Abstract. The Gulf of Lions is a river-dominated ocean margin that receives high loads of nutrients and particulate matter from the Rhone River but most particulate materials settle rapidly on the nearshore seafloor. One question is raised on the fate of these large quantities of organic carbon delivered by the river to the coastal marine environment. Surface sediments (0–0.5 cm) were collected in the Rhone prodelta and its adjacent shelf during a period of low river discharge (April 2007, 16 stations). The sources, distribution and lability of sedimentary organic matter were examined using bulk (organic carbon, total nitrogen, stable carbon isotope ratios, and grain size) and molecular-level (pigments, amino acids, fatty acids, and δ13C of individual fatty acids) analyses. Our results confirmed previous observations of a southwestward Rhodanian imprint in the nearshore sediments, with 97% of terrigenous inputs of organic matter near the river mouth. Isotopic values of bulk organic carbon, as well as fatty acid biomarkers and compound-specific δ13C signatures of most fatty acids clearly indicate that the Rhone inputs consist of a mixture of organic matter (OM) from different origins with a strong contribution from terrestrial sources (soil and plant debris), and a smaller input from freshwater microalgae, mostly diatoms. The influence of the Rhone River was prominent within the first ten kilometers, but may still be observed on the outer shelf (~21 km) as indicated by the occurrence of long chain fatty acids, which are derived from vascular plants, and their δ13C signatures. In the proximal prodelta, bacteria-specific fatty acids were abundant (1.65 mg g−1 OC at the mouth site) and were relatively depleted in δ13C confirming that bacteria mostly utilize land-derived OM. In the shelf area, the inputs of marine OM and its predominant utilization by the bacteria was confirmed, but the coupling between the pelagic and the benthic compartments appeared limited at this period of the year. Overall, degradation indexes based on amino acids (Dauwe's degradation index) and pigments (ratio of intact chlorophyll-a to the sum of chlorophyll-a + phaeopigment-a), as well as isotopic enrichment of source-specific fatty acids reveal an offshore gradient of OM decay reflecting the rapid deposition of the terrestrial material in the prodelta, the low mixing with OM deriving from marine sources and the efficient degradation of the OM. The OM delivered by the Rhone is relatively labile based on the intermediary value of Dauwe's degradation index, the high proportion of bio-available nitrogen and the occurrence of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Deltaic sediments off the Rhone River should thus be of sufficiently high nutritional quality to sustain dense macrofaunal communities.


Following a request from the European Commission to address the risks and benefits as regards fish/seafood consumption related to relevant beneficial substances (e.g. nutrients such as n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids) and the contaminant methylmercury, the Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) was asked to deliver a Scientific Opinion on health benefits of seafood consumption in relation to health risks associated with exposure to methylmercury. In the present Opinion, the NDA Panel has reviewed the role of seafood in European diets and evaluated the beneficial effects of seafood consumption in relation to health outcomes and population subgroups that have been identified by the FAO/WHO Joint Expert Consultation on the Risks and Benefits of Fish Consumption and/or the EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the context of a risk assessment related to the presence of mercury and methylmercury in food as relevant for the assessment. These included the effects of seafood consumption during pregnancy on functional outcomes of children's neurodevelopment and the effects of seafood consumption on cardiovascular disease risk in adults. The Panel concluded that consumption of about 1-2 servings of seafood per week and up to 3-4 servings per week during pregnancy has been associated with better functional outcomes of neurodevelopment in children compared to no consumption of seafood. Such amounts have also been associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease mortality in adults and are compatible with current intakes and recommendations in most of the European countries considered. These associations refer to seafood per se andinclude beneficial and adverse effects of nutrients and non-nutrients (i.e. including contaminants such as methylmercury) contained in seafood. No additional benefits on neurodevelopmental outcomes and no benefit on coronary heart disease mortality risk might be expected at higher intakes.


Abdalla, Marwa. "Can participants extract subtle information from gesturelike visual stimuli that are coordinated with speech without using any other cues?. ii To My Family, for their care and loving support iii ABSTRACT Embodied cognition is the reflection of an organism's interaction with its environment on its cognitive processes. We explored the question whether participants are able to pick up on subtle cues from gestures using the Tower of Hanoi task. Previous research has shown that listeners are sensitive to the height of the gestures that they observe, and reflect this knowledge in their mouse movements (Cook & Tanenhaus, 2009). Participants in our study watched a modified video of someone explaining the Tower of Hanoi puzzle solution, so that participants only saw a black background with two moving dots representing the hand positions from the original explanation in space and time. We parametrically manipulated the location of the dots to examine whether listeners were sensitive to this subtle variation. We selected the transfer gestures from the original explanation, and tracked the hand positions with dots at varying heights relative to the original gesture height. The experimental gesture heights reflected 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of this original height. We predicted, based on previous research (Cook in prep), that participants will be able to extract the difference in gesture height and reflect this in their mouse movements when solving the problem. Using linear model for our analysis, we found that the starting trajectory confirmed our hypothesis. However, when looking at the averaged first 15 moves (the minimum to solve the puzzle) across the five conditions, the ordered effect of the gesture heights was lost, although there were apparent differences between the gesture heights. This is an important finding because it shows that participants are able to glean subtle height information from gestures. Listeners truly interpret iconic gestures iconically.


Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often require long term treatment with multiple medications. Medication adherence is essential to encourage the best health results in RA. This thesis assessed medication adherence to oral RA medications in patients with RA in Iran and examined determinants of adherence with a specific focus on the effect of medication out-of-pocket costs. The study was conducted in Iran and had two components; a cross-sectional survey of 308 patients and semi-structured interviews with 10 rheumatologists. Iranian patients with RA were non-adherent to their oral RA medications and experienced cost-related medication non-adherence.


In this paper, we provide a comprehensive multivariate cointegration analysis of three parts of the steam coal value chain - export, transport and import prices. The analysis is based on a rich dataset of international coal prices; in particular, we combine data on steam coal prices with freight rates, covering the period December 2001 until August 2009 at weekly frequency. We then test whether the demand and supply side components of steam coal trade are consistently integrated with one another. In addition, export and import prices as well as freight rates for individual trading routes, across regions and globally are combined. We find evidence of significant yet incomplete integration. We also find heterogeneous short-term dynamics of individual markets. Furthermore, we examine whether logistics enter coal price dynamics through transportation costs, which are mainly determined by oil prices. Our results suggest that this is generally not the case.


Building on a historical case study on the first two stock exchanges to adopt the now globally dominant for-profit organizational form, the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1993 and the Helsinki Stock Exchange in 1995, we argue that interaction among socially proximate peers contributes to pioneering organizational form adoption within an industry, particularly when such forms are introduced by established organizations. Peer interaction can induce a search for technically efficient organizational forms through the sharing of collective experiences, the establishment of collective assumptions, and a joint search for solutions. Together, these factors contribute to the legitimization of novel organizational forms in the local setting before the adoption of the first instantiation of those forms. We propose a context-sensitive multilevel model of peer-interaction-induced pioneering organizational form adoption that considers shared macro environmental drivers, idiosyncratic local environmental drivers, and peer interaction as central social mediators between the two.


Abstract. The use of alternative fuels for aviation is likely to increase due to concerns over fuel security, price stability, and the sustainability of fuel sources. Concurrent reductions in particulate emissions from these alternative fuels are expected because of changes in fuel composition including reduced sulfur and aromatic content. The NASA Alternative Aviation Fuel Experiment (AAFEX) was conducted in January–February 2009 to investigate the effects of synthetic fuels on gas-phase and particulate emissions. Standard petroleum JP-8 fuel, pure synthetic fuels produced from natural gas and coal feedstocks using the Fischer–Tropsch (FT) process, and 50% blends of both fuels were tested in the CFM-56 engines on a DC-8 aircraft. To examine plume chemistry and particle evolution with time, samples were drawn from inlet probes positioned 1, 30, and 145 m downstream of the aircraft engines. No significant alteration to engine performance was measured when burning the alternative fuels. However, leaks in the aircraft fuel system were detected when operated with the pure FT fuels as a result of the absence of aromatic compounds in the fuel. Dramatic reductions in soot emissions were measured for both the pure FT fuels (reductions in mass of 86% averaged over all powers) and blended fuels (66%) relative to the JP-8 baseline with the largest reductions at idle conditions. At 7% power, this corresponds to a reduction from 7.6 mg kg−1 for JP-8 to 1.2 mg kg−1 for the natural gas FT fuel. At full power, soot emissions were reduced from 103 to 24 mg kg−1 (JP-8 and natural gas FT, respectively). The alternative fuels also produced smaller soot (e.g., at 85% power, volume mean diameters were reduced from 78 nm for JP-8 to 51 nm for the natural gas FT fuel), which may reduce their ability to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). The reductions in particulate emissions are expected for all alternative fuels with similar reductions in fuel sulfur and aromatic content regardless of the feedstock. As the plume cools downwind of the engine, nucleation-mode aerosols form. For the pure FT fuels, reductions (94% averaged over all powers) in downwind particle number emissions were similar to those measured at the exhaust plane (84%). However, the blended fuels had less of a reduction (reductions of 30–44%) than initially measured (64%). The likely explanation is that the reduced soot emissions in the blended fuel exhaust plume results in promotion of new particle formation microphysics, rather than coating on pre-existing soot particles, which is dominant in the JP-8 exhaust plume. Downwind particle volume emissions were reduced for both the pure (79 and 86% reductions) and blended FT fuels (36 and 46%) due to the large reductions in soot emissions. In addition, the alternative fuels had reduced particulate sulfate production (near zero for FT fuels) due to decreased fuel sulfur content. To study the formation of volatile aerosols (defined as any aerosol formed as the plume ages) in more detail, tests were performed at varying ambient temperatures (−4 to 20 °C). At idle, particle number and volume emissions were reduced linearly with increasing ambient temperature, with best fit slopes corresponding to −8 × 1014 particles (kg fuel)−1 °C−1 for particle number emissions and −10 mm3 (kg fuel)−1 °C−1 for particle volume emissions. The temperature dependency of aerosol formation can have large effects on local air quality surrounding airports in cold regions. Aircraft-produced aerosols in these regions will be much larger than levels expected based solely on measurements made directly at the engine exit plane. The majority (90% at idle) of the volatile aerosol mass formed as nucleation-mode aerosols, with a smaller fraction as a soot coating. Conversion efficiencies of up to 2.8% were measured for the partitioning of gas-phase precursors (unburned hydrocarbons and SO2) to form volatile aerosols. Highest conversion efficiencies were measured at 45% power.


