After a long debate the Council of Trent decided, in 1563, against the validity of marriages contracted informally, without a public ceremony. Marriages without parental consent, however, remained valid. These decisions are frequently described as a pragmatic compromise, where one controversial reform was rejected in favor of another, equally controversial. Yet there was, as this article will show, a significant difference in how the delegates addressed the questions of publicity and parental consent. While the discussion of the former mostly concerned how (not if) a reform could be carried out, the discussion of the latter concerned the very principle of mandatory parental consent. The ensuing debate reflects the clash between two opposing views of marriage in sixteenth-century Europe: on the one hand, the couple-oriented, consensualist conception of classical canon law; and on the other, the family-oriented conception of both Protestant and Catholic reformers with its emphasis on order, stability, and parental authority. (Less)


This study explores the use of gentrification as a catalyst to regenerate a decaying urban environment. The study will propose relocating a university (Miami International University of Art & Design, MIU) the catalyst, to a decaying urban art district (Wynwood). Although gentrification generally carries a negative connotation, the type of gentrification projected in this study promotes the best interest for the community without displacing individuals. After all, gentrification's main objective is neighborhood improvement. MIU will be transformed into an urban university that will make a significant contribution to the Wynwood Art District and will play a vital role in enhancing the community. The new urban location will mutually benefit MIU, and the community by contributing to the gentrification of the Wynwood Art District, and enhancing the university's and the community's image. This study will reveal the benefits of relocating the university, and redirecting its growth from place to placemaking. Based on Edward M. Spicer's research document "What is an Urban University?" the research will analyze similar urban institutions and develop best practices for implementation to MIU. Among the case studies will be: (1) Columbia University in the USA, (2) Portland State University in the USA, and (3) the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. These case studies differ in educational philosophies but agree in the importance of an urban institution for the community and students. The fusion of MIU and the Wynwood Art District will result as an integrative link of the place, and a symbol of cultural function. The objective is the showcase MIU, but also as an integral art centerpiece that binds together institution and community.


Background There is a complex relationship between nutrition and the immune system, which is only partially understood. Especially, the impact of nutrition on inflammatory autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis (RA) requires further investigations. It was recently shown that an increased salt intake aggravates the clinical symptoms in an animal model of multiple sclerosis by inducing pathogenic Th17 cells [1]. However the effect of dietary factors such as low salt consumption on the inflammatory status in arthritis is poorly investigated. Objectives In this study we examined the effect of low salt diet in a mouse model of arthritis and identified its underlying mechanisms. Methods Two weeks before immunization with bovine type II collagen (bCII) in complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) the experimental diet was started in DBA/1 mice. The low salt group (n=9) received a diet containing a sodium content <0.03% and tap water for 62 days, whereas the high-salt group (n=10) was fed with a diet containing 4% NaCl and 0.9% saline solution. Arthritis severity was assessed by clinical scoring using a graded scale (0-4). Hind paws were prepared for histological analysis. Levels of anti-CII autoantibodies were measured by ELISA. Homogenates from hind paws were prepared and cytokines were assessed by ELISA. mRNA levels of inflammatory cytokines in the spleen were determined by qRT-PCR. Results In CIA the low salt diet decreased severity and incidence of arthritis compared to the high salt group. The histology showed reduced infiltrations with inflammatory cells after low salt diet. Also cartilage breakdown and bone destruction was less pronounced in the low salt compared to the high salt group. ELISA experiments showed that the level of pathogenic IgG2a antibodies against CII was markedly elevated in high salt mice, whereas low salt consumption reduced anti-CII IgG2a levels significantly. CII-specific IgG1 titers were increased in the low salt versus the high salt group. This resulted in decreased IgG2a:IgG1 ratio in the low salt group and indicates a shift toward a more Th2-dominated immune response. Already 20 days after immunization we observed decreased levels of MCP-1 and IL-1β and an increase in IL-10 in paw extracts of mice which had received a low salt diet. Further, in low salt mice mRNA levels of IFNγ, IL-6 and IL-1β were reduced. Conclusions Lowering the salt intake attenuates clinical and histopathological manifestations in collagen-induced arthritis. The low salt diet protects against antibody-mediated joint destruction through a Th2 shift and a decreased expression of potential mediators of inflammation. We conclude that a low salt diet could be a useful supplementary nutritional therapy of immune-mediated arthritides. References Kleinewietfeld, M., et al., Sodium chloride drives autoimmune disease by the induction of pathogenic TH17 cells. Nature, 2013. 496(7446): p. 518-22. Disclosure of Interest None declared


This postscript to the Quality Use of Medicines series of reviews will look back at the principles put forward in the
first article, while considering how these should be deployed by the family practitioner in the current practice milieu.
The articles in the series have tried to convey how the application of evidence can promote the "therapeutically
sound and cost-effective use of drugs" - what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the "rational use of
medicines". The approach suggested in that first paper was the WHO "P-drug" process - a systematic way to
select and apply medicines, taking into account the efficacy, safety, suitability and cost of different options. Can this process help the individual practitioner to ensure the quality use of medicines in the face of changing circumstances?


Abstract This paper describes and evaluates a tool to measure, compute and display per- formitnce data of any machine in a wide-area, heterogeneous, distributed computing system. The monitoring tool is easily deployable, easily extensible, and silpports var- ious degrees of centralization without significant redesign effort. The tool leverages widely used network protocols (SNMP) for communication, thus being a,pplicable to many distributed systems. The paper discusses the design and development of a monitoring system1 (SIMONE) and -the performance studies conducted to evaluate the tool. SIMONE; consists of a ma.nager which requests, receives, and processes data from individual machines or hosts and presents the results to the user. The manager is designed to measure a set of performance parameters determined useful in a network-computing environment. The hosts of the target system run daemons which service requests from the man- ager. The reply to each request consists of the variable values obtained from the host. Perfc~rmance measurements carried out on the prototype SIMONE are reported and compared to similar measurements using alternate monitoring methods. ]Performance metfics include resolution of monitored measurements, latency between data request and -presentation, and communication and CPU overheads. The performance of SI- MOPiE shows significant improvement (better resolution, less latency, lower overhead) over that of alternate monitoring methods.


Introduction Management of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in library has become an integral part of Information and knowledge management process of the library. To this end most libraries now has Systems Unit which are headed by senior management staff of the library. We are in the era of standardized information management, therefore strategic thinking in university libraries in Nigeria should be to develop systems that will help them link On-line to other institutions of interest with a view to sourcing information On-line or creating real time access to information that will enable the faculty and student have access to current and up-to-date information. Calhoun (2006) referred to this as the "switching layer" phenomenon. This he argued will help libraries leverage their information delivery services. He pointed out that libraries of the future may be evaluated based on their ability to provide their users with technologies that allow applications to communicate across platforms and programming languages using standard protocols based on Extensible Markup Language (XML)--to connect catalogues and other library resources to search engines, e-learning systems, portals, Amazon, etc. This is however hinged on libraries running operating systems that will leverage their automation projects on the "switching layer" platform. These "switching layer" platforms run on software. Computer software packages are programmes designed to perform specific functions for computer or ICT operations. Many automation efforts in Nigerian University libraries have been fraught with lack of feasibility study for the adequacy of the software for the proposed task of library automation (Omoniwa, 2001). Evidence for this can be seen in the history of automation efforts of these libraries. This history dates back to the second half of the 1970's. The Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria, Nsukka set up its library automation committee in October 1975 (Imo: 1995). Ikem and Ajula (n.d.) reported that full scale planning on automation started fully at the Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan in 1978. They noted that it was affected by harsh economic situation for sometime until early 1990 when the library encouraged by the automation success of IITA embarked on a new trend of automation of the library. In the Kashim Ibrahin Library (KIL), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the idea started in 1972 with the automation of its serials record by the computer centre of the University. These efforts did not yield much dividend for the libraries because there were no tangible results to show for the energy expended on the projects. This was due to the fact that these attempts at library automation were directed from outside the library. Serious automation efforts in Nigerian university libraries started in mid 1990's, Bozimo (2006) noted that university libraries in Nigeria cashed in on the opportunity presented by the World Bank project organized and executed by National Universities commission (NUC) in the 1994/95 session to kick start seriously their automation projects. NUC donated computers to university libraries in Nigeria and encouraged them to acquire the TINLIB software for their automation project. This software did not carry the universities far as most of them abandoned it early in their project for other software. The reason for this was lack of adequate maintenance support and technical guide. These libraries have toyed with other software like GLAS, X-LIB, VATUA, ALICE for Windows etc. Pressman (2001) pointed out that computer software may be applied in any situation for which a pre-specified set of procedural steps (i.e. an algorithm) has been defined and that they deliver the most important product of our time-information. The overriding need and importance of software in the ICT era is stressed by Saxby (1990) and Pressman (2001). Saxby argued that "It is now clear that the lack of good software is a bottleneck to the full exploitation of the performance capabilities of modern hardware. …


