Aim To evaluate goniotomy, trabeculotomy, transscleral cyclophotocoagulation (TSCPC) and trabeculectomy as initial procedures in children with primary childhood glaucoma from Northern Tanzania. Methods A retrospective analysis of consecutive interventions for primary childhood glaucoma from 2000 to 2013 was conducted at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre. Success was defined as postoperative intraocular pressure (IOP) below 22 mmHg. Success rates, IOP, visual acuity (VA), subsequent interventions and potential risk factors for failure were reported for the respective interventions. Results The study included 116 eyes of 70 children (age 4.6±5.9 years) with primary childhood glaucoma; 46 (65.7%) children were male. The preoperative IOP was 33.1±10.2 mmHg, the preoperative cup/disc (CD) ratio 0.71±0.3 and the corneal diameter 13.3±1.4 mm. As a primary intervention, 61 (52.6%) eyes underwent goniotomy, 10 (8.6%) eyes trabeculotomy, 12 (10.3%) TSCPC and 33 (28.4%) trabeculectomy. Follow-up data after 12 months were available for 63 (54.3%) eyes. Success rates at 12 months were 38% (goniotomy), 30% (trabeculotomy), 17% (TSCPC) and 64% (trabeculectomy). All interventions achieved a statistically significant IOP reduction at 3, 6 and 12 months, except for trabeculotomy after 6 months and TSCPC at all time points. Postoperative endophthalmitis occurred in one child treated with trabeculectomy. VA in 82% of all eyes was maintained or had improved after 12 months. Conclusions Based on the success rates of this retrospective analysis, goniotomy or trabeculotomy for younger and trabeculectomy for older children can be recommended in our setting to reduce IOP. Late presentation in combination with advanced glaucomatous damage as well as erratic postoperative follow-up and treatment were likely factors that compromised overall success rates. More efforts are necessary to detect the blinding disease earlier and improve adherence to follow-up.


In this article, a new methodology for color shape from shading (SFS) problem is proposed. The problem of color SFS refers to the well-known fact that most real objects usually contain mixtures of diffuse and specular color reflections and are affected by the multicolored interreflection under unknown reflectivity. In this article, these limitations are addressed, and a new color SFS methodology is proposed. The proposed approach focuses on two main parts. First, a generalized neural-based color reflectance model is developed. Second, an iterative recursive method is developed to reconstruct a multicolor 3D surface. Experimental results on synthetic-colored objects and real-colored objects were performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed methodology.


In order to reduce the impact of background radiation on the performance of terrestrial free-space optical systems, we propose to use two laser wavelengths and to perform the data detection at the receiver in a differential mode. We consider first the case of simple on-off keying modulation and show the performance improvement by using the proposed technique when the background noise dominates. We also extend our study to the case of pulse position modulation while proposing special signaling schemes that allow an increase in the data transmission rate at the same time as reducing the background noise effect.


Quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning is an essential feature in next-generation networks. In this paper, we investigate the ability of optical burst switching (OBS) networks to guarantee loss-free transmission inside the network for guaranteed bursts. More specifically, we propose a QoS approach, called path-based QoS provisioning (PQP), to provide absolute QoS provisioning for OBS networks. PQP relies on: 1) routing and wavelength assignment to establish, whenever possible, nonoverlapping paths between each pair of OBS edge nodes and 2) a synchronization scheme to guarantee QoS when the solution in 1) contains overlapping paths because of the limited number of wavelengths. For 1), we propose a routing and wavelength assignment approach, which uses an efficient integer linear programming (ILP) model to determine routing paths and a tabu search algorithm to assign wavelengths to these paths. For 2), we propose a path synchronization scheme, called path-based synchronous transmission scheme (PST). PST synchronizes the transmissions in each set of overlapping paths while maximizing the capacity of each path to transmit guaranteed traffic and guaranteeing fairness when allocating bandwidth to conflicting paths; this is performed using efficient ILP formulations. To improve the performance of best effort traffic and preserve statistical multiplexing gain and high resource utilization of the OBS network, we propose a wavelength selection scheme, called path-based best effort wavelength selection scheme, to send best effort bursts. Simulation results using ns-2 simulator show that PQP successfully provides absolute QoS provisioning for guaranteed traffic and improves significantly the performance of best effort traffic.


Data matching (also known as record or data linkage, entity resolution, object identification, or field matching) is the task of identifying, matching and merging records that correspond to the same entities from several databases or even within one database. Based on research in various domains including applied statistics, health informatics, data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence, database management, and digital libraries, significant advances have been achieved over the last decade in all aspects of the data matching process, especially on how to improve the accuracy of data matching, and its scalability to large databases. Peter Christens book is divided into three parts: Part I, Overview, introduces the subject by presenting several sample applications and their special challenges, as well as a general overview of a generic data matching process. Part II, Steps of the Data Matching Process, then details its main steps like pre-processing, indexing, field and record comparison, classification, and quality evaluation. Lastly, part III, Further Topics, deals with specific aspects like privacy, real-time matching, or matching unstructured data. Finally, it briefly describes the main features of many research and open source systems available today. By providing the reader with a broad range of data matching concepts and techniques and touching on all aspects of the data matching process, this book helps researchers as well as students specializing in data quality or data matching aspects to familiarize themselves with recent research advances and to identify open research challenges in the area of data matching. To this end, each chapter of the book includes a final section that provides pointers to further background and research material. Practitioners will better understand the current state of the art in data matching as well as the internal workings and limitations of current systems. Especially, they will learn that it is often not feasible to simply implement an existing off-the-shelf data matching system without substantial adaption and customization. Such practical considerations are discussed for each of the major steps in the data matching process.


This article draws on a case study of organisation-citizen engagement during railway infrastructure planning in southwest France, to examine the nature of participatory democracy, both conceptually--as elucidated by Habermas and others--and empirically, as recently practised within the framework of a model established in one democratically governed country. We analyse roles played by the state organisation responsible for building railway infrastructure; the National Commission for Public Debate; and the Garants, who oversee and facilitate the participatory process as laid down by the French law of Public Debate. We conclude by arguing that despite its normative aspects and its lack of provision for analysis of power relations, Habermas's theory of communicative action can be used to evaluate the quality of organisation-citizen engagement, potentially providing a basis for informing actual models of democratic participation.


As people live longer, differences between generations emerge as a significant cultural issue. While extensive research has been undertaken on the impact of cultural and gender differences in the field of counselling, little attention has been given to the impact of significant generational differences between counsellor and client. This study is a qualitative investigation into the rewards and challenges that face counsellors who work with these populations. In-depth data was gathered from qualified, experienced counsellors, and major themes were identified using interpretative phenomenological analysis. While the study concurs with the literature on many of the challenges in work with older clients, the data also suggests significant personal rewards for counsellors. These rewards have not been as well understood or appreciated in previous literature. A major theme identified is the heightened self-awareness and personal insight gained when counsellors work with clients from older generations, and that can help prepare the counsellor for living well in the present and the future. These positive themes can make a valuable contribution to counsellor education, supervision and employment.


PURPOSE
This study presents an adaptive error detection algorithm (AEDA) for real-time in vivo point dosimetry during high dose rate (HDR) or pulsed dose rate (PDR) brachytherapy (BT) where the error identification, in contrast to existing approaches, does not depend on an a priori reconstruction of the dosimeter position. Instead, the treatment is judged based on dose rate comparisons between measurements and calculations of the most viable dosimeter position provided by the AEDA in a data driven approach. As a result, the AEDA compensates for false error cases related to systematic effects of the dosimeter position reconstruction. Given its nearly exclusive dependence on stable dosimeter positioning, the AEDA allows for a substantially simplified and time efficient real-time in vivo BT dosimetry implementation.

METHODS
In the event of a measured potential treatment error, the AEDA proposes the most viable dosimeter position out of alternatives to the original reconstruction by means of a data driven matching procedure between dose rate distributions. If measured dose rates do not differ significantly from the most viable alternative, the initial error indication may be attributed to a mispositioned or misreconstructed dosimeter (false error). However, if the error declaration persists, no viable dosimeter position can be found to explain the error, hence the discrepancy is more likely to originate from a misplaced or misreconstructed source applicator or from erroneously connected source guide tubes (true error).

RESULTS
The AEDA applied on two in vivo dosimetry implementations for pulsed dose rate BT demonstrated that the AEDA correctly described effects responsible for initial error indications. The AEDA was able to correctly identify the major part of all permutations of simulated guide tube swap errors and simulated shifts of individual needles from the original reconstruction. Unidentified errors corresponded to scenarios where the dosimeter position was sufficiently symmetric with respect to error and no-error source position constellations. The AEDA was able to correctly identify all false errors represented by mispositioned dosimeters contrary to an error detection algorithm relying on the original reconstruction.

CONCLUSIONS
The study demonstrates that the AEDA error identification during HDR/PDR BT relies on a stable dosimeter position rather than on an accurate dosimeter reconstruction, and the AEDA's capacity to distinguish between true and false error scenarios. The study further shows that the AEDA can offer guidance in decision making in the event of potential errors detected with real-time in vivo point dosimetry.


Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) has recently received a lot of attention in data mining, information retrieval, and computer vision. It factorizes a non-negative input matrix V into two non-negative matrix factors V = WH such that W describes "clusters" of the datasets. Analyzing genotypes, social networks, or images, it can be beneficial to ensure V to contain meaningful ``cluster centroids'', i.e., to restrict W to be convex combinations of data points. But how can we run this convex NMF in the wild, i.e., given millions of data points? Triggered by the simple observation that each data point is a convex combination of vertices of the data convex hull, we propose to restrict W further to be vertices of the convex hull. The benefits of this convex-hull NMF approach are twofold. First, the expected size of the convex hull of the candidate set typically grows much slower than the data set. Second, distance preserving low-dimensional embeddings allow one to compute candidate vertices efficiently. Our extensive experimental evaluation shows that convex-hull NMF compares favorably to convex NMF for large data sets both in terms of speed and reconstruction quality. Moreover, we show that our method can easily be applied to large-scale, real-world data sets, in our case consisting of 1.6 million images respectively 160 million votes on World of Warcraft guilds.


The MaDViWorld project represents an original attempt to define an appropriate software architecture for supporting massively distributed virtual world systems. A non‐massively distributed virtual world system is typically engineered as a client–server application for which a single server or more rarely a small cluster of servers contain all the world pertinent data and assume the world accessibility, consistency and persistence. On the client side, many of them enable interaction with the other users and the various objects of the world. The main originality of our approach resides in the fact that the server part of the proposed system is no more limited to a few centralized servers, but can be distributed on arbitrarily many of them. Indeed, MaDViWorld, the prototypal software framework already implemented using Java and RMI by our group, allows for creating the rooms of a given world on several machines, each running the server application. It is then possible to connect the rooms by way of simple doors and to populate them with active objects. Finally, avatars managed by the client application visit the rooms and interact with the active objects either directly on the remote host or locally by cloning or transporting them first to the client machine. This paper draws from the experience gained with the development of our first prototype in order to discuss, both at the user's and the vi‐world developer's level, the main software engineering issues related to the implementation of such massively distributed virtual world systems. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


BACKGROUND: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a frequent causative agent of nosocomial infection in health-care setups causing morbidity and mortality. Treatment with vancomycin remains the standard protocol for the antibiotic treatment. However, the emergence of vancomycin-resistant strains has prompted the use of alternate drug therapies. Linezolid is the best alternative to combat this resistant strain. In the present study, we aim to evaluate the clinical evidence of linezolid treatment in MRSA-infected patients within Mysore city. METHODS: This prospective study assessed the efficacy of linezolid and vancomycin for the treatment of MRSA infections. Fifty patients who fit into the inclusion criteria were considered from four tertiary hospitals. Five milliliters venous blood (only once), pus, urine, sputum, and aspirates were collected from MRSA patients and evaluated by culture studies for its susceptibility to various antibiotics. RESULTS: Results of this study demonstrate that linezolid treatment as oral and intravenous preparations is as effective as vancomycin with 100% efficiency and fewer adverse effects (79 in 40 patients vs. 64 in 16 patients) for the treatment of MRSA nosocomial infection. The observed adverse effects includes local pain (P = 0.312) and thrombophlebitis (P = 0.005) with vancomycin; and anemia (P = 0.348) and thrombocytopenia (P = 0.313) with the use of linezolid. The findings were consistent with the existing knowledge database. CONCLUSION: The results from the study indicate that linezolid offers the same benefit as vancomycin with far fewer drawbacks.


In this thesis, we investigate confidentiality- and privacy-preserving protocols. Confidentiality- and privacy-preserving protocols (also called secure protocols) allow two or more parties to compute some function of their private inputs without revealing to any group of the parties information other than the cooperatively computed output and what can be deduced from this output and the group's individual inputs (which is unavoidable, as it is inherently part of any such protocol). It has been shown previously that any function can be computed in such a manner; the study of computing any function securely is called Secure Multiparty Computation (SMC) or Secure Function Evaluation (SFE). However, before applying these techniques to a specific domain, one first has to identify problems where secure protocols are useful. When there is a situation where a secure protocol is needed, there will always be a secure protocol for computing the function by the general results described in the SMC literature. However, the general solutions are complex and in many cases there are more efficient domain-specific solutions. In this thesis we look at several application domains including: trust negotiation, credit checking, services for location-aware devices, contract negotiation, and secure biometric authentication. In these domains we identify situations where secure protocols are useful and then develop simple and efficient protocols for these situations.


Neuroprosthetic systems are designed to interface with the nervous system, for the replacement or restoration of damaged functions in the motor and/or sensory systems. In order to have an efficient communication with the nervous tissue leading to optimized clinical outcomes, achieving neural stimulation with high selectivity is essential. This thesis aims at finding technological routes to enable spatial, structural and cell-type selective surface neuromodulation using electrical and optogenetic stimulation and to validate them in in vivo models. Thin and conformable electrode arrays enable close contact with the target tissue, thereby leading to minimal distances with the target neurons and maximal spatial selectivity. Flexible polymer technologies based on polyimide (PI) are used to design thin (< 10 IŒm thick) electrode arrays with small feature size (< 100 IŒm), resulting in miniaturized conformable arrays for surface stimulation. PEDOT conducting polymer coatings are used on the miniaturized electrical stimulation sites (100 IŒm diameter) to improve their charge injection properties. This implant is used for auditory brainstem stimulation in a rat model, and is shown to generate robust activation of the auditory system. Analysis of the multiunit recordings obtained from the inferior colliculus (IC), an auditory structure of the midbrain, led to the identification of different phases in the responses, with various frequency tuning properties. The stimulation configuration is shown to influence the tonotopic organisation of the frequency-tuned responses. Bipolar stimulation with small interelectrode distances (400 IŒm) is shown to generate responses that are more frequency-selective than with larger interelectrode distances (800 IŒm). The orientation of the electrode pair and the waveformof stimulation current are also shown to influence the response properties. An updated design of the clinical auditory brainstem implant(ABI) is then proposed, integrating higher electrode density and guidelines for a more tissue-conformal format. The main steps in the road towards improvement of ABI outcomes are then discussed, with proposed changes in the stimulation protocol and electrode array in parallel. Another approach to cell-specific neuromodulation is the implementation of optogenetics. This requires not only genetic engineering of the neurons but also the manufacturing of implantable light-emitting devices. Here, we introduce a fabrication process for the integration of thin (50 IŒm) LEDs into a polyimide-based device. A proof-of-concept in vivo study shows that stimulation of the spinal cord of a mouse model generates robust EMG responses in both legs over the course of several weeks. The walking integrity is confirmed, showing the absence of functional damages to the spinal cord. These results show that the presented LED array can provide a way of stimulating key elements of the locomotor neural circuitry, potentially leading to a greater understanding of the role of each neuronal subtypes in the spinal cord. Through the applications of ABI and spinal cord stimulation, this thesis thus highlights the importance and potential use of specifically tailored technologies enabling selective surface stimulation of the nervous system.


During a nine week's sojourn in the Malay Peninsula, from February 12 until April 22, 1963, I have been able to acquaint myself with the insect fauna of that country and to make a special study of the Odonata and their larvae. The present account is the first of a series dealing with the results of this collecting expedition. It merely contains descriptions and illustrations of a few new and insufficiently known species of Gomphidae; more of these pertaining to the same family will, it is hoped, soon follow. The rich and varied supply of material accumulated during the Malayan trip forms the basis of this study, but specimens from other sources are incorporated wherever this was found appropriate or necessary. Thus it includes re-descriptions of types in the British Museum collection (BM) and the University Museum of Michigan, Ann Arbor (UMMZ), as well as notes on some valuable larval forms collected in the Plus River area (Perak) given to me long ago by Mr. M. W. F. Tweedie, at one time director of the Raffles Museum, Singapore. More recently, interesting samples of larvae from Johore and Pahang, collected for the Department of Zoology, University of Singapore, were sent to me for study by Dr. D. S. Johnson and his assistants. In this paper only passing mention is made of the habits, local distribution and larval development of the Odonata. Several more will be reared and information on the life-history obtained under natural conditions in the field, will be supplied by my companion, Mr. J. I. Furtado, of the Zoology Department, University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. Attention will be paid by him in particular to various aspects of the natural history of Malayan dragon flies in connexion with ecological factors. The following species are discussed in this paper :


This study aims at demonstrating and critically assessing high-level landscape stakeholders' perceptions and understandings of landscape-related issues, threats and problems, in the Eastern Mediterranean, through a purposive comparative research survey of four case studies: Cyprus, Greece, Jordan and Lebanon. Employing qualitative data analysis of intensive stakeholder interviews, performed in the broader context of the MEDSCAPES ENPI-MED project (www.enpi-medscapes.org), the paper draws together the insights and concerns of a total of 61 public entities, private entrepreneurs, academicians and NGO representatives, on landscape knowledge, understanding, management and public awareness, in these four countries. The results point to significant commonalities among them and begin to show relational and synthetic nature of the interrelationship between humans and the landscape, as it developed in the context of the local and regional geographies and histories of this broader region, affected by and involving a series of relevant geophysical, economic, political, social, moral, institutional and other parameters.


