This paper introduces Stata commands [R] npivreg and [R] npivregcv, which implement nonparametric instrumental variable (NPIV) estimation methods without and with a cross-validated choice of tuning parameters, respectively. Both commands are able to impose monotonicity of the estimated function. The use of such a shape restriction may signi cantly improve the performance of the NPIV estimator (Chetverikov and Wilhelm 2017). This is because the ill-posedness of the NPIV estimation problem leads to unconstrained estimators that suffer from particularly poor statistical properties such as very high variance. The constrained estimator that imposes the monotonicity, on the other hand, signi cantly reduces variance by removing oscillations of the estimator that is nonmonotone. We provide a small Monte Carlo experiment to study the estimators' finite sample properties and an application to the estimation of gasoline demand functions.


Arizona State Pavement Management System (PMS) is described in this paper. Experience shows that many factors must be considered in deciding how to maintain a particular mile of the road including its altitude, average temperature, moisture conditions, structural properties, and traffic density. The central question is how poor should each road segment be before it is repaired and which of the many possible repair actions should be taken. The implementation of the pavement management system to solve this problem resulted in a savings of million dollars. The heart of the Arizona Pavement Management System is an optimization model, termed the Network Optimization System (NOS). It recommends preservation policies that achieve standards for road conditions at the lowest possible cost. NOS is based on formulating the problem as a constrained Markov decision process that captures the dynamic and probabilistic aspects of the pavement management problem. Linear programming is used to find the optimal solution.


The Spitzer-South Pole Telescope Deep Field (SSDF) is a wide-area survey using Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) to cover 94 square degrees of extragalactic sky, making it the largest IRAC survey completed to date outside the Milky Way midplane. The SSDF is centered at 23:30,-55:00, in a region that combines observations spanning a broad wavelength range from numerous facilities. These include millimeter imaging from the South Pole Telescope, far-infrared observations from Herschel/SPIRE, X-ray observations from the XMM XXL survey, near-infrared observations from the VISTA Hemisphere Survey, and radio-wavelength imaging from the Australia Telescope Compact Array, in a panchromatic project designed to address major outstanding questions surrounding galaxy clusters and the baryon budget. Here we describe the Spitzer/IRAC observations of the SSDF, including the survey design, observations, processing, source extraction, and publicly available data products. In particular, we present two band-merged catalogs, one for each of the two warm IRAC selection bands. They contain roughly 5.5 and 3.7 million distinct sources, the vast majority of which are galaxies, down to the SSDF 5-sigma sensitivity limits of 19.0 and 18.2 Vega mag (7.0 and 9.4 microJy) at 3.6 and 4.5 microns, respectively.


In this paper, I discuss how the intersection of qualitative inquiry and poetic-inquiry grounded in arts-based research allows me to construct knowledge about self and the transnational shuttling of two female graduate students from India during their first year of education in the United States. Resonating with the participants' experiences, I describe the messiness of being an insider-outsider researcher and use arts-based research to portray the in/visible forms of voice, silence, and secrets. Specifically, I play with poetic representation to blur the boundaries between the researcher and the researched while integrating multiple forms of arts-based ways of collecting data that explore how silence and secrets function in the lives of transnational females. Calling for an integration of arts-based epistemologies, I emphasize the need to conceptualize arts-based approaches not just at the data representation stage in qualitative inquiry but throughout the entire qualitative research process.


The Iron Curtain, running from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, divided Europe for almost 40 years and no activity was allowed in this "forbidden" zone. When it fell in 1989, it left a strip of land that runs the entire length of Europe and that has remained comparatively undisturbed – a green belt. The Green Belt initiative aims to integrate this entire strip of land with its key habitats and ecological areas as part of an international network of valuable ecosystems. This book provides background information on the initiative, reviews current activities in a number of case studies and looks at how the initiative can fit into current and future global efforts to protect European biodiversity.


Massive MIMO enabling dynamic beamforming is one key component in 5G New Radio (NR). Narrow beams improve capacity by reduced interference and extend coverage by increased antenna gain. One implementation of dynamic beamforming is Grid-of-Beams (GoB) with fixed narrow beams. In this study, the per beam characteristics are measured in a full-scale micro cell deployment with a mm-wave 5G NR test-bed. It is shown that the channel characteristics are strongly dependent on reflections captured within each beam. Channel conditions such as delay spread, singular value ratio and MIMO rank differ also between adjacent beams. Reflections may even cause significant path length difference which may call for individual synchronization per beam, e.g. meaning that beams at same transmission point may not always be considered quasi co-located (QCL).


Concept map activities often lack a subsequent revision step that facilitates knowledge integration. This study compares two kinds of concept map critique activities embedded in an evolution unit: Student dyads in one group compared their concept maps against an expert map while dyads in the other group conducted a peer-review. Analysis of the concept maps suggests that both treatment groups significantly improved their understanding of evolution. However, the two groups developed different criteria: The expert-map group focused mostly on concept-focused criteria like concept classification while the peer-review group used more link-focused criteria like link labels and missing connections. This paper suggests that both critique activities can be beneficial to making more coherent connections across different topics in biology.


The purpose of this research project is to delve into political media and gain an insight into how politicians use text to communicate with their audience. Politics is a driving force in the world; they use power of persuasion, mass media and influence to gain supporters. The way that politicians do this is through their speeches and other modes of texts. The goal of this project is to use different text analytics tools to explore the domain of political media. Using NLP, analysis will be conducted to determine sentimentality tone, personality insights, similarity of politicians, how audience react and which buzzwords are used as form of influence. Analysis was conducted on presidential speeches and twitter as a source of political debate. An analysis of the emotional tone and psychological factors gathered from a politician's text allow us to see how they apply influence in their media. Sentiment analysis from Twitter shows how powerful the micro blogging platform is as a means of influencing political factors. The steps of this project are discussed in detail through applying the KDD methodology along with suggestions for further work.


With many potential practical applications, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has attracted substantial attention during the past few years. A variety of relevance feedback (RF) schemes have been developed as a powerful tool to bridge the semantic gap between low-level visual features and high-level semantic concepts, and thus to improve the performance of CBIR systems. Among various RF approaches, support-vector-machine (SVM)-based RF is one of the most popular techniques in CBIR. Despite the success, directly using SVM as an RF scheme has two main drawbacks. First, it treats the positive and negative feedbacks equally, which is not appropriate since the two groups of training feedbacks have distinct properties. Second, most of the SVM-based RF techniques do not take into account the unlabeled samples, although they are very helpful in constructing a good classifier. To explore solutions to overcome these two drawbacks, in this paper, we propose a biased maximum margin analysis (BMMA) and a semisupervised BMMA (SemiBMMA) for integrating the distinct properties of feedbacks and utilizing the information of unlabeled samples for SVM-based RF schemes. The BMMA differentiates positive feedbacks from negative ones based on local analysis, whereas the SemiBMMA can effectively integrate information of unlabeled samples by introducing a Laplacian regularizer to the BMMA. We formally formulate this problem into a general subspace learning task and then propose an automatic approach of determining the dimensionality of the embedded subspace for RF. Extensive experiments on a large real-world image database demonstrate that the proposed scheme combined with the SVM RF can significantly improve the performance of CBIR systems.


Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) accounts for half of the building energy consumption in the U.S where Mini-Split Heat Pumps (MSHPs) are an emerging type of HVAC system. Their utilization has greatly increased by 34% from 2009 to 2013 and high potential EER is recognized for MSHPs. However, there is limited research involving MSHPs systems, and there is no generic benchmark for system testing and modeling. The available simulation tools such as VapCyc, GreatLab, and CYCLE_D are either too complicated, difficult to access, or not freely available. Therefore, an accurate and public share generic benchmark is essential and will be researched for researchers and scientists. In this study, the Heat Pump Design Model (HPDM) is utilized to investigate MSHP performance values. There are five different kinds of input parameters necessary for the HPDM, namely a general system description, system refrigerant-side balancing, compressor characteristics which need a compressor scaling method, fin-and-tube heat exchanger parameters, and system operating conditions. Based on systematic inputs of the HPDM, several key outputs can be obtained, including system capacity, power consumption, and mass flow rate. By comparing output values with existing data sets, the capability of a generic model for MSHP can be identified. In order to validate the methodology analyzed above, two kinds of case studies will be presented. In the first study, a comparison of lab data and simulation results is presented, whereas in the second one, a comparison is conducted between manufacturing data and simulation results. By identifying all of the input parameters for the specified unit, which is the LG LA096HV in this study, the HPDM can obtain simulation results immediately. As indicated by simulation results, the HPDM can be a generic benchmark in a certain temperature range with a relative error below 5%.


This article describes a causal expert system based on hypothetical reasoning and its application to the maintenance of the lower hoist of a Mark 45 turret gun. The system, Hoist, performs fault diagnosis without the use of a repair expert or shallow rules. Its knowledge is coded directly from a structural specification of the Mark 45 lower hoist. The technology reported here for assisting the less experienced diagnostician differs considerably from normal rule-based techniques: It reasons about machine failures from a functional model of the device. In a mechanism like the lower hoist, the functional model must reason about forces, fluid pressures, and mechanical linkages; that is, it must reason about qualitative physics. Hoist technology can be directly applied to any exactly specified device for the modeling and diagnosis of single or multiple faults. Hypothetical reasoning, the process embodied in Hoist, has general utility in qualitative physics and reason maintenance.


