It is through touch that we are able to interact directly with the world; it is our primary conduit of both pleasure and pain. Touch may be our most immediate and powerful sense -- "the first sense" because of the central role it plays in experience. In this book, Matthew Fulkerson proposes that human touch, despite its functional diversity, is a single, unified sensory modality. Fulkerson offers a philosophical account of touch, reflecting the interests, methods, and approach that define contemporary philosophy; but his argument is informed throughout by the insights and constraints of empirical work on touch. Human touch is a multidimensional object of investigation, Fulkerson writes, best served by using a variety of methods and approaches. To defend his view of the unity of touch, Fulkerson describes and argues for a novel, unifying role for exploratory action in touch. He goes on to fill in the details of this unified, exploratory form of perception, offering philosophical accounts of tool use and distal touch, the representational structure of tangible properties, the spatial content of touch, and the role of pleasure in tactual experience. Fulkerson's argument for the unique role played by exploratory action departs notably from traditional vision-centric philosophical approaches to perception, challenging the received view that action plays the same role in all sensory modalities. The robust philosophical account of touch he offers in The First Sense has significant implications for our general understanding of perception and perceptual experience.


The goal of this study was to determine the structure of intracardiac neurons in the frog Rana temporaria . Fifty-six intracardiac neurons from 8 animals were labelled ionophoretically by the intracellular markers AlexaFluor 586 and Lucifer Yellow CH. Among the labelled neurons, we found the cells of unipolar, bipolar, multipolar and pseudounipolar types. Multiple neuronal processes originated from the soma, the axon hillock and the initial segment of axon. With respect to the soma, the neuron contained (Mean ± SE) 3.5 ± 0.3 long and 5.5 ± 0.6 short processes. Most neurons had the spine, the bubble or the flake like extensions on their soma surface and were classified as Golgi I typeneurons. Few Golgi II type neurons, the presumptive interneurons, were also found. Our findings contradict to a general view that the frog intracardiac ganglia contain only the adendritic neurons of the unipolar type. Our findings demonstrate that the frog intracardiac neurons are structurally complex and diverse. This diversity may account for the complicated integrative functions of the frog intrinsic cardiac ganglia.


Both textbook economics and common sense teach us that the value of household wealth should be related to consumer spending. At the same time, movements in asset values often seem disassociated with important movements in consumer spending, as episodes such as the 1987 stock market crash and the contraction in equity values that occurred in the fall of 1998 suggest. An important first step in understanding the consumption-wealth linkage is determining how closely the two variables are actually correlated, and whether there exist important movements in asset values that are not associated with changes in consumption. This paper provides evidence that a surprisingly small fraction of the variation in household net worth is related to variation in aggregate consumer spending. We use empirical techniques that allow us to quantify the relative importance of permanent and transitory innovations in the variation of consumer spending and wealth and find that transitory shocks dominate post-war variation in wealth, while permanent shocks dominate variation in aggregate consumption. Although transitory innovations are found to have little influence on consumer spending, they have long-lasting effects on wealth , exhibiting a half-life of a little over two years. The findings suggest that most macro models which make no allowance for transitory variation in wealth that is orthogonal to consumption are likely to misstate both the timing and magnitude of the consumption-wealth linkage.


Forward osmosis as a water treatment option has been extensively studied in recent decades owing to its energy efficiency and enhanced performance. Even hybrid options of integrating forward osmosis with other separation technologies have been explored. In this article, forward osmosis has been comprehensively reviewed with reference to various process and engineering aspects viz., membranes, membrane fouling, contactors and their design, draw solutions, integration of forward osmosis with various other separation technologies and modeling, and simulation. Every aspect has been thoroughly reviewed and discussed in terms of development trends, in addition to presenting the future challenges and prospects.


This chapter investigates the interaction of pupils in a pre-school in Gaborone, Botswana with the aim of
determining whether pre-schools in Botswana develop, enhance, reinforce or challenge gender stereotypes.
The data were collected through participant observation and the analysis follows a close reading of classroom transcripts to show how social power, dominance and inequality are played out in the preschool classroom and playground. The study found that boys tend to dominate classroom interactions through games and by using louder voices to attract the teacher's attention. Both the boys and the girls tend to reinforce gender stereotypes through the games that they play. The study also found that although the teacher tried to use techniques that encourage equal participation by both sexes, she was not successful because she still allocated stereotypical roles to the children: a boy played a doctor and a girl a child-minder.


Current Virtual Reality (VR) technologies focus on rendering visuospatial effects, and thus are inaccessible for blind or low vision users. We examine the use of a novel white cane controller that enables navigation without vision of large virtual environments with complex architecture, such as winding paths and occluding walls and doors. The cane controller employs a lightweight three-axis brake mechanism to provide large-scale shape of virtual objects. The multiple degrees-of-freedom enables users to adapt the controller to their preferred techniques and grip. In addition, surface textures are rendered with a voice coil actuator based on contact vibrations; and spatialized audio is determined based on the progression of sound through the geometry around the user. We design a scavenger hunt game that demonstrates how our device enables blind users to navigate a complex virtual environment. Seven out of eight users were able to successfully navigate the virtual room (6x6m) to locate targets while avoiding collisions. We conclude with design consideration on creating immersive non-visual VR experiences based on user preferences for cane techniques, and cane material properties.


One of the largest companies in Slovenia has been confronted with the dilemma of building a new storage distribution centre (SDC) or to find additional capacity by optimizing the exiting one. The company initiated a project with a goal to describe and analyze operation of the existing SDC and to propose measures for operation improvements. The research methodology and the results are based on a simulation model of SDC that allows more detailed analysis of the system operation, obtaining technical efficiency under different constraints, identifying the potentials for optimization and verifying effectiveness and justification of the proposed improving measures.


Ghana's Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was begun in 1983 to reverse economic decline through resource mobilisation, public sector and institutional reforms, and market liberalisation in order to promote growth. Recognising the need for agriculture to lead any sustained overall economic growth, both short and medium term policies and strategies have been implemented. The objective of the SAP was to eliminate supply-demand imbalances in the agricultural sector by providing incentives to expand production. The policies were grouped as follows: improving agricultural productivity; reducing risk and uncertainty factors associated with production and post-harvest activities; enhancing production incentives; providing the required support infrastructure. The agricultural sector still faces many constraints in production and marketing. Increases in output during the SAP period may be due more to land expansion than to productivity outputs. This has negative implications for forests and biodiversity in Ghana. Both supply and demand-side policies have been used to address deforestation. On the supply side, measures have been taken to control or regulate the supply of timber to concessionaires, and a national tree-planting programme was launched in 1984. On the demand side, the provision of credit facilities, low corporate taxes, exchange rates and foreign exchange retention help improve efficiency in processing and, with an export ban on certain species, help reduce the overuse of tree species. Attention is now being turned to forest fees.


Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects between 14,000 to 15,000 Americans. The upper and lower motor neurons degenerate, which eventually causes muscle paralysis, atrophy, and ultimately death from respiratory failure. It has a high treatment cost as well as a high toll on the patient and their families and friends. Currently, there are only two drugs approved by the FDA for the treatment of ALS: riluzole and edaravone. Research is constantly being conducted to understand and develop further treatment modalities, however, many drugs have failed to demonstrate significant improvement in phase III trials. One of the pathophysiology that these drugs, including riluzole, target is excitotoxicity of the motor neurons.

This review will briefly expand upon the different trials that were conducted targeting the excitotoxicity pathway. Although they may have not been successful in prolonging survival in ALS patients, we can learn from these studies and build upon them.


In line with the Europe 2020 vision, there is an increasing need for adequate analytical tools to monitor progress towards the European Research Area (ERA). The Framework Programme (FP) is the main instrument of EU research policy. With 17.5 billion euros devoted to FP6 (rising to 51billion euros in FP7), it funds a substantial proportion of collaborative research activity in the EU and is, by far, the most prominent funding mechanism for transnational research globally. Therefore, the analysis of the structure of European networks of collaboration in the FPs, from FP1 to FP6, is a valuable tool in understanding the contribution of European policies in transforming the fabric of research within the ERA, as well as in identifying a possible backbone of research actors in the ERA. Within this context, the projects "Network analysis study on participations in Framework Programmes" conducted by ARC sys (now Austrian Institute of Technology)and "Centrality Analysis in Research Networks" carried out by the Knowledge for Growth Unit of the Institute for Prospective and Technological Studies (IPTS), Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, respond to the on-going need for data and analysis on the characteristics and evolution of the ERA. This report presents findings of the above-mentioned studies and discusses them in a policy context. In addition, it applies novel methodological tools for analysing data on FP participations and improving our understanding of transnational networks of collaborative research.


