Background: Student support is a critical factor that colleges and universities must consider when determining whether to add a football team to the athletic program. The student body is a large population that may attend games, purchase merchandise, attend athletic social events, tailgates, pep rallies, and homecoming, and join student oriented athletic fan clubs. Understanding the level of student support is important for prospective football programs. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of current students on beginning a college football program. Methods: Current college students at a public university in the southeastern United States completed online surveys concerning perceptions towards the athletics program at their university and whether they would support a college football program being added to their university's athletics program. There were 833 usable surveys returned. Results: The results showed that those who have attended past athletic events at the university and those who have played organized sports are more likely to attend football games, other athletic events, and to purchase merchandise at the university. Approximately 3⁄4 of those surveyed had a positive likelihood to attend football and other athletic events, to purchase merchandise, and to engage in those activities surrounding the football team such as tailgates, fan clubs, etc. Discussion: Universities can use these results to analyze their own schools to determine student support for the athletics program. Past behavior (attendance to games) and ii identification with the team are significant variables that can be used to evaluate the support of the student body.


Copyright law's default settings inhibit sharing and adaptation of creative works even though new digital technologies greatly enhance individuals' capacity to engage in creative conversation. Creative Commons licenses enable a form of conversational copyright through which creators share their works, primarily over the Internet, while asserting some limitation on user's right with respect to works in the licensed commons. More specifically, this chapter explains the problems in copyright law to which Creative Commons licenses respond, the methods chosen, and why the machine-readable and public aspects of the licenses are specific examples of a more general phenomenon in digital copyright law that will grow in importance in the coming years.


This research aims to ascertain the professional knowledge and the skills/attributes that are considered important by external auditors for a graduate who intends to be an auditor. For this purpose, we conducted a survey on external auditors in Turkey. The research has two dimensions: skills dimension (twenty one items) and professional knowledge dimension (twenty four items). The results indicated that all skills except "knowledge of accounting software" are perceived to be important or very important for the auditing profession. Among the most important skills that graduates are expected to possess are ethics, teamwork, and honesty. The results also demonstrated that some courses are perceived to be extremely necessary, e.g. Auditing, Microsoft Office Programs, Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards, Financial Statement Analysis, Financial Accounting, Capital Market Board Regulations, Cost Accounting, and Managerial Accounting. In addition, cross analyses indicated that there are significant differences among subgroups based on gender, education, auditing firm, experience, and job title.


In this paper, we have analyzed the effect of the foliage on the radio wave propagation using the space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algorithm. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the directional characteristics of dispersion caused by trees in the radio channel. A wideband channel sounder was employed to perform measurements of polarimetric signals through dense foliage in the rural areas in Kanagawa. The analysis results show that the azimuth direction spread for horizontal (H) polarization is always more than that of vertical (V) polarization, and the opposite is true in the case of the co-elevation direction spread. The mean azimuth direction spread was found to be about 25° and the mean co-elevation direction spread was about 6°.


Background: Melasma is a chronic skin problem that causes dark, discolored patches on the skin and therefore can have adverse effects on quality of life. Recently, a novel complex was shown to decrease melasma. Specifically, the goal of the study was to prove that the formula can reduce melasma, overall hyperpigmentation and nontransient erythema.
Objectives: The primary efficacy outcome measure was a minimum of 50% improvement of the modified melasma area and severity index (mMASI) score from the baseline at the 90 day follow-up visit. Secondary outcomes were overall hyperpigmentation score collection and analyses, patient's self-assessment regarding their non-transient erythema score when evaluated across the whole patient population at the baseline and at 90 days and the analyses of adverse events.
Methods: Forty subjects with Fitzpatrick skin types III-V were enrolled in the double-blinded, randomized, placebo controlled trial: 20 were treated over 90 days with the oral supplement and 20 received a placebo over 90 days. Subjects were assessed at onset and re-assessed at 60 and 90 days by the Modified Melasma Area and Severity Index (mMASI), photographic documentation, hyperpigmentation tool, erythema index and client satisfaction. Subjects used the product or a placebo (in tablet form) orally once a day.
Results: At 90 days, the modified melasma area and severity index score (mMASI) improved by more than 50% in 75% of cases (p<0.001), thus indicating treatment efficacy. There was a greater decrease in mMASI for the supplement group vs placebo (-3.28 for the active arm vs. -0.73 for the placebo arm, p<0.001). Furthermore, at the 90-day follow-up visit, the overall hyperpigmentation and non-transient erythema scores (p<0.001) improved significantly: by 55% and 38%, respectively. Results obtained from patients showed overall satisfaction with the therapy course and results. The product was well tolerated, with no reports of adverse events or side effects.
Conclusion: Consistent, statistically significant reductions in melasma, as measured by mMASI scores, overall hyperpigmentation and non-transient erythema scores were achieved while meeting patient expectations at the 90 day follow-up evaluation point when compared to placebo. Results from this clinical trial suggest that this oral supplement is an effective treatment for melasma and may provide an alternative treatment for overall hyperpigmentation and non-transient erythema, while meeting expectations of patients. The product was well tolerated, with no reports of adverse events or side effects.


When they asserted that our postmodern society has reached the "end of history," theorists Fredric Jameson, Jean Baudrillard, and Francis Fukuyama launched a compelling debate that has persisted for over a decade. They argue that we no longer believe in teleological metanarratives, that our concept of history has become spatial or flattened out, and that we inhabit a perpetual present in which images of the past are merely recycled with no understanding of their original context. In short, they think that postmodern culture has lost a sense of historical consciousness, of cause and effect. Jameson, in particular, sees literary postmodernism as a by-product of this new worldview. Such a controversial stance has, of course, provoked numerous antagonists to speak out. Linda Hutcheon, for example, has written two studies of "historiographic metafiction," suggesting that much of postmodern fiction is still strongly invested in history, but more importantly in revising our sense of what history means and can accomplish. My project is to examine how Toni Morrison's acclaimed historical novel Beloved (1987) enacts a hybrid vision of history and time that sheds new light on issues addressed by Jameson and Hutcheon in their theories of the postmodern - topics such as the "fictionality" of history, the blurring of past and present, and the questioning of grand historical metanarratives. I argue that while the novel exhibits a postmodern skepticism of sweeping historical narratives, of "Truth," and of Marxist teleological notions of time as diachronic, it also retains an African American and modernist political commitment to the crucial importance of deep cultural memory, of keeping the past alive in order to construct a better future. Morrison's mediations between these two theoretical and political camps - between postmodernism and African American social protest - enable her to draw the best from both and make us question the more extremist voices asserting that our postmodern world is bereft of history. Since the term postmodern has been at the center of many highly charged cultural debates, I am aware that describing Beloved as such, even as a "hybrid" postmodern novel, is a gesture that might draw criticism. Clearly, the novel's status as part of the African American tradition of social protest, and Morrison's investments in agency, presence, and the resurrection of authentic history, seem to make the novel incompatible with poststructuralist ideas at the root of postmodernism. Morrison herself has spoken out against a postmodernism that she associates with Jameson's terms. In my view, however, Morrison's treatment of history bears some similarity to Hutcheon's postmodern "historiographic metafiction," but her relationship to this discourse is affected by her aim to write "black-topic" texts. Morrison acknowledges that history is always fictional, always a representation, yet she is also committed to the project of recording African American history in order to heal her readers. Instead of a playful exercise in deconstructing history, Morrison's Beloved attempts to affect the contemporary world of the "real." While the novel should not simply be assimilated into the canon of postmodernism, Morrison's work should be recognized as contributing a fresh voice to the debates about postmodern history, a voice that challenges the centrism and elitism of much of postmodern theory. Beloved reminds us that history is not "over" for African Americans, who are still struggling to write the genealogies of their people and to keep a historical consciousness alive. The relationship of African American writers and their work to the discourse of postmodernism has been hotly contested, and there has unfortunately emerged a dichotomy that I would like to question. This relationship has become even more vexed since the Nobel Prize committee bypassed postmodern guru Thomas Pynchon to select Toni Morrison as their 1993 literature winner. …


In this paper, a short simulation activity based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is raised in the context of the Mechanical Engineering Bachelor degree as an effective support to the theoretical lessons, in order to improve the competences of the Fluid-Mechanical course. The activity provides both visual and numerical information that the student must compare critically with respect the results obtained analytically, using the equations explained in the theoretical classroom. The activity is designed so that it can be integrated quickly (due to the shortage of times in the academic calendars). In this manner its total completion does not exceed four hours of simulation class. This is achieved by optimizing the resources, proposing meshing and simulation strategies that consume little computational time and using the package Solidworks® Flow Simulation, that takes advantage of the geometry parametrically modelled with the software itself to automatically establish the computational domain of the fluid for the based-on CFD analysis, saving excessive preparation times and long computational process.


BACKGROUND
With the clinical availability of fluoxetine in the United States, we were interested in documenting improvements in the clinical care of dysthymic patients beyond what was reported from our clinic 2 decades earlier during the "tricyclic (TCA) era."

METHOD
In open treatment of 42 consecutive DSM-III-R primary dysthymic patients who were personally followed up in our mood clinic since 1988, response was defined as sustained remission, i.e., no longer meeting criteria for dysthymia and achieving DSM-III-R Axis V Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score > 70 throughout much of the mean follow-up of 5 years.