Breeding for polledness has just recently become of interest, since the routinely performed dehorning of calves has raised serious animal welfare concerns. The autosomal dominant inheritance of the polled locus and the availability of a direct gene test have a great potential for a rapid spread of the trait. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the polled locus influences other traits than horn development as well. In our study, we examined a possible influence of the polled locus on performance traits in Holstein Friesian cattle. For that, we compiled a data set of 1851 Holstein Friesian cows descending from 19 heterozygous polled sires. The genetic horn status of the cows was analyzed and the performances of horned and polled daughters were compared using independent two sample t-tests and multi-factor ANOVAs. As phenotypes, the routinely estimated breeding values for milk performance, fertility and body conformation were abducted. To investigate a pleiotropic effect, the performances of all polled and horned daughters of the sires were compared. However, the results of the independent two-sample ttest and the ANOVA were inconclusive, contradicting a pleiotropic effect of the polled locus. To compare the performance within the different families a nested ANOVA for multiple factors was used, where the factor genotype was nested within the factor sire. Indeed, we found significant results for the traits yield deviation of milk, fat and protein yield, as well as for the total merit index and the relative estimated breeding values for milk production, protein yield, body, total conformation, fertility, paternal calving traits. Intriguingly, the effect of the polled locus between the different sire groups is partly vice versa. A possible explanation for that is that the polled locus could be linked to putative QTLs influencing those performance traits, but the linkage phases differ between different families. To investigate this more closely we contrive to consider the kinship between the sires in the data set. The exclusion of a pleiotropic effect of the polled locus could reduce the skepticism towards including polledness in the practical breeding strategies. Therewith, breeding for polledness as a non-invasive alternative to dehorning could increase the animal welfare in the cattle industry on a long-term base.


We investigate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for a bistatic coherent laser radar (CLR) system. With a bistatic configuration, the spatial resolution is determined by the overlap of the transmit beam and the virtual backpropagated local oscillator beam. This eliminates the trade-off between range resolution and the bandwidth of the transmitted pulse inherent in monostatic systems. The presented analysis is completely general in that the expressions can be applied to both monostatic and bistatic CLR systems. The heterodyne SNR is computed under the assumption of untruncated Gaussian optics and untruncated Gaussian beam profiles. The analysis also includes the effects of refractive turbulence. The results show that, for maximum SNR, small transmit and local oscillator beam profiles (e-1 intensity radius) are desired.


The utilization of information and communication technologies in almost all spheres of modern society has changed the social picture in significant ways while simultaneously leading to tensions with regard to traditional ethical and legal practices—particularly given the global context of its application. Where these technologies impact on the practice and implementation of healthcare, it is vital to recognize the extent and nature of the ethical and social impact both at the level of professional practice and the patient. Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medical Informatics presents a fundamental compendium of research on the ethical, social, and legal issues facing the healthcare industry as it adopts information technologies to provide fast, efficient, and cost effective healthcare. An essential resource for every reference library, this comprehensive book offers a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing from the expertise of a wide variety of global industries including law, ethics, medicine, philosophy, and computer science.


We have investigated the influence of Ca ion substitution on the structural and superconducting properties of (Nd1−xCax)(Ba1.6La0.4)Cu3Oz system. Magnetization, x-ray diffraction, and neutron diffraction studies have been carried out on a series of compounds with x=0.0–0.6. The superconducting transition temperature Tc, determined from magnetization measurements, increases with increasing Ca2+ substitution. Neutron diffraction studies reveal that these compounds crystallize in a tetragonal structure (space group P4∕mmm). A detailed analysis of the neutron diffraction data reveals that Ca and La ions are intermixed at the nominal Ba and Nd sites. While a major fraction of Ca ions occupy the usual Nd site, a small fraction occupies the Ba site. Consequently, the corresponding amount of La substitutes at the nominal Nd site. The intermixing of Ca and La sites randomizes the chain site oxygens leading to a tetragonal structure despite an oxygen content close to 7.0 for all the Ca doped samples. Further increase in Ca content leads to change in its coordination from sixfold to eightfold at x⩾0.4.We have investigated the influence of Ca ion substitution on the structural and superconducting properties of (Nd1−xCax)(Ba1.6La0.4)Cu3Oz system. Magnetization, x-ray diffraction, and neutron diffraction studies have been carried out on a series of compounds with x=0.0–0.6. The superconducting transition temperature Tc, determined from magnetization measurements, increases with increasing Ca2+ substitution. Neutron diffraction studies reveal that these compounds crystallize in a tetragonal structure (space group P4∕mmm). A detailed analysis of the neutron diffraction data reveals that Ca and La ions are intermixed at the nominal Ba and Nd sites. While a major fraction of Ca ions occupy the usual Nd site, a small fraction occupies the Ba site. Consequently, the corresponding amount of La substitutes at the nominal Nd site. The intermixing of Ca and La sites randomizes the chain site oxygens leading to a tetragonal structure despite an oxygen content close to 7.0 for all the Ca doped samples. Further increa...


Contemporary learning requires that students develop their capacity to play an active role in their own learning. Drawing on Assessment for Learning principles from a perspective of social cognitive theory, this study examines how assessment can be used as a learning process in which students develop skills and competence as selfregulated learners. Conducted at an independent primary school in the Northern Territory, in Australia, as a one-setting, cross-sectional form of practitioner research, the study used a simultaneous design in which qualitative and quantitative data were given equal priority. The study involved 256 students from years 2, 4 and 6, together with 16 teachers. Open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to explore teachers' and students' perceptions of Student-Directed Assessment (SDA), combined with a quasi-experimental phase, which provided the basis for the study's quantitative analysis. Positioned in an area of overlap among formative assessment pedagogy, Self-Regulated Learning, agentic engagement, and creativity, the thesis puts forward four key insights, in respect of the study's overarching question: 'How does Student-Directed Assessment shape learning?' First, when given support and the opportunity, students direct their learning by making novel, yet appropriate task choices as they address the targeted learning outcomes. Second, with support and scaffolding, students actively seek to be creative and take sensible risks in their learning. Third, as directors of the learning process, students' confidence in their ability to complete tasks serves as a springboard from which they further their will and skills to learn. Fourth, with support and scaffolding, students who direct their assessment demonstrate a higher degree of achievement compared to students who are given less choice. By conceptualising assessment as learning through a lens of triadic reciprocality, which combines students' intrapersonal factors, syllabus outcomes and the situational classroom context, this thesis presents a broadened view of assessment as learning.


In the context of simulating the frictional contact dynamics of large systems of rigid bodies, this paper reviews a novel method for solving large cone complementarity problems by means of a fixed-point iteration algorithm. The method is an extension of the Gauss-Seidel and Gauss-Jacobi methods with over-relaxation for symmetric convex linear complementarity problems. Convergent under fairly standard assumptions, the method is implemented in a parallel framework by using a single instruction multiple data computation paradigm promoted by the Compute Unified Device Architecture library for graphical processing unit programming. The framework supports the analysis of problems with a large number of rigid bodies in contact. Simulation thus becomes a viable tool for investigating the dynamics of complex systems such as ground vehicles running on sand, powder composites, and granular material flow.Copyright © 2008 by ASME


ABSTRACT As a soil bacterium also found in estuarine and marine habitats,Bacillus subtilis has evolved various sensing and adaptation systems in order to face salt stress conditions. Among these regulatory mechanisms is the DegS-DegU signal transduction system, which was previously shown to be stimulated by high salt concentrations. A search for promoters regulated in response to salt stress led to the identification of wapA, encoding a wall-associated protein, which is strongly expressed at low salt concentrations and almost completely repressed in the presence of 0.7 M disodium succinate. Repression of wapA transcription by salt stress was shown to require the phosphorylated form of DegU. Moreover, DegU-mediated repression of wapA occurred only in high-salt medium. Alignment between the control region ofwapA and other DegU-regulated promoters allowed the identification of a putative DegU target sequence, AGAAN11TTCAG. Mutation/deletion analyses of thewapA promoter region confirmed the role of the putative DegU control site in repression of wapA transcription at high salt concentrations and revealed a second site of repression located downstream from the transcription start site. Since residual negative control was observed at this second site in the absence of DegU, it seems likely that an additional repressor acts on thewapA control region to further downregulatewapA transcription under salt stress conditions.


