Background: Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is an acute, frequently severe and fulminant polyradicular neuropathy that is autoimmune in nature. GBS manifest as rapidly evolving areflexic motor paralysis with or without sensory disturbances. It mainly involves peripheral nervous system and autonomic nervous system. There are rare evidences about the involvement of central nervous system (CNS) in GBS. Aims: The main objective of the study was to assess the CNS involvement in GBS using the Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potential (BAEP). Methods & Material: The study was conducted in the clinical neurophysiology lab in the department of physiology, CSMMU Lucknow. Study group involved 26 subjects (n=26) having GBS and control group involved 30 normal subjects (n=30). BAEPS were recorded by Neuroperfect- EMG 2000 EMG/NCV/EPsytem. The data so obtained were subjected to analysis using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 13.0. Results & Conclusions: There was significant increase in PIII & PV peak latencies and PI-PIII & PI-PV interpeak latencies in both left and right ear in the study group, which showed the CNS involvement in GBS which can be assessed using BAEP.


The Norwegian Environment Agency (Miljødirektoratet) has requested a report to "get more detailed and nationally policy relevant information about the IAM-scenarios assessed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5 °C global warming, and key features and assumptions in the modelling frameworks." We present information for scenarios consistent with 1.5°C and 2°C, but avoid scenarios with large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (as requested). Among the topics discussed in this report are emission pathways, carbon price trajectories, deployment of negative emission technologies, land use change, investment needs, deployment of key abatement options, demand for primary energy and base materials, portfolio of abatement options, and scenarios. The starting point is the emission scenario database linked to the special report on global warming of 1.5 °C. However, not all information asked for by the Norwegian Environment Agency is available in the scenarios database or produced by integrated assessment models. The emission scenarios are integrated pathways (trajectories over time) developed by global integrated assessment models that represent key societal systems and their interactions, such as the energy system, agriculture, land use, and the economy. Emission scenarios consistent with 1.5 °C and 2 °C of global warming are very demanding as these targets require large-scale transformations of society and its systems, including how energy is produced, how agricultural systems are organized, and how food, energy, and materials are consumed. Some aspects of all the scenarios can be considered as unrealistic, very difficult, or in conflict with other societal objectives. Some models cannot reach ambitious climate targets, particularly 1.5°C. Accompanied with this report, we also produce large Excel documents with numerous sheets and figures on the topics discussed here. Language of Report: English Cover picture: Alf Ove Hansen / CICERO


A crucial issue in optical packet switched (OPS) networks is packet losses at the network layer caused by contentions. This paper presents the network layer packet redundancy scheme (NLPRS), which is a novel approach to reduce the end-to-end data packet loss rate in OPS networks. By introducing redundancy packets in the OPS network, the NLPRS enables a possible reconstruction of data packets that are lost due to contentions. An analytical model of the NLPRS based on reduced load Erlang fix-point analysis is presented. Simulations of an OPS ring network show that the NLPRS is in particular efficient in small networks operating at low system loads. Results also show how the arrival process, packet length distribution, network size and redundancy packet scheduling mechanism influence the NLPRS performance.


This study used data from the British Cohort Study to examine the relationships between childhood background experiences and a variety of indicators of adult well-being. Similar to an earlier study that analyses the National Child Development Study, we use a rich array of childhood background information and examine the associations for men and women separately. Similar to findings for the earlier cohort, there is evidence of inter-generational transmission of certain outcomes. Cohort members who lived in social housing as children are more likely to live in social housing as adults. Those with fathers who were manually employed are more likely to be manually employed themselves, and those whose families were poor are more likely to have low incomes. Academic test scores and parental housing tenure stand out as two of the strongest and most consistent correlates of adult disadvantage. For males, in particular, evidence of childhood aggression is also a consistent and fairly strong predictor of poor outcomes.


Lexical substitution ranks substitution candidates from the viewpoint of paraphrasability for a target word in a given sentence. There are two major approaches for lexical substitution: (1) generating contextualized word embeddings by assigning multiple embeddings to one word and (2) generating context embeddings using the sentence. Herein we propose a method that combines these two approaches to contextualize word embeddings for lexical substitution. Experiments demonstrate that our method outperforms the current state-of-the-art method. We also create CEFR-LP, a new evaluation dataset for the lexical substitution task. It has a wider coverage of substitution candidates than previous datasets and assigns English proficiency levels to all target words and substitution candidates.


Robotic vehicles are receiving increasing attention for use in Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE), due to their attractiveness in terms of cost, safety and their accessibility to areas where manual inspection is not practical. A reconfigurable Lamb wave scanner, using autonomous robotic platforms is presented. The scanner is built from a fleet of wireless miniature robotic vehicles, each with a non-contact ultrasonic payload capable of generating the A0 Lamb wave mode in plate specimens. An embedded Kalman filter gives the robots a positional accuracy of 10mm. A computer simulator, to facilitate the design and assessment of the reconfigurable scanner, is also presented. Transducer behaviour has been simulated using a Linear Systems approximation (LS), with wave propagation in the structure modelled using the Local Interaction Simulation Approach (LISA). Integration of the LS and LISA approaches were validated for use in Lamb wave scanning by comparison with both analytical techniques and more computationally intensive commercial finite element/diference codes. Starting with fundamental dispersion data, the work goes on to describe the simulation of wave propagation and the subsequent interaction with artificial defects and plate boundaries. The computer simulator was used to evaluate several imaging techniques, including local inspection of the area under the robot and an extended method that emits an ultrasonic wave and listens for echos (B-Scan). These algorithms were implemented in the robotic platform and experimental results are presented. The Synthetic Aperture Focusing Technique (SAFT) was evaluated as a means of improving the fidelity of B-Scan data. It was found that a SAFT is only effective for transducers with reasonably wide beam divergence, necessitating small transducers with a width of approximately 5mm. Finally, an algorithm for robot localisation relative to plate sections was proposed and experimentally validated.


In
 Part II, intensive analysis was conducted with a subject who loaded
highly on both Factor A (authoritarian) and Factor B+ (heterosexual
liberation) in Part I. This study demonstrated the emergence of various
"selves" in relationship to salient other individuals and groups in the
subject's life. Q methodology revealed the discovery of 3 selves
associated with Reisman's ideas concerning the bases of social
conformity (1950; 1952). Finally, an argument is made for adopting the
promising features of Q methodology, to explore the authoritarian
personality within a clinical setting. The more general purpose of the
intensive probes in this study is to demonstrate the advantages of
approaching authoritarianism from a methodological position that has not
 yet been explored, despite a 1953 invitation by William Stephenson to
do so.


Extracted from text ... EDITORIAL
ZIMBABWE UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT
CHRIS MAROLENG
Frequently publicised pronouncements by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe that were made before the 2005 parliamentary poll, which optimistically indicated that he might be contemplating retiring from office, have revived the ongoing speculation about the preconditions that the aging head of state would require to be in place before he relinquishes his position in government. More broadly, there has also been increasing debate about the possible shape of a post-Mugabe dispensation, and how this government might begin to tackle the serious economic and political difficulties facing this country. Even members ..


Cisco Network Admission ControlVolume I: NAC Framework Architecture and DesignA guide to endpoint compliance enforcementToday, a variety of security challenges affect all businesses regardless of size and location. Companies face ongoing challenges with the fight against malware such as worms, viruses, and spyware. Today's mobile workforce attach numerous devices to the corporate network that are harder to control from a security policy perspective. These host devices are often lacking antivirus updates and operating system patches, thus exposing the entire network to infection. As a result, worms and viruses continue to disrupt business, causing downtime and continual patching. Noncompliant servers and desktops are far too common and are difficult to detect and contain. Locating and isolating infected computers is time consuming and resource intensive.Network Admission Control (NAC) uses the network infrastructure to enforce security policy compliance on all devices seeking to access network computing resources, thereby limiting damage from emerging security threats. NAC allows network access only to compliant and trusted endpoint devices (PCs, servers, and PDAs, for example) and can restrict the access of and even remediate noncompliant devices.Cisco Network Admission Control, Volume I, describes the NAC architecture and provides an in-depth technical description for each of the solution components. This book also provides design guidelines for enforcing network admission policies and describes how to handle NAC agentless hosts. As a technical primer, this book introduces you to the NAC Framework solution components and addresses the architecture behind NAC and the protocols that it follows so you can gain a complete understanding of its operation. Sample worksheets help you gather and organize requirements for designing a NAC solution.Denise Helfrich is a technical program sales engineer that develops and supports global online labs for the World Wide Sales Force Development at Cisco®.Lou Ronnau, CCIE® No. 1536, is a technical leader in the Applied Intelligence group of the Customer Assurance Security Practice at Cisco.Jason Frazier is a technical leader in the Technology Systems Engineering group for Cisco.Paul Forbes is a technical marketing engineer in the Office of the CTO, within the Security Technology Group at Cisco.i¾ Understand how the various NAC components work together to defend your network Learn how NAC operates and identifies the types of information the NAC solution uses to make its admission decisions Examine how Cisco Trust Agent and NAC-enabled applications interoperate Evaluate the process by which a policy server determines and enforces a policy Understand how NAC works when implemented using NAC-L2-802.1X, NAC-L3-IP, and NAC-L2-IP Prepare, plan, design, implement, operate, and optimize a network admission control solutioni¾ i¾ This security book is part of the Cisco Press® Networking Technology Series. Security titles from Cisco Press help networking professionals secure critical data and resources, prevent and mitigate network attacks, and build end-to-end self-defending networks.Category: Cisco Pressi¾–SecurityCovers: Network Admission Control1587052415120506


