Chapter one provides a general introduction, which reviews relevant literature
concerning the preparation and chemistry of cyclic sulfamidites and sulfamidates. A
comparison is drawn between these compounds and the analogous cyclic sulfites,
cyclic sulfates, epoxides and aziridines, in terms of their chemistry. Work undertaken
by other members of the research group in this area is discussed and a review of the
preparation of allene oxides and methyleneaziridines is given. Project aims, in terms
of the preparation of a methylene cyclic sulfamidate are discussed in relation to the
successful preparation of a methylene cyclic sulfite within our group.
Chapter two describes the preparation of a simple cyclic sulfamidate and goes on to
detail three routes undertaken towards the synthesis of novel 4-methylene cyclic
sulfamidates. The first approach involved subjecting a β-hydroxy-imine to the
conditions used to convert an amino alcohol to a cyclic sulfite, which unexpectedly
did not result in formation of the desired 4-methylene cyclic sulfamidite. An
alternative route for the preparation of 4-methylene cyclic sulfamidites was explored
using an elimination reaction employing selenoxides to introduce the double bond as
the final synthetic step. We successfully completed the synthesis of two precursors
possessing different substituents attached to the selenium atom, although neither
could be successfully eliminated to the desired methylene cyclic sulfamidite.
Chapter three describes the detailed experimental work undertaken in this thesis.


In this paper we describe the luminescence properties of Si nanowires (NWs) prepared by a maskless synthesis technique, based on the Au-catalyzed wet etching of Si substrates by an aqueous solution of H(2)O(2) and HF. A strong room temperature photoluminescence (PL), centered at about 690 nm, is observed when Si NWs are optically excited. The detailed analysis of the steady-state and time-resolved PL properties of the system as a function of aging, temperature and pump power allows to demonstrate that the emission is due to the radiative recombination of quantum confined excitons. These results open the route towards novel applications of Si NWs in photonics as efficient light sources.


In October 1979, a series of potentially catastrophic events was set into motion: President Park Chung-hee was assassinated, South Korean officers staged a coup d'etat, and South Korean troops brutally suppressed civilian demonstrators during the controversial Kwangju uprising. Any one of these incidents could have sparked another major conflict on the Korean Peninsula. General Wickham contends war was avoided largely because of resolute action taken by the governments of the United States and the Republic of Korea, and because of the combat readiness of U.S. and South Korean forces. Moreover, he believes that this deterrent contributed to a political-economic evolution in South Korea and to subsequent peaceful transfers of power. Korea on the Brink sheds light on how political-military policy is formulated within the U.S. government and on how such policy is shaped and executed "in the field" under trying circumstances.


We present the problem of generating a computer simulation for optical interferometers. Of the several methods in use to simulate optical systems, none seems adequate to describe the image formed by interference between beams encountering a real system of lenses, mirrors, and gratings. We have developed a ray-tracing software package that can be applied to complex systems and used to generate realistic interference patterns, even from extended sources, without simplifying assumptions. We present results of a simulated nonscanning interferometer with coherent summation at a discrete-element detector. No coherence theory is added a priori; instead, the major results are shown to be verified numerically.


Many South African children suffer from a chronic condition that requires ongoing care. The most prevalent of these conditions are congenital heart disease neurological problems and HIV. In urban areas asthma affects more than 10% of children. The sequelae of poor perinatal care poverty and poorly managed infections cause disability and place a high toll on rural families. In addition a wide range of congenital conditions that affect children globally affect South African children as well. Diseases of lifestyle previously mainly affecting adults are now more prevalent as almost 20% of South African urban children are overweight. SA has the challenge of improving perinatal care paediatric and child health services controlling over and under-nutrition and decreasing poverty in order to prevent chronic conditions. The establishment of a family based multidisciplinary service for children with long term illness is a priority. The nature and scope of the service is outlined in the 2002 Policy framework for non-Communicable chronic conditions in children. Excellent specialised services exist in pockets in the country; however these services are inequitably distributed. For many conditions children from rural areas are much less likely than their urban counterparts to access specialised care and thus will inevitably have a poorer outcome and quality of life. Ensuring equity in provision of service and establishing good family based care for children throughout South Africa will require innovation and commitment. Centres of excellence that provide care should be maintained and provided with resources to service the region. NGOs patient-provider organisations and specialist working groups are encouraged to continue and extend the role they play in advocacy and support for service development and best practices. (authors)


This paper presents a novel miniaturized antenna with a dual-band resonance covering the medical body-area network (MBAN) and a 5.8-GHz industrial scientific medical band. Owning to its stacked-patch structure, the proposed antenna generates an omnidirectional radiation pattern with vertical polarization and a broadside radiation pattern with circular polarization at the two bands, respectively, thus fulfilling the requirements for both onand off-body channels simultaneously. This antenna is designed on a multilayer tissue model, and is then validated on the Gustav voxel model. The footprint of the proposed antenna is only 0.18λ0 × 0.18λ0 × 0.04λ0. The proposed design is fabricated and its performance is investigated in various scenarios. When measured on the pork trunk, impedance bandwidths of 2.8% at the lower band and 9.0% at the upper band are achieved, fully covering the two bands. Besides, the transmission performance at the MBAN band is also studied by conducting measurements on the human body, and the measurement results agree well with the simulation. The obtained robust antenna performance reveals that the proposed design is suitable for MBAN applications.


One of the pillars in the emergency response to the 2014-2016 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa has been the local deployment of temporary laboratories by the international community in collaboration with local authorities. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs financed and supported the deployment of three mobile container laboratories to Sierra Leone (Freetown and Koidu) and Liberia (Sinje). We describe the organisation of the three laboratories, the biosafety aspects, the quality control, and the performance in Ebola virus and malaria diagnostics during the period of deployment.


In this paper, a general version of coupled-mode theory for frequency-domain scattering problems in integrated optics is proposed. As a prerequisite, a physically reasonable field template is required, that typically combines modes of the optical channels in the structure with coefficient functions of in principle arbitrary coordinates. Upon 1D discretizations of these amplitude functions into finite elements, a Galerkin procedure reduces the problem to a system of linear equations in the element coefficients, where given input amplitudes are included. Smooth approximate solutions are obtained by solving the system in a least squares sense. The versatility of the approach is illustrated by means of a series of 2D examples, including a perpendicular crossing of waveguides, and a grating-assisted rectangular resonator. As an Appendix, we show that, alternatively, a similar procedure can be derived by variational means, i.e., by restricting a suitable functional representation of the full 2D/3D vectorial scattering problem (with transparent influx boundary conditions for inhomogeneous exterior) to the respective field templates.


Abstract. A fraction of the Himalayan aerosols originate from secondary sources, which are currently poorly quantified. To clarify the climatic importance of regional secondary particle formation in the Himalayas, data from 2005 to 2010 of continuous aerosol measurements at a high-altitude (2180 m) Indian Himalayan site, Mukteshwar, were analyzed. For this period, the days were classified, and the particle formation and growth rates were calculated for clear new particle formation (NPF) event days. The NPF events showed a pronounced seasonal cycle. The frequency of the events peaked in spring, when the ratio between event and non-event days was 53 %, whereas the events were truly sporadic on any other seasons. The annual mean particle formation and growth rates were 0.40 cm −3 s −1 and 2.43 nm h −1 , respectively. The clear annual cycle was found to be mainly controlled by the seasonal evolution of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) height together with local meteorological conditions. Spring NPF events were connected with increased PBL height, and therefore characterised as boundary layer events, while the rare events in other seasons represented lower free tropospheric particle formation. This provides insight on the vertical extent of NPF in the atmosphere.


Experimental economists are leaving the reservation. They are recruiting subjects in the field rather than in the classroom, using field goods rather than induced valuations, and using field context rather than abstract terminology in instructions. We argue that there is something methodologically fundamental behind this trend. Field experiments differ from laboratory experiments in many ways. Although it is tempting to view field experiments as simply less controlled variants of laboratory experiments, we argue that to do so would be to seriously mischaracterize them. What passes for "control" in laboratory experiments might in fact be precisely the opposite if it is artificial to the subject or context of the task. We propose six factors that can be used to determine the field context of an experiment: the nature of the subject pool, the nature of the information that the subjects bring to the task, the nature of the commodity, the nature of the task or trading rules applied, the nature of the stakes, and the environment that subjects operate in.


We introduce a new method to measure the ideology of state supreme court justices using campaign finance records. In addition to recovering ideal point estimates for both incumbent and challenger candidates, the method's unified estimation framework recovers judicial ideal points in a common ideological space with a diverse set of candidates for state and federal office, thus facilitating comparisons across states and institutions. We use these measures to study the relationship between judicial selection methods and the quality of ideological representation in the state courts. We find that judicial elections can lead to more representative courts but that the beneficial effects are negated by policies intended to promote judicial impartiality by limiting the politicizing effects of partisan affiliation and campaign speech. We provide a direct test of this claim by exploiting the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White as a natural experiment.


