Purpose To assess the physicochemical properties of hyaluronic acid (HA)-based artificial tears. Methods The average molecular weight (MW) and polydispersion index (PDI) of HA in 18 commercially available artificial tears were determined by light scattering/high-performance liquid chromatography. Osmolality, pH, viscosity, and sodium concentration were determined using an osmometer, pH meter, rheometer, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer, respectively. Results The MW of HA varied considerably between formulations. The PDI was >2.0 in two formulations (2.28 and 4.94), suggesting the presence of a copolymer and/or HA size variability. Three formulations exhibited viscosity exceeding the blur threshold at different shear rates. Viscosity at low shear rates was generally highest in formulations containing high-MW HA. Correlations were found between observed viscosity and a predictive/calculated value, except for four copolymer-containing formulations, and osmolality (range, 154–335 mOsm/kg) and sodium concentration (range, 22–183 mM), with two exceptions. Compared with organic osmolytes, adding sodium decreased viscosity, particularly at lower shear rates. Conclusions In the context of the literature, our findings suggest that for most patients with dry eye disease, the ideal HA-based artificial tear should include high-MW HA with a low PDI and exhibit enhanced viscosity at low shear rate (without exceeding the blur threshold). The inclusion of synergistic copolymers and a low sodium concentration may increase viscosity, but whether any of these physicochemical properties or correlations can predict clinical efficacy will require further investigation. Translational Relevance Understanding the properties of HA-based artificial tears will support the development of unique formulations that target specific ocular surface conditions.


This paper describes a tableau-based higher-order theorem prover Hot and an application to natural language semantics. In this application, Hot is used to prove equivalences using world knowledge during higher-order uniication (HOU). This extended form of HOU is used to compute the licensing conditions for corrections.


This paper describes our experience of percutaneous nephrostomy (PCN) using self-fabricated catheters. Our effort is to restrain the cost of this common procedure, and at the same time, deliver results comparable to other studies in the literature. In 152 patients, 175 PCN were performed for various indications using simple tools for "pulling catheters". All nephrostomy catheters were fabricated from commercially available 7.2 F polyethylene catheter material. Our success rate of 96%, major and minor complication rates at 2.3% and 6.3% respectively, compare favourably with the reported series. The variable cost of nephrostomy, in our cases, was less than one-third compared with that using commercially available nephrostomy sets. Use of self-fabricated nephrostomy catheters is a cost-effective way of performing nephrostomy especially in environments where health maintenance resources are scarce, health insurance is not freely available, and patients bear the cost of the treatment. This is particularly relevant to the developing countries where PCN is frequently needed but the nephrostomy sets are not easily available.


DNA or genomic sequences compression and indexing using the standard algorithms are facing a high complexity as massive datasets grow rapidly.To avoid this problem, a Tunneled Run-Length Encoded (RLE) Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT)based encoding with Improved Index (TBWT-II) algorithm has been proposed that uses Text-Label index (TLBW-index) for counting and discovering the labeled patterns. However, the reduction on global space consumption of the TLBW-index was not effective. Also, the classic MTF in TBWT-II has a specific local property that can be leveraged during encoding time and the decoded character was a series function of the decoded values of prior characters. Therefore in this article, an Enhanced TBWT-II (ETBWT-II) algorithm is proposed to effectively reduce the global space consumption of TLBW-index. The major goal of this algorithm is to avoid the need of local searching capabilities within the compressed database and minimize the space consumption during retrieval of characters. As a result, a locally-decodable Move-To-Front (MTF) encoding is used instead of standard MTF in TBWT-II for reducing the decoding time of a single character with the minimum space consumption. Finally, the experimental results on SCOPe 1.67 dataset show the performance efficiency of proposed ETBWT-II algorithm compared to the existing compression algorithms.


The author was first introduced to Ann Stokes during the summer of 1995 at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. while working full-time as a researcher for the African-American Civil War Sailor Project.(1) As part of a team of graduate students from Howard University, the author spent the summer recording thousands of names of black sailors from the extant muster rolls of ships that served in the Union Navy. The work was tedious and mind numbing at times, as the team struggled with oversized bound volumes of handwritten, sometimes faded entries searching for descriptive words, such as "Negro", "black", "contraband", "slave", "brown", "yellow", "mulatto", that would identify a sailor as a man of African descent. Imagine the team's surprise when they encountered the name "Beverly" the first time on the muster rolls. Initially it was assumed that the sailor was a woman, but the rating of a "first-class fireman" and the occupation of a "blacksmith" quickly dispelled that assumption. Later appearances of the name for different individuals brought the realization that "Beverly" must have been a common name for men, as well as women, in the 19th century, just as Taylor and Michael are used today for either gender. As a U.S. Navy veteran, the author was particularly disappointed because she hoped that the research had uncovered a black woman - perhaps the first - who had enlisted in the Navy during the Civil War. Further examination of muster rolls revealed two names that were definitely identified as women: Harriet Ruth, a nurse who served on the U.S.S. Black Hawk, with her husband, Alfred, the "Admiral's Cook"; and Harriet Little, also a nurse who served along with Samuel Little (presumably her husband), who was also designated a nurse on the U.S.S. Hartford. Finding some black women serving as nurses in the Union Navy during the Civil War should not be considered unusual. We know that the Army used female nurses. Susie King Taylor's account of her service as a laundress, nurse and teacher for the Colored Troops in South Carolina speaks to the contribution black women made in Army camps, on the battlefield, and at military hospitals. Harriet Tubman also served as a nurse, spy and scout for the Union army during the war. But, other than these few well-known personalities, the numerous other women of African descent who served the Union war effort as laundresses, nurses, cooks and matrons remain nameless and voiceless. Some of their stories are now being marginally illuminated through current research. This research has unearthed some unexpected and unusual anomalies surrounding the presence of black women aboard Union ships and at land stations. The first oddity was finding a 45-year-old woman enlisted as a "first-class boy" at a Navy hospital in North Carolina. The second curiosity was finding a large number of black women serving in different capacities aboard the hospital ship U.S.S. Red Rover, of the Mississippi Squadron, who apparently were not contract employees. Contract nurses were civilians who worked for the government as employees but were not considered enlisted in the military. Black women, as well as their white counterparts, served in this capacity. And the last anomaly was Ann Stokes, a woman who may well be the first to enlist in the United States Navy and the first to receive a Navy Invalid Pension for her service during the Civil War. At the outset of the war nursing in the military was an exclusively male position. During the 1862 Peninsular Campaign in Virginia elite northern women, of European descent, volunteered to work under the auspices of the United States Sanitary Commission, a civilian organization that supplied limited medical care and humanitarian aid to wounded Union soldiers. Dorothea Dix, newly commissioned superintendent of Army Nurses, took charge of the "lady volunteers" who staffed the United States Sanitary Commission's floating hospitals around Washington, D. …


Proteins play a critical role in nearly every biological activity. In consequence, organismal health and homeostasis often hinges on the ability of intracellular regulatory systems to sustain the quality and function of these diverse, structurally complex macromolecules. Correct protein function depends on correct form, and during periods of destabilizing cellular stress, protein quality is managed in part by the heat shock response, which acts to support, isolate, and reform new or damaged proteins, and in part by the autophagic recycling of abnormal proteins, cytotoxic protein aggregates, and terminally damaged organelles. We conducted a pooled analysis of available research in humans and rodents regarding heat shock and autophagic activity through the unique proteostatic challenges presented by acute exercise and the post-exercise progression from catabolism to anabolism. This analysis reinforces a model of regulatory coordination between these protein management pathways, offering interspecies support for an Hsp70-moderated transition away from the presiding catabolic influence of autophagy in the immediate post-exercise window, toward an anabolic phase of restoration and remodeling. This relationship has already been demonstrated with direct human cellular research, and may help shed light on the molecular underpinning of epidemiological associations between health and physical activity. Differential responses were also observed in these two primary proteostatic systems according to exercise intensity and tissue of origin, which may have important implications for research design, and perhaps eventually for exercise prescription.


The major corridor investment-benefit analysis system recently developed for the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) is discussed. The purpose of the system is to provide an analytical tool for use by INDOT in evaluating and comparing the impacts of major corridor highway investments in the state. The system combines a statewide travel demand model, a user benefit-cost analysis model, and a regional econometric model. The conceptual approach behind the model is described, and the results from an application of the model to analyze the transportation and economic impacts of the upgrade of US-31 between Indianapolis and South Bend, Indiana, to Interstate level of service is presented. Issues addressed by the model include the impact of travel time savings and other user benefits on business users of the highway, as well as the potential for the study corridor to attract new businesses or tourists as a result of improved access to markets.


The Isles of Scilly are located 48km south-west of Lands End, Cornwall, and comprise a small archipelago of granite islands. The interpretation of the islands' archaeology has received no recent detailed consideration and has therefore not been studied within a contemporary archaeological framework. This research seeks to redress this by considering the prehistory of Scilly from the earliest evidence for a human presence on the islands until the end of the 1st century BC (Mesolithic until Iron Age). It will draw upon recent approaches to the study of landscapes, seascapes and islands and from within archaeology and anthropology, as well as other approaches developed within the broader social sciences. The study will provide the first detailed chronological framework for Scillonian prehistory and will reconsider evidence for the prehistoric environmental background of the islands. The analysis of the archaeological record of the islands will be based upon data collected through fieldwork and from published and unpublished sources. The archaeology will be examined through a detailed study of the distribution and configuration of prehistoric settlements, monuments and material culture and their significance within the island landscape. Exploring changes and continuities within the archaeological record of the islands the study will provide insights into how prehistoric societies may have transformed and sustained their use and perception of the island landscape.


