Knowledge Organization (KO) theoretical foundations are still being developed in a continuous process of epistemological, theoretical and methodological consolidation. The remarkable growth of scientific records has stimulated the analysis of this production and the creation of instruments to evaluate the behavior of science became indispensable. We propose the Domain Analysis of KO in North America through the citation analysis of North American Symposium on Knowledge Organization (NASKO) proceedings (2007-2015). We present the citation, co-citation and bibliographic coupling analysis to visualize and recognize the researchers that influence the scholarly communication in this domain. The most prolific authors through NASKO conferences are Smiraglia, Tennis, Green, Dousa, Grant Campbell, Pimentel, Beak, La Barre, Kipp and Fox. Regarding their theoretical references, Hjørland, Olson, Smiraglia, and Ranganathan are the authors who most inspired the event's studies. The co-citation network shows the highest frequency is between Olson and Mai, followed by Hjørland and Mai and Beghtol and Mai, consolidating Mai and Hjørland as the central authors of the theoretical references in NASKO. The strongest theoretical proximity in author bibliographic coupling network occurs between Fox and Tennis, Dousa and Tennis, Tennis and Smiraglia, Dousa and Beak, and Pimentel and Tennis, highlighting Tennis as central author, that interconnects the others in relation to KO theoretical references in NASKO. The North American chapter has demonstrated a strong scientific production as well as a high level of concern with theoretical and epistemological questions, gathering researchers from different countries, universities and knowledge areas.


The difficulty of getting scientists to reach a consensus on their interpretations of trial data was illustrated last week when two reviewers for the Cochrane Breast Cancer Group published their own review of mammography screening trials after editors from the group had disagreed with some of their conclusions.

The review claimed that there was no reliable evidence to support the value of mammo-graphy screening in reducing deaths from breast cancer and alleged an association with increased rates of breast surgery.

Ole Olson and Peter Gotsche from the Nordic Cochrane Centre, Righospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark, reassessed—as part of a Cochrane review—a meta-analysis of seven randomised trials of screening mammography which they had previously carried out. This confirmed their original conclusion, they said, that there was no evidence of a reduction in either total or breast cancer mortality in two of the trials that they considered to be of sufficient quality to analyse.

They added: "We have also confirmed, with additional data, which the editors of the Cochrane Breast Cancer Group have elected to defer from publication until further editorial review has been completed, our earlier finding that screening leads to more …


Given the dispute in this country about the proper role of judges and how the people perceive what judges are doing, any sophisticated observer must conclude that judicial selection in the United States today is "political." (1) People, whether or not they are educated, sophisticated, or engaged in a legal career, are largely divided into two schools of thought about what judges ought to do. This dispute has at its heart one question: What is the proper scope of a judge's authority? There is a traditional approach to judging that is advanced by conservatives and judges in the Scalia and Bork model. According to this traditional approach, judges are to interpret constitutions and statutes by attempting to discern the original understanding of the drafters or ratifiers and judges are then to follow that original understanding. (2) There is very little latitude in this approach to judicial interpretation. The judge's role is important but constrained. (3) The other approach, advanced by liberals, including almost the entire legal academy, supports a more aggressive role for judges. This model--the Douglas-Brennan-Breyer model--sees judges as possessing a greater capacity to make policy in politically contentious areas such as the death penalty, affirmative action, abortion, religion in the public square, sexual liberty, same-sex marriage, and so on through vehicles such as living constitutions, unenumerated rights, and the infamous emanations and penumbras. (4) The point not to be missed, then, is that a split exists on the issue of the role of a judge. Moreover, few would doubt that this is an important public policy issue, as the titanic battles of the last twenty years in the United States Senate over the confirmation of federal judges demonstrate. (5) Those battles inescapably turn on the potential judge's position in this debate. (6) Everyone wants judges who agree with them on the proper role of a judge. This reality cannot be wished away. Any effort to construct a judicial-selection system that acts as though this is not the current state of affairs ignores the proverbial elephant in the room. Yet the merit-selection approach--which asserts that all a state has to do is find the best-qualified lawyers and make them judges (7)--asks the states to operate as though there is no elephant. Indeed, that is the fatal flaw of a merit-selection approach. I am not in favor of merit selection, even though it has the benefit of an appealing title. I am, with certain misgivings, an advocate for the popular election of judges, with the elections being full of robust debate as anticipated by the Supreme Court decision in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White. (8) There are certainly problems with the election of judges, as there are problems with all elections. These include voter ignorance and voter misdirection by clever partisans. (9) Although the electoral system has these problems, at least it acknowledges this reality. Rather than having elites make the decision while operating in a "good government" fog--which is also a largely political decision-judicial elections give the choice to ordinary, rank-and-file voters. It is common in the modern age to condescend to regular folks, but this attitude should give us pause because the notion that citizens can make wise choices is unquestionably at the very heart of our system of government. (10) In considering this recent bias against elections, it is useful to recall the famous quip by William F. Buckley, Jr., who said he would rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 2000 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. (11) There is wisdom in that quip. Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century English statesman and political philosopher, made one of his many penetrating and arresting observations when he argued for something akin to popular government. …


This paper presents a derivation and a physical interpretation of the equal area rule (EAR) for wire-grid simulation of surfaces. We propose a new procedure that leads to a formulation for obtaining the radii for an arbitrarily meshed surface. A simple comparison of the classical EAR and the new equal area rule (NEAR) is presented in which the electric field inside a closed metallic surface, which is known to be identical to zero, is calculated using the radii predicted by the two methods. The results show that the proposed new equal area rule predicts a smaller field for the frequency range considered, suggesting an improvement over the classical EAR.


With the increasing demand for high-performance computing, multicore architectures became appealing in various application domains. In order to exploit the parallelism of the multicore architectures, task scheduling has become more important than ever. Classical multicore task scheduling assumes that each task is executed on one of the cores. However, many tasks in modern applications have inherent parallelism and can be multi-threaded. A task is partitioned into threads which can be executed on multiple cores in a fork-join fashion. A multi-threaded task is called malleable if the number of threads is flexible and is determined at the same time as task scheduling. This paper proposes multicore scheduling methods for malleable tasks. Given a set of dependent tasks in the form of directed acyclic graph and homogeneous multiple cores, the proposed methods decide the number of threads for each task and schedule the threads on the multicores simultaneously, with the goal of minimizing the overall schedule length. The proposed scheduling methods are based on constraint programming. Experimental results show that the proposed methods outperform state-of-the-art work which is based on integer linear programming.


Morphology control of the crystal structure is important in semiconductors since their electronic and optical properties can be modulated by changing their size and morphology. In this paper, ZnO microrods were produced using a two-step hydrothermal method. Citrate was added to the seed layer solution as a growth modifier on the first step. Pure ZnO was grown on the seed layers using hydrothermal method for the second step. The main goal is to investigate the citrate seed layer's influence on the ZnO microrods quality. The morphology of seed particles and microrods were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the crystallinity was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). SEM images of the seed layers show spherical particles in a mesh-like structure. After the second step, the seed-assisted grown ZnO exhibited rod-like structures. An increase in the sphere's diameter was observed upon increasing the citrate concentration. Longer rods were observed with the increase of citrate concentration in the seed layer. All peaks in the XRD patterns were indexed to the hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO. There were no impurity peaks and secondary phases with different citrate concentrations. Thus, citrate concentration in seed layers plays an important role in altering the morphology of microrods as it controls the crystal's aspect ratio.


IT-enabled business process onshore outsourcing (BPOnO) in relationship to the community banking industry has grown steadily for the past several years. Business processing onshore outsourcing in comparison to offshore outsourcing uses firms within a country's own geographic boundaries to address back-end processes such as accounting, payroll, and customer support. Many banks are evaluating the different onshore outsourcing opportunities to determine if this approach is truly a viable one. The authors propose that most community banks are using onshore outsourcing and find that there are factors such as cost and enhanced capabilities that are the drivers of this adoption. A survey was designed to gather data from members of the North Carolina Bankers Association to identify the services that they are outsourcing and to determine if through the use of these services they have achieved enhanced capabilities, increased profitability, and reduced operating costs. The results of this study will assist banking executives in identifying business functions that are currently being outsourced by their peers, those that will be outsourced in the future, and those that will to never be outsourced.


Abstract. Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentrations are an important aspect of aerosol–cloud interactions and the subsequent climate effects; however, their measurements are very limited. We use a machine learning tool, random decision forests, to develop a random forest regression model (RFRM) to derive CCN at 0.4 % supersaturation ([CCN0.4]) from commonly available measurements. The RFRM is trained on the long-term simulations in a global size-resolved particle microphysics model. Using atmospheric state and composition variables as predictors, through associations of their variabilities, the RFRM is able to learn the underlying dependence of [CCN0.4] on these predictors, which are as follows: eight fractions of PM2.5 (NH4, SO4, NO3, secondary organic aerosol (SOA), black carbon (BC), primary organic carbon (POC), dust, and salt), seven gaseous species (NOx, NH3, O3, SO2, OH, isoprene, and monoterpene), and four meteorological variables (temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), precipitation, and solar radiation). The RFRM is highly robust: it has a median mean fractional bias (MFB) of 4.4 % with ≈96.33 % of the derived [CCN0.4] within a good agreement range of -60%<MFB<+60% and strong correlation of Kendall's τ coefficient ≈0.88. The RFRM demonstrates its robustness over 4 orders of magnitude of [CCN0.4] over varying spatial (such as continental to oceanic, clean to polluted, and near-surface to upper troposphere) and temporal (from the hourly to the decadal) scales. At the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains observatory (ARM SGP) in Lamont, Oklahoma, United States, long-term measurements for PM2.5 speciation (NH4, SO4, NO3, and organic carbon (OC)), NOx, O3, SO2, T, and RH, as well as [CCN0.4] are available. We modify, optimize, and retrain the developed RFRM to make predictions from 19 to 9 of these available predictors. This retrained RFRM (RFRM-ShortVars) shows a reduction in performance due to the unavailability and sparsity of measurements (predictors); it captures the [CCN0.4] variability and magnitude at SGP with ≈67.02 % of the derived values in the good agreement range. This work shows the potential of using the more commonly available measurements of PM2.5 speciation to alleviate the sparsity of CCN number concentrations' measurements.


