This study critically examines the ways in which the nationwide Diabetes UK/Tesco public health promotion campaign (2013-2014) sought to raise awareness of Type 2 diabetes. Conducting a multimodal critical discourse analysis of six campaign images, we identify the presence of fear-inducing, stigmatising and commercial strategies, through which the campaign emphasises the dangers of diabetes and advocates personal responsibility for assessing both individual and others' risk of the disease. Specifically, three discursive techniques are deployed in this campaign to achieve these ends: (1) the depiction of grief and amplification of diabetes-related danger, (2) the promotion of diabetes risk and responsibilization of individuals for their health, and (3) the commercial branding and framing of the Diabetes UK/Tesco partnership as providing tools for diabetes prevention and management. Our findings raise concerns about the moral legitimacy of using fear-inducing and commercial strategies in public health campaigns, strategies which do little to address the environmental factors which are associated with increasing rates of the disease.


BACKGROUND
Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty affecting up to 10% of British children that is associated with a wide range of cognitive, emotional and physical symptoms. In the absence of effective conventional treatment, it is likely that parents will seek complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to try and help their children. However, little is known about the level of CAM use or the type of CAM used by dyslexic children.

AIMS
This study assessed: (1) the lifetime use of CAM by dyslexic children, (2) the role of socio-demographic factors in CAM use by dyslexic children, (3) parental attitudes towards CAM use in the treatment of dyslexia, and (4) how parents' understanding of dyslexia affects CAM use.

METHODS & PROCEDURES
A semi-structured questionnaire-based survey of parents of 148 dyslexic school children was undertaken. The children had been recruited to a university research programme investigating the effectiveness of a complementary therapy for the treatment of learning difficulties.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS
Lifetime use of CAM was 55.4% (82 children). The most popular CAM approaches were nutritional supplements/special diets (63 children) followed by homeopathy (29 children) and osteopathy/chiropractic manipulation (29 children). Socio-demographic factors did not predict CAM use. In total, parents of 101 dyslexic children reported that an interest in CAM for the treatment of dyslexia was based on their preference for CAM for their families more generally. Parents who thought that dyslexia was a 'medical/health' disorder were more likely to have used CAM with their children (p<0.01) than other parents in this survey.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS
Educational and health professionals should be aware that many dyslexic children use CAM. Parents of dyslexic children should be provided with evidence-based advice to help them make informed therapeutic choices.


Abstract This study aims to analyze the variational principle, as it is applied in Dinu Lipatti's Sonatina for Violin and Piano, from a theoretical-analytical perspective, but also from the standpoint of the interpretative implications. The variational processes, in close connection with the specificity of the neoclassical language of the work, determine an atypical classification of the form of variations in the gender structure, which implies a resizing of the interpretative means by which the musical dramaturgy of the piece can be achieved. The comparison with the classic model of variations as a component of the sonata genre dedicated to the violin-piano duo, as it appears in the works of composers such as Mozart or Beethoven, as a method of analytical research, highlights the language aspects that condition the performer's vision in the case of Lipatti's Sonatina, such as character, tempo, metrics, the type of writing, elements of virtuosity or timbre, whose valences are distinct from those determined by a music discourse from the classical era. Understanding the correlation between the succession of movements and the composition of the variational plan constitutes a priority in approaching this work and shaping the desired artistic message; this is why the study attempts to highlight the necessary connection between the structural elements of the composition and those implicitly generated by them, namely the technical and expressive elements required by the interpretative act.


Objectives Australian Aboriginal people have at least eight times the incidence of end-stage kidney disease, requiring dialysis, as the non-Aboriginal population. Provision of health services to rural Aboriginal people with renal disease is challenging due to barriers to access and cultural differences. We aimed to describe the experiences of Aboriginal people receiving haemodialysis in rural Australia, to inform strategies for improving renal services. Design A qualitative design incorporating: Indigenist research methodology and Community Based Participatory Research principles. In-depth interviews used a 'yarning' and storytelling approach. Thematic analysis was undertaken and verified by an Aboriginal Community Reference Group. Setting A health district in rural New South Wales, Australia. Participants Snowball sampling recruited 18 Aboriginal haemodialysis recipients. Results Six themes emerged which described the patient journey: 'The biggest shock of me life,' expressed the shock of diagnosis and starting the dialysis; 'Beats the alternative but it messes up your life,' explained how positive attitudes to treatment develop; 'Family is everything', described the motivation and support to continue dialysis; 'If I had one of them nurses at home to help me', depicted acute hospital settings as culturally unsafe; 'Don't use them big jawbreakers', urged service providers to use simple language and cultural awareness; 'Stop 'em following us onto the machine', emphasised the desire for education for the younger generations about preventing kidney disease. An Aboriginal interpretation of this experience, linked to the analysis, was depicted in the form of an Aboriginal painting. Conclusions Family enables Aboriginal people to endure haemodialysis. Patients believe that priorities for improving services include family-centred and culturally accommodating healthcare systems; and improving access to early screening of kidney disease. Inclusion of Aboriginal patients in cultural education for renal staff is recommended. Providing opportunities for patients to educate young Aboriginal people about kidney disease prevention may be highly effective and empowering.


Chimpanzees and gibbons, along with other hominoids, share a number of features in the morphology of their shoulders that have generally been associated with use of the upper limb in overhead postural and locomotor activities. These include the position and shape of the scapula, as well as the morphology of the proximal end of the humerus. Results of an electromyographic (EMG) analysis of shoulder muscle activity patterns indicate that these two species of hominoids also share broad similarities in shoulder muscle function during locomotion and voluntary movements. Differences do exist, however, in the activity patterns of subscapularis, a medial rotator of the arm. These differences mainly involve a greater participation by the gibbon subscapularis in free arm movements. This greater participation is characterized by earlier onset of muscle activity, higher amplitude of recruitment, and involvement of more of the total mass of the muscle. These differences in muscle recruitment suggest that the shoulder of gibbons differs from that of chimpanzees in some manner that necessitates the greater contribution of a medial rotator to the production of motion in the upper limb. I suggest that the low degree of humeral head torsion in gibbons, compared to that of other hominoids, gives their elbow a "lateral set" that must be overcome by the action of subscapularis during free arm movements. I propose that this modest degree of humeral head torsion in gibbons reflects a compromise between necessary changes caused by the repositioning of the scapula onto the dorsum of the thorax and the demands for extreme positioning of the elbow during brachiation. In addition, I suggest that the greater amount of torsion in the chimpanzee humerus is an accommodation to quadrupedal habits, and finally, that the high degree of torsion in human humeri is an independently acquired trait related to use of the upper limb as a manipulatory organ.


Graphical calculi for interaction.- NP-completeness: A retrospective.- The LEDA platform for combinatorial and geometric computing.- The Wadge-Wagner hierarchy of ?-rational sets.- From chaotic iteration to constraint propagation.- DNA2DNA computations: A potential "killer app"?.- Tilings and quasiperiodicity.- Enumerative sequences of leaves in rational trees.- A completion algorithm for codes with bounded synchronization delay.- The expressibility of languages and relations by word equations.- Finite loops recognize exactly the regular open languages.- An abstract data type for real numbers.- Recursive computational depth.- Some bounds on the computational power of piecewise constant derivative systems (extended abstract).- Monadic simultaneous rigid E-unification and related problems.- Computability on the probability measures on the Borel sets of the unit interval.- Worst-case hardness suffices for derandomization: A new method for hardness-randomness trade-offs.- Results on resource-bounded measure.- Randomization and nondeterminism are comparable for ordered read-once branching programs.- Checking properties of polynomials.- Exact analysis of Dodgson elections: Lewis Carroll's 1876 voting system is complete for parallel access to NP.- Game theoretic analysis of call-by-value computation.- On modular properties of higher order extensional lambda calculi.- On explicit substitutions and names (extended abstract).- On the dynamics of sharing graphs.- Minimizing diameters of dynamic trees.- Improving spanning trees by upgrading nodes.- Dynamic algorithms for graphs of bounded treewidth.- The name discipline of uniform receptiveness (extended abstract).- On confluence in the ?-calculus.- A proof theoretical approach to communication.- Solving trace equations using lexicographical normal forms.- Star-free picture expressions are strictly weaker than first-order logic.- An algebra-based method to associate rewards with EMPA terms.- A semantics preserving actor translation.- Periodic and non-periodic min-max equations.- Efficient parallel graph algorithms for coarse grained multicomputers and BSP.- Upper bound on the communication complexity of private information retrieval.- Computation paths logic: An expressive, yet elementary, process logic.- Model checking the full modal mu-calculus for infinite sequential processes.- Symbolic model checking for probabilistic processes.- On the concentration of the height of binary search trees.- An improved master theorem for divide-and-conquer recurrences.- Bisimulation for probabilistic transition systems: A coalgebraic approach.- Distributed processes and location failures.- Basic observables for processes.- Constrained bipartite edge coloring with applications to wavelength routing.- Colouring paths in directed symmetric trees with applications to WDM routing.- On-line routing in all-optical networks.- A complete characterization of the path layout construction problem for ATM networks with given hop count and load.- Efficiency of asynchronous systems and read arcs in petri nets.- Bisimulation equivalence is decidable for one-counter processes.- Symbolic reachability analysis of FIFO-channel systems with nonregular sets of configurations.- Axiomatizations for the perpetual loop in process algebra.- Discrete-time control for rectangular hybrid automata.- Maintaining minimum spanning trees in dynamic graphs.- Efficient splitting and merging algorithms for order decomposable problems.- Efficient array partitioning.- Constructive linear time algorithms for branchwidth.- The word matching problem is undecidable for finite special string-rewriting systems that are confluent.- The geometry of orthogonal reduction spaces.- The theory of vaccines.- The equivalence problem for deterministic pushdown automata is decidable.- On recognizable and rational formal power series in partially commuting variables.- On a conjecture of J. Shallit.- On characterizations of escrow encryption schemes.- Randomness-efficient non-interactive zero knowledge.- Approximation results for the optimum cost chromatic partition problem.- The minimum color sum of bipartite graphs.- A primal-dual approach to approximation of node-deletion problems for matroidal properties.- Independent sets in asteroidal triple-free graphs.- Refining and compressing abstract domains.- Labelled reductions, runtime errors, and operational subsumption.- A complete and efficiently computable topological classification of D-dimensional linear cellular automata over Z m .- Recognizability equals definability for partial k-paths.- Molecular computing, bounded nondeterminism, and efficient recursion.- Constructing big trees from short sequences.- Termination of constraint logic programs.- The expressive power of unique total stable model semantics.