This thesis is part of an ongoing research program between SIMLab and Statoil about impacts on coated offshore pipelines. Impact loads may occur from objects such as anchors or trawls, causing severe damage to the pipe which may lead to oil or gas production to shut down. The steel pipe had been sufficiently researched concerning the impact event, but much work remained on the coating. The coating investigated in this thesis was the five layer polymer insulation system, Thermotite, produced by Shawcor (formerly Bredero Shaw). The main focus was to characterise the porous polypropylene layer. Experiments were conducted; X-ray computed tomography to get a look inside the coating and determine the pore morphology by image analyses, and uniaxial compression tests to investigate the mechanical properties. Image analyses suggested several statistics of the pore structure. The results showed that the morphology is highly inhomogeneous and anisotropic. Furthermore, the relative density was varying between 0.7 to 1.0 depending on the radial coordinate of the pipe. The lowest value was found in the middle. The pore structures on either side, were different (asymmetric morphology). The reason for that was assumed to be the extrusion process during manufacturing. The other directions (hoop and axial) revealed no dependency. The uniaxial compression tests suggested that the pores affect the strength of the polymer significantly. The different pore structures seemed to have a distinct effect on the force-displacement behaviour. The coating was characterised as a solid with isolated pores, not foam because the transverse expansion was greater than zero and the high relative density. Compression tests on solid polypropylene were employed to establish a material model, calibrated by the use of edge tracing and inverse modelling. The model assumed isotropic hardening and insensitivity to temperature, pressure, and strain rate. To numerically re-create the test specimens, a direct modelling technique was employed. The method utilises the computed tomography image slices to replicate the samples. A sensitivity study indicated that the accuracy of the models was sensitive to mesh size, friction and the material model properties. Compared to the experimental values, the simulations were satisfactory, but a bit stronger, most likely due to insufficient mesh refinement. However, the models captured the shape of the deformation and the force-displacement curves. The numerical models were employed to characterise the coating further. The simulations suggested that the reduction in yield force is due to strain localisation between adjacent pores. Simulations of the re-created specimens subjected to tension suggested that the tensile strength is significantly lower than the compressive strength, as the strain gets strongly localised. Mechanical anisotropy (orthotropy) was investigated as well. The results indicated differences throughout the height of the porous layer, and that the coating was weaker when compressed in the radial direction. A block of porous polypropylene layer was simulated under compression. To re-create the pore structure of the coating satisfactorily, the block needed about one million elements. Therefore, it was assumed that a large-scale simulation of the pipe with the direct modelling technique would require too many elements.


Background to climate change In 1827, Frenchman Jean Baptiste Fourier was the first to use the green house analogy to explain how the earth is kept warmer than otherwise. During the 1890s Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius together with Thomas Chamberlain, about a hundred years ago concluded that human activities could warm the earth by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When the first UN Conference on Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972, there was some acknowledgement of the issue of climate as a possible problem in years to come by. In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up to assess and synthesize the latest scientific, technical and socio economic literature on global warming (Toulmin, 2009). It operates under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).The IPCC does not carry out research, but collaborates with hundreds of scientists and experts through out the world, as well as governments. It has produced Four Assessment reports, in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007. The IPCC's latest report of 2007 states that, warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, wide spread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level (IPCC 2007).Dow and Downing (2007) offer the same views by saying ; the climate has been completely thrown out of kilter and each day brings fresh proof: more frequent and more violent cyclones in the Caribbean, floods in Africa, the melting of glaciers. These are sentiments to testify how climate change is wrecking havoc and inflicting untold suffering to humanity around the world. Climate Change in Africa Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change and climate variability, to a situation aggravated by the interaction of 'multiple stresses', occurring at various levels, and low adaptive capacity. Changes in a variety of ecosystems are already being detected, particularly in Southern African ecosystems, at a faster rate than anticipated (Boko et al, 2007).Climate change is the only one of many powerful forces affecting African development prospects. There is evidence of change in temperature and the damaging effects of changing rainfall patterns through out Sub Saharan Africa. Global warming has affected water availability, with some areas becoming much drier and others much wetter. Africa's share in terms of climate change comes in the form of its wanton destruction of its forests (deforestation). Africa's deforestation accounts for 20% of the world's green house emissions. With the discovery of mineral resources such coal in South Africa, oil in Sudan and Uganda, as well as diamonds in Zimbabwe, will consume thousands hectors of forests. The exceptional floods that hit many parts of Africa in September 2007 are a reminder that too much water can be a problem, as well as too little water and Mozambique is always a victim of these floods every year. There are still prospects of more frequent extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and storms, as heating of the global atmosphere drives a more active and moisture-laden weather system. This is echoed by Dr.Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner with the following assertion: Africa is the continent that will be hit hardest by climate change. Unpredictable rains and floods, prolonged droughts, subsequent crop failures and rapid desertification, among other things of global warming, have in fact already begun to change the face of the earth At present, the rules for addressing climate change are being written by the powerful and polluting nations and as a result the deal they reach among themselves will pay particular attention to their interests (Toulmin, 2009). This leaves the African countries that are likely to be hit hard by climate change with little or no voice. …


Metal-organic framework (MOF) materials possess the widest versatility in structure, composition, and synthesis procedures amongst the known families of materials. On the other hand, the extraordinary affinity between MOFs and enzymes has led to widely investigating these materials as platforms to support these catalytic proteins in recent years. In this work, the MOF material NH2-MIL-53(Al) has been tested as a support to immobilize by one-step methodology (in situ) the enzyme lipase CaLB from Candida antarctica by employing conditions that are compatible with its enzymatic activity (room temperature, aqueous solution, and moderate pH values). Once the nature of the linker deprotonating agent or the synthesis time were optimized, the MOF material resulted in quite efficient entrapping of the lipase CaLB through this in situ approach (>85% of the present enzyme in the synthesis media) while the supported enzyme retained acceptable activity (29% compared to the free enzyme) and had scarce enzyme leaching. The equivalent post-synthetic method led to biocatalysts with lower enzyme loading values. These results make clear that the formation of MOF support in the presence of the enzyme to be immobilized substantially improves the efficiency of the biocatalysts support for retaining the enzyme and limits their leaching.


Phase-change materials are identified as promising candidates for the future non-volatile memory applications. It is crucial to develop potential methods and technologies for the materials to meet the future data storage requirements such as high data storage density and high data transfer rate. A part of the present work is about electrical data recording studies with GeSbTe phase-change thin films, where two types of resistive switching mechanisms have been addressed. One is based on amorphous-crystalline phase transformation and the other on the solid-state electrolytic behaviour of the films. Using atomic force microscopy technique, both the mechanisms were demonstrated at nanoscales. Moreover, an extensive investigation was carried-out on the switching characteristics such as reversibility, cyclability and response-time of the second switching mechanism using prototype capacitor-like memory cells. Another major part of the work is the material characterization. From the point of view of data transfer rate, crystallization of the phase-change layer is the rate-limiting process. Therefore, studying the crystallization process and exploring the underlying mechanisms are crucial to improve the switching performance of the existing materials and develop new materials with superior properties. Determining the factors affecting the crystallization plays also a role of equal importance from application point of view. Therefore in this work, the crystallization kinetics Ge-doped Sb-Te thin films was investigated by isothermal annealing experiments using a transmission electron microscope and the various factors influencing the crystallization such as the film composition, protective/capping layer type and electron beam of the microscope were also determined.


Author(s): Boyle, Mariah D. | Abstract: Quantifying deep-sea food webs can be resource intensive due to the difficulties of sampling fishes from the deep sea. The diet of fishes is often quantified through stomach content analysis, through this method has many sampling constraints, and it can be difficult to obtain sufficient samples for an in-depth study. This study attempts to fill a critical data gap by determining the diet and trophic level of the deep-sea Roughtail Skate, Bathyraja trachura, using traditional stomach content analysis. This study also attempts to determine the validity and accuracy of stable isotope analysis in the continental slope fishes of the deep-sea of the eastern North Pacific, as an alternative method to determine trophic level in fishes.The Roughtail Skate is an abundant deep-sea skate in the eastern North Pacific. Little is known about the diet of this skate, which is landed as by-catch in commercial bottom trawls. Skates were collected between 2005 and 2008 from fishery-independent trawl surveys of the continental slope and outer shelf. Geometric Index of Importance (GII) values indicated that crustaceans (71.4%), fishes (17.8%), polychaetes (4.3%), and cephalopods (3.7%) were the most important prey groups in the diet. Diet differed significantly with total length, but not with sex. Larger individuals (by total length) had significantly higher trophic level values, and year and latitude explained variation in the diet for three prey categories.In this study, fishes and invertebrates collected from the continental slope (1,000 m depth) of the eastern North Pacific were analyzed using stable isotope analysis (SIA). The carbon and nitrogen stable isotope results were used to construct dual isotope plots to investigate the trophic relationships of this deep-sea community. The plots indicated a decoupling of the benthic and pelagic food webs, with the benthic food web being isotopically enriched. Stomach and isotope samples were collected from 32 Roughtail Skates (Bathyraja trachura) to determine the validity and accuracy of SIA in determining the trophic levels of the skates. A linear regression analysis indicated that nitrogen values from SIA and trophic levels calculated from stomach content analysis, when plotted against skate total length, exhibited similar variation and patterns, although only the stomach content analysis yielded significant results (stomach content: p=0.020, r2=0.168; stable isotope: p=0.077, r2=0.101).


