This book contains the Proceedings of the 2007 Conference of the Italian Systems Society. Papers deal with the interdisciplinary study of processes of emergence, considering theoretical aspects and applications from physics, cognitive science, biology, artificial intelligence, economics, architecture, philosophy, music and social systems. Such an interdisciplinary study implies the need to model and distinguish, in different disciplinary contexts, the establishment of structures, systems and systemic properties. Systems, as modelled by the observer, not only possess properties, but are also able to make emergent new properties; while current disciplinary models of emergence are based on theories of phase transitions, bifurcations, dissipative structures, multiple systems and organization.The present volume focuses on both generalizing those disciplinary models and identifying correspondences and new more general approaches. The general conceptual framework of the book relates to the attempt to build a general theory of emergence as a general theory of change, corresponding to Von Bertalanffy's project for a general system theory.


This article discusses the range of outcomes from biopharmaceutical studies of specific modified release (MR) product examples in preclinical models and humans. It touches upon five major biopharmaceutical areas for MR drug products: (1) evidence for regional permeability throughout the GI tract, (2) susceptibility to food-effect, (3) susceptibility to pH-effect, (4) impact of chronopharmacology in designing MR products, and (5) implications to narrow therapeutic index products. Robust bioperformance requires that product quality is met through a thorough understanding of the appropriate critical quality attributes that ensure reliable and robust manufacture of a MR dosage form. The quality-by-design (QbD) aspects of MR dosage form design and development are discussed with the emphasis on the regulatory view of the data required to support dosage form development.


Automatic speech recognition (ASR) in the cloud allows the use of larger models and more powerful multi-channel signal processing front-ends compared to on-device processing. However, it also adds an inherent latency due to the transmission of the audio signal, especially when transmitting multiple channels of a microphone array. One way to reduce the network bandwidth requirements is client-side compression with a lossy codec such as Opus. However, this compression can have a detrimental effect especially on multi-channel ASR front-ends, due to the distortion and loss of spatial information introduced by the codec. In this publication, we propose an improved approach for the compression of microphone array signals based on Opus, using a modified joint channel coding approach and additionally introducing a multi-channel spatial decorrelating transform to reduce redundancy in the transmission. We illustrate the effect of the proposed approach on the spatial information retained in multi-channel signals after compression, and evaluate the performance on far-field ASR with a multi-channel beamforming front-end. We demonstrate that our approach can lead to a 37.5 % bitrate reduction or a 5.1 % relative word error rate reduction for a fixed bitrate budget in a seven channel setup.


The essay addresses what is argued to be a pressing need for the introduction of binding law, applicable at all levels of human society, in the form of a ban on the use of force as a method of conflict resolution. It is envisaged that the proposed legal ban would operate at both the national and international levels and would be given the force of a peremptory norm or ius cogens, applicable to and binding on all governments, bodies, groups and individuals, with a legal force that overrode any international, regional, national or sub national law. It would be expressed to be subject to the narrowest of exceptions, being only those cases that are genuinely necessary in the public interest, for example, under an accepted system of international collective security or in aid of the internal police power to ensure peace and good order, and then only if the degree of force is appropriate and reasonable in all the circumstances and is not in breach of fundamental human rights (other than the right to self-determination or any other right that asserts there is an associated right to use force in aid). The essay notes that there is already a patchwork of both international and national laws that seek to ban or restrict the use of force at various levels, or which condemn the use of force, but it argues that now is the time to express that ban in a comprehensive, consistent, coherent and universal manner applicable at all levels of human society and in all circumstances. In the 21st century, any continuing acceptance of the legitimacy of the use of force in any situation is said to be incompatible with the notion of a civilized global human society and can only be described as being barbaric. In a world still torn by violent conflict notwithstanding the rush to globalization, this is arguably the most pressing need of the age. This paper takes the view that it is time to put such a general legal prohibition into the law of the world. The essay accepts that merely introducing such a general legal ban will not in itself prevent the continuing use of force where the actors are intent on breaching that new law. The essay makes it clear that such a ban cannot, by itself, be a panacea for resolving all conflict. But it is argued that such a ban would have a profound effect on global thinking about the need for a peaceful world and may gradually lead to a change in emphasis and approach on the part of the main actors. It would place a heavy onus on any entities seeking to use force to justify their actions, which in time may facilitate refinement of methods and institutions for prevention of the use of force and improvement of methods of peaceful resolution of conflict; nor is it argued in the essay that it would be easy to reach agreement on the terms of any such general ban. The impediments to implementation are discussed in the essay and are seen as being huge and deep seated. But then all contrary arguments will ultimately be seen for what they really would be – against the best interests of the planet as a whole and all humanity in seeking a future world of peace, prosperity and security; one in which the expectation is that conflicts will be resolved by peaceful, lawful and fair means. The interests of universal justice must ultimately demand this result, because the arbitrary contest of opposition might can never equate with justice. And the very exercise of consultation in an effort to seek such agreement can be expected to have beneficial side effects. Ultimately it is argued that humanity will be driven to accept that the use of violence and brute strength as a means of human conflict resolution is incompatible with this modern global age and the establishment of a united and peaceful world civilization. The introduction of the proposed general legal ban would arguably be a huge step in that direction.

 Key words: Universal, international, national, legal, ban, use of force, conflict resolution, peremptory norm, collective security, global, human society, peace, non-violence, world civilization, world law.

 "It is my conviction that nothing enduring can be built on violence." - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

 "In this, the cycle of Almighty God, violence and force, constraint and oppression, are one and all condemned." - Baha'u'llah.


This paper describes key findings from research into the application of graphic design terms to the task of tagging images for later retrieval. The research was motivated by the needs of creative industries in interacting with large image collections, with particular emphasis given to the need for retrieval of imagery using loosely defined visual properties rather than exact match queries based on image subject or similarity. A set of terms chosen from design literature are presented and discussed together with experimental results from testing carried out on students and practitioners of graphic design. Ultimately the tested terms are found to be relatively well understood, though they do not appear to support a high degree of precision.


This thesis is an investigation into scribal method in the Older Scots period. It centres upon the practice of a single scribe, John Ramsay, and his work in a single manuscript, MS Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv. 19. 2. 2 compiled between 1488 and 1489. This manuscript contains the oldest extant copy of Bruce by the late fourteenth-century poet John Barbour and a copy of the fifteenth-century poem Wallace attributed to Blin' Hary.

In the first Chapter, the reasons for the choice of this manuscript are given and its historical context is outlined. This is done through a brief description of the manuscript, an account of the lives of the authors of the texts and an outline history of the Older Scots Language. In chapter two, an alternative context for the manuscript is suggested through a discussion of prototype theories of categorisation and how they articulate with current theories of linguistic investigation. In particular, the notions of inclusiveness, fuzziness, and focus and fixity are highlighted as being of particular importance in the study of language which is the subject of the chapter which follows. Chapter 3 is a commentary on the language of the manuscript, working from data presented in the appendices. This enables the various current methods of manuscript investigation to be studied for what they reveal of scribal practice. In particular, the concepts of variation and constraint are highlighted.

Chapter 4 is an examination of the handwriting in the manuscript. Again working from data presented in the appendices, Ramsay's range of letter forms and the contexts in which he uses them are investigated. Variation and constraint are again important concepts and the value of the study of handwriting as an aid to the identification of the work of a scribe is assessed.

In Chapter 5 the codicology of the manuscript is considered. The watermarks in the paper are described and, as far as possible identified. A collation of the quires of the texts, based on the pattern of watermarks and chain-line indentations, is suggested. Ramsay's methods of correction and abbreviation are then examined for what they reveal of his scribal practice.


The report discusses the implications of setting up a network of rapid refuelling stations for a population of electric cars each with an acceleration performance and gross weight similar to a 1974 Ford Escort. Three types of battery have been considered: the improved lead-acid battery, the sodium-sulphur battery and the zinc-air (slurry) battery. "Filling" stations were designed around each battery type. It was found that there would be no insuperable technical problems in setting up the infrastructure and no serious safety or environmental problems would be expected. However, a battery exchange would cost about twice as much as an equivalent amount of petrol from natural crude oil (1975 prices, excluding taxes) and only in the most favourable conditions considered could it approach the cost of synthetic petrol. This is mainly due to the high capital cost of the stations and battery stocks and the high labour cost. The electric cars would have a shorter range and carry less payload than a petrol car. /Author/


In combinatorics, the probabilistic method is a very powerful tool to prove the existence
of combinatorial objects with interesting and useful properties. Explicit constructions of
objects with such properties are often very difficult, or unknown. In computer science, probabilistic
algorithms are sometimes simpler and more efficient than the best known deterministic
algorithms for the same problem.
Despite this evidence for the power of random choices, the computational theory of pseudorandomness
shows that, under certain complexity-theoretic assumptions, every probabilistic
algorithm has an efficient deterministic simulation and a large class of applications of the probabilistic
method can be converted into explicit constructions.
In this survey paper we describe connections between the conditional �derandomization� results
of the computational theory of pseudorandomness and unconditional explicit constructions
of certain combinatorial objects such as error-correcting codes and �randomness extractors.�


Quality of any pharmaceutical product is very important because drugs must be marketed as safe and therapeutically active formulations whose performance is consistent and predictable. Evaluation of the physiochemical properties of the pharmaceutical products can ensure their quality as well as bioavailability and impart optimum therapeutic activity. Paracetamol tablet was chosen for this comparative study because it is widely used worldwide for treating moderate to severe pain and fever. In this present study was compared the weight variation, hardness and assessment of state content of ten brands of paracetamol tablets marketed in Libya following USP/BP guidelines. All ten brands of paracetamol tested conformed to the USP/BP weight variation test. All the brands had average hardness of ≥79 N, which was satisfactory for immediate release of tablet like paracetamol. Nevertheless, the standard deviations in hardness of the most brands were remarkably high. All the brands had shown their friability variation within ± 1% range specified by USP/BP, and standard deviation of friability was calculated among all the brands which were very close to individual percentage friability of all the brands. High performance liquid chromatography was used to determine Paracetamol content, and seven brands showed good chemical analysis profile which would further help in achieving optimum bioavailability and in fulfilling the patient demands. The other three brands (Panadol (Tunisia), Parol (Turkey) and paracetamol tablet (UK)) failed the content of active ingredient and did not comply with specification according to their state of content.