Cultural practices that modify root system structure in the plug of container-grown seedlings have the potential to improve root system function after planting. Our objective was to assess how copper root pruning affects the quality and root system development of longleaf pine seedlings grown in three cavity sizes in a greenhouse. Copper root pruning increased seedling size, the allocation of root system dry weight to the taproot, and the fraction of fibrous root mass allocated to secondary lateral roots compared with primary lateral roots. It decreased the allocation of root system dry weight to primary lateral roots and led to a distribution of root growth potential that more closely resembled the root growth of naturally sown seedlings. These effects of copper root pruning may benefit longleaf pine establishment. However, because copper root pruning increased competition for cavity growing space among the taproot and fibrous roots, we suggest that recommendations regarding cavity size and seedling quality parameters be tailored for copper-coated cavities.


Changes in the marine environment have been reported for over three decades in terms of mean annual wave heights, exceedance probabilities and extreme conditions. More recently, the existence of a link between these changes and anthropogenic climate change has been postulated. This is not unreasonable, as climatic changes in regional warming and cooling are likely to alter wind patterns, and therefore the wave climate as well. In an attempt to mitigate climate change and increase energy security, the offshore environment is being looked at to provide sustainable energy from wind, waves and tides. As a result the number of marine structures is only likely to increase. While survivability in this environment is essential for all such installations, some devices such as wave energy converters also rely on the environment for energy production. In designing these offshore structures to survive the harshest conditions as well as to ensure optimum operation, knowledge of the evolution of the wave climate is essential. This study aims to identify and evaluate any historical trends that may be exhibited by the wave climate in the North East Atlantic and North Sea region. The study also aims to investigate the link between any observed changes and atmospheric greenhouse gas levels and projected wave conditions for the 21st century. This is achieved by producing a long-term, high resolution hindcast of wave conditions for 1871-2010 using the third-generation spectral wave model WAVEWATCH III. A dataset of wave climate projections for the high, medium and low emissions scenarios is also prepared by forcing the model with GCM winds for 2001-2100. In addition to dynamically projecting the wave climate in the 21st century for different IPCC climate change scenarios, statistical methods were applied to historic data to estimate extreme events in terms of 100-year return values of significant wave height. These, together, provide some idea of the plausible wave climate up to 2100. The results of the work show the existence of long-term trends in the historical wave climate in the region from 1921 onwards. However, based on the findings of the study, it is unlikely that these are a result of changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and are more likely due to internal variability in the system.


We study an encoding/decoding mechanism accounting for the relative spike timing of the signals propagating from peripheral nerve fibers to second-order so-matosensory neurons in the cuneate nucleus (CN). The CN is modeled as a population of spiking neurons receiving as inputs the spatiotemporal responses of real mechanoreceptors obtained via microneurography recordings in humans. The efficiency of the haptic discrimination process is quantified by a novel definition of entropy that takes into full account the metrical properties of the spike train space. This measure proves to be a suitable decoding scheme for generalizing the classical Shannon entropy to spike-based neural codes. It permits an assessment of neurotransmission in the presence of a large output space (i.e. hundreds of spike trains) with 1 ms temporal precision. It is shown that the CN population code performs a complete discrimination of 81 distinct stimuli already within 35 ms of the first afferent spike, whereas a partial discrimination (80% of the maximum information transmission) is possible as rapidly as 15 ms. This study suggests that the CN may not constitute a mere synaptic relay along the somatosensory pathway but, rather, it may convey optimal contextual accounts (in terms of fast and reliable information transfer) of peripheral tactile inputs to downstream structures of the central nervous system.


In this paper, a new technique that estimates velocity using sparse representation is suggested. The CW radar is effective for velocity estimation because it uses the Doppler frequency shift. Traditional Doppler shifts are calculated using a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), which is needed to obtain a sufficient number of received signals for high-resolution. The maximum frequency resolution is proportional to the number of received signals, and accurate velocity estimation requires a long integration time. When a moving target has a velocity of 30km/h and a carrier frequency is 10GHz, received signal has a Doppler frequency of 55Hz and noise. The length of the dictionary and the receive signal can be reduced to 0.2% by multiplying a normalized random matrix. If the received Doppler frequency is close to a frequency in the dictionary and unique which means that the sparsity is one, then the least square error is small between the received signal and the dictionary. A minimum least square error of the frequency is represented by the best-fit solution instead of L1 minimization because the sparsity of the solution is well known. The solution has a dependency with noise but the proposed method is much faster and more robust. This study proves that in Doppler estimation, a proposed method improves frequency accuracy even though the received data reduce to 0.2% of samples. Index Terms—Sinusoidal Signal, Doppler Estimation, Sparse Representation I. INTRODUCTION In spite of noise limitation, continuous-wave (CW) radar is widely used in near range. The CW radar is effective for velocity estimation because it uses the Doppler shift. Traditional Doppler frequency is calculated using a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), which is needed to obtain a sufficient number of received signals for high-resolution. The maximum frequency resolution is proportional to the number of received signals, and accurate velocity estimation requires a long integration time. In this paper, a new technique that estimates velocity using compressed sensing is suggested.


This is a brief highly readable history of the Catholic experience in British America, which shaped the development of the colonies and the nascent republic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Historian Robert Emmett Curran begins his account with the English reformation, which helps us to understand the Catholic exodus from England, Ireland, and Scotland that took place over the nearly two centuries that constitute the colonial period. The deeply rooted English understanding of Catholics as enemies of the political and religious values at the heart of British tradition, ironically acted as a catalyst for the emergence of a Catholic republican movement that was a critical factor in the decision of a strong majority of American Catholics in 1775 to support the cause for independence. Papist Devils utilises archival material, newspapers, and other contemporary records in addition to a broad array of general histories, monographs, and dissertations dealing with the British Atlantic world. The unprecedentedly broad scope of this study, which encompasses not only the thirteen colonies that took up arms against Britain in 1775, but also those in the maritime provinces of Canada as well as the ones in the West Indies, constitutes a unique coverage of the British Catholic colonial experience, as does the extension of the colonial period through the American Revolution, which was its logical denouement.


A new molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was synthesized for the selective extraction of mono-substituted sulfonylurea herbicides, with monosulfuron as the template and acrylamide as the functional monomer. The recognition property and affinity of the MIP for monosulfuron and its analog, monosulfuron-ester, were evaluated by equilibrium adsorption and a chromatographic study. Computer modeling, including simulated annealing and semi-empirical quantum calculation, was employed to study the recognition mechanism. The computer modeling demonstrated that monosulfuron can form multiple hydrogen bonds with methacrylic acid and acrylamide, whereas monosulfuron-ester cannot form a stable complex with these two functional monomers, which aligns with the results of the rebinding experiment. The selectivity study further demonstrated that binding sites in the MIP interact with the hydrogen in the acylamino group of mono-substituted sulfonylurea. A comparison experiment also showed that monosulfuron-imprinted MIP offers better selectivity for monosulfuron-ester than the commercial C18 high-performance liquid chromatography stationary phase material.


Tattooing breaches the skin and can, therefore, cause a variety of complications. This book covers the full spectrum of issues clinical practitioners may encounter when treating affected patients. Introductory chapters include educational information on methods for tattooing, types of tattoos, tattoo inks, and tattoo ink toxicology. The focus is on the diagnosis and classification of tattoo complications. In this regard, a comprehensive atlas of acute and chronic complications serves as a valuable tool. Further chapters summarize available therapies, their rationale, and indication. This includes various medical and surgical treatments with a review of dermatome shaving. Lastly, tattoo removal by gold standard YAG lasers and the more recent picosecond lasers is discussed with the optimal therapeutic outcome in mind. Dermatologists, plastic surgeons, general practitioners, laser surgeons, and other specialists treating tattoo complications will find this book to be an indispensable resource. It also includes information relevant for a broad range of stakeholders in the tattoo business, including authorities and regulators.


It's been over 10 years that β-INF for the treatment of MS was presented to the world of medicine. As there are some doubts about the pathophysiology of MS, there may be some differences between our patients and other ones therefore,s such a study is essential for our patients.

Materials & Methods:�This is a descriptive-analytic and clinical trial study. According to clinical and para-clinical findings, the patients with the diagnosis of relapsing remitting MS were included in this study. Severity of disability (according to EDSS) and the number of attacks were estimated before and after the treatment with IFN β. Side effects of IFN β were evaluated too.

Results:�Among 42 patients, 73.8% were female and 26.2% were male. The mean age of onset was 29.21 years old. The mean relapsing rate before and after 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years of treatment were 2.43, 2.29, 3.28 and 0.57, 0.41 and 1.78 respectively the difference between these two was significant (P<0.05). The mean EDSS at the months of 0, 24 and 36 decreased significantly (P<0.05). The most common side effect of IFN-β in our study is flu like syndrome.

Conclusion:�Epidemiologic findings of this study such as M/F ratio and age of onset are similar to other studies. Statistical tests revealed the effects of IFN β on decreasing disabilities and relapse rate, but there are no differences of these effects between males and females


This thesis analyses UMNO factionalism from the perspective of the elite's manipulation of the various modes of nationalisms. This thesis argues that UMNO factionalism, which is seemingly a power struggle between competing UMNO elites, has been significantly shaped by contesting nationalist ideologies that reflect the unresolved questions of national identity in Malaysia.

