Classical liberal analysis has dwindled in Lebanon after a long and vibrant tradition of laisser faire economic policy that lasted for many centuries, peaking in the period 1943 to 1975. Today, a sectarian-political regime, clientelistic public spending, clientelistic public employment, political patronage of public institutions, and statutory monopoly schemes are deep-rooted and have replaced the rationale of private initiative and economic freedom. A survey I devised to gauge the attitudes of Lebanese economics professors shows that some elements of classical liberalism still exist. The number of survey respondents is small but the great majority of respondents favor reducing clientelism, even clientelism that helps their own sects. However, they still believe that economic problems can be resolved throughout additional government spending. Most support liberal propositions on competition and market liberalization, but their views tend to be against liberalization when it comes to public moral laws and immigration.


Virtual communities are increasingly being viewed as important shopping reference groups and are being used as a new medium for affecting sales. In virtual communities, individuals generally exchange product information with others. This information guides members on the best prod-ucts and where to buy them. We investigated the motivation behind virtual community members' decision to use information when they inspire more individuals to join shopping reference groups and influence product sales. Most previous research on this subject has emphasized the influ-ence of electronic word of mouth and the posters' opinions regarding product choice. We further developed this idea by examining the various perspectives that are part of virtual communities' nature vis-a-vis members' activities of posting, viewing, and accepting information. We also ex-plored the comparative importance of motivating factors behind members' intentions to use in-formation for purchase-related decision making in different groups from three perspectives: the social exchange theory, gratifications theory, and the information adoption model. We collected data through an online survey and by examining respondents' actual posting behaviors. We showed that the importance of economic, relational, and social factors differs among groups. "In-formation browsers" mostly browse through information, rarely post messages, and consider relational and social factors as the main contributors to using information for decision making. "Information consumers" expect effective information, rarely post messages, and consider rela-tional factors as a major determinant. "Information providers," the primary posters, seldom ac-cept others' opinions and consider economic and social factors important for the intention of us-ing information for decision making.


Automobile air emissions are a well-recognized problem and have been subject to considerable regulation. An increasing concern for greenhouse gas emissions draws additional considerations to the externalities of personal vehicle travel. This paper provides estimates of the costs for automobile air emissions for 86 U.S. metropolitan areas based on county-specific external air emission morbidity, mortality, and environmental costs. Total air emission costs in the urban areas are estimated to be $145 million/day, with Los Angeles, California, and New York City (each $23 million per day) having the highest totals. These external costs average $0.64 per day per person and $0.03 per vehicle mile traveled. Total air emission cost solely due to traffic congestion for the same 86 U.S. metropolitan areas was also estimated to be $24 million per day. These estimates are compared with others in the literature and are found to be generally consistent. These external automobile air emission costs are important for social benefit and cost assessment of transportation measures to reduce vehicle use. However, this study does not include any abatement costs associated with automobile emission controls or government investments to reduce emissions such as traffic signal setting.


Abstract This article attempts to fill a gap in research on the propaganda methods exploited in the Islamic State's flagship online magazines, Dabiq and Rumiyah. Its major objective is to discover methods exploited by their editors either to convince readers to join the ranks of the Islamic State, or to partake in jihad in the form of violent actions against infidels. The article also attempts to understand the magazines' modus operandi in terms of legitimizing the "Caliphate's" violence against its enemies. In order to reach these goals, content analysis and comparative analysis were utilized. This article argues that while the legitimization of violence and call to violence was strongly emphasized in both magazines, there are significant differences in terms of recruitment messages. On the one hand, Dabiq prioritized this issue (e.g., through the promotion of hijrah). On the other hand, Rumiyah was much less interested in inciting followers to join its ranks in the Middle East. Instead, it focused on calling Ummah to participate in jihad against the infidels, especially in the form of lone-wolf terrorist attacks.


There is increasing evidence from non-human animals that males adjust their ejaculate expenditure according to the risk of sperm competition. In this study we show that, after controlling for lifestyle factors known to influence semen quality, human males viewing images depicting sperm competition had a higher percentage of motile sperm in their ejaculates. Many lifestyle variables were confirmed to influence semen quality, including the recent suggestion that storage of mobile phones close to the testes can decrease semen quality.


Orientation: The initial introduction of co-production and co-creation in the marketing literature in all likelihood was in 1986 when Kotler used the term 'prosumer' (initially coined by Toffler in 1980) to refer to customers who produce some of the goods and services they consume. Kotler also noted an increase in people's propensity to act as a prosumer of some of the goods and services they bought. Motivation for the study: No real attention was paid to the concepts of co-production and co-creation by marketing academics after the initial introduction of the concepts. Only after the year 2000 did co-production and co-creation begin to receive the attention of marketing academics, with a substantial increase in publications over the past few years. Contribution/value-add: The objective of this article was to present an overview of the origin and development of co-creation and co-production in marketing, to draw a distinction between the two concepts and to address the implications of these concepts for various decision areas in marketing.


Abstract In the present study an assessment has been made of the air formed passive film and the passive film existing after a short exposure to a synthetic sea water environment on austenitic (UNS S31603), superaustenitic (UNS S31254 and UNS S32654) and superduplex (UNS S32760) stainless steels and a Ni base alloy (UNS N06625) using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Assessment of their corrosion behaviour has been made through use of electrochemical accelerated tests supported by post-test microscopy. The passive film on the Ni base (low Fe) UNS N06625 alloy is remarkably similar to those formed on the high Cr and Mo stainless steels. It has been demonstrated that the Fe/Cr ratio in the passive film is dependent on alloy composition and on the conditions to which the material has been exposed, and a general correlation between passive film constitution and corrosion resistance is evident.


The variational autoencoder (VAE) is a popular probabilistic generative model. However, one shortcoming of VAEs is that the latent variables cannot be discrete, which makes it difficult to generate data from different modes of a distribution. Here, we propose an extension of the VAE framework that incorporates a classifier to infer the discrete class of the modeled data. To model sequential data, we can combine our Classifying VAE with a recurrent neural network such as an LSTM. We apply this model to algorithmic music generation, where our model learns to generate musical sequences in different keys. Most previous work in this area avoids modeling key by transposing data into only one or two keys, as opposed to the 10+ different keys in the original music. We show that our Classifying VAE and Classifying VAE+LSTM models outperform the corresponding non-classifying models in generating musical samples that stay in key. This benefit is especially apparent when trained on untransposed music data in the original keys.


Several investigators have suggested that the 24-h area under the concentration-time curve (AUC)/MIC ratio (AUC/MIC24 or AUIC24) can be used to make comparisons of antimicrobial activity between fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Limited data exist regarding the generic predictive ability of AUC/MIC24 for the antimicrobial effects of fluoroquinolones. The purposes of the present investigation were to determine if the AUC/MIC24 can be used as a generic outcome predictor of fluoroquinolone antibacterial activity and to determine if a similar AUC/MIC24 breakpoint can be established for different fluoroquinolones. Using an in vitro pharmacodynamic model, 29 duplicate concentration time-kill curve experiments simulated AUC/MIC24s ranging from 52 to 508 SIT-1.h (inverse serum inhibitory titer integrated over time) with ciprofloxacin or ofloxacin against three strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Each 24-h experiment was performed in cation-supplemented Mueller-Hinton broth with a starting inoculum of 10(6) CFU/ml. At timed intervals cation-supplemented Mueller-Hinton broth samples were collected for CFU and fluoroquinolone concentration determinations. Transformation of bacterial counts into the cumulative bacterial effect parameter of the 24-h area under the effect curve (AUEC24) was performed for each concentration time-kill curve. Multivariate regression analysis was used to compare pharmacodynamic predictors (AUC/MIC24, 24-h AUC, peak concentration [Cmax] to MIC ratios [Cmax:MIC], etc.) with ln AUEC24. To identify threshold breakpoint AUC/MIC24s, AUEC24s were stratified by the magnitude of AUC/MIC24 into subgroups, which were analyzed for differences in antibacterial effect. The Kruskal-Wallis test and subsequent Tukey's multiple comparison test were used to determine which AUC/MIC subgroups were significantly different. Multiple regression analysis revealed that only AUC/MIC24 (r2 = 0.65) and MIC (r2 = 0.03) were significantly correlated with antibacterial effect. At similar AUC/MIC24s, yet different MICs, Cmaxs, or elimination half-lives, the AUEC24s were similar for both fluoroquinolones. The relationship between AUC/MIC24 and ln AUEC24 was best described by a sigmoidal maximal antimicrobial effect (Emax) model (r2 = 0.72; Emax = 9.1; AUC/MIC50 = 119 SIT-1.h; S = 2.01 [S is an exponent that reflects the degree of sigmoidicity]). Ciprofloxacin-bacteria AUC/MIC24 values of < 100 SIT-1.h were significantly different (P < 0.05) from the AUC/MIC24 values of > 100 SIT-1.h. An ofloxacin AUC/MIC24 of > 100 SIT-1.h and an AUC/MIC24 of < 100 SIT-1.h exhibited a trend toward a significant difference (P > 0.05 but < 0.1). The inverse relationship between drug exposure and MIC increase postexposure was described by a sigmoidal fixed Emax model (AUC/MIC24, r2 = 0.40; AUC/MIC50 = 95 SIT-1.h; S = 1.97; Cmax:MIC, r2 = 0.41; Cmax:MIC50 = 7.3; S = 2.01). These data suggest that AUC/MIC24 may be the most descriptive measurement of fluoroquinolone antimicrobial activity against P. aeruginosa, that ofloxacin and ciprofloxacin have similar AUC/MIC24 threshold breakpoints at approximately 100 SIT-1.h, that the concentration-dependent selection of resistant organisms may parallel the threshold breakpoint of the antimicrobial effect, and that AUC/MIC24 generically describes the antibacterial effects of different fluoroquinolones.


