Technology entrepreneurship rarely succeeds in isolation; increasingly, it occurs in interconnected networks of business partners and other organizations. For entrepreneurs lacking access to an established business ecosystem, incubators and accelerators provide a possible support mechanism for access to partners and resources. Yet, these relatively recent approaches to supporting entrepreneurship are still evolving. Therefore, it can be challenging for entrepreneurs to assess these mechanisms and to make insightful decisions on whether or not to join an incubator or accelerator, and which incubator or accelerator best meets their needs.

In this article, five key factors that entrepreneurs should take into consideration about incubators and accelerators are offered. Insights are drawn from two surveys of managers and users of incubators and accelerators. An understanding of these five key success factors (stage of venture, fit with incubator's mission, selection and graduation policies, services provided, and network of partners) and potential pitfalls will help entrepreneurs confidently enter into a relationship with an incubator or accelerator.


Excavation within the Gothic nave of Lichfield Cathedral in 2003 revealed three phases of masonry building ante-dating the Norman period. These are likely to relate to the church of St Peter, which Bede described in 731 as housing the timber shrine to St Chad, fifth bishop of Mercia (d 672). A rectangular, timber-lined pit found on the central axis of the building might represent a crypt or burial chamber beneath the shrine. Buried in a small pit alongside this were three fragments of a bas-relief panel of Ancaster limestone, carved with the figure of an angel. They comprise half of the left-hand end of a hollow, box-like structure that had a low-coped lid. This is interpreted as a shrine chest associated with the cult of St Chad. The sculpture, which was broken and buried in, or before, the tenth century, is in remarkably fresh condition, allowing for an in-depth analysis of its original painted embellishment and for an assessment of the monument in terms of its iconography and stylistic affinities, and thus the possible conditions of its production. It is argued that the surviving portion of the panel represents the archangel Gabriel, and that it is one half of an Annunciation scene.


The requirement of quickly creating new value-added telecom services is increasingly becoming a business imperative today. Telecom operators and service providers are facing the challenge how to reduce cost and time-to-market of creating new services. The reduction is expected to be 1 or 2 orders of magnitude from months or weeks to days, even hours. In traditional Service Creation Environment, a full lifecycle of requirements analyzing, design, development, testing and deployment always has to be undergone. Such way of services creation always results in poor reuse of software assets and involves mass resources. Some technologies have been developed to speed up steps in this lifecycle, such as BPEL or SCXML. These orchestration techniques and tools are already used to reduce cost in design and development stages but the creation procedure still rely on attendance of IT specialists. This paper presents a way to shorten and simplify the whole service creation lifecycle and to reach the reduction target by building a template based Service Creation Environment. A model is used to separate service work flow definition and service parameters configuration and to achieve rapid development for different roles. A prototype of template based service creation environment is also introduced in this paper.


Background 15-deoxyspergualin (DSG) is a derivative of spergualin, which is an antibiotic extracted from the culture filtrate of Bacillus laterosporus. DSG is reported to be a potent immunosuppressive agent. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of DSG for rejection following renal transplantation. Methods. The subjects were 15 patients who received a renal transplant. DSG was used against a total of 27 rejection episodes, including 19 acute rejections, 6 acute on chronic rejections, and 2 chronic rejections. DSG was given intravenously to the patients at the dose of 5 mg/kg/day in principle, and the administration period was 5-10 days. We also used methylprednisolone for the first 3 days at the dose of 500 mg (day 1), 250 mg (day 2), and 125 mg (day 3). Results. DSG was effective for all patients with acute rejection, and the serum creatinine values returned to their previous levels in 5 acute rejection episodes. DSG was effective for 4 of the acute on chronic rejection episodes. However, it showed no beneficial effect for 2 acute on chronic rejection episodes. DSG was effective for 1 chronic rejection episode, but it showed no effect on another chronic rejection episode. DSG was effective for 24 of 27 rejection episodes; hence, the efficacy rate was 88.9%. Among the side effects from the use of DSG, facial flushing was the most frequent subjective symptom and thrombocytopenia and leukocytopenia were the main abnormalities among the laboratory data. Most of these adverse effects were mild and well tolerated by the patients. Conclusion. In conclusion, DSG showed a beneficial effect against rejection episodes following renal transplantation, especially for acute rejection and acute on chronic rejection episodes.


Some commentators have theorized that modern enforcement has swung back and forth between extremes in response to changes in political leadership in the federal antitrust agencies and that there is little continuity of viewpoints between the extremes of the arc. Using enforcement data from 1961 through 2004, the first section of the paper reveals that the assumptions underlying these theories are faulty. In reality, there was a seismic shift in antitrust theory in the 1960s and early 1970s that courts began to adopt in the mid 1970s. The paper demonstrates that while antitrust agencies lagged in adjusting to these developments, they eventually changed in the 1980s to a new course on which they have basically remained, with relatively minor adjustments. The enforcement that followed has built upon the positive contributions of earlier periods; the cumulative effect has been a bipartisan and widely shared vision of appropriate policy. The second section of the paper derives lessons about policymaking from antitrust enforcement experience in recent decades. Developments in economic learning and changes in industrial conditions or technology are important guideposts to ensure that competition policy does not veer off into ineffective or harmful backwaters. Despite evolving economic scholarship that undermined the theoretical support for certain types of cases, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the 1970s continued on a misguided course regarding dominant firm misconduct, vertical distribution restraints, and the treatment of merger efficiencies. In addition to these weaknesses in enforcement theories, the paper also identifies administrative errors by the FTC during this period. The agency took on many more complex cases than it could execute well, even if those cases had not also had doctrinal difficulties. The paper concludes by suggesting practical approaches that government agencies, and, more specifically, the FTC should take to improve the quality of competition policy. It argues that agencies need to reassess their status continually by analyzing the effects of previous actions and making adjustments, if necessary, and by keeping abreast of developments in theory and evidence. Agencies must also engage in what can be called "competition policy research and development" to increase their intellectual capital and inform the competition policy community about important developments. Finally, they must evaluate the potential long-term institutional impact of their actions and ensure that they are not diminishing their future capabilities.


An increase in reservoir water colour over the last 10 years has been impacting on the ability of water treatment works (WTWs) in the UK to meet THM regulations. The problem is exacerbated in autumn particularly after heavy rainfall. It appears that residual organics are labile precursors to disinfection by-products (DBPs). One WTW was investigated to determine a link between raw water characteristics and reactivity with chlorine. Bulk water parameters were measured but the information obtained was limited. To further characterise the water, samples of reservoir water were fractionated using XAD resins and UF membranes. The resulting fractions were subjected to analysis of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), UV absorbance at 254 nm (UV 254 ), specific UV absorbance (SUVA) defined as the ratio of UV 254 to DOC and trihalomethane formation potential (THM-FP). The samples were also characterised using high performance size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC). Both methods of fractionation described here have limitations in explaining the bulk water behaviour. The relationship between SUVA and THM-FP was discussed. HPSEC showed that the size distribution of the resin separated and membrane separated fractions was similar indicating that the molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of the membranes is not sharp.


A focus on crisis is a mainstay of the literature on contemporary populism. However, the links between populism and crisis remain under-theorized and undeveloped. This article puts forward a novel perspective for understanding this relationship, arguing that crisis does not just trigger populism, but that populism also attempts to act as a trigger for crisis. This is because crises are always mediated and 'performed'. The article presents a six-step model of how populist actors 'perform' crisis, drawing on empirical examples from Europe, Latin America, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. It explains how the performance of crisis allows populist actors to pit 'the people' against a dangerous other, radically simplify the terrain of political debate and advocate strong leadership. It ultimately suggests that we should move from thinking of crisis as something purely external to populism, towards thinking about the performance of crisis as an internal core feature of populism.


The thesis is a preliminary mission analysis and design of a small satellite swarm. The concept of the mission is to probe altitudes between 200 km and 6000 km to study the structures and dynamics of the magnetic field aligned currents. The mission lifetime is about 3 months. Aerodynamic drag at low altitudes is used for orbit and formation control. During the perigee passage, the satellite would decelerate due to drag, therefore, reducing its apogee. In addition, the attitude control of the spacecraft during the perigee passage could be used for formation control by changing its cross-sectional area. The simulations indicated that an appropriate insertion orbit should be at the perigee of 168 km and an apogee of 6000km. Moreover, from the orbital decay simulations, it was found that by maintaining a constant ram-facing area of 0.1 m2, it is possible for the satellite to decay in 90 days. The attitude simulations show that for at least one perigee passage at a perigee altitude of 168 km, the satellite is able to maintain its attitude and not tumble throughout the trajectory. In addition, investigation of the leader-follower satellite formation yielded that the relative translation of a circular orbit oscillates in all relative directions whereas in an elliptical orbit it only oscillates in the cross-track direction. Furthermore, the simulation has also shown that the relative translation of a leader-follower formation with a elliptical reference orbit, would spiral out of the radial-cross-track plane.


