Study was conducted to check the efficacy of face masks in limiting bacterial dispersal when worn continuously in Operation Theater. A comparison was done to find out difference between fabric and two ply disposable masks. Prior to wearing the mask first sample was collected using cough plate method holding a blood agar plate approximately 10 - 12 centimeters away from the mouth. The personnel were asked to produce "ahh" phonation. Participants were then asked to don the face mask, continue routine work and report to the study center located inside the theater for further sample collections at designated intervals of 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 minutes after wearing the two ply disposable mask. The study was replicated on immediate next day using fabric mask made of cotton keeping all the other conditions and personnel exactly the same.
Bacterial counts before wearing the mask were 5.36+4.38 and 5.7+2.99 on day 1 and day 2 of study. Bacterial counts were 0.96+1.06 (P<0.001) and 0.7+0.87 (P=0) at 30 min; 2.33+1.42 (P<0.001) and 2.36+1.03 (P=0) at 60 min; 3.23+1.54 (P=0.007) and 4.16+1.78 (P=0.011) at 90 min; 5.63+4.02 (P=0.67) and 4.9+1.98 (P=0.161) at 120 min and 7.03+4.45 (P=0.019) and 5.6+2.21 (P=0.951) at150min respectively for fabric and two ply disposable mask. Counts were near pre-wear level in about two hours irrespective of the type of mask. There was no significant difference between cotton fabric and two ply disposable masks. Face masks significantly decreased bacterial dispersal initially but became almost ineffective after two hours of use.
Key words: Face mask, Fabric, Disposable, nosocomial infection, bacterial count.


Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, so called OFDM, has found a prominent place in various wireless systems and networks as a method of encoding data over multiple carrier frequencies. OFDM-based communication systems, however, lacking inherent diversity, are capable of benefiting from different spatial diversity schemes. One such scheme, Cyclic Delay Diversity (CDD) is a method to provide spatial diversity which can be also interpreted as a Space-Time Block Coding (STBC) step. The main idea is to add more transmit antennas at the transmitter side sending the same streams of data, though with differing time delays. In [1], the capacity of a point-to-point OFDM-based channel with CDD is derived for inputs with Gaussian and discrete constellations. In this dissertation, we use the same approach for an OFDM-based single-input single-output (SISO) two-user interference channel (IC). In our model, at the receiver side, the interference is treated as noise. Moreover, since the channel is time-varying (slow-fading), the Shannon capacity in the strict sense is not well-defined, so the expected value of the instantaneous capacity is calculated instead. Furthermore, the channel coefficients are unknown to the transmitters. Thus, in this setting, the probability of outage emerges as a reasonable performance measure. Adding an extra antenna in the transmitters, the SISO IC turns into an MISO IC, which results in increasing the diversity. Both the continuous and discrete inputs are studied and it turns out that decoding interference is helpful in some cases. The results of the simulations for discrete inputs indicate that there


Introduction The hip is the second most common area for injury in collegiate athletes and may account for 2–5% of all sports injuries. Hip and groin pain in the athlete has long been associated with structural abnormalities of the femoral neck, acetabulum and labral pathology. Review The relationship between osteoarthritis and femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) is well established now with clinical studies, radiographic studies and computer simulations. Treatment The successful treatment of the athlete with FAI and subsequent labral and chondral damage has been well documented. New techniques, such as labral reconstruction, are being developed to address the more complex injuries seen in athletes, while helping to protect the joint surfaces and decrease the risk of early onsite osteoarthritis. Conclusion The athlete's painful hip, which is becoming an increasingly more common complaint, is being identified and treated with greater chances of returning to play without compromising long-term hip function and the progression of hip osteoarthritis.


Chemical induction of hepatic monooxygenases should not be viewed as an extracorporal process but rather as one that is liable to be influenced by numerous endogenous factors. In this regard, we examined the interactions of gender, adult age, and barbiturate dose on the course of phenobarbital induction of hepatic CYP2B1 and CYP2B2. We observed that femaleness and youth were associated with the greatest inhibition, so that both the rate and initiation of CYP2B1 and CYP2B2 induction were suppressed most in the young adult (65 days of age) females, followed by the mature adult (150 days of age) females and then by the young adult males, with the mature adult males exhibiting the least suppression of phenobarbital induction. The differential expression rates of hepatic CYP2B1 mRNA in the young and mature male and female rats, similarly reflected at the protein level, suggest that gender- and age-dependent suppression of CYP2B1 occurs at a pretranscriptional or transcriptional level. In contrast, transcript levels of CYP2B2 were unaffected by gender or age. However, accumulation of cytochrome P450 (P450) 2B2 protein was affected by the animal's age and gender, suggesting regulation of a post-transcriptional event. Highly selective (androstenedione 16beta-hydroxylase) as well as nonspecific (total P450 and hexobarbital hydroxylase) P450 2B1- and 2B2-dependent catalytic activities were in agreement with protein levels. Determination of gender- and age-dependent circulating growth hormone profiles indicates that the continuous secretion of the hormone characteristic of the female is more suppressive of CYP2B induction than the episodic pattern growth hormone secretion found in males. The considerably elevated growth hormone pulse amplitudes observed in the young rats of both genders seem to be an additional inhibitory signal antagonizing phenobarbital induction of CYP2B1 and CYP2B2. Phenobarbital administration did not interfere with the normal gender- and age-dependent growth hormone secretory profiles. Last, although as little as 1 mg/kg phenobarbital increased CYP2B1 mRNA concentrations by 100%, there was no translation into detectable levels of protein. In contrast, the same low dose of barbiturate inducing an equal percent increase in CYP2B2 mRNA did result in an expression of protein. Unlike use of the 10 mg/kg dose, CYP2B1 and CYP2B2 induction by phenobarbital at 1 mg/kg was unaffected by age or gender.


The Messinian Salinity Crisis is well known to have resulted from a significant drop of the Mediterranean sea level. Considering both onshore and offshore observations, the subsequent reflooding is generally thought to have been very sudden. We present here offshore seismic evidence from the Gulf of Lions and re‐visited onshore data from Italy and Turkey that lead to a new concept of a two‐step reflooding of the Mediterranean Basin after the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The refilling was first moderate and relatively slow accompanied by transgressive ravinement, and later on very rapid, preserving the subaerial Messinian Erosional Surface. The amplitude of these two successive rises of sea level has been estimated at ≤500 m for the first rise and 600–900 m for the second rise. Evaporites from the central Mediterranean basins appear to have been deposited principally at the beginning of the first step of reflooding. After the second step, which preceeded the Zanclean Global Stratotype Section and Point, successive connections with the Paratethyan Dacic Basin, then the Adriatic foredeep, and finally the Euxinian Basin occurred, as a consequence of the continued global rise in sea level. A complex morphology with sills and sub‐basins led to diachronous events such as the so‐called 'Lago Mare'.This study helps to distinguish events that were synchronous over the entire Mediterranean realm, such as the two‐step reflooding, from those that were more local and diachronous. In addition, the shoreline that marks the transition between these two steps of reflooding in the Provence Basin provides a remarkable palaeogeographical marker for subsidence studies.


The possibility was investigated that Ir genes regulate the function of cells other than T or B cells in the primary IgM responses to the synthetic antigens trinitrophenylated poly-L-(Tyr,Glu)-poly-D,L-Ala--poly-L-Lys [TNP-(T,G)-A--L]and trinitrophenylated poly-,-(His,Glu)-poly-D, L-Ala--poly-L-Lys [TNP-(H,G)-A--L]. The primary responses of (B10 × B10.A)F(1) spleen cells to both antigens were abrogated by Sephadex G-10 passage, and restored by the addition of spleen adherent cells. The cell type in the spleen adherent cell population active in reconstituting the responses to TNP-(T,G)-A--L and TNP-(H,G)-A--L was a non-T, non-B, radiation-resistant, glass-adherent spleen cell. The responses of Sephadex G-10-passed (responder x nonresponder)F(1) spleen cells to TNP-(T,G)-A--L or TNP-(H,G)-A--L were reconstituted by spleen adherent cells from only responder strains. Spleen adherent cells from F(1) mice reconstituted the responses to both antigens. Spleen adherent cells from each of the strains tested reconstituted the non- Ir gene-controlled response to a third antigen, TNP-keyhole limpet hemocyanin. The inability of spleen adherent cells from nonresponder strains to reconstitute the responses to either TNP-(T,G)-A--L or TNP-(H,G)-A--L was not a result of active suppression induced by the presence of nonresponder adherent cells, since a mixture of responder and nonresponder spleen adherent cells reconstituted the responses to both antigens. The use of spleen adherent cells from recombinant strains demonstrated that the autosomal dominant genes controlling the ability of spleen adherent cells to function as accessory cells in the responses to TNP-(T,G)-A--L and TNP-(H,G)-A--L are located in the K or I-A regions of the responder H-2 complex, the same region(s) of H-2 as the Ir genes controlling overall in vitro and in vivo responsiveness to these antigens.


Background
A key driver of the global tobacco epidemic is the massive profit earned from manufacturing tobacco products despite high levels of product taxation. Two of the four major Transnational Tobacco companies are based in the UK, where there is growing evidence of corporate tax avoidance by transnational firms and where there are calls for the industry to pay more towards the harms caused by tobacco products.

Objectives/Methods
UK tobacco company profit and corporation tax data between 2009 and 2016 is obtained from publically available sources. The intention is not to perform a piece of forensic accounting but to establish the broad pattern of profit and taxation in order to inform consideration of tobacco product and firm taxation, and hence public health.

Results
Very little profit based taxation has been paid in the UK despite high levels of reported profits, both in the domestic market and globally.

Conclusions
The UK needs better reporting and corporate taxation standards. Tobacco companies should be made to pay more profit based taxation, such as by extending the surcharge on corporation tax currently paid by UK banks, and by making sure companies pay appropriate taxes when reorganizing corporate structures.


