The nitrification inhibitor 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP) is a powerful tool that can be used to reduce N losses from agricultural systems by slowing nitrification and promote nitrogen (N) use efficiency. Mounting evidence has confirmed the functional importance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) in nitrification and N2O production, however, their responses to DMPP amendment and the possible reasons for the variable efficacy of DMPP across different soils are not well known. Here we compared the effects of DMPP on the abundance and metabolic activity of ammonia oxidizers using quantitative PCR and CO2-DNA-stable isotope probing (SIP) method in an acidic pasture soil and an alkaline vegetable soil. Results showed that DMPP significantly inhibited nitrification in the vegetable soil only, and this was coupled with a significant decrease in AOB abundance. The CO2-DNA-SIP results indicated the involvement of AOA and AOB in active nitrification in both soils, but DMPP only inhibited the assimilation of CO2 into AOB in the vegetable soil. Our findings provide evidence that DMPP could effectively inhibit nitrification through impeding the abundance and metabolic activity of AOB in the alkaline vegetable soil, but not in the acidic pasture soil possibly due to the low AOB abundance or the adsorption of DMPP by organic matter.


In September 1945, after the fall of the atomic bomb - and with it, the Japanese empire - Asia was dominated by the British. Governing a vast crescent of land that stretched from India through Burma and down to Singapore, and with troops occupying the French and Dutch colonies in southern Vietnam and Indonesia, Britain's imperial might had never seemed stronger. Yet within a few violent years, British power in the region would crumble, and myriad independent nations would struggle into existence. Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper show how World War II never really ended in these ravaged Asian lands but instead continued in bloody civil wars, anti-colonial insurrections, and inter-communal massacres. These years became the most formative in modern Asian history, as Western imperialism vied with nascent nationalist and communist revolutionaries for political control. "Forgotten Wars", a sequel to the authors' acclaimed "Forgotten Armies", is a panoramic account of the bitter wars of the end of empire, seen not only through the eyes of the fighters, but also through the personal stories of ordinary people: the poor and bewildered caught up in India's Hindu-Muslim massacres; the peasant farmers ravaged by warfare between British forces and revolutionaries in Malaya; and, the Burmese minorities devastated by separatist revolt. Throughout, we are given a stunning portrait of societies poised between the hope of independence and the fear of strife. "Forgotten Wars" vividly brings to life the inescapable conflicts and manifold dramas that shaped today's Asia.


A B S T R A C T The whole body clearance of norepinephrine (NE) was measured in seven patients preand postoperatively. L[8H]NE was infused intravenously for 90 min and steady-state concentrations of L[3H]NE were measured at 75 and 90 min in both arterial and peripheral venous blood. Preoperatively, in the resting supine position, the clearance values based on arterial and venous sampling averaged 1.4 and 2.5 liter/min, respectively (P < 0.02). The difference in clearance values was due to a peripheral uptake of NE averaging 45%.


We propose a method for exaggerating facial expressions derived from exaggeration mappings that transform facial motions into exaggerated motions. The exaggeration mapping of facial motions is defined by non-negative matrix factorization. Three-dimensional facial expressions are simulated using the exaggerating rate as an input value to convey the degree of variation. Experiments show the validity of the exaggeration mapping and facial expression simulations.


This study aimed to establish the effect of a diet enriched with green-lipped mussel (GLM) on pain and functional outcomes in osteoarthritic dogs. Twenty-three client-owned dogs with osteoarthritis (OA) were fed a balanced control diet for 30 d and then a GLM-enriched balanced diet for the next 60 d. We assessed peak vertical force (PVF), which is considered to be the gold standard method, at Day (D)0 (start), D30 (end of control diet), and D90 (end of GLM-enriched diet). The owners completed a client-specific outcome measure (CSOM), which is a pain questionnaire, once a week. Motor activity (MA) was continuously recorded in 7 dogs for 12 wk. Concentrations of plasma omega-3 fatty acids were quantified as indicative of diet change. Statistical analyses were linear-mixed models and multinomial logistic regression for repeated measures. The GLM diet (from D30 to D90) resulted in an increase in concentrations of plasma omega-3 fatty acids (P < 0.016) and improvement of PVF (P = 0.003). From D0 to D30, PVF did not significantly change (P = 0.06), which suggests that the GLM diet had a beneficial effect on gait function. Moreover, PVF (P = 0.0004), CSOM (P = 0.006), and MA (P = 0.02) improved significantly from D0 to D90. In general, the balanced control diet could have contributed to reduced OA symptoms, an effect that was subsequently amplified by the GLM diet.


Technological innovation has been widely studied: however surprisingly little is known about the experience of managing the process. Most reports tend to be generalistic and/or prescriptive whereas it is argued that multiple sources of variation in the process limit the value of these. A description of the innovation process is given together with a presentation of what is knovrn from existing studies. Gaps identified in this area suggest that a variety of organisational influences are important and an attempt is made to identify some of these at individual, group and organisational level. A simple system model of the innovation management process is developed. Further investigation of the influence of these factors was made possible through an extended on-site case study. Methodology for this based upon participant observation coupled wth a wide and flexible range of techniques is described. Evidence is presented about many aspects of the innovation process from a number of different levels and perspectives: the attempt is to demonstrate the extent to which variation due to contingent influences takes place. It is argued that problems identified all relate to the issue of integration. This theme is also developed from an analytical viewoint and it is suggested that organisational response to increases in complexity in the external environment will be to match them with internal complexity. Differentiation of this kind will require extensive and flexible integration, especially in those inherently uncertain areas associated with innovation. Whilst traditionally a function of management, it is argued that integration needs have increased to the point where a new specialism is required. The concept of integration specialist is developed from this analysis and attempts at simple integrative change during the research are described. Finally a strategy for integration - or rather for building in integrative capability - ln the organisation studied is described.


We investigate the extent of variation in output sharing in land rental contracts and alternative hypotheses to explain this variation. Close to half of the rental contracts in our study in northern Ethiopia have output shares that deviate from the dominant 50-50 equal sharing. Variation in land quality, the relative bargaining power of landlords and tenants, production risks and shocks are hypothesized to influence output shares. Matched data of landlords and tenants are used. The importance of endogenous matching of landlords and tenants is investigated by assessing how endogenous tenant characteristics are correlated with landlord characteristics. We find evidence of negative assortative matching for key resource characteristics. A control function approach is used to control for endogenous matching in the output share models. The results reveal that production risks as well as relative bargaining power affect output shares in the reverse tenancy setting with tenants being relatively wealthier and influential than landlords.


Abstract. Operational prediction of the marine environment is recognised as a fundamental research issue in Europe. We present a pre-operational implementation of a biogeochemical model for the pelagic waters of the Mediterranean Sea, developed within the framework of the MERSEA-IP European project. The OPATM-BFM coupled model is the core of a fully automatic system that delivers weekly analyses and forecast maps for the Mediterranean Sea biogeochemistry. The system has been working in its current configuration since April 2007 with successful execution of the fully automatic operational chain in 87% of the cases while in the remaining cases the runs were successfully accomplished after operator intervention. A description of the system developed and also a comparison of the model results with satellite data are presented, together with a measure of the model skill evaluated by means of seasonal target diagrams. Future studies will address the implementation of a data assimilation scheme for the biogeochemical compartment in order to increase the skill of the model's performance.


One of the fundamental ideas in computer science is the notion of abstraction: capturing the essence or the core of some complex situation by a simple model. Some of the largest and most complex entities we might deal with include the internet, the brain, maps, and social networks. In each case, there is an underlying "network" or graph that captures the important features that help us understand these entities more deeply. In the case of the internet, this network or graph specifies how web pages link to one another. In the case of the brain, it is the interconnection network between neurons. We can describe these ideas in the beautiful framework of graph theory, which is the subject of this lecture.


Alcohol and caffeine are deeply woven into the fabric of life for most of the world's population, as close and as comfortable as a cup of coffee or a can of beer. Yet for most people they remain as mysterious and unpredictable as the spirits they were once thought to be. Now, in Buzz, Stephen Braun takes us on a myth-shattering tour of these two popular substances, one that blends fascinating science with colorful lore, and that includes cameo appearances by Shakespeare and Balzac, Buddhist monks and Arabian goat herders, even Mikhail Gorbachev and David Letterman (who once quipped, 'If it weren't for the coffee, I'd have no identifiable personality whatsoever'). Much of what Braun reveals directly contradicts conventional wisdom about alcohol and caffeine. Braun shows, for instance, that alcohol is not simply a depressant as popularly believed, but is instead 'a pharmacy in a bottle' - mimicking the action of drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, valium, and opium. At low doses, it increases electrical activity in the same brain systems affected by stimulants, influences the same circuits targeted by valium, and causes the release of morphine-like compounds known as endorphins - all at the same time. This explains why alcohol can produce a range of reactions, from boisterous euphoria to dark, brooding hopelessness. Braun also shatters the myth that alcohol kills brain cells, reveals why wood alcohol or methanol causes blindness, and explains the biological reason behind the one-drink-per-hour sobriety rule (that's how long it takes the liver, working full tilt, to disable the 200 quintillion ethanol molecules found in a typical drink). The author then turns to caffeine and shows it to be no less remarkable. We discover that more than 100 plant species produce caffeine molecules in their seeds, leaves, or bark, a truly amazing distribution throughout nature (nicotine, in comparison, is found only in tobacco; opium only in the poppy). It's not surprising then that caffeine is far and away the most widely used mind altering substance on the planet, found in tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, soft drinks, and more than 2,000 non-prescription drugs. (Tea is the most popular drink on earth, with coffee a close second.) Braun also explores the role of caffeine in creativity: Johann Sebastian Bach, for one, loved coffee so much he wrote a Coffee Cantata (as Braun notes, no music captures the caffeinated experience better than one of Bach's frenetic fugues); Balzac would work for 12 hours non-stop, drinking coffee all the while; and Kant, Rousseau, and Voltaire all loved coffee. And throughout the book, Braun takes us on many engaging factual sidetrips - we learn, for instance, that Theodore Roosevelt coined the phrase 'Good to the last drop' used by Maxwell House ever since; that distances between Tibetan villages are sometimes reckoned by the number of cups of tea needed to sustain a person (three cups being roughly 8 kilometres); and that John Pemberton's original recipe for Coca-Cola included not only kola extract, but also cocaine. Whether you are a sophisticated consumer of cabernet sauvignon and Kenya AA or just someone who needs a cup of coffee in the morning and a cold one after work, you will find Buzz to be an eye-opening, informative, and often amusing look at two substances at once utterly familiar and deeply mysterious.