Thoracic duct lymphocytes from rats sensitized against syngeneic spinal cord rapidly produce damage in cultures of syngeneic cerebellar cells but coexist indefintely with allogeneic cultures. Lymphocytes from donors that have been sensitized against allogeneic spinal cord attack cultures of syngeneic and specific allogeneic cerebellum but not cells from rats of a third, unrelated strain.


Title of Document: INTERAGENCY BABBLE: INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND INFORMATION FLOW IN CATASTROPHIC DISASTERS Diane M. Travis, MLS, 2014 Directed By: Associate Professor Paul T. Jaeger, College of Information Studies Recent catastrophic disasters have highlighted the enormous human, economic, and material costs of information flow breakdown. This study explores how significant information flow problems in catastrophic disaster response arise from fundamental, but critical, differences in institutional logics among the collection of organizations that are involved. Documents will be analyzed using qualitative methodology to identify salient features of two of the institutional logics seen in disaster response and develop a framework relating the outcomes of the first responders' actions to the logic employed. This study identified the existing gaps in the publically-available accessible information about previous disaster response efforts and considers how this information can potentially be used to better understand the problems the United States faces in terms of effective disaster response. This study has the potential to inform policy makers and organizations within disaster response in crafting better ways of utilizing information to minimize loss of life and property. INTERAGENCY BABBLE: INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS AND INFORMATION FLOW IN CATASTROPHIC DISASTERS


Background: Stroke may have a major effect on survivors and on the healthcare system. Aims: To study the functional status and use of healthcare facilities in long-term survivors of a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) or minor ischaemic stroke (MIS) and evaluate associations with baseline and followup characteristics. Methods: Follow-up of patients who had participated in the Dutch TIA Trial or the European Atrial Fibrillation Trial was extended to a mean period of 15.6 years. Patients were interviewed through a postal questionnaire (n = 468) and a sample of this group was also interviewed at home (n = 198). Demographic data, information on comorbidity, functional status (Barthel Index, Frenchay Activities Index and modified Rankin Scale) and use of healthcare facilities were recorded. Results: About one third of the survivors interviewed at home experienced any residual disability and 26% were moderately to severely handicapped. Factors associated with poor functional status were advanced age and the presence of any infarct on a baseline computed tomography scan, the recurrence of a new major stroke or the presence of comorbidity of locomotion. One third of survivors used any kind of professional care, which was predominantly related to the functional status at follow-up. Conclusions: Recurrent stroke and the presence of comorbidity of locomotion are important determinants of long-term disability of survivors of a TIA or an MIS, which, in turn, is strongly associated with the longterm use of professional care. The need for measuring comorbidity with regard to functional status is recommended in research on stroke outcome.


Multimedia and communication algorithms from the embedded system domain often make extensive use of floating-point arithmetic. Due to the complexity and expense of the floating-point hardware, these algorithms are usually converted to fixed point operations, or implemented using floating-point emulation in software. This study presents the design and implementation of custom floating-point units, leveraging the partial reconfiguration feature of state-of-the-art FPGAs. The custom floating-point units can be dynamically configured, loaded, and executed when needed by software applications. The system is binary compliant with the conventional MIPS architecture and the IEEE-754 standard, and supports most of the floating-point operations and relevant functionalities. Furthermore, we investigate various customization strategies and construct a set of optimized functional modules to meet different application demands or requirements. Using LINPACK as a floating-point intensive example, we replace a sequence of 25 instructions with a custom unit, and demonstrate an overall 80x application speedup.


The satisfiability problem is known to be $\mathbf{NP}$-complete in general and for many restricted cases. One way to restrict instances of $k$-SAT is to limit the number of times a variable can be occurred. It was shown that for an instance of 4-SAT with the property that every variable appears in exactly 4 clauses (2 times negated and 2 times not negated), determining whether there is an assignment for variables such that every clause contains exactly two true variables and two false variables is $\mathbf{NP}$-complete. In this work, we show that deciding the satisfiability of 3-SAT with the property that every variable appears in exactly four clauses (two times negated and two times not negated), and each clause contains at least two distinct variables is $ \mathbf{NP} $-complete. We call this problem $(2/2/3)$-SAT. For an $r$-regular graph $G = (V,E)$ with $r\geq 3$, it was asked in [Discrete Appl. Math., 160(15):2142--2146, 2012] to determine whether for a given independent set $T $ there is an independent dominating set $D$ that dominates $T$ such that $ T \cap D =\varnothing $? As an application of $(2/2/3)$-SAT problem we show that for every $r\geq 3$, this problem is $ \mathbf{NP} $-complete. Among other results, we study the relationship between 1-perfect codes and the incidence coloring of graphs and as another application of our complexity results, we prove that for a given cubic graph $G$ deciding whether $G$ is 4-incidence colorable is $ \mathbf{NP} $-complete.


Abstract

Cell-surface adhesion molecules of the integrin family are not a passive glue, but rather are dynamic molecules that mediate the transfer of information across the membrane in both directions. Integrin-mediated adhesion can be regulated in response to signals by clustering and conformational changes triggered at their cytoplasmic tails. Vice versa, integrins probe chemical and physical aspects of the extracellular environment and, in concert with growth factor receptors, activate signalling pathways in response. Integrin signalling controls cell survival, cell cycle progression, and differentiation, and the dynamic regulation of integrin-mediated adhesion structures is critical for many forms of cell migration. Lastly, integrins contribute to the pathogenesis of a diverse array of acquired and hereditary diseases, and hence represent major targets for therapeutic intervention.

Key Concepts:

Integrins are heterodimeric transmembrane receptors that mediate cell adhesion to extracellular matrix proteins and other cells.

Integrins cluster in cell–matrix or cell–cell adhesions where they assemble large multiprotein complexes including actin-binding proteins.

Integrin-containing adhesions contain enzymes such as FAK, Src, Rac and many others as well as their upstream activators and downstream effectors allowing local activation of cellular signalling cascades.

Through a series of conformational changes in mechanoresponsive proteins, integrin-containing adhesions provide mechanical coupling between the environment and the cytoskeletal network.

Signalling through various growth factor receptors is amplified in response to integrin-mediated adhesion.

The ability of integrins to modulate cellular shape and cytoarchitecture in accordance with environmental stiffness as well as their role in a variety of biochemical signal transduction cascades underlies their critical function in cell proliferation, survival, differentiation and motility.

Defective integrin function underlies several human diseases.

Integrins represent potential drug targets and therapeutic strategies based on interference with integrin-mediated adhesion have entered clinical trials.

Keywords:

integrin;
cell adhesion;
signalling;
disease


The efficient market hypothesis is a special case in finance. It explains only tiny fractions of observed phenomena. Perhaps its major contribution is a formal definition of an ideal market world, to which policy formulations may be directed and against which they can be measured. Indeed, it seems unlikely that the infirmities of market action ever will be so minuscule as to render the EMH more than a special case, though it may explain more in the future than it does now. However things evolve, during the evolutionary course the shackles of the EMH should be unloosed from corporate and investing culture. Part I presents behavioral finance as to how prices of stocks are formed?including a theoretical framework, empirical evidence, and psychological explanations. It integrates these materials into a model of market and investor behavior that can be used as a lens through which to analyze a wide variety of legal rules and policies bearing on market regulation and corporate governance. Part II is a series of prescriptions on the implications of this account relating to investor governance. It starts with a proposal to promote and expand investor education concerning the cognitive biases behavioral finance exposes. It proceeds to introduce and propose reforms in three critical areas of law and policy that this model impacts: (1) the market regulatory environment in which investors participate, including suitability and churning rules and policies relating to day trading, margin trading, and circuit breakers; (2) the legal duties of boards of directors in making capital allocation decisions such as equity offerings, dividend distributions and stock acquisitions; and (3) issues in corporate and securities litigation, principally the reliance requirement in securities fraud cases and the stock market exception to the appraisal remedy in cash out mergers. The efficient market idea turns out to be an aspiration worth pursuing, but one never likely to be realized. These proposals and prescriptions therefore operate both to push the reality toward the ideal and to deal with the gap that will persist. The article has a major public policy subtext too, at stake in the discussion of how prices are formed is the overarching question of capital allocation. Society is better off in terms of aggregate wealth when its resources are allocated to those best able to deploy them. Investors allocating capital based on rational calculation will produce that result, while those allocating based on sentiment will not. A word on methodology concludes the piece concerning where the piece fits in the bourgeoning legal literature drawing on behavioral social science. Throughout the intellectual history and genealogy of behavioral finance, legal scholars with a social science inclination have drawn on various strands of thought pioneered in these fields, importing the work of the cognitive psychologists, principally behavioral decision theory (which they call BDT). Concerns of the lead importers center on the usefulness of BDT to legal scholarship and policymaking generally include whether all it will do is furnish criticism of law and economics and fail to offer its own positive theories of law or normative prescriptions. Whatever power BDT has for legal scholarship in general, this Article should leave no doubt that it furnishes a positive theory of market behavior quite different than that of efficiency (imported and promoted by some law and economics devotees) and that this theory carries with it substantial normative implications for law and legal policy in the fields of securities and corporate law.