Abstract Background This two-year study is a retrospective analysis of records of patients diagnosed with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) at a private medical aid society for the period January 2002 to December 2003. In this study of GORD and its complications, the use of gastroscopy as a staging criteria and the cost of treatment were evaluated. Patients with alarming symptoms (chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, progressive unintentional weight loss, progressive difficulty in swallowing, persistent vomiting, iron deficiency anaemia, epigastric mass or suspicious barium meal), those with complications of GORD (erosive oesophagitis, ulcerative oesophagitis, oesophageal strictures, Barrett's oesophagus and oesophageal adenocarcinoma), and patients in whom symptoms have not resolved need to have a gastroscopy performed. If left untreated, some of these symptoms could lead to more severe and serious complications. Accurate recognition of these symptoms will help to identify, evaluate and treat patients timeously. The use of the gastroscopy allows for the detection of complications of GORD, which helps to identify patients with complications timeously and avoids, delays or stops the progression of the complications of GORD. However, the unnecessary use of gastroscopy in patients without complications results in unnecessary costs. Patients without alarming symptoms or complications should be treated empirically with proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) to resolve the symptoms of GORD. Methods One thousand seven hundred and fifty-three patients with GORD were identified from computer records at a private medical aid society for the period January 2002 to December 2003. These patient records were retrospectively analysed using the computer database. All newly diagnosed GORD patients (n = 586) who were on drug therapy were included in the study. These patients were divided into two subsets: those without gastroscopy (n = 211) and those with gastroscopy (n = 375). The latter group was further identified as those that had undergone one (n = 232) or more than one gastroscopy (n = 143). Patients were further subdivided into those with and without complications. The choice of the study population was not based on the complication or the severity of the symptoms, but on whether or not the attending doctor chose to have a gastroscopy done. Results The number of complications detected in patients with more than one gastroscopy was the highest (34%; n = 48) in comparison to patients with one gastroscopy (21%; n = 49) or without gastroscopy (7%; n = 15) (p < 0.001). The odds or chances of having complications were significantly greater in patients with one gastroscopy compared to those without gastroscopy (OR 3.5; 95% CI: 1.8–6.9). Having an additional gastroscopy increased the odds of complications significantly compared to patients with just one gastroscopy (OR 1.9; 95% CI: 1.1–3.1). Barrett's oesophagus occurred in 1.9% (n = 4) of patients without gastroscopy and in 15.7% (n = 59) of patients with gastroscopy (p < 0.001). Discussion Patients without gastroscopy presented with the lowest number of complications. The performance of gastroscopy in patients with alarming symptoms or complications may have resulted in more complications being detected. In subjects without gastroscopy, the prevalence of Barrett's oesophagus was low. The proportion of subjects with complications is strongly associated with the number of gastroscopies they had undergone. Multiple gastroscopies increased the likelihood of detecting complications. Thus, a gastroscopy should only be performed if the symptoms of GORD do not resolve or if the patient has alarming symptoms or complications after empirical therapy. Conclusion The performance of gastroscopy in patients who had not undergone a gastroscopy before may have resulted in more complications being detected. Having more than one gastroscopy significantly increased the odds of detecting complications compared to patients with who had only undergone one gastroscopy. Patients without alarming symptoms should be treated empirically for one to two months, and a gastroscopy should only be performed if the symptoms do not resolve or if the patients experience complications or alarming symptoms.1 This study was confined to a single medical aid society. For comparison, other medical aids should be included.


Supporting quality of service (QoS) while fulfilling high efficiency of bandwidth utilization is challenging in wireless mesh networks. To deal with this issue, hybrid medium access control (MAC) protocols are effective candidates because they can achieve QoS support and better resource sharing at the same time. However, in multi-hop communication environments, hybrid MAC protocols suffer from interference and low bandwidth efficiency. To solve these problems, in this paper, we propose a distributed interference-aware admission control algorithm (DIACA) with soft resource allocation for hybrid MAC protocols suitable for IEEE 802.11 wireless mesh networks; a scheme for providing QoS improvement for real-time sessions (RTSNs) while enhancing the efficiency of bandwidth utilization. The proposed DIACA possesses a function for interference probing, making each node recognize their interfering counterparts. Further, through support of interference detection, concurrent transmissions can be achieved by letting non-interfering nodes transmit data simultaneously along a route which improves the efficiency of spatial reuse of bandwidth. In addition, the DIACA can implement soft resource allocation for RTSNs having delay requirements but loose (or low) throughput demands. By using soft resource allocation, a transmission opportunity can be shared by different RTSNs with low data rates and each of the RTSNs can obtain satisfactory QoS. Simulation results indicate that the proposed admission control algorithm can significantly enhance the bandwidth utilization of wireless channel and can improve QoS for RTSNs.


Erasmus of Rotterdam's "Adages" were first published in Venice in 1500. The Greek and Roman proverbs which he recorded and explained in this book met the Renaissance taste for ancient ethical precepts which could be used as a guide to living in the modern world. In many later editions, the maxims were vastly increased in number and Erasmus's commentaries often lengthened into moral essays. This manuscript provides an early example of the influence, direct and indirect, exerted by Erasmus. In this set of texts, word and image enhance each other in a way that prefigures the emblematic form which was to become so influential throughout Europe. The manuscript was intended for the character training of the future King Francois I. Its texts were chosen by the young prince's tutor, Francois Demoulins, who combined them with pictures some time between 1512 and Francois's accession to the throne in 1515. Demoulins drew heavily on the 1508 edition of Erasmus's "Adages", selecting those precepts which were most obviously applicable to court life and its pitfalls. He also included a number of sayings attributed to Pythagoras. For these Pythagorean precepts some explanation can be found, in Erasmus's commentaries on the "Adages". Massing's study places the manuscript in its historical, literary and artistic context, as well as emphasizing its significance for the development of the moral emblem. His commentary on each page further explores the sources and relationships of both texts and pictures. A selection of comparative illustrations are also added.


We describe an ongoing effort to collect and annotate very large corpora of user-contributed content in multiple languages for the DARPA BOLT program, which has among its goals the development of genre-independent machine translation and information retrieval systems. Initial work includes collection of several hundred million words of online discussion forum threads in English, Chinese and Egyptian Arabic, with multi-layered linguistic annotation for a portion of the collected data. Future phases will target still more challenging genres like Twitter and text messaging. We provide details of the collection strategy and review some of the particular technical and annotation challenges stemming from these genres, and conclude with a discussion of strategies for tackling these issues.


Type 1 diabetes is a disease resulting from the progressive immune-mediated destruction of insulin producing β-cells. In order to understand more about diabetes we need to understand the mechanisms governing β-cell death.The leukemia drug Gleevec is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets c-Abl. Surprisingly, Gleevec also counteracts Type 2 diabetes and acts as a cell death inhibiting agent, via inhibition c-Abl. Since both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are characterized by an increased β-cell death, and the role of c-Abl is unknown in β-cells, we wanted to investigate the following:1.Does Gleevec act via inhibition of c-Abl in β-cells?2.Can Gleevec treatment prevent beta-cell death and diabetes? 3.Which downstream signaling pathways are affected by Gleevec?In paper I, in order to determine whether Gleevec acts by inhibiting c-Abl, we used RNA-interference. Interestingly, siRNA against c-Abl produced by recombinant Dicer mediate almost complete and non-toxic silencing of c-Abl mRNA in dispersed islet cells and conferred protection from streptozotocin and cytokines.In paper II we show that Gleevec protects β-cells from nitric oxide, pro-inflammatory cytokines and streptozotocin in vitro and that Gleevec can prevent diabetes development in the NOD mouse and the streptozotocin-injected mouse. We also present the hypothesis that Gleevec induces a state resembling ischemic preconditioning.Paper III presents an additional mechanism by which Gleevec might improve β-cell survival, i.e. via the inhibition of the downstream stress-activated protein kinase c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), the activity of which has been implicated in β-cell death signaling pathways. In paper IV we explore the interactions between the adaptor protein Shb and c-Abl. We presently show an association between Shb-c-Abl and that Shb is a substrate for the c-Abl kinase that might regulate stress-induced c-Abl activity.


The steady‐state fluorescence (SSF) technique was employed for studying the drying of polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels. Disc‐shaped hydrogels were prepared by free‐radical crosslinking copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) with N,N′‐methylene bisacrylamide (BIS) as crosslinker in the presence of ammonium persulfate (APS) as an initiator. Pyranine (P) was introduced as a fluorescence probe and the intensity of pyranine was monitored during in situ drying at various temperatures. It was observed that the fluorescence intensity of pyranine increased during the drying process. A supporting, gravimetrical experiment was also performed. A phenomenological equation was introduced to determine the desorption coefficient, D, of water molecules from the drying hydrogels at various temperatures. The desorption activation energy, ΔE d, values were measured for the drying processes and found to be 91.08 and 36.82 kJ mol–1 by fluorescence and gravimetrical methods, respectively. This difference most probably originates from the origin of the techniques; the fluorescence technique measures the parameters at a molecular level, whereas the gravimetrical technique measures a parameter in the bulk.


