We present the results of a transcontinental campaign to observe the 2009 June 5 transit of the exoplanet HD 80606b. We report the first detection of the transit ingress, revealing the transit duration to be 11.64 ± 0.25 hr and allowing more robust determinations of the system parameters. Keck spectra obtained at midtransit exhibit an anomalous blueshift, giving definitive evidence that the stellar spin axis and planetary orbital axis are misaligned. The Keck data show that the projected spin–orbit angle λ is between 32° and 87° with 68.3% confidence and between 14° and 142° with 99.73% confidence. Thus, the orbit of this planet is not only highly eccentric (e = 0.93) but is also tilted away from the equatorial plane of its parent star. A large tilt had been predicted, based on the idea that the planet's eccentric orbit was caused by the Kozai mechanism. Independently of the theory, it is worth noting that all three exoplanetary systems with known spin–orbit misalignments have massive planets on eccentric orbits, suggesting that those systems migrate through a different channel than lower mass planets on circular orbits.


The author uses a spatial econometric framework to examine the determinants of teacher salaries in the United States, including union activity in the teachers' own and in neighboring districts, teacher salaries in nearby districts, and other school district characteristics such as size and student-teacher ratios. Using the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey as well as the School District Demographic System and Bureau of Labor Statistics data sets, he finds that union activity (measured by the legal status of collective bargaining and teacher union membership density) increases salaries for experienced teachers by as much as 18 to 28%; it increases salaries for beginning teachers, however, by considerably less. Results also confirm that salaries for experienced and beginning teachers are positively affected by the salaries of teachers in nearby districts. A one-percent increase in the distance-weighted average of teacher salaries in nearby districts increases salaries in a given district by 0.52% for experienced teachers and 0.66% for beginning teachers. Studies that ignore such spatial dependence are likely to be mis-specified and may lead to misleading conclusions.


THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER We all have an ikigai. It's the Japanese word for 'a reason to live' or 'a reason to jump out of bed in the morning'. It's the place where your needs, desires, ambitions, and satisfaction meet. A place of balance. Small wonder that finding your ikigai is closely linked to living longer. Finding your ikigai is easier than you might think. This book will help you work out what your own ikigai really is, and equip you to change your life. You have a purpose in this world: your skills, your interests, your desires and your history have made you the perfect candidate for something. All you have to do is find it. Do that, and you can make every single day of your life joyful and meaningful. ______________________________ 'I read it and it's bewitched me ever since. I'm spellbound.' Chris Evans 'Ikigai gently unlocks simple secrets we can all use to live long, meaningful, happy lives. Science-based studies weave beautifully into honest, straight-talking conversation you won't be able to put down. Warm, patient, and kind, this book pulls you gently along your own journey rather than pushing you from behind.' Neil Pasricha, bestselling author of The Happiness Equation


This study investigates the effect of a typologically different second language on learners' attention to different aspects of a motion event. Results revealed that L2 learners are not significantly different from the monolinguals in their attention to manner or path. It is proposed that education may be a factor that leads learners to attend to dimensions other than those guided by their native language. The theoretical implication is that language is not the only way to expand habitual attention, which is consistent with the results of other studies that show world knowledge about motion events (Vidakovic, this volume) and universal cognitive mechanisms (Marotta and Meini, this volume) play a role in L2 acquisition in the spatial domain.


In this Essay, I explore how the Holder Memo interacts with the formal structure of equal protection doctrine and how it has been applied to LGBT legal claims. On the one hand, the claim that the gay and lesbian community is too politically influential to enjoy heightened judicial scrutiny has been a critical argument used to stymie gay rights claims in the courts. The high-profile reversal by the Justice Department regarding the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act only strengthens this argument - the very existence of the Holder Memo paradoxically may weaken the very constitutional claim it purports to support. Yet, neither can it be said that such political triumphs are consistently the enemy of LGBT litigants. After all, however difficult it remains for marriage equality advocates to convince courts that restrictions on gay marriage are unlawful, certainly, their prospects are better today than they were even a decade ago. Rising gay political power has opened as many judicial doors as it has closed. And the very act of drawing the executive branch into the fray of the gay rights legal controversy also significantly elevates its political salience, helping mainstream what was once an electorally fringe position.


The development of human cancer is generally thought to entail a series of events that cause a progressively more malignant phenotype. Such a hypothesis predicts that tumor cells of the ultimate stage will carry each of the events, cells of the penultimate stage will carry each of the events less the last one, and so on. That is to say a dissection of the pathway from a normal cell to a fully malignant tumor may be viewed as the unraveling of a nested set of aberrations. In experiments designed to elucidate these events, we have compared genotypic combinations at genomic loci defined by restriction endonuclease recognition site variation in normal and tumor tissues from patients with various forms and stages of cancer. The first step, inherited predisposition, is best described for retinoblastoma in which a recessive mutation of a locus residing in the 13q14 region of the genome is unmasked by aberrant, but specific, mitotic chromosomal segregation. A similar mechanism involving the distal short arm of chromosome 17 is apparent in astrocytic tumors and the event is shared by cells in each malignancy stage. This is distinct from a loss of heterozygosity for loci on chromosome 10 which is restricted to the ultimate stage, glioblastoma multiforme. These results suggest a genetic approach to defining degrees of tumor progression and means for determining the genomic locations of genes involved in the pathway as a prelude to their molecular isolation and characterization.


Alternative organizational culture is an evocative yet ambiguous term. In disciplines like communication, sociology, anthropology, management, economics, and political science, the term leads us not only to consider existing models and cases of organizing differently from the norm but also to imagine paths and possibilities yet to be realized. The ambiguity and referents of the term are important to probe. The term and its associations should be understood historically as well as culturally. Alternative organizational culture also implies certain dialectics, leading to questions about both principles and applications.


Since two decades, neuroenhancement is a major topic in neuroethics and still receives much attention in the scholarly literature as well as in public media. In contrast to high hopes at the beginning of the "Decade of the Brain" in the United States and Europe that we subsume under the "pharmacological optimism hypothesis," recent evidence from clinical neuroscience suggests that developing drugs that make healthy people smarter is even more difficult than finding new treatments for patients with mental disorders. However, cognitive enhancing drugs even for patients with impaired intellectual performance have not been successfully developed yet and new drugs that might have a disruptive impact on this field are unlikely to be developed in the near future. Additionally, we discuss theoretical, empirical, and historical evidence to assess whether cognitive enhancement of the healthy is common or even epidemic and if its application will further increase in the near future, as suggested by the "neuroenhancement prevalence hypothesis." Reports, surveys, and reviews from the 1930s until today indicate that psychopharmacological neuroenhancement is a fact but less common than often stated, particularly in the public media. Non-medical use of psychostimulants for the purpose of cognitive enhancement exists since at least 80 years and it might actually have been more common in the past than today. Therefore, we conclude that the pharmacological optimism hypothesis and neuroenhancement prevalence hypotheses have to be rejected and argue that the neuroenhancement debate should take the available evidence more into account.


Evaluating the effectiveness of the flipped classroom method of instruction on high school senior AP Biology students was the focus of my action research project. I was interested to see if the flipped classroom would impact my students understanding of the concepts required by the College Board. Additionally, I wanted to see the effects of the flipped classroom on students' higher-order thinking skills and their ability to complete inquiry-based labs. Finally, I wanted to determine the effects of the flipped classroom on my role as an AP Biology teacher. I chose to move my lectures outside of the classroom and had students watch my pre-recorded lectures accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation for a homework assignment. Two separate Biology units were observed, one included the flipped classroom model and the other was taught using routine teaching strategies and traditional lecture format. Students were also required to participate in an online discussion of the video lectures and were assessed on their understanding of the video content the following class period by a quiz. Students were surveyed prior to the treatment and following the treatment regarding their understanding of the flipped classroom as well as the concepts to be covered during the intervention. A select group of students were interviewed pre and post treatment to glean their ideas about the flipped classroom and its effects. The majority of student feedback thought the flipped classroom was effective in learning the concepts, increasing student teacher interactions, increasing their higher order thinking skills and helping them complete an inquiry based lab. Data from assessments did not support an increase in understanding in the flipped classroom as opposed to a traditional classroom, however the gap between the two classes of AP Biology students was narrowed by the use of the flipped classroom. Overall the flipped classroom did not appear to have a significant impact on student learning, however, for many students the increase in understanding was encouraging and their reaction positive.


The policies of Republican Governor Scott Walker have come to symbolize a resurgent assault on the public sector, and on public employee unions in particular, by the Republican Party. The fact that this is happening in Wisconsin, the state that in the last century was considered the "laboratory of Progressivism," makes the politics surrounding these policies all the more compelling. In The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, Katherine J. Cramer analyzes the "politics of resentment" surrounding these developments. Employing an ethnographic "method of listening," Cramer furnishes thick description of the political language employed by rural Wisconsinites, and proceeds to develop an interpretive theory of "political resentment" that illuminates the reasons why lower-class citizens so strongly oppose public policies seeking to offset social and economic inequality. The book is important methodologically and politically. We have thus invited a range of social and political scientists to comment on the book as a work of political science and as a diagnosis of the current political moment.


