Blood pressure is an essential measure when it comes to peoples' health. All around the world a high number of people are suffering from hyperor low tension, and knowing that these diseases can lead to serious complications it is essential to measure blood pressure with high accuracy. The present methods for the measurement of the arterial pressure, by induction of a pressure through an armband (with a control device called sphygmomanometer) are known to introduce some significant errors. Those are caused partly by the inaccuracy and inadequacy of the armband and its dimensions (either the length or the circumference). The objective of the research presented in this paper is to study and simulate the discharge of the blood in the brachial artery. Based on these modelling results, the response of the fluid to the external pressure of the band can be obtained, and finally appropriate corrective factors between the true pressure and the read one could be assessed. From this perspective, research is carried out with the aim of sharing medical and engineering views on this subject. The artery can be modelled as a particular deformable pipe, when the blood is actually a fluid with specific properties. Thus the two complementary and interconnected domains are covered, so be it the solid mechanics (to obtain analytic relations between the strains and the deformations, using either linear or non-linear theories) and the fluid mechanics (to study the discharge of the blood considering a particular deformable pipe, using finite volume methods). Finally, many factors such as BC, for example, or other specific parameters have to be investigated deeply. In this paper, only the hydraulic results will be presented, discussed and analysed. The mechanical developments, being for now essentially analytical, will be mostly left out.


Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to expand the burgeoning research, which provides evidence relating to the influence of religion upon work-related values.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors employed a survey methodology to collect data across seven countries and six religions.

Findings

– The study provides evidence of differences as well as similarities in the way people belonging to different religions rank personal values. Thus, on the one hand, the authors can argue that religion helps shape our behavior and attitudes in the workplace, whilst at the same time, however, accepting the converging influence of globalization and/or the universality of some values that they include in their analysis. This finding leads the authors to focus upon a complex pattern of value variations and similarities across religions.

Originality/value

– Overall, the findings provide a glimpse into what the paper interprets as (just one dimension of) plurality within contemporary organizations to support the paradox perspective, popularized by Lewis and Smith and Lewis, who contend that organizations embed multiple tensions and dilemmas in an ongoing cyclical process. Hence the paper argues that the similarities and differences across religious affiliations are not "either/or" choices but dualities that must be dynamically balanced in order to simultaneously meet multiple employee needs. The paper concludes that managers and employees need to articulate and embrace paradoxes related to religion, in order to create an awareness of the influence of religion that leads to being inclusive.


Introduction As vehicles become more fuel efficient, fuel taxes are producing less revenue for road construction, operations and maintenance. As a consequence, states are exploring replacing these taxes with other userbased revenue sources, such as mileage-based road user charges, also referred to as vehicle-miles-traveled fees. These approaches may also have the benefit of reducing highway congestion if pricing is varied by level of congestion. The commercial freight industry agrees that distance-based pricing, especially as it relates to congestion pricing, has system management and revenue benefits for transportation agencies but is skeptical about benefits to the industry and believes such fees will be more costly than current fuel taxes.


The lack of access to safe drinking water causes important health problems, mainly in developing countries. In the West African country Guinea-Bissau, waterborne diseases are recognised by WHO as major infectious diseases. This study analysed the microbiological and physicochemical parameters of drinking water in the capital Bissau and its surroundings. Twenty-two sites belonging to different water sources (piped water, tubewells and shallow wells) were surveyed twice a day for three weeks, in both dry and wet seasons. Most of the microbiological parameters were out of the acceptable ranges in all types of water and both seasons and tended to worsen in the wet season. Moreover, in Bissau, the levels of faecal contamination in piped water increased from the holes to the consumer (tap/fountain). Several physicochemical variables showed values out of the internationally accepted ranges. Both well sources showed low-pH water (4.87–5.59), with high nitrite and iron levels in the wet season and high hexavalent chromium concentration in the dry season. The residual chlorine never reached the minimum recommended level in any of the water sources or seasons, suggesting a high risk of contamination. Results reveal a lack of quality in the three water sources analysed, coherent with the high number of diarrheal cases in the country. There is an urgent need to improve sanitarian conditions to reduce the disease burden caused by these waterborne illnesses.


Most (classical) guitar music comes from guitarist-composers. Yet according to guitarists who collaborate with composers, color research on this instrument is better achieved by those who do not play the instrument. Thus the guitar lags behind many instruments in regard to color research. Various reasons can be faulted for the tendency of non-guitarist composers to avoid the instrument. Examples of such reasons may be: the difficulty to write for the instrument, and its weak projection and lack of sustain, all of which are intrinsic to the guitar. This is, however, not the case of the paradigmatic sound for which the instrument is also dismissed, which is rather the legacy of the conservative guitarist Andrés Segovia, who was one of the main promoters of the guitar in the twentieth century. When composers dismiss the guitar for being difficult to write for, collaboration with guitarists has proven fruitful. Given that Segovia's conservatism still prevails among many guitarists, if the sonorous possibilities of the instrument are to be expanded, it is essential that the guitarist is adventurous and has a good arsenal of techniques. New color-research results could entice composers dismissing the guitar for its limitations or its paradigmatic sound to reconsider composing for the instrument. The amplification of sounds with low intensity can be a useful tool to obtain new colors. However, sounds arising from conventional instruments require some caution. It is important to introduce novelty in order to avoid connotation with their respective non-amplified instrument. The technique of multiphonics, which produces sounds of unusual colors, is believed to be a suitable tool when the guitar is amplified with close microphone placement. Through making audible the sounds' components of a lower intensity, this situation would reveal to the audience colors otherwise only heard by the guitarist.


This paper estimates a trivariate VAR-GARCH(1,1) model to examine volatility linkages between the stock markets of three Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), namely the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The empirical .findings suggest that following the EU accession regional linkages have become even stronger, and that therefore portfolio diversification within the region has become an even less effective investment strategy. This can be plausibly interpreted as reflecting deeper integration with the "old" EU economies, and has important implications for appropriate policy responses to shocks originating in those countries and affecting the .financial stability of the CEECs.


Knowing everything you can about each click to your Web site can help you make strategic decisions regarding your business. This book is about the why, not just the how, of web analytics and the rules for developing a "culture of analysis" inside your organization. Why you should collect various types of data. Why you need a strategy. Why it must remain flexible. Why your data must generate meaningful action. The authors answer these critical questions-and many more-using their decade of experience in Web analytics.


Pathogen prions are widely recognized as the causative agent in bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. However, more research on the possible transmission mutes of this agent once it has reached the host is needed. There is evidence based on the anatomy and physiology of the autonomous nervous system (ANS), as well as observations for different animal species, that the ANS might be involved in the axonal drainage of pathogen prions toward the central nervous system. In this context, more attention should be paid to the cranial cervical ganglion, the stellate ganglion, the chain of paravertebral ganglia next to the first six thoracic vertebrae, the chain of the paravertebral ganglia next to loin vertebrae 1 through 6, the vagus nerve in the neck region and in the mediastine, and the esophagus (because of its close connection to the vagus nerve). For a more detailed risk analysis with respect to these tissues, the ANSs of animals having shown clinical signs of BSE might be examined to corroborate the evidence presented here. In the meantime, as a precautionary measure, the tissue addressed should be taken out of the human food chain, taken out of animal feed, and handled as if it were specified risk material. It is technically possible to remove these parts during cutting and dressing.


We review 50-odd years of research on Allport's (1954)'contact hypothesis', to assess progress, problems, and prospects. We chart the progress that has been made in understanding two distinct forms of contact: direct and indirect. We highlight the progress made in understanding the effects of each type of contact, as well as both moderating and mediating factors, and emphasize the multiple impacts of direct contact, especially. We then consider some of the main critiques of inter-group contact, focusing on empirical issues and whether contact impedes social change, and provide a research agenda for the coming years. We conclude that this body of work no longer merits the modest title of 'hypothesis', but fully deserves acknowledgement as an integrated and influential theory.


ABSTRACT Recent research has demonstrated jurors' perceptions of a defendant's psychopathic traits may impact their sentencing recommendations in death penalty and sexually violent predator civil commitment trials. Given the increasing media attention on white-collar crimes, the huge economic impact of such crimes on society, and the theoretical relationship between psychopathy and this type of crime, this research sought to investigate how juror perceptions of a white-collar defendant's psychopathic traits may influence sentencing recommendations. Jury-eligible community members were given a brief description of a white-collar crime and asked to provide the judge with sentencing recommendations. Results largely supported previous findings in that perceiving a defendant to be highly psychopathic, particularly in terms of affective traits, predicted more punitive sentencing recommendations. Specifically, perceptions of the defendant's remorselessness, lack of empathy, and failure to accept responsibility incrementally predicted harsher sentencing recommendations. These data lend support to the hypothesis that lay perceptions of psychopathic traits influence sentencing recommendations in white-collar criminal cases.