From its from its inception, the U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (GPs) have occupied a contentious and dynamic space — at once setting the framework for operationalization of regimes of business and human rights by states and enterprises, and simultaneously posing as either as a gateway or obstacle to the production of international law and national legal regulation of the activities of business enterprises. This article considers the issues emerging from the front lines of these battlegrounds: (1) the conceptualization of the state duty to protect human rights through the framing of national action plans, (2) the operationalization of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights through the framing of societally constituted reporting and assessment programs, and (3) the re-invention of the GP project as an expression of two dimensional internationalized state power and its challenge to the GP's three dimensional project. Section II examines the way states might approach their obligations to protect human rights as elaborated most recently in the GPs. Using the framework of National Action Plans recently encouraged by the UN Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, the section suggests that these plans, and the approach undertaken by many states to implement the GPs may be misdirected. Section III turns to a consideration of the equally thorny issue of enterprise approaches to their obligations to respect human rights under the GPs. Two are examined more closely: (1) the quite promising framework, the Human Rights Reporting and Assurance Frameworks Initiative (RAFI) Project, and (2) the recent efforts of the World Federation of Exchanges' (WFE) new sustainability working group to consider an Investor Listing Standards Proposal. Both are promising yet might be modified to better operationalize the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. Section IV turns to the effect of a move to supplement or supplant the GPs with a treaty framework. Yet, if the NAP framework and the RAFI/WFE processes can be most usefully understood as mapping projects preliminary to the hard substantive work of constructing rule of law norms in the legal and societal spheres, then the current treaty making effort represents both a culmination of the GP process and an effort to return to the state of things before the GP process started. That contradiction requires resolution. The article proposes a way in which the move toward treaty making may be integrated with the GPs state duty to protect prong and the discipline of NAPs and may help to frame interactions with the corporate responsibility. The current efforts to develop a treaty for business and human rights, then, might be most usefully understood and applied in this light — to use the treaty machinery to construct a well-integrated, long term, and ultimately comprehensive rule of law system for business and human rights, binding on all states, which can serve as a means of connection with the development of transnational business behavior norms that fall within the social (non-state) sphere. Together these three efforts suggest the current context of the project of business and human rights, a context in which the role of state, enterprise and international community remains fluid, contingent and undefined. The choices made by each of these critical players will determine the shape of business and human rights governance systems for some time to come. A later version will be published with the Fordham International Law Journal Vol. 38.


THE STAFF AND TEACHERS at Blaine High School in Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin District 11 had been considering the pros and cons of establishing a school Facebook page when the district's administrators got wind that someone else had beaten them to it. "We checked it out and found this official-looking page," says Brett Johnson, the district s assistant director of communications and public relations. It was very well done, had a photograph of the front of the school, and a professional design. But no one at the high school had any idea who was running it. And no one was certain exactly what should be done about it. At first, nothing especially controversial was appearing on the bogus Blaine page. But then someone posted a student death notice. "The student was very much alive," Johnson says. "But people were calling his family and the school to offer their sympathies, and there were a hundred anxious responses posted to the fake page. I immediately sent a message to Facebook, and it was taken down within a matter of hours." The perpetrator of the fraud has yet to be found, according to Johnson, but the district suspects it was a former student. The school promptly established its own official Facebook page, he says, "to fill the vacuum before someone else did." Blaine High School's entry into the world of social media might not have been the most auspicious Facebook debut, but it illustrates one of several unique security challenges school districts face today when they decide to include social media in their mix of educational resources. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "These social media services weren't built with security in mind," says application security expert Gary McGraw. "They grew up and evolved around a focus on communication and ease of use. That's why it was so easy for someone to fake this high school Facebook page. These sites are highly inclusive and inherently open to this kind of mischief." McGraw, the CTO of Cigital, a northern Virginia-based software security consulting firm and the author of several bestselling books on application security, says it's not just the openness of social networks that makes them attractive targets. "Another thing to keep in mind about a service like Facebook is that it's big," McGraw says. "Huge, in fact. And huge is good if you're an attacker. Big targets give you more bang for your buck." Facebook passed 500 million users in 2010, making it far and away the largest social network in the world. But if the scale isn't enough of a bull's eye for the black hats, all the leading, publicly accessible social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Friendster, Bebo, etc.) present criminal hackers with a unique payoff. "The social networks represent a collection of prime information about you," says David Perry, global director of education for Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based provider of network antivirus and online content security software. "They are designed--their very purpose in this world--is to get you to reveal saleable information about yourself. They are in the business of extracting your personal information and selling it to market research firms." Perry points out that the lineup of security threats to social media sites is largely a familiar one: viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, dishonest adware, rootkits, and phishing scams. It's the combination of these old approaches that tends to be characteristic of attacks on social media sites. He points to the Koobface worm as an example. The worm, which first struck Facebook in 2008, targets social networks and spreads by delivering messages to a user's friends. The messages direct those friends to a third-party website, where they are prompted to download an update to the Adobe Flash player. Downloading that file infects their system. Once a computer is infected, attackers can take over the system's search engine and direct it to contaminated websites. …


Paeonia ostii is a woody oil crop with potential value as an edible oil. With the aim of acquiring systematic knowledge of the development of P. ostii seeds, the oil content, biomass, and water content of the seeds were determined. Changes in the distribution of hydrogen protons in P. ostii seeds during follicle development were traced using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The formation of oil bodies in the endosperm and embryo was observed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Dynamic changes in oleic acid, linoleic acid, and α-linolenic acid contents were assessed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The magnetic resonance images showed that, during early follicle development [45–85 days after flowering (DAF)], a greater quantity of liquid mucus was present within the seeds, and seeds in the same follicle developed at different rates. At 95 to 115 DAF, proton density was distributed evenly in all areas of the seed. A small dark area appeared in the center of the seed, and mucus in the follicles and water in the pericarp disappeared gradually. TEM observations showed that at 45 DAF, a few oil bodies were scattered at the cell periphery in the endosperm, and oil bodies were more numerous in the embryo. With the progression of seed development, the number and size of oil bodies in the embryo and endosperm continued to increase. The fresh and dry mass of P. ostii seeds increased from 45 to 105 DAF, then decreased after 105 DAF. The moisture content decreased, whereas the oil content increased and attained 33.1% at seed maturity. The three predominant unsaturated fatty acids accumulated simultaneously and showed stages of initial accumulation (45–65 DAF) and rapid accumulation (65–105 DAF). The results suggest that 65 to 105 DAF is a critical period for unsaturated fatty acid accumulation in P. ostii seeds.


Sensory responses are modulated by internal factors including attention, experience, and brain state. This is partly due to fluctuations in neuromodulatory input from regions such as the noradrenergic locus ceruleus (LC) in the brainstem. LC activity changes with arousal and modulates sensory processing, cognition, and memory. The main olfactory bulb (MOB) is richly targeted by LC fibers and noradrenaline profoundly influences MOB circuitry and odor-guided behavior. Noradrenaline-dependent plasticity affects the output of the MOB; however. it is unclear whether noradrenergic plasticity also affects the input to the MOB from olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) in the glomerular layer. Noradrenergic terminals are found in the glomerular layer, but noradrenaline receptors do not seem to acutely modulate OSN terminals in vitro. We investigated whether noradrenaline induces plasticity at the glomerulus. We used wide-field optical imaging to measure changes in odor responses following electrical stimulation of LC in anesthetized mice. Surprisingly, odor-evoked intrinsic optical signals at the glomerulus were persistently weakened after LC activation. Calcium imaging selectively from OSNs confirmed that this effect was due to suppression of presynaptic input and was prevented by noradrenergic antagonists. Finally, suppression of responses to an odor did not require precise coincidence of the odor with LC activation. However, suppression was intensified by LC activation in the absence of odors. We conclude that noradrenaline release from LC has persistent effects on odor processing already at the first synapse of the main olfactory system. This mechanism could contribute to arousal-dependent memories.


