Abstract Objective: This paper describes how trust is promoted in adults with hearing impairment within the context of hearing healthcare (HHC) service delivery. Design: Data were analysed from a previously published descriptive qualitative study that explored perspectives of adults with hearing impairment on hearing help-seeking and rehabilitation. Study sample: Interview transcripts from 29 adults from four countries with different levels of hearing impairment and different experience with the HHC system were analysed thematically. Results: Patients enter into the HHC system with service expectations resulting in a preconceived level of trust that can vary from low to high. Relational competence, technical competence, commercialized approach, and clinical environment (relevant to both the clinician and the clinic) influence a patient's resulting level of trust. Conclusions: Trust is evolving rather than static in HHC: Both clinicians and clinics can promote trust. The characteristics of HHC that engender trust are: practicing good communication, supporting shared decision making, displaying technical competence, offering comprehensive hearing rehabilitation, promoting self-management, avoiding a focus on hearing-aid sales, and offering a professional clinic setting.


This paper analyzes technical efficiency of wheat production under commercial farms in Ethiopia. The study also attempted to determine some farm specific, institutional and socio-economic characteristics which influence technical efficiency of wheat production. A stochastic frontier model is applied on cross sectional data of 32 commercial farms that were surveyed during 2010 production year. Cobb-Douglas type production function was found to best fit the data set. The maximum likelihood estimates of the stochastic frontier production function indicated that the elasticities of output with respect to seed, agrochemicals, tractor hours and DAP are positive and significant. On the contrary, the coefficients of area and labour are negative and significant. The production function associated with the commercial farms was characterized by constant returns to scale. The mean technical efficiency of wheat production is 82 percent. It was also revealed that 99 percent of the variations in wheat output from the best practice are due to inefficiency. Factors significantly affecting efficiency level of the commercial farms are found to be experience of managers, distance of the farm from main road, value of farm machineries owned by the farms and provision of mechanization services by the farms. Average age of farm machineries is the only factor that has a significant negative effect on the level of technical efficiency. Key words: Technical efficiency, Stochastic Frontier model and Returns to scale


In this short paper we propose a socio-technical framework for developing cyber security warning systems. We start by reviewing latest research and theories on socio-technical nature of information systems security. We then show the need to consider the social dimension of information systems security as recommended by number of global security consortiums. Afterward we review the development of some of the main currently existing global cyber security warning systems. Finally we present our suggested socio-technical coordination platform to feature socio-technical enabled cyber security warning systems.


The purpose of this article is to critique representation and legitimation as they relate to the peer review process for an autoethnographic manuscript. Using a conversation derived from seven reviewers' comments pertaining to one autoethnographic manuscript, issues relating to (a) the use of verification strategies in autoethnographic studies; and, (b) the use of self as the only data source are discussed. As such, this paper can be considered as an autoethnographic writing story. The problematic nature of autoethnography, which is located at the boundaries of scientific research, is examined by linking the author's experiences of the review process with dominant research perspectives. Suggestions for investigators wishing to produce autoethnographic accounts are outlined along with a call for the development of appropriate evaluative criteria for such work.


Michael Fielding looks at what the Labour Government has achieved in the last four years with its policy of 'education, education, education'.
There has been widespread disappointment in New Labour's education policies, which on the whole have not steered too far wide of those put in place by Margaret Thatcher, including issues of marketisation, testing and performativity. Michael Fielding has called on the key policy thinkers in education to offer their opinions on what has happened in education over the first three to four years of the New Labour Government.
Education policy is a controversial subject and with a General Election expected within the next few months, this book will be read widely by people within education, politicians and journalists and by others anxious to get to facts and avoid the spin. The subject matter and the presence of so many high profile educationalists make this an essential read.


Low-refractive-index microparticles, such as hollow microspheres, have shown great significance in some applications, such as biomedical sensing and targeted drug delivery. However, optical trapping and manipulation of low-refractive-index microparticles are challenging, owing to the repelling force exerted by typical optical traps. In this paper, we demonstrated optical trapping and rotating of large-sized low-refractive-index microparticles by using quasi-perfect optical vortex (quasi-POV) beams, which were generated by Fourier transform of high-order quasi-Bessel beams. Numerical simulation was carried out to characterize the focusing property of the quasi-POV beams. The dynamics of low-refractive-index microparticles in the quasi-POV with various topological charges was investigated in detail. To improve the trapping and rotating performances of the vortex, a point trap was introduced at the center of the ring. Experimental results showed that the quasi-POV was preferable for manipulation of large-sized low-refractive-index microparticles, with its control of the particles' rotating velocity dependent only on the topological charge due to the unchanged orbital radius.


Obesity is associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Angiogenesis is a critical component of these pathological processes, and expanding adipose tissue represents one of the few sites of active angiogenesis in the adult. Despite the potential importance of angiogenesis in obesity, little is known about underlying mechanisms. This problem is magnified by the absence of useful quantitative model systems. In this report, we examine the angiogenic process using the 3T3‐F442A model of adipose tissue development. In this model, 3T3‐F442A preadipocytes are implanted subcutaneously into athymic Balb/c nude mice. We show that these cells develop into highly vascularized fat pads over the next 14–21 days, and that these fat pads are morphologically similar to normal subcutaneous adipose tissue. Histological studies demonstrate that a new microvasculature is evident as early as 5 days after cell implantation, and real‐time quantitative RT‐PCR analyses show that the expression of endothelial cell markers and adipogenesis markers increase in parallel during fat pad development. Finally, these preliminary studies suggest that the neovasculature originates by sprouting from larger, host‐derived blood vessels that run parallel to peripheral nerves and that endothelial progenitor cells play little, if any, role in this process.


Biomass burning in Northern Ghana is a major cause for concern because of its potential contribution to global warming, hence climate change. This study assessed the emission of trace gases from human activities in the Guinea savanna of Northern Ghana using the guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Carbon content of biomass was determined from four different vegetation covers in the study area; namely, widely open savanna woodland, grass/herb with scattered trees, open savanna woodland and closed savanna woodland. Under each vegetation cover, five plots (1 m x 1 m) were demarcated for the estimation of above-ground biomass density. Using the combustion furnace method, emitted carbon, methane and carbon monoxide were estimated. Results showed that the emitted methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) differed significantly (p<0.05) under all the vegetation types. The gases were in perfect correlation (r=1.00) with the quantity of above-ground biomass density and carbon released, with more CO being emitted. Emission of CH4 and CO per hectare of burnt area in the open savanna woodland category was the highest with 0.001719 ton and 0.045119 ton respectively. Over time, emission of these gases may increase their atmospheric concentration, causing major health problems. The contribution to global warming, thus climate change, may also become quite significant. This underscores the fact that existing flaws in the wild fire management policy of Ghana must be effectively dealt with and appropriately implemented with regular reviews to reduce the annual wild fires that are very rampant in Northern Ghana, especially during the dry season.


Query optimizers rely on accurate cardinality estimates to produce good execution plans. Despite decades of research, existing cardinality estimators are inaccurate for complex queries, due to making lossy modeling assumptions and not capturing inter-table correlations. In this work, we show that it is possible to learn the correlations across all tables in a database without any independence assumptions. We present NeuroCard, a join cardinality estimator that builds a single neural density estimator over an entire database. Leveraging join sampling and modern deep autoregressive models, NeuroCard makes no inter-table or inter-column independence assumptions in its probabilistic modeling. NeuroCard achieves orders of magnitude higher accuracy than the best prior methods (a new state-of-the-art result of 8.5x maximum error on JOB-light), scales to dozens of tables, while being compact in space (several MBs) and efficient to construct or update (seconds to minutes).


ABSTRACT In 1967, infants and toddlers immunized with a formalin-inactivated vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) experienced an enhanced form of RSV disease characterized by high fever, bronchopneumonia, and wheezing when they became infected with wild-type virus in the community. Hospitalizations were frequent, and two immunized toddlers died upon infection with wild-type RSV. The enhanced disease was initially characterized as a "peribronchiolar monocytic infiltration with some excess in eosinophils." Decades of research defined enhanced RSV disease (ERD) as the result of immunization with antigens not processed in the cytoplasm, resulting in a nonprotective antibody response and CD4+ T helper priming in the absence of cytotoxic T lymphocytes. This response to vaccination led to a pathogenic Th2 memory response with eosinophil and immune complex deposition in the lungs after RSV infection. In recent years, the field of RSV experienced significant changes. Numerous vaccine candidates with novel designs and formulations are approaching clinical trials, defying our previous understanding of favorable parameters for ERD. This review provides a succinct analysis of these parameters and explores criteria for assessing the risk of ERD in new vaccine candidates.


In the analysis of vertical integration by contract versus ownership one event has dominated the discussion - General Motors' merger with Fisher Body in 1926. The debates have all been premised on the assumption that the ten-year contract between the parties signed in 1919 was a legally enforceable agreement. However, it was not. Because Fisher's promise was illusory the contract lacked consideration. This note suggests that GM's counsel must have known this. It raises a significant question in transactional engineering: what is the function of an agreement that is not legally enforceable.


PURPOSE
To measure the readiness of rural primary care practices to qualify as patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs), one step toward participating in changes underway in health care finance and delivery.

