The cationic abnormal N-heterocyclic carbene complex [Ru(OAc)(dppe)(PC)]Br (2b) (PC = bidentate phosphine-carbene ligand) has been obtained by treatment of the neutral derivative RuBr(OAc)(PPh3)(PC) (2a) with dppe in THF. Reaction of 2b with Ag2O afforded the heterobimetallic complex Ru(OAc)(dppe)(PC)AgBr (2c) which can be easily transmetallated with [Ir(cod)Cl]2 giving Ru(OAc)(dppe)(PC)IrCl(cod) (2d). Similarly, [{Ru(OAc)(PC)(PC')}2Ag][AgBr2] (1b) reacts with [Ir(cod)Cl]2 with formation of Ru(OAc)(PC)(PC')IrCl(cod) (1e). All complexes were characterized by NMR in solution and by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies in solid state. For the cationic complexes the 1H NMR resonance of the carbene-proton is considerably down-field shifted (δ > 9 ppm) with respect to that of the neutral derivatives. Cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry studies show that the Ru-centered redox process occurs at lower potential (ΔE > 100 mV) after transmetallation with iridium, suggesting an interaction of the two metals along the π-system of the heterocycle ligand. These complexes display catalytic activity in transfer hydrogenation of acetophenone in 2-propanol with a significant influence of Ir and Ag centers on the Ru moiety. The synthesis of the imidazolyl-based N-heterocyclic dicarbene Ru-Ir complexes, which entails the easy metallation of the reactive cationic abnormal N-heterocyclic carbene Ru complexes with Ag2O, represents a suitable pathway for the preparation of heterometallic ruthenium complexes.


In social constructivist educational theory, the classroom is seen as a community of learners. According to social constructivists, learning occurs through peer interactions, student ownership of the curriculum and educational experiences that are authentic for students. The purpose of this study was to investigate how teachers used social constructivist strategies to encourage student construction of knowledge and meanings, and how students constructed knowledge and meanings in two middle school physical education classrooms. A qualitative naturalistic design was used to collect data over a five-month period with two experienced middle school physical education teachers. Data included 11 weeks of observational field notes and interviews with teachers and students. Data were analyzed using cross-case and inductive analysis. Findings indicated that the teachers' strategies created a learning environment in which students actively constructed knowledge and meanings by making connections to their peers and by connecting physical education to their lives, their communities, and the real world. Students shared information, assumed leadership and responsibility, and became decision-makers. By connecting to their peers, students felt supported in their learning. This study offers additional findings in support of social constructivist pedagogy in physical education that encourages individual growth and social awareness in communities of learners.


The PDZ-LIM family of proteins (Enigma/LMP-1, ENH, ZASP/Cypher, RIL, ALP, and CLP-36) has been suggested to act as adapters that direct LIM-binding proteins to the cytoskeleton. Most interactions of PDZ-LIM proteins with the cytoskeleton have been identified in striated muscle, where several PDZ-LIM proteins are predominantly expressed. By contrast, CLP-36 mRNA is expressed in several nonmuscle tissues, and here we demonstrate high expression of CLP-36 in epithelial cells by in situ hybridization analysis. Our subcellular localization studies indicate that in nonmuscle cells, CLP-36 protein localizes to actin stress fibers. This localization is mediated via the PDZ domain of CLP-36 that associates with the spectrin-like repeats of α-actinin. Interestingly, immunoprecipitation and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis indicate that both nonmuscle α-actinin-1 and α-actinin-4 form complexes with CLP-36. The high expression of α-actinin-4 in the colon, together with these results, suggests a specific function for the α-actinin-4-CLP-36 complex in the colonic epithelium. More generally, results presented here demonstrate that the association of PDZ-LIM proteins with the cytoskeleton extends to the actin stress fibers of nonmuscle cells.


Abstract Not Available – First paragraph follows:
THE USDA'S ECONOMIC RESEARCH Service and the University of California, Davis, are cooperating in an economic analysis of the mechanical harvesting of wine grapes. Machine harvesting of grapes in California began in 1969 and expanded to over 100 machines in the 1972 harvest. Just before the 1973 harvest, an initial survey was made which included 37 growers who owned grape harvesting machines and 40 growers who used hand labor for harvesting grapes. The study analyzed the effect of substituting machines for labor, provided current information on the status of mechanization, and gave farmers some background information to help them adjust to the changing technology. Some preliminary observations are given here, from a full report to be published later this year.


Purpose: The aim of the article is to examine the relationship between the use of learning and development tools in building the innovation potential of enterprises in the artificial intelligence sector. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is based on a survey on companies from the artificial intelligence sector (n=127) located in Poland. The regression model defines the relationship between learning and development tools and innovations measured by the number of obtained patents. In addition, the analysis was expanded to include the results of a survey conducted among employees of the surveyed enterprises. As a result, an assessment of the usefulness of knowledge management tools was obtained. Findings: The findings indicate that modern tools of knowledge management in the form of knowledge bases and knowledge pills, or gamifications and business simulations affects the level of innovativeness. These tools are positive assessed by employees (i.e. programmers) that are directly involved in creating solutions in the field of artificial intelligence. Practical implications: The results of the analysis may indicate the directions of development of HR departments in companies of the artificial intelligence sector. It turns out that modern forms of learning stimulate the level of company innovation. Originality/Value: The artificial intelligence sector is perceived as the one that will have the greatest impact on technological progress in the coming years. Solutions in the field of artificial intelligence will have their impact on other industries, such as medicine or the IT sector. The study drew attention to factors determining the level of innovativeness of companies related to learning and development tools.


We examine the change in the effect of market structure on hospital quality for elective procedures (hip and knee replacements, and coronary artery bypass grafts) following the 2006 loosening of restrictions on patient choice of hospital in England. We allow for time-varying endogeneity due to the effect of unobserved patient characteristics on patient choice of hospital using Two Stage Residual Inclusion. We find that the change in the effect of market structure due to the 2006 choice reforms was to reduce quality by increasing the probability of a post-operative emergency readmission for hip and knee replacement patients. There was no effect of the choice reform on hospital quality for coronary bypass patients. We find no evidence of self-selection of patients into hospitals, suggesting that a rich set of patient-level covariates controls for differences in casemix.


Current research supports the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions in clinical social work, yet more rigorous research is needed to determine what makes it effective, and through which mechanisms. This study looked at the relationship between meditation experience and self-reported trait mindfulness and emotion regulation, two proposed mechanisms of change in mindfulness, and perceived levels of well-being. Data was collected using a quantitative survey involving 29 adults who currently have a mindfulness meditation practice. People who meditated more frequently each week scored significantly higher on measures of trait mindfulness. In addition, higher levels of trait mindfulness were correlated with less difficulty with emotion regulation and higher levels of well-being. The results of this study support the idea that emotion regulation and trait mindfulness are possible mechanisms of action in mindfulness-based interventions. Although sample size limits generalization of findings, this study suggests that the use of mindfulness meditation in clinical social work is beneficial in improving emotion regulation, which is an important aspect of many mental health challenges.


A multiple regression model, which defines relationship between two variables, is used to perform a statistical analysis of the relationship between the stratospheric QBO and the neutral density of the D region (N n D) at altitudes of 75 km and 90 km for Singapore station. While performing the analysis, the solar maxima and solar minima epochs of the sun for 21st, 22nd and 23rd solar cycles (SCs) are taken into account. Before applying the model for the statistical analysis of the relationship, the stationary of the variables is investigated by using the unit root test. The relationship between the variables is also investigated by using the co-integration test. The relationship between N n D measured at 75 km altitude and QBO obtained at altitude of 10 hPa is observed that it is positive for solar maximum epoch at 21st and 23rd SCs and for solar minimum epoch at 21st SC and is negative at the other epochs. The relationship between N n D measured at 90 km altitude and QBO is observed to be negative at both the solar maxima expect for solar maximum of 23rd SC and the solar minima epochs. The relationship between variables is positive for both phases (east and west) of QBO. Thus, QBO leads to a statistical change in the N n D. It may also give rise to changes on the ion chemistry of the D region.


