Researchers have identified barriers to self-sufficiency of recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) (Ballou, 1977; Chrissinger, 1980; Sanger, 1979; Zuravin & Greif, 1989) and welfare programs (Ballou, 1977; Glass, 1982; Miller, 1989). However, no study has investigated the scope of substance abuse among the female AFDC population to determine an association between substance abuse and the achievement and maintenance of independence from public assistance. The study described in this article investigated the prevalence of alcoholism and drug abuse among female AFDC recipients. PREVIOUS RESEARCH Three studies examined alcohol and drug use in populations that included AFDC recipients. Zuravin and Greif (1989) found significantly higher binge drinking (of two days or more) and hard drug use among AFDC recipients with contact with child protective services (CPS) compared to mothers without CPS contact. Using toxicologic screening, Chasnoff, Landress, and Barrett (1990) found that 16.3 percent of pregnant women who used public clinics compared to 13.1 percent of pregnant women who used private clinics tested positively for alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, or opiate use or some combination. A comparison of alcohol and drug dependence of male and female recipients of General Public Assistance (GPA) and AFDC found that 16 percent of male recipients and 5 percent of female recipients were alcohol dependent and that 32 percent of males and 13 percent of females were drug dependent (Schmidt, 1992). METHOD The study employed a cross-sectional survey design with a nonprobability convenience sample to measure the prevalence of alcoholism and drug abuse in female AFDC recipients enrolled in Project Independence, a welfare-to-work program in Montgomery County, Maryland. A 50-item Health Habit Questionnaire was administered to all literate English-speaking AFDC recipients who enrolled in Project Independence from January 29, 1990, through May 4, 1990. Two highly reliable and valid standardized instruments, the 13-item Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (SMAST) (Selzer, Vinokur, & van Rooijen, 1975) and the 20-item Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST) (Skinner, 1982), were embedded in questions on smoking, weight, mental health status, and physician and hospital use. RESULTS Sample Of the 206 female subjects, 68 percent were African American; 78 percent were single. The mean age of the sample was 30.1 years (SD = 7.26). The mean grade achievement of subjects was 11.4 (SD = 1.44); 63.4 percent of the sample were high school graduates. The mean number of children per subject was 1.9 (SD = 1.07); 42.2 percent of the sample had one child, and 36.4 percent had two children. The sample included 58.7 percent long-term recipients (36 of the last 60 months on AFDC), and 22.8 percent were potential long-term recipients (teenage parents without a high school diploma). Mandatory Project Independence participants formed 66.5 percent of the sample. Instruments Prevalence of substance abuse in the sample was estimated based on two operationalizations of SMAST and DAST scores. SMAST scores indicated that 11.4 percent were identified as alcoholics and 14.7 percent as possible alcoholics (possible alcoholics had experienced an alcohol-related social problem such as work sanction, an arrest for drunk driving, relationship problems, neglect of family responsibilities, and hospitalization or counseling because of drinking). DAST scores indicated that 9.4 percent of the sample were identified as drug abusers and 16.7 percent as drug users (drug users had used illicit drugs or had experienced a drug-related social problem such as work sanction, an arrest for illegal activities, a physical fight, relationship or family problems, medical illness, or withdrawal symptoms). Table 1. SMAST and DAST Scores Diagnosis Frequency % SMAST (N = 184) Not alcoholic 136 73. …


Understanding the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) is important for analyzing capital flows and the industrial organization of multinational firms. Most empirical studies of FDI, however, have focused on case studies of nontax factors in overseas investment decisions or on discerning reduced-form relationships between some measure of FDI and variables relating to nontax and tax aspects of the investment decision. In this paper, we examine the effects of taxation on FDI using previously unexplored (for this purpose) panel data on FDI by subsidiaries of U.S. multinational firms collected by Compustat's geographic segment file project. These firm- level data contain information on new capital investment overseas which enable us to measure tax influences on FDI more precisely and allow us to focus on structural models of subsidiaries' investment decision. Our empirical results cast significant doubt on the simplest notion that 'taxes don't matter' for U.S. firms' FDI decisions. Tax parameters influence FDI in precisely the way indicated by neoclassical models. Our results also lend support to the application of the 'tax capitalization' model to the study of dividend repatriation and foreign direct investment decisions.


In the past few years high throughput methods for assessment of DNA copy number alterations have witnessed rapid progress. Both 'in house' developed BAC, cDNA, oligonucleotide and commercial arrays are now available and widely applied in the study of the human genome, particularly in the context of disease. Cancer cells are known to exhibit DNA losses, gains and amplifications affecting tumor suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes. Moreover, these patterns of genomic imbalances may be associated with particular tumor types or subtypes and may have prognostic value. Here we summarize recent array CGH findings in neuroblastoma, a pediatric tumor of the sympathetic nervous system. A total of 176 primary tumors and 53 cell lines have been analyzed on different platforms. Through these studies the genomic content and boundaries of deletions, gains and amplifications were characterized with unprecedented accuracy. Furthermore, in conjunction with cytogenetic findings, array CGH allows the mapping of breakpoints of unbalanced translocations at a very high resolution.


Data declustering and replication can be used to reduce I/O times related with processing of data intensive queries. Declustering parallelizes the query retrieval process by distributing the data items requested by queries among several disks. Replication enables alternative disk choices for individual disk items and thus provides better query parallelism options. In general, existing replicated declustering schemes do not consider query log information and try to optimize all possible queries for a specific query type, such as range or spatial queries. In such schemes, it is assumed that two or more copies of all data items are to be generated and scheduling of these copies to disks are discussed. However, in some applications, generation of even two copies of all of the data items is not feasible, since data items tend to have very large sizes. In this work, we assume that there is a given limit on disk capacities and thus on replication amounts. We utilize existing query-log information to propose a selective replicated declustering scheme, in which we select the data items to be replicated and decide on their scheduling onto disks while respecting disk capacities. We propose and implement an iterative improvement algorithm to obtain a two-way replicated declustering and use this algorithm in a recursive framework to generate a multiway replicated declustering. Then we improve the obtained multiway replicated declustering by efficient refinement heuristics. Experiments conducted on realistic data sets show that the proposed scheme yields better performance results compared to existing replicated declustering schemes.


OBJECTIVE
To determine proportional morbidity rates (PMR) and risk factors for lower urinary tract diseases (LUTD) in cats.

DESIGN
Case-control study.

SAMPLE POPULATION
Records of 22,908 cats with LUTD and 263,168 cats without LUTD.

PROCEDURE
Data were retrieved from the Purdue Veterinary Medical Data Base. Descriptive statistics and univariate logistic regression analyses were performed to assess whether breed, age, sex, and neutering status were associated with different causes of LUTD.

RESULTS
Mean PMR for LUTD irrespective of cause was 8/100 cats (range, 2 to 13/100 cats). Increased risk for urocystolithiasis (Russian Blue, Himalayan, and Persian cats), bacterial urinary tract infections (UTI; Abyssinian cats), congenital urinary tract defects (Manx and Persian cats), and urinary incontinence (Manx cats) was detected. Cats between 2 and < 7 years of age had increased risk for urethral plugs, neurogenic disorders, congenital defects, and iatrogenic injuries. Cats between 4 and < 10 years of age had increased risk for urocystolithiasis, urethral obstructions, and idiopathic LUTD. Cats > or = 10 years of age had increased risk for UTI and neoplasia. Castrated males had increased risk for each cause of LUTD except UTI and incontinence. Spayed females had increased risk for urocystolithiasis, UTI, and neoplasia. Sexually intact females had decreased risk for each cause of LUTD except neurogenic disorders and iatrogenic injuries.

CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Specific breed, age, sex, and neutering status may be associated with specific types of feline LUTD. Knowledge of patient risk factors for LUTD may facilitate development of surveillance strategies that enhance earlier detection.


During cell division, replicated chromosomes align on the mitotic spindle poised to segregate to opposite ends of the cell. To prevent errors during mitosis, a spindle checkpoint monitors proper attachment of chromosomes to the spindle microtubules as well as tension that presumably exists between the chromosomes and the spindle. Indjeian et al. now describe Sgo1, a protein found on kinetochores (the central region of chromosomes that become attached to the mitotic spindle) that also has a microtubule-binding domain. In mutant yeast lacking Sgo1, chromosomes no longer align correctly on the spindle, and cell cycle progression is blocked. Sgo1 is likely to represent part of the cell's tension-sensing machinery when errors in chromosome-spindle interaction occur. Many tumor cells are characterized by increased genomic instability and chromosome segregation defects and may possess extra microtubule-organizing centrosomes and multipolar mitotic spindles. Quintyne et al. now find that cytoplasmic dynein-mediated centrosome clustering can help to prevent the formation of multipolar spindles in cells containing additional centrosomes. The authors suggest that the generation of spindle multipolarity in transformation may require two distinct steps--centrosomal amplification followed by centrosome separation. V. B. Indjeian, B. M. Stern, A. W. Murray, The centromeric protein Sgo1 is required to sense lack of tension on mitotic chromosomes. Science 307, 130-133 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text] N. J. Quintyne, J. E. Reing, D. R. Hoffelder, S. M. Gollin, W. S. Saunders, Spindle multipolarity is prevented by centrosomal clustering. Science 307, 127-129 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This study investigates planning policy shifts to shape a global knowledge city in the dual contemporary transformative processes of globalisation and the knowledge economy. It develops an integrative conceptual and policy analytical framework from cross-fertilising 'the global city' and 'the knowledge city', and tests it by applying it to Melbourne as a case study. The empirical analysis involves a content analysis of strategic plans and elite interviews with key policy makers and informants. The findings are mixed. At both the state and the city levels, the strategic plans demonstrate a growing presence and importance of key themes that define Melbourne as an emerging global knowledge city. However, the absence of a national policy and problematic inter-governmental coordination in strategic directions, and a lack of focus on human capital without due considerations of home grown talent and international students, are limiting Melbourne from fully reaching its potential as a global knowledge city. Drawing on these findings, this study concludes with a discussion about the effectiveness of the constructed framework in conceptualising 'the global knowledge city' and policy analysis; it also points out a few limitations of this exploratory study that require further research.