The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, by Kemal Karpat. Oxford, UK and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. ix + 422 pages. Notes to p. 479. Bibl. to p. 508. Index to p. 533. $ 49.95. Reviewed by Elisabeth Ozdalga The well-known historian of Ottoman Turkey and the Middle East, Kemal H. Karpat, has added yet another book, this one of well over 400 closely written pages, to his already impressive oeuvre. His new work is about the development of modernity in the late Ottoman Empire, and its aim is "to examine all the background forces that, by conditioning the transformation (and ultimate disintegration) of the Ottoman Empire, opened the way to the emergence of nation-states in the Middle East and the Balkans, especially Turkey. International events as well as domestic political, economic, structural, cultural-religious, and educational factors are considered to the extent they contributed to the transformation" (p. 19). This is an immense task, especially as Karpat seems to have adopted a "historical sociology"' perspective. His works of reference are the classical sociologists Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Joseph Schumpeter; and many of the historians and sociologists who carried this methodological tradition into the twentieth century scholars like E.P. Thompson, E.J. Hobsbawm, Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, and Anthony D. Smith. The author is well versed in this tradition of analytical history and offers penetrating explanations drawn from general sociological categories without compromising the historical details of his rich empirical material. What makes this study especially intriguing, is the author's driving agenda. By emphasizing the role of Islamic revivalism and the leadership of Sultan Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1909) in this transformation process, Professor Karpat offers a notable challenge to official Turkish historiography. In light of the urgency of his argument and the vigorousness of the analysis, it is no surprise that the idea of this book has been on the author's mind since the beginning of his academic career. As the subtitle indicates, this work addresses the transformation of identities during a period of deep-going social, economic, and political changes. In spite of the fact that Islamic revivalism is the basic component in this analysis of altering identities, the focus is not on changing interpretations of Islamic beliefs or dogma: it is not Islam as a belief system that attracts his attention, but Islam as a system of ethical norms and values used for political purposes. …


We explore the problem of designing on-line virtual private networks (VPN) over wavelength division multiplexing networks (WDM) to facilitate the guarantee of diverse quality of service (QoS) requirements of different traffic streams especially that with very stringent delay jitter requirement and that with bursty characteristic. Each VPN consists of different traffic streams with various quality sensitivity. The proposed QoS model provides three types QoS services for various VPNs, static, optical burst switching (OBS) and alternative VPNs. All the three types provide transmission in the optical core networks without any O/E/O conversion. The static type has a set of dedicated or shared lightpaths which have been pre-allocated and the traffic from this VPN has constant bit rate (CBR). The OBS type need to setup the lightpath using a so called optical burst switching (OBS) while a traffic stream with variable bit rate (VBR) request is occurring. The alternative one has to setup a lightpath based on two-way reservation protocols such as tell-and-wait (TAW) for the traffic with unspecified bit rate (UBR) or available bit rate (ABR). The proposed model is suitable for carrying the multimedia applications which have various sensitivity of delay and jitter. By employing dynamic VPNs directly over WDM layer, we can eliminate the often complex QoS related functions in the upper protocol layers, thus increase the overall communication efficiency. Furthermore, this could be the first step toward providing fine grained service over optical wide-area networks. In addition, we present preliminary results based on simulation and provide a network designer with a quantitative assessment of proportion for different traffic types with different QoS service requirements.


This paper examines how schools choose class size and how households sort in response to those choices. Focusing on the highly liberalized Chilean education market, we develop a model in which schools are heterogeneous in an underlying productivity parameter, class size is a component of school quality, households are heterogeneous in income and hence willingness to pay for school quality, and schools are subject to a class-size cap. The model offers an explanation for two distinct empirical patterns observed among private schools that accept government vouchers: (i) There is an inverted-U relationship between class size and household income in equilibrium, which will tend to bias cross-sectional estimates of the effect of class size on student performance. (ii) Some schools at the class size cap adjust prices (or enrollments) to avoid adding another classroom, which produces stacking at enrollments that are multiples of the class size cap. This generates discontinuities in the relationship between enrollment and household characteristics at those points, violating the assumptions underlying regression-discontinuity (RD) research designs. This result suggests that caution is warranted in applying the RD approach in settings in which parents have substantial school choice and schools are free to set prices and influence their enrollments.


The purpose of this study was to investigate how elementary students can learn about the culture of another country and how technology can play a role in this process. The sample of the study included 135 fifth grade students from the United States and Turkey. Initial knowledge and information sources of students were assessed at the beginning of the study. Then, they exchanged multimedia presentations which they prepared to make their peers more knowledgeable about their own country. After studying the presentation about the other country, the students responded to a post-survey assessing their knowledge gains. Results showed that the Turkish students had much more initial knowledge about the American culture compared to knowledge of the American students about Turkey. Both groups had certain prejudices or misperceptions about each other. Media, school, and family were main sources of information, while books and friends played a small role. Studying multimedia-based presentations and discussing its content as a group was highly effective to learn about the culture of another country. By exchanging intercultural information through technology, students became less prejudiced and more understanding of each others' respective cultures.


This article investigates the role of private insurance in the prevention and mitigation of natural disasters. We characterize the equity-efficiency trade-off faced by the policymakers under imperfect information about individual prevention costs. It is shown that a competitive insurance market with actuarial rate making and compensatory tax-subsidy transfers is likely to dominate regulated uniform insurance pricing rules or state-funded assistance schemes. The model illustrates how targeted tax cuts on insurance contracts can improve the incentives to prevention while compensating individuals with high prevention costs. The article highlights the complementarity between individual incentives through tax cuts and collective incentives through grants to the local jurisdictions where risk management plans are enforced.


BACKGROUND
In 1992, Berkel and colleagues reported in the Journal the results of their study of the potential association of breast augmentation and breast cancer. The study reported that women who had breast augmentation had a significantly lower subsequent risk of breast cancer (P < 0.01) than the general population, with a standardized incidence ratio of 0.48 overall. Assuming a 10-year induction period (that is, assuming that cancers found within 10 years of the augmentation might have been the result of a process begun before surgery and therefore should not be considered), the reported standardized incidence ratio was 0.16. Problems were later identified involving some of the study methods. This paper reports a second analysis of these data.

METHODS
We used a data set from Alberta Health Care to identify eligible women with bilateral breast augmentation. Using a combination of deterministic and probabilistic methods, we linked this data set to the Alberta Cancer Registry to identify subsequent breast cancers that developed during the study period. Multiple estimates of standardized incidence ratios were calculated on the basis of differing study-eligibility dates, induction periods, and types of breast-cancer (invasive only or invasive plus in situ).

RESULTS
The reanalysis found substantial differences in the numbers of person-years at risk, resulting in higher standardized incidence ratios than in the original analysis. The final ratios for all breast cancers, with October 1, 1973, used as the starting date of the study, were 0.76 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.55 to 1.02), 0.85 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.58 to 1.19), and 0.68 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.32 to 1.25) for induction periods of 0, 5, and 10 years, respectively. None of these standardized incidence ratios were significantly different from 1.

CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of this reanalysis, the incidence of breast cancer among the women who had breast augmentation could not be said to be either significantly higher or lower than that among the general population over the period during which this cohort was followed.


Purpose: Evidence suggests that older adults, racial/ethnic minorities, and those with comorbidities all face elevated risk for morbidity and mortality from COVID-19; but there are limited reports describing the potential for interactions between these factors. Methods: We sought to evaluate age-based heterogeneity in observed disparities in hospitalization, ICU admission, and mortality related to COVID-19 using CDC public use surveillance data on 3,662,325 COVID-19 cases reported from January 1 to August 30, 2020. Results: Racial/ethnic and comorbidity disparities in hospitalization were most pronounced during ages 20-29 and ages 10-19, with similar elevation seen for disparities in ICU risk. Racial/ethnic disparities in mortality were most pronounced during ages 20-29 while risk from comorbidity peaks among ages 10-39. Conclusions: As COVID-19 continues to affect younger populations, special attention to the implications for the most vulnerable subgroups are clearly warranted.


We model trading and information diffusion in OTC markets, when dealers can engage in many bilateral transactions at the same time. We show that information diffusion is effective, but not efficient. While each bilateral price partially reveals all dealers' private information after a single round of trading, dealers could learn more even within the constraints imposed by our environment. This is not a result of dealers' market power, but arises from the interaction between decentralization and differences in dealers' valuation of the asset. We apply our framework to confront several explanations for the disruption of OTC markets with stylized facts from the empirical literature. We find more support for narratives emphasizing increased counterparty risk as opposed to increased informational frictions.


