Background: Understanding the genomic alteration induced by ionizing radiation still remains as a methodological challenge in the field of genetics. The energy released from this type of radiation can potentially cause structural and numerical alterations in lymphocytes, which in turn converts them into abnormal tumor cells. Chromosomal abnormalities associated with specific type of hematological malignancies are determinant factors in the evaluation of radiation dose and its potential in harming the body. Nonetheless, early detection of chromosomal aberration (CA) is crucial in the prognosis and selection of a therapy for the people exposed to irradiations. The aim of this study was to explore a swift and accurate genetic test that identifies CAs in radiologists exposed to X-rays. In addition, synergistic effect of other clastogens in irradiated workers was also evaluated. Materials and Methods: Thirty-four heparinized blood samples were obtained from radiology workers exposed to X-rays. Blood samples were cultured in RPMI 1640 and F-10 Medias with and without PHA stimulation. Lymphocytes were harvested, separated and arrested at metaphase and their chromosomes were analyzed by solid and G-Banding techniques. Lymphocytic CA was also analyzed through whole chromosome painting using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Results: Of the 37 blood samples from workers, 60% had various structural aberrations in which both the frequency and type of CAs were intensified among tobacco smokers. Conclusion: The results did not show any significant differences between the genders but other carcinogens like smoking can significantly increase the rate of CAs.


The emergence of pharmacoeconomics as a vital and evolving discipline presents a unique challenge and opportunity to researchers in university settings. Although pharmacoeconomics offers the academician a fertile area for research, teaching, and service endeavors, several barriers exist which impact growth in this area. These include the ability of higher education to respond rapidly to funding opportunities, the lack of trained individuals to develop research programs, competition with other entities for these scarce human resources, problematic collaborative relationships with these same organizations, and the ability to initiate and conduct research in an unbiased arena. This paper outlines opportunities available to academic pharmacoeconomic researchers, challenges which may inhibit the maturation of this discipline, and potential strategies for addressing these challenges.


The concept of access to pain management as a human right has gained increasing currency in recent years. Commencing as individual advocacy, it was later embraced by the disciplines of pain medicine and palliative care and by mainstream human rights organizations.Today, United Nations and regional human rights bodies have accepted the concept and incorporated it into key human rights reports, reviews, and standards. We review the foundations in law of this right and the obligations that flow from it to governments. We analyze the nature and content of the obligation in the context of acute, chronic nonmalignant and cancer pain.Finally, we examine this right in light of the twin crises of inadequate access to pain management and the opioid crisis in the United States and other nations.


POLITICS is a system of computer programs which simulates humans in comprehending and responding to world events from a given political or ideological perspective. The primary theoretical motivations were: (1) the implementation of a functional system which applies the knowledge structures of Schank and Abelson (1977) to the domain of simulating political belief systems; (2) the development of a tentative theory of intentional goal conflicts and counterplanning. Secondary goals of the POLITICS project include developing a representation for belief systems, investigating cognitive processes such as goal-directed inferencing, and the integration of several types of knowledge representations into a functional system.


First, I will set the colonial context for equality that was anchored in a narrow white male model as the principal civic actor. Second, the discussion proceeds to the political status of American Indians, the basis for the nation-to-nation relations that secured in treaties the lands and resources that benefited non-Indians. Third, this Article explores the cultural difference between indigenous and constitutional visions of individual rights and community. Fourth, is a description of the efforts to remake Indians into a race and assimilate their governments into federalism. Fifth, this Article discusses the Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez case, which demonstrates the cultural disparity between the individual rights model of the ICRA and the political right of the tribe to self-determination. The conclusion affirms that the retained power of tribal sovereigns for self-governance and self-determination is the most important right for American Indians. Though American Indians are now citizens entitled to equal protection and due process, this individualistic theory is limited in force to protect culturally distinct governments built on values of consensual relations.


Live bird markets (LBMs) are essential for marketing poultry, but have been linked to many outbreaks of avian influenza (AI) and its spread. In Uganda, it has been observed that demographic characteristics of poultry traders/handlers influence activities and decision‐making in LBMs. The study investigated the influence of socio‐demographic characteristics of poultry handlers: age, sex, religion, educational background, level of income, location of residence and region of operation on 20 potential risk factors for introduction and spread of AI in LBMs. Study sites included 39 LBMs in the four regions of Uganda. Data was collected using a semi‐structured questionnaire administered to 424 poultry handlers. We observed that background of education was a predictor for slaughter and processing of poultry in open sites. Location of residence was associated with slaughter of poultry from open sites and selling of other livestock species. Region influenced stacking of cages, inadequate cleaning of cages, feeders and drinkers, and provision of dirty feed and water. Specifically, bird handlers with secondary level of education (OR = 12.9, 95% CI: 2.88–57.4, P < 0.01) were more likely to be involved in open site slaughter of poultry than their counterparts without formal education. Comparatively, urbanite bird handlers were less likely to share poultry equipment (OR = 0.4, 95% CI: 0.22–0.63, P < 0.01) than rural resident handlers. Poultry handlers in Northern were 3.5 times more likely to practise insufficient cleaning of cages (OR = 3.5, 95% CI: 1.52–8.09) compared to those in Central region. We demonstrated that some socio‐demographic characteristics of poultry handlers were predictors to risky practices for introduction and spread of AI viruses in LBMs in Uganda.


This paper has been prepared for the Islamic Development Bank's Seminar on WTO Accession Issues for selected OIC Member Countries, taking place on 28 -29 March 2006, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It offers a detour from the well-trodden ground of WTO accession procedures and the challenges acceding countries face throughout their accession negotiations, and instead focuses on the WTO accession process from the point of view of those on the other side of the table, namely WTO Members. This paper offers a welcome opportunity to view the WTO accession process from this perspective and attempts to give "the other side of the story".WTO accession as an issue has traditionally and indeed still continues to take a back seat to other fields of activity within the WTO, which tend to attract more attention from Members as well as grabbing more headlines in the media.1 These include WTO dispute settlement, as well as the on-going multilateral trade negotiations within the struggling Doha Round. It is perhaps for this reason that WTO accession as an issue tends to attract only a handful of Members who take a consistent and systemic interest in the topic.This paper is divided into two sections. Section One discusses the different kinds of issues which Members pursue during the negotiations of acceding countries and makes an intellectual distinction between: 1) market access issues; 2) systemic issues, and; 3) non trade-related issues. Section Two looks at some of the issues which come up in particular, under two different sectors, namely trade in agriculture and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights.What is interesting is that different Members seem to have their own different "pet" issues on which they will invariably take a firm and committed stance. Also interesting is the fact that when two neighboring countries are negotiating with one another, one as a Member and the other as an applicant, the Member can sometimes be relied upon to make a whole series of bilateral trade issues part of the multilateral accession process, thereby capitalizing on its brief negotiating leverage. Finally, there seems to be a consensus that once bilateral deals have been completed with the few major players, accession negotiations tend to become a matter of dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s, although, again, this strategy can also come unraveled in the face of a recalcitrant Member who has chosen to take a tough and committed stance on a particular issue.


While it has generally been accepted that non-professional media actors empowered by novel digitally networked technologies are changing the media landscape in the West, this is less obvi- ous in the case of sub-Saharan Africa. Recent years, however, have seen the emergence of a diverse range of citizen media in Africa, enabled by technologies such as mobile phones, blogs, micro blogs, video-sharing platforms and mapping. Through in-depth and focus-group interviews with selected experts and citizen journalism practitioners, as well as a review of the existing body of research, this study aims to identify emerging patterns and trends in African citizen journalism, paying particular attention to the Zimbabwean case. The research hopes to establish the notion that digital technology- enabled citizen journalism, although still restricted to a subset of African countries, provides a power- ful counter-narrative to professional media that are often constrained, or even controlled, by national governments.


With its dream worlds of power, commercialization, and profit making, neoliberalism has ushered in new Gilded Age in which the logic of the market now governs every aspect of media, culture, and social life-from schooling to health care to old age. As the social contract becomes a distant memory, the new "corporate state" distances itself from workers and minority groups, who become more disposable in a new age of uncertainty and manufactured fear. This is the only book to connect the history, ideology, and consequences of neoliberal policies to education and cultural issues that pervade almost every aspect of daily life. A significantly revised and updated new version of Giroux's 2003 book, The Terror of Neoliberalism, this book points to ways in which neoliberal ideology can be resisted, and how new forms of citizenship and collective struggles can be forged, to reclaim the meaning both of a substantive politics and of a democratic society. Against the Terror of Neoliberalism was featured in the New York Times in the Stanley Fish blog: Stanley Fish Blog


This research project investigates visual metaphors for aspects of the nature/ culture paradox. Modern human beings formalise nature, natural elements and natural processes by quantifying and qualifying the environment to better define themselves. A desire to comprehend and gain control over nature is expressed through the imposition of artificial systems and mathematical descriptions. However, the forces of entropy and decay are ever present. Despite attempts to suppress these physical processes, humans are necessarily bound to a common material existence. In response, attainment of a spiritual dimension is sought through cultural expression.