Main Research Project Title: An investigation into the role of non-specific factors in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: a naturalistic study Abstract: There is limited research into the impact of non-specific factors on the outcome of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). This current study aimed to investigate the relationship between client and therapist attachment styles and client interpersonal problems to the therapeutic relationship and symptom reduction over eight sessions of CBT. Seventeen therapist-client dyads were asked to complete measures of interpersonal problems, attachment style and report on the therapeutic relationship. Results showed that in this small sample there was a relationship between core alliance, as rated by clients, to reduction in symptoms of depression over the course of eight sessions of CBT (TB=0.423, p<0.05) but not anxiety. Client level of confidence in relationships was negatively correlated with the reduction in anxiety symptoms over time (TB =-.320; p<0.05). The level of difference in scores on a measure of 'confidence in relationships' between therapists and clients was found to be positively correlated to the level of reduction in anxiety scores over eight sessions (TB = .0428; p<0.05) and negatively correlated to the therapist rated core alliance (TB=-.428, p<0.05). These results indicate that the role of attachment styles in CBT warrants further investigation and both clinical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. Key words: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, therapeutic relationship, treatment outcomes, attachment, interpersonal problems Service Improvement Project Title: What is helpful about attending an Alzheimer's cafe: does it do what it says on the tin? Abstract: Alzheimer's Cafes were developed in 1997 in the Netherlands and have since been set up all over the world. They are a post-diagnostic support group for people with dementia and their families with an aim to reduce stigma around having dementia. As yet there have been very few evaluations of these cafes. This project aimed to find out what family carers of people with dementia found helpful about attending one of two Alzheimer's cafes. Seven carers took part in a focus group and two were interviewed individually about what they found helpful about attending an Alzheimer's Cafe and what they thought could be improved on in the future. Results showed that people found the opportunities to socialise with others 'in the same boat' the most helpful aspect as well as meeting professionals outside of the clinic. The results of this study will enable the development of a questionnaire that can be used to continue to evaluate the cafe and the feedback provided used to guide future service development. Key words: Alzheimer's Cafe, social support, dementia, service evaluation Critical Literature Review Title: Risk and protective factors for psychological adjustment of children born with a cleft lip and/or palate and their families: A review of the literature Abstract: Research suggests that around 30-40% of children born with a cleft lip and /or palate will develop psychological difficulties. Services supporting these individuals need to be able to identify those that might be vulnerable as early as possible so that preventative support can be offered. This review summarises findings from research studies looking at within-group differences in samples of children with a cleft and their families. Risk factors found included being male, experiencing bullying or having additional difficulties. Protective factors included satisfaction with appearance and social support. The methodological strengths and weaknesses of these studies are discussed along with implications of the findings for theory and clinical practice. Key words: Cleft lip and/ or palate, protective factors, resilience, psychological adjustment


The peer-to-peer paradigm is an important alternative to the traditional client-server
model in computer networks, making up a significant share of the bandwidth used
globally.
In client-server scenarios there usually is an external reason of why the server
provides its service to the clients. But there usually is no external incentive in peer-to-peer
networks to share data. In fact there are two good reasons not to. Firstly, providing
data to another node consumes bandwidth, which will always be limited and whose use
may might incur a cost. Secondly, the process of making data accessible is also costly.
The data needs to be obtained, its existence needs to be advertised and individuals need
to decide which data to share. An incentive is required for nodes to offer their resources.
We propose a generalisation of the BitTorrent incentives mechanism that improves
it in two important ways. It works for a broader range of files in terms of size and
popularity, enabling a simple BitTorrent-like tit-for-tat incentives mechanism for files
that do not work with BitTorrent. At the same time it provides peers with an incentive
to share more files.
In BitTorrent, peers download pieces of the same file from each other. This is
a bartering ring of length 2. Our algorithm extends this idea by allowing pieces of
different files to be exchanged and by allowing longer rings with more nodes to be
formed. For this, rings need to be identified in an overlay graph that consists of the
nodes and potential downloads among them. But no node has knowledge of the graph
other than its direct neighbours. For the incentives mechanism to work once rings have
been identified, a group consensus needs to be reached to start the downloads. We
propose distributed algorithms for these problems and evaluate them experimentally
using a simulation. We are able to show that in some cases our incentives algorithm
works better for small and rare files than BitTorrent.


Aims: The impact of water deficit stress on vine shoot growth, berry weight, grape composition and overall vintage quality was investigated in Bordeaux vineyards. Methods for assessing water deficit stress were compared.Methods and results: Vine water status was assessed on three soil types during four vintages by means of stem water potential and carbon isotope discrimination measured on grape sugar. Regional water deficit was compared for a range of over 30 vintages by means of water balance modelling. It was shown that water deficit stress anticipated shoot growth slackening, limited berry weight and enhanced berry anthocyanin content. Berry sugar content was greatest when water deficit was mild. It was shown that stem water potential measurements and carbon isotope discrimination are accurate tools for assessing vine water status at plot scale. Seasonal water deficit at a regional scale can be correctly estimated by water balance models. Vintage quality in Bordeaux is determined by the intensity of water deficit stress rather than by the level of the temperatures.Conclusions: Vine phenology and grape ripening are highly dependent on water uptake conditions. Mild water deficit stress enhances grape quality for the production of red wines. Vine water status can accurately be assessed by means of stem water potential or carbon isotope discrimination measured on grape sugars. Quality losses through severe water stress can be avoided through the use of drought-adapted plant material, appropriate canopy management, yield reduction or the implementation of deficit irrigation.Significance and impact of the study: This study shows the key role of water deficits in the production of quality grapes for red wine production. Methods for assessing vine water status are compared and discussed. Among many existing methods, the accuracy of stem water potential, carbon isotope discrimination measured on grape sugar and water balance modelling are emphasized.


Lower-limb peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a type of cardiovascular disease in which the blood vessels (arteries) that carry blood to the legs and feet are hardened and narrowed or blocked by the build-up of fatty plaques (called atheroma). It affects around 13% of adults over 50 years old, and major risk factors for its development include smoking, diabetes mellitus, and dyslipidaemia (Morley, Sharma, Horsch & Hinchliffe, 2018). The presence of PAD itself is also a risk factor for other cardiovascular problems, such as angina, heart attack and stroke. This is because the underlying disease process, atherosclerosis, is a systemic process, meaning that blood vessels elsewhere in the body may also be affected.The most common symptom of PAD is intermittent claudication (IC), which is muscle pain or discomfort in the legs and/or buttocks brought on by walking and relieved within minutes on rest (Figure 1). It occurs due to an inability to increase blood flow (and oxygen delivery) sufficiently to match the metabolic demands of the lower-limb muscles during exercise. The walking distance or speed at which symptoms occur depends on multiple factors including the severity and site of the arterial disease, walking pace, terrain, incline and footwear. Nevertheless, IC can cause marked reductions in functional capacity and quality of life (Morley et al., 2018).Treatments for IC, aimed at relieving symptoms and reducing the risk of further cardiovascular disease, include lifestyle changes (e.g., stopping smoking, exercising more), vasoactive drugs (e.g. naftidrofuryl oxalate), and revascularisation (i.e. angioplasty or bypass surgery). In 2012, the United Kingdom's National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a clinical guideline on the management of PAD, which stated that a supervised exercise programme should be offered as a first-line therapy for IC (NICE, 2012). This statement provides an overview of the evidence on exercise training and recommendations for people delivering exercise programmes to this population.


With the precipitous end of the pure investment banking model, firms will be under tremendous scrutiny by the Federal Reserve and subject to more stringent capital requirements. Such scrutiny will create demand for greater integration between trading desks, back offices, and firm analytics, reducing the time it takes for a trade to be incorporated into risk models, VAR, and capital reserves calculations, both across division desks and firm-wide. In anticipation of regulatory changes, financial firms, in the interest of selfpreservation, are building up in-house risk analytics at unprecedented scale, along with tighter infrastructural integration and centralization. This article discusses the effects of proposed regulations on the demands for technology. For example, the central clearance of all derivative contracts will require a massive computational effort in order to mark all of the contracts daily in order to impose margin requirements. Marking derivatives could involve extremely complex calculations, especially if they have multi-leveled (such as CDO2) structures, triggers, caps, or floors. In addition, the demand for efficient grid/cloud computing and near real-time analytics, aggregation, and reporting, as well as complex user-driven visualization and single-entity distributed failure-resistant data storage, will increase post-crisis.


Andromedan Sad Girl is the first major collaborative exhibition by artists Florence Peake and Tai Shani. Drawing on their research into structures of feminism, their immersive installation is an imagining of what a pre or post patriarchal site could be. Peake and Shani are interested in exploring the fluid mythologies and imagined futures of lost civilizations. The artists take an archaeological excavation as a point of departure to imagine and represent non-hierarchal, pre-historical or futuristic civilizations, imagined through ambitious new sculptural works and wall paintings.

The installation marks a conceptual collaboration between the two artists, with Tai Shani's sculptures surrounded by Florence Peake's paintings. Drawing on her performance practice, Peake has collaborated with dancer Eve Stainton to generate the new fresco paintings. By drawing around each other's bodies on the horizontal surface, before painting on the panels vertically, the work suggests a plurality of abstract embodiment and vibrating temporality. Tai Shani's work occupies the central gallery space and frames the gallery entrance with vibrant symbolic sculptures; technicolour, psychedelic interpretations of mystical objects and ritualistic architecture.

The installation, which has transformed Wysing's gallery, privileges sensation. Entering the space, the visitor crosses a voluminous threshold towards an altar, flanked enigmatically by long hybrid arms, both human and animal. Sculptures are flocked to create soft and sensuous objects, and walls have been painted with a vivid and gestural application of coloured plaster and ceramics. Using multilayered elements, including sound, the whole installation takes the visitor to a highly theatrical space and invites them to rest inside this immersive environment. The sound, with vocals from Florence Peake and produced in collaboration with recent artist residency and composer Maxwell Sterling, suggests a pre-linguistic dimension where speech is not yet acquired, but open.


A coercion semantics of a programming language with subtyping is typically defined on typing derivations rather than on typing judgments. To avoid semantic ambi- guity, such a semantics is expected to be coherent, i.e., independent of the typing deriva- tion for a given typing judgment. In this article we present heterogeneous, biorthogonal, step-indexed logical relations for establishing the coherence of coercion semantics of pro- gramming languages with subtyping. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proof method, we develop a proof of coherence of a type-directed, selective CPS translation from a typed call-by-value lambda calculus with delimited continuations and control-effect subtyping. The article is accompanied by a Coq formalization that relies on a novel shallow embedding of a logic for reasoning about step-indexing.


