Abstract. This study focuses on an improved representation of the biological soft tissue pump in the global three-dimensional biogeochemical ocean model PISCES. We compare three parameterizations of particle dynamics: (1) the model standard version including two particle size classes, aggregation-disaggregation and prescribed sinking speed; (2) an aggregation-disaggregation model with a particle size spectrum and prognostic sinking speed; (3) a mineral ballast parameterization with no size classes, but prognostic sinking speed. In addition, the model includes a description of surface sediments and organic carbon early diagenesis. Model output is compared to data or data based estimates of ocean productivity, pe-ratios, particle fluxes, surface sediment bulk composition and benthic O2 fluxes. Model results suggest that different processes control POC fluxes at different depths. In the wind mixed layer turbulent particle coagulation appears as key process in controlling pe-ratios. Parameterization (2) yields simulated pe-ratios that compare well to observations. Below the wind mixed layer, POC fluxes are most sensitive to the intensity of zooplankton flux feeding, indicating the importance of zooplankton community composition. All model parameters being kept constant, the capability of the model to reproduce yearly mean POC fluxes below 2000 m and benthic oxygen demand does at first order not dependent on the resolution of the particle size spectrum. Aggregate formation appears essential to initiate an intense biological pump. At great depth the reported close to constant particle fluxes are most likely the result of the combined effect of aggregate formation and mineral ballasting.


In 1963 Marvin Kalb observed the Secret Service escorting an attractive woman into a hotel for what was most likely a rendezvous with President Kennedy. Kalb, then a news correspondent for CBS, didn't consider the incident newsworthy. Thirty-five years later, Kalb watched in dismay as the press dove headfirst into the scandal of President Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, disclosing every prurient detail. How and why had the journalistic landscape shifted so dramatically? "One Scandalous Story" seeks to answer this critical question through the inside story of thirteen days -- January 13-25, 1998 -- that make up a vital chapter in the history of American journalism. In riveting detail, Kalb examines just how the media covered the Lewinsky scandal, offering what he calls an "X-ray of the Washington press corps." Drawing on hundreds of original interviews, Kalb allows us to eavesdrop on the incestuous deals between reporters and sources, the bitter disagreements among editors, the machination of moguls for whom news is Big Business, and above all, the frantic maneuvering to break the story. With fresh insight, he retraces decisions made by Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek," Internet renegade Matt Drudge, Jackie Judd of ABC, Clinton-basher Lucianne Goldberg, Susan Schmidt of "The Washington Post," Jackie Bennett of the Office of the Independent Counsel, and other key players in this scandal that veered from low comedy to high drama. Through the lens of those thirteen turbulent days, Kalb offers us a portrait of the "new news" in all its contradictions. He reveals how intense economic pressures in the news business, the ascendancy of the Internet, theblurring of roles between reporters and commentators, and a surge of dubious sourcing and "copy-cat journalism" have combined to make tabloid-style journalism increasingly mainstream. But are we condemned to a resurgence of "yellow journalism"? Painstakingly documented and sobering in its conclusions, "One Scandalous Story" issues a clarion call to newsmakers and the American public alike: "Journalism can change for the better -- and must."


Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) is a second-stage development for those industries that have mastered Six Sigma applications in their manufacturing processes. In developing nations where Six Sigma concepts have not picked up in manufacturing, Design for Six Sigma would be a far-fetched dream. Instead, the same end result of reliability in design can be approached by tracking a simpler metric called First Time Right (FTR). This measures the number of instances where the first design worked successfully. The present paper outlines a methodology to identify and improve the factors that affect FTR. This methodology has helped our industry in successfully raising the reliability of our designs from 20% to 72%, over a period of six years.


In response to calls for increased regulation of advertising to children (occasioned by concerns over childhood obesity levels) a group of UK advertisers targeting young people have sought to demonstrate social responsibility by providing media literacy education resources for children aged six to eleven through the MediaSmart® initiative. This article draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 2001) to analyse a selection of publicly available accounts of the 2002 launch and operation of MediaSmart® in order to explore how alternative discursive representations of MediaSmart® construct children and advertising in relation to one another, and how these constructions work to further the social practices of which the discourses in question are part. The analysis concludes that the competing discourses have a stake in the problem of advertising to children remaining open‐ended, but suggests that the possibilities of its resolution lie in (a) the incorporation of children's own perspectives in controversy conducted on their behalf by adults, and (b) conceptions of media literacy which are more active and age‐inclusive than those evident in the discourses currently available.


One of the key activities in telerobotic and emerging virtual environment systems is mechanical interaction with objects. In normal human experience, mechanical (or haptic) interaction is one of the most expressive ways in which one can effect changes in the environment. How one can and should build suitable haptic interfaces (gloves, joysticks, exo‐skeletons, etc.) is currently a subject of intense research throughout the world. Given that haptic interface design is severely limited by available technology, critical choices between complexity and performance must be made. Ultimately these choices must be made with knowledge of task complexity and the required fidelity of display. This presentation will review the current state of haptic interface technology, attempt to classify the important performance attributes, and try to give a sense of the design challenges which lie ahead.


Background The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) Statement was published to help authors improve how they report systematic reviews. It is unknown how many journals mention PRISMA in their instructions to authors, or whether stronger journal language regarding use of PRISMA improves author compliance. Methodology/Principal Findings An Internet-based investigation examined the extent to which 146 leading medical journals have incorporated the PRISMA Statement into their instructions to authors. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Also, systematic reviews published in the leading anesthesiology journals and the QUOROM (QUality Of Reporting Of Meta-analyses) Statement were used to explore the hypothesis that indicating compliance with the QUOROM Statement in the manuscript is associated with improved compliance with the reporting guideline. In a sample of 146 journals publishing systematic reviews, the PRISMA Statement was referred to in the instructions to authors for 27% (40/146) of journals; more often in general and internal medicine journals (7/14; 50%) than in specialty medicine journals (33/132; 25%). In the second part of the study, 13 systematic reviews published in the leading anesthesiology journals in 2008 were included for appraisal. Mention of the QUOROM Statement in the manuscript was associated with higher compliance with the QUOROM checklist (P = 0.022). Conclusions/Significance Most of the leading medical journals used ambiguous language regarding what was expected of authors. Further improvement on quality of reporting of systematic reviews may entail journals clearly informing authors of their requirements. Stronger directions, such as requiring an indication of adherence to a research quality of reporting statement in the manuscript, may improve reporting and utility of systematic reviews.


Highly inbred mice of three strains (A/J, DBA/2J and C57BL/6J) were tested in an activity task at 14, 21, or 28 days of age. Ten minutes prior to testing, mice received treatment of either saline, scopolamine (0.5 or 1.0 mg/kg) or d-amphetamine (0.5, 1.0 or 5.0 mg/kg). At 14 days of age DBA mice exhibited higher levels of activity than either A or C57 mice. However, the increase in activity in C57 was such that at 21 and 28 days no difference was observed relative to DBA mice, and activity was higher than that of A mice. With respect to the drug treatments, d-amphetamine (5.0 mg/kg) increased activity in all strains at 14 days and 28 days of age. At 21 days, only C57 exhibited lack of a significant increase in activity. Clearly, the system responsible for responsivity to d-amphetamine (dopamine and norepinephrine) is mature at 14 days of age. In contrast to d-amphetamine, a response to scopolamine was evident in DBA at 21 days of age, and in C57 and A at 28 days of age. These data were taken to support a caudal-rostral gradient of brain development, with the inhibitory cholinergic system developing more slowly than the excitatory catecholamine system. Moreover, there also appears to be strain-specific differences in neuronal development. The differential development of the cholinergic system, together with potential differences in the ontogeny of the catecholamine system, were suggested as being responsible for age dependent variations in activity, as well as differential responsivity to pharmacological agents which increase catecholamine activity.


In recent times, cancer subtype classification has been regarded for its capability of considerably advancing the disease prognosis and progressing the customized administration of patients. Cancer subtypes identification is considered to be the most complicated process, as it faces the challenge of inadequate methods with regards to the accurate determination of gene expressions. Previously, the classification process of cancer subtypes preferred a Deep Flexible Neural Forest (DFN Forest) strategy which is an incorporation of Flexible Neural Tree (FNT) approach. However, it possesses the minimum accuracy due to the inability of choosing the appropriate features and consumption of extended time for classification process. This problem has surpassed by proposing the approach that has developed as Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) with Deep Fuzzy Flexible Neural Forest (DFFN Forest) approach. The proposed research intended to measure the cancer subtypes through introducing novel strategies of feature selection and classifier, as these two processes play a significant role during the cancer diagnosis. During the feature selection process, the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm has been used to diminish the miss rate of the classifier, besides the chosen feature has performed in the Deep Fuzzy Flexible Neural Forest (DFFN Forest), in which the Fuzzy function has presented, concerning the advancement of DFN Forest classifier's outputs. The DFFN Forest method included the fuzzy logic for updating the classifier's weight values during the prediction of cancer subtype. The evaluation of proposed algorithm has processed by considering the factors, such as accuracy, precision, recall, f-measure, and error ratio of the classifier.


