Background The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with pressure injury (PI) occurrence in critically ill patients. This was a retrospective cohort study conducted at a mixed intensive care unit (ICU). Methods Univariate analysis and logistic regression were used to identify which variables are associated with PI. Results Twenty-one (15%) of 142 patients developed PI. The median and the range of the variables in the groups without and with PI were as follows: Braden scale risk score, 13 (8 - 20) and 10 (8 - 14) points, respectively; Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) death risk, 39% (2 - 97%) and 75% (26 - 96%), respectively; and length of stay in the ICU, 4 (2 - 36) and 16 (5 - 29) days, respectively. The socio-demographic variables included in the logistic regression were age (P = 0.09), Braden scale risk score (P = 0.0003), APACHE II death risk (P < 0.0001), length of stay in the ICU (P < 0.0001) and reason for ICU admission (P = 0.09). Only APACHE II death risk and length of stay in the ICU presented significant differences; the odds ratios were 1.05 and 1.25, respectively, and the 95% confidence intervals were 1.01 - 1.09 and 1.12 - 1.39, respectively. Conclusion APACHE II death risk and length of stay in the ICU are probably associated with PI occurrence in the study population.


It is historically a fact that Turkey experiences frequent earthquakes, on the order of one damaging earthquake of magnitude 6–7 approximately every 2 years, causing extensive losses to economy, life and limb. Every strong earthquake leaves behind poverty and tens of thousands of homeless people. In order to mitigate especially the losses of life due to earthquakes, a rapid scoring technique called the P25 – Preliminary Assessment Method is proposed herein. The purpose of the method is to determine, for a reinforced concrete-framed building, whether there is any vulnerability to collapse during a strong earthquake. By identifying those buildings, which are most likely susceptible to collapse inside a particular building stock, and consequently strengthening or demolishing them, practically no loss of life will occur. In this presentation, details of P25 – Preliminary Assessment Method are discussed and the high degree of prediction reliability of the method is demonstrated on 323 case study buildings, which experienced wide ranges of damage during past earthquakes.


Postcolonial theory aims at a critical interrogation of legitimizing knowledge claims put forward by proponents of the resurgent Empire. This article undertakes such an interrogation at the intersection of geography and international law. It aims to demonstrate that both modern geography and modern international law were constituted in, by, and through imperatives of Empire and unavoidably bear traces of their formative origin. The aim is to theorize the spatiality of global relations of domination and resistance under the shadow of international law. The article first identifies the vantage point of this critical engagement, namely postcolonial approach to inquiry. It then traces the emergence of modern geography as scaffolding for the construction of modern nation-state, modern construction of race, and modern international law. It then examines the intersection of geography and international law at the current global conjuncture; and the last part suggests a frame of reference to map resistance of global subalterns.


Electronic Circuit Design Nihal Kularatna 2017-12-19 With growing consumer demand for portability and miniaturization in electronics, design engineers must concentrate on many additional aspects in their core design. The plethora of components that must be considered requires that engineers have a concise understanding of each aspect of the design process in order to prevent bug-laden prototypes. Electronic Circuit Design allows engineers to understand the total design process and develop prototypes which require little to no debugging before release. It providesstep-by-step instruction featuring modern components, such as analog and mixed signal blocks, in each chapter. The book details every aspect of the design process from conceptualization and specification to final implementation and release. The text also demonstrates how to utilize device data sheet information and associated application notes to design an electronic system. The hybrid nature of electronic system design poses a great challenge to engineers. This book equips electronics designers with the practical knowledge and tools needed to develop problem free prototypes that are ready for release.


Augmented reality applications have focused on visually integrating virtual objects into real environments. In this paper, we propose an auditory augmented reality, where we integrate acoustic virtual objects into the real world. We sonify objects that do not intrinsically produce sound, with the purpose of revealing additional information about them. Using spatialized (3D) audio synthesis, acoustic virtual objects are placed at specific real-world coordinates, obviating the need to explicitly tell the user where they are. Thus, by leveraging the innate human capacity for 3D sound source localization and source separation, we create an audio natural user interface. In contrast with previous work, we do not create acoustic scenes by transducing low-level (for instance, pixel-based) visual information. Instead, we use computer vision methods to identify high-level features of interest in an RGB-D stream, which are then sonified as virtual objects at their respective real-world coordinates. Since our visual and auditory senses are inherently spatial, this technique naturally maps between these two modalities, creating intuitive representations. We evaluate this concept with a head-mounted device, featuring modes that sonify flat surfaces, navigable paths and human faces.


Sliced inverse regression (SIR) was introduced by Li to find the effective dimension reduction directions for exploring the intrinsic structure of high-dimensional data. In this study, we propose a hybrid SIR method using a kernel machine which we call kernel SIR. The kernel mixtures result in the transformed data distribution being more Gaussian like and symmetric; providing more suitable conditions for performing SIR analysis. The proposed method can be regarded as a nonlinear extension of the SIR algorithm. We provide a theoretical description of the kernel SIR algorithm within the framework of reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). We also illustrate that kernel SIR performs better than several standard methods for discriminative, visualization, and regression purposes. We show how the features found with kernel SIR can be used for classification of microarray data and several other classification problems and compare the results with those obtained with several existing dimension reduction techniques. The results show that kernel SIR is a powerful nonlinear feature extractor for classification problems.


At present, when the device management application programs the devices (such as mobile terminals, Internet of things terminals and devices, etc.), buffer overflow will inevitably occur due to the defects of filter input condition setting, variable type conversion error, logical judgment error, pointer reference error and so on. For this kind of software and its running environment, it is difficult to reduce the false positive rate and false negative rate with traditional static detection method for buffer overflow vulnerability, while the coverage rate of dynamic detection method is still insufficient and it is difficult to achieve full automation. In view of this, this paper proposes an automatic dynamic detection method based on boundary testing, which has complete test data set and full coverage of defects. With this method, the input test points of the software system under test are automatically traversed, and each input test point is analyzed automatically to generate complete test data; driven by the above complete test data, the software under test runs automatically, in which the embedded dynamic detection code automatically judges the conditions of overflow occurrence, and returns the overflow information including the location of the error code before the overflow really occurs. Because the overflow can be located accurately without real overflow occurrence, this method can ensure the normal detection of the next input test point, thus ensuring the continuity of the whole automatic detection process and the full coverage of buffer overflow detection. The test results show that all the indexes meet the requirements of the method and design.


Seaward-dipping reflectors (SDRs) have long been recognized as a ubiquitous feature of volcanic passive margins, yet their evolution is much debated, and even the subject of the nature of the underlying crust is contentious. This uncertainty significantly restricts our understanding of continental breakup and ocean basin–forming processes. Using high-fidelity reflection data from offshore Argentina, we observe that the crust containing the SDRs has similarities to oceanic crust, albeit with a larger proportion of extrusive volcanics, variably interbedded with sediments. Densities derived from gravity modeling are compatible with the presence of magmatic crust beneath the outer SDRs. When these SDR packages are restored to synemplacement geometry we observe that they thicken into the basin axis with a nonfaulted, diffuse termination, which we associate with dikes intruding into initially horizontal volcanics. Our model for SDR formation invokes progressive rotation of these horizontal volcanics by subsidence driven by isostasy in the center of the evolving SDR depocenter as continental lithosphere is replaced by more dense oceanic lithosphere. The entire system records the migration of >10-km-thick new magmatic crust away from a rapidly subsiding but subaerial incipient spreading center at rates typical of slow oceanic spreading processes. Our model for new magmatic crust can explain SDR formation on magma-rich margins globally, but the estimated crustal thickness requires elevated mantle temperatures for their formation.


The aim of this paper is to present an approach for comprehending affordable housing. The approach is based on a new paradigm of research: trans-disciplinarity; a form of inquiry that crosses the boundaries of different disciplines. An argument on the impact of trans-disciplinary thinking on understanding affordable housing is developed, then is placed within the perspective of how lifestyle theories and their underlying concepts can be integrated into a comprehensive investigatory process. In turn, a framework of inquiry is developed while reflected on affordable housing knowledge types. An interpretation of the framework into a survey tool is conceptualized. The tool is introduced in the form of a questionnaire to be implemented in different contexts. The testing of the questionnaire as a tool of inquiry reveals its validity, corroborates the value of integrating trans-disciplinary knowledge into affordable housing research, and accentuates the value of introducing lifestyle theories as a new form of knowledge necessary for future inquiry on affordable housing.


Pulmonary Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma (PEH) is one rather rare low-grade malignant tumor. Owing to its relatively low incidence, standard treatments on PEH are relatively less. A 52 y old male PEH patient treated with endostatin had received outstanding clinical outcome, considering his brain metastases and pleural effusion were both negative effects upon prognosis. Patient's pathological characteristics, iconographic characteristics would play an essential role on his response to clinical treatment and prognosis. So far, standard treatments upon PEH are still not available, and the inhibition of tumor growth can be achieved through inhibition of tumor angiogenesis and interrupting cellular nutritious supply.