The following article deals with the problem of integrating security issues into the study programme of faculties training teachers in individual fields of education. It evaluates the current status of the development of the issues at the level of interdepartmental cooperation of selected state administration institutions. Based on exploratory research by the Czech School Inspectorate, the current status of the implementation of security issues into schools and educational establishments is described. The ongoing pilot verification of the e-learning module in security issues at the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Prague is also introduced. The article contains statistical data from the statutory research task, which was carried out in the form of a diagnostic survey involving the staff and students of the Charles University in Prague. The research was dedicated to the issues of educating the teaching staff of the Czech education system in the field of safety issues, with particular emphasis on the safety
of students and educational institutions. The article also presents the level of knowledge and practical skills of primary school teachers in the field of responding to crisis situations that may occur in the school environment, e.g active shooter.


When neither inpatient admission nor prompt discharge is clearly indicated for a patient in the emergency department, physicians place the patient under observation in a hospital for diagnosis and treatment. The increasing prevalence of observation stays at hospitals reimbursed by Medicare is receiving considerable attention, but the prevalence remains unexplored in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospitals, which are subject to different payment policies. Using VHA data for fiscal years 2005-13, we identified trends and variations in observation rates across twenty-one Veteran Integrated Service Networks and 128 VHA hospitals nationwide. We found that observation rates across VHA hospitals more than doubled, from 6.5 percent to 13.8 percent, and that there was substantial variation across both Veteran Integrated Service Networks and hospitals. The most prevalent diagnoses accounted for an increasing share of observation stays over time. Despite different incentives within the VHA and Medicare, rates of observation have increased over time for both populations.


Abstract. The first concerted multi-model intercomparison of halogenated very short-lived substances (VSLS) has been performed, within the framework of the ongoing Atmospheric Tracer Transport Model Intercomparison Project (TransCom). Eleven global models or model variants participated (nine chemical transport models and two chemistry–climate models) by simulating the major natural bromine VSLS, bromoform (CHBr3) and dibromomethane (CH2Br2), over a 20-year period (1993–2012). Except for three model simulations, all others were driven offline by (or nudged to) reanalysed meteorology. The overarching goal of TransCom-VSLS was to provide a reconciled model estimate of the stratospheric source gas injection (SGI) of bromine from these gases, to constrain the current measurement-derived range, and to investigate inter-model differences due to emissions and transport processes. Models ran with standardised idealised chemistry, to isolate differences due to transport, and we investigated the sensitivity of results to a range of VSLS emission inventories. Models were tested in their ability to reproduce the observed seasonal and spatial distribution of VSLS at the surface, using measurements from NOAA's long-term global monitoring network, and in the tropical troposphere, using recent aircraft measurements – including high-altitude observations from the NASA Global Hawk platform. The models generally capture the observed seasonal cycle of surface CHBr3 and CH2Br2 well, with a strong model–measurement correlation (r  ≥  0.7) at most sites. In a given model, the absolute model–measurement agreement at the surface is highly sensitive to the choice of emissions. Large inter-model differences are apparent when using the same emission inventory, highlighting the challenges faced in evaluating such inventories at the global scale. Across the ensemble, most consistency is found within the tropics where most of the models (8 out of 11) achieve best agreement to surface CHBr3 observations using the lowest of the three CHBr3 emission inventories tested (similarly, 8 out of 11 models for CH2Br2). In general, the models reproduce observations of CHBr3 and CH2Br2 obtained in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) at various locations throughout the Pacific well. Zonal variability in VSLS loading in the TTL is generally consistent among models, with CHBr3 (and to a lesser extent CH2Br2) most elevated over the tropical western Pacific during boreal winter. The models also indicate the Asian monsoon during boreal summer to be an important pathway for VSLS reaching the stratosphere, though the strength of this signal varies considerably among models. We derive an ensemble climatological mean estimate of the stratospheric bromine SGI from CHBr3 and CH2Br2 of 2.0 (1.2–2.5) ppt,  ∼  57 % larger than the best estimate from the most recent World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Ozone Assessment Report. We find no evidence for a long-term, transport-driven trend in the stratospheric SGI of bromine over the simulation period. The transport-driven interannual variability in the annual mean bromine SGI is of the order of ±5 %, with SGI exhibiting a strong positive correlation with the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the eastern Pacific. Overall, our results do not show systematic differences between models specific to the choice of reanalysis meteorology, rather clear differences are seen related to differences in the implementation of transport processes in the models.


Step-indexed semantic interpretations of types were proposed as an alternative to purely syntactic proofs of type safety using subject reduction. The types are interpreted as sets of values indexed by the number of computation steps for which these values are guaranteed to behave like proper elements of the type. Building on work by Ahmed, Appel and others, we introduce a step-indexed semantics for the imperative object calculus of Abadi and Cardelli. Providing a semantic account of this calculus using more `traditional', domain-theoretic approaches has proved challenging due to the combination of dynamically allocated objects, higher-order store, and an expressive type system. Here we show that, using step-indexing, one can interpret a rich type discipline with object types, subtyping, recursive and bounded quantified types in the presence of state.


Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are distributed networks comprising small sensing devices equipped with a processor, memory, power source, and often with the capability for shortrange wireless communication. These networks are used in various applications, and have created interest in WSN research and commercial uses, including industrial, scienti c, household, military, medical and environmental domains. These initiatives have also been stimulated by the nalisation of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which de nes the medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) for low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPAN). Future applications may require large WSNs consisting of huge numbers of inexpensive wireless sensor nodes with limited resources (energy, bandwidth), operating in harsh environmental conditions. WSNs must perform reliably despite novel resource constraints including limited bandwidth, channel errors, and nodes that have limited operating energy. Improving resource utilisation and quality-of-service (QoS), in terms of reliable connectivity and energy e ciency, are major challenges in WSNs. Hence, the development of new WSN applications with severe resource constraints will require innovative solutions to overcome the above issues as well as improving the robustness of network components, and developing sustainable and cost e ective implementation models. The main purpose of this research is to investigate methods for improving the performance of WSNs to maintain reliable network connectivity, scalability and energy e ciency. The study focuses on the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC/PHY layers and the carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) based networks. First, transmission power control (TPC) is investigated in multi and single-hop WSNs using typical hardware platform parameters via simulation and numerical analysis. A novel approach to testing TPC at the physical layer is developed, and results show that contrary to what has been reported from previous studies, in multi-hop networks TPC does not save energy. iii Next, the network initialization/self-con guration phase is addressed through investigation of the 802.15.4 MAC beacon interval setting and the number of associating nodes, in terms of association delay with the coordinator. The results raise doubt whether that the association energy consumption will outweigh the bene t of duty cycle power management for larger beacon intervals as the number of associating nodes increases. The third main contribution of this thesis is a new cross layer (PHY-MAC) design to improve network energy e ciency, reliability and scalability by minimising packet collisions due to hidden nodes. This is undertaken in response to ndings in this thesis on the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC performance in the presence of hidden nodes. Speci cally, simulation results show that it is the random backo exponent that is of paramount importance for resolving collisions and not the number of times the channel is sensed before transmitting. However, the random backo is ine ective in the presence of hidden nodes. The proposed design uses a new algorithm to increase the sensing coverage area, and therefore greatly reduces the chance of packet collisions due to hidden nodes. Moreover, the design uses a new dynamic transmission power control (TPC) to further reduce energy consumption and interference. The above proposed changes can smoothly coexist with the legacy 802.15.4 CSMA/CA. Finally, an improved two dimensional discrete time Markov chain model is proposed to capture the performance of the slotted 802.15.4 CSMA/CA. This model recti es minor issues apparent in previous studies. The relationship derived for the successful transmission probability, throughput and average energy consumption, will provide better performance predictions. It will also o er greater insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the MAC operation, and possible enhancement opportunities. Overall, the work presented in this thesis provides several signi cant insights into WSN performance improvements with both existing protocols and newly designed protocols. Finally, some of the numerous challenges for future research are described.