Video blogs (or vlogs) are a form of blogs where each post is a video. This study explores the community of video bloggers (or vloggers) by studying the community's structure as well as the motivations and interactions of vloggers in the community. A social network analysis of a list of personal vloggers identifies the community's structure. Open-ended interviews with core vloggers in the sample provide in-depth understanding on the motivations and interactions of the vloggers. Overall, the results indicate that the vloggers' community exhibits a core/periphery structure. Such community is formed based upon shared interest and active interaction. In addition, the rich communication provided in vlogs allows for a more personal and intimate interaction, making vlogs a potentially powerful tool for business applications.


Realtime data processing powers many use cases at Facebook, including realtime reporting of the aggregated, anonymized voice of Facebook users, analytics for mobile applications, and insights for Facebook page administrators. Many companies have developed their own systems; we have a realtime data processing ecosystem at Facebook that handles hundreds of Gigabytes per second across hundreds of data pipelines. Many decisions must be made while designing a realtime stream processing system. In this paper, we identify five important design decisions that affect their ease of use, performance, fault tolerance, scalability, and correctness. We compare the alternative choices for each decision and contrast what we built at Facebook to other published systems. Our main decision was targeting seconds of latency, not milliseconds. Seconds is fast enough for all of the use cases we support and it allows us to use a persistent message bus for data transport. This data transport mechanism then paved the way for fault tolerance, scalability, and multiple options for correctness in our stream processing systems Puma, Swift, and Stylus. We then illustrate how our decisions and systems satisfy our requirements for multiple use cases at Facebook. Finally, we reflect on the lessons we learned as we built and operated these systems.


The language Esterel has found success in many safety-critical applications, such as fly-by-wire systems and nuclear power plant control software. Its imperative style is natural to programmers building such systems and its precise semantics makes it work well for reasoning about programs. Existing semantics of Esterel generally fall into two categories: translation to Boolean circuits, or operational semantics that give a procedure for running a whole program. In contrast, equational theories enable reasoning about program behavior via equational rewrites at the source level. Such theories form the basis for proofs of transformations inside compilers or for program refactorings, and defining program evaluation syntactically. This paper presents the first such equational calculus for Esterel. It also illustrates the calculus's usefulness with a series of example equivalences and discuss how it enabled us to find bugs in Esterel implementations.


In Suresh v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Ahani v. MCI, the Supreme Court of Canada declared that removing a refugee accused of terrorism to a country where he or she would face a substantial risk of torture or similar abuse would virtually always violate the individual's rights under s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. While the Court deserves praise for vindicating fundamental human rights over competing claims of national security, coming so close on the heels of September 11, the victory is in certain respects more apparent than real. Given the strong endorsement of judicial deference to the exercise of Ministerial discretion in national security matters, the Court leaves the state wide scope to circumvent the spirit of the judgment while adhering to its


Informal settlements represent a challenging operational context for local government service providers due to precarious contextual conditions. Location choice and land procurement for public infrastructure raise the complicated question: who has the right to occupy, control, and use a piece of land in informal settlements? There is currently a dearth of intelligence on how to identify well-located land for public infrastructure, spatially and with careful consideration for safeguarding the claimed rights and preventing conflicts. Drawing on a case study of green infrastructure retrofit in seven informal settlements in Makassar, Indonesia, we classify the informal settlers' land rights into four types: ownership, use, control, and management. This exploratory study uses a typological approach to investigate the spatial dimension of land rights in informal settlements. We introduce non-registrable land interests and the partial, dynamic, and informal land use rights that impact the land procurement for infrastructure retrofit. We also create a simple spatial matrix describing the control/power, responsibilities and land interests of different stakeholders involved in the location decision making for public infrastructure. We argue that without sufficient understanding of non-formal land rights, land procurement proposals for the public infrastructure upgrades can be frustrated by the individual or group claims on the land, making the service provision impossible in informal settlements.


Resolution in seismic tomography intimately depends on data coverage, with different parts of seismograms sensitive to different parts of Earth's structure. In classical seismic tomography, the usable amount of data is often restricted because of approximations to the wave equation. 3-D numerical simulations of wave propagation provide new opportunities for increasing the amount of usable data in seismograms by choosing appropriate misfit functions which have direct control on Frechet derivatives. We propose new misfit functions for full waveform tomography based on instantaneous phase differences and envelope ratios between observed and synthetic seismograms. The aim is to extract as much information as possible from a single seismogram. Using the properties of the Hilbert transform, we separate phase and amplitude information in the time domain. To gain insight in the advantages and disadvantages of chosen misfit functions, we make qualitative comparisons of the corresponding finite-frequency adjoint sensitivity kernels with those from commonly used misfit functions based on cross-correlation traveltime, amplitude and waveform differences. The major advantages of our misfit functions are: (1) working in the Hilbert domain reduces non-linear behaviour of waveforms due to interaction of phase and amplitude information, and (2) we show with noise-free synthetic seismograms that it is possible to use a complete seismogram without losing information from low-amplitude phases. Complementary to instantaneous phase measurements, envelope measurements provide a way of using amplitude information of waveforms, which may also easily be extended to constrain anelastic properties. The properties of the kernels allow us to simplify the tomography problem by separating elastic and anelastic inversions. First indications are that the kernels remain well behaved in the presence of noise.


The development of a system that evaluates the performances of an LED (light-emitting diode) wafer using a non-destructive test method after crystal growth and before chip processing is presented. The system measures electroluminescent characteristics of two sides of an epi-wafer. When a probe makes contact with an epi-wafer, a source meter drives an electric current, then emits LED light. Optical characteristics were measured by two spectrometers and two pico-am meters. The measured data were peak wavelength, FWHM (full width at half maximum), forward current, forward voltage and reverse current. The measuring devices are installed on the front and rear of the wafer. The probe and measuring devices were transferred by a 3-axis stage for the EL contact. Mapping images of the epi-wafer were obtained using these characteristics. The correlation between wafer state and chip state, and repeatability for an epi-wafer, were considered in the test.


This article challenges Oesterdiekhoff's 'cognitivedevelopmental' model. First, a biosocial model of the origins of Western civilization is presented, tracing the origins of Western intelligence and creativity to evolutionary change amongst the ancestors of contemporary populations starting in the Pleistocene, accelerating in the Holocene and continuing to the present day. Continuing evolution amongst Western populations also reveals trends, which are not predicted by the 'cognitive-developmental' model. This biosocial model aims to illustrate the scientific poverty of purely culturally deterministic models, such as those favored by Oesterdiekhoff and other sociologists. The central tenet of the 'cognitive-developmental' model, i.e. the idea that the continuing socio-cultural evolution of Western civilization can be envisaged as the realization of successively higher Piagetian stages, is also directly challenged based on studies in which multiple indicators of formal operational norms have failed to show the Flynn effect on Piagetian staging predicted by Oesterdiekhoff's model. It is concluded that biosocial models, such as the one advanced here, primarily benefit from the degree to which they are informed by contemporary scientific findings, unlike purely culturally deterministic models, which typically rely instead on the thinking of historical or contemporary sociologists whose work either predates or sidesteps the Darwinian revolution.


We have developed a new method for the determination of trace chromium species by flame atomic absorption spectrometry after preconcentrative separation of Cr(III) by cloud point extraction using alizarin-3-methyliminodiacetic acid as the complexing agent. The effect of pH, the amounts of complexing agent and surfactant, equilibration temperature and time was investigated systematically. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration graph of Cr(III) was linear in the range of 4–200 μg L−1. The detection limit for Cr(III) was 1.0 μg L−1. The relative standard deviation was 4.8% for 100 μg L−1 of Cr(III) (n = 9). The enhancement factor was 40.05. After reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) with ascorbic acid, the system was applied to determine total chromium. Cr(VI) was then calculated as the difference between the content of total Cr and the Cr(III). The proposed method has been applied to determine water samples and water-soluble chromium species in soil with the recoveries of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) spiked in samples from 94.6% to 108% and 95% to 113%, respectively.


Sherali and Adams [SA90], Lov\''asz and Schrijver [LS91] and, recently, Lasserre [Las01b] have proposed lift and project methods for constructing hierarchies of successive linear or semidefinite relaxations of a $0-1$ polytope $P\subseteq \oR^n$ converging to $P$ in $n$ steps. Lasserre''s approach uses results about representations of positive polynomials as sums of squares and the dual theory of moments. We present the three methods in a common elementary framework and show that the Lasserre construction provides the tightest relaxations of $P$. As an application this gives a direct simple proof for the convergence of the Lasserre''s hierarchy. We describe applications to the stable set polytope and to the cut polytope.


We document a striking block-diagonal pattern in the factor model residual covariances of the S&P 500 Equity Index constituents, after sorting the assets by their assigned Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) codes. Cognizant of this structure, we propose combining a location-based thresholding approach based on sector inclusion with the Fama-French and SDPR sector Exchange Traded Funds (ETF's). We investigate the performance of our estimators in an out-of-sample portfolio allocation study. We find that our simple and positive-definite covariance matrix estimator yields strong empirical results under a variety of factor models and thresholding schemes. Conversely, we find that the Fama-French factor model is only suitable for covariance estimation when used in conjunction with our proposed thresholding technique. Theoretically, we provide justification for the empirical results by jointly analyzing the in-fill and diverging dimension asymptotics.


