunes and channels respectively, there are relatively few macroforms and bars preserved. The lack of second order surfaces within many outcrops could indicate that bars in the Rough Rock rivers were very large and therefore cannot be resolved at the outcrop scale. Similarly, the rivers which deposited the Rough Rock may have had such high width: depth ratios that the dip of second order bounding surfaces are too low to be identified. The large number of third order bounding surfaces indicates channel stacking which may have occurred in two ways: (1) relocation of rivers in the same area over time, or, (2) anabranch avulsion within a braided river within a hierarchy of channels. The problems associated with differentiating between these two mechanisms are discussed.


Obtaining reliable and accessible GIS data is often the most difficult and costly part of an engineering project. Following new tendences, public authorities have started to create GIS repositories or, in some cases, communities have collected and made the date publicly available in initiatives such as OpenStreetMap (OSM). However, in both cases there are some challenges that must be faced. For example, Open Data repositories are usually encoded in several standards and/or in a non computer friendly format (e.g. PDF format). In addition, community-made data may present gaps but generally are encoded following standards and provide very good tools to edit and visualise it. In order to solve these two problems we propose here the use of the following three steps methodology: a) evaluate if the data actually provided by the community is sufficient b) use (or create) the tools to transform these data to the OSM format (and upload it if possible) c) and finally, use their tools to access, edit, visualise or analyse the data. In this way, we have the best of the two worlds: a complete dataset and good tools to manipulate it. Moreover, we will present here three engineering problems where we have successfully applied this methodology: Long-Term Load Forecast, Overhead Power Line inspection with UAV, Environmental quality index. Finally we will present other successful projects that have used OSM data and tools: Technical Cognitive Assistance Systems, Election Results Maps, Flight Gears Terrain Simulator and FireFIGHT


Transmitting ultra wideband (UWB) pulse signals over optical fiber is a certain sign of chromatic dispersion (CD) existence. CD is a serious problem in optical transmission because the velocity of light depends on the frequencies. The effect is strengthened when the optical pulse gets shorter because its spectrum gets broader. This results in a temporal broadening of the initial pulse. The signal is then deformed during propagation, resulting in inter-symbol interference (ISI). Alteration is more pronounced if the optical signal travels further, yielding to shortening the inter-repeater distance. We propose a method for chromatic dispersion compensation. It is based on the temporal Talbot effect that is observed when a periodic signal propagates through a dispersive medium at a given distance named Talbot distance ZT. Our method consists in adding a portion of a dispersive fiber so that the overall propagation distance corresponds to one specific distance, called a fractional Talbot distance. Because a specific length of a generally long fiber is put into play, the tolerance permitted by the approach needs particular attention.


This article examines the role of the endothelial cytoskeleton in the lung's ability to restrict fluid and protein to vascular space at normal vascular pressures and thereby to protect lung alveoli from lethal flooding. The barrier properties of microvascular endothelium are dependent on endothelial cell contact with other vessel-wall lining cells and with the underlying extracellular matrix (ECM). Focal adhesion complexes are essential for attachment of endothelium to ECM. In quiescent endothelial cells, the thick cortical actin rim helps determine cell shape and stabilize endothelial adherens junctions and focal adhesions through protein bridges to actin cytoskeleton. Permeability-increasing agonists signal activation of "small GTPases" of the Rho family to reorganize the actin cytoskeleton, leading to endothelial cell shape change, disassembly of cortical actin rim, and redistribution of actin into cytoplasmic stress fibers. In association with calcium- and Src-regulated myosin light chain kinase (MLCK), stress fibers become actinomyosin-mediated contractile units. Permeability-increasing agonists stimulate calcium entry and induce tyrosine phosphorylation of VE-cadherin (vascular endothelial cadherin) and β-catenins to weaken or pull apart endothelial adherens junctions. Some permeability agonists cause latent activation of the small GTPases, Cdc42 and Rac1, which facilitate endothelial barrier recovery and eliminate interendothelial gaps. Under the influence of Cdc42 and Rac1, filopodia and lamellipodia are generated by rearrangements of actin cytoskeleton. These motile evaginations extend endothelial cell borders across interendothelial gaps, and may initiate reannealing of endothelial junctions. Endogenous barrier protective substances, such as sphingosine-1-phosphate, play an important role in maintaining a restrictive endothelial barrier and counteracting the effects of permeability-increasing agonists.


Abstract Africa's major cities are experiencing dramatic transformation as a result of growing real estate investment. This article explores whether existing theories can explain the dynamics of urban redevelopment in an African context, and how African cases can inform new theorizations of real estate driven urban transformation. Examining the utility of theories of gentrification and speculative urbanism for understanding urban redevelopment in Accra, Ghana, it argues that urban redevelopment in this city has been shaped by its particular (post)colonial history of state land acquisition and urban planning. Rather than simply identifying empirical variation on established theories, however, the article draws on recent research on commodity frontiers to propose an original theorization of urban redevelopment in Accra in terms of the production of a ?real estate frontier?. This real estate frontier is characterized by the incremental and contested commodification of state land to enable the growth of the real estate sector in the city. The article concludes by calling for a comparative research agenda to better understand real estate frontiers globally.


For most people, interacting with a mobile device requires visual commitment to the input mechanism. As a consequence, there are many situations in our daily life when we have to refrain from using these devices, as our vision is already committed: for instance, while texting and walking in a crowded place, one should focus on the environment and not on the phone. A way to type fast, accurately, and with limited visual feedback is provided by chording keyboards. These devices generate a character by simultaneously pressing a combination of keys, and with five keys there are 31 combinations, enough for the letters of the English alphabet. If the keys are adequately placed, we can type with one hand and without looking at them. The main drawback of such keyboards is that the users should learn the correspondence between keys and characters before being able to type. In the first part of this thesis, we present a key-to-character mapping for five-keys chording keyboards and typing studies that estimate the achievable typing rates and error statistics. Besides this, we study the influence of having visual, audio, or no feedback at all on the typing process. The mapping, designed to minimize the learning phase, was completely learned after 45 minutes of training. Moreover, all participants said that this is a lot faster than they had initially expected. After approximately 350 minutes, the average entry speed is 20 words per minute with the maximum above 30 words per minute, regardless of the feedback type. Surprisingly at first, the character error rates are the lowest in the absence of feedback (2.32%) and the highest when one can see what has been typed (3.41%). We should also mention that the participants in the study were instructed not to correct eventual mistakes. Considering these results, the proposed text input method is a viable option for situations when vision is already committed to other tasks. In the second part, we focus on error correction. As we intend to use the keyboard without visual commitment, it is important to find a method to automatically correct typing mistakes. We present two such methods, specifically designed for a five-key chording keyboard. One central element of both methods are the probabilities that one character is typed for another. They are named confusion probabilities and were obtained experimentally. The first method is designed to correct single-word errors and is based on the maximum a posteriori probability rule. For the evaluation text, it reduces the error rate from 10.11% to 2.17%. As reference, MsWord and iSpell only reduce the error rate to 5.15% and 6.69%, respectively. The second method models the typing process as a hidden Markov process and considers the typing context, not only isolated words. In this way, the error rate is further reduced to 1.27%. This is more than three times lower than the two references. A very practical aspect of our work consisted in building several keyboard prototypes. For example, we designed, built, and tested a prototype for a bike. The five keys were placed under the natural position of the fingers on the handlebar. With the help of a wrapper application that captures the input text, we used the keyboard to control the operation of a smartphone while controlling the bike with both hands and staying focused on the road.