In this work, we present a learning-based approach to chip placement, one of the most complex and time-consuming stages of the chip design process. Unlike prior methods, our approach has the ability to learn from past experience and improve over time. In particular, as we train over a greater number of chip blocks, our method becomes better at rapidly generating optimized placements for previously unseen chip blocks. To achieve these results, we pose placement as a Reinforcement Learning (RL) problem and train an agent to place the nodes of a chip netlist onto a chip canvas. To enable our RL policy to generalize to unseen blocks, we ground representation learning in the supervised task of predicting placement quality. By designing a neural architecture that can accurately predict reward across a wide variety of netlists and their placements, we are able to generate rich feature embeddings of the input netlists. We then use this architecture as the encoder of our policy and value networks to enable transfer learning. Our objective is to minimize PPA (power, performance, and area), and we show that, in under 6 hours, our method can generate placements that are superhuman or comparable on modern accelerator netlists, whereas existing baselines require human experts in the loop and take several weeks.


A study of light and charged-particle optical systems with inversion, reflection, rotation, translation, and/or glide symmetries is presented. The constraints imposed by the various symmetries on the first-order properties of a lens are investigated. In particular, the mathematical structures of the deflection vectors and the transfer matrices are described for various symmetrical systems. In the course of studying the translation and the glide symmetries, a simple technique for characterizing a general system of N identical components in series (or cascade) is also developed, based on the linear algebra theory of factoring matrices into Jordan canonical forms. Applications of these results are presented in a follow-up paper [ J. Opt. Soc. Am. A12, 2760 ( 1995)].


The exact point at which the Hippocratic tradition lost its universal appeal and application is hard to establish. However, by the 1970s a secularized ethic began to be articulated that was designed to be devoid of theological language. The Belmont Report: US National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects (1978), while utilizing some of the intellectual tools of Catholic morality, sought another basis for making medical decisions and used the norms of beneficence, nonmaleficence and social justice to guide such thinking. Not too much later, the principle of autonomy was articulated, so that Tom Beauchamp and James Childress could develop what has become the dominant, secular medico-moral method now known as principlism. Their system, as is their claim, overcame the intractable debate between utilitarianism and deontology by its focus on the notion of mid-level principles or prima facie norms — autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. As such, the obligations generated by those norms are not seen as absolute. They bind agents unless overridden or outweighed by a competing obligation.


The standard assumption of identically distributed training and test data is violated when the test data are generated in response to the presence of a predictive model. This becomes apparent, for example, in the context of email spam filtering. Here, email service providers employ spam filters, and spam senders engineer campaign templates to achieve a high rate of successful deliveries despite the filters. We model the interaction between the learner and the data generator as a static game in which the cost functions of the learner and the data generator are not necessarily antagonistic. We identify conditions under which this prediction game has a unique Nash equilibrium and derive algorithms that find the equilibrial prediction model. We derive two instances, the Nash logistic regression and the Nash support vector machine, and empirically explore their properties in a case study on email spam filtering.


The IIASA/LUC georeferenced database for the former USSR (in part only for Russia), was created within the framework of the project "Modeling of Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Europe and Northern Asia" (LUC). For Russia, essential information on relief, soil, vegetation, land cover and use, etc. for routine environmental analysis was lacking when the LUC project first started developing the database. In addition, the environmental data on the former USSR which was available occurred in formats (papers, tables, etc.) that in general could not be used with modern information technology, and in particular in model building. In creating the LUC project database, we have established a threefold task: 1) to obtain the relevant information for the LUC project modeling exercises; 2) to develop data which is applicable to modern information technology; 3) to contribute a series of digital databases which could be applied for a number of other specific analysis by the national and international scientific community. In defining the tasks it was agreed to create a set of digital databases which could be handled by a geographic information systems (GIS). This required that the data had to be georeferenced. The complete set of georeferenced digital databases was combined into the LUC project's GIS, using ARC/INFO. However, each individual item (physiography, soil, vegetation, etc.) was created as an unique specific digital database, allowing to be used separately, depending on user's needs. The complete series of the unique georeferenced digital databases is described in several IIASA/LUC volumes: Volume 1. Physiography (land forms, slope conditions, elevations). Volume 2. Soil. Volume 3. Soil degradation status (Russia). Volume 4. Vegetation. Volume 5. Land categories. Volume 6. Agricultural regionalization.


We live in the era of Big Data where massive amounts of information are generated continuously from numerous types of sources. Today's goal is to apply techniques that take into consideration the volume, the variety and the velocity of the data, in order to gain insight that couldn't be revealed with traditional data processing application software. Cluster analysis is a technique that groups a set of objects such that objects in the same group have similar properties. It is commonly used in the fields of machine learning, data mining, statistical data analysis, pattern recognition and bioinformatics. In this thesis, we propose a parallel implementation for the wellknown unsupervised learning algorithm, StreamKM++, for clustering data streams in an online fashion. For the development phase, Apache Flink framework is chosen as a distributed streaming engine with high-throughput, low-latency and fault-tolerant computations over unbounded and bounded data streams. Initially, we introduce the theoretical background of the implemented algorithm and the distributed framework. Afterwards, we propose a parallel implementation which computes the set of cluster centers after the consumption of the input dataset. In addition to that, we propose an alternative implementation which produces periodically requests for the re-evaluation of cluster centers. Finally, we develop a program that exploits the Queryable State feature of Flink, in order to allow the user to query the most up-to-date values of the cluster centers. Experimental evaluation shows that by increasing the level of parallelism the running time droops significantly and at the same time the quality of the clustering gets slightly better.


Older adults often lack familiarity with mental health symptoms and services and may hold negative beliefs about mental health care that can prevent them from seeking treatment. Greater attention and new approaches to meeting the mental health needs of older Americans are critically needed. The nation's highly fragmented system of mental health care, in addition to barriers at policy and individual levels, has limited the utilization and provision of mental healthcare to older adults. Research has consistently shown that older adults with mental health problems infrequently utilize mental health services in both private and public mental health systems (Bogner et al., 2009; Karlin, Duffy, and Gleaves, 2008; Karlin and Norris, 2006). A recent national study of mental health service use by older and younger adults found that older adults were three times less likely than their younger counterparts to receive mental health treatment (Karlin, Duffy, and Gleaves, 2008). Even older adults with the greatest mental health needs were found to receive mental health care at low rates. Older adults often lack familiarity with mental health symptoms and services and may hold negative beliefs about mental health care that can prevent them from seeking treatment. This is particularly the case with those in the "old-old" cohort whose knowledge and perceptions of mental illness and mental health treatment may be influenced by generational experiences. Modern understanding of mental illness and currently available treatments is quite different than conceptualizations of mental illness and treatments that existed during the earlier lives of today's oldest Americans. Older adults who do seek treatment for mental health concerns often present to their primary care physician and rarely seek help in the specialty mental health sector. To further complicate matters, primary care physicians often under-detect mental health symptoms in older adults and may attribute mental health symptoms in older patients-feeling blue, experiencing decreased energy, activity, or interest-to normal aspects of aging. Limited Medicare coverage and other policy barriers have also significantly limited mental health care use by older adults (Karlin and Duffy, 2004; Karlin and Humphreys, 2007). At the same time, research has consistently shown that mental health treatments, including specific evidence-based psychotherapies, are as effective with older adults as they are with younger adults. Specific adaptations to the pace and process of psychotherapy, including the use of multiple sensory modalities for presenting information and repetition and rehearsal of information, can help to maximize treatment gains with older individuals (Crowther and Zeiss, 2002; Karlin, in press; Molinari, 2003). To effectively meet the mental health care needs of older adults, we must reshape and re-engineer how we provide mental health services. This involves moving outside the traditional highly fragmented and specialized mental health services toward a system of mental health care that is interdisciplinary, integrated, and evidence-based (Zeiss and Gallagher-Thompson, 2003). The Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the component of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that coordinates healthcare delivery to veterans, is working to develop a mental health care system that embodies these fundamental elements, as part of a major effort to transform mental health care delivery in the VHA that began in 2005. This transformation process includes initiatives at the policy, system design, and program levels intended to improve mental health care access, utilization, and quality for veterans with mental illness, including specific initiatives targeting older veterans. The VA Mental Health Care Delivery System The VHA operates the largest and one of the most elaborate mental health care systems in the nation and perhaps the world. The VHA provides a broad array of mental health services across the full continuum of care, including inpatient, residential, and outpatient mental health settings at its medical centers and clinics. …


The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of moral intensity on self-conscious emotions and neutralization techniques in the context of ethical decision making among consumers. A sample of 388 shopping mall retail consumers was recruited through self-administered survey technique. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, correlation was carried out in SPSS whereas the measurement model and structural relationships were estimated using AMOS. Results indicate that moral intensity positively influences consumer's self-consciousness, neutralization techniques and behavioural intention. Self-consciousness negatively influence consumer's defence mechanism i.e. neutralization techniques. Neither self-consciousness nor neutralization techniques is found to have an impact on consumers' behavioural intention. Only self-consciousness is found to complementary mediate the relationship of moral intensity and neutralization. The limitations associated with field survey and crosssectional research design are inevitable. The study offers some relevant practical implications for government, marketing professionals and academia. The study is among the pioneer studies that theoretically links and empirically examines Issue Contingent Model, theory of neutralization and self-consciousness. The study develops and tested an Urdu language version of the questionnaire for retail consumers.


