Famous buildings of historical significance tend to occur in large, old cities such as London, Athens, Rome, Paris and Moscow, which also happen to be cities with some of the oldest and largest metro systems in the world. Metro stations tend to be placed near these monuments in order to attract scores of tourists. Various additional factors, such as traditional construction techniques and shallow foundations, conspire to make ancient buildings much more sensitive to ground subsidence than their modern counterparts. Furthermore, it is essential to make sure ancient buildings remain undamaged, as they are very much in the public eye and any damage sustained will have huge effects on the public opinion of the project.

This project investigates the various aspects of constructing lateral walls to protect ancient buildings, the various types of lateral walls, their construction methodology and their design methodology. As background to the lateral wall discussion, this project gives a brief overview of the various tunnelling techniques that exist, the various damage classifications and the considerations specific to boring tunnels near ancient buildings.

Finally, this project will focus on the AVE high-speed train line tunnel that is currently being constructed near the foundations of The Sagrada Familia, Barcelona's iconic cathedral built by the famous Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi. The scope of this project will primarily concentrate on the piled wall screen that has been built in order to protect the priceless Cathedral. The 2D finite element package Plaxis was used to perform a finite element analysis of the Sagrada Familia, the piled wall and the surrounding area.

A comparison was made between five different cases: A piled wall with a concrete block at the head and an area of consolidated soil (the adopted solution); a wall with no concrete block but with consolidated soil; a wall with a concrete block but no consolidated soil; a wall with no concrete block or consolidated soil; and finally, no wall at all.

The results show that the wall reduces surface deformations of the Sagrada Familia. The presence of the wall reduces the maximum vertical deformation by 41%. However, the maximum horizontal deformation was unchanged, although its location moved 10m away from the tunnel. With the wall, all points were shifted to the bottom left on the Boscardin and Cording graph, well within the negligible damage range, whereas without it, one point lay within the very slight damage range.

However, the concrete block and/or consolidated soil offer little to no reduction in maximum vertical or horizontal deformation. Additionally, their incorporation does not affect the points on the Boscardin and Cording graph.

A comparison between the measurements of the FEM analysis and measurements taken in practice conclude that the tunnel, together with the protective measures taken, poses minimal risk to the structural integrity of the Sagrada Familia.


With the imminent arrival of oncology biosimilars in the therapeutic paradigm, stakeholders including a clinician, specialist nurse, patient advocate, regulator and economist provide their perspective on optimising the uptake of these new agents in the treatment of cancer. A number of key messages emerge, based on the discussion that took place during a session of the European Society for Medical Oncology's Annual Congress, ESMO Madrid 2017. First, for successful integration of biosimilars into the global healthcare paradigm, informing and educating the full scope of stakeholders, including clinicians, nurses, pharmacists and patients, is primordial. Success is dependent on providing solid evidence and ensuring all voices are heard. Second, for oncology medicines, much can be learnt from the growing experience of approved biosimilars in other disease indications, with success stories for patients, their healthcare providers and healthcare budgets alike. Finally, effective sustainability of the impact on healthcare budgets and the redirection of these savings require education and transparency.


To determine whether it should be legal to use a nonhuman animal in genetics research, one needs to evaluate whether she should have the capacity to possess any legal right at all, that is, whether she should be deemed a 'legal person', as a matter of liberty, equality or both. The key trait is dignity and what I call 'practical autonomy'. If a nonhuman animal has the capacity to possess any legal right, the issue is then whether she should be entitled to such fundamental legal rights as bodily liberty and bodily integrity, and whether she should have the legal right to sue to enforce those rights.

Key Concepts:

Legal personhood is the fundamental building block of legal rights.

Legal persons have the capacity to possess legal rights.

Who should be a legal person is a matter of principle and not policy or precedent.

One may argue for legal personhood either a noncomparative or as a comparative right.

Practical autonomy is a sufficient condition for legal personhood as a noncomparative right.

One has practical autonomy if one can desire, intentionally try to fulfil that desire, and possesses a sense of self-sufficient to allow one to understand, even dimly, that it is oneself who wants something and is trying to get it.

The more exactly members of a nonhuman species resemble humans in behaviour, and the closer they are to humans taxonomically, the more confident we can be that they possess practical autonomy.

The Normative Model of equality is a hybrid of a comparative and a noncomparative right, as it determines rights against a larger social, political and legal backdrop. It seeks to identify whether some rational connection exists between the means used to accomplish an end and the end it seeks to accomplish and makes a judgement about whether the end itself is appropriate.

Prohibited ends might include a legislative or judicial classification that burdens a plaintiff in a manner that reflects deeply personal social stereotypes that are biologically immutable or changeable only at unacceptable personal costs or that involve morally irrelevant traits.

A Level 1 legal person may possess any of an infinite number of legal rights, again as a matter of liberty and equality.

Keywords:

legal rights;
animal rights;
legal personhood;
personhood;
capacity for legal rights


Will European companies investing abroad be transmitters of EU environmental policies or environmental dumpers? This article utilizes a most-differentcases approach to analyze transnational corporation (TNC) behavior in countries with less stringent environmental standards. Drawing on rational institutionalism, the article examines two significant European business investments in Mercosur countries: paper pulp mills in Uruguay and fishing off the coast of Argentina. These cases demonstrate that EU environmental standards will be diffused beyond Europe's borders if significant fixed assets are involved, high levels of public awareness and action in response to environmental degradation are possible, and if the environmental policy of an industry is successfully implemented in Europe. Paper pulp milling in Uruguay fulfilled these conditions and TNCs, in this case applied EU standards. This was not so with TNC fishing practices in Argentina. Also, with high citizen attention, local companies will adopt similar environmental practices to those of their European counterparts, improving environmental practices even without domestic government regulations.


Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), sarcoidosis and systemic sclerosis can each cause diffuse parenchymal lung disease involving alveolar epithelial abnormalities, and manifest as interstitial lung fibrosis. Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune connective tissue disease and sarcoidosis is a multisystem granulomatous disease; the development of lung fibrosis in both conditions generally indicates a poor prognosis. IPF is a progressive disease which is thought to occur after recurrent injury to the alveolar epithelium followed by dysregulation of cellular homoeostasis, abnormal repair and excessive deposition of extracellular matrix, ultimately leading to loss of lung function. Mortality 3–5 years after diagnosis of IPF is 50%, and treatment options are currently limited. Seibold et al have previously shown that a variant single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the promoter region of an airway mucin gene (MUC5B) is associated with greatly increased production of MUC5B, and with pulmonary fibrosis. This suggested that dysregulated MUC5B expression in the lung may be key to the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis. One hypothesis is that an excess of MUC5B causes bronchiolar plugging and impairs mucosal host defence, reducing clearance of inhaled substances (micro-organisms, cigarette smoke, etc), resulting in a chronic inflammatory burden on the alveolar surface, and, hence, development of IPF. Alternatively, MUC5B could interfere with alveolar repair, either by interfering with the interaction between the type II alveolar epithelial cells and the underlying matrix, or by interfering with the surface-tension properties of surfactant. This could enhance alveolar collapse and fibrosis of adjacent bronchoalveolar units, and eventually lead to the development of IPF. The genetic association study by Stock et al confirms the findings published in 2011 by Seibold et al and Zhang et al, that a single SNP (rs35705950) in the promoter region of MUC5B predisposes to IPF. The MUC5B finding in IPF exceeds genome-wide significance levels, and replicates prior work that was supported by an attempt at explaining the functional role of the SNP, thus, while not novel, this finding is almost incontrovertible. Following adjustment for disease severity, a trend bordering on statistical significance was observed by Stock et al between theMUC5B variant and slower decline in forced vital capacity in patients with IPF, which may be of interest clinically if it implies a better prognosis after development of disease. Similar association analyses with pulmonary fibrosis in sarcoidosis and scleroderma patients were largely negative, and confirm the findings of Peljito et al. There are some limitations to their work. First, variations in treatment within all groups could have impacted on the decline analyses. Second, the small cohort sizes for the studies regarding systemic sclerosis and sarcoidosis made these analyses underpowered, and no replication cohort was assessed. While the authors comment that another genetic association study also had similar results, their patient group was smaller and, therefore, more underpowered, making it difficult to be confident of the lack of association reported. Assuming 100% genotyping success rate, Stock et al had over 80% power to detect a SNP conferring an OR of 1.7 in the scleroderma analysis, and 2.5 in the sarcoidosis analysis. While it is arguable that these ORs are less than that conferred by the SNP in the original IPF work, they are significantly higher than the gold standard for genetic association work. Further studies using larger patient cohorts of non-IPF patients are, therefore, required to confirm the findings reported here. Given that this gene has rarely been considered in non-IPF, and no functional work is included in this manuscript, it remains possible that the true functional variant lies away from rs35705950. This SNP could be acting as a marker for another polymorphism with which it is in linkage disequilibrium (LD); such unscreened genetic variants, particularly in repetitive regions which the authors were unable to assess, may be the true disease-associated variant. A broader approach to the gene rather than a single SNP analysis (eg, haplotype tagging algorithm) could be used to investigate this further. Alternatively, evaluation of MUC5B expression in lung tissue of patients with lung fibrosis in the context of systemic sclerosis and sarcoidosis could be employed. Overexpression could suggest involvement of genetic variants within, or in LD with MUC5B, while the absence of MUC5B overexpression would highlight MUC5B and related pathways as IPF-specific, rather than an end pathway of all fibrotic lung disease. Although identification of the SNP rs35705950 could be used to target people at risk for developing IPF, and perhaps at lower risk of decline, the wider implication of this finding is that mucins may be important aetiologic factors in IPF, which could refocus future therapeutic studies in interstitial lung disease towards lung mucins, and communication between bronchiolar and alveolar surfaces. Further investigation is required into the effects of the MUC5B variant on secretion rates of MUC5B, and the expression ofMUC5B in alveolar epithelia in patients with this genetic variation. Finally, agents that reduce MUC5B transcriptional activity in vitro should be tested for activity in vivo, including in subjects expressing the variant genotype.