Based on the description of a conceptual framework for the representation of planning problems on various scales, we introduce an evolutionary design optimization system. This system is exemplified by means of the generation of street networks with locally defined properties for centrality. We show three different scenarios for planning requirements and evaluate the resulting structures with respect to the requirements of our framework. Finally the potentials and challenges of the presented approach are discussed in detail.


A number of theories of psi such as Stanford's Psi-mediated Instrumental Response (PMIR) model suggest psi can function without a person's awareness, and that their intent to exhibit psi may be counterproductive. However, few parapsychological studies have directly compared participants' performance at intentional and non-intentional versions of equivalent tasks. This study sought to address this issue whilst exploring the role of lability, suggested by Stanford to be predictive of a person's propensity to respond to extrasensory stimuli. Fifty participants took part in both intentional and non-intentional versions of a 10-trial, binary, forced choice precognition task. A contingent outcome task system involving positive pictures as reward for hit trials and negative pictures as punishment for miss trials was administered on a trial-by-trial basis. Participants scored marginally fewer hits than the mean chance expectation in both versions of the task, with no tangible difference in their performance between tasks. Furthermore, no relationship was found between the number of precognitive hits they achieved and their scores on a composite psychometric measure of lability, nor its constituent elements. However, participants' expectations that their luck could aid their performance, as well as their emotional reactivity, were positively related to their tacit psi scores.


When integrating task-based learning into LSP courses, assessment procedures have to reflect the communicative goals of such tasks. However, performances on authentic and complex tasks are often difficult to score, because they involve not only specific language ability but also field specific knowledge. Moreover, the emphasis of tasks on meaning suggests that the communicative outcome should be regarded as the main criterion of success. This paper focuses on task design and scoring. It is argued that tasks have to be adapted to assessment purposes. However, to avoid a misalignment between teaching/learning and assessment, they should comprise the main features of LSP tasks in the sense of task-based language learning.


John Constable, one of the most beloved of British painters, is renowned for his poetic approach to nature and his extraordinary use of broken color. In this beautiful two-volume set, the dean of Constable scholars, Graham Reynolds, discusses all the paintings and drawings the artist produced between 1790 and 1816, both before and after his breakthrough into the original style that is the basis of his fame. Together with Reynolds's award-winning The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable (1984), the books are a catalogue raisonne of this artist's monumental oeuvre. The two volumes, one of text and one of plates, describe and reproduce 1370 paintings and drawings in chronological order. They begin with Constable's juvenilia and tentative experiments before he went to London in 1799 to become a professional artist. Next are some lesser-known works-elegant figure studies of girls, Constable's first portraits, and his Lake District watercolors. Finally are the works after 1808-Dedham Vale: morning, Flatford Mill from a Lock on the Stour, A Summerland, The Stour Valley and Dedham Village, and the recently rediscovered The Wheatfield-works that made Constable a major force in British landscape painting. The volumes also include Constable's numerous sketches of his homeland around East Bergholt and Dedham from this period, drawings on which he based his later masterpieces. An appendix records and reproduces, as addenda to The Later Paintings and Drawings, 94 works produced between 1817 and 1836 that have come to light since those books were published.


Multilayers of Ge quantum dots (QDs, 3 nm in diameter) embedded in SiO2, separated by SiO2 barrier layer (3, 9, or 20 nm thick), have been synthesized by sputter deposition and characterized by transmission electron microscopy and light absorption spectroscopy. Quantum confinement affects the optical bandgap energy (1.9 eV for QDs, 0.8 eV for bulk Ge); moreover, the absorption probability greatly depends on the QD-QD distance. A strong electronic coupling among Ge QDs is evidenced, with a significant increase of the light absorption efficiency when the QD-QD distance is reduced. These data unveil promising aspects for light harvesting with nanostructures.


During the last decades, we witness the convergence of Islamic banking sector towards conventional banking sector, which was more evident after the 1990s with the entrance of Islamic Banks (IBs) into competition with conventional banks in the global market. Because of such convergence, initial aspirations of Islamic banking sector during the emergence period in the 1960s as part of Islamic Moral Economy (IME) have mostly failed resulting in high utilisation of debt-financing instruments accompanied with lack of consideration for social consequences of everyday practices of IBs. Although it is expected that supervisory role of Shari'ah Boards (SBs) should prevent or at least moderate the observed convergence beyond merely relying on the legal-rational interpretation of Islamic law or Shari'ah; they are rather considered as facilitators of the divergence of IBs from IME norms.
In order to investigate the role and status of Shari'ah scholars in IBs and the reasons behind the lack of ability of Shari'ah scholars to prevent the observed social failures of IBs, it is important to identify three main problems; (i) examination of supervisory role of SBs through Shari'ah Annual Reports (SARs) within IME framework; (ii) investigation of the process of divergence of IBs from initial aspirations of IME within postcolonial framework; and (iii) exploration of paradigm shifts in ifta (issuing legal opinion) institution's reason d'etre with the objective of tracing the roots of modern SB as an ifta institution to explore the main reasons behind the inability of Shari'ah scholars in SBs to prevent the divergence from the IME objectives.
This research, therefore, aims at constructing and constituting an Islamic Corporate Governance (ICG) system and its constituents through the foundational principles of Islamic ontology by framing it on the Islamic Political Economy (IPE) structure and IME substance. In addition, research aims to empirically examine SBs disclosure performance through their most effective communication channel with stakeholders, namely SARs to determine the performance of Shari'ah scholar in Shari'ah compliancy related communication. Furthermore, this study aims at examining the theoretical aspects of SBs to identify the process that makes this division as a source of legitimacy in terms of Shari'ah compliancy through analysis of the evolution of ifta institution in history and its transformation into SB division.
Referring to the ontological and epistemological sources of Islam, a theoretical ICG system is developed in this study in Essay 1. Based on this theoretical foundation and available standards on SBs, Essay 2 presents an empirical analysis on the extent of disclosure in SARs as well as the factors affecting the level of disclosure in these reports with a sample size of 305 SAR from 41 IBs of 15 countries for the period of 2007-2014 through statistical and econometrics methods. The results of disclosure analysis indicate that SARs do not contain adequate details to convince stakeholders in Shari'ah compliancy of IBs. However, Shari'ah scholars' explicit approval of Shari'ah compliancy of the institution in SARs without disclosing details of their analysis seems a sufficient condition for the stakeholders considering the high growth rate of the Islamic banking sector during last decades.
This study further examines the SB as modern ifta institution in its historical trajectory to explore how such trust has been gained and whether similar conditions are valid for Shari'ah scholars employed in modern Islamic banking sector today. However, before investigating historical trajectory of ifta institution, this study analyses the relationship between IBs and conventional banks which especially became a matter of concern as with the entrance of IBs to the global financial market, they have to compete with conventional banking sector in terms of performance, efficiency, minimisation of cost and increased shareholder value.
The aim of Essay 3 is to analyse the sources of observed convergence in IBs towards conventional banks through the phases that IBs have evolved, for which the development of modern Islamic banking sector is analysed in three stages and explored separately: (i) Establishment of first Islamic bank as a hybrid institution until the entrance of Islamic banking sector into competition at global scale; (ii) Convergence of Islamic banking institutions to conventional banking due to competition at the global scale; (iii) Co-optation and adoption of Islamic banking structure and instruments by conventional banks. As the current trajectory in Islamic banking sector demonstrates, IBs and conventional banks with Islamic windows follow a pragmatist approach to achieve growth and lacks the adherence to the initial goals of Islamic economics movement, which aimed at establishing an alternative sector based on Islamic ontological and epistemological sources. Considering the convergence of IBs towards their conventional counterparts during the last decades and insufficient disclosure in SARs by SB members, we claim that the source of an 'Islamic' identity in IBs is not due the practical success of SBs alone, but also the role and status of Shari'ah scholars (and indirectly SBs) in the sight of stakeholders. This requires the investigation of SB division from a theoretical perspective to understand its emergence and evolvement, for which the ifta institution and its evaluation is examined through its historical trajectory.
Essay 4, therefore, critically explores and explains the evolution of ifta institution and the role and status of Shari'ah scholars in pre-modern period so that their 'legitimacy source role' in IBs can critically be explored and understood. Essay 5, by building on the fourth essay, aims at critically exploring the transformation of ifta institution and the role and status of Shari'ah scholars in the modern period through the conceptual framework of institutional logics. Our research revealed that there are three important transformations between pre-modern and modern period in terms of the role and status of Shari'ah scholars. These are embeddedness of Shari'ah scholars into the financial sector in modern period rather than the society as in the pre-modern period; transformation of the source of legitimacy of Shari'ah scholars from society to 'being assigned to a SB by the management of IB'; and lastly, complexity of products and services in the modern period compared to the pre-modern period.
In order to overcome the social failure of Islamic finance sector and prevent the convergence towards conventional sector as a result of these transformations, this study offers a civil society based control mechanism that goes beyond 'halal' and Shari'ah compliant product and services, and investigate the products and services with IME based dimensions through a fuzzy logic approach. In the conclusion, we discuss the reasons behind the lack of ability of Shari'ah scholars in preventing the social failures of IBs during the last decades based on five essays.