These two issues, that is, nationalism and UMNO factionalism, have shaped Malaysian politics in significant ways. UMNO factionalism has been related to such major political events as the 1969 ethnic riots, the introduction of the New Economic Policy, the UMNO split in 1987 and the Reformasi (Reform) movement in 1998. Frequently, the impact of these disputes extended beyond UMNO politics and affected wider Malaysian politics. At the same time, due to unresolved questions of national identity, nationalism has occupied a central position in Malaysian political discourse. There are ambiguities regarding the relationships among the various ethnic identities and national identity and between the individual and the larger Malaysian community that enable elites to construct and manipulate nationalist ideologies. In this thesis, the conflicting nationalisms are captured by five different concepts of nationalism - ethnocultural, civic and multicultural nationalisms in one group and collectivist-authoritarian and individualistic-libertarian nationalisms in another.

The Malaysian Prime Ministers have constructed nationalist ideology to define the Malaysian nation in their attempts to resolve the unresolved problems of national identity. The challengers' arguments, to mobilise the community, mirror the community's (negative) responses to the Malaysian Prime Ministers' nationalist visions. In addition, the ideological arguments in the disputes extend the dispute beyond the elites, involving the community as well. Furthermore, because of the ideological conflicts, these factional disputes affect the direction of government policies in significant ways. This study shows that UMNO factional disputes have followed this pattern of ideological conflicts, although the exact contents may vary.

The 1969 factional dispute was a clash between Tunku Abdul Rahman's shift towards multicultural nationalism and its challengers' ethnocultural nationalism. Tunku Abdul Rahman's nationalist vision moved away from ethnocultural nationalism in pursuit of national integration. The challengers, reflecting the Malay community's response to the Prime Minister's vision, took a strong ethnocultural Malay nationalist stance. The successful mobilisation of the Malay community by ethnocultural Malay nationalists contributed to the policy shift towards ethnocultural nationalism in the 1970s. In the 1987 dispute, Mahathir's economic policy, which moved away from ethnocultural nationalism, was challenged by Razaleigh's ethnocultural nationalist argument. After the dispute, Mahathir could only mobilise the community by tactically employing the rhetoric of ethnocultural Malay nationalism.

In the 1990s, Mahathir's attempt to define the national identity of Malaysia by constructing a civic Malaysian nation, Bangsa Malaysia, relieved the tension surrounding the ambiguous national identity of Malaysia. It was facilitated by rapid economic growth that ameliorated ethnic contests over limited economic resources. However, the collectivist-authoritarian aspect of Mahathir's nationalism raised another nationalist question concerning the subordination of individual liberty and rights to the collective community's will and interests - a nationalism that justified his authoritarian rule. There was tension between an increasingly confident civic Malaysian society and Mahathir's collectivist-authoritarian control of the society. The 1998 UMNO dispute was a clash between Mahathir's collectivist-authoritarian nationalism and Anwar Ibrahim's individualistic-libertarian nationalism. The latter attempted to mobilise Malaysian society with his nationalist position (the Reformasi movement) which was expressed in the demand for liberal political reform. After the dispute, Mahathir was able to regain lost political ground through the politics of fear. It seems, however, that the fundamental question remains unresolved. This unresolved tension between the demand for individual liberty and rights and authoritarian control by state elites is likely to shape the ideological arguments in future UMNO factional disputes.


target selection and message conception Y. Dutil & S. Dumas DREV * By opposition to passive SETI, which wants to detect extraterrestrial civilizations, the goal of active SETI is to establish a communication link with those civilizations. Already difficult, this task is complicated by the lack of knowledge about the nearest civilizations. Even worst, since resources available are even more limited than for passive SETI, targets selection is critical. We will show, that at radio-wavelength, early efforts may be concentrated in a small region of the sky. Technical and astrophysical considerations severely limit the communication bandwidth for radio waves. Careful design of the message is needed in order to facilitate its detection and decoding. We will described the solutions we have implemented in the scope of the Encounter 2001 project.


Plant cells accumulate praline as an osmoprotectant to conserve osmotic stability and prevent damage. However,
the accumulation of proline may not be associated with tolerance to salinity. This study considered the influences
of NaCl and Na2SO4 compositions, at different concentrations, on seed germination and accumulation of proline in eleven rice genotypes. Rice seeds were grown in petri dishes in the laboratory and treated with distilled
water as a control and NaCl and Na2SO4 (1:1 molar concentration ratio) at 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10 dS m-1 electrical
conductivity for 14 days. The mean germination time (MGT) was positively affected by the increase in the
concentration of salt. Conversely, there was a negative relationship between germination index (GI) and salt
concentration. Shirodi, Fajr, and Shafag can be classified into salt tolerant group, while Tarom-e-Hashemi
was identified as salt susceptible, based on MGT and GI. Slight changes were recorded within dry weight
and water content of seedlings at different salt levels. The maximum accumulation of proline was observed
at 5 dS m-1 salt concentration. No relationship was established between the accumulation of proline and the
growth parameters.


The 2006 overthrow of Thaksin Shinawatra's government at the hands of the Royal Thai Army signaled a major step backward for Thai democracy. The country's 1997 Constitution—designed to promote the transparency and accountability of the political system and the stability and effectiveness of government—permitted Thaksin to convert his populist TRT party into an unstoppable political machine, one which would eventually fall victim to allegations of corruption and abuse of power. But the fundamental problem, a seemingly irreconcilable conflict between the traditional establishment—comprising the monarchy, military, and bureaucracy—and proponents of Thaksin-style populism, remains.


Within the last decades, the water temperature of several European lakes has risen. It is assumed that these temperature increases are due to a reconfiguration of the heat‐balance components. This study explores the dominant modifications of heat exchange with the atmosphere and their temporal evolutions. The objective is to identify the primary changes in heat fluxes and the sequence of events of the reconfiguration for the period 1984–2011. For this purpose, a model was applied to Lake Constance to estimate the contributions of the individual heat fluxes to the total heat balance. The results show that increasing absorption of solar radiation (+0.21 ± 0.13 W m−2 yr−1) and of longwave radiation (+0.25 ± 0.11 W m−2 yr−1) was responsible for the lake surface warming of 0.046 ± 0.011°C yr−1. Heat losses to the atmosphere by longwave emission (−0.24 ± 0.06 W m−2 yr−1) and by latent heat flux (−0.27 ± 0.12 W m−2 yr−1) have intensified in parallel due to higher lake surface temperatures. The heat budget is in a quasi‐steady state, whereas incoming solar radiation and the warmer atmosphere increased the lake surface temperature; the warmer surface emits more longwave radiation and more water is evaporated. At each level of the slowly increasing water temperature, the heat fluxes are balanced. The overall change of the total heat content, however, is relatively little. Although the cooling effect of inflowing rivers decreased, this contribution is also small.


Delta networks are a class of multistage interconnection networks that can be used to interconnect a large number of modules in a modular computing system. In a packet communication environment, the modules in a system communicate asynchronously using fixed size packets. In this environment, delta networks exhibit a large parallelism in packet transfer leading to good performance. They also allow for local control in packet routing, extensibility, clean interfaces, speed independence, and simple proofs of correctness.
They can be augmented to improve reliability, and pruned to have different numbers of input and output links. Feedback paths can be added to provide a range of performance.
Special extreme cases of (N x N) delta networks are the full crossbar switch, which has O(N('2)) gates and O(N) ideal bandwidth, and the single bus, which has O(N) gates and 0(1) bandwidth. Delta networks constructed from fixed size basic switches have O(N log N) gates and O(N) ideal bandwidth. The performance of delta networks with fixed size basic switches is comparable to that of the full crossbar switch in realistic environments as well. The class of delta networks includes several other networks that have been proposed in the literature. Thus, this study applies to these networks as well.
Unbuffered delta networks have no internal buffers within the network. A simple model for network operation can be used to obtain a network characteristic that can then be used to obtain good estimates of performance for other models and environments. Using priority schemes in arbitrating between conflicting packets (that require passage through the same link at the same time) leads to a deterioration in performance as compared to arbitration with equiprobable selection from conflicting packets.
Inserting a buffer between the stages of a delta network leads to a considerable improvement in performance, making its performance better than that of the (same size) unbuffered crossbar switch. However, as the number of buffers between stages is increased, the network bandwidth saturates quickly to a constant, while the delay that a packet encounters in the network increases almost linearly with buffer size. Thus, the buffer size for most practical applications should be limited to one or two. The performance obtained is also sensitive to precisely how the switches in the network operate. The switch operation policy needs to be chosen depending on the values of certain network parameters in an implementation. There are many ways of pruning delta networks. Optimal pruned delta networks, with buffers between stages, have a nonintuitive topology.
Introducing feedback paths leads to a range of performance and cost. However, packets can deadlock in such networks. It is possible to detect and recover from deadlocks. For good performance to be obtained, it is necessary to prevent the frequent occurrence of deadlocks. This can be achieved by controlling the flow of packets into the networks.