Rings of ocean upwelling Coastal upwelling along the coast of California has become more variable than during nearly any period in the past 600 years. Black et al. used a 576-year tree ring record to construct a record of wintertime climate along the California coast. Because wintertime climate and coastal upwelling are so closely linked there, they were able to determine that upwelling variability has increased more over the past 60 years than for all but two intervals during that time. The apparent causes of the recent trend appear to be unique, resulting in reduced marine productivity and negative impacts on fish, seabirds, and mammals. Science, this issue p. 1498 Winter upwelling along the Pacific coast of North America became unusually variable during the 20th century. Reported trends in the mean and variability of coastal upwelling in eastern boundary currents have raised concerns about the future of these highly productive and biodiverse marine ecosystems. However, the instrumental records on which these estimates are based are insufficiently long to determine whether such trends exceed preindustrial limits. In the California Current, a 576-year reconstruction of climate variables associated with winter upwelling indicates that variability increased over the latter 20th century to levels equaled only twice during the past 600 years. This modern trend in variance may be unique, because it appears to be driven by an unprecedented succession of extreme, downwelling-favorable, winter climate conditions that profoundly reduce productivity for marine predators of commercial and conservation interest.


Under what circumstances do demographic factors motivate states to engage in inter-state conflict, and when do these factors lead to civil conflict? IR and comparative politics scholars have investigated the links between population and conflict, but two common limitations are common in such studies. First, scholars have failed to differentiate between the demographic causes of inter-state (between countries) and civil conflict, as these conflict processes are not often addressed in the same study. Second, scholars have failed to define and explain adequately the difference between demographic change and demographic pressure.This project addresses these two limitations in the current research. First, I propose a second-image explanation of conflict which rests on the contractual relationship between the state and society. As the state collects rents from society to provide services, so society expects services for rents paid. When this relationship is disrupted by demographic pressure, states must respond to forestall regime change or state breakdown. If the state cannot extract rents internally, they may pursue external options to acquire additional resources. Failure to attain resources may result in internal conflict as domestic groups simultaneously evaluate the effectiveness of the government in meeting societal demands.The second limitation this project addresses is the conceptual imprecision of 'demographic pressure'. I distinguish between demographic change and demographic pressure by accounting for state capacity. All states experience demographic change, but many states have the capacity to adapt to these changes. States experiencing economic hardship, however, face 'pressure' when demographic changes cannot be accommodated easily with existing economic stagnation.I utilize two large cross-national datasets, covering the post-World War II period to test my theoretical link between demographic pressure and inter-state and civil conflict while controlling for state, dyadic and systemic factors. The empirical analysis supports my primary hypotheses that demographic pressure is associated with an increased likelihood of both inter- and intra-state conflict. Additional hypotheses to determine more specific conditions under which this increased likelihood holds generated mixed results; however, the robustness of the demographic pressure measure confirms that demographic pressure is an important predictor of both civil and inter-state conflict.


The SL(3,C)-representation variety R of a free group F arises naturally by considering surface group representations for a surface with boundary. There is a SL(3,C)-action on the coordinate ring of R. The geometric points of the subring of invariants of this action is an affine variety X. The points of X parametrize isomorphism classes of completely reducible representations. The coordinate ring C[X] is a complex Poisson algebra with respect to a presentation of F imposed by the surface. In previous work, we have worked out the bracket on all generators when the surface is a three-holed sphere and when the surface is a one-holed torus. In this paper, we show how the symplectic leaves corresponding to these two different Poisson structures on X relate to each other. In particular, they are symplectically dual at a generic point. Moreover, the topological gluing map which turns the three-holed sphere into the one-holed torus induces a rank preserving Poisson map on C[X].


Qualitative data can be gathered from an array of rich
 sources of research information. One of the popular ways to collect
 this data is by interviewing a range of experts on the topic,
 followed by transcription, resulting in a database of written
 documents, often supplemented by other documented data that informs
 the topic. Thematic or Content Analysis can then be used to explore
 the data and identify themes of meaning that enlighten the research
 topic, with the themes being gathered into nodes. The researcher now
 has an array of nodes, which needs to be organised into a coherent
 model, and more importantly, one that represents the views of the
 research informants. To do this with some degree of rigour, the
 researcher needs some way of ranking the nodes in terms of their
 relative importance. The node ranking can be based on experience, or
 on the literature, but neither of these approaches looks to the data
 itself. If the database contains new or unexpected knowledge,
 neither experience nor the literature will guide us to it, and vital
 new insights may easily be missed. The framework outlined in this
 paper aims to provide a sound first‑cut analysis of the data, based
 on the evidence in the research interviews themselves. Clearly the
 literature and research experience have an important role to play in
 shaping the results of any research. However this paper argues that
 one should proceed only after the data itself has been offered "the
 first chance to speak".The node classification matrix detailed here,
 identifies distinct node categories, each ranging in significance
 and with particular characteristics that reveal key aspects of the
 informants' views. In this way the researcher can use the nodes to
 reveal the voice of the experts, and build a scientifically rigorous
 set of results from a qualitative database.


In general "depreciation" is considered as a book-keeping cost item, representing the costs related to the consumption of investments throughout the transformation process. On one hand, depreciation is also the source for financing technological growth of the enterprise, on the other hand, application of depreciation results in the decrease of the tax obligation. A reasonable manager follows all changes in the accounting and tax codes of the country where a manager has his/her tax obligations. At the same time, Corporate Taxes are an important part of the state budget, and therefore every change in the legislation governing depreciation affects the quality of the business environment and also the revenue part of the state budged. Adequate and proportionate settlement of the depreciation legislation is very important for both corporations and the state. In this article we are presenting recent and latest changes in the Slovak legislation in terms of depreciation, the reasons for such changes and the corporate opinions about them.


truvada and epzicom are similar at suppressing hiv Data from the Australian STEAL study show Truvada (tenofovir + emtricitabine) is equal to Epzicom (abacavir + lamivudine) in their abilities to suppress viral loads. Each of the combination pills had unique side effects, which likely mark the major difference when deciding which therapy to choose. STEAL enrolled 360 people on stable HIV regimens with 2 NRTIs plus either a NNRTI or protease inhibitor (PI). All had undetectable viral loads for at least 12 weeks at study entry. None were on unboosted Reyataz, had prior hypersensitivity to other HIV drugs, or were positive on an HLA5701 test, which determines whether abacavir is likely to cause a severe allergic reaction. Average age of the volunteers was 45 and the study included predominantly white (86%) men (97%). About 17% had been diagnosed with AIDS, length of time living with HIV averaged 10 years, and average CD4 count was around 620. All continued either their NNRTI or PI, with half randomly assigned to take Truvada and the other half Epzicom. The primary objective of the study was to look at failure to maintain an undetectable viral load. Researchers also gathered information on serious non-AIDS events, bone density levels (BMD), lipid levels and death. Both Truvada and Epivir were about equal at suppressing HIV levels. Epzicom was associated with more side effects in general than Truvada. Epzicom showed a higher risk of heart disease and more than double the risk for changes in lipid levels. However, Truvada showed a higher risk for changes in BMD with lower density scores found in the hip and spine. Though there were some cases of kidney and liver disease and diabetes in both groups, there were no significant differences between the two combination pills and their risks on these conditions. Truvada and Epzicom suppress HIV levels and maintain CD4 counts at about the same rate. The decision to choose one over the other would likely come down to possible issues of side effects. Loss of BMD is a concern for many with HIV, so choosing Truvada may put a person more at risk for it. Truvada's side effects in general seem more tolerable than Epzicom's. On the other hand, Epzitrade name generic name


Problem: One of the most preventable health care associated infections (HAI) is surgical site infection (SSI). Approximately sixty percent of SSI's could be prevented. The devastation of an SSI to the patient can be catastrophic. The cost to the health care system for treating SSI's can be substantial (Ban et al., 2017). Context: The rate of surgical site infections has been on the increase over the past three years. The concern for the amount of harm affecting our patients was worrisome. The cost of reputation and the bottom line to the organization was recognized by senior leadership. The support from all key stakeholders was steadfast. Intervention: An evidenced based change of practice was designed and implemented across 21 medical centers to prevent surgical site infection. Measures: There were six process measures: The use of chlorhexidine wipes preoperatively, hair clipping outside the operating room, weight based antibiotics, normothermia, antibiotic redosing, surgical skin prep. An additional process measure was added half way through the project and that was smoking cessation. There was one outcome measure, surgical site infection rate. Conclusions: The aim of the project was a 30 percent increase in compliance of the process measures. This aim was realized after the role out of the project. The reduction of SSI across all surgical lines was the proposed outcome measure. The outcome measures are expected to correlate with the increased standardization of the process measures hardwired into the nursing workflows.