Context. The best example of a massive star with an ionized outflow launched from its photoevaporating disk is MWC349A. The large amount of reported radio-continuum and radio-recombination line (RRL) observations toward this galactic UC-HII region offers a unique possibility to build a model of the ionized envelope of this source. Aims. To understand the physical conditions and kinematics of the ionized region of the circumstellar disk and also of the outflow of MWC349A. Methods. We compared the bulk of radio-continuum maps, RRL profiles, and the H30α centroid map published to date with the predictions of our non-LTE 3D radiative transfer model, MOdel for REcombination LInes (MORELI), which we describe here in detail. Results. Our non-LTE 3D radiative transfer model provides new evidence that the UC-HII region of MWC349A is composed of an ionized circumstellar disk rotating in Keplerian fashion around a star of 38 M� , and an ionized outflow expanding with a terminal velocity of 60 km s −1 and rotating in the same sense as the disk. The model shows that while maser amplification is the dominant process involved for Hnα RRL emission with quantum numbers n 41 up at least the H76α line. Conclusions. For the first time, we present a model of MWC349A which satisfactorily explains the vast amount of reported observational data for a very wide range of frequencies and angular resolutions.


The mammalian retina contains three classes of photoreceptor. In addition to the rods and cones, a subset of retinal ganglion cells that express the putative sensory photopigment melanopsin are intrinsically photosensitive. Functional and anatomical studies suggest that these inner retinal photoreceptors provide light information for a number of non-image-forming light responses including photoentrainment of the circadian clock and the pupil light reflex. Here, we employ a newly developed mouse model bearing lesions of both rod and cone phototransduction cascades (Rho−/−Cnga3−/−) to further examine the function of these non-rod non-cone photoreceptors. Calcium imaging confirms the presence of inner retinal photoreceptors in Rho−/−Cnga3−/− mice. Moreover, these animals retain a pupil light reflex, photoentrainment, and light induction of the immediate early gene c-fos in the suprachiasmatic nuclei, consistent with previous findings that pupillary and circadian responses can employ inner retinal photoreceptors. Rho−/−Cnga3−/− mice also show a light-dependent increase in the number of FOS-positive cells in both the ganglion cell and (particularly) inner nuclear layers of the retina. The average number of cells affected is several times greater than the number of melanopsin-positive cells in the mouse retina, suggesting functional intercellular connections from these inner retinal photoreceptors within the retina. Finally, however, while we show that wild types exhibit an increase in heart rate upon light exposure, this response is absent in Rho−/−Cnga3−/− mice. Thus, it seems that non-rod non-cone photoreceptors can drive many, but not all, non-image-forming light responses.


Recently the GEMINI Holographic Particle Image Velocimetry (HPIV) system developed in the Laser Flow Diagnostics (LFD) lab at Kansas State University has been successfully applied in volumetric 3D flow velocity measurement. Due to the 3D nature of this application, very large computation and communication requirements are imposed. An innovation algorithm, the Concise Cross Correlation (CCC), is employed in the system to extract velocity field from the hologram of the test flows. With CCC we achieved a compression ratio of 10/sup 4/ and a processing speed 1000 times faster than with traditional 3D FFT-based correlation. To further accelerate the processing speed for fully time- and space-resolved measurement, parallel processing is necessary. We present our design for a distributed system supporting this previously unparallelized application, and comment on our experiences implementing a master-slave distributed version of CCC utilizing MPI. Brief experimental results on Gigabit Ethernet and multiprocessor Pentium Xeon systems are given.


Abstract Objective: To report on the use of different approaches to assess the reproducibility of a culturally sensitive quantified food frequency questionnaire (QFFQ) used for assessment of the habitual dietary intake of Setswana-speaking adults in the North West Province of South Africa. Method: A previously developed and validated QFFQ was completed by trained fieldworkers. Portion sizes were estimated using different methods. Food intake was coded and analysed for nutrient intake per day for each subject. The first interview (n = 1 888) took place during the baseline data collection period. For the second interview (n = 175), a convenient sample from the subjects who had completed the first interview was collected and the interview was conducted within four to six weeks of the first interview. Results: There were good correlations between the first and second QFFQ for all the nutrients (p < 0.0001). The Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that there were no significant differences in the median intake between the two administrations, except for energy and total fat. The Bland-Altman plots showed good agreement. Between 41% and 58% of the subjects were correctly classified into the same quartile, with less than 3% grossly misclassified. The weighted κ statistics showed moderate agreement between the two applications. Conclusion: Our results show that more than one statistical approach is needed to assess the reproducibility of a QFFQ. The reproducibility of this culturally sensitive QFFQ was good.


Childbirth experience is one of the important outcomes of childbirth, so creating a positive experience of childbirth should always be considered as one of the goals of health care providers and programs. Present study investigate the Iranian women's experience of physiological childbirth and its related factors. This cross-sectional study from June until Dec 2019 was conducted on 185 women based on estimating the average population formula, who had the experience of physiological childbirth in Fatemieh hospital in Hamadan, Iran. Samples were selected by convenience method. Data collection tools included demographic and midwifery questionnaire, childbirth experience questionnaire (CEQ) and midwifery care observation checklist. Data analysis was done using SPSS software (version 24) and descriptive and analytical tests such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov for assessment of normal data distribution and multiple linear regression test were applied. Significance level in the tests was considered less than 0.05.The overall mean score of childbirth experience was 71.85 ± 10.77 (score range of 22-88). Maternal satisfaction with the midwifery care, and the behavior of care providers were reported to be 67.13% and 75%, respectively. In 172 (92.97%) of cases, the backup midwife was present at the mother's bedside. On the other hand, the mean score of childbirth experience in the areas of "support of obstetric care providers", especially back-up midwives (3.44 ± 0.53), and "own capacity" (3.12 ± 0.53) were higher and lower than other areas, orderly. As satisfaction with physiological childbirth was high, suggesting this type of midwifery care conveys great sense of security and satisfaction. This indicates that, the constant presence of midwifery staffs when women need them and minimal use of medical interventions, play an effective role in creating a positive experience of childbirth.


Some  previous  researchers  are still  arguing  about the factors  that determine  the selection of  a  bank. These factors  depend on  the intensity of marketing activities  undertaken  by the  bank,  reputation of the bank, credit availability, friendly staffs, appropriate interest rates, and  location. Jakarta  was  selected for the research location since Jakarta is the biggest city in Indonesia that represents the advancement of the banking industry. Different statistics tools are applied to find the accurate opinion why respondent choose a bank. Based on the results, the research concludes factors that determine in selecting a bank tend to be based on the secondary factors such as recommendation from friends, and advice from family members. DOI :  https://doi.org/10.21632/irjbs.4.1.59-70 Keywords: Bank Marketing


Recent studies underline the contribution of brain-computer interface (BCI) applications to the enhancement process of the life quality of physically impaired subjects. In this context, to design an effective stroke rehabilitation or assistance system, the classification of motor imagery (MI) tasks are performed through deep learning (DL) algorithms. Although the utilization of DL in the BCI field remains relatively premature as compared to the fields related to natural language processing, object detection, etc., DL has proven its effectiveness in carrying out this task. In this paper, a hybrid method, which fuses the one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D CNN) with the long short-term memory (LSTM), was performed for classifying four different MI tasks, i.e. left hand, right hand, tongue, and feet movements. The time representation of MI tasks is extracted through the hybrid deep learning model training after principal component analysis (PCA)-based artefact removal process. The performance criteria given in the BCI Competition IV dataset A are estimated. 10-folded Cross-validation (CV) results show that the proposed method outperforms in classifying electroencephalogram (EEG)-electrooculogram (EOG) combined motor imagery tasks compared to the state of art methods and is robust against data variations. The CNN-LSTM classification model reached 95.62 % (±1.2290742) accuracy and 0.9462 (±0.01216265) kappa value for datasets with four MI-based class validated using 10-fold CV. Also, the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) score, and confusion matrix are evaluated for further interpretations.