Background Uncertainty persists about carotid intima–media thickness (CIMT) as a marker of subclinical atherosclerosis and the independent relevance of different measures of adiposity for CIMT. We assessed the independent relevance of general adiposity (body mass index), central adiposity (waist circumference), and body composition (fat mass index and fat‐free mass index) with CIMT among adults in the United Kingdom. Methods and Results Multivariable linear regression of cross‐sectional analyses of UK Biobank assessed the mean percentage difference in CIMT associated with equivalent differences in adiposity measures. To assess independent associations, body mass index and waist circumference were mutually adjusted, as were fat mass index and fat‐free mass index. Among 39 367 participants (mean [SD] age 64 [8] years, 52% female, 97% White), median (interquartile range) CIMT was 0.65 (0.14) mm in women and 0.69 (0.18) mm in men. All adiposity measures were linearly and positively associated with CIMT after adjusting for confounders. Fat‐free mass index was most strongly associated with CIMT after adjustment for fat mass index (% difference in CIMT: 1.23 [95% CI 0.93–1.53] women; 3.44 [3.01–3.86] men), while associations of fat mass index were attenuated after adjustment for fat‐free mass index (0.28 [−0.02, 0.58] women; −0.59 [−0.99, −0.18] men). After mutual adjustment, body mass index remained positively associated with CIMT, but waist circumference was completely attenuated. Conclusions Fat‐free mass index was the adiposity measure most strongly associated with CIMT, suggesting that CIMT may reflect vascular compensatory remodeling rather than atherosclerosis. Hence, screening for subclinical atherosclerosis should evaluate carotid plaques in addition to CIMT.


We present CanDID, a platform for practical, user-friendly realization of decentralized identity, the idea of empowering end users with management of their own credentials.While decentralized identity promises to give users greater control over their private data, it burdens users with management of private keys, creating a significant risk of key loss. Existing and proposed approaches also presume the spontaneous availability of a credential-issuance ecosystem, creating a bootstrapping problem. They also omit essential functionality, like resistance to Sybil attacks and the ability to detect misbehaving or sanctioned users while preserving user privacy.CanDID addresses these challenges by issuing credentials in a user-friendly way that draws securely and privately on data from existing, unmodified web service providers. Such legacy compatibility similarly enables CanDID users to leverage their existing online accounts for recovery of lost keys. Using a decentralized committee of nodes, CanDID provides strong confidentiality for user's keys, real-world identities, and data, yet prevents users from spawning multiple identities and allows identification (and blacklisting) of sanctioned users.We present the CanDID architecture and report on experiments demonstrating its practical performance.


Objective Inflammation plays crucial roles in the pathogenesis of several chronic inflammatory disorders, including Crohn's disease (CD) and UC, the two major forms of IBD. The urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) exerts pleiotropic functions over the course of both physiological and pathological processes. uPAR not only has a key role in fibrinolysis but also modulates the development of protective immunity. Additionally, uPAR supports extracellular matrix degradation and regulates cell migration, adhesion and proliferation, thus influencing the development of inflammatory and immune responses. This study aimed to evaluate the role of uPAR in the pathogenesis of IBD. Design The functional role of uPAR was assessed in established experimental models of colitis. uPAR deficiency effects on cytokine release, polarisation and bacterial phagocytosis were analysed in colonic macrophages. uPAR expression was analysed in surgical specimens collected from normal subjects and patients with IBD. Results In mice, uPAR expression is positively regulated as colitis progresses. uPAR-KO mice displayed severe inflammation compared with wild-type littermates, as indicated by clinical assessment, endoscopy and colon histology. The absence of uPAR led to an increased production of inflammatory cytokines by macrophages that showed an M1 polarisation and impaired phagocytosis. In human IBD, CD68+ macrophages derived from the inflamed mucosa expressed low levels of uPAR. Conclusions These findings point to uPAR as an essential component of intestinal macrophage functions and unravel a new potential target to control mucosal inflammation in IBD.


abstract We show that the group of conformal homeomorphisms of the boundary of a rank one symmetric space (except the hyperbolic plane) of noncompact type acts as a maximal convergence group. Moreover, we show that any family of uniformly quasiconformal homeomorphisms has the convergence property. Our theorems generalize results of Gehring and Martin in the real hyperbolic case for Möbius groups. As a consequence, this shows that the maximal convergence subgroups of the group of self homeomorphisms of the d–sphere are not unique up to conjugacy. Finally, we discuss some implications of maximality.


Abstract. A new methodology for the estimation of smoke-injection height from wild-land fires is proposed and evaluated. It is demonstrated that the approaches developed for estimating the plume rise from stacks, such as the formulas of G. Briggs, can be formally written in terms characterising the wild-land fires: fire energy, size and temperature. However, these semi-empirical methods still perform quite poorly because the physical processes controlling the uplift of the wildfire plumes differ from those controlling the plume rise from stacks. The proposed new methodology considers wildfire plumes in a way similar to Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) computations. The new formulations are applied to a dataset collected within the MISR Plume Height Project for about 2000 fire plumes in North America and Siberia. The estimates of the new method are compared with remote-sensing observations of the plume top by the MISR instrument, with two versions of the Briggs' plume-rise formulas, with the 1-D plume-rise model BUOYANT, and with the prescribed plume-top position (the approach widely used in dispersion modelling). The new method has performed significantly better than all these approaches. For two-thirds of the cases, its predictions deviated from the MISR observations by less than 500 m, which is the uncertainty of the observations themselves. It is shown that the fraction of "good" predictions is much higher (>80%) for the plumes reaching the free troposphere.


Regulatory agencies require the use of artificial accelerograms satisfying specific criteria of compatibility with a given design spectrum, as input for certain types of analyses for the aseismic design of critical facilities. Most of the numerical methods for simulating seismic motions compatible with a specified design (target) spectrum proposed by various researchers require that a number of real recorded seismic accelerograms of appropriate frequency content is available. To by-pass this requirement, a previously established in the literature probabilistic approach to yield simulated earthquake records whose response spectrum achieves on average a certain level of agreement with a target spectrum is employed in the present paper. At the core of the above method lies the adoption of an appropriate parametric power spectrum model capable of accounting for various site-specific soil conditions. In this regard, the potential of two different, commonly, used spectral forms is evaluated for this purpose in context with the design spectrum defined by the European Code provisions. Next, an iterative wavelet-based matching procedure is applied to the thus acquired records to enhance, individually, the agreement of the corresponding response spectra with the targeted one. Special attention is paid to ensure that the velocity and the displacement time histories associated with the finally obtained artificial accelerograms are physically sound by means of appropriate baseline correction techniques.


This paper aims to study the supply side of an emerging new tourism attraction. Specifically, the research focuses on the transformation of Jewish heritage to a unique tourism product. Actual objectives are to assess the physical elements composing the Jewish heritage product and to examine their diversity in a sample of twenty Spanish towns and cities, members of Red de Juderias de Espana organization. Affiliation with a central actor raised the question to what extent different localities are affected by the central guidelines so as to generate a homogeneous product of a repetitive nature. A survey of all artifacts related to Jewish heritage tourism in these cities provided the data for the assessment. The results shed light on the process of converting abstract heritage to a tangible tourism product. The Jewish heritage product embraces a set of specific elements listed in descending order of their appearance: Jewish quarter, Jewish museum, a synagogue, a local Jewish persona, other artifacts, square or garden named after a Jewish persona, and Jewish cemetery. Not all places have all elements and elements of the same type are not necessarily at the same level of development. Analysis of the diversity of the product among the towns reveals a tendency towards homogeneity in the visual appearance of the Jewish quarters and the displays exhibited in Jewish museums. Nonetheless, certain elements such as synagogues and their story, local Jewish personas, and other minor artifacts tend to portray greater heterogeneity. In addition, the differences found in the productmix among cities help to increase their diversity. It is recommended to exercise a greater care in preserving differences among cities especially those located in the same geographical cluster. In the way of analogy these findings seem to equally apply to other niche tourism products such as wine tourism, rural tourism, or other religions' tourism of non-monumental nature.


44 Whole grains have been associated with a number of health benefits. We systematically reviewed 45 existing meta-analyses of observational studies and evaluated the level of evidence for their putative 46 effects based on pre-selected criteria. Of the 23 included studies, we found convincing evidence of 47 an inverse association between whole grain consumption and risk of type-2 diabetes and colorectal 48 cancer; possible evidence of decreased risk of colon cancer and cardiovascular mortality with 49 increased whole grain intake, as well as increased risk of prostate cancer. Limited or insufficient 50 evidence was available for all other outcomes investigated. Overall findings are encouraging for a 51 positive effect of whole grain consumption on certain diseases, especially highly prevalent 52 metabolic diseases, however, uncertainty of some negative associations deserves further attention. 53


A key remaining issue for the completion of the Banking Union is the concentrated exposure of
banks in many countries to their own sovereign. This paper examines that the belief that banks
should be allowed to buy large amounts of their own sovereign so that they can stabilise the
market in a crisis and argues that it is mistaken for two reasons. In the first instance, banks are
only intermediaries for private savings, and secondly, banks have a higher cost of funding than
do their sovereign. The overall conclusion is that governments should make it more attractive
for households (and other real money investors) to hold government debt directly.


