Genotypic performance in term of heritability as the crucial factor of animal economical traits for body size inheritance had not been fully studied in Ongole-grade cattle. The objectives of this research were to define the heritability values of live weight, chest girth and body length in Ongole-crossbred cattle. Total of 37 blood samples were collected from parental cows and 2 blood samples from parental Ongole breed bulls. All blood samples were screened for the presence of growth hormone ( GH ) locus using PCR-RFLP method involving restricted enzyme Msp1 on agarose-gel (1.2%). Data were analyzed using statistical program in Excel XP. Results showed that the phenotypic estimation average of Ongole grade cattle population of live weight, chest girth and body length were 445.41 ± 45.95 kg, 175.35 ± 4.11 cm, and 139.70 ± 5.73cm, respectively. The heritability values of animal live weight, chest girth and body length in this study were 0.24, 0.003, and 0.41, respectively. These heritability values of animal live weight and body length would be categorized as moderate to high genotypic performance values, while the heritability of animal chest girth was included in low heritability standard of the animal economical trait performance.


IZA Policy Paper No. 175 MARCH 2021 Underrepresentation of Women in Undergraduate Economics Degrees in Europe: A Comparison with STEM and Business* In the last decade, the proportion and academic performance of women who pursue university degrees has increased relative to men in a range of developing countries (OECD, 2015). Nonetheless, the percentage of undergraduate economics degrees awarded to women has remained between 30% and 35% during 2001-2018 in the U.S. (Siegfried, 2019). In a recent work by Lundberg and Stearns (2019), they show that the gender gap worsens as women economists progress in their professional careers in the U.S., where they end up representing only 10% of university professors. European countries seem to have less of a "leaky pipeline," where the same figure sits at 22% (Auriol, Friebel, and Wilhelm, 2020). To put this figure into perspective, our paper describes the cross-country underrepresentation of women graduating in economics degrees in Europe relative to their country-specific women/men university graduation rates. Second, we compare the underrepresentation of women in economics to its closest alternative namely business, as well as its gender underrepresented counterpart, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Finally, we lean on recent evidence to suggest policies to increase the relative share of women pursuing undergraduate economics degrees in Europe with a strong focus on policies aimed at high schools. Overall, we find that, over the period 2013-2018, the underrepresentation of women in economics graduates has worsened in Europe and that on average two of every five students are women. While the gender representation of university graduates in STEM is worse than in economics, it has experienced a mild increase over the period of study. Unlike Economics, its closest alternative, business, has a slight women overrepresentation, with 1.1 women graduating for every man. JEL Classification: J16, J24


The paper argues that the current global market is organized by a system of transnational law whose development is best characterized as ambivalent. On the one side, legal juridification can lead to a hegemonic system of international law that lacks legitimacy, paradoxically creates extralegal spheres, promotes the 'privatization' of political areas, and, thereby, reduces the competences of states. On the other side, legal codification can also function as an engine of transnational democratization and as a barrier to an unhampered growth of transnational administrative and executive power. Scholarship on the idea of legitimacy in law and transnational governance in political and legal theory has to reflect these aspects of juridification on a world scale. Most approaches to the issue, however, have serious flaws: they neither offer an adequate empirical diagnosis of the de-embedding of international economic and legal processes, nor do they provide convincing proposals as to how such processes could be domesticated. Against this background, the paper lays out a critical analysis of legal codification processes as well as proposing an account of democratic governance, based on a realistic conception of deliberative democracy.


Background It is critical that physicians understand concussion management. Objective Identify practice patterns/knowledge base in two physician populations. Design On-line survey. Setting Ontario, Canada. Participants Physicians from Sections: Sport and Exercise Medicine (SEM), General and Family Practice (SGFP). Interventions Emailed survey, 2 reminders. Main utcome measurements: Practice patterns/knowledge base, learning methods: current/preferred. Results Participants: SEM 92/594 (15.5%), SGFP 270/12,168 (2.2%); urban practice (90.2% SEM, 71.5% SFGP; P<.001). In preceding 3 months, 84.8% of SEM and 65.6% of SFGP had managed patients with concussion. More SEM than SGFP physicians saw >5 children under 18 with concussions per month (40.2% SEM, 9.5% SGFP; P<001). Tools: Clinical examination (92.4% SEM, 93.7% SFGP); Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT/SCAT2) (68.4% SEM, 34.1% SFGP; P<.001); balance testing (56.5% SEM, 37.4% SFGP; P=.001); computerized neurocognitive testing (23.9% SEM, 1.9% SFGP; P<.001); concussion grading scales (9.8% SEM, 14.1% SFGP; P<.001). Management: Complete physical rest (65.2% SEM, 68.5% SFGP); absolute cognitive rest (46.7% SEM, 51.9% SFGP); modified school/work until symptom resolution (50.0% SEM, 38.5% SFGP; P=.026); no cognitive rest (3.2% SEM, 9.6% SGFP; P=.026). Return-to-play: Clinical examination (87.0% SEM, 82.6% SFGP); SCAT/SCAT2 (60.8% SEM, 29.6% SFGP; P<.001); balance testing (56.5% SEM, 37.4% SFGP; P<.001); computerized neurocognitive testing (35.9% SEM, 2.2% SFGP; P<.001); concussion grading scales (7.6% SEM, 9.6% SFGP). Current learning sources: colleagues (55.4% SEM, 27.8% SFGP; P<.001); specialists (33.7% SEM, 23.7% SFGP; P=.030); continuing medical education (CME) courses/conferences (67.4% SEM, 54.7% SFGP; P=.017); journals/publications (48.9% SEM, 25.2% SFGP; P<.001); websites (35.8% SEM, 32.2% SFGP); medical school/residency training (19.6% SEM, 17.4% SFGP). Preferred learning sources: CME courses/conferences (85.9% SEM, 73.9% SFGP; P=.006); websites (35.9% SEM, 47.8%, SFGP; P=.024); medical school/residency training (37.0% SEM, 47.8% SFGP). Conclusions Gaps exist between consensus-based recommendations regarding concussions and current clinical practice patterns. Enhanced training in medical school/residency and additional CME initiatives are recommended.


Nepal is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual nation. However, the policies of one language, one culture and one religion adopted right from Prithvi Narayan Shah merely through Rana rulers to Panchayati rulers merely focused in consolidations power and sustaining dynasty rule deprived ethnic communities of their linguistic, cultural and religious rights. This article presents how ethnic communities were deprived of their linguistic rights and how they are gaining it after the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990 and after the second people's movement in 2062/63 B.S. Tribhuvan University Journal Vol. XXVI, No. 1, 2009 Page: 7-16


In this paper, we study a new learning paradigm for Neural Machine Translation (NMT). Instead of maximizing the likelihood of the human translation as in previous works, we minimize the distinction between human translation and the translation given by an NMT model. To achieve this goal, inspired by the recent success of generative adversarial networks (GANs), we employ an adversarial training architecture and name it as Adversarial-NMT. In Adversarial-NMT, the training of the NMT model is assisted by an adversary, which is an elaborately designed Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The goal of the adversary is to differentiate the translation result generated by the NMT model from that by human. The goal of the NMT model is to produce high quality translations so as to cheat the adversary. A policy gradient method is leveraged to co-train the NMT model and the adversary. Experimental results on English$\rightarrow$French and German$\rightarrow$English translation tasks show that Adversarial-NMT can achieve significantly better translation quality than several strong baselines.


Although research has identified many of the competences that human resource management (HRM) professionals need, limited research examines how competence expectations can be met in HRM courses. This study sought to generate the knowledge required to align HRM courses with competence statements in the recently revised Australian Human Resources Institute Model of Excellence. To accomplish this aim, focus groups and interviews were conducted with HRM professionals from private, public and not-for-profit organisations. Findings suggest that the process of aligning course curricula with the MoE is challenging for several reasons, including: competence statements are subject to varied interpretation; subjecting each statement to a learning needs analysis is complex; it is difficult to cluster the wide range of knowledge areas that must be covered into coherent units of learning. This paper explores the appropriateness of using a generic competence model in a curricular-influencing role and outlines implications of our findings for practice and research.


The principal purport of this study is to explore and look for variety of aspects and the significance of human capital in today's hyper-competitive environment besides delve in to details for gaining more insights regarding the subject in focus i.e. human capital. The paper is an exploratory study, which by and large relies heavily on the analysis of available literature and model testing. Organizations have been persistently adverting fair amount of emphasis on human capital by taking necessary measures to develop a culture of knowledge sharing, retain highly competent employees to generate more innovative ideas with a view to achieve the competitive advantage for having an edge over contemporary organizations. Having set forth afore-said goals; top management of dynamic organizations more often than not encourage their employees to actively participate in the knowledge sharing practices. The inference is that human capital by all means is positively related to the organizational productivity since implementation of the creative ideas and innovations do improve the organizational outcomes. As a result of intellectual capital employees tend to become loyal and passionate about their work and devote their talents to the best of their potential to achieve the all important competitive advantage. Key words: Human Capital, Organizational Performance, Competent Employees, Intellectual Capital, Social Capital, Competitive Advantage.


