Background The pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus (DM) is variable, comprising different inflammatory and immune responses. Proteome analysis holds the promise of delivering insight into the pathophysiological changes associated with diabetes. Recently, we identified and validated urinary proteomics biomarkers for diabetes. Based on these initial findings, we aimed to further validate urinary proteomics biomarkers specific for diabetes in general, and particularity associated with either type 1 (T1D) or type 2 diabetes (T2D). Methodology/Principal Findings Therefore, the low-molecular-weight urinary proteome of 902 subjects from 10 different centers, 315 controls and 587 patients with T1D (n = 299) or T2D (n = 288), was analyzed using capillary-electrophoresis mass-spectrometry. The 261 urinary biomarkers (100 were sequenced) previously discovered in 205 subjects were validated in an additional 697 subjects to distinguish DM subjects (n = 382) from control subjects (n = 315) with 94% (95% CI: 92–95) accuracy in this study. To identify biomarkers that differentiate T1D from T2D, a subset of normoalbuminuric patients with T1D (n = 68) and T2D (n = 42) was employed, enabling identification of 131 biomarker candidates (40 were sequenced) differentially regulated between T1D and T2D. These biomarkers distinguished T1D from T2D in an independent validation set of normoalbuminuric patients (n = 108) with 88% (95% CI: 81–94%) accuracy, and in patients with impaired renal function (n = 369) with 85% (95% CI: 81–88%) accuracy. Specific collagen fragments were associated with diabetes and type of diabetes indicating changes in collagen turnover and extracellular matrix as one hallmark of the molecular pathophysiology of diabetes. Additional biomarkers including inflammatory processes and pro-thrombotic alterations were observed. Conclusions/Significance These findings, based on the largest proteomic study performed to date on subjects with DM, validate the previously described biomarkers for DM, and pinpoint differences in the urinary proteome of T1D and T2D, indicating significant differences in extracellular matrix remodeling.


Titanium alloys are used in aerospace industry owing to their high strength to weight ratio. These alloys are considered to be difficult to machine due to their rigidity and poor thermal conductivity. High-pressure jet-assisted machining of titanium alloys is beneficial. It not only increases production efficiency, by increasing the cutting speed and lowering temperature both in cutting zone and the cutting tool, but also improves chip control and increases tool life. It also produces better surface integrity and compress residual stress, which improves the properties of work-piece. Ti-6Al-4V (Ti-64) rod was machined by turning in two different manners, finishing and roughing. Tests were conducted on a lathe using the same cutting data and different cooling systems, high pressure and conventional. In order to illustrate the effect of high-pressure jet-assisted machining on the properties of the work-piece of Ti-6Al-4V and its residual stress, x-ray defractometery was used. The present study revealed that there were compressive residual stresses in the transversal and longitudinal directions of the cut and the residual stresses in both directions were nearly of the same magnitude. The depth profile of residual stress was measured as well after removing the material by etching. The shear stress was very low, almost negligible. High pressure cooling affected residual stresses in finishing more than in roughing.


When Netflix launched in April 1998, Internet video was in its infancy. Eighteen years later, Netflix has developed into the first truly global Internet TV network. Many books have been written about the five broadcast networks – NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the CW – and many about the major cable networks – HBO, CNN, MTV, Nickelodeon, just to name a few – and this is the fitting time to undertake a detailed analysis of how Netflix, as the preeminent Internet TV networks, has come to be. This book, then, combines historical, industrial, and textual analysis to investigate, contextualize, and historicize Netflix's development as an Internet TV network. The book is split into four chapters. The first explores the ways in which Netflix's development during its early years a DVD-by-mail company – 1998-2007, a period I am calling "Netflix as Rental Company" – lay the foundations for the company's future iterations and successes. During this period, Netflix adapted DVD distribution to the Internet, revolutionizing the way viewers receive, watch, and choose content, and built a brand reputation on consumer-centric innovation. This reputation served it well during its second phase, "Netflix as Syndicator" (2007-12), when the company turned from DVD rentals to online distribution. In chapter two, I explain who Netflix adapted syndication – a business model that has been a staple of US broadcasting for half a century – to Internet distribution. By doing so, Netflix up-ended both the TV industry's traditional content release structures and viewers' habits. By shifting TV distribution to the Internet, Netflix drastically increased the control viewers have over where, when, and on what devices viewers watch TV. In its third phase, Netflix entered the original programming business by subtly adapting traditional program genres, content, and release schedules to Internet video. I split this phase – "Netflix as Internet Network" (2012-present) – into two chapters. While many of Netflix's concerns parallel those of traditional networks – in terms of production and financing, for example – Internet networks also have a number of unique concerns in areas such as Net Neutrality and distribution windows. Netflix has led the charge on these issues, and chapter three explores Netflix's role as the first Internet network, including the development of its bingeviewing strategy and its push into international distribution. Finally, chapter four takes a deep dive in Netflix's foray into original program production. In its third phase, Netflix has adapted traditional TV structures to Internet distribution. Despite the innovations in short-form and user-generated content that sites like YouTube, Crackle, and Twitch have named, Netflix's traditional approach to programming has set the template for successful Internet networks that has been adopted by the likes of Hulu, Amazon, and Yahoo Screen. Chapter four analyses Netflix's biggest programs including House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Daredevil and others to explain how Netflix has adapted traditional TV genres and structures to the freedoms in production, marketing, and content possibilities that the Internet affords. In the same was that NBC set the example for broadcast networks in the 1950s and HBO developed the framework for cable TV in the 1990s, Netflix has set the template for Internet TV in the 2000s. Netflix's mix of technological advancements, consumer-centric practices, personalized content, and global mindset have become the gold standard for the how-and-why of developing a successful Internet TV network. Although other aspiring Internet networks Hulu and Amazon started out with a different ethos than Netflix, Netflix's financial, creative, and cultural success has forced a series of reactionary decisions from both Hulu and Amazon that have brought them closer and closer to the foundations Netflix began laying out in 1998. So while the Netflix model isn't the only possible model for an Internet network, it has become the blueprint for the newly-developing Internet TV ecosystem. NETFLIX AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNET TELEVISION NETWORK


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to explore the beliefs of occupational therapists working in mental health regarding the therapeutic value of "doing" as a treatment modality. Doing was defined as any activity or action-oriented approach that was identified and used by the participating therapists.

METHOD
Eleven occupational therapists working in a variety of mental health areas were observed as they conducted 3 to 6 regularly scheduled therapy sessions. They were then interviewed about their activity-related beliefs. Audiotapes of the 44 treatment sessions and 11 interviews were transcribed and then coded to identify emergent themes and categories of beliefs about activity.

RESULTS
Participants used a variety of activities in both task-based and verbally based treatment sessions. Multiple reasons for activity use were cited, particularly in relation to the task-based sessions. Two main themes related to the value of activity were (a) benefits of activity for the client and (b) benefits in facilitating the process of therapy. Categories of client-related benefits included skill development; impairment reduction; self-awareness; positive self-concept; interaction or connection with others; healthy, balanced routines; pleasure; and enhancement of occupational role performance. Perceived effects on the therapeutic process included creating a therapeutic context, enhancing client readiness, facilitating communication, and providing an organizing framework.

CONCLUSION
Occupational therapists working in mental health hold diverse beliefs about the value of doing in treatment. Basing practice on clearly identified and evidence-based beliefs will assist in ensuring a viable and valued future for the profession in this important domain of health services.


How you paid for an expense determines whether the expense should be imported or added as a new expense. Adding Travel Card Expenses [6] Adding Out-of-Pocket Expenses [7] Use these guides to add common travel expenses to your report. Adding Mileage to Expense Reports [8] Adding Lodging to Expense Reports [9] Adding Meal Per Diem to Expense Reports [10] Using the Travel Card to Pay for Travel Meals [11] Adding Attendees to Official Function Expenses [12] Reconciling Cash Advances [13]


This article proposes an innovative solution for reducing polluting gas emissions from road traffic in modern cities. It is based on our new Red Swarm architecture which is composed of a series of intelligent spots with WiFi connections that can suggest a customized route to drivers. We have tested our proposal in four different case studies corresponding to actual European smart cities. To this end, we first import the city information from OpenStreetMap into the SUMO road traffic micro-simulator, propose a Red Swarm architecture based on intelligent spots located at traffic lights, and then optimize the resulting system in terms of travel times and gas emissions by using an evolutionary algorithm. Our results show that an important quantitative reduction in gas emissions as well as in travel times can be achieved when vehicles are rerouted according to our Red Swarm indications. This represents a promising result for the low cost implementation of an idea that could engage the interest of both citizens and municipal authorities.