Two Suns in the Heavens: The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy, 1962-1967, by Sergey Radchenko. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. xx + 315 pp. US$65.00 (hardcover). In 1962-63 when the beginnings of the Sino-Soviet rift documented here by Sergey Radchenko were becoming evident, I was a post-graduate student at Moscow State University on the official Soviet- American exchange program, and witnessed growing tension between my Soviet dormitory mates and Chinese students. By 1963, African student friends began handing me some of the Chinese brochures setting forth Mao Zedong's arguments against alleged Soviet "revisionism". These were just some of the outward signs of the events which Radchenko recounts so well in this book. It is a study of the progression of the increasingly acrimonious debates between Mao and, first, Nikita Khrushchev, and then, Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksei Kosygin, over leadership of the "Marxist-Leninist camp" and the world "anti-imperialist struggle". He traces the influence of MarxistLeninist ideology on the conduct of the opposing leadership groups and rightly concludes that it had real, if not decisive, impact as long as there seemed to be a glimmer of hope that the difficulties could be overcome. Indeed, ideological considerations and the fear of upsetting the expectations of other Soviet Bloc and non-ruling Communist party leaders for solidarity prompted Khrushchev to pull back from the brink of an actual split until well into 1963, when it became clear to him that Mao was determined to denigrate him personally and to seek to take over the ideological and political leadership of the world anti-imperialist movement. For Khrushchev, having just avoided a possible nuclear war with the USA in the Cuban Missile Crisis and begun some serious negotiations with American and European leaders to reduce international confrontations, Mao's accusations seemed doubly incendiary. Radchenko ties a number of these contemporaneous events - namely, the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the rise of Nasser in Egypt, the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the Vietnam War - to the developing Sino-Soviet conflict, culminating in direct military clashes along the USSR-PRC border on the Amur River islands in 1969. The unleashing of Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in 1966 gave special intensity to the conflict, and convinces Radchenko that Mao's main real preoccupation was his struggle for total dominance of internal Chinese politics, rather than international relations or the fate of the world revolution. Mao's handling of Soviet military shipments to Ho Chi Minh's war against the USA and its allies was a case in point. He refused to allow direct air supply flights or the establishment of a Soviet airbase in southern China for close air support for Ho's forces. He also tried to convince Ho to keep fighting in the guerrilla mode so as to exhaust the US and its allies, rather than to try for a quick victory, advice which Radchenko argues was determined by Mao's wish to keep the US bogged down for as long as possible while he concentrated on his own GPCR housecleaning. Indeed, Radchenko cites documents to show that Mao, through Zhou Enlai, even threatened a possible cut-off of Chinese support if Ho became too dependent on Soviet weapons. No wonder that SinoVietnamese relations would turn sour a decade or so later. …


As approximately 70 million Baby Boomers make their way into and through retirement, increased attention is being given to how they approach retirement spending as well as what constitutes a satisfactory lifestyle in retirement. One thing is clear: There is little homogeneity when it comes to the path retirees navigate. Factors such as available assets and income in retirement, debt, health status, marital status, and even gender impact retirement needs and outcomes. What are the common profiles of retirees, and what can we learn from them? Based on a survey of 2,000 retired households aged 62 to 75 and with fewer than $1 million in financial assets, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) developed a series of "retiree profiles" based on retirees' financial statuses, including the levels of financial assets, annual income, debt, and homeownership, in addition to a few spending-behavior factors. From there, we identified distinguishing characteristics — demographics, retirement income, debt, health insurance, long-term-care coverage, and spending patterns — of the retiree profiles. We also examined the spending-down strategies and plans used by each type of retiree. And finally, we looked at how retirees of different types rated their retirement life satisfaction. We found: • Average Retirees were more likely to report low levels of financial assets ($99,000 or less) and intermediate levels of income (between $40,000 and $100,000 annually), at 58 and 74 percent, respectively. They were more likely to be married than not, and they reported good health status on average. Just over half of Average Retirees thought they'd saved enough or more than enough for retirement. Six in ten Average Retirees seek to maintain or grow their financial assets in retirement. When it comes to sources of income, defined benefit (DB) plans play a major role for Average Retirees, along with Social Security. Nearly half had credit card debt, and almost as many also had a car loan. Half spend $2,999 or less monthly in retirement; 1 in 5 spends less than $2,000 in retirement. One in five Average Retirees allocates 60 percent or more of their budget on their home. The majority of Average Retirees tend to believe that their standard of living in retirement is unchanged from what it was during their working years. And the Average Retiree rates their level of satisfaction as 7.8 on a scale from 1 to 10. • Affluent Retirees were more likely to have high levels of financial assets ($320,000 or more) and income ($100,000 or more annually), the majority were mortgage-free homeowners with no debt, and the majority of those with debt reported it as easily manageable. This group had the highest likelihood of being married among retirement groups, with the majority of respondents being men, primarily having a college education or higher. The majority of Affluent Retirees believe they have saved enough money for retirement, and only 1 in 3 said they plan to spend all or significant portions of their retirement accounts. The retirees in this group also have access to more types of retirement income than the retirees from the other groups, with defined benefit pension plans and personal savings being the most commonly cited. Only 1 in 5 reported having credit card and auto loan debts. One in two reported spending between $2,000 and $4,000 a month, and 1 in 4 spends 25 percent or more of their budget on discretionary expenses. The majority think their standard of living hasn't changed, and nearly a quarter think their standard of living has increased since retirement. On average, retirees in this group were the most satisfied with their retirement of all retiree groups. • Comfortable Retirees were more likely to have intermediate levels of financial assets (between $99,000 and $320,000) and income. Thirty-seven percent had a mortgage, while 1 in 2 were mortgage-free homeowners. One-third reported no debt and 42 percent had an easily manageable amount of debt. Most of them were married and had a college degree or higher. Almost three-quarters said their retirement savings are sufficient or even above their needs, and more than half plan to grow, maintain, or spend only a small portion of their financial assets. In this group, more retirees cited workplace retirement savings plans such as 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs), in addition to Social Security, as their major source of income than any other group. Credit card and auto loan debt were the most common forms of debt, and 1 in 3 reported having at least one of these debts. Half of the retirees in this group spend less than $3,000 a month, while the majority said they can afford their current level of spending. In this group of retirees, most think their standards of living have not changed since their working years; however, 1 in 4 believes it has declined. Comfortable Retirees were on average the second most satisfied with their retirement life after the Affluent Retirees. • Struggling Retirees almost entirely had low financial assets (less or equal to $99,000), and 3 out of 4 had low income levels (less than $40,000). The share of renters in this group exceeds any other group at 44 percent. Only 1 in 2 was a homeowner and 1 in 4 did not have a mortgage on their house. There were only 1 in 5 reporting having no debt, while 45 percent had manageable debt and 20 percent had unmanageable debt. Female respondents made up the majority of respondents in this group, and the majority were from noncoupled households. Over two-thirds had no or some college education, and they also rated their health status the worst out of all groups. Three-quarters believe they had saved much less than was necessary for their retirement, and of those who have a financial account, most intend to spend down their accounts to zero or to a significant extent. Social Security provided the bulk of retirement income for the retirees in this group, and only 1 in 3 cited a DB plan as a major or minor source of income. Access to retirement income from other sources was the lowest in this group compared with all other retiree groups. This group had higher incidences of credit card debt (65 percent) and medical debt (25 percent) than any other. More than half spend less than $2,000 a month, and nearly half think they cannot afford their current level of spending. The majority of Struggling Retirees believe they have a reduced standard of living compared with when they were working. Retirement life satisfaction rates were the lowest in this group, with an average score of 5.8 on the 1-to-10 scale. • "Just-Getting-By" Retirees also mostly consist of the retirees with low levels of financial assets and income, but in contrast to Struggling Retirees, half owned their houses free and clear, while 30 percent rented and only 17 percent had mortgages. Also, 1 in 2 respondents reported no debt, while the majority of those who did report debt called it easily manageable. The demographics of this group corresponded to the Struggling Retirees group. There were more female respondents in this group than men, nearly two-thirds came from a non-coupled household, and only 30 percent had a college education or higher. But in contrast to Struggling Retirees, half believed they had saved enough for retirement, while the other half is split between those who think they have saved a little less than needed and those who believe they have saved much less than needed. Most of the retirees in this group relied on Social Security as a major source of income and over half cited personal savings as a major or minor source of income. Additionally, nearly a third mentioned DB plans and IRAs as a source of income. Compared with struggling retirees, a smaller share of retirees had credit card or medical debt (35 and 7 percent respectively). Seventy-five percent of this group's retirees spend less than $2,000 a month, a higher percentage than in any other group, and nearly 1 in 5 devoted 60 percent or more of their budget toward their housing expenses. Almost one-third believe that their standard of living has decreased, while nearly half believe that it remains the same as when they were employed. These retirees scored better than Struggling Retirees on the retirement life satisfaction scale, averaging 7.2 out of 10.


The sequential binding of the origin recognition complex (ORC), Cdc6p and the minichromosome maintenance proteins (MCM2-7) mediates replication competence at eukaryotic origins of DNA replication. The latent origin of Epstein-Barr virus, oriP, is a viral origin known to recruit ORC. OriP also binds EBNA1, a virally encoded protein that lacks any activity predicted to be required for replication initiation. Here, we used chromatin immunoprecipitation and chromatin binding to compare the cell-cycle-dependent binding of pre-RC components and EBNA1 to oriP and to global cellular chromatin. Prereplicative-complex components such as the Mcm2p-Mcm7p proteins and HsOrc1p are regulated in a cell-cycle-dependent fashion, whereas other HsOrc subunits and EBNA1 remain constantly bound. In addition, HsOrc1p becomes sensitive to the 26S proteasome after release from DNA during S phase. These results show that the complex protein-DNA dynamics at the viral oriP are synchronized with the cell division cycle. Chromatin-binding and chromatin-immunoprecipitation experiments on G0 arrested cells indicated that the ORC core complex (ORC2-5) and EBNA1 remain bound to chromatin and oriP. HsOrc6p and the MCM2-7 complex are released in resting cells. HsOrc1p is partly liberated from chromatin. Our data suggest that origins remain marked in resting cells by the ORC core complex to ensure a rapid and regulated reentry into the cell cycle. These findings indicate that HsOrc is a dynamic complex and that its DNA binding activity is regulated differently in the various stages of the cell cycle.


