Objectives Individuals with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) are at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). This risk can be substantially reduced with lifelong pharmacological and lifestyle treatment; however, research suggests adherence is poor. We synthesised the qualitative research to identify enablers and barriers to treatment adherence. Design This study conducted a thematic synthesis of qualitative studies. Data sources MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO via OVID, Cochrane library and CINAHL databases and grey literature sources were searched through September 2018. Eligibility criteria We included studies conducted in individuals with FH, and their family members, which reported primary qualitative data regarding their experiences of and beliefs about their condition and its treatment. Data extraction and synthesis Quality assessment was undertaken using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme for qualitative studies. A thematic synthesis was conducted to uncover descriptive and generate analytical themes. These findings were then used to identify enablers and barriers to treatment adherence for application in clinical practice. Results 24 papers reporting the findings of 15 population samples (264 individuals with FH and 13 of their family members) across 8 countries were included. Data captured within 20 descriptive themes were considered in relation to treatment adherence and 6 analytical themes were generated: risk assessment; perceived personal control of health; disease identity; family influence; informed decision-making; and incorporating treatment into daily life. These findings were used to identify seven enablers (eg, 'commencement of treatment from a young age') and six barriers (eg, 'incorrect and/or inadequate knowledge of treatment advice') to treatment adherence. There were insufficient data to explore if the findings differed between adults and children. Conclusions The findings reveal several enablers and barriers to treatment adherence in individuals with FH. These could be used in clinical practice to facilitate optimal adherence to lifelong treatment thereby minimising the risk of CVD in this vulnerable population. PROSPERO registration number CRD42018085946.


This research used a numerical groundwater flow model, calibrated under steady-state conditions to develop the groundwater flow system in the West Mamprusi District of Northern Ghana. It was aimed at conceptualizing the flow system to initiate a thorough hydrogeological study of the rocks in the area. Stable isotopes were used to relate groundwater recharge in the area to recent meteoric water that had been evaporated in transit down the surficial material. On this basis, direct vertical groundwater recharge from precipitation was applied in the numerical modeling. This study suggests that the prospects of commercial development of the aquifers are high as the estimated recharge ranges between 3.3% and 29% of the annual precipitation. Estimated horizontal hydraulic conductivity ranges between 3.2 and 48 m/d in the area. The variability in the horizontal hydraulic conductivity has led to the development of four prominent groundwater flowpaths in the area. However, a prominent NE–SW flow has been observed and is in consonance with the reported structural grain of the country. A groundwater flow divide noted in the southern part of the study area has been attributed to the structural heterogeneity rather than topographical complexities as the area is largely flat.


In the animal kingdom, maternal control of early development is a common feature. The onset of zygotic control over early development, defined as the maternal to zygotic transition (MZT), follows fertilization with a delay of a variable number of cell divisions, depending on the species. The MZT has been well defined in animals, but investigations remain in their infancy in plants. Recent evidence suggests, however, that in plants as in animals, the MZT also occurs several division cycles after fertilization. The likely convergent evolution of the MZT in the animal and plant kingdoms is fascinating and raises major questions regarding its biological significance, particularly with regard to its importance in genome reprogramming and the acquisition of totipotency by the embryo.


Smad proteins are intracellular mediators of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) and related cytokines and undergo ligand-induced nuclear translocation. Here we describe the identification of a nuclear localization signal (NLS) in the N-terminal region of Smad 3, the major Smad protein involved in TGF-beta signaling. An NLS-like basic motif (Lys(40)-Lys-Leu-Lys-Lys(44)), conserved among all pathway-specific Smad proteins, not only is responsible for constitutive nuclear localization of the isolated Smad 3 MH1 domain but also is crucial for Smad 3 nuclear import in response to ligand. Mutations in this motif completely abolished TGF-beta-induced nuclear translocation but had no impact on ligand-induced phosphorylation of Smad 3, complex formation with Smad 4, or specific binding to DNA. Hence Smad 3 proteins with NLS mutations are dominant-negative inhibitors of TGF-beta-induced transcriptional activation. Smad 4, which cannot translocate into the nucleus in the absence of Smad 3 or another pathway-specific Smad, contains a Glu in place of the last Lys in this motif. Smad 3 harboring the same mutation (K44E) does not undergo ligand-induced nuclear import. Conversely, the isolated Smad 4 MH1 domain does not accumulate in the nucleus but becomes nuclear enriched when Glu(49) is replaced with Lys. We propose that this highly conserved five-residue NLS motif determines ligand-induced nuclear translocation of all pathway-specific Smads.


We introduce a generalization of the Conway-Hofstadter $10,000 sequence. The sequences introduced, called k-sequences, preserve the Conway-Hofstadter-Fibonaccilike structure of forming terms in the sequence by adding together two previous terms, equidistant from the start and end of the sequence. We examine some particular k-sequences, investigate relationships to known integer sequences, establish some properties which hold for all k, and show how to solve many of the deflning nonlinear recursions by examining related underlying sequences termed clock sequences.


In order to discriminate among the different objects in its environment, an agent may develop a primitive notion of concepts based on the sensor data it receives. In this paper, this phenomenon is investigated by having software agents play discrimination games with the sensor data of autonomous robots. We have compared the Simple Prototype method and the Adaptive Subspace method. Both methods achieve high discrimination-success rates. The Adaptive Sub-space method accomplishes this with a converging and relatively low number of categories. The purpose of these discrimination games is to serve as a basis for lexicon formation experiments. From the experiments in this paper, we conclude that the Adaptive Subspace method is more attractive for discrimination games.


Abstract In contemporary South Africa the nuclear family, made up of a husband and wife with two or three children living in a suburban area, is considered a social ideal and symbol of social and economic success. In Pentecostal Charismatic Churches the nuclear family is also held up as a symbol of success and as a sign of spiritual favour and blessing. Yet many young professional women who are members of Pentecostal Charismatic Churches struggle to find suitable husbands and marry. This paper examines why these women encounter these difficulties and how the Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in this study are opening up new social spaces in which singleness is an acceptable social state. In so doing the paper shows the complex relationship between weddings, sexuality, and economics in the life of young upwardly mobile Pentecostal Charismatic Christians.


Liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) are now a standard detector technology for making accelerator neutrino measurements, due to their high material density, precise tracking, and calorimetric capabilities. An electric field (E-field) is required in such detectors to drift ionization electrons to the anode where they are collected. The E-field of a TPC is often approximated to be uniform between the anode and the cathode planes. However, significant distortions can appear from effects such as mechanical deformations, electrode failures, or the accumulation of space charge generated by cosmic rays. The latter effect is particularly relevant for detectors placed near the Earth's surface and with large drift distances and long drift time. To determine the E-field in situ, an ultraviolet (UV) laser system is installed in the MicroBooNE experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The purpose of this system is to provide precise measurements of the E-field, and to make it possible to correct for 3D spatial distortions due to E-field non-uniformities. Here we describe the methodology developed for deriving spatial distortions, the drift velocity and the E-field from UV-laser measurements.


Sunflower ( Helianthus annuus L.) plants were grown with saline–sodic water (SSW) by treating with potassium (K @ 100 and 200 mg K 2 O kg −1 soil) and farm yard manure (FYM @ 5 and 10% of soil, w/w). Irrigation with untreated SSW caused soil salinization/sodification, leading to an increase in electrical conductivity (EC) of 165% and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) 100% with the subsequent increase of 736% in shoot Na + , a decrease of 52% in shoot K + and 94% in shoot K + :Na + ratio compared to canal water. SSW also decreased physiological activities: 31% relative water content (RWC), 34% membrane stability index (MSI), 51% protein, 33% chlorophyll and 58% photosynthetic rate compared to canal water. Integrated application of K and FYM, at higher level, decreased soil EC by 54% and SAR 43%, and shoot Na + 57% with a corresponding improvement in soil organic matter 166%, shoot K + 360%, shoot K + :Na + ratio 987%, RWC 34%, MSI 37%, protein 60%, photosynthetic rate 102%, superoxide dismutase 92%, peroxidase 78% and catalase 52% compared to SSW without K and/or FYM. In conclusion, exogenous application of K and FYM could be a promising approach to use brackish water in agriculture on a sustainable basis.


1. The metabolic effects of an intravenous lipid emulsion containing medium-chain triacylglycerols (MCT) and long-chain triacylglycerols (LCT) were studied in 16 critically ill, ventilated patients. The effects were compared in a cross-over study with those of a conventional emulsion containing only LCT. 2. The lipid was well tolerated but the metabolic effects of the MCT/LCT infusion differed from those of the LCT infusion. 3. The major differences were a 60% higher insulin concentration and a significantly greater increase in the plasma concentrations of non-esterified fatty acids during MCT/LCT infusion than during LCT infusion. The mean rise in plasma ketone concentration was also higher during MTC/LCT infusion, although this did not reach statistical significance.