Many statistical agencies, survey organizations, and research centers collect data that suffer from item nonresponse and erroneous or inconsistent values. These data may be required to satisfy linear constraints, for example, bounds on individual variables and inequalities for ratios or sums of variables. Often these constraints are designed to identify faulty values, which then are blanked and imputed. The data also may exhibit complex distributional features, including nonlinear relationships and highly nonnormal distributions. We present a fully Bayesian, joint model for modeling or imputing data with missing/blanked values under linear constraints that (i) automatically incorporates the constraints in inferences and imputations, and (ii) uses a flexible Dirichlet process mixture of multivariate normal distributions to reflect complex distributional features. Our strategy for estimation is to augment the observed data with draws from a hypothetical population in which the constraints are not present, thereby taking advantage of computationally expedient methods for fitting mixture models. Missing/blanked items are sampled from their posterior distribution using the Hit-and-Run sampler, which guarantees that all imputations satisfy the constraints. We illustrate the approach using manufacturing data from Colombia, examining the potential to preserve joint distributions and a regression from the plant productivity literature. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


We consider the problem of answering queries about formulas of first-order logic based on background knowledge partially represented explicitly as other formulas, and partially represented as examples independently drawn from a fixed probability distribution. PAC semantics, introduced by Valiant, is one rigorous, general proposal for learning to reason in formal languages: although weaker than classical entailment, it allows for a powerful model theoretic framework for answering queries while requiring minimal assumptions about the form of the distribution in question. To date, however, the most significant limitation of that approach, and more generally most machine learning approaches with robustness guarantees, is that the logical language is ultimately essentially propositional, with finitely many atoms. Indeed, the theoretical findings on the learning of relational theories in such generality have been resoundingly negative. This is despite the fact that first-order logic is widely argued to be most appropriate for representing human knowledge. In this work, we present a new theoretical approach to robustly learning to reason in first-order logic, and consider universally quantified clauses over a countably infinite domain. Our results exploit symmetries exhibited by constants in the language, and generalize the notion of implicit learnability to show how queries can be computed against (implicitly) learned first-order background knowledge.


Previous research has suggested that the rigid pediatric ATD spine may not adequately represent the relatively mobile, multi-segmented spine of the child and thus may lead to important differences in the head trajectory of the ATD relative to a human. Recently we compared the responses of size-matched child volunteers to the Hybrid III 6-year-old ATD in low-speed frontal sled tests, illustrating differences in head, spinal, and pelvic kinematics as well as seating environment reaction loads. This paper expands this line of work to include comparisons between size-matched restrained child volunteers to the Hybrid III 10-year-old and the Q-series 6 and 10-year-old ATDs tested in the same low speed frontal environment. A 3-D near-infrared video target tracking system quantified the position of markers on the ATDs and volunteers(head top, nasion, external auditory meatus, C4, T1, and pelvis). Angular velocity of the head, seat belt forces, and reaction loads on the seat pan and foot rest were also measured. The Hybrid III 6 and Q6 exhibited significantly greater belt reaction loads compared to the pediatric volunteers, which exhibited greater seat pan shear. Compared to children, the Hybrid III 6 exhibited increased head rotation and similar head top and pelvic excursion, whereas the Q6 exhibited reductions in all three metrics. The Hybrid III 10 and Q10 ATDs exhibited reaction loads similar to the volunteers; however, excursions and head rotation were significantly reduced compared to volunteers. All pediatric ATDs exhibited significant reductions in C4 and T1excursions compared to the volunteers, likely due to the rigidity of the ATD thoracic spine. These analyses provide insight into aspects of ATD biofidelity in low-speed crash environments and illustrate differences in responses of the Hybrid III and Q-series pediatric ATDs.


This paper challenges a critical element of Packer's binary account of the criminal process, which characterized the criminal justice system as being caught in a perpetual struggle of values as between crime control and due process. Packer argued that there was a key division in the respective roles of legislatures and courts under his two models. According to his theory, the legislature is the institution of crime control, while the courts are concerned with due process. This paper challenges that claim. Although it acknowledges that courts are often instrumental in vindicating the interests of due process, it claims that when the empirical research into the actual workings of the criminal process is considered, along with the experience in both the United States and Canada over the intervening years, a fair amount of doubt emerges with respect to Packer's assumption regarding the predominance of courts in facilitating due process. The paper argues that because of their institutional limitations, courts alone are incapable of meaningfully regulating police authority. That goal also requires a serious legislative commitment. The legislature has a critically important role to play if due process is to be realized. On their own, courts are simply not up to the task. Only legislation can clearly, comprehensively, and prospectively delineate police powers and establish the sorts of procedural safeguards needed to check routine and low-level exercises of police discretion. Unfortunately, Packer's account of due process versus crime control depends on a fictionalized description of the courts, a view that actually serves to exacerbate the problem of low visibility abuses of police powers. It does so by reinforcing the rather misguided view that courts are capable of single-handedly vindicating the interests of due process. Experience has aptly demonstrated that they are not; that a collaborative effort between courts and legislatures is necessary for due process to be realized.


While quantum mechanics is by now a well-established theory, it nonetheless still fascinates both newcomers and experts alike with unusual phenomena. The paradox of Schrödinger's cat and the subtleties of the two-slit interference are timeless classics. Another less-familiar quantum effect, the oscillations of neutral mesons (bound states of a quark and an antiquark), has also intrigued legions of physicists for nearly sixty years [1]. These mesons oscillate back and forth between particle and antiparticle states. The theoretical ideas underlying this behavior involve concepts that are woven deeply into the history of particle physics. In Physical Review Letters, the LHCb Collaboration has now reported [2] the first significant single-measurement observation of oscillations in the neutral D-meson system.


Computational protein-protein interaction (PPI) prediction is a diverse field with multiple paradigms generating insightful interaction interface information. The shortcomings of one approach are often the strength of another and establishing the agreement between methodologies is valuable for the development of novel PPI prediction techniques. This study represents the first large-scale comparison of PPI sites determined through a sequence-based method (PIPE-Sites) and a structure-based method (PiSITEs). A set of interactions (n = 3,109) amenable to analysis by both methods was examined. Interestingly, the distributions of the sizes of the predicted interaction sites have similar means and identical median values. Using the Sorensen-Dice similarity coefficient and independent randomization testing, we determined the degree of agreement of the predicted sites of interaction for both methods to be statistically significant (p <; 0.001). Finally, applying the hypergeometric test and Q-Analysis, we identified 491 interactions with significantly heightened agreement (p <; 0.002). These interactions represent a broad range of biological function including transcriptional regulation, cell proliferation, cytoskeletal dynamics, and apoptosis. These findings corroborate the joint application of these paradigms for future PPI prediction studies.


The effectiveness factor of Pt/Al2O3/Al plate catalyst was studied experimentally. The Pt/Al2O3 catalyst layer, prepared by anodic oxidation and hot-water treatment, had a porous structure and a narrow pore-size distribution. Catalyst porosity was about 0.5 and the mean pore radius about 2nm. The rate of cyclohexane dehydrogenation reaction increased with the thickness of Pt/Al2O3 catalyst layer to a certain peak, then the effectiveness factor decreased with thickness. This was because reactant diffusion into the catalyst layer was the controlling step. The observed reaction rate per apparent surface area is governed by the effective diffusion coefficient and the reaction rate constant. The reaction rate constant can be improved by augmenting the Pt content and Pt dispersion. The effective diffusion coefficient will be also improved with a large pore radius, which can be realized by controlling the anodized alumina layer pore structure.


Author(s): Jeong, Kyungsoo | Advisor(s): Ritchie, Stephen G. | Abstract: More frequent vehicle movements are required for moving containers in a local area due to low unit volume that a single vehicle can handle compared with vessels and rails involved in the container supply chain. For this reason, truck operations for moving containers significantly affect not only transportation cost itself but also product price. They have inherent operational inefficiencies associated with empty container movements and container processes at facilities such as warehouses, distribution centers and intermodal terminals. One critical issue facing the trucking industry is the pressing need for truck routing plans that reduce such inefficiencies. Hence, this dissertation proposes to apply the concept of sharing resources, which is an emerging economic model, to container truck operations in order to resolve this issue. Two shareable resources – vehicles and containers – are considered.This study extends the literature on routing and scheduling problems that arise from container movements, and examines the possible benefits of sharing resources across customers. A series of truck container routing and scheduling problems were developed by assuming different levels of resource sharing among; (1) customers of one trucking operator, (2) customers across collaborations of multiple operators, and (3) customers over multi-day operations. To enable a trucking company to operate its fleet under a shared resource environment, two operational strategies – street turning and decoupling operations – together with temporal precedence constraints – in addition to the time constraints that are typically included in the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) – were adopted to address the proposed problems. Two meta-heuristic algorithms based on a variable neighborhood search (VNS) scheme were developed to solve the proposed problems, including temporal precedence constraints – which are computationally more expensive – for real-world applications. To address flexible time windows resulting from temporal precedence constraints, a novel feasibility check algorithm was developed. Results from a series of numerical experiments confirm that the proposed approach leverages the advantages of resource sharing, and the meta-heuristic algorithms are efficient solution approaches for each problem with the targeted resource sharing. Consequently, this dissertation offers a platform for the development of a decision-support tool for drayage companies by applying three different levels of resource sharing into their operations.