The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act 108 of 1996) and conclusive Acts analysed in this article reflects the process of local government democratization in South Africa. In this milieu, the importance of intergovernmental relations in South Africa as a determining factor in the democratization process is evident. It is further argued that the operational activities flowing from these Acts directly shape the success of intergovernmental relations. This article therefore investigates the decisive influence operational activities have on intergovernmental relations. The local government integrated development plan (IDP) in general and the specific assessment process in particular serves as an example in this research of the influence of these activities on intergovernmental relations. This article then identifies appropriate actions and examines the contribution of important role players and government institutions to promote and facilitate intergovernmental relations in South Africa in this challenging environment. The research finally focuses on the involvement of other external institutions, specifically the Intergovernmental Institute of South Africa (IGISA), and the endeavour to support the promotion and facilitation of excellence in intergovernmental relations in South Africa.


Look After the Child Investing in children has been demonstrated to improve their lives, both during the school-age years and afterward, as assessed by outcomes such as employment and income; furthermore, these investments often help those in the most need. Campbell et al. (p. 1478) report that these investments can also lead to improved adult health. Results from a randomized and intensive intervention that involved 122 children in four cohorts recruited in the 1970s suggest that full-day child care for the first 5 years of life has produced adults in their 30s with better metabolic and cardiovascular health measures. Large investments in preschool children's education, health care, and nutrition provide long-term health benefits. High-quality early childhood programs have been shown to have substantial benefits in reducing crime, raising earnings, and promoting education. Much less is known about their benefits for adult health. We report on the long-term health effects of one of the oldest and most heavily cited early childhood interventions with long-term follow-up evaluated by the method of randomization: the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC). Using recently collected biomedical data, we find that disadvantaged children randomly assigned to treatment have significantly lower prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in their mid-30s. The evidence is especially strong for males. The mean systolic blood pressure among the control males is 143 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), whereas it is only 126 mm Hg among the treated. One in four males in the control group is affected by metabolic syndrome, whereas none in the treatment group are affected. To reach these conclusions, we address several statistical challenges. We use exact permutation tests to account for small sample sizes and conduct a parallel bootstrap confidence interval analysis to confirm the permutation analysis. We adjust inference to account for the multiple hypotheses tested and for nonrandom attrition. Our evidence shows the potential of early life interventions for preventing disease and promoting health.


SOMETHING is terribly wrong with a system of civil justice in which a major corporation, Dow Corning, is forced to file for bankruptcy as a result of being named as a defendant in a horde of product liability claims that have no basis in science.(1) Each new medical study demonstrating that there is no scientific basis for claims that silicon breast implants cause the many maladies that are alleged by the plaintiffs in the breast implant litigation is a reminder of how out of balance the American civil justice system has become. The courts seem to be driven by two overriding concerns--first, to process efficiently the multiple claims made in so-called mass torts and, second, to ensure a mechanism for compensating claimants. Defendants' due process rights are likely to get lost in the massive numbers. To a large extent, this attitude has been shaped by the asbestos litigation. Faced with thousands of claims that exposure to asbestos caused mesothelioma, severe respiratory diseases and other disorders, and a body of scientific literature establishing that asbestos in fact does cause many of these diseases, federal and state courts devised ways to expedite the processing of those claims. Indeed, it has been recognized by Chief Judge Posner of the Seventh Circuit that the number of asbestos cases was so great as to exert a "wellnigh irresistible pressure to bend the normal rules."(2) When rules are bent, defendants' due process rights suffer. Inspired by the success of the asbestos litigation, plaintiffs' attorneys were quick to attempt to cast new product liability suits into its mold. These attempts should be resisted at all costs. The experience of the computer industry, a newcomer to the world of product liability, in, responding to the so-called repetitive stress injury (RSI) litigation illustrates what can be accomplished when defendants vigorously press their due process rights from the outset of a wave of "mass tort" claims. RSI LITIGATION A. Tidal Wave Begins In the Spring of 1992, plaintiffs' attorneys who were active in the asbestos litigation, but saw it waning, began filing claims against computer manufacturers alleging that the use of computer keyboards caused RSI and "cumulative trauma disorders" (CTDs). RSI and CTDs are not medically diagnostic terms but rather catchall phrases that include virtually any disorder of the musculoskeletal system of the upper torso, from the fingers to the lower lumbar back. The plaintiffs' attorneys proclaimed RSI claims as the asbestos litigation of the 1990s, and they quickly tried to have them treated in the same way. As with asbestos, there is massive "exposure" of a substantial and evergrowing portion of the population to computer keyboards. Plaintiffs' counsel saw computer users as a virtually endless pool of potential plaintiffs, just as the union workers were in the asbestos litigation. All they needed were the procedural vehicles to package these cases into a significantly large enough bundle to overwhelm the court system, so that it would lose sight of the fact that these are individual cases and begin to treat them simply as numbers to be processed by finding a way to pay compensation. They hoped thereby to coerce the computer industry into paying to settle, much as the manufacturers of breast implants agreed to do. To accomplish this, a well-orchestrated, multifront campaign was mounted, including (1) consolidation of all cases pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, (2) filing RSI claims in a number of federal district courts around the country, 3 seeking from the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation a transfer of all RSI cases pending in federal courts to the Eastern District of New York, and (4) seeking to consolidate cases pending in the state courts. The strategy ultimately failed because the computer industry defendants vigorously asserted their due process rights at every stage of the litigation. …


While a great deal of research has investigated employee reactions to mistreatment, considerably fewer studies have investigated how the social environment in the workplace contributes to both 1.) the prevalence of mistreatment, and 2.) employee reactions when mistreatment occurs. In the present study we investigate three important components of the social environment of organizations—perceptions of organizational justice, the extent to which people within the organization generally treat each other with respect, and the level of social support with the organization—and show how these relate to the prevalence of both verbal aggression and social undermining. In addition to testing these relations, we test a mediational model whereby these components of the social environment are related to employee strain. More specifically, we propose that workplace mistreatment mediates the relation between these components of the social environment and employee strain. Data from the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) supported the proposed relations between all three social environment components and the two forms of mistreatment. Furthermore, mediated regression analyses showed that mistreatment mediated the relation between perceived level of respect and all measures of strain. These results suggest that the social environment of the workplace may play a role in employee mistreatment and contribute, at least indirectly, to employee strain.


Blogs are a new and intriguing form of communicatio n and personal expression. Researchers are only just beginning to realise the value that these media present as sources of data for research. This paper begins to unveil the untapped potential that the blogosphere provides for research. The paper begins by introducing blogs, explaining their evolution and the important role they play in society. A major contribution to knowledge comes from the pa per's analysis of the motivation behind blogging – providing a framework of seven different motivational schemes. Building on this, the paper explores why blogs are a valuable and reliabl source of data for analysis. The paper illustrates how blogs can be used for analysis, highligh tin the advantages and disadvantages of their use. The paper concludes with a brief note on some of the ethical considerations of using blogs for research.


The aim of this assessment was to determine the variation between soft palm mid fractions (sPMF) and soft palm stearins (sPOs) which are the co-fractions (solid fractions) obtained from two different fractionation processes which yield palm olein of iodine value (IV) 60. The sPMF and sPOs are not governed by any official standard specifications and are traded based on contractual specifications. Furthermore, the physical and chemical characteristics of sPOs lack documentation as it falls into the general category of palm stearin. Hence, users who are unaware of the differences between these two fractions are misinformed and misguided, leading to dysfunctional application of these fractions in food products. This assessment of sPMF and sPOs evaluated the triacylglycerol composition, fatty acid compositions (FAC), IV, dropping point (DP), solid fat content (SFC) profiles and thermal behaviours in order to establish parameters which can be used as quality qualifiers, which are able to distinctively discriminate both fractions. The triacylglycerol compositions differed significantly between sPMF and sPOs. sPMF contained high amounts of monounsaturated triacylglycerols ranging from 61.83% to 80.07% with 1,3-dipalmitoyl-2-oleoyl-glycerol (POP) ranging from 43.53% to 55.95%. Lesser amount of monounsaturated triacylglycerols were present in sPOs, ranging from 55.56% to 57.33% (POP from 38.36% to 41.81%). The trisaturated triacylglycerols ranged from 2.45% to 5.41% in sPMF and higher values were detected in sPOs ranging from 10.46% to 18.52%. SFC profiles of sPMF and sPOs varied significantly. The sPMF exhibited a sharp decrease in the percentage of solids from 20°C to 30°C which were not exhibited by sPOs. The DP of sPMF ranged between 24.3°C to 31.8°C and sPOs varied between 40.3°C to 50.1°C. sPMF and sPOs exhibit unique and distinctive crystallisation and melting profiles which can be used to differentiate these two fractions. Fatty acid composition and iodine values exhibited overlapping values, hence, are inadequate indicators to differentiate these fractions. The assessment concludes that triacylglycerol composition, DP, SFC profile and thermal behaviour (crystallisation and melting) are indicative parameters that are able to assist in differentiating the physical and chemical characteristics of sPMF and sPOs.