Abstract. This paper presents the first long-term climate data record of sea ice extents and backscatter derived from intercalibrated satellite scatterometer missions (ERS, QuikSCAT and ASCAT) extending from 1992 to the present date (Verhoef et al., 2018). This record provides a valuable independent account of the evolution of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extents, one that is in excellent agreement with the passive microwave records during the fall and winter months but shows higher sensitivity to lower concentration and melting sea ice during the spring and summer months. The scatterometer record also provides a depiction of sea ice backscatter at C- and Ku-bands, allowing the separation of seasonal and perennial sea ice in the Arctic and further differentiation between second-year (SY) and older multiyear (MY) ice classes, revealing the emergence of SY ice as the dominant perennial ice type after the historical sea ice loss in 2007 and bearing new evidence on the loss of multiyear ice in the Arctic over the last 25 years. The relative good agreement between the backscatter-based sea ice (FY, SY and older MY) classes and the ice thickness record from Cryosat suggests its applicability as a reliable proxy in the historical reconstruction of sea ice thickness in the Arctic.


Temporal variation of mean winds between the 65 to 85 km height region from the data collected over the course of approximately four years (1995-99), using the In- dian MST radar located at Gadanki (13.5 N, 79.2 E), In- dia is presented in this paper. Mesospheric mean winds and their seasonal variation in the horizontal and vertical com- ponents are presented in detail. Westward flows during each of the equinoxes and eastward flows during the solstices are observed in the zonal component. The features of the semi- annual oscillation (SAO) and the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in the zonal component are noted. In the meridional component, contours reveal a northward motion during the winter and a southward motion during the summer. Large inter-annual variability is found in the vertical component with magnitudes of the order of ±2 ms 1 . The MST ob- served winds are also compared with the winds observed by the MF radar located at Tirunelveli (8.7 N, 77.8 E), In- dia, the High Resolution Doppler Imager (HRDI) onboard the Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS), and with the CIRA-86 model. A very good agreement is found be- tween both the ground-based instruments (MST radar and MF radar) in the zonal component and there are few discrep- ancies in the meridional component. UARS/HRDI observed winds usually have larger magnitudes than the ground-based mean winds. Comparison of the MST derived winds with the CIRA-86 model in the zonal component shows that during the spring equinox and the summer, the winds agree fairly well, but there are a lot of discrepancies in the other seasons and the observed winds with the MST radar are less in mag- nitude, though the direction is same. The strengths and limi- tations in estimating reliable mesospheric mean winds using the MST radar are also discussed.


Receptor tyrosine kinase signaling cooperates with WNT/ b -catenin signaling in regulating many biological processes, but the mechanisms of their interaction remain poorly defined. We describe a potent activation of WNT/ b -catenin by FGFR2, FGFR3, EGFR and TRKA kinases, which is independent of the PI3K/AKT pathway. Instead, this phenotype depends on ERK MAP kinase-mediated phosphorylation of WNT co-receptor LRP6 at Ser1490 and Thr1572 during its Golgi network-based maturation process. This phosphorylation dramatically increases the cellular response to WNT. Moreover, FGFR2, FGFR3, EGFR and TRKA directly phosphorylate b -catenin at Tyr142, which is known to increase cytoplasmic b -catenin concentration via release of b -catenin from membranous cadherin complexes. We conclude that signaling via ERK/LRP6 pathway and direct b -catenin phosphorylation at Tyr142 represent two mechanisms used by various receptor tyrosine kinase systems to activate canonical WNT signaling.


A (t, n)−secret sharing scheme is a method of distribution of information among n participants such that t > 1 can reconstruct the secret but t − 1 cannot. There is numerous research about secret sharing schemes. However there is little research on secret sharing schemes based on extension fields. In this paper, we study secret sharing schemes based on extension fields over finite fields. We use two methods to recover the secret. We define the access structure and the accessibility degree for these secret sharing schemes. We also describe our theorems, definitions and a corollary


Levels of income and/or consumption inequality are on average at least as high in sub-Saharan Africa as they are in Latin America. They are also highly variable. The paper makes an initial attempt to explain these findings using cross-country econometrics. We find that around 50% of the region's high level of inequality can be attributed to its underlying factor endowments, notably its high ratios of land to labour ratios, its sometimes high ratios of known minerals to land ratios, and the large proportion of its land area which is located in the tropics. However, the same factors account for only a small proportion of the variation in levels of inequality within the region. A fuller explanation will require further work, with the most promising route being case-study analysis.


1 In August 2003, while many Europeans were heading to the beaches to mitigate the effects of the worst heat wave on record, José Eduardo Sampaio, the CEO of Casa XXI, was faced with another kind of heat. Cartão 21, the innovative payment system of Casa XXI that he had personally conceived and subcontracted, had dramatically failed on August 6 th during the high-visibility inauguration of Alvalade XXI, the newly built football stadium of the Sporting Club of Portugal. Casa XXI had been granted the rights to exploit all the bars and restaurants in the stadium. Based on prepaid cards, the new payment system was supposed to make bar operations more efficient by eliminating the use of cash. In addition, the system was supposed to give Casa XXI an image of innovation and modernity enhanced also by all the free publicity it received in recent newspapers articles covering the inauguration. The failure of the system represented not only a significant financial loss for Casa XXI but also an embarrassment for the Sporting Football Club as well as a major blow to the reputation of Casa XXI and to the credibility of José Eduardo, himself a former football player. José Eduardo was quick to point the finger at Meag, the company with whom he had contracted to design and implement the system. But José Almeida, Meag's manager, claimed that the system worked fine. In his opinion, the nature of the problem was organizational. He believed the mishap had to with the late activation and distribution of the cards, as well as the lack of training of the bar staff; and these were responsibilities of Casa XXI, not his. But it was difficult to know what went wrong and whom to blame. In reality, the system had never been fully deployed and tested before the event. The construction of the stadium had been completed just a few days before the inauguration, and neither Casa XXI nor Meag had prior access to the stadium. Thus, nobody knew whether the installed configuration actually worked. With such uncertainty and the next match just days away, José Eduardo demanded a comprehensive system test. By the end of August, Meag conducted such a test in the presence of Casa XXI's management team. The results were discouraging: the system failed to operate properly. Casa XXI lost faith in both the system and the supplier. Then José Eduardo began …


The Federal Council of the Liberal Party, Federal Ministers, Coalition MPs, the Minerals Council of Australia and representatives from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) are targeting the advocacy role of Australia's environmental NGOs. There have been calls for the removal of tax deductible status for these NGOs, and for changes to the Competition and Consumer Act and the Corporations Act to restrict their advocacy.


Background: In competency-based medical education emphasis has shifted towards outcomes, capabilities, and learner-centeredness. Together with a focus on sustained evidence of professional competence this calls for new methods of teaching and assessment. Recently, medical educators advocated the use of a holistic, programmatic approach towards assessment. Besides maximum facilitation of learning it should improve the validity and reliability of measurements and documentation of competence development. We explored how, in a competency-based curriculum, current theories on programmatic assessment interacted with educational practice. Methods: In a development study including evaluation, we investigated the implementation of a theory-based programme of assessment. Between April 2011 and May 2012 quantitative evaluation data were collected and used to guide group interviews that explored the experiences of students and clinical supervisors with the assessment programme. We coded the transcripts and emerging topics were organised into a list of lessons learned. Results: The programme mainly focuses on the integration of learning and assessment by motivating and supporting students to seek and accumulate feedback. The assessment instruments were aligned to cover predefined competencies to enable aggregation of information in a structured and meaningful way. Assessments that were designed as formative learning experiences were increasingly perceived as summative by students. Peer feedback was experienced as a valuable method for formative feedback. Social interaction and external guidance seemed to be of crucial importance to scaffold self-directed learning. Aggregating data from individual assessments into a holistic portfolio judgement required expertise and extensive training and supervision of judges. Conclusions: A programme of assessment with low-stakes assessments providing simultaneously formative feedback and input for summative decisions proved not easy to implement. Careful preparation and guidance of the implementation process was crucial. Assessment for learning requires meaningful feedback with each assessment. Special attention should be paid to the quality of feedback at individual assessment moments. Comprehensive attention for faculty development and training for students is essential for the successful implementation of an assessment programme.