RESULTS
Compared to patients with nondysthymic episodic major depressive disorder (N = 42), dysthymic patients had a significantly earlier mean age at onset (12.6 vs. 34 years), were more likely to have never been married, had a greater frequency of superimposed major depressive episodes (except for the 14% [N = 6] with "pure" dysthymia), and had more psychiatric and fewer medical comorbidities; furthermore, patients with dysthymia had significantly greater familial loading of both unipolar and bipolar disorders. Continued treatment with TCA-type antidepressants or fluoxetine (including various augmenting strategies) led to an overall robust and sustained response rate of 76% (N = 32) among dysthymic patients; in tandem, major depressive episodes and suicidality were prevented in all responders. Females treated with fluoxetine had the highest response rate (85% [N = 17]); some were able to walk out of dependent abusive relationships for the first time in their lives. However, dramatic responses with "hyperthymic" switches in temperament occurred in only 12% of dysthymic patients; nearly all were males with bipolar family history. The more prototypic positive change among dysthymic responders consisted of coping with daily hassles without being overwhelmed. Qualitatively, the highest level of adaptive functioning was observed among fluoxetine-treated dysthymics (50% of responders [N = 12] achieved DSM-III-R GAF score of 81-90). Of TCA-treated patients, 39% had intolerable side effects, necessitating switch-over to fluoxetine. Agitation occurred in 11% of fluoxetine-treated patients (N = 4) and was associated with nonresponse and/or dropout; otherwise, this selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor was well tolerated, thereby contributing to long-term compliance. More provocatively, patients with dysthymia who had required extensive psychotherapeutic attention prior to state-of-the-art pharmacotherapy no longer required such therapy.

CONCLUSION
These data extend and enrich what has been learned from controlled trials among dysthymic patients. With sustained pharmacotherapy and specialized clinical care in a private mood clinic, 3 of 4 patients immersed in gloom for much of their lives achieved for the first time good to superior levels of functioning that were maintained for an average of 5 years. Although the art of clinical management of dysthymia should be fully grounded in understanding the interpersonal context of depression, we submit that SSRIs such as fluoxetine appear broadly efficacious in areas previously deemed to be the domain of formal psychotherapy.


We report on the fabrication of a low cost sensing platform which includes printed / electroplated resistive thermometers and capacitive-based humidity sensors working at ultra low power consumption. Both types of devices were integrated on the same polymeric foil substrate. The electrodeposition of metal on the inkjetprinted lines was found to bring several advantages to the devices. For the resistors, we found a linear response of the resistance with a varying temperature range, which included environmental temperatures. This yielded a high temperature coefficient of resistance of (4.27 ± 0.02) 10-3 °C-1. The printed capacitors were coated with a Cellulose Acetate Butyrate layer and humidity sensing has been demonstrated. These results advance the concept of fabrication using only additive processes as well as the idea of, lowcost and flexible sensors for environment monitoring applications.


Background Little is known about patterns of healthcare use by people with depression in Europe. Aims To examine the use and cost of services by adults with depressive or adjustment disorders in five European countries, and predictive factors. Method People aged 18–65 years with depressive or adjustment disorders (n=427) in Ireland, Finland, Norway, Spain and the UK provided information on predisposition (demographics, social support), enablement (country, urban/rural, social function) and need (symptom severity, perceived health status) for services. Outcome measures were self-reported use Client Services Receipt Interview and costs of general practice, generic, psychiatric or social services in the past 6 months. Results Less frequent use was made of generic services in Norway and psychiatric services in the UK. Severity of depression, perceived health status, social functioning and level of social support were significant predictors of use; the number of people able to provide support was positively associated with greater health service use. Conclusions Individual participant factors provided greater explanatory power than national differences in healthcare delivery. The association between social support and service use suggests that interventions may be needed for those who lack social support.


With the rapid increase in users' demand for flexibility and scalability of communication services, broadband communication networks are facing an ongoing challenge of provid ing various broadband services using a single communication architecture. This leads to the evolution of a challenging field of multiservice broadband network architectures. This chapter discusses the basic concepts associated with broadband communication network architectures with emphasis on provision of multiservice, and it also focuses on the evolution of broadband communication networks from the traditional architec - ture to the incorporation of virtualization services, that is, cloud computing. Another important aspect, which relates to the multiservice broadband network, is the "appli - cations" which, as this chapter highlights, are a key-driving factor for the evolution of broadband communication networks. Moreover, this chapter also includes a discussion on New Zealand's government initiatives to provide improved network coverage within the country.


Countries all over the world find sustainability to be a major concern, and India is no exception. The Indian environmental management system today clearly reflects this global concern. Global economic forces have impacted environmental management in India on many fronts, such as pollution control, preservation and promotion of ecology, environmental legislation, multilateral environmental agreements, social pressures and legal actions. Based on the personal and professional experiences of the author in business, government, academia and NGOs, this article traces the path taken by the government in developing environmental policy in India in the process of the country's development and traces how the corporate entities responded to the challenge. It is important to approach these interdependent dimensions of sustainable development with a balanced view of domestic as well as of global aspects. The broad objective of the author is to initiate debate on public environmental policy and corporate environmental management as 'Sustainable Development in India' is the main theme of the 14th Annual International Sustainable Development Research Conference, which is planned in New Delhi in 2008.


Phenomenology of Perception: Theories and Experimental Evidence presents an interpretation of phenomenology as a set of commitments to discover the immanent grammar of perception by reviewing arguments and experimental results that are still important today for psychology and the cognitive sciences.


The aim was to investigate the effects of three anatomical frames using palpable anatomical landmarks of the knee on the net knee joint moments. The femoral epicondyles, femoral condyles, and tibial ridges were used to define the different anatomical frames and the segment end points of the distal femur and proximal tibia, which represent the origin of the tibial coordinate system. Gait data were then collected using the calibrated anatomical system technique (CAST), and the external net knee joint moments in the sagittal, coronal, and transverse planes were calculated based upon the three anatomical frames. Peak knee moments were found to be significantly different in the sagittal plane by approximately 25% (p £ 0.05), but no significant differences were seen in the coronal or transverse planes. Based on these findings it is important to consider the definition of anatomical frames and be aware that the use of numerous anatomical landmarks around the knee can have significant effects on knee joint moments.


The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was originally enacted in 1984 as a criminal statute to address hacking and the growing problem of computer crime. Recently, however, in an attempt to control competition and maintain market share, a number of companies have sought to prevent entities they deem unwelcome from obtaining data on their websites. Utilizing the civil action provisions of the CFAA, these companies have surprisingly succeeded in convincing federal courts that hacking includes accessing and using the factual information a company has chosen to post on a publicly available website. Despite the fact that many of the actions brought by owners of publicly accessible websites may fall within the literal language of the CFAA, such cases were arguably never intended to be covered by the statute. Additionally, by allowing website owners to protect information that is not protectable under copyright law, the CFAA unconstitutionally overrides the delicate balance of rights between authors and the public. Such a sweeping reading of prohibited acts under the CFAA threatens the free flow of information that belongs in the public domain. As a result, the continued openness of the Internet, along with its attendant benefits, is at risk. This Article begins by briefly explaining why the factual information that website owners seek to control is not protectable under copyright law. Next, Part III of this Article examines the history and purpose of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Part IV explores the way in which software robots gather information on the Internet and why companies have tried to limit their use. Part V looks at the elements of a CFAA claim, including the way companies have sought to define unauthorized access under the Act. Part VI discusses the constitutional confines within which Congress can create private property rights in information. Part VI also examines the proprietary rights of publicly accessible website owners and whether such rights should include the right to prohibit software robots from accessing the information contained on their Internet sites or alternatively the servers upon which the websites reside. Part VII suggests language that could be used to amend the CFAA to ensure its constitutionality. Additionally, Part VII reviews and evaluates alternative methods for controlling truly harmful robot behavior.


This article, with its focus on university students as intended recipients and users of technological innovations in education, explores student preferences across three dimensions of technology-enhanced learning: mode of instruction; communication; and educational technology tools embedded in learning and teaching activities. The article draws on results of an exploratory case study, where mixed (quantitative and qualitative) data was collected from a randomized student sample generated through the institutional learning management system. An online survey (N=66) gaged students' engagement with educational technologies, online and blended learning and social media as a learning tool. The findings confirmed previous research arguing that students generally use educational technology in a narrow way, rarely engaging with technological tools, unless it is presented to them as integral to their learning or if they are already familiar with a particular tool and/or perceive it as useful. Despite a well-cited characteristic by proponents of 'digital natives' that students need constant entertainment, this study found no evidence that this was the case.


Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effects of comprehensive nursing intervention on the quality of life and prognosis of patients with smear-positive tuberculosis.
Method: A total of 80 patients with smear-positive tuberculosis who were previously admitted to our hospital over the period of from January 2015 to October 2015 were recruited and randomly divided into the control and experimental groups. The control group received conventional nursing intervention, whereas the experimental group received comprehensive nursing intervention. The effects of nursing intervention on the quality of life and prognosis of the patients in the two groups were compared.
Results: The mini-mental state examination scores (28.92 ± 6.04), mental function scores (65.8 ± 9.2), and social function scores (57.2 ± 6.5) of the patients in the experimental group were significantly higher (P<0.05) than those of the patients in the control group. However, the activities of daily living scores (38.04 ± 3.02) of the experimental group was significantly lower than that of the control group (P<0.05). After nursing intervention, the experimental group had significantly better arterial blood gases indexes, including PaO2 (72.39 ± 2.72), PaCO2 (36.23 ± 3.85), and SpO2 (94.36 ± 3.28), than the control group. The incidence of complications and recurrence rate of the experimental group are 7.5% and 10%, respectively, and are significantly lower (P<0.05) than those of the control group (17.5% and 15%; P<0.05).
Conclusions: Comprehensive nursing intervention provides an ideal treatment effect to patients with smear-positive tuberculosis. It can improve the living quality and prognosis of patients and is thus worthy of wide application.


The paper attempts to explicate and evaluate the major time-periods of 'city planning–urban sociology' development in the XX century Russia. Basing on interdisciplinary, contextual and activist methods the author presents this evolution as nonlinear interaction of such actors as science, state institutions, professional-civic organizations and urban milieu as such. On the ground of long-term research made by the author following time-periods have been revealed: 1900–20, 1921–41, 1941–53, 1954–75, 1970-mid-1980, 1985–99, and early 2000s. This periodization is conditioned by social order changes, institutional transformations, generational shift, access to resources, and impact of national and global context. Recent trends are as follows. First, a social and infrastructural potential of cities is intensively exploited. Second, globalization turns a citizen into 'user', taxpayer and voter. Third, virtualization of urban life reduces socialization potential of cities. Fourth, a majority of young citizens are oriented on acquiring wellbeing 'here and now.' Fifth, professional level of cities is going down under pressure of newcomers (migrants, refugees, etc.). Sixth, space-social differentiation and separation of cities is growing. Seventh, Russian cities are under influx of temporary population. Eighth, urban environment becomes more risky as a result of undetected metabolism processes. Ninth, urban planning shrinks and becomes business-oriented. Tenth, former neighborhoods practice is replaced by gated communities in accord with economic or/and social status of their inhabitants.


Reverse Engineering (RE) is a technique that uses different approaches to obtain characteristic data of a physical object for which no drawings, documentations or computer models are available. This paper presents an experimental approach of reverse engineering for reconstructing the spur gears. 3D CAD model is made using digital image processing (DIP). Gears have been scanned using a single digital camera. The digitized data of spur gears was collected and processed using MATLAB package with Digital image processing (DIP) technique. It is worth mentioning that the accuracy of the modeling process of given piece depends on the number of points that are captured on the work piece surface. This proposed method is the best tool used in reverse engineering because it is faster and more accurate than the method used the coordinate measurement machines (CMMs). To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method a comparison is made using image processing between the first data of spur gears and the data from the manufactured gears. The obtained results indicated that the proposed digital image processing system is an accurate and reliable reverse engineering for reproducing Spur gears using inexpensive equipment.


This paper presents a personal account of a teacher who has responsibility for the coordination of pupils with special educational needs. In this paper she has been referred to as Sally. Sally teaches in a school in England with a significantly high proportion of pupils with special educational needs. The account demonstrates how current measures of school effectiveness in England have disadvantaged a small school which has an outstanding local reputation for inclusion. This has led to increased levels of surveillance for the teachers who have chosen to work in this school, whilst other local schools enjoy the benefits of having good reputations. The paper raises questions about whether inclusion is too much of a risk for schools given that they operate within a climate of performativity. Additionally, it raises questions about whether current measures of school effectiveness are fair on those schools with more diverse populations.


Trade liberalization with Asian countries is a key issue on the agenda of Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union's (EAEU) economic and trade connectivity with the Asia-Pacific region (APR). However, the signing of free trade agreements (FTAs) has traditionally been negatively perceived in both Russia and EAEU partner countries because of the extremely conservative prevailing trade policy. This study simulated the situation of full liberalization of Russian trade in goods with Rep. of Korea (here and after: Korea), Singapore, India, Japan and China to assess the risks of such agreements. The countries were selected on the basis of the current negotiating tracks of the EAEU and the analysis of Russian foreign trade with the APR countries. The simulation was performed using a partial equilibrium model built with the SMART software provided by the World Integrated Trade Solution.The article highlights key product groups, increases in imports of which can be expected with a complete abolition of import duties by Russia (taking into account sensitive tariff lines). In addition, the authors conclude that in this case, imports of Indian and Korean products will increase by approximately 7.5%, and imports from Japan and Singapore, respectively, by 7% and 6.5% of the cost of imports from these countries in 2016. The simulation showed an 8% increase in imports from China, which in absolute terms exceeds the current level of trade with India and Singapore combined. This confirms the low probability of starting the FTA negotiations with China in short and medium term.The article was supported by Russian Science Foundation Grant No 17-18-01577 "Developing the Community of Greater Eurasia and Strategy of Russia's Bilateral Partnership with Countries of the Region".


Background: Currently there are about 430.000 people diagnosed with cancer living in the Netherlands. The challenges that partners face after a cancer diagnosis, can lead to severe psychological afflictions. The mental health of the partners of the patients can be improved with adequate psychological interventions that take the wishes and demands of the target group into account. Current interventions are limited and generally more focused on the patient instead of the caretaking partner. The University of Twente is therefore planning to develop an online intervention together with KWF Cancer Fund. In order to make the intervention fit as good as possible to the needs of the partners, it is developed based on user-centred-design, a method that puts the needs of the target group in focus from the get go. The purpose of this initiative is to help the family of cancer patients to cope with the consequences of cancer. The intervention already offers texts and exercises based on recent research, expert knowledge and a prior qualitative study. The research aims to measure whether these texts and exercises satisfy the needs of the target group.
Method: The research included semi structured interviews with three partners of cancer patients and one professional. The patients were in different stages of the disease. The first patient's prognosis was hopeful, the second one was cured and the third had succumbed. The professional participating in the research was experienced in giving psychological aid. The participants were given three weeks to read the book 'My partner has cancer' and rate the exercises and texts with help of the plus-min-method and an assessment form. Afterwards a semi-structured interview was conducted. The transcriptions of these interviews were analysed later on.
Results: The sentiments towards the intervention were generally positive. The content of the intervention was considered valuable and evoked recognition of the respondents. Also the length of the intervention was perceived as good. The themes that take on the intervention and the accompanying exercises were deemed appropriate and helpful. The respondents did, however wonder whether the intervention was targeted for the partners of all SES. There was some doubt here. In general two types of suggestions were given. The first one included suggestions to improve the existing content, whereas the second one brought new idea's to the table. The most important suggestion in the category of improving the content was adding age categories. Components that should be added according to the respondents were subjects relating to finances, information about the medical world, dealing with children, the juridical side and sexuality.
Conclusion: This study shows that the online intervention "My partner has cancer" seems to succeed in lining up with the needs of the high educated, middle aged partners. The study also shows that the intervention can create recognition for the partners of people suffering from cancer. There is uncertainty about the effectiveness in the elderly, low educated or immigrants demographic in the Netherlands. This could be tested in a follow up research.


Abstract There have been few studies of the food-storing behaviour of short-term scatter-hoarding birds in relation to differences in ambient temperature. In this study we examined the patterns of caching behaviour of 13 male South Island Robins (Petroica australis australis) in relation to the time of day and ambient temperature. We predicted that cold conditions would cause a stress-induced increase in caching behaviour in birds. We also predicted that birds would cache the greatest number of food items (mealworms) in the morning and that the numbers of items cached would decline throughout the day. We found that there was a negative relationship between the numbers of mealworms cached and temperature and that the numbers of mealworms that birds cached throughout the day declined. Finally, we also found that there was a positive relationship between the total number of mealworms that birds cached and their daily gains in mass. This study shows that at low temperatures, energy is more valuable to birds when stored internally than it is for other caching species as other taxa (e.g. parids) increase caching as temperature decreases. Our results also support theoretical models of avian caching behaviour, which show that birds should reduce the absolute number of food items they cache throughout the day as they prepare for their nightly fasts.


Trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 (T13‐18) are associated with high rates of perinatal death and with severe disability among survivors. Prenatal diagnosis (PND) may lead many women to terminate their pregnancy but some women choose to continue their pregnancy. We sent 503 invitations to answer a questionnaire to parents who belong to T13 and 18 internet support groups. Using mixed methods, we asked parents about their prenatal experience, their hopes, the life of their affected child, and their family experience. 332 parents answered questions about 272 children; 128 experienced PND. These parents, despite feeling pressure to terminate (61%) and being told that their baby would likely die before birth (94%), chose to continue the pregnancy. Their reasons included: moral beliefs (68%), child‐centered reasons (64%), religious beliefs (48%), parent‐centered reasons (28%), and practical reasons (6%). At the time of the diagnosis, most of these parents (80%) hoped to meet their child alive. By the time of birth, 25% chose a plan of full interventions. A choice of interventions at birth was associated with fewer major anomalies (P < 0.05). Parents describe "Special" healthcare providers as those who gave balanced and personalized information, respected their choice, and provided support. Parents make decisions to continue a pregnancy and choose a plan of care for their child according to their beliefs and their child's specific medical condition, respectively. Insights from parents' perspective can better enable healthcare providers to counsel and support families. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Surgical resection of solid tumors is currently the gold standard and preferred therapeutic strategy for cancer. Chemotherapy drugs also make a significant contribution by inhibiting the rapid growth of tumor cells and these two approaches are often combined to enhance treatment efficacy. However, surgery and chemotherapy inevitably lead to severe side effects and high systemic toxicity, which in turn results in poor prognosis. Precision medicine has promoted the development of treatment modalities that are developed to specifically target and kill tumor cells. Advances in in vivo medical imaging for visualizing tumor lesions can aid diagnosis, facilitate surgical resection, investigate therapeutic efficacy, and improve prognosis. In particular, the modality of fluorescence imaging has high specificity and sensitivity and has been utilized for medical imaging. Therefore, there are great opportunities for chemists and physicians to conceive, synthesize, and exploit new chemical probes that can image tumors and release chemotherapy drugs in vivo. This review focuses on small molecular ligand-targeted fluorescent imaging probes and fluorescent theranostics, including their design strategies and applications in clinical tumor treatment. The progress in chemical probes described here suggests that fluorescence imaging is a vital and rapidly developing field for interventional surgical imaging, as well as tumor diagnosis and therapy.


We investigate the properties of the interaction of a particle with a boson field describing the response of a solid in the limit in which the interaction matrix elements may be considered as quasiclassical and the particle-boson coupling linear but not necessarily weak. We start by expressing the evolution operator of the system in a convenient form of an exponentiated nested commutator expansion in powers of the interaction potential. From this we are able to estimate under which conditions on the particle motion the contributions of the higher order expansion terms become small, irrespective of the coupling strength. Neglecting such small terms in the exponent of the evolution operator, we can calculate the energy excitation spectrum characteristic of the coupled system or of any of its constituents (particle or boson field). These spectra have the appearance of an exponentiated Born approximation (EBA) which contains and interpolates smoothly between the more frequently used distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) and the trajectory approximation (TA), thereby covering a wide range of the parameter space for the description of the particle-boson interaction dynamics. The shape of the spectra and their characteristics (the weight of the elastic line or the Debye-Waller factor (DWF), the mean number of excited bosons, and the mean energy transfer in the course of the interaction) are discussed and shown to be very sensitive to the (non)adiabaticity of the switching of the interaction and the magnitude of the particle mass M. In the case of nonadiabatic switching on (as e.g. in photoemission) and linear bosonic density of states, we retrieve in the limit M→∞ the familiar infrared threshold divergences in the spectrum of the system. In the opposite case of adiabatic switching rates typical of scattering, the spectra exhibit a well-defined elastic line and a finite DWF. The case of surface scattering is discussed in more detail for the example of neutral atom scattering from dispersionless surface phonons in atomic adlayers.


Few studies have reported on the long-term prognosis of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-negative renal vasculitis. Between April 2003 and December 2013, 48 patients were diagnosed with renal vasculitis. Their ANCA status was tested using indirect immunofluorescence and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. During a median (interquartile range) follow-up duration of 933.5 (257.5–2,079.0) days, 41.7% of patients progressed to end stage renal disease (ESRD) and 43.8% died from any cause. Of 48 patients, 6 and 42 were ANCA-negative and positive, respectively. The rate of ESRD within 3 months was higher in ANCA-negative patients than in ANCA-positive patients (P = 0.038). In Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, ANCA-negative patients showed shorter renal survival than did ANCA-positive patients (log-rank P = 0.033). In univariate Cox-proportional hazard regression analysis, ANCA-negative patients showed increased risk of ESRD, with a hazard ratio 3.190 (95% confidence interval, 1.028–9.895, P = 0.045). However, the effect of ANCA status on renal survival was not statistically significant in multivariate analysis. Finally, ANCA status did not significantly affect patient survival. In conclusion, long-term patient and renal survival of ANCA-negative renal vasculitis patients did not differ from those of ANCA-positive renal vasculitis patients. Therefore, different treatment strategy depending on ANCA status might be unnecessary.


Background: Stunting has dire consequences for children's health in the short term which can decrease cognitive, motor and verbal abilities, increase morbidity and even mortality. Nutrition intervention is absolutely necessary in efforts to reduce and prevent stunting. Purpose this study is to identify nutrition interventions in handling and preventing stunting in Asia.  Methods: This search was conducted from September to October 2019, through various databases including PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL. Article inclusion criteria: randomized controlled trial, retrospective, observational study, case study, review, systematc review, and meta-analysis. Results: The review results show that in Asia there were 8 specific nutrition programs and 9 sensitive nutrition programs. Conclusion: Interventions for sensitive and specific nutrition programs have been shown to reduce the incidence of stunting and address the long-term effects of stunting in various countries in Asia, but the programming and implementation can be arranged according to country needs and conditions.


This study explores the attitudes of students towards gender based discrimination in punishment at schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.A case study of selected districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was carried out in districts Peshawar and Mardan with the purpose of eliciting the students" perception on violence/punishment. The study intends to find reasons of school violence through its perpetrators, in light of its manifestations on the basis of gender, ethnicity and class, by looking into the methodologies owned by the schools and suggesting policy recommendations. A sample size of 522 respondents was randomly selected on proportional allocation basis from Grade 10 students. Frequency and percentage distribution along with Chi-square test was carried out at uni-variate and bi-variate levels. Through this study five major issues are addressed to clear the image of students" perception of gender based violence/discriminations in punishments at school. These five indicators determining the variable includes students" economic status, sexual orientation, physical appearance, body or beauty or age, nature of school, and personal relationship with authorities or access to power. Results of the study are provided along with conclusions at the end.


Background. Drug poisoning is a frequent problem in emergency services. Rapid decision making in toxicological assessment is very important especially in acute poisoning. Since their limited experience, non-toxicologist physician in emergency services usually needs extra information, i.e. decision support tools, to manage acute situation. Reasoning systems could be go either in a known intoxication to give physicians better advice about drugs ingested or in an unknown intoxication to identify products according to clinical manifestations. The aim of this study is to provide a user driven, flexible, scalable and easy to use computer-based decision support system for toxicological assessment.
Methods. Our system offers access to the information available in clinical toxicology. Towards this goal, decision making could be used either to refer to a predefined structured database obtained from relevant reports from the textbook, namely predefined system -default-, or to carry out a part of medical reasoning which could be defined by user, namely user defined structure. This system was developed by using Microsoft Visual Basic programing language and Access is the database management system. The system mainly based on answering predefined or user created questions, i.e. what is the heart rate of the patients, to determine drugs affecting cardiovascular system. It is easy to maintain the whole stucture of the system even if some questions could also be inserted to in any of the others anytime. Advices to an assessment question or a group of related questions could be defined as a decision making purpose. In addition, answers to question could be exported as a report file which very useful for either clinican or for laboratory staff and it also could be exported as a database file for statistical evaluation and future considerations.
Results. Preliminary evaluations upon our toxicological assessment system promising and it offers higher clinical success and higher user satisfaction. It is easy to use and easy to maintain. It enables continous improvement in the knowledge of clinical toxicology and to transfer it from experienced staff to non-toxicologist pyhsician. Further evaluation will be conducted to clarify the effectiveness of the system.
Conclusion. We have developed a versatile, user driven, flexible, scalable, easy to use and easy to maintain toxicological assessment system which promises higher user satisfaction and higher clinical effectiveness. Since it enables user driven usage, our developed decision making tool could be easily adopted to other medical area


This paper analyses the gaming experiences of Finnish online gamblers and Finnish Facebook gamers. It compares the similarities and differences between different game types and social interaction connected with them. The focus is on the social learning processes of online gaming. Both Facebook gamers (18 interviewees selected based on the questionnaire data of 134 respondents) and online gamblers (16 interviewees selected based on the questionnaire data of 409 respondents) have similar gaming careers. New games are learned based on the examples of other members in players' social networks. Playing continues if players identify with the games they start to play. If the games benefit their identity play, eventually gam(bl)ing becomes part of players' everyday life.


Waters of Mt. Etna are the main source of drinking water for the local population and are also distributed in municipal supply systems to neighbouring areas. Radioactivity in underground waters and surrounding rocks from the eastern flank of Mt.Etnawas investigated on the basis of 9 water and 8 rocks samples from 12 localities altogether. Three samples were from water drainage galleries and six from water wells. All water intakes are used for consumption. Activity concentration of uranium isotopes 234,238 U, radium isotopes 226,228 Ra and radon 222 Rn were determined with the use different nuclear spectrometry techniques. The determination of uranium isotopes was carried out with the use of alpha spectrometry. The measurements of radium and radon activity concentration in water were performed with the use of a liquid scintillation technique. Additionally, rocks surrounding the intakes were examined with gamma spectrometry. All water samples showed uranium concentration above Minimum Detectable Activity (MDA), with the highest total uranium ( 234 U + 238 U) activity concentration equal to 149.2±6 mBq/L. Conversely, all samples showed radium isotopes activity concentrations below MDA. Radon activity concentration was within the range from 2.91±0.36 to 21.21±1.10 Bq/L, hence these waters can be classified as low – radon waters. Gamma natural background of the rocks surrounding the water sampling sites was found on the same levels as other volcanic rocks of Italy.