"Are you sure it is okay to have those kinds of books in the library?" my colleague asked me in a hushed tone, while perusing several books featuring religion that I'd chosen for our annual eighth grade realistic fiction project. He then furtively glanced around to make sure no one outside of our group could hear our conversation. My other colleagues also voiced their concerns, nervously reminding me of another teacher who had recently been the subject of an administrative reprimand over a book she had given to a student that the student's parent had found extremely objectionable. Every year the eighth grade students in our school complete a realistic fiction project in which they form small book clubs of two to three students, with each group reading the same book of their choice. This format allows the students to explore the book and its issues in depth. My part in the collaborative effort is to search for a wide variety of books featuring interesting and timely topics that I present in a series of booktalks to the students. I had fallen in love with the book Does my Head Look Big in This by Randa Abdel-Fattah and decided, after realizing our group neglected to include titles that featured religious experiences, to include it in the books to be used for this project. The story centers on a Muslim teenager, Amal Abdel-Hakim, and the ramifications of her decision to wear her hijab all the time or to "become a 'full-timer,'" as she describes it. "I can't sleep from stressing about whether I've got the guts to do it. To wear the hijab full-time. 'Full-timers' are what my Muslim friends and I call girls who wear the hijab all the time, which basically means wearing it whenever you're in the presence of males who aren't immediate family. 'Part-timers' like me wear the hijab when we go to the mosque or maybe even when we are having a bad hair day." Amal's decision also inspires a wide variety of reactions from those closest to her. Her classmates and friends are surprised to see their friend, whom they thought wasn't really, "into the whole Muslim thing," wearing the head scarf, causing some to support her unconditionally and others to resort to making racist comments. Her school principal views Amal's embrace of her religion as a symbol of radicalism and defiance that could give the wrong impression to potential students. She adds to Amal's distress by mistakenly assuming that she is a victim, forced by her family to adhere to Muslim doctrine. Her moderately religious family is compelled to revisit the uncomfortable personal decisions they made to either embrace or deny their religious traditions in order to assimilate into their new, more secular country. Amal is taken aback by the intensity of the emotions the public expression of her religion stirs in others and within herself, but her courageous struggle brings results; it strengthens her determination to express herself, becoming an essential part of her self-identity. I chose Amal's story not to purposely court controversy but because in my experience the best young adult books, the ones that captivate young adult readers the most, are often the very ones that fearlessly explore challenging and engaging topics. The provocative nature of those topics ignites conversations that are essential to the development of the critical thinking skills that adolescents require to become insightful and intelligent adults. Still a Taboo Religious beliefs stem from the most important and revered aspects of our lives, our family traditions, values, culture, and experiences. Young adult books that courageously take on this sensitive subject often invoke a uniquely personal and sharp response. Therefore, it is no surprise that books that dare to feature young adults and their exploration of their religious and spiritual identity are at the center of a deeply personal and passionate debate that has become so contentious that many simply find it easier to not speak of it at all. …


A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a security backed by a diversified pool of one or more classes of debt. The asset classes that have been used as collateral for a CDO include U.S. domestic investment-grade and high-yield corporate bonds, U.S. domestic bank loans, emerging market bonds, special situation loans and distressed debt, foreign bank loans, asset-backed securities, real-estate investment trusts, residential mortgage-backed securities, and commercial mortgage-backed securities. In this article we set forth investment principles for managing a portfolio of CDOs.


The natural antioxidant curcumin has been proposed for cancer chemoprevention, as it reduces proliferation of several types of cancer. In this study, we investigated anticancer efficacy of curcumin in two human osteosarcoma cell lines, U2OS and MG-63. The results demonstrated that the proliferation of the osteosarcoma cells was significantly inhibited in a time- and concentration-dependent manner when incubated with curcumin. Furthermore, after being treated with curcumin, the level of apoptosis significantly increased, and the expression level of apoptosis-related proteins increased. The invasion properties of the cell lines decreased gradually. MG-63 cells, which have a P53 gene mutation, were more sensitive to curcumin than U2OS cells. Therefore, curcumin has an obvious inhibition effect on the human osteosarcoma cell lines, and the P53 gene may play an important role in this process. Curcumin is a promising antitumor drug for human osteosarcoma treatment.


While a wide range of literature exists on the experiences of children in foster care or adoption, much less is known about children who return home from care to their birth parents. This paper focuses on the perspectives of a small sample of birth parents of young children who returned home from care. It draws on findings from the Northern Ireland Care Pathways and Outcomes Study that has been following a population (n = 374) of children who were under 5 years and in care in Northern Ireland on the 31st of March 2000. As part of this study, interviews were conducted with the foster parents of 55 children, the adoptive parents of 51 children and the birth parents of nine children who had returned home from care. The paper explores the birth parents' views on how they coped while their child was in care, how they were coping after the child had returned home and how their child was faring at home. Results revealed that these parents, and their children, were experiencing multiple difficulties and struggled to cope after the children had returned home.


Evaluation of research and innovation policy faces radical challenges arising from a new policy emphasis upon demand-side measures and linked to this an understanding of innovation policy as a means to achieve societal goals. This article considers the implications for the practice of evaluation at both micro and meso-levels. It uses the exemplar of an evaluation design for the European Union's Lead Market Initiative to expose the extent to which classical approaches to evaluation are valid and where new issues arise. Some problems highlighted include the difficulty of establishing a relevant baseline, the inability of public statistics constructed in supply-side mode to capture actions, the need to engage with actors who do not necessarily see themselves as part of the initiative being evaluated, long timescales and potential wide geographical scope, measures that span from micro to macro, and blurred boundaries between implementation and impact. It is concluded that there is a key role for evaluators to become involved in co-learning and co-evolution of these policy instruments in a manner analogous to the relationship between evaluation and policy development that characterized the emergence of collaborative R&D support programmes. Copyright The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: firstname.lastname@example.com, Oxford University Press.


In the field of drug addiction, relapse back to drug seeking and taking is the major unmet clinical need. The rate of relapse back to drug-taking is ~70-80% within a year of drug abstinence. Gaining a better understanding of the prolonged neuronal changes that have taken place during drug addiction may lead to the design of better anti-relapse therapies. It is now widely believed that one component of drug addiction is by aberrant learning and memory processes. To study this, we investigated synaptic changes caused by the development of drug-seeking behaviour in C57BL/6J mice. Mice were treated either with non-contingent morphine or trained to exhibit drug-seeking behaviour following morphine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) training, hippocampal slices were taken from these animals and synaptic changes examined at the CA3-CA1 synapse using electrophysiological methods. Mice that underwent morphine CPP were demonstrated to exhibit a significant preference for the morphine paired compartment before ex vivo electrophysiological analysis. Using field recordings, both non-contingent morphine and morphine CPP treatments resulted in a reduced ability to undergo stimulus-induced LTP compared to their respective controls. Whole cell patch clamp was then utilised to further investigate these effects. Non-contingent morphine treatment resulted in both pre- and post-synaptic changes with an increased AMPA:NMDA receptor ratio, concurrent increases in cell size, and reductions in the release probability of both glutamate and GABA. Morphine CPP treatment resulted in a more variable increase in AMPA:NMDA receptor ratio (presumably by the same mechanism but in a more specific group of neurones) and GABA release probability was also decreased. There were no detected increases in cell size however, or any detected changes in glutamate release probability. These findings therefore reveal a set of synaptic adaptations in the hippocampus unique to morphine-induced behavioural change, and may provide targets for future intervention in drug addiction.


The popularization of Information and Communication Technologies allowed new forms of interaction, including Online Social Network (OSN) services. These services could share personal data with third-party organizations through Application Programming Interfaces (API), making it a complex task to observe the data flow. This research proposes a model to identify levels and elements available in the flow of personal data via API between organizations holding OSN services and external agents. It converged the recurrent mechanisms into providing data sets from the OSN services to external agents from a systematized reading of the technical documentation to establish a database model to fetch unitedly the possibility of storing information about the levels in which API provided personal data to external agents, applying the Entity-Relationship Model. Subsequently, it presents a Data Mart as a proof of concept for the proposed database model, intending to compare the ways of accessing the personal data attributes stored and, following, shared by the OSN services to external agents. It showed that the model could clarify the elements inherent in the data flow, allowing a more structured analysis, including the possibility of monitoring changes in the API by organizations over time.


Laser ablation of metals is a new and very powerful method for preparation of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) active colloids. The method is characterized by its simplicity and versatility. Stable Ag, Au, Pt, Pd, and Cu colloids are prepared by ablation of the metal for ∼10 min in water and organic solvents. An important advantage of this approach over conventional chemical procedures is that the colloids are free of organic or ionic species. Consequently, the chemical and physical effects of ions or other adsorbates can be studied under carefully controlled conditions. The SERS activity of colloidal metals prepared by laser ablation is comparable or superior to that of chemically prepared colloids.


The objective of this work is to study the sensitivity of cyclists who are overtaken by a motor vehicle in a street route without cycling lanes. To achieve this, an experimental method is proposed in which 17 cyclists were recruited and classified into two groups: non-experienced users and experienced ones. In each run, the motor vehicle generated a stimulus presented on the route, considering different speeds and distances in the overtaken maneuver of the motor vehicle. The sensitivity was reported by audiovisual records to capture the stimuli to which they were subjected. The results obtained show that an experienced cyclist reacts 1.27 times faster than a non-experienced one. This advantage gives experienced users greater safety and a level of confidence on the road, since being able to go faster, reduces their relative speed difference with motor vehicles and gives such cyclists a greater feeling of comfort during their trip. As future research, it is proposed to carry out studies with different types of cyclists and group size to be able to compare the perceived sensitivities of making the trip individually versus one made collectively for different types of road infrastructure such as dedicated cycling pathways.