This essay reads Tom Phillips's stunning and still in-process artist's book A Humument (1966-) as exemplar of a non-hermeneutic vein of neo-Victorian textual production that stands as playful foil to the more familiar, suspicion-inflected appropriations of the nineteenth century that have come to dominate the mode's nascent canon. It places A Humument, the product of a cut-up and OULIPO-esque constrained writing experiment built on an edition of W.H. Mallock's A Human Document (1892), in a tradition which include Max Ernst's Une semaine de bonte (1934), Iain Sinclair's White Chapell, Scarlet Tracings (1987), and non-referential forms of contemporary steampunk performance. What all these examples share is a fascination with what I term, following Hans Gumbrecht, the presence effects of Victorian style and material cultures over their potential hermeneutic significance or value. A Humument not only thwarts the hermeneutic process, but also aestheticises its dislocation through its perpetually changing visual modification of its nineteenth-century original source text. I trace the work's implications for current debates about the respective value of surface and depth-based approaches to the nineteenth-century text within Victorian studies, and demonstrate how A Humument models a form of non-hermeneutic engagement that retains a keen sense of ethical responsibility towards the past.


Drosophila suzukii (Spotted Wing Drosophila) has recently become a serious invasive pest of fruit crops in the USA, Canada, and Europe, leading to substantial economic losses. D. suzukii is a direct pest, ovipositing directly into ripe or ripening fruits; in contrast, other Drosophilids utilize decaying or blemished fruits and are nuisance pests at worst. Immature stages of D. suzukii are difficult to differentiate from other Drosophilids, posing problems for research and for meeting quarantine restrictions designed to prevent the spread of this pest in fruit exports. Here we used a combined phylogenetic and bioinformatic approach to discover genetic markers suitable for a species diagnostic protocol of this agricultural pest. We describe a molecular diagnostic for rapid identification of single D. suzukii larva using multiplex polymerase chain reaction. Our molecular diagnostic was validated using nine different species of Drosophila for specificity and 19 populations of D. suzukii from different geographical regions to ensure utility within species.


Application firewalls are increasingly used to inspect upper-layer protocols (as HTTP) that are the target or vehicle of several attacks and are not properly addressed by network firewalls. Like other security controls, application firewalls need to be carefully configured, as errors have a significant impact on service security and availability. However, currently no technique is available to analyze their configuration for correctness and consistency. This paper extends a previous model for analysis of packet filters to the policy anomaly analysis in application firewalls. Both rule-pair and multirule anomalies are detected, hence reducing the likelihood of conflicting and suboptimal configurations. The expressiveness of this model has been successfully tested against the features of Squid, a popular Web caching proxy offering various access control capabilities. The tool implementing this model has been tested on various scenarios and exhibits good performance.


The police tend to think that those who evade surveillance are criminals. Yet the evasion may only be a protest against the surveillance itself. Faced with the growing surveillance capacities of the government, some people object. They buy "burners" (prepaid phones) or "freedom phones" from Asia that have had all tracking devices removed, or they hide their smartphones in ad hoc Faraday cages that block their signals. They use Tor to surf the internet. They identify tracking devices with GPS detectors. They avoid credit cards and choose cash, prepaid debit cards, or bitcoins. They burn their garbage. At the extreme end, some "live off the grid" and cut off all contact with the modern world. These are all examples of what I call privacy protests: actions individuals take to block or to thwart government surveillance for reasons that are unrelated to criminal wrongdoing. Those engaged in privacy protests do so primarily because they object to the presence of perceived or potential government surveillance in their lives. How do we tell the difference between privacy protests and criminal evasions, and why does it matter? Surprisingly scant attention has been given to these questions, in part because Fourth Amendment law makes little distinction between ordinary criminal evasions and privacy protests. This article discusses the importance of these ordinary acts of resistance, their place in constitutional criminal procedure, and their potential social value in the struggle over the meaning of privacy.


Welcome to the website of the Sharing Ancient Wisdoms project, and the SAWS Dynamic Library of Wisdom Literatures.

This project was funded by Humanities in the European Research Area, as part of their first Joint Research Programme. We are very grateful to them, and to our home institutions: King's College London, The Newman Institute Uppsala, and the University of Vienna.

The SAWS Dynamic Library contains five main groups of texts. Elvira Wakelnig and colleagues in Vienna have made available two collections, Gnomological Material in Arabic and in Arabic-Spanish transmission, and Arabic Philosophical Compendia and Excerpts of Arabic and Latin Philosophical Texts; these include, among others, transcriptions of two abridgements of the ?iw?n al-?ikma, Ps.-??mir?'s Kit?b al-Sa??da, the first editions of three unpublished Arabic compilations of philosophical material, together with further excerpts from relevant texts, from Greek sources and from the Spanish Bocados di Oro whch drew on this tradition. Apophthegmata et gnomae secundum alphabetum comprises the first full edition of an important tradition of Greek gnomologia, arranged in alphabetical order, and edited from 16 manuscripts by Denis Searby and colleagues in Uppsala. A collection of Greek florilegia: Pinakes, prepared by Roueche and Searby, presents the tables of contents from three previously published Greek gnomologia, to give a further sense of the concerns characteristic of such assemblages. Kekaumenos, Consilia et Narrationes, is a new edition, by Charlotte Roueche, of an 11th century Greek text which is profoundly influenced by the tradtion of gnomologia. See a map of the manuscripts which we are publishing.

The documents in the Dynamic Library can be consulted through the SAWS Folioscope. New users should take the Tour which the Folioscope offers, in order to ensure that they make the fullest possible use of all its features. The texts may be read separately or together. They can also be explored through the Indices in the Folioscope, and through the various visualisations. The XML of all the texts can be downloaded from the repository, and the schema for that XML is also available; the tools which have made this all possible, can be found under Methodology. To link to a particular document see How to cite, at the bottom of the Folioscope page; to link to a particular passage or line, use http://www.ancientwisdoms.ac.uk/folioscope/ followed by the Link ID. The full collection of machine readable citations can be found in the CTS inventory.

All our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License: see Creative Commons. All reuse or distribution of this work must contain somewhere a link back to the URL: http://ancientwisdoms.ac.uk/.

This publication is open to all readers, who will use it for many reasons, with widely different expectations. We have attempted to make it as accessible as possible, particularly through the use of links to other resources, where readers can find further information if they choose to. In this we have been dependent on the reliable sources of information which are available online at the time of publication (summer 2013); we hope that the majority of such resources will remain available, and that many more will become accessible.


Background: Lymphoedema is a chronic condition which has a significant impact on the lives of sufferers. Services for lymphoedema management are not standard throughout the UK. Recently a request for funding of lymphoedema services in Fife required the creation of a needs assessment. Aims: the study aim was to establish whether or not lymphoedema presents a health-related need, addressing two main questions: do people with lymphoedema have a legitimate physical and'or psychological need for health care and do they beenfit from the health care thay are given? Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted to explore the views of five lymphoedema service providers and five service users. Thematic analysis was undertaken. Results: Interview analysis indicated that the physical and psychological impact of lymphoedema has detrimental effects on daily function and paricipation in various aspects of life. Participants benefited from management, both physically and psychologically. Those with realistic expectations of management and who wished to take control of their symptoms expressed greater satisfaction with lymphoedema services. Conclusions: Lymphoedema leads to physical, psychological and social problems that can be alleviated through specialist management, thereby representing a health-related need. Declaration of interest: None.


Eight Vitis rotundifolia (muscadine) cultivars, including five black cultivars (Black Beauty, Ison, Nesbitt, Southern Home, and Supreme) and three bronze cultivars (Carlos, Granny Val, and Summit), yielded 58 to 74 kg/vine. Juice yields were 473 to 551 L/t with soluble solids (12.6 to 14.6%), pH (3.09 to 3.42), total phenolics (179 to 373 mg/L), and total anthocyanins (2.0 to 104 mg/L). Consumers and a trained descriptive panel evaluated the juices plus two commercial juices. Consumers rated Black Beauty, Granny Val, Ison, Southern Home, and Summit juices highest for overall liking. The descriptive panel created a sensory lexicon with major attributes identified as sweet, sour, cooked muscadine, cooked grape, and astringent. Correlation between consumer and descriptive data indicated overall liking correlated positively to sweetness and caramelized and correlated negatively to sour and green unripe. Consumers showed a preference for juice sweetness with soluble solids ≈ 14% and soluble solids/acid ratios of 26 to 31. The muscadine cultivars produced quality juices with potential nutraceutical impact to expand marketing of muscadine products.


Over recent years, use of self-medication by patients to help prevent and treat their own medical conditions has become increasingly widespread. However, despite provision of warnings and the taking of precautions, health hazards due to medication have occurred and continue to occur. In order to ward off such incidents, it is necessary for both children and adults to be educated about appropriate drug use. And, it is desirable that pharmacy students participate in this medicinal education as a means of affirming what they have learned and improving their communication skills at an early stage in their professional development. In 2008, we held medicinal education classes for pupils and parents at three elementary schools in Aichi Prefecture with the aim of promoting appropriate drug use. Each class comprised of two parts: an introductory lecture in quiz form, lasting about 30 minutes, and a 30-minute participatory group experiment. Subsequently, the activities carried out in both parts were evaluated across 6 items and 3 items respectively, and scored from Satisfied to Unsatisfied (4-step scale) by the pupils and their parents. We also conducted a questionnaire survey on this activity to the pharmacy students. We achieved successful results, gaining high Satisfied levels (better than 90%) in all items. This activity benefited both the children and the pharmacy students. It not only provided education for the general public regarding the appropriate drug use, but is also helping to foster the development in Japan of well-trained future pharmacists.