In June 2002, a previously well 24-year-old Indonesian male student on no medications, presented with 2 weeks of lethargy, thirst, frequency of urination and blurred vision. He smoked 10 cigarettes daily and had a maternal grandmother with type 2 diabetes. He was mildly dehydrated, with abnormal urinalysis (3+ glucose, 1+ ketones), his body mass index (BMI) was 27 and there was no acanthosis nigricans. Serum glucose was 51.9 mmol/L (normal 3.0–7.7 mmol/L), creatinine 0.14 mmol/L (normal 0.06–0.12 mmol/L), sodium 127 mmol/L (normal 135–145 mmol/L) and potassium 4.9 mmol/L (normal 3.5–5.0 mmol/L). Arterial blood gases revealed a pH 7.35 (normal 7.35–7.45) and a serum bicarbonate 29 mmol/L (normal 20–30 mmol/L). The patient's glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) was 9.8% (normal 4.0–6.0%). Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) antibodies were 3.6 U/mL (normal <5 units). 1 C-peptide and plasma ketones were not measured. He was treated with i.v. fluids and potassium and commenced on a basal-bolus insulin regimen. After stabilization, nutritional and diabetes education he was discharged on 52 units of insulin daily. Outpatient follow up was complicated by infrequent attendance. Two weeks post-discharge, glycaemic control was adequate and without hypoglycaemia; however, by 3 months the patient was having regular hypoglycaemic episodes. The HbA1c fell from 9.8 to 4.9% over 8 months, and despite insulin reduction, frequent hypoglycaemia persisted. Fasting C-peptide and GAD antibodies were arranged, but the patient did not attend. At the next clinic visit, 8 months later, non-fasting blood was taken. GAD antibodies were negative and non-fasting Cpeptide was 1.50 pmol/mL (0.14–0.50 pmol/L) with concurrent blood sugar levels ranging between 4.0 and 6.0 mmol/L. The BMI was 27. At that time, the patient was taking 10 units of insulin daily with daily hypoglycaemia. Insulin was ceased (May 2004) and metformin 500 mg b.d. commenced. Further dietary advice and metformin reduction to 500 mg daily allowed tight glucose control (3.4–5.2 mmol/L) without hypoglycaemia. This case highlights many issues regarding diabetes in the young, an increasingly common problem. 2 This patient presented acutely with hyperglycaemia similar to an early presentation of type 1 diabetes, although the lack of acidosis and only mild ketosis in the setting of such hyperglycaemia in an overweight Asian should have raised concerns earlier regarding the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. GAD autoantibody was negative; however, this test is less helpful in classifying Asian diabetic patients because only 20–30% of such subjects are positive, compared with 70% of Caucasian type 1 diabetic subjects. 3 The patient's reducing insulin requirements were initially interpreted as the 'honeymoon' phase of type 1 diabetes, in which there is a transient (weeks to months) fall in insulin requirements due to improved beta-cell function. The elevated C-Peptide makes type 1 diabetes unlikely. The use of C-Peptide as a marker for discrimination between type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus is widely established, particularly in cases where the classification of diabetes is atypical. Bell and Ovalle have addressed the role of C-Peptide for differentiating between latent autoimmune diabetes in adults and type 2 diabetes. 4 A minority of patients presenting with ketosisprone diabetes, especially of Asian or African American origin, can be classified as type 1B diabetes. 5–7 Clinical presentation may be similar to that of type 1 diabetes but patients lack autoimmunity, tend to have a higher BMI and have significant residual C-peptide secretion relative to type 1 diabetes. Although these patients usually require insulin therapy initially, they have significant residual insulin secretory capacity and insulin can subsequently be withdrawn, to be replaced by diet alone and/or oral hypoglycaemic agents. 6 Our patient falls in this category. Doctors should be aware of type 1B diabetes (and the value of C-peptide measurement) so that patients are not diagnosed as having classic type 1 diabetes, requiring life-long insulin.


Breast cancer is the deadliest disease and the major cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. The milestone in breast cancer diagnosis is to distinguish malignant tumour from benign breast tumour for which reliable diagnostic procedure is required by the physicians.Prognosis of breast cancer is to predict the recurrence in breast cancer patients for whom they had their excision already. Data mining techniques have revolutionized the diagnostic and prognostic procedure in breast cancer. One of the new research's in data mining application involves analyzing. This survey work analyses the various reviews and technical articles, on breast cancer diagnosis. The main goal of this research is to explore the overview of the current research being carried out using the data mining techniques to enhance the breast cancer diagnosis.


Abstract:Recent activist and academic work regarding same-gender marriage and relationships has brought to the fore supposed precolonial archives that seem to suggest that something we might call homophobia is as colonial in Africa as is the notion of the nation-state. While this archival work might be important in creating space for African queers, it fails to engage fully with what it might mean to be both African and queer, in the here and now. So what, if there were no ancestral queers? What do these archives concretize and block out of queer possibilities? While thinking with, and against, this archival record, this essay centers one family's recent history as a calculated exercise in both memory and method. Putting older black women on the agenda evokes their and others' freedom and the intellectual contributions of black women who have, over the years, constituted the survival of black theory and a logic of care. This is an exercise in how else one could choose to arrive at blackness and queerness and feminism by way of narration.


Connections are the glue that holds steel structures together. In practice, a structure is constructed by connecting various members such as I-beams, columns, channels (c shapes), angles (L shapes), and hollow cylinders. In practice, to connect these members bolts or welds are used. Moreover, depending on the design loading requirements, a steel connection can be classified into three broad categories, namely, axial connection, shear connection, and moment connection. The engineer has to calculate the deformation and stress of every connection to make sure the connection is not subjected to values that are greater than the design limit. The analysis of bolted connection is complex and local stresses are difficult to visualize. This paper used ANSYS, a well-known finite element program to analyze bolted connections and their failure modes – such as web local yielding, bolt shear strength, tension rupture, and flexural yielding. Two modeling approaches were taken: (i) 2-D modeling using non-contact elements, and (ii) 3-D modeling with contact elements were considered. For 3-D models, solid bolted model, and contact pairs were created. The advantage of the 2-D modeling is that it is simple, and it takes only a few seconds to solve the problem. On the other hand, the 3-D modeling with contact elements is more complicated and results in a set of nonlinear set of equations that requires much longer run time. The finite element models used in this study are intended as visual tools to enhance the understanding of local deformations and stresses in connections, which students and some faculty may find difficult to picture.


This article shows how input heterogeneity triggers productivity spillovers at the workplace. In an egg production plant in rural Peru, workers produce output combining effort with inputs of heterogeneous quality. Exploiting variation in the productivity of inputs assigned to workers, we find evidence of a negative causal effect of an increase in coworkers' daily output on own output and its quality. We show theoretically and suggest empirically that the effect captures free riding among workers, which originates from the way the management informs its dismissal decisions. Our study and results show that input heterogeneity and information on input quality contribute to determine the shape of incentives and have implications for human resource management, production management, and the interaction between the two. Counterfactual analyses show that processing information on inputs or changing their allocation among workers can generate significant productivity gains.


Two new genera and nine new species of hydroids are described based on deep-water material collected from off New Caledonia during various expeditions of the French Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos program. Caledoniana gen. nov., provisionally included in the family Sertulariidae Lamouroux, 1812, presently comprises three new species, viz . C. alata sp. nov., C. decussata sp. nov., and C. microgona sp. nov., while an additional group of three new species, is accommodated in the new sertulariid genus Solenoscyphus gen. nov.: S. candelabrum sp. nov., S. decidualis sp. nov., and S. striatus sp. nov. Furthermore, three new species of Hincksella Billard, 1918 (family Syntheciidae Marktanner-Turneretscher, 1890) are described, namely H. cornuta sp. nov., H. neocaledonica sp. nov., and H. similis sp. nov.


Labor Economics: Principles in Practice provides a concise, tightly integrated, and engaging exploration of labor economics. Focusing on core principles and immersing students in real data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), Ken McLaughlin lays out a clear analytical framework for thinking about labor-market issues and policies. The book's entire presentation-- from the conversational tone to the practice questions within each section-makes labor economics highly accessible to more students.


Port Jackson sharks are distributed throughout southern Australia, with evidence suggesting that potential subpopulations exist. If subpopulations are evident, then phenotypic variation among groups should result in differences in life-history parameters. The present study tested for patterns of spatial variability of life-history parameters among regional Port Jackson shark populations. Rates of growth from Port Jackson sharks caught in the gulf waters of South Australia were calculated on the basis of counts of vertebral increments. Growth parameters were obtained by fitting the length-at-age data to von Bertalanffy and Gompertz growth functions. While the derived growth curves fit the length-at-age data well (r2 ranged from 0.87 to 0.91), parameters showed considerable differences between the two functions, with the von Bertalanffy function providing the more realistic estimates of growth (combined sexes: k = 0.081 year–1, L∞ = 1232 mm total length and t0 = –1.937 years). Life-history parameters for South Australian Port Jackson sharks were collated with the available data for the species, facilitating comparisons among regional populations. Growth curves among populations varied significantly; however, considerable overlap in the length ranges of size at birth and sizes at maturity among populations were evident. Overall, the data presented here do not provide definitive support for the presence of subpopulations across the distribution of the Port Jackson shark, suggesting that molecular analysis maybe required to directly test for structuring.


The value of travel time (VOT) is defined as the marginal rate of substitution between travel time and travel cost, and it is typically calculated using standard econometric techniques. However, it is very common for both variables (travel time and travel cost) to present high correlation, artificially increasing the variance of the VOT estimator. We propose a new approach to estimating VOT in the context of logistic regression models (that could also be applicable to classical discrete choice models), based on an application of the ridge regression approach. Using simulated data, we demonstrate that the ridge estimator reduces the variance and mean-squared error of the VOT. Additionally, we obtain a lower estimation bias for the VOT estimation, due to a geometric property of the ridge estimator that is applicable for VOT (defined as the ratio of the travel time and travel cost parameters in linear models). We applied the methodology to a large sample of interurban trips by bus and train in the South of Chile, achieving reductions of nearly 50% in the variance of the VOT.