In Software Defined Networking (SDN), the network management is logically centralized but physically distributed among the controllers to improve the scalability compared with a completely centralized model. As an alternative to managing the network state in SDN in a distributed way, this work proposes a distributed protocol called SDN Resource Discovery Protocol (SDN-RDP). This protocol divides and distributes the network management among the controllers. In essence, each controller discovers a portion of the network topology creating a minimum-latency tree rooted at each controller, thus creating the control layer. Through the delay-constrained shortest paths, henceforth called control channels, the controllers collect network state information from nodes, and decide and distribute the forwarding decisions to them. This process is asynchronous since there is no global initialization process to activate the execution of the protocol, and knowledge about the network is not required. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol works efficiently on large networks in terms of time and load.


According to achievement goal theory, individuals set mastery or performance goals to accomplish challenging tasks. In addition, they can either approach or avoid the goal they are achieving. Mastery goals show positive correlation to intrinsic motivation while performance goals are linked to extrinsic motivation. Goal setting also affects motivation for completing tasks and perception of self-efficacious behavior while performing tasks. Receiving feedback has been positively correlated with success in learning and intrinsic motivation. The present research manipulates goal orientation through the accomplishment of a word find in an online experimental setting to test the effect on feedback, intrinsic motivation, choice, and self-efficacy. Positive versus highly positive feedback conditions were used after the word find to test effects on perceived competence following a task. For the approach-mastery goal condition, we found main effects for intrinsic motivation, perceived choice, task choice, and views of task importance. Additionally, we found a main effect for perceived competence for our highly positive feedback condition versus giving just positive feedback. These results demonstrate support for accomplishing challenging tasks with mastery goals versus performance goals and the usage of more positive feedback in a feedback condition.


This article analyses age orientation of welfare states in CEE countries. In the context of the current demographic changes, how the welfare states address the risks faced by people at different stages in the life course affects both citizens' lives and the capacity of national economies to adapt to new conditions. For this reason, it is becoming more and more important to evaluate what different welfare states do to ensure welfare of their elderly and young citizens. With few exceptions, there is very little comparative evidence on the age orientation of social policies in OECD countries – and none in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. Age orientation of welfare states in this region is analysed for the first time in this article. Age orientation is measured by calculating the Elderly/Children Spending Ratio (ECSR). It discloses significant differences of social policies' age orientation among CEE countries. Two of the most exceptional cases are Poland and Hungary. Welfare state's age orientation of these similar countries is completely different. Social policy of Poland is elderly- oriented, while social policy of Hungary is youth- oriented. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explain what determines the differences of the welfare states age orientation in Poland and Hungary. This article analyses the formation process of welfare states' age orientation in Poland and Hungary from the perspective of new institutionalism, namely historical institutionalism. Partisan competition and fragmentation of the social system are two main institutions that have determined age orientation of welfare states in Poland and Hungary. A comparative systemic process analysis reveals that welfare states' age orientations of Poland and Hungary are determined by two historical critical junctures. Firstly, the weak communist party in Poland sought for political support of narrow groups. It caused the creation of special pensions privileges and the pension system fragmentation. For this reason, public pension spending was higher than spending for children and families – Poland became oriented towards the elderly. In Hungary, the communist party was stronger; therefore, there was no reason for creating special pensions privileges. In Hungary, spending for families and children was generous – it became youth oriented. The second critical juncture occurred during the first years of transition. The partisan competition of Poland was especially fragmented, so it was important for parties to get political support of particular groups. For this reason, parties increased the pension system fragmentation by creating new and maintaining old pensions privileges. Extremely expanded pension spending was partly financed by diminished spending for families and children – Poland's welfare state's age orientation towards the elderly was significantly strengthened. The partisan competition of Hungary was stronger; therefore, it remained youth oriented. After that, welfare states' age orientation of these two countries followed the same path.


Organizational culture is an important factor influencing knowledge management processes in small companies. Small entities usually have limited resources, both human and financial, to be able to develop advanced knowledge management systems. However, little research has been done so far to investigate the characteristics of organizational culture in small companies, in terms of knowledge management processes. Therefore, the aim of this research is the examination of organizational culture in small Polish companies with the application of a symbolic-interpretive perspective.


This paper examines two English polyverbal constructions, COME to V2 and GET to V2, as exemplified in Examples 1 and 2, respectively. (1) the senator came to know thousands of his constituents (2) Little Johnny got to eat ice cream after every little league game. Previous studies considered these types of constructions (though come and get as used here have not been sufficiently studied) as belonging to a special class of complement constructions, in which the infinitive is regarded as instantiating a separate, subordinate predication from that of the "matrix" or leftward finite verb. These constructions, however, exhibit systematic deviation from the various criteria proposed in previous research. This study uses the American National Corpus to investigate the statistical propensities of the target phenomena via lexico-syntactic (collostructional analysis) and morpho-syntactic (binary logistic regression) features, as captured through the lens of construction grammar.


Importance. Firearm violence is a significant public health and safety problem in the United States. A surge in firearm purchases following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic may increase rates of firearm violence. Objective. To estimate the association between changes in firearm purchasing and interpersonal firearm violence during the coronavirus pandemic. Design. Cross-sectional time series study. We estimate the difference between observed rates of firearm purchases and those predicted by seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average models. Using negative binomial models, we then estimate the association between excess firearm purchases and rates of interpersonal firearm violence within states, controlling for confounders. Setting. The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. Hawaii and Alaska are excluded due to missing or incomplete data. Exposure. The difference between observed and expected rates of firearm purchases in March through May 2020, approximated by National Instant Criminal Background Check System records. Main Outcome and Measure. Fatal and nonfatal injuries from interpersonal firearm violence, recorded in the Gun Violence Archive. Results. We estimate that there were 2.1 million excess firearm purchases from March through May 2020--a 64.3% increase over expected volume, and an increase of 644.4 excess purchases per 100,000 population. We estimate a relative rate of death and injury from firearm violence of 1.015 (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.005 to 1.025) for every 100 excess purchases per 100,000, in models that incorporate variation in purchasing across states and control for effects of the pandemic common to all states. This reflects an increase of 776 fatal and nonfatal injuries (95% CI: 216 to 1,335) over the number expected had no increase in purchasing occurred. Conclusions and Relevance. We find a significant increase in firearm violence in the United States associated with the coronavirus pandemic-related surge in firearm purchasing. Our findings are consistent with existing research. Firearm violence prevention strategies may be particularly important during the pandemic.


The sea level rates of rise of the worldwide surveys by the Permanent Service on Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) or the United States surveys by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have shown stable sea level rises, with average values over hundreds of tide gauges very small, and negligible time rates of changes of these values, but eventually negative. To defocus from the only +0.25 mm/year of about constant sea level rises at the more than 100 worldwide tide gauges of length exceeding 60 years (the minimum to clear the trend of the multi decadal oscillations), translating in only 3.75 mm sea level rise after 15 years, an incredible paper has recently argued that the sea level acceleration, rather than being small negative when computed over a significant population of tide gauges as the time rate of change of the sea level rise obtained by linear fitting of all the recorded data, could possibly be small positive changing the way sea level rate of rise and acceleration are computed. I comment as this latest work is only the latest attempt of a long series to make unclear what is otherwise very clear – there is no alarming sea level rise.


There are several underlying factors in the design of an operations organization to control a high technology spacecraft tracking system. The first is the princple of differentiation and integration. The multitude of tasks must be divided so that each individual or team can accomplish assignments without being overloaded. Then, the efforts of all the elements in the organization must be integrated for a consistent attack on the problem of tracking a spacecraft. The differentiation tends to be primarily along technical or functional lines, and by time span, but there are other considerations. The integration is provided by the organization's coordination and control elements. Operating positions can be designed to be procedurally operated, knowledge operated, or somewhere in-between. "Procedurally operated" means that the operator follows a strict procedure. He does not need to know how the system works, only which procedure to follow. A "knowledge based" operating position means that the operator understands the system sufficiently well to know what to do to accomplish a task. He does not need written procedures. The selection of either procedural based or knowledge based operations influences the operator skill level required, the organization design, and the support required. The system's uncertainty level, stability level, and complexity are examined to evaluate the level of procedural operation possible.


Although institutional shareholders are still in their infancy in China, Chinese institutional shareholder activism in corporate governance is drawing public attention in state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform. Since the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) are at the forefront in this regard, a comparative study was conducted to explore whether Chinese institutional investors activism could influence corporate governance as their UK and US counterparts and whether the possibility of more institutional shareholder activism in China exists as the country rides on the current wave of economic reform.
A contractual perspective of the firm and principal–agent relationship between members provide a useful tool to get a better understanding of the internal structure of organizations. Therefore, the thesis begins with the agency theory and the analysis of agency problems existed in each jurisdiction serve as a foundation for further research. Apart from the legal research, historical and political perspective of research were adopted. On the one hand, the factors that promote the development of institutional shareholders are analysed with the evolution of the ownership structure. This retrospective assists with an understanding of the wider context in which institutional shareholder activism emerged. On the other hand, the socialist ideology and political legitimacy management by the Chinese Communist Party deeply influence every aspect of Chinese economy. The political influence is discussed and Chinese institutional shareholder activism analysed under the influence of political factors.
Given the fact that institutional shareholder activism operates within a complex framework, a breakdown of shareholder activism by typologies of institutional investors and forms of activism is presented. The extent of institutional shareholder activism in the UK, US and China was explored from an empirical perspective. Academic research, reports from institutional investors and industry associations, related news, and cases were collected to assist with the study. Although it appears that there is institutional shareholder activism with similar features in the UK, US and China, the role that institutional shareholder activism plays in corporate governance is different. Nine factors that contribute to the difference in institutional shareholder activism are presented. Based on these findings, the research suggests that although institutional
shareholder activism is rational and beneficial to corporate performance under certain circumstances, and more institutional shareholder activism can be expected as it fits within a broad tapestry of economic reform, it is not easy for Chinese institutional shareholders to overcome their passivity and engage in corporate governance actively. The possible way forward was analysed at the end of the thesis.