BACKGROUND AND AIM
HFE-related Hemochromatosis (HH) is characterized by marked phenotype heterogeneity, probably due to the combined action of acquired and genetic factors. Among them, GNPAT rs11558492 was proposed as genetic modifier of iron status, but results are still controversial. To shed light on these discrepancies, we genotyped 298 Italian p.C282Y homozygotes and 169 healthy controls.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Allele and genotype frequencies were analysed and compared with those reported in Exome Variant Server (EVS). To explore the role of rs11558492 as a potential modifier of iron status, serum ferritin (SF), liver iron concentration (LIC) and iron removed (IR) were studied according to allele and genotype frequencies. In addition, the effect of the SNP on liver fibrosis was examined comparing patients with absent/mild-moderate fibrosis to those with severe fibrosis-cirrhosis.

RESULTS
GNPAT rs11558492 minor allele (G) frequency (MAF) was 20.3% in HFE-HH, 17.2% in controls and 20.6% in EVS database. Genotype frequencies were 64% and 69.2% (AA), 31.2% and 27.2% (AG), 4.8% and 3.6% (GG) in HFE-HH and controls, respectively. No significant differences were found comparing genotype and allele frequencies even selecting subgroups of only-males with extreme phenotypes and low alcohol intake. SF, IR and LIC levels did not significantly differ according to rs11558492 genotypes. Also, MAF did not differ between patients with absent/mild fibrosis and severe fibrosis/cirrhosis.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings indicate that GNPAT rs11558492 is not a major modifier of iron status and is not associated with liver fibrosis in HFE-HH patients.


Three types of flexible textile antennas for 2.45 GHz body area network (BAN) are compared in this letter. Two types of conducting materials are used to form radiation patch and ground plane; they are called copper foil tape (CFT, 0.05 mm thickness) and Shieldex (SH, 0.13 mm thickness, 0.009 Ohm surface resistivity). The substrate is a thin felt with relative permittivity of 1.2 and the thickness of 2 mm. In order to satisfy these requirements of small frequency shifting when the antenna is bent and placed on human body, two shorting probes are used to connect the radiation patch and ground plane. Compared to the antenna without shorting probes, the size of proposed antenna is reduced from 96 ×47 to 70 ×25 mm2, and the measured minimum value of S11 in free space is also decreased from -14.59 to -33.30 dB. Furthermore, an antenna with smaller size of 46 ×25 mm2 is designed by modifying the proposed structure, and it can act as a wearable antenna as well.


Introduction: Lebanon lacks a national database of gunshot injuries (GSIs), which limits injury prevention initiatives. Objectives: This study examines patient characteristics, injury patterns, and clinical outcomes in GSI victims and evaluates the impact of intent on clinical outcomes with the aim of improving awareness among emergency department (ED) physicians about the importance of inquiring about intent to predict prognosis. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of GSI victims presenting to the ED of a tertiary care center in Beirut, Lebanon. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were done to identify differences based on intent. Results: A total of 83 patients were included, 59% with intentional GSI, 22% with unintentional GSI, and 19% with unspecified intent. They were mostly males (89.2%), with a mean age of 31.7 years, and mostly presenting during summer seasons. Females were more commonly victims of unintentional GSI. All victims sustaining multiple GSIs were in the intentional group. When compared to unintentional GSI, intentional and unspecified GSIs were found to result in more ICU admissions (46.9%, 31.3%, and 16.7%,P = 0.096), significantly longer hospital stays (18.2, 26.3, and 5.6 days;P = 0.001) and higher mortality (11.6%, 18.2%, and 6.7%;P = 0.747). The rates of surgical procedures were similar between the three groups although more victims of intentional and unspecified GSI underwent multiple surgeries. Conclusion: GSIs have different features, resource utilization, and clinical outcomes depending on the intentionality of injuries. All GSI victims suffer from substantial morbidity and mortality, but intentionally harmed victims sustain more severe injuries with worse outcomes.


This dissertation examines the contribution that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCRN) can make to poverty alleviation at local community level, through research in the Otjimbingwe rural community two hundred kilometers north-west of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It is clear from the historical background and current situation that the impact of poverty is severe on the lives of indigenous people. The question posed by the research is: How can the Church contribute to poverty alleviation in a rural community such as Otjimbingwe? To answer this question, this thesis analyses the real life situation that the people of Otjimbingwe experience daily. It further looks at the coping strategies of the people. The thesis identifies the capacities, skills and assets that the Church can develop and build on in its poverty alleviation process. The study argues that the Church has a vital contribution to play as both an 'insider' and an 'outsider' to the community at Otjimbingwe. It then suggests some strategies that the Church can utilize to ensure maximum participation of the local people and to mobilize and encourage co-operation of all concerned individuals and organizations in the process of development.


In River Action Plans (RAPs) ecological condition is presented as a series of maps that may also indicate river values and threats. RAPs also offer advice to landholders and others about river and foreshore management. This paper describes the development of a RAP for the main rivers of the Upper Collie Catchment in southwest Western Australia (WA). Ecological condition considers foreshore vegetation, weeds, erosion, sedimentation and water quality. In the Upper Collie it was found that 21% of rivers in the Upper Collie were in 'pristine' condition, 24% were in 'degraded'condition and 55% were in 'erode'' condition. Of the total riverbank length (161.8kms), 66% was unfenced, 24% was fully fenced and 10% was partially fenced. According to the Waterways Management Prioritization Framework on-ground actions should secure, stabilise and maintain high-value sites before attempting restorative work on lower-value sites. Of the 217 survey sites assessed, 9.3% were classed Priority 1 (requiring immediate protective management), 26.2% were classed Priority 2 (worthy of strategic management) and 64.5% were Priority 3 (beyond viable restoration). Issues identified were: loss of vegetation; weeds; erosion/sedimentation; water extraction; water quality; and, support to landholders in planning protection and rehabilitation. Banks that retain native vegetation (especially those identified as Priority 1) should be protected e.g. fencing to control livestock. Revegetation should be done using local native species (trees, shrubs, sedges, rushes, herbs and native grasses). Best management techniques should be employed to minimise soil erosion and nutrient loss e.g. buffer strips, soil testing and fertiliser management plans.


Abstract Spiders have been advocated as valuable bio-indicators of forest ecosystem "health." However, the numbers and types of spiders that are recorded at a site will usually be highly dependent on the sampling method employed. The use of lethal, indiscriminate invertebrate sampling techniques is undesirable when investigating rare species, or sampling within areas of high conservation status. Therefore we used non-lethal artificial tree-mounted shelters to monitor arboreal spiders in nature reserves near Christchurch, New Zealand. After three months, over 60% of the shelters had been used by spiders, increasing to 91% after twelve months. There were significant differences in the numbers of spiders found in the shelters at the different sites. However, factors such as the species of tree the shelter was attached to, ground vegetation, and levels of incident light did not affect the likelihood of a shelter being occupied. The species composition of the spider faunas in those sites regarded as high quality forest remnants was dissimilar to the faunas found in the low quality reserves. However, although spiders were more abundant in the high quality sites compared with the poorest stands of woodland, they were not more species rich. The shelters are inexpensive and easy to manufacture and are useful for long-term non-lethal monitoring of spider communities. They also have good potential as a tool for studying spider phenology, population dynamics, behavior, and as a collection/carriage device for live specimens used in conservation translocations.


Objectives: While much research to date has examined female sex trade work, little has been done to evaluate factors associated with male sex trade involvement or to assess their health service needs. This is particularly true for male sex trade workers who are also injection drug users (IDUs). Therefore, the present analyses were undertaken to evaluate factors associated with sex trade work in a prospective cohort study of male IDUs. Methods: We identified factors associated with sex trade involvement among male participants enrolled in the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS). Since serial measures for each individual were available at semiannual intervals, variables potentially associated with sex trade involvement were evaluated with adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) computed using generalised estimating equations (GEE). Results: Between 1996 and 2003, 995 male IDUs were enrolled into the VIDUS cohort among whom 108 (11%) reported being involved in the sex trade at enrolment and 102 (10%) individuals initiated sex trade involvement during the follow up period. In multivariate analyses, factors independently associated with sex trade involvement included HIV positive serostatus (AOR: 1.77 (95% CI: 1.44 to 2.17)), daily cocaine injection (AOR: 1.37 (95% CI: 1.11 to 1.70)), daily crack smoking (AOR: 1.36 (95% CI: 1.07 to 1.72)), borrowing syringes (AOR: 1.73 (95% CI: 1.32 to 2.25)), and inconsistent use of condoms with casual sexual partners (AOR 0.66, CI 0.53 to 0.82). We also found that male sex trade workers were more likely to report having sought but been unable to access substance abuse treatment (AOR: 1.28 (95% CI: 0.98 to 1.67); p = 0.076). Conclusions: Males involved in the sex trade in this setting have higher levels of HIV infection and engage in risky injection behaviours at an elevated rate. Since these behaviours have major implications for HIV acquisition and public health, prevention efforts and targeted provision of addiction treatment to this population should be expanded.