Boom Clay is extensively studied as a potential candidate to host underground nuclear waste disposal in Belgium. To guarantee the safety of such a disposal, the mechanical behaviour of the clay during gallery excavation must be properly predicted. In that purpose, a hollow cyl- inder experiment on Boom Clay has been designed to reproduce, in a small-scale test, the Excavation Damaged Zone (EDZ) as experienced during the excavation of a dis- posal gallery in the underground. In this article, the focus is made on the hydro-mechanical constitutive interpretation of the displacement (experimentally obtained by medium resolution X-ray tomography scanning). The coupled hydro- mechanical response of Boom Clay in this experiment is addressed through finite element computations with a con- stitutive model including strain hardening/softening, elastic and plastic cross-anisotropy and a regularization method for the modelling of strain localization processes. The obtained results evidence the directional dependency of the mechan- ical response of the clay. The softening behaviour induces transient strain localization processes, addressed through a hydro-mechanical second grade model. The shape of the obtained damaged zone is clearly affected by the anisotropy of the materials, evidencing an eye-shaped EDZ. The mod- elling results agree with experiments not only qualitatively (in terms of the shape of the induced damaged zone), but also quantitatively (for the obtained displacement in three par- ticular radial directions).


We present a new approach to reconstruct the shape of a 3D object or scene from a set of calibrated images. The central idea of our method is to combine the topological flexibility of a point-based geometry representation with the robust reconstruction properties of scene-aligned planar primitives. This can be achieved by approximating the shape with a set of surface elements (surfels) in the form of planar disks which are independently fitted such that their footprint in the input images matches. Instead of using an artificial energy functional to promote the smoothness of the recovered surface during fitting, we use the smoothness assumption only to initialize planar primitives and to check the feasibility of the fitting result. After an initial disk has been found, the recovered region is iteratively expanded by growing further disks in tangent direction. The expansion stops when a disk rotates by more than a given threshold during the fitting step. A global sampling strategy guarantees that eventually the whole surface is covered. Our technique does not depend on a shape prior or silhouette information for the initialization and it can automatically and simultaneously recover the geometry, topology, and visibility information which makes it superior to other state-of-the-art techniques. We demonstrate with several high-quality reconstruction examples that our algorithm performs highly robustly and is tolerant to a wide range of image capture modalities.


I. It has been many years since I first wrote that the American Revolution was, at once, an event in time and an idea out of time. (1) Lincoln meant no less when he wrote that Jefferson enshrined in the Declaration of Independence "an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times." (2) It was a commonplace among the Founders (and Lincoln) that the American experiment in self-government was not for Americans alone, but for all mankind. (3) This was not merely an expression of national pride. It was a sober judgment. It was almost as impossible then, as it is now, to imagine circumstances more favorable to the success of this experiment than those that existed at the Founding. It was, and is, hard to imagine this experiment succeeding elsewhere if it failed here. The Civil War clearly was a test, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, of whether any nation "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" could long endure. (4) The test came when eleven states "seceded" following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The Republican platform in that year contained a pledge to end any further extension of slavery into the new territories from which new states might be formed. (5) The seceding states found it intolerable that all new states would be free states, so that eventually three-fourths of the states might be able to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment, without the consent of the slave states. As Lincoln put it in his first inaugural, "One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute." (6) Lincoln believed that the Constitution established a regime within which such disputes might be resolved peacefully. The states, in ratifying the Constitution, bound themselves to accept the results of elections held according to the rules of the Constitution. To set aside the results of an election because of dissatisfaction with those results, as the secessionists proposed, would make a mockery of the very idea of government by elections. It would leave tyranny or anarchy as the only alternatives. Lincoln set out this argument--ballots or bullets--with mathematical simplicity and clarity. He conceded, however, that if any constitutional rights or privileges had been denied to the discontented states in the elections, or if there was any future threat by the Republicans to such rights or privileges, the states' withdrawal from the Union might be justified. (7) Lincoln took the greatest pains to deny that any such rights or privileges had been denied or threatened. He could not, however, deny their differences concerning slavery. Nor did he deny that a difference on this subject could turn friends into enemies and make a common citizenship impossible. (8) In all his speeches, from Peoria in 1854, (9) to Cooper Union in 1860, (10) and finally to Gettysburg in 1863, (11) Lincoln insisted that the central idea of the Founding, from which all its minor thoughts radiated, was the proposition that all men are created equal. The slavery that existed in the Founding generation was an inherited evil that could not be eradicated instantly, but it was, in accordance with the principles of the Declaration, to be "put in course of ultimate extinction." (12) All the legal rights of white men depended finally upon the recognition of a common human nature. The Declaration itself was addressed to a "candid world," (13) which included all races and nations. There could be no such thing as equal rights of slavery and freedom. Property in human beings could not be compared indifferently to property in non-human chattels. To make chattels of other human beings was a violation of the laws of nature, and this nation was founded upon "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." (14) To justify their claim to the same rights in the territories as in the free states, leading Southerners transformed the assertion of equality of the rights of individual human beings into a claim of equality of rights of the states. …


The Thor Lake rare-metal (Y-REE-Nb-Ta-Zr-Be) deposit, located about 100 kilometers southeast of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, is regarded as one of the largest high field strength elements (HFSE, including Nb, Ta, Zr, Hf, Ti, Y, and the lanthanides) deposits and hosted by alkaline granite and syenite. The T Zone deposit, one of the main mineralized zones at Thor Lake, is characterized by HFSE mineralization that has intimate connection to hydrothermal activities. The T Zone at Thor Lake provides an excellent opportunity to assess the mobility and precipitation of HFSE in magmatic-hydrothermal systems. The T Zone has been identified as a pegmatite that experienced multiple alteration stages. Most HFSE minerals were hydrothermally formed, as indicated by their occurrence in pseudomorphs. The most important precursor minerals for those HFSE-rich and Be-rich pseudomorphs are aegirine and mica-group minerals. The HFSE concentrations in aegirine and mica are not sufficiently high. Therefore, a dissolution-reprecipitation model cannot explain the presence of zircon and other HFSE minerals that pseudomorph aegirine. Rather, the addition of HFSE by hydrothermal fluids is required. Mass transfer calculations show that HFSE were added or removed during different alteration events. Related to the identified alteration events, the remobilization patterns of HFSE reveal that transport and precipitation of HFSE in the T Zone was likely caused by fluids with different characteristics. Magmatic and various types of hydrothermal zircon are characterized by different trace element chemistry. Titanium-in-zircon geothermometer was employed to constrain the mineralizing temperatures of the T Zone. The crystallization temperatures for the magmatic zircon from the host granite range from 792 to 1195 °C. Extremely high Ti concentrations in hydrothermal zircon from the T Zone prevent the application of Ti-in-zircon geothermometry. Primary fluid inclusion assemblages (FIAs) related to precipitation of various HFSE minerals in the T Zone were identified. Microthermometric analysis has revealed that there were likely two populations of fluids in the T Zone. According to fluid inclusion LA-ICP-MS analysis and EDS decrepitate analysis, the fluids responsible for HFSE transport in the T Zone contain significant HFSE, are aqueous and dominated by Na and Cl with trace amounts of CO 2 and CH 4 .


Open-ended systems and unknown dynamical environments present challenges to the traditional machine learning systems, and in many cases traditional methods are not applicable. Lifelong reinforcement learning is a special case of dynamic (process-oriented) reinforcement learning. Multi-task learning is a methodology that exploits similarities and patterns across multiple tasks. Both can be successfully used for open-ended systems and automated learning in unknown environments. Due to its unique characteristics, lifelong reinforcement presents both challenges and potential capabilities that go beyond traditional reinforcement learning methods. In this article, we present the basic notions of lifelong reinforcement learning, introduce the main methodologies, applications and challenges. We also introduce a new model of lifelong reinforcement based on the Evolvable Virtual Machine architecture (EVM).


During the second half of the XIXth century, Europe, the United States and Russia witnessed a blossoming interest in the use of photography in the anthropological field, its specific use was not very clear and defined yet; as a consequence, its heuristic methodologies, technical shooting modalities, stylistic elements and figurative conventions were not clear either. We range goes from anthropometric photography to an ethnographic and folkloric portrait painting signed at the same time by anthropologists and travellers, professional photographers looking for exotic subjects, amateur photographers and soldiers who encourage a figural medley characterised by scientific, commercial and artistic veins that slowly finds its definition in some of its prevailing features, in primis those of the portrait with pictorial origins, however continuously declined and reinterpreted in several ways. In this context Anthropology seeks some links with aesthetics.


This article quantifies and characterizes existing legal complaints for the sexual transmission of HIV in Spain, describes temporal trends and whether advance of scientific knowledge is reflected in charging decisions, judicial reasoning, and sentences. Sentences and writs dictated by Spanish penal and civil jurisdictions between 1981 and 2012 were obtained through legal databases systematic search. Sixteen sentences and 9 writs belonging to 19 cases were included; 17 judged by penal and two by civil jurisdictions. The first sentence was pronounced in 1996, 3 between 1999 and 2000, 4 between 2001 and 2005, and 18 between 2006 and 2012. In 10 (53%) cases there was effective HIV transmission, there was not in 6 (32%) and in 3 (15%) directionality could not be determined. Of the defendants, 15 (79%) were heterosexual males, 1 of which was an injecting drug user (IDU), 3 were men who have sex with men (MSM), and 1 was a heterosexual woman. In the 10 cases of HIV transmission, the mechanism was heterosexual sex and index cases were males in nine occasions. Disclosure of HIV status, use of condoms and its frequency, and its possible breaks were mentioned in only some sentences/judicial decisions and fewer mentioned the use of antiretroviral treatment. Very few cases referred to plasma viral load (VL), and there are incorrect statements regarding HIV transmissibility. Only one 2012 sentence mentioned VL levels, adherence to ART, CD4 lymphocyte levels, concomitant sexually transmitted infections, and references to pertinent literature. The number of judicial decisions in Spain is increasing and the profile of the plaintiffs, largely heterosexual women, does not reflect the groups most affected by the HIV epidemic, largely IDU and MSM. Most judgments and writs do not reflect HIV scientific and technical advances. It is of utmost importance that these complex processes incorporate the most up-to-date knowledge on the subject.


