Summary
A survey of 1306 persons from four areas of coastal Costa Rica has been made for the purpose of determining the presence and distribution of individuals infected with microfilariae. That these microfilariae are W. bancrefti is born out by the fact that they were definitely sheathed and of nocturnal periodicity. The identification has been verified by two outstanding authorities, Drs. Faust and Brown.
The incidence of infection ranged from 1 per cent on the Pacific Coast to 15 per cent in certain areas on the Atlantic Coast. This would definitely establish certain portions of Costa Rica as regions of moderate infestation.
Among the native born population studied, the incidence was considerably higher among the negroes than among the whites.
The age incidence among the native born individuals is as follows:
Age
Percentage infected
1–10
18
11–20
36
21–40
36
41–50
10
The youngest infected native born individual was 4 years of age and the oldest was 55 years.
From our studies made throughout Costa Rica it appears that Limon was the original endemic focus of the infection. That it was originally imported into this country from Jamaica and the West Indies there is very little doubt. That with migration of infected individuals from the Limon area to other parts of Costa Rica there is likewise little doubt the infection will become endemic throughout Costa Rica unless rigid mosquito control is put into effect.
It appears probable, from the preliminary entomological studies, that Culex quinquefasciatus is the vector of filarial infection in the areas studied. This opinion is shared by Dr. Komp. However, proposed transmission experiments may incriminate other species which are known to exist in the endemic area.


Unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma is extremely difficult to treat. TheraSphere consists of yttrium-90 (a pure beta emitter) microspheres, which are injected into the hepatic arteries. This article reviews the safety and survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who were treated with yttrium-90 microspheres. Eighty patients were selected from a database of 108 yttrium-90 microsphere-treated patients and were staged by using Child-Pugh, Okuda, and Cancer of the Liver Italian Program scoring systems. Patients were treated with local, regional, and whole-liver approaches. Survival from first treatment was analyzed with Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression methods. Adverse events and complications of treatment were coded by using the Southwest Oncology Group toxicity scoring system. Patients received liver doses ranging from 47 to 270 Gy. Thirty-two patients (40%) received more than 1 treatment. Survival correlated with pretreatment Cancer of the Liver Italian Program scores ( P = .002), as well as with the individual Cancer of the Liver Italian Program components, Child-Pugh class, alpha-fetoprotein levels, and percentage of tumor replacement. Patients classified as Okuda stage I (n = 54) and II (n = 26) had median survival durations and 1-year survival rates of 628 days and 63%, and 384 days and 51%, respectively ( P = .02). One patient died of liver failure judged as possibly related to treatment. Thus, in selected patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, yttrium-90 microsphere treatment is safe and well tolerated. On the basis of these results, a randomized controlled trial is warranted comparing yttrium-90 microsphere treatment with transarterial chemoembolization by using the Cancer of the Liver Italian Program system for prospective stratified randomization.


The numerical simulation of interfacial and free surface flows is a vast and interesting topic in the areas of engineering and fundamental physics, such as the study of liquid-gas interfaces, formation of droplets,
bubbles and sprays, combustion problems with liquid and gas reagents, study of wave motion and others.
One of the most powerful and robust methods for interface tracking on fixed grids is the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF). This method tracks the interface between different fluids by evolving the volume fraction scalar field, ratio of fluid to total volume, in time. First, the interface geometry is reconstructed from local volume fraction data. Then, the interface reconstruction
and the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations are used to solve the volume fraction advection equation. The objective of this work is to implement a fast, accurate and parallelizable VOF/Navier-Stokes
model well suited to 3D unstructured staggered meshes. The interface will be reconstructed by a PLIC method and the advection step will be computed by the means of an unsplit-advection volume tracking algorithm. On the other hand, the Navier-
Stokes equations will be solved using an unstructured staggered formulation.
The VOF/Navier-Stokes implementation will be
tested by comparing the solution of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) to experimental results. The Richtmyer-Meshkov instability occurs at a nearly planar interface separating two fluids that are impulsively accelerated in the direction normal to the interface. This impulsive acceleration can be the result of an impulsive body force or a passing shock wave.


The local fields seen by positive muons implanted in Zn-doped ${\mathrm{La}}_{2}{\mathrm{CuO}}_{4}$ show a distribution with a main peak attributed to muon sites far from the Zn ions and a satellite structure corresponding to muons residing closer to the Zn. The temperature dependence indicates a strong loss of magnetic order for Cu moments near the Zn atoms. The data can be understood in terms of a model where a Zn ion not only introduces a vacancy in the magnetic Cu lattice but also creates a RKKY-type disturbance. The electron spin polarization around the Zn ions induces a change of the magnetic moments on surrounding Cu ions. The AF lattice is found to be strongly perturbed within a radius of $10 \AA{}$ around each Zn ion. Possible consequences for the superconductivity of the corresponding Sr-doped materials are discussed.


Testosterone (T) administration to men increases lean body mass and decreases fat mass. Adiponectin is produced by adipocytes and is thought to influence insulin sensitivity. In this study, we sought to determine whether experimental alterations in serum T change adiponectin levels in normal men. We measured adiponectin levels in 28 healthy men ages 18-35 years before and during treatment with a potent gonadotropin-releasing-hormone (GnRH) antagonist, acyline. Decreased T levels led to increased serum adiponectin within 7 days; maximal adiponectin levels were reached on day 21 (baseline 8.6 +/- 0.9 compared with 12.2 +/- 1.0 microg/mL on day 21, P <.05) and persisted through day 30, despite no significant changes in body mass index (BMI) and an increase in leptin. The addition of T to acyline, maintaining serum T levels within the normal range, prevented the increase in adiponectin following acyline alone. In a second study, 25 men aged 55-85 years were treated with 3 weeks of high-dose T (testosterone enanthate [TE], 600 mg/wk intramuscularly). With high serum T levels, adiponectin levels decreased significantly by day 21 of treatment (baseline 14.3 +/- 1.9 compared with 10.8 +/- 1.5 microg/mL, P <.05 vs baseline and placebo), BMI slightly increased, and leptin levels were decreased. We conclude that adiponectin levels increase within days of experimental T deficiency in normal men, and the increase in adiponectin is prevented by T replacement. Furthermore, supraphysiologic T administration results in decreased adiponectin levels. Our data support the hypothesis that T, its metabolites, or both directly suppress adipocyte production of adiponectin.


CalciumCalcium signaling is central to many of the most important cellular processes, from intracellular transport to memory. In most cases, calcium first joins up with a protein intermediary, calmodulin. With calcium on board, calmodulin (now called Ca2+/CaM) can bind to a large variety of cellular targets, altering their structure and thus their function.

Inactive CaMKII (right) becomes activated when the inhibitory domain (blue helix) is dislodged from the active site (left), after passing through multiple intermediate states.

Calcium is a key signaling molecule, its levels under tight regulatory control in cells. In neurons, long-lasting contact between synapses (also called long-term potentiation) increases calcium levels above a critical threshold. Though extremely short-lived, these calcium spikes lead to the activation of the enzyme calcium/calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CaMKII). Unlike many other Ca2+/CaM targets, CaMKII can remain active long after the local calcium spike that activated it has subsided. As a result, CaMKII functions as a molecular switch that activates downstream signaling processes that in turn modulate synaptic strength, the molecular basis of memory.

Despite the importance of CaMKII activation, a complete understanding of the mechanism underlying it has been elusive, largely because the structure of the catalytic and regulatory domains in complex with Ca2+/CaM has not been resolved. In this issue of PLoS Biology, Peter Rellos, Stefan Knapp, and colleagues determine the enzyme's structure in its activated form, revealing the molecular events that switch on catalytic CaMKII activity in the presence of calcium.

CaMKII is a kinase, meaning it adds phosphates to other molecules, altering the structure of the target molecule. In common with many other enzymes, the active site of CaMKII is a groove on the protein's surface. It had previously been shown that in the inactive form of the enzyme, the groove is occupied by a helical inhibitory domain located near the catalytic domain; the helix blocks entry of the substrate, thus preventing phosphorylation of the target. It was also known that multiple copies of CaMKII can link up to form a large oligomeric structure, and that the helix of one CaMKII is a target for phosphorylation by an adjacent CaMKII. Once phosphorylated, the helix no longer fits into the groove, and the enzyme therefore becomes active—this is the structural basis for the prolonged activation of the enzyme. But how is the helix dislodged in the first place?

To answer that, the authors crystallized the portion of the protein containing the active site and the helix, along with calcium/calmodulin in its binding site, thus capturing major features of the activated form of the enzyme. They found that Ca2+/CaM binding induced conformational changes in both the active site and the inhibitory helical regions. The inhibitory helix was dislodged from the pocket on its own enzyme and was found instead in close proximity to the (now open) substrate pocket of an adjacent kinase. This suggests that the adjacent kinase could then phosphorylate the helix, preventing the helix from re-lodging in the pocket of its own kinase.

While suggestive, the X-ray crystallograph is a snapshot—not a movie—and doesn't by itself prove that the adjacent kinase actually engages the helix. But the authors also showed, using analytical ultracentrifugation, that the two copies of the enzyme associated in the presence of Ca2+/CaM and that association could be disrupted when the active site was blocked by the inhibitory domain, confirming its role in linking the two enzymes.

