Background The Nordic countries collaborate in setting recommendations for intake of nutrients by publishing the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR). Studies exploring how well the Nordic population adheres to the NNR are limited and none are available for the metabolic syndrome (MetS) subgroup. Individuals with MetS are a large part of the adult Nordic population and their diet's nutritional quality is of great importance as it can affect the progression of MetS. Objective To evaluate nutritional intake in a cohort of Nordic adults with MetS or MetS risk factors and their adherence to the NNR. Design A multi-centre study was carried out in six centres in four Nordic countries (SYSDIET CoE). Participants (n=175) were 30–65 years of age, with BMI 27–38 kg/m2 and had at least two criteria for MetS. The NNR was used to evaluate the baseline nutrient intake calculated from the participants' 4-day food diaries using national nutrient databases. Results Less than 20% of participants consumed ≤10 E% from saturated fat as recommended in the NNR. Recommended intake (RI) of polyunsaturated fat was met by approximately one-third of participants. Only 20% of men and 26% of women met the RI of dietary fibre. Intake below the defined lower intake level of 2.5 µg/day for vitamin D was observed in nearly 20% of participants. The daily median intake of salt was 8.8 g for men and 6.7 g for women. Conclusion Dietary quality of this Nordic population with Mets or MetS risk factors is unsatisfactory and characterised by high intakes of SFA and sodium and low intakes of PUFA and dietary fibre. Vitamin D intake was below RI level in a large part of the population. Authorities in the Nordic countries are encouraged to develop intervention programmes for high-risk groups.


Contents. Preface. Acknowledgement. Introduction to mass spectrometry. 1. History of mass spectrometric techniques. 2. Ion sources. 2.1.Inductively coupled plasma ion source. 2.1.1.Laser ablation coupled to an inductively coupled plasma source. 2.1.2.Electrothermal vaporization coupled to an inductively coupled plasma source. 2.1.3.Hydride generation and cold vapor technique for sample introduction in an ICP source. 2.2.Spark ion source. 2.3.Laser ion source. 2.3.1. Non-resonant laser ionization. 2.3.2. Resonant laser ionization. 2.4.Glow discharge ion source 2.5.Thermal surface ion source. 2.6. Ion sources for secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and sputtered neutral mass spectrometry (SNMS) 2.7.Electron impact ion source. 2.8.Matrix assisted laser desorption/ ionization source. 2.9.Electrospray ion source. 3.Ion separation systems. 3.1 Sector field analyser. 3.1.1. Magnetic sector field analyser. 3.1.2. Electric sector field analyser. 3.1.3. Combination of magnetic and electric sector fields - double focusing sector field mass spectrometer 3.2.Dynamic separation systems. 3.2.1. Quadrupole mass analyzer. 3.2.2. Time-of-flight analyser 3.2.3. Ion trap mass analyzer. 3.2.4. Ion cyclotron resonance mass analyser. 3.3. Mass resolution and abundance sensitivity. 4. Ion detection systems 4.1. Faraday cup. 4.2. Secondary electron multiplier. 4.3. Combination of Faraday cup and secondary electron multiplier. 4.4. Channel electron multiplier. 4.5. Daly detector. 4.6. Multiple ion collection system. 4.7. Fluorescence screen and photographic ion detection. 5.Instrumentation 5.1. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers (ICP-MS). 5.1.1. Quadrupole based ICP mass spectrometers (ICP-QMS). 5.1.2. ICP mass spectrometers with collision or dynamic reaction cell or collision reaction interface. 5.1.3. Double focusing sector field ICP mass spectrometers with single ion collector (ICP-SFMS). 5.1.4. Time-of-flight mass spectrometers (ToF-MS) 5.1.5. Multiple ion collector ICP mass spectrometers (MC-ICP-MS). 5.1.6. Solution introduction systems in ICP-MS. 126.96.36.199. Pneumatic nebulizers including selected micronebulizers. 184.108.40.206. Ultrasonic nebulizer. 5.1.7 Hydride generation and cold vapor technique. 5.1.8 Flow injection technique and hyphenated techniques. 5.1.9 Laser ablation ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS). 5.2. Spark source mass spectrometers (SSMS) 5.3. Laser ionization mass spectrometers (LIMS). 5.4. Resonance ionization mass spectrometers (RIMS). 5.5. Glow discharge mass spectrometers (GDMS). 5.6. Termal ionization mass spectrometers (TIMS). 5.7. Secondary ion mass spectrometers (SIMS) and sputted neutral mass spectrometers.(SNMS). 5.8. Accelerator mass spectrometers (AMS) 5.9. Electron impact mass spectrometers. 5.10. Knudsen effusion mass spectrometers. 6. Analytical and practical considerations. 6.1. Qualitative analysis by inorganic mass spectrometry. 6.1.1. Isotopic pattern. 6.1.2. Mass determination. 6.1.3. Interference problems. 6.2. Quantification procedures in inorganic mass spectrometry. 6.2.1. Semi-quantitative analysis. 6.2.2. One point calibration in solid sate mass spectrometry using a certified reference material. 6.2.3. Quantification of analytical data via calibration curves in mass spectrometry using certified reference materials or defined standard solutions. 6.2.4. Isotope dilution technique. 6.2.5. Quantification in solid state mass spectrometry using synthetic laboratory standards. 6.2.6. Solution based calibration in LA-ICP-MS. 22.214.171.124. External calibration technique in solution based calibration in LA-ICP-MS. 184.108.40.206. Standard addition technique in solution based calibration in LA-ICP-MS. 184.108.40.206. On-line isotope dilution in solution based calibration in LA-ICP-MS. 6.3. Sample preparation and pretreatment in inorganic mass spectrometry. 6.3.1. Sample preparation for analysis of solids. 6.3.2. Sample preparation for ICP-MS. 6.3.3. Trace matrix separation and preconcentration steps. 7.Mass spectrometric techniques for analysis of gaseous materials and volatile compounds. 7.1. Sampling and sample preparation of gases and volatile compounds 7.2. Applications of inorganic mass spectrometry for analysis of gases and volatile compounds. 7.3. Stable isotope ratio measurements of gases and volatile compounds. 8. Isotope ratio measurements and their application 8.1. Capability of inorganic mass spectrometry in isotope ratio measurements 8.2. Limits for precision and accuracy of isotope ratio measurements and how to solve the problems 8.3. Isotope ratio measurements by gas source mass spectrometry. 8.4. Isotope ratio measurements by quadrupole based ICP-MS. 8.5. Isotope ratio measurements by laser ablation ICP-MS 8.6. Multiple ion collector mass spectrometry for high precise isotope ratio measurements 8.7. Application of isotope dilution technique 8.8. Isotope analysis of long-lived radionuclides 8.9. Application of isotope ratio measurements in geochemistry and geochronology 9. Fields of application of inorganic and mass spectrometry in trace, ultratrace and surface analysis. 9.1. Material science. 9.1.1. Trace and ultratrace (bulk) analysis of metals and alloys. 9.1.2. Semiconductors. 9.1.3. Ceramics, glasses, polymers and other non-conductors 9.1.4. Thin and thick film analysis. 9.1.5. Analysis of surface contamination and of process chemicals used in semiconductor technology 9.1.6. Microlocal analysis in material research. 9.1.7. Imaging mass spectrometry in material research. 9.2. Environmental science and environmental control. 9.2.1. Analysis of water samples. 9.2.2. Analysis of air samples, particles and smoke 9.2.3. Multielemental analysis of environmental samples for environmental control. 9.2.4. Environmental monitoring of selected elements, group elements and trace element species 9.2.5. Isotope ratio measurements in environmental samples. 9.2.6. Monitoring of radionuclides in the environment 9.3. Biology. 9.3.1. Multielement analysis on biological samples 9.3.2. Elemental speciation in biological samples 9.3.3. Analysis of P, metals and metalloids bounded to proteins 9.3.4. Isotope ratio measurements of biological systems 9.3.5. Trace and imaging analysis on biological tissues and single cells 9.4. Bioengineering 9.4.1. Activities in bioengineering and analytics. 9.4.2. Nanobiotechnology. 9.5.Medicine. 9.5.1. Sampling, sample handling and storage of medical samples. 9.5.2. Body fluid. 126.96.36.199. Analysis of blood and serum. 188.8.131.52. Analysis of urine. 9.5.3. Hair, nail, tooth and bone analysis. 9.5.4. Microanalysis of small amount of medical samples. 9.5.5. P, S, Se and metal determination in proteins. 9.5.6. Analysis of tissues. 9.5.7. Imaging mass spectrometry on medical tissues. 9.5.8. Single cell analysis. 9.5.9. Ultrafine particles and health. 9.6. Food analysis. 9.6.1. Determination of trace elements and species in foodstuffs. 9.6.2. Analysis of mineral and bottle water. 9.6.3. Fingerprinting of foods by trace analysis and isotope ratio measurements. 9.7. Geology and geochemistry. 9.7.1. Sample preparation techniques of geological samples. 9.7.2. Fractionation effects in LA-ICP-MS. 9.7.3. Multielementanalysis of geological samples. 9.7.4. Trace analysis of selected elements in geological materials 9.7.5. Isotope analysis including age determination of minerals and rocks by mass spectrometry. 22.214.171.124. Study of isotope fine variation in nature. 22.214.171.124. Age dating methods in geosciences. - U - Pb, Th - Pb and Pb-Pb methods for age dating. - Rb - Sr method for age dating. - Sm-Nd method for age dating. - Lu-Hf-method for age dating. - Re-Os-method for age dating - K-Ar/Ca-system for age dating. - 14C dating 9.7.6. Mass spectrometric microlocal and imaging analysis of geological samples. 9.8. Cosmochemistry, planetary and space science. 9.8.1. Cosmochemical trace analysis. 9.8.2. Isotope analysis in cosmochemistry. 9.8.3. Cosmogenic radionuclides and age dating. 9.9.Determination of long-lived radionuclides. 9.9.1. Determination of half live of long-lived radionuclides. 9.9.2 Methodical developments and applications of ICP-MS for determination of long-lived radionuclides including trace/matrix separation. 9.9.3. Ultratrace analysis of long-lived radionuclides in very small sample volumes. 9.9.4. Determination of long-lived radionuclides by LA-ICP-MS and ETV-ICP-MS. 9.9.5. Particle analysis by inorganic mass spectrometry. 9.10. Forensic application. 9.10.1. Fingerprinting in forensic studies. 9.10.2. Multielement analysis for forensic studies. 9.10.3. Trace element analysis of selected elements and speciation. 9.10.4. Nuclear forensic studies. 9.10.5. Forensic investigations by isotope ratio measurements. 9.11. Study of cluster and polyatomic ion formation by mass spectrometry. 9.11.1. Carbon and boron nitride cluster ion formation. 9.11.2. Formation of selected heteronuclear cluster ions. 9.11.3. Cluster ions from metal oxide/graphite mixture 9.11.4. Argon diatomic ions. 9.11.5. Oxide ion formation of long-lived radionuclides in ICP-MS. 9.12.Further applications. 9.12.1.Pharmaceutical applications and analysis of drugs. 9.12.2.Archaeology. 10.Future developments. APPENDIX. Appendix I:Table of isotopic abundances, atomic mass and ionization energies of elements. Appendix II: Table of atomic weights of elements. Appendix III: Definition. Appendix IV: Abbreviations and Acronyms. Appendix V: List of standard reference materials for isotope ratio measurements.