There is, in retrospect, a certain inevitability about the 1993 Merchant/Ivory cinematic adaptation of The Remains of the Day. The novel itself seemed made to order for the team's literary sensibilities: an opulent period piece centered on the gradual coming to emotional consciousness of a central character whose life work placed him at the "hub" of unvoiced class conflict. Not unsurprisingly, the film's release on the heels of their adaptations of E.M. Forster novels had the effect of underscoring the implicit Forsterian values of Ishiguro's novel: responsibility, the importance of "connection," a liberal vision of the Condition of England. Indeed, the release of Howard's End just the year before furthered these links--critics pointed out that the latter film's recasting of Remains's leads (Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson) and similarities in setting (country houses in some now lost past) and thematics (those Forsterian values again) had the effect of serializing the two films. In this Derridean imbrication of source and response, the romance plot that remains a narrative loose end in Remains is happily resolved in the adaptation of Howard's End, a film set decades before Remains. Such retroactive resolution also serves as perhaps the calling card for a genre that had become virtually synonymous with the Merchant/Ivory team over the course of the 80s and early 90s--the "heritage film." (1) It thus seems fitting that this cycle, one characterized by Edwardian and Georgian settings and adaptations staged in front of luxurious upper-crust settings, would conclude by making the country houses that had been the back-drops for the genre characters in their own right. By doing so, both films--and their source novels--come to stand as summary statements of the debates surrounding the heritage films: that their narratives were short-circuited by a fetishistic focus on aristocratic settings, that the liberal ethics of the source novels had been defused by an imagery that owed much to Margaret Thatcher's "heritage politics"--in short, that a Saatchian sheen speaks louder than Forsterian narration in these films. As such, these films ironically serve as very different Condition of England narratives in their schizophrenic deployment of conservative imagery and liberal narrative judgment. They thus vividly depict a crisis in national identity, one that is written back into the novels themselves. It is through the prism of this rewriting that I will examine Englishness in The Remains of the Day, a national identity that is both figured in--and affected by--the recirculation of heritage imagery back into novelistic form. Because of this iterative tension between iconography and evaluation, Remains poses an interpretative problem: to what degree is the house and the relations it embodies ironized? Indeed, this issue raises the further problem of the connection between Ishiguro's novel and the loss of Empire: on the one hand, the novel studiously avoids any direct treatment of imperial relations; on the other, as Salman Rushdie points out, the fact that the novel's present is the very month the Suez crisis began with Nasser's nationalization of the Canal is no accident (246). It is precisely this obscuring of relations that I will track in Remains. In addition to the novel's country house, Darlington Hall, this cloaking operation drapes itself around the sites of the English landscape and the village of Moscombe, all of which are important settings for the novel's articulation of a pastoral and nostalgically positioned Englishness. My argument here depends on postcolonial accounts of Englishness: that this national identity was formulated in large part through the "traumatic scenario of racial difference" encountered in the colonial crucible (Bhabha 107). (2) Englishness was formulated by retroactively identifying the key features of English culture seen to distinguish colonizer from the radical alterity of the colonized. …


As teacher educators, preparing student–teachers who are able to address diverse student needs is our main concern. It has been suggested in the literature that teachers who are adaptive to students' needs are those who possess adequate pedagogical content knowledge or pedagogical understanding. However, it is not uncommon for teacher educators to find student–teachers with diverse pedagogical understandings even at the point of graduation from the teacher education programme. This paper aims to explain and analyse the development of pedagogical understanding among student–teachers in an initial teacher education programme. The findings are drawn from a study conducted at the Hong Kong Institute of Education where in-depth interviews were carried out during the four-year programme. The findings from the three selected cases provide an explanation for why some individual student–teachers show continuous development, whereas others remain confused in their pedagogical understanding throughout the teacher education programme. While acknowledging individual differences in pedagogical understanding, we attempt to explain such differences by investigating the relationship between different dimensions of the student–teachers' learning such as the integration of pedagogical understanding with the teaching contexts, integration of feedback from lecturers and supporting teachers, and their focus of concern. The findings reveal that the three cases demonstrate different levels of pedagogical understanding and possess varying 'senses of agency'. Of the three cases, the first one, Peggy has the strongest sense of agency. Despite influences related to classroom management, diverse learning ability among pupils, and the teaching methods which pupils were accustomed to previously, she actively introduced rhythmic movements into her lessons, developed pupils' ability to learn gradually and achieved an impact on pupils' learning which was also recognized by her supporting teacher. The analysis suggests that the second case, Lilian has a weaker sense of agency as she was severely limited by influences in the teaching context in her first teaching practice and resorted to teacher-centered teaching strategies. She improved later on in the programme and started to plan her own learning, drawing on the feedback she received as well as learning from other taught modules, from feedback from various sources, and from her pupils' responses to her teaching and her own evaluation of her teaching. The third case, Stephanie remained confused throughout the programme and struggled with the implementation of student-centered teaching strategies. The ability to practice one's own convictions and demonstrate an active sense of agency distinguishes the student–teacher who achieves better pedagogical understanding. Drawing on the findings, the paper concludes that it is crucial for teacher educators to identify ways to nurture a sense of agency among student–teachers. Implications for teacher education programmes are discussed, including providing opportunities for student–teachers to be able to articulate and integrate their pedagogical understandings, as well as negotiate how to accomplish their learning and teaching targets despite complex classroom situations.


The Supreme Court's decision denying certification of a class action in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes elicited a strong dissent from Justice Ginsburg, and widespread criticism in liberal circles, but in several important respects, the decision was unanimous. All the Justices agreed that a class action could not be certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2), the rule which governs class actions in which injunctive relief is "appropriate respecting the class as a whole." The holding that divided the Justices concerned the failure of the plaintiffs' case to meet the requirement of Rule 23(a)(2) that there were "questions of law or fact common to the class." Yet even on this issue there were points of apparent agreement, and one of them was the need to inquire into the merits to determine whether the prerequisites to certification were satisfied. This article begins by situating this widely accepted observation in the context of perennial disputes over substance and procedure in class actions. It then turns to the question of where to put certification decisions in the structure of pretrial litigation: in pleading, discovery, or summary judgment. That inquiry, in turn, leads to the larger question of how to reform class action procedure. Looking to the merits provides a way to differentiate among class actions, both in fine-grained analysis of particular claims and in broad terms defined by different areas of law. The cases and commentary on class actions presume that class actions must be divided into conventional categories, such as mass torts, consumer class actions, civil rights claims, and securities class actions, but they provide little more than a pragmatic justification for this division. A look at the merits was tacitly accepted as the premise of most analyses of class actions before Wal-Mart. This article provides a theoretical justification for doing so -- at the level of legal doctrine, based on the relationship between the substance of a claim and the requirements of Rule 23, and at the level of optimal enforcement, by identifying cases in which the expense of aggregate litigation yields gains in the basic goals of compensation, deterrence, and efficient litigation.


Over the last decade, the study of complex networks has expanded across diverse scientific fields. Increasingly, science is concerned with the structure, behavior, and evolution of complex systems ranging from cells to ecosystems. Modern network approaches are beginning to reveal fundamental principles of brain architecture and function, and in Networks of the Brain, Olaf Sporns describes how the integrative nature of brain function can be illuminated from a complex network perspective. Highlighting the many emerging points of contact between neuroscience and network science, the book serves to introduce network theory to neuroscientists and neuroscience to those working on theoretical network models. Brain networks span the microscale of individual cells and synapses and the macroscale of cognitive systems and embodied cognition. Sporns emphasizes how networks connect levels of organization in the brain and how they link structure to function. In order to keep the book accessible and focused on the relevance to neuroscience of network approaches, he offers an informal and nonmathematical treatment of the subject. After describing the basic concepts of network theory and the fundamentals of brain connectivity, Sporns discusses how network approaches can reveal principles of brain architecture. He describes new links between network anatomy and function and investigates how networks shape complex brain dynamics and enable adaptive neural computation. The book documents the rapid pace of discovery and innovation while tracing the historical roots of the field. The study of brain connectivity has already opened new avenues of study in neuroscience. Networks of the Brain offers a synthesis of the sciences of complex networks and the brain that will be an essential foundation for future research.


Manual vectorization of multispectral images is a widely used method for making land-use or land-cover maps. Although it is usually considered relatively accurate it is very time consuming, which has prompted the use in recent years of various semiautomatic methods for classifying remotely sensed images. One of the most promising of the latter is object-oriented image analysis based upon image segmentation, but the accuracy of its results, as well as its time demands, are disputed. Accordingly, this paper compared manual vectorization with object-oriented classification to reveal the strong and weak points of each. Two qualitatively different datasets were classified using both methods; time costs were monitored and accuracy levels were compared. It was found that manual vectorization achieved better overall accuracy (up to 93% versus 84%), but the semiautomatic method was usually more accurate when classifying some specific features such as roads, built-up areas, broadleaf trees and coniferous trees. The verdict regarding time-efficiency was less clear cut. The best method depends upon the spatial and spectral resolution of the data being processed.