Electronic Commerce ( E-Commerce0 growth is increasing at a rapid rate and is replacing traditional commerce. The benefits of shopping online cannot be underestimated. The E-Commerce offers Internet users a wider range of benefits, such as finding the products which cannot be available locally and reducing Internet users' time for searching the related products. Furthermore, the Internet users receive more attractive sales promotional offers from Internet sellers and also through individual email accounts. Despite these motivational factors, there are various transactional and non-transactional issue involved such as, Internet users being uncomfortable while giving their credit cards numbers on the Internet, Internet merchants' misuse of users' peersonal information, lack of help from sales representative whilst purchasing online and offer of products are in different currencies. These and other factors appear to affect emerging trends of Electronic Commerce in Malaysia. This study therefore, focuses on providing a deeper insight into the factors that may motivate Malaysian Internet users' browsing or purchasing through the iNternet and also the concern factors, which affect the online buyers. This study seeks to identify the Internet users' frequency of placing orders on the Internet. Also to assess the number of hours spent per day when purchasing or browsing through the Internet as well as to test the relationship between motivation and concern factors with respect to demographic factors. Among the survey findings were: privacy, quality, payment, connection speed, trust and reluctant to change were the important factors discriminating much on Internet users' length of Internet usage, ownership of credit cards and frequency of online buying. Those six factors are the contributing factors inhibiting Malaysian Internet users to conduct online shopping. Interestingly, most of the motivation factors like accessibility, availability, distribution, searcharbility, and socialisation also contribute much discrimination for Malaysian Internet users to shop online. Therefore, electronic transactions should be secure, reliable, and trusted in order to attract and maintain existing users of the Internet. Such measures would increase Internet users confidence on the credibility of Internet sellers. Overall, this research study has added to the growing number of published research findings on the latest scenarios on emerging trends of Electronic commerce in Malsysia to date, with regards to online shopping activities.


Peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation has grown exponentially, yielding significant economic, social and environmental impacts.  Unsurprisingly, calls for strengthening regulatory controls regarding P2P accommodation have intensified in recent years.  Although research on the associated impacts of the growth of P2P accommodation has started to proliferate, minimal attention has been placed on the perceptions of residents.  This study examines the impacts of P2P accommodation at the neighbourhood and residential levels by drawing from the perceptions of residents of Koukaki, a southeast neighbourhood of the Municipality of Athens, Greece which in recent years has witnessed a dramatic increase in P2P accommodation listings.  The study identifies the perceived benefits and problems brought about on neighbourhoods as a result of the rapid growth of P2P accommodation in residential areas.  Overall, findings are informative of the implications of the rise of P2P accommodation in residential areas and are, thus, useful to tourism planners, developers and policymakers.


We propose a Gaussian process (GP) framework for robust inference in which a GP prior on the mixing weights of a two-component noise model augments the standard process over latent function values. This approach is a generalization of the mixture likelihood used in traditional robust GP regression, and a specialization of the GP mixture models suggested by Tresp [1] and Rasmussenand Ghahramani [2]. The value of this restriction is in its tractable expectation propagation updates, which allow for faster inference and model selection, and better convergence than the standard mixture. An additional benefit over the latter method lies in our ability to incorporate knowledge of the noise domain to influence predictions, and to recover with the predictive distribution information about the outlier distribution via the gating process. The model has asymptotic complexity equal to that of conventional robust methods, but yields more confident predictions on benchmark problems than classical heavy-tailed models and exhibits improved stability for data with clustered corruptions, for which they fail altogether. We show further how our approach can be used without adjustment for more smoothly heteroscedastic data, and suggest how it could be extended to more general noise models. We also address similarities with the work of Goldberg et al. [3].


Nixon and the Environment In 1967, the Liberian-flagged tanker 7brrey Canyon ran aground near England's Land's End, the first supertanker accident and still among history's worst oil tanker spills.(1) In 1989, the Exxon Valdez grounded in Alaska's Prince William Sound, causing the largest U.S. oil spill ever. Responding to accidents and to growth in the oil tanker trade, U.S. policy makers sought national and international rules to reduce ship pollution. Although dramatic incidents such as the Exxon Valdez might create the opposite impression, the efforts of these policy makers have met success.(2) Important international initiatives occurred during Richard M. Nixon's presidency, when the United States led international negotiations for a comprehensive new treaty to regulate ship pollution. Why did the United States lead on this international environmental issue during a Republican, pro-business president's term? The answer lies partly in the U.S. national interest. Yet, policy in the national interest does not occur automatically. Fragmented political systems such as those in the United States should rarely achieve such results. How did the United States do so? Four years before 7brrey Canyon, Rachel Carson's influential Silent Spring had "sounded an alarm" about the planet's endangered state, a cry crucial to the rise of environmental consciousness.(3) Two years following Torrey Canyon, only a month into Nixon's first term, an offshore oil well near Santa Barbara, California, blew out, fouling many miles of beach and drawing the nation's attention to oil pollution. Such events set the stage for Earth Day, April 22, 1970. In 1972, the international community registered its concern at the Stockholm United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment. In short, the modern environmental movement emerged from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.(4) In 1968, Richard Nixon won the White House. No one had reason to expect that the Nixon administration would lead on environmental policy. By 1972, the League of Conservation Voters would sponsor a book on Nixon subtitled The Politics of Devastation, giving the president little credit for environmental leadership.(5) Yet, Nixon presided over the most productive period in U.S. history for environmental legislation and policy.(6) Russell Train observes, By 1973, the president could point to the passage into law of major legislative proposals of his administration, including: air quality legislation, strengthened water quality and pesticide control legislation, new authorities to control noise and ocean dumping, and legislation establishing major national recreation areas at New York City and San Francisco as well as regulations to prevent oil and other spills in ports and waterways.(7) Besides legislation, the Nixon administration employed executive actions to advance environmental protection, including use of the Refuse Act of 1899 to control pollution and waste dumping into the nation's waters, regulations governing the use of poisons and pesticides on public lands, and declaration of parks and historic sites. The administration put whales on the endangered species list, ending U.S. commercial whaling. Nixon ordered federal agencies to review their activities' environmental impact, and he canceled the Cross-Florida Barge Canal and an Everglades jetport for Miami. In foreign policy, the administration achieved international cooperation to strengthen oil pollution control, regulate ocean dumping, condemn whaling, manage the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders, and support the 1972 Stockholm UN Conference on the Human Environment.(8) If due to Nixon, the domestic and international initiatives represent "an extraordinary environmental record in almost every respect."(9) Was Nixon the Environmental President? Although the Nixon era produced much new environmental policy, opinion on Nixon's responsibility ranges widely. …


Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are taken to study the interaction of a relativistic, circularly polarized laser pulse with a preformed overdense plasma channel containing a slice of micron size. The laser pulse is confined in the channel, so it can keep higher intensity on a longer time scale inside the channel than the case without a channel. The electrons, both in the slice and from the channel, are pushed forward in the channel by the large light pressure of the laser pulse, followed by the ions accelerated by the electro static field generated by the charge separation. As a result, the acceleration of the slice is more efficient and has a better collimation than in the case without a preformed channel.


Abstract. Knowledge about the spatial variability of in situ denitrification rates (Dr(in situ)) and their relation to the denitrification capacity in nitrate-contaminated aquifers is crucial to predict the development of groundwater quality. Therefore, 28 push–pull 15N tracer tests for the measurement of in situ denitrification rates were conducted in two sandy Pleistocene aquifers in northern Germany. The 15N analysis of denitrification-derived 15N-labelled N2 and N2O dissolved in water samples collected during the push–pull 15N tracer tests was performed using isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) in the lab and additionally for some tracer tests online in the field with a quadrupole membrane inlet mass spectrometer (MIMS) in order to test the feasibility of on-site real-time 15N analysis. Aquifer material from the same locations and depths as the push–pull injection points was incubated, and the initial and cumulative denitrification after 1 year of incubation (Dcum(365)) as well as the stock of reduced compounds (SRC) was compared with in situ measurements of denitrification. This was done to derive transfer functions suitable to predict Dcum(365) and SRC from Dr(in situ). Dr(in situ) ranged from 0 to 51.5 μg N kg−1 d−1. Denitrification rates derived from on-site isotope analysis using MIMS satisfactorily coincided with laboratory analysis by conventional IRMS, thus proving the feasibility of in situ analysis. Dr(in situ) was significantly higher in the sulfidic zone of both aquifers compared to the zone of non-sulfidic aquifer material. Overall, regressions between the Dcum(365) and SRC of the tested aquifer material with Dr(in situ) exhibited only a modest linear correlation for the full data set. However, the predictability of Dcum(365) and SRC from Dr(in situ) data clearly increased for aquifer samples from the zone of NO3−-bearing groundwater. In the NO3−-free aquifer zone, a lag phase of denitrification after NO3− injections was observed, which confounded the relationship between reactive compounds and in situ denitrification activity. This finding was attributed to adaptation processes in the microbial community after NO3− injections. It was also demonstrated that the microbial community in the NO3−-free zone just below the NO3−-bearing zone can be adapted to denitrification by NO3− injections into wells for an extended period. In situ denitrification rates were 30 to 65 times higher after pre-conditioning with NO3−. Results from this study suggest that such pre-conditioning is crucial for the measurement of D r (in situ) in deeper aquifer material from the NO3−-free groundwater zone and thus for the prediction of Dcum(365) and SRC from Dr(in situ).