In most species with parental care, offspring disperse from the natal territory either at sexual maturity or when they are competent to survive independently. In humans and numerous avian species, dispersal from the natal family may not coincide with these developmental markers. This presents an adaptive puzzle, since delaying dispersal typically delays reproduction. Various ecological explanations for delayed dispersal in birds have been proposed and tested. Emlen (1995) suggested parallels between humans and birds with regard to the circumstances that influence family formation and dispersal timing. Work by other authors has applied Emlen's model to humans using proxy measures of "Natal Territory Quality" (NTQ). Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a longitudinal survey of U.S. families, I extract direct measures of NTQ to more rigorously test Emlen's prediction that higher NTQ leads to later dispersal. I use two age-based cohorts (born in 1957 and 1967). Focusing on three dispersal events (residential dispersal, first marriage, and first reproduction), I test whether economic variables describing family of origin (NTQ) and local conditions influence dispersal age. Multiple linear regression analysis is employed to elucidate the relationships between dispersal and NTQ. The independent variables appear to have different influences on the three dispersal events, suggesting differential salience of the independent variables for each dispersal type. Results also point to discrepancies across the two cohorts. For the older cohort, family income, father's employment status, and local unemployment rate appear to influence the timing of residential dispersal. Age at first reproduction and age at first marriage are both influenced by parents' education and household density; marriage timing is also affected by father's employment status also affecting marriage timing. For the younger cohort, father's employment status and household density affect residential dispersal timing, father's employment status, mother's education, and family income affect reproductive timing, and father's occupational prestige affects marriage timing. Females experience all dispersal events earlier than males. All results above reflect significant regression coefficients. However, according to criteria of acceptance for the models tested, the hypothesis was supported only for reproductive dispersal timing in the 1957 cohort.


After the cataclysmic explosion in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011, more than 100,000 citizens living within 20km of the nuclear power station were evacuated. These residents were not allowed to return home for more than a year, until April 2012, when the Japanese government began to lift the evacuation order for some areas. As local governments contemplate strategies to revive these communities, a lingering question remains: how safe is it to live here? Answering this question is difficult for a number of reasons. Our project aims to provide data to allow individuals and communities to make their own assessments. The Radioisotope Center (RC) in Niigata University has built a vehicle-mounted radiation monitoring system consisting of a real-time GPS receiver, a dosimeter, and a laptop. This tool allows government officials in the affected municipalities to continuously measure airborne radiation levels. RC has partnered with the Institute for Digital Research and Education (IDRE) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to develop a public web-based interface to this data to inform citizens about radiation levels in their communities. Both of these tools enable gathering and making data available to the general public more easily, and allow the public to make informed decisions about the safety of the decontaminated zones in the absence of widely-accepted standards.


This paper highlights the importance of establishing an infrastructure for partnering. First, a structure of partnering is suggested. The structure represents the ability to develop and disseminate resources that can be shared among involved parties in the partnering organization. Second, an infrastructure of partnering is described. It has some core functions, such as receiving, storing, retrieving, coding, etc., and supports the running of partnering in a real environment as well as a virtual environment. Workshops are essential for face-to-face contacts in a real environment while computerization helps to facilitate interaction between parties in a virtual environment. Also, a computer-based network terminal and a codification system are presented. Finally, two cases are presented to illustrate the current practices of construction partnering and justify the functions of the infrastructure. Some practical implications are provided to make the infrastructure more available to the construction industry.


Background The GuideLine Implementability Appraisal (GLIA) instrument has been suggested for identifying potentially remediable implementability issues during the guideline development process. Objective To explore to what extent using GLIA during the development process would result in guideline revision before publication. Methods The development process of the European hyponatremia guideline -coordinated by European Renal Best Practice - was our study context. Using the GLIA web-tool, eleven clinicians and methodologists from eight countries individually appraised 27 guideline statements. In a face-to-face consensus meeting, four GLIA panelists and one guideline development group (GDG) representative summarised potential implementability issues. The GDG discussed these issues, and revised the guideline if deemed necessary. Results We identified 33 issues; the GDG accepted 26 as potentially hampering implementability. This resulted in statement reformulation with (n=5) and without (n=10) influencing clinical content, adding or (re)moving entire statements (n=8), and adding information to tables or rationales (n=3). The majority of issues declined by the GDG (n=7) addressed clinical situations that were covered elsewhere in the guideline or were considered to be uncommon. Discussion Using GLIA during the development process resulted in a revised guideline. We felt that GDG representation in the consensus meeting optimize our appraisal process. Implications for Guideline Developers/Users Guideline organizations may want to consider incorporating GLIA into their development process. This may raise GDGs' awareness of potential implementability issues, and allow revision of the guideline accordingly prior to publication. Future research should explore the effect of GLIA-based revisions on implementability as assessed by guideline users.


Sun Turned to Darkness: Memory and Recovery in the Holocaust MemoirIn this study of Holocaust memoirs, David Patterson begins with two controversial assumptions. First, he believes the experience of Jews in the camps was different from that of gentiles -- necessarily different, because Jews, as the Chosen People, are partners in the covenant with God made at Sinai. Second, and as a result, he assumes any interpretation of that experience must be undertaken in light of that covenant, and in terms of that God. In nearly every memoir, according to Patterson, God "is there, either affirmed or denied, either silently or explicitly." Yet, Patterson asserts, "in nearly every discussion of the Holocaust memoir He is the first one forgotten." Patterson's evaluation has value, if only as a corrective to the largely secular, often politically based theories that tend to dominate the critical discussion of the Holocaust and its literature. If God can be forgotten in the study of the Holocaust, what hope can there be for a religiously informed approach to literary and historical studies in general, which have grown increasingly profane, in both senses of the word? Patterson's own approach, however, is beset with many problems of both theory and practice. The theoretical assumptions are, alternately, challenging and disturbing; but the deconstructive hermeneutics Patterson employs marginalizes and, at times, trivializes his work.Patterson's distinction between Jewish and gentile experiences in the death camps is an expression of faith, not a subject for verification. Yet it broaches the problem of special consideration for the suffering of some over others. We know that collectively the Jewish experience was, in fact, different, especially since, in most of the death camps, there were no gentile inmates. At Auschwitz, where there were, "selections" were suspended early in the war for all but the Jews, whose clothing and diet were inferior to other camp inmates, whose punishments were more brutal, and whose "healthcare" was more treacherous -- and that, of course, applies only to those Jews not sent immediately to their deaths upon arrival. But what of the experience of Jews and gentiles individually -- the experience described, after all, in the memoirs Patterson discusses? Weakened by disease, crazed with thirst, stupefied by malnutrition, numb with exposure, and exhausted by overwork, did those wearing a colored triangle have a qualitatively different experience from that of those wearing a yellow star? Few of us would care to measure individual suffering on such a scale, let alone construct comparisons in order to determine who endured more. Some commentators, though, have suggested that criminals in the camps may have benefited psychologically from their sense of guilt, however cruel and unusual the punishment, and that political prisoners may have been sustained by their commitment to a cause or outrage at injustice, while the very senselessness of the Nazis' war against the Jews may have further contributed to the mental and emotional anguish of Jewish inmates.Patterson, in a sense, wants to move the points of reference for this discussion from the historical and psychological to the spiritual, in his exploration of "the essential role of the eternal in the Holocaust memoir." In so doing, he claims to have discovered "what is distinctively Jewish in the Holocaust memoir and what distinguishes it from other memoirs; the One who is invoked in the memory needs that memory as much as the one who remembers." This theme of the interdependency of God and the Jewish people is a common one in Jewish tradition generally and Holocaust writing especially, perhaps expressed most succinctly in the opening line of "Without Jews," by Jacob Glatstein: "Without Jews there is no Jewish God. …


"The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women's Writing brings together chapters by leading scholars to provide innovative and comprehensive coverage of Victorian women writers' careers and literary achievements. While incorporating the scholarly insights of modern feminist criticism, it also reflects new approaches to women authors that have emerged with the rise of book history; periodical studies; performance studies; post-colonial studies; and scholarship on authorship, readership, and publishing. It traces the Victorian woman writer's career-from making her debut to working with publishers and editors to achieving literary fame-and challenges previous thinking about genres in which women contributed with success. Chapters on poetry, including a discussion of poetry in colonial and imperial contexts, reveal women's engagements with each other and male writers. Discussions on drama, life-writing, reviewing, history, travel writing, and children's literature uncover the remarkable achievement of women in fields relatively unknown"--


From a financial resources perspective, women remain relatively disadvantaged. The latest Global Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum finds an "economic participation and opportunity gap" of 41.9 percent between men and women globally. Even in developed economies where women are relatively well represented in the workforce, they continue to receive only around 80 cents for every dollar a man earns – and when they are women of colour, even less.