Over two hundred extrasolar planets have been discovered to date with various methods. This thesis reports on searching for extrasolar planets and characterising them by simulating their atmospheres. We used open clusters as targets for deep transit searches, with specific emphasis on the University of St. Andrews Planet Search at the Isaac Newton Telescope. We reduced CCD photometry and described the algorithm we used to search for transits. We estimated the number of transits we expect from our data. We then reduced photometry for the open cluster NGC 6940. From that data we found 18 low-amplitude, short-duration events, though none are transiting planets. They are all eclipsing binary stars. However, our null result constrains the number of planets around M dwarfs, the most numerous stars in our sample. In order to characterise reflected light from extrasolar planets, we built a three-dimensional Monte Carlo based radiation transfer model of extrasolar planetary atmospheres. We detailed the input parameters of the model, and show results of various models, focusing especially on the fractal nature of the clouds of our models, because these are the first three dimensional radiation transfer models of extrasolar planet atmospheres. We found very low geometric albedos in our simulations. Using data specific to the transiting planet HD 209458b, we built a model atmosphere with Rayleigh-scattering hydrogen gas and clouds of enstatite and iron. We show in several models the rarity of a bright HD 209458b, and conclude with some explanations on why extrasolar planets are likely dark and not detected with reflected light.


This paper uses a combined experimental and theoretical approach to gain unique insight into gene delivery. We report the synthesis and investigation of a new family of second-generation dendrons with four triamine surface ligands capable of binding to DNA, degradable aliphatic-ester dendritic scaffolds, and hydrophobic units at their focal points. Dendron self-assembly significantly enhances DNA binding as monitored by a range of experimental methods and confirmed by multiscale modeling. Cellular uptake studies indicate that some of these dendrons are highly effective at transporting DNA into cells (ca. 10 times better than poly(ethyleneimine), PEI). However, levels of transgene expression are relatively low (ca. 10% of PEI). This indicates that these dendrons cannot navigate all of the intracellular barriers to gene delivery. The addition of chloroquine indicates that endosomal escape is not the limiting factor in this case, and it is shown, both experimentally and theoretically, that gene delivery can be correlated with the ability of the dendron assemblies to release DNA. Mass spectrometric assays demonstrate that the dendrons, as intended, do degrade under biologically relevant conditions over a period of hours. Multiscale modeling of degraded dendron structures suggests that complete dendron degradation would be required for DNA release. Importantly, in the presence of the lower pH associated with endosomes, or when bound to DNA, complete degradation of these dendrons becomes ineffective on the transfection time scale-we propose this explains the poor transfection performance of these dendrons. As such, this paper demonstrates that taking this kind of multidisciplinary approach can yield a fundamental insight into the way in which dendrons can navigate barriers to cellular uptake. Lessons learned from this work will inform future dendron design for enhanced gene delivery.


BACKGROUND
Regular physical activity after breast cancer diagnosis improves survival rates and quality of life (QOL). However, breast cancer survivors rarely meet guidelines for recommended levels of physical activity. Wellness coaching interventions (WCIs) have improved exercise and health behaviors in other patient populations.

OBJECTIVES
This study assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of WCIs for increasing physical activity in breast cancer survivors; secondary measures included changes in dietary habits, weight, and QOL.

METHODS
20 obese or overweight breast cancer survivors who recently completed active breast cancer treatment were recruited into a single-arm, 12-week WCI pilot feasibility study. The intervention was comprised of one in-person wellness coaching visit followed by four telephone calls over 12 weeks and 12 weekly emails containing wellness recommendations.

FINDINGS
Significant improvements from pre- to postintervention were seen in physical activity level, dietary habits, and in some aspects of QOL. Forty percent of participants achieved the 3% postintervention weight-loss goal, but this was not sustained at 30 weeks.


Allen and March provide a critique of one of our papers in which we argue composites should be represented as entities/objects in a conceptual model rather than relationships/associations (Shanks et al. 2008). They contend we have addressed a non-issue. Furthermore, they argue our theoretical rationale and empirical evidence have flaws. In this paper, we provide a response to their arguments. We show that the issue we address is substantive. We show, also, that our theoretical analysis and empirical results are robust. We find, instead, that Allen and March's theoretical arguments and empirical evidence have flaws.


The whole world wants to invest in India. But how to do this successfully? Written by two Indian financial experts with a seasoned expert of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, this book tells you the why and how of investing in India. It explains how India's financial markets work, discusses the amazing growth of the Indian economy, identifies growth drivers, uncovers areas of uncertainty and risk. It describes how each market works: private equity and IPOs, bonds, stocks, derivatives, commodities, real estate, currency. The authors include a discussion of capital controls in each section to address the needs of foreign investors. Learn about the the markets, the instruments, the participants, and the institutions governing trading, clearing, and settlement of transactions, as well as the legal and regulatory framework governing financial securities transactions.

 --Written by two life-long insiders who can explain India's financial markets to outsiders
 --Clear and comprehensive coverage of this economic powerhouse
 --Caters to the needs of foreign investors


Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Technology provides a comprehensive, easy-to-understand treatment of the background, development, and applications of the gas turbine engine it its various forms, such as turobjet, turbofan, turboprop, and turboshaft powerplants. Designed primarily as a resource for technicians preparing for the FAA aircraft powerplant mechanic certification, Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Technology also may be used a reference. The text also discusses the changing maintenance and overhaul procedures and philosophies and the role of fuel metering in engine operation.


BACKGROUND
Understanding the severity of patients' dyspnea is critical to avoid under- or overtreatment of patients with acute cardiopulmonary conditions.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the agreement between dyspnea assessment by patients and healthcare providers and to explore which factors contribute to discordance in assessment.

DESIGN, SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS
Prospective study of patients hospitalized for acute cardiopulmonary diseases at an urban teaching hospital.

INTERVENTION AND MEASUREMENTS
A numerical rating scale (0-10) was used to assess dyspnea severity as perceived by patients and assessed by providers. Agreement was defined as a score within ±1 between patient and healthcare provider; differences of ≥2 points were considered over- or underestimations. The relationship between patient self-perceived dyspnea severity and provider rating was assessed using a weighted kappa coefficient.

RESULTS
Of the 138 patients enrolled, 33% had a diagnosis of heart failure, 30% chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 13% pneumonia; median age was 72 years, and 57% were women. In all, 96 patient-physician and 138 patient-nurses pairs were included in the study. The kappa coefficient for agreement was 0.11 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.01 to 0.21) between patients and physicians and 0.18 (95% CI: 0.12 to 0.24) between patients and nurses. Physicians underestimated patients' dyspnea 37.9% of the time and overestimated it 25.8% of the time, whereas nurses underestimated it 43.5% of the time and overestimated it 12.4% of the time. Admitting diagnosis was the only patient factor associated with discordance.

CONCLUSIONS
Agreement between patient perception of dyspnea and healthcare providers' assessment is low. Future studies should prospectively test whether routine assessment of dyspnea results in better patient outcomes. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2016;11:701-707. © 2016 Society of Hospital Medicine.


Organizational members who conceal information about adverse behaviors present a substantial risk to that organization. Yet the task of identifying who is concealing information is extremely difficult, expensive, error-prone, and time-consuming. We propose a unique methodology for identifying concealed information: measuring people's mouse-cursor movements in online screening questionnaires. We theoretically explain how mouse-cursor movements captured during a screening questionnaire differ between people concealing information and truth tellers. We empirically evaluate our hypotheses using an experiment during which people conceal information about a questionable act. While people completed the screening questionnaire, we simultaneously collected mouse-cursor movements and electrodermal activity—the primary sensor used for polygraph examinations—as an additional validation of our methodology. We found that mouse-cursor movements can significantly differentiate between people concealing information and people telling the truth. Mouse-cursor movements can also differentiate between people concealing information and truth tellers on a broader set of comparisons relative to electrodermal activity. Both mouse-cursor movements and electrodermal activity have the potential to identify concealed information, yet mouse-cursor movements yielded significantly fewer false positives. Our results demonstrate that analyzing mouse-cursor movements has promise for identifying concealed information. This methodology can be automated and deployed online for mass screening of individuals in a natural setting without the need for human facilitators. Our approach further demonstrates that mouse-cursor movements can provide insight into the cognitive state of computer users.


We present ocean model sensitivity experiments aimed at separating the influence of the projected changes in the "thermal" (near-surface air temperature) and "wind" (near-surface winds) forcing on the patterns of sea level and ocean heat content. In the North Atlantic, the distribution of sea level change is more due to the "thermal" forcing, whereas it is more due to the "wind" forcing in the North Pacific; in the Southern Ocean, the "thermal" and "wind" forcing have a comparable influence. In the ocean adjacent to Antarctica the "thermal" forcing leads to an inflow of warmer waters on the continental shelves, which is somewhat attenuated by the "wind" forcing. The structure of the vertically integrated heat uptake is set by different processes at low and high latitudes: at low latitudes it is dominated by the heat transport convergence, whereas at high latitudes it represents a small residual of changes in the surface flux and advection of heat. The structure of the horizontally integrated heat content tendency is set by the increase of downward heat flux by the mean circulation and comparable decrease of upward heat flux by the subgrid-scale processes; the upward eddy heat flux decreases and increases by almost the same magnitude in response to, respectively, the "thermal" and "wind" forcing. Regionally, the surface heat loss and deep convection weaken in the Labrador Sea, but intensify in the Greenland Sea in the region of sea ice retreat. The enhanced heat flux anomaly in the subpolar Atlantic is mainly caused by the "thermal" forcing.