Identity formation is probably one of the most discussed aspects of strategic positioning within anthropology, sociology and political science. In general notions of identity have been based on either an absolutist or primordial understanding of belonging or a constructionalist view in which social and political positioning in terms of identity formation are governed by a given societal context. This paper bases its understanding of identity formation on the latter approach. This means that depending of context individuals have several different although related identities to choose between when manoeuvring in a complex and dynamic social environment. Identity formation, achieved or ascribed, and its various forms of externalisation are thus negotiated and not absolute. The dynamic behind this notion of identity formation is individual agency strategically manipulating social, economic and political positioning in a given societal setup. To illustrate the complexities and in this case negative ramifications of social engineering the article focuses on inter-ethnic relations and industrial development in Penang, Malaysia.


Second language acquisition researchers have claimed that feedback provided during conversational interaction facilitates second language (L2) acquisition. A number of experimental studies have supported this claim, connecting interactional feedback with L2 development. Researchers have suggested that interactional feedback is associated with L2 learning because it prompts learners to notice L2 forms. This study explores the relationships between feedback, instructed ESL learners' noticing of L2 form during classroom interactions and their subsequent L2 development. Interactional feedback was provided to learners in response to their production problems with questions, plurals, and past tense forms. Learners' noticing was assessed through on-line learning journals, introspective comments while viewing classroom videotapes, and questionnaire responses. Through a controlled pre-test, post-test design, analyses of noticing and learning were carried out for each learner. The results point to an interesting, complex and positive relationship between interactional feedback in the classroom, the learners' reports about noticing and their learning of L2 question forms.


This article discusses the changing role of municipalities in the control of new environmental problems. The definition of environmental problems changes over time. It could be said that the change mirrors a learning pro¬cess, whereby the most prominent problems are solved first. Single source emissions have been dealt with and now diffuse emissions are increasingly becoming the environmental challenge.The results of an empirical study of four environmental projects concerning the control of diffuse emission are presented with regard to the new role of municipalities. This study shows how municipalities are moving from their traditional control and supervisory role to a cooperative and "joint-vision" role.The concept of joint vision involves a competence development of interest groups that are not fully informed and that partially have competitive roles. Joint vision demands a leadership that encourages open undertakings and personal responsibility not supervision and control by others.


Municipal governments play a vital role in American democracy, as well as in governments around the world. Despite this, little is known about the degree to which cities are responsive to the views of their citizens. In the past, the unavailability of data on the policy preferences of citizens at the municipal level has limited scholars' ability to study the responsiveness of municipal government. We overcome this problem by using recent advances in opinion estimation to measure the mean policy conservatism in every U.S. city and town with a population above 20,000 people. Despite the supposition in the literature that municipal politics are non-ideological, we find that the policies enacted by cities across a range of policy areas correspond with the liberal-conservative positions of their citizens on national policy issues. In addition, we consider the influence of institutions, such as the presence of an elected mayor, the popular initiative, partisan elections, term limits, and at-large elections. Our results show that these institutions have little consistent impact on policy responsiveness in municipal government. These results demonstrate a robust role for citizen policy preferences in determining municipal policy outcomes, but cast doubt on the hypothesis that simple institutional reforms enhance responsiveness in municipal governments.


Introduction There are very limited data on herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We examined the overall and age-specific HSV-2 antibody prevalence among select MENA populations currently residing in Qatar. Methods Sera were collected from blood donors attending Hamad Medical Corporation June 2013–2015. Specimens were screened for HSV-2 antibodies using HerpeSelect 2 ELISA IgG kits. All positive and equivocal specimens detecting presence of HSV-2 antibodies were retested for final HSV-2 status using Euroline Westernblot assays. Demographic information included nationality, age, and sex. Age was grouped into 8 bands:≤24, 25–29, 30–34, 35–39, 40–44, 45–49, 50–54, and ≥55. Age-specific trend of HSV-2 infection among Egyptian, Fertile Crescent (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria) and Qatari nationals was described and assessed using the Cochran–Armitage test. Results Sera from 2165 blood donors were tested for HSV-2. Among 132 retested specimens, 66 were confirmed positive. Country-specific HSV-2 prevalence was measured at 5.5% (95% confidence interval (CI) 3.7%–8.2%) for Qataris, 4.5% (95%CI 1.9%–10.0%) for Iranians, 4.2% (95%CI 1.8%–9.5%) for Lebanese, 3.1% (95%CI 1.2%–7.7%) for Sudanese, 3.0% (95%CI 1.4%–6.4%) for Palestinians, 2.2% (95%CI 1.1%–4.3%) for Egyptians, 2.0% (95%CI 1.0%–5.0%) for Syrians, 1.0% (95%CI 0.3%–3.6%) for Jordanians, 0.7% (95%CI 0.1%–3.7%) for Yemenis, and 0.5% (95%CI 0.1%–2.8%) for Pakistanis. Age-specific HSV-2 prevalence was estimated for Egyptians, nationals of the Fertile Crescent, and Qataris. Overall, HSV-2 prevalence increased with age, but the trend was not always statistically significant in these populations. HSV-2 prevalence was significantly higher for females at 9.1% (95%CI 4.7%–16.9%) than males at 2.8% (95%CI 2.2%–3.6%) (χ2p-value<0.01). Conclusion HSV-2 prevalence among MENA nationals was found to be lower than that commonly found in other regions. However, these observed prevalence levels suggest unmet needs for sexual health and control of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) transmission. Programs need to be established to tackle STIs and their disease burden in this region.


The legalization of marijuana in Canada raises many concerns regarding its consequences on the central nervous system. From being widely used as a medicinal remedy to now being used recreationally, this proposal aims to focus on an experiment that examines THC and its potentially detrimental effects on the brain, specifically in mice at-risk for schizophrenia. This proposal outlines a mouse model analysis of an analogue of THC that will be constructed using a knockout mice lineage in which the mice have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia and lack the CB1 receptors responsible for binding THC. The resultant mice will undergo a grooming behaviour test and an elevated zero maze test which will then be compared with other experimental and control groups. This will allow for the direct observation of THC's effects on the brain, providing insight on the consequences of the legalization of marijuana and its recreational use.


Scalable, hierarchical, all-optical wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) networks for interconnection in distributed cluster-based computing systems have been recently considered. Hybrid access protocols combining reservation and pre-allocation have been studied for this type of network which supports a distributed shared memory (DSM) environment. The objectives of the protocols are reduced average latency per packet, support of broadcast/multicast, collisionless communication, and exploitation of inherent DSM tragic characteristics. This paper compares random and static access strategies on the control channel to establish reservation for data packets. Random access provides reduced packet latency under light traffic conditions and has simpler implementation. Static access is free of collisions and instability but has longer control cycle lengths. The performance of the network is analyzed through simulation models with varying system parameters such as number of nodes and channels. Dynamic schemes which switch between random and static access and vice-versa are also considered.


Three monkeys were each tested under a second-order fixed interval (FI) schedule with fixed-ratio (FR) components, a tandem FI FR schedule and an FI schedule while either food deprived or food satiated. Under the second-order schedule, every sixteenth lip-contact response on a drinking spout produced a brief stimulus and the first FR 16 begun and completed after the 60-min interval elapsed resulted in both the brief stimulus and access to orally delivered phencyclidine. The tandem schedule was similar, except that brief-stimulus presentations during the 60-min interval were omitted, and the third schedule was an FI 60 min. The reinforcer, orally delivered phencyclidine, was available only at the end of the 60-min session. The number of drug deliveries was either "limited" (300) or "unlimited" (for 1 hr) to determine whether increased responding due to food deprivation would occur in the absence of increased drug intake. Under all conditions response rates were nearly twice as high during food deprivation as they were during food satiation. The number of phencyclidine deliveries available at the end of the session has no systemic effect on the rate of pattern of responding, but quarter-life values were consistently lower during food deprivation than they were during food satiation. Under the tandem and FI schedules, overall response rates were much lower than under the second-order schedule, and quarter-life values were higher. When water was substituted for phencyclidine under each schedule condition, response rates and liquid deliveries generally declined to below phencyclidine levels indicating that the drug had been functioning as a reinforcer.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Indigenous women's perspectives on physical activity and the ways in which it fosters decolonization have yet to be considered from an Indigenous feminist perspective. Therefore, in this paper, we present four Anishinaabekweg (that is, Anishinaabeg women's) dibaajimowinan (personal stories) of physical activity, specifically running, and their views on its contribution to decolonization. This study used an Anishinaabeg research paradigm, storytelling, and Anishinaabeg informed thematic analysis. Findings from the dibaajimowinan revealed three themes: running as ceremony and healing; the significance of running as a group; and running for health and personal goals. The dibaajimowinan from the Anishinaabekweg runners show how decolonization through physical activity can occur, which is an important addition to the field of sociology of sport.