METHODS
We used the 2008 Health Tracking Physician Survey to compare PCMH readiness scores among metropolitan and nonmetropolitan primary care practices. The National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA) assessment system served as a framework to assess the PCMH capabilities of primary care practices based on their services, processes, and policies.

FINDINGS
We found little difference between urban and rural practices. Approximately 41% of all primary care practices offer minimal or no PCMH services. We also found that large practices score higher on standards primarily related to information technology and care management.

CONCLUSIONS
Achieving the benefits of the PCMH model in small rural practices may require additional national promotion, technical assistance, and financial incentives.


The Cretaceous and Paleogene sediments of the Central Asian basins include remnants of the easternmost extent of a large epicontinental sea. Before this sea retreated westward and eventually separated as the Paratethys Sea, it extended across Eurasia from the Mediterranean Tethys to the Tarim Basin in western China. Climate models have shown that by diminished moisture supply, the disappearance of the sea from Central Asia may have caused continental aridification in Asia. This thesis provides the required chronological framework of both the aridification and the sea retreat to test this causal link during Eocene times. A reference for the Asian aridification is provided by the well-dated Eocene to Oligocene Xining Basin record along the north-western margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Here the record has been extended downwards into middle Eocene lacustrine mudstone-gypsum successions and accurately constrained in age by magnetostratigraphy. Sedimentologic and pollen analyses on the precisely dated record reveal several aridification steps of which the most prominent occurred concomitant with rapid cooling directly following the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (MECO) at ~40.0 Ma (base C18n.2n). The sea retreat has been studied in the Tarim Basin (western China), the Ferghana Basin (southern Kyrgyzstan) and the Afghan-Tajik Basin (south-western Tajikistan). The sea supposedly entered Central Asia in the Cretaceous and withdrew after five third-order marine incursions, of which the last two have been documented here. Integrated bio-magnetostratigraphic dating in the Tarim Basin shows the sea retreated stepwise from the southwest depression in the latest Lutetian at ~41 Ma (base C18r) and from the westernmost margin in the latest Bartonian-early Priabonian (near top C17n.2n-top C16n.2n). The shallow marine near-shore sediments of these last two incursions can be convincingly correlated by litho- and biostratigraphy across Central Asia, showing for the first time that the sea had probably largely retreated from Central Asia in the late Eocene. A major disconformity across the EOT in southwest Tarim confirms that Central Asia remained hydrologically connected to the Mediterranean Tethys in the Eocene and had not yet been isolated by tectonic uplift of the surrounding Pamir Mountains. This paleogeographic evolution is supported by paleomagnetic data from the southwest Tarim Basin showing that clockwise rotation took place after the fourth marine incursion, but was negligible after the Oligocene. Comparison to regional paleomagnetic data shows this is consistent with initial symmetric radial thrusting of the Pamir in response to the Eocene Indo-Asia collision, followed in the Miocene by continued anticlockwise rotation on its western margin and ceased clockwise rotations on its eastern margin subjected to the onset of a lithospheric strike-slip system. The stepwise sea retreat and disconformity are concurrent with documented aridification steps in the Xining Basin at ~41 Ma (C19n-C18r), ~37.1 Ma (top C17.1n) and the EOT at ~33.9 Ma (top C13r), suggesting that the sea retreat and aridification in Asia were indirectly paced by global climate deterioration in the Eocene through eustatic level changes affecting the Proto-Paratethys Sea. In line with climate modelling results, the sea retreat may thus have amplified the aridification of Asia's interior.


Optical binding is an optomechanical effect exhibited by systems of micro- and nanoparticles, suitably irradiated with off-resonance laser light. Physically distinct from standing-wave and other forms of holographic optical traps, the phenomenon arises as a result of an interparticle coupling with individual radiation modes, leading to optically induced modifications to Casmir-Polder interactions. To better understand how this mechanism leads to the observed assemblies and formation of patterns in nanoparticles, we develop a theory in terms of optically induced energy landscapes exhibiting the three-dimensional form of the potential energy field. It is shown in detail that the positioning and magnitude of local energy maxima and minima depend on the configuration of each particle pair, with regards to the polarization and wave vector of the laser light. The analysis reveals how the positioning of local minima determines the energetically most favorable locations for the addition of a third particle to each equilibrium pair. It is also demonstrated how the result of such an addition subtly modifies the energy landscape that will, in turn, determine the optimum location for further particle additions. As such, this development represents a rigorous and general formulation of the theory, paving the way toward full comprehension of nanoparticle assembly based on optical binding.


Raman spectroscopy has undergone rapid development over the last few decades. The ability to acquire a spectrum in only a few tens of milliseconds allows use of Raman mapping as a routine technique. However, with respect to classical single spectrum measurement, this technique is not still as widely used as it could be, in particular for mineralogy and petrography. Here, we explain the advantages of Raman mapping for obtaining additional information compared to single spot analyses. The principle and the limits of the technique are first explained in 2D and 3D. Data processing techniques are then described using different types of rocks and minerals to demonstrate the utility of Raman mapping for obtaining information about the general composition, identification of small phases, as well as for distinguishing minerals that are spectrally very close. More "exotic" uses of the collected signal are also described. Finally, a gallery of images from representative samples is used to illustrate the discussion.


INTRODUCTION Over the past few years the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie has received, from different sources, several small collections of birds from various parts of New Guinea. This is a report on two of these. No ornithologist accompanied the expedition to the Sterren-gebergte (Star Mountains) of 1959, under the leadership of Dr. L. D. Brongersma and Captain (Air) G. F. Venema (Brongersma & Venema, 1960), but the mammal preparator Mr. J. J. Staats obtained a collection of some 120 bird skins. The majority of these are from the highlands in the Sterren-gebergte area, but a few specimens were collected in the lowlands near Hollandia and Tanahmerah. All localities with their approximate altitudes are listed and most of them are shown on the accompanying map. Though the collection is small, and doubtless gives a very incomplete picture of the bird-life in the Sterren-gebergte, it is important as the first collection ever made in the area, so that it fills a gap in the known distribution of a number of species. Most birds obtained in the Sterren-gebergte belong to widely distributed species and races, but it is interesting to note that of two species which have well-differentiated eastern and western subspecies, Peneothello sigillatus and Paramythia montium, the birds from the Sterren-gebergte belong to the eastern race and show no approach to the western subspecies. In a third case, Rhamphocharis crassirostris, I have felt justified in describing the Sterren-gebergte population as a new subspecies, more or less intermediate between known eastern and western races. The second collection, consisting of one hundred skins, was purchased in


textabstractOver the past decade, an expanding literature has explored the ways in which refugees rely on mobile communication technologies to stay in touch with a wider community and to access relevant information and services in their new places. Nevertheless, challenges linked to (a lack of) digital literacy and accessibility among refugees, and associated risks of technology use can negatively affect their empowerment and participation in a "mediatized" society. In light of the mutually shaping processes emerging between technology and society, this article provides an overview of studies focusing on the relationship between mobile communication practices and refugee lives under different circumstances. Using the concept of affordances as an analytic tool, this article looks into ways in which existing studies address the possibilities and vulnerabilities of mobile communications, the social conditions, and the agency of refugees in engaging with mobile technologies in the different temporal and spatial dimensions of their migration trajectories. Future studies should explore more collective processes and the power dynamics involved in the appropriation of mobile technologies by different migration actors.


This paper highlights the search for more effective ways of recognizing and assessing prior informal learning within higher education (HE) in Scotland.  The need for this search stems from perennial barriers to recognition of prior informal learning (RPL) in terms of its resource-intensive nature, varying levels of understanding and awareness and the need for greater flexibility in terms of progression pathways through curriculum design and delivery. As part of the program of work identified by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Scotland/Universities Scotland HEI RPL Network, research was commissioned to move the RPL agenda in Scotland forward by seeking to address some of these barriers. The research focused on RPL practices within Scotland but extended to practice in other countries. While the focus of the work was to enhance RPL processes in the Scottish HE sector, the outcomes could have broader applications in other national contexts. The research reinforces the need to challenge current assessment practices as part of sector-wide developments in Scotland to develop more flexible, efficient learner journeys and informs broader developments in RPL in Scotland. Keywords: RPL (recognizing prior informal learning) assessment practices, flexible learner pathways, national qualifications frameworks, CPD


Organocatalysis has proven to be one of the most rapidly developing and competitive research areas in asymmetric catalysis since 2000, and has become a third branch besides biocatalysis and transition metal catalysis. In this feature article, recent progress from our research group on asymmetric organocatalysis, focusing on fine-tunable amine-thiourea catalysis, is described. Design of novel bifunctional amine-thiourea organocatalysts based upon the synergistic activation strategy via multiple hydrogen bonds and their applications in asymmetric C-C, C-N, and C-S bond-forming reactions under mild conditions are discussed in detail. The most attractive feature of the newly designed fine-tunable amine-thiourea catalysts is the incorporation of multiple hydrogen bonding donors and stereogenic centers.