"Dark Back of Time" is a compelling story of the way in which reality blurs into fiction by Javier Marias, whose highly-anticipated new novel "The Infatuations" is published in 2013. It is translated by Esther Allen in "Penguin Modern Classics". 'We lose everything because everything remains except us', says the mysterious narrator of this extraordinary novel, which meditates on the transience, chance and fragility of life. As a man called Javier Marias recalls the strange events and people that shaped his past, including ghostly literary figures, a pilot, an adventurer, a brother who died as a child and the king of an island in the Caribbean, we begin to question the nature of time, memory and reality itself. Here the writer is both a keeper of memories and a purveyor of illusions, destined to be lost in the dark back of time. Javier Marias was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages and won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for "A Heart So White". He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne. "I was enthralled by his strange mix of made-up memories, lost experiences and real-life fantasies." (Marina Warner, "Guardian"). "He uses language like an anatomist uses a scalpel to lay bare the innermost secrets of that strangest of species, the human being." (W. G. Sebald, author of "Austerlitz").


Large amounts of unlabelled data are commonplace for many applications in computational pathology, whereas labelled data is often expensive, both in time and cost, to acquire. We investigate the performance of unsupervised and supervised deep learning methods when few labelled data are available. Three methods are compared: clustering autoencoder latent vectors (unsupervised), a single layer classifier combined with a pre-trained autoencoder (semi-supervised), and a supervised CNN. We apply these methods on hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained prostatectomy images to classify tumour versus non-tumour tissue. Results show that semi-/unsupervised methods have an advantage over supervised learning when few labels are available. Additionally, we show that incorporating immunohistochemistry (IHC) stained data provides an increase in performance over only using H&E.


Previous studies have hypothesised that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphisms may influence aerobic performance. The matrilineal inheritance and accumulation of polymorphisms in mtDNA means that mtDNA haplogroups, characterised by key polymorphisms, are often represented at different frequencies in different populations. The present study aimed to compare the mtDNA haplogroup distribution of elite Ethiopian athletes relative to the general Ethiopian population. The haplogroup distribution of 76 endurance athletes (E), members of the Ethiopian national athletics team, was compared to 108 members of the general Ethiopian population (C). DNA was extracted from buccal swabs and haplogroups assigned by sequencing part of the hypervariable sequence (HVS-I), followed by analysis of key coding-region polymorphisms. A high proportion of African 'L' haplogroups was found in athletes and controls (C=53%; E=55%). Haplogroup distribution of endurance runners did not differ from that of C (P=0.63). Elite Ethiopian athletes are not a mitochondrially distinct group relative to the Ethiopian population. It appears that environment and, perhaps, polymorphisms in the nuclear genome are more important determinants of Ethiopian running success than mtDNA polymorphisms.


Fruits and vegetables sectors are considered to be strategic in the European Union due to their contribution to a better human health. Among others positive effects, their intake increase reduce mortality and obesity, assuring in the same time harmonised development for young children. The present study thus focused to reveal the consistency of the measure implemented in the Common Agricultural Policy to support fruits and vegetables production in Romania in liaison with the policy objectives. The country is one of the main ten important European producers of horticultural products in terms of production volumes and acreage. Results showed that over the last seven years (2007-2014), the sectorial production drawbacks have not been ameliorated very much. Both sectors are dominated by small-size farms that can produce only seasonally and mainly for short-market chains. In the same time, the greenhouses area shrink to levels that made the country extremely dependent to imports especially for tomatoes. The analysis of the pillar one payments schemes revealed that the fruits and vegetables producers could have access to only one payment that was half from European averages. Moreover, almost half of the producers had low sizes that left them outside the eligible criteria. The measures designed for the second pillar also penalized producers through the selection criteria. These results showed that for Romania there was not a real consistency between the actual policy measures and the objectives assumed by policy makers. The future measures (2014-2020) seem to correct these negative findings being better tailored to the situation of the local fruits and vegetables producers.


Neck pain is a common complaint and a common source of disability in the general population with a point prevalence of nearly 13%. Reports indicate that industry related neck disorders (lifetime incidence of nearly 50%) account for as many days of absenteeism as low back pain; one could compare the two clinical conditions in terms of these trends on a global scale. To investigate whether similar trends do exist, 200 participants with neck pain and 200 asymptomatic participants (stratified sampling according to age and gender) that consented to the research were clinically assessed. These participants also completed a questionnaire addressing the factors that have been identified as related to neck pain at the consultation where they were assessed. This research did not involve the treatment of the participants, although a free treatment was given for patients that opted for one or to those that required it post participation in the study. If treatment was outside the scope of the chiropractic clinic, the participants were referred to the appropriate health care provider. The aim of the study was to investigate factors associated with neck pain in the indigenous African population in the greater Durban area. Data was analysed according to the following: Descriptive statistics were interpreted by means of frequency tables, pie charts, bar graphs and / or in a tabular format in order to describe the sample characteristics of the population under study. Inferential statistics included regression analysis in order to determine any relationships between the patient"s neck complaint characteristics and factors associated with the complaint. SPSS version 11.5 was used for data analysis (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Ill, USA). A p value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Descriptive analysis involved presenting or graphing categorical variables as counts and percentages, and quantitative variables as medians and interquartile ranges due to the skewness of the data. Associations between factors and neck pain were examined bivariately using Pearson"s chi square or Fisher"s exact tests as appropriate for categorical factors, or Mann-Whitney tests in the case of quantitative non-parametric data. Finally in order to examine the adjusted independent effects of all factors which were found to be individually significant in the bivariate analysis, multivariate binary logistic regression analysis was done. A backwards elimination modelling technique was used, based on likelihood ratios, with entry and exit probabilities set to 0.05 and 0.010 respectively. Results were reported as odds ratios, 95% confidence intervals and p values. Chi squared analyses was utilised to assess the strength of the relationship and the degree of significance of the relationship. All statistics were analyzed at a confidence interval of 95% and a level of significance where α ≤0.05 (pvalue). The symptomatic participants seemed to be less well educated than the controls. The cases seemed to be less in full time employment, less unemployed, and more self employed than the controls. Income was unevenly distributed among cases and controls. The cases who were working seemed to earn less than the controls who were working. The duration of having neck pain was mainly 1 month. The majority of cases classified their pain as mild. Most participants felt that their pain was worst in the afternoons or related to activities, while they felt their pain was least in the mornings. Frequency of neck pain was mainly constant (36.5%), followed by frequent (32.5%) and seldom (25%). Symptomatic participants mostly reported that their pain began without injury, gradually in 67.5% and abruptly in 13.5%. Fewer symptomatic participants reported pain beginning after an injury (n=22 gradually and n=7 abruptly). The majority reported their neck pain to be stable (38%), while 34% felt it was getting worse and only 19% getting better. More than half of the cases reported difficulty with work due to neck pain. Fewer reported difficulties with daily activities such as washing (30%), sleeping (26%), and lifting (24%). Almost half of the cases rated their disability as none (48%). Only 16% reported severe disability. Thirty-three percent (n=66) reported having been absent from work due to neck pain. The duration of absence in those who were absent was mainly 0-1 week (89.4%). 59 (29%) reported being bed-ridden with neck pain. The most frequent duration was also 0-1 week (81.4%). Ninety three point five percent reported no change in occupational status, while 6 (3%) were demoted, 5 (2.5%) boarded, and 2 (1%) fired. With respect to associated signs and symptoms, 156 (78%) reported to suffer from headaches. In addition, symptomatic participants were asked if they associated their neck pain with any other activities. The most commonly reported factor was stress (22%), followed by bad posture (17%). The other reported factors were reported infrequently. Participants who worked in occupations that involved driving, turning neck, answering the telephone, working in an air-conditioned room, and bending over a desk were significantly more at risk of being cases than controls. Non-occupational factors which were associated with neck pain were worrying a lot, motor vehicle accident, not enough bed support, not using arms to support a book, sitting without back or arm support, not watching TV a lot, and exercising. The results of the study suggest that neck pain within the indigenous African population is associated with the level of education, income, stress levels, bad posture, repetitive movements of the neck, and motor vehicle accidents. It was also found that most of neck pain patients do suffer from headaches. The findings show that neck pain is mostly classified as mild in nature with 1 month duration. Although neck pain was reported to be responsible for at least 7 days of absenteeism from work, causing difficulty with daily activities, most patients reported no disability as a result of neck pain.


This Article returns to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to consider food and drug law as intellectual property law. Today, Americans are engaged in two separate debates about food and drugs. One centers on the safety of these consumables, and the effectiveness of the Food and Drug Administration. The other is spurred by serious questions of equity involving the ownership and pricing of patented pharmaceuticals and crops, and centers on patent law and the Patent and Trademark Office. These debates were once part of a single broad conversation about food and drugs. This Article uses an historical perspective to understand the separation of these debates and to consider the opportunities that arise from considering food and drug law as intellectual property law. It argues both that early food and drug law was influenced by intellectual property concerns and that the separation of intellectual property policy from federal food and drug regulation was neither inevitable nor inconsequential. Drawing on the history of science, technology, and medicine, this Article reexamines the early pure-food-and-drug movement as, in part, an anti-intellectual-property movement. It uncovers the opposition to trade secrets that supported an alliance between medical opponents to proprietary medicines and agricultural opponents to artificial foods that successfully supported early federal food and drug regulation, and the simultaneous failure of a medical campaign against drug patents. By considering the historical shift in the pharmaceutical market from trade secrets to patents in relation to the recent trend toward patents in agribusiness, this Article considers the lessons from history for a reunification of food and drug policy with intellectual property policy.


