Cancer research has experienced drastic revolutionizes in the past several years. Completion of the human genome project had signaled a new beginning for modern biology, where generating information both at the genetic and clinical levels is no longer the concern. Rather, how this information can be handled has become the major obstacle and barrier to progress. Intuitive approaches are no more feasible to cope with enormous and overwhelming data. The next big step will be to implement integrated modeling approaches to interrogate the massive amount of data being produced and extract useful and valuable answers, which could help physicians to make an appropriate therapeutic decision making. Notwithstanding decades of research, the ability to predict and treat metastatic breast cancer is extremely limited and inadequate (Reuben, Krishnamurthy, Woodward, & Cristofanilli, 2008). The intricacy to reliably prognosis the risk of breast cancer metastasis for individual patients stems from the fact that cancer is the result of a complex interplay between numerous factors, namely: cellular parameters–altered rates of cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, adhesion, metabolism and mutation–and micro-environmental parameters–extracellular matrix (ECM) composition, angiogenesis, inflammation and proteases (Kaiser & Nasir, 2008). In addition, present breast cancer indices were discovered contain some restrictions in order to predict breast cancer metastasis, since patients with identical diagnostic and clinical prognostic profiles can have apparently diverse clinical outcome. This phenomenon is due to the missing genes cellular proliferations information in current breast cancer indices and a high reliance on a complex and inexact combination of clinical and histopathological data such as age, tumor size, estrogen and progesterone receptors, and lymph node involvement. Thus, these indices were notified to provide misleading results as it mainly group molecularly distinct patients into alike clinical classes generally based on morphological of disease. Although clinical and histopathological data are relevance to predict breast cancer metastasis but gene cellular proliferation also is essential information that needs to be taken into consideration. These existing restrictions reveal the need to apply more rational approaches to minimize the morbidity and mortality of metastatic cancer. Due to the overwhelming flow of data currently being produced in the biomedical sciences and complex interaction between clinical and gene information in breast cancer invasion and metastasis, an integrated modeling approach is described here. Bayesian network has been proposed as a method to develop an integrated model for breast cancer prognosis. Bayesian network is a well known technique in biomedical and bioinformatics and offers several advantages such as it inherently model the uncertainty in the data. It is also a successful combination between probability theory and graph theory. Furthermore, this technique allows different strategies and data types to be combined.


As mobile applications benefit from an increasing interest, especially among younger generations, their use for reporting critical situations becomes relevant in a university environment, with the aim of reducing material damages and protecting people. Due to the multitude of mobile device owners, new apps may serve for informing about the potential risks and creating situation awareness, based on events and responses specific to students and academics. This fits the existing trend to take advantage of the mobile technologies for data acquisition, visualization, decision and warning in hazard and emergency management. For the scope of a campus, we analyzed documents and rules adopted within our institution, and public information provided by other universities worldwide. We selected a set of critical situations, like: fire, earthquake, bomb threat, power outage, campus violence, harassment etc. Generally, these situations are associated with a descriptive procedure to be followed. The contribution presented in this paper is twofold. On the one side, we transformed the text into graph-based, color-coded representations, for visualization support. On the other side, we added functionality to submit event reports from mobile devices and classify them according the predefined set of critical situations, characteristic for the university activities. The Android application communicates with a platform that manages the reports, stores images transmitted by users, and sends notifications. The reports are visible to other users, who can add comments and contribute for a better assessment of the situation. Currently, the reports are integrated and made available to a responsible person, with no recommendation being generated automatically. Future work will be focused on analysis of reports and clustering, to increase situation awareness and campus-specific decision support.


Advertising is generally aimed at increasing demand, influencing people to change brands or motivating people to make a purchase; advertising messages are designed to induce and lure consumers to buy particular products or services. The way the consumers perceive an advertising campaign will, therefore, determine how they will respond to the advertisement. Thus, the researchers embarked on a self affirmative discourse of the implications of social judgement theory for persuasive advertising campaigns. The discourse shows that advertisers must use persuasive strategies that will make the consumers to be loyal to their brands; more so, the strength of the social judgement theory is that it illustrates the most important elements that motivate people to buy a product and it also shows what the connections are between the motives and attributes of products or services. An understanding of the social judgement theory is important to companies because it helps companies to spend money on advertising campaigns more effectively. It was, therefore, concluded that social judgement theory helps the consumers to interpret advertising campaigns and decide whether to act positively or negatively. The researchers recommended that advertising campaign planners must ensure that they use techniques that will make consumers to interpret advertised products, goods and services from a positive angle; more so, celebrities used in association with advertising campaigns must be seen to be credible, as this will go a long way in positively influencing the consumers.


BACKGROUND
Chronic inflammation from any source is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Periodontitis is a possible trigger of chronic inflammation. We investigated the possible association between periodontitis and coronary heart disease (CHD), focusing on microbiological aspects.

METHODS
A total of 789 subjects (263 patients with angiographically confirmed, stable CHD and 526 population-based, age- and sex-matched controls without a history of CHD) were included in the Coronary Event and Periodontal Disease (CORODONT) study. Subgingival biofilm samples were analyzed for periodontal pathogens Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans, Tannerella forsythensis, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Prevotella intermedia, and Treponema denticola using DNA-DNA hybridization. The need for periodontal treatment in each subject was assessed using the Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs (CPITN). The main outcome measures included total periodontal pathogen burden, number of the various periodontal pathogens in the subgingival biofilm, and periodontal treatment needs (according to the CPITN).

RESULTS
In multivariable analyses, we found a statistically significant association between the periodontal pathogen burden (log10 of the sum of all pathogens) (odds ratio [OR], 1.92; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34-2.74; P<.001) or the number of A actinomycetemcomitans in periodontal pockets (log10) (OR, 2.70; 95% CI, 1.79-4.07; P<.001) and the presence of CHD. In addition, a statistically significant association between an increase in mean CPITN score by 1 and the presence of CHD (OR, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.08-2.58; P = .02) was observed.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest an association between periodontitis and presence of CHD. Periodontal pathogen burden, and particularly infection with A actinomycetemcomitans, may be of special importance.


Abstract. Modelling method, which is defined by simple interaction loops between organizational and technical components can be viewed as fundamental elements for decomposition of complex business scenarios. This is important for separation of crosscutting concerns. The paper proposes a new graphical method that allows limited human mind to focus and to visualize one particular concern at a time. It also suggests design principles for the semantic integration of business and software scenarios. Separation of crosscutting concerns is performed on a basis of the standard transaction pattern. The presented modelling method can be used for introducing the evolutionary changes of requirements. This is important for managing complexity of information systems conceptualizations, especially when new changes are introduced. It targets both business process modelling experts and information system designers. The ultimate goal of the new method is to construct and visualize business scenarios with a more comprehensible structure.Keywords. Service interactions, value flows, separation of concerns, cancellation patterns.


This chapter examines how competition between political parties gives rise to different party systems. In liberal democracies, competition for power is based on popular votes. The shape and dynamics of party systems are determined by the electoral game, with parties as main actors. A party system is thus essentially the result of competitive interactions between parties. A party system has three main elements: which parties exist, how many parties exist and how big they are, and how parties behave. An obvious but important point is that party systems must be composed of more than one political party. The chapter begins with a discussion of the origins of party systems, followed by an analysis of the format of party systems, such as two-party systems and multiparty systems. It then considers the influence of the electoral system on party systems, before concluding with an assessment of the dynamics of party systems.


Background & Importance: Infections of the craniocervical junction are rare. Case Presentation: We present a case of infection by methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus mitis that was not previously reported. Conclusion: Neurosurgeons must suspect for diagnosis and initiate broad antimicrobial therapy, including active agents against gram-negative and then initiate a targeted therapy. The purpose of this report is to highlight the importance of early diagnosis for a successful medical treatment.


ABSTRACT This paper applies the concept of "communities of practice" to al-Muhajiroun ("the Emigrants"), an outlawed activist network that seeks to create an Islamic caliphate in Britain and the West through activism and proselytizing. Responding to recent studies on terrorism learning and adaptation, the author argues that focusing exclusively on the outputs of learning is unsatisfactory. Instead scholars should analyze learning as a process and unpack the causal mechanisms behind it. To support his within-case analysis, the author draws on extensive field work, including interviews and ethnographic observation. Newcomers to al-Muhajiroun learn the community's norms and practices through repeated interactions with more experienced activists. These interactions take place in study circles and through companionship. Activists also learn by doing, preaching the Emigrants' Salafi-Islamist ideology at da'wah stalls and protesting against the West's "war on Islam" at demonstrations. The more they do, the better they become at performing the network's high-risk activism, and the more deeply committed they become to its community of practice. However, far from allowing activists to adapt seamlessly to all challenges, the Emigrants' insular and dogmatic community of practice creates its own problems, hindering its ability to innovate, expand, and thrive in an increasingly hostile environment.