Political and cultural agendas determine the programmes of public libraries, implying complex and often conflicting requirements in terms of their functioning. On one hand, they need to provide open and equal access to knowledge. On the other, they have functional needs that might restrict or condition the distribution and access of books, equipment and people. At the same time, social and technological changes cause this building type to change so as to include the idea of socialisation as a form of learning. This thesis investigates how space, programme and use interrelate in public libraries in order to express an intended public message and fulfil a specific social and cultural effect. Medellin's Library-Parks are the main case studies analysed, as they function as key elements of a project that addresses social inequalities. Through spatial analysis using space syntax methods, the thesis provides a thorough description of these libraries' spatial configuration and their spatial organisation of programme. In addition, it shows how the libraries are used through a detailed mapping of users' co-presence, which exposes patterns that are further associated with the spatial and programmatic arrangements. Based on these three analyses, the thesis formulates types of spatial cultures in public libraries and exposes the role of space in influencing the emergence and/or constraint of particular patterns of social awareness that the traditional notion of the programme cannot capture. It is found that depending on how public libraries control public use (spatially and programmatically), they can support the emergence of informal activities or work as educational institutions only. In addition, depending on how public libraries' educational role is manifested in space as spatial practices, they can serve as places that facilitate the exercise of institutional-bureaucratic power to normalise visitors' behaviours, or places that stimulate public participation and negotiation. The findings emphasise how public libraries work as accessible civic environments, promoting visitors' political and social awareness and potentially strengthening the collective engagement of the surrounding communities.


The development of design automation tools for a power electronic circuit has received a great deal of attention in the last two decades. To provide an optimum solution for each power electronics application demands the selection of
the most appropriate power electronic devices, power circuit and control philosophy. For a certain applications, it must be decided which power circuit topology and which power semiconductor with which control strategy is best
suited for it. Their design and fabrication require extensive knowledge and sophistication, that must be continually updates as the technologies improve. Considerable engineering effort and knowledge are required to take a power circuit from a laboratory prototype to a finished product. Other than being an expert in areas as diverse as thermal design, circuit and system packaging, circuit protection, and safety and electromagnetic interference regulations. With such a highly demanding expertise required of power electronic circuits' designers and with such rapid advancements in the field of circuit
topology and semiconductor devices it is difficult for designers to come up with an optimum circuit and the right device within a short time. These difficulties can be
solved using a design-aided system with high accuracy and flexibility in a short time. In this study the developed system is named PEDAS (Power electronic Design Aid System). The system is characterized as an intermediate object-oriented system that allows the user to deal with different software packages through an attractive interface. The aim of this research is to develop a database circuits library. The implementation includes generation of formatted files to be used as input streams with the design packages, writing an interface program for each kind of these software, and managing the data flow timing and dependency
among them. In this thesis the circuit topology data base development based on PSPICE is presented with examples of converters and inverters circuits. The database circuits library was designed and used successfully by some of the researchers of the electrical engineering department in the Control and Automation System Center.


The term rumination is commonly used to describe negative phenomenological experiences and is related to a number of psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, social phobia, anger, worry and the persistence of negative mood and thinking. Research also indicates an association between rumination and the development and/or sustenance of cognitive and emotional problems (Ehring, Frank, & Ehkers, 2008; Segertom, Tsao, Alden, & Craske, 2003; Watkins et al., 2007). Over recent years there has been an increasing focus on rumination and other pressures and strains that may exist on a more daily basis. This is the focus on the present thesis which addresses links between rumination, work stress, recovery and well being. Previous research has also tended to conceptualise rumination as a univariate construct whereas the present thesis takes a more complex approach and conceptualises rumination within a tripartite model. The primary aim of this thesis was to develop and evaluate a new measure of rumination within the tripartite perspective and to assess links with health indices such as physical symptoms, blood pressure, sleep and eating behaviour in the context of how people unwind in their leisure time. The thesis consists of four empirical studies. Study 1 was designed to develop and assess the psychometric properties of a new measure of rumination which operationalised three different types of work related rumination labelled: affective rumination, problem solving and detachment. This was then evaluated on a large sample of workers using factor analysis, reliability analysis and cluster analysis. Further this study examined the relationship between the three types of rumination and psychosomatic symptoms. The second study involved a confirmatory factor analysis of this scale and in addition investigated whether these three components of rumination were associated with differences in cardiovascular activity and leisure activities using a longitudinal diary based methodology. Study 3 further explored this approach to rumination with a focus on sleep problems and differences in participants' leisure activities by ruminator type. Study 4 explored the association between work rumination and eating behaviour. The results showed that the new measurement tool consisted of three robust factors with good reliability. This was confirmed throughout the thesis. Results also indicated differences between the different types of ruminators. In particular, affective ruminators scored higher on physical symptoms and had highest intake of unhealthy foods in contrast to the detachers and problem solvers. In contrast problem solver ruminators reported consuming more unhealthy foods and scored higher on physical symptoms than detachers. Results also showed that workers who ruminate about work-related issues failed to reduce their diastolic blood pressure in the evening, in contrast to the rest of the workers. The results showed no differences between the three groups in terms of their sleep patterns and cardiovascular activity. There were also no differences between the three ruminator types and pattern leisure time activities with all engaging in low effort activities in the evening. These results support the theory that inadequate recovery, or poor disengagement from work leads to physical-illness symptoms and health problems and indicate that rather than it just being rumination per se which may be detrimental to health, it is the type of rumination that is predictive. Future work could use this tripartite operationalisation of rumination to examine other behavioural and physiological factors that influence the process of recovery from work and their impact on additional health indices to further our understanding of the unwinding process.


Submittal of an algorithm for consideration for publication in Communications of the ACM implies unrestricted use of the algorithm within a computer is permissible. General permission to republish, but not for profit, all or part of this material is granted provided that ACM's copyright notice is given and that reference is made to the publication, to its date of issue, and to the fact that reprinting privileges were granted by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. The procedure Coulomb can be used very weU to generate the Coulomb wave functions FL and GL and their derivatives, needed in elastic scattering calculations in nuclear physics. When the procedure is used many times for many values of rho and eta, it is not only very useful but also necessary to have in each instance an indication about the accuracy of the results. It is obvious to use the Wronskian relations FL'GL-FLGL' ~ l for the purpose of checking the results, as Fr6berg [1] states after formula (3.4). However, one has to be very careful in using these relations. The most significant check is given later on, but first it is shown what can go wrong. K61big pointed out already in the certification that Lutz and Karvelis [2] failed to notice discrepancies exceeding 100 units in the sixth significant digit in their tables although they state "when all the functions are generated we test to see how closely the Wron-skian relation FL'GL-FLGL' = 1 is obeyed." The way Lutz and Karvelis generate the functions goes as follows. First they calculate Go and Go'; then they use recurrence relations to get GL and GL' for L > 0; and lastly them use backward recurrence This investigation was part of the research program of the "Stichting voor Fundamental Onderzoek der Materie (F.O.M.)," which is financially supported by the "Nederlandse Organisatie voor Zuiver Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Z.W.O.)". relations together with the relation FoG~-GoF1 = (n 2 + I)-~ to get FL and FL' for all L. This last relation is in fact a di:::rent form of the Wronskian relation, see e.g. Fr6berg [1] formula (3.5). The use of the Wronskian relations to check the results now gives information only about the stability in the use of the recurrence relations, not about the accuracy of the Coulomb wave functions. As an independent check on the function values, the following procedure can be used. It is easy to …


The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive, multi-regional trade model which includes all types of state trading enterprises (STEs) as well as other domestic and trade policies. The model is applied to measure the effects of STEs on the world wheat sector, where exports and imports by STEs are dominant. The STE model is based on a trade and policy simulation model by Maeda, Suzuki, and Kaiser (MSK). The MSK model is a nonlinear imperfectly competitive spatial equilibrium model formulated as a mixed complementarity problem (MCP). The MSK model can be used to evaluate the following various trade and domestic support policies: specific duties, ad valorem tariffs, tariff-rate quotas, export subsidies, production subsidies, production quotas, consumption taxes and price floors, combined with various imperfectly competitive market structures. However, it does not explicitly incorporate STEs. We incorporate both Canadian and Australian types of exporting STEs into the model. Importing STEs, like the Japanese Food Agency, are treated as specific duties in the model since their mark-ups are imposed on imports within tariff-rate quotas. In addition, we introduce Chinese and Indian STEs (COFCO and FCI) which act as an exclusive importer and prohibit exports. The effects of relaxing the export prohibition due to China's entry to the WTO is one of the focal points to be analyzed. The main empirical findings are as follows. In the base case where all STEs are active with the committed 2000 levels remaining the same, Canada, the United States, the European Community, and Australia would be the largest net exporters. By explicitly incorporating the roles of the CWB and AWB into the world wheat trade model, Canadian and Australian net exports became larger than previous estimates. Hence, it is important to include STEs in trade simulation models. In the case where CWB is no longer a monopoly buyer of domestic wheat, compared to the base case, Canada would reduce exports, increase domestic sales, and therefore reduce imports. While the European Community, Australia, and Argentina would increase net exports, only the United States would decrease net exports because decreases in Canada's imports results in a decrease in the United States' exports to Canada. Under the scenario where the CWB and AWB are eliminated, Canada would reduce net exports. The largest gains of eliminating the CWB and AWB would go to the European Community in the form of increased exports, while other exporters would have only minor increases in net exports. Interestingly, there would be almost no changes in Australia's situation after eliminating AWB. This is partly because the AWB was already deregulated in 1997 and it is no longer a monopoly buyer of domestic wheat. Also, there would be only small differences in Canada's situation between a case assuming the CWB with no monopoly buying right and a complete elimination of the CWB. These results imply that being a monopoly buyer is more important for the exporting STE than only being a monopoly exporter. The simulation results also revealed that export prohibition by COFCO and FCI would have almost no effects on world wheat trade.