The project explores how the nature/ culture paradox is manifested in the phenomenon of landscape design, especially formal gardens of 18th century Europe, including features such as Platonic forms, labyrinths, mazes and meanders. Particular attention is given to the work of Batty Langley. The investigation is located within an international field of artists concerned with the culture/ nature question. The enquiry considers artists who create visual representations of symbolic pathways, such as Jorgen Thordrup and Marianne Ewaldt. Land and environment art is examined with regard to concepts of order, disorder, entropy and stasis, emphasizing those artists such as Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt and Jurg Altherr, who contrast artificial constructions with natural settings. It also considers the appropriation of nature in a search for the sublime through the sculptural installations of Anja Gallaccio.

Examination of formal garden features has informed new hybrid motifs which are developed in the work for this project. The application of these designs to the sculptural and installation mediums has involved innovative usage of materials and techniques. The development of a personal symbology to present metaphors for order and chaos/ entropy and stasis, has produced new juxtapositions of man made forms and natural elements. Exploration of the viewer's engagement with space and physical ambience, including smells, has also been an important element of the work. In addition, new methods have been developed to visualise concepts through computer generated virtual drawings and, to present the preparation and exhibition of sculptural installations through digital photography. Finally, the project considers the spiritual dimension within human culture, employing a number of universal symbols in new ways to create works, which echo both eastern and western sensibilities, for example, metaphorical methods for attainment and links between Buddhist and alchemical symbolism.


1. The inverse relationship between airway resistance and lung volume contributes to variation in measurement of resistance, as it is difficult to control precisely the lung volume at which resistance is determined each time. A correction for variation in lung volume was applied to measurement of airway resistance by using analysis of covariance with lung volume as a covariate. This method provides an assessment in each subject of degree of association between airway resistance and lung volume and uses the individual9s unique slope, relating resistance to volume in order to correct resistance to a single lung volume. The corrected measurement of airway resistance was compared with conventional volume-standardized variables such as specific airway resistance, specific airway conductance and the logarithmic transformation of the latter. 2. Eight normal male subjects had airway resistance and lung volume measured in a body plethysmograph, a mean of seven measurements being made. They then inhaled histamine. 3. Airway resistance showed only a limited association with lung volume and the slopes relating the two measurements varied between subjects. Covariance-corrected airway resistance appeared more sensitive than other methods of volume standardization in detecting bronchoconstriction. 4. Analysis of covariance adequately corrects airway resistance for variations in lung volume but further studies are required to validate its precision and sensitivity.


The annotation and image markup project makes large distributed collections of medical images in cyberspace and hospital information systems accessible using an information model of image content and ontologies. Interest in applying semantic Web technologies to the life sciences continues to accelerate. Biomedical research is increasingly an online activity as scientists combine and explore different types of data in cyberspace, putting together complementary views on problems that lead to new insights and discoveries. An e-Science paradigm is thus emerging; the biomedical community is looking for tools to help access, query, and analyze a myriad of data in cyberspace. Specifically, the biomedical community is beginning to embrace technologies such as ontologies to integrate scientific knowledge, standard syntaxes, and semantics to make biomedical knowledge explicit, and the semantic Web to establish virtual collaborations.


Concern for information security is a major driver for policy implementation, and with new regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation, almost all types of organisations face the challenge of implementing and applying information security policies. Information security standards guide these processes, but the challenge of ensuring compliance is still a major issue, despite extensive information security research in this aspect. The lack of versatility in theoretical approaches led to calls for sociological approaches to contribute to the literature, but they were only partly addressed. The proposed framework of convention theory can serve as a fruitful approach, providing a pragmatic and contextualized perspective and a strong theoretical foundation from sociology. By adopting a conventionalist view of information security policies, attention is focused on issues of legitimacy without limiting the analysis to a solely structuralist perspective. This research in progress tries to take first steps in building a conventionalist framework for case-based research by introducing some of the main concepts of convention theory and illustrates possible implications for information security research and practice.


A growing cooperation between the public and private sectors indicates that the tasks of redevelopment are too large and complex for either sector to accomplish alone. Some people maintain that government can do few things right; others are equally distrustful of the private sector. As used here, the private sector is considered to be all that is not government. Each of the success stories illustrated is, in part, a "road to recovery," although none appear to have been influenced by a purpose that broad. Paul R. Porter and David C. Sweet present stories of progress in self-reliance that concern neighborhood and downtown recoveries, school improvement, job generation, a regained fiscal solvency, novel financing techniques, helping tenants to become homeowners, and a successful venture in self-help and tenant management in crime-infested neighborhoods. The successes stem from the diverse community roles of Yale University, a medical center, the world's largest research organization, the Clorox Company, a gas company, an insurance company, a newspaper, neighborhood and downtown organizations, city governments and two religious organizations-the Mormon Church and the tiny Church of the Savior. These stories are located throughout the United States, including Akron, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New Haven, Oakland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, St. Paul, Salt Lake City, Springfield, Mass., Tampa, and Washington, D.C. The editors have gathered the work of professionals known in the field of urban studies: James W. Rouse, Donald E. Lasater, Rolf Goetze, Dale F. Bertsch, Joel Lieske, Eugene H. Methvin, James E. Kunde, T. Michael Smith, Robert Mier, Carol Davidow, Jay Chatterjee, June Manning Thomas, Norman Krumholz, Larry C. Ledebur, and Robert C. Holland.


We apply kernel-based methods to solve the difficult reinforcement learning problem of 3vs2 keepaway in RoboCup simulated soccer. Key challenges in keepaway are the high-dimensionality of the state space (rendering conventional discretization-based function approximation like tilecoding infeasible), the stochasticity due to noise and multiple learning agents needing to cooperate (meaning that the exact dynamics of the environment are unknown) and real-time learning (meaning that an efficient online implementation is required). We employ the general framework of approximate policy iteration with least-squares-based policy evaluation. As underlying function approximator we consider the family of regularization networks with subset of regressors approximation. The core of our proposed solution is an efficient recursive implementation with automatic supervised selection of relevant basis functions. Simulation results indicate that the behavior learned through our approach clearly outperforms the best results obtained earlier with tilecoding by Stone et al. (2005).


A number of studies have been performed with the aim of examining the impact of information technology (IT) on the performance of firms and have arrived at multifaceted conclusions that have sometimes been conflicting. Very few studies have been performed with the objective of understanding investment in IT and the diverse dimensions of organizational performance with an attempt at using aggregated measures. An exploratory attempt has been made in this paper into understanding the linkage between IT and a firm's economic performance using aggregated measures of accounting-based and market-based performance while considering intervening variables such as firm size, capital intensity, research and development intensity and advertising intensity. The results indicate that various dimensions of IT are significantly and positively linked to a firm's performance irrespective of the different criteria of performance measures. The results also show that IT has a significant effect on aggregated composite measures of accounting-based and market-based performances.


Analyzing the non-dimensional, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations assuming mostly laminar Shallow Water flow we deduct a set of equations modeling the evolution of mass and discharge including the effects of advection, pressure and viscosity. A numerical scheme for this system of equations is defined, where advection and pressure are dealt with by a Finite Volume approach based on the Roe solver and the viscous effects give rise to discrete velocity profiles influencing the propagation of discharge. Compared to similar works of Gerbeau/Perthame, 2001, [15] and Audusse, 2005, [2] on viscous shallow water flows we seek low numerical cost without prescribing the general shape of the velocity profiles.


Daily PM 10 samples were collected at two urban sites within two valleys in the French Alps (Chamonix and St Jean de Maurienne) during a period of two and a half years. The carbonaceous species EC (elemental carbon) and OC (organic carbon) were analysed to investigate the possible sources of EC and OC, and their seasonal variations. Mean OC concentrations are in the very high range of concentrations measured for other European sites, and represent at least one third of the PM 10 mass on each site. On the basis of the comparison between EC and OC concentrations with several tracers, we were able to show that their main sources are local primary combustion sources. Biomass burning emissions (residential heating) have a significant impact on OC concentrations while heavy duty traffic emissions have an impact only on EC concentrations. Finally, we estimated the contribution of SOA (secondary organic carbon) to OC, using the EC-to-OC primary ratio method (Castro et al., 1999) and demonstrated that the calculation of SOA mass with this method is highly uncertain, if the hypothesis of a constant primary EC-to-OC ratio is not very closely examined.


Oligonucleotide microarrays data pre-processing procedures impacting gene expression differential survey performances were fully evoked. RNA-Seq tool exhibited high performances (sensitivity) as opposed to microarrays in transcriptomic as well as genomic studies. The aim of this study is to evaluate microarrays data pre-processing dynamism on gene expression differential analysis outcomes, assuming RNA-Seq approach as reference. For this purpose, significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) candidate by processing two Vitis vinifera development stages (veraison and repining), from previous comparative transcriptomic analysis, between RNA-Seq and our own developed custom microarrays designs submitted to 20 different data pre-processing procedures combination schemes in terms of expressed genes signal normalization (DN) and background subtraction (BS) functions developed in R limma package, were structured in nine (9) blocks, depending on microarrays DN+BS and as well BS+DN arrangements, and considered for multivariate statistical analysis. In total, 17,446 genes were common across all microarrays by processing the above mentioned V. vinifera differential analysis and were detected for the subsequent survey. Findings, although recognizing data pre-processing practices as a necessary step for improving microarrays performances suggested background correction procedure (BS+DN) as promoting DEGs data variability by contrast to genes signal normalization pattern (DN+BS). Also, results revealed DN+BS microarray data pre-processing procedure as enhancing oligonucleotide microarrays positive predictive value as well as sensitivity performances. In conclusion, the present survey highlighted the strong impact of microarray data pre-processing procedures (BS+DN and/or DN+BS) on gene expression differential analysis outcome and as well confirmed RNA-Seq as an acceptable approach in assessing oligonucleotide microarray performances in transcriptomic surveys.