Primary melanosis of the dentate nucleus is a rarely described entity with neither known cause nor definitive clinicopathologic correlation. We revisit this previously reported phenomenon by presenting one such case with a review of the pathology as well as additional investigations including elemental analysis by energy-dispersive X-ray, immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy. The lesion presented macroscopically as a sharply defined, black pigmentation that was restricted to the dentate nucleus of the cerebellum. Other deep nuclei were uninvolved. Similarly, other areas of the cerebellum, brainstem, and supratentorial regions were macroscopically free of pigment. Microscopically, however, the pigment was noted to be present, albeit in microscopic deposits, within layers of the cerebellar cortex. Additionally, immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy defined an intracellular component within astrocytes. X-ray analysis of the pigment showed it to consist almost entirely of sulfur, an element known to be prominent in neuromelanin. This report also describes an association of the pigment with astrocytes by ultrastructural examination. We discuss the results of our findings in the context of etiopathogenetic considerations, seeking to gain a better understanding of this abnormal pigmentation and its relationship to neuromelanin.


The Secrets of Law explores the ways law both traffics in and regulates secrecy. Taking a close look at the opacity built into legal and governance processes, it explores the ways law produces zones of secrecy, the relation between secrecy and justice, and how we understand the inscrutability of law's processes. The first half of the work examines the role of secrecy in contemporary political and legal practices-including the question of transparency in democratic processes during the Bush Administration, the principle of public justice in England's response to the war on terror, and the evidentiary law of spousal privilege. The second half of the book explores legal, literary, and filmic representations of secrets in law, focusing on how knowledge about particular cases and crimes is often rendered opaque to those attempting to access and decode the information. Those invested in transparency must ultimately cultivate a capacity to read between the lines, decode the illegible, and acknowledge both the virtues and dangers of the unknowable.


PURPOSE
To report a case of retinal phlebitis with cystoid macular edema in both eyes 8 weeks after LASIK.

METHODS
A 30-year-old woman underwent bilateral myopic LASIK. Eight weeks postoperatively, the patient experienced blurred vision in the left and right eyes. Fundus examination showed focal whitish patches in the parafoveal and juxtafoveal areas and lack of foveal reflex in both eyes. A diagnosis of retinal phlebitis with cystoid macular edema was made, which was treated with oral corticosteroids with tapering dose.

RESULTS
Visual acuity returned to normal and the whitish fundus patches decreased in number and size in both eyes.

CONCLUSIONS
Surgeons should be aware of potential risks and retinal complications associated with LASIK.


Studies into the way parents mediate their children's (digital) media use are challenging. A reason for this is that parents are not always aware of what they do and why, as their choices do not necessarily involve rational decision-making. In the present study we adopted the notion of "tacit knowledge" (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Polanyi, 1966) to explore how and why parents of young children mediate digital media use. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 Dutch parents from 15 families who were selected to represent a range of socioeconomic backgrounds and different family compositions. Through qualitative analysis we first distinguished three mediation styles of "regulation", "guidance" and "space". Furthermore, we revealed seven values that drive parental mediation: three core values of "balance", "freedom" and "protection" that are foundational in the sense that they explain why parents mediate; three orientational values of "qualification", "Bildung" and "health/fitness" that explain to which end parents mediate; and one additional value of "flexibility" that accounts for parents' exception-making. Finally, we showed that the most important emotions associated with these values were anger and disapproval (with balance and protection) and love and joy (with orientational values); fear was mentioned occasionally (in relation to protection).


Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed in natural processes during combustion of biomass (e.g., forest fires) and by anthropogenic activities at high temperatures. In according with the suggestion the major sources of PAHs in the environment. The main sources of PAHs come basically from heat and power generation (e.g., coal, gas, wood, and oil), industrial processes (e.g., coke production), refuse burning and vehicle emissions. Human exposure to airborne PAHs can result from these processes, as well as from emissions from other sources, such as cooking, smoking, and materials containing PAHs (e.g., petroleum products and fuels). The potential serious health effects resulting from acute and chronic human exposure to PAHs are of concern. For this reason, the identification and quantification of PAHs in airborne particles have been a real challenge, given the multiple impacts that these substances represent for human health. In the last decade, multiple technological developments have been implemented, ranging from sampling systems, extraction and analysis of these compounds with the aim of obtaining more accurate and reliable results. This chapter was prepared to describe and to assess the state of the art about the evolution and application of sampling, extraction and analysis methodologies for the determination of PAHs in airborne particles.


We calculate the future sea-level rise contribution from the surface mass balance of all of Greenland's glaciers and ice caps (GICs, ∼90 000 km2) using a simplified energy balance model which is driven by three future climate scenarios from the regional climate models HIRHAM5, RACMO2 and MAR. Glacier extent and surface elevation are modified during the mass balance model runs according to a glacier retreat parameterization. Mass balance and glacier surface change are both calculated on a 250 m resolution digital elevation model yielding a high level of detail and ensuring that important feedback mechanisms are considered. The mass loss of all GICs by 2098 is calculated to be 2016 ± 129 Gt (HIRHAM5 forcing), 2584 ± 109 Gt (RACMO2) and 3907 ± 108 Gt (MAR). This corresponds to a total contribution to sea-level rise of 5.8 ± 0.4, 7.4 ± 0.3 and 11.2 ± 0.3 mm, respectively. Sensitivity experiments suggest that mass loss could be higher by 20–30% if a strong lowering of the surface albedo were to take place in the future. It is shown that the sea-level rise contribution from the north-easterly regions of Greenland is reduced by increasing precipitation while mass loss in the southern half of Greenland is dominated by steadily decreasing summer mass balances. In addition we observe glaciers in the north-eastern part of Greenland changing their characteristics towards greater activity and mass turnover.


Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) belongs to the Arecaceae family and is the largest source of edible vegetable oil worldwide. Micropropagation of oil palm by somatic embryogenesis takes a long time from callus initiation to the production of plantlets. This research project aims to investigate the genes involved in somatic embryogenesis of oil palm during the tissue culture process. We applied the cDNA-AFLP technique to identify genes associated with somatic embryogenesis in oil palm during the tissue culture process. Sixty-four EcoRI/MseI AFLP primer combinations produced a total of 1449 transcription-derived fragments (TDF), of which 1193 TDF (82.33%) showed polymorphism. The most abundant up-regulated and down-regulated transcripts during somatic embryogenesis were selected for characterisation. Sixtyfive TDF were sequenced, and 34 distinct sequences were obtained. Primer pairs were successfully designed for 18 of these sequences. The differential expression of the 18 distinct sequences was analysed by using semi-quantitative RT-PCR. The information obtained from this study provides prior knowledge about the genetic underlying the somatic embryogenesis in oil palm, and will be the starting point that reveals the genetic components and mechanism in the control of this process in the future.


After a unilateral brain lesion, patients may show cross-modal, visual-tactile extinction. Such patients may fail to report tactile stimuli on the contralesional hand when presented together with competing visual stimuli near the ipsilesional hand. In this work we tested the hypothesis that this cross-modal extinction may be reduced when a patient has used a tool with the contralesional hand to reach for objects in the ipsilesional visual field. Consistent with previous work, we hypothesize that active use of a tool may extend cross-modal interactions between visual stimuli at the tip of the tool and tactile stimuli on the hand wielding the tool. In the new situation of a tool connecting the contralesional hand with ipsilesional visual space, competition between stimuli on these opposite sides may be reduced, so that extinction decreases. We studied patient BV, who showed reliable cross-modal, visual-tactile extinction after right-hemisphere stroke. In two separate sessions we showed that prolonged tool use (10-20 min) with the contralesional hand in ipsilesional space reduced cross-modal extinction for up to 60-90 min post-training. We propose that an actively used tool may be effective in linking cross-modal stimuli presented along its extension. This can then overcome competition between stimuli presented on opposite sides of the body midline, thus modulating extinction.


The Analog Circuit Design Series set reduces the concepts of analog electronics to their simplest, most obvious form which can easily be applied (even quantitatively) with minimal effort. The emphasis of the set is to help you intuitively learn through inspection how circuits work and apply the same techniques to circuits of the same class. The third volume Designing High Performance Amplifiers applies the concepts from the first two volumes (9781891121869; 9781891121838). It is an advanced treatment of amplifier design/analysis emphasizing both wideband and precision amplification. Topics include bandwidth extension, noise and distortion, effects of components, instrumentation and isolation, amplifiers, autocalibration, thermal effects, current-feedback amplifiers, multi-path schemes, feed forward, fT multipliers, buffers, voltage translators, Giulbert gain cells and multipliers.


Abstract Background: Subglottic cancer (SGC) is extremely rare, as most laryngeal cancers are localized to the glottic region. Accordingly, the clinical characteristics of SGC have not been well characterized. Objectives: In the current study, SGCs were clinically evaluated, and the outcomes of radiotherapy (RT) in patients with stage II SGC were assessed. Materials and Methods: Medical data derived from 11 patients with SGC, who were treated at our hospital between 1995 and 2019, were retrospectively reviewed. Results: In our department SGC accounted for 3.9% of the 280 laryngeal cancer patients treated during the study period. At the time of SGC diagnosis, 9 (81.8%) had stage II cancer, 1 had stage III cancer, and 1 had stage IV cancer. Stage II SGC patients treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) showed a significantly higher local control rate (p = .026) and laryngeal dysfunction free rate (p = .026) than those treated with RT alone. Salvage surgery, performed in 4 patients whose disease was not locally controlled with CCRT/RT, was successful in 3 patients. Conclusion: As a treatment strategy for stage II SGC, CCRT is an acceptable initial treatment for laryngeal function and preservation while salvage surgery is effective for recurrence after CCRT/RT treatment.