This paper describes how the content knowledge in an Academic English Writing, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) module 'Colour: Theory, meaning and practice' was adapted to online delivery to adjust to the COVID pandemic social distancing measures. The module is delivered to small groups of approximately 15 students, and, in face-to-face mode, the pedagogy exploits this by engaging students in small group discussions, dialogue, questioning, and oral presentations. In a face-to-face mode, the content is unpacked and scaffolded dialogically throughout the tutorials. Shifting to an online delivery in a well-equipped setting (technology was widely available to tutor and students) involved deliberate scaffolding of content and orchestration of the various technologies and the various interaction they afford in order to achieve the same learning outcomes. In doing this, the author found that the Legitimation Code Theory dimension of semantic gravity, which conceptualises content knowledge in terms of levels of abstraction, was helpful to guide the scaffolding of content over the tutorial. The paper describes the content and the aim of the module and one specific tutorial on Colour in Film leading to a written assignment. It then briefly explains how Legitimation Code Theory was used in this context. The tutorial stages are described to demonstrate how students were provided different types of activities to engage gradually with increasingly abstract and theoretical content.


Psychiatrists of the early twenty-first
century have little comprehension of the
therapies employed prior to the advent
of the modern psychotropic era, which
was heralded by lithium in 1949. Most
would have some awareness of the primitive
forms of restraint used, but few have
knowledge of the wide range of medicinal
agents, hydrotherapies, bloodletting and
other techniques that were still in day-to-day
use in asylum practice at least up
to the end of the nineteenth century, and
for some treatments until the 1930s and
1940s. Those techniques introduced in
the first half of the twentieth century, i.e.,
fever therapy, insulin coma and the early
convulsive therapies, are also only vaguely
familiar to modern eyes. There appear to have been at least four
determining principles for the choice of
these therapies. The first (and oldest) was
expunging the body of the evil spirits or
forces that were believed to cause these
disturbances in behavior. An early example
of this was the use in ancient Greece
of the purgative plant extract hellebore.
In Greek mythology, this was reputed
to have cured the daughters of Proteus
who had been visited with madness after
insulting the goddess Hera. The second
principle was the need to rid the body of
postulated poisons or toxins. The third was
the concept of "shock and commotion."
This was based on three sets of clinical
observations: (i) systemic illnesses were
often terminated favorably by crisis; (ii)
insanity often improved after intercurrent
physical illness or injury; and (iii) patients
with hydrophobia (presumably due to
rabies) had been reported to be cured by
the shock of having been thrown into the
water on several occasions. This led to
treatnents designed to reproduce natural
crises, such as gastrointestinal irritants
(emetics and purgatives such as hellebore
and camphor), large bleedings and fever.
Another intent of these shock treatments
was to cause a "revulsion of the system"
severe enough to alter the patient's mind.
The aim was to act either directly on the
brain, or work indirectly to cause apathy
or forgetfulness concerning the abnormal
ideas or feelings. Examples of such shocks
were the "bath of surprise" or the circular
swing. The fourth principle is more
easily comprehensible to modern medical
minds, and was that of symptomatic
management, be that purgatives to treat
"costiveness" (constipation), or sedatives
or warm baths to calm the overactive
"manic" (the term referred to any overactive
or excited psychotic patient). It should
be noted though, that, for a number of
writers of the era, such treatments were
considered curative rather than merely
symptomatic. This chapter will focus upon medicinals
and other physical treatments used prior
to the twentieth century, electrical and
convulsive therapies, fever therapy, insulin
coma therapy, and surgical procedures.


This work presents a modular Vertical Green System (VGS) for gray water treatment, developed at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. The concept was transformed into a field study with four modules built and tested with synthetic gray water. Each module set contains a small and larger module with the same treatment substrate and was fed hourly. A combination of lightweight structural material and biochar of agricultural residues and wood chips was used as the treatment substrate. In this article, we present the first 18 weeks of operation. Regarding the treatment efficiency, the parameters chemical oxygen demand (COD), total phosphorous (TP), ortho-phosphate (ortho-P), total bound nitrogen (TNb), ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N), and nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N) were analyzed and are presented in this work. The results of the modules with agricultural residues are promising. Up to 92% COD reduction is stated in the data. The phosphate and nitrogen fractions are reduced significantly in these modules. By contrast, the modules with wood chips reduce only 67% of the incoming COD and respectively less regarding phosphates and the nitrogen fraction.


The compound 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD, also referred to as dioxin) is a highly toxic environmental pollutant that acts by regulating a ligand-activated transcription factor known as the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), for which the endogenous regulatory ligand or ligands remain uncertain. Two papers report that the AHR has an important role in controlling T cell differentiation that could help explain increased prevalence of autoimmune diseases in industrialized countries in which exposure to environmental toxins may be a factor. T cells can differentiate into Treg cells, which help keep inflammation in check by inhibiting proliferation of effector cells and secretion of inflammatory cytokines, or TH17 cells, which generally promote inflammation. Dioxin exposure suppresses immune responses, but the mechanism has been unclear. Quintana et al. made the connection of the AHR to T cell differentiation because the regulatory region near a gene that is highly expressed in Treg cells (Foxp3) contained an evolutionarily conserved binding site for the AHR. Veldhoen et al. noted that TH17 cells specifically expressed AHRs. The latter group showed that activation of AHR increased expression of cytokines by TH17 cells in vitro and that, in AHR-deficient mice, production of TH17 cells was diminished when they induced experimental autoimmune encephalitis in the animals. Quintana et al. went on to show that AHR indeed directly regulated expression of Foxp3. Furthermore, in mice, their experiments showed that the AHR could promote either differentiation of Treg or TH17 cells, depending on the ligand that was used to activate it. The authors note that this ligand-specific modulation of inflammatory responses could make AHR a particularly valuable therapeutic target for modulation of immune function. Stevens and Bradfield provide commentary. F. J. Quintana, A. S. Basso, A. H. Iglesias, T. Korn, M. F. Farez, E. Bettelli, M. Caccamo, M. Oukka, H. L. Weiner, Control of Treg and TH17 cell differentiation by the aryl hydrocarbon receptor. Nature 453, 65-71 (2008). [PubMed] M. Veldhoen, K. Hirota, A. M. Westendorf, J. Buer, L. Dumoutier, J.-C. Renauld, B. Stockinger, The aryl hydrocarbon receptor links TH17-cell-mediated autoimmunity to environmental toxins. Nature 453, 106-109 (2008). [PubMed] E. A. Stevens, C. A. Bradfield, T cells hang in the balance. Nature 453, 46-47 (2008). [PubMed]


Background Blood culture contamination can have many negative effects including unnecessary treatments, costs and contribution to antibiotic resistance. Neonates are often treated on the basis of a single blood culture result, so minimising contamination rates is very important. Aim To retrospectively study blood culture contamination rates and the impact of improving sterility of sample collection in a tertiary neonatal unit. The correlation between rates of central line associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) and blood culture contamination rate will also be analysed. Methods All blood cultures taken between January 2012 and September 2013 were studied. Sterile pack use for sample collection was introduced from November 2012. The difference in blood culture contamination rates before and after introduction of the sterile pack was analysed using the two tailed independent t-test. Findings The overall blood culture contamination rate was 5.08%. Improvement of sample collection sterility decreased contamination rates by 41.7%, from 6.51% to 3.83% (p = 0.07). Of all positive blood cultures, 56.25% were due to contamination. Coagulase negative staphylococcus (CoNS) was present in 87.67% of contaminated blood cultures, with 66.10% of CoNS positive samples representing contamination. The Pearson correlation coefficient of -0.385 suggests a moderate negative correlation between CLABSI and blood culture contamination rates. Conclusions Improving aseptic techniques of sample collection reduced blood culture contamination rates on our unit. Positive blood cultures should be interpreted carefully, as over half were due to contamination. The possible negative correlation between CLABSI rate and blood culture contamination could be explained by small sample size and needs further study.


We address two fundamental questions about graph neural networks (GNNs). First, we prove that several important graph properties cannot be computed by GNNs that rely entirely on local information. Such GNNs include the standard message passing models, and more powerful spatial variants that exploit local graph structure (e.g., via relative orientation of messages, or local port ordering) to distinguish neighbors of each node. Our treatment includes a novel graph-theoretic formalism. Second, we provide the first data dependent generalization bounds for message passing GNNs. This analysis explicitly accounts for the local permutation invariance of GNNs. Our bounds are much tighter than existing VC-dimension based guarantees for GNNs, and are comparable to Rademacher bounds for recurrent neural networks.


When I was asked to write this article I didn't have to look far for inspiration. A quick email to my colleagues at Eclipse seeking their thoughts on the matter and my inbox was overflowing in minutes. It seems there are some frustrated web designers, consultants and engineers out there because, as with history, the same classic mistakes seem to be made over and over again. The following is a top 10 list, in no particular order, from the collective wisdom of 50-plus designers, engineers and consultants who have worked on thousands of websites for a combined total of more than 500 years. Listen to them and don?t make the same mistakes yourself.


Approximately 2.8 million people have been displaced within Iraq by the conflict between the Government of Iraq, Government of Kurdistan and armed opposition groups, including ISIS. Assets have been destroyed, transportation routes are more dangerous, and social tensions are exacerbated. This has disrupted the livelihoods of both internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities. Both the IDP and host communities attempt to protect women and girls by restricting their mobility. This has limited women's ability to participate in livelihoods, and they are mainly now confined to their homes. As men are the primary breadwinners in Iraq/Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), support for their livelihoods is imperative for the recovery of both IDP and host families, as well as to gain allies for women's livelihoods. This report shows how when gender analysis informs programme design, livelihood initiatives can safely seed longer-term recovery, while saving lives. It describes the work of the Women's Refugee Commission (WRC), partnered with Oxfam, to pilot the Cohort Livelihoods and Risk Analysis (CLARA) guidance and tool in Iraq/KRI. Developed by WRC, CLARA assesses needs, risks and opportunities, and highlights mitigation strategies for safer, more responsive humanitarian assistance. Also available is the CLARA toolkit as a separate document – see downloads.