Introduction: Mecillinam is an oral antibiotic with excellent clinical efficacy in the treatment of uncomplicated UTIs. It is a betalactam antibiotic and active against Enterobactericeae but has little activity against Gram positive bacteria. In this study, we aimed to investigate the in vitro activity of mecillinam against Enterobactericeae isolates that were isolated from different clinical specimens.

Materials and methods: Identification of the bacterial isolates were tested by conventional methods and Phoenix (Becton Dickinson, USA) and Vitek MS (Biomeriux, France) automated systems. Antimicrobial susceptibility was performed by using the disk diffusion method and Phoenix (Becton Dickinson, USA) and Vitek2 Compakt (Biomeriux, France) autometed systems. Mecillinam susceptibility of the isolates were determined by disc diffusion method by using 10 μg mecillianm disc and interpreted according to the EUCAST criteria.

Results: Total of 338 Enterobactericeae (E. coli n=162, Klebsiella spp. n=142, Enterobacter spp. n=18, Proteus spp. n=10, Citrobacter spp. n=4, Salmonella spp. n=2) isolates were tested. Most of the clinical specimens were urinary specimens (n=272, 80.5%). Mecillinam susceptibility was detected as 82.5%. Mecillinam susceptibility for urinary tract isolates was 87.1%. In this study, 57% of imipenem resistant isolates were determined susceptible for mecillinam.

Conclusion: In conclusion, Mecillinam could be a good option, especially for urinary tract infections.


Introduction
Australia is a land of cultural diversity accommodating people of different cultural backgrounds, which provides good materials for research on health service delivery to migrants. Migrants encounter many problems in the host country which has different perceptions of health and expectations of health-related behaviours. Metaphors used by the migrants are evidence of their views and attitudes towards health issues in Australia.

Purpose
This paper interprets the cultural meanings of the metaphors migrants use to describe health services in Australia. The purpose of this research is to provide Australian health professionals with an insight into the Asian concept of health and its implications. Findings of this study are expected to help enhance health service delivery to migrants through promoting a better understanding of Asian migrants' cultures and backgrounds.

Methods
The study is a qualitative study using a snowball sampling method. Nine Asian migrants from Vietnam, Japan, China and Hong Kong were invited to share their perceptions of health professionals and health care system in this intercultural society. The study deals with the metaphors used by the participants in making sense of the Australian health care system and explores the meanings beyond these metaphors.

Results
The metaphors identified provide insights into the health care perceptions, presuppositions, and behaviours of Asian migrants in Australia, a new land they now call home. Two broad themes are identified: health professionals in the migrants' eyes and negotiating the way through the health care system. The study of these metaphors is useful to enhance health care workers' intercultural understanding and to help establish mutual respect between health professionals and patients.

Conclusion
Asian migrants have a lot of respect for Australian health care professionals and system. The issue they face when accessing health care services in Australia are mostly related to culture and language. In addition, the lack of knowledge of how the Australian health care system operates also creates distress among these migrants. An attempt by Australian health professionals to demonstrate their recognition of the cultures and beliefs of the migrants and the provision of information regarding how to navigate the Australian health care system by health authorities will help mitigate potential miscommunications and conflicts between health care providers and recipients.


This article is drawn from a paper presented as the Lee Hysan Lecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in May of 2001, and is drawn also from the Project monograph, "Response to Austerity: The Imperatives and Limitations of Revenue Diversification in Higher Education." The special issue of the Welsh Journal of Education was edited by Maureen Woodhall, one of the foremost scholars of international comparative higher education finance and a specialist on student loan programs. The special issue is one of the best compilations of papers on the topic of cost-sharing in its international perspective, with articles from Woodhall, Johnstone, Roy Jackson from South Africa, Bruce Chapman from Australia, and Adrian Ziderman from Israel. The chapter by Johnstone presents the standard case for revenue diversification, focusing on the limitations of public revenue, particularly in developing and transitional countries, and describes the problems wrought by the pervasive and increasing austerity in higher education. Johnstone presents the various forms of revenue diversification, including the beginning of tuition fees where none has existed, the sharp rise in tuition fees where public sector tuition has already been established, and other forms of shifting a portion of the higher educational cost burden onto parents and students. The principal theme of the paper, however, is to acknowledge some of the limitations on revenue diversification, beginning with the difficulties in the determination and verification of parental income, the challenge to the very notion of student dependence on parental support, and the serious limitations on student cost sharing, including the limited opportunities, in many countries and regions, for part-time employment, and more seriously, the limitations on student loan programs. The paper points to the need for effective cost recovery on student loans, including repayment compliance, an efficient system for collections (which may or may not be attached to the governments tax withholding and pension contribution system), and the need for repayment guarantees, which might appropriately include parents and other members of the family, but which the paper concludes need an ultimate governmental guarantee for those without access to credit worthy co-signatories. The paper also presents some limitations on faculty and institutional entrepreneurship as well as limitations on philanthropy as an alternative to governmental revenue.


The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) in patients with delayed neuropsychiatric syndrome (DNS) caused by carbon monoxide (CO) inhalation using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and neuropsychological test. Conventional and diffusion tensor brain MR imaging exams were performed in six patients with DNS immediately before and 3 months after the HBOT to obtain fractional anisotropy (FA) values. Six age‐ and sex‐matched normal control subjects also received MR exams for comparison. Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) was also performed in patients immediately before and 3 months after the HBOT. A significantly higher mean FA value was found in control subjects as compared with the patients both before and 3 months after the HBOT (P < 0.001). The mean FA value 3 months after the HBOT was also significantly higher than that before the HBOT in the patient group (P < 0.001). All of the patients regained full scores in the MMSE 3 months after the HBOT. Diffusion tensor MR imaging can be a quantitative method for the assessment of the white matter change and monitor the treatment response in patients of CO‐induced DNS with a good clinical correlation. HBO may be an effective therapy for DNS.


The INDES project and related working papers focus on market-compatible, cost-effective security of supply responses by the EU. Security of supply is understood as insurance against risks, in which responsibility is shared between the EU, member states, energy companies and customers. Thus security of supply is seen as an economic risk-management strategy. Critical to such an approach is first the minimisation of the insurance 'premium' to achieve the degree of security that is politically called for. Second, there is a need to identify the best systemic actor able to 'hedge' the risk. This can be governments, companies, consumers or in some cases, the market itself subsequent to careful design. Based on these premises, INDES research has emphasised two areas: i) costs of energy supply disruptions and ii) costs of potential policy responses. Towards this end, robust methodologies to assess costs and a sound empirical basis for cost data have been used in the working paper series as the precondition for informed policy choices reflecting both effectiveness and cost-efficiency.


Asymptotically optimal motion planners guarantee that solutions approach optimal as more iterations are performed. A recently proposed roadmap-based method, i.e., the <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\hbox{\tt PRM}^{*}$ </tex></formula> approach, provides this desirable property and minimizes the computational cost of generating the roadmap. Even for this method, however, the roadmap can be slow to construct and quickly grows too large for storage or fast online query resolution, especially for relatively high-dimensional instances. In graph theory, there are algorithms that produce sparse subgraphs, which are known as graph spanners, that guarantee near-optimal paths. This paper proposes different alternatives for interleaving graph spanners with the asymptotically optimal <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\hbox{\tt PRM}^{*}$</tex></formula> algorithm. The first alternative follows a sequential approach, where a graph spanner algorithm is applied to the output roadmap of <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$\hbox{\tt PRM}^{*}$</tex></formula>. The second one is an incremental method, where certain edges are not considered during the construction of the roadmap as they are not necessary for a roadmap spanner. The result in both cases is an asymptotically near-optimal motion planning solution. Theoretical analysis and experiments performed on typical, geometric motion planning instances show that large reductions in construction time, roadmap density, and online query resolution time can be achieved with a small sacrifice of path quality through roadmap spanners.


[About the book]:

The rapidly growing trend of higher education programs specially tailored for managers of nonprofit agencies is no more than fifteen years old, but now these programs include thousands of students at nearly one hundred universities and colleges worldwide. Business management education developed at the turn of the century, and public management began education in the 1930s; now nonprofit management education is emerging in a comparable way. This book charts the growth of and addresses the major issues and controversies surrounding this new field. The collection includes both academics and practitioners reporting their research findings and experiences with nonprofit management education. Major issues include the growth of nonprofit management as an academic field, the academic and political problems facing the field, curricular and instructional issues including new technologies such as distance learning, and the debate over whether such programs should be housed in schools of business, public administration, or in their own separate programs. The book also explores ways and means by which nonprofit management education can most effectively serve nonprofit practitioners.