The interaction energetics, molecular packing, entanglement network properties, segmental dynamics, and elastic constants of atactic polystyrene-amorphous silica nanocomposites in the molten and the glassy state are studied via molecular simulations using two interconnected levels of representation: (a) a coarse-grained one, wherein each polystyrene repeat unit is mapped onto a single "superatom" and the silica nanoparticle is viewed as a solid sphere. Equilibration at all length scales at this level is achieved via connectivity-altering Monte Carlo simulations. (b) A united-atom (UA) level, wherein the polymer chains are represented in terms of a united-atom forcefield and the silica nanoparticle is represented in terms of a simplified, fully atomistic model. Initial configurations for UA molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are obtained by reverse mapping well-equilibrated coarse-grained configurations. By analysing microcanonical UA MD trajectories, the polymer density profile is studied and the polymer is found to exhibit layering in the vicinity of the nanoparticle surface. An estimate of the enthalpy of mixing between polymer and nanoparticles, derived from the UA simulations, compares favourably against available experimental values. The dynamical behaviour of polystyrene (in neat and filled melt systems) is characterized in terms of bond orientation and dihedral angle time autocorrelation functions. At low concentration in the molten polymer matrix, silica nanoparticles are found to cause a slight deceleration of the segmental dynamics close to their surface compared to the bulk polymer. Well-equilibrated coarse-grained long-chain configurations are reduced to entanglement networks via topological analysis with the CReTA algorithm, yielding a slightly lower density of entanglements in the filled than in the neat systems. UA melt configurations are glassified by MD cooling. The elastic moduli of the resulting glassy nanocomposites are computed through an analysis of strain fluctuations in the undeformed state and through explicit mechanical deformation by MD, showing a stiffening of the polymer in the presence of nanoparticles. UA simulation results for the elastic constants are compared to continuum micromechanical calculations invoked in homogenization models of the overall mechanical behaviour of heterogeneous materials. They can be interpreted in terms of the presence of an "interphase" of approximate thickness 2 nm around the nanoparticles, with elastic constants intermediate between those of the filler and the matrix.


Texting while walking has a risk of accidents. There are various activities against it. The authors propose a system alerting people around the user to the fact that s/he is texting while walking. The authors assume three unsafe actions in texting while walking; 1) texting, 2) slow down, 3) stopping. The system senses the user's behavior and lights a red lamp on the waist when his/her action is regarded as dangerous one described above. The lighting alerts the people in the back.


The attempts to protect information and Information System (IS) from the threats are progressing variously and systematically, and the necessity to build security countermeasures by considering the characteristics of IS is gathering strength. In fact, to satisfy the proposition of information security, we don't have to invest excessive budget.
Needless to say, it is important to protect information and IS, but it is not desirable to build uniform security countermeasures regardless of degree of importance. Depending on the purpose of building or operation, IS may have different degree of importance, meaning an IS may have higher degree of importance than other IS.
Systems in same office can even have different degree of importance. In other words, some systems should be protected from the attack, even though some systems can be compromised from the same attack.
In agreement with the degree of importance of IS, the strength of security countermeasure should be changed. For important systems, stronger security countermeasures should be selected, and stronger verification processes should be executed properly.
As we can reduce unnecessary budget for IS which has a lower degree of importance, we can increase investment to IS which has higher degree of importance with the budget saved from other IS.
Therefore, the most important factor is the decision of degree of importance of IS. From now on, this degree of importance will be called required security level or security level briefly. Depending on the selected security level, strength of security countermeasures should be decided. Security countermeasures can be formed after deciding the security level.
In this thesis, after analysing previous research results, the author proposes some essential elements for security level definition and management of IS. After classifying, proper level was granted to threats and assets, and weights were assigned to each level. By summating these weights, the security level of an IS can be decided.
After deciding the security level, basic technical and non-technical requirements for security level management are proposed in detail. Some items needed to ensure basic security state of IS are listed in this requirements.
After this, level requirements to ensure security level required for each IS are proposed in detail. These level requirements should be applied differently for both technical and non-technical parts. Level requirements are designed by using step-model for technical areas, and continuous-model for non-technical areas.


The power to promise is morally fundamental and does not, at its foundation, derive from moral principles that govern our use of conventions. Of course, many features of promising have conventional components — including which words, gestures, or conditions of silence create commitments. What is really at issue between conventionalists and nonconventionalists is whether the basic moral relation of promissory commitment derives from the moral principles that govern our use of social conventions.Other nonconventionalist accounts make problematic concessions to the conventionalist's core instincts, including embracing: the view that binding promises must involve the promisee's belief that performance will occur; the view that through the promise, the promisee and promisor create a shared end; and the tendency to take promises between strangers, rather than intimates, as the prototypes to which a satisfactory account must answer. I argue against these positions and then pursue an account that finds its motivation in their rejection. My main claim is: the power to make promises, and other related forms of commitment, is an integral part of the ability to engage in special relationships in a morally good way. The argument proceeds by examining what would be missing, morally, from intimate relationships if we lacked this power.


Since the formulation of the Poor Law system in Britain, elements of the poor have been caricatured through the creation of labels which have been used to signify the perceived troublesome nature of some of the neediest in society. In a contemporary sense, the term 'underclass' is often used as a byword for the problem poor, yet such a discourse has its origins in earlier accounts of the poor. Particularly since the nineteenth century Poor Law revisions, the process of identifying groups based on their burden to society, the threat they pose to social order, and even the possibility for them to infect the nation's gene pool, has been highly notable and indeed recurrent. Demands for intervention have followed. Such intervention has transcended individual policy domains, where criminal justice mechanisms have operated alongside welfare reforms, and indeed health and education policies, in the pursuit of dealing with such problem populations or undeserving poor. The origins of the various labels applied to the underserving poor have been deeply rooted in political and cultural discourses, often related to media and policy practices, and these processes have served to mutually reinforce one another. By charting the emergence of the labels applied to the poor, their wider context and the discourses they reflect, this paper demonstrates the enduring desire within British society to marginalise elements of the most needy, and thus, how such processes are reflected in more recent discourses of the poor.


Only a severely restricted class of tensor fields can provide classical spacetime geometries, namely those that can carry matter field equations that are predictive, interpretable and quantizable. These three conditions on matter translate into three corresponding algebraic conditions on the underlying tensorial geometry, namely to be hyperbolic, time-orientable and energy-distinguishing. Lorentzian metrics, on which general relativity and the standard model of particle physics are built, present just the simplest tensorial spacetime geometry satisfying these conditions. The problem of finding gravitational dynamics—for the general tensorial spacetime geometries satisfying the above minimum requirements—is reformulated in this paper as a system of linear partial differential equations, in the sense that their solutions yield the actions governing the corresponding spacetime geometry. Thus the search for modified gravitational dynamics is reduced to a clear mathematical task.


This work focuses on pivot-based fast nearest neighbor search algorithms that can work in any metric space. One of the objectives of these algorithms is to reduce the time consumed during search. Reducing time consumption of such algorithms usually consists in reducing the number of distances for computing, due to the high cost that they have in certain applications. We introduce a new version and improvements for a recently proposed algorithm, PiAESA, a variant of the AESA algorithm, used as baseline for performance measurement for over twenty years. The new version is simpler and allows better understanding of the algorithm and parameters used. Moreover, the efficiency is increased by defining an approximated version. Our empirical results with real and artificial databases confirm a consistent improvement in performance, when retrieving very high percentage of the correct answers (given by the exact algorithm).


We show that the ferromagnetic anisotropy of a thin crystalline Fe3O4 film can be manipulated in situ via the application of tunable stress. The stress is exerted by a piezoelectric actuator, onto which the Fe3O4 film is cemented. The strain in the sample is quantified as a function of the voltage applied to the actuator using high-resolution x-ray diffraction, and the corresponding evolution of the magnetic anisotropy is determined by ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy. By this means, we are able to directly correlate structural and magnetic properties. The experimental results demonstrate that a piezoelectric actuator allows to substantially modify the magnetic anisotropy of a crystalline ferromagnetic thin film, enabling a voltage control of magnetization orientation. The possibility to orient the main elongation axis of the actuator along any given direction in the film plane opens a pathway for the investigation of the magnetoelastic properties of ferromagnetic thin films under tunable stress, shear, or combinations of both stress and shear.


In this paper, the problems related to the management of a farm made up of several greenhouses are discussed. The management of this kind of farms requires data acquisition in each greenhouse and their transfer to a control unit which is usually located in a control room, separated from the production area. At present, the data transfer between the greenhouses and the control system is mainly provided by a suitable wired communication system, such as a fieldbus. In such contexts, even though the replacement of the wired system with a fully wireless one can appear very attractive, a fully wireless system can introduce some disadvantages. A solution based on a hybrid wired/wireless network, where Controller Area Network and ZigBee protocols are used, is presented along with all the related problems that this integration involves. In particular, in order to integrate at the Data Link Layer the wireless section with the wired one, a suitable multiprotocol bridge has been implemented. Moreover, at the Application Layer, porting of Smart Distributed System services on ZigBee, called ZSDS, allows one to access the network resources independently from the network segment they are connected to.


The Christian artists introduced here from Yogyakarta, Indonesia; all have at least some academic background, and most are converted Muslims. In different degrees, their work attempts to contextualize Christian faith in the cultural-religious pluralism of present-day Indonesia. In doing so, they contribute to the development of Indonesian theology.