This research was conducted to survey the status and needs of the career services in secondary schools and to build and produce a career services standardization for secondary schools in Malaysia. The method used is generic or basic qualitative research. Triangulation data is obtained by sources from the practitioners' respondent, standard documents and response of specialist panel. Every data has been analyzed by process of constant comparative. The inspection of data is appertaining to the forming of kategory and themes.
The practitioner respondent data are obtained through a focused group discussion. A number of 22 counselors chosen by the purposive sampling and have participated in three focus group discussion where the researcher acted as the moderator. It resulted in having a variation and differences in the way the career services are conducted by the counselors. This is reported happened due a lack of clear guidelines, no specific schedule, lack of competency, lack of information, time limit, work load, lack of support, no source for getting information, no self-improvement course and lack of amenities. Based on these data, this research has identified the needs to have standardization for career services in Malaysian secondary school as well as the career services standard suggested by school counselllors.
The document data are obtained from four analyzed documents. From the content of the document, an early draft for the standardization suggestion has been created and evaluated by three of experts. The experts were asked to criticize the early draft, insert additional criteria and give suggestion for improvement.
The expert data are obtained from three experts who have been chosen to use the purposive sampling technique. These data were obtained from the critics that have been made by each expert on the early draft and through individual interview with each expert. The interview data are analyzed to identify the suggestion for career service standardization from the point of view of the career experts.
There are three types of data obtained (the practitioner data, the document data and the expert data). There data have been analyzed according to the various components and elements discovered. The result shows the standard of career services in Malaysian secondry school.
Standard of career services results reveal three parts:
Part 1 – General Standard In Services involves components of
facilities/material/equipment, qualification/skill of school counsellor including ethics and professionalism.
Part 2 - Standard Of Eficiency In The Area Of Services Involving
testing and eavaluation, career programme, information/sources/dissemination, career counselling and placement.
Part 3 - Standard Of Capability Of Practitioner consists of
management and administration, network, technology, consultancy, research, diversity and equality, evaluation programme.
The finding of the research has implication on the changing of the career programme policy in secondary schools, raising the base academic and professsional training for the career practitioner as well as the support and cooperation of all parties to build up a career counselling programme in the secondary school. It recoordinates changes in the work technique of the school counsellor to raise up human capital who have directions in future.


Majority of the youngsters' in today are possessing smart phone with internet connection since the cost of smartphone and the cost of unlimited internet connection are in affordable range. More than that they are all surfing various online market place site frequently to fulfill their needs and wants. Their earning capacity is reasonable to buy their needs as per their will and wish. They have no time to spend for buying product in the regular traditional way of purchasing. They are always busy in engaging their time for earning their lively hood. It is more convenient for them to buy the product through online, since purchasing can be done at any time and any place. Moreover, they can review the product performances through social media and get enough information regarding the product from various sources with their prices in the online sites to take appropriate decision on their own. It is the responsibility of the online marketers to provide genuine rightful information about the product to the consumer to decide on their own to buy. Buyers are expecting the seamless process and every needed information shall be available at their finger tip about the product to go through and finalize their own buying decision.


This article first explicates the concept of sports enjoyment and then reviews the literature on the many facets of sports commentary regarding its general content and effects. An experimental study was designed to test whether complimentary or conflicting commentary, as well as game knowledge, and playing experience contributed to game enjoyment, perceived liking of the commentary, and perceived action in the game. Results partially supported the hypotheses. Specifically, commentary type had a significant impact on viewers' liking of the commentary but had no impact on game enjoyment or perceived action in the game, game knowledge increased game enjoyment but had no impact on the other two dependent variables, and playing experience had a positive impact on perceived action in the game but had no impact on the other two variables. Implications are discussed.


"Rodent Societies" synthesizes and integrates the current state of knowledge about the social behavior of rodents, providing ecological and evolutionary contexts for understanding their societies and highlighting emerging conservation and management strategies to preserve them. It begins with a summary of the evolution, phylogeny, and biogeography of social and nonsocial rodents, providing a historical basis for comparative analyses. Subsequent sections focus on group-living rodents and characterize their reproductive behaviors, life histories and population ecology, genetics, neuroendocrine mechanisms, behavioral development, cognitive processes, communication mechanisms, cooperative and uncooperative behaviors, antipredator strategies, comparative socioecology, diseases, and conservation. Using the highly diverse and well-studied Rodentia as model systems to integrate a variety of research approaches and evolutionary theory into a unifying framework, "Rodent Societies" will appeal to a wide range of disciplines, both as a compendium of current research and as a stimulus for future collaborative and interdisciplinary investigations.


Introduction: Presence of conflict seems inevitable in organizations, especially in therapeutic and educational centers, considering the variety of personnel, patients, and their families' education and cultures. Nurse managers could effectively be involved in conflict management at these therapeutic and educational centers. This study aimed at assessing nurse managers' conflict management strategies at Hamadan therapeutic and educational centers. Methods: A correlation descriptive study was conducted by Putnam and Wilson's conflict management questionnaire on 400 nurse managers of Hamadan therapeutic and educational centers. Data were analyzed by SPSS (Version 16) via Pierson correlation coefficient, t test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results: Overall, 52.2% of nurse managers used problem solving (collaboration and accommodation), 37.8% used none-confrontational strategies (avoidance and compromising) and 3% employed control (competing) styles for conflict management at Hamadan therapeutic and educational centers. There was a significant correlation between their conflict management strategies and age, marital status, work experience, managerial work experience, and employment status (P > 0.05). Conclusions: There were direct and significant correlations between nurse managers' conflict management styles and some of their demographic characteristics. Therefore, it is important to consider demographic characteristics before the selection of managers. Conflict management education could improve nurse managers' capabilities for conflict management at Hamadan therapeutic and educational centers. Received: 31.07.2016 Accepted: 21.08.2016


Abstract: Unusual preservation of small primaspid trilobites may provide a key to interpretation of an enigmatic, apparently organically textured surface or sedimentary structure in the subtidal Upper Ordovician (Katian) Kope Formation of northern Kentucky. A thin, elliptical lens of silty mudstone in the lower Kope Formation (Pioneer Valley submember, Southgate Member, C-1 Sequence) has several unique features mainly present on its basal surface, as a hyporelief, but also to a limited extent on the upper surface. Toward one end, the basal surface has sinuous fluting that terminates at the other end in a complex of conjoined, flattened, ellipsoidal or spatulate lobes that is partly overlain by an outlier of the primary lens. The basal surface has small-scale corrugations (3 to 4 mm wide) and polygonal reticulation variably developed. Articulated exoskeletons of small, spinose primaspid trilobites [Primaspis crosotus (Locke)] occur mostly with their ventral surfaces applied directly to the textured surfaces (i.e., dorsal side down). On some lobes the reticulate texturing wraps around from the basal to the upper surface and is covered with minute rounded pustules (∼ 0.3 mm). These enigmatic features are interpreted either as a recumbent microbial mat or an erect three-dimensional organism that was smothered and infilled by influx of silty sediment, preserved ultimately as a mold in hyporelief with trilobites in life position. Evidence for similar organic structures has not been previously reported from the Kope Formation. The taphonomic processes responsible for their preservation carry paleoenvironmental implications for possible microbial or macroalgal biotas within photic depths, and complex mediation of episodic depositional processes by organic biofilms or tissues.


Background : Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common cancer in the pediatric population. With modern treatments, the chance of the complete recovery is nearly 100% . The most important prognostic factors are appropriate treatment protocol and determination of patient risk factors based on clinical, morphological, immunological and cytological characteristics. In this study we reviewed frequency of these factors, like as age, gender, the primary white blood cell number, sub- group on the base of FAB classification, immunophenotype and the clinical progress. Methods : In this retrospective study, we reviewed 877 pediatric patients with the diagnosis of ALL between the years of 1994 and 2004 . In these patients the age, gender, primary WBC count, sub-group based on the FAB classification, immunophenotype and the clinical progress in 177 patient with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at Imam Khomeini Hospital between the years of 1994 to 2004 were determined. Results : Of these patients, 1.6% was younger than one year, 24.8% more than ten years old and 73.6% were between the ages of one and ten years; 63.8% were male. WBC counts were above 50,000/ ul in 28.8% of the patients. FAB classifications included L1 in 80.2% , L2 in 17.5% and L3 in 2.3% of the patients. Immunophenotypes included pre- B cell in 63.8% , early pre- B cell in 23.1% , T cell in 12.3% and mature B cell in 0.8% of the patients. Marker CD10+ was detected in 88.1% of the B cell cases. In this study group, 74% of the patients recovered, 16.3% died and 16.5% relapsed. Conclusions: The prevalence of FAB - L1 and pre- B cell cases in this study is greater than a previous study, while the prevalence of FAB - L2 and early pre- B cell cases is less than that of the previous study. Abstract


ABSTRACT What does it take for a female aspirant to win a party nomination in a candidate-centered electoral system in an emerging democracy? Three decades after the third wave of democratization hit Africa, we still know little about women's entry into politics in countries without formal gender quotas. In this paper we use qualitative interview data on the nomination processes of Zambia's three main political parties to explore formal and informal aspects of the candidate selection process. A key reason the literature is inconclusive about which candidate selection rules favor gender balance is that these rules tend to be poorly institutionalized, particularly in countries with weak party organizations and strong leaders. Although having local patronage networks may help to garner local support for a candidacy, often the central party leader is the critical decision-maker. Strikingly, Zambia's main political parties tend to nominate the same number of female candidates, suggesting collusion by the political parties. Ultimately, all political aspirants – irrespective of gender – gain bargaining power by displaying personal funds and local popularity. Their loyalty to a particular party is less important.