Little is known about the function of genes expressed in oil palm vegetative
meristem tissues, which are expressed during transition from vegetative to
reproductive growth, and those expressed during the formation of abnormal
inflorescence. This study was aimed at isolating sufficiently large numbers of
expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from an oil palm vegetative meristem cDNA library
so that the expression of genes in this tissue could be studied. The genes (or ESTs)
that were specifically expressed in vegetative meristems at early stages of normal
inflorescence meristem development, and in abnormal inflorescence meristems were
isolated to study the transition from vegetative to reproductive growth and the
formation of floral abnormalities from clonal palms.
A random EST approach has been used to obtain vast amounts of genes from
many organisms. However, the random EST approach may result in the isolation of
clones that are highly repeated in proportion to their abundance in the mRNA population of the appropriate tissues. Therefore, cold-plaque screemng and
suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) techniques were employed in the EST
approach to isolate as much unique transcripts as possible in this study.
Based on the EST collections made from the vegetative meristem tissues,
1088 ESTs were isolated. The redundancy of the ESTs was reduced to about 18.9%
where 81.1% out of 1088 oil palm vegetative meristem ESTs were unique due to the
use of the cold-plaque screening approach. Classification of the putative function of
ESTs provides an idea of the type of genes expressed in the vegetative meristem
tissue. The expressed genes range from housekeeping genes to genes related to
photosynthesis. About 44% of the ESTs were unknown and were not characterized in
other species.
Stage specific expressed genes were isolated from vegetative meristem,
inflorescence meristem, normal and abnormal inflorescence meristem subtraction
libraries. About 601 contigs were identified from these four subtraction libraries.
More than 57% of the ESTs encoded unknown functions. Through the use of digital
differential display calculations, the ESTs were expressed in a tissue specific manner.
Reverse northern analysis confirmed that the the majority of the EST -contigs were
tissue specific.This study reveals that the apical meristem devotes more cellular activity to
the biosynthesis of cellular components than to photosynthesis which is predicted
from the EST analysis and physiological experiments conducted on plants. This study
also reveals profound changes in gene expression that are involved in the transitionfrom the vegetative meristem to an inflorescence meristem that is driven by the action
of a series of genes expressed in a stage-specific manner. Significant differences in
gene expression between normal and abnormal inflorescence meristems could not be
detected with this EST approach. Transient changes in gene expression or epigenetic
phenomenon have been proposed to explain the molecular basis of abnormal floral
development.


Hydrothermally altered country rocks surrounding hydrothermal ore deposits are commonly characterized by altered δ 18 O and δ 13 C values relative to distal, unaltered rocks. Stable isotopes have been recognized as a powerful tool to complement traditional geochemical and geophysical approaches during mineral exploration, particularly in carbonate replacement and Carlin-type deposits. However, wall-rock alteration and carbonate veining during ore formation is often accompanied by the precipitation of sulfide minerals, complicating stable isotope analysis. The classic phosphoric acid extraction technique for carbonate minerals results in the release of additional H 2 S gas, interfering with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS), and laser absorption spectrometry (LAS) analysis of CO 2 . Here we present the first results from a novel off-axis integrated cavity output spectrometer (OA-ICOS) instrument, capable of determining the stable isotope composition ( δ 13 C, δ 18 O) of mixed CO 2 -H 2 S gas evolved from carbonate-sulfide mixtures. Instrument calibration was performed by analyzing in-house and commercially available CaCO 3 stable isotope reference materials. Analyses of mixed CO 2 -H 2 S tank gas and sulfide-spiked stable isotope reference materials containing up to 40 wt % chalcopyrite and sphalerite demonstrate that the method outlined here is capable of effectively analyzing previously problematic high sulfide samples. The analytical capabilities, together with the robust nature of the OA-ICOS instrument, may be of direct practical use for mineral exploration in carbonate-hosted hydrothermal systems including ore deposits.


Arbitrage normally ensures that covered interest parity (CIP) holds. Until recently, excess profits, if any, were documented to last merely seconds and reach a few pips. Instead, this paper finds that following the Lehman bankruptcy, these were large, persisted for months and involved strategies short in dollars. Profits are estimated by specifying the arbitrage strategy as a speculator would actually implement it, considering both unsecured and secured funding. Either way, it seems that dollar funding constraints kept traders from arbitraging away excess profits. The claim finds support in an empirical analysis drawing on several novel high frequency datasets of synchronous quotes across securities, including transaction costs.


Taylor rules which link short-term interest rates to fluctuations in inflation and output, have been shown to be a good guide (both positively and normatively) to the conduct of monetary policy. As a result they have been used extensively to model policy in the context of both closed and open economy models. A key question that arises when analysing the conduct of such policy rules in the open economy case is whether the relevant measure of inflation is the growth in output prices or consumer prices. In this paper, we show that embedding a rule specified in terms of output price inflation into a benchmark two-country model confirms the existing result that local stability requires that the response of nominal interest rates to excess inflation should be such that real interest rates rise (the Taylor Principle), but this requirement may be partially offset by raising the interest rate response to increases in the output gap. However, all the conventional results do not hold when we replace output price inflation with consumer price inflation. In this case, Taylor rules which satisfy the Taylor principle will not support a unique rational expectations path for prices and other macroeconomic variables in response to specific shocks. Our results suggest that adoption of consumer price based Taylor rules might be chronically destabilising.


In this paper, we study the set reconciliation problem, in which each member of a node pair has a set of objects and seeks to deliver its unique objects to the other member. How could each node compute the set difference, however, is challenging in the set reconciliation problem. To address such an issue, we propose a lightweight but efficient method that only requires the pair of nodes to represent objects using a counting Bloom filter (CBF) of size $(O(d))$ and exchange with each other, where $(d)$ denotes the total size of the set differences. A receiving node then subtracts the received CBF from its local one via minus operation proposed in this paper. The resultant CBF can approximately represent the union of the set differences and thus the set difference to each node can be identified after querying the resultant CBF. In this paper, we propose a novel estimator through which each node can accurately estimate not only the value of $(d)$ but also the size of the set difference to each node. Such an estimation result can be used to optimize the parameter setting of the CBF to achieve less false positives and false negatives. Comprehensive analysis and evaluation demonstrates that our method is more efficient than prior BF-based methods in terms of achieving the same accuracy with less communication cost. Moreover, our reconciliating method needs no prior context logs and it is very useful in networking and distributed applications.


Purpose

The aim of this study is to reveal the contribution that Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing has to scientific research and its most influential thematic work in B-to-B since its beginning in 1986 until 2015, in commemoration of the 30th anniversary.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper begins with a qualitative introduction: the emergence of the magazine, its origins, editorial and positioning. Subsequently, it is based on bibliometric methodologies to develop quantitative analysis. The distribution of annual publications is analyzed, the most cited papers, the keywords that are mostly used, the influence on the publishing industry and authors, universities and the countries that have the most publications.

Findings

The predominant role of the USA at all levels is highlighted. It also highlights the presence (given its size and population) of the countries of Northern Europe. There is great interest in appreciating the evolution of the number of publications that are always increasing which demonstrates the growing and sustained interest in these types of articles, with certain times of retreat (often coincide with economic crisis).

Research limitations/implications

The Scopus database gives one unit to each author, university or country involved in the paper, without distinguishing whether it was one or more authors in the study. Therefore, this may bring some deviations in the analysis. However, the study considers some figures with fractional counting to partially solve these limitations.

Practical implications

After observing the different perspectives of the journal's production, it allows to give an objective view of the evolution that the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing has had in the past 30 years.

Originality/value

It is part of the trend that several journals (Journal of Marketing, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Business Research) made special sections to show progress and contribution of these journals to scientific research.


Abstract We develop new multi-factor dynamic copula models with time-varying factor loadings and observation-driven dynamics. The new models are highly flexible, scalable to high dimensions, and ensure positivity of covariance and correlation matrices. A closed-form likelihood expression allows for straightforward parameter estimation and likelihood inference. We apply the new model to a large panel of 100 U.S. stocks over the period 2001–2014. The proposed multi-factor structure is much better than existing (single-factor) models at describing stock return dependence dynamics in high-dimensions. The new factor models also improve one-step-ahead copula density forecasts and global minimum variance portfolio performance. Finally, we investigate different mechanisms to allocate firms into groups and find that a simple industry classification outperforms alternatives based on observable risk factors, such as size, value, or momentum.


Introduction; The hydatid is endemic zoonotic disease where livestock is raised in association with dogs. Aims and objectives; To define the epidemiological and clinical profile and treatment protocols for hydatid diseases among the patients reporting to a rural tertiary teaching hospital. Material and methods; Retrospective & prospective study was carried out on a total of (n=117) burn patients admitted in the Department of Surgery at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sevagram between 1st April 1996 to 31st March 2006. Descriptive statistics, including range and percentage, were used in analyzing the patient characteristics and laboratory parameters. Observation; The maximum numbers of patients were in the age group of 21 -30 years (31 pts, 26.49%). The main presenting symptom of the study population was pain in abdomen (85 patients, 89.47%) followed by lump in abdomen (81 patients, 85.26%). Maximum 106 patients (90.59%) had single organ involvement. The most commonly performed surgery in our series was partial pericystectomy with external drainage 80 patients (68.37%). Conclusion; Hydatid disease can affect any organ. Proper education, creating awareness and implementing strict rules regarding the disposable of the remains of slaughtered animals can help eradicate this disease. Partial pericystectomy with external drainage is no doubt a better option in any rural set-up.


In a previous study we showed that genomic constructs were expressed more efficiently in transgenic mice than constructs that were identical except for the lack of introns. Using the mouse metallothionein promoter-rat growth hormone gene construct as a model, we show that the first intron of the rat growth hormone gene is essential for high-level expression, whereas the other three introns are less effective. Several heterologous introns placed 3' of the coding region of an intronless rat growth hormone gene are also ineffective. However, insertion of some heterologous introns between the metallothionein promoter and the growth hormone gene improves expression. To determine whether addition of heterologous introns would provide a general strategy for improving expression, we have tested them in conjunction with other intronless genes and with different promoters.