An embodied approach to reading comprehension suggests that emerging readers must learn to map words and phrases onto their remembered experiences, but this is made difficult by the necessity of focusing attention on decoding. Having children manipulate toys to correspond to what they are reading overcomes this problem, but introduces its own problem for the classroom, namely having to provide a classroom full of children with manipulative. In this article, we demonstrate that having firstand second-grade children manipulate images of toys on a computer screen benefits their comprehension as much as physical manipulation of the toys. In addition, manipulation on one day facilitates reading in the same domain one week later. These findings encourage the use of manipulation of textrelevant images as an educational technology for enhancing early reading comprehension. The findings also set constraints on theoretical accounts of embodiment while reading.


We show that a viscoelastic thin sheet driven out of equilibrium by active structural remodelling develops a rich variety of shapes as a result of a competition between viscous relaxation and activity. In the regime where active processes are faster than viscoelastic relaxation, wrinkles that are formed due to remodelling are unable to relax to a configuration that minimises the elastic energy and the sheet is inherently out of equilibrium. We argue that this non-equilibrium regime is of particular interest in biology as it allows the system to access morphologies that are unavailable if restricted to the adiabatic evolution between configurations that minimise the elastic energy alone. Here, we introduce activity using the formalism of evolving target metric and showcase the diversity of wrinkling morphologies arising from out of equilibrium dynamics.


In April 2015 the government's pension freedoms came into effect, removing the requirement for pensioners to turn their pension pot into an annuity in order to retain the tax benefits. Later last year they announced plans to extend these freedoms to pensioners who had already bought annuities from April 2017, by creating a secondary market and allowing pensioners to sell their annuities on it. The
government's expressed aims were to "achieve parity between those who are able to access their pension savings flexibly… and those with existing annuities" by developing a secondary annuity market that "best suits the interests of pensioners" (HM Treasury, 2015b).

Creating a secondary annuities market that works well will be a difficult task. It is an unusual and complex market, with 'consumers' as the sellers, firms as the buyers, prices that are individual to each pensioner, legal complexities with the original annuity provider having to agree to any sale, and the product being one of the most important we ever purchase – an income for life. There is huge potential for it to go very wrong, with the details of government policy and regulatory action likely to play a big role in whether or not the market works for pensioners. To inform the debate, and help the government and regulator decide how best to intervene, we have conducted a study of the secondary annuity market: how one might function, what problems are likely to require addressing, and which policies appear most promising in doing so.

A secondary annuity market must function on two axes if it is to deliver good outcomes for pensioners:
 Competition must be effective in driving value-for-money
 Pensioners must be adequately protected from harm.

Neither of these axes is as simple as they may seem. The role and potential advantages of the original annuity provider in the secondary market may present a barrier to the emergence of competition, and the behaviour of pensioners and information difficulties may render it ineffective. Preventing harm to pensioners involves not just regulation to protect the most vulnerable, but also stopping ordinary people from making significant mistakes. Our analysis suggests there are fundamental problems that need addressing, which the government and regulators have underestimated when designing their proposals, including a real risk that there will be no functioning market at all when the laws come into force next year.

Normally a study such as this would analyse how the market is currently working and look for evidence of market failure, however this market does not yet exist. Instead we have focused on how the market might develop and the potential impacts policies may have on our two axes – effective competition and consumer protection – both of which there is considerable uncertainty about. We therefore caution against overconfidence in any particular option, and strongly recommend that the government and regulator review the market carefully once it has launched and reconsider what intervention is necessary and beneficial in light of that evidence.


Gas concrete, a conventional structural material, is used to remove phosphate from wastewater. A batch study of phosphate removal from wastewater with waste particles of gas concrete has been performed. The concentration-time graphs were plotted against pH, temperature, and agitation speed, and the reaction rate equation was adapted to adsorption. The differential method was used to define reaction rate. The adsorption rates, reaction rate constants, and reaction rates were determined by tangent lines of drawn curves at different concentrations, depending on pH, temperature, and agitation speed. The adsorption rate increased with pH and temperature. The maximum effect of agitation speed on the adsorption rate was observed at 150 rpm. The activation energy of reaction and the pre-exponential factor were calculated using the Arrhenius equilibrium equation. The zeta potentials of waste gas concrete were determined at various pH values. The surface area of gas concrete was obtained using BET apparatus as 22 m²/g. The composition of gas concrete was determined by X-ray diffractometry. The results indicate that gas concrete is an effective adsorbent to remove phosphate from wastewater.


Abstract. Identification of crop and its accuracy is an important aspect in predicting crop production using Remote Sensing technology. This study investigates the ability of Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm in discriminating fodder crops and estimating its area using moderate resolution multi-temporal Landsat-8 OLI data. SVM is a non-parametric statistical learning method and its accuracy is dependent on the parameters and the kernels used. The objective was to evaluate the feasibility of SVM in fodder classification and compare the results with traditional parametric Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC). Fodder crops are available over small fields in the study area thus having large number of pure fodder pixels over small area is difficult. Hence, SVM has an advantage over MLC as it works well with less training data sets also. Three kernels (linear, polynomial and radial based function) were used with SVM classification. Comparative analysis showed that higher overall accuracy was observed in SVM in comparison to MLC. Temporal change in the spectral properties of the crops derived through Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from multi-temporal Landsat-8 was found to be the most important information that affects accuracy of classification. The classification accuracies for SVM with radial based function, polynomial, linear kernel and MLC were 90.09%, 89.9%, 88.9% and 82.4% respectively. The result suggested that SVM including three kernels performed significantly better than MLC. India has low livestock productivity due to unavailability of fodder hence this study could help in strengthening the fodder productivity.


Plasmodium falciparum transmission-blocking vaccines (TBVs) targeting the Pfs25 antigen have shown promise in mice but the same efficacy has never been achieved in humans. We have previously published pre-clinical data related to a TBV candidate Pfs25-IMX313 encoded in viral vectors which was very promising and hence progressed to human clinical trials. The results from the clinical trial of this vaccine were very modest. Here we unravel why, contrary to mice, this vaccine has failed to induce robust antibody (Ab) titres in humans to elicit transmission-blocking activity. We examined Pfs25-specific B cell and T follicular helper (Tfh) cell responses in mice and humans after vaccination with Pfs25-IMX313 encoded by replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus serotype 63 (ChAd63) and the attenuated orthopoxvirus modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) delivered in the heterologous prime-boost regimen via intramuscular route. We found that after vaccination, the Pfs25-IMX313 was immunologically suboptimal in humans compared to mice in terms of serum Ab production and antigen-specific B, CD4+ and Tfh cell responses. We identified that the key determinant for the poor anti-Pfs25 Ab formation in humans was the lack of CD4+ T cell recognition of Pfs25-IMX313 derived peptide epitopes. This is supported by correlations established between the ratio of proliferated antigen-specific CD4+/Tfh-like T cells, CXCL13 sera levels, and the corresponding numbers of circulating Pfs25-specific memory B cells, that consequently reflected on antigen-specific IgG sera levels. These correlations can inform the design of next-generation Pfs25-based vaccines for robust and durable blocking of malaria transmission.


We propose here a novel system for protecting fingerprint privacy by combining two different fingerprints into a new identity. In the enrollment, two fingerprints are captured from two different fingers. We extract the minutiae positions from one fingerprint, the orientation from the other fingerprint, and the reference points from both fingerprints. Based on this extracted information and our proposed coding strategies, a combined minutiae template is generated and stored in a database. In the authentication, the system requires two query fingerprints from the same two fingers which are used in the enrollment. A two-stage fingerprint matching process is proposed for matching the two query fingerprints against a combined minutiae template. By storing the combined minutiae template, the complete minutiae feature of a single fingerprint will not be compromised when the database is stolen. Furthermore, because of the similarity in topology, it is difficult for the attacker to distinguish a combined minutiae template from the original minutiae templates. With the help of an existing fingerprint reconstruction approach, we are able to convert the combined minutiae template into a real-look alike combined fingerprint. Thus, a new virtual identity is created for the two different fingerprints, which can be matched using minutiae-based fingerprint matching algorithms. The experimental results show that our system can achieve a very low error rate with FRR=0.4% at FAR=0.1%. Compared with the state-of-the-art technique, our work has the advantage in creating a better new virtual identity when the two different fingerprints are randomly chosen.