For large customers, Electricite de France - the French national electric power company - stores every 10' the amount of electric power they consume. For each customer, these measures lead to curves called electric load curves. Clustering of electric load curves is a key problem for understanding the behavior of these customers. Several methods have been used but Kohonen maps give a very nice solution to this problem thanks to the visualization of the map. The work we present here describes a software for interactive construction and interpretation of a Kohonen map clustering, in the case of curves. The user can run the Kohonen map clustering, visualize the map, see external characteristics of curves linked to each cell of the map, find the cells figuring curves having some chosen external characteristics, define classes of cells, add comments on cells. User interaction is largely based on mouse clicking on the map cells and on bars of barcharts figuring external characteristics of the curves. This software is not dedicated to electric load curve analysis but can be used on any type of curve, for instance to analyze time series in finance.


Crowdsourcing is changing the publishing landscape. Unbound, publisher of Paul Kingsnorth's Booker longlisted novel The Wake (2014), describes itself as: 'A new way to connect authors and readers. Authors present a pitch, you pledge, and when the goal is reached the book is written.1 According to Professor Gillian Rudd: 'Unbound's crowdfunding basis challenges the assertion that e-readers are killing paper books.... Could Unbound free both writers and readers?'2

Much has been written about the historical importance and recent significance of reading communities, particularly in the context of social mobility and gender (eg Hartley, Kiernan, Fuller, Radway, Squires, Rehberg: 2011)3. However, community publishing as a 'third way' in terms of rethinking the emergent tension between print and digital has yet to be comprehensively explored.

This paper will present the findings of a community Kickstarter publishing campaign. The project team consists of a professional designer, proofreader, co-writer and co-founder (me), project manager, and illustrator, as well as Jess, the chef. All of the team (apart from Jess) are mothers at a primary school in Cornwall, which has responded to the 2014 government requirement that all infants be provided with free school meals, by serving food that is locally sourced, allotment grown and inspired by chefs such as Ottolenghi. This paper will track a live crowdsourcing project in the wider context of an industry in flux. (258 words)


The nineteenth century saw a rise in the categorization and systematic observation of manifestations of dysfluent speech. This article examines how, from the 1820s onward, different vocabularies to distinguish between different speech impediments were developed in France, Germany and Britain. It also charts how different meanings, categories and chronologies of 'stammering' knowledge were exchanged transnationally. The universalist medical models emerging around stammering were, despite this constant exchange, also closely connected to cultural imaginations of speech, the particular values assigned to one's (national) language and political modes of belonging. Although the analysis is largely based on prescriptive texts, it also reveals how embodied experiences of dysfluency informed the medical and pedagogical work undertaken in the nineteenth century: a remarkable number of 'experts' on speech impediments claimed to be 'former sufferers'. The history of dysfluency in the nineteenth century is therefore not one of linear medicalization and pathologization, but a continuous exchange of vocabularies between different actors of middle-class culture. Expertise on speaking 'well' was shared in medical treatises, but also on the benches of parliament, in cheap self-help pamphlets, in the parlour, or in debating clubs – suggesting that the model of 'recovery' was a manifestation of (middle class) culture rather than of a strictly medical discourse.


One of the most noteworthy political regularities in the early twentieth century was the shift away from majoritarian electoral rules in Western Europe. The conventional wisdom suggests that proportional representation (pr ) was introduced by elites who believed that under the existing majoritarian rules (simple plurality, block-vote, two-ballot rules) they would soon lose power to rapidly growing socialist parties. But this does not explain why many electoral reforms were carried out in countries with weak or nonexistent socialist parties. The author shows that increasing the number of parties distorts the seat-vote properties of electoral rules to a larger degree than previously anticipated. Under increasing party competition, electoral regimes display larger partisan biases than those observed in two-party races and crowd out minority parties that have territorially dispersed constituencies in favor of minority parties that have territorially concentrated constituencies. Using a dynamic Bayesian model for seats and votes, the author measures the partisan biases brought about by the expansion of voting rights in the late nineteenth century to explain the drive to reform majoritarian electoral systems.


Carbon dioxide sequestration in deep saline and depleted oil geologic formations is feasible and promising; however, possible CO(2) or CO(2)-saturated brine leakage to overlying aquifers may pose environmental and health impacts. The purpose of this study was to experimentally define a range of concentrations that can be used as the trace element source term for reservoirs and leakage pathways in risk simulations. Storage source terms for trace metals are needed to evaluate the impact of brines leaking into overlying drinking water aquifers. The trace metal release was measured from cements and sandstones, shales, carbonates, evaporites, and basalts from the Frio, In Salah, Illinois Basin, Decatur, Lower Tuscaloosa, Weyburn-Midale, Bass Islands, and Grand Ronde carbon sequestration geologic formations. Trace metal dissolution was tracked by measuring solution concentrations over time under conditions (e.g., pressures, temperatures, and initial brine compositions) specific to the sequestration projects. Existing metrics for maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for drinking water as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) were used to categorize the relative significance of metal concentration changes in storage environments because of the presence of CO(2). Results indicate that Cr and Pb released from sandstone reservoir and shale cap rocks exceed the MCLs by an order of magnitude, while Cd and Cu were at or below drinking water thresholds. In carbonate reservoirs As exceeds the MCLs by an order of magnitude, while Cd, Cu, and Pb were at or below drinking water standards. Results from this study can be used as a reasonable estimate of the trace element source term for reservoirs and leakage pathways in risk simulations to further evaluate the impact of leakage on groundwater quality.


The past six years have witnessed an enormous change in the treatment of smoking by policymakers. In 1995, federal and state excise taxes on cigarettes were one-third lower, in real terms, than their peak level in the mid-1960s. Since 1995, however, taxes have risen forty percent, or twenty-two cents per pack, and now stand at seventy-eight cents per pack. From the traditional economics perspective, this shift in government policy is unwarranted. In the standard economics model, fully informed, forward-looking, rational consumers decide whether or not to smoke, weighing the benefits of doing so in terms of smoking enjoyment against the costs in terms of health and other risks. The only call for intervention in such a model are the externalities that smokers impose on others, such as increased medical costs for public insurance programs. But such externalities are, in fact, fairly small by most measures, and their costs are offset by the savings from the earlier mortality of smokers, who pay a lifetime of Social Security taxes but often do not live long enough to collect the benefits. As a result, the traditional economics model would suggest that the "optimal" tax on cigarettes may be below the 1995 level. The traditional model, however, has little evidence in its support. This model is predicated on the description of a smoking decision at odds with laboratory evidence, the behavior of smokers, econometric analysis, and, quite frankly, common sense. Moreover, alternative models, deviating only modestly from this traditional formulation, have radically different implications for government policy, rationalizing large taxes on cigarettes and other types of regulatory controls. In this Commentary, I describe this "new economics of smoking." First, I discuss how the new model differs from the old. Second, I offer evidence that supports the evolution in thinking. Finally, I discuss the implications of the new formulation for government policy and the legal arena.


In this study, an algorithm is presented for pipe system diagnosis. The algorithm is the Successive Linear Estimator (SLE) previously used in groundwater hydrology to estimate the hydraulic proprieties of soils. The SLE is an iterative cokriging-like technique which provides statistically the best unbiased estimates and quantifies the associated uncertainty. In this paper the algorithm has been extended to the pipe system diagnosis to infer leak areas, status of valves and partial blockage location and extent. We first present the theoretical formulation of the algorithm and then test it by a numerical case study.


Graph-based semi-supervised learning is the problem of propagating labels from a small number of labelled data points to a larger set of unlabelled data. This paper is concerned with the consistency of optimization-based techniques for such problems, in the limit where the labels have small noise and the underlying unlabelled data is well clustered. We study graph-based probit for binary classification, and a natural generalization of this method to multi-class classification using one-hot encoding. The resulting objective function to be optimized comprises the sum of a quadratic form defined through a rational function of the graph Laplacian, involving only the unlabelled data, and a fidelity term involving only the labelled data. The consistency analysis sheds light on the choice of the rational function defining the optimization.


Diabetes can lead to many systemic complications that include the nervous and renal systems. The vision of individuals with diabetes may be affected psychophysically, as noted with changes in dark adaptation, contrast sensitivity, glare recovery, color vision, and visual acuity. The primary ocular complication of diabetes is diabetic retinopathy-one of the leading causes of blindness in American adults.


The problem of discrete Markov Random Field optimization, or MAP inference, can be reformulated as an integer linear program (ILP), which is NP-Hard in general. A usual method to approximately solve this ILP is to relax the integral constraints. Many MAP inference methods have been based on this linear programming relaxation. In this work, we propose a new decomposition scheme to solve the dual of this relaxed linear program, where the dependencies between any two nodes of the graph are relaxed using Lagrangian relaxation. Since the dual function is non-differentiable, subgradient methods are first used. The application on a stereo vision problem shows that the convergence rate of these methods, which is O(1/ ) in theory, is not practical. Therefore, we smooth the dual using Nesterov's method and then use optimal firstorder gradient methods to optimize the obtained smooth function, which result in a better convergence rate of O(1/ ). The method can handle any graph structures with arbitrary potential functions. As an application, a new MRF model for locally affine image registration is proposed.