Does improving access to financial institutions always facilitate consumption smoothing? I document new empirical evidence that emerging economies with better access to banks are worse at consumption smoothing, whereas developed economies with better access to banks are better at consumption smoothing. This result is robust to alternative measures of domestic and international financial access and controlling for level of income. A simple one-good small open economy model supplemented with trend shocks and financial access heterogeneity is calibrated to match business cycle moments of developed and emerging markets. The model can qualitatively account for the change in the ratio of consumption volatility to income volatility to financial access for both developed and emerging economies, as seen in the data. A two-sector extension of the model captures the non-targeted business cycle moments too.


The revolution in communications technology, which gave the west the power to achieve global supremacy, has converted the world into a global village. This was followed by the increasing diffusion (dominance) of western cultural values that tend to destroy the native cultures of developing nations. This article investigates the impact of globalization on socio-cultural development in Nigeria. Specifically, the review of related literature was carried out to ascertain whether there were positive and negative impacts in reference to the topic understudy. Globalization theory was incorporated to analyze the study. The data for this study were purposely collected through the secondary sources and analyzed using content analysis approach. The findings revealed that there is higher usage of western media among young people. Nigerians are copying western culture in negligence of their own culture. Western domination has reduced Nigerian cultural values to zero level. Therefore, the study recommended that government should control massive influx of western movies, electronic games and pornographic materials to protect the Nigerian socio-cultural values. Moreso, government and the local media should promote local artistic works that are congenial with Nigerian environment to eliminate the adverse negative effects associated with globalization. Keywords: Developed nations, developing nations, dominance, globalization, globalization theory, impact, negative, Nigeria, positive, socio-cultural, development.


Research within the social sciences and humanities has long characterized the work of data science as a sociotechnical process, comprised of a set of logics and techniques that are inseparable from specific social norms, expectations and contexts of development and use. Yet all too often the assumptions and premises underlying data analysis remain unexamined, even in contemporary debates about the fairness of algorithmic systems. This blindspot exists in part because the methodological toolkit used to evaluate the fairness of algorithmic systems remains limited to a narrow set of computational and legal modes of analysis. In this paper, we expand on Elish and Boyd's [17] call for data scientists to develop more robust frameworks for understanding their work as situated practice by examining a specific methodological debate within the field of anthropology, frequently referred to as the practice of "studying up". We reflect on the contributions that the call to "study up" has made in the field of anthropology before making the case that the field of algorithmic fairness would similarly benefit from a reorientation "upward". A case study from our own work illustrates what it looks like to reorient one's research questions "up" in a high-profile debate regarding the fairness of an algorithmic system - namely, pretrial risk assessment in American criminal law. We discuss the limitations of contemporary fairness discourse with regard to pretrial risk assessment before highlighting the insights gained when we reframe our research questions to focus on those who inhabit positions of power and authority within the U.S. court system. Finally, we reflect on the challenges we have encountered in implementing data science projects that "study up". In the process, we surface new insights and questions about what it means to ethically engage in data science work that directly confronts issues of power and authority.


In primates, the koniocellular (K) layers of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and the calbindin-rich subdivisions of the inferior pulvinar (IPul) nucleus are considered part of a thalamic matrix system which projects diffusely to superficial cortical layers. Activity in the matrix system is proposed to coordinate oscillatory activity in thalamocortical loops. Further, since both K cells and IPul are involved in visual processing pathways, especially in alternative pathways to visual cortex after V1 lesion in early life ("blindsight"), their functional similarities have been strongly implicated. Here we tested the hypothesis that calbindin-positive K cells and IPul cells constitute a continuous group of cells. By combining immunohistochemistry and a high-throughput neuronal tracing method, we found that both K cells and IPul form reciprocal connections with striate and extrastriate cortices; whereas principal laminae of LGN do not receive inputs from extrastriate cortex and only project sparsely to these areas. Retrograde labelled cells in lateral division of IPul merged seamlessly into the retrograde labelled cells in K layers. These results supported the continuity between LGN K layers and IPul, providing the anatomical basis for functional congruity of this part of dorsal thalamic matrix.


In light of the absence of codified standard varieties of British Sign Language (BSL) and German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebclrdensprache, DGS), there have been repeated calls for the standardisation of both languages primarily from outside the deaf communities. The development of standard varieties has been suggested to facilitate political recognition and the establishment of linguistic norms which could enable sign language users to gain equal access to education, administration and commerce.
Although frequently labelled as sociolinguistic enquiry, much research in standardisation and language planning displays a certain preference for investigating the linguistic aspects of language. Explicit discussion of social-theoretical perspectives
is scarce. In order to address this imbalance, this study focuses on the social aspect of the subject matter by investigating the concept of sign language standardisation from the perspective of deaf sign language teachers. Taking a comparative approach, research findings are based on 17 in-depth interviews conducted in Germany and the UK which were analysed drawing on grounded theory.
Participants in both countries conceptualised sign language standardisation predominantly as externally imposed language change pertaining to the eradication of regional dialects. Given that in contrast to hearing learners of sign languages,
participants did not regard regional variation as a problem but as a highly valued feature of BSL and DGS, sign language standardisation was seen as a threat to sign languages. Moreover, the subject matter was also perceived as embodying hearing people's hegemony by bringing to the fore traditional power imbalances between deaf people and hearing stake holders in the political and educational realms.
This study is the first to explore and examine perceptions of and attitudes towards sign language standardisation in the UK and Germany. It thereby contributes to knowledge in respect to sign language sociolinguistics, as well as standardisation and language planning in the wider field. Moreover, taking an explicitly sociolinguistic approach and in drawing on social research methodology, this study offers an atypical perspective on the issue of language standardisation in general.


Decarbonization of marine transport is a key global issue, with the carbon emissions of international shipping projected to increase 23% to 1090 million tonnes by 2035 in comparison to 2015 levels. Optimization of the energy system (especially propulsion system) in these vessels is a complex multi-objective challenge involving economical maintenance, environmental metrics, and energy demand requirements. In this paper, data from instrumented vessels on the River Thames in London, which includes environmental emissions, power demands, journey patterns, and variance in operational patterns from the captain(s) and loading (passenger numbers), is integrated and analyzed through automatic, multi-objective global optimization to create an optimal hybrid propulsion configuration for a hybrid vessel. We propose and analyze a number of computational techniques, both for monitoring and remaining useful lifetime (RUL) estimation of individual energy assets, as well as modeling and optimization of energy use scenarios of a hybrid-powered vessel. Our multi-objective optimization relates to emissions, asset health, and power performance. We show that, irrespective of the battery packs used, our Relevance Vector Machine (RVM) algorithm is able to achieve over 92% accuracy in remaining useful life (RUL) predictions. A k-nearest neighbors algorithm (KNN) is proposed for prognostics of state of charge (SOC) of back-up lead-acid batteries. The classifier achieved an average of 95.5% accuracy in a three-fold cross validation. Utilizing operational data from the vessel, optimal autonomous propulsion strategies are modeled combining the use of battery and diesel engines. The experiment results show that 70% to 80% of fuel saving can be achieved when the diesel engine is operated up to 350 kW. Our methodology has demonstrated the feasibility of combination of artificial intelligence (AI) methods and real world data in decarbonization and optimization of green technologies for maritime propulsion.


Sport psychology scholars have long called for the field to take intersectional approaches to research and applied practice. Missing from this call is the study of intersectionality in the classroom. Therefore, the purpose of this practice paper is to provide a resource for sport psychology practitioners to take an intersectional approach in their teaching. First, the author provides a brief overview of intersectional theory and approaches to using anti-oppressive practices in the classroom. The author then reflects on their experience utilizing an intersectional lens as a neophyte instructor. Finally, the author discusses lessons learned from this teaching experience. This practice paper serves as a resource for sport psychology scholars and practitioners to integrate the study of intersectionality in their roles. While this paper is written for the higher education classroom, all readers will gain knowledge on intersectional theory and how it can be integrated in their scholarship or applied practice.


Compared to the early 2000s, the number of tourists in Korea has increased significantly. Approximately 40 million tourists visit Korea each year. In line with this trend, various technologies for developing tourism content have reached a very high level. Therefore, adding experience-oriented AR (Augmented Reality) game based on LBS (Location-Based System) to existing tourist contents will create a new tourism content platform that can give new experience to tourists . This paper proposes a tourism contents platform based on Suwon Hwaseong Fortress which can give such a new experience.


The present investigation revolves around evaluation of fracture toughness of welded API X65 steel plate. API X65 is a high strength low alloy (HSLA) steel which is used in line-pipes for transporting oil and natural gas. In the above application, catastrophic failure due to fat igue is reported to cause sudden damage and loss to human -life as well as property. Hence, from end application point of v iew, knowledge on fracture toughness especially in welded plates is of immense importance. Through the present work, an effort has been made to add to the limited number of reports on the above subject. In this work, first, the selected steel was characterized in terms microstructure, hardness and tensile properties. Thereafter, the weld ing of steel plates was performed with sub merged arc welding (SAW) with root pass of shielded metal arc weld ing (SMAW). The micro hardness profile in base material (BM), heat affected zone (HAZ), weld zone (WZ) and weld nugget were evaluated along with microstructural characterizat ion of the above zones using optical and transmission -electron microscopy. The fracture toughness of various zones of welded plate, was evaluated in terms of J-R curve following the concept of EPFM. The samples for fracture toughness tests were prepared as per ASTM E1820. Fractography of the failed specimens were also carried out. The evaluation of fracture toughness of welded API X65 plates indicates that, JQ value of heat affected zone was slightly lower than the base material, but for the weld zone it dropped significantly by 53% due to the non-uniform crack front and crack propagation. The phenomenon is attributed to presence of different defects in the weld region. JQ value for fusion line samples showed significant scatter with an average reduction of 40% in JQ value as compared to base material. The scatter in fusion line value can be attributed to error in precise placement of notch or deviation of crack path during testing. Presence of Nb and V imparts precipitation hardening effect to the API X65 steel, such that it has a satisfactory combination of strength and toughness parameters fu lfilled by API service requirements.