Since its original publication, Orthopaedic Neurology: A Diagnostic Guide to Neurologic Levels has distinguished itself as a clearly written, uniquely focused text sought after by practitioners and trainees in orthopaedics, neurosurgery, physical medicine and rehabilitation, pain medicine, anesthesiology, neurology, and nursing, as well as primary care specialties. The second edition retains this standard of excellence while providing thorough updates in medical illustration, teaching techniques, and new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of patients with spinal cord injuries. Now in vibrant full color, it offers a distinctive and practical combination of anatomy, the physical exam, and clinical pearls, highly readable and abundantly illustrated. Features: Discusses the diagnosis of neurologic levels according to common denominators, and combines them with the basic principles of neurology to assist in the appraisal of spinal cord and nerve root problems. Presents classic original drawings now carefully colorized for optimal visual reference, and additional drawings added as necessary. Corresponding radiographic imaging techniques (predominantly MRI and CT) have also been added. Each chapter first covers basic neurologic information, then provides clinical significance by applying it to the diagnosis of the more common neurologic pathologies. Ideal for those who wish to understand more clearly the clinical concepts behind neurologic levels, moving systematically from concept to practice, and from general rules to specific applications. Your book purchase includes a complimentary download of the enhanced eBook for iOS, Android, PC & Mac. Take advantage of these practical features that will improve your eBook experience: The ability to download the eBook on multiple devices at one time - providing a seamless reading experience online or offline Powerful search tools and smart navigation cross-links that allow you to search within this book, or across your entire library of VitalSource eBooks Multiple viewing options that enable you to scale images and text to any size without losing page clarity as well as responsive design The ability to highlight text and add notes with one click


Abstract Context: Somatic dysfunctions of the pelvis, sacrum, and lumbar spine are common. Their association with leg length discrepancies has been observed; however, it is unclear which dysfunctions lead to mild changes in leg length or weight bearing distribution in asymptomatic individuals. Objectives: To determine which somatic dysfunctions of the pelvic, sacral, and lumbar spine lead to minor leg length discrepancies and weight-bearing differences and to determine which of these dysfunctions are most common in the asymptomatic population. Methods: Asymptomatic participants between the ages of 18 and 40 years without a recent history of trauma were enrolled. Participants were measured from the anterior superior iliac spine to the medial malleolus; only those with mild leg length discrepancies (less than a quarter inch) were included. Weight-bearing distribution through each lower extremity was measured on a quadruped scale. Participants were then evaluated for somatic dysfunctions of the pelvis, sacrum, and lower lumbar spine. Results: Ninety-eight participants completed the study. The most common somatic dysfunctions were superior innominate shears, left-on-left sacral torsions, and right rotated lower lumbar spine segments. Several statistically significant associations were found. Most participants with right anterior innominate dysfunctions exhibited an ipsilateral longer leg and a contralateral shorter leg when measured in the supine position (P=.05). Participants with a left superior shear tended to exhibit a shorter left leg in the supine position (P=.05). For sacral somatic dysfunctions, participants with a left-on-left sacral torsion tended to exhibit a shorter left leg while standing (P=.02). In addition, a statistically significant association was found between right anterior innominate rotation dysfunctions and weight-bearing differences (P=.02). A greater percentage of patients with a right anterior innominate dysfunction bore more weight through their left lower extremity (45%). Conclusion: Specific pelvic and sacral somatic dysfunctions have the potential to influence leg lengths, leading to mild disparities in length and in weight-bearing distribution through the lower extremities. (ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT01097109)


Entrainment is the propensity of speakers to begin behaving like one another in conversation. While most entrainment studies have focused on dyadic interactions, researchers have also started to investigate multi-party conversations. In these studies, multi-party entrainment has typically been estimated by averaging the pairs' entrainment values or by averaging individuals' entrainment to the group. While such multi-party measures utilize the strength of dyadic entrainment, they have not yet exploited different aspects of the dynamics of entrainment relations in multi-party groups. In this paper, utilizing an existing pairwise asymmetric entrainment measure, we propose a novel graph-based vector representation of multi-party entrainment that incorporates both strength and dynamics of pairwise entrainment relations. The proposed kernel approach and weakly-supervised representation learning method show promising results at the downstream task of predicting team outcomes. Also, examining the embedding, we found interesting information about the dynamics of the entrainment relations. For example, teams with more influential members have more process conflict.


A series of new manganese schiff base complexes have been prepared and characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies, which showed that all the three complexes are mononuclear; 1 and 2 have square pyramidal geometry, whereas 3 has an octahedral geometry. Magnetic studies reveal that all these complexes exhibit (i) moderate frequency dependence of ac magnetic susceptibility at low temperature upon the application of a dc external field; (ii) significant magnetic anisotropy (D) and (iii) antiferromagnetic interaction that persist between the neighbouring molecules. Therefore, our systematic studies have shown the influence of electronic, geometric and packing effects of a new series of mononuclear manganese(III) complexes with axially elongated square pyramidal and octahedral geometries on the negative D values.


Malware detection is an increasingly important operational focus in cyber security, particularly, given the fast pace of such threats (e.g., new malware variants introduced every day). In recent years, there has been increased interest in exploring the use of machine learning techniques in automating and enhancing the effectiveness of malware detection and analysis. In this paper, we present a deep recurrent neural network solution as a stacked long short-term memory (LSTM) with a pre-training as a regularization method to avoid random network initialization. In our proposed approach, we use global and short dependencies of the inputs. With pre-training, we avoid random initialization and are able to improve the accuracy and robustness of malware threat hunting. The proposed method speeds up the convergence, in comparison to the stacked LSTM, by reducing the length of malware OpCode or bytecode sequences. Hence, the complexity of our final method is reduced. This leads to better accuracy, higher Mattews Correlation Coefficients (MCC), and Area Under the Curve (AUC) in comparison to a standard LSTM with similar detection time. Our proposed method can be applied in real-time malware threat hunting, particularly, for safety critical systems, such as electronic health or Internet of Battlefield / Military of Things, where poor convergence of the model could lead to catastrophic consequences. We evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method on Windows, Ransomware, Internet of Things (IoT), and Android malware datasets using both static and dynamic analysis. For the IoT malware detection, we also present a comparative summary of the performance on an IoT-specific dataset of our proposed method and the standard stacked LSTM method. More specifically, our proposed method achieves an accuracy of 99.1% in detecting IoT malware samples, with AUC of 0.985 and MCC of 0.95; thus, outperforming standard LSTM-based methods in these key metrics.


Since 2009, Professor Pope has authored a quarterly "Legal Briefing" column for the Journal of Clinical Ethics. Each briefing comprehensively reviews legal developments concerning a particular issue in clinical bioethics. The Journal of Clinical Ethics owns the exclusive copyright to distribute the full-text content.This column is the successor of the Legal Trends column published in this journal since its first issue. But as indicated by the title, this column has adopted a new format. The old format consisted of a comprehensive citation-rich survey of all legal developments across a wide range of bioethics topics. While this nearly bibliographic collection of authorities was surely useful to many readers, staking out such a broad field left little room for analysis or explanation of the briefly-mentioned legal developments. This new Legal Briefing column will cover legal developments pertaining to just one or two topics in clinical ethics. Thereby, this column aims to provide readers with a deeper, more thorough understanding of evolving legal themes and issues. The primary objective is to synthesize and analyze recent changes in and applications of the law, not to assess the ethical or jurisprudential justifiability of such changes and applications. This issue's Legal Briefing column covers legal developments pertaining to medical futility and assisted suicide. Not only have both these topics been the subject of recent articles in this Journal, but they have also been the subject of significant legislative and judicial activity over the past several months. While seemingly unrelated, medical futility and assisted suicide are endpoints on the same continuum. While the futility debate exemplifies limits on autonomy to pursue life-prolonging procedures, the assisted suicide debate exemplifies limits on autonomy to pursue life-ending procedures.


A total of 1,080 barrows and gilts (PIC; 337 × Camborough, initial pen average BW of 25.2 ± 0.64 lb) were used in a 21-d trial to determine the standardized total tract digestible (STTD) P requirement of nursery pigs from 25 to 50 lb. Two groups of pigs were weaned at approximately 21 d and allotted to pens according to BW and gender. There were 6 replicate pens per treatment and 23 to 27 pigs per pen. Pens of pigs were randomly allotted to experimental diets based on average BW at d 21 and 24 post-weaning, in a randomized complete block design. The 7 dietary treatments consisted of 0.26, 0.30, 0.33, 0.38, 0.43, 0.48, and 0.53% STTD P. These values represented 80, 90, 100, 115, 130, 145, and 160% of the NRC (2012) requirement estimate for STTD P for pigs weighing between 25 to 55 lb, respectively. Two corn-soybean meal-based diets were formulated to contain 0.26 and 0.53% STTD P by increasing the inclusion of limestone and monocalcium phosphate at the expense of corn, maintaining a similar 1.17:1 to 1.18:1 total Ca:P ratio, with no phytase added to the diets. Diets were blended using a robotic feeding system to achieve the intermediate STTD P levels. Increasing STTD P improved ADG, ADFI, F/G, and final BW (linear, P < 0.001). There was also a marginally significant quadratic response for F/G (P = 0.067), with the greatest improvement as STTD P was increased from 0.26% to 0.33%. Income over feed cost also improved linearly through 0.53% STTD P (P < 0.001). The grams of STTD P intake per day and grams of STTD P intake per kilogram of gain where growth rate reached a point of diminishing returns in response to increased STTD P were higher than the NRC requirement estimates. For ADG, the linear model demonstrated best fit, estimating the maximum response at greater than 0.53% STTD P. For feed efficiency, modeled as G:F, the best-fitting models were the quadratic polynomial (QP) and broken-line linear (BLL). The QP model estimated the maximum at 0.43%, with 99% of maximum G:F achieved at 0.36% STTD P. The BLL plateau was estimated at 0.34% STTD P. In conclusion, the estimated STTD P requirement for nursery pigs from 25 to 50 lb ranged from 0.34 to at least 0.53% depending on the response criteria and statistical model used, which indicates that the NRC (2012) requirement estimate is lower than what is needed to optimize performance and economic return.