Traditional aesthetic theory has posited an account of music, and the other arts, as autonomous of social meanings, relevance, and conditions. In the case of music, "absolute music" is sequestered from social and other roots that bring music into being in the first place. The typical claim, thus, is that classical music is music for its own sake, divorced from the many and highly evident social dimensions that it serves. It ignores all other genres of music, most of which are more appreciated than can be accounted for by the theory of autonomania. This aesthetic theory of music, one of many theories, is unconvincing in history, and discourse of the broader philosophy of music, and a praxial theory of music is offered here in contradiction. The implications for music education should be clear, that the autonomy of music and music education from society is a troublesome and misleading contention.


In 1989, Chicago began an experiment with radical decentralization of power and authority. This book tells the story of what happened to Chicago's elementary schools in the first four years of this reform. Implicit in this reform is the theory that expanded local democratic participation would stimulate organizational change within schools, which in turn would foster improved teaching and learning. Using this theory as a framework, the authors marshal massive quantitative and qualitative data to examine how the reform actually unfolded at the school level.With longitudinal case study data on 22 schools, survey responses from principals and teachers in 269 schools, and supplementary system-wide administrative data, the authors identify four types of school politics: strong democracy, consolidated principal power, maintenance, and adversarial. In addition, they classify school change efforts as either systemic or unfocused. Bringing these strands together, the authors determine that, in about a third of the schools, expanded local democratic participation served as a strong lever for introducing systemic change focused on improved instruction. Finally, case studies of six actively restructuring schools illustrate how under decentralization the principal's role is recast, social support for change can grow, and ideas and information from external sources are brought to bear on school change initiatives. Few studies intertwine so completely extensive narratives and rigorous quantitative analyses. The result is a complex picture of the Chicago reform that joins the politics of local control to school change.This volume is intended for scholars in the fields of urban education, public policy, sociology of education, anthropology of education, and politics of education. Comprehensive and descriptive, it is an engaging text for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates. Local, state, and federal policymakers who are concerned with urban education will find new and insightful material. The book should be on reading lists and in professional development seminars for school principals who want to garner community support for change and for school community leaders who want more responsive local institutions. Finally, educators, administrators, and activists in Chicago will appreciate this detailed analysis of the early years of reform.


The determination of bone mechanical properties remains crucial, especially to feed up numerical models. An original methodology of inverse analysis has been developed to determine femoral cortical bone longitudinal elastic modulus. The method is based on a numerical twin of a specific three-point bending test. It has been designed to be reproducible on each test result. In addition, the biofidelity of the geometric acquisition method has been quantified. As the assessment is performed at the scale of a bone shaft segment, the Young modulus values obtained (between 9518.29 GPa and 14181.15 GPa) are considered average values for the whole tissue, highlighting some inter-subjects variability. The material microstructure has also been studied through histological analysis, and bone-to-bone comparisons highlighted discrepancies in quadrants microstructures. Furthermore, significant intra-subjects variability exists since differences between the bone's medial-lateral and anterior-posterior quadrants have been observed. Thus, the study of microstructures can largely explain the differences between the elastic modulus values obtained. However, a more in-depth study of bone mineral density would also be necessary and would provide some additional information. This study is currently being set up.


Background: Segmentation of areas containing tumor cells in standard H&E histopathology images of breast (and several other tissues) is a key task for computer-assisted assessment and grading of histopathology slides. Good segmentation of tumor regions is also vital for automated scoring of immunohistochemical stained slides to restrict the scoring or analysis to areas containing tumor cells only and avoid potentially misleading results from analysis of stromal regions. Furthermore, detection of mitotic cells is critical for calculating key measures such as mitotic index; a key criteria for grading several types of cancers including breast cancer. We show that tumor segmentation can allow detection and quantification of mitotic cells from the standard H&E slides with a high degree of accuracy without need for special stains, in turn making the whole process more cost-effective. Method: Based on the tissue morphology, breast histology image contents can be divided into four regions: Tumor, Hypocellular Stroma (HypoCS), Hypercellular Stroma (HyperCS), and tissue fat (Background). Background is removed during the preprocessing stage on the basis of color thresholding, while HypoCS and HyperCS regions are segmented by calculating features using magnitude and phase spectra in the frequency domain, respectively, and performing unsupervised segmentation on these features. Results: All images in the database were hand segmented by two expert pathologists. The algorithms considered here are evaluated on three pixel-wise accuracy measures: precision, recall, and F1-Score. The segmentation results obtained by combining HypoCS and HyperCS yield high F1-Score of 0.86 and 0.89 with re-spect to the ground truth. Conclusions: In this paper, we show that segmentation of breast histopathology image into hypocellular stroma and hypercellular stroma can be achieved using magnitude and phase spectra in the frequency domain. The segmentation leads to demarcation of tumor margins leading to improved accuracy of mitotic cell detection.


Mechanical components and tools in modern industry are facing increasing performance requirements leading to the growing need for advanced materials and thus, for modern frictional systems. In the last decades, the Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) has emerged as an unique tool to grow high quality monoas well as multilayers surfaces in metallic/ceramic systems. Building up a knowledge base of tribological properties of industrially-scaled, room temperature deposited PLD hard coatings are the most important step for the application of these coatings in engineering design. Although single-layer coatings find a range of applications, there are an increasing number of applications where the properties of a single material are not sufficient. One way to surmount this problem is to use a multilayer coating. Application of metallic interlayers improves adhesion of nitride hard layer in multilayer systems, which has been used in PVD processes for many years, however, the PLD technique gives new possibilities to produce system comprising many bilayers at room temperature. Tribological coatings consisted of 2, 4 and 16 bilayers of Cr/CrN and Ti/TiN type were fabricated with the Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique in the presented work. It is found in transmission electron examinations on thin foils prepared from cross-section that both nitride-based multilayer structures studied are characterized by small columnar crystallite sizes and high defect density, what might rise their hardness but compromise coating adhesion. The intermediate metallic layers contained larger sized and less defective columnar structure compared to the nitride layers, which should improve the coatings toughness. Switching from single layer to multi-layer metal/nitride composition improved resistance to delamination.


BACKGROUND:The clinical relevance of chronic exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to transfusion in surgical patients is unclear. METHODS:We conducted a prospective cohort study involving patients undergoing cardiac, vascular, spinal, and intracranial surgery at 2 academic medical centers. Medication use, demographics, comorbidities, and laboratory values were determined at baseline by patient interview and review of medical records. The primary outcome was transfusion of any hemostatic allogeneic blood product (i.e., fresh frozen plasma, platelets, and/or cryoprecipitate) through postoperative day 2. RESULTS:The study sample consisted of 767 patients; 364 patients (47.5%) underwent cardiac surgery and the remainder underwent noncardiac surgery. Eighty-eight patients (11.5%) used SSRIs preoperatively. Among cardiac patients, the absolute number of allogeneic transfusions was higher for SSRI users than nonusers (2 [0–6] vs 0 [0–2], median [25%–75%], respectively, P = 0.008), and a similar trend was observed for noncardiac surgery. After adjusting for covariates using ordinal logistic regression, preoperative SSRI use was associated with an approximately 2-fold (odds ratio, 2.2; 95% confidence interval, 1.2–3.98) increase in odds of exposure to allogeneic hemostatic blood products; similar results were observed using propensity score adjustment (odds ratio, 1.85; 95% confidence interval, 1.11–3.07). A significant interaction between SSRI use and surgery type, age, sex, or concurrent antiplatelet therapy was not found; however, heterogeneity in magnitude of effect could not be excluded. CONCLUSIONS:Preoperative use of SSRIs is associated with increased exposure to allogeneic hemostatic blood products in surgical patients at high risk for perioperative bleeding. Determining whether perioperative continuation or withdrawal of SSRIs produces a net clinical benefit requires randomized controlled trials.


Egypt shows evidence for major social and cultural changes during the New Kingdom that are clearly visible in funerary contexts, and especially by the typological evolution of Egyptian luxury vessels. In particular, new forms appear in both royal and commoner tombs that imitate foreign vessels. The paradox is that these vessels, when discovered outside of Egypt, are often regarded as "Egyptian" or "Egyptianizing," which is just one indication that Late Bronze Age luxury vessels are and were often linked to questions of cultural identity and international trade. So far, such evidence has often been used to discuss Egyptian cultural imperialism in the Near East, and even throughout the Aegean. However, to understand properly the origins of these new forms and their role in cultural exchange between Egypt and its neighbors, it is important to investigate all sites where such forms have been discovered, from Egypt to North Syria to Iran to Greece. Technological and stylistic comparisons across these regions better help to define cultural trends. The present article also proposes a social and economic approach that favors a different balance between those principal trade mechanisms that are usually highlighted by different commentators: centralized versus private production or emulation versus reciprocity. As a result, Egypt appears only as one among several cultural actors, and not necessarily at the center of this trade network. These phenomena can therefore be analyzed through the prism of "transculturation."