Over the course of his career at Harvard, Morton Horwitz changed the questions legal historians ask. "The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860" (1977) disclosed the many ways that judge-made law favored commercial and property interests and remade law to promote economic growth. "The Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960" (1992) continued that project, with a focus on ideas that reshaped law as we struggled for objective and neutral legal responses to our country's crises. In more recent years he has written extensively on the legal realists and the Warren Court. Following an earlier festschrift volume by his former students, this volume includes essays by Horwitz' colleagues at Harvard and those from across the academy, as well as his students. These essays assess specific themes in Horwitz' work, from the antebellum era to the Warren Court, from jurisprudence to the influence of economics on judicial doctrine. The essays are, like Horwitz, provocative and original as they continue his transformation of American legal history.


An objectively derived catalogue of daily pressure patterns for 1899-1974 has been prepared for the western United States. The temperature and precipitation characteristics of the major types are described and a more detailed analysis for Colorado in extreme cold and warm months shows that the sign of the anomalies for each type is generally consistent with expectation based on the probable airflow patterns. A regression analysis of type frequencies versus temperature and precipitation anomalies for 1899-1970 at stations east and west of the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountain states shows that useful explanation of variance is obtained only for temperatures in the transition seasons and for precipitation west of the Divide in winter and east of the Divide in spring. Within-type variability of the climatic characteristics is one source of the discrepancy. The results underline the problems encountered in trying to link climatic anomalies with atmospheric circulation characteristics.


State Foreclosure Laws, Risk Shifting, and the Private Mortgage Insurance Industry ABSTRACT The large losses suffered by private and government mortgage insurers during the last several year has renewed in identifying the risk factors associated with residential lending. This paper focuses on the effect of state foreclosure laws on that risk. Data on loss rates incurred by PMIs over the period 1980-1986 reveal that a judicial foreclosure requirement and a statutory right of redemption add significantly to mortgage risk. Anti-deficiency judgment statutes preclude the amelioration of such risk. Estimates of the losses due to such laws are included Introduction One result of the mid-localized recessions in the agricultural and oil sectors of the economy has been an increase in residential loan defaults and foreciosures. Both government (FHA and VA) and private mortgage insurance (PMI) company claims have risen sharply since the early 1980s. (1) In 1986 the combined ratio of the loss and expense ratios for all PMI's was a record 168.9 percent. By comparison, the ratio was only 55 percent in 1979. Direct losses paid as a percent of the previous year's risk in force were .17 percent for 1980 and 1.35 percent for 1986. By 1986 the weighted average risk-to-capital ratio for the industry reached a record 25.8:1, several companies required capital infusions from their parent companies, and others had their ratings reduced by the rating agencies. (2) Besides localized recessions, other frequently noted risk factors have been mentioned as deepening the financial difficulties of the PMI industry. They include the introduction of new loan types (negatively amortizing Arms and GPMs), an increase in insured investor (non-owner occupied) properties, and a greater proportion of over-90 percent loan-to-value ratio loans originated by lenders. The consensus appears to be that the PMI industry failed both to adequately underwrite the risks associated with the characteristics of loans they insured and to charge premiums which reflected those risks. Throughout the early and mid-1980s, PMI companies charged uniform premiums regardless of the loan's characteristics, including location of origination. (3) It should not be surprising that in the fact of uniform premiums, differential amounts of risk were shifted to the insurers. Among the risks that may have been differentially shifted, there is one that has received little attention in the literature. That is the risk associated with the legal structure of the default-foreclosure process of the state within which the mortgaged property is located. This structure varies dramatically. The laws in some states facilitate the foreclosure process and thereby ameliorate lender-insurer losses. The laws in others, in an attempt to provide greater protection to the mortgagor, cause the process to be more lengthy and costly. This study demonstrates the extent to which different foreclosure laws create loan risk differentials which have been refelected in the losses of private mortgage insurers. The period of the interest is 1980 through 1986. (4) The manner in which state foreclosure laws affect residential loan risk is briefly discussed. A model is then presented wherein this risk is shifted disproportionately to private mortgage insurers that charge uniform premiums. Empirical evidence then shows that such risk caused substantial losses for PMI's from 1980 through 1986. Findings are then summarized and suggestions for future research are offered. State Foreclosure Laws and Loan Losses (5) Aside from minor differences, there are three primary distinctions in state foreclosure laws. They all affect the size of residential loan losses. First, states are almost equally divided between those that employ a judicial foreclosure procedure and those that employ a power-of-sale procedure. …


The ability to record neural ensembles from awake, behaving animals is one of the most important and successful components of the euroscience experimental toolbox. However, even the most advanced modern systems have limitations due to the physical coupling of he recording site with the headstage. These systems can only record from a limited number of structures at any one time and have articular difficulty recording large ensembles from animals with thin skulls e.g., mice, songbirds . Current systems cannot record from ragile structures spinal cord, peripheral nerves and ganglia during behavior because the wire electrodes would shred the fragile nerves s the animal moves. We propose the concept of a neural nanoprobe that is physically decoupled from a separately implanted aystation. Because the nanoprobes are not connected to the waystation by physical wires, multiple nanoprobes could be placed in ultiple neural structures, all transmitting to a single, separate waystation. Because the nanoprobes effectively float in the cellular atrix, they are safe to put in fragile structures. The waystation does not need to be implanted in the fragile structures; it only needs to e electrically coupled to them. The first step to the realization of this device is a low-power, high-fidelity method for communicating etween the nanoprobe and the waystation. In this abstract, we report a successful test proving the viability of using the brain itself as he conducting medium through which the nanoprobe and waystation can communicate. Initial tests show that neural signals from ultiple transmission sites can be sent to a single, separated receiver. We first identified the current-loss of sine-waves transmitted hrough live anesthetized brain tissue. We found negligible current-loss across frequencies ranging from 100 kHz–50 MHz across istances as much as 15 mm. As these frequencies are larger than any known frequencies used by neural signals, they are unlikely to nterfere with neural function. We next measured the ability to transmit and receive pre-recorded neural signals sampled at 20 kHz , sing prerecorded signals to determine the fidelity of transmission. The two different signals were transmitted, received, and successully demodulated with high-fidelity, even with transmission currents as low as 2 μA. Both the transmitters and the receiver each had heir own battery power supply to ensure that they used separate, floating grounds. Finally, to ensure that the intra-brain communication ignals did not interfere with neural activity, we recorded extra-cellular potentials before, during, and after the test. No changes were bserved in spike shape, spike frequency, bursting, or other cellular properties, demonstrating the safety of this technique. Supported by grant from the Institute for Engineering in Medicine U Minnesota and training grant support from T90-DK070106. Corresponding uthor; email: firstname.lastname@example.com


Abstract We conduct an out-of-sample backtesting exercise of Growth-at-Risk (GaR) predictions for 24 OECD countries. We consider forecasts constructed from quantile regression and GARCH models. The quantile regression forecasts are based on a set of recently proposed measures of downside risks to GDP, including the national financial conditions index. The backtesting results show that quantile regression and GARCH forecasts have a similar performance. If anything, our evidence suggests that standard volatility models such as the GARCH(1,1) are more accurate.


In an effort to understand how polarity is established in Xenopus oocytes, we have analyzed the process of localization of the maternal mRNA, Vg1. In fully grown oocytes, Vg1 mRNA is tightly localized at the vegetal cortex. Biochemical fractionation shows that the mRNA is preferentially associated with a detergent-insoluble subcellular fraction. The use of cytoskeletal inhibitors suggests that (1) microtubules are involved in the translocation of the message to the vegetal hemisphere and (2) microfilaments are important for the anchoring of the message at the cortex. Furthermore, immunohistochemistry reveals that a cytoplasmic microtubule array exists during translocation. These results suggest a role for the cytoskeleton in localizing information in the oocyte.