Rafflesia patma Blume is a holoparasite plant. This species is protected by law due to its rarity. The study of vegetation and population conditions of R.. patma was conducted in Leuweung Sancang Nature Reserve, Garut, West Java. The results indicated that due to human activitie withi the Nature Reserve, the vegetation condition at the habitat of R.. patma was experiencing disturbances and the population of R.. patma tent to decrease.


The concepts of diagnostic species and fidelity have been used frequently in European phytosociology but rarely in North American vegetation classification. We developed a classification of the vegetation of a mountainous area of north- ern Utah and compared the diagnostic species approach with the indicator-species approach of habitat type classification sensu Daubenmire prevailing in the U.S. Interior West. A total of 157 forest and nonforested plots were described by vascu- lar plants and basic environmental factors. Clustering with RandomForest classification and ordination reduced the original number of plots to 26 meaningful vegetation units. Of these 26 units, 22 were strong, having four or more faithful species. Four units were weak, having less than three faithful species. We identified species diagnostic of particular vegetation units that are potentially useful for recognition of these units in the field. We proposed vegetation types at the level of vegetation alliances and associations, and correlated them with environmental factors. We found our vegetation units to be more strongly associated with the underlying environment than major habitat types sensu Daubenmire. Our approach to classifica- tion has the potential to directly link vegetation with the physical environment and could be the basis for a substantial im- provement of vegetation classification in the central Rocky Mountains.


Hardware designers are adding additional cores to chips in an attempt to improve throughput performance. These multicore systems share hardware resources at multiple levels of the system. The question is when multiple applications run on the same chip, how do they interact with the shared resources, and how do these interactions effect performance? Traditional profile based approaches that aggregate statistics across the complete execution of an application are inadequate to illuminate these interactions, because temporal causality is lost in the aggregation of the data. This paper argues that analyzing multi-core systems requires trace-based statistics and flexible visualization techniques to analyze the trace data.


Four models of halogen bonds were used to quantify this bond using the DFT B97D/6-311+G(d) computational level: para-substituted iodobenzenes, para- and meta-substituted bromobenzenes complexed with three simple Lewis bases (NH3, NCH and CNH), 1-bromo-4-substituted-bicyclo[2.2.2]octanes with NH3 and 3- and 4-substituted pyridines complexed with BrCl and BrF. In addition, the combination of the para-substituted bromobenzenes with the 4-substituted pyridines has been studied. A total of 459 complexes have been optimized and are discussed in the present article. The energetic and geometric results have been analyzed based on the properties of the substituents and the isolated molecules involved in the interaction. The Hammett–Taft parameters provide reasonable correlations with the interaction energies. However, excellent correlations are obtained in all the cases when the electrostatic properties of the two molecules involved in the interaction are considered (R2 > 0.99).


The Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago, located close to the continental edge of the Kara Shelf in the Russian high Arctic, represents, together with northern Tajmyr, the exposed Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic part of the North Kara Terrane. This terrane has been interpreted as an independent microcontinent or part of a larger entity, such as Arctida or Baltica, prior to collision with Siberia in Late Carboniferous time. A major stratigraphic break, the Kan'on (canyon) River Unconformity, separates folded Late Cambrian from Early Ordovician successions in one area, October Revolution Island. New geochronological U–Th–Pb ion-microprobe data on volcanic and intrusive rocks from this island constrain the age of an important magmatic episode in the earliest Ordovician. A tuff, in association with Tremadocian fossils, overlying the Kan'on River Unconformity, has been dated to 489.5 ± 2.7 Ma. The youngest rocks beneath the unconformity are of the Peltura minor Zone, and the latter has been dated previously, in western Avalonia, to 490.1+1.7−0.9 Ma. Thus, little time is available for the tectonic episode recorded by the unconformity, and the similarities in radiometric dates may indicate problems with the correlation of faunal markers for the Cambrian–Ordovician boundary across palaeo-continents. The other extrusive and intrusive rocks which have been related to Early Ordovician rifting in the Severnaya Zemlya area yield ages from 489 Ma to 475 Ma. An undeformed granite, cutting folded Neoproterozoic successions on neighbouring Bol'shevik Island has been dated to 342 ± 3.6 Ma and 343.5 ± 4.1 Ma (Early Carboniferous), in accord with evidence elsewhere of Carboniferous strata unconformably overlying the folded older successions. This evidence conflicts with the common interpretation that the structure of the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago originated during the collision of the North Kara Terrane with Siberia in Late Carboniferous time. An alternative interpretation is that Severnaya Zemlya was located in the Baltica foreland of the Caledonide Orogen and that the eastward-migrating deformation of the foreland basin reached the area of the archipelago in latest Devonian to Early Carboniferous time. This affinity of the North Kara Terrane to Baltica is further supported by 540–560 Ma xenocrysts in Ordovician intrusions on October Revolution Island, an age which is characteristic of the Timanide margin of Baltica.


A guide to delivering a better user experience through A/B testingA/B Testing outlines a simple way to test several different versions of a web page with live traffic, and then measure the effect each version has on visitors. Using A/B testing you can determine the most effective way to increase conversion ratethe rate at which visitors convert into customers. The average conversion rate across the web is only 2%. That means 98% of visitors to most websites don't end up converting. Using A/B testing, companies can improve the effectiveness of their marketing and user experience and in doing so can sometimes double or triple their conversion rates.In the past, marketing teams were dependent on IT and engineering to implement A/B tests, and that proved to be a costly bottleneck. Today, the market for A/B testing is growing very fast, in no small part due to this transition from IT to marketing. Offers best practices and lessons learned from over 100,000 experiments run by over 2,000 Optimizely customersDetails a roadmap for how to use A/B testing to personalize your customer's web experience and a practical guide to start A/B testing todayAuthors Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen are cofounders of Optimizely.com, an user-friendly testing system that more than 2,000 organizations use Marketers and web professionals will become obsolete if they don't embrace a data-driven approach to decision making. This book shows you how, no matter your technical expertise.


The generalized methodology for the electronic networks optimization system was elaborated by means of the optimal control theory approach. The problem of the electronic system design is formulated in this case as a classical problem of functional minimization of the optimal control theory. The minimal time system design algorithm was defined as a controllable dynamic process with an optimal control vector. By this methodology the aim of the system design process with minimal computer time is presented as a transition process of some dynamic system that has the minimal transition time. The optimal position of the control vector switch points was determined as a principal characteristic of the minimal-time system design algorithm. The special function that is a combination of Lyapunov function and its time derivative was proposed to predict the optimal control vector structure to construct a minimal-time system design algorithm.


Using a direct-injection HPLC method with isocratic elution and UV detection, the isomers of free resveratrol and their glucosides (polydatin) have been assayed in nearly 700 commercial red wines from most of the world9s areas of production. The highest concentrations of polydatin were found in wines from the Midi and Rhone Valley of France, Canada, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and South America. In the last three regions, the polydatin concentrations exceeded those of free resveratrol which were the lowest of all categories examined, suggesting that the high sugar content of warm climate grapes may favor the glycosylation of resveratrol. In nine regions, the concentration of cis -polydatin exceeded that of trans -polydatin, the reverse being the case in five, yet in all trans -resveratrol concentrations exceeded those of cis -resveratrol. There was only a weak negative correlation overall between polydatin and resveratrol concentrations when all wines were included in the analysis. The low values for both polydatin and resveratrol in Californian wines are consistent with the notion that, despite high sugar content, some grapes may fail to express resveratrol synthetic enzymes due to genetic characteristics or to lack of environmental stress, and consequently little of the free resveratrol is available for glycosylation. The influence of cultivar was examined in wines from several regions. Among wines from California, Australia, South America and Canada, highest polydatin concentrations were found respectively in those from Zinfandel, Shiraz, Merlot and Pinot noir. Wines from the Northern Rhone Valley (predominantly Shiraz) had lower concentrations than those from the Southern Rhone where Mourvedre, Grenache, Carignane and Cinsault predominate. The high polydatin and very low resveratrol concentrations of Vintage Ports highlight enological techniques, particularly duration of fermentation, as important modulating factors. The concentrations of polydatin present in most red wines are likely to add significantly to the presumed health benefits attributable to resveratrol.


This thesis investigates the joint influence of transaction time and vessel age on the valuation of second-hand tonnage. Towards this end, we use individual sales data for Handysize dry bulkers and apply a semiparametric valuation model within the Generalized Additive Model framework. Our empirical results suggest a significant non-linear relationship between the time of the transaction and the asset's age. We find that the volatility of vessels' year-on-year return increases with age, as well as a difference in the depreciation curve depending on the state of the market. In a booming (recovering) market, the average depreciation curve is in major terms concave (convex). These findings may yield valuable insights for market players on the lookout for investments. We argue that asset players, contrary to industrial, should seek older, more volatile, vessels, as these could potentially yield a higher return on invested capital.


