Interventions that focus on improving computerized clinical decision support (CDS) demonstrate that successful workflow integration can increase the adoption and use of CDS. However, metrics for assessing workflow integration in clinical settings are not well established. The goal of this study was to develop and validate a survey to assess the extent to which CDS is integrated into workflow. Qualitative data on CDS design, usability, and integration from four sites was collected by direct observation, interviews, and focus groups. Thematic analysis based on the sociotechnical systems theory revealed consistent themes across sites. Themes related to workflow integration included navigation, functionality, usability, and workload. Based on these themes, a brief 12-item scale to assess workflow integration was developed, refined, and validated with providers in a simulation study. To our knowledge, this is one of the first tools developed to specifically measure workflow integration of CDS.


The purpose of this research was to develop an instrument that might identify those schools that are more prone to the occurrence of violence. A secondary purpose was to identify a number of indicators or signs that might indicate that violence was likely to occur. A factor analysis revealed that the instrument has five factors. The authors conclude that the instrument provides useful data to assist school officials in developing a plan to reduce bullying behaviors. It identifies those behaviors that are potential problems and where and when bullying occurs. School officials are cautioned not to rely on survey data alone in dealing with bullying behavior. There are a number of indicators or signs that can be observed in the student body if the faculty is sensitized to the indicators. A list of these indicators is provided. ********** Seventy-five percent of adolescents have been bullied while attending school (Peterson, 1999). Newspaper articles with similar statistics dealing with bullying behavior are becoming more commonplace. Beane (1999), in a book on the topic, stated that one in seven children is subjected to bullying behavior and that it affects about five million elementary and junior high students. Bullying behavior played some role in all the school shootings during the past two years. Not only do victims of bullying behavior bear emotional scars that can lead to violence, the victim of bullying behavior is frequently disliked by peers (Peterson, 1999). This double whammy, so to speak, of being picked on by a bully and ostracized by peers can have devastating consequences. According to Beale (2001), bullying behavior has detrimental effects for both the victim and the bully. Children identified as bullies are three times more likely to break the law by age 30. Victims on the other hand, suffer academically and socially with suicide being one of the most drastic repercussions. Bullying behavior can take many forms. It can be physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual (U. S. Department of Education, 1999). School officials are quick to respond to physical bullying because it is usually visual and easy to see. Verbal and emotional bullying in the form of taunting, teasing, rejection, humiliation, etc. are often not seen and if seen sometimes tolerated. According to Brendtro (2001) hundreds of thousands of students are teased and taunted each day. He states that ridicule is a form of bullying behavior that is designed to make a person the object of scorn or derision. Further, he reported that teachers noticed and intervened in only one out of 25 episodes of verbal or emotional bullying behavior. The death of a Georgia student in Cherokee County due to bullying attracted national attention to the issue of bullying in November of 1998. Recognizing the severity of the problem, state lawmakers in Georgia passed a law to deal with bullying behavior. The law went into effect on July 1, 1999 and bullying was defined as follows: * any willful attempt to inflict injury on another person, when accompanied by an apparent present ability to do so; or * any intentional display of force such as would give the victim reason to fear or expect immediate bodily harm. As a result of the law, all school district officials are to adopt policies that deal with weapons and bullying behavior. Further, three time offenders are to be sent to alternative schools. The development of bullying behavior starts in elementary school, with the highest frequency of bullying behavior occurring in middle school. Bullying behavior somewhat decreases in high school, yet is sometimes given more attention due to the physical size of students and nature of some incidences to contain sexual harassment (Vail, 1999). Research indicates that if school officials want to protect students against acts of victimization by their peers, they will have to use a school-wide systemic approach to prevent and respond to bullying behavior (Clarke and Kiselica, 1997). …


Previous studies of visuospatial attention indicated that the isolated cerebral hemispheres of split-brain patients maintain an integrated, unitary focus of attention, presumably due to subcortical attentional mechanisms. The present study examined whether a unitary attentional focus would also be observed during a visual search task in which subjects scanned stimulus arrays for a target item. In a group of four commis-surotomy patients, the search rate for bilateral stimulus arrays was found to be approximately twice as fast as the search rate for unilateral arrays, indicating that the separated hemispheres were able to scan their respective hemifields independently. In contrast, the search rates for unilateral and bilateral arrays were approximately equal in a group of six normal control subjects, suggesting that the intact corpus callosum in these subjects is responsible for maintaining a unitary attentional focus during visual search.


ABSTRACT
 To assess the potential dietary effects of insecticidal substances on the predacious ladybird beetle, Coleomegilla maculata De Geer, a Tier-1 laboratory testing system was developed. Artificial diets using shrimp eggs were developed, and a tier-1 bioassay examining C. maculata development and survival was designed based on those diets. To further measure the artificial diet in a Tier-1 testing system, larvae of C. maculata were fed the diet treated with different concentrations of an inorganic stomach poison, potassium arsenate (PA), or a cysteine protease inhibitor, E-64. The results demonstrated that the testing system was capable of detecting the dietary effects of both substances on the survival and development of C. maculata. With increasing concentrations of PA in the diet, fewer larvae developed to adults, with only 22.7% larvae surviving to the adult stage in the treatment with the highest content of PA (32 µg/g of diet). Likewise, dose-dependent responses also were found for other life-table parameters of C. maculata. Similar to the assays with PA, the survival rates of C. maculata consistently decreased with increasing E-64 content in the diet. Survival analysis showed that the insects fed E-64 at 50, 150, and 450 µg/g in the diet had significantly lower survival rates compared with those on the untreated artificial diet. The study presented here describes a robust testing system that will be useful for assessing the potential hazard (or toxicity) effects after dietary exposure of insecticidal compounds produced by GE plants or conventional insecticides on the ladybird predator, C. maculata.


In the absence of forward-looking models for recovery rates, market participants tend to use exogenously assumed constant recovery rates in pricing models. We develop a flexible jump-to-default model that uses observables: the stock price and stock volatility in conjunction with credit spreads to identify implied, endogenous, dynamic functions of the recovery rate and default probability. The model in this paper is parsimonious and requires the calibration of only three parameters, enabling the identification of the risk-neutral term structures of forward default probabilities and recovery rates. Empirical application of the model shows that it is consistent with stylized features of recovery rates in the literature. The model is flexible, i.e., it may be used with different state variables, alternate recovery functional forms, and calibrated to multiple debt tranches of the same issuer. The model is robust, i.e., evidences parameter stability over time, is stable to changes in inputs, and provides similar recovery term structures for different functional specifications. Given that the model is easy to understand and calibrate, it may be used to further the development of credit derivatives indexed to recovery rates, such as recovery swaps and digital default swaps, as well as provide recovery rate inputs for the implementation of Basel II.


This paper describes the concept of utilizing time synchronized sampling over an entire power system to simultaneously obtain the phasor values of voltages and currents at particular instants of time. Uses of the phasors are reviewed and the necessary accuracy of synchronization for several applications is established for magnitude and angle of the phasors. Various methods of providing synchronizing signals are examined, and a possible format for transmitting the phasor measurements to remote locations is described. Finally, some possibilities for applications of this technique in protection and control tasks of the future are explored. >


In 4QSamuelᵃ and the Text of Samuel, Jason Driesbach characterizes the scribal features and textual affiliation of 4QSamuelᵃ (4Q51) and the major witnesses to the books of Samuel (MT, Gᴮ, Gᴸ), with implications for textual and literary criticism.


The different kinds of singularities encountered in closed-loop kinematics chains are analyzed. A general classification of these singularities in three main groups, which is based on the properties of the Jacobian matrices of the chain, is described. The identification of the singular configurations is particularly relevant for hard automation modules or robotic devices based on closed kinematic chains, such as linkages and parallel manipulators. Examples are given to illustrate the application of the method to these mechanical systems. >