Many recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other low-income individuals find or keep jobs for a while, but far fewer remain steadily employed and advance in the labor market. The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project was launched in 1999 to identify and determine the effectiveness of different program strategies designed to promote employment stability and earnings growth among current or former welfare recipients and other low-income individuals. The study was conceived and funded by the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; supplemental support was provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, and the evaluation was conducted by MDRC.Using random assignment research designs, ERA tested 16 different program models in eight states and estimated effects over a three- to four-year follow-up period. The focus of this synthesis is primarily on the 12 programs that targeted more employable groups, as opposed to harder-to-employ groups, such as individuals with known disabilities. Three of these 12 programs produced consistent increases in individuals' employment retention and advancement, and the others did not. The project points to some strategies that succeeded in improving retention and earnings among low-income single parents and provides some lessons. Key ones include: Supporting employment stability is likely to be a more effective strategy than encouraging job stability — that is, staying employed in the same job. Earnings supplements, tied to job retention and that help to make low-wage work pay, ideally coupled with job coaching, can promote sustained employment and advancement. By themselves, counseling and referrals to services to help people stay employed do not appear to increase employment retention and advancement.Although the ERA project found that some strategies can improve low-income individuals' employment and earnings, the improvements were not transformational. The majority of the programs tested did not improve participants' retention and advancement, and most sample members remained poor or near-poor at the end of the study. Much is left to learn about how best to foster upward mobility for the millions of low-wage workers across the nation and lift them and their families out of poverty.


The boundary between the Inner and the Outer Dinarides in the sense of B u s e r (1987b) west of the Zagreb lineament is predominantly of overthrust character. The Inner Dinarides are ovethrusted on the Outer Dinarides. Mt. Blegoš, situated in the Outer Dinarides west of Ljubljana, on the boundary with the Inner Dinarides, consists of horses that were formed during overthrusting of the Outer Dinarides from the direction of the Dinaric carbonate platform towards the Adriatic platform, i.e. in the present sense from northeast to southwest, probably during the Upper Eocene. After Sarmatian time these horses were first folded and then rotated around the W-E axis owing to the overthrusting of the Inner Dinarides and Southern Alps from north towards south on the Outer Dinarides. The footwall nappe plane along which the Inner Dinarides in the Blegoš area were overthrusted southwards on the Outer Dinarides is besides the footwall nappe plane of the Southern Alps the most important nappe line south of the Periadriatic lineament. In the area from Ljubljana basin to Tolmin this boundary is clearly expressed, whereas westwards and eastwards it has not been uniformly defined. Along the considered footwall nappe plain the Outer Dinarides were clearly rotated towards the Inner Dinarides and the Southern Alps for 30° to 45°, and thrusted under them.


The development of a spacecraft electric powered subsurface sampler for drilling a 1-1/4 inch diameter hole in the lunar surface to a maximum depth of 5 feet is discussed. The unit is designed to deliver lunar soil samples from selected depths to a sample analysis system and positions a geophysical probe in the hole. Automatic operation, by command from an earth control station on the basis of telemetered information is planned. The system includes four electric motor powered drives designed for operation in a very high vacuum. The total weight of this mechanism is 26.9 pounds.


Today the field of wireless sensors have the dominance in almost every person's daily life. Therefore researchers are exasperating to make these sensors more dynamic, accurate and high performance computational devices as well as small in size, and also in the application area of these small sensors. The wearable sensors are the one type which are used to acquire a person's behavioral characteristics. The applications of wearable sensors are healthcare, entertainment, fitness, security and military etc. Human activity recognition (HAR) is the one example, where data received from wearable sensors are further processed to identify the activities executed by the individuals. The HAR system can be used in fall detection, fall prevention and also in posture recognition. The recognition of activities is further divided into two categories, the un-supervised learning and the supervised learning. In this paper we first discussed some existing wearable sensors based HAR systems, then briefly described some classifiers (supervised learning) and then the methodology of how we applied the multiple classification techniques using a benchmark data set of the shimmer sensors placed on human body, to recognize the human activity. Our results shows that the methods are exceptionally accurate and efficient in comparison with other classification methods. We also compare the results and analyzed the accuracy of different classifiers.


INTRODUCTION
An increasing number of digital technologies have been introduced which assist in some practical aspects of the teaching and learning of Human Anatomy. For modern-day students, more and more cross-sectional images of the human body are available as materials in their studies. Digital 2D images and/or 3D images such as high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance (MR) have been received with much enthusiasm and have found their way into anatomy courses and practical classes. An emphasis on sectional anatomy can help medical students develop and improve their knowledge of cross‐sectional imaging.
The aim of this study was to assess and verify the impact of cross-sectional images on the study of Human Anatomy.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
200 medical students in their 2nd study year at Rīga Stradiņš University were included in this investigation in 2018. In practical classes, all students were asked by tutors to identify several anatomical structures using "Anatomage", a 3D virtual dissection table (USA). They were randomly divided into two groups: Group I analysed cross-sectional images of the human body after cutting and segmentation with interactive tools; Group II studied X-rays, CT scans and MRI images of different regions and systems. Similar images in all possible cross-sectional planes were displayed. The pathological findings from the cross-sectional images were used to develop several clinical questions and cases. At the beginning of each practical class, the tutor spent about 30 minutes demonstrating the themes in the images to all the students. At the end of the teaching session, their understanding of the relationships between anatomical structures and the rate of cross-sectional image effectiveness among both groups was assessed by means of discussion.
RESULTS
By this time, students were able to identify the position of bones and organs from the lectures, practical classes and dissections. The majority of students recognized the landmarks, anatomical structures and relationships between them on cross-sectional images in three planes. By removing different kinds of tissue, students in both groups were able to learn more difficult anatomical topics and to explain details in these complicated regions. Self-assessment exercises helped students verify their understanding of topographical relations and regional anatomy. In these groups, students with less prior anatomy experience wanted to focus more on the basics of anatomy whereas students with more prior anatomy experience wanted to see and study more complex and interactive materials in cross-sectional images.
CONCLUSION
This study demonstrated the role of the 3D virtual dissection table "Anatomage" in facilitating students' ability to interpret cross-sectional images and understand the relationships between different anatomical structures. All the X-rays, CT scans and MRI cross-sectional images used played an important role in the teaching and learning of Human Anatomy. Skills and the ability to interpret these medical images is important for the application of anatomical knowledge right from basic studies until clinical courses.


Nietzsche views the Western philosophical tradition as organized around a conception of philosophy deriving from Socrates. According to this (loosely) Socratic philosophical canon: (1) Philosophy, as the "love of wisdom," aims for knowledge of timeless and non-empirical truths, including truths about the good and the right; (2) Knowledge of the truth is the overriding value in philosophy and is also essential for living well; and (3) Philosophical knowledge is acquired through the exercise of reason, understood as a faculty that can operate independently, in whole or in part, of a posteriori evidence. This paper explores Nietzsche's reasons for rejecting this conception of philosophy on each count, especially as developed in his book, Twilight of the Idols. Nietzsche's replacement of metaphysical speculation with psychological diagnosis is compared to Carnap's own critique of metaphysics, and helps explain Carnap's high appraisal of Nietzsche compared to other major figures in post-Kantian German philosophy. Nietzsche's rejection of the traditional philosophical canon is contrasted with that of other critics of the tradition, including Marx, Quine, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. The reaction against naturalism in recent Anglophone philosophy is offered, finally, as a case study in support of Nietzsche's skepticism about the philosophical canon.


Exploring contextual information in the local region is important for shape understanding and analysis. Existing studies often employ hand-crafted or explicit ways to encode contextual information of local regions. However, it is hard to capture fine-grained contextual information in hand-crafted or explicit manners, such as the correlation between different areas in a local region, which limits the discriminative ability of learned features. To resolve this issue, we propose a novel deep learning model for 3D point clouds, named Point2Sequence, to learn 3D shape features by capturing fine-grained contextual information in a novel implicit way. Point2Sequence employs a novel sequence learning model for point clouds to capture the correlations by aggregating multi-scale areas of each local region with attention. Specifically, Point2Sequence first learns the feature of each area scale in a local region. Then, it captures the correlation between area scales in the process of aggregating all area scales using a recurrent neural network (RNN) based encoder-decoder structure, where an attention mechanism is proposed to highlight the importance of different area scales. Experimental results show that Point2Sequence achieves state-of-the-art performance in shape classification and segmentation tasks.


Head and neck ultrasound is a standard radiological examination performed at most hospitals. It is an important topic and all specialist registrars in radiology will need to learn how to scan the organs and structures of the head and neck. This book covers normal anatomy and provides a comprehensive account of pathological processes in all of the head and neck structures, including the vasculature. With excellent diagrams and high quality images, it illustrates the key technical and diagnostic steps needed by both trainee and established radiographers or radiologists. It provides clear guidance on scanning technique, potential pitfalls and common problems, and how to achieve optimum image quality. Key topics include: normal anatomy of the head and neck region, practical scanning technique, the salivary glands, the thyroid and parathyroid, lymph nodes, cystic masses, the larynx, what the surgeon needs to know and why, biopsy techniques and basic vascular ultrasound.