In 2001, Allianz Capital Partners and Goldman Sachs acquired a majority stake in Messer Griesheim, a European industrial gas concern held by Hoechst. The dealmakers faced several challenges, including delicate corporate governance issues due to partial family ownership and a consolidating market for industrial gases. Aiming to make Messer Griesheim a more attractive potential acquisition, Messer Griesheim management had drawn up a restructuring plan as early as 2000. By late 2003 the private equity players were ready to exit and the Messer family agitated for further control. Several factors were in play: the family had a buy-back option, the window of which was quickly closing; there were few possible strategic buyers, given the anti-trust issues facing a European player interested in buying the firm; and the family made no secret of its desire to retain a piece of the firm, at the very least, and some measure of control. The case explores the steps taken by the private equity investors to restructure the firm, and the relationship the partners forged with the family owners, to bring about a favorable exit for the private equity partners and ownership for the Messer family.


It is known that the expansion property of a graph influences the performance of the corresponding code when decoded using iterative algorithms. Certain graph products may be used to obtain larger expander graphs from smaller ones. In particular, the zig-zag product and replacement product may be used to construct infinite families of constant degree expander graphs. This paper investigates the use of zig-zag and replacement product graphs for the construction of codes on graphs. A modification of the zig-zag product is also introduced, which can operate on two unbalanced biregular bipartite graphs, and a proof of the expansion property of this modified zig-zag product is presented.


Clean renewable energy bonds (CREBs) present a low-cost opportunity for public entities to issue bonds to finance renewable energy projects. The federal government lowers the cost of debt by providing a tax credit to the bondholder in lieu of interest payments from the issuer. Because CREBs are theoretically interest free, they may be more attractive than traditional tax-exempt municipal bonds. In February 2009, Congress appropriated a total of $2.4 billion for the "New CREBs" program. No more than one-third of the budget may be allocated to each of the eligible entities: governmental bodies, electric cooperatives, and public power providers. Applications for this round of "New CREBs" were due to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on August 4, 2009. There is no indication Congress will extend the CREBs program; thus going forward, only projects that are approved under the 2009 round will be able to issue CREBs. This factsheet explains the CREBs mechanism and provides guidance on procedures related to issuing CREBs.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implementation challenges of one of lean construction's recent tools, the last planner system (LPS), by exploring issues in the New Zealand construction sector to identify potential areas for improvement. To achieve this aim, the study formulated two objectives: to present the challenges in LPS use and to explore solutions by using an Excel spreadsheet for facilitating LPS applications.

Design/methodology/approach

The study drew primarily upon a case study approach. A fieldwork study and document analysis of a New Zealand construction project were conducted with an extensive literature review undertaken on the LPS concept.

Findings

The findings revealed that although an automated spreadsheet could be a simple and inexpensive option for using the LPS, data collection, storage and transfer into the spreadsheet could significantly influence the reliability of the LPS outcomes. Most data utilisation challenges were found to occur around the three data sets included in the weekly work plan (WWP). The study presented several automation solutions which had been applied to overcome data utilisation challenges.

Originality/value

Among the first of its kind in the construction industry, this study, with its first-hand account of an organisation which uses the lean paradigm, provides an in-depth insight into LPS tool implementation. The study extends the current body of knowledge by unearthing the challenges of LPS integration into construction activities and presenting efforts undertaken in a construction case project to overcome relevant issues. This adds value by enhancing the reliability of the LPS and, consequently, the effectiveness of its implementation in practical terms.


Ultrathin metallic films have an interesting electromagnetic behavior as the frequency of the incident field is varied over several orders of magnitude, because of the dramatic dispersion exhibited by the metal permittivity. We study a finite multilayer of periodically placed planar conducting films for frequencies varying from the dc limit to the far ultraviolet. We provide the optimized reflectivity and transmittivity of the system for the various frequency regimes involved. Further, we produce the dispersion diagrams of the corresponding photonic bandgap structures, which clearly show the transition of the system from a metallic (low frequencies) to a dielectric (optical frequencies) behavior. In addition, simple design formulas for maximum reflectivity of finite film number N are presented in terms of film thickness and film spacing in each of the representative frequency ranges.


This work is not about the rules or concepts of Roman law, says Alan Watson, but about the values and approaches, explicit and implicit, of those who made the law. The scope of Watson's concerns encompasses the period from the "Twelve Tables", around 451 BC, to the end of the so-called classical period, around AD 235. As he discusses the issues and problems that faced the Roman legal intelligentsia, Watson also holds up Roman law as a clear, although admittedly extreme, example of law's enormous impact on society in light of society's limited input into law. Roman private law has been the most admired and imitated system of private law in the world, but it evolved, Watson argues, as a hobby of gentlemen, albeit a hobby that carried social status. The jurists, the private individuals most responsible for legal development, were first and foremost politicians and (in the Empire) bureaucrats; their engagement with the law was primarily to win the esteem of their peers. The exclusively patrician College of Pontiffs was given a monopoly of interpretation of private law in the mid-fifth century BC. Though the College would lose its exclusivity and monopoly, interpretation of law remained one mark of a Roman gentleman. But only interpretation of the law, not conceptualisation or systematisation or reform, gave prestige, says Watson. Further, the jurists limited themselves to particular modes of reasoning: no arguments to a ruling could be based on morality, justice, economic welfare or what was approved elsewhere. No Praetor (one of the elected officials who controlled the courts) is famous for introducing reforms, Watson points out, and, in contrast with a non-jurist like Cicero, no jurist theorised about the nature of law. A strong characteristic of Roman law is its relative autonomy, and isolation from the rest of life. Paradoxically, this very autonomy was a key factor in the Reception of Roman Law - the assimilation of the learned Roman law as taught at the universities into the law of the individual territories of Western Europe. This is the first volume in the "Spirit of the Law" series. With the intention of illuminating the nature of legal systems throughout the world, titles in the series are concerned less with the rules of the law and more with the relationships of the laws in each system with religion and moral perspectives; the degree of complexity and abstraction; classifications; attitudes to possible sources of law; authority; and values enshrined in law.


The Whatcom Waterway Site, located within inner Bellingham Bay, Washington consists of intertidal and subtidal aquatic lands within and adjacent to the Whatcom Waterway in Bellingham, Washington. Georgia-Pacific and the Washington Department of Ecology completed a detailed Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study and Environmental Impact Statement of the Whatcom Waterway Site in 2001, which provides data, analysis, and evaluations to inform selection of a sediment cleanup action alternative that is protective of human health and the environment and considers local site development plans. A key element of the evaluation is the detailed analysis of sediment natural recovery, which consists of five broad elements: 1) Verification of the effectiveness of source control actions; 2) Characterization of sediment fate and transport processes; 3) Documentation of the historical record of declining sediment concentrations; 4) Documentation of biological recovery; and 5) Development of a reliable model to forecast future changes in sediment quality. The analysis reveals that surface sediments and associated biological resources throughout nearly all of the Whatcom Waterway Site have now recovered to levels that are protective of human health and the environment, even though subsurface accumulations of contaminants are buried at depth within the sediments, including within a federal navigation channel. However, land use and site development plans may potentially require future dredging of the federal channel, which would pose risks to the environment during and following the dredging action. The monitored natural recovery evaluation, along with other related analyses, helps clarify for the regulatory agencies and stakeholders the tradeoffs between different sediment remediation options, and differentiated cleanup versus development .drivers. for dredging. These evaluations, in turn, have led to development of a consensus-based Comprehensive Strategy for integrated remediation, development, and habitat restoration actions within the Whatcom Waterway Site, which includes dredging of much of the navigation channel. Key to the success of the Comprehensive Strategy is the integration of navigation channel maintenance funding, and other potential authorities, through the federal Water Resources Development Act.


Background This study's aim was to clarify the relationship of having hobbies and a purpose in life (PIL; in Japanese, ikigai) with mortality and a decline in the activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL) among the community-dwelling elderly. Methods Prospective observational data from residents aged ≥65 years who were at increased risk for death (n = 1853) and developing a decline in ADL (n = 1254) and IADL (n = 1162) were analyzed. Cox proportional hazard models were used for mortality analysis of data from February 2011 to November 2014. ADL and IADL were evaluated using the Barthel Index and the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology Index of Competence, respectively. ADL and IADL were assessed at baseline and follow-up and were evaluated using logistic regression models. Fully adjusted models included terms for age, gender, BMI, income, alcohol intake, smoking history, number of chronic diseases, cognitive function, and depression. Results During the follow-up of eligible participants, 248 had died, 119 saw a decline in ADL, and 178 saw a decline in IADL. In fully adjusted models, having neither hobbies nor PIL was significantly associated with an increased risk of mortality (hazard ratio 2.08; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.47–2.94), decline in ADL (odds ratio 2.74; 95% CI, 1.44–5.21), and decline in IADL (odds ratio 1.89; 95% CI, 1.01–3.55) compared to having both hobbies and PIL. Conclusions Although effect modifications by cognitive functioning and depression cannot be ruled out, our findings suggest that having hobbies and PIL may extend not only longevity, but also healthy life expectancy among community-dwelling older adults.