STUDY OBJECTIVES
To demonstrate equivalence in the clinical efficacy of telithromycin vs clarithromycin treatment of outpatients with acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis (AECB), and to compare the tolerability and respiratory-related health-care resource utilization associated with these treatment regimens.

DESIGN AND PATIENTS
A randomized, double-blind, multicenter, clinical study was conducted at 105 centers in 14 countries. Adult outpatients (age > or = 30 years) received oral telithromycin, 800 mg qd for 5 days (n = 270), or oral clarithromycin, 500 mg bid for 10 days (n = 282), for the treatment of AECB. Clinical and bacteriologic outcomes were assessed at the posttherapy/test-of-cure (TOC) visit (days 17 to 24; per-protocol population). Health-care resource utilization data were collected for each patient by investigators blinded to study medication up to the late posttherapy visit (days 31 to 36).

RESULTS
Clinical cure rates at the posttherapy/TOC visit were comparable between the groups (telithromycin, 193 of 225 patients [85.8%]; clarithromycin, 206 of 231 patients [89.2%]); bacteriologic outcome was satisfactory for 59 of 72 telithromycin-treated patients (81.9%) vs 63 of 76 clarithromycin-treated patients (82.9%). Health-care resource utilization assessed up to the late posttherapy visit was lower in the telithromycin treatment group than the clarithromycin treatment group, with significantly fewer hospitalizations for respiratory-related causes (one hospitalization vs eight hospitalizations for a total of 4 inpatient days vs 39 inpatient days, respectively), significantly fewer AECB-related emergency department visits (0 vs 8), and fewer unscheduled outpatient visits (11 vs 18). Fewer telithromycin-treated patients reported days lost from work (21 of 91 patients [23.1%]; 133 days) compared with those receiving clarithromycin (30 of 98 patients [30.6%]; 141 days). Telithromycin was well tolerated; adverse events considered possibly related to study medication were reported by 61 of 269 patients (22.7%) and 100 of 280 patients (35.7%) receiving telithromycin and clarithromycin, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
In this study, 5-day telithromycin treatment was as effective and well tolerated as 10-day clarithromycin treatment for patients with AECB, and was associated with a reduced utilization of health-care resources.


Polymerization processes with high reproducibility, traceability, and nontoxic compounds are required for biomedical applications. Here an automated solvent-free polymerization of hyperbranched polyglycerol has been established on a multiple-hundred gram scale. Performed is an anionic ring-opening multibranching (ROMB) polymerization with slow addition of glycidol. The solvent-free approach avoids commonly used organic solvents during the polymerization and work-up. Due to the automation of the polymerization process a high reproducibility and traceability is accomplished. The used reactor is equipped with an anchor stirrer and stirrer control, which measures the applied torque. A linear correlation of the increasing torque and the degree of polymerization is observed, which can be used to monitor the molecular weight in situ during the polymerization.


Down by the Riverside provides an expansive introduction to the development of African American religion and theology. Spanning the time of slavery up to the present, the volume moves beyond Protestant Christianity to address a broad diversity of African American religion from Conjure, Orisa, and Black Judaism to Islam, African American Catholicism, and humanism. This accessible historical overview begins with African religious heritages and traces the transition to various forms of Christianity, as well as the maintenance of African and Islamic traditions in antebellum America. Preeminent contributors include Charles Long, Gayraud Wilmore, Albert Raboteau, Manning Marable, M. Shawn Copeland, Vincent Harding, Mary Sawyer, Toinette Eugene, Anthony Pinn, and C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya. They consider the varieties of religious expression emerging from migration from the rural South to urban areas, African American women's participation in Christian missions, Black religious nationalism, and the development of Black Theology from its nineteenth-century precursors to its formulation by James Cone and later articulations by black feminist and womanist theologians. They also draw on case studies to provide a profile of the Black Christian church today. This thematic history of the unfolding of religious life in African America provides a window onto a rich array of African American people, practices, and theological positions.


Codification can be an effective means to centralize and to consolidate state power. The use of codification in this manner runs against the commonly perceived notion that it promotes republican and egalitarian values. As Simon Bolivar's dictatorship quickly crumbled around him, he turned to codification based on the Code Napoleon as part of an attempt to unify Gran Colombia. Factors leading him to this undertaking and source were the need for legal reform, his emulation of Napoleon, his exposure to the works of Jeremy Bentham, and, speculatively, the influence of Andres Bello. Boivar's attempt at codification was not to complete a successful and well-structured liberal reform agenda for his country, but rather to reassert central power and to create legal dependence on his regime. Amongst the political anarchy of the country and the disorganization, bad luck, and inaction of those charged with drafting the code, the project failed. Nonetheless, Bolivar's hopes of appropriating the Code Napoleon demonstrate that it was an important source for Latin American thought on civil law several decades before Bello used it in drafting the Chilean Civil Code.


The skill gap in geographical mobility is entirely driven by workers who report moving for a new job. A natural explanation lies in the large expected surplus accruing to skilled job matches. Just as large surpluses ease the frictions which impede job search in general, they also help overcome those frictions (specifically moving costs) which plague cross-city matching in particular. I reject the alternative hypothesis that mobility differences are driven by variation in the moving costs themselves, based on PSID evidence on self-reported willingness to move. Evidence on wage processes also supports my claims.


This study aims to employ low-cost adsorbent such as activated Na-Bentonite to remove hexavalent ion of Chromium (VI) from aqueous solution. The cumulative effect of different parameters like initial metal ion concentration, pH, rpm, adsorbent dosage and optimizing the process conditions for the maximum removal of Chromium (VI) was studied using response surface methodology. A 2 factorial central composite design using response surface methodology was used to get the mutual interaction between variables and then optimizing it. A Maximum chromium adsorption of 97.39% was achieved at pH 2.4 with adsorbent dosage 3.2 g, initial metal on concentration of 170 ppm and roation speed of 180 rpm. The FTIR spectrum of Na-bentonite was used to identify the functional groups. SEM was used to study the changes in morphology of Na-bentonite. The adsorption process has fit freundlich isotherm model and Pseudo-first


Agile development practices focus on developing and delivering working software systems in small iterations with minimal documentation. However, locally project focused agile practices overlook the need for holistic enterprise architecture. Lack of enterprise architecture in agile, especially in the large agile environments, may lead to a number of problems such as technical debt, unnecessary re-work, inconsistent communication, locally focused isolated architecture, design and implementation. There is a missing link between the enterprise architecture and agile development. Enterprise architecture is a strategic capability that should enable and enhance agility of agile development. However, organisations are not sure how best to approach strategic enterprise architecture capability for supporting agile development. This paper proposes and demonstrate the applicability of an integrated adaptive enterprise architecture driven agile development approach for large agile environments.


We develop a new dynamic general equilibrium model of firm location choice that can explain the observed sorting of firms by productivity and is consistent with the observed entry, exit, and relocation decisions of firms within an urban economy. We discuss existence of equilibrium of and characterize the stationary distribution of firms in each location. The parameters of the model can be estimated using a nested fixed point algorithm. We implement the estimator using data collect by Dunn and Bradstreet for the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The data suggest that firms located in the city are older and larger than firms located outside the urban core. As a consequence they use more land and labor in the production process. However, they face higher rental rates for land and office space which implies that they operate with a higher employee per land ratio. We find that our model explains these observed features of the data well. Finally, we consider the impact of different relocation policies that provide targeted subsidies to new start-ups and superstar firms.


A nylon membrane-based filter technique was developed to evaluate the bactericidal efficacy of mastitis control teat dip products. Using this method, we were able to determine that this protocol was both a rapid and effective method for evaluating the efficacy of our iodine- and bronopol-containing teat dips against a variety of mastitis-causing strains of bacteria such as E. coli, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, S. uberis, E. faecalis, and S. agalactiae, S. dysgalactiae , as well as the fungal strain C. albicans . The data presented in this report suggests that this method is useful in the initial assessment of newly developed bovine teat dips, as well as other medical formulations.


The effects of globalization on employment justify augmenting the fundamental principles articulated in the ILO's 1998 Declaration by including a global goal of decent work with a living wage. Adding the principle of decent work with a living wage can help keep labor law relevant because it can be the organizing principle for an array of unions and other groups interested in worker welfare to push for its implementation as a matter of international, regional and national law. The goal of decent work with a living wage can be a rallying cry to help overcome the prevailing neoliberal assumption that the present set of very limited regulations of the market is a natural law. Regaining the intellectual high ground for claims of worker rights to decent work with a living wage can be the product for, but also the cause of, organized action by those who share values in fair treatment at a global level. Unions, but also other NGOs, need to see that it is in their long term interest as well as the long term interest of the workers it claims to represent to reach across borders to work together to achieve this goal. Conflicting strategic interests and different legal and organizational cultures make this a daunting goal, but one worth pursuing.