We report our studies on the crystal structures, morphologies, and superconductivity in CeO1 − xFxFeAs compounds which were fabricated by solid state reaction. The crystal structures were refined using Rietveld refinement. Superconducting properties such as critical temperature (Tc), critical current density (Jc), and upper critical field (Hc2) were determined using magneto-transport and magnetic measurement over a wide range of temperature below Tc, and in magnetic fields up to 13 T. Jc is 2 × 103 A cm − 2 for the x = 0.1 sample. However, the Jc exhibited a weak dependence on magnetic field for B > 1 T and T = 5 and 10 K. A peak effect in the Jc as a function of field was observed at 20 K in the x = 0.1 sample. We estimate Hc2ab of 185 T for CeO0.9F0.1FeAs compound. The broadening of the superconducting transition near Tc with increasing field can be well understood using the thermal activated flux flow model. The pinning potential scales as with n = 0.2 for B < 3 T and n = 0.71 for B > 3 T in the x = 0.1 sample.


The present study consists of a full translation and analysis of the three main versions of the Section on Law and State , a chapter on Tibetan imperial law and administration found in the mid-16th century Mkhas pa'i dga' ston by Dpa'-bo Gtsuglag Phreng-ba, and in the Rgya bod kyi chos 'byung rgyas pa of Mkhas-pa Lde'u and the Chos 'byung chen po bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan of Lde'u Jo-sras, which both date to the mid to late-13th century. While the post-dynastic Tibetan historical tradition attributes this entire body of legal and administrative reforms to Emperor Srong-btsan Sgam-po (c.605-649), the individual legal and administrative catalogues contained in the Section on Law and State , when subjected to close analysis, can be dated to several different periods. The principal aim of this analysis is to underline the early Tibetan antecedents for the catalogues contained in the Section on Law and State . By relating the catalogues of the Section on Law and State to Old Tibetan sources, this analysis describes in detail the legal and administrative practices of the Tibetan Empire (c.600-c.850). Among the topics covered by this analysis are historical geography and the 'nationalisation' of clan territory, social stratification, technological innovation and legal culture. The Section on Law and State is not limited solely to law and administration, however, and also offers insights regarding cultural institutions such as religious practices and Tibetan funerary culture. Taken together, the scattered and fragmentary catalogues that make up the Section on Law and State , many of which ultimately derive from manuals and official records from the imperial period, constitute a rare juridical corpus of the Tibetan Empire. As such, it furnishes important and detailed information about the legal and administrative culture of the Tibetan Empire, and constitutes a fundamental source for Tibetan social history. The preservation of such documents within Tibet's postdynastic religious histories underlines the persistence of Tibetan political theory, according to which divine rulers, Buddhist or otherwise, must govern according to the just traditions of their forebears.


Over centuries past, human societies have been through fundamental changes often defined as 'modernisation'. Despite huge advances in knowledge, social science has struggled to conceptualise the nature of these changes and to integrate insights from across different disciplines into a single framework. Disciplinary fragmentation and methodological parochialism as well as a postmodern aversion to 'grand theory' have impeded theoretical synthesis. To overcome this impasse, we introduce social transformation as a meta-theoretical conceptual framework for studying 'big change'. Defining social transformation as a fundamental change in the way that societies are organised and resources are distributed, we distinguish five interconnected dimensions – the political, the economic, the technological, the demographic and the cultural – which together constitute the 'social realm'. Studied simultaneously, these dimensions are able to capture 'big change' in its universal aspects while keeping sight of the diversity of its concrete manifestations. We apply this framework to explore how the 'modern transformation' has reshaped societies and to show how the interplay of the various political, economic, technological, demographic and cultural transitions have transformed social life around the globe in strikingly similar ways – notwithstanding the varied, unique ways in which this 'modern transformation' has concretely manifested itself across societies and over different periods.


The penalty kick in football is a seemingly simplistic play; however, it has increased in complexity since 1997 when the rules changed allowing goalkeepers to move laterally along their goal line before the ball was kicked. Prior to 1997 goalkeepers were required to remain still until the ball was struck. The objective of this study was to determine the importance of the penalty kick in the modern game of football. A retrospective study of the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cup and the 2000, 2004 and 2008 European Championship tournaments was carried out, assessing the importance of the penalty kick in match play and shootouts and the effect of the time of the game on the shooter's success rate. This study demonstrated the conversion rate of penalties was 73% in shootouts and 68% in match play. Significantly more penalties were awarded late in the game: twice as many penalties in the second half than the first and close to four times as many in the fourth quarter vs. the first. Teams awarded penalty kicks during match play won 52%, drew 30% and lost 18% of the time; chances of winning increased to 61% if the penalty was scored, but decreased to 29% if missed. Teams participating in either the World Cup or European Championship final match had roughly a 50% chance of being involved in a penalty shootout during the tournament. Penalty shots and their outcome significantly impact match results in post 1997 football.


In the present paper, hollow-porous α-Fe2O3 microspheres are prepared via cation etching of zinc citrate microspheres and subsequent thermal treatment. The superior performance of the as-obtained α-Fe2O3 microspheres as an anode material for lithium ion batteries is evaluated. After 1000 cycles, the capacity still remains more than 1100 mA h g−1 at a current rate of 1 A g−1. Meanwhile, the crystal size induced phase transition of Fe2O3 microspheres (α → γ → β) is observed during cycling by the measurements of ex situ XRD and TEM, which is responsible for their abnormal performance fluctuation.


With the recent influx of asylum seekers, also the number of refugee shelters in Berlin has risen over the past year. On the one hand, the installation of new facilities was a necessary measure to avoid homelessness. On the other hand, putting refugees into camps and group facilities has been an integral part of the restrictive asylum policy aiming at deterrence. Many of these refugee camps are run as a lucrative business by private companies . Social workers working in these camps, employed by the enterprises and paid by the state, act in an institutional context that is full of contradictions and conflicting interests. Their own aspiration to 'help' and serve the idea of 'human rights' can clash with requirements of control and restriction. Social Workers' possibilities to reject such unwanted functionalization are limited, because of their institutional dependence, the prevailing legal regulations and their weak representation of interests, among other factors.


In America alone almost 100,000 people are suffering while waiting for organ transplants, and more than 7,300 of these patients will die waiting. Given that tens of thousands of useable cadaveric organs are buried or incinerated every year, the organ shortage is a social, political and legal problem, one that is inherent in the conceptual design of the current organ system. While the system is supposed to turn on individuals' autonomous choices, it instead depends on default outcomes and the decisions of next of kin. While we tend to think about the organ choice as one of altruism (viz. -- "giving the gift of life"), it is not clear that cadaveric organ donations are actually altruistic, nor is it clear why promotion of altruism should be a goal of our organ system.Most importantly, the status quo system facilitates free riding by alienating the decisions to give and take organs. In contrast, original empirical research suggests that respondents intuitively understand the relationship between these two decisions, and that many will decline to free ride when given the opportunity to think of themselves as potential takers of organs. Even worse, the current system creates an injustice, violating basic principles of reciprocity, by giving scarce organs to those who have refused to contribute organs themselves. As a result, these free riders take organs that could save the lives of others. The bottom line: Under any such system that allows rampant free riding, the fact of a shortage should be unsurprising.This essay proposes an integrated system for procuring and distributing cadaveric organs, based on the notion of a cooperative project. Under this paradigm, individuals would join the organ system as both potential suppliers of cadaveric organs and potential recipients of organs. This cooperative system should operate on an opt-out basis, so that all persons would be participants, unless they chose to remove themselves, and would depend on a national donor registry. This approach respects autonomy, resolves the injustice, reflects the value of cooperation, and holds promise for minimizing the shortage.


: Calcium homeostasis is controlled both directly and by hormones. Directly as a result of the fact that the uptake of calcium from the intestine and its excretion by the intestine, kidney and skeleton are well attuned to one another. A process of diffusion of calcium through the intestinal wall occurs in addition to active absorption of calcium, particularly in young animals. The maximum excretion of calcium by the kidneys is one per cent of the amount of circulating calcium. The skeleton acts as a calcium buffer in which 99.5 per cent of the body calcium is present. As regards hormones, the calciotropic hormones (parathormone, calcitonin and vitamin D) are the most important factors, which particularly affect the processes of absorption, resorption and accretion of calcium. The effects on the excretion of calcium are very slight. The system of calcium homeostasis is designed to maintain a normal level of calcium in blood (dog less than twelve months: 2.5-2.9 mmol/l; dog greater than twelve months: 2.2-3.0 mmol/l). A prolonged abnormal calcium intake will result in skeletal changes, particularly in young dogs. Inhibition of remodelling reconstruction of the skeleton and disturbance of enchondral ossification, which became clinically apparent, among other things, in the canine Wobbler syndrome and osteochondritis dissecans, were observed in Great Danes dogs having a high calcium intake. A low calcium intake in Great Danes dogs resulted in osteoporosis and pathological fractures without any impairment of enchondral ossification being observed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Deep neural networks are particularly useful to learn relevant representations from data. Recent studies have demonstrated the potential of unsupervised representation learning for ambient sound analysis using various flavors of the triplet loss. They have compared this approach to supervised learning. However, in real situations, it is common to have a small labeled dataset and a large unlabeled one. In this paper, we combine unsupervised and supervised triplet loss based learning into a semi-supervised representation learning approach. We propose two flavors of this approach, whereby the positive samples for those triplets whose anchors are unlabeled are obtained either by applying a transformation to the anchor, or by selecting the nearest sample in the training set. We compare our approach to supervised and unsupervised representation learning as well as the ratio between the amount of labeled and unlabeled data. We evaluate all the above approaches on an audio tagging task using the DCASE 2018 Task 4 dataset, and we show the impact of this ratio on the tagging performance.