China Ready for New Prospect for Tourism Development. Zhang Guangrui. Tourism Management, vol. 6, no. 2, June 1985, pp. 141-143. Butterworth Scientific Ltd., P.O. Box 63, Westbury House, Bury Street, Guildford GU2 5BH, United Kingdom. $80 annual subscription. Great strides have been made in tourism development in the People's Republic of China since 1978 with the shift in emphasis from political ideology to the economy. The failure of the Chinese government to recognize the significance of tourism to the economy has led to inadequate provision of tourist services and accommodations. The State Administra-


Sodium-ion-based capacitors and batteries are considered as a low-cost energy storage technology alternative to their lithium-ion counterparts owing to the abundance of sodium in Earth. Their widespread use is however limited by the lack of high-performance electrode materials. In this work, we report that MXenes-Ti3C2 can be oxidized into a Ti-peroxo complex gel at room temperature by simply adding H2O2, from concentrated to dilute. The highly water-soluble property of this gel allows the synthesis of a graphene-supported TiO2 nanocomposite with highly porous nano-/meso-hybrid architecture via a more facile and environmentally friendly way. The unique hybrid architecture of the produced TiO2–RGO nanocomposite results in pseudocapacitive behavior in Na+ charge storage with high reversibility, fast kinetics, long cyclability, and negligible degradation to the parent structure. By incorporating the TiO2–RGO composite as the anode, a novel sodium-ion capacitor is constructed that is capable of operating at a high voltage of 4.0 V and delivering a maximum energy density of 94.7 W h kg−1, which is comparable to lithium-ion based capacitors. The approach reported here could be potentially extended for fabricating a host of MXenes-derived metal oxide nanomaterials or nanocomposites for numerous applications, particularly in view of the expanding MXenes portfolio.


This paper grows out of my ongoing interest in the Calgary Stampede, the world's most extravagant celebration of cowboy culture. I build on two papers that focus on how Calgarians exploit the symbolic resources at their disposal, including the image of the cowboy, to construct their regional and municipal identities (Seiler and Seiler). Many historians, such as James Gray and Donna Livingstone, have written about the achievements of Guy Weadick, the American-born vaudeville entertainer who organised the first Calgary Stampede in 1912, but few (save for Donald Smith) have written anything insightful about the accomplishments of M.B. "Doc" Marcell, the American-born adventurer who photographed this important event. To some extent, historians of western Canada have demonstrated a bias in favor of the linguistic mode, almost blind to the richness of symbolic thought in other modes of communication, especially the iconic (Gross 190). Here, I initiate the process of remedying this unfortunate situation, by way of highlighting the important role Marcell played in documenting the event and suggesting that, working in the tradition epitomized by the pictures of such western artists as Frederic Remington, Charlie Russell, and Edward Borein, Marcell played a significant role in popularizing an image of the "Wild West" in general and of the Canadian West in particular. Context Reconstructing the career of Marcus Belmont Marcell (1869-1939) has been no easy task, in part because he moved often and employed a number of names.(1) He was born Milward Belmont Davis, and spent his first six years in Louisville, Kentucky, where his father, Charles Wellington Davis (1844-1916) worked as a photographer. In 1874, the family moved to Athens, Georgia, where Davis acquired two photography galleries, including the Premium Gallery, which was located directly across the street from the University of Georgia. During this period, Davis earned great fame as a "photographic artist," and his pictures--oil, watercolor, and crayon portraits and grand landscapes--won competitions at the Georgia State Fair. In 1878, he expanded his business, opening a branch gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina. Marcell's mother, Mrs. Ada W. Davis (her maiden was Belmont) died suddenly on August 12, 1875, her twenty-first birthday. Five years later, Charles Davis married 19-year-old Emma Vonderleith from Athens, Georgia. They had three girls: Mamie, Lily, and Carolina. In 1887, Davis left Emma and the three girls, and with Marcell (who was 18) returned north to Cincinnati, Ohio. Clearly, Marcell grew tip with photography in his blood. He did not get on with his father, and by 1888, he had left home. Initially, he made a living as an itinerant photographer, going from door to door, encouraging parents to let him photograph their children sitting on the pony he used as a prop. In June 1889, Marcell married Eva May Forbes, and the couple moved to Dennison, Texas, where he operated a portrait studio. Edward Forbes Davis (later Marcell), their only child, was born in Dennison on February 11, 1890. Shortly afterwards, the couple separated. Marcell pursued a number of interests (cf. De Shon). During the period 1896-98, he worked in New York as a journalist, writing for William Randolph Hearst's newspaper, The New York Journal. It is thought that, in 1898, he travelled to Cuba to report on Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, who took part in the Spanish-American War. Later, during the period 1902-09, he travelled across the United States and Canada, operating a scheme called the "Mysterious Mr. Raffles." Apparently, he would visit a town or a city for a period of time, selling tickets which entitled the holder to win a large prize, that is, if that person identified the "stranger" who walked the streets of the community. Presumably, this person (a collaborator) wore a disguise of some sort. Legend has it that this project earned him no less than $750,000. …


This paper is intended to be pedagogical rather than a presentation of original research. We describe a simple dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with capital utilization, capital adjustment costs, and a simple Cobb-Douglas technology to illustrate how DSGE models can be used to explain the past and to forecast the future. We identify one method to directly estimate latent variables and parameters in a DSGE model. We then construct estimates of the latent variables and shocks, the latter of which drive observed variations in economic activity. Those latent variables form the foundation of our economic analyses of past events, and the estimated parameters allow us to construct an economic forecast.


Available online 31 July 2015 The potential for air pollutants transport, dispersion patterns and impacts within and around the Mui basin, Kitui County is simulated. The spatial-temporal distribution of air pollutants from the proposed coal mines was investigated using Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectories (HYSPLIT) and dispersion analyses. The spatial distribution of wind patterns was investigated using wind rose to explain the observed air pollution distribution. The analysis was carried out for the dry and wet seasons of the study area namely: December, January, February (DJF), March, April, May (MAM), June, July, August (JJA) and September, October, November (SON) seasons. From the analysis, the season during which the exposure levels would pose much health threat was established based on frequency of winds blowing in certain direction and speed. By spatial analysis of the proximity of proposed mines and direction of dominant winds, areas most prone to pollution were delineated. The results showed that winds over the area were generally low and southerly. The residents to the northern and northwestern sectors would be at most at risk should the mining commence. Due to low wind speeds during January and the onset of JJA season, residents and workers at the mine would be affected adversely. The results may contribute to the design of effective control strategies to reduce impact of emitted pollutants.


The care and protection of children experiencing or considered to be at risk of abuse or neglect within their families is a major policy dilemma. Children in the care and protection system do not fare well on a range of indicators, when compared to the overall population. In recent years there have been significant changes in policies and support for children in out of home care, including the adoption of the language of rights. Nevertheless, the care and protection of children who enter the system bearing that name is often dubbed one of social policy's 'wicked problems'. This paper synthesizes concepts of human rights, children's needs and citizenship as a basis for redefining policy and services for children in out-of-home care. We suggest that improved support for children in out of home care requires the recognition of children as partners.


This paper uses historical census data from Burkina Faso to characterize local demographic pressures associated with internal migration into river valleys after Onchocerciasis eradication, combined with a new survey of village elders to document change over time and differences across villages in local public goods provision, market institutions and land use rights. We hypothesize that higher local population densities are associated with more public goods and a transition from open-access to regulated land use. Controlling for province or village fixed effects, we find that villages' variance in population associated with proximity to rivers is closely correlated with higher levels of infrastructure, markets and individual land rights, as opposed to familial or communal rights. Responding to population growth with both improved public services and private property rights is consistent with both scale effects in public good provision, and changes in the scarcity of land.


This article traces the historical roots of some of our current preoccupations with the ethics of business. It argues that many of the contemporary criteria that we use to evaluate the ethics of business are not new; rather, they date back several centuries. This argument is illustrated by comparing historical and contemporary discussions of three sets of issues: the relationship between ethics and profits, the relationship between private gain and the public good, and the tension between the results of capitalism and the intentions of businessmen. The fact that these tensions are inherent in the nature of capitalism, if not human nature itself, does not make our contemporary concerns or standards any less valid. On the contrary, it underlies their significance. Contemporary discussions of business ethics constitute part of an ongoing moral dialogue with both deep secular and religious roots.