This thesis introduces so-called cone scalarising functions. They are by construction compatible with a partial order for the outcome space given by a cone. The quality of the parametrisations of the efficient set given by the cone scalarising functions are then investigated. Here, the focus lies on the (weak) efficiency of the generated solutions, the reachability of effiecient points and continuity of the solution set. Based on cone scalarising functions Pareto Navigation a novel, interactive, multiobjective optimisation method is proposed. It changes the ordering cone to realise bounds on partial tradeoffs. Besides, its use of an equality constraint for the changing component of the reference point is a new feature. The efficiency of its solutions, the reachability of efficient solutions and continuity is then analysed. Potential problems are demonstrated using a critical example. Furthermore, the use of Pareto Navigation in a two-phase approach and for nonconvex problems is discussed. Finally, its application for intensity-modulated radiotherapy planning is described. Thereby, its realisation in a graphical user interface is shown.


Code mobility technologies attract more and more developers and consumers. Numerous domains are concerned, many platforms are developed and interest applications are realized. However, developing good software products requires modeling, analyzing and proving steps. The choice of models and modeling languages is so critical on these steps. Formal tools are powerful in analyzing and proving steps. However, poorness of classical modeling language to model mobility requires proposition of new models. The objective of this paper is to provide a specific formalism "temporal labeled reconfigurable nets" and show how this one seems to be adequate to model different kinds of code mobility.


The protein kinase A regulatory subunit 1 alpha (PRKAR1A/PKAI) pathway is overexpressed in varieties of tumors and cancer cell lines including cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), although its role in CCA growth modulation is unclear. In our study, we evaluated the effect of PRKAR1A/PKAI targeting on CCA cell proliferation. Real‐time PCR demonstrated an increased mRNA expression of PRKAR1A/PKAI, whereas protein kinase A regulatory subunit 2 beta (PRKAR2B/PKAII) was downregulated in human CCA tissues and CCA cell lines. Immunohistochemistry of human CCA tissues revealed increased PRKAR1A with decreased PRKAR2B protein expression. Moreover, CCA cell lines showed abundantly expressed PRKAR1A, while lacking PRKAR2B expression. Silencing PRKAR1A expression induced growth inhibition and apoptosis of CCA cells, with an associated decrease in mitogen‐activated protein kinases, PI3K/Akt, JAK/STAT and Wnt/β‐catenin pathway signaling. The inhibition of PKA using a PKA inhibitor and cAMP analogs also led to a significant cell growth inhibition. In conclusion, our study reports the overexpression as well as molecular mechanisms by which PRKAR1A/PKA regulates human CCA cell growth. Importantly, abrogation of gene expression caused significant CCA cell growth inhibition, oncogenic signaling and coupled apoptosis induction, suggesting PRKAR1A's potential as a drug target for CCA therapy.


1. Abstract Agility is a fundamental characteristic of successful supply chains faced with volatile and unpredictable demand, and has been suggested as a promising new paradigm for improving healthcare delivery. Agility is an organization-wide capability that seeks to improve overall responsiveness to customer demands, synchronize supply to demand, and cope with uncertainty. However, even if many conceptual models of agility are available, extant literature fails to clearly delineate how 'agile' can be applied in healthcare services and to what extent healthcare systems can benefit from these approaches, nor are there comparisons to current healthcare system redesign paradigms. Given the resource constraints in most hospitals, it is useful, if not critical, to develop a good understanding of how, and to what effect, the agile paradigm can be applied in healthcare. We test specific agile operational practices in a simulated healthcare environment using system dynamics modeling, establishing the comparative effectiveness of changes to system structures that promote market sensitivity, demand information sharing, and centralized planning. This study provides healthcare managers and policy makers with concrete guidance to improve system performance through adopting agile practices, and opens a new area for service supply chain management research.


The available spectrum in cognitive radio networks is usually discontinuous but wide, which provides abundant frequency domain diversity. In this paper, we identify the opportunity of leveraging the newly-emerged technique interference alignment to exploit such diversity to support concurrent transmission and improve the network throughput in secondary networks. To enable interference alignment, independent-fading subcarriers should be grouped together to provide sufficient dimensions for intended signals and non-intended interferences at the receiver side. We formulate the subcarrier grouping problem for interference alignment to maximize the number of concurrent transmissions, and propose a greedy-based algorithm to solve it, which is proved to be optimal. Simulation results show that using the proposed scheme, the total throughput in cognitive radio networks can be greatly improved.


Relativistic electron dropout (RED) events are characterized by fast electron flux decrease at the geostationary orbit. It is known that the main loss process is non adiabatic and more effective for the high energy particles. RED events generally start to occur at midnight sector and propagate to noon sector and are correlated with magnetic field stretching. In this paper, we discuss this kind of event can be caused from pitch angle diffusion induced when the gyro radius of the electrons is comparable to the radius of curvature of the magnetic field and the magnetic moment is not conserved any more. While this process has been studied theoretically, the question is whether electron precipitation could be explained with this process for the real field configuration. This paper will show that this process can successfully explain the precipitation that occurred on 14 June 2004 observed by the low-altitude (680 km) polar orbiting Korean satellite, STSAT-1. In this precipitation event, the energy dispersion showed higher energy electron precipitation occurred at lower L values. This feature is a good indicator that precipitation was caused by the magnetic moment scattering in the geomagnetic tail. This interpretation is supported by the geosynchronous satellite GOES observations that showed significant magnetic field distortion occurred on the night side accompanying the electron flux depletion. Tsyganenko-01 model also shows the magnetic moment scattering could occur under the geomagnetic conditions existing at that time. We suggest the pitch angle scattering by field curvature violating the first adiabatic invariant as a possible candidate for loss mechanism of relativistic electrons in radiation belt.


The University of New Mexico's Tamarind Institute is a world-renowned center for fine art lithography dedicated to training master printers and providing a professional studio for artists. In "Migrations", Tamarind director Marjorie Devon has compiled the work of six Native American artists, each of whom collaborated with professional printers at Tamarind and at Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton, Oregon, to create prints. These artists were selected because they engage in contemporary art rather than what is traditionally considered 'Native American art'. Artists Steven Deo (Creek/Euchee), Tom Jones (Ho Chunk), Larry McNeil (Tlingit/Nisgaa), Ryan Lee Smith (Cherokee), Star Wallowing Bull (Chippewa/Arapaho), and Marie Watt (Seneca) represent a wide spectrum of Native American cultures and experiences. In addition to the art, essays by Jo Ortel, Lucy Lippard, Kathleen Howe, and Gerald McMaster contribute expert analyses of Native American art. Ortel, an associate professor of art history at Beloit College, defines 'Migrations' as it applies to this project. Lippard is an art critic and author whose essay discusses the cultural baggage forced upon the American Indian. As director of the Pomona College Museum of Art and professor of art history, Howe offers an overview of Tamarind Institute's projects with indigenous peoples. A Plains Cree artist, McMaster's essay details the history of Crow's Shadow Institute on Oregon's Umatilla Reservation.


The stereotyped structure of mammalian and invertebrate brains is a crucial determinant of their circuit organization. Thus large scale efforts to map circuit organization using 3D image data are underway in a number of model systems, including flies and mice. Many of these studies use registration of sample images to a standard template brain to enable co-visualization and spatial querying. However, studies often use distinct template brains, resulting in large islands of data which cannot be directly compared. To enable this comparison, we have constructed bridging registrations between template brains accounting for the vast majority of Drosophila melanogaster 3D neuroanatomical data. Furthermore, we solve the related problem of mapping data between the left and right brain hemispheres via the construction of mirroring registrations. Finally, we extend our approach across species to demonstrate its potential use in evolutionary studies of neural circuit structure and provide bridging registrations that link a new set of template brains generated for four Drosophila species that are divergent over 40 million years of evolution. We describe our strategy, document the freely available anatomical data and open source com- puter tools that we have generated and provide numerous examples of their use. This effort has unified data from over 30,000 publicly available images, with resources including the 3D atlas embodying the new standard Drosophila anatomical nomenclature and the largest single neuron databank yet available in any species. Over 20,000 registered images have been contributed to the Virtual Fly Brain project and can be viewed online at www.virtualflybrain.org.


Based on the data of national representative monitoring survey carried out by Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Science in 2014–2016 the article analyzes main problems faced by Russian population in current socio-economic crisis. It is demonstrated that deterioration of financial situation was the key problem of Russians. It caused appearance of so called "pockets of concern" and can arguably stimulate social tension in future. Structural positions of unskilledworkers are the most possible centers of these "pockets of concern". At the same time 20 per cent of Russians demonstrate stability of their social positions and face no necessity to cope with any economic difficulties. They form a kind of "stability zone" against the backdrop of a general deterioration in the material situation of the population. Territorial analyses (as much as the data permitted) show appearance of "risk zones" and "zones of stability" associated with in-/ stability of socio-economic status of the population and its in-/ability to solve financial problems. In 2015 the "risk zones" were relatively more common. They resulted from both (1) population being not capable to respond to the challenges of a nationwide crisis and (2) unsolved local institutional problems. Representatives of the "risk zones" were not only anxious and irritated by current reality, but see negative dynamics in different aspects of life from economics to morality. They also did not trust state authorities, including the head of the country. A low level of confidence in the authorities causes additional risk of "pockets of concern" formation. Social protests are most likely to occur when financial problems overlap with distrust to the authorities. Primorsky Kray and Moscow Region exemplify most dangerous "pockets of concerns".