A new type of double-rank sequential circuit is presented in this paper. This new type, called Type 4, differs from its predecessor types in that it employs a Boolean memory as rank-1 memory instead of flip-flops. The Boolean memory used is an aggregate of symmetric Boolean memories with 1-out-of-n state encodings. A procedure for realizing a sequential machine by a Type 4 double-rank sequential circuit is also presented in the paper.


ABSTRACT Enabled partly by government policies by the Department for Culture Media and Sport, some schools are beginning to shift towards promoting a physical activity culture which complements the traditional PE and school sports provision. For many, this entails using physical activity as a modality to promote academic performance. Physically Active Teaching and Learning (PATL) is one approach which has been adopted by schools on the Isle of Wight (UK) as part of a holistic island-wide intervention aimed at increasing pupil's educational attainment, health and wellbeing. To gain an in-depth understanding of PATL and examine the management implications of its implementation, this paper draws on qualitative data collected from three primary schools on the Isle of Wight. Overall, the paper supports PATL pedagogies as a holistic and joined-up policy response, however, critical conversations are crucial for unravelling and unlocking collaborative solutions when discussing physical activity in schools.


This Master Thesis is about one of the most nowadays topics: Optimization in
processes and methods applying the Lean philosophy. With the pursuit of
improvements in logistics and resources companies' efficiency, Lean
Manufacturing is acquiring an important role in the current business society.
The main objectives of this document are the study, proposal, achievement
and analysis of improvements about packaging processes in Talleres Bellvitge,
the place where the entire project has been done. Getting these improvements,
using the initial resouces, it is obtained some benefits, adding more production
and easiness to work in general. Also there is an improvement in terms of
quality.
Lean Manufacturing is focused on reduction of the seven wastes in order to
improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this
is best achieved. By eliminating waste, improving quality and production time
and costs are reduced.
To make the project, gather data tools have been used. Applying these tools
and formats, an initial study has been made and then proposal improvements.
After analyze the results, it is possible to show positive conclusion using Lean
Manufacturing as an optimization method, because currently, there is more
space, less time used and better quality in the final product.


Infection with Helicobacter pylori and the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are recognized as the two primary factors in the etiology of gastric disease. In this study, we applied the animal model of H. pylori-induced gastritis to assess the influence of NSAIDs on the course of mucosal inflammatory responses to H. pylori. Two days following intragastric application of H. pylori lipopolysaccharide, rats were divided into groups and administered daily for up to 8 days either indomethacin, aspirin or the vehicle, and their gastric mucosal tissue subjected to histological and biochemical assessment. H. pylori lipopolysaccharide elicited within 2 days a pattern of acute mucosal inflammatory responses accompanied by a massive epithelial cell apoptosis, and a marked increase in the expression of membrane-bound and soluble forms of TNF-alpha. The extent of mucosal inflammatory involvement reached a maximum by the 4th day and showed a decline by the 10th day; this was reflected in a 38.1% reduction in apoptosis, a 53.2% decline in membrane-bound TNF-alpha and a 63.8% decrease in soluble TNF-alpha. Compared to the vehicle controls, aspirin caused a 36.2% increase in the severity of the mucosal inflammatory involvement by the second day of administration and a 25.9% increase in the inflammatory involvement occurred by the 8th day; this effect of aspirin was accompanied by a significant (54.5%) induction in apoptosis, a 58.2% decline in membrane-bound TNF-alpha and a 61% increase in soluble TNF-alpha. In contrast, administration of indomethacin evoked only a marginal increase (5-7%) in apoptosis, and caused no discernible changes in the severity of gastric mucosal involvement and the expression of TNF-alpha forms elicited by H. pylori lipopolysaccharide. The findings indicate that aspirin, but not indomethacin, increases the severity of gastric mucosal inflammatory responses to H. pylori. This detrimental influence of aspirin appears to result from up-regulation in the mucosal expression of soluble form of TNF-alpha, which leads to the amplification of apoptotic events that potentiate gastric mucosal inflammatory reaction to H. pylori.


A group of candidate tumor suppressor genes (designated CACNA2D2, PL6, 101F6, NPRL2, BLU, RASSF1, FUS1, HYAL2, and HYAL1) has been identified in a 120-kb critical tumor homozygous deletion region (found in lung and breast cancers) of human chromosome 3p21.3. We studied the effects of six of these 3p21.3 genes (101F6, NPRL2, BLU, FUS1, HYAL2, and HYAL1) on tumor cell proliferation and apoptosis in human lung cancer cells by recombinant adenovirus-mediated gene transfer in vitro and in vivo. We found that forced expression of wild-type FUS1, 101F6, and NPRL2 genes significantly inhibited tumor cell growth by induction of apoptosis and alteration of cell cycle processes in 3p21.3 120-kb region-deficient (homozygous) H1299 and A549 cells but not in the 3p21.3 120-kb region-heterozygous H358 and the normal human bronchial epithelial cells. Intratumoral injection of Ad-101F6, Ad-FUS1, Ad-NPRL2, and Ad-HYAL2 vectors or systemic administration of protamine-complexed vectors significantly suppressed growth of H1299 and A549 tumor xenografts and inhibited A549 experimental lung metastases in nu/nu mice. Together, our results, coupled with other studies demonstrating a tumor suppressor role for the RASSSF1A isoform, suggest that multiple contiguous genes in the 3p21.3 120-kb chromosomal region may exhibit tumor suppressor activity in vitro and in vivo.


Women's participation in collegiate sport has increased dramatically since the passage of Title IX, but there has not been a corresponding increase in the percentage of women in administrative positions. Women have, however, been successful obtaining leadership positions in conference offices, as more than 30% of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I conference commissioners were women in 2016. This research used career construction theory as a framework to explore the experiences of these women. Findings revealed that participants constantly negotiate time spent on personal and professional obligations, and relationships created in the workplace turned into organic mentorship relationships. Participants felt that there were limited amounts of sexism in the workplace, but all discussed experiencing instances of sexism, indicating a culture of gender normalcy. Women may experience increased success in leadership positions at conference offices, compared with on-campus athletic departments, due to limited direct interaction with football and donors.


Rapid urbanization, and particularly the associated problems of urban poverty, unsustainable development and environmental degradation, pose an enormous challenge to many developing countries. In the last decade more foreign aid has been diverted to urbanization and green city development. This paper studies aid's implementation strategies and effectiveness by investigating 'what works in foreign aid on urbanization and green cities', 'what could work', and 'what is scalable and transferable in foreign aid on urbanization and green cities'. Three case studies are carried out: Tianjin City which was constructed according to a newly designed eco-city plan, Wenchuan and Beichuan which needed to be rebuilt after an earthquake, and Curitiba which rose from an existing city. The paper shows that a transferable and scalable aid framework which combines concerns related to poverty, environment and governance both at policy and implementation level is needed in order for aid to succeed in supporting developing countries' urbanization and green city development.


Background: Single-chamber ICD systems with the ability to sense the atrium have been developed. We describe the operation characteristics, atrial and ventricular sense performance of the lead, atrial and ventricular tachyarrhythmia recordings, and appropriate and inappropriate shock treatments in patients who receive a single lead ICD with a floating atrial sensing dipole in our center.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of 58 patients (44 male, 59.3 ± 4.41 years) who were implanted with a Lumax 540 VR-T DX device with a Linox Smart S DX lead. The pacemaker records of the patients were analyzed monthly for 12 months. All of the recorded tachyarrhythmia episodes were examined by 2 cardiologists and atrial/ventricular discrimination was performed. We also compared with SMART algorithm.

Results: A total of 24 tachycardia episodes with rapid ventricular response were detected in 7 patients. Three of them, which were in the VF zone, were treated by ICD appropriately without using the SMART algorithm. Nine of 21 tachycardia episodes were evaluated as VT by SMART algorithm. The visual analysis showed that VT attacks were detected correctly by the algorithm. Twelve tachycardia episodes were evaluated as SVT by the algorithm. No treatment was applied by ICD. It was confirmed in visual analysis. A total of 38 atrial tachycardia episodes were detected in 8 patients. Visual analysis confirmed that these attacks were correctly detected by the SMART algorithm.

Conclusions: Single lead ICD systems with atrial dipole provide reliable atrial recordings during sinus rhythm and arrhythmias.


In machine learning often a tradeoff must be made between accuracy and intelligibility. More accurate models such as boosted trees, random forests, and neural nets usually are not intelligible, but more intelligible models such as logistic regression, naive-Bayes, and single decision trees often have significantly worse accuracy. This tradeoff sometimes limits the accuracy of models that can be applied in mission-critical applications such as healthcare where being able to understand, validate, edit, and trust a learned model is important. We present two case studies where high-performance generalized additive models with pairwise interactions (GA2Ms) are applied to real healthcare problems yielding intelligible models with state-of-the-art accuracy. In the pneumonia risk prediction case study, the intelligible model uncovers surprising patterns in the data that previously had prevented complex learned models from being fielded in this domain, but because it is intelligible and modular allows these patterns to be recognized and removed. In the 30-day hospital readmission case study, we show that the same methods scale to large datasets containing hundreds of thousands of patients and thousands of attributes while remaining intelligible and providing accuracy comparable to the best (unintelligible) machine learning methods.