The generation of 3-D models is a fundamental part of computer graphics and often requires many hours of skilled labour or the use of very expensive equipment. With the increasing demand for virtual environments and objects to populate them, convenient 3-D model generation has become a very important problem to be solved. Generating 3-D models of large outdoor structures poses particular problems because of difficulties with the calibration of images and lack of control over the environment. This paper proposes a multi-part algorithm that enables the generation of 3-D models from a small set of images of outdoor structures without calibration. The images are captured using a standard digital stills camera and the process requires no specialised equipment or skilled user input.


Of the Greek lyric poets, Pindar (c.519-438 BC) was "by far the greatest for the magnificence of his inspiration" in Quintilian's view; Horace judged him "sure to win Apollo's laurels". The esteem of the ancients may help explain why a good portion of his work was carefully preserved. Most of the Greek lyric poets come down to us only in bits and pieces, but nearly a quarter of Pindar's poems survive complete. William H. Race now brings us, in two volumes, a new edition and translation of the four books of victory odes, along with surviving fragments of Pindar's other poems. Like Simonides and Bacchylides, Pindar wrote elaborate odes in honour of prize-winning athletes for public performance by singers, dancers and musicians. His 45 victory odes celebrate triumphs in athletic contests at the four great Panhellenic festivals: the Olympic, Pythian (at Delphi), Nemean, and Isthmian games. In these complex poems, Pindar commemorates the achievement of athletes and powerful rulers against the backdrop of divine favour, human failure, heroic legend and the moral ideals of aristocratic Greek society. Race provides brief intoductions to each ode and full explanatory footnotes, offering the reader guidance to these often difficult poems. His new Loeb Pindar also contains an annotated edition and translation of significant fragments, including hymns, paeans, dihyrambs, maiden songs and dirges.


This paper examines the ways in which extended education is manifested in a place where schooling and academic achievement are of primary focus. Over the past few decades, the Hong Kong education system has undergone major reforms that have incorporated various forms of extended education to enhance students' all-round development. Despite these changes, Hong Kong people continue to put an emphasis on academic excellence resulting in parent-directed activities in a form of private supplementary tutoring. At the same time, extended education is also demonstrated through students' self-directed engagement in serious leisure activities that contribute to adolescents' growth. The paper portrays and examines the different activities directed by schools, parents and students within school and out-of-school settings in light of the sociocultural context of Hong Kong. References are made to school based initiatives and studies on outside classroom learning and serious leisure among children and adolescents.


In spite of man's tendency toward grandiose surface-water projects which resist natural forces, along with a political climate which spawns disincentives to conserve and economically develop water, the world is at last on the right track toward balancing its water budget and minimizing dislocations caused by water shortfalls. Although the quantities of this resource that have been polluted are a small percentage of the whole of available water, the multiplicity of activities that have created the problem, coupled with man's ignorance of his role in the problem, make water quality the primary water supply issue. Rapidly advancing hydrogeologic knowledge is fostering scientific efforts to eliminate or contain contaminants now reaching our nation's ground water. Technologies are improving both in terms of their potential for success and economic feasibility. However, the long-term goal of maintaining a still largely uncontaminated water resource must rely on the future prevention of pollution. The very wastes which have created our serious ground-water pollution problems these past three or four decades are at last being significantly reduced by some of the industries who were previously among the worst, though largely unwitting parts of the problem. Though few people appear to be satisfied with the environmental regulatory matrix intended to serve as a safety net, the bottom line for industry is quickly being perceived as an increasingly high cost for waste disposal.


Objective: Schema Therapy (ST) places particular emphasis on affective experiences, therapeutic relationship and early life experiences. Ad hoc ST conceptualizations for specific psychological conditions, mainly focusing on personality disorders, have been suggested in the last decade. The aim of this study was to explore schemas, modes and coping styles in outpatients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Method: thirty-four patients with OCD [DSM5 criteria, mean age(SD)=33(8.38) years; 12 females] were recruited. Schemas, modes and coping styles were measured. Indexes of OCD symptoms', guilt and disgust levels were also collected. Descriptive, correlation and multiple regression analyses were performed. Results: OCD symptoms' severity was significantly associated with social isolation, failure, subjugation and punishment schemas, and with the punitive parent mode. A positive relationship was also detected between OCD severity, and avoidance and intra-psychic coping styles and disgust intensity. Regression analyses revealed that the social isolation and punitiveness schemas, the punitive parent mode and behavioral avoidance coping style predicted OCD severity, with behavioral avoidance playing a significant mediation role between dysfunctional schemas and symptoms. Conclusions: Our data confirm previous findings on Schema model applied to OCD. An important limitation of the study is represented by the lack of an Italian control group.


The net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) of a 28-30 m tall transitional (eco- tonal) tropical forest of the Brazilian Amazon was quantified using tower-based eddy co- variance. Measurements were made between August 1999 and July 2001 and were used to develop nonlinear statistical models to assess daily variations in ecophysiological param- eters and provide annual estimates of NEE, gross ecosystem CO2 exchange (GEE), and respiration (Re). Diurnal trends in NEE were correlated with variations in photosynthetic photon flux density ( Q), vapor pressure deficit (V ), and temperature. Seasonal trends in the CO2-flux components estimated from nonlinear regression ( Amax and R0) were highly cor- related with soil water availability and canopy structural properties (LAI and litter pro- duction). These results suggest that variations in soil water content can affect rates of canopy photosynthesis and whole forest respiration by altering both physiological processes and canopy structural properties. Estimates of the annual NEE suggest that the forest was in balance with respect to CO2 during the study period, which, in terms of rainfall, was a relatively typical period compared to the 30-yr average rainfall regime. Our results also suggest that the warmer and dryer microclimate and decline in LAI that accompany land- cover change will cause transitional forests to be sources of CO 2 to the atmosphere.


Currently, models of terrestrial 13C discrimination indicate that about one quarter of the gross primary productivity (GPP - total carbon fixed as biomass by plants) by the terrestrial biosphere is attributable to tropical savanna/grassland plants that use the C, photosynthetic pathway. However, the fraction of C,-derived biomass in soil organic carbon in savanna systems is much lower than these GPP estimates imply. Determining this imbalance has significant implications for correctly interpreting soil and palaeosol carbon isotope data, and for modelling studies that use variations in the atmospheric δ13CO, record to apportion sources and sinks of carbon. Here, we present preliminary results using hydrogen pyrolysis (HyPy) for quantifying the abundance and identifying the source of pyrogenic carbon (PC) in tropical savannas of North Queensland (Australia). We collected sediment from a series of micro-catchments covering the broadest possible range of C, and C, environments, and compared the abundances and stable isotope compositions of the total organic carbon (TOC) and pyrogenic carbon (PC) fractions.

Hydrogen pyrolysis (HyPy) can be used to quantify the production, fate and stable isotope composition of PC produced by vegetation burning. HyPy is pyrolysis (up to ~600°C) under high hydrogen pressures (>10 MPa) in the presence of a catalyst, and when applied to sediments, soils, or organic samples results in the reductive removal of labile organic matter. Therefore, this technique offers great potential to effectively isolate and quantify pyrogenic carbon in a rapid and cost effective manner. Moreover, comparison of the stable carbon isotope composition of PC with bulk carbon has the potential to discern if there is a dominant vegetation source contributing to burning.

The results indicate that the δ13C value of PC in the sediments is up 6‰ higher than the 613C value of TOC. There is a larger difference when TOC abundances in the sediments are lowest. This suggests a significant component of C,-derived PC is present in the sediments, even when the proportion of C, biomass in the catchment is relatively low. This in turn, provides evidence for the preferential combustion and transport of C4-derived PC in tropical savannas. Savanna fires preferentially burn the grass understorey rather than large trees, leading to a bias toward the finer C,-derived PC being exported from a fire and accumulated in the sedimentary record while large particles of Crderived PC are more likely to remain at the site of burning. Our preliminary data suggest that application of HyPy in environmental studies enables accurate quantification of an essential component of the terrestrial C cycle. Moreover, the use of HyPy also enables the reliable determination of the stable carbon isotope composition of PC, which will enable deeper understanding of the dynamic role of biomass burning in the global carbon cycle.


In this chapter, I explore to what extent different levels of language detail in the presentation of attitude targets have an impact on the expression of language attitudes. Results from the research carried out in the Frenchspeaking part of Switzerland ( Suisse romande ) reveal that the evaluation of a given language variety through a global category name does not equal the sum of average evaluations of each specific feature composing that variety. Being ideologically loaded concepts, global category names (like accent ) tend to elicit, in the Suisse romand context, attitudes mostly having for their target stigmatized patois features, while Swiss prestigious features are not mobilized by these concepts. Thus, the use of global category names for attitude elicitation in previous studies may have been a determining factor for the outcome of locating Standard French outside the Swiss community. Finally, results from my study indicate that the validity of language attitude data will be enhanced by taking into account ideology loaded in the process of sociolinguistic interpretation of global stimuli by lay persons, and by assigning to linguistic features under study the same level of specificity in terms of language regard as well as production.