Background: The empirical literature on programme evaluability is sparse and little is known about how evaluators operationalise prescriptive articulations of evaluability. Objectives: In this study, we explore inductively and comparatively how evaluators practising in different contexts (i.e. high-income or middle-income countries, with or without mature evaluation cultures) operationalise programme evaluability. Method: We administered the Q-sort method to a geographically dispersed expert sample and systematically identified evaluability perspectives that are unique to and shared across different evaluator cohorts. Valid responses from evaluators recruited from the United States of America (USA) ( n = 86), the United Kingdom ( n = 26), Brazil ( n =79) and South Africa ( n = 38) were analysed using Q factor analysis. Results: Four empirically distinct perspectives could be characterised meaningfully, two of which (labelled as theory-driven and utilisation-focused ) were shared by most evaluators in our sample. Conclusion: Implications for cross-border collaborations as well as viable strategies to reconcile divergent perspectives that could emerge within evaluability assessment teams are discussed.


Criminal activities are important concerns for public safety of our contemporary society. Clarifying where different types of crimes occur is one of the many important functions of crime analyses. This research aimed to map and analyse crime in Kaduna metropolis, Nigeria, applying Geo-Spatial Technique. The attribute data were obtained from the Police Divisional Head Quarters in Kaduna. An administrative map of the study area was used to delineate the police districts according to the Divisional Police Headquarters Jurisdiction in Kaduna Metropolis. The study identified and mapped a total of 11 crime types in the study area. The coordinates of each crime incidence were obtained from Google Earth Pro 4.2, this is because the exact location were not captured when the crimes were committed. An overlay analysis was performed and all the acquired coordinates of the crimes were displayed on the composite map. Finally, a GIS database was created where the spatial and attribute data were encoded and query analysis was performed. The study revealed that Theft/Stealing and Hurting/Fight ranks highest with 19.29% and 16.82% respectively. The study also discovered that crime incidence is highest in Tudun Wada with (15.05%), followed by Sabon Tasha and Rigachikun with 10.24% and 10.16% respectively. The study also revealed that Tudunwada, Sabon Tasha, Rigachikun and Rigasa are the major crime hotspots in the metropolis. This research, therefore recommends more effort should be put towards fighting crime especially in the months of December and January as the two months have the highest number of crimes committed. Also, crime cases should be recorded in details alongside their geographical coordinates by the Nigerian police.


Animal studies suggest that structural changes occur in the maternal brain during the early postpartum period in regions such as the hypothalamus, amygdala, parietal lobe, and prefrontal cortex and such changes are related to the expression of maternal behaviors. In an attempt to explore this in humans, we conducted a prospective longitudinal study to examine gray matter changes using voxel-based morphometry on high resolution magnetic resonance images of mothers' brains at two time points: 2–4 weeks postpartum and 3–4 months postpartum. Comparing gray matter volumes across these two time points, we found increases in gray matter volume of the prefrontal cortex, parietal lobes, and midbrain areas. Increased gray matter volume in the midbrain including the hypothalamus, substantia nigra, and amygdala was associated with maternal positive perception of her baby. These results suggest that the first months of motherhood in humans are accompanied by structural changes in brain regions implicated in maternal motivation and behaviors.


China's government has recently implemented additional reforms to relax the regulatory environment for foreign banks. Specifically, State Council Order No. 657, signed by Premier Li Keqiang, announced a decision to revise the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Administration of Foreign-Funded Banks, effective from 1 January 2015. Implications of the revised regulations include removal of the requirement that a minimum of RMB100 million operating capital be transferred unconditionally from the overseas parent bank to the newly opened Chinese branch. In addition, in terms of the conditions attached to the right to carry out RMB-denominated activity, foreign banks are now eligible to apply to undertake local currency business after operating in China for one year—down from the previous three years. The requirement for two consecutive years of profit will be scrapped as well.


UV-photodesorption is a plausible non-thermal desorption process in dark clouds, which is required to explain the presence of molecules in the gas phase. Models of ice photoprocessing depend on the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) absorption cross section of the ice. In the past, gas phase cross section values were used as an approximation due to the lack of reported VUV-absorption cross sections of most molecules present in interstellar ice mantles (with the exception of H2O, CO2, and NH3). ISAC is an ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) set-up where pure ices composed of H2O, CO, CO2, CH3OH, NH3, CH4, H2S, N2, and O2 were deposited at 8 K. The column density of the ice samples was measured in situ by infrared spectroscopy in transmittance. VUV-absorption spectra of the ice samples were collected in the 120-160 nm (10.33-7.74 eV) range using a commercial microwave-discharged hydrogen flow lamp. We provide VUV-absorption cross sections of the reported molecular ices. H2S presents the highest absorption in the 120-160 nm range, while solid N2 has the lowest VUV-absorption cross section, which is about three orders of magnitude lower than that of other species. Isotopic effects were studied for D2O, CO2, CD3OD, and N2. Our method allows fast and readily available VUV spectroscopy of ices without the need of using a synchrotron beamline. Photodesorption rates of pure ices, expressed in molecules per absorbed photon, can be derived from our data.


Although protein expression is regulated both temporally and spatially, most proteins have an intrinsic, "typical" range of functionally effective abundance levels. These extend from a few molecules per cell for signaling proteins, to millions of molecules for structural proteins. When addressing fundamental questions related to protein evolution, translation and folding, but also in routine laboratory work, a simple rough estimate of the average wild type abundance of each detectable protein in an organism is often desirable. Here, we introduce a meta-resource dedicated to integrating information on absolute protein abundance levels; we place particular emphasis on deep coverage, consistent post-processing and comparability across different organisms. Publicly available experimental data are mapped onto a common namespace and, in the case of tandem mass spectrometry data, re-processed using a standardized spectral counting pipeline. By aggregating and averaging over the various samples, conditions and cell-types, the resulting integrated data set achieves increased coverage and a high dynamic range. We score and rank each contributing, individual data set by assessing its consistency against externally provided protein-network information, and demonstrate that our weighted integration exhibits more consistency than the data sets individually. The current PaxDb-release 2.1 (at http://pax-db.org/) presents whole-organism data as well as tissue-resolved data, and covers 85,000 proteins in 12 model organisms. All values can be seamlessly compared across organisms via pre-computed orthology relationships.


This report describes the eligibility criteria for the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) and the types of health insurance to which the tax credit may be applied. The tax credit's purpose is to make the purchase of health insurance more affordable for eligible individuals. The HCTC has a sunset date of January 1, 2020. The report also briefly describes the administration of the HCTC program and receipt of the credit by eligible taxpayers; it concludes with a summary of the HCTC's statutory history.


In this paper we report an experiment conducted to assess the contribution of a computer system in the milking parlor to detection of mastitis and estrous (udder infection and the time to inseminate the cow). The experiment was carried out in a 700 cow herd in Israel. It was found that the computer system contributed significantly to productivity and profitability of the dairy enterprise.


In the scope of the current revision process of the diagnostic manuals Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Other Health Problems (ICD), an international trans depathologisation movement has emerged that demands, among other claims, the removal of a diagnostic classification of gender transition processes as a mental disorder. The call for submissions launched by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and World Health Organization (WHO) seems to provide the opportunity for a participation of civil society in the DSM and ICD revision processes. These developments open up a number of questions for us that will be discussed in this article. We conducted a meta-narrative review to explore the trans depathologisation movement's contribution to the DSM and ICD revision process, uncover evidence of a 'democratised turn' in the process and review depathologisation proposals implemented in trans healthcare practices, human rights frameworks and legal gender recognition processes. We argue that the trans depathologisation movement has had little impact on medical practices in trans healthcare. However, there is some movement in local health services towards an informed consent model for limited healthcare interventions. Within some European and South/Central American legal frameworks, the depathologisation movement's demands to free legal gender recognition from medical interventions and examinations have, in different degrees, been incorporated into legal recommendations and enacted in some recent gender recognition laws.


Several studies that measured basic human values across countries with the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21) reported violations of measurement invariance. Such violations may hinder meaningful cross-cultural research on human values because value scores may not be comparable. Schwartz et al. proposed a refined value theory and a new instrument (PVQ-5X) to measure 19 more narrowly defined values. We tested the measurement invariance of this instrument across eight countries. Configural and metric invariance were established for all values across almost all countries. Scalar invariance was supported across nearly all countries for 10 values. The analyses revealed that the cross-country invariance properties of the values measured with the PVQ-5X are substantially better than those measured with the PVQ-21.


Purpose of reviewIn light of the recent recognition that even mild forms of traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to long-term cognitive and behavioral deficits, this review examines recent data on the neuroprotective and neurotoxic roles of zinc after brain injury. Recent findingsData show that treatment using dietary and parenteral zinc supplementation can reduce TBI-associated depression and improve cognitive function, specifically spatial learning and memory. However, excessive release of free zinc, particularly in the hippocampus associated with acute injury, can lead to increases in protein ubiquitination and neuronal death. SummaryThis work shows the need for future research to clarify the potentially contradictory roles of zinc in the hippocampus and define the clinical use of zinc as a treatment following brain injury in humans. This is particularly important given the finding that zinc may reduce TBI-associated depression, a common and difficult outcome to treat in all forms of TBI.