In vivo, 12 molecules of CaMKII combine to form a multi-enzyme complex, a dodecamer built from two six-member rings stacked one atop the other. Combining their crystallographic structures of the various parts of the whole, the authors constructed a convincing model of the holoenzyme. In the model, each active site on one ring is paired up with an active site on the other ring. Binding of Ca2+/CaM molecules, one per CaMKII, bumps the inhibitory helices out of their own active sites and across the ring to the adjacent ones. At the same time, their structure showed, binding of Ca2+/CaM repositions a surface amino acid on each CaMKII so that it can better grab ATP, which the active site uses as a phosphate source, increasing the efficiency of the enzyme. With the active site open, the helices in place, and phosphate at hand, the enzymes phosphorylate the helices, disabling them from reblocking the active site. Thus, the enzyme remains active even after the calcium concentration returns to normal.

Because aberrant CaMKII activity has been implicated in human disease, these results are likely to provide a rational basis for drug development aimed directly at the enzyme's mechanism. While targeting such a centrally important protein runs the risk of altering too many cell processes, the cell employs multiple forms of the enzyme, and it may be possible to use their subtle structural differences to manipulate the activity of one while leaving the others largely alone.

Rellos P, Pike ACW, Niesen FH, Salah E, Lee WH, et al. (2010) Structure of the CaMKIIδ/Calmodulin Complex Reveals the Molecular Mechanism of CaMKII Kinase Activation. doi:10.1371/journal/pbio.1000426


INTRODUCTION: Motor performance in Park-inson's Disease (PD) patients is generally analyzed in laboratory. However, laboratory techniques do not allow estimating long-term ON/OFF fluctua-tion in PD patients. Here, we propose an ambula-tory system based on kinematic sensors that can detect basic body postures during daily activities of the PD patients.METHODS: 10 PD patients with sub-thalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) and 10 healthy control subjects participated in a 45 min-utes protocol of typical daily activities. PD patients did the test twice: once with stimulation ON and once with the stimulation OFF. Three kinematic sensors were attached on the trunk and shanks (see Fig.1) to detect basic postures (sitting, standing, lying) and gait periods. Using the shank sensors periods of gait were detected and using the trunk sensor lying periods and also transitions between sitting and standing were detected. Anterio-posteror trunk's velocity (TV) during sitting-standing transitions as well as transition duration (TD) was estimated. Outcomes were compared to the patients' UPDRS score.RESULTS: Periods and type of the body postures could be detected with a good accuracy (see Table 1). In PD patients, STN-DBS significantly (p < 0.005) reduced TD (3.27±0.42 vs. 3.54±0.53 sec) and significantly (p < 0.001) increased TV (9.65±2.29 vs. 7.85±2.20 deg/sec). However, both parameters remained significantly (p < 0.05) dif-ferent from the values of the control group (TD = 2.82±0.22 sec, TV = 13.12±2.02 deg/sec). Signifi-cant (p < 0.05) correlation between the UPDRS posture subscore (UPDRS III subscores 27, 28, 30) and TV and TD was found (r = -0.69 and r = 0.69 respectively).DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS: An ambula-tory method suitable to monitor daily activities of PD patients has been proposed. System could clas-sify different body postures with a high accuracy. We found that although STN- DBS significantly improved motor performance of the PD patients, their performance remained significantly different from control subjects.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This work was sup-ported in part by Swiss National Science Founda- tion under grant FNRS 3152-062006.00/1.


Over the past three decades, Hip Hop has developed as a cultural and artistic phenomenon affecting youth culture around the world. For many youth, Hip Hop reflects the social, economic, political, and cultural realities and conditions of their lives, speaking to them in a language and manner they understand. As a result of both its longevity and its cogent message for many youth worldwide, Hip Hop cannot be dismissed as merely a passing fad or as a youth movement that will soon run its course. Instead, Hip Hop must be taken seriously as a cultural, political, economic, and intellectual phenomenon deserving of scholarly study, similar to previous African American artistic and cultural movements such as the Blues, Jazz, the New Negro Renaissance, and the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Arts Movements. The essays in this special issue undertake such scholarly historical analysis of Hip Hop. According to many Hip Hop aficionados, Hip Hop culture consists of at least four fundamental elements: Disc jockeying (DJing), break dancing, graffiti art, and rapping (emceeing). (1) Since its emergence in the South Bronx and throughout the northeast during the early and mid-1970s, Hip Hop has encompassed not just a musical genre, but also a style of dress, dialect and language, way of looking at the world, and an aesthetic that reflects the sensibilities of a large population of youth born between 1965 and 1984. (2) This broad characterization of Hip Hop may seem imprecise to some, but it reflects the Hip Hop community's refusal to be singularly defined or categorized, and demonstrates the dynamic nature of Hip Hop as a phenomenon that many hip hoppers believe must be felt, experienced, and communicated. Since Hip Hop's birth about 35 years ago, very few academic historical studies have examined the phenomenon. It has been over a decade since the publication in 1994 of Tricia Rose's now classic, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America and Robin D. G. Kelley's Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. Rose's treatise was the first to provide an extensive historical study of Hip Hop. While focusing primarily on rap music, Rose examined the historical development of Hip Hop and its impact on youth culture, and she anticipated many of the present-day discussions about black female rappers. While Kelley's study did not focus solely on Hip Hop, he linked Hip Hop to black history and located Hip Hop along a continuum of black working-class culture. Rose and Kelley's works remain invaluable in the field of Hip Hop history and have helped lay a solid foundation for contemporary historians' investigations of Hip Hop. (3) The most recent historical study on Hip Hop at the time of this writing is journalist Jeff Chang's huge 500-page work, Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation. Literary in style, Can't Stop, Won't Stop offers an engaging text filled with valuable historical data. Based on many interviews, Chang's work offers an oral and narrative history of Hip Hop and is destined to become a classic in the field of Hip Hop studies. (4) A number of other works have also contributed immensely to providing an historical foundation for the scholarly study of Hip Hop. David Toop's Rap Attack 3 is an updated version of his classics Rap Attack 1 and Rap Attack 2. One of the earliest historical analyses of Hip Hop, Toop's volume traces Hip Hop history through personal interviews with the movement's pioneers. Rap Attack 3 brings Toop's trilogy up to 1999 and provides a somewhat nostalgic reflection of 1970s and 1980s Hip Hop. Lacking the rich historical contextualization and insightful interpretive frameworks of Rose and Kelley's texts, Toop's volume provides an interpretation that seems in sync with Hip Hop, mainly because much of the text was written in close contact with the Hip Hop community. Another similar work is Alex Ogg's, The Hip Hop Years: A History of Rap. …


Abstract Airborne dust generation is one of the byproducts of coal mining, processing, and handling. The amount of airborne total dust (ATD, respirable size and larger) and airborne respirable dust (ARD) generated is of primary interest for designing the level of engineering controls needed for adequate dust abatement. Laboratory crushing experiments were conducted in a wind tunnel with a roll crusher to identify relationships among crushing parameters, product size, coal rank properties, and airborne dust generation. Through the first series of experiments, the effect of primary and secondary breakage processes on both product size and airborne dust generation was examined. Through a second series of experiments, the effect of coal rank properties on product size and airborne dust generation was studied using a uniform crushing process with secondary breakage Laboratory results indicate that secondary breakage of a particular coal notably increases the specific amount of ATD generated, while negligibly impacting the specific amount of ARD generated. A strong positive relationship was identified between the specific amounts of ATD and ARD generated during the primary breakage process (with minimal secondary breakage), but a negligible relationship was observed between the same two variables when secondary breakage was introduced into the crushing process. This indicates that most of the ATD and ARD is generated from the primary breakage, while secondary breakage has a more of an influence on generating additional amounts of larger sized ATD Additional experiments involving the uniform crushing of eight different bituminous coals showed that the coal rank, expressed as the inherent moist fuel ratio (MFR = fixed carbon -÷- (volatile × inherent moisture)), had diverse relationships between the product size created and the amount of airborne dust generated. As bituminous coal rank or MFR increased, the amount of coal product fines < 250 μm increased while the mass percentage of ATD and ARD liberated from these < 250 μm product fines decreased. Air dry loss (ADL) moisture in the coal was found to be inversely related to the dust cloud electrostatic field, influencing dust liberation from the coal product fines. Since the MFR was directly related to the dust cloud electrostatic field, opposite the ADL-electrostatic field relationship, the diverse relationships between the product size created and the amount of dust liberated from the < 250 μm product fines were explained. Finally, 12 to 14 times more ATD was generated as compared to the ARD generated during these experiments. These results should provide a fundamental basis for initial estimation of the airborne dust loading requirements of engineering control methods for coal crushing.


This paper presents the findings of an interpretive study of eight small and medium sized enterprise's (SME's) experiences when deciding to participate with Australia's New Apprenticeship system for the first time. The study focused on contextual and processual elements as well as the action of key players associated with participation. A series of case studies were designed around semi-structured in-depth interviews with owner/managers. Grounded theory analysis of the case text produced a structure of conceptual categories and themes related to the participation process within the context of the information technology industry.


STUDY OBJECTIVE
To determine the efficacy of a corticosteroid in reducing the short-term mortality of patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis.

DESIGN
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial.

SETTING
Four university teaching hospitals.

PATIENTS
We enrolled 66 patients with alcoholic hepatitis and either spontaneous hepatic encephalopathy or a discriminant function value greater than 32, calculated using the formula: 4.6 (prothrombin time - control time) + serum bilirubin [in mumol/L]/17.1. Fifty-nine patients (89%) completed the study. Two patients withdrew from the trial. The other 64 patients were hospitalized for the duration of the trial; however, treatment was discontinued in 5 patients because of potential drug toxicity.