Essentials of International Health provides an introduction to international health with a focus on epidemiological, political, behavioral, sociological, cultural, and medical dimensions in the field. The text covers problems concerning both developed and developing countries (with an emphasis on developing countries) and introduces population-based public health approaches to solving international health problems. Topics include historical perspectives, health indicators, role of culture and behavior, communicable diseases, non communicable diseases, malnutrition, nutritional deficiencies and obesity, environmental health and population issues, health of women, health of children, mental health, world health systems, and future issues in international health. This text is ideal for undergraduate students, introductory graduate classes, and practitioners interested in working in developing countries.


This essay provides a queer theoretical, non-biographic reading of Karin Boye's novel Crisis from 1934. The analysis aims to focus on how Christian faith, constituting a major part of the book, can be connected to and be read as a symbol of heteronormativity. Furthermore the analysis describes how the queer aspect in the novel reveals heteronormative and intersectional structures. The investigation is set against previous research on Boye's literary works, and other queer theoretical texts to show how the protagonist Malin Forst's queer desire and identity develops as opposed to authoritative voices present in her life.


Internet engineering, science, and public policy communities have significant interest in understanding the extent and scope of, as well as potential consumer harm induced by, persistent interdomain congestion on the Internet. In recent work, we developed and implemented a lightweight active measurement method and system to measure evidence of congestion on thousands of interconnection links between broadband access ISPs and major interconnecting parties, including directly connected content providers. This method provides empirical grounding for discussions of interconnection congestion, without requiring direct access to interconnection links. We first review the previous work to provide context. We then present new techniques for visualizing the data in ways we believe are conducive to policy analysis, e.g, of infrastructure resilience, performance metrics, and potential harm to consumers of persistently under-provisioned interconnection links. We presenting data in ways that allow us to compare different access providers, and show how congestion varies over time. We focus on seven large U.S. broadband access networks, but there is nothing U.S.-specific about the methods we use. Finally, we describe policy-relevant limitations and implications of the work.


This paper examines some of the main limitations of research on the governance of nonprofit organisations. It argues that there are limitations in both the way governance has been conceptualised and the ways in which it has been researched. It suggests that research has focussed too narrowly on the boards of unitary organisations, and ignored both the wider governance system and the more complex multi-level and multi-faceted governance structures that many organisations have evolved. It also argues that the dominant research designs employed have been cross-sectional and positivist in orientation. As a result too little attention has been paid to board processes and change and how they are influenced by contextual and historical factors. Based on this analysis some new directions for nonprofit governance research are briefly mapped out.


Michel Foucault's later work contains the foundations of an 'ethic of power.' This ethic, I suggest, provides an alternative approach to the question of what it means to 'resist' power.
'Relations of power' for Foucault describes an inalienable feature of social interaction. This account continues to cause debate among scholars with diverging views about its critical and political implications. In addressing these concerns I make the point that many of Foucault's critics assume certain interpretations of terms such as 'power' and 'freedom' that locate these criticisms in the very traditions Foucault was attempting to overcome. Consequently, their evaluation of Foucault's critical and political contributions are made from within these same traditions.
Re-reading these concepts in light of his later work on 'government' and on ancient ethics requires a renewed approach to understanding a Foucaultian concept of politics. In turn, this requires a re-thinking of the relationship of ethics to politics and the nature of the political field itself. In disassociating political power from the state, Foucault disrupts the usual alignment between the public and political spheres. By arguing that power relations extend throughout society, Foucault posits the political field as co-extensive with networks of power relations. The subject thus emerges as a constitutive element of the political field. In this way, Foucault posits aesthetic practices of self-stylisation firmly in the domain of politics. In this way, the constitution of the subject takes its place as an integral part of Foucault's idea of politics.
In light of these points, I argue that in understanding what Foucault means by 'resistance' we should look to his account of the 'critical attitude'—the right to qualified refusal of forms of government. This is not to say that resistance to power is limited to this refusal, but that the latter founds resistance to power. As such, an ethic of power would not describe how to exercise power, nor would it determine some exercises of power as 'good' and others as 'bad.' Rather, it would be an ethic that governs how we constitute ourselves as ethical subjects, in relation to ourselves and in relation to others, following the recognition that we are each subjects of, and subject to, power.


Cyberspace is the newest domain of conflict and cooperation between states. In cyberspace, as in all other domains, land, sea, air, and space, these interactions often lead to the emergence of hegemons which are characterised by their predominant influence over global world order and all other states. We examined the emergence and collapse of hegemons in a modelled cyberspace world through the notions of power transition and power diffusion. We used Repast Simphony to construct a simple agent-based model (ABM) of a system of states interacting both competitively and cooperatively in this world. Our simple model parsimoniously captures the character of the real international system of states through simple parameters of wealth and power determining the outcome of attack or cooperation amongst pairwise interacting states. We found hegemons of global world order emerged in cyberspace as they do in the other traditional domains from models with these few parameters. And we found that hegemons, contrary to traditional understanding, are not exceptional states but merely occupy the tail of a continuous distribution of power and lifetimes. We also found that hegemony in the system depends on two perhaps unexpected parameters: the difficulty of acquiring power as wealth increases and the amount of cooperation between states. And as a consequence, we argue that cyberspace, as a power-diffuse domain where cooperation is easier than elsewhere, is less suited to the kind of hegemony we see in the traditional domains of state interaction.


In Between Home and School, Professor Rosenbury makes a splendid contribution to the emerging legal scholarship on the influence of cultural contexts on children's socialization. Scholars in this field have begun to study the effects on children of the media, peer relationships, civic institutions, and early caregiving environments. Professor Rosenbury's is a bold new voice in this genre offering a normative paradigm of space to replace the traditional dyadic model of state-parent authority over children. At the heart of the spatial paradigm is the view that in-between spaces socialize children in ways that differ both procedurally and substantively from the kinds of socialization that take place at home or at school. Professor Rosenbury sets out to show how "the spaces between home and school may be distinct from both home and school, rendering analogies to either concept ultimately inapposite." In this Response, I explore briefly the unstated assumptions about both the mechanisms of socialization and the substantive content of socialization that underlie her claim that the socialization of children between home and school is unique and thus deserving of special treatment in family law.


The highly regarded contributors to the book argue that the standard narrative of microfoundations is likely to be unreliable. They therefore re-examine the history of the relationship of microeconomics and macroeconomics, starting from their emergence as self-consciously distinct fields within economics in the early 1930s. They seek to go beyond the conventional history that is often told and written by practicing economists. From different perspectives they challenge the association of microfoundations with Robert Lucas and rational expectations and offer both a more complete and a deeper reading of the relationship between micro and macroeconomics.


Proteins, the workhorses of the cell, are immensely important to biological processes in all forms of life. Cellular signaling is a vital component of cellular function in which proteins play a major role. This thesis research focuses on two distinct proteins, an oncoprotein (v-ErbA) and a pseudophosphatase (MK-STYX), and their role in responses to extracellular signals. The retroviral oncoprotein v-ErbA (p75gag-v-ErbA) is a highly mutated variant of the thyroid hormone receptor ?1 (TR?1) that interferes with cellular response to thyroid hormone. v-ErbA has been observed to form punctate cytoplasmic foci reminiscent of aggresomes, perinuclear accumulations of misfolded proteins. Aggresomes have several key features; specifically, this research provides evidence that v-ErbA foci, like aggresomes, colocalize with proteasomes and mitochondria. Additionally, v-ErbA aggresome formation is dependent upon the viral Gag sequence. These studies provide evidence that v-ErbA is recruited to aggresomes, highlighting a complex mode of oncogenesis across several cellular compartments. The second protein, MK-STYX [MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) phospho-serine/threonine/tyrosine-binding protein] is a pseudophosphatase member of the dual-specificity phosphatase subfamily of the PTPs (protein tyrosine phosphatases). MK-STYX lacks catalytic activity due to the absence of two key amino acids from the signature motif that are essential for phosphatase activity. MK-STYX is known to bind G3BP, an RNA-binding protein that is involved in stress granule assembly, and decreases stress granule formation. This thesis research provides evidence that MK-STYX inhibition of G3BP-induced stress granule formation is not phosphorylation-dependent; MK-STYX still decreased stress granule assembly in cells expressing a non-phosphorylatable G3BP mutant. Additionally, an active mutant of MK-STYX was able to induce stress granule assembly in cells expressing the phosphomimetic G3BP-S149E. Finally, MK-STYX is homologous to a class of phosphatases responsible for regulating MAP kinase pathways, which are involved in diverse processes of cellular growth and differentiation. In PC12 cells, a model of neuronal differentiation, MK-STYX appears to induce the formation of multiple small outgrowths in untreated cells and enhances the length of outgrowths in cells treated with NGF. This data indicates a potential role in regulation of cellular response to extracellular signals. In summary, this project elucidates the recruitment of v-ErbA to aggresomes, and the pseudophosphatase MK-STYX as a regulator of the cellular stress response and neuronal differentiation.