This paper presents the results of a qualitative research study that explored resilience with four urban Aboriginal women. The research focused on the strengths of urban Aboriginal women, for research has silenced the voices of Aboriginal women by using Western concepts and constructs that have maintained colonialism through a negative portrayal of Aboriginal women. A two-part analysis was utilised in my research on resilience with urban Aboriginal women. First, the Western concept definition of resilience (the ability to overcome adversity by having more protective factors than risk factors) was critiqued. Second, the process of resilience from the cultural framework of the Medicine Wheel was explored, while applying postcolonial Indigenous epistemological and methodological approaches. The voices of four urban Aboriginal women were honoured using a discussion group with three participants, followed by two in-depth interviews, which were analysed using content analysis. A study of the data revealed that, through relationship with self, others and the Creator, a process of resilience emerges, and this process can effectively be captured by using the Medicine Wheel as a tool for analysis and understanding. From a Western perspective, risk and protective factors are linear forms used to explore resilience. From an Indigenous perspective, however, the exploration is a continual web of relationships, process and flow that encompasses life from childhood to adulthood and through to Elder status. The research explored the positive strengths of Aboriginal women and showed that the process of resilience is dependent on Indigenous ways of knowing.


The European Union (EU) offers an example of deep judicialization, where highly salient political values are adjudicated on a regular basis. In such contexts, political attention may shift from national sovereignty costs (the vertical dimension) to distributive conflicts within and between states (the horizontal dimension), creating a multidimensional legal policy space. We discuss the implications of this setting for judicial behavior and argue that it may create both opportunities and pitfalls for international judges, depending on how the dimensions are related. If the institutional interests of judges in promoting international law systematically favor some states over others on the horizontal dimension, judicial activism is likely to provoke feedback effects in the form of severe legitimacy problems. If the dimensions are unrelated, on the other hand, adjudicators become further empowered. We draw on a large dataset to show how the Court of Justice of the EU has been able to use divisions between states on the left-right dimension to enhance the legitimacy and autonomy of European law.


Does policy responsiveness on the part of incumbent legislators affect their prospects for reelection? Recent studies of congressional campaigns demonstrate that incumbents who support policies that are more congruent with their constituents' preferences face fewer reelection obstacles. The present analysis considers this question in state legislative elections where voter knowledge of legislator activities is generally quite low. The findings demonstrate that incumbents positioned farther from the average citizen and toward their party's base are only slightly more likely to be challenged than other incumbents. However, more partisan voting incumbents do attract challengers capable of raising and spending larger amounts of money. Interestingly, incumbents positioned closer to their party's base actually receive a greater share of the vote in most contested elections. Only when challengers spend significant amounts of money do we see the positive effects of partisan voting by incumbents diminished. Overall, these findings demonstrate the mechanisms by which policy positions of incumbents in a low-information environment affect the challengers that emerge and the level of voter support received.


The paper attempts to reconstruct the writing of published case histories. Due to the establishment of a scientific classification system in psychiatry there were at the Charite several changes from the late 1870s onwards: (1) Not only was the documentation in the clinical records altered significantly, but also (2) the archive was reorganized into a double filing system and (3) the casuistic made a development from describing seldom or sensational cases into a mode which aimed to unfold psychiatric theory through 'typical cases'. Original medical records, the internal documentation of psychiatric observation, will be compared to their published version. Both, the narrative of a case study and the documentation in the clinical records reveal performative processes of observation and documentation.


The purpose of this study is to examine factors that positively influence users to adopt latest banking services which are based on information technology (IT). The study focus on three main banking services, internet banking (IB), phone banking (PB) and ATM because latest statistics show that Pakistani population has rapidly accepted these three services, compared to other IT services provided by banks. The basic constructs of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) along with other constructs are employed to study the cause of rapid acceptance of these banking technologies. A survey is conducted in twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi by distributing a questionnaire to customers of four different banks. The study shows that the intention to use the service is mainly due to trust in the service provided by banks. Results of this empirical study also reveal that factors affecting customers' intention to use the technology are not same for the three banking technologies.


Computerized ordering and scheduling system for manufacturing and fabrication industries, it uses bill of materials data, inventory data, and master production schedule to project what material is required, when, and in what quantity. MRP phases orders for dependent-demand items (such as raw materials, components, parts) over a period to synchronize flow of materials and in in-process inventories with production schedules. It also computes and tracks effect of hundreds of variables such as new orders, changes in various capacities, overloaded production centers, shortages, and delays by suppliers, and feeds financial data into the accounting system. In contrast to just in time inventory (a demand-pull production system), MRP is a plan-push system, and in contrast to advanced planning system (a forward scheduling system) it is a backward-scheduling system. Keywords: Material Requirement Planning, Production Schedules, Inventor


High technology exports (HTX) are considered as an important factor for sustainable economic growth for a country. One of the most important prerequisite to high tech manufacturing and export is technology ownership. Technology ownership can be gained through technology transfer by the way of inward foreign direct investments (FDI). Although many scholars emphasize foreign direct investments as a cheap and easy way of technology transfer, the role of human capital of the host country is considered as an important factor in this process. Another important aspect is economic freedom level (EFL) of the host country which is associated with FDI attraction of the host country. Here, we hypothesize that HTX are a longitudinal function of a country's level of inward FDI, EFL and human development level (HDL). We examine the associations among above mentioned variables using a panel data of EU-15 countries for the period 1995-2010 and find that EFL, HDL and FDI aggregately have a statistically significant positive impact on HTX by conducting panel cointegration method. Additionally, we employ panel causality test and see that there is long-run Granger causality running from FDI, HDL and EFL to HTX, and similarly from HTX, FDI and EFL to HDL.


National identity is the formation a common consciousness and language through the establishment of a common background, national ideology, ethics, emotions, remembrance and traditions in all individuals of a nation. Accordingly, having a rich historical background refers to the volition to live together as well as protect common values. Ethnic backgrounds of societies as well as their production and consumption practices, languages, religions, artistic concepts and development of similar elements throughout history also contributes to the formation of national culture concept in minds. Identity is expressed with several symbols denoting particular differences with regard to the others. Conceptualization of identity pertains to the categorizations of social relations into two groups (we and others) at least. With regard to all these, the purpose of our study is to depict the profile of the existence of national identity depending on economic, cultural and social changes, which has been created by modernity in different local areas of metropolises. Meanwhile, the characteristics of different local areas adopting national identity strongly or weakly, or not assuming it at all as well as the factors, which bring about such an adoption, will be studied. Therefore, 257 people living in different areas of Istanbul will be given questionnaires. Considering development levels, socio-economic status, population densities of different districts, a research field will be formed with random sampling method. Questionnaires will be implemented through interviews with individuals. Following the completion of field research, questionnaires will be evaluated with computer and the findings will be reported accordingly.


from urologists, which Dr. Chaussey rejected. Today, urologists have to think very hard to remember the last time that they operated on a patient with a kidney stone. Between percutaneous nephrostolithotomy (PCNL), ESWL, and endo-urology, the skill and ability to operate on a patient with a kidney stone is being lost. Kurtulus tells us in this journal the reasons why certain patients may have more signifi cant bleeding after PCNL. In 1996, Christian started working on high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the treatment of prostate cancer. Again, his work was met with signifi cant resistance and much skepticism. However, he persisted, and so far, in Germany, urologists have performed over 2500 HIFU procedures, with excellent results. In March 2006, I brought the fi rst American-made HIFU machine to Canada (HIFU is still not FDA approved) and am still experiencing the friendly criticism from a number of colleagues. However, this procedure represents our general approach to patient management today: to perform surgery that involves minimal invasion, maintains good patient quality of life, ideally less morbidity than open surgery, with the goal of providing comparable cure rates. There is still resistance to HIFU among some urologists mainly because of a lack of long term data, although I have been approached by radiologists who strongly desire training in this procedure. My concern is for our future urologists. As Klausner reports in his paper on the long term follow up of subcapsular prostatectomy, these procedures are being done for very enlarged prostates. With the widespread acceptance of medical management of benign prostatic hyperplasia, what we are experiencing now is that by the time medical therapy fails, these prostates have grown to a signifi cant size, making the minimally invasive approach much more diffi cult for the typical surgeon who performs green light laser or TURP procedures. However, the urologist who has been trained in a typical teaching-hospital will not have seen many retropubic subcapsular prostatectomies and will not have the skills to perform this open-surgery operation. We are also adopting a more conservative watchful waiting or expected surveillance approach to prostate cancer. However, as Lee reports, in his study, 43 of 66 patients (65%) who rejected a qualifi ed surveillance management option were upstaged at the time of radical prostatectomy. I do believe in the approach championed by my colleague Klotz and others. It has saved thousands of men from unnecessary surgery, but I am not sure how many "cures" we have missed because of "threshold variations" or inconsistent and inadequate sampling techniques. Are we becoming reluctant to do open operations, because we are too concerned about the potential side effects, which could theoretically be mitigated by the small number of Canadian Urologists that have had adequate training to perform laparoscopic or robotic radical prostatectomies? Guzzo reminds us that big bladder cancer deserves big surgery. However, even if lymph nodes are positive, with adjuvant chemotherapy, survival and response can defi nitely be enhanced. Do not be discouraged by bulky cancer, because debulking surgery will have a very positive impact on survival. Rodrigues reiterates that radiotherapy is very successful in the management of genitourinary (GU) malignancies. However, if one remembers the postulate that the intent of this less invasive "radical" therapy is to minimize collateral damage, then by utilizing helical tomography the beam and treatment can be even more precise, thereby reducing side effects. Even this conservative radical therapy has side effects and needs to be improved. The ability to do effi cient, clean and complete open surgery is a tremendously valuable acquired skill that is achieved and perfected with the volume of surgeries. We must strive to obtain that fi ne balance in adopting an aggressive conservative approach ("aggressative") to the patient with a signifi cant benign or malignant GU condition. One should never feel embarrassed about recommending open surgery for the right patient and for the right reasons, but it behooves experienced urologists who recommend open surgery to provide up-and-coming urologists with the skills to be able to achieve comparable morbidity and long term survival results as those achieved with a "minimally invasive approach."