The largest natural gas field in Europe is located in the north of the Netherlands. Extraction from it has taken place since 1963, which has induced small earthquakes. Although this was known with fair certainty beforehand, whether households ever anticipated the region to become a riskier place to live at has not been determined.Earthquakes can damage households' houses structures, increasing maintenance costs. Additionally, they increase risk awareness from living in a prone to earthquakes area. Reducing effects on housing prices attributed to earthquakes can therefore be sourced on the anticipation of higher maintenance costs, or on increasing risk perceptions. The gas-extracting company already compensates for damages done on houses; therefore, foreseen increasing costs should not affect their price. Hence, by studying how earthquakes affect housing prices we focus on households' willingness to pay to avoid living at a riskier place.We explore this question by means of spatial hedonic models for housing prices in the three most northern provinces of the Netherlands, namely Drenthe, Friesland, and Groningen. Most realtors in the Netherlands set asking prices by fitting a hedonic model with data on previously transacted houses. This is one of the typically argued sources of spatial dependency in the housing market. We therefore employ a spatio-temporal-similarity weights matrix that mimics this asking price setting procedure, and use it to test the fit of several spatial econometric specifications.We make use of detailed data on more than 250.000 transactions between 1993 and 2014. We are able to control for over 40 characteristics of the house and amenities provided at the neighborhood level. Moreover, we control for population increase and the time on the market by means of instrumental variables. To assess the earthquakes' effect we computed the Peak Ground Velocity (PGV) at each house's geographical point location for every earthquake that took place in the 5 years prior to the house's sale.We find no significant effect for PGV in the 5 years prior to the house sale on its price, unless the house was sold during or after the year 2012. In August of said year the largest ever-recorded earthquake hit the region and awareness of them grew noticeably. A house sold during or after 2012 would be transacted for a price almost 4%lower for every percentage point increase in seismic activity. The result is robust to several specifications.


Carleson's Theorem from 1965 states that the partial Fourier sums of a square integrable function converge pointwise. We prove an equivalent statement on the real line, following the method developed by the author and C. Thiele. This theorem, and the proof presented, is at the center of an emerging theory which complements the statement and proof of Carleson's theorem. An outline of these variations is also given.


We consider the problem of reconstructing a set of real numbers up to translation from the multiset of its subsets of fixed size, given up to translation. This is impossible in general: for instance almost all subsets of $\mathbb{Z}$ contain infinitely many translates of every finite subset of $\mathbb{Z}$. We therefore restrict our attention to subsets of $\mathbb{R}$ which are locally finite ; those which contain only finitely many translates of any given finite set of size at least 2. We prove that every locally finite subset of $\mathbb{R}$ is reconstructible from the multiset of its 3-subsets, given up to translation.


Even though raising cattle at crop fields can increase soil compaction, there is scarce information on this problem. This study aimed to evaluate some physical characteristics of soil in a typical Dystrophic Red Latosol (typical dystrophic Hapludox) in the county of Coxilha, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, after ten years of establishment of six ley farm production systems. The treatments were arranged in blocks with four replications. We also evaluated the fertility of the soil of a subtropical forest fragment adjacent to the experiment. Both winter and summer crops were established under no-tillage. Cropping systems and soil of different sampling depths were compared using the orthogonal contrast procedure. We compared the systems and values of the physical characteristics of soil in each system in the layers of 0.0-0.05 m or 0-0.02 m and also 0.10-0.15 m. Soil bulk density and penetration resistance were lower in the layer of 0-0.05 m or 0-0.02 m. The subtropical forest showed highest soil bulk density and soil penetration resistance and lowest total porosity and macroporosity than most systems studied. The soils under different ley farm production systems, despite showing signs of degradation, did not reach levels considered critical to the development of crops. The system wheat/soybean and black oat + vetch + rye grass/pearl millet pasture (IV) presented the worst physical attributes to plant development.


To assess the potential impact and control options for Monilinia fructicola, the alien stone fruit pathogen in Croatia, development of pre-harvest and post-harvest brown rot was monitored during 2014 and 2015 in a peach orchard where integrated pest management measures are implemented. Two experimental locations, A (younger part of the orchard with a lower elevation) and B (older part with higher elevation) were established, and conditions for infection were monitored using a forecast model for M. fructicola with PinovaSoft ® application. In 2014, symptoms of brown rot in the fi eld were recorded only on fruits at location B, with 6.6% incidence. Monilinia spp. developed on 92.6% of stored fruits from location A and on 20.3% of stored fruits from location B. Out of 40 isolates collected from the fruits at the moment of harvest, 27% were M. fructicola, 30% were Monilinia laxa, and 43% were Monilinia fructigena. Similar percentages of three Monilinia species were determined on stored fruits. In 2015, no fruits aff ected with brown rot were found at the moment of harvest, but only aft er 21 days of storage and only on fruits from location B, with low incidence (8% fruits). M. fructicola was found on all fruits with brown rot symptoms, while M. laxa and M. fructigena were detected only on three fruits in mixed infections with M. fructicola. Despite diff erences in brown rot incidence between years, forecast model recorded seven infections with M. fructicola during the vegetation period in 2014 and 15 infections in 2015. Th e results are indicating that common measures against indigenous M. laxa and M. fructigena may be suitable for the control of invasive M. fructicola, and that all three Monilinia species on peach in Croatia can occur in mixed populations.


Generally, people respond faster to small numbers with left-sided responses and large numbers with right-sided responses, a pattern known as the SNARC (spatial numerical association of response codes) effect. The SNARC effect is interpreted as evidence for amodal automatic access of magnitude and its spatial associations, because it occurs in settings where number is task-irrelevant and for different number formats. We report five studies designed to establish the degree to which activation of magnitude and its spatial associations is truly automatic and amodal. Based on the notion of autonomous automaticity, we hypothesized that the mere presence of a number form (to which participants made a color decision) would be sufficient to elicit the SNARC effect. However, we found no evidence of a SNARC effect for simple color decisions to Arabic digits (Experiment 1). There was a SNARC effect for color decision to digits when participants recognized the stimulus as a digit before responding (Experiment 2), participants viewed the digit for sufficient time before color onset (Experiments 3 and 5), or there was temporal uncertainty regarding color onset (Experiment 3). There was no SNARC effect for color decision to arrays of circles (Experiment 4), regardless of viewing time or temporal uncertainty. Overall, our results suggest that, while access to magnitude and its spatial associations is not automatic in an "all-or-none" sense, it is certainly at the strong end of automaticity, and that this automatic activation is modality dependent. Our findings are most supportive of conceptual coding accounts of the SNARC effect.


Background: Approximately 1 of every 1000 live births results in life-long impairments because of a brachial plexus injury. The long-term sequelae of persistent injuries include glenohumeral joint dysplasia and glenohumeral internal rotation and adduction contractures. Scapular winging is also common, and patients and their families often express concern regarding this observed scapular winging. It is difficult for clinicians to adequately address these concerns without a satisfying explanation for why scapular winging occurs in children with brachial plexus birth palsy. This study examined our proposed theory that a glenohumeral cross-body abduction contracture leads to the appearance of scapular winging in children with residual brachial plexus birth palsy. Methods: Sixteen children with brachial plexus injuries were enrolled in this study. Three-dimensional locations of markers placed on the thorax, scapula, and humerus were recorded in the hand to mouth Mallet position. The unaffected limbs served as a control. Scapulothoracic and glenohumeral cross-body adduction angles were compared between the affected and unaffected limbs. Results: The affected limbs demonstrated significantly greater scapulothoracic and significantly smaller glenohumeral cross-body adduction angles than the unaffected limbs. The affected limbs also exhibited a significantly lower glenohumeral cross-body adduction to scapulothoracic cross-body adduction ratio. Conclusions: The results of this study support the theory that brachial plexus injuries can lead to a glenohumeral cross-body abduction contracture. Affected children demonstrated increased scapulothoracic cross-body adduction that is likely a compensatory mechanism because of decreased glenohumeral cross-body adduction. These findings are unique and better define the etiology of scapular winging in children with brachial plexus injuries. This information can be relayed to patients and their families when explaining the appearance of scapular winging. Level of Evidence: Level II.


Miniaturized plasmonic and photonic integrated circuits are generally considered as the core of future generations of optoelectronic devices, due to their potential to bridge the size-compatibility gap between photonics and electronics. However, as the nanoscale is approached in increasingly small plasmonic and photonic systems, experimentally observing their behavior involves ever more stringent requirements in terms of both temporal and spatial resolution. This talk focuses on the use of time-resolved Photon-Induced Near-Field Electron Microscopy (PINEM) to study the excitation, propagation, (self-)interference and dynamics of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in various plasmonic nanostructures with both nanometer and ultrafast resolution in a transmission electron microscope. Using this field-ofview technique, we directly show how photo-excited plasmonic interference patterns are controlled through the combination of excitation polarization and nanostructure geometry. Moreover, we capture the propagation of the photoinduced self-interfering plasmonic wave, clearly demonstrating the effects of axial confinement in nanostructured plasmonic thin film stacks.