The use of opioid analgesics commonly results in tolerance, dependence and addiction, requiring their classification as controlled substances. This, in turn, creates access barriers and increases the complexity of treating severe pain. The aim of this study was to provide an insight into the current legal impediments that limit opioid access in Poland, subsequent to recent changes in Polish legislation. Two methods were utilized. First, Polish legal acts relating to controlled medicines were analyzed. Following this, a short e-mail survey was distributed to pharmacy inspectors to identify the percent of community pharmacies that dispense opioid analgesics. There are a range of stringent requirements that control the use of opioids, and must be adhered to by medical staff. In Poland, every registered physician is authorized to prescribe opioids, and 90% of pharmacies must dispense these drugs. With regards to prescribing, the single or daily doses of opioids are not limited, and the amount of controlled medicine prescribed on one prescription is limited to 90 days use, in accordance with the dosage regimen. An opioid-based prescription is valid for 30 days. Other restrictions to opioid access are related to the storage, dispensing, usage and availability of controlled medicines. The barriers identified may limit access to opioids on one hand, but on the other, the changes in Polish law have alleviated the requirements for prescribing these medicines. Therefore, it is important to achieve an acceptable balance between the restrictions imposed on opioids usage and their adequate clinical application.


Cancers will continue to be a threat to health unless they can be controlled by combinations of treatment modalities. In this review, evaluate the role of resveratrol (RSV) as a radiosensitizing agent was evaluated and underlying mechanisms holistically explored in different cancer models focusing on therapeutic possibilities. The ability of RSV to modify the effect of radiation exposure in normal and cancer cells has indeed been shown quite convincingly, the combination of RSV and IR exhibiting synergistic effects on different cancer cells. This is relevant since controlled exposure to IR is one of the most frequently applied treatments in cancer patients. However, radiotherapy (XRT) treatment regimes are very often not effective in clinical practice as observed in patients with glioma, prostate cancer (PCa), melanoma, for example, largely due to tumour radioresistant properties. Sensitization of IR-induced apoptosis by natural products such as RSV is likely to be relevant in cancer control and treatment. However, all cancers do not respond to RSV+IR in a similar manner. Therefore, for those such as the radioresistant PCa or melanoma cells, the RSV+IR regime has to be very carefully chosen in order to achieve effective and desirable outcomes with minimum toxicity to normal cells. They are reports that the highest concentration of 100 ?M RSV and highest dose of 5 Gy IR are sufficient to kill cells by induction of apoptosis, indicating that RSV is effective in radiosensitizing otherwise radioresistant cells. In general, it has been shown in different cancer cells that RSV+XRT effectively act by enhancing expression of anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic molecules, and inhibiting pro-proliferative and anti-apoptotic molecules, leading to induction of apoptosis through various pathways, and cell death. If RSV+XRT can suppress the signature of cancer stemness, enhance the radiosensitivity by either targeting the mitochondrial functionality or modulating the tumour necrosis factor-mediated or Fas-FasL-mediated pathways of apoptosis in different cancers, particularly in vivo, its therapeutic use in the control of cancers holds promise in the near future.


This thesis develops a computational treatment of the comparative in English that is general, efficient, and relatively easy to implement, while not unduly complicating the natural language processing system. Implementation was accomplished using the Proteus Question Answering System, which translates natural language questions into database queries.
The comparative is a particularly difficult language structure to process, and presently only a few natural language systems handle it in limited ways. However, the comparative is an essential component of language that frequently occurs in discourse. The comparative is difficult to process because it corresponds to an amazingly diverse range of syntactic forms such as coordinate and subordinate conjunctions and relative clauses which are also very complex and often contain missing elements. Semantically, the comparative is cross-categorical: adjectives, quantifiers, and adverbs can have the comparative feature. The semantics of the comparative has to be consistent with that of different linguistic categories while retaining its own unique characteristics.
The computational approach of this thesis is based on a language model which contains functionally independent syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic components. Although the comparative relates to all the components, the syntactic component is the one that is mainly affected.
The syntactic stage of processing analyzes and regularizes the comparative structures. The analysis process utilizes existing mechanisms that handle structures similar to the comparative. The regularization process transforms all the different comparative structures into one standard form consisting of a comparative operator and two complete clauses. This process consists of two phases: the first uses a compositional approach based on Montague-style translation rules. The subsequent phase uses specialized procedures to complete the regularization process by expanding the comparative, filling in missing elements, and providing the appropriate quantified terms associated with the comparated elements.
After the comparative is regularized, the remaining stages of processing are hardly affected. Each clause of the comparative is processed using the same procedures as usual, and only minor modifications are required specifically for the comparative.


PurposeTo compare the results of frequency-doubling technology perimetry (FDT), assumed to test the magnocellular visual pathway, and high-pass resolution perimetry (HRP), assumed to test the parvocellular visual pathway, in patients with ocular hypertension or glaucoma. Patients and MethodsForty-eight consecutive patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension, covering the entire range of optic nerve function from normal to severely damaged, were examined on the same day using FDT and HRP. ResultsThere was a linear correlation between both global and local indices in FDT and HRP (r = −0.84 P <0.0001 and r = 0.8 P <0.001, respectively). The HRP and FDT classifications agreed in 32 of the 48 (67%) eyes (Cohen &kgr; = 0.5). There was no significant difference between the ability of the different techniques to detect abnormality. ConclusionThe observations in the present study indicate either that both cell populations are similarly affected by glaucomatous damage or that both methods measure activity in the same cell populations.


Introduction Understanding the relevance of neural pathways that control human swallowing and related behaviours is paramount to correctly identifying and treating swallowing disorders. We aimed to evaluate these connections using complimentary imaging modalities in vivo. Methods In 13 healthy adults (3 Male/10 Female, 27–62 years old) Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) evoked pharyngeal motor responses were recorded via a swallowed intraluminal catheter and used to assess motor cortical pharyngeal representation in both hemispheres.1 Thereafter, event-related 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was applied to assess blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal changes (compared to rest) in response to a pseudo-randomised order of water and saliva swallowing in addition to a tongue elevation task. Swallow related behaviour was monitored using a pressure feedback belt around the subjects' neck. Distortion-corrected diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) data were then acquired for probabilistic tractography to determine anatomical fibre tracts. Task-related fMRI activations were identified in SPM8 and used to seed unconstrained multi-fibre probabilistic tractography independently in each hemisphere.2 These results were compared with TMS inter-hemispheric differences. Results TMS data revealed 12/13 subjects had asymmetric motor representation (lateralised dominance) for the pharynx (6 left, 6 right) with significantly larger responses observed in the lateralised projection (p < 0.001). FMRI data (figure 1) also revealed asymmetric activations in both sensorimotor cortices in each subject for the different tasks which were used as seed regions for tractography. Largest activations were observed in primary motor cortices (Brodmann Area (BA) 4) after water swallowing, predominantly right lateralised. By contrast, tongue elevation and saliva swallowing produced a greater number of left lateralised brain areas, particularly pre- and supplementary-motor cortex (BA 6) as well as areas involved with language and speech processing (BA 22,40,44). Tractography revealed larger tract volumes in the hemispheric dominant projection predicted by TMS compared to the non-dominant projection for water but not for saliva swallowing or tongue elevations (p < 0.001). Figure 1 OC-078 fMRI activation for swallowing and related behaviours Conclusion Using multimodal imaging we have performed a detailed mapping of the network of neural pathways that contribute to human swallowing and its related behaviours. Our data also provide further evidence for cerebral asymmetry and its relevance in the control of human swallowing.


Diabetic complications is usually asssociated with low quality of life in diabetic patients. Knowledge of diabetes become an important role in the management of people with diabetes, at least in selfcare to prevent further complication. With a better knowledge about diabetes, people with diabetes will have better self-care in diabetic treatment in order to have better quality of life. This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between the level of diabetic patient's knowledge and quality of life in patients with type 2 Diabetes Mellitus at Haji Adam Malik Hospital Medan. Ninety subjects were recruited by consecutive sampling technique at outpatients of Endocrinology and Metabolism clinic, Internal Medicine Department Haji Adam Malik Hospital. The level of knowledge about diabetes was assessed by using validated questionnaires, and quality of life was assessed by using the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. Pearson correlation was used for statistical analysis. Results showed that majority of patients have a average level of diabetes knowledge (42,2%). Quality of Life was measured by four domains based on the WHOQOL-BREF. The overall quality of life shows that majority of patients have average level quality of life (50%). In the domain of physical health, 65.6% patients have poor level quality of life. Majority of patients have good level quality of life in the domain of psycology (48.9%), social relationships (42.2%) and environment (50%). There was positive correlation between level of knowledge and quality of life (r = 0.239, p<0.005). Conclusion This study showed that better knowledge of diabetes could improve quality of life of patients with type 2 diabetes. It is recommended that diabetic patients should improve their understanding about diabetes.