The two-stage object pose estimation paradigm first detects semantic keypoints on the image and then estimates the 6D pose by minimizing reprojection errors. Despite performing well on standard benchmarks, existing techniques offer no provable guarantees on the quality and uncertainty of the estimation. In this paper, we inject two fundamental changes, namely conformal keypoint detection and geometric uncertainty propagation, into the two-stage paradigm and propose the first pose estimator that endows an estimation with provable and computable worst-case error bounds. On one hand, conformal keypoint detection applies the statistical machinery of inductive conformal prediction to convert heuristic keypoint detections into circular or elliptical prediction sets that cover the groundtruth keypoints with a user-specified marginal probability (e.g., 90%). Geometric uncertainty propagation, on the other, propagates the geometric constraints on the keypoints to the 6D object pose, leading to a Pose UnceRtainty SEt (PURSE) that guarantees coverage of the groundtruth pose with the same probability. The PURSE, however, is a nonconvex set that does not directly lead to estimated poses and uncertainties. Therefore, we develop RANdom SAmple averaGing (RANSAG) to compute an average pose and apply semidefinite relaxation to upper bound the worst-case errors between the average pose and the groundtruth. On the LineMOD Occlusion dataset we demonstrate: (i) the PURSE covers the groundtruth with valid probabilities; (ii) the worst-case error bounds provide correct uncertainty quantification; and (iii) the average pose achieves better or similar accuracy as representative methods based on sparse keypoints.


Thomas Middleton's work as a playwright and pamphleteer was highly collaborative: from 1601 to 1627 he wrote with at least ten of his contemporaries including Dekker, Jonson and Shakespeare. However, Middleton's texts are even more collaborative than these writing partnerships would suggest. This thesis defines collaboration as the act of sharing in the process of making meaning, and so proposes that Middleton's collaborators included not only his many co-writers but also performers, printers and editors.
Middleton's partnership with Thomas Dekker, the three plays and two pamphlets they co-wrote together, are the starting point from which I explore early modern collaboration. Since these texts have survived only in print form, the best information available about the creative processes that generated them is archival sources and the evidence provided by attribution studies. Yet there are two potential problems with the use of attribution evidence. First, because attribution involves assigning parts of texts to writers, it can imply that co-written texts were always singly authored in separate sections then pieced together. Secondly, attribution's concern with tracking the presence of authors can suggest that non-authorial contributions to a text are not worthwhile. This thesis challenges both of these assumptions.
To resolve the tension between valuable evidence provided by attribution studies and their misrepresentation (as I see it) of collaboration, this thesis takes as its starting point those poststructuralist theories which call for a decentred conception of the author. Co-writing can then be understood as an essential aspect of how meaning in a text is made but not the only significant aspect. My thesis reframes attribution evidence in light of this idea and uses it to gain insight into how and why Middleton and Dekker wrote together, rather than to discover 'who wrote what'. I argue that Middleton began writing with the more experienced Dekker to hone his craft and that their process changed as Middleton became more practised. Taking this approach to attribution scholarship means that I can investigate co-writing without devaluing non-authorial collaboration: Middleton and Dekker's co-writing is presented alongside the collaborative acts of those who performed, printed and edited their texts. By applying the idea of a decentred author to attribution evidence, this thesis offers an original way to approach early modern collaboration: one which analyses co-writing whilst recognising it as part of a larger network of collaborative acts.


We propose an alternative photonic scheme to generate a doublet ultrawideband (UWB) pulse, which is based on the combined use of nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) and optical parametric amplification (OPA). The proposed scheme uses NPR together with OPA in a highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted fiber to produce an ideal transfer function with which input Gaussian pulses are successfully converted into doublet pulses. An experimental demonstration was carried out to verify the working principle. The system performance of the generated UWB doublet pulses was assessed by propagating them over a 20-km-long fiber link, followed by wireless transmission. Error-free transmission was successfully achieved at a data rate of 1.25 Gb/s.


Let Robbie be an agent possessing a generalized plan for accomplishing a goal. Can Robbie use his plan to accomplish the goal without passing through any of a set of forbidden world states en route. to the goal? This situation arises if, for example, Robbie must accomplish the goal with some additional constramts ("Can I get to the airport in time without speeding?"). There are two poles in the spectrum of methods Robbie can use to test his plan in the new world situation each with its own advantages and disadvantages. At one extreme, Robbie can choose to express the new world constraints as additional preconditions on all the operators used for planning. At the other extreme, Robbie can attempt to prove that the new constramts are satisfied in every possible world that could arise during execution of the plan, from any initial world state that is consistent with his axioms. In this paper we examine the tradeoffs between these two opposing approaches, and show that the approaches are in fact very similar from a computational complexity point of view.


A major challenge in EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) is the intersession nonstationarity in the EEG data that often leads to deteriorated BCI performances. To address this issue, this letter proposes a novel data space adaptation technique, EEG data space adaptation (EEG-DSA), to linearly transform the EEG data from the target space (evaluation session), such that the distribution difference to the source space (training session) is minimized. Using the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence criterion, we propose two versions of the EEG-DSA algorithm: the supervised version, when labeled data are available in the evaluation session, and the unsupervised version, when labeled data are not available. The performance of the proposed EEG-DSA algorithm is evaluated on the publicly available BCI Competition IV data set IIa and a data set recorded from 16 subjects performing motor imagery tasks on different days. The results show that the proposed EEG-DSA algorithm in both the supervised and unsupervised versions significantly outperforms the results without adaptation in terms of classification accuracy. The results also show that for subjects with poor BCI performances when no adaptation is applied, the proposed EEG-DSA algorithm in both the supervised and unsupervised versions significantly outperforms the unsupervised bias adaptation algorithm (PMean).


Most of us feel, from time to time, that other authors have not acknowledged the work of our own or other groups or have omitted to interpret important aspects of their own data. Perhaps we have observations that, although not sufficient to merit a full paper, add a further dimension to one published by others. In other instances we may have a useful piece of methodology that we would like to share.


Human T-cell Lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is causally associated with adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), an aggressive T-cell malignancy with a poor prognosis. The aim of this study is to study the association of HTLV-1 infection with Egyptian cases of T cell leukemia/ lymphoma. The study was conducted on ninety subjects, involved two groups; group I included sixty adult Egyptian patients with T cell leukemia or lymphoma who attended Hematology & Oncology Units at Ain-Shams University, El Maady Military Hospital, and National Institute for Cancers. Group II were thirty apparently healthy individuals as a control group. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was done for detection of circulating antibodies against HTLV-1 in human sera in patients and control groups. It was found that seven (11.7 %) out of 60 patients and one control person (3.3%) were serologically positive by ELISA technique. All serologically positive samples (n=8) and randomly selected negative samples from both patients (n=33) and control groups (n=9) were confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection of HTLV-1 proviral DNA in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNCs). Three serum samples (3/40; 7.5%) from patients with T cell leukemia/ lymphoma were determined to be positive for HTLV-1 proviral DNA by PCR, while none of the control group samples showed reactivity to PCR. The specificity of ELISA was 90.2% and sensitivity was 100%, while specificity and sensitivity of PCR was 100%. The three patients positive for HTLV-1 proviral DNA were males, their ages ranged from 46-60 (mean 48), two of them (66.7%) were diagnosed as T-cell lymphoma of ATLL-type and one (33.3%) was acute Leukemia of ATLL-type. Two of them (2/3; 66.7%) had a history of blood transfusion. We conclude that Human T -cell Lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is probably associated and may be causally related to some cases of adult Egyptian patients afflicted with T cell leukemia /lymphoma and testing for HTLV-1 may be of help in establishing such a relation, in assessing the prognosis and risk stratification for optimum management. Although ELISA is a sensitive, reliable, and cost-effective technique for diagnosis of HTLV-I infection, positive ELISA results should be confirmed by PCR. Further epidemiological and interval studies to nationally assess HTLV-1 infection should be initiated and preventive measures to decrease the spread and transmission of HTLV-1 are warranted in Egypt.


We describe Spectra, a remote execution system for battery-powered clients used in pervasive computing. Spectra enables applications to combine the mobility of small devices with the greater processing power of static compute servers. Spectra is self-tuning: it monitors both application resource usage and the availability of resources in the environment, and dynamically determines how and where to execute application components. In making this determination, Spectra balances the competing goals of performance, energy conservation, and application quality. We have validated Spectra's approach on the Compaq Itsy v2.2 and IBM ThinkPad 560X using a speech recognizer a document preparation system, and a natural language translator. Our results confirm that Spectra almost always selects the best execution plan, and that its few suboptimal choices are very close to optimal.


Rising inequality of income and power, along with the recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet there has been a global retreat by the Left: on the assumption that liberal capitalism is the only game in town, political theorists tend to dismiss as utopian any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations. As Fredric Jameson first argued, it is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternative to capitalism. Erik Olin Wright's "Envisioning Real Utopias" is a comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. Building on a lifetime's work analyzing the class system in the developed world, as well as exploring the problem of the transition to a socialist alternative, Wright has now completed a systematic reconstruction of the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors. "Envisioning Real Utopias" aims to put the social back into socialism, laying the foundations for a set of concrete, emancipatory alternatives to the capitalist system. Characteristically rigorous and engaging, this will become a landmark of social thought for the twenty-first century.