Bridging the gap between the study of aesthetics and its application in the merchandising and design environments, this revised text presents a research-based focus on the concepts of aesthetics and their effect on product value and consumer behavior. The multi-sensory approach to studying the elements and principles of design helps students master the underlying factors of successful design and learn how products and their promotional surroundings can establish brand identity and create a pleasing environment for the consumer. New to this edition: -- Full-color illustrations throughout -- Each element of design will be covered in its own chapter with 8 new chapters in Part Two -- Boxed "applications" will showcase how the aesthetics concepts are used within actual design and merchandising environments -- Vocabulary definitions and key concepts highlighted in margins -- Each chapter will include brief learning activities to complete in class or at home -- New content related to mass customization and customer made trends in Chapter One -- Revised Chapter Two will focus on the "5-Ps that contribute to Aesthetics"- Product, People, -- Property, Product Presentation, and Promotional Activities -- New content on Brand Personality, the role of Aesthetics in Branding, and why branding is important to consumers -- Discussions of multi-channel retailing, including e-commerce, experiential marketing and "digital -- consumer" trends -- New and updated readings at the ends of each chapter -- Instructor's Guide provides suggestions for planning the course and using the text in the classroom


Results from the report show that in 2010, the direct economic value of the Irish ocean economy was €1.2 billion or approximately 0.8% of GDP. The sector had a turnover of €3.5 billion, and provided employment for approximately 16,300 people (Full Time Equivalent). The report allows for the comparative analysis of the contribution of the marine sector to the national economy in the 2007-2010 period.


Analysis of a global survey of 21,980 firms from 91 countries suggests that the presence of women in corporate leadership positions may improve firm performance. This correlation could reflect either the payoff to nondiscrimination or the fact that women increase a firm's skill diversity. Women's presence in corporate leadership is positively correlated with firm characteristics such as size as well as national characteristics such as girls' math scores, the absence of discriminatory attitudes toward female executives, and the availability of paternal leave. The results find no impact of board gender quotas on firm performance, but they suggest that the payoffs of policies that facilitate women rising through the corporate ranks more broadly could be significant.


Abstract. Soil moisture is a crucial control on surface water and energy fluxes, vegetation, and soil carbon cycling. Earth-system models (ESMs) generally represent an areal-average soil-moisture state in gridcells at scales of 50–200 km and as a result are not able to capture the nonlinear effects of topographically-controlled subgrid heterogeneity in soil moisture, in particular where wetlands are present. We addressed this deficiency by building a subgrid representation of hillslope-scale topographic gradients, TiHy (Tiled-hillslope Hydrology), into the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) land model (LM3). LM3-TiHy models one or more representative hillslope geometries for each gridcell by discretizing them into land model tiles hydrologically coupled along an upland-to-lowland gradient. Each tile has its own surface fluxes, vegetation, and vertically-resolved state variables for soil physics and biogeochemistry. LM3-TiHy simulates a gradient in soil moisture and water-table depth between uplands and lowlands in each gridcell. Three hillslope hydrological regimes appear in non-permafrost regions in the model: wet and poorly-drained, wet and well-drained, and dry; with large, small, and zero wetland area predicted, respectively. Compared to the untiled LM3 in stand-alone experiments, LM3-TiHy simulates similar surface energy and water fluxes in the gridcell-mean. However, in marginally wet regions around the globe, LM3-TiHy simulates shallow groundwater in lowlands, leading to higher evapotranspiration, lower surface temperature, and higher leaf area compared to uplands in the same gridcells. Moreover, more than four-fold larger soil carbon concentrations are simulated globally in lowlands as compared with uplands. We compared water-table depths to those simulated by a recent global model-observational synthesis, and we compared wetland and inundated areas diagnosed from the model to observational datasets. The comparisons demonstrate that LM3-TiHy has the capability to represent some of the controls of these hydrological variables, but also that improvement in parameterization and input datasets are needed for more realistic simulations. We found large sensitivity in model-diagnosed wetland and inundated area to the depth of conductive soil and the parameterization of macroporosity. With improved parameterization and inclusion of peatland biogeochemical processes, the model could provide a new approach to investigating the vulnerability of Boreal peatland carbon to climate change in ESMs.


ABSTRACT Based on recent fieldwork and examination of herbarium collections from different parts of the Mediterranean climate areas of Chile, we report ten new bryophyte records for the country, including three liverwort and seven moss taxa. Six of these records are also new to South America. In addition, Trichostomum brachydontium Bruch is newly reported for continental Chile. Most species reported here correspond to ephemeral taxa, mostly visible only during the wet winter months (June-September). These results stress the need for further basic exploration of Chile bryophyte flora, and the urgent need to improve the cryptogamic collections in national herbaria. Acaulon uleanum Müll.Hal. and Ephemerum argentinicum Schiavone & Sarmiento are excluded from the bryophyte flora of Chile.


Purpose: Rototor cuff tears are most common of shoulder pain.and functional limitations. Kinesio tape (KT) are frequently used in the conservative treatment of shoulder pathology. Even if some studies showed that KT is effective on pain, we think that it is due to positive thoughts of the patients about KT. The aim of the study to investigate the effectiveness KT aplication with different verbal inputs on pain, function and range of motion (ROM) on patient with rotator cuff tear. Materials-Methods: 97 patients (Group 1, n=32; Group 2, n=33, Group 3, n=32) were randomized into 3 groups according to verbal input given to patients about the effectiveness of KT; Group 1 (it has been limited evidence of KT is effective), Group 2 (it has been not known that KT is effective or not), Group 3 (it has been known that KT has excellent result). The same standard KT was applied to 3 groups. The rest, night and pain in activity were assessed by VAS before, after 30 min and 24 hours after KT application. ROM assessed by goniometer and the function was evaluated by Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) and ASES before and 24 hours of KT application. Minimal clinically important difference and effective were calculated for the assessments used in the study. Results: Demographic variables were not different between groups. Resting pain did not change in Group 1 and Group 2 (p˂0,05), however all pain parameters was significantly reduced in Group 3 (p = 0.001). Intra-group changes of ROM were not significant in all groups. DASH and ASES were significantly improved only Group 2 and 3. However, there were not significant different in terms of VAS, ROM, DASH and ASES among three groups (p˃0,05). The effect size was found in only positive verbal given group (Group 3) higher than the other groups, but the effect size was found very low. Conclusions: According to our result, KT application with positive input was found effective on pain and function. However effect size was very weak. In addition this improvement was not clinically significant.


Objectives : This study follows up on previous work that began examining data deposited in an institutional repository. The work here extends the earlier study by answering the following lines of research questions: (1) What is the file composition of datasets ingested into the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus repository? Are datasets more likely to be single-file or multiple-file items? (2) What is the usage data associated with these datasets? Which items are most popular? Methods : The dataset records collected in this study were identified by filtering item types categorized as "data" or "dataset" using the advanced search function in IDEALS. Returned search results were collected in an Excel spreadsheet to include data such as the Handle identifier, date ingested, file formats, composition code, and the download count from the item's statistics report. The Handle identifier represents the dataset record's persistent identifier. Composition represents codes that categorize items as single or multiple file deposits. Date available represents the date the dataset record was published in the campus repository. Download statistics were collected via a website link for each dataset record and indicates the number of times the dataset record has been downloaded. Once the data was collected, it was used to evaluate datasets deposited into IDEALS. Results : A total of 522 datasets were identified for analysis covering the period between January 2007 and August 2016. This study revealed two influxes occurring during the period of 2008-2009 and in 2014. During the first timeframe a large number of PDFs were deposited by the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Whereas, Microsoft Excel files were deposited in 2014 by the Rare Books and Manuscript Library. Single-file datasets clearly dominate the deposits in the campus repository. The total download count for all datasets was 139,663 and the average downloads per month per file across all datasets averaged 3.2. Conclusion : Academic librarians, repository managers, and research data services staff can use the results presented here to anticipate the nature of research data that may be deposited within institutional repositories. With increased awareness, content recruitment, and improvements, IRs can provide a viable cyberinfrastructure for researchers to deposit data, but much can be learned from the data already deposited. Awareness of trends can help librarians facilitate discussions with researchers about research data deposits as well as better tailor their services to address short-term and long-term research needs.


At the 12th annual Bank of Canada economic conference, held in Ottawa on 4 and 5 December 2003, representatives from various public and private organizations and Bank of Canada staff discussed papers presented on three key issues affecting the financial system: financial contagion, the implications of bank diversification, and financial sector regulation. Papers on financial contagion studied the effect of globalization on Canadian foreign-asset exposures, developed a general-equilibrium model of a competitive interfirm lending market in which firms can borrow or lend, and used market-based indicators to determine the probability that contagion can be generated by interbank exposures. The papers on bank diversification focused on the links between the changing behaviour of financial institutions and risk-return trade-offs. Issues of financial sector regulation included the relationship between governance and financial sector soundness, the theoretical basis of bank regulations for capital requirements, and the implications of bank capital requirements for the transmission of monetary policy. A panel discussion provided extended discussion of the conference papers.