 Key words:  Microarrays, RNA-Seq, Background subtraction (BS), expressed genes signal normalization (DN), Differential analysis, Vitis vinifera.


This Work-In-Progress paper details the process and lessons learned when converting a hands-on engineering mini-course to a scalable, self-paced Massively Open Online Course (MOOC). Online courseware has been part of academic and industry training and learning for decades. Learning activities in online courses strive to mimic in-person delivery by including lectures, homework assignments, software exercises and exams. While these instructional activities provide "theory and practice" for many disciplines, engineering courses often require hands-on activities with physical tools, devices and equipment. To accommodate the need for this type of learning, MIT Lincoln Laboratory's "Build A Small Radar" (BSR) course was used to explore teaching and learning strategies that support the inclusion of physical construction and real world data collection in a MOOC. These tasks are encountered across a range of engineering disciplines and the methods illustrated here are easily generalized to the learning experiences in engineering and science disciplines.


ABSTRACT The results of a two semester experiment teaching business statistics as a computer lab based course, rather than a lecture based (or lecture based with lab component) course, shows that students show significant improvement in data interpretation and analysis at the cost of a slight degradation of probability technique performance. The evidence is from over 200 students (representing 3 lab sections and 1 control group section) on 5 exam questions and the course capstone project. Indirect assessments further suggest that students recognize the value of the lab approach both from the immediate rewards of deeper conceptual understanding to the longer lasting effects from future use of the techniques. INTRODUCTION As instructors, we should be concerned with the results of our teaching (meaning student learning) rather than any perceived glory or status involved in the method of our teaching. I mention this as I believe that the headlong rush to incorporate technology into the classroom has not been as carefully considered as it should be. One approach to any change in teaching method is to conduct a scientific experiment, using a control group and careful analysis, on the students in such a course. This paper describes a year long experiment teaching statistics as a (computer) lab science instead of as a traditional lecture based course. Over the course of my year as a Distinguished Teaching Fellow with UW System, I developed a project analyzing the learning goals and teaching methods of the Statistics course at the University of Wisconsin--Oshkosh (Econ 210). I conducted three sections of the course with a computer lab instead of a lecture only course. The lab occupied roughly a quarter of the class contact hours. My findings are that students in the lab based course gained a facility with computer oriented statistical analysis and lost the trepidation to approach computer work and numerically oriented problems so often found even in students who successfully completed other statistics programs. Furthermore, the students from the lab based course did not show any degradation of skill with standard statistical techniques and methods. The lab students took away with them a very important job skill. They were able to recognize their new facility with computer oriented statistical analysis with very positive comments on class evaluations as well as with continuing feedback to the course instructor over succeeding semesters. THE EXPERIMENT AND EVALUATION METHODOLOGIES During 2000 three sections of our normal statistics course was converted from a lecture based course to a lab based course. There were a total of 13 sections of the course offered during that time. In the Spring of 2000, only one section was converted to a lab course and students were not apprized of the change until the course begun. Sufficient other sections were available for students who wished to transfer out if they felt strongly they did not want to participate in the experiment; two students did not complete the course in the Spring of 2000. Fall 2000 saw two lab sections offered, again without notations in registration material though student word of mouth may have biased student selection of these sections; there were no drops that term. The statistics course offered in the Economics department serves both the Economics Department majors and minors but also all majors from the College of Business. Other departments in the College of Letters and Sciences offer their own statistics courses, such as Sociology, Psychology and Mathematics. Therefore, our student base is generally rather homogenous as to major and career aspiration. All students were undergrads and the non lab section has 35% females while the lab section has 34% females. This closely follows general enrollment in the Economics Department and in the College of Business here. The course sections under consideration here, 3 lab based sections and 1 non lab (lecture) section were all taught using the same basic text, with the same professor, at roughly the same times of day, with the same lecture notes in an attempt to keep the control group as consistent with the experimental groups as possible. …


How can we account for technology adoption and use within organizations without relying on preconceived notions of materiality and sociality, notions that inevitably lead us to favor either a techno-centric perspective or a human-centered perspective? In this paper, we argue that an interesting way to do this is to take seriously people's matters of concern. This means two things: taking into account all the matters of concern that come to express themselves in conversations (whether related to tools, rules, documents, principles etc.) and not only the people who voice them; and showing how some of these concerns manage to matter more than others by speaking to, for, with, through or against each other. To demonstrate the theoretical and empirical value of this approach, we analyze two interactional episodes, taken from our longitudinal study of the introduction of a wiki at the French National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management.


Although Extension educators have harnessed the power of technology as an important vehicle for conveying research-based content, it is important that the power of traditional educational methods not be overlooked. These traditional methods remain ideas that work, have worked, and continue to work even today. In this article, we spotlight these traditional ideas by presenting a social marketing campaign that engages limited-resource audiences via themed print educational materials—posters, brochures, and bookmarks. Evaluation results indicate that the campaign has been successful in engaging the target audience and motivating them regarding the adoption of healthful behavior changes.


Twenty 10- to 18-year-old children and adolescents with varying degrees of hearing impairment (HI) and hearing aids (HA), ranging from mild-moderate to severe, produced picture-elicited narratives in a spoken and written version. Their performance was compared to that of 63 normally hearing (NH) peers within the same age span. The participants with HI and NH showed similar patterns regarding intragroup correlations between corresponding measures of spoken and written narratives. However, the participants with HI had significantly less diverse language than the NH group. The participants with poorer hearing (higher best ear hearing level [BEHL]) produced spoken and written narratives comprising more content words and they also produced written narratives that were less lexically diverse than the participants with better hearing (lower BEHL). The difference as to lexical skills emphasizes the importance of focusing on these skills in the group of children with HI. However, the results give support for a quite optimistic view on the development of narration in children with HI with HA, at least for picture-elicited narratives.


"Listen to the cello in this symphony!" How can we direct selective attention according to different goals, even in distracting environments which we haven't experienced before? It is an essential cognitive ability of the brain, but remains challenging for machines. We developed a computational model that can identify individual digits in images containing multiple overlapping digits, without ever having seen overlapping digits during training. The goal-driven attentional selection is modelled as inferring the posterior distribution of latent variables (the attended target) in a generative model, conditioned on both sensory input and different semantic goals. A neural network model has been build to efficiently carry out the the inference process by predicting the most likely results, instead of using classic per-sample based iterative optimization methods which may not naturally map onto neural structures. Our model also help to understand how top-down and bottom-up attention are combined during perception in the brain.


Protein Tyrosine Kinases (PTKs) are crucial enzymes which aid in cellular signal transduction pathways as well as cell cycle regulation. This is accomplished by phosphorylating downstream targets specifically on the hydroxyl group of tyrosine residues. Equally important, extensive research has established a connection between overexpression of PTKs and the development of certain cancers. One example of this is seen in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) where a chromosomal translocation occurs in patients which results in a hybrid, overexpressed BCR/Abl fusion PTK ultimately leading to tumor formation. Thus, understanding PTKs along with what substrates they act on is of utmost importance. Along with understanding the structure and function of PTKs, identifying which substrates they phosphorylate is crucial as well. There are several methods both in vitro and in vivo which allow the study of PTK activity on their specific substrates. Each method has some setbacks. Some methods can be time-consuming to set up and use while other methods such as studying PTKs in mammalian cells can lack consistency due to other factors in the cell that can act on these enzymes and alter experimental data. A rapid and efficient system to allow characterization of PTK/substrate relationships would be highly valuable. In the following research, a bacterial system has been developed, optimized and tested which allows a researcher to screen both wild type and mutant protein tyrosine kinases for their phosphorylation activity on chosen substrates. In this screening model, PTKs Abl, Csk and Src and their respective substrates (crk l, kdSrc) were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method. Once demonstrated, chosen mutants of the above PTKs and substrates were then tested to further validate this screening method. In both wild type and mutant testing using this applied in vivo screening system, the expected phosphorylation activity was demonstrated. This system can be used to identify substrates for a known kinase, or kinase mutants with certain substrate specificity. It is a useful platform for understanding the mechanisms of PTK substrate specificity. Once this method was developed and proven, the protocol was optimized to allow rapid colony screening of PTKs for substrate specificity. This method can be used to screen mutant PTKs generated for the substrates they phosphorylate in a rapid, effective manner in an effort to further understanding PTKs.


Contemporary studies of genocide have found military capabilities to be inconsistent predictors of state-sponsored killings. We suggest that these empirical inconsistencies stem from the fact that government strength can serve two opposing purposes. Some level of armed capabilities is necessary for a state to remain viable and to provide internal and external security. Yet armed government personnel can be deployed to repress and destroy segments of the public. We identify conditions under which an executive is more likely to use security forces for private-interest killing rather than public protection. We hypothesize that unconstrained leaders are more likely to use their putative security forces to initiate genocide and remain in power. An analysis of state failures that lead to genocide robustly supports the idea that the effect of increased security forces on the risk of genocide is conditional on institutional executive constraints.