Objective: Studies in white people have shown that telomere length, a marker of biological ageing, is shorter in individuals with coronary artery disease (CAD). South Asian Indians have a high prevalence of CAD, especially premature CAD. We examined the association of telomere length with CAD in Indian subjects. Design: Case-control study. Setting: Mumbai, India. Subjects: 238 consecutive patients (aged 29–82 years), admitted to Cumballa Hill Hospital for coronary investigations or treatment and 238 control subjects (aged 30–87 years) from the same area without any clinical evidence of CAD. Methods: Mean leucocyte telomere length was measured using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assay and expressed as a ratio (T/S ratio) of the telomere signal to that of a control single copy gene. Results: T/S ratio was significantly lower in CAD cases compared with controls (cases 1.21 (95% CI 1.16 to 1.26); controls 1.33 (1.28 to 1.38); p = 0.0003), equivalent to approximately 166 base pairs. The difference remained significant after adjustment for other clinical characteristics (p = 0.002). There were trends towards longer telomeres in vegetarian subjects compared with subjects on a mixed diet (vegetarians 1.31 (1.25 to 1.38); mixed 1.25 (1.18 to 1.33); p = 0.088) and shorter telomeres in subjects with a positive family history (FH) for CAD (+ve FH 1.25 (1.18 to 1.32); -ve FH 1.31 (1.24 to 1.38); p = 0.094). Conclusion: Subjects of Indian ethnicity with CAD have shorter telomeres than subjects without such a history. The finding provides further evidence that telomere biology is altered in subjects with CAD.


Alkali oxy borate glasses are well known due to their variety of applications in phosphors, solar energy converters and in a number of electronic devices. Transition metal ions are very interesting ions to probe in the glass network because they exist in different valence states and influence the physical properties of the glasses to a substantial extent. Different concentrations of Cu2+ doped (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6mol%) Li2O-ZnO-B2O3 glasseswere prepared using melting and quenching technique. The prepared material was characterized by optical absorption spectra and physical, dielectric properties were measured. From optical absorption spectra the prepared sample was tetragonally distorted octahedral symmetry.


Percolation Scheduling (PS) is a new technique for compiling programs into parallel code. It attempts to overcome problems that limit the effectiveness and applicability of currently available techniques. PS globally rearranges code past basic block boundaries. Its core is a small set of simple, primitive program transformations defined in terms of adjacent nodes in a program graph. These transformations constitute the lowest level in a system of transformations and guidance rules. Higher levels of this hierarchy control and enhance the applicability of the core transformations and enable us to exploit both fine grained and coarse parallelism. Unlike other, more ad hoc approaches, PS is based on rigorous definitions of the computational model and of the core transformations. The correctness and termination of the transformations is proven here. The completeness of the transformations is also discussed. As a result our system implementation can proceed on a sound basis. In particular, PS enjoys greater adaptability and independence between the levels than would be possible otherwise. This has greatly facilitated the implementation of the first prototype version of our compiler, which is now complete. This paper describes PS in detail. The correctness aspects as well as illustrations of the effectiveness of our techniques are presented. Architectures which may benefit from the use of PS are also discussed.


OF DISSERTATION THE ROLE OF APOB-CONTAINING LIPOPROTEINS IN ABDOMINAL AORTIC ANEURYSM Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a devastating disease that exhibits permanent lumen expansion typically in the infrarenal aorta. AAA is prevalent among aged population, especially in males. Despite the incidence in women is lower, studies indicate the tortuosity is more severe and aortic rupture risk is higher in women. In most patients, AAA remains asymptomatic until it ruptures leading to sudden and fatal hemorrhage. To date, there is no proven medical therapy that can prevent the expansion or rupture. Human observational studies implicate the presence of AAA is associated with both high plasma low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) and low plasma high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations. To examine the role of specific lipoproteins in development of AAA, angiotensin (Ang) II-induced AAA was firstly determined in apolipoprotein AI deficient (apoAI -/-) mice in both C57BL/6 and LDL receptor deficient (LDL receptor -/-) backgrounds. The deletion of apoAI led to a significant decrease of HDL-C concentrations. However, we were unable to define any exacerbation of AngIIinduced AAA in either normoor hyperlipidemic mice with apoAI deficiency. Next we compared AngII-induced AAA formation using multiple mouse strains with dietary manipulation to generate different severities of hypercholesterolemia. We demonstrated the apolipoprotein B (apoB)-containing lipoproteins promoted the development of AngII-induced AAA. Moreover, ezetimibe administration significantly reduced both apoB-containing lipoproteins and AAA formation. Together, our studies demonstrate that elevated apoB-containing lipoproteins, contribute to the development of AngII-induced AAA. To investigate the role of apoB-containing lipoproteins on established AAA, male LDL receptors -/mice fed a Western diet were infused with AngII for 4 weeks to induced AAA. Then mice with AAA were stratified into either a group maintained on western diet or switched to a normal diet. AngII infusion was continued for an additional 8 weeks. The diet switch resulted in significantly reduced plasma cholesterol concentrations, which was attributable to the decrease of apoBcontaining lipoproteins. We found a profound inhibition of aneurysm progression in diet switched mice associated with attenuated macrophage accumulation and medial thickening. Collectively, our data demonstrate that apoB-containing lipoproteins promote the progression of established AAA.


The provided companion has been developed by the Behavioral Working Group of the Joint Translational Task Force of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) and the American Epilepsy Society (AES) with the purpose of assisting the implementation of Preclinical Common Data Elements (CDE) for studying and for reporting neurobehavioral comorbidities in rodent models of epilepsy. Case Report Forms (CRFs) are provided, which should be completed on a per animal/per test basis, whereas the CDEs are a compiled list of the elements that should be reported. This companion is not designed as a list of recommendations, or guidelines for how the tests should be run—rather, it describes the different types of assessments, and highlights the importance of rigorous data collection and transparency in this regard. The tests are divided into 7 categories for examining behavioral dysfunction on the syndrome level: deficits in learning and memory; depression; anxiety; autism; attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder; psychosis; and aggression. Correspondence and integration of these categories into the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) is introduced. Developmental aspects are addressed through the introduction of developmental milestones. Discussion includes complexities, limitations, and biases associated with neurobehavioral testing, especially when performed in animals with epilepsy, as well as the importance of rigorous data collection and of transparent reporting. This represents, to our knowledge, the first such resource dedicated to preclinical CDEs for behavioral testing of rodents.


Polycyclic aromatic compounds (naphthalene, anthracene and pyrene) have been intercalated into the superstructures of fullerene nanowhiskers, using a facile liquid-liquid interfacial precipitation (LLIP) method. Due to the interaction between polycyclic molecules and fullerene, the growth of fullerene crystals was interfered in comparison to the fullerene crystal growth without the polycyclic molecules, resulting in the formation of fullerene superstructures with various nanofeatures. Moreover, the fluorescence emissions of the fullerene superstructures were significantly changed due to the intercalation of the polycyclic molecules, implying the influence of molecular packing on the electron transfer within the nanostructures. These results may bring new insights on the control of fullerene nanostructures and to manipulate their optical properties in optoelectronic devices.


WirelessHART is a novel standardized wireless sensor network protocol for industrial process automation. The WirelessHART protocol is designed with the aim to complement the HART protocol by providing wireless extension to it. However, due to the different physical and data-link layers the two protocols are not directly interoperable. WirelessHART is based on IEEE 802.15.4 mesh networks whereas HART is a 4–20mA analog wired protocol. Keeping in view the huge installations of HART networks throughout the world we feel the need to integrate HART and WirelessHART networks as the WirelessHART standard does not specify the means to securely connect the two networks. In this paper we provide different options to integrate Wire-lessHART and legacy HART networks. We start integrating the two networks using a gateway. However, gateway based integrations are sometimes not feasible and are insecure. The main contribution of this paper is that we provide a novel and comparatively secure solution to interconnect WirelessHART networks with HART networks. We specify and design a new WirelessHART Integrator that extends the capabilities of the WirelessHART adapter and provides integration at the network level rather than at the device level only. We also analyze and compare our solution with gateway and adapter based solutions.


In the best examples, clinical decision support (CDS) systems guide clinician decision-making and actions, prevent errors, improve quality, reduce costs, save time, and promote the use of evidence-based recommendations. However, the potential solution that CDS represents are limited by problems associated with improper design, implementation, and local customization. Despite an emphasis on electronic health record usability, little progress has been made to protect end-users from inadequately designed workflows and unnecessary interruptions. Intelligent and personalized design creates an opportunity to tailor CDS not just at the patient level but specific to the disease condition, provider experience, and available resources at the healthcare system level. This chapter leverages the Five Rights of CDS framework to demonstrate the application of human factors engineering principles and emerging trends to optimize data analytics, usability, workflow, and design.


The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and analyze the performance of RED (Random Early Detection) algorithm and our proposed RED algorithm. As an active queue management RED has been considered an emerging issue in the last few years. Quality of service (QoS) is the latest issue in today's internet world. The name QoS itself signifies that special treatment is given to the special traffic. With the passage of time the network traffic grew in an exponential way. With this, the end user failed to get the service for what they had paid and expected for. In order to overcome this problem, QoS within packet transmission came into discussion in internet world. RED is the active queue management system which randomly drops the packets whenever congestion occurs. It is one of the active queue management systems designed for achieving QoS. In order to deal with the existing problem or increase the performance of the existing algorithm, we tried to modify RED algorithm. Our purposed solution is able to minimize the problem of packet drop in a particular duration of time achieving the desired QoS. An experimental approach is used for the validation of the research hypothesis. Results show that the probability of packet dropping in our proposed RED algorithm during simulation scenarios significantly minimized by early calculating the probability value and then by calling the pushback mechanism according to that calculated probability value.