Abstract. This paper is focussed on the work and remit of the ICA's Commission on Education and Training (CET), presenting a reflection by the retiring chair of the current issues which affect the work of Commission members and all engaged in current education and training of students of cartography around the world. The nature and development of cartography as an academic and professional discipline has been discussed through many presentations, both conceptual and applied, and in various arenas and communities, over the past half century. As cartographic practice became standardised in the 20th century, so educational and instructional materials describing and analysing the discipline conveyed a relatively uniform message, ensuring that the audience of learners were educated and trained positively to an agreed agenda. In effect, a subtle, as yet unwritten, 'Body of Knowledge' was developed and elucidated in educational materials, notably textbooks on cartography, in the last few decades of the last century (Kessler, 2018). It was during these years, however, that cartography developed as a discipline far beyond its initial roots as a map-making technology. The technology of map-making certainly changed completely, and a host of other aspects were incorporated, from metrical analysis of historical map documents to gender-oriented investigations of mapping activity; from the integration and importance of cartography in contemporary geospatial data handling to the role of volunteer map-making; from the psychology of map interaction and decision making to the mathematics of map projections and multi-dimensional data representation; and many, many other activities and issues which must be included in educational programmes in cartography. It is the establishment, adoption and maintenance of a Body of Knowledge (BoK) which is one of the main challenges (this paper presents 11, in bold below) and, if successfully met, it can assist in ensuring that cartographic education and training develops as required in the next few decades (Fairbairn, 2017). The further challenges highlighted in this paper can form the basis for further investigation by the CET in the future. This listing of issues is informed by a number of contemporary changes in technology, by closer integration of cartography with other geospatial sciences, by research achievements and investigations in the field, by advances in educational praxis, by demands on cartography by a host of other activities, and by consequent recognition of the discipline by learned and professional bodies. One of the main purposes in developing a Body of Knowledge is to encompass and facilitate curriculum design. As the widening scope of cartography will be reflected in the developing BoK (most notably in cartography's contribution to GIS), curriculum design must be flexible and innovative enough to cope with more numerous and wider, though focussed and integrated, topics. The admirable, existing BoK in Geographic Information Science and Technology, already being reviewed and enhanced, but omitting many specific cartographic principles, is a possible framework for incorporating these. Alternatively there are sound arguments for a uniquely cartographic BoK, and this enterprise is certainly an ICA-approved pursuit. Also within the BoK, the theoretical foundations for the study of cartography must be elucidated and moved from the research agenda to the educational curriculum. A revised Research Agenda developed under ICA auspices and a focussed Body of Knowledge are synergistic documents, with interdependent content in one directing content in the other. Such documents may be perceived by many to be overly conceptual, un-related to everyday mapping activity. In terms of cartographic production in the past 50 years, we have moved far from the standardised methods mentioned earlier, applied by every commercial and governmental mapping organisation. The activity of map-making has adopted a host of alternative methods, and artefacts, data-sets and representations are created and 'mashed-up' by an increasingly wide range of individuals and groups with highly variable experiences, expertise and understanding of cartographic procedures. In terms of 'organised' cartography in multi-employee companies, government and non-government agencies, academic and research groups, and associated industrial and environmental companies, a further challenge is understanding what employers want from graduates in cartography and GIS. The delivery of education in cartography is an academic activity, but it must be done in a manner which demonstrates relevance to the community which relies on the skills of an educated workforce. In some cases the cartographic community, notably its educators, may have to direct their attention outside the classroom and convince the fragmenting industry that cartographic principles are vital for effective management and communication of information, and that the products of cartographic education (the graduates from educational programmes) are serious and informed potential employees with much to offer a wide range of human activity. Such recognition by those outside the academy can be encouraged by seeking and receiving professional accreditation from awarding bodies such as industry associations, learned societies, educational authorities and public bodies. The landscape of professional recognition in the disciplines of cartography and GIS is highly varied, geographically, institutionally, legally, and pedagogically. The fluid nature of the disciplines, and in particular their fuzzy distinction from a host of other geomatics, geospatial, engineering, environmental, and social activities means that cartographic education must acknowledge and address its interaction with education in many other sciences. Linking cartographic education and its principles with related education in other closely related geo-disciplines is particularly important. Common messages must be presented stressing cartography's importance and relevance. At the possible wider levels mentioned above, experiences and lessons learned from teaching cartography and GIS to a broad range of non-specialists must be documented: cartographic principles must be shown to be important and relevant to all those engaged in handling maps and mapping data. Stressing the importance of such principles is especially vital when education is done at a distance: the Commission has long been interested in those activities which develop on-line educational resources and look at innovative ways of delivering education widely to large audiences outside formal educational establishments. We already have reports on mature and effective resources in the form of MOOCs, distance learning courses, and online training modules (e.g. Robinson and Nelson, 2015). Such methods of delivery for cartographic education have proven popular and efficient: educators must ensure continued relevance, update, and diligence, in managing these activities. In addition to content development and assessment frameworks, it is technical requirements which are often perceived as major blocks to effective use of in-line educational resources. Technical support requirements are critical in every form of cartographic education: in the past replication of map reproduction labs was prohibitive for most educational establishments; today it is the acquisition of a full range of software which mitigates against full exposure to the varied range of cartographic and geospatial data handling activity as practised in the 'real world'. The generosity of some software providers is widely acknowledged in educational institutions, and many of the software products are generic enough to be able to demonstrate the required cartographic principles in a non-partisan manner. However, in many cases employers are seeking specific training skills in particular packages and this can be difficult to provide within a formal educational programme. Recent additions to the 'wish-list' of employers, however, have been related to abilities in coding and computer programming. Luckily, the most commonly sought skill is ability to write code in Python or Javascript. These are open source, rather than a commercial, products, and hence can be acquired by any educational establishment. The use of open source software and datasets in geospatial and cartographic education is becoming increasingly important, and their effective integration with traditional (and indeed contemporary) curricula in cartographic education is clearly a further challenge. This paper has outlined a number of challenges facing cartographic education. Like the wider discipline, education in cartography is delivered by capable and dedicated individuals, each with interests in the development of the discipline in an increasingly diverse and varied educational arena. The Commission is intent on addressing the challenges outlined, promoting effective and high-quality cartographic education.


CONTEXT
Cross-sectional and nested case-control studies indicate a relationship between adiponectin, obesity, and coronary heart disease (CHD).

OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to investigate whether adiponectin could predict CHD in a population-based cohort of elderly men.

DESIGN AND SETTING
From 1991-1995 a baseline investigation was carried out in 832 healthy men aged 70 yr in the Uppsala Longitudinal Study of Adult Men (ULSAM study). They were followed up to 10.4 yr using Swedish national registry data. The baseline investigation included anthropometry, blood pressure, smoking, serum lipids, a euglycemic insulin clamp, and fasting serum adiponectin.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Main outcome measures were defined as death or first-time hospitalization for CHD (n = 116), recorded in the Cause of Death Registry or in the Hospital-Discharge Registry of the National Board of Health and Welfare, Sweden. Associations were analyzed using Cox's proportional hazards regression, presented as hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for 1 sd increase in the predictor variable.

RESULTS
In a multivariable analysis including total cholesterol (HR, 1.24; CI, 1.02-1.50), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HR, 0.72; CI, 0.58-0.89), smoking (HR, 1.39; CI, 0.91-2.14), and systolic blood pressure (HR, 1.26; CI, 1.05-1.52), serum adiponectin was associated with lower risk for CHD (HR, 0.81; CI, 0.66-0.99). The association was independent of BMI and remained significant after adjustment for insulin sensitivity index.

CONCLUSIONS
In this population-based cohort of healthy men, elevated serum levels of adiponectin were associated with a lower risk for CHD. Importantly, the association between adiponectin and CHD was independent of other well-known risk factors.


The fullerene C60 can be converted into two different structures by high pressure and temperature. They are metastable and revert to pristine C60 on reheating to 300�C at ambient pressure. For synthesis temperatures between 300� and 400�C and pressures of 5 gigapascals, a nominal face-centered-cubic structure is produced with a lattice parameter ao = 13.6 angstroms. When treated at 500� to 800�C at the same pressure, C60 transforms into a rhombohedral structure with hexagonal lattice parameters of ao = 9.22 angstroms and co = 24.6 angstroms. The intermolecular distance is small enough that a chemical bond can form, in accord with the reduced solubility of the pressure-induced phases. Infrared, Raman, and nuclear magnetic resonance studies show a drastic reduction of icosahedral symmetry, as might occur if the C60 molecules are linked.


Achieving stable operation of photoanodes used as components of solar water splitting devices is critical to realizing the promise of this renewable energy technology. It is shown that p-type transparent conducting oxides (p-TCOs) can function both as a selective hole contact and corrosion protection layer for photoanodes used in light-driven water oxidation. Using NiCo2O4 as the p-TCO and n-type Si as a prototypical light absorber, a rectifying heterojunction capable of light driven water oxidation was created. By placing the charge separating junction in the Si using a np(+) structure and by incorporating a highly active heterogeneous Ni-Fe oxygen evolution catalyst, efficient light-driven water oxidation can be achieved. In this structure, oxygen evolution under AM1.5G illumination occurs at 0.95 V vs RHE, and the current density at the reversible potential for water oxidation (1.23 V vs RHE) is >25 mA cm(-2). Stable operation was confirmed by observing a constant current density over 72 h and by sensitive measurements of corrosion products in the electrolyte. In situ Raman spectroscopy was employed to investigate structural transformation of NiCo2O4 during electrochemical oxidation. The interface between the light absorber and p-TCO is crucial to produce selective hole conduction to the surface under illumination. For example, annealing to produce more crystalline NiCo2O4 produces only small changes in its hole conductivity, while a thicker SiOx layer is formed at the n-Si/p-NiCo2O4 interface, greatly reducing the PEC performance. The generality of the p-TCO protection approach is demonstrated by multihour, stable, water oxidation with n-InP/p-NiCo2O4 heterojunction photoanodes.


The principal aim of this argument is to analyze the swift expansion in the proportion of older people across the globe, and to highlight the main social and economic forces causing this through methodological challenges especially through the lens of qualitative methodology. We recognize the enormity of the task. Drawing from a range of qualitative research studies provides enriched meanings about aging identity that can be used to shed light on how aging is experienced in equal to how it has been defined in macro or populational terms. Balancing micro and macro levels of understanding is key to open up broader level of explaining what it means to be an older person in different cultures Whilst this is a noble aim, there is no doubt that the rapid increase in population aging across the globe is signalling the most astonishing populational changes in the history of humankind that qualitative levels of understanding are uniquely placed to balance the huge figures in describing complex demography in that qualitative methodology unravels the facts and instead reveals the narratives, meanings and identity formation of research subjects; whereas statistical research has pre-dominantly made its findings looking at people as research objects or as a 'number' (Gruber and Wise 2004). The balance is key but this paper explores the issue of comparative aging underpinned by what Powell and Cook (2001) call 'qualitative theorising' in making sense of statistical and experiential aging.