Background:
Home care professionals regularly observe drug-related problems during home care provision. Problems related to the process of the medication therapy could involve discrepancies in medication prescriptions between the hospital discharge letter and the medication administration record lists (MARL) or insufficient drug delivery. The objective of this study is to determine the potential clinical consequences of medication process problems observed by home care professionals, since those consequences have not been assessed before.

Methods:
A retrospective descriptive study design was performed. An expert panel performed an assessment procedure on the clinical consequences of medication process problems. Such problems were reported by home care professionals during routine care (May 2016 until May 2017) using the eHOME system, which is a digital system developed to assist in the reporting and monitoring of drug-related problems. Using a three-point scale, an expert panel assessed the potential clinical consequences of those medication process problems among older home care patients (aged 65 years and over).

Results:
309 medication process problems in 120 out of 451 patients were assessed for potential discomfort or clinical deterioration. The problems involved the following: medication discrepancies (new prescription not listed on the MARL [n = 69, 36.7%]; medication stopped by the prescriber but still listed on the MARL [n = 43, 22.9%]; discrepant time of intake [n = 25, 13.3%]; frequency [n = 24, 12.8%]; and dose [n = 21, 11.2%], therapeutic duplication listed on the MARL [n = 5, 2.6%]; and discrepant information on route of administration [n = 1, 0.5%]); an undelivered MARL [n = 103, 33.3%]; undelivered medication [n = 16, 5.2%]; and excessive medication delivery [n = 2, 0.7%]. Furthermore, 180 (58.2%) out of 309 medication process problems were assessed as having the potential for moderate or severe discomfort or clinical deterioration in patients.

Conclusions:
The majority of medication process problems may result in patient discomfort or clinical deterioration.


BACKGROUND
Breast cancer rates in women with multiple breast symptoms have not been well described.

METHODS
We examined the association between self-reported symptoms (lump, nipple discharge, pain, other) and breast cancer risk for screening and diagnostic mammograms in 57,681 women. Subanalyses evaluated risk among women with no prior mammograms, new symptoms, and repeated symptoms. One thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine women were diagnosed with cancer within 12 months of their mammograms. We calculated the breast cancer rate for each symptom and odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for breast cancer among symptomatic women compared with asymptomatic women.

RESULTS
Women reporting a lump had an increased odds of breast cancer compared with asymptomatic women (OR for diagnostic examination = 2.8, 95% CI = 2.3 to 3.4; OR for screening examination = 3.6, 95% CI = 2.6 to 5.0). No other symptoms were associated with breast cancer after controlling for a reported lump. A new lump at a diagnostic examination was significantly predictive of cancer among women with no prior mammograms (OR = 12.2, 95% CI = 2.8 to 53.5); reporting symptoms at 2 successive exams had little effect on breast cancer risk (OR for lump = 1.2, 95% CI = 0.6 to 2.5).

CONCLUSIONS
Having a lump is the most predictive symptom of breast cancer whether it is reported at a screening or diagnostic examination or in conjunction with other symptoms.


'Gramsci's relevance to Scotland today' wrote one young socialist in 1975, 'is in his emphasis that in a society which is both mature and complex, where the total social and economic processes are geared to maintaining the production of goods and services (and the reproduction of the conditions of production), then the transition to socialism must be made by the majority of people themselves and a socialist society must be created within the womb of existing society and prefigured in the movements for democracy at the grass roots.' The author, Gordon Brown, then student Rector of Edinburgh University, was introducing The Red Paper on Scotland, a volume that in many ways represents the climax of the process by which Gramsci's ideas were received in Scotland. Brown's appropriation of Gramsci was generic rather than specific to Scotland, since there were few Western societies of which his comments would not have been true. However, two other contributors, Tom Nairn and Ray Burnett, made far more concrete use of Gramsci, and their writings, together with those of Hamish Henderson, Christopher Harvie and James D. Young established the main ways in which Gramsci would be used to analyse Scottish conditions, and to which little of any substance has subsequently been added. Angus Calder once claimed: 'Gramsci's thought has been especially influential in Scotland'. What Calder seems to have meant is that Gramsci's thought has been applied to distinctively Scottish issues and dilemmas, rather than, as in Britain as a whole, to general problems of hegemony or revolutionary organization. The publications and events through which Gramsci's work was disseminated in Scotland produced both insights and mystifications. Any attempt to map the process must therefore also address two questions raised by it: the extent to which the writers responsible were true to Gramsci's own conceptions – where possible by referring to the texts available to them at the time – and, perhaps more importantly, how useful their appropriations were in analysing Scottish history and society.


In the growth literature, investment has been regarded as one of the primary engines of growth. Growth theories emphasise the importance of investment in determining the level of income (neoclassical) and the pace of economic growth (endogenous growth model). However, the Ethiopian private investment performance has been weak for long time. It had been stagnantly low until the end of the socialist regime. In spite of little improvement in the post‐socialist era, the share of private investment in GDP has never been above 6 percent even until 2003. Yet, the reasons behind the weak performance have not been well studied. Hence, investigating the performance trend and maim constraints of private investment in Ethiopia becomes the core theme of this study. Targeting at addressing a question of what measures should be taken to promote investment in the country, the research proceeds to test empirically whether demand augmenting and trade liberalization policies, improved infrastructural facilities, macroeconomic and political stabilities improve the private investment performance of Ethiopia. Motivated by the modified version of the Flexible Accelerator Model of investment behaviour, the empirical investigation employs a multivariate single equation ECM estimation methodology on integrated of order one, I(1), variables using annual time‐series data sets for 1950‐2003 and two sub‐periods. According to the estimation results, private investment in Ethiopia is influenced positively by domestic market, return to capital, trade openness and liberalization measures, infrastructural facilities and FDI; but, negatively by government activities, macroeconomic uncertainty and political instability. Hence, enhancing demand augmenting and trade liberalization policies, improving infrastructural facilities and maintaining macroeconomic and political stabilities should be among the main ingredients of a policy package designed to promote private investment in Ethiopia. Furthermore, the operations of the public sector and other institutions will need new thinking. Keywords: Investment, Determinants, Time‐Series, ECM, Ethiopia


: Sustainable supply chain management is a topical area which is continuing to grow and evolve. Within supply chains, downstream distribution from producers to customers plays a significant role in the environmental performance of production supply chains. With consumer consciousness growing in the area of sustainable food supply, food distribution needs to embrace and adapt to improve its environmental performance, while still remaining economically competitive. With a particular focus on the dairy industry, a robust solution approach is presented for the design of a capacitated distribution network for a two-layer supply chain involved in the distribution of milk in Ireland. In particular the green multiobjective optimisation model minimises CO 2 emissions from transportation and total costs in the distribution chain. These distribution channels are analysed to ensure the non-dominated solutions are distributed along the Pareto fronts. A multi-attribute decision-making approach, TOPSIS, has been used to rank the realistic feasible transportation routes resulting from the trade-offs between total costs and CO 2 emissions. The refined realistic solution space allows the decision-makers to geographically locate the sustainable transportation routes. In addition to geographical mapping the decision maker is also presented with a number of alternative analysed scenarios which forcibly open closed distribution routes to build resiliency into the solution approach. In terms of model performance, three separate GA based optimisers have been evaluated and reported upon. In the case presented NSGA-II was found to outperform its counterparts of MOGA-II and HYBRID.


'Segura' was commissioned by Manifesta, The European Biennale of Contemporary Art (€16,000) following an invitation to participate in Manifesta 8 from the Manifesta curator and director of Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Basam El Baroni. Manifesta 8 was held in the Murcia/Cartagena region of Spain from 9/10/10 until 9/1/11. 'Segura' was shot on location in Murcia in response to the aim of Manifesta 8 to engage with the north-south divide, specifically with Europe's present-day boundaries with northern Africa and its interrelations with the Maghreb region. Given the current international concerns about migration, refugee status, trans-nationalism and the new borders of Europe, both psychological and geographical, the Region of Murcia was a conceptual launching pad for contemporary art projects about how artists respond to these issues within a broader, historical context. After a period of research in Murcia, Doherty identified the river Segura as a location where some of these concerns were painfully manifested. The Segura flood plain is crucial to the agricultural infrastructure and economic health of this region but is under pressure from an increasing demand for fresh water. Many of the illegal immigrants who came from North Africa to Spain seeking employment find themselves homeless under the arches of the motorway bridges that cross the river. The research tests ways to make visible these complex issues through using a hybrid of documentary and more speculative shooting and editing methods and raises questions about the relationship between place, documentary practices and fiction. 'Segura' was subsequently included in the one-person exhibition Willie Doherty, Disturbance, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane from 5/9/11 until 15/1/12.


