The research work has dealt with the study of new catalytic processes for the synthesis of fine chemicals belonging to the class of phenolics, namely 2-phenoxyethanol and hydroxytyrosol. The two synthetic procedures investigated have the advantages of being much closer to the Green Chemistry principles than those currently used industrially. In both cases, the challenge was that of finding catalysts and methods which led to the production of less waste, and used less hazardous chemicals, safer solvents, and reusable heterogeneous catalysts.
In the case of 2-phenoxyethanol, the process investigated involves the use of ethylene carbonate (EC) as the reactant for phenol O-hydroxyethylation, in place of ethylene oxide. Besides being a safer reactant, the major advantage of using EC in the new synthesis is the better selectivity to the desired product achieved. Moreover, the solid catalyst based on Na-mordenite was fully recyclable. The reaction mechanism and the effect of the Si/Al ratio in the mordenite were investigated.
In the case of hydroxytyrosol, which is one of the most powerful natural antioxidants, a new synthetic procedure was investigated; in fact, the method currently employed, the hydrolysis of oleuropein, an ester extracted from the waste water processing of the olive, makes use of large amounts of organic solvents (hexane, ethyl acetate), and involves several expensive steps of purification. The synthesis procedure set up involves first the reaction between catechol and 2,2-dimethoxyacetaldehyde, followed by the one-pot reduction of the intermediate to give the desired product. Both steps were optimized, in terms of catalyst used, and of reaction conditions, that allowed to reach ca 70% yield in each step. The reaction mechanism was investigated and elucidated.
During a 3-month period spent at the University of Valencia (with Prof. A. Corma's group), a process for the production of diesel additives (2,5-bis(propoxymethyl)furan) from fructose has been investigated.


The inverse scattering problem for a scatterer that is independent of one spatial coordinate is considered in the Born approximation. Assuming a circular cross section for the scatterer, the number of degrees of freedom of the field scattered over the full angular range (2π) is evaluated in the presence of noise. This is obtained by making use of the eigenfunction technique and determining the pertinent eigenfunctions and eigenvalues. The finiteness of the number of degrees of freedom leads us to introduce finite sampling techniques. The results also apply to the dual problem of synthesizing wave field structures starting from computer-generated holograms. The evaluation of the number of degrees of freedom for a series of scattering experiments with different illuminating waves is also outlined. Throughout the paper the similarity between the present problems and the problem relating to the degrees of freedom of coherent images formed through thin-ring pupils is exploited.


Documents do often not exist in isolation but are implicitly or explicitly linked to parts of other documents. However, due to a multitude of proprietary document formats with rather simple link models, today's possibilities for creating hyperlinks between snippets of information in different document formats are limited. In previous work, we have presented a dynamically extensible cross-document link service overcoming the limitations of the simple link models supported by most existing document formats. Based on a plug-in mechanism, our link service enables the linking across different document types. In this paper, we assess the extensibility of our link service by integrating some document formats as well as third-party document viewers. We illustrate the flexibility of creating advanced hyperlinks across these document formats and viewers that cannot be realised with existing linking solutions or link models of existing document formats. A user study further investigates the user experience when creating and navigating cross-document hyperlinks.


Visual surveillance is an important computer vision research problem. As more and more surveillance cameras appear around us, the demand for automatic methods for video analysis is increasing. Such methods have broad applications including surveillance for safety in public transportation, public areas, and in schools and hospitals. Automatic surveillance is also essential in the fight against terrorism. In this light, the PETS 2006 data corpus contains seven left-luggage scenarios with increasing scene complexity. The challenge is to automatically determine when pieces of luggage have been abandoned by their owners using video data, and set an alarm. In this paper, we present a solution to this problem using a two-tiered approach. The first step is to track objects in the scene using a trans-dimensional Markov Chain Monte Carlo tracking model suited for use in generic blob tracking tasks. The tracker uses a single camera view, and it does not differentiate between people and luggage. The problem of determining if a luggage item is left unattended is solved by analyzing the output of the tracking system in a detection process. Our model was evaluated over the entire data set, and successfully detected the left-luggage in all but one of the seven scenarios.


Shared mobility with pooled rides is the linchpin for leveraging vehicle automation and electrification to reduce congestion and emissions and to create livable urban communities. The sharing of rides is older than horse-and-buggy travel. Recent innovations make sharing easier, more convenient, and more efficient. Innovative mobility services premised on pooling can lower travel costs, mitigate congestion, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They also offer travelers more mobility choices between the traditional bookends of auto ownership and public transit. While the realm of shared mobility is vast, including shared bikes, scooters, and cars, the focus of this chapter is on pooled services—placing more people in a single vehicle. Doing so unlocks huge economic, social, and environmental benefits. The motivation for pooling is simple. First and foremost is economics. Cars are among the most underused capital assets in our economy, sitting empty 95 percent of the time and carrying one individual much of the remaining time. If a car were used more than 5 percent of the time, and if that car carried two, three, or four passengers, the cost per rider would drop dramatically. The benefits go well beyond cheaper mobility. Because the car would be carrying multiple riders who might otherwise be driving, there would also be fewer vehicles on the road, less parking space required, less air pollution, and reduced energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Given that the world has more than 1 billion cars and light trucks, the potential for major reductions in pollution and greenhouse gases is huge—in the United States and also most other countries. The transition to a future where many rides are shared is now possible. What remains to be seen is whether and under what conditions people will be willing to make the transition.


Switzerland has a long tradition of direct democracy, which makes it an ideal laboratory for research on real-world politics. Similar to recent "open government" initiatives launched worldwide, the Swiss government regularly releases datasets related to state affairs and politics. In this paper, we propose an exploratory, data-driven study of the political landscape of Switzerland, in which we use opinions expressed by candidates and citizens on a web platform during the recent Swiss parliamentary elections, together with fine-grained vote results and parliament votes.
 Following this purely data-driven approach, we show that it is possible to uncover interesting patterns that would otherwise require both tedious manual analysis and domain knowledge. In particular, we show that traditional cultural and/or ideological idiosyncrasies can be highlighted and quantified by looking at vote results and pre-election opinions. We propose a technique for comparing the candidates' opinions expressed before the elections with their actual votes cast in the parliament after the elections. This technique spots politicians that do not vote consistently with the opinions that they expressed during the campaign. We also observe that it is possible to predict surprisingly precisely the outcome of nationwide votes, by looking at the outcome in a single, carefully selected municipality. Our work applies to any country where similar data is available; it points to some of the avenues created by user-generated data emerging from open government initiatives, which enable new data-mining approaches to political and social sciences.


Combining concepts from topology and algorithms, this book delivers what its title promises: an introduction to the field of computational topology. Starting with motivating problems in both mathematics and computer science and building up from classic topics in geometric and algebraic topology, the third part of the text advances to persistent homology. This point of view is critically important in turning a mostly theoretical field of mathematics into one that is relevant to a multitude of disciplines in the sciences and engineering. The main approach is the discovery of topology through algorithms. The book is ideal for teaching a graduate or advanced undergraduate course in computational topology, as it develops all the background of both the mathematical and algorithmic aspects of the subject from first principles. Thus the text could serve equally well in a course taught in a mathematics department or computer science department.


DBA/1, DBA/2, CBA/N, and CBA/Ca mice carry a gene which specifically restricts infectivity of mink cell focus-forming (MCF) murine leukemia viruses. The gene, designated Rmcfr, is dominant or semidominant and maps to chromosome 5; it is closely linked to the morphologic marker gene Hm. The Rmcf gene may be of much use as a means of determining the role of MCF viruses in various forms of leukemogenesis.


Based on a thorough review of their feature make up and on novel diachronic data on their modification properties, this paper maps out the internal syntactic structure of French n-words and the historical time course of their internal rise within a nominal projection. It charts out precise steps that directly relate internal structural changes to corresponding changes in concord properties. Indirect modification with autre as in rien d'autre is shown to be an innovation of modern French that serves to provide a distinctive signature of the final morphosyntactic change of n-words into negative quantificational expressions. The evidence offered supports the hypothesis (Deprez 2000; Condoravdi & Kiparsky 2006) that it was change in the internal structure of n-words that determined the current properties of negative concord, not changes in the sentential negation marker, contra Zeijlstra (2004 and following work).


This paper investigates whether government support can act to increase exporting activity. We use a uniquely rich data set on Irish manufacturing plants and employ an empirical strategy that combines a nonparametric matching procedure with a difference-in-differences estimator in order to deal with the potential selection problem inherent in the analysis. Our results suggest that if grants are large enough, they can encourage already exporting firms to compete more effectively on the international market. However, there is little evidence that grants encourage nonexporters to start exporting.


Monitoring for resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner (Bt) toxins in transgenic crops is challenging, in part because alleles conferring resistance appear to be rare. Consequently, several complementary methods are used to identify, collect and test putatively resistant individuals. A series of experiments conducted at commercial seed production facilities explored an alternative sampling method. Larvae of the European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis Hubner, were collected from bins containing Bt hybrid seed corn and their inbred progeny (both F2 and backcrossF2 larvae) were tested for resistance to the Bt toxin Cry1Ab. Marked, laboratoryreared 0. nubilalis larvae also were placed beneath drying corn ears to evaluate potential contamination of samples by larvae developing on non-Bt corn. Both feral and laboratory-reared larvae were used to examine the causes and levels of mortality of larvae in drying bins. Screening of larvae on diet containing Cry1Ab failed to provide evidence of resistance, although insufficient inbred lines survived to make conclusions about the presence of resistance alleles in larvae originally collected beneath Bt corn. Both larvae from previously dried non-Bt corn and 0. nubilalis moving between adjacent bins are potential sources of contamination of larvae collected beneath drying Bt corn. Exposure to conditions inside seed corn drying bins for 3 d significantly increased 0. nubilalis mortality. Larvae collected beneath seed corn also showed infection by the pathogens Nosema pyrausta (Paillot) and Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin, with significant mortality apparently caused by B. bassiana. While contamination and mortality may limit the application of sampling beneath drying bins, several modifications could improve the potential utility of the technique.