This paper studies performance of correlation based energy detection (ED) and generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) to resolve binary hypothesis on spread spectrum (SS) watermark in digital images under compressive sampling (CS) paradigm. Watermark information in the form of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) Gaussian pattern is embedded during image acquisition at low measurement space i.e. CS platform. Diversity technique used in communication receiver is then applied to improve watermark detector performance. Simulation results highlight that at low (watermark) signal-to-noise ratio (WNR/SNR), GLRT based detector offers high probability of detection (PD) while ED performs almost at par with GLRT at high SNR i.e. at high measurement space for a given watermark power. Simulation results also show the improved detector performance compared to the conventional correlator-detector and existing CS based watermarking methods.


Few words have the power to make people both cringe in fear and lean forward, fascinated to know more. This thesis focuses on one such word: vulnerability. Through the Scholarly Personal Narrative writing format, I explore what vulnerability means to me and how my understanding has changed. I examine how vulnerability in my life helped refine me into a wiser, more compassionate, teacher. Teaching requires vulnerability, a willingness to risk failure and accept mistakes for what they really are: lessons to create a connection among other humans. This thesis portrays how I have come to understand and accept vulnerability as a major component of my teaching practice. I illustrated my journey of vulnerability, using the pattern, "From There, To Here, Now Where?" First, I share stories of my past, to examine my first experiences of potential vulnerability as an adult. These sections describe how those uncomfortable situations led me to question the more traditional, lecture-style teaching I absorbed through formal education. In the "To Here" chapter, I share stories of how I developed a greater understanding of vulnerability through the graduate courses I chose. These sections demonstrate my evolving need for communication and connection—two vital aspects of vulnerable teaching. Lastly, I convey what I expect to take with me into my future career, emphasizing "Now Where," by looking forward. I shared my idea for a new, creative organization, highlights from my job search, and how my mindset has changed by accepting vulnerability. In closing, I offer a collection of universalizable statements I learned through this process. This thesis chronicles my journey to accept vulnerability both personally and professionally. I found that teaching and vulnerability are intrinsically linked, and without the strength to be vulnerable, I am not an effective teacher. However, by being open to vulnerability, I may change the world for someone.


The interconnectedness of communities, organisations, governing bodies, policy and individuals in the field of disaster studies has never been accurately examined or comprehensively modelled. This kind of study is vital for planning policy and emergency responses and assessing individual and community vulnerability, resilience and sustainability as well as mitigation and adaptation to climate change impacts; it therefore deserves attention.

Disasters and Social Resilience fills this gap by introducing to the field of disaster studies a fresh methodology and a model for examining and measuring impacts and responses to disasters. Urie Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems theory, which is used to look at communities holistically, is outlined and illustrated through a series of chapters, guiding the reader from the theory's underpinnings through research illustrations and applications focused on each level of Bronfenbrenner's ecosystems, culminating in an integration chapter. The final chapter provides policy recommendations for local and national government bodies and emergency providers to help individuals and communities prepare and withstand the effects of a range of disasters.

This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of disaster and emergency management, disaster readiness and risk reduction (DRR), and to scholars and students of more general climate change and sustainability studies.


AIM
To assess the correlation between the fibrotic area (FA) as calculated by a digital image analysis (DIA), and to compare the diagnostic accuracy of FibroScan to the other existing Liver fibrosis (LF) markers using the receiver operating curve analysis.

METHODS
We recruited 30 patients who underwent a liver resection for three different etiologies including normal liver, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C. Liver stiffness was measured by using a FibroScan. The FA was then calculated by DIA to evaluate LF in order to avoid any sampling bias.

RESULTS
The FA negatively correlated with Prothrom-bin time (PT), platelet count, lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT), and pre-albumin (ALB). On the other hand, the findings of FibroScan correlated with similar markers. The FA positively correlated with FibroScan, serum hyaluronate level, and type IV collagen level, and aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index (APRI). The area under the receiver operating curve for FibroScan was higher than that for the other markers, even though the statistical significance was minimal.

CONCLUSION
Our findings suggest that FibroScan can initially be used to assess LF as an alternative to a liver biopsy (LB) and serum diagnosis, because it is a safe method with comparable diagnostic accuracy regarding the existing LF markers.


Approximate computing can decrease the design complexity with an increase in performance and power efficiency for error resilient applications. This brief deals with a new design approach for approximation of multipliers. The partial products of the multiplier are altered to introduce varying probability terms. Logic complexity of approximation is varied for the accumulation of altered partial products based on their probability. The proposed approximation is utilized in two variants of 16-bit multipliers. Synthesis results reveal that two proposed multipliers achieve power savings of 72% and 38%, respectively, compared to an exact multiplier. They have better precision when compared to existing approximate multipliers. Mean relative error figures are as low as 7.6% and 0.02% for the proposed approximate multipliers, which are better than the previous works. Performance of the proposed multipliers is evaluated with an image processing application, where one of the proposed models achieves the highest peak signal to noise ratio.


Setting regularization parameters for Lasso-type estimators is notoriously difficult, though crucial in practice. The most popular hyperparameter optimization approach is grid-search using held-out validation data. Grid-search however requires to choose a predefined grid for each parameter, which scales exponentially in the number of parameters. Another approach is to cast hyperparameter optimization as a bi-level optimization problem, one can solve by gradient descent. The key challenge for these methods is the estimation of the gradient with respect to the hyperparameters. Computing this gradient via forward or backward automatic differentiation is possible yet usually suffers from high memory consumption. Alternatively implicit differentiation typically involves solving a linear system which can be prohibitive and numerically unstable in high dimension. In addition, implicit differentiation usually assumes smooth loss functions, which is not the case for Lasso-type problems. This work introduces an efficient implicit differentiation algorithm, without matrix inversion, tailored for Lasso-type problems. Our approach scales to high-dimensional data by leveraging the sparsity of the solutions. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms a large number of standard methods to optimize the error on held-out data, or the Stein Unbiased Risk Estimator (SURE).


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It is with infinite sadness that I write these lines.

I first met Udo Schwertmann in the spring of 1975. His department was seeking a scientist with experience in X-ray methods (XRD and XRF) and I was looking for a job. To me, a young upstart with a PhD and experience in igneous petrology and geochemistry, soils were something like 'yukk'. In the end, Schwertmann taught me to respect soils and practically all that I know about soils and clays.

First, the sheer size of this 2-metre tall, wiry man was impressive. Then there was the reserved dignity of the North-German Hanseatic gentleman: style without a trace of aloofness.

So much …

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Can computers, or artificial intelligence, reason by analogy? This essay urges that they cannot, because they are unable to engage in the crucial task of identifying the normative principle that links or separates cases. Current claims, about the ability of artificial intelligence to reason analogically, rest on an inadequate picture of what legal reasoning actually is. For the most part, artificial intelligence now operates as a kind of advanced version of LEXIS, offering research assistance rather than analogical reasoning. But this is a claim about current technology, not about inevitable limitations of artificial intelligence; things might change in the future.


On October 13, 1982, the Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio, carried out a pedestrian survey of a well pad site at Lake Corpus Christi State Park in San Patricio County. The survey located a prehistoric site (41 SP 116). However, surface examination and shovel testing determined that the site was not a significant cultural resource. Therefore, no further work is recommended.


The coevolutionary arms race between hosts and pathogens is often described as a recurrent struggle for increased resistance in hosts and evasion of recognition by pathogens. These coevolutionary dynamics dominated by balancing selection lead to the maintenance of allelic diversity at genes involved in interactions between hosts and pathogens. In plant-pathogen
interactions, the current paradigm posits that the specific defence response is activated upon recognition of a specific pathogen effector through the corresponding resistance (R) gene in the host. Numerous studies demonstrated that balancing selection acts on these R genes. However, little is known about the evolutionary mechanisms shaping other molecules not
directly involved in pathogen recognition, but nevertheless playing an important role in defence signal activation. In this thesis I investigate the evolutionary forces acting at these genes in wild tomato species (Solanum sp.).
First, I focus on Rcr3, a 'guardee', i.e. target of pathogen effectors secreted by the fungus Cladosporium fulvum and the oomycete Phytophthora infestans in tomato plants. Specific activation of the defence response occurs when R genes (the 'guards') sense the modification of the 'guardee' by pathogen effectors ('Guard-Hypothesis'). These interactions between effector, 'guardee' and 'guard', are expected to favour contrasting evolutionary forces acting on the guardee. I study the pattern of sequence evolution and functional
consequences of natural sequence variation on host resistance and show that the evolution of Rcr3 is characterized by gene duplication, gene conversion and balancing selection in wild tomato species. Investigating the functional characteristics of 54 natural variants through in vitro and in planta assays, I reveal differences in the strength of the defence response, but not
in pathogen recognition specificity. These results suggest that functional diversity may be maintained at the 'guardee' (Rcr3) through the coevolution with its 'guard' because natural selection favours improved transduction of the defence signal or avoidance of auto-immune response.
Second, I study the pattern of polymorphism in one population of the wild tomato species S. peruvianum at five genes (Pto, Fen, Rin4, Prf and Pfi) involved in a common defence signalling network. This network contributes to resistance against the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae. Two of these genes, Pto and Pfi, exhibit a signature of balancing selection but only Pto is known to directly interact with pathogen ligands in pathogen recognition. Pfi however was found to function further 'downstream' in the network. These results suggest that pathogens may target genes at different positions of the resistance networks to manipulate or nullify host resistance. I further investigate the evolution of these two genes in three recently diverged sister species (S. peruvianum, S. corneliomulleri and S. chilense) using a species wide sampling approach. Both genes exhibit trans-species polymorphism, but it is shown that at the Pto gene this is most likely due to recent
introgression of favourable alleles, where Pfi1 exhibits ancestral trans-species polymorphism. Interestingly, Pfi shows signature of enhanced divergence between species, suggesting that this gene may represent a potential example of Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibility.
Altogether, these results suggest that coevolution occurs not only at genes of
interaction between hosts and pathogens, but as well at genes indirectly involved in recognition (guardees) or signal transduction. Understanding the evolution of the plant immune system requires therefore extending the scope of functional and population genetics studies to signalling molecules in defence networks.