[1] Studies of oceanic crust exposed in tectonic windows and in ophiolites have revealed the importance of normal faulting and attendant tilting of upper crustal rock units in the accretion process at oceanic spreading centers. We present paleomagnetic remanence data from 45 fully oriented samples from dikes, gabbros and a small number of basaltic lavas from fast spread crust exposed along the Hess Deep Rift. Over ∼25 km along this escarpment, dikes and dike-subparallel fault zones dip consistently away from the East Pacific Rise (EPR) while lava flows dip toward the ridge. Underlying gabbro is less deformed but contains widely spaced, low-angle fractures, tentatively interpreted as shear zones. As expected from the crustal age (∼1.07–1.48 Ma), most remanence data indicate reversed polarity magnetization and are compatible with the expected range of secular variation at the site. Overly steep and directionally scattered gabbro remanence and observed low-angle shear structures within this unit are tentatively interpreted as the manifestation of three-dimensional strain along anastomosing shear zones. Although some remanence directions are incompatible with any plausible deformation history, and thus likely reflect orientation errors, the overall data set is consistent with a model involving sequential rotations on (1) outward dipping, EPR-parallel (∼N-S) normal faults and (2) Hess Deep Rift-parallel (∼E-W) normal faults Average rotations for these sequential events are 22° to the east (defined by the mean dike attitude) and 10° to the south (estimated by bathymetry), respectively. This model best explains the remanence data, observed dikes and lava orientations, presence of dike-parallel fault zones, and the observation of steep, little deformed dikes cutting both east dipping dikes and faults. The data support a structural model for spreading at the EPR in which outcrop-scale faulting and rotation is linked to subaxial subsidence and to consequent development of dominantly outward facing normal faults close to the spreading axis. Because these faults form within the neovolcanic zone, they are subject to burial and are expected to have subdued to little surface expression.


For a given recurrent neural network, a discrete-time model may have asymptotic dynamics different from the one of a related continuous-time model. In this article, we consider a discrete-time model that discretizes the continuous-time leaky integrat or model and study its parallel, sequential, block-sequential, and distributed dynamics for symmetric networks. We provide sufficient (and in many cases necessary) conditions for the discretized model to have the same cycle-free dynamics of the corresponding continuous-time model in symmetric networks.


This dissertation attempts to explain how nineteenth-century American Spiritualist literature may have made readers feel like they were hearing voices, touching the dead, seeing celestial spaces, or enjoying other sensory proofs of the afterlife. Spiritualists believed that, while all human beings possessed faculties designed to perceive the dead, few of them knew it and, consequently, these special senses atrophied as a result of disuse. One of the main goals of the movement was to help people activate their dormant senses and develop their experiential potential. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how the movement's literature may have functioned as an effective instrument of sensory education. To describe the affective potential of these texts, I draw on cognitive poetics, a constellation of contemporary theories and techniques that offer insight into how stylized language might produce particular psychological and physical responses. Attending to the possible mechanisms through which Spiritualist literature might appeal to bodies and minds, I argue that, though these texts have received little critical consideration, they offer timely examples of a sensual aesthetic to the growing number of scholars who are interested in the potential power of language to incite and shape sensory impressions. Focusing on the Spiritualist trance poetry of Lizzie Doten, Sarah Gould, and Jennie Rennell, chapter one argues that the style of their texts may trigger an altered state of consciousness, a condition characterized by sensations of openness, fluidity, vulnerability, and heightened affect that reproduces the salient features of a supernatural auditory experience. I assert that, while nineteenth-century doctors and scientists warned that hearing disembodied voices was a symptom of disease, auditive mediums insisted that the perception of spirit speech was actually an indicator of good health and attempted to normalize these sensations by reproducing them in readers, who, in turn, might feel connected to each other on the basis of their shared bodily responses. This chapter also compares trance poetry to the poetry of Lydia Huntley Sigourney, one of the most popular sentimental writers of the period. It foregrounds the stylistic similarities between their two genres and considers the potential of sentimental poetry to incite collective experiences. Chapter two contends that seance reports maximize a reader's ability to infer weight, form, and texture so that the experience of reading about materialized spirit bodies approximates the perceptual act of touching them. Regarded as emotional, sensual, and animalistic, touch has long been at the bottom of the Western sensorium; but, through their published testimony, Spiritualists, I claim, sought to cultivate and legitimize this denigrated form of bodily knowledge. In chapter three, I argue that the prominent Spiritualist, medium, and writer Thomas Lake Harris expands the possibilities of the vision epic, transforming it into a lesson on how to see. Considering Harris's An Epic of the Starry Heaven in relation to Joel's Barlow's The Columbiad, Emerson's philosophy of sight, and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, I assert that Harris's poem encourages the reader to experience the act of seeing as both an emotionally-informed communal process and a powerful means of creating collective realities that exceed national and even planetary boundaries. If Spiritualist texts trigger simulations of contact with the dead, the writings of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, I argue, seem designed to deny the reader imaginary access to the other world. Chapter four describes what I call the aesthetics of desensualization in Phelps's The Gates Ajar, Since I Died, The Room's Width, and The Presence. In conclusion, I argue that, by using cognitive poetics to analyze a collection of texts which seem to have been designed to make readers feel, my dissertation suggests both a methodology and a potentially productive area of study to scholars of nineteenth-century American literature who are beginning to explore how language might create the experiential basis for new forms of subjectivity and community.


A general paradigm, based on the concept of self-organized criticality (SOC), for turbulent transport in magnetically confined plasmas has been recently suggested as an explanation for some of the apparent discrepancies between most theoretical models of turbulent transport and experimental observations of the transport in magnetically confined plasmas. This model describes the dynamics of the transport without relying on the underlying local fluctuation mechanisms. Computations based on a cellular automata realization of such a model have found that noise driven SOC systems can maintain average profiles that are linearly stable (submarginal) and yet are able to sustain active transport dynamics. It is also found that the dominant scales in the transport dynamics in the absence of sheared flow are system scales rather than the underlying local fluctuation scales. The addition of sheared flow into the dynamics leads to a large reduction of the system-scale transport events and a commensurate increase in the fluctuation-scale transport events needed to maintain the constant flux. The dynamics of these models and the potential ramifications for transport studies are discussed.


The umbilical vein is the only vessel supplying the fetus with blood supplying oxygen
and nutrients from the placenta. Case reports indicate that the fetal end of the
umbilical cord is susceptible to mechanical complications.
Hypothesis: We assume that umbilical ring constriction may affect the umbilical
vein and have haemodynamic effects on fetal development and birth.
Aims: To describe the occurrence and degree of umbilical venous constriction in
low risk–pregnancies. To establish reference ranges. To determine whether such a
constriction has a haemodynamic effect, or any effect on fetal development or
perinatal outcome.
Material and methods: 384 low–risk singleton pregnancies were included in the
cross–sectional studies after written consent and ethical approval. 2D–imaging,
colour Doppler and pulsed Doppler were used to measure diameters and blood
velocity in the umbilical vein before, at or beyond the abdominal wall. All blood flow
velocimetry was performed during fetal quiescence. Perinatal outcome was noted.
Results: From 13 weeks onwards, after the period of physiological umbilical
herniation, umbilical venous constriction was noted in increasing numbers and
severity until 19 weeks of gestation (paper I). For the latter half of the pregnancy,
during gestational weeks 20–40, the pattern remained constant; 41/191 (21%) had a
venous constriction corresponding to a diameter reduction to the half, while the
corresponding venous blood velocity increment was ≥300%, and 5% of the fetuses
had velocities ≥107 cm/s, which is exceptionally high compared with other blood
velocities in the body, whether arterial or venous (paper II). The reproducibility
study showed that the measurements of venous blood velocity in the cord and at the
umbilical ring had SD of 0.58 and 1.83 cm/s respectively and that the diameter
measurements both at the umbilical ring and at the cord had a mean SD of 0.07 mm
(paper II).
The incidence of umbilical venous pulsation was higher at the umbilical ring in the
abdominal wall, 242/279 (87%) than in the cord, 43/198 (22%) or intra–abdominally,
84/277 (30%). When pulsation was observed intra–abdominally, the pulsatility was
not different from that at the umbilical ring. The lowest pulsatility was found in the
cord vein, where the largest vein diameter was found (paper III).
Umbilical venous constriction had a significant negative correlation to the
birthweight/placental weight ratio in male but not in female fetuses. Umbilical
venous constriction was also associated with and increased length of the cord, but
only in female fetuses. Constriction was also associated with Apgar score ≤7 at one
minute after birth but not after five, and was not associated with emergency delivery
(paper IV).
Conclusions: The umbilical ring seams to tighten in the following weeks after the
period of physiological herniation, causing an increasing number and degree of
umbilical vein constriction. After 19 weeks of gestation, the occurrence of umbilical
vein constriction is constant until term. The degree of constriction can be
considerable, and in 20% of the fetuses the umbilical vein diameter is ≤50% of that
in the cord. We have established reference ranges. Within physiological ranges,
i.e. in a low–risk population, such constrictions have a haemodynamic effect leading
to increased incidence of pulsations and gender specific effects on fetal, cordal and
placental growth. The significant effect on Apgar score at one minute warrants
further studies of the effect of extreme constriction on perinatal morbidity.


A rigorous and modular Monte Carlo radiative transfer model MCRT has been developed to compute radiance for realistic cloudy atmosphere over sea surfaces in the visible and near-IR spectra. The simulation methods of the sample's trajectories are consistently described in the whole simulation spatial domain, which consists of a number of voxel cells for atmosphere and square cells for the sea surface. An inverse transformation method is applied in an atmospheric scattering event simulation and a rigorous accept/reject method is formulated for simulating a reflection event at Cox-Munk (CM) anisotropically and Nakajima-Tanaka (NT) isotropically roughened sea surface. Both methods have been implemented within the model and were tested as two individual modules achieving high accuracy. The model as a whole system was also validated by other codes. The mean difference is about 0.084% and 0.528% in comparison to the Spherical Harmonics code (SHARM) and Monte Carlo Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (MCARaTS) respectively for 1D atmosphere and the NT model. The comparisons of the Spherical Harmonic Discrete Ordinate Method (SHDOM) show that agreements are obtained in the sun glint regions for 1D atmosphere and the CM model and the mean differences are below 0.478% for a 3D cloud field with lambertian. In general, the major advantage of MCRT is that it could simulate more accurate reflection direction at sea surfaces in a shorter time and hence more accurate radiance in complex cloudy atmosphere over sea surfaces with high numerical efficiency especially on a small PC.