We present LAMOST data on 168 γ Doradus (γ Dor) pulsating stars including stellar atmospheric parameters of 137 variables and spectral types for all of the samples. The distributions of period (P), temperature (T), gravitational acceleration (log(g)) and metallicity [Fe/H] are shown. It is found that most γ Dor variables are main-sequence stars with early F spectral types and temperatures from 6880 K to 7280 K. They are slightly more metal poor than the Sun with a metallicity range from −0.4 to 0. On the H-R and log g–T diagrams, both the γ Dor and δ Scuti (δ Sct) stars occupy in the same region and some are beyond the borders predicted by current stellar pulsation theories. It is discovered that the physical properties of γ Dor stars are similar to those of long-period δ Sct (P > 0.3 d) stars. The stellar atmospheric parameters are all correlated with the pulsation period for short-period δ Sct variables (P < 0.3 d), but there are no such relations for γ Dor or long-period δ Sct stars. These results reveal that γ Dor and long-period δ Sct are the same group of pulsating stars and they are different from short-period δ Sct variables. Meanwhile, 33 γ Dor stars are identified as candidates of binary or multiple systems.


One set of signaling proteins directs migration at the edge of a sheet of endothelial cells, whereas a distinct set coordinates cell movements within the sheet. Endothelial cells can migrate as a sheet of cells during embryonic development, wound healing, and angiogenesis. Using pools of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) targeting the mRNAs for 2400 human signaling genes, Vitorino and Meyer identified 100 different regulators that affected the migration of monolayer endothelial sheets into cell-free areas, which they subdivided into groups of functionally related factors, including one that controlled directed migration and another involved in cell-cell coordination. Using fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1) and vascular endothelial cadherin [also known as cadherin 5, type 2 (CDH5)] as representative members of the "directed migration" and "cell-cell coordination" groups, respectively, they examined the effects of these two proteins on directional movement into cell-free areas in response to FGF. Individual endothelial cells transfected with siRNA directed against FGFR1 (FGFR1– cells) exhibited nearly random movements when exposed to FGF. In endothelial sheets comprising cells with FGFR1 (FGFR1+ cells) and FGFR– cells, FGFR1+ cells were enriched at the edges and acted as "pioneers" that extended projections into cell-free spaces. FGFR1 signaling appeared to act non–cell autonomously, because FGFR1– cells located along the edges of the endothelial sheet moved directionally. In contrast, siRNA knockdown of CDH5, which mediates cell-cell contacts, decreased orientation of "follower cells" within the sheet without affecting the polarity of the pioneer cells at the border. A mixed population of CDH5+ and CDH5– cells displayed misoriented movement to nearly the degree as a pure population of CDH5– cells, suggesting that cell-cell contacts were necessary for coordinated, directed movement in follower cells. The authors proposed a model for endothelial sheet movement: Pioneer cells at the borders move in a growth factor–dependent manner, and follower cells within the sheet move in the same direction as the pioneer cells in a growth factor–independent manner, which requires cell-cell contacts. P. Vitorino, T. Meyer, Modular control of endothelial sheet migration. Genes Dev. 22, 3268–3281 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


A/B testing - also known as bucket testing – allows an organization to evaluate the performance/impact of new features implemented on their website by exposing a small fraction of visitors to them. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology that can reveal an ongoing bucket testing and the various features being tested. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed methodology, we began with testing the homepages of seven popular websites. We discover that four of them were actively performing bucket testing during our experiments, and we successfully spot different features being tested. Moreover, to investigate the factors that might affect bucket testing, we setup another experiment. Here, we request web pages from different browsers and record several features of server response, e.g. cookies set by the server, IP and port address of the responding server, and response time. We observe variations in the response time for different browsers, which suggest that the type of user agent plays an important role. Finally, we showcase the captured bucket-elements and release our dataset that can serve as ground truth for future investigations in this direction of research.


In an introductory chapter, a summary of the construction of string theories is given, for both the bosonic string and the RNS superstring. Relevant mathematical technology is introduced, including super-Riemann surfaces. Conformal field theory is discussed and BRST quantization of the string is explained. (Super) Schottky groups for the construction of higher-genus Riemann surfaces are introduced. As an example of the use of Schottky groups and super-Riemann surfaces, the one-loop gluon two point function is calculated from string theory. The incorporation of background gauge fields into string theory via nontrivial monodromies (twists) is discussed. The two loop Prym period matrix determinant is computed in the Schottky parametrization. The string theory model with N parallel separated D3-branes is introduced, and the formulae for the the vacuum amplitude are written down. A manifestly symmetric parametrization of two loop Schottky space is introduced. The relationship between worldsheet moduli and Feynman graph Schwinger times is given. The α′ → 0 limit of the amplitude is written down explicitly. The lagrangian for the corresponding gauge theory is found, making use of a generalization of Gervais-Neveu gauge which accounts for scalar VEVs. Propagators in the given gauge field background are written down. All of the 1PI two-loop Feynman diagrams are written down, including diagrams with vertices with an odd number of scalars. Illustrative example Feynman graphs are computed explicitly in position space. These results are compared with the preceding string theory results and exact agreement is obtained for the 1PI diagrams. An example application is given: the computation of the β function of scalar QED at two loops with the same methods, leading to the same result as found in the literature.


It is presently in style to speculate about the disruptive potential of the "gig economy." Will enterprises like Uber and Lyft change the way we get around, undoing taxi monopolies in the process? And what happens when tens of thousands of workers find work by logging onto a platform? Do the enterprises become the employers of some or all of these workers, or — as the enterprises themselves generally assert — should we regard these workers as newly minted micro-entrepreneurs?
That last question has emerged as a major unresolved issue with enormous importance to gig economy workers. Yet, there exists a major impediment to resolving it: the ubiquity with which gig economy companies require or encourage their workforces to resolve their disputes in individual arbitration proceedings. As this article will discuss, the effects of individual arbitration clauses (IACs) in the gig economy are significant. First, they make it unlikely that large swaths of gig economy workers will, as a practical matter, be able to resolve their employment status in any forum. Second, they make it more likely that — to the extent those questions are resolved at all — they will be resolved in arbitral proceedings that result in decisions that are non-precedential, secret, and applicable to only one worker at a time. Third, they reduce the costs of misclassifying workers — or at least they lead enterprises to believe they have reduced the costs of misclassification — by reducing the deterrent effect that the prospect of aggregate litigation can serve.
This article makes three contributions: first, it systematically reviews a group of IACs in gig economy worker agreements, discussing their similarities and differences; second, it offers a detailed look at how litigants and courts have responded to IACs in the gig economy so far, and discusses some consequences of IACs when they become ubiquitous in a segment of the economy; and third, it discusses possible ways to limit the effects of IACs in the work law context despite the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), including responses at the agency, state, and private individual or organization levels.


OBJECTIVE
To identify metabolic syndrome (MetS) prevalence using International Diabetes Federation (IDF) 2005 guidelines in a semi urban south Indian (Boloor Diabetes Study) population of Mangalore.

METHODS
Population of randomly selected adults > or =20 years living in Boloor locality who were available for the house to house survey were assessed for the following: anthropometric variables; blood pressure; fasting blood glucose and lipid profile. Among 800 responders; 300 men, 500 women, 551 were examined (68.8%). Fasting plasma glucose as well fasting lipid profile could be done for 451 (147 men, 304 women) 81.85%; Data was analysed for prevalence of MetS and its individual components. Diagnosis of MetS was based on IDF 2005 criteria for Asian men and women. Intergroup comparisons were performed using student 't' test and Chi-square test.

RESULTS
MetS was prevalent in 134 of 451 (29.7%); men 39 (26.5%) and women 95 (31.2%). Prevalence of individual components of MetS were as follows: increased waist circumference, (common component) present in all; elevated TG in 38.8%; low HDL-C in 59.7%; increased FPG in 57.4%; elevated SBP in 80.5% and DBP in 56.7%; body mass index (BMI) > or =25 kg/sq.m (obesity) in 58.9% Barring increased waist circumference which is the essential criteria for diagnosis of Mets, Systolic hypertension emerged as the most frequent component in the population followed by low HDL-C and elevated FPG. Elevated TG was less prevalent in this population.

CONCLUSION
Prevalence of MetS in this semi urban population (Boloor) of Mangalore compares with MetS prevalence identified in cross sectional studies in India. Prevention and treatment of the predictive factors: dyslipidemias, hyperglycaemia, hypertension, together with enhanced physical activity may together reduce the prevalence of MetS.


Wireless communication has grown, exponentially, with wide range of applications offered for the customers. Among these, WLAN (2.4-2.5GHz, 3.6-3.7GHzand 4.915- 5.825GHz GHz), Bluetooth (2.4 GHz), and WiMAX (2.500-2.696 GHz, 3.4-3.8 GHz and 5.725-5.850 GHz) communication standard/technologies have found largest use local area, indoor – outdoor communication and entertainment system applications. One of the recent trends in this area of technology is to utilize compatible standards on a single chip solutions, while meeting the requirements of each, to provide customers systems with smaller size, lower power consumption and cheaper in cost. In this thesis, RF – Analog, and – Digital Integrated Circuit design methodologies and techniques are applied to realize a multiband / standart (WLAN and WiMAX) operation capable Voltage- Controlled-Oscillator (VCO) and Frequency Synthesizer. Two of the major building blocks of wireless communication systems are designed using 0.35 μm, AMS-Bipolar (HBT)-CMOS process technology. A new inductor switching concept is implemented for providing the multiband operation capability. Performance parameters such as operating frequencies, phase noise, power consumption, and tuning range are modeled and simulated using analytical approaches, ADS® and Cadence® design and simulation environments. Measurement and/or Figure-of-Merit (FOM) values of our circuits have revealed results that are comparable with already published data, using the similar technology, in the literature, indicating the strength of the design methodologies implemented in this study.