Type systems designed for information-flow control commonly use a program-counter label to track the sensitivity of the context and rule out data leakage arising from effectful computation in a sensitive context. Currently, type-system designers reason about this label informally except in security proofs, where they use ad-hoc techniques. We develop a framework based on monadic semantics for effects to give semantics to program-counter labels. This framework leads to three results about program-counter labels. First, we develop a new proof technique for noninterference, the core security theorem for information-flow control in effectful languages. Second, we unify notions of security for different types of effects, including state, exceptions, and nontermination. Finally, we formalize the folklore that program-counter labels are a lower bound on effects. We show that, while not universally true, this folklore has a good semantic foundation.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
To examine the extent to which genetic and environmental factors influence components of sleep quality; the degree to which these components co-occur; and genetic and environmental influences on this co-occurrence.

DESIGN
Twin study.

SETTING
Population based twin registry across the U.K.

PATIENTS OR PARTICIPANTS
Four hundred twenty monozygotic twins, 773 dizygotic twins, and 363 siblings (mode age = 20 years; range 18 to 27 years).

INTERVENTIONS
N/A.

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS
The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) assessed 7 components of sleep quality which overlap to varying degrees. Genetic influence on individual components ranged from 0% to 47%. The remaining source of variance was non-shared environment, except for "sleep duration", for which shared environmental influences were important. Phenotypic correlations between components ranged from 0.22 to 0.61. Bivariate analyses indicated substantial overlap between genes influencing phenotypes (10 of 15 correlations were > or = 0.69); and in general, genetic influence accounted for roughly half the association (> 40% in 9 of 15 correlations). Non-shared environmental influences were in general less correlated across variables (11 of 15 were < 0.4), but owing to their greater influence on each variable, still accounted for roughly half of each association (> or = 40% in 12 of 15 correlations).

CONCLUSIONS
Genetic and non-shared environmental factors are most important in explaining individual differences with regards to different components of sleep quality, although shared environment may influence sleep duration. The pattern of overlap in the genetic and environmental influences accounting for the associations between components of sleep quality is consistent with that seen in other areas of developmental psychopathology of general genes and specific non-shared environmental influences.


Local rural communities and individuals are increasingly disarmed by the socially transforming processes of post modern times including the globalisation of rural production systems and trade. There is a new climate 'in the bush' that is imbued with a deep suspicion that globalisation processes will continue to threaten the sustainability of agrarian practices and continue to impose relentless 'restructuring' of both rural customs and industrial capacities. Networks between rural communities of widely separated social and cultural landscapes are as challenging to achieve as the possibilities of networking across the cultural, political and economic divide that stands between local rural jurisdictions and empowered and enriched national and global spheres. These 'higher' jurisdictions more closely reflect metropolitan social, economic and environmental needs and aspirations, and tend to overlook the validity and value of the local social and cultural places 'below', even as these might mysteriously maintain vital landscape and industrial assets.
How then do we connect the multiplicity and variety of increasingly disabled local places when the networks between these local places have been weakened by both social and physical disconnections, leaving them sporadic and incomplete? Rural networks are dependent not only on an equal and equitable access to the infrastructure of interpersonal connections - communication, transport and education - but also on the human capacities and perceptions that motivate (or reject) the seeking out and maintenance of such networks.
In attempting to network more widely and deeply between local rural communities and national and global spheres, educators must address the reality that the shallow and incomplete networks that lie across and between rural landscapes must first be re aligned and interconnected. The recognition that an inter community network is largely missing might also illuminate the need for rural education advocates and practitioners to take a more courageous stand in the facilitation of relationships between separate rural locales by employing education practices that connect locally relevant issues and teach for the intellectual re arming of potential rural leaders and their communities. The deployment of sympathetic and appropriate actions by educators to disarm the persistent and pervasive deficit paradigm in rural schooling, and the development of a critical rural education paradigm focused on excellence, equality and equity is urgently needed. Transformative practices in education and a political commitment to funding crucial communication and transport networks and a rural education 'revolution', are the precursors to building networks to connect local, national and global spheres.


Light scattering by ensembles of independently scattering, randomly oriented, axially symmetric particles is considered. The elements of the scattering matrices are expanded in (combinations of) generalized spherical functions; this is advantageous in computations of both single and multiple light scattering. Waterman's T-matrix approach is used to develop a rigorous analytical method to compute the corresponding expansion coefficients. The main advantage of this method is that the expansion coefficients are expressed directly in some basic quantities that depend on only the shape, morphology, and composition of the scattering axially symmetric particle; these quantities are the elements of the T matrix calculated with respect to the coordinate system with the z axis along the axis of particle symmetry. Thus the expansion coefficients are calculated without computing beforehand the elements of the scattering matrix for a large set of particle orientations and scattering angles, which minimizes the numerical calculations. Like the T-matrix approach itself, the method can be used in computations for homogeneous and composite isotropic particles of sizes not too large compared with a wavelength. Computational aspects of the method are discussed in detail, and some illustrative numerical results are reported for randomly oriented homogeneous dielectric spheroids and Chebyshev particles. Results of timing tests are presented; it is found that the method described is much faster than the commonly used method of numerical angle integrations.


Using new regulatory data, this paper contributes to the growing literature on derivatives markets and (systemic) risk, by providing a first account of the Dutch CDS market, investigating the factors that drive buying and selling of credit protection ('flow-of risk'), and analysing the impact of Brexit. We find that the CDS market has a 'core-periphery' structure in which Dutch banks are CDS sellers while insurance firms and pension funds (ICPF's) and 'other financial institutions' (OFIs) are buyers. When the volatility of a reference entity increases, the propensity to sell CDS decreases for banks and increases for ICPFs and OFIs. This hints at procyclical behaviour by banks and countercyclical behaviour by ICPFs and OFIs. The 'core-periphery' structure of the CDS market became more pronounced around Brexit events, making the CDS market more vulnerable to shocks emanating from 'systemic' players. Banks reduced net buying and selling of CDS protection on UK reference entities, while OFIs and investment funds became more dominant. This underpins the importance of adequate buyers for systemic institutions and extending the regulatory perimeter beyond banking.


The timing has been optimized of photodetection (and possibly also phototherapy) of early cancer in the upper aerodigestive tract and bronchi and the relative concn. of fluorescent components of Photofrin II measured in patients as a function of the time after i.v. injection. In most cases, the measurements have been made on the tumor, neighboring normal tissue, and distant skin. The obsd. kinetics will be correlated in the future, among other parameters, with the staging of the early cancer, in particular, with its degree of vascularization.


In different languages, the means of expressing a situation are shared variously between grammar and lexicon and must be represented by semantic configurations specific to a particular language (or family of languages). Situations are semantic 'nests' for several verbs which allow for the expression of a variety of aspects in the course of communication. For this reason, from a theoretical point of view, semantic situations can be seen as independent of the language in which they are expressed. Research into aspect in diverse languages showed that an aspect could not be explained without first describing the semantic situation. Thus numerous attempts have been made to classify semantic situations, especially after the classification proposed by Z. Vendler (1957 and 1967) for explaining aspect in English. As verbs in natural languages normally express complex situations, semantic situations are made up of other situations, with the result that it is possible to speak of situational aggregates. In other words, situations are mixed up with one another. We maintain, however, that it is possible to separate out a number of situation types and their constituent parts by considering the possibility of classifying them from two points of view. We will hypothesise a distinction between frame situations and role situations . In this article we will consider frame situations alone. Role situations are dealt with in the preceding chapter. Some of the criteria used in our approach have been variously taken into account by different theoreticians, but most have confused the frame/role distinction and have thus arrived at less homogeneous classifications than our own. Looking somewhat further ahead, we think that situations can equally be classified according to their role components, which could be by showing their interactions (situations that are intransitive, transitive, convertible etc.) or their relationship with, amongst other things, centres of attention that are global (subject) or local (object), or again, the nature, countable or otherwise, of the participants, but we will not be dealing with these here. The aim of this study is to define situations from the point of view of their "internal construction" (i.e. without taking into account modality, tense, aspect etc.) It is indeed desirable (1) to put forward a coherent system of classifying situations based on a small group of well defined primitives and (2) to show the way in which different verbal expressions, used in context, may inherit characteristics from partially organised (hierarchised) situations, taking into account the primitives that have been identified .

http://www.celta.paris-sorbonne.fr/anasem/asmic-papers/Frames of Semantic Situations.pdf


Cutaneous malignancies may uncommonly arise in the setting of injury to the skin from a variety of etiologies. While melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and basal cell carcinoma (BCC) have all been reported at tattoo sites, BCC is the least common, with the present case being only the 12th such case reported in the literature. We present a case of a large BCC of 15 years duration arising within a blue/black tattoo on the patient's left upper arm. The patient was treated with 6 weeks of imiquimod cream with promising results and started a second 6-week regimen to clear residual tumor. Of the 12 reported cases of BCC arising within tattoo sites, the majority of patients have been male (7/12 patients) and the majority of the BCCs developed within the blue or black pigment of the tattoo (8/12 patients) on sun-exposed skin (9/12 patients). The average age at the diagnosis is 53.5 years, and the average duration between tattoo placement and BCC onset is 18.3 years. It has been hypothesized that tattoo ink may be related to the development of malignancies as either a primary carcinogen or cocarcinogen with ultraviolet exposure. Nevertheless, the link between tattoo ink and malignancy may also be coincidental considering the number of tattooed individuals worldwide and the extreme rarity of BCCs that have developed in tattoos. Our purpose is to raise the awareness of the development of cutaneous malignancies within tattoo sites and encourage the physicians to include cutaneous malignancy in the differential diagnosis of "rash" arising in a tattoo.