Objective Many traumatised refugees suffer from both persistent pain and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To date, no specific guidelines exist for treatment of this group of patients. This paper presents data on a pilot treatment study conducted with 15 traumatised refugees with persistent pain and PTSD. Methods Participants received 10 sessions of pain-focused treatment with biofeedback (BF) followed by 10 sessions of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET). Structured interviews and standardised questionnaires were used to assess symptoms of pain intensity, pain disability, PTSD and quality of life directly before and after treatment and at 3 months follow-up. Results Following the combined intervention, participants showed a significant reduction in both pain and PTSD symptoms, as well as improved quality of life. Additionally, biofeedback increased motivation for subsequent trauma-focused therapy, which in turn was related to larger PTSD treatment gains. Conclusion This pilot study provides initial evidence that combining BF and NET is safe, acceptable, and feasible in patients with co-morbid persistent pain and PTSD.


The goal of this thesis is to understand the spanning trees of the n-dimensional cube Qn by understanding their edge slide graph. An edge slide is a move that "slides" an edge of a spanning tree of Qn across a two-dimensional face, and the edge slide graph is the graph on the spanning trees of Qn with an edge between two trees if they are connected by an edge slide. Edge slides are a restricted form of an edge move, in which the edges involved in the move are constrained by the structure of Qn, and the edge slide graph is a subgraph of the tree graph of Qn given by edge moves. The signature of a spanning tree of Qn is the n-tuple (a1, . . . , an), where ai is the number of edges in the ith direction. The signature of a tree is invariant under edge slides and is therefore constant on connected components. We say that a signature is connected if the trees with that signature lie in a single connected component, and disconnected otherwise. The goal of this research is to determine which signatures are connected. Signatures can be naturally classified as reducible or irreducible, with the reducible signatures being further divided into strictly reducible and quasi-irreducible signatures. We determine necessary and sufficient conditions for (a1, . . . , an) to be a signature of Qn, and show that strictly reducible signatures are disconnected. We conjecture that strict reducibility is the only obstruction to connectivity, and present substantial partial progress towards an inductive proof of this conjecture. In particular, we reduce the inductive step to the problem of proving under the inductive hypothesis that every irreducible signature has a "splitting signature" for which the upright trees with that signature and splitting signature all lie in the same component. We establish this step for certain classes of signatures, but at present are unable to complete it for all. Hall's Theorem plays an important role throughout the work, both in characterising the signatures, and in proving the existence of certain trees used in the arguments.


Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahas, they converted him. He shows the slow, meticulous steps by which he gradually mastered their language and his gradual realisation that its unusual nature closely reflected its speakers' startlingly original perceptions of the world. He describes how he began to realise that his discoveries about the Piraha language opened up a new way of understanding how language works in our minds and in our lives, and that this way was utterly at odds with Noam Chomsky's universally accepted linguistic theories. The perils of passionate academic opposition were then swiftly conjoined to those of the Amazon in a debate whose outcome has yet to be won. Adventure, personal enlightenment and the makings of a scientific revolution proceed together in this vivid, funny and moving book.


This report uses data from Efige and from Bureau Van Dijk's Amadeus and Orbis to estimate the effect of funding from the EU and national programmes on firms' employment, sales, added value, productivity and innovativeness. It also looks at the impact of subsidies to investment and R&D (irrespective of the source of funding) on the same variables. In the first part of the report we use only the Efige dataset (covering the years 2007- 2009) and we look at (contemporaneous) correlation between public support (from national and EU sources) and product and process innovation. Our results indicate that national and EU funding are equally important in stimulating product innovation. However, EU funding has a higher correlation with process innovation. We also find a positive correlation between public support to private R&D and product innovation (but no significant correlation between the former and process innovation). On the other hand, public support to private investment (including ICT capital) is positively associated with process innovation but not with product innovation. In the second part of the report we perform a proper counterfactual analysis, where we merge the Efige dataset with the Bureau Van Dijk's Amadeus (years 2001-2012) and Orbis (2006-2012) databases. This allows us to test whether firms funded between years 2007 and 2009 have a significantly different economic performance (measured in terms of employment, sales, and value added) in the years 2009-2012, while controlling for firms characteristics measured prior to 2007 (i.e. in the pre-treatment period). Our results indicate that receiving public support from national funds generates positive increments in employment, sales and added value, compared to the counterfactual status of the absence of public intervention. We do not find evidence that EU funds have additional impacts on employment, sales or value added (relative to firms receiving only national funding or no funding). This result is most likely due to the small sample size of firms receiving EU funds, which does not allow us to precisely estimate the impact of EU funding alone or in conjunction with national funding. It is also likely to depend upon the features of EU funding, which is geared towards research that produces results over a longer time horizon than the one observable in our data. We also find that generic support to firm-level investment projects has positive impacts on employment and added value. However, no statistically significant impacts are estimated for subsidies which support R&D expenditures exclusively (possibly due to the nature of R&D support policies, which often require more time to yield noticeable impacts on general firm-level performance).


Background: Children in families experiencing homelessness are at elevated risk for cognitive, motor, speech, and other developmental delays. Given the prevalence of family homelessness in Georgia and across the U.S., investigating the feasibility of implementing developmental screeners while families are in shelters is warranted. Methods: Three pilot shelters were selected for the development and implementation of Quality Improvement (QI) Teams, who used Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycles to make progress towards universally screening children for delay. We employed a formative evaluation to (1) characterize screening rates and shifts in shelter as a result of QI initiatives, and (2) identify barriers and facilitators to implementing QI interventions in family shelters. Results: Screening rates in all three shelters increased over the study period between 13-50%. Primary implementation facilitators included team members with experience in QI principles; having a medical provider on the team; possessing an "improvement culture;" and having diverse perspectives represented. Primary barriers included a lack of time or commitment in QI team leaders; medical providers with limited time in shelter; lack of training on how to represent and discuss QI data; and restrictive organizational policies. Conclusions: Family shelters demonstrate promise for implementing developmental screeners for at-risk children. Although challenges have been identified, facilitating factors are prevalent and underscore the importance of QI team preparation, composition, and cohesion. The relative availability, low-cost, and potential for impact of developmental screeners offer credence to their uptake and implementation within shelter clinical contexts.