This thesis focuses on the modelling and adaptive tracking problem of both linear and nonlinear time-varying processes. Approaches for the estimation of time-varying parameters can broadly be classified into two categories: the adaptive recursive algorithm methods and the basis function approximation methods. Adaptive algorithms such as block least mean squares (LMS), recursive least squares (RLS) and Kalman filtering, are applied to estimate the time-varying parameters and are capable of tracking the transient variation providing that the variation is slow and smooth. For the basis function method, time-varying
parameters are expanded as a finite sequence of predetermined basis functions; the problem of time-varying estimation can then be reduced to a time invariant parameter estimation problem. The basis function expansion approaches are able to track process parameter changes even those with jumps, provided that appropriate basis functions are used. In this thesis, an attractive approach is to expand the time-varying parameters using wavelets as basis functions. Wavelets provide powerful tools for signal processing, with excellent approximation properties and
are well suited for approximating general nonstationary signals.
In this work, the application of data-based modelling techniques provides a powerful tool for electrophysiological data modelling and analysis, where a wavelet based modelling approach was applied to model the dynamics of nonstationary signals and capture its transient variations. The work in this thesis contains two parts. The first part deals with the estimation of time-varying linear models in both the time and frequency domains. The performance of tracking and capturing the transient changes of nonstationary systems by using time-varying system
identification and modelling in the time-frequency domain has been verified to be an effective approach which outperforms other existing traditional methods such as
sliding-window recursive least squares and Kalman filter algorithms. This technique has been used to investigate and interpret the properties of EEG oscillations of epileptic patients.
The second part deals with the estimation of nonlinear time-varying models, where a novel common model structure selection (CMSS) algorithm has been adapted and
extended to identify a robust time-varying common-structured (TVCS) model as a solution to time-varying nonlinear systems identification problems using an online
sliding-window approach. The main advantages of the proposed TVCS method are:
1) it produces a less biased or preferably unbiased robust model with better generalisation properties;
2) it enables rapid tracking of transient variations of
varying parameters and is more suitable for the estimation of parameters of inherently nonstationary processes. Results on time-varying nonlinear Granger causality analysis have also been investigated to detect and track nonlinear dynamical Granger causalities features.
A main contribution of this thesis is that linear and nonlinear models time-varying modelling techniques have been developed and applied to analyse and interpret
multi-frequency signals in both the time and frequency domains. Novel wavelet adaptive tracking algorithms were developed to track both linear and nonlinear system behaviours and the algorithms provide a new tool that can help clinicians interpret EEG signals. In addition, the newly developed methods are generally also applicable to other neuroscience signals. For example, possible applications of our proposed technique could be applied to describe and analyse the coding of speech signals into nerve-action potentials by the inner ear.


Last year's proposed immigration law reforms inflamed American society and fueled considerable debate regarding our nation's domestic and social obligations. One particularly controversial bill proposed in the House of Representatives, H.R. 4437, would have criminalized undocumented aliens as felons. Although the resolution did not pass, its advocates continue to seek similar controls and enjoy much support.The American public has been sharply divided over immigration, and disparate views on immigration control have been expressed even within the often-unified Catholic community. Indeed, Catholic voices have been some of the loudest in advocating and opposing H.R. 4437: Catholic bishops have called for amnesty; Catholic lawmakers have defended strict penalties as critical to domestic welfare.This Article studies whether Catholic teaching, with its foundation in natural law, condones differing views on immigration control. This analysis reveals that divergent responses to immigration are indeed permissible and natural among faithful Catholic believers. I would therefore urge Catholic lawmakers to recognize the permissible variation among believers and to dialogue more openly with religious and secular lawmakers.


This paper presents a prediction and compensation approach for thermal errors of 5-axis machine tools, based on supervised online machine learning. Process-intermittent probing is used to identify and update a thermal autoregressive with exogenous input (ARX) model. The approach is capable of predicting and compensating thermal displacements of the tool center point based on changes in the environmental temperature, load-dependent changes and boundary condition changes and states, like dry or wet machining. The self-optimized machine tool shows very stable long-term behavior under drastically varying machining and boundary conditions. The implementation is validated on a set of thermal test pieces. The test pieces show that the major share of thermal workpiece errors are reduced by the thermal adaptive learning control.


AbstractWe used a 3C/3D seismic reflection data set from King County, Texas, to investigate the utility of multicomponent seismic data for improving reservoir characterization. We evaluated a new seismic processing/interpretation option, based on direct-S modes generated by a vertical-force source. This new seismic mode, SV-P, may allow legacy 3D P-wave data to be reprocessed to create converted-wave data without the need for additional data acquisition costs associated with multicomponent surveys. Using traveltime and amplitude analysis, P-P, P-SV, and SV-P reflectivity was compared to determine which seismic mode might give a clearer picture of the subsurface and subsequently reduce exploration risk.


Background DJ-1 is found in many tissues, including the brain, where it has been extensively studied due to its association with Parkinson's disease. DJ-1 functions as a redox-sensitive molecular chaperone and transcription regulator that robustly protects cells from oxidative stress. Methodology Retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cultures were treated with H2O2 for various times followed by biochemical and immunohistological analysis. Cells were transfected with adenoviruses carrying the full-length human DJ-1 cDNA and a mutant construct, which has the cysteine residues at amino acid 46, 53 and 106 mutated to serine (C to S) prior to stress experiments. DJ-1 localization, levels of expression and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation were also analyzed in cells expressing exogenous DJ-1 under baseline and oxidative stress conditions. The presence of DJ-1 and oxidized DJ-1 was evaluated in human RPE total lysates. The distribution of DJ-1 was assessed in AMD and non-AMD cryosectionss and in isolated human Bruch's membrane (BM)/choroid from AMD eyes. Principal Findings DJ-1 in RPE cells under baseline conditions, displays a diffuse cytoplasmic and nuclear staining. After oxidative challenge, more DJ-1 was associated with mitochondria. Increasing concentrations of H2O2 resulted in a dose-dependent increase in DJ-1. Overexpression of DJ-1 but not the C to S mutant prior to exposure to oxidative stress led to significant decrease in the generation of ROS. DJ-1 and oxDJ-1 intensity of immunoreactivity was significantly higher in the RPE lysates from AMD eyes. More DJ-1 was localized to RPE cells from AMD donors with geographic atrophy and DJ-1 was also present in isolated human BM/choroid from AMD eyes. Conclusions/Significance DJ-1 regulates RPE responses to oxidative stress. Most importantly, increased DJ-1 expression prior to oxidative stress leads to decreased generation of ROS, which will be relevant for future studies of AMD since oxidative stress is a known factor affecting this disease.


A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a distributed collection of sensor nodes, which are resource constrained and capable of operating with minimal user attendance. The core function of a WSN is to sample physical phenomena and their environment and transport the information of interest, such as current status or events, as required by the application. Furthermore, the operating conditions and/or user requirements of WSNs are often desired to be evolvable, either driven by changes of the monitored phenomena or by the properties of the WSN itself. Consequently, a key objective for setting up/configuring WSNs is to provide the desired information subject to user defined quality requirements (accuracy, reliability, timeliness etc.), while considering their evolvability at the same time. The current state of the art only addresses the functional blocks of sampling and information transport in isolation. The approaches indeed assume the respective other block to be perfect in maintaining the highest possible information contribution. In addition, some of the approaches just concentrate on a few information attributes such as accuracy and ignore other attributes (e.g., reliability, timeliness, etc.). The existing research targeting these blocks usually tries to enhance the information quality requirements (accuracy, reliability, timeliness etc.), regardless of user requirements and use more resources, leading to faster energy depletion. However, we argue that it is not always necessary to provide the highest possible information quality. In fact, it is essential to avoid under or over provision of information in order to save valuable resources such as energy while just satisfying user evolvable requirements. More precisely, we show the interdependence of the different user requirements and how to co-design them in order to tune the level of provisioning. To discern the fundamental issues dictating the tunable co-design in WSNs, this thesis models and co-designs the sampling accuracy, information transport reliability and timeliness, and compares existing techniques. We highlight the key problems of existing techniques and provide solutions to achieve desired application requirements without under or over provisioning of information. Our first research direction is to provide tunable information transport. We show that it is possible to drastically improve efficiency, while satisfying the user evolvable requirements on reliability and timeliness. In this regard, we provide a novel timeliness model and show the tradeoff between the reliability and timeliness. In addition, we show that the reliability and timeliness can work in composition for maximizing efficiency in information transport. Second, we consider the sampling and information transport co-design by just considering the attributes spatial accuracy and transport reliability. We provide a mathematical model in this regard and then show the optimization of sampling and information transport co-design. The approach is based on optimally choosing the number of samples in order to minimize the number of retransmission in the information transport while maintaining the required reliability. Third, we consider representing the physical phenomena accurately and optimize the network performance. Therefore, we jointly model