This report details the excavation and restoration efforts at the William Paca Garden in Annapolis, Maryland. Located at 186 Prince George Street, the William Paca House stands in the center of the Historical District of the City of Annapolis. Directly behind the restored mansion sits a large 2-acre 18th century pleasure garden, a garden that up until 40 years ago was lost to history. William Paca, signer of the Declaration of Independence and former governor of Maryland built his Annapolis house and garden in the early 1760s. Paca owned the property until 1780. Through the remainder of the 18th and all of the 19th centuries, the house and garden had a succession of private owners (Historic Annapolis Foundation 2002). While the house had been maintained over the years, Paca's garden fell into disrepair. The historic garden met its final end in 1901 when the property was sold and a hotel was constructed overtop the historic landscape. Using the archaeological data collected by Bruce Powell, Glenn Little, and Kenneth and Ronald Orr, in conjunction with historical records, garden dictionaries, photographs and portraits, Brigham and Bullock directed a scientifically accurate restoration of the two-acre landscape Paca built (Leone 1987). The restored William Paca Garden is unique. The garden built by William Paca in 1765 is the only opportunity in Annapolis to see what an 18th century city garden actually looked like (Leone 1987). In 1975, Kenneth and Ronald Orr conducted additional archaeological testing of the lower garden in and around the vicinity of the fourth garden fall and terrace. The work they did provided Historic Annapolis with the information needed to determine the location of the garden pavilion as well as the interior design of the garden springhouse. Eight years later Ann Yentsch conducted additional testing of the springhouse interior. The project sought to determine whether any additional 18th century materials could be located. The final excavation of the William Paca Garden began in 1990. Laura Galke, Historic Annapolis Curator of Archaeology, performed additional testing around the artificial brick-lined stream bed located below the third garden fall. The excavations by conducted by Kenneth and Ronald Orr, Ann Yentsch and Laura Galke were comparatively smaller in scale to that of Bruce Powell and Glenn Little, however the information they provided is just as valuable to understanding William Paca's historic garden. Also, included in the entry are the catalogs from the work done by Kenneth and Ronald Orr in 1975 and Laura Galke in the 1990s. Barbara Paca, a descendant of William Paca, made the basic conditions map of the Garden in 1983 based on Glenn Little's excavations.


The question of immortality has been one of the principal human preoccupations in the history of mankind (Olshansky; Carnes). This query has been directed in different directions to find a means to satisfy a yearning for immortality. Religion has been one of the paths on which humans have journeyed to search for answers. Based on religious faith, the discovery has been that the physical body dies but that the soul can supersede death. The discipline of science has been another path in the search for answers to this perplexing question. As a result, the unique discovery has been that the desire for immortality, supported by religious faith, clashes constantly with the logic of science, which leads to the uncomfortable position which Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) calls "the tragic sense of life". Throughout history, various ways have been conceived to explain the idea of immortality and the attainment of it. (Olshansky; Carnes). One of the most obvious is procreation or, in other words, the passing of the genes to the next generation. In his novelette "Dos Madres", Unamuno describes three principal characters whose actions deal with the theme of procreation and specifically with the obsession of Raquel, a sterile woman, to become a mother. Given Unamuno's preoccupation with the idea of immortality, one could easily interpret Raquel's actions and behavior as her quest for immortality, attainable by acquiring another woman's child and rearing it as her own. Ironically, Raquel ignores an important biological fact. The ultimate reality is that the genes of the parents of the child, not hers, will continue into the next generation. This fact brings about the possibility of a different interpretation of the work. It may be true that Unamuno intended for this work to be a representation of a quest for immortality on the part of Raquel, but the end-result may have been different. It is arguable that her extreme actions and behavior are more representative of an anomalous maternal instinct rather than a desire for immortality. In very general terms, behavior can be categorized into two basic types: learned and innate or instinctive. A problem may emerge, however, on certain occasions in determining or defining which behavior is learned and which is instinctive. Nevertheless, it is evident that maternal behavior is one of the most visible and observable of behaviors and is quite strong among mammals (Loy, Peters, ed.). More specifically, if an instinctive behavior can be characterized by having certain characteristics, features or qualities such as a strong craving or desire, an affective state (unhappiness and dissatisfaction due to the lack of the object desired), and a conative impulse, that is, an activity motivated by a stimulus for the purpose of relieving the stress and achieving satisfaction (Wilm, p. 146), then it is observable that Raquel's reactions to her "biological clock" to become a mother are a result of a maternal instinct and not a desire for immortality. All of these characteristics play an influential role in her behavior, not independently, but in tandem and/or overlapping each other. In her obsession to become a mother, she devises, in a very calculated manner, a fiendish plan to satisfy her biological hunger for a child. Her fierce craving becomes evident when the first demand is that Juan, her cohabitating partner, marry another woman, have a child with her, and then turn it over to Raquel as her own. Juan rejects the demand, claiming that he could never love any woman other than Raquel. She informs him that her demand does not require him to be in love with anyone, only that he impregnate another woman so that she can gain possession of the child. Juan refutes her with the suggestion of adoption, which would appear to be the best practical solution to Raquel's problem. She rejects the suggestion on the basis that a child from unknown sources could turn out to be inferior. …


The magical essence of natural landscapes since the dawn of man have been a source of intrigue, wonder and inspiration in art, philosophy and literature. With each new era in civilisation, new methods of creative expression have been used by artists, designers and writers to capture the rich natural landscapes, and with the 21st century and the emergence of new interactive technologies, this innate desire is being expressed through the digital domain.
From the giant mushroom forests of Morrowind, the Archipelago islands of Zelda: Wind Waker, to the tropical underground caves of Phantasy Star Online, Virtual landscapes have enthralled, captured and engaged player imaginations for over 30 years. Virtual Landscapes is a three part series attempting to, for the first time, visually illustrate, share and critically reflect upon the unique, virtual natural landscapes within Computer & Video Games.
Virtual Landscapes: The Embryonic Era visually illustrates the emergence and rapid evolution of the virtual natural landscapes in computer & video games from 1980 to 1989.
From the pixel based, block form environments of Forbidden Forest, the strange lands of Golvellius, the eerie 'ant-farm' landscapes of Ghouls'n Ghosts and finally to shifting interactive lands of Populous, Virtual Landscapes presents these virtual spaces for the first time, in stunning unseen digitally enhanced. high resolution and panoramic forms.


To explain their observed radii, we present theoretical radius-age trajectories for the extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) TrES-4, XO-3b, and HAT-P-1b. We factor in variations in atmospheric opacity, the presence of an inner heavy-element core, and possible heating due to orbital tidal dissipation. A small, yet nonzero, degree of core heating is needed to explain the observed radius of TrES-4, unless its atmospheric opacity is significantly larger than a value equivalent to that at 10 × solar metallicity with equilibrium molecular abundances. This heating rate is reasonable, and corresponds for an energy dissipation parameter (Qp) of ~103.8 to an eccentricity of ~0.01, assuming 3 × solar atmospheric opacity and a heavy-element core of Mc = 30 M⊕. For XO-3b, which has an observed orbital eccentricity of 0.26, we show that tidal heating needs to be taken into account to explain its observed radius. Furthermore, we reexamine the core mass needed for HAT-P-1b in light of new measurements and find that it now generally follows the correlation between stellar metallicity and core mass suggested recently. Given various core heating rates, theoretical grids and fitting formulae for a giant planet's equilibrium radius and equilibration timescale are provided for planet masses Mp = 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 MJ with a = 0.02–0.06 AU, orbiting a G2 V star. When the equilibration timescale is much shorter than that of tidal heating variation, the "effective age" of the planet is shortened, resulting in evolutionary trajectories more like those of younger EGPs. Motivated by the work of B. Jackson et al., we suggest that this effect could indeed be important in better explaining some observed transit radii.


The electricity market in Germany is likely to undergo several significant structural changes over the years to come. Here one may think of Germany's ambitious renewable agenda, the disputed decommissioning of nuclear facilities, but also unbundling of TSO's as enforced by European regulation. This study is a scenario-based analysis of the impact of different realizations of known investment plans for transmission and generation capacity on the future German power market while accounting for internal congestion. For this analysis the static equilibrium model of the European electricity market COMPETES is deployed, including a 10-node representation of the German high-voltage grid. Results for the multi-node analysis indicate that price divergence and congestion are likely to arise in the German market as renewable additions affecting mainly the North of Germany, the debated decommissioning of nuclear facilities in the South, and the expected decommissioning of coal-fired facilities in Western Germany appear to render current investment plans for transmission capacity insufficient. The current system of single-zone pricing for the German market may therewith be compromised. However, transmission additions would not benefit all market parties, with producers in exporting regions and consumers in importing regions being the main beneficiaries. Vertical unbundling of German power companies could increase the incentive for constructing transmission lines if generation capacity would cause Germany to be a net-importing country. In case Germany remains a net-exporting country, the effects of vertical unbundling on cross-border capacity are less clearcut.


Darifenacin hydrobromide is a selective ?3 receptor antimuscarinic drug and it is used in the management of urinary frequency, urgency, and incontinence in detrusor instability. It slightly soluble in water, undergoes extensive hepatic first-pass metabolism and has short elimination half-life (3–4 hours). Therefore, It has low bioavailability (15.4 % - 18.6 %). Darifenacin hydrobromide loaded NLCs were formulated by emulsification sonication using different ratios of solid lipid to liquid lipid, different types of surfactants, and different concentration of surfactants. Formula sixteen was considered as an optimized formula based on its particle size, PDI, zeta potential and entrapment efficiency. Formula sixteen subjected to further characterization such as DSC, FT – IR, XRD, AFM, and release study. FT-IR and DSC studies showed no interaction between drug and excipients. XRD study showed that drug in amorphous form. AFM study showed discrete lipid nanoparticles with no aggregation. Release study showed burst release in the first hour followed by sustained and controlled release up to 12 hours. The over all study showed the potential of NLC as a carrier for enhancing the bioavailability of darifenacin hydrobromide as compared to the conventional dosage form.
Key words: Darifenacin hydrobromide, nanostructured lipid carrier, bioavailability.