We incorporate a physically derived parameterization of gravity drainage, in terms of a convective upwelling velocity, into a one-dimensional, thermodynamic sea-ice model of the kind currently used in coupled climate models. Our parameterization uses a local Rayleigh number to represent the important feedback between ice salinity, porosity, permeability, and desalination rate. It allows us to determine salt fluxes from sea ice and the corresponding evolution of the bulk salinity of the ice, in contrast to older, established models that prescribe the ice salinity. This improves the predictive power of climate models in terms of buoyancy fluxes to the polar oceans, and also the thermal properties of sea ice, which depend on its salinity. We analyze the behavior of existing fixed-salinity models, elucidate the physics by which changing salinity affects ice growth and compare against our dynamic-salinity model, both in terms of laboratory experiments and also deep-ocean calculations. These comparisons explain why the direct effect of ice salinity on growth is relatively small (though not always negligible, and sometimes different from previous studies), and also highlight substantial differences in the qualitative pattern and quantitative magnitude of salt fluxes into the polar oceans. Our study is particularly relevant to growing first-year ice, when gravity drainage is the dominant mechanism by which ice desalinates. We expect that our dynamic model, which respects the underlying physics of brine drainage, should be more robust to changes in polar climate and more responsive to rapid changes in oceanic and atmospheric forcing.


Introduction Progress in cancer prevention and treatment depends on the collection and analysis of reliable information about the incidence, risk factors, and progression of cancer in the Canadian population. Every jurisdiction in Canada has a public cancer registry, operated by a cancer agency or subsumed within another government department or ministry. (1) These registries contain comprehensive information about patients diagnosed with cancer, which are used for various analyses and reports. Those who operate cancer registries are responsible for maintaining data security and considering requests for access to information by various third party data users. Surveillance and research activities facilitated through cancer registries are recognized as having a compelling public health purpose, but they take place in a context that has become increasingly sensitive to the rights of individuals to protection of their personal information. Ensuring that personal privacy is adequately protected, while maximizing the use of relevant data for surveillance and research, is an important challenge. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the legal and policy framework for the use of cancer patient information for surveillance and research purposes in Canada. It analyzes various sources of law applicable to cancer registries and to the use and disclosure of personal health information in this context, with a view to identifying key gaps and weaknesses and outlining potential reforms. The article is based on a report produced for the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, an independent, federally-funded organization working on cancer control in Canada. The research conducted for that report built on earlier work carried out in 1999-2000 for the Canadian Coalition on Cancer Surveillance by researchers at the Health Law Institute, University of Alberta, and the Centre de recherche en droit public at the Universite de Montreal. (2) Though it took the 2000 Report as a starting point, the new report was written as an independent document. In updating the legislative review carried out in 2000, some significant changes have taken place, most notably the proliferation of statutes for the protection of personal information. This article is divided into five parts: Part 1 provides an overview of public health surveillance and the legal framework within which surveillance and research take place. In Part 2, the legislative framework is analyzed in more detail, focusing on legislation that is directly relevant to the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information by cancer registries. The relevant types of legislation are summarized, and the legislative framework is compared to a set of recommended characteristics. The Appendix contains a Table of Legislation which sets out, for easy reference, the key pieces of legislation (statutes and regulations) relevant to cancer surveillance and the use of cancer data. Part 3 supplements the discussion of legislation in Part 2 with an outline of the policies and procedures of cancer agencies and other bodies that are relevant to use and disclosure of cancer data. Part 4 then provides an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the legal and policy framework, and highlights some issues that may require further attention. Finally, Part 5 outlines and discusses a range of tools to improve the legal and policy framework, such as model legislation or policies, best practices, and guidelines. The conclusion discusses priorities for action and potential areas of future work. Part 1: Cancer Surveillance and its Legal Context Health surveillance is one of six core functions of public health. (3) Surveillance may be defined as: the tracking and forecasting of any health event or health determinant through the continuous collection of high-quality data, the integration, analysis and interpretation of those data into surveillance products (for example reports, advisories, alerts, and warnings), and the dissemination of those surveillance products to those who need to know. …


Synovial sarcoma (SS) is highly malignant tumor that occurs mainly in adolescents and young adults and is usually seen in the extremities. However, primary SS arising from the lung is extremely rare, accounting for 0.3% to 1.3%. Primary pulmonary SS (PPSS) is an extremely aggressive malignant tumor that can invade adjacent organs or give distant metastases. Besides clinical evaluation and imaging methods for definitive diagnosis, immunohistochemical examination is must. We report a case of elderly male with left lung mass lesion invading into the pericardium and left-sided pleural effusion with a history of smoking. Positron emission tomography (PET)–computerised tomography (CT)-guided trucut biopsy from lung mass lesion led to the diagnosis, and thoracoscopic pleural biopsy showed the pleural involvement with final diagnosis of PPSS (monophasic type). There are no guidelines for optimal treatment due to the rarity of such tumors. Current treatment includes resectional surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. But because of advanced age and poor performance status, our patient was not candidate for any treatment but palliation.


Abstract Paleobiological phylogenies often contain contrasting biological information to phylogenies based on extant species. Available software is primarily based on a present-day view of the world, however. Here, we present freeware to visualize phylogenies that is more suitable for the needs of paleobiologists, providing flexibility in how stratigraphic uncertainty, the geological timescale, and ancestor-descendant relationships are depicted.


Modeling the propagation of high‐frequency sound in shallow water environments often requires the inclusion of stochastic effects in order to provide realistic results. The inclusion of these effects may cause the model to be more computationally intensive and difficult to run. It is therefore desirable to know when these effects are significant, and when they may be ignored. One method of determining this significance is to determine the probability that the ray paths traced by a deterministic ray tracing model will occur in the stochastic environment; if the probability is low that the deterministic ray path is nearly correct, then stochastic effects must be included. This paper discusses a method for determining these ray path probabilities given an average variability in the sound speed and a correlation length. This paper will concentrate on spatial variations, though a procedure for including variations with time will be discussed. [Work supported by ONR.]


The public health and individual risks of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing and conventional over-the-counter symptomatic drugs in pediatric treatment of acute otitis media (AOM) and upper respiratory infections (URIs) are significant. Clinical research suggests that over-the-counter homeopathic medicines offer pragmatic treatment alternatives to conventional drugs for symptom relief in children with uncomplicated AOM or URIs. Homeopathy is a controversial but demonstrably safe and effective 200-year-old whole system of complementary and alternative medicine used worldwide. Numerous clinical studies demonstrate that homeopathy accelerates early symptom relief in acute illnesses at much lower risk than conventional drug approaches. Evidence-based advantages for homeopathy include lower antibiotic fill rates during watchful waiting in otitis media, fewer and less serious side effects, absence of drug-drug interactions, and reduced parental sick leave from work. Emerging evidence from basic and preclinical science research counter the skeptics' claims that homeopathic remedies are biologically inert placebos. Consumers already accept and use homeopathic medicines for self care, as evidenced by annual US consumer expenditures of $2.9 billion on homeopathic remedies. Homeopathy appears equivalent to and safer than conventional standard care in comparative effectiveness trials, but additional well-designed efficacy trials are indicated. Nonetheless, the existing research evidence on safety supports pragmatic use of homeopathy in order to "first do no harm" in the early symptom management of otherwise uncomplicated AOM and URIs in children.


Public administrators are responsible for providing public services to ensure the health, prosperity, and wellbeing of their communities. Serving as the ambassadors of public wellbeing, they are privy to an array of useful tools by which to achieve this goal. Contracting is but one such tool; however, with increased use over the past several decades, it has become an interesting factor in the study of public administration. Deeply rooted in American history, contracting has become a common method for providing public services. It has particularly enjoyed increased use since the 1970s with the emergence of public choice and other economic theories. The primary rationale behind its increased use has been to compensate for government deficiencies, namely inefficiency and higher costs in delivering public services, and dissolve government monopoly. This rationale, however, has been met with challenges. Critics argue its emphasis is stemmed in dangerous ideology and that such emphasis on contracting has led to less accountability, reduced quality, and even greater inequity among communities. Reviewing the literature, the research explored the nature of public service contracting, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. Also through review of the literature, the research explored a new way to analyze contracting based on four principles of classical pragmatism: practical, pluralistic, participatory, and provisional orientations. The research further applied these pragmatic principles using a case study method with the City of Austin, Texas as the study environment. The research found that contracting from a pragmatic approach can relieve public administrators of their ideological bases, allowing them to approach problems more objectively. This in turn allows the administrator to fully place the needs of the community first and arrive at more appropriate solutions to problems. Evidence was found that the City of Austin is remarkably pragmatic in its contracting practices. This case study, while unique to Austin, may serve as a guide for other public administrators in ensuring their contracting practices sufficiently meet the needs of their communities in a pragmatic fashion.


Serverless or functions as a service runtimes have shown significant benefits to efficiency and cost for event-driven cloud applications. Although serverless runtimes are limited to applications requiring lightweight computation and memory, such as machine learning prediction and inference, they have shown improvements on these applications beyond other cloud runtimes. Training deep learning can be both compute and memory intensive. We investigate the use of serverless runtimes while leveraging data parallelism for large models, show the challenges and limitations due to the tightly coupled nature of such models, and propose modifications to the underlying runtime implementations that would mitigate them. For hyperparameter optimization of smaller deep learning models, we show that serverless runtimes can provide significant benefit.


A method is proposed which computes a direction in a dataset such that a speci ed fraction of a particular class of all examples is separated from the overall mean by a maximal margin. The projector onto that direction can be used for class-speci c feature extraction. The algorithm is carried out in a feature space associated with a support vector kernel function, hence it can be used to construct a large class of nonlinear feature extractors. In the particular case where there exists only one class, the method can be thought of as a robust form of principal component analysis, where instead of variance we maximize percentile thresholds. Finally, we generalize it to also include the possibility of specifying negative examples.