A method is presented for generating composite SAR imagery from a set of multiple radiometrically terrain-corrected (RTC) backscatter images and their co-registered local illuminated areas. The process is implemented in map geometry: the resolution of each image is estimated locally as the inverse of the local contributing area and used to weight the contributions from all available observations. Some potential contributors could be out-of-swath or occluded by radar shadow. The resulting composite backscatter image can trade off temporal resolution for improved local spatial resolution while simultaneously increasing the local number of looks. The composite image is characterized by more homogenous properties (resolution, noise) in comparison to single acquisitions. The technique is demonstrated using ScanSAR data from ENVISAT ASAR and Radarsat-2.


Social equality demands a shift in attitude, away from treating older people and people with disabilities as special cases requiring special design solutions, and towards enabling them to have equal access to any product or service through a more inclusive approach to the design of buildings, public spaces and, more recently, products and services. This is not just important for social equality but also for business growth through new products and services and through creating wider potential markets.
It is a sad fact of life that as people get older there is a massive decline in their strength and dexterity. Due to the fact that we handle and manipulate so many things
throughout our life time, from the tiniest and most dexterous of tasks to heavy manual labour, this decline is very noticeable in our hands. In nearly all the actions that we use our hands for there is some form of grip used in order to hold onto an object before manipulating it. The natural decrease in strength combined with debilitating illness such as arthritis, means that hand grip strength or finger grip strength are very seriously affected.
This has a knock on affect of making it much harder to twist things or pinch and pull things. Therefore there is often a measured decrease in torque strength with age caused not so much by a decrease in wrist strength but more often than not by a decrease in grip strength.
Consumer packaging is a field in which many people, including young able bodied people, often struggle in relation to openability. Yet it is present in even the most mundane and neccessary of every day tasks such as eating, cleaning teeth, even drinking. Human interation with consumer packaging requires a wide range of hand dexterity and strength and a variety of differing hand actions. This paper looks at just one such set of actions; that used to open bottles and jars. It outlines all the arguments for inclusive design, stressing the importance for both consumers and business. This paper also outlines an engineering design approach for inclusive design that uses real human factors as design limits, resulting in packaging that will be easily opened by all it's end users without the expensive trial and error approach that has been used up to this point in time. This paper examines the affect of
grip strength on the required trorque to open closures and concludes that there is an optimum diameter for ease of opening that will decrease the required strength to open such closures.


Children's Adaptation to Electropalatography: Evidence from Acoustic Analysis of /t/ and /k/ Kara B. Knapp Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science Electropalatography (EPG) is a computer-based device that uses a fitted pseudopalate (similar to an orthodontic retainer) with embedded electrodes to track tongue-to-palate contact during speech for the purposes of providing treatment for a variety of communication disorders. This study evaluated six elementary school-aged children's ability to adapt their speech to the presence of the pseudopalate in their mouth. The participants' adaptation for the consonants /t/ and /k/ was examined over eight time intervals throughout a two and half hour time period. Adaptation was evaluated by measuring the duration, spectral mean, spectral variance, and relative intensity of the target sounds. The participants demonstrated significant changes in speech patterns upon initial placement of the pseudopalate across the spectral parameters of mean, variance, and relative intensity. However, no significant differences in duration were found for either phoneme in the pseudopalate versus no pseudopalate conditions. Therefore, temporal parameters for consonant duration were relatively unaffected by the pseudopalate. The children in the study were able to make some speech adaptations to the pseudopalate, however evidence from the /t/ and /k/ productions indicated that the majority of participants were not able to fully adapt to the EPG device during the two and a half hour time period. Clinicians using EPG must take adaptation effects into consideration.


We report radio SETI observations on a large number of known exoplanets and other nearby star systems using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA). Observations were made over about 19000 hr from 2009 May to 2015 December. This search focused on narrowband radio signals from a set totaling 9293 stars, including 2015 exoplanet stars and Kepler objects of interest and an additional 65 whose planets may be close to their habitable zones. The ATA observations were made using multiple synthesized beams and an anticoincidence filter to help identify terrestrial radio interference. Stars were observed over frequencies from 1 to 9 GHz in multiple bands that avoid strong terrestrial communication frequencies. Data were processed in near-real time for narrowband (0.7–100 Hz) continuous and pulsed signals with transmitter/receiver relative accelerations from −0.3 to 0.3 m s−2. A total of 1.9 × 108 unique signals requiring immediate follow-up were detected in observations covering more than 8 × 106 star-MHz. We detected no persistent signals from extraterrestrial technology exceeding our frequency-dependent sensitivity threshold of 180–310 × 10−26 W m−2.


Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed new guidelines for fabricating nanoscale gel materials, or nanogels, that can deliver numerous therapeutic treatments to treat cancer in a precise manner. In addition to enabling the delivery of drugs in response to tumors, their nanogels can target malignant cells (or biomarkers), degrade into nontoxic components and execute multiple clinical functions. [31]


Human activities and their relation with land, through agriculture and forestry, are significantly impacting Earth system functioning. Specifically, agriculture has increasingly become a key sector for adaptation and mitigation initiatives that address climate change and help ensure food security for a growing global population. Climate change and agricultural outcomes influence our ability to reach targets for at least seven of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. By 2015, 103 nations had committed themselves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, while 102 countries had prioritized agriculture in their adaptation agenda. Adaptation and mitigation actions within agriculture still receive insufficient support across scales, from local to international level. This paper reviews a series of climate change adaptation and mitigation options that can support increased production, production efficiency and greater food security for 9 billion people by 2050. Climate-smart agriculture can help foster synergies between productivity, adaptation, and mitigation, although trade-offs may be equally apparent. This study highlights the importance of identifying and exploiting those synergies in the context of Nationally Determined Contributions. Finally, the paper points out that keeping global warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 requires going beyond the agriculture sector and exploring possibilities with respect to reduced emissions from deforestation, food loss, and waste, as well as from rethinking human diets.


Abstract Objectives To assess how often new treatments for childhood cancer assessed in phase III randomised trials are superior or inferior to standard treatments and whether the pattern of successes and failures in new treatments is consistent with uncertainty being the ethical basis for enrolling patients in such trials. Design Observational study. Setting Phase III randomised controlled trials carried out under the aegis of the Children's Oncology Group between 1955 and 1997, regardless of whether they were published. Main outcome measures Overall survival, event free survival, and treatment related mortality. Results 126 trials were included, involving 152 comparisons and 36 567 patients. The odds ratio for overall survival with experimental treatments was 0.96 (99% confidence interval 0.89 to 1.03), indicating that new treatments are as likely to be inferior as they are to be superior to standard treatments. This result was not affected by publication bias, methodological quality, treatment type, disease, or comparator. Conclusions New treatments in childhood cancer tested in randomised controlled trials are, on average, as likely to be inferior as they are to be superior to standard treatments, confirming that the uncertainty principle has been operating.


Partial takings allow the government to expropriate the parts of an asset it needs, leaving the owner the remainder. Both vital and common, partial takings present unique challenges to the standard rules of eminent domain. Partial takings may result in the creation of suboptimal, and even unusable, parcels. Additionally, partial takings create assessment problems that do not arise when parcels are taken as a whole. Finally, partial takings engender opportunities for inefficient strategic behavior on the part of the government after the partial taking has been carried out. Current jurisprudence fails to resolve these problems and can even exacerbate them. This Article offers an innovative mechanism that remediates the shortcomings of extant partial takings doctrines. It proposes that the government give owners whose property is partially taken the power to force the government to purchase the remainder of the lot at fair market value. Exercise of this power by the private owner would lead to the reunification of the land in its pretaking form while transferring title to the entire parcel to a new single owner — namely the government. Implementation of our proposal would yield important benefits, including allowing for the preservation of current parcel configuration, lowering the cost of the adjudication process as a whole, and reducing the ability of the government to behave strategically. Additionally, our proposal would create opportunities for more efficient planning and land use by the government as the government would be free to reparcel, develop, and resell the parcels sold to it.


The paper attempts to show that Vattel established a duty of sovereigns not to interfere in the internal affairs of other states. Although Vattel did not use the terms 'interference' or 'intervention' in any technical sense of the term, it seems justified to see him as an early proponent of what is called today the principle of non-intervention. This will be evidenced by reviewing how Vattel rejected some of the arguments put forward by previous theorists of just war (Gentili, Grotius) who defended the right of European states to intervene in states of the New World in order to punish gross violations of the law of nature and nations. Arguing that the laws of war ought to be applied in reciprocal manner, Vattel questioned the distinction between 'civilized' and 'barbarian' nations on which these previous theorists relied. For him, the true 'barbarians' were those nations who fought wars without even attempting to publicly justify their behaviour.