Aluminum-rich H-ZSM-5 zeolites modified with alkaline earth metal oxides of Mg, Ca and Ba were applied in the conversion of methanol to olefins (MTO). The pores of the parent H-ZSM-5 zeolite were blocked with a surfactant prior to metal oxide modification. The resulting Mg-ZSM-5, Ca-ZSM-5 and Ba-ZSM-5 exhibited similar structural and morphological patterns to the parent H-ZSM-5. The addition of these alkaline metal oxides affected the acidity of the ZSM-5-based catalysts. Mg-ZSM-5 was found to be the most stable in the MTO reaction, maintaining a conversion of 100% for over 8 h and having the highest selectivity of ca. 46% to propylene due to the presence of weak Bronsted acidity.


This thesis describes the investigation of thiadiazolidine 1-oxides and structurally related compounds as ligands in palladium catalysis. The introduction will provide background information on subjects related to the work of the main project. Palladium catalysed cross couplings, namely the Heck and Tsuji-Trost reactions, will feature prominently and will be discussed in basic detail. A general outline of different classes of ligands used in palladium catalysis will also be put forward. Extraneous factors which affect catalyst reactivity will also be discussed, including the use of microwave irradiation and the effect of additives. Special attention is paid towards sulfur containing ligands. As their use has been relatively limited this will also include other areas of catalysis. Investigations into the synthesis of esermethole prompt a general background of methods of synthesising oxindoles and also examples of previous syntheses of the compound.

The second chapter begins by describing the initial exploratory work, the testing of a thiadiazolidine 1-oxide compound as a ligand for the Heck reaction. Aryl iodides are successfully coupled to a range of styrenes and α,β-unsaturated esters in excellent yields under microwave conditions. Aryl bromides are also successfully coupled after some optimisation. In many cases the presence of tetrabutylammonium bromide is required to prevent shattering of the sealed microwave vial.

A range of differently substituted thiadiazolidine 1-oxides were synthesised in order to establish a pattern of reactivity based on steric and electronic factors. Structurally related chiral compounds were also synthesised, including the first reported enantiomerically pure thiadiazol-3-one 1-oxide and thiatriaza-indene 3-oxide systems chiral at the sulfur atom.

The synthesis of oxindoles using palladium mediated and non-catalytic chemistry was also investigated. Investigations into the synthesis of esermethole were undertaken; the key stereoinducing reaction, the decarboxylative asymmetric allyic alkylation reaction, achieved a 46% ee. A formal synthesis of esermethole was outlined in 8 steps from commercially available material.

The third chapter is the experimental section and is dedicated to the methods of synthesis and characterization of the compounds mentioned in the previous chapter.

X-ray reports regarding the crystallographic representation of the structures presented in chapter two are provided in appendix A.


Bioinformaticians have been working on peptide sequencing with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) for decades. However, the results are still not perfect. A lot of research have been carried on two peptide sequencing methods, database search and de novo sequencing. However, due to the quality of spectra and the inherent difficulty of this problem itself, both methods are having problem improving their results further better. The publishing of the NIST peptide library in May 2014 brought fresh ideas into this long lasting problem. This peptide library contains a large amount of MS/MS spectra and their corresponding peptide sequences. Taking advantage of this high-quality dataset, more and more researches have started to find internal patterns in MS/MS spectra since then. In this thesis, we are going to look more into this peptide library and use statistical and machine learning ideas to find new features to help improve peptide sequencing results. Two main contributions have been made. First, a general scoring feature is presented that can be incorporated in the scoring functions of other peptide sequencing software. The scoring feature is based on the intensity ratios between two adjacent y-ions in the spectrum. A method is proposed to obtain the probability distributions of such ratios, and to calculate the scoring feature based on the distributions. To demonstrate the performance of the method, this new feature is incorporated with X!Tandem [1][2] and Novor [3] and significantly improved their performances on testing data, respectively. Second, a machine learning model to predict the appearances of internal fragment ions in MS/MS spectra is presented. Even though this is the first model on this topic to the best of our knowledge, it achieves fairly good results. Several possible applications of this model are also discussed to show that this topic is valuable for peptide sequencing and thus worth further research.


This is a comparative study of the photoinduced (so-called forward) electron-transfer reaction 3Zncyt/pc(II) --> Zncyt+/pc(I), between the triplet state of zinc cytochrome c (3Zncyt) and cupriplastocyanin [pc(II)], and the thermal (so-called back) electron-transfer reaction Zncyt+/pc(I) --> Zncyt/pc(II), between the cation (radical) of zinc cytochrome c (Zncyt+) and cuproplastocyanin [pc(I)], which follows it. Both reactions occur between associated (docked) reactants, and the respective unimolecular rate constants are kF and kB. Our previous studies showed that the forward reaction is gated by a rearrangement of the diprotein complex. Now we examine the back reaction and complare the two. We study the effects of temperature (in the range 273.3-302.9 K) and viscosity (in the range 1.00-17.4 cP) on the rate constants and determine enthalpies (DeltaH), entropies (DeltaS), and free energies (DeltaG) of activation. We compare wild-type spinach plastocyanin, the single mutants Tyr83Leu and Glu59Lys, and the double mutant Glu59Lys/Glu60Gln. The rate constant kB for wild-type spinach plastocyanin and its mutants markedly depends on viscosity, an indication that the back reaction is also gated. The activation parameters DeltaH and DeltaS show that the forward and back reactions have similar mechanisms, involving a rearrangement of the diprotein complex from the initial binding configuration to the reactive configuration. The rearrangements of the complexes 3Zncyt/pc(II) and Zncyt+/pc(I) that gate their respective reactions are similar but not identical. Since the back reaction of all plastocyanin variants is faster than the forward reaction, the difference in free energy between the docking and the reactive configuration is smaller for the back reaction than for the forward reaction. This difference is explained by the change in the electrostatic potential on the plastocyanin surface as Cu(II) is reduced to Cu(I). It is the smaller DeltaH that makes DeltaG smaller for the back reaction than for the forward reaction.


WAUGH, S.M. & WILSON, K-J. 2017. Threats and threat status of the Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica. Marine Ornithology 45: 195–203. Threat status assessments provide a benchmark for identifying priorities for conservation and related research for special-status species. We review data about an endemic New Zealand seabird, the Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica, and provide information to assist future threat assessment reviews. A range of threats have potential or have already contributed to reductions in population growth at a level that may exceed 10% over 10 years (ranked "High" or "High potential" threats). The realised (observed) threats include landslips and extreme climate events that degrade nesting habitat; bycatch mortality in commercial, recreational, and high-seas fisheries; attraction of fledglings to lights; and the potential encroachment of pigs Sus scrofa and dogs Canis familiaris into breeding areas. Low-ranked threats (which may contribute <10% to population reduction over 10 years) include habitat degradation by browsing introduced mammals and land development; death of individuals by striking wires or buildings; disturbance at colonies; the petrels' consumption of fisheries waste and plastics; human harvest; and naturally occurring mortality such as predation by native species or entrapment in tree branches and vines. Population size estimation, demographic modelling, and trend information indicate that the population is small (~2 800 breeding pairs), with very low productivity and therefore potential vulnerability to stochastic events. Recent surveys show that the area of breeding habitat occupied by the birds is only about 0.16 km2. Storm events in 2014 severely reduced habitat quality, destroyed large parts of some colonies, and increased the likelihood of further erosion and landslip for at least 75% of the global breeding population. Storm impacts at other colonies have not yet been assessed. In light of this information, we recommend immediate review of the threat status of the species and initiation of mitigation to reduce the severity of threats. The information available indicates that a relisting to IUCN Endangered status may be warranted, and that the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels threat assessments should be revised to include two high-level potential threats: pig predation and dog predation.


This special report explores the role of emerging-country members in the Basel process, a key aspect of global financial standard setting. It argues that this process has been significantly more politically resilient than adjacent aspects of global economic governance, in part because major emerging countries have perceived continuing "intra-club" benefits from participation within it. Most important among these are learning benefits for key actors within these countries, including incumbent political leaders. Although some emerging countries perceive growing influence over the international financial standard-setting process, many implicitly accept limited influence in return for learning benefits, which are valuable because of the complexity of contemporary financial systems and the sustained policy challenges it creates for advanced and emerging countries alike. The importance of learning benefits also differentiates the Basel process from other international economic organizations in which agenda control and influence over outcomes are more important for emerging-country governments. This helps to explain the relative resilience of the Basel process in the context of continued influence asymmetries and the wider fragmentation of global economic governance. The report also considers some reforms that could further improve the position of emerging countries in the process and bolster its perceived legitimacy among them.