Ad-Hoc networks are flexible, adapt to topology changes due to mobility of nodes, and can de deployed where network infrastructure is not available. Research has been done mainly in the area of routing and for isolated Ad-Hoc networks. Some efforts are on the way to connect Ad-Hoc networks to the internet. It is however important to support QoS aware multimedia applications in this environment. A QoS architecture for Ad-Hoc networks is necessary that interworks with infrastructure based QoS approaches. Our approach extends SWAN and provides QoS support for communication between Ad-Hoc nodes and nodes located in the public internet. The gateway, which provides internet connectivity to Ad-Hoc nodes, is also responsible for QoS signaling interworking and participates in admission control decisions and traffic regulation


Background Blood born viral infections such as hepatitis B virus (HBV) are major concerns in chronic hemodialysis (CHD) patients and hemodialysis units. Undetected HBs Ag in the presence of viral DNA, occult HBV infection (OBI), is a concern in the care of CHD patients and hemodialysis unit as a mode of transmission. Objectives In this case-control study we compare the frequency of OBI in the CHD patients with the normal population. Materials and Methods : 82 consecutive CHD patients and 82 healthy individuals without any risk factors for HBV infection were enrolled in this study. A selection criterion was negative serum HBs Ag by ELISA method. Subsequently, the sera were tested for HBV DNA by nested PCR method. Results: In the CHD group, 55 (67.1%) were male and 27 (32.9%) were female, with the overall mean age of 54.32 ± 13.67 years old. The mean age of control group was 32.65 ± 8.51 years old, with 26 (31.7%) male and 56 female (69.3%). HBV DNA was present in 9 (11%) CHD patients, 4 (8%) of whom were seronegative for anti-HBc and anti-HBs antibodies. No HBV DNA was identified in the control group ( p <0.0001). History of blood transfusion was present in all OBI CHD patients and 59 (80.9%) of non-OBI CHD patients. Duration of hemodialysis in OBI CHD and non-OBI CHD patients were 73.56 ± 39.53 and 44.24 ± 24.59 months, respectively ( p =0.002). Conclusion : The prevalence of occult HBV infection is relatively high in patients with chronic hemodialysis in our region. Duration of hemodialysis and history of blood transfusion are important risk factor for OBI infection. A more sensitive method, such as PCR, may need to be considered in this patient population.


Material removal rate has greatly relied on the distribution of shear stress and dynamic pressure on the workpiece surface in hydrodynamic effect polishing (HEP). Fluid dynamic simulation results demonstrate that the higher rotation speed and smaller clearance will cause the larger material removal rate. Molecular dynamic (MD) calculations show the bonding energy of Si-O in the silicon-oxide nanoparticle is stronger than that in the quartz glass, and therefore the atoms can be dragged away from the quartz glass surface by the adsorbed silicon-oxide nanoparticle. The deep subsurface damage cannot be efficiently removed by HEP due to its extremely low removal rate. However, the subsurface damaged layer can be quickly removed by ion beam figuring (IBF), and a thinner layer containing the passivated scratches and pits will be left on the surface. The passivated layer is so thin that can be easily removed by HEP process with a low material rate under the large wheel-workpiece clearance. Combined with the IBF process, the subsurface damage and surface scratches have been efficiently removed after the HEP process. Meanwhile there are not obvious duplicated marks on the processed surface and the surface roughness has been improved to 0.130nm rms, 0.103nm Ra.


Background: Government, industry and charitable organisations have an increasing focus on programs intended to support community resilience to disasters. But has consensus been reached as to what defines 'community resilience' and what its core characteristics are? Methods: We undertook a systematic literature review of definitions of community resilience related to disasters. We conducted an inductive thematic analysis of the definitions and descriptions that we identified, in order to determine the proposed characteristics of community resilience prior to, during and after a disaster. Results: We identified 80 relevant papers. There was no evidence of a common, agreed definition of community resilience. In spite of this, evidence was found of nine core elements of community resilience that were common among the definitions. The core elements were: local knowledge, community networks and relationships, communication, health, governance and leadership, resources, economic investment, preparedness, and mental outlook. Within these core elements, we identified 19 sub-elements linked to community resilience. Conclusion: Our findings show that community resilience remains an amorphous concept that is understood and applied differently by different research groups. Yet in spite of the differences in conception and application, there are well-understood elements that are widely proposed as important for a resilient community. A focus on these individual elements may be more productive than attempting to define and study community resilience as a distinct concept.


Cell lines are widely used in biomedical research as surrogates for human tissues and for physiological studies on live cells. Despite being easy to maintain and manipulate, cell lines must be carefully characterised. When a new cell line is acquired, and when preparing a new cell bank for storage, it is mandatory to confirm the identity of the cells and ensure that they are free of Mycoplasma and other microbial contaminants. These tests must be repeated whenever another cell bank is prepared. Cell lines must be replaced from the bank within 10 passages or 3 months of continuous growth, whichever is the shorter period. Moreover, it is important that cells are examined microscopically for morphological changes and contamination every time they are taken out of the incubator.

Key Concepts:

Every time cells are taken out of the incubator, they must be examined microscopically for changes in morphology or the presence of microbial and cellular contamination.

Every time a new cell line is acquired or a cell stock is frozen for storage, it should be authenticated by interspecies (DNA barcoding) and intraspecies (STR profiling) identification.

Every time a new cell line is acquired or a cell stock is cryopreserved, it is essential to check for Mycoplasma contamination (and other microbial contamination if tests are available).

An established cell line should never be grown continuously for more than 3 months or 10 passages, whichever is the shorter period.

All cell stocks entering the tissue culture laboratory must be kept in quarantine until microbial and cellular contaminations are excluded.

If there are any doubts concerning the authenticity of cells, consult the ICLAC (International Cell Line Authentication Committee) database of misidentified cell lines – http://iclac.org/databases/cross-contaminations/

When obtaining cells from a cell bank or another reliable source, always ask for proof of authenticity and lack of Mycoplasma contamination.

Always follow good tissue culture practices.

Determine key characteristics and morphology at various magnifications and densities.

STR profiling (human) and DNA barcoding (animal) are commercially available, and are cheap, robust and reliable methods of authenticating cell lines.

Keywords:

STR profiling;
DNA barcoding;
cell line cross-contamination;
Mycoplasma detection;
cell culture


Rheumatic heart disease (RHD), an autoimmune reaction to an infection of rheumatogenic group A streptococcus bacteria, is characterised primarily by progressive and permanent heart valvular lesions, although other parts of the heart may be affected. Despite an overall decrease in the incidence of RHD in developed countries, it remains a pertinent health issue with high rates in developing countries and amongst certain Indigenous populations in industrialised countries. Primary, secondary and tertiary strategies for the prevention of rheumatic heart disease exist, as do numerous barriers to such strategies. A review of the literature, incorporating its epidemiology and pathophysiology, demonstrates that interventions at various stages of the disease may reduce the collective burden of disease.


PURPOSE
In 2006, Sharp Health Plan (SHP) conducted a campaign to increase mammography screening for at-risk female members that consisted of mailing each eligible member an informational mammography postcard with an appointment tracker. Then came an automated phone call reminder. After the mammography campaign, 70 percent of SHP members sought mammography screening while 30 percent remained nonadherent. SHP decided to conduct a survey to better understand members' barriers to breast cancer screening.

DESIGN
A survey based on Prochaska and Velicier's Transtheoretical Model of Change was designed to assess members' behavioral stage and barriers to breast cancer screening.

METHODOLOGY
The survey was administered to all nonadherent members via personal phone calls with nearly 50 percent of the nonadherent completing the interview. All quantitative data were examined, and a code book was created to assess additional qualitative data. Findings were further analyzed by stage of change, ethnicity/race, and region of San Diego.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
The top three barriers identified were: Mammogram not a priority, Knowledge deficit, and Had a bad experience in the past.

CONCLUSION
A common set of mammography barriers was found in the SHP member population. However, when segmented into ethnic, racial, geographic, and behavioral stage groups, various barriers were identified. SHP providers can use this information to develop more tailored interventions and to increase the rate of breast cancer screening for their member population.


We investigate the matching algorithm used by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions (ZVS) in medicine and related subjects. This mechanism consists of three procedures based on final grades from school ("Abiturbestenverfahren", "Auswahlverfahren der Hochschulen") and on waiting time ("Wartezeitverfahren"). While these procedures differ in the criteria applied for admission they all make use of priority matching. In priority matching schemes, it is not a dominant strategy for students to submit their true preferences. Thus, strategic behaviour is expected. Using the full data set of applicants, we are able to detect some amount of strategic behaviour which can lead to inefficient matching. Alternative ways to organize the market are briefly discussed. JEL Classification: C78, D02, D78, I29


Multi-User MIMO promises to increase the spectral efficiency of next generation wireless systems and is currently being incorporated in future industry standards. Although a significant amount of research has focused on theoretical capacity analysis, little is known about the performance of such systems in practice. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of the first multi-user beamforming system and experimental framework for wireless LANs. Using extensive measurements in an indoor environment, we evaluate the impact of receiver separation distance, outdated channel information due to mobility and environmental variation, and the potential for increasing spatial reuse. For the measured indoor environment, our results reveal that two receivers achieve close to maximum performance with a minimum separation distance of a quarter of a wavelength. We also show that the required channel information update rate is dependent on environmental variation and user mobility as well as a per-link SNR requirement. Assuming that a link can tolerate an SNR decrease of 3 dB, the required channel update rate is equal to 100 and 10 ms for non-mobile receivers and mobile receivers with a pedestrian speed of 3 mph respectively. Our results also show that spatial reuse can be increased by efficiently eliminating interference at any desired location; however, this may come at the expense of a significant drop in the quality of the served users.