INTERVENTIONS
Patients were randomly assigned to receive either methylprednisolone (32 mg) or placebo within 7 days of admission. Treatment was given for 28 days. The doses were then tapered over 2 weeks and discontinued.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
The endpoint of the study was death. Of the 31 recipients of placebo, 11 (35%) died within 28 days of randomization compared with 2 (6%) of the 35 patients given methylprednisolone (P = 0.006). The 95% CI for the difference in mortality was 12% to 70%. In the patients with spontaneous hepatic encephalopathy at entry, 9 of 19 recipients of placebo died (47%) compared with 1 (7%) of the 14 patients given methylprednisolone (P = 0.02). The 95% CI for the difference in mortality was 14% to 66%. The Cox proportional hazards regression model showed the advantage of methylprednisolone over placebo after adjustment for other potentially important prognostic variables (P = 0.004).

CONCLUSIONS
Methylprednisolone therapy decreases short-term mortality in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis manifested either by spontaneous hepatic encephalopathy or a markedly elevated discriminant function value.


The aim of the study is to assess the competitiveness of the regional diversity of farms in Poland. The study was conducted on a sample of commodity holdings participating in the Polish FADN in 16 voivodeships for the years 2010–2012. The study was based on indicators of competitiveness in terms of production factors and results. Research shows that labour resources and the eff ectiveness of their use are important aspects of regional diversity of competitiveness of farms. In regions where this factor is present in excess (Malopolskie, Świetokrzyskie, Mazowieckie, Łodzkie and Lubelskie voivodeships), labor productivity was relatively low. These regions are also characterized by lower production potential expressed by the agricultural area of an average farm. The greatest competitive advantages in terms of production profi tability were achieved by farms in Dolnośląskie voivodeship, where there were also some of the highest rates of profi tability of assets.


In July 2011 Moody's Investors Service Hong Kong issued a report that used a system of red flags to highlight corporate governance and accounting risks in a specified population of listed companies. Although Moody's did not consider the report a credit rating, the Securities and Futures Commission, and the Securities and Futures Appeals Tribunal in its March 2016 determination, regarded the issuance of it as part of Moody's regulated activity as a provider of credit rating services. As such, Moody's was held subject to regulatory codes of conduct it was said to have breached, and was consequently disciplined. Moody's has since appealed that determination, which will bring the case before the Court of Appeal.This paper undertakes a detailed legal analysis of the Tribunal's determination. It suggests the Tribunal's purposive approach to legislative interpretation is flawed, and its determination impaired by the way the Tribunal has framed the syntax of its reasoning and has conflated important distinctions between credit risk, creditworthiness, credit ratings and the methodology used to produce a rating opinion. Other legislative provisions relevant to the publication of information are reviewed and it is noted there is no lacuna in Hong Kong's law that would necessitate the approach taken by the Tribunal to address the perceived wrongdoing. Whether the Tribunal's interpretation of the law is necessary or consistent with the policy intent of the Legislature is queried. The ramifications of a Court of law upholding the Tribunal's determination are considered. Locally this includes blurring the perimeter around regulated and unregulated activities and the possible creation of an uneven playing field. Of particular significance for Hong Kong's credit rating industry, it may create uncertainties as to whether Hong Kong would remain an equivalent jurisdiction for the purposes of recognition under European Union regulations. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the regulatory approach to managing the introduction of a new regulatory regime.


Real-time quantitative (RQ-PCR) assays were developed to monitor the kinetics of residual BCR-ABL transcripts over time and to follow up chronic myeloid leukemia patients (CML) treated with imatinb mesylate (IM) for assessment of response at different IM treatment durations. This is a prospective study enrolled 135 patients at The National Center of Hematology (NCH) /Al-Mustensseria University from February 2006 to August 2008, in addition to 25 healthy individuals consider as health negative control. Only 42 patients were could be followed up regularly. From them, only 40 venous blood (VB) samples related to 20 CML patients (collected at different intervals from starting IM treatment) were give sufficient extracted RNA that could be use in PCR reaction. Quantitative analysis using Real time-Reverse Transcriptase-PCR (RT-RT-PCR) was done for each patient at two different time points of IM treatment duration. The results of RT-RT-PCR reaction were recorded as ratio between transcripts of bcr-abl /abl ×100 at these two time points of analysis. The mean values of ratio at first and second time points of analysis were (0.879) and (0.471), respectively. There was a statically significant difference (p=0.05, LSD=0.0324). Also, RT-RT-PCR results were recorded as log reduction of bcr-abl transcripts. There is no significant differences in the percentage of patients who achieved complete molecular response (CMR) (?4 log reduction) and major molecular response (MMR) (3 log reduction), but there is a significant differences in the percentage of patients who achieved only Minor-MR (2 log reduction) (p=0.05, LSD=13.789) and patients who not achieved MR(< 2log reduction) (p=0.05, LSD=5.779). Quantification molecular analysis using RT–RT-PCR is essential tool for assessment of molecular responsiveness to imatinib because it is most specific in discriminating between response subgroups of patients than cytogenetic analysis.


The advent of cloud computing, data owners are motivated to outsource their complex data management systems from local sites to commercial public cloud for great flexibility and economic savings. But for protecting data privacy, sensitive data has to be encrypted before outsourcing, which obsoletes traditional data utilization based on plaintext keyword search. Thus, enabling an encrypted cloud data search service is of paramount importance. Considering the large number of data users and documents in cloud, it is crucial for the search service to allow multi-keyword query and provide result similarity ranking to meet the effective data retrieval need. Related works on searchable encryption focus on single keyword search or Boolean keyword search, and rarely differentiate the search results. In this paper, for the first time, we define and solve the challenging problem of privacy-preserving multi-keyword ranked search over encrypted cloud data (MRSE), and establish a set of strict privacy requirements for such a secure cloud data utilization system to become a reality. Among various multi-keyword semantics, we choose the efficient principle of "coordinate matching", i.e., as many matches as possible, to capture the similarity between search query and data documents, and further use "inner product similarity" to quantitatively formalize such principle for similarity measurement. We first propose a basic MRSE scheme using secure inner product computation, and then significantly improve it to meet different privacy requirements .Thorough analysis investigating privacy and efficiency guarantees of proposed schemes is given, and experiments on the real- world dataset further show proposed schemes indeed introduce low overhead on computation and communication


On page 841 of this week9s issue of Science, a research team claims that some of the last Neandertals may have taken refuge in the dark Arctic north rather than the sunny south as archaeological evidence has indicated. At the 32,000-year-old site of Byzovaya in Russia9s Polar Ural Mountains, which at 65 degrees latitude is as far north as Iceland, archaeologists found stone tools they argue are typical of those long associated with Neandertals in Europe. If Neandertals did make the tools, it would push Neandertals9 range northward by 1000 kilometers, and the site would be one of the youngest claimed for Neandertals, especially since recent redating has moved many Neandertal sites earlier in time. It would also show that the cold-adapted Neandertals could survive the rigors of the Arctic.


Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has fabricated and tested the four conductor samples composed of high performance strands manufactured by the bronze-route process for the ITER Central Solenoid (CS) conductor. The current sharing temperature (Tcs) electrically assessed at 45.1 K and 10.85 T along the cycling loading at 48.8 kA and 10.85 T initially were 6.0 K and 6.1 K, and then 5.3 K and 5.5 K after 6000 cycles for the first SULTAN sample named JACS01, respectively. As results of second SULTAN sample named JACS02, the Tcs values initially were 7.2 K and 6.8 K, and then 6.6 K and 6.1 K after 10000 cycles for each conductor, respectively. The Tcs degradation was not saturated at the end of the test campaign. From the destructive observation, the large bending at the low transverse loading side in the high field zone was observed. The strand buckling and accumulating by slipping between the cable and the jacket are considered.


Social Dialogue (SD) constitutes one of the most popular tools for establishing effective cooperation between social partners and one of the most highlighted formulas for resolving social conflicts and disputes in nowadays. Nevertheless, the progress, which has been made so far, was not always encouraging and it seemed that the euphemism around the term is greater than the results of its implementation. In many cases stakeholders and partners could not overcome their traditional stances on certain issues and as a result they could not consolidate their positions to mutual and genuinely participatory governance schemes. Such cases were examined here. In essence the article examines the distinct nature of SD at the local level and the pressures exerted to SD procedures by broader economic restructuring exercises and reforms.


Presented is a foundational, embryonic frame of reference for contemplating future transportation architectures open to practically any configuration, seeking innovation in transportation not through a particular technology but through a new way of thinking. The approach foregoes the usual employment of a reductionism perspective in favor of the view that one must first understand the whole before the individual parts of a complex system are designed, for the essence of the problem likely appears only from this holistic perspective. Nevertheless, it does not necessarily make communication between the involved facets any easier. An effective lexicon is proposed to bridge the gap between understanding and communication across the multiple domains that under-gird transportation. The holistic perspective with an effective lexicon establishes the foundation for the primary thrust of the paper: the establishment of an entity-centric abstraction framework that allows practitioners and theorists to navigate, communicate, model and design collaboratively as well as produce a useful product to the decision makers. The framework effectively guides modeling in such a way that nearly any conceivable combination of transportation resources, economies or policies is admissible. Overlaid with socioeconomic data and utilizing an agent-based modeling technique, simulation studies are reported upon for the dual purpose of documenting the use of the entity-centric abstraction approach as well as to expose key findings concerning the potential benefit of emerging aviation technologies.