The aim of this paper is to evaluate the success of progressive services liberalization under the ASEAN China FTA (ACFTA). First, we calculate the level of commitments by applying the Hoekman Index. Second, we compare the ACFTA 2nd Package with the ACFTA 1st Package and examine the additional liberalization, and the frequency of backtrack. Third, we compare the ACFTA 2nd Package with the GATS commitments by the respective member states. Last, we discuss the policy implications of this analysis to the other ASEAN+1 FTA and RCEP negotiations, as well as the need to address GATS-minus commitments found in FTAs


The soaring demand for intelligent mobile applications calls for deploying powerful deep neural networks (DNNs) on mobile devices. However, the outstanding performance of DNNs notoriously relies on increasingly complex models, which in turn is associated with an increase in computational expense far surpassing mobile devices' capacity. What is worse, app service providers need to collect and utilize a large volume of users' data, which contain sensitive information, to build the sophisticated DNN models. Directly deploying these models on public mobile devices presents prohibitive privacy risk. To benefit from the on-device deep learning without the capacity and privacy concerns, we design a private model compression framework RONA. Following the knowledge distillation paradigm, we jointly use hint learning, distillation learning, and self learning to train a compact and fast neural network. The knowledge distilled from the cumbersome model is adaptively bounded and carefully perturbed to enforce differential privacy. We further propose an elegant query sample selection method to reduce the number of queries and control the privacy loss. A series of empirical evaluations as well as the implementation on an Android mobile device show that RONA can not only compress cumbersome models efficiently but also provide a strong privacy guarantee. For example, on SVHN, when a meaningful (9.83,10−6)-differential privacy is guaranteed, the compact model trained by RONA can obtain 20× compression ratio and 19× speed-up with merely 0.97% accuracy loss.


During baker's yeast manufacturing, the fermentation process must be thoroughly controlled. This review of the patent literature provides new information on the early development of industrial fermentation processes. As shown by a review of 199 patents filed between 1900 and 2009, inventors in this field were mainly interested to improve yeast yields through the control of infection and sugar concentration in the growth media. Contrary to common belief, much attention was also given to continuous culture processes, involving addition and withdrawal of growth media. These technologies were mainly developed in about 30 y, between 1910 and 1939. In the recent years, inventors gave sustained attention to the fine tuning of fermentation control, mainly the rapid determination of yeast fermentation by-products in the exhaust to get rapid feedback on the rate of sugar addition in the fermentation tank. Improved fermentation control benefited much the baking industry because baker's yeast had higher gassing power and was cheaper. However, some of these key patents on baker's yeast technology were later declared invalid in court because it had little intellectual property value. In the baker's yeast trade and other sectors, this situation might have encouraged trade secrets while reducing the credibility of innovative ideas disclosed in the patent literature.


The aim of the present study was to investigate potential hypocholesterolaemic antioxidant activities of cinnamon oil and antibiotic, and their effects on fatty acid compositions of serum and meat in broilers. A total of 240 Ross-308 chicks, five days old, were divided randomly into four treatment groups composed of 60 chicks each. Experimental groups were: corn-soybean meal basal diet (Control), basal diet supplemented with 10 ppm avilamycin (antibiotic) and 500 or 1000 ppm of cinnamon oil (C500, C1000). Cinnamon oil lowered cholesterol levels of serum (P < 0.01), breast and thigh meat (P < 0.05) in cinnamon groups compared to control and antibiotic groups. Serum malondialdehyde (MDA, nmol/g protein) level was reduced significantly in C1000 group (P < 0.05). Glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px,µkat/g protein) and catalase (CAT, kat/l) enzyme activities were different among the groups (P < 0.001). The higher levels of GSH-Px and CAT were obtained in C1000 group, the lower levels of these indicators were obtained in the antibiotic group. Total saturated fatty acid (SFA) ratio decreased and total unsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) ratio, ω-6 fatty acids increased significantly in serum and thigh meat in cinnamon groups (P < 0.01). These results showed that cinnamon oil had hypocholesterolaemic and antioxidant characteristics, and it also improved meat quality.


The quality of care is substantially influenced by the staff's value priorities. The purpose of this study was to identify and characterize value systems among nursing assistants and nurses' aides, and to assess relations between their value systems and views on good care. A cross-sectional, quantitative study in a Swedish municipality was performed (N=226). Three distinct value systems were identified, and they corresponded to early (n=121), middle (n=88), and late (n=17) conventional stages ofego development. Early conventional value systems emphasized strict rules, routines and working conditions of staff, while middle and, in particularly, late conventional value systems stressed individualization and autonomy of older people. Assessment of value system, socio-demographic, and occupational variables showed that the value systems had a stronger predictive impact on views on care ethics, participation, and autonomy. The results indicate that staff with late conventional value systems prioritized older persons' exercise of autonomy, while paternalism held priority in staff with early conventional value systems.


Abstract. Methane (CH4) in marine sediments has the potential to contribute to changes in the ocean- and climate system. Physical and biochemical processes that are difficult to quantify with current standard methods such as acoustic surveys and discrete sampling govern the distribution of dissolved CH4 in oceans and lakes. Detailed observations of aquatic CH4 concentrations are required for a better understanding of CH4 dynamics in the water column, how it can affect lake- and ocean acidification, the chemosynthetic ecosystem, and mixing ratios of atmospheric climate gases. Here we present pioneering high-resolution in-situ measurements of dissolved CH4 throughout the water column over a 400 m deep CH4 seepage area at the continental slope west of Svalbard. A new fast-response under-water membrane-inlet laser spectrometer sensor demonstrates technological advances and breakthroughs for ocean measurements. We reveal decametre-scale variations of dissolved CH4 concentrations over the CH4 seepage zone. Previous studies could not resolve such heterogeneity in the area, assumed smoother distribution and therefore lacked both details and insights to ongoing processes. We show good repeatability of the instrument measurements, which are also in agreement with discrete sampling. New numerical models, based on acoustically evidenced free gas emissions from the seafloor, support the observed heterogeneity and CH4 inventory. We identified sources of CH4, undetectable with echosounder, and rapid diffusion of dissolved CH4 away from the sources. Results from the continuous ocean laser-spectrometer measurements, supported by modelling, improve our understanding of CH4 fluxes and related physical processes over Arctic CH4 degassing regions.


Since its inception 20 years ago, the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) has become the lingua franca of safety reporting in a regulatory context. The standardised reporting across different regulatory regions and languages is a major strength of MedDRA. The detail offered by the large number of terms may, in principle, be considered an advantage too, but increased granularity is not without its problems. Awareness of the potential issues with MedDRA should help medical writers provide clear, transparent safety reporting.


Abstract. Isolated electrostatic structures are observed throughout much of the 4RE by 19.6RE Cluster orbit. These structures are observed in the Wideband plasma wave instrument's waveform data as bipolar pulses (one positive and one negative peak in the electric field amplitude) and tripolar pulses (two positive and one negative peak, or vice versa). These structures are observed at all of the boundary layers, in the solar wind and magnetosheath, and along auroral field lines at 4.5-6.5RE. Using the Wideband waveform data from the various Cluster spacecraft we have carried out a survey of the amplitudes and time durations of these structures and how these quantities vary with the local magnetic field strength. Such a survey has not been carried out before, and it reveals certain characteristics of solitary structures in a finite magnetic field, a topic still inadequately addressed by theories. We find that there is a broad range of electric field amplitudes at any specific magnetic field strength, and there is a general trend for the electric field amplitudes to increase as the strength of the magnetic field increases over a range of 5 to 500nT. We provide a possible explanation for this trend that relates to the structures being Bernstein-Greene-Kruskal mode solitary waves. There is no corresponding dependence of the duration of the structures on the magnetic field strength, although a plot of these two quantities reveals the unexpected result that with the exception of the magnetosheath, all of the time durations for all of the other regions are comparable, whereas the magnetosheath time durations clearly are in a different category of much smaller time duration. We speculate that this implies that the structures are much smaller in size. The distinctly different pulse durations for the magnetosheath pulses indicate the possibility that the pulses are generated by a mechanism which is different from the mechanism operating in other regions.


BACKGROUND
An important characteristic of children with autism is their unusual reaction to stimuli, which may be related to problems in the filtering of sensory input. For this reason, sensory filtering was measured in children with autism using the P50 gating paradigm.

METHOD
Twelve non-mentally retarded children with autism (i.e., having a DSM-IV diagnosis of either autistic disorder or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified) and 11 healthy control children were tested for their ability to suppress P50, measured at the Cz electrode.

RESULTS
No differences were found between the children with autism and the control children with regard to absolute P50 amplitudes and P50 suppression.

CONCLUSION
The excitability of the neuronal substrate that causes P50 is normal in children with autism, as are the early, inhibitory processes related to P50 gating. These results distinguish between subjects with autism and subjects with schizophrenia, in whom sensory gating is abnormal.


Realistic music generation is a challenging task. When building generative models of music that are learnt from data, typically high-level representations such as scores or MIDI are used that abstract away the idiosyncrasies of a particular performance. But these nuances are very important for our perception of musicality and realism, so in this work we embark on modelling music in the raw audio domain. It has been shown that autoregressive models excel at generating raw audio waveforms of speech, but when applied to music, we find them biased towards capturing local signal structure at the expense of modelling long-range correlations. This is problematic because music exhibits structure at many different timescales. In this work, we explore autoregressive discrete autoencoders (ADAs) as a means to enable autoregressive models to capture long-range correlations in waveforms. We find that they allow us to unconditionally generate piano music directly in the raw audio domain, which shows stylistic consistency across tens of seconds.