The primary goal of the GERmanium Detector Array (GERDA) experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso of INFN is the search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge. High-purity germanium detectors made from material enriched in 76Ge are operated directly immersed in liquid argon, allowing for a substantial reduction of the background with respect to predecessor experiments. The first 5.04 kg yr of data collected in Phase I of the experiment have been analyzed to measure the half-life of the neutrino-accompanied double beta decay of 76Ge. The observed spectrum in the energy range between 600 and 1800 keV is dominated by the double beta decay of 76Ge. The half-life extracted from GERDA data is T2ν1/2 = (1.84+0.14−0.10) × 1021 yr.


"Good faith" is a notoriously amorphous and variable concept. Thus it is the interpretation and application of the concept that provides the most important points of comparison for the good faith provisions of the Principles of European Contract Law ("PECL") and the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC") . The UCC has been in force since the 1950's, and its good faith provisions have been applied in hundreds of cases. In contrast, the PECL is a new phenomenon and its good faith rules have not been applied to actual cases. The comment to PECL Article 1:201, however, includes five concrete illustrations of how the drafters conceive its good faith rule will operate, as well as other suggestions concerning the application of the good faith obligation to particular situations. This article explores how U.S. law, and the UCC good faith provision in particular, would apply to the factual examples adduced in the PECL comment. This discussion reveals mixed results. First, there exist some notable similarities in the operation of the good faith obligation under the PECL and the UCC. Second, there are some situations in which U.S. law would likely reach the same result as under the PECL by invoking doctrines other than good faith. Finally, there may be some important situations in which the outcome under U.S. law would probably diverge from that suggested by the comment to PECL Article 1:201. Although it is important to keep in mind the similarities in the good faith principles of the PECL and the UCC, it is also important to recognize that the divergent outcomes appear to reflect deep-seated differences in the legal cultures behind the two documents.


Recent decades have witnessed major changes in the market for European soccer. The most profound were the Bosman ruling, which lifted restrictions in the European labor market for soccer talent, and the introduction of the Champions' League, a high-profile international competition that generates high revenues for participating clubs. This paper studies the effects of these changes on the closeness of national and international competitions, from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. We show that competitive balance in national competitions has not been affected. International quality differences did increase, mainly as a result of the Bosman ruling.


This is the first practical guidebook to give restorationists and would be restorationists with little or no scientific training or background the 'how to' information and knowledge they need to plan and implement ecological restoration activities. The first part of the book introduces the process of ecological restoration in simple, easily understood language through specific examples drawn from the authors' experience in restoring their own lands. The second half shows how that same 'thinking' and 'doing' can be applied to North America's major ecosystems and landscapes in any condition or scale. Cosponsored by the Society for Ecological Restoration International and Island Press, this series offers a foundation of practical knowledge and scientific insight that will help ecological restoration become the powerful reparative and healing tool that the world needs.


Hairdressers have the potential to be gatekeepers for their clients. They are placed in the role of informal helpers because clients often raise personal and emotional problems with them during appointments. In the current study, 136 hairdressers completed self-report surveys about the types of problems raised by clients, hairdresser responses, ability to select appropriate helping responses to disclosures, interest in training, and preparedness to help. Of the problem types discussed, 43% comprised moderate to severe problems. Greater years of hairdressing experience were related to a better ability to identify appropriate responses. The multiple regression model found that 44.8% of the variance in hairdresser preparedness was predicted by whether substance use and violence problems were raised, supportive responses, unhelpful responses, and supportive emotions. Results provide support for hairdressers as potential gatekeepers and identify areas of training that may lead to increased preparedness for this role.


Abstract. Size-segregated aerosols (nine stages from  11.3 µm in diameter) were collected at Cape Hedo, Okinawa, in spring 2008 and analyzed for water-soluble diacids (C2–C12), ω-oxoacids (ωC2–ωC9), pyruvic acid, benzoic acid, and α-dicarbonyls (C2–C3) as well as water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), organic carbon (OC), and major ions (Na+, NH4+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Cl−, NO3−, SO42−, and MSA−). In all the size-segregated aerosols, oxalic acid (C2) was found to be the most abundant species, followed by malonic and succinic acids, whereas glyoxylic acid (ωC2) was the dominant oxoacid and glyoxal (Gly) was more abundant than methylglyoxal. Diacids (C2–C5), ωC2, and Gly as well as WSOC and OC peaked at fine mode (0.65–1.1 µm) whereas azelaic (C9) and 9-oxononanoic (ωC9) acids peaked at coarse mode (3.3–4.7 µm). Sulfate and ammonium were enriched in fine mode, whereas sodium and chloride were in coarse mode. Strong correlations of C2–C5 diacids, ωC2 and Gly with sulfate were observed in fine mode (r =  0.86–0.99), indicating a commonality in their secondary formation. Their significant correlations with liquid water content in fine mode (r =  0.82–0.95) further suggest an importance of the aqueous-phase production in Okinawa aerosols. They may also have been directly emitted from biomass burning in fine mode as supported by strong correlations with potassium (r =  0.85–0.96), which is a tracer of biomass burning. Bimodal size distributions of longer-chain diacid (C9) and oxoacid (ωC9) with a major peak in the coarse mode suggest that they were emitted from the sea surface microlayers and/or produced by heterogeneous oxidation of biogenic unsaturated fatty acids on sea salt particles.


Globally, interests to increase carbon stocks have gained momentum in both woody and non-woody ecosystems. Despite efforts made to generate appropriate methods to estimate these stocks, most equations developed do not cater for intraspecific variabilities across e.g. species, regions or growth stages; especially in the case of bananas. Therefore, there is need to develop more robust equations to improve on the precision of biomass-carbon prediction especially at local scales to facilitate estimation of specific carbon stocks often lost in global assessments. This study aimed at developing cultivar-specific biomass estimation relationships and determining carbon content of EAHB cultivars at two growth stages. Plant data were collected purposively using destructive sampling techniques on farmers' plots for 4 cultivars (Kibuzi, Nakitembe, Enyeru and Nakinyika) in two agro-ecological zones: the L. Victoria crescent and the South-western farmlands in the districts of Lwengo and Mbarara respectively. Results show that biomass differed across cultivars (P<0.001); hence four equations (Enyeru, Nakinyika, Kibuzi_Nakitembe and Generic) were developed following an exponential function, y=Aexp(ax), using diameter at breast height (DBH) as the predictor variable with an R2 range of 82-94%. EAHB mean carbon content varied significantly with growth stage (P<0.05) (47.6% for maiden plants before flowering and 48.8% for mature plants with a developed bunch). This study concludes that it is important to develop cultivar-specific equations for biomass-carbon estimation of EAHB cultivars to help assess their contribution to the carbon cycle especially in future studies.

 Key words: East African Highland Bananas (EAHB) cultivars, allometric equations, total plant biomass, carbon content, growth stage.


We study the degrees of freedom (DoF) of 2-user and 3-user multiple input multiple output (MIMO) interference channels with rank deficient channel matrices. Only achievable DoF results and trivial outer bounds were previously available for these problems, restricted to symmetric settings. For the 2-user rank deficient MIMO interference channel we prove the optimality of previously known achievable DoF in the symmetric case and generalize the result to fully asymmetric settings. For the 3-user rank deficient MIMO interference channel, we improve the achievable DoF and provide a tight outer bound to establish optimality. Linear precoding based achievable schemes are found to be DoF optimal in both cases.


Goodwill has under a significant time been a major dilemma in accounting. The controversy regarding how to recognize this complex concept has been going on for a long period of time. The issue concerning amortisation over the useful life or amortisation of goodwill in general is one of the most disputed accounting subjects.International Accounting Standards Board is a self governing organizational body whose assignment is to promulgate accounting and financial standards. IFRS is a set of accounting standards that are issued by IASB. The development of IFRS occurs through a process where all interested parties(standard-setter, auditors, publisher andusers of financial reports) whose affected are advised to inform their opinion. In 2004 IASB published a new standard concerning business combinations. IFRS 3 contained amendments proposing that goodwill should not be amortised systematically over its useful life and that goodwill instead should be impaired on indication. DuringDecember 2002 IASB published "Exposure Draft 3, Business Combinations" where they invited participants to respond and comment on the subject that was included in the exposure draft.The purpose of this paper to gain understanding and perception of how lobbying of this nature functions by studying and analyzing the comment letters that IASB received on question 8 in the exposure draft.In This paper we assume a hermeneutic abductiv approach. The empirical data is divided after how the interested has positioned themselves in the question and accordingly to suited groups. The analysis has been executed for every interest group separately. The purpose in doing this is to try to identify how the each group has argued for his matter and afterwards seek to find something general in the groups reasoning for it's position. The arguments that each respondent group applies are also assorted in three classifications, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic.Considerable amount of the comment letters were in the group, producers of financial information. When new standards have a direct effect on producers of financial reports, we observed that the interest from this group can be explained by stating that they seek to influence against a position that benefits their financial activities. The minor group constituted of governmental institutions, this can be clarified by noticing that theexposure draft did not result in any potential tax effects, since the standard only concerned business combinations.The content of the arguments was similar for the majority of the interested parties. They had all in an equivalent way assumed from the same standing point as IASB, when arguing against the exposure draft. The interest that was for the proposal did not attempt to strengthen their position in an extended meaning. The arguments that aroused mostly were pragmatic and semantic, syntactic arguments were applied in a lower extent.