We have a limited understanding of the long physicochemical and biological evolution of the ocean. In a context of climate change, it is crucial to better understand the paleo-ocean and how it has evolved into the present ocean. That information would allow us to generate better predictions of the future ocean. The main aim of this workshop was to bring together scientists from different disciplines (paleoceanographers, biogeochemists, conservation biologists, microbial ecologists, ecosystem modelers, geologists and physical oceanographers) in order to develop improved perspectives on the future ocean, based on knowledge from the past and present.


Situations where there is insufficient information to learn from often arise, and the process to recollect data can be expensive or in some cases take too long resulting in outdated models. Transfer learning strategies have proven to be a powerful technique to learn models from several sources when a single source does not provide enough information. In this work we present a methodology to learn a Temporal Nodes Bayesian Network by transferring knowledge from several different but related domains. Experiments based on a reference network show promising results, supporting our claim that transfer learning is a viable strategy to learn these models when scarce data is available.


A laser ultrasonic inspection system has the advantage of nondestructive testing. It is a non-contact mode using a laser interferometer to measure the vertical displacement of the surface of a material caused by the propagation of ultrasonic signals with the remote ultrasonic generated by laser. After raising the ultrasonic signal with a broadband frequency range using a pulsed laser beam, the laser beam is focused to a small point to measure the ultrasonic signal because it provides an excellent measurement resolution. In this paper, foreign materials are measured by a non-destructive and non-contact method using the laser ultrasonic inspection system. Mixed foreign material on the corroded part is assumed and the laser ultrasonic experiment is conducted. An ultrasonic wave is generated by pulse laser from the back of the specimen and an ultrasonic signal is acquired from the same location of the front side using continuous wave laser and Confocal Fabry-Perot Interferometer (CFPI). The characteristic of the ultrasonic signal of existing foreign material is analyzed and the location and size of foreign material is measured.


Background: The frequency of jugular venous reflux (JVR) is higher in patients with transient monocular blindness (TMB). We hypothesize that JVR influences ocular venous outflow, and resulting disturbances in cerebral and ocular venous circulation might be a cause of TMB. To substantiate this hypothesis, we aimed to demonstrate that: (1) TMB patients have vasculature changes in their retinal venules, and (2) JVR could influence ocular venous outflow, as revealed by dilated retinal venules. Methods: This study has 2 parts. The case-control study included 31 TMB patients and 31 age/gender-matched normal individuals, who all received fundus photography for retinal venule diameter comparisons. The Valsalva maneuver (VM) experiment included 30 healthy volunteers who received both color Doppler imaging of the internal jugular vein and fundus photography for retinal venule diameter measurement. Results: In the case-control study, TMB patients had a wider retinal venule diameter (184.5 ± 17.5 vs. 174.3 ± 16.2 µm, right eye, p = 0.023; 194.20 ± 24.6 vs. 176.6 ± 19.5 µm, left eye, p = 0.017), especially TMB patients with JVR. The VM experiments showed that the presence of JVR was associated with a greater increase in retinal venule diameters during VM in the subjects' right eye (14.27 ± 11.16 vs. 2.75 ± 3.51%, JVR vs. non-JVR, p = 0.0002) and left eye (10.06 ± 6.42 vs. 1.80 ± 2.03%, p = 0.0003). Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that frequently occurring JVR associated with TMB impedes ocular venous outflow, and the subsequent disturbances in ocular venous circulation may be a cause of TMB.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate and compare the gene expression of interleukin(IL)-1β, IL-8, and interferon-γ during the first 72 hours after birth in healthy foals and during the first 72 hours after hospitalization in sick neonatal foals and investigate correlations of clinicopathologic variables with cytokine expressions in healthy and sick neonatal foals.

ANIMALS
33 foals < 7 days old (10 healthy foals, 7 foals with sepsis, 6 foals with peripartum asphyxia syndrome, and 12 foals with other diseases [2 with failure of passive transfer of immunity only were not further evaluated]).

PROCEDURES
A blood sample (15 mL) was collected from each foal immediately after birth or hospital admission (0 hours) and at 24 and 72 hours later. Clinicopathologic variables were evaluated, and cytokine gene expression in WBCs was measured with an absolute quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase PCR assay.

RESULTS
At all time points, gene expression of interferon-γ was low in all groups. No time-dependent changes in cytokine expressions were detected in healthy or sick foals. Foals with sepsis had significantly higher IL-1β gene expression than did healthy foals, foals with peripartum asphyxia syndrome, or foals with other diseases. At 0 hours, IL-1β expression was correlated with plasma fibrinogen concentration in healthy foals and with the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in foals with sepsis; IL-8 expression was correlated with monocyte count in foals with sepsis and with arterial pH, plasma fibrinogen concentration, and plasma lactate concentration in foals with peripartum asphyxia syndrome.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Data have suggested that evaluation of IL-1β expression in sick neonatal foals could help identify those with sepsis.


A loose, debris avalanche deposit, resulting from the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, was encountered during the foundation geotechnical investigation for Bridge 12 on the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway (SR 504) in the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Washington. The deposit was determined to be at risk of experiencing liquefaction and/or dynamic settlement during the design seismic event for the structure (Richter magnitude 6.5 and peak ground acceleration 0.55g). The experimental use of deep blasting was selected by the Washington State Department of Transportation and approved by the Federal Highway Administration, to densify the deposit full depth (up to 43 meters) for the purpose of mitigating the liquefaction and dynamic settlement risks. The contract for the work utilized a test section to evaluate the blast design. Revisions were made to the blast design based on the results of the test section blasting, and production blasting was completed in December of 1992. Numerous instruments were utilized to monitor and quantify the results of the blast densification. Standard Penetration Testing (SPT) before blasting indicated average, corrected blowcounts of about eight full depth in the deposit. Post-blasting SPT blowcounts increased to above the goal of about 25 in the upper 15 meters of the deposit, and to above about 20 below 15 meters. Modified Becker Penetration Testing corroborated the SPT results. Total ground surface settlement of up to 1.5 meters was observed. Volumetric compressive strains on the order of about eight percent were determined on the basis of surface settlement and slope inclinometer measurements. The total project costs were $599,000. On a unit cost basis, the treatment cost about $2.50 per cubic meter of densified ground. A cost savings of approximately $300,000 was realized over alternative ground improvement methods such as stone columns. Blast densification also allowed the use of cost-effective, shallow spread footings for the 60 meter, single-span bridge. Even greater cost savings were realized when the blast densification method was used on the East Creek section of the final 6.2 km of SR 504, from Coldwater Lake Outlet to Johnston Ridge.


Objective: Otoliths contain specific characteristics of stock so are considered as a good subject for morphometric analysis. Otoliths contain finite extent of individual variability in growth, relative to variability in somatic growth. Therefore, the aim of study is developed a tools for automatically analysis otolith image of six grouper species. Using image analysis methods, otolith shape analysis tools are developed. There are five main steps in image analysis methods of tool which are data acquisition, pre-processing, segmentation, marking landmarks and reporting. As a result, in this study it is aimed to develop a computer package program to facilitate shape analyses of otolith of fish, populations and species of grouper. The application can be used to get independent measurements on otolith shape, on the other hand in this study, four landmarks are determined for constructing network system. The program is automatically determines these landmarks by using image processing techniques and reported some statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation etc. To get morphological measurements, first photos were taken then measurements are obtained from digital photos. But the process of marking landmarks is still made manually by scientist. The aim of this work was to develop tool which marks landmark automatically and determines morphological measurements of otoliths.


The fluoride contents in the infusions of (10) commercially available in the local market in Iraq of tea brands in leaf and bag forms was determined by a fluoride ion-selective electrode method. The effect of brewing time on fluoride release from tea was assessed. Results showed that fluoride release increased with increasing brewing time (3, 5 ,10 min). Fluoride level after 5 min brewing for green tea bags, black tea leaves and black tea bags was in the range of (80mg/kg),(122~309mg/kg)and(308~348 mg/kg) respectively .The WHO guideline for daily fluoride intake is( 2.00 mg) for children and ( 4.00 mg) for adults. Assuming that one consumes 4 cups of tea everyday (400 mL) and each cup uses (2.5 g ) of tea leaves, the daily fluoride intake from black tea leaves may be in the range ( 1.22 ~ 3.09 mg ). Similarly, intake from the green tea bags about (0.80 mg). Similarly, intake from the black tea bags may range from (3.01 ~ 3.45 mg ) . Thus according to the WHO recommendation for daily fluoride intake the black and green tea bags and black tea leaves are safe for all age groups .