It is common practice to augment efficacious treatment protocols for special populations (Durlak & DuPre, 2008), but this is often done before establishing that standard services are not appropriate. In this randomized controlled trial with families at risk or with a history of maltreatment ( N = 151), we investigated the effectiveness of standard 12-session Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). This is in contrast to other PCIT studies with similar parents, which have allowed for longer and sometimes variable treatment length and with modifications to PCIT protocol. After treatment and compared to Waitlist, mothers reported fewer child externalizing and internalizing behaviors, decreased stress and were observed to have more positive verbalizations and maternal sensitivity. These outcomes were equivalent or better than outcomes of our previous PCIT trial with high-risk families (Thomas & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2011) when treatment length was variable and often longer. These findings support standard protocol PCIT as an efficacious intervention for families in the child welfare system.


The two central topics of information theory are the compression and the transmission of data. Shannon, in his seminal work, formalized both these problems and determined their fundamental limits. Since then the main goal of coding theory has been to find practical schemes that approach these limits. Polar codes, recently invented by Arikan, are the first "practical" codes that are known to achieve the capacity for a large class of channels. Their code construction is based on a phenomenon called "channel polarization". The encoding as well as the decoding operation of polar codes can be implemented with O(N log N) complexity, where N is the blocklength of the code. We show that polar codes are suitable not only for channel coding but also achieve optimal performance for several other important problems in information theory. The first problem we consider is lossy source compression. We construct polar codes that asymptotically approach Shannon's rate-distortion bound for a large class of sources. We achieve this performance by designing polar codes according to the "test channel", which naturally appears in Shannon's formulation of the rate-distortion function. The encoding operation combines the successive cancellation algorithm of Arikan with a crucial new ingredient called "randomized rounding". As for channel coding, both the encoding as well as the decoding operation can be implemented with O(N log N) complexity. This is the first known "practical" scheme that approaches the optimal rate-distortion trade-off. We also construct polar codes that achieve the optimal performance for the Wyner-Ziv and the Gelfand-Pinsker problems. Both these problems can be tackled using "nested" codes and polar codes are naturally suited for this purpose. We further show that polar codes achieve the capacity of asymmetric channels, multi-terminal scenarios like multiple access channels, and degraded broadcast channels. For each of these problems, our constructions are the first known "practical" schemes that approach the optimal performance. The original polar codes of Arikan achieve a block error probability decaying exponentially in the square root of the block length. For source coding, the gap between the achieved distortion and the limiting distortion also vanishes exponentially in the square root of the blocklength. We explore other polar-like code constructions with better rates of decay. With this generalization, we show that close to exponential decays can be obtained for both channel and source coding. The new constructions mimic the recursive construction of Arikan and, hence, they inherit the same encoding and decoding complexity. We also propose algorithms based on message-passing to improve the finite length performance of polar codes. In the final two chapters of this thesis we address two important problems in graphical models related to communications. The first problem is in the area of low-density parity-check codes (LDPC). For practical lengths, LDPC codes using message-passing decoding are still the codes to beat. The current analysis, using density evolution, evaluates the performance of these algorithms on a tree. The tree assumption corresponds to using an infinite length code. But in practice, the codes are of finite length. We analyze the message-passing algorithms for this scenario. The absence of tree assumption introduces correlations between various messages. We show that despite this correlation, the prediction of the tree analysis is accurate. The second problem we consider is related to code division multiple access (CDMA) communication using random spreading. The current analysis mainly focuses on the information theoretic limits, i.e., using Gaussian input distribution. However in practice we use modulation schemes like binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), which is far from being Gaussian. The effects of the modulation scheme cannot be analyzed using traditional tools which are based on spectrum of large random matrices. We follow a new approach using tools developed for random spin systems in statistical mechanics. We prove a tight upper bound on the capacity of the system when the user input is BPSK. We also show that the capacity depends only on the power of the spreading sequences and is independent of their exact distribution.


The year 2010 was a model year for the celebration of fifty years of political independence among African countries. Assessments of the human condition in Africa show that the continent, especially sub-Saharan Africa, has lagged behind other regions of the world in terms of development. Based on the analysis of the constants of development, this paper argues that effective development is fundamentally driven by the maximum deployment of organized endogenous human agency defined as the capacity of individuals or groups to think, act, and impact their social environments. Because African agency was not properly shepherded in the first fifty years of independence, transformational leadership through the instrumentality of the developmental state is the path to effective development in postfifty Africa. This requires three key development strategies namely, inserting local human resources or domestic agency to the center of development activity; exit from fixation on extractive economies to a deliberate policy of value-added production embodied in industrialization; and a paradigm of development knowledge that sees development as the primary responsibility of endogenous agency.


Spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and radio continuum spectra are presented for a northern sample of 104 extragalactic radio sources, based on the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (ERCSC) and simultaneous multifrequency data. The nine Planck frequencies, from 30 to 857 GHz, are complemented by a set of simultaneous observations ranging from radio to gamma-rays. This is the first extensive frequency coverage in the radio and millimetre domains for an essentially complete sample of extragalactic radio sources, and it shows how the individual shocks, each in their own phase of development, shape the radio spectra as they move in the relativistic jet. The SEDs presented in this paper were fitted with second and third degree polynomials to estimate the frequencies of the synchrotron and inverse Compton (IC) peaks, and the spectral indices of low and high frequency radio data, including the Planck ERCSC data, were calculated. SED modelling methods are discussed, with an emphasis on proper, physical modelling of the synchrotron bump using multiplecomponents. Planck ERCSC data also suggest that the original accelerated electron energy spectrum could be much harder than commonly thought, with power-law index around 1.5 instead of the canonical 2.5. The implications of this are discussed for the acceleration mechanisms effective in blazar shock. Furthermore in many cases the Planck data indicate that gamma-ray emission must originate in the same shocks that produce the radio emission.


Instrumented with multiple depth cameras and projectors, LightSpace is a small room installation designed to explore a variety of interactions and computational strategies related to interactive displays and the space that they inhabit. LightSpace cameras and projectors are calibrated to 3D real world coordinates, allowing for projection of graphics correctly onto any surface visible by both camera and projector. Selective projection of the depth camera data enables emulation of interactive displays on un-instrumented surfaces (such as a standard table or office desk), as well as facilitates mid-air interactions between and around these displays. For example, after performing multi-touch interactions on a virtual object on the tabletop, the user may transfer the object to another display by simultaneously touching the object and the destination display. Or the user may "pick up" the object by sweeping it into their hand, see it sitting in their hand as they walk over to an interactive wall display, and "drop" the object onto the wall by touching it with their other hand. We detail the interactions and algorithms unique to LightSpace, discuss some initial observations of use and suggest future directions.


Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) generally represents each example as a collection of instances such that the features for local objects can be better captured, whereas traditional methods typically extract a global feature vector for each example as an integral part. However, there is limited research work on investigating which of the two learning scenarios performs better. This paper proposes a novel framework - Multiple Instance LEArning with Global Embedding (MILEAGE), in which the global feature vectors for traditional learning methods are integrated into the MIL setting. Within the proposed framework, a large margin method is formulated to adaptively tune the weights on the two different kinds of feature representations (i.e., global and multiple instance) for each example and trains the classifier simultaneously. An extensive set of experiments are conducted to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method.


Abstract. In this paper we investigate some basic properties of the multi-model ensemble systems, which can be deduced from a general characteristic of statistical distributions of the ensemble members with the help of mathematical tools. In particular we show how to find optimal linear combination of model results, which minimizes the mean square error both in the case of uncorrelated and correlated models. By proving basic estimations we try to deduce general properties describing multi-model ensemble systems. We show also how mathematical formalism can be used for investigation of the characteristics of such systems.


We examined the physical, chemical, and biological attributes of temporary and permanent lake outlets situated above treeline in the Swiss Alps. Surface flow in the temporary outlet streams ceased by mid-September. High discharge in spring associated with snowmelt was an order of magnitude greater in the temporary outlets than in the permanent outlets. Periphyton biomass attained 5--9x higher levels in the temporary sites than in the permanent sites by mid-summer. Although macroinvertebrate densities were similar between temporary and permanent sites, taxon richness was 2x greater in the permanent outlets. Macroinvertebrate groups absent from temporary outlets included Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera, and long-lived dipterans such as Limoniidae and Tipulidae. The semi-terrestrial gastropod Galba truncatula colonized the temporary lake outlets via the lake. Chironomidae, Oligochaeta and Simuliidae also were common and able to complete development in the temporary lake outlets. Cladocera and Copepoda originating from the lakes attained high abundances in some outlets regardless of being temporary or permanent. The harsh Alpine environment in concert with intermittency were strong determinants of ecosystem properties in the temporary outlets. Regardless of flow permanency, the lakes directly affected community dynamics of outlets by influencing physical and chemical properties, and providing colonists to outlet streams.


Personal information management (PIM) systems are information systems developed by individuals for use in a work environment. Seven managers were interviewed to observe how their electronic documents were organized, stored, and retrieved. The purpose of the study was to investigate classification behavior both to identify the features of a PIM system and to suggest whether the factors which influence classification decisions in an electronic environment were consistent with the factors that Kwasnik observed for physical documents in an office. It is suggested that these behaviors may be influenced by the hardware and software environment and may impact personal as well as organizational efficiency. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Nearly all prior studies on the technology acceptance model (TAM) have used Likert scales to measure the model's constructs, but the use of only this type of scale has two shortcomings. One is that such use prevents us from exposing the model's constructs to a robust test of their measure and relationships to each other, termed their nomological validity. The other is that such use leaves us unsure about whether or not we have selected an efficient way, in terms of survey completion time, to assess these constructs. Past researchers have used short form scales to address the issue of efficiency, but there are problems that may result from such efforts. In this study, we address both shortcomings by exploring the use of a semantic differential scale, which we refer to as a fast form, to assess the constructs of TAM. In this regard, we do three things. First, we describe how fast form as a scale may be developed. Second, we conduct a psychometric evaluation of the constructs that are measured by the fast form and examine their relationships. Third, we assess the efficiency of the fast form by comparing the time required to complete a survey with it to that which is required to complete a survey with Likert scales. Our results confirm that the constructs that are measured by the fast form are psychometrically equivalent to those that are measured by the Likert scales. The relationship among these constructs was unchanged, providing strong evidence for nomological validity. The fast form also yielded a 40 percent reduction in the survey completion time, proving its superior efficiency. We conclude with a description of the implications of these results for research and practice.