The term sarcopenia was introduced in 1988. The original definition was a "muscle loss" of the appendicular muscle mass in the older people as measured by dual energy x‐ray absorptiometry (DXA). In 2010, the definition was altered to be low muscle mass together with low muscle function and this was agreed upon as reported in a number of consensus papers. The Society of Sarcopenia, Cachexia and Wasting Disorders supports the recommendations of more recent consensus conferences, i.e. that rapid screening, such as with the SARC‐F questionnaire, should be utilized with a formal diagnosis being made by measuring grip strength or chair stand together with DXA estimation of appendicular muscle mass (indexed for height2). Assessments of the utility of ultrasound and creatine dilution techniques are ongoing. Use of ultrasound may not be easily reproducible. Primary sarcopenia is aging associated (mediated) loss of muscle mass. Secondary sarcopenia (or disease‐related sarcopenia) has predominantly focused on loss of muscle mass without the emphasis on muscle function. Diseases that can cause muscle wasting (i.e. secondary sarcopenia) include malignant cancer, COPD, heart failure, and renal failure and others. Management of sarcopenia should consist of resistance exercise in combination with a protein intake of 1 to 1.5 g/kg/day. There is insufficient evidence that vitamin D and anabolic steroids are beneficial. These recommendations apply to both primary (age‐related) sarcopenia and secondary (disease related) sarcopenia. Secondary sarcopenia also needs appropriate treatment of the underlying disease. It is important that primary care health professionals become aware of and make the diagnosis of age‐related and disease‐related sarcopenia. It is important to address the risk factors for sarcopenia, particularly low physical activity and sedentary behavior in the general population, using a life‐long approach. There is a need for more clinical research into the appropriate measurement for muscle mass and the management of sarcopenia. Accordingly, this position statement provides recommendations on the management of sarcopenia and how to progress the knowledge and recognition of sarcopenia.


Weight stereotyping is the relative devaluation of an overweight body size (Sigelman, Miller, & Whitworth, 1986), which has been detected as early as 3 years of age (Cramer & Steinwert, 1998). Previous studies of weight stereotypes have not been informed by what we know about children's social reasoning processes (i.e., positivity and negativity biases), essentialist beliefs about weight (i.e., contagiousness, biological origins, stability, and changeability) or concurrently developing cognitive and social abilities (i.e., cognitive flexibility, theory of mind, and working memory). The current study examined weight stereotypes in 80 3- to 6- year-old children using a story-distracter-recall paradigm. Results indicate that with age, children are more accurate in labeling positive traits. Essentialist weight reasoning was not consistent across domains, but generally increased with age (from 6.15 to 8.7 on a 14–point scale). Cognitive abilities were related to weight essentialism; notably, increases in cognitive flexibility and working memory were associated with decreases in weight stability beliefs for older children. Implications for the role of weight stereotypes in behaviors (i.e., discrimination) and the formation of stereotype interventions are discussed.


Compressive Sensing (CS) is an effective approach for fast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). It aims at reconstructing MR image from a small number of under-sampled data in k-space, and accelerating the data acquisition in MRI. To improve the current MRI system in reconstruction accuracy and computational speed, in this paper, we propose a novel deep architecture, dubbed ADMM-Net. ADMM-Net is defined over a data flow graph, which is derived from the iterative procedures in Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) algorithm for optimizing a CS-based MRI model. In the training phase, all parameters of the net, e.g., image transforms, shrinkage functions, etc., are discriminatively trained end-to-end using L-BFGS algorithm. In the testing phase, it has computational overhead similar to ADMM but uses optimized parameters learned from the training data for CS-based reconstruction task. Experiments on MRI image reconstruction under different sampling ratios in k-space demonstrate that it significantly improves the baseline ADMM algorithm and achieves high reconstruction accuracies with fast computational speed.


Pneumococcal infections are the most common invasive bacterial infections in children in the United States. The incidence of invasive pneumococcal infections peaks in children younger than 2 years, reaching rates of 228/100 000 in children 6 to 12 months old. Children with functional or anatomic asplenia (including sickle cell disease [SCD]) and children with human immunodeficiency virus infection have pneumococcal infection rates 20- to 100-fold higher than those of healthy children during the first 5 years of life. Others at high risk of pneumococcal infections include children with congenital immunodeficiency; chronic cardiopulmonary disease; children receiving immunosuppressive chemotherapy; children with immunosuppressive neoplastic diseases; children with chronic renal insufficiency, including nephrotic syndrome; children with diabetes; and children with cerebrospinal fluid leaks. Children of Native American (American Indian and Alaska Native) or African American descent also have higher rates of invasive pneumococcal disease. Outbreaks of pneumococcal infection have occurred with increased frequency in children attending out-of-home care. Among these children, nasopharyngeal colonization rates of 60% have been observed, along with pneumococci resistant to multiple antibiotics. The administration of antibiotics to children involved in outbreaks of pneumococcal disease has had an inconsistent effect on nasopharyngeal carriage. In contrast, continuous penicillin prophylaxis in children younger than 5 years with SCD has been successful in reducing rates of pneumococcal disease by 84%. Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines have been recommended since 1985 for children older than 2 years who are at high risk of invasive disease, but these vaccines were not recommended for younger children and infants because of poor antibody response before 2 years of age. In contrast, pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (Prevnar) induce proposed protective antibody responses (>.15 μg/mL) in >90% of infants after 3 doses given at 2, 4, and 6 months of age. After priming doses, significant booster responses (ie, immunologic memory) are apparent when additional doses are given at 12 to 15 months of age. In efficacy trials, infant immunization with Prevnar decreased invasive infections by >93% and consolidative pneumonia by 73%, and it was associated with a 7% decrease in otitis media and a 20% decrease in tympanostomy tube placement. Adverse events after the administration of Prevnar have been limited to areas of local swelling or erythema of 1 to 2 cm and some increase in the incidence of postimmunization fever when it is given with other childhood vaccines. Based on data in phase 3 efficacy and safety trials, the US Food and Drug Administration has provided an indication for the use of Prevnar in children younger than 24 months.


Abstract The European Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) breeds in a wide range of nest-sites depending on the locality, such as crevices under fallen rocks, open ground caves and open ledges on craggy cliffs. In this paper the habitat selection of shags breeding in cavities on the coastal slopes of Islas Cíes (Galicia, Northwest Iberian Peninsula) are examined. Shags selected sites with more lateral and overhead cover, with better drainage and with average visibility. In addition, sites where breeding was successful differed from unsuccessful sites. Nest-site characteristics especially affected the hatching success. In this colony, shags showed adaptive responses to site-quality variability. Thus, nest-site quality declined with density and with seasonal occupancy. Shag colonies seem to follow an ideal despotic distribution, where some individuals monopolize high quality sites and prevented other individuals from settling in the good sites. Further studies are required to assess the proximal mechanisms used for nest-site selection in this species.


Translation quality estimation is a task of growing importance in NLP, due to its potential to reduce post-editing human effort in disruptive ways. However, this potential is currently limited by the relatively low accuracy of existing systems. In this paper, we achieve remarkable improvements by exploiting synergies between the related tasks of word-level quality estimation and automatic post-editing. First, we stack a new, carefully engineered, neural model into a rich feature-based word-level quality estimation system. Then, we use the output of an automatic post-editing system as an extra feature, obtaining striking results on WMT16: a word-level FMULT1 score of 57.47% (an absolute gain of +7.95% over the current state of the art), and a Pearson correlation score of 65.56% for sentence-level HTER prediction (an absolute gain of +13.36%).


The role that questioning plays in language learning and cognitive development in childhood is an area of study that continues to constitute a major point of interest for researchers today. However, there is little current research on the subject of question patterns, particularly in regard to variation by income-level. Whether there are significant differences between parents of varying income-level in relation to the questions they ask their children in casual conversation is the question at the heart of this research. Two sets of transcripts were used from previous studies of 3and 4-year-olds and their parents. One set was derived from low-income families and one set from mid-income families, which were coded for question types that could be considered meaningful to cognitive development. Question types considered relevant included concrete questions concerning the being, state, or function of an object, as well as questions concerning cause and reason. Nonparametric analyses show significant differences in question type frequencies across age groups and income levels for both parents and children. Practical implications for the study include an increased awareness of the potential impact that parents' questions and income have on children's language, social, and cognitive development as well as on academic success.


Abstract. The carbon sequestration potential in coastal soils is linked to aboveground and belowground plant productivity and biomass, which in turn, is directly and indirectly influenced by nutrient input. We evaluated the influence of long-term and near-term nutrient input on aboveground and belowground carbon accumulation in seagrass beds, using a nutrient enrichment (nitrogen and phosphorus) experiment embedded within a naturally occurring, long-term gradient of phosphorus availability within Florida Bay (USA). We measured organic carbon stocks in soils and above- and belowground seagrass biomass after 17 months of experimental nutrient addition. At the nutrient-limited sites, phosphorus addition increased the carbon stock in aboveground seagrass biomass by more than 300 %; belowground seagrass carbon stock increased by 50–100 %. Soil carbon content slightly decreased ( ∼  10 %) in response to phosphorus addition. There was a strong but non-linear relationship between soil carbon and Thalassia testudinum leaf nitrogen : phosphorus (N : P) or belowground seagrass carbon stock. When seagrass leaf N : P exceeded an approximate threshold of 75 : 1, or when belowground seagrass carbon stock was less than 100 g m−2, there was less than 3 % organic carbon in the sediment. Despite the marked difference in soil carbon between phosphorus-limited and phosphorus-replete areas of Florida Bay, all areas of the bay had relatively high soil carbon stocks near or above the global median of 1.8 % organic carbon. The relatively high carbon content in the soils indicates that seagrass beds have extremely high carbon storage potential, even in nutrient-limited areas with low biomass or productivity.