I investigate the relationship between county population change and farm dependence in the Great Plains region during the twentieth century, using spatial data analysis techniques. This research is rooted in a long-standing sociological and demographic interest in population responses to economic transitions and informs the theoretical understanding of urbanization processes. Using census and environmental data, the analysis challenges earlier assertions of a simple transition in the relationship between farm dependence and population change that accompanied modern technological advancements, namely tractors (the mechanization thesis). Rather than observing the proposed positive-to-negative shift, study results show a negative association throughout the pre- and post-mechanization periods. Partial support is found if the thesis is revised to consider the relationship between population change and the change in farm dependence rather than the level of farm dependence. Findings show mixed support for an alternative argument that nonfarm industries moderate the in_ uence of farm dependence (the industry complex thesis). In contrast to earlier applications of the thesis, industrial relations in the Great Plains context are characterized by specialization rather than cooperation.


Utilizing behavioral, biochemical and electrophysiological methods, central effects of the monoamine oxidase-B inhibitor deprenyl (selegiline) were analyzed. Administration of deprenyl (3-30 mg/kg, i.p.) caused a dose-dependent increase in the spontaneous locomotor activity. In the striatum, deprenyl (10 and 30 mg/kg) changed the dopa accumulation following 3-hydroxybenzylhydrazine hydrochloride in a biphasic manner. Deprenyl slightly decreased the firing rate of dopamine-containing neurons in substantia nigra, zona compacta. However, increases in locomotor activity and dopa accumulation induced by deprenyl were almost totally prevented by pretreatment with the microsomal liver enzyme inhibitor proadifen hydrochloride (50 mg/kg, i.p., 30 min), indicating that metabolites of the drug are of pharmacological significance for deprenyl's central actions. Furthermore, administration of l-methamphetamine, a major metabolite of deprenyl, affected spontaneous locomotor activity and striatal dopa formation and the firing rate of dopamine-containing neurons in the substantia nigra within the same magnitude as deprenyl itself when given in doses relevant to the formation of l-methamphetamine from deprenyl. However, unlike the effect of deprenyl, the l-methamphetamine-induced increase in locomotor activity and striatal dopa formation was not antagonized by pretreatment with proadifen hydrochloride. The data suggest that the stimulatory effect on locomotor activity and dopamine synthesis is not related to a monoamine oxidase-B blocking action of the drug or to a putative effect on DA reuptake, but rather to effects of metabolites of the drug (e.g., l-methamphetamine). It is proposed that metabolites of deprenyl should not be disregarded to account for the clinical benefits of the drug.


A BSTRACT Background The leading cause of death in patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction is cardiogenic shock. We conducted a randomized trial to evaluate early revascularization in patients with cardiogenic shock. Methods Patients with shock due to left ventricular failure complicating myocardial infarction were randomly assigned to emergency revascularization (152 patients) or initial medical stabilization (150 patients). Revascularization was accomplished by either coronary-artery bypass grafting or angioplasty. Intraaortic balloon counterpulsation was performed in 86 percent of the patients in both groups. The primary end point was mortality from all causes at 30 days. Six-month survival was a secondary end point. Results The mean (±SD) age of the patients was 66±10 years, 32 percent were women, and 55 percent had been transferred from other hospitals. The median time to the onset of shock was 5.6 hours after infarction, and most infarcts were anterior in location. Ninety-seven percent of the patients assigned to revascularization underwent early coronary angiography, and 87 percent underwent revascularization; only 2.7 percent of the patients assigned to medical therapy crossed over to early revascularization without clinical indication. Overall mortality at 30 days did not differ significantly between the revascularization and medical-therapy groups (46.7 percent and 56.0 percent, respectively; difference, ¡9.3 percent; 95 percent confidence interval for the difference, ¡20.5 to 1.9 percent; P=0.11). Six-month mortality was lower in the revascularization group than in the medical-therapy group (50.3 percent vs. 63.1 percent, P=0.027). Conclusions In patients with cardiogenic shock, emergency revascularization did not significantly reduce overall mortality at 30 days. However, after six months there was a significant survival benefit. Early revascularization should be strongly considered for patients with acute myocardial infarction complicated by cardiogenic shock. (N Engl J Med 1999;341:625-34.)


Abstract: Tax evasion phenomena is one of the most challenges faced the physical stability of Palestinian government. Lack of tax revenues caused annual high deficit in the public budget. This study aims to explore the causes of tax evasion phenomena in the view of income tax managers in Palestine. For that a questionnaire of 37 paragraphs has been developed and distributed to employees of income tax administration in west bank of Palestine. Then SPSS software has been used for statistical analysis.
Depending on statistical study the main causes of income tax evasion in Palestine are due to: economic agreement between Palestine and Israel (Paris protocol), lack of detailed applicable control plan in tax administrations, inefficiency of some employees in tax administration and complicated procedures in tax collection. This study offered several recommendations to deal with causes mentioned above.


The U.S. is spending a growing share of the GDP on health care, outpacing other industrialized countries. This synthesis examines why costs are higher in the U.S. and what is driving their growth. Key findings include: health care inefficiency, medical technology and health status (particularly obesity) are the primary drivers of rising U.S. health care costs. Health payer systems that reward inefficiencies and preempt competition have impeded productivity gains in the health care sector. The best evidence indicates medical technology accounts for one-half to two-thirds of spending growth. While medical malpractice insurance and defensive medicine contribute to health costs, they are not large enough factors to significantly contribute to a rise in spending. Research is consistent that demographics will not be a significant factor in driving spending despite the aging baby boomers.


By using a fully quantum approach based on an input-output formulation of the stochastic Schrodinger equation, we show rectification of radiation fields in a one-dimensional waveguide doped with a pair of ideal two-level systems for three topical cases: classical driving, under the action of noise, and single-photon pulsed excitation. We show that even under the constant action of unwanted noise the device still operates effectively as an optical isolator, which is of critical importance for noise resistance. Finally, harnessing stimulated emission allows for nonreciprocal behavior for single-photon inputs, thus showing purely quantum rectification at the single-photon level. The latter is a considerable step towards the ultimate goal of devising an unconditional quantum rectifier for arbitrary quantum states.


Objective Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has seen substantial shifts in patient selection in recent years that have increased baseline patient mortality risk. It is unclear to what extent observed changes in mortality are attributable to background mortality risk or the indication and selection for PCI itself. PCI-attributable mortality can be estimated using relative survival, which adjusts observed mortality by that seen in a matched control population. We report relative survival ratios and compare these across different time periods. Methods National Health Service PCI activity in England and Wales from 2007 to 2014 is considered using data from the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society PCI Registry. Background mortality is as reported in Office for National Statistics life tables. Relative survival ratios up to 1 year are estimated, matching on patient age, sex and procedure date. Estimates are stratified by indication for PCI, sex and procedure date. Results 549 305 procedures were studied after exclusions for missing age, sex, indication and mortality status. Comparing from 2007 to 2008 to 2013–2014, differences in crude survival at 1 year were consistently lower in later years across all strata. For relative survival, these differences remained but were smaller, suggesting poorer survival in later years is partly due to demographic characteristics. Relative survival was higher in older patients. Conclusions Changes in patient demographics account for some but not all of the crude survival changes seen during the study period. Relative survival is an under-used methodology in interventional settings like PCI and should be considered wherever survival is compared between populations with different demographic characteristics, such as between countries or time periods.


VEGF enhances NMDAR signaling to promote granule cell migration in the developing cerebellum. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), best known for its role in mediating angiogenesis, also influences various aspects of neuronal function, including acting as a chemoattractant to promote granule cell (GC) migration during cerebellar development. Noting that N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)–type glutamate receptors (NMDARs), like the VEGF receptor Flk1, are found in developing GCs and have been implicated in their migration, Meissirel et al. explored a possible link between these two types of receptors. Calcium imaging revealed that VEGF enhanced the NMDAR-mediated calcium signal in GCs isolated from mice before the development of functional GC synapses, an effect blocked by an antibody directed against Flk1 (αFlk1) or by pharmacological inhibition of its activity. Calcium imaging of human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells heterologously expressing Flk1 with the NMDAR NR1 and NR2B subunits confirmed that VEGF acted through Flk1 to enhance the NMDR-mediated calcium signal, and patch-clamp analysis of cerebellar slices showed that VEGF acted through Flk1 to potentiate NMDAR-mediated inward current in GCs. Flk1 coimmunoprecipitated with NR1 and NR2B from GCs and transfected HEK-293 cells, and VEGF increased the numbers of Flk1 clusters and Flk1-NRB2 co-clusters on the GC surface. VEGF stimulated the activation of GC Src-family tyrosine kinases (SFKs) and increased phosphorylation of NRB2. Mutational analyses of transfected HEK-293 cells indicated that VEGF activated Flk1 to stimulate the SFK-dependent tyrosine phosphorylation of NRB2, and thereby the ability of VEGF to enhance the NMDR-mediated calcium signal, a conclusion confirmed by pharmacological analyses in GCs. GC migration toward VEGF in vitro was blocked by the NMDAR antagonist D-APV (D-2-amino-5-phosphono-valerate), and analyses of the effects of D-APV and αFlk1 on GC migration in cerebellar slices were consistent with Flk1 and NMDAR mediating GC migration through a common pathway. Thus, the authors conclude that VEGF acts through SFKs to enhance NMDAR signaling and thereby promote GC migration. C. Meissirel, C. Ruiz de Almodovar, E. Knevels, C. Coulon, N. Chounlamountri, I. Segura, P. de Rossi, S. Vinckier, K. Anthonis, B. Deléglise, M. de Mol, C. Ali, K. Dassonville, E. Loyens, J. Honnorat, Y. Michotte, V. Rogemond, I. Smolders, T. Voets, D. Vivien, P. Vanden Berghe, L. Van Den Bosch, W. Robberecht, A. Chédotal, S. Oliviero, M. Dewerchin, D. Schmucker, N. Thomasset, P. Salin, P. Carmeliet, VEGF modulates NMDA receptors activity in cerebellar granule cells through Src-family kinases before synapse formation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 108, 13782–13787 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This essay sketches out the impact of right of publicity law on black cultural production. More concretely, it considers consider the implications of publicity law for black artists, and what help, if any, publicity rights offer to the problem of under-protection of performance rights. The right of publicity protects against unauthorized appropriation of a person's name, likeness, portrait, picture, voice and other indicia of identity or persona. This essay focuses on the issue of performance rights, or lack thereof, for artists generally and black artists in particular. Like other Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), the right of publicity has the potential to shrink both the public domain and the marketplace of ideas, thus preventing the dissemination of informational and creative works. Standard practice when writing an article about the right of publicity is to note the intense criticism the right engenders in the academic literature. Not wishing to miss 'the fun,' this is the author's third article on publicity rights, after vowing publicly never to write in the area. As is common among IP scholars, the author has argued elsewhere that IPRs have expanded, and has targeted the right of publicity for particularly harsh treatment.