Systemic inflammation is strongly involved in the pathophysiology of the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of metabolic risk factors including hypertriglyceridemia. Aspirin treatment lowers inflammation via inhibition of NF-κB activity, but also reduces hypertriglyceridemia in humans. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism by which aspirin improves hypertriglyceridemia. Human apolipoprotein CI (apoCI)expressing mice (APOC1 mice), an animal model with elevated plasma triglyceride (TG) levels, as well as normolipidemic wild-type (WT) mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) and treated with aspirin. Aspirin treatment reduced hepatic NF-κB activity in HFD-fed APOC1 and WT mice and in addition, aspirin decreased plasma TG levels (-32%; p<0.05) in hypertriglyceridemic APOC1 mice. This TG-lowering effect could not be explained by enhanced VLDL-TG clearance, but aspirin selectively reduced hepatic production of VLDL-TG in both APOC1 (-28%; p<0.05) and WT mice (-33%; p<0.05) without affecting VLDL-apoB production. Aspirin did not alter hepatic expression of genes involved in FA oxidation, lipogenesis and VLDL production, but decreased the incorporation of plasmaderived FA by the liver into VLDL-TG (-24%; p<0.05), which was independent of hepatic expression of genes involved in FA uptake and transport. We conclude that aspirin improves hypertriglyceridemia by decreasing VLDL-TG production without affecting VLDL particle production. Therefore, the inhibition of inflammatory pathways by aspirin could be an interesting target for the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia.


One of the cofounders of Sybase tells about the birth of the company in 1984 and its strategy for entering what appeared to be a crowded marketplace. The article discusses how they were able to raise the funding needed. It tracks the technical development of the initial product that supported Sun and DEC computers and was rapidly accepted by the Wall Street community. The technical advantages of Sybase are described along with its marketing thrust to compete with Oracle. It covers the business relationship with Microsoft and Ashton-Tate and how the product performed in benchmarking tests. The problems with acquisitions, growth, and competition are described. It concludes with the changes in management and the company's acquisition by SAP.


This paper presents an overlapping generations model to explain why humans live in families rather than in other pair groupings. Since most non-human species are not familial, something special must be behind the family. It is shown that the two necessary features that explain the origin of the family are given by uncertain paternity and overlapping cohorts of dependent children. With such two features built into our model, and under the assumption that individuals care only for the propagation of their own genes, our analysis indicates that fidelity families dominate promiscuous pair bonding, in the sense that they can achieve greater survivorship and enhanced genetic fitness. The explanation lies in the free riding behavior that characterizes the interactions between competing fathers in the same promiscuous pair grouping. Kin ties could also be related to the emergence of the family. When we consider a kinship system in which an adult male transfers resources not just to his offspring but also to his younger siblings, we find that kin ties never emerge as an equilibrium outcome in a promiscuous environment. In a fidelity family environment, instead, kinship can occur in equilibrium and, when it does, it is efficiency enhancing in terms of greater survivorship and fitness. The model can also be used to shed light on the issue as to why virtually all major world religions are centered around the importance of the family.


Teachers from non-English-speaking background (NESB) constitute an important community of teachers in Australia, especially in Mathematics and Science discipline. During their journey of resuming teaching in Australian schools, they encounter a number of problems, including classroom management issues. Being an NESB teacher I have experienced acute classroom management problems, mostly related to students' behaviour and have been desperate to know the reality of the issue for other teachers. In this autoethnographic research, I developed a deeper understanding of these problems and possible solutions. I held a series of 'good conversations' with four NESB teachers from the Indian subcontinent. I represented the conversations in the form of narratives and subsequently subjected them to scholarly interpretive analysis. The study illustrates ways in which these NESB teachers faced severe student behaviour problems, which was a source of deep frustration for them. Major factors contributing towards these problems are cultural differences, language barriers and racism. I have learned from this study that NESB teachers, including myself, could improve class management skills by undertaking behaviour management courses prior to resuming teaching in a seemingly alien culture. Class management skills of NESB teachers can also improve with experience.


Monetary normalization may be a chronicle foretold, but countries still have the power to influence the outcome for their own economies. This report focuses on the risks Latin American and Caribbean countries face and how they can reduce vulnerabilities and enhance opportunities.


Submodular functions have become a ubiquitous tool in machine learning. They are learnable from data, and can be optimized efficiently and with guarantees. Nonetheless, recent negative results show that optimizing learned surrogates of submodular functions can result in arbitrarily bad approximations of the true optimum. Our goal in this paper is to highlight the source of this hardness, and propose an alternative criterion for optimizing general combinatorial functions from sampled data. We prove a tight equivalence showing that a class of functions is optimizable if and only if it can be learned. We provide efficient and scalable optimization algorithms for several function classes of interest, and demonstrate their utility on the task of optimally choosing trending social media items.


Local mass transfer coefficients were determined by using the electrochemical technique. A simple model of a heat exchanger with segmental nickel tube joined to p.v.c. rods replaced the exchanger tubes. Measurements were made for both no-Ieakage, semi-leakage and total leakage configurations. Baffle-spacings of 47.6 mm, 66.6 mm, 97 mm and 149.2 mm wer studied. Also studied were the overall exchanger pressure drops for each configuration. The comparison of the heat transfer data with this work showed good agreement at high flow rates for the no-leakage case, but the agreement became poor for lower flow rates and leakage configurations. This disagreement was explained by non-analogous driving forces existing in the two systems. The no-leakage data showed length-wise variation of transfer coefficients along the exchanger length. The end compartments showing transfer coefficients inferior by up to 26% compared to tbe internal compartments, depending on Reynolds number. With the introduction of leakage streams this variation however became smaller than the experimental accuracy. A model is outlined to show the characteristic behaviour of individual electrode segments within the compartment. This was able to discriminate between cross and window zones for the no- leakage case, but no such distinction could be made for the leakage case. A flow area was found which, when incorporated in the Reynolds number, enabled the correlation of baffle-cut and baffle-spacing parameters for the no-leakage case . This area is the free flow area determined at the baffle edge. Addition of the leakage area to this flow area resulted in correlation of all commercial leakage geometrical parameters. The procedures used to correlate the pressure drop data from a total of eighteen different configurations on a single curve are also outlined.


This paper develops a statistical profiling model of long-term unemployment risk in Ireland using a combination of administrative data and information gathered from a unique questionnaire that was issued to all jobseekers making a social welfare claim between September and December 2006 who were then tracked for eighteen months. We find that factors such as a recent history of long-term unemployment, advanced age, number of children, relatively low levels of education, literacy/numeracy problems, location in urban areas, lack of personal transport, low rates of recent labour market engagement, spousal earnings and geographic location all significantly impact the likelihood of remaining unemployed for 12 months or more. While the predicted probability distribution for males was found to be relatively normal, the female distribution was bimodal, indicating that larger proportions of females were at risk of falling into long-term unemployment. We find evidence that community based employment schemes for combating long-term unemployment have little effect as participants re-entering the register typically experience extended durations. Finally, we argue that the adoption of an unemployment profiling system will result in both equity and efficiency gains to Public Employment Services.


OBJECTIVES
To efficiently and reproducibly assess occupational diesel exhaust exposure in a Spanish case-control study, we examined the utility of applying decision rules that had been extracted from expert estimates and questionnaire response patterns using classification tree (CT) models from a similar US study.

METHODS
First, previously extracted CT decision rules were used to obtain initial ordinal (0-3) estimates of the probability, intensity, and frequency of occupational exposure to diesel exhaust for the 10 182 jobs reported in a Spanish case-control study of bladder cancer. Second, two experts reviewed the CT estimates for 350 jobs randomly selected from strata based on each CT rule's agreement with the expert ratings in the original study [agreement rate, from 0 (no agreement) to 1 (perfect agreement)]. Their agreement with each other and with the CT estimates was calculated using weighted kappa (κ w) and guided our choice of jobs for subsequent expert review. Third, an expert review comprised all jobs with lower confidence (low-to-moderate agreement rates or discordant assignments, n = 931) and a subset of jobs with a moderate to high CT probability rating and with moderately high agreement rates (n = 511). Logistic regression was used to examine the likelihood that an expert provided a different estimate than the CT estimate based on the CT rule agreement rates, the CT ordinal rating, and the availability of a module with diesel-related questions.

RESULTS
Agreement between estimates made by two experts and between estimates made by each of the experts and the CT estimates was very high for jobs with estimates that were determined by rules with high CT agreement rates (κ w: 0.81-0.90). For jobs with estimates based on rules with lower agreement rates, moderate agreement was observed between the two experts (κ w: 0.42-0.67) and poor-to-moderate agreement was observed between the experts and the CT estimates (κ w: 0.09-0.57). In total, the expert review of 1442 jobs changed 156 probability estimates, 128 intensity estimates, and 614 frequency estimates. The expert was more likely to provide a different estimate when the CT rule agreement rate was <0.8, when the CT ordinal ratings were low to moderate, or when a module with diesel questions was available.