The importance of communication and trust in the context of global virtual teams has been noted and reiterated in the information systems (IS) literature. Yet precisely how communication and trust influence certain outcomes within virtual teams remains unresolved. In this study, we seek to contribute some clarity to the understanding of the theoretical linkages among trust, communication, and member performance in virtual teams. To this end, we identify and test three proposed models (additive, interaction, and mediation) describing the role of trust in its relationship with communication to explain performance. In testing the relationships, we note that the concepts of communication and trust are inherently relational and not properties of individuals. Thus, we argue that a social network approach is potentially more appropriate than attribute-based approaches that have been utilized in prior research. Our results indicate that the "mediating" model best explains how communication and trust work together to influence performance. Overall, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on virtual teams by empirically reconciling conflicting views regarding the interrelationships between key constructs in the literature. Further, the study, through its adoption of the social network analysis approach, provides awareness within the IS research community of the strengths of applying network approaches in examining new organizational forms.


Many blind and low-vision individuals are unable to access
digital media visually. Currently, the solution to this
accessibility problem is to produce text descriptions of visual
graphics, which are then translated via text-to-speech screen
reader technology. However, if a text description can
accurately convey the meaning intended by an author of a
visualization, then why did the author create the visualization
in the first place? This essay critically examines this problem
by comparing the so-called graphic–linguistic distinction to
similar distinctions between the properties of sound and
speech. It also presents a provisional model for identifying
visual properties of graphics that are not conveyed via text-tospeech
translations, with the goal of informing the design of
more effective sonic translations of visual graphics.


Wearable robots based on soft materials will augment mobility and performance of the host without restricting natural kinematics. Such wearable robots will need soft sensors to monitor the movement of the wearer and robot outside the lab. Until now wearable soft sensors have not demonstrated significant mechanical robustness nor been systematically characterized for human motion studies of walking and running. Here, we present the design and systematic characterization of a soft sensing suit for monitoring hip, knee, and ankle sagittal plane joint angles. We used hyper-elastic strain sensors based on microchannels of liquid metal embedded within elastomer, but refined their design with the use of discretized stiffness gradients to improve mechanical durability. We found that these robust sensors could stretch up to 396% of their original lengths, would restrict the wearer by less than 0.17% of any given joint's torque, had gauge factor sensitivities of greater than 2.2, and exhibited less than 2% change in electromechanical specifications through 1500 cycles of loading–unloading. We also evaluated the accuracy and variability of the soft sensing suit by comparing it with joint angle data obtained through optical motion capture. The sensing suit had root mean square (RMS) errors of less than 5° for a walking speed of 0.89 m/s and reached a maximum RMS error of 15° for a running speed of 2.7 m/s. Despite the deviation of absolute measure, the relative repeatability of the sensing suit's joint angle measurements were statistically equivalent to that of optical motion capture at all speeds. We anticipate that wearable soft sensing will also have applications beyond wearable robotics, such as in medical diagnostics and in human–computer interaction.


The virulence of temperature-sensitive mutants of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) injected subcutaneously into newborn hamsters was positively correlated with their tendency to generate revertants and with their leakiness in cultured hamster embryo fibroblasts maintained at 37 degrees C, the measured body temperature of the animals under our experimental conditions. The complementation group of the mutants seemed important only in that it tended to determine reversion frequency and leakiness. One non-reverting group I mutant (T1026), however, was much less virulent than would be expected from its extreme leakiness at body temperature. The disease produced by the less virulent mutants was characterized by neurological symptoms and led to delayed death, unlike the rapid deatth produced by virulent mutants. Infectious virus could be found in higher titres in the brains than in peripheral organs of such animals (with ratios as high as 10(8)). This neurotropism was not correlated with the complementation group of the mutant but was shown to be the consequence of survival for more than 3 days after injection. Age was not responsible for the effect. Animals injected at birth with T1026 were completely resistant to subcutaneous superinfection with the highly virulent wildtype virus HR at 3 to 4 days, though non-T1026-protected animals were completely sensitive. When HR was injected intracerebrally at 3 to 4 days, the T1026-protected animals allowed replication to high titres in the brain but not in peripheral organs, whereas non-T1026-protected animals allowed replication to high titres in both brain and in peripheral organs. We suggest from these results that the observed neurotropism is produced by a resistance mechanism operative in peripheral organs but not in the brain; this resistance develops rapidly in newborn animals on exposure to virus and clears virus from the peripheral organs leaving it in the brain. It is possible that our effect represents a controlled and accelerated induction of the classical peripheral resistance of animals to various viruses which normally develops with age.


Starting from the separation between formal and real authority, the paper considers a hierarchical relation where delegation of control can be used as an incentive mechanism. It shows that delegation is optimal when parties' interests are neither too divergent nor too close. In that case superiors do not need to monitor too closely, curbing the subordinates' initiative and subordinates have no incentives to free ride on the superiors' information. The analysis is then extended to a multi-period setting. If subordinates acquire expertise on the job (learning by doing), effort has the nature of a specific investment whose intrinsic value is higher the longer the subordinate's working life. Therefore, a policy of gradual delegation is possible, where agents accept weaker incentives at the beginning of their career, requiring stronger incentives over time as the value of their knowledge diminishes.


The atypical isotype of protein kinase C (aPKC) has a role in polarization in mammalian cells. Along with an adaptor, the PDZ domain-containing protein ASIP (atypical PKC isotype-specific interacting protein), aPKC is localized to tight junctions in epithelial cells. In Caenorhabditis elegans, aPKC and the ASIP homolog PAR-3 are asymmetrically localized in one-celled embryos. Nakaya et al. studied the localization of Xenopus aPKC (XaPKC) and its ASIP-binding protein. In immature oocytes, the proteins were distributed uniformly, but progesterone-induced maturation caused localization of the complex to the animal hemisphere of mature oocytes. A point mutation in the ATP-binding site of XaPKC blocked this redistribution, indicating that activity of the kinase is required. Further analysis of the regulated redistribution of XaPKC may enhance our understanding of the highly conserved roles of aPKC and ASIP in generating cell asymmetry in very different biological contexts in organisms ranging from C. elegans to mammals. Nakaya, M.-a., Fukui, A., Izumi, Y., Akimoto, K., Asashima, M., and Ohno, S. (2000) Meiotic maturation induces animal-vegetal symmetric distribution of aPKC and ASIP/PAR-3 in Xenopus oocytes. Development 127:5021-5031. [Online Journal]


This thesis is a contribution to the social history of medieval Devon and the south- west in the lifetimes of the first two Courtenay earls, Hugh II (1275-1340) and Hugh III (1303-77). The fourteenth century was an era of particular importance to the region's social evolution, in which many sectors of the non-agrarian economy - cloth production, mining fishing, ship-building, intermational commerce - attained impressive levels of growth, interrupted perhaps only moderately by the demographic crises of the middle decades. Further encouragement to economic prosperity came from the war with France, which stimulated demographic and urban communities on the south coast and provided fresh opportunities for employment and personal advancement. Against this backdrop of economic change, the pattern of aristocratic power in the south-western peninsula was undergoing a fundamental transformation and shift in focus. Two great Anglo-Norman honors were united in 1297 under the Courtenays, giving a single aristocratic dynasty unprecedented influence and leverage over local society. Permanently resident in the county and led by vigorous personalities, the family rapidly became ubiquitous in all sectors of public life and the region experienced a quality and intensity of lordship rarely witnessed in the previous two centuries. The current work supplies a deficiency in the study of the medieval south-west, but also makes a case for extending the remit of a traditional county-based study to encompass a wider cultural and economic hinterland. Particular attention is paid to the influence of the physical landscape and geography on economic and seignorial development in medieval society. The thesis is divided into two parts: the first dealing with the economic and social infrastructure, and 'setting the scene' with a long-term historical survey; the second focusing specifically on the fourteenth century and placing a discussion of local power structures in a wider 'national' context.


Gram-negative infection of the toe web space is less frequent than dermatophytes and yeasts, but it is more challenging, especially with the involvement of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in relation to antibiotic resistance and the increased risk of potentially lethal complications. Many conditions, other than infections, might initially present with the same clinical features, recognising the common initial damage (intertrigo), due to skin-on-skin rubbing in a moist environment with air entrapment, which is typical of interdigital spaces. Conditions such as contact eczema, atopic dermatitis, and inverse psoriasis, frequently predispose to, and are maintained by, the intertrigo, triggering a vicious circle. The dermatologist is in a lead position to address the correct assessment and management. A careful screening for predisposing factors is necessary: overweight, diabetic, but also athletes or people attending swimming pools, gyms, public showers/dressing rooms, and thermal baths are also at an increased risk of intertrigo of the toe web spaces. Occupational activities other than recreational might be relevant, such as the use of safety shoes or working in wet warm conditions. Incongruous therapy for tinea pedis or contact dermatitis, frequently auto-prescribed, might be among promoting factors altering the microbial ecosystem balance. The aim of this review is to evaluate the main epidemiologic and clinical features of Gram-negative bacteria intertrigo, the role of promoting factors, and the measures taken to treat and prevent this disorder. Appropriate treatment and patient education are crucial to prevent further infection and relapses.


Effective participatory water management requires effective co-engineering – the collective process whereby organisational decisions are made on how to bring stakeholders together. This trans-disciplinary book highlights the challenges involved in the collective initiation, design, implementation and evaluation of water planning and management processes. It demonstrates how successful management requires the effective handling of two participatory processes: the stakeholder water management process and the co-engineering process required to organise this. The book provides practical methods for supporting improved participatory processes, including the application of theory and models to aid decision-making. International case studies of these applications from Australia, Europe and all over the world, including Africa, are used to examine negotiations and leadership approaches, and their effects on the participatory stakeholder processes. This international review of participatory water governance forms an important resource for academic researchers in hydrology, environmental management and water policy, and also practitioners and policy-makers working in water management.