The difference between European and American regulation of marketplace privacy is well-established: information privacy is protected more under European law than American law. Recently, with the revelation of a number of U.S. government, anti-terrorism programs, it has become clear that the transatlantic difference is not limited to the market. Also in the face of government action, Europeans protect information privacy more than Americans. This paper brings to light the legal differences between the two systems by considering the case - real in the United States, hypothetical in Europe - of a spy agency's database of call records, created for the purpose of identifying potential terrorists. The paper explains that, under American law, such an anti-terrorism database might very well be legal, and that, under European law, such an anti-terrorism database would clearly be illegal. It then reviews the barriers to transatlantic cooperation on fighting terrorism that have been created by the legal difference. The paper also considers the reasons for this transatlantic difference - surprising in view of the common wisdom that Americans are more suspicious of government interferences with individual liberty than Europeans. The paper concludes with a few recommendations for the reform of American information privacy law, principal among them being the establishment of an independent privacy agency.


This article develops the point that the problems associated with contractual holdup may justify legal intervention in theory, and the article relates this conclusion to legal intervention in practice. Contractual holdup is considered for both fresh contracts and for modifications of contracts. The law can in principle alleviate the incentive and risk-bearing problems due to holdup in two ways. One approach is for the law simply to void agreements made in certain circumstances, since that will remove the prospect of profit from holdup. This policy may be desirable when the events that permit holdup are engineered, for these events would not have been instigated if they would not have resulted in enforceable contracts. When situations of need are not engineered (bad weather puts a ship in jeopardy), flat voiding of contracts is undesirable, since contracts for aid in situations of need (to tow a ship) are often socially beneficial. In these circumstances, the policy of controlling the contract price is preferable, as that policy can reduce the problems of holdup but still allow contracts to be made. Both types of legal intervention in contracts and their modifications – voiding without regard to price and control of price – are used by courts to counter problems of pronounced holdup. Also, various price control regulations appear to serve the same objective, at least in part, for instance maximum price ordinances for car towing services, emergency price regulations, and the historically important rule of laesio enormis of the Middle Ages. * I wish to thank Oren Bar-Gill, Omri Ben-Shahar, Richard Craswell, Allen Ferrell, Victor Goldberg, Louis Kaplow, A. Mitchell Polinsky, Michael Trebilcock, and Joel Watson for comments, Tracy Dodds, Daniel Kelly, and Christopher Lee for research assistance, and the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard Law School for research support. Contracts, Holdup, and Legal Intervention


The Semantic Web aims to make information accessible to both humans and machines, using standard formats for data and making information available in a formal and structured way. Since the advent of RDF (Resource Description Framework) there have been many efforts to extract and convert existing information in this format. In this paper we describe an adapter tool for the IMAP protocol, developed as a plugin of SquirrelRDF, which allows users to query IMAP mailboxes using SPARQL. The information returned looks like RDF, is always current, and can be reused and integrated inside other applications.


Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, is fundamental for physiological processes such as embryonic and postnatal development, wound repair, and reproductive functions. Angiogenesis plays a major role in tumor growth and in several autoimmune and allergic disorders. Lymphangiogenesis, the formation of new lymphatic vessels, is also important for tumor growth, the formation of metastasis, and chronic inflammatory diseases. Judah Folkman, a pioneer in the study of angiogenesis, first proposed that macrophages and mast cells could be a relevant source of angiogenic factors. Since then, much effort has gone into the elucidation of the role of immune cells in the modulation of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. There is now compelling evidence that several components of the innate and adaptive immune system are implicated in inflammatory and neoplastic angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. Articles in this volume deal with the emerging, intriguing possibility that immune cells are both a source and a target of angiogenic and lymphangiogenic factors. Therefore, cells of the immune system might play a role in inflammatory and neoplastic angiogenesis/lymphangiogenesis through the expression of several angiogenic factors and their receptors and co-receptors. The important new findings in this volume will be of special interest to vascular biologists, basic and clinical immunologists, oncologists and to specialists in allergic and immune disorders.


In general, Healthcare information systems (HIS) majorly maintains three kinds of health & medical records such as personal Heath Record (PHR), Electronic Medical Record (EMR), and Electronic Health Record (EHR).Today's health care providers normally host their HIS at their private data centers, or with cloud service providers. Normally, the records such as EMR and EHR are maintained by the Health care providers HIS. The PHR, which contains history of the health information about the individuals is normally maintained by the patients itself. Earlier, it was maintained manually by the individual. But, nowadays, we have host of cloud applications to maintain the PHR. Thus PHR hosted in these cloud applications can be accessed from anywhere in the world by authenticated persons and can be shared with desired health care providers. But the sharing of PHR demands many requirements such as sharing only desired part of the record instead of complete record, sharing with anonymous parties of no pre-existing relationship with assured privacy and integrity of the record. A complete healthcare solution also demands timely & selective sharing of relevant EMR & EHR among the federations of healthcare providers with the grant of patient's permission. Thus sharing of various Health & Medical records among various stakeholders in a timely and selective manner is of utmost necessity for global quality healthcare treatment. In this paper, we proposed a federated cloud computing framework, which enables the sharing of Health & Medical records among the various stakeholders with ease of timely access, ensuring privacy & integrity of the records. We have validated our approach by conducting a set of rigorous evaluation study using the CloudSim toolkit.


BACKGROUND
A high dietary calcium intake with adequate vitamin D status has been linked to lower colorectal cancer risk, but the mechanisms of these effects are poorly understood.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to elucidate the effects of a Western-style diet (WD) and supplemental calcium and/or 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3] on the colorectal mucosa.

DESIGN
We conducted 2 crossover trials to define molecular pathways in the human colorectum altered by 1) a 4-wk WD supplemented with and without 2 g calcium carbonate/d and 2) a 4-wk WD supplemented with 1,25(OH)2D3 (0.5 μg/d) with or without 2 g calcium carbonate/d. The primary study endpoint was genome-wide gene expression in biopsy specimens of the rectosigmoid colonic mucosa. Serum and urinary calcium concentrations were also measured.

RESULTS
Changes in urinary calcium accurately reflected calcium consumption. The WD induced modest upregulation of genes involved in inflammatory pathways, including interferon signaling, and calcium supplementation reversed these toward baseline. In contrast, supplementation of the WD with 1,25(OH)2D3 induced striking upregulation of genes involved in inflammation, immune response, extracellular matrix, and cell adhesion. Calcium supplementation largely abrogated these changes.

CONCLUSIONS
Supplementing 1,25(OH)2D3 to a WD markedly upregulated genes in immune response and inflammation pathways, which were largely reversed by calcium supplementation. This study provides clinical trial evidence of global gene expression changes occurring in the human colorectum in response to calcium and 1,25(OH)2D3 intervention. One action of 1,25(OH)2D3 is to upregulate adaptive immunity. Calcium appears to modulate this effect, pointing to its biological interaction in the mucosa. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00298545 Trial protocol is available at http://clinicalstudies.rucares.org (protocol numbers PHO475 and PHO554).


In this report we discuss, synthesize and further develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach. A dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem approach is developed to analyze entrepreneurship in the Netherlands: how it has evolved, why the rate of solo self-employment has increased and how the entrepreneurial ecosystem can be adapted to increase productive entrepreneurship. We summarize and extend the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature with a model that includes framework conditions (formal institutions, culture, physical infrastructure, and demand) and systemic conditions (networks, leadership, finance, talent, new knowledge, and support services) that affect entrepreneurial outputs (entrepreneurial activity) and outcomes indicating value creation (productivity, income, employment and well-being). The Netherlands has seen a remarkable rise of independent entrepreneurship in the last decade. However, this rise of independent entrepreneurship reveals to be predominantly a rise in solo self-employment, not an increase in growth oriented and innovative entrepreneurship. This shift can partly be explained by the specific institutional context of the Netherlands. The rise of self-employment in the Netherlands seems to have lowered unemployment rates, but it is unlikely that the rise of self-employment and new firm formation has positively affected innovation and in the end productivity growth over the period 1987-2013. This rise of self-employment and new firm formation and stagnation of innovation is what we label the Dutch Entrepreneurship Paradox. Especially favorable fiscal treatment of self-employed, and an increasing demand for flexible labor, stimulated the growth in the number of solo self-employed since the early 2000s. There is a major policy task not to let entrepreneurship be a driver of productivity decline (or at best a flexible belt in the labor market), but to stimulate productive entrepreneurship instead. In order to increase productive entrepreneurship in the Netherlands, we propose four policy actions. Each action addresses a change in one of the four framework conditions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem: changing formal institutions to enable labor mobility (development and circulation of talent); opening up public demand for entrepreneurs, to provide finance for new knowledge creation and application; stimulating a culture of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial leadership; adapting or creating physical infrastructure to enhance knowledge circulation and networks.