CONCLUSIONS
Our reliability assessment provided important insight into where to prioritize additional expert review; as a result, only 14% of the jobs underwent expert review, substantially reducing the exposure assessment burden. Overall, we found that we could efficiently, reproducibly, and reliably apply CT decision rules from one study to assess exposure in another study.


This paper explores two different conceptions of how an emerging climate regime might evolve to strengthen incentives for more vigorous cooperation in mitigating global climate change. One is the paradigm that has figured most prominently in negotiations to this point: the establishment of targets and timetables for countries to limit their aggregate greenhouse gas emissions. The other approach consists of a variety of loosely coordinated smaller scale agreements, each one of which addresses a different aspect of the challenge, and is enforced in its own way. The primary conclusion is that an agreement of the first type may be more cost-effective, but that a system of agreements of the second type would likely sustain more abatement overall.


Background: Adjacent Segment Disease (ASD) is a notable complication following lumbar fusion surgery. Clinicians use various surgical techniques to correct the progression of spine deterioration and reduce the risk of continued ASD. The aim of this retrospective case series is to describe patient outcomes following posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) using the VariLift® standalone interbody device (without supplemental fixation) for the treatment of ASD.
Methods: Nine consecutive patients who underwent a single-level PLIF for the treatment of ASD were reviewed. Outcome measures included patient demographics, comorbidities, surgical complications, time to fusion, Visual Analog Scales for Pain (VAS), and overall patient reported recovery of symptoms. Nine patients (8 males, 1 female) with a mean age of 62.3 (42 to 72) years underwent a single-level procedure. The standalone VariLift interbody fusion system was used in all 9 sequential patients, regardless of the type of fusion/fixation instrumentation previously used. Surgical technique consisted of discectomy and generous bilateral laminotomies with medial facetectomies preserving midline ligamentous structures.
Results: Radiographic ASD was confirmed in all cases. Each patient had a history of a lumbar fusion. Preoperatively, 89% of patients reported 9-10 VAS back pain levels. All patients experienced symptomatic improvement. By 12 months postoperatively, average VAS back pain score was 2, a significant improvement from baseline (p<0.05). Solid interbody fusion without implant failure was observed in all cases with averaged time to fusion at 346 days (min=181 days).
Conclusion/level of evidence: Posterior lumbar interbody fusion using the VariLift device to treat symptomatic ASD offers significant clinical success and solid fusion rates without the need for supplemental fixation or extension of previous supplemental fixation. Level of evidence IV.
Clinical relevance: This stand-alone fusion device produced high fusion rates and symptomatic improvement in a sample of patients with severe back pain and ASD.


The global movement of building information modeling (BIM) is spreading the implementation of BIM from developed countries to other developing countries. Practitioners' perceptions of BIM implementation in these developing countries, such as China, a giant building market that is increasing the application of BIM in the industry, have not been thoroughly understood. This research used the questionnaire method to survey 94 randomly recruited Chinese BIM professionals to investigate BIM practice and its related perceptions. Reductions in design errors and resultant construction rework were considered the top benefits of using BIM. The most important factor in achieving BIM value was noted as interoperability among various BIM tools. A comprehensive evaluation of BIM at the company level was considered a major difficulty of implementing BIM. The owner was considered the party that received the most benefits from BIM. Subgroup differences based on two major categories (i.e., participants' profession and BIM proficiency level) were analyzed in the survey sections related to BIM implementation. Statistical analysis revealed that, generally, neither the profession nor BIM proficiency level affected participants' perceptions of the benefits, factors, challenges, or benefited parties in BIM implementation.


The flagellate Isochrysis galbana was found to be the best natural food for the pearl oyster
larvae. TO supplement thir, artificial microencapsulated diet was prepared using edible oyster oil, fish
oil and Soybean lecithin with a view of enhancing the growth of pearl oyster larvae and spat. Different
concentrations of edible oyster oil diet, fish oil diet and lecithin diet were tried by keeping a control
wherein I. galbana was alone given as feed. The control with I. galbana gave good results. Among
the artificial diets tested the edible oyster oil diet showed better results on the growth of larvae and
spat while the fish oil diet promoted weight gain in the spat. The suit3bility of the microencapsulated
diet for the larvae and spat is discussed in this paper.


"The Muqaddimah," often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon," is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), this monumental work laid down the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics. The first complete English translation, by the eminent Islamicist and interpreter of Arabic literature Franz Rosenthal, was published in three volumes in 1958 as part of the Bollingen Series and received immediate acclaim in America and abroad. A one-volume abridged version of Rosenthal's masterful translation was first published in 1969.This new edition of the abridged version, with the addition of a key section of Rosenthal's own introduction to the three-volume edition, and with a new introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence, will reintroduce this seminal work to twenty-first-century students and scholars of Islam and of medieval and ancient history."


A scanning monochromator system for the monitoring of thin-film deposition in a box coater is described. The system employs data from both a quartz crystal oscillator and a wideband transmission spectrometer. The spectrometer uses a holographic grating as its dispersive element and a CCD array to collect the data. All data are sent to a microcomputer where the information is displayed, stored, and analyzed. Several applications, including measurement of optical constants of inhomogeneous films and characterization of moisture adsorption, are discussed.


Abstract. A weather diagnostic application for automatic generation of gridded wind fields in near-real-time, recently developed by the authors Schlager et al. (2017), is applied to the WegenerNet Johnsbachtal (JBT) meteorological station network. This station network contains 11 meteorological stations at elevations from about 600 to 2200 m in a mountainous region in the north of Styria, Austria. The application generates, based on meteorological observations with a temporal resolution of 10 min from the WegenerNet JBT, mean wind and wind gust fields at 10 and 50 m height levels with a high spatial resolution of 100 m × 100 m and a temporal resolution of 30 min. These wind field products are automatically stored to the WegenerNet data archives, which also include long-term averaged weather and climate datasets from post-processing. The main purpose of these empirically modeled products is the evaluation of convection-permitting dynamical climate models as well as investigating weather and climate variability on a local scale. The application's performance is evaluated against the observations from meteorological stations for representative weather conditions, for a month including mainly thermally induced wind events (July 2014) and a month with frequently occurring strong wind events (December 2013). The overall statistical agreement, estimated for the vector-mean wind speed, shows a reasonably good modeling performance. Due to the spatially more homogeneous wind speeds and directions for strong wind events in this mountainous region, the results show somewhat better performance for these events. The difference between modeled and observed wind directions depends on the station location, where locations along mountain slopes are particularly challenging. Furthermore, the seasonal statistical agreement was investigated from 5-year climate data of the WegenerNet JBT in comparison to 9-year climate data from the high-density WegenerNet meteorological station network Feldbach Region (FBR) analyzed by Schlager et al. (2017). In general, the 5-year statistical evaluation for the JBT indicates similar performance as the shorter-term evaluations of the two representative months. Because of the denser WegenerNet FBR network, the statistical results show better performance for this station network. The application can now serve as a valuable tool for intercomparison with, and evaluation of, wind fields from high-resolution dynamical climate models in both the WegenerNet FBR and JBT regions.


Service quality becomes the key bottleneck of the adoption of G2B e-government services. In this context, control is an important tool for e-government service providers to direct and coordinate the service process. Based on the control theory, we develop a conceptual model to understand how different control initiatives influence the service quality of G2B e-government services. A multi-method analysis combining qualitative and quantitative analysis was used to conduct the study. Through a case study of a typical G2B service provider, we identified important components of input control and process control and established the conceptual model. Then we tested the proposed model on the survey data from G2B service employees using structural equation modeling. The results suggests that customer-oriented training, service skill training and work motivation as input control initiatives significantly impact the service quality. Besides, coproduction with customers and internal supervision as process control initiatives also have a positive effect on service quality. Improved service quality ultimately predicts the performance of G2B service employees.


The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that 13-cis-retinoic acid (CRA) and alpha-interferon (IFN-alpha) have antitumor activity in patients with early recurrence of prostate cancer measured by rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) after local therapy, and that this activity is associated with the increase of plasma transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1). Thirty patients with a PSA > 7 ng/ml that increased >0.4 ng/ml/month after initial radiation therapy or a PSA > 2.0 ng/ml after prostatectomy were treated with 1 mg/kg/day of CRA and 3 million units of IFN-alpha administered three times per week. Patients were followed clinically with serum measurements of PSA and assessment of toxicity. Biological activity of CRA and IFN-alpha was assessed by the measurement of plasma TGF-beta1. Twenty-six percent of patients had a partial (50% decrease maintained for 1 month) or minimal (<50% decrease maintained for 1 month) biochemical response of PSA, with a median decrease of 23% (11-55%) at 3 months. Plasma TGF-beta1 levels increased with CRA and IFN-alpha therapy and correlated with a decrease in PSA; patients with a decrease in PSA had a 151% increase in TGF-beta1 compared to 27% in patients without a decrease in PSA (P = 0.04). CRA and IFN-alpha can produce transient reduction or stabilization of PSA. The measurement of plasma TGF-beta1 at 1 month of therapy correlates with changes in PSA and may represent a useful marker for the biological effect of these agents; further analysis in larger numbers of patients and methods to optimize these effects should be explored.