Abstract I. Introduction The actuality of the abortion issue is explained in this chapter. The author expresses his determination to explore philosophical and historical background of this problem in the United States and Germany emphasising the legal development of abortion regulations. The comparative legal method was used as a proper means to illuminate Croatian controversial situation concerning the termination of pregnancy and to contribute in a modest way to probable law reforms. The objective of this thesis is to prove, despite very different substantive rules of abortion regulations in these countries, the similarities behind formal differences which witness about the universality of abortion dilemmas. Bearing this in mind, it is possible to propose suitable legal solutions and to foresee the development of this issue in the Republic of Croatia. II. Abortion Law in United States The author presents the historical background of abortion regulations stressing it as one of the arguments used by Justice Blackmun in the opinion of the Court in Roe v. Wade case. She continues with the critical examination of this decision and explains its influence upon Doe v. Bolton case as its supplement. The Court's reasoning in Casey has been sharply criticized as a failed attempt to invent something what the judges called a reaffirmation of "essential holding". The author argues that Roe has been overruled by rejection of the trimester test, enacting the undue burden test as an appropriate standard of the Court's review of the state legislation and the extension of state's interest in the potential life during the whole gestational period. Particular limitations and restrictions on abortions were presented, such as the consent to have an abortion of the woman herself, parental and spousal consent. In the concluding subchapter, the author describes the American experience of the abortion controversy as a constant judicial compromising. III. Legal Regulations of Abortion in Germany The author starts dealing with the abortion issue in Germany by describing the development of the legal regulations concerned with the termination of pregnancy. She focuses on the 1975 decision of the Constitutional Court exploring how the Court interpreted the rights of the unborn life, the state's obligation to protect such a life and how the Court balanced the rights of the fetus versus rights of the mother. The 1975 decision raised several unresolved issues and one of them was that the Court was able to proclaim that the fetus is a human being and consequently that it is entitled to constitutional rights protection. Nevertheless, the terms "unborn life", "germinating life" and "incipient life" were left without precise definition. Furthermore, the concept of the objective constitutional value was used as a vehicle for transferring to the Federal Constitutional Court specific legislative functions. The European Commission on Human Rights attitude towards abortion was expressed in Brugemen and Sxheuten versus Federal Republic of Germany decision. The second abortion decision of 25 May 1993 was the reaction to abortion as a special issue after the Unification. The author again discusses the rights of the unborn life, the state`s obligation to protect it and confronting the right to life with the right to self-determination. Finally, she argues whether the counseling model was a proper solution for abortion regulations. IV. Abortion Regulations as a Part of Croatian Legal Experience The history of legal regulations was presented in the first subchapter with special attention given to religious influence. The 1978 Act on reproductive rights was criticized in the sense whether it is still an appropriate legal source to regulate the termination of pregnancy in today's Croatia. It was indispensable to explore the revival of abortion discussion as a consequence of transitional changes which influenced the emerging of a conservative approach within the mentality of Croatian society. No.230 Bill on Abortion presents best such attitude with the additional remark that it was proposed to Croatian Parliament with particular aim to attract public attention during the electoral campaign for the elections for the second house of Parliament. The author concludes that bearing in mind the poor public approval of the Bill proposed and the fact that the vast majority of Croats gave their consent to abortion as being justified, it seems reasonable to leave abortion regulations as they are. V. Conclusion Legal development of abortion regulations in the US and Germany was going through the process of liberalization which demanded the changing of conservative attitude as necessary. The 1978 Croatian Act concerning procreative rights is one of the most liberal European laws and there is no need to make it more liberal. Moreover, the dispute whether we should prescribe the role of the moral arbiter to the Parliament or not has been resolved in favor of public opinion. The Croatian legislator will not be faced with a need to choose whether or not to compromise in a near future. There are no doubts that any attempt to pronounce the termination of pregnancy as illegal will be strongly opposed.


ABSTRACT There has been considerable distress in early childhood classrooms due to a cultural bias of Cartesian dualism, which has led to the bullying and disappearance of Body in education. Efforts of bringing about shifts in pedagogical practices toward holistic, bodily views of the self must be supported and developed. However, with classrooms that are filled with less movement and play, the marginalization of Body is of major concern. Interdisciplinary educational settings may be rich in exposing potentials and challenges of a nondual pedagogy implemented in unconsciously dualistic classroom cultures. The purpose of this article is to describe the barriers to implementation of a Mindfully Somatic Pedagogy, as well as affordances to young children throughout a preschool yoga class over an academic year. This research provides a basis for understanding how a Mindfully Somatic Pedagogy can curate holistic, first-person experiences of young children's bodily selves within a classroom. Likewise, differing expectations of Body from adults in classrooms can lead to mixed messages for children. Understanding how bodily experiences afford young children's development and teachers responses to Body in the classroom is informative in understanding the roles a school culture can have on the relationship between child development and teacher pedagogy.


The problem of effective use of human resources represents an extremely difficult socioeconomic challenge, therefore, currently there has been a marked increase in interest in the evaluation of human capital as the most important resource that provides competitive advantages for modern companies in every field. The aim of this study is to assess human capital of the company's employees on the basis of expert approach using a competence model and aggregated indices randomization method. The article clarifies the concept of human capital as the basic structural element of intellectual capital, presents a brief overview of the most common models and methods of human capital assessment and demonstrates the necessity of realization of a competence-based approach in the evaluation of the company's employees and personnel segmentation. The possibility and the advantage of application of the aggregated indices randomization method (AIRM) to produce a comprehensive assessment of the level of competence of employees of the international division of a Russian company in the field of IT industry is demonstrated. The division based in St. Petersburg is engaged in the development of custom software and modernization of corporate information systems in the financial industry, telecommunications, online-travel, mobile development, Internet projects and media. This study employs mathematical methods (aggregated indices randomization method, expert score), comparative methods (analysis, synthesis, classification), as well as the general logic methods of scientific concept construction. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that, based on existing research, the authors propose a new instrumental technique, realizing the algorithms for assessing the human capital of the company's employees, the results of which reveal the priorities in the field of recruitment, development and motivation of the staff, thereby implementing a rational approach to using human and financial resources of the company. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of methodological tools for human capital assessment that can be used for managing other information technology companies.


Abstract. Over the past decade, the diminishing Arctic sea ice has impacted the wave field, which depends on the ice-free ocean and wind. This study characterizes the wave climate in the Arctic spanning 1992–2014 from a merged altimeter data set and a wave hindcast that uses CFSR winds and ice concentrations from satellites as input. The model performs well, verified by the altimeters, and is relatively consistent for climate studies. The wave seasonality and extremes are linked to the ice coverage, wind strength, and wind direction, creating distinct features in the wind seas and swells. The altimeters and model show that the reduction of sea ice coverage causes increasing wave heights instead of the wind. However, trends are convoluted by interannual climate oscillations like the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. In the Nordic Greenland Sea the NAO influences the decreasing wind speeds and wave heights. Swells are becoming more prevalent and wind-sea steepness is declining. The satellite data show the sea ice minimum occurs later in fall when the wind speeds increase. This creates more favorable conditions for wave development. Therefore we expect the ice freeze-up in fall to be the most critical season in the Arctic and small changes in ice cover, wind speeds, and wave heights can have large impacts to the evolution of the sea ice throughout the year. It is inconclusive how important wave–ice processes are within the climate system, but selected events suggest the importance of waves within the marginal ice zone.


This article analyses the online communication of the Estonian extreme right that appears to be characterized by an echo-chamber effect as well as enclosed and hermetic meaning-making. The discussion mainly relies on the theoretical frameworks offered by semiotics of culture. One of the aims of the article is to widen the scope of understanding of autocommunicative processes that are usually related to learning, insight and innovation. The article shows the conditions in which autocommunicative processes result in closed interactions, based on reproducing stereotypes and redundant content. We detect antithetical meaning-making, an orientation towards normative ("correct") texts and the prevalence of phatic communication as the main dominants that guide closed autocommunication. Such communication leads to polarization of dissimilar views and hinders dialogue. Our case study focuses on the discussion that arose in the context of the European Refugee Crisis that started in spring 2015.


In this study, the effects of two variable parameters namely nanoclay and coupling agent on the durability against fungal attack and water absorption of wood plastic composites (WPCs) were investigated. Composites based on high density polyethylene (HDPE), sanding dusts (SDs), and nanoclay (montmorillonite type) were made by melt compounding and then hot-pressing. Maleic anhydride grafted polyethylene (MAPE) was used as coupling agent. Treated and untreated (control) composites were exposed to the fungal decay using white-rot fungus (Trametes versicolor) for 4, 8, and 12 weeks according to the modified ASTM D 1413 standard. The experimental results indicated that the exposure of the composites to a five-cycle of boiling and drying caused serious damage to the interfacial adhesion between SDs and HDPE matrix due to contraction and swelling stresses developed during the cyclic immersion. The composites filled with nanoclay were more resistant than the control sample to decay. However, based on statistical analysis significant differences in water absorption of the composites were not observed after addition of nanoclay. In general, fungal degradation and water absorption were significantly decreased by the incorporation of MAPE. However, addition of 6 wt% MAPE improved both properties more than 3 wt% MAPE. Morphological studies showed fungal colonization and some micro voids, which accelerate water absorption. In conclusion, this work has shown that addition of nanoclay and coupling agent can considerably decrease fungal decay and water absorption of WPCs.