Abstract Context Analyzing factors that may enhance osteopathic applicants' likelihood of matching is warranted given that United States osteopathic and allopathic residency programs will have a single accreditation system in 2020. Objectives To determine the impact of research accomplishments and experiences on osteopathic and allopathic residency matching. Methods Analysis of variance, t test, and odds ratios were used to examine data from the National Resident Matching Program Charting Outcomes from 2016 and 2018. Relationships between match status and medical degree, specialty matching, and mean numbers of research accomplishments and experiences in the Main Residency Match were analyzed. Results Matched osteopathic and allopathic applicants had significantly greater numbers of research accomplishments (mean [SD], 5.18 [4.34]) than unmatched applicants (3.66 [2.87]) (P=.006). Applicants who matched (mean [SD], 2.81 [1.64]) had similar numbers of research experiences to those who did not match (2.43 [1.26]) (P=.068). Matched and unmatched allopathic applicants' research accomplishments (5.91 [3.72]) were significantly greater than that of osteopathic applicants (2.60 [2.90]) (P<.001). Significant differences also were found between the means of research experiences of matched and unmatched osteopathic (mean [SD], 1.73 [1.21]) and allopathic applicants (3.36 [1.25], P<.001). Matched and unmatched osteopathic applicants' had similar means for research accomplishments (mean [SD], 3.00 [3.64] and 2.20 [1.84], respectively; P=.242) and experiences (1.79 [1.31] and 1.66 [1.12], respectively; P=.664). By contrast, significant differences were found between the numbers of research accomplishments for matched (mean [SD], 6.97 [4.07]) vs unmatched (4.86 [3.02]) allopathic applicants (P=.007). The only subspecialty for which research experiences of osteopathic applicants correlated with matching was physical medicine and rehabilitation (OR, 2.75; 95% CI, 1.30-5.84). Conclusion Research seems to have a greater influence on matching for allopathic than osteopathic applicants. Although both osteopathic and allopathic programs have standards pertaining to scholarly activity, allopathic medical schools may place a greater emphasis on research. Increasing osteopathic medical students' exposure to research is predicted to enhance their competitiveness for matching and help develop skills relevant to the practice of evidence-based medicine.


The concept of organizational culture (OC) is a potential candidate for every organizational psychologist's conceptual toolbox. Organizational clients consider OC to be critical for recruiting and retaining employees, and academic literature on the topic implicates cultural variables as being highly relevant during organizational change initiatives. The notion that the shared learning experiences of organizational members may have beneficial or harmful effects on performance improvement or behavior change interventions should be intriguing to any professional who specializes in such technologies. In this regard, the OC concept may help a performance improvement specialist or behavioral specialist to consider important aspects of organizational complexity. However, traditional approaches to this topic tend to be descriptively focused, emphasize the power of private behavior, and do not necessarily point the organizational practitioner in fruitful directions. For these reasons, it may be useful to supplement the OC concept with the total performance system concept and the perspective of selection by consequences. This type of conceptual focus may help the specialized fields of applied behavior analysis, organizational behavior management, and human performance technology make better use of the OC concept when the goal is organizational, process, or individual and group performance improvement. Key Words: Organizational Culture, Organizational Change, Performance Improvement, Behavior Analysis, Systems Analysis, and Selectionism ********** PUTTING THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CONCEPT TO WORK By the time we reach adulthood, chances are that we have developed preferences for the types of organizations we would like to join, work at, or patronize. These preferences are obviously influenced by convenient access to the organization and the type and quality of services, products, and other benefits available to members or patrons, but these preferences are also based on other things. One of those "other things" may be summarized by the concept of organizational culture (OC). Beyond the argument that OC can promote loyal patronage and membership, it is sometimes implied that different types of cultures are associated with excellent or deficient organizational performance, with the type of performance depending upon the type and strength of the culture under scrutiny (Daft & Noe, 2001). This notion should be especially interesting to scientists and practitioners interested in organizational change and performance improvement, including people who would identify with the fields of applied behavior analysis (ABA), organizational behavior management (OBM), or human performance technology (HPT). However, rather than adding a useful concept to the organizational practitioner's tool box, the OC concept runs the risk of functioning only as a post hoc explanatory fiction when things go really well or really bad for a company. To accomplish something more than this, the OC concept must be used in a selective and measured fashion when change or improvement is the goal. Is Organizational Culture Worthy of Your Conceptual Toolbox? OC is an important concept within the broad fields of industrial and organizational (1/0) psychology and organizational behavior (OB), with introductory 1/0 and OB textbooks dedicating sections or entire chapters to the topic (e.g., Daft & Noe, 2001; Muchinsky, 2003; Robbins, 2003). Daft and Noe (2001) reported that a sample of CEOs from fortune 500 companies believed " ... organizational culture to 0be the most important variable for attracting and retaining talented employees, which is an important contributing variable to overall organizational excellence" (p. 585). Surveys like this one, conducted by Fortune magazine, illustrate high corporate interest in organizational culture, with this particular group of CEOs ranking the concept at the top of their list of variables affecting recruitment and retention success. …


Evaluations of 'natural experiments' in public policy are typically considered 'weak' evidence. Challenges include: making credible claims for causal inference (internal validity); generalizing beyond the case (external validity); and providing useful evidence for decision makers. In public health, where experimental evidence is encouraged by funders and enjoys a degree of rhetorical favour, in theory if not practice, current guidance for evaluating natural experiments focuses largely on methods for strengthening internal validity. Using a case study of the evaluation of free bus travel for young people in London, UK, we demonstrate a pragmatic approach to strengthening both internal and external validity in evaluations through integrating the logic of quasi-experimental methods with inductive qualitative analysis. Combining theoretical and inductive analysis in this way to address questions of policy interest through evaluations of natural experiments may be fruitful, and have methodological advantages over randomized designs.


This article argues that the 'Third Way' philosophy that has been adopted by centre-left parties throughout Europe and the United States provides the conceptual framework to analyse contemporary postfeminism and its contentious micro-politics that emerges out of personal and daily gender-based struggles. The notion of a postfeminist micro-politics complicates the critical perception of postfeminism as a depoliticized and anti-feminist backlash and offers a dynamic model of political action that takes into account the multiple agency positions of individuals today. Postfeminism and the politics it endorses differ from emergent political movements such as third wave feminism in that they are not founded on second wave feminist theory and activism. Instead, postfeminist politics adopts a Third Way perspective to reconcile a number of conflicting concerns, from feminist calls for female equality and theoretical debates on anti-essentialism to the consumerist demands of capitalist society. These controversial new junctures are examined by paying particular attention to postfeminism's female sexual agent who becomes the 'entrepreneur' of her own image, buying into standardized femininities while also seeking to resignify their meanings. In particular, the article discusses the paradoxical possibilities of 'active consumption' and 'fashion feminism' whereby women endeavour to achieve empowerment by exerting their consumer agency and using their bodies as political tools within the parameters of a capitalist economy.


NEUROMODULATION FOR DEPRESSION: INSIGHTS GAINED FROM NEUROIMAGING AND COMPUTATIONAL MODELS Yagna Pathak, B.S., M.Eng. Marquette University, 2014 Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a public health concern worldwide, affecting a sixth of the American population. Neuromodulation therapies have been employed to treat severe cases of treatment resistant depression. These procedures attempt to modulate activity in cortical regions that represent nodes in brain circuits believed to be involved in MDD. One challenge in neuromodulation trials has been the difficulty in quantifying outcome variability. We sought to understand the effects of neuromodulation therapies and their sources of variability while adding an objective perspective to assess clinical improvement in neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression. The goal of my dissertation was to investigate the neuronal circuitry of MDD patients who were treated using neuromodulation. Our primary measures were behavior scores and results from functional neuroimaging. The specific aims of this study were to answer three fundamental questions: 1) What is the role of stimulation parameters in patient response to chronic epidural cortical stimulation (EpCS) for MDD? 2) What functional changes result from repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for MDD? 3) How does stimulation of different targets in the depressive circuit affect antidepressive response? Our results suggest that combining neuroimaging with computational tools can increase the predictive power to determine who is likely to respond to a specific neuromodulation treatment course. We demonstrated the significance of stimulation parameters (location, polarity, duration) and the engagement of crucial nodes of the depressive circuit in order to achieve a sustained clinical improvement. Additionally, we showed that it is possible to affect deeper brain regions by targeting superficial areas that are easier to access with noninvasive modalities. The approaches highlighted in this dissertation can provide valuable insights about patients evaluated for neuromodulation for depression.