African-Americans must ensure each new generation the existence of a sound knowledge base that informs and elucidates the history and experiences of black people.... This is the continuing role of Black Studies programs as they struggle to exist in an era of advanced technology, with rapidly changing social patterns and limited resources. The promise of Black Studies ... lies in the ability to provide the foundation that supports and enriches; to nourish the vision and motivation of present and future generations; and to reaffirm the continuity between past, present and future. (1) Introduction In a very real sense, this paper is my way to say "thank you," and to acknowledge, in a formal way, my own understanding of the teachings of Nigerian musician and philosopher Chief Fela Sowande; a mentor whose work has been a major influence, not only on my development as an artist and an educator, but also as a human being. Chief Sowande's teachings allow me to appreciate the comments of Delores P. Aldridge and Carlene Young quoted above, which, in light of the crucial theme of the 2007 SIRAS conference, "Links and Relationships: Africans and the African Americans in the 21st Century," express timely points of view. As a faculty member teaching in a Department of Pan-African Studies, I am confronted by the challenge of making "Black Studies" relevant in a rapidly changing 21st century. I often find myself frustrated and depressed at each day's end as I am forced to accept the fact that too many students do not know how to process the information we impart to them in our classes. Our students come to us with virtually no knowledge or sense of their history and heritage as Americans of African descent; that there might be "links and relationships" between Africans and African-Americans in the 21st century is not a thought on their personal radar screens. In this paper, I will discuss the teachings and perceptions of Chief Sowande in an effort to assess his recommended approach to teaching Black or Africana Studies; an approach many now call "Afrocentric" or "African Centered." Individual Black Studies units, be they degree granting departments or academic programs, must necessarily provide curriculum offerings designed to help faculty, staff, students and community stakeholders move from genuine African centered theory to practice. Sowande presented the global African community with a viable blueprint for action that offers a healthy cultural vision both Africans in Africa and peoples of African descent living in the Diaspora can embrace. Given the legacy of colonialism in Africa and racial discrimination in the US, Sowande's work is also instructive because we are now living in an era when "being or thinking African" is no longer solely a function of one's origin of birth. My travels in West Africa--through Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal--have made it abundantly clear that many Africans in Africa, today, are in need of a fundamental reintroduction to their own "Old World" traditions. Too many of us have become more British than the British or more French than the French or more American than the Americans. We must finally resolve our collective identity crisis before we can improve the quality of life for our people anywhere we might find ourselves living in today's world. I will focus attention on selected works given to me by Chief Sowande during the 1970s: The Africanization of Black Studies: From the Circumference to the Center; African Studies and the Black American in 1968; The Way of Life of Peoples of African Descent and The Learning Process, Part One. I will use these now seminal writings to explore the philosophical center Sowande established to guide our investigation into what he preferred to call traditional African "Lifestyle." I will consider Sowande's ideas in relation to those expressed in Molefi Asante's Afrocentricity (1980) and Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge (1990), Malidoma Patrice Some's Ritual: Power, Healing and Community (1993), and Asa Hilliard's African Power: Affirming African Indigenous Socialization in the Face of the Culture Wars (2002). …


We show that a recently developed semiclassical expansion for the eigenvalues of PT-symmetric oscillators of the form $V(x)=(ix)^{2N+1}+bix$ does not agree with an earlier WKB expression for $V(x)=-(ix)^{2N+1}$ the case $b=0$. The reason is due to the choice of different paths in the complex plane for the calculation of the WKB integrals. We compare the Stokes and anti-Stokes lines that apply to each case for the quintic oscillator and derive a general WKB expression that contains the two earlier ones.


Zygophyllum cornutum Coss belongs to the family of zygophylaceae which gathers 500 species distributed on 25 genera. These species are found in arid regions and represent more than 3% of the Sahara flora. This plant is well known for its therapeutic virtues and has traditionally been used for its anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antispasmodic as well as anti-diarrheal properties. It is also beneficial in lowering high levels of lipids and cholesterol in the blood. The present study aims to investigate the phytochemical profile as well as the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potential of Zygophyllum cornutum Coss. Colourimetric and precipitation assays were conducted on the aqueous extract of the plant to investigate the presence of certain secondary metabolites. Antioxidant effect via DPPH assay which allows the determination of free radical scavenging activity was evaluated. The anti-inflammatory activity was measured following Carrageenan-Induced Paw Edema method. The results revealed the presence of several secondary metabolites in the aqueous plant extract including flavonoids, tannins, terpenes, saponosides and alkaloids. With regard to the antioxidant effect, in vitro antioxidant potential of the methanol extract by the DPPH test exhibited an appreciable activity. The percentage inhibition of free radicals reached 10.9% and 75.15% at the concentration of 2.5 mg / ml and 25 mg / ml; respectively. 16.4 mg/ml was the concentration required to inhibit 50% of the free radicals. With respect to the anti-inflammatory activity, the 10% aqueous extract displayed a non-negligible anti-inflammatory effect. This extract reduced carrageenin-induced inflammation in mice in the same way as Diclofenac (12.5 mg / kg). The percentage of edema inhibition following aqueous extract administration reached 58.56% compared to 56.25% induced by Diclofenac. In conclusion, phytochemical profiling of Zygophyllum cornutum coss confirmed its richness in phenols and saponosides that possess a wide range of therapeutic virtues.


The problems with software patents are old and well-known. However it's not for a lack of trying that they have persisted. Software and tech companies have been pushing Congress to fix things for years. Each time they do, however, industries that rely crucially on the patent system, like pharma, stop reform efforts in their tracks, saying that making things better for tech companies would make them worse for others.Viewed this way, the problem isn't software patents. It's our unitary patent system and seeming inability to tailor it to work well for different industries. This inability, in turn, stems from international law, which requires patents to "be available and patent rights enjoyable without discrimination as to the field of technology." (TRIPS Article 27) While this clause hasn't attracted much attention, for years it has stymied popular proposals like abolishing software patents or putting a 5-year limit on them. "Because it's illegal under TRIPS," is a common refrain heard on Capitol Hill. However, this refrain is wrong. Because even though TRIPS says that patent law isn't allowed to treat different inventions differently, our patent law does just that, in many ways, including 35 USC 287(c), 35 USC 271(e), 35 USC 271(c). By relying on the 3-step test of Article 30 in TRIPS, and reverse engineering these provisions, the path to industry-specific reform that fix the problems that confront technology patents without disrupting the sound incentives the patent system provides becomes clear. The courts have already done much to tailor protection but they cannot accomplish certain reforms. The possibility of tailored, meaningful legislative reform sends a signal to the courts, innovators, and the market that fixing the patent system, to work better for innovators, companies, and consumers, is a top priority and a question not of can, or will our patent system be improved, but only a matter of how and when.


This work attempts to explain the types of computation that neural networks can perform by relating them to automata. We first define what it means for a real-time network with bounded precision to accept a language. A measure of network memory follows from this definition. We then characterize the classes of languages acceptable by various recurrent networks, attention, and convolutional networks. We find that LSTMs function like counter machines and relate convolutional networks to the subregular hierarchy. Overall, this work attempts to increase our understanding and ability to interpret neural networks through the lens of theory. These theoretical insights help explain neural computation, as well as the relationship between neural networks and natural language grammar.


I present a structural econometric analysis supporting the hypothesis that money is still relevant for shaping inflation and output dynamics in the United States. In particular, I find that real money balance effects are quantitatively important, although smaller than they used to be in the early postwar period. Moreover, I show three additional implications of the econometric estimates for monetary policy analysis. First, by including real money balance effects into the standard sticky price model, two stylized facts can be explained: the modestly procyclical real wage response to a monetary policy shock and the supply side effects of monetary policy. Second, the existence of real money balance effects causes higher volatility of output and lower volatility of interest rates under the optimal monetary policy. Third, the reduction in the size of real money balance effects can account for a significant decline in macroeconomic volatility.


Breast cancer risk tends to focus on the individual woman, and to ascribe responsibility accordingly. There is, however, a significant if marginalized body of scientific research that considers environmental hazards in relation to the disease. In a recent ESRC Science in Society funded project, we used a Geographical Information Systems for Participation (GIS-P) tool to map women's narratives of local hazards that might be associated with breast cancer risk. The maps and stories — of workplaces and playgrounds, homes and schools, factories and mines, of dust and the river — that evolved from this research process, reveal the participants' understanding of a shared community of risk. Thus risk becomes part of a collective identity, in relation to a shared and common danger, which shifts the locus of responsibility from the woman to the locale, and eventually to the agencies with authority of governance of those risks. This process contributes to the legitimization of `lay' narratives of aetiology, both as an ideological, political exercise, and as a pragmatic programme to open up deliberative democratic processes, and accord value and authority to citizens and non-professionals.