This paper focuses on the use of geographical information systems (GIS) within primary and secondary health care sectors in the United Kingdom in relation to wider notions of 'joined-up' government—a key tenet of central government initiatives aimed at addressing problems such as social exclusion and polarisation. Drawing on findings from a national-level questionnaire survey, and follow-up semi-structured interviews with key respondents from the National Health Service (NHS), we have found that there has been an increase in GIS uptake within health organisations in the last decade. However, there has been limited collaboration between NHS organisations and local authorities on projects that utilise GIS. This lack of interorganisational activity is underpinned by the lack of a service-level agreement for digital data provision within NHS organisations, ambiguous understandings of data confidentiality requirements, and a limited awareness of the benefits of joined-up working arrangements. The paper concludes with a suggestion that significant organisational and cultural changes are required to facilitate enabling contexts for enhanced collaborative use of GIS between NHS organisations and local authorities, in order to support the wider joined-up government agenda currently being promoted in the United Kingdom.


Stomach cancer is the most common neoplasm of the gastrointestinal tract. Although the incidence of gastric cancer in recent decades been steadily decreasing, it is still the second largest cause of mortality in the world. The survival rate after total gastrectomy for gastric cancer has been improved thanks to early diagnosis and improved operational techniques. After total gastrectomy and systemic lymphadenectomy, many reconstructive techniques have been developed in an effort to minimize the symptoms resulting loss of gastric function, improve physiological and nutritional status of the patient's rapid return to normal daily activities. At the same time, gastric reconstruction method should be technically easy to perform with minimal postoperative complications. Most patients after total gastrectomy develop symptoms postgastrectomy syndrome, dysphagia, heartburn, reflux esophagitis, diarrhea and weight loss. Reduced transit time through the intestine chyme is blamed as the main cause of malassimilation nutrient nutrients. Nutrient deficiencies may occur as a consequence of disturbed digestion and absorption of protein, fat and liposoluble vitamins that can affect pancreatico-cibal asynchrony and lack of bile acids. Especially notable is the decreased absorption of micronutrients, which are mainly absorbed in the duodenum, such as calcium and iron. The rapid transit of food through the intestine, also reduces the absorption of calcium, while the presence of steatorrhea leads to the formation of insoluble calcium soaps which can contribute calcium malabsorption. After total gastrectomy postgastrektomijska often develop bone disease in the form of osteomalacia or osteoporosis because of lower level of calcium and 25- (OH) vitamin D levels. Iron deficiency, vitamin Bn (cyanocobalamin) deficiency and folic acid deficiency in the postoperative period after total gastrectomy causes the emergence of different forms of anemia. In most patients after total gastrectomy developed excessive bacterial colonization due to lack of stomach "acid barrier,, and chyme stagnation in the afferent jejunum limb, leading to the syndrome of bacterial growth: malabsorption of fats, carbohydrates, protein and micronutrients. Preservation of duodenal passage of food reconstructive procedures should improve the absorption of these nutrients, even in other intestinal segments. Therefore, in order to alleviate the symptoms of postgastrectomy syndromes and improved postoperative quality of life, access to a variety of reconstructive procedures. Since it is relatively simple to perform, it switches the esophagus and jejunum, and may prevent reflux esophagitis, Roux-en-Y reconstruction is the most common reconstructive procedure that is performed after total gastrectomy. However, many researchers have pointed to the importance of the reservoir function of the stomach and duodenum through the passage of food, and the presence of duodenal passage. Therefore, have been developed and reconstructive procedures with preservation of duodenal passage interposition between the esophagus and duodenum, respectively, reconstruction esophagojejunostomy Roux-en-Y configuration "double tract,, isoperistaltic interposition and free jejunal segment by the method of Longmire's. Quality of life after total gastrectomy is an important fact outcomes postoperative course. Preservation of duodenal passage of reconstruction after total gastrectomy results in better physiological mixture chyme with bile and pancreatic juice, normalization of physiological regulation of gastrointestinal hormones and adequate intestinal motility by down regulating or decrease the incidence of occurrence postgastrectomy syndrome. Reconstruction after total gastrectomy for gastric cancer with duodenal passage preservation of an optimal choice in establishing esophagus-intestinal continuity and improvement of postoperative quality of life of patients.


Date ________________________ iii Micro Combined Heat and Power (Micro-CHP) system produces both electricity and heat required for residential or small business applications. Use of Micro-CHP in a residential application not only creates energy and economic savings but also reduces the carbon foot print of the house or small business. Additionally, micro-CHP can subsidize its cost of operation by selling excess electricity produced back to the grid. Even though Micro-CHP remains attractive on paper, high initial cost and optimization issues in residential scale heat and electrical requirement has kept this technology from becoming a success. To understand and overcome all disadvantages posed my Micro-CHP system, a laboratory is developed to test different scenarios of Micro-CHP applications so that we can learn and improve the current technology. Abstract This report focuses on the development of this Micro-CHP laboratory including installation of Ecopower micro-CHP unit, developing fuel line and exhaust line for Ecopower unit, design of electrical and thermal loop, installing all the instrumentation required for data collection on the Ecopower unit and developing controls for heat load simulation using thermal loop. Also a simulation of Micro-CHP running on Syngas is done in Matlab.


Although the term "biofiction" is regularly employed in neo-Victorian criticism it remains curiously under-theorised, without extended discussion of writers' different approaches to the fictional re-imaginings of nineteenth-century historical subjects, or such representations' varied ethical or ethically suspect implications. This paper identifies a range of descriptive modes – "celebrity biofiction," "biofiction of marginalised subjects" and "appropriated biofiction" – to begin to map this neo-Victorian subgenre in greater detail. Barbara Chase-Riboud's Hottentot Venus (2003) is considered as a biofictional case-study and limit-case of bearing after-witness to an historical Other.


A 57-year-old female presented to the emergency department of our hospital with painful skin lesions since 3 months. On examination, ulcerating tumors and plaques occupied 100% of her body and enlarged firm left axillary lymph nodes were present. On imaging, PET scan revealed hypermetabolic cutaneous lesion, and hyperactive B/L axillary, inguinal and intra-parotid lymph nodes. Punch biopsy from right medial thigh skin lesion showed phenomenon of epidermotropism. PCR studies showed strong expression of TCR gamma by atypical cells. FNAC of axillary lymph node and bone marrow biopsy was negative. Based on histo-immunological evidence and dermatologist input, the diagnosis of cytotoxic cutaneous gamma delta T-cell lymphoma (CGDTCL) was made. Patient received five cycles of total skin electron beam therapy. Contrary to the present literature that suggests that cutaneous gamma delta T-cell lymphomas are resistant to chemotherapy and radiation, our patient responded very well to total skin electron beam radiation therapy. The tumors on her body flattened with complete resolution of pain and pruritis. This case report summarizes the unusual presentation of CGDTCL and response to treatment. J Med Cases. 2016;7(8):364-367 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jmc2584w


The authors find that private equity and venture capital funds that employ a proactive origination strategy have consistently higher returns, driven by both greater quantity and higher relevance of incoming investment opportunities. These proactive investors are using both traditional tools (cold calling) and more innovative tools (internet research, Web scraping, social media, and expert networks). The authors expect use of social media in particular to increase as more millennials reach decision-making roles in the investment industry. The Web and social media might seem to threaten the discretion and exclusivity that private equity and venture firms traditionally prize by increasing information leakage. However, the authors'data show that increased deal flow and brand recognition offsets any loss of confidentiality. This research study draws on a wide range of data: the authors' in-depth interviews with over 150 private equity and venture investors; their proprietary dataset of information regarding these funds' origination processes; and their experience working with a range of institutional investors.


Shelf break systems are ecologically important regions of the ocean, and are often characterized by enhanced productivity and high densities of species from lower to upper trophic levels. Along with associated submarine canyons, shelf break regions provide important foraging habitat for deep-diving odontocetes such as pilot whales. Short-finned pilot whales Globicephala macrorhynchus are found throughout tropical and subtropical waters, but there is little information on the habitat use of this species in the northwest Atlantic. We examined the movements and foraging behavior of short-finned pilot whales using data from satellite tags (n = 33) deployed off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA in 2014 and 2015. Pilot whale tracks ranged from Cape Lookout, North Carolina north to Georges Bank, with movements and habitat use primarily focused north of Cape Hatteras. We observed 2 distinct modes of behavior, with most pilot whales showing a strong affinity for the continental shelf break and others following offshore meanders of the Gulf Stream for all or part of the observed track. We used first passage time (FPT) to assess arearestricted search behavior, and found that FPT was significantly higher close to the shelf break and in submarine canyons. Our results demonstrate the importance of steep bathymetric features to the foraging habitat and distribution of short-finned pilot whales in this region. In addition, our findings suggest that pilot whales in the Mid-Atlantic Bight may have developed specialized foraging behaviors for targeting steep bathymetric gradients, and that their latitudinal distribution may be limited to regions where this foraging strategy is effective.


Online ride-hailing is an emerging and popular transportation mode under the framework of sharing economy. Its emission issue has been focused by researchers for seeking a clean and efficient way to service passengers. In this paper, we based on stochastic optimization to proposed a smart matching method. The GPS dataset of Didi company in Chengdu city is employed to test the method. Compared with the shortest distance based matching method, the proposed method is able to reduce the invalid emission rate from 0.2834 to 0.2554 which proves the practicability of our method.