About the Book: Identity in the Age of the New Economy is a multi-faceted view of contemporary employment and identity that questions a number of the myths related to the so-called new economy, knowledge society or network society. It argues that one of the most striking things about much contemporary theorizing on work and identity is the epochalist terms in which it is framed: changing forms of identity and subjectivity are assumed to be consequences of a shift to an entirely new economic, social and cultural era, signaled by concepts such as postmodernity, risk society, network society or new economy. The book deviates from the epochalist claim and follows the path of recent years' sociological/social-psychological analyses of identities, presenting detailed empirical studies of relational identities in scattered and temporary work practices. The authors demonstrate how identities are endogenous variables, focus on highly educated contingent employees and direct the analyses from the politics of interests to the politics of identities. Exploring the nexus between identity and the organization of work life, this wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary book will be of great interest to both academics and practitioners in the fields of human resource management, industrial relations and psychology. It will also appeal to those with an interest in organization theory.


The USDA Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) involves removing agricultural land from production and replanting with native vegetation for the purpose of reducing agriculture's impact on the environment. In 2002, part of the Beasley Lake watershed in the Mississippi Delta was enrolled in CRP. In addition, areas between the lake and agricultural row crop (RC) fields were established as vegetative buffers (VB) to provide habitat for wildlife. Although the VB were established to improve wildlife habitat, an additional ecosystem service might include serving as an impediment to runoff from adjacent upland areas. The purpose of the current study was to assess the long-term impact of CRP, VB, and RC land management practices on the soil microbial community as an indicator of soil health. Soil samples were collected at two depths (0 to 5 and 5 to 15 cm [0 to 1.97 and 1.97 to 5.91 in]) from 12 sites within each land management (CRP, VB, and RC) area. Samples were assayed for soil enzyme activities (phosphatase, β-glucosidase, N-acetylglucosaminidase [NAGase], and fluorescein diacetate [FDA] hydrolysis) and microbial biomass. All enzyme activities were significantly higher in CRP and VB than in RC soils in the 0 to 5 cm depth. Microbial biomass in 0 to 5 cm soil was higher in CRP than in VB or RC areas. Significant correlations between microbial biomass carbon (C) and the activities of phosphatase (R2 = 0.514; p < 0.0001), glucosidase (R2 = 0.434; p < 0.0001), and FDA (R2 = 0.371; p < 0.0001) were observed, indicating higher extracellular enzyme activities noted in CRP and VB relative to RC soil may be partially due to a larger soil microbial community, although other factors, such as substrate availability, also appear to play a role. The greater size and activity of microbial communities in CRP and VB indicate they are better equipped to process excess nutrients and pesticides and may be a contributing factor to the effectiveness of these conservation practices in reducing the impact of agricultural runoff on downstream bodies of water.


Agricultural Multifunctionality is the recognition of the joint exercise of eco nomic, environmental and social functions by this sector. In order to make this concept operative to support the design of public policies, it is necessary to es timate the social demand for such functions. The main objective of this article is to present two empirical applications in this line. For this purpose, we have adopted the agricultural system of mountain olive groves in Andalusia (South ern Spain), at risk of abandonment after the decoupling of the EU subsidies, and the agricultural system of cereal steppes in Tierra de Campos (North-west ern Spain). The economic valuation technique used is the Choice Experiment. According to the results, each attribute included in the concept of Multifunc tionality gives a different contribution to the improvement of the utility at so cial level. Thus, and taking into account its willingness to pay (WTP) for each attribute, the obtained results suggest the existence of a significant heteroge neous demand for the different functions depending on the socio-economic characteristics of the individuals surveyed.


BACKGROUND
Liver biopsy indication for the evaluation of alcoholic liver disease is controversial. Our aim was to investigate the influence of the biopsy on the patients' motivation for abstinence.

METHODS
We retrospectively analysed, in a population of 324 patients hospitalized for alcohol withdrawal, the impact of liver biopsy on the following clinical outcomes: rapid loss to follow-up (immediately after hospital discharge), early relapse (< 3 months) and long-lasting abstinence (> 12 months). The biopsy was performed in 136 patients who had liver enzymes perturbations. Hepatic lesions were graded as mild (isolated steatosis and/or non-bridging fibrosis), moderate (bridging fibrosis and/or moderate alcoholic hepatitis) or severe (cirrhosis and/or marked alcoholic hepatitis) in 66 (48%), 41 (30%) and 29 (21%) cases, respectively.

RESULTS
In univariate analysis, patients who had a liver biopsy were less likely to be rapidly lost to follow-up (12% versus 27%, P = 0.003) but had a lower rate of long-term abstinence (20% versus 34%, P = 0.025). In multivariate analysis, age was the only factor significantly associated with clinical outcome: older patients had higher rate of long-term abstinence (OR = 1.041; P = 0.010). Among patients who had a biopsy, those with severe hepatic lesions had a lower rate of rapid relapse than those with moderate or mild lesions (32% versus 68% and 56%, P = 0.018) but the rate of long-term abstinence was similar in the three groups.

CONCLUSION
This observational study does not support the notion that liver biopsy has a significant influence on the maintenance of alcohol abstinence in patients with alcoholic liver disease.


This paper summarises a novel approach to constructing a unified theory of fundamental physics, which I have called 'Time Flow Physics' (TFP). It is shown how this provides a natural model which reproduces essential features and principles of Special Relativity, General Relativity, and quantum mechanics in ordinary limits, while diverging in some extreme limits. The key application to cosmology is also given, and the model predicts a theory of evolving fundamental constants, dependant on the expansion of the universe. TFP ultimately contradicts Lorentz symmetry (or covariance), but the divergence from standard physics such as GTR is only empirically evident in extreme limits. TFP is proposed as a realistic empirical theory, but the emphasis here is on its conceptual features. It raises questions about the fundamental nature of covariance, the space-time ontology, simultaneity relations, the reality of metaphysical time flow, and the possibility of a theory of evolving constants. The problem of combining TFP with quantum measurement theory is one of the key difficulties, and this and other issues are briefly discussed at the end of the paper.


A realistic model of multi-agent planning must allow us to formalize notions which are absent in classical planning, such as communication and knowledge.We investigate multi-agent planning based on a simple logic of knowledge that is grounded on the visibility of propositional variables. Using such a formal logic allows us to prove the existence of a plan given the description of the individual actions. We present an encoding of multi-agent planning problems expressed in this logic into the classical planning language PDDL. The solvability of a planning task is reduced to a model checking problem in a dynamic extension of our logic, proving its complexity. Feeding the resulting problem into a PDDL planner provides a provably correct plan for the original multi-agent planning problem. We apply our method on several examples such as the gossip problem.


Improvements to the microcavity hollow cathode source are reported. These include a lower breakdown voltage and a larger operating range of fill-gas pressures of argon, helium, and mixtures of each. Data showing the effect of size, shape, and materials (copper and stainless steel) of the cathodes and anodes on the breakdown voltage are presented. The minimum discharge current required for the discharge to enter the cathode cavity is profoundly affected by the size of the cathode cavity.


Nowadays, the demand for better and reliable products is high, whereas the time between the idea of a product and the production decreases. This is especially the case for products containing electronics, which are part of our everyday. Because electronic products are submitted to all kinds of environments, especially corrosive environments, the demand for adapted corrosion testing methods assuring their well functioning after years of use is needed. Such methods have to give a realistic picture of the damages that are encountered in reality, but they also have to give a fast response. In this project, a well proven corrosion testing method (ISO 21207 Method B) combining humidity cycling with conditioning followed by drying as well as exposure to corrosive substances like sulphur dioxide, nitric oxide and salts, was modified in order to increase even further the acceleration factor of the corrosion attacks. The modification, including a larger weekly dose of corrosive gases and salts, was tested on reference panels of pure metals (copper, zinc, carbon steel, aluminium and stainless steel) and a selection of tests objects from the car and electronic industries. The corrosion damages on the objects tested with the modified corrosion testing method showed good agreement with damages observed after exposure to real environments. Moreover, the method could be used to verify the tightness of seals of encapsulated test objects, by the insertion of coupons and thin threads of copper. However, the acceleration factor of the modified method was only slightly higher than the acceleration factor of the original corrosion testing method. Technical Group: Characterisation of Materials ISSN: 0283-7234 Language: English Pages: 17 p.