This paper investigates the history of social interaction within communities in the Vanuatu Archipelago and between Vanuatu and other regions in the Western Pacific as reflected by variations in lithic raw material sources and technology of stone artefacts. Past research determined an apparent contradiction between long-distance transportation of obsidian, indicating high value, and the under-utilisation of the raw material at the place of discard, indicating low value. The paper concludes that because previous hypotheses depend too much on the notion of the scarcity of resources in their evaluation of the concept of value, they are insufficient to explain the pattern of spatial and temporal distribution of lithic artefacts. Rather than focusing on the intrinsic value of obsidian raw material for individuals or communities, it is more useful to view it as a marker of group identity in a complex system connecting discrete populations in mitigating risk in unpredictable new environments. These new environments included pre-established populations, which might be hostile to new arrivals. The necessity for this complex system quickly disappeared once the colonisers arrived in regions uninhabited by prior populations.


The dynamic between speaker intent and listener perception is played out in the variation of acoustical cues by the speaker that must be interpreted by the listener to determine in an appropriate way. Emotion speech research must rely on either acted intent (i.e., an actor attempting to express an emotion) or listener perception (i.e., listening tests to assign emotional categories to non-acted data) to define ground truth labels for analysis. The emotion labels are described either using emotion dimension or emotion category. This study examines the two emotion characterization strategies dimension and category in communication of emotion embedded in speech as expressed through acted intent and the perception of emotion determined by a group of listeners. The results reveal that, without context information, intended emotion categories could be perceived by listeners with the averaged accuracy rate five times of chance in category. Also, the trend of listener ratings between emotion dimensions (valence/arousal) and emotional word categories was shown to be well correlated. Furthermore, while listeners confused the specific identity of certain emotional expressions, they were generally very accurate at identifying the intended affective space of the actor as determined by intended valence and arousal.


Background Congestive physical findings such as pulmonary rales and third heart sound (S3) are hallmarks of acute heart failure (AHF). However, their role in outcome prediction remains unclear. We sought to investigate the association between congestive physical findings upon admission, steady-state biomarkers at the time of discharge, and long-term outcomes in AHF patients. Methods We analyzed the data of 133 consecutive AHF patients with an established diagnosis of ischemic or non-ischemic (dilated or hypertrophic) cardiomyopathy, admitted to a single-center university hospital between 2006 and 2010. The treating physician prospectively recorded major symptoms and congestive physical findings of AHF: paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea, orthopnea, pulmonary rales, jugular venous distension (JVD), S3, and edema. The primary endpoint was defined as rehospitalization for HF. Results Majority (63.9%) of the patients had non-ischemic etiology and, at the time of admission, S3 was seen in 69.9% of the patients, JVD in 54.1%, and pulmonary rales in 43.6%. The mean follow-up period was 726 ± 31days. Patients with pulmonary rales (p < 0.001) and S3 (p  =  0.011) had worse readmission rates than those without these findings; the presence of these findings was also associated with elevated troponin T (TnT) levels at the time of discharge (odds ratio [OR] 2.8; p  =  0.02 and OR 2.6; p  =  0.05, respectively). Conclusion Pulmonary rales and S3 were associated with inferior readmission rates and elevated TnT levels on discharge. The worsening of the readmission rate owing to congestive physical findings may be a consequence of on-going myocardial injury.


Although a large body of evidence suggests that diet may play an important role in cancer prevention, randomized controlled trials reported to date have not achieved sufficient increases in protective micronutrients and phytochemicals to adequately test the hypothesis that diet can reduce cancer risk. The Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) Study, a randomized controlled trial of the role diet modification may play in future breast cancer events, introduced an innovative theory-based telephone counseling intervention to teach participants to consume a high fiber, low fat diet emphasizing vegetables and fruits rich in carotenoids and other potentially protective phytochemicals. This report examines the baseline to 12-mo changes in dietary intakes of 2970 participants, assessed through 24-h recalls and validated with plasma carotenoid concentrations. At 12 mo, the intervention group reported a significantly increased daily vegetable intake (+vegetable juice) of 7.1 servings (+82%) and fruit intake of 3.9 servings (+18%). Fiber intake increased from 3.04 to 4.16 g/(MJ. d), whereas energy from fat decreased significantly from 28.6 to 23.7%. Plasma carotenoid concentrations increased significantly, i.e., alpha-carotene (+223%); beta-carotene (+87%); lutein (+29%); and lycopene (+17%). In the comparison group, dietary intake and plasma carotenoid concentrations were essentially identical to those of the intervention group at baseline and were unchanged at 12 mo. The WHEL Study showed that a telephone counseling intervention can achieve major increases in micronutrient- and phytochemical-rich vegetables, fruit and fiber intakes, enabling an investigation of the potential cancer preventive effects of these food components.


A novel fabrication method was established to produce flexible, transparent, and robust tipless hollow atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilevers made entirely from SU-8. Channels of 3 μm thickness and several millimeters length were integrated into 12 μm thick and 40 μm wide cantilevers. Connected to a pressure controller, the devices showed high sealing performance with no leakage up to 6 bars. Changing the cantilever lengths from 100 μm to 500 μm among the same wafer allowed the targeting of various spring constants ranging from 0.5 to 80 N m−1 within a single fabrication run. These hollow polymeric AFM cantilevers were operated in the optical beam deflection configuration. To demonstrate the performance of the device, single-cell force spectroscopy experiments were performed with a single probe detaching in a serial protocol more than 100 Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast cells from plain glass and glass coated with polydopamine while measuring adhesion forces in the sub-nanoNewton range. SU-8 now offers a new alternative to conventional silicon-based hollow cantilevers with more flexibility in terms of complex geometric design and surface chemistry modification.


OBJECTIVE: To describe the rate of increase of the population of adults seeking care as inpatients in children's hospitals over time. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We analyzed data from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2008, from patients hospitalized at 30 academic children's hospitals, including growth rates according to age group (pediatric: aged <18 years; transitional: aged 18–21 years; or adult: aged >21 years) and disease. RESULTS: There were 3 343 194 hospital discharges for 2 143 696 patients. Transitional patients represented 2.0%, and adults represented 0.8%, totaling 59 974 patients older than 18 years. The number of unique patients, admissions, patient-days, and charges increased in all age groups over the study period and are projected to continue to increase. Resource use was disproportionately higher in the older ages. The growth of transitional patients exceeded that of others, with 6.9% average annual increase in discharges, 7.6% in patient-days, and 15% in charges. Chronic conditions occurred in 87% of adults compared with 48% of pediatric patients. Compared with pediatric patients, the rates of increase of inpatient-days increased significantly for transitional age patients with cystic fibrosis, malignant neoplasms, and epilepsy, and for adults with cerebral palsy. Annual growth rates of charges increased for transitional and adult patients for all diagnoses except cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. CONCLUSIONS: The population of adults with diseases originating in childhood who are hospitalized at children's hospitals is increasing, with varying disease-specific changes over time. Our findings underscore the need for proactive identification of strategies to care for adult survivors of pediatric diseases.


Electrical impulses and chemical activities in human brain generate brain waves at frequency domains ranging between 0.5 Hz and 100 Hz that characterize different mental states. The states of attention and focus can be traced to areas within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of the brain at gamma brainwave frequencies of about 40 Hz and above. The cerebral brain cells can be synchronized to a desired frequency by externally stimulating the cells using acoustical means such as binaural beats (BB). Exposure to pure beats can be annoying and stressful to the listener. BB signals embedded in a background audio could provide better listening comfort to the subject. This paper presents a study on the efficacy of embedded BB in gamma-domain brainwave synchronization. Electroencephalograph signals indicative of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) on test subjects due to resonance of the PFC with the induced aural stimuli are measured. It is observed that the BB signals masked in an audio background give AEP values that are on average 92% similar to that generated by pure BB. The results indicate that the embedded BB has an effect comparable to pure BB on the AEP measured at selected PFC locations at the 40 Hz gamma frequency.


The Department of Health of New York State has taken the lead in addressing the problem of resident fatigue, which has been perceived as a possible cause of errors in patient care. The suggested solutions are also designed to alleviate stress among house officers due to overlong work hours with very sick patients. Different specialties have different types of problems with the proposed solution. For example, surgical residents do a certain minimum number of operations that cannot be scheduled conveniently to conform with the recommended residency schedules. In this discussion we will outline the reactions of the chairs and program directors of departments of pediatrics in the state of New York. New York may not be alone in these changes—legislation has been introduced in other states, and their health departments are considering similar recommendations. In New York the health commissioner has the mandate to regulate without


The goal of the presented thesis is to investigate the formation of low level jets at the sea ice edge. Differential heating creates very sharp fronts at the ice edge. A transversal circulation, initiated by altered pressure gradients, influences the speed of the geostrophic wind and therefore can create low level jets. The Weather Research and Forecast Model (WRF) was used to simulate three different cases. An analysis of the geostrophic wind suggested that the ice edge jet simulated by GRØNÅS and SKEIE (1999) is not forced by the ice edge but rather by a slowing down of the proximate flow. Similar results were obtained in a simulation of measurements by DRÜE and HEINEMANN (2001). The atmospheric situation in both cases was comparable. The large scale flow had the sea ice edge to the right and the thermal wind was directed in the opposite direction. However, the measurements did not contain a low level jet. Furthermore, a discrepancy regarding frictional processes over sea ice was revealed. The only measured ice edge jet by SHAPIRO and FEDOR (1989) could not be reproduced. This case, however, showed a complex setting of the atmosphere and it was not clear if the forcing of the low level jet was only due to the ice edge. Future work will focus on idealized cases in order to increase the quality of ice edge jet predictions.