Nurse leaders must demonstrate capacities and develop specific informatics competencies in order to provide meaningful leadership and support ongoing transformation of the healthcare system. Concurrently, staff informatics competencies must be planned and fostered to support critical principles of transformation and patient safety in practice, advance evidence-informed practice, and enable nursing to flourish in complex digital environments across the healthcare continuum. In addition to nurse leader competencies, two key aspects of leadership and informatics competencies will be addressed in this chapter - namely, the transformation of health care and preparation of the nursing workforce.


The integration of atmospheric soundings from a fully instrumented aircraft with detailed sedimentary and geomorphic analyses of eolian features in the Ferris dune field of south-central Wyoming lends insight into the manner in which topography interacts with airflow to modify eolian activity. Topographically modified airflow results in zones of airflow deceleration, acceleration, and enhanced atmospheric turbulence, all of which influence the surface morphology and sedimentology. Extreme lateral confluence of prevailing airflow produces accelerated, unidirectional winds. These winds correlate with unusually continuous and elongate parabolic dunes that extend into a mountain gap (Windy Gap). Persistently heightened winds produced at the entrance to Windy Gap have resulted in a concentration of active sand dunes that lack slipfaces. Common development of a strongly amplified atmospheric wave analogous to a hydraulic jump in the gap contributes to the formation of a variety of eolian features that mantle the surface of Windy Gap and the Ferris dune field tail. Heightened, unidirectional winds in this zone promote grain-size segregation, the formation of elongated and aligned sand drifts, climbing and falling dunes, elongate scour streaks, and parabolic dunes that have low-angle (< 20/sup 0/) cross-stratification. Deflation of bedrock and loose sediment has been enhanced in the zonemore » of maximum turbulence beneath the hydraulic jump.« less


Anomaly detection is one of the most important methods to process and find abnormal data, as this method can distinguish between normal and abnormal behaviour. Anomaly detection has been applied in many areas such as the medical sector, fraud detection in finance, fault detection in machines, intrusion detection in networks, surveillance systems for security, as well as forensic investigations. Abnormal behaviour can give information or answer questions when an investigator is performing an investigation. Anomaly detection is one way to simplify big data by focusing on data that have been grouped or clustered by the anomaly detection method. Forensic data usually consists of heterogeneous data which have several data forms or types such as qualitative or quantitative, structured or unstructured, and primary or secondary. For example, when a crime takes place, the evidence can be in the form of various types of data. The combination of all the data types can produce rich information insights. Nowadays, data has become 'big' because it is generated every second of every day and processing has become time-consuming and tedious. Therefore, in this study, a new method to detect abnormal behaviour is proposed using heterogeneous data and combining the data using data fusion technique. Vast challenge data and image data are applied to demonstrate the heterogeneous data. The first contribution in this study is applying the heterogeneous data to detect an anomaly. The recently introduced anomaly detection technique which is known as Empirical Data Analytics (EDA) is applied to detect the abnormal behaviour based on the data sets. Standardised eccentricity (a newly introduced within EDA measure offering a new simplified form of the well-known Chebyshev Inequality) can be applied to any data distribution. Then, the second contribution is applying image data. The image data is processed using pre-trained deep learning network, and classification is done using a support vector machine (SVM). After that, the last contribution is combining anomaly result from heterogeneous data and image recognition using new data fusion technique. There are five types of data with three different modalities and different dimensionalities. The data cannot be simply combined and integrated. Therefore, the new data fusion technique first analyses the abnormality in each data type separately and determines the degree of suspicious between 0 and 1 and sums up all the degrees of suspicion data afterwards. This method is not intended to be a fully automatic system that resolves investigations, which would likely be unacceptable in any case. The aim is rather to simplify the role of the humans so that they can focus on a small number of cases to be looked in more detail. The proposed approach does simplify the processing of such huge amounts of data. Later, this method can assist human experts in their investigations and making final decisions.


EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUE FOR STUDYING HIGH-TEMPERATURE PHASE EQUILIBRIA IN REACTIVE MOLTEN METAL BASED SYSTEMS by Alexandre Ermoline The general objective of this work is to develop an experimental technique for studying the high-temperature phase compositions and phase equilibria in molten metal-based binary and ternary systems, such as Zr-O-N, B-N-O, A1-0, and others. A specific material system of Zr-O-N was selected for studying and testing this technique. The information about the high-temperature phase equilibria in reactive metalbased systems is scarce and their studying is difficult because of chemical reactions occurring between samples and essentially any container materials, and causing contamination of the system. Containerless microgravity experiments for studying equilibria in molten metalgas systems were designed to be conducted onboard of a NASA KC-135 aircraft flying parabolic trajectories. A uniaxial apparatus suitable for acoustic levitation, laser heating, and splat quenching of small samples was developed and equipped with computer-based controller and optical diagnostics. Normal-gravity tests were conducted to determine the most suitable operating parameters of the levitator by direct observations of the levitated samples, as opposed to more traditional pressure mapping of the acoustic field. The size range of samples that could be reliably heated and quenched in this setup was determined to be on the order of 1-3 mm. In microgravity experiments, small spherical specimens (1-2 mm diameter), prepared as pressed, premixed solid components, Zr02, ZrN, and Zr powders, were acoustically levitated inside an argon-filled chamber at one atmosphere and heated by a CO2 laser. The levitating samples could be continuously laser heated for about 1 sec, resulting in local sample melting. The sample stability in the vertical direction was undisturbed by simultaneous laser heating. Oscillations of the levitating sample in the horizontal direction increased while it was heated, which eventually resulted in the movement of the sample away from its stable levitation position and the laser beam. The follow-up on-ground experiments were conducted to study phase relations in the Zr-O-N system at high-temperatures. Samples with specific compositions were laserheated above the melt formation and naturally cooled. Recovered samples were characterized using electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction. Results of these analyses combined with the interpretations of the binary Zr0 and Zr-N phase diagrams enabled us to outline the liquidus and the subsolidus equilibria for the ternary Zr-Zr02-ZrN phase diagrams. Further research is suggested to develop the microgravity techniques for detailed characterization of high-temperature relations in the reactive, metal based systems. EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUE FOR STUDYING HIGH-TEMPERATURE PHASE EQUILIBRIA IN REACTIVE MOLTEN METAL BASED SYSTEMS by Alexandre Ermoline A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering


Orientation: Organisational network analysis (ONA) examines relationships between people and is a potential diagnostic tool to use during team coaching interventions. Research purpose: The objective of this research was to investigate how ONA can be used during a team coaching intervention aimed at addressing business challenges. Motivation for the study: The use of ONA as a diagnostic tool in individual coaching has been researched, but has not been applied in the emerging field of team coaching. Research approach/design and method: An action research methodology employing both quantitative and qualitative methods was used in this research. A purposive sampling approach was used to select a leadership team of four people who received 11 team coaching sessions. Quantitative data were collected from the leadership team and their 18 direct reports, using pre- and post-test intervention ONA questionnaires. Qualitative data were collected after the coaching intervention using semi-structured interviews with the leadership team. Main findings: Organisational network analysis helped to identify team coaching goals based on business challenges. It indicated the extent to which team coaching enhanced communication between the leadership team and their reports, enabling them to address business challenges. Organisational network analysis results taken out of context could, however, be misinterpreted. Practical/managerial implications: Team coaches, ONA practitioners and leadership teams could use ONA as a diagnostic tool during team coaching interventions to identify team coaching goals based on business challenges, to gain insights into team dynamics and to assess the contribution of team coaching for addressing business challenges. Organisational network analysis should not be taken at face value and should ideally be triangulated with other data sources such as interviews. Contribution/value-add: On a scholarly level, this research provides empirical evidence for the benefits of using ONA during a team coaching intervention. On a practice level, suggestions are provided for the manner in which ONA can guide team coaching interventions.


The use of animals for testing and validating new medical devices and surgical techniques has raised ethical issues for a long time. Following the introduction of the Three Rs principle, significant efforts have been made to achieve a reduction in the numbers of animals used in testing. Nevertheless, the number of large animals used for testing purposes is still too high. This article describes a potential alternative to the use of large animals in the early phase of the development of surgical equipment — a high-definition phantom pig abdomen. The phantom pig abdomen was developed from computed tomography scans by using affordable materials, and it was used with two different robotic platforms. It permitted the testing of minimally-invasive robotic pancreatic enucleation, with or without intraoperative ultrasound guidance. The phantom pig abdomen has proven to be a realistic tool, with the potential to reduce the cost and time-frame of the experiments.


Breast cancer is a predominant cause of death in women across the globe. Chemoprevention by using natural, dietary or synthetic products has been appearing to be a fascinating approach to combat the growing burden of breast cancer. In the current study, we intended to explore the mechanisms of chemopreventive action of honokiol against 7, 12 - dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA)-induced mammary cancer in female Sprague Dawlely (SD) rats. We induced mammary cancer in SD rats by administering single dose of DMBA (80 mg/kg) through intra gastric route. Chemopreventive effects of honokiol (80 mg/kg, i.p.) were confirmed from its ameliorating effect on the DMBA-induced anomalies such as liver marker enzymes, Phases I and II metabolizing enzymes and oxidative stress markers. Further, honokiol reversed the DMBA-induced abnormalities in inflammatory cytokines levels and serum tumor markers. Additionally, histopathological examination of mammary tissue and protein expression analysis of NF-κB revealed that honokiol is effective against DMBA-induced mammary cancer. In summary, the results of our study support the chemopreventive feature of honokiol in mammary cancer.


In this contribution two questions are addressed namely what is the influence of policy on multilingual education and what is the impact of multilingual education on practices? By multilingual education is meant content and language integrated learning or CLIL. This paper is organized in three parts. In the first part the influence on policy on multilingual education is studied on two levels. First, the local level, i.e. the region of Flanders in Belgium and, second, the European level will be examined. The second part will study the impact of multilingual education on practice by researching two selected secondary schools, one vocational and one elite school by means of a number of tenets that include linguistic and non-linguistic ones. The main task of the Dylan project was to show the importance of multilingualism in a variety of ways. One of the most important aspects is education at both university and secondary level that should ideally be built upon multilingual primary education. Current scientific research has mainly focussed on aspects of language education while we advocate the idea that learning in another language has a major influence on a number of factors that eventually create better learners. In this way this approach is, first, a contribution to the advantages of multilingualism and, second, a plea for educational innovation via language education. Finally, a number of theoretical pathways are identified to illustrate our major conclusion that opens the way toward a new educational paradigm.


Abstract Semantic technologies provide meaning to information resources in the form of machine-accessible structured data. Research over the past two decades has commonly focused on tools and interfaces for technical experts, leading to various usability problems regarding users unfamiliar with the underlying technologies – so-called nontechnical experts. Existing approaches to semantic technologies consider mostly consumers of structured data and leave out the creation perspective. In this work, we focus on the usability of creating structured data from textual resources, especially the creation of relations between entities. The research was conducted in collaboration with scholars from the humanities. We review existing research on the usability of semantic technologies and the state of the art of annotation tools to identify shortcomings. Subsequently we use the knowledge gained to propose a new interaction design for the creation of relations between entities to create structured data in the subject-predicate-object form. We implemented our interaction design and conducted a user study which showed that the proposal performed well, making it a contribution to enhance the overall usability in this field. However, this research provides an example of how technically sophisticated technology needs to be "translated" to make it usable for nontechnical experts. We need to extend this perspective in the future by providing more insight into the internal functioning of semantic technologies.


Selecting a stimulus as the target for a goal-directed movement involves inhibiting other competing possible responses. Both target and distractor stimuli activate populations of neurons in topographic oculomotor maps such as the superior colliculus. Local inhibitory interconnections between these populations ensure only one saccade target is selected. Suppressing saccades to distractors may additionally involve inhibiting corresponding map regions to bias the local competition. Behavioral evidence of these inhibitory processes comes from the effects of distractors on oculomotor and manual trajectories. Individual saccades may initially deviate either toward or away from a distractor, but the source of this variability has not been investigated. Here we investigate the relation between distractor-related deviation of trajectory and saccade latency. Targets were presented with, or without, distractors, and the deviation of saccade trajectories arising from the presence of distractors was measured. A fixation gap paradigm was used to manipulate latency independently of the influence of competing distractors. Shorter-latency saccades deviated toward distractors and longer-latency saccades deviated away from distractors. The transition between deviation toward or away from distractors occurred at a saccade latency of around 200 ms. This shows that the time course of the inhibitory process involved in distractor related suppression is relatively slow.


Plant cell wall materials derived from a range of waste biomass sources have great potential as a source of sustainable alternatives to petrochemicals. Perhaps the most straightforward way of realising this potential would be to hydrolyse the most efficiently fermentable polymers into their constituent sugars and use yeast to ferment these into useful chemicals. However, it also makes sense to pre-extract components which have a greater value in polymeric form. This is particularly true for non-cellulosic polymers, which are rich in poorly-fermentable pentose sugars. Liquid hot water (LHW) pretreatment can be used to extract non-cellulosic carbohydrates in a cost-effective manner, leaving a cellulose-rich substrate which is easier to hydrolyse using commercial cellulases. However, inherent differences in the plant cell wall structure and composition mean that some biomass sources may be more suitable for exploitation than others. Here, we examine eight different feedstocks (two each from hardwood, softwood, cereal straws and dicotyledonous crops), expose them to 26 different LHW pretreatment conditions and hydrolyse the entire pretreated slurry with a commercial cellulase. This enables side-by-side comparisons, in terms of saccharification yield, of the feedstocks. The results clearly demonstrate considerable differences in suitability between the feedstocks, in relation to the quantity of products released and the processes needed to obtain them.