Due to the evident ineffectiveness of conventional cancer treatments (e.g. chemotherapy and radiation), more efficient alternatives are needed. The potential of Alkaline Nutritional Infusion (ANI) as a legitimate alternative to chemotherapy and radiation is examined. While largely ignored in conventional oncology, the pH of the interstitial fluids is suggested as paramount in identifying a cancerous condition. It is further suggested that cancer is an over-acidic condition of the body that can be reversed and prevented with alkalizing treatments such as ANI. Full Body Bio-Electro Scan (FBBES) is presented as a noninvasive means to examine body pH and the presence of cancer. In addition, non-invasive Full-Body Thermography (FBT) and Full-Body Ultrasound (FBU) are presented as a noninvasive means to examine the physiology and the anatomy of the ograns, glands and tissues for inflammation, calcifications, cysts and tumors in the prevention and treatment of any cancerous condition. Finally, Live Blood Analysis (LBA) and Dried Blood Analysis (DBA) are non-invasive hematology tests for evaluating the health of the red and white blood cells and to view inflammatory and malignancy at the cellular level. In contrast to the acidosis caused by conventional cancer treatments, ANI methods such as Intravenous Nutritional Infusion (INI) and Rectal Nutritional Infusion (RNI) provide an alkalizing approach to cancer treatment and prevention.


The last decade of this past century has been witness to a revolution in the development and application of mathematical techniques to origami, the centuries-old Japanese art of paper-folding. The techniques used in mathematical origami design range from the abstruse to the highly approachable. In this talk, I will describe how geometric concepts led to the solution of a broad class of origami folding problems - specifically, the problem of efficiently folding a shape with an arbitrary number and arrangement of flaps, and along the way, enabled origami designs of mind-blowing complexity and realism, some of which you'll see, too. As often happens in mathematics, theory originally developed for its own sake has led to some surprising practical applications. The algorithms and theorems of origami design have shed light on long-standing mathematical questions and have solved practical engineering problems. I will discuss examples of how origami has enabled safer airbags, Brobdingnagian space telescopes, and more.


OBJECTIVES
Utilizing primary rat hepatocytes we investigated the potential antimutagenic and anti-cytotoxic effects of carboxymethyl chitin-glucan (CM-CG) with respect to oxidative stress induced by the model free-radical-generating compounds hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) or 2,3-dimethoxy-1,4-naphthoquinone (DMNQ). Different kinds of CM-CG action were studied by two different treatment protocols: a. pre-incubation of freshly isolated hepatocytes with the potential anti-mutagen followed by exposure to the oxidant or b. simultaneous treatment of hepatocytes with the potential anti-mutagen and the oxidant.

METHODS
As a measure of genotoxicity, the percentages of DNA in tails of comets by single cell gel electrophoresis were evaluated. The cytotoxicological endpoints analysed were the cell density (number of cells/cm2), and the percentages of apoptotic and necrotic cells.

RESULTS
H2O2 and DMNQ, causing DNA single-strand breaks via the formation of *OH radicals, have been demostrated to induce both genotoxic and cytotoxic effects in primary rat hepatocytes resulting in increased percentages of DNA in tails of comets, and increased frequencies of apoptotic and necrotic cells accompanied by a decreased cell density. Further investigations were therefore focussed on possible modifications of these parameters by CM-CG. The results obtained clearly demonstrate that CM-CG (applied before and during treatment) protects primary rat hepatocytes against the genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of oxidative stress (H2O2 or DMNQ), whereas CM-CG itself has no effect on the endpoints of genotoxicity and cytotoxicity studied.

CONCLUSION
Our results indicate that carboxymethyl chitin-glucan represents a natural fungal polysaccharide that can inhibit the genotoxicity and cytotoxicity of experimentally induced oxidative stress in primary rat hepatocytes.


Natural antioxidants are organic compounds with a potential to impede corrosion activity. In this research, the potential of natural antioxidants (in the form of green tea) as a corrosion inhibitor has been demonstrated. It has been shown that green tea extract inhibited the corrosion of steel reinforcing bar (rebar) within concrete applications. The extract induced the formation of a protective layer on the rebar surface, which in turn increased the overall corrosion resistance. Additionally, these natural inhibitors possess higher inhibition efficiencies when compared with well-established commercial solutions (in the form of calcium nitrite).


The chief preoccupation of the dissertation revolves around the European Union's project of calling forth a collective sense of "European identity" amongst people in the Union. It focuses specifically on how the European Union's identity politics plays out once the ethnic minorities with immigrant background now living in the Union are brought into view. The main purpose can be described as twofold; involving, firstly, a mapping and examination of how the EU construes and defines the identity it seeks to mobilize, and, secondly, a thorough discussion of the types of consequences or implications that stem from this endeavour.In demonstrating the strong tendency on part of the EU to articulate a common identity for the Union in ethno-cultural terms — whereby the EU is conceived as primarily a cultural community whose members are said to share the same origin, cultural heritage, religion and history — the study goes to great length in discussing the excluding implications that an ethno-cultural identity politics gives rise to. The dissertation argues that such an ethno-cultural disposition partly must be seen in light of the European Union's gradual adjustment to a largely neoliberal order; an order which has worked restraining on the feasibility of a social and political articulation of identity and citizenship in the Union.An introductory chapter outlines the discourse theoretical approach which guides the analyses in five essays. The essays mainly explore how the European Union's discourse on identity manifests in various policy areas - immigration, citizenship and education - all of which in one way or another address the issues of culture, the multicultural society, ethnic exclusion, racism and the situation for ethnic minorities and migrants. The complex of problems concerning ethnic, cultural and social exclusion in today's European Union thus constitutes a central theme engaged with throughout the dissertation.


[1] We present a new wavelet transform method to map spatial variations in effective elastic thickness Te and plate loading ratio f. The method assumes a model of thin plate flexural isostasy to describe the mechanical response of the lithosphere to vertical loading. In this model, the rheological properties of the lithosphere are aggregated into the effective elastic thickness Te of an equivalent thin plate overlying an inviscid fluid. A number of methods have been developed to map spatial variations in Te in an attempt to assess regional patterns of flexural strength. Our new method first obtains local coherence and local admittance through wavelet cross-spectral analysis of surface topography and Bouguer gravity anomaly. Wavelet coherence is used to obtain the local characteristic wavelength, which is a function of both Te and the degree of relative loading f of the plate by subsurface loads and surface loads (loading is the combined effect of erosion, sedimentation, intrusion, faulting, and metamorphism). Wavelet admittance, in a normalized form, is used to resolve this f − Te ambiguity, and maps are made of the spatial variations in Te and f. We carry out extensive tests of the wavelet method on simulated topography and Bouguer gravity anomaly data that we generate through finite difference simulations of flexural isostasy with spectrally realistic loads and simple spatial variations in Te. These tests demonstrate that the wavelet inversion method is reasonably robust to uncertainties in loading and in crustal thickness and is able to recover Te to within ±25–50% of its correct value. We apply the wavelet method to southern Africa and recover estimates of Te principally in the range 25–50 km, in good agreement with existing estimates from forward modeling and Fourier coherence analyses. We find that our Te estimates often exceed estimates of crustal thickness, pointing to a strong upper mantle in parts of southern Africa.


The paper explores the notion of social sustainability and critically examines the main assessment methods and metrics established to 'measure' the state and evolution of its underlying concepts. The paper shows how there is no consensus on the definition of social sustainability because this concept is currently being approached from diverging study perspectives and discipline-specific criteria,making a generalised definition difficult to achieve. In addition, traditional 'hard' social sustainability themes such as employment and poverty alleviation are increasingly being complemented or replaced by 'soft' and less measurable concepts such as happiness, well being and sense of place. This is adding complexity to the analysis,especially from an assessment point of view Within this context, the paper builds upon the recent 'reductionist 'versus 'integrated' sustainability assessment debate and contends that there is paucity of social sustainability assessment methodologies.Indeed, at a practical level, social sustainability assessment is often conducted (i)through social impact assessment, which is extended to incorporate biophysical and economical variables or (ii) by broadening the definition 'environment' and hence the thematic coverage of theme-specific assessment such as SIA. Similarly, the paper maintains that the development of new sustainability indicators is increasingly focused on measuring emerging themes rather than on improving the assessment of focused on measuring more traditional concepts such as equity and fairness. Indeed, the latter continue to be measured mainly in terms of income distribution and other monetary variables, hampering a meaningful progress in the assessment of social sustainability.


Pedagogy can be understood as methods and practices of teaching, and/or a way of being with children. In this paper, I use critical exposition and narrative to reflect on Max van Manen's (2012) theory of pedagogy as a relationship between adults and children. My writing is organized into alternating sections of exposition (theory) and narrative (practice) to illustrate the interplay between thinking and doing that typifies pedagogical relationships, and to demonstrate how pedagogy unfolds in the unpredictable, unexpected, unprecedented, and unique actions each of us perform in the relational events of our being with children.