In this study, we report a facile polymeric citrate strategy for the synthesis of Cr,La-codoped SrTiO3 nanoparticles. The synthesized samples were well characterized by various analytical techniques. The UV-vis DRS studies reveal that the absorption edge shifts towards the visible light region after doping with Cr, which is highly beneficial for absorbing the visible light in the solar spectrum. More attractively, codoping with La exhibits greatly enhanced photocatalytic activity for the degradation of Rhodamine B under sunlight irradiation. The optimum photocatalytic activity at 1 atom% of Cr,La-codoped SrTiO3 nanoparticles is almost 6 times higher than that of pure SrTiO3 nanoparticles and 3 times higher than that of Cr-doped SrTiO3 nanoparticles. The high photocatalytic performance in the present photocatalytic system is due to codoping with La, which acts as a most effective donor for stabilizing Cr(3+) in Cr,La-codoped SrTiO3 nanoparticles. More importantly, the synthesized photocatalysts possess high reusability. A proposed mechanism for the enhanced photocatalytic activity of Cr,La-codoped SrTiO3 nanoparticles was also investigated by trapping experiments. Therefore, our results not only demonstrate the highly efficient visible light photocatalytic activity of the Cr,La-codoped SrTiO3 photocatalyst, but also enlighten the codoping strategy in the design and development of advanced photocatalytic materials for energy and environmental applications.


A numerical model to predict crack propagation phenomena in sandwich structures is proposed. The model incorporates shear deformable beams to simulate high performance external skins and a 2D elastic domain to model the internal core. Crack propagation is predicted in both core and external skin-to-core interfaces by means of a numerical strategy based on an Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) formulation. Debonding phenomena are simulated by weak based connections, in which moving interfacial elements with damage constitutive laws are able to reproduce the crack evolution. Crack growth in the core is analyzed through a moving mesh approach, where a proper fracture criterion and mesh refitting procedure are introduced to predict crack tip front direction and displacement. The moving mesh technique, combined with a multilayer formulation, ensures a significant reduction of the computational costs. The accuracy of the proposed approach is verified through comparisons with experimental and numerical results. Simulations in a dynamic framework are developed to identify the influence of inertial effects on debonding phenomena arising when different core typologies are employed. Crack propagation in the core of sandwich structures is also analyzed on the basis of fracture parameters experimentally determined on commercially available foams.


Introduction: Food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) is a preferred tool for longitudinal dietary assessment and has been recently validated in patients on hemodialysis in other countries. As dietary habits vary vastly across regions, this study was planned to develop and validate a novel dialysis FFQ in northern India. Materials and Methods: Dietary recall data from patients on hemodialysis available from the previous year were used for identifying food items for inclusion in the FFQ. A nutrient database was created to estimate energy, protein, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium content of the foods included in the food list. The FFQ was validated against a 2-day dietary recall method (one predialysis, one on the dialysis day) in patients on maintenance hemodialysis in a tertiary care hospital in Lucknow, northern India. Results: Dietary recall data from 78 patients on hemodialysis were used for the generation of the FFQ. A total of 84 patients completed the validation study. All the nutrients measured by the FFQ correlated significantly with the means of the 2-day dietary record (r values 0.31–0.76) both in crude- and energy-adjusted intakes. De-attenuation further improved the correlation (0.35–0.80). Bland-Altman plots showed higher estimates by FFQ than by dietary recall. Cross-classification analysis showed correct classification in the exact or adjacent quintile (average 60%) by both methods and 2% gross misclassification. Weighted kappa showed fair agreement for energy intake and slight agreement for others. Conclusion: This novel semiquantitative FFQ is a valid tool for measuring energy and nutrient intakes in hemodialysis patients.


Network marketing is an increasingly popular sales technique that holds both economic and public health implications for society. Using social media networking as a tool for this marketing method is a new and changing approach that has many benefits for distributors. The theoretical framework of contagion introduced by Berger (2013) was used within this study as it appeared to be a significant aspect within network marketing. Trust and word of mouth diffusion were also major components that were explored throughout the research, and how these factors associate with network marketing and the experience of representatives were considered. Gender differences and the role of motherhood were also examined as there appeared to be a connection between network marketing and family life.

The focus of the research was on the network marketing of dietary supplements, concentrating on three major companies – Forever Living, Juice Plus and Herbalife. The study took a mixed-method approach, gathering data using qualitative interviews alongside quantitative social media network analysis.

The qualitative section of the research involved ten semi-structured interviews with a representative from one of the relevant companies. The aim of the interviews was to observe the perceived experiences provided by individuals who use and distribute dietary merchandise through network marketing, and promote the products using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Thematic analysis was used to examine participant's perceptions of their background in network marketing, in which three prominent themes were identified and discussed: reconstructing identity, representing a lifestyle, and mothers and network marketing.

It was concluded that many of the participants altered the way they wanted others to perceive their identities through social media in order to represent a desirable and successful lifestyle. It was also suggested that many mothers became a part of network marketing due to the flexible hours and a good work-family balance. This appeal was also used within the attraction marketing aspect of the technique as it encouraged other parents to also become representatives.

The study also took a quantitative approach, in which the novel software NodeXL was used to analyse social media networks in order to observe and understand network structures relating to the relevant companies. One graph relating to each company was created every week for five weeks, totalling fifteen diagrams demonstrating the social media structures. It was concluded that the analysis suggested extensive connectivity was only prevalent with very few Twitter users, including both retweeting others and being retweeted themselves, suggesting a structure with few successful individuals and many generating less success.

The data from both sections of the research was correlated in an attempt to gain an overall perspective of network marketing strategies, success and use of social media. The research project as a whole aimed to provide useful information regarding network marketer's experiences, the use of social media as a tool within the network marketing world, and to understand how the role of contagion and influence relates to the topic.

There have been numerous studies carried out regarding social media as a marketing tool, however there is no previous literature focusing on the network marketing of dietary supplements and how social media networks are utilised within this setting. The recent development and growth of social media networking as a tool for marketing dietary supplements has significant public health and health behaviour implications. This notion and the issue that there are no known previous studies regarding this specific topic suggests that this research will be an important addition to the literature.


In recent years, multimedia services and social media applications have become extremely popular as they have been accessed by laptop computers and mobile devices. These can be considered as basic communications functionalities required for building e-society. The heterogeneity of hardware capabilities and network environments result in big challenges for service providers in always providing users with a satisfying experience. The meaning of Quality of Experience (QoE) reflects the degree of a user's subjective satisfaction, which can be different from the Quality of Service (QoS) concept as QoS is solely related to objective system performance metrics, such as the bandwidth, delay, and loss rate. In this work, we propose a general approach for improving QoE through QoS such as to support various e-society applications and services. Various models and parameters related to this issue are reviewed. The proposal represents a framework that considers different aspects such as classification, marking, routing, and queuing to achieve better controlling of relative QoS parameters.


Biodiversity is an environmental cache that has been maintained and developed globally over thousands of years. However, biodiversity loss is an international environmental issue that is increasingly threatening the countless ecosystem services and stabilizing abilities of biologically diverse ecosystems. The drivers of biodiversity loss are largely anthropogenic and transboundary, and without a concerted and coordinated global effort, it is likely that current ecosystem services and a diverse planet will be lost to future generations. While this issue has been recognized by the global community through multilateral environmental agreements, the United States has consistently refrained from engaging in these efforts. This paper seeks to explore the current trend of United States participation in multilateral efforts to address biodiversity loss, as well as the implications of its actions. This paper analyzes the United States' engagement, or lack thereof, using the liberal and constructivist theories of international relations to examine the negative consequences of the United States' current strategy of participation. This is especially important when considering the redistribution of power in the international system from unipolarity to multipolarity, in which the United States may no longer maintain a disproportionate share of power. In general, the United States' lack of engagement in global environmental efforts is likely to negatively affect its ability to achieve future foreign policy goals, suggesting a strong motivation for the United States to assess and alter its current engagement strategy in biodiversity agreements.


The basal ganglia contribute to the suppression and initiation of saccadic eye movements through the inhibitory connection from the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) to the superior colliculus. This mechanism consists of serial and parallel connections, which are mostly inhibitory and GABAergic. Dopamine is known to exert powerful modulatory effects on the basal ganglia function, but its nature and mechanism are still unclear, especially in relation to voluntary behavior. The purpose of this series of investigation was to study the role of dopamine in the control of saccadic eye movements. We examined, in the monkey, whether and how the deficiency of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic innervation affects saccadic eye movements. The present article is focused on spontaneous saccades that the monkey made with no incentive to obtain reward; the next paper will describe task-specific saccades. Using an osmotic minipump we infused 1-methyl-4-phenyl- 1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) unilaterally into the head-body junction of the caudate nucleus of monkeys where presaccadic neurons were clustered. Tyrosine hydroxylase activity, visualized using an immunohistochemical method, decreased locally around the injection site with some effects extending into the ipsilateral putamen and locally in the ipsilateral substantia nigra. Changes of eye movements started to appear 3–5 d after starting the infusion. Spontaneous saccades became less frequent. The area scanned by the saccades became narrower and shifted to the hemifield ipsilateral to the infusion site. The saccade amplitudes and peak velocities decreased; durations were prolonged. These effects were more prominent for saccades directed toward the side contralateral to the infusion site. These monkeys showed no obvious skeletomotor symptoms. These results suggest that the local deprivation of the dopaminergic innervation in the caudate nucleus facilitates neuronal activity of the SNr leading to suppression of saccadic eye movements.