The aim of this essay is to examine the semantic nature and linkage between the experiential phenomena of aura, awe, and wonder, central to matters of the aesthetic experience. In aesthetic commentary these terms are generally used rather loosely, often independently of each other and, most often, without regard to the connections between them. It would seem worthwhile to examine the nature of each of these terms to move toward understanding them and their mutual relationships. The conclusions drawn are that the aura effect appears to operate universally at the cognitive level of the aesthetic experience while those of awe and wonder appear to be special cases operating at the affective level of the aesthetic experience, wherein our appreciative dispositions, bearing them, take form.


Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains difficult to treat due to mutational heterogeneity and the development of resistance to therapy. Targeted agents, such as MEK inhibitors, may be incorporated into treatment; however, the impact of MEK inhibitors on the immune microenvironment in AML is not well understood. A greater understanding of the implications of MEK inhibition on immune responses may lead to a greater understanding of immune evasion and more rational combinations with immunotherapies. This study describes the impact of trametinib on both T cells and AML blast cells by using an immunosuppressive mouse model of AML and primary patient samples. We also used a large AML database of functional drug screens to understand characteristics of trametinib-sensitive samples. In the mouse model, trametinib increased T-cell viability and restored T-cell proliferation. Importantly, we report greater proliferation in the CD8+CD44+ effector subpopulation and impaired activation of CD8+CD62L+ naive cells. Transcriptome analysis revealed that trametinib-sensitive samples have an inflammatory gene expression profile, and we also observed increased programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression on trametinib-sensitive samples. Finally, we found that trametinib consistently reduced PD-L1 and PD-L2 expression in a dose-dependent manner on the myeloid population. Altogether, our data present greater insight into the impact of trametinib on the immune microenvironment and characteristics of trametinib-sensitive patient samples.


For a workplace to be successful, it needs to have a higher morale, thus leading to higher quality of care for residents. For a workplace to be successful in empowerment, it must have developed strong teams, and everyone must work as a team and respect one another. The research for this paper focused on many issues. The most important part of my research came from a study of the nursing assistants at Jennings Hall (JH) in Garfield, Ohio. From the data received, I concluded that the two biggest problems in many nursing homes are lack of respect and lack of team-centered attitude.


This study presents the results of a survey implemented to investigate Turkish university students' technology use profile and their thoughts about distance education. The sample of the study is 6504 students from four universities in Turkey. The results of the study are reported in five main sections: 1) demographic information of the students, 2) students' Internet and computer-use opportunities, 3) students' computer skills, 4) studying styles of the students, and 5) thoughts concerning Internet-based distance education. The results of this study show that 38% of the students have home computer with an Internet connection, and 64%, 53%, and 30% of the students connect to the Internet for communication, newsgroups, and web searches, respectively. In addition, the findings show that the students prefer to access the Internet from either Internet cafes or their homes. Blended learning is the most favorite learning environment among these students.


Interwar Portugal was in many ways a microcosm of Europe's encounter with modernity: reshaped by industrialization, urban growth, and the antagonism between liberalism and authoritarianism, it also witnessed new forms of media and mass culture that transformed daily life. This fascinating study of newspapers in 1920s Portugal explores how the new "modernist reportage" embodied the spirit of the era while mediating some of its most spectacular episodes, from political upheavals to lurid crimes of passion. In the process, Luis Trindade illuminates the twofold nature of that journalism—both historical account and material object, it epitomized a distinctly modern entanglement of narrative and event.


Acute, Repeated-Dose and Residual Effects of Amphetamines on Psychological Measures in Humans Allison Turza Bajger Despite the fact that the database documenting amphetamine-related effects in humans has increased over the past decade, there remain important gaps in our knowledge of the effects of these drugs in humans. The current investigations, which examined the acute, repeated-dose and residual effects of amphetamine derivatives on various psychological measures in humans, addressed two of these gaps. The first was the lack of empirical evidence directly comparing damphetamine and methamphetamine. Study 1 was the first direct comparison of the regulatory focus effects of intranasal d-amphetamine and methamphetamine (12, 50 mg/70kg). Results indicate that the drugs produced overlapping effects on most measures (e.g. increased "prevention" focus state and task engagement). Under the low dose condition, only methamphetamine increased "prevention" focus. Study 2 was a within-participant investigation on the impact of three 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) administrations (12 and 24 hours intervals) on physiological, subjective, and behavioral measures in experienced MDMA users. Heart rate, blood pressure, oral temperature, subjective effects, psychomotor performance, and sleep were assessed repeatedly throughout the study. Acute administration of MDMA produced systematic increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and subjective effects, but oral temperature was unaltered. Following repeated drug administration, heart rate elevations were no longer statistically significant; blood pressure and subjective-effect ratings remained significantly increased, but such increases were diminished relative to acute drug effects. Measures of sleep were decreased only on the evening following two active MDMA administrations. Performance alterations were not observed nor were MDMA-related toxic effects. Overall, the data from both studies do not support either: 1) the conventional notion that d-amphetamine and methamphetamine produce markedly different effects in humans; or 2) the general perception that MDMA produces dangerous cardiovascular and subjective effects in humans following repeated administration.


Human trade networks play a major role in the unintended introduction of invasive species to new environments. Network Science has shown that the structural properties of networks influence the movement of goods as well as their associated organisms. This thesis examines how the properties of one type of network, the plant produce trade network, aid the movement of one group of potentially invasive organisms, nematodes. The presence, diversity, abundance and dispersal of nematodes via these networks and points critical to the flow of goods as well as nematodes, were also examined.

A survey of markets and farms was conducted in three countries (Australia, Thailand and Lao PDR) and nematodes were extracted from the roots of vegetable produce sampled at each location. Plant-parasitic nematodes were identified to genus and numbers of free-living nematodes recorded. Network analysis software was then used to generate and analyse maps of the trade, nematode and plant-parasitic nematode movement networks in each country. A large range and number of freeliving and plant-parasitic nematodes were detected moving locally, nationally and internationally via plant produce trade networks. All networks were broadly similar, containing hubs and shortcuts and were directed, poorly clustered and disassortative networks. The movement of nematodes followed the same structural pattern as the larger trade network, meaning that goods and nematodes moved through these networks in a particular and predictable way. Certain critical points in each network were at greater risk of an incursion or of spreading nematodes and may, therefore, represent effective places to target intervention strategies. This thesis synthesises and applies insights and tools from Network Science to Invasion Science theory and practice. By untangling the role of networks in the invasion process, scientists and managers are in a better position to prepare, predict and prevent the spread of invasive species.


The Community of Practice (CoP) is foreseen to play a key role in boosting innovation in the effective and long-lasting delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods (AECPGs). The CONSOLE CoP will be organized around practitioners experienced in the provision of AECPGs and those interested in it and will be nourished throughout the project lifetime. In line with the definition of Wenger1 the CoP is defined as a group of people (the community) who share a common interest and who learn how to perform better through regular interaction and exchange of experiences. The idea is to set up a pan-European CoP with national and/or local (regional) sub-groups managed by the CONSOLE partners with the aim of developing improved and novel contract solutions in collaboration with its members.
This document sets out:
(a) the purpose and objectives of the CoP in CONSOLE,
(b) the setting up and management of the CoP at European, national and local level, (c) the process for motivating individuals to participate.
The CONSOLE CoP is intended to facilitate knowledge exchange and mutual learning, mainly through virtual contacts. Participation in the CoP is based on sharing and reciprocity principle. A core objective of these guidelines is to ensure a sound management and facilitation of the CoP by all CONSOLE partners in view of optimizing the input from CoP members in the project activities. Members within a national or local CONSOLE CoP are: 1) CONSOLE partners; 2) practitioners, mainly farmers and foresters, who test and implement practically the contractual models, and 3) experts, that may have punctual interventions in the CoP. A vibrant CoP with active involvement of its members is crucial for the assessment and testing of improved and novel voluntary measures for the delivery of AECPGs. For each of the CONSOLE countries one national contact person is nominated to take over the role as national focal point for the CoP activities in his country and to serve as facilitator of the CoP. These facilitators are responsible to ensure participation along the various project tasks foreseen within several WPs and to overcome potential language barriers. The national contact person may be supported by other CONSOLE partners from his country for local activities. At local level the CoP benefits from existing contacts of CONSOLE partners to practitioners, including the experts interviewed for the case studies analysis within WP2.
The forming/development of a CoP requires promoting exchanges taking on board the interests and needs of the actors involved and to animate them to share their expertise. Collaborative learning within the CoP supported by dedicated training activities will be crucial to ensure the intended major transition towards smarter AECPGs-related practices in Europe. These guidelines focus on the identification of the various tasks where CoP participation is foreseen at local (regional) level and to provide support for the identification of potential members. In the deliverable D5.2 "Guidelines for testing the solutions catalogue by CoP and partners" further details about the involvement of the CoP will be provided.


abstract:This study reexamines images and textual materials that can be related to the dating and iconography of caves at Yungang and Longmen and the historical transition between them. The transition is associated with the move of the Northern Wei capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang, and the beginnings of the Longmen caves is widely believed to coincide with the establishment of the capital at Luoyang in 495. Inscriptions in the Guyang Cave have been interpreted to support the widely held belief that it was created at the time of the move of the capital. Visual evidence of sculptural practice and transitions in sculptural art that can be observed broadly between caves and cave site can also be seen in micro-environments within a single cave or a single niche that offer new insights. Through comparative analysis of the caves' images and artworks found in other contexts, and their consideration in conjunction with textual materials, the author proposes a revisionist reconstruction of the early work in the Guyang Cave.