Cancrum oris cases are occasionally treated in various hospitals in Kenya. Despite this, only one case has been reported in literature. Besides, no epidemiological or treatment studies of cancrum oris has been carried out in Kenya. We report an unusual case of a 17 year old Kenyan female with oral cutaneous fistula and tissue atrophy on the left cheek following cancrum oris infection in childhood. Since most cancrum oris cases are a sequela of acute necrotizing gingivitis (ANG), prevention of cancrum oris can be achieved by early and prompt remedial measures once a diagnosis of ANG is established. Failure to do this might lead to cancrum oris with its attendant disfiguring complications some of which might be impossible to treat in developing countries where the requisite personnel is lacking or inadequate.


Is one national implementation strategy better than another given similar conditions? Or: Is choosing an implementation strategy a way of altering its conditions? A Norwegian aphorism says that the forest stands although its trees changes. In this chapter we examine current implementation dynamics in Norway. We discuss how perceived changes fit long-term ('standing') national features of the education system, and how they may inform and play into the changing international landscape of travelling policies. In Norway, a phased implementation strategy is being used to implement the Strategy for Lower Secondary Education 2013-2017. The aim is to improve classroom instruction in lower secondary schools. The strategy is based on research indicating that student motivation for learning is at its lowest at this level of schooling. In this chapter we explain the idea of phased implementation. We describe stakeholder responsibilities and indicate how implementation tools are aligned across phases. Our perspectives are based on a survey among school leaders and school owners conducted Spring 2014. Findings show a surprisingly high degree of optimism in informants' responses given that former implementation research in Norway pointed to loose couplings between reform goals and local impact. We discuss benefits and challenges of the phased strategy, paying attention to aspects specific to Norway and to those shared by other CIDREE-members.


BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to evaluate whether women undergoing cardiac surgery are more likely to suffer neurological complications than men and whether these complications could explain, at least in part, their higher perioperative mortality. Methods and ResultsThe Society of Thoracic Surgery National Cardiac Surgery Database was examined for the years 1996 and 1997 to determine the frequency of new neurological events (stroke, transient ischemic attack, or coma) occurring after cardiac surgery. We reviewed clinical information on 416 347 patients (32% women) for whom complete neurological outcome data were available. New neurological events after surgery were higher for women than for men (3.8% versus 2.4%, P =0.001). For the whole group, the 30-day mortality was higher for women than for men (5.7% versus 3.5%, P =0.001), and among those patients who suffered a perioperative neurological event, mortality was also significantly higher for women than men (32% versus 28%, P =0.001). After adjustment for other risk factors (eg, age, history of hypertension and/or diabetes, duration of cardiopulmonary bypass, and other comorbid conditions) by multivariable logistic regression, female sex was independently associated with significantly higher risk of suffering new neurological events after cardiac surgery (OR 1.21, 95% CI 1.14 to 1.28, P =0.001). ConclusionsWomen undergoing cardiac surgery are more likely than men to suffer new perioperative neurological events, and they have higher 30-day mortality when these complications occur. The higher incidence of perioperative neurological complications in women cannot be explained by currently known risk factors.


The ASVspoof initiative was conceived to spearhead research in anti-spoofing for automatic speaker verification (ASV). This paper describes the third in a series of bi-annual challenges: ASVspoof 2019. With the challenge database and protocols being described elsewhere, the focus of this paper is on results and the top performing single and ensemble system submissions from 62 teams, all of which out-perform the two baseline systems, often by a substantial margin. Deeper analyses shows that performance is dominated by specific conditions involving either specific spoofing attacks or specific acoustic environments. While fusion is shown to be particularly effective for the logical access scenario involving speech synthesis and voice conversion attacks, participants largely struggled to apply fusion successfully for the physical access scenario involving simulated replay attacks. This is likely the result of a lack of system complementarity, while oracle fusion experiments show clear potential to improve performance. Furthermore, while results for simulated data are promising, experiments with real replay data show a substantial gap, most likely due to the presence of additive noise in the latter. This finding, among others, leads to a number of ideas for further research and directions for future editions of the ASVspoof challenge.


Renewable off-grid home lighting systems have the potential to reduce the use of kerosene lanterns and other expensive and dirty forms of light in areas that lack electricity, but adoption of such lighting systems is low. In Rwanda, an IPA research team partnered with the social enterprise Nuru Energy to evaluate optimal pricing structures for lights, ways to enhance gender equity for the micro-entrepreneurs who recharge the lights, and how access to the lights impacts the economic well-being of households throughout the community. According to preliminary results, poor households bought or took home lights when they were offered them either at low prices or for free, while almost no one bought them at market prices; households valued lights as much when they were free as when they had to pay for them. Inconvenience and recharging appear to be a major barriers to usage. Business performance and competition was similar across maleand female-owned microenterprise groups, though female entrepreneurs were less willing to take risks than male ones. Impacts on well-being are still under analysis.


This dissertation investigates some conceptions of oceans in modern Western societies that are highly influential in shaping human-ocean relations. My main aim in this dissertation is to demonstrate that the Western discourses of law, science and the aesthetic of the sublime illuminate characteristics of human-ocean relations in Western societies. I argue that the conceptions developed and perpetuated in the discourses of law, aesthetics and science unnecessarily constrain the possibilities for human-ocean relations and undermine just existences of oceans. A further aim of this dissertation is to set out an ethical political approach that is inclusive of a diversity of ocean views that facilitate improved knowledge about the oceans and transform dominant human ocean relations into more just relations.

In approaching my critique of Western discourses of law, aesthetics and science I canvas a range of philosophical, social and political theories, but make most use of the insights of feminist and ecological feminist thinkers into forms of oppression and environmental justice. I also move beyond critique to set out an approach for structuring ocean policy debates and outcomes with a form of political epistemology that de-centres influential Western conceptions of oceans and is inclusive of a diversity of perspectives.

In carrying out this dissertation's investigation I find that particular conceptions of oceans in the discourses of law, aesthetics and science narrowly define how Western human subjects think, feel and interact with oceans. These discourses provide a dominant position for Western subjects over those of other people and the oceans. This is how, in basic terms, I suggest that Western discourses undermine just existences for oceans. A common feature in the discourses that frame the conceptions of oceans that I discuss is the exclusion of a diversity of human-ocean relations from consideration. To counter the exclusionary practices of Western discourses I find that robust democratic processes are essential for just ocean existences. The importance of democratic processes is not only that they constitute ethical processes, and should be valued highly for that reason, but also because of a capacity to produce and deliver improved knowledge about the oceans and transform human-ocean relations. I advocate in particular the approach to political epistemology of Bruno Latour as one way to work toward just ocean existences. In the approach I advocate, oceans participate in democratic processes as agents, not as mere objects awaiting human benevolence or exploitation.


Background: Type-1 diabetes mellitus (T1-DM) is the commonest endocrine-metabolic disease in childhood. The prevalence of CD in type-1 DM ranges from 0.6 to 16.4% compared with 0.01–0.03% in the general population. The mechanism of association between the two diseases involves a shared genetic background of HLA genotype. Serum tissue transglutaminase IgA antibodies (tTG IgA) are considered specific and sensitive markers for screening of Celiac disease in more than 95 % of patients. Objective: Screening for the presence of serum tissue transglutaminase IgA antibodies (tTG ab) as a specific and sensitive biochemical marker for Celiac disease in patients with type-1DM and its relation to the clinical manifestations of those patients. Methods: One hundred-forty-nine patients with type-1 DM attending the out-patient clinic of endocrine and metabolism, Minia University Hospital were screened for the presence of serum tissue transglutaminase IgA antibodies during the period from March 2014 to November 2015. Results: Out of 149 patients 8 patients (5.3%) were positive for IgA tTG antibodies. They who were predominantly of female gender (75% were females). According to each age group, there were four sero-positive cases in children (with age group between 9 and ≤ 12 years); two cases in adolescents (with age group between 12 and ≤ 16 years) and two cases in adults (with age group 16-21 years). Intestinal manifestations, chronic diarrhea, recurrent abdominal pain/ distension, recurrent aphtha's stomatitis, anemia and bleeding tendency were significantly more common in sero-positive cases (P=0.001, 0.001, 0.016, 0.00, 0.001and 0.04 respectively). All sero-positive cases (100%) had lower BMIs than normal. There were no correlations between the tTG antibodies levels and HbA1c levels. Conclusions: The presence of tTG IgA antibodies is associated with significant changes in the clinical status of patient with type-1 DM. Celiac disease related manifestations like weight loss; anemia and chronic diarrhea were more common in sero-positive diabetic patients. Serological screening for CD should be performed in all patients with type-1DM for early diagnosis and prevention of complications. Keywords: Type-1 DM, tissue transglutaminase, IgA antibodies


This paper presents the integration of two collective I/O techniques into the Clusterfile parallel file system: disk-directed I/O and two-phase I/O. We show that global cooperative cache management improves the collective I/O performance. The solution focuses on integrating disk parallelism with other types of parallelism: memory (by buffering and caching on several nodes), network (by parallel I/O scheduling strategies) and processors (by redistributing the I/O related computation over several nodes). The performance results show considerable throughput increases over ROMIO's extended two-phase I/O.