This paper presents a completely wireless small cell unit for mobile communication systems with lowest possible power consumption. It consists of a simple frequency conversion from millimeter-wave backhaul to access frequencies based on the self-heterodyning concept with only analog amplifiers as active components. This enables an energy autonomous operation based on tiny solar panels, greatly simplifying its deployment. The sufficient linearity and phase noise performance at 60GHz was proven with measurements of an LTE signal easily meeting the access link 3GPP ACLR and EVM requirements. Moreover, a successful system test of our full end-to-end LT E mobile communication system with a commercial user device proved the expected and required high data rates.


We examine factors determining productivity of information-technology service activities at firm level, using most comprehensive data of information service industries in Japan. We focus on the degree of modularisation and resulting outsourcing and economies/diseconomies of scale in software development, and changes. We find that outsourcing has persistent negative effects on total factor productivity, suggesting not only productivity-enhancing modularisation is not fully utilised but also productivity-hindering remnants of traditional main-contractor-subcontractor relations still prevail in Japanese information service industries. We also find diseconomies of scale in software development, suggesting less efficient communication among development team members. JEL Classification: L23, L25, L86, O33.


Economic thought evolved over the past two centuries to focus on individual behavior as the basis for all economic activity. Some heterodox economists have pointed to the importance of group behavior and the influence of organizations on economic activity, but the neoclassical paradigm, with the rational isolated individual as its main actor, prevails in mainstream economics. This paper presents a "sociology of economics" to explain why the culture of the field of economics effectively blinds its practitioners to the phenomenon of group behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the paper details the field's methodology (habitus), which includes the assumptions of the rational and separable individual, and the belief system (doxa), consisting of the metaphors of the invisible hand and rational free choice, that supports the habitus. The culture of economics is firmly held in place by symbolic violence directed at those who question the prevailing culture. The paper further highlights the role of business and financial interests in supporting the prevailing culture of economics. In conclusion, a strong group culture, supported by powerful business and financial organizations, discourages economists from recognizing this group culture or the powerful organizations that support it.


Simulation is the intentional production or exaggeration o f psychological symptoms (cognitive and/or emotional) in an effort to obtain secondary gain (e.g.. avoiding work, obtaining financial compensation). While most current simulation measures can successfully identify obvious attempts at faking cognitive deficits (e.g.. memory impairment), they have been much less successful at identifying more sophisticated simulators. The Word Completion Memory Test (WCMT) is the first measure specifically developed to detect more sophisticated attempts at feigning memory impairment. Unlike other simulation detection measures, a sophisticated coaching methodology was used in developing the WCMT. An initial validity study suggested the WCMT is a valid and effective measure of simulation; however, additional data are needed before widespread use o f the instrument is appropriate. The primary purpose o f the present study was to provide additional validity and reliability information about the WCMT. A total o f 7 1 participants were recruited for this study: 15 undergraduates instructed to perform their best, 15 community volunteers instructed to perform their best. 15 undergraduates instructed to fake memory impairment, 15 community volunteers instructed to fake memory impairment, and 11 memorydisordered patients instructed to perform their best. Undergraduate and community participants were administered five tests o f neuropsychological functioning and five tests of simulation (including the WCMT) to explore the convergent and discriminant validity o f the WCMT. Two weeks later, these participants completed all 10 measures a second time to examine tcst-retest reliabilities. Memorydisordered patients were administered the WCMT and two of the same simulation measures administered to undergraduate and community participants during the course o f a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. Due to time constraints, memory-disordered patients were not administered the other seven measures that were administered to undergraduate and community participants. Results revealed that the WCMT successfully discriminated simulators from nonsimulators with an overall classification accuracy of 97%. When entered into discriminant function analyses, the W CM T consistently entered into the equations first, accounting for 70% o f the variance. In addition, the WCMT demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity, and 2-week test-rctest reliabilities


The article analyzes the theoretical foundations of M&A agreements of different companies. The types and forms of M&A agreements were investigated. Due to the conducted analysis on the sectoral distribution of M&A agreements, it was concluded that the industry leader in this area was the mechanical and industrial equipment production, which led the industry rankings in terms of amount and value of such agreements in 2018. The main factors of the increase of M&A processes in the insurance industry in 2018 are introduced in the paper – raise of interest rates, increase of the amount of available capital, improved conditions for the world economy development, tax reform in the USA. Much attention is also paid to M&A banking activities in the USA. The article points out that the healthcare sector has been dominated by the ten largest pharmaceutical companies with the highest return on investments, which spent an average of 35% on M&A of total investment volume in R&D and M&A in recent years.


We present a matrix-factorization algorithm that scales to input matrices with both huge number of rows and columns. Learned factors may be sparse or dense and/or nonnegative, which makes our algorithm suitable for dictionary learning, sparse component analysis, and nonnegative matrix factorization. Our algorithm streams matrix columns while subsampling them to iteratively learn the matrix factors. At each iteration, the row dimension of a new sample is reduced by subsampling, resulting in lower time complexity compared to a simple streaming algorithm. Our method comes with convergence guarantees to reach a stationary point of the matrix-factorization problem. We demonstrate its efficiency on massive functional magnetic resonance imaging data (2 TB), and on patches extracted from hyperspectral images (103 GB). For both problems, which involve different penalties on rows and columns, we obtain significant speed-ups compared to state-of-the-art algorithms.


Industrialised Building Systems (IBS) implementation requires a systemic
operational approach from conceptual design to implementation. In doing
so, ensuring the movement of knowledge amongst the team members for a
timely and within the budget implementation is a major concern because it
impacts the long-term sustainability of the completed project. This study
attempts to relate recent international findings to the Malaysian context,
which recommended the need to look at the life span of property projects and
proposing the development of tools and methodologies that could mitigate
the knowledge-loss phenomenon. It found some similarities between housing
development projects in USA with those of the local public projects. At the
conclusion of this paper, it supports the recommendation for a systemic review
of the local IBS delivery process by integrating 3D-CAD modelling during
the housing development design process. The systemic IBS process is expected
to promote a seamless transition towards 4D technology in the building phase.


Abstract High-resolution core-loss and low-loss spectra of α-quartz were acquired by electron energyloss spectroscopy (EELS) with a transmission electron microscope (TEM). Spectra contain the Si L1, L2,3, K, and O K core-loss edges, and the surface and bulk low-loss spectra. The core-loss edges represent the atom-projected partial densities of states of the excited atoms and provide information on the unoccupied s, p, and d states as a function of energy above the edge onset. The band structure and total density of states were calculated for α-quartz using a self-consistent pseudopotential method. Projected local densities of Si and O s, p, and d states (LDOS) were calculated and compared with the EELS core-loss edges. These LDOS successfully reproduce the dominant Si and O core-loss edge shapes up to ca. 15 eV above the conduction-band onset. In addition, the calculations provide evidence for considerable charge transfer from Si to O and suggest a marked ionicity of the Si-O bond. The experimental and calculated data indicate that O 2p-Si d π-type bonding is minimal. The low-loss spectra exhibit four peaks that are assigned to transitions from maxima in the valence-band density of states to the conduction band. A band gap of 9.65 eV is measured from the low-loss spectrum. The structures of the surface low-loss spectrum are reproduced by the joint density of states derived from the band-structure calculation. This study provides a detailed description of the unoccupied DOS of α-quartz by comparing the core-loss edges and low-loss spectrum, on a relative energy scale and relating the spectral features to the atom- and angular-momentum-resolved components of a pseudopotential band-structure calculation.


Background: This study was undertaken to compare the outcome in patients with moderate to severe ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR) undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with either mitral valve repair or mitral valve replacement. Methods: Between March 2002 and February 2005, 49 consecutive patients (mean age: 62.84±8.42 years; mean EuroSCORE: 10.03±3.12) with coronary artery disease and moderate to severe IMR underwent CABG plus mitral valve replacement or mitral valve repair. The patients with annulus dilatation were more likely to undergo repair. The mean follow-up period was 18.89±2.1 months. Results: 40.8% of the patients underwent CABG plus mitral valve replacement, and 59.2% had CABG concomitant with mitral valve repair. The total rate of mortality in our population was 14.9% (7 patients) including 10.3% (3 patients) early mortalities; all the deceased patients were in the repair group. Both groups had a similar EuroSCORE, but more patients in the repair group had a recent episode of unstable angina (65.5% vs. 35.0%, respectively; P=0.035) and diabetes mellitus (44.8% vs. 10.0%, respectively; P=0.009). After the follow-up period, in the repair group, 11.5% had no features of Mitral regurgitation (MR); while 50% had mild MR, 23.1% moderate MR, 11.5% moderately severe MR, and 3.8% severe MR. Overall, 68.9% had no or mild MR, which we defined as successful repair, and 31.1% had moderate to severe MR. Success of repair and mortality were not statistically related to preoperative ejection fraction (39.2±7.8% vs. 32.5±8.5%; P=0.057). Conclusion : Early mortality was higher in the repair group than that in the replacement group, but this may have been due to the higher frequency of diabetes mellitus and unstable angina in the former group. Future studies are required to determine the benefit of repair versus replacement concomitant with CABG in IMR patients.