The urban design process must be transformed and improved if various stakeholders wish to create sustainable urban environments. Although the UK Government and other influential bodies have written many reports recently about the intimate relationship between urban design and sustainability, much more needs to be done to demonstrate how, when and where sustainability is embedded in the urban design process. There is also a need to understand who the decision makers are within this process and what influences their decisions. A clear picture of how the urban design decision-making process works from start to finish, and how sustainability is embedded within this process, can help to achieve the goals and objectives of urban sustainability in the 24-hour city. This paper begins by defining urban design and describing the urban design process, highlighting the major stages and the general tasks involved at each stage. Sustainability and urban sustainable development are briefly discussed next. The final section indicates, through case study research comprising the VivaCity2020 project, where sustainability may be embedded within the urban design process.


Of the many influences on how we view men and women, media are the most pervasive and one of the most powerful. Woven throughout our daily lives, media insinuate their messages into our consciousness at every turn. All forms of media communicate images of the sexes, many of which perpetuate unrealistic, stereotypical, and limiting perceptions. Three themes describe how media represent gender. First, women are underrepresented which falsely implies that men are the cultural standard and women are unimportant or invisible. Second, men and women are portrayed in stereotypical ways that reflect and sustain socially endorsed views of gender. Third, depictions of relationships between men and women emphasize traditional roles and normalize violence against women. We will consider each of these themes in this section.


The cardioprotective effect of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in healthy, postmenopausal women is well documented. Little work has been performed on the effect of HRT in peripheral arteries. Recent work suggests that HRT may adversely affect the patency of peripheral grafts. This study investigates the in vitro effects of estrogen and/or progesterone exposure on adhesion molecule expression by normal human female iliac artery endothelial cells (HIAEC). Control and interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta)-stimulated HIAEC monolayers were labeled with fluorescent-tagged antibodies against the adhesion molecules VCAM-1, ICAM-1, PECAM, and E-selectin. FACS analysis was used to measure antibody-labeled adhesion molecule expression. ICAM-1 and PECAM were found to be constitutively expressed. VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 expression were significantly upregulated by IL-1 beta, while E-selectin was neither constitutively expressed nor upregulated by IL-1 beta. Pretreatment with estrogen or progesterone alone decreased IL-1 beta-stimulated VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 expression, but not to statistically significant levels. Combined hormone exposure significantly decreased, in an additive fashion, the expression of VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 in stimulated cells. This study supports extension of the beneficial effects ascribed to HRT to include the peripheral arterial endothelium of healthy women.


This paper presents and evaluates a protocol for Linear Structure wireless sensor networks which uses a hierarchical addressing scheme designed for this type of networking environment. This kind of linear structure exists in many sensor applications such as monitoring of international borders, roads, rivers, as well as oil, gas, and water pipeline infrastructures. The networking framework and associated protocols are optimized to take advantage of the linear nature of the network to decrease installation, maintenance cost, and energy requirements, in addition to increasing reliability and improving communication efficiency. In addition, this paper identifies some special issues and characteristics that are specifically related to this kinds of networks. Simulation experiments using the proposed model, addressing scheme and routing protocol were conducted to test and evaluate the network performance under various network conditions.


Background Current endovascular techniques have been widely used to treat paraclinoid aneurysms. Methods From January 2009 to December 2011, 126 consecutive patients with 142 saccular paraclinoid aneurysms were treated with endovascular embolization at our institute. A retrospective review of the clinical and imaging data was performed. Results Of the 142 aneurysms, 121 (86.2%) had small while 21 (14.8%) had large fundus size. 83 aneurysms (58.5%) were narrow necked and 59 (41.5%) were wide necked. The dome–neck ratio was favorable in 26 aneurysms (18.3%) and unfavorable in 116 (81.7%). 24 aneurysms (16.9%) were managed with coil embolization and 118 (83.1%) with a stent assisted coiling technique. Immediate angiography demonstrated complete occlusion in 62 (43.7%), neck remnant occlusion in 47 (33.1%), and residual aneurysm occlusion in 33 (23.2%) aneurysms. The overall recurrence rate in the 112 aneurysms with angiographic follow-up (8.88±3.40 months, mean±SD) was 12.5%. Of the 14 recurrent aneurysms, 10 were managed with endovascular treatment (six by stent assisted coiling, four by coiling) while four are under observation. There were six (4.3%) procedural complications during 137 procedures. Clinical follow-up was available for 119 patients (94%) with a follow-up time of 16.6±13.6 months, and the majority (98%) had a modified Rankin scale score of 0–1. Conclusions The stent assisted coiling technique is effective for the treatment of paraclinoid aneurysms. Small paraclinoid aneurysms (≤10 mm) are suitable for endovascular treatment, with a low rate of recurrence. In contrast, large paraclinoid aneurysms (>10 mm) treated with current endovascular techniques exhibited a high rate of recurrence.


Abstract Public awareness of the rising importance of allergies and other respiratory diseases has led to increased scientific effort to accurately and rapidly monitor and predict pollen, fungal spores and other bioaerosols in our atmosphere. An important driving force for the increased social and scientific concern is the realisation that climate change will increasingly have an impact on worldwide bioaerosol distributions and subsequent human health. In this review we examine new developments in monitoring of atmospheric pollen as well as observation and source-orientated modelling techniques. The results of a Scopus® search for scientific publications conducted with the terms 'Pollen allergy' and 'Pollen forecast' included in the title, abstract or keywords show that the number of such articles published has increased year on year. The 12 most important allergenic pollen taxa in Europe as defined by COST Action ES0603 were ranked in terms of the most 'popular' for model-based forecasting and for forecasting method used. Betula, Poaceae and Ambrosia are the most forecast taxa. Traditional regression and phenological models (including temperature sum and chilling models) are the most used modelling methods, but it is notable that there are a large number of new modelling techniques being explored. In particular, it appears that Machine Learning techniques have become more popular and led to better results than more traditional observation-orientated models such as regression and time-series analyses.


Investigation of Fouling in Wavy-Fin Exhaust Gas Recirculators Nagendra Krishnamurthy This dissertation presents a detailed account of the study undertaken on the subject of fouling of Exhaust Gas Recirculator (EGR) coolers. The fouling process in EGR coolers is identified to be due to two primary reasons – deposition of fine soot particles and condensation of hydrocarbons known as dry soot and wet soot fouling, respectively. Several numerical simulations are performed to study the fouling process. Preliminary analysis of the particle forces for representative conditions reveal that drag, thermophoresis and Brownian forces are the significant transport mechanisms and among them, the deposition process is dominated by thermophoresis. Soot deposition in a representative turbulent plain channel shows a direct relationship of the amount of deposition with the near-wall temperature gradient. Subsequently, periodic and developing flow simulations are performed on a wavy channel geometry, a common EGR design for various Reynolds numbers and thermal boundary conditions. Constant heat flux boundary condition is used in the periodic fullydeveloped calculations, which assist in establishing various deposition trends. The wavy nature of the walls is noted to affect the fouling process, resulting in specific deposition patterns. For the lower Reynolds number flows, significantly higher deposition is observed due to the higher particle residence times. On the other hand, the developing flow calculations facilitate the use of wall temperature distributions that typically exist in EGR coolers. The linear dependence of the amount of deposition on the near-wall temperature gradient or in other words, the heat flux, is ascertained. It is also observed in all the calculations, that for the sub-micron soot particles considered, the deposition process is almost independent of the particle size. In addition, the nature of the flow and heat transfer characteristics and the transition to turbulence in a developing wavy channel are studied in considerable detail. Finally, a study on the condensation of heavy hydrocarbons is undertaken as a post-processing step, which facilitates the prediction of the spatial distribution and time-growth of the combined fouling layer. From the calculations, the maximum thickness of the dry soot layer is observed to be near the entrance, whereas for the wet soot layer, the peak is found to be towards the exit of the EGR cooler. Further, parametric studies are carried out to investigate the effect of various physical properties and inlet conditions on the process of fouling.