This thesis deals with issues arising in manufacturing, in particular related
to production efficiency. Lot streaming refers to the process of splitting jobs
to move production through several stages as quickly as possible, whereas
batch scheduling refers to the process of grouping jobs to improve the use of
resources and customer satisfaction.
We use a network representation and critical path approach to analyse the
lot streaming problem of finding optimal sublot sizes and a job sequence in
a two-machine flow shop with transportation and setup times. We introduce
a model where the number of sublots for each job is not predetermined,
presenting an algorithm to assign a new sublot efficiently, and discuss a
heuristic to assign a fixed number of sublots between jobs. A model with
several identical jobs in an multiple machine flow shop is analysed through
a dominant machine approach to find optimal sublot sizes for jobs.
For batch scheduling, we tackle the NP-hard problem of scheduling jobs
on a batching machine with restricted batch size to minimise the maximum
lateness. We design a branch and bound algorithm, and develop local
search heuristics for the problem. Different neighbourhoods are compared,
one of which is an exponential sized neighbourhood that can be searched in
polynomial time. We develop dynamic programming algorithms to obtain
lower bounds and explore neighbourhoods efficiently. The performance of
the branch and bound algorithm and the local search heuristics is assessed
and supported by extensive computational tests.


The apparent cross-communication that can occur between different cell signaling pathways indicates that some signaling mechanisms may be more complex than originally envisaged. Jun et al. discuss recent studies suggesting that two signaling pathways that can be activated by the same growth factor receptor, the Ras-Raf pathway and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)–Akt (protein kinase B) pathway, can integrate with each other to generate a particular response, depending on the cell type and the stage of cell differentiation.


The effect of fines content in fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst on bubble properties was investigated by considering two catalyst batches. One contained fewer fines and had a Sauter mean diameter of 83 I¼m while the other had a higher fines content with a 74 µm mean diameter. The hydrodynamics were analyzed in a two-dimensional fluidized bed with superficial gas velocities in the bubbling regime. Photos of the bed were analysed by isolating bubble images, after which colour images were converted to binary images by using MATLAB® software. These binary images were used to determine properties such as equivalent bubble diameter, gas fraction, circularity and bubble hold-up in the bed as function of superficial gas velocity and fines content. The results showed that bubble diameter increases with gas velocity for both catalyst batches. A smaller bubble size was observed at all except the highest superficial velocities for the catalyst batch with the higher fines content. However, the high fines content catalyst had a higher gas fraction than the low fines content batch at all gas velocities. This average value was the same regardless of gas velocity, while an increase in superficial velocity resulted in an increase in gas fraction for the lower fines content catalyst. The bubble hold-up for the catalyst batch with the lower fines content was also higher than that of the high fines content catalyst. For both batches an increase in bubble hold-up with velocity was observed. Similar circularity values for both catalyst types were calculated at all superficial velocities.


Planted forests, although only seven per cent of the world's forest resources, have superseded naturally regenerating forests as the principal source of industrial wood products. Lessening the pressure for wood production, tree planting has released natural forests to be managed for other purposes - carbon sinks, soil and water protection, conservation of biological diversity, recreation and amenity. Representing a complement, but not an alternative, to natural forests, planted forests have become increasingly important for reducing worldwide deforestation, loss of forest ecosystems and forest degradation. Examining the significance of this rapidly emerging world resource, chapters of this title consider the strengths and weaknesses of planted forests, management objectives for their use and aspects of ownership and policy. Data from key production countries are used to evaluate the implications and sustainability of planted forests as a source of forest products as well as social and ecological issues. This book is co-published with the FAO. It is suitable for forestry researchers, policy makers, planners and all concerned with land use and the environment, including climate change.


As the central function of PDEs within cells is to control the levels of the cyclic nucleotides, it was surprising to find that the PDE4A gene encoded a splice variant, called PDE4A7 (2EL) that is catalytically inactive. This protein was investigated further by firstly determining its intracellular localisation using the methods of subcellular fractionation and Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy (LSCM). Interestingly, PDE4A7 when over-expressed in COS-1 cells was found exclusively within the nuclear compartment. This was in contrast to that of the catalytically active long isoform, PDE4A4B, which was found to be extranuclear. Subcellular fractionation studies revealed that the major fraction of PDE4A4B was localised within the cytosolic (S2) fraction, whereas PDE4A7 was localised exclusively within the low speed particulate (PI) fraction. Therefore, despite sharing identical core regions, both PDE4A4B and PDE4A7 were found in completely different compartments. Using chimeric constructs, I firstly demonstrated that the central core was exclusively located to the particulate (PI) fraction even in the absence of the PDE4A7 N-terminal region. Secondly, I demonstrated that replacing the C- terminal of PDE4A7 with 19 amino acids from the C-terminal region that is common to all the active PDE4As was enough to cause re-distribution of a fraction of the PDE4A7 central core to the cytosolic (S2) fraction. These analyses established that the cytosolic targeting observed with the active PDE4A enzymes can be attributed to a small portion of sequence located within their C-terminal regions. In Chapter 4, the yeast two hybrid screening procedure was used to try and identify binding partners for PDE4A7. Proteins identified as potential binding partners for PDE4A7 included; CREB binding protein (CBP), RanBPM9 and niRNA from the KIAA0160 gene. However, upon further analysis I demonstrated that both CBP and RanBPM9 were false positives generated from the yeast two-hybrid screen. The interaction between PDE4A7 and the mRNA from the KIAA0160 gene has yet to be reevaluated. In Chapter 5, I used the methods of gene microarray and RT PCR to address whether the functional role of PDE4A7 within the nucleus was to control the expression levels of other genes. Gene microarray results demonstrated that the expression levels of a large number of genes changed in response to the over-expression of PDE4A7. Next, RT- PCR was used in an attempt to verify a small number of these changes. However, RT-PCR analysis did not support the changes observed with gene microarray. It was concluded that microarray had generated false positive data for these particular genes. As yet the basis for the nuclear targeting of PDE4A7 and the function of this protein within this compartment remains to be elucidated. Finally, in Chapter 6, I performed partial characterisation studies on a novel PDE4A isoform, called HSPDE4A11. Transient expression of HSPDE4A11 in COS-7 cells allowed the detection of a ll8kDa protein in both the soluble and particulate fractions. The soluble and particulate forms of HSPDE4A11 exhibited similar Km values for cAMP hydrolysis (~2.5muM) and Vmax values.


This paper examined the possibility of applying ozone (O3) and O3 combined with ultraviolet (UV) to degrade the content of seawater containing Direct Yellow 50 dye. The Experimental parameters such as initial dye concentration and time of reaction were assessed in a batch reactor to achieve the optimum operating circumstances. The Results of this study showed that more than 88% color removal was obtained after 35 min of O3 treatment (for 100 ppm dye concentration) and also partially removal of COD. These results also indicated that the application of O3 is more effective than UV assisted Ozonation to reduce the reaction time. Also, Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrum analysis of treated synthetic dye solution was performed at the end of the pre-treatment time to the final degradation products of Direct Yellow 50 dye and showed no toxic compounds.


The authors apply techniques from nonlinear dynamical systems theory to determine whether Ventricular Fibrillation (VF) comes from a stochastic, or a more complex nonlinear process. Using electrocardiographic (ECG) data from seven pigs during ventricular fibrillation the authors apply various surrogate data techniques to test the observed data against a series of hypotheses. Standard linear surrogate techniques demonstrate that VF is inconsistent with data generated by a monotonic nonlinear transformation of a linearly filtered noise source. Nonlinear modeling methods show that VF is consistent with the output of a system exhibiting a stable periodic orbit and small scale high dimensional structure (either noise or chaos).


iii Title: Exploring Usability in Web-Based Aviation Weather: An Assessment of the Aviation Weather Center Website. Author: Benjamin Remy Major Advisor: Deborah Carstens, Ph.D. To provide a starting point for usability research in the area of online aviation weather, we performed a two-part usability study of the popular Aviation Weather Center website for general aviation users. The first part of the study utilized the System Usability Scale to examine different types of weather information as used by a general aviation pilot on a VFR cross-country flight and compare the usability of the information to an existing benchmark. No scores were significantly less than the benchmark, but the ordering of weather information by usability score provided valuable insight into the relationship between usability and pilot weather product preference. The second part of the study involved a concurrent think-aloud task, in which pilots were asked to verbalize their thoughts as they completed a weather briefing on the site. With audio of participants verbalizations and screen captures during this task, we discovered a number of specific usability issues in both the weather information displayed on the site and the site itself. Many had a broad impact, especially for novice users. These issues were used to form suggestions for aviation weather providers and to form recommendations for future research.


Abstract. Deep-sea corals are a potentially valuable archive of the temperature and ocean chemistry of intermediate and deep waters. Living in near-constant temperature, salinity, and pH and having amongst the slowest calcification rates observed in carbonate-precipitating biological organisms, deep-sea corals can provide valuable constraints on processes driving mineral equilibrium and disequilibrium isotope signatures. Here we report new data to further develop "clumped" isotopes as a paleothermometer in deep-sea corals as well as to investigate mineral-specific, taxon-specific, and growth-rate-related effects. Carbonate clumped isotope thermometry is based on measurements of the abundance of the doubly substituted isotopologue 13C18O16O2 in carbonate minerals, analyzed in CO2 gas liberated on phosphoric acid digestion of carbonates and reported as Δ47 values. We analyzed Δ47 in live-collected aragonitic scleractinian (Enallopsammia sp.) and high-Mg calcitic gorgonian (Isididae and Coralliidae) deep-sea corals and compared results to published data for other aragonitic scleractinian taxa. Measured Δ47 values were compared to in situ temperatures, and the relationship between Δ47 and temperature was determined for each group to investigate taxon-specific effects. We find that aragonitic scleractinian deep-sea corals exhibit higher values than high-Mg calcitic gorgonian corals and the two groups of coral produce statistically different relationships between Δ47–temperature calibrations. These data are significant in the interpretation of all carbonate clumped isotope calibration data as they show that distinct Δ47–temperature calibrations can be observed in different materials recovered from the same environment and analyzed using the same instrumentation, phosphoric acid composition, digestion temperature and technique, CO2 gas purification apparatus, and data handling. There are three possible explanations for the origin of these different calibrations. The offset between the corals of different mineralogy is in the same direction as published theoretical predictions for the offset between calcite and aragonite although the magnitude of the offset is different. One possibility is that the deep-sea coral results reflect high-Mg and aragonite crystals attaining nominal mineral equilibrium clumped isotope signatures due to conditions of extremely slow growth. In that case, a possible explanation for the attainment of disequilibrium bulk isotope signatures and equilibrium clumped isotope signatures by deep-sea corals is that extraordinarily slow growth rates can promote the occurrence of isotopic reordering in the interfacial region of growing crystals. We also cannot rule out a component of a biological "vital effect" influencing clumped isotope signatures in one or both orders of coral. Based on published experimental data and theoretical calculations, these biological vital effects could arise from kinetic isotope effects due to the source of carbon used for calcification, temperature- and pH-dependent rates of CO2 hydration and/or hydroxylation, calcifying fluid pH, the activity of carbonic anhydrase, the residence time of dissolved inorganic carbon in the calcifying fluid, and calcification rate. A third possible explanation is the occurrence of variable acid digestion fractionation factors. Although a recent study has suggested that dolomite, calcite, and aragonite may have similar clumped isotope acid digestion fractionation factors, the influence of acid digestion kinetics on Δ47 is a subject that warrants further investigation.