We characterise the relation between the gas and dust content of the interstellar medium towards young stellar objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster. X-ray observations provide estimates of the absorbing equivalent hydrogen column density N_H based on spectral fits. Near-infrared extinction values are calculated from intrinsic and observed colour magnitudes (J-H) and (H-K_s) as given by the VISTA Orion A survey. A linear fit of the correlation between column density and extinction values A_V yields an estimate of the N_H/A_V ratio. We investigate systematic uncertainties of the results by describing and (if possible) quantifying the influence of circumstellar material and the adopted extinction law, X-ray models, and elemental abundances on the N_H/A_V ratio. Assuming a Galactic extinction law with R_V=3.1 and solar abundances by Anders & Grevesse (1989), we deduce an N_H/A_V ratio of (1.39 +- 0.14) x 10^21 cm^-2 mag^-1 for Class III sources in the Orion Nebula Cluster where the given error does not include systematic uncertainties. This ratio is consistent with similar studies in other star-forming regions and approximately 31% lower than the Galactic value. We find no obvious trends in the spatial distribution of N_H/A_V ratios. Changes in the assumed extinction law and elemental abundances are demonstrated to have a relevant impact on deduced A_V and N_H values, respectively. Large systematic uncertainties associated with metal abundances in the Orion Nebula Cluster represent the primary limitation for the deduction of a definitive N_H/A_V ratio and the physical interpretation of these results.


The problem of message broadcasting from the base station (BS) to sensor nodes (SNs) in solar energy harvesting wireless sensor networks (EHWSN) is considered in this paper. The aim is to ensure fast and reliable broadcasting without interfering with upstream communications (from SNs to BS), whilst taking into account energy harvesting constraints. An adaptive approach is proposed where the BS first selects the broadcast time slots, given a wake-up schedule for the SNs (the time slots where the SN are active and in receiving mode). Hence, the SNs adapt their schedules. This is then iterated seeking optimal selection of the broadcast time slots, so as to minimize broadcast overhead (transmitted messages) and latency. Our approach enables fast broadcast and eliminates the need for adding protocol overhead (redundancy), compared to the existing solutions. Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and Baum-Welch learning algorithm are used for this purpose. Numerical results confirm that our scheme performs the broadcast operation in less time, and by reducing the broadcast overhead, as compared to state-of-the-art approaches.


Microbubbles coated with polymers or surfactants have been used in medical imaging
for several years as ultrasound contrast agent particles and are now being investigated
by researchers as drug and gene delivery vehicles and blood substitutes. Current
methods available for the preparation of microbubbles are insufficient as they result in
microbubbles with a wide size distribution and as such filtration is necessary before
their use. With a view to fill the above demand, a detailed investigation has been carried
out in this research to learn the viability of co-axial electrohydrodynamic atomization
(CEHDA) technique to prepare microbubbles. The research also focuses on the effects
of the process parameters such as flow rates, applied voltage and material parameters
such as electrical conductivity, surface tension and viscosity with the objective of
preparing polymer or surfactant coated stabilized microbubbles with diameters < 8 μm
and with a narrow size distribution. A model glycerol-air system was used so that the
CEHDA technique was modified to generate suspensions of microbubbles to a diameter
< 8 μm with a narrow size distribution and then to characterise the CEHDA
microbubbling process in terms of size and stability with varying process parameters
and material parameters. Construction of a parametric plot between the air flow rate and
the liquid flow rate was extremely useful in identifying the flow rate regime of air and
liquid or suspension or solution for the continuous microbubbling of the system used.
With further investigations into the CEHDA microbubbling technique, it was possible
to develop strategies, first, to prepare suspensions of stabilized phospholipids-coated
microbubbles with a mean diameter of ~ 5 μm and a polydispersivity index of 9%, and
second, polymeric microspheres with a mean diameter of 400 nm and a polydispersivity
index of 8% using a biocompatible polymer.


On 26 September 2014, forty-three students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College disappeared from Iguala, a city in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. Two students' bodies have been recovered, while forty-one students remain missing. In Los Angeles, mourning for the students has taken the form of what we call "anti-memorialization," where traditional forms of memorialization are upended through informality, ephemerality, art, and the digital in order to politicize and bring attention to an injustice. While informal memorials have existed as long or longer than their formal counterparts, anti-memorialization moves these informal memorials into the contemporary reality of a digitally networked world, pushing private mourning to public activism. Among these informal efforts reflecting ongoing calls for justice, one piece, part of an exhibit sponsored by Boyle Heights-based arts organization Self Help Graphics and Art, was entitled 43: From Ayotzinapa to Ferguson. The exhibition anti-memorializes not just the forty-three students from Ayotzinapa, but victims of police brutality in the United States as well, linking the two social movements across national borders.


In 2006 the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus received considerable media coverage in Australia, as it did in many other countries. It is often argued that the media sensationalizes health crises, and experts cautioned about the risk of panic as a result of fear of avian influenza. The purpose of the present study was to systematically analyze Australian print media coverage of avian influenza in 2006 and to examine whether this coverage served the purpose of informing, rather than alarming, the general public. For the period January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006, 20 Australian newspaper titles were monitored for coverage of avian influenza. The identified articles were analyzed using aspects of protection motivation theory for theoretical direction to determine whether there were any consistent themes or perspectives in the coverage. A total of 850 articles were identified for analysis. Concerning vulnerability, 46% of articles reported the incidence of human cases, with 24% noting that avian influenza was a potential threat to Australia. The most common severity theme was "deadly" with over 50% of mentions, followed by "pandemic" with 35%. Only 11% of articles referred to any form of self-protection. We found that a considerable proportion of the articles reporting on avian influenza were framed in a way that had the potential to incite fear and panic amongst the public; the intensity of media coverage reduced over time; and, of particular concern, that there was little media coverage that focused on protective or preventative issues. Whether an influenza pandemic eventuates or not, it is prudent for governments and health authorities to continually develop appropriate resources and strategies to prepare the health system and the general public to respond to current, and future, infectious disease risks.


Background. Nurses are primary caregivers and have a key role in providing care in a culturally diverse healthcare system, such as in South Africa (SA). Nurses need cultural competence in the management of patients within this cultural context. A healthcare system staffed by a culturally competent workforce can provide high-quality care to diverse population groups, contributing to the elimination of health disparities. Objective. To describe the self-rated levels of cultural competence of nurses working in critical care settings in a selected public hospital in SA. Methods. A quantitative descriptive survey was conducted with nurses from eight critical care units in a selected public hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, using the Inventory to Access the Process of Cultural Competency - Revised (IAPCC-R) cultural competence questionnaire.  Results. The overall cultural competence score for the respondents was 70.2 (standard deviation 7.2) out of a possible 100, with 77 (74%) of the respondents scoring in the awareness range, 26 (25%) in the competent range, and only 1 in the proficient range. Nurses from non-English-speaking backgrounds scored significantly higher in cultural competence than English-speaking nurses. Conclusion. In addressing the many faces of cultural diversity, healthcare professionals must realise that these faces share a common vision: to obtain quality healthcare services that are culturally responsive and culturally relevant to the specific cultural group.


Abstract. The evidence of rogue wave existence all over the world during last five years (2006–2010) has been collected based mainly on mass media sources. Only events associated with damage and human loss are included. The waves occurred not only in deep and shallow zones of the World Ocean, but also at the coast, where they were manifested as either sudden flooding of the coast or high splashes over steep banks or sea walls. From the total number of 131 reported events, 78 were identified as evidence of rogue waves (which are expected to be at least twice larger than the significant wave height). The background significant wave height was estimated from the satellite wave data. The rogue waves at the coast, where the significant wave height is unknown or meaningless, were selected based on their unexpectedness and hazardous character. The statistics built on the selected 78 events suggests that extreme waves cause more damage in shallow waters and at the coast than in the deep sea and can be used for hazard assessment of the rogue wave phenomenon.


V. cholerae is the causative agent of potentially life threatening diarrheal disease named as cholera. Cholera is an endemic disease in Iran. Encountered increasing resistance of V. cholerae to commonly used antibiotics such as tetracycline has led to major challenges in the treatment of this disease .The present study was carried out to determine the prevalence of drug resistance as well as molecular bases of resistant V.cholerae strains which were isolated from patients in cholera outbreaks during summer of 2013 in Iran. Susceptibly testing was performed on V.cholerae strains isolated from stool of patients suffering from cholera in Iranian reference health laboratory by E -test MIC method as recommended by CLSI guideline. Antibiotic strips used included Ampicillin, Ciprofloxacin, Nalidixic acid, Cefixime , Tetracycline, Erythromycin and Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole .Regarding observed dominant pattern of tetracycline resistance comparing to results of previous years ,we decided to confirm the resistance by detecting the tetA , tetB and tetC by Polymerase chain reaction method. The results of antibiotic susceptibility testing revealed 100% resistance of isolated strains to tetracycline. Data obtained from PCR reaction on resistant strains for tetA, tetB and tetC showed that 45(44.1%), 37(36.2%) and 70(68.6%) were containing tetA, tetB and tetC gene respectively. Moreover, the frequency of tetA+tetB, tetA+C, tetB+tetC , tetA+tetB+tetC also were determined as 9(8.8%), 32(31.3%), 19(18.6%) and 8(7.8%) respectively. This study revealed the pattern of drug resistance distribution of isolates harboring tetA, tetB, tetC genes in relation to sex, age and nationality of patients and the cities where the cases were reported. A significant correlation was obtained between reported geographical incidence and drug resistant strains.