The international tax reform proposal introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) on November 19, 2013 contains several significant innovations that promise to define the terms of the debate for the foreseeable political future. It is therefore worth examining in detail even if it seems unlikely that progress toward meaningful reform can be achieved very soon.The major component of the proposal is a move toward territoriality coupled with two alternative anti-profit shifting options, option Y and option Z. This article will argue that option Y represents a significant step forward and can be the basis of adopting a territorial regime, while option Z is deeply flawed and risks further profit shifting unconstrained by the current limits on repatriating profits. Other important innovations in the Baucus proposal include a new destination based tax on Controlled Foreign Corporations (CFCs) on their sale of goods and services into the US; a major modification of the PFIC rules and other simplification measures; and a significant rollback of the portfolio interest exemption.This article will analyze each of these elements of the proposal and then offer some suggestions for further improvement. The two major missing elements from the proposal are additional broad limitations on inbound base erosion and preventative measures against corporate expatriations.


ABSTRACT This article reviews links and gaps related to water quality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It uses these as a starting point to analyze challenges in water quality management at national and basin levels from a 'source to sea' perspective. Experiences in the Danube River, Black Sea, East Asian Seas and the Baltic highlight key issues to be addressed during the implementation of the agenda to achieve water quality objectives in fresh, coastal and marine waters. It assesses priorities for supplementary actions to be supported to improve prospects for achieving targets in these areas.


The past twenty years has seen growing academic and policy interest in the role of SMEs within a global context. There has been much debate surrounding the negative impact of globalisation on the international SME arising from increased competitive pressures. However, SMEs have long found opportunities in the global economy and as international trade has expanded so too have these opportunities.
 The numerous benefits to SMEs engaged in international trade are well documented, with a considerable body of evidence that international trading activity stimulates increased productivity growth by strengthening competition and innovation and increasing access to new ideas and technology. International trading activity enables businesses to achieve growth and economies of scale which domestic markets alone would not provide. Exporters are consistently found to out-perform non-exporters using a variety of measures of success, including profitability, production, wages and sales volumes.
 Despite these advantages, the SME share in the total value of international trade is often found to be markedly lower that their share in GDP, evidence of the barriers facing the SME seeking to access international markets. Accordingly the international SME has attracted the attention of policy makers, as any barriers to international trade are likely to impinge disproportionately on this group of firms which are often the most productive, R & D intensive and most growth orientated, and thus potentially the strongest contributors to a dynamic national economy.
 This paper is based on a study undertaken by the OECD/APEC to gain a better understanding of the barriers to internationalising (defined as all those constraints that hinder the firm's ability to initiate, to develop, or to sustain business operations in overseas markets) faced by SMEs, and to share knowledge of government interventions to reduce those barriers.
 In general, there seems to be a close match between the perceived barriers as reported by Member Economies and those that are perceived by SMEs. For the most part, support measures are appropriate to the key barriers reported by the international SME. Some mismatches do appear however. There appears to be something of a policy gap with regard to external barriers falling within the 'business environment' dimension. Here, governments appear to underestimate the barriers facing the SME as they attempt to access international markets.


The new non-parametric approach to unsegmented text recognition builds two bipartite graphs that result from the feature-level and lexical comparisons of the same word against a reference string which need not include the query word. The lexical graph preserves the relative order of edges in the feature graph corresponding to correctly recognized features. This observation leads to a subgraph-matching formulation of the recognition problem. An initial implementation proves the robustness of the approach for up-to 20% noise introduced in the feature-level graph.


Background The use of technologies has served to reduce gaps in access to treatment, and digital health interventions show promise in the care of mental health problems. However, to understand what and how these interventions work, it is imperative to document the aspects related to their challenging implementation. Objective The aim of this study was to determine what evidence is available for synchronous digital mental health implementation and to develop a framework, informed by a realist review, to explain what makes digital mental health interventions work for people with mental health problems. Methods The SPIDER (Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, and Research type) framework was used to develop the following review question: What makes digital mental health interventions with a synchronous component work on people with mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, or stress, based on implementation, economic, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies? The MEDLINE, EBM Reviews, PsycINFO, EMBASE, SCOPUS, CINAHL Complete, and Web of Science databases were searched from January 1, 2015, to September 2020 with no language restriction. A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews-2 (AMSTAR-2) was used to assess the risk of bias and Confidence in Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research (CERQual) was used to assess the confidence in cumulative evidence. Realist synthesis analysis allowed for developing a framework on the implementation of synchronous digital mental health using a grounded-theory approach with an emergent approach. Results A total of 21 systematic reviews were included in the study. Among these, 90% (n=19) presented a critically low confidence level as assessed with AMSTAR-2. The realist synthesis allowed for the development of three hypotheses to identify the context and mechanisms in which these interventions achieve these outcomes: (1) these interventions reach populations otherwise unable to have access because they do not require the physical presence of the therapist nor the patient, thereby tackling geographic barriers posed by in-person therapy; (2) these interventions reach populations otherwise unable to have access because they can be successfully delivered by nonspecialists, which makes them more cost-effective to implement in health services; and (3) these interventions are acceptable and show good results in satisfaction because they require less need of disclosure and provide more privacy, comfortability, and participation, enabling the establishment of rapport with the therapist. Conclusions We developed a framework with three hypotheses that explain what makes digital mental health interventions with a synchronous component work on people with mental health problems. Each hypothesis represents essential outcomes in the implementation process. Trial Registration PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42020203811; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42020203811 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) RR2-10.12688/f1000research.27150.2


The traditional parameters to evaluate human microcirculation such as mean values of skin blood flux (SBF) and velocity of skin blood flow measured by laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) failed to find the biological effects of magnetic field (MF) on human microcirculation according to numerous researches. Although this inefficacy of MF indicated by these traditional parameters, other potential parameters were seldom investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to find other potential parameters by using time-frequency analysis as indicators to investigate whether MF affects human microcirculation in future studies. Continuous wavelet transform which has superior frequency resolution in low frequency band was applied in present study to convert two dimensional data of flux signal with low frequency band into three dimensional data involving the temporal and frequency information of the original signal. Six characteristic peaks identified relating to microvascular mechanism were recognized in the frequency interval between 0.005 and 2 Hz and the amplitude of each peak varied with time. This method may provide a new idea and method for the analysis and processing human SBF signal and lay a foundation for future study of MF effects on human microcirculation. However, more studies are needed to demonstrate the interesting and encouraging effects of MF on untraditional parameters such as wavelet coefficients of SBF signal and to explain the precise action mechanism of MF on human microcirculation.


In his article "Modernizing the Colonial Labor Subject in India" Valerian DeSousa discusses how the colonial project in India sought to counter the labor movement's evolving anti-colonial consciousness through law, the primary signifier of British dominance. DeSousa argues that colonial labor law was an instrument of "governmentality," a way of deploying the authority of the state, both in India and in Africa where the law encoded meanings of property and subjectivity. In India, labor law was the means to "reconstruct" the "traditional" worker and to constitute a "modern" and "efficient" labor subject to fit into the new industrial vision taking shape. How was modernity translated in the Indian context? Paradoxically, while the industrial exhibition became the metaphor for modernity for the metropolitan center, colonial rule "undermodernized" Indian skilled workers and constructed them as "static" and unchanging. By looking at the discourses that contextualized labor law in the colonial era, DeSousa examines the restrictive techniques employed to limit the potential of the labor movement and participation in modernity. The "conferral" of modernity and the discourses that celebrated it were embedded in Orientalist frameworks that were unquestioned. Valerian DeSousa, "Modernizing the Colonial Labor Subject in India" page 2 of 11 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 12.2 (2010): Thematic issue New Modernities and the "Third World." Ed. V. DeSousa, J.E. Henton, and G. Ramanathan


This paper outlines experiences with using economic criteria to make architecture design decisions. It briefly describes the CBAM (Cost Benefit Analysis Method) framework applied to estimate the value of architectural strategies in a NASA project, the ECS. This paper describes the practical difficulties and experiences in applying the method to a large realworld system. It concludes with some lessons learned from the experience.