Natural cementation influences the mechanical behavior of granular media. The goal of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of the low strain stiffness of granular media during precipitation and cementation of dissolved salt in the pore fluid. Granular specimens of glass beads with three different sizes (0.26, 0.5, and 1.29 mm) were cemented by NaCl aqueous solutions (0, 0.1, 0.50, 1.0, and 2.0 mol L−1). The small‐strain stiffness was investigated by measuring compressional (P) and shear (S) waves using bender elements and piezo disk elements during the cementation process. The change of P‐ and S‐wave velocities during cementation due to drying shows three distinct stages based on the degree of saturation, S: (i) S‐wave velocity increases, but P‐wave velocity decreases at a degree of saturation of 100 to ∼90%; (ii) the elastic wave velocities are stable at 90 to ∼10% saturation; and (iii) the elastic wave velocities dramatically change (increase and decrease) at a degree of saturation of 10 to ∼0% due to salt cementation and capillary force. Without cementation, the three grain size particles are controlled by capillary forces. The cementation occurs at contact points of particles for low salt concentrations and at both pores and contact points for high salt concentrations. The measured small‐strain stiffness agreed with the predicted stiffness based on the micromechanical model. This study demonstrates the elastic wave characteristics of granular media in a vadose zone according to the cementation of dissolved salt.


Numerical simulations of the break-up of laminar liquid jets are presented that reveal the formation of satellite droplets resulting from (i) the non-linear disintegration of jet liquid core and (ii) coalescence of two primary droplets. For the case(i), when satellites disintegrate from the jet liquid core, they tend to show forward, rear and simultaneous merging responses on both the aft side as well as the foreside of the primary droplets that are present downstream that were evidenced experimentally by Vassallo and Ashgriz (1991). However, for the case (ii) the satellites that are formed show similarities with that observed by Zhang et al. (2009) for two stationary droplets at the onset of coalescence. However,our numerical results predict that when two primary drops disintegrated from a liquid jet, that undergoes surface oscillations coalesce, satellites can pinch-off from both the fore-side and the aft-side of the coalesced droplet with effective
diameter ratios as small as d1/d2-1.15, 1.97
�respectively. Effect of pressure waves during binary droplet coalescence and the subsequent pinch-off dynamics for satellite formation is presented.


This book describes how disaffection is endemic in education systems in the west. It affects middle class young people as it does the working class, white and black. It is there because schools are not meeting the needs of many of our children. Instead they are alienating places which impose a curriculum for which many lack a literacy, and a regime which strips away individuality and expression. It's no wonder that so many walk out the door and never come back. And it's no wonder that youth crime, apathy and unemployment are the problems they are. The author examines some American models in the quest to tackle disaffection. Because of the sheer degradation of parts of the US public school system, certain educationalists have taken radical steps, successfully changing schools to meet the needs of their at risk pupils. The text describes innovative projects and schools in the US as well as in the UK and Europe. There are interviews and case studies of children who have been inspired to learn after having given up on their schools and accounts by educationalists of their journeys of discovering how to knock down the barriers to learning.


In this paper we discuss and confront recent results on metallicity variations in the local interstellar medium, obtained from observations of H ii regions and neutral clouds of the Galactic thin disk, and compare them with recent high-quality metallicity determinations of other tracers of the chemical composition of the interstellar medium as B-type stars, classical Cepheids, and young clusters. We find that the metallicity variations obtained for these last kinds of objects are consistent with each other and with that obtained for H ii regions but significantly smaller than those obtained for neutral clouds. We also discuss the presence of a large population of low-metallicity clouds as the possible origin for large metallicity variations in the local Galactic thin disk. We find that such a hypothesis does not seem compatible with: (a) what is predicted by theoretical studies of gas mixing in galactic disks, and (b) the models and observations on the metallicity of high-velocity clouds and their evolution as they mix with the surrounding medium in their fall onto the Galactic plane. We conclude that most of the evidence favors that the chemical composition of the interstellar medium in the solar neighborhood is highly homogeneous.


Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a polymer with remarkable physico-chemical properties which has been used for membrane and biomedical applications [1]. This fluorpolymer is however difficult or cost- inhibiting to pattern with conventional methods with high aspect-ratios, especially at the micrometer scale [2-5]. The present work introduces an innovative efficient technique for direct micro-patterning of PTFE using a high energy un-focalized O + ion beam. A nanostencil [6] with features appropriately designed to be opaque to the un-focalized ions is placed between the large-area beam and the substrate. This allows the ions which pass though the mask to directly and unisotropically dry etch the polymer. The results prove this approach has a good reproducibility and is a cost-efficient way for local micro-structuring of high aspect- ratio structures in PTFE. Bulk, commercially available 500 m thick PTFE was used as the substrate. The stencil mask was based on low-stress LPCVD SiN membranes. Its local selectivity to the ion beam was obtained by having the membranes patterned with apertures and covered by a thick Au layer, as seen in the schematic from Fig. 1. The 500 nm SiN covered by 800 nm au was stopping the ions, while the beam was passing right through the membrane openings. The un-focused beam of O + ions was accelerated to 1 MeV in a Tandetron 1.7 MV particle accelerator. From simulations using SRIM software, the longitudinal straggling of the ions for 500 nm SiN and 530 nm Au was 1 m (Fig 2). Thus the 800 nm Au was expected to be a very good mask for stopping all the ions. For counter-acting thermal effects, the PTFE was heat-sunk in a customized frame, held at a distance of 2 mm from the stencil, and was irradiated in a pulsed mode. After two sequences of 5 seconds of beam on separated by a 30 second pause, the etched polymer depth reached around 10 m. This patterning speed of about 1 m/s revealed a good match to our simulations for the stencil mask materials and the high energy ion beam. The stencil was able to be reused tens of times without visible damages (Fig. 3). The smallest feature reproduced at the integral etch depth was a 1 m x 1 m square (Fig. 4). Outgassing was measured in-situ by mass spectroscopy. The results showed the emergence of combination molecules, indicating chemical reactions were taking place in PTFE under irradiation. We thus showed the viability of using an un-focused 1 MeV high-energy O + ion beam for direct etching of micrometer-size features in PTFE through a stencil mask. The mask opaqueness to the ions was optimized via simulations and good results were obtained using 800 nm Au as a stopping layer coating the SiN membrane. An aspect ratio of 10 was obtained for micro-patterns and further investigations are undergoing for optimizing the parameters which will allow reproducible nanopatterning in PTFE.


ABSTRACT PURPOSE: To present an idiopathic papillophlebitis associated macular edema case treated with intravitreal ranibizumab METHODS: Case Report RESULTS: A 43-year-old woman presented with a complaint of acute loss of vision in the right eye. Visual acuity in the right eye at time of presentation was 0.2. Fundus examination revealed optic disc edema, venous engorgement and tortuosity and retinal hemorrhages.  Fluorescein angiography showed macular edema and a leakage from optic nerve head and retinal veins. The spectral domain optical coherence tomography (sd-OCT) revealed cystoid macular edema. She had no other pertinent medical history. Radiological imaging, systemic and hematologic evaluation was within normal limits except an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Intravitreal ranibizumab injection was performed. Improvement in visual acuity and partially regression of macular and optic disc edema were observed at first month examination. A recurrence of the macular edema was detected at the second month. At the second month examination after second ranibizumab injection visual acuity improved to 0.9, macular and optic disc edema completely regressed. There was no recurrence in macular edema during 9 months follow-up. CONCLUSION: In spite of the possible recurrence, intravitreal ranibizumab can be an effective treatment modality in the management of the idiopathic papillophlebitis associated macular edema. KEYWORDS: Idiopathic papillophlebitis; macular edema; ranibizumab


With cadaveric solid organ transplants becoming more common, the number of cases of infections transmitted from the donor to the recipient is increasing. This raises new questions regarding screening for infections in donors, particularly less common or rare infections. A Caucasian, CMV-positive 64-year-old male with end-stage renal disease secondary to type I diabetes mellitus received a simultaneous left kidney/pancreas cadaveric transplant from a 24-year-old Hispanic, CMV-positive, HTLV-1 negative donor. The donor blood work was negative for eosinophilia, but he did receive steroids prior to organ procurement. Small bowel obstruction and gastrointestinal bleeding complicated the recipient's post-operative course. The patient had persistent nausea, bilious emesis, anorexia, and weight loss for months after his transplant. Endoscopy revealed confluent ulceration throughout the second portion of the duodenum with a heavy burden of the adult Strongyloides stercoralis on microscopic examination, consistent with hyperinfection. Urine and stool studies also confirmed the presence of Strongyloides infection. The patient was treated with ivermectin and immunosuppression changed to cyclosporine with resolution of the infection. Asymptomatic carriage was isolated to the donor (IgG positive status), while the archived recipient pre-transplant serum was negative for Strongyloides IgG. The other organ (liver, heart, and kidney) recipients were identified. The liver recipient died secondary to cardiopulmonary arrest post operative day 4. The heart recipient developed episodes of organ rejection, was treated with steroids, and subsequently developed Strongyloides hyperinfection with pulmonary involvement. The recipient of the right kidney was asymptomatic. This case highlights the need for enhanced screening protocols for cadaveric solid organ donors and recipients, based on infections endemic to the region of interest. In this circumstance, the identification of Strongyloides carriage may have reduced morbidity and mortality in the organ recipients.