The noise and vibration characteristics play a vital role in the effectiveness of engine operations and performance of internal combustion engines. Accumulation of the higher amplitude of both noise and vibration affects the comfort of the engine. So far most of the research done on the performance, combustion and emission characteristics only. The less importance is shown in the form engine vibration and sounds created by the engine operation. This paper presents and explores the importance and experimental results of noise and vibration by the compression ignition diesel engine with the fuels of diesel and microalgae biodiesel. The produced microalgae biodiesel blends were SMB10%, SMB20% and SMB30%. The experimental results were conducted at different engine loads varying across 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. The inline, 4 cylinders, water cooled and naturally aspirated DI diesel engine was used as an experimental setup. From the comparative results between the diesel and microalgae biodiesel, it is found that the use of microalgae blended biodiesel reduced the noise and vibration. The higher the percentage of blends, the greater the reduction in sound and vibration will be. Apart from possessing the performance and emission qualities, the microalgae biodiesel blends proved to be the efficient fuel in reduced vibration and noise qualities too. In three directions, the vibrations were measured as lateral, longitudinal and vertical vibrations. The vibration in lateral direction was significantly reduced. Compelling the results, it is understood that use of the microalgae blends can be sustainable in the perspective of the engine wear and tear.


While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under its Clean Air Act (CAA) authority, Congress has considered several different bills that would preempt CAA regulation of GHGs and replace it with a comprehensive national climate policy. Policymakers should be aware that there are other existing federal statutes granting GHG regulatory authority, and new legislation would likely preempt them as well. This paper surveys these other statutes in order to highlight existing federal authority that might be given up with the passage of a new comprehensive bill. It explores the possibility of direct regulation of GHGs under the Clean Water Act (CWA), along with federal authority to block projects that contribute to climate change under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and conservation statutes such as the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Newer statutes like the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) mandate narrower regulation, but they are also considered here.


The electrical stability of high-mobility microcrystalline silicon (μc -Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) was investigated and compared to amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) TFTs. Under prolonged bias stress the microcrystalline silicon TFTs exhibit an improved electrical stability compared to amorphous silicon TFTs. The microcrystalline silicon TFTs were prepared by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition at temperatures compatible with flexible substrates. The realized microcrystalline silicon transistors exhibit electron charge carrier mobilities exceeding 30 cm2/V·s. Prolonged operation of the transistors leads to a shift of the threshold voltage towards positive and negative gate voltages depending on the gate biasing conditions (positive or negative gate voltage). The shift of the threshold voltage increases with increasing positive and negative gate bias stress. The behavior is fundamentally different from the behavior of the amorphous silicon TFTs, which exhibit only a shift of the threshold voltage towards positive gate voltages irrespective of the polarity of the gate bias stress. The threshold voltage shift of the microcrystalline silicon TFTs saturates after a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the gate voltage. After prolonged bias stress, a recovery of the initial threshold voltage is observed without any thermal annealing or biasing of the transistors, which is not the case for the measured amorphous silicon TFTs.


Faure M., Guérin C. & da Luz F. 2011. Les parures des sépultures préhistoriques de l'abrisous-roche d'Enoque (Parc National Serra das Confusães, Piauí, Brésil). Anthropozoologica 46.1: 27–45. ABSTRACT Adornments in the prehistoric burials of the Enoque rock-shelter (Serra das Confusões National Park, Piauí, Brazil) The Enoque rock-shelter, in the Serra das Confusões (South-Eastern Piauí), yielded a very well preserved complex of graves dating from between 7570 and 6660 years BP and concerning about seventeen peoples, mainly young children, whose corpses were buried upon a very large engraved stone. The human remains are associated with an abundant and various funerary material, namely numerous adornments made of hard animal material. The most important are collars, made of perforated teeth (canines and incisors) of various Felids (Panthera onca, Felis concolor, Felis pardalis), and of about 600 canines of the small Canid Cerdocyon thous; there are numerous collars of vegetal beards. Another very important kind of adornments are pendants: 145 are made from the metatarsals of the small Cervid Mazama gouazoubira, and some other are made from radii of large birds, a plate of a turtle and shells of mollusks. Other remains are several samples of enigmatic pieces constituted of armadillo dermic bones incrusted on clay fragments, large Gastropods, frequently colored with ochre, of the genus Megalobulimus, and numerous large blocks of ochre. Some unworked animal remains are present, like mandibular fragments of the peccary Dicotyles tajacu, mandibles of the neotropical porcupine Coendu prehensilis, antlers and adult and juvenile metapodials of Mazama gouazoubira. Such a rich, abundant and various funerary material and the fact that the same place was used at several times for multiple burials make the Toca do Enoque an exceptional site. This site was probably in the center of the social and spiritual life of that group of hunters-collectors who lived in the North-Eastern Brazil more than 6600 years ago.


Nanofibrous structures offer a lot of fascinating features due to large specific surface area. This makes them promising for a wide range of applications, most specifically water treatment. This new generation of highly porous membranes exhibits great prospect to be used in various separation applications due to their distinguished features such as remarkably high porosity ( ≥ 90%) and interconnected 3D pore structure. As compared with the conventional techniques, Electrospinning has been highlighted for developing unique porous membranes. Electrospun nanofibrous membranes have been more and more investigated to a lot of advanced water treatment purposes. This chapter reviews the updates on electrospun nanofibrous membranes with a particular prominence in recent accomplishments, bottlenecks, and future perspectives in water treatment. To start, the basic principles of electrospinning are discussed. Next, past and recent efforts for fabricating electrospun MF membranes for various applications are reviewed. The application of electrospun nanofibers as the scaffold for TFC (thin-film composite) membranes in the pressure- and osmotic-membrane processes is then introduced. The new application of electrospun nanofibrous membranes for the thermally-driven MD (membrane distillation) process for water treatment as well as strategies for performance enhancement is discussed. To finish, conclusions and perspectives are stated according to recent developments.


As part of the U.S. Navy's campaign against the Japanese during World War II, the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943 resulted in over 1,100 U.S. and over 6,000 Japanese and Korean conscript casualties on and around Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, Republic of Kiribati. Casualties were buried in isolated and mass graves, which were negatively affected by the wartime renovations of the island, resulting in only ~47% of the remains being recovered in the late 1940s. The nature of the wartime burials, multiple postwar disinterments and reinterments, identification efforts in the late 1940s, and postwar anthropogenic changes to the island by the local population have contributed to the commingling of casualties. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency established the Tarawa Project in 2016 to assist in the sorting, association, and identification of the often commingled remains recovered directly from the Republic of Kiribati and 94 caskets of Battle of Tarawa unknowns disinterred from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawai'i. The project has been able to confirm a minimum number of individuals (MNI) of 243 based on unique mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences, while inventory of ~9,000 elements indicates a MNI of 131 from disinterments and 96 from recent field recoveries. The Tarawa Project has used a combination of historical research, DNA testing, chest radiograph and odontological comparisons, and forensic anthropological and material evidence analyses to help identify 41 of the 84 total service members accounted for from the Battle of Tarawa since the 1940s.


WHEN CAPTAIN JOHN ROSS BURIED A HANDWRITTEN POEM UNDER A CAIRN on Leopold Island in the winter of 1832, he was also suppressing an impulse common among nineteenth-century British Arctic explorers. (1) From 1818 to 1860, the British Admiralty sent numerous expeditions over land and sea to map the far north and discover a Northwest Passage. (2) Narratives of these expeditions were published to popular acclaim, and the science of Arctic exploration became a common topic for discussion in England, being "of a nature to excite public attention and to engage a large share of general conversation." (3) Arctic explorers themselves became national icons, and their scientific narratives reflected and celebrated the rationality, determination, and logic of the Victorian mind. (4) The dominance of scientific discourse in Arctic narrative, however, did not preclude the existence of other modes of expression on these expeditions. Poetry also flourished on Arctic expeditions, and the subject matter of these poems both comp lemented and contrasted with the foci of the official scientific narratives. (5) This paper argues that the detailed demands of scientific enquiry encouraged a poetic imagination and form of expression, but that poetic expression aboard these expeditions was also a form of discursive protest against the rigors of scientific discovery. While scientific discourse called for detailed descriptions of, and unquenchable curiosity for, exploring the surrounding world, it elided the individuality of the observer, as well as the emotion inherent in the experience of discovery, in favor of a series of "objective" observations. Though unsanctioned as an "official" language of Arctic exploration, poetry repositioned the observer in the center of experience, emphasizing the interaction between explorer and landscape and giving precedence to subjective perception. A minor episode in George Lyon's 1825 narrative of his voyage to Repulse Bay (on the eastern shore of Hudson's Bay) exemplifies the tension between scientific and poetic language on Arctic expeditions. (6) While exploring a deserted Inuit village, Lyon and his men obey their scientific (ethnographic) curiosity and uncover the grave of an Inuit child. The men examine the contents of the grave, and Lyon records all faithfully in his journal. When the grave is fully exposed, however, a small bird's "neatly built nest [is] found placed on the neck of the child" (p. 68). Lyon succinctly describes the absent snow bunting, erstwhile owner of the nest, through an artistic comparison: he defines the bird as "the robin of these dreary wilds, [with] its lively chirp and fearless confidence," bringing English domestic nostalgia (the robin), the sublime (the dreary wilds), and concepts of heroism (fearless confidence) to bear in his brief statement (p. 69). However, though this statement implies a personal and poetic con nection with the bird, Lyon feels unauthorized to express it: "I could not on this occasion view its little nest, placed on the breast of infancy, without wishing that I possessed the power of poetically expressing the feelings it excited" (p. 69). The ambiguity in Lyon's use of the term "power" underlines the discursive difficulty of his position. In Lyon's succinct and subtle description of the nest and skeleton, it is clear that he does indeed possess the ability of poetic expression. However, as a scientific observer, he lacks the "power" to use it: Lyon is authorized to speak only scientifically of the discoveries and observations he makes, and his personal or poetic impressions have no purchase in his official Admiralty narrative. Lyon's poetic self-restraint in 1825 had historical precedent; like other explorers before and after him, he followed the example set by his employers. The discursive boundaries on Arctic expeditions were established by Admiralty manuals on the subject, designed to aid explorers not only in their search for discoveries, but also in their narrative productions. …


The incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is increasing among renal transplant recipients. Patients with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) are immunocompromised and are candidates for renal transplantation, but HHV8 seroprevalence in ESRD patients has not been well documented. A cross‐sectional study of 286 ESRD patients and 281 matched subjects without kidney disease was conducted at the First People's Hospital of Huzhou, Zhejiang province to explore the epidemiologic features of HHV8 among ESRD patients in China. Blood samples were collected and HHV8 antibodies and serologic indices were measured. The seroprevalence of HHV8 was 15.3% for ESRD patients and 8.9% for the comparison group. A significant difference in the geometric mean titer (GMT) of the HHV8 antibodies was detected between ESRD patients and the comparison group (617.1 vs 291.7; P = 0.042). The average level of hemoglobin was 11.56 ± 1.78 g/dL for the ESRD group and 13.73 ± 1.42 g/dL for the comparison group, (P > 0.05). Multiple linear regression revealed a negative association between HHV8 infection and plasma hemoglobin concentration (β = −0.682, P = 0.036). We found a higher HHV8 prevalence and a higher level of HHV8 antibody GMT in ESRD patients than the comparison group, which indicate a high risk of posttransplantation KS.


Having investigated suicide mortality among the 250,000 immigrant Finns in Sweden ("Finnish Swedes") 1982-1992, we have found it to be very high for both sexes. The mean overall rate was 48.2/100,000 a year--2.0 times the Swedish rate and 1.6 times the Finnish. Suicide mortality has, moreover, increased among women. A comparison of naturalized Finns (those who have become Swedish citizens) with those who have remained Finnish citizens does not demonstrate any conclusive relationship between naturalization and suicide for the group as a whole. In most male groups, those who had taken Swedish citizenship had clearly lower rates than those who had not. For most female groups, however, there was a reverse tendency. Further monitoring of the development of suicide mortality in the group is needed.


The concentrations of different metabolites in olive (Olea europaea (L.)) fruit at harvest can be affected by water availability, with significant consequences on the composition and the quality of the resulting oil. The aim of the present study was to profile the metabolic composition of ripe olives (cv. Cipressino) grown under water-stress and irrigated conditions applied during the last part of the fruit developmental cycle (from pit hardening to commercial harvest). The imposed conditions resulted in a moderate water stress (−3.5 MPa) at the end of the experimental period. Samples (pulp + skin) of fruit collected at the stage of complete epicarp pigmentation were analyzed by means of GC–MS. In total, 176 metabolites were detected, of which 57 were identified. Principal component analysis (PCA) of stress and non-stress ipe fruit ater stress treatments resulted in clearly separated profiles with the first principal component (PC1) mostly correlated with the organic acid content. Of the 57 compounds identified, 19 metabolites (organic acids, fatty acids, soluble sugars, and terpens) accumulated differently in the two sets of samples. A reduction in soluble sugars and unsaturated fatty acids was detected in water stressed samples, suggesting an acceleration of the ripening process. These results highlighted the validity of metabolic profiling to study the effects of water stress in terms of both fruit composition and physiology.


This article discusses the results of four experiments to test the accuracy of recreational expenditures reported in survey relative to expenditures reported in dairies. We found few situations in which the reported expenditures in the surveys and diaries differ significantly. In general, we conclude that individuals are able to accurately report recreational expenditures in ex post mail surveys. Given the wide usage of survey expenditure data by economists, we find this results encouraging.


This work describes a novel approach to produce high quality release paper at lower cost than traditional methods. The anti-adhesive properties of release paper require the use of expensive machine glazed kraft or "Glassine" paper as the paper base. A series of polymer coatings including polyvinyl alcohol, carboxymethyl cellulose, polyethylene vinyl acetate, and polystyrene were chemically synthesized and coated onto a low cost pulp paper base. Surface roughness (Sa) and smoothness coefficients (k) were determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM), and the interactions between the polymer coating and base paper were investigated by Raman spectroscopy. Studies show the use of polyethylene vinyl acetate (PEVA) as a pre-coating layer on low cost pulp paper exhibits similar anti-adhesive properties as higher cost paper bases. In low margin markets such as the production of release paper, decreases in cost are critical to industry survival.


Abstract: Optical communication systems are the premier conduit for providing broadband data across continents, nations, cities, neighborhoods, and are now starting to penetrate into private homes. This spectacular achievement is the culmination of years of research and development efforts in diverse fields. Recently we are witnessing the evolution of these communication systems towards optical networking. The advent of optical networking has been enabled by a suite of complementary optical subsystems that are pivotal to the operation and management of these networks. These optical microsystems directly interact with the optical signal and-through functionality afforded by design-are able to filter, switch, attenuate, and adapt the optical communication channels carried by the network. In this talk I will review a sampling of these enabling devices and focus on the MEMS technology required for its implementation.


Regulation of online dispute resolution (ODR) has become an important element in the conceptualisation of its role as an appropriate dispute resolution mechanism. Given the lack of specific legislation regarding ODR nationally and internationally, there is a growing tendency towards seeking appropriate regulatory models for its regulation in the ODR literature, international organisations, governments and the private sector. While recognising the valuable contributions made in all these fields, this article maps the regulatory approaches for ODR adopted by governments in the Guidelines for Consumer Protection in the Context of Electronic Commerce developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1999 and the Australian Guidelines for Electronic Commerce in 2006. In addition, the viability of the regulatory approaches of these instruments is explored in the context of online consumer arbitration used for the resolution of cross-border business-to-consumer electronic commerce disputes. In the course of the discussion, some insights on further improvements to these guidelines are also provided.


Voting systems in which voters are partitioned to districts encourage accountability by providing voters an easily identifiable district representative, but can result in a selection of representatives not representative of the electorate's preferences. In some cases, a party may have a majority of the popular vote, but lose the elections due to districting effects. We define the Misrepresentation Ratio which quantifies the deviation from proportional representation in a district-based election, and provide bounds for this ratio under various voting rules. We also examine probabilistic models for election outcomes, and provide an algorithm for approximating the expected Misrepresentation Ratio under a given probabilistic election model. Finally, we provide simulation results for several such probabilistic election models, showing the effects of the number of voters and candidates on the misrepresentation ratio.


In recent years, Latin American banking sectors have experienced an accelerated process of concentration and foreign penetration that has prompted diverse views regarding its implications for the competitive behavior of banks and for the financial stability of the system as a whole. Exploiting a rich bank-level balance sheet database for eight Latin American countries, we examine the evolution of concentration and foreign penetration indicators and their impact on competition and risk. We find that, while concentration did not reduce competition in the industry, foreign penetration appears to have led to less competitive banking sectors. Moreover, we find banking sector fragility to be positively related to competition and, through this channel, negatively related to foreign participation, despite the fact that foreign banks in the region are associated with higher insolvency risk due to higher leverage ratios and more volatile returns.


During the month of October 2006, as part of the REPARTEE-I experiment (Regent's Park and Tower Environmental Experiment) an Aerosol Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (ATOFMS) was deployed at an urban background location in the city of London, UK. Fifteen particle types were classified, some of which were already discussed (Dall'Osto et al., 2009a,b; Harrison et al., 2012). In this manuscript the origins and properties of four unreported particle types postulated to be due to locally generated aerosols, independent of the air mass type advected into London, are examined. One particle type, originating from lubricating oil (referred to as Ca-EC), was associated with morning rush hour traffic emissions. A second particle type, composed of both inorganic and organic species (called Na-EC-OC), was found enhanced in particle number concentration during evening time periods, and is likely to originate from a source operating at this time of day, or more probably from condensation of semi-volatile species. A third class, internally mixed with organic carbon and sulphate (called OC), was found to spike both in the morning and evenings although it could not unambiguously associated with a specific source or atmospheric process. The fourth class (Secondary Organic Aerosols – Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon; SOA-PAH) exhibited maximum frequency during the warmest part of the day, and a number of factors point towards secondary aerosol production from traffic-related volatile aromatic compounds. Single particle mass spectra of this particle type showed an oxidized polycyclic aromatic compound signature. A comparison of ATOFMS particle class data is then made with factors obtained by Positive Matrix Factorization and PAH signatures obtained from Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) data (Allan et al., 2010). Both the Ca-EC and OC particle types correlate with primary Hydrocarbon-like Organic Aerosol (HOA, R2 = 0.65 and 0.50 respectively), and NaEC-OC correlates weakly with the AMS secondary Oxygenated Organic Aerosol (OOA), ( R2 = 0.35). Cluster SOAPAH was found not to correlate with any AMS signal. A detailed analysis was conducted to identify ATOFMS particle type(s) representative of the AMS cooking aerosol factor (COA), but no convincing associations were found. The combined ATOFMS and AMS results of this REPARTEE study do not always provide an entirely coherent interpretation.