Anycasting has been proposed recently as an efficient communication method for asynchronous duty-cycled wireless sensor networks. However, the interdependencies between end-to-end communication cost and the anycasting design parameters have not been systematically studied. In this paper, a statistical end-to-end cost model is presented to capture the end-to-end latency and energy consumption of anycasting operation under a realistic wireless channel model. By exploring the relationship between the end-to-end cost efficiency and the forwarding decision dependent anycasting design parameters, two anycasting forwarding metrics are proposed for fully distributed forwarding decision. By exploring the relationship among the preamble length, the size of the forwarding set and the achievable end-to-end cost efficiency, a series of preamble length control guidelines are proposed for low and extremely low duty-cycled WSNs. According to our analytical results and simulation validation, the proposed forwarding metrics help reduce the end-to-end latency and energy consumption by about $55\%$ for anycasting with moderate preamble length, compared with the existing heuristic forwarding metrics. The proposed preamble length control guidelines help reduce, by more than half, the end-to-end energy and latency costs in low and extremely-low duty-cycled WSNs.


A surface profilometer was used to measure fracture profiles every 10 microns over the surfaces of a replica of a fracture in a red Permian sandstone, to within an accuracy of a few microns. These surface data were used as input to two finite element codes that solve the Navier-Stokes equations and the Reynolds equation, respectively. Numerical simulations of flow through these measured aperture fields were carried out at different values of the mean aperture, corresponding to different values of the relative roughness. Flow experiments were also conducted in casts of two regions of the fracture. At low Reynolds numbers, the Navier-Stokes simulations yielded transmissivities for the two fracture regions that were closer to the experimental values than were the values predicted by the lubrication model. In general, the lubrication model overestimated the transmissivity by an amount that varied as a function of the relative roughness, defined as the standard deviation of the aperture divided by the mean aperture. The initial deviations from linearity, for Reynolds numbers in the range 1-10, were consistent with the weak inertia model developed by Mei and Auriault for porous media, and with the results obtained computationally by Skjetne et al. in 1999 on a two-dimensional self-affine fracture. In the regime 10 < Re < 40, both the computed and measured transmissivities could be fit very well to a Forchheimer-type equation, in which the additional pressure drop varies quadratically with the Reynolds number.


DDS, 4,4′-diaminodiphenylsulfone, is the most common drug prescribed to treat Hansen disease patients. In addition to its antibacterial activity, DDS has been reported to be involved in other cellular processes that occur in eukaryotic cells. Because DDS treatment significantly enhances the antioxidant activity in humans, we examined its effect on lifespan extension. Here we show that DDS extends organismic lifespan using Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system. DDS treatment caused a delay in aging and decreased the levels of a mitochondrial complex. The oxygen consumption rate was also significantly lowered. Consistent with these data, paraquat treatment evoked less reactive oxygen species in DDS-treated worms, and these worms were less sensitive to paraquat. Interestingly enough, all of the molecular events caused by DDS treatment were consistently reproduced in mice treated with DDS for 3 mo and in the C2C12 muscle cell line. Structural prediction identified pyruvate kinase (PK) as a protein target of DDS. Indeed, DDS bound and inhibited PK in vitro and inhibited it in vivo, and a PK mutation conferred extended lifespan of C. elegans. Supplement of pyruvate to the media protected C2C12 cells from apoptosis caused by paraquat. Our findings establish the significance of DDS in lowering reactive oxygen species generation and extending the lifespan, which renders the rationale to examining the possible effect of DDS on human lifespan extension.


The potential application of biochemically modified electrodes was investigated for construction of a drug biosensor. The electrocatalytic response of lidocaine was examined through modified electrodes using the electron transfer ability of hemoglobin (Hb) immobilized on gold film modified with a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA). According to the results of voltammetric studies, Au/MPA/Hb electrodes exhibited high sensitivity and good electrocatalytic activity for the reduction of lidocaine, motivating us to construct drug biosensors. With this study, a new electroanalytical procedure is proposed for the determination of lidocaine level in medical applications or therapeutic formulations containing lidocaine as the active ingredient.


Speaker diarization accuracy can be affected by both acoustics and conversation characteristics. Determining the cause of diarization errors is difficult because speaker voice acoustics and conversation structure co-vary, and the interactions between acoustics, conversational structure, and diarization accuracy are complex. This paper proposes a methodology that can distinguish independent marginal effects of acoustic and conversation characteristics on diarization accuracy by remixing conversations in a factorial design. As an illustration, this approach is used to investigate gender-related and language-related accuracy differences with three diarization systems: a baseline system using subsegment x-vector clustering, a variant of it with shorter subsegments, and a third system based on a Bayesian hidden Markov model. Our analysis shows large accuracy disparities for the baseline system primarily due to conversational structure, which are partially mitigated in the other two systems. The illustration thus demonstrates how the methodology can be used to identify and guide diarization model improvements.


Aim: The primary aim of this study was to establish the nutritional knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of Auckland rugby union players. Furthermore, a secondary aim was to investigate the dietary intake of these players and to examine how the knowledge and attitudes might affect nutritional intake. Method: Sixty Auckland premier grade rugby union players, completed two selfadministered questionnaires. The first was designed to determine nutritional knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of Auckland rugby union players and the second to investigate the physical activities of the participants. Four-day dietary record was kept for assessment of dietary intake. Finally, body composition of the players was measured using the International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry anthropometry method. Results: The rugby players had a mean (±.SD) age of 22.8 ±_2.5 years, with a mean height and weight of 181±_6.5 cm and 98.2 ±_14.2 kg. Only nine out of 60 players returned food record diaries. Their mean daily energy intake was 17.3 ±_4.3 MJ. The contribution of energy intake was 46% from CHO, 16% from protein, 35% from fat and alcohol supplied 3% of daily energy. The mean score of correct nutrition knowledge questions was 42% ±_20. Conclusions: This study has shown that rugby union players have a few misconceptions regarding nutrition and performance. The major misunderstandings are mainly concerning major fuel source to provide energy. The majority of players believed that protein was the predominant source of fuel used by muscles. The data suggests that these athletes may benefit from nutritional support. The players mean daily intake was inadequate for the large amounts of training they were undertaking . However, the contribution of carbohydrate, protein , fat and alcohol to the mean daily energy intake was nearly identical to that of the general New Zealand population . Players need to increase the amount of carbohydrates that they consume as this may help to improve their performance and delay time to fatigue.


When a user successfully logs in to an information server such as an online banking server, an e-commerce server, or a VPN server, for greater security communication is transferred transparently to the user to an authentication server for additional authentication. The additional authentication can include comparing elements of a previously deposited cookie on the user computer to test elements, and if the elements, match, granting access and transparently transferring the user computer back to the information server. If the secondary authentication fails, however, the user may be asked questions as tertiary authentication, or a PIN code can be sent to the user's cell phone, which PIN code can then be input on the user computer to gain access.


We provide cogent evidence for the causal pro-trade effect of migrants and in doing so establish an important link between migrant networks and long-run economic development. To this end, we exploit a unique event in human history, the exodus of the Vietnamese Boat People to the US. This episode represents an ideal natural experiment as the large immigration shock, the first wave of which comprised refugees exogenously allocated across the US, occurred over a twenty-year period during which time the US imposed a complete trade embargo on Vietnam. Following the lifting of trade restrictions in 1994, the share of US exports going to Vietnam was higher and more diversified in those US States with larger Vietnamese populations, themselves the result of larger refugee inflows 20 years earlier.


The Effects of Physical Activity, Sedentary Time, and Atherosclerosis on Fluid Flow in the Lumbar Intervertebral Disc Jennifer Ann Bowden Department of Exercise Sciences, BYU Doctor of Philosophy Physical activity impacts health and disease in multiple body tissues including the intervertebral discs. Fluid flow within the disc is an indicator of disc health that can be observed using diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging. We monitored activity levels of 26 participants, age 35 to 55 yrs, using Actigraph accelerometers for four days to evaluate vigorousintensity activity, moderate to vigorous-intensity activity, and sedentary time. Participants underwent structural and diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate intervertebral disc health and fluid flow. They also underwent bone density scans, carotid artery ultrasounds, a treadmill test, and a physical exam for pain, range of motion, and instability. These measures were used to correlate MRI indicators of intervertebral disc health with participant activity. Participants with any vigorous-intensity physical activity compared with no vigorous-intensity activity had significantly greater L5/S1 apparent diffusion coefficient values (p = 0.002, corresponding to higher freedom of diffusive movement for cellular nutrients and metabolic waste. Sagittal T2 values in the L5/S1 were also higher (p = 0.004, corresponding to higher water content in the discs. Higher apparent diffusion coefficients were also found in participants with more than 30 minutes compared with less than 30 minutes of daily moderate to vigorous physical activity (p = 0.03, and in participants with less than 67% awake time as sedentary time compared with more than 67% sedentary time (p = 0.03. Increased dynamic loading through physical activity and decreased static loading from sedentary time benefit intervertebral disc health. Physical activity, particularly vigorous activity, is beneficial in helping maintain intervertebral disc health.