A report about a disease problem in cultured whiteleg shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) was first received by the National Fish Health Research Center (NaFisH) in 2011 from Perak State showing signs of white feces and slow death leading to serious mortality rate. Later, in September of the same year, the Malaysian Shrimp Farmers Association (MSFA) reported to Department of Fisheries (DOF) severe mortalities in almost all of the whiteleg shrimp farms throughout Peninsular Malaysia. Sampling of shrimps for disease diagnosis was then conducted by NaFisH. The bacteriological and histopathological examinations revealed respectively the isolation of V. parahemolyticus and massive sloughing of hepatopancreatic epithelial cells. The disease was subsequently identified as acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND). From our 3-year study, the annual prevalence rates of AHPND were 50%, 26% and 73% in 2011, 2012 and 2013, respectively. At present, AHPND still persists in Malaysia but at a lower prevalence. The risk factors associated with the disease were studied, however, varied environmental and management data analyzed were inconclusive to relate any one parameter directly to the disease. To help ensure the early detection of AHPND, an experimental observation study on `gut scorecard' was carried out and this was confirmed by PCR and histopathology. Validation of this technique has yet to be carried out to ensure its reliability. We also examined the potential use of some commercial products such as probiotics and disinfectants available in the market but unfortunately results showed that they were not effective in controlling AHPND. Control measures applied by the farmers such as the use of probiotics were also verified but data generated likewise appeared to be inconclusive. On the contrary, our preliminary study on the antibacterial property of the plant extracts, i.e. betel and lemongrass, incorporated in the feed showed some prophylactic and chemotherapeutic potential against AHPND. However, comprehensive in vitro and in vivo trials are still currently being undertaken to elucidate its efficacy and practical applications. To ensure the shrimp industry's sustainability in Malaysia, results of our ongoing and future studies aimed at preventing and controlling unwarranted outbreaks of AHPND and other emerging transboundary diseases of penaeid shrimps will be continually disseminated to shrimp farmers and pertinent stakeholders. D ow nl oa de d by [A no ny m ou s] fr om h tt p: // re po si to ry .s ea fd ec .o rg .p h on N ov em be r 9 , 2 01 9 at 6 :1 0 AM C ST


Participants in text entry studies usually copy phrases or compose novel messages. A composition task mimics actual user behavior and can allow researchers to better understand how a system might perform in reality. A problem with composition is that participants may gravitate towards writing simple text, that is, text containing only common words. Such simple text is insufficient to explore all factors governing a text entry method, such as its error correction features. We contribute to enhancing composition tasks in two ways. First, we show participants can modulate the difficulty of their compositions based on simple instructions. While it took more time to compose difficult messages, they were longer, had more difficult words, and resulted in more use of error correction features. Second, we compare two methods for obtaining a participant's intended text, comparing both methods with a previously proposed crowdsourced judging procedure. We found participant-supplied references were more accurate.


The pathogenesis of many diseases is driven by the interactions between helper T (TH) cells and macrophages. The phenotypes of these cells are functional dichotomies that are persuaded according to the surrounding milieu. In both multiple sclerosis and the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model, TH1 and TH17 cells propagate autoimmune signaling and inflammation in the peripheral lymphoid tissues. In turn, this proinflammatory repertoire promotes the classical activation, formerly the M1‐type, macrophages. Together, these cells infiltrate into the central nervous system (CNS) tissues and generate inflammatory and demyelinating lesions. Our most recent report demonstrated the immunomodulatory and anti‐inflammatory effects of adipose stromal vascular fraction (SVF) cells and adipose‐derived stem cells (ASCs) that led to functional, immunological, and pathological improvements in the EAE model. Here, a deeper investigation revealed the induction of regulatory T cells and alternative activation, or M2‐type, macrophages in the periphery followed by the presence of alternative activation macrophages, reduced cellular infiltrates, and attenuation of neuroinflammation in CNS tissues following intraperitoneal administration of these treatments. Spleens from treated EAE mice revealed diminished TH1 and TH17 cell activities and were markedly higher in the levels of anti‐inflammatory cytokine interleukin‐10. Interestingly, SVF cells were more effective than ASCs at mediating these beneficial changes, which were attributed to their localization to the spleens after administration. Together, SVF cells rapidly and robustly attenuated the propagation of autoimmune signaling in the periphery that provided a permissive milieu in the CNS for repair and possibly regeneration. Stem Cells 2017;35:2198–2207


Loktak Lake is an internationally important wetland in northeast India that provides
valuable goods and services to local communities as well as supporting high
biodiversity. Over the last three decades ecological modifications have occurred, most
notably due to the construction and operation of the Ithai Barrage. The focus on
maximising hydropower generation increased mean lake water levels and reduced their
annual variability. This thesis synthesises hydrometeorological and related data for the
lake and its catchment. Data are employed in coupled hydrological / hydraulic
catchment models (MIKE SHE / MIKE 11) of three gauged sub-catchments, which are
calibrated / validated using observed discharges. Results are used to estimate ungauged
sub-catchment flows. Catchment model results are combined with meteorological data
and current abstractions within a water balance model which successfully simulates
observed lake water levels. A series of barrage operation options are developed using
the water balance model which prioritise the requirements of major stakeholders
(hydropower, agriculture, and the lake ecosystem). A final option is developed, which
shows that it is possible to balance the demands of these stakeholders. The implications
of climate change are assessed by forcing meteorological inputs to the catchment and
water balance models based upon a number of climate scenarios. In the majority of
these scenarios, river inflows increase resulting in higher lake water levels that could
further exacerbate ecological degradation of the lake as well as enhancing flooding of
lakeside communities. The elevated water levels may permit additional irrigation
abstractions however existing infrastructure limits increases in hydropower generation.
The sustainability of the barrage operation options in the face of climate change is
assessed. Results suggest that climate change is likely to limit the ability of barrage
management to satisfy hydropower and agricultural demands whilst at the same time
establishing a more ecologically appropriate lake water level regime.


A mechanistic model describing the mass and momentum exchange in bubble columns is proposed that is based on the observations that the gas distribution in a bubble column is not uniform across the column and that as a consequence large liquid recirculation cells are formed in such columns. The model provides insight into the mechanism of mass and momentum exchange in bubble columns and predicts turbulent viscosities in bubble columns that are similar to those reported in the literature. It also predicts axial and radial dispersion coefficients that are of the same order of magnitude as the reported data. Whereas the model is based on a description of the underlying physical phenomena, its validity and extrapolation is expected to be more reliable than that of empirical correlations.


This chapter aims to show how a breast cancer campaign can be successfully planned and how the expected results can be achieved, in accordance with the best practices of health communication under the social marketing paradigm. The case study is the Pink October (month dedicated to women ' s health) at the Brazilian Federal Senate, in 2017, result of interdepartmental (Top Management, Health, Human Resources and Social Communica- tion areas) and interinstitutional (Federal Senate, Government of the Federal District and health-related institutions) partnership efforts. Social marketing, internal marketing and endobranding concepts are explored, as well as the breast cancer issue, in order to provide a better understanding among interested readers. While results are positive, some chal- lenges and concerns are brought to light, which point to the need for improvements in the Pink October program for the coming years. The case study involved literature review, analysis of media articles and focused interviews.


On Reducing the Decoding Complexity of Shingled Magnetic Recording System Nadia Awad Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) has been recognised as one of the alternative technologies to achieve an areal density beyond the limit of the perpendicular recording technique, 1 Tb/in2, which has an advantage of extending the use of the conventional method media and read/write head. This work presents SMR system subject to both Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) and Inter Track Interference (ITI) and investigates different equalisation/detection techniques in order to reduce the complexity of this system. To investigate the ITI in shingled systems, one-track one-head system model has been extended into two-track one-head system model to have two interfering tracks. Consequently, six novel decoding techniques have been applied to the new system in order to find the Maximum Likelihood (ML) sequence. The decoding complexity of the six techniques has been investigated and then measured. The results show that the complexity is reduced by more than three times with 0.5 dB loss in performance. To measure this complexity practically, perpendicular recording system has been implemented in hardware. Hardware architectures are designed for that system with successful Quartus II fitter which are: Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) channel, digital filter equaliser with and without Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and ideal channel architectures. Two different hardware designs are implemented for Viterbi Algorithm (VA), however, Quartus II fitter for both of them was unsuccessful. It is found that, Simulink/Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Builder based designs are not efficient for complex algorithms and the eligible solution for such designs is writing Hardware Description Language (HDL) codes for those algorithms. i To my beloved Mother and sister; Fatin for their support, encouragement and constant love


This study looks at some factors influencing mutual fund performance. Fund management location, family status and asset allocation and timing ability are examined. Using monthly returns on 4545 funds from Morningstar from January 1970 to June 2010, the study examines whether location influences the return a fund generates. It is found that U.S. managed funds outperform European managed funds, regardless of market invested in. This can be seen in terms of higher mean alpha, and statistically significant outperformance. A comparison is also carried out between the performance of family funds and non-family funds. Using the recursive portfolio technique and Rhodes utility based measure of persistence, the persistence of funds that are in a family are compared to those that do not belong to a family. A second hypothesis is also examined here, analyzing whether fund managers make their risk decision to influence performance for the second part of the year based on their performance in the first part of the year. It can be concluded that family status, family size or market does not affect persistence in performance. The study found that family rank has an impact on the risk adjustment behaviour of fund managers. The fact that the coefficient is negative suggests that managers are not behaving strategically. When markets are examined individually, fund managers within families compete in the U.S. and behave strategically in Europe. Finally, using asset allocation data on balanced funds, the study examines the skill of balanced fund managers to time particular asset classes. It is found that there is little timing ability present, across all markets and models.