Indigenous peoples have gained increasing international visibility in their fight against longstanding colonial occupation by nation-states. Although living in different locations around the world and practising highly varied ways of life, indigenous peoples nonetheless are affected by similar patterns of colonial dispossession and violence. In defending their collective rights to self-determination, culture, lands and resources, their resistance and creativity offer a pause for critical reflection on the importance of maintaining indigenous distinctiveness against the homogenizing forces of states and corporations. This timely book highlights significant colonial patterns of domination and their effects, as well as responses and resistance to colonialism. It brings indigenous peoples issues and voices to the forefront of sociological discussions of modernity. In particular, the book examines issues of identity, dispossession, environment, rights and revitalization in relation to historical and ongoing colonialism, showing that the experiences of indigenous peoples in wealthy and poor countries are often parallel and related. With a strong comparative scope and interdisciplinary perspective, the book is an essential introductory reading for students interested in race and ethnicity, human rights, development and indigenous peoples issues in an interconnected world.


Abstract This paper introduces a novel captioning method, partial and synchronized captioning (PSC), as a tool for developing second language (L2) listening skills. Unlike conventional full captioning, which provides the full text and allows comprehension of the material merely by reading, PSC promotes listening to the speech by presenting a selected subset of words, where each word is synched to its corresponding speech signal. In this method, word-level synchronization is realized by an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system, dedicated to the desired corpora. This feature allows the learners to become familiar with the correspondences between words and their utterances. Partialization is done by automatically selecting words or phrases likely to hinder listening comprehension. In this work we presume that the incidence of infrequent or specific words and fast delivery of speech are major barriers to listening comprehension. The word selection criteria are thus based on three factors: speech rate, word frequency and specificity. The thresholds for these features are adjusted to the proficiency level of the learners. The selected words are presented to aid listening comprehension while the remaining words are masked in order to keep learners listening to the audio. PSC was evaluated against no-captioning and full-captioning conditions using TED videos. The results indicate that PSC leads to the same level of comprehension as the full-captioning method while presenting less than 30% of the transcript. Furthermore, compared with the other methods, PSC can serve as an effective medium for decreasing dependence on captions and preparing learners to listen without any assistance.


Co-authored by four leading scientists from academia and industry, Numerical Recipes Third Edition starts with basic mathematics and computer science and proceeds to complete, working routines. Widely recognized as the most comprehensive, accessible and practical basis for scientific computing, this new edition incorporates more than 400 Numerical Recipes routines, many of them new or upgraded. The executable C++ code, now printed in color for easy reading, adopts an object-oriented style particularly suited to scientific applications. The whole book is presented in the informal, easy-to-read style that made earlier editions so popular. Please visit www.nr.com or www.cambridge.org/us/numericalrecipes for more details. New key features: 2 new chapters, 25 new sections, 25% longer than Second Edition Thorough upgrades throughout the text Over 100 completely new routines and upgrades of many more. New Classification and Inference chapter, including Gaussian mixture models, HMMs, hierarchical clustering, Support Vector MachinesNew Computational Geometry chapter covers KD trees, quad- and octrees, Delaunay triangulation, and algorithms for lines, polygons, triangles, and spheres New sections include interior point methods for linear programming, Monte Carlo Markov Chains, spectral and pseudospectral methods for PDEs, and many new statistical distributions An expanded treatment of ODEs with completely new routines Plus comprehensive coverage of linear algebra, interpolation, special functions, random numbers, nonlinear sets of equations, optimization, eigensystems, Fourier methods and wavelets, statistical tests, ODEs and PDEs, integral equations, and inverse theory And much, much more! Visit the authors' web site for information about electronic subscriptions www.nr.com/aboutNR3book.html


The paper explores plurilingual competence in respect to language profi ciency, language education and pluriand multilingualism. The notion of communicative competence was introduced by Hymes (1972) as a reaction to chomskyan view of language as an autonomous system. Hymes' notion of communicative competence originally included plurilingualism. The concept of communicative competence was quickly adopted to applied linguistics but the idea of a linguistic repertoire consisting of the competencies of linguistic varieties was not imported to SLA or language testing. The Hymesian perspective to plurilingualism as an essential dimension of communicative competence was revived in the Common European Framework (CEFR). However, the practice of applying the CEFR has mostly neglected the dimension on plurilingualism and plurilingual competence. The focus in the use of the CEFR has been on the different areas of language skills within one single language at a time, while the application of plurilingual practices has gained very little attention. The Hymesian notion of communicative competence has lived on in the sociolinguistic research tradition, especially within interactional sociolinguistics. The present paper relates the notion of plurilingual competence to its hymesian origin, to recent trends in plurilingual and pluricultural education, and to the sociolinguistic study of style and linguistic variation in multilingual communities. The article uses Finnish L2 data to show how plurilingual competence is used as an interactional resource. From the perspective of language learning, plurilingual competence enables speakers with different linguistic backgrounds to use their shared linguistic repertoire in order to ensure smooth interaction and achieve mutual understanding.


The Minister of Finance announced in the 2010 Budget that legislation would be introduced to encourage taxpayers to regularise prior transgressions of the tax statutes in South Africa and the Exchange Control Regulations. The 2010 Budget Review indicated that voluntary disclosure relief would encourage individuals, with unreported foreign bank accounts, to disclose fully those accounts to the South African Revenue Service. South Africa has concluded a large number of agreements for the avoidance of double taxation with various countries and those agreements allow for the exchange of information between SARS and foreign revenue authorities.


This study explored the use of social media as a tool in enhancing student's learning experiences, by using online instruction as a supplement to a face-to-face general education course, such as biological sciences. Survey data were collected from 186 students who were enrolled in a Biological Sciences course. The course was taught in a blended format using Facebook and Edmodo online social networks. A four point Likert scale was used to interpret the data collected. Findings indicated that, when traditional face-to-face instruction was combined with online components, students' learning was enhanced. Findings from this study indicate that students had better experience, better engagement, and appreciated both the social learning experience gave by the online social network. Results revealed that students through student-student interaction and student-teacher interaction enhance their own experiences and improved their learning ability. The findings were used as bases in developing new practices and methodologies involving social networking tools for learning. Moreover, findings were used to design a blended format syllabus and blended learning guidelines. DOI:  10.18870/hlrc.v3i4.170


In prior scholarship, I have argued that the historical evidence suggests that the public originally understood the Privileges or Immunities Clause as protecting enumerated constitutional rights, including (though not limited to) those rights listed in the first eight amendments, but not as protecting absolute enumerated rights such as the unenumerated right to contract protected in cases like Lochner v. New York. In a recent article, Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick canvass more than two decades of my historical work on the Fourteenth Amendment and claim that I have failed to present a persuasive argument in favor of what they call the "Enumerated Rights Only" reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. In particular, they argue that (1) antebellum evidence suggests that the term "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States" was understood to include unenumerated rights, (2) the man who drafted the Privileges or Immunities Clause, John Bingham, described the clause as protecting unenumerated absolute rights, (3) the debates of the Thirty-Ninth Congress suggest that most members would have understood the Privileges or Immunities Clause as transforming the relative rights of Article IV, Section 2 (the Comity Clause) into absolute unenumerated rights, (4) Reconstruction-era references to the "Bill of Rights" as representing the rights of national citizenship are unreliable due to that fact that there was no fixed meaning to the term at that time and (5) because my account fails to explain how the Privileges or Immunities Clause authorized the 1866 Civil Rights Act, it cannot stand as a persuasive reading of the Clause.

In this article, I respond to all of these arguments and synthesize the evidence I have gathered over the years which I believe supports the Enumerated Rights reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. In brief: The only antebellum voices describing the rights of national citizenship as including unenumerated absolute rights were proponents of slavery who insisted they had an unenumerated "right" to own slaves. The abolitionist voices most likely to influence Reconstruction Republicans uniformly described the rights of national citizenship as enumerated constitutional rights. The most significant of these Republicans, John Bingham, always described the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States as involving constitutionally enumerated rights, and never as unenumerated absolute rights. Bingham's colleagues in the Thirty-Ninth Congress were well-informed about, and shared a consensus view of, Article IV, Section 2 and cases like Corfield v. Coryell as protecting nothing more than the relative rights of equal treatment in regard to a limited set of "fundamental" rights. Thus, when Jacob Howard named Corfield and the enumerated rights of Article IV as "privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," he and his audience understood the limited relative nature of those rights. On the other hand, when members like Bingham and Howard referred to the federal Bill of Rights as privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, listeners in and outside of Congress would have understood this to be a reference to enumerated constitutional rights. In particular, this is how the public would have understood Bingham's insistence that he sought to enforce the Bill of Rights against the states and nothing more. Finally, there is no need to force a reading onto the Privileges or Immunities Clause that authorizes the Civil Rights Act. As John Bingham explained, the Civil Rights Act represented an effort to enforce the equal right not to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law—rights covered by the final two clauses of Section One.