With inevitable urbanisation pressure, waste management will continue to be an everyday concern in human civilisation. Although the common observation in most towns is net accumulation of wastes, and subsequent environmental and health implications, waste management can be enterprised as a source of income for the increasing numbers of unemployed youths in Kenya. This project focussed on determining the business and employment opportunities available in domestic solid waste management in Eldoret town. Data were collected from three income groups purposively selected, and the subjects within each strata selected through simple random sampling. The results indicated that business opportunities existed in areas of collection, sorting, compo sting and recycling of domestic solid wastes. To facilitate sorting, households should be provided with specially designed waste bins with four compartments in which one compartment can be used to collect metallic solid wastes, another to collects plastics, another to collect papers and the other for miscellaneous. By virtue of their low initial capital base, the youth as potential entrepreneurs in waste management should be facilitated with credit and other support from relevant authorities like government, civil society and the private sector to engage merchants and other institutions already trading in waste management. There is also need for capacity and competence building among these potential entrepreneurs in all aspects of waste production and management, in line with business requirements. General public awareness on the potential of waste as a source of income is also critical in order to reduce the stigma associated with handling wastes, and the myth that such work is for the low income groups.


1. Aseptic necrosis of bone is a serious chronic complication of deep-sea diving and compressed-air work. 2. The changes to the bone which occur in this condition take time to develop to the stage where they cause the radiographic signs of bone necrosis, and consequently there is a delay of some months between the causal incident and the first diagnosis by radiography. 3. As a possible method for the earlier detection of bone necrosis the 24 h urinary excretion of hydroxyproline was measured over a period before and after experimental production of bone necrosis in rabbits by the intra-arterial injection of glass microspheres. 4. Total hydroxyproline excretion rose significantly within a few days of the injection in those rabbits in which there was later shown to be historical evidence of bone necrosis. This rise occurred long before there was any radiographic changes. 5. It is suggested that measurements of urinary hydroxyproline might be used to give an early indication of bone necrosis in man.


We use newly available representative panel data for manufacturing enterprises in West and East Germany to investigate the link between production-related subsidies and exports. We document that only a small fraction of enterprises is subsidized, and that exports and subsidies are positively related. Using a matching approach to investigate the causal effect of subsidies on export activities we find no impact of subsidies on the probability to start exporting, and only weak evidence for an impact of subsidies on the share of exports in total sales in West Germany but no evidence in East Germany.


Pediatric differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) is a rare disease. Initial treatment of DTC consists of a total or near-total thyroidectomy and 131I therapy. Previous studies on adults showed that 131I treatment may reduce salivary gland function (SGF). Studies regarding SGF in children treated for DTC are sparse. Our aim was to assess the long-term effects of 131I treatment on SGF in survivors of pediatric DTC. Methods: In a nationwide cross-sectional study, SGF in patients treated for pediatric DTC between 1970 and 2013 (>5 y after diagnosis, ≥18 y old at the time of evaluation) was studied. SGF was assessed by sialometry, sialochemistry, and a xerostomia inventory. Salivary gland dysfunction (SGD) was defined as an unstimulated whole saliva flow of no more than 0.2 mL/min or a stimulated whole saliva flow of no more than 0.7 mL/min. Results: Sixty-five patients underwent 131I treatment (median age at evaluation, 33 y, with an interquartile range [IQR] of 25–40 y; 86.2% female; median follow-up period, 11 y, with an IQR of 6–22 y). Median cumulative 131I activity was 5.88 GBq, with an IQR of 2.92–12.95 GBq, and 47.7% underwent multiple 131I administrations. SGD was present in 30 (47.6%) patients. Levels of amylase and total protein in saliva were reduced. Moderate to severe xerostomia was present in 22 (35.5%) patients. Stimulated salivary secretion was lower and the severity of xerostomia complaints higher in patients treated with higher cumulative 131I activity. Conclusion: In survivors of pediatric DTC, clinically significant SGD was found in 35.5% and was related to the cumulative 131I activity of the treatment.


In this paper, we propose a new accelerated stochastic first-order method called clipped-SSTM for smooth convex stochastic optimization with heavy-tailed distributed noise in stochastic gradients and derive the first high-probability complexity bounds for this method closing the gap in the theory of stochastic optimization with heavy-tailed noise. Our method is based on a special variant of accelerated Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and clipping of stochastic gradients. We extend our method to the strongly convex case and prove new complexity bounds that outperform state-of-the-art results in this case. Finally, we extend our proof technique and derive the first non-trivial high-probability complexity bounds for SGD with clipping without light-tails assumption on the noise.


Electrochemical methods have been used for the determination of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory
drugs (NSAID) just as used in the determination of various drugs. Among voltammetric
methods; differential pulse voltammetric method, square wave voltammetric method and linear
sweep voltammetric method are the most commonly used ones. NSAIDs are widely used in the
treatment of inflammatory conditions such as musculoskeletal disorders (rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis,
acute gouty arthritis) and dental pain, menstrual pain, postoperative pain and migraine. In
this review, some selected recent electrochemical studies were selected related to the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory
drug analyzes. The aim of this review is to evaluate and discuss the advantages, details
and usages of electroanalytical methods in the determination of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug.


Although most testators hire lawyers, others draft their own wills. Some try to comply with the Wills Act, which requires testamentary instruments to be signed by the testator and by two witnesses. Some create holographic wills, which are valid in about half of American states, and must be in the testator's handwriting rather than attested. Some purchase fill-in-the-blank forms. And some have started using online will-making software sold by companies like Nolo Press, LegalZoom, and Rocket Lawyer.

These do-it-yourself (DIY) testamentary instruments are controversial. Proponents argue that they empower people who are too poor or too sick to consult an attorney, but critics assail them as a fertile source of litigation. Nevertheless, there is no hard data about how homemade wills compare to their professionally-drafted counterparts.

This contribution to the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel and UC Davis Law Review Symposium improves our understanding of these issues by analyzing 1,133 recently-probated estates from Alameda and San Francisco Counties, California. The Article reaches three main conclusions. First, it is unclear whether people who create their own wills are less wealthy than those who hire lawyers. Second, there is some evidence that DIY devices are particularly useful for testators who fall gravely ill. Third, even controlling for the impact of other variables through a regression analysis, holographs in Alameda County and self-made and attested wills in San Francisco County are correlated with a statistically significant increase in the odds of litigation. Accordingly, the Article provides qualified support to both sides in this debate.


This paper presents empirical data on American adult Internet users' knowledge about and perceptions of Internet advertising techniques. We present the results of in-depth interviews and an online survey focusing on participants' views of online advertising and their ability to make decisions about privacy tradeoffs. We find users hold misconceptions about the purpose of cookies and the effects of clearing them, which limits cookie management as a self-help mechanism enabling user choice. Only 11% of respondents understood the text description of NAI opt-out cookies, which are a self-help mechanism that enables user choice. 86% believe ads are tailored to websites they have visited in the past, but only 39% believe there are currently ads based on email content, and only 9% think it is OK to see ads based on email content as long as their email service is free. About 20% of participants want the benefits of targeted advertising, but 64% find the idea invasive, and we see signs of a possible chilling effect with 40% self-reporting they would change their online behavior if advertisers were collecting data. We find a gap between people's willingness to pay to protect their privacy and their willingness to accept discounts in exchange for private information. 69% believe privacy is a right and 61% think it is "extortion" to pay to keep their data private. Only 11% say they would pay to avoid ads. With the exception of contextual advertisements, we find most participants would prefer random ads to tailored ads, but approximately 20% of participants would rather tailored ads. We find participants are comfortable with the idea that advertising supports free online content, but they do not believe their data are part of that exchange. We conclude with observations for public policy, technologists, and education.


