The fabrication of drug carriers, which are desirable for chemotherapy and thermal therapy, is considered to be an attractive approach to improving the efficacy of cancer therapy and to reducing the adverse side effects. In this study, we fabricated a crown ether triad (CET) unit modified core–shell magnetic mesoporous silica (FeNP@SiOH@CET) nanocarrier system for pH-responsive drug delivery and magnetic hyperthermia applications. The CET units were installed onto the FeNP@SiOH NPs through pH-responsive, metal–ligand complexation-based host–guest interactions. The surface modified CET gating units can effectively protect the encapsulated drugs (Dox) inside the mesopores of the FeNP@SiOH@CET NP system under physiological pH conditions and show a pH-responsive release performance under acidic pH environments in the presence of an alternating magnetic field (AMF). The MTT assay and intracellular uptake results evidenced that the synthesized FeNP@SiOH@CET NPs are biocompatible and can efficiently be taken up by MDA-MB-231 cells. Furthermore, the FeNP@SiOH@CET NPs exhibit superparamagnetic behavior with a magnetic saturation value of Ms = 60.2 emu g−1. In addition, the magnetic hyperthermia experiment supports that the FeNP@SiOH@CET NPs show fast and efficient temperature increases, and reach hyperthermia temperature (45 °C), within a short duration (∼4 min) in the presence of an applied magnetic field, which could be an appropriate temperature for local hyperthermia treatment in cancer therapy. Thus, the fabricated FeNP@SiOH@CET system can serve as a pH-responsive drug carrier as well as a hyperthermia agent. Owing to the synergistic effect of the FeNP@SiOH@CET NPs, they could be used for chemotherapy combined with magnetic hyperthermia-based thermal therapy applications in emerging cancer therapy.


Traditional methods for marine mammal, seabird and turtle observations require qualified observers aboard ships or aircraft. These methods are cost-prohibitive for National Marine Sanctuaries to conduct at regular intervals. The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary used a NOAA-owned Puma™ AE (All Environment) small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to field-test its capability to detect various targets on the ocean's surface, including marine mammals and other large marine organisms. The Puma UAS is a waterproof, all-electric propeller powered aircraft that is light enough to be launched by hand from small vessels, and includes a gimbaled camera payload that can swivel 360 degrees with zoom and infrared capabilities. Over two days, four flights totaling a length of 206.7 kilometers were made in northern Monterey Bay. Although primary targets (leatherback turtles and their jellyfish prey) were never observed, a total of eight Humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) and one ocean sunfish ( Mola mola) were recorded during six total hours of flight. The UAS proved adequate in detecting objects as small as one meter across from altitudes as low as 60 meters and large animals, such as whales at its maximum flight altitude of 300 meters. Although this system requires less personnel and costs significantly less than traditional observation methods, it lacks a high-definition camera, and may not yet be suited for rigorous data collection due to inability to calculate total area covered (i.e., target densities unobtainable). In its current configuration, this system may be better suited for reconnaissance applications within National Marine Sanctuaries, although future configurations of the UAS could remedy its current deficiencies.


Ultralong nonreturn-to-zero optical transmission systems with incomplete dispersion compensations are studied. The dispersion of transmission fiber is periodically under- or overcompensated. Postdispersion compensation (PDC) at the receiver is used to compensate for the residual dispersion caused by incomplete compensation and to tailor the signal pulse shape. Formulas estimating the change of pulse width in the absence of amplifier noise during signal transmission and after PDC are given. During signal transmission, pulse width may be compressed or broadened by the combined effect of the dispersion and self-phase modulation (SPM). The change of pulse width nearly increases with the square of the distance during signal transmission. With amplifier noise, system performance evaluated by Q factor is studied. Several types of transmission fibers are considered. The Q factor can be significantly improved by proper PDC. Signal pulse is compressed when PDC is optimized. The characteristics of the maximum Q factor and the residual dispersion are studied, in which PDC is optimized. The results show that to achieve the best system performance, fiber dispersion should be undercompensated for positive dispersion parameter and overcompensated for negative dispersion parameter. The optimal fiber dispersion lies in the range from 4 to 10 ps/km/nm for the considered systems, and the optimal ratio of residual dispersion and fiber dispersion is about 1%.


In introducing The Gender of Modernism (1990), Bonnie Kime Scott urges readers to attend to "the forgotten and silenced makers of modernism," in particular, to a number of British and American women writing between approximately 1910 and 1940 ("Dedication," n.p.). To do so is to expand our understanding of the modernist movement, a project to which I would like to contribute by looking at a trio of novels by one of the anthology's featured modernists, May Sinclair. I propose to examine how these novels challenge what Rachel Blau DuPlessis calls the conventional script of the heterosexual couple (2), especially as that script was being rewritten within the modernist marriage novel.(1) DuPlessis identifies the key motifs of the script: the separation of love and quest; the privileging of sexual asymmetry; the valorizing of heterosexual ties; and the muffling of the heroine (5). If one assumes that any modernist writer engaged in composing a marriage novel would in one way or another challenge aspects of the nineteenth-century romance plot, then the question before us is, do Sinclair's challenges distinguish themselves from those of, say, Wells, Joyce, Forester, or Lawrence? Do Sinclair's novels add that different emphasis described by Nancy K. Miller as a marker of female-authored narrative? If we are to discover differences between the writing of men and women, suggests Miller, it will not be on the level of the sentence nor in some irruption of the non-symbolic in female-authored texts. Rather, differences will be found in "the insistence of a certain thematic structuration," in the adding of a new emphasis within the traditional "grammars" of motives found in the culture's dominant narratives (341). Specifically, she considers how women Writers structure distinctive narratives out of what Freud, in "The Relationship of the Poet to Daydreaming" (1908) saw as a basic human conflict between erotic and ambitious desires, a conflict he believed played itself out differently in the fantasies of men and women.(2) In many of the marriage novels written by male modernists one can indeed see a resistance to the conventional separation of love and quest in both husbands and wives. One thinks of the intricate complementarity of erotic love and ambitious quest in Joyce's Leopold Bloom, Wells's Ellen Harman, Lawrence's Tom Brangwen and, later, his Anna Brangwen. Moreover, the male modernists often do attempt to unmuffle their wifely heroines. Consider Forster's articulate Margaret Schlegel Wilcox, Joyce's Molly Bloom, Lawrence's Ursula Brangwen Birkin, Wells' Marjorie Trafford and Ellen Harman. But these male modernists also tend to privilege sexual asymmetries, emphasizing the ways in which their husbands and wives are fundamentally different, and they valorize heterosexual ties. Respecting this latter point, when they do explore homoerotic desires--one thinks especially of Lawrence and Forster--they see those desires as existing mainly within the context of male relationships and standing in opposition to heterosexual desires. Ursula Brangwen offers a rare lesbian example, but she rapidly passes through her experience with Miss Ingram on her way to an affair with Anton Skrebensky and an eventual marriage with Rupert Birkin. By killing off Gerald Crich, Lawrence denies Birkin the possibility of enjoying both heterosexual marriage to Ursula and a continuing homosexual affair with Gerald. Mellors leaves behind his bonds to his army comrades as he moves first into marriage with Bertha Coutts and then with Connie Chatterley; Forster's Maurice could not possibly embrace both Alec and a woman. In the marriage novels of May Sinclair, one sees her also resisting the separation of love and quest and similarly finding ways to unmuffle her heroines. But in addition, especially within the trio to be considered here, one sees an increasing willingness to represent sexual symmetries and to explore non-heterosexual erotic desires, particularly in her female characters. …


This paper considers hair care as a network of activities and routines which have consequences for environmental sustainability and which may be modified by design. It proposes that together with cultural knowledge, embodied skill and objects, these activities can be thought of as 'practices' that are reproduced and also change through time (Shove 2006). They consume resources and are therefore implicated in the issue of environmental sustainability.

The paper draws on research into hair care practices conducted through in-depth interviews with female participants, as part of the first author's PhD study. The discussion here however centres on historical work and Shove's (2003) writing on bathing to explore the changing products and substances including ideas, technological and infrastructural aspects of cleansing and conditioning hair. Because these factors may determine when to wash or not to wash your hair they affect resource consumption.

The paper concludes by outlining opportunities for sustainable design that follow from the insights gained by investigating the history of hair care in relation to the data collected during in-depth interviews. It highlights, as outlined by Hand et al (2005), that the resources consumed through hair care are influenced by the integrative nature of hair care as a practice rather than by individuals being dedicated to sustainability.

To concentrate on single products without taking into account that hair care is practiced in everyday life is not likely to provide opportunities for sustainable living. What is considered 'normal' standards of hair care and means to achieve them needs to be conceptualised to identify opportunities to modify what is considered 'normal' through design.