Why are some countries rich and others poor? In 1500, the income differences were small, but they have grown dramatically since Columbus reached America. Since then, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined the wealth and poverty of nations. The industrial revolution was Britain's path breaking response to the challenge of globalization. Western Europe and North America joined Britain to form a club of rich nations by pursuing four polices-creating a national market by abolishing internal tariffs and investing in transportation, erecting an external tariff to protect their fledgling industries from British competition, banks to stabilize the currency and mobilize domestic savings for investment, and mass education to prepare people for industrial work. Together these countries pioneered new technologies that have made them ever richer. Before the Industrial Revolution, most of the world's manufacturing was done in Asia, but industries from Casablanca to Canton were destroyed by western competition in the nineteenth century, and Asia was transformed into 'underdeveloped countries' specializing in agriculture. The spread of economic development has been slow since modern technology was invented to fit the needs of rich countries and is ill adapted to the economic and geographical conditions of poor countries. A few countries - Japan, Soviet Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps China - have, nonetheless, caught up with the West through creative responses to the technological challenge and with Big Push industrialization that has achieved rapid growth through investment coordination. Whether other countries can emulate the success of East Asia is a challenge for the future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.


Although metastatic spread of prostate carcinoma to the spinal column is common, involvement of the spinal intradural extramedullary compartment is exceedingly rare. Presentation of intradural metastases tends to be late in the course of the disease, is frequently associated with cerebral metastasis and the role of surgery is limited to palliation and prevention of neurological deterioration. However, with prolonged survival in prostate carcinoma, it is plausible that the incidence of spinal intradural extramedullary metastasis will increase. We describe the clinical and radiological findings, the surgical management and postoperative course of two patients with prostate carcinoma metastases to the spinal intradural extramedullary compartment. We conclude that surgery may be indicated in cases where diagnosis is uncertain, prevention of neurological deterioration and pain is possible and in the event of a reasonably long expected survival of the systemic cancer per se.


The Faraday isolator based on a new magneto-optical medium--TAG (terbium aluminum garnet) ceramics was implemented and investigated experimentally. The magneto-optical element was temperature-stabilized using water cooling. The device provides a stable isolation ratio of 38 dB at 300 W laser power. Estimates show high performance of the device at a kilowatt laser power.


Introduction: Menopause is the most important event in middle-age. Women, in this period, face several changes. Vasomotor symptoms and skin changes are prevalent in the middle-age. This study, mainly, was performed identifying the vasomotor symptoms and skin changes in menopausal women. Materials and methods: Study sample was consisted of 150 women who have visited the healthcare centers, experienced natural menopause as discontinuity of menstrual at least for 12-monthes. They have been selected randomly. Survey instruments were structured questionnaire, informational records, symptoms and signs checklist, centi-meter and balance and the data collecting method was through interview, observation, and examination. The data were analyzed using logistic regression. Results: According to study results, skin warming and hotness (55.3%), hands and legs nipping (63.3%), hirsutism of pinion lip (27.3%), reduction of armpit hair (38%), acne (12%), Skin extenuation and wrinkling (51.3%) were reported. The most important point of the study is the significant relationship between amount of tea consumption and flushing severity (P=0.008, OR=3.18). Also, there was a significant relation between education and menopause duration, sleep disorders and severity of flushing, menopause duration and skin collagen reduction (P<0.05). Conclusion: Skin and vasomotor changes is prevalent in these women. Flushing severity influenced by tea consumption, such that drinking more tea will decrease the flushing, is the start point of more researches in this field.


Tax treaties are believed to increase cross-border trade and investment by reducing international tax burdens. The pursuit of tax treaties is therefore advanced as an integral component of U.S. foreign aid policy, which increasingly favors indirect assistance in the form of fostering trade and investment over traditional direct assistance in the form of donor funding. The importance of tax treaties is especially advanced in the context of U.S. relations with Sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty-related conditions are extreme and foreign trade and investment minimal. Yet despite many years of consistent promotion there are currently no tax treaties between the United States and the developing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. This article explains the apparent contradiction by presenting as a test case a hypothetical tax treaty between the U.S. and Ghana. The case study illustrates that in today's global commercial climate, traditional tax treaties provide few tax benefits to and indeed may negatively impact private investors. Consequently, the continuing absence of tax treaties can be explained by the lack of incentives for private investors to pressure the U.S. government to conclude these agreements. This article concludes that means other than increasing the international network of tax treaties must be pursued if the goal to increase trade and investment to developing countries is to be achieved.


Discussions of race and racism are often missing in the curriculum of international relations courses or, when present, categorized as a "critical approach" and placed outside the mainstream. But this absence or marginalization from the mainstream of the discipline does not mean that such discussions are beyond the scope of its primary agenda—that is, theorize interstate relations. On the contrary, questions of race and racism have been foundational to the historical development of international relations. In its formative years, the discipline's understanding of the global order was shaped by the Darwinist conceptions of racial hierarchies adopted by some its core theorists. They viewed the imperial domination of the "White races" over the "darker peoples of the world" to be justified, considering the immeasurable racial superiority of the former. Revisionist international relations scholars, also active during the formative years of the discipline, worked to upend these racialized hierarchies and underlined the need to account for the struggles and national aspirations of the dominated in international politics. Yet, international relations' racist disciplinary precepts have persisted, and a color line—both globally and within the discipline—continues to divide the world into racialized, binary categories (e.g., civilized/uncivilized, modern/backward, and developed/undeveloped) that legitimize Western authority in international politics. However, the introduction of race and racism in the teaching of the discipline equally unsettles the assumption that international relations embodies a value-free scientific endeavor. Instead, the role of racist precepts in the making and workings of the field demonstrates that the discipline's mainstream is deeply positioned in its view of the world and, as a consequence, fails to account for the multiplicity of ways in which international politics is encountered and experienced.


A Story.
She is a Gardener. On weekends, she gets up while
everyone else is still asleep, and sneaks outside in
cut-offs and a tee-shirt, slips into her gardening
shoes and putters around the yard. With the demands of
full-time study and part-time work, child-rearing and
other commitments, they rarely go 'out there' into 'nature'
anymore. Before Lew is born, they take off at weekends
and head as far as the VW can take them, or just hang
out in the Botanic Gardens reading novels and the.
weekend papers. Now, they mostly live according to the
ferocious dictates oftime - such a scarce resource; leisure
an endangered species. She has learned to celebrate
smaller parts of 'nature in here', in her urban
environment - oikos and domos - ecology and home. So
she spends as much time as she can in the garden,
pruning this, dividing that, propagating the other,
collecting seeds from x and pulling up the spent offerings
of something that used to be recognisable as y.


In this work we aim at the description, study and numerical investigation of the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problem applied to hemodynamics. The FSI model considered consists of the Navier-Stokes equations on moving domains modeling blood as a viscous incompressible fluid and the elasticity equation modeling the arterial wall. The fluid equations are derived in an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) frame of reference. Several existing formulations and discretizations are discussed, providing a state of the art on the subject. The main new contributions and advancements consist of: A description of the Newton method for FSI-ALE, with details on the implementation of the shape derivatives block assembling, considerations about parallel performance, the analytic derivation of the derivative terms for different formulations (conservative or not) and for different types of boundary conditions. The implementation and analysis of a new category of preconditioners for FSI (applicable also to more general coupled problems). The framework set up is general and extensible. The proposed preconditioners allow, in particular, a separate treatment of each field, using a different preconditioning strategy in each case. An estimate for the condition number of the preconditioned system is proposed, showing how preconditioners of this type depend on the coupling, and explaining the good performance they exhibit when increasing the number of processors. The improvement of the free (distributed under LGPL licence) parallel finite elements library LifeV. Most of the methods described have been implemented within this library during the period of this PhD and all the numerical tests reported were run using this framework. The simulation of clinical cases with patient-specific data and geometry, the comparison on simulations of physiological interest between different models (rigid, FSI, 1D), discretizations and methods to solve the nonlinear system. A methodology to obtain patient-specific FSI simulations starting from the raw medical data and using a set of free software tools is described. This pipeline from imaging to simulation can help medical doctors in diagnosis and decision making, and in understanding the implication of indicators such as the wall shear stress in the pathogenesis.


Analysis
of hourly underground temperature measurements at a medium-size (by population)
US city as a function of depth and extending over 5+ years revealed a positive
trend exceeding the rate of regional and global warming by an order of magnitude.
Measurements at depths greater than ~2 m are unaffected by daily fluctuations
and sense only seasonal variability. A comparable trend also emerged from the
surface temperature record of the largest US city (New York). Power spectral
analysis of deep and shallow subsurface temperature records showed respectively
two kinds of power-law behavior: 1) a quasi-continuum of power amplitudes
indicative of Brownian noise, superposed (in the shallow record) by 2) a
discrete spectrum of diurnal harmonics attributable to the unequal heat flux
between daylight and darkness. Spectral amplitudes of the deepest temperature
time series (2.4 m) conformed to a log-hyperbolic distribution. Upon removal of
seasonal variability from the temperature record, the resulting spectral
amplitudes followed a log-exponential distribution. Dynamical analysis showed
that relative amplitudes and phases of temperature records at different depths
were in excellent accord with a 1-dimensional heat diffusion model.