Nigeria is a petro-state with a vast shadow economy and shadow political apparatuses, in which the lines between public and private, state and market, government and organized crime are blurred and porous. Since the oil industry in the Niger delta became commercially viable in 1958, virtually every inch of the region has been touched by international oil corporations. As a result, a multiplicity of overlapping conflicts have evolved: From the new states and local government areas bankrolled by the oil revenue process, to reconfigured spaces of chieftainship and ethnicity in which a panoply of political movements struggle for the control over territory, to the violent spaces of the creeks controlled by insurgents and federal military forces.


In this letter, partial transmit sequences (PTS) based on parallel tabu search (Parallel TS-PTS) scheme is proposed to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals. PTS is a distortionless PAPR reduction technique, but its high search complexity for finding optimal phase factors must be reduced for usable applications. Parallel TS-PTS is compared to different PTS schemes for PAPR reduction and search complexity performances. The simulation results show that the proposed parallel TS-PTS method provides good PAPR reduction and bit-error-rate (BER) performances.


Purpose: Accurate tumor classification is essential for cancer management as patient outcomes improve with use of siteand subtype-specific therapies. Current clinicopathologic evaluation is varied in approach, yet standardized diagnoses are critical for determining therapy. While gene expression–based cancer classifiers may potentially meet this need, imperative to determining their application to patient care is validation in rigorously designed studies. Here, we examined the performance of a 92-gene molecular classifier in a large multi-institution cohort. Experimental Design: Case selection incorporated specimens frommore than 50 subtypes, including a range of tumor grades, metastatic and primary tumors, and limited tissue samples. Formalin-fixed, paraffinembedded tumors passed pathologist-adjudicated review between three institutions. Tumor classification using a 92-gene quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay was conducted on blinded tumor sections from 790 cases and compared with adjudicated diagnoses. Results: The 92-gene assay showed overall sensitivities of 87% for tumor type [95% confidence interval (CI), 84–89] and 82% for subtype (95% CI, 79–85). Analyses of metastatic tumors, high-grade tumors, or cases with limited tissue showed no decrease in comparative performance (P1⁄4 0.16, 0.58, and 0.16). High specificity (96%–100%) was showed for ruling in a primary tumor in organs commonly harboring metastases. The assay incorrectly excluded the adjudicated diagnosis in 5% of cases. Conclusions: The 92-gene assay showed strong performance for accurate molecular classification of a diverse set of tumor histologies. Results support potential use of the assay as a standardized molecular adjunct to routine clinicopathologic evaluation for tumor classification and primary site diagnosis. Clin Cancer Res; 18(14); 3952–60. 2012 AACR.


An empirical look at the U.S legal system's effectiveness in addressing school segregation reveals that segregation persists and even surpasses levels experienced before the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, lawmaking continues as though segregation is a thing of the past. The negative effects of racial and ethnic disparities in schooling are well documented, but legal analysts increasingly interpret the law as a system that operates independently of research findings clearly pointing to disparities. For their part, researchers continue to document experiences of segregation without considering the legal system's basic concerns. The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity examines the sources of the disconnect between scientific findings on school segregation and how the U.S. legal system addresses it; evaluates these sources' empirical and legal foundations; explains why they persist; and reveals what can be done about them. Roger Levesque, a scholar with expertise in children's rights, family law, and adolescence, provides an overview of how the legal system approaches inequality based on racial/ethnic status. He presents an analysis of the empirical findings relating to the implementation of laws that would address racial disparities in schooling and educational outcomes. Finally, Levesque challenges jurisprudential claims that the developmental sciences do not offer important and useful tools to guide responses to differential treatment and circumstances based on race. This book will appeal to individuals interested in legal responses to schooling's place in society, discrimination, diversity, inequality, and more broadly, civil rights. The text will also appeal to developmentalists interested in prejudice, discrimination, and social development, and researchers, scholars, and students in law and psychology, law and education, law and human development, and law and society.


This study aimed to compare the inflorescence, florets and pollen formed by the plantlets of feathered amaranth [Celosia argentea var. plumosa (Burvenich) Voss] developed and grown under in vitro conditions with those formed by the plants grown under in vivo conditions. Plantlets were first derived from nodal explants of feathered amaranth cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) semi-solid medium under in vitro aseptic conditions, and then the plantlets produced in vitro inflorescences, florets and pollen. In parallel, inflorescences, florets and pollen of plants raised from feathered amaranth seeds under in vivo conditions were obtained for the comparative purpose. The results revealed that florets from both sources were largely similar except the size. The in vitro florets were mainly smaller than those of the in vivo ones. Also in vivo pollen exhibited a higher germination percentage and average pollen tube length than in vitro pollen when cultured on a pollen germination medium.


The 1990 Minority Law Teachers Conference was dedicated to expanding the number of minorities in law teaching. To this end, the volume addresses a wide variety of concerns for new and veteran teachers including: teaching, scholarship, service, diversity and recruitment. The volume remains one of the most comprehensive statements of minority law professors about their role in the academy.


Many practical applications, such as environmental monitoring or placing sensors for event detection, require to select among a set of informative but possibly expensive observations. When monitoring spatial phenomena with sensor networks or mobile robots, for example, we need to decide which locations to observe in order to most effectively decrease the uncertainty, at minimum cost. These problems are usually NP-hard. Previous approaches for tackling these sensing problems have mainly relied on myopic heuristics, i.e., approaches which only consider the next best observation to add, without planning ahead for future sensing opportunities. For those approaches, typically no performance guarantees are known. Existing nonmyopic approaches have involved computationally intensive techniques which are very difficult to scale to larger problems.
In this Thesis, we present a new class of approaches for observation selection, using techniques from combinatorial optimization. We show that many observation selection objectives satisfy submodularity, an intuitive diminishing returns property—adding a sensor to a small deployment helps more than adding it to a large deployment. Examples include mutual information for spatial prediction and placing sensors for outbreak detection.
We also develop a suite of non-greedy approaches that systematically exploit this submodularity property in order to efficiently obtain provably near-optimal solutions to complex sensing problems. For example, the chosen observations often need to be robust against sensor failure or uncertainty about model parameters. Examples include minimizing the maximum posterior variance in spatial prediction and robust experimental design. We show, that many such problems require the optimization of an adversarially chosen submodular objective function. We will demonstrate that for this problem, existing greedy algorithms perform arbitrarily badly. We develop an algorithm, SATURATE, which performs near-optimally in this setting.
In addition to the problem of finding the best k observations (sensor locations), we consider problems with complex combinatorial constraints. For example, when placing wireless sensor networks, the chosen locations should not only be very informative, but also allow efficient communication. When using robots for making observations, the chosen locations need to lie on a collection of paths. We present PSPIEL, an efficient algorithm which finds solutions which near-optimally trade off sensing quality and cost.
When deploying wireless sensor networks, another fundamental constraint is battery lifetime. Since every measurement draws power, sensors can typically be activated only a fraction of the time. Hence, the problem of scheduling the sensors becomes of crucial importance. Traditionally, sensor placement and scheduling have been considered separately from each other. In this Thesis, we present ESPASS, an efficient algorithm for simultaneously optimizing the placement and scheduling. We show that this simultaneous approach leads to drastic improvements in network lifetime when compared to the traditional, stage-wise approach.
A key question in many observation selection problems is how much better a sequential algorithm, which decides on the next observation based on previous observations, can perform when compared to the best fixed set of observations chosen a priori. We present a partial answer to the question for spatial prediction in Gaussian Processes. We develop a theoretical bound quantifying the gap between the best sequential and a priori selections, and use it to develop an exploration—exploitation approach for active learning in Gaussian Processes.
Lastly, we look beyond submodular observation selection problems, and consider the problem of selecting optimal observations in graphical models.We show that in chain-graphical (Markovian) models, it is possible to efficiently find the optimal sequential policy. However, even for slightly larger classes of graphical models, we prove strong hardness results.
In addition to providing algorithms and theoretical analyses, we present extensive empirical evaluation of our approaches on several real-world case studies. These include building a sensing chair for posture recognition, monitoring environmental phenomena with mobile robots, securing municipal water distribution networks, and selecting informative weblogs to read on the Internet.


Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World is the first global survey of such for the early modern period. Merry Wiesner-Hanks assesses the role of personal faith and the church itself in the control and expression of all aspects of sexuality. The book ranges over developments within Europe and beyond to the European colonies including Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Goa, which were establishing themselves around the world. Christian missionaries and rituals and structures accompanied all of the imperial powers and the control of the sexuality of both indigenous peoples and colonists was an essential part of policy. The book is introduced with a clear, original and engaging account of the central concepts in the study of sexuality in Christianity, such as shame, sin, the body, marriage and gender. Drawing on diverse evidence including literary, medical and historical the following sections chart changes in Western Christianity in the Late Middle Ages, Protestantism and Catholicism in Europe, Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe and Russia, and finally the Spanish, Portuguese, English and Dutch Colonies. Merry Wiesner-Hanks exciting book covers both the ideas and effects in each period. Christianity and Sexuality in the early Modern World includes discursive bibliographies which discuss major books and articles at the end of each chapter.