North American grasslands have experienced increased relative abundance of shrubs and trees over the last 150 years. Alterations in herbivore composition, abundance and grazing pressure along with changes in fire frequency are drivers that can regulate the transition from grassland to shrubland or woodland (a process known as woody encroachment). Historically, North American grasslands had a suite of large herbivores that grazed and/or browsed (i.e. bison, elk, pronghorn, deer), as well as frequent and intense fires. In the tallgrass prairie, many large native ungulates were extirpated by the 1860's corresponding with increased homesteading (which led to decreased fire frequencies and intensities). Changes in the frequency and intensity of these two drivers (browsing and fire) has coincided with woody encroachment in tallgrass prairie. Within tallgrass prairie, woody encroachment can be categorized in to two groups: non-resprouting species that can be killed with fire, and resprouting species that cannot be killed with fire. Resprouting species require additional active management strategies to decrease abundance and eventually be removed from the ecosystem. In this study we investigated plant cover, ramet density and physiological effects of continuous simulated browsing and prescribed fire on Cornus drummondii C.A. Mey, a resprouting clonal native shrub species. Browsing reduced C. drummondii canopy cover and increased grass cover. We also observed decreased ramet density that allowed for more infilling of grasses. Photosynthetic rates between browsed and unbrowsed control shrubs did not increase in 2015 or 2016. In 2017, photosynthetic rates for browsed shrubs were higher in the unburned site than the unbrowsed control shrubs at the end of the growing season. Additionally, after the prescribed fire, browsed shrubs had ~ 90% decreased cover, ~50% reduced ramet density, and grass cover increased by ~ 80%. In the roots of browsed shrubs after the prescribed fire, non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) experienced a 2-fold reduction in glucose and a 3-fold reduction in both sucrose and starch. The combined effects of browsing and fire show strong potential as a successful management tool to decrease the abundance of clonal-resprouting woody plants in mesic grasslands and illustrate the potential significance of browsers as a key driver in this ecosystem.


Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is a wide-field imaging camera on the prime focus of the 8.2m Subaru telescope on the summit of Maunakea. A team of scientists from Japan, Taiwan and Princeton University is using HSC to carry out a 300-night multi-band imaging survey of the high-latitude sky. The survey includes three layers: the Wide layer will cover 1400 deg$^2$ in five broad bands ($grizy$), with a $5\,\sigma$ point-source depth of $r \approx 26$. The Deep layer covers a total of 26~deg$^2$ in four fields, going roughly a magnitude fainter, while the UltraDeep layer goes almost a magnitude fainter still in two pointings of HSC (a total of 3.5 deg$^2$). Here we describe the instrument, the science goals of the survey, and the survey strategy and data processing. This paper serves as an introduction to a special issue of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, which includes a large number of technical and scientific papers describing results from the early phases of this survey.


Providing users with relevant information raises their awareness on the influence of their behavior on the energy consumption and comfort in their workspace. A user-building interface was developed as part of this research through a co-creation process. It provides the occupants of monitored offices with information on their electricity and heating consumption, comfort indicators (temperature and air quality), light control and hints and tips on how to improve their behavior. This contribution describes the methodology used to improve the behavior of users in a pilot building and the results of a 32-week measurement campaign.


Summary Th e dissection experiment was carried out on 120 swine carcasses slaughtered in several Croatian slaughterhouses. Th e carcasses were selected on the basis of rather large sample of backfat measurements obtained by method for lean percentage prediction approved in Croatia, regardless of the carcass weight. Aft er 24 hours of cooling, left sides of the carcasses were dissected according to EU reference methods (Commission Regulation No 3127/94; Walstra and Merkus, 1996). Dissected lean percentage was assessed according to the Commission Regulation (EC) No 1249/2008. Th e aim of the present study was to construct a formula for online classifi cation of the pig carcasses by Hennessy Grading Probe (HGP), an approved referent device in Republic of Croatia. Th e formula for HGP device was assessed according to the prediction ability i.e. the standard error of prediction-RMSEP (root mean square error of prediction) that is estimated using cross-validation "leave-one-out". Th e obtained equation was: M% = 59.603676 - 0.864 * S + 0.192 * M, having RMSEP 2.21 that is satisfactory according to European regulations. Mean values of the fat depth and muscle thickness in the data set used for the construction of the formula was 16.41 ± 4.11 mm and 61.19 ± 9.05 mm, respectively. Mean lean percentage obtained by dissection was 57.17 ± 4.86% that did not diff er statistically from the lean percentage estimated by the formula which was 57.72 ± 4.38%.


Therapeutic lentiviral vectors are emerging as vital tools for molecular medicine as evidenced by the growing number of clinical trials using these vector systems. From a basic research standpoint, lentiviral vectors are very intriguing substrates. On the one hand, the HIV-1 genome offers expanded cloning capacity and the capability to transduce non-dividing cells such as hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and neurons. However, concerns associated with the potential risk of generating replication competent lentiviral particles require the removal of significant portions of the HIV genome, most notably the envelope protein (env). In their work published on page 1269 of this issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Bell et al. show that envelope proteins derived from the endogenous feline virus RD114 provide a versatile and effective method to pseudotype lentiviral vectors. The work was carried out by Anthony Bell, working together with David Fegen, Maureen Ward and Arthur Bank at Columbia University Medical School. Dr Bell stated, 'The majority of lentiviral vectors are pseudotyped or packaged with the envelope from the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-G). VSV-G equips lentiviral vectors with a broad host cell tropism and increased particle stability. Increased particle stability enables viral supernatants to be concentrated via high-speed centrifugation to enhance their infectivity. VSV-G is cytotoxic; however, a feature that essentially prohibits the constitutive expression of lentiviral vectors pseudotyped with this envelope. Therefore, non-toxic viral envelopes such as RD114 are being investigated. RD114 is a particularly attractive alternative because this envelope also provides increased particle stability and its receptor is widely expressed on HSCs. Hence, RD114 could prove to be an essential component of therapeutic lentiviral vector systems.' Together, the research team compared the packaging efficiency of three envelopes VSV-G, RD114 and RDpro with two lentiviral vectors. RDpro is an RD114-HIV chimera designed to pseudotype lentiviral vectors with higher efficiency. In the transient expression format, as expected, VSV-G provided the higher relative titer values. The nontoxic nature of the RD114, however, enabled typical transfection reactions to be extended from 48 to 96 h. VSV-G transfections are generally limited to 48 h. Hence, RD114 envelopes offer an effective means to increase the total viral yield of lentiviral supernatants versus VSV-G. The versatility of RD114 proteins was exploited further to generate a 'mixed' lentiviral expression system. This expression system is composed of stably expressed RD114 proteins that pseudotype lentiviral vectors generated in trans. Dr Bell said, 'We are very excited about the data received in the mixed expression format. We were also pleasantly surprised that the native RD114 envelope outperformed the chimeric envelope, RDpro. In regard to gene therapy, we show that RDpro supernatants effectively transduce peripheral blood HSCs. We believe that this level of transduction can be enhanced further upon optimization of the concentration protocol.' Dr Steven R Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine said, 'This exciting study by Anthony Bell and colleagues demonstrates the value of using nontoxic envelope proteins as a viable alternative to pseudotype lentiviral vectors. This has great potential for future gene therapeutic approaches.'


Our study is devoted to a four-compartment epidemic model of a constant population of independent random walkers. Each walker is in one of four compartments (S-susceptible, C-infected but not infectious (period of incubation), I-infected and infectious, R-recovered and immune) characterizing the states of health. The walkers navigate independently on a periodic 2D lattice. Infections occur by collisions of susceptible and infectious walkers. Once infected, a walker undergoes the delayed cyclic transition pathway S $\to$ C $\to$ I $\to$ R $\to$ S. The random delay times between the transitions (sojourn times in the compartments) are drawn from independent probability density functions (PDFs). We analyze the existence of the endemic equilibrium and stability of the globally healthy state and derive a condition for the spread of the epidemics which we connect with the basic reproduction number $R_0>1$. We give quantitative numerical evidence that a simple approach based on random walkers offers an appropriate microscopic picture of the dynamics for this class of epidemics.


This paper presents the key algorithmic techniques behind CatBoost, a new gradient boosting toolkit. Their combination leads to CatBoost outperforming other publicly available boosting implementations in terms of quality on a variety of datasets. Two critical algorithmic advances introduced in CatBoost are the implementation of ordered boosting, a permutation-driven alternative to the classic algorithm, and an innovative algorithm for processing categorical features. Both techniques were created to fight a prediction shift caused by a special kind of target leakage present in all currently existing implementations of gradient boosting algorithms. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of this problem and demonstrate that proposed algorithms solve it effectively, leading to excellent empirical results.


Synthesis of hydrazones was performed via both conventional and solvent-free routes using the corresponding hydrazide (isonicotinic hydrazide, nicotinic hydrazide, 2-aminobenzhydrazide or 4-aminobenzhydrazide) and appropriate aldehyde (salicylaldehyde, 3-methoxysalicylaldehyde or 4-methoxysalicylaldehyde). A systematic study dedicated to solvatomorphism or polymorphism screening resulted in the formation of twelve novel crystalline forms, and eight of these were characterized via the single crystal X-ray diffraction method. In all studied structures, the molecules were assembled into endless supramolecular chains, discrete rings, chains of rings or nets. The mechanochemical synthesis employing liquid-assisted grinding was also applied and the nicotinic- and isonicotinic-based hydrazones were found to form readily from their corresponding precursors. The chemometric study using principal component analysis for mechanochemical synthesis monitoring was implemented for the first time to provide an insight into the reaction profiles. A thoughtful combination of ex situ powder X-ray diffraction and chemometric analysis was essential to identify a stepwise mechanism for the hydrazone formation via an intermediate phase. In five investigated reactions the first principal component accounted for at least 75% of the total variance, whereas in the case of two reactions this component accounted for 69.72 and 46.23% of the total variance. The hydrazones were also evaluated for cytotoxic activity in vitro. All compounds exhibited weak to moderate cytotoxicity against THP-1 and no cytotoxicity against HepG2 cells. Substantial antibacterial activity was obtained against Moraxella catarrhalis while no growth inhibition of Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli was observed.