Capillary rise is capable of demonstrating the mechanism involved in groundwater evaporation, where the evaporation from saliferous groundwater could be quantized in accordance with fresh groundwater. The two types of experiments included 12 treatments with four solutes (KCl, NaCl, CaCl2, and MgCl2) that were dissolved in groundwater at three concentrations (5, 30, and 100 g/L), and one control treatment without the salt solutions. The results demonstrated that the capillary action played a dominant role only within a very short period of time at the beginning of evaporation (i.e. within 2 min). The total dissolved solids (TDS) of the groundwater that was dissolved with KCl or NaCl affected the capillary water gravity more than soil pore structure. The TDS of the groundwater that was dissolved with CaCl2 or MgCl2 affected both the capillary water gravity and the soil pore structure. During the groundwater evaporation process, the evaporation conversion coefficient CTDS (>1.0) had the potential to calculate the saliferous-groundwater evaporation in accordance with the fresh-groundwater evaporation. The CTDS values were the largest for the groundwater that was dissolved with KCl/NaCl and CaCl2/MgCl2 at 5 and 30 g/L, where it reached average values of 1.3530–1.3735 and 1.3257–1.3589.


The SASL project is in the process of developing a machine translation system that can translate fully-fledged phrases between SASL and English in real-time. To-date, several systems have been developed by the project focusing on facial expression, hand shape, hand motion, hand orientation and hand location recognition and estimation. Achmed developed a highly accurate upper body pose recognition and estimation system. The system is capable of recognizing and estimating the location of the arms from a twodimensional video captured from a monocular view at an accuracy of 88%. The system operates at well below real-time speeds. This research aims to investigate the use of optimizations and parallel processing techniques using the CUDA framework on Achmed's algorithm to achieve real-time upper body pose recognition and estimation. A detailed analysis of Achmed's algorithm identified potential improvements to the algorithm. A reimplementation of Achmed's algorithm on the CUDA framework, coupled with these improvements culminated in an enhanced upper body pose recognition and estimation system that operates in real-time with an increased accuracy.


BACKGROUND
Few data are available on nosocomial infections (NIs) in US children's hospitals' neonatal or pediatric intensive care units. The Pediatric Prevention Network (PPN) was established to improve characterization of NIs in pediatric patients and to develop and test interventions to decrease NI.

METHODS
Fifty participating children's hospitals were surveyed in 1998 to determine NI surveillance methods used and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) 1997 NI rates. Data were collected on standardized forms and entered and analyzed by using SPSS for Windows.

RESULTS
Forty-three (86%) children's hospitals returned a completed questionnaire. All reported conducting NICU and PICU NI surveillance (range, 2-12; median, 12 months). Nineteen children's hospitals provided NICU NI rate data in one or more formats suitable for comparison. Denominators used for NICU NI rate calculations varied: 17 reported overall NI by patient-days; 19 reported bloodstream infection (BSI) by central venous catheter (CVC)-days, and 8 reported BSI by patient-days. Sixteen (16) children's hospitals reported NICU BSI data stratified by CVC-days and birth-weight cohort, and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) by birth weight cohort was reported by 12. Twenty-four children's hospitals reported PICU NI rate data in one or more formats suitable for comparison. Denominators used for PICU NI rate calculations also varied: 20 reported overall NI rates by patient-days; 23 reported BSI rates by CVC-days, and 10 reported BSI rates by patient-days; 24 reported VAP by ventilator-days; and 15 reported urinary tract infections (UTIs) by urinary catheter-days. Median overall NI rates per 1000 patient days were 8.9 in NICUs and 13.9 in PICUs. Median NICU NI device-associated rates by birth weight (>2500 g, 1501-2500 g, 1001-1500 g, and </=1000 g) were BSI 4.4, 4.7, 8.9, and 12.6, and VAP 0.9, 1.1, 4.9, and 3.5, respectively. Median PICU NI rates per 1000 device days were 6.5 for BSI; 3.7 for VAP; and 5.4 for UTI.

CONCLUSIONS
The number of months that NICU or PICU NI surveillance was conducted varied among hospitals. Reported NICU and PICU NI rates varied by hospital; some reported overall NI rates, and others focused on one or more particular sites of infection (eg, BSI or pneumonia). Many did not provide NICU device-associated rates stratified by birth-weight group. Denominators used to calculate device-associated infection rates also varied, with hospitals reporting either patient-days or device-days. These findings suggest the need to determine reasons for variations and to identify optimal NI surveillance methods at children's hospitals so that valid interhospital NI rate comparisons can be made.


Various techniques for producing geochemical maps are reviewed. Interpretation of processes leading to the observed element distribution will be facilitated when the data structure is displayed in a geochemical map. This can be achieved by using the boxplot or percentiles, evenly spread over the whole data range, for class selection. Map scale (to purpose), type and amount of background map information, choice of symbols (black-and-white mapping) and, for colour maps, the colour scale are important issues that need consideration.


Abstract This analysis lies in the stream of research related to the quantitative assessment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations at the end of September 2015. We assemble a composite multi-dimensional index and a worldwide ranking of current sustainability. This makes it possible to assess the strengths and weaknesses of today's socio-economic development, as well as environmental criticalities worldwide. The methodology goes through the following steps: screening of indicators capable of addressing the UN's SDGs; data collection from relevant sources; organization into three pillars of sustainability (economy, society, and environment); normalization to a common metrics; aggregation of the 26 indicators into composite indices by pillars as well as in a multi-dimensional index. The final ranking includes 139 countries. Sweden, Norway and Switzerland are at the top of the ranking.


It is critical that next-generation warning systems be developed such that persons with disabilities are given equal access to emergency alerts. This paper discusses research and development activities to provide next-generation, mobile emergency alerting systems to people with disabilities. A framework for prototyping mobile phone-based emergency alert systems and multiple systems built on this framework are presented. Results from field trials indicated support and the need for accessible emergency alert/notification features. The paper concludes that simple accommodations can be made to services and software on mobile devices that greatly increase the accessibility of mobile emergency alerts to persons with disabilities.


This paper looks into the management and operational activities of the Chinese bank from cybernetic perspectives. The research is carried out using the application of Viable System Model (VSM) to explore the complex nature of banking activities according to Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety. Using VSM, we explore the nature of banking practice where it needs to assess , what happens in practice , and how we will design the system model for the banking business . Based on the systemic research on Chinese banking practice , we appreciate and present a good system model for the responsible management and feasible and desirable activities of the bank. Being a socially responsible bank, we propose a better banking practice from systemic perspectives . It allows a p ractitioner to be an actor for ' sustainable finance' i n practice .


Discovering the appropriate services in ad-hoc computing environments where a great number of devices and software components collaborate discreetly and provide numerous services is an important challenge. Service discovery protocols make it possible for participating nodes in a network to locate and advertise services with minimum user intervention. However, because it is not possible to predict at design time which protocols will be used to advertise services in a given context/environment, it is now becoming clear that dynamic discovery mechanisms are required by mobile nodes to cope with the heterogeneity of discovery platforms. Existing adaptive mobile middleware solutions such as ReMMoC and INDISS have investigated this style of dynamic discovery. However, these have yet to consider the emerging suite of protocols for discovery in ad-hoc networks. In this paper we present a component-based service discovery framework for the development of an adaptive multi-personality service discovery middleware, which will operate in diverse environments e.g. fixed and ad-hoc networks. This supports a common architecture for individual discovery protocols to enhance configurability and re-configurability of the framework, and minimize resource usage through component reuse. Finally, to evaluate this framework we investigate the development of four existing ad-hoc service discovery protocols using our approach.


Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is driven by a severe pro-inflammatory response resulting in lung damage, impaired gas exchange and severe respiratory failure. There is no specific treatment that effectively improves outcome in ARDS. However, in recent years, cell therapy has shown great promise in preclinical ARDS studies. A wide range of cells have been identified as potential candidates for use, among these are mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), which are adult multi-lineage cells that can modulate the immune response and enhance repair of damaged tissue. The therapeutic potential of MSC therapy for sepsis and ARDS has been demonstrated in multiple in vivo models. The therapeutic effect of these cells seems to be due to two different mechanisms; direct cellular interaction, and paracrine release of different soluble products such as extracellular vesicles (EVs)/exosomes. Different approaches have also been studied to enhance the therapeutic effect of these cells, such as the over-expression of anti-inflammatory or pro-reparative molecules. Several clinical trials (phase I and II) have already shown safety of MSCs in ARDS and other diseases. However, several translational issues still need to be addressed, such as the large-scale production of cells, and their potentiality and variability, before the therapeutic potential of stem cells therapies can be realized.