* Examines how language works, accounting for its nature, its use, its study and its history * Two comprehensive indexes of Topics and Technical Terms, and Names * Carefully illustrated to explain key points in the text 'This rich repository of information on all aspects of language is a must for all libraries in higher education, schools and larger public libraries.' - Library Review 'Each article has an excellent bibliography. In addition, there are comprehensive indexes of topics and technical terms and names. Highly recommended for all college and general public libraries.' - Choice 'This important book is in many ways a state-of-the -art survey of current conceptions of, and approaches to, language, with generous references to more detailed sources. Each chapter has a good bibliography.' - Language International 'A comprehensive guide ...with very thorough bibliographies ...Collinge's Encyclopedia is recommended to academic libraries.' - Reference Reviews 'The bibliographies are an invaluable aid ...the editor is to be congratulated for having done an excellent job ...there are virtually no areas of language and linguistics that do not get a look in somewhere, and there is good signposting in the text itself. ' - Nigel Vincent, Times Higher Education Supplement


Coral species are threatened by environmental change, both from global pressures, particularly ocean warming and acidification, and local pressures, such as poor water quality and pollution. Species with broad distributions experience a range of different environments. For example, distribution ranges that span the continental shelf expose coral populations to oligotrophic offshore conditions and turbid, nutrient-rich inshore reef waters. Such study systems provide a unique opportunity to understand how species modify their biochemical and molecular phenotype in response to varying environmental conditions. Organisms can optimise their performance and fitness (i.e. growth, survival and reproduction) under local environmental regimes through physiological acclimatisation within their lifetimes and/or through genetic adaptation at the population or species level across generations. Studies of species with broad habitat distributions can provide insights into the fundamental mechanisms that underpin acclimatisation and adaptation, which collectively enable corals to respond to changing environments in the future.

Biochemical attributes of corals, and estimates of their growth and survival, can be used to describe the health of the coral holobiont under different environmental conditions. In Chapter 2, I compared survival, growth, and five biochemical health attributes of Acropora tenuis among habitats characterised by different water quality regimes in the central Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Health attributes of the coral host and its' Symbiodinium were monitored over three seasons along a strong and a weak inshore water quality gradient, each with three locations at increasing distances from the coast and major rivers. Along the strong water quality gradient, corals had the highest symbiont densities and tissue energetic concentrations closest to the coast and river source, where particulate concentrations were the highest. In contrast, corals found at the site with clearer water had slower growth and increased skeletal density. Differences in coral and Symbiodinium attributes were less pronounced along the weaker gradient. According to most of the physiological and biochemical attributes measured, high concentrations of dissolved and particulate nutrients were not detrimental to this robust coral species over the timeframe of the study. Decreased skeletal densities associated with higher growth rates at more turbid sites are likely to cause higher susceptibility to physical damage from storms, which occur seasonally and are predicted to increase in frequency in the future. These results highlight the importance of assessing multiple coral attributes when monitoring coral health.

Fatty acids (FA), the building blocks of lipids, have been proposed as biomarkers of coral health and stress, as they play a vital role in the metabolism and stress resistance of a broad range of organisms. In corals, FA can also potentially reveal sources of nutrition and host-symbiont resource sharing, which can elucidate basal mechanisms of biochemical and physiological functioning of corals. In Chapter 3, I explore seasonal and spatial variation in tissue concentrations and composition of FA in Acropora tenuis along the two aforementioned water quality gradients. FA health indicator ratios varied similarly within both regions along the respective water quality gradients. Corals exposed to clear, nutrient-poor conditions at sites along the afore studied water quality gradients (defined as good or very good water quality by the Reef Rescue Marine Monitoring Program at the Australian Institute of Marine Science) had the highest ratios, while corals from sites of moderate WQ had the lowest ratios, suggesting heterotrophic food sources within turbid, nutrient-enriched conditions along these same water quality gradients can supplement reduced autotrophy. Percentages of essential FA (EPA and ARA) were highest in corals from clearer water and were negatively correlated with Symbiodinium density. Strong seasonal divergence occurred in polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) concentrations, with greater percentage of n-3 PUFA found in the dry seasons (June 2013 and October 2013) compared to greater percentage of n-6 PUFA found during the wet seasons (February 2013 and February 2014). This study demonstrated essential FA and their derived health ratios respond to changes in seasonal and environmental conditions supporting FA as biomarkers of coral holobiont health.

Predation is a major source of coral mortality, and corallivorous fishes can significantly influence growth and survival of coral populations. In Chapter 4, I document how corals transplanted from a highly turbid and nutrient-enriched environment of moderate water quality to a low turbidity, non-nutrient-enriched environment of good water quality suffered high mortality and skeletal loss from predation. Specifically, colonies of Acropora tenuis transplanted from the site closest to the coast and river source to the site with clearer water along the stronger water quality gradient sustained significantly greater loss of coral skeleton, when compared to control colonies and their reciprocally transplanted counterparts. These results suggest marked intraspecific differences in the physiological condition and palatability of coral colonies underlying selective predation on corals originating from a high turbidity, nutrient-enriched environment. Further studies are needed to understand the underlying biochemical or physiological attributes that incite selective predation within coral populations and their ecological consequences.

To investigate drivers of plasticity in the biochemical and physiological attributes of A. tenuis, a suite of FA and biochemical attributes were monitored over the course of the reciprocal transplant experiment described in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, I evaluated the degree to which coral populations from different environmental regimes acclimated to a novel environment four months after transplantation. To partition the effects of source population genetics, long-term acclimatisation and the environment, I quantified variation in global gene expression (GE) and FA composition of surviving experimental fragments. There was a strong influence of source population on GE profiles enriched with higher relative expression of genes associated with translation, ribosome biogenesis and ribosome cellular components in corals sourced from moderate water quality compared to lower relative expression in corals sourced from an environment defined by good water quality. Environment was a major driver of change in FA composition; all major FA classes, with the exception of short-chain PUFA, decreased in concentration when corals were exposed to moderate water quality and increased in concentration when corals were exposed to a good water quality environment, regardless of source population. There was also evidence of plasticity in the responses of coral genes relating to elevated health and immunity due to environmental change. This chapter demonstrates the plasticity of corals in response to environmental change, but also a limit to that plasticity dictated by their source population either as a consequence of underlying genetic differences or long-term acclimatisation. Therefore, there may be potential hope for future corals, if we can reduce anthropogenic water quality stressors on coral health and condition.

In summary, comparisons of a range of molecular and biochemical health attributes among experimental colonies of Acropora tenuis originating from a range of water quality regimes reveal new insights into environmental drivers and the underlying genetic basis of coral health. This research demonstrates that common coral species on inshore reefs, such as A. tenuis, can grow rapidly under water quality conditions characterised by high concentrations of particulate and dissolved nutrients. However, negative correlations among attributes commonly associated with good health (e.g. growth rate and skeletal density) highlight the need to carefully define health attributes. Inshore populations of the coral A. tenuis can acclimatise and/or adapt to local conditions through variation in growth rate, symbiont type and density, skeletal density and organic tissue components, including FA composition. Yet, coral populations still maintain a genetic signature of their origins, which enables differentiation and identification of inshore populations. By integrating physiological attributes, biochemical composition and genomics, this research improves our understanding of the capacity of corals to acclimatise and/or adapt to a range of environmental conditions, most notably terrestrial runoff and climate change into the future.


There's nothing that hard-core Unix and Linux users are more fanatical about than their text editor. Editors are the subject of adoration and worship, or of scorn and ridicule, depending upon whether the topic of discussion is your editor or someone else's. vi has been the standard editor for close to 30 years. Popular on Unix and Linux, it has a growing following on Windows systems, too. Most experienced system administrators cite vi as their tool of choice. And since 1986, this book has been the guide for vi. However, Unix systems are not what they were 30 years ago, and neither is this book. While retaining all the valuable features of previous editions, the 7th edition of Learning the vi and vim Editors has been expanded to include detailed information on vim, the leading vi clone. vim is the default version of vi on most Linux systems and on Mac OS X, and is available for many other operating systems too. With this guide, you learn text editing basics and advanced tools for both editors, such as multi-window editing, how to write both interactive macros and scripts to extend the editor, and power tools for programmers -- all in the easy-to-follow style that has made this book a classic. Learning the vi and vim Editors includes: A complete introduction to text editing with vi: How to move around vi in a hurryBeyond the basics, such as using buffersvi's global search and replacementAdvanced editing, including customizing vi and executing Unix commands How to make full use of vim:Extended text objects and more powerful regular expressionsMulti-window editing and powerful vim scriptsHow to make full use of the GUI version of vim, called gvimvim's enhancements for programmers, such as syntax highlighting, folding and extended tags Coverage of three other popular vi clones -- nvi, elvis, and vile -- is also included. You'll find several valuable appendixes, including an alphabetical quick reference to both vi and ex mode commands for regular vi and for vim, plus an updated appendix on vi and the Internet. Learning either vi or vim is required knowledge if you use Linux or Unix, and in either case, reading this book is essential. After reading this book, the choice of editor will be obvious for you too.