We develop a probability network model to characterize eutrophication in the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina, and support the estimation of a total maximum daily load (TMDL) for nitrogen. Unlike conventional simulation models, probability networks describe probabilistic dependencies among system variables rather than substance mass balances. Full networks are decomposable into smaller submodels, with structure and quantification that reflect relevant theory, judgment, and/or observation. Model predictions are expressed probabilistically, which supports consideration of frequency-based water quality standards and explicit estimation of the TMDL margin of safety. For the Neuse Estuary TMDL application, the probability network can be used to predict compliance with the dissolved oxygen and chlorophyll a regulatory criteria as a function of riverine nitrogen load. In addition, the model includes ecological endpoints, such as fishkills and shellfish survival, that are typically more meaningful to stakeholders than conventional water quality characteristics. Incorporating these unregulated attributes into TMDL decisions will require explicit consideration of costs, benefits, and relative likelihoods of various possible outcomes under alternate loading scenarios.


Abstract. From September 1999 to December 2000, eXpendable Bathy-Thermograph (XBT) profiles were collected along the Genova-Palermo shipping route in the framework of the Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot Project (MFSPP). The route is virtually coincident with track 0044 of the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite altimeter, crossing the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian basins in an approximate N–S direction. This allows a direct comparison between XBT and altimetry, whose findings are presented in this paper. XBT sections reveal the presence of the major features of the regional circulation, namely the eastern boundary of the Ligurian gyre, the Bonifacio gyre and the Modified Atlantic Water inflow along the Sicily coast. Twenty-two comparisons of steric heights derived from the XBT data set with concurrent realizations of single-pass altimetric heights are made. The overall correlation is around 0.55 with an RMS difference of less than 3 cm. In the Tyrrhenian Sea the spectra are remarkably similar in shape, but in general the altimetric heights contain more energy. This difference is explained in terms of oceanographic signals, which are captured with a different intensity by the satellite altimeter and XBTs, as well as computational errors. On scales larger than 100 km, the data sets are also significantly coherent, with increasing coherence values at longer wavelengths. The XBTs were dropped every 18–20 km along the track: as a consequence, the spacing scale was unable to resolve adequately the internal radius of deformation (< 20 km). Furthermore, few XBT drops were carried out in the Ligurian Sea, due to the limited north-south extent of this basin, so the comparison is problematic there. On the contrary, the major features observed in the XBT data in the Tyrrhenian Sea are also detected by TOPEX/Poseidon. The manuscript is completed by a discussion on how to integrate the two data sets, in order to extract additional information. In particular, the results emphasize their complementariety in providing a dynamically complete description of the observed structures.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE IRAQ WAR brought the issue of military occupations to the forefront of American foreign policy. For the first time since 1945, the United States became engaged in a full-blown military occupation aimed at democratization by force. Key figures in the Bush administration, including Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, drew parallels between the American occupation of Iraq and the American occupation of Germany, the paradigm of a successful American exercise in radical regime change. In both cases, the United States had similar objectives: the removal of an authoritarian, criminal, and antagonistic regime by force and its eventual replacement with a friendly democratic government that would adhere to the tenets of liberal democracy and capitalism. Many policies implemented by Paul Bremer, III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, were purportedly modeled on the American occupation of Germany. Yet the differences between Germany in 1945 and Iraq in 2003 made the American occupation of Germany an implausible model. The levels of destruction and mayhem were incomparable. By the end of World War II, 3.5 million German combatants and 2 million civilians had been killed--about seven percent of the total German population. The war had reduced most German cities to rubble, and the collapse of the Nazi party and the elimination of its leaders had left an ideological and political vacuum. By the end of the war, the Allies had annihilated the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS, and the Gestapo and crushed the German will to fight. American occupation forces did not face active armed resistance. As a result, American troop levels in Germany decreased with time. In 1945, 1.6 million U.S. troops were in occupied Germany, but by the end of 1946 there were only 200,000. (1) Even after the hardships of the 1991 Gulf War, the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime, and the 2003 war, the situation in Iraq did not come close to the humanitarian crisis that engulfed Germany in 1945. Operation Iraqi Freedom caused minimal military and civilian casualties and scant urban destruction--less than 6,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed. (2) Furthermore, the destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime released Shi'ites and Kurds from the shackles of Sunni dominance, and this translated into retributive violence and tribal confrontations. The Americans never faced this issue in Germany. True, the pre-occupation regimes in Germany and Iraq embraced hypernationalist tenets, but religious, political, and ethnic schisms fragmented Iraq. Hitler had tried to convince Germans of the unity of the volk, and based his nationalist agenda on the exclusion of unwanted minorities and the simultaneous attempt to strengthen German collective identity. Nazi propaganda, the Holocaust, the war, defeat, and military occupation cemented the perception of national unity. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, did not succeed in homogenizing Iraq, and Iraqi nationalism did not suffice to unite Shi'as, Sunnis, and Kurds under a single imagined community. Even anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism have not proven to be unifying currents strong enough to overcome the religious, ethnic, and political schisms in current Iraq. However, another development was even more significant than the above. The Bush administration did not remember an important lesson of the American occupation of Germany. For a military occupation targeted at radical regime change to be successful, the occupiers must have an accurate understanding of the political situation in the occupied country to develop their agenda without alienating its population. The occupying power must be able to navigate the political waters carefully and garner the support of the occupied population. The ultimate objective is the conversion of the former enemy into an ally, an objective that the United States failed to achieve in Iraq. 1945 Germany Planning what to do with Germany after the collapse of the Third Reich proved difficult and contentious. …


In her famous autobiography Azadon ki Chaon men (Urdu, 1974), Anis Kidwai opens her depiction of the violence and chaos that followed India's Partition with the story of the tragic death of her husband. This valuable historical testimony that intertwines intimate narrations of pain, anxiety and loneliness clearly shows the interdependence of historical accounts and personal narratives. In Amrita Pritam's Pinjar (Punjabi, 1950) and Jyotirmoyee Devi's Epar Ganga Opar Ganga (Bengali, 1967), pseudo-autobiographies though written in the third person, similarly highlight the predominance of personal experience in the narration of the Partition. These three texts undoubtedly show that women's narratives are inextricably linked to a history of pain and, more widely, of violence; but they also demonstrate that social history as conveyed by women (and more generally by subalterns) is elaborated through the narration of intimacy, as exemplified by Azadi ki Chaon men which nonetheless adopts a historical perspective. This paper aims at showing that whereas this feature of female Partition narratives can be understood as a specificity of subaltern historical narratives, it also reveals the way in which women's voices internalize the metaphors of the Nation which transforms them into suffering bodies at the service of the Motherland.


This report summarizes West Nile virus (WNV) surveillance data reported to CDC through ArboNET as of 3 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, October 25, 2005.


When the National Trust for Historic Preservation purchased Drayton Hall in 1974, they made a groundbreaking decision. The Trust took a conservation approach to the house, preserving Drayton Hall as found and presenting it to the public unfurnished. The decision proved to have significant ramifications and as a direct result, interpreting the material culture at the site slid to the side. Drayton Hall has over a million objects in its collections ranging from archaeological sherds to pieces of furniture, yet the collections play little to no role in site interpretation to the public. The first generation furniture (ca. 1738-1779), at eight surviving pieces, makes up just a small facet of the Drayton Hall Museum Collection. Yet, its significance emphasizes the invaluable role collections play in interpreting Drayton Hall. The surviving furniture and recorded purchases by John Drayton illustrate the quality and style of furniture used to furnish Drayton Hall in the mid-eighteenth century. New research findings presented in this thesis reveal his use of imported furniture and Charleston-made furniture purchased from Thomas Elfe. An analysis of each group illuminates individuals of similar status to Drayton solidifying his place among the colonial elite in the colonies and transatlantically. As a whole, the furniture is representative of eighteenth-century consumer culture and John Drayton's taste. Drayton Hall collections are as important, as significant, and as unique as the architecture of the site. An analysis of the first generation furniture at Drayton Hall reveals the importance of material culture at the site.


Modelling of radiation transfer through natural multilayer media is relevant for many climatological, hydrological and ecological issues. The possibility of using the models is determined by the comprehensiveness of the information on the properties and structure of certain layers: ground, vegetation, atmosphere. Three-dimensional spatial organisation of tundra vegetation cover is understudied compared to vegetation structure of the boreal zone. In the scope of the research, the structure of sedge-tundra vegetation cover in the Nenets Autonomous Area and the Murmansk Region was investigated using specialised hardware-software system which allows to take photos of the cover from different angles, construct virtual three-dimensional models and obtain the values of parameters characterising the structure. The field survey of the sites was carried out in August 2016 and 2017. Phytoelement angle distributions obtained differ from standard erectophile distribution frequently used for modelling orientation of phytoelements in cover formed by grasses/sedges. The shape of phytoelement angle distribution varies from site to site depending on the dominant species. Experiments on fitting real distributions by different functions established that the generalised shape of the distribution in the studied cover is best described by a rotated-ellipsoidal function with a parameter equal to 2.69. Information obtained on the structure of the vegetation cover can be used in modelling microwaves and solar radiation propagation.