One of the main problems for underwater terrain navigation using the correlation method is the significant computing time due to the large amount of calculations. When the algorithm is used on a regular PC, the processing time is far too long for real time applications. The Swedish navy is interested in a none-revealing terrain navigation system that can perform in real time. The article describes an implementation of a navigation system into a hardware accelerator (in one FPGA supported by two SDRAMs). The use of a FPGA gives parallelism and will shorten the computing time considerable. The actual computing time has been decreased with over 100 times compared with similar PC applications. The implementation is programmed into a Virtex-II Xilinx device and has been written in VHDL. A SDRAM controller IP-block was designed and implemented in the FPGA. Also a custom made prototype PCB board was developed in the project.


We systematically test how the Duschinsky mixing of normal coordinate vibrations affects transition rates for electron transfer (ET). We find that ET rates in the inverted region can increase many orders of magnitude from Duschinsky mixing, and both totally symmetric and nontotally symmetric vibrations are very important. The Duschinsky effect arises when two electronic states have vibrational normal mode coordinate systems that are rotated and translated relative to each other. We use a conventional quantum rate model for ET, and the examples include 6-8 vibrations, where two vibrational modes are mixed with different amounts of coordinate rotation. The multidimensional Franck-Condon factors (FCF) are computed with standard algorithms and recently developed recursion relations. When displaced, totally symmetric modes are involved, rates with Duschinsky mixing can increase several orders of magnitude for inverted electron transfer reactions and modest mixing. The peak location in a rate vs energy gap plot can depend on the degree of Duschinsky mixing, and therefore it corresponds to a sum of solvent and an effective vibrational reorganization energy that is not predictable by simple models that exclude mixing. In addition, for some examples of inverted region ET we observe significant flattening of the usual parabolic curve at large degrees of mixing. We demonstrate that large rate effects can occur with very little change in either the calculated absorption or emission spectra, depending on the details of the Duschinsky mixing. The origin of the rate effect is the increased FCF between the initial vibrational state and the higher lying final vibrational states when the Duschinsky effect is taken into account. The rate effect of totally symmetric modes is greater than nontotally symmetric modes, but since there are many nontotally symmetric modes, in real molecules these modes can make a large total contribution to ET rates.


Objective We assessed the efficacy of routine glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) testing to detect undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes in an urban Australian public hospital emergency department (ED) located in an area of high diabetes prevalence. Methods Over 6 weeks, all patients undergoing blood sampling in the ED had their random blood glucose measured. If ≥5.5 mmol/L (99 mg/dL), HbA1c was measured on the same sample. HbA1c levels ≥6.5% (48 mmol/mol) and 5.7–6.4% (39–46 mmol/mol) were diagnostic of diabetes and prediabetes, respectively. Hospital records were reviewed to identify patients with previously diagnosed diabetes. Results Among 4580 presentations, 2652 had blood sampled of which 1267 samples had HbA1c measured. Of these, 487 (38.4%) had diabetes (either HbA1c≥6.5% or a prior diagnosis), and a further 347 (27.4%) had prediabetes. Among those with diabetes, 32.2% were previously undiagnosed. Conclusions Routine HbA1c testing in the ED identifies a large number of people with undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes, and provides an opportunity to improve their care.


David Bordwell (2002) has described contemporary mainstream cinema as a cinema of intensified continuity. When we combine Bordwell's analysis with that of recent cognitive work on attention, especially with work on edit blindness, we discover some intriguing results. For example, the increased rate of cutting in contemporary cinema serves to keep our attention continually aroused, but, at the same time, that which arouses our attention—the increased number of cuts—becomes decreasingly visible. That is, the greater the number of cuts made in the services of continuity editing, the less we are able to spot them. If, while watching contemporary mainstream cinema, the attention of viewers is aroused but viewers are decreasingly capable of spotting the reasons why this is so (i.e., the cuts themselves), then does this also serve to make contemporary mainstream cinema "post-ideological," because it concerns itself only with "intensified" experiences? Or, as this article argues, does the sheer speed of contemporary mainstream cinema renew the need for the ideological critique of films?


This thesis begins from an analysis of Derrida's specific readings of Plato and
Platonism, identifying there a modernist bias, which interprets these metaphysical
systems as if they were coextensive with Cartesian rationalism. Against Derrida, I
argue for a repositioning of Plato and Platonism in the context of an ancient-modern
quarrel. In replacing Descartes's "clarity and distinctness" with a pre-modern
emphasis on "faith" (pistis), I am seeking to challenge Derrida's diagnosis of a
perplexity or impasse (aporia) which cannot be overcome by philosophy. With
specific reference to the Meno and the Phaedrus, one can locate a three-tiered
Platonic dialectic beginning with an assertion of knowledge, followed by a necessary
deconstruction of this knowledge with, thirdly, a tentative reconstruction of
philosophy based on faith rather than knowing. In later chapters, I examine this
dialectic as it is developed in the Neo- and Christian- Platonist traditions, particularly
through the work of Plotinus, Boethius and Augustine.
On my interpretation, deconstruction remains at the second level of the Platonic
dialectic, that of impasse and perplexity (one of Derrida's most recent texts is in fact
entitled Aporias). Again with reference to an ancient-modern quarrel, it is my
contention that Derrida's unstinting stress on the "aporetic" is due to an overemphasis
of the Cartesian paradigm. Derrida identifies the exhaustion of what Deeley calls "the
classical modern paradigm" with the exhaustion of philosophy per se. But this
identification of philosophy with Cartesianism can be seriously challenged through a
renewed foregrounding of the premodern philosophical resources which Descartes
(and now Derrida) have sought to obscure.


The concept of the EU as a "normative power" combines two fundamental claims. The first of these claims is about the EU's preferences, the idea that the EU is normatively different from other international actors and constituted by a commitment to certain constitutional norms. The second claim is about the nature of EU power, which is determined not by material power resources (military or economic), but primarily by the ability to define what passes for "normal" in world politics. While this perspective has proven influential in recent years among both scholars and practitioners, it has also been challenged by a growing body of scholarship questioning the heroic depiction of the Union as an inherently normative power, pure in motivation and noncoercive in its behavior. Across a range of issue-areas frequently considered to be "normative" in character, these scholars suggest that material interests, and material power resources, are at least as significant as normative factors in shaping the EU's foreign policy and its influence in global politics.


Municipal sewage treatment facilities have important implications for cities' sustainable development and water environment protection. This study's aim is to optimize the sewage treatment facilities by evaluating pollution effects and governance demands for Huai'an City in Jiangsu province, China. The township is chosen as the evaluation unit and the spatial pattern, change trend, and environmental impact of pollution sources are analyzed to examine the demands for sewage treatment facilities in the future. By employing the ArcGIS spatial analysis tools, the spatial matching patterns between municipal treatment capacity and sewage discharge are studied. Considering the characteristics of wastewater discharge and the actual ability and designed capacity of the wastewater treatment facilities, the study area is divided into three types, including sewage treatment potential released type, sewage treatment enhanced type, and status quo maintained type. Comparing the quantity of wastewater discharged with the treatment potential capacity, direction for the construction and operation of sewage treatment facilities is proposed. Results of this study provide a scientific basis for site selection and layout optimization of municipal sewage treatment facilities.


The fabrication and application of supramolecular gels have achieved great progress in the past few decades. Although several reviews and books have well summarized the design, properties and functions of certain supramolecular gels, a comprehensive overview is still lacking to reveal the design strategy of the supramolecular gels. In this review, we propose a concept of a supramolecular gelaton, which is a structural unit or molecule for the design and construction of the supramolecular gels, to show how to design the targeted functional gels. We classify the gelaton into two types. One is a covalent gelaton that when covalently connects with other functional groups results in a molecule that can become a gelator. The other type is a non-covalent gelaton, which is a gelator molecule that can assist other gelator or non-gelator molecules to form gels. We hope that the concept of supramolecular gelatons will provide useful guidance and understanding of the design of gelator molecules and preparation of supramolecular gels.


Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a heterogeneous disease with a multifactorial aetiology comprising of genetic and environmental factors. The common variant most highly associated with T2DM known to date is a SNP rs7903146 in the TCF7L2 gene. However, the role TCF7L2 plays in the development of T2DM was unclear. Clinical, animal and in vitro studies have revealed an association of the risk T-allele of rs7903146 with impaired β cell function including glucose- and incretin-stimulated insulin secretion and β cell survival. The aim of this thesis is to elucidate the function of TCF7L2 in the β cells and explain the mechanisms by which genetic variants in TCF7L2 confer the increased risk of developing T2DM.
TCF7L2 is a transcription factor of the WNT signalling pathway. Risk genotype carriers of rs7903146 displayed higher TCF7L2 mRNA expression in islets of Langerhans, reduced insulin content and perturbed glucose stimulated insulin secretion. We have identified a large number of target genes (study I) and target networks (study II) of TCF7L2 that regulate β cell survival, proinsulin expression and insulin maturation. The expression of many of these TCF7L2 target genes, including T2DM associated genes/loci, correlated with TCF7L2 mRNA expression in CC, but not in CT/TT genotype carriers in human pancreatic islets. These data indicate that TCF7L2 has a central role in insulin synthesis and secretion, as well as in the regulation of other T2DM associated genes. We provided a possible explanation for the large impact TCF7L2 has on the risk of T2DM. The molecular link between the T-risk allele and the diabetogenic action of TCF7L2 in β cells is still unclear. In vitro and animal experiments have indicated that the 92kb around rs7903146 locus is an enhancer region, and that the T-allele has a higher activity compared to the C-allele. In study III, we identified a protein (HMGB1) that binds the rs7903146 locus, which potentially influence this enhancer activity. At last, we have also investigated the function of different TCF7L2 splice variants and their influence on β cell function using Antisense Oligo Nucleotides (study IV). These results indicated that exon 4 of TCF7L2 has an inhibitory function, influencing both insulin synthesis and β cell survival.


Due to governmental incentives and growing environmental awareness, it becomes increasingly attractive to upgrade biogas to natural gas quality and inject it into the natural gas grid or to use it as transport fuel. In this way, the biomethane can be utilized with the highest energy efficiency. Progressively, effort is being put into the utilization of organic waste streams in anaerobic digesters, producing useful products such as fertilizers and biogas. DMT has been developing biogas treatment plants for over 25 years, closely following market developments. To upgrade raw biogas to biomethane, it is required to remove unwanted and harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S). Several biogas upgrading technologies are available for the upgrading of biogas. The choice and configuration for a biogas upgrading plant is a tailor-made fit between customer requirements, (local) energy demand and operational aspects. However, for most situations, especially for plants up to 1000 Nm3/h, the Carborex® MS system (based on an ingenious, multi-stage, high selective membrane system) offers the best economics as well as several unique technical advantages. The DMT Carborex® MS is a compact modular and containerized unit, which applies high selective gas membranes for biogas upgrading. The upgraded gas has a methane concentration up to 98-99% CH4, which greatly reduces the consumption and cost of propanisation. This system has the highest energy recovery available (96-98%), therefore, it maximises revenues. The CO2 is recovered as >99,5% pure. Recent market data shows that the number of biogas upgrading installations based on membrane technology is growing quickly. In this article, DMT will showcase last year's operation data of the Carborex® MS plant at Poundbury, which is currently the largest commercial biogas upgrading plant in the UK. Furthermore, the prospects for membrane based biogas upgrading, especially with regards to the shift towards larger scale application, will be described.


Relatively few studies have considered impacts of the 1986 nuclear accident at Chornobyl on lower vertebrate populations. Amphibians are recognized as sensitive indicators of environmental degradation and pollution, and some amphibian population declines may be associated with contaminant-induced stress. Amphibians also utilize both aquatic and terrestrial habitats, which facilitates comparison of radionuclide accumulation and effects in different environments. We sampled sympatric frog species from a highly contaminated area within the Chornobyl exclusion zone and from a nearby, less contaminated area in August - September 1999. Radiocesium was measured in whole frogs and in muscle samples. Whole body mean radiocesium for Rana esculenta from Gluboke Lake, a highly contaminated area, was 22.3 Bq/g wet mass; R. terrestris from the same area contained 53.4 Bq/g wet mass. Radiocesium levels in frogs from Emerald Camp, a less contaminated area, were about an order of magnitude lower. In both locations, whole body radiocesium concentrations were higher in R. terrestris than in R. esculenta, probably reflecting dietary differences between species. Mean muscle radiocesium concentrations were generally lower than whole body concentrations, and muscle and whole body concentrations were highly correlated within individuals. We used pulsed field-gel electrophoresis to examine the size distribution of DNA fragments in muscle tissue from a subsample of R. terrestris from both locations. Increased proportions of smaller DNA fragments, suggesting DNA strand breakage, occurred in R. terrestris from the more contaminated location. Results support the concept that amphibians are useful in assessing radionuclide accumulation and effects in contaminated areas. However, differences among species must be considered in evaluating contaminant concentrations and potential effects.


This paper evaluates Nigeria's press coverage of political crises and conflicts during the President Obasanjo (Second Term) regime of 2003-2007. The major focus of this paper is to assess the role of the Nigerian press in the struggle for political positions, which breeds crises and conflicts especially in a pluralistic society. It is the position of the paper that the Nigerian press has not fared very well in reporting political conflicts and crises because of the advocacy position adopted by most of them. It is also observed that editorial influence on the part of publishers may not be unconnected with this trend. Using the content analytical research method as the main instrument of data generation, this paper submits that the Nigerian press has operated more as active players in political crises and conflicts than as an impartial judge of such crises and conflicts. This has negatively affected the management of such crises and conflicts. The paper therefore cautions against advocacy journalism in the Nigerian media industry and suggests more public participation in the media industry through "people" ownership. The press should also strive towards better professional and ethical practices in the industry and ensures that it only engages in constructive and balanced reporting of conflicts and issues.


[Extract] The release of the VEOHRC Report into women in the legal profession raises a number of important issues. We have already highlighted the concerning lack of progress in terms of women's retention and progression in the profession. In this post, we explore the implications of these findings in terms of the health of the justice system.


Squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix was once the most common gynecologic cancer in the world, accounting for significant morbidity and mortality. With the advent of routine Papanicolaou screening in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth century, cervical cancer now accounts for a much smaller proportion of cancer deaths. Despite the advances that have been made in screening and early detection, women of low socio-economic status and immigrants from other countries who may not have access to health care continue to present with high-stage disease. Manifestations of advanced disease include direct invasion of structures adjacent to the cervix and distant metastases to the lung, bone, and liver. In approximately 0.5-1 percent of cases, metastases to the skin and soft tissue occur, most commonly to the abdominal wall and vulva, followed less frequently by the perineum and extremities. This particular manifestation has come to be regarded as a sign of terminal disease, with most patients surviving 3-6 months despite chemotherapy. Clinically, this may not be a diagnosis that is anticipated by the pathologist examining the biopsy. We present the case of a 55 year-old woman with a history of untreated squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix who presented with rapidly spreading, painful erythematous papules of the vulva, lower anterior abdominal wall, and proximal lower extremities. This case highlights a rare presentation of metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix, and underscores the importance of obtaining adequate clinical history, investigating a wide range of diagnoses as part of the differential diagnosis, and distinguishing primary cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma from a metastasis.


Scratching monolayers of tissue culture cells and observing the changes that occur in those cells closest to the scratch have provided important insights into how cells polarize and coordinate their movement to repair the damage. The area of the cell closest to the scratch (essentially the new front of the cell) becomes the site of actin-rich protrusions, whereas rearrangements of the microtubule cytoskeleton push the centrosome and Golgi toward the front of the cell and push the nucleus toward the back. This polarization of the cell is dependent on the activity of the Rho family guanosine triphosphatase, Cdc42, which also leads to the assembly of a complex between the scaffold protein Par6 and atypical protein kinase C (aPKC). This complex is necessary for the accumulation of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), a tumor suppressor protein involved in Wnt signaling. Inhibition of the activity of glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3β by PKC phosphorylation is presumed to allow the accumulation of APC at the leading edge. However, experiments by Schlessinger et al. suggest that the interaction between GSK-3β and aPKC is not the relevant one. They generated double knockin mice (GSK-3SA) in which the relevant Ser residues of both GSK-3α and GSK-3β were mutated to Ala residues, thus preventing their inhibition by phosphorylation. Unexpectedly, movement of the Golgi and centrosome in response to monolayer scratching of fibroblasts from GSK-3SA mice was normal. Dishevelled (Dvl) is another component in the Wnt pathway, and Wnt stimulates the binding of Dvl to the scaffold protein axin, which results in the release of GSK-3β from a complex containing axin, APC, and β-catenin. Knockdown of Dvl or axin with siRNA in rat embryo fibroblasts inhibited reorientation of both the centrosome and Golgi, as did treatment of scratched monolayers with a Wnt-binding protein, demonstrating the importance of Wnt signaling in cell polarization. Inhibition of Wnt5a, but not Wnt1 or Wnt3a, by siRNA blocked reorientation of the fibroblasts in scratched monolayers and also inhibited the accumulation of APC to microtubules at the leading edge, as demonstrated by confocal microscopy. Western blotting demonstrated that scratching of the monolayer resulted in the phosphorylation of Dvl proteins that was dependent on Wnt signaling. Finally, coimmunoprecipitation studies showed that aPKC and Dvl2 formed a complex after scratching of monolayers, which was dependent on both Wnt and Cdc42, as demonstrated by the use of Wnt-specific siRNA and an inhibitor of Cdc42. Thus, Cdc42-dependent Wnt signaling appears to play a role in cell polarization. K. Schlessinger, E. J. McManus, A. Hall, Cdc42 and noncanonical Wnt signal transduction pathways cooperate to promote cell polarity. J. Cell Biol. 178, 355-361 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]


We analyze the convergence rate of the randomized Newton-like method introduced by Qu et. al. (2016) for smooth and convex objectives, which uses random coordinate blocks of a Hessian-over-approximation matrix $\bM$ instead of the true Hessian. The convergence analysis of the algorithm is challenging because of its complex dependence on the structure of $\bM$. However, we show that when the coordinate blocks are sampled with probability proportional to their determinant, the convergence rate depends solely on the eigenvalue distribution of matrix $\bM$, and has an analytically tractable form. To do so, we derive a fundamental new expectation formula for determinantal point processes. We show that determinantal sampling allows us to reason about the optimal subset size of blocks in terms of the spectrum of $\bM$. Additionally, we provide a numerical evaluation of our analysis, demonstrating cases where determinantal sampling is superior or on par with uniform sampling.