The aim of this study was to investigate the effective concentration of ethanolic extract of bee pollen on liver, spleen and heart tissues of fish. Bee pollen extract in various concentrations (0.5, 2.5, 5, 10, 20 and 30 ppm) was administered to fish for 96 h under aquarium conditions. The malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, total antioxidant status (TAS), total oxidant status (TOS), oxidative stress index (OSI) and levels of total free sulfhydryl groups were investigated in liver, spleen and heart in fish samples. MDA levels in liver, spleen and heart tissues of various concentration groups (2.5, 5, 10, 20 and 30 ppm) decreased (p<0.05) compared to the control group. The highest value of TAS (P<0.05) and the lowest value of TOS (p<0.05) occured in liver and heart tissues of 10 and 20 ppm concentration groups. The lowest levels of OSI were recorded in liver and heart tissues of 10, 20 and 30 ppm concentration groups compared to control group (p<0.05). The highest values of total sulfhydryl groups were recorded (p<0.05) in all tissues of 10 and 20 ppm groups compared with that in the control group. Finally it was observed that in liver, spleen and heart tissues of fish, the antioxidant effects of ethanolic extract of bee pollen depended on concentrations.


Institutional fund managers generally rebalance using ad hoc methods such as calendar periods or tolerance band triggers. Another approach is to quantify the cost of a rebalancing strategy in terms of risk-adjusted returns net of transaction costs. An optimal rebalancing strategy that actively seeks to minimize that cost uses certainty-equivalents and the transaction costs associated with a policy to define a cost-to-go function. Stochastic programming is then used to minimize expected cost-to-go. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the method outperforms traditional rebalancing strategies such as periodic and 5% tolerance rebalancing.


The objective of this paper is to reflect on and search for answers to questions of how to:
• understand and cope with ever-growing and spreading worrisome world issues and problems;
• activate the human wisdom and its inherent ability for seeing the latent solutions and opportunities through the clouds of increasing complexities in all life matters, as effective internal healing tools so as to help place both scientific and human evolution on their closely collaborating right tracts.
In a nutshell, achieving a balance in all life-matters may reveal the looked for answers to above-cited questions. This in turn requires abilities for both analogical understanding and analytical knowing concerning both scientific and everyday life matters.
Within the context of the above objectives, following general reflections on the situation, inquiries are made within the four interrelated areas listed below, which directly concern the persistently prevailing human quest in the context of the modernity. These are:
• Validity of the present foundational scientific world view for the sustainability of humanity and its environment and new horizons in this vein;
• Sustainability of the present rural-urban human settlements in connection with the resource availability and use and prospects for future;
• Sustainability of the well-being of individuals and of societies;
• Support expected from academic and communication societies in the fields of formal and informal research and education and communication as well as for their wider dissemination in order to assure a sustainable future for generations to come.


Organic trace substances including pesticides are becoming more important in the drinking water treatment. Nanofiltration for drinking water treatment is mainly used for softening and the removal of humic substances. Recently nanofiltration is sometimes used also for the removal of organic trace substances. The mechanism of the trace substance transport through Nanofiltration membranes is widely unknown. Therefor it is not possible to predict pesticiderejections. Thus one focus of this thesis is the investigation of the rejection of organic trace substances through nanofiltration membranes. By measuring diffusion constants of several electrical uncharged pesticides it could be shown that the size of the molecules is a contributing factor. Due to attached water molecules it is not possible to calculate this "effective" molecule size by molecule modelling programs. To investigat the steric effects the rejection dependent of pH was investigated because the membrane pore size distribution depends on pH. The oppositional behaviour of the rejection and the permeability underlines the steric influence on rejection as well as a mathematical model. With electric charged organic trace substances the electrostatic interactions between the membrane surface and the organic molecule dominates the transport mechanism.


The aim of this study was to explore the unique imaging abilities of optoacoustic mesoscopy to visualize skin structures and microvasculature with the view of establishing a robust approach for monitoring heat‐induced hyperemia in human skin in vivo. Using raster‐scan optoacoustic mesoscopy (RSOM), we investigated whether optoacoustic (photoacoustic) mesoscopy can identify changes in skin response to local heating at microvasculature resolution in a cross‐sectional fashion through skin in the human forearm. We visualized the heat‐induced hyperemia for the first time with single‐vessel resolution throughout the whole skin depth. We quantified changes in total blood volume in the skin and their correlation with local heating. In response to local heating, total blood volume increased 1.83‐ and 1.76‐fold, respectively, in the volar and dorsal aspects of forearm skin. We demonstrate RSOM imaging of the dilation of individual vessels in the skin microvasculature, consistent with hyperemic response to heating at the skin surface. Our results demonstrate great potential of RSOM for elucidating the morphology, functional state and reactivity of dermal microvasculature, with implications for diagnostics and disease monitoring. Image: Cross‐sectional view of skin microvasculature dilated in response to hyperthermia.


As Ghana embarks on a national e-Health initiative there is the need to explore its preparedness in terms of socioeconomic and development, technology infrastructure and operational preparedness, and skills and human resources. This paper reports on a literature review as part of a research program, which aims to inform the development of an effective roadmap for the successful implementation of the national e-Health initiative in Ghana. The literature was searched for factors of e-Health adoption in developing countries; and realization of the anticipated benefits through IEEE, Medline, Google scholar and Google search engines. Sixteen (16) articles were reviewed were from 176 related articles that were found. The literature review found the two highest priority objectives in in e-Health Africa: providing health education for health professionals (identified in 7 of the 16 projects reported on in the literature) and improvement of primary health care services 9 of the 16 projects). Six (6) or 39% each of the 16 projects reported a lack of skills and Human Resources Socioeconomic issues, and Technology infrastructure problems reported in 22% or the remaining four (4) projects. The paper concluded that the effects of these challenges could lead to Ghana like many other developing countries struggling to adopt e-Health, its inability to realize the potential benefits of e-Health and its ability to institutionalize and sustain e-Health.


Privacy law scholarship often focuses on domain-specific federal privacy laws and state efforts to broaden them. This Article provides the first comprehensive analysis of privacy regulation at the local level (which it dubs "privacy localism"), using recently enacted privacy laws in Seattle and New York City as principle examples. It attributes the rise of privacy localism to a combination of federal and state legislative failures and three emerging urban trends: the role of local police in federal counter-terrorism efforts; smart city and open data initiatives; and demands for local police reform in the wake of widely reported abusive police practices.

Both Seattle and New York have enacted or proposed (1) a local surveillance ordinance regulating the purchase and use of surveillance equipment and technology by city departments (including the police) and (2) a law regulating city departments' collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal data. In adopting these local laws, both cities have sought to fill two significant gaps in federal and state privacy laws: the public surveillance gap (which refers to the weak constitutional and statutory protections against government surveillance in public places) and the fair information practices gap (which refers to the inapplicability of the federal and state Privacy Acts to government records held by local government agencies).

Filling these gaps is a significant accomplishment and one that exhibits all of the values typically associated with federalism (diversity, participation, experimentation, responsiveness, and accountability). This Article distinguishes federalism and localism and shows why privacy localism should prevail against the threat of federal and (more importantly) state preemption. The Article concludes by suggesting that privacy localism has the potential to help shape emerging privacy norms for an increasingly urban future, inspire more robust regulation at the federal and state levels, and inject more democratic control into city deployments of privacy-invasive technologies.


Abstract The drivers of learning for mid-career workers with few initial qualifications from the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy and Poland are examined. The focus in this article is upon the learning pathways and experience of the low-qualified drawn from empirical research which gathered and analysed the strategic career and learning biographies of 105 low-skilled individuals, mainly aged between 25 and 40, in the 7 countries, using semi-structured narrative interviews. The five drivers for learning evident in the interviews were enhancing self-efficacy; self-improvement; labour market-orientated learning; significant others motivating learning; and work-related practical learning. The interviewees were divided between those who wanted tangible and immediate learning outcomes and those who saw learning primarily as a means of self-improvement. Some interviewees with negative experiences of initial education were motivated to re-engage by a positive experience with continuing education, encouragement of significant others or through an experience of mastery of challenges at work which led to an increase in their self-efficacy. For the majority of interviewees, practical learning was particularly appreciated, whether undertaken to secure or enhance their current labour market position or undertaken to increase their self-efficacy.


A T-cell-specific transcriptional enhancer lies within the J delta 3-C delta intron of the human T-cell receptor delta gene. We have previously shown that a 30-bp element, denoted delta E3, acts as the minimal TCR delta enhancer and that within delta E3, adjacent and precisely spaced binding sites for core-binding factor (CBF/PEBP2) and c-Myb are essential for transcriptional activity. These data suggested that CBF/PEBP2 and c-Myb synergize to mediate transcriptional activity but did not establish the molecular basis for synergy. In this study, we have examined in detail the binding of CBF/PEBP2 and c-Myb to delta E3. We found that CBF/PEBP2 and c-Myb could simultaneously occupy the core site and one of two overlapping Myb sites within delta E3. However, equilibrium binding and kinetic dissociation experiments suggest that the two factors bind to delta E3 independently, rather than cooperatively. This was found to be true by using isoforms of these factors present in extracts of transfected COS-7 cells, as well as the natural factors present in nuclear extracts of the Jurkat T-cell line. We further showed that CBF/PEBP2 and c-Myb provide unique transactivation functions, since the core-Myb combination cannot be substituted by dimerized core or Myb sites. We propose that spatially precise synergy between CBF/PEBP2 and c-Myb may result from the ability of the two factors to form a composite surface that makes unique and stereospecific contacts with one or more additional components of the transcriptional machinery.