A History of Christian-Muslim Relations, by Hugh Goddard. Chicago, IL: New Amsterdam Books, 2001. xi + 198 pages. Bibl. to p. 200. Index to p. 212. $28.95 cloth; $16.95 paper. This book presents a reasonably detailed and well written survey of Christian-Muslim relations from the earliest period to the present time. Drawing on the best scholarship in this area, it should be valuable both to readers who are new to the topic and to those who are more familiar with it and wish a convenient overview or an aid to fill in gaps in their knowledge. It complements two earlier works by the author, Christians and Muslims: From Double Standards to Mutual Understanding (Curzon, 1995) and Muslim Perceptions of Christianity (Grey Seal,1996), particularly the former, which provides a comparative history of Christian and Muslim thinking but does not focus on the interactions. The first of the eight chapters deals with Christian thinking about other religions before the coming of Islam. The second and third chapters discuss early Islam and its attitude toward Christians, Christian reactions to Islam, and Muslim treatment of Christians during the first two centuries of Islam. Chapters four and five cover the Medieval period, including the dialogues and debates that took place between the Muslims and the Byzantines and between Muslims and Christians within the `Abbasid Empire; the conversion of Christians under Muslim rule to Islam; the Western Christian response to Islam including the Crusades; and the transmission of knowledge from the Muslim world to the West. The last three chapters deal with the modern period, particularly Western Christian missions to the Muslim world and some of the Muslim responses, the development of Western academic study of Islam and comparable contemporary Muslim thinking about Christianity, and the efforts at formal dialogue in recent decades. Throughout there are good capsule sketches of key figures, from St. John of Damascus in the eighth century to 20th-century figures such as Louis Massignon. This is an eminently fair and balanced study. The author consistently seeks to present sympathetically the various ideas and activities under discussion and to help the reader make sense of them in their context. He also consistently stresses the diversity of views and attitudes on both sides. While some medieval Westerners, for example, warred against Muslims in the Crusades, others took a more reasoned approach. …


A way to model systems with abruptly changing dynamics is suggested. The parameters of the system are described as realizations of a finite-state Markov chain. It is further discussed how to perform recursive parameter identification for this type of system. A crucial part in the identification algorithm is to estimate the present state of the Markov chain. The effects of some typical rules to do this estimation are examined. Also a procedure which reduces the need for a priori information is given.


The correlates of indices of long-term ambulatory heart rate variability (HRV) of the autonomic nervous system have not been completely understood. In this study, we evaluated conventional HRV indices, obtained from the daytime (12:00–18:00) Holter recording, and a recently proposed non-Gaussianity index (λ; Kiyono et al., 2008) in 12 patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA) and 10 patients with Parkinson disease (PD), known to have varying degrees of cardiac vagal and sympathetic dysfunction. Compared with the age-matched healthy control group, the MSA patients showed significantly decreased HRV, most probably reflecting impaired vagal heart rate control, but the PD patients did not show such reduced variability. In both MSA and PD patients, the low-to-high frequency (LF/HF) ratio and the short-term fractal exponent α1, suggested to reflect the sympathovagal balance, were significantly decreased, as observed in congestive heart failure (CHF) patients with sympathetic overdrive. In contrast, the analysis of the non-Gaussianity index λ showed that a marked increase in intermittent and non-Gaussian HRV observed in the CHF patients was not observed in the MSA and PD patients with sympathetic dysfunction. These findings provide additional evidence for the relation between the non-Gaussian intermittency of HRV and increased sympathetic activity.


This thesis examines the political relations between England and the Iberian Peninsula, from the accession of Henry II of England to the death of Alfonso X of Leon-Castile, an episode in diplomatic history that remains largely unexplored. This period, spanning over a century and a half, was punctuated by a series of key political events. The study of these sheds light upon the diplomatic complexities of the period. Chapter One explores the historiography and the particularities of Spanish documentary sources. Chapter Two analyses the use of the word Hispania in thirteenth-century chronicles and charters, in an attempt to discover how the term was used and to whom it referred. Chapters Three examines the close relations between the crown of Aragon and the vicomte of Bearn in the twelfth century, while the
following chapter looks at the unification of Catalonia and Aragon and the implications of the marriage between Eleanor of England and Alfonso VIII of Castile. Chapter Five explores the impact of Richard I and John's alliances with Navarre. As Leon-Castile consolidated is power in the Peninsula, there was a shift of alliances, reflected on Anglo-Iberian relations. Chapter Six explores the particular circumstances that brought about the treaty of 1254 between Henry III of England and Alfonso X of Castile. No study of the political relations of the period would be complete without examination of the impact of the imperial controversy and interregnum upon relations between Henry III of England (the brother of a claimant) and Alfonso X of Castile (a claimant in his own right). Finally, Chapter Eight studies the failed marriage of the infante Sancho of Castile and Gilhelme (Willemina), the
younger daughter of the vicomte of Bearn, Gaston VII. This involved negotiations between Edward I of England, Philip III of France and Alfonso X of Castile.


Within influenza viral particles, the intricate balance between host cell binding and sialic acid receptor destruction is carefully maintained by the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) glycoproteins, respectively. A major outstanding question in influenza biology is the function of a secondary sialic acid binding site on the NA enzyme. Through a series of Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations of the avian N1, human pandemic N2, and currently circulating pandemic (H1)N1 enzymes, we have probed the role of this secondary sialic acid binding site in the avian N1 subtype. Our results suggest that electrostatic interactions at the secondary and primary sites in avian NA may play a key role in the recognition process of the sialic acid receptors and catalytic efficiency of NA. This secondary site appears to facilitate the formation of complexes with the NA protein and the sialic acid receptors, as well as provide HA activity to a lesser extent. Moreover, this site is able to steer inhibitor binding as well, albeit with reduced capacity in N1, and may have potential implications for drug resistance or optimal inhibitor design. Although the secondary sialic acid binding site has previously been shown to be nonconserved in swine NA strains, our investigations of the currently circulating pandemic H1N1 strain of swine origin appears to have retained some of the key features of the secondary sialic acid binding site. Our results indicate possible lowered HA activity for this secondary sialic acid site, which may be an important event in the emergence of the current pandemic strain.


1. Diets containing 45% joules as fat, 45% joules as carbohydrate and 10% joules as calcium caseinate were given for 5 days to ten men and seven women. The fats used were sunflower seed oil or cream, and the carbohydrates were either glucose and fructose, glucose and raw starch or fructose and raw starch. 2. Sunflower seed oil in the diet resulted, after 5 days, in a significant fall in the concentration of triglyceride, cholesterol and phospholipid in the serum taken from subjects fasted for 12 h irrespective of the carbohydrate mixture of the diet. 3. Although there were changes in serum lipid concentrations in relation to the different mixtures of carbohydrate they were much less than those seen after ingesting sunflower seed oil. 4. Men and women differed in their response to carbohydrates, but this distinction was not seen in response to dietary fats.


Interactive tabletops offer a unique opportunity for exploring home videos and photos. Nevertheless, there are still a number of unexplored challenges for effectively providing support for collocated group interaction around media. This paper reports on a user study involving 24 users, intended to better understanding the challenges ahead. Our volunteers (in couples) evaluated our media sharing application prototype, providing valuable feedback with regards to three key challenges: metaphor, digital ecosystem, and level of control. First, users appreciated the selected metaphor of physical photos, but without relinquishing software support, such as alignment and distribution of media items. Second, vertical auxiliary screens helped in supporting a bigger number of users and providing more comfort and a better viewing angle and stance. Third, the nature of the task (either storytelling or random exploration) had a strong influence on the control capabilities to be provided by the application. Fourth, personal spaces within the tabletop were useful for allowing independent navigation. We consider these results as relevant for the future developments of home media sharing applications for the living room.


Technology has made the world a smaller and more integrated world for investors and firms seeking capital through public offerings. Investors and issuers across the globe now invest and raise capital in foreign markets through international portfolio investment. Indeed, there is an accelerating pace of such transnational investing and offerings. An important component of these developments are the scope of mandatory disclosure requirements that issuers must satisfy to list their securities for trading or to conduct their offerings in a country.Under the current system of securities law, issuers need to comply with the disclosure requirements prescribed by the regulations of the country in which it proposes to make the share offerings. The rapid growth in international portfolio investment and globalization has forced us reexamine the fundamental premise of regulation: the territorially based scope of national securities laws. The benefits of cross-border share offerings have triggered the search for an alternative system of securities law, which would encourage the growth cross-border portfolio investments.There are three different approaches that have been promulgated by researchers namely, multinational/trans-national regulations approach, multiple disclosure standards approach and uniform minimum disclosure approach. Recently, there have been a few instances of practical applications of these approaches, the most noteworthy of which are the single European market plan and the IOSCO proposal. This article attempts to bring forth the salient features of these two attempts; and in conclusion it is hoped that other nations are inspired from these two examples and aspire to establish a uniform disclosure norm for public share offering across the globe.


Elizabethan foreign policy was very much the policy of Queen Elizabeth l herself. It was not foreplanned, envisaged whole in advance. It was built up out of her responses to questions and problems posed by her relations with neighboring and, in the case of France and Spain, far more powerful countries. The responses, inspired by consistent instincts and opinions concerning her own country's true interests, grew into a coherent policy.


Working with stories of children's relationships with place and technologies from an early childhood education pedagogical inquiry research project in Melbourne, Australia and Victoria, Canada, this article takes up the concept of "pedagogical intentions" to consider how educators and researchers might cultivate intentional teaching practices relevant to the complex worlds we inherit with children. We think with a common worlds pedagogies approach to extend conceptualizations of intentional teaching held in dominant Euro-Western early learning frameworks in Melbourne and Victoria. After situating our understanding of pedagogical intentionality as an ongoing, purposeful, answerable practice of shaping and caring with everyday pedagogical relationships, we share three stories of how we activate our Donna Haraway–inspired intentions with children. By questioning how our pedagogical intentions inform our work, we assert that sharing and putting at risk our intentions is a necessary practice for thinking collectively with children, more-than-human others, and technologies within early childhood education.