The mode of attaching the membrane protein with GPI anchor is known as GPI anchoring of protein and proteins thus formed are known as GPI anchored protein. GPI anchor is a glycolipid moiety which is synthesized in endoplasmic reticulum of cell with the help of a multistep pathway called GPI anchor biosynthesis pathway. This pathway is regulated by more than 26 enzymes and mutation in genes of this pathway leads to disorders called Inherited Genetic Disorders (IGD) which are inherited as recessive trait. This study describes the clinical significance of GPI anchored proteins in mammalian system. Methods: This review is focused on different types of inherited genetic disorders caused by mutations in different genes of GPI anchor biosynthesis pathway and also explains the role of GPI anchored proteins in deadly disease like cancer and neurodegenerative prion disease. Results: Genetic mutations in GPI anchor biosynthesis pathway lead to disorders called Inherited Genetic Disorders (IGD) which are inherited as recessive trait. The major symptoms of these disorders are intellectual disability, coarse facial features and organs abnormality. Different subunits of GPI transamidase complex, one of the enzyme of this pathway are also identified as oncogenes in different types of cancers. Conclusion: Although this pathway is not essential in mammals but genetic defects result in synthesis of defective GPI anchored proteins which lead to many disorders and syndromes.


In Latin America two countries have been characterized by receiving important international funds to foster and consolidate microenterprises: Colombia and Mexico. With said supports, both countries have sought to foment employment and social development. In this sense, the present article, which is part of a broader qualitative research on microenterprises in Latin America, has as an objective to analyze the development of microenterprises in both countries and the socio-demographic characteristics of their labor force. For such end, in this research we make a brief historic account of the way and the conditions wherein public policies for the microenterprises appear and evolve in both countries; likewise, some of the sociodemographic characteristics of microenterprises in each country are analyzed.


High Arctic patchy wetlands are ecological oases in a polar desert environment and are vulnerable to climatic warming. At present, understanding of their responses to external factors (climate and terrain) is limited. This study examines a wetland located in a topographic depression maintained by seasonal snowmelt, ground ice melt and lateral inflows. The wetland is located on Cornwallis Island, Nunavut, Canada. Hydrological, climatological and soil observations were made over several summers with different weather conditions. The summers of 1996 and 1997 were cool and wet but the summer of 1998 was warm and dry. The melt in 1996 was rapid due to rain on snow events and only lasted six days. Deeper snow in 1997 prolonged the melt season to 18 days. A shallow snow-cover in 1998 and early melt depleted the snow by early June. Surface, groundwater and storage fluctuations in the wetland were dictated by snowmelt, rainfall, evaporation loss from the wetland and lateral inputs which in turn were controlled by the melting of the late-lying snow storage in the catchment. Soil factors influence the spatial variations in ground thaw which affects the surface and subsurface flow. Streamflow response of the wetland reflects a nival regime and augmentation of streamflow thoughout the summer season in all three years is supported by multiple water sources: ground ice melt and suprapermafrost water from a large late-lying snowpack. Overall, this study suggests that the survival of some patchy wetlands depends on their interaction with the surrounding basin, with a dependency probably being more important during warm and dry seasons.


Intramolecular binding of a ligand with an alkyl link, (-CH(2))(3), covalently bound to a residue near the active site of the protein forms a novel steroid-sensing model. A genetically engineered big up tri, open(5)-3-ketosteroid isomerase (KSI) was designed to conjugate uniquely with this ligand at its Cys-86 through the formation of a disulfide bond. The steady-state protein-ligand binding, mediated by hydrophobic interactions, was confirmed with fluorescence spectra, and the fluorophore-labeled peptide sequence was identified with tandem mass spectra. A comparison of steady-state fluorescence spectra of various fluorophore-labeled KSI mutants reveals that the emission characteristics vary with environmental factors. An evaluation of the decay of the fluorescence anisotropy of the fluorophore indicates the existence of an intramolecular protein-ligand binding interaction. The measurement of time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy of various protein-ligand complexes yielded values of anisotropy decay representing the degrees of freedom of the fluorophore related to its location, inside or outside the steroid-binding domain. When 19-norandrostenedione (19-NA) was added to this protein-ligand system, competitive binding between the ligand and the steroid was observed; this finding confirms the feasibility of the design of steroid detection with engineered KSI. On integration of this protein-ligand system with a silicon-based nanodevice (a p-type field-effect transistor with an ultrathin body), a noncharged steroid, 19-NA, became detectable at a micromolar level ( Biosens. Bioelectron. 2008 , 23 , 1883 ).


While definitional and measurement problems pose a challenge, there is no doubt that disability affects a noticeable share of the population, the vast majority of whom live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The still comparatively scarce empirical data and evidence suggests that disability is closely associated with poverty and other indicators of economic deprivation at both the country and—if with slightly greater nuance—at the individual/household level. There is also a growing body of evidence documenting the sizeable additional costs incurred by persons with disabilities (PwDs) as a direct or indirect consequence of their disability, underlining the increased risk of PwDs (and the households they are part of) falling under the absolute poverty line in any given LMIC.
 Looking ahead, there remains considerable scope for more evidence on the causal nature of the link between disability and poverty, as well as on the (cost-)effectiveness of interventions and policies attempting to improve the well-being of PwDs.


Many injuries are preventable. Useful tools are available that can aid in assessing injury risks and developing methods to reduce these risks. This is part 1 of a two-part article that will discuss these tools, which include the Haddon Matrix, the 10 Countermeasure Strategies, the Injury Control Process, and the Army Risk-Management Process. The Haddon Matrix is 3 ® 3 table that, across the top (columns), provides an approach to conceptualizing injury prevention and control through modifications of the human, equipment, and environment; and, across rows, thinking about injury prevention and control before, during, and after the injury-producing event. The basic premise of the 10 Countermeasure Strategies is that injuries are largely due to energy exchanges between a person and the external environment in such a way that body cannot properly avoid or absorb the energy and anatomic structures are damaged. The Countermeasure Strategies are (1) eliminating the hazard altogether, (2) reducing the amount of the hazard, (3) preventing release of the hazard, (4) modifying the rate or spatial distribution of the hazard, (5) separating in space or time the hazard and the individual, (6) separating the individual from the hazard using a barrier, (7) modifying the basic qualities of the hazard, (8) strengthening the individual to make them more resistant to damage, (9) countering the damage done, and (10) stabilizing, healing, and rehabilitating the individual. Part 2 of this series will discuss the injury control process and the Army risk management process.


We introduce a new security notion for public-key encryption (PKE) that we dub non-malleability under (chosen-ciphertext) self-destruct attacks (NM-SDA), which appears to be the strongest natural PKE security notion below full-blown chosen-ciphertext (IND-CCA) security. In this notion, the adversary is allowed to ask many adaptive "parallel" decryption queries (i.e., a query consists of many ciphertexts) up to the point when the first invalid ciphertext is submitted. As such, NM-SDA security generalizes non-malleability against chosen plaintext attacks (NM-CPA, where only one parallel decryption query is allowed) and recently introduced indistinguishability against (chosen-ciphertext) self-destruct attacks (IND-SDA, where each adaptive query consists of a single ciphertext). After showing that NM-SDA is a strict strengthening of NM-CPA and IND-SDA and allows for more applications, we establish the following two results: • Domain Extension. For any K > 1, there is a black-box construction of a K-bit NM-SDA PKE scheme from a single-bit NM-SDA PKE scheme. Moreover, this can be done using only O(K + λ) calls to the underlying single-bit NM-SDA scheme, where λ is the security parameter. To achieve our goal, we define and construct a novel type of continuous nonmalleable code (NMC), called secret-state NMC, as we show that standard continuous NMCs are not enough for the natural "expand-then-encrypt-bit-by-bit" approach to work. • Black-Box Construction from IND-CPA. Prior work showed that NM-CPA secure PKE can be constructed from any IND-CPA secure PKE in a black-box way. Here we show that the same construction actually achieves our strictly stronger notion of NM-SDA security. (This requires a non-trivial extension of the original security proof to handle multiple parallel decryption queries.) Hence, the notions of IND-CPA, NM-CPA, IND-SDA and NM-SDA security are all equivalent, lying (plausibly, strictly?) below IND-CCA security. We also show how to improve the rate of the resulting NM-SDA scheme from quadratic to linear.


Physiological experiments demonstrate the existence of weak pairwise correlations of neuronal activity in mammalian cortex (Singer, 1993). The functional implications of this correlated activity are hotly debated (Roskiesetal., 1999).Nevertheless, it is generally considered a wide spread feature of cortical dynamics. In recent years, another line of research has attracted great interest: the observation of a bimodal distribution of the membrane potential defining up states and down states at the single cell level (Wilson & Kawaguchi, 1996; Steriade, Contreras, & Amzica, 1994; Contreras & Steriade, 1995; Steriade, 2001). Here we use a theoretical approach to demonstrate that the latter phenomenon is a natural consequence of the former. In particular, we show that weak pairwise correlations of the inputs to a compartmental model of a layer V pyramidal cell can induce bimodality in its membrane potential. We show how this relationship can account for the observed increase of the power in the frequency band during up states, as well as the increase in the standard deviation and fraction of time spent in the depolarized state (Anderson, Lampl, Reichova, Carandini, & Ferster, 2000). In order to quantify the relationship between the correlation properties of a cortical network and the bistable dynamics of single neurons, we introduce a number of new indices. Subsequently, we demonstrate that a quantitative agreement with the experimental data can be achieved, introducing voltage-dependent mechanisms in our neuronal model such as Ca2+- and Ca2+-dependent K+ channels. In addition, we show that the up states and down states of the membrane potential are dependent on the dendritic morphology of cortical neurons. Furthermore, bringing together network and single cell dynamics under a unified view allows the direct transfer of results obtained in one context to the other and suggests a new experimental paradigm: the use of specific intracellular analysis as a powerful tool to reveal the properties of the correlation structure present in the network dynamics.