Various neurologic manifestations of herpes simplex virus (HSV) encephalitis have been reported on the literatures. Chorea, ballism, choreoathetosis and myoclonus were reported as movement disorders which might be related with brain lesion by HSV encephalitis, but negative myoclonus (NM) has never been reported before. NM can be characterized as a shock-like involuntary jerky movement caused by a sudden, brief interruption of muscle activity. We experienced a case of HSV encephalitis with NM in unilateral arm and leg. In polygraphic monitoring, electroencephalography (EMG) silent periods are 50–250 ms in duration with no detectable EMG correlate.


In the practical theological research process, as in most disciplines, extant literature is vital in assisting a researcher to formulate a foundational understanding of the topic under review. A literature review is also valuable in understanding the meta-theoretical aspects of the research topic. What does a researcher do, though, if there is little current literature on the topic under scrutiny? If there is a small corpus of literature around a subject, the Delphi method can serve as an extremely helpful research tool. This article discussed the use of the Delphi survey in a practical theological research endeavour and surveyed its history from inception to current usage. The article also reviewed the various types of Delphi survey and supported the use of the Lockean Delphi survey in this particular example of practical theological research. The article finished with an actual Delphi survey of Canadian Evangelical church pastors as an example of how the Delphi method can be used as a research tool in practical theology. The article concluded that the Delphi survey is an extremely useful research tool across the wide domain of social science research.


We propose to learn to distinguish reversible from irreversible actions for better informed decision-making in Reinforcement Learning (RL). From theoretical considerations, we show that approximate reversibility can be learned through a simple surrogate task: ranking randomly sampled trajectory events in chronological order. Intuitively, pairs of events that are always observed in the same order are likely to be separated by an irreversible sequence of actions. Conveniently, learning the temporal order of events can be done in a fully self-supervised way, which we use to estimate the reversibility of actions from experience, without any priors. We propose two different strategies that incorporate reversibility in RL agents, one strategy for exploration (RAE) and one strategy for control (RAC). We demonstrate the potential of reversibility-aware agents in several environments, including the challenging Sokoban game. In synthetic tasks, we show that we can learn control policies that never fail and reduce to zero the side-effects of interactions, even without access to the reward function.


The gastrointestinal (GI) tract microbiota is required for optimal digestion of foods, for the development of resistance against pathogens (termed colonization resistance), for the development of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue, and for local as well as systemic immune homeostasis. Certain constituents of the GI tract microbiota are widely recognized as critical regulators and modulators of their host's immune response. These include bacterial members of the microbiota as well as parasitic nematodes. Immune regulation by immunomodulatory members of the GI microbiota primarily serves to subvert host antimicrobial immune defenses and promote persistent colonization, but as a side effect may prevent or suppress immunological disorders resulting from inappropriate responses to harmless antigens, such as allergy, colitis or autoimmunity. Many of the best understood GI-resident immunomodulatory species have co-evolved with their mammalian hosts for tens of thousands of years and masterfully manipulate host immune responses. In this review, we discuss the epidemiological evidence for the role of the GI tract microbiota as a whole, and of specific members, in protection against allergic and other immunological disorders. We then focus on the mechanistic basis of microbial immunomodulation, which is presented using several well-understood paradigmatic examples, that is, helminths, Helicobacter pylori, Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli. In a final chapter, we highlight past and ongoing attempts at harnessing the immunomodulatory properties of GI microbiota species and their secreted products for intervention studies and describe the promises and limitations of these experimental approaches. The effects of pro- and prebiotics, bacterial lysates, as well as of fecal microbiota transplantation are presented and compared.


In 2004, a group of engineering and education faculty at Virginia Tech received a major curriculum reform and engineering education research grant under the department-level reform (DLR) program of the NSF. This DLR project laid the foundation of sponsored research in engineering education in the Department of Engineering Education. The DLR investigators adopted a spiral curriculum approach to reformulate curricula in general engineering (also called freshman engineering) and bioprocess engineering programs. The spiral curriculum concept recognizes the inherently recursive nature of learning. During this recursive process, students elaborate and strengthen earlier learning, correct misconceptions, develop a more holistic picture of their discipline, and become increasingly self-sufficient as learners. This paper documents the step-wise process that we developed and implemented to rewrite the bioprocess engineering curriculum using spiral theory. Specific examples of learning modules from bioprocess and general engineering are discussed. Assessment approaches and results are presented to highlight the usefulness of such efforts. Adaptation of our spiral curriculum efforts by faculty in other engineering programs to develop a nanotechnology option and ethics spirals is described. We describe lessons learned in three key words: (i) Patience – Reformulation results may take time to show up, (ii) Diligence – Assessment results are powerful, take these seriously, and (iii) Awareness – Students' perceptions may be difficult to interpret. Finally, we discuss the challenges encountered in our unique cur—riculum reform and engineering education research project and also include a few funding related recommendations for the NSF.


The aim of this review is to integrate non-exhaustive relevant data on the phenotype of human plasma cells (PC), including normal, reactive and malignant (multiple myeloma, MM) PC. This review focuses on (i) a universal marker of both normal and malignant plasma cells, CD138; (ii) markers related to malignancy i.e., CD19, CD27, CD28, and CD56; (iii) markers associated with signaling and severity of MM (CD45, CD221). Finally, this review presents data from normal PC up to human myeloma cell lines in order to: (i) define different entities of MM based on expression of CD19, CD20, CD27 and CD117; and (ii) identify new therapeutic targets.


Objective. To determine the prevalence of hypertension in Grade 1 learners in the North West Province of South Africa and to investigate the association between blood pressure (BP) and body composition of these children. Methods. Data were collected by means of a stratified random sampling procedure from 816 Grade 1 learners (419 boys, 397 girls) with a mean age of 6.78±0.49 years (mean±SD), in the NWCHILD-study. Height, weight, skinfolds (subscapular, triceps, calf) and waist circumference were measured. The international recommended cut-off values of Cole et al. (2000) for body mass index (BMI) were used. Hypertension, defined as the average of two separate BP (BP) readings, where the systolic BP and diastolic BP is >95th percentile for age, sex and height, was determined by means of an Omron 705CP-II. Results. The overall prevalence of prehypertension and hypertension was 8.5% and 24.9%, respectively. Both systolic and diastolic BP was positively associated with BMI, body fat percentage and waist circumference. Boys and girls showed a similar prevalence of hypertension. A higher percentage of black children were hypertensive compared with whites, although the difference in BP of the groups was not significant. A high percentage of children with normal weight also showed increased levels of BP. Conclusions. High prevalences of hypertension were found in Grade 1 learners in the North West Province of South Africa. Small practical significant associations existed between BP and body composition. BP screening is therefore considered important in the paediatric population. Interventions which include physical activity are recommended to reduce potential cardiovascular complications and obesity among children. Other contributing factors to high BP amongst young children should also be investigated. SAJSM, vol 23 No. 4 2011


The classical argument for free trade stressed the possibilities of economic growth by exploiting the gains from trade. A trade surplus per se was not the main objective; presumably the argument was that trade would be balanced at the new higher growth rate. Moreover, the arguments for free trade were made against the background of an assumed hard peg (the gold standard) which would enforce balance of payments equilibrium. This means that contemporary free trade agreements (FTAs), with floating exchange rates, cannot be defended on the traditional grounds. With a floating exchange the appropriate policy advice for each individual jurisdiction is monetary mercantilism – the use of macroeconomic policy in an attempt to achieve a trade surplus as a percentage of GDP. If one partner pursues such a strategy alone, this will translate into a one-for-one increase in the growth rate, and potential regional hegemony for the first mover. To restore balance amongst the trade partners (not necessarily with the outside world) and yet still keep higher growth rates there would have to be a union-wide expansion. This need not be formally coordinated, but at least all the partners should be in broad agreement about the stance of policy.


Cloud Federation is one concept to confront challenges that still persist in Cloud Computing, such as vendor lock-in or compliance requirements. The lack of a standardized meaning for the term Cloud Federation has led to multiple conflicting definitions and an unclear prospect of its possible benefits. Taking a client-side perspective on federated compute services, we analyse how choosing a certain federation strategy affects Quality of Service and cost of the resulting service or application. Based on a use case, we experimentally prove our analysis to be correct and describe the different trade-offs that exist within each of the strategies.


In a large-scale (N = 1487) general population online study, we investigated the relationship between past experience with classic psychedelic substances (e.g. LSD, psilocybin, mescaline), nature relatedness, and ecological behavior (e.g. saving water, recycling). Using structural equation modeling we found that experience with classic psychedelics uniquely predicted self-reported engagement in pro-environmental behaviors, and that this relationship was statistically explained by people's degree of self-identification with nature. Our model controlled for experiences with other classes of psychoactive substances (cannabis, dissociatives, empathogens, popular legal drugs) as well as common personality traits that usually predict drug consumption and/or nature relatedness (openness to experience, conscientiousness, conservatism). Although correlational in nature, results suggest that lifetime experience with psychedelics in particular may indeed contribute to people's pro-environmental behavior by changing their self-construal in terms of an incorporation of the natural world, regardless of core personality traits or general propensity to consume mind-altering substances. Thereby, the present research adds to the contemporary literature on the beneficial effects of psychedelic substance use on mental wellbeing, hinting at a novel area for future research investigating their potentially positive effects on a societal level. Limitations of the present research and future directions are discussed.