This article discusses the relationship between the expert knowledge and the prospects of politicizing and democratizing urban planning. The term 'experts' refers mainly to urban planners, yet also includes architects, engineers and lawyers, who are specialized in planning. The article begins with a review of the critical literature on communicative planning, agonistic pluralism, agonistic planning and discussions on what needs to be done in planning focusing on the role of the expert knowledge. It argues that expert knowledge can gain different and multi-dimensional roles in urban planning processes, leading not necessarily to techno-management, yet contributing in their inclusiveness and conflict sensitivity. Encompassing both technical support and objective intermediation for local communities, it can both be utilized to build an agonistic space and help the communities better utilize the existing communicative/collaborative channels to voice their disagreements. By this way, it contributes in the politicization and democratization of planning processes. With this argument, the article also aims to challenge the strict distinction between 'the politics' and 'the political' as well as the related communicative–agonistic divide. The argument is supported by evidence from a case study on two informally built residential neighbourhoods in Istanbul, where there has been an active citizen opposition and involvement in a planning process.


By:
AdityaYulianto
NIM. 08503241018

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research is that, firstly, get the digital media interactive learning materials proper equilibrium as a supporter of subjects KBKM.Second, get the procedure of making interactive learning materials digital media to equilibrium on subjects KBKM.Third, see on an interactive learning materials digital media balance on the subjects KBKM.
The study is to use the research and development of research and development.A method of examination in which some part of the learning, and that is: (1) is subject to his will (2) a preliminary study, (3) the learning materials are collected, in line with silabus (4) the design, the media (5), developed the product. (6) the feasibility of learning.To the poll, conducted through the kuesioner.The technique used to analyze data from a quantitative analysis by deskriptif and dipersentase expressed in the scale of the judgment that has been set.
The result of this research was the conclusion that the media could be learning created adjusted with material characteristics and equilibrium based on issues which occurs in students.The worthiness test results digital media interactive learning materials equilibrium kbkm according to the subject matter teachers (score) obtained percentage 91,48 % (excellent) he said the material (obtained 91,65 teacher) the score at the very well, according to the media experts found the score among 89 % (excellent) the test scores 65,3 % limited acquired a percentage (good); and the test scores 79,1 % of the acquired a percentage (good).

Keyword: development, digital media, KBKM


The United States had never lost a war --that is, until 1975, when it was forced to flee Saigon in humiliation after losing to what Lyndon Johnson called a ""raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country."" The legacy of this first defeat has haunted every president since, especially on the decision of whether to put ""boots on the ground"" and commit troops to war. In Haunting Legacy , the father-daughter journalist team of Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb presents a compelling, accessible, and hugely important history of presidential decision-making on one crucial issue: in light of the Vietnam debacle, under what circumstances should the United States go to war? The sobering lesson of Vietnam is that the United States is not invincible --it can lose a war --and thus it must be more discriminating about the use of American power. Every president has faced the ghosts of Vietnam in his own way, though each has been wary of being sucked into another unpopular war. Ford (during the Mayaguez crisis) and both Bushes (Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan) deployed massive force, as if to say, ""Vietnam, be damned."" On the other hand, Carter, Clinton, and Reagan (to the surprise of many) acted with extreme caution, mindful of the Vietnam experience. Obama has also wrestled with the Vietnam legacy, using doses of American firepower in Libya while still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. The authors spent five years interviewing hundreds of officials from every post war administration and conducting extensive research in presidential libraries and archives, and they've produced insight and information never before published. Equal parts taut history, revealing biography, and cautionary tale, Haunting Legacy is must reading for anyone trying to understand the power of the past to influence war-and-peace decisions of the present, and of the future.


The Water Framework Directive implementation requires models involving environmental indicators to report water state, to describe anthropogenic pressures, and to assess impacts of restoration measures. These indicators are built from observations, modelling results, expertises and processes hypothesis... They are routinely used in information system by stakeholders and managers. Our work, funded by Rhone-Mediterranee and Corse Water Agency, aims to develop new Pressure/State models to help the choice of restoration measures. In this presentation, we describe the first steps of the approach and focus on the specification of a water quality indicator taking account availability and quality of information. In France, water quality information is providing by different networks. These networks can be permanent or temporary and managed at different levels. Two national monitoring networks are managed by the French water agencies for European reporting and monitoring water quality of French rivers: the first one aims to get a global knowledge of rivers water quality, over the long term; and second one is dedicated to monitor temporarily water bodies with specific issues (degradation, restoration, non-achievement of good status. . . ). These networks are recent (2007) and replaced the former national networks. All the other available water quality data correspond to research or engineering studies. Most of these data only concern one site, cover short periods. Data are gathered in public databases, and are freely available. Water quality databases may include up to 41 physico-chemical parameters plus 4 biological parameters. These databases are heterogeneous because data are issued from different networks, using evolving measurement locations and changing sampling and analytical protocols. Moreover, these observations depend on environmental conditions, and anthropogenic pressures. By definition, an indicator has to be enough robust to be compared, spatially and temporally if ones wanted to summarized it by mean value. We question the meaning of mean values to summarize the water quality and study in which conditions it is relevant to use such values. We focus on a biological indicator (IBGN) because of its robustness and its wide use. It is based on the abundance and the diversity of the benthic invertebrates. The work is applied to the Saone catchment (30000 km2), located on the East of France. We perform an extensive gathering of available data to evaluate the relevance of the use of mean value on our series. On the Saone catchment, there are 191 stations belonging to the two national monitoring networks, 14 stations belonging to the former national monitoring networks and 1619 stations issued from research or engineering studies. Altogether 2534 IBGN observations are available from May 1993 to October 2008. Yet there are only 56 stations with more than 10 observations, i.e. a total of 693 IBGN observations. Between 10 and 22 measures are available for each station that all belong to the national monitoring networks. In order to test the signification of mean values, we study series' stationarity. We used four different tests (Spearman, Mann-Kendall, Permutation and linear regression) to detect trends and breaking points. The results are not exactly the same depending on the test: some series are qualified as stationary by one test and not stationary by another one. This result allowed comparing test efficiency for short temporal series. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that the upstream part of the Saone River, the Doubs River as well as other small tributaries of the head of the catchment show a significant water quality trend. Hence the mean value is a bad indicator of the water quality for more than half of the stations. We conclude by a discussion about trends explanation, and a proposal of new indicators.


A novel compressive sampling scheme suitable for highly scalable hardware implementation is presented. The prototype design is implemented in a 0.18um standard CMOS technology and utilizes compressed acquisition to achieve high frame rates and maintain low power consumption. Specialized pixels, convenient for Comparator-Based Switched Capacitor readout are developed for this purpose. A custom measurement matrix generation algorithm is implemented which reduces in-pixel hardware complexity and performs measurement matrix generation in a single clock cycle. Per column Dierential Cyclic-ADCs based on the Zero-Crossing Detection (ZCD) technique are used to convert the analog image measurements. Physical IC design issues such as the device noise, mismatch and non-linearity, are analyzed and their eects on compressed image acquisition are presented and discussed. The final simulation results show that the proposed 256x256 pixels architecture consumes 1.45mW at 250fps and 26.2mW at 8000fps. The proposed architecture can easily be scaled towards newer technology nodes and higher image resolutions.


Foreign Terrorist Fighters undermine international peace and security by joining terrorist organisations and by contributing to the conflict and to the execution of terrorist acts, both in the conflict theatres and their home countries. Policies to counteract this phenomenon have been adopted at both the international and national levels, including security, administrative and preventative measures. This policy brief will focus on the legal measures, specifically the prosecutorial approach, and the difficulties that prosecutions of those who have travelled to the destination countries where the conflict takes place bring along. Given those difficulties, the main question this policy brief seeks to answer is whether there is a role for the military to play in assisting prosecutors in collecting evidence and arresting suspects in countries of destination in order to try them in a criminal court under a civilian jurisdiction. After elaborating on several future scenarios in Syria and Iraq, the policy brief concludes by giving recommendations for cooperation between the military and civilian prosecutors.


Abstract. The Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) extends around
600 km upstream from the coast to its onset near the ice divide in interior
Greenland. Several maps of surface velocity and topography of interior
Greenland exist, but their accuracy is not well constrained by in situ
observations. Here we present the results from a GPS mapping of surface
velocity in an area located approximately 150 km from the ice divide near
the East Greenland Ice-core Project (EastGRIP) deep-drilling site. A GPS
strain net consisting of 63 poles was established and observed over the
years 2015–2019. The strain net covers an area of 35 km by 40 km, including
both shear margins. The ice flows with a uniform surface speed of
approximately 55 m a−1 within a central flow band with longitudinal and
transverse strain rates on the order of 10−4 a−1 and increasing by
an order of magnitude in the shear margins. We compare the GPS results to
the Arctic Digital Elevation Model and a list of satellite-derived surface
velocity products in order to evaluate these products. For each velocity
product, we determine the bias in and precision of the velocity compared to the
GPS observations, as well as the smoothing of the velocity products needed
to obtain optimal precision. The best products have a bias and a precision
of ∼0.5 m a−1. We combine the GPS results with
satellite-derived products and show that organized patterns in flow and
topography emerge in NEGIS when the surface velocity exceeds
approximately 55 m a−1 and are related to bedrock topography.