Spatial heterogeneity of resources can influence plant community composition and diversity in natural communities. We manipulated soil depth (two levels) and nutrient availability (three levels) to create four heterogeneity treatments (no heterogeneity, depth heterogeneity, nutrient heterogeneity, and depth + nutrient heterogeneity) replicated in an agricultural field seeded to native prairie species. Our objective was to determine whether resource heterogeneity influences species diversity and the trajectory of community development during grassland restoration. The treatments significantly increased heterogeneity of available inorganic nitrogen (N), soil water content, and light penetration. Plant diversity was indirectly related to resource heterogeneity through positive relationships with variability in productivity and cover established by the belowground manipulations. Diversity was inversely correlated with the average cover of the dominant grass, Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), which increased over time in all heterogeneity treatments and resulted in community convergence among the heterogeneity treatments over time. The success of this cultivar across the wide range of resource availability was attributed to net photosynthesis rates equivalent to or higher than those of the native prairie plants in the presence of lower foliar N content. Our results suggest that resource heterogeneity alone may not increase diversity in restorations where a dominant species can successfully establish across the range of resource availability. This is consistent with theory regarding the role of ecological filters on community assembly in that the establishment of one species best adapted for the physical and biological conditions can play an inordinately important role in determining community structure.


The case of a slave whose throat was cut by a barber when a ball was thrown against his hand was widely discussed in antiquity. Ulp. D. 9.2.11 pr. describes the case and suggests three possible solutions, considering the last to be the best. Ulpian asserted that the barber was not liable, because the slave should have realised that it was not appropriate to be shaved close to a place where people were playing ball. However, the Basilics (B. 60.3.11) and especially the scholium of Hagiotheodorita argued that denying the barber's liability was not an equitable solution, because both the barber and the player who kicked the ball could have been liable. According to Hagiotheodorita, a better solution would be to hold at least the barber responsible. The joint liability of more than one person ("Quotenteilungsprinzip"), which several European legal systems adopt today in similar cases, was not permissible in Roman formulary procedure. However, Mela's solution in Ulp. D. 9.2.11 pr. seems to tend in that direction.


360-degree video contains a full field of environmental content. However, browsing these videos, either on screens or through head-mounted displays (HMDs), users consume only a subset of the full field of view per a natural viewing experience. This causes a search problem when a region-of-interest (ROI) in a video is outside of the current field of view (FOV) on the screen, or users may search for non-existing ROIs. We propose Outside-In, a visualization technique which re-introduces off-screen regions-of-interest (ROIs) into the main screen as spatial picture-in-picture (PIP) previews. The geometry of the preview windows further encodes a ROI's relative location vis-à-vis the main screen view, allowing for effective navigation. In an 18-participant study, we compare Outside-In with traditional arrow-based guidance within three types of 360-degree video. Results show that Outside-In outperforms in regard to understanding spatial relationship, the storyline of the content and overall preference. Two applications are demonstrated for use with Outside-In in 360-degree video navigation with touchscreens, and live telepresence.


Each mature individual of Serranellus subligarius, regardless of size, has at the same time both motile sperm and eggs. Embryos and larvae were produced from artificial fertilizations and from isolated fish kept in aquaria. Mating behavior of pairs and groups of hermaphrodites shows two types of behavioral patterns involving different color changes.


The Exam Cram 2 series from Que Publishing is the smartest, most efficient way for IT professionals to pass a variety of IT exams and become certified. The growing list of certifications covered by Exam Cram 2 now includes Linux Professional Institute Certification Exams 101 and 102. LPIC 1 Exam Cram 2 includes the most up-to-date exam information available. A CD is included and features ExamSim, an innovative exam simulator designed specifically for Linux users featuring randomly chosen questions with each practice session, Training Mode with answer button and Exam Mode with running timer. LPIC 1 Exam Cram 2 is a winning strategy to help you pass the exam the first time.


The study aims to discover how to enhance teachers'
well-being, health, self-efficacy at schools, and how to alleviate their stress
and burnout conditions so that teachers' teaching and students' learning
outcomes would be greatly improved. A designed survey using questionnaires that
retrieved from literature consisted of three factors and 44 items. The 67 valid
responses for pre-test and 944 participants were sampled in 56 schools of
Taiwan for the formal survey. The data were put into mediation effect test of
teaching-related psychosocial hazards factors by SPSS. Result supported that
the mediation intensity of teaching-related psychosocial hazards have a
significant weakening mediation effect on the positive relationship between
work resources and work well-being. It demonstrated that among teaching-related
psychosocial hazards, lesson disturbances and conflicts with parents are highly
hazardous to their work well-being. In consequence, their teaching efficiency,
teaching passions, and teaching performance could be impacted negatively.


Historical experience shows that disruptions in credit markets can have a material impact on activity and inflation. However, it is hard to measure such effects owing to the difficulty in isolating credit supply shocks. This paper employs survey data to identify the impact of credit supply shocks in Australia over the past three decades, using a structural vector autoregression approach. We estimate that a one standard deviation shock to the balance of firms reporting difficulty obtaining finance (a 'credit supply shock') reduces Australian GDP by almost ⅓ per cent after one year and gross national expenditure by nearly ½ per cent. The effect on business credit is larger and more persistent, with credit declining by nearly 1 per cent relative to its baseline after two and a half years. During the global financial crisis, the cumulative impact of credit supply shocks is estimated to have contributed to a reduction in GDP of 1 per cent (in mid 2009). While credit supply shocks had a notable effect on GDP during the global financial crisis, this credit event appears to have been shorter and sharper than that experienced during the period of financial instability in the early 1990s. Consistent with a 'credit channel' of monetary policy transmission, an unexpected tightening of monetary policy results in a significant increase in the balance of firms reporting difficulty obtaining finance. We also find effects consistent with a financial accelerator mechanism, whereby an improvement in balance sheets results in easier credit conditions and higher GDP and business credit. Altogether, these results suggest that credit market developments have been an integral aspect of the business cycle in Australia since financial deregulation in the 1980s.


The objective of the study is to create a measure for social distance in virtual relationships developed through online interaction. The researchers patterned their scale from the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, incorporating the recommendations of Michael Heraghty (2002). The researchers used quantitative and qualitative methods in determining the concepts and variables that could be included in their social distance scale for virtual relationships. Selection of informants and respondents was done using the purposive method of non-probability sampling. Focus group discussions and online interviews were first conducted to determine the important variables and appropriate arrangement of items in the social distance scale. Subsequently, social distances toward different kinds of people and the validity and reliability of the variables in the scale were examined through surveys, the primary quantitative research method of this study. Generally, survey results showed that respondents were most likely to interact with females, people within their age bracket, and people residing within their city or municipality. In contrast, they were unlikely to pursue any interaction with gays and lesbians. Survey findings also showed that online interactions start with including a person in someone's messenger account; conversations – even those about non-personal topics – can only take place after the respondents have added a person in their messenger list.


In the current debate on the ability of oil emplacement to halt quartz cementation in sandstone oil reservoirs, this paper supports a "yes, it can" answer. Although we find some of the empirical data petroleum fluid inclusion abundances, quartz-depth trends) to be inconclusive, we have made progress in this debate by examining theoretical controls for three end-member quartz cementation scenarios. (1) Silica externally sourced via advection. Oil emplacement must halt quartz cementation because of the associated massive reduction in relative permeability to water. (2) Silica supplied internally, water-wet reservoir. Quartz cementation will be inhibited because the rate of diffusion will be reduced by orders of magnitude, making diffusion the rate controlling step. The degree of inhibition will depend on rock fabric and oil saturation; at very high oil saturations quartz cementation could effectively cease. (3) Silica supplied internally, oil-wet reservoir. Quartz cementation will be halted as water cannot access to grain surfaces.


Conjunctive query answering is a key reasoning service for many ontology-based applications. In order to improve scalability, many Semantic Web query answering systems give up completeness (i.e., they do not guarantee to return all query answers). It may be useful or even critical to the designers and users of such systems to understand how much and what kind of information is (potentially) being lost. We present a method for generating test data that can be used to provide at least partial answers to these questions, a purpose for which existing benchmarks are not well suited. In addition to developing a general framework that formalises the problem, we describe practical data generation algorithms for some popular ontology languages, and present some very encouraging results from our preliminary evaluation.


Explores the reasons that adolescents who are neither physically forced nor abducted choose to join armed groups. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the soldiers themselves, the authors challenge conventional wisdom to offer a thought-provoking account of the role that war, poverty, education, politics, identity, family, and friends all play in driving these young men and women to join military life. They also address the important issues of demobilization and the reintegration process.