The Sierra Brava Complex on the eastern flank of the Sierra de Ancasti consists of marbles, metabasites, calc-silicate rocks, psammo-pelitic schists and gneisses. In the central part of this sierra a thick succession of banded schists (Ancasti Formation) crops out. Regional metamorphism of these rocks is attributed to the Famatinian orogeny (Ordovician), metamorphic grade increasing westwards and southwards and culminating in a migmatite complex on the western side of the Sierra. The meta-carbonate rocks are subdivided into a northeastern group (low-grade calcite marbles), and a southeastern group (high-grade calcite and calcite-dolomite marbles). Twenty-three marble samples were analysed for Sr isotope composition and Rb, Mn, Mg and Ca contents, and six for C and O isotope composition. An Ediacaran depositional age of 570 –590Ma is inferred by reference to the trend of 87Sr/86Sr in Neoproterozoic seawater. Thus the metacarbonates are probably slightly older than the Ancasti Formation (equivalent to the Puncoviscana Formation of northern Argentina), which has a maximum sedimentation age of ca. 570Ma. Ediacaran depositional ages have also been reported for metacarbonates elsewhere in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. We propose that the Sierra de Ancasti carbonates on one hand, and those in the Western Sierras Pampeanas (Difunta Correa Sequence) and –tentativelythe Corumba Group of Brazil on the other, represent platforms on opposite margins of the extinct Clymene Ocean, whereas Neoproterozoic carbonate successions such as the Loma Negra Formation (Tandilia, southern Argentina) and the Arroyo del Soldado Group (Uruguay) were deposited on the eastern side (present coordinates) of the Rio de la Plata craton, which at the time occupied a position farther to the north.


Many scholars assume a connection between the evolution of language and that of distinctively human group-level morality. Unfortunately, such thinkers frequently downplay a central implication of modern Darwinian theory, which precludes the possibility of innate psychological mechanisms evolving to benefit the group at the expense of the individual. Group level moral regulation is indeed central to public life in all known human communities. The production of speech acts would be impossible without this. The challenge, therefore, is to explain on a Darwinian basis how life could have become subject to the rule of law. Only then will we have an appropriate social framework in which to contextualize our models of how language may have evolved.


The average increase in the rate of the energy density of secondary batteries has been about 3% in the past 60 years. Obviously, a great breakthrough is needed in order to increase the energy density from the current 210 Wh kg−1 of Li-ion batteries to the ambitious target of 500–700 Wh kg−1 to satisfy application in electrical vehicles. A thermodynamic calculation on the theoretical energy densities of 1172 systems is performed and energy storage mechanisms are discussed, aiming to determine the theoretical and practical limits of storing chemical energy and to screen possible systems. Among all calculated systems, the Li/F2 battery processes the highest energy density and the Li/O2 battery ranks as the second highest, theoretically about ten times higher than current Li-ion batteries. In this paper, energy densities of Li-ion batteries and a comparison of Li, Na, Mg, Al, Zn-based batteries, Li-storage capacities of the electrode materials and conversion reactions for energy storage, in addition to resource and environmental concerns, are analyzed.


Inferring reproductive and demographic parameters of populations is crucial to our understanding of species ecology and evolutionary potential but can be challenging, especially in partially clonal organisms. Here, we describe a new and accurate method, cloncase, for estimating both the rate of sexual vs. asexual reproduction and the effective population size, based on the frequency of clonemate resampling across generations. Simulations showed that our method provides reliable estimates of sex frequency and effective population size for a wide range of parameters. The cloncase method was applied to Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici, a fungal pathogen causing stripe/yellow rust, an important wheat disease. This fungus is highly clonal in Europe but has been suggested to recombine in Asia. Using two temporally spaced samples of P. striiformis f.sp. tritici in China, the estimated sex frequency was 75% (i.e. three‐quarter of individuals being sexually derived during the yearly sexual cycle), indicating strong contribution of sexual reproduction to the life cycle of the pathogen in this area. The inferred effective population size of this partially clonal organism (Nc = 998) was in good agreement with estimates obtained using methods based on temporal variations in allelic frequencies. The cloncase estimator presented herein is the first method allowing accurate inference of both sex frequency and effective population size from population data without knowledge of recombination or mutation rates. cloncase can be applied to population genetic data from any organism with cyclical parthenogenesis and should in particular be very useful for improving our understanding of pest and microbial population biology.


Exploiting personal identifying information (PII) is critical for secure access to digital and web-based systems, it is also a significant element of the online social media business model. However, how this exploitation relates to users' valuation of their PII is poorly understood as an individual's willingness to disclose items of PII in different situations is unknown. For instance, an individual may delight in accessing their smartphone using facial recognition, yet they may hesitate when accessing banking services or vice versa. Moreover, the actual cost of disclosure gets obfuscated within dense and lengthy policies in a manner designed to exploit additional data. Thus, an individual may not understand that systems such as facial recognition can be a gateway to infer further PII.
Even with respectful intentions, identity-dependent technologies face a myriad of challenges to transparently balance users' sensitivities with their own need for high veracity PII. In a novel application of the ELO ranking algorithm, we detail a frugal and scalable method of capturing and combining some of these sensitivities. The design involves a set of 33 items of PII, and a cohort (N = 115) divided into three contexts: expression (35), transaction (40) and submission (40). The results indicate that while individuals may have many differences, as a cohort the personal utility of PII still collates and forms distinct clusters of PII that relate within and across contexts. This result means that technologies that treat PII as one amorphous group, and those transferring PII across contexts, risk failing to adhere to the sensitivities of the user. However, by working with these cohort-based clusters in mind, it is plausible that system designers and policymakers may better appropriate system needs with the wants of the individual.


Just because data can be made more accessible to broader audiences does not mean that those people are equipped to interpret what they see. Limited topical knowledge, statistical skills, and contextual awareness can prompt people to read inferences into, be afraid of, and otherwise misinterpret the data they are given. As more data is made more available, what other structures and procedures need to be in place to help people interpret what's available?


Cytochrome P450 enzymes in the liver catalyze reactions involving the reduction of molecular oxygen and the oxidation of organic substrates. In some cases the resulting products may have the potential to contribute to oxidative stress within this organ. Oxidative stress usually involves the generation of very reactive compounds that can damage cellular components and are therefore harmful to the body. These reactive compounds can include hydrogen peroxide, superoxide, hydroxyl radicals, and a host of other metabolic intermediates. Cytochrome P450 enzymes have been linked to increased development of oxidative stress in the liver of alcoholics. Cytochrome P4502E1 (CYP2E1) can cause mitochondrial stress and disruption via hydrogen peroxide productions which disturbs signaling pathways between cells. On the other hand, Cytochrome P4502A6 (CYP2A6) has been shown to activate several known potent carcinogens found in tobacco smoke. Cytochrome P4503A6 (CYP 3A6) is a widely recognized enzyme that plays a major role in the metabolism of pharmaceutical drugs, in fact more than 50% of all drugs are metabolized by this enzyme. The goal of this research was to determine if any of the nine citrus essential oils examined would inhibit any of the three Cytochrome P450 enzymes and if so then it would be determined how potent oil is and what type of inhibition it occurred. The results for CYP2E1 concluded that Citrus tangerine, tangerine, was the most potent inhibitor and inhibited through competitive inhibition. The results for CYP3A6 concluded that none of the nine citrus essential oils inhibited the activity of CYP3A6 at a good quality concentration. Lastly, the results for CYP2A6 concluded that both Citrus bergamia, bergamot, and Citrus aurantifolia, lime, were strong potent competitive inhibitors at low concentrations with a KI of 0.878 µg/mL and a KI of 0.045 µg/mL. The inhibition of CYP 2A6 has recently been identified as a possible therapeutic approach to smoking cessation, therefore giving significant importance to bergamot and lime oils and the compounds found in them.


Abstract We assess the effects of a sharp minimum wage increase on wages, informality, and employment in Turkey, a large developing economy with one of the highest minimum wage-to-average wage ratios among OECD countries and widespread discrepancies between labor market outcomes of women and of men. We look at the quasi-experimental 2016 minimum wage increase and pay attention to identifying information coming from demographic groups. We find that the increase in the minimum wage had an economically substantial and statistically significant positive impact on wages. Despite the positive wage effects of the increase, we find no negative employment effects. However, we show that the minimum wage increase may have caused an increase in the share of informal employment among workers with less than tertiary education, especially for such workers working for small firms.


A general formula that gives the absorption of a dielectric substrate with two metallic films is derived. The variation of the absorption as a function of the relevant parameters (refractive index of substrate, thickness of metallic films, and angle of incidence) is analyzed in order to identify the criteria for the optimization of this substrate as an absorber for composite bolometers.


Introduction In the third edition of Professor Geikie's "Great Ice Age," published in 1894, he expresses the opinion, on page 699, that the materials of the loess in Asia "are largely of fluvio-glacial origin, and represent in great measure the flood loams swept down from the mountains and plateaus when they supported vast snow fields and glaciers;" and, in accordance with this theory, extensive areas in eastern Mongolia, in Transbaikalia, and in central Turkestan are marked on his glacial map of Asia as having been covered with ice during the Glacial period. My recent trip across Asia, in company with Frederick B. Wright, was largely directed by the desire to obtain more definite evidence on this point than could be found in any published reports. We accordingly went to Peking, and from there traveled on muleback 150 miles directly west to Kalgan, thus crossing a typical portion of the loess-covered . . .


Glaucoma is a leading cause of visual impairment and, if untreated, irreversible blindness. Perimetry is the clinical tool for assessing the functional 'seeing' part of the field of view (visual field) and is widely used in the detection and clinical monitoring of glaucoma. These measurements rely on a psychophysical response making them inherently variable. This measurement noise can disguise both disease pathology and progression.

The work described in this thesis aims to improve the quality of perimetric measurements. The platform for this is the Moorfields Motion Displacement Test (MMDT), a perimetric test that uses unconventional test stimuli and can be delivered on an ordinary computer monitor. Specifically, this thesis describes efforts to develop novel, mathematically derived, test algorithms, designed to be used with the MMDT. The performance of these new testing methods is assessed using pilot studies involving patients and visually healthy people, computer simulation and interim results from a large prospective clinical study. One of these test algorithms, the Enhanced Suprathreshold Testing Algorithm [ESTA] provides shorter test duration, making it attractive for case-finding and screening for glaucoma, without seemingly negatively affecting diagnostic precision, and has become patented technology. Another bespoke test algorithm (Weighted Binary Search; WEBS) provides a threshold test for the MMDT.