Background: The ability of primary care Extended Scope Physiotherapists (ESPs) to refer appropriate patients to secondary care has not been adequately examined. Also referrals for shoulder surgery from secondary care ESPs have been shown to be misdirected in comparison to other specialties. Barriers to referral have not been investigated but the literature suggests that referral criteria may improve appropriate referrals. The high prevalence of rotator cuff disease, its impact on pain and disability, and the lack of agreement between surgeons about when to operate indicate that there is a strong case for the development of surgical referral criteria for rotator cuff tear pathology.
Method: The thesis has three stages of study. First a national survey of 99 primary care ESPs was undertaken to determine conversion to surgery rates, barriers to referral and the use of referral criteria. Secondly a national Delphi study with 20 shoulder surgeons was undertaken and surgical referral criteria for rotator cuff tear were developed. Thirdly after development, the criteria were tested on a convenience sample of 9 ESPs using 3 vignette case studies.
Results: Primary care ESPs have a mean conversion rate of 74%. There was not enough data to show differences between subspecialist groups. Most barriers to specialist referral were associated with commissioning rather than issues pertaining to the primary care environment. 50% of ESPs reported using referral criteria which may explain why barriers to referral were relatively low. Surgical referral criteria for rotator cuff tear were developed. Key areas of consensus were: severity of pain, functional limitation, identification of fat atrophy and agreement for a trial of physiotherapy before referral. When referral criteria were piloted on a surgical candidate 33% of the ESPs changed their referral behaviour appropriately.
Conclusion: ESPs in primary care have shown mean conversion rates of 74%. Surgical referral criteria to improve the appropriateness of rotator cuff tear referrals have shown promising results when piloted.
Implications: In future referral criteria may have the potential to improve the appropriateness of rotator cuff referrals and may be beneficial as a benchmark against which ESPs can independently demonstrate the appropriateness and quality of the care they provide.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether age-related differences exist in clinical characteristics, diagnostic approach and management strategies in patients with Cushing's syndrome included in the European Registry on Cushing's Syndrome (ERCUSYN).

DESIGN
Cohort study.

METHODS
We analyzed 1791 patients with CS, of whom 1234 (69%) had pituitary-dependent CS (PIT-CS), 450 (25%) adrenal-dependent CS (ADR-CS) and 107 (6%) had an ectopic source (ECT-CS). According to the WHO criteria, 1616 patients (90.2%) were classified as younger (<65 years) and 175 (9.8%) as older (>65 years).

RESULTS
Older patients were more frequently males and had a lower BMI and waist circumference as compared with the younger. Older patients also had a lower prevalence of skin alterations, depression, hair loss, hirsutism and reduced libido, but a higher prevalence of muscle weakness, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, venous thromboembolism and bone fractures than younger patients, regardless of sex (p<0.01 for all comparisons). Measurement of UFC supported the diagnosis of CS less frequently in older patients as compared with the younger (p<0.05). An extra-sellar macroadenoma (macrocorticotropinoma with extrasellar extension) was more common in older PIT-CS patients than in the younger (p<0.01). Older PIT-CS patients more frequently received cortisol-lowering medications and radiotherapy as a first-line treatment, whereas surgery was the preferred approach in the younger (p<0.01 for all comparisons). When transsphenoidal surgery was performed, the remission rate was lower in the elderly as compared with their younger counterpart (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Older CS patients lack several typical symptoms of hypercortisolism, present with more comorbidities regardless of sex, and are more often conservatively treated.


Situational Awareness (SA) offers an analysed view of system's security posture. Securing Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) and critical infrastructures requires timely and correct SA. System administrators make decisions and modify security mechanisms based on SA information. In this paper, we envision how security adaptation can facilitate administrators' work in the ICS protection. Security adaptation is not widely applied in ICS context. Moreover, existing security adaptation approaches concentrate on recognition of an adaptation need, i.e,. building situational awareness, instead of security decision making. Therefore, we present steps to create a security adaptation plan, and apply fuzzy set theory and linguistic relations for decision making, when SA information indicates that required security is not reached.


Scalable production of human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived β cells in vitro would greatly facilitate transplantation therapy and drug discovery for treating diabetes. Employing step-wise differentiation protocols, hPSCs can be differentiated through consecutive stages of endoderm, foregut, pancreatic and endocrine progenitors to ultimately give insulin secreting β cells. Pancreatic progenitors co-expressing the two key transcription factors (TFs), PDX1 and NKX6.1, are recognized as the indispensable precursors of functional, mono-hormonal β cells. Here, we established an optimized protocol for maximizing PDX1+/NKX6.1+ co-positive pancreatic progenitors from hESCs in monolayer culture and increasing their proliferative capacity. Our technique of dissociating densely formed endodermal cells and re-plating them in lower densities on fresh matrigel matrix followed by an augmented duration of retinoid and FGF10 signaling strikingly increased the expression of NKX6.1, which is exclusive only to β cells amongst all endocrine cells. This high induction of NKX6.1 resulted in an increased proportion of PDX1+/ NKX6.1+ population, generating up to >90% PDX1+/ NKX6.1+ co-positive progenitors in monolayer, higher than previously published protocols. In contrast to multiple studies showing negligible induction of NKX6.1 at lower densities, we provide evidence that higher folds of NKX6.1 can be induced in dissociated cells re-plated lower densities compared to aggregations in non-dissociated culture if the duration of retinoid and FGF signaling is prolonged. Our optimized protocol enhanced pancreatic differentiation efficiency by up-regulating pancreatic progenitor TFs such as PDX1, SOX9, HNF6 and FOXA2 and increased the mRNA levels of endocrine TFs such as NEUROG3, NKX2.2 and NEUROD1. Additionally, we show that manipulating cell-cell attachment following endoderm generation in vitro during pancreatic differentiation dramatically inhibited alternate hepatic fate specification by down-regulating hepatic markers like AFP and ALB expression in our optimized protocol in comparison to recently published protocols for generating pancreatic progenitors. Notably, cell cycle and BrdU incorporation assays revealed that our method increased the proliferative capacity of pancreatic progenitors throughout the differentiation stages by increasing the fraction of cells entering S phase of cell cycle and a comparative increase in Ki67 expression, the proliferation marker. As a result, we obtained >70% Ki67+ /SOX9+ pancreatic progenitors in monolayer confirming an increased self-replicating capacity of the generated PDX1+/ NKX6.1+ progenitors. Furthermore, using our optimized protocol for pancreatic differentiation, we were able to enrich a novel and uncharacterized NKX6.1+ /PDX1- population, devoid of Chromogranin A (CHGA) expression, which are therefore proposed to be more mature precursors of β cell. This population re-arranged themselves in embedded, highly compact three-dimensional structures that showed high expression of Ki67. Continuation of our optimized protocol into endocrine differentiation stage validated the ability of our PDX1+/ NKX6.1+ to generate NGN3+/ NKX6.1+ co-positive endocrine progenitors in vitro with a high expression of CHGA and NKX2.2. Therefore, here we show that manipulating the cellular density, cell-cell attachment and cues from extracellular matrix plays a major role in improving pancreatic differentiation efficiency and proliferation thereby providing a cost-effective method for generating pancreatic progenitors in vitro in adherent culture. Indeed, our novel method for maximizing PDX1+/ NKX6.1+ progenitors from hPSCs in monolayer culture could serve as a source of highly proliferative pancreatic progenitors aiding scalable production of functional β cells in vitro.