The present study is part of the research project on "Social and Political Fractures after Wars: Youth Violence in Cambodia and Guatemala". The project is financed by the German Foundation for Peace Research and is located at the Institute for Development and Peace at the University of Duisburg-Essen. The project aims at explaining different levels of youth violence in two post-war societies whose processes of war termination are regarded as successful. However, both societies face serious problems of post-war development that are closely related to the experiences of war and war termination. While Cambodia's democratisation process is considered more or less as a failure, Guatemala suffers from levels of violence higher than during most of the war. The differences between both countries in levels of violence and mechanisms of violence control are also visible in the incidence of youth violence. The project aims to explain these differences through the contextualisation of youth violence. Thus the main focus is directed at the societal and political fractures war and war termination cause for youth and their life-worlds. The working hypotheses were related to differences according to a) the levels of social differentiation; b) the relationship between political and economic power; c) normative frameworks; and d) the sequencing of post-war developments (namely between liberalisation and stabilisation). This approach has methodological consequences insofar as different levels of youth violence are what we seek to explain. The perspective of the actors themselves is beyond our approach. After having identified the relevant fractures this would be the task of further research. Following the Working Paper 'Transitions of Cambodia: War and Peace, 1954 to the present', this study locates youth and their role in society in the social, economic, and political changes in Cambodia during and after the war. It is the premise of the project that youth focus on them the particular challenges of a society after a civil war as society faces a distinct domestic set-up in which external demands for democratisation, marketisation, and pacification intervene. The paper analyses the emergence of youth violence in this process and the role it plays for youth to find a niche for themselves in the post-war society. It examines lifeworlds of youth and presents youth as perpetrators as well as victims of violence, as they are being used by elites but also autonomously exploit opportunities that arose during the unstable post-war period and have led to patterns of violence by and against youth in present day Cambodia.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) stenosis is the most common cause of neonatal hydronephrosis. In patients screened by antenatal ultrasound, the incidence go as high as 1 case per 500 live births. The cause of the UPJ stenosis can be intrinsic or due to an extrinsic compression by an accessory renal artery. The patient with UPJ obstruction can be asymptomatic through his whole life or present with recurrent flank pain and/or urinary tract infection. While many cases can be treated conservatively, surgery is indicated if symptoms occurs or renal function deteriorates. Pyeloplasty is the procedure of choice for UPJ stenosis. Pyeloplasty can be done by open, laparoscopic or robotic technique. The laparoscopic technique is safe and feasible in high-volume centers and may be associated with shorted length of hospital stay and reduced complications. Lately, robotic pyeloplasty has been done with similar results adding the benefits of easier suturing manoeuvrability, but with increased costs. Flexdex® is a laparoscopic articulating needle driver that improves maneuverability and ergonomics. METHODS: We describe a 6 year-old patient with left lumbar and flank pain diagnosed with UPJ stenosis. The patient performed a DTPA scintigraphy with following findings: left kidney time to peak = 5min; left kidney time from peak to ½ peak = not achieved; left kidney after diuretic time from peak to ½ peak = not achieved. The patient underwent a laparoscopic pyeloplasty with the Flexdex® needle driver. RESULTS: The operative time was 90 minutes. The case was done without any intraoperative complications, no significant blood loss and the patient was discharged the day after the procedure. A double J stent was placed intraoperatively and removed after two weeks. This was the first described pediatric pyeloplasty performed using the Flexdex ® needle driver. After 90 days of follow-up, there was no complications reported and the patient reported no more back pain. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic pyeloplasty using Flexdex® is feasible and can be easily be done in centers with expertise in laparoscopic surgeries. Source of Funding: Flexdex donated one laparoscopic articulating needle driver for testing. The donation was not made for publishing purposes.


"The Ecocriticism Reader" is the first collection of its kind, an anthology of classic and cutting-edge writings in the rapidly emerging field of literary ecology. Exploring the relationship between literature and the physical environment, literary ecology is the study of the ways that writing both reflects and influences our interactions with the natural world.An introduction to the field as well as a source book, "The Ecocriticism Reader" defines ecological literary discourse and sketches its development over the past quarter-century. The twenty-five selections in this volume, a mixture of reprinted and original essays, look backward to origins and forward to trends and provide generally appealing and lucidly written examples of the range of ecological approaches to literature. Lists of recommended readings, relevant periodicals, and professional organizations offer direction for further study."The Ecocriticism Reader" is an illuminating entree into a field of study fully engaged with our most pressing contemporary problem--the global environmental crisis.


In this communication we address two issues essential for low-voltage memory applications of ferroelectric thin films: the size effect on polarization switching, and polarization fatigue. According to the proposed concept, both of these phenomena are controlled by local injection of charge into the interfacial layers of the ferroelectric film. In the experimental part of this work, we show that the entrapped charge relaxation can be enhanced by introducing a thin RuO2 layer into the top interface of the Pt/PZT/Pt ferroelectric capacitor. Capacitors prepared in this way using PZT with a 45/55 Zr/Ti ratio show a substantial improvement of fatigue performance and withstand relatively well the thickness downscaling. As a result, these capacitors exhibited good ferroelectric properties for driving voltage amplitudes as low as 0.6–0.8 V. Our results suggest that control of charge relaxation at the interface is a key issue for development of low-voltage ferroelectric capacitors.


Although there is considerable interest in planning for particular rural areas, (area -based pla~~ing) in East Africa, past experience has been discouraging. The common experience of planning without implementation has taken three main forms: target disaggregation; the preparation fOr shopping lists; and development studies which do not lead to action. In the meantime there has been much implementation without area-based planning. Two exceptions have been settlement schemes and the SRDP. The experience of the latter to date suggests that with present procedures, injections of high-level staff are necessary for plan prepara.tion and implementation; that this reflects much less on the capability of field staff than on the circumstances in which they find themselves; that the main administrative bottleneck is in Nairobi; and that implementability is the crux of good planning. Common diagnoses of the problems involved and of prescriptions to deal with them include inappropriate structures of organisations, lack of coordination, lack of entrepreneurial and problem-solving attitudes in the civil service, and lack of trained manpower. '1'hepaper questions each of these diagnoses, commonly made in both Kenya and Tanzania, and also the considerable attention which has been given to social factors in administration, and argues rather that if area-02,s8d planning is desirable it can best be achieved through the design and testing of experimental procedures through a combination of research, 6 onsuf tancy and t'raining.


Tuberculosis is one of the priorities of the World Health Organization of which millions of people in the world die annually. For the control and eradication of the disease, in addition of strategies like treatment of patients and identification of those with drug-resistant TB, We also need to detect the source of infection and track the disease's transmission manner. Molecular epidemiology is one of the most important means to achieve this goal. The present study aimed at declaring the need of molecular identification and differentiation between strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, as one of the TB control strategies.


We discuss examples of designs for all-dielectric reflection gratings that tolerate high intensity and are potentially capable of placing up to 99% of the incident light into a single diffraction order, such as are needed for contemporary high-power lasers utilizing chirped-pulse amplification. The designs are based on placing a dielectric transmission grating atop a high-reflectivity (HR) multilayer dielectric stack. We comment on the connection between transmission gratings and reflection gratings and note that the grating and the HR stack can, to a degree, be treated independently. Because many combinations of gratings and multilayer stacks offer high efficiency, it is possible to attain secondary objectives in the design. We describe examples of such designs aimed toward improving fabrication and lowering the susceptibility to laser-induced damage. We present examples of the dependence of grating efficiency on grating characteristics. We describe examples of high-efficiency (95%) gratings that we have fabricated by using hafnia and silica multilayers.


Page table pointer caches are a hardware supplement for TLBs that cache pointers to pages of page table entries rather than page table entries themselves. A PTPC traps and handles most TLB misses in hardware with low overhead (usually a single memory access). PTPC misses are lled in software, allowing for an easy hardware implementation, similar in structure to a TLB. Since each PTPC entry refers to an entire page of page table entries, even a small PTPC maps a large amount of address space and achieves a very high hit rate. The primary goal of a PTPC is to lower TLB miss handling penalties. The combination of a TLB with a small PTPC provides good performance even in situations where standard TLBs alone perform badly (large workloads or multimedia applications). The advantage of this design is that we can continue to use small xed size pages with standard TLBs. Since PTPCs use traditional page table structures and page sizes, they are very simple to implement in hardware and require minimal operating system modiications. Our simulations show that the addition of a PTPC to a system with a TLB can reduce miss handling costs by nearly an order of magnitude. Small PTPCs are extremely eeective and the combination of small to medium sized TLBs coupled with small PTPCs are an eecient alternative to large TLBs.


A company may use different accounting techniques to adjust accounting information and thereby attract investors. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used to make changes in the financial statements and reduce the results further when the companies expect negative results. This phenomenon has been observed empirically and occurs when including CEO change and negative results. The aim of this study is to test whether there is another factor affecting Big Bath Accounting, namely remuneration of the CEO. The CEOs should, by changing the accounting information, be able to influence their compensation. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used in companies to increase their discretionary accruals (which consists of provisions, depreciation and amortization). A total of 195 annual reports have been studied (in each of the 39 companies five annual reports have been studied). The variables have been operationalized and analyzed by a regression analysis. The result of this study shows that the hypothesis stating that there is a positive correlation between the remuneration of the CEO and Big Bath Accounting can be rejected. The survey also shows that some industries show stronger tendencies of Big Bath Accounting and that some specific industries exhibit greater relation between the remuneration of the CEO and discretionary accruals. The conclusion is however that we cannot prove a positive relation between Big Bath Accounting and remuneration to the CEO.