Mössbauer and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopies were used to characterize the diheme cytochrome c peroxidase from Paracoccus denitrificans (L.M.D. 52.44). The spectra of the oxidized enzyme show two distinct spectral components characteristic of low spin ferric hemes (S = 1/2), revealing different heme environments for the two heme groups. The Paracoccus peroxidase can be non-physiologically reduced by ascorbate. Mössbauer investigation of the ascorbate-reduced peroxidase shows that only one heme (the high potential heme) is reduced and that the reduced heme is diamagnetic (S = 0). The other heme (the low potential heme) remains oxidized, indicating that the enzyme is in a mixed valence, half-reduced state. The EPR spectrum of the half-reduced peroxidase, however, shows two low spin ferric species with gmax = 2.89 (species I) and gmax = 2.78 (species II). This EPR observation, together with the Mössbauer result, suggests that both species are arising from the low potential heme. More interestingly, the spectroscopic properties of these two species are distinct from that of the low potential heme in the oxidized enzyme, providing evidence for heme-heme interaction induced by the reduction of the high potential heme. Addition of calcium ions to the half-reduced enzyme converts species II to species I. Since calcium has been found to promote peroxidase activity, species I may represent the active form of the peroxidatic heme.


Euclidean embeddings of data are fundamentally limited in their ability to capture latent semantic structures, which need not conform to Euclidean spatial assumptions. Here we consider an alternative, which embeds data as discrete probability distributions in a Wasserstein space, endowed with an optimal transport metric. Wasserstein spaces are much larger and more flexible than Euclidean spaces, in that they can successfully embed a wider variety of metric structures. We exploit this flexibility by learning an embedding that captures semantic information in the Wasserstein distance between embedded distributions. We examine empirically the representational capacity of our learned Wasserstein embeddings, showing that they can embed a wide variety of metric structures with smaller distortion than an equivalent Euclidean embedding. We also investigate an application to word embedding, demonstrating a unique advantage of Wasserstein embeddings: We can visualize the high-dimensional embedding directly, since it is a probability distribution on a low-dimensional space. This obviates the need for dimensionality reduction techniques like t-SNE for visualization.


Oxidative stress and inflammation are linked pathophysiological conditions that have a major role in many chronic disease. Recently, agents with antioxidant activity have been implicated in the development of new therapeutic strategies. Therefore, it seems that management of oxidative stress by agents with antioxidant capacity may have a positive therapeutic effect on chronic diseases including disorders associated with inflammation. Based on recent researches biosynthesized silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) seem to have the potential to ameliorate inflammation and oxidative stress. In this regard, evidences from recent researches on the anti-inflammatory mechanism of the biosynthesized Ag-NPs are discussed here.


Phytopathogenic fungi are not only of economic importance for the yield depression they cause, but can also be considered as severe threat for the health of the consumer ingesting molded crops and fruits. This health threat is caused by several fungal secondary metabolites referred to as mycotoxins (Section 1.2.1). About eight years ago, the group of Nancy Keller proposed that these molding processes, as well as several types of mycoses in mammals, are mediated by fungal hormone-like acting compounds known as Psi-factors (Section 1.2.2). Considering the economic importance of the provoked fungal infections and their impact on public health, a detailed investigation of the underlying mechanisms of Psi-factor perception, their physiological influence and biosynthesis is of scientific significance. Focusing on the biochemical and mechanistic characterization of Psi-factor producing oxygenase A and thus highlighting the molecular basis of Psi-factor biosynthesis, this study could substantiate the mechanism presented by Brodhun et al. (Brodhun et al., 2009) and establish a hypothetical structural model. Although being merely a low resolution model with atomic details based solely on structure prediction and the overall-shape based on small-angle X-ray scattering (Section 4.6.1), several aspects of this structure could be validated by the deployment of adequate biochemical and biophysical approaches. Exemplary the crucial involvement of five newly identified amino acids in determination of the reaction specificity and enzyme activity could be proven (Section 4.4). So it was shown that the fatty acid substrate may bind to the DOX-domain with the ω-end first and is stabilized by ionic interactions of its carboxylate with Arg336, while binding of the intermediately formed hydroperoxy fatty acid to the cytochrome P450-domain may occur in a reversed orientation, i.e. with the carboxyl-end first, and thus requires an uncharged, protonated substrate. Instead two phenylalanines (Phe795 and Phe799) seem to play a role in substrate-binding and determination of reaction specificity. While the rearrangement reaction catalyzed by the P450-domain involves heterolytic cleavage of a peroxide, which is facilitated by the presence of Asn887, the dioxygenation in the N-terminal domain of PpoA is mediated by a tyrosyl radical. Based on the active site structure, two tyrosines were postulated to be involved in this process. While EPR-spectroscopy of the respective variants revealed that Tyr374 ((Fielding et al., 2011) and section 4.6.2) is most likely the catalytic active residue, Tyr327 seems to be involved in orienting this residue in a catalytic competent position. Besides these active site structures guiding the enzymatic turn-over, a distinct aspect of the enzyme mechanism was evaluated by the use of specifically dideuterated substrates (Section 4.7). Thus it was shown that hydrogen abstraction preceding the insertion of molecular oxygen is the rate limiting step of the overall reaction and both domains of the bifunctional enzyme are not acting independent from each other, but are kinetically linked. Taken together, this study could elucidate the functional and structural basis of Psi-factor biosynthesis in ascomycetes and highlight the molecular background for the physiological role of Psi-factors in host-pathogen interactions, which was established by previous studies (Section 1.2.2).


These stimulating essays are evidence that 50 years after its publication Melanie Klein's "Envy and Gratitude" is still a rich source of psychoanalytic inspiration. Sixteen highly regarded analysts, representing a wide range of psychoanalytic thinking, provide new insights and highlight current developments without avoiding the controversies that surround the original publication. The clinical and literary material is engaging and illustrates the effect of theory on practice and the influence of practice on the evolution of theory.


In a typical Ponzi scheme, early investors earn "profits" not through any legitimate investment activity on the part of the Ponzi scheme operator; instead the operator simply transfers money that later investors deposit to the earlier investors who seek redemptions. As such, when the scheme goes bust, as it must, the Ponzi scheme operator will not have enough money to cover all of the investors' deposits, let alone the earnings on those deposits that the investors thought they were owed. Should the scheme's winners – i.e., those who withdrew more money than they deposited – be compelled to return their fictitious profits to help defray the losses to the scheme's losers? Should they be required to do so even if they did not know, and had no reason to know, that theirs was not a legitimate investment? Caselaw permits clawbacks from innocent winners in a Ponzi scheme, and there has been a dramatic rise in the number of such cases over the last decade. But, as courts have noted, the clawback suits rest upon two bodies of law – securities and bankruptcy – that are on a "collision course." The two were never intended to interact and their interaction has produced confusion, unpredictability and unfairness. More troubling still, there has been no sustained inquiry into the foundational normative question – viz. whether innocent winning investors should be made to help defray the losses of the losing investors in the first place. This Article addresses that question, and it argues that clawback suits targeting blameless winners lack a compelling legal and equitable basis. More specifically, the Article examines the relevant statutory framework as well as other restitutionary doctrines, and it finds that none of these can adequately justify attempts to have those who innocently profit from a fraud help restitute the fraud's victims. Nor, the Article argues, can the clawback suits be justified by appeal to basic concepts of fairness: It is true that mere luck differentiates the innocent winners of a fraud from its equally innocent losers, but it is also true that mere luck differentiates the innocent winners of a legitimate investment from the equally innocent winners of a fraud. All three sets of investors are in a morally equivalent position. It is unfair, then, to require only those who benefited innocently from a fraud to defray the losses to the fraud's victims. Instead, the Article concludes, all of those who benefit from playing the market – whether through legitimate or fraudulent investment vehicles – should share responsibility for restituting the losses in which financial fraud results. The Article ends by proposing a mechanism for implementing the expansive restitutionary obligations that the Article seeks to defend.


We propose a Bayesian expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for reconstructing structured approximately sparse signals via belief propagation. The measurements follow an underdetermined linear model where the regression-coefficient vector is the sum of an unknown approximately sparse signal and a zero-mean white Gaussian noise with an unknown variance. The signal is composed of large- and small-magnitude components identified by binary state variables whose probabilistic dependence structure is described by a hidden Markov tree (HMT). Gaussian priors are assigned to the signal coefficients given their state variables and the Jeffreys' noninformative prior is assigned to the noise variance. Our signal reconstruction scheme is based on an EM iteration that aims at maximizing the posterior distribution of the signal and its state variables given the noise variance. We employ a max-product algorithm to implement the maximization (M) step of our EM iteration. The noise variance is a regularization parameter that controls signal sparsity. We select the noise variance so that the corresponding estimated signal and state variables (obtained upon convergence of the EM iteration) have the largest marginal posterior distribution. Our numerical examples show that the proposed algorithm achieves better reconstruction performance compared with the state-of-the-art methods.


Grand exhibitions of commerce and manufacture were key events for the British Empire's economy. The British Empire Exhibition of 1924–1925, for example, was expressly intended to reinvigorate British and colonial markets after the First World War by encouraging inter-colonial trade. This exhibition shaped appearances of wealth, industry and development throughout the empire with its regionally styled pavilion architecture, model villages, craft and industry displays, and ephemera. However, this event, and others like it, also drew prominent attention to the relationships between the peoples within the empire, shaping imperial subjecthood and proto-nationalism, and revealing conflicting ideas of identity construction. This paper examines the representations of British Malaya and North Borneo at the British Empire Exhibition, comparing them to those of the Malaya-Borneo Exhibition, a lesser-known event held in Singapore in 1922. It discusses how British administrators portrayed the material and cultural values of the region in relation to their wider economic and developmental programmes.