Liver chemistry or liver function tests (LFTs), as they are more commonly but erroneously referred to, because they do not test liver function per se, are often used in clinical practice to screen for a variety of liver disorders, monitor the progression of known diseases, and assess the hepatotoxicity of various drugs. The detection of abnormal liver biochemistry in an asymptomatic patients is usually revealed by routine screening in a primary care physician's office, during blood donation or at an examination for insurance purposes and is a common reason for referral to a gastroenterologist or hepatologist.


Beginning in the summer of 1993, seasonal studies were undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of water treatment processes at Little Rock Municipal Water Works (LRMWW). Two treatment facilities were evaluated for the removal of total bacteria and the growth of bacteria during distribution. In addition to conventional data on coliform and heterotrophic plate count (HPC), total bacterial cell counts were used to evaluate seasonal changes in influent (lake water), treatment plant performance for bacterial removal and microbial populations and growth during distribution. The persistence of disinfectant residuals in finished water and in distributed water was also observed to complement data on microbial populations. Chlorine demand studies were conducted in chlorine-demand-free glass containers to observe the persistence of chlorine versus chloramine. These studies were replicated under cold (4°C) and warm (24°C) temperature conditions. Each of the two treatment plant finished waters plus water from a location in the distribution system were evaluated in this series. Non-purgeable organic carbon (NPOC) concentrations were monitored seasonally in the source waters and in both treatment plant effluents. Changes in NPOC during distribution were assessed with respect to the maintenance of disinfectant residuals and the control of bacterial growth during distribution. Overall, the data collected formed the basis for recommendations on the control of microbial quality in the Little Rock water distribution system. The results also form the basis for a new, comprehensive, year-long pilot plant study to be initiated early in 1994.


This paper investigates the nature of exchange market pressures in Egypt, monetary policy responses as well as the effectiveness of monetary interventions in the foreign exchange market. Empirical analysis revealed that the exchange market in Egypt has been exposed to persistent downward pressures, which has been exacerbated starting from 2011. The monetary authority in Egypt used to play an active role in the foreign exchange market to ensure both liquidity and stability in the market in around 69 percent of the sample period considered. However, around 46 percent of monetary policy interventions have been effective in relieving pressures in the foreign exchange market. Moreover, both upward and downward pressures on domestic currency can have a significant negative long run effect on the absorptive capacity of monetary interventions. Finally, logit and probit early warning systems can be useful in predicting exchange market pressures in Egypt.


Objective – We present the case of one-month-old male infant with symptoms of abuse. Case report – The mother gave an accurate history of domestic violence, where the alcoholic father was the perpetrator who hit and shook the infant violently and strongly back and forth. He shaved and squeezed the infant's head against his body and hit the infant with his hand. The infant suffered from multiple fractures of the skull, excoriations and bruises, without loss of consciousness or vomiting. During hospitalization he did not have any further complications and was discharged after hospitalization in good condition. Conclusion – To best of our knowledge, we did not find any described or documented case of shaken-baby syndrome in professional literature in Croatia, so further studies are recommended. The typical patterns of clinical and radiographic findings allow a definitive diagnosis and it is important that health professionals are familiar with them


Neoliberalization and the Changing Roles of Stakeholders in State-Led Shantytown Redevelopment in Shenyang City, China Neoliberal politics in China have changed the roles of, and the interrelationships between, the state, the market and society in urban restructuring. Since 2008, the central state has initiated the Shantytown Redevelopment Projects (SRPs) to improve the living conditions of low-income residents. Between 2008 and 2012, about 12.6 million households were involved in these national SRPs, and forced to move as their dwellings were demolished. This paper investigates how different stakeholders perceive and interact with each other in the state-led SRPs in Shenyang City in Northeast China. Through in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders and analysis of policy documentation on SRPs, we find that there is a complex interplay between centralization, decentralization, marginalization of market forces, and the empowerment of residents in SRPs. The central government has replaced local governments in the initiation of redevelopment projects in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. District-level governments have replaced developers and municipal governments in land expropriation. Developers have become marginalized in SRPs and residents have become more empowered in the land expropriation taking place in urban redevelopment. JEL Classification: O18, R23


Let R be a simple anti-flexible ring of characteristic distinct from 2 and 3. Anderson and Outcalt have proved that R + is a commutative associative ring. The same authors have also shown that a commutative associative ring P of characteristic not 2 gives rise to a simple anti-flexible ring provided P has a suitably defined symmetric belinear form on it. The purpose of this paper is to give an explicit construction of such a symmetric bilinear form and determine the suitable commutative associative rings.


This paper presents some insights into the effect of 'virtual gender' on the way people interact with, make sense of, and build relationships with conversational agents. The focus is on the linkage between sex stereotypes and aggression, in the form of verbal abuse towards the machine. Implications for design of embodied conversational agents are discussed.


I would like to recognize the peer reviewers who donated their precious time and effort to reviewing the manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health in 2016. With an ever increasing competition to attract quality research by major journals in our field, we depend on the expertise of the reviewers to critically appraise the papers. Their comments, detailed and extensive, guide authors to polish their work and propel them to strive for excellence. Their commitment and dedication to this hard and time consuming task ensure that published research are relevant, timely, high quality, and applicable.


Capacitive proximity sensing can be implemented in a wide variety of applications with the use of TI's FDC1004 and with the flexibility of the sensor design in many system environments. Not only are there advantages of using capacitive proximity sensing compared to alternative detection methods, there are also guidelines to follow to ensure maximum performance and stability with the sensing system. This application note describes in detail the basics of proximity sensing and sensor topology considerations that affect various system parameters.


During the past several decades, the rapid expansion of service industry and the automation of manufacturing operations have gradually changed the ratio between direct and indirect labour in favour of the latter and created the need for indirect work measurement and standards. Though a few indirect work measurement and standard systems exist, much still needs to be done to refine and promote indirect work measurement and control techniques. This article develops and applies a flexible procedure for setting indirect work standards. The procedure includes six steps: establishing an accurate information system for indirect manpower planning; defining appropriate allowances; developing effective methods for measuring various types of key tasks; generating a formal engineering report after indirect work standards are established; reviewing and updating indirect labour standards and their supporting data based on analysis of historical data; and setting up a point system and/or a statistical control system when...