The precise classification and reconstruction of crossroads from multiple aerial images is a challenging problem in remote sensing. We apply the Conditional Random Fields (CRF) approach to this problem, a probabilistic model that can be used to consider context in classification. A simple appearance-based model is combined with a probabilistic model of the co-occurrence of class label at neighbouring image sites to distinguish classes that are relevant for scenes containing crossroads. The parameters of these models are learnt from training data. We use multiple overlap aerial images to derive a digital surface model (DSM) and a true orthophoto without moving cars. From the DSM and the orthophoto we derive feature vectors that are used in the classification. Within our framework we make use of a car detector based on support vector machines (SVM), which delivers car probability values. These values are used as additional feature to support the classification when the road surface is occluded by static cars. Our approach is evaluated on a dataset of airborne photos of an urban area by a comparison of the results to reference data. The evaluation is performed for images of different resolution. The method is shown to produce promising results when using the car probability values and higher image resolution.


Concerns have been raised about the finance of football clubs in England and elsewhere. With the increasing realisation that football is a business, and therefore should be treated as one, the question of whether issues of corporate governance are applicable and relevant to the sports/football context needs closer scrutiny. This research firstly details current theories of corporate governance and proceeds with an examination of their limitations as approaches in the sports and specifically the football context. This paper delineates the characteristics and specific peculiarities of the sports sector, specifically football, and argues the challenges of corporate governance in sports are substantially different from conventional business as to require different approaches and mechanisms for corporate governance.


Background. The Swedish government states that participation and influence are among the most fundamental prerequisites of public health. Mobility services provide professional and high quality information, advice, and assessment to individuals with a medical condition or recovering from an accident or injury that may affect their ability to drive, access, or egress a motor vehicle. Although Swedish physicians must report drivers with medical conditions, rehabilitative training for driving licenses following injury or severe medical conditions does not exist within contemporary Swedish healthcare systems.Aim. This study aimed primarily to describe and compare two driving assessment models, i.e., the model used by Traffic Medicine Center (TRMC) Stockholm in 1998 and the model provided by Mobilitetscenter.se (MC.se) Gothenburg in 2007. The study also sought to determine the context of the changed provision of driving assessments and identify the significant components of this change.Method A literature review, synthesised with the author's research and complemented by practice-based evidence, provided the knowledge base and starting point of this essay. Action research paired with intervention propelled the changes in the provision of mobility services in Sweden between 1998 and 2007. The author used John Ovretveit's identification of significant change components to illuminate the complex change process that occurred. Selection of an appropriate list of variables to compare the two assessment models derived from FORUM of Mobility Centres, the umbrella organization of British Mobility Centres that developed national guidelines for driving ability assessments in the UK; the QEF Mobility Centre was a member of that organization. The author used a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview to gather relevant data from the compared centers.Results TRMC aims primarily to provide services for society through its contributions to road safety. A Mobility Center focuses on providing assessment and rehabilitation services, optimizing impaired drivers' mobility potential and minimizing collision risks. Cognitive assessment at TRMC accounted for a large part of this study's time allotment. MC.se's practical driving test in a suitably modified car provides the most significant difference between the two models. In addition, MC.se has replaced physicians and psychologists with occupational therapists.Conclusion TRMC aims to ensure that current drivers comply with medical driving laws and regulations. MC.se provides assessments that maximize mobility potential and also ensure low collision rates. Thus, safety is balanced against the right to mobility. The study also explores coping strategies, training, adaptations, and choice of vehicle.


Chikungunya fever, an acute and often chronic arthralgic disease caused by the mosquito-borne alphavirus, chikungunya virus (CHIKV), spread into the Americas in late 2013. Since then it has caused epidemics in nearly all New World countries, the second largest being Colombia with over 450,000 suspected cases beginning in September, 2014, and focused in Bolivar Department in the north. We examined 32 human sera from suspected cases, including diverse age groups and both genders, and sequenced the CHIKV envelope glycoprotein genes, known determinants of vector host range. As expected for Asian lineage CHIKV strains, these isolates lacked known Aedes albopictus-adaptive mutations. All the Colombian strains were closely related to those from the Virgin Islands, Saint Lucia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Brazil, consistent with a single, point-source introduction from the southeast Asia/Pacific region. Two substitutions in the E2 and E1 envelope glycoprotein genes were found in the Colombian strains, especially E1-K211E involving a residue shown previously to affect epistatically the penetrance of the E1-A226V A. albopictus-adaptive substitution. We also identified two amino acid substitutions unique to all American CHIKV sequences: E2-V368A and 6K-L20M. Only one codon, 6K-47, had a high nonsynonymous substitution rate suggesting positive selection.


This paper describes the properties of a set of puzzles that are behaviorally similar to those of the common Raven Progressive Matrix test. Our puzzles consist of a three-by-three grid of images with the lower right element omitted. Each image is characterized by six characteristics that can vary along several patterns. Lab experiments demonstrate that the puzzles become more challenging as the number of characteristics that change increases. Further, the ability to correctly solve our puzzles is shown to be correlated with scores on the Raven Progressive Matrix test and with performance in a beauty contest game. Due to the manner in which our puzzles are constructed, there are a large number of unique puzzles that can be generated for use in economics experiments using software described in the paper. Thus our puzzles are well suited for use as an alternative method to assess the cognitive ability of respondents and for use as a real effort task with multiple levels of cognitive difficulty.


The regulation of financial markets and companies in Europe has undergone significant changes over the last decade. The Commission, Member States, and Parliament constructed regimes that facilitate new legislation, sanction delegation to the Commission for financial market law, and structure the cross-border regulation of companies within the single market. The substance of this book is about that regime development. In creating the regimes discussed in this book, EU leaders contributed to the ongoing constitutionalisation of Europe by contesting and constructing norms. Patterns of normative collision, collusion and coexistence determined whether and what kind of regime emerged. Each of the regimes required an explicit definition of the vertical relationship between the EU and the member states, and of the horizontal relationship amongst the member states. It defined the kind of regulatory state that would be required, the mix of European and national bodies involved, and the procedures they were to follow in carrying out their functions. It also defined what kinds of national variation in related economic and social policy would be regarded as legitimate. As they made these agreements, European leaders simultaneously articulated what it meant to be a member state in the single market, and what it meant to delegate responsibilities to the EU. This constitutionalised these ideals by sorting out the issues of EU and national responsibilities in a powerfully authoritative way. The theory of this book is about demonstrating the normative foundations of these constitutional agreements and showing how they had to be built on the shoulders of national ones.


Mesoporous silica thin films were patterned at the sub-micron scale utilizing the ion hammering effect in order to combine the advantages of mesoporous character and surface morphology, while preserving the interconnected pore system or creating laterally separated porous volumes surrounded by nonpermeable compact zones. Porous silica coatings were prepared by a sol–gel method with an ordered and disordered pore system using micellar templates. A hexagonally ordered Langmuir–Blodgett type monolayer of silica spheres was applied as a mask against Xe+ ion irradiation. The ion energy was chosen according to Monte-Carlo simulations to achieve structures with high lateral contrast between irradiated and unirradiated, i.e., masked areas. The disordered pore system proved to be more resistant against ion bombardment. Although the created surface morphologies were similar, the main character of the pore system could be tailored to be interconnected or separated by controlling the ion fluence. Confocal fluorescence images and ellipsometric porosimetry measurements confirmed that the contribution of transition zone between the intact masked and damaged regions to the porosity is negligible. Furthermore, the majority of the porous volume can be preserved as an interconnected pore system by the application of low ion fluence. By increasing the fluence value, however, separated porous volumes can be created at the expense of the total pore volume.


When the news broke earlier this month that the U.S. government is trying to build a superfast quantum computer, reports suggested the demise of private information as we know it. The end may not be so nigh, however. A full-fledged quantum computer is likely decades away. More important, even if a quantum code cracker can be built, it might be defeated by encryption algorithms already in the works—or by another technology, called quantum key distribution, that relies on quantum mechanics itself for security. Such countermeasures could rob a quantum computer of its widely perceived killer app before building one is even possible.


Cytoplasmic initiator tRNAs from plants and fungi are excluded from participating in translational elongation by the presence of a unique 2'-phosphoribosyl modification of purine 64, introduced posttranscriptionally by the enzyme Rit1p. Members of the Rit1p family show no obvious similarity to other proteins or domains, there is no structural information available to guide experimental analyses, and the mechanism of action of this enzyme remains a mystery. Using protein fold recognition, we identified a phosphatase-like domain in the C-terminal part of Rit1p. A comparative model of the C-terminal domain was constructed and used to predict the function of conserved residues and to propose the mechanism of action of Rit1p. The model will facilitate experimental analyses of Rit1p and its interactions with the initiator tRNA substrate.