Cyanophages are viruses that target cyanobacteria and directly control their abundance via viral lysis. Cyanobacteria are known to cause large blooms in water bodies, substantially contributing to oxygen depletion in bottom waters resulting in areas called dead zones. ABSTRACT Up to 20% of prokaryotic organisms in the oceans are estimated to die every day due to viral infection and lysis. Viruses can therefore alter microbial diversity, community structure, and biogeochemical processes driven by these organisms. Cyanophages are viruses that infect and lyse cyanobacterial cells, adding bioavailable carbon and nutrients into the environment. Cyanobacteria are photosynthesizing bacteria, with some species capable of N2 fixation, which are known to form large blooms as well as resistant resting cells known as akinetes. Here, we investigated cyanophage diversity and community structure plus cyanobacteria in dead zone sediments. We sampled surface sediments and sequenced DNA and RNA, along an oxygen gradient—representing oxic, hypoxic, and anoxic conditions—in one of the world's largest dead zones located in the Baltic Sea. Cyanophages were detected at all stations and, based on partial genome contigs, had a higher alpha diversity and different beta diversity in the hypoxic-anoxic sediments, suggesting that cyanobacteria in dead zone sediments and/or environmental conditions select for specific cyanophages. Some of these cyanophages can infect cyanobacteria with potential consequences for gene expression related to their photosystem and phosphate regulation. Top cyanobacterial genera detected in the anoxic sediment included Dolichospermum/Anabaena, Synechococcus, and Cyanobium. RNA transcripts classified to cyanobacteria were associated with numerous pathways, including anaerobic carbon metabolism and N2 fixation. Cyanobacterial blooms are known to fuel oxygen-depleted ecosystems with phosphorus (so-called internal loading), and our cyanophage data indicate the potential for viral lysis of cyanobacteria which might explain the high nutrient turnover in these environments. IMPORTANCE Cyanophages are viruses that target cyanobacteria and directly control their abundance via viral lysis. Cyanobacteria are known to cause large blooms in water bodies, substantially contributing to oxygen depletion in bottom waters resulting in areas called dead zones. Our knowledge of cyanophages in dead zones is very scarce, and so far, no studies have assembled partial cyanophage genomes and investigated their associated cyanobacteria in these dark and anoxic sediments. Here, we present the first study using DNA and RNA sequencing to investigate in situ diversity of cyanophages and cyanobacteria in dead zones. Our study shows that dead zone sediments contain different cyanophages compared to oxic sediments and suggest that these viruses are able to affect cyanobacterial photosystem and phosphate regulation. Furthermore, cyanophage-controlled lysis of cyanobacteria might also increase the turnover of carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen in these oxygen-free environments at the bottom of the sea.


Person-centred care in rheumatology nursing in patients undergoing biological therapyBackground: The life of patients with chronic inflammatory arthritis (CIA) undergoing biological therapy is often lined by regular monitoring of both disease and biological therapy. The rheumatology nurse´s role has developed from that of an expert advisor to a co-actor, where the patients are necessary and equal participants. A rheumatology nurse with a person-centred care approach respects, supports and encourages patients to become co-actors and the rheumatology nurse is a complement to rheumatologists and other professionals in the multidisciplinary team.Aim: The overall aim was to explore and evaluate rheumatology nursing from a person-centred care perspective in patients undergoing biological therapy.Method: Focuses was on patients with CIA who were undergoing biological therapy at a rheumatology clinic in Sweden. Four studies were conducted and studies I and II had an explorative descriptive design with a phenomenographic approach. Interviews were conducted with 40 participants about their dependence on or independence of a nurse for the administration of their infusions or injections. The objective of the intervention in study III was to replace every second monitoring visit at a rheumatologist-led clinic by a visit to a nurse-led rheumatology clinic, based on person-centred care and had a randomised controlled design involving 107 patients in the trial. The primary outcome was disease activity measured by Disease Activity Score 28. Study IV had an explorative descriptive design with a qualitative content analysis approach. Interviews were conducted with 20 participants who attended the nurse-led rheumatology clinic.Findings: Dependence on a rheumatology nurse for administration of intravenous infusions was described as invigorating due to the regular contact with the nurse, which provided security and involvement (study I). Independence of a nurse for subcutaneous injections was achieved by struggling to cope with injecting themselves, learning about and participating in drug treatment (study II). Patients with stable CIA receiving biological therapy were monitored by a nurse-led rheumatology clinic without any difference in outcome when compared to monitoring carried out at a rheumatologist-led clinic. Replacing one of the two annual rheumatologist outpatient follow-up visits by a visit to a nurse-led clinic for the monitoring of biological therapy was found to be safe and effective (study III). A nurse-led rheumatology clinic, based on person-centred care, added value to the follow up care of patients with stable CIA undergoing biological therapy by providing a sense of security, familiarity and participation (study IV).Conclusion: Person-centred care is the core of rheumatology nursing in the area of biological therapy. The rheumatology nurse adds value to patient care when she/he gives patients an opportunity to talk about themselves as a person and allow their illness narrative to constitute a starting point for building collaboration, which encourages and empowers patients to play an active part in their biological therapy and become autonomous. A nurse who provides person-centred care and keeps the patients´ resources and needs in focus serves as an important guide during their healthcare journey. Rheumatology nursing will be further developed by a person-centred care approach.


Over twenty years ago, the Institute of Medicine began urging the medical community to embrace the conversion from paper-based charting to electronic medical records (EMR) (National Assembly on School Based Health Care [NASBHC], n.d.). However, it has only been in recent years following the offering of financial incentives by the Department of Health and Human Services that hospitals and doctors' offices have begun the transition in documentation to an EMR (Haupt, 2011). As of the year 2009, it was reported that only 11.9% of US hospitals were using either a basic or comprehensive EMR, and only 2% of hospitals were using an EMR robust enough to comply with the federal government's "meaningful use" criteria (Jha DesRoches, Kralovec, & Joshi, 2010). One reason that so few healthcare organizations have completed the transition to an EMR system of documentation is due to the tedious implementation process and the challenges that arise during this process. The purpose of this integrative review of literature is to explore the factors that present challenges to healthcare staff during EMR implementation in healthcare organizations. This integrative review was performed by mining relevant literature from predetermined databases and all reference lists of the located literature. A total of 26 articles met the predetermined inclusion criteria. The results indicated that the factors that present challenges can be organized into two themes: personal/professional factors and organizational factors. Personal/professional factors include adequate time, inadequate computer skills, workflow disruption, user friendliness, negative impact on patient-provider relationship, security, and poor understanding of the EMR benefits. Organizational factors include cost, inadequate EMR standardization, information technology issues, and issues with implementation. After determining these factors that present challenges to healthcare staff during EMR implementation through careful literature review, the reviewer concluded that a standardized plan for successful EMR implementation in all healthcare settings including remedies for these challenges should be formulated. This standardized plan would offer healthcare organizations the best chance for smooth EMR implementation into practice for the staff, patients, and organization as a whole.


In this paper, we present new types of web information services, where users and information brokers collaborate in creating a user-adaptive information service. Such services impose a novel task on information brokers: they become responsible for maintaining the inference strategies used in user modeling. In return, information brokers obtain more accurate information about user needs, since the adaptivity ensures that user profiles are kept up to date and consistent with what users actually prefer, not only what they say that they prefer. We illustrate the approach by an example application, in which conference calls are collected and distributed to interested readers.


We report on findings from seven design workshops that used ideation and sketching activities to prototype new situated visualizations - representations of data that are displayed in proximity to the physical referents (such as people, objects, and locations) to which the data is related. Designing situated visualizations requires a fine-grained understanding of the context in which the visualizations are placed, as well as an exploration of different options for placement and form factors, which existing methods for visualization design do not account for. Focusing on small displays as a target platform, we reflect on our experiences of using a diverse range of sketching activities, materials, and prompts. Based on these observations, we identify challenges and opportunities for sketching and ideating situated visualizations. We also outline the space of design activities for situated visualization and highlight promising methods for both designers and researchers.


The effect of three types of experimental laser noise on conventional thermal lens spectroscopy are considered. Theoretical calculations of noise and signal-to-noise ratio as a function of aperture size are included to determine ideal aperture dimensions for systems limited by laser pointing instabilities, flicker noise, and/or shot noise. Experimentally determined noise curves are also presented and discussed in the context of the theoretical results. The results show that for most thermal lens configurations based on lock-in detection, optimum S/N is obtained at an aperture-to-beam-size ratio of 0.6.


The conversation with Justyna Lipko-Konieczna and Justyna Sobczyk summarises the ten-year history of establishing theatre pedagogy in Polish institutional theatres in which they've played key roles. It also attempts a critical reflection on assumptions and values which are fundamental to theatre pedagogy, such as community, creative process and its anti-hierarchic character. The interviewees are pioneers in contemporary Polish theatre pedagogy. They refer to democratic values which are constitutive for their activity, and discuss these in the context of contemporary political changes in Poland. Based on their artistic projects and workshops they've conducted, they talk about difficulties and challenges faced by theatre pedagogues, as well as discussing the range of responsibility they have towards their own institutional environments in schools and theatres.


The nature of the Dirac quasiparticles in topological insulators calls for a direct investigation of the electron-phonon scattering at the surface. By comparing time-resolved ARPES measurements of the topological insulator Bi2Se3 with different probing depths, we show that the relaxation dynamics of the electronic temperature of the conduction band is much slower at the surface than in the bulk. This observation suggests that surface phonons are less effective in cooling the electron gas in the conduction band.