Kailan ( Brassica alboglabra ) are vegetables that beneficial to human health because it can help digestion, neutralize acidity and prevent disease. Kailan cultivation is closely related to fertilization and cultivation technical factors. One of fertilizers that can provide nutrients for plants kailan is a liquid fertilizer. Agricultural land is increasingly narrow lead farmers, especially those living in urban areas should make efficient use of land in order to achieve maximum production, one of the ways that can be done to address the problem of limited land is cultivated verticulture system. The research aims to determine the effect of paralon positions and provision of various concentrations of complementary liquid fertilizer and to know the paralon position combination with complementary liquid fertilizer concentration appropriate to plant growth kailan ( Brassica alboglabra ) with verticulture cultivation system. The experiment was conducted at the home screen experimental garden of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Riau for 3 months, from August to October 2014. The experiment was conducted by using a split plot design (Split Plot Design). The main plot is a variety of positions paralon (P), which consists of three levels: P1:Position paralon top (height 120 cm), P2: paralon middle position (height 80 cm), P3: Position paralon under (height 40 cm). The subplots are complementary liquid fertilizer concentration (B) consists of 4 levels: B0: Without fertilizer(control), B1: Fertilizers liquid complementary 1 cc/l water, B2: Fertilizers liquid complementary 2cc/l, B3: Fertilizers complementary liquid 3cc /l. The results showed that the combination treatment paralon position as the main plots and complementary liquid fertilizer as subplots provide no real effect on all parameters. Single factor paralon top position (120 cm) as well as complementary liquid fertilizer at a dose of 3 cc / l water can increase plant height, number of leaves, stem diameter, fresh weight, weight suitable for consumption and plant dry weight kailan. Keyword: kailan, paralon position, supplementary liquid fertilizer , verticulture


In diagnosing the cause traffic accidents, traffic engineers, planners and
decision makers often need as much information as possible before deciding the appropriate countermeasure. In road safety analysis apart from producing
the most accurate prediction from statistical figures, the need to visualize information geographically i always essential. This paper describes the
implementation of SMKJ2, the method used to provide multiple ways of visualising accident data based on certain set of criteria, and the plan to incorporate multiple experts and knowledge base in to the system. The project,
presently confined to the area of Seremban City Council of Negeri Sembilan, has been carried out in collaboration with The Royal Malaysian Police and The Road Safety Council.


The mam aim of this comparative study is to assess the English grammar leaming strategies of high ranking students and low ranking students. To achieve this objective, the three modes of learning namely implicit learning, explicit-inductive learning and explicit-deductive learning were studied in relation to the stated basic question. For the study descriptive survey method was used. The extreme or deviant case sampling technique was employed to select the subjects for the study. Questionnaire and focus group discussion were used as data collection instruments. The data obtained through questionnaire were then analyzed by using SPSS version 16 in terms of rnean score, standard deviation and t-test. For the focus group discussion open-ended questions were used and the data were analyzed by using content analysis technique. In general the findings of the study reveal that there were significant differences on the three modes of learning particularly in memory and compensation strategies related to implicit learning, cognitive strategies related to explicit-inductive leaming and also to explicit-deductive learning. As the overall mean values indicate the high ranking students used English grammar learning strategies at a higher level than the low ranking students in all classifications except social strategies related to implicit and explicit deductive modes.


We treat the problem of cooperative multiple beamforming in wireless ad hoc networks. The basic scenario is that a cluster of source nodes cooperatively forms multiple data-carrying beams toward multiple destination nodes. To resolve the hidden node problem, we impose a link constraint on the receive power at each unintended destination node. Then the problem becomes to optimize the transmit powers and beam weights at the source cluster subject to the maximal transmit power constraint, the minimal receive signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints at the destination nodes, and the minimal receive power constraints at the unintended destination nodes. We first propose an iterative transmit power allocation algorithm under fixed beamformers subject to the maximal transmit power constraint, as well as the minimal receive SINR and receive power constraints. We then develop a joint optimization algorithm to iteratively optimize the powers and the beamformers based on the duality analysis. Since channel state information (CSI) is required by the sources to perform the above optimization, we further propose a cooperative scheme to implement a simple CSI estimation and feedback mechanism based on the subspace tracking principle. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithms.


Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) is a thriving national sign language usedby tens of thousands of signers in Kenya, and which emerged out of two deafschools in western Kenya in the early 1960s. In this thesis, I provide a thoroughdescription and analysis of the basic phonological components of the KSLlexicon used in the southwestern region of Kenya (formerly south NyanzaProvince).This phonological grammar of (SoNy)KSL makes contributions in threedomains. In the descriptive domain, it provides a thorough report of the basic units in the main phonological parameters; i.e., Handshape (Ch. 4), Location(Ch. 5), and Movement (Ch 6, 7), as well as the evidence for the distinctivenessof each unit. The description for Movement and Location are particularlynoteworthy because those parameters have received less attention in signlinguistics in general compared to Handshape.In the methodological domain, the grammar is based on a KSL LexicalDatabase built for this project, in which over 50 phonetic characteristics of1,880 non-compound signs were coded. This database is currently one of only afew such richly coded lexical databases of sign languages. In addition, thisgrammar employs a rigorous approach to determining lexical contrast, whichhas yielded a separate dataset of 461 minimal pairs (Ch. 3). This dataset isunique in sign linguistics and reveals patterns of lexical contrast that were notpreviously known—and which have generated new hypotheses about howlexical contrast may be constrained by degrees of visual similarity.Finally, this thesis makes a theoretical contribution by comparing howdifferent models of sign phonology can account for sign types in KSL. Byevaluating the explanatory power of the main theories of sign phonology on thebasis of specific descriptive data, this thesis gives unique insights into thetheoretical validity of these models. It also proposes modifications in somecases, especially with regard to how the Dependency Model (DPM) can accountfor the representation of movement features and their relationship to the timingtier. In addition, a new movement feature, [dispersed], is described and itsimplementation worked out in the DPM.


The Vietnamese refugee experience in the UK has been characteristically different from the broader international flows of Vietnamese 'boat people' to the West. With no pre-existing Vietnamese community in the UK, largely composed of the rural poor from northern Vietnam, this numerically small community has remained largely invisible in British society. London houses over half of the UK Vietnamese population and the London Vietnamese communities are notoriously heterogeneous, fragmented, and divided according to political ideology, refugee wave, social class, ethnicity, geographical location, and social origins. These factors have translated into differential access to/proximity to local ethnic and co-ethnic labour markets and services, opportunities for self-employment, ethnic and transnational networks, political representation, community organization, public service provision, and belonging. This article explores how these various layers have worked together to produce divergent outcomes for these population fragments across London. Attention is paid to variation across areas of higher population concentration in East London (Lewisham and Hackney) and the more dispersed North and West London populations. In addition to exploring socioeconomic features of integration, this article also reflects upon how the broader social status of Vietnamese refugees in British society has offered both opportunities and constraints for their success.


Job migrations and network RAM are two approaches for effectively using global memory resources in a workstation cluster, aimed at reducing page faults in each local workstation and improving the overall performance of cluster computing. Using either remote executions or pre-emptive migrations, a load-sharing system is able to migrate a job from a workstation without sufficient memory space to a lightly loaded workstation with a large idle memory space for the migrated job. In a network RAM system, if a job cannot find sufficient memory space for its working sets, it utilizes idle memory space from other workstations in the cluster through remote paging. Conducting trace-driven simulations, we have compared the performance and tradeoffs of the two approaches and their impacts on job execution time and cluster scalability. Job migration-based load-sharing schemes are able to balance executions of jobs in a cluster well, while network RAM is able to satisfy data-intensive jobs which may not be migratable by sharing all the idle memory resources in a cluster. A network RAM cluster of workstations is scalable only if the network is sufficiently fast. We propose an improved load-sharing scheme by combining job migrations with network RAM for cluster computing. This scheme uses remote execution to initially allocate a job to the most lightly loaded workstation and, if necessary, network RAM to provide a larger memory space for the job than would be available otherwise. The improved scheme has the merits of both job migrations and network RAM. Our experiments show its effectiveness and scalability for cluster computing.


In the past decade a comparative law and economics literature has emerged that is largely organized around an effort to explain differences in country economic performance in terms of differences between common law and civil code systems. Assumptions about differences between common law and civil code regimes and the correspondence between legal regimes and judicial behavior are, however, still only weakly based in real institutional features of modern legal systems. In this paper, I examine the institutional determinants of the quality of law developed by a legal regime, drawing on a model from Hadfield which identifies five key parameters that influence legal evolution [Hadfield, G.K., 2007a. The quality of law: Judicial incentives, legal human capital and the evolution of law. Manuscript. Available at http://works.bepress.com/ghadfield]. I set out the institutional features that determine these parameters as dimensions along which real legal systems reside. These dimensions include: the organization of the judiciary and the extent to which judicial careers are organized on a bureaucratic career model or what I call a "capstone" model; the organization of the courts and the extent to which jurisdiction is general or specific; the mechanisms of information distribution and the extent to which information is distributed to a broad public audience or a more confined professional audience; the role of judges, whether active or passive, in finding facts and shaping the issues in adjudication; the role of public versus private entities in the enforcement of judgments (damages); and the degree to which the mechanisms by which legal services are produced, priced and distributed are competitive or professionally-controlled. My claim is that these key institutional dimensions, rather than conventional and more abstract distinctions based on the sources of law or judicial independence should be the primary focus of empirical efforts to evaluate and policy efforts to reform legal regimes. They are the levers of legal design. Journal of Comparative Economics 36 (1) (2008) 43-73.