OBJECTIVE
Management of craniosynostosis at an early age is important for mitigating the risk of abnormal cranial development, but treatment can result in significant expenses. Previous research has shown that endoscope-assisted craniectomy (EAC) is less costly than open cranial vault remodeling (CVR) for patients with sagittal synostosis. The aim of this study was to strengthen the existing body of healthcare cost research by elucidating the charges associated with open and endoscopic treatment for patients with nonsagittal synostosis.

METHODS
The authors performed a retrospective analysis of data obtained in 41 patients who underwent open CVR and 38 who underwent EAC with postoperative helmet therapy for nonsagittal, single-suture craniosynostosis (metopic, coronal, and lambdoid) between 2008 and 2018. All patients were < 1 year of age at the time of surgery and had a minimum 1 year of follow-up. Inpatient charges, physician fees, helmet charges, and outpatient clinic visits in the 1st year were analyzed.

RESULTS
The mean ages of the children treated with EAC and open CVR were 3.5 months and 8.7 months, respectively. Patients undergoing EAC with postoperative helmet therapy required more outpatient clinic visits in the 1st year than patients undergoing CVR (4 vs 2; p < 0.001). Overall, 13% of patients in the EAC group required 1 helmet, 30% required 2 helmets, 40% required 3 helmets, and 13% required 4 or more helmets; the mean total helmeting charges were $10,072. The total charges of treatment, including inpatient charges, physician fees, outpatient clinic visit costs, and helmet charges, were significantly lower for the EAC group than they were for the open CVR group ($50,840 vs $95,588; p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
Despite the additional charges for postoperative helmet therapy and the more frequent outpatient visits, EAC is significantly less expensive than open CVR for patients with metopic, coronal, and lambdoid craniosynostosis. In conjunction with the existing literature on clinical outcomes and perioperative resource utilization, these data support EAC as a cost-minimizing treatment for eligible patients with nonsagittal synostosis.


Particular attention of this study was paid to the determinants and the different level of company and union commitment between Korea and China. We used a theory of cognitive dissonance and exchange relationship in order to examine the determinants of it. To examine the proposed model, we collected 890 data from manufacturing company of each country and had regression, paired-wise t-test, and independent t-test analysis to get empirical results. The results of this study can be summarized into four points. First, union and company commitment have a positive correlation in both country. Second, motivation among antecedent of dual commitment is significantly related to dual commitment both country. But labor-management climate and cooperative program have significant effect on union commitment, labor condition and job satisfaction was related in company commitment in Korea. In china, labor-management climate, job satisfaction, motivation is correlated with dual commitment and cooperative program has positive effect on union commitment, labor condition has relationship with company commitment. This result shows that each country has same and different antecedents of company and union commitment. Third, demographic variables, for example, sex, tenure, full time worker, have no effect on dual commitment. Only Chinese women have high union commitment more than company commitment. Fourth, there was a difference of union and company commitment between Korea and China. Korean workers have high company commitment more than Chinese. A China's level of union commitment is higher than Korea. Based on the findings, we provided Korean subsidiaries with managerial implications. Suggestions for future research also follow.


Drawing on an assessment of reform efforts in one school in an urban ghetto in a large district in the Northeast, this article describes processes and events that illustrate how social manifestations of racial and social class status can combine to vitiate efforts at school reform. I argue that three factors—sociocultural differences among participants in reform, an abusive school environment, and educator expectations of failed reform—occurring in a minority ghetto where the school population is racially and economically isolated constitute some of the powerful and devastating ways that concomitants of race and social class can intervene to determine what happens in inner-city schools, and in attempts to improve them.


ABSTRACT This research investigated people's communication of urban space as reflected in Twitter messages (tweets) during the 2012 Super Bowl. The authors archived over 600,000 tweets related to the Super Bowl from January 23 through early February 6. The authors identified 78 Indianapolis-area places or routes named in the tweets. Based on occurrence of these terms, the authors retained 9,103 city-specific messages for analysis. The frequency of such tweets changed over the two-week period and peaked two days before game day. Instances of all of Lynch's (1960) The Image of the City elements (node, district, landmark, path, and edge) were found in the tweets. While node-referencing terms were most common among the 78 spatial identifiers, district and landmark references were most common in the tweet sample. Edge references were almost non-existent and only occurred as named waterways. This research has implications for city-oriented social media monitoring efforts for future special events.


Prior research has documented the empirical regularity that more firms than expected (i) report small positive earnings and (ii) have zero forecast errors. It appears that management avoid reporting negative earnings or disappointing analysts. We investigate how and why firms beat these benchmarks (benchmark beaters). We document that benchmark beaters have high accruals and unusual levels of special items relative to other firms. We find that a strong motivation for reporting small profits is to delay reporting bad news. We find that small profit firms show a decline in earnings and exhibit poor stock price performance over the following year. In contrast, we find that firms with zero forecast errors do well in the future. These firms have positive abnormal returns over the following year. We document that zero forecast error firms are high growth, high market capitalization firms. We argue that these firms want to avoid disappointing analysts since they are most likely to suffer from the "torpedo effect": small earnings disappointments lead to large stock price declines.


This research investigated the relationship between SPELD teachers and classroom teachers from the Wellington region. A key issue identified in a 2009/2010 evaluation of the SPELD New Zealand organisation was the lack of effective collaboration between SPELD teachers and individuals in the education sector. The present study sought to identify what supports SPELD and schools to work together, what factors restrict the relationship between SPELD and schools, and how can collaboration between SPELD and schools be enhanced. Using a case study methodology, this research investigated SPELD teachers' views and experiences about their relationships with classroom teachers and the schools in which they operate and classroom teachers' views and experiences about their relationships with SPELD teachers and the SPELD organisation in which they operate. The study found that while there were a number of positive factors contributing to an effective collaborative relationship between SPELD teachers and school teachers, there were a number of issues restricting the relationship. In particular, issues arose concerning tutoring within school hours and alignment with the work and schedules of existing specialist staff. Suggestions are offered about ways in which collaboration between SPELD and schools could be enhanced.


New benchmarks for world development were approved at the UN Summit in 2015, namely 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Ukraine, like other UN member states, has joined the global process of ensuring sustainable development. This requires conceptual changes in all spheres of life. Public procurement is considered as one of the most powerful tools for solving social, environmental and economic challenges facing the world. The article is dedicated to the role of sustainable public procurement and substantiation of ways of changing the conceptual approach to procurement in order to achieve the goals of sustainable development in Ukraine. Based on the analysis of foreign experience, it is proposed to change the approach to public procurement in Ukraine in such a way as to emphasize not only reduction of costs and saving of public funds but also the support of the long-term goals of the state. Keywords: public procurement, sustainable development, sustainable public procurement, "horizontal" objectives, green public procurement, socially responsible public procurement.


Sometimes, the maelstrom of a crisis can be captured in a single image. The image of the mundane, barely noticeable movement of an urban dweller as they go about their everyday life. Athens and the War on Public Space commences from images just like this one, collected over a two-year period of research (2012–2014) in Athens during a time of severe financial and political crisis. For the author-curators of this volume, public space became a light-sensitive surface upon which they could begin to map the material imprints of the most structural and violent characteristics of the crisis, and their research spread in different directions, tracking the role of infrastructure and the shifts the financial crisis brought about upon built environments, the violent manifestations of the official anti-migrant policy, the rise of racism, the imposition of the emergency upon public space, and the phenomenology of mass transit.


Organs form with remarkably consistent sizes and shapes during development, whereas a high variability in size and growth is observed at cell level. Given this contrast, it is unclear how such consistency at organ scale can emerge from cellular behavior. We examine the growth of cell lineages, or groups of cells that are the progeny of a single mother cell. At early stages of the lineage, we find that initially smaller lineages grow faster than the larger ones reducing variability in lineage size, a phenomenon we refer to as size uniformization. In contrast at later stages of the lineage, size variability is enhanced when initially larger cell lineages grow faster than the smaller ones. Our results imply that the cell lineage changes its growth pattern at a tipping point. Finally, we found that the growth heterogeneity of individual cells within a lineage is correlated with fast growth of the lineage. Consequently, fast growing lineages show greater cell growth heterogeneity, leading to uniformization in lineage size. Thus, cellular variability in growth contributes toward decreasing variability of cell lineages throughout the sepal.


The concept of traveling wave reactor (TWR) applies the mechanism of self sustainable and propagation nuclear fission traveling waves in fertile media of 238U and 232Th to achieve very high fuel utilization. However, the long wave length of such fission traveling wave puts a limit on the applicability of the TWR concept. The axial fuel shuffling strategy is proposed based on the mechanism of asymptotic nuclear fission traveling wave, and is applied to a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) loading metallic 238U fuel. The multi-group deterministic neutronic code ERANOS with JEFF3.1 data library is used as a basic tool to perform the neutronics and burn-up calculations. The calculations are firstly performed in a 1-D case for parametric understanding, and further extended to a 2-D R-Z case. The shuffling calculations for the 1-D and 2-D SFR model described in this paper brought about some interesting results. The results indicate that keff parabolically varies with the shuffling period, while the burn-up increases linearly. The highest burn-up achieved in 2-D case is 46at%. The power shape distortion in 2-D case is observed, and the power peaking factor is much higher than that in 1-D case, but it decreases with the shuffling period increasing.