After describing a series of plans with implications for land use, this study aims to examine the collaboration problems which exist between the main groups involved and elaborate on potential legal solutions. Main results are the following: 1. German law requires that the interests of the farming community and nature conservation are taken into account in the overall consideration of planning decisions. Any specialist plans already available – bearing in mind the different procedures existing between the various federal states – must also be integrated into the planning process. 2. If farming interests or the interests of nature conservation and countryside protection cannot be asserted in the overall planning process as laid down by the law, the decisions are in many cases political and, as such, cannot be dealt with by legal means. In legal terms, the interests are already recognised as having equal status. 3. The rivalry frequently encountered between the farming community and nature conservation over the use of land mostly occurs when the land is intended to be used for other purposes (i.e. for housing development, infrastructure etc.). The necessity for conservation-related compensation creates a relationship of tension which in many cases is not directly attributable to nature conservation and farming. An example is the low amount of conservation-related compensation when viewed in comparison with a housing development project. 4. The law only partially regulates the coordination of nature-preservation and agrarian specialist planning. However, both sides – the farming community (consideration of high-yielding land) and conservation (upgrading the chances of realising landscape planning) have an equal interest in seeing coordinated measures implemented at an early stage. In practice, an adequate procedure has already been developed. In legal terms, however, it is difficult to register and cope with the possibilities and problems associated with the informal methods of coordination. 5. Ultimately, the success of the coordination and collaboration depends largely on the commitment shown by the parties involved. However, the coordination of regional planning instruments at an early stage does not solve the problems of acceptance between the farming community and nature conservation as long as the realisation of legal conservationist measures are financially unattractive for farmers or could even jeopardise their existence.


The fabrication process and electrical characteristics of bottom-gate Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) are reported in details. The influence of post-annealing ambient (Oxygen or Nitrogen) is studied. It has been found that characteristics of TFTs strongly depend on annealing conditions. TFTs with Oxygen annealing exhibit standard TFT characteristics. In this case, we have obtained a mobility of 7.2 cm2/V·s, a subthreshold swing of 0.3 V/decade, high Ion/Ioff of 107 and low leakage current of the order of 10-13 at Vgs = -20 V. In the meantime, TFTs without a post-annealing or with Nitrogen annealing exhibited poor characteristics; more particularly the channel could not be depleted in the reverse mode. To understand the origins of this phenomenon, IGZO films from these devices have been analyzed by X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Experimental results show that IGZO layers after annealing in N2 have higher concentration of oxygen vacancies. This is consistent with our electrical results since it is assumed that conduction in IGZO films is the result of oxygen vacancies.


This study extends the concept of expectancy confirmation model (ECM) to discuss the trust as an
internal motivation that can make customers continue to use mobile service in the middle of risks
and uncertainties in mobile service transactions. This study want to know how to build trust in the
B2C E-Marketplaces based on trust transfer theory. In the B2C E-Marketplaces, there are three
entities that affect overall trust, such as the intermediary, community of sellers, and mobile service
provided by an intermediary. To build customer trust, we need to know the factors that affect trust
in those entities and whether customer trust in those entities can influence each other. This study
used four antecedents of trust (mobile service quality, familiarity, consumer disposition to
trust/CDT, and interpersonal recommendation) as factors that can affect trust. This study obtained
606 respondents who are Go-Jek users spread in Jabodetabek, Bali, Bandung and Surabaya. Data
were analyzed by using structural equation modeling (SEM) with AMOS 22.0 tools. Results of this
study concluded that trust has a significant impact on customers' continuance intention to use
mobile service. Trust in intermediary affected by familiarity, interpersonal recommendation,
quality of the mobile service, and CDT. Trust in mobile service influenced by CDT, familiarity, and
quality of mobile services. Meanwhile, trust in community of sellers only influenced by quality of the
mobile service. In addition, this study also concluded that trust transfer occurred from the
intermediary to the community of sellers and from the community of sellers to the mobile service
provided by an intermediary.


Durer and Beyond presents a selection of 100 works from the Metropolitan Museum's outstanding collection of German, Swiss, Austrian, and Bohemian drawings. Featured are numerous drawings by Albrecht Durer, including his celebrated study sheet with a self-portrait. In addition to drawings by major artists such as Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Urs Graf, Hans Holbein the Younger, Friedrich Sustris, and Wenceslaus Hollar, the selection also highlights work by lesser known but equally superb draftsmen from the 14th to the end of the 17th century. Richly illustrated and fully documented with artist biographies, comparative illustrations, and enlightening commentary on the variety, quality, and purpose of the featured drawings, this book makes a significant scholarly contribution to a field that has not been widely explored.


ABSTRACT Genetic structures surrounding the carbapenem-hydrolyzing Ambler class A blaKPC gene were characterized in several KPC-positive Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains isolated from the United States, Colombia, and Greece. The blaKPC genes were associated in all cases with transposon-related structures. In the K. pneumoniae YC isolate from the United States, the β-lactamase blaKPC-2 gene was located on a novel Tn3-based transposon, Tn4401. Tn4401 was 10 kb in size, was delimited by two 39-bp imperfect inverted repeat sequences, and harbored, in addition to the β-lactamase blaKPC-2 gene, a transposase gene, a resolvase gene, and two novel insertion sequences, ISKpn6 and ISKpn7. Tn4401 has been identified in all isolates. However, two isoforms of this transposon were found: Tn4401a was found in K. pneumoniae YC and K. pneumoniae GR from the United States and Greece, respectively, and differed by a 100-bp deletion, located just upstream of the blaKPC-2 gene, compared to the sequence of Tn4401b, which was found in the Colombian isolates. In all isolates tested, Tn4401 was flanked by a 5-bp target site duplication, the signature of a recent transposition event, and was inserted in different open reading frames located on plasmids that varied in size and nature. Tn4401 is likely at the origin of carbapenem-hydrolyzing β-lactamase KPC mobilization to plasmids and its further insertion into various-sized plasmids identified in nonclonally related K. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa isolates.


Lesser developed countries (LDCS) serve as both customers and competitors for agricultural commodities produced in the Southern region of the United States. This paper focuses on the impacts of LDCS on exports of the major agricultural commodities produced in the South (cotton, rice, tobacco, poultry, and, to a lesser extent, citrus and peanuts). First the importance of LDCS as export markets for Southern commodities is explored. Then the role LDCS play as producers and exporters of these commodities is considered, Finally, these separate roles are combined into an index of LDC competitiveness with Southern agricultural commodities. Data analysis shows that Southern agricultural interests truly are divided over the role LDCS play in Southern agriculture, where poukry and rice rank highest, and peanuts lowest, in terms of a LDC markets/competition index. Thus, it is not surprising that calls for protectionism (e.g., the Bumpers' Amendment) should arise from the South.


This article discusses results from an evaluation of confidential address tactics. Confidential addresses can be assigned to women and children who have been victims of domestic violence and cannot be protected in other ways. The evaluation shows that the most severe consequence of having a confidential address is social isolation since victims always have to be extremely cautious in order not to reveal their home locations. This not only limits a victim's ability to keep contact with family and friends, but also her possibilities for establishing new social contacts. Life as a 'secret citizen' invokes a series of challenges because the use of public services and participation in the workforce generally require openness about personal information such as name and area of residence. The study further reveals great differences between those who benefit from having a confidential address and those who don't. The former include women without children and women whose jobs provide financial independence. Women who have children with the perpetrator benefit less since they have to relate to the father through the children. *


BACKGROUND
The purpose of our study was to assess risks/ outcomes of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in US combat casualties. We hypothesized that combat trauma patients with ARDS would have worse outcomes based on mechanism of injury (MOI) and labs/vital signs aberrancies.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We reviewed data on military Servicemembers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2015 diagnosed with ARDS by ICD-9 code. We extracted patient demographics, injury specifics, and mortality from the Department of Defense Trauma Registry (DoDTR).

RESULTS
The most common MOI was an explosion, accounting for 67.6% of all injuries. Nonsurvivors were more likely to have explosion-related injuries, have higher injury severity score (ISS), higher international normalized ratio (INR), lower platelet count, greater base deficit, lower temperature, lower Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, and lower pH. There was no significant difference in deaths across time.

CONCLUSION
By identifying characteristics of patients with higher mortality in trauma ARDS, we can develop treatment guidelines to improve outcomes. Given the high mortality associated with trauma ARDS and relative paucity of clinical data available, we need to improve battlefield data capture to better guide practice and ultimately improve care. The management of ARDS will be increasingly relevant in prolonged casualty care (PCC; formerly prolonged field care) on the modern battlefield.


Hugh Everett III was an American physicist best known for his many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which formed the basis of his PhD thesis at Princeton University in 1957. Although counterintuitive, Everett's revolutionary formulation of quantum mechanics offers the most direct solution to the infamous quantum measurement problem--that is, how and why the singular world of our experience emerges from the multiplicities of alternatives available in the quantum world. The many-worlds interpretation postulates the existence of multiple universes. Whenever a measurement-like interaction occurs, the universe branches into relative states, one for each possible outcome of the measurement, and the world in which we find ourselves is but one of these many, but equally real, possibilities. Everett's challenge to the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics was met with scorn from Niels Bohr and other leading physicists, and Everett subsequently abandoned academia to conduct military operations research. Today, however, Everett's formulation of quantum mechanics is widely recognized as one of the most controversial but promising physical theories of the last century.