Background : Recent severe weather events and terrorist activities in the northeastern United States have highlighted the need for citizens to be prepared for sudden evacuation or to face potentially dangerous challenges in place. Evidence suggests that little is known about this content in graduate advanced practice nursing curricula. Methods: Adult Health/Gerontology NP part-time graduate nursing students enrolled at a large northeastern U.S. academic medical center school of nursing were asked to access and apply evidence-based resources to develop a personal emergency kit to use for a sudden evacuation in case of a disaster in their communities. Guidelines included that the kit should be: (1) portable, (2) lightweight, (3) waterproof, and (4) developed with cost information reported. Students were expected to submit a narrative report about how evidence was located and used, the estimated costs of the kit's contents, and a final digital color photograph of the emergency kit. They were also asked to respond to four open-ended questions about this learning experience. Results : Ninety-six percent of the sample (n = 29) was female with a mean age of 33 years, and mean duration of 9 years of practice as RNs. Mean total cost of the emergency kit was $138.00. Using government and commercial websites, students included essential items in their kits. Photographs illustrating student examples of emergency kits were also submitted. Qualitative content analyses of open-ended questions identified three themes voiced by student participants. Conclusions : Results of this educational experience can be translated into action by community clinicians, as they teach their clients about being prepared to either evacuate during a disaster, or to remain safely in place. The summative kit contents can be used as a template for preparing at home for emergency events. Keywords: emergency preparedness; emergency kits; community care


The formation of mossy lithium and lithium dendrites so far prevents the use of lithium metal anodes in lithium ion batteries. To develop solutions for this problem (e.g., electrolyte additives), operando measurement techniques are required to monitor mossy lithium and dendrite formation during electrochemical cycling. Here we present a novel battery cell design that enables operando electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. It is shown that time-resolved operando EPR spectroscopy during electrochemical cycling of a lithium-metal/LiFePO4 (LFP) cell provides unique insights into the lithium plating/dissolution mechanisms, which are consistent with ex situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. To demonstrate the viability of the operando EPR method, two cells using different electrolytes were studied. When using an electrolyte containing fluoroethylene carbonate (FEC) additive, a higher reversibility of the lithium anode and reduced formation of micro-structured (mossy/dendritic) lithium were observed.


The purpose of this thesis is to determine the extent to which it is possible to develop an environmental role for the law of tort. To date, the role of tort has been limited in this context by procedural and substantive difficulties in establishing liability (known as transaction costs). Furthermore, whereas environmental protection is a public interest objective, the law of tort is primarily a means of resolving private disputes. The common law has traditionally regarded private rights as being divisible from public interest issues such as environmental protection. The current debate has been prompted by a number of European Union and Council of Europe initiatives on the subject which consider developing tort in this manner by the introduction of a specialist environmental liability regime. However, much of the current debate lacks an appreciation of a fundamental issue, namely purpose of tort in contemporary Western society. This research seeks to make a valuable contribution by assessing the extent to which it is possible to ground an environmental application of tort in a sound conceptual basis. The thesis commences with an overview of the main torts which are relevant in an environmental context and the difficulties which have been experienced by plaintiffs in establishing liability. Given that the main limitation of tort is that it focuses on private interests; it is considered whether it is possible to develop a public interest model of tort which admits wider issues such as the desirability of environmental protection. This involves consideration of a range of issues, including the `philosophy' underpinning tort, the economics of tort, property law and insurability of environmental liability. It is concluded that it is possible, both in conceptual and practical terms, to develop a public interest model of tort and that, furthermore, there are potential benefits with such an approach. The principal advantage of tort is that it allows private individuals to participate in the policing of the environment. An analysis of EC policy on this subject demonstrates that this may provide the rationale for EC intervention in this field. In the light of these theoretical and policy objectives, the EC proposals, alluded to above, are discussed in depth. These initiatives are compared with solutions adopted by individual Member States which have already implemented their own environmental liability regimes. Conclusions are drawn regarding the extent to which such developments may succeed in increasing the efficacy of tort as a means of environmental protection and the wider implications of such an approach. It is concluded that a specialist environmental liability regime may be instrumental in developing a concept of `stewardship', in which proprietary interests in natural resources entail both rights and responsibilities.


Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy on Young's areas of maladaptive schema in spouses of veterans with Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Materials & Methods : A quasi-experimental method with pre-test and post- test with control group design was conducted. Twenty spouses of veterans with PTSD after the screening were assigned to experimental and control groups. Secondary trauma stress scale was used for screening, and veterans' spouse who have low score in this scale were identified and were randomly assigned to experimental and control group. The early maladaptive scheme Scale-Short Form (YSQ-SF), was used for gathering of data. Treatment program was used in 31 sessions for experimental group. Data were analyzed with test of ANCOVA and MANCOVA. Findings : The results showed that the effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy on modifying of early maladaptive schemas was significant in three areas of Disconnection/ Rejection, over vigilance/Inhibition and Other-Directedness. But in the areas of Impaired Autonomy and/or Performance, and Impaired Limits did not change significantly . Discussion : Cognitive-behavioral therapy could significantly change early maladaptive schema in spouses of veterans with PTSD


Virtual addiction is, like all addictions, first and foremost an attempt to find a SOLUTION by a patient, faced with a problem in their relationship to the world, to others or to themselves. This attempt at a solution, not being the best, becomes a PROBLEM in a second step.Very often, the solution can emerge from the problem if it is well identified, via systemic modelling (modelling of the relationship between the individual and the relational system that surrounds him). So, the questioning techniques specific to systemists and so-called "brief" therapists and hypnotic techniques (including HTSMA, EMDR) are an excellent means by which a therapist can help treat his patient.We see in the clinical illustration above that starting from the external screen to which the child is addicted and repatriating it inside oneself, and making it a "psychic working screen", will be able to quickly improve the symptoms.


Ammianus Marcellinus, ca. 325ca. 395 CE, a Greek of Antioch, joined the army when still young and served under the governor Ursicinus and the emperor of the East Constantius II, and later under the emperor Julian, whom he admired and accompanied against the Alamanni and the Persians. He subsequently settled in Rome, where he wrote in Latin a history of the Roman empire in the period 96378 CE, entitled "Rerum Gestarum Libri XXXI." Of these 31 books only 1431 (353378 CE) survive, a remarkably accurate and impartial record of his own times. Soldier though he was, he includes economic and social affairs. He was broadminded towards non-Romans and towards Christianity. We get from him clear indications of causes of the fall of the Roman empire. His style indicates that his prose was intended for recitation. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Ammianus Marcellinus is in three volumes.


More than 11 million people worldwide are diagnosed with cancer every year. New cancer drugs are required that are more effective and selective. Nitrogen mustard alkylating agents crosslink DNA inhibiting transcription and replication. Use of the mustard pharmacophore as part of a macrocycle allows metal complexation and produces a prodrug. Hypoxic tumour cells have increased concentrations of reductase enzymes which could lead to reduction of the complex in situ and release of a cytotoxic drug.

Human African Trypanosomiasis is commonly known as Sleeping Sickness and affects over 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. It is transmitted to humans by the tsetse fly which carries the parasitic subspecies Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. Any compounds synthesised would also be tested to assess their potential as anti-parasitic agents.

Parker synthesised a range of polyazamacrocycles. Testing of compound A in vitro gave highly efficient DNA crosslinking activity. Copper complexes were formed of the macrocycles and B was found to be 24 times more toxic against hypoxic cells than oxic cells thus exploiting tumour hypoxia and creating a selective drug. Jones synthesised a range of oxaazamacrocycles such as C which when tested in vitro exhibited comparable cross-linking activity to the azamacrocycles although it proved impossible to synthesise the corresponding copper complexes.

It was decided to vary the leaving group on the alkylating arms to see if the DNA crosslinking results could be improved. Eight carbamates and the corresponding copper complexes were synthesised. The R-groups were alkyl and aromatic. Anti-cancer DNA crosslinking and hypoxia selectivity results were disappointing however, a number of compounds displayed significant activity when tested against T. brucei.

A range of thiaazamacrocycles would complete the set of heteroatom-containing macrocycles (N, O, S) and might produce good DNA crosslinking results. It might also be possible to synthesise the corresponding copper complexes producing prodrugs. Six thiaazamacrocycles were synthesised and 2-hydroxyethyl arms were attached. However it proved impossible to isolate the desired alkylating agents with the 2-chloroethyl arms.