Incorporating concepts from the domain of Implicit Social Cognition (ISC), this quantitative study measured participants' implicit attitudes (through an audio Implicit Association Test) and explicit attitudes (through self report questionnaires) toward foreign and U.S. accented speech stimuli. The study's results revealed a pro-U.S. accent bias on the implicit measure, but a proforeign accent bias on explicit measures, supporting the conclusion that these are separable attitude constructs resulting from distinct mental processes. This distinction in attitude type explains previous inconsistencies in language attitudes research and is supported theoretically by the Associative Propositional Evaluation Model, a dynamic dual processing conceptualization of the attitude formation process consistent with ISC.


We describe an intelligent personal assistant that has been developed to aid a busy knowledge worker in managing time commitments and performing tasks. The design of the system was motivated by the complementary objectives of (1) relieving the user of routine tasks, thus allowing her to focus on tasks that critically require human problem-solving skills, and (2) intervening in situations where cognitive overload leads to oversights or mistakes by the user. The system draws on a diverse set of AI technologies that are linked within a Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agent system. Although the system provides a number of automated functions, the overall framework is highly user centric in its support for human needs, responsiveness to human inputs, and adaptivity to user working style and preferences.


Modern digital computation techniques have made it possible to compute a base profile for a bell so that it will have some particular, predetermined eigenfrequencies. Practice has shown that with a combination of these modern techniques and the traditional skills of an experienced bell founder, a carillon bell can be made that contains an unconventional "major-third" partial and is in other respects at least as well-tuned as traditional carillon bells of high quality. An experimental movable carillon with 47 major-third bells was built and was found to be aurally quite distinguishable from a conventional carillon of comparable size. Criticizm on this new instrument comes mostly from professional carillonneurs, whereas other musicians or nonmusicians react generally in a positive way.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which causes other than dementia contribute to poor performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).

DESIGN
Cross-sectional population-based study.

SETTING
Municipality of Lieto, Finland.

SUBJECTS
The study population consisted of all individuals residing in Lieto and born in or before 1926. A total of 1196 individuals, 93% of those eligible, participated.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The MMSE was implemented following interviews and clinical examinations. Whenever an individual was unable to complete any individual item on the MMSE, the nurse recorded causes and assessed whether poor performance was mainly caused by dementia or other reasons.

RESULTS
Poor test performance due to causes other than dementia was recorded in 122 (10.2%) individuals (4% of those in the 64-74 years group, 15% in the 75-84 years group and 42% in the group of 85 years of age or older). The most common causes were poor vision and hearing, deficient schooling and consequences of stroke.

CONCLUSION
Ten percent of the elderly population had symptoms contributing to poor performance on the MMSE. Physicians should therefore consider and record co-morbidity in the testing situation, especially in very old individuals.


In this paper we examine the retrieval performance of adjacent and concurrent n-grams generated from polyphonic music data. We deploy a method to index polyphonic music using a word position indexer with the n-gram approach. Using all possib le combinations of monophonic sequences from polyphonic music data, "overlaying" word locations within a document are obtained, such as needed with polyphony (i.e. where more than one word can assume the same word position). The feasibility in utilising the position information of polyphonic 'musical words' is investigated using various proximity-based and structured query operators available with text retrieval system. Our experime nts show that nested phrase operators improve the retrieval performance and we present the results of our comparative study on a collection of 5456 polyphonic pieces encoded in the MIDI format.


The paper presents the first simulative results and algorithmic developments of the task-priority based control applied to a distributed sampling network in an area coverage or adaptive sampling mission scenario. The proposed approach allowing the fulfilment of a chain of tasks with decreasing priority each of which directly related to both operability and safety aspects of the entire mission. The task-priority control is presented both in the centralized and decentralized implementations showing a comparison of performance. Finally simulations of the area coverage mission scenario are provided showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


This is the first comprehensive grammar of any variety of Mixtec written for linguists. It provides theoretically informed (generative) description and analysis of the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexical semantics of this dialect, situated in the broader context of Mixtecan and Otomanguean languages. Texts and a lexicon (Mixtec-English/English-Mixtec, 1,500 words) are included as well.


The research field of Product-Service Systems (PSS) emerged within the engineering design field to address sustainability and radically lower environmental impact from production and product use stages. PSS research has progressed insights of the industrial phenomena, but are often grounded in either product or service development, and the sustainability perspective had diminished over time. The deviation from what was intended might depend on research methodologies that do not meet the requirements of PSS multidisciplinary research. Some reflections of our research and craftsmanship are thus needed, which is also the purpose of this paper. PSS are used in the paper as a framework to highlight some of the facets of engineering design research activities. The paper suggests that multidisciplinary research has to manage different methodologies and different theories, this can be achieved if underlying assumptions are made transparent and if contradictions between those and the conclusions are discussed. Finally, the paper make an effort to encourage discussions about research methodologies to improve not only research but also implementation in industry.


RICHARD FUMERTON [*] KEN KRESS [**] I INTRODUCTION Richard Wright's attempt to distinguish actual causation from proximate causation, and to analyze actual causation--particularly in tort law--has been the most successful and influential work in this area in recent years. [1] Indeed, most scholars think that Wright's analysis of cause as a necessary element in a set of conditions ("NESS") sufficient for an effect [2] is an improvement upon H.L.A. Hart and Tony Honore's classic discussion. [3] In the decade and a half since Wright put forth his theory of causation, there have been a number of attempts to criticize him, but none has undermined the central thrust of his theory. [4] While Wright's view has received deserved praise, his analysis of a NESS requires clarification. Once clarified, however, it is vulnerable to certain fundamental objections. Wright's stated aim is to capture a nonnormative concept of causation. Therefore, this article begins by briefly describing the normative/nonnormative distinction, and how one might invoke this distinction to locate a nonnormative dimension of actual causation (as opposed to proximate causation). After briefly introducing Wright's concept of a NESS for an effect (the concept in terms of which he wants to understand actual causation), the article notes ambiguities in the critical concepts of necessity and sufficiency that he deploys. The article distinguishes a number of different modal concepts and suggests the most plausible interpretation of Wright's use of these concepts. With a more precise understanding of Wright's view in hand, we turn to the question of whether his analysis more effectively handles difficult cases of causation--including multiple causes, preemption, omissions and the like--than does the nearly universal "but for" test deployed by courts as a test of actual causation. While Wright's test has certain advantages over the "but for" test, the article argues that it faces difficult problems of its own. First, it is not clear that Wright can accommodate indeterministic causation. Nor, contrary to what he claims, can his account adequately explain all cases of overdetermination involving preemption. The most obvious revision of Wright's theory to handle cases of preemption (replacing a concept of lawful sufficiency with one of causal sufficiency--a revision with which Wright has indicated sympathy) risks vicious conceptual circularity. It hardly seems likely that one will gain insight into the nature of causation through an account that relies on an understanding of that special kind of sufficiency involved in causation. II CAUSATION AND NORMATIVITY Legal theorists have tried to distinguish nonnormative issues from those that include a normative element. [5] Obvious candidates for nonnormative issues are questions concerning causation. For example, if you are suing me for damages in tort, one of the things you must establish for your suit to be successful is that some action I took caused the relevant damages. [6] This part of your burden seems straightforwardly factual in a way in which, say, your burden of showing that I acted negligently (or tortiously) may not be. It seems plausible on its face to suppose that negligence is a normative notion. When people act negligently, they do not exercise due care. They do not take precautions they ought to take in the face of various possible harms. The italicized terms are paradigm value terms that indicate our subject has taken a normative turn. Before proceeding, it might be worth elaborating on this distinction between nonnormative and normative questions. Some people describe nonnormative issues as factual and normative issues as nonfactual. Many ethical philosophers resist this way of presenting the contrast. These philosophers argue that normative, ethical judgments are factual judgments. Some of these descriptivists are subjectivists, but others would claim that ethical statements make objective assertions. …


Most scholars and practitioners agree that world politics suffers from a democratic deficit. In response, proposals for cosmopolitan democracy are not in short supply. Indeed the meaning of the term cosmopolitan democracy is now incredibly broad, encompassing a wide variety of institutional and normative prescriptions intended to foster more democratically legitimate standards at the transnational level. However, there is a distinct irony to these proposals. The increased interdependence and cooperation of actors at the transnational level - spurred on by globalization - make cosmopolitan democracy a necessary vision. Simultaneously, globalization amplifies power imbalances and thus skews the interests of different agents. Hence, globalization makes cosmopolitan democracy a necessary but distant prospect. This article seeks to address the empirical institutional constraints against building cosmopolitan democracy using historical institutionalism to stress the limitations of design. A normative argument is also built focusing on the relative merits of democratic experimentalism as a way to advance the cosmopolitan project whilst undercutting the complications noted in the analytical section of the article.