Get the practical reference to developing Windows services with Visual Basic 2008. Addressing the leading trend of software as a service, this guide illustrates how developers with intermediate Visual Basic skills can design and implement Web services. It addresses a critical gap in the developer literature today, showing that services can be developed with Visual Basic 2008 and are not restricted to XML-based applications or Microsoft Visual C#. Software as a service is changing the dynamic between rich and thin clients. As device types multiply, users expect always-on connectivity to link them to the robust Web and corporate applications they use on the desktop. Services, which offload data storage and processing tasks to a server, run efficiently on Web platforms on any device. Services do not need to be a complex coding task and this is the ideal resource for creating modern, service-oriented applications. It covers integration of services with other Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), and Microsoft SQL ServerTM. Plus, you ll get extensive code snippets and sample applications. Key Book BenefitsDelivers practical guidance on how to develop Windows services using Visual Basic 2008Covers integration of services with other Microsoft platforms including BizTalk, IIS, and SQL ServerFeatures extensive code snippets and sample applications


Faced with the ever-accelerating pace of technological change and the restructuring of markets, many firms have been questioning the appropriateness of their own organizational structure and effectiveness. Consequently, we have witnessed much organizational experimentation and the development of new forms of organizing over the last decade. Firms are more dependent than ever on the need for continuous and radical innovations - and often innovations that go beyond their existing businesses. This challenges firms in terms of knowledge and idea sharing, and often necessitates the need to expand beyond the boundaries of the single firm for multi-party collaboration to meet serious challenges and develop creative solutions. Drawing from the Fourth International Workshop on Organization Design, and featuring contributions from an international array of specialists, this volume focuses on the expansion beyond the boundaries of the single firm and multi-firm networks, to include, for example, community-based organization designs. A community is a connected set of firms; the connections can take on many different dimensions. For organization design theory, community-based organizations have many implications. For one, organization design theory has to identify and describe designs that enhance collaborative behavior among firms without restricting the ability of the individual firm to continue to compete within its own marketplace. Moreover, organization design theory also has to identify and describe information processing strategies and designs that allow the continuous generation, sharing, and application of existing information and knowledge. The development of effective collaborative community designs is critically important to the global economy because, increasingly, our future depends on pursuing shared goals and sustainably developing our global commons. Ideally, the ideas and findings in this book will contribute to increased attention to new organization designs capable of meeting 21st-century opportunities and challenges.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate mean corpuscular volume difference (dMCV) as a marker for hypertonicity induced by water deprivation in dogs.

ANIMALS
5 healthy Greyhounds maintained in a research colony.

PROCEDURES
Water was withheld for 24 hours. Blood and urine samples were collected before (time 0) and every 6 hours during water deprivation. Serum and urine osmolality were measured on the basis of freezing point depression, and dMCV was calculated from routine hematologic variables.

RESULTS
Serum and urine osmolality significantly increased and body weight decreased over time in healthy Greyhounds during water deprivation, although most dogs developed only a slight increase in serum osmolality. The dMCV also increased over time, but the value at 24 hours did not differ significantly from the value at time 0. However, a significant correlation was found between serum osmolality and dMCV. A dMCV ≥ 5 fL yielded 100% specificity for predicting hypertonicity when hypertonicity was defined as serum osmolality ≥ 310 mOsM.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
dMCV may be a useful marker for detection of mild hypertonicity in dogs and may have clinical and research applications for use in screening canine populations for hypertonicity.


This thesis describes the development of a diagnostic tool to identify potential weaknesses in the
interfaces between the key functions involved in new product development within manufacturing
organisations. It comprises three parts:
Part One introduces the field and reviews the literature. It discusses the subject of new
product development (NPD), describes how the NPD process has evolved and outlines the
key success factors which have been found to apply. It identifies and summarises the key
issues which have influenced NPD and discusses the role that teams have had within the
field. Key functions and their respective interfaces are identified and the barriers which
exist between these functions assessed. A theoretical framework is presented which
proposes that problems within these functional interfaces can be overcome by developing
appropriate solutions based on accurate diagnosis of imbalance of functional perceptions
within organisations. Associated research hypotheses and methodology for the research
programme are also presented.
Part Two describes the development and testing of a questionnaire to achieve this diagnosis.
This details the identification of core issues through interviews in sample companies,
initial testing of a questionnaire and the subsequent revision and retesting. Rationalisation
of the questionnaire using both item and factor analysis techniques are then described and,
following final testing, the use of these same techniques to develop a scoring system are also
detailed.
Part Three discusses the findings from the research programme and draws conclusions. The
results obtained from the use of the diagnostic questionnaire within the participating
organisations are compared with the literature and the development of the diagnostic
questionnaire is evaluated. Finally the research hypotheses are examined and tested and
conclusions relating to both the findings and the questionnaire development are drawn.
Finally recommendations for the future use of the developed diagnostic tool are made.


Digit identities in living birds are the same as in three-fingered dinosaurs, in agreement with paleontological evidence. The identities of the digits of the avian forelimb are disputed. Whereas paleontological findings support the position that the digits correspond to digits one, two, and three, embryological evidence points to digit two, three, and four identities. By using transplantation and cell-labeling experiments, we found that the posteriormost digit in the wing does not correspond to digit four in the hindlimb; its progenitor segregates early from the zone of polarizing activity, placing it in the domain of digit three specification. We suggest that an avian-specific shift uncouples the digit anlagen from the molecular mechanisms that pattern them, resulting in the imposition of digit one, two, and three identities on the second, third, and fourth anlagens.


Pressure gain combustion is beneficial for engine cycle
efficiency, compactness, and less emissions. In this disseration, two classes
of fluid expansions systems were developed to harness power from the high-speed
flow delivered by the pressure gain combustor: a compact expansion system and
an efficiency expansion system. In addition, a new class of pressure probes for
expansion systems is developed.

A numerical methodology is carried out to design and
characterize these expansion devices and measurement systems via steady and
unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier stokes simulations. Firstly, the compact
expansion system is achieved by developing a supersonic axial turbine. Performance
of the supersonic axial turbine exposed to fluctuations from a nozzle downstream
of a rotating detonation combustor is assessed with an increased level of
complexity, including time-resolved stator, time-resolved rotor, and
time-resolved turbine stage characterization. Power extraction, damping of
fluctuations, and loss budgeting are evaluated. Unsteady heat transfer
assessment is performed to investigate the convective heat flux distribution
and decomposition. A performance map is constructed to explore the operating
limit. Afterwards, the efficient expansion system is achieved by retrofitting an
existing subsonic axial turbine. Without redesigning turbine airfoils, the stator
endwall contour was modified to integrate the subsonic axial turbine to a
diffuser and a rotating detonation combustor. Performance of the retrofitted
subsonic axial turbine exposed to fluctuations form a diffuser is evaluated at
several frequencies, amplitudes and inlet Mach numbers, with an increased level
of model fidelity, including unsteady stator alone, unsteady turbine stage with
a reduced model, full unsteady turbine stage assessment. Turbine efficiency,
damping of oscillations, and loss budgeting are assessed. A multi-step
optimization strategy is utilized to enhance turbine efficiency by improving
the endwall contouring. A performance map is created to examine the operating
range. Finally, a new type of pressure probes was developed and angular
calibration was performed. A whisker-inspired design enabled the reduction of
the vortex shedding effect.


We show that most small business owners are very different from the entrepreneurs that economic models and policymakers often have in mind. Using new data that sample entrepreneurs just before they start their businesses, we show that few small businesses intend to bring a new idea to market or to enter an unserved market. Instead, most intend to provide an existing service to an existing market. Further, we find that most small businesses have little desire to grow big or to innovate in any observable way. We show that such behavior is consistent with the industry characteristics of the majority of small businesses, which are concentrated among skilled craftspeople, lawyers, real estate agents, health care providers, small shopkeepers, and restaurateurs. Lastly, we show that nonpecuniary benefits (being one's own boss, having flexibility of hours, and the like) play a first-order role in the business formation decision. Our findings suggest that the importance of entrepreneurial talent, entrepreneurial luck, and financial frictions in explaining the firm size distribution may be overstated. We conclude by discussing the potential policy implications of our findings.


Objective To provide an overview of effective interventions aimed at reducing rates of adverse events in hospitals. Design Systematic review of systematic reviews. Data sources PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Library and EMBASE were searched for systematic reviews published until October 2015. Study selection English-language systematic reviews of interventions aimed at reducing adverse events in hospitals, including studies with an experimental design and reporting adverse event rates, were included. Two reviewers independently assessed each study's quality and extracted data on the study population, study design, intervention characteristics and adverse patient outcomes. Results Sixty systematic reviews with moderate to high quality were included. Statistically significant pooled effect sizes were found for 14 types of interventions, including: (1) multicomponent interventions to prevent delirium; (2) rapid response teams to reduce cardiopulmonary arrest and mortality rates; (3) pharmacist interventions to reduce adverse drug events; (4) exercises and multicomponent interventions to prevent falls; and (5) care bundle interventions, checklists and reminders to reduce infections. Most (82%) of the significant effect sizes were based on 5 or fewer primary studies with an experimental study design. Conclusions The evidence for patient-safety interventions implemented in hospitals worldwide is weak. The findings address the need to invest in high-quality research standards in order to identify interventions that have a real impact on patient safety. Interventions to prevent delirium, cardiopulmonary arrest and mortality, adverse drug events, infections and falls are most effective and should therefore be prioritised by clinicians.