Purpose:
The purpose of this study has been to investigate the results of above-knee
prosthetic femoropopliteal bypass surgery and to identify risk factors for
complications and graft failure. The influence of comorbidity, degree of chronic leg
ischaemia, preoperative angiographic run-off score and intraoperative flow
measurements on long-term results were investigated. Furthermore, local infections
and the outcome of treating occluded prosthetic grafts were studied.
Methods:
Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven patients (156 men, 81 women) were subjected
to 252 above-knee prosthetic femoropopliteal bypass operations at Haukeland
University Hospital between Jan 1990 and Dec 2001. One hundred and forty-one
graft implantations (129 patients) were done for intermittent claudication and 111
(108 patients) for critical ischaemia. Patient data were prospectively recorded in a
database registry. Some data were supplemented from patients records. Occlusion
dates, complications, re-operations including amputations, and mortality were also
recorded. Patient characteristics, anatomical risk factors and intraoperative flow
measurements were analysed for impact on results after surgery.
Survival, limb salvage and patency rates were analysed with the Product limit
method and illustrated as Kaplan-Meier curves. The risk factors were subjected to
univariate analysis using the log rank test for impact on survival, limb salvage and
patency rates. Variables approaching significance were included in multivariate
analysis performed with the Cox proportional hazard model. Results:
Paper I. Surgical site infection was recorded after 7.8 % of the operations and graft
infection after 12 %. The risk of developing a local infection was significantly
correlated with postoperative lymph fistula. Redo surgery was associated with graft
infection. Graft infections caused by Staph. Aur. always warranted surgery, either
local revision or graft excision.
Paper II. For grafts implanted for intermittent claudication, the assisted primary
patency rates were 62 % at 2 years and 44 % at 5 years. The 5-year patency rate for
smokers was 24 % versus 67 % for non-smokers (p < 0.01). A previous history of
cerebral infarction was significantly associated with reduced graft patency.
Preoperative s-creatinine > 125 mmol/L was significantly associated with reduced
survival.
Paper III. The 30-day mortality rate of patients operated for critical ischaemia was
5.5 %. The 2- and 5-year survival was 72 % and 42 %, whereas the limb salvage rates
at 2 and 5 years were 83 % and 73 %, respectively. The 2-year primary patency rate
for smokers was 38 % versus 62 % for non-smokers (p = 0.018, hazard ratio 2.18).
Smoking and tissue loss were significantly associated with reduced secondary
patency.
Paper IV. Basal flow measurements were not related to patency. The 2- and 5-year
patency rates for grafts with a papaverine flow < 500 ml/min were 48 % and 18 %
compared with 66 % and 52 % for grafts with a papaverine flow ≥ 500 ml/min (p =
0.012, hazard ratio 2.6). Two and 5-year patency rates for smokers vs non-smokers
were 44 % and 18 % vs 69 % and 54 %. Smoking (p = 0.008, hazard ratio 2.38) and
poor run-off score (p = 0.009, hazard ratio 2.38) were independent risk factors for
reduced patency. Poor run-off score did not correlate with low values of measured
basal or papaverine flow.
Paper V. Half the 24 initial procedures to restore patency of occluded grafts
originally implanted for critical ischaemia failed within a month. Outcome of second or third-time redo procedures were similar. Primary patency rates of all 55 redo
procedures were 32 % at three months, 28 % at six months and 12 % at 12 months.
The results of thrombectomy and thrombolysis were similar. Re-opened grafts
additionally treated for an underlying anastomotic stenosis had significantly better
patency, as compared with re-opened grafts without a pre-existing stenosis (p =
0.027, hazard ratio 2.813).
Conclusions:
The results regarding survival, limb salvage and patency are comparable to
previous reports. The results underline that a long observation period is necessary to
achieve full overview of complications and the impact of risk factors.
Infectious complications after prosthetic femoropopliteal bypass in the study
group were higher than previously reported. The results suggest that a selective
approach should be taken towards excision of infected femoropopliteal prostheses
according to the clinical presentation of the graft infection and the type of bacteriae
involved.
A conservative attitude is recommended towards placing a prosthetic graft in
the above-knee femoropopliteal position for intermittent claudication. The finding of
reduced patency rates in patients with a history of a cerebral insult operated for
intermittent claudication need further studies to be verified. Patients with intermittent
claudication and renal impairment reveal poor survival, indicating renal impairment
as a relative contraindication for surgical treatment. Smokers have inferior patency
rates when operated for intermittent claudication as well as for critical ischaemia.
Poor angiographic run-off score was also associated with inferior patency rates.
These findings indicate that prosthetic femoropopliteal bypass is not very suitable for
these groups of patients. Furthermore, the poor secondary patency rates of smokers as well as for patients with tissue loss suggest that these patients may benefit from
alternative treatment modalities to re-opening an occluded bypass.
A papaverine flow of < 500 ml/min is associated with reduced patency.
Additional antithrombotic medication and frequent follow-up may be considered for
these grafts. Redo procedures for occluded grafts originally implanted for critical
ischaemia are of limited value and cannot be recommended except in cases with a
proven graft-related stenosis. Other cases in need of re-intervention should be treated
with either a new arterial reconstruction or an amputation.
Based on the findings in this study, the following issues must be evaluated
when offering an above-knee prosthetic femoropopliteal bypass for chronic limb
ischaemia: patient comorbidity, smoking, degree of ischaemia and angiographic runoff
score. Careful selection of patients subjected to above-knee prosthetic bypass
surgery for chronic ischaemia is mandatory to achieve the optimal gain of the
operation.


ABSTRACT Intersectionality, as an 'analytical sensibility', demands attentiveness to the multiple aspects of identity that interlock to shape privilege and marginality in specific spatial contexts and moments. Notwithstanding their fluidity, intersectional analyses have retained a core focus on the individualized self. This paper articulates an intercorporeal approach to intersectionality, based on interviews with adult members of mixed-ethnicity (mixed-race) families. In public space, family members are exposed to stares, questions, judgements and racisms that metamorphose depending on who they are with. Alone, with a visibly different partner, with mixed-ethnicity children, or as a family unit, the strands of each family member's multiple identities intersect with those of their loved ones. Each is interpellated – or feels interpellated – differently, in physical proximity to the other. Our empirical analysis sheds new light on the everyday lives of mixed-ethnicity families. Our theoretical pairing of intercorporeality and intersectionality presents an innovative extension to dominant interpretations of the latter. It highlights the analytical utility of adding an extra-individual lens to the intersectionality toolkit. While visibly different mixed-ethnicity families afford a potent example, our approach has broader resonance. An intercorporeal approach to intersectionality offers nuanced perspectives on place, identity and belonging. It is necessary because privilege and marginality are always lived, relationally.


OBJECTIVE
To determine total stiffness and gap stiffness of an external fixation system in a canine mandibular fracture gap model incorporating a full interdental pin as the only point of rostral fixation in a bilateral type-I external fixator.

SAMPLE POPULATION
10 canine mandibles.

PROCEDURE
Bilateral mandibular ostectomies were performed between premolars 3 and 4. A type-I external fixator incorporating a full interdental pin was placed to stabilize a 0.5-cm fracture gap. Four pin configurations (intact mandibular bodies with fixator; ostectomized mandibular bodies and complete fixator; ostectomized mandibular bodies with caudal pins of rostral fragment cut; ostectomized mandibular bodies with all pins of rostral fragment cut) were tested in dorsoventral bending 5 times on each mandible. The full interdental pin remained intact in all configurations. Total stiffness and gap stiffness were determined for each configuration on a materials testing machine.

RESULTS
Total stiffness of intact mandibles was significantly greater than that of ostectomized mandibles, regardless of external fixator configuration. However, total stiffness and gap stiffness were not significantly different among different external fixator configurations applied to ostectomized mandibles.

CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
External fixator configurations with only the full interdental pin engaging the rostral fragment were as stiff as configurations that had 2 or 4 additional pins in the rostral fragment for the applied loads. External fixators for rostral mandibular fractures may be rigidly secured with rostral fragment implants applied extracortically, avoiding iatrogenic trauma to teeth and tooth roots.