Reconsidering from a surprisingly modern perspective the relationships among the great Arthurian knights, Pierre Sala's Tristan et Lancelot reflects the crisis in values characteristic of late medieval literature. (AC) Long absent from common reference works, the work of Pierre Sala (1457- 1529) is the subject of revived interest today. The change is undoubtedly motivated by a renewal of our perspectives on literary history, based on the entirely natural desire to explore the margins of the canon-of what we have been taught to consider as 'literarily correct.' This about-face invites us to dust off an engaging figure who may seem to be the perfect example of an 'untimely' writer (unzeitgemass, Nietzche would say)-from two points of view: on the one hand, he seems anachronistic in his own era; on the other, he forces us to revise our preconceptions about the evolution of medieval literature. An author of Arthurian romances at a time when-or so it is believed-not much more was being done than reprinting old epic poems;1 a contemporary of the Grands Rhetoriqueurs [Great Rhetoricians] who was apparently even more reactionary than they were; a compatriot of Maurice Sceve, Louise Labe, and the first important editors of the French Renaissance; a leading citizen from the provinces who was passionate about antiquities of all sorts (Roman as well as French, an eclecticism that would no longer be possible at the end of the sixteenth century), Pierre Sala does not belong to any school or clearly identifiable movement. Apparently resistant to Gutenberg's invention (this is not the least 'anachronistic' aspect of his personality), Sala never entrusted his manuscripts to printers, and it is only in the twentieth century that his work began to be edited: much remains to be done.2 Moreover, his literary activity came to fruition late in life: at first a servant in the royal house, he started by writing compilations, then he adapted fables before launching into the strange enterprise of rewriting in the same octosyllabic meter a romance by Chretien de Troyes composed three centuries earlier, Le Chevalier au Lion (1522)3-at a time when, for the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries, the old verse romance had already sunk into oblivion. A few years before his death (between 1525 and 1529), he finished his career by composing an Arthurian prose romance which, although a direct descendent of the great thirteenth-century summas, nevertheless makes an extremely original contribution to the continuation of the adventures of both Tristan and Lancelot. A labor of old age, his Tristan et Lancelot can thus seem to be the work of an entire lifetime, for which all his earlier texts might be considered as simple preparation. In this process, a particular place must be reserved for the stage devoted to the Chevalier au Lion, our author's first leap into truly novelistic writing, a sort of experimental gallop that takes the form of a rewriting at moments so servile that one can well imagine the paradoxes it raises being glossed by Borges.4 Yet it offers at other times shifts that, though often nearly imperceptible, lay out in exemplary fashion the ideological evolution of knighthood between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. Had he died at the age of sixty, Pierre Sala would only have left the literary reputation of a 'polygraph' who had not truly found his way. But with his last romance everything changes. The best way to show the originality of this text is to consider the vagaries undergone by the title over the course of the twentieth century. The work was first published by Droz in 1985 under the simple title of Tristan.5 Its editor, Lynette Muir, seems to have found the idea that this is a version of the Tristan and Iseut story so obvious that in the index of characters the term 'passim' is placed after the names of Tristanand Iseut! While this indication is justified for Tristan, who is certainly present in 70% to 80% of the book's pages, it is fallacious for Iseut, who only appears in 15% to 20% of the narrative. …


We describe a simple neural language model that relies only on character-level inputs. Predictions are still made at the word-level. Our model employs a convolutional neural network (CNN) and a highway net work over characters, whose output is given to a long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network language model (RNN-LM). On the English Penn Treebank the model is on par with the existing state-of-the-art despite having 60% fewer parameters. On languages with rich morphology (Arabic, Czech, French, German, Spanish, Russian), the model outperforms word-level/morpheme-level LSTM baselines, again with fewer parameters. The results suggest that on many languages, character inputs are sufficient for language modeling. Analysis of word representations obtained from the character composition part of the model reveals that the model is able to encode, from characters only, both semantic and orthographic information.


The investment of pension funds of Government employees, who are covered as subscribers to the New Pension System (NPS), was hitherto being made through a pooling arrangement whereby the funds of such employees were credited to a pool account (pending reconciliation of subscribers' contribution details) from which such funds were allocated to pension fund managers for immediate investment in the best interest of the subscribers. These funds of the Government employees are being managed based on the investment Pattern prescribed by the Government. The pension funds of the Government employees, who are covered by NPS, are managed by three pension fund managers, namely, SBI Pension Funds (Pvt.) Limited, UTI Retirement Solutions Limited and LIC Pension Fund Limited. The Pool account is proposed to be discontinued from 1 st May, 2012. Thereafter, it would be possible for the individual subscribers to exercise their individual choices regarding investment pattern and the pension fund manager. NPS is a defined contribution based pension system where the actual returns would be determined by the market based returns. This information was given by the Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.


We reasoned that de novo oxidative damage, as a result of increased protein glycosylation, could participate in the mechanisms whereby diabetic erythrocytes acquire membrane abnormalities. To examine this hypothesis, the extent of erythrocyte membrane protein glycosylation and the oxidative status of spectrin, the major component of the erythrocyte membrane skeleton, were examined. Labeling erythrocyte membranes with [3H]borohydride, which labels glucose residues bound to proteins, revealed that several proteins were heavily glycosylated compared with nondiabetic erythrocyte membranes. In particular, the proteins β-spectrin, ankyrin, and protein 4.2 were the most glycosylated. Although sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of diabetic erythrocyte membranes did not reveal any quantitative or qualitative abnormalities in spectrin or other membrane proteins, examination of spectrin oxidative status by amino acid analysis and with cis-dichlorodiammineplatinum(II) (cDDP), a chemical probe specific for protein methionine and cysteine residues, demonstrated that the diabetic spectrin was oxidatively damaged: spectrin from diabetic subjects contained 35% less methionine (P < 0.002), 15% less histidine (P < 0.006), and a twofold increase in cysteic acid (P < 0.001) compared with normal spectrin. Diabetic spectrin bound 32% less cDDP than normal spectrin (P < 0.001); the lowest cDDP binding was observed with spectrin from insulin-dependent diabetic subjects. The extent of cDDP binding to diabetic spectrin correlated moderately and inversely with glycosylated hemoglobin (GHb) levels (n = 12, r = −0.727). Erythrocyte deformability, measured by ektacytometry, was decreased between 5 and 23% of control measurements (average of ∼10%) in 21 of 32 diabetic subjects surveyed. Diabetic subjects with decreased erythrocyte deformability also had higher GHb levels than diabetic subjects with normal erythrocyte deformability (P < 0.01). Although there was only a modest inverse correlation between these two parameters (n = 28, r = −0.566), the fact that 61% of the diabetic subjects studied exhibited both decreased deformability and increased GHb levels suggests that deformability abnormalities may become apparent once a threshold GHb level is reached. We conclude that spectrin in diabetic erythrocytes is oxidatively damaged. Protein glycosylation may be responsible for oxidative damage, although other factors in addition to or in concert with protein glycosylation may also be involved. Oxidation of spectrin may participate in the mechanisms resulting in diabetic erythrocyte deformability abnormalities.


The authors of this
 Policy Forum
 developed a comprehensive database of >37,000 river restoration projects across the United States. Such projects have increased exponentially over the past decade with more than a billion dollars spent annually since 1990. Most are intended to enhance water quality, manage riparian zones, improve in-stream habitat, allow fish passage, and stabilize stream banks. Only 10% of project records document any form of project monitoring, and little if any of this information is either appropriate or available for assessing the ecological effectiveness of restoration activities.


This scientific opinion reports an evaluation of a risk assessment for placing on the market the genetically modified (GM) insect-resistant maize MIR162 for food and feed uses, import and processing. Maize MIR162 contains a single insert consisting of the vip3Aa20 and pmi expression cassettes. The Vip3Aa20 protein confers resistance against certain lepidopteran pests and phosphomannose isomerase (PMI) serves as a selection marker.
Bioinformatic analyses of the inserted DNA and flanking regions do not raise safety concerns. The levels of Vip3Aa20 and PMI proteins in maize MIR162 have been sufficiently analysed. The stability of the genetic modification has been demonstrated. Comparative analyses established that there are no biologically relevant differences in the compositional, agronomic or phenotypic characteristics of maize MIR162 compared with its conventional counterpart, and its composition falls within the range of non-GM commercial varieties, except for the expression of the Vip3Aa20 and PMI proteins. The safety assessment identified no concerns regarding
potential toxicity and allergenicity of Vip3Aa20 and PMI proteins or of maize MIR162. A feeding study on broiler chickens confirmed that grain produced by maize MIR162 is as nutritious as that produced by its conventional counterpart and a non-GM commercial variety. There are no indications of an increased likelihood of establishment and spread of feral maize plants. Considering its intended use as food and feed, interactions with the biotic and abiotic environment were not considered to be an issue. Risks associated with an unlikely but theoretically possible horizontal gene transfer from maize MIR162 to bacteria have not been identified. The monitoring plan and reporting intervals are in line with the intended uses of maize MIR162. In conclusion, the EFSA GMO Panel considers that information available for maize MIR162 addresses scientific comments raised by Member States and that maize MIR162, as described in this application, is as safe as its conventional counterpart and non-GM commercial varieties with respect to potential effects on human and animal health and the environment in the context of its intended uses.


We investigated the importance of the social context for people's voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica, using a natural field experiment. Some subjects make actual contributions while others state their hypothetical contribution. Both the degree of anonymity and information provided about the contributions of others influence subject contributions in the hypothesized direction. We found a substantial hypothetical bias with regard to the amount contributed. However, the influence of the social contexts is about the same when the subjects make actual monetary contributions as when they state their hypothetical contributions. Our results have important implications for validity testing of stated preference methods: a comparison between hypothetical and actual behavior should be done for a given social context.