Since its original publication in 1987, Channels of Discourse has provided the most comprehensive consideration of commercial television, drawing on insights provided by the major strands of contemporary criticism: semiotics, narrative theory, reception theory, genre theory, ideological analysis, psychoanalysis, feminist criticism, and British cultural studies. The second edition features a new introduction by Robert Allen that includes a discussion of the political economy of commercial television. Two new essays have been added--one an assessment of postmodernism and television, the other an analysis of convergence and divergence among the essays--and the original essays have been substantially revised and updated with an international audience in mind. Sixty-one new television stills illustrate the text. Each essay lays out the general tenets of its particular approach, discusses television as an object of analysis within that critical framework, and provides extended examples of the types of analysis produced by that critical approach. Case studies range from Rescue 911 and Twin Peaks to soap operas, music videos, game shows, talk shows, and commercials. Channels of Discourse, Reassembled suggests new ways of understanding relationships among television programs, between viewing pleasure and narrative structure, and between the world in front of the television set and that represented on the screen. The collection also addresses the qualities of popular television that traditional aesthetics and quantitative media research have failed to treat satisfactorily, including its seriality, mass production, and extraordinary popularity.


Objective: To evaluate the effect of MESA on NDEA induced hepatocellular carcinoma on Sprague Dawley rats. Methodology: Semecarpus anacardium commonly known as 'marking nut tree' is a rich antioxidant and in Ayurveda it has been used for treatment of various forms of cancer. Methanolic extract of leaves of Semecarpus anacardium (MESA) was studied for its potential antioxidant property both in vitro and in vivo. NDEA 200 mg/kg, single i.p was the hepatocarcinogen while 200 mg/kg and 400 mg/kg of MESA was administered daily orally for 12 weeks. Protective effect of MESA was evaluated by measuring biochemical parameters like SGOT, SGPT, ALP and LDH. Alpha fetoprotein test was performed and histopathology changes of livers were assessed. Results: Preliminary phytochemical study revealed the presence of flavonoids, tannins, steroids, alkaloids, glycosides and vitamin C. MESA restored the level of antioxidants near to normal and reduced the elevated serum level of SGOT, SGPT, AST, LDH and AFP. The histopathology changes i.e. necrosis, widened sinusoids, elevated inflammatory cell infiltrate were partly or fully prevented in animals treated with the extract. Conclusion: The result of the present study indicates MESA to be rich in antioxidants and its active constituents mediated the free radical scavenging activity. 400 mg/kg extract showed promising effect in management of primary liver cancer.


Between the years 1852 and 1860 six voluntary hospitals were opened in Great Britain to provide medical care for children who would previously have been considered too young to be admitted to hospital. This thesis argues that the process was shaped by the public health movement which was ascendant at that time.
The literature review shows that while historians of nineteenth-century childhood have been aware that child health was a problem, especially for working-class children, they have tended to view this through the prism of industrial and urban history, and there is little work available relating specifically to the provision of health care for younger children.
Chapters two and three demonstrate the emergence of a new understanding of the nature of childhood which came about as a result of the great inquiries into child labour, the health of towns, and the condition of the labouring classes, and the impact of the emerging science of statistics. At a time of crisis in traditional British medicine, the new approaches combined with French clinical and German laboratory techniques to open British physicians to the possibility of working with young children as a serious proposition for the first time.
Chapters four to six follow the various ways in which six children's hospitals were opened in London, Norwich, Liverpool, Manchester, and Edinburgh. Influences which are analysed include the desire to rectify the acknowledged ignorance among physicians concerning children's diseases, the recognition of environmental management as a fruitful means for improving children's health, and a new willingness to emulate Continental practices.
This thesis departs from the existing historiography in challenging the underlying assumption as to the operating model of a hospital. Histories of children's hospitals are written in terms of the extent to which they succeeded in applying the allopathic model of health, with the administration of medicines and surgical procedures at the centre, however ineffectually. What actually distinguished the new institutions was their emphasis on promoting healing not by manipulating children's bodies but, drawing on the insights of the public health movement, by providing a therapeutic environment.


Preventing the translocation of p53 to the cytosol in β cells promotes insulin secretion in animal models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Mitochondrial dysfunction in insulin-secreting β cells is a pathological feature of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The transcription factor p53 promotes mitochondrial genomic integrity, but the accumulation of cytosolic p53, which can occur in response to metabolic stress, disrupts the clearance of dysfunctional mitochondria (mitophagy) mediated by Parkin. Hoshino et al. investigated the role of p53 in mitochondrial dysfunction in two animal models of diabetes using mice lacking p53 in islet β cells. Compared with wild-type counterparts, p53-deficient mice treated with streptozocin (STZ, which induces experimental type 1 diabetes) showed decreased hyperglycemia, preserved serum insulin concentrations, and improved glucose tolerance, as well as increased oxygen consumption in islet cells and insulin secretion in response to glucose injections. Electron microscopy showed that p53-deficient β cells from STZ-treated mice had increased incorporation of mitochondria into autophagosomes and decreased numbers of abnormal mitochondria compared with wild-type counterparts. Inhibition of p53 with injections of pifithrin-α (PFT-α) increased insulin secretion, oxygen consumption, and autophagic clearance of dysfunctional mitochondria in wild-type db/db mice (a model of type 2 diabetes) similar to the extent seen in p53-deficient STZ-treated mice. Knocking down Parkin in islet β cells in either p53-deficient or PFT-α–treated mice did not improve mitochondrial integrity or glucose-induced insulin secretion. Knocking down p53 in MIN6 β cells overexpressing GFP-tagged light chain 3 (LC3), a marker of autophagy, preserved the colocalization between LC3 and mitochondria and the fusion between lysosomes and mitochondria compared with wild-type cells in response to glucose. Furthermore, p53 knockdown preserved insulin secretion and increased adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production in MIN6 cells in response to glucose. Parkin knockdown or genetic or pharmacological inhibition of mitophagy abolished the protective effects of p53 knockdown in MIN6 cells. These findings suggest that p53 disrupts Parkin-mediated mitophagy and insulin secretion in β cells. The abundance of p53 in islets from STZ-treated or db/db mice was unchanged in total but was increased in the cytosol and decreased in the nucleus compared with controls. In MIN6 β cells, endogenous p53 and Parkin interacted, and this interaction was increased in the cytosolic fraction in response to glucose. Treating cells with LiCl, an inhibitor of glycogen synthase kinase 3β (which is implicated in diabetes), decreased the cytosolic translocation of p53 and improved insulin secretion. The findings suggest that preventing the translocation of p53 in β cells may be therapeutic in diabetes. A. Hoshino, M. Ariyoshi, Y. Okawa, S. Kaimoto, M. Uchihashi, K. Fukai, E. Iwai-Kanai, K. Ikeda, T. Uemaya, T. Ogata, S. Matoba, Inhibition of p53 preserves Parkin-mediated mitophagy and pancreatic β-cell function in diabetes. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 111, 3116–3121 (2014). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Because of the importance of Robert Frank's The Americans; because he turned to filmmaking in 1959, the same year the book appeared in the United States; and because he made very different kinds of pictures when he returned to still photography in the 1970s, most of Frank's American work of the 1950s is poorly known. This book, based on the important Frank collection at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, is the first to focus on that work. Its careful sequence of 131 plates integrates twenty-two photographs from The Americans with more than 100 unknown or unfamiliar images to chart the major themes and pictorial strategies of Frank's work in the United States in the 1950s. Peter Galois' text presents a thorough reconsideration of Frank's first photographic career and examines in detail how he used the full range of photography's vital 35mm vocabulary to reclaim the mediums artistic tradition from the hegemony of the magazines.


Small Arms in Demand Strategies to curb armed conflict at the national, regional, and international level tend to focus on regulating the manufacture and supply of guns rather than trying to address factors that cause a perceived need for them. If supply-side regulation fails, a humanitarian crisis may be the next intervention. In between assembly line and open conflict, however, there is a wide range of largely untested interventions that fall outside of the traditional scope of defence and foreign affairs.


This paper addresses poverty reduction strategies from a labour market perspective. Structural features and constraints are emphasised using informality as a descriptive and segmentation as an analytical concept. Divergent demand-side developments combined with limited labour market mobility result in labour market segmentation. Vicious skill circles are identified that keep the poor trapped in jobs with low incomes. The analysis of the dimensions of informality in the Bolivian labour market shows that its characteristics do not correspond to the conventionally assumed informal-formal dichotomy. Empirical studies on the Bolivian case are reviewed that support the hypothesis of a segmented labour market with vicious poverty circles. The major policy conclusion for poverty reduction drawn from the analysis is that education should be more focused on employment.


There appears to be some hesitation within the forensic biology community to formally evaluate and report on findings given activity level propositions. This hesitance in part stems from concerns about the lack of relevant data on the dynamics of biological traces and doubt about the relevance of such expert opinions to the trier of fact. At the Netherlands Forensic Institute formal evaluative opinions on the probability of case findings given propositions at the activity level are provided since 2013, if requested by a mandating authority. In this study we share the results from a retrospective analysis of 74 of such requests. We explore which party initiates requests, the types of cases that are submitted, the sources of data being used to assign probabilities to DNA transfer, persistence, prevalence and recovery (TPPR) events, the conclusions that were drawn by the scientists, and how the conclusions were used by the courts. This retrospective analysis of cases demonstrates that published sources of data are generally available and can be used to address DNA TPPR events in most cases, although significant gaps still remain. The study furthermore shows that reporting on forensic biology findings given activity level propositions has been generally accepted by the district and appeal courts, as well as the other parties in the criminal justice system in the Netherlands.