The purpose of the present study was the evaluation of the clinical utility of CSF analysis and PCR for the diagnosis of the neurological type of encephalitozoonosis in rabbits.
A total of 46 rabbits with neurological symptoms due to encephalitozoonose were included in the study. CSF was examined in 21 rabbits with encephalitozoonosis and 20 healthy laboratory rabbits. In all rabbits collection of CSF was easy to perform. Few rabbits with vestibular disease showed short-term deterioration of neurological symptoms which were completely reversed after eight hours. CSF analysis of laboratory rabbits revealed WBC counts from 0 to 4 cells/µl (median 1.5 cells/µl). The protein level ranged from 0.13 to 0.31 g/l (median 0.24 g/l). In contrast to this, pet rabbits with the neurological type of encephalitozoonosis showed distinct monocytic-lymphocytic pleocytosis with WBC counts from 5 to 78 cells/µl (median 15.3 cells/µl) and increased protein levels from 0.31 to 1.54 g/l (median 0.69 g/l). Compared to healthy rabbits, distinction for both parameters was highly significant (p < 0.001). It was concluded that mononuclear pleocytosis and elevated protein is a regular feature of rabbit encephalitozoonosis.
PCR for detection of E. cuniculi DNA as used in this study was based on an established protocol (Katzwinkel-Wladarsch et al. 1996). PCR-testing of CSF revealed positive results only in two of 19 samples (10.5 %), while for urine 15 of 38 samples (39.5 %) tested positive for E. cuniculi-DNA. With microscopy after trichrome stain, however, E. cuniculi spores were detected only in four out of 38 urine samples (10.5 %). All results of trichrome stain correlated with those of PCR. In conclusion, PCR of CSF is no help for diagnosis of encephalitozoonosis in rabbits. PCR for detection of E. cuniculi in urine on the other hand, was found to be far more sensitive than trichrome stain. To determine sensitivity and specificity of this PCR in urine, future studies should include larger numbers of rabbits and those with clinical renal disease.


Although almost entirely ignored by South African scholars, studying perceptions of social mobility is profoundly important for understanding South Africa's changing economic and political environments. This study probes perceptions of social mobility in a single South African city, Cape Town, through twelve in-depth ethnographic interviews with black African residents of Cape Town. This paper differs from other research on perceptions of social mobility by examining how previous experiences of social mobility, instead of current class position, influence these perceptions and future expectations. Most of the interviewees stressed the continuing relationship between race and class: respondents tended to believe that the top of the income distribution is mostly white, while the bottom of the income distribution is entirely black. Despite the widespread perception of the distribution of income in South Africa as racialised, all of the interviewees identified a number of pathways to upward mobility for black people. They disagreed, however, on the accessibility of these pathways. This study found that those who had either experienced some degree of social mobility or those who were born into advantaged backgrounds tended to conceptualise mobility in predominantly individualistic terms and believed that upward mobility was available to those willing to work hard and motivated to take advantage of educational opportunities. In contrast, those from more disadvantaged backgrounds who had not experienced significant mobility, although also recognising the importance of hard work and education for economic success, tended to offer structural explanations for their lack of mobility and faulted their lack of social capital and rampant nepotism in Cape Town for exhausting the few available opportunities.


This carefully illustrated book tells the fascinating story of how thousands of tons of the much-desired Karystian cipollino marble were transported across the Empire as part of the great Roman marble trade. It is the culmination of years of research by Jeanne Sutherland who describes how great columns and blocks of the green-veined marble were carved from the mountainside quarries, between Karystos and Stira in southern Euboea, and shipped throughout the Empire - from Rome to Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon and beyond. There it was used to adorn the magnificent temples, theatres, libraries and baths of the great Roman cities, where much can still be seen today. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the reopening of the ancient quarries to supply cipollino for famous buildings in the United Kingdom and Europe. Trade in cipollino still flourishes in the modern quarries.


Codetermination can be regarded as an extreme regulatory intervention of the legislator in the labor market which might affect the efficiency of production and the bargaining power of labor. Based on a model that covers both efficient bargaining and employment bargaining a simple equation is derived that is suited to empirical testing. The empirical test is based on German data and includes years before and after the extension of German codetermination law in 1976. The estimates determine the productivity of labor and relative bargaining power of capital and labor. It turns out that codetermination does not affect productivity, but leads to a significant increase in workers' bargaining power and the distribution of rents.


This paper seeks to explain why billions of people in developing countries either have no access to electricity or lack a reliable supply. We present evidence that these shortfalls are a consequence of electricity being treated as a right and that this sets off a vicious four-step circle. In step 1, because a social norm has developed that all deserve power independent of payment, subsidies, theft, and nonpayment are widely tolerated. In step 2, electricity distribution companies lose money with each unit of electricity sold and in total lose large sums of money. In step 3, government-owned distribution companies ration supply to limit losses by restricting access and hours of supply. In step 4, power supply is no longer governed by market forces and the link between payment and supply is severed, thus reducing customers' incentives to pay. The equilibrium outcome is uneven and sporadic access that undermines growth.


The International Planning Competition (IPC) is a prominent event of the AI planning community that has been organised since 1998; it aims at fostering the development and comparison of planning approaches, assessing the state-of-the-art in planning, and identifying new challenging benchmarks. IPC has a strong impact also outside the planning community, by
providing a large number of ready-to-use planning engines and testing pioneering applications of planning techniques.
This paper focuses on the deterministic part of IPC 2014, and describes format, participants,
benchmarks as well as a thorough analysis of the results. Generally, results of the competition indicates some significant progress, but they also highlight issues and challenges that the planning community will have to face in the future.


Production and manufacturing processes and tools co-determine how product are thought of, designed, constructed, fabricated, sold, used, and reused. New production technologies move the boundaries of products, hence a manufacturing improvement may give rise to a range of new products.
 Mass production is at present rigid and inflexible in many respects. Variety and difference have many applications, aesthetically as well as pragmatically. This project aims to prove the concept of versatile shaping by finding and solving a specific application via the shape changing of the form or mould.
 Starting by finding and assessing many applications and products as possible, the final application is selected via to evaluations and research phases. Sequential marking of cast components, exemplified with an insert tool for a disamatic moulding machine.
 Consecutively marking each green sand mould and producing a
 Unique Identification (UID) as Direct Part Marking (DPM). The symbology usage was analysed, and the Data Matrix ECC200 was chosen as standard. A paraffin Phase Change Material (PCM) actuation method was chosen to power the marking tool.
 Incrementally and iteratively developing the simple actuation concept a series of principle tests conducted and three Mock-Up's were designed, constructed, built and tested. Sand adhesion was found to be a minor issue. Paraffin leakage for piston design actuators proved a significant problem. This was solved by choosing
 an enclosed design. The paraffin thermal properties were greatly enhanced by adding graphite. The graphite also enhances the electrical conductivity of the blend, hence enabling the paraffin to become self-resistance-heating. The thermal expansion of the paraffin is used in combination with a PolyUrethane Rubber (PUR)
 hydro-elastic membrane producing an optimal embossing geometry.
 The final Mock-Up-increment is successfully utilised for green sand embossing via piston-pneumatic compression.
 The project has found and shown a needed and applicable
 variation of versatile shaping. The Mock-Up-tool comprises most of the requested features and demonstrate the basis applicability for a tool to facilitate versatile shaping, and a way to enhance an existing mass production process.


A study has been made of the factors influencing increases in the xanthine oxidase activity of ageing homog enates of rat liver. The previous finding that liver xanthine oxidase activity depends upon the dietary protein content was confirmed. It was found that the xanthine oxi dase activity of homogenates of livers of rats fed normal or low protein diets increased with the age of the homogen ate. A study was made of the kinetics of the enzyme assay with both fresh and aged, normal or low protein homogenates. There was no significant change in the kinetics of enzyme action during the ageing process. The increase in enzyme activity was dependent upon th·e ageing temperature. The enzyme activity was found to increase with ageing at 37°C, 4°C and -20°C. Dialysis of an ageing homogenate at 4°C rapidly decreased the enzyme activity. When the concentrated dialysate was added to a normal ageing homogenate, it initially had no effect,then transiently interfered with and later stimulated enzyme activity. Methylene blue is reduced by the homogenate and stimulates the xanthine oxidase activity of both fresh and aged homogenates. However, the stimulus decreased with the age of the homogenate. It is suggested that methylene blue acted as an additional hydrogen acceptor and permitted un restricted enzyme activity. The increase in enzyme activity iv in the ageing homogenate seems to depend on the avail ability of hydrogen acceptors, most likely flavin adenine dinucleotide. It has been shown that uricase is not rate limiting in the assay of xanthine oxidase in ageing rat liver homog enates. The isolation of uric acid from the dialysate of an ageing normal homogenate suggests that at 4°C uricase activity is rate limiting in the xanthine oxidase system. The dialysate from a normal ageing homogenate was analyzed to determine which of its components stimulated the enzyme activity of normal and low protein ageing homog enates. A chemical analysis indicated the absence of gly cogen, protein, reducing sugars, calcium and magnesium. Chloride ,phosphorus, ferrous iron, sulphur and non-protein nitrogen were detected. The dialysate contained a consider able amount of 260 mr-absorbing material. Column and paper chromatographic analysis suggested that the dialysate con tained uric acid, ~IP-5f, adenine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, and thymine. The presence of these substances was confirmed by a spectral analysis of the isolated components. It was found that uric acid enhanced the enzyme activity of xanthine oxidase in an ageing rat liver homogenate. AMP-5 f caused a delayed stimulation of enzyme activity. However, the stimu latory effects of these substances was not as great as the initial stimulation of xanthine oxidase activity by methylene blue.