The thesis also describes a study examining the resistance of several newer clinical perimetric instruments to the optical artefact of stray light that might be caused by media opacity. This is clinically important because cataract and degraded optical media is a leading cause of false-referral for glaucoma. This work, being the first of its kind, indicates that the MMDT has greater resilience to simulated effects of media opacity compared with other clinically used devices.


The Twitter System is the biggest social network in the world, and everyday millions of tweets are posted and talked about, expressing various views and opinions. A large variety of research activities have been conducted to study how the opinions can be clustered and analyzed, so that some tendencies can be uncovered. Due to the inherent weaknesses of the tweets - very short texts and very informal styles of writing - it is rather hard to make an investigation of tweet data analysis giving results with good performance and accuracy. In this paper, we intend to attack the problem from another aspect - using a two-layer structure to analyze the twitter data: LDA with topic map modelling. The experimental results demonstrate that this approach shows a progress in twitter data analysis. However, more experiments with this method are expected in order to ensure that the accurate analytic results can be maintained.


This interim 2014 report by the Deep Decarbonization Pathway Project (DDPP) summarizes preliminary findings of the pathways developed by the DDPP Country Research Teams with the objective of achieving emission reductions consistent with limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees C. The DDPP is a knowledge network comprising 15 Country Research Teams and several Partner Organizations who develop and share methods, assumptions, and findings related to deep decarbonization. Each DDPP Country Research Team develops illustrative pathway analysis for the transition to a low-carbon economy, with the intent of taking into account national socio-economic conditions, development aspirations, infrastructure stocks, resource endowments, and other relevant factors. The interim 2014 report focuses on technically feasible pathways to deep decarbonization.


These four stories or 'nouvelles' date from 1945, though all were published much later, in French and subsequently in English. All make use of a first-person narrator, and relish its vagaries - the inability to remember facts, the uncertainty as to why he is speaking in the first place, the loss of heart when explanations seem called for...Above all, the stories crisply plot the narrator's plotless descent into vagrancy, the steeper as it approaches "The End". Out of these short works and their patient procedures grew the large canvases of "Molloy" and "Malone Dies". My bench was still there. It was shaped to fit the curves of the seated body. It stood beside a watering trough, gift of a Mrs Maxwell to the city horses, according to the inscription. During the short time I rested there, several horses took advantage of the monument. The iron shoes approached and the jingle of the harness. Then silence. That was the horse looking at me. Then the noise of pebbles and mud that horses make when drinking. Then the silence again. That was the horse looking at me again. Then the pebbles again. Then the silence again. Till the horse had finished drinking or the driver deemed it had drunk its fill. This title is edited by Christopher Ricks.


Probenecid is a white crystalline solid commonly used as a uricosuric agent in the treatment of gout. Because of its inhibitory effects on renal tubule transport processes, probenecid is also used as a therapeutic adjunct to enhance blood levels of penicillin and its action. Toxicology and carcinogenicity studies were conducted by administering probenecid (>99% pure) in corn oil by gavage to groups of F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice of each sex once daily, 5 days per week in 14-day, 13-week, and 2-year studies. Genetic toxicology studies were conducted in Salmonella typhimurium and Chinese hamster ovary cells. 14-Day Studies: Doses used in the 14-day studies for both rats and mice were 0, 200, 400, 800, 1,600, or 3,200 mg/kg. Of the animals receiving 3,200 mg/kg, all rats, all female mice, and two of five male mice died during the studies. No deaths occurred among the other dose groups. There was a significant reduction in body weight gain in male and female rats receiving 1,600 mg/kg and in female rats receiving 800 mg/kg. No gross lesions were attributed to probenecid administration in rats or mice of either sex. 13-Week Studies: Doses used in the 13-week studies were 0, 50, 100, 200, 400, or 800 mg/kg for rats and 0, 100, 200, 400, 800, or 1,600 mg/kg for mice. No rats died during the 13-week studies. In mice, 5 of 10 males and 3 of 10 females receiving 1,600 mg/kg and 1 of 10 males receiving 800 mg/kg died during the study. Significant reductions in body weight gain occurred in male rats administered 800 mg/kg, male mice administered 1,600 mg/kg, and female mice administered 800 or 1,600 mg/kg. All dose groups of male rats and all groups of female rats receiving 100 mg/kg or more showed significant increases in absolute and/or relative liver weights compared to control groups. This change was also seen in mice receiving 200 mg/kg and greater, except female mice in the 400 mg/kg group. No compound-related lesions occurred in rats or mice of either sex. Based on compound-related deaths and suppression of body weight gains observed at higher doses in the 13-week studies, doses of 0, 100, and 400 mg/kg were used for the 2-year studies in rats and mice. These doses were administered once daily, 5 days a week for up to 103 weeks to groups of 50 males or 50 females of each species. Body Weight and Survival in the 2-Year Studies: The mean body weight of high-dose female rats was 10% to 20% lower than that of controls throughout the studies. Mean body weights for all other dosed rats and for all dosed mice were similar to those of controls throughout the 2-year studies. Survival of high-dose male rats and high-dose and low-dose male mice was significantly lower than that of controls. Survival rates after 2 years were: male rats--control, 37/50; 100 mg/kg, 34/50; 400 mg/kg, 22/50; female rats--24/50; 35/50; 19/50; male mice--38/50; 23/50; 24/50; female mice--32/49; 32/49; 32/50. Neoplasms and Nonneoplastic Lesions in the 2-Year Studies: No chemical-related histopathologic toxic effects or increased incidence of tumors attributable to probenecid were observed in male or female rats receiving probenecid by corn oil gavage for up to 2 years. Mammary gland fibroadenomas and combined thyroid C-cell adenomas or carcinomas exhibited significant negative trends in female rats. These decreased tumor rates were associated with lower body weights. The incidence of adrenal medullary pheochromocytomas was significantly decreased in high-dose male rats. No compound-related increase in nonneoplastic lesions was observed in rats of either sex. No compound-related neoplastic effects were observed in male mice. In high-dose female mice, there were significant increases in the incidences of hepatocellular adenomas (3/48; 2/49; 14/49), but there was no corresponding increase in carcinomas (2/48; 2/49; 3/49). Treatment-related increased incidences of ovarian abscesses in female mice were causally related to Klebsiella species infection rather than directly related to chemical administration. Genetic Toxicology: Probenecid was not mutagenic in Salmonenot mutagenic in Salmonella typhimurium strain TA100, TA1535, TA1537, or TA98 with or without metabolic activation. In cytogenetic tests with Chinese hamster ovary cells, probenecid induced sister chromatid exchanges in the absence, but not in the presence of S9 activation. No induction of chromosomal aberrations was observed with or without S9. Conclusions: Under the conditions of these 2-year gavage studies, there was no evidence of carcinogenic activity of probenecid for male or female F344/N rats receiving 100 or 400 mg/kg in corn oil. There was no evidence of carcinogenic activity of probenecid for male B6C3F1 mice given 100 or 400 mg/kg probenecid in corn oil. There was some evidence of carcinogenic activity of probenecid for female B6C3F1 mice based on an increased incidence of hepatocellular adenomas. Synonyms: 4-[(Dipropylamino)sulfonyl]benzoic acid; p-(dipropylsulfamoyl)benzoic acid; p-(dipropylsulfamyl)benzoic acid Trade Names: Benacen; Benemid; Benemide; Benn; Probalan; Probecid; Proben; Probenid; Robenecid; Uricocid


Author(s): Lee, ES; Geisler-Moroder, D; Ward, G | Abstract: The Five-Phase Method (5-pm) for simulating complex fenestration systems with Radiance is validated against field measurements. The capability of the method to predict workplane illuminances, vertical sensor illuminances, and glare indices derived from captured and rendered high dynamic range (HDR) images is investigated. To be able to accurately represent the direct sun part of the daylight not only in sensor point simulations, but also in renderings of interior scenes, the 5-pm calculation procedure was extended. The validation shows that the 5-pm is superior to the Three-Phase Method for predicting horizontal and vertical illuminance sensor values as well as glare indices derived from rendered images. Even with input data from global and diffuse horizontal irradiance measurements only, daylight glare probability (DGP) values can be predicted within 10% error of measured values for most situations.


We showed, in Berggren and Elinder (2012), that tolerance toward homosexuals is negatively and quite robustly related to economic growth. In a comment, Bornhoff and Lee (this issue) question this finding on model-specification grounds. By undertaking three changes, they purport to show that our main result does not hold. In this article, we demonstrate that one of these changes is inconsequential (replacing GDP per capita by its logarithm in controlling for conditional convergence) and argue that two of them are questionable. First, the removal of certain central control variable risks introducing omitted variable bias and inconsistent estimates. Second, regional dummy variables are added on arbitrary grounds. For example, by using regional dummy variables that are just as reasonable as the Baltic dummy used by Bornhoff and Lee, we find that significance for tolerance toward homosexuals reappears in our empirical model. In all, this implies that there are good grounds for considering the negative relationship between tolerance towards homosexuals and growth valid, Bornhoff and Lee's claims notwithstanding.