This article examines the question of who qualifies as an "individual" or "corporation" who may be held liable for attorney's fees in a breach of contract action pursuant to section 38.001 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code. After a discussion of the relevant legislative commentary regarding section 38.001, the author reviews a series of cases in which courts have applied the "individual or corporation" clause to governmental entities, partnerships, limited liability companies, and private associations and assesses whether the courts have correctly interpreted the statute as to the classes of defendants that it covers. The article concludes with suggestions for how the Texas Supreme Court might clarify the scope of application of section 38.001, as well as some possible amendments to the statute that the Texas legislature could enact to make its intended scope clearer.


We use a data set of over 2,600 executive assessments to study thirty individual characteristics of candidates for top executive positions – CEO, CFO, COO and others. Candidate characteristics can be classified by four primary factors: general ability, execution skills, charisma and strategic skills. CEO candidates tend to score higher on all four of these factors; CFO candidates score lower. Hired candidates score higher than all assessed candidates on interpersonal skills (for each job category) suggesting that such skills are important in the selection process. Scores on the four factors also predict future career progression. Non-CEO candidates who score higher on the four factors are subsequently more likely to become CEOs. The patterns are qualitatively similar for public, private equity and venture capital owned companies. We do not find economically large differences in the four factors for men and women. Women, however, are ultimately less likely to become CEOs holding the four factors constant.


The Civil War is often credited with giving birth to the modern American state. The demands of warfare led to the centralization of business and industry and to an unprecedented expansion of federal power. But the Civil War did more than that: as Melinda Lawson shows, it brought about a change in American national identity, redefining the relationship between the individual and the government. Though much has been written about the Civil War and the making of the political and economic American nation, this is the first comprehensive study of the role that the war played in the shaping of the cultural and ideological nation-state. In Patriot Fires, Lawson explains how, when threatened by the rebellious South, the North came together as a nation and mobilized its populace for war. With no formal government office to rally citizens, the job of defining the war in patriotic terms fell largely to private individuals or association, each with their own motives and methods. Lawson explores how these "interpreters" of the war helped instill in Americans a new understanding of loyalty to country. Through efforts such as sanitary fairs to promote the welfare of soldiers, the war bond drives of Jay Cooke, and the establishment of Union Leagues, Northerners cultivated a new sense of patriotism rooted not just in the subjective American idea, but in existing religious, political, and cultural values. Moreover, Democrats and Republicans, Abolitionists, and Abraham Lincoln created their own understandings of American patriotism and national identity, raising debates over the meaning of the American "idea" to new heights. Examining speeches, pamphlets, pageants, sermons, and assemblies, Lawson shows how citizens and organizations constructed a new kind of nationalism based on a nation of Americans rather than a union of states - a European-styled nationalism grounded in history and tradition and celebrating the preeminence of the nation-state. Original in its insights and innovative in its approach, Patriot Fires is an impressive work of cultural and intellectual history.


Genzyme Corporation is in the midst of planning its new corporate headquarters, which incorporates many innovative green building features. After learning that the building as planned would likely earn a LEED Silver rating, an intermediate score in the LEED green building rating scheme, the CEO charged the building team with exploring opportunities that would enable the building to earn the highest rating, LEED Platinum. Five additional green building features are described, and students are asked to analyze and recommend which, if any, of these features to pursue based on their cost, likelihood of earning LEED credits, and their influence on the building's environmental performance.


ABSTRACT An analysis of the effect of family governance on the relationships among risk aversion, innovation and performance is the purpose of this study. Beyond the level of risk and innovation, we are interested in analysing the relationship between them and their influence on performance in family firms. Traditionally, risk-seeking has been associated with innovation and performance. Our results confirm both components to be independent and, furthermore, show relationships with opposite signs as expected in the literature. In a sample of 500 firms, the results confirm an idiosyncratic behaviour in family firms; innovation contributes to performance to a higher extent in family firms, and at the same time, risk aversion is positively associated with performance only in non-family firms.


As rates of economic growth change rapidly, and changes of the whole of social needs as well as technological development in various countries have to be taken into consideration, in the twenty-first century, it is extremely important to pay adequate attention to cultural governance. The author of the present article analyses the application of public-private partnership principles in the context of contemporary cultural governance. The main (and multiple) problem of the article is the efficiency of cultural implementation and the effectiveness of cultural governance. The purpose of the article is to explore the modernization of cultural governance by analyzing the theoretical aspects of partnership and exploring the challenges posed by modern public management. The development of the implementation of cultural policies in different countries is associated with the adoption of more efficient methods, promotion of international cooperation, formulation of long-term and detailed strategies of cultural policies and implementation of their provisions in practice.


It was in the mid-70s that Cindy Sherman began making her earliest works, in which she explored various manipulations of her own persona. She began by experimenting with makeup and costumes, getting dressed up for parties and surprising her friends. She then moved on to photograph herself in the various personas she had created, producing highly inventive but somewhat more primitive versions of the seminal work for which she would later become known, the Untitled Film Stills series. It was during this early period that Sherman created A Play of Selves--a visual tale of a young woman overwhelmed by various alter-egos that compete inside of her, and her final conquering of self-doubt. Acted out with 16 separate characters, these 72 photographic assemblages mark Sherman's earliest explorations of herself-as-subject in a series of staged photographs. Published here for the first time, these photographs include hundreds of shots of the artist costumed as various characters in dozens of poses. Organized in a four-act "play" with an elaborate, handwritten script, the individual images were cut by the artist from original black-and-white prints. Preface by Cindy Sherman.


According to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 on maximum residue levels of pesticides in or on food and feed, European Union Member States, Iceland and Norway monitor pesticide residue levels in food samples and submit the monitoring results to EFSA. This report provides the results of an ad-hoc data extraction and comparison of the monitoring results on organic and conventionally produced food samples. The data extraction focussed on samples taken in the framework of the EU-coordinated control programmes in the reference period 2013, 2014 and 2015 (for a total of 28,912 conventional and 1,940 organic food samples). Overall, 44% of the conventional produced food samples contained one or more quantifiable residues, while in organic food the frequency of samples with measurable pesticide residues was lower (6.5% of the organic samples). The MRL exceedance rate for conventional and organic food amounted to 1.2% and 0.2% of the samples tested, respectively. The calculated average number of pesticides analysed per food sample in organic and conventional food products was considered to be comparable. © European Food Safety Authority, 2018


The need for high‐performance computing together with the increasing trend from single processor to parallel computer architectures has leveraged the adoption of parallel computing. To benefit from parallel computing power, usually parallel algorithms are defined that can be mapped and executed on parallel computing platforms. In general, different alternative mappings can be defined each with different performance. For small computing platforms with a limited number of processing nodes, the mapping process can be carried out manually. However, for large‐scale parallel computing platforms in which hundreds of thousands of processing nodes are applied, the number of possible mapping alternatives increases dramatically, and the mapping process becomes intractable for the human engineer. To assist the parallel computing engineer, we provide a systematic approach to derive feasible mapping alternatives of parallel algorithms to parallel computing platforms. The approach includes activities for modeling the parallel algorithm and parallel computing platform, generation of feasible mapping alternatives, generation of the deployment code, and finally the deployment of the generated code to the nodes. We evaluate our approach for deriving feasible mapping alternatives for four well‐known parallel algorithms. The evaluation is based on both simulations and real executions of the generated mapping alternatives. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


25 Laurentia Gales 258 Șos.Fundeni, 2nd District, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Abstract. Boron neutron capture theory (BNCT) is a binary therapy applied in malignant tumours, resistant to other treatment methods, namely chemotherapy and radiotherapy. One of the main components is Bor-10, a stable isotope that can be inserted in the tumour cells by using specific transporters. Through the use of adequate Boron compounds, that preferably are located in the tumour cells and not in the healthy tissue, Boron neutron capture therapy provides a higher curative potential with minimal toxicity, at the level of normal tissues. In order to obtain a proper tumour control with minimum side effects, 10B increased concentrations should be obtained by selective cumulation within the tumour cells, with an adequate ion gradient between the normal and tumour tissues. Therapeutic effectiveness can be reached by a minimal boron concentration of 20-30 ppm inside the tumour and a tumour/blood and tumour/ normal tissues boron concentration gradient of approximately 3. So far, clinical practice has used two main boron delivery agents: sodium borocaptate (Na2B12H11SH) (BSH) and a phenylalanine dihydroxy-boryl derivative, known as Boronophenylalanine (BPA). During the past 20 years, along with the development of new techniques of chemical synthesis and improved knowledge of biological and biochemical requirements for the effectiveness of an agent and ways of boron delivery, a new number of boron delivery agents have appeared in response to the agents up to now. They include: aminoacids, nucleic acid precursors, DNA-binding molecules, porphyrin derivatives, high-molecularweight delivery agents, macromolecules or nanovehicles such as monoclonal antibodies or monoclonal antibody fragments that bind to tumour epitopesEGF, VEGF or liposomes, dendrimers, dextrans, polylysine, avidin, folic acid, etc. Next to the identification and study of new boron compounds or new compound combinations, other delivery methods are currently under research seeking to improve the classical intravenous administration and the selective intratumoral binding process as well as the therapeutic index (intraarterial, intratumoral administration, etc). Despite a large number of ongoing studies, a boron compound that fits all the ideal BNCT compound criteria has not yet been identified, especially in terms of tumour selectivity, the ratio of concentrations between the concentration in the tumour cells and the one in the normal cells, the delivery of a proper number of boron atoms in the tumour cells, hydrophilicity and lipophilicity, homogeneous intra-tumour distribution. The development of BNCT boron delivery agents has been initiated approximately 50 years ago and continues to represent at the same time a priority and a difficulty. Several bor-10 boron based pharmaceutical products have been prepared in view of their potential use in BNCT.