Proactive dependent interviewing (PDI) is a possible method to reduce errors in reports of change in longitudinal studies, reminding respondents of previous answers while asking if any change occurred. However, little research has been conducted on the impact of PDI question wording. This study examines the impact of PDI wording on change reports, and how these wordings interact with other survey features. Results indicate that asking about change in an unbalanced fashion leads to more reports of change initially than other wordings, but only in a face-to-face survey. Follow-up questions led to final change reports that were similar across all wordings, but this necessitates asking additional questions.


Recent advances in neural models have shown great results for virtual try-on (VTO) problems, where a 3D representation of a garment is deformed to fit a target body shape. However, current solutions are limited to a single garment layer, and cannot address the combinatorial complexity of mixing different garments. Motivated by this limitation, we investigate the use of neural fields for mix-and-match VTO, and identify and solve a fundamental challenge that existing neural-field methods cannot address: the interaction between layered neural fields. To this end, we propose a neural model that untangles layered neural fields to represent collision-free garment surfaces. The key ingredient is a neural untangling projection operator that works directly on the layered neural fields, not on explicit surface representations. Algorithms to resolve object-object interaction are inherently limited by the use of explicit geometric representations, and we show how methods that work directly on neural implicit representations could bring a change of paradigm and open the door to radically different approaches.


We report the interfacial assembly of amphiphilic heteroarm star copolymers (PSnP2VPn and PSn(P2VP-b-PtBA)n (n = 28 arms)) on graphene oxide flakes at the air-water interface. Adsorption, spreading, and ordering of star polymer micelles on the surface of the basal plane and edge of monolayer graphene oxide sheets were investigated on a Langmuir trough. This interface-mediated assembly resulted in micelle-decorated graphene oxide sheets with uniform spacing and organized morphology. We found that the surface activity of solvated graphene oxide sheets enables star polymer surfactants to subsequently adsorb on the presuspended graphene oxide sheets, thereby producing a bilayer complex. The positively charged heterocyclic pyridine-containing star polymers exhibited strong affinity onto the basal plane and edge of graphene oxide, leading to a well-organized and long-range ordered discrete micelle assembly. The preferred binding can be related to the increased conformational entropy due to the reduction of interarm repulsion. The extent of coverage was tuned by controlling assembly parameters such as concentration and solvent polarity. The polymer micelles on the basal plane remained incompressible under lateral compression in contrast to ones on the water surface due to strongly repulsive confined arms on the polar surface of graphene oxide and a preventive barrier in the form of the sheet edges. The densely packed biphasic tile-like morphology was evident, suggesting the high interfacial stability and mechanically stiff nature of graphene oxide sheets decorated with star polymer micelles. This noncovalent assembly represents a facile route for the control and fabrication of graphene oxide-inclusive ultrathin hybrid films applicable for layered nanocomposites.


Emerging fungal diseases can drive amphibian species to local extinction. During 2010–2016, we examined 1,921 urodeles in 3 European countries. Presence of the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans at new locations and in urodeles of different species expands the known geographic and host range of the fungus and underpins its imminent threat to biodiversity.


OpenMP is an architecture-independent language for programming in the shared memory model. OpenMP is designed to be simple and powerful in terms of programming abstractions. Unfortunately, the architecture-independent abstractions sometimes come with the price of low parallel performance. This is especially true for applications with an unstructured data access pattern running on distributed shared memory systems (DSM). Here, proper data distribution and algorithmic optimizations play a vital role for performance. In this article, we have investigated ways of improving the performance of an industrial class conjugate gradient (CG) solver, implemented in OpenMP running on two types of shared memory systems. We have evaluated bandwidth minimization, graph partitioning and reformulations of the original algorithm reducing global barriers. By a detailed analysis of barrier time and memory system performance, we found that bandwidth minimization is the most important optimization reducing both L2 misses and remote memory accesses. On a uniform memory system, we get perfect scaling. On a NUMA system, the performance is significantly improved with the algorithmic optimizations leaving the system dependent global reduction operations as a bottleneck.


Abstract As a unique tubular nanoclay, halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) have recently attracted significant research attention. The HNTs have outer diameters of ∼50 nm, inner lumens of ∼20 nm and are 200-1000 nm long. They are biocompatible nanomaterials and widely available in nature, which makes them good candidates for application in biomedicine. Compared with other types of nanoparticles such as polymer nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes, the drawbacks associated with HNTs include brittleness, difficulty with fabrication, low fracture strength, high density and inadequate biocompatibility. Preparation of polysaccharide-HNT composites offer a means to overcome these shortcomings. Halloysite nanotubes can be incorporated easily into polysaccharides via solution mixing, such as with chitosan (CS), sodium alginate, cellulose, pectin and amylose, for forming composite films, porous scaffolds or hydrogels. The interfacial interactions, such as electrostatic attraction and hydrogen bonding, between HNTs and the polysaccharides are critical for improvement of the properties. Morphology results show that HNTs are dispersed uniformly in the composites. The mechanical strength and Young's modulus of the composites in both the dry and wet states are enhanced by HNTs and the HNTs can also increase the storage modulus, glass-transition temperature and thermal stability of the composites. Cytocompatibility results demonstrate that the polysaccharide-HNT composites have low cytotoxicity even for HNT loading >80%. Therefore, the polysaccharide-HNT composites show great potential for biomedical applications, e.g. as tissue engineering scaffold materials, wound-dressing materials, drugdelivery carriers, and cell-isolation surfaces.


This article investigates a Japanese online participatory community, the Hinomoto Oniko project, that emerged after the Senkaku/Diaoyu boat collision incident of 2010 in the East China Sea. Drawing on tactical media as a conceptual framework, this study analyzes how the project challenged the prevailing meaning of a Chinese slur against the Japanese via tactical use of visual media and examines how its cultural and aesthetic performances were reproduced in the Japanese media landscape. This facilitates analysis of the implications of its cultural and aesthetic performances in a networked era.


Biological samples are notoriously difficult to use within portable miniaturised devices, often due to complex sample matrices or variation between cellular samples. Herein we describe a device that utilises a correction based upon the total soluble cellular protein and absorbance measurements for the accurate quantification of cell number from equine buccal swabs. Hemocytometer cell counts were initially conducted to determine average mammalian and bacterial contributions (97.66% and 2.34% respectively). Secondly, cells were lysed and centrifuged before the supernatant was utilised within a Bradford's ratio metric absorbance assay using a microplate reader. A correlation coefficient of r = 0.992 was determined, indicating this method was successful in utilising total soluble cellular protein for the quantification of cell number in unknown biological samples of this type. Upon the identification of a strong linear correlation coefficient, a portable microfluidic device was developed (r = 0.983) as a highly specific platform for real time buccal cell number quantification with the ability to be used for sample correction for buccal swab samples as low as 7.28 μg mL−1 in economic downstream biological diagnostic devices.


Increased advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) formation and oxidative stress are believed to underlie the pathogenesis of diabetic vascular complications including the impairment of the wound healing. In most developing countries, diabetic treatment is expensive and plants provide a cheap potential natural source of anti-diabetic remedies. Several studies have examined the beneficial effects of using Momordica charantia (MC) because of its hypoglycaemic properties in diabetic subjects. Here, for the first time, the anti-glycation and antioxidant properties of aqueous extracts of Momordica charantia pulp (MCP), flesh (MCF) and charantin were assessed in vitro. Since wound-healing is one of the most costly complications and affecting 15% of diabetic patients, the potential angiogenic activities of MCP, MCF and charantin in the presence or absence of AGEs were investigated.
Lysozyme was glycated using either glucose or methylglyoxal in the presence or absence of 5 to 15 mg/ml of Momordica charantia extracts in 0.1 M sodium phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) at 37°C for three days. The formation of glucose or methylglyoxal-derived AGE crosslinks was assessed using sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by Coomassie blue staining. A non-competitive ELISA method was used to investigate the effect of Momordica charantia extracts on carboxymethyllysine (CML) concentrations. Antioxidant activities of all extracts of Momordica charantia were evaluated using the stable free radical 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and hydroxyl radical-scavenging activity, metal chelating activity and reducing power. The phenolic, flavonols and flavonoid contents of all extracts were also measured. In vitro angiogenic assays including cell proliferation, migration and endothelial tube formation in Matrigel™ were used to assess the potential angiogenic effects of the natural extracts. By Western blotting, the angiogenic signalling pathways induced by AGEs and potentially modulated by MCP, MCF and charantin were also investigated. Furthermore, the neutralization of the receptor for AGEs (RAGE) was performed using a monoclonal anti-RAGE antibody to highlight the role of RAGE in the modulation of AGE-induced signalling pathways followed addition of MCP, MCF and charantin.
All extracts inhibited the formation of MG-derived AGEs in a dose-dependent manner and the MCF extract showed the most potent inhibitory effect on both AGE and CML formation. Antioxidant capacity of MCF was significantly higher than MCP based upon the DPPH and hydroxyl radical-scavenging activity (p < 0.005); however, MCP shows higher metal-chelating activity in comparison to other extracts. The content of phenolic compounds was expressed in gallic acid equivalents (GAE), whereas flavonols and flavonoid contents were expressed in rutin equivalents (RE). In addition, all Momordica charantia extracts increased bovine aortic endothelial cell (BAEC) proliferation, migration and tube formation with induction of p-ERK1/2 expression through RAGE. Moreover, these natural extracts decreased the anti-angiogenic effects of high concentration of BSA-AGEs.
Momordica charantia does not only have established hypoglycaemic effects but this study shows that crude extracts are capable of preventing MG-derived cross-linked AGEs and Glyoxalic acid-derived CML at least in vitro. This anti-glycation activity might be due to their antioxidant properties from their phenolic content. Furthermore, because of its pro-angiogenic effects and its ability to reduce the AGEs-induced anti-angiogenic effect, Momordica charantia presents a promising natural product for the development of a new strategy to accelerate wound-healing especially in diabetic foot. Thus, use of Momordica charantia deserves more attention in particular its ability to reduce AGE formation and oxidative stress in diabetic subjects and as a pro-angiogenic therapy.