Cellular remodeling to develop phloem cells orchestrates degradation of the cell's nucleus. Although a cell's nucleus performs critical command and control functions, some cell types, such as enucleated red blood cells, seem to do without. Sieve element cells in plants similarly carry out their function of transporting nutrients and signals from one end of the plant to the other without the guidance of a nucleus. Furuta et al. watched how the nucleus self-destructs during the development of sieve element cells (see the Perspective by Geldner). The process is regulated under the control of transcription factors, even as the entire nuclear edifice crumbles into nothingness. K. M. Furuta, S. R. Yadav, S. Lehesranta, I. Belevich, S. Miyashima, J.-o. Heo, A. Vatén, O. Lindgren, B. De Rybel, G. Van Isterdael, P. Somervuo, R. Lichtenberger, R. Rocha, S. Thitamadee, S. Tähtiharju, P. Auvinen, T. Beeckman, E. Jokitalo, Y. Helariutta, Arabidopsis NAC45/86 direct sieve element morphogenesis culminating in enucleation. Science 345, 933–937 (2014). [Abstract] [Full Text] N. Geldner, Making phloem—a near-death experience. Science 345, 875–876 (2014). [Abstract] [Full Text]


There is now substantial empirical evidence, based essentially on the experience of developed countries, that there is underinvestment in industrial R&D consequent to the gradual withdrawal of the state. It is generally observed that government can solve this problem of underinvestment in two ways: by increasing the profits of innovators, or by undertaking R&D in areas where the private sector underinvests. An examination of the nature of government intervention in developed countries show that it is increasingly moving towards the latter variety. However, contrary to normal impression, the extent of government intervention in industrial R&D in India is of the former variety. The state has been using tax incentives as the major instrument for stimulating R&D by production enterprises. Direct grants, which has become the dominant instrument of intervention in the west, is considered to be better as it can be targeted towards specific projects. In fact the efficacy of tax incentives to encourage R&D requires further scrutiny. The state in India also have to intervene for making available technically trained manpower to engage in industrial R&D radically redesigning the higher education system, by improving the incentive system for those working in the R&D system etc. The paper thus underscores the fact that there is enough space for the Indian state to increase its interventionist role in industrial research contrary to the arguments for its gradual withdrawal. JEL Classification: O32, O38


We investigate the possibility of improving access to interventions among mothers screened positive for post-partum depression (PPD) at National Programme on Immunization (NPI) clinics randomly selected from Lagos and Enugu States in south-western and south-eastern Nigeria respectively. The principle of human centred design was employed by engaging the mothers screened positive for PPD to be part of the decision making regarding their further assessment and intervention services. The study brought intervention services to primary healthcare centre at the NPI clinics. Improvement in willingness to seek interventions was observed among the mothers screened positive for PPD in this study when compared to our observation in a previous report, where mothers diagnosed with PPD were referred and requested to visit a mental health facility closer to their NPI clinics for further assessment and interventions (95.2% versus 33.7%). Interventional services for the mothers diagnosed with PPD also impact positively on the growth parameters of their infants on follow-up. Principle of human centred design improved access to intervention services among the mothers and infants studied. NPI clinics at primary healthcare level would provide appropriate forum for early screening of mothers for PPD and interventions in low-resource setting like Nigeria. There would be improvement in maternal and child health coverage if the Nigerian Government can adapt human centred design principles employed in this study nationwide.


Telecommunication plays a significant role in the country's economic development. Firms' profitability, growth and survival depend upon efficiency and effectiveness of data, voice and media transmission. Across section survey of five customer care centers owned by three mobile service providers was done. Simple Random sampling was carried out to sample 150 mobile subscribers apportioned in proportion to their market share. Since this is an industry characterized by high competition and relatively low switching costs the researcher investigated customer service strategies employed by those films and their effect on their customers' satisfaction. The pricing strategies, service quality and service recovery strategies were analyzed to establish their effects on customer satisfaction. Population of study consisted of mobile phone service subscribers within Nairobi's central business district. The research was a descriptive survey and both structured and semi structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Interviews were also conducted to enable respondents give as much information as possible. Questionnaires were edited for clarity uniformity and consistency. Final analysis involved correlation and regression for qualitative data while the quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency tables, percentages, means and standard deviation.


Abstract Background: Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is the most common preventable cause of intellectual disability. The recommended starting dose of levothyroxine (LT4) is between 10 and 15 μg/kg, an extremely wide range. We hypothesized that a sizable proportion of newborns treated for CH at the higher end of the dosage range become biochemically hyperthyroid at a follow-up visit. Methods: This study is a retrospective chart review of infants with CH between 2002 and 2012. Results: Of the 104 patients included in this analysis, the average age at diagnosis was 11 days and the average starting dose of LT4 was 12±2.5 μg/kg. At follow-up, 36.5% required a dose reduction because of iatrogenic hyperthyroxinemia, 51% required no dose adjustment and 12.5% required a dose increase due to an elevated thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). The starting doses of LT4 for those requiring a dose reduction, those not requiring an adjustment and those requiring an increase in the dose were 13.2±2.4, 11.5±2.1 and 10.3±2.6 μg/kg/day, respectively (p≤0.0001). Of the 34% of infants treated with an initial dose of >12.5 μg/day, 57.1% required a dose reduction at follow-up, compared to 26.1% of those whose initial starting dose was ≤12.5 μg/kg/day (p=0.007). Conclusions: Following the guidelines for initiating therapy for CH, 36.5% of the infants required a dose reduction for iatrogenic hyperthyroxinemia. These infants received a higher dose of LT4 than the infants who either required no adjustment or required an increase in the dose. A narrower range for initial dosing in CH may be appropriate.


Forest seeds must be adequately stored in order to minimise the process of deterioration. The level that limits the water in stored seeds is called the moisture equilibrium. It is possible to establish a relation between seed free water content and conservation, expressed by the water activity,, given by the relation between seed water and pure water vapour pressures, at the same temperature. An isotherm is a curve that describes, in specific moisture, the equilibrium of an amount of water sorbed by seed components and the vapour pressure or relative humidity, at a specific temperature. The main aim of this study was to analyse sorption isotherms for Eucalyptus grandis and Pinus taeda, which are forest species of economic interest. Seed moisture contents were adjusted before storage, using silica gel or rehydration above water. Seed subsample weights were recorded periodically to control the amounts of removed or sorbed water. The process was over when the corresponding weight to the desired seed moisture content had been achieved. Seed moisture content and water activity determinations have been carried out and different


From 1967 to 1991, income for North Dakota remained fairly unchanged. At the time of this writing public policy makes and other business leaders wondered if increased livestock would generate both income and jobs in the state. A combination of agricultural export growth, government farm subsidies and periods of strength in crop prices with periods of weakness in livestock prices had contributed to a declining interest in livestock production in North Dakota. The discussion of increased livestock capacity needs to be tempered with the reality of such producing actual gains in income in North Dakota. Also, will this result in increased activity overall in North Dakota communities. Other considerations are if there are better ways to use the state's forage base, adding value to current feed grain crops, better utilisation of farm labour and management plus the improved resilience of farm businesses. Increeased production of livestock would generate income for other related businesses necessary to support such. The cyclical prices of livestock makes the inclusion of a successful business plan to address these. Increased livestock can fully utilize North Dakota's idle resources. Fish, sheep, goat, poultry, wild game and exotic animal production further increase profits. A recommended venture into these markets slowly was made. However, it was noted that a substantial investment needed to be made to make any meaningful income enhancement.


Political participation is critical for the legitimacy of democracy, yet we know surprisingly little about how political competencies develop and can be promoted in young adults. Many studies show low levels of political activity among young Americans, including college students and recent graduates. Although this is widely recognized as a problem, there is little research on specific experiences and practices that show promise for increasing political understanding and involvement among young people. In addition, much existing research on political life focuses on a narrow set of activities, especially voting, rather than on the multiple dimensions of responsible political engagement, dimensions such as the understanding, skills, and motivations that support and enhance many forms of active democratic citizenship. This article describes and shares initial results from a pre- and postsurvey used in The Political Engagement Project, a study of the effects of 21 different courses and programs on a diverse group of undergraduates at a range of colleges and universities across the United States. Analyses of variance performed on surveys of 481 students conducted at the beginning and end of courses and programs show that educational interventions with a focus on political engagement can significantly boost many dimensions of democratic participation, including expectations for future political activity. On average, all students participating in the twenty-one interventions increased their political knowledge and skills. Other effects of courses and programs differed for students who began their programs with higher versus lower levels of political interest. For the group with lower initial interest, the interventions significantly increased students' sense of identity as politically engaged persons and their expectations for participating in a range of political activities, with small to medium effect sizes (Cohen's d = .24–.66). The group with higher initial interest experienced smaller but significant gains in understanding and skills (d = .12–.19). The results support understanding political engagement as a multidimensional set of inclinations, competencies, and behaviors. The results from this research also provide evidence that well-designed courses and programs can effectively promote these four key dimensions of political engagement in a diverse range of undergraduates without significantly changing students' party identifications or their positions on a liberal-conservative continuum.


This research focused on tutors and first and third year cohorts of undergraduate students within a department of clinical and health studies. The aims of the study were to explore tutor and student perceptions of the advantages of, and barriers to, computer-assisted learning (CAL) and perceived influence of CAL on reflection and reasoning skills.
Two questionnaires were developed, to survey the two populations of participants, involving 197 students and 31 tutors. Illuminative follow-up semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 23 students and 13 tutors.
The questionnaire datasets were analysed descriptively, and inferentially using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney procedure, to test for differences between age groups, gender and year of training The interview transcripts were thematically analysed and inductively coded. Member checking by transcript checking, and by discussion of emergent themes by four participant focus groups was undertaken.