Mastitis due to intramammary infections is one of the most detrimental diseases in dairy sheep farming, representing a major cause of reduced milk productions and quality losses. In particular, subclinical mastitis presents significant detection and control problems, and the availability of tools enabling its timely, sensitive, and specific detection is therefore crucial. We have previously demonstrated that cathelicidins, small proteins implicated in the innate immune defense of the host, are specifically released in milk of mastitic animals by both epithelial cells and neutrophils. Here, we describe the development of an ELISA for milk cathelicidin and assess its value against somatic cell counts (SCC) and bacteriological culture for detection of ewe mastitis. Evaluation of the cathelicidin ELISA was carried out on 705 half-udder milk samples from 3 sheep flocks enrolled in a project for improvement of mammary health. Cathelicidin was detected in 35.3% of milk samples (249/705), and its amount increased with rising SCC values. The cathelicidin-negative (n=456) and cathelicidin-positive (n=249) sample groups showed a clear separation in relation to SCC, with median values of 149,500 and 3,300,000 cells/mL, respectively. Upon bacteriological culture, 20.6% (145/705) of the milk samples showed microbial growth, with coagulase-negative staphylococci being by far the most frequent finding. A significant proportion of all bacteriologically positive milk samples were positive for cathelicidin (110/145, 75.9%). Given the lack of a reliable gold standard for defining the true disease status, sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp) of the cathelicidin ELISA were assessed by latent class analysis against 2 SCC thresholds and against bacteriological culture results. At an SCC threshold of 500,000 cells/mL, Se and Sp were 92.3 and 92.3% for cathelicidin ELISA, 89.0 and 94.9% for SCC, and 39.4 and 93.6% for bacteriological culture, respectively. At an SCC threshold of 1,000,000 cells/mL, Se and Sp were 93.3 and 91.9% for cathelicidin ELISA, 80.0 and 97.1% for SCC, and 39.4 and 93.5% for bacteriology, respectively. In view of the results obtained in this study, the measurement of cathelicidin in milk by ELISA can provide added Se while maintaining a high Sp and may therefore improve detection of subclinical mastitis.


I want to distinguish between two fundamental modes of being. The primary mode is typified by activities that are absolutely unique and at the same time absolutely universal, such as being born, living, growing up, eating, working, playing, loving, dying. These activities originate from my undivided being. The secondary mode is typified by activities that are socially and culturally determined. I perform these as a person (personamask). When I act as an individual I cannot be replaced by someone else; it is impos-sible to measure these activities (they have no 'market-value') and I don't learn them in the literal sense - all this in contradistinction to my social or role-activities.Accordingly I want to distinguish between human and a-human language (the terms have no ethical implications), or between the I-mode and the YOU-mode and between two resulting ways of speaking. I can speak as an individual and as a person and these ways of speaking are typified in compliance with the above-mentioned characteristics. Human language is perhaps a somewhat neglected phenomenon in linguistics. An allied phenomenon is the tendency in our culture to transfer individual speaking to the domain of speaking as a person.When I mark off these distinctions against certain dimensions in socio-pragmalinguistics I find that orientation on the illocutionary effect plays a prominent part in personal speaking. Splitting up myself into speaker and hearer I project myself into the hearer, planning my formulations from his point of view to make myself understood. When I speak as an individual I am not primarily focused on communication and the illocutionary effect. Making myself understood to an actual or potential hearer is subordinate to the adequate expression of what lies on my mind.Moreover, when I speak as a person I am often focused on the perlocutionary effect, that I can try to act upon by means of conditional relevance and selection of the correct code. The options I have between formal varieties are in fact to be explained in terms of the directive function of language. When I speak as an individual the idea of communicative interaction recedes into the background and the issue of the perlocutionary effect is left out. Concerning the substance of my speaking I have at my disposal a register of words, expressions, syntactic constructions and last but not least para-linguistic means that correspond with this expressive function of language.Probably personal speaking has a set of distinctions that are character-ized in terms of different distances from individual speaking. When the relation between individual and personal speaking goes astray, the distancing from my individual 'I1 can turn into alienation from myself.


Catalytic decomposition of organic air pollutants is attractive in environmental remediation but challenging because such a reaction must take place at ambient temperature. To achieve sufficient catalytic activity under these conditions, the size, morphology and electric state of catalysts are critical. In particular, the interaction between noble metals and their ceramic supports is crucial for these catalysts. Herein we elucidate the significance of strong metal–support interactions (SMSIs) and strong oxide–support interactions (SOSIs) in such catalysts. The SMSIs lead to embedded metal nanoparticles into ceramic supports, hindering metal particle growth. For example, SMSIs in Pt–TiO2 formed by reduction of NaBH4 at room temperature allows stabilization of Pt clusters of 1–2 nm in diameter. On the other hand, SMSIs in Ag–TiO2 composites form crystalline TiOx (x < 2) that is a highly active photocatalyst under the full range of visible light (400–800 nm). Furthermore, such embedded structures could enhance visible light absorption by plasmonic materials. The SOSIs take place between metals and supports through oxygen ligands forming their hetero-bimetallic structure (e.g. Cu–O–Ti). This enables absorption of visible light and facilitates the transfer of photo-excited electrons to the co-catalysts (e.g. TiO2 to Cu), resulting in superior visible-light activity with a quantum yield of over 50%. Also, such interactions allow stabilization of small metal clusters and even single atoms on the supports to significantly facilitate the catalytic oxidation of pollutants at ambient temperature. For example, single Pd atoms on TiO2 increase its photocatalytic NOx removal by 9 times while only doubling its cost.


In this paper, we study synthesis under partial observability for logical specifications over finite traces expressed in LTLf/LDLf. This form of synthesis can be seen as a generalization of planning under partial observability in nondeterministic domains, which is known to be 2EXPTIME-complete. We start by showing that the usual "belief-state construction" used in planning under partial observability works also for general LTLf/LDLf synthesis, though with a jump in computational complexity from 2EXPTIME to 3EXPTIME. Then we show that the belief-state construction can be avoided in favor of a direct automata construction which exploits projection to hide unobservable propositions. This allow us to prove that the problem remains 2EXPTIME-complete. The new synthesis technique proposed is effective and readily implementable.


Recent scholarship on statutory interpretation has emphasized that certain approaches to interpretation may have "instrumental" effects on lawmaking. In this article, Professor Molot argues that judicial influence over legislative behavior is not a new idea, but rather is an important component of our original constitutional structure. Examining the Founders' ideas on language and interpretation, Professor Molot suggests that most Founders viewed law as moderately indeterminate, such that ambiguity could not be completely eliminated but judicial interpretation was constrained by well-established canons of construction. Professor Molot posits that under the constitutional structure, these constraints on judicial interpretation also exerted a moderating influence on the legislative process. Powerless to control interpretation through political means, legislators had incentives to internalize judicial values of fairness and rationality and engage in careful deliberation and drafting. Professor Molot cautions, however, that if the judiciary was positioned by our original constitutional structure to influence legislators, modern doctrines of deference may undermine the judiciary's structural role. Judges today routinely defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes and regulations, rather than resolving ambiguity themselves. To the extent that interpretative power now resides with politically accountable agencies, rather than politically insulated judges, Professor Molot warns that we may lose an important extra-political influence over legislative deliberation and drafting.


This essay engages with the commodification of land in an urban periphery of India. It argues against the tendency to reduce commodification of land to "primitive accumulation" or "accumulation by dispossession." It presents an ethnography of the process of the commodification of land under speculative conditions. The growing demand for land for urbanization and industrialization, along with the availability of speculative finance capital in the real estate market, has made land a scarce commodity. In this land market, local capitals piggyback on finance capital and bid up the prices exponentially in the micromarkets. Speculation makes it impossible for the state to match the market price, and its compensation for the land losers is always quite low, which the latter refuse to accept. The landowning farmers, on the other hand, have developed a capacity to adjust to the speculative conditions and to control the supply of land in the market. Even though they can receive a very good price for their land, they show no urgency to sell it. As a consequence, the state's plan to urbanize a given area, to create a stable arrangement of clear property titles, and to control land prices become uncertain.


Here we demonstrate with a study of the Lucky Strike hydrothermal field that image mosaicing over large seafloor areas is feasible with new image processing techniques, and that repeated surveys allow temporal studies of active processes. Lucky Strike mosaics, generated from >56,000 images acquired in 1996, 2006, 2008 and 2009, reveal the distribution and types of diffuse outflow throughout the field, and their association with high‐temperature vents. In detail, the zones of outflow are largely controlled by faults, and we suggest that the spatial clustering of active zones likely reflects the geometry of the underlying plumbing system. Imagery also provides constraints on temporal variability at two time‐scales. First, based upon changes in individual outflow features identified in mosaics acquired in different years, we document a general decline of diffuse outflow throughout the vent field over time‐scales up to 13 years. Second, the image mosaics reveal broad patches of seafloor that we interpret as fossil outflow zones, owing to their association with extinct chimneys and hydrothermal deposits. These areas encompass the entire region of present‐day hydrothermal activity, suggesting that the plumbing system has persisted over long periods of time, loosely constrained to hundreds to thousands of years. The coupling of mosaic interpretation and available field measurements allow us to independently estimate the heat flux of the Lucky Strike system at ∼200 to 1000 MW, with 75% to >90% of this flux taken up by diffuse hydrothermal outflow. Based on these heat flux estimates, we propose that the temporal decline of the system at short and long time scales may be explained by the progressive cooling of the AMC, without replenishment. The results at Lucky Strike demonstrate that repeated image surveys can be routinely performed to characterize and study the temporal variability of a broad range of vent sites hosting active processes (e.g., cold seeps, hydrothermal fields, gas outflows, etc.), allowing a better understanding of fluid flow dynamics from the sub‐seafloor, and a quantification of fluxes.