We present a large scale effort to build a commercial Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) product for Arabic. Our goal is to support voice search, dictation, and voice control for the general Arabic-speaking public, including support for multiple Arabic dialects. We describe our ASR system design and compare recognizers for five Arabic dialects, with the potential to reach more than 125 million people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We compare systems built on diacritized vs. non-diacritized text. We also conduct cross-dialect experiments, where we train on one dialect and test on the others. Our average word error rate (WER) is 24.8% for voice search.


Recent high‐resolution radiosonde climatologies have revealed a tropopause inversion layer (TIL) in the extratropics: temperature strongly increases just above a sharp local cold point tropopause. Here, it is asked to what extent a TIL exists in current general circulation models (GCMs) and meteorological analyses. Only a weak hint of a TIL exists in NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. In contrast, the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model (CMAM), a comprehensive GCM, exhibits a TIL of realistic strength. However, in data assimilation mode CMAM exhibits a much weaker TIL, especially in the Southern Hemisphere where only coarse satellite data are available. The discrepancy between the analyses and the GCM is thus hypothesized to be mainly due to data assimilation acting to smooth the observed strong curvature in temperature around the tropopause. This is confirmed in the reanalysis where the stratification around the tropopause exhibits a strong discontinuity at the start of the satellite era.


BACKGROUND
Medication error is an important contributor to patient morbidity and mortality and is associated with inadequate patient safety measures. However, prescribing-safety tools specifically designed for use in general practice are lacking.

AIM
To identify and update a set of prescribing-safety indicators for assessing the safety of prescribing in general practice, and to estimate the risk of harm to patients associated with each indicator.

DESIGN AND SETTING
RAND/UCLA consensus development of indicators in UK general practice.

METHOD
Prescribing indicators were identified from a systematic review and previous consensus exercise. The RAND Appropriateness Method was used to further identify and develop the indicators with an electronic-Delphi method used to rate the risk associated with them. Twelve GPs from all the countries of the UK participated in the RAND exercise, with 11 GPs rating risk using the electronic-Delphi approach.

RESULTS
Fifty-six prescribing-safety indicators were considered appropriate for inclusion (overall panel median rating of 7-9, with agreement). These indicators cover hazardous prescribing across a range of therapeutic indications, hazardous drug-drug combinations and inadequate laboratory test monitoring. Twenty-three (41%) of these indicators were considered high risk or extreme risk by 80% or more of the participants.

CONCLUSION
This study identified a set of 56 indicators that were considered, by a panel of GPs, to be appropriate for assessing the safety of GP prescribing. Twenty-three of these indicators were considered to be associated with high or extreme risk to patients and should be the focus of efforts to improve patient safety.


The well known phase diversity technique has long been used as a premier passive imaging method to mitigate the degrading effects of atmospheric turbulence on incoherent optical imagery. Typically, an iterative, slow method is applied that uses the Zernike basis set and 2-D Fourier transforms in the reconstruction process. In this paper, we demonstrate a direct method for estimating the un-aberrated object brightness from phase or phase difference estimates that 1) does not require the use of the Zernike basis set or the intermediate determination of the generalized pupil function, 2) directly determines the optical transfer function without the requirement for an iterative sequence of 2-D Fourier Transforms, 3) provides a more accurate result than the Zernike-based approaches since there are no Zernike series truncation errors, 4) lends itself to fast and parallel implementation, and 5) can use stochastic search methods to rapidly determine simultaneous phases or phase differences required to determine the correct optical transfer function estimate. As such, this new implementation of phase diversity provides potentially faster, more accurate results than previous approaches yet still retains inherent compatibility with the traditional Zernike-based methods. The theoretical underpinnings of this new method along with demonstrative computer simulation results are presented.


We employed an electrically driven polarization controller to implement anisotropic depolarizing quantum channels for the polarization state of single photons. The channels were characterized by means of ancilla-assisted quantum process tomography using polarization-entangled photons generated in the process of spontaneous parametric downconversion. The demonstrated depolarization method offers good repeatability, low cost, and compatibility with fiber-optic setups. It does not perturb the modal structure of single photons, and therefore can be used to verify experimentally protocols for managing decoherence effects based on multiphoton interference.


Cryptocurrencies have left the dark side of the finance universe and become an object of study for asset and portfolio management. Since they have a low liquidity compared to traditional assets, one needs to take into account liquidity issues when one puts them into the same portfolio. We propose use a LIquidity Bounded Risk-return Optimization (LIBRO) approach, which is a combination of the Markowitz framework under the liquidity constraints. The results show that cryptocurrencies add value to a portfolio and the optimization approach is even able to increase the return of a portfolio and lower the volatility risk. The codes used to obtain the results in this paper are available via www.quantlet.de


Communication skills are considered a core clinical skill in human medicine. Recognizing the importance of communication skills and addressing them in veterinary curricula, however, is just beginning. In the fall of 2003, the Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island, markedly changed the way in which it approaches communication teaching. An intensive one-week elective rotation on client communication was offered in the senior year. This rotation made extensive use of experiential techniques through the use of role plays and videotaped real client interactions. A group of faculty and hospital staff members were trained as coaches to support students as they practiced their communication in various client scenarios. The skills taught were based on the Calgary-Cambridge Observation Guide, which outlines observable behaviors that contribute to effective medical communication. Student response to and feedback on the rotation have been very positive. As a result, the number of rotations given per year has been increased. Long-term plans include expanding communication skills teaching into other years of the DVM program and incorporating simulated clients into the teaching program. Challenges that lie ahead include the development of a fully integrated communication teaching program that spans the whole curriculum, addressing the ongoing need for the professional development of coaches, improving methods of student assessment, and recruiting/training a sufficient number of coaches.


A numerical model developed for sensitivity analysis of groundwater flow is presented. Sensitivity analysis is a useful complementary aid for groundwater flow modelling to assess the importance of various governing flow parameters to the behaviour of any specific flow problem. Two different methods are considered: One is called the direct method and the other the adjoint method. In the direct method the sensitivity equations are obtained by directly differentiating the flow equations with respect to the parameters, while in the adjoint method they are obtained by a variational technique. The numerical method for solving the groundwater flow equation and the sensitivity equations are based on the Galerkin finite element method. The sensitivity model developed was applied to a simple flow problem, in which the sensitivity of the piezometric head as well as various flux performance measures to perturbations of the permeability of various layers of the flow domain were analyzed. The following performance measures were considered: The piezometric head, the Darcy flux at selected regions and the total influx into a tunnel system.


Tien Grauch and her coauthors describe an integrated study of high-resolution aeromagnetics, ground gravity, airborne gravity gradiometry, TEM, and 2D seismic data for imaging not only basement faulting and relief, but also shallow faulting within the sedimentary section. Rather than invoking magnetic mineralization along fault zones (or other geochemical explanations) as an explanation for the observed sedimentary magnetic anomalies, they show that the anomalies can be completely explained by tectonic juxtaposition of strata of differing magnetic properties across the fault zones. They document, through 2D forward magnetic modeling, a faulted geologic column of juxtaposed magnetite-enriched clastics with magnetite-depleted clastics. These laterally varying magnetite-bearing horizons stack to produce super-positioned magnetic anomalies of relatively low amplitude and short wavelength which are superimposed on the longer wavelength, higher-amplitude magnetic anom-alies sourced by basement composition heter...


A fast automatic algorithm is proposed for baseline correction of infrared (IR) spectral signals. It is devised based on iterative curve fitting where orthogonal polynomials are used. The algorithm can process both emission and absorption spectra automatically without human intervention. Orthogonal polynomials are used for curve fitting to reduce computation time. Both emission and absorption spectra are obtained and the results demonstrate the feasibility and practicability of this algorithm.


This article presents an experimental result of low C/N ratios with ranges of 3.2:1 to 5.9:1 of composting of excess sludge from activated sludge wastewater treatment systems of concentrated latex factories. The composting experiments were investigated based on test conditions of different compost materials used, with aeration and with no aeration, as well as with seeding and without seeding. In addition, the investigation on the possible use of the obtained compost products as fertilizer on plant growth was conducted. The results indicated that composting was not reached in the thermophilic and mature phases. The slow decomposition of OC occurred during 90 days composting. Loss of N was significantly determined, in particular in the aerated composting units, but K increment was observed. The results indicated that the composting of mixtures of excess bio-sludge, ash, and coconut husk with and without seeding and aeration made compost products compliant with Thai organic fertilizer standards, especially in terms of pH, P2O5, K2O, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Hg. With the results tested on plant growth, the possibility of the use of compost products as fertilizer as experimented with marigolds, illustrated that compost products from a mixture of excess bio-sludge, ash, and coconut husk with seeding and aeration had potential to be used as fertilizer which was equivalent to 15:15:15 chemical fertilizer, in particular in terms of plant height increase rate and numbers of flowers achieved.