This appraisal of two of the most fundamental terms in the moral language of Thomas Aquinas draws on the contemporary moral distinction between the goodness of a person and the rightness of a person's living. Keenan thus finds that Aquinas' earlier writings do not permit the possibility of such a distinction. But in his mature works, specifically "The Summa Theologiae", Thomas describes the human act of moral intentionality, and even the virtues in a way analogous to our use of the term moral rightness. To Thomas, only the virtue of charity expresses moral goodness. And, although Thomas describes vices and sin as wrong conduct, he never really develops a description for moral badness. Keenan compels us to carefully examine Thomas' central moral concepts and to measure them against contemporary standards for meaning and correctness. As a result, any student of Thomas will find here a forceful argument that his notion of the good is considerably different from ours. Similarly, ethicists and moral theologians will find in the Thomas presented here a consistent-virtue ethicist concerned with descriptions for right living. Any student of theology will also find here a Thomas whose critical and concrete thinking enabled him to develop and even abandon earlier positions as his comprehension of the Good evolved. This analysis prompts a re-examination of our own concepts. Measuring Thomas' standards against our own, Keenan obliges us to ask whether we sufficiently understand rightness and moral intentionality. He also asks whether we correctly describe what it means to will or to desire something. He further questions whether we have surrendered our understanding of the virtues to the voluntarism and subjectivism which Thomas relentlessly critiqued. This historically sophisticated reading of "The Summa Thologiae" both allows Thomas to speak again as he once did, and affords us the chance to evaluate the way we describe ourselves and one another as being good and living rightly.


We introduce a microfluidic double-jump mixing device for investigating rapid biomolecular kinetics with confocal single-molecule spectroscopy. This device enables nonequilibrium dynamics to be probed, e.g., transiently populated intermediates that are inaccessible with existing single-molecule approaches. We demonstrate the potential and reliability of the method on time scales from milliseconds to minutes by investigating the coupled folding and binding reaction of two intrinsically disordered proteins and the conformational changes occurring in a large cytolytic pore-forming toxin.


The effects of bond randomness on the universality aspects of a two-dimensional (d = 2) Blume-Capel model embedded in the triangular lattice are discussed. The system is studied numerically in both its first- and second-order phase-transition regimes by a comprehensive finite-size scaling analysis for a particularly suitable value of the disorder strength. We find that our data for the second-order phase transition, emerging under random bonds from the second-order regime of the pure model, are compatible with the universality class of the two-dimensional (2D) random Ising model. Furthermore, we find evidence that, the second-order transition emerging under bond randomness from the first-order regime of the pure model, belongs again to the same universality class. Although the first finding reinforces the scenario of strong universality in the 2D Ising model with quenched disorder, the second is in difference from the critical behavior, emerging under randomness, in the cases of the ex-first-order transitions of the Potts model. Finally, our results verify previous renormalization-group calculations on the Blume-Capel model with disorder in the crystal-field coupling.


We present evidence on social incentives in the workplace, namely on whether workers' behavior is affected by the presence of those they are socially tied to, even in settings where there are no externalities among workers due to either the production technology or the compensation scheme in place. To do so we combine data on individual worker productivity from a firm's personnel records with information on each worker's social network of friends in the firm. We find that compared to when she has no social ties with her co-workers, a given worker's productivity is significantly higher when she works alongside friends who are more able than her, and significantly lower when she works with friends who are less able than her. As workers are paid piece rates based on individual productivity, social incentives can be quantified in monetary terms and are such that (i) workers who are more able than their friends are willing to exert less effort and forgo 10% of their earnings; (ii) workers who have at least one friend who is more able than themselves are willing to increase their effort and hence productivity by 10%. The distribution of worker ability is such that the net effect of social incentives on the firm's aggregate performance is positive. The results suggest that firms can exploit social incentives as an alternative to monetary incentives to motivate workers.


This study analyses the way in which children develop their competence in the formal and semantic aspects of gesture. The analysis is focused upon the use of representational gestures in a narrative context. A group of 30 Italian children from 4 to 10 years was videotaped while telling a video cartoon to an adult. Gestures were coded according to the parameters used in Sign Languages analysis and analysed in terms of the acquisition of their properties, the accuracy of their execution and correctness in content representation.It was investigated also the development of the symbolic competence in relation both to the use of some of these parameters and to the representational strategies adopted.Results indicate a developmental trend in all the phenomena investigated and point out some formal similarities between gesture and Sign Languages.


Modelling for tourism must start with a strong foundation of strategic planning and understanding of the specific areas of tourism life cycles, which will result in an increase of local revenues, tax income, employment, and conservation of local ecosystems. This is a descriptive research design with the objective to develop a tourism flow model that takes information from tourism data-sets, business surveys, and state and local projects and builds a picture of current and future tourism flows in Brevard County (the Space Coast), Florida. This tourism model will serve as a tool for gauging tourism on the Space Coast. The question that must be addressed is that the model must answer the problems of how strategic planning initiatives will fill the void between anticipated workplace downsizing and the subsequent reduction of tourist activity, with the approaching retirement of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) shuttle fleet. It is forecasted that more than a quarter of a million workers may suffer job losses in hospitality, manufacturing, business services, and aerospace along the Space Coast. This tourism flow model would be an analysis tool for Space Coast tourism stakeholders to understand the impact of tourism growth and the development of sustainable and unsustainable industries for the area. Next, the model will attempt to identify areas from both private and public investments necessary for high impact revenue results for the Space Coast, while preserving the historic local environment and culture. Lastly, the model will be used to facilitate decisionmaking and planning for government planning boards, and the various tourism committees and councils as to where to invest and adopt pro-active polices for resource allocation in the county. The conclusion of the study will be a practical tourism flow model, which can be used to provide for rigorous discussion.


We consider a mean-field density-functional model for three-phase equilibria and wetting. The model features two densities and two control parameters, one of which is related to order parameter asymmetry or spatial anisotropy. The global wetting phase diagram in the space of these two parameters is rich. It features first-order, second-order, continuously-varying-order and infinite-order wetting transitions. The divergence of the wetting layer thickness is usually logarithmic as a function of the distance to the transition, but, in contrast, algebraic upon approach of an infinite-order transition. Further, an approximate interface potential approach is proposed, which allows us to derive analytic predictions for the singular behaviour of thermodynamic functions near wetting, in accordance with accurate numerical computations. It is conjectured that previously developed mean-field models, such as, for example, one for ferromagnets with cubic anisotropy also contain a segment of infinite-order transitions. We speculate that the possibility of varying the spatial anisotropy of the magnetic interaction in these systems might well lead the way towards the first experimental realization of infinite-order wetting.


This article argues that there is a mismatch between traditional intellectual property doctrine and the politics of intellectual property today. To examine the nature of this mismatch, I contrast two frameworks that both appear in contemporary debate about intellectual property: the traditional discourse, which focuses on innovation, and a newer, less clearly codified discourse that views intellectual property issues from the perspective of the politics of technology. This latter discourse focuses on the challenge of democratic governance in a world where emerging technologies have assumed a central role in constituting the future, raising far-reaching questions about how they should be fitted into social orders. The innovation discourse remains dominant in public debate, but recognizing the specific features of the politics-of-technology perspective -- and presenting its distinctive vision of what is at stake in intellectual property -- clarifies the struggles now in play. The politics-of-technology perspective rejects the traditional definition of the boundaries of intellectual property policy; first, because this perspective questions the empirical validity of a bright line distinction between creating technologies and making social choices about them; second, because it sees the traditional cartography as tending to constitute members of the public as "consumers" of prepackaged technologies rather than as "citizens" engaged in shaping them; and third, because it has a normative commitment to enabling citizens to exercise voice and choice about emerging technology before irrevocable commitments in specific directions are made. In contrast to traditional innovation discourse, the politics-of-technology perspective considers patent policy from a point of view that focuses on questions of democratic governance and political legitimacy.


Brownmillerite Ca2MnAlO5 has an exceptional capability to robustly adsorb half-molecules of oxygen and form Ca2MnAlO5.5. To utilize this unique property to regulate oxygen-involved reactions, it is crucial to match the oxygen release-intake equilibrium with targeted reaction conditions. Here we perform a comprehensive investigation of the strategy of tuning the oxygen storage property of Ca2MnAlO5 through chemical doping. For undoped Ca2MnAlO5+δ, our first-principles calculation predicts that the equilibrium temperature at a pressure of 1 atm of O2 is 848 K, which is in excellent agreement with experimental results. Furthermore, the doping of alkaline earth ions at the Ca site, trivalent ions at the Al site, and 3d transition metal ions at the Mn site is analyzed. By the doping of 12.5% of Ga, V, and Ti, the equilibrium temperature shifts to high values by approximately 110-270 K, while by the doping of 12.5% of Fe, Sr, and Ba, the equilibrium temperature is lowered by approximately 20-210 K. The doping of these elements is thermodynamically stable, and doping other elements including Mg, Sc, Y, Cr, Co, and Ni generates metastable compounds. The doping of a higher content of Fe, however, lowers the oxygen storage capacity. Finally, on the basis of our calculated data, we prove that the formation energetics of nondilute interacting oxygen vacancy in doped Ca2MnAlO5.5 scale linearly with a simple descriptor, the oxygen p-band position relative to the Fermi level. The higher-oxygen p-band position leads to a lower vacancy formation energy and thus a lower oxygen release temperature. Understanding such a relationship between fundamental quantum chemical properties and macroscopic properties paves the road to the design and optimization of novel functional oxides.