There is a dearth of algorithms that deal with edge-based problems in trees, specifically algorithms for edge sets that satisfy a particular parameter. The goal of this thesis is to create a methodology for designing algorithms for these edge-based problems. We will present a variant of the Wimer method [82] [80] that can handle edge properties. We call this variant the Wimer edge variant. The thesis is divided into three sections, the first being a chapter devoted to defining and discussing the Wimer edge variant in depth, showing how to develop an algorithm using this variant, and an example of this process, including a run of an algorithm developed using this method. The second section involves algorithms developed using the Wimer edge variant. We will provide algorithms for a variety of edge parameters, including four different matching parameters (connected, disconnected, induced and 2-matching), three different domination parameters (edge, total edge and edge-vertex) and two covering parameters (edge cover and edge cover irredundance). Each of these algorithms are discussed in detail and run in linear time. The third section involves an attempt to characterize the Wimer edge variant. We show how the variant can be applied to three classes of graphs: weighted trees, unicyclic graphs and generalized series-parallel graphs. For each of these classes, we detail what adaptations are required (if any) and design an algorithm, including showing a run on an example graph. The fourth chapter is devoted to a discussion of what qualities a parameter has to have in order to be likely to have a solution using the Wimer edge variant. Also in this chapter we discuss classes of graphs that can utilize the Wimer edge variant. Other topics discussed in this thesis include a literature review, and a discussion of future work. There are plenty of options for future work on this topic, which hopefully this thesis can inspire. The intent of this thesis is to provide the foundation for future algorithms and other work in this area.


Telerobotics is a field of robotics interested in controlling robots from a distance. Incorporating visual and haptic (touch) feedback allows the operator greater accuracy in manipulating objects in a remote environment. This project endeavours to develop a telerobotic system with a focus towards telesurgical applications by using two similar industrial robotic manipulators, one acting as a haptic input device, the other as the telerobot. This paper describes the process of converting such robots into a functioning telerobotic system that allows the operator to "see" and "feel" in the remote environment. A partial working model of the telerobotic system can be achieved through experimental procedures.


Competition policy, today, is an essential element of the legal and institutional framework for the global economy. Increasingly, major issues of com- petition law enforcement and policy implicate the interests of multiple jurisdictions. This Article examines a range of related issues and developments, including the international dimensions of competition law enforcement and the resulting potential for both positive spillovers and conflicts of jurisdiction; issues concerning the role of competition policy in digital markets; issues concerning the application of competition law and policy in relation to intellectual property rights; issues concerning state-owned enterprises, subsidies, and the maintenance of competitive neutrality in markets; and recent progress in implementing standards to ensure procedural fairness (including transparency and nondiscrimination) in competition law enforcement worldwide. Consideration is given to the potential gains from greater international coordination with respect to aspects of these issues, while taking due account, also, of progress already made in relevant fora. Modest proposals are set out for related international dialogue, including in the context of the World Trade Organization ("WTO") and other fora.


In the high-porosity, poorly consolidated turbidites of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, production-induced compaction is the main production-drive mechanism when aquifer support is weak and prior to pressure support by secondary recovery water injection. Time-lapse (4D) seismic monitoring of this class of reservoirs has provided several new learning opportunities. The time-lapse amplitude response of these fields can be complicated due to saturation changes (water replacing oil) inside the reservoir, rock compaction causing density and velocity changes inside the reservoir, stress relief and associated deformation of the rock outside the reservoir, and changes in reservoir fluid pressures due to pore-pressure decrease. Methods that rely on time-lapse amplitude changes with offset to discriminate pressure and saturation changes can help separate and thus simplify the interpretation of some of these effects (Tura and Lumley, 1999; Landro, 2001).


SUMMARY A fragmented and segmented social protection system can create barriers for labour migration and be socially divisive. A review of the literature on Europe's integration of its social insurance system demonstrates the preconditions for developing an integrated social insurance system. These include political determination, social agreement by the contributors, administrative capacity and financial management ability. In this article, the author explains that there has been an ongoing process of gradual unification of the social insurance system in China. However, this ongoing process has not been able to achieve a universal system for both the rural and urban populations. A recent push towards further unification has been problematic. Not only have difficulties arisen from an unwillingness to implement policies, as often discussed by critics; they are also embedded in a more profound fragmentation of ideas and interests, and in institutional constraints. The author argues that a new, non‐contributory basic pension, together with lowered transaction costs between contributory subsystems, may be a more realistic way forwards. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The increasing demand for high-bandwidth applications such as video-on-demand and grid computing is reviving interest in bandwidth reservation schemes. Earlier attempts did not catch on for a number of reasons, notably lack of interest on the part of the bandwidth providers. This, in turn, was partially caused by the lack of an efficient way of charging for bandwidth. Thus, the viability of bandwidth reservation depends on the existence of an efficient market where bandwidth-related transactions can take place. For this market to be effective, it must be efficient for both the provider (seller) and the user (buyer) of the bandwidth. This implies that: (a) the buyer must have a wide choice of providers that operate in a competitive environment, (b) the seller must be assured that a QoS transaction will be paid by the customer, and (c) the QoS transaction establishment must have low overheads so that it may be used by individual customers without a significant burden to the provider.
 In order to satisfy these requirements, we propose a framework that allows customers to purchase bandwidth using an open market where providers advertise links and capacities and customers bid for these services. The model is close to that of a commodities market that offers both advance bookings (futures) and a spot market. We explore the mechanisms that can support such a model.


Water and energy are two pivotal areas for future sustainable development, with complex linkages existing between the two sectors. These linkages require special attention in the context of the energy transition. Against this background, this paper analyses the role of water availability in the development of solar thermal and photovoltaic power plants for the case of the Drâa Valley in southern Morocco. Located in a semi-arid to arid mountainous area, the Drâa Valley faces high water stress – a situation expected to worsen due to climate change. At the same time, the region has one of the greatest potentials for solar energy in the world. To examine whether limited water availability could accelerate or delay the implementation of solar thermal and photovoltaic power plants, this paper compares regional water availability and demand in the Drâa Valley for different scenarios, paying particular attention to potential socio-economic development pathways. The Water Evaluation and Planning System software is applied to allocate the water resources in the study region. The water supply is modelled under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 climate scenario, while the water demand for the Drâa Valley is modelled for a combination of three socio-economic and two energy scenarios. The climate scenario describes a significant decrease in water availability by 2050, while the socio-economic and energy scenarios show an increase in water demand. The results demonstrate that during a sequence of dry years the reservoirs water availability is reduced and shortages in water supply can result in high levels of unmet demand. If this situation occurs, oasis farming, water for drinking and energy production could compete directly with each other for water resources. The energy scenarios indicate that the use of dry cooling technologies in concentrated solar power and photovoltaic hybrid systems could be one option for reducing competition for the scarce water * Corresponding author Ersoy, S. R., et al. Water Scenarios Modelling for Renewable Energy ... Year 2021 Volume 9, Issue 1, 1080335 Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems 2 resources in the region. However, given that energy generation accounts for only a small share of the regional water demand, the results also suggest that socio-economic demand reduction, especially in the agricultural sector, for example by reducing the cultivated area, will most likely become necessary.


CONTEXT
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented duty hour regulations for physicians-in-training throughout the United States on July 1, 2003. The association of duty hour reform with mortality among patients in teaching hospitals nationally has not been well established.

OBJECTIVE
To determine whether the change in duty hour regulations was associated with relative changes in mortality among Medicare patients in hospitals of different teaching intensity.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS
An observational study of all unique Medicare patients (N = 8 529 595) admitted to short-term, acute-care, general US nonfederal hospitals (N = 3321) using interrupted time series analysis with data from July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2005. All Medicare patients had principal diagnoses of acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, gastrointestinal bleeding, or stroke or a diagnosis related group classification of general, orthopedic, or vascular surgery. Logistic regression was used to examine the change in mortality for patients in more vs less teaching-intensive hospitals before (academic years 2000-2003) and after (academic years 2003-2005) duty hour reform, adjusting for patient comorbidities, common time trends, and hospital site.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
All-location mortality within 30 days of hospital admission.

RESULTS
In medical and surgical patients, no significant relative increases or decreases in the odds of mortality for more vs less teaching-intensive hospitals were observed in either postreform year 1 (combined medical conditions group: odds ratio [OR], 1.03; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.98-1.07; and combined surgical categories group: OR, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.98-1.12) or postreform year 2 (combined medical conditions group: OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.99-1.08; and combined surgical categories group: OR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.95-1.08) compared with the prereform years. The only condition for which there was a relative increase in mortality in more teaching-intensive hospitals postreform was stroke, but this association preceded the onset of duty hour reform. Compared with nonteaching hospitals, the most teaching-intensive hospitals had an absolute change in mortality from prereform year 1 to postreform year 2 of 0.42 percentage points (4.4% relative increase) for patients in the combined medical conditions group and 0.05 percentage points (2.3% relative increase) for patients in the combined surgical categories group, neither of which were statistically significant.

CONCLUSION
The ACGME duty hour reform was not associated with either significant worsening or improvement in mortality for Medicare patients in the first 2 years after implementation.


We report the use of three different dissemination approaches for providing environmental research results back to Navajo communities from different research projects. The objectives of the dissemination are to provide the results to the community, have a dialogue about the results, and learn more about the environmental concerns of the community for potential future research projects. The first approach utilizes radio announcements and flyers provided to the community announcing dissemination meetings specific to the research projects. The second approach is more collaborative, working with a grassroots organization to organize report-back meetings, as well as one-on-one discussions of the research project. The third approach involves the development of a booklet for distribution to communities along with an oral presentation at the regularly scheduled monthly community meetings to discuss the information. Overall, the second and third approaches are more effective than the first approach in terms of dissemination to a larger number of community members, as well as increased dialogue between the researchers and the communities.