Attempted dynamic replication based valuation of equity options is analyzed using the Optimal Hedge Monte-Carlo (OHMC) method. Detailed here are (1) the option hedging strategy and its costs; (2) irreducible hedging errors associated with realistically fat-tailed & asymmetric return distributions; (3) impact of transaction costs on hedging costs and hedge-performance; (4) impact of conditioning hedging strategy on realized volatility. The asset returns are addressed by the General Auto-Regressive Asset Model (GARAM, Wang et al [2009]) that employs two stochastic processes to model the return magnitude and sign and results in a realistic term-structure of the fat-tails, dynamic-asymmetry, and clustering of volatility. The relationship between the option price and ensuing return versus risk characteristics of the option seller-hedger & buyer-hedger are described for different conditioning regimes in GARAM. A hurdle return is employed to assess bounding values of options that reflect hedging costs, the inevitable hedge slippage, & transaction costs. The hurdle return can also be used to make relative-value inferences (e.g., by comparing to the return-risk profile of a delta-1 position in the underlying) or even fit option values to market while still informing the trader about residual risk and its asymmetry between option buyer-hedger and seller-hedger. Tail-risk measures are shown to diminish by conditioning the hedging strategy and valuation on realized volatility. The role of fat-tails and uncertainty of realized volatility and its temporal persistence in controlling the optimal hedge ratios, irreducible hedging errors, and option-trading risk premiums are delineated.


While urban life requires us to maintain a healthy social distance and anonymity from others, a recurring design goal has been to push against this anonymity and assist in the formation of communities. In contrast, our aim in this paper is to design for keeping others at a comfortable distance, without seeming rude or uncongenial. Building on findings from 20 interviews and two design workshops, we present three design explorations that illustrate opportunities to support a sense of friendly connection in local, communal spaces, without promoting the formation of friendship or other long-term engagements, or requiring the effort and commitment they would necessarily demand.


Abstract:Previous research on birth order has consistently shown that later-borns have lower educational attainment than first-borns; however, it is not known whether there are birth order patterns in college major. Given evidence that parents disproportionately invest in first-born children, there are likely to be birth order patterns attributable to differences in both opportunities and preferences, related to ability, human capital specialization through parent-child transfers of knowledge, and personality. Birth order patterns in college major specialization may shed light on these explanatory mechanisms and may also account for long-term birth order differences in educational and labour market outcomes. Using Swedish population register data and sibling fixed effects, we find large birth order differences in university applications. First-borns are more likely to apply to, and graduate from, medicine and engineering programs at university, while later-borns are more likely to study journalism and business programs, and to attend art school. We also find that these birth order patterns are stronger in high–socioeconomic status families and that differences in college major explain approximately half of the within-family birth order differences in long-term earnings. These results indicate that early life experiences and parental investment shape sibling differences in ability, preferences, and ambitions even within the shared environment of the family.


Mohammad Dawood Sofi[1] and Dr Tauseef Ahmad Parray[2]
Abstract
Mithāq al-Madinah (The Constitution/Covenant of Madinah) – the principles of which were based on the Qur'ān and Sunnah – constitutes the cardinal foundation on which the state and society of Madinah was founded. In the modern times, various scholars see it as a source of constitutionalism, democratizing reform, and pluralism in Islam. It is regarded not only as the "first written constitution" but also the "first Constitution of democracy in the history of constitutional rule" as well. The signatories of this document were various communities; principally Muslims, Jews, and pagans who (collectively) constituted a unified citizenry – the Ummah al-Wāhidah. This Constitution has been described differently by various scholars. For Muhammad Hamidullah, the Mithāq is an "epoch-making innovation" that brought "revolutionary change"; for Ali Bulac, it represents the plurality of legal systems; and for Muqtedar Khan, it is an excellent manifestation of the Prophet's affinity to "democracy and governance by consent."
This articles revolves round these three modern scholars by analyzing and evaluating their view and vision on the Mithāq al-Madinah. While making use of primary and secondary material, the authors attempt to present its significance and necessity for peaceful coexistence between various parties in the contemporary globalized world.
[1] Mohammad Dawood Sofi is a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of Islamic Studies, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India. Author of "History of Islamic Civilization" (2013), he has published his research work in various journals. Email: email@example.com.
[2] Dr Tauseef Ahmad Parray completed his PhD from the Department of Islamic Studies, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India and has served as 'Iqbal Fellow' (Mar-Aug 2014) at Iqbal International Institute for Research & Dialogue (IRD), International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI), Pakistan. His works have been published in numerous reputable academic journals around the world. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Two large trials indicated that endarterectomy was less beneficial for symptomatic patients with internal carotid artery (ICA) near occlusion than for patients who had severe stenosis without near occlusion. Near occlusions complicate ratio calculations of ICA stenosis and require attention to detail for identification. The goal is to provide diagnostic criteria, illustrate identifying features, estimate accuracy of identification, and assess prognosis for patients with near occlusion.

METHODS
We re-reviewed 1216 patients with severe (> or =70%) stenosis on angiography in the North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial and European Carotid Surgery Trial. One of 5 (n = 262) had 2 or more criteria for near occlusion: (1) delayed cranial arrival of ICA contrast compared with external carotid artery (ECA); (2) intracranial collaterals seen as cross-filling of contralateral vessels or ipsilateral contrast dilution; (3) obvious diameter reduction of ICA compared with opposite ICA; or (4) ICA diameter reduction compared with ipsilateral ECA.

RESULTS
Interrater agreement, sensitivity, and specificity were excellent (0.88, 90.6%, and 93.8%, respectively). By intention to treat, 3-year risks of ipsilateral stroke for medically treated patients with near occlusion was 15.1% versus 10.9% for surgically treated (absolute risk reduction [ARR] = 4.2%; P value = .33). Patients who continued to receive treatment in the medical arm for the trial's duration had a 3-year risk of 18.3% (ARR = 7.4%; P value = .13). Medically treated patients with severe stenosis but without near occlusion had a 3-year risk of 26.0% versus surgically treated of 8.2% (ARR = 17.8%; P value < .001).

CONCLUSION
It is crucial to identify near occlusions on vascular imaging. Although it still is reasonable to consider endarterectomy for these patients, the benefit is muted.


This paper presents a branch-and-price algorithm for the time-dependent vehicle routing problem with time windows TDVRPTW. We capture road congestion by considering time-dependent travel times, i.e., depending on the departure time to a customer, a different travel time is incurred. We consider the variant of the TDVRPTW where the objective is to minimize total route duration and denote this variant the duration minimizing TDVRPTW DM-TDVRPTW. Because of time dependency, vehicles' dispatch times at the depot are crucial as road congestion might be avoided. Because of its complexity, all known solution methods to the DM-TDVRPTW are based on meta-heuristics. The decomposition of an arc-based formulation leads to a set-partitioning problem as the master problem, and a time-dependent shortest path problem with resource constraints as the pricing problem. The master problem is solved by means of column generation, and a tailored labeling algorithm is used to solve the pricing problem. We introduce new dominance criteria that allow more label dominance. For our numerical results, we modified Solomon's data sets by adding time dependency. Our algorithm is able to solve about 63% of the instances with 25 customers, 38% of the instances with 50 customers, and 15% of the instances with 100 customers.


VASILEVA, V., E. VASILEV and R. TZONEV, 2016. Subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.) as a promising forage species in Bulgaria. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 22: 222–227 The paper presents an overview of the possibility to use the subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.) (an annual leguminous self-seeding species, widespread component in the pastures of the temperate areas of Central and Northern Europe and America) for the forage production in Bulgaria. The biological and ecological characteristics of the species are given. On the basis of researches (pot and fi eld trials), mainly performed in the Institute of Forage Crops, Pleven, Bulgaria and their results, the conclusions are drawn as for the using of subterranean clover as a forage resource under the climatic conditions of the country. When sown at an appropriate time in the autumn, it establishes a uniform stand before the beginning of the permanent cold spell and grows up early in the spring and forms a dense sward. The subterranean clover may be included in mixtures with the following components: legumes birdsfoot trefoil and sainfoin and grasses – cocksfoot, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass and crested wheatgrass. It decreases weed infestation, increases productivity and persistence of the pasture systems. Composition of the natural communities, in which it participates, shows that it is resistant to overgrazing, nitrifi cation and ruderalization by domestic animals. Due to its self-seeding capacity, it may be used for under-sowing of degraded seed production stands. On the basis of its occurrence in different parts of the country and in the natural vegetation, the species is promising for establishment of forage crops. The participation of the subterranean clover in the perennial swards is also a tool to increase the biodiversity in the agrophytocoenosis. Subterranean clover as a component of sown pasture swards has practical applicability under the climatic conditions of Bulgaria.