The purpose of this study was to provide descriptive data on what factors individuals perceive help them to maintain sobriety following treatment for alcohol problems. The subjects were 40 males who met the criteria for designation as alcohol dependent. As part of an outcome study of behavioral marital therapy of alcoholism, subjects completed a two-year follow-up interview. Two questions from this evaluation pertained to subjects' perceptions of the factors that helped them to resist temptation to drink and that helped them to maintain sobriety for a period of at least two months. Subjects' responses were coded into seven Reasons categories. The analyses showed that more than half the subjects reported more than one reason, but that number or type of reason was not associated with treatment condition in the outcome study, length of the longest interval of sobriety, or the number of abstinent days during the follow- up period. The implications of these findings for treatment of alcohol problems are discussed.


This article focuses on the role of e-commerce on the entry-mode choice of service firms. On the basis of recent calls for the reconceptualization of marketing theories and concepts with services as a key component, the authors focus on the interface of e-commerce, services marketing, and foreign market entry-mode choice. The authors offer an integrative conceptual framework that explicates the role of e-commerce on the entry-mode choice of service firms, and they propose that several internal and external factors moderate this relationship. The authors derive several research propositions and offer managerial implications and directions for further research in the timely and exciting domain of services marketing.


Little is known about the values immigrant groups or U.S.-born racial and ethnic minorities attribute to wilderness. However, the views of these groups are important to wilderness preservation because of increasing diversity along ethnic, cultural, and racial lines in the United States. We examine the proposition that wilderness is a social construction (valued primarily by U.S.-born Whites) by comparing wilderness values for immigrants and U.S.-born minority respondents to Whites. Results from 10 wilderness value items show immigrants are significantly less likely to indicate on-site use value. Among U.S.-born racial/ethnic groups, Black respondents were least likely to indicate values associated with visitation and off-site use but as likely as Whites to indicate a value for continued existence of wilderness. U.S.-born Asians and Latinos were also less likely than Whites to indicate values relating to wilderness on-site use. Implications of findings for wilderness as social construction are discussed.


Workflow implementations require a deep understanding of business and human cooperation. Several approaches have been proposed to address this need for understanding, but largely in a descriptive way. Attempts to use them in software development have had mixed results. The work reported here proposes that these approaches can be used in a generative way, as part of the requirement engineering process, by (a) extending requirements engineering modelling techniques with underlying cooperation properties, (b) integrating these techniques through the use of a derivation modelling approach, and (c) providing pragmatic heuristics and guidelines that support the real-world requirements engineering practitioner to ensure a high probability of success for the business workflow system to be developed. This thesis develops and evaluates a derivation modelling approach that is based on scenario modelling. It supports clear and structured views of cooperation properties, and allows the derivation of articulation protocols from business workflow models in a scenario-driven manner. This enables requirements engineering to define how the expectations of the cooperative situation are to be fulfilled by the system to be built - a statement of requirements for business workflow systems that reflects the richness of these systems, but also acts as a feasible starting point for development. The work is evaluated through a real-world case study of business workflow management. The main contribution of this work is a demonstration that the above problems in modelling requirements for business workflow systems can be addressed by scenario-based derivation modelling approach. The method transforms models through a series of properties involving cooperation, which can be addressed by using what are effectively extensions of current requirements engineering methods.


Aspects of the molecular-level basis for the function of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate and trimethylolproprane trimethacrylate crosslinked methacrylic acid copolymers molecularly imprinted with (S)-propranolol have been studied using a series of all-component and all-atom molecular dynamics studies of the corresponding prepolymerization systems. The crosslinking agents were observed to contribute to template complexation, and the results were contrasted with previously reported template-recognition behavior of the corresponding polymers. Differences in the extent to which the two crosslinkers interacted with the functional monomer were identified, and correlations were made to polymer-ligand recognition behavior and the results of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic studies studies. This study demonstrates the importance of considering the functional monomer–crosslinker interaction when designing molecularly imprinted polymers, and highlights the often neglected general contribution of crosslinker to determining the nature of molecularly imprinted polymer-template selectivity.


Governments around the world fund schools and are also involved in operating them. There is wide agreement that governments should be involved in provision of education, but the appropriate level and form of their involvement is a subject of debate. The key justifications for government involvement are externalities and credit market imperfections, and this thesis examines these inefficiencies within the context of India's education system. Chapter 2 assesses human capital externalities in India. It demonstrates that living in a locality with educated individuals has a strong beneficial effect on wages over and above the effect of one's own education. In line with theoretical predictions, the effect is strongest for small geographical areas. In contrast to a general equilibrium interpretation of the results, skilled labour also benefits from a better level of local education. Furthermore, human capital externalities are more pronounced in nonprimary industries. Chapter 3 analyses the effect of credit constraints on education. The principal findings are that credit constraints significantly reduce school attendance and increase wealth inequalities in educational outcomes. Temporary income shocks reduce the probability of attending school, but access to credit mitigates this effect. Finally, the results are not limited to short-term outcomes, but are also seen to be present in long-term outcomes. Chapter 4 studies how representation of teachers in India's state Upper Houses affects the provision of education. The main results are that teacher representation increases employment of teachers in represented schools and reduces employment in unrepresented schools, with a corresponding effect on educational outcomes. Rather than achieving the intended objectives of teacher representation, teachers seem to have used their political power to shift resources in their favour.


This paper investigates and explores the relationship between agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP) and major fruit output: apple, citrus, pears, grapes and bananas in China. The ordinary least square (OLS) method and the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test were used to analyze the data, and the Johansen co-integration test was used to interpret the results. The machine learning technique was used to examine and to predict future agricultural productivity in China. Our study found that the coefficient of the apple fruit output has a significant or positive relationship with the AGDP. The results also show that the output of citrus, grapes and pears have coefficients that demonstrate a positive relationship with the AGDP, while the banana fruit output bears a negative relationship with China's AGDP and is statistically insignificant. The use of an econometric analysis and machine learning technique to examine the relationship between the AGDP and the output from major fruits production in China makes the current study unique. A review of the literature suggests that only limited research has been conducted in this area.

 Key words: Major fruits, AGDP, ADF, production, machine learning technique.


Can we find traditional periodic markets in the milieu of market activity that abounds in contemporary China today? As reform is transforming the rural economy, is periodic markets activity being intensified or undermined? What factors acocunt for the evolution of China's rural markets? The goal of this paper is to provide answers to some of these questions. In one sense, the study seeks to add to Skinner's seminal work by analyzing a set of primary data collected by the authors on periodic markets in today's rural China. The paper subjects a number of Skinner's predictions to quantitative testing, and updates his theory to account for institutional peculiarities in the contemporary period. In another sense, however, our study stands on its own. We make an inquiry into the characteristics of rural market emergence in contemporary China, seeking to untangle the determinants of the rise and decline of market activity.


The purpose of this research is to define a framework for the enhancement and commitment of public participation in the context of river basin management (RBM) in Portugal based on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) to achieve good water governance.
In Portugal, public participation is often scarce, in spite of stakeholders being invited to participate by water management companies, as later referred to in this research. The WFD also maintains that stakeholders should be involved in RBM decisions.
Based on an interpretivist research philosophy the research adopted case studies and expert interviews to provide multiple sources of evidence on the nature and complexity of River Basin Management and Public Participation
The main case study interviews were carried with the case study managers. Additional expert interviews were carried with other case study stakeholders and general stakeholders (from industry and agriculture sectors).
Data was analysed using content analysis. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) application produced "rich pictures" to identify the level of engagement and commitment by stakeholders to participation in national water resources management. Cross case analysis was performed using the outcomes of case studies and interviews. Following this, the final framework was developed to meet the aim and objectives of the research.
This research provided the identification of gaps in stakeholders' participation in RBM. A final conceptual model is presented aiming to guide decision makers to solve this problem. It is proposed that two types of partnering groups are created to fulfil the aim and objectives which were pursued.
The importance of this research relies on RBM improvement and the enhancement of the body of knowledge in Public Participation, to minimize the gaps on good water governance in Portugal. This research provides a framework which may guide some of the policy makers in RBM on how to optimise the participation of the stakeholders, assessing multi-stakeholder viewpoints in parallel. It aims to support the achievement of a major societal goal which is to gain trust among all groups of stakeholders and the community served by the river basin, which can lead to improved contribution and commitment to reach good water governance.