A prominent problem in Graph Theory is to find extremal graphs or digraphs with restrictions in their diameter, degree and number of vertices. Here we obtain a new family of digraphs with minimal diameter, that is, given the number of vertices and out-degree there is no other digraph with a smaller diameter. This new family is called modified cyclic digraphs MCK(d, `) and it is derived from the Kautz digraphs K(d, `). It is well-known that the Kautz digraphs K(d, `) have the smallest diameter among all digraphs with their number of vertices and degree. We define the cyclic Kautz digraphs
CK(d, `), whose vertices are labeled by all possible sequences a1 . . . a` of length `, such that each character ai is chosen from an alphabet containing d + 1 distinct symbols, where the consecutive characters in the sequence are different (as in Kautz digraphs), and now also requiring that a1 6= a`. The cyclic Kautz digraphs CK(d, `) have arcs between vertices a1a2 . . . a` and a2 . . . a`a`+1, with a1 6= a` and a2 6= a`+1. Unlike in Kautz digraphs K(d, `), any label of a vertex of CK(d, `) can be cyclically shifted to form again a label of a vertex of CK(d, `).
We give the main parameters of CK(d, `): number of vertices, number of arcs, and diameter.
Moreover, we construct the modified cyclic Kautz digraphs MCK(d, `) to obtain the same diameter as in the Kautz digraphs, and we show that MCK(d, `) are d-out-regular.
Finally, we compute the number of vertices of the iterated line digraphs of CK(d, `).


Objective Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is an under-recognised but important cause of myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death. We sought to determine the role of medical and molecular genetic screening for connective tissue disorders in patients with SCAD. Methods We performed a single-centre retrospective descriptive analysis of patients with spontaneous coronary artery disease who had undergone medical genetics evaluation 1984–2014 (n=116). The presence or absence of traits suggestive of heritable connective tissue disease was extracted. Genetic testing for connective tissue disorders and/or aortopathies, if performed, is also reported. Results Of the 116 patients (mean age 44.2 years, 94.8% women and 41.4% with non-coronary fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD)), 59 patients underwent genetic testing, of whom 3 (5.1%) received a diagnosis of connective tissue disorder: a 50-year-old man with Marfan syndrome; a 43-year-old woman with vascular Ehlers–Danlos syndrome and FMD; and a 45-year-old woman with vascular Ehlers–Danlos syndrome. An additional 12 patients (20.3%) had variants of unknown significance, none of which was thought to be a definite disease-causing mutation based on in silico analyses. Conclusions Only a minority of patients with SCAD who undergo genetic evaluation have a likely pathogenic mutation identified on gene panel testing. Even fewer exhibit clinical features of connective tissue disorder. These findings underscore the need for further studies to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of SCAD.


A deeper understanding of the availability of Public Safety and Security (PSS) mobile networks and their service under different conditions offers decision makers guidelines on the level of investments required and the directions to take in order to decrease the risks identified. In the study, a risk assessment model for the existing PSS mobile service is implemented for both a dedicated TETRA PSS mobile network as well as for a commercial 2G/3G mobile network operating under the current risk conditions. The probabilistic risk assessment is carried out by constructing a Bayesian Network. According to the analysis, the availability of the dedicated Finnish PSS mobile service is 99.1%. Based on the risk assessment and sensitivity analysis conducted, the most effective elements for decreasing availability risks would be duplication of the transmission links, backup of the power supply and real-time mobile traffic monitoring. With the adjustment of these key control variables, the service availability can be improved up to the level of 99.9%. The investments needed to improve the availability of the PSS mobile service from 99.1 % to 99.9% are profitable only in highly populated areas. The calculated availability of the PSS mobile service based on a purely commercial network is 98.8%. The adoption of a Bayesian Network as a risk assessment method is demonstrated to be a useful way of documenting different expert knowledge as a common belief about the risks, their magnitudes and their effects upon a Finnish PSS mobile service.


This issue is devoted to photography and the archive, a topic that has been of particular interest since the 1980s when commentators began to analyze the dynamic between institutionalized power and the photograph. Chief among these theorists of the archive was Michel Foucault. In his influential 1969 essay, "The Archaeology of Knowledge," Foucault made the distinction between accessing the archive and applying a method he described as archaeological. He argued that to take an archaeological approach was to aspire to expose the very conditions that sustained an archive. That includes the structures and systems that enable the archive to exist. David Bate rereads this essay and describes its formative nature. More interestingly, Bate puts Foucault's theory of archival archaeology into practice--taking photography itself as an archive--to suggest how an archaeological approach might remap our understanding of photography, photographic practice, and photographic histories. One of my intentions with this issue is to enable a cross-Atlantic dialogue by bringing together writers and artists from both the United Kingdom, where I am based, and the United States, home of Afterimage. Each contributor was asked to address the theme within a contemporary context. The artists' magazine is emerging as an important precedent to the more innovative forms of digital publishing. As we know, such magazines traditionally live a risky and marginalized existence, but can prove their cultural worth years later as repositories of documents from the histories they sought to chronicle. In the late 1970s, the artists' magazine High Performance documented the developing field of performance art, publishing photographs of many ephemeral events. Stephen Perkins describes the magazine's value as a unique photographic archive. With each passing year, it seems, the artists' magazine FILE reaffirms its contemporary relevance. Founded the same year that IJFE died, FILE began as an irreverent forum for the nascent mail art movement and rapidly evolved into a repository of the activities of its founders, General Idea. My interview with one of the artist/co-founders, AA Bronson, reveals the roots of FILE and why some commentators have identified it with media jamming. In 2003, an amazing archive of images was discovered at the Visual Studies Workshop. It became known as the Selle Collection after the man who employed a team of street photographers in San Francisco between the 1930s and the 1970s. Recently this material became a resource for both historians and artists. Christopher Burnett describes three responses to this archive--estimated to comprise over one million images--and speculates on the role of digital technology in addressing the challenges of working with such huge volumes of visual material. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli writer Ariella Azoulay has created two exhibitions of press photographs aimed at making visible her government's role in the occupation. "Act of State" (staged this year to mark the anniversary) aimed--and succeeded--at going beyond a photo-history of the occupation to explore the political functions of photography. …


A chain-flail delimber-debarker-chipper (CFDDC) was adapted for treating smaller trees than normal by replacing the standard flails with lighter ones, and by reducing flail drum rotation speed. The machine produced 16 full containers (24 t each) for the standard configuration and 24 full containers for the innovative one. For each container the researchers measured: original tree mass, chip mass, time consumption and fuel use. Results indicated that the innovative setting accrued a 12% improvement on fiber recovery compared with the standard setting (control). At the same time, productivity increased by 20% and fuel consumption was reduced by 30%. Product quality was largely unaffected, with bark content remaining below the 1% threshold specification. If at all, product quality was improved through the reduction of fine particles, possibly derived from less diffused fraying. These results have triggered the real scale adoption of the new setting by contractors who participated in the study. The success of the innovative treatment is likely explained by its better alignment with the weaker structure of small trees from low-yielding stands.


This paper presents a fault-tolerant multicast scheme for hypercube multicomputers. The method is based on the routing capability information that is stored in each node. In comparison with the previous schemes, this information is able to capture the fault status more precisely. Two multicast algorithms are presented in the paper. These algorithms multicast messages in an attempt to minimize derouting so that time optimality can be achieved. Moreover, the routing capability information is used to guide derouting in an efficient manner when such needs arise. The amount of traffic incurred is addressed in the paper. The hardware design for the algorithms is also discussed. Extensive simulation has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the scheme. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.


A novel scheme is proposed to transform a Gaussian optical pulse to a millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency modulation pulse by using a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) for radio-over-fiber (ROF) system. It is shown that modulation frequency of mm-wave is determined by the optical path of the Fabry-Perot (F-P) cavity, and amplitude decay time and energy transfer efficiency are related to the reflectivity of the F-P cavity mirror. The effect of pulse train extension on inter-symbol interference is also discussed.


The design of new offshore structures requires the calculation of the wave-induced loads. In this regard, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology has shown to be a reliable tool, in the case of breaking waves especially. In this paper, two CFD models are tested in the reproduction of the experimental spilling waves impacting a circular cylinder for four different wave impact scenarios for focused waves. The numerical and experimental free surface elevations at different locations around the cylinder are also compared to verify the both numerical models. The numerical results from the models are shown together with the experimental measurements. Both CFD models are able to model the impact forces with a reasonable accuracy. When the cylinder is placed at a distance of 0.7 m from the wave breaking point, the value of the measured wave impact forces is highest due to the overturning wave crest and air entrainment. The wave-induced impact forces decrease, when the monopile is placed at distances further away from the breaking location.


This paper provides an informal introduction to Petri, an interactive audio-visual installation built as a society of communicating virtual agents developing autonomous behaviour but equally sensitive to outside human-originated influence. From a systems point of view, this work consists as a dynamic interface connecting life in an artificial society with life in a given tangible physical environment. Design principles include the synthesis of sustained forms of emergent audio-visual/behavioural complexity over time, short-term complexity from simple local interactions and longterm complexity made available through genetic optimisation. Petri suggests that partial understanding of systems behaviour blended with the accommodation of surprise makes for a rewarding aesthetic experience.


Improving economic benefits from a large coal mining group with several operations is always the first objective of its operator. More concerns are usually focused on the unit operations and their cost. An optimization model for coal products and production rate based on Simplex Method(SM) and Algorithm of Universal Global Optimization(AUGO) approach is established in order to maximize the economic benefits of a given mining group in its existing cost construction. The result shows that the total economic return of the group could be improved a lot through optimization of its coal products and production rather than the summation of its every single mine's coal products and production rate, each operation of the group should do its best to produce as more as possible high quality products it can produce, and the mines with inferior quality of products should excavate their deposit according to the optimized production rate to make the whole system profit maximum rather than its own designed producti.