The student and tutor questionnaires and interviews resulted in common perceived advantages of CAL. These included a perception of CAL as an adjunct or support tool rather than a primary approach to teaching and learning. CAL was seen as a tool for improving work presentation, facilitating communication, enabling formative assessment, helping organise notes and as an information source. It was also perceived as giving flexibility to learning in any place, at any pace and any time. CAL was seen as able to save time, and induce positive emotions when things went well.

Common barriers to CAL were lack of time to develop or use CAL and time wastage, limited computer literacy/skill level, negative emotions, inadequate training and support, access issues, cost and lack of portability. Loss of face-to-face contact with CAL was also a barrier to its use.

CAL was not the preferred means of engendering reflection and reasoning skills.

Emergent theory was identified and the study concludes with recommendations on training and support.


Background Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and antral follicle count (AFC) age-specific reference values form the basis of infertility treatments, yet they were based upon studies performed primarily on Caucasian populations. However, they may vary across different age-matched ethnic populations. This study aimed to describe age-specific serum AMH and AFC for women native to the Arabian Peninsula. Methods A retrospective large-scale study was performed including 2,495 women, aged 19 to 50 years, native to the Arabian Peninsula. AMH and AFC were measured as part of their fertility assessment at tertiary-care fertility centres. Age-specific values and nomograms were calculated. Results 2,495 women were evaluated. Mean, standard deviation and median values were calculated for AMH and AFC by 1-year and 5-years intervals. Median age was 34.81 years, median AMH was 1.76ng/ml and median AFC was 11. From the total group, 40.60% presented with AMH levels below 1.3ng/mL. For women <45 years old, the decrease in AFC was between -0.6/-0.8 per year. Up to 36 years old, the decrease of AMH was 0.1ng/ml. However, from 36 to 40 years old, an accelerated decline of 0.23ng/ml yearly was noted. In keeping with local customs, 71.23% of women wore the hijab and 25.76% the niqab. AMH and AFC were significantly lower for niqab group compared with hijab group (p=0.02 and p=0.04, respectively). Conclusion This is to-date the largest data set on age-specific AMH and AFC values in women from the Arabian Peninsula aiming to increase clinical awareness of the ovarian reserve in this population.


Background One of the strengths of systematic reviews is that they aim to include all relevant evidence. However, study eligibility is often restricted to the English language for practical reasons. Google Translate, a free Web-based resource for translation, has recently become available. However, it is unclear whether its translation accuracy is sufficient for systematic reviews. An earlier pilot study provided some evidence that data extraction from translated articles may be adequate but varies by language. To address several limitations of the pilot study, four collaborating Evidence-based Practice Centers conducted a more rigorous analysis of translations of articles from five languages. Methods We included 10 randomized controlled trials in 5 languages (Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish). Eligible studies were trials that reported per-treatment group results data. Each article was translated into English using Google Translate. The time required to translate each study was tracked. The original language versions of the articles were double data extracted by fluent speakers and reconciled. Each English-translated article was extracted by two of eight researchers who did not speak the given language. These 8 researchers also each extracted 10 English-language trials to serve as a control. Data extracted included: eligibility criteria, study design features, outcomes reported, intervention and outcome descriptions, and results data for one continuous and/or one categorical outcome. We used a generalized linear mixed model to examine whether the probability of correctly extracting an item from a translated article is related to the language of original publication. The model used each extractor's accuracy in extracting the English language trials to control for reviewer effects. Results The length of time required to translate articles ranged from 5 minutes to about 1 hour for almost all articles, with an average of about 30 minutes. Extractors estimated that most Spanish articles required less than 5 additional minutes to extract because of translation issues, but about two-thirds of other language articles required between 6 and 30 additional minutes for extraction. Analyses of the adjusted percentage of correct extractions across items and languages and of the adjusted odds ratio of correct extractions compared with English revealed that in general, across languages the likelihood of correct extractions was greater for study design and intervention domain items than for outcome descriptions and, particularly, study results. Translated Chinese articles yielded the highest percentage of items (22 percent) that were incorrectly extracted more than half the time (but also the largest percentage of items, 41 percent, that were extracted correctly more than 98 percent of the time. Relative to English, extractions of translated Spanish articles were most accurate compared with other translated languages. Conclusion Translation generally required few resources. Across all languages, data extraction from translated articles was less accurate than from English language articles, particularly and importantly for results data. Extraction was most accurate from translated Spanish articles and least accurate from translated Chinese articles. Use of Google Translate has the potential of being an approach to reduce language bias; however, reviewers may need to be more cautious about using data from these translated articles. There remains a tradeoff between completeness of systematic reviews (including all available studies) and risk of error (due to poor translation).


Climate and landscape change are expected to significantly affect trophic interactions, which will especially harm top predators such as the golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos. Availability of optimal prey is recognized to influence reproductive success of raptors on a regional scale. For the golden eagle, medium-sized prey species between 0.5 and 5 kg are widely considered to be optimal prey during the breeding season, whereas smaller and larger species are deemed as energetically sub-optimal. However, knowledge about the effects of optimal prey availability is still scarce on larger scales. To decrease this apparent knowledge gap, we combined biogeographical information on range margins with information about the foraging behaviour and reproductive success of golden eagles from 67 studies spanning the Northern Hemisphere. We hypothesized that availability of optimal prey will affect foraging behaviour and breeding success and, thus, distribution patterns of the golden eagle not only on a local but also on a continental scale. We correlated the diet breadth quantifying foraging generalism, breeding success and proportions of small ( 5 kg) prey species within the diet with the minimum distance of the examined eagles to the actual species distribution boundary. Closer to the range edge, we observed decreased proportions of medium-sized prey species and decreasing breeding success of golden eagles. Diet breadth as well as proportions of small and large-sized prey species increased, however, towards the range edge. Thus, availability of optimal-sized prey species seems to be a crucial driver of foraging behaviour, breeding success and distribution of golden eagles on a continental scale. However, underlying effects of landscape characteristics and human influence on optimal prey availability has to be investigated in further large-scale studies to fully understand the major threats facing the golden eagle and possibly other large terrestrial birds of prey.


High Salinity Stabilizes Bacterial Community Composition and Activity Through Time Tylan Wayne Magnusson Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU Master of Science Dormancy is a plausible strategy for bacteria to overcome the effects of temporal fluctuations in resources or stresses and await more "optimal" conditions to resume metabolic activity and growth. Seasonal changes in environmental conditions force microbes to adjust their metabolic activity accordingly, and community composition drastically shifts. In extreme environments, however, the overriding effects of a constant stress may constrain the need or benefit of bacteria entering dormancy. In hypersaline lakes, high metabolic activity is required to maintain adaptations that permit survival. Sampling from six lakes on a salinity gradient (0.05% – 30.3%), we measured seasonal fluctuations in bacterial dormancy patterns in summer, fall, winter, and spring of 2013-14. Dormancy was calculated based on ratios of OTU recovery between 16S rRNA-based communities (only the active bacteria) and 16S rRNA gene-based communities (all bacteria present in the community) from lake water. Dormancy was linked to lake chemistry shifts through time. We found that salinity was strongly related to relative bacterial dormancy. There was a negative linear relationship (R2 = .89 P <0.01) between total dormancy and salinity. Total phosphorus (R2 = .63, P < .001) and relative community contribution by rare taxa (R2 = .89, P < .001) were also important in structuring dormancy. Our findings suggest that temporal nutrient flux is highly influential on bacterial community composition and activity, but that the presence of an extreme variable decreases change in both through time.


Observations have shown that massive star-forming clumps are present in the internal structure of high-redshift galaxies. One way to study these clumps in detail with a higher spatial resolution is by exploiting the power of strong gravitational lensing which stretches images on the sky. In this work, we present an analysis of the clumpy galaxy A68-HLS115 at z = 1.5858, located behind the cluster Abell 68, but strongly lensed by a cluster galaxy member. Resolved observations with SINFONI/VLT in the near-infrared (NIR) show Hα, Hβ, [NII], and [OIII] emission lines. Combined with images covering the B band to the far-infrared (FIR) and CO(2–1) observations, this makes this galaxy one of the only sources for which such multi-band observations are available and for which it is possible to study the properties of resolved star-forming clumps and to perform a detailed analysis of the integrated properties, kinematics, and metallicity. We obtain a stability of υrot/σ0 = 2.73 by modeling the kinematics, which means that the galaxy is dominated by rotation, but this ratio also indicates that the disk is marginally stable. We find a high intrinsic velocity dispersion of 80 ± 10 km s−1 that could be explained by the high gas fraction of fgas = 0.75 ± 0.15 observed in this galaxy. This high fgas and the observed sSFR of 3.12 Gyr−1 suggest that the disk turbulence and instabilities are mostly regulated by incoming gas (available gas reservoir for star formation). The direct measure of the Toomre stability criterion of Qcrit = 0.70 could also indicate the presence of a quasi-stable thick disk. Finally, we identify three clumps in the Hα map which have similar velocity dispersions, metallicities, and seem to be embedded in the rotating disk. These three clumps contribute together to ∼40% on the SFRHα of the galaxy and show a star formation rate density about ∼100 times higher than HII regions in the local Universe.