Multiphase fields find wide
applications in the fields of combustion, sprays, turbomachinery, heating and
cooling systems, blasts, energetic materials, and several more areas of
engineering interest. As the efficiency and performance of these systems depend
heavily on the underlying multiphase field, studying their intricate structural
features becomes important. The current study follows the development of a
three-dimensional Wide-Angle Relay Plenoptic (WARP) imaging system with two image
quadruplers for the tomographic imaging of multiphase fields. 3D printed
targets were used to simulate both semi-transparent as well as opaque particle
fields to emulate multiphase systems. Tomographic reconstruction of the targets
was performed using the iterative MART reconstruction algorithm in a commercial
image processing software. Reconstructions were performed at different angular
separations between the cameras as well as for varied separation
distance between the object and the imaging system. Quantitative
analysis of the reconstruction quality of the developed system was performed to
study the effectiveness and accuracy of this system in imaging multiphase
fields. The effect of varying different system parameters on reconstruction
quality has been studied to evaluate the best system configuration for imaging
multiphase fields.


Investigations were conducted during the 2003, 2004 and 2005 growing seasons in northern Greece to evaluate effects of tillage regime (mouldboard plough, chisel plough and rotary tiller), cropping sequence (continuous cotton, cotton-sugar beet rotation and continuous tobacco) and herbicide treatment on weed seedbank dynamics. Amaranthus spp. and Portulaca oleracea were the most abundant species, ranging from 76% to 89% of total weed seeds found in 0-15 and 15-30 cm soil depths during the 3 years. With the mouldboard plough, 48% and 52% of the weed seedbank was found in the 0-15 and 15-30 cm soil horizons, while approximately 60% was concentrated in the upper 15 cm soil horizon for chisel plough and rotary tillage. Mouldboard ploughing significantly buried more Echinochloa crus-galli seeds in the 15-30 cm soil horizon compared with the other tillage regimes. Total seedbank (0-30 cm) of P. oleracea was significantly reduced in cotton-sugar beet rotation compared with cotton and tobacco monocultures, while the opposite occurred for E. crus-galli. Total seed densities of most annual broad-leaved weed species (Amaranthus spp., P. oleracea, Solanum nigrum) and E. crus-galli were lower in herbicide treated than in untreated plots. The results suggest that in light textured soils, conventional tillage with herbicide use gradually reduces seed density of small seeded weed species in the top 15 cm over several years. In contrast, crop rotation with the early established sugar beet favours spring-germinating grass weed species, but also prevents establishment of summer-germinating weed species by the early developing crop canopy.


Introduction: Tuberculosis and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) co infection is becoming one of the most important public health issues in India. In some developing countries, 40% of all tuberculosis cases are attributed to HIV infection and in more than 50% of cases, tuberculosis is the first manifestation of HIV infection. Materials and methods: A cross sectional study was done among the in-patients of a tuberculosis ward in a tertiary care hospital in Eastern India. Fifty patients with HIV and tuberculosis infection of an extra pulmonary site, were included in the study. Results: A vast majority of the participants were young males. More than 80% were using intoxicants like alcohol or tobacco, 76% admitted exposure to commercial sex workers and 12% were intravenous drug users. Twenty five (50%) of the participants had disseminated tuberculosis, that is tubercular infection of more than one anatomical site. Maximum (62%) participants had tubercular infection of lymph nodes, followed by pleura, abdomen and central nervous system. Discussion and conclusions: The sociodemographic correlates of participants were similar to that seen in similar studies in other parts of the world. But in our study, tubercular lymphadenitis was the most common extra-pulmonary manifestation and proportion of disseminated tuberculosis cases was as high as 50%. Both these findings are different from studies from other parts of the world. These findings warrant a larger research study and programmatic changes to address issues of HIV/TB co infection.


"Collins Field Guide - Insects of Britain and Northern Europe" is comprehensive, easy to use/highly illustrated. This wholly updated and reset edition - the first since 1976 - brings this classic field guide right up to date. Although it has been completely rewritten, it still follows the same structure that was so highly praised in the previous editions. The first part of the book is a general introduction to the insect world, which is followed by the first of the many excellent illustrated identification keys. This primary key leads into the core of the book, the order descriptions. In each case, these give a short introduction to the key features of the order, including details of their biology, followed by specific identification keys. By following the keys, it is therefore possible for a beginner to identify nearly every species of insect, and learn about its biology at the same time. The text is illustrated with over 300 explanatory drawings and the 60 colour plates show 778 of the common species. "Indisputably the bargain of the year." - "New Statesman".


This article focuses on the processes of flood management and the experiences of flood victims in Chainat Province, central Thailand, so as to develop knowledge about the future handling of such disasters. A phenomenological qualitative approach was used to describe the processes of providing assistance to flood victims. In-depth interviews and observation were used to collect the data. Criterion sampling was used to select 23 participants. Content analysis of the data revealed that some flood victims could predict flooding based on prior experiences, so they prepared themselves. The data revealed six themes that demonstrated that those who could not predict how floods would impact on them were unprepared and suffered losses and disruption to their daily life. Damaged routes meant people could not go to work, resulting in the loss of income. There was a lack of sanitary appliances and clean drinking water, people were sick, and experienced stress. At the community level, people helped one another, making sandbags and building walls as a defense against water. They formed support groups to enable the processing of stressful experiences. However, later, the water became stagnant and contaminated, creating an offensive smell. The government provided assistance to cut off electricity services, food and water, toilets and health services, and water drainage. In the recovery phase, the victims needed money for investment, employment opportunities, books for children, extra time to pay off loans, reconnection of electricity, surveys of damage, and pensions to deal with damage and recovery.


Rotating homogeneous turbulence in a finite domain is studied using numerical simulations, with a particular emphasis on the interactions between the wave and zero-frequency modes. Numerical simulations of decaying homogeneous turbulence subject to a wide range ofbackground rotation rates are presented. The effect of rotation is examined in two finiteperiodic domains in order to test the effect of the size of the computational domain on the results obtained, thereby testing the accurate sampling of near-resonant interactions.We observe a non-monotonic tendency when Rossby number Ro is varied from large values to the small-Ro limit, which is robust to the change of domain size. Three rotation regimes are identified and discussed: the large-, the intermediate-, and the small-Ro regimes. The intermediate-Ro regime is characterized by a positive transfer of energy from wave modes to vortices. The three-dimensional to two-dimensional transfer reaches an initial maximum for Ro ≈ 0.2 and it is associated with a maximum skewness of vertical vorticity in favour of positive vortices. This maximum is also reached at Ro ≈ 0.2. In the intermediate range an overall reduction of vertical energy transfer is observed. Additional characteristic horizontal and vertical scales of this particular rotation regime are presented and discussed.


The popularisation of drawing up codes that are addressed to various social groups is one of the features of the modern world. However, researchers of the phenomenon have not yet reached a consensus about the moral validity and utility of this activity. The article thoroughly reviews the Polish literature on the subject with regard to the reasons for taking a moderate stance on the codification of ethical standards. The essay describes the main concepts of ethical codes as well as arguments for their approval and rejection. Attention is drawn to the ways of improving the effectiveness of codes and to the ethical decision-making procedure that reconciles the positions of the supporters and opponents of codification.


Performativity discourse currently pervades teachers' work. It is a discourse that relies on teachers and schools instituting self-disciplinary measures to satisfy newly transparent public accountability and it operates alongside a market discourse. The introduction of the performativity discourse has affected teacher relations at three levels of professional work with students, colleagues and local advisor/inspectors. Ethnographic research with primary teachers, which focused on their experience of Ofsted inspections in six schools over periods of up to four years, is the source of this paper. The paper argues that a humanist discourse prevalent in teacher relations with students, colleagues and advisor/inspectors has been challenged by a performativity discourse that: • distances teachers from students and creates a dependency culture in opposition to previous mutual and intimate relations • creates self disciplining teams which marginalize individuality and stratifies collegial relations in opposition to previous relations where primary teachers sought consensus • creates subjugatory, contrived and de-personalized relations between local advisors/inspectors in preference to previous partnership relations. The paper concludes that the change in relations is an indicator of fundamental change to social relations but that primary teachers are in a good position to influence the performativity discourse, albeit it a struggle, by reconstituting it through the maintenance of humanist relations.