A photonic system is proposed to calibrate the instantaneous frequency and glitches of a fast frequency sweeping oscillator using a pseudo random bit sequence (PRBS) frequency comb. Its performance is demonstrated by simulations and experiments. A vector signal generator (Agilent E8257D), whose frequency ranges from 0.5 to 2.5 GHz and from 2.5 to 5 GHz, respectively, is calibrated. The deviation from linearity of frequency sweeping is measured to be less than 0.02%. As an extension of the calibrating system, the characterized sweeping oscillator is applied to multi-tone radio frequency (RF) measurement with an accuracy of 5 kHz and a resolution of 1 MHz. This technique will find applications in the field of electronic warfare and communication systems.


Cloud applications are increasingly shifting from large monolithic services, to large numbers of loosely-coupled, specialized microservices. Despite their advantages in terms of facilitating development, deployment, modularity, and isolation, microservices complicate resource management, as dependencies between them introduce backpressure effects and cascading QoS violations. We present Sinan, a data-driven cluster manager for interactive cloud microservices that is online and QoS-aware. Sinan leverages a set of scalable and validated machine learning models to determine the performance impact of dependencies between microservices, and allocate appropriate resources per tier in a way that preserves the end-to-end tail latency target. We evaluate Sinan both on dedicated local clusters and large-scale deployments on Google Compute Engine (GCE) across representative end-to-end applications built with microservices, such as social networks and hotel reservation sites. We show that Sinan always meets QoS, while also maintaining cluster utilization high, in contrast to prior work which leads to unpredictable performance or sacrifices resource efficiency. Furthermore, the techniques in Sinan are explainable, meaning that cloud operators can yield insights from the ML models on how to better deploy and design their applications to reduce unpredictable performance.


At the beginning of January 2019, the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance set up by the Commission in July 2018 has issued its first report on companies' disclosure of climate-related information. It includes a set of instructions that will lay the foundations for the Commission to reform its voluntary guidelines on non-financial reporting (2014/95/EU). Furthermore, the European Commission has unveiled a series of draft rules on how investment firms and insurance distributors should account for sustainability issues when advising their clients. These recent announcements are part of the Commission's Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, which represents one of the pivotal steps towards the implementation of the Paris Agreement pledge and the EU's agenda for sustainable development.


Electrochemical Activation Process (ECA) is a method whereby electrical current is introduced to induce a chemical reaction in water containing natural salts. As a result, this process will produce a substantial electrical potential difference, leading to the generation of anolyte and catholyte. The anolyte generated by the STEL®-ECA unit system were found to contain Cl2, Cl, HClO, HCl, Cl02, O2, 03, and H2O2. As for catholyte, analyses using the ICP and IR spectroscopy showed that it contains the hydroxides of sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium. Besides, kinetic studies on the decomposition of the components in anolyte were also studied. Both activated solutions, anolyte and catholyte were used to treat passivation waste and landfill leachate. The studies include using anolyte and catholyte in COD reduction, the effect of contact time (of anolyte and the waste) on COD reduction, kinetics of the reaction between anolyte and the waste, using of catholyte in coagulation and flocculation, biodegradability of the waste after treatment and others. Finally, a case study was carried out to investigate the possibility of using anolyte in combination with other treatment method for example, aerobic, anaerobic, sedimentation and absorption to treat chemical waste. The physical-chemical-biological treatment reactor designed for the treatment of chemical waste was closely monitored for 143 days on its COD, BOD and biodegradability. F or passivation waste, COD removal was 70% using anolyte for at least 24 hours of contact time. High efficiency on the formation and settling of floc were observed when catholyte is used together with alum and anionic polymer. In addition, the non-readily biodegradable waste was transformed to a more readily biodegradable waste after at least a 24 hours reaction with the activated solutions. As for leachate, anolyte showed good reduction in COD and ammoniacal nitrogen, whereas catholyte showed good reduction in ferum and zinc. Finally, data obtained from the case study showed that anolyte is able to convert a non-readily biodegradable waste to a more readily biodegradable waste.


Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is a major direct cause of maternal mortality worldwide, and primary PPH accounts for most of these deaths. Secondary PPH is not usually as catastrophic and certainly less frequent but may still cause significant morbidity, and if not appropriately managed, can also lead to maternal death. The common causes of secondary PPH include subinvolution of the placental site, retained products of conception and endometritis. Rare causes such as uterine or cervical neoplasms as well as vascular abnormalities including uterine artery pseudoaneurysm, should be excluded, especially in patients not responding to uterotonics and antibiotics. Traditionally the treatment of uterine artery pseudoaneurysms would warrant a surgical approach, but recently selective uterine artery embolization (UAE) has become the treatment of choice. Ultrasound-guided thrombin injection of these vascular anomalies has also been successfully used in appropriate cases. With the availability of these uterine-preserving techniques, clinicians should perhaps consider UAE in the haemodynamically stable patient before resorting to surgery.


The intensive use of herbicides in agriculture has led to the appearance of resistant weed biotypes. Resistance is the inherited ability of a plant to survive following application of an herbicide dose which should be lethal. Morphophysiological weed traits help defining the risk to evolve resistance. These traits are not exclusive to the species but may be innate to botanical order, family, or genus. Four reference countries were screened about the nature of resistance—Australia, Canada, France, and the United States—and the data were used for predictions in the Brazilian scenario. Most weed species with resistant biotypes in the reference countries seem to be native to the continent. The most important botanical families with resistant biotypes in the reference countries were also among the first ones to develop resistance in these countries. There was a predominance of C3 species over C4 in the number of plant species with resistant biotypes in the reference countries. In Brazil, three orders are considered as high risk (Gentianales, Lamiales, and Solanales), besides the six already present. Furthermore, eight botanical families present superior risk to evolve resistance and for five of them (Caryophyllaceae, Polygonaceae, Rubiaceae, Convolvulaceae, and Solanaceae), resistance cases have not been reported to date in Brazil.


Nine new species of the South African endemic group of euryglossiform bees of the genus Scrapter Lepeletier & Serville, 1828 are described, thus bringing the total number of species to 29 in this species-group: Scrapter avontuurensis Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♀, S. bokkeveldensis Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♀, S. fynbosensis Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♀, S. hergi Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♂, S. keiskiensis Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♀, S. mellonholgeri Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♀♂, S. nitens Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♀, S. oubergensis Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♀ and S. willemstrydomi Kuhlmann sp. nov. ♂. The new replacement name S. punctulatus nom. nov. is proposed for S. punctatus Kuhlmann, 2014 which is a junior primary homonym of S. punctatus Lepeletier & Audinet-Serville, 1825 (= Allodape punctata [Lepeletier & Audinet-Serville, 1825]). Moreover, new records for already described taxa are presented and an updated key to all species of euryglossiform Scrapter is provided.


Background Prior to 2001, due to the lack of legal protection, whale sharks were brutally and extensively hunted across the shores of Gujarat state in western India. Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) actively lobbied the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, for legal protection of the species by placing it in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Approach A brief survey during 2004 along the coastal town of Veraval, the hub of the whale shark slaughter, revealed a low awareness level (19%) of poaching and the protection status of whale sharks among the fishers. Following the survey, WTI launched a large-scale whale shark awareness campaign in 2004, with a special focus on Veraval, with the funding support of Tata Chemicals Ltd (TCL), which led to the training of 1500 fishers into an organised information providing network. Results The whale shark campaign spread awareness on the plight of the species and its protected status in Gujarat. The campaign not only helped convert Gujarat fishermen into protectors of the whale shark by bringing about a major change in the perception and attitude of local people, but also helped in local protection of the species. As a result of the campaign, seven coastal towns adopted the whale shark as their city mascots. The campaign led to a model relief programme that offered monetary support to fishers whose nets were damaged or had to be cut open during the rescue and release of whale sharks. To speed up the release and reduce stress on the sharks, a self-photo documentation process of whale shark rescue for fishers was started. 1200 waterproof cameras were distributed to fishers to document the rescue and release of whale sharks. The captured images of a rescue by fisher folk served as evidence to prove the damage to nets. The photos also helped fishermen claim financial relief from the government scheme to repair/replace nets. From its inception until 2015, 571 whale sharks had been rescued and voluntarily released by fishers with not a single record of whale shark slaughtering. To further strengthen the whale shark conservation activities among fishers, fourteen "Vahlino Mitro" clubs (Vahlino Mitro =Friends of whale sharks) were registered in the fishing villages of Veraval and Mangarol (seven clubs each), with an objective of motivating fishers to fish in a whale shark friendly manner, and to make coastal school children understand the importance of coastal ecosystems and involve them in action based programmes related to whale shark conservation. This project has won several conservation laurels. These include the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) Green Governance Award in 2005, the Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC) Award during 2012 and the UNDP Indian Biodiversity Award to the Gujarat Forest Department for co-management in 2014. Conclusions The whale shark conservation project with the support of fishing communities and corporate house has stopped the killing of whale sharks along the Gujarat coast. The project also instilled a sense of pride among fishing communities along Gujarat coast and ongoing annual International whale shark day celebrations and Gujarat whale shark celebrations are keeping the whale shark conservation message alive among the communities and coastal school students.