Standards-based grading (SBG) is an approach to assessment and reporting in which scores are attached to the specific learning objectives of a course, rather than to assignments or tests. Each score represents a student's mastery of that learning objective, and may change over time in response to evidence that her level of understanding has changed. SBG is increasingly popular in K-12 education, but has been poorly documented and studied in a university context. I explored the practicality and effects of using SBG in a moderately large university class by incorporating it into the two successive courses of an introductory physics sequence. Although design flaws and logistical difficulties plagued these attempts, most students responded positively to the basic intent and elements of the approach. Our experiences revealed likely implementation errors and suggested some wise design choices. More interestingly, I found that SBG foregrounds and forces us to confront some fundamental tensions present but latent within most or all teaching.


Communication is a basic behaviour, found across animal species. Human language is often thought of as a unique system, which separates humans from other animals. This textbook serves as a guide to different types of communication, and suggests that each is unique in its own way: human verbal and nonverbal communication, communication in nonhuman primates, in dogs and in birds. Research questions and findings from different perspectives are summarized and integrated to show students similarities and differences in the rich diversity of communicative behaviours. A core topic is how young individuals proceed from not being able to communicate to reaching a state of competent communicators, and the role of the adults in this developmental process. Evolutionary aspects are also taken into consideration, and ideas about the evolution of human language are examined. The cross-disciplinary nature of the book makes it useful for courses in linguistics, biology, sociology and psychology, but it is also valuable reading for anyone interested in understanding communicative behaviour. (Less)


CONTEXT
Laboratories must validate all assays before they can be used to test patient specimens, but currently there are no evidence-based guidelines regarding validation of immunohistochemical assays.

OBJECTIVE
To develop recommendations for initial analytic validation and revalidation of immunohistochemical assays.

DESIGN
The College of American Pathologists Pathology and Laboratory Quality Center convened a panel of pathologists and histotechnologists with expertise in immunohistochemistry to develop validation recommendations. A systematic evidence review was conducted to address key questions. Electronic searches identified 1463 publications, of which 126 met inclusion criteria and were extracted. Individual publications were graded for quality, and the key question findings for strength of evidence. Recommendations were derived from strength of evidence, open comment feedback, and expert panel consensus.

RESULTS
Fourteen guideline statements were established to help pathology laboratories comply with validation and revalidation requirements for immunohistochemical assays.

CONCLUSIONS
Laboratories must document successful analytic validation of all immunohistochemical tests before applying to patient specimens. The parameters for cases included in validation sets, including number, expression levels, fixative and processing methods, should take into account intended use and should be sufficient to ensure that the test accurately measures the analyte of interest in specimens tested in that laboratory. Recommendations are also provided for confirming assay performance when there are changes in test methods, reagents, or equipment.


As smartphones become ubiquitous, they increasingly influence the way in which students seek and use information. It is important to understand emerging information behavior as a result of wide spread use of smartphones. This paper provides an overview of information behavior in the mobile environment. Gender differences in mobile information seeking are discussed. People interact with mobile information in varied and unpredictable locations or while in transit. The mobility of information engagement is an important issue that human information theory should embrace.


Deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was used to study the influence of chlorhexidine on the internal molecular motions of phospholipid model membranes. Mixtures of dimyristoylphosphocholine (DMPC) and chlorhexidine (CHX) were investigated at several DMPC:CHX molar ratios (1:0,10:1,3:1). Extensive numerical analysis of previously acquired data identified the differences in the temperature-dependence of the order parameters characterizing the rapid molecular motions (on the NMR scale) in both the fatty acid chains of DMPC and in the saturated methylene bridge of CHX. The results are consistent with the known localization of CHX in the membrane determined by neutron scattering [1] and confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations reported earlier [2]. The NMR results indicate that chlorhexidine undergoes different motions than those of the bulk lipids in the membrane. The study used a Tikhonov-regularization-based numerical deconvolution technique (dePakeing) that allowed simultaneous determination of the order parameter and of the orientational distribution of domains in the powder sample, partially oriented by the external magnetic field. Both appeared to suggest an anomalous result in a narrow temperature region for the 3:1 sample, perhaps the existence of a new re-entrant phase, but this conclusion could not be made from the limited data available, and requires a further investigation.


: As a country, the United States spends significantly more on healthcare than other advanced industrialized countries, and Americans have comparably worse health outcomes. Both are developments of the last four decades. In this paper, we present a macro, long term explanation of these adverse changes by looking at the evolution of antitrust and patent laws in the United States, surveying the literature on how change in concentration and patent laws have led to increased prices, and constructing a counterfactual national health expenditure series for 1980 through 2006. We find that the cumulative excess cost of private healthcare spending on hospitals, physician groups, prescription drugs, and net insurance from 1980 until 2006 is between $3 and $6 trillion.


The purpose of my paper is to discuss the new revenue recognition standards and how companies committed fraud under the old revenue recognition standards. The new standards are very different from the old standards however, there is still potential for companies to commit fraud under the new standards.This paper gives examples of the most common types of revenue recognition fraud under the old standards as well as some of the companies that committed said fraud. Also, included are some steps in order to help companies prepare to implement the new revenue recognition standards. Finally the paper concludes with a look at the new standards and how companies could still potentially get away with fraudulent practices.


The bin packing problem is one of the most fundamental optimization problems. Owing to its hardness as a combinatorial optimization problem class and its wide range of applications in different domains, different variations of the problem are emerged and many heuristics have been proposed for obtaining approximate solutions. In this paper, we solve a Multi-Level Bin Packing (MLBP) problem in the real make-to-order industry scenario. Existing solutions are not applicable to the problem due to: 1. the final packing may consist multiple levels of sub-packings; 2. the geometry shapes of objects as well as the packing constraints may be unknown. We design an automatic packing framework which extracts the packing knowledge from historical records to support packing without geometry shape and constraint information. Furthermore, we propose a dynamic programming approach to find the optimal solution for normal size problems; and a heuristic multi-level fuzzy-matching algorithm for large size problems. An inverted index is used to accelerate strategy search. The proposed auto packing framework has been deployed in Huawei Process & Engineering System to assist the packing engineers. It achieves a performance of accelerating the execution time of processing 5,000 packing orders to about $8$ minutes with an average successful packing rate as $80.54%$, which releases at least $30%$ workloads of packing workers.


The present paper puts into perspective four areas in which new local norms have emerged in the lexicogrammar of Indian English, the largest institutionalised second-language variety of English world-wide: (1) collocations, (2) new prepositional verbs, (3) new ditransitive verbs, and (4) verb-complementational patterns. At the descriptive level, it will be shown that corpus-based research provides new insights into quantitative and qualitative aspects of on-going structural nativisation at the lexis-grammar interface of Indian English. At the methodological level, it will be argued that in research into New Englishes well-balanced standard-size corpora can be fruitfully combined with very large collections of text obtained from the world-wide web, i.e. web-derived corpora.


A new, scalable interconnection topology called the Spanning Multichannel Linked Hypercube (SMLH) is proposed. This proposed network is very suitable to massively parallel systems and is highly amenable to optical implementation. The SMLH uses the hypercube topology as a basic building block and connects such building blocks using two-dimensional multichannel links (similar to spanning buses). In doing so, the SMLH combines positive features of both the hypercube (small diameter, high connectivity, symmetry, simple routing, and fault tolerance) and the spanning bus hypercube (SBH) (constant node degree, scalability, and ease of physical implementation), while at the same time circumventing their disadvantages. The SMLH topology supports many communication patterns found in different classes of computation, such as bus-based, mesh-based, and tree-based problems, as well as hypercube-based problems. A very attractive feature of the SMLH network is its ability to support a large number of processors with the possibility of maintaining a constant degree and a constant diameter. Other positive features include symmetry, incremental scalability, and fault tolerance. It is shown that the SMLH network provides better average message distance, average traffic density, and queuing delay than many similar networks, including the binary hypercube, the SBH, etc. Additionally, the SMLH has comparable performance to other high-performance hypercubic networks, including the Generalized Hypercube and the Hypermesh. An optical implementation methodology is proposed for SMLH. The implementation methodology combines both the advantages of free space optics with those of wavelength division multiplexing techniques. A detailed analysis of the feasibility of the proposed network is also presented.


The modest, functional bungalow provided affordable housing for millions of homeowners as California's population exploded and its cities spread outward over the course of the twentieth century. But in the twenty-first century, when land is more expensive and we're aware of the ecological cost of urban sprawl, a new model is needed. The author discusses what made the California bungalow such a successful mode of middle class housing, and what new experimental models might take its place, including small lot subdivisions and cohousing.