Barrett's metaplasia (BM) is the condition whereby the stratified squamous epithelium at the lower end of oesophagus is replaced by intestinal-like columnar epithelium. BM is associated with chronic cell injury caused by acid and bile salts refluxing from the stomach (so-called Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD). BM is important clinically as it is the only known precursor to oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Metaplasia is associated with the aberrant expression of key (master switch) transcription factor(s). It is therefore possible that intestinal transcription factors such as those involved in regulation of intestinal gene expression may be involved in the development of BM. In addition, the development of BM may be linked to exogenous factors such as acid, bile salts and inflammatory mediators, which leads to an inflammatory response and the premalignant condition. Therefore, the aims of the current project are three-fold to investigate (i) the role of HNF4α in the development of BM, (ii) the role of HNF1α, CDX2, FOXA2 and PDX1 in the development of BM and (iii) the effects of exogenous factors involved in the inflammatory response and the Wnt and Notch pathways on HNF4a and CDX2 expression in the development of BM. The data showed that ectopic HNF4α, CDX2 or HNF1α expression induces intestinal gene expression in the human normal oesophageal epithelial HET1A cells, but FOXA2 or PDX1 ectopic expression did not provoke intestinal gene expression. Furthermore, ectopic HNF4α expression in mouse oesophageal epithelial explants induced the squamous-to-columnar cell type conversion as well as VILLIN protein expression. These results suggest that ectopic expression of HNF4α, CDX2 and HNF1α might be involved in the initiation of BM. Finally, exogenous factors involved in the inflammatory and the Wnt and Notch pathways treatment failed to induce intestinal gene expression in the HET1A cells, but further studies such as extending the treatment time and the use of the 3D organotypic models or animal models could be tested.


In 1915, Century. Magazine serialized the anonymously authored Me: A Book of Remembrance, and the story and its author were soon caught in a whirlwind of controversy. Although the autobiography focused principally on the author's artistic maturation, readers found her romantic escapades much more engaging. With dramatic flair ("I was love's passionate pilgrim" [Eaton 346]), the heroine describes her ill-fated affair with a wealthy married man, an unwelcome kiss from a black Jamaican politician, a lecherous doctor's advances, and her simultaneous engagement to three men (she is too kind and inexperienced to refuse their proposals). The Toronto Star reported that, "while shocking the sensibilities of many of the old subscribers," Me's racy subject matter "increased [Century]'s circulation considerably"; publicity also fueled sales as New York City subway advertisements and billboards asked, "Who is the author of Me?" ("Famous"; Birchall 116). (1) Reviewers responded to both Me's sensational content ("if all is true therein, the orthodox will find comfort in that the book ends with the heroine at prayer" [Clipping, Star]) and to the question of the author's identity ("the author of 'Me' is probably much more clever and fascinating than during the impulsive maidenhood of which she writes" [Clipping, Times]). (2) The speculation ended with the New York Times Book Review article entitled "Is Onoto Watanna Author of the Anonymous Novel Me?" in which the writer deduced the author's nationality, and ultimately her identity, from various clues (including a scene featuring the heroine's kissing a man's sleeve, which the writer claimed was a Japanese custom [cited in Birchall 116]). (3) While the article satisfactorily resolved the mystery for readers, it served another, more important purpose by safeguarding the actual identity of the author, as "Onoto Watanna" itself was a pseudonym for the more pedestrian and distinctly Western-sounding Winnifred Eaton. The Canadian-born Eaton, whose father was British and mother Chinese, assumed a Japanese authorial persona in order to bypass late-nineteenth-century North American Sinophobia and exploit the Japonisme fad, dissociating herself from stereotypes of the Chinese as debased and unassimilable and appealing to the seemingly more benevolent stereotypes of the Japanese as exotic yet civilized. A prolific author whose fiction and non-fiction appeared in magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal and Redbook, her principal success stemmed from the popularity of Watanna's "Japanese" romance novels and short stories, most of which were published between 1898 and 1922 and featured picturesque settings, naive and childlike Japanese heroines, and the occasional act of hari-kari. A significant departure from the Japanese novels, Me is nonetheless a narrative befitting its chameleonic author. In addition to depicting Eatong romantic exploits, the account details the crucial year in which the seventeen-year-old leaves her familial Canadian home to pursue a writing career and charts her travels to Jamaica, Richmond, Chicago, and New York. Although the plot essentially follows the events of Eaton's life, many other details are fictionalized, especially those related to the author's racial identity. Eaton refers to herself throughout Me as "Nora Ascough" and avoids mentioning her mother's Chinese heritage in a rather unconvincing attempt to "pass" as white (as evidenced by the New York Times Book Review "expose"). (4) Further conflating fact and fiction is Me's evocation of various literary genres, including Bildungsroman, fairy tale, and not surprisingly, the romance novel. Her dependence upon other genres and her predilection for melodramatic phrasing ("[fate] was a black, monstrous thing, a thief in the dark that hid to entrap me" [346]) often propels the autobiography into implausibility and reflects Eaton's treatment of her identity as merely another device that could be manipulated, fabricated, or exploited. …


This research was carried out with two main purposes: to survey the methods necessary to translate Chinese words
 and phrases into English, and to investigate how frequently their English versions appear in twenty different countries or regions. The
 research was conducted through an analysis of data from Xi Jinping's book The Governance of China (English
 version), published by Foreign Languages Press. The results show that 401 Chinese words and phrases reflect seven specific
 translation methods. Moreover, their frequency of usage shows obvious differences across twenty different countries or regions based on the
 statistical analysis of the corpora. It is hoped that the Chinese-English (C-E) translation of political texts can benefit from
 these conclusions.


6-Mercaptopurine is a chemotherapeutic agent of the antimetabolite class. This study aims to analyze simultaneous validation of 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP), 6-methylmercaptopurine (6-MMP), and 6-thioguanosine-5'-monophosphate (6-TGMP) in dried blood spot (DBS) using ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). An accurate volume of 60 μL blood was spotted onto DBS-CAMAG paper and then extracted using methanol 90% (v/v) containing an internal standard of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Separation was performed using a Waters Acquity UPLC BEH AMIDA column 1.7 μm (2.1 x 100 mm) with a mobile phase mixture of 0.2% (v/v) formic acid in water−0.1% (v/v) formic acid in acetonitrile-methanol with gradient elution and flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. Mass detection was done using Waters Xevo TQD with positive electrospray ionization (ESI) for 6-MP, 6-MMP, 6-TGMP and negative ESI for 5-FU, in multiple reaction monitoring mode. Detection rates of 6-MP, 6-MMP, 6-TGMP and 5-FU were m/z 153.09 > 119.09; 167.17 > 126.03; 380.16 > 168.00); 129.09 > 42.05, respectively. This method is linear across the range 25.5–1020 ng/mL for 6-MP, 6-MMP and 6-TGMP. This method is valid for the in vitro simultaneous analysis of 6-MP, 6-MMP and 6-TGMP in DBS, based on European Medicine Agency guidelines.


A new thermally re-mendable and recyclable epoxy thermoset was developed from diglycidyl ether of ethoxylated bisphenol-A (DGEBAEO) and bis (potassium) oligoaminopropylmethylsiloxanediolate (K-PAMS). The DGEBAEO/K-PAMS system was a highly crosslinked thermoset with Tg of 75 oC and elastic modulus about 2.2Gpa (Figure 1). K-PAMS contained active potassium aminopropylmethylsilanolate end groups that can catalyze the siloxane equilibration to restructure the crosslink network, enabling the fractured thermoset to be self-healed and the pulverized thermoset grains to be reprocessed like thermoplastics under elevated temperature (about 110 oC) (Figure 2). The healing efficiency of tensile strength achieved 80% after 24 h healing and the recyclable specimen showed fully recovery in storage modulus.


Semi-arid regions across the world face high potential impacts of climate change, but the risks posed by a changing climate interconnect with a web of related risks and dynamics. The drylands of East Africa, in particular, are crucibles of change in terms of patterns of land and water access and use, natural resource degradation, human development, economic opportunity, social and gender stratification, migration and urbanization. Both risks and the responses to them should therefore be understood as located within a sphere of activity in which adaptation and development merge. The purpose of this paper is to review responses to climate-related social-ecological risks in semi-arid areas of East Africa, in order to lay out an agenda for future critical research. By drawing on a wide range of academic and non-academic sources, the paper maps out the main forms of response to the inter-linked risks in the region, and considers how they might be viewed in terms of a spectrum of development-adaptation actions. In doing so, the discussion highlights key implications of existing and potential responses for people's livelihoods and wellbeing, particularly in terms of equity and sustainability, and identifies a series of critical questions that need to be posed about response options both within research and practice.


Many G2/M phase-specific genes in plants contain mitosis-specific activator (MSA) elements, which act as G2/M phase-specific enhancers and bind with R1R2R3-Myb transcription factors. Here, we examined the genome-wide effects of NtmybA2 overexpression, one of the R1R2R3-Myb transcription factors in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). We used a custom-made 16-K cDNA microarray for comparative transcriptome analysis of transgenic tobacco BY-2 cell lines that overexpress NtmybA2 or its truncated hyperactive form. The microarray was also used to determine the transcript profile during the cell cycle in synchronized cultures of BY-2 cells. Combined microarray data from transgenic lines and synchronized cells revealed that overexpression of the truncated hyperactive form of NtmybA2, but not its full-length form, preferentially up-regulated many G2/M phase-specific genes in BY-2 cells. We determined promoter sequences of several such up-regulated genes and showed that all contain MSA-like motifs in the proximal regions of their promoters. One of the up-regulated genes, NtE2C, encoding for cyclin-specific ubiquitin carrier proteins, contained a single functional MSA-like motif, which specifically controlled the expression of a reporter gene in the G2/M phase in BY-2 cells. Furthermore, a genomic footprint experiment showed that the MSA element in the NtE2C promoter interacted with nuclear proteins in vivo. Therefore, we propose that the transcription of many G2/M phase-specific genes in tobacco is positively regulated by NtmybA2, in most cases through direct binding to the MSA elements.