Abstract: High-precision U–Pb ion microprobe analyses provide new constraints on the emplacement and origin of the Kinabalu granite in Sabah, northern Borneo. The granite is a sheeted laccolith-like body comprising dyke-fed granitic units that young downwards, each emplaced beneath the previous sheet. Analyses of concentric growth zones in zircons indicate crystallization between 7.85 ± 0.08 and 7.22 ± 0.07 Ma, and show that the entire pluton was emplaced and crystallized within less than 800 ka. Several pulses of magmatism are recognized, each lasting for a maximum of 250 ka, and possibly as briefly as 30 ka. The oldest ages coincide with the highest elevations whereas the youngest ages are found at lower elevations around the edge of the body. Based on these new age data and field observations we identify the biotite granodiorite, hornblende granite and porphyritic facies as the Upper, Middle and Lower Units respectively. Inherited zircon ages indicate different protoliths for the Upper and Middle Units. The Upper Unit is derived from attenuated continental crust of the South China margin subducted beneath Sabah. The Middle Unit is sourced from melting of the crystalline basement in Sabah with little or no contribution from South China crust. Supplementary material: Full U–Pb ion microprobe analytical data, and modal and major element composition data are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18385.


The generation of highly stable optical pulses as short as 11 fs from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser containing no intracavity prisms is demonstrated. In the femtosecond oscillator design reported, novel dielectric mirrors provide broadband dispersion control for solitonlike pulse formation.


This paper estimates the impact of an agricultural technology adoption program on agricultural production and income using an experimental approach. The context of analysis is the Program for the Support of Innovation in Agricultural Technology (PATCA II) implemented in the Dominican Republic. The program aimed to increase the agricultural productivity and income of smallholder farmers by encouraging the adoption of a technology. We exploit a two-stage randomized experiment conducted at the geographic and farmer levels to estimate the effects of adopting improved pasture and irrigation technologies. To measure the effectiveness of the program, we combined rich microeconomic data obtained from a comprehensive household survey with administrative data to measure both direct and spillover effects. The sample includes 2,499 farmers, including direct beneficiaries, indirect beneficiaries, controls, and farmers within the social network of direct beneficiaries. We find different patterns of adoption and significant impacts on production-related outcomes for both of the technologies analyzed. The results show adoption of improved pastures increased agricultural income and that the effects intensify over time. In the case of irrigation, treatment had adverse effects on total household income and agricultural production; however, there is evidence of a change in the production portfolio of program beneficiaries from temporary to permanent crops as a function of time of exposure to the technology. Whereas irrigation can be implemented immediately after treatment, income benefits take time to materialize, for instance, as permanent crops reach the initial point of harvest or maturity. These results imply the existence of a dynamic learning-by-doing process. Also, the assessment of indirect or spillover effects did not validate the hypotheses that knowledge spillovers might take place among farmers in close geographical and social proximity to program beneficiaries. The results present evidence that liquidity constraints are critical determinants of technology adoption for smallholder farmers in the Dominican Republic.


YSS YXR7 is a high-speed tool steel with good toughness and wear resistance. It is used for blanking dies, forging dies, heading dies, and thread forming dies. This datasheet provides information on composition, physical properties, hardness, and bend strength. It also includes information on heat treating. Filing Code: TS-783. Producer or source: Hitachi Metals America, Ltd.


This interlaboratory study was specifically designed to determine the effects of material granularity and sample processing techniques on the measurement variability (i.e. precision) of nutritional elements in various cereal materials. Participants were asked to determine in triplicate the levels of iron, calcium and zinc in six breakfast cereals (three wheat-based, two rice-based and one wheat/rice mixture). Processing of the three ground materials (ground and homogenized wheat, ground wheat and ground rice) was anticipated to be relatively straightforward, whereas the two flake materials (wheat flake and rice flake) were expected to require appropriate processing prior to subsampling to limit measurement variability. The final material (wheat/rice mixture with a hand-crushed granularity) was anticipated to be a 'challenge' material due to its inherent heterogeneity both in content and in granularity. In general, approximately 25 % of the laboratories processed and analyzed the suite of six cereal materials with adequate to exemplary measurement precision. Another 60 % of the laboratories experienced measurement issues related only to a specific type of cereal matrix (e.g., wheat vs. rice or the 'challenge' wheat/rice sample), or for only a select element (e.g., Fe vs. Ca or Zn). A small number (≈ 15 %) of laboratories experienced significant sample processing and/or measurement problems. It should be noted that this study is a precursor to possible future exercises that will assess method precision using commercially available nutritional products that will contain more varied ingredients and thus exhibit significant heterogeneity.


A quasigeostrophic model for the frequency-dependent response of the zonal-mean flow to planetary-wave forcing at Northern Hemisphere (NH) midlatitudes is applied to 4-D-Var ECMWF analysis data for six extended winter seasons. The theoretical response is a non-linear function of the frequency of the forcing, the thermal damping time α −1 , and a scaling parameter µ which includes the aspect ratio of the meridional to the vertical length scale of the response. Regression of the calculated response from the analyses onto the theoretical response yields height-dependent estimates for both α −1 and µ. The thermal damping time estimated from this dynamical model is about 2 days in the troposphere, 7–10 days in the stratosphere, and 2–4 days in the lower mesosphere. For the stratosphere and lower mesosphere, the estimates lie within the range of existing radiative damping time estimates, but for the troposphere they are significantly smaller.


Preface Part I. The Concept of a Green's Function Part II. Vector Spaces and Linear Transformations Part III. Systems of Finite Dimension Part IV. Continuous Functions Part V. Integral Operators Part VI. Generalized Fourier Series and Complete Vector Spaces Part VII. Differential Operators Part VIII. Integral Equations Part IX. Green's Functions in Higher-Dimensional Spaces Part X. Calculation of Particular Green's Functions Part XI. Approximate Green's Functions Appendices Bibliography Chapter references Index.


This paper summarizes for civil engineers several publications that help to specify and use coal combustion by-products in construction and other applications in a technically sound, commercially effective and environmentally safe manner. The American Coal Ash Association (ACAA) is working to create and to update generic specifications and guidelines for coal ash utilization, and sources are cited that may be used for obtaining these and other documents containing essential information and useful recommendations. The paper discusses the current legislative and regulatory climate for coal ash utilization and efforts being made by the ACAA to gain favorable recognition and treatment of the principal forms of coal ash, including fly ash, bottom ash, boiler slag and flue gas desulfurization sludge.


Volcanic ash contributed significantly to particulate matter (PM) in Iceland following the eruptions in Eyjafjallajökull 2010 and Grímsvötn 2011. This study aimed to investigate the association between different PM sources and emergency hospital visits for cardiorespiratory causes from 2007 to 2012. Indicators of PM10 sources; "volcanic ash", "dust storms", or "other sources" (traffic, fireworks, and re-suspension) on days when PM10 exceeded the daily air quality guideline value of 50 µg/m3 were entered into generalized additive models, adjusted for weather, time trend and co-pollutants. The average number of daily emergency hospital visits was 10.5. PM10 exceeded the air quality guideline value 115 out of 2191 days; 20 days due to volcanic ash, 14 due to dust storms (two days had both dust storm and ash contribution) and 83 due to other sources. High PM10 levels from volcanic ash tended to be significantly associated with the emergency hospital visits; estimates ranged from 4.8% (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.6, 9.2%) per day of exposure in unadjusted models to 7.3% (95% CI: −0.4, 15.5%) in adjusted models. Dust storms were not consistently associated with daily emergency hospital visits and other sources tended to show a negative association. We found some evidence indicating that volcanic ash particles were more harmful than particles from other sources, but the results were inconclusive and should be interpreted with caution.


Context Elementary teachers will make difficult pedagogical choices when selecting materials to support their students' learning about historical topics. Given the variety of historical books written for their students, certain stories will be emphasized and ultimately legitimated and others will be silenced through absence. Objective of Study The objective of this article is to identify and analyze children's literature spanning a spectrum of theoretical positioning and to interrogate their instructional implications. We investigate narratives and images of enslavement in children's literature through the question: how is enslavement portrayed in recently published elementary-level (first through sixth grade) literature? Research Design This article is a content analysis of 21 recently published elementary-level books that portray enslavement in U.S. history. Unlike previous studies of enslavement in children's literature, we analyzed both the narrative text and the illustrations in our dataset using methods that ensured interrater reliability. To accomplish this, we developed and tested an analytical tool for understanding the interpretive stances books deploy when they portray difficult moments in history. We deductively categorized textual and visual depictions of enslavement into one of three stances: selective tradition, social conscience, and culturally conscious. The criteria for these stances were established through critical race theory and the broad research tradition on African-American subjects in children's literature. Results Our analysis revealed the presence of all three depictions in children's literature. Our findings call attention to the need for careful decision-making on the part of elementary teachers, as their decisions around book selection will enact a curriculum that honors particular perspectives of U.S. history. The problematic elements identified in previous studies remain prevalent in modern books for elementary students. However, our findings also suggest teachers will be presented with a more complicated set of options when selecting among historical children's literature than previously documented by researchers. Conclusions While a diversity of interpretive narratives about enslavement is present in elementary-level history books, the invisibility of race in U.S. history remains a powerful feature in current historical resources. Researchers of a number of topics in K–12 education will find utility in the analytical tool developed for this article. Selective tradition, social conscience, and culturally conscious are interpretive frames that can be directed at any number of topics in children's literature.


At European level, the allocation of a small amount of financial resources to education as a percentage of GDP associated with major economic difficulties affected the whole structure of the education expenditure: by type of expenditure, level of education and residence type.State intervention in educational activity requires to be aware of the amount of public expenditure conducted by public bodies, both central and local authorities, to finance this activity. Funding education must provide incentives to ensure efficiency as it is important not only for being the base of a proper organization of the educational activity, but also because it can improve its content.