To determine the incremental yield of ambulatory monitoring in the evaluation of syncope, three serial 24-hour Holter recordings were obtained in a consecutive series of 95 patients with syncope, the cause of which was not explained by history, physical examination, or 12-lead electrocardiogram. The mean age of patients was 61 years and 41% were men. Major electrocardiographic abnormalities were found in 26 patients (27%), including unsustained ventricular tachycardia (19 patients), pauses of at least 2 seconds (8 patients), profound bradycardia (1 patient), and complete heart block (1 patient). The first 24-hour Holter recording had at least one major abnormality in 14 patients (15%) (95% confidence interval, 8.3% to 23.4%). Of the 81 patients without a major abnormality on the first Holter recording, the second Holter recording had major abnormalities in 9 (11%) (95% confidence interval, 5.1% to 20.0%). Of the 72 patients without a major abnormality on the first two Holter recordings, only 3 patients (4.2%) had a major abnormality on the third Holter recording (95% confidence interval, 0.8% to 11.7%). Four factors were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of a major abnormality on 72 hours of monitoring: age above 65 years (relative risk, 2.2), male gender (relative risk, 2.0), history of heart disease (relative risk, 2.2), and an initial nonsinus rhythm (relative risk, 3.5). These results suggest that 24 hours of Holter monitoring is not enough to identify all potentially important arrhythmias in patients with syncope. Monitoring may need to be extended to 48 hours if the first 24-hour Holter recording is normal.


An issue in the area of insurance law that has been litigated frequently in recent years is whether construction defects are "occurrences" under Commercial General Liability ("CGL") insurance policies. The courts have been divided in deciding the issue and in their approaches to analyzing the issue. This article addresses how the issue should be analyzed and concludes that construction defects are "occurrences". The relevant rules of insurance policy interpretation dictate that construction defects are "occurrences". Policy language should be interpreted in such a way as to fulfill the reasonable expectations of the policyholder when the policy is construed as a whole with all ambiguities in the policy to be construed in favor of coverage. "Occurrence" is defined in CGL policies as an "accident," including continuous or repeated exposure to harmful conditions, but the term "accident" itself is undefined. The common law provides that an "accident" is an event or happening that unexpectedly and unintentionally results in property damage. Thus, in determining whether construction defects are "occurrences", the analysis should focus upon whether the faulty workmanship and resulting damage was expected or intended by the contractor/policyholder. If the faulty workmanship and resulting damage was unexpected and unintended by the contractor, which typically is the case, then the resulting construction defects, and any related property damage, were caused by an "occurrence". Such a result is consistent with contractors' reasonable expectations regarding the coverage they think they are purchasing under CGL policies. Contractors reasonably expect that when they purchase CGL insurance to cover their business liabilities that they will receive coverage for liability claims relating to property damage arising out of their business activities, which often include claims for alleged construction defects. Thus, if construction defects were not "occurrences" under CGL policies, then CGL policies unfairly and impermissibly would provide illusory coverage to contractors. Finally, if construction defects were not "occurrences" in the first instance, then the "business risk" exclusions found in CGL policies, which purport to exclude coverage for certain risks inherent in doing business, would be superfluous. Thus, construing CGL policies as a whole also leads to the conclusion that construction defects are "occurrences".


Immigration is a highly polarized issue in the United States, and negative attitudes toward immigrants are common. Yet, almost all Americans are descended from people who originated outside the country, a narrative often evoked by the media and taught in school curricula. Can this narrative increase inclusionary attitudes toward migrants? We draw from scholarship showing that perspective-taking decreases prejudice toward out-groups to investigate whether reminding Americans about their own immigration history increases support for immigrants and immigration. We propose that priming family experiences can indirectly stimulate perspective-taking and induce empathy toward the out-group, which we test with three separate survey experiments conducted over two years. Our findings show that priming family history generates small but consistent inclusionary effects. These effects occur even among partisan subgroups and Americans who approve of President Trump. We provide evidence that increased empathy for immigrants constitutes one mechanism driving these effects.


Experiments with the ultraviolet (UV)/H2O2 advanced oxidation process (AOP) were conducted to investigate the abatement of micropollutants in wastewater treatment plant effluent. The fluence and the starting concentration of H2O2 in a bench-scale batch reactor were varied according to response surface method (RSM) to examine their influence on the treatment efficiency. It was shown that the investigated AOP is very effective for the abatement of micropollutants with conversion rates typically higher than 90%. Empirical relationships between fluence, H2O2 dosage and the resulting concentration of micropollutants were established by RSM. By this means it was shown that X-ray-contrast media had been degraded only by UV light. Nevertheless, most substances were degraded by the combination of UV irradiation and H2O2. Based on RSM an optimisation of multiple responses was conducted to find the minimal fluence and H2O2 dosage that are needed to reach an efficient abatement of micropollutants.


With regulatory compliance becoming more and more of a global issue, Wärtsilä is launching new propulsion systems for tugs emphasising environmental sustainability. The systems have been developed utilising the company's strong competences in hybrid propulsion technology. Since tugs typically operate in or close to harbours, they are particularly affected by environmental considerations, and the need to reduce emissions is an increasing concern for tug owners and operators.


These four plays, written during the reigns of James I and Charles I, took revenge tragedy in dark and ambiguous new directions. In The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, John Webster explores the role of women and issues of power, sex and corruption in the Italian court, creating two unforgettable anti-heroines. In The Broken Heart, John Ford questions the value of emotional repression as his characters attempt to subdue their desires and hatreds in ancient Greece. Finally, Ford's masterpiece 'Tis Pity She's a Whore explores the taboo themes of incest and forbidden lust in a daring reworking of Romeo and Juliet. Jane Kingsley-Smith has edited the plays from the earliest quartos and added invaluable editorial material, including explanatory glosses and a new introduction that discusses how the playwrights used the theatre to explore issues around women, sex, power and violence. Together with the Penguin volume of Five Revenge Tragedies, edited by Emma Smith, this is the essential sourcebook for drama in the period. "Revenge, hatred, villainy, incest, and murder upon murder are their constant themes ...and they handle these horrors with little or no moral purpose, save that of exciting and amusing the audience. ..We should call him a madman who allowed his daughters or his servants to see such representations". (Charles Kingsley). John Webster was born in about 1578 in London. He studied law at the Middle Temple before embarking on a career in the theatre, collaborating on many plays with contemporary dramatists. But it was his two solo-authored tragedies, The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1614) which sealed his reputation. In 1606 he married Sara Peniall, who was seven months pregnant, and they went on to have at least four children. He died in the 1630s. John Ford was born in 1586 in Devon. His early career was wholly concerned with poetry and philosophical works, and it was not until the 1620s that he began collaborating on stage plays. In the late 1620s, he began writing alone, producing the eight plays on which his reputation would be based, including The Broken Heart (1620) and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (c.1630). Nothing more is known of Ford after the performance of his last play in 1638. Jane Kingsley-Smith completed her PhD at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon and is the author of two monographs: Shakespeare's Drama of Exile (2003) and Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture (2010). She is a Reader at Roehampton University, London, and a regular guest speaker at Shakespeare's Globe.


The ever-growing demand for higher quality and faster multimedia content delivery over short distances in home environments drives the quest for higher data rates in wireless personal area networks (WPANs). One of the candidate IEEE 802.15.3a WPAN proposals support data rates up to 480 Mbps by using punctured convolutional codes with quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulation for a multi-band orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) system over ultra wideband (UWB) channels. In the first part of this dissertation, we combine more powerful near-Shannon-limit turbo codes with bandwidth efficient trellis coded modulation, i.e., turbo trellis coded modulation (TTCM), to further improve the data rates up to 1.2 Gbps. A modified iterative decoder for this TTCM coded MB-OFDM system is proposed and its bit error rate performance under various impulsive noises over both Gaussian and UWB channel is extensively investigated, especially in mismatched scenarios. A robust decoder which is immune to noise mismatch is provided based on comparison of impulsive noises in time domain and frequency domain. The accurate estimation of the dynamic noise model could be very difficult or impossible at the receiver, thus a significant performance degradation may occur due to noise mismatch. In the second part of this dissertation, we prove that the minimax decoder in [38], which instead of minimizing the average bit error probability aims at minimizing the worst bit error probability, is optimal and robust to certain noise model with unknown prior probabilities in two and higher dimensions. Besides turbo codes, another kind of error correcting codes which approach the Shannon capacity is low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. In the last part of this dissertation, iii we extend the density evolution method for sum-product decoding using mismatched noises. We will prove that as long as the true noise type and the estimated noise type used in the decoder are both binary-input memoryless output symmetric channels, the output from mismatched log-likelihood ratio (LLR) computation is also symmetric. We will show the Shannon capacity can be evaluated for mismatched LLR computation and it can be reduced if the mismatched LLR computation is not an one-to-one mapping function. We will derive the Shannon capacity, threshold and stable condition of LDPC codes for mismatched BIAWGN and BIL noise types. The results show that the noise variance estimation errors will not affect the Shannon capacity and stable condition, but the errors do reduce the threshold. The mismatch in noise type will only reduce Shannon capacity when LLR computation is based on BIL.


Across all industrial sectors, project management has become an essential element in the successful delivery of projects. Regardless of the industrial sector or size of project, project management methodologies (PMM) can be applied to improve the probability of meeting the project goals. In an earlier published work, we had classified PMM in five distinct but interdependent levels. In this paper, our objective is to further extend the discussion on the characteristics of L3 methodologies by comparing the PMM currently being applied in three distinct sectors: (1) academic institutions; (2) industry organizations and (3) government linked organizations. Each of the PMM across the three sectors will be compared and discussed against a list of elements to elicit a common set of requirements.