Yahoo! is a large enterprise with a $32 billion market cap and has one of the largest Agile implementations in the world. The adoption of Scrum and Agile practices has been steadily growing over the past two years, and now encompasses more than 150 Yahoo! teams in the United States, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The projects range from new product development for properties such as Yahoo! Autos to heavy-duty infrastructure work on Yahoo! Mail, which serves 250 million users each month around the globe.


This paper uses recent evidence from international early grade reading programs to provide guidance about how best to create appropriate targets and more effectively identify improved program outcomes. Recent results show that World Bank and US Agency for International Development–funded large-scale international education interventions in low- and middle–income countries tend to produce larger impacts than do interventions in the United States, as measured by effect sizes. However, these effect sizes rarely translate into large gains in mean oral reading fluency scores and are associated with only small increases in the proportion of students meeting country-level reading benchmarks. The limited impact of these low- and middle–income countries' reading programs on the proportion of students meeting reading benchmarks is in large part caused by right-skewed distributions of student reading scores. In other words, modest impacts on the proportion of students meeting benchmarks are caused by low mean scores and large proportions of nonreaders at baseline. It is essential to take these factors into consideration when setting program targets for reading fluency and comprehension. We recommend that program designers in lower-performing countries use baseline assessment data to develop benchmarks based on multiple performance categories that allow for more ambitious targets focused on reducing nonreaders and increasing beginning readers, with more modest targets aimed at improving oral reading fluency scores and increasing the percentage of proficient readers.


Microphone arrays based on the minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer are among the most popular for speech enhancement applications. The original MVDR is excessively sensitive to source location and microphone gains. Previous research has made MVDR practical by successfully increasing the robustness of MVDR to source location, and MVDR-based microphone arrays are already commercially available. Nevertheless, MVDR performance is still weak in cases where microphone gain variations are too large, e.g., for circular arrays of directional microphones. In this paper we propose an improved MVDR beamformer which takes into account the effect of sensors (e.g. microphones) with arbitrary, potentially directional responses. Specifically, we form estimates of the relative magnitude responses of the sensors based on the data received at the array and include those in the original formulation of the MVDR beamforming problem. Experimental results on real-world audio data show an average 2.4 dB improvement over conventional MVDR beamforming, which does not account for the magnitude responses of the sensors.


We present Deep Global Registration, a differentiable framework for pairwise registration of real-world 3D scans. Deep global registration is based on three modules: a 6-dimensional convolutional network for correspondence confidence prediction, a differentiable Weighted Procrustes algorithm for closed-form pose estimation, and a robust gradient-based SE(3) optimizer for pose refinement. Experiments demonstrate that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods, both learning-based and classical, on real-world data.


The Swiss drug giant Roche has been accused of breaching the pharmaceutical industry's code of conduct by providing lavish meals to doctors at several of Australia's leading restaurants.

The dinners were part of a Roche sponsored scientific symposium on haematology-oncology treatments, which included the company's top selling pharmaceutical, rituximab (MabThera), which has annual sales of more than SFr4bn (£1.8bn; €2.6bn; $3.2bn).

According to documents obtained by the BMJ , Roche spent more than $A65000 (£27 000; €39 000; $49 000) on one meal for almost 300 people at the Guillaume at Bennelong restaurant, in the Sydney Opera House in July 2005.

With spectacular views over Sydney harbour, the restaurant is considered one of Australia's best, boasting the "degustation …


We present a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm that is based on radio signals and the association of specular multipath components (MPCs) with geometric features. Especially in indoor scenarios, robust localization from radio signals is challenging due to diffuse multipath propagation, unknown MPC-feature association, and limited visibility of features. In our approach, specular reflections at flat surfaces are described in terms of virtual anchors (VAs) that are mirror images of the physical anchors (PAs). The positions of these VAs and possibly also of the PAs are unknown. We develop a Bayesian model of the SLAM problem and represent it by a factor graph, which enables the use of belief propagation (BP) for efficient marginalization of the joint posterior distribution. The resulting BP-based SLAM algorithm detects the VAs associated with the PAs and estimates jointly the time-varying position of the mobile agent and the positions of the VAs and possibly also of the PAs, thereby leveraging the MPCs in the radio signal for improved accuracy and robustness of agent localization. The algorithm has a low computational complexity and scales well in all relevant system parameters. Experimental results using both synthetic measurements and real ultra-wideband radio signals demonstrate the excellent performance of the algorithm in challenging indoor environments.


Most studies of the law of the priesthood in Aramaic Levi have focused on comparing its individual laws to those in the Torah/Pentateuch. This article argues that these types of comparisons are anachronistic and obscure the distinctive portrayal of sacrifice in Aramaic Levi. The law of the priesthood does not merely respond to, expand, or revise earlier ideas about sacrifice found in "biblical" texts. Rather, the practice and function of sacrifice in Aramaic Levi is constructed around the deity's senses of sight and smell. Inasmuch as the law of the priesthood presents a fundamentally different idea of sacrifice than the one presented in Leviticus, it speaks to the continuum of distinct Jewish ideologies of sacrifice in the mid-Second Temple period.


Transfer learning aims at adapting a model learned from source dataset to target dataset. It is a beneficial approach especially when annotating on the target dataset is expensive or infeasible. Transfer learning has demonstrated its powerful learning capabilities in various vision tasks. Despite transfer learning being a promising approach, it is still an open question how to adapt the model learned from the source dataset to the target dataset. One big challenge is to prevent the impact of category bias on classification performance. Dataset bias exists when two images from the same category, but from different datasets, are not classified as the same. To address this problem, a transfer learning algorithm has been proposed, called negative back-dropout transfer learning (NB-TL), which utilizes images that have been misclassified and further performs back-dropout strategy on them to penalize errors. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. In particular, the authors evaluate the performance of the proposed NB-TL algorithm on UCF 101 action recognition dataset, achieving 88.9% recognition rate.


OBJECTIVE
The Girls health Enrichment Multi-site Studies (GEMS), Phase 1, developed and pilot-tested interventions to prevent obesity in African-American preadolescent girls. This article describes the collaborative planning process undertaken to take full advantage of formative assessment activities for improving contextual relevance and cultural appropriateness.

DESIGN
Working group activities were designed to stimulate awareness and reflection among group members and, through them, among other field center investigators and staff about developmental, cultural, and contextual issues for formative assessment.

SETTING
Telephone, Internet, and face-to-face interactions across GEMS field centers in Houston, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Palo Alto, California.

PARTICIPANTS
Investigators and staff involved in intervention development.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The utility of the process was judged from feedback by participants and field center principal investigators about the contribution of the collaborative effort to improving the perceived relevance and cultural appropriateness of formative assessment data collection and interpretation.

RESULTS
A working bibliography was compiled. A detailed matrix of programmatic, child, family, and contextual issues related to ethnicity, socioeconomic status, general health and lifestyle, food, physical activity, and body image/weight control was completed. Additional guidance was derived from a workshop that involved scholars with expertise in aspects of African-American culture, child development, and family processes.

CONCLUSIONS
This process improved the breadth and depth of GEMS formative assessment activities by increasing the appreciation of the complex structural, contextual, and personal forces at play. A similar process may be useful to other investigators when attempting to develop culturally appropriate interventions.


Background Skin autofluorescence, a biomarker for advanced glycation end products (AGEs) accumulation, has been shown to predict diabetes-related cardiovascular complications and is associated with several environmental and lifestyle factors. In the present study, we examined the association between various smoking behaviors and skin autofluorescence, as well as the association between several cotinine biomarkers and skin autofluorescence, using both epidemiological and metabolomics data. Methods In a cross-sectional study, we evaluated participants from the LifeLines Cohort Study and the Qatar Metabolomics Study on Diabetes (QMDiab). In the LifeLines Cohort Study smoking behavior and secondhand smoking were assessed in 8,905 individuals including 309 individuals (3.5%) with type 2 diabetes. In QMDiab, cotinine biomarkers were measured in saliva, plasma and urine in 364 individuals of whom 188 (51%) had type 2 diabetes. Skin autofluorescence was measured non-invasively in all participants using the AGE Reader. Results Skin autofluorescence levels increased with a higher number of hours being exposed to secondhand smoking. Skin autofluorescence levels of former smokers approached levels of never smokers after around 15 years of smoking cessation. Urinary cotinine N-oxide, a biomarker of nicotine exposure, was found to be positively associated with skin autofluorescence in the QMDiab study (p = 0.03). Conclusions In the present study, we have demonstrated that secondhand smoking is associated with higher skin autofluorescence levels whereas smoking cessation has a beneficial effect on skin autofluorescence. Finally, urinary cotinine N-oxide might be used as an alternative way for questionnaires to examine the effect of (environmental) tobacco smoking on skin autofluorescence.


OBJECTIVE
Schizophrenia has long been thought to be characterized by a fundamental disturbance in semantic associations, which has often been presumed to be of neurobiological origin. The authors examined the neurophysiological characteristics of semantic processing in schizophrenic patients.

METHOD
During EEG recording, 15 schizophrenic patients and 15 age-matched comparison subjects read sentences that had either sensible or nonsensical endings. The authors recorded the N400 component, a specific negative event-related brain potential occurring approximately 400 msec after the final word in the sentence. N400 is highly, if not uniquely, sensitive to semantic expectancy and context, and larger, more negative N400 amplitude is associated with increased semantic unexpectancy.