In the body, the p53 protein activates the transcription of specific genes. In healthy cells, the levels of p53 have to be kept to a minimum to allow the normal running of the cell, e.g. growth and replication. This function is carried out by the HDM2 protein, which forms an auto-regulatory feedback loop with p53. In some tumours, the p53 function is disrupted due to genetic mutations of p53. However other tumours possess 'wild type' p53 – this type of p53 has lost the ability to respond to oncogenic stress due to over-expression of HDM2. Drugs that inhibit HDM2 should cause stabilisation of p53 and induce apoptosis in cancer cells. A small library of 5-deazaflavins were synthesised and biologically tested producing some interesting biological results.


Diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella Linnaeus (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae) is a globally distributed pest on brassicaceous crops. This study aimed to follow up with aspects of earlier research, mainly to revisit the potential for overwintering of diamondback moth in the Ottawa area, to investigate present day population dynamics using a life-table approach and to use next generation sequencing to describe the diamondback moth microbiome. A review of the literature has reaffirmed that diamondback moth may not be capable of overwintering in Ottawa with populations likely migrant-driven. The population dynamics and parasitoid community appear to be unaltered after 65 years. The microbiome of diamondback moth larvae was dominated by Enterococcaceae, a family of bacteria hypothesized to aid in resistance and detoxification. This can provide opportunities for the introduction of new biological control agents and tools for diamondback moth management in the future.


Medicine and the process of health care have always put patients at risk. The goal of patient safety is to reduce the risk of injury or harm to patients from the structure and process of care. Medication error is a major risk for hospitalized patients. Adverse drug events occur often in hospitals. Medical Information technology can be designed to improve the process and outcome of clinical decision-making. They can be prevented to a large extent by minimizing the human errors of prescription writing. The CPOE system has prevented and alerted the prescriber and pharmacist to dosage errors and allergies. Involvement of the pharmacist in reviewing the prescription and alerting the physician has minimized prescription errors to a great degree. Previous studies showed the potential role of information technology for preventing medication errors. Key words : medication error-information technology-computerized ordering system  Download PDF


Abstract This paper reports on the findings of a study conducted in four secondary schools in the Siyanda District of the Northern Cape province of South Africa, with the aim of identifying the functions of code-switching in classroom interactions. Code-switching in these classrooms involves English, Afrikaans, Setswana, and isiXhosa, and goes against official school language policy in most cases. Instances of code-switching are categorised according to Myers-Scotton's (1993, 1998) markedness model, and the functions of the switches are identified. Code-switching is found to fulfil both academic and social functions. Specifically, code-switching is used (i) in explaining and clarifying subject content; (ii) in assisting learners in understanding and interpreting material; (iii) as a tool of teaching in confirming understanding and encouraging participation; (iv) in classroom management, such as maintaining learners' attention and reprimanding disruptive behaviour; and (v) for social functions, such as humour and as a marker of bilingual identity. The paper concludes that code-switching may be usefully employed as a classroom strategy.


ABSTRACT Paid parental leave for fathers is a promising social policy tool for degendering the division of labor for childcare. Swedish fathers have had the right to paid parental leave since 1974, but they take only one-fourth of leave days parents take. There are strong cultural norms supporting involved fatherhood, so couples typically want to share leave more than they do. This article explores how workplaces can constrain Swedish fathers' use of state leave policy, in ways that fathers can take for granted, a topic that has received less attention than individual or family-related obstacles. Based on interviews with 56 employees in five large private companies, we found that masculine workplace norms can make it difficult for fathers to choose to take much leave, while aspects of traditional workplace structure building on these norms can negatively affect fathers' capabilities of taking much leave. Workplace culture and structure seemed to be based on assumptions that the ideal worker should prioritize work and has limited caregiving responsibilities, setting limits to fathers' ability to share leave with mothers. Gender theorists suggest such assumptions persist because of male dominance at the workplace and the endurance of gendered assumptions about the roles of men and women.


In this essay, I examine the problem of designing a pension plan within the context of our larger public policy of encouraging workers to save for retirement. I discuss the various problems and risks inherent in encouraging workers to adequately save for retirement, invest those assets efficiently, and ensure the planned level of retirement consumption for the remainder of their lives. I also discuss the three major types of pension plans in the American retirement system, defined benefit, defined contribution, and hybrid, and assess how well each of these types of plans deals with the problems encountered in designing a pension plan. I then examine the particular problems that have arisen because of our relatively recent transition from defined benefit to defined contribution plans, and the funding problems caused by the Great Recession. I close with a section discussing policy changes that might be made to improve our pension system and help ensure that workers receive not only the pension benefits they were promised, but also adequate benefits to sustain them comfortably during their retirement.


The use of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEpo) is prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Using gene microarray technology, we have previously shown that blood gene expression profiles were significantly altered in response to rHuEpo administration both during- and for at least four weeks post administration. Confounders such as altitude exposure and training have the potential to compromise the molecular signature of rHuEpo doping.  Purpose: To differentiate the gene expression profile due to strenuous training at altitude from rHuEpo doping. Method: Four (3 males and 1 female) well-trained athletes were exposed to altitude for periods ranging from 3-5 weeks. At altitude, subjects undertook strenuous training involving in two cases as much as 50 km each day for 18 days. One of the subjects had repeated exposure to altitude. Blood was obtained before, during and after altitude exposure. RNA from blood stabilized in Tempus RNA tubes was hybridized to HumanHT-12v4 Expression Illumina BeadChips and altitude-induced molecular responses were compared to the molecular signature of rHuEpo doping previously identified.
Results: Preliminary data are encouraging and reveal significant overlap but also differentiation in responses to altitude and rHuEpo.  Conclusion: These results provide further support for the use of blood gene biomarkers to improve the performance of current anti-doping methods such as the Athlete Biological Passport for rHuEpo detection.


For IT services companies, delivering high quality IT services is of eminent importance. IT service quality drives customer satisfaction, which in its turn drives firm performance. It is this link that is addressed in this paper: How can the performance of customer service delivery teams be improved, when looked upon from the perspective of firm performance? Based on the literature on excellent performing organizations, we apply the concepts that, according to Collins (2001), drove the development of 'good' companies to 'great' companies to a case study of an under performing service delivery team that developed into an excellent performing service delivery team. The lessons from this study were that most of the drivers behind the performance improvement of this team were in fact 'soft' factors that concerned the human side of the team more than the organizational, procedural or structural measures.


American Moderns on Paper presents a selection of approximately 100 of the finest watercolors, pastels, and drawings by leading American modernists from the Wadsworth Atheneum's renowned collection of American art. Works by Sloan, O'Keeffe, Hopper, Marin, Dali, and Wyeth, among many others, serve as notable examples of the various styles and subjects pursued by artists in America from 1910 to 1960. The catalogue entries are accompanied by artist biographies. Organized chronologically, and generously illustrated throughout, the catalogue is introduced by two essays exploring the historical significance of the collection and the importance to American modernists of working on paper, rather than canvas. Providing a rich history of the collection, the volume illuminates not only its historic roots, but also the concurrent national evolution of interest in watercolor and drawings.


Numerous studies have been made of regional differences in income and level of development in Italy, and these studies basically differ in the responses they give to the question of whether the said differences were already of a substantial nature prior to Unification, or whether in fact they have widened since then. The present essay is going to examine this problem by focusing on the local administrative system adopted after Italian Unification, in order to ascertain the existence of a different approach to public intervention at the local level, and thus to the existence of disparities in local public spending. The paper offers an analysis of the actual working of the post-Unification administrative system in Italy, in terms both of the powers attributed to Italy's municipalities and provinces, and of the degree of autonomy they had in deciding on funding methods. This analysis aims to ascertain whether the chosen strategy could have been maintained in a state characterised by strong regional differences, and to establish the kind of impact such a strategy had on the regional differences themselves. The main conclusion is that in absence of any sort of automatic transfer from the more industrialized regions to the poor ones, the adoption of a decentralized tax system for the financing of local public expenditure contributed to the deepening of regional divide. As a consequence at the beginning of the 19th century the central government started to subsidize the poorest regions and little by little move towards a more centralized fiscal system.


Abstract The iron(III) complexes of some 4-acyl derivatives of 1-phenyl-3-methylpyrazolone-5 have been synthesised and characterized as FeL, complexes, where L=4-acylpyrazolone-5 anion. The UV-visible (200–700 nm) and IR (4000–200 cm−1) spectral data of the complexes were obtained and discussed. Magnetic moment values near 5.80–5.90 B. M were obtianed for the complexes showing that they are high spin octahedral complexes.


"Another missionary family named Weaver cared for JoJo for 15 years. Martha loved to visit him. They finally donated him to the Kinhasa Zoo, but would visit JoJo weekly for 15 years after that at the Zoo and were the only non-Zoo employees allowed inside the enclosure with him. It was like visiting their long-lost child! Salong was the national "work day" where everyone would clean up neighborhoods and roadsides"


This research aims to study the effects of degradation on mechanical, physical, and morphological properties of empty fruit bunch (EFB) fiber- reinforced polyester composites. The unsaturated polyester resin has been used to produce thermoset polymer composites. The reinforcing effect in composites was evaluated at various fiber loadings, including an overall fiber content (by weight) of 20% and 40%. The mechanical (tensile, flexural, and impact) and physical (density, moisture content, and water absorption) properties were studied before and after the samples were buried in the soil for period of 12 months. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis was conducted to visualize the effect of the quality of adhesion between the fibers and matrix. The soil burial investigation results revealed that EFB fiber-polyester composites showed highest degradation percentage as compared to polyester resin and fiberglass.