 In this book, Jeffrey Barrett and Peter Byrne present the long and short versions of Everett's thesis along with a collection of his explanatory writings and correspondence. These primary source documents, many of them newly discovered and most unpublished until now, reveal how Everett's thinking evolved from his days as a graduate student to his untimely death in 1982. This definitive volume also features Barrett and Byrne's introductory essays, notes, and commentary that put Everett's extraordinary theory into historical and scientific perspective and discuss the puzzles that still remain.


The method of sieves has been widely used in estimating semiparametric and nonparametric models. In this paper, we first provide a general theory on the asymptotic normality of plug-in sieve M estimators of possibly irregular functionals of semi/nonparametric time series models. Next, we establish a surprising result that the asymptotic variances of plug-in sieve M estimators of irregular (i.e., slower than root-T estimable) functionals do not depend on temporal dependence. Nevertheless, ignoring the temporal dependence in small samples may not lead to accurate inference. We then propose an easy-to-compute and more accurate inference procedure based on a "pre-asymptotic" sieve variance estimator that captures temporal dependence. We construct a "pre-asymptotic" Wald statistic using an orthonormal series long run variance (OS-LRV) estimator. For sieve M estimators of both regular (i.e., root-T estimable) and irregular functionals, a scaled "pre-asymptotic" Wald statistic is asymptotically F distributed when the series number of terms in the OS-LRV estimator is held fixed. Simulations indicate that our scaled "pre-asymptotic" Wald test with F critical values has more accurate size in finite samples than the usual Wald test with chi-square critical values.


The southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, is a widespread tropical and subtropical disease vector. In the Hawaiian Islands, where it was introduced accidentally almost two centuries ago, it is considered the primary vector of avian malaria and pox. Avian malaria in particular has contributed to the extinction and endangerment of Hawaii's native avifauna, and has altered the altitudinal distribution of native bird populations. We examined the population genetic structure of Cx. quinquefasciatus on the island of Hawaii at a smaller spatial scale than has previously been attempted, with particular emphasis on the effects of elevation on population genetic structure. We found significant genetic differentiation among populations and patterns of isolation by distance within the island. Elevation per se did not have a limiting effect on gene flow; however, there was significantly lower genetic diversity among populations at mid elevations compared to those at low elevations. A recent sample taken from just above the predicted upper altitudinal distribution of Cx. quinquefasciatus on the island of Hawaii was confirmed as being a temporary summer population and appeared to consist of individuals from more than one source population. Our results indicate effects of elevation gradients on genetic structure that are consistent with known effects of elevation on population dynamics of this disease vector.


Life in a high–carbon dioxide environment has eliminated acid-evoked pain in the naked mole-rat. Naked mole-rats live with up to 80 nest mates in deep underground tunnels with little oxygen exchange and high levels of CO2. Possibly because of this environment, naked mole-rats display remarkable acid insensitivity, despite containing the same acid sensors within their pain receptors as do other vertebrates. Smith et al. found that a specific variant in the sodium channel of naked mole-rat pain receptors was potently blocked by protons, thus inhibiting an action potential rather than exciting one. E. St. J. Smith, D. Omerbašić, S. G. Lechner, G. Anirudhan, L. Lapatsina, G. R. Lewin, The molecular basis of acid insensitivity in the African naked mole-rat. Science 334, 1557–1560 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Objective: Traumatic thoracolumbar fractures are common, and surgical fixation is a well-established treatment option, with the aim to achieve spinal stability and preserve neurological function. Pedicle screw fixation using a minimally invasive spine (MIS) surgical approach has emerged as an alternative approach for the treatment of thoracolumbar fractures. The aim of this study is to collect data regarding epidemiology, management, and outcomes of patients treated with MIS pedicle screw fixation for traumatic thoracolumbar fractures in our neurosurgical department. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study including all patients who underwent MIS fixation from March 2013 to March 2017. Results: A total of 125 patients were included, 61 males and 64 females; the mean age was 59 years. The majority of injuries were from falls. In 48 cases, the fracture involved a thoracic vertebra and in 77 cases a lumbar vertebra. More than 10% of the patients presented with a neurological deficit on admission and 75% of those showed postoperative improvement in their neurology. The average length of hospital stay was 14 days. MIS fixation achieved a satisfactory regional sagittal angle (RSA) postoperatively in all patients. The vast majority of patients had no or mild postoperative pain and achieved a good functional outcome. Conclusions: MIS fixation is a safe surgical option with comparable outcomes to open surgery and a potential reduction in perioperative morbidity. MIS surgery achieves a rapid and significant improvement in pain score, functional outcome, Frankel Grade, and RSA. We expect that MIS fixation will become the predominant technique in the management of traumatic thoracolumbar fractures.


Do cluster development programs work? Do they fundamentally encourage the essential inter-firm linkages and coordination? Do they lead to innovation and productivity, enterprise development, larger employment, and export growth, and if so, after how long? Do other firms benefit from these programs? This book offers insight into quantitative methods that help answer these questions. Cluster development is a form of modern industrial policy that is spreading across the world to help exploit the externalities emerging from geographical agglomeration and inter-firm coordination. Therefore, rigorous impact evaluations are necessary because they help policymakers understand better ways to design future programs and provide accountability for public resources. The chapters argue that enterprise clusters and the programs to support them are diverse and multidimensional processes that require a variety of instruments to be fully understood and assessed. The book as a whole gathers various methodological essays and quantitative tests of complementary tools and approaches, emphasizing their usefulness and effectiveness in coordination with one another. Most importantly, it asserts that policy evaluation is crucial, in particular when it comes to cluster development programs, to ensure the best use of public resources, the accountability of beneficiaries, and most of all to feed the necessary learning to improve the design and implementation of public policies for enterprise development.


Upscaling ecological information to larger scales in space and downscaling remote sensing observations or model simulations to finer scales remain grand challenges in Earth system science. Downscaling often involves inferring subgrid information from coarse-scale data, and such ill-posed problems are classically addressed using regularization. Here, we apply two-dimensional Tikhonov Regularization (2DTR) to simulate subgrid surface patterns for ecological applications. Specifically, we test the ability of 2DTR to simulate the spatial statistics of high-resolution (4 m) remote sensing observations of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in a tundra landscape. We find that the 2DTR approach as applied here can capture the major mode of spatial variability of the high-resolution information, but not multiple modes of spatial variability, and that the Lagrange multiplier ( γ ) used to impose the condition of smoothness across space is related to the range of the experimental semivariogram. We used observed and 2DTR-simulated maps of NDVI to estimate landscape-level leaf area index (LAI) and gross primary productivity (GPP). NDVI maps simulated using a γ value that approximates the range of observed NDVI result in a landscape-level GPP estimate that differs by ca 2% from those created using observed NDVI. Following findings that GPP per unit LAI is lower near vegetation patch edges, we simulated vegetation patch edges using multiple approaches and found that simulated GPP declined by up to 12% as a result. 2DTR can generate random landscapes rapidly and can be applied to disaggregate ecological information and compare of spatial observations against simulated landscapes.


Abstract. Loss of sea ice is opening the Arctic to increasing development involving oil and gas extraction and shipping. Given the significant impacts of absorbing aerosol and secondary aerosol precursors emitted within the rapidly warming Arctic region, it is necessary to characterize local anthropogenic aerosol sources and compare to natural conditions. From August to September 2015 in Utqiaġvik (Barrow), AK, the chemical composition of individual atmospheric particles was measured by computer-controlled scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (0.13–4 µm projected area diameter) and real-time single-particle mass spectrometry (0.2–1.5 µm vacuum aerodynamic diameter). During periods influenced by the Arctic Ocean (70 % of the study), our results show that fresh sea spray aerosol contributed  ∼ 20 %, by number, of particles between 0.13 and 0.4 µm, 40–70 % between 0.4 and 1 µm, and 80–100 % between 1 and 4 µm particles. In contrast, for periods influenced by emissions from Prudhoe Bay (10 % of the study), the third largest oil field in North America, there was a strong influence from submicron (0.13–1 µm) combustion-derived particles (20–50 % organic carbon, by number; 5–10 % soot by number). While sea spray aerosol still comprised a large fraction of particles (90 % by number from 1 to 4 µm) detected under Prudhoe Bay influence, these particles were internally mixed with sulfate and nitrate indicative of aging processes during transport. In addition, the overall mode of the particle size number distribution shifted from 76 nm during Arctic Ocean influence to 27 nm during Prudhoe Bay influence, with particle concentrations increasing from 130 to 920 cm−3 due to transported particle emissions from the oil fields. The increased contributions of carbonaceous combustion products and partially aged sea spray aerosol should be considered in future Arctic atmospheric composition and climate simulations.


While outsourcing of production from the U.S. to Mexico has been hailed in Mexico as a valuable engine of growth, recently there have been misgivings regarding its fickleness and volatility. This paper is among the first in the trade literature to study the second moment properties of outsourcing. We begin by documenting a new stylized fact: the maquiladora outsourcing industries in Mexico experience fluctuations in value added that are roughly twice as volatile as the corresponding industries in the U.S. A difference-in-difference method is extended to second moments to verify the statistical significance of this finding. We then develop a stochastic model of outsourcing with heterogeneous firms that can explain this volatility. The model employs two novel mechanisms: an extensive margin in outsourcing which responds endogenously to transmit shocks internationally, and translog preferences which modulate firm entry.