Packet dispersion techniques have been commonly used to estimate bandwidth in wired networks. However, current packet dispersion techniques were developed for wired network environments and can provide inaccurate results in wireless networks due to wireless capacity variability over short time scales. This paper develops an analytical model to investigate packet dispersion behavior in wireless networks. The packet dispersion model is validated using both an extended ns-2 simulator that includes 802.11 MAC layer rate adaptation and wireless 802.11b testbed measurements. Utilizing the model, this study shows that packet dispersion measures effective capacity and achievable throughput of wireless networks instead of the maximum capacity as in wired networks. Additionally, mean and variance of packet dispersion in IEEE 802.11 wireless networks is analyzed while considering the impact of channel conditions such as packet size, link rate, bit error rate and RTS/CTS


This article concerns the development of a framework for the formation of an adequate approach to moral reasoning in bioethics. Bioethics has largely been dominated by the influence of two approaches to moral reasoning, viz. utilitarianism and Kantian deontology. We aim to develop an approach to moral reasoning that we find more suitable, and that enables one to incorporate some of the valuable aspects of the two frameworks without succumbing to their deficiencies. This approach is the ethics of responsibility, as inspired by the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Zygmunt Bauman and Hans Jonas. The two central ideas of this approach are ( i ) the ethics of responsibility as an approach that accommodates the possibility of failure; and ( ii ) that the ethics of responsibility suggests the need for a dialectic of norms and applications that can, in principle, overcome some of the most serious shortcomings of utilitarianism and deontology.  In this regard we draw strongly on Aristotle's notion of practical wisdom, or phronesis . We further develop Aristotle's statement that 'Prudence is not concerned with universals only; it must also take cognisance of particulars, because it is concerned with conduct, and conduct has its sphere in particular circumstances.'


Offloading computations to multiple GPUs is not an easy task. It requires decomposing data, distributing computations and handling communication manually. Drop-in GPU libraries have made it easy to offload computations to multiple GPUs by hiding this complexity inside library calls. Such encapsulation prevents the reuse of the data between successive kernel invocations resulting in redundant communication. This limitation exists in multi-GPU libraries like CUBLASXT. In this paper, we introduce SemCache++, a semantics-aware GPU cache that automatically manages communication between the CPU and multiple GPUs in addition to optimizing communication by eliminating redundant transfers using caching. SemCache++ is used to build the first multi-GPU drop-in replacement library that (a) uses the virtual memory to automatically manage and optimize multi-GPU communication and (b) requires no program rewriting or annotations. Our caching technique is efficient; it uses a two level caching directory to track matrices and sub-matrices. Experimental results show that our system can eliminate redundant communication and deliver significant performance improvements over multi-GPU libraries like CUBLASXT.


This book brings together the experience of central banks and national statistical agencies in countries that focus their monetary policy on inflation targets. Inflation targeting has led to a close interface between these two sets of institutions. When the performance of a central bank is measured in terms of specified price indices, which are usually compiled and disseminated by the national statistical agency, the role of national statistical agencies becomes central to the credibility of monetary policy. Data needs and uses have also shifted, with implications for national and international statistics compilation: market data have gained in importance; less emphasis is placed on traditional monetary aggregates; and greater attention is paid to timeliness, adherence to sound economic accounting standards, and other aspects of data quality.


An unexpected political mobilisation leads to the occupation of a large number of public squares in French cities from the end of March to July 2016. In those Nuits Debout, a collective starts up BiblioDebout, a participative library working on a gift basis. Trough participative observations and text analysis of the collective's mailing lists, this paper studies how BiblioDebout expresses a specific relationship between knowledge and power, and, therefore, emancipation. BiblioDebout is utopian, egalitarian, emotional and experimental, and so on could be an inspiration for public libraries willing to renew with their political vocation.


Creating and running software produces large amounts of raw data about the development process and the customer usage, which can be turned into actionable insight with the help of skilled data scientists. Unfortunately, data scientists with the analytical and software engineering skills to analyze these large data sets have been hard to come by; only recently have software companies started to develop competencies in software-oriented data analytics. To understand this emerging role, we interviewed data scientists across several product groups at Microsoft. In this paper, we describe their education and training background, their missions in software engineering contexts, and the type of problems on which they work. We identify five distinct working styles of data scientists: (1) Insight Providers, who work with engineers to collect the data needed to inform decisions that managers make; (2) Modeling Specialists, who use their machine learning expertise to build predictive models; (3) Platform Builders, who create data platforms, balancing both engineering and data analysis concerns; (4) Polymaths, who do all data science activities themselves; and (5) Team Leaders, who run teams of data scientists and spread best practices. We further describe a set of strategies that they employ to increase the impact and actionability of their work.


The mitochondrial phosphate carrier (PiC) is a member of the family of inner-membrane carrier proteins which are generally synthesized without a cleavable presequence. Surprisingly, the cDNA sequences of bovine and rat PiC suggested the existence of an amino-terminal extension sequence in the precursor of PiC. By expressing PiC in vitro, we found that PiC is indeed synthesized as a larger precursor. This precursor was imported and proteolytically processed by mitochondria, whereby the correct amino-terminus of the mature protein was generated. Import of PiC showed the characteristics of mitochondrial protein uptake, such as dependence on ATP and a membrane potential and involvement of contact sites between mitochondrial outer and inner membranes. The precursor imported in vitro was correctly assembled into the functional form, demonstrating that the authentic import and assembly pathway of PiC was reconstituted when starting with the presequence-carrying precursor. These results are discussed in connection with the recently postulated role of PiC as an import receptor located in the outer membrane.


Abstract This paper analyzes the spillovers of higher U.S. interest rates on economic activity in a large panel of 50 advanced and emerging economies. We allow the response of GDP in each country to vary according to its exchange rate regime, trade openness, and a vulnerability index that includes current account, foreign reserves, inflation, and external debt. We document large heterogeneity in the response of advanced and emerging economies to U.S. interest rate surprises. In response to a U.S. monetary tightening, GDP in foreign economies drops about as much as it does in the United States, with a larger decline in emerging economies than in advanced economies. In advanced economies, trade openness with the United States and the exchange rate regime account for a large portion of the contraction in activity. In emerging economies, the responses do not depend on the exchange rate regime or trade openness, but are larger when vulnerability is high.


This publication proposes a framework for assessing management effectiveness, recognising the need for a variety of responses depending on needs and resources. It aims to help all those who wish to assess protected areas, both in suggesting what needs to be done and in providing some guidelines. It includes six practical case studies from Australia, the Congo Basin, Central America, South America and the USA


In this paper, we study the problem of secure key management for smart grid. Since existing key management schemes are not suitable for deployment in smart grid, in this paper, we propose a novel key management scheme which combines symmetric key technique and elliptic curve public key technique. The symmetric key scheme is based on the Needham-Schroeder authentication protocol. We show that the known threats including the man-in-the-middle attack and the replay attack can be effectively eliminated under the proposed scheme. The advantages of the new key management scheme include strong security, scalability, fault-tolerance, accessibility, and efficiency.


The given work is devoted to designing and implementing different dynamic offset cancellation techniques for 50 nm technology CMOS operational amplifiers. The goal is to minimize or get rid of the effects of the offset voltage. Offset voltage exists in all differential amplifiers due to the fact that no pair of transistors can be fabricated with the same size, there is always a slight difference in their dimensions (length or width), this gives rise to an undesirable effect called offset, the value of offset voltage for cheap commercial amplifiers are in the range of 1 to 10 mV, de-spite the fact that this isn't a significant value, due to the high gain of such amplifiers, this voltage is amplified by tens or hundreds of times, this results in clipping of the output signal and this further limits the amplifier's maximum allowable input voltage within the given dynamic range, hence its of great importance to take this small voltage into consideration, low-offset amplifiers find applications in mixers, analog to digital converters, instrumentation devices, etc. In this thesis, by using two different techniques for removing offset voltage (chopping and auto-zeroing), five low offset operational amplifiers were designed. The implemented methods reduced the flicker noise by more than 457 times (from 9.4 nV/√Hz to 20 pV/√Hz) at 1 Hz. All the simulations were done using Cadence Virtuoso.


In 2050 there will be 9.3 billion people alive - compared with 7 billion today - and the number will still be rising. The population aged over sixty-five will have more than doubled, to more than 16 per cent; China's GDP will be 80 per cent more than America's; and the number of cars on India's roads will have increased by 3,880 per cent. And, in 2050 it should be clear whether we are alone in the universe. What other megachanges can we expect - and what will their impact be? This comprehensive and compelling book will cover the most significant trends that are shaping the coming decades, with each of its twenty chapters elegantly and authoritatively outlined by Economist contributors, and rich in supporting facts and figures. It will chart the rise and fall of fertility rates across continents; how energy resources will change in light of new technology, and how different nations will deal with major developments in science and warfare. Megachange is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what the next four decades hold in store.