Introduction: Tibial plateau fractures represent a common challenge for orthopaedic surgeons, sometimes representing complex cases to manage, where augmentation using bone grafts is required for stabilisation. Autologous iliac bone graft (AIBG) is the current gold standard for bone grafting. In order to overcome limitations related to the procedure, alternative strategies, like allogenic and xenogeneic bone substitutes have been investigated. Here, within the framework of an observational clinical study, we report clinical and radiological outcomes of patients treated for tibial plateau fractures with a composite xenohybrid bone graft, aiming at assessing clinical and radiological outcomes. Materials and Methods: We performed a cohort retrospective study of patients treated for tibial plateau fractures from May 2017 to January 2018. Thirty-four patients, i.e. 100% of those having received the bone graft under investigation for tibial plateaux fracture treatment, met the inclusion criteria and were enrolled in the study. Patients were assessed at 2 weeks, and then at a 1-, 3-, and 6-months, and 1-year follow-up. At each evaluation patients filled a visual analogue scale (VAS) for the level of pain during the day life activities and underwent physical exam and anteroposterior and lateral projection radiographs of the knee. At 1 year the Tegner Lysholm Scoring Scale, International Knee Document Committee 2000 (IKDC 2000), and Short Form (36) Health Survey (SF-36) were administered. Results: At 1-year, mean VAS decreased from 6.33 ± 1.40 to 1 ± 0.79 (P < 0.0001); Tegner Lysholm Scoring Scale was 89 ± 4.10 and mean IKDC 2000 was 78.67 ± 3.31. No infections, neurovascular complications or adverse effects related to implants were reported during the clinical exams at follow-up. Mean ROM was 124 ± 6°. Radiographs did not show defects of consolidation or progressive post-surgical subsidence and demonstrated a good grade of integration of the implant. Conclusions: Clinical and radiological outcomes, and scores of questionnaires, were good. The xenograft has demonstrated to be a safe biomaterial, with satisfactory mechanical and biological performances in the mid-term period. It also showed a high grade of osteointegration and remodelling.


This article proposes a nonlinear model for the careers of members of the U.S. House of Representatives. This model is easily interpretable, in spite of its nonlinearity, and yields a measure, here called the "career coefficient," that summarizes the career patterns of any freshman class. For data from the 1st through the 93rd Congresses, the model fits extremely well. Comparing the career coefficients of the 93 freshman classes, we have found that the pattern of congressional careers follows the pattern of the party-system eras in American politics. These patterns can be accounted for by the levels of interparty competition characteristic of the party systems, as well as by the general desirability of a House seat during these historical periods.


The concentrations (for two hydrological years) of the heavy metals As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb as well as the isotopic Pb/Pb composition in soil layers were studied in a remote mountainous Bulgarian fir (Abies borisii regis) forest in central Greece. The concentrations of metals in the hydrological cycle (bulk deposition and throughfall) were lower than the respective ones in the past in Europe, especially for Pb. In the litterfall consisting of mosses, lichens, insect frass and pollen the concentrations of all heavy metals were found far higher than those in the needle litterfall. An evidence of dry deposition was that all metals had higher concentrations in older needles than the young ones with the exception of Ni. Ni also had the highest concentration in the trunk wood, whereas all the other metals had a very low one. It is highly probable that Ni has an internal cycle within the fir trees. In all compartments of the standing trees the order of concentrations was Ni>Pb>Cr>Cd>As. The concentrations of metals in the ground vegetation were low with the exception of Cd, Cr and Ni in ferns. The concentrations of metals in the FH horizon and mineral soil followed the order Cr>Ni>Pb>As>Cd, whereas in the L layer Ni had the highest value. Despite the remoteness of the fir forest, the percentages of anthropogenic Pb in the soil reached an appreciable 41% in the FH horizon and lowered to 2% in the 20-40 cm layers.


The cloud computing paradigm promises to provide flexible IT services delivered via the internet. The cost efficiency of cloud computing services is mainly enabled by a high degree of automation realized by SLAs and minor direct human interaction. In this paper, we analyze eight expert interviews to identify and discuss the different levels of trust from an end-user perspective (trust in mediator and provider) that are prevalent in cloud computing and the main drivers influencing trust. Then, we use the findings to postulate hypotheses that we subsequently verify by means of a serious game. We discover risk aversion, information, disposition of trust, affectedness, reputation and costs to be important factors influencing trust in cloud computing mediators or providers, respectively. Furthermore, by analyzing the descriptive statistics gathered through the serious game, we formulate further hypotheses.


Hydrocarbon chains are important intermediates in various aqueous-phase surface processes, such as CO2 electroreduction, aqueous Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, and aqueous phase reforming of biomass-derived molecules. Further, the interaction between water and adsorbed hydrocarbons represents a difficult case for modern computational methods. Here, we explore various methods for calculating the energetics of this interaction within the framework of density functional theory and explore trade-offs between the use of low water coverages, molecular dynamics approaches, and minima hopping for identification of low energy structures. An effective methodology for simulating low temperature processes is provided by using a unit cell in which the vacuum space is filled with water, employing the minima hopping algorithm to search for low-lying minima, and including dispersion (van der Waals) interactions. Using this methodology, we show that a high coverage of adsorbed alkyls is destabilized by the presence of water, while a low coverage of alkyls is stabilized. Solvation has a small effect on the energetics of hydrocarbon chain growth, generally decreasing its favorability at low temperatures. We studied higher temperatures by running molecular dynamics simulations starting at the minima found by the minima hopping algorithm and found that increased temperatures facilitate chain growth. The self-consistent continuum solvation method effectively describes the alkyl-water interaction and is in general agreement with the explicit solvation results in most cases, but care should be taken at high alkyl coverage.


Objective To measure the effect of free access to the scientific literature on article downloads and citations. Design Randomised controlled trial. Setting 11 journals published by the American Physiological Society. Participants 1619 research articles and reviews. Main outcome measures Article readership (measured as downloads of full text, PDFs, and abstracts) and number of unique visitors (internet protocol addresses). Citations to articles were gathered from the Institute for Scientific Information after one year. Interventions Random assignment on online publication of articles published in 11 scientific journals to open access (treatment) or subscription access (control). Results Articles assigned to open access were associated with 89% more full text downloads (95% confidence interval 76% to 103%), 42% more PDF downloads (32% to 52%), and 23% more unique visitors (16% to 30%), but 24% fewer abstract downloads (−29% to −19%) than subscription access articles in the first six months after publication. Open access articles were no more likely to be cited than subscription access articles in the first year after publication. Fifty nine per cent of open access articles (146 of 247) were cited nine to 12 months after publication compared with 63% (859 of 1372) of subscription access articles. Logistic and negative binomial regression analysis of article citation counts confirmed no citation advantage for open access articles. Conclusions Open access publishing may reach more readers than subscription access publishing. No evidence was found of a citation advantage for open access articles in the first year after publication. The citation advantage from open access reported widely in the literature may be an artefact of other causes.


Abstract: It is important for a greenhouse strawberry grower to know that their capillary mat (CapMatâ"¢) fertigation system is working correctly and that plants are receiving the correct amounts of water and fertilizer. Pots with soilless mix are not expected to hold more than 70% water on a volumetric basis. Pots with less than 40% water content continuously are not supplied enough water and nutrients to the plants. Typically, pots located near the manifold distribution system get a little more water than those at the other locations, but water use will really vary according to the factors listed above as well as environmental parameters, but should not vary more than 20%. Fertigation is based on the drip tape distribution system, the media density of individual pots, and the spatial energy distribution within the greenhouse. To understand how these factors interact, pot moisture, media temperature, and electrical conductivity were spot checked with a relatively new commercial sensor and also monitored continuously along with greenhouse temperature, humidity, and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) using a data logger system. We found that the variance in pot medium moisture and fertilizer was as expected as were fluctuations in air and mix temperatures. Calibrated commercial electrical conductivity and soil moisture sensors for measuring pot moisture and/or electric conductivity were reliable. Having this data may be a key to determining why plants in the UNL greenhouse produced more marketable fruit than plants in the commercial house.