Smart voice assistants have gained much popularity in the past years. People can leverage them to accomplish a variety of daily tasks nowadays. To provide great services and ensure satisfactory user experiences, it is crucial to continuously measure and monitor how the assistant performs. One metric for such purposes is called goal success rate (GSR), which measures how often the assistant successfully fulfills a user's goal. In order to generate annotations for GSR calculation, human labelers need to examine randomly sampled goals from the users, where a goal consists of consecutive utterances in which the user attempts to direct the assistant to accomplish a particular task. A key challenge here is to identify all the relevant contextual utterances that make up a goal. As we will demonstrate, an existing rule based solution incurs substantial wasted labeling efforts, and also introduces potential bias into the GSR metric. Inspired by related work in question answering, we propose a BERT-based span prediction model to optimize the identification of relevant contextual utterances. Through our experiments, we show that the proposed model consistently reduces labeling waste by 5%-10%.


The authors develop a second-order perturbation technique for the study of self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) effects in optical fibers. When the dispersion distance is much shorter than the nonlinear length, it is found that the difference between the first- and second-order solution is negligible. However, as the dispersion distance increases, nonlinearity becomes a stronger perturbation, and the first-order theory is not adequate to describe the SPM effects. However, the results obtained using the second-order perturbation technique is in good agreement with numerical simulations even when the dispersion distance is longer than the nonlinear length. When pulses of different channels are copropagating in a fiber, they undergo amplitude distortion and timing shift due to XPM. The perturbation technique presented in this paper accounts for both amplitude distortion and timing shift of a pulse due to XPM.


This article examines the structure of resource mobilization for the Islamic State by focusing on its recruitment mechanism. This mechanism consists of several actors, and their relationships and interactions are quite important for successful recruitment. Since Islamic extremist organizations need to avoid unreliable members, their resource mobilization in general and recruitment in particular have to be conducted through personal networks, such as kinship networks of each activist. Following the Islamic extremists' success in agitations and propaganda done in cyber space, changes have appeared in the recruitment mechanism as well. Thus, nowadays, the mechanism is formed by "Muhajirun", "recruiters", "coordinators", "temporary and real accepters", and "disseminators". Detailed observations of each actor and their nature, function, and even location reveal several important findings. Furthermore, these findings provide valuable insights about the threat potential of the Islamic State, and of providing counter measures against it. As a consequence, it is possible to say that an effective obstruction of the Islamic State's resource mobilization is as important as direct military actions or police measures against it


Montmorillonite, a clay mineral formed by the weathering of volcanic ash, may have played a central role in the evolution of life. Because of its structure, montmorillonite tends to adsorb organic compounds and this contributes to its ability to catalyze a variety of organic reactions critical to scenarios of life's origins. We have shown experimentally that RNA molecules bind efficiently to clays and that montmorillonite can catalyze the formation of longer molecules (oligomers), thus lending support to the RNA world hypothesis. This theory proposes that life based on RNA preceded current life, which is based on DNA and protein.


Sometimes, at the beginning of the class, and in basic sciences courses, professors use some didactic materials or demonstrative experiments. However, this feature is just an introductory tool that does not necessarily guarantee the success of the attention, much less the learning of students belonging to the generation of digital natives, known as the Generation Z (born between 1994 and 2009). Additionally, college students, at present, are immersed in the 4th Industrial Revolution; so, as educators, we focus on 3D printers, electronics, robotics and IoT. For this reason, our strategy is to engage the students in their learning process with new educational methodologies, face different projects and foster new challenges in the teaching-learning process. The learning objective is to integrate the students in an active participation to build their knowledge and develop their skills. This work shows the efforts carried out to increase the students' motivation and interest of self-taught. They must be creative and exposed students to information that runs careers which are far from the exact and natural sciences. The pilot test was implemented in the Physics course belonging to the Business and Information Engineering careers. The combinations of various methodologies such as Flipped Classroom, Project Based Learning, Cooperative Learning and Design Thinking, among others, were used. The introduction of basic principles of robotics and programming language, ending with the student's training in 3D printing technologies were the key that students develop the capacity of working in a multidisciplinary team and applying the mentioned methodologies. Also, a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis is presented not only for the group projects generated but also of students' performance in their exams. Finally, the results obtained are compared with those of previous semesters, showing that the aggregation of several learning strategies are useful and essential since they have a direct impact on skills and demonstrations of knowledge as a response to educational process.


The selling, buying and licensing of patents is controversial today. Inventors, companies, and universities who license their patents are labeled with the "patent troll" epithet, and academics, judges, lobbyists and others have decried this commercial activity as a new, harmful phenomenon. This historical claim, though, is profoundly mistaken. This essay contributes to the ongoing academic and policy debates by presenting new historical data and summarizing preexisting historical scholarship on the hoary practice in America's innovation economy of both patent licensing and the buying and selling of patents in what economists call a "secondary market." Famous inventors, such as Thomas Edison and Charles Goodyear, used this business model, as did many other inventors and companies. In sum, patent licensing and secondary markets have long been a key part of America's innovation economy since the early nineteenth century.


In the area of reasoning about actions, one of the key computational problems is the projection problem: to find whether a given logical formula is true after performing a sequence of actions. This problem is undecidable in the general situation calculus; however, it is decidable in some fragments. We consider a fragment P of the situation calculus and Reiter's basic action theories (BAT) such that the projection problem can be reduced to the satisfiability problem in an expressive description logic ALCO(U) that includes nominals (O), the universal role (U ), and constructs from the well-known logic ALC. It turns out that our fragment P is more expressive than previously explored description logic based fragments of the situation calculus. We explore some of the logical properties of our theories. In particular, we show that the projection problem can be solved using regression in the case where BATs include a general "static" TBox, i.e., an ontology that has no occurrences of fluents. Thus, we propose seamless integration of traditional ontologies with reasoning about actions. We also show that the projection problem can be solved using progression if all actions have only local effects on the fluents, i.e., in P, if one starts with an incomplete initial theory that can be transformed into an ALCO(U) concept, then its progression resulting from execution of a ground action can still be expressed in the same language. Moreover, we show that for a broad class of incomplete initial theories progression can be computed efficiently.


Students of public service interpreting come from a variety of backgrounds. A typical group of interpreting students includes a mix of students from different immigrant communities and from Norway's majority population group, as well as students from varied educational backgrounds. Students have also had varying private and professional experiences with interpreting. This heterogeneity represents a challenge for teachers attempting to create a level playing field for all students, but it is also an asset for students, for instance because it creates communities of learning (Bielaczyc and Collins 1999). Furthermore, in the interpreter training field there is a lively methodological and didactic discussion, often with evidence-based pedagogical papers (Napier 2013). There are, however, fewer publications on general pedagogical approaches to interpreter training (Sawyer 2004 and Gile 2009 being important exceptions). This article looks at interpreter training in Norway and discusses the pedagogical approach it represents. The aim is to suggest how a level playing field in interpreter training can be created from a pedagogical and methodological perspective using common higher education methodologies such as critical incident technique (Chell 2004), constructive alignment (Biggs 2003) and experiential learning (Kolb 1984), several of which are already in use in interpreter training in Norway.


We analyzed decade‐long time series of water transparency, algal abundance, zooplankton density, heat income, hydrology, and climate from six polymictic lakes of the northern Great Plains to determine how energy and mass transfers interact to regulate lake structure during the spring clear‐water phase (CWP). Timing (date of occurrence) and intensity (Secchi transparency) of CWP were highly variable among lakes (mean lake‐pair synchrony, S = 0.072, p = 0.53); however, CWP occurred in all lakes when water overlying the sediments reached 16.1°C ± 3.7°C and Daphnia cleared the water column of diatoms. At a decadal resolution, timing and intensity of CWP were correlated strongly and positively (r2 > 0.90, p < 0.05) with the net heat income (θ) and lake volume, but not with other independent lake, catchment, or climate features. Instead, at an annual resolution, the strength of correlations between CWP characteristics and heat income (rCWP‐θ) was itself correlated inversely with the winter index of the North Atlantic Oscillation (r < −0.55, p < 0.05) and with precipitation during February‐April (r < −;0.675, p < 0.05). We conclude that the transfer of energy interacts with lake volume to regulate differences in timing and intensity of CWP among lakes, whereas the transfer of mass overrides energetic regulation to introduce temporal variation in CWP characteristics among years.


The use of mixed methods designs for conducting research has become a major trend in social science research. Renowned methodological experts Janice Morse and Linda Niehaus present a guide to intermediate and experienced researchers on the possibilities inherent in mixed method research. They offer the basic principles of conducting this kind of study, then examine a wide variety of design options available to the researcher, including their strengths and weaknesses and when to use them. Providing examples from a variety of disciplines, examining potential threats to validity, and showing the relationship between method and theory, the book will be a valuable addition to the methodologist's library and a useful text in courses in research design.