Mice fed a chemically defined diet devoid of pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) grew poorly, failed to reproduce, and became osteolathyritic. Moreover, severely affected mice had friable skin, skin collagen that was readily extractable into neutral salt solutions, and decreased lysyl oxidase. The identification of functional defects in connective tissue and the growth retardation associated with PQQ deprivation suggest that PQQ plays a fundamental role as a growth factor or vitamin.


Respondent-driven sampling is a network sampling technique typically employed for hard-to-reach populations (for example, drug users, men who have sex with men, people with HIV). Similarly to snowball sampling, initial seed respondents recruit additional respondents from their network of friends. The recruiting process repeats iteratively, thereby forming long referral chains. Unlike in snowball sampling, it is crucial to obtain estimates of respondents' personal network sizes (that is, number of acquaintances in the target population) and information about who recruited whom. Markov chain theory makes it possible to derive population estimates and sampling weights. We introduce a new Stata command for respondent-driven sampling and illustrate its use.


Image search relying on surrounding texts can return reliably relevant images to some extent. Most recent efforts are focusing on utilizing visual contents to help users find images with specific visual requirements. In this demonstration, we show a color filter scheme for image search, which enables users to find images containing objects or scenes with their interested color. Color is one of the most crucial cues in describing visual contents and has been frequently used in various applications. The key components in developing our demo include salient object detection and perceptual color naming. The color filter in Microsoft Bing image search is developed using these techniques.


ABSTRACT The high suicide rate of Australian Aboriginal young people prompted a Northern Territory parliamentary inquiry. In response, a project was established to develop a local data collection system for Indigenous youth suicide and suicide attempts in Central Australia, and to propose more effective referral pathways between agencies. A core component of this project was interviews with front-line workers. Secondary analysis of the 22 interview transcripts collected for the project revealed deep insights from front-line workers who deal with Aboriginal young people in a variety of local service and community settings. Key themes pertaining to initial treatment and response were identified: immediate response, follow-up services, staffing support, assessment and decision-making, community involvement and skills development. A more coordinated, client-centred approach is recommended with clearly defined communication pathways inclusive of family and local community members, sensitive to inter-agency relationships, and requiring improved skills and confidence for all involved. As far as possible, decisions about services and responses should be made locally and be informed by preferences of the local community.


Although Caligus elongatus is one of two major species of sea lice that parasitize farmed salmon, its epidemiology has not been extensively studied. In this communication, the abundances of the adult stage of C. elongatus in salmon populations from 33 farms in the West of Scotland between 1997 and 2000 have been analysed for evidence of seasonal and annual patterns. The findings indicate that the pattern of C. elongatus is remarkably consistent from year to year, and directly opposed to that reported for Lepeophtheirus salmonis, the other major caligid species. In particular, adult infestations rapidly increase from the start of July each year, and are more prevalent on salmon in the first year of production than the second year. Treatment is seen to have an effect on levels of infestation but it is not clear why this species should have significantly lower levels of abundance in the second year of production. There is also evidence that fallowing has no effect on abundance. Strategic management programmes for the control of sea lice on salmon farms, which are increasingly effective in controlling L. salmonis, may also have to give greater consideration to C. elongatus.


We estimate of the extent of phishing activity on the Internet via capture-recapture analysis of two major phishing site reports. Capture-recapture analysis is a population estimation technique originally developed for wildlife conservation, but is applicable in any environment wherein multiple independent parties collect reports of an activity.
 Generating a meaningful population estimate for phishing activity requires addressing complex relationships between phishers and phishing reports. Phishers clandestinely occupy machines and adding evasive measures into phishing URLs to evade firewalls and other fraud-detection measures. Phishing reports, in the meantime, may be demonstrate a preference towards certain classes of phish.
 We address these problems by estimating population in terms of netblocks and by clustering phishing attempts together into scams, which are phishes that demonstrate similar behavior on multiple axes. We generate population estimates using data from two different phishing reports over an 80-day period, and show that these reports capture approximately 40% of scams and 80% of CIDR/24 (256 contiguous address) netblocks involved in phishing.


In studies on the pathophysiology of the autoimmune neuropathy, Miller Fisher syndrome (MFS), monoclonal antibodies to the disialosyl epitopes on GQ1b, GT1a and GD3 gangliosides have been produced. Antibodies to these complex gangliosides are thought to be crucial in the pathogenesis of MFS.

These antibodies have recently been shown to produce complement dependent, glial and/or neuronal injury at mouse neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). Three antibodies (EG1, LB1 and R24) were identified as producing selective terminal Schwann cell (TSC) injury whilst sparing neuronal membranes at NMJs in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mouse strains in a dose dependent manner. These changes occur in the absence of observable acute physiological or morphological changes to the nerve terminal, suggesting that TSC injury or loss has no major short-term influence on synapse function. Having compared the suitability of two common ex vivo muscle preparations for use in characterisation studies, TSC selective antibodies were compared, and EG1 was identified as most suitable for further investigations on the role of the TSC in mammalian NMJ function and as a possible disease target in MFS. The effect of this antibody when combined with normal human serum as a source of complement in ex vivo hemidiaphragm preparations was independent of complement regulators DAF1 and CD59a.

Cell specific promoter sequences have been used to produce a mouse line that expresses green-fluorescent protein (GFP) in TSCs, and cyan-fluorescent protein (CFP) in axons (CK mouse). Live imaging techniques were used to study the acute and chronic effects of EG1 mAb mediated, complement dependent glial injury in this system. It is shown that TSC injury is characterised by loss of GFP staining, occurring within 20 minutes of complement exposure. Repopulation of the NMJs with GFP-positive cell bodies is first evident at day 2. The origin of these returning Schwann cells is discussed, and three possible sources are considered – the last myelinating Schwann cell, non-myelinating Schwann cells lying more proximally in the peripheral nervous system, and muscle stem cells. At day 7, the number of GFP-positive cell bodies seen at the NMJ is higher (7-12 per NMJ) than prior to antibody exposure (3-5 per NMJ). This process of enhanced repopulation is not dependent on an intact axon as it is retained following axotomy. At 3 months, minor remodelling of the NMJ is seen, and is more pronounced at one year. Repeat antibody exposure within 48 hours does not injure returning processes, or delay repopulation. Instead, extra-junctional TSC processes are formed, with associated axon sprouts in the absence of gross terminal axon injury.

Anti-GQ1b containing serum from a MFS patient is shown to induce murine TSC death in a similar manner to murine monoclonal antibodies described previously. This suggests that TSCs are a potential new disease target in human disease if the ganglioside profile of mouse and human TSCs is equivalent. Ganglioside distribution and antibody binding are examined on a series of human muscles. These studies demonstrate for the first time that components of the human NMJ are potentially susceptible to anti-ganglioside antibody mediated injury, by virtue of their ganglioside profile.

This study suggests that TSCs may be a previously unrecognised site of immune-mediated nerve injury. It also describes a new technique for observing chronic TSC injury and recovery in an in vivo mouse model system, which could be used for human disease modelling.


Using high-intensity femtosecond laser pulses, we create a novel surface pattern that transforms regular silicon to superwicking. Due to the created surface structure, water sprints vertically uphill in a gravity defying way. Our study of the liquid motion shows that the fast self-propelling motion of water is due to a supercapillary effect from the surface structures we created. The wicking dynamics in the produced surface structure is found to follow the classical square root of time dependence.


The Hawaiian lizard fishes of the genus Synodus are reviewed; 4 new species are described (bringing to 12 the number known from Hawaii), and the range of S. capricorn is Cressey and Randall is extended to the Northern Hemisphere. It is also determined that the name Synodus variegatus (Lacepede) properly applies to the species commonly known as S. englemani Schultz . Synodus dermatogenys Fowler is the oldest available name for the species that has been known as S. variegatus. Gill-raker counts are used as diagnostic characters for the first time with synodontids, and color slides and observations of fresh specimens revealed species-specific pigmentation patterns, many of which typically disappear with preservation. The key includes all known lizardfishes from Hawaii (genera Saurida, Synodus, Tra chinocephalus) . Synodus amaranthus sp . nov. is similar to S. dermatogenys but differs in having barred pelvic fins; more gill rakers; and greater head length, orbit diameter, and pectoral fin length. SynodusJalcatus sp. nov . and S .janus sp. nov . have the high vertebral and lateral-line scale counts typical of S. ulae Schultz and S. capricornis, but have fewer gill rakers and different nasal flaps . Synodus lobeli sp. nov. is closest to S. indicus (Day), a species known only from the Indian Ocean and the Philippines, but has a shorter head, lower modal number of dorsal fin rays , and lacks the two dark marks found on the opercle of the latter species. Electrophoretic data are presented for the seven species (binotatus , dermatogenys, doaki, Jalcatus, ulae, usitatus, and variegatus) for which fresh or frozen material was available. Each of these species could be separated from all others on the basis of multiple fixed allelic differences, and this facilitated unambiguous identification of morphologically similar species. Discriminant function analysis, with functio ns derived for groups identified by electrophoretic phenotype, was used in the identification ofspecimens that could not be sampled electrophoretically.