Background Prevalence studies show that 13%–42% of patients admitted to specialist palliative care inpatient units have delirium. Symptoms of delirium are often subtle and easily missed, or misdiagnosed as fatigue or depression, and so the use of a screening tool could improve early identification and management of delirium and lead to improved outcomes. Patients admitted to hospices are often frail and tired, therefore a quick and easy-to-use method of cognitive assessment is essential. Methods A quality improvement (QI) approach (PDSA: Plan, Do, Study, Act) was used to improve screening for delirium on admission to a hospice unit. A baseline measure was taken of the rate of performance of cognitive assessment on admission. Five PDSA cycles were then undertaken which involved implementing change and then evaluating results through auditing case notes and interviewing staff. Results The first cycle determined staff preference between two cognitive assessment methods: the Short Confusion Assessment Method and the four 'A's Test (4AT). Two further PDSA cycles embedded the 4AT (the preferred tool) into the admission process, establishing it as a usable tool in the hospice setting for up to 92% of admissions. A subsequent cycle showing poor sustainability prompted staff education and changes to admission documentation, resulting in an increase in cognitive assessment being performed, from 50% to 76%. Conclusion The 4AT is a usable tool in the hospice inpatient setting to assess patients' cognitive state on admission and can easily be incorporated into the admission process. The QI approach highlighted the need to link staff awareness of their use of the screening tool with perceived improvements in the treatment of delirium, which prompted the creation and implementation of a 'Delirium Checklist'. Some initial lack of sustainability was addressed by staff education and changes to the admission paperwork to ensure compliance with the use of the 4AT and sustained improvement in screening for cognitive impairment.


will appear on the journal's web site only) We consider the problem of lower bounds for the canonical height on elliptic curves, aiming for the conjecture of Lehmer. Our main result is an explicit version of a theorem of Laurent (who proved this conjecture for elliptic curves with CM up to an ε exponent) using arithmetic intersection, emphasizing the dependence on parameters linked to the elliptic curve; if GRH holds, then our lower bound for the canonical height of a non-torsion point only depends on the relative degree of the point, and on the degree of the base field of its elliptic curve. We also provide explicit estimates for the Faltings height of an elliptic curve with CM, thanks to an explicit version of Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions, in some sense.


The possible alterations in the pharmacokinetics and protein binding behavior of the beta-lactam antibiotic cefazolin (CEZ) were investigated in endotoxemic rats induced by Klebsiella pneumoniae O3 lipopolysaccharide (LPS). LPS (250 micrograms/kg of body weight) was infused for 20 to 30 min 2 h before an intravenous administration of CEZ (20 mg/kg). Significant decreases in systemic clearance and renal clearance of CEZ were observed in LPS-treated rats without any changes in fraction of urinary excretion in unchanged CEZ (> 0.8). The volume of distribution at steady state showed a tendency to increase. The protein binding parameters of CEZ, the binding capacity, and number of binding sites on the albumin molecule were decreased by LPS, whereas the dissociation constant did not change. Significant decreases in systemic and renal clearances for unbound CEZ were observed in LPS-treated rats. The glomerular filtration rate estimated as inulin clearance was also decreased by LPS. The ratio of renal clearance of unbound CEZ to glomerular filtration rate (clearance ratio) dropped to 70% of that in control rats, and the net tubular secretion of CEZ was also dramatically reduced. The present study suggests that LPS has an effect on the pharmacokinetics of CEZ by changes which occur in renal handling and protein binding.


This paper introduces QRANE, a tool that produces the affine intermediate representation (IR) from a quantum program expressed in Quantum Assembly language such as OpenQASM. QRANE finds subsets of quantum gates prescribed by the same operation type and linear relationships, and constructs a structured program representation expressed with polyhedral iteration domains and access relations, all while preserving the original semantics of the quantum program. We explore various policies for deciding amongst different delinearization strategies and discuss their effect on the quality of the reconstruction. Our evaluation demonstrates the high coverage and efficiency obtained with QRANE while enabling research on the benefits of affine transformations for large quantum circuits. Specifically, QRANE reconstructs affine iteration domains of up to 6 dimensions and up to 184 points per domain.


The goal of this study was to explore Yek'olo-temari children's perspective on education, mobility, livelihood and social life in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) traditional school. It was conducted based on two months ethnographic fieldwork in Dangila, Ethiopia. Data were collected using interview, participant observation, focus group discussions and field notes from children who are at the age of 15 and below in addition to the lead teacher.The role of the traditional/religious beliefs of their parents and the children themselves had significant contribution for children to enroll in the traditional school of EOC. All of Yek'olotemari children were migrated from the neighboring rural areas of Dangila. The children migrate to Dangila to evade from domestic works which interfere with their study. Moreover, there is less access to the traditional than the modern schools. Yek'olo-temari children have limited contact with their parents because they believe it will interrupt with their daily rehearsal (which is the major learning mechanisms in the school) if they went back to visit them frequently by engaging in different social and domestic work activities.The major livelihood strategies of Yek'olo-temari children were a combination of begging with small poultry entrepreneurship. Beyond subsistence, begging has a traditionally transmitted belief that the children's understanding will be escalated if they beg. Begging food is seen as an activity that instills religious discipline and spiritual development. The daily life of Yek'olo-temari children is dominated by educational activity. The children and the lead teacher, believed that play is less important than education which is considered as a childish activity and a reflection of less maturity. Yek'olo-temari children's social relationships were found out to be horizontal, vertical and institutional social relationships. In the horizontal (peer) relationship, sharing and cooperation characterized their friendship after it is initiated by social networking. In the vertical relationships, interdependence was manifested in the children's social relationships with the older students and Yeneta (lead teacher). Yeneta has the role of social fatherhood beyond the teacher-student relationships. In the institutional relationships, while the church/school offered free education, the children gave different services for the church/school at least once a week. Moreover, their role in perpetuating the tradition for the next generation made the church/school significantly dependent on the children. In this way, the study revealed that Yek'olo-temari children and the church/school were socially interdependent and their lives contrast the dominant model of childhood as work-free, playful phase of life course.


Tribological transitions are frequent when two new surfaces are placed in contact under load and sliding conditions. These transitions usually occur not only by the changes on the surface roughness, but also by the characteristics of the third body formed between the mating surfaces. The present work investigates the tribological behavior and the related airborne particles emissions of a Cu-free brake friction material during the initial stage of braking (bedding), starting from a virgin material. The tribo-tests have been conducted using a reduced-scale dynamometer, and the number distribution of the airborne particles was simultaneously measured by an Optical Particle Sizer (OPS). The tests were stopped with 25, 50, 100 and 130 brake events in order to analyze the surface of the friction material. Bedding showed two distinct stages regarding the friction and emissions behaviors. The first is characterized by a pronounced increase in both friction coefficient and particles emissions, achieving the highest value around 35 brake events. Successively, a smooth decrease is observed until reach the steady-stage of the friction coefficient. The friction layer formed on the surface of friction material seems to be correlated with the tribological and emissions results; in which the achievement of the state-state on the friction coefficient is coincident with the progressive compaction and area-increase of the secondary plateaus.


Abstract Development Banks are part of the financial landscape of the Eastern Caribbean. In one form or another they have been in existence since the late 1960s and have played a not too insignificant role in the financing of small and medium size enterprises in the economies.[1] Development Banks emerged in the Eastern Caribbean as a post-colonial financial institution with an emphasis on agricultural development. Indeed, related pre-development bank financial institutions were referred to as Agricultural Development Banks. In the case of Grenada there was initially the Grenada Agricultural Bank, which evolved into the Grenada Agricultural and Industrial Development Corporation which finally gave way to the Grenada Development Bank. Similarly, the St. Lucia Development Bank was preceded by the Agricultural and Industrial Bank, the Housing Development Bank and the Further Education Loan Fund. Despite such a history not much has been done by way of an analysis of these institutions. This is not to say that no analyses have been done on the Development Banks. However, it would appear that analyses conducted on the Development Banks were primarily for internal institutional use and/or for the use of fund providers of the Development Bank. Most of the analyses done were therefore not always in the public domain. Hopefully, this study would make its way to a wider audience than those before. This study will examine the St. Lucia Development Bank and the Grenada Development Bank. In an attempt to place the examination of the Development Banks in some context, the examination will begin with a discussion of the origins of development banking in general. It will then proceed to look specifically at the emergence of development banking in St. Lucia and Grenada. Discussions of some stylize facts related to the St. Lucia Development Bank and the Grenada Development Bank will be undertaken. Here, the statutory basis of the Development Banks, their mandate, ownership, and sources of funds, among others will be discussed. The study will then move on to discuss the structure of the Banks which will be followed by an examination of their governance and the nature of government control./p> Three other crucial issues will be addressed. The instruments and associated policies of the Development Banks will be looked at. This will be followed by an analysis of the performance of the Development Banks. The study will then close with some suggestions as to possible new directions for the Development Banks. While the study is restricted to the St. Lucia Development Bank and the Grenada Development Bank the suggested new direction could have some applicability to the rest of the Eastern Caribbean. Indeed, some suggested new directions may require approaches which may have to transcend the individual countries. This is more so in a context where the Eastern Caribbean share, in some sense, a common financial space; and there is the stated policy objective of deepening the integration process in the Eastern Caribbean. The conduct of the study encountered some limitation with respect to data. Data for Identical periodic dates were not available for both Development Banks; with a shorter period for the Grenada Development Bank relative to the St. Lucia Development Bank. Accounting data from the annual accounts of the Development Banks were not always identical and over the different periods accounting formats and standards were evidently changed. Thus, some amount of data mining had to be done. In addition, in 2001 the St. Lucia Development Bank merged with the then National Commercial Bank of St. Lucia to form the National Bank of St. Lucia. The St. Lucia development Bank as was known before the merger became a division, the division of development banking, of the National Bank of St. Lucia. There would therefore be some shortcomings in the analysis presented.