Home rule powers are essential parts of the American governing process, but they vary widely from state to state. This authoritative reference work examines the powers and functions of municipalities and counties that operate under home rule within each state. For example, the ability of a local municipality to raise taxes, annex land, or impose regulations is determined by their home rule powers from the states. This volume provides a reliable reference work for researchers and students - a single source that readers can trust for information about: the actions that local governments can - and cannot - pursue; states where power is centralized at the capital and where it is not; how home rule varies within each state by governmental function; and trends in important issues such as taxes, land annexation, and citizen access. The editors organized the book in three parts: an overview of American home rule, including its history; a state-by-state description of home rule authority; and a comparative appendix that allows readers a quick reference source of powers by state. A scholar or governmental expert was selected in each state to prepare the state descriptions. Each chapter follows the same outline of content that allows easy comparison between states. In an era of power and responsibilities devolving from the national government to states and localities, the use of home rule powers has become increasingly important to the health of American government and federalism. Researchers and interested citizens will benefit from this comprehensive reference. "Home Rule in America" was directed by Dale Krane of the department of public administration, University of Nebraska, Omaha; Platon N. Rigos, department of government and international affairs, University of South Florida; and Melvin Hill, the Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia.


Traveling Spirit Masters presents a rich counterpoint of vivid, often lyrical (and very occasionally, slightly arch) descriptions of places, performance events, and human interactions with each other and with spirits, juxtaposed in alternate chapters with a dense invocation and deployment of theory concerned with music, trance, consciousness, memory, and performance across a wide spectrum of disciplines, such that reading the book's bibliography and notes is itself a kind of odyssey. The work is grounded in direct participation over decades in moroccan life and Gnawa possession ceremonies, as well as travelling with musicians to world music performance venues in europe and the united States. kapchan's reflexive exposition of her roles in the activities she describes, including a few glimpses of trance and dream experiences, is articulate but restrained, sometimes teasingly enigmatic, as when she describes in passing her choice of an Arabic personal name, "najma," meaning "star," in honor of her grandmother, Stella, "a hungarian immigrant with special powers" (p. 166). The trajectory of themes in the book is peripatetic or perhaps, helical. topics and theoretical approaches are opened, developed somewhat, then left aside only to reappear later in other contexts: for example, thematically, the importance of parallel experiences of racial marginalization, African diaspora and slavery in the ethos and aesthetic of Gnawa performance and of African American blues and jazz (pp. 177, 188, 208–9, 233, and elsewhere); or theoretically, as in approaches to the language-related aspects of Gnawa, invoking ethnopoetics and indexicality /pragmatics theory from Jakobson (on ethnopoetics, pp. 83, 85) to Peirce, morris, Silverstein and caton (pp. 176, 226), in chapter 9 regarding "epiphanies," with linguistic discussion at the beginning and end of this chapter but not so much in the middle. merleau-Ponty on prelinguistic—but not pre-cultural—formations (e.g., pp. 55–6, 118–9, 186) and kristeva's definition of the abject (pp. 72–3; 186 inter alia) also make cameo appearances on several occasions, more fully revelatory once the reader can stitch them together. There are some examples of concepts or cases cited (invoked) without enough discussion to achieve meaningful application (Susan Slyomovics on "memory maps" in Palestinian memory books of vanished villages, p. 225, or kay turner on folk altars, p. 222). Perhaps these works were suggestive for the author but even for a reader who knows them, such unelaborated in-text citations create a sensation of theory name-dropping, not just paying one's intellectual dues. overall, though, the discussion's thematic motility seems somehow appropriate to the topic, in the sense that perspectives on trance, possession, and the spirits of Gnawa belief and experience (kapchan's, as well as others') are developed progressively, experientially, and emergently in reiterated communication with others so engaged. linear, categorical explanations are not really what possession trance is about. whatever the order of going, one learns a lot from this book about the cultural specificity of trance experiences and the complexities of recent and ongoing translations from performative practices grounded in specific local spiritual experiences and belief systems (moroccan Gnawa) to international entertainment genres and performance spaces ("trance music" as a world music category, and world music as a performance circuit). while there are musicological commonalities supporting some intercultural collabora-


Patents have always been licensed. Patents have always been acquired. Patents have even been acquired for the purpose of licensing new entrants. In short, there have always been secondary markets. But licensing acquired patents is a fairly recent business model. To be sure, there have been some historical exceptions but, for the most part, historical licensing and secondary markets primarily involved inventors (and their companies) and producers of products and services. While some of the same costs and benefits might apply to licensing of non-acquired patents by individuals or producing companies, examining the acquisition model improves analytical rigor.This essay, presented at the "New Business Models and New Opportunities" panel of the Commercial Function of Patents in Today's Innovation Economy conference, explores acquired patent licensing in two ways. First, it makes the case that the business model is new while presenting and gleaning knowledge from historic exceptions. Second, it suggests ways that acquired patent licensing can have a commercial benefit, even though it is the least socially beneficial type of licensing, and even if the licensed patents are likely to be invalid if tested in litigation.Potential benefits are three-fold. Benefits are maximized with good faith negotiation and pricing that does not overvalue patents given their likely validity. Even so, some of the benefits might occur even if licensing fails and litigation ensues. First, the cost of finding relevant patents implies that patent owners are in a better position to communicate information than are producers. Second, patent licenses can provide operating freedom, especially as opposed to competitors who have not licensed. Third, patent licensing can improve the marketplace and incentivize earlier technology transfer -- eventually even cutting out the acquiring intermediary if it is efficient to do so.


BackgroundAs more and more organizations and employees try to seek ways to relieve the tensions between work and out-of-work life demands, there has been a growing body of research which examines work–life and work-family issues. However, most of work-life balance research so far has been conducted under the context of western industrialized countries. Though some recent studies have addressed this problem by investigating work-life balance in countries which are culturally or politically different from western, industrialized ones, only a handful of studies have applied cross-cultural analysis methods by sampling data from countries with obviously different cultures.Cross-industry studies agreed to the notion that university employees experience a significantly higher level of work-life conflict than employees in other industries. Meanwhile, the higher education worldwide is experiencing major transformation, which has a significant impact on the work and life among academics and professional staff. Therefore, in-depth and comprehensive WLB research with university academics as targeted subjects might be of great significance, especially from a cross-cultural comparative framework, which is a potential area to be expanded and developed.PurposeThis paper servers as a literature overview of the author's upcoming comparative study on the present situation of work-life balance among university academics between China and Sweden. The paper will review the definitions of some key concepts, the development of the relevant studies and some major theories adopted in the WLB research area. It is hoped that the findings based on the analysis of the literature review and the discussion about its implications can shed great light on the upcoming study.MethodA qualitative method will be used in this study. Since it is basically a literature review, the whole process of research starts from recognition, retrieval and recollection of the relevant literature (keyword searching is the major way adopted throughout the whole process of data collection, with the help of some databases), and then based on the comprehension of the selected literature, analyzes and applies the literature to the research questions, finally ends with evaluation and discussions on their implications to the upcoming research.Results and findingsA review of literature in this paper helps the author obtain a general picture of the previous studies in the WLB research area. The analysis and discussion about their implications provides the author with some perspectives to approaching the upcoming research listed in the following aspects.1) About the research purposeLiterature review in the area of cross-national/cultural studies reveals the significance and feasibility of conducting a comparative study between two distinct cultures. And it is clear that the width and depth of comparative study, particularly between culturally diverse areas or countries, need to be explored. This finding confirms the necessity of the author's future research which aims to conduct a comparative study on the present situation of work-life balance among university academics between China and Sweden.2) About the research designThe examination and exploration of the themes, categories and research methods in the previous studies is of vital significance for the choice of major category and research design of the upcoming research. The upcoming research will be a comparative empirical study from a cross-cultural comparative perspective. It will basically be a qualitative study, with the help of some quantitative method to collect and analyze the data to be collected from two examples universities in China and Sweden respectively. Methods of data collection include surveys, case studies, focus groups and interviews. Besides, a three-level framework will be established, which will consist of government policies and cultural context (macro level), organizational management (messo level) and individual differences (micro level).3) About the research questionsBased on the analysis and discussion of the literature review, some research questions can be raised in order to achieve the research purpose. The first question might deal with the workable definition of the key concept "work-life balance" and the theoretical framework of the research; the second question may target at revealing the present situation and individual differences of work-life balance among the subjects under the two contexts and the reasons underlying these differences; the third question may deal with the coping strategies to improve university academics' work-life balance.


Abstract : When there is more than one perspective to interpret a dataset concordance (or discordance) between the result sets from the different perspectives plays an important role in getting refined results. For example, several clustering algorithms generate different results for the same input. To get useful insights, users need to combine different perspectives by checking concordance between those results. In this paper, we present an interactive visualization tool called ConSet, where users can effectively examine multiple sets at once. It uses permutation matrix visualization to enable users to easily identify similar sets. In addition a standard Venn diagram, we introduce a Fairy diagram that allows users to compare two or three sets without inconsistencies. We conducted a qualitative user study to evaluate how our tool works in comparison with a traditional set visualization tool based on a Venn diagram. We found that users performed better with ConSet than with the traditional interface for many tasks and most users preferred ConSet.


This book attempts to bring together the methodological and substantive aspects of studying the teacher's life and work. Some of the chapters in the book provide a "how to do" approach for those wishing to study the teacher's life and work employing a life history method, whilst other chapters provide the type of substantive and generic findings which might be anticipated when conducting life history work.

The focus on professional life and work has been growing rapidly in the last two or three decades. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly there is a methodological impulse; many new studies are adopting a life history approach. The life history tradition aims to understand the interface between people's life and their work. It also seeks to explore the historical context and the socio-political circumstances in which people's life and work is located.