Ritual language, wild and domestic animals, and objects of material culture like houses, palaces, and works of art, are often loaded with symbolic meaning. 'Reading the landscape', or giving meaning to the natural environment, is a cultural act as well, and one must discover what mountains, coastlines, and islands mean to different groups of people. In this book, written on the occasion of Professor Reimar Schefold's retirement from the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University, colleagues and former students from the Netherlands and abroad demonstrate the variety and wealth of the field of symbolic anthropology. The regional focus of the book is Indonesia. The studies presented range from small island communities in western, northern, and eastern Indonesia to urban settlements in Java and Sumatra. All the contributions are in one way or another related to Reimar Schefold's work over the past thirty-five years, work that includes extensive studies on material culture, rituals, and the use of symbols in the expression of ethnicity among the various cultural groups of Indonesia.


This article discusses the problems and issues that have arisen with the widespread use of digital technology in the modern office, in particular those related to the trustworthiness of electronic records and to their permanent preservation. It defines the concepts of record reliability, authenticity, and authentication; it outlines the principles that should guide the creation and management of reliable electronic records and the maintenance and preservation of authentic records; and it describes methods for the management of trustworthy electronic records in the context of two research projects undertaken by the archival scholars of the University of British Columbia, the first of which, known as the UBC-MAS project, was completed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense in 1994–97, and the second of which, known as InterPARES, is a multinational multidisciplinary collaboration begun in 1999 and nearing the completion of its first phase.


Orooj (ascent) in mysticism means separation of soul from body in complete health and wakefulness.  It is a condition that every human normally experiences after death at the end of one's life.  A mystic develops a deep level of recognition to Heaven and Hell in the course of his life.  In this condition one is able to see with mind's eye the habitants of Heaven and Hell.  A person crosses from Elm al-Yaghin to Ain al-Yaghin when he reaches this state.  Ain al-Yaghinis a state where one can see with mind's eye what he has knowledge .To some adepts, Orooj meansto reach the first level of Heaven.  To some others,Orooj is to reach the second level.  This goes on until one reaches the ultimate level or Arsh. The first person who ever reached Arsh was Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him. When soul returns to a mystic's body, he has full recollection where he went and what he saw.  He can rememberin full details what happened in his journey and can give a full account of it.  Mystic's soul may take a one day journey through universe.  This journey may last longer to take two, three, or more days - sometimes, evenup to forty days.


Abstract In this paper, we propose a power saving scheme that integrates power control MAC (PCM) protocol and COMPOW protocol. The goal of the proposed scheme is to save power and maximize throughput in a multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks. This new protocol works in two phases. First, it uses COMPOW protocol to select the minimum common power (Pcommon) that can be suitable for providing a link from the source to the destination. In the second phase, PCM uses this selected common power (Pcommon) in place of maximum power (P max). Reducing the maximum power level of the control packets RTS-CTS to common power (Pcommon) brings down the interference effects of these packets on the DATA-ACK packets. The second benefit of using common power is significant reduction in carrier sensing range compared to the standard schemes. However, this carrier sensing range is sufficient to avoid the interference among various nodes involved in the multi-hop routing. Avoiding collisions, improving spatial reuse and increasing the contentions between the nodes of the multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks save energy and improve the throughput. In this paper, we have evaluated the performance of our proposed scheme and compared with COMPOW and the standard IEEE 802.11b, BASIC, PCM schemes using MINPOW power aware and conventional routing protocols. Our simulation results show that PCM/COMPOW power saving scheme achieves high reduction in energy consumption.


The main objective of this presentation is to show techniques and technology that enable the proper display, exploration and analysis of spatio-temporal data using the WebVR environment. Which techniques and technology can we use to create Virtual Reality (VR) environments? What is the added value of VR for spatio-temporal data exploration compared with the traditional Web? How can we create a FOSS based WebVR geo environment? These are some questions we would like to answer. For this case study we used A-Frame framework with several customized A-Frame components and a data set about ships and crew members from Prize Paper archive. The digitized interrogations of the Prize Papers are a vast and valuable collection of judicial documents, private and official letters, shipping lists and ledgers covering the period between 1652 and 1815. They provide an insight on trade routes, about what commodities were shipped, migration patterns of maritime personnel, the scope of merchant networks and about labour relations on board. The display of all this data quickly leads to visual clutter. Data representation in VR might partly overcome this problem and help us to see and explore spatio-temporal patterns of the movements. One advantage of VR environment is the unlimited space which can be used for data representation during the interaction process with data. Therefore, in VR we can combine several dashboards in a single environment. In addition to this, the user may create additional dashboard views representing information of interest in more detail. Although WebVR is a recent technology and not many frameworks/libraries exist at the moment, we can see the power of it in displaying and analyzing spatio-temporal data. With some limitations it's possible to create spatio-temporal WebVR environments using current FOSS technology. The possibility of having the user surrounded by data representations can give a better and faster experience compared with normal Web. Usability research of the new environment is foreseen in a follow up study.


Innovations in information- and telecommunication technology render the proximity requirement between business partners obsolete and make business service outsourcing via cross-border trade more feasible. Although the (service-led) growth prospects have been widely discussed, evidence at the country level is scarce. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of openness to trade commercial- and specialized business services on long-run growth by applying a dynamic panel data approach to account for unobserved country specific effects and endogenous growth determinants. The system GMM estimates validate that a long-run growth effect for countries taking part in the outsourcing process of producer services exists. The growth effect is significantly stronger in a sample of Non-OECD countries and suggests a kind of catching-up process. Evidence from two stage least square indicate that the impact of professional service regulation on long-run growth work rather indirectly through trade flows.


In this paper, we propose a residual non-local attention network for high-quality image restoration. Without considering the uneven distribution of information in the corrupted images, previous methods are restricted by local convolutional operation and equal treatment of spatial- and channel-wise features. To address this issue, we design local and non-local attention blocks to extract features that capture the long-range dependencies between pixels and pay more attention to the challenging parts. Specifically, we design trunk branch and (non-)local mask branch in each (non-)local attention block. The trunk branch is used to extract hierarchical features. Local and non-local mask branches aim to adaptively rescale these hierarchical features with mixed attentions. The local mask branch concentrates on more local structures with convolutional operations, while non-local attention considers more about long-range dependencies in the whole feature map. Furthermore, we propose residual local and non-local attention learning to train the very deep network, which further enhance the representation ability of the network. Our proposed method can be generalized for various image restoration applications, such as image denoising, demosaicing, compression artifacts reduction, and super-resolution. Experiments demonstrate that our method obtains comparable or better results compared with recently leading methods quantitatively and visually.


Secure is how you feel in this predetermined
world. But a girl loses
the thread that leads her through
life. Panicky and confused, she
finds herself in between canny
guides and malicious creatures
that eventually drive her towards
the important decision: does she
want to return to her sheltered life
or does she want to live her newly
won freedom?


We consider a strongly nonlinear long wave model for large amplitude internal waves in a three-layer flow between two rigid boundaries. The model extends the two-layer Miyata–Choi–Camassa (MCC) model (Miyata, Proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium on Nonlinear Water Waves, eds. H. Horikawa & H. Maruo, 1988, pp. 399–406; Choi & Camassa, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 396, 1999, pp. 1–36) and is able to describe the propagation of long internal waves of both the first and second baroclinic modes. Solitary-wave solutions of the model are shown to be governed by a Hamiltonian system with two degrees of freedom. Emphasis is given to the solitary waves of the second baroclinic mode (mode 2) and their strongly nonlinear characteristics that fail to be captured by weakly nonlinear models. In certain asymptotic limits relevant to oceanic applications and previous laboratory experiments, it is shown that large amplitude mode-2 waves with single-hump profiles can be described by the solitary-wave solutions of the MCC model, originally developed for mode-1 waves in a two-layer system. In other cases, however, e.g. when the density stratification is weak and the density transition layer is thin, the richness of the dynamical system with two degrees of freedom becomes apparent and new classes of mode-2 solitary-wave solutions of large amplitudes, characterized by multi-humped wave profiles, can be found. In contrast with the classical solitary-wave solutions described by the MCC equation, such multi-humped solutions cannot exist for a continuum set of wave speeds for a given layer configuration. Our analytical predictions based on asymptotic theory are then corroborated by a numerical study of the original Hamiltonian system.


An experimental demonstration of an all-optical sampling orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (AOS-OFDM) transmission system with inline chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation is carried out to test the nonlinear influence. With five subcarriers non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulated, the total bit rate is 50 Gb/s without polarization multiplexing. The receiver end is highly simplified with direct detection using optical Fourier transform filter. After transmission in 160-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) link with 130-ps/nm residual CD, an optimum input optical power for the system performance is achieved.


Methods of computation are described for determination of the refractivity of air from measurements made with a corner-reflector Michelson interferometer. Results are given for eleven vacuum wavelengths from 7034 to 20 587 A. These results support Svensson's conclusion that Edlen's dispersion formula may be increased in precision by raising it slightly in the near-infrared. They indicate however an increase of 0.12×10−8×(3.35 μ−2−σ2) over Svensson's formula. A question is raised as to the existence of appreciable variations, perhaps seasonal in nature, in the refractivity of outdoor air.