We show that the well-known translation invariant ground states and the recently
 discovered kink and antikink ground states are the complete set of pure infinite-volume
 ground states (in the sense of local stability) of the spin-S ferromagnetic XXZ chains with
 Hamiltonian H=-sum_x [ S^1_x S^1_{x+1} + S^2_x S^2_{x+1} + Delta S^3_x S^3_{x+1} ], for all
 Delta >1, and all S=1/2,1,3/2,.... For the isotropic model (Delta =1) we show that all
 ground states are translation invariant. For the proof of these statements we propose a
 strategy for demonstrating completeness of the list of the pure infinite-volume ground
 states of a quantum many-body system, of which the present results for the XXX and XXZ
 chains can be seen as an example. The result for Delta>1 can also be proved by an easy
 extension to general $S$ of the method used in [T. Matsui, Lett. Math. Phys. 37 (1996) 397]
 for the spin-1/2 ferromagnetic XXZ chain with $\Delta>1$. However, our proof is
 different and does not rely on the existence of a spectral gap. In particular, it also
 works to prove absence of non-translationally invariant ground states for the isotropic
 chains (Delta=1), which have a gapless excitation spectrum. Our results show that, while
 any small amount of the anisotropy is enough to stabilize the domain walls against the
 quantum fluctuations, no boundary condition exists that would stabilize a domain wall in
 the isotropic model (Delta=1).


We propose a novel Active Learning framework capable to train effectively a convolutional neural network for semantic segmentation of medical imaging, with a limited amount of training labeled data. Our contribution is a practical Cost-Effective Active Learning approach using dropout at test time as Monte Carlo sampling to model the pixel-wise uncertainty and to analyze the image information to improve the training performance. The source code of this project is available at this https URL .


Data about managerial positions and applicants were collected in an attempt to draw conclusions about the extent to which gender and ethnicity relate to the outcomes of the search anc screen process for middle and senior management positions in academic libraries, and to determine any effects of affirmative action on promotion from within. Information was gathered by analyzing 238 advertisements from 157 institutions for management positions from all 1990 issues of the "College and Research Libraries News." Respondents from 104 of the schools (representing 157 positions) provided information about the gender and ethnic composition of the applicant pool, the candidates interviewed, the person finally selected, the gender and ethnicity of previous supervisors, and the status of 79 acting managers in relation to the hiring process. Only 40% of the acting managers applied for the positions they were temporarily filling, and of these, slightly more the 50% were hired. White women who were acting managers made the greatest gains. Of the 2,848 applicants for the advertised positions, 1,525 were male and 1,438 were female. Ethnicity could be determined for 1,883 applicants, and of these 143 were from categories defined as diverse; half of the diverse population was Asian. The gender and ethnicity of candidates finally selected for management positions closely resembled those of their predecessors, and there was no evidence that affirmative action had any significant impact on hiring. Although minority applicants did apply in greater numbers to ads with strong affirmative action statements, schools placing these ads didn't hire any more minority applicants than those that did not. Only 33 of 143 culturally diverse persons were interviewed for a position, which leads to the conclusion that librarianship has not given priority to hiring the culturally diverse. (Contains 15 references.) (KRN) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educattonat Research 2'10 IrnOrOvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER tERIDI This document has Deer, reproduced as received from inn person or organizatiOo Originating d Minor changes have Deer, mace to tmgrove reoroguctton gtrafity Points or new Or OchhiOnS Stated in Ohs 000u. went do not heCeSSaroy reOreSeht ort.c.m OERI gositton or tooficv AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: OPPORTUNITY OR OBSTACLE


SUMMARY Red foxes and raccoon dogs are hosts for a wide range of parasites including important zoonotic helminths. The raccoon dog has recently invaded into Europe from the east. The contribution of this exotic species to the epidemiology of parasitic diseases, particularly parasitic zoonoses is unknown. The helminth fauna and the abundance of helminth infections were determined in 310 carcasses of hunted red foxes and 99 of raccoon dogs from Lithuania. Both species were highly infected with Alaria alata (94·8% and 96·5% respectively) and Trichinella spp. (46·6% and 29·3%). High and significantly different prevalences in foxes and raccoon dogs were found for Eucoleus aerophilus (97·1% and 30·2% respectively), Crenosoma vulpis (53·8% and 15·1%), Capillaria plica (93·3% and 11·3%), C. putorii (29·4% and 51·5%), Toxocara canis (40·5% and 17·6%) and Uncinaria stenocephala (76·9% and 98·8%). The prevalences of the rodent-transmitted cestodes Echinococcus multilocularis, Taenia polyacantha, T. crassiceps and Mesocestoides spp. were significantly higher in foxes than in raccoon dogs. The abundances of E. multilocularis, Mesocestoides, Taenia, C. plica and E. aerophilus were higher in foxes than those in raccoon dogs. A. alata, U. stenocephala, C. putorii and Echinostomatidae had higher abundances in raccoon dogs. The difference in prevalence and abundance of helminths in both animals may reflect differences in host ecology and susceptibility. The data are consistent with red foxes playing a more important role than raccoon dogs in the transmission of E. multilocularis in Lithuania.


Multi-view classification (MVC) generally focuses on improving classification accuracy by using information from different views, typically integrating them into a unified comprehensive representation for downstream tasks. However, it is also crucial to dynamically assess the quality of a view for different samples in order to provide reliable uncertainty estimations, which indicate whether predictions can be trusted. To this end, we propose a novel multi-view classification method, termed trusted multi-view classification, which provides a new paradigm for multi-view learning by dynamically integrating different views at an evidence level. The algorithm jointly utilizes multiple views to promote both classification reliability and robustness by integrating evidence from each view. To achieve this, the Dirichlet distribution is used to model the distribution of the class probabilities, parameterized with evidence from different views and integrated with the Dempster-Shafer theory. The unified learning framework induces accurate uncertainty and accordingly endows the model with both reliability and robustness for out-of-distribution samples. Extensive experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed model in accuracy, reliability and robustness.


People are on the verge of an era in which the human experience can be enriched in ways they couldn't have imagined two decades ago. Rather than depending on a single technology, people progressed with several whose semantics-empowered convergence and integration will enable us to capture, understand, and reapply human knowledge and intellect. Such capabilities will consequently elevate our technological ability to deal with the abstractions, concepts, and actions that characterize human experiences. This will herald computing for human experience (CHE). The CHE vision is built on a suite of technologies that serves, assists, and cooperates with humans to nondestructively and unobtrusively complement and enrich normal activities, with minimal explicit concern or effort on the humans' part. CHE will anticipate when to gather and apply relevant knowledge and intelligence. It will enable human experiences that are intertwined with the physical, conceptual, and experiential worlds (emotions, sentiments, and so on), rather than immerse humans in cyber worlds for a specific task. Instead of focusing on humans interacting with a technology or system, CHE will feature technology-rich human surroundings that often initiate interactions. Interaction will be more sophisticated and seamless compared to today's precursors such as automotive accident-avoidance systems. Many components of and ideas associated with the CHE vision have been around for a while. Here, the author discuss some of the most important tipping points that he believe will make CHE a reality within a decade.


The goal of this research was to compare the results of students working in formal, structured groups, which I called teams, with other students in previous sections of the same class who did not work in teams. The students working in teams were surveyed to determine their level of comfort when working in groups as well as to determine the specific drawbacks and benefits of group work from past experiences. Next students scheduled time outside of the class to work as a team and these teams stayed the same throughout the semester with a few exceptions. I completed a checklist of desired behaviors during each of the lab sessions of the class as well as during group work exercises. I did this to gather specific information on student behavior during formal class time as well as informal, non-required meeting times. I interviewed students upon completion of the treatment to summarize their thoughts and feelings. The survey was administered again the end of the semester to determine if student perceptions and behaviors concerning group work changed. Finally, assessment scores were compared to determine if there were gains in student retention of course material between students in the class this semester versus students in previous sections of the class. There were two main differences between the two groups of students. The students working in teams worked through more material than the previous group of students. The students working in teams were also much more willing to rely on their peers as opposed to coming to the instructor for help.


The differential cross section for isolated-photon production in pp collisions is measured at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1. The differential cross section is presented as a function of the photon transverse energy in different regions of photon pseudorapidity. The differential cross section as a function of the absolute value of the photon pseudorapidity is also presented in different regions of photon transverse energy. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations from Jetphox and Sherpa as well as next-to-next-to-leading-order QCD calculations from Nnlojet are compared with the measurement, using several parameterisations of the proton parton distribution functions. The predictions provide a good description of the data within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties.