A highly integrated ultra-low-cost high-performance Bluetooth 3.0+EDR SoC is implemented in 0.11-μm digital CMOS technology. The transceiver has an integrated balun shared between TX and RX, eliminating the need for a separate T/R switch. A 4 × LO-based VCO is implemented to reduce LO pulling and to minimize TX out-of-band spurious emissions. The transmitter provides high output power of +10 and +7 dBm in BDR and EDR3 modes respectively, with 1.5-kHz frequency stability and <; 6% rms DEVM. The receiver sensitivity is -95.5, - 96.5, and -89 dBm for BDR, EDR2, and EDR3 modes respectively. Total SoC DC current consumption for continuous TX transmission at +10 dBm output power is 48 mA and for continuous RX reception at reference sensitivity level is 35 mA. Total die size is 5.7 mm2, of which 1.8 mm2 is occupied by RF, analog, and PMU circuits.


Hostels have become synonymous with the migrant labour system in South Africa. They were first introduced on the mines to house workers cheaply. The significant feature of these hostels was that they were for "single" males they did not cater for the housing needs of workers families . Their design made them useful, to the employers , in controlling their workers. As the manufacturing and construction sectors grew, hostels similar to those one the mines were replicated in most urban centres in South Africa. They were useful in reducing the cost of reproducing labour by externalising these costs to the reserves , later the bantustans. At the same time they performed a valuable political role by ridding the "white" urban areas of the "swart gevaar". This role was reinforced during the period of Apartheid, and hostels are therefore seen as "artefacts of the era of apartheid" . More recently they became notorious as "urban fortresses" from which acts of violence were perpetrated, particularly on the Reef. As the country moves towards a post-apartheid non-racial democracy the injustices and inhumanities of the hostel system will have to be redressed. The miserable and wretched conditions will have to be transformed and hostels will have to be integrated into "normal" community life. The recent violence succeeded, at great cost, in instilling a sense of urgency for the transformation of hostels, so as to reduce the potential for further conflict and violence. All the major actors committed themselves to a national development initiative to transform hostels. Hostels however , are a complex phenomenon, serving varying functions and performing many roles . There is therefore a need for a more thorough understanding of the various features of hostels to inform any intervention if it is going to be meaningful or lasting. This dissertation examines the complexities of the hostel question with a.view to informing development interventions in hostels . In this thesis the focus is on physical/spatial planning interventions.


This project is concerned with the deterioration of surface coatings as a result of weathering and exposure to a pollutant gas (in this case nitric oxide). Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) plastisol surface coatings have been exposed to natural and artificial weathering and a comparison of the effects of these two types of weathering has been made by use of various analytical techniques. These techniques have each been assessed as to their value in providing information regarding changes taking place in the coatings during ageing, and include, goniophotometry, micro-penetrometry, surface energy measurements, weight loss measurements, thermal analysis and scanning electron microscopy. The results of each of these studies have then been combined to show the changes undergone by PVC plastisol surface coatings during ageing and to show the effects which additives to the coatings have on their behaviour and in particular the effects of plasticiser, pigment and uv and thermal stabilisers. Finally a preliminary study of the interaction between five commercial polymers and nitric oxide has been carried out, the polymers being polypropylene, cellulose acetate butyrate, polystyrene, polyethylene terephthalate and polycarbonate. Each of the samples was examined using infra-red spectroscopy in the transmission mode.


Background and Purpose The aim of this study was to record and analyze the anatomy of the middle cerebral artery in the rat in an attempt to identify a potential source of variation of quantitative infarct measurements in commonly used models of focal cerebral ischemia. Methods Over a period of 22 months, as part of ongoing studies, we routinely induced focal cerebral ischemia in 263 Sprague-Dawley rats. This was achieved by permanent occlusion of a length of the right middle cerebral artery approximately 1 to 5 mm distal to the point at which it traverses the rhinal fissure combined with 60 minutes of bilateral common carotid occlusion. The branching pattern of the middle cerebral artery was recorded for each animal by drawing and photography before occlusion and at the time of death. Results Six distinct branching patterns were observed. The majority (82.9%) of middle cerebral arteries studied conformed to the typical bifurcating vessel commonly referred to in the literature. However, the remaining 17.1% were far more variable with major, atypical branching, introducing, we believe, unnecessary and avoidable variation into quantitative measurements of ischemia in this and similar models. Conclusions Middle cerebral artery anatomy should be routinely recorded in models of focal cerebral ischemia in which this artery is occluded distal to the olfactory tract, thus allowing improved analysis of data.


This project explored residents' perceptions, opinions and attitudes towards SeaLevel Rise (SLR) in communities located less than 10 miles from the Delaware's Atlantic coast south of the Indian River Inlet. Data analysis used in-depth, individual, in-person interviews to identify factors that influenced area residents' understandings, opinions and responses to the threat of SLR and how these factors did so. Interviews discussed people's coastal land-use involvement, coastal concerns and opinions with a focus on SLR issues, Hurricane Sandy and evacuation decisions. Data consisted of four preliminary interviews conducted in April 2013 and 20 interviews additional interviews in September and October 2013. The Individual Understanding and Response Framework (IURF) was used to guide analysis, and includes factors such as direct experience, communications effectiveness, local social networks, wider concerns and values, perceived responsibility and capacity. The framework further identifies which factors attenuate the risk understanding versus amplify it, and which factors drive or constrain individual responses. Data analysis concluded that though the IURF generally applied to the data accurately, it seemed that previously-held beliefs/values, direct hazard experience, prior interest, source-exposure and personal relevance had the greatest impact on people's perceptions, awareness and engagement with SLR issues. These categories also influenced each other in the same manner that the IURF suggested. The findings overall imply that because people do not feel they have access to unbiased, understandable and reliable information, they ultimately turn to their own personal experiences to formulate


Several studies have shown the benefits of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) on plant mineral nutrition, suggesting their possible application as biofertilizers. PGPR can stimulate plant growth, increase plant resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses and might thus have a positive effect on fruit quality. The aim of this research was to evaluate and compare the effects of beneficial microorganisms, supplied either as pure culture (Azospirillum brasilense) or as a commercial mixture (Effective Microorganisms - EM™), on the growth and quality of strawberry (Fragaria ananassa 'Elsanta') fruits. Strawberry frigo-plants were hydroponically grown either in a complete nutrient solution, or in a nutrient solution inoculated with A. brasilense or with EM for 10 weeks. At harvest, biometric parameters, such as shoot and root fresh weights, and yield parameters, like number of fruits plant-1 and fruit weight, were recorded. Growth parameters (e.g., biomass, leaf area) were not affected by the rhizobacteria. Even though PGPR-inoculated plants showed slightly reduced fruit yields in terms of average number of fruits plant-1, they delivered larger fruits as compared to untreated control. Fruits obtained from PGPR-inoculated plants also had a higher sweetness index in comparison to control fruits. The content of total phenols showed no significant difference between the different samples, whereas the concentration of flavonoids and flavonols was higher in fruits harvested from A. brasilense-inoculated plants. In addition, PGPRs also influenced the uptake and allocation of nutrients in fruits, in particular increasing the concentration of micronutrients.


Globally, esophageal cancer (including tumors of the gastroesophageal junction) is one of the most common cancers and is responsible for significant morbidity and mortality. While it is relatively uncommon in the United States and Western Europe, it is endemic in East Asia and parts of the developing world. The most common histology worldwide is squamous cell carcinoma, which predominates in countries where this cancer is common, while adenocarcinomas are the more common histology in the West. Irrespective of the histology or where it occurs, esophageal cancer is a virulent disease.


Objectives: Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a pathological condition characterized by an abnormal, localized dilatation of the lower part of the aorta. Due to a lack of data on the natural history of AAA and risk of death from other cardiovascular diseases attributable to AAA, the true number of AAA-attributable deaths may be higher than currently estimated. This study aims to produce more realistic estimates of the burden of AAA. Methods: A disease-modeling software, DisMod II, was used to assess the AAA burden via a multistate life table. Inputs included population, all-cause mortality, size- and sex-specific AAA prevalence, and relative risk of death estimates for persons with AAA compared with persons without AAA. Results: There were 2,347,339 prevalent cases of AAA in the USA in 2013 (95% CI: 2,131,964-2,524,116), resulting in 41,371 deaths attributable to AAA (95% CI: 34,090-49,234). Females constituted 21.1% of prevalent cases and 45.2% of deaths, compared with males constituting 78.9% of prevalent cases and 54.8% of deaths. Conclusions: This work shows that the burden of mortality attributable to AAA is more than twice the current estimates from the American Heart Association. Females account for a disproportionately high percentage of deaths despite constituting a low percentage of prevalent cases.


Freedom Beyond Confinement examines the cultural history of African American travel and the lasting influence of travel on the imagination particularly of writers of literary fiction and nonfiction. Using the paradox of freedom and confinement to frame the ways travel represented both opportunity and restriction for African Americans, the book details the intimate connection between travel and imagination from post Reconstruction (ca. 1877) to the present. Analysing a range of sources from the black press and periodicals to literary fiction and nonfiction, the book charts the development of critical representation of travel from the foundational black press and periodicals which offered African Americans crucial information on travel precautions and possibilities (notably during the era of Jim Crow) to the woefully understudied literary fiction that would later provide some of the most compelling and lasting portrayals of the freedoms and constraints African Americans associated with travel. Travel experiences (often challenging and vexed) provided the raw data with which writers produced images and ideas meaningful as they learned to navigate, negotiate and even challenge racialized and gendered impediments to their mobility. In their writings African Americans worked to realize a vision and state of freedom informed by those often difficult experiences of mobility. In telling this story, the book hopes to center literary fiction in studies of travel where fiction has largely remained absent.