Variations in the arterial pattern of the upper limb are very common as observed in many cadaveric and angiographic studies. Knowledge of variations in the origin and course of the radial artery is important because they are used for many diagnostic procedures as well as vascular and reconstructive surgeries like coronary angiography, percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass surgery. During routine dissection in our institute, we observed a case of high origin of the radial artery in a 33 year old male cadaver. It was found to be unilateral; on left side, radial artery was taking origin from 3 part of the axillary artery at the lower border of pectoralis minor before the origin of subscapular artery and anterior circumflex humeral artery. It had a superficial course in the arm crossing the median nerve from medial to lateral side. The further course of this superficial radial artery in the forearm was normal and it terminated by forming a deep Palmar arch in hand. These variations may be of great clinical implications for vascular and plastic surgeons and radiologists. Superficial course of radial artery makes it vulnerable to accidental injuries and elevates the risk of bleeding.


The burning of fossil fuels has caused and is still causing great damage to environment. Some of its effects felt globally are: global warming, depletion of ozone layer and climate change. The ever expanding demand of air cooling for human comforts in hot and humid climates is of great concern. Most of this demand is met by the conventional cooling systems which consume electrical energy, which in turn leads to burning of fossil fuels and hence greenhouse gas which cause depletion of ozone layer are emitted in large quantities. Cooling systems based on solar power have certain advantages over the conventional ones as they don't release any gas which depletes ozone layer or cause global warming. This paper discusses the progress of cooling systems based on solar energy.


Abstract. Food webs in aquatic systems can be supported both by carbon from recent local primary productivity and by carbon subsidies, such as material from terrestrial ecosystems, or past in situ primary productivity. The importance of these subsidies to respiration and biomass production remains a topic of debate. While some studies have reported that terrigenous organic carbon supports disproportionately high zooplankton production, others have suggested that phytoplankton preferentially support zooplankton production in aquatic ecosystems. Here we apply natural abundance radiocarbon (Δ14C) and stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) analyses to show that zooplankton in Lake Superior selectively incorporate recently fixed, locally produced (autochthonous) organic carbon even though other carbon sources are readily available. Estimates from Bayesian isotopic modeling based on Δ14C and δ13C values show that the average lake-wide median contributions of recent in-lake primary production and terrestrial, sedimentary, and bacterial organic carbon to the bulk POM in Lake Superior were 58%, 5%, 33%, and 3%, respectively. However, isotopic modeling estimates also show that recent in situ production contributed a disproportionately large amount (median, 91%) of the carbon in mesozooplankton biomass in Lake Superior. Although terrigenous organic carbon and old organic carbon from resuspended sediments were significant portions (median, 38%) of the available basal food resources, these contributed only a small amount to mesozooplankton biomass. Comparison of zooplankton food sources based on their radiocarbon composition showed that terrigenous organic carbon was relatively more important in rivers and small lakes, and the proportion of terrestrially derived material used by zooplankton correlated with the hydrologic residence time and the ratio of basin area to water surface area.


The grotesque in contemporary British fiction reveals the extent to which the grotesque endures as a dominant artistic mode in British fiction and presents a new way of understanding six authors who have been at the forefront of British literature over the past four decades.

Starting with a sophisticated exploration of the historical development of the grotesque in literature, the book outlines the aesthetic trajectories of Angela Carter, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Iain Banks, Will Self and Toby Litt and offers detailed critical readings of key works of modern fiction including The Bloody Chamber (1979), Money (1984), The Child in Time (1987), The Wasp Factory (1984), Great Apes (1997) and Ghost Story (2004). The book shows how the grotesque continues to be a powerful force in contemporary writing and provides an illuminating picture of often controversial aspects of recent fiction.


Structural Equation Models (SEM) are often used in psychological research. In many studies, determining the number of variables is di cult because maximum likelihood estimates are empirically under-identi ed when more factors are estimated in the model than are present in the data. In this study, the Random Intercept factor model is considered as a psychometric measurement model which, although useful in many research contexts, does not assume simple structure. We compare the RIF model to other factor models using Bayesian estimation to determine the dimensionality of the data as well as to investigate other psychometric measurement models for the data. The Bayesian Lasso method is explored as an e cient approach which estimates the parameters of the model and adjudicates model selection simultaneously. In an examination of both simulated and empirical data ML SEM's were empirically underidenti ed for overcomplex measurement models. Both conjugate Bayesian approaches and the Bayesian Lasso (BLasso) were found to yield superior estimates of parameters and consistently agreed upon the same measurement model for the data. Taken together, the results suggest that Bayesian approaches are preferable to ML for selection of an appropriate psychometric measurement model for the data. Of the two Bayesian approaches, the BLasso may be preferred given that it does not require speci cation and model comparison of the several types of measurement models considered.


A Large number of insects are influenced easily by a number of pollutants; such as, the influence of lead (as lead acetate) on Bactrocera dorsalis. L ead is considered to be an important toxic waste which could contaminate the environment, such as soil, air and water. Therefore, insects could be influenced by the lead. Bactrocera dorsalis, was studied at 48 hours post treatment, under the effects of lead acetate, in different concentrations. Lead is found to exert a definite specific physiological and morphological effect on these flies. It was observed that under the effect of lead abnormalities and deformities were developed in the larvae of flies. Thus these flies could present a useful module for the quick transmission of the environmental hazards due to lead contamination, which exerts a specific physiological and morphological effect on these flies. The purpose of the present work was to determine the effects of lead on proteins as a major indicator of physiological features along with morphological features of larvae of Bactrocera dorsalis flies.


In this study we systematically explored the mixed cation perovskite Csx(CH3NH3)1−xPbI3. We exchanged the A-site cation by dipping MAPbI3 films into a CsI solution, thereby incrementally replacing the MA+ in a time-resolved dipping process and analysed the resulting thin-films with UV-Vis, XRD, EDAX, SEM and optical depth-analysis in a high-throughput fashion. Additional in situ UV-Vis and time-resolved XRD measurements allowed us to look at the kinetics of the formation process. The results showed a discontinuity during the conversion. Firstly, small amounts of Cs+ are incorporated into the structure. After a few minutes, the Cs content approaches a limit and grains of δ-CsPbI3 occur, indicating a substitution limit. We compared this cation exchange to a one-step crystallisation approach and found the same effect of phase segregation, which shows that the substitution limit is an intrinsic feature rather than a kinetic effect. Optical and structural properties changed continuously for small Cs incorporations. Larger amounts of Cs result in phase segregation. We estimate the substitution limit of CsxMA1−xPbI3 to start at a Cs ratio x = 0.13, based on combined measurements of EDAX, UV-Vis and XRD. The photovoltaic performance of the mixed cation perovskite shows a large increase in device stability from days to weeks. The initial efficiency of mixed CsxMA1−xPbI3 devices decreases slightly, which is compensated by stability after a few days.


This paper was prepared as a contribution to analysis and discussion surrounding the development of an international regime on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity (Decision VII/19). The paper provides a review and assessment of the implications of trends in relation to genomics, proteomics and biotechnology for the development of an international regime. The results of the review are also relevant to the ongoing work of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and other relevant bodies. It is divided into two sections. Section I examines the challenges and potential opportunities represented by the growth of bioinformatics and international electronic transfers of genetic data for the development of an international regime. The review reveals that by the end of 2003 the international DNA sequence depositary known as GenBank contained 30,968,418 DNA sequences from an estimated 130,000 organisms. The review concludes that further attention could be paid to the potential of bioinformatics and "open source" models to provide alternative forms of benefit-sharing directed towards conservation and development objectives and the cost-effective regulation of biopiracy. However, the relevance of bioinformatics to the needs of developing countries and substantive issues surrounding the human rights and ethical dimensions of bioinformatics merit careful analysis and evaluation. Section II considers the challenges involved in tracking intellectual property claims in relation to genetic material on the global level. The review presents the results of a search of available patent publications from 73 national patent offices, four regional patent offices, and WIPO contained within the European Patent Office esp@cenet worldwide database between 1990 and 2003 using a working definition of biotechnology developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is followed by a detailed analysis of the implications of patent claims arising from the sequencing of the rice genome. The paper concludes by considering the wider implications of patent activity for the international regime. The paper was also available as an information document UNEP/CBD/WG-ABS/3/INF/4 as presented here.


Media are important agents in the shaping of northern images. Media coverage influences public perceptions and policy governing resource and societal development. But popular media often provide incomplete and skewed representations compared to the documentation provided by scientific literature and the range of activities and interests present in a region. We conducted a topic analysis of media coverage of environmental and social change in the Helgeland, Lofoten, and Vesterålen regions in northern Norway and Svalbard in the high Arctic during approximately 2014 to 2018. Our findings show that popular media collectively contribute to an image of expanding economic development based on natural resource exploitation. However, this narrative is incomplete in terms of the societal dynamics linked to natural resource development as documented in the scientific literature and somewhat biased towards climate change, oil and gas exploitation, tourism, and marine harvesting. Emergency preparedness issues and economic transitions are under-communicated, and we conclude that the popular media narrative only partly represents an alternative to the government policy discourse on northern issues.


In many modern applications from, for example, bioinformatics and computer vision, samples have multiple feature representations coming from different data sources. Multiview learning algorithms try to exploit all these available information to obtain a better learner in such scenarios. In this paper, we propose a novel multiple kernel learning algorithm that extends kernel k-means clustering to the multiview setting, which combines kernels calculated on the views in a localized way to better capture sample-specific characteristics of the data. We demonstrate the better performance of our localized data fusion approach on a human colon and rectal cancer data set by clustering patients. Our method finds more relevant prognostic patient groups than global data fusion methods when we evaluate the results with respect to three commonly used clinical biomarkers.