Elementary School Teachers' Perceptions of the Process of Integrating Technology by Diana J. Thompson MA, Armstrong Atlantic State University, 2007 BS, Armstrong Atlantic State University, 2005 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Walden University August 2015 Abstract Administrators in a rural K-5 school district provided leadership, technical assistance, and technology resources to increase teachers' use of technology to improve student achievement. Despite these efforts, teachers incorporated technology on a limited basis and some teachers reported they were unprepared to integrate technology. The purpose of this qualitative bounded case study was to examine teaching practices and teachers' perceptions of technology integration in their daily lessons. The conceptual framework for this study included technology integration and constructivism, a theory based on observation and scientific study about how people learn. A purposeful sample of 10 K-5 teachers who integrated technology in instruction volunteered to participate in interviews and classroom observations, and provided lesson plans for document review. Qualitative data were analyzed using open coding to identify patterns and themes. Based on the findings, teachers used instructional videos and PowerPoint-guided lessons in daily instruction, and they used technology to monitor student progress weekly or biweekly. Teachers expressed a need for ongoing professional development in technologyAdministrators in a rural K-5 school district provided leadership, technical assistance, and technology resources to increase teachers' use of technology to improve student achievement. Despite these efforts, teachers incorporated technology on a limited basis and some teachers reported they were unprepared to integrate technology. The purpose of this qualitative bounded case study was to examine teaching practices and teachers' perceptions of technology integration in their daily lessons. The conceptual framework for this study included technology integration and constructivism, a theory based on observation and scientific study about how people learn. A purposeful sample of 10 K-5 teachers who integrated technology in instruction volunteered to participate in interviews and classroom observations, and provided lesson plans for document review. Qualitative data were analyzed using open coding to identify patterns and themes. Based on the findings, teachers used instructional videos and PowerPoint-guided lessons in daily instruction, and they used technology to monitor student progress weekly or biweekly. Teachers expressed a need for ongoing professional development in technology integration to enhance instruction, and they requested more time to collaborate with colleagues to develop technology-integrated lessons. It is recommended that K-5 teachers receive easily accessible onsite professional development to learn strategies and methods to integrate technology in the classroom. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change by restructuring the current district technology-based professional development models to support teachers' integration of technology to improve student instruction. Elementary School Teachers' Perceptions of the Process of Integrating Technology by Diana J. Thompson MA, Armstrong Atlantic State University, 2007 BS, Armstrong Atlantic State, 2005 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education


We divide countries into two technology categories: developed and developing. Agricultural efficiency within each technology category was calculated. Cross-category efficiency measures were developed and combined with own-category measures to develop a technical difference index. Results indicate convergence of efficiency within both categories but divergence of efficiency between the two categories.


The rate of lung cancer incidence is alarmingly mounting, despite the decline of smoking and tobacco consumption. Recent reports indicate a very high correlation between the growing fast food culture and lung cancer incidence. Benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) is a potent carcinogen abundantly present in grilled and deep-fried food and in tobacco smoke. Our previous studies have proved the efficacy of curcumin in curbing B[a]P-induced lung carcinogenesis. However, the poor pharmacokinetic profile of the compound considerably hampers its potential as an effective chemopreventive. This study was intended to evaluate whether encapsulation of curcumin in chitosan nanoparticles can improve the cellular uptake and prolong the tissue retention of curcumin yielding better chemoprevention. The curcumin-loaded chitosan nanoparticles (chitosan nanocurcumin) exhibited a size of 170–200 nm in transmission electron microscopy. In vitro drug release studies showed sustained release of curcumin over a period of approximately 180 hours and excellent intracellular uptake and cytotoxicity in lung cancer cells. Bioavailability studies using healthy Swiss albino mice demonstrated drastic enhancement in lung localization of chitosan nanocurcumin compared with free curcumin. Toxicologic evaluation using chronic toxicity model in Swiss albino mice confirmed the pharmacologic safety of the formulation. Moreover, the formulation, even at a dose equivalent to one fourth that of free curcumin, exhibits better efficacy in reducing tumor incidence and multiplicity than free curcumin, thereby hampering development of B[a]P-induced lung adenocarcinomas in Swiss albino mice. Hence, our study underscores the supremacy of the formulation over free curcumin and establishes it as a potential chemopreventive and oral supplement against environmental carcinogenesis.


The primary goal of a materials scientist is a predictive understanding of materials properties and that requires a clear picture of the role played by electrons in determining the materials' behavior. Only then can one hope to design and build new materials with desired physical, chemical and engineering characteristics. Research is carried out on the basis of quantum mechanics, through solution of the so-called single-particle Schroedinger equation that describes the behavior of electrons in a solid. This book describes one formal approach to solving the Schroedinger equation developed within the framework of multiple scattering theory (MST). It offers a comprehensive and welcome entree to the field of electronic structure of solids and should serve as a treatise for advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in the field. Topics Include: concepts and formalism; periodic solids and impurities; substitutional alloys; surfaces and interfaces; transport; phonons and photons and formal Green-function theory.


Most observers agree that the excessive debt or leverage of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) was a central reason why the housing crash of 2007-2009 led to a recession. The Dodd-Frank Act authorizes the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Federal Reserve to adopt new prudential standards for regulating these institutions. A fundamental challenge for these standards is how to restrain the leverage of SIFIs by prescribing a minimum amount of capital or equity they must hold relative to their assets. This Article develops a framework for the regulation of capital in SIFIs that departs from current regulatory practice. Starting from the assumption of perfect capital markets, it first shows that a limit on leverage is an optimal regulatory policy when capital markets are perfect, but bank failures entail an external social cost. It then argues that capital regulation can be effectively adapted to the imperfections that exist in real financial markets such as taxes, transaction costs, and incomplete information. Many of these imperfections strengthen the argument for capital regulation. In cases where capital regulation may inefficiently reduce lending, suitable regulatory design can mitigate this effect. This Article proposes a security design — automatic convertibles — to mitigate the cost of issuing capital; considers the strategic responses of SIFIs to regulation; and critiques current regulations as well as other market-based proposals in this literature.


Gennany has recently witnessed a vast increase in anti-foreign violence. Assembling data from a wide variety of recent research, the paper addresses two basic questions: to what extent is the outburst of xenophobic attacks a German peculiarity? and what are the explanations for the mcreasing violence? An analysis of criminal statistics of various European countries and of comparative opinion polls in the European Community shows that Germany has indeed witnessed a growth of anti-foreign sentiment, and a level of violence that is conspicuous from a com parative perspective. Four possible determinants of this peculiarity of recent German history are discussed: (1) the growing ethnic and cultural heterogeneity due to the vast increase in immigration from non-European countries; (2) the increasing costs of foreigners' claims on the German welfare state; (3) the economic context of immigration; and (4) the transformation of national identity in the context of German unification. It is shown that neither the rate of immigration nor the position of foreigners in the German welfare state yields satisfactory explanations for the recent upsurge in violence, which only occurred after unification. The key for an explanation lies in a particular macro-constellation that is characterized by the concurrence of a massive wave of immigration with an economic crisis, and with the ethnicization of German national identity in the context of unification. Anti-foreign sentiments do not automatically follow increases in immigration, but grow in a specific political climate to which the political elites actively contribute.


There is clear evidence that graduates, in general, lack the personal skills, attitudes and behaviors needed for success in the workplace. For university students, gaining employability skills such as information literacy, reflective thinking and writing skills throughout their education is now more important than ever. British Universities have been increasingly investing in various strategies to ensure that their graduates are fully equipped with knowledge and transferable skills and are able to respond to the changing needs of the job market.

With the heightened need for our graduates to be employable, the focus has grown from academic literacy to include 'workplace literacy'. However, these two should not be considered separate entities but rather a development from one to the other.

At Middlesex University an intra-university team has built a framework to target the development of academic and information literacy as well as graduate employability. The team comprises staff from the School of Engineering and Information Sciences (EIS), the Learner Development Unit (LDU) and Learning Resources (LR). This paper aims to share our experiences at Middlesex University in devising such a collaborative strategy. We will also discuss the results of our work so far, including the changes which have been made and the results of a survey to show the impact on the students' progress.


PURPOSE
To compare the antiemetic efficacy of a single dose of an oral antiemetic (granisetron 2 mg) with a single dose of an intravenous (i.v.) antiemetic (ondansetron 32 mg) given before cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
This was a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group study. Patients (N = 1,054) scheduled to receive cisplatin (> or = 60 mg/m2)-based chemotherapy were randomized to receive either 2 mg of oral granisetron tablets 1 hour before chemotherapy (n = 534) or i.v. ondansetron (32 mg) 30 minutes before chemotherapy (n = 520). The primary efficacy end point was total control (no emesis, no nausea, and no use of antiemetic rescue medication) over the initial 24 hours after the start of chemotherapy. Dexamethasone or methylprednisolone were permitted, but not required, as concomitant prophylactic antiemetics.

RESULTS
Total control was equivalent 24 hours after cisplatin chemotherapy for single-dose oral granisetron (54.7%) and i.v. ondansetron (58.3%) (95% confidence interval [CI], -9.6 to 2.4). Similar proportions of patients remained nausea-free in the granisetron group (55.4%) and the ondansetron group (59%) (95% CI, -9.6 to 2.4). The rate of complete control of emesis was 61.2% in the granisetron group and 67.1% in the ondansetron group (95% CI, -11.7 to -0.1). Both treatment regimens were well tolerated, with similar patterns of adverse reactions, generally of a mild degree. The most common side effects included constipation (14%), headache (15%), and diarrhea (10%).

CONCLUSION
Oral granisetron, administered as a single 2-mg dose, provided equivalent total antiemetic control when compared with i.v. ondansetron (32 mg) in patients who received highly emetogenic, cisplatin-based chemotherapy.


In this paper we will briefly review recent trends in employment outcomes for disadvantaged youth, focusing specifically on those who have become "disconnected" from school and the labor market, and why these trends have occurred. We then review a range of policy prescriptions that might improve those outcomes. These policies include: 1) Efforts to enhance education and employment outcomes, both among in-school youth who are at risk of dropping out and becoming disconnected as well as out-of-school youth who have already done so; 2) Policies to increase earnings and incent more labor force participation among youth, such as expanding the eligibility of childless adults (and especially non-custodial parents) for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); and 3) Specific policies to reduce barriers to employment faced by ex-offenders and non-custodial parents (NCPs). We also consider policies that target the demand side of the labor market, in efforts to spur the willingness of employers to hire these young people and perhaps to improve the quality of jobs available to them.