Critiquing the Critic: A Case for Journalistic Criticism in the Theatre Tara Nicole Haas Department of Theatre and Media Arts, BYU Master of Arts This thesis suggests that journalistic theatre criticism is a necessary and vital aspect of the theatre, promoting a healthy theatre community and culture. A healthy theatre community is supported by critics and artists alike, and is one where citizens are excited about the theatre, desiring to participate and engage with it often. It is one where artists and spectators listen, respect, and trust one another, being open to opinions and suggestions that may enhance and improve the theatre community. A healthy theatre community strives to provide theatre that may be multi-faceted in purpose, but allows for opportunities to challenge, uncover, teach, or simply entertain to become magnified, creating transformative experiences within the viewers. In the most utopic state, healthy theatre causes epiphanies that provide glimpses of a better world, one where individuals and societies may know peace. These interactions, with the magic that theatre can bring, may benefit communities on a level ultimately akin to changing the world. Journalistic criticism supports such healthy theatre by increasing interest and viewership, contributing to the theatre's growth, and recognizing ways in which it can utilize its deepest potential. In this thesis, I have performed qualitative and action research in order to evaluate myself as a critic. The thesis also explores how criticism functions in our society and, further, how it should function. I have analyzed various theatrical reviews I have written, and placed them into three sections, each representing a distinct element of theatre criticism. These elements comprise the most fundamental and vital functions of a review that leads to a healthy and improved theatre community. These sections are: "Increasing Promotion," "Honest and Specific Feedback," and "Emphasizing Social Justice." Grouping the reviews into these sections, I will identify how I have contributed to the field of theatre criticism, and to these three realms in particular. I will also be able to recognize and indicate how I can progress as a critic to help support the field of journalistic theatre criticism. This thesis is very insular, personal, and beholden to me, presenting distinct limitations. The value of this work lies primarily in giving aspiring critics the opportunity to learn from my experiences and insights. Above all, this thesis holds value because of the improved critic I have become from completing it, ultimately able to better serve people in my writing for years to come.


Academic writing, whether individual or cooperative, is an essential skill for today's graduates. However, motivating and helping students to learn to write effectively, either in cooperative or individual scenarios, poses many challenges, many of which can be overcome by technical means. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of using cooperative and individual weblogs to enhance writing performance, based on blended instructional design. An equally weighted sequential quantitative-qualitative (two-stage) mixed research design was used for this study. In the quantitative dimension, the "pretest-posttest control group design" that was applied as an experimental study was used. In the qualitative dimension, the views of students in the experimental group were examined as a "case study." Twenty-one 5 th grade students participated in the study, 12 in the experimental group, and 9 in the control group. While the experimental group worked on a cooperative weblog, the control group worked on an individual weblog. A writing performance exam was applied as pretest- posttest. Exam papers were scored with a writing performance evaluation scale. Results of the quantitative dimension indicated a statistically significant difference between the writing performance of students in the experimental and control groups in favor of the control group. When the sub-skills of students' writing performance was examined on the posttest scores of the "ideas & content dimension," a statistically significant difference was found in favor of the control group, but no significant difference was detected in the "sentence fluency, writing rules and organization" dimensions between the groups. Results of qualitative dimension showed that "feedback" has a positive effect on writing performance, unlike cooperative learning, which has an adverse effect.


A comprehensive guide to designing and operating reliable server environments Keep your data center cool, clean, scalable, and secure Learn the five principles of effective data center design Avoid the natural and man-made hazards that can jeopardize a data center site Learn how to lay out key infrastructure objects within the data center for greatest efficiency, from buffer zones to server rows Apply proven installation methods by studying sample illustrations of both overhead and under-floor systems Extract the best practices and design strategies for both in-room and standby electrical infrastructure Avoid accidental downtime, improve productivity, and ensure user safety Safeguard and streamline your network infrastructure with a well-organized physical hierarchy Understand the special challenges of retrofitting overburdened server environments Implement solutions from a wide array of sample illustrations and examples of essential data center signage Safeguard servers with operations standards for people working in or visiting the data center Download templates used by Cisco to design its data centers, customizable to square footage and geography Avoid excess construction costs by designing a data center that meets your needs today and for many years to comei? All data centers are unique, but they all share the same mission: to protect your company's valuable information. Build the Best Data Center Facility for Your Business answers your individual questions in one flexible step-by-step reference guide.Benefit from the author's concise and practical approach to data center design and management. The author distills this complex topic by sharing his first-hand and worldwide experience and expertise. Regardless of your experience level, you can fill your knowledge gaps on how to safeguard your company's valuable equipment and intellectual property.This easy-to-navigate book is divided into two parts: Part I covers data center design and physical infrastructure details, and Part II covers data center management and operations. You can also access supplementary online materials for installation instructions, which include customizable data center design templates, written cabling specifications, and sample drawings.If you need a starting point for designing your first data center, regardless of size; if you need to prepare yourself with comprehensive strategies to retrofit or improve an existing one; or if you need proven methods to manage a data center for maximum productivity-this book is your readily accessible, comprehensive resource for answers and insights.i? Invest in the best future for your business by learning how to build and manage robust and productive data centers now.This book is part of the Networking Technology Series from Cisco Pressi?? which offers networking professionals valuable information for constructing efficient networks, understanding new technologies, and building successful careers.


There is an ever-increasing demand for more complex transactions and higher throughputs in transaction processing systems leading to higher degrees of transaction concurrency and, hence, higher data contention. The conventional two-phase locking (2PL) Concurrency Control (CC) method may, therefore, restrict system throughput to levels inconsistent with the available processing capacity. This is especially a concern in shared-nothing or data-partitioned systems due to the extra latencies for internode communication and a reliable commit protocol. The optimistic CC (OCC) is a possible solution, but currently proposed methods have the disadvantage of repeated transaction restarts. We present a distributed OCC method followed by locking, such that locking is an integral part of distributed validation and two-phase commit. This method ensures at most one re-execution, if the validation for the optimistic phase fails. Deadlocks, which are possible with 2PL, are prevented by preclaiming locks for the second execution phase. This is done in the same order at all nodes. We outline implementation details and compare the performance of the new OCC method with distributed 2PL through a detailed simulation that incorporates queueing effects at the devices of the computer systems, buffer management, concurrency control, and commit processing. It is shown that for higher data contention levels, the hybrid OCC method allows a much higher maximum transaction throughput than distributed 2PL in systems with high processing capacities. In addition to the comparison of CC methods, the simulation study is used to study the effect of varying the number of computer systems with a fixed total processing capacity and the effect of locality of access in each case. We also describe several interesting variants of the proposed OCC method, including methods for handling access variance, i.e., when rerunning a transaction results in accesses to a different set of objects.


Radiation-induced bit flip faults are of particular concern in extreme-scale high-performance computing systems. This paper presents a simulation-based tool that enables the development of soft-error resilient message passing applications by permitting the investigation of their correctness and performance under various fault conditions. The documented extensions to the Extreme-scale Simulator (xSim) enable the injection of bit flip faults at specific of injection location(s) and fault activation time(s), while supporting a significant degree of configurability of the fault type. Experiments show that the simulation overhead with the new feature is ~2,325% for serial execution and ~1,730% at 128 MPI processes, both with very fine-grain fault injection. Fault injection experiments demonstrate the usefulness of the new feature by injecting bit flips in the input and output matrices of a matrix-matrix multiply application, revealing vulnerability of data structures, masking and error propagation. xSim is the very first simulation-based MPI performance tool that supports both, the injection of process failures and bit flip faults.


This lavishly illustrated new dictionary written by an experienced writer and consultant on astronomy provides an essential guide to the universe for amateur astronomers of all ages. Around 1300 carefully selected and cross-referenced entries are complemented by hundreds of beautiful colour illustrations, taken from space missions, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other major observatories on Earth and in space. Distinguished stellar illustrator Wil Tirion has drawn 20 new star maps especially for inclusion here. A myriad of named astronomical objects, constellations, observatories and space missions are described in detail, as well as biographical sketches for 70 of the most luminous individuals in the history of astronomy and space science. Acronyms and specialist terms are clearly explained, making for the most thorough and carefully assembled reference resource that teachers and enthusiasts of astronomy will ever need.


One of the significant contributions of using double-skinned concrete-filled-steel-tubular (CFST) columns is that it can extend the maximum limit of concrete strength that can be practically used in the construction industry, by improving the ductility of columns through providing more uniform and continuous confining pressure to the in-filled concrete. However, because of the imperfect interface bonding occurs at early stage, the elastic strength and stiffness will decrease so that the confinement effect provided by the steel tube is not fully utilized. To improve the situation, the authors have proposed to use external confinement in the form of steel rings on the outer steel tube to restrict the dilation of CFST columns and thus restore an intact interface bonding condition. It has been verified by uni-axial compression test that the elastic strength, stiffness and interface bonding were improved. Based on the test results, the authors have developed a theoretical model for predicting the uni-axial load-carrying capacity of doubled-skinned CFST columns. As a continued study, the authors will investigate the most critical parameters affecting the uni-axial strength, and to develop a simplified formula for practical design of doubled-skinned CFST columns through an extensive parametric study.