RESULTS
In relation to the normal comparison subjects, the schizophrenic patients demonstrated prolonged N400 latency after nonsensical sentence endings and also showed enhanced N400 negativity, regardless of the sense of the sentence ending.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest slower and more diffuse semantic activation in patients with schizophrenia, perhaps reflective of a disease-related failure to maintain and to use semantic context.


This article tells the story of the rise and fall of explicit race-based pricing practices as American life insurance companies responded to changes in the social, economic, and legal status of former slaves and their descendants. The role of law in that story, from the Civil War to the beginning of this century, illustrates the complex interaction between civil rights reform and private commercial markets. Despite early laws prohibiting race-based life insurance rates, they persisted in various forms for over a century due to the strength of the underlying racial ideologies, the rhetorical power of actuarial language, and the structure and regulation of insurance markets. Life insurance companies reinforced prevailing American assumptions about race by adopting explicit race-based pricing categories after Reconstruction, and later, by prospectively abandoning them beginning after World War II. Earlier this century, regulatory investigations and litigation under post-Civil War federal civil rights statutes brought relief to those harmed by the continuing effects of dual rate structures in race-segmented markets. Civil rights law thus served primarily as prologue, by provoking company adaptation, and as epilogue, by providing retrospective relief, to the central story of that transformation.


Clare McAndrew is a leading analyst of the global art market. Here the guest editors of this special issue interview McAndrew on the structures of the art market, its sectorial and regional arrangements, and transformations in its historical, technical, and monetary operation. Their discussion highlights the rapid increase in prices for art and the global extension of the art market since the early-to-mid 2000s, as well as further changes to its operation wrought by the rise of online trading in the early 2010s.


It has long been discussed whether individuals should have a "right to be forgotten" online to suppress old information that could seriously interfere with their privacy and data protection rights. In the landmark case of Google Spain v AEPD, the Court of Justice of the European Union addressed the particular question of whether, under EU Data Protection Law, individuals have a right to have links delisted from the list of search results, in searches made on the basis of their name. It found that they do have this right – which can be best described as a "right to be delisted" – when some conditions are met. The ruling, which imposes on search engines the duty to assess and accommodate delisting requests, has proven to be highly controversial. Strong feelings have been expressed either in favor or against it, in what may be seen as a clash between the values of personal data protection and freedom of expression. This article does not delve into this underlying debate. Instead, it aims to explore the solidness of the ground on which the right is based. It begins by providing an overview of the relevant elements of EU data protection law so as to allow readers not familiar with its nuances to properly follow the discussion. After presenting the facts of Google Spain, both at national and EU level, the article discusses how the 'right to be delisted' was crafted by the CJEU. It argues that it is based on shaky ground, as it is premised on the characterization of search engines as "data controllers," which is arguably at odds with their intermediary role and – in the absence of specific safeguards – makes their activity largely incompatible with the data protection legal framework. Moreover, the article discusses how the Court failed to devise a proper balance of the different rights at stake, particularly that of freedom of expression and information. It suggests that the intermediary role of generalist search engines should be adequately protected, both under the data protection legal framework as well as under the liability limitation scheme established by the E-Commerce Directive. This, however, is not likely to be achieved in the near future. A careful approach by national courts and data protection authorities is thus suggested as a way to fix some of the shortcomings identified in the ruling.


Self-supervised learning has achieved a great success in the representation learning of visual and textual data. However, the current methods are mainly validated on the well-curated datasets, which do not exhibit the real-world long-tailed distribution. Recent attempts to consider self-supervised long-tailed learning are made by rebalancing in the loss perspective or the model perspective, resembling the paradigms in the supervised long-tailed learning. Nevertheless, without the aid of labels, these explorations have not shown the expected significant promise due to the limitation in tail sample discovery or the heuristic structure design. Different from previous works, we explore this direction from an alternative perspective, i.e., the data perspective, and propose a novel Boosted Contrastive Learning (BCL) method. Specifically, BCL leverages the memorization effect of deep neural networks to automatically drive the information discrepancy of the sample views in contrastive learning, which is more efficient to enhance the long-tailed learning in the label-unaware context. Extensive experiments on a range of benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of BCL over several state-of-the-art methods. Our code is available at https://github.com/MediaBrain-SJTU/BCL.


PLAIO is pleased to include a link to this publication developed by CAEL (Council on Adult and Experiential Learning). CAEL's overview is as follows: " This guide is intended to serve as a resource for state leaders who wish to promote PLA policy, whether through new higher education policy or through legislation. It includes background information on PLA and why a state- or systemwide approach can be helpful, information on the kinds of policies that other states and systems are adopting, and case studies of both general approaches to state- or systemwide PLA and approaches designed specifically to benefit veterans." Reference Sherman, A., & Klein-Collins, R. (2015). A resource guide for state leaders, 2015 update: State policy approaches to support prior learning assessment. Retrieved from https://www.cael.org/hubfs/premium_content_resources/Home_page_books/CAEL_HCM-PLA-State-Policy-Report-2016.pdf Note Special thanks to CAEL for allowing us to share this resource with our readers.


Monoclonal antibodies have been extensively used for clinical diagnosis over the years. Beyond their ability to bind antigens, their ability to invoke or evade immune responses has also led to their use in therapeutic applications. These additional characteristics have been linked to the sugar molecules naturally attached to the proteins through glycosylation – a post-translational modification performed in higher order organisms. Certain N-glycans, glycans attached to protein at asparagine residues, have been shown to influence antibody Fc-receptor mediated effector functions. Of these, glycans with a bisecting N-acetylglucosamine show promising characteristics. The goal of this project is to create a process to remodel a novel therapeutic mAb (EG2 camelid antibody against Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR)) produced from Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell culture to have a larger fraction of proteins having bisecting Nacetylglucosamine. The driving hypothesis is that a robust in vitro process will be better than what can be achieved in vivo. To achieve this goal, expression and purification of truncated Nacetylglucosaminyltransferase III (GnT3) using the baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) in the Sf9 insect cell line was used to gain an adequate supply of glycosyltransferase. The truncated form of GnT3 contained a C-terminal 6xHistidine-Tag and was cloned downstream of a honeybee mellitin (HBM) secretion signal. Activity of the GnT3 produced in insect cells was compared to a commercial GnT3 acting on our product of interest and on an IgG glycosylated protein. Active GnT3 was utilized to develop a scalable remodeling process to produce bisecting glycan enriched


Plato is a thinker who puts the concept of justice into the very center of philosophicaldiscussion. His concept of dikaiosyne, as a virtue which is in essence related to theessence of the state, is elaborately defi ned in the dialogue The Republic, although in other works (Charmides, Protagoras, Gorgias, Symposium) we can also see views related to its philosophicalunderstanding. Plato particularly emphasizes the universality and permanence of the conceptof justice, its substantial signifi cance for the proper state of the human soul and the alignmentof three distinct parts of the soul, as well as the connection to the threefold social rank basis ofthe best politeia, and differentiated forms of the rule, developed, in addition to the Republic, inStatesman and Laws. The most commonly noted concept of justice, which sublimes its concept"in general", is presented in Δ book of The Republic: "This, then, I said, my friend, if taken in acertain sense appears to be justice, this principle of doing one's own business." Plato advocatesSophocracy, i.e. the political rule of the philosophers, being of the opinion that only in such aform of constitution it is possible to realize a complete harmony, the agreement of spheres ofpractical life, but also the adequacy and the equivalence of giving and taking on behalf of freecitizens of a polis and the very polis. The justice in the Kingship i.e. in Aristocracy should be applied,primarily based on the principle of geometrical equality, while arithmetical equality wouldbe only an auxiliary means to mitigate increased tensions in the classical polis of Plato's times.


The paper tackles the issue of the European Employment Strategy and its application in a New Member State - Poland. The main focus is on the influence of the EU level employment policy coordination on the national welfare state and its labor market policy making relevant to the employment of women. Furthermore, current labor market policy and politics are related to the socialist state's action toward women's employment. Specifically, three stages of Poland's concern with labor market policy and its effect on equal opportunities for women are discussed: the socialist command economy, the post 1989 transformation period, and the accession to the EU phase culminating in the drafting of the first National Action Plan for Employment. The paper argues that the political, economic and social transformations have changed the nature of politics and labor market policy making in Poland: from the socialist state's declared commitment to equality between men and women, through the post transformation disregard for the case, to the response of the current administration to European calls for greater gender equality and the attainment of social inclusion


The radiosity method for realistic image synthesis has been described in the computer graphics literature since 1984. This paper discusses the various algorithms which have been developed for solving the radiosity problem and places them in the context of the literature on solving systems of linear equations. The progressive radiosity method developed in 1988 is shown to be equivalent to a numerical technique known as Southwell iteration. A proof of convergence for this method when used for the radiosity problem is presented in the appendix. A new overshooting (similar to over relaxation) method is developed as a means of accelerating the convergence of the iterative radiosity methods.