Energy saving mechanisms in nature allow following organisms to expend less energy than leaders. Queues, or ordered rows of individuals, may form when organisms exploit the available energy saving mechanism while travelling at near‐maximal sustainable metabolic capacities; compact clusters form when group members travel well below maximal sustainable metabolic capacities. The group size range, given here as the ratio of the difference between the size of the largest and smallest group members, and the size of the largest member (as a percentage), has been hypothesized to correspond proportionately to the energy saving quantity because weaker, smaller, individuals sustain the speeds of stronger, larger, individuals by exploiting the energy saving mechanism (as a percentage). During migration, small individuals outside this range may perish, or form sub‐groups, or simply not participate in migratory behaviour. We approximate drag forces for leading and following individuals in queues of the late Devonian (c. 370 Ma) trilobite Trimerocephalus chopini. Applying data from literature on Rectisura herculea, a living crustacean, we approximate the hypothetical walking speed and maximal sustainable speeds for T. chopini. Our findings reasonably support the hypothesis that among the population of fossilized queues of T. chopini reported in the literature, trilobite size range was 75%, while the size range within queues was 63%; this corresponds reasonably with drag reductions in following positions that permit c. 61.5% energy saving for trilobites following others in optimal low‐drag positions. We model collective trilobite behaviour associated with hydrodynamic drafting.


This chapter reports the possible use of ionic liquids (ILs) in solid-liquid separation processes by their immobilization in suitable solid supports. This method presents some benefits such as economical one—due to the fact that a smaller quantity of ILs is used and the loss of ILs in the aqueous phase is avoided; and second the efficiency benefit— because the advantages of the ILs are combined with the properties of the solid support, and this enhances the removal process of metal ions from aqueous solutions and could be successfully used in the removal processes of metal ions from aqueous solutions containing trace amounts. The type of solid supports used for the immobilization of different ILs, and the methods used for the immobilization were discussed. Also the adsorption efficiency of these ionic liquid immobilized solid supports in the removal process of different metal ions (Cr, Hg, Pt, Au, Pd, Cs, Sr, Tl, etc.) from aqueous solutions were presented. The inorganic materials present a higher efficiency to be used as solid supports for the immobilization of the ILs. It was observed that the physical method of impregnation, especially ultrasonication, has a positive effect on the adsorption capacities of the materials obtained.


The Influence of Hotel Environment on Consumer Behavior: A Theoretical Overview. Tourism and hotels have emerged in recent decades as one of the activities that contribute to global economic growth. Due to their importance in providing jobs and incomes it is appropriate to study them in order to improve understanding and supporting the development of their organizations. Thus, the objective of this paperwork is to propose a theoretical model about the influence of an environment full of hospitality in experiencing consumption. Investigating this issue, the model of Knutson and Beck (2003), used as basis, considers that service is performed from the check-in moment at the hotel, where the consumers experience is initiated until their check-out time. The theoretical essay here presented follows a marketing chain that assumes consumption as an experience hedonic by nature.


Informally, a set of abstractions of a state space S is additive if the distance between any two states in S is always greater than or equal to the sum of the corresponding distances in the abstract spaces. The first known additive abstractions, called disjoint pattern databases, were experimentally demonstrated to produce state of the art performance on certain state spaces. However, previous applications were restricted to state spaces with special properties, which precludes disjoint pattern databases from being defined for several commonly used testbeds, such as Rubik's Cube, TopSpin and the Pancake puzzle. In this paper we give a general definition of additive abstractions that can be applied to any state space and prove that heuristics based on additive abstractions are consistent as well as admissible. We use this new definition to create additive abstractions for these testbeds and show experimentally that well chosen additive abstractions can reduce search time substantially for the (18,4)-TopSpin puzzle and by three orders of magnitude over state of the art methods for the 17-Pancake puzzle. We also derive a way of testing if the heuristic value returned by additive abstractions is provably too low and show that the use of this test can reduce search time for the 15-puzzle and TopSpin by roughly a factor of two.


Pygmy sperm whales (Kogia breviceps) and dwarf sperm whales (Kogia sima) are deep diving cetaceans that commonly strand along the coast of the southeast US, but that are difficult to study visually at sea because of their elusive behavior. Conventional visual surveys are thought to significantly underestimate the presence of Kogia and they have proven difficult to approach for tracking and tagging. An approach is presented for density estimation of signals presumed to be from Kogia spp. based on passive acoustic monitoring data collected at sites in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) from the period following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (2010-2013). Both species of Kogia are known to inhabit the GOM, although it is not possible to acoustically separate the two based on available knowledge of their echolocation clicks. An increasing interannual density trend is suggested for animals near the primary zone of impact of the oil spill, and to the southeast of the spill. Densities were estimated based on both counting individual echolocation clicks and counting the presence of groups of animals during one-min time windows. Densities derived from acoustic monitoring at three sites are all substantially higher (4–16 animals /1000 km2) than those that have been derived for Kogia from line transect visual surveys in the same region (0.5 animals/1000 km2). The most likely explanation for the observed discrepancy is that the visual surveys are underestimating Kogia spp. density, due to the assumption of perfect detectability on the survey trackline. We present an alternative approach for density estimation, one that derives echolocation and behavioral parameters based on comparison of modeled and observed sound received levels at sites of varying depth.


With rapid growth in the amount of unstructured data produced by high performance computing applications, large scale data analytics has recently attracted increasing interest. Processing, managing and analyzing this huge amount of data poses several challenges in cloud and data center computing domain. Especially, conventional frameworks for distributed data analytics are based on the assumption of homogeneity and non-stochastic distribution of different data-processing nodes. The paper argues the fundamental limiting factors for scaling big data computation. It is shown that as the number of series and parallel computing servers increase, the tail (mean and variance) of the job execution time increase. We will first propose a model to predict the response time of highly distributed processing tasks and then propose a new practical computational algorithm to optimize the response time.


This paper introduces a new mixed integer model to provide efficient distribution plans to route a set of inbound/outbound heterogeneous vehicles in the crossdocking systems that are used to transfer different types of commodities from a manufacturing plant to retail warehouses with allowed split deliveries. The objectives are to minimize the total commodity deviations and the overall distribution time or cost of vehicles. Different data sets from different scales are randomly generated and solved by CPLEX-Concert Technology. As the proposed model is NP-hard; a new heuristic is constructed to solve the problem in reasonable computational efforts. Results show that CPLEX can obtain optimal solutions for small-scale sets and sub-optimal solutions for medium scale sets with a six-hour time limit, while it fails to provide any feasible solution for 35 out of 50 large scale sets. The proposed heuristic provides very competitive results compared to CPLEX in all scales in term of gaps and computational times.


Racial identity development is the focus of increasing attention in counseling and psychological services (Cross, Parham & Helms, 1991; Helms, 1990; Parham, 1989; Phinney, 1990). Smith (1989) contended that racial identity is a key component of psychosocial adjustment and necessary for the psychological health of all individuals. Racial identity development may be defined as the process through which an individual examines the "psychological" (sense of belongingness and commitment), "cultural" (awareness, knowledge, and acceptance of cultural and social traditions), "physical" (acceptance of physical features of racial group), and "sociopolitical" (attitudes toward social and economic issues of racial group) aspects of being a member of one's racial group along with the value and emotional significance associated with that membership (Sanders-Thompson, 1992; Tajfel, 1981). According to Tajfel (1981), the construct of racial identity development may be a more salient issue for ethnic minorities because the physical manifestations (e.g., skin color) of race can be assigned negative social values in American society. For example, African Americans are constantly forced to examine their racial status in several aspects of life (e.g., work, school) (Johnson, 1990). Helms (1990) suggested that African Americans' feelings of self-worth may be associated with their assessment of racial status as a minority group member. Thus, racial identity development can be a crucial aspect of personality development for African Americans. As noted by Helms (1990), intrinsic to racial identity is the belief that individuals need an appreciation of group identification in order to maintain a healthy sense of personal identity. While a large portion of the racial identity development research has focused on nondisabled African Americans, little, if any, attention has been devoted to African Americans with disabilities. The omission of persons with disabilities in the racial identity literature is surprising given the large percentage of African Americans with disabilities. For example, the incidence of disability among African Americans is nearly double (14.8%) the incidence in the White community (8.4%) (Bowe, 1992); however, African Americans comprise only 12% of the American population. Furthermore, the lack of attention in the literature devoted to the racial identity development of African Americans with disabilities seems to imply that racial identity development is the same for both disabled and nondisabled African Americans. The notion that racial identity development is the same for all African Americans, regardless of disability, is difficult to endorse due to the large psychosocial impact that a disability can have on an individual's life (Wright, 1983). According to Wright (1983), the stigma attached to disability status in American society can be so intense and pervasive that it can overshadow other personal characteristics (e.g., ethnic/cultural attributes) that comprise the individual's self-concept. Walker (1988) noted that although some societies looked upon individuals with disabilities with "awe and reverence," in most societies disability has traditionally been associated with tremendous negativism. In the most recent past, as indicated by Walker, persons with disabilities have been "tolerated but not allowed to participate fully in society" and have been "consistently relegated...to economic deprivation and dependency" (p. 184). Thus, the powerful effects that disability status can have on an individual's sense of self, of which racial identity development can be an integral part, seems evident (Alston & McCowan, 1994; Alston & Mngadi, 1992). The purpose of this article is to explore the racial identity development of African Americans with disabilities. Cross' (1971, 1978) model of racial identity development for African Americans, along with Parham's (1989) revisions of the model, will serve as the foundation for the discussion. …


Many of today's most widely used pesticidal active ingredients (AIs) are crystalline solids with limited solubility in commonly used aromatic or aliphatic solvent systems. Many of those solid AIs can only be dissolved at suitable concentrations in very polar or slightly water-soluble solvents, such as cyclohexanone, isophorone, N-methylpyrrolidone, etc. The disadvantage of these solvents is that when they are used as the sole dissolving agent, they can lead to the crystallization of the AI upon dilution of the formulation with water, making the effective and uniform application of the AI impossible due to nozzle and/or filter plugging. In the United States, for example, products containing the azole fungicide, tebuconazole, are therefore mainly formulated as suspension concentrates rather than emulsifiable concentrates (ECs). We have developed a novel solvent-based EC formulation, which inhibits crystal growth when used with a variety of pesticidal actives, including triazole fungicides, in their concentrated and diluted aqueous compositions. This was achieved using a composition containing a water-insoluble solvent together with other stabilizers. This composition was used to prepare formulations of pesticidal AIs with a concentration from 200 to 250 AI g/L. The crystallization of the AI is prevented by the liquid composition, whose ingredients act not only as solvents but also as crystallization inhibitors during the application of the pesticide concentrate as a diluted aqueous spray. This paper presents data on the physical stability of the concentrated formulations, as well as for diluted aqueous spray mixtures, showing that no crystals will form under simulated use conditions. Specific illustrations of this novel approach to solving the complex crystallization problems associated with the above-mentioned class of "problematic" pesticidal compounds include several tebuconazole-based EC formulations. We will also present results from field trials to show their biological performance.