Digital media lowers barriers to entry and has the ability to renegotiate traditional news-making power structures. However, it remains to be seen whether or not the people that use tools like blogs actually challenge those frameworks. Offline reporters predominantly use government officials as sources while online journalists and newspaper institutions typically cite their own pages and posts. In order to understand whether or not journalistic norms are challenged in the blogosphere, we look at the sourcing practices of a diverse group of 40 bloggers. Specifically, we sample 400 blogposts that discussed global warming between 2004 and May of 2007. Operationalizing hyperlinks as sources, we then code the 3264 hyperlinks in these posts. Results indicate that government sources are linked to the least. Instead, bloggers tend to link to the online versions of traditional news media as well as to other blogs. However, we find that bloggers also link to miscellaneous and civic sources such as academics and non-profit organizations about one-quarter of the time, somewhat challenging the dominance of government and traditional media. We conclude that blogging on non-traditional topics may subvert who gets heard in an online world, but further research is needed on this topic.


Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) allows non-invasive stimulation of brain structures. This technique can be used either for stimulating the motor cortex, recording motor evoked potentials from peripheral muscles, or for modulating the excitability of other non-motor areas in order to establish their necessity for a given task. TMS of the cerebellum can give interesting insights on the cerebellar functions. Paired-TMS techniques, delivering stimuli over the cerebellum followed at various interstimulus intervals by stimuli over the motor cortex, allow studying the pattern of connectivity between the cerebellum and the contralateral motor cortex in physiological as well as in pathological conditions. Repetitive TMS, delivering trains of stimuli at different frequencies, allows interfering with the function of cerebellar circuits during the execution of cognitive tasks. This application complements neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies in the study of the cerebellar involvement in a number of cognitive operations, ranging from procedural memory, working memory and learning through observation.


N = 1 designs imply repeated registrations of the behaviour of the same experimental unit and the measurements obtained are often few due to time limitations, while they are also likely to be sequentially dependent. The analytical techniques needed to enhance statistical and clinical decision making have to deal with these problems. Different procedures for analysing data from single-case AB designs are discussed, presenting their main features and revising the results reported by previous studies. Randomization tests represent one of the statistical methods that seemed to perform well in terms of controlling false alarm rates. In the experimental part of the study a new simulation approach is used to test the performance of randomization tests and the results suggest that the technique is not always robust against the violation of the independence assumption. Moreover, sensitivity proved to be generally unacceptably low for series lengths equal to 30 and 40. Considering the evidence available, there does not seem to be an optimal technique for single-case data analysis.


Our bloated prisoner population includes many people who are especially likely to face grievous harm in jail and prison--prisoners with mental illness, serious intellectual disabilities, chronic illnesses, and physical disabilities; gay, lesbian, and transgender prisoners; juveniles in adult facilities and others. In this symposium essay, I argue that when such difficulties are manifest, and create conditions of confinement that are illegal under the Eighth Amendment, Americans with Disabilities Act, or other source of law, plaintiffs should seek, and courts should grant, court-enforceable remedies diverting prisoners away from incarceration, in order to keep vulnerable populations out of jail and prison. What's novel about this proposal is not the diversionary remedies themselves, but the connection of such programs to conditions of confinement litigation. Only rarely have such initiatives — which I label "anti-incarcerative" — been imposed or negotiated as court-enforceable solutions for jail or prisons conditions problems. And when they have, it's mostly been to facilitate compliance with a court-ordered population cap. What I'm urging is a new generation of anti-incarcerative remedies in conditions lawsuits, unconnected to a population order, whose purpose is to keep vulnerable would-be prisoners out of harm's way by promoting workable alternatives to incarceration.In Part I, I describe the history of population caps in conditions of confinement lawsuits. These kinds of direct population limits — still available and valuable, in the right case — constituted a first generation of decarcerative conditions orders. They are important both historically and because they demonstrate that ordinary remedial law allows court orders that keep prisoners out of prison in order to avoid constitutional problems inside. I next highlight in Part II a few pioneering court orders that have specified anti-incarcerative remedies, hooked to alleged or proven unconstitutional conditions caused by crowding. Like the population caps, these orders have aimed explicitly at population reduction. I move in Parts III and IV to two models for anti-incarcerative orders that are not premised on crowding. In Part III, I examine recent remedies addressing unconstitutional solitary confinement. Many of these recent orders have not simply barred prisons from imposing the solitary conditions plaintiffs allege are unconstitutional. Rather, they establish and regulate alternatives to solitary confinement. A final useful model, which I examine in Part IV, can be found in ongoing deinstitutionalization remedies in cases, on the model of Olmstead v. L.C, that enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act, which have focused more on provision of services in the community than on institutional exclusions. The orders in both Parts III and IV support my contention that the ordinary law of remedies allows entry of orders keeping prisoners out of a situation in which they would face unconstitutional harm. Finally, in Part V, I explain why the Prison Litigation Reform Act's constraints on "prisoner release orders" should not obstruct a new generation of anti-incarcerative orders. Our national infatuation with incarceration has led to the damaging imprisonment of many vulnerable people in jails and prisons ill-equipped to house them safely — people with mental and physical disabilities, juveniles, the elderly, minor offenders, and others. When a particular facility or system is unable to provide these prisoners with lawful conditions of confinement, plaintiffs should seek, and federal courts should grant, anti-incarcerative orders that facilitate alternatives.


"By the end of the 1800s, the region"s old growth forests had all been logged. And in an area that was since kept deforested by agriculture, farms have been abandoned for the last century, and continues to be. Ross documents the (re)emergent cultures of the area by giving voice to its people, animate and inanimate, a polyphonic throng of voices, often in song. Queer male sexuality finds a sanctuary among the trees, among the supernatural denizens: the loup-garou, memengweshiinhyag, sithean. Songs and speech in the indigenous languages of the territory as well as colonial tongues represent the continued reality of these cultural communities. Audio artifacts give agency to non-humans too, recordings of flowing sap, running airplane and automobile motor. The artist traces an anti-colonial history of place from invasion and deforestation through to the contemporary abandonment and return of the diverse biotic community. The forests were there before the farms, and now they return." -- Artist's website.


The sulfur dioxide surrogate of DABCO·(SO2)2 is used as an efficient catalyst for the cleavage of the perfluoroalkyl-halogen bond under visible-light irradiation for the first time. This unexpected reaction of perfluoroalkyl halides and 1,3-diarylprop-2-yn-1-ones catalyzed by DABCO·(SO2)2 in the presence of visible light proceeds smoothly, leading to 3-fluorinated indenones in good yields. During the reaction process, the cleavage of the perfluoroalkyl-halogen bond and subsequent radical oxidative cyclization are involved under metal-free conditions. A broad reaction scope is observed. Moreover, a plausible mechanism supported by theoretical calculations is proposed.


In this paper, a qualitative energy flow analysis in Bangladesh agriculture has been made for a period from 1980-81 to 2000-01 to evaluate the impact of energy input to produce output. Human and animal muscle power and machinery energy for tillage operation, electricity and diesel energy for irrigation, fertilizer and pesticides energy for growth and protection are taken into account. Energy values are calculated by multiplying respective quantity by their respective energy equivalents with the use of relevant conversion factors. Energy flow studied based on some energy dependent indicators: energy input per ha, energy output per ha, energy output to input ratio, mechanization index, energy input to generate per unit GDP output as well as per unit output in energy term and solar energy conversion efficiency. During the study period, energy input and output to Bangladesh agriculture were increased from 6.4 to 17.32 GJ ha-1 and 72.22 to 130.05 GJ ha-1, respectively. It is found that energetic efficiency (energy output to input ratio) was declined from 11.28% to 8.1%, which indicates that the energy input increased faster than energy output. It is expected that sustainable energy flow in Bangladesh agriculture can be ascertained by this study.


This letter presents new models for estimating clear-sky instantaneous longwave radiation over land surfaces using the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) Sounders and GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) thermal infrared top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiances. The method used in this study shares the same hybrid method framework designed for Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. We propose separate surface downward longwave radiation (LWDN) and upwelling longwave radiation (LWUP) models because the two components are dominated by different surface/atmospheric properties. A nonlinear model was developed to estimate LWDN, and a linear model was developed to estimate LWUP. The GOES-12 Sounder-derived LWDN, LWUP, and surface net longwave radiation (LWNT = LWUP-LWDN) were evaluated using one full-year of ground data from the Surface Radiation Budget Network. The root-mean-squared errors (rmses) are less than 22.03 W/m2 at all four sites. Our study indicates that the hybrid method can also be applied to estimate LWUP using the future GOES-R ABI TOA radiances. The lack of a channel beyond 13.3 m in the proposed ABI design may cause larger rmses when estimating LWDN.


It is suggested, but not confirmed, that soil composition and minerals in soil can affect the nutritional quality of the produce. Determining soil composition of community gardens has therefore become significant for foods that are grown in these gardens as the popularity of community gardens are on the rise. A comparative study of five (5) community garden soils from different regions of New Jersey and New York over a period of 4 months was conducted. A total of nine (9) elements including Al, Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, and Pb were analysed using the EPA Method 3051A. Among all gardens, soil content of Fe, Al, and Pb were the highest concentrations (mg/kg), 6620 ± 4036, 3528± 2108, 221 ± 98 respectively and Ni, As and Cd were the lowest; 6.72 ± 5.37, 3.02 ± 1.55, and 0.22 ± .083 mg/kg in that order. There was a high variation in the Pb concentration among gardens which could be a source for concern. These findings indicate that there were consistently high levels of Al, Fe, and Pb concentrations in the soil samples from the selected community gardens. The extra heavy metals, such as lead and arsenic in the soil could be of health concern if these affect the plants grown in these soils. All garden soil samples emerged to be low in Cr, As, and Ni concentrations. The presence of these heavy metals in the soil does not always imply that they are available to plants, especially if they are soluble in the soil. Hence, further studies are warranted to investigate the effect of heavy metals in soil on the nutritional quality of edible portion of plants.