Drawing upon findings from many disciplines including sociology, communication, family studies, human development, psychology and anthropology-this book provides the first composite study of the whole family and of the complex interplay between self and collectivity in family life. It departs sharply from the traditional two-person, cause-effect models used in conventional studies, and attempts to delineate a social psychology of the family. This book undertakes to define and understand the nature of families, to point out ways of discerning different family characters, and to comprehend the processes by which these characters are established and maintained; by so doing, it introduces a new dimension into the study of family behavior and provides a framework within which meaningful investigations and practical applications can be pursued. This long-awaited fourth edition continues the goal of preceding editions: to understand families in terms of the kinds of interaction through which family life is constructed. Contributors drawn from a wide variety of disciplines sociology; communication; family studies; human development; psychology; anthropology; and social work - provide a range of authoritative and up-to-date sources on the family and interpersonal relations, including newly emergent forms of family organization. In providing a new framework for fruitful investigation and practical application, this volume contains the best available interdisciplinary work on the social psychology of the family.


One of the biggest challenges for performance measurement is integration of different aspects of organizational performance, which are very different by their nature, are measured by completely different, not comparable indicators. Organizational and individual-level performance indicators, although naturally and organically linked, but, nevertheless, are measured in different dimensions, could serve as an example. Performance measurement, in one or another form, is spread across various management disciplines: Strategic management, Quality management, Process improvement, and Performance appraisal as a part of Human resources management. Organizational level indicators prevail in Strategic management systems, both organizational level and individual level performance indicators can be found in Quality management and Process inprovement systems, and individual level performance indicators are dominant in Human resource management. The link between the indicators of these two levels is of particular importance, if they are not properly connected, employees' motyvation and compensation for work becomes quite formal and does not match overall goals of organization. The difference of the performance measurement in the public and private sectors is determined not only by the different nature of these sectors, but also by different historical traditions. Because of the complexity of the public sector organizations' mission, private sector organizations' performance evaluation can be regarded as an isolated case of performance evaluation in public sector organizations . Performance indicators should be clearly distinguished from the factors determining the level of performance, which are no less important, however, are often confused with each other. The first are used to monitor performance, the latter – to improve it. Individual level performance indicators could be more usefull in searching the factors determining performance.


This paper is concerned with the statistical analysis of a real-valued symmetric data matrix. We assume a weighted stochastic block model: the matrix indices, taken to represent nodes, can be partitioned into communities so that all entries corresponding to a given community pair are replicates of the same random variable. Extending results previously known only for unweighted graphs, we provide a limit theorem showing that the point cloud obtained from spectrally embedding the data matrix follows a Gaussian mixture model where each community is represented with an elliptical component. We can therefore formally evaluate how well the communities separate under different data transformations, for example, whether it is productive to "take logs". We find that performance is invariant to affine transformation of the entries, but this expected and desirable feature hinges on adaptively selecting the eigenvectors according to eigenvalue magnitude and using Gaussian clustering. We present a network anomaly detection problem with cyber-security data where the matrix of log p-values, as opposed to p-values, has both theoretical and empirical advantages.


Continuous tuning over a 1.6 THz region in the near-infrared (842.5-848.6 nm) has been achieved with a hybrid ring/external cavity laser having a single, optically-driven grating reflector and gain provided by an injection-seeded semiconductor amplifier. Driven at 532 nm and incorporating a photonic crystal with an azobenzene overlayer, the reflector has a peak reflectivity of ~80% and tunes at the rate of 0.024 nm per mW of incident green power. In a departure from conventional ring or external cavity lasers, the frequency selectivity for this system is provided by the passband of the tunable photonic crystal reflector and line narrowing in a high gain amplifier. Sub - 0.1 nm linewidths and amplifier extraction efficiencies above 97% are observed with the reflector tuned to 842.5 nm.


In this exploratory article it was sought to show that the legal aspects of weather modification are of topical interest in southern Africa. Weather modification has been governed by the South African Water Act since 1972, and a system of administrative control has been established through licensing and criminal sanction. In property law weather modification involves problems regarding rights to clouds, air and precipitation. Weather modification activities also involve potential delictual liability for property damage or nuisance; and proof of causation is the most important problem facing a plaintiff Weather modification also has implications for international law , and a comprehensive international treaty on the subject is desirable.


Doctors and hospitals have begun to level a new charge — "medical child abuse" (MCA) — against parents who, they say, get unnecessary medical treatment for their kids. The fact that this treatment has been ordered by other doctors does not protect parents from these accusations. Child protection officials have generally supported the accusing doctors in these charges, threatening parents with loss of custody, removing children from their homes, and even sometimes charging parents criminally for this asserted overtreatment. Judges, too, have largely treated such charges as credible claims of child abuse.
Despite the rising number of parents faced with these charges, this phenomenon has received no critical attention whatsoever in legal literature. This law review article is the first to explain why, as a legal matter, medical child abuse charges are deeply and fundamentally flawed. It is certainly true that the (likely few) twisted parents who intentionally use the medical system to hurt their children have committed child abuse. Yet the broad definition of MCA developed by doctors captures within its diagnostic net many loving parents making the best decisions they can for their genuinely sick children.
This article demonstrates that the broad definition of MCA developed by physicians and adopted within the child protection system violates the constitutional rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children. Meanwhile, the framing of MCA as a medical "diagnosis" turns what should be a legal decision regarding child abuse into a medical determination, in the process omitting important legal requirements. Finally, the loose diagnostic standards constructed to "diagnose" MCA rest on both flawed science and flawed medical standards. In short, the MCA theory developed by physicians and enforced by child protection officials is bad constitutional doctrine, bad law, bad science, and bad medicine. Any of these flaws in itself should be sufficient to bar the presentation of the theory of MCA in the courtroom. The presence of all these flaws leaves this conclusion beyond doubt.


In the recent years phytomedicines are employed for curing many diseases as alternative source of synthetic drugs due to many reasons; affordability, low price, no side effects and ecofriendly. Higher demand and hence over exploitation have depleted the plant sources severely. There is an urgent need to conserve the natural stalk by developing conservation strategies. Hypochaeris radicata, one such species needed in large quantity is severely exploited for its medicinal uses in high hills of Nilgiris, the Western Ghats, India. Further, no major scientific reports are available with respect to its bioactive compounds and therapeutic properties. To address this lacuna, the study was carried out to develop protocol for in vitro propagation, to know the phytochemicals by preliminary investigation and quantification and to evaluate the antioxidant properties. The results of the study report that higher number of shoots were obtained from cotyledonary leaf explants in the MS medium fortified with BAP at 2mg/L (100%) followed by BAP and GA3 at 2mg/L and 0.5mg/L (95.63%) respectively. Rooting percentage (98.48%) was better which subcultured onto the MS medium contained NAA at 1mg/L. Rooted plantlets were hardened (garden soil: sand: vermicompost=1:1:1) and established in pots with 75.22% survival rate. The determination of phytochemical constituents by qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed the presence of rich variety of secondary metabolites. The in vitro antioxidant activities of in vitro derived methanolic leaf extract of H. radicata proved this species as potential source for pharmaceutical drug preparations.


ABSTRACT The ERG1 gene encodes a family of potassium channels. Mutations in human ERG1 lead to defects in cardiac repolarization, referred to as the long QT syndrome. Through homologous recombination in mouse embryonic stem cells the ERG1 B potassium channel transcript was eliminated while the ERG1 A transcript was maintained. Heterologous expression of ERG1 isoforms had previously indicated that the deactivation time course of ERG1 B is 10-fold more rapid than that of ERG1 A. In day-18 fetal +/+ myocytes, IKr exhibited two time constants of deactivation (3,933 ± 404 and 350 ± 19 ms at −50 mV), whereas in age-matched ERG1 B−/− mice the rapid component was absent. Biexponential deactivation rates (2,039 ± 268 and 163 ± 43 ms at −50 mV) were also observed in adult +/+ myocytes. In adult ERG1 B−/− myocytes no IKr was detected. Electrocardiogram intervals were similar in +/+ and −/− mice. However, adult −/− mice manifested abrupt spontaneous episodes of sinus bradycardia (>100 ms of slowing) in 6 out of 21 mice. This phenomenon was never observed in +/+ mice (0 out of 16). We conclude that ERG1 B is necessary for IKr expression in the surface membrane of adult myocytes. Knockout of ERG1 B predisposes mice to episodic sinus bradycardia.


Given two labelled Markov decision processes (MDPs), the trace-refinement problem asks whether for all strategies of the first MDP there exists a strategy of the second MDP such that the induced labelled Markov chains are trace-equivalent. We show that this problem is decidable in polynomial time if the second MDP is a Markov chain. The algorithm is based on new results on a particular notion of bisimulation between distributions over the states. However, we show that the general trace-refinement problem is undecidable, even if the first MDP is a Markov chain. Decidability of those problems was stated as open in 2008. We further study the decidability and complexity of the trace-refinement problem provided that the strategies are restricted to be memoryless.