Until recently, Anglo-Australian law refused to recognise a legally enforceable right to privacy. One consequence of this position was that individuals had scant protection if their photograph was taken in a public place and subsequently published. The dictum that what one could see, one could photograph represented the common law position. However, given recent developments in privacy protection, particularly in the United Kingdom following the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 (UK), the applicability of this dictum is doubtful. There is a growing body of case law in which individuals complain about the publication of photographs of them taken in a public place. This article argues that the common law's original position on this issue rested implicitly upon an equivalence between the human eye and the camera, which prevented any distinction being drawn between the acts of looking, seeing, photographing and publishing. There has been an epistemological shift in the common law's attitude towards photography, so that now a distinction is drawn between the human eye and the camera, which allows legal consequences to attach to the publication of photographs, even if those photographs are taken in a public place. In addition, there has been a shift in the concept of privacy in the legal imagination of the common law. Whereas the common law historically constituted privacy around the concept of private property, the emerging position constituted privacy around the private individual.


Legal and public policies concerning youth gun violence tend to rely heavily on crime reports, survey data, and statistical methods. Rarely is attention given to the young voices belonging to those who carry high-powered semiautomatic handguns. In "Language of the Gun", Bernard E. Harcourt recounts in-depth interviews with youths detained at an all-male correctional facility, exploring how they talk about guns and what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies. In the process, Harcourt redraws the relationships among empirical research, law, and public policy. Home to over 150 repeat offenders ranging in age from twelve to seventeen, the Catalina Mountain School is made up of a particular stratum of boys - those who have committed the most offenses but will still be released upon reaching adulthood. In an effort to understand the symbolic and emotional language of guns and gun carrying, Harcourt interviewed dozens of these incarcerated Catalina boys. What do these youths see in guns? What draws them to handguns? Why do some of them carry and others not? For Harcourt, their often surprising answers unveil many of the presuppositions that influence our laws and policies.


Spray formulation can minimize pain and irritation experience during the application of conventional dosage forms. Econazole Nitrate is an active ingredient of the aerosol concentrate to be used for twice-daily application because of its long durability in the superficial layers of the fungal infected skin. The aim of this study is preliminary investigation of Econazole Nitrate spray by varying the concentrations of different constituents of the spray. The ratios of Propylene glycol (PG) and isopropyl myristate (IPM) were selected as independent variables in 22 full factorial designs, keeping the concentration of solvent, co-solvent and propellant LPG constant. Aerosol also contained Ethanol as solvent and Isopropyl alcohol as co-solvent. All ingredients of the aerosol were packaged in an aluminum container fitted with continuous-spray valves. Physical properties evaluated for the Econazole Nitrate spray included delivery rate, delivery amount, pressure, minimum fill, leakage, flammability, spray patterns, particle image and plume angle. Glass containers were used to study incompatibility between concentrate and propellant due to the ease of visible inspection. Isopropyl myristate at lower concentrate showed turbidity, while at high concentration it met the requirements for aerosol and produced Econazole Nitrate spray with expected characteristics.


A cognitive robot may face failures during the execution of its actions in the physical world. In this paper, we investigate how robots can ensure robustness by gaining experience on action executions, and we propose a lifelong experimental learning method. We use Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) as the learning method to frame new hypotheses. ILP provides first-order logic representations of the derived hypotheses that are useful for reasoning and planning processes. Furthermore, it can use background knowledge to represent more advanced rules. Partially specified world states can also be easily represented in these rules. All these advantages of ILP make this approach superior to attribute-based learning approaches. Experience gained through incremental learning is used as a guide to future decisions of the robot for robust execution. The results on our Pioneer 3DX robot reveal that the hypotheses framed for failure cases are sound and ensure safety in future tasks of the robot.


CONTEXT
Prospective studies on caffeine and different types of coffee intake in relation to the risk of ovarian cancer have shown conflicting results.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to perform a dose-response meta-analysis of cohort studies on the association between dietary caffeine intake, different types of coffee consumption and risk of ovarian cancer.

DATA SOURCES
PubMed/Medline, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and EMBASE were searched to identify relevant articles published until October 2018.

STUDY SELECTION
Prospective cohort studies that considered caffeine and different types of coffee as the exposure variable and ovarian cancer as the main outcome variable or as one of the outcome variables were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Two authors independently screened 9344 publications. A total of 14 cohort studies were included in the meta-analysis.

DATA EXTRACTION
Two authors independently extracted the data. Any disagreements were resolved in consultation with the principal investigator.

RESULTS
In total, 940359 participants, including 4434 subjects with ovarian cancer, aged >20 years were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Combining 13 effect sizes, we found no significant association between coffee consumption and risk of ovarian cancer (RR: 1.08; 95% CI: 0.89, 1.33). Also, one additional cup per day of coffee consumption was marginally significantly associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer (RR: 1.02; 95% CI: 0.99, 1.05; P=0.21; I2=0.0%; Pheterogeneity=0.68). No significant association was observed between caffeine intake, caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee consumption and risk of ovarian cancer.

CONCLUSIONS
We found no significant association between caffeine, different types of coffee and risk of ovarian cancer.


TEDxGranta's Women 'Shaping the Future' was a one-day event in Cambridge that featured the pick of the content from December's TEDWomen in Washington DC (2010), as well as a lineup of Cambridge women who are shaping the future. The event took place at The Moller Centre on 15 February 2011.

About Jenny Tillotson:

"Above all, my deep desire is to change the life of women", says Jenny Tillotson, a Cambridge-born designer who is merging the ancient art of perfumery with modern technologies to develop new ways of enhancing emotional wellbeing. A Senior Research Fellow in the School of Fashion at Central Saint Martins College, Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a STEM Science & Engineering Ambassador, Tillotson is working with Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge to connect fashion with material science, developing simpler, better consumer 'wellness' products which use the sense of smell as a communication tool. These will include wearable items that dispense a 'wardrobe of fragrances' to combat mood disorders and influence emotional states in different situations. The first product from her company Sensory Design & Technology is eScent®, a timed and controlled miniaturised therapeutic device which dispenses fragrance in response to user-driven stimuli and can be embedded in fashion and lifestyle products. Tillotson comes from a family ancestry of 19th century printing techniques (Tillotsons & Sons) and soap (Lever Bros). Today her goal is to fuse 21st century printed electronics with the science of smell.

"I believe Cambridge is the place to fuse the two disciplines of scent/lifestyle and printing together," she explains, "not least because it is the centre of printed electronics and microfluidics, but also for a personal reason; Tillotsons used to have a branch in Burwell, hence why I was born here."


In data mining, similarity or distance between attributes is one of the central notions. Such a notion can be used to build attribute hierarchies etc. Similarity metrics can be user-defined, but an important problem is defining similarity on the basis of data. Several methods based on statistical techniques exist. For defining the similarity between two attributes A and B they typically consider only the values of A and B, not the other attributes. We describe how a similarity notion between attributes can be defined by considering the values of other attributes. The basic idea is that in a 0/1 relation r, two attributes A and B are similar if the subrelations σA=1(r) and σB=1(r) are similar. Similarity between the two relations is defined by considering the marginal frequencies of a selected subset of other attributes. We show that the framework produces natural notions of similarity. Empirical results on the Reuters-21578 document dataset show, for example, how natural classifications for countries can be discovered from keyword distributions in documents. The similarity notion is easily computable with scalable algorithms.


The Fourier transform based interferogram analysis technique of Takeda et al. is reviewed, and it is shown that the digitization of the interferogram can act to seriously distort the recovered phase object. An algorithm for dealing with this problem is proposed. The recovered phase object may also be seriously distorted if the response of the recording medium is nonlinear. An algorithm for calibrating the film response is proposed which uses only the data in the interferogram and which can be used to correct the effects of the film nonlinearity. The technique is demonstrated on an experimental inteferogram obtained in a study of laser-produced plasmas.


Objective To assess UK gastroenterology registrars' and consultants' competence in in vivo characterisation of polyps, plus the impact of a dedicated colonic lesion characterisation training intervention. Design Prospective evaluation of a computer-based colonic lesion training module. Setting Three UK general hospitals. Patients High-quality endoscopic images obtained during colonoscopy in a previous study. Interventions 30 min computer-based training module covering in vivo characterisation of colonic lesions viewed under white light, chromoendoscopy and magnification chromoendoscopy. Main outcome measures Accuracy of characterisation of colonic lesions (hyperplastic vs adenoma vs cancer) before and after training and differences between groups (bowel cancer screening (BCS) nurses vs gastroenterology trainees vs consultant gastroenterologists). Results Mean accuracy pretraining was 61.1%, 67.6% and 60.0% for the trainee, consultant and nurse groups respectively with no significant difference between the groups. Mean accuracy post-training improved significantly to 71.2%, 72.6% and 67.2% for the trainee, consultant and nurse groups (p<0.001 vs pretraining) with no significant difference between the three groups. Mean sensitivity and specificity improved significantly for the 15 participants overall. Conclusions The baseline level of colonic lesion characterisation skills is limited for gastroenterology consultants and trainees and does not differ from that of non-endoscopist BCS nurses. Accuracy of lesion characterisation can be modestly improved with a brief computer-based training intervention. Lesion characterisation should become a standard part of training in colonoscopy, and should be learnt alongside technical skills for endoscope handing and therapeutic procedures.