A further major reason for investigating the teacher's life and work at the moment is the huge range of restructuring initiatives taking place throughout the educational world. There is a kind of 'world movement' to restructure education and health – certainly in most Western countries. Generally this takes the form of the introduction of the three T's – targets, tests and tables – and the increasing accountability and performativity regimes associated with these new forms of evaluation.

Significantly these initiatives have been introduced at governmental level in most countries with the minimum of consultation with teacher workforces. As a result there is growing evidence of a clash between professional life and work missions and the restructuring initiatives which aim to transform these missions. Perhaps the best way to explore this increasingly acute clash of values is through the investigation of professional life and work.

Investigating the Teacher's Life and Work aims to bring together the methodological and substantive approaches and to show how this kind of study can increase our understanding of the interface between government intentions and teacher's beliefs and motives.


Continuous increase in the yield of maize (Zea mays L.) in the U.S. Corn Be-It has involved an interaction with plant density. A number of contributing traits and mechanisms have been suggested. In this Study we used a modeling approach to examine whether changes in canopy and/or root system architecture might explain the observed trends. A maize crop model was generalized so that changes in canopy and root system architecture could be examined. A layered, diurnal canopy photosynthesis model was introduced to predict consequences of change in canopy architecture. A two-dimensional root exploration model was introduced to predict consequences of change in root system architecture. Field experiments were conducted to derive model parameters for the base hybrid (Pioneer 3394). Simulation studies for various canopy and root system architectures were undertaken for a range of sites, soils, and densities. Simulated responses to density compared well with those found in field experiments. The analysis indicated that (i) change in root system architecture and water capture had a direct effect on biomass accumulation and historical yield trends; and (ii) change in canopy architecture had little direct effect but likely had important indirect effects via leaf area retention and partitioning of carbohydrate to the ear, The study provided plausible explarations and identified testable hypotheses for future research and crop improvement effort.


We propose a notion of deterministic association rules for ordered data. We prove that our proposed rules can be formally justified by a purely logical characterization, namely, a natural notion of empirical Horn approximation for ordered data which involves background Horn conditions; these ensure the consistency of the propositional theory obtained with the ordered context. The main proof resorts to a concept lattice model in the framework of Formal Concept Analysis, but adapted to ordered contexts. We also discuss a general method to mine these rules that can be easily incorporated into any algorithm for mining closed sequences, of which there are already some in the literature.


New Faces of the Fur Trade is a collection of fifteen essays selected from the Seventh North American Fur Trade Conference held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1995. These articles question the traditional focus of fur trade literature and suggest that there are richer, more diverse narratives to be constructed and new ways to look at the fur trade. Many focus on subjects and themes that either have been formerly overlooked or have been introduced and then neglected. Fur trade studies have been criticized for remaining outside the current mainstream of historiography, in particular for paying scant attention to the rich insights to be found in approaches adopted from the fields of social and gender history. This volume redresses some of those omissions.


What is a Criminal Code decision? In the course of an investigation into a Licensed Insolvency Trustee (LIT)'s professional conduct, if the investigator has concerns, based upon reasonable grounds, that the LIT may have committed an offence as set out in the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act or in the Criminal Code, the matter may also be referred to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for investigation. Charges leading to judgment and sentencing may be filed against the LIT.


Abstract This article investigates the in-cylinder heat transfer losses of a free-piston diesel engine and compares the results with those of a conventional engine, using a multidimensional simulation model. In-cylinder heat transfer, fuel efficiency, and nitrogen oxides (NO) emissions formation are studied, along with the suitability of the free-piston engine to use a low heat rejection combustion chamber design. It is found that the high piston acceleration around top dead centre and the fast power stroke expansion in the free-piston engine lead to reduced heat transfer losses and reduced NO emissions formation, the latter in the order of 17 per cent compared with conventional engines. Even for highly insulated combustion chambers, the free-piston engine is predicted to have lower NO emissions than the conventional engine in the original configuration. The use of a low heat rejection combustion chamber is found to benefit engine fuel efficiency in both free-piston and conventional engines, with a 30 per cent heat loss reduction improving the indicated efficiency by approximately 3 percentage points. With a simpler implementation of combustion chamber insulation due to the low side forces on the piston, it is argued that the free-piston engine should be well suited for such an operation.


In recent years we have witnessed an increasing convergence of work in International Politics and Performance Studies around the troubled, and often troubling, relationship between politics and aesthetics. Whilst examination of political aesthetics, aesthetic politics, and politics of aesthetic practice has been central to research in both disciplines for some time, the emergence of a distinctive 'performative turn' in International Politics and a critical return to the centrality of politics and the concept of 'the political' in Performance Studies highlights the importance of investigating the productivity of bringing the methods and approaches of the two fields of enquiry into dialogue and mutual relation.

Exploring a wide range of issues including rioting, youth-driven protests, border security practices and the significance of cultural awareness in war, this text provides an accessible and cutting edge survey of the intersection of international politics and performance examining issues surrounding the politics of appearance, image, event and place; and discusses the development and deployment of innovative critical and creative research methods, from auto-ethnography to site-specific theatre-making, from philosophical aesthetics to the aesthetic thought of new securities scenario-planning.

The book's focus throughout is on the materiality of performance practices—on the politics of making, spectating, and participating in a variety of modes as political actors and audiences—whilst also seeking to explicate the performative dynamics of creative and critical thinking. Structured thematically and framed by a detailed introduction and conclusion, the focus is on producing a dialogue between contributors and providing an essential reference point in this developing field.

This work is essential reading for students of politics and performance and will be of great interest to students and scholars of IR, performance studies and cultural studies.

Edited by Adrian Kear.


We consider a class of variable effort human annotation tasks in which the number of labels required per item can greatly vary (e.g., finding all faces in an image, named entities in a text, bird calls in an audio recording, etc.). In such tasks, some items require far more effort than others to annotate. Furthermore, the per-item annotation effort is not known until after each item is annotated since determining the number of labels required is an implicit part of the annotation task itself. On an image bounding-box task with crowdsourced annotators, we show that annotator accuracy and recall consistently drop as effort increases. We hypothesize reasons for this drop and investigate a set of approaches to counteract it. Firstly, we benchmark on this task a set of general best-practice methods for quality crowdsourcing. Notably, only one of these methods actually improves quality: the use of visible gold questions that provide periodic feedback to workers on their accuracy as they work. Given these promising results, we then investigate and evaluate variants of the visible gold approach, yielding further improvement. Final results show a 7% improvement in bounding-box accuracy over the baseline. We discuss the generality of the visible gold approach and promising directions for future research.


Mutations in the gene encoding the Survival Motor Neuron (SMN) protein are responsible for autosomal recessive proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). SMN orthologues have been identified in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe but, to date, no human paralogues have been described. Here we describe identification and characterization of an SMN-related protein (SMNrp) gene that encodes a novel protein of 239 amino acids, which has recently been identified as a constituent of the spliceosome complex and designated SPF30. Significant similarity to the SMN protein is apparent only within a central region of SMNrp that represents a tudor domain. The SMNrp/SPF30 gene has been mapped to chromosome 10q23. It is differentially expressed, with abundant levels in skeletal muscle. An exclusively nuclear localization for SMNrp in cultured cells and muscle sections was revealed using GFP fusion constructs and thereafter confirmed with a polyclonal antibody raised against SMNrp. Overexpression of SMNrp as a fusion protein in HeLa cells in culture induced dose-dependent apoptosis with positive TUNEL staining. In addition to a possible role for this protein as a pro-apoptotic factor, SMN and its related protein share significant similarities in sequence and cellular function.


In this work we present an investigation on the behavior of microsomes containing human cytochrome P450 in cyclic voltammetry for drug detection. The microsomes are adsorbed on the surface of multi-walled carbon nanotubes by drop-casting. We demonstrate that the hydrophobic and highly electroactive surface of multi-walled carbon nanotubes enables to distinguish more clearly the contributions in reduction peak current attributed to the enzymatic components of microsomes. Voltammetric measurements were performed under several experimental conditions with two cytochrome P450-isoforms, 1A2 and 3A4. We show that the reduction current for the component of cytochrome P450-microsome linearly increases in the presence of a substrate.


Given the climate change, the high levels of pollution nowadays and the depletion of lithographic resources, low carbon technologies for road reinforcement with low energy consumption are essential for a sustainable future. These technologies, including incorporation of nonconventional materials, such as oil sands or bituminous sands, in pavement construction and recycling techniques of the existing deteriorated pavements, represent significant methods which can be performed for a better conservation of resources, and therefore the environment. In terms of environmental indicators assessment, the results of recent research undertaken for road pavement reinforcement strategies are presented. The Global Warming Potential expressed as quantities of CO2e emissions for a road pavement incorporating various alternative materials, such as oil sand and reclaimed asphalt have been evaluated using a life cycle assessment (LCA) study performed with asPECT software. The results obtained from these studies are presented within this paper and specific recommendations with regards to various technologies usage are given. These are required for minimizing the environmental impact of transport infrastructure and thus advancing towards low carbon mobility. The paper aims to highlight the need for effective measures concerning road pavements maintenance and intervention works. These measures are intended to extend the pavements lifecycle and therefore to reduce the overall ecological impact associated with the reconstruction of the road pavement because this action is correlated with significant quantities of polluting emissions released into the atmosphere, enormous granular materials and energy consumption and thus, an exponential increase of the greenhouse effect. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.21.4.18486


Key findings:

Finding 1: Shared values resulting from deliberative, group-based valuation are different from individual values. Case study evidence suggests that they are more informed, considered, confident and reflective of participants' deeper-held, transcendental values. Deliberated, group-based monetary values may be a better reflection of real welfare impacts than non-deliberated individual values, if derived through a carefully designed and managed process. Although more research is needed to expand the currently small evidence base on deliberative monetary methods, group deliberation has the potential to significantly enhance elicitation of values.