The aim of this research is to examine the relationship between whistleblowing and organizational citizenship behaviors in textile sector operating in Denizli province. The textile production and sales have always been placed on the top for the economic structure in Denizli. One of the important concepts of whistleblowing can be defined as revealing illegal and immoral practices in an organization. The concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is defined as the assumption by employees of positive roles toward the organization about issues that do not fall within their own area of duty, on a voluntary basis and without having any expectation. The study used an empirical approach which includes qualitative and quantitative methods of analyzing data. The data were gathered through surveys from 12 SME firms in textile sector. İn total, 192 usable surveys were obtained. The results revealed that there are statistically significant relationships between whistleblowing and organizational citizenship behavior in textile sector.


rust is often understood to be a mental state, or a complex attitude, constructed of a tr ipar t ite relationship involving trustor(s), trustee(s), and actions/behaviors, with each relevant for the result of a goal. In this issue of T&S Magazine, our community explored well technologies set against the backdrop of the contextual nature of trust, as well as the impact of technologies on trust construction and trust violation. Taking into account trust in the environment and in the infrastructure (e.g., the sociotechnical architectures), our community delved into a variety of trust realms [1], [3]. We acknowledged tensions when actors confront high-stakes events within adverse conditions. We wrestled, once again, with the situational complexities around weaponized technologies that terminate hostile targets. We explored how human and non-human actors could strengthen trustworthy decisionmaking taking into account levels of certainty. We also looked to antifragility systems; we learned how microgrids can be used to rescue victims in life-threating environs, so that trustees can marvelously expedite disaster relief efforts. Our community examined well how technologies increasingly impact the construction of trust. We looked to artificial swarm robots to improve the modulation of idea f low for prosocial behavior in social networks. We considered time scarcity; we must sometimes forgo the iterated interactions that so often build trust; swift trust [2] can become obligatory. We also exposed technologies utilized for nefarious purposes. Social trust is violated when surveillance technologies fuel clandestine campaigns to construct oppressive systems used to control (and punish) members of society. Social trust can also be eroded when trustabusing actors manipulate reality with deepfake videos, or if we carelessly relinquish human aspects of caring, thinking, feeling, and dying to non-human actors. We pondered: How will these affect our decisions to trust? As trustors, we are travers ing minefields to ascer tain the trustworthiness of human and nonhuman trustees. We work to define the actions/behaviors in rapidly emerging technological spheres in order to ascer ta in what (and who) i s , and will be, wor thy of trust — and at what levels. Thus, we perceive: trust emergence [1], [3] becomes far more complex. Because such social constructs as trust remain essential for a robust society, our community must remain committed to exploring such consequences of technology.


Objective: To propose a single qualifier scale for voice problems based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) that classifies a voice problem considering its multidimensionality. Method: A multicultural database was analyzed (280 subjects). The analyzed information was: the perceptual judgment of the overall voice quality (G); the acoustic analysis (A) with the Acoustic Voice Quality Index; the laryngeal diagnosis (L) and the patient self-assessment (P) using the Voice Handicap Index. The variables were categorized. A 2-step cluster analysis was performed to define groups with common characteristics. Results: A 7-point qualifier scale, the GALP, was defined to generally classify levels of voice problems considering 4 dimensions of the voice evaluation. Each level of voice problem, that is, no problem, mild, moderate, severe, or complete voice problem, has its own possible outcome for G, A, L, and P that will change, or not, the overall level of voice problem. The extremes of the scale represent "no problem" at all when all parameters are normal, and "complete problem" when all parameters are altered. The 3 levels in between were defined by the cluster analysis (mild, moderate, and severe problem) and change according to the outcome of each evaluation (G, A, L, and P). Thus, changes in one parameter alone may or not contribute to the change of the level of voice problem. Also, there are 2 categories for cases that do not fit the classification (not specified) and for which some of the variables are missing (not applicable). Conclusion: The GALP scale was proposed to classify the level of voice problem. This approach considers important dimensions of voice evaluation according to the ICF. It is a potential tool to be used by different professionals, with different assessment procedures, and among different populations, clinicians, and study centers.


Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Program in Oceanography (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Biology; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2006.


Research into the health needs of Asian elders has been scarce, that which does exist has
lacked a theoretical framework. A first attempt is made in the present research study to
relate the literature on race and ethnicity to theory and practice in gerontology.
A stress and coping model from the gerontological literature was adapted to
account for outcomes of physical/psychological health and well-being amongst south
Asian elders. In order to test the applicability of this model the first aim of the study was
to gain an insight into the circumstances and situations of Asian elders on a range of
demographic, support, health and well-being factors. And then-secondly, to see how these
factors may interrelate according to the stress and coping model. A range of specific
hypotheses were formulated on the basis of this model.
Data were collected using semi-structured interviews conducted with a
community sample of 70 South Asian elders who were 55 years and over. The interview
schedule consisted of both standardised measures of health, stress and coping as well as
structured questions on the use of formal/informal support, satisfaction with life and
attitudes towards old age.
Data were analysed in two phases. The results from the first phase which were
largely descriptive, suggest that a significant number of Asian elders were living either
alone or with their spouse. In general Asian elders were living in circumstances of
material disadvantage, suffering from poor health and chronic illnesses, reporting high
levels of psychological distress with little formal and informal support. Awareness and
receipt of specialist support services for older adults was low.
The results from the second phase involving analyses of correlations and
regressions, indicate significant correlations between outcome measures of health/mental
health and satisfaction with life with measures of coping, appraisals and to some extent
resource variables. There were also significant correlations between positive/negative
outcomes of health and well-being with positive/negative ways of coping, appraisal and
some resource variables.
The factor associated most strongly with outcome variables was social support
(resource) rather than coping. Overall, the stress and coping model appears to account
well for most of the research findings. The results were discussed in relation to previous
research literature and implications for future research and clinical practice were
discussed


While the presence of nectar is the most common floral reward offered by orchids, approximately one-third of orchid species have evolved mechanisms of deceit whereby the pollinator receives no reward. Lack of reward has been shown to have a significant negative effect on reproductive success in the Orchidaceae, however the phenomenon of nectar-robbery has been poorly studied. Here we investigate the effect of nectar-robbery induced deceit by invasive ants in the nectariferous orchid Aeranthes arachnitis. Fruiting success was found to be below 5% at three sites, including two conservation areas, compared with 48.5% at a site next to plantations. All the populations showed loss of floral nectar, ranging from 64.3% to 100% of flowers observed. Loss of nectar to robbers that do not facilitate pollination not only represents a cost to fruiting success but also a loss of a resource to the orchid through reabsorption of any excess. Using Bell's Theory of nectar concealment it is possible to determine the critical point, below which nectar-robbery negatively affects fruiting success. Based on related angraecoid orchids the proportion of nectar bearing flowers would, theoretically, need to be 70%. The higher levels of reproductive success surrounded by plantations may due to the presence of the non-native Callistemon citrinus acting as nectar source, thus maintaining an increased local abundance of the pollinator. This has important implications for the conservation and management of Aeranthes arachnitis and other species, which rely on nectariferous pollinators, particularly when a nectar bearing species becomes essentially deceptive. The result suggests that management of this nectar-robbery induced deceptive species should involve the manipulation of rewarding species within the surrounding area.


Link travel times are crucial for advanced traveler information systems and traffic management applications. However, current systems for estimating them still have shortcomings that need to be addressed. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for vehicle reidentification via signature matching using signal processing techniques and a travel time estimation algorithm that is robust to potential (and often inevitable) vehicle misidentifications. Individual vehicles are matched between well-separated stations in a road transportation network using signatures captured by embedded roadway sensors. Statistical and multirate signal processing methods are used to develop data-postprocessing algorithms that are critical to the subsequent signature-matching problem, which is formulated using optimal techniques from communication theory. A probabilistic modeling of the generated matching assignments and an unsupervised data-clustering technique are then used to devise a travel time estimation algorithm. The proposed method is tested under a real traffic scenario, and accurate link travel time measures are reported.


Despite the undeniable importance of Japan in world affairs, both politically and economically, the office of the Japanese prime minister has received far less attention from scholars than have the top political offices in other advanced industrialised democracies. This book offers a systematic analysis of the Japanese prime minister's role and influence in the policy process. Kenji Hayao argues that the Japanese prime minister can play a major if not a critical role in bringing about a change in policy. In Japan the prime minister's style is different from what is considered usual for parliamentary leaders: rather than being strong and assertive, he tends to be reactive. How did the role develop in this way? If he is not a major initiator of policy change, how and under what conditions can the prime minister make his impact felt? Finally, what are the consequences of this rather weak leadership? In answering these questions, Professor Hayao presents two case studies (educational reform and reform of the tax system) involving Nakasone Yasuhiro to see how he became involved in the policy issues and how he affected the process. Hayao then examines a number of broad forces that seem important in explaining the prime minister's role in the policy process: how a leader is chosen and his relationships with other important actors in the political system - the political parties and the subgovernments; and the structure of his "inner" staff and advisers.