Ambient mass spectrometry techniques that are capable of ionizing compounds of low polarity are discussed. Photoionization and plasma-based ionization are the most important ionization techniques, but in some special cases modification of electrospray-based techniques can also result in improved ionization efficiency for low polarity compounds. The most important technical setups are presented together with examples of key applications in the fields of biology, environment, food and forensics.


In case of a severe accident on a nuclear reactor, radioactive iodine may be released into the environment, impacting significantly the radiological consequences. Determination of the amount released, and of the physical state of iodine (gaseous form or solid aerosol form), is thus a major issue. The release of iodine from the damaged reactor core and its transport in the different parts of the reactor up to the reactor containment, have been extensively studied, particularly in the Phebus-FP large scale experiments. Phebus-FP results notably showed that a significant fraction of iodine under gaseous form can reach the containment. The models used in severe accident codes did not (and still does not) fully account for this iodine speciation. A likely explanation is that iodine keeps a gaseous form up to the containment due to some processes that limit the formation of caesium iodide in the reactor coolant system (RCS) (caesium iodide was assumed to be the dominant form of iodine in the RCS). Caesium iodide formation would be limited due to chemical kinetic limitations and due to the presence of other elements (molybdenum or boron) responsible for "trapping" the caesium. An experimental research program has been developed with the aim to study the chemical behaviour of iodine during its transport in the RCS, with presence of steam, caesium and molybdenum or boron. The paper presents results obtained with molybdenum oxide. Experiments are compared to calculations performed with the IRSN severe accident code ASTEC where a chemical kinetic model has been implemented. The second part of this paper presents first results obtained with boric acid instead of molybdenum oxide.


This study investigates Margaret Ogola's portrayal of male characters in three novels namely, The River and the Source, J Swear by Apollo and Place of Destiny. Of primary concern to the study is the establishment of male identity types in the novels. The study is also aimed at studying the recreation of male characters as exhibited in the author's works. Furthermore, a comparison of the presentation of male and female characters in the texts is carried out. In this regard, the researcher sought to answer the question: what kind of man does Ogola envision in the society? To answer this question, the study endeavours to interrogate the extent to which the author's male characters emerge from invisibility to respected people in the society. The study is hinged on the premise that there are few critical studies on men. A study of male characters in Ogola's work enriches the available criticism on the author's art. Reader response theory that recognizes readers as active players in the realization of the meaning of a work of art guided this study. Reader response theory was supplemented by deconstruction theory that emphasizes the instability of knowledge and multiple interpretations. The study employed qualitative research design since it involves description of evidence as depicted in the texts. Data was obtained from a close reading of primary texts supplemented by secondary texts. Data obtained has been presented in the form of description and analysis throughout this thesis. One of the findings of the study is that male characters in Ogola's works can be categorized into two main classes, one: those men who subscribe to traditional male socialization and therefore practise emasculated masculinity and, two: men who defy traditional male socialization and display a more emancipated masculinity. Additionally, the study shows that Ogola redefines her male characters by defying traditional male socialization that encourages unnecessary aggression. shunning display of emotions and upholding traditional cultural practices that encourage women's subjugation. A comparison of the representation of male and female characters in Ogola's works reveals that Ogola gives fair representation to both male and female characters. The study concludes that Ogola offers diverse images with different roles and different options for men. The study recommends that a comparative study be conducted on Ogola's representation of male characters and the representation of male characters by other female writers across Africa.


Traditionally, two general methods have been used to make constitutional law. The first involves creating a constitutional text, and has been done by constituent assemblies convened especially for that purpose or by legislatures either proposing replacement constitutions or more limited constitutional amendments. The second involves interpreting existing constitutional texts, and has been done by specialized constitutional courts or generalist courts. After describing briefly what we know about how constitutional law is made by these traditional methods, this essay turns to some recent innovations in making constitutional law, which I describe generically as involving substantially higher levels of public participation than in the traditional methods: the process of drafting a proposed new constitution for Iceland, and the practice of "public hearings" in the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court. My aim is to identify some features of these newer methods that might be of interest to scholars of comparative constitutional law. For that reason, the essay paints in deliberately broad strokes, isolating features that may point in the direction of a more general understanding of constitution-making processes while ignoring features that may play crucial roles in the two specific processes on which I focus.


BACKGROUND
This study evaluates the relationship to visual acuity of four ophthalmoscopic features of colobomas involving the optic nerve. The goal was to identify those features that could predict potential visual acuity of children with these colobomas.

METHODS
Fundus photographs of 23 eyes with colobomas involving the optic nerve met the entry criteria and were evaluated by two masked observers. The following features were evaluated: coloboma size, optic nerve color, foveal development, and subfoveal retinal pigment epithelial changes. Simple linear regression was used to identify the feature that most closely correlated with visual acuity. Refractive status was assessed by cycloplegic refraction.

RESULTS
The only component that correlated with the development of good visual acuity was the degree of foveal involvement by the optic nerve coloboma (P = .002, R = 0.8). Significant refractive error and anisometropia were common in patients with colobomas involving the optic nerve.

CONCLUSION
Central visual acuity in children born with colobomas involving the optic nerve correlates with the development of normal foveal anatomy, regardless of the size of the coloboma, the color of the optic nerve, or the presence of subfoveal pigmentary changes. Because refractive error is common, these children should receive an accurate refraction and amblyopia treatment.


PURPOSE
To determine the genetic defects underlying autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa (arRP) in the Dutch population and in a subset of patients originating from other countries. The hypothesis was that, because there has been little migration over the past centuries in certain areas of The Netherlands, a significant fraction of Dutch arRP patients carry their genetic defect in the homozygous state.

METHODS
High-resolution genome-wide SNP genotyping on SNP arrays and subsequent homozygosity mapping were performed in a large cohort of 186 mainly nonconsanguineous arRP families living in The Netherlands. Candidate genes residing in homozygous regions were sequenced.

RESULTS
In ~94% of the affected individuals, large homozygous sequences were identified in their genome. In 42 probands, at least one of these homozygous regions contained one of the 26 known arRP genes. Sequence analysis of the corresponding genes in each of these patients revealed 21 mutations and two possible pathogenic changes, 14 of which were novel. All mutations were identified in only a single family, illustrating the genetic diversity within the Dutch population.

CONCLUSIONS
This report demonstrates that homozygosity mapping is a powerful tool for identifying the genetic defect underlying genetically heterogeneous recessive disorders like RP, even in populations with little consanguinity.


Temporal variation in abundance of larvae and spat of the pearl oyster Pinctada imbricata was studied from May 1997 to June 1998 by sampling with bongo nets and harvesting spat from collectors at monthly intervals. Abundances of predators (Cymatium Gastropoda and portunid, xanthid and majiid crabs) were also recorded. A relationship between salinity, particulate organic matter and larvae abundance was observed leading to peaks in abundance of spat on collectors some weeks later. Average catch rates of 10 spat month-1 collector-1, using collectors made of cheap easy accessible materials, indicate that availability of P. imbricata is sufficient to initiate and support aquaculture of this species. Growth and mortality rates of juveniles in three different culture systems at two densities (i.e. 20% and 30%) showed that density within the same culture system had no effect on growth, but that growth differed significantly among the three culture systems. Growth in bag systems was lower than in boxes whereas growth in suspended and bottom boxes was similar and comparable to the growth of a natural population. The suspended boxes were the easiest to handle because they do not require SCUBA diving and so these systems are recommended.


BACKGROUND
Firm scientific evidence supports the causal association between malignant mesothelioma (MM) and occupational exposure to asbestos. Risk attributable to occupation varies from 30 to 80% across different populations. The existence of a threshold level below which there is no risk of MM is still debated. A prompt and thorough assessment of exposure is essential to evaluate and manage MM cases, from diagnostic and epidemiological points of view.

OBJECTIVES AND METHODS
To highlight the multiple areas of intervention by Occupational Physicians (OP) in MM evaluation and management, to describe an experience of OP in the province of Brescia.

RESULTS
The main areas of interest of the OP are exposure assessment, diagnosis (clinical, etiological), medico-legal issues, social consequences, preventive strategies, risk communication, scientific dispute/uncertainties. By means of an active search, the Brescia MM registry, managed by OP belonging to the local health authority observed 309 MM from 1977 to 2003; the local Institute of Occupational Health, hosted in a hospital of national relevance, evaluated about 200 MM in the last decade. The main outcomes of OP activity are the high percentage of direct interviews, individual case management, expert exposure assessment, etiological diagnosis, counselling, medico-legal assistance, better knowledge of occupational risks, enhanced cooperation among health professionals (oncologists, pathologists, surgeons, pneumologists, general practitioners and OP), important contribution to Registries and to epidemiology (estimates of attributable risks, incidence, survival rates), with positive social and scientific consequences (insurance agencies, trade union organizations, public events, teaching opportunities).

CONCLUSIONS
This experience highlights the multifaceted role of OP in active research and evaluation of MM cases, in the context of a multidisciplinary approach.