The British Empire Exhibition's Malaya and Sarawak pavilions collected a number of separate colonies, states and companies together as two distinct entities, beginning a process of unifying the region and defining the identity of its peoples. In placing this exhibition alongside the localised Malaya-Borneo Exhibition, we see how these territories adapted their economic and cultural identities between different regional and global scales. These events show the shaping of a Malay identity alongside the effects of British modernisation, and how raw materials, regional crafts, and inter-colonial relations were re-cast for an international stage. The paper contributes to our understanding of how early twentieth century exhibitions sought to transform regional economies and identities, and how value was ascribed to the material culture of British Southeast Asia.


Background Unrecognized myocardial infarction (MI) is a prevalent condition associated with a similar risk of death as recognized MI. It is unknown why some persons experience MI with few or no symptoms; however, one possible explanation is attenuated pain sensitivity. To our knowledge, no previous study has examined the association between pain sensitivity and recognition of MI. Methods and Results We conducted a population‐based cross‐sectional study with 4849 included participants who underwent the cold pressor test (a common experimental pain assay) and ECG. Unrecognized MI was present in 387 (8%) and recognized MI in 227 (4.7%) participants. Participants with unrecognized MI endured the cold pressor test significantly longer than participants with recognized MI (hazard ratio for aborting the cold pressor test, 0.64; CI, 0.47–0.88), adjusted for age and sex. The association was attenuated and borderline significant after multivariable adjustment. The association between unrecognized MI and lower pain sensitivity was stronger in women than in men, and statistically significant in women only, but interaction testing was not statistically significant (P for interaction=0.14). Conclusions Our findings suggest that persons who experience unrecognized MI have reduced pain sensitivity compared with persons who experience recognized MI. This may partially explain the lack of symptoms associated with unrecognized MI.


Hamilton: Publics Theory, the Rhetorical Impact of Theater and Reimagining the American Founding Anna Sanford Low Department of English, BYU Master of Arts In a time when our nation is particularly divided and confused about its identity, Hamilton, the Broadway musical created by Lin-Manuel Miranda has become an example of art's ability to unify disparate ideological, socio-economic and racial groups. The play's reception deserves study to understand how both liberals and conservatives can agree upon an interpretation of a musical that celebrates diversity in race and representation. Celebration and interpretation of the play has been so widespread that a public has emerged, furthering the influence of the play's ideas. This public is unique in a time when most people cocoon themselves in communities with shared identities and philosophies. But the public of Hamilton reflects the historical origins of a public: a group willing to shelve their personal interests to discuss a shared cultural artifact and experience. The argument then of this paper is two-fold: first, that theater is a cultural artifact worthy of rhetorical discussion since Hamilton evidences that art can have tremendous influence on changing the values and ideas of society; and second, that the best way to understand the impact and influence of a play is not by examining the artifact directly but the public and its discourse in response to the experience of encountering the play. This body of criticism provides better insight into the reception and interpretation of theater as a rhetorical and aesthetic work. Ultimately, it is difficult to determine the long-lasting influence of the play but the public discussion has shown that art can have a unifying rhetorical effect.


Most American sociological research has conceptualized the occupational structure as a continuous prestige hierarchy. The research reported here questions the generality of that conceptualization by examining the relative importance of manual-nonmanual class differences and prestige differences for several attitudes and behaviors. First, the perception of "working class" and "middle class" more closely reflects a manual-nonmanual dichotomy than a continuous prestige scale. Voting behavior and party identification are also better predicted by the dichotomy. Second, the relevance of bounded class and continuous status models varies according to the issues involved. Thus, some interpersonal behaviors and individual satisfactions are patterned according to continuous prestige rankings while opinions on societal issues reflect dichotomous class differences. Third, individuals vary in their propensity to use class or status models according to social structural influences. For instance, a prestige orientation is fostered by small, traditional industries while the class dichotomy is more important in large, bureaucratic industries. The evidence also indicates that occupational prestige is more a middle-class concern, with little importance for manual workers.


Songbirds, such as zebra finches, learn their songs from a 'tutor' (usually the father), early in life. There are strong parallels between the behavioural, cognitive and neural processes that underlie vocal learning in humans and songbirds. In both cases there is a sensitive period for auditory learning, during which the young individuals memorize the vocalizations of adult conspecifics to which they are exposed. After this memorization phase, vocal learning proceeds through a sensorimotor learning phase that is called 'babbling' in human infants and 'subsong' in songbirds. There are homologies between the brains of birds and mammals, which makes the songbird a suitable model organism for studying the neural mechanisms of vocal learning and memory. In songbirds, a network of interconnected nuclei, known as the 'song system' is involved in song production and sensorimotor learning. In contrast, it has been suggested that a forebrain region outside the song system, the caudomedial nidopallium (NCM), may contain the neural substrate for the representation of auditory memory acquired in the first phase of song learning. In zebra finches, males learn their vocalisations (calls and songs) while females do not sing, but produce only unlearned calls. Studying the perception of vocalisations in males as well as females may provide clues about how the neural substrate of perception and memory functions in both sexes. This thesis describes three studies investigating the neural mechanisms of auditory memory and perception in zebra finches. First, I have shown that, in adult zebra finch males, the NCM is necessary for recognition of tutor song, but not for song production. In addition, I demonstrated that in juvenile zebra finches the NCM is activated during auditory memory formation. These experiments confirm that the NCM is the likely neural substrate for the representation of tutor song memory. In juvenile male zebra finches, there is neuronal activation in the song system of birds that are singing themselves but not when they are exposed to songs. Thus, in songbirds the cognitive systems underlying vocal production and auditory recognition memory are subserved by distinct brain regions in juveniles as well as adults. These brain regions may functionally interact continually throughout life. Finally, I have shown that the neuronal processing of auditory signals such as the long call appears to differ between males and females. Unravelling the underlying processes related to the perception and memorization of vocalisations that differ between males and females can increase our understanding of how vocalisations are learned. The localization of the neural substrate of tutor song memory presented in this thesis is a necessary prerequisite for the investigation of the neural mechanisms of auditory memory at the molecular and cellular level. The dissociation of brain regions involved in vocal production and in memory in the human as well as in the avian brain, suggests convergent evolution of the mechanisms underlying auditory-vocal learning. Thus, by investigating the neural mechanisms underlying birdsong learning, we may gain important insights into the general mechanisms of auditory-vocal learning.


We perform density-functional theory (DFT) calculations of carbon dissolution and diffusion in iron, the latter being a typical example of interstitial diffusion. The Kohn-Sham equations are solved with periodic boundary conditions and within the projector-augmented-wave formalism, using the generalized gradient approximation for electron exchange and correlation. With the solution enthalpy as an indication of cell size convergence, we find a supercell with 128 Fe atoms and one C atom is sufficient for describing dilute concentrations of carbon in bcc Fe. The solution enthalpy of carbon in an octahedral site in ferrite is predicted to be 0.74 eV, i.e., the dissolution of carbon in bcc ferromagnetic (FM) Fe is an endothermic process. Using the Fe128C1 periodic cell, we find that the minimum-energy path (MEP) of carbon diffusion from one octahedral site to another (via a tetrahedral site) has a barrier of 0.86 eV, in excellent agreement with the experimental value of 0.87 eV. This encouraging benchmark result prompted us to investigate carbon diffusion in austenite, whose electronic structure is less well characterized experimentally. Cell size convergence results show that a supercell with 32 Fe atoms and one C atom is sufficient. The calculated solution enthalpy is $\ensuremath{-}0.17$ eV, which indicates that the dissolution of carbon in fcc Fe is exothermic, consistent with the known greater solubility of C in austenite compared to ferrite. The MEP shows that carbon moves linearly from an octahedral site to another, contrary to the common notion of an off-plane diffusion path. The diffusion barrier is calculated to be 0.99 eV. Since we model austenite with the FM high-spin phase, the diffusion barrier we obtain is not directly comparable to the experiments in which austenite is usually paramagnetic. However, this prediction is relevant for C incorporation into Fe thin films, since FM high-spin fcc Fe can be obtained by epitaxial growth of thin Fe films on a Cu substrate.


Surface roughness is a critical indicator of the health of turbine blades, due to its implications on blade surface heat transfer and structural integrity. The present work proposes a physics-based online assessment framework for industrial gas turbine engines (GTE), in order to assess the blade surface roughness in a high-pressure turbine without engine shutdown. The framework consolidates gas path analysis (GPA) based performance monitoring models and meanline turbomachinery analysis using a novel GPA-meanline matching process. This extracts meaningful performance deviation trends from GPA, while resolving the uncertainties associated with the measurements and modeling. To relate efficiency loss to surface roughness severity, a meanline-based system-identification process has been developed to establish the meanline representation of the turbine stage and to incorporate an empirical surface roughness loss correlation system.