The adoption of Quality management practices by most organisations has been hampered due to non-compliance with the procedures and principles of Quality control management implementation. Several studies on quality control management and consumer retention have only concentrated on small-scale enterprises in developed countries. This present study seeks to undertake the effect of quality control management and customer retention focusing on the dimensions of employee participation, supplier quality management, higher management commitment and leadership enhancements in quality procedures as a measure of quality control management in selected Medium and large-scale enterprises in Nigeria. The research design is purely descriptive, and data were collected using a cross-sectional survey method from 139 valid questionnaires out of 150. Data collected were analysed with Pearson Product Moment Correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to test the formulated hypotheses. The findings, show a positive significant relationship between high management commitment (r =.659), supplier quality management, (r = .607); employee involvement (r = .619), leadership enhancement (r = 508) and customer retention. The study recommends that firms should devote more resources on quality management dimensions in retaining and more so improve customers' base of the organisations.


In July 2015, a German neo-fascist group published a Google Maps page containing geo-referenced information of the country's known asylum houses, bearing the title of 'no refugee centre in my backyard'. This article examines how the group's information gathering tactics are reflected by long contested relationships between maps, power and the construction of identity. In an effort to expose the narratives, subjects and futures that are galvanized by geospatial imaging and the extremist group's Google Maps campaign in particular, the article ultimately questions whether it is viable to redirect the growing antipathy for Europe's new migrant population by appealing to spatial demands that are historically aligned with social justice. In the process of answering this question, the article expands upon selected methodological, historical and theoretical problems. These include: the epistemic assumptions behind rejecting politically motivated maps as propaganda; the logistical or strategic novelties associated with crowdsourcing information; and the narrative power of maps, with an emphasis on the specific narrative practices associated with geospatial technologies.


We show how an "Elman" network architecture, constructed from recurrently connected oscillatory associative memory network modules, can employ selective "attentional" control of synchronization to direct the flow of communication and computation within the architecture to solve a grammatical inference problem.

previously we have shown how the discrete time "Elman" network algorithm can be implemented in a network completely described by continuous ordinary differential equations. The time steps (machine cycles) of the system are implemented by rhythmic variation (clocking) of a bifurcation parameter. In this architecture, oscillation amplitude codes the information content or activity of a module (unit), whereas phase and frequency are used to "softwire" the network. Only synchronized modules communicate by exchanging amplitude information; the activity of non-resonating modules contributes incoherent crosstalk noise.

Attentional control is modeled as a special subset of the hidden modules with ouputs which affect the resonant frequencies of other hidden modules. They control synchrony among the other modules and direct the flow of computation (attention) to effect transitions between two subgraphs of a thirteen state automaton which the system emulates to generate a Reber grammar. The internal crosstalk noise is used to drive the required random transitions of the automaton.


This paper proposes using phasor measurement unit (PMU) data to trigger one-shot control in response to loss of synchronism detection. Decision trees (DTs) are trained to associate voltage magnitude and angle measurements with loss of synchronism. Different approaches to the DT construction process are illustrated in an early section of the paper by restricting the input vector to only two elements. Response-based control is obtained by triggering one-shot control the first time the DT classifies measurements as "Unstable". The same combination of one-shot controls is applied to any event the first time the DT outputs "Unstable". The method is demonstrated on a 176-bus reduced-order model of the western U.S. interconnection. An effective one-shot control consists of a combination of fast power changes on four buses. This control is similar to 500-MW fast power increases on two HVDC interties and it reduces angle differences in the AC network.


OBJECT
When treating patients with a spontaneous supratentorial massive (≥ 70 ml) intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), the results of surgery are gloomy. A worsening pupil response has been observed in patients preoperatively, despite blood pressure control and diuretic administration. Because open surgery needs time for decompression to occur, the authors conducted a prospective randomized study to determine whether patients who have suffered a massive ICH can benefit from a more urgently performed decompressive procedure.

METHODS
Overall, 36 eligible patients admitted 6 or fewer hours post-ictus were enrolled in the study. In Group A, 12 patients underwent CT-based hematoma puncture and partial aspiration in the emergency department (ED) and subsequent evacuation via a craniectomy; in Group B, 24 patients underwent hematoma evacuation via a craniectomy only. Pupil responses were categorized into 5 grades (Grade 0, bilaterally fixed; Grade 1, unilaterally fixed with the fixed pupil > 7 mm; Grade 2, unilaterally fixed with the fixed pupil ≤ 7 mm; Grade 3, a unilaterally sluggish response; and Grade 4, a bilaterally brisk response). Grades were obtained on admission, at surgical decompression (defined as the point at which liquid hematoma began to flow out in Group A and at dural opening in Group B), and at completion of craniectomy. The Barthel Scale was used to assess survivors' functional outcome at 12 months. Comparisons were made between Groups A and B. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the positive likelihood ratio of all variables for survival and function (Barthel Scale score of ≥ 35 at 12 months).

RESULTS
Decompressive surgery was undertaken approximately 60 minutes earlier in Group A than B. A worsening pupil reflex before decompression was observed in no Group A patient and in 9 Group B patients. At the time of decompression pupil response was better in Group A than B (p < 0.05). Although only approximately one-third of the hematoma volume documented on initial CT scanning had been drained before the craniectomy in Group A, when partial aspiration was followed by craniectomy, better pupil-response results were obtained in Group A at the completion of craniectomy, and survival rate and 12-month Barthel Scale score were better as well (p < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis revealed that one variable, a minimum pupil grade of 3 at the time of decompression, had the highest predictive value for survival at 12 months (8.0, 95% CI 2.0-32.0), and a pupil grade of 4 at the same time was the most valuable predictor of a Barthel Scale score of 35 or greater at 12 months (15.0, 95% CI 1.9-120.9).

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with massive spontaneous supratentorial ICHs may benefit from more urgent surgical decompression. The results of logistic regression analysis implied that, to improve long-term functional outcome, decompression should be performed in patients before herniation occurs. Due to the fact that most of these patients have signs of herniation when presenting to the ED and because conventional surgical decompression requires time to take effect, this combination of surgical treatment provides a feasible and effective surgical option.


This paper investigates the relation between national culture and bank deposits. Using annual data (1995-2015) for 99 banks that participated in the 2014 stress tests of the European Banking Authority, we document relations between three national cultural traits and bank deposits. The effect of hierarchy and individualism on deposits is stronger (positive and negative, respectively) in domestic banks where culture is more homogeneous compared to global banks. On the other hand, the positive effect of trust on deposits is robust for both domestic and global banks, reinforcing the view that banking is largely based on trust. Results are robust to empirical specifications alleviating endogeneity concerns, thus suggesting a causal effect. Motivated by recent regulatory changes emphasizing the importance of liquidity (deposit) stability, we further analyse the impact of annual bank-level deposit stability on the trust-deposits relation. We show that high deposit volatility is associated with a decrease in the positive effect that trust has on deposit levels.


Oceanic basalts can be subdivided into five distinct groupings on the basis of their Sr, Nd, and Pb isotope composition. These classes, represented by mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB) and St. Helena, Kerguelen, the Society Islands, and the Hawaiian Islands, may represent different but internally heterogeneous mantle reservoirs or merely distinct groups within which chemical evolution has proceeded in a similar manner. Little systematic geographic distribution of volcanism tapping these sources is apparent. Depletion has been most important in the evolution of the MORB-type reservoirs, whereas crustal recycling has dominated the evolution of sources of the Kerguelen and Society types. Primitive mantle is identifiable in the Sr, Nd, Hf, and Pb isotope characteristics of the Hawaiian source only. The evolution of St. Helena-type sources remains enigmatic.


Hearken unto me, fellow creatures. I who have dwelt in a form unmatched with my desire, I whose flesh has become an assemblage of incongruous anatomical parts, I who achieve the similitude of a natural body only through an unnatural process, I offer you this warning: the Nature you bedevil me with is a lie. Do not trust it to protect you from what I represent, for it is a fabrication that cloaks the groundlessness of the privilege you seek to maintain for yourself at my expense. You are as constructed as me; the same anarchic Womb has birthed us both. I call upon you to investigate your nature as I have been compelled to confront mine. I challenge you to risk abjection and flourish as well as have I. Heed my words, and you may well discover the seams and sutures in yourself. (Susan Stryker, "My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage")


Odometry can be modelled as a nonlinear dynamical system. The linearized error propagation equations for both deterministic and random errors in the odometry process have time varying coefficients and therefore may not be easy to solve. However, the odometry process exibits a property here called "commutable dynamics" which makes the transition matrix easy to compute. As a result, an essentially closed form solution to both deterministic and random linearized error propagation is available. Examination of the general solution indicates that error expressions depend on a few simple path functionals which are analogous to the moments of mechanics and equal to the first two coefficients of the power and Fourier series of the path followed. The resulting intuitive understanding of error dynamics is a valuable tool for many problems of mobile robotics. Required sensor performance can be com puted from tolerable error, trajectories can be designed to minimize error for operation or to maximize it for calibration and evaluation purposes. Optimal estimation algorithms can be implemented in nearly closed form for small footprint embedded applications, etc.


Social inclusion is a key principle that underpins the provision of services for people with learning disabilities in England. Learning Disability Partnership Boards, which are responsible for local strategic planning of learning disability services, hold a particular role in promoting inclusion since they are required both to operate inclusively and to achieve inclusive outcomes. This study sought to explore the extent to which these ambitions for inclusion were being achieved. It consisted of three phases: a scoping exercise to elicit the views of key stakeholders; a postal survey of Partnership Boards (response rate 51%); and semi-structured interviews with Partnership Boards members in six local authorities. Findings suggest that Partnership Boards are struggling to fulfil their dual role, with tensions emerging between the desire to operate in fully inclusive ways and the ability to affect strategic change within local services.