Intellectual property has become the apple of discord in today's moral and political debates. Although it has been approached from many different perspectives, a final conclusion has not been reached. In this paper I will offer a new way of thinking about intellectual property rights (IPRs), from a left-libertarian perspective. My thesis is that IPRs are not (natural) original rights, aprioric rights, as it is usually argued. They are derived rights hence any claim for intellectual property is weaker than the correlative duties attached to self-ownership and world-ownership rights, which are of crucial importance in any left-libertarian view. Moreover, IPRs lack priority in front of these two original rights and should be overridden by stronger claims of justice. Thus, as derived rights, IPRs should not benefit of strong enforcement like any original rights especially if it could be in the latters' detriment.


The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War offers a broad reassessment of the period war based on new conceptual frameworks developed in the field of international history. Nearing the 25th anniversary of its end, the cold war now emerges as a distinct period in twentieth-century history, yet one which should be evaluated within the broader context of global political, economic, social, and cultural developments. The editors have brought together leading scholars in cold war history to offer a new assessment of the state of the field and identify fundamental questions for future research. The individual chapters in this volume evaluate both the extent and the limits of the cold war's reach in world history. They call into question orthodox ways of ordering the chronology of the cold war and also present new insights into the global dimension of the conflict. Even though each essay offers a unique perspective, together they show the interconnectedness between cold war and national and transnational developments, including long-standing conflicts that preceded the cold war and persisted after its end, or global transformations in areas such as human rights or economic and cultural globalization. Because of its broad mandate, the volume is structured not along conventional chronological lines, but thematically, offering essays on conceptual frameworks, regional perspectives, cold war instruments and cold war challenges. The result is a rich and diverse accounting of the ways in which the cold war should be positioned within the broader context of world history.


Background: The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on doctors is a significant concern. Due to the emergence of a multiple pandemic waves, longitudinal data on the impact of COVID-19 is vital to ensure an adequate psychological response. The primary aim was to assess the prevalence and degree of psychological distress and trauma in Emergency Medicine (EM), Anaesthetics and Intensive Care Medicine (ICM) doctors during the acceleration, peak and deceleration of the COVID-19 first wave. Personal and professional factors associated with psychological distress are also reported.

Methods: A prospective online three-part longitudinal survey of frontline doctors across the UK and Ireland, administered at the acceleration, peak and deceleration of the COVID-19 first wave. Primary outcome measures were psychological distress and trauma, measured using the General Health Questionnaire-12 and the Impact of Events-Revised.

Findings: Acceleration survey response rate was 15.9% (n=5440), of an estimated 34,188 doctors. Peak and deceleration response rates were 71·6% (n=3896) and 56·6% (n=3079) respectively. Prevalence of psychological distress was 44·7% (n=1334) during the acceleration, 36·9% (n=1098) at peak and 31·5% (n=918) at the deceleration phase. The prevalence of trauma was 23·7% (n=647) at peak and 17·7% (n=484) at deceleration. The prevalence of probable post-traumatic stress disorder was 12·6% (n=343) at peak and 10·1% (n=276) at deceleration. Worry of family infection due to clinical work was most strongly associated with both distress (R2 = 0·06) and trauma (R2 =0·10).

Interpretation:  Findings reflect a pattern of elevated distress at acceleration and peak, with some natural recovery. It is essential that policymakers seek to prevent future adverse effects through (a)provision of vital equipment to mitigate physical and psychological harm (b)increased awareness and recognition of signs of psychological distress and (c)the development of clear pathways to effective psychological care.

Funding: Funding received from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

Declaration of Interests: Many of the authors have been working as frontline clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have no competing interests to declare.

Ethics Approval Statement: Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Bath (UK) and Children's Health Ethics Committee (Ireland). Regulatory approval was obtained from the Health Regulation Authority (UK), Health and Care Research Wales. Participants provided electronic informed consent for each survey.


Regularization plays a crucial role in supervised learning. A successfully regularized model strikes a balance between a perfect description of the training data and the ability to generalize to unseen data. Most existing methods enforce a global regularization in a structure agnostic manner. In this paper, we initiate a new direction and propose to enforce the structural simplicity of the classification boundary by regularizing over its topological complexity. In particular, our measurement of topological complexity incorporates the importance of topological features (e.g., connected components, handles, and so on) in a meaningful manner, and provides a direct control over spurious topological structures. We incorporate the new measurement as a topological loss in training classifiers. We also propose an efficient algorithm to compute the gradient. Our method provides a novel way to topologically simplify the global structure of the model, without having to sacrifice too much of the flexibility of the model. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our new topological regularizer on a range of synthetic and real-world datasets.


We examine the effect of public policy on the growth of Internet use. Using a decentralized country—Spain—as an example, we compare the 17 Spanish regions to test different Internet policy designs, taking into account the quality and number of specific programs promoted by regional governments, as well as the presence or absence of strategic planning in each region. We treat the percentage of Internet users as a dependent variable to compare its diffusion in different territories. Our findings show that educational levels and economic differences explain about half of the variations observed. Furthermore, the regional policies play a significant role in explaining regional variations. We investigate which public policy instruments are more significant for the development of the Internet, and find that focused policy intervention and complex policy initiatives are more significant than other policy instruments in explaining the increase in the percentage of Internet users.


Durban is the busiest container port in Africa and there are plans for significant expansion during the next few years. This expansion includes the widening of the port entrance channel to accommodate larger "post-panamax" vessels. Complex crosscurrents near the port entrance, coupled with severe wind and wave conditions, may lead to the intermittent closure of the port which in turn could lead to significant economic implications. Information on the nature of the crosscurrents and how they affect the ships could assist harbour pilots in developing their skills and reduce the risks associated with steering ships into the port. The research involved a case study to develop an innovative new method for directly measuring the effect of wind, waves and crosscurrents on ships entering the port. The technology is based on the application of digital image processing to track the position of ships as they manoeuvre in the port approach channel. The key innovation of this research is the extraction of the heading direction of the ship from the image data. The angle between this heading direction and the true velocity vector (the "crab angle") is then a direct measure of the cross-track drift velocity (CTDV) due to the combined effects of wind, waves and currents. The crosscurrents are usually the main contributing factor to the cross-track drift. The aim of this research was to develop a fully automated image processing system for real-time ship monitoring, and to determine cross-track drift within a wide range of weather conditions and ship parameters. The methodology presented in this research allows the spatial structure of the CTDV along the harbour approach channel to be studied. The relationship of the CTDV to local surface winds was analysed. For deep draught vessels, measured CTDVs were found to be poorly correlated to surface winds. The spatial structure of the measured CTDVs shows distinct regions along the approach channel where vessels experience significantly larger drift velocities. In summary, with the software tools developed by this research, digital images can be captured automatically and analysed to produce ship tracks and crab angles. From this information an extensive database for ship manoeuvring in the approach channel can be developed and the safety and efficiency of port operations improved.


This Article is a detailed assessment of the role of, and parties' obligations in, CIF insurance under Incoterms and common law jurisdictions. One of the CIF seller's key obligations is to insure goods in transit against risks of loss, damage and rejection or non-payment by buyer. The insurance obligation is so crucial that in international business transactions, no bank would agree to finance a CIF buyer or seller's transactions without proof of insurance. The full extent of those insurance duties result from the nature, history and development of the CIF commercial terms compared to the FOB. The duties, governed by Incoterms, have been interpreted by courts in Anglo-America and other common law jurisdictions both before and after the first Incoterms in 1936. Common law cases on the subject are complemented by customs and usages, various Commodity Trade Standard Rules and the Institute Cargo Clauses. Because of their common heritage, with few modifications, parties' CIF insurance obligations are the same in all Anglo-American and other common law jurisdictions. Although at first those obligations may appear straightforward in a written contract, however, in practice and detailed examination, they turn out to be much more complex. Accordingly, traditional assumptions on the ease and apparent simplicity of the obligations can be misleading. Following earlier similar coverage of FOB insurance elsewhere (Ademuni-Odeke, 2007), this Article scrutinizes parties' CIF insurance obligations under Incoterms as applied under Anglo-American and other common law jurisdictions, compares it with FOB insurance on the one hand and with CIF insurance practice in selected civil law and other noncommon law jurisdictions on the other. The Article, therefore, challenges traditional assumptions, provides an in-depth analysis of the nature and full extent of the duties, prescribes practical solutions where there are lacunae and concludes that there are far more attention and careful consideration required for parties' CIF insurance considerations than is contained in a written contract and/or is apparent in existing literature. The Article argues that, all factors considered, CIF parties should view their contractual undertaking, common law principles and Incoterms provisions only as prima facie and minimum guidelines.