Description: Step-by-step guide to successful implementation and control of IT systems—including the Cloud Many auditors are unfamiliar with the techniques they need to know to efficiently and effectively determine whether information systems are adequately protected. Now in a Second Edition, Auditor's Guide to IT Auditing presents an easy, practical guide for auditors that can be applied to all computing environments. Follows the approach used by the Information System Audit and Control Association's model curriculum, making this book a practical approach to IS auditing Serves as an excellent study guide for those preparing for the CISA and CISM exams Includes discussion of risk evaluation methodologies, new regulations, SOX, privacy, banking, IT governance, CobiT, outsourcing, network management, and the Cloud As networks and enterprise resource planning systems bring resources together, and as increasing privacy violations threaten more organization, information systems integrity becomes more important than ever. Auditor's Guide to IT Auditing, Second Edition empowers auditors to effectively gauge the adequacy and effectiveness of information systems controls.


New discoveries in neuroanatomy are helping clarify what addiction looks like in the brain. Peter Kalivas of the Medical University of South Carolina reported at the 2013 meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry that most drugs of abuse alter glutamate levels and the plasticity of synapses in the nucleus accumbens, the reward area of the brain. Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, and compulsive habits may be associated with increased release of glutamate in this brain area. During chronic cocaine administration, for example, the neurons in the nucleus accumbens lose their adaptive flexibility and their ability to respond to signals from the prefrontal cortex. Normally, low levels of stimulation would induce long-term depression (LTD) while high levels of stimulation would induce long-term potentiation (LTP). These are long-term changes in the strength of a synapse, which allow the brain to change with learning and memory. When long-term potentiation and long-term depression are no longer possible, memory and new learning in response to messages from the prefrontal cortex are diminished. Given this absence of flexible responding, animals extinguished from cocaine self-administration (when a lever they had pressed to receive cocaine ceases to provide cocaine) are highly susceptible to cocaine reinstatement if a stressor is presented or if a signal appears that suggests the availability of cocaine. This cocaine reinstatement is associated with high levels of glutamate in the nucleus accumbens, so Kalivas reasoned accurately that lowering these levels would be associated with a lesser likelihood of cocaine reinstatement. The drug N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which is available from health food stores, decreases the amount of glutamate in the nucleus accumbens by inducing a glutamate transporter in glial cells that helps clear excess synaptic glutamate. In Kalivas' research, NAC prevented cocaine reinstatement, cocaine-induced anatomical changes in spine shape (bigger, stubby spines), and the loss of long-term potentiation and long-term depression in the nucleus accumbens. The findings on NAC in animal studies led to a series of important small placebo-controlled clinical trials in people with a variety of addictions, and positive results have been found using NAC in people addicted to opiates, cocaine, alcohol, marijuana, and gambling. It also decreases hair-pulling in trichotillomania and reduces stereotypy and irritability in children with autism. NAC also appears to be effective in the treatment of unipolar and bipolar depressed patients in placebo-controlled trials by Australian researcher Michael Berk. Thus, NAC could be useful for patients with affective disorders who are also having difficulties with comorbid substance use. Some antibiotics (that are not commonly available) also induce the glutamate transporter in glial cells of the nucleus accumbens, offering a potential new approach to treating some addictions. Depression in Youth Is Tough to Treat and Requires Persistence and Creativity


Unlike optical CCDs, near-infrared detectors, which are based on CMOS hybrid readout technology, typically suffer from electrical crosstalk between the pixels. The interpixel capacitance (IPC) responsible for the crosstalk affects the point-spread function (PSF) of the telescope, increasing the size and modifying the shape of all objects in the images while correlating the Poisson noise. Upcoming weak lensing surveys that use these detectors, such as WFIRST, place stringent requirements on the PSF size and shape (and the level at which these are known), which in turn must be translated into requirements on IPC. To facilitate this process, we present a first study of the effect of IPC on WFIRST PSF sizes and shapes. Realistic PSFs are forward-simulated from physical principles for each WFIRST bandpass. We explore how the PSF size and shape depends on the range of IPC coupling with pixels that are connected along an edge or corner; for the expected level of IPC in WFIRST, IPC increases the PSF sizes by $\sim$5\%. We present a linear fitting formula that describes the uncertainty in the PSF size or shape due to uncertainty in the IPC, which could arise for example due to unknown time evolution of IPC as the detectors age or due to spatial variation of IPC across the detector. We also study of the effect of a small anisotropy in the IPC, which further modifies the PSF shapes. Our results are a first, critical step in determining the hardware and characterization requirements for the detectors used in the WFIRST survey.


[1] At suprathermal energies, interplanetary electrons commonly exhibit a magnetic field-aligned beam referred to as the strahl. The finite strahl width is a consequence of competition between magnetic focusing as the interplanetary field weakens with distance from the Sun, and particle scattering acting to broaden the strahl along its propagation path. We present a statistical survey of the strahl using ACE Solar Wind Electron, Proton, and Alpha Monitor (SWEPAM) measurements from 1998 to 2002. A systematic fitting algorithm was applied to pitch angle distributions to identify unidirectional or counterstreaming strahl features and to quantify beam widths and intensities. The analysis indicated that a strahl is present ≥75% of the time, while counterstreaming strahls were observed about 10% of the time. The strahl width ranges from 5° to 90°; importantly, the strahl cannot be characterized by any typical width. Within counterstreaming intervals the strahl peak intensity anticorrelates with beam width while the integrated fluxes of the two simultaneously observed strahls are similar, within a factor of 2 for 75% of counterstreaming periods. Observations are consistent with a model in which integrated strahl flux leaving the corona varies over a limited range, but the degree of beam scattering along the propagation path to 1 AU varies widely. The difference between two concurrent counterstreaming strahls is likely due to different scattering profiles along the different legs of a closed field line loop, both rooted in similar coronal regions. Narrow strahls (<20°) are strongly associated with counterstreaming intervals, as well as high-speed streams. Strahl width can either increase or decrease with energy.


I will present some results, research lines and open problems about the subject of geometric evolutions, mainly focusing on the two most famous ones: the mean curvature flow of a hypersurface in the Euclidean space and the Ricci flow of a metric on a differential manifold, discussing also some "variations" of the latter, that we recently investigated. I will discuss some topics that were part of our research in the last years, for instance, the analysis and classification of the self-similar solutions and of their generalizations, and the extensions of these flows to "singular" (non-smooth) objects. Finally, if time allows, I will mention some results about the connections between the two flows, like an unified approach to singularity analysis and the study of their "coupling"


This research proposes the use of stated preference techniques in order to take into consideration the transport operators' behaviour towards various transport and other parameters, in the prediction of the future modal split between road and combined transport. Through the development of suitable logit models for the corridor Greece- Italy-Northern Europe, the modal choice decisions are put in a wider framework where cost and time parameters are examined together with parameters concerning transport facilities availability, government subsidies and company structure, leading thus to a more complete insight of how modal choice decisions are taken. Forwarders and carriers were treated separately as the former were found to have a significantly more positive approach towards combined transport than the latter. The analysis showed clearly that due to the limited development of the required infrastructure, the most important parameter affecting the future combined transport market share is the level of financial aid to the transport operators for the purchase of the required combined transport equipment. Furthermore, changes in trip cost, trip time and company annual profit due to combined transport are, as expected, parameters affecting the combined transport market share.


Nowadays, science communication is considered as one of the major challenges that research institutions are required to face. The strategies to attract public interest, the choice of the correct language, and the tools to trigger curiosity are a matter of debate. Research claims a concerning disaffection in older students toward science, which suggests that children are one of the major targets to whom the world of science and research should appeal. "Scientist as a game" is an experience of a hands-on approach that is combined with game-related challenges in the field of geoscience, where effective teaching methods require extensive research. This activity was held for the first time in the 'Giacomo Doria' City Museum of Natural History in Genoa as an open day laboratory, and it was linked to an interactive exhibition realized by Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). We set up four laboratory activities that were focused on: (1) where and why earthquakes and eruptions occur on Earth; (2) how volcanoes happen; (3) what the effect of shaking on buildings is; and (4) how to behave correctly in the case of an earthquake. Children were teamed up to score points according to the challenges included within each activity. The feedback of this experience was very positive, as shown by the questionnaires handed out to the participants immediately after each activity, and it reinforces the reviewed research on using games and hands-on activities in education.


When Great Britain abolished slavery in 1833, sugar planters in the Caribbean found themselves facing the prospect of paying working wages to their former slaves. Cheaper labor existed elsewhere in the empire, however, and plantation owners, along with the home and colonial governments, quickly began importing the first of what would eventually be hundreds of thousands of indentured laborers from India. Madhavi Kale draws extensively on the archival materials from the period and argues that imperial administrators sanctioned and authorized distinctly biased accounts of postemancipation labor conditions and participated in devaluing and excluding alternative accounts of slavery. As she does this she highlights the ways in which historians, by relying on these biased sources, have perpetuated the acceptance of a privileged perspective on imperial British history.


Why has research-based practice become so important and why is everyone talking about evidence-based health care? But most importantly, how is nursing best placed to maximise the benefits which evidence-based care can bring?

Research has been used to legitimise nursing as a profession, education has been radically reformed to reflect a research base, and academic nurses have built their careers around it. However, despite the length of time that research has been on the agenda and the influential bodies involved, only a moderate proportion of nurses use research as a basis for practice.1 What has gone wrong?