This thesis centred on designing a three degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) spherical wrist subassembly. This wrist subassembly was integrated with a concurrent 3-DOF arm subassembly project to form a complete arc welding robot assembly capable of handling 6 kilogram payload called Robotums RA-01 in the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). This was done
by first determining the design goal via a design framework that had been laid out to allow design independency in which all required information for design is shared for easing the concurrent works and promoting the reuse of design with different configurations in the future. The functional
kinematic structure for the Robotums RA-01 , which has the similar robot configuration to other typical arc welding robots, and the mechanism in the wrist subassembly were formed and analysed. The torch tip position and orientation was mapped from and to the corresponding robot joint angles via the forward and inverse kinematic respectively with the aid of 4x4 transformation matrix. The kinematics model was implemented and verified by a double number precision program with the negligible computational error of less than 5.0 x 10-13 degree for the joint-toCartesian- to-joint space transformations using joint angles input in degree
unit. The wrist orientation error increases when joint angle 6 was approaching zero from absolute one degree, but still acceptable for arc welding application. Besides, the wrist singularity occurred due to the joint angle 6 was investigated computationally. Meanwhile, the wrist kinematics analysis was performed by using the fundamental circuit and coaxiality condition to reveal the relationship between the actuator and joint space parameters. The concept of fundamental circuit was extended to cater for ready-made drive reduction unit by introduction of the' equivalent fundamental circuit. Besides, the static analysis for the wrist mechanism was performed using virtual work method to determine the torque relationship between the joints and the actuators, Then, iterative selection of transmission drive ratio for harmonic drives, timing belts and miter gears as well as actuators was exercised to meet the torque and
speed requirement before the functional kinematic structure of the wrist subassembly can be transformed into a virtual CAD solid model using SolidWorks 2005 that details the transmission elements with all the necessary bearings, seals and mountings and includes a standard mechanical plate interface, wire feeder mounting points and cable
bending space in between the upper arm links. Several critical parts in the wrist subassembly were ensured not to be failed under normal loadings using CosmosWorks 2005 and by manual calculations. With the weight and moment of inertia of the transmission elements being computed by the CAD program, the selection of actuators was validated
at the end of the wrist subassembly design process. Finally, this thesis proposed an arc welding trajectory planning algorithm for stationed typical 6-DOF industrial robot configuration that capable to generate the torch frame automatically for a specified straight trajectory and extendable for arc or circular trajectory with correlation to the torch speed, height and angles without collision. These torch frames were interpolated along the Cartesian path and the robot joints trajectory were planned using cubic polynomial interpolation scheme.


Climate change, anthropogenic disturbances and lack of proper management practices have rendered many arid regions susceptible to invasions by exotic grasses with consequent ecohydrological, biogeochemical and socio economic implications. Thus, understanding the ecophysiological processes driving these large-scale vegetation shifts in drylands, in the context of rising temperatures and recurrent droughts is fundamental to global change research. Using the Biosphere 2 facility to maintain distinct temperature treatments of ambient and predicted warmer conditions (+ 4 C) inside, we compared the physiological responses (e.g. photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, biomass) of a native grass Heteropogan contortus (tanglehead) and an invasive grass Pennisetum ciliare (buffelgrass) growing in single and mixed communities. The results indicate that buffelgrass can assimilate more CO2 per unit leaf area under current conditions, though warming seems to inhibit the performance when looking at biomass, photosynthesis and stomatal conductance. Under similar moisture regimes buffelgrass performed better than tanglehead in mixed communities regardless of the temperature. Both grasses had decreased stomatal conductance with warmer conditions when they were grown singly; however, the buffelgrass did not have the same decrease of conductance when planted in a mixed communities.


The themed section Byzantium Beyond its Eastern Borders is based on a lecture-series that was organized by the Institute of Byzantine Archeology and Art History at the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg. This introductory article outlines the major concerns of the lecture-series and reflects on how the contributions featured here approach them.


BACKGROUND
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK. Patients with colorectal cancer spend most of their time in the community, but the role of primary care in their management and follow-up is unclear.

AIM
To explore colorectal cancer patients' experiences of psychosocial problems and their management in primary and specialist care.

DESIGN AND SETTING
Longitudinal qualitative study of participants recruited from three hospitals in the west of Scotland and interviewed in their own homes.

METHOD
In-depth interviews with 24 participants with a new diagnosis of colorectal cancer, and then follow-up interviews 12 months later.

RESULTS
Participants' needs following a diagnosis for colorectal cancer included physical, psychological, and social issues. GPs played a key role in diagnosis, after which they were less involved. Participants valued GPs making unsolicited contact and offering support. Participants described being well supported by clinical nurse specialists who are expert in the illness, and who provide continuity of care and psychological support. A year after diagnosis, when there was less contact with GPs and clinical nurse specialists, participants still faced challenges associated with the ongoing impact of colorectal cancer.

CONCLUSION
While some patients enjoyed straightforward recoveries from surgery, others experienced longer-term implications from their disease and treatment, particularly bowel-function issues, fatigue, anxiety, and sexual problems. The potential for primary care to contribute more to the ongoing care of colorectal cancer patients was identified.


The mechanisms causing different supraventricular tachycardias can be identified with the aid of the 12-lead ECG using Tipple's approach. The main aims of this retrospective study were to use the 12-lead ECG to determine the underlying mechanisms of supraventricular arrhythmias and to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment modalities used. Forty-one patients were included in the study. The main findings were: nine of the 41 patients had atrial tachycardias while junctional tachycardia occurred in 32/41 of our patients. The underlying mechanisms causing the junctional tachycardias were: AVNRT (n = 21), AVRT (n = 10) and JET (n = 1). Of the 10 patients presenting with AVRT, eight were less than one year old. AVNRT occurred more often in the older age group (>1 year of age). Fifteen of the 41 patients had spontaneous cessation of their supraventricular tachycardia. The drug most commonly used during the acute and long-term phases was digoxin. Amiodarone was used in six patients with an 80% success rate. In the early 80s verapamil was used in five patients with a 100% success rate. It is important to note that verapamil is no longer used in children due to its side effects. Lately, adenosine phosphate is the drug of choice in most supraventricular tachycardias. The management of supraventricular tachycardias in paediatric practice is mainly based on clinical studies and individual experience. Care must therefore be taken to choose medication regimens that are likely to be effective with the minimum risk of potentiating abnormal haemodynamics or conduction.


The construction industry is a competitive business and its underperformance in Hong Kong has been criticised for many years. During the Asian Financial Crisis and the Global Financial Crisis, contractors in Hong Kong suffered from a reduction in demand and unreliable rates of profitability. Some contractors were forced out of the industry, even though prompt and appropriate actions had been applied to avoid business failure. The critical success factors method provides information to help organisations in planning their long-term and short-term strategies. It can be utilised in an organisation to develop a corporate strategy and strategic plans.
The objective of this research is to investigate the critical success factors of contractors in Hong Kong. This research starts with reviewing the current research literature. The review reveals the lack of empirical studies which focus on the corporate and sub-organisational levels. Most prior studies identified critical success factors at the industry, project and managerial levels. This research aims to close the literature gap by identifying the critical success factors of contractors in Hong Kong at corporate level.
Based on the literature review, a list of preliminary critical success factors with their sub-factors was proposed and the related research hypotheses were developed. A questionnaire survey was used to collect the primary data and test the hypotheses. The participants, who came from senior staff with experience in working for contractors in Hong Kong, were asked to give their professional opinions about the critical success factors for contractors in Hong Kong. A total of 363 valid responses were obtained from the professionals in the industry and the collected data was then analysed using factor analysis.
The findings show that eleven critical success factors were regarded as vital by most respondents. Those critical success factors were ranked and the top three critical success factors identified were strategic management, human resources and relationship engineering. In addition, fifty-two sub-factors were identified. With these critical success factors, contractors should be able to discern a much clearer direction to take in order to achieve continuous improvement.
In practical terms, the research results can contribute to improving the competitiveness of contractors in Hong Kong. The research results can also assist the contractors to use their resources effectively and efficiently. The critical success factors method aims to provide information to executives and managers for strategic planning, and the research findings reveal that strategic management is important to the organisational success. As a consequence, the identified critical success factors can be used to assist contractors to formulate organisational strategies and they can help them to improve their chances of success and avoid business failure. The critical success factors identified can also help contractors to benchmark their performances in specialised categories.
Based on this…


Nowadays in the developed world, almost everyone has a smartphone with which people stay connected: we communicate between themselves, we control work e-mail, personal e-mail, and we have multiple calendars and reminders of birthdays, work meetings, doctor appointments and stuff.
We are online 24h of our time, we share our thoughts, pictures or videos on Facebook, twitter, or other social networks. We look for jobs through LinkedIn through the screen of our smartphone. We can watch TV-series' episodes on our smartphones without downloading the file, just by streaming the data from the cloud. We can book flights, restaurants, hotels, everything through the Internet on our smartphone. If we get lost on the road, we can use our smartphone to guide us back home or to take us to our destination.
Few years ago, in the 1980s, this was not like this. Few years ago, you could not read the news anywhere other than in a newspaper, you could not book flights or hotels unless you went to a travel agency and if you wanted to keep track and not miss any meetings or birthdays, you had to write everything on an agenda (and check it every day to know what you had to do). Even when the Internet became mainstream and available to the majority of society, you had to be in front of a computer to do some of this things.
So, what happened in order for us to be able to do all this things mentioned before, on the go, virtually anywhere? The smartphone boom explains this as it has given society, and more specifically, smartphone owners, lots of capabilities at the reach of the hand no matter where you physically are. But, what is a smartphone? How has it evolved in the years that the concept has existed?
Even though there had been research for a while and some concepts appeared before Apple's smartphone, the company from Cupertino changed the rules of the game. When Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in June 2007, people divided into the ones seeing the potential and great achievements by the people from Apple and the ones that believed it was going to be a failure in the market. Actually, none of the concepts unveiled by Jobs when announcing the iPhone were completely new: touchscreens had been known for some time and other manufacturers were using it in their products (or not used because it was believed not to be a success as Nokia seemed to think).