The behavior of fluoride ion level in the urine and in the serum was measured as an index for health care of workers exposed to hydrofluoric acid, the effect of fluorine-containing foodstuff intake by the workers being considered at the same time. For this study, 250 hydrofluoric acid workers and as a control group 1,600 non-hydrofluoric-acid workers were examined. All workers, ranging in age from 15 to 59 years old, came from the same electronics factory. Fluorides in the biological fluids were measured by using the fluoride ion-specific electrode method and the electrode potential recording method concurrently. The fluoride ion levels (geometric mean) in the urine and in the serum of the non-hydrofluoric-acid workers were determined to be 0.59 ppm and 12 ppb, respectively. Among the influences of fluorine-containing foodstuff on fluoride content in the biological fluids, the effect of black tea and/or green tea intake was particularly remarkable. In the case of the non-hydrofluoric-acid workers, the concentration increased to about double of the control value. Similarly in a diet test on volunteers, the concentration increased about six times. As for the response to tea intake with the lapse of time, the concentration in the urine specimen (spot urine, S.G. corrected: 1.024) reached the maximum value three hours after the intake. In the case of the serum specimen, the maximum value was recorded one hour after the intake, and the influence of the intake continued for several hours. These results suggest that, in the medical examination of hydrofluroic acid workers, restriction of intake of tea and in some cases even a fasting program would have to be introduced as necessary pre-conditions. Upon observation of fluorine concentration in the urine with the lapse of time of hydrofluoric acid workers restricting tea intake, it was confirmed that the trend of the day-to-day variation was small. But that of the in-a-day variation, namely, an increase in the concentration toward the end of daily working hours was obvious. By introduction of these well-regulated methods, it has become possible to properly evaluate even the influence of hydrofluoric acid on the workers irregularly exposed to a hydrofluoric acid environment having a lower concentration than that of the threshold limit value (3 ppm). However, in view of ease of collection and measurement of specimens, speed, and degree of response to the exposure, it can be concluded that the measurement of fluorine content in the urine is more advantageous as an index for the health care than that in the serum. For this reason it is desirable that the former method should be given priority from the view point of prevailing industrial hygiene laws and regulations.


Laboratory measurements of the attenuation and velocity dispersion of compressional and shear waves at appropriate frequencies, pressures, and temperatures can aid interpretation of seismic and well-log surveys as well as indicate absorption mechanisms in rocks. Construction and calibration of resonant-bar equipment was used to measure velocities and attenuations of standing shear and extensional waves in copper-jacketed right cylinders of rocks (Formula in length, Formula in diameter) in the sonic frequency range and at differential pressures up to Formula. We also measured ultrasonic velocities and attenuations of compressional and shear waves in Formula-diameter samples of the rocks at identical pressures. Extensional-mode velocities determined from the resonant bar are systematically too low, yielding unreliable Poisson's ratios. Poisson's ratios determined from the ultrasonic data are frequency corrected and used to calculate thesonic-frequency compressional-wave velocities and attenuations from the shear- and extensional-mode data. We calculate the bulk-modulus loss. The accuracies of attenuation data (expressed as Formula, where Q is the quality factor) are Formula for compressional and shear waves at ultrasonic frequency, Formula for shear waves, and Formula for compressional waves at sonic frequency. Example sonic-frequency data show that the energy absorption in a limestone is small (Formula greater than 200 and stress independent) and is primarily due to poroelasticity, whereas that in the two sandstones is variable in magnitude (Formula ranges from less than 50 to greater than 300, at reservoir pressures) and arises from a combination of poroelasticity and viscoelasticity. A graph of compressional-wave attenuation versus compressional-wave velocity at reservoir pressures differentiates high-permeability (Formula, Formula) brine-saturated sandstones from low-permeability (Formula, Formula) sandstones and shales.


Statistically indistinguishable U-Pb age spectra for detrital zircon populations from the quartzose petrofacies of the fluvial Lower Cretaceous Bisbee Group (southeastern Arizona) and from quartzose eolianites of the Middle to Upper Jurassic San Rafael Group (eastern Colorado Plateau) support the inference that quartzose detritus was reworked into the Bisbee basin of the border rift belt from older eolianites exposed along the uplifted rift shoulder to the north. The comparative data indicate that age spectra of detrital zircons can be reproduced faithfully during sediment recycling, and the possibility of zircon recycling should be considered for many provenance interpretations based on U-Pb ages of detrital zircons. Analogous relations between U-Pb age spectra of detrital zircons in the Lower Cretaceous basal McCoy Mountains Formation (California) and in Lower to Middle Jurassic eolianites of the western Colorado Plateau to the north suggest similar reworking of detritus from sedimentary cover of the rift shoulder into the keel of the rift belt farther west.


Commercial scholarly publishers promote and sell bundles of journals—known as big deals—that provide access to entire collections rather than individual journals. Following this new model, size of serial collections in academic libraries increased almost fivefold from 1986 to 2011. Using data on library subscriptions and references made for a sample of North American universities, this study provides evidence that, while big deal bundles do decrease the mean price per subscribed journal, academic libraries receive less value for their investment. We find that university researchers cite only a fraction of journals purchased by their libraries, that this fraction is decreasing, and that the cost per cited journal has increased. These findings reveal how academic publishers use product differentiation and price strategies to increase sales and profits in the digital era, often at the expense of university and scientific stakeholders.


Ultrasonography is the main modality for prenatal screening examination of the fetal central nervous system. Due to the variability of the position of the fetal brain relatively to the probe, getting through structures of interest requires both time and a high level of expertise. The method presented in this paper aims at helping the clinician navigate through the brain by automatically aligning the head in near real time (<; 1 s) in a 3D ultrasound volume. The alignment is obtained by defining a frame of reference based on the skull, the mid-sagittal plan and the orbits of the eyes; their signals remain strong and stable across acquisitions. They are detected by combining state-of-the-art techniques (random forests and template deformation). Our method has proven fast and accurate on a dataset of 78 volumes (19-24 gestational weeks): maximal alignment errors' medians range from 5.1 to 5.8mm for the transcerebellar, transventricular and transthalamic planes.


From feminist philosophy to genetic science, scholarship in recent years has succeeded in challenging many entrenched assumptions about the material and biological status of human bodies. Likewise in the study of Chinese cultures, accelerating globalization and the resultant hybridity have called into question previous assumptions about the boundaries of Chinese national and ethnic identity. The problem of identifying a single or definitive referent for the "Chinese body" is thornier than ever. By facilitating fresh dialogue between fields as diverse as the history of science, literary studies, diaspora studies, cultural anthropology, and contemporary Chinese film and cultural studies, "Embodied Modernities" addresses contemporary Chinese embodiments as they are represented textually and as part of everyday life practices. The book is divided into two sections, each with a dedicated introduction by the editors. The first examines "Thresholds of Modernity" in chapters on Chinese body cultures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - a period of intensive cultural, political, and social modernization that led to a series of radical transformations in how bodies were understood and represented. The second section on "Contemporary Embodiments" explores body representations across the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong today.


Well-functioning financial services are key for consumption smoothing and to take advantage of investment opportunities. Even though poor households badly need financial services for their day-to-day money management, a commonly held view is that they are 'too poor' to save and to repay loans with flexible terms. This paper explores whether this view holds true for two specific flexible financial products, namely passbook savings accounts and credit lines. Analyzing the daily transactions and balances in more than 10,000 SafeSave accounts—a microfinance institution based in Dhaka, Bangladesh—over nine years (2004-2012) shows that clients make extensive use of their flexible savings-and-loan accounts to accommodate changing availability of and needs for liquidity in the face of three kinds of events: paydays, Islamic festivals (Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, and Eid al-Adha), and political protests (hartals). Cash-in (savings deposit and loan repayment) flexibility is used to cope with both positive (paydays) and negative shocks (Islamic festivals and political protests); cash-out (withdrawal and loan taken) flexibility is used if the negative shock is anticipated well in advance (as in the case of Islamic festivals). We show that, while interest rates on loans are higher than in competing MFIs, repayment rates are comparably high. We also show that SafeSave is covering its operational costs, indicating that this type of flexible financial services can be offered to the poor in a sustainable fashion. Overall, analysis of the SafeSave experience shows that flexible financial products are much in demand by the poor and that they can be profitable for the microfinance institution that offers them.


This thesis describes a 280 MHz MgO:PPLN-based optical parametric oscillator (OPO) synchronously pumped by a 50 fs Ti:sapphire laser to produce ultrafast pulses in the near-infrared. The OPO tuned over a wavelength range from 1450 1550 nm and 1624 1750 nm for the signal and idler respectively. The carrier-envelope-offset (CEO) frequency of the signal pulses was stabilised to a 10 MHz reference frequency without f-2f self-referencing, with an RMS phase variation of 0.56 rad over an observation time of 1 second. The relative intensity noise was measured for the CEO-stabilised OPO over an observation time of 64 seconds as 0.04%. The repetition frequency of the OPO was stabilised to 280 MHz using a frequency synthesiser at the eighth harmonic (2.24 GHz). This locking loop had an RMS phase variation of 0.98 mrad over a 1 second observation time. The CEOand repetition frequencies were then locked simultaneously to a synthesiser referenced to a Rb-disciplined source, to generate a fully stabilised 1.5 μm frequency comb with an absolute uncertainty in comb mode position of 110 Hz. The upper limit for the fractional instability for a comb mode at 200 THz was found to be 2 x 10, limited by the stability of the Rb reference. A five-fold increase in comb mode spacing to 1.4 GHz was demonstrated with the stabilised frequency comb. This was achieved using a passive filter cavity, stabilised to a transmission peak via dither locking. The FWHM bandwidth of the optical spectrum for the filtered frequency comb was reduced to 8 nm, however no increase in comb linewidth was observed. An additional experiment was carried out where an external cavity diode laser was frequency-stabilised to a saturated absorption peak in Rb at 780.2 nm using dither locking, providing an optical frequency reference for future OPO frequency combs.