Abstract. Inability to use speech interfaces greatly limits the deaf and hearing impaired people in the possibility of human-machine interaction. To solve this problem and to increase the accuracy and reliability of the automatic Russian sign language recognition system it is proposed to use lip-reading in addition to hand gestures recognition. Deaf and hearing impaired people use sign language as the main way of communication in everyday life. Sign language is a structured form of hand gestures and lips movements involving visual motions and signs, which is used as a communication system. Since sign language includes not only hand gestures, but also lip movements that mimic vocalized pronunciation, it is of interest to investigate how accurately such a visual speech can be recognized by a lip-reading system, especially considering the fact that the visual speech of hearing impaired people is often characterized with hyper-articulation, which should potentially facilitate its recognition. For this purpose, thesaurus of Russian sign language (TheRusLan) collected in SPIIRAS in 2018–19 was used. The database consists of color optical FullHD video recordings of 13 native Russian sign language signers (11 females and 2 males) from "Pavlovsk boarding school for the hearing impaired". Each of the signers demonstrated 164 phrases for 5 times. This work covers the initial stages of this research, including data collection, data labeling, region-of-interest detection and methods for informative features extraction. The results of this study can later be used to create assistive technologies for deaf or hearing impaired people.


Marion Halligan's non-fiction Eat My Words, (1990), Cockles of the Heart (1996) and The Taste of Memory (2004) all have food as their main topic. Travelling round Europe on culinary journeys and staying in hotels and flats she provides us, as readers, with a wealth of recipes and reflections on the role food plays in people's lives, socially and culturally. This article will discuss some few of the points Halligan raises as she comments on the pleasure of food; on bricolage, both in the finished product and in cookery books; and the language we use to describe food and its processes. Adopting a bicultural approach Halligan compares Australian foods of today with those of her childhood, thus turning these food books into a kind of autobiography.


Introduction: Febrile neutropenia (FN) induced by chemotherapy (ChT) arises until 6 weeks after the last cycle, usually between 5 and 10 days post-ChT. Infection risk is 20%–30%. It is difficult to stratify patients with low risk of complications due to FN. MASCC index is useful but has limitations. This correlates with unnecessary hospital admissions, complications, and costs. Methods: Retrospective study of patients with diagnosis of FN induced by ChT, admitted to our center between 2012 and 2016. Primary goal was to describe this population. Secondary goal was to re-stratify the risk of FN using MASCC and CISNE indexes, clinical judgement, and social/logistic factors. SPSS v23 was used for statistical analysis. Results: 211 patients were included; median age, 66 years. Median hospital stay was 6 days (1–89). 25% were nosocomial admissions. At admission 46% of patients presented with stage IV cancer. 75% were solid neoplasms and 25% were hematologic. Profound neutropenia was observed in 43% and severe neutropenia in 36%. Overall mortality rate was 13%. Sepsis was diagnosed in 24 patients (11%), with a mortality rate of 54%. Only 12.3% of patients had prophylaxis with granulocyte-colony stimulating factor. At admission, 64% of patients had no obvious focal infection; 20% had probable focus; and in 16% a microorganism was identified, most commonly gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae. Most used antibiotics were piperacillin/tazobactam (44%) and its combination with aminoglycoside (34%). This combination showed benefit against some extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)–producing strains and multiresistant (MR) Pseudomonas aeruginosa (2.8%). MASCC index identified 31% of patients with low risk FN. After applying the CISNE index, clinical judgement, and social/logistic factors, only 11% were identified as low-risk FN and did not benefit from admission. This translates to an avoidable cost of €48,000 according to the center's annual report. Conclusion: The combination of β-lactam and aminoglycoside is overused in our practice. It is not recommended in hemodynamically stable patients and contradictory in unstable ones; still it shows some effect versus MR and ESBL strains. A study to evaluate their incidence in our center is now in progress. Low risk FN was observed in 11% of admitted patients. Our center has an internal protocol and has been able to provide a good overall response.


Traditional approaches to regional modelling and planning rely on trend-based analyses whereby demographic projections are used to initialise and bootstrap future demand for housing, transport and jobs. Besides, most of these approaches cannot adequately take into account the intricate interactions between land use, transport and regional economic drivers. The model developed for the Illawarra region (south of Sydney, Australia), called Vision Illawarra, draws upon and expands the Metronamica© platform developed by RIKS (Netherlands) into a 4-component dynamic model. A regional economic model (CGE) drives the number of jobs available and informs a demographic model (Synthetic Population) on employment levels and migration needs. The land use model (cellular automaton) spatially allocates the residential, commercial and industrial areas based on demand set by the economic and population models and existing/future zoning plans. A 4-step transport model is informed by the land use model and provides a dynamic feedback on land accessibility. Vision Illawarra has been calibrated for the period 2006 2011 and the simulation of scenarios uses the time window between 2011 and 2031. In this paper, we present the development and calibration of the model, as well as the exploration of three plausible scenarios with the model.


The "classic tasks" of academic libraries comprise acquisition, cataloguing, reader services and preservation of literature or, more generally speaking, information resources. This has not changed radically in the digital age. What has changed, though, is the way the tasks are related to each other, perhaps also their respective importance (depending on the library type); but particularly the accentuation of certain aspects of the tasks mentioned above. Visibility and accessibility would hardly have been associated with collection development in the past. Holdings were entered in the catalogue and thus made 'visible'. Accessibility was taken care of in the reader services department. This has changed significantly in the digital age. The reasons for that are manifold: · With the emergence of the so called 'hybrid library' the respective tasks of the central library functions have somewhat shifted and the previously rather clear-cut separations between them have become less rigid. · The innate 'immateriality' of digital resources requires a different approach to the topic of visibility and accessibility as early as the actual point of acquisition and in the presentation and 'documentation' of collection development. · Last but not least digital access points, next to the catalogue or OPAC including a large variety of different options (e.g. websites), have led to a much quicker and easier way of making holdings and particularly new acquisitions visible than would have been possible in the days of paper or card catalogues. But there are more basic reasons for the new way of dealing with visibility and accessibility. This is certainly due to the characteristics of collection development in the digital age which require us 'acquisitions people' to look at the question of visibility and accessibility from a different perspective and regard these as key aspects of the work we do.


This paper aims to present the process of construction and content validity of the Brazilian Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Neupsilin, developed to briefly examine the neuropsychological profile of both clinical and healthy populations. It evaluates time and spatial orientation, attention, perception, memory, arithmetic abilities, language, praxia and executive functions (problem solving and verbal fluency). The process of construction was based on psychometric procedures: 1) construction of a preliminary version of the instrument, founded on clinical and research experience of the three specialists, as well as on research on the literature and on already available instruments; 2) blind judges' analyses: a) an analysis of the importance of the inclusion of each subtest considering the assessed construct and the instrument's goal, b) an analysis of the adequacy of each item regarding the construct; 3) reformulation of the instrument; 4) semantic analysis of the items and brainstorming; 5) final analysis done by three specialist judges; 6) pilot study and final version, and 7) content validity. Modifications were done in each stage of the development of the Neupsilin. It demonstrated adequate content validity, with advantages and limitations.


In markets with significant scale economies and network effects, scholars and policymakers often tout open access and interoperability requirements as superior to both regulated monopoly and the break-up of dominant firms. In theory, by compelling firms to coordinate to develop common infrastructure, regulators can use these requirements to replicate scale and network economies without leaving markets vulnerable to monopoly power. Examples of successful coordination include the provision of electricity, intermodal transportation, and credit card networks.

This Article analyzes the history of U.S. securities clearinghouses and depositories in order to offer a significant qualification to this received wisdom. This history demonstrates that open access and interoperability requirements can actually serve as instruments by which dominant firms obtain and entrench their monopoly power. Specifically, by imposing high fixed costs to connect to common infrastructure, allowing dominant firms to dictate the direction and pace of innovation and investment, and reducing the scope for product differentiation, these requirements can prevent smaller firms from competing with their larger rivals. In these ways, open access and interoperability can actually exacerbate the very problems that they were designed to address.

Our analysis helps explain why important components of our financial infrastructure have become too-big-to-fail. It also helps explain why, despite their highly concentrated structure, U.S. securities clearing and depository markets have still been characterized by relatively high levels of innovation and investment. More broadly, our analysis suggests that coordination requirements will only constrain market power where the costs of building, maintaining, and connecting to common infrastructure are allocated in a way that does not discriminate against smaller firms, and where larger firms are not able to dictate decisions about innovation and investment. Where this is not possible, interoperability and open access are unlikely to forestall monopoly control, even though they may still improve market efficiency by exposing incumbents to the threat of new entry.


Abstract The concept of empathy has been set to work, across a range of fields, to mark a break with the relational patterns of apartheid. Similarly, empathy has been identified, historically, as that which, within apartheid and colonial rule more generally, exceeded or escaped relations of domination. This paper approaches the discourse of empathy from a different angle, taking empathy as a concept embedded in colonial thinking. Given that so many claims to empathy have had recourse to psychoanalysis, the paper focuses on empathy in Freud's work, specifically Dora's case and Freud's analysis of Michelangelo's Moses, which are read alongside the images and installations of contemporary South African artist, Nandipha Mntambo, in particular her collection of images and installations in The Encounter. Three scenes are conjured wherein empathy confronts its impossibility, but rather than foreclose on empathy as a post-apartheid condition, it is through the disclosure of the aporias of empathy that it might be brought into the realm of the ethical through a practice of reinscription and through the figure of Echo.