Background and Purpose: Heart failure (HF) is a chronic, debilitating disease, and physical limitations and progressive symptoms of which associated with this condition can reduce quality of life (QOL). Patient education regarding heart HF is one of the main components of self-care. In this respect, peer education is significant in improving health and creating a learning environment. This study was performed to determine the effect of peer education on QOL in HF patients. Methods: In this quasi-experimental study performed during 2016, 60 HF patients affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences were randomly divided into intervention and control groups (n=30). After preparing the peer group, four peer-to-peer training sessions were conducted during one month. The Persian version of Ferrans and Powers' Quality Of Life Questionnaire was used for data collection, which was completed by both groups before, just, and one month after the intervention. SPSS version 21 was employed for data analysis. Results: No significant difference was observed between the two groups in overall QOL score and its domains before the intervention (P=0.31). The mean scores of QOL immediately after the intervention were 126.2±6.7 and 163.1±1.6 in the case and control groups, respectively. The mean scores of QOL one month after the intervention were 134.5±0.7 and 169.9±2.3 in the case and control groups, respectively. After the intervention, paired t-test showed that peer education had a significant relationship with QOL of the HF patients (P<0001). Conclusion: Based on this study, peer education intervention can be a beneficial educative-supportive approach, which might enhance QOL in HF patients.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: The management of multifocal ureteral stricture disease using minimally invasive techniques can be both complex and challenging. The robotic platform has been used with increasing frequency to address the difficulties encountered during repair. Buccal mucosa serves as an ideal graft for urothelial repair which has been well documented for repair of urethral stricture disease. Here, we present a case of multifocal ureteral strictures involving the proximal and distal ureter, which were both successfully repaired using buccal mucosal grafts. METHODS: 73 year male with history of nephrolithiasis status post multiple endoscopic procedures, presented for evaluation of ureteral strictures. Retrograde pyelograms revealed strictures involving both the proximal and distal ureter. Patient was taken to the operating room for multiple balloon dilations, however symptoms quickly returned. He presented for evaluation and scheduled for ureteral reconstruction. He ultimately underwent a robotic assisted double buccal mucosal ureteroplasty described in our video. RESULTS: Total console time was 280 minutes with an estimated blood loss of 100 mL. There were no intraoperative complications. Patient was discharged on post operative day 1. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate that robotic-assisted buccal mucosal ureteroplasty with the assistance of indocyanine green (ICG) is a feasible option for the patients with multifocal strictures. ICG can facilitate ureteral dissection and assess ureteral blood supply intraoperatively. Buccal mucosal ureteroplasty may spare patients from morbidities that may be accompanied with more traditional surgical options. Source of Funding: none


At the National Institute for Fusion Science experimental studies on hydrogen isotope separation by a Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange (CECE) process have been carried out in order to apply it to the system of water detritiation for D-D burning experiments of the Large Helical Device. As an improvement of the CECE process, we have developed a reduced-pressure method as a means of enhancing the separation factor. The feasibility of this method is examined through application to a CECE process using a prototype separation column. Hydrogen-deuterium isotope separation experiments are performed in the two cases where column pressures are 12 and 101 kPa, and the separation factors for hydrogen and deuterium are obtained as 6.8 and 5.6, respectively. It is confirmed that the present method is applicable and useful to the CECE process. The values of Height Equivalent to a Theoretical Plate (HETP) are estimated by analyses with the equilibrium stage model. The HETP values are 15 cm at 12 kPa and 13 cm at 101 kPa. The increase of superficial velocity with decreasing pressure may spoil the efficiency of the mass transfer.


This introduction presents the main motivations for the development of Description Logics (DL) as a formalism for representing knowledge, as well as some important basic notions underlying all systems that have been created in the DL tradition. In addition, we provide the reader with an overview of the entire book and some guidelines for reading it. We first address the relationship between Description Logics and earlier semantic network and frame systems, which represent the original heritage of the field. We delve into some of the key problems encountered with the older efforts. Subsequently, we introduce the basic features of Description Logic languages and related reasoning techniques. Description Logic languages are then viewed as the core of knowledge representation systems, considering both the structure of a DL knowledge base and its associated reasoning services. The development of some implemented knowledge representation systems based on Description Logics and the first applications built with such systems are then reviewed. Finally, we address the relationship of Description Logics to other fields of Computer Science. We also discuss some extensions of the basic representation language machinery; these include features proposed for incorporation in the formalism that originally arose in implemented systems, and features proposed to cope with the needs of certain application domains.


The Westermarck theory maintains that incest avoidance arises from the physical proximity of siblings during a critical period of early childhood. This proximity gives rise to an inhibiting effect on post childhood sexual interest. Two recent studies of sibling relationships have verified and refined the Westermarck theory, indicating that the critical period extends through the first four years of childhood. The theory and the studies have implications for child welfare laws, policies and practices surrounding the placement of siblings in foster care. Namely, the findings provide powerful reasons for placing siblings together during the critical period in order to minimize the risk of post childhood sibling incest. Although public child welfare systems currently recognize the value and benefits of placing siblings together, these systems fail miserably in this area because of a lack of resources. By focusing on children in the critical period of development, resource-poor public systems can marshal their will and target their resources to actually place this discrete group of siblings together, avoid increasing the risk of post childhood sibling incest, and realize all the benefits of maintaining sibling relationships.


Localization of anatomical structures is a prerequisite for many tasks in a medical image analysis. We propose a method for automatic localization of one or more anatomical structures in 3-D medical images through detection of their presence in 2-D image slices using a convolutional neural network (ConvNet). A single ConvNet is trained to detect the presence of the anatomical structure of interest in axial, coronal, and sagittal slices extracted from a 3-D image. To allow the ConvNet to analyze slices of different sizes, spatial pyramid pooling is applied. After detection, 3-D bounding boxes are created by combining the output of the ConvNet in all slices. In the experiments, 200 chest CT, 100 cardiac CT angiography (CTA), and 100 abdomen CT scans were used. The heart, ascending aorta, aortic arch, and descending aorta were localized in chest CT scans, the left cardiac ventricle in cardiac CTA scans, and the liver in abdomen CT scans. Localization was evaluated using the distances between automatically and manually defined reference bounding box centroids and walls. The best results were achieved in the localization of structures with clearly defined boundaries (e.g., aortic arch) and the worst when the structure boundary was not clearly visible (e.g., liver). The method was more robust and accurate in localization multiple structures.


Background: Depressive disorders are among the most frequent psychiatric disorders, accounting for up to 30% of primary care service utilisation in developing countries in general, and Uganda in particular. However, delays in seeking treatment, misdiagnosis and non-specific treatments have compromised appropriate care for people with depression. The general aim of this thesis is to explore and describe how depressive symptoms are conceptualised and communicated by the Baganda and how this conceptualisation may influence their help-seeking behaviour and processes. The research questions that the studies aimed to answer were: i) How do the Baganda understand, talk about and cope with depression? ii) What is perceived as effective treatment and how severe must symptoms be to warrant treatment? iii) Are the sub-types of depression seen as constituting one illness? Methods: The thesis consists of four exploratory papers employing qualitative methods of individual interviews and Focus Group Discussions. Paper I reports preliminary results of a pilot study on lay explanations of causes, effects and help-seeking behaviour for depression among the Ganda cultural group. Twenty-nine adults participated in four focus group discussions and four individual interviews. Paper II reports results of an interview study among 25 adults receiving treatment for depression, regarding their personal and social meaning of depression, their beliefs on causes and consequences of depression, and what triggered seeking psychiatric help. Paper III reports results of the study that aimed to explore the Baganda's conceptualization of psychotic depression in terms of illness identity, causes and treatment. Members of the general population participated in 31 individual interviews and 12 focus group discussions. Unlabelled case vignettes based on DSM-IV criteria for psychotic depression were used as stimulants for discussion. Paper IV reports results of a study exploring traditional healers' explanatory model of depression without psychotic features. Interviews were conducted with 22 traditional healers. Results: Depression without psychotic features was regarded as illness of thoughts. Depression with psychotic features was regarded as a "clan illness" (eByekika), arising from poor relationships between the living and the dead. Both illnesses were perceived as not requiring Western medication but culturally accepted corrective traditional therapies. Patients' illness behaviours, particularly those defined as socially disruptive, were important determinants of entry to psychiatric care. Non-disruptive symptoms were often ignored, misdiagnosed or treated as physical problems by health-care providers. Concluding remarks: Conceptualisation of depression among the Baganda differs from the Western biomedical model of depression in terms of cause and treatment. Psychiatric help was sought if patients' behaviour became socially disruptive. There are similarities in the conceptualisation of depression between lay people and traditional healers who are the alternative care providers. Implications for clinical practice: It may be important to review the way depression is managed in the Western form of psychiatry when the patients reach mental health services in hospitals. The noted similarity between the alternative care providers and the users of their service has clinical implications for therapeutic approaches such as psychotherapy, where the agreement between the care provider and care receiver is key in a therapeutic relationship. These results have policy, research and training implications.


In our study, the comparison of 5 ml straw and 10 ml cryotube during sperm cryopreservation in a Hungarian carp landrace (Cyprinus carpio carpio morpha accuminatus) was carried out. Three different dilution ratios (1:1, 1:4 and 1:9) were also tested using the cryotube. A significantly higher pMOT was recorded using the cryotube in comparison with the straw. VCL and STR were similar in both groups. Cryopreservation had a negative effect on pMOT and VCl using the cryotube and also the straw where, STR was not reduced significantly. An increasing tendency was observed using higher dilution of sperm during cryopreservation; however, significant difference was not recorded between the three groups. VCL and STR were similar in all groups. Cryotube was applicable for the sperm cryopreservation of the Hungarian carp landrace. However, the standardization for the freezing method specified for this volume is recommended. The different dilution ratios needed be tested also during fertilization.


This paper investigates why financial market experts misperceive the interest rate policy of the European Central Bank (ECB). Assuming a Taylor-rule-type reaction function of the ECB, we use qualitative survey data on expectations about the future interest rate, inflation, and output to discover the sources of individual interest rate forecast errors. Based on a panel random coefficient model, we show that financial experts have systematically misperceived the ECB's interest rate rule. However, although experts tend to overestimate the impact of inflation on future interest rates, perceptions of monetary policy have become more accurate since clarification of the ECB's monetary policy strategy in May 2003. We find that this improved communication has reduced disagreement over the ECB's response to expected inflation during the financial crisis.