INTRODUCTION Robotics researchers at NASA's .Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Rice University have made substantial progress in myoelectric teleoperation [1-5]. A myoelectric teleoperation system translates signals generated by an able-bodied robot operator's muscles during hand motions into commands that drive a robot's hand through identical motions Farry's early work in myoelectric teleoperation used variations over time in the myoelectric spectrum as inputs to neural networks to discriminate grasp types and thumb motions; schemes yielded up to 93% correct classification on thumb motions [1,2] More recently, Fernandez achieved 100% correct non-realtime classification of thumb abduction, extension, and flexion on the same myoelectric data using genetic programming to develop functions that discriminate between thumb motions using myoelectric signal parameters [3,4] Genetic programming (GP) is an evolutionary programming method where the computer can modify the discriminating functions' form to improve its performance, not just adjust numerical coefficients or weights [4,6] While the function development may require much computational time and many training cases, the resulting discrimination functions can run in realtime on modest computers These results suggest that myoelectric signals might be a feasible teleoperation medium, allowing an operator to use his own hand and arm as a master to intuitively control an anthropomorphic robot in a remote location such as outer space These early results imply that multifunction myoelectric control based on genetic programming is viable for prosthetics, since teleoperation of a robot by an operator with a complete limb is a limiting or "best-case" scenario for myoelectric control We hypothesize that myoelectric signals of traumatic below-elbow amputees can control several movements of a myoelectric hand with the help of a function or functions developed with genetic programming techniques We are now testing this hypothesis with the help of NASA/ISC under a NASA/JSC Texas Medical Center Cooperative Grant In this study, five adult below-elbow amputees are performing two forearm motions, two wrist motions and two grasp motions using their "phantom" limb and sound limb while we collect myoelectric data from four sites on the residual limb and four sites from the sound limb. We will use a variety of myoelectric signal time and frequency features in a genetic programming analysis to evolve functions that discriminate between signals generated during different muscle contractions


Background: The healthcare environment is becoming increasingly complex and demanding; therefore, providers need to possess both technical and non-technical skills to respond in unexpected circumstances. Self-awareness and regulation are non-technical skills where an individual becomes aware of personal and others' emotions and then modulates those emotions to effectively act during a challenging situation. Educational programs need to embed more opportunities for students to develop these skills to enhance patient outcomes. Purpose: The purpose of this research study was to explore student self-perceptions of self-awareness and self-regulation when experiencing unexpected situations in an interprofessional clinical simulation. Methods: Healthcare students (n = 109) from four disciplines participated in this qualitative research study involving an interprofessional small group, face to face simulation with unexpected circumstances. Following the simulation, participants engaged in a semi-structured debriefing. Comments were recorded and analyzed to develop a thematic structure. Results: Participants had varying views about their level of preparedness to handle complex, unexpected situations ranging from feeling not prepared at all to recognizing that they need to be equipped for anything. Students also reported a greater appreciation for the interprofessional team, acknowledging the need for one another as they navigated unexpected circumstances. Some students used their self-awareness and regulation skills in the moment to manage their emotions and move to action in response to the unexpected circumstances, while others benefited from observing and hearing from others during the simulation and debriefing session. Conclusions: The interprofessional simulation helped to prepare students to navigate unexpected challenging patient care circumstances. Students experienced some role and action confusion in response to the emotionally charged scenario; however, they recognized the importance of being self-aware, regulating their own emotions and the skills of the interdisciplinary team to best meet the needs of the patient and family. Additional opportunities for non-technical skill practice should be included in healthcare curriculums to enhance students' preparedness for the current healthcare environment. Further research is recommended to determine best practices for teaching these non-technical skills.


The main purpose of this paper is identifying the current situation of Iranian digital libraries in terms of interoperability abilities and proposing an interoperability solution for Iranian digital libraries. Analytical survey is used in this research. In fact, questionnaire and observation were used for collecting data about the current situation of Iranian digital library applications. The gathered data were analyzed by system analytical method in order to propose some practical suggestions to use in Iranian digital library applications. Iranian digital libraries mostly collect text files. They store data in SQL server and in relational database systems. The majority of Iranian digital libraries do not respect interoperability. They mostly use just Z39.50 clients so as to gather bibliographic data to use in cataloguing center. In fact, most of studied digital libraries do not offer extracting standard formats. Also, they do not make use of structural and administrative metadata format in their bibliographic data. The proposed model is based on harvesting model, OAI protocol and METS/MODS metadata standard. Findings indicated that Iranian digital libraries should be alert about the essence of interoperability. Using the proposed model would help them to be able to exchange their data in a more cost-efficient and cost-effective manner.


This study aims to find out the comparison between the prediction of financial distress of Islamic Banks in Indonesia and that of Islamic Banks in Malaysia before and after the global crisis 2008 using quantitative method and purposive sampling. The prediction of financial distress was done by using Altman Z-score measuring. The technique used to examine the financial distress is Mann-Whitney, and for those after the crisis were examined using Independent sample T-test. The result of this research shows that there is a significant difference between Islamic banks in Indonesia and those in Malaysia either before or after the global crisis 2008 with 5% significance level. The Islamic banks in Indonesia are in secure zone either before or after the crisis. However, the Islamic banks in Malaysia are in grey area which cannot be made sure of the bankruptcy either before or after the crisis.


Problem Definition: We model, analyze, and optimize the operations of an online labor platform that matches jobs to workers. The arrival of jobs and workers to the platform is stochastic and the job processing time is random. The platform chooses the fees per job and assigns jobs to workers with the goal of (i) maximizing platform revenues, (ii) minimizing the unpredictability in workers' profits, and (iii) minimizing any delay in processing the incoming jobs. Workers are sensitive to the revenue they make in the platform and, therefore, the worker arrival rate depends on the platform's pricing and job allocation strategy.

Academic/Practical Relevance: We contribute to the fields of online platform operations and stochastic systems. The asymptotically optimal policy that we introduce is simple and practical. Our analysis provides new insights into the management of uncertainty in online platforms and how uncertainty impacts objectives (i), (ii), and (iii) above.

Methodology: We propose a continuous-time stochastic model that describes the mechanics of the platform. We introduce a policy that sequentially allocates jobs to workers in a rotating manner. The optimal parameters of this policy are "corrected" versions of the fluid solution. Then, through an asymptotic analysis, we prove that this policy is optimal as the platform scales. Finally, we examine the policy's performance through a discrete event simulation.

Results: We introduce a policy class called Uniform Allocation (UA) and provide an analytical characterization of the platform's behavior and performance under this policy class. Then, we design a UA policy that simultaneously optimizes objectives (i), (ii), and (iii) as the system scales. We obtain insights into the UA policy's behavior through a discrete event simulation and find that it leads to similar profits but much lower worker income variability compared to other policies.

Implications: Our proposed pricing and assignment policy align objectives (i), (ii), and (iii) above. From an academic standpoint, we demonstrate how the platform's revenue maximizing pricing and allocation policies can also act as a form of risk pooling. From a practical standpoint, we determine that platform revenue maximization is not incompatible with predictable profits and stable schedules for workers.


The COVID-19 pandemic has led many governments to implement lockdowns. While lockdowns may help to contain the spread of the virus, it is possible that substantial damage to population well-being will result. This study relies on Google Trends data and tests whether the lockdowns implemented in Europe and America led to changes in well-being related topic search terms. Using different methods to evaluate the causal effects of lockdown, we find a substantial increase in the search intensity for boredom in Europe and the US. We also found a significant increase in searches for loneliness, worry and sadness, while searches for stress, suicide and divorce on the contrary fell. Our results suggest that people's mental health may have been severely affected by the lockdown.


Recent literature in Systems Engineering has suggested the use of "value" to drive decision-making activities during preliminary design, in particular when choosing technologies and components for a complex system. However, to correctly evaluate design trade-offs, a visual link has to be established between the results of the value model and a product shape/geometry. This paper proposes the use of color-coded 3D CAD models to support the visualization of value analysis results in a Stage-Gate R © process. The approach has been developed and exemplified within a case study related to the design of an aero-engine component, and has been demonstrated using SIEMENS NX HD3D Visual Reporting. The results of verification activities conducted in a laboratory setting show that the use of color-coded 3D CAD models increases the decision makers' awareness of value-related information in a Stage-Gate process.


A new Clostridium strain was isolated on starch at 60°C. Starch, pullulan, maltotriose, and maltose induced the synthesis of α-amylase and pullulanase, while glucose, ribose, fructose, and lactose did not. The formation of the amylolytic enzymes was dependent on growth and occurred predominantly in the exponential phase. The enzymes were largely cell bound during growth of the organism with 0.5% starch, but an increase of the starch concentration in the growth medium was accompanied by the excretion of α-amylase and pullulanase into the culture broth; but also by a decrease of total activity. α-Amylase, pullulanase, and α-glucosidase were active in a broad temperature range (40 to 85°C) and displayed temperature optima for activity at 60 to 70°C. During incubation with starch under aerobic conditions at 75°C for 2 h, the activity of both enzymes decreased to only 90 or 80%. The apparent Km values of α-amylase, pullulanase, and α-glucosidase for their corresponding substrates, starch, pullulan, and maltose were 0.35 mg/ml, 0.63 mg/ml, and 25 mM, respectively.