Essential SkillsMade Easy! PHP and MySQL Web Development: A Beginner's Guide takes you from building static web pages to creating comprehensive database-driven web applications. The book reviews HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and then explores PHP--its structure, control statements, arrays, functions, use with forms, and file handling capabilities. Next, the book examines MySQL, including SQL, the MySQL command set, and how to use it with PHP to create a relational database and build secure, databasedriven web applications. This practical resource features complete, step-by-step examples with code that you can use as templates for your own projects. Designed for Easy Learning Key Skills & Concepts--Chapter-opening lists of specific skills covered in the chapter Try This--Hands-on exercises that show you how to apply your skills Notes--Extra information related to the topic being covered Tips--Helpful reminders or alternate ways of doing things Cautions--Errors and pitfalls to avoid Self Tests--End-of-chapter quizzes to reinforce your skills Annotated Syntax--Example code with commentary that describes the programming techniques being illustrated Ready-to-use code at www.mhprofessional.com


Playing a central role in microelectronics and optoelectronics, semiconductors almost stand apart from applications involving second-order nonlinear effects such as frequency converters, tunable sources, parametric amplifiers, and switches. The reasons are twofold: their strong chromatic dispersion, which prevents the interacting waves from propagating with the same phase velocity (phase mismatch), and the shortness of the semiconductor devices, which adds more difficulty to achieving reasonable nonlinear efficiencies. By exploiting the unique properties of photonic crystals, we demonstrate simultaneous phase matching and enhancement of the fields under nonlinear interaction. We demonstrate a second-harmonic efficiency growth faster than the fifth power of the structure length.


This paper addresses two questions. First, what are the key factors that affect a consumer's lifetime budget constraint and how do they evolve over the lifecycle? Second, how do consumers respond to changes in these factors? We examine the permanent income hypothesis and the Keynesian consumption model using a dynamic factor model of consumption, hours, wages, unemployment, and income. We show that a quarterly dynamic factor model with restrictions on the lag structure nay be used with annual panel data to account for the fact that in many micro panel data sets the variables relevant to a study are measured at different time intervals and/or are aggregates for the calendar year. By using several income indicators we are able to extend the panel data studies of Hall and Mishkin and Bernanke to allow for measurement error. We are also able to study the response of income and consumption to some of the factors which determine them. In addition, we study a dynamic factor representation of a joint lifecycle model of consumption and labor supply. We provide estimates of the effect of wages, unemployment, and other income determinants on the marginal utility of income as well as estimates of the substitution effects of wage change on labor supply and consumption.


Background and Purpose: Tinea capitis and tinea unguium are regarded as global public health concerns. The purpose of the present study was to identify the etiological agents of tinea capitis and tinea unguium in patients, referring to the Central Laboratory of Yazd University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted during 2014-2015. Skin scraping, scalp hair, and nail clipping specimens were collected from 134 patients (80 males and 54 females) with clinical features suggesting fungal involvement. Direct microscopic examinations were carried out, using potassium hydroxide 10%, while culture studies were performed on Sabouraud dextrose agar, containing chloramphenicol and cycloheximide at 28°C for four weeks. Fungal colonies were identified based on their macroscopic and microscopic characteristics, as well as supplementary diagnostic tests. Results: Among 134 patients, 12 cases showed positive results on direct examination and culture studies. The frequency of infections was equal among male and female subjects. Among 12 affected cases, the frequency of tinea capitis and tinea unguium was 91.6% and 8.4%, respectively. Microsporum canis (50%) was the most prevalent species, followed by Trichophyton verrucosum (25%) and Trichophyton mentagrophytes (25%). Also, tinea unguium, caused by T. mentagrophytes, was found in a female patient. Conclusion: The etiological agents of scalp and nail dermatophytosis have changed in Yazd over the past 13 years. In the present study, replacement of anthropophilic dermatophytes by zoophilic species was noteworthy, highlighting the necessity of efficient surveillance for the management and prevention of infections.


In this paper the inventory of verbs of Saramaccan Creole is investigated. Saramaccan is a lexically mixed creole, with mostly English and Portuguese lexicon. Even though it has been shown earlier that the Portuguese elements were superimposed on a preexisting English frame (Smith 1987), more verbs are from Portuguese than from English. Furthermore, there are a number of doublets: Two (near) synonomous verbs from the languages have found their way into the language. In addition, significantly higher numbers of frequent verbs from English than from Portuguese have found their way into Saramaccan. An attempt is made to derive conclusions about the diachronic aspects of these findings. The tentative results confirm an intrusion of Portuguese elements into English.


We consider the problem of aggregating models learned from sequestered, possibly heterogeneous datasets. Exploiting tools from Bayesian nonparametrics, we develop a general meta-modeling framework that learns shared global latent structures by identifying correspondences among local model parameterizations. Our proposed framework is model-independent and is applicable to a wide range of model types. After verifying our approach on simulated data, we demonstrate its utility in aggregating Gaussian topic models, hierarchical Dirichlet process based hidden Markov models, and sparse Gaussian processes with applications spanning text summarization, motion capture analysis, and temperature forecasting.


Most augmented reality (AR) authoring tools only support the author's current environment, but designers often need to create site-specific experiences for a different environment. We propose DistanciAR, a novel tablet-based workflow for remote AR authoring. Our baseline solution involves three steps. A remote environment is captured by a camera with LiDAR; then, the author creates an AR experience from a different location using AR interactions; finally, a remote viewer consumes the AR content on site. A formative study revealed understanding and navigating the remote space as key challenges with this solution. We improved the authoring interface by adding two novel modes: Dollhouse, which renders a bird's-eye view, and Peek, which creates photorealistic composite images using captured images. A second study compared this improved system with the baseline, and participants reported that the new modes made it easier to understand and navigate the remote scene.


Abstract A study has been conducted over a period of one year on measurements of air pollution in the Shuaiba Industrial Area (SIA) of Kuwait. The study included analysis of pollutant behaviour relative to the wind speed and direction. SIA comprises several large scale industries including three petroleum refineries, two power plants, two fertilizer plants, a cement plant, a chlorine and soda plant, a commercial harbour and two large oil loading terminals. Measurements of 15 parameters have been carried out every 5 minutes using a mobile laboratory fitted with an automatic calibrator and a data storage system. The pollutants studied include methane, non‐methane hydrocarbons (NMHC), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2, and NO x ), sulphur dioxide, ozone and suspended dust. Meteorological parameters monitored simultaneously include wind speed and direction, air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, and barometric pressure. The air quality data collected using the mobile laboratory have been used to calculate the diurnal and monthly variations in the major primary and secondary pollutants. Distribution levels of these pollutants relative to wind direction and speed have also been used in the analysis. The results show large diurnal variations in some pollutant concentrations. Generally, two types of concentration variations have been found, depending on whether the species is a primary or a secondary pollutant. Diurnal variations with two maxima were observed in the concentrations of primary pollutants including NO, SO2, NMHC, CO and suspended dust, whereas a single maximum was observed for secondary pollutants such as O3and NO2. The monthly variations of SO2and NO x showed maximum values during the warm months. However, ozone showed a quite marked seasonal variation with maxima during spring and late summer and a minimum during the early summer. The results also indicated a common source for NO x , SO2, NMHC, CO and suspended dust to the North‐West (NW) of the monitoring station. Moreover for NO x and SO2, another less significant source is to the South‐South‐West (SSW) and South‐West (SW) of the monitoring station.


I PhD in Social Anthropology, research fellow, Slovenian Migration Institute, Scientifi c Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi trg 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, email@example.com, spela.kalcic@ gmail.com. ABSTR AC T The Ethnography of Housetruck ing in West Africa: Tourists, Travellers, Retired M igrants and Peripatetics In the last two decades, West Africa with its Atlantic coast, the Sahara and various other remote places has become a haven for many people from the Global North, who have adopted mobility as a way of life. Most of them are so-called "housetruckers", i.e. people travelling and at least temporarily living in cars, jeeps, vans, caravans, buses or trucks converted into mobile homes. They represent a highly diversifi ed group that is sometimes hard to put into any conventional mobility category and deserves more academic attention. The aim of this article is to present the variety of this phenomenon and most of all to call attention to the appearance of a new, largely disregarded and undocumented researchable entity within it, i.e. peripatetic housetruckers, which calls for new theoretical refl ection within mobility studies.