Administrative allocation of water in Iran currently leads to more conflicts and severe water sectoral competition. , Since the administrative water allocation is based on the low tariffs and not on market prices particularly in agricultural sector, the real value of water is not considered in the system of national account and monetary circular flow of economy. While water resources are the direct and indirect primary input of many commodities and services in the economy. One of the main strategies of coping with water scarcity is marketbased allocation for making the highest value. The aim of this study is to analysis the welfare effect of water-based market allocation in the Iranian economy. According to backward and forward linkage effect of water sector on the economy, in this study the computable general equilibrium modeling has been used. In order to consider the real value of water, this study has been added raw water as the factor of production in the social accounting matrix. The results show that the creation of water market under water scarcity condition tended to respectively decreases and increases in the welfare of urban and rural households. Furthermore, the top deciles of rural household's welfare have been increased in comparison to the lower deciles, which indicate the larger share of ownership of lands with water rights in the higher deciles.


We clarify two points made in our commentary (Pezzo & Beckstead, 2020, this issue) on a recent paper by Longoni, Bonezzi, and Morewedge (2019). In both Experiments 1 and 4 from their paper, it is not possible to determine whether accuracy can compensate for algorithm aversion. Experiments 3A-C, however, do show a strong effect of accuracy such that AI that is superior to a human provider is embraced by patients. Many papers, including Longoni et al. tend to minimize the role of this compensatory process, apparently because it seems obvious to the authors (Longoni, Bonezzi, Morewedge, 2020, this issue). Such minimization, however, can lead to (mis)citations in which research that clearly demonstrates a compensatory role of AI accuracy is cited as non-compensatory.


A review of:

George, Carole A. "Testing the Barriers to Digital Libraries: A Study Seeking Copyright Permission to Digitize Published Works." New Library World 106.1214/1215 (2005): 332-42.

Objective – To assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the copyright permission-seeking process and to suggest improvements in order to improve outcomes.
Design – Workflow study.

Setting – Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

Sample – A random sample of titles published 1999-2001 was selected from the library's circulating collection. After eliminating duplicates, technical reports, theses, dissertations, and missing items, the sample comprised 337 titles. Of these titles, 70% were books, and 56% were from commercial publishers. From this a working sample of 273 titles was derived, comprising those titles protected by copyright and with the rights owner clearly indicated. About 73% of this working sample appeared to be out-of-print; their median publication year was 1981.
Method – In this two year study (1999-2001), a random sample of books was selected, and pertinent bibliographic and copyright holder information researched and recorded. Permission letters were sent and, six weeks later, follow-up letters were sent to non-respondents. The letter allowed respondents four options:
 Grant full permission to digitize the work and provide unrestricted Web access;
 Grant permission to digitize the work and provide read-only Web access, limited to Carnegie Mellon University users;
 Declare that they do not hold the rights, and hopefully provide information to identify and locate the actual rights holder;
 Deny permission for digitization.

Results were then recorded and analyzed.

Main results – Of the 273 letters mailed, a clear 'yes' or 'no' reply was obtained for just over half (52%) of the documents. Sixteen percent of the rights holders could not be found (the letter was returned, or a referral proved impossible to locate and contact). Another 25% of the copyright holders simply did not reply, and 7% were otherwise problematic. Of the 143 'yes' or 'no' responses, 54% denied permission, while 46% granted permission. (Note: these percentage figures appear to be erroneously reversed in Table 1 of George's article.) Therefore, of the overall working sample of 273 titles, permission to digitize was obtained for only 24% of the titles.
A substantial portion of the permissions (41 of 66, or 62%) carried some restriction. This represents 15% of the total working sample. Only a few restriction requests were deemed too great to make use of the permission.
Commercial publishers who made up 58% of the working sample granted permission at the lowest rate (13%).
Response time averaged three months from the time the initial letter was sent until a 'yes' or 'no' response was received. Negative responses averaged a bit longer than positive responses (101 days to 124 days). However, some of this time was attributable to delays in issuing follow-up or redirected request letters (a step required in 60% of cases), owing to the limited staff resources at Carnegie Mellon.
The copyright ownership had changed in 23% of the sample, requiring more than one and up to three different addresses to be contacted before a response was received or the effort was terminated.
Conclusions – The study concluded that the permission rate would remain low unless additional efforts were made in the permission-seeking process (e.g., personal contacts in addition to letters and emails), or unless more selective approaches were employed (e.g., targeting non-commercial publishers). It also concluded that the process to seek copyright permissions was neither quick nor easy, suggesting the need for dedicated staff time and a readily accessible database of publisher contact information. As a result, subsequent projects have improved their permission-seeking process, focusing on more non-commercial publishers or older publication dates, and asking publishers for blanket consent for all of their out-of-print titles.


This article takes the long-standing fact of deviations from the principle of representation by population in Canada as the starting point and asks whether the consequence is the dilution of visible minority votes. It calculates visible minority voting power and compares it to the voting strength of voters who are not visible minorities for the 2004 federal electoral map using 2006 Census data and for provincial electoral districts. We conclude that vote dilution exists and is concentrated in the ridings with the largest proportions of visible minorities. Visible minority vote dilution carries special significance in light of demographic, policy and constitutional considerations. The article concludes by offering some suggestions for how the electoral boundary commissions that set the contours of ridings can address visible minority vote dilution, as well as possible legislative amendments.


This note addresses how deportation of undocumented immigrants affects the U.S. citizen children of those immigrants. The author examines this issue by studying the story of Marta Escoto, a woman facing deportation and also the mother and sole caregiver of a U.S. citizen child with a severely debilitating disease. If Escoto is deported and forced to return to her home country of Honduras, her daughter will likely be unable to continue to receive adequate and necessary health care. Mothers like Escoto who face deportation often plead the well-being of their children, but few can satisfy the high burden of proving that an extreme hardship will befall their children if their mother is deported. The author argues that while the proposed Child Citizen Protection Act attempts to remedy these problems, it does not go far enough. The Act would lower the burden of proof from extraordinary circumstances to mere consideration of the best interests of the citizen children. The author asserts that enactment of a law requiring such consideration is necessary to protect the rights of U.S. citizen children born to undocumented immigrants, children like Escoto's daughter.


This interpretive study identifies challenges of working with Bedouin and Jewish Israeli youth in two multicultural projects: education for sustainability and place-conscious education. It also describes the ways the adult project leaders addressed these challenges and their views on the effectiveness of their decisions. Participants comprised 16 Bedouin and Jewish educators. Data collection included interviews and observations of project meetings and staff meetings. Project leaders reported challenges related to (1) intergroup differences in environmental viewpoints, knowledge, and learning styles, (2) embedding issues of environmental justice in the multicultural discourse, and (3) Bedouin–Jewish interactions. To address these challenges, the leaders separated groups for some learning activities, directed discourses, adopted bilingual teaching strategies, and emphasized unique socio-cultural characteristics. Their level of satisfaction with most of their decisions is high. They avoided discussing the broader socio-political Arab–Jewish conflict. The findings highlight dilemmas that multicultural environmental projects pose and suggest the need to adopt critical pedagogy of place to address such dilemmas and challenges. The findings also emphasize the need to better prepare educators for environmental education in multicultural settings.


The Law of the Sea Committee ("LOS Committee" or "Committee") of the International Law Association's American Branch ("ABILA") will complete its project, Terms in the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea or in Convention Analysis that the Convention Does Not Define ("Report"), in 2009. If the U.S. Senate gives advice and consent, and President Barack Obama exchanges ratifications, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea ("UNCLOS" or "Convention") and its 1994 protocol will, belatedly in the view of many, become law for the United States, as they already are for much of the world. It is hoped that this group project, like those in which Professor Joseph C. Sweeney has participated, will contribute to a better world governed by the rule of law. Part I gives a short history of the movement from custom and other sources international law to treaty law affecting ocean space. Part II discusses the 1958 and 1982 law of the sea conventions. Part III traces the history of the definitions project and offers observations on the utility of the project, whether the United States becomes a Convention partner or not. FILLING SOME OF THE GAPS: THE INTERNATIONAL LAW ASSOCIATION (AMERICAN BRANCH) LAW OF THE SEA DEFINITIONS PROJECT


In Brussels, the officially Dutch-French bilingual but predominantly francophone capital of Belgium, a monolingual Dutch-medium and French-medium school system operate in parallel and independently from each other. Lately, an increasing number of francophone parents have sent their children to the Dutch-medium schools in, expecting that this will provide them with the 'immersion experience' felt necessary to become bilingual in French and Dutch. There has been much debate about the effects on the pupils of the complex multilingual environment in the Dutch-medium schools which has thus been created. This article reports on an analysis of Dutch writing proficiency of both French and Dutch-speaking pupils in these Dutch-medium schools. Quantitative measures of linguistic complexity, accuracy and productivity were used to assess the Dutch academic written production of 60 pupils from two age levels. Significant differences between the Dutch and the French pupils were mainly found with respect to accuracy.