The purpose of this Panel is to address the role of government regulation in the political process. This strikes me as a peculiar construct since it invites the conception that alternatives are to be drawn between regulated and unregulated conduct. Such a contrast further presumes that government regulation is an artificial or unwelcome inroad into what would otherwise be properly functioning private arrangements or revealed market preferences. Indeed, I noted with some interest that other participants in this Symposium repeatedly invoked certain terms with regard to the regulation of one subset of the political marketplace, campaign finance. Panelists spoke of "spontaneous ordering," "private ordering," and "individual liberties"--classic terms used to attack the incursion of unwarranted regulation into the realm of presumed individual autonomy.(1) I find this invocation of a world of politics without government as curious as it is unimaginable. Political competition as we know it does not exist except in the context of state-created rules and regulations, and any discussion that presumes the contrary is simply misguided. Just as baseball must presuppose a consensus on how many outs each side has and what constitutes first base, democratic politics cannot exist without fairly rigidly prescribed rules of conduct imposed from outside the political process itself. Without clear ground rules that secure, among other things, that the losers of today can have a fair opportunity to displace the winners in the future, the orderly transfer of governmental authority among competing political factions would be impossible. But beyond the structural obstacles to democratic governance in the absence of fairly immutable rules of political engagement, there is a further conceptual difficulty in positing some natural order of unregulated politics. The idea of private ordering of majoritarian processes runs deeply counter to the central public choice insight which has grounded so much recent writing on the political process.(2) The public choice insight is basically that the idea of a revealed majority will is incoherent and that majority preferences are not stable over time or over a range of questions posed to the relevant pool of decisionmakers. As a consequence, those who set the agenda regarding how questions are posed to voters have tremendous power. The agenda setters can both manipulate the majority will and take advantage of the fact that large majorities rarely organize themselves around intensely desired objectives. The basic public choice move is then to call into question the revealed preferences of majorities and to ask whether purportedly majoritarian preferences are anything more than rent-seeking capture by the most self-interested, energetic groups. If we pursue this analysis, we find that, as difficult as it may be to discern true majoritarian preferences in a democratic political order, it is impossible to speak of a revealed preference outside of political organizations, political institutions, and, by extension, political regulation. Absent some channeling factor, majorities cannot act. If we were to try to think of the types of governmental action that are most likely to draw favor at this Symposium, be they national defense or the renaming of National Airport as Reagan National Airport, there would be no form by which that clear majoritarian preference could be put into effect except through a preexisting regulatory structure. To put it quite simply, there are no pre-political politics, and unless we are going to go back to the Hobbesian sovereign, we have to understand that there is going to be a regulated environment and that government regulation is a precondition for any kind of effective representative politics. At the most basic level, democracy presupposes strict government regulation of how electoral choices are made. Unfortunately, recognizing that governmental regulation of the political arena is inevitable only begins the inquiry, for there must still be some normative basis for analyzing the rules and regulations that actually govern our political process. …


Abstract.
 The genera Meles and Martes both belong to the family Mustelidae, both exhibit similar life history traits, ecology and foraging behaviour, and yet while Meles species are facultatively social, all Martes species are solitary. We compare and contrast the socio-biology of these two genera, establishing that as generalist omnivores both experience similar conditions of resource dispersion, but have intrinsic differences in their morphological and physiological capacity to exploit resources. The rotund body-type of badgers predisposes them to be able to tolerate conditions of restricted food security, by buffering periods of scarcity with increased body-mass. Badgers also use torpor to cope with seasonal food scarcity, and conserve energy by remaining within complex subterranean dens. Martens, in contrast, must maintain a lean, elongate body-type for effective hunting and thus do not store energy as increased body-mass to a comparable extent. Martens do not exhibit torpor and their dens are simple. We conclude that these differences prevent martens from being able to tolerate restricted food security; the type of precursive aggregation fundamental to the formation of social groups observed in badgers. We argue that the Japanese badger is transitionary in the development of integrated social organisation, forming spatial groups with extended juvenile philopatry.


Though Emirates officials are trying to censor news of the firing of tankers in the port of alFujairah, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi appear to have faced the consequences of their terrorist acts in the West Asian region much earlier than they thought. Now, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, as two failed actors in Yemen and the Western Asia region, feel the crisis in a few steps. Undoubtedly, in the near future, the severity and extent of the crisis will increase. The fact that the killing of innocent and defenseless Yemenis, including thousands of women and children in Yemen by the hated and hated Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates, has led to the anger of the Yemeni people and other Muslim nations from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. It has been repeatedly emphasized that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are considered to be the killers of the Yemeni nation and the United States, and they are doomed to failure. The fact is that all the western and Arab countries that have been killing and massacring Yemeni people are involved in the numerous crimes committed in this country. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen continues. Famine has spread across Yemen. Meanwhile, the United States, and Germany, Britain and France as its allies continue to maintain arms support for the Saudi assassination regime. Undoubtedly, the role of Washington and its allies in the killing of Yemeni women and children is very high. Finally, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their western supporters have become closer to the final point of the defeat in Yemen. Following the announcement of the Riyadh and Abu Dhabi official failure in the Yemeni war, the leaders of these two countries must be the answer to the public opinion of Muslim countries and people around the world as a war criminal in Yemen. Undoubtedly there is not much time left to reach this point. Iran's game just started


This was a curated exhibition including over 70 artists. Price was commissioned to create it by Hayward Touring, which has an established record of organising exhibitions selected by artists. The premise of such commissions is that artistic methods and approaches, rather than a curatorial ones will be employed.

The project of Price's exhibition was to bring together images and objects that are constituted horizontally, or express horizontal states, things and appearances. It comprised to some extent an enquiry into form, but also it sought to consider the social and psychological narratives that such forms may particularly infer or promote.

The exhibition showed how the horizontal form lent itself to certain subject matters: the depiction of sleep and dreams, sexual transport, illness and death, the art of mourning, memorialisation and of certain kinds of landscape. But it also sought to suggest that such forms also often inferred some narrative consequence.

A central hypothesis of the show was that the horizontal state, whether literally or figuratively expressed might be regarded as proposing a temporal interval: a short sleep, an interruption or respite – in labour, gesture, event, which the viewer is engaged to imaginatively fulfil. Rather than being passive or inert, such works actually dramatise the notion of potential. And this argument was not limited to figurative art. A number of laterally composed, literal, minimal sculptures were included in the show. Price argued that the objects and materials, of which these sculptures are constituted, rest in place, certainly still, but not absolutely fixed. So, a radical change in their arrangement is always implicit.

In order to give this narrative consequence some expression within the exhibition, the show was themed in four sections: SLEEPING, WORKING, MOURNING, DANCING intended to promote the sense of a cycle of life, and the real political and social world in which it occurs.


There is a significant interest in the standardized classification of human genetic variants. The availability of new large datasets generated through genome sequencing initiatives provides a ground for the computational evaluation of the supporting evidence. We used whole genome sequence data from 8,102 unrelated individuals to analyze the adequacy of estimated rates of disease on the basis of genetic risk and the expected population prevalence of the disease. Analyses included the ACMG recommended 56 gene-condition sets for incidental findings and 631 genes associated with 348 OrphaNet conditions. A total of 21,004 variants were used to identify patterns of inflation (i.e. excess genetic risk). Inflation, i.e., misclassification, increases as the level of evidence in ClinVar supporting the pathogenic nature of the variant decreases. The burden of rare variants was a main contributing factor of the observed inflation indicating misclassified benign private mutations. We also analyzed the dynamics of re-classification of variant pathogenicity in ClinVar over time. The study strongly suggests that ClinVar includes a significant proportion of wrongly ascertained variants, and underscores the critical role of ClinVar to contrast claims, and foster validation across submitters.


A smart power grid transforms the traditional electric grid into a user centric, intelligent power network. This paper addresses the cost optimization problem in the smart grid from the users' perspective. A home owner can install diverse energy generators and storage devices to reduce the dependency on external energy sources. The widespread utilization of green energy sources creates uncertainty in energy generation due to their unpredictable nature. A user can collaborate with the neighbors to participate in energy trading. The utility indirectly controls the energy consumption and generation in the system by utilizing a demand-oriented time varying price signal. The relationships between the participating components represent a complex unified system because of uncertain energy consumption and power generation disruption. Computational intelligence plays an essential role to coordinate the participating components. This paper proposes a cost optimization framework that breaks the dependencies between the components. The framework transforms the complex unified model into a simpler modular framework. Each module can be solved using different optimization approach which implies a simple, flexible and traceable strategy for practical implementation.


This paper proposes an algorithm for making recommendation so that the neutrality toward the viewpoint specified by a user is enhanced. This algorithm is useful for avoiding to make decisions based on biased information. Such a problem is pointed out as the filter bubble, which is the influence in social decisions biased by a personalization technology. To provide such a recommendation, we assume that a user specifies a viewpoint toward which the user want to enforce the neutrality, because recommendation that is neutral from any information is no longer recommendation. Given such a target viewpoint, we implemented information neutral recommendation algorithm by introducing a penalty term to enforce the statistical independence between the target viewpoint and a preference score. We empirically show that our algorithm enhances the independence toward the specified viewpoint by and then demonstrate how sets of recommended items are changed.


Working life continues to undergo rapid change. This change creates greater demand and sophistication and causes employees to experience more pressure, professionally and personally. Thus, absences from work due to sickness and injuries increase. In Sweden, this problem has become serious. This article argues that psychological empowerment and individual control are two key factors that minimize the many perils faced by the modern worker and those seeking to return to the work force through the vocational rehabilitation process. The findings show that a shift in ideology is needed. Specifically, there must be a shift from scientific management and Weberian bureaucracy towards organizational structures, routines, and cultures that support and increase individual worker psychological empowerment and control.