From a longitudinal survey of a British cohort born in 1958 this study finds that, by age 33, off-spring of parents who divorced are more likely to have dissolved their first partnerships. This finding persists after taking into account age at first partnership, type of first partnership (marital, pre-marital cohabiting union, and cohabiting union), and indicators of class background and childhood and adolescent school achievement and behaviour problems. Some of these factors are associated with partnership dissolution in their own right, but the association between parental divorce and second generation partnership dissolution is largely independent of them. Demographic factors, including type of and age at first partnership, were important links between parental divorce and partnership dissolution. Moreover, the estimated effects of parental divorce were substantially reduced when the demographic variables were taken into account, suggesting that cohabitation and early partnership may be important pathw...


AbstractIn general, university-based global health initiatives have tended to focus on expanding access to primary care. In the past, surgical programs may have been characterized by sporadic participation with little educational focus. However, there have been some notable exceptions with plastic surgery volunteer missions. We offer another model of regularly scheduled surgical trips to rural Haiti in plastic and general surgery. The goal of these trips is to reduce the burden of surgical disease and ultimately repair every cleft lip/palate in Haiti. Another principal objective is to accelerate the training of American residents through increased case load and personal interaction with attending surgeons in a concentrated period. Diversity of the case load and the overall number of surgeries performed by residents in a typical surgical trip outpaces the experiences available during a typical week in an American hospital setting. More importantly, we continue to provide ongoing training to Haitian nurses and surgeons in surgical techniques and postoperative care. Our postoperative complication rate has been relatively low. Our follow-up rates have been lower than 70% despite intensive attempts to maintain continued communication with our patients. Through our experiences in surgical care in rural Haiti, we were able to quickly ramp up our trauma and orthopedic surgical care immediately after the earthquake. Project Medishare and the University of Miami continue to operate a trauma and acute care hospital in Port au Prince. The hospital provides ongoing orthopedic, trauma, and neurosurgical expertise from the rotating teams of American surgeons and training of Haitian surgeons in modern surgical techniques. We believe that surgical residencies in the United States can improve their training programs and reduce global surgical burden of disease through consistent trips and working closely with country partners.


This paper has three primary goals: (1) to provide a brief account of recent events in California renewables policy; (2) to outline the California State Legislature`s ultimate decision on renewable energy policy; and (3) to aid other states in their efforts with renewables policy by summarizing some of the key implementation issues and political conflicts that may occur when crafting some of the potential threats and opportunities that electricity restructuring presents to the development of renewable energy. We then outline the renewables policy debate in California since the California Public Utility Commission`s ``Blue Book``, including both regulatory and legislative developments. We also provide some insight into the minimum renewables purchase requirement (MRPR) versus surcharge-based renewables policy debate in California. Finally, we identify and discuss key renewables policy implementation issues that have driven the dialogue and recent decisions in California`s renewables policy.


Dynamic Monte Carlo simulations of long chains confined to a cubic lattice system at a polymer volume fraction of φ=0.5 were employed to investigate the dynamics of polymer melts. It is shown that in the range of chain lengths n, from n=64 to n=800 there is a crossover from a weaker dependence of the diffusion coefficient on chain length to a much stronger one, consistent with D∼n−2. Since the n−2 scaling relation signals the onset of highly constrained dynamics, an analysis of the character of the chain contour motion was performed. We found no evidence for the well‐defined tube required by the reptation model of polymer melt dynamics. The lateral motions of the chain contour are still large even in the case when n=800, and the motion of the chain is essentially isotropic in the local coordinates. Hence, the crossover to the D∼n−2 regime with increasing chain length of this monodisperse model melt is not accompanied by the onset of reptation dynamics.


While B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and hypoalbuminemia are both predictors of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF), whether these markers are correlated is not known. We retrospectively analyzed data collected in 85 patients presenting with CHF, a left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) < 50%, and non-ischemic heart disease, followed for a mean of 38 months. Statistical analysis was performed to 1) examine the relationship between a) baseline BNP or albumin concentrations and b) baseline clinical characteristics, 2) identify the correlates of changes in (Δ) BNP concentrations, and Δ albumin concentrations, and 3) ascertain the prognostic value of each variable. Log transformed BNP was correlated with New York Heart Association functional class, total protein and LVEF, while albumin was correlated with a history of diabetes mellitus and total protein. Δ BNP and Δ albumin concentrations between baseline and follow-up were correlated (P < 0.0001). The follow-up BNP and albumin concentrations were independent predictors of MACE.BNP and albumin were correlated with different baseline clinical characteristics. The long-term changes in the two markers were inversely correlated and both were independent predictors of CHF.


Fear is an indispensable characteristic of any infectious disease, and the alarm will be further amplified when the infection spreads uncontrollable, unpredictable, and global. The novel corona virus (SARS CoV-2) lead Covid-19, has been declared as a global emergency by WHO as it has affected millions of people with a high mortality rate. The non-availability of medicine for Covid-19 and the various control measures such as social distancing, self-isolation, house quarantine, and the new normal implementation by different nations across the world to control the spread of Covid-19 made people vulnerable to fear and anxiety. As a result, considerable number of Covid-19-related suicidal deaths has been reported across the world during this pandemic. There have been several studies which describe the psychosocial aspects of suicidal ideation. However, the research on the biological aspects of suicidal ideation/suicidal risk factors that are related to pandemic are unreported. Hence this review article is intended to provide a comprehensive analysis of suicidal deaths during Covid-19 and also aimed to addresses the possible link between suicidal ideation and different factors, including psycho-social, behavioral, neurobiological factors (proximal, distal, and inflammatory) and immunity. The alterations in glutamatergic and GABAergic neurotransmitters had upregulated the GABARB3, GABARA4, GABARA3, GABARR1, GABARG2, and GAD2 gene expressions in suicidal victims. The changes in the Kynurenine (KYN) pathway, Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis (HPA axis) hyperactivation, and dysregulation of serotonin biosynthesis would significantly alter the brain chemistry in people with suicide ideation.


This study examined Nordic research on psychosocial work environment and disability management, specifically employer strategies for preventing work disability in common mental disorders (CMDs). A scoping review was performed to identify strategies across several research databases, alongside contact with content experts, hand-searching of non-indexed journals, and internet searches. Identification and selection of relevant studies, charting of data, and collating and summarizing of results was done using a six-step framework for conducting scoping reviews. Several key elements and knowledge gaps were identified in current prevention approaches and workplace initiatives across the included studies. We propose a program theory for workplace prevention of CMD-related work disability. The program theory may help specify employer strategies, and bridge activities with stakeholders outside the workplace.


We report the simultaneous measurements of radiative lifetimes, branching fractions, and absolute transition probabilities in atomic samarium using laser-induced fluorescence. The radiative lifetimes of seven odd-parity energy levels and six step-wise-excited even parity energy levels of atomic samarium have been measured. The lifetime values of odd-parity energy levels agree well with those reported in the literature, and the values of even-parity energy levels are new. Excited-level-to-ground-level branching fractions and absolute transition probabilities for twenty-one transitions in atomic samarium are measured using single-color laser-induced fluorescence, and the results are compared against the values reported in the literature. We also report branching fractions and absolute transition probabilities for fifty-one excited-level-to-excited-level transitions in atomic samarium using two-color laser-induced fluorescence. The existing ambiguity in assigning the total angular momentum values for the six stepwise-excited even-parity energy levels is removed by assigning each of these excited levels a unique J value by identifying known odd-parity lower levels to which a stepwise-excited even-parity level decays via fluorescence decay channels.


Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are used as general purpose parallel accelerators in a wide range of applications. They are found in most computing systems, and mobile devices are no exception. The recent availability of programming APIs such as OpenCL for mobile GPUs promises to open up new types of applications on these devices. However, producing high performance GPU code is extremely difficult. Subtle differences in device characteristics can lead to large performance variations when different optimizations are applied. As we will see, this is especially true for a mobile GPU such as the ARM Mali GPU which has a very different architecture than desktop-class GPUs. Code optimized and tuned for one type of GPUs is unlikely to achieve the performance potential on another type of GPUs. Auto-tuners have traditionally been an answer to this performance portability challenge. For instance, they have been successful on CPUs for matrix operations, which are used as building blocks in many high-performance applications. However, they are much harder to design for different classes of GPUs, given the wide variety of hardware characteristics. In this paper, we take a different perspective and show how performance portability for matrix multiplication is achieved using a compiler approach. This approach is based on a recently developed generic technique that combines a high-level programming model with a system of rewrite rules. Programs are automatically rewritten in successive steps, where optimizations decision are made.This approach is truly performance portable, resulting in high-performance code for very different types of architectures such as desktop and mobile GPUs. In particular, we achieve a speedup of 1.7x over a state-of-the-art auto-tuner on the ARM Mali GPU.


The nightmare continues...Vampire War Trilogy comprising: Hunters of the Dusk, Allies of the Night and Killers of the Dawn. Join Darren Shan's descent into the darkness. HUNTERS OF THE DUSK Darren Shan leaves Vampire Mountain on a life or death mission. Darren scours the world in search of the Vampaneze Lord, bu the road ahead is lined with the bodies of the damned. ALLIES OF THE NIGHT Darren Shan faces his worst nightmare yet - school! But bodies are piling up and the past is catching up with the hunters fast! KILLERS OF THE DAWN Darren Shan becomes public enemy Number One. As the vampires prepare for deadly confrontation, is this the end for Darren and his allies?