In 2013, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) began issuing credit risk transfer (CRT) transactions in order to transfer some of the credit risk on the mortgages they were guaranteeing to private investors. This article analyzes these CRT transactions from the investor and the GSE perspectives. The authors use two different approaches to project performance on the underlying collateral behind these deals. First, they project collateral performance under a set of generic default and prepayment assumptions and run the resulting cash flows through their CRT cash flow waterfall engine. They use results from this iterative process for each deal to determine a CRT breakeven default level above which the credit-protection benefit provided to the GSEs exceeds the cost to buy that protection from investors. Then, the authors run the mortgages underlying the four different Freddie Mac deals through their recently developed loan-level agency credit model described in the Spring 2014 issue of The Journal of Structured Finance to produce an empirically grounded set of collateral cash flow projections. Using various housing-price and unemployment-rate assumptions specified in the Federal Reserve's 2014 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) stress tests, they observe that under the CCAR "Severe Adverse" scenario, only the most subordinate tranche of the CRT transactions would be written down and see negative returns, while all investor-held tranches would see positive returns under the more optimistic CCAR "Base" and "Adverse" scenarios. This analysis suggests that the CRTs would provide valuable protection to the GSEs under the "Severe Adverse" scenario or a repeat of the Great Recession.


Trusts and their civil law equivalents, often known as foundations or associations, play a large and increasing role in the global economy, holding trillions of dollars worth of assets and generating billions of dollars worth of revenue and trustees' fees annually. Once considered nothing more than "mere" estate planning devices, trusts are now more often seen in commercial rather than in private contexts, and often feature sophisticated financial institutions as professional trustees. With favorable tax laws in various off-shore jurisdictions making international trusts increasingly popular and hostile trust litigation reaching epidemic proportions, arbitration would seem to be many parties' dispute resolution mechanism of choice. To some extent, this is very much the case, with arbitration often being used to resolve conflicts between trusts and external third parties. However, arbitration of internal trust disputes – by far the more common type of concern in this area of law – is much more controversial and has been the subject of extensive and vigorous debate in the trust industry.Although trust experts have written extensively on mandatory trust arbitration, the arbitration community has been strangely silent in these discussions, and this Article is among the first to consider the unique challenges facing future arbitration of internal trust disputes from the arbitral perspective. In so doing, this Article provides new insights on the types of procedures that are necessary to ensure procedural fairness in what is often a complex, multiparty proceeding. This Article also considers what steps settlors can take to improve the enforceability of an arbitration provision located in the trust itself and analyzes the only set of institutional rules targeted specifically toward trust disputes – the AAA Trust Arbitration Rules – by comparing the AAA approach to the newly identified best practices in this field and to certain related initiatives from the ICC and the DIS.


Purpose: To compare outcomes and recurrence rates of amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT) plus intraoperative mitomycin C (MMC) and conjunctival rotational autograft (CRA) plus intraoperative MMC in pterygium surgery Methods: Ninety-two eyes of 92 patients with primary nasal pterygium were enrolled. All patients were randomized to undergo either AMT or CRA. Forty-three patients underwent AMT plus intraoperative MMC (AMT group), and 49 patients CRA plus intraoperative MMC (CRA group). Patients were followed-up at 1 day, 1 week, 2 week, 1, 3, 6, and 12 months postoperatively. The main outcome measurement was a recurrence rate after surgery. Results: A total of 92 eyes of 92 patients were included in the study. In AMT group 22 patients were male and 21 patients were female. In CRA group 25 patients were male and 24 patients were female (p=0.923). Mean age in AMT group was 46.4 and in CRA group was 47.7 years (p=0.634). Mean pterygium size in AMT group was 3.4 mm and in CRA group was 3.3 mm (p=0.320). Mean follow-up time in AMT group was 10.5 months and in CRA group was 10.8 months (p=0.535). Nine of 43 eyes (20.93%) in the AMT group developed recurrence compared with four of 49 eyes (8.16%) in the CRA group (p=0.145). Conclusion: Although no statistically significant difference was present between the two groups, however the recurrence rate seems to be clinically less in the CRA group.


Background and Purpose. There is a paucity of published literature regarding the correlation between faculty attributes and education program pass rates on the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) particularly regarding the physical therapist assistant (PTA). The purpose of this study was to 1) determine if there is a relationship between faculty attributes in PTA educational programs and program outcomes on the NPTE for Physical Therapist Assistants (NPTE-PTA) and 2) construct a prediction model for PTA program outcomes based on faculty attributes. Subjects. The 233United States' PTA programs accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) in 2006 were studied. Methods. Using a retrospective design, data were obtained regarding the PTA programs from the dataset of CAPTE's PTA annual accreditation report and the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy's pass rate database. Selected faculty attributes (designation of highest degree conferred, years of teaching experience, employment status, license designation [physical therapist or physical therapist assistant] and clinical specialization) were correlated to first time program pass rates. Backward deletion regression was used to predict the first time pass rate on the NPTE-PTA.Results. Based on data from 190/233 PTA programs, seven attributes had a statistically significant relationship to the outcomes on the NPTE-PTA. They were the number of: 1) full-time faculty; 2) adjunct faculty with an associate's degree; 3) full-time faculty with a terminal degree; 4) core faculty with a terminal degree; 5) all faculty with a terminal degree 6) years of teaching experience of the full-time faculty; 7) years of teaching experience of the core faculty. Backward deletion regression analyses demonstrated an overall model of two combined predictor factors (full-time faculty years of teaching and full-time faculty terminal degree) that significantly predicted the first time pass rate on the NPTE-PTAaccounting for 6.5% of the variance. Discussion and Conclusion. Faculty attributes of the institutions providing PTAprograms are associated with first time pass rates of their graduates. This study provides a foundation for future studies by identifying some of the faculty attributes that relate to NPTE-PTA outcomes.


W e've been concerned recently about misconduct in scientific research. There's a lot to worry about: Some careers have been destroyed because the temptation to falsify data proved too great; others have been put on hold while irresponsible charges were allowed to dangle for years before being discredited. In the real instances of research misconduct we know about in biology and physics, the motive appears to have been career enhancement, pure and simple. It is, after all, a competitive world, and the incentive to gain reputation can be powerful. But other motives may appear in those social sciences that bear upon major policy issues.

A recent case is worth examination, especially because it involves a major public health problem. Guns kill nearly 30,000 people each year in the United States and injure many more. Indeed, homicide is among the leading causes of death among males between 17 and 28. As everyone knows, that has played into one of the signature controversies in U.S. political life. On the one hand, there are the gun control advocates—supporters of the Brady bill and of required registration for gun purchase. On the other, there are the supporters of the right to bear arms even when concealed. Social scientists, not surprisingly, have entered the fray on both sides.

Michael Bellesiles, of Emory University, supported the gun control case with a book called Arming America. Part of his argument was that guns were rare at much earlier times in U.S. history. Challenged on that claim, he failed to produce the data, claiming that an office flood had destroyed his records. Emory empaneled a committee of scholars to investigate, and its report questioned Bellesiles "scholarly integrity." He resigned from the Emory faculty, and the Bancroft Prize his book had won was revoked. The pro-gun faction began to chortle with glee; end of story, right?

Not so fast. Here is John Lott: ex-University of Chicago Law School, now at the American Enterprise Institute. His book More Guns, Less Crime claims that on 98% of the occasions in which citizens use guns defensively, the mere production of a weapon causes the criminal to desist. These data were allegedly based on some 2000 interviews conducted by Lott himself. But when pushed for the survey data, Lott gave a hauntingly familiar explanation: His hard drive had been destroyed in a computer crash. Apparently the dogs in this controversy eat everyone's homework.

Wait. It gets even funnier. As the debate over gun laws spilled over from the scholarly journals to the Internet, Lott was defended passionately by a persistent ally named Mary Rosh. She attacked Lott's academic critics, including John Donohue of Stanford Law School, claiming in one posting that Lott had been the "best professor I ever had." Alas for Lott and his case, Mary Rosh now turns out to be—John Lott! The American Enterprise Institute has not yet followed the example Emory set with Bellesiles, though it might think about it.

Meanwhile, though, legislators in a number of states are still considering liberalizing concealed-weapon laws, and Lott's book plays a continuing role in the debate. That moves this story from high comedy to a troubling challenge in social policy that isn't funny at all. Death by shooting is a national public health problem. Sound social science, not cooked data, is what we need to work out the tough problems like the relationship between gun ownership and violent crime.

Other sciences engage political passions just as hot as those in the gun control controversy. For example, in analyzing the relationship between atmospheric chemistry and the only climate we have, we need solid scientific work. The same could be said about the debate over whether there may be ecological or nutritional risks connected with transgenic crop plants. So far, thankfully, passion has not overtaken truth in the actual doing of science, even in these hotly contested areas. Once the experiments are done and the data are out there, scientists may argue forcefully for the appropriateness of their conclusions and for the policies they believe should follow. Others will criticize them for this, arguing that it's important for scientists to be "objective." Indeed they should be—in doing their analyses and reporting their results. But in advocating policies based on what they have learned, it's good for them to take sides. Indeed, it's their responsibility.


Objective: In the present study, we examined the effect of Aristolochia bracteolata extract on Human dermal fibroblast (HDF) and Human keratinocyte cell line (HaCaT) proliferation and migration during in vitro wound healing and its underlying mechanism. Method: A. bracteolata was collected and extracted using methanol. Cytotoxiciy effect of plant extract was determined by MTT assay in HDF and HaCaT. In vitro Scratch assay determined the effect of plant extracts on migration of cells and its underlying mechanism was determined by RT-PCR analysis. Result: The plant extract of A. bracteolata selectively inhibited proliferation of both the cells at higher concentration (>100 μg/mL) and at lower concentrations (<25 μg/mL), it exhibited linear and dose-dependent cell proliferation. IC50 value was 87.60±1.67 μg/mL for HDF and 85.50±1.65 μg/mL after 24 h treatment. In vitro scratch wound healing studies showed wound closure of 50.38%±1.39 and 69.81%±1.89 at a concentration of 25 μg/mL after 24 h and 48 h, respectively. The extract was tested for anti-inflammatory activity by determination of inhibitory activity on lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced nitric oxide (NO) production in RAW 264.7 cell lines. We found that A. bracteolata has a strong inhibitory effect on the production of NO and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). The plant extract of A. bracteolata inhibited inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) gene expression by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). To explore the mechanism responsible for the inhibition of iNOS, gene expression was analyzed by RealTime PCR. A. bracteolata showed a decrease in the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokine mRNA in a concentration-dependent manner. Treat ment with the plant extract resulted in enhanced expression of Collagen 1 a (I) and Collagen IV in HDFs by regulating the mRNA levels of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins and Matrix metalloproteinase-2. Conclusion: Thus, the present investigation scientifically validates the use of A. bracteolata in wound healing.