The role of seafloor topography in the spatial variations of the southern ocean sea ice cover as observed (every other day) by the Nimbus 7 scanning multichannel microwave radiometer satellite in the years 1980, 1983, and 1984 is studied. Bottom bathymetry can affect sea ice surface characteristics because of the basically barotropic circulation of the ocean south of the Antarctic Circumpolar current. The main statistical tool used to quantify this effect is a local nonparametric regression model of sea ice concentration as a function of the depth and its first two derivatives in both meridional and zonal directions. First, we model the relationship of bathymetry to sea ice concentration in two study areas, one over the Maud Rise and the other over the Ross Sea shelf region. The multiple correlation coefficient is found to average 44% in the Maud Rise study area and 62% in the Ross Sea study area over the years 1980, 1983, and 1984. Second, a strategy of dividing the entire Antarctic region into an overlapping mosaic of small areas, or windows, is considered. Keeping the windows small reduces the correlation of bathymetry with other factors such as wind, sea temperature, and distance to the continent. We find that although the form of the model varies from window to window due to the changing role of other relevant environmental variables, we are left with a spatially consistent ordering of the relative importance of the topographic predictors. For a set of three representative days in the Austral winter of 1980, the analysis shows that an average of 54% of the spatial variation in sea ice concentration over the entire ice cover can be attributed to topographic variables. The results thus support the hypothesis that there is a sea ice to bottom bathymetry link. However, this should not undermine the considerable influence of wind, current, and temperature which affect the ice distribution directly and are partly responsible for the observed bathymetric effects.


Eurodollars are dollar-denominated deposit liabilities of banks outside the United States. Even though estimates of the size of the Eurodollar market exceed $5 trillion, these instruments are virtually unregulated. Legal scholarship has very little to say about Eurodollars, and the economic literature on the subject is geared toward economists and banking professionals rather than policy makers and attorneys. Furthermore, the economic scholarship is focused on describing the way Eurodollar markets function rather than critical examination of their nature and attendant risks. This Note is an attempt to get to the bottom of this ubiquitous yet mysterious financial instrument. It describes the nature and history of the Eurodollar and discusses potential challenges the Eurodollar market poses to financial stability and monetary sovereignty. It then examines the evolution of international bank regulation, pointing out why current measures are insufficient to address the risks posed by the Eurodollar. Finally, it considers possible solutions to these problems and proposes an approach to regulating the Eurodollar market consisting of a scheme of international reserve requirements.


Abstract Post release programs are typically understood as functioning to reintegrate offenders into the community. More critical accounts have reconstructed such integrative programs - as well as the wider restorative justice movement - in terms of metaphors of 'revolving doors' and 'net widening' effects. These metaphors capture some of their practices and functions. However, my interest is in the way in which a third space has emerged which is neither prison nor community (nor a shuffling between or an expansion of these pre-existing domains), but rather an autonomous field of social life and regulation. The contours of this third space will be delineated with specific reference to the evaluation of the Melbourne Citymission program Women 4 Work.


Abstract Unique as snowflakes, learning communities are formed in countless ways. Some are designed specifically for first-year students, while others offer combined or clustered upper-level courses. Most involve at least two linked courses, and some add residential and social components. Many address core general education and basic skills requirements. Learning communities differ in design, yet they are similar in striving to enhance students' academic and social growth. First-year learning communities foster experiences that have been linked to academic success and retention. They also offer unique opportunities for librarians interested in collaborating with departmental faculty and enhancing teaching skills. This article will explore one librarian's experiences teaching within three first-year learning communities at Buffalo State College.


Platelets, one of the most sensitive blood cells, can be activated by a range of external and internal stimuli including physical, chemical, physiological, and/or non-physiological agents. Platelets need to respond promptly during injury to maintain blood hemostasis. The time profile of platelet aggregation is very complex, especially in the presence of the agonist adenosine 5′-diphosphate (ADP), and it is difficult to probe such complexity using traditional linear dose response models. In the present study, we explored functional analysis techniques to characterize the pattern of platelet aggregation over time in response to nanoparticle induced perturbations. This has obviated the need to represent the pattern of aggregation by a single summary measure and allowed us to treat the entire aggregation profile over time, as the response. The modeling was performed in a flexible manner, without any imposition of shape restrictions on the curve, allowing smooth platelet aggregation over time. The use of a probabilistic framework not only allowed statistical prediction and inference of the aggregation signatures, but also provided a novel method for the estimation of higher order derivatives of the curve, thereby allowing plausible estimation of the extent and rate of platelet aggregation kinetics over time. In the present study, we focused on the estimated first derivative of the curve, obtained from the platelet optical aggregometric profile over time and used it to discern the underlying kinetics as well as to study the effects of ADP dosage and perturbation with gold nanoparticles. In addition, our method allowed the quantification of the extent of inter-individual signature variations. Our findings indicated several hidden features and showed a mixture of zero and first order kinetics interrupted by a metastable zero order ADP dose dependent process. In addition, we showed that the two first order kinetic constants were ADP dependent. However, we were able to perturb the overall kinetic pattern using gold nanoparticles, which resulted in autocatalytic aggregation with a higher aggregate mass and which facilitated the aggregation rate.


The quality of freeform surfaces is one of the major topics of CAD/CAM. Aesthetic and technical demands require the construction of high quality surfaces with strong shape conditions. Quality diminishing properties like dents or flat points have to be eliminated while approximation conditions must hold at the same time. Our approach combines quality and approximation criteria to a nonlinear multicriteria optimization problem and achieves an automatic approximation and fitting process.


The interaction between prenatal environments and postnatal environments is an important source of phenotypic variability. We examined the ability of prenatal steroid exposure and postnatal energy restriction to explain adrenocortical function and fl edging age in captive seabird chicks. We proposed and tested two hypotheses: (1) the strength of prenatal effects is attenuated by challenging postnatal environments (postnatal override) and (2) the strength of prenatal effects increases with the severity of postnatal challenges (postnatal reveal). We reared common murre ( Uria aalge ) chicks and measured prenatal exposure to corticosterone (CORT) and testosterone (T) from allantoic waste. Adrenocortical function was assessed after 10 d of ad lib. feeding and then after 5 and 10 d on controlled diets. Postnatal override predicts that prenatal steroids will explain more phenotypic variation before implementation of energy restriction; postnatal reveal predicts that the contribution of prenatal steroids will increase with duration and severity of energy restriction. Energy restriction increased secretion of baseline CORT and the adrenocortical response to the standardized stressor of handling and restraint. The ability of prenatal steroids to explain baseline CORT increased with duration of energy restriction, and for day 20 free baseline CORT, there was a signi fi cant interaction between kilojoules per day and prenatal CORT levels; severity of restriction strengthened the relationship between prenatal hormone levels and postnatal hormone levels. Both maximum CORT at day 20 and fl edging age were best explained by diet treatment and day 15 or day 20 baseline CORT, respectively. Overall, prenatal CORT increased fl edging age and baseline secretion of CORT, while prenatal T decreased them. However, prenatal effects on adrenocortical function were apparent only under the energy restriction conditions. Thus, we found some support for the postnatal reveal hypothesis; our results suggest that some prenatal effects on phenotype may be more likely to manifest in challenging postnatal environments.


Mobile ad-hoc networking works properly only if the participating nodes cooperate in routing and forwarding. However, it may be advantageous for individual nodes not to cooperate. We propose a protocol, called CONFIDANT, for making misbehavior unattractive; it is based on selective altruism and utilitarianism. It aims at detecting and isolating misbehaving nodes, thus making it unattractive to deny cooperation. Trust relationships and routing decisions are based on experienced, observed, or reported routing and forwarding behavior of other nodes. The detailed implementation of CONFIDANT in this paper assumes that the network layer is based on the Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol. We present a performance analysis of DSR fortified by CONFIDANT and compare it to regular defenseless DSR. It shows that a network with CONFIDANT and up to 60% of misbehaving nodes behaves almost as well as a benign network, in sharp contrast to a defenseless network. All simulations have been implemented and performed in GloMoSim.


The fast ignition is quite attractive for a compact laser fusion reactor, because a sufficiently high pellet gain is available with a small input energy. We designed an inertial fusion reactor based on Fast-ignition Advanced Laser fusion reactor CONcept, called FALCON-D, where a dry wall is employed for a chamber wall. A simple point model shows that the pellet gain G∼100 is available with laser energies of 350kJ for implosion, 50kJ for heating. This results in the fusion yield of 40 MJ in one shot. By increasing the repetition rate up to 30 Hz, the fusion power of 1.2 GWth becomes available. Plant system analysis shows the net electric power to be about 0.4 GWe In the fast ignition it is available to employ a low aspect ratio pellet, which is favorable for the stability during the implosion phase. Here the pellet aspect ratio is reduced to be 2 ∼ 4, and the optimization of the pulse shape for the implosion laser are carried out by using the 1-D hydrodynamic simulation code ILESTA-1D. A ferritic steel with a tungsten armour is employed for the chamber wall. The feasibility of this dry wall concept is studied from various engineering aspects such as surface melting, physical and chemical sputtering, blistering and exfoliation by helium retention, and thermo-mechanical fatigue, and it is found that blistering and exfoliation due to the helium retention and fatigue failure due to cyclic thermal load are major concerns. The cost analysis shows that the construction cost is moderate but the cost of electricity is slightly expensive.