A quantitative risk analysis (QRA) should provide a broad, informative and balanced picture of risk, in order to support decisions. To achieve this, a proper treatment of uncertainty is a prerequisite. Most approaches to treatment of uncertainty in QRA seem to be based on the thinking that uncertainty relates to the calculated probabilities and expected values. This causes difficulties when it comes to communicating what the analysis results mean, and could easily lead to weakened conclusions if large uncertainties are involved. An alternative approach is to hold uncertainty, not probability, as a main component of risk, and regard probabilities purely as epistemic-based expressions of uncertainty. [6] In this work, we have relied on the latter approach and have limited our scope to investigating one sources of uncertainty in QRAs; assumptions made for QRAs. We have pointed out the main components of risk description in a QRA and later defined them with respect to assumptions made. We emphasize on the role assumptions play in a QRA and the impacts they have on the total risk level and what consequences they cause if they are not valid. An important issue addressed is how to communicate the shortcomings and limitations of presenting results only by probabilities and expected values. Sensitivity analysis plays a key role in this regard. Finally the intention is to rank the assumptions based on their importance according to their corresponding degree of uncertainty and sensitivity in a QRA. In order to achieve this goal, we have selected some examples of assumptions from current QRAs provided by Statoil ASA for our review and study. We have discussed the assumptions description and their impacts on other parts of the QRA. Based on the investigation of assumptions and their relation to the results of QRA and by following a checklist suggested by Aven [6][7] we have assigned an importance factor to each assumption and ranked them accordingly. The suggestion for further work is that assumptions will be presented in detail and preferably together with a sensitivity and uncertainty analysis to provide cleared pictures of risk results. This will help the stakeholders in a QRA to understand and interpret the results beyond just probabilities and expected values.


Most prime movers and auxiliary generators of ships are diesel engines. Owing to both the cheapest residual fuel oil and the maximum performance compared to all the other heat engines, high-pressure combustion engine is used as the main propulsion for the vessels. The present paper discusses the available literature on the energy balance and efficiency enhancement options for marine diesel engines. The analysis of the energy balance provides valuable information on the amount of the supplied fuel energy in the engine systems and defines the preventable losses of the actual engine cycle as regards the ideal cycle. Energy balance can be considered as a significant framework to lay out the components of the engine. The onboard diesel engines have an output of approximately 48–51 percent and the remainder of the input energy is emitted into the environment including exhaust gas, jacket cooling water, and other losses. The review extends to the options for improving diesel engine efficiency. These options include the use of steam turbine, exhaust gas boiler, and exhaust gas turbine.


The use of corporal punishment within the public educational system of African states is unlawful, detrimental to the health and welfare of the children, and an unnecessary impediment to educational excellence in the region. Public school corporal punishment violates several international and regional human rights treaties, customary international law, and may breach jus cogens norms prohibiting torture and recognising a fundamental right to respect for human dignity. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights expressly condemn all forms of corporal punishment. In addition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child can also be interpreted to prohibit the practice of public school corporal punishment. Most African states have ratified these international and regional human rights instruments; therefore, laws authorising this practice should be repealed and alternative methods should be encouraged through legal reform. This article explains how laws authorising public school corporal punishment breach human rights law, and calls for law reform in African states. In addition to the repeal of such laws, this article suggests legislation that could be implemented domestically to condemn and prohibit this practice.


This monograph investigates the temporal properties of those predicates referring to individuals – the so-called individual-level (IL) predicates – in contrast to those known as stage-level (SL) predicates. Many of the traditional tenets attributed to the IL/SL dichotomy are not solidly founded, this book claims, as it examines current theoretical issues concerning the syntax/semantics interface such as the relation between semantic properties of predicates and their syntactic structure. By using the contrast found in Spanish copular clauses (ser vs. estar), Individuals in Time shows that the conception of IL predicates as permanent and stative cannot be maintained. The existence of nonstative IL predicates is demonstrated through analyzing the correlation between the syntactic presence of certain projections (specifically, prepositional complements) and process-like aspect properties. This detailed examination of IL predicates in the domains of inner aspect, outer aspect, and tense will be welcomed by scholars and students with an interest in event structure, tense, and aspect.


INTRODUCTION
The diffuse sclerosing variant (DSV) of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is considered an aggressive histotype associated with poor prognosis. However, the available data for both the outcome and best management of this disease are inconsistent.

METHODS
This study reviewed the current literature by searching PubMed up to November 30, 2015, using the search terms "diffuse sclerosing variant" and "papillary thyroid cancer (or carcinoma)" and selecting only studies evaluating recurrent/persistent disease and cancer-related mortality in both DSV and classic PTC (cPTC). The association with some features of aggressiveness at diagnosis, the risk of recurrence or persistence, and the risk of cancer-related death were reported as odds ratio (OR) with confidence intervals (CI). Meta-regression analysis was used to assess the effect of covariates across the studies.

RESULTS
Ten studies met the eligibility criteria and contributed 585 DSV and 64,611 cPTC patients. Relative to patients with cPTC, patients with DSV exhibited a higher risk of extrathyroidal extension and lymph node and distant metastases. The risk of persistent/recurrent disease was three times higher in patients with DSV than it was in cPTC patients (OR = 3.19 [CI 1.86-5.49]). This risk was not different when only studies where post-surgical (131)I was routinely administered were considered (OR = 2.07 [CI 0.88-4.90]). The risk of cancer-related mortality was not different between DSV and cPTC (OR = 1.34 [CI 0.76-2.38]).

CONCLUSIONS
This meta-analysis confirms the aggressive biological behavior of DSV thyroid cancer. When preoperatively suspected, total thyroidectomy with lymph node excision followed by radioiodine therapy should be the correct management for DSV.


Preterm birth is the major cause of neonatal and infant mortality in the developed world, being responsible for 55% and 43% of neonatal and infant deaths, respectively, in England and Wales.1 With nearly 50 000 preterm births (before 37 weeks gestation) a year in England and Wales (7.6%), the burden is large and research has estimated the annual cost of these babies to be nearly £3 billion2 reflecting both initial care costs and ongoing morbidity.

To date, both the clinical response and the research agenda have concentrated on two main areas: (1) optimising neonatal care practices and interventions and (2) secondary preventive strategies after preterm birth is threatened or an underlying condition recognised. In terms of neonatal care, there have been major advances in the past 30 years particularly in infants of 32 weeks gestation or less; however, it is unlikely that further dramatic changes will be seen particularly among those babies born at the borders of viability. In the same period, obstetric research has focused on strategies to prevent preterm birth once it is threatened but although progesterone therapy is currently showing some promise,3 other obstetric measures have shown little benefit.4

In taking this approach, the impact of those conditions, behaviours and lifestyles affecting the mother (such as diabetes, obesity and smoking) that are part of the morbidity and mortality associated with preterm birth have received much less attention.5 Similarly, clinicians and academics have, until very recently, largely concentrated on very preterm births (ie, <33 weeks of gestation) and moderate preterm infants have been seen as presenting little problem despite their relatively large numbers. However, emerging …


Ion chromatography (IC) has been available commercially for
more than 25 years and can therefore be considered a
mature analytical technique. But, if this description conjures
up an image of a technique whose development has slowed to
an incremental level, nothing could be further from the truth.
The pace of technological change in IC has accelerated dramatically
over the past five years, and there are further developments
on the horizon to whet the appetite of even the most
demanding user. Before looking at these developments, we should
first cover the basics of IC. IC is a high-performance ion-exchange technique for the separation
and quantification of low-molecular-weight ions (1–4). Typically,
IC is used for the determination of inorganic anions and
cations, and it is the premier method used for anions in modern
analytical chemistry. IC therefore finds widespread use in fields
as diverse as environmental, clinical, and industrial analysis.


Abstract. LiDAR sensors are proven sensors for accurate vehicle localization. Instead of detecting and matching features in the LiDAR data, we want to use the entire information provided by the scanners. As dynamic objects, like cars, pedestrians or even construction sites could lead to wrong localization results, we use a change detection algorithm to detect these objects in the reference data. If an object occurs in a certain number of measurements at the same position, we mark it and every containing point as static. In the next step, we merge the data of the single measurement epochs to one reference dataset, whereby we only use static points. Further, we also use a classification algorithm to detect trees. For the online localization of the vehicle, we use simulated data of a vertical aligned automotive LiDAR sensor. As we only want to use static objects in this case as well, we use a random forest classifier to detect dynamic scan points online. Since the automotive data is derived from the LiDAR Mobile Mapping System, we are able to use the labelled objects from the reference data generation step to create the training data and further to detect dynamic objects online. The localization then can be done by a point to image correlation method using only static objects. We achieved a localization standard deviation of about 5 cm (position) and 0.06° (heading), and were able to successfully localize the vehicle in about 93 % of the cases along a trajectory of 13 km in Hannover, Germany.