The standard housing of farmed mink provides little opportunities for them to behave naturally and abnormal behaviours such as stereotypic behaviour and tail biting may occur. To prevent abnormal behaviours animals in captivity are often provided with different kinds of enrichments. The aim of this study was to investigate what kind of enrichment farmed mink use when they have several kinds to choose from and to observe if abnormal behaviours can be decreased with a larger cage and a more multifaceted environment.
Totally 20 silver blue, 10 months old female mink were kept in traditional cages (80x30x40 cm) for 7 days and in larger cages (195x80x40 cm) with several types of enrichments for 7 days. The enrichments were wire net- and wooden shelves, wire net- and plastic cylinders, water bath, plastic ropes, branches, straw and tennis balls. One-zero scan sampling on behaviour and choice of place were performed during 3 hours and 20 minutes prior to feeding during 7 days per treatment in April 2004. A range of behaviours were recorded: normal active behaviour, interactions with enrichments, inactive behaviour, stereotypies, tail biting and choice of place.
The results showed that when female mink were kept in large enriched cages they spent 22,3% of their active time in contact with different enrichments. They interacted with the water bath 10,4%, shelves 4,8%, cylinders 3,2%, plastic rope 2,1%, tennis balls 1,2%, straw 0,3% and branches 0,3% of their active time. When kept in large enriched cages the mink performed the same types of stereotypies as when kept in traditional cages, but the frequency of stereotyped behaviour decreased when kept in large enriched cages (p< 0,05, median value traditional cage = 0 and large enriched cage = 37, Mc Nemar Chi-2 test). When kept in traditional cages mink also performed additional types of stereotypies. No differences were found in stereotypic behaviours between mink first kept in traditional cages or first kept in large enriched cages (n. s., Wilcoxon Matched Pair Test). No differences in total active time between the treatments were found (n. s., Wilcoxon Matched Pair Test), but when mink were kept in traditional cages 10% of their active time was spent performing stereotypic behaviour compared with 1,4 % in large enriched cages (p< 0,05, Wilcoxon Matched Pair Test). Mink's spent equal time inactive in both treatments (n. s., Wilcoxon Matched Pair Test). Two individuals performed tail biting when they were kept in traditional cages. No tail biting was preformed when they were kept in large enriched cages.
In conclusion this study shows that female mink utilized the enrichments frequently and decreased their stereotypic behaviour pattern considerably when housed temporary in large and enriched cages. They also performed more normal active behaviour suggesting better coping potentials and implying improved animal welfare in an enriched cage system.
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Methods for calculating the optical properties as a function of wavelength for second-order nonlinear optical polymers are presented. By combining the optical properties of the individual components, that is, those of the polymer and those of the chromophore, one can determine the real and the imaginary parts of the index of refraction and the second hyperpolarizability as a function of wavelength for a composite polymer, for either a guest–host or a side-chain system. These properties are important for characterizing and applying nonlinear optical polymers to devices. The methods allow for an accuracy in index of 3%, if the wavelength range includes the main absorption band (with absorption maximum at λmax) of the chromophore, and of 0.2% for wavelengths 400 nm and more to the long-wavelength side of λmax. In addition, if the index of the composite polymer is known at one specific wavelength on the long-wavelength side of λmax, the dispersion in the index in this wavelength range can be predicted to within 0.1%.


OBJECTIVE
To define the term probiotics, to indicate how to identify products that have been proven beneficial, and to assess the quality of evidence regarding probiotics.

QUALITY OF EVIDENCE
A few level I studies support the effectiveness of specific probiotics for certain diagnoses. For most so-called probiotics, however, weak or no evidence supports their effectiveness.

MAIN MESSAGE
Probiotics are live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host. Level I evidence supports use of VSL#3 for maintaining remission of inflammatory colitis. Probiotics for treating vaginal infections, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR-1 and Lactobacillus reuteri RC-14, have level I evidence of effectiveness, but are not available in Canada. Specific probiotics taken for certain indications improve health and have few side effects.

CONCLUSION
Limited but good evidence supports the role of certain probiotics in medical practice. Because consumer pressure will undoubtedly stimulate further interest in probiotics, family doctors need to be informed about them so they can advise their patients appropriately.


Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that evolved in response to the revolutionary social changes of the 19th century, such as industrialization and urbanization, that ushered in the modern era. Sociology's founding fathers include Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, and George Herbert Mead. They explored how social relationships and interactions affect individuals and large-scale social institutions, including religion, government, and education.


Nanoparticle tethering to lipid bilayers enables the observation of hundreds of diffusing particles that are confined within a single field of view. A wide variety of materials ranging from plasmonic metals to soft matter can be stably tethered to the surface of a fluid bilayer by covalent or non-covalent means. The controlled environment of this experimental platform allows direct control over surface compositions and accurate tracking of nanoparticle interactions. This minireview will cover studies that use bilayer-tethered nanoparticles to investigate physical properties related to lipid mobility, biomolecule sensing, and surface interactions, as well as experiments to reversibly manipulate tethered nanoparticles by electric fields.


Early detection and treatment of diseases that onset after a patient is admitted to a hospital, such as pneumonia, is critical to improving and reducing costs in healthcare. NLP systems that analyze the narrative data embedded in clinical artifacts such as x-ray reports can help support early detection. In this paper, we consider the importance of identifying the change of state for events - in particular, clinical events that measure and compare the multiple states of a patient's health across time. We propose a schema for event annotation comprised of five fields and create preliminary annotation guidelines for annotators to apply the schema. We then train annotators, measure their performance, and finalize our guidelines. With the complete guidelines, we then annotate a corpus of snippets extracted from chest x-ray reports in order to integrate the annotations as a new source of features for classification tasks.


This study defines and explores the nature of impact creep within the context of two contrasting case studies. The methods applied in undertaking this study consisted of a literature review and development and distribution of questionnaires to visitors at Monkey Mia and an interview of managers at Monkey Mia and Tree Top Walk. The project considered impact creep relevant to both public and private facility developments.

Impact creep can be defined as a temporal sequence of changes that lead to a site being more developed. These changes confer both negative and positive impacts. Each impact creep situation may be deemed unique according to different tourism situations and attractions.

Both Tree Top Walk and Monkey Mia have a history of increasing visitation which has increased the potential for further impacts. Management has responded accordingly and the resultant actions have reduced negative environmental impacts through site hardening and associated developments. The resultant development in turn appears to have contributed to an increased attractiveness for a wider visitor profile.

At both Monkey Mia and the Tree Top Walk increasing visitor numbers were not an immediate concern. Generally visitors to both sites are predominantly first time visitors on a multi-destination trip. Visitors to these sites are most likely to visit in family groups or with friends of two to four persons, aged in the 25 to 49 year age bracket. In both surveys there were a higher proportion of females to males. At Monkey Mia, the majority of respondents are from overseas and Western Australia with the lowest proportion from interstate. In contrast, at Tree Top Walk, the proportion of overseas, Western Australia and interstate visitors was fairly even. Respondents were most likely to travel to the respective regions in passenger vehicles and generally stay for short visits (less than a week). The main attraction for respondents was the natural area attraction, i.e. dolphins at Monkey Mia and the Tingle forest/Tree Top Walk at the Valley of the Giants.

The Monkey Mia visitor survey was also used to determine if management actions of site hardening detract from the visitor experience and to determine how visitors feel about highly developed sites such as those that contain permanent accommodation facilities and infrastructure. The survey revealed that visitors generally prefer natural landscapes with limited facilities. However, the facilities provided were not seen as being detractive and had no influence on the quality of the visit. Moreover, facilities may be considered as a positive influence because of the convenience they offer.

A major difference between the two case studies is that impact creep has occurred according to different policy directives. Tree Top Walk was developed under a management plan that had clear guidelines. Monkey Mia had no management plan and joint management with the Shire of Shark Bay. When accommodation facilities were developed at Monkey Mia, the Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) recommendations were ignored in favour for economic returns and political pressure. A notable difference between the two sites, therefore, is that Tree Top Walk has no accommodation facility so the visitation period is short, while Monkey Mia has accommodation which means that limiting visitor use is problematic because as many as 600 people stay in the vicinity of the interaction area overnight.

For Tree Top Walk a dispersal strategy in the form of a visitor centre may help to focus attention away from the main attraction during busy periods and during wait times if restrictions are operating due to heavy demand. Because of the potential for increased visitation, crowding, conflicts and reduced visitor satisfaction at Monkey Mia limitations on use may have to be applied. Previous work has shown that use/access restrictions, in the form of a reservation or permit system, may be the best approach.


Many handheld devices with stylus pens are available on the market, however, there have been few studies which examine the effects of the size of the stylus pen on user performance and subjective preferences for hand-held device interfaces. Two experiments were conducted to determine the most suitable dimensions (pen-length, pentip width and pen-width) for a stylus pen. In Experiment 1, five pen-lengths (7, 9, 11, 13, 15 cm) were evaluated. In Experiment 2, six combinations of three pen-tip widths (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5mm) and the two pen widths (4 and 7mm) were compared. In both experiments, subjects conducted pointing, steering and writing tasks on a PDA. The results were assessed in terms of user performance and subjective evaluations for all three pointing, steering and writing tasks. We determined that the most suitable pen dimensions were 11 cm for length, 0.5 mm for tip width, and 7mm for pen width.