Finding 2: The ethical, moral and justice dimensions of many environmental issues necessitate approaches that allow for the elicitation of shared and plural values. Key ethical concerns include: 1) providing a space and opportunity for people to identify values that they may find difficult to articulate (e.g. spiritual, identity); 2) recognising that some values cannot be traded without discussion and negotiation (e.g. the legal or felt rights of local people, intrinsic values of other species); and 3) understanding that it is often difficult to isolate valuation from decision-making processes because people feel there are strong ethical or moral issues at stake that need to be debated (e.g. the justice of the process, fairness in the distribution of benefits or disbenefits, responsibility, and issues of sustainability and future generations).

Finding 3: Catalyst and/or conflict points can play a key role in the emergence and articulation of values at a societal or community level that have not previously been outwardly or explicitly articulated. Catalyst and conflict points can be symbolic and are often linked to wider contested issues and meanings about who is involved in decision-making, whose voice counts and who receives the benefits or disbenefits of environmental change. These catalyst points can potentially be connected to feelings of powerlessness that give rise to concern and protest. By recognising transcendental societal and communal values (the deeper-held and overarching values held by society and communities), it becomes possible to make these values explicit and incorporate them in decision-making to better anticipate and manage conflicts.

Finding 4: There is a diversity of ways in which shared, plural, cultural and social values are used, but they are rarely conceptualised. The UK NEAFO provides a clear theoretical framework that distinguishes and categorises different dimensions and types of shared values. The proposed range of value types was both identifiable and distinguishable within case study results. This suggests that the framework provides a useful basis for operationalizing shared values for decision-making.

Finding 5: Shared and social values in the sense of value to society is conceptualised very differently by conventional economics and other disciplines. Neoclassical economists have generally undertaken valuation by equating social value with the aggregate of individual values. They consider values as fundamentally commensurable. In contrast, literature from other disciplines consistently considers values as plural, not just in the sense that multiple things have value, but also that there are multiple dimensions to value that cannot necessarily be captured in a single metric. Within mainstream economics, the difficulties associated with commensurability and aggregating values have long been recognised, but have also been neglected. An interesting area for future debate between economic and non-economic views on values may be the normative nature of value-aggregation.

Finding 6: A mixed method approach is required to elicit the multiple dimensions of shared values and to translate deeper-held, transcendental values into contextual values and preferences. Monetary valuation is limited to quantifying values. Other methods are needed to understand their meaning or content, and the communal, societal and transcendental values that underpin them. Psychometric, non-analytical and interpretive methods (e.g. storytelling) can reveal those shared values. They can be combined with deliberative-analytical methods (e.g. deliberative monetary valuation and multi-criteria analysis) to provide a comprehensive valuation that can quantify values, understand their individual and shared meanings and significance, and better include ethical dimensions.

Finding 7: Deliberative and social learning processes help people to understand the values held by others; they can lead to increased sharing of values and/or to greater acceptance of the decisions emerging from such processes. Deliberation clearly affects what values participants express compared to non-deliberated processes. There is also a growing body of theoretical and empirical research suggesting that deliberation has the potential to affect how people understand and shape the values of others. Although rarely considered in the economic literature, the concept of social learning helps to explain some of the processes involved in deliberation. The extent to which deliberation or social learning helps participants express and shape values will depend upon the frequency and depth of interactions and the timescale over which interactions occur. Only a shift in cultural values (e.g. less emphasis on material wealth), reflected in other societal institutions (e.g. changes in the indicators used to measure national progress) is likely to achieve sustainable outcomes in the long-term.

Finding 8: Media analysis is a promising avenue for characterising different types of shared values at a large scale, as well as assessing the conflicts between the communal values of different sectors of society. There has been a marked increase in public interest in environmental issues over the last decade, which is reflected in their increased media coverage. Media content and discourse analysis is able to distinguish and characterise the plurality of cultural, societal and transcendental values and their interrelationships, and can offer a picture of the self- and other-regarding values that underpin environmental issues and conflicts. Social media can provide a further forum for understanding societal and communal values surrounding environmental issues.

Finding 9: Aesthetic and spiritual values of ecosystems have a strong non-instrumental component. While they benefit human well-being, they should not simply be classified as just 'services' or 'benefits'. Many spiritual discourses about nature resist talk of consequentialist benefits and economic analysis. These discourses counter assertions of the disenchantment of the world, which is associated with an instrumental environmental ethic and the commodification of nature. Allowing the possibility of enchantment can be a richer way of understanding our experience of nature and alerts us to the limitations of using economic models for valuation and informing decisions about these profound cultural ecosystem 'services'. Faith communities have experience of using these non-utilitarian values in their own decision-making and provide models that could be adapted for use in environmental decision-making.

Finding 10: Subjective well-being measures provide a useful means of assessing 'intangible' cultural ecosystem services and their benefits. Different user groups associate common elements of subjective well-being with environmental settings, providing opportunities for development of standardised measures. In the UK NEAFO, key facets of well-being associated with places in nature across different user groups included: engagement with nature (incorporating elements of connectedness, getting to know nature and the beauty of nature, and taking care of a place); therapeutic benefits (including physical and mental aspects of health); place identity (including a sense of place and belonging); spiritual value (in the sense of feeling connected or responsible to something larger than oneself); social bonding with others; and transformative and memorable experiences. Further empirical work with different user groups and environmental settings would allow for the continued development of a standardised tool for large-scale non-monetary assessment of cultural ecosystem services.


Knowledge of the fluence distribution in biological tissue is essential for applications of lasers and light in medicine. A method using a photoactivable fluorophore as a chemical actinometer is presented to investigate the fluence (J/cm2) distribution in tissue‐simulating phantoms. Such a chemical actinometer provides high spatial resolution (≤20 μm) while minimizing the disturbance of the fluence distribution. The actinometer substance, nonfluorescent in its native state, is incorporated into an acrylamide gel. Upon absorption of 351 nm radiation (λact), the actinometer substance becomes a Ruorophorc, which is excited at λex≤ 485 nm. Thus the spatial distribution of the emitted fluorescence (λem≤ 515 nm) in the actinometer represents the fluence distribution of the activating radiation. Using histological techniques, 20 μm sections are cut from gel‐like optical phantoms containing the actinometric substance. The fluorescence intensity in the section is recorded under a standard fluorescence microscope equipped with a sensitive video camera. To simulate different biological tissues, the scattering and absorption properties of the gel phantoms arc varicd over a wide range. The experimentally obtained fluence distributions are compared with theoretical models of light distribution in turbid media.


In this paper we report the electrochemical synthesis of core@shell dendrimer-encapsulated nanoparticles (DENs) consisting of cores containing 147 Au atoms (Au147) and Pt shells having ∼54 or ∼102 atoms (Au147@Ptn (n = 54 or 102)). The significance of this work arises from the correlation of the experimentally determined structural and electrocatalytic properties of these particles with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Specifically, we describe an experimental and theoretical study of Pb underpotential deposition (UPD) on Au147 DENs, the structure of both Au147@Pbn and Au147@Ptn DENs, and the activity of these DENs for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). DFT calculations show that Pb binding is stronger on the (100) facets of Au as compared to (111), and the calculated deposition and stripping potentials are consistent with those measured experimentally. Galvanic exchange is used to replace the surface Pb atoms with Pt, and a surface distortion is found for Au147@Ptn particles using molecular dynamics simulations in which the Pt-covered (100) facets shear into (111) diamond structures. DFT calculations of oxygen binding show that the distorted surfaces are the most active for the ORR, and that their activity is similar regardless of the Pt coverage. These calculations are consistent with rotating ring-disk voltammetry measurements.


ABSTRACT In the environmental psychology literature, the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale has been used to measure environmental attitude as a multidimensional concept. This study is conducted based on this multidimensionality concept to analyse willingness to pay for forest management targeting non-use value ecosystem services. In most previous studies, the NEP scale has been considered as a unidimensional measure and directly incorporated into the modelling. Here, we outline the relevance of considering such multidimensionality of the NEP scale using a different modelling procedure. This is performed following two modelling approaches (1) a random parameters logit model where the NEP score is incorporated directly and (2) a hybrid choice model in which latent variables identified from the NEP scale are incorporated in simultaneous equations setup. In both models, the environmental attitude influences preferences and willingness to pay estimates, but the first one ignoring the multidimensionality tends to exaggerate its impact. The hybrid choice model shows slightly lower statistical performance. However, in this model, the use of two latent variables reveal a non-uniform effect and thereby clearly shows the relevance of considering a multidimensional NEP scale for a better understanding of variations.