As archaeologists integrate digital media into all stages of archaeological methodology it is necessary to understand the implications of using this media to interpret the past. Using digital media is not a neutral or transparent act; to critically engage with digital media it is necessary to create an interdisciplinary space, drawing from the growing body of new media and visual studies, materiality, and anthropological and archaeological theory. This dissertation describes this interdisciplinary space in detail and investigates the following questions: what does it mean to employ digital media in the context of archaeology, how do digital technologies shape inquiry within archaeology, can new media theory change interpretation in archaeology, and can digital media serve as a mechanism for an emancipatory archaeology? To attend to these questions I address digital media created by archaeologists as digital archaeological artifacts, understood as active members of a network of interpretation in archaeology. To give structure to this understanding I assemble three object biographies that identify the digital archaeological artifact's context, the authorship of the artifact, the inclusion of multiple perspectives involved in its creation, and evaluate the openness or ability to share the artifact. The three object biographies that constitute the body of this work are a digital photograph taken of a teapot at Tall Dhiban in Jordan, a digital video of an unexpected excavator participating at Catalhoyuk in Turkey, and a 3D reconstruction of a Neolithic building excavated at Catalhoyuk within the virtual world of Second Life. In these object biographies I weave together narrative, imagery and rigorous, theoretically informed analyses to provide a reflexive investigation of digital archaeological artifacts. Drawing from this research, I advocate a critical making movement in archaeology that will enable archaeologists to use digital media in an activist, emancipatory role to highlight inequity, bring the voices of stakeholders into relief, de-center interpretations, and to make things and share them.


The aim of this study is to assess information on voice quality features and to ascertain the variability of these features in specified groups. Groups were created based on gender and status of vocal training, in order to study the influence of these grouping variables on selected voice quality features. Gender was chosen as a grouping variable, because previous investigations clearly demonstrated differences in voice quality characteristics between men and women. These differences have implications for the creation of a normative database, concerning its proposed function as a frame of reference. Vocal training was intentionally introduced to give direction to what might be regarded as good vocal characteristics, as compared to characteristics of subjects without vocal training. Characteristics of the vocal apparatus and voice quality features can be acquired in many ways. Four practicable methods, easily employed in a clinical environment and extensively outlining the vocal apparatus and voice function, are used in this study. Results of these investigations are described in the following chapters.


Rapid and accurate SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing is essential for controlling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The current gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis is real-time RT-PCR detection of SARS-CoV-2 from nasopharyngeal swabs. Low sensitivity, exposure risks to healthcare workers, and global shortages of swabs and personal protective equipment, however, necessitate the validation of new diagnostic approaches. Saliva is a promising candidate for SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics because (1) collection is minimally invasive and can reliably be self-administered and (2) saliva has exhibited comparable sensitivity to nasopharyngeal swabs in detection of other respiratory pathogens, including endemic human coronaviruses, in previous studies. To validate the use of saliva for SARS-CoV-2 detection, we tested nasopharyngeal and saliva samples from confirmed COVID-19 patients and self-collected samples from healthcare workers on COVID-19 wards. When we compared SARS-CoV-2 detection from patient-matched nasopharyngeal and saliva samples, we found that saliva yielded greater detection sensitivity and consistency throughout the course of infection. Furthermore, we report less variability in self-sample collection of saliva. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that saliva is a viable and more sensitive alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs and could enable at-home self-administered sample collection for accurate large-scale SARS-CoV-2 testing.


The HealthAgents project aims to provide a decision support system for brain tumour diagnosis using a collaborative network of distributed agents. The goal is that through the aggregation of the small data sets available at individual hospitals, much better decision support classifiers can be created and made available to the hospitals taking part. In this paper, we describe the technicalities of the HealthAgents framework, in particular how the interoperability of the various agents is managed using semantic web technologies. On the broad scale the architecture is based around distributed data-mart agents that provide ontological access to hospitals' underlying data that has been anonymized and processed from proprietary formats into a canonical format. Classifier producers have agents that gather the global data from participating hospitals such that classifiers can be created and deployed as agents. The design on a microscale has each agent built upon a generic-layered framework that provides the common agent program code, allowing rapid development of agents for the system. We believe that our framework provides a well-engineered, agent-based approach to data sharing in a medical context. It can provide a better basis on which to investigate the effectiveness of new classification techniques for brain tumour diagnosis.


The Scala compiler uses ASTs (abstract syntax trees) as an intermediate representation before generating bytecode. With the development of Scala macros which expand trees at compile time, being able to access, modify and recompose ASTs within the compilation scope is becoming more and more important. One of the common scenarios of using macros is inspecting abstract syntax trees within reach in order to learn more about the code being transformed, to apply more powerful optimizations, etc. However, arguments to macros can depend on third-party libraries, which are precompiled as bytecode and don't have their ASTs available. It would therefore be great to have a way to publish ASTs along with the bytecode. The publishing of those ASTs should be a choice of the programmer and should take as little space as possible in order to be transparent to the user.


Popular demand has led IMAGES' team of researchers to scour the world for yet another stunning collection of homes. The 100 fabulous homes carefully selected for this volume represent contemporary residential architecture in all its myriad forms. Vast differences in location, climate, culture, style, materials, interiors, and even furniture result in a collection that showcases, with full-colour photographs, plans and drawings, the best in international residential architecture. This is a book that can be browsed through time after time, with each viewing guaranteed to inspire, delight and surprise.


The promise of low-input high-diversity prairies to provide sustainable bioenergy production has recently been emphasized. This review article presents a critical discussion of some controversial points of using grasslands to produce bioenergy. The following issues are addressed: proteins versus biofuels; reactive nitrogen emissions; biodiversity; and effective land use. Two major disadvantages in deriving bioenergy from grasslands are identified: (i) marginal lands are displaced from their fundamental role of producing meat and milk foods, in contrast with the rising worldwide demand for high-quality food; and (ii) the combustion of N-rich grassland biomass, or by-products, results in emission of reactive N into the atmosphere and dramatically reduces the residence time of biologically-fixed nitrogen in the ecosystems. Nitrogen oxides, released during atmospheric combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, have a detrimental effect on global warming. Since intensively managed crops on fertile soils need to be cultivated to fulfil the dietary needs of populations, the potential role of inedible cereal crop residues in providing bioenergy merits consideration. This might spare more marginal land area for forage production or even for full natural use, in order to sustain high levels of biodiversity. Owing to the complexity of terrestrial systems, and the complexity of interactions, a modeling effort is needed in order to predict and quantify outcomes of specific combination of land use at higher integration levels.


From the Publisher:
The first text of its kind, Stephen Chapman's best selling book on MATLAB has now been updated to reflect MATLAB 6.0. The first edition has been highly successful in enginering schools where introductory programming is taught using MATLAB rather than a traditional programming language. Although C, C++, and Java suit the needs of computer science students well, most engineering students will not be programmers by trade. Engineering students use computer tools to perform complex tasks such as scientific calculations, data analysis, simulations, and visualization: all skills students will use again in upper level classes. MATLAB provides several built in toolkits to help students accomplish these tasks, as well as an integrated devlopment environment.This book is distinctly unique from other MATLAB books in two ways. First, it is an introduction to MATLAB as a technical programming language rather than an introduction to the MATLAB environment. The author includes numerous pedagogical tools such as special boxes that highlight good programming practices, boxes that detail common pitfalls in MATLAB programming, and numerous programming exercises and examples. The book also makes wide use of MATLAB's predefined functions that provide tested solutions and time saved in writing subroutines or functions. Second, the book teaches students how to write clean, efficient, and documented programs using sound problem solving techniques. Top-down programming methodology is introduced to the students in Ch. 3 and is used consistently thoughout the rest of the book. This encourages students to think about the proper design of a program before beginning to code.


The crust in the central oceanic Aleutian arc has been formed by intrusion and extrusion of subduction-related magmas into and onto pre-existing oceanic crust over at least the past 50 m.y. Upper crustal rocks that have differentiated from a parental magma of olivine tholeiite composition, and residual crystals complementary to them, along with the pre-existing oceanic crust and some early extrusive lavas, form the lower crust. The volumes of upper and lower crust calculated from crystal fractionation models are consistent with Aleutian crustal structure, velocity, and density. Xenoliths of ultramafic to intermediate composition igneous cumulate rocks and garnet-free basaltic pyroxene granulites in Aleutian volcanic rocks confirm the existence of the predicted rock types in lower crust. Residues complementary to the Fe-rich basalts from tholeiitic volcanoes that have differentiated at low pressure should form part of the upper to middle crust. The model implies that continental crust formed by the accretion of island-arc terrains, which comprise most new Phanerozoic crust, has a basaltic lower crust.


We present full‐depth zonal sections of total dissolved cobalt, iron, manganese, and labile cobalt from the South Atlantic Ocean. A basin‐scale plume from the African coast appeared to be a major source of dissolved metals to this region, with high cobalt concentrations in the oxygen minimum zone of the Angola Dome and extending 2500 km into the subtropical gyre. Metal concentrations were elevated along the coastal shelf, likely due to reductive dissolution and resuspension of particulate matter. Linear relationships between cobalt, N2O, and O2, as well as low surface aluminum supported a coastal rather than atmospheric cobalt source. Lateral advection coupled with upwelling, biological uptake, and remineralization delivered these metals to the basin, as evident in two zonal transects with distinct physical processes that exhibited different metal distributions. Scavenging rates within the coastal plume differed for the three metals; iron was removed fastest, manganese removal was 2.5 times slower, and cobalt scavenging could not be discerned from water mass mixing. Because scavenging, biological utilization, and export constantly deplete the oceanic inventories of these three hybrid‐type metals, point sources of the scale observed here likely serve as vital drivers of their oceanic cycles. Manganese concentrations were elevated in surface waters across the basin, likely due to coupled redox processes acting to concentrate the dissolved species there. These observations of basin‐scale hybrid metal plumes combined with the recent projections of expanding oxygen minimum zones suggest a potential mechanism for effects on ocean primary production and nitrogen fixation via increases in trace metal source inputs.