Recent public recognition that children are different from adults in their exposures and susceptibilities to environmental contaminants has its roots in work that began >46 years ago, when the American Academy of Pediatrics (APA) established a standing committee to focus on children's radiation exposures. We summarize the history of that important committee, now the AAP Committee on Environmental Health, including its statements and the 1999 publication of the AAP Handbook of Pediatric Environmental Health, and describe the recent emergence of federal and state legislative and executive actions to evaluate explicitly environmental health risks to children. As a result in large part of these efforts, numerous knowledge gaps about children's health and the environment are currently being addressed. Government efforts began in the 1970s to reduce childhood lead poisoning and to monitor birth defects and cancer. In the 1990s, federal efforts accelerated with the Food Quality Protection Act, an executive order on children's environmental health, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry/Environmental Protection Agency Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units, and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/Environmental Protection Agency Centers of Excellence in Research in Children's Environmental Health. In this decade, the Children's Environmental Health Act authorized the National Children's Study, which has the potential to address a number of critical questions about children's exposure and health. The federal government has expanded efforts in control and prevention of childhood asthma and in tracking of asthma, birth defects, and other diseases that are linked to the environment. Efforts continue on familiar problems such as the eradication of lead poisoning, but new issues, such as prevention of childhood exposure to carcinogens and neurotoxins other than lead, and emerging issues, such as endocrine disruptors and pediatric drug evaluations, are in the forefront. More recently, these issues have been taken up by states and in the international arena.


An evaluation of 35 research papers into the impact of financial speculation on agricultural commodities markets has revealed: The vast majority of studies did not confirm the concerns that prevail in public discourse. The current state of knowledge indicates only a few, and weak, findings that verify the assumption that the rise in financial speculation in recent years has increased (1) the level or (2) the volatility of agricultural commodity prices. Instead, those developments have rather been caused by fundamental factors in the real economy. This is why the majority of academic studies are not in favor but against (3) enacting regulatory barriers to market entry. Transaction taxes or position limits are described as involving high risks. Various studies explicitly warn against overregulation, which would impair rather than improve the functionality of agricultural markets. Seen in this light, the alarmism about financial speculation should be classified as a false alarm: Those who desire to effectively combat hunger in the world have to take real-economy precautions to ensure that food supplies will match the envisaged increasing demands.


Abstract The specific heat and thermal diffusivity of Compacted Graphite Iron (CGI) and Spheroidal Graphite Iron (SGI) were measured at temperatures ranging between 373 and 773 K (100 and 500 °C) using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and between 298 and 773 K (25 and 500 °C) using the laser flash method, respectively. Specific heat increased with increasing amounts of graphite and pearlite, as well as with Si content. As a recommended value of the specific heat for fully ferritic high-silicon SGI, the following relation was suggested: where T is the temperature in Celsius, is the mass% of Si, and fg is the area fraction of graphite (%). The thermal diffusivity of cast irons tends to increase with increasing amounts of graphite, and decrease with greater nodularity. It was found that nodularity had a strong influence on thermal diffusivity in the nodularity range of 15–30%.


Fifty years before his death in 2013, Nelson Mandela stood before Justice de Wet in Pretoria's Palace of Justice and delivered one of the most spectacular and liberating statements ever made from a dock. In what came to be regarded as 'the trial that changed South Africa,' Mandela summed up the spirit of the liberation struggle and the moral basis for the post-Apartheid society. In this blistering critique of Apartheid and its perversion of justice, Mandela transforms the law into a sword and shield. He invokes it while undermining it, uses it while subverting it, and claims it while defeating it. Wise and strategic, Mandela skilfully reimagines the courtroom as a site of visibility and hearing, opening up a political space within the legal.

This volume returns to the Rivonia courtroom to engage with Mandela's masterful performance of resistance and the dramatic core of that transformative event. Cutting across a wide-range of critical theories and discourses, contributors reflect on the personal, spatial, temporal, performative, and literary dimensions of that constitutive event. By redefining the spaces, institutions and discourses of law, contributors present a fresh perspective that re-sets the margins of what can be thought and said in the courtroom.


In Understanding Behavioral Antitrust, Professor Tor builds on his previous scholarship that explores how insights from behavioral economics can be used to improve antitrust jurisprudence. The Chicago School of law and economics revolutionized antitrust law. By applying insights from microeconomics, scholars associated with the Chicago School introduced more rigor into antitrust analysis. Antitrust law is now viewed through an economics lens. Today, it is essentially impossible to practice antitrust law without understanding several economic concepts.The field of economics, however, has evolved in ways that undermine the foundations of the Chicago School philosophy. Professor Tor explains how behavioral economics has improved upon the basic microeconomic models that have been so influential in antitrust jurisprudence over the past few decades. The insights from behavioral economics challenge the policy prescriptions associated with the Chicago School. The traditional form of law and economics associated with the Chicago School argues that many aspects of antitrust law are unnecessary because business decision makers are rational and markets are self-correcting. According to this theory, firms do not engage in costly anticompetitive conduct. Behavioral economics identifies several ways in which individuals — and firms — deviate from so-called rationality. The lessons from behavioral economics demonstrate how antitrust enforcement can make markets more efficient than a strict laissez-faire approach.Professor Tor's article shows how behavioral economics represents a refinement and improvement over traditional microeconomics. His article does an excellent job of presenting several of the cognitive biases that form the corpus of behavioral economics. Professor Tor also notes that when asking antitrust agencies and courts to incorporate behavioral economics, we should consider "the limits of these institutions." This Response uses Professor Tor's cautionary note as its starting point by exploring the issue of judicial resistance to incorporating the insights from behavioral economics into antitrust jurisprudence.This Response will proceed in three parts. Part One briefly reviews the traditional law and economics approach to antitrust problems and how behavioral economics can inform antitrust jurisprudence. Part Two expands on Professor Tor's observation that courts may resist behavioral antitrust and explores the reasons why, the primary reason being the relative simplicity of basic microeconomics compared to the more nuanced explanation of business behavior offered by behavioral economics. Finally, Part Three argues for less reliance on theory and greater appreciation of facts in antitrust litigation.


Interest in web-based syndication systems has been growing as information streams onto the web at an increasing rate. Technologies, like the standard Semantic Web languages RDF and OWL, make it possible to create expressive representations of the content of publications and subscriptions in a syndication framework. Because these languages are based in description logics, this representation allows the application to reasoning to make more precise matching of user interests with published information. A challenge to this approach is that the consistency of the underlying knowledge base must be maintained for these techniques to work. With the frequent addition of information from new publications, it is likely that inconsistencies will arise. There are many potential mechanisms for choosing which inconsistent information to discard from the KB to regain consistency; in the case of news syndication, we argue keeping the most trusted information is important for generating the most valuable matches. Thus, in this article, we present algorithms for belief-base revision, and specifically look at the user's trust in the information sources as a metric for deciding what to keep in the KB and what to remove.


Silicene is a honeycomb-structure silicon atoms, which shares many intriguing properties with graphene. Silicene is expected to be a quantum spin-Hall insulator due to its spin-orbit interactions. We investigate the electronic properties of silicene nanodisks, which are silicene derivatives with closed edge. In case of the simplest model of graphene nanodisks, the number of the zero-energy modes is given by the lower bound of the Lieb theorem. They are standing wave states.When the spin-orbit interaction is introduced and the system becomes a topological insulator, they begin to propagate around a nanodisk. Helical edge currents flow around the edge of a nanodisk though the crystal momentum is ill-defined. We have newly found the counting rule of the zero-energy states, and constructed the low-energy theory of zigzag triangular silicene. We also show the validity of the bulk-edge correspondence in nanodisks with rough edge by calculating the local probability amplitude and current. Finally, the signatures of the topological phase transition in silicene nanodisks under an external electric field are revealed.Our results will be observable by means of STM experiments.


Distributed networked control systems (D-NCS) are vulnerable to various network attacks when the network is not secured; thus, D-NCS must be well protected with security mechanisms (e.g., cryptography), which may adversely affect the dynamic performance of the D-NCS because of limited system resources. This paper addresses the tradeoff between D-NCS security and its real-time performance and uses the Intelligent Space (iSpace) for illustration. A tradeoff model for a system's dynamic performance and its security is presented. This model can be used to allocate system resources to provide sufficient protection and to satisfy the D-NCS's real-time dynamic performance requirements simultaneously. Then, the paper proposes a paradigm of the performance-security tradeoff optimization based on the coevolutionary genetic algorithm (CGA) for D-NCS. A Simulink-based test-bed is implemented to illustrate the effectiveness of this paradigm. The results of the simulation show that the CGA can efficiently find the optimal values in a performance-security tradeoff model for D-NCS.


Processes affecting reef fish populations are likely to vary with spatial scale, but there have been few attempts to determine whether predictions generated by small-scale experiments are manifested at larger spatial scales. Our goal in this study was to determine if patterns of microhabitat use measured in small-scale experimental manipulations scaled-up and allowed predictions of among-reef patterns of abundance across larger spatial scales. Manipulations of algal biomass in artificially created 1.5 m 2 plots indicated that patches of Sargassum filipendula supported greater numbers of slippery dick Halichoeres bivittatus than those with an equal biomass of Zonaria tournefortii, or than patches with an equal mix of S. filipendula and Z. tournefortii. Scaling up and manipulating S. filipendula and Z. tournefortii abundance in 100 m 2 sections of reef produced results qualitatively similar to the small-scale experiments; fish densities varied as a function of S. filipendula mass. Larger scale surveys of fish densities and algal biomass on large reefs separated by 1 to 30 km showed positive associations between fish density and S. filipendula biomass. For the reefs that we studied, our small-scale experiments scaled up and predicted large-scale patterns of abundance on reefs in the South Atlantic Bight.