Current methods for constructing quality adjusted life year (QALY) measurements may be deficient for cancer patients in three respects - descriptions of health state, valuation of health state, and the source of values upon which measures are based. Existing measures of health are either not sensitive enough or not attuned to cancer patients' actual preferences. For example, evidence suggests that the EQ 5D instrument does not capture the small changes in health that often are very important to cancer patients. Valuation of health states for cancer patients using traditional methods also encounters problems. For example, the time trade-off (TTO) method assumes that the rate at which people are willing to trade life expectancy for improvements in quality of life is the same under all circumstances. Research has shown otherwise, however, for the severely ill. Whose values form the basis of health state valuations also matters. Using the general public to value health states may overvalue interventions aimed at achieving perfect health and undervalue those aimed at prolonging life or achieving small improvements in health-related quality of life. The research proposes three possible ways forward, given these concerns. A revised version of this paper has been published in PharmacoEconomics and can be downloaded from - http://link.springer.com/article/10.2165%2F11588250-000000000-00000 Please cite as - Garau, M., Shah, K.K., Mason, A.R., Wang, Q., Towse, A. and Drummond, M.F., 2011. Using QALYs in cancer. Pharmacoeconomics, 29(8), pp.673-685.


To successfully negotiate a deal, it is not enough to communicate fluently: pragmatic planning of persuasive negotiation strategies is essential. While modern dialogue agents excel at generating fluent sentences, they still lack pragmatic grounding and cannot reason strategically. We present DIALOGRAPH, a negotiation system that incorporates pragmatic strategies in a negotiation dialogue using graph neural networks. DIALOGRAPH explicitly incorporates dependencies between sequences of strategies to enable improved and interpretable prediction of next optimal strategies, given the dialogue context. Our graph-based method outperforms prior state-of-the-art negotiation models both in the accuracy of strategy/dialogue act prediction and in the quality of downstream dialogue response generation. We qualitatively show further benefits of learned strategy-graphs in providing explicit associations between effective negotiation strategies over the course of the dialogue, leading to interpretable and strategic dialogues.1


CIMHE is a medical diagnostic center with two branches in different municipalities of Valle del Cauca. The main branch
is in Buga, and the other in Tulua. CIMHE has 10 years of experience in the healthcare sector. It offers the service of
diagnostic images, divided into: x-rays, ultrasound, and mammography.
The main problematic in CIMHE lies in the process related with customer service. The process goes from scheduling
appointments to delivering the final results. Among the tasks included in the process are: managing appointment requests,
scheduling appointments, reception of customers, delivering the results, answering customers concerns, and making
quotations for exams. The lack of order in the whole process and task overload for the employees are causing
inconsistencies.
To solve the problematic, a standardized process is to be created. The aim of this standardized process is to rise the
customers' attention rate, which will lead to overall satisfaction of the service perceived by the users and an increase in the
company's profits.
After performing analysis of the problems at the medical center, some solution alternatives were proposed so problems
could be solved and processes could be enhanced. In order to do that, a simulation model was designed. This model allowed
for various scenarios to be formulated to see what changes for the better could be made. Additionally, a financial study was
done to inquire the possibility of opening a new headquarters for the medical center


In 2011, some 50 years after the abolition and subsequent containment (with some vacillation) of micro and small enterprise outside the agricultural sector, Raul Castro's government embarked on a major process of policy liberalization that resulted in an impressive expansion of the sector by 2017. Legislation opening the way for nonagricultural cooperative enterprises was also passed and cautiously implemented beginning in 2013. While the policy liberalization toward micro and small enterprise has been very significant, leading to employment levels of around 500,000 in that sector, there are still a variety of regulatory blockages and taxation burdens that continue to smother the entrepreneurial creativity, resourcefulness, and energies of Cuban citizens, who have demonstrated strong motivation and aptitude for self-activated economic activity. A variety of further policy changes could lead to further expansion of indigenous Cuban entrepreneurship, generating important benefits for Cuba. In the longer term, Cuban policymakers will have an opportunity and obligation to shape the future structure of Cuba's economic institutions. Some sort of hybrid or mixed economy approach, with particular emphasis on an indigenous private entrepreneurial sector, a strong cooperative sector, and a significant joint venture sector, as well as an effective public sector, would provide an optimal future institutional structure for Cuba.


This article explores the workings of Reputational Dialogues (RD) (as a form of organizational discourse); within the setting of a UK NHS hospital that has encountered disaster. The disaster in question took place at the Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI), circa 1984-1995; and is thought to have incurred the deaths of 34 'special heart babies'. The article explores patterns of RD utilization associated with the tragedy. Transcripts from the hearings of an inquiry into the disaster are used to access these patterns– if within specific limits and constraints that are discussed in the article. The article seeks to comment on the workings of RDs within the BRI disaster setting and considers, tentatively, how these dialogues may have helped to institutionalize dominant and (counter-cultural beliefs) about the BRI and its reputation as a provider of cardiovascular care to young children. Overall, the article contributes to organization theory by beginning the process of observing the institutionalization of RD and its by-products, as organizational phenomena.


The dynamics of shallow-water waves at the surface of an inviscid and incompressible fluid over a background shear flow approaching a sloping beach are investigated. First, we derive the nonlinear shallow-water equations in the presence of both background shear flow and a sloping beach. In this case, the hyperbolic shallow-water equations are not reducible and is it not straightforward to find the Riemann invariants. However, using intuition gained from the case of a shear flow over a flat bed, Riemann invariants can nevertheless be found. The Riemann invariants provide a proper hodograph transformation which is combined with several additional changes of variables to put the equations in linear form. This linear equation can be solved using the method of separation of variables. In this way, we are able to find exact solutions which give us a prediction of the shoaling process and of the development of the waterline (run-up). Our work is inspired by the method of Carrier and Greenspan [4]. Therefore, a careful description of the Carrier-Greenspan method is presented first.


This paper presents an analysis of Savage Messiah, Ken Russell's filmic biography of WWI-era artist and sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, evaluating its various aesthetic codes of meaning, and demonstrating how these codes contribute to a unified narrative structure. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenological elements of the cinematic narrative – image composition, art direction, color, motion, editing and sound – in order to reveal the sensuous core of the film as its method of thematic expression. We offer observations on the narrative's deep structure in terms of symbolic references, on Russell's visual techniques of characterization, and on how these elements contribute to the integration of the film's aesthetic, emotional and intellectual expression.


This paper describes a scheme for pose determination and face synthesis using a deformable 3D face model. This model is a composite of three sub-models: edge model, color model and a wire frame model (WFM) which jointly describe the shape of the face and various facial features. The edge and color models are used for image analysis and the WFM is used mainly for face synthesis. We can project this 3D model onto different view planes based on three rotational parameters to generate 2D face templates for matching face images. After matching, the pose can be readily estimated. The composite face model is allowed to undergo complex deformation to handle face shape variations among different people. The WFM is incorporated into the model so that after matching, the WFM can be readily adapted to the image and image synthesis can be carried out. This technique can be used to analyze and synthesize face images over a wide range of poses.


Early theorists of European integration speculated that economic integration would lead to political integration and a European identity. A European identity has not displaced national identities in the EU, but, for a significant share of EU citizens, a European identity exists alongside a national identity. At the same time, political parties asserting more traditional nationalist identities and policies have directed their dissatisfaction against immigrants, foreigners, and, sometimes, the EU. Those who participate in "Europe†are more likely to develop a European identity, while those whose economic and social horizons are essentially local are more likely to assert nationalist identities.Â


DNA analyses of an early East Asian Ancient, anatomically modern humans interbred with the archaic hominins Neanderthals and Denisovans. However, the extent of this interbreeding and how it affects modern populations is not well understood. Massilani et al. generated genome-wide data from a 34,000-year-old female individual from the Salkhit Valley in eastern Mongolia and conducted a detailed modeling of her ancestry with regard to other Pleistocene human genomes. They found evidence for Denisovan ancestry in ancient human genomes from at least 6000 years before the Salkhit individual lived and determined that the Denisovan contribution differed from that of another ancient Asian individual, as well as from the ancient Denisovan contribution to extant Australasians. This reference point helps us to understand the early history of our species in Eurasia, especially Eastern Eurasia, for which genomic evidence remains scarce. Science, this issue p. 579 A human skull from 34,000 years ago found in Mongolia elucidates the genetics of early East Asians and Denisovan admixture. We present analyses of the genome of a ~34,000-year-old hominin skull cap discovered in the Salkhit Valley in northeastern Mongolia. We show that this individual was a female member of a modern human population that, following the split between East and West Eurasians, experienced substantial gene flow from West Eurasians. Both she and a 40,000-year-old individual from Tianyuan outside Beijing carried genomic segments of Denisovan ancestry. These segments derive from the same Denisovan admixture event(s) that contributed to present-day mainland Asians but are distinct from the Denisovan DNA segments in present-day Papuans and Aboriginal Australians.


The paper indicates multiple theoretical approaches to the studies of archives in order to construct a methodology for studying new media objects and mixed reality phenomena. The theoretical framework is applied to several experimental projects that combine scholarly research with artistic production. VideoSpace is an archive presented as an interactive virtual reality. Mouseion Serapeion is a smart video archive realized as an interactive DVD-ROM and a website. Jaques is an exhibition, which combines three projects: together they address the problem of materialization of the new media object from multiple points of view.