There is significant interest within the European Space Agency (ESA) in Space Penetrator technology as an additional option for inter-planetary exploration. The concept seeks to embed a penetrator into the planetary surface and then to perform in situ scientific measurements, such as mass spectrometry and physical properties characterisation, which are communicated back to an orbiting spacecraft. The main ballistic challenge is to design the penetrator system so that the penetrator and payload survive the high deceleration gee loading. A key challenge is to understand the high strain rate response of the planetary surface water ice. This paper describes efforts to conduct Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) Tests on ice samples without cracks or bubbles at -10⁰C and -80⁰C and small scale ballistic tests. Simulations are used to predict the results to provide a better understanding of the penetration process in ice.


The potential importance of psychological aspects in relation to risk factors for fractures and preventing unhealth behaviour has rarely been investigated in the field of osteoporosis. This study explores some psychological aspects and health behaviour of people detected to have osteoporosis at the time of a forearm fracture. Moreover, it aims at revealing subgroups within this population with clinical relevance for managing secondary prevention actions. Data collection was based on questionnaires and physical tests. Eighty-five individual were analysed. The results confirm earlier research on a similar population having relatively good self-reported health behaviour. The individuals reported high quality of life, high amount of physical activity and low alcohol intake. A majority reported good osteoporosis knowledge, a high sense of coherence (mean = 74) and high activity-specific balance confidence (mean = 81). Furthermore, hierarchical cluster analysis indicated a typology of two subgroups where 75% matched a health-resilient group while 25% matched a health-vulnerable group. The vulnerable group had a significantly lower sense of coherence SOC (p = 0.02) and activity-specific balance confidence, ABC (p = 0.001). This pattern was confirmed from behavioural aspects but only regarding one traditional risk factor namely the history of fractures. The health-vulnerable group achieved a significantly weaker physical profile, less reported time spent outdoors and lower quality of life. The differences found between the subgroups indicate that this typology, as a complement to models based upon relative risk like FRAX, can be relevant for widening perspectives in future research and clinical practice of fracture prevention in osteoporosis.


A flight investigation was conducted to determine the lateral-control characteristics of retractable ailerons installed on a highly tapered wing. The effectiveness of the ailerons in producing roll was measured at various air speeds with full-span plain flaps both neutral and deflected 45 degrees. The direction of the yawing moment created by the ailerons was also noted. The lateral control provided by the retractable ailerons used in this investigation was approximately the same as that obtained with the plain ailerons of equal span with which the airplane was previously equipped. The amount of control available was found to be somewhat inadequate, apparently because of the rather short span of the ailerons (0.327 of the wing span). It is likely that, with an aileron span of from 0.50 to 0.60 of the wing span, a satisfactory degree of control would be obtained. With the full-span flaps deflected 45 degrees, the rolling action of the ailerons was increased about 30 percent over that obtained with the flaps neutral at the same speed. The yawing moment produced by the ailerons was in the same sense as the rolling moment, i.e., right roll was accompanied by yaw. Lag in the response of the rolling action to control application was not large enough to be noticed by the pilots. No appreciable control force was apparent to the pilots, which was considered somewhat undesirable. Minor modifications in the design of the ailerons, however, would probably correct this fault.


In this paper, we analyze the secondary network transmission given a packet timeout threshold and a target bit error rate (BER) in a downlink multiservice spectrum sharing cognitive radio network (CRN). Under the joint constraint of primary user (PU) outage probability and secondary user (SU) peak transmit power, the adaptive transmit power policy of the SU transmitter (SU-Tx) is obtained. The throughput is maximized by transmitting to the secondary receiver (SU-Rx) having the best channel condition. We maintain fairness with a minimum resource guarantee assigned to each packet of a class of service. Accordingly, the average packet transmission time is determined. In addition, employing an M/G/1/B queueing model, the packet blocking probability is given to develop expressions of the average throughput and packet loss probability for the secondary class of service. Moreover, the quality of experience (QoE) is evaluated based on the relationship between the packet loss probability and mean opinion score (MOS). The results show that the secondary network achieves the stable transmission quality and minimizes packet loss when the number of SU-Rx becomes large.


Previous study demonstrated that patients who received total parenteral nutrition (TPN) with standard intermittent infusion of long chain triglyceride (LCT) at 0.13 g kg-1hr-1 over 10 hr for each of three days showed a significant decline in 99Tc-sulfur colloid (TSC) clearance rate by the reticuloendothelial system (RES). The present studies evaluated eight patients who received the same total lipid dose of LCT infused continuously as in a three-in-one admixture, and another nine patients receiving the same amount of fat as a medium chain triglyceride (MCT)/LCT (75%/25%) emulsion intermittently over 10 hr at 0.13 g kg-1hr-1 for three consecutive days. Patients were given continuous total parenteral nutrition (TPN) comprised of protein, 1.5 g kg-1day-1, and dextrose, 4.5 g kg-1day-1. RES function was examined by measuring the clearance rates of intravenously injected TSC while receiving TPN containing only protein and dextrose, and again after three days of fat infusion. Mean (+/- SEM) clearance rate constants before and after continuous LCT infusion were 0.38 +/- 0.09 and 0.41 +/- 0.08 min-1, respectively, while those before and after intermittent MCT/LCT infusion were 0.50 +/- 0.18 and 0.73 +/- 0.24 min-1, respectively. In contrast to intermittent LCT infusion, the administration of continuous LCT or an intermittent MCT/LCT mixture does not impair TSC clearance by the RES. These findings suggest that condensing the daily period of LCT infusion at standard dosage may exceed the rate of metabolic utilization, resulting in increased fat removal and diminished TSC uptake by the RES.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Objectives To test the hypothesis that a multifaceted, local public campaign could be feasible and influence antibiotic prescribing for outpatients. Design Community level, controlled, non-randomised trial. Setting Provinces of Modena and Parma in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, November 2011 to February 2012. Population 1 150 000 residents of Modena and Parma (intervention group) and 3 250 000 residents in provinces in the same region but where no campaign had been implemented (control group). Interventions Campaign materials (mainly posters, brochures, and advertisements on local media, plus a newsletter on local antibiotic resistance targeted at doctors and pharmacists). General practitioners and paediatricians in the intervention area participated in designing the campaign messages. Main outcomes measures Primary outcome was the average change in prescribing rates of antibiotics for outpatient in five months, measured as defined daily doses per 1000 inhabitants/day, using health districts as the unit of analysis. Results Antibiotic prescribing was reduced in the intervention area compared with control area (−4.3%, 95% confidence interval −7.1% to −1.5%). This result was robust to "sensitivity analysis" modifying the baseline period from two months (main analysis) to one month. A higher decrease was observed for penicillins resistant to β lactamase and a lower decrease for penicillins susceptible to β lactamase, consistent with the content of the newsletter on antibiotic resistance directed at health professionals. The decrease in expenditure on antibiotics was not statistically significant in a district level analysis with a two month baseline period (main analysis), but was statistically significant in sensitivity analyses using either a one month baseline period or a more powered doctor level analysis. Knowledge and attitudes of the target population about the correct use of antibiotics did not differ between the intervention and control areas. Conclusions A local low cost information campaign targeted at citizens, combined with a newsletter on local antibiotic resistance targeted at doctors and pharmacists, was associated with significantly decreased total rates of antibiotic prescribing but did not affect the population's knowledge and attitudes about antibiotic resistance. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01604096.


On 22 April 1997 the largest earthquake recorded in the Trinidad‐Tobago segment of the Caribbean‐South American plate boundary zone (Mw 6.7) ruptured a shallow (~9 km), ENE striking (~250° azimuth), shallowly dipping (~28°) dextral‐normal fault ~10 km south of Tobago. In this study, we describe this earthquake and related foreshock and aftershock seismicity, derive coseismic offsets using GPS data, and model the fault plane and magnitude of slip for this earthquake. Coseismic slip estimated at our episodic GPS sites indicates movement of Tobago 135 ± 6 to 68 ± 6 mm NNE and subsidence of 7 ± 9 to 0 mm. This earthquake was anomalous and is of interest because (1) its large component of normal slip and ENE strike are unexpected given the active E‐W dextral shearing across the Caribbean‐South American plate boundary zone, (2) it ruptured a normal fault plane with a low (~28°) dip angle, and (3) it reactivated and inverted the preexisting Tobago terrrane‐South America ocean‐continent (thrust) boundary that formed during early Tertiary oblique plate convergence.


NOVELTY - A formulation comprising one or more components chosen from interleukin (IL)-2 or a derivative thereof coupled to a transport protein, a monoclonal anti-IL-2 antibody, a cancer vaccine based on specific antigens of tumors or tumor growth factors or a monoclonal anti-CD25 antibody, is new. USE - The formulations are used to produce drugs for inducing an anti-IL-2 immune response capable of inhibiting the growth of tumors in cancer patients (claimed). ADVANTAGE - Auto-antibodies which block binding of IL-2 to its receptor are induced and inhibit tumor growth. DETAILED DESCRIPTION - A therapeutic formulation capable of generating an immune response to Interleukin 2 (IL-2), used for treating cancer patients, comprises at least one component chosen from: (a) IL-2 or a derivative thereof coupled to a transport protein genetically or by chemical bonding, as well as a suitable adjuvant; (b) a monoclonal anti-IL-2 antibody; (c) a cancer vaccine based on specific antigens of tumors or tumor growth factors; or (d) a monoclonal anti-CD25 antibody.