This is a study of the Nominal Piece and its Temporals in Dargiyyah Arabic based on the Theory of Government and Binding. Dargiyyah is the hometown of the Saudi Royal Family and the informants participating in the collection of data from this Arabic dialect are aged women who have had very little exposure to foreign influences, such as Classical or Egyptian Arabic. This restriction on the informants is because the new generation no longer speaks this dialect of Arabic. The analysis of this dialect of Arabic ie Dargiyyah Arabic Dialect (D.A.D.) has shown that sentential configurations are of two different kinds: verbal or nominal. The verbal sentence has a VP category while the Nominal sentence has no VP category at any level of syntactic representation, rather it has an NP or a PP predicate. The NP predicate may have a noun, an adjective, an ordinal numeral, or a participle as its head because all these word classes in D.A.D. represent nominals. As for the PP predicate, it is composed of a preposition and its complement. The assumption that the D.A.D. nominal sentence is not derived from a sentential configuration that has a VP category at its Logical Form (ie LF) is verified by two basic premises. The first is the fact that the D.A.D. nominal sentence subsumes to different syntactic rules from those applicable to the verbal sentence. The second is the fact that time is indicated in the nominal sentence by means of an NP that is generated in its Comp, and is called a "temporal NP"; therefore, there is no logical necessity for the assumption that the nominal sentence has a VP category at its LF. The first premise may be exemplified by the fact that the rule of subject inversion is only applicable to the verbal sentence, and not to the nominal sentence. It may also be demonstrated by the fact that the reflexive clitic in the nominal sentence is different from the verbal sentence ie in the nominal sentence, it is a nominal and in the verbal sentence it is a verbal affix. Furthermore, the NP predicate in a nominal sentence is assigned nominative Case whereas it is assigned objective Case in the verbal sentence. As for the indication of time in the D.A.D. nominal sentence, it is solely dependent on the presence of a temporal NP in its Comp., contrary to the verbal sentence, in which it is partly indicated by the temporal NP in its Comp, and partly by the verb form ie whether it be perfective or imperfective. This not only demonstrates the difference in the syntactic behaviour between a nominal sentence and a verbal one but also verifies the second premise ie as an NP in D.A.D. syntax is capable of indicating time, there is no need for the assumption that the nominal sentence in D.A.D. has a VP category at its LF or even an "abstract" VP category at all its levels of syntactic representation. The non-feasibility of the presence of an "abstract" VP category in the D.A.D. nominal sentence for the sake of its time indication is not only refuted on the basis of the fact that the NP in D.A.D. syntax may also indicate time but also on the basis of the fact that a category may be empty if and only if its features are semantically recoverable by another element in the same sentence. Such is the case with the NP category when it is empty, for example in D.A.D., we have an argument small pro, an impersonal small pro, an NP-trace and a variable, all of which partition the syntactic distribution of the NP category and whose features are recoverable by a local determiner or an antecedent. If on the other hand, we assume that the VP category may also be empty, then its features must be recoverable by another element in the sentence. But this is not possible in D.A.D. syntax because the verb form is associated with either the Perfective or the Imperfective aspect whereas the D.A.D. temporals, which are generated in Comp, as an NP, are associated with the syntactic features of present, past, future or continuous time reference; therefore, neither the temporal nor the verb can substitute for the other because each conveys a different time perspective. Accordingly, it is maintained that whenever the perfective or the Imperfective aspect is required, then the sentential configuration has a VP category at every level of its syntactic representation and in such a case we have a verbal sentence. But whenever these aspects are not required, then there is no VP category at any level of its syntactic representation and we have a nominal sentence, whose present, past, future and continuous time reference is indicated by the presence of a temporal NP in its Comp. The temporal in D.A.D. has been regarded as being of the NP category because it may have as its head a temporal nominal, which represents one of the subclasses in the general class for nominals in D.A.D. syntax. That is, as the time expressions in D.A.D. syntax have some of the syntactic behaviour of the noun in its syntactic system, they have been regarded as nominals and are called temporal nominals. In turn the category they are generated in is an NP category and it is called a temporal NP. This in turn leads to the verification of the fact that there is no logical necessity for the assumption that every clause has a VP category (at least at its LF for its time indication) even when it does not appear at its surface structure.


We report a series of semi-crystalline, low band gap (LBG) polymers and demonstrate the fabrication of highly efficient polymer solar cells (PSCs) in a thick single-cell architecture. The devices achieve a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 7% without any post-treatment (annealing, solvent additive, etc.) and outstanding long-term thermal stability for 200 h at 130 °C. These excellent characteristics are closely related to the molecular structures where intra- and/or intermolecular noncovalent hydrogen bonds and dipole–dipole interactions assure strong interchain interactions without losing solution processability. The semi-crystalline polymers form a well-distributed nano-fibrillar networked morphology with PC70BM with balanced hole and electron mobilities (a h/e mobility ratio of 1–2) and tight interchain packing (a π–π stacking distance of 3.57–3.59 A) in the blend films. Furthermore, the device optimization with a processing additive and methanol treatment improves efficiencies up to 9.39% in a ∼300 nm thick conventional single-cell device structure. The thick active layer in the PPDT2FBT:PC70BM device attenuates incident light almost completely without damage in the fill factor (0.71–0.73), showing a high short-circuit current density of 15.7–16.3 mA cm−2. Notably, PPDT2FBT showed negligible changes in the carrier mobility even at ∼1 μm film thickness.


Although short-range wireless communication explicitly targets local and regional applications, range continues to be a highly important issue. The range directly depends on the so-called link budget, which can be increased by the choice of modulation and coding schemes. The recent transceiver generation in particular comes with extensive and flexible support for software-defined radio (SDR). The SX127× family from Semtech Corp. is a member of this device class and promises significant benefits for range, robust performance, and battery lifetime compared to competing technologies. This contribution gives a short overview of the technologies to support Long Range (LoRa™) and the corresponding Layer 2 protocol (LoRaWAN™). It particularly describes the possibility to combine the Internet Protocol, i.e. IPv6, into LoRaWAN™, so that it can be directly integrated into a full-fledged Internet of Things (IoT). The proposed solution, which we name 6LoRaWAN, has been implemented and tested; results of the experiments are also shown in this paper.


The California state prison system is proving ill-equipped to deal with the state's mentally ill prisoner population. This paper examines the ways in which mentally ill felons are not receiving adequate care while in prison as well as appropriate preparation for life after their release. The paper argues that the result is an avoidable drain on the state's budget as well as unnecessarily high recidivism rates for this population. Accordingly, constructive policy recommendations for ameliorating this shortcoming of the prison system are proposed.


In force since July 2007, the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (NHCR, EC No 1924/2006) ensures a compromise between consumers protection and economic competitiveness in the food sector. Many food companies develop innovative products in response to increased consumer demand for nutrition that is more conscientious of health. Thus, the use of claims, which assert that a food has particular nutritional properties or a relationship with health, supports better understanding by consumers, enables them to make more appropriate choices, and allows food business operators to propose more attractive products for the market. However, in order to protect consumers against misleading communications, assure fair competition and promote innovation, the NHCR lays down conditions for the authorisation of claims, which includes justification through generally accepted scientific evidence.


There is little evidence about how collective intelligence, social networks, and communities of practice work in maternal health projects. In this paper, we discuss the approaches towards collective intelligence in a project by focusing on the virtual and web-based environments communities of practice and social network approach. This paper builds upon a research project IS0907 COST action and focuses on the communities of practice, social media within organization and team projects, and how through these networks and communities collective intelligence is building. Also, the current investigation stands as an example of COST IS0907 team and the relationship built between countries and communities of practice through working groups, manage knowledge transfer, and improve research collaboration and partnerships. This article aims to present the working environment developed to facilitate collective intelligence role in knowledge building and how communities of practice can enrich collaboration, in maternal health project settings, both educational and effective health research and knowledge building.