An increase in chronic diseases in Danish healthcare can be explained by the corresponding increase of population longevity. Health professionals will not be able to keep up with treating those diseases, due to the many existing and new cases of chronic diseases. This results in mistakes in treatment processes, compensations to patients due to medical negligence and duplication of work and effort. In order to address a solution for healthcare practitioners, a small subgroup of patients and diseases is chosen from all chronic diseases. Namely, children diagnosed with cancer. This research brings the methodology for child cancer treatment plan that produces an ontology to create a conceptual model and a database model. To construct the ontology, the "methontology" method is used as a structured approach for the ontology process. The method guides the ontology developer from scratch to building a complete model. The ontology is developed in two phases. In the first phase, research from other countries and process models are reviewed and the generic model is built from this research. The generic model is adapted to the ontology for the Danish hospitals including the NOPHO-ALL 2008 protocol. To develop the ontology, a data dictionary is first proposed. Then, the relationships between concepts are identified and verified: the oriented graph, where nodes are concepts and oriented edges are dependence relationships, Data Management and Security 127 www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-35 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Information and Communication Technologies, Vol 45, © 2013 WIT Press


Background: Bone regeneration is a reliable technique when the bone volume is insufficient to provide a functional and aesthetic outcome in surgery and implantoprosthesis procedures. When bone blocks are used but do not match the shape of the defect, the block must be adapted. The aim of our research was to evaluate, by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) morphological observation, how different cutting devices modify the bone surface. Method: Four equine bone blocks were divided into 15 cubic shape samples with ultrasonic and sonic tips, as well as diamond, tungsten carbide, and Lindemann burs. The uncut surface of the obtained bone block was used as a control. Two observers independently analyzed the SEM observation recording, including cut precision, depth of incision, thermal damages, and presence of bone debris. For each group, sharpness, depth, carbonization, and bone debris were expressed as mean values. Results: The osteotomy performed with an ultrasonic tip shows the best results, preserving the bone morphology in both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The bone surface appeared sufficiently clean from debris and showed a reduced presence of carbonization. Conclusion: The shaping of the bone block as in vivo osteotomy respects the bone morphology and allows it to achieve the relevant biological and clinical outcome.


There has been considerable debate over whether corporal punishment against children should be prohibited in Canada. Various organizations, most notably the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law, have argued that the Canadian Government should ban the use of corporal punishment by repealing the specific section of the Canadian Criminal Code that provides parents with a legal defence to use corporal punishment against their children; this provision is outlined in Section 43 of the Criminal Code. Recently, the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law challenged the constitutionality of Section 43 before the Supreme Court of Canada. The organization claimed Section 43 is unconstitutional. It violates children's Charter rights, such as the right to security of a person (Section 7), the right to be protected from cruel and unusual treatment (Section 12), and denies children the same protection adults receive under the law. Both the Canadian government and the Supreme Court of Canada reject the Foundation's arguments. Examining the federal government and the judicial system's rationale for refusing to remove Section 43 of the Canadian Criminal Code discloses how the parent-child relationship is perceived. This thesis examines how the parent-child relationship is perceived by the Canadian government and the issues that arise from such a view. This examination is essential for the comprehension of why Canada's corporal punishment law was enacted and remains in effect today.


This paper develops a methodology to assess the resource requirements of inclusive urban development in India and compares those requirements to current community-wide material and energy flows. Methods include: (a) identifying minimum service level benchmarks for the provision of infrastructure services including housing, electricity and clean cooking fuels; (b) assessing the percentage of homes that lack access to infrastructure or that consume infrastructure services below the identified benchmarks; (c) quantifying the material requirements to provide basic infrastructure services using India-specific design data; and (d) computing material and energy requirements for inclusive development and comparing it with current community-wide material and energy flows. Applying the method to ten Indian cities, we find that: 1%–6% of households do not have electricity, 14%–71% use electricity below the benchmark of 25 kWh capita-month−1; 4%–16% lack structurally sound housing; 50%–75% live in floor area less than the benchmark of 8.75 m2 floor area/capita; 10%–65% lack clean cooking fuel; and 6%–60% lack connection to a sewerage system. Across the ten cities examined, to provide basic electricity (25 kWh capita-month−1) to all will require an addition of only 1%–10% in current community-wide electricity use. To provide basic clean LPG fuel (1.2 kg capita-month−1) to all requires an increase of 5%–40% in current community-wide LPG use. Providing permanent shelter (implemented over a ten year period) to populations living in non-permanent housing in Delhi and Chandigarh would require a 6%–14% increase over current annual community-wide cement use. Conversely, to provide permanent housing to all people living in structurally unsound housing and those living in overcrowded housing (<5 m cap−2) would require 32%–115% of current community-wide cement flows. Except for the last scenario, these results suggest that social policies that seek to provide basic infrastructure provisioning for all residents would not dramatically increasing current community-wide resource flows.


Probabilistic risk analysis aims to quantify the risk caused by high technology installations. Increasingly, such analyses are being applied to a wider class of systems in which problems such as lack of data, complexity of the systems, uncertainty about consequences, make a classical statistical analysis difficult or impossible. The authors discuss the fundamental notion of uncertainty, its relationship with probability, and the limits to the quantification of uncertainty. Drawing on extensive experience in the theory and applications of risk analysis, the authors focus on the conceptual and mathematical foundations underlying the quantification, interpretation and management of risk. They cover standard topics as well as important new subjects such as the use of expert judgement and uncertainty propagation. The relationship of risk analysis with decision making is highlighted in chapters on influence diagrams and decision theory. Finally, the difficulties of choosing metrics to quantify risk, and current regulatory frameworks are discussed.


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This article was given as the 6th Annual Wolf Family Lecture on the American Law of Real Property, University of Florida Levin College of Law (2013). It draws on property law discussions in Richard R.W. Brooks and Carol M. Rose, Saving the Neighborhood: Racially Restrictive Covenants, Law, and Social Norms (Harvard Univ. Press 2013). The article outlines the ways in which constitutional law and property law engaged in a dialog about white-only racial covenants from their early twentieth-century origins to the middle of the twentieth century and beyond. After a shaky beginning, both constitutional law and property law became relatively permissive about racial covenants by the 1920s. But proponents of racial covenants had to work around property law doctrines — including seemingly arcane doctrines like the Rule Against Perpetuities, disfavor to restraints on alienation, "horizontal privity," and "touch and concern." Moreover, property law weaknesses gave leverage to civil rights opponents of covenants, long before Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), the major constitutional case that made these covenants unenforceable in courts. Even after Shelley's constitutional decision, property law continued to be a contested area for racial covenants, with echoes even today.


Recent research and market effects within the European Union show a rising concern towards the derisking of certain sectors/actors due to the increased anti-money laundering regulation. Because of the enhanced due diligence and monitoring costs related to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulation by the AMLD4, several financial institutions now turn to de-risking their corporate client base in order to minimize not only costs from monitoring and onboarding but also the risks of sanctions and reputation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the incentives behind de-risking as well as the relevant solution models to the de-risking "crisis". Overall, to find, to what extend de-risking is efficient and when it is not and how to mitigate the concept. The paper applies a functional approach to law and economics with the aim of reaching a higher level of efficiency in combatting money laundering through analyzing present regulatory and economic conditions. It is found that de-risking within the European Union opposes the aim of the present regulatory scheme regarding anti-money laundering. The paper finds that it is needed to divide the analysis of de-risking to a national and regional level. Additionally, the paper establishes that the present strategy of de-risking at national level eventually will result in enhanced regulation to fulfill the aim of the present regulatory framework, which is why a proactive approach by recontracting the client base is recommended. At a regional level, it is found that de-risking is valid, why a solution needs to come from the EU enhancing control, monitoring and sanctions to establish trust and the possibility for financial inclusion.


Abstract. Knowledge graphs (KG) are a virtual layer connecting disparate databases into an interoperable framework. Though the application of KGs for enterprises are increasing, geospatial KG design is not common. This presentation describes U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research to build KGs for integrating geospatial and non-spatial attribute semantics of topographic data. Those geographic information system databases are composed of various feature types and metadata attributes organized various themes and stored in different data formats, such as geodatabases, flat-file spreadsheets, and raster images. The system being created tests two research objectives: 1) the feasibility of semantic technology approaches for geospatial data within the context of national topographic data and 2) the contribution to building a body of knowledge about system architecture for geospatial ontologies and linked open data. This presentation discusses the context of topographic data semantics, the problem and aims of building the system, and the integrated KG framework. The basic workflow and operations of the system architecture consisting of open-source software are described. The architecture modifies existing software with unique solutions such as performing GeoSPAQL queries with Postgres, a relational table datastore, and a map interface with extensions to support linked data queries as browseable graphs. As public spatial data infrastructure, the system is made available as a Docker Container on GitHub.