Background: The available information regarding the obesity pattern of the undergraduate female students of Kolkata is inadequate, though there are several reports which indicate the complications and/or awful consequences of obesity on female health particularly, during the reproductive years. Aim: The present investigation has thus been carried out to report their present physiological status along with the prevalence of obesity, based on their body mass index (BMI), some direct and derived anthropometric indices, and physical fitness. Subjects and Methods: This small-scale cross-sectional study conducted in randomly selected 100 female students of different colleges of Kolkata with the age of 18-22 [mean age 20.4 (2.3)] years. Measurements of body composition included total 24 variables, with thirteen direct and eleven derived anthropometric variables; while physical efficiency parameters were physical fitness index, VO2max, energy expenditure and anaerobic power. The data of the experimental group were compared with those of the control group by t-test, using SPSS v.15.0 and MS-Excel v.2013. Results: Analysis of collected data showed majority of the students have normal range of BMI (67.95%), but, 21.95% of students found to be overweight and 3.84% are obese. They also showed higher fat mass [14.40 (4.11)], but, lower waist-to-hip ratio and conicity index. They were found to have poor to moderate physical fitness [57.60 (3.90)] and higher energy expenditure [5.61 (0.72)]. Conclusion: The findings of the present obesity screening reports almost one of four female students (24 out of 100 participants) are overweight/obese, indicated higher body fat distribution and increased propensity of being obese with age. Thus, the overall data along with their low physical fitness points out to health risks among female undergraduates of Kolkata.


People have varying levels of hypermobility and proprioception that are held to be interrelated. This study sought to investigate hypermobility and proprioception in vocational-level musicians, comparing different instrument groups and examining variables that might account for these differences. Demographic information, handedness, musical background and training, injury history, joint hypermobility, and proprioception were collected from 28 music performance students. The participants had a mean hypermobility score of 2.14 (SD=2.45) with the men exhibiting less hypermobility than the women. While not significant, all instrument groups demonstrated clear differences in proprioception between the left and right hands. For the strings, harps, and pianists, these findings appear indicative of the mechanics of sound production. No significant findings emerged when examining the impact of hypermobility, training, or previous injury on proprioception. The findings support the use of the Leeds Hand Proprioceptometer as a valid means of assessing musicians' finger proprioception and suggest that, in highly trained musicians, the instrument played does influence proprioception.


The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 was intended to breathe new life into the ADA after the courts, especially the Supreme Court, had drastically narrowed the ADA's protected class. But since the ADA was amended in 2008, the Supreme Court has not decided any ADA cases. Thus, there are many ADA issues, especially in the employment context, that remain unresolved. This paper will attempt to determine whether we can expect a disability-friendly Supreme Court or whether the Court will once again narrowly construe individuals with disabilities' rights under the ADA. In doing so, I have uncovered some mixed signals. On the one hand, the body of Tenth Circuit ADA cases decided by our newest jurist, Justice Gorsuch, suggests an anti-disability bent. On the other hand, one possible source of good news for individuals with disabilities are two recent IDEA Supreme Court cases decided in 2017: Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools and Endrew F. ex rel. Joseph F. v. Douglas County School Dist. RE-1. Both of these cases were very plaintiff-friendly and both were unanimous (the Fry case had a two-justice concurrence). But are these plaintiff-friendly cases signaling a disability-friendly Supreme Court? Or is the plaintiff-friendly outcome of these cases not because they involve individuals with disabilities but because they involve educating children? And if the latter is true, what can we expect from the Supreme Court if and when it decides the unresolved ADA employment issues? This paper will attempt to answer these questions.


This paper is an economist's attempt to understand the behaviour of dictators with special reference to the Milosevic regime in Serbia. The author focuses on nationalism, ethnic cleansing and war, especially the most recent war with NATO. The basic argument is simple. First, like any dictator, Milosevic needed support in order to survive in office. His provocative and warlike actions towards other groups are best understood, not as the latest round in a centuries-old tradition of ethnic fighting, but as the attempt of a competitive politician to survive in a situation where the old basis of power had collapsed. Second, in attempting to survive the wave of democratization that swept Eastern Europe after 1989, Milosevic played a wild card—the nationalist card. Nationalism can be wild because, under some circumstances, it is contagious. Especially when combined with the security dilemma, it can spread uncontrollably. Ethnic cleansing and war are seen in this light as neither deliberate, coldly planned strategies of brutal repression, nor the results of complete miscalculation, but the results of a process in which the leadership of the regime was reacting to events which it may have set in motion, but did not entirely control.


This paper analyzes the shareholder gains surrounding the Malaysian bank merger
announcements on 29th July 1999 and 14th February 2000. Initiated by the Bank Negara
Malaysia (BNM) in the midst of financial crisis, the merger was not a market driven one
in its real sense. In particular, this study measures the impact of these merger
announcements on the appointed anchor bank, its target bank and combined bank. We
find that all CARt are statistically insignificant at any conventional level regardless of the
category during event window of 61-day and ll-day. We believe this is because these
mergers are arranged by BNM and are not market driven. There are shareholder gains
during the 11-day window for the combined bank category but the finding is not
statistically significant. However, they show slight positive returns but not substantial
during the 61-day window. We also find that the shorter periods ie. 11-day (-5,+5) would
give higher level of CARt than longer periods ie. 61-day (-30,+30) in both initial and
revised announcements. There are differences in CARt between the initial and revised
announcements even though both announcements are arranged by BNM and involved the same banks. We believe that the differences are mainly due to greater flexibility being
given to banks on merger during the revised announcement. There are also differences in
cumulative abnormal returns among the categories namely anchor bank, target bank and
combined bank during the 61-day window but for the event window 11-day, our finding
conclude that there is at least one category of CARt which is similar with the other
categories. For both event windows of 61-day and 11-day, CARt have a positive and
statistically significant relationship with the relative shareholders' funds of the anchor
bank (SHR) and New Anchor bank (NEW), and inverse relationship with the relative size
of anchor to target banks (ASSET).


Canada
has ratified international conventions which recognize the individual's right to
the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. Despite the adoption
of these covenants governments sometimes support policies and practises which trade
off individual human health with other conflicting interests. This review evaluates
the individual's right to health against government policies and practices which
support wind energy deployment in Canada. Our analysis presents government documents,
peer reviewed literature, and other references which support the conclusion that
wind energy deployment in Canada can be expected to result in avoidable harm to
human health. This harm conflicts with contemporary health and social justice principles.
Governments have a responsibility to help Canadians maintain and improve their health
by generating effective responses for the prevention of avoidable harm. Individuals
have a right to make informed decisions about their health. Knowledge gaps and
potential risks to health should be fully disclosed. Individuals should not be
exposed to industrial wind turbines without their informed consent.


In this article, we discuss the ethical issues raised by large-scale online social experiments using the controversy surrounding the so-called Facebook emotional contagion study as our prime example (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014). We describe how different parties approach the issues raised by the study and which aspects they highlight, discerning how data science advocates and data science critics use different sets of analogies to strategically support their claims. Through a qualitative and non-representative discourse analysis we find that proponents weigh the arguments for and against online social experiments with each other, while critics question the legitimacy of the implicit assignment of different roles to scientists and subjects in such studies. We conclude that rather than the effects of the research itself, the asymmetrical nature of the relationship between these actors and the present status of data science as a (to the wider public) black box is at the heart of the controversy that followed the Facebook study, and that this perceived asymmetry is likely to lead to future conflicts.


Although prior small-scale randomized controlled trials have shown the potential of acupuncture in effectively managing cancer-related fatigue (CRF) after chemotherapy (1), the study by Molassiotis et al . (2) is the first large, multi-site trial examining this question. In their study, 302 outpatients with breast cancer experiencing persistent long-term fatigue were assigned to one of two groups: usual care, consisting of an information booklet related to fatigue, or acupuncture plus usual care.


While the ability of the retroviral oncogene V-jun to transform chicken cells led to its discovery, the oncogenic potential of its cellular homologue, c-jun, which encodes a transcription factor, is unknown. We isolated a 1070-base-pair cDNA clone containing the unmutated entire open reading frame of c-jun from a human small cell lung cancer line. This cDNA as well as a 5.6-kilobase normal human genomic DNA fragment containing the c-jun gene were placed under the control of retroviral long terminal repeats and introduced into primary rat embryo cells (RECs), with or without other oncogenes, and into an immortal rat fibroblast cell line, Rat-1a, as a single gene. In Rat-1a cells the expression of human c-jun mRNA was associated with the ability to clone in soft agarose and form tumors in nude mice. When the c-jun cDNA or genomic DNA constructs were introduced into RECs, no foci of transformed cells were seen with c-jun alone or c-jun cotransfected with deregulated c-myc or L-myc protooncogenes. However, cotransfection of the c-jun constructs with an activated human c-Ha-ras gene led to foci of transformed cells which gave rise to immortalized cell lines that cloned in soft agarose and formed tumors in nude mice. Furthermore, formation of foci of transformed RECs by the c-jun/ras combination was augmented 3-fold by the tumor promoter phorbol 12-tetradecanoate 13-acetate. We conclude that deregulated expression of human c-jun can participate in malignant transformation of normal mammalian cells.