The Internet crosses physical borders, and carries with it both its promises and its harms to many different countries and societies. These countries thus share the same technology, but they do not necessarily share the same set of values or legal system. This paper compares the legal response in the United States and in Europe to one important issue: the exposure of children to certain materials, which are deemed harmful to them but not harmful to adults. This US-European comparison, in which the experience in the United Kingdom serves as a leading example, illustrates the traits of various kinds of regulation of the new media: public ordering (direct and indirect), private ordering, and ordering by code, i.e., by technological means. We examine the various kinds of regulation and their constitutional meaning. The US opted mostly for a direct legal attack on the material which is harmful to children, an approach which thus far failed the judicial test, due to the limitations it imposes on freedom of speech of adults. While the European framework allows greater balancing between expression rights and competing interests, the European response has not been to follow the direct restrictions attempted in the US. Instead, accepting the practical difficulties of enforcing direct restrictions, the emerging legal response in European countries has been a market-based solution, guided by a legal framework that fosters self-regulation. The article considers the reasons for adopting the approach of self-regulation and the impact that such methods of control have on freedom of expression.


This paper reports on the development and early deployment stages of an on-going local government 'insider-researcher' network. This represents a new model for research engagement and development between regional universities and local councils. It serves as an infrastructure to generate multi-level benefits to the parties involved. That is: the development of knowledge and skills for the individual council employee participant; research and action on strategic projects for the councils involved; and, collaboration, knowledge development and exchange between councils and local tertiary institutions. This model may provide impetus to other councils seeking ways to build their internal capabilities and capacities to be able to respond effectively to the diverse challenges faced in the regional government sector. Over time, the numerous and multidisciplinary research outputs generated from such an initiative contribute to sector knowledge and councils' abilities to initiate and lead effective changes in policy settings and sector practices.


The effect of a sequential oxidation and resulfidation treatment on γ-Al2O3 supported (Ni/Co)MoS2 catalyst nanoparticles was investigated using (HR)TEM, XPS, and thiophene HDS catalytic performance experiments. Analysis of the HRTEM images revealed that, after initial sulfidation and oxidation, the resulfidation treatment restored the original slab length or increased it. The chemical composition of the samples, as determined by XPS, also slightly changed: the concentration of oxidic species increased, especially for the Ni promoter atoms. Comparing the catalytic HDS activity of the samples before and after the oxidation-resulfidation treatment showed that the catalysts were more than 20% more active after resulfidation. This increase in HDS activity is ascribed to a redistribution of the (Ni/Co)MoS2 slabs during the second sulfidation treatment, indicating a size effect.


"Stylish and racy...An excellent book and a delight to read, written with panache and entirely convincing." Professor PETER COSS, Cardiff University. This book takes us into the world of the medieval cook, from the chefs in the great medieval courts and aristocratic households catering for huge feasts, to the peasant wife attempting to feed her family from scarce resources, from cooking at street stalls to working as hired caterers for private functions. It shows how they were presented in the art, literature and moral commentary of the period (valued on some grounds, despised on others), how they functioned, and how they coped with the limitations and the expectations which faced them in different social settings. Particular use is made of their frequent appearance in the margins of illuminated manuscript, whether as decoration, or as a teaching tool.


Regional runoff, evapotranspiration, leaf area index (LAI) and potential vegetation were modeled for Mesoamerica using the SVAT model MAPSS. We calibrated and validated the model after building a comprehensive database of regional runoff, climate, soils and LAI. The performance of several gridded precipitation forcings (CRU, FCLIM, WorldClim, TRMM, WindPPT and TCMF) was evaluated and FCLIM produced the most realistic runoff. Annual runoff was successfully predicted (R2=0.84) for a set of 138 catchments with a regression slope of 0.88 and an intercept close to zero. This low runoff bias might originate from MAPSS assumption of potential vegetation cover and to underestimation of the precipitation over cloud forests. The residues were found to be larger in small catchments but to remain homogeneous across elevation, precipitation and land use gradients. Based on the assumption of uniform distribution of parameters around literature values, and using a Monte Carlo-type approach, we estimated an average model uncertainty of 42% of the annual runoff. The MAPSS model was found to be most sensitive to the parameterization of stomatal conductance. Monthly runoff seasonality was fairly mimicked (Kendal tau correlation coefficient higher than 0.5) in 78% of the catchments. Predicted LAI was consistent with EOS-TERRA-MODIS collection 5 and ATSR-VEGETATION-GLOBCARBON remotely sensed global products. The simulated evapotranspiration:runoff ratio increased exponentially for low precipitation areas, stressing the importance of accurately modeling evapotranspiration below 1500 mm of annual rainfall with the help of SVAT models such as MAPSS. We propose the first high resolution (1 km2 pixel) maps combining runoff, evapotranspiration, leaf area index and potential vegetation types for Mesoamerica. (Resume d'auteur)


From 2001 to the present, natural gas production in Indonesia dominates petroleum production. Most of the natural gas is used for export until 2013. From 2014 until now, most of the natural gas production is being utilized for domestic with an increasing trend. Domestic gas usage for households is still far below industry and commercial sectors. Domestic gas usage in the household can be done in two ways, namely city gas and Liquefied Petroleum Gas cylinder. The use of city gas is better in terms of price, mitigation, and gas emission. The government plans to build a new city gas network for 4,000 households. This study aim is to propose the design of city gas network, so the construction and operational costs become minimal. This research uses three stages, namely division of region by using the clustering algorithm, the gas network route determination using heuristics algorithm, and determination of the feasibility using the Benefit-Cost Ratio. We have successfully calculated the maximum region's capacity by making use of Weymouth Formula. The iterative clustering algorithm is done to make sure the location of Distribution Centers is well-defined. We modified the distance measurement by preferring driving distance rather than Euclidean in the interest of precision. In the end, we also discuss the feasibility study of the project. Based on the calculation, we have obtained that the gas network development project is feasible to run.


Cutting-edge xDSL: technology, standards, architecture, regulation, and its application. The state of the art in DSL technology, standards, and architecture ADSL, HDSL2, SHDSL, VDSL, line unbundling, spectrum management, and more Voice over DSL and video-on-demand: technical progress and its impact on services DSL in the home: automating deployment, enhancing security, maximizing revenue Improved coding techniques, multi-user detection, and other new advancesDigital Subscriber Lines (DSLs) have transformed millions of ordinary phone lines into broadband arteries that link homes and businesses to the Internet at megabit speeds. DSL Advances brings together the state of the art in DSL technology and architecture for every technical professional and manager. The authors of the classic Understanding Digital Subscriber Line Technology review the key challenges service providers and equipment manufacturers face now, preview tomorrow's most important standards and technical enhancements, and offer new insights into today's regulatory and business environment. Coverage includes: HDSL2 and SHDSL: The next generation of symmetric DSL technology Recent developments in ADSL and standards for line unbundling Spectrum management standards: "traffic cops" for crosstalk management Voice over DSL and video-on-demand: technical progress that enhances the business case DSL networked homes: wired/wireless LANs, shared phone and AC wiring?including both centralized splitters and distributed in-line filter premises wiring Streamlining deployment: CPE auto-configuration and flow-through service provisioning Security risks and essential safeguards for vendors, service providers, and users Future directions, including advanced coding techniques and multi-user detection


OBJECTIVE
Although frequently utilized, an exercise electrocardiogram (ECG) provides limited diagnostic accuracy in patients with atypical angina pectoris. The purpose of this study was to determine the possible incremental value of pretest probability (PTP) scores and exercise parameters in discriminating coronary artery disease (CAD) and to identify PTP cutoff values.

METHODS
In a retrospective cohort of 207 patients with atypical angina (76 women, 131 men; mean age: 57.6±8.2 years) who underwent coronary angiography (CAG) after a positive exercise ECG, the PTP was calculated according to the CAD Consortium basic and clinical models along with exercise parameters of blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), exercise duration, maximal metabolic equivalents (METs), HR reserve, HR recovery, chronotropic index, BP reserve, BP recovery, and ST/HR ratio. Patients were categorized into true positive (TP) or false positive (FP) groups, depending on the ultimate determination of a presence of obstructive CAD.

RESULTS
A TP result was associated with older age, male gender, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and higher basic and clinical PTP, as well as higher maximal BP, maximal ST deviation and ST/HR, but lower maximal METs, chronotropic index, and HR recovery. The basic and clinical PTP, and the chronotropic index could predict a TP test result irrespective of gender. Logistic regression analysis revealed that clinical PTP was the only independent predictor of TP results. A cutoff score of 18 for the basic and 21 for the clinical PTP were determined to discriminate CAD.

CONCLUSION
This study has shown that, among various electrocardiographic and hemodynamic parameters, the clinical PTP and the chronotropic index are the most helpful tools to discriminate patients with CAD among patients with atypical angina.