Transient analysis of medium-frequency (mid-frequency) and high-frequency vibrations plays an important role in the research and development of complex structures in aerospace, automobile, civil, mechanical, and ship engineering. Low-frequency analysis tools, like the finite element methods, do not work well for mid- and high-frequency problems because they require a huge number of degrees-of-freedom and consequently costly computation, and are sensitive to material properties and boundary conditions. High-frequency analysis tools, such as the statistical energy analysis (SEA) and its variations, are unsuitable for midfrequency problems because they describe the vibrational behaviors of multibody structures in a global manner and cannot provide detailed local information about displacements and internal forces. In this paper, a new method, which is called the augmented distributed transfer function method (DTFM), is proposed for transient vibration analysis of two-dimensional beam structures at medium and high frequencies. Without the need for discretization and numerical integration, the augmented DTFM consistently delivers analytical transient solutions from low to high-frequency regions. A unique feature of the proposed method is that it can provide local information about system response, such as the displacements and internal forces of a structure, at any point and in any frequency region. Additionally, the proposed method provides a platform for model reduction, by which, a balance of efficiency and accuracy in mid- and high-frequency analyses can be achieved. The proposed method is demonstrated in numerical examples.


Abstract This essay examines a decorative convention-the display of books in modern interiors-that appears in both The International Style (1932) by Henry Russel Hitchcock and Philip Johnson and The Personality of a House (1930) by Emily Post. Looking at books in this way constitutes a partial history of the architectural palette that arises from the privileging of natural over applied finishes. The internal logic of that practice and its class and gender characterizations are discussed in the context of the separation of architecture from interior design. The "natural" palette and its host of attendant conventions is everywhere visible in contemporary architecture and interior design and even helps to define the boundary between the two practices, to explain what is and is not architectural.


Although they are an important feature on the landscape of European cinema, the film festivals and their precise role have rarely been explored. There has been a tendency to use Cannes as representative of all the others, since it indubitably has the highest profile, but can it truly reflect the activities of the myriad other events across the continent? Moreover, the abiding impression of the festival each spring on the Riviera is that it is an international event where the European dimension is simply geographical, rather than cultural. This article will compare and contrast Cannes with two of its A-list counterparts, namely the Berlinale and the Czech Republic's Karlovy Vary, in order to tease out the characteristics of the European film festival today, and as such represents an initial approach to a topic that demands far more analysis than there is scope for here. That said, by drawing on the discourse of post-colonialism, this article posits a theoretical model to helps us understand the importance of the European festival as a locus of cultural exchange between the realms of Hollywood and world cinema.


Do newspaper opinion pieces change the minds of those who read them? We conduct two randomized panel survey experiments on elite and mass convenience samples to estimate the effects of five op-eds on policy attitudes. We find very large average treatment effects on target issues, equivalent to shifts of approximately 0.5 scale points on a 7-point scale, that persist for at least one month. We find very small and insignificant average treatment effects on non-target issues, suggesting that our subjects read, understood, and were persuaded by the arguments presented in these op-eds. We find limited evidence of treatment effect heterogeneity by party identification: Democrats, Republicans, and independents all appear to move in the predicted direction by similar magnitudes. We conduct this study on both a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers and a sample of elites. Despite large differences in demographics and initial political beliefs, we find that op-eds were persuasive to both the mass public and elites, but marginally more persuasive among the mass public. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence of the everyday nature of persuasion.


The financial crisis turmoil has exposed notable weakness in the risk management processes of the financial services industry. It has also led to a critical look at the scope of the various risk types as well as the classification of loss events. More importantly, the effects that incorrect risk classification might have on capital requirements are now also examined and taken into account.
Boundary events between credit risk and operational risk continue to be a significant source of concern for regulators and the industry in general. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) requires that boundary events should be treated as credit risk for the purposes of calculating minimum regulatory capital under the Basel II Framework. Such losses will, therefore, not be subject to any operational risk capital charges. However, for the purposes of internal operational risk management, banks are required to identify all material operational risk losses. Boundary events should be flagged separately within a bank's internal operational risk database. The Basel II Framework does not provide any further guidelines as to what constitutes boundary events and, therefore, consistent guiding principles that banks can follow for accurately classifying and subsequently flagging such events do not exist. The potential exists that actual boundary events might be classified as purely credit risk, and correctly be included in the credit risk capital charge, but not be flagged separately within the bank's internal operational risk database. Alternatively, boundary events might be classified as operational risk and, therefore, be subject to the operational risk capital charge, instead of the credit risk capital charge. The former instance might give rise to an operational risk manager not being completely informed of the operational risks that the business is facing. The emphasis should always be on the management of risks and for this reason it is important that a financial institution indicates and flags all boundary events in their operational risk systems. To remedy this lack of guidance on the boundary event issue, guidelines are provided that banks can utilise within their risk classification processes. The approach utilised is to consider mechanisms and tools for classification, guidance from the Operational Risk Data Exchange (ORX) and the BCBS, as well as the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
By compiling and submitting questionnaires to five South African banks, an investigation is conducted in order to obtain a view of the current mechanisms, tools and approaches that South African Advanced Measurement Approach (AMA) banks currently utilise within their classification processes. The effectiveness of boundary event classification is assessed by analysing the percentage of losses classified as boundary. In addition, the degree of uniformity or disparity in the classification of typical boundary event scenarios is considered. This analysis is performed by providing respondents with a total of 16 typical boundary…


PRESSMATIC is a portable electromechanical device which was designed to assist people whose manual dexterity has been impaired for any reason (ageing, illness, paralysis, etc.). Its goal is restoring the loss of functionality of the thumb and forefinger in certain tasks that require pinching movements (e.g. grabbing scissors, tweezers, etc.). In this paper, a study on design considerations and user experience of PRESSMATIC is presented. For that purpose, pilot trials were conducted at healthcare facilities. Target users evaluated several prototypes of PRESSMATIC and their opinions were registered. Based on this, the original design specifications were reviewed. First, the methodology used in the study is presented. Participants, devices and tasks are described too. Then, trial results are shown and the system requirements will be discussed taking into account user experience. Finally, the study conclusions are shown.


Geographical mobility is a phenomenon that has always accompanied the history of humanity and has profoundly influenced the modernization of Western societies and the birth of state communities.  In today's global society, migration has established itself as one of the main factors in the transformation of our societies. In addition to being a demographic phenomenon, they act, with their transformative potential, at all levels of social life: from the economic, political-institutional to the cultural and identity level. After the fall of the bipolar system globalization (of the economy) and globalization (of culture, religion, media) have favored the circulation of different cultural visions and practices, imposing changes in social environments characterized by homologous cultural dynamics. This also generates a sense of uncertainty and precariousness and for this reason the concept of religious belonging, understood as an expression of the bond of the person with a religious community, considered essential and not to be renounced, becomes increasingly important. All this leads to a new requalification and position of the person and his rights, including his right to democratic participation in a broader national context, in which frequently the lack of points of constitutional reference gives greater value to the spaces in which the membership expresses itself with a tension and a dynamic of high participation. In this long phase of change, the intensification of religious intolerance and the fear that the practice or profession of a certain faith can endanger one's life push both individuals and entire groups of people to flee their country of origin to ask for protection elsewhere. Faced with the increase in requests for international protection, the national legal systems replied making the rules for entry and stay within their territory increasingly inflexible.


Chemokine interactions with their receptors have been implicated in hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation. The hepatic expression of CXCR4 messenger RNA is increased in hepatitis C cirrhotic livers and plasma levels of its endogenous ligand, stromal cell–derived factor‐1α (SDF‐1α), correlate with increased fibrosis in these patients. The expression of CXCR4 by HSCs has not been reported. We therefore examined whether HSCs express CXCR4 in vivo and in vitro and explored whether SDF‐1α/CXCR4 receptor engagement promotes HSC activation, fibrogenesis, and proliferation. The hepatic protein expression of both CXCR4 and SDF‐1α is increased in hepatitis C cirrhotic livers and immunoflourescent and immunohistochemical staining confirms that HSCs express CXCR4 in vivo. Immortalized human stellate cells as well as primary human HSCs express CXCR4, and cell surface receptor expression increases with progressive culture‐induced activation. Treatment of stellate cells with recombinant SDF‐1α increases expression of α‐smooth muscle actin and collagen I and stimulates a dose‐dependent increase in HSC proliferation. Inhibitor studies suggest that SDF‐1α/CXCR4‐dependent extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 and Akt phosphorylation mediate effects on collagen I expression and stellate cell proliferation. Conclusion: HSCs express CXCR4 receptor in vivo and in vitro. CXCR4 receptor activation by SDF‐1α is profibrogenic through its effects on HSC activation, fibrogenesis, and proliferation. Extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 and phosphoinositide 3‐kinase pathways mediate SDF‐1α–induced effects on HSC expression of collagen I and proliferation. The availability of small molecule inhibitors of CXCR4 make this receptor an appealing target for antifibrotic approaches. (HEPATOLOGY 2009.)


Molecular dynamics simulations were conducted for a cubic Cu cluster supported on a graphite bilayer. The Sutten–Chen and Lennard–Jones potentials were used for metal–metal and metal–graphite interactions, respectively. Heating and cooling processes were performed by NVT simulations at different temperatures in the range 200 to 1800 K. The melting point was identified on the basis of caloric and heat capacity curves. The calculated melting point was 770 K, far below the bulk melting point of crystalline copper. Several phenomena such as the appearance of a hysteresis (irreversibility) in caloric curves, surface melting, and cluster-induced surface wetting were justified from the results. The simulation of cluster in the presence of gas atmosphere showed that the CO gas is adsorbed more than H2 and it has a greater impact on the cluster's structure.