Many newly released activity monitors use heart rate measured at the wrist to estimate exercise intensity, however, where the device is placed on the wrist may affect accuracy of the measurement. PURPOSE: To determine whether the Pure Pulse technology on the Fitbit Charge 2 will show different heart rate readings when placed on the recommended exercise position compared to the all-day wear position at various exercise intensities. METHODS: Thirty-five participants (MEAN ± SD; 22.0 ± 2.9yrs; 23.9 ± 2.6kg/m2; 18 male) consented to participate in a single visit where two Fitbit Charge 2 devices were placed on the non-dominant wrist. Fitbit A was placed 2-3 fingers above the wrist bone. Fitbit B was placed directly above the wrist bone. The treadmill was set at 3 mph with 0% grade. Participants remained at this speed for 4 minutes. Heart rate measurements were taken at the last 10 seconds of each stage from both Fitbits and a polar heart rate monitor (chest strap). The same procedure was followed for 5 and 6 mph. Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS 23.0. A Two-way (speed x location) Repeated Measures ANOVA was used to examine mean differences. Pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni correction were used in post-hoc analysis. Pearson correlations and mean bias between polar heart rate monitor and activity monitors were also calculated for each speed. RESULTS: Repeated Measures ANOVA found significant differences between speeds (p<0.01) and location (p<0.01), but not for the interaction (p=0.234). Pairwise comparisons indicated significant differences between each speed (p<0.01) and between the polar monitor and Fitbit B (p<0.05), but not between the polar monitor and Fitbit A (p=0.608). Pearson correlations indicated strong correlations between each Fitbit and the polar monitor (r= .58-.91; all p<0.01). Mean bias decreased as speed increased for Fitbit A (mean bias BPM ± SD; -1.1 ± 5.4; -1.9 ± 9.5; -0.4 ± 6.9; -0.3 ± 7.3 for resting, 3mph, 5mph, 6mph respectively) while mean bias for Fitbit B increased as speed increased (-2.8 ± 8.8; -3.1 ± 11.1; -3.9 ± 14.6; 6.7 ± 14.3 for resting, 3mph, 5mph, 6mph respectively). CONCLUSION: Wrist-worn heart rate monitors appear to provide values adequate for recreational use, however, following recommended guidelines on wear-position may impact heart rate readings.


Similar to a mobile-user in the cell-based GSM, a satellite in a LEO system constantly circulates along its predesigned orbit. Satellites' movement causes their visibility change, and thus a user's call needs to be handed over among satellites from time to time. The handovers may occur frequently. Without handling those calls well, the system performance will degrade. This paper dealt with call admission control and considered a multiservice LEO system allocating various bandwidths for different calls (so-called multirate). A novel guard-channel policy that reserves appropriate channels for various types of handover calls was proposed. It applied SMDP theory to find optimal channel reservation, on the premise of CoS guarantee to handover calls. The results manifested that under various traffic conditions, this SMDP-based guard-channel policy performed better than coordinate-convex and ordinary SMDP-based policies.


Federal courts exercise the sovereign authority of the United States when they assert personal jurisdiction over a defendant. As components of the national sovereign, federal courts' maximum territorial reach is determined by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, which permits jurisdiction over persons with sufficient minimum contacts with the United States and over property located therein. Why, then, are federal courts limited to the territorial reach of the states in which they sit when they exercise personal jurisdiction in most cases? There is no constitutional or statutory mandate that so constrains the federal judicial reach. Rather, it is by operation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure — specifically Rule 4(k) — that federal courts are not ordinarily permitted to exercise jurisdiction to the full extent that Fifth Amendment due process would support. This Article will lay out the various arguments in favor of revising the Federal Rules to enable federal courts to exercise personal jurisdiction to the full extent permissible under the Constitution. In doing so, this Article will address the issues that would arise out of such a revision and provide comprehensive treatment of the matters that would need to be addressed in order to move federal courts in this direction.


This research project focuses on the development of an optical 3D measuring system that enables high accurate surface measurements of welding seams in order to detect impurities. The systems concept is based on a stereo camera system in conjunction with a projecting line laser. A second camera system is used as tracking or positioning component to obtain the position of the measuring systems in object space. The complete stereo laser-profile system will be used as a hand-held system. The development, optimization and testing of the system components (stereo camera system with projecting laser line and tracking component) for surface measurements as well as calibration and accuracy evaluations are the main objectives within this research project. Testing procedures and probes are constructed and evaluated to verify the results. The development considers conditions for a future adaption to underwater use.


Late last month, Russia's Ministry of Education and Science announced the first results of a novel attempt to revitalize science in the country's universities. It had offered "megagrants" of up to $5 million to attract top researchers from around the world to set up new labs at Russian universities. How much the megagrant winners can boost Russian science remains an open question, however. Foreign winners are only required to spend one-third of each year in Russia, and the program notably failed to lure two big fish: this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. The discoverers of graphene were both born and educated in Russia but are now working at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the Nobel Prize announcement last month generated much debate in Russia about why many of the country's best and brightest scientists—tens of thousands of whom fled abroad during the economic crises of the 1990s—are still now gracing foreign universities and their work benefiting other economies.

* With reporting by Jennifer Carpenter, Andrey Allakhverdov, and Vladimir Pokrovsky.


Abstract. The first direct estimates of the temporal variability of the absolute transport in the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC) at 34.5° S in the South Atlantic Ocean are obtained using just under one year of data from a line of four pressure-equipped inverted echo sounders. Hydrographic sections collected in 2009 and 2010 confirm, based on neutral density, temperature, salinity, and oxygen values, the presence of the DWBC, one of the main deep pathways of the Meridional Overturning Circulation. Both data sets indicate that the DWBC reconstitutes itself after breaking into eddies in the western sub-tropical Atlantic near 8° S. The amplitude and spectral character of the DWBC transport variability are comparable with those observed in the North Atlantic, where longer records exist, with the DWBC at 34.5° S exhibiting a transport standard deviation of 25 Sv and variations of ∼ 40 Sv occurring within periods as short as a few days. There is little indication of an annual cycle in the DWBC transports, although the observational records are too short to be definitive. A Monte Carlo-style analysis using 27 yr of model output from the same location as the observations indicates that about 48–60 months of data will be required to fully assess the deep transport variability. The model suggests the presence of an annual cycle in DWBC transport, however its statistical significance with even 27 yr of model output is low, suggesting that seasonal variations in the model are weak.


We present real-time controlled manipulation of microparticles optically trapped in three dimensional (3D)-trap array lattices generated by dynamically reconfigurable n + 1 non-coplanar multiple plane wave interference in an umbrella-like configuration. Through a programmable spatial light modulator-assisted approach, reconfigurable stable 3D interferometric optical traps belonging to diverse transverse rotational symmetry are realized and used to trap micro beads in multi-layers. Dynamically controlled translation as well as rotation of trapped array of particles are also demonstrated using presented approach. Further, the optical stacking of microparticles in an array of 3D single-stranded chiral traps portrays the versatility in tailoring axially tunable trap arrays.


Dynamic binary translation allows us to analyze a program during execution without the need for a compiler or the program's source code. In this work, we present two applications of dynamic binary translation: tracematches and unread memory detection. Libraries are ubiquitous in modern software development. Each library requires that its clients follow certain conventions, depending on the domain of the library. Tracematches are a particularly expressive notation for specifying library usage conventions, but have only been implemented on top of Java. In this work, we leverage dynamic binary translation to enable the use of tracematches on executables, particularly for compiled C/C++ programs. The presence of memory that is never read, or memory writes that are never read during execution is wasteful, and may be also be indicative of bugs. In addition to tracematches, we present an unread memory detector. We built this detector using dynamic binary translation. We have implemented a tool which monitors tracematches on top of the Pin framework along with unread memory. We describe the operation of our tool using a series of motivating examples and then present our overall monitoring approach. Finally, we include benchmarks showing the overhead of our tool on 4 open source projects and report qualitative results.


Seventy-nine consecutive children with cerebral palsy who underwent osteotomies about the hip for subluxation or dislocation were studied retrospectively to determine risk factors that would correlate with postoperative complications of death, fracture, or decubitus ulcer. Except for the three patients who died, all of the children had > or = 1 year of follow-up. Twenty (25%) patients had at least one complication. Three children died; one at 1 week, one at 2 weeks, and one at 5 months after surgery. Sixteen patients sustained 25 fractures. All were managed with cast or splint immobilization in the clinic. Five patients developed decubitus ulcers requiring > or = 2 weeks of local care, but none required skin grafts or flaps. Complications occurred in 13 (68%) of 19 children with gastrostomies or tracheostomies but in only seven (12%) of the remaining 60 children. Only one (8%) of 13 ambulatory patients had a complication compared with 19 (29%) of 66 nonambulatory patients. In conclusion, ambulatory function correlates well with the risk of complications after osteotomies. A nonambulatory patient with a gastrostomy or tracheostomy is at even greater risk. Fortunately the fractures and ulcers observed in this series healed uneventfully with no operative intervention.


The passage of light through slowly varying nonuniform photonic crystal structures is treated using Hamiltonian optics. The approach allows the inverse design of complex and highly compact optical elements as well as providing insight and an appealing physical picture. It can also be used to treat the trapping and deflection of light at distributed defects in one- and two-dimensional (2-D) crystals, and to study the frequency-dependent time delay in chirped one-dimensional (1-D) fiber.


This paper studies the long-term effects of redlining policies that restricted access to credit in urban communities. For empirical identification, we use a regression discontinuity design that exploits boundaries from maps created by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in 1940. We find that "redlined" neighborhoods have 4.8% lower home prices in 1990 relative to adjacent areas. This finding is robust to the exclusion of boundaries that coincide with the physical features of cities (e.g., rivers, landmarks). Moreover, we show that housing characteristics varied smoothly at the boundaries when the maps were created. Evidence suggests lower property values may be driven by negative externalities associated with fewer owner-occupied homes and more vacant structures. Overall, our results indicate the effects of discriminatory credit rationing can persist decades after such practices are formally discontinued.


As the first comprehensive work to assemble ideas, concepts, discourses, and extensive essays in this vital area, the Encyclopedia of African Religion explores such topics as deities and divinities, the nature of humanity, the end of life, the conquest of fear, and the quest for attainment of harmony with nature and other humans. Editors Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama include nearly 500 entries that seek to rediscover the original beauty and majesty of African religion. Features include: it helps readers grasp the enormity of Africa's contribution to religious ideas by presenting richly textured concepts of spirituality, ritual, and initiation while simultaneously advancing new theological categories, cosmological narratives, and ways to conceptualize ethical behavior it provides readers with new metaphors, figures of speech, modes of reasoning, etymologies, analogies, and cosmogonies it reveals the complexity, texture, and rhythms of the African religious tradition to provide scholars with a baseline for future works.