In this letter, we propose a single-actuator gripper that can lift thin objects lying on a flat surface, in addition to the ability as a standard parallel gripper. The key is a crawler on the fingertip, which is underactuated together with other finger joints and switched with a passive and spring-loaded mechanism. While the idea of crawling finger is not a new one, this letter contributes to realize the crawling without additional motor. The gripper can passively change the mode from the parallel approach mode to the pull-in mode, then finally to the power grasp mode, according to the grasping state. To optimize the highly underactuated system, we take a combination of black-box optimization and physics simulation of the whole grasp process. We show that this simulation-based approach can effectively consider the pre-contact motion, in-hand manipulation, power grasp stability, and even failure mode, which is difficult for the static-equilibrium-analysis-based approaches. In the last part of the letter, we demonstrate that a prototype gripper with the proposed structure and design parameters optimized under the proposed process successfully power-grasped a thin sheet, a softcover book, and a cylinder lying on a flat surface.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To investigate the feasibility of an exercise program patterned after a phase II cardiac rehabilitation program to improve selected physiologic and psychological parameters of health in patients with cancer.

DESIGN
Prospective, repeated measures study.

SETTING
Two major military medical centers in the southwestern United States.

SAMPLE
62 patients diagnosed with cancer within the previous two years. Ages ranged from 24-83 (meanX = 59). Half of the participants were male and half were female. Minorities made up 29% of the sample. Participants had a wide range of cancer diagnoses and all stages of cancer. Fifteen subjects were undergoing treatment when they enrolled in the study. More than half of the subjects exercised prior to their cancer diagnoses, but fewer than half were able to resume an exercise routine following their cancer diagnoses.

METHODS
Subjects met two days each week for 12 weeks for exercise and education.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Exercise tolerance as measured with a graded exercise test, activity and sleep patterns as measured with a wrist actigraph, and quality of life (QOL) as measured with the Cancer Rehabilitation Evaluation System-Short Form.

FINDINGS
Significant improvements were observed over time in exercise tolerance, selected activity and sleep patterns, and QOL among the 46 (74%) subjects who completed the program.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with various types and stages of cancer can safely exercise using a cardiac rehabilitation model and can realize significant improvements in exercise tolerance, selected activity and sleep patterns, and QOL.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Most people are aware that regular exercise is part of a healthy lifestyle. After cancer diagnosis and treatment, patients experience uncertainty regarding how to resume exercise or how to begin an exercise program as part of their rehabilitation. Participation in a structured exercise program can provide patients with a safe environment within which to exercise at an intensity appropriate to their individual needs.


The adaptive step trapezoid rule (TR) is a generally effective numerical integrator, but it is prone to ringing instability and solution stall. We introduce a new stabilization algorithm based on finite difference interrupts (FDI) that reduces ringing and prevents stall. Unlike previously reported stabilization schemes, our algorithm achieves stability and second order accuracy without incurring significant computational cost or spurious diffusion. TR with FDI is at least as stable and accurate as existing methods when solving the prototypical scalar problem. We demonstrate that it has better stability, accuracy, and cost when solving the tightly coupled system describing free surface flows of viscoelastic liquids. Though we demonstrate TR with FDI in the context of a finite element method-of-lines, it is applicable to any TR-based algorithm.


Looking back to the turn of the twenty-first century, there have been many major disasters, both here and abroad. These disasters all require significant private charitable assistance to provide for victims immediate needs and also see the area through cleanup and recovery. This article reviews a number of past efforts to encourage charitable giving through temporary tax provisions. While these are well-meaning efforts on Congress' part, temporary provisions have some significant disadvantages. First, they treat different victims with similar harm differently. Second, they are not enacted following each major disaster. Third, both equity and efficiency would be improved if disaster relief contributions were addressed in a single permanent provision with fixed triggers and established thresholds for incentivizing charitable giving for disaster relief. This article concludes that a permanent approach should be adopted to improve the aid available to disaster victims. This would also reduce political infighting at the time a disaster has occurred. Ex ante any Congressional district could be hit by a major disaster, everyone should support a permanent solution.


Global incidence of tuberculosis, especially multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis, has been increasing, despite development and use of various antimicrobial drugs for decades, leading to 2 million deaths a year. We evaluated the ef- fect of micronutrient supplementation as an adjunct to standard treatment of patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis, on clinical improvement and frequency of adverse events on 120 patients aged 20 to 65 years diagnosed with active pul- monary tuberculosis at the Kiev Department of Phthisiatry. All participants (Test group) were prescribed standard medica- tion supplemented with vitamin/essential nutrients. A Control group (n=100) of patients recently treated with standard medication alone at this facility were selected by matching to Test patients by stage of disease, confounding conditions, gender, and alcohol consumption. Standard clinical and diagnostic methods were applied to determine baseline values and at the termination of the study. After a two-month period of intensive chemotherapy, cavity healing (primary measure) oc- curred in 98% of the Test Group, but only in 69% of the Control Group. Furthermore, the Ziehl-Neelson sputum test was negative in 100% of the Test group, but only in 88% of the Control group. Resolution of respiratory compromise was higher in the Test group (87%) than in the Control group (78%). Furthermore, supplementation with vitamin/essential nu- trients resulted in a significant decrease in the frequency and severity of adverse events from chemotherapy; only 11% in the Test group experienced adverse events while 46% did so in the Control group. In conclusion, clinical efficacy of che- motherapy was enhanced significantly with adjunctive use of nutrient supplementation. In addition, micronutrient sup- plementation decreased the frequency and severity of adverse effects from chemotherapy.


: »Warum Tiere ein Interesse an Freiheit haben« . Do non-human animals have an interest in sociopolitical freedom? Cochrane has recently taken up this important yet largely neglected question. He argues that animal freedom is not a relevant moral concern in itself, because animals have a merely instrumental but not an intrinsic interest in freedom (Cochrane 2009a, 2012). This paper will argue that even if animals have a merely instrumental interest in freedom, animal freedom should nonetheless be an important goal for our relationships with animals. Drawing on recent work on the value of freedom, it will be argued that freedom is non-specifically instrumentally valuable. According-ly, freedom is a means to other goods, but often it is not possible to identify those goods in advance or aim for them directly. Some of the reasons that make freedom non-specifically valuable for human relationships, it will be argued, also apply to relationships between humans and animals. Amongst other implications, it will be shown how this argument provides a response to those who fear that stricter animal protection policies might undermine people's freedom: A concern for freedom actually requires stricter protection policies rather than speak against them.


This paper provides an argument for the advantage of a preference for identity-consistent behaviour from an evolutionary point of view. Within a stylized model of social interaction, it is shown that the development of cooperative social norms is greatly facilitated if the agents possess a preference for identity-consistent behaviour. As compliance with cooperative norms (in the long run) has a positive effect on the agents' pay-offs, it is argued that such a preference is evolutionarily advantageous. Notably, the argument, which assumes that agents always act in accordance with their preferences, also accounts for the cost of those features that are crucial for the selection process.


This deliverable (3.2) provides a critical review and synthesis of the available methods and metrics for adaptation cost-effectiveness assessment (CEA). The review outlines the challenges in applying CEA to adaptation, contrasting this with mitigation. It highlights the risk and sector specific nature of adaptation, the lack of common adaptation metrics across sectors, the greater focus on non-technical options (including building capacity) and the need to consider uncertainty, as key methodological issues, along with baselines, attribution, time-scales, and ancillary effects. Possible ways to address these issues are outlined for the Mediation case studies and the common platform. The review also outlines some of the more detailed issues with advanced CEA assessments, drawing lessons from the existing mitigation literature on expert versus modelled cost curves, top-down versus bottom-up assessments, adjustments for ancillary effects, discount rates, policy and transaction costs, sensitivity analysis, and learning and innovation. Finally, the deliverable surveys the literature on applications of adaptation CEA, and summarises possible cost-effectiveness metrics and/or objectives for each sector, providing suggestions for CEA metrics for each of the Mediation case studies.


This study investigates the influence of different forms of media instructions on the process and outcomes of completing a specific procedural task. The experiment was conducted with four student groups having an education in the area of Information Design. In the experiment four media instructions – text only, text plus drawings, a series of pictures and video with narration – were considered. The findings show that the type of media has an influence on the ability to solve a procedural task and on group interaction and the way groups solve a task. Compared with the other instructions, video instruction triggered a different interaction and behavioural pattern during assembly. Participants considered both video and picture instructions as more usable in terms of facilitating the ability to understand, select and apply possible solutions to a given task. However, the video medium showed little influence on dialogue in the group during assembly. The instructions, such as text plus drawings, pictures and video had a similar influence on task performance times, whereas text instructions took three times longer to implement than other instructions.


There are now approximately 20 countries worldwide that have launched or are in the process of launching Choosing Wisely campaigns.

As Haverkamp and colleagues have identified,1 Choosing Wisely campaigns have galvanised physicians worldwide to acknowledge their collective responsibility in reducing overuse and reducing harm associated with unnecessary care. And yes, cost is a tension in the campaign, and it would be naive to say it is not a consideration. However, we maintain that in order to engage physicians in reducing unnecessary care, the focus cannot be on costs, but rather on reducing unnecessary care at each clinical encounter to improve quality and avoid harm.

Physicians' clinical decisions are largely responsible for unsustainable healthcare spending and the great deal of waste we see in healthcare systems worldwide. However, research highlights that physicians struggle with the acceptability of efforts to curb healthcare costs by influencing how they deliver direct patient care.2 Efforts to 'ration' patient care at the bedside are viewed with derision by practising physicians who are concerned primarily with patient outcomes …