The paper presents the long-term safety assessment of the Maisiagala radioactive waste repository (Lithuania) using the advanced computer codes DUST, FEFLOW, and AMBER. The software DUST was employed for calculations of the one-dimensional leaching flux of radionuclides from the repository vault and subsequent transport in the unsaturated zone. Using the mass flux of radionuclides calculated in DUST as a source to the aquifer, the software FEFLOW was used for two-dimensional assessment of activity concentrations of radionuclides in groundwater. Using the groundwater concentrations calculated in FEFLOW, the code AMBER was used to calculate the dose over time at four hypothetical wells downstream from the repository. The well distances ranged from 150 to 1600 m. When the hypothetical drinking water well is installed 150 m from the repository (close to the outside perimeter of the controlled area), the highest effective doses will arise from 3H, 36Cl, and 239Pu. The doses determined by 3H and 36Cl may exceed a dose limit of 1 mSv/yr for 50 to 230 yr after the closure of the facility (1989). The dose of 239Pu will remain almost constant for >60 000 yr after the closure, yet it will not exceed the dose limit value. According to previous studies, the intrusion scenario is much more critical compared to the groundwater exposure pathway in the case of 239Pu (as well as 226Ra).


Abstract. The summer drought of 2015 affected a large portion of continental Europe and was one of the most severe droughts in the region since summer 2003. The summer of 2015 was characterized by exceptionally high temperatures in many parts of central and eastern Europe, with daily maximum temperatures 2 °C higher than the seasonal mean (1971–2000) over most of western Europe, and more than 3 °C higher in the east. It was the hottest and climatologically driest summer over the 1950–2015 study period for an area stretching from the eastern Czech Republic to Ukraine. For Europe, as a whole, it is among the six hottest and driest summers since 1950. High evapotranspiration rates combined with a lack of precipitation affected soil moisture and vegetation and led to record low river flows in several major rivers, even beyond the drought-hit region. The 2015 drought developed rather rapidly over the Iberian Peninsula, France, southern Benelux and central Germany in May and reached peak intensity and spatial extent by August, affecting especially the eastern part of Europe. Over the summer period, there were four heat wave episodes, all associated with persistent blocking events. Upper-level atmospheric circulation over Europe was characterized by positive 500 hPa geopotential height anomalies flanked by a large negative anomaly to the north and west (i.e., over the central North Atlantic Ocean extending to northern Fennoscandia) and another center of positive geopotential height anomalies over Greenland and northern Canada. Simultaneously, the summer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were characterized by large negative anomalies in the central North Atlantic Ocean and large positive anomalies in the Mediterranean basin. Composite analysis shows that the western Mediterranean SST is strongly related to the occurrence of dry and hot summers over the last 66 years (especially over the eastern part of Europe). The lagged relationship between the Mediterranean SST and summer drought conditions established in this study can provide valuable skill for the prediction of drought conditions over Europe on interannual to decadal timescales.


This paper examines the determinants of overseas mass migration from eleven European countries in the late 19th century. They typically passed through something like a half-century life-cycle: a steep rise in emigration rates from low levels in preindustrial decades, followed by a plateau of very high emigration, and then a subsequent fall during more mature stages of industrialization. Using a new real wage data base, we are able to isolate the impact of economic and demographic forces (associated with the industrial revolution) on this emigration experience. The steep rise in emigration rates was driven mainly by fertility boom and infant mortality decline, events early in the demographic transition which, with a two decade lag, tended to glut the age cohort most responsive to wage gaps between the labor-abundant Old World and the labor-scarce New World. The steep fall in emigration rates was driven mainly by the forces of convergence and catching up -- more rapid real wage growth at home encouraged an increasingly large share to stay at home. Since we show elsewhere that these mass migrations contributed significantly to an impressive late 19th century economic convergence, they can be viewed as an important part of a long run equilibrium adjustment manifested by an evolving global labor market.


In recent years a number of panel estimators have been suggested for sample selection models, where both the selection equation and the equation of interest contain individual effects which are correlated with the explanatory variables. We review and compare some of these estimators, and apply them to estimating the return to actual labour market experience for females, using a panel of twelve years. All these estimators rely on the assumption of strict exogeneity of regressors in the equation of interest, conditional on individual specific effects and the selection mechanism. This assumption is likely to be violated in many applications. Also, life history variables are often measured with error in survey data sets, because they contain a retrospective component. We show how non-strict exogeneity and measurement error can be taken into account within the estimation methods discussed.


Determinantal point processes (DPPs) are distributions over sets of items that model diversity using kernels. Their applications in machine learning include summary extraction and recommendation systems. Yet, the cost of sampling from a DPP is prohibitive in large-scale applications, which has triggered an effort towards efficient approximate samplers. We build a novel MCMC sampler that combines ideas from combinatorial geometry, linear programming, and Monte Carlo methods to sample from DPPs with a fixed sample cardinality, also called projection DPPs. Our sampler leverages the ability of the hit-and-run MCMC kernel to efficiently move across convex bodies. Previous theoretical results yield a fast mixing time of our chain when targeting a distribution that is close to a projection DPP, but not a DPP in general. Our empirical results demonstrate that this extends to sampling projection DPPs, i.e., our sampler is more sample-efficient than previous approaches which in turn translates to faster convergence when dealing with costly-to-evaluate functions, such as summary extraction in our experiments.


In this research study, computational simulation was used to study the adsorption of tetryl on the surface of graphene. For this purpose, the structures of graphene, tetryl and their complexes were optimized geometrically. Then, IR and Frontier molecular orbital calculations were implemented at 298-398 K at the intervals of 10°. The obtained thermodynamic parameters including, Gibbs free energy (ΔGad), adsorption enthalpy alterations (ΔHad), and thermodynamic equilibrium constants (Kth) revealed the adsorption of tetryl is exothermic, spontaneous, non-equilibrium, and experimentally feasible at the both evaluated configurations. The influence of temperature on the thermodynamic factors of the desired process was also evaluated and the results indicated that the 298.15 K was the best temperature for the graphene interaction with tetryl. The calculated specific heat capacity (CV) values revealed that the sensitivity of the produced graphene-tetryl complexes to the heat and shock have declined significantly. The increased nitrogen-oxygen bond lengths after the adsorption of tetryl to the surface of graphene exhibited that the explosive and destructive power of tetryl-graphene derivatives was higher than that of the pure tetryl. Some HOMO-LUMO related parameters such as energy gap, electrophilicity, chemical hardness, maximum transferred charge index (ΔNmax), and chemical potential were also calculated and discussed in details.


Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PIPAAm) brush grafted glass surfaces with various brush lengths were prepared as cell separating intelligent interfaces through a surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) with a CuCl–Me6TREN catalytic system and α-chloro-p-xylene as a free initiator in 2-propanol at 25 °C for 16 h. Characterization of the prepared surface was performed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR/FT-IR) spectroscopy, and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) measurement of PIPAAm in ATRP reaction solution for estimating the brush length. Phase transition behavior of PIPAAm in four cell culture media was also investigated by measuring the temperature-dependent turbidities. Prepared PIPAAm brush surfaces as cell separating intelligent interfaces were characterized by observing the adhesion and detachment behavior of four types of human cells: human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDFs), human aortic smooth muscle cells (SMCs), and human skeletal muscle myoblast cells (HSMMs). The PIPAAm brush surface with a moderate brush length exhibited a proper cell adhesion and detachment behavior, while short-brush-surfaces scarcely detached cells and long-brush-surfaces scarcely adhered cells. The PIPAAm brush with a moderate brush length exhibited different cell detachment rates among individual cell types. Utilizing the different cell detachment properties, a mixture of green fluorescent protein (GFP) expressing HUVEC (GFP-HUVEC) and HSMM was separated. After being allowed to adhere on the surfaces at 37 °C for 24 h, the adhered cells on the surfaces were incubated at 20 °C. In the initial period of incubation at 20 °C, the GFP-HUVEC was released from the surface due to its prompt detachment property, and, in the subsequent period of incubation, HSMMs gradually detached themselves from the surface. These results indicated that a precisely designed PIPAAm brush functioned as an intelligent cell separating interface by utilizing the intrinsic cell detachment properties of individual cells.