Despite a recent surge in the popularity of animal personality studies and their wide-ranging associations with various aspects of behavioural ecology, our understanding of the development of personality over ontogeny remains poorly understood. Stability over time is a central tenet of personality; ecological pressures experienced by an individual at different life stages may, however, vary considerably, which may have a significant effect on behavioural traits. Invertebrates often go through numerous discrete developmental stages and therefore provide a useful model for such research. Here we test for both differential consistency and age effects upon behavioural traits in the gregarious cockroach Diploptera punctata by testing the same behavioural traits in both juveniles and adults. In our sample, we find consistency in boldness, exploration and sociality within adults whilst only boldness was consistent in juveniles. Both boldness and exploration measures, representative of risk-taking behaviour, show significant consistency across discrete juvenile and adult stages. Age effects are, however, apparent in our data; juveniles are significantly bolder than adults, most likely due to differences in the ecological requirements of these life stages. Size also affects risk-taking behaviour since smaller adults are both bolder and more highly explorative. Whilst a behavioural syndrome linking boldness and exploration is evident in nymphs, this disappears by the adult stage, where links between other behavioural traits become apparent. Our results therefore indicate that differential consistency in personality can be maintained across life stages despite age effects on its magnitude, with links between some personality traits changing over ontogeny, demonstrating plasticity in behavioural syndromes.


Nanotechnology is the most versatile field because its application covers science, research and technology. NanomaterialÂ's enhanced surface to volume ratio has shown different properties frombulkmaterials. The aimof this study to investigate the properties of asphalt by blending it with TiO2 nanoparticles. TiO2 nanoparticles are fabricated by hydrothermal method and well characterized by X-ray diffraction technique.Tio2 nanoparticles (1.0%byweight) were added in asphalt. Themixture was homogeneous by stirring mechanically at 1630C. The following rheological properties like penetration, softening point and ductility of asphalt were measured with and without doping of TiO2 nanoparticles at laboratory scale. The results of the experiments indicated that the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles was helpful in increasing the hardness, viscosity grade and ductility of the binder.


Commentators have raised concerns about the empty creditor problem that arises when a debtholder has obtained insurance against default but otherwise retains control rights in and outside bankruptcy. We analyze this problem from an ex-ante and ex-post perspective in a formal model of debt with limited commitment, by comparing contracting outcomes with and without credit default swaps (CDS). We show that CDS, and the empty creditors they give rise to, have important ex-ante commitment benefits: By strengthening creditors' bargaining power they raise the debtor's pledgeable income and help reduce the incidence of strategic default. However, we also show that lenders will over-insure in equilibrium, giving rise to an inefficiently high incidence of costly bankruptcy. We discuss a number of remedies that have been proposed to overcome the inefficiency resulting from excess insurance.


Lean burn combustion is currently a preferred technology to meet the future low emission requirements faced by aero gas turbines. Previous work has shown that the increased air mass flow and size of lean burn fuel injector alters the necessary redistribution of the airflow leaving the high-pressure compressor. This can lead to flow field non-uniformities in the feed to combustor annuli and the fuel injectors which have the potential to impact the overall performance of the combustion system. This paper presents a systematic assessment of the effect of several aerodynamic parameters on the air flow feed to the fuel injectors and the external combustion system aerodynamics for a generic lean burn system. This includes the effect of changes to the flow splits between various combustor cooling features and annulus flows and the effect of a biased compressor exit profile. Flow field data are generated using an isothermal RANS CFD model which is validated against test rig data. The data show that changes in the flow split between the annuli modified the flow uniformity and loss to both the combustor annuli and the fuel injector feed. Changes in the compressor exit profile have a larger effect introducing more notable variations in both flow uniformity and loss. Changes to the angle of the flame tube did not greatly affect the pre-diffuser but did modify annulus loss. Further analysis showed that changes to the combustor annulus flow split, compressor exit profile and flame tube angle modified the location, at compressor exit, of the flow captured by the annuli or each fuel injector passage. The loss to each of these depends on the flow quality (total pressure and uniformity) and from the source more than the flow uniformity delivered.


The inviscid evolution of elliptical, nonuniform vorticity distributions is studied computationally using a high resolution Lagrangian (vortex) method with minimal numerical dissipation. The simulations reveal that the vortices evolve, through a process of filamentation, to a configuration consisting of a vortex surrounded by weak filamentary structures. The shape of the final configuration depends on the profile of the initial vorticity distribution. For the same ellipticity, relatively smooth profiles evolve to axisymmetric vortical structures, whereas sharper initial vorticity distributions result in robust non-axisymmetric configurations. A systematic convergence study is conducted to establish the accuracy of the method for long time inviscid simulations. To further assess the issue of axisymmetrization we compare our results with related numerical and experimental studies.


CCVP TUC Quick Reference Sheets (Digital Short Cut)David McDanielISBN-13: 978-1-58705-323-8ISBN-10: 1-58705-323-3As a final preparation tool providing a review of TUC exam topics, the CCVP TUC Quick Reference Sheets complement official Cisco curriculum, other books, or other exam preparatory material. This digital Short Cut provides you with detailed, graphical-based information, highlighting the key topics on the latest TUC exam in a quick-review format. These fact-filled Quick Reference Sheets allow certification candidates to get all-important information at a glance, helping you focus your study on areas of weakness and enhance memory retention of important concepts.The CCVP certification recognizes a candidate's ability to create an IP telephony solution that is transparent, scalable, and manageable. Earning a CCVP certification validates a robust set of skills in implementing, operating, configuring, and troubleshooting a converged IP network. The certification content focuses on Cisco Systems Unified CallManager, quality of service (QoS), gateways, gatekeepers, IP phones, voice applications, and utilities on Cisco routers and Cisco Catalyst switches.The 642-426 Troubleshooting Unified Communications (TUC) exam certifies that candidates have the knowledge and skills necessary to troubleshoot Enterprise CallManager, Unity, and IP network deployments. The exam addresses hands-on experience in configuring, deploying, and troubleshooting Unified Communications solutions.Table of Contents:1 Introduction2 Methodology and Tools3 Cisco Unified CallManager Related Issues4 Call Setup Issues5 Voice and Video Quality Issues6 Application Integration and Media Resource Issues


The authors examine medieval period of Sanjan, situated on the western coast of India, to the south of the river Tapi. The volume includes reports on geo-morphology of the area, animal bones, shells, coins and iconography. The area has a special importance in the commerce of the Indian Ocean.


Background Lead exposure has been associated with higher blood pressure, hypertension, electrocardiogram abnormalities, and increased mortality from circulatory causes. Objective We assessed the association between bone lead—a more accurate biomarker of chronic lead exposure than blood lead—and risk for future ischemic heart disease (IHD). Methods In a prospective cohort study (VA Normative Aging Study), 837 men who underwent blood or bone lead measurements at baseline were followed-up for an ischemic heart disease event between 1 September 1991 and 31 December 2001. IHD was defined as either a diagnosis of myocardial infarction or angina pectoris that was confirmed by a cardiologist. Events of fatal myocardial infarction were assessed from death certificates. Results An IHD event occurred in 83 cases (70 nonfatal and 13 fatal). The mean blood, tibia, and patella lead levels were higher in IHD cases than in noncases. In multivariate Cox-proportional hazards models, one standard deviation increase in blood lead level was associated with a 1.27 (95% confidence interval, 1.01–1.59) fold greater risk for ischemic heart disease. Similarly, a one standard deviation increase in patella and tibia lead levels was associated with greater risk for IHD (hazard ratio for patella lead = 1.29; 95% confidence interval, 1.02–1.62). Conclusions Men with increased blood and bone lead levels were at increased risk for future IHD. Although the pathogenesis of IHD is multifactorial, lead exposure may be one of the risk factors.


Spittle Bug data from the UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) terrestrial sites. These data are collected by quadrat sampling at all of ECN's terrestrial sites using a standard protocol . They represent continuous annual records from 1993 to 2015. Spittle Bug adults (Philaenus spumarius) are sampled and separated by sex and by colour morph; it is likely that the proportions of morphs are environmentally determined and will therefore be good indicators of environmental change. Spittle bug nymphs are counted and the mean number of nymphs per spittle recorded. ECN is the UK's long-term environmental monitoring programme. It is a multi-agency programme sponsored by a consortium of fourteen government departments and agencies. These organisations contribute to the programme through funding either site monitoring and/or network co-ordination activities. These organisations are: Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru - Natural Resources Wales, Defence Science & Technology Laboratory, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Llywodraeth Cymru - Welsh Government, Natural England, Natural Environment Research Council, Northern Ireland Environment Agency, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Government and Scottish Natural Heritage.


Common image features have too poor information for identification of forensic images of fingerprints, where only a small area of the finger is imaged and hence a small amount of key points are available. Noise, nonlinear deformation, and unknown rotation are additional issues that complicate identification of forensic fingerprints. We propose a feature extraction method which describes image information around key points: Symmetry Assessment by Finite Expansion (SAFE). The feature set has built-in quality estimates as well as a rotation invariance property. The theory is developed for continuous space, allowing compensation for features directly in the feature space when images undergo such rotation without actually rotating them. Experiments supporting that use of these features improves identification of forensic fingerprint images of the public NIST SD27 database are presented. Performance of matching orientation information in a neighborhood of core points has an EER of 24% with these features alone, without using minutiae constellations, in contrast to 36% when using minutiae alone. Rank-20 CMC is 58%, which is lower than 67% when using notably more manually collected minutiae information.