In recent years, online platforms have been utilized for promoting harmful content and behavior such as extremism, harassment, mis/disinformation, human trafficking, genderbased violence among others affecting our society, often leading to real-world events. Such content and behaviors are inherently complex, making the recognition of these narratives challenging for researchers as well as social media companies. The Cyber Social Threats (CySoc) Workshop 2021 aimed to facilitate a rich forum for researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry in the areas of computing and social science, to discuss novel avenues for research on interdisciplinary aspects of harmful communications on social media, to exchange ideas and experiences, and to identify new opportunities for collaboration. The second edition of this workshop was well-received and very successful in providing a platform to explore future directions, possible research ideas, and collaborations, as it was for the first edition


We discuss the design and realization of a passive all-optical device for 2R regeneration based on a dual-stage of high-speed microcavity saturable absorbers, one for noise reduction of digital zeros (SA-0), and the other for noise reduction of digital ones (SA-1). The numerical and experimental results showed that by using a simple combination of SA-0 and SA-1 devices, one can obtain an intensity transfer function with a large extinction ratio improvement of low power levels and a strongly nonlinear response reducing the noise of high power levels. The amplitude and phase characterization of a 40-GHz signal transmitted by this device, obtained by frequency-resolved optical gating measurements, reveals the intensity-dependant pulse-compression effect and the low chirp introduced by this device.


Cascade is a classic yet powerful architecture that has boosted performance on various tasks. However, how to introduce cascade to instance segmentation remains an open question. A simple combination of Cascade R-CNN and Mask R-CNN only brings limited gain. In exploring a more effective approach, we find that the key to a successful instance segmentation cascade is to fully leverage the reciprocal relationship between detection and segmentation. In this work, we propose a new framework, Hybrid Task Cascade (HTC), which differs in two important aspects: (1) instead of performing cascaded refinement on these two tasks separately, it interweaves them for a joint multi-stage processing; (2) it adopts a fully convolutional branch to provide spatial context, which can help distinguishing hard foreground from cluttered background. Overall, this framework can learn more discriminative features progressively while integrating complementary features together in each stage. Without bells and whistles, a single HTC obtains 38.4% and 1.5% improvement over a strong Cascade Mask R-CNN baseline on MSCOCO dataset. Moreover, our overall system achieves 48.6 mask AP on the test-challenge split, ranking 1st in the COCO 2018 Challenge Object Detection Task. Code is available at https://github.com/open-mmlab/mmdetection.


Among the key influences shaping the quality of democracy in Latin America today are the recent political mobilization and formal incorporation of indigenous peoples. In countries where such peoples make up a large share or even a majority of the populace, their legal and political incorporation into the state signifies a major power shift and the weakening of institutions that had been built to exclude them. Where indigenous peoples constitute a smaller share of the electorate, their recent inclusion denotes a more generalized opening of the political system to excluded and vulnerable sectors of society.


The purpose of this thesis is to explore and explain some of the history and internal dynamics that concern Shabahang, a non-profit Iranian cultural society located in the United States. The organization was started by a group of culturally devoted immigrants who wanted to create an environment to preserve and promote Iranian culture and heritage for those living outside Iran. I examine the reasons and steps followed during the establishment of this society and note significant changes over the seventeen years of its existence. In particular, I describe the causes and effects of the transition of leadership from founders to members. I also compare the organization before and after the transition, and I argue that survival of Shabahang in spite of periodical membership decreases and conflicts over objectives between founders and members shows resiliency among a group of people dedicated to maintaining cultural patterns. I suggest that the continued survival of Shabahang may depend on the degree of assimilation and mode of communication among the first and subsequent generations of members and founders. Comments Submitted to the Program of Organizational Dynamics in the Graduate Division of the School of Arts and Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania Advisor: Larry Starr This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/od_theses_msod/13 THE EFFECT OF LEADERSHIP TRANSITION FROM FOUNDERS TO MEMBERS IN A NON-PROFIT CULTURAL SOCIETY


Networks of small, densely distributed wireless sensor nodes are being envisioned and developed for a variety of applications involving monitoring and the physical world in a tetherless fashion. Typically, each individual node can sense in multiple modalities but has limited communication and computation capabilities. Many challenges must be overcome before the concept of sensor networks In particular, there are two critical problems underlying successful operation of sensor networks: (1) efficient methods for exchanging information between the nodes and (2) collaborative signal processing (CSP) between the nodes to gather useful information about the physical world. This article describes the key ideas behind the CSP algorithms for distributed sensor networks being developed at the University of Wisconsin (UW). We also describe the basic ideas on how the CSP algorithms interface with the networking/routing algorithms being developed at Wisconsin (UW-API). We motivate the framework via the problem of detecting and tracking a single maneuvering target. This example illustrates the essential ideas behind the integration between UW-API and UW-CSP algorithms and also highlights the key aspects of detection and localization algorithms. We then build on these ideas to present our approach to tracking multiple targets that necessarily requires classification techniques becomes a reality.


In the past decade the focus of research into artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from individual agents to multi-agent systems (MAS). This shift has been reflected in the increasing use of social metaphors to describe MAS-related design problems and solutions. The social interpretation of MAS has also been embraced by social scientists interested in developing MAS-based simulations of society. The design of some MAS applications, such as high-level information fusion, involves additional social complexities that arise from their embedded role in complex human social organizations. One response to these developments has been the plea for 'socionic' collaboration between computer scientists and sociologists akin to the inter-disciplinary collaboration that produced bionics. This suggestion has produced some useful results; however the socionic traffic of ideas has been hindered by the paradigm gulf that separates sociology and computer science. Dawson's work is a step toward bridging the philosophical component of that gulf. Dawson's goal is to develop a coherent system of concepts that encompasses both MAS-based and human forms of social interaction and will serve to frame and guide the development of ontology based multi-agent systems. To create this unifying vision Dawson draws upon the philosophy of A. N. Whitehead to develop a socially oriented, Whiteheadian philosophical interpretation of Dale Lambert's Post-Classical MAS. While Whitehead's work is relatively well known, Lambert's unique process philosophy inspired approach to AI has attracted little attention. Drawing upon Lambert's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "Engineering Machines with Commonsense" (1996), Dawson lays out the broad epistemic issues, metaphysical presuppositions, and heuristic strategies that have motivated Lambert's turn from Classical AI to his process inspired alternative: 'Post-Classical AI'. Lambert's primary objective in his dissertation was to develop a Post-Classical blue-print for a MAS-based mind. To that end Lambert developed Post-Classical philosophies of process, representation and belief, and showed how each of these elements could be formally implemented to provide a Post-Classical artificial mind with its cognitive capability. In order to reveal the deeper implications of Lambert's tersely expressed debt to process philosophy, Dawson provides a commentary which explains the key formal elements of Lambert's work in terms of Whitehead's metaphysical system. Through this interpretation it is possible to view the computational operations of Lambert's MAS as a partial model of the complex creative processes that lie at the heart of Whitehead's metaphysical vision. This interpretation of Lambert's Post-Classical paradigm signals the possibility of a novel 'Whiteheadian AI'. A key aspect of Dawson's analysis is his identification of the 'sociological turn' latent in Lambert's Post-Classical paradigm. Lambert's approach to grounding agent belief is analogous in form to Whitehead's explanation of the relationship between human ideas and the actualities that they denote. In both cases agents shape and are shaped by social processes that selectively fine tune and prioritize the social customs that mediate interaction between agents and their environments. The sociological dimension of Lambert's Post-Classical paradigm is further illustrated with reference to the ontology-based multi-agent architecture at the core of Lambert's design of a high-level information fusion system. For nearly two decades a process vision has inspired and guided Lambert's internationally recognized contribution to the development of high-level information fusion systems. Interpreted in the light of Whitehead's philosophy, the striking originality of Lambert's Post-Classical paradigm and subsequent work in information fusion is revealed. Dawson concludes that Lambert's Post-Classical paradigm represents a promising nexus of philosophical vision, formal method, and practical technology and outlines his own socionic proposal for its further development.


Sickle cell disease is a haemoglobinopathy characterized by the occurrence of vaso-occlusive crises and osteoarticular complications.

 We report the case of an infant with sickle cell disease revealed by a bilateral abscess of the feet. Our patient is an 18-month-old infant who has had bilateral swelling of the feet for a week with fever of 40 °C, a CRP of 129 mg/l and a leukocytosis of 32,000 elements/mm3 together with normochromic normocytic anemia at 7.9 g/dl.
 The diagnosis of abscess was taken and a puncture was made finding a purulent fluid with isolation of Salmonella. In front of the bilateral character, Salmonella isolation and normochromic normocytic anemia, electrophoresis of hemoglobin was requested confirming the diagnosis of sickle cell disease. The progress was positive with hydration and antibiotic therapy.

 Soft-tissue Salmonella infections must lead to thinking of sickle cell disease as a diagnosis especially with normochromic normocytic anemia combined.