Using optimized, asymmetric radiofrequency (RF) pulses for slice selection, the authors demonstrate that stimulated echo acquisition mode (STEAM) localization with ultra-short echo time (1 ms) is possible. Water suppression was designed to minimize sensitivity to B 1 inhomogeneity using a combination of 7 variable power RF pulses with optimized relaxation delays (VAPOR). Residual water signal was well below the level of most observable metabolites. Contamination by the signals arising from outside the volume of interest was minimized by outer volume saturation using a series of hyperbolic secant RF pulses, resulting in a sharp volume definition. In conjunction with FASTMAP shimming (Gruetter Magn Reson Med 1993;29: 804–811), the short echo time of 1 msec resulted in highly resolved in vivo 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. In rat brain the water linewidths of 11–13 Hz and metabolite singlet linewidths of 8–10 Hz were measured in 65 μl volumes. Very broad intense signals ( Dn1/2 G 1 kHz), as expected from membranes, for example, were not observed, suggesting that their proton T 2 are well below 1 msec. The entire chemical shift range of 1H spectrum was observable, including resolved resonances from alanine, aspartate, choline group, creatine, GABA, glucose, glutamate, glutamine, myo-inositol, lactate, N-acetylaspartate, N-acetylaspartylglutamate, phosphocreatine, and taurine. At 9.4 T, peaks close to the water were observed, including the H-1 of a-D-glucose at 5.23 ppm and a tentative H-1 resonance of glycogen at 5.35 ppm. Magn Reson Med 41:649–656, 1999. r 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


Evaluative studies have demonstrated that victims of crime are satisfied with their participation in a restorative intervention. Meanwhile, the explanation of victim satisfaction with restorative practices remains to be established. In this article, we study factors contributing to victim satisfaction with the restorative approach and ask to what extent victim satisfaction is simply due to procedural justice. Procedural justice theory predicts that the perceived fairness of a conflict resolution procedure is not only explained by the favourability of its outcome, but also by the appreciation of procedural factors, such as trust, neutrality, respect and voice, and that procedures can be assessed irrespective of their outcome. We conducted semi-directive interviews with 34 victims of violent crime who participated in victim–offender mediation, family group conferencing or victim–offender encounters in Canada and Belgium. We found that appreciation of a restorative approach is related to it being perceived as procedurally just. However, it is also related to other factors, namely the restorative approach being flexible, providing care, centring on dialogue and permitting pro-social motives to be addressed. These factors are not accounted for by the procedural justice model. Therefore, procedural justice partially but not entirely explains victim satisfaction with restorative practices.


We present a 29-year-old healthy man who fell into an industrial auger, sustaining acrushed, open pelvic injury, multiple comminuted fractures of the right leg, and traumaticamputation of his left foot. Blood and wound cultures were positive for Aeromonasspp and vancomycin resistant Enterococcus. Treatment included cefepime, levofloxacin,daptomycin, and metronidazole. Aeromonas veronii is a Gram negative bacillus usuallyfound in fresh and brackish water in warm climates. It can cause severe skin andsoft tissue infections, typically after injured tissue is exposed to contaminated water.Aeromonas septicemia is uncommon and is usually associated with underlying diseases,such as malignancy, cirrhosis, diabetes, or immunosuppression. It rarely occurs in ahealthy host.


Side effects of chemotherapy, stress and experiencing painful situation probably have been made children with ALL vulnerable to behavioral disorder, but there is no agreement for this, in the literature. The main purpose of the study was investigated how treatment of malignancy and its side effects lead to behavioral disturbance. One hundred and ten (girls=53; boys=57) children with ALL and one hundred and sixteen healthy child (girls=44; boys=72) compare to each other by Disruptive Behavior, Beck Depression Inventory disorder, Children's level of inhibition and anxiety symptoms. Children with ALL displayed difficulties in some aspects of behaviors, especially in behavioral inhibitory. There was no discrepancy between cancer group and control in anxiety and depression. Children with high anxiety and depression reveal more disruptive behavior disorder and behavioral inhibition. The data demonstrated there was very strong relation between duration of hospital stay and behavior disruption in both of sex. This study suggested to health providers to set interventions for decreasing behavioral problems due to treatment of ALL. [Manijeh Firoozi, Abbas Ghaeed Rahmat. Behavioral disturbances in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Life Sci J 2013;10(1):2897‐2902] (ISSN:1097‐8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 351


Complex fenestration systems typically comprise co-planar, clear and scattering layers. As there are many ways to combine layers in fenestration systems, a common approach in building simulation is to store optical properties separate for each layer. System properties are then computed employing a fast matrix formalism, often based on a directional basis devised by JHKlems comprising 145 incident and 145 outgoing directions. While this low directional resolution is found sufficient to predict illuminance and solar gains, it is too coarse to replicate the effects of directionality in the generation of imagery. For increased accuracy, a modification of the matrix formalism is proposed. The tensor-tree format of RADIANCE, employing an algorithm subdividing the hemisphere at variable resolutions, replaces the directional basis. The utilization of the tensor-tree with interfaces to simulation software allows sharing and re-use of data. The light scattering properties of two exemplary fenestration systems as computed employing the matrix formalism at variable resolution show good accordance with the results of ray-tracing. Computation times are reduced to 0.4% to 2.5% compared to ray-tracing through co-planar layers. Imagery computed employing the method illustrates the effect of directional resolution. The method is supposed to foster research in the field of daylighting, as well as applications in planning and design.


GaN nanowires were synthesized through the Ni-catalyzed chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method using Ga2O3/GaN mixtures as gallium sources, and precursor-substrate distances were investigated as the important factor for the growth of GaN nanowires. The microstructure, composition, and photoluminescence property were characterized by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and photoluminescence spectra. The results showed that single crystalline GaN nanowires with the diameter of about 90 nm and the length up to tens of micrometers had been grown thickly across Si (100) substrates with uniform density. Moreover, the variations of the GaN nanowire morphology, density, and size were largely attributed to substrate positions which would influence Ga precursor density in the carrier gas, the saturation degree of gaseous reactants, and the catalyst activity, respectively, in the fabrication of GaN nanowires by the vapour liquid solid mechanism.


Meet Sam, the man troopers brought in because he was standing at the center of the turnpike, directing traffic, claiming to be God's police chief on earth. And Mary, a middle-aged women so obsessed with clean hands she has rubbed her palms raw and bloody. Then, too, there is Dr. Hudson Hoagland, who uses an ant farm and peppermint oil to illustrate the ancient roots of society's hostility toward schizophrenics. They are all at Worcester State Hospital, the first state insane asylum established in this nation, and the topic of Dr. Enoch Calloway's fascinating, fast-moving book about this facility that served as a model for others established later in the United States. Now a respected psychiatrist for more than 50 years, Callaway shows us with compassion and sometimes humor how the now historic mental hospital-where psychiatrists lived with the patients-was unique. The stories here are more than educational in a traditional sense; they also instruct us on the humanity of the mentally ill-and their physicians. In his witty and warm history of Worcester State Hospital, founded in 1833 as the first state insane asylum established in this nation, Dr. Enoch Callaway reflects not just on the events in this fortress-like place, but also on how those events parallel advances and failures in the field of psychiatry itself. In addition to patient/psychiatrist vignettes showing treatment techniques of the period-from farm work to early electric shock therapy and insulin treatments that put schizophrenics in a 90-minute coma-Callaway also offers sharp insight into natural treatments that showed remarkable results and unexpected recoveries stimulated by tools as simple as a hand mirror. At times, Worcester may seem brutal, at other times its simplicity seems pure and caring. There are marvelous successes, and times when the facility seems no more than a warehouse for the mentally ill. Callaway argues that this history offers lessons about the treatment-and options for better treatment-of the mentally ill in society today. Throughout the text, the author weaves in comparisons to books and movies about the mentally ill and the facilities that have housed them. He includes literary works such as Madness in the Streets, Out of the Shadows and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, as well as cinematic classics like The Snake Pit, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and A Beautiful Mind. Each either reflects or directly opposes procedures, patients, treatments, tribulations, or compassion as they existed at Worcester. Asylums such as Worcester were places that sheltered the mentally ill from harm they might do themselves and others, and from the criminal justice system. With asylums near extinct now, the mentally ill are again being herded into the criminal justice system where they get little to no mental health care. Can the successes and failures of a hospital that closed a half-century ago guide us toward something better? Readers from all walks of life will find this text at once absorbing, disturbing, amusing, painfully serious, and tremendously insightful.


1. This document relates to the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Bill introduced in the Scottish Parliament on 27 March 2013. It has been prepared by the Scottish Government to satisfy Rule 9.3.3(c) of the Parliament's Standing Orders. The contents are entirely the responsibility of the Scottish Government and have not been endorsed by the Parliament. Explanatory Notes and other accompanying documents are published separately as SP Bill 26–EN.


Background: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of incidental pancreatic cysts in patients undergoing upper endoscopic ultrasound without a known pancreatic abnormality. Methods: This prospective study was conducted in two hospitals in Spain and enrolled consecutive patients referred for upper endoscopic ultrasound for a condition unrelated to the pancreas. Patients with a previous pancreatic anomaly, history of acute or chronic pancreatitis, evidence of acute pancreatitis, previous upper gastrointestinal surgery, or chronic abdominal pain suggestive of pancreatic origin were excluded. Univariate logistic regression was performed to evaluate individual covariates and the incidental pancreatic cyst risk. Results: A total of 298 patients were included, of whom 64 had pancreatic cysts (21.5%; 16.9-26.6%). The mean size of the cysts was 6.3±3.7 (range 3-25) mm. Six cysts (2%) were >10 mm and 16 (5.4%) were compatible with branch duct intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm. The pancreatic cyst prevalence was similar in the two hospitals and increased significantly with age. Conclusion: The prevalence of incidental pancreatic cysts during endoscopic ultrasound was very high in our study population.