In this paper, we propose a novel frequency domain state-space identification method for switching linear discrete time-periodic (LDTP) systems with known scheduling signals. The state-space identification problem of linear time-invariant (LTI) systems has been widely studied both in the time and frequency domains. Indeed, there have been several studies that also concentrated on state-space identification of both continuous and discrete linear time-periodic (LTP) systems. The focus in this study is the family of LDTP systems that switch among a finite set of subsystems triggered by known periodic scheduling signals. We address the state-space identification of such systems in frequency domain using input–output data. We also assume that full state measurements are available for the identification process. The major difference of our study is that we explicitly model the known scheduling signals responsible for switching, which greatly reduces the parametric complexity as well as potentially increases the estimation accuracy by avoiding overfitting. In our identification framework, we gather the Fourier transformations of input–output data, known periodic scheduling signals, and state-space system dimensions and fuse them in a linear regression framework. Later, we estimate the Fourier series coefficients of the time-periodic system and input matrices using a least-squares solution. Finally, we illustrate the effectiveness of our method using a switching LDTP system that is based on the damped Mathieu equation.


In recent years, the Kenya cut flower industry has been criticised for poor labour practices, raising questions about the capacity of codes of conduct to improve working conditions. Multi-stakeholder processes are touted as one way to improve the effectiveness of codes, particularly where there is local 'ownership' and a broad range of stakeholders buy into the process. This paper explores the trajectory of ethical sourcing in Kenya's cut flower industry. It focuses specifically on the factors underlying the emergence of the Horticultural Ethical Business Initiative (HEBI), a multi-stakeholder body launched to guide social accountability in Kenya's cut flower industry. It identifies the points of consensus and conflict articulated by the different stakeholder categories within HEBI and the strengths and weaknesses of stakeholder partnerships for realising workers' rights.


The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.


Women with a germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation or a hereditary predisposition for breast and ovarian cancer have substantial risk of breast or ovarian cancer relative to the general US population. Health care professionals can be instrumental in identifying women at increased risk through obtaining a comprehensive family history and becoming familiar with family history characteristics associated with hereditary predisposition for breast and ovarian cancer. BRCA carriers and women at very high risk benefit from multidisciplinary, individualized medical evaluation and risk management. We conducted a search of MEDLINE from 1989 through 2010 for the terms BRCA1, BRCA2, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, risk assessment, and genetic testing. We reviewed abstracts and relevant randomized and prospective studies that included very high-risk patient groups and BRCA mutation carriers. Herein, we review the role of genetic consultation and BRCA testing and the comprehensive, multisystem recommendations for risk management. A multidisciplinary approach offers the ability to educate those at very high risk about cancer prevention, reduce cancer risk, maximize early detection of breast and ovarian cancer, and improve survival.


Based on the theory of planned behavior we studied the intentions to do pysical activities in teenagers and adults. We used a questionnaire that derived directly from this theory, and we applied it to 2098 participants. Results indicate that participants practice occasionally or regularly physical activities, between 17 and 41 years old, and that plan to realize physical activities in short term, and their other significant encourage exercise. They are probably feminine and with a higher academic degree. Individuals with less exercise behaviours have abandoned or do occasionally exercise, have 21 to 53 years old, don't plan to do exercise in the short term, and their other significants don't encourage practice.


The rise of Pentecostal-charismatic movements in Polynesia today is opening up new spaces for converts to engage in the contemporary dynamics of globalization, encouraging them to question the intertwined links between religion, culture, and the land, as shaped by local Christian cultures. A complex articulation of converts' voluntary disaffiliation from traditional religion and their critical reappropriation of Christianity create dilemmas of identity, as Polynesian "Christian tradition" finds no unanimous response within the Pentecostal-charismatic field. Indeed, in recent decades, these movements have led to a double diversification, brought about on the one hand, by the growth of The Christianity of the South and, on the other hand, by the increasing separation of charismatic streams from classical Pentecostal theology.
The charismatic network Youth with a Mission (YWAM), which has been present in Oceania for forty years, exemplifies this global transformation of the Pentecostal-charismatic field and its local impact upon reshaping the identity of Pacific Islander youth. After situating this network within contemporary Pacific Island Protestantism and the post-World War ii American context, this chapter examines the patterns of YWAM global culture, including its positive representation of cultural diversity. I show how these trends generated a militant reappropriation and renewal of cultural identities within the Christian space among young Polynesian converts at the outset of the 1980s. In particular, the Island Breeze movement, a YWAM ministry launched in 1979 by the Samoan Sosene Le'au, claims to seek the "redemption of cultures" and advocates the use of Polynesian dances as both an expression of Christian faith and a universal missionary tool. Finally, an analysis of the links between the YWAM global charismatic culture and this local religious renewing and reshaping of Polynesian cultural identities illuminates several points of adjustment or tension: between individual "new birth", regional migrations and cultural authenticity; and between historical relationships of domination and the emergence of a "Christian indigeneity influenced by the global theology of "spiritual warfare".


The aim of this paper is to criticise the well-discussed principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB) lately refined by Julian Savulescu and Guy Kahane. First, it is argued that advocates of PB leave us with an implausible justification for the moral partiality towards the child (or children) which reproducers decide to bring into existence as compared with all other individuals. This is implausible because the reasons given in favour of the partiality of PB, which are based on practical reason and common-sense morality, can just as well be used to guide reproducers to make choices that do not support partiality towards one's possible children. This seems to be true as least in some situations. Second, it is argued that Jakob Elster's recent critique of PB is problematic and specifically that a counterexample designed by Elster to criticise PB because of its partiality towards one's own children misses the target. Finally, a genuine counterexample to PB is developed in order to show that the partiality of PB leads to the wrong answer in a specific case.


This media review explores the nascent genre of religious comedy in mainstream Indian film (also known as Bollywood). Focusing on two recent hits, OMG! (2012) and PK (2014), the review investigates what conventions or unspoken rules license laughter "at" religion in successful iterations of the genre, as well as how such films navigate India's cultural landscape, which is sensorily alive with multiple religions. Some of the more idiosyncratically Indian (which is to say, not merely Hindu) properties of the genre that are addressed include the subcontinental notion of secularism; the parallel texts produced by the actors' own religions; and the saliency, ironically enough, of television to the films—of a portrayed tele-belonging. In this way, the review offers pedagogical guidance for those who may wish to teach a religious comedy from the Bollywood corpus.


A morphometric analysis of third metapodials and first phalanges of Middle Awash and Hadar hipparions dating from the 6.0-3.0 Ma interval was conducted using two methods. Morphological comparisons using standard metrics were made using: 1) log10 ratio diagrams; 2) size independent variables developed with reference to scaling trends for hipparions in general. Results of these analyses suggest that hipparion diversity during this temporal interval was relatively low. A single dominant gracile lineage of Eurygnathohippus Van Hoepen, 1930, most plausibly derived from the Lothagam (Kenya) species Eurygnathohippus feibeli (Bernor & Harris, 2003), would appear to have persisted throughout this interval and is marked by increases in size with measured change in metapodial and phalangeal morphology. A rarer, more robust form is found in the Ethiopian sample at 4.0 Ma and is morphometrically similar to Eurygnathohippus turkanense Hooijer & Maglio, 1973 from late Miocene horizons of Lothagam. Another smaller form, of uncertain systematic status, appears likely late in the Kada Hadar sequence, c. 3.0 Ma.


The objective of this work is to obtain the profile of stu dents of Psychology regarding their Will-to-Work in order to enrich the discussion of teachers with respect to students responsibility. Will-to-Work is characterized as the tendency of an individual to discharge duties with responsibility, self motivation and without procrastination. An 8-item questionnaire type Likert (α = .685) was administered to 1,141 students of the second year of the Psychology School, University of Buenos Aires, who tended to score highly. The adults (aged 30 or more) scored over young people (aged 18 -29). Interaction between Gender and Work was found; the men who do not work scored lower. On the contrary, no differences were observed between women who do not work and women and men who work. Different explanations for these findings and the possible influence of both social desirability and the standards of exigency on the bias observed in the score distribution are discussed.


Although the relationship between religion and violent internal conflict is increasingly studied in the civil war literature, previous studies largely focus on factors influencing the onset of armed conflict. This thesis examines the less analyzed aspects of conflict intensity and duration. More specifically, it examines how these aspects are influenced by the presence of identity-based religious cleavages. By applying a theoretical perspective novel to the religion-conflict nexus, the thesis seeks to provide theoretical knowledge on how faith affects conflict dynamics. Concerning intensity, it is argued that religion, as a basis for identity and organized around a common belief-system and common doctrine, relaxes intragroup problems and makes it easier for belligerents to mobilize. Regarding duration, it is proposed that religious cleavages make it harder for the parties to establish the intergroup trust needed to reach stable peace agreements. Through extensive data collection a new indicator is introduced, measuring the presence of identity-based religious cleavages in 241 intrastate conflicts in the period 1946-2004. Results show that religious conflicts, as defined, are significantly more intense than non-religious ones. Furthermore, the analysis reveals an ambiguous impact on duration. In early stages religious conflicts are more likely than others to be terminated, whereas conflicts that have lasted at least two and half years are less likely to be terminated if they involve a religious cleavage.