In the parliamentary environment, the discursive practice of addressing is subject to socio-cultural constraints. On the one hand, one may identify the social significance of the institution where MPs work; on the other hand, the MPs of a country share a set of cultural expectations, which are closely related to social and communicative activities. On the websites of some national Parliaments, such as New Zealand or the United Kingdom, there is a section presenting the particular ritual of addressing to the members of this institution. Such information is not recorded in writing on the website of the Chamber of Deputies of the Romanian Parliament. In this paper, I will analyse forms of address as they are used by members of the Romanian Parliament and identify a recurrent pattern of addressing in the interventions during parliamentary sessions. I will mainly focus on forms of address and will suggest a typology for an institutional discursive practice.


Clifford Butler was born in Earley, Reading, on 20 May 1922 to Charles and Olive Butler. An only child, he went to Reading School in 1932, having won a Berkshire County Council Educational Scholarship worth £15 per year. In addition to his academic work he was active in the Scouts and was a House Prefect (East House). Leaving school he went to Reading University to take physics, as did Kathleen Collins, whom he was to marry in 1947. Graduating in 1942 with a first–class BSc (Special) he stayed on as a demonstrator, his National Service taking the form of teaching radio as part of the State scheme to produce radar physicists, and acted part–time as a physicist at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Kathleen went to work at the Road Research Laboratory. Butler found time, largely in the evenings, to undertake research for a PhD in electronic diffraction in the laboratory of Professor J.A. Crowther. He worked very closely with his thesis supervisor Dr Tom Rymer and it was there that he started to demonstrate his considerable skills in technical matters. His thesis, 'some factors affecting precise measurement in electron diffraction', was presented in April 1946 and was a detailed study, covering both technical and theoretical aspects, of how to improve the use of Debye–Scherrer electron–diffraction photographs to investigate crystal structure. The research on which it was based initiated four very different papers and led Crowther to predict, immediately after Butler's PhD examination, the latter's Fellowship of The Royal Society.


Drawing on qualitative interview data, this study examines the cultural translation of K-pop in Canada. By focusing on Canadian youth of Asian descent, who are relatively marginalized in the dominant Canadian mediascape yet considered a main segment of K-pop fandom in Canada, the study closely examines how racial and affective affinities of K-pop are translated and negotiated by young fans. In the study, young Asian Canadian fans challenged the racial stereotyping of K-pop as the other of dominant Western pop culture by positively redefining racial meanings attached to K-pop. Meanwhile, they affectively identified with K-pop idols via the extensive use of social media, and thus internalize a particular mode of subjectivity through which individuals willingly seek the model of a self-developing, entrepreneurial self.


In this thesis, results are presented and discussed on the synthesis and
characterisation of polypyrrole (PPy) doped with various anionic drugs. The drugs,
which were small to medium‐large in size, included the aqueous soluble
dexamethasone 21‐phosphate disodium (NaDex) and valproic acid sodium
(NaVPA) salts, and the less soluble diclofenac sodium (NaDF) salt. Two other
drugs, indomethacin sodium (NaIndo) and sulindac sodium (NaSul) with very
imited solubility in aqueous solution, were chosen.
r
l
The incorporation of dexamethasone (Dex2‐) and diclofenac anions (DF‐) within the
PPy membrane was achieved by a potentiostatic mode of growth from an aqueous
solution of pyrrole and the drug under investigation. For the PPy doped with Dex2‐,
characterisation and release studies found the doping level of the polymer to be
about 0.30, and approximately 31 μmol cm‐2 of Dex2‐ was incorporated into the
polymer upon polymerisation. Furthermore, it was observed that the rate of
release could be controlled by the potential applied with approximately 89 % of
the Dex2‐ released within 60 min at an applied potential of – 0.900 V vs SCE.
For the PPy doped with DF‐, unusual patterns in growth and morphology were
observed. During the deposition of the polymer, the rate of polymerisation
decreased with increasing time and higher applied potentials. The polymer had
features of an insulating film, as evident from electrochemical impedance
measurements, while SEM confirmed the presence of crystal‐like shards on the
surface of the polymer. These findings suggest that insoluble drug crystals are
formed during polymerisation. DF‐ displays a limited solubility in aqueous
solutions and during the oxidation of the monomer and drop of pH at the surface,
the equilibrium is shifted from the soluble DF‐ towards the insoluble HDF causing
insoluble crystals of the drug to deposit on the surface of the polymer, which
hinders further polymerisation.
The incorporation of two insoluble medium sized drugs, NaIndo and NaSul, into
the PPy film was also investigated. Deposition of PPy doped with either of the
drugs in question was carried out in ethanol and tetrabutylammonium perchlorate
(TBAP) was added to increase the conductivity. It was found that the PPy films
formed in this organic medium were not as conducting as those formed in the
aqueous solution, and doping levels were considerably lower than those
previously reported for PPy. The addition of the TBAP introduces the small and
mobile, ClO4‐, anion which is well known to dope PPy. UV‐visible spectroscopy was
used to calculate that approximately 2.19 x 10‐6 mol cm‐2 of ClO4‐ was present in
the polymer. However, this is quite minute compared to the estimated amount of
drug doped within the polymer; 260 μmol cm‐2 and 60 μmol cm‐2 of Indo‐ and Sul‐,
respectively. As seen with the other polymers the rate of release was controlled by
the applied potential.
Finally, the formation of PPy doped with a small soluble anionic drug, VPA‐, was
studied. Although this was the smallest of all the drugs studied, it was not possible
to incorporate this drug into the PPy membrane electrochemically. This was
explained in terms of the solubility of the anion at low pH values. At pH values
below 5.6 the equilibrium of the VPA‐ is shifted towards the insoluble HVPA. As the
monomer is oxidised, there is a decrease in the local pH in the vicinity of the
electrode and this causes the HVPA to precipitate from solution. This, in turn,
prevents any PPy from being deposited at the electrode. Vapour phase
polymerisation is offered as an alternative approach to immobilise this drug into
the PPy film.


Today social media has become the primary source for news. Via social media platforms, fake news travel at unprecedented speeds, reach global audiences and put users and communities at great risk. Therefore, it is extremely important to detect fake news as early as possible. Recently, deep learning based approaches have shown improved performance in fake news detection. However, the training of such models requires a large amount of labeled data, but manual annotation is time-consuming and expensive. Moreover, due to the dynamic nature of news, annotated samples may become outdated quickly and cannot represent the news articles on newly emerged events. Therefore, how to obtain fresh and high-quality labeled samples is the major challenge in employing deep learning models for fake news detection. In order to tackle this challenge, we propose a reinforced weakly-supervised fake news detection framework, i.e., WeFEND, which can leverage users' reports as weak supervision to enlarge the amount of training data for fake news detection. The proposed framework consists of three main components: the annotator, the reinforced selector and the fake news detector. The annotator can automatically assign weak labels for unlabeled news based on users' reports. The reinforced selector using reinforcement learning techniques chooses high-quality samples from the weakly labeled data and filters out those low-quality ones that may degrade the detector's prediction performance. The fake news detector aims to identify fake news based on the news content. We tested the proposed framework on a large collection of news articles published via WeChat official accounts and associated user reports. Extensive experiments on this dataset show that the proposed WeFEND model achieves the best performance compared with the state-of-the-art methods.


The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between leadership styles of the director and commitment level of the subordinate in Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor. The styles of leadership studied are transformational and transactional. The study was also to find out if there were any differences in commitment level based on the leadership style of their directors. Besides, the study also to find out if, there were any differences in leadership styles and commitment level based on the demographical characteristics of subordinates i.e gender, categories of age, job level and level of education. A total of 373 subordinate were chosen by simple random sampling and participated in the study The Multifactor Leadership Questionaire (MLQ) was used to measure the leadership style of the directors while An Organizational Commitment Questionaire (OCQ) was used to measure the level of commitment of the subordinate. These two psychometric tools were tested for their relevanve and reliability. The collected data was analyzed by using the t-test, One Way ANOVA and Pearson Correlation and the resulting data were further analyzed using the descriptive statistics and the inferential statistics. The findings of this stuf shows that there is a significant relationship between leadership styles of a director and the level of commitment of subordinates. Based on each dimensions, the result shows charismatic leadership has a high positive significant compared to the other components i.e individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, contingent reward and management-by-exception with the level of commitment of subordinates. The findings also show that there are no significant between leadership styles and levels of commitment of subordinates based on their demographic characteristics.


Significance We have elucidated the transmission pathways of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in the three epicenters. Our results show that the airborne transmission route is highly virulent and dominant for the spread of COVID-19. The mitigation measures are discernable from the trends of the pandemic. Our analysis reveals that the difference with and without mandated face covering represents the determinant in shaping the trends of the pandemic. This protective measure significantly reduces the number of infections. Other mitigation measures, such as social distancing implemented in the United States, are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public. Our work also highlights the necessity that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics. Various mitigation measures have been implemented to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, including widely adopted social distancing and mandated face covering. However, assessing the effectiveness of those intervention practices hinges on the understanding of virus transmission, which remains uncertain. Here we show that airborne transmission is highly virulent and represents the dominant route to spread the disease. By analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in Wuhan, China, Italy, and New York City, from January 23 to May 9, 2020, we illustrate that the impacts of mitigation measures are discernable from the trends of the pandemic. Our analysis reveals that the difference with and without mandated face covering represents the determinant in shaping the pandemic trends in the three epicenters. This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9. Other mitigation measures, such as social distancing implemented in the United States, are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public. We conclude that wearing of face masks in public corresponds to the most effective means to prevent interhuman transmission, and this inexpensive practice, in conjunction with simultaneous social distancing, quarantine, and contact tracing, represents the most likely fighting opportunity to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Our work also highlights the fact that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics.