The human skin is an attractive anti-tumor vaccination site due to the vast network of dendritic cell (DC) subsets that carry antigens to the draining lymph nodes and stimulate tumor specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in. Specific vaccine delivery to skin DC can be accomplished by targeting glycan coated antigens to C-type lectin receptors (CLRs) such as DC-SIGN expressed by human dermal DCs and Langerin expressed by Langerhans cells (LCs), which facilitate endocytosis and processing for antigen presentation and T cell activation. Although there are multiple human skin DC subsets, targeting individual DC subsets and receptors has been a focus in the past. However, the simultaneous targeting of multiple human skin DC subsets that mobilize the majority of the skin antigen presenting cells (APC) is preferred to accomplish more robust and efficient T cell stimulation. Dual CLR targeting using a single tumor vaccine has been difficult, as we previously showed Langerin to favor binding and uptake of monovalent glyco-peptides whereas DC-SIGN favors binding of larger multivalent glyco-particles such as glyco-liposomes. Methods: We used branched polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers as scaffold for melanoma specific gp100 synthetic long peptides and the common DC-SIGN and Langerin ligand Lewis Y (LeY), to create multivalent glyco-dendrimers with varying molecular weights for investigating dual DC-SIGN and Langerin targeting. Using DC-SIGN+ monocyte derived DC (moDC) and Langerin+ primary LC we investigated glyco-dendrimer CLR targeting properties and subsequent gp100 specific CD8+ T cell activation in vitro. In situ targeting ability to human dermal DC and LC through intradermal injection in a human skin explant model was elucidated. Results: Dual DC-SIGN and Langerin binding was achieved using glyco-dendrimers of approximately 100kD, thereby fulfilling our criteria to simultaneously target LCs and CD1a+ and CD14+ dermal DC in situ. Both DC-SIGN and Langerin targeting by glyco-dendrimers resulted in enhanced internalization and gp100 specific CD8+ T cell activation. Conclusion: We designed the first glyco-vaccine with dual CLR targeting properties, thereby reaching multiple human skin DC subsets in situ for improved anti-tumor CD8+ T cell responses.


Establishing peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing for mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) requires the construction of a search algorithm for transmitting queries and search results as well as the development of a transfer protocol for downloading files matching a query. In this paper, we present a special-purpose system for searching and file transfer tailored to both the characteristics of MANET and the requirements of peer-to-peer file sharing. Our approach is based on an application layer overlay network. As innovative feature, overlay routes are set up on demand by the search algorithm, closely matching network topology and transparently aggregating redundant transfer paths on a per-file basis. The transfer protocol guarantees low transmission overhead and a high fraction of successful downloads by utilizing overlay routes. In a detailed ns-2 simulation study, we show that both the search algorithm and the transfer protocol outperform off-the-shelf approaches based on a P2P file sharing system for the wireline Internet, TCP and a MANET routing protocol.


This Paper first documents the evolution of the cross-sectional income and consumption distribution in the US in the past 25 years. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey we find that a rising income inequality has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Over the period from 1972-98 the standard deviation of the log of after-tax labor income has increased by 20% while the standard deviation of log consumption has increased less than 2%. Furthermore income inequality has increased both between and within education groups while consumption inequality has increased between education groups but mildly declined within groups. We then argue that these empirical findings are consistent with the hypothesis that an increase in income volatility has been an important cause of the increase in income inequality, but at the same time has lead to an endogenous development of credit markets, allowing households to better smooth their consumption against idiosyncratic income fluctuations. We develop a consumption model in which the sharing of income risk is limited by imperfect enforcement of credit contracts and in which the development of financial markets depends on the volatility of the individual income process. This model is shown to be quantitatively consistent with the joint evolution of income and consumption inequality in US, while other commonly used consumption models are not.


In this paper we address the problem of immediate translation of eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) information retrieval (IR) queries to relational database expressions and stress the benefits of using an intermediate XML-specific algebra over relational algebra. We show how adding an XML-specific algebra at the logical level of a DBMS enables a level of abstraction from both query languages for information retrieval in XML and the underlying physical storage and manipulation. We picked a region algebra as a basis for defining the structure aware (SA) view on XML in which we can distinguish among different XML entities, such as element nodes, text nodes, words, and determine their containment relation. Region algebras are already well established in semi-structured document processing as shown in an extensive overview of region algebra approaches in this paper. Furthermore, we propose a variant of region algebra that can support ranking operators in an elegant way while staying algebraic. As relevance scores are computed for regions in our region algebra we named it score region algebra (SRA). The benefits of introducing score region algebra are explained on a set of query examples. Besides abstracting from the query language used and the physical implementation, SRA enables a certain degree of abstraction from the retrieval model used and the opportunity to use the query optimization at the logical level of a database. Various retrieval models can be instantiated at the physical level based on the abstract specification of SRA operators. We also discuss numerous region algebra operator properties that provide a firm ground for query rewriting and optimization at the SA level, which is an important premise for the existence of such a logical view on XML.


PURPOSE
Recruiting rural and underserved participants in behavioral health interventions is challenging. Community-based recruitment approaches are effective, but they are not always feasible in multisite, diverse community interventions. This study evaluates the feasibility of a rapid, multisite approach that uses rural clinic site coordinators to recruit study participants. The approach allows for rural recruitment in areas where researchers may not have developed long-term collaborative relationships.

METHODS
Adults with diabetes were recruited from rural Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) clinics. Recruitment feasibility was assessed by analyzing field notes by the project manager and health coaches, and 8 in-depth, semistructured interviews with clinic site coordinators and champions, followed by thematic analysis of field notes and interviews.

FINDINGS
Forty-seven rural sites were contacted to obtain the 6 sites that participated in the study. On average, sites took 14 days to commit to study participation. One hundred and twenty-one participants were acquired from letters mailed to eligible participants and, in some sites, by follow-up phone calls from site coordinators. Facilitators and deterrents affecting study recruitment fell into 4 broad categories--study design, site, site coordinator, and participant factors.

CONCLUSION
The rapid multisite approach led to quick and efficient recruitment of clinic sites and participants. Recruitment success was achieved in some, but not all, rural sites. The study highlights the opportunities and challenges of recruiting rural clinics and rural, underserved participants in multisite research. Suggestions are provided for improving recruitment for future interventions.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) features profound social deficits but neuroimaging studies have failed to find any consistent neural signature. Here we connect these two facts by showing that idiosyncratic patterns of brain activation are associated with social comprehension deficits. Human participants with ASD (N = 17) and controls (N = 20) freely watched a television situation comedy (sitcom) depicting seminaturalistic social interactions ("The Office", NBC Universal) in the scanner. Intersubject correlations in the pattern of evoked brain activation were reduced in the ASD group—but this effect was driven entirely by five ASD subjects whose idiosyncratic responses were also internally unreliable. The idiosyncrasy of these five ASD subjects was not explained by detailed neuropsychological profile, eye movements, or data quality; however, they were specifically impaired in understanding the social motivations of characters in the sitcom. Brain activation patterns in the remaining ASD subjects were indistinguishable from those of control subjects using multiple multivariate approaches. Our findings link neurofunctional abnormalities evoked by seminaturalistic stimuli with a specific impairment in social comprehension, and highlight the need to conceive of ASD as a heterogeneous classification.


E-textiles (electronic textiles) are fabrics that possesses electronic counterparts and electrical interconnects knitted into them, offering flexibility, stretchability, and a characteristic length scale that cannot be accomplished using other electronic manufacturing methods currently available. However, knitting is only one of the technologies in e-Textile integration. Other technologies, such as sewing, embroidery, and even single fiber-based manufacture technology, are widely employed in next-generation e-textiles. Components and interconnections are barely visible since they are connected intrinsically to soft fabrics that have attracted the attention of those in the fashion and textile industries. These textiles can effortlessly acclimatize themselves to the fast-changing wearable electronic markets with digital, computational, energy storage, and sensing requirements of any specific application. This mini-review focuses on recent advances in the field of e-textiles and focuses particularly on the materials and their functionalities.


Design review is a process of reviewing construction design documents to ensure that they reflect the owner's design intent, and are accurate in describing the owner's desired building or facility. Information generation becomes more intensive as the design stage progresses. The use of valuable information during design review stage can lead to a more comprehensive and high quality design, and a building or facility that is constructible, and within the intended budget. However, in current design practices, valuable design review information is scattered, ineffectively placed, and is not used efficiently. The design review process will be more efficient if this valuable information is integrated and centralized.

The author developed a framework to improve the design review process by incorporating a centralized repository of design review information and 3D CAD model, in an interactive Virtual Environment (VE). To develop the framework, the author used Action Research style where he identified and confirmed the design review problem area, promoted the potential solutions to the problem, and developed a prototype. In gathering and analyzing the data for the research, the author used the synthesis of three methods. They include review of literature, a case study (interviews with industry personnel and content analysis of design review documents), and dissemination of the author's progressive findings in conferences, conference proceedings and journal publications.

From his findings, the author developed the framework to improve the design review process by using information filtering based on context-aware concept, coupled with the benefits of a VE. The required design review information in the form of textual, numerical and geometric information is processed (queried, retrieved and stored). The author defined four contexts for information filtering: discipline-centric, task-centric, object-centric, and location-centric. IFTHEN rules are used to trigger the processing of the required design review information and present it to the design reviewer in a VE. A low cost 3D Game Engine is used as the enabling development tool to develop a work-in-progress (WIP) prototype design review application in a VE.


In this paper we examine the influence of unemployment on property crimes and on violent crimes in France for the period 1990 to 2000. This analysis is the first extensive study for this country. We construct a regional-level data set (for the 95 departements of metropolitan France) with measures of crimes as reported to the Ministry of Interior. To assess social conditions prevailing in the departement in that year, we construct measures of the unemployment rate as well as other social, economic and demographic variables using multiple waves of the French Labor Survey. We estimate a classic Becker type model in which unemployment is a measure of how potential criminals fare in the legitimate job market. First, our estimates show that in the cross-section dimension, crime and unemployment are positively associated. Second, we find that increases in youth unemployment induce increases in crime. Using the predicted industrial structure to instrument unemployment, we show that this effect is causal for burglaries, thefts, and drug offences. To combat crime, it appears thus that all strategies designed to combat youth unemployment should be examined.