The volume presents for the first time in book form in English the work of two major representatives of the so-called Moscow-Tartu school. The Introduction outlines their project for a poetics of expressiveness against the background of the structural-semiotic movement of the '60s and '70s. Part I is a systematic exposition of the theory, concentrating on the concepts of theme, expressive device, poetic world, etc. Part II and III apply these concepts to a structuralist portrayal of Leo Tolstoy's tales for children (shown to be A War and Peace in miniature) and of the medieval Latin author Archpoet of Cologne (with special emphasis on his Mock Penitent). The volume is provided with a Bibliography of the poetics of expressiveness and a Glossary of its metalanguage.


This paper is concerned with the investigation of some interplay between the theories of (Kurosh-Amitsur) radicals and varieties of (not necessarily associative) algebras. Specifically, it is shown that a variety is a radical class if and only if it is closed under extensions, while a radical class which is also a semi-simple class is the same thing as a variety with attainable identities in the sense of T. Tamura (J. Algebra 3 (1966), 261-276). In certain instances it is shown that the two properties of varieties are equivalent.


We review the clinical manifestations and long-term outlook of patients with chronic natural killer (NK) cell lymphocytosis. After reviewing more than 1,500 peripheral blood lymphoid flow cytometry reports and molecular genetics data from patients with suspected large granular lymphocyte (LGL) proliferation, we identified 10 patients (median age at diagnosis, 60 years; range, 35 to 76 years; male:female ratio, 3:2) with persistent (greater than 6 months) increase in phenotypically determined NK cells (CD3-CD16+). Southern blot analysis performed on 9 patients showed no clonal T-cell receptor gene rearrangements. Disease duration was measured from time of initial recognition of LGL or NK cell excess (greater than 40% of the lymphocyte fraction). Clinical data from these 10 patients were compared with those from 68 patients with T-cell LGL (T-LGL) leukemia. Currently, all patients are alive (median disease duration, 5 years; range, 0.8 to 8 years). Associated disease manifestations included pure red blood cell aplasia, recurrent neutropenia, recurrent neutropenic sepsis, and vasculitic syndromes, all of which were responsive to immunosuppressive therapy. No patient had palpable lymphadenopathy or splenomegaly. Compared with the patients with T-LGL leukemia, patients with chronic NK cell leukemia has similar lymphocyte counts, associated conditions, treatment responses, and survival but had less neutropenia and anemia.


Contemporary Canadian writing is rich in texts that break the boundaries of genre and gender. The postmodern character of many of these texts often accounts for the former, while the latter is almost inevitably linked to feminist awareness. Women's writing has explored the possibilities of trespassing, of crossing literary borders and of subverting conventions in many areas, but the insistence of feminist discourse has also produced its effects in male writing. This is exemplified by many of Robert Kroetsch's texts, for instance, which are relevant here as an intertext with the two novels we are about to discuss: Aritha van Herk's No Fixed Address (1986) and George Bowering's Caprice (1987).1 These are only two of the travelling women who inhabit recent Canadian narrative, mapping out the country while exploring the limits of a particular fictional genre. This serial is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol16/iss1/77


PURPOSE
To develop a methodology of assessing and evaluating the consistency of the spatial resolution, dose, energy, noise, contrast, and geometrical accuracy of the BrainLab ExacTrac™ system.

METHODS
A device was constructed to hold the QCkV-1 Phantom firmly and reproducibly against the face of the flat panel detectors. Two image sets per detector were acquired using the ExacTrac present console setting--Cranial Standard. The two image sets were analyzed in PIPSpro™ and the following metrics were recorded: spatial resolution (f30, f40, f50), noise and Contrast-to-Noise Ratio. Geometrical image accuracy was evaluated by assessing the length of QCkV-1. Dose and kVp were recorded using the Unfors RaySafe Xi R/F Detector. The kVp and dose were evaluated for the following: Cranial (80kV,80mA,80ms), Thorax (120kV,160mA,160ms), Abdomen (120kV,160mA,130ms) and Pelvis(120kV,160mA,160ms).

RESULTS
With regards to spatial resolution, the mean values of the f30, f40 and f50 for the left detector were, 1.39±0.09, 1.24±0.10 and 1.15±0.07 respectively, while the right detector were 1.38±0.07, 1.22±0.08 and 1.13±0.10, respectively. Mean CNR for the left and right detectors was 114±10 and 116±13, respectively. For geometrical accuracy, both detectors had a measured image length of the QCkV-1 of 218.8±0.3mm. The left detector showed dose measurements of 1.37±0.01 mGy (CS), 12.56±0.03 mGy (TS), 10.08±0.04 mGy (AS) and 12.58±0.05 mGy (PS) while the right detector showed 1.27±0.01 mGy (CS), 11.48±0.03 mGy (TS), 9.21±0.04 mGy (AS) and 11.50±0.04 mGy (PS), respectively. For energy, the left detector had kVp readings of 81.2±0.3 (CS), 121.1±0.4 (TS), 121.0±0.3 (AS) and 121.0±0.3 (PS) and the right detector had 79.9±0.1 (CS), 117.2±0.2 (TS), 117.2±0.2 (AS) and 117.2±0.2 (PS).

CONCLUSION
A methodology was developed to assess the basic image quality parameters recommended by TG-142 for the ExacTrac™ system. The ExacTrac system shows a consistent dose, kVp, spatial resolution, CNR and geometrical accuracy for each detector over the evaluated timeframe.


The measured characteristics of two different deformable mirror designs are presented. Each mirror is uncooled and has 37 piezoelectric actuators. The mirrors have comparable frequency response usable to over 20 kHz, but possess quite different actuator influence functions. One exhibits an exp(−αr1.5) characteristic and the other has an exp(−γr2.5) characteristic. The latter mirror is used in an 18-channel multidither adaptive optical system to perform both phase dither and phase correction functions. The measured characteristics of this system's performance include a 2 ms convergence time and effective turbulence compensation. Evidence is presented of "2Nπ" servo ambiguities, a behavior which reduces an adaptive system's overall phase compensation performance. The performance of the deformable mirror adaptive system is compared to an equivalent segmented (piston) mirror system.


Leonard Bernstein was a charismatic and versatile musician--a brilliant conductor who attained international super-star status, and a gifted composer of Broadway musicals (West Side Story), symphonies (Age of Anxiety), choral works (Chichester Psalms), film scores (On the Waterfront), and much more. Bernstein was also an enthusiastic letter writer, and this book is the first to present a wide-ranging selection of his correspondence. The letters have been selected for the insights they offer into the passions of his life--musical and personal--and the extravagant scope of his musical and extra-musical activities. Bernstein's letters tell much about this complex man, his collaborators, his mentors, and others close to him. His galaxy of correspondents encompassed, among others, Aaron Copland,Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Thornton Wilder, Boris Pasternak, Bette Davis, Adolph Green, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and family members including his wife Felicia and his sister Shirley. The majority of these letters have never been published before. They have been carefully chosen to demonstrate the breadth of Bernstein's musical interests, his constant struggle to find the time to compose, his turbulent and complex sexuality, his political activities, and his endless capacity for hard work. Beyond all this, these writings provide a glimpse of the man behind the legends: his humanity, warmth, volatility, intellectual brilliance, wonderful eye for descriptive detail, and humor.


By adopting noise initiation model of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), the influence of phonon lifetime and gain coefficient of medium on power limiting characteristic is numerically investigated. Through using actual parameters of three media, CCl4, acetone, and CS2, the waveforms of transmitted pulses are simulated. The result shows that different media have little effect on the front peak of waveform, while have an obvious effect on the height of power limiting platform. When the medium which has short phonon lifetime and small gain coefficient is used, the height of power limiting platform is comparatively high. In experiment, by focusing 1064-nm, 8-ns, 18-mJ pulses into these three media, the waveforms of transmitted pulses are obtained. The experimental results are in good agreement with conclusions of theoretical simulations.


Deep neural network models have become the dominant approach to a large variety of tasks within music information retrieval (MIR). These models generally require large amounts of (annotated) training data to achieve high accuracy. Because not all applications in MIR have sufficient quantities of training data, it is becoming increasingly common to transfer models across domains. This approach allows representations derived for one task to be applied to another, and can result in high accuracy with less stringent training data requirements for the downstream task. However, the properties of pre-trained audio embeddings are not fully understood. Specifically, and unlike traditionally engineered features, the representations extracted from pre-trained deep networks may embed and propagate biases from the model's training regime. This work investigates the phenomenon of bias propagation in the context of pre-trained audio representations for the task of instrument recognition. We first demonstrate that three different pre-trained representations (VGGish, OpenL3, and YAMNet) exhibit comparable performance when constrained to a single dataset, but differ in their ability to generalize across datasets (OpenMIC and IRMAS). We then investigate dataset identity and genre distribution as potential sources of bias. Finally, we propose and evaluate post-processing countermeasures to mitigate the effects of bias, and improve generalization across datasets.