Abstract The thermal energy necessary for the removal of molecular water from Li+-, Na+-, Cs+-, Mg2+-, Ca2+-, Ba2+-, Alx(OH)yz+- and La3+-homoionic montmorillonite powders was determined by thermogravimetric analysis under atmospheric pressure. The weight loss curves and their derivatives exhibit one or several features related to the various populations of water molecules. The activation energy for water removal, which is the sum of the adsorption energy and the activation energy for diffusion, was calculated in each case using a simple first-order differentiation method. The results allow the physisorbed water and the water coordinated to the cations to be clearly separated. For the later population and with the exception of the Na-clay, a good correlation was found between the temperatures and activation energies for water removal and the polarizing power of the cations. Comparison with the results of mechanical tests performed on similar samples suggests that the creep of smectite clays is not controlled by mobility of the individual water molecules but by the mobility of the interlayer cations surrounded by their hydration shell.


While educators, parents and policymakers are still debating the pros and cons of school choice, it is now possible to learn from choice experiments in public, private, and charter schools across the country. This book examines the evidence from these early school choice programs and looks at the larger implications of choice and competition in education. Paul Peterson makes a strong case for school choice in central cities, and coeditor Bryan Hassel offers the case for charter schools. John E. Brandl offers his vision of school governance in the next century. The book's other contributors--economists, political scientists, and education specialists--provide case studies of the experience with voucher programs in Indianapolis, San Antonio, Cleveland, and Milwaukee; survey charter schools; analyze public school choice; discuss constitutional issues; and study the effects of private education on democratic values. Contributors include David J. Armor, George Mason University; Chester E. Finn Jr. and Bruno V. Manno, Hudson Institute; Caroline M. Hoxby, Harvard University; Brett M. Peiser, Partnerships in Learning; and Joseph P. Viteritti, New York University.


Due to the increasing number of vulnerabilities in software systems and customers- need to trust the producers- development process, third party security evaluations, such as Common Criteria (CC), are today commonly used to provide assurance of security critical software. Modelica is a modern, strongly typed, declarative, and object-oriented language for modeling and simulation of complex systems. In this paper we sketch two ideas for improving security assurance, by expanding the scope of Modelica into also becoming a declarative modeling language for other application areas than simulation.


First paragraphs: It is encouraging that a growing number of colleges and universities are making serious efforts to address questions of sustainability in their teaching, research, campus operations, and public relations programs. Some are building green buildings, buying green cleaning supplies, and competing in greenest campus contests. It is also heartening that food and agricultural issues have risen to prominence on green campuses, as food services respond to student demands for local sourcing of foods, composting of food waste, and space for student gardens to produce foods by sustainable methods. While going green is necessary, it is not sufficient. Authentic sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present without diminishing opportunities for the future. Everything that is used for meeting human needs ultimately must come from either nature or society. The economy provides an efficient means of using natural and societal resources to meet human needs. Ecological integrity, while necessary, is not sufficient to ensure sustainability. A society that is lacking in social or economic integrity cannot sustain ecological integrity. Ecological, social, and economic integrity are inseparable dimensions of the whole of sustainability. Educational programs that focus on a specific ecological, social, or economic dimension of sustainability without effectively addressing the other two may be useful, but they do not address the fundamental question of sustainability.


We develop a new theoretical framework to analyze the generalization error of deep learning, and derive a new fast learning rate for two representative algorithms: empirical risk minimization and Bayesian deep learning. The series of theoretical analyses of deep learning has revealed its high expressive power and universal approximation capability. Our point of view is to deal with the ordinary finite dimensional deep neural network as a finite approximation of the infinite dimensional one. Our formulation of the infinite dimensional model naturally defines a reproducing kernel Hilbert space corresponding to each layer. The approximation error is evaluated by the degree of freedom of the reproducing kernel Hilbert space in each layer. We derive the generalization error bound of both of empirical risk minimization and Bayesian deep learning and it is shown that there appears bias-variance trade-off in terms of the number of parameters of the finite dimensional approximation. We show that the optimal width of the internal layers can be determined through the degree of freedom and derive the optimal convergence rate that is faster than O(1/ √ n) rate which has been shown in the existing studies.


In cleanrooms the main source of biocontamination is people. The concentration of airborne biocontamination depends upon the number of people present in a cleanroom, their level of activity, and the clothing systems used. There are several methods of measuring the airborne biocontamination and many published reports show that the results - as number of colony forming units per cubic meter (CFU/m3) - depend on the equipment used. The difference in results between microbiological air samplers often depend upon physical parameters of the samplers. These parameters, together with d50 that is the aerodynamic particle diameter where 50% of the particles are collected and 50% are not collected are discussed. In order to evaluate the collection efficiency of impaction air samplers, a simplified mathematical model will be presented and examples given.


This paper examines current evidence for the effectiveness of early intensive behavioral interventions and other comprehensive preschool, behaviorally and/or developmentally based programs for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Data are based on recently published systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Individual differences in response to treatment and current evidence on predictors of outcome are examined. The limited research findings available on the long-term outcomes (>4 years after the start of treatment) of young children with ASD who received such interventions are also summarized. Finally, this review discusses challenges in the implementation of evidence‑based early comprehensive interventions for ASD and highlights future priorities in this field.


Henize 206 is a region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud of the approximate scale of the Orion belt and sword. Our Spitzer Space Telescope infrared images and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) optical images show that the region is experiencing very energetic star formation. The radiation from young stars has excited strong polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission throughout Henize 206, except on the side of the nebula with the prominent young supernova remnant. As is also seen in early Spitzer observations of M81, star formation rates calculated from Hα for Henize 206 may miss the deeply embedded young stars, compared with star formation rates calculated from far infrared emission. For one of the highest surface brightness regions of Henize 206, we obtained snapshot exposures with the Thermal-Region Camera Spectrograph on Gemini South to explore the complex structure. A few percent of the total flux from this brightest region in Henize 206 emanates from infrared peaks of subparsec scale.


Cropland is crucial for supplying humans with biomass products, above all, food. Globalization has led to soaring volumes of international trade, resulting in strongly increasing distances between the locations where land use takes place and where the products are consumed. Based on a dataset that allows tracing the flows of almost 450 crop and livestock products and consistently allocating them to cropland areas in over 200 nations, we analyze this rapidly growing spatial disconnect between production and consumption for the period from 1986 to 2009. At the global level, land for export production grew rapidly (by about 100 Mha), while land supplying crops for direct domestic use remained virtually unchanged. We show that international trade on average flows from high-yield to low-yield regions: compared to a hypothetical no-trade counterfactual that assumes equal consumption and yield levels, trade lowered global cropland demand by almost 90 Mha in 2008 (3-year mean). An analysis using yield gap data (which quantify the distance of prevailing yields to those attainable through the best currently available production techniques) revealed that differences in land management and in natural endowments contribute almost equally to the yield differences between exporting and importing nations. A comparison of the effect of yield differences between exporting and importing regions with the potential of closing yield gaps suggests that increasing yields holds greater potentials for reducing future cropland demand than increasing and adjusting trade volumes based on differences in current land productivity.


We reared Cloeon dipterum from egg hatch to adult at 10 constant temperatures (12.1–33.5°C) to test 3 hypotheses (thermal equilibrium hypothesis, temperature size rule [TSR], and O2- and capacity-limited thermal tolerance [OCLTT]) that account for variation in life-history traits across thermal gradients. Male and female adult size declined ~67 and 78% and larval development time declined ~88% with warming; chronic survivorship (thermal limit for population growth) was highest from 16.2 to 23.9°C (mean = 85%) and declined to 0 at 33.5°C; thresholds for 0 growth and development were 10.0 and 10.7°C, respectively; peak rate of population increase (r) occurred at 27.8°C; rates of growth and development were maximal at 30°C; fecundity was greatest at 12.1°C; and between 14.3 and 30°C, growth and development rates increased linearly and the number of degree days (>10.7°C) to complete development was nearly constant (mean = 271). Acute survivorship during short-term thermal ramping was 0 at 40°C. Warming temperature caused development rate to increase proportionately faster than growth rate; male and female adult size to decrease as per TSR, with adult females ~5× larger at 12.1 than 31.7°C; adult size to decrease proportionately more for females than males; and fecundity to decrease proportionately more than adult female size. TSR was related to differences in the responses of growth and development rates at temperatures above thresholds rather than to thresholds for growth or development per se. Respirometry suggested that OCLTT is more applicable to acute than chronic thermal limits. Cloeon dipterum appears to have a thermal 'acclimation zone' between 14.3 and 30°C where development and growth rates change linearly and degree-day requirements to complete metamorphosis are constant. The optimum temperature is ~27.8°C where r is maximum. We propose 5 hypotheses to explain these patterns.


The discovery of a population of elkhorn corals in the Central Pacific Ocean has important taxonomic implications, as this distinctive colony morphology was previously known only from the endemic and critically endangered Atlantic species Acropora palmata. Phylogenetic analyses confirmed that the Pacific elkhorn coral is genetically distant from A. palmata, and most likely represents a species previously synonymized with Acropora abrotanoides. The Pacific elkhorn coral is rare, and is of particular scientific interest because it represents one morphological extreme in the dominant genus of reef-building corals. The discovery of the Pacific elkhorn coral raises a number of important general issues in relation to biodiversity conservation, as this coral would not qualify for threatened species listing under current IUCN categories and criteria despite being demonstrably rare.