Wide-aperture seismic reflection profiling of the northern Barbados Ridge accretionary complex at 16°12′N has imaged the decollement horizon across more than 100 km of the accretionary complex revealing prominent changes in the amplitude of the decollement reflection. Synthetic seismograms from models of the variation of velocity and density with depth were compared with selected seismic traces between 2.5 km seaward of the toe of the accretionary complex and 20 km landward of the toe to determine the changes in velocity-density properties along the decollement thrust zone. Modeling requires a thin, low-velocity layer to develop landward along the decollement beneath the complex, while no such layer exists at the corresponding stratigraphic boundary in the undeformed sediments seaward of the complex. Two-dimensional modeling that incorporated lateral variations in topography, velocity, and density was performed on a 7-km section of the decollement 20 km landward of the deformation front. The best fitting model includes a 20-m-thick low-velocity layer at the decollement horizon with a relative velocity decrease in the layer of 0.2 km/s. Changes in the reflection amplitude along this 7-km section could be produced by either a change in the velocity anomaly within the layer or a thinning of the decollement layer to less than 4 m. The shape of the reflected wavelet from the decollement indicates that the principal cause of the amplitude variation is a change in the velocity contrast rather than a change in thickness. The low-velocity layer can be explained by a decollement shear zone that has high porosity maintained by elevated pore fluid pressure. High fracture permeability within the decollement permits dewatering of sediment attached to the oceanic crust and thrust beneath the accretionary complex.


We study the problem of inferring heterogeneous treatment effects from time-to-event data. While both the related problems of (i) estimating treatment effects for binary or continuous outcomes and (ii) predicting survival outcomes have been well studied in the recent machine learning literature, their combination -- albeit of high practical relevance -- has received considerably less attention. With the ultimate goal of reliably estimating the effects of treatments on instantaneous risk and survival probabilities, we focus on the problem of learning (discrete-time) treatment-specific conditional hazard functions. We find that unique challenges arise in this context due to a variety of covariate shift issues that go beyond a mere combination of well-studied confounding and censoring biases. We theoretically analyse their effects by adapting recent generalization bounds from domain adaptation and treatment effect estimation to our setting and discuss implications for model design. We use the resulting insights to propose a novel deep learning method for treatment-specific hazard estimation based on balancing representations. We investigate performance across a range of experimental settings and empirically confirm that our method outperforms baselines by addressing covariate shifts from various sources.


The construction industry produces 25 to 30 % of greenhouse gases and consumes 40 % of globally required energy. The construction industry and buildings contribute significantly to the climate change. Also the buildings are the cornerstone to the public space and affect its quality. One of the approaches to reduce greenhouse gas production (especially carbon dioxide) is the construction and operation of buildings according to the principles of sustainability. Houses are mostly not certified (environmental certification programs as LEED or BREEAM) because it is uneconomical to certify. However, the houses can fulfill sustainable construction aspects like using natural or recycled materials, design of energy efficient buildings, using alternative energy sources, connection to public transport, etc. The influence of using basic sustainable principles and quality of public space as an important part of sustainability to a price was tested through a database. The database consists of 98 samples of houses sold over the year 2017 in Brno - venkov district. Significant price settings factors were identified. Due to the number of variables, testing by multivariate regression analysis was performed on submodels, individual variables could be correctly identified. Tested database confirmed basic price setting factors for houses, such as the technical condition of the house, distance from the city of Brno, as well as the useable area of the house and the factor of liquidity. The influence of sustainable principles like using renewable energy, low energy demand, solar panels for hot water or photovoltaic panels was rejected. Some kind of sustainable principle was detected at 10 % of samples. Material base, especially using natural materials like timber, was not found as a price setting factor. One of the submodels was focused on the social part of the sustainability given to the location and public space. The possibility of using public transportation or car park close to the house was not confirmed as price setting factors affecting the price. Also the danger of flooding, index of criminality and noise level were considered and were rejected as price affecting. This paper presents results aimed at exploring the importance of the basic aspects of sustainable construction and quality of public space on the price of houses in the database of 98 houses in Brno - venkov district, Czech Republic.


Background and Purpose: Over the past years, the role of fungi as a cause of nosocomial infections in hospitalized patients has been accentuated. Candida species constitute an important group of fungi causing diseases in immunocompromised patients. Oropharyngeal candidiasis continues to be a prevalent infection in immunodeficient patients. In this study, we aimed to determine the incidence of oropharyngeal candidiasis in children with lymphohematopoietic malignancies. Materials and Methods: In total, 102 patients with lymphohematopoietic malignancies and 50 healthy controls were examined in terms of Candida infections via direct sampling of the oropharyngeal cavity. Fresh smears were prepared with 10% potassium hydroxide and Gram staining was carried out. Subsequently, the obtained specimens were cultured on Sabouraud dextrose agar for further analysis. Results: The most common Candida species were Candida albicans (31%), other non-C. albicans species (14.7%), C. glabrata (6.8%), and C. krusei (0.98%) in the case group, while in the control group, other non-C. albicans species (10%) and C. albicans (8%) were the most common species. Conclusion: In the present study, Candida species were the most common fungal pathogens in pediatric cancer patients; therefore, efforts should be made to prevent fungemia and fungal pneumonia. Also, non-C. albicans species must be considered as a new risk factor for pediatric cancer patients.


In game semantics and related approaches to programming language semantics, programs are modelled by interaction dialogues. Such models have recently been used in the design of new compilation methods, e.g. for hardware synthesis or for programming with sublinear space. This paper relates such semantically motivated non-standard compilation methods to more standard techniques in the compilation of functional programming languages, namely continuation passing and defunctionalization. We first show for the linear {\lambda}-calculus that interpretation in a model of computation by interaction can be described as a call-by-name CPS-translation followed by a defunctionalization procedure that takes into account control-flow information. We then establish a relation between these two compilation methods for the simply-typed {\lambda}-calculus and end by considering recursion.


Many of the diseases affecting the cardiovascular system include a variety of disorders and conditions that are related in part to the haemodynamics, as well as genetic predisposition and biochemistry amongst others. With respect to the haemodynamics, the commonly sought factors are near-wall mechanical properties including wall shear stress (and derived parameters) and transport phenomena, such as mixing and mass transport. These factors are susceptible to large variations amongst individuals, and in order to perform accurate clinical evaluation careful interpretation of patient specific information is required. Taking an example of a configuration of the aorto-illiac bifurcation, we examine the effects of image filtering and contrast enhancement on the reconstructed geometry and the resulting computed haemodynamics. The algorithms used to quantify the processed images are based on pixel intensity variance, peak signal-to-noise ratio and segmentation. In this study we focus on the effects of uncertainty in clinically acquired medical images to the variability in the reconstructed vessel geometry, and the subsequent error propagation to the computed haemodynamics with emphasis on factors related to diseased states.


Forecasting the groundwater level (GWL) of an aquifer is one of the most important tasks in hydrogeology. Such forecasts prove vital to develop better exploitation strategies of water resources and to carry up-to-date groundwater monitoring. In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN)-based approach, which was based on linear regression model, is presented to simulate and predict both temporal and spatial GWL. The novelty of the proposed ANN model lies in the use of a non-linear model toward the input variables and a linear one toward the coefficients. The proposed approach was applied to the Middle Miocene aquifer groundwater (MMAGW) of Hajeb Elyoun Jelma (HJ) multilayered hydro-system, central Tunisia. The investigation was based on a limited database set of 22 wells during the period between 1994 and 2010. The design of the appropriate ANN model over third-order linear regression model and the reverse GWL prediction were assisted by the neuro software. Then, an iterative water exploitation strategy for the period 2011 to 2013, was performed based on this GWL spatiotemporal ANN model and through various three-dimensional piezometric maps performed by kriging method. Promising results were found for forecasting and monitoring MMAGW in HJ basin.


This paper serves as a basic for further discussion about the role of communication research in the context of various extension and development systems of countries in the ASEAN region. As indicated earlier, the backdrop of this discussion is that of rural and countryside development.

Necessarily, the paper will cover aspects about the role of communication research, a general description of the research extension receiver continuum and the linking relationships between them. The paper will then move on to discuss the important role that communication research is expected to play for these interphases in an effort to facilitate the viable linkages between them. In so doing, the various problems since faced and the challenges that communication research has to address will be deduced. The paper further dwells into the emergent needs and considerations and finally draws some tentative conclusions.


Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an immune-mediated disorder characterized by a reduced platelet count and patients may develop bruising or mucosal bleeding. Since 2003, generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures have been applied and ITP-specific measures developed, alongside trials of novel therapeutic agents. These have identified significant morbidity in patients with ITP, including fatigue, fear of bleeding and a negative impact on role, social and work activities. This review critically evaluates HRQoL data in adults and children with ITP. It also considers the impact of treatment and how patient-reported outcomes might be applied to care to optimize patients' quality of life.