On 26-27 March 2014, CAIDA hosted the sixth Workshop on Active Internet Measurements (AIMS-6) as part of our series of Internet Statistics and Metrics Analysis (ISMA) workshops. As with previous AIMS workshops, the goals were to further our understanding of the potential and limitations of active measurement research and infrastructure in the wide-area Internet, and to promote cooperative solutions and coordinated strategies between academics, industry, policymakers, and funding agencies in the area of active Internet measurement. This year, we explored capabilities and opportunities for network measurement in the wireless domain, and research infrastructure to support it. Participants found the workshop content challengingly diverse, with substantial knowledge exchange regarding the wireless research infrastructure landscape(s) and existing measurement capabilities. But attendees agreed that the conversation was only beginning, and that some challenges merit further discussion, such as finding consensus on standard metrics to measure, and constructing a road map for wireless measurement research infrastructure and activities for the next decade. This report describes topics discussed at the workshop, and summarizes participants' views of priorities for future funding as well as follow-on workshops in this area. Materials related to the workshop are available at http://www.caida.org/workshops/aims/1403/.


This paper summarises the origins of western monastic hospitality, illustrates how it influences modern civic, commercial and domestic practices and reports on an empirical investigation into contemporary monastic hospitality. Research into the phenomenon of hospitality continues to broaden through an ever-increasing dialogue and alignment with a greater number of academic disciplines. This paper reports on an investigation into the hospitality offered by Benedictine monasteries and demonstrates how an enhanced understanding of hospitality can be achieved through synergy between social anthropology, philosophy and practical theology. All monastic hospitality takes its direction from St Benedict's Rule (530 AD); this foundational document became the basis of all western European religious hospitality. During the Middle Ages the western monasteries (as well as being the custodians of civilisation, knowledge and learning) had provided detailed and formalised rules for religious hospitality, the care of the sick and the poor, and responsibilities for refugees. The Protestant Reformation (c 1540) was to have a transforming affect on religious hospitality. Hospitable activities became separated from their Christian ties as the state increasingly took over more responsibility for them, although they adopted the principles of hospitality that had already been established within the monastic tradition and are still evident in civic, commercial and domestic hospitality. The empirical information on contemporary monastic hospitality presented in this paper was gathered by living in the monastic cloister with the monks themselves, sharing their day, their life, and their work. During the research it became clear that within the environment of the monastic community hospitality provision is extremely complex; there was a hierarchy of guests within the monastery and differing levels of hospitality provision. The research highlighted the use and division of space for the monks and their guests, types of accommodation, inclusion and exclusion, hospitality rules and rituals and the dichotomy between the social and commercial manifestation of hospitality within the monastery. The paper concludes by observing that the prima-facie purpose of a monastery is not to offer hospitality, it is to house the monks in a community environment so that they can dedicate their lives and live their vocation to the service of God. The Rule is clearly of the utmost importance to the running of the monasteries, however an element of change has been necessary to ensure the continuing survival of the monastery and its hospitality provision. Within the monastic community hospitality and the ritual reception of guests and the provision of hospitality play an important role by being both the bridge and the barrier between the monastic and secular worlds.


Italy has been increasingly active in international military missions since the end of World War II. This paper aims at showing that the procedures related to the deployment and extension of military missions abroad have several shortcomings. These procedures, which are focused mostly on technical aspects, are bound to certain time limits and do not ensure significant parliamentary debate or any kind of parliamentary debate at all. This negatively affects the identification and pursuit of Italian national interests in the deployment of missions abroad. Yet national interests are crucial: international missions are essential for foreign policy, but they represent a means and not an objective in and of itself. As a way forward, we identify a number of recommendations in the areas of law, policy practice and political debate that could improve the status quo.


A gas exchange experiment was performed on Georges Bank using deliberate tracers sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and helium 3 (3He). The concentrations of the tracers were measured in the water column over a period of 10 days. During this time the patch grew from an 8-km-long injection streak to an area of about 500 km2. The gas transfer velocity was determined from the change in the ratio of the tracers over time scaled to the ratio of their Schmidt numbers. A near-linear relationship between gas exchange and wind speed was observed based on four experimental points covering a wind speed range from 3 to 11 m/s. The results fall in the upper part of the range of gas transfer-wind speed relationships developed to date. Wind speeds during the experiment obtained from anemometers on the ship, on a free floating drifter, and on a fixed mooring showed significant differences. With the ability to measure gas transfer velocities over the ocean on timescales of several days, accurate wind speed/stress measurements are imperative to obtain a robust relationship between gas transfer and wind speed.


Sequencing the transcriptome can answer various questions such as determining the transcripts expressed in a given species for a specific tissue or condition, evaluating differential expression, discovering variants, and evaluating allele-specific expression. Differential expression evaluates the expression differences between different strains, tissues, and conditions. Allele-specific expression evaluates expression differences between parental alleles. Both differential expression and allele-specific expression have been studied for heterosis (hybrid vigor), where the hybrid has improved performance over the parents for one or more traits. The Allele Workbench software was developed for a heterosis study that evaluated allele-specific expression for a mouse F1 hybrid using libraries from multiple tissues with biological replicates. This software has been made into a distributable package, which includes a pipeline, a Java interface to build the database, and a Java interface for query and display of the results. The required input is a reference genome, annotation file, and one or more RNA-Seq libraries with optional replicates. It evaluates allelic imbalance at the SNP and transcript level and flags transcripts with significant opposite directional allele-specific expression. The Java interface allows the user to view data from libraries, replicates, genes, transcripts, exons, and variants, including queries on allele imbalance for selected libraries. To determine the impact of allele-specific SNPs on protein folding, variants are annotated with their effect (e.g., missense), and the parental protein sequences may be exported for protein folding analysis. The Allele Workbench processing results in transcript files and read counts that can be used as input to the previously published Transcriptome Computational Workbench, which has a new algorithm for determining a trimmed set of gene ontology terms. The software with demo files is available from https://code.google.com/p/allele-workbench. Additionally, all software is ready for immediate use from an Atmosphere Virtual Machine Image available from the iPlant Collaborative (www.iplantcollaborative.org).


Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) imposes a significant burden on patients, families and healthcare systems. Management is difficult, due to disease heterogeneity and insufficient efficacy of classical drugs such as H1R‐antihistamines. Better understanding of the mechanisms has enabled a stratified approach to the management of CSU, supporting the use of targeted treatment with omalizumab. However, many practical issues including selection of responders, the definition of response, strategies to enhance the responder rate, the duration of treatment and its regimen (in the clinic or home‐based) and its cost‐effectiveness still require further clarification. The EAACI Guidelines on the use of omalizumab in CSU follow the GRADE approach in formulating recommendations for each outcome. In addition, future therapeutic approaches and perspectives as well as research priorities are discussed.


Introduction When Harvard President Neil Rudenstine took a leave of absence at the end of 1994 in order to recover from exhaustion and to undergo a battery of medical tests, several published reports cited fund-raising stress as one contributing factor [18, 42]. In assessing various analyses offered by the higher education community regarding this event, Robert Hahn, president of Johnson State College, stated, "Most observers have relied on familiar fallacies and myths." Hahn also noted, "The simplistic quality of most of the commentaries on Mr. Rudenstine's leave of absence suggests that much remains to be done to enlarge our understanding of the perils of [academic] leadership" [40, p. A64]. The Rudenstine case - and Hahn's remarks - underscore the need for a comprehensive history of the academic presidency (Joseph N. Crowley's 1994 book, No Equal in the World, sets the stage for this). Such a work would provide historians and other scholars as well as journalists and practitioners with a broader context from which to base their understanding and frame their views of current events and trends affecting the academic presidency. Such a work would also help to elevate the level and quality of discourse regarding academic chief executives and fund raising. Unfortunately, space does not allow for such an in-depth treatment of the subject here. Instead, this article will provide a context and overview for the period from 1975 to the present, described by Edward Lilly as the Era of Uncertainty [55]. In so doing, I will attempt to make a number of salient points, including the following: 1. The past 20 years have been correctly called an Era of Uncertainty in higher education because of certain defining characteristics. 2. During this period, both public and private universities have increased their commitment to private fund raising. 3. The increased emphasis given to private fund raising by public universities has changed a tacit, long-standing agreement between public and private institutions. 4. Fund-raising campaigns have become a way of life at many institutions. 5. Academic presidents must devote a significant portion of their time to fund-raising activities. 6. Many presidents have difficulty adjusting to their roles as fund raisers. 7. Fund raising and financial affairs in general are among the most high-profile duties/endeavors of a president and among the skills/attributes most prized by trustees as well as some faculty and alumni, and these issues are widely reported by the media. 8. Due to the increasing complexity of fund raising, presidents and other university personnel must have greater familiarity with tax laws, planned giving, estate planning, and other technical aspects of philanthropy. 9. Fund-raising considerations play a major part in the presidential selection process as well as the length of time incumbents remain in office. 10. There has been a slight trend in recent years toward hiring presidents with a background in development or business, although promotion from within academic ranks is still the norm. 11. Presidents should spend their time and effort in fund raising on the cultivation and solicitation of major gifts and in providing administrative leadership. 12. Presidents must emphasize a team approach to fund raising in which they play the dual roles of quarterback/athletic director. The Era of Uncertainty The decades following World War II have been called the Golden Age in American higher education. Federal funds flowed freely, enrollments soared, tremendous sums were expended for construction of new facilities and/or campuses, the community college movement had its flowering, and state university systems were created, to mention but a few notable characteristics [44, 77, 89]. By way of comparison, Whetten and Cameron contrasted this Golden Age with the Era of Uncertainty: For at least two decades after World War II, higher education administrators had a relatively easy job. …