No legal habit has caused more morbidity and mortality than cigarette smoking which takes greater than 10 years away from the average smoker's life, being a major risk factor for the leading causes of mortality in both developed and low-income/middle-income countries, including coronary artery disease, cancers (especially lung cancer) and COPD.1–4 While cigarette smoking is increasing worldwide, we have made slow but steady progress in the USA reducing smoking prevalence to 18% of adults. Nicotine replacement therapy has assisted many smokers to quit; however, with the advent of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), investigators began to wonder to what extent vaporised nicotine is responsible for disease pathogenesis beyond its addictive properties. Nicotine modulates inflammation causing both inflammatory cell apoptosis5 and inflammatory cell chemotaxis.6 There is growing evidence that e-cigarettes increase the risk for oxidative burden and inflammation in the lungs of mice.7 The study by Garcia-Arcos et al 8 published in Thorax convincingly demonstrates that chronic exposure (4 months) of inhaled e-cigarettes in mice causes characteristic changes observed in COPD, including airway pathology, inflammation and emphysematous lung destruction.

Are preclinical models of COPD sufficient to consider regulating the use of e-cigarettes? Murine models of disease are often criticised for lack of …


A striking observation about iterative magnitude pruning (IMP; Frankle et al. 2020) is that $\unicode{x2014}$ after just a few hundred steps of dense training $\unicode{x2014}$ the method can find a sparse sub-network that can be trained to the same accuracy as the dense network. However, the same does not hold at step 0, i.e. random initialization. In this work, we seek to understand how this early phase of pre-training leads to a good initialization for IMP both through the lens of the data distribution and the loss landscape geometry. Empirically we observe that, holding the number of pre-training iterations constant, training on a small fraction of (randomly chosen) data suffices to obtain an equally good initialization for IMP. We additionally observe that by pre-training only on"easy"training data, we can decrease the number of steps necessary to find a good initialization for IMP compared to training on the full dataset or a randomly chosen subset. Finally, we identify novel properties of the loss landscape of dense networks that are predictive of IMP performance, showing in particular that more examples being linearly mode connected in the dense network correlates well with good initializations for IMP. Combined, these results provide new insight into the role played by the early phase training in IMP.


We report on the time dependent solutions of the q−generalized Schrödinger equation proposed by Nobre et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 140601 (2011)]. Here we investigate the case of two free particles and also the case where two particles were subjected to a Moshinsky-like potential with time dependent coefficients. We work out analytical and numerical solutions for different values of the parameter q and also show that the usual Schrödinger equation is recovered in the limit of q → 1. An intriguing behavior was observed for q = 2, where the wave function displays a ring-like shape, indicating a bind behavior of the particles. Differently from the results previously reported for the case of one particle, frozen states appear only for special combinations of the wave function parameters in case of q = 3.


The use of lasers to induce fluorescence in environmental contaminants such as fuels offers the potential for real-time, in situ chemical characterization in a variety of environmental media. This paper describes the first reported use of a passively Q-switched, fiber-coupled microlaser in situ for fuel-contamination characterization in subsurface soil. A 266 nm microlaser-based probe mounted in a cone penetrometer was tested at an area contaminated by both aviation and heating fuels. By examining the spectral and temporal fluorescence characteristics as the probe was pushed into soil, we identified BTEX compounds, as well as moderate-weight and heavy aromatic hydrocarbons, and were able to map an underground contamination plume in real time. Specifically, BTEX compounds were identified by their unique fluorescence signatures (wavelengths less than approximately 315 nm and lifetimes less than 7 to 10 ns) and by comparison with extensive laboratory studies of BTEX and fuel-contaminated soils. These tests demonstrate that the microlaser-based probe offers the potential for in situ, real-time characterization of soils and groundwater in a compact, inexpensive package.


Within international development, global agreement around the goals of poverty elimination and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has led to renewed emphasis on 'joined-up working', partnership, and cross-sectoral
approaches. This emphasis has been motivated by concerns to ensure coherent policy and practice between the plurality of actors in an increasingly complex global arena. The realisation that previous sectoral approaches to development have often failed to impact beneficially on poor people, has added to the calls for more cross-sectoral approaches that better reflect poor people's crosssectoral lives. This paper is based on research into cross-sector policy and practice at the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID), in the UK
and Nepal. Definitions and concepts of cross-sector policy and practice are explored including a 'cross-sector continuum' model representing different
levels of collaboration. Visual diagramming and other participatory methods were utilised as techniques for exploring and representing cross-sectoral
processes and relationships. DFID have made some significant structural changes and have engaged in
discussion to improve cross-sectorality. There are examples of varying levels of cross-sectoral engagement throughout the organisation, but these were strongest at country and project levels. Gender, sustainable livelihoods and
HIV, along with individuals that have a particular commitment to collaborative approaches, can act as catalysts for institutional change in cross-sector policy
and practice. Other factors that facilitate cross-sectoral approaches were also identified. However, the research found that collaborative rhetoric within DFID documentation is not matched by the same level of commitment to
operationalising cross-sectoral approaches. DFID face some major barriers to adopting cross-sectoral approaches including: a disjuncture between its role as a government bureaucracy and its role as a development organisation; a
primary focus on product rather than processes; and the current pursuit of central level and sectoral approaches thought by some to be incompatible with cross-sectorality. The challenge is exacerbated by 'disciplinarity' and 'territoriality' within DFID, particularly involving the health sector. Although this study focused on DFID, the findings and some of the participatory methods used in this research offer lessons about cross-sectoral and broader collaborative working to a much wider audience.


The Pangasinan State University information website (psu.edu.ph) was redesigned last August 2016. Since then, the website is the main online source of information from the institution. Last June 2016, the rank of PSU website in region 1 compared to other SUC is ranked 6th with a global rank of around 9 million. Thus, this study was conducted to know the satisfaction and performance rating of the institutional website of Pangasinan State University for the SY 2016-2017 after it was redesigned. For the first part of the study, it uses the survey as primary means to gather information from the online visitors, the researcher uses an online form to gather the data. It uses integrated sheets with pivot analysis for testing and data science analytical software RapidMiner to generate the graphical presentation. On the second part of the study, Web analytics tools were used to visualize the performance of the website. The researcher extracted sessions from August 2016 to April 2017 to identify demographics of visitors from the historical data. The researcher also compared other SUC website rankings gathered from historical data for the last 3 months. The result of this study is expected to be good, but there is no perfect website that could satisfy everything that a visitor needs. In this study, it identifies the needs for improvement and importance of maintenance such as continuous customer feedback for continuous improvement. This study is recommended to be continuous and includes social media performance in the future study. This research fall under as NHERA-2 priority research areas in Education and Education Management.


We present a probabilistic method for linking multiple datafiles. This task is not trivial in the absence of unique identifiers for the individuals recorded. This is a common scenario when linking census data to coverage measurement surveys for census coverage evaluation, and in general when multiple record systems need to be integrated for posterior analysis. Our method generalizes the Fellegi–Sunter theory for linking records from two datafiles and its modern implementations. The goal of multiple record linkage is to classify the record K-tuples coming from K datafiles according to the different matching patterns. Our method incorporates the transitivity of agreement in the computation of the data used to model matching probabilities. We use a mixture model to fit matching probabilities via maximum likelihood using the Expectation–Maximization algorithm. We present a method to decide the record K-tuples membership to the subsets of matching patterns and we prove its optimality. We apply our method to the integration of the three Colombian homicide record systems and perform a simulation study to explore the performance of the method under measurement error and different scenarios. The proposed method works well and opens new directions for future research.


Your service team may represent the first, last, or only interaction point between your customers and your company. Your front-line service professionals make or break countless opportunities, leads, sales, and relationships every day. Completely revised and updated to meet the challenges of a new service landscape, the second edition of Customer Service Training 101 presents proven techniques for creating unforgettable customer experiences. The book covers every aspect of face-to-face, phone, Internet, and self-service customer relations, and provides simple yet powerful tips for: • Projecting a positive attitude and making a great first impression • Communicating effectively, both verbally and nonverbally • Developing trust, establishing rapport, and making customers feel valued • Confidently handling difficult customers and situations New features include "How Do I Measure Up?" self-assessments, and "Doing It Right" examples from the author's extensive customer service experience. Every step-by-step lesson in this comprehensive and inspiring training manual is augmented with instructive sidebars, a summary of key points, practice exercises, and so much more.


Book synopsis: A look at the stories, memories and chronicles which provide the history of the medieval past

Who was responsible for the preservation of medieval knowledge?

How did people preserve their recollections and pass them along?

Focuses on the historical value of oral and written traditions.
Medieval Memories is concerned with the memories of medieval people. In the Middle Ages, as now, men and women collected stories about the past and handed them down to posterity. Who, exactly, was responsible for the preservation of knowledge about the past? How did people preserve their recollections and pass them on to the next generation? Did they write them down or did they hand then on orally? Many memories center in the aristocratic family or lineage while others are focussed on institutions such as monasteries or nunneries. The family and monastic contexts clearly illustrate that remembrance of the past was a task for men and women and that each sex had a specific gendered role. Memory also involves selection of what should and should not be remembered and its corollary, amnesia, therefore, requires scrutiny. Anchored in the present, memory casts a shadow on the future and thus prophecies form an important component of the cult of remembrance. For the first time in Medieval Memories, tombstones, medieval encyclopedias and legal testimonies figure alongside moral guidebooks, miracle stories and chronicles as material for the gendered perceptions of the medieval past.