Face recognition refers to identification and verification of objects by analyzing and detecting the shape of face and facial features. Face recognition technology has a stunning effect on society it is highly preferred for security purposes as our face has become our password for various applications like unlocking smartphones so the risk of cyber attacks has been decreased to a great extent. .In face recognition technology firstly Face scanning is done and the facial expressions are extracted using biometric system then records are matched with the data stored in database that whether the pattern is matching or not. we can identify the object even in case of facial expressions change, pose variations. For the face detection haar features and viola jones algorithm is used after detection of face the facial expressions are extracted using Gabor filter technique and facial expressions classification is done by artificial neural network classifier.


Genetic regulatory networks are biochemical reaction systems, consisting of a network of interacting genes and associated proteins. The dynamics of genetic regulatory networks contain many complex facets that require careful consideration during the modeling process. The classical modeling approach involves studying systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that model biochemical reactions in a deterministic, continuous, and instantaneous fashion. In reality, the dynamics of these systems are stochastic, discrete, and widely delayed. The first two complications are often successfully addressed by modeling regulatory networks using the Gillespie stochastic simulation algorithm (SSA), while the delayed behavior of biochemical events such as transcription and translation are often ignored due to their mathematically difficult nature. We develop techniques based on delay-differential equations (DDEs) and the delayed Gillespie SSA to study the effects of delays, in both continuous deterministic and discrete stochastic settings. Our analysis applies techniques from Floquet theory and advanced numerical analysis within the context of delay-differential equations, and we are able to derive stability sensitivities for biochemical switches and oscillators across the constituent pathways, showing which pathways in the regulatory networks improve or worsen the stability of the system attractors. These delay sensitivities can be far from trivial, and we offer a computational framework validated across multiple levels of modeling fidelity. This work suggests that delays may play an important and previously overlooked role in providing robust dynamical behavior for certain genetic regulatory networks, and perhaps more importantly, may offer an accessible tuning parameter for robust bioengineering. (Less)


The independent action hypothesis is a simple model of pathogen infection that can make many useful predictions on infection kinetics and, therefore, a number of different tests of independent action have been developed. However, some of these analyses are rather sophisticated, limiting their appeal to experimentalists, and it is also unclear how well the different tests perform. Here, we developed and evaluated a simple and robust new test of independent action. Our new test is based on using a constant inoculum dose of one pathogen variant, varying the dose of a second variant, and then quantifying the infection response for the first variant. We simulated infection data in which we introduced deviations from independent action, experimental variation, or both. Simulations showed that our new procedure has many advantages over the existing tests of independent action, especially if only systemic-infection data are available. We also performed experimental tests of our new procedure using two marked Tobacco etch virus (TEV) variants. We found minor deviations from the independent action model, which were not detected by previous tests using existing methods, exemplifying the utility of this approach. We discuss the implications for TEV infection kinetics and consider how to reconcile different dose-dependent effects.


Highly regarded here and abroad for some thirty works of cultural history and criticism, master historian Jacques Barzun has now set down in one continuous narrative the sum of his discoveries and conclusions about the whole of Western culture since 1500.In this account, Barzun describes what Western Man wrought from the Renaisance and Reformation down to the present in the double light of its own time and our pressing concerns. He introduces characters and incidents with his unusual literary style and grace, bringing to the fore those that have "Puritans as Democrats," "The Monarch's Revolution," "The Artist Prophet and Jester" -- show the recurrent role of great themes throughout the eras. The triumphs and defeats of five hundred years form an inspiring saga that modifies the current impression of one long tale of oppression by white European males. Women and their deeds are prominent, and freedom (even in sexual matters) is not an invention of the last decades. And when Barzun rates the present not as a culmination but a decline, he is in no way a prophet of doom. Instead, he shows decadence as the creative novelty that will burst forth -- tomorrow or the next day.Only after a lifetime of separate studies covering a broad territory could a writer create with such ease the synthesis displayed in this magnificent volume.


The presence of hypoxia within tumours has significant biological and pharmacological implications leading to resistance to therapy and poor prognosis. The eradication of hypoxic cells has been a major goal for many years but despite decades of research, no hypoxia specific therapies have been approved for use in humans. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the possibility of targeting the glycolytic phenotype of cancers with the aim of specifically eradicating hypoxic cells.

Initial studies using a series of glycolytic inhibitors (3-bromopyruvate, 2-deoxyglucose and sodium oxamate) did not show hypoxia selectivity in vitro and in several cell lines, resistance under hypoxia (0.1% oxygen) occurred. In the case of the pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) inhibitor dichloroacetate (DCA) however, hypoxia selectivity was observed in vitro but the magnitude of the sensitisation was much less than that of the hypoxia activated prodrug tirapazamine. Nevertheless, DCA did inhibit PDK1 leading to reduced phosphorylation of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex and hypoxia selective cell kill.

These results questioned whether glucose was indeed important for the survival of hypoxic cells but studies where glucose was removed from culture media confirmed that glucose is required for the survival of hypoxic cells in vitro. Using this model, mannose was also shown to be an important monosaccharide that could support the growth of cells under hypoxia opening up a novel avenue for future research. Finally, a series of novel organometallic complexes based on the metal silver were explored as potential glycolytic inhibitors. The silver N-heterocyclic carbene Ag8 was shown to be a potent and selective inhibitor of lactate dehydrogenase A (LDH-A) leading to reduced export of lactate from cells. Ag8 has a complex mechanism of action with inhibition of LDH-A being a novel mechanism.

In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that targeting key enzymes in the glycolytic pathway does not generate hypoxia selective cytotoxic effects. This conclusion is surprising and reflects the complexity of targeting cellular metabolism. The identification of mannose as an important fuel for hypoxic cells opens up new avenues for research and the inhibition of LDH-A by organometallic complexes such as Ag8 requires further studies.


The marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus) is an endangered species from the marshlands of central South America. Its population has declined in several regions due to the loss of available habitat caused by human activities, especially the construction of hydroelectric dams. The capture of individual deer is critical for research programs and population management. This report describes a novel live-capture technique, which uses a helicopter to drive the animals into a terrain that restricts their movement such as thick vegetation or deep water (60-120 cm in depth). Following confinement, animals are manually restrained. The short pursuit time (median = 2 min), low mortality rate (0.82-3.28%), and the absence of injury to both the capture team and animals suggest that this method is appropriate for the safe capture of this species. Body temperature correlated with the pursuit time (R2 = 0.15) but was not significantly altered with pursuit times <3 min.


Investigated the effects of 3 kinds of instructional support on students' inquiry learning. In a computer-based simulation setting for inquiry learning of scientific principles, 79 students (53 female, 15-16 years old) from 2 Swedish schools were divided into a basic-inquiry group (22 participants, received only basic inquiry support), an explanation group (29 participants, received only explanation prompts), and a regulation group (28 participants, received both explanation and regulation prompts). A knowledge test and an application (transfer) test were completed after an introductory lesson, a knowledge pretest, and the varying experimental learning conditions. Results show that regulation prompts have a positive effect on students' test performance in both the knowledge and application test, with the regulation group outperforming both of the other groups. Interestingly, the explanation group did not outperform the basic-inquiry group. Also, the regulation group seemed to have internalized the regulation of their flow of thoughts since even in the absence of regulation prompts these students outperformed the other groups in terms of scientific reasoning. Possible reasons for the lack of a significant effect of explanation prompts on learning outcomes are discussed.


How are legacy news organisations dealing with the business of digital news? How are they addressing recent developments such as the rise of social media, the move from desktop internet to an increasingly mobile web, and the growing importance of online video? This report explores how twenty-five different newspapers and commercial broadcasters, in six European countries, are adapting to an evolving media environment. Based on interviews conducted with executives, senior managers and editors in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the UK, the report shows how legacy news organisations are investing in a wide variety of digital news initiatives to reach new audiences and build new business models, but most of their revenues still come from traditional print and television operations, even after almost twenty years of investment in digital news.


CONTEXT
"Meaningful use" of electronic health records to improve quality of care has remained understudied. We evaluated an approach to improving patients' safety and quality of care involving the secondary use of data from a hospital electronic prescribing and decision support system (ePDSS).

METHODS
We conducted a case study of a large English acute care hospital with a well-established ePDSS. Our study was based on ethnographic observations of clinical settings (162 hours) and meetings (28 hours), informal conversations with clinical staff, semistructured interviews with ten senior executives, and the collection of relevant documents. Our data analysis was based on the constant comparative method.

FINDINGS
This hospital's approach to quality and safety could be characterized as "technovigilance." It involved treating the ePDSS as a warehouse of data on clinical activity and performance. The hospital converted the secondary data into intelligence about the performance of individuals, teams, and clinical services and used this as the basis of action for improvement. Through a combination of rapid audit, feedback to clinical teams, detailed and critical review of apparent omissions in executive-led meetings, a focus on personal professional responsibility for patients' safety and quality care, and the correction of organizational or systems defects, technovigilance was-based on the hospital's own evidence-highly effective in improving specific indicators. Measures such as the rate of omitted doses of medication showed marked improvement. As do most interventions, however, technovigilance also had unintended consequences. These included the risk of focusing attention on aspects of patient safety made visible by the system at the expense of other, less measurable but nonetheless important, concerns.

CONCLUSIONS
The secondary use of electronic data can be effective for improving specific indicators of care if accompanied by a range of interventions to ensure proper interpretation and appropriate action. But care is needed to avoid unintended consequences.