The gut–brain axis has attracted increasing attention in recent years, fueled by accumulating symptomatic, physiological, and pathological findings. In this study, the aggregation and toxicity of amyloid beta (Aβ), the pathogenic peptide associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), seeded by FapC amyloid fragments (FapCS) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa that colonizes the gut microbiome through infections are examined. FapCS display favorable binding with Aβ and a catalytic capacity in seeding the peptide amyloidosis. Upon seeding, twisted Aβ fibrils assume a much‐shortened periodicity approximating that of FapC fibrils, accompanied by a 37% sharp rise in the fibrillar diameter, compared with the control. The robust seeding capacity for Aβ by FapCS and the biofilm fragments derived from P. aeruginosa entail abnormal behavior pathology and immunohistology, as well as impaired cognitive function of zebrafish. Together, the data offer the first concrete evidence of structural integration and inheritance in peptide cross‐seeding, a crucial knowledge gap in understanding the pathological correlations between different amyloid diseases. The catalytic role of infectious bacteria in promoting Aβ amyloidosis may be exploited as a potential therapeutic target, while the altered mesoscopic signatures of Aβ fibrils may serve as a prototype for molecular assembly and a biomarker for screening bacterial infections in AD.


The statistics of 6-hour forecast errors for z, u, and v derived from the global data assimilation system at the Central Weather Bureau in Taiwan are presented. One point moments, including mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis of the forecast errors, are calculated at radiosonde stations to evaluate the statistical properties and define how close the distribution of the forecast error is to the Gaussian distribution. The degree to which the analyses fit the observation is also examined. The overall evaluations with respect to different domains show that the lower order statistics, mean and standard deviation, are reasonable and comparable to the results of other operational centers. The higher order statistics show that the distributions of the forecast error form an approximate Gaussian distribution. The spatial distribution of the one point moment shows that the mean and standard deviation of forecast errors are sensitive to the orographic effect (e.g., the Tibetan Plateau), the Asia and North American monsoon activities, and the mid-latitude disturbances. The pattern of the mean and standard deviation exhibits large-scale variability, which may be attributed to the background errors and suggest that the model error is dominated by large scales. The skewness and kurtosis have many local extremes, suggesting that observational errors dominate these higher order statistics.


The objective of this paper is to study the evolution of the incidence and profile of nonstandard workers in selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia in the past two decades. The analysis of the profile of this group of workers focuses on three key characteristics that could approximate their productivity: education level, labor income, and task content (manual/cognitive or routine/nonroutine) performed by the workers in their occupations. While in Latin America most of the countries show a stable prevalence in recent decades, in Europe and Central Asia there is not any common pattern across countries. In contrast, from the point of view of the profile of nonstable employment, there are several common characteristics among these types of workers across countries, such as improved level of education, performance of more intensive nonroutine cognitive tasks, and higher variance of labor income. The findings suggest that nonstandard workers are a heterogeneous group. The increase in the incidence of nonstandard employment and its heterogeneity generates concern about the lower level of insurance against certain risks that workers face. Therefore, a greater understanding of the trends in the prevalence and characteristics of nonstandard workers is needed to design regulation and policies oriented to these types of workers.


Machine learning prediction of the interaction between major histocompatibility complex I (MHC I) proteins and their small peptide ligands is important for vaccine design and other applications in adaptive immunity. We describe and benchmark a new open-source MHC I binding prediction package, MHCflurry. The software is a collection of allele-specific binding predictors incorporating a novel neural network architecture and adhering to software development best practices. MHCflurry outperformed the standard predictors NetMHC 4.0 and NetMHCpan 3.0 on a benchmark of mass spec-identified MHC ligands and showed competitive accuracy on a benchmark of affinity measurements. The accuracy improvement was due to substantially better prediction of non-9-mer peptide ligands, which offset a narrowly lower accuracy on 9-mers. MHCflurry was on average 8.6X faster than NetMHC and 44X faster than NetMHCpan; performance is further increased when a graphics processing unit (GPU) is available. MHCflurry is freely available to use, retrain, or extend, includes Python library and command line interfaces, and may be installed using standard package managers.


Abstract Images are known to have important effects on human perception and persuasion. Jihadist groups are also known to make strategic use of emotive imagery and symbolism for persuasive ends. Yet until recently studies of the online magazines published by violent jihadist groups largely focused on their textual, not their image, content and, while the image content of these magazines is now the subject of a burgeoning number of studies, few of these compare the images used by different groups. This article accordingly offers a cross-group comparison, examining the image content of a total of thirty-nine issues of five online magazines published by four different jihadist groups. Starting with a content analysis, it shows that the images' most common focus is non-leader jihadis. Using a news values analysis, it then shows how these images of non-leader jihadis are used to visually construct the identity of a "good Muslim." This construct is characterized by three traits, each corresponding to a different news value: fulfilled (personalization); active (consonance); and respected (prominence). Moreover, these traits are intertwined: fulfillment comes from responding actively to the call to violent jihad, which in turn promises respect. The article concludes by highlighting some subtle differences between how the news values of personalization, consonance, and prominence are realized in the different magazines, and by discussing the implications of the "good Muslim" construct for efforts to develop countermessages.


This study provides an analysis of environmental observations by farmers, as well as of models of blame in Northern Ghana, an agricultural region of high vulnerability to climate change. Qualitative data were collected through a standardised questionnaire on the community's consensus on how to explain observed changes. Responses were transcribed to allow content analysis. Natural data sets confirmed most local observations, but older age and the affectedness of the respondents were crucial in determining the views. Climate change was generally given a lower priority by the respondents compared to other manifestations of change, such as infrastructural development, human-spiritual relations and changes in social relations. Moreover, the respondents made reference to the blessing of the land and the destruction of the land. The destruction of the land was understood in a metaphorical way as the result of eroding social relationships and stagnation, as well as norm-breaking and lack of unity within the community. Thus, climate change was perceived in local social terms rather than based on global natural science knowledge. The article concludes that the anthropological analysis is meaningful and may serve as an entry point for further planning of adaptation and public education.


To reduce the complex communication problem that arise as the number of on-chip component increases, the use of Network-on-Chip (NoC) as interconnection architectures have become more promising to solve complex on-chip communication problems. However, providing a suitable test base to measure and verify functionality of any NoC is a compulsory. Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) is introduced as a standardized and reusable methodology for verifying integrated circuit design. In this research, a scalable and reconfigurable verification and benchmark environment for NoC is proposed.


The Lower Mekong Basin has extensive wetlands and these are being threatened by numerous problems. Most of these problems are interdependent and interact with one another. The lack of an appropriate definition of wetlands applicable to the region, pervasive inefficiencies and chronic lack of funds among riparian governments, and the poor appreciation of the true economic importance of wetlands and its resources are among the most prominent. The current definition, based on the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971), is too broad when compared to the "common" understanding of wetlands as being swamps, marshes and the like, and was developed specifically for wetlands with international importance as waterfowl habitats. Furthermore, wetlands are composed of different types of resources, which require different modes of management. Often, institutional competition, overlapping mandates and sometimes jealousies occur between government departments when they try to assert their authority on a particular wetland resource and use, and put forward their development plans without considering how these may conflict with other wetlands uses. Finally, effective wetland management requires reliable statistics or information on rate of harvest of natural resources such as fish and others, fishing/harvesting methods over time in order to determine the level of exploitation, and the status of the natural resources. This information is needed to identify opportunities for expansion, to establish historical trends, and to determine when management interventions are necessary to protect the resources from being overused by other developments. In order to address these issues, ICLARM - The World Fish Center has launched a project, the aim of objectives of which are described in this paper.


In this paper we investigate the relationships between informal institutions – proxied for by measures of religiosity – and levels of entrepreneurial activity, both productive and unproductive, using cross-section U.S. state level data. In doing so, we evaluate Baumol's (1990) conjectures on the role of institutions in determining whether entrepreneurs will channel their efforts towards wealth-generating activities or towards zero- or negative-sum rent-seeking. We distinguish between measures of both the belief (e.g., the frequency of prayer) and belonging (e.g., church attendance) that has been stressed by authors such as Barro and McCleary (2003). We find that several religious variables significantly and negatively correlate with a state's productive entrepreneurship score. Alternatively, most religious variables in our data do not correlate significantly with unproductive entrepreneurship. We also find that the percent of individuals reporting as atheist/agnostic is positively associated with productive entrepreneurship.


Energy costs are notoriously uncertain but what is the effect of this on energysaving investments? We find that real-option frictions imply a novel equilibrium response to increasing but uncertain energy costs: early investments are cautious but ultimately real-option frictions endogenously vanish, and the activity affected by higher energy costs fully recovers. We use electricity market data for counterfactual analysis of the real-option mark-ups and policy experiments. Uncertainty alone implies that the early compensation to new technologies exceeds entry costs by multiple factors, and that uncertainty-reducing subsidies to green energy can benefit the consumer side at the expense of the old capital rents, even in the absence of externalities from energy use.