Objective: The tendency over the years in the mental health field has been to cling in circular fashion to one single domain after another, biological, psychological, or social, to explain severe disorder and not even to consider the data from the domain of focus that came before. This report notes that attempts to explore more complex biopsychosocial explanations that integrate the diverse domains have been generally ignored or foundered on the problems posed by the complexities involved and suggests an approach for moving beyond these problems. Method: A case history using two different formats highlights the degree to which the single domain models ignore one or another area of data. Results: Uncertainty theory is suggested as providing an important basis for exploring the complexities of a biopsychosocial understanding of mental health problems. Conclusions: This approach can provide a possible orientation to promote improved research, training, and treatment.


OBJECTIVE
Women's health centers have been increasing in number but remain relatively unstudied. We examined patient expectations and quality of care at a hospital-based women's health center compared with those at a general medicine clinic.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional survey.

SETTING
University hospital-affiliated women's health and general internal medicine clinics.

PARTICIPANTS
An age-stratified random sample of 2,000 women over 18 years of age with at least two visits to either clinic in the prior 24 months. We confined the analysis to 706 women respondents who identified themselves as primary care patients of either clinic.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
Personal characteristics, health care utilization, preferences and expectations for care, receipt of preventive services, and satisfaction with provider and clinic were assessed for all respondents. Patients obtaining care at the general internal medicine clinic were older and had more chronic diseases and functional limitations than patients receiving care at the women's health center. Women's health center users (n = 357) were more likely than general medicine clinic users ( n = 349) to prefer a female provider ( 57% vs 32%, p =.0001) and to have sought care at the clinic because of its focus on women's health (49% vs 17%, p =. 0001). After adjusting for age and self-assessed health status, women's health center users were significantly more likely to report having had mammography (odds ratio [OR] 4.0, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1, 15.2) and cholesterol screening (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.0, 2.6) but significantly less likely to report having undergone flexible sigmoidoscopy (OR 0.5, 95% CI 0.3, 0.9). There were no significant differences between the clinics on receipt of counseling about hormone replacement therapy or receipt of Pap smear, or in satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that, at least in this setting, women's health centers provide care to younger women and those with fewer chronic medical conditions and may meet a market demand. While the quality of gender-specific preventive care may be modestly better in women's health centers, the quality of general preventive care may be better in general medical clinics.


Paper is an attractively assembled form of materials and has accompanied our daily life almost everywhere. Two-dimensional layered materials, especially graphene, have unique intrinsic structures to be exploited for smart architecture of macroscopic papers that are offering many newly emerging applications. Research advances in graphene based papers in the past few years have created a new category of composite materials. This review aims at offering an up-to-date comprehensive summary of graphene-supported papers, with the emphasis on smart assembly and purpose-driven specific functionalization for their critical applications associated with sensing, environmental and energy technologies. The contents of this review are based on a balance combination of our own studies and selected research studies done by worldwide academic groups. We first give a brief introduction to graphene as a versatile building block and to the current status of research studies on graphene papers. This is followed by addressing some crucial methods of how to prepare graphene papers. We then summarize multiple possibilities of functionalizing graphene papers, membranes or films. Finally, we evaluate some key applications of graphene papers in the areas of chemical/electrochemical sensors, biomimetics and energy storage devices, just before leading to our concluding remarks and perspectives.


Klotho, a membrane protein with β-glucuronidase activity, also occurs in a soluble form that has recently been implicated as a hormone that regulates longevity in mice. Chang et al. now show that its enzymatic activity is required to activate the Ca2+ channel, TRPV5. Upon cleavage of sugar residues on TRPV5 by klotho, the channel becomes activated and accumulates at the surface of cells, increasing the influx of Ca2+. This interaction may control Ca2+ homeostasis in tissues such as the kidney, where both proteins are abundantly expressed in the mouse. Q. Chang, S. Hoefs, A. W. van der Kemp, C. N. Topala, R. J. Bindels, J. G. Hoenderop, The β-glucuronidase klotho hydrolyzes and activates the TRPV5 channel. Science 310, 490-493 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


In 2001 a 13-year-old girl was taken to hospital after car accident, injured by multiple traumas, including an aortic rupture loco typico. Bleeding was brought under control via an endovascular approach with a Gore (W. L. Gore and Associates, Flagstaff, Ariz, USA) iliac limb 14-16-7. Follow-up CT scans showed over the years a relevant, but constant, bird-beak configuration of the stent graft. In 2009 the patient developed progressive arterial hypertension with a secondary hyperparathyroidism. For further investigation a conventional angiography with pressure gradient measurement and a four-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging was performed. The quantitative flow measurements were obtained by means of a retrospective ECG gated cardiacphase resolved three-dimensional T1 weighted fast gradient echo acquisition


In response to starvation during the first larval (L1) stage, Caenorhabditis elegans may undergo developmental arrest to enter a state of diapause. Initiation and maintenance of starvation-induced diapause are mediated by signaling through the insulin pathway and can be reversed by food. Kniazeva et al. report that L1 arrest can also be induced by deficiency of the monomethyl branched-chain fatty acid C17ISO, a leucine catabolite. Animals without C17ISO were generated through RNA interference (RNAi) with edo-5, which encodes an elongation factor required for C17ISO biosynthesis. C17ISO-deficient animals entered an L1 diapause that was phenotypically similar to that induced by starvation and that could be reversed by dietary supplementation with C17ISO. Starvation-induced and C17ISO deficiency-induced diapause states were initiated and maintained independently: C17ISO supplements did not prevent or reverse starvation-induced arrest, and food did not prevent or reverse C17ISO deficiency-induced arrest. Genetic interaction experiments indicated that C17ISO deficiency-induced arrest, unlike starvation-induced arrest, did not require signaling through the insulin receptor DAF-2. Loss-of-function mutations in genes encoding daf-16, which encodes the FOXO transcription factor repressed by DAF-2, or daf-18, which encodes the DAF-2 antagonist Pten, did not suppress C17ISO deficiency-induced developmental arrest. Although not mediated by the same signaling pathway, both starvation-induced and C17ISO deficiency-induced arrest were associated with decreased expression of cki-1, which encodes a cyclin-dependent kinase that promotes cell cycle exit. Genetic interaction experiments coupled with reporter assays indicated that C17ISO biosynthesis was regulated by both lipid metabolism and dietary protein uptake. It is not surprising that metabolic information and nutritional information are integrated to influence developmental decisions, but it is unexpected that a type of metabolism- or nutrient-induced developmental arrest in C. elegans does not depend on insulin signaling. M. Kniazeva, T. Euler, M. Han, A branched-chain fatty acid is involved in post-embryonic growth control in parallel to the insulin receptor pathway and its biosynthesis is feedback-regulated in C. elegans. Genes & Dev. 22, 2102-2110 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


We introduce a framework for studying the effect of cooperation on the quality of outcomes in utility games. Our framework is a coalitional analog of the smoothness framework of non-cooperative games. Coalitional smoothness implies bounds on the strong price of anarchy, the loss of quality of coalitionally stable outcomes, as well as bounds on coalitional versions of coarse correlated equilibria and sink equilibria, which we define as out-of-equilibrium myopic behavior as determined by a natural coalitional version of best-response dynamics.
Our coalitional smoothness framework captures existing results bounding the strong price of anarchy of network design games. We show that in any monotone utility-maximization game, if each player's utility is at least his marginal contribution to the welfare, then the strong price of anarchy is at most 2. This captures a broad class of games, including games with a very high price of anarchy. Additionally, we show that in potential games the strong price of anarchy is close to the price of stability, the quality of the best Nash equilibrium.


"Markets are cyclical. In early 2005, anecdotal evidence suggests that some United States real estate market sectors are in a ""bubble"". Furthermore, it is widely accepted that timing is everything. Easy to say and hard to implement, knowing when to get out is very often the key to investment success. In this paper the authors examine the interaction of lender risk management tools as an early warning sign to head for the door. The analysis centers on if and when the lender-borrower difference of opinion about the future suggests the market has gone as high as it can be expected to. There is a three-way relationship between capitalization rates, interest rates and inflation. When inflation expectations increase, interest rates rise as lenders build inflation expectations into their rates. Since capitalization rates include the cost of funds (interest rates), one would expect capitalization rates to increase also. That this is not always true is an anomaly. Buyers of income property, anticipating higher future income, bid up prices causing capitalization rates to fall. Tension is created by this anomaly because everyone knows that it cannot continue forever. Price inflation traceable to this anomaly introduces concern about a bubble in the market. Much has been written about the difference between expected and unexpected inflation. However, our interest is about how two parties to a transaction behave when their separate opinions differ in these areas. Previous research define bubbles in the context of irrational investing, where momentum drives prices higher as irrational investors or consumers find the assets more attractive, see for example the discussion in Hendershott, Hendershott, and Ward (2003). What is missing in that analysis is the role of the lender. Lenders operate as a sort of governor, acting out the unpopular role of guarding the punch bowl, adding just enough joy juice (easy credit) to keep the party interesting but not enough to allow it to become unruly. Why would lenders provide capital to sustain such a bubble? Indeed, consider the lender's concern that the buyer is overpaying. Suppose that for a period of time buyers gradually abandon the use of better analysis tools in favor of short cuts. This sort of behavior is met with lender restraint, a sort of benign paternalism. The manifestation of that restraint is in the lender's choice of underwriting tool. The theoretical model and empirical analysis presented in this paper supports the hypothesis that behavior of lenders is an indicator. In fact, one should be alert to changes in the direction of capitalization rates when setting loan underwriting policy. Furthermore, changes in underwriting standards affect both the quality of loan portfolio and market transaction prices. "


Within the familiar clash of religious conservatism and secular liberalism Paul Maltby finds a deeper discord: an antipathy between Christian fundamentalism and the postmodern culture of disenchantment. Arguing that each camp represents the poles of America's virulent culture wars, he shows how the cultural identity, lifestyle and political commitments of many Americans match either the fundamentalist profile of one who cleaves to metaphysical and authoritarian beliefs or the postmodern profile of one who is disposed to critical inquiry and radical-democratic values. Maltby offers a critique that operates in both directions. His use of the resources of postmodern theory to contest fundamentalism's doctrinal claims, ultra-right politics, anti-environmentalism and conservative aesthetics informs his engagement with contemporary fundamentalist painting, spiritual warfare fiction, dominionist attitudes to nature, and a profoundly undemocratic interpretation of Christianity. At the same time, Maltby identifies some of fundamentalism's legitimate spiritual concerns, assesses the cost of perpetual critique, and exposes the deficit of spiritual meaning that haunts the culture of disenchantment.