The issue of arrangement of conflict of interest in state service is one of key tools of anti-corruption enforcement. That's why generalization, systematization and reduction to unified pattern of conflict of interest typical situations is important work on perfection of regulatory and legal framework of anti-corruption enforcement in the RF. The paper offers methods of unification during elaboration of normative legal documents and attachment of (interdepartmental interindustry) nature to them.


As high grade ore deposits are depleted, remaining deposits are generally lower grade and require the mining and processing of larger volumes of material per tonne of product. These low grade deposits often contain a large proportion of barren gangue. Pre-concentration aims to remove this barren material at as coarse a particle size and as early in the process as possible. This has the potential to reduce processing costs, energy and water consumption, increase production and improve resource utilisation.

There are several technologies that may be applicable for pre-concentration. This paper looks specifically at bulk ore sorting and how it can be integrated into existing or new mining operations to improve profitability and reduce environmental impact. Bulk ore sorting is the separation of barren gangue from a fully loaded conveyor belt based on the grade as measured or inferred from a sensor measurement. It may be used to increase the production rate through fixed plant capacity, or increase production and/or reduce the size of downstream processing equipment in Greenfield operations. Marginal ore sub-economic reserves may be upgraded, making them economic to treat and improving the resource utilization. Bulk ore sorting could also be used to reduce dilution and ore loss in mining operations by improving grade control, or to separate ore types to treat via different process routes. Various applications of bulk ore sorting are discussed in this paper, and three cases are investigated considering the impact on the overall operation and the associated benefits.


Polychotomous ordinal response data are often analyzed by first introduce a latent continuous variable which can be modeled as an ordinary regression problem with the presence of covariates by using Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. For variable selection purpose, we modified this approach by using the idea of Stochastic EM algorithm to infuse L-1 penalized regression in estimating the parameter of interest. This allows us to rank the variables in their order of significance based on posterior selection probabilities. We make comparisons with univariate Bayesian variable selection in the simulation and applied the proposed algorithm on data obtained from the MovieLens Project and the World Value Survey. Given the convenience of using Gibbs sampler to sample from the posterior distributions and choosing prior distributions based on the problems of our interest in Bayesian analyses, we extended the variable selection problem to consider multiple response data by allowing different sets of variables to be selected for different response variables through the infusion of additional information into the prior distribution of the selection variables. This contrasts with the usual approach to multiple response variable selection that selects a common set of variables for all of the response variables. In the simulation, we compared our proposed method against univariate Bayesian variable selection and it shows that the performance is improved after the infusion of relationship information.


Objectives: Gestational weight gain is important for optimal maternal and neonatal outcomes. New Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations for gestational weight gain define obesity as body mass index (BMI) ≥30 and do not differentiate between maternal obesity classes. The recommended weight gain is 11-20 lbs. for obese women. The purpose of this study is to document prevalence of maternal obesity, excess gestational weight gain, and negative maternal and neonatal outcomes prior to 2009 IOM recommendations for gestational weight gain. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study using Texas birth/infant death certificate data for 2005 through 2009, inclusive. The study population included 419,028 women. Those with excess (>20 lbs.) gestational weight gain were compared with those who gained the recommended 11-20 lbs. Results: Compared to the recommended weight-gain group, women in the excessive weight-gain group had lower percentage of gestational diabetes, across three obesity classes. Women with excessive weight gain had higher percentage of pre-eclampsia and Cesarean delivery (C-section) than women in the recommended weight-gain group. Babies of women with excessive weight gain in Obesity Class III had higher percentages of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) admission, assisted ventilation >6 hours, surfactant therapy, and antibiotics for suspected sepsis than babies of women in Obesity Class III, gaining within the IOM recommendation. Conclusion: Findings suggest that the relationships between maternal obesity classification, gestational weight gain, and maternal and neonatal outcomes are complex. Further evidence is needed to make recommendations on gestational weight gain for obese women, stratified by the severity of obesity.


Transboundary water institutions in the Indus River Basin can be fairly characterized as broken in key respects. International relations between India and Pakistan over the Indus Waters Treaty, as well as interprovincial relations within Pakistan over the 1991 Water Accord, speak to this sentiment. Stemming from research undertaken by the authors for the Harvard Water Federalism Project and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), this Article seeks to spur the evolution of the Indus River Basin's water institutions by offering a comparative perspective from North America's most "institutionally encompassed" basin, the Colorado River Basin. Mindful of the importance of context for comparative water law and policy scholarship, the Article begins with overviews of the Colorado and Indus basins. In turn, the Article considers in greater detail major water-related challenges facing the latter basin, including climate change and overallocation. Against this backdrop, the Article ultimately turns to analysis and prescription. Examining a host of topics involving transboundary water allocation, conservation, and governance, the Article considers key institutions associated with these topics in the Colorado River Basin and reflects on how, if at all, they may serve as reference points for institutional evolution in the Indus Basin. Many of the proposals in the Article are expensive. But compared to military operations, they are quite modest in terms of expense and minimize the risk of loss of life and destruction of property. Still, the Article prioritizes solutions that maximize individual and local freedom to the greatest extent possible. This means relying upon voluntary market-based transfers that protect the vulnerable, favoring incentives rather than regulations, and creating a reward structure that includes benefits other than water.


Congress has discussed several reform proposals [for the Social Security system], but has failed to agree on a solution that maintains the redistributive structure of the current system while also providing economic advantages. This paper consists of several additional sections that logically demonstrate why a fully funded system with the buildup of a large permanent trust fund is the most advantageous Social Security reform proposal. This article is available in The Park Place Economist: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/parkplace/vol7/iss1/18


ABSTRACT Questions under Discussion (QUDs) have been suggested to influence the integration of individual utterances into a discourse-level representation. Previous work has shown that processing ungrammatical ellipses is facilitated when the elided material addresses an implicit QUD raised through a nonactuality implicature (NAIs). It is not clear, however, if QUDs influence discourse coherence during comprehension of fully acceptable discourse. We present two ERP studies examining the effects of QUDs introduced by NAIs using two-sentence discourses. Experiment 1 showed that processing definite NPs with inaccessible antecedents is facilitated when their content is relevant to the QUD. Using acceptable discourses, Experiment 2 showed that definite NPs failing to address a QUD elicit increased processing cost. Overall, our results indicate that QUDs raise the expectation that the following discourse will address them, providing unambiguous evidence that their influence is not limited to the processing of ungrammatical input.


Design patterns have proven useful in many creative fields, providing content creators with archetypal, reusable guidelines to leverage in projects. Creating such patterns, however, is a time-consuming, manual process, typically relegated to a few experts in any given domain. In this paper, we describe an algorithmic method for learning design patterns directly from data using techniques from natural language processing and structured concept learning. Given a set of labeled, hierarchical designs as input, we induce a probabilistic formal grammar over these exemplars. Once learned, this grammar encodes a set of generative rules for the class of designs, which can be sampled to synthesize novel artifacts. We demonstrate the method on geometric models and Web pages, and discuss how the learned patterns can drive new interaction mechanisms for content creators.


We review economic models of environmental protection and regulatory enforcement to highlight several attributes that are particularly likely to benefit from new enforcement technologies such as remote sensing using satellites in space. These attributes include the quantity and quality of information supplied by the new technologies; the accessibility of the information to regulators, regulatees, and third parties; the cost of the information; and whether the process of information collection can be concealed from the observer. Satellite remote sensing is likely to influence all of these attributes and in general, improve the efficacy of enforcement.


This article examines the state constitutional law doctrine that has developed around the right to bear arms. Although the Second Amendment has been likened to a constitutional ghost town, the right to bear arms at the state level is more like a bustling metropolis. Forty-two states have constitutional provisions guaranteeing an individual right to bear arms, and these provisions have been the subject of hundreds of published state court decisions. Yet, the state constitutional doctrine is remarkably consistent and uniform. Without exception, the state courts apply an extremely deferential form of judicial scrutiny to laws restricting gun ownership that requires only that such laws be reasonable regulations. Under that test, which accepts vastly overinclusive laws, only gun measures so extreme as to amount to a complete destruction or evisceration of the underlying right are deemed constitutionally impermissible. As a result, of the hundreds of published state court decisions concerning the right to bear arms, only six have invalidated a gun control law or its application to a particular individual in the past half-century. If that same test is adopted for the Second Amendment, then we can expect that any decision by the Supreme Court reinterpreting that provision to include an individual right to bear arms will have, at best, a marginal impact on the constitutionality of gun control.


Saliva samples collected with Oragene® self-collection kits from DNA Genotek offer a non-invasive and proven method for accessing high quality and quantity DNA for genomic testing and analysis. Proper quantification of the extracted DNA is a critical step for most downstream applications. Trinean has developed a specific quantification protocol for DNA from Oragene/saliva samples using the DropSense96® droplet reader and the cDropTM spectral decomposition software. A comparative analysis using a PicoGreen® fluorescent quantification assay shows a comparable specificity for dsDNA quantification. Since the read-out of 96 samples with the DropSense96 is performed in 5 minutes without any prior mixing or incubation, this technology is a viable alternative to fluorescent quantification assays.