Part of the difficulty is that although nurses perceive research positively,2 they either cannot access the information, or cannot judge the value of the studies which they find.3 This journal has evolved as a direct response to the dilemma of practitioners who want to use research, but are thwarted by overwhelming clinical demands, an ever burgeoning research literature, and for many, a lack of skills in critical appraisal. Evidence-Based Nursing should therefore be exceptionally useful, and its target audience of practitioners is a refreshing move in the right direction. The worlds of researchers and practitioners have been separated by seemingly impenetrable barriers for too long.4

Tiptoeing in the wake of the movement for evidence-based medicine, however, we must ensure that evidence-based nursing attends to what is important for nursing. Part of the difficulty that practitioners face relates to the ambiguity which research, and particularly "scientific" research, has within nursing. Ambiguous, because we need to be clear as to what nursing is, and what nurses do before we can identify the types of evidence needed to improve the effectiveness of patient care. Then we can explore the type of questions which practitioners need answers to and what sort of research …


It has previously been shown that self-consistent-charge density-functional tight-binding (SCC-DFTB) suffers from a self-interaction error that leads to artificial stabilization of delocalized states. The effects of the error are similar to those appearing for many density functionals. In SCC-DFTB, the delocalization error is inherently related to the use of a Hubbard-like term to describe on-site charge interactions. The mathematical simplicity of this Hubbard-like term makes it easy to estimate if a complex system is subject to artificial stabilization of delocalized states and to quantitatively predict the delocalization error in the system energy at large fragment separation. The error is directly proportional to the on-site charge interaction term but decreases as the fragments become more asymmetric. The difference in orbital energies required to eliminate the delocalization error becomes equal to the Hubbard-like parameter of the fragment with the highest electron affinity. However, in most cases, the localized state will be favored by spin polarization, fragment repulsion, solvent effects, and large reorganization energies, in analogy to density functional theory, from which SCC-DFTB is derived. The presented analysis gives an early indication whether the standard approach is suitable, or if a different method is required to correct the delocalization error. In addition to cationic dimers, we discuss the effects of the delocalization error for asymmetric systems, bond dissociation of neutral molecules, and the description of mixed valence transition metal systems, exemplified by the enzyme cytochrome oxidase. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2012


Abstract Determining the components of a radioactive source/shield system using the system's radiation signature, a type of inverse transport problem, is one of great importance in homeland security, material safeguards, and waste management. Here, the Levenberg-Marquardt (or simply "Marquardt") method, a standard gradient-based optimization technique, is applied to the inverse transport problems of interface location identification, shield material identification, source composition identification, and material mass density identification (both separately and combined) in multilayered radioactive source/shield systems. One-dimensional spherical problems using leakage measurements of neutron-induced gamma-ray lines and two-dimensional cylindrical problems using flux measurements of uncollided passive gamma-ray lines are considered. Gradients are calculated using an adjoint-based differentiation technique that is more efficient than difference formulas. The Marquardt method is iterative and directly estimates unknown interface locations, source isotope weight fractions, and material mass densities, while the unknown shield material is identified by estimating its macroscopic gamma-ray cross sections. Numerical test cases illustrate the utility of the Marquardt method using both simulated data that are perfectly consistent with the optimization process and realistic data simulated by Monte Carlo.


Bimetallic tubes are used for very specific applications where one of the two metals provides strength and the other provides specific properties such as aqueous corrosion and carburization, coking resistance, and special electrical and thermal properties. Bimetallic tubes have application in pulp and paper industry for heat-recovery boilers, in the chemical industry for ethylene production, and in the petrochemical industry for deep oil well explorations. Although bimetallic tubes have major applications in energy-intensive industry, they often are not used because of their cost and manufacturing sources in the United States. This project was intended to address both of these issues.


A theory for describing the equilibrium ethylene oxide (EO) segment distribution for terminally attached poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) chains is presented. It is based on Scheutjens and Fleer's lattice model for polymer solutions in heterogeneous systems and a two-state model for the EO segments. The two-state model provides one explanation of the solubility gap of homogeneous PEO solutions. The segment distribution is examined as a function of temperature, grafting density, and curvature. The present theory predicts distributions, which cannot be reproduced with the use of temperature-dependent interaction parameters in a one-state model. Specifically, the segments tend to be more accumulated at the surface but also far away from the surface at the expense of the intervening transition region. Calculation on a model of a micelles formed by the nonionic surfactant C{sub 12}E{sub 8} supports the experimental conclusions that the EO segments are preferentially accumulated nearby the hydrocarbon core and not completely extended into the water region.


Background and aims Thyroid carcinoma is the most frequent endocrine malignancy. It develops following a complex interaction of environmental and genetic factors. Its incidence is on the rise mostly due to the frequent diagnosis of microcarcinomas (tumor <1 cm). In most cases, it has very good prognosis and survival rates. The incidence of a second primary malignancy in thyroid cancer patients is higher than in the general population. In this article, we focus on the role of BRAF V600E mutation in the development of other primary neoplasms associated with thyroid carcinoma. Methods This study was conducted in the department of Nuclear Medicine and Genetics of the "Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuță" Institute of Oncology of Cluj-Napoca. We evaluated patients with thyroid carcinoma, who were diagnosed and treated for other malignancies such as breast, colorectal, lung cancer and malignant melanoma. In addition, we tested for the BRAF V600E mutation using paraffin samples of patients. Results We identified 17 patients that had thyroid carcinoma associated with other primary malignancies. Two of the patients included in the study had three associated primary cancers. The time interval between the diagnoses of two primary neoplasms in the same patient was 6.15 years, with a standard deviation (SD) of 5.39 years. The most common primary tumor associated with thyroid carcinoma in this study was breast cancer. We applied genetic testing for the BRAF V600E mutation in 12 patients. The BRAF V600E mutation positivity rate was 26.9% and most of the cancer associations were metachronous (occurring at least 6 months after thyroid cancer). Conclusions The BRAF V600E mutation is an important prognostic factor in the neoplasms included in this study, but its presence is not a predictive factor for the appearance of a metachronous or synchronous associated primary neoplasm to thyroid cancer.


Aripiprazole is a third-generation antipsychotic. It is prepared in many different formulations including oral, intravenous and intramuscular. The intramuscular option is currently available in fast-acting form while the long-acting (extended-release, depot) formulation was just approved by the US FDA. The purpose of this article is to review the current literature regarding the long-acting formulation of aripiprazole. Medical literature published in English on 'aripiprazole' or 'Abilify®' (Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc., MD, USA) was found using Pubmed, Medline and EMBASE. Publications containing the words 'depot', 'long-acting' or 'intramuscular' in their title or abstract were utilized. In total, two publications were reviewed for the purposes of this article. There is a scarcity of publications on the effectiveness of long-acting aripiprazole in the treatment of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. However, the available literature suggests that aripiprazole depot is a well tolerated, maintenance treatment option for schizophrenia.


Jay Kirby, PhD student in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program at North Carolina State University, conducted this interview with Associate Professor Lori Emerson to focus on her research about how interfaces and the material aspects of media devices affect our uses and relationships with those devices. Emerson, who runs the University of Colorado's Media Archaeology Lab, explains how we can look at older technology that never became an economic success to imagine what could have been and reimagine what is and what could be. In the Media Archaeology Lab, Emerson collects still-functioning media artifacts to demonstrate these different possibilities. In this interview, Emerson draws on examples from digital computer interfaces, word processors, and other older media to show how their material aspects are bound up in cultural, commercial, and political apparatuses. By bringing these issues to light, Emerson shows how a critical eye toward our media can have far reaching implications.


Abstract This paper performs specification analysis on the term structure of variance swap rates on the S&P 500 index and studies the optimal investment decision on the variance swaps and the stock index. The analysis identifies 2 stochastic variance risk factors, which govern the short and long end of the variance swap term structure variation, respectively. The highly negative estimate for the market price of variance risk makes it optimal for an investor to take short positions in a short-term variance swap contract, long positions in a long-term variance swap contract, and short positions in the stock index.


Increasing interest has been focused on understanding the role working conditions play in terms of the serious issues facing hospitals today, including quality of patient care, nurse shortages, and financial challenges. One particular working condition that has been the subject of recent research, is the impact of organizational climate on nurses' well-being, including occupational health outcomes. To examine evidence-based research on the association between organizational climate and occupational health outcomes among acute-care registered nurses, a systematic review of published studies was conducted. Studies assessing the association between organizational climate variables and three common health outcomes in nurses (blood/body fluid exposures, musculoskeletal disorders, and burnout) were reviewed. Fourteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Although most were cross-sectional in design and variability was noted across studies with respect to operational definitions and assessment measures, all noted significant associations between specific negative aspects of hospital organizational climate and adverse health impacts in registered nurses. While evidence for an association between organizational climate constructs and nurses' health was found, data were limited and some of the relationships were weak. Additional studies are warranted to clarify the nature of these complex relationships.


This study provides new evidence on the effectiveness of a combined remote sensing and hydrogeological investigation method for deep groundwater development in complex geologic and geomorphologic situations in Ethiopia. The study was undertaken in the Elidar district of the Afar region of Northern Ethiopia. Due to the water availability and vegetation in this district, the majority of the population (total population of 79,000 people and 647,000 head of cattle) are dependent on pastoralist livelihoods. The current ratio of available water supply facilities to number of beneficiaries is 1:2,323 people and 1:19,029 head of cattle. A joint UNICEF-UNESCO groundwater investigation pilot project with the objective of improving drilling success rates in the Elidar district considered a three-phase approach. In phase 1 and 2, an overlay method was developed that combined data from radar, optical remote sensing and ground measurement (geology, hydrogeology, hydrology, hydro-meteorology, and geophysics). The overlay model identified the most promising site to undertake well drilling, considering a probability of drilling wells with sufficient amount of water and permissible water quality (defined as Q = >2 L/s and EC < 2,000 μms/cm²). In phase 3, three production boreholes were drilled and the results showed a 92% accuracy against the overlay model.