Globally, fire regimes are being altered by changing climatic conditions. New fire regimes have the potential to drive species extinctions and cause ecosystem state changes, with a range of consequences for ecosystem services. Despite the co-occurrence of forest fires with drought, current approaches to modelling flammability largely overlook the large body of research into plant vulnerability to drought. Here, we outline the mechanisms through which plant responses to drought may affect forest flammability, specifically fuel moisture and the ratio of dead to live fuels. We present a framework for modelling live fuel moisture content (moisture content of foliage and twigs) from soil water content and plant traits, including rooting patterns and leaf traits such as the turgor loss point, osmotic potential, elasticity and leaf mass per area. We also present evidence that physiological drought stress may contribute to previously observed fuel moisture thresholds in south-eastern Australia. Of particular relevance is leaf cavitation and subsequent shedding, which transforms live fuels into dead fuels, which are drier, and thus easier to ignite. We suggest that capitalising on drought research to inform wildfire research presents a major opportunity to develop new insights into wildfires, and new predictive models of seasonal fuel dynamics.


In Nation and Ethnicity Julia C. Schneider give an analysis of the Chinese discourse on nationalism and historiography in the 1900s-1920s with regard to non-Chinese people's assimilation and integration into the nation.


The modern antitrust debate has become characterized by sustained attacks on the integrity of antitrust institutions and by unsubstantiated dismissals of debate. This atmosphere has led to a variety of proposals for radical change to the antitrust laws and their enforcement that we believe are unsupported by the evidence, counterproductive to promoting competition and consumer welfare, and offered with an unwarranted degree of certainty. Many of these current proposals would (1) undermine the rule of law; (2) undo the healthy evolution of antitrust law in the courts over time; (3) require antitrust agencies to micromanage the economy by picking winners and losers; (4) abandon a focus on consumer welfare in favor of vague and politically-oriented goals; and (5) undermine successful American businesses and their competitiveness in the global economy at the worst-imaginable time.

The assertions about the state of antitrust law and policy that purportedly justify these radical changes are not supported by the evidence. A more accurate reading of the evidence supports the following view of the American economy and the role of antitrust law: (1) the American economy—including the digital sector—is competitive, innovative, and serves consumers well; (2) structural changes in the economy have resulted from increased competition; (3) lax antitrust enforcement has not allowed systemic increases in market power; (4) existing antitrust law is adequate for protecting competition in the modern economy; (5) history teaches that discarding the modern approach to antitrust would harm consumers; and (6) common sense reforms should be pursued to improve antitrust enforcement.

We believe open discussion of existing evidence is necessary to advance contemporary debates about the performance of antitrust institutions in the digital economy. We discuss in this letter various dimensions of antitrust law, economics, and institutions that have been the targets of radical reform proposals. The signatories to this letter hold a steadfast belief that antitrust institutions, including the courts, are up to the task of protecting competition, and that the federal antitrust laws as written are effective in accomplishing that goal. While many signatories have offered diverse proposals to improve the functioning of those institutions—a few of which we share in this letter—we hold the common view that the proposed radical reforms would make consumers worse off now and in the future by chilling efficient behavior and stymieing innovation.


BACKGROUND
A randomized clinical trial from the United Kingdom (EVAR trial 2) comparing endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR) with no intervention found no advantage for EVAR in patients with high risk. This finding was predominantly caused by the substantial in-hospital mortality after EVAR (9%).

HYPOTHESIS
The nationwide in-hospital mortality for patients with the highest risk undergoing EVAR in the United States is lower than that reported in EVAR trial 2.

DESIGN
Population-based, cross-sectional study.

SETTING
The 2001-2004 Nationwide Inpatient Sample.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
The Nationwide Inpatient Sample identified EVAR procedures for nonruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms. Risk stratification was based on comorbidities and the Charlson comorbidity index, a validated predictor of in-hospital mortality after abdominal aortic aneurysms repairs. Weighted univariate and logistic regression analyses were used to determine the association between comorbidity measures and risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality.

RESULTS
During the 4-year period, 65 502 EVARs were performed with an in-hospital mortality of 2.2%. Risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality rates ranged from 1.2% to 3.7%. Stratified analyses, including only elective EVAR procedures, revealed that in-hospital mortality was significantly higher in patients with the most severe comorbidities (1.7%) vs those with lower comorbidity (0.4%; P<.001). Patients with high risk had only a 1.6-fold increased risk of adjusted in-hospital mortality (odds ratio, 1.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.2-2.2) compared with patients with low risk.

CONCLUSIONS
The EVAR procedure is currently being performed in the United States with low in-hospital mortality, even in patients with the highest risk. Therefore, EVAR should not be denied to high-risk patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms in the United States on the basis of the level I evidence from the United Kingdom study.


Abstract Like other tissues of the central nervous system, the retina is susceptible to damage by oxidative processes that result in several neurodegenerative disease such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, ischaemic retinal disease, retinal disease produced by light oxidation, and detached retina, among other diseases. The use of antioxidant substances is a solution to some health problems caused by oxidative stress, because they regulate redox homeostasis and reduce oxidative stress. This is important for neurodegeneration linked to oxidation processes. In line with this, Ginkgo biloba is a medicinal plant with excellent antioxidant properties whose effects have been demonstrated in several degenerative processes, including retinal diseases associated with neurodegeneration. This review describes the current literature on the role of ginkgo in retinal diseases associated with neurodegeneration. The information leads to the conclusion that G. biloba extracts might be a good option to improve certain neurodegenerative retinal diseases, but more research is needed to determine the safety and efficacy of G. biloba in these retinal degenerative processes.


Early Childhood Education (ECE) programmes are presumed to have positive effects in particular for children who are at risk of failing during their school careers. However, there is disagreement on whether such programmes should be more teacher and curriculum based or rather centred on the individual child. In this paper I study child-centred ECE programmes that are used at preschools in the Dutch province of Limburg, which is in fact mainly a study of 'Speelplezier', a new child-centred programme which has recently been certified as being 'in theory' effective in raising children's school readiness, but which has not yet been evaluated. I use a rich dataset covering the first three grades at elementary schools in the Southern part of Limburg for the year 2008/09 to evaluate the impact of child-centred ECE versus alternative preschool options. I estimate ordinary least squares effects of attending a preschool applying child-centred ECE onto test scores from the beginning of elementary schooling, under the control of alternative childcare experiences and various child and family related characteristics and re-weighing observations of the studied sample to represent population averages. I argue that access to a preschool kindergarten applying child-centred ECE is to some degree exogenously determined. In a further effort to identify causal effects, I also use propensity score matching and instrumental variable estimation techniques. I find no evidence of the expected short-term effects on language or on cognitive development who attended a child-centred ECE preschool as compared to preschools applying other or no early education programmes. In order to reach measurable benefits, the child-centred methods and their applications need to be intensified and extended to all disadvantaged groups of children. Yet I find some evidence that children of low educated parents who have been placed in a child-centred ECE preschool tend to have higher language and cognitive outcomes.


This best-selling guide from authors Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas has been the go-to tutorial and reference book for photography/design professionals and the textbook of choice in college classrooms for decades. This edition includes their trademark features of clear, concise, step-by-step instructions; hundreds of full-color images; screen captures of program features; and supplemental tips and sidebars in every chapter. This new edition includes an all-new material, a bonus chapter, and downloadable assets.New and updated Photoshop CC (2015 release) featuresincluding linked assets, multiple artboards, and new asset exportare clearly marked with bright red stars in both the table of contents and main text.


Cavitation is usually the main physical phenomenon behind performance alterations in hydraulic machinery. For this reason, it is crucial to accurately predict its inception and development and to highlight a comprehensive relation between the cavitation development and the performances drop associated. The common cavitation models, based on numerical flow simulations, are intended to reproduce the general cavitation behavior, and their major focus is the cavitation onset and developed cavity shape prediction. In the present study, various methods in cavitation modelling are investigated. Specific computational methods are outlined for the two sensitive zones of cavity detachment and closure. Finally, an industrial case is investigated in order to highlight the mechanisms of head drop phenomenon in hydraulic machines. Current modelling techniques are reviewed together with physical arguments concerning the cavitation phenomenon, and a 2D hydrofoil test case is used to evaluate the models. A mono-fluid interface tracking model, a multiphase state-equation based model, and a multiphase transport-equation based model are discussed in terms of reproducing the cavitation flow characteristics as the cavitation inception, development, pressure distribution and velocity profiles in cavitation regimes. An innovative approach based on the local stress formulation is proposed. The non-viscous anisotropic stress is taken into account through the maximum tensile stress criterion for cavitation inception instead of the classical pressure threshold. The maximum tensile stress criterion, formulated using the shear strain rate formulation is used for CFD computations. The method is evaluated with the case of a parabolic nose leading edge flow with comparison to the boundary layer computations. The developed model is tested in the case of a 2D hydrofoil in both smooth and rough walls under different flow conditions. The ability of the model to take into account Reynolds and surface roughness effects, as observed in experimental investigations, is demonstrated. A comparative study of turbulence modelling for unsteady cavitation is presented which indicates a strong correlation between the cavitation unsteadiness predictions and the turbulence modelling. The adapted techniques in reproducing the unsteady cavitation flow are found to be either using an accurate filtering turbulence model to correctly capture the large eddies, or to modify the turbulent viscosity function, and thereby introducing an artificial compressibility effect. The simulated leading edge cavitation instability, in our case, occurs at a certain cavity length where the cavity closure corresponds to the high pressure gradient region and is governed mainly by the occurrence of the reentrant jet at the cavity closure. This phenomenon is found to be periodic and the shedding frequencies matches to the Strouhal law as observed in experiments. Finally, the multiphase mixture model is used in the case of an industrial inducer. The model provides satisfactory results for the prediction of the cavitation flow behavior and performance drop estimation for the operating points studied. An analysis based on global energy balance and local flow analysis demonstrates that the head drop is mainly caused by the lower torque generation and the hydraulic losses induced by the secondary flows. These phenomena occur when the cavity extends towards the throat region, leading to important changes in the flow structure.