This paper describes the pattern computations of the UHF antennas mounted on the spacecraft of the EXOMARS mission. The analyses are made by the higher-order Method of Moments (MoM) add-on to GRASP and are computed twice. In the first computation, the spacecraft is modelled by perfect electrically conducting plates, properly connected by the user to each other and to the UHF antennas. This is how the problem has been solved until recently by an experienced user of GRASP. In the second computation, the detailed spacecraft geometry is imported into GRASP as a CAD file, and is automatically meshed without any requirements for the mesh connectivity.


Acute pancreatitis remains a disease with high morbidity and mortality. Acute pancreatitis can be subdivided in acute interstitial pancreatitis and necrotising pancreatitis, largely compatible with clinically mild and severe pancreatitis. This diagnosis is made on the basis of patient history, physical examination, laboratory parameters, contrast CT scan and, occasionally, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. Prognosis on admission can be established using a scoring system such as the modified Glasgow score, the Ranson score and the 'Acute physiology and chronic health evaluation'--(APACHE)-II-score. The treatment of acute pancreatitis is primarily conservative. Indications for surgical intervention are: progressive sepsis despite maximum conservative management, an established infection of (peri)pancreatic necrosis, peripancreatic abscess and perforation of stomach, small intestine or colon. The purpose of an operation is to remove necrotic tissue, achieve adequate drainage of the necrotic area or to treat a perforation. The Groningen and Utrecht University Hospitals have collaborated to develop a protocol to standardise the diagnostic approach, management, timing and choice of surgical intervention, as well as to prospectively investigate the effect of such a strategy in patients with acute pancreatitis.


There is an unavoidable development in the progress of science; nanotechnology has been part of the mainstream scientific theory with potential medical and dental applications since the early 1990s. Dentistry is undergoing another change with the help of nanotechnology combined with nanomaterials, biotechnology and ultimately dental nanorobotics. Nanodentistry will make possible maintenance of comprehensive oral health by employing nano tissue devices which will allow precise controlled oral analgesia, dentine replacement therapy, permanent hypersensitivity cure and complete orthodontic realignment etc., all in a single office visit, covalently bonded diamondized enamel and continuous oral health maintenance through the use of mechanical dentifrobots. There is an increase in optimism that nanotechnology applied to dentistry will bring significant advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease. This article enlightens about potential applications of nanotechnology in dentistry and to illustrate their potentially far reaching impact on clinical dental practice.


Isinglass has been used as a clarification agent in brewing for many years. However, recently its use has come under scrutiny. Due to concerns about food intolerance and food allergies, the EU and other government bodies have introduced legislation obliging food producers to declare those ingredients, additives and process aids, which are listed as allergens, on product labels. One of the affected products that is used in the brewing industry is isinglass. Within the EU, the brewing industry has objected to its inclusion as there is no evidence to suggest it is involved in food allergies. Due to this objection, isinglass has been granted exemption from the regulations for two years, to November 2007. During this time the industry must prove that isinglass is non-allergenic. This paper presents a simple and sensitive method for detecting the presence of isinglass in beer. The method involves hydrolysing beer samples with acid and measuring levels of hydroxyproline. This amino acid is found in isinglass but not in brewing raw materials. This method will be of use in any investigations involving isinglass. Data are presented showing how the method can be used to test for the presence or absence of isinglass in filtered and cask-conditioned beers.


The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is among the central concepts in strategic management. The four Industrial Ecosystem Principles (IEPs) are among the central theoretical constructs in industrial ecology. This theoretical contribution applies the BSC approach to IEPs to construct an Industrial Ecosystem Balanced Scorecard (IEBSC). BSC breaks the strategy of the organisation down to four interdependent perspectives. The Industrial Ecosystem (IE) is divided into four perspectives according to the four IEPs. The IEPs are roundput (materials cycles, energy cascades), diversity (in the involved actors/organisations), cooperation/symbiosis (cooperation in their relations) and locality in product life cycles. In BSC, two criteria are employed to evaluate the perspectives of the organisation's scorecard: the strategic vision and the financial perspective. In IEBSC, the strategic vision and overall objective is ecological sustainability. Sustainability principles (the strategic vision) and roundput (the central IEP perspective) are used to assess the diversity, cooperation/symbiosis and locality in IEBSC. The cause-and-effect chains and interdependencies between the four IEPs are identified. We innovate by linking the engineering and natural science-derived IEPs with the management and organisational models of the BSC that introduce strategic thinking to industrial ecology. The four IEPs can now be used complementarily. The IEBSC further illustrates how the cause-and-effect chains between the four IEPs may actually create unsustainable solutions and environmentally harmful outcomes.


Poverty has remained a global phenomenon and has defied various endeavors at curbing it especially in developing countries. The high and unacceptable number of people within its grip around the world gave it a pride of place as one of the major goals of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000. Poverty alleviation was a prime target of the MDGs and micro-credit was recognized as a veritable tool for tackling it. Since the 1970s, especially during the new wave of microfinance in the 1990s, micro-credit has come to be seen as an important development policy and a poverty reduction tool.  In this paper, we examined empirically the effect of micro-credit on poverty alleviation in Bangladesh using secondary data.  The results of the study show that poverty level is still high among the rural populace; but those that have access to micro-credit seems to have managed better than those who have no access to micro-credit. In other words, access to micro-credit has positive but not significant impact on poverty alleviation among the rural populace. The study recommends that government should intensify effort in its recent financial inclusion strategy to ensure that the rural populace has greater access to micro credits. Government should also ensure that interest rate on micro credits are affordable, the terms of the credits flexible and the conditions attached to the credit well liberalized. Keywords : Microcredit, Microfinance, Poverty, Eradication, Challenge.


Lattice QCD calculations of energies in bosonic channels have mostly been restricted to the use of quark-antiquark meson operators due to the computational challenges associated with evaluating correlation functions of multi-meson operators. The stochastic LapH method has provided an efficient way to compute correlation functions involving multi-hadron operators. This method is applied to construct a 58×58 correlation matrix using 9 single-meson operators and 49 two-meson operators in the isodoublet strangeness S = 1 T1u channel, which contains the spin-1 and spin-3 kaon states. The matrix of temporal correlations is evaluated using a Monte Carlo ensemble of 551 configurations on an anisotropic 24 × 128 lattice. Due to computational limitations, light quark masses are used that produce an unphysically heavy pion having a mass around 390 MeV, but the strange quark mass is tuned to its physical value. A clover-improved Wilson fermion action is used in generating the Monte Carlo ensemble, and the correlators are formed using source and sink operators constructed out of Laplacian Heaviside smeared quark fields displaced with stout-smeared gauge links. Overlap factors are used to identify the finite-volume eigenstates that should evolve into the kaon resonances in infinite volume. These results are compared to experiment and to results from a previous study for the isovector nonstrange T 1u channel.


The anxiolytic effects of regular exercise have been well documented, though the mechanisms through which exercise leads to reductions in anxiety remain unclear. In recent years, there has also been mounting research indicating that exercise reduces anxiety sensitivity, or the fear of anxiety sensations, a known vulnerability factor for the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether anxiety sensitivity mediates the relation between exercise frequency and anxiety symtoms in a large community sample of 954 western North Carolina residents. Results indicated that exercise frequency was negatively correlated with anxiety sensitivity and anxiety, and anxiety sensitivity significantly mediated the relation between exercise frequency and anxiety symptoms. These findings provide additional evidence supporting the inverse association between exercise and anxiety, and suggest that anxiety sensitivity is one mechanism through which exercise reduces anxiety. The implications of these findings for clinicians and future research are discussed.


Background: The increasing number of patients suffering from cutaneous leishmaniasis in Poldokhtar County during the last 10 years and technological advances in data generation has increased the necessity to produce the predicting models of disease prevalence in the region. Therefore, climatic variables were used in this study to predict the cutaneous leishmaniasis.
Materials and Methods: In this study using regression model, the relationship between number of patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis and climatic signals were taken simultaneously and with one, two, three and four months of regression lag.
Results: Totally there was a significant relationship between January patients with January NINO1 climatic signal, March patients with February PNA climatic signal, April patients with March AAMM climatic signal, May patients with April AO climatic signal, and August patients with June TSA climatic signal, at 5% significance level. Furthermore, there was a significant relationship between February patients with January NINO1 climatic signal, at 10% significance level.
Conclusion: This investigation showed that use of climatic signals with lags for predicting the disease was better than simultaneous application of signals and disease. Correlation between statistics relating to diseases during the entire period and PDO signal with 2 months of lag was obtained as 84.53. In addition, results indicated that approximately during half of the months in a year, there was a good correlation between prevalence of cutaneous leishmaniasis and the climatic signals and thus enabling us to discover prevalence of cutaneous leishmaniasis using the climatic signals.
Keywords: Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, Climatic Signals, Prediction, Poldokhtar County, Correlation


We investigate the decline of the labor share in a world characterized by rapid technological changes and increasing heterogeneity of capital assets. Our theoretical model allows for these assets to affect the labor share in different directions depending on the capital-labor substitution/complementary relationship and the workers' skill level. We test the predictions of our model using a large cross-country, cross-industry data set, considering different forms of tangible and intangible capital inputs. Our results show that, over the 1970-2007 period, the decline of the labor share has been mainly driven by technical change and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) assets, mitigated by increasing investments in R&D based knowledge assets. Extending to other forms of intangible capital from 1995 onwards, we find that intangible investments related to innovation increase the labor share while those related to the organisation of firms contribute to its decline, particularly for the low and intermediate skilled workers. Our results are robust to an array of econometric issues, namely heterogeneity, cross sectional dependence, and endogeneity.