This article shows how the House of Lords has, in recent years, embarked on a retreat from its landmark decision in Pepper v Hart which had relaxed the rule prohibiting courts from using ministerial statements made in Parliament for the purpose of interpreting statutes. This development was initiated by a lecture given by Lord Steyn in May 2000 and subsequently published in this journal. The article attempts to refute the reasons advanced in support of the retreat. In addition, it sets out to show that the alternative solution proposed by Lord Steyn creates both conceptual and practical difficulties. As a result it argues for a reversal of the retreat.


We present findings from a qualitative study with 28 participants of the dyadic intercultural communication tensions professionals experience in Face-to-Face (FTF) and Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) workplace interactions. We identify four categories of intercultural communication tensions that emerged most frequently in our dataset including range of emotional expression, level of formality, "fixed" versus flexible appointments and task versus social-orientation. We discuss how these tensions manifested in FTF and CMC media and unravel the ways media supports or hinders intercultural communication. We present the adaptations participants made to mitigate such tensions and offer implications for design. Our findings demonstrate that the most frequently occurring intercultural communication tensions manifested in both FTF and CMC, regardless of the medium used. This indicates that cultural communication challenges will persist no matter the medium, highlighting the opportunity for technologies to better support workplace intercultural communication.


The media have a contradictory role in relation to class power. They do predominantly carry corporate and state friendly messages, but not exclusively. They do have a role in legitimating capitalist social relations, but the role of ideology in maintaining social order has been overplayed by some theorists. A variety of other mechanisms employed by the powerful to pursue their interests are arguably as important as the mass media in the maintenance of 'ruling ideas'. In attempting to rethink the relationship between media power and class power, this essay uses the work of Stuart Hall as the starting point for a critique of cultural and media studies. It argues that Critical Theorists such as Hall overemphasized the importance of ideology and the 'function' of the media in capitalist social order.


Modern systems are becoming highly configurable to satisfy the varying needs of customers and users. Software product lines are hence becoming a common trend in software development to reduce cost by enabling systematic, large-scale reuse. However, high levels of configurability entail new challenges. Some faults might be revealed only if a particular combination of features is selected in the delivered products. But testing all combinations is usually not feasible in practice, due to their extremely large numbers. Combinatorial testing is a technique to generate smaller test suites for which all combinations of t features are guaranteed to be tested. In this paper, we present several theorems describing the probability of random testing to detect interaction faults and compare the results to combinatorial testing when there are no constraints among the features that can be part of a product. For example, random testing becomes even more effective as the number of features increases and converges toward equal effectiveness with combinatorial testing. Given that combinatorial testing entails significant computational overhead in the presence of hundreds or thousands of features, the results suggest that there are realistic scenarios in which random testing may outperform combinatorial testing in large systems. Furthermore, in common situations where test budgets are constrained and unlike combinatorial testing, random testing can still provide minimum guarantees on the probability of fault detection at any interaction level. However, when constraints are present among features, then random testing can fare arbitrarily worse than combinatorial testing. As a result, in order to have a practical impact, future research should focus on better understanding the decision process to choose between random testing and combinatorial testing, and improve combinatorial testing in the presence of feature constraints.


Background Decreased size and altered function of lumbo-pelvic muscles has been found in elite athletes with low back pain (LBP). Previous research has shown that training trunk neuromotor control in elite football players with and without LBP improved the size and function of muscles important in stability of the lumbo-pelvic region. Hip muscles also contribute to lumbo-pelvic stability and imbalances in these muscles have been associated with LBP in collegiate athletes. Objective To investigate if a motor control intervention program targeting trunk muscles affects hip muscle size in elite football players with and without LBP. Design The trial was delivered as a stepped-wedge design with 3 treatment arms: 15 weeks intervention, 8 weeks intervention and a wait-list control who received 7 weeks intervention toward the end of the playing season. Setting Elite level football club in the National Australian Football League (AFL). Participants Complete training squad of 46 elite players from an AFL club. Interventions The motor control program, delivered over the playing season, involved performance of voluntary contractions of the trunk muscles with feedback from ultrasound imaging. Main outcome measurements Cross-sectional areas of the iliacus, psoas, iliopsoas, sartorius, gluteus minimus, gluteus medius and upper gluteus maximus muscles were measured from magnetic resonance images. Results The motor control training program was associated with an increase in hip muscle size especially for those with LBP (P<.01). Conclusions The motor control training program, which targeted proximal muscles of the lumbar spine, had an effect on both trunk and hip muscles. Neuromuscular control training programs may benefit more muscles in the kinetic chain than trunk muscles alone. This finding may be due to the functional components of the motor control program that encouraged optimal trunk and femoro-pelvic alignment when load was added in functional weight bearing positions.


Micro air vehicles (MAVs) are small remote controlled aircraft used by military personnel for reconnaissance and are currently powered by batteries. The MAVs rely on the battery for propulsion, navigation, and reconnaissance equipment. The thrust of this research is to develop a fuel cell system capable of higher energy densities, higher energy to weight ratios, and increased overall energy output than the batteries in use today. To this end, a feasibility study is first conducted to determine if fuel cells could be used to replace batteries as the MAV energy source and what fuel cell configurations would show the best performance. Hydrogen, methanol, and formic acid fuel cells are considered, using a conventional flat-plate design and a novel micro-tubular design. Several micro-tubular fuel cells (MTFCs) are tested to show that these cells are a possibility for energy production in MAVs. Those tested are developed and improved in collaboration between Luna Innovations, Inc. and the Center for Energy Systems Research at Virginia Tech and then manufactured by Luna Innovations, Inc. Also, an isothermal, lumped-parameter (LP) model for MTFCs is developed to predict behavior. The use of this LP model aids in understanding the dominant losses of the cell and ways of improving cell performance. Results from the feasibility study indicate that by using methanol powered MTFCs a 50% increase in overall energy output is possible, while also decreasing the mass of the power production system. Through testing and an iterative design process, an increase of three orders of magnitude of the maximum power production of the MTFCs constructed by Luna Innovations, Inc., has been realized. Results of the LP MTFC model are compared with the experimental results from the MTFC testing and tubular cells from the literature.


A considerable literature examines the effect of voter information on candidate strategies and voter–politician interactions in the developing world. The voter information literature argues that information can improve accountability because more informed voters are harder to woo with traditional campaign tools, such as ethnic appeals and vote-buying. However, this literature has largely ignored the reaction of political candidates and thus may reach conclusions that are overly optimistic regarding the impact of information on electoral accountability. We argue that voter information can increase electoral violence in developing countries where politicians face fewer institutional constraints on their campaign tactics. When violence is used as a campaign strategy, more informed electorates are more at risk because they are harder to sway through alternative campaign techniques. Using data from 35 African countries, we show that respondents receiving their news predominantly from newspapers are a good proxy for informed voters because they differ in terms of their political attitudes from respondents consuming no news or receiving it via other channels. Combining the geo-coded survey data with pre-electoral violence event data, we find a robust positive association between newspaper readership and fear of and exposure to campaign violence. This finding contributes to the micro-foundations of election violence and adds a cautionary note for voter information programs.


Abstract We here propose a new kinematic picture of central Sicily based on the results of detailed field mapping of the region, combined with structural analyses and the interpretation of the available literature subsurface data. Our study focused on the tectonic boundary of a structural depression, the Caltanissetta Trough, which is now filled with allochthonous terrains resting on the deep-seated inverted African palaeomargin units. Our data refer to the tectonosedimentary evolution of the thrust-top basins, from Late Tortonian to Quaternary times. The study points out the occurrence of regional E–W-oriented dextral shear zones, cutting the NE-oriented trends of the thrust belt. This new evidence would confirm the major role of the E–W trend in the tectonic inversion of the external portions of the Africa palaeomargin in Sicily. Our results could contribute to a better understanding of the location in Sicily of the tectonic lineaments accommodating the hundreds of kilometres of lateral displacement, caused by the Late Miocene–Quaternary Tyrrhenian Basin opening to the north of the island.