Event pattern matching is a query technique where a sequence of input events is matched against a complex pattern that specifies constraints on extent, order, values, and quantification of matching events. The increasing importance of such query techniques is underpinned by a significant amount of research work, the availability of commercial products, and by a recent proposal to extend SQL for event pattern matching. The proposed SQL extension includes an operator PERMUTE, which allows to express patterns that match any permutation of a set of events. No implementation of this operator is known to the authors.
 In this paper, we study the sequenced event set pattern matching problem, which is the problem of matching a sequence of input events against a complex pattern that specifies a sequence of sets of events rather than a sequence of single events. Similar to the PERMUTE operator, events that match with a set specified in the pattern can occur in any permutation, whereas events that match with different sets have to be strictly consecutive, following the order of the sets in the pattern specification. We formally define the problem of sequenced event set pattern matching, propose an automaton-based evaluation algorithm, and provide a detailed analysis of its runtime complexity. An empirical evaluation with real-world data shows that our algorithm outperforms a brute force approach that uses existing techniques to solve the sequenced event set pattern matching problem, and it validates the results from our complexity analysis.


Along with limited employment opportunities and vocational resources supporting adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), there is a corresponding lack of literature guiding best practices. Gaps in services appear to leave individuals with ASD isolated and inadequately equipped to find stable work. In an attempt to foster advancement, the first annual Canadian conference focusing on vocation and ASD was convened in Toronto, Canada on February 2-3, 2012. Presentations and panel discussions identified salient issues including challenges and innovative strategies. Speakers highlighted the benefits of greater vocational and post-secondary educational participation among adults with ASD, and called for proactive program and policy development in meeting these aims. This paper summarizes conference proceedings and builds upon an emerging base of promising practices and guidelines.


The radio over fiber (RoF)-distributed antenna system (DAS) over a wavelength division multiplexing-passive optical network (WDM-PON) with multiple input multiple output (MIMO) employing bandpass-sampling and optical time division multiplexing (TDM) techniques has been proposed to realize next generation broadband wireless access with higher throughput and its preliminary feasibility has been confirmed. To investigate the performance of bandpass-sampled and time domain multiplexed optical signals, and enhance the transmission performance in the wireless link of the RoF-DAS over WDM-PON, we perform two-tone signal transmission experiments with 2.4 GHz band radio frequency (RF) signals and analyze the RF carrier power, third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD) power and noise power. The analysis results confirmed that the nonlinearity of the proposed system is mainly caused by a lithium niobate-Mach-Zehnder modulator (LN-MZM) as with the other RoF systems and that the dominant noise components are the signal-spontaneous beat noise arising from the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) of two erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) and the signal-signal beat noise caused by the interference between the optical TDM pulses. The latter is the specific noise component in the proposed system. In addition, we clarify the principle of the signal-signal beat noise generation and report that the signal-spontaneous beat noise can be reduced by the gain optimization of the two EDFAs.


This brief paper is an exploratory investigation of how we can apply sensitivity analysis over importance sampling weights in order to obtain sampling estimates of lower previsions described by a parametric family of distributions. We demonstrate our results on the imprecise Dirichlet model, where we can compare with the analytically exact solution. We discuss the computational limitations of the approach, and propose a simple iterative importance sampling method in order to overcome these limitations. We find that the proposed method works pretty well, at least in the example studied, and we discuss some further possible extensions.


In minority language contexts, the aim of language policy and planning initiatives is frequently to enhance their survival prospects by increasing individuals' knowledge and use of such languages in a variety of social contexts. The success of such policies depends on a variety of factors. These include the ability of policy to encourage maintenance of the language amongst existing speakers (the so-called 'native' speakers of the language) and its revival amongst individuals in the community who no longer speak it and who have become 'native' speakers of another language, typically, the dominant language. However, the task of policy makers and language planners is often made more difficult by sociolinguistic, socio-economic, socio-geographical and ideological differences between 'native' speakers and 'non-native' newcomers to the language. Rather than forming a unified speech community, 'native' and 'non-native' speakers of the minority language very often see themselves as being socially and linguistically incompatible. The purpose of this article is to examine the native-non-native dichotomy in two minority language contexts: Irish in the Republic of Ireland and Galician in the Autonomous Community of Galicia.


Forty Holstein dairy cows in their first and second lactation were used in a lactation study from 4-week prepartum through 14-week postpartum to investigate the potential effect of feeding different levels of ruminally protected methionine and choline on milk yield persistency of Holstein dairy cows. Cows were randomly assigned to receive one of the following treatments: 18 g/d of rumen-protected methionine (RPM), 60 g/d of rumenprotected choline (RPC), 18 g/d of RPM + 60 g/d of RPC, or neither supplement (control). The use of polynomial equations revealed that the polynomial coefficients of regression were closer (P<0.05) to zero for RPM+RPC-fed cows than for other cows. Therefore, RPM+RPC-fed cows had a more persistent (P<0.05) early-lactation milk yield than did other cows. Cows fed RPM+RPC had the lowest health problems compared with other groups. The treatments significantly affected actual milk yield (P<0.05), 4 % fat-corrected milk (FCM) (P<0.01) and energy-corrected milk (ECM) (P<0.01) across lactation weeks. The treatments significantly affected average dry matter intake (DMI) for the first 14 week postpartum (P<0.05). Also, treatments significantly affected lactose percentage of milk across lactation weeks (P<0.01). In general, it was expected that RPM+RPC-fed cows with greater persistency of lactation would be healthier because the incidence of metabolic and reproductive disorders and negative energy balance that originate from the physiological stress of high milk yield would be lower.


The Earthquake Flat Pyroclastics form a c. 10 km3 rhyolite deposit erupted at c. 50 ka from the margin of Okataina Volcanic Centre, immediately following the caldera-forming eruption of the Rotoiti Pyroclastics (c. 100 km3) from vents c. 20 km to the NE. Earthquake Flat Pyroclastics deposits display textural and compositional complexity on a crystal-scale consistent with rejuvenation of a near-crystalline pluton in the upper crust. Quartz and plagioclase crystals are resorbed, whereas hornblende and biotite are euhedral. Fe–Ti oxides indicate large variations in pre-eruption temperatures (702–805 °C). Differences of up to 70 °C within pumice lapilli show that crystals were chaotically juxtaposed during magma stirring and evacuation. Chemical zoning within hornblende crystals is consistent with rimward increases of c. 50 °C. These features are consistent with a convective self-stirring process. Previous isotope studies demonstrate a long (>100 ka) crystallization history for the magma. Resorption of crystals deep in the magma may have produced a Ca-, Fe- and Mg-enriched rhyolite melt that allowed the growth of reverse-zoned hornblende. Microdiorite lithic fragments in the Earthquake Flat Pyroclastics and Rotoiti deposits and a basaltic eruption that immediately preceded the Rotoiti eruption suggest that mafic underplating beneath Okataina Volcanic Centre provided a major thermal and volatile pulse to drive the caldera eruptions.


Abstract. The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is a quasiperiodic alternation between easterly and westerly zonal winds in the tropical stratosphere, propagating downward from the middle stratosphere to the tropopause with a period that varies from 24 to 32 months ( ∼  28 months on average). The QBO wind oscillations affect the distribution of chemical constituents, such as ozone (O3), water vapor (H2O), nitrous oxide (N2O), and hydrochloric acid (HCl), through the QBO-induced meridional circulation. In the 2015–2016 winter, radiosonde observations revealed an anomaly in the downward propagation of the westerly phase, which was disrupted by the upward displacement of the westerly phase from  ∼  30 hPa up to 15 hPa and the sudden appearance of easterlies at 40 hPa. Such a disruption is unprecedented in the observational record from 1953 to the present. In this study we show the response of trace gases to this QBO disruption using O3, HCl, H2O, and temperature from the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and total ozone measurements from the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) Merged Ozone Data Set (MOD). Results reveal the development of positive anomalies in stratospheric equatorial O3 and HCl over  ∼  50–30 hPa in May–September of 2016 and a substantial decrease in O3 in the subtropics of both hemispheres. The SBUV observations show near-record low levels of column ozone in the subtropics in 2016, resulting in an increase in the surface UV index during northern summer. Furthermore, cold temperature anomalies near the tropical tropopause result in a global decrease in stratospheric water vapor.