Oscar Zariski, one of the most eminent mathematicians of our time, climaxed a distinguished career by receiving the National Medal of Science. He has enriched mathematics, particularly in algebraic geometry and modern algebra, by numerous and fundamental papers. This volume is the first of four in which these papers are available in collected form.By introducing ideas from abstract algebra into algebraic geometry, Zariski undertook to rewrite its foundations completely, taking an approach that made no use whatsoever of topological or convergent power series methods and that made no appeal to vague geometric intuition. The most important characteristic of this approach toward algebraic geometry, and in particular toward the problem of resolution of singularities, is that it uses the available power of modern algebra as fully as possible not only as a source of techniques in each step of solving a specific problem but also in reformulating the problem at a fundamental level. Professor Hironaka writes, "By this type of fundamental approach (not to mention specific techniques he invented to overcome specific difficulties in the problem), he made it much easier for other mathematicians in later works to follow the tracks and make further progress."The present work contains 10 papers on foundations and 9 on the resolution of singularities that were first published between 1937 and 1967. In them, new methods are introduced that enabled Zariski to study algebraic geometry over arbitrary fields of coefficients. This broader outlook made it possible to solve certain classical problems using ideal theory and the theory of valuations that had long been regarded as too difficult to be handled.Among the basic problems whose solution is found in these papers are the local uniformization of all algebraic varieties, the reduction of singularities of 2- and 3-dimensional varieties, the introduction of the concept of normal variety which is now universally used, and the proof of "Zariski's Main Theorem.""Oscar Zariski: Collected Papers" is part of the series Mathematicians of Our Time, edited by Gian-Carlo Rota.


Field experiment and household survey data are combined to investigate whether working in a risky occupation such as fishing makes fishermen have different risk preferences than individuals in other occupations. Prospect theory is utilized as the main analytical framework and a structural model approach is developed to simultaneously correlate the parameters of the utility function under prospect theory with other socioeconomic variables. The key finding is that working in fishing makes economic agents less risk averse than others. Fishermen also tend to be less sensitive to probability weighting changes in the experiment. It is possible that fishermen have adapted to their unique environment by using specific heuristics for decision making under conditions of uncertainty.


We examine whether corporate governance mechanisms, especially the market for corporate control, affect the profitability of firm acquisitions. We find that acquirers with more antitakeover provisions experience significantly lower announcement‐period abnormal stock returns. This supports the hypothesis that managers at firms protected by more antitakeover provisions are less subject to the disciplinary power of the market for corporate control and thus are more likely to indulge in empire‐building acquisitions that destroy shareholder value. We also find that acquirers operating in more competitive industries or separating the positions of CEO and chairman of the board experience higher abnormal announcement returns.


Osteoporosis, an age associated skeletal disease, exhibits increased adipogenesis at the expense of osteogenesis from common osteoporotic bone marrow cells. In this study, black rice (Oryza sativa L.) extracts (BRE) were identified as osteogenic inducers. BRE stimulated the alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity in both C3H10T1/2 and primary bone marrow cells. Similarly, BRE increased mRNA expression of ALP and osterix. Oral administration of BRE in OVX rats prevented decreases in bone density and strength. By contrast, BRE inhibited adipocyte differentiation of mesenchymal C3H10T1/2 cells and prevented increases in body weight and fat mass in high fat diet fed obese mice, further suggesting the dual effects of BRE on anti-adipogenesis and pro-osteogenesis. UPLC analysis identified cyanidin-3-O-glucoside and peonidin-3-O-glucoside as main anti-adipogenic effectors but not for pro-osteogenic induction. In mechanism studies, BRE selectively stimulated Wnt-driven luciferase activities. BRE treatment also induced Wnt-specific target genes such as Axin2, WISP2, and Cyclin D1. Taken together, these data suggest that BRE is a potentially useful ingredient to protect against age related osteoporosis and diet induced obesity.


Salinity often affects irrigated areas in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. The existence and accumulation of soluble salts in the soil layers limit the growth of crops essential for our food. Salt stress dramatically affects plant growth, plant development, as well as crop yield. Arabidopsis thaliana is the plant model that provides a comprehensive knowledge of plant development, genetics and physiology, and response to abiotic stresses such as salinity. The redundancy of genes due to duplication, even in the simple model genome of Arabidopsis, limits the value of knockout (KO) mutagenesis to provide complete information on gene function. 'Gain-of-function' mutants are an alternative genetic tool to identify gene functions for redundant genes, and those with small effect or that respond to an environmental condition. Transposon-mediated 'activation tagging' is an efficient genetic tool that can randomly generate 'gain-of-function' mutants for a large number of genes. In the method used here, the transposable element Enhancer-Inhibitor (En-I/dSpm) system of maize was modified to develop an activation tag (AT) mutant library in Arabidopsis. The mobile I-AT transposon contains a transcriptional enhancer, from the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter, located close to the right border of the transposon. This I-AT element was mobilized to randomly insert into the plant genome by transposition from the T-DNA, and can give rise to mutants differing in the level of overexpression of the adjacent genes. Consequently, the gain-of-function dominant phenotypes generated are displayed by the I-AT plants due to enhanced expression of the gene(s) adjacent to the 35S enhancer. In this study, the I-AT library was used to screen for salt tolerance, identified by enhanced growth or biomass of the tagged mutants compared to the wild-type grown in saline conditions. A number of tagged salt tolerance candidate genes were identified flanking the I-AT insertion, and their tagged genes characterized for their role in salt tolerance. ©2018 by Jawaher Salman Alkahtani All Rights Reserved


This research was conducted on a degraded Ultisol at the Eastern farm of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike during 2014 and 2015 planting seasons, to determine the effect of different rates of sawdust and poultry manure application on soil physicochemical properties of acid sandy Ultisol, and growth and yield of cocoyam. The treatments comprised of two organic amendments at five levels each: Sawdust (0, 2, 10, 15 and 20 t/ha) and poultry manure (0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 t/ha), which were combined to produce 24 treatment combinations and a control. The treatments were assigned randomly to the plots and incorporated into the soil two weeks before planting. The treatment combinations were laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RBCD) and replicated three times in a factorial experiment. Data were collected on plant height, number of leaves, leaf area, corms, cormels and total yield. Soil samples were collected with core samplers for physical properties such as soil bulk density and total porosity using soil auger at 0 to 15 cm, at the end of the experiment for chemical analysis such as soil pH, organic carbon, available phosphorus, total nitrogen, exchangeable acidity and total exchangeable cations such as K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, and Na+. The soil physicochemical properties were significantly improved with mostly higher rates of sawdust and poultry manure over control, which positively modified cocoyam growth and yield. The cocoyam leaf area, plant height, number of leaves, corms, cormels and total cocoyam yield increased significantly with application of 8 t/ha PM. The total cocoyam yield amounted to 17.73 t/ha in 2014 and 15.15 t/ha in 2015. Results of this research showed that agro-wastes such as poultry manure and sawdust have the potentials for increasing cocoyam production and soil fertility.

 Key words: Sawdust, poultry manure, bulk density, total nitrogen, soil fertility.


Solo Exhibition. Each of my exhibitions is treated as a new 'architectural' work responding directly to, and transforming a particular space and each involves extensive, highly detailed research and planning. In this exhibition I responded to the environment by installing 9 Reflective Editor works. These were machine-tooled cast acrylic sheets, with a highly reflective black surface featuring a variation of grid-like apertures. Positioning within the space allowed each grouping to be read as a 'series' in its own right.

This exhibition enabled me to develop themes of space, reflection, geometry and repetition that have occupied me consistently. I work from within the minimalist/formalist tradition but expand the concept of sculptural space through serialism and optics. Thus the space I research is simultaneously real and imaginary; visual but not always accessible.

My Reflective works are both editors and objects: one looks through them (to the wall behind), but also at them as both a mirror and a grid and the viewer is encouraged to connect each work as a serial development of the grids themselves.

The 'machine aesthetic' of each work is matched by technical rigour in their installation and by a mathematical integrity of grid ratios across each series. The unique challenge in Reutlingen was how to make the work effective in such a large space without succumbing to the temptation to 'overfill' the space.


Interspecific adult bite forces for all extant crocodylian species are now known. However, how bite forces scale during ontogeny across the clade has yet to be studied. Here we test the hypotheses that extant crocodylians share positively allometric and statistically comparable developmental scaling coefficients for maximal bite-force capacity relative to body size. To do this, we measured bite forces in the Australian freshwater crocodile Crocodylus johnsoni and the Saltwater crocodile C. porosus, and determined how performance changed during ontogeny. We statistically compared these results with those for the American alligator Alligator mississippiensis using 95% prediction intervals and interpreted our findings in a phylogenetic context. We found no observable taxon-specific shifts in the intraspecific scaling of biomechanical performance. Instead, all bite-force values in our crocodylid dataset fell within the bounds of the A. mississippiensis 95% prediction intervals, suggesting similar bite-force capacity when same-sized individuals are compared. This holds true regardless of differences in developmental stage, potential adult body size, rostro-dental form, bone mineralization, cranial suturing, dietary differences or phylogenetic relatedness. These findings suggest that intraspecific bite-force scaling for crocodylians with feeding ecologies comparable with those of extant forms has likely remained evolutionarily static during their diversification.