This paper presents a novel network intrusion detection method that searches for frequency patterns within the time series created by network traffic signals. The new strategy is aimed for, but not limited to, detecting DOS and Probe attacks. The detection method is based on the observation that such kind of attacks are most likely manipulated by scripted code, which often result in periodicity patterns in either packet streams or the connection arrivals. Thus, by applying Fourier analysis to the time series created by network traffic signals, we could identify whether periodicity patterns exist in the traffic. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this frequency-mining strategy based on the synthetic network intrusion data from the DARPA datasets. The experimental results indicated that the proposed intrusion detection strategy is effective in detecting anomalous traffic data from large-scale time series data that exhibit patterns over time. Our strategy does not depend on prior knowledge of attack signatures, thus it has the potential to supplement any signature-based intrusion detection systems (IDS) and firewalls.


This paper introduces a volume of collected papers on the political economy of environmental regulation: economic analyses of the processes through which political decisions regarding environmental regulation are made, principally in the institutional context found in the United States. Despite this geographic focus, many of the papers contain analytical models that are methodologically of interest and/or have lessons that are relevant in other parts of the world. In the environmental realm, questions of political economy emerge along three fundamental dimensions, which are closely interrelated but conceptually distinct: (1) the degree of government activity; (2) the form of government activity; and (3) the level of government that has responsibility. The first three parts of the book deal respectively with these three fundamental dimensions of inquiry. Part I features a set of six articles that examine how the targets and goals of individual environmental policies are established. Part II brings together nine articles that employ the analytical apparatus of positive political economy to address questions related to the choice of policy instruments for environmental regulation. Part III features four articles that examine, both positively and normatively, the level of government that is delegated responsibility for environmental protection. Finally, in Part IV, three articles are featured that assess the use of economic analysis in contemporary environmental policy.


Abstract Irregularities in ICF shells need to be characterized in detail. Outside and inside surface, and wall thickness fluctuations are all Raleigh-Taylor unstable and can cause a shell to fail during compression. Until recently we could only detect outside surface profile fluctuations, measured along three mutually perpendicular great circles and displayed as line graphs. Measurements, paths, and display have all been upgraded to improve our ability to see fluctuations. We have added a Wallmapper that can determine thickness along the same paths as the surface profiles. The thickness data can be subtracted from the outer surface profile to give a (low resolution) inner surface profile. We have measured the surface profiles along up to 8 paths, and have displayed these profiles wrapped around the image of a sphere. With sufficient paths, this format gives a sense of the 2-D surface fluctuations on the shell. These additions should help us to understand the nature of shell defects and optimize our production processes.


[Extract] Welcome to the grasses of the Townsville area. The genera covered in this publication are those found in the lowland areas around Townsville as far north as Bluewater, south to Alligator Creek and west to the base of Hervey's Range. This book provides a means of identifying the native and naturalised grasses of the Townsville region.

The aim of this book is to help students, researchers, conservationists and anyone else who is interested in the Poaceae family. This book provides a description and photographs of the genera and species.

The grasses belong to a very widespread and large family called the Poaceae. The original family name, Gramineae, is used in some publications, in Australia the preferred family name is Poaceae. It is one of the largest flowering plant families of the world, comprising more than 700 genera, and more than 10,000 species. In Australia there are over 1300 species including non-native grasses. There are 165 natives, 65 non-natives and 4 cultivated grasses found in the Townsville area and I have described 234 grass species, subspecies and varieties.


Radiotherapy departments are seeing an increasing number of patients presenting for treatment with active intravenous cardiac devices (AICDs). This is due to an increasing aging population and technology advances in these devices. The AAPM TG-34 addressed the radiation effects in these devices and provided recommendations for patients with these devices undergoing radiotherapy. The current devices utilizing CMOS technology are more sensitive to radiation then the older bipolar devices. Therefore, it is important to estimate the dose to the device to ensure that the radiation does not adversely affect the performance of the device. This is particularly important for patients dependent on their accurate functioning. The dose to the device is generally from secondary radiation and is typically below 0.05 Gy with most of it coming from lower energy scatter radiation. Treatment planning systems can be used to estimate the dose to the device. However, these systems do not accurately calculate doses at distances more than 2-3 cm from the field edge. For these out-of-field dose measurements the dosimeter requires a high sensitivity and a relatively flat energy response. Thermoluminescent detectors and optically stimulated luminescent detectors satisfy these requirements and they are relatively unobtrusive. The newer formulations of radiochromic film with higher sensitivity can also be used. The detector should be place under 0.5 to 1.0 cm of bolus to minimize the contaminating head-scatter electrons provide a more realistic measurement of the dose to the device.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. List the reasons for estimating the dose to the AICDs 2. Provide a discussion on the various methods which include calculations and measurements to estimate the dose to the device as well as the uncertainties in these estimates. 3. Identify detectors that satisfy the requirements for these in-vivo out-of-field dose measurements as well as describe the appropriate correction factors to apply for accurate dose measurements.


The design and optimization of quantum circuits is central to quantum computation. This paper presents new algorithms for compiling arbitrary 2 n ×2 n unitary matrices into efficient circuits of ( 1)controlled single-qubit and (n 1)-controlled-NOT gates. We first present a general algebraic optimization technique, which we call the Palindrome Transform, that can be used to minimize the number of selfinverting gates in quantum circuits consisting of concatenations of palindromic subcircuits. For a fixed column ordering of two-level decomposition, we then give an enumerative algorithm for minimal (n 1)controlled-NOT circuit construction, which we call the Palindromic Optimization Algorithm. Our work dramatically reduces the number of gates generated by the conventional two-level decomposition method for constructing quantum circuits of (n 1)-controlled single-qubit and (n 1)-controlled-NOT gates.


Abstract Policies to extend working life (EWL) assume homogeneous workers face similar choices about working longer: this may be difficult for women, workers in physically onerous jobs or in low-paid precarious employment. Work-life trajectories are gendered; women interrupt employment and pension-building to provide care. There is occupational variation in capacities to prolong working lives: physically demanding jobs cause work-related health deficits. The precariously employed cannot contribute regularly to pensions and may face age discrimination. This research provides an inter-occupational and cross-national dimension to EWL research, comparing women teachers and health-care workers in the United States of America (USA) and Republic of Ireland. It documents intra-cohort distinctions that emerge among women when considering educational opportunities and occupational tracks expressed in lifecourse trajectories and accumulated capacities for extended work. Analysis draws on interview data from ten teachers and ten health-care workers in each country, comparing the implications of EWL policies for women workers: in precarious versus secure occupations and occupations with different physical demands. It reveals work-life trajectories leading to poorer financial and health outcomes for older health-care workers, especially in the USA. Most women (regardless of occupation or country) opposed extending working life, with concerns ranging from health status and ability to work to the desire to have healthy years in retirement. The most important distinctions are between the occupational categories considered, rather than cross-national differences. Implications for national and work-place policy and research are considered.


Pancreatic fibrosis, a prominent histopathological feature of chronic pancreatitis (CP) and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, is essentially a dynamic process that leads to irreversible scarring of parenchymal tissues of the pancreas. Though the exact mechanisms of its initiation and development are poorly understood, recent studies suggested that the activation of pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) plays a critical role in eliciting such active course of fibrogenesis. Anthraquinone compounds possess anti-inflammatory bioactivities whereas its natural derivative rhein has been shown to effectively reduce tissue edema and free-radical production in rat models of inflammatory conditions. Apart from its anti-inflammatory properties, rhein actually exerts strong anti-fibrotic effects in our current in-vivo and in-vitro experiments. In the mouse model of cerulein-induced CP, prolonged administration of rhein at 50 mg/kg/day significantly decreased immunoreactivities of the principal fibrotic activators alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) on pancreatic sections implicating the activation of PSCs, which is the central tread to fibrogenesis, was attenuated. Consequently, the overwhelmed deposition of extracellular matrix proteins fibronectin 1 (FN1) and type I collagen (COL I-α1) in exocrine parenchyma was found accordingly reduced. In addition, the expression levels of sonic hedgehog (SHH), which plays important roles in molecular modulation of various fibrotic processes, and its immediate effector GLI1 in pancreatic tissues were positively correlated to the degree of cerulein-induced fibrosis. Such up-regulation of SHH signaling was restrained in rhein-treated CP mice. In cultured PSCs, we demonstrated that the expression levels of TGF-β-stimulated fibrogenic markers including α-SMA, FN1 and COL I-α1 as well as SHH were all notably suppressed by the application of rhein at 10 μM. The present study firstly reported that rhein attenuates PSC activation and suppresses SHH/GLI1 signaling in pancreatic fibrosis. With strong anti-fibrotic effects provided, rhein can be a potential remedy for fibrotic and/or PSC-related pathologies in the pancreas.


In 1345, the unique worship of Saint Charlemagne was institutionalized in the cathedral of Gerona. The roots (and for many, the reasons) of this celebration are found in the existence of an old local legend, the well-known testimonies to which go back to the eleventh century. Nevertheless, a lengthy analysis of the facts that marked the life of the cathedral during the long permanence Arnau de Montrodon had there—first in quality of canon (1297-1335) and later as bishop (1333-1348)- make it possible for us to verify that the promotion of the cult to San Charlemagne falls within a complex program of ideological and symbolic exaltation of the See of Girona that was designed by this notable and restlessly active ecclesiastic.