Gas phase formaldehyde concentrations were measured during the 2004–2005 CHABLIS campaign at Halley research station, Antarctica. Data coverage span from May 2004 through to January 2005, thus capturing the majority of the year, with a wintertime minimum of near or below the instrumental detection limit rising to between 50 and 200 pptv during the austral summer. Factors controlling HCHO concentration include local chemical sources and sinks, and exchange with the snow surface. The measured seasonality is in line with previous observations from Neumayer station, with maximum in summer and minimum during the winter months, but with lower absolute concentrations throughout the year. The gas-phase production of HCHO was dominated by methane oxidation and a steady-state analysis showed that reactions of iodine and bromine species substantially reduced the predicted HCHO levels based upon in situ chemistry. This indicates a substantial additional HCHO source to be present that could be explained by a snowpack source.


These seventeen stories, first published in Italian between 1949 and 1986, demonstrate Levi's extraordinary range, taking the reader from the primal resistance of a captured partisan fighter to a middle-aged chemist experimenting with a new paint that wards off evil, to the lustful thoughts of an older man obsessed with a mysterious woman in a seaside villa. In the title story, Levi demonstrates his unerringly tragic understanding of the fragility of the universe through the tale of a pensive astronomer, terrified by the possibility that a long-dormant star might explode and reduce the entire planet to vapor. This remarkable new collection affirms Italo Calvino's conviction that Levi was "one of the most important and gifted writers of our time."


Recently, advances in smart sensors and information technology have made building structures more intelligent. In particular, the ubiquitous sensor network (USN) system, which consists of a range of smart sensors and a wireless communication network, is being employed widely as an essential tool to provide a safe and clean environment with a range of applications including automation, fire prevention and security. This paper presents, a smart space test-bed with a built-in USN-based online monitoring system established at Sungkyunkwan University in Korea for both functions of structural health monitoring and environmental monitoring. For the structural health monitoring function, accelerometers, strain gauges, tilt-meters were installed at the host structure and the vibration mode shape, deflection and displacement of a specific member of the host structure were monitored in real-time. Temperature sensors, humidity sensors, CO2 (Carbon dioxide) sensors, windy direction/speed sensors, CCTVs (Closed-Circuit Television) and motion sensors were installed at the appropriate locations for environmental monitoring inside and/or outside the host structure. In addition, all the information obtained from the deployed sensors was collected as a database and an integrated web server which can be connected very easily through the mobile apparatus of the various platforms such as a tablet PC (Personal Computer), a smart phone, MID (Mobile Internet Device), and etc. was constructed. Finally, the built in USN-based online monitoring was integrated with BIM (Building Information Modeling) maintenance for future guidance in ubiquitous environments.


This article analyses the role of the Commission in the European Union (EU). We present a game-theoretical model of two EU processes — Commission appointment and the adoption of legislation — and apply this model to the appointment of recent Commissions and their legislative programmes. Institutional reforms of the EU have led to more involvement of the European Parliament and majority voting in the Council in both processes. We find that the introduction of majority voting in the legislative process in the mid-1980s let the Commission move policy further from the status quo. Yet unanimity for appointing the Commission still allowed the member states to commit to a legislative programme that was preferred by all of them. More recently, the move to majority voting for appointing the Commission, combined with the ability of the European Parliament to amend Commission proposals, has moved the EU towards a more majoritarian political system. However, the potential policy consequences of these changes have been limited thus far because of the particular configuration of policy preferences of the governments and the European Parliament.


The allocation of control rights in a venture does not matter if partners have congruent preferences. This Paper develops a theory of control as a signal of congruence, and applies it to the structure of alliances between a privately informed 'entrepreneur' (technology firm) and an 'investor' (large corporation). Investor control increases when the entrepreneur is better informed or when the information that the investor receives during the course of the venture is more noisy. More investor control, however, often results in less investor interference, since the investor puts more trust in the entrepreneur upon receiving more control and, hence, has a tendency to neglect ambiguous information ex post. As a result, the cost of signaling is endogenous and the quality of the post-contracting information constrains the amount of pre-contracting information that can be revealed. Our results are in line with empirical findings on control rights in biotechnology alliances and venture capital contracts.


Identification of risk factors through screening is an important tool in the fight against chronic diseases. We have used a unique model, named Saantwanam (to console) in Malayalam language, for health screening in Kerala, India. Under the Saantwanam programme, government selects suitable women care-givers who are trained and equipped by a nongovernmental organization through loans from a public sector bank. After training, care-givers deliver screening services by measuring the weight and height, and blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol levels of people concerned in their local communities at a reasonable fee-for-service that provides a source of income to them. All care-givers are trained to counsel on healthy living, i.e. appropriate diet, exercise and unhealthy habits such as tobacco consumption. When cases are detected they are referred to local physicians and later on followed up by care-givers at their residence. In the last five years, the Saantwanam programme has screened more than 300 000 people for various diseases and risk factors. They have been counselled to avail of health-care services. The Saantwanam model does not cause additional expenditure to the government for early detection of chronic diseases and their risk factors. Moreover, it ensures that the care-givers are rewarded for their effort. However, before large-scale implementation of this model, measurement of baseline risk factors in a sample population should be done so that their impact can be measured at a later date. The cost-effectiveness of the model also needs to be determined.


In a perfect world of medical science, hospitals would be value-neutral medical establishments, healing and treating all people in need equally. Hospitals, in addition to being medical facilities, are social institutions that reflect and reinforce the beliefs and values of the wider society. Making a Place for Ourselves examines an important but not widely chronicled event at the intersection of African-American history and American medical history - the black hospital movement. A practical response to the racial realities of American life, the movement was a "self-help" endeavor - immediate improvement of separate medical institutions insured the advancement and health of African Americans until the slow process of integration could occur. Recognizing that their careers depended on access to hospitals, black physicians associated with the two leading black medical societies, the National Medical Association (NMA) and the National Hospital Association (NHA), initiated the movement in the 1920s in order to upgrade the medical and education programs at black hospitals. Black physicians "made a place for themselves" within the profession of medicine by improving the status and training of black hospitals between 1920 and 1945, a time when few black physicians had options beyond the separate but equal black medical world. Vanessa Northington Gamble examines the activities of these physicians and those of black community organizations, local and federal governments, and major health care organizations. She focuses on three case studies (Cleveland, Chicago, and Tuskegee) to demonstrate how the black hospital movement reflected the goals, needs, and divisions within the African-Americancommunity - and the state of American race relations. Exploring ideological tensions within the black community over the existence of black hospitals, Gamble shows that black hospitals were essential for the professional lives of black physicians before the emergence of the civil right


As a growing number of areas in the UK become ever more densely populated, increasing construction work is
being undertaken and transportation networks built in order to cope with the growing population. The
development of this infrastructure, coupled with the mechanisation of modern life, often results in exposure to
various types of vibration from a range of sources such as rail, road traffic and construction activity causing
considerable disturbance.
The study of vibration effects within residential settings is a developing area of research. Previous research on
ambient stressors in residential environments has focused primarily on noise; one of the most prevalent
environmental stressors in living environments. Some noise surveys have highlighted vibration as a contributor
to noise annoyance while others have explored the combined effects of noise and vibration on human response.
Research on vibration is largely a quantitative effort using laboratory experiments or social surveys with
associated vibration measurements in order to establish dose-response relationships.
However, as the human response to vibration is particularly diverse and complex this paper aims to explore how
qualitative methodologies can compliment the quantitative approach to vibration research. People's experiences,
expectations and attitudes vary with regards to vibration, the noise it produces, and the source it derives from.
For the pragmatic researcher qualitative methodologies can help unravel some of these issues, providing a
further understanding of the complexities of the human response to vibration in residential environments.


Background:A substantial proportion of cancer-related mortality is attributable to recurrent, not de novo metastatic disease, yet we know relatively little about these patients. To fill this gap, investigators often use administrative codes for secondary malignant neoplasm or chemotherapy to identify recurrent cases in population-based datasets. However, these algorithms have not been validated in large, contemporary, routine care cohorts. Objective:To evaluate the validity of secondary malignant neoplasm and chemotherapy codes as indicators of recurrence after definitive local therapy for stage I–III lung, colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer. Research Design, Subjects, and Measures:We assessed the sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value (PPV) of these codes 14 and 60 months after diagnosis using 2 administrative datasets linked with gold-standard recurrence status information: CanCORS/Medicare (diagnoses 2003–2005) and HMO/Cancer Research Network (diagnoses 2000–2005). Results:We identified 929 CanCORS/Medicare patients and 5298 HMO/CRN patients. Sensitivity, specificity, and PPV ranged widely depending on which codes were included and the type of cancer. For patients with lung, colorectal, and breast cancer, the combination of secondary malignant neoplasm and chemotherapy codes was the most sensitive (75%–85%); no code-set was highly sensitive and highly specific. For prostate cancer, no code-set offered even moderate sensitivity (⩽19%). Conclusions:Secondary malignant neoplasm and chemotherapy codes could not identify recurrent cancer without some risk of misclassification. Findings based on existing algorithms should be interpreted with caution. More work is needed to develop a valid algorithm that can be used to characterize outcomes and define patient cohorts for comparative effectiveness research studies.