The modern constitutional law canon fundamentally misdescribes rational basis review. Through a series of errors — of omission, simplification, and recharacterization — we have largely erased a robust history of the use of rational basis review by social movements to generate constitutional change. Instead, the story the canon tells is one of dismal prospects for challengers of government action — in which rational basis review is an empty, almost meaningless form of review.
This Article suggests that far from the weak and ineffectual mechanism that most contemporary accounts suggest, rational basis review has, in the modern era, served as one of the primary equal protection entry points for social movements seeking to disrupt the status quo. Moreover, it suggests that unlike the narrowly constrained theories of robust rational basis review that predominate today, the actual history (and present) of rational basis review has included a wide diversity of more meaningful forms of review.
To elucidate the problems with canonical accounts of rational basis review, this Article focuses on four ways in which the contemporary constitutional canon misdescribes or distorts our understanding of the real role of rational basis review: (1) by misdescribing how contemporary social movements achieve meaningful scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause; (2) by recharacterizing successful rational basis cases as only "purporting" to apply rational basis review; (3) by ignoring many sites of constitutional contestation, including the lower and state courts and the political branches; and (4) by oversimplifying and thus narrowly cabining any acknowledgment of more meaningful forms of rational basis review.
Correcting these errors would afford a far different vision of rational basis review. Rather than a uniformly deferential form of review, rational basis review would be understood, correctly, as a deeply inconsistent, "persistently confused" area of constitutional law. Moreover, this very inconsistency would be understood as offering social movements — both historically and today — among the most promising avenues for generating constitutional change.


Since the early 1990s, Canada's publicly funded archival repositories have been reducing
their involvement in the acquisition of private-sector records. The decline in central
government involvement has been matched by a steady increase in the number and nature
of community-based, institutional, or organisational repositories.
The acquisition and preservation of privately generated archival records by the public
sector has been a central aspect of Canadian archival practice for many years. It is partly
a result of the Canadian perception that government has a significant role to play in the
social and cultural affairs of its citizens. It has also resulted from an inclusive definition
of the concept of `archives, ' one that has encouraged the preservation of a wide range of
historical materials for evidential, informational, and cultural reasons. This concept has
been called `total archives' and has evolved into a `Canadian archival system. '
This thesis examines the evolution of Canadian acquisition practices, from the beginnings
in the mid-1800s to the present day. The first seven chapters trace the history of
acquisition policy, which began in the colonial and early Confederation period with the
appointment of Douglas Brymner as the first `national archivist. ' The role of Arthur
Doughty, Dominion Archivist and consummate collector, is examined, as are the findings
of subsequent Canadian commissions concerned with archival work: the Royal
Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, in the 1950s, the
Royal Commission on Government Organization, in the 1960s, the Commission on
Canadian Studies, in the 1970s, and the Consultative Group on Canadian Archives, in the
1980s. These chapters trace the activities that influenced archival acquisition at the time,
as well as the effect of these events on the archival community's perceptions of the nature
of archives and the role of the archivist.
The last chapter examines conditions influencing archival acquisition in Canada in the
1990s. These include the restructuring of government in the face of a growing public
deficit, with the consequent reduction or elimination of non-critical public functions.
Also discussed is the effect of increased government accountability, as evidenced by
access to information legislation, on acquisition. As well, the impact of sophisticated
information and telecommunications technologies is reviewed. The archival community's
reactions to these changes is explored.
The thesis concludes by considering several questions raised throughout the thesis. What
is an archival record? What is the purpose of preserving archival records? What actions
may be taken to ensure the preservation of Canada's documentary memory in a time of
changing governmental and societal priorities? The reality of territoriality and regional
identity, and the importance of preserving society's collective memory, are examined in
the context of archival management.


This article examines lobbying in the United States on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). I argue that economies of scale and production sharing across borders create incentives for firms to seek regional trade liberalization. Statistical analysis demonstrates that sectors with these characteristics were more likely to lobby for free trade in North America; these sectors were also exposed to free trade more rapidly under the tariff-phasing schedule in the NAFTA treaty. However, corporate restructuring to rescale production for the regional market and to increase offshore assembly presented adjustment costs for U.S. workers, which created divisions between labor unions and their employers. I conclude that regional arrangements are an attractive mechanism to liberalize trade for firms in need of larger-than-national markets to take advantage of economies of scale or to develop production-sharing networks.


Transition-metal complexes containing (C–C) → M s -interactions have potential applications in both catalysis and the activation and cleavage of C–C bonds. Fully characterising the bonding and interactions in complexes containing such (C–C) → M s -interactions is vital to understand their chemical behaviour. As a result a high-resolution experimental X-ray charge density study has been undertaken on [Rh(Binor-S)(PCy 3 )][HCB 11 Me 11 ] (Binor-S = 1,2,4,5,6,8-dimetheno-s -indacene) which contains a (C–C) → Rh interaction. The data are analysed using Bader's "Atoms in Molecules" (AIM) approach with particular attention paid to the interactions around the rhodium centre. The results provide clear evidence for the s (C–C) → Rh interaction in the solid-state which is classified as a weak covalent interaction. These results are supported by theoretical calculations.


This qualitative study focuses on a planning process in Baton Rouge, Louisiana called Plan Baton Rouge, which began in the summer of 1998 and continues through the present. The overriding goal of the Plan Baton Rouge process is to revitalize downtown Baton Rouge and promote economic and cultural vitality while implementing the design practices of New Urbanism. New Urbanism is a design methodology that condemns suburban sprawl while promoting denser, early-twentieth-century-style townscapes and urban centers, focusing on mixed land use, pedestrianism, and aesthetic and architectural continuity. Through participant observation, this ethnographic account of New Urbanism in practice provides an in-depth case-study of how New Urbanism, a far-reaching international planning paradigm, works in a specially local context. Throughout the Plan Baton Rouge process, public participation was solicited through a charrette townplanning format. I argue that Baton Rouge is promoted in a particular way, creating a seemingly interactive dialogue between charismatic leader, local planners, politicians, and participants. Specifically, a powerful learning discourse is strategically implemented in the planning document as well as the public meetings to create an experience perceived as innovative and inherently progressive. But New Urbanism isn't always about looking forward. As New Urbanists draw directly from design elements of the past, they also depend upon solicited public local memories during the planning process to strengthen their use of neotraditional design. Through the use of memories and photographs, "the way things use to be" becomes a powerful and evocative selling tool in engaging both local planners and community participants. However, while it is


Sjögren's syndrome is an autoimmune inflammatory disease that affects the lacrimal and salivary glands. To identify a potential animal model for study of Sjögren's syndrome, an evaluation was made of lacrimal and salivary glands in the C3H/lpr autoimmune strain mouse at ages before (2 months) and after (5 months) systemic autoimmune disease onset at 3 to 4 months. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of, C3H/lpr lacrimal and salivary (parotid, submandibular, and sublingual) gland histopathology were performed using age-matched C3H/HeJ nonautoimmune mice to control for inflammation of nonautoimmune origin. No lacrimal or salivary gland inflammation was seen in either of the strains at 2 months of age and measures of systemic autoimmune disease were negative. At 5 months of age, the nonautoimmune C3H/HeJ controls showed a slight increase in lacrimal gland inflammation, but this was not significantly different from the 2 month old controls. A significant increase in lacrimal gland inflammation was found in the 5 month old C3H/lpr autoimmune mice in a histologic pattern similar to that of Sjögren's syndrome in human beings. Furthermore, the degree of inflammation was positively correlated with serum immune complexes and spleen weight. Sporadic inflammation of the submandibular gland was seen in both autoimmune and control mice, but this was neither statistically significant nor correlated with measures of autoimmunity. No significant inflammation was seen in the parotid or sublingual glands.


The objective of this work was to evaluate the phytochemical profile and bioactivity of extracts of Brazilian stinging ("cansancao") nettle ( Cnidoscolus urens ) on cabbage caterpillar ( Ascia monuste orseis ). Mortality, larval stage duration, pupal viability and mass, percentage of deformed pupae, and feeding preference were evaluated. The constituent classes of the ethanolic extracts were also identified by analytical thin-layer chromatography (TLC). Ethanolic extracts of leaves and roots at 2% (m/v) and aqueous extract of roots at 20% (m/v) prolonged the larval phase of the insect. The ethanolic extract of leaves at 2% reduced pupal viability, and pupae from all treatments showed reduced masses and generated deformed adults. Except for the ethanolic extract of stem at 2% (m/v), all other extracts showed a deterrent effect on A. monuste orseis  larvae. The phytochemical analysis of ethanolic extracts showed the major presence of phenolic compounds, naphthoquinones, anthraquinones, coumarins, anthracene derivatives, terpenes, and steroids, as well as tannins. Aqueous extracts at 20% concentration and ethanolic extracts at 2% of leaves, stems, and roots of cansancao nettle cause larval mortality and also reduce leaf consumption, pupal viability, and pupal mass of  A. monuste orseis .


Despite of low fabrication cost and flexibility, limited life time is the major disadvantage of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells (OSCs). The main causes of short life time of OSCs is the degradation of active layer in presence of light and O2 and the effect of the acidic PEDOT:PSS on the ITO electrode. To overcome this problem PEDOT: PSS can be replaced by a p-type metal oxide hole transportation layer, such as NiO. There are reports on vacuum deposited NiO hole transporting layers in OSCs. Here, we have used the low-cost spin coating technique to deposit the NiO layer from a dispersion of NiO particles in methanol. Concentration and deposition parameters were optimized to obtain 40-50 nm thick layer of NiO as observed by tapping mode atomic force microscopy. The device performance of P3HT:PCBM solar cell with ITO/PEDOT: PSS and ITO/NiO electrodes was compared.