Multi-core processors are coming, and we need ways to program them. The combination of purely-functional programming and explicit, monadic threads, communicating using transactional memory, looks like a particularly promising way to do so. This paper describes a full-scale implementation of shared-memory parallel Haskell, based on the Glasgow Haskell Compiler. Our main technical contribution is a lock-free mechanism for evaluating shared thunks that eliminates the major performance bottleneck in parallel evaluation of a lazy language. Our results are preliminary but promising: we can demonstrate wall-clock speedups of a serious application (GHC itself), even with only two processors, compared to the same application compiled for a uni-processor.


One bright February afternoon on a beach in Cornwall, Gavin Pretor-Pinney took a break from cloudspotting and started watching the waves rolling into shore. Mesmerised, he wondered where they had come from, and decided to find out. He soon realised that waves don't just appear on the ocean, they are everywhere around us, and our lives depend on them. From the rippling beats of our hearts, to the movement of food through our digestive tracts and of signals across our brains, waves are the transport systems of our bodies. Everything we see and hear reaches us via light and sound waves, and our information age is reliant on the microwaves and infrared waves used by the telephone and internet infrastructure. From shockwaves unleashed by explosions to torsional waves that cause suspension bridges to collapse, from sonar waves that allow submarines to 'see' with sound to Mexican waves that sweep through stadium crowds...there were waves, it seemed, wherever Gavin looked. But what, he wondered, could they all have in common with ones we splash around in on holiday? By the time he made the ultimate surfer's pilgrimage to Hawaii, Gavin had become a world-class wavewatcher, although he was still rubbish at surfing. And, while this fascinating, funny book may not teach you how to ride the waves, it will show you how to tune into the shapes, colours and forms of life's many undulations.


This paper seeks to reconsider the contemporary relevance of the resource frontier, drawing on examples of nature's commodification and enclosure under way in the peripheral Southeast Asian country of Laos. Frontiers are conceived as relational zones of economy, nature and society; spaces of capitalist transition, where new forms of social property relations and systems of legality are rapidly established in response to market imperatives. Customary property rights on the resource frontier can be seized by powerful actors in crucial political moments, preparing the territorial stage for more intensive phases of resource commodity production and accumulation. Relational frontier space is understood through the work of geographers such as Doreen Massey, who views the production of space as 'constituted though the practices of engagement and the powergeometries of relations'. In Laos, a twenty-first century resource frontier is being driven by new corporate investments in natural resources, and a supporting array of land reform programmes. The paper focuses on both the material and representational aspects of the production of the resource frontier, through policy and discourse analysis, and village level research in Laos' Khammouane province. By rethinking a dualist and hierarchical-scaled imaginary of frontier places, both rural people and local ecologies are shown to be key actors, in a complex, relational reproduction of frontier zones. An emerging Lao spatial and political assemblage - a form of 'frontier-neoliberalism' - is shown as producing dramatic changes in socio-natural landscapes, as well as new patterns of marginalisation and livelihood insecurity for a vulnerable rural population.


Specialized seed predators are uncommon in arboreal vertebrate assemblages, and the hypothesis that consuming seeds of immature fruits – which may be available for relatively long periods compared to mature fruit – could reduce seasonal food scarcity experienced by generalist frugivores remains largely untested. To test this hypothesis, we examined the diet and feeding ecology of bald-faced saki monkeys Pithecia irrorata in a largely intact forest mosaic of southeastern Peru based on systematic monitoring of five habituated groups over a three-year period and compared the relative availability of ripe and unripe fruits in their diet. Plant phenology data from individual tree crowns showed that, compared to ripe fruits, immature fruits were available in more tree species, in greater quantities, and for longer periods. Despite pronounced community-wide seasonal changes in fruit production at our study area, feeding patterns of bald-faced saki remained largely invariant: fruits comprised approximately 95% of the species' monthly diet, with seeds alone accounting for 75%, with no major monthly dietary shifts. The flexible exploitation by this species of a consistently available food supply for which it faces little competition likely reduces foraging effort and consumption of less desirable foods, even during prolonged periods of overall fruit scarcity. The relative rarity of immature fruit specialists in tropical forests may reflect the fact that processing the hard pericarps and neutralizing the toxicities of immature seeds present substantial evolutionary hurdles that few arboreal vertebrate species have overcome.


In this article, a new Constant-Q transform implementation is proposed together with a generalization of both the Short-Term Fourier Transform and the Constant-Q transform. The purpose of this generalization is to provide a discrete time-frequency analysis tool with arbitrary center frequency and frequency resolution for each bin of the transform. This new analysis framework is very flexible and can be related to many common time-frequency transforms. Furthermore, new interesting transforms with specific time-frequency resolutions can be defined. To illustrate and validate the corresponding approach, experimental results and examples are provided for different configurations.


This note presents the results of complete tank test of N.A.C.A. Models 22-A and 35, two flying-boat hulls of the deep pointed-step type with low dead rise. Model 22-A is a form derived by modification of Model 22, the test results of which are given in N.A.C.A. Technical Note No. 488. Model 35 is a form of the same type but has a higher length-beam ratio than either Model 22 or 22-A. Take-off examples are worked out using data from these tests and a previous test of a conventional model applied to an arbitrary set of design specifications for a 15,000-pound flying boat. The comparison of these examples shows both pointed-step models to be superior to the conventional form, and Model 35 to be the better of the two. Model 35 is applied to a hypothetical 100,000-pound flying boat of the twin-hull type and performance calculations are made both for take-off and range. The results indicate that the high performance of this type of hull will enable the designer to use higher wing and power loadings than are found in current practice, with a resulting increase in range and pay load.


Abstract Agates from the Bighorn district in Montana (USA), the so-called Dryhead area, and their adjacent host rocks have been examined in the present study. Analyses by XRD, polarizing microscopy, LA-ICP-MS, cathodoluminescence (CL), SEM and of oxygen isotopes were performed to obtain information surrounding the genesis of this agate type. Investigations of the agate microstructure by polarizing microscopy and CL showed that chalcedony layers and macrocrystalline quartz crystals may have formed by crystallization from the same silica source by a process of self-organization. High defect densities and internal structures (e.g. sector zoning) of quartz indicate that crystallization went rapidly under non-equilibrium conditions. Most trace-element contents in macrocrystalline quartz are less than in chalcedony due to a process of 'self-purification', which also caused the formation of Fe oxide inclusions and spherules. Although the agates formed in sedimentary host rocks, analytical data indicate participation of hydrothermal fluids during agate formation. Trace elements (REE distribution patterns, U contents up to 70 ppm) and CL features of agate (transient blue CL), as well as associated minerals (fluorite, REE carbonates) point to the influence of hydrothermal processes on the genesis of the Dryhead agates. However, formation temperatures <120°C were calculated from O-isotope compositions between 28.9‰ (quartz) and 32.2 ‰ (chalcedony).


We propose the idea of an online, user submitted digital library of recreation trails. Digital libraries of trails offer advantages over paper guidebooks in that they are more accurate, dynamic and not limited to the experience of the author(s). The basic representation of a trail is a GPS track log, recorded as recreators travel on trails. As users complete trips, the GPS track logs of their trips are submitted to the central library voluntarily. A major problem is that track logs will overlap and intersect each other. We present a method for the combination of overlapping and intersecting GPS track logs to create a network of GPS trails. Each trail segment in the network can then be characterized by automatic and manual means, producing a digital library of trails. We also describe the TopoFusion system which creates, manages and visualizes GPS data, including GPS networks.


Although object-oriented database systems offer more powerful modeling capability than relational database systems, their performance suffers from the increased complexity in the data model. Recently, a lot of research has focused on mitigating this problem by building indexes over single classes, class hierarchies, or nested object hierarchies. In this paper, we propose a new indexing method. It is based on the technique that employs signature files, but differs from the existing methods in two aspects: (1) all the signature files are organized into a hierarchy to filter irrelevant data as early as possible; (2) a signature file itself is stored as a tree structure (called a signature tree) to speed up signature scanning. Together with the concept of query signature hierarchies, this technique reduces the search space dramatically and, therefore, improves significantly the time complexity of query evaluation.


Stimuli that damage DNA activate stress-signaling pathways that include the activation of the tumor suppressor p53. Daniely et al. report that ionizing radiation (IR) or the drug camptothecin produce a transient p53-dependent redistribution of nucleolin from nucleoli to the nucleoplasm. This redistribution did not occur in cells lacking p53 or in cells in which p53 expression was inhibited through a tetracycline-repressible system. Nucleolin and p53 were coprecipitable, and the formation of the complex was stimulated by IR or camptothecin. Not all stresses that stimulated phosphorylation of p53, such as ultraviolet radiation, also stimulated the formation of the nucleolin-p53 complex. Although p53 was required for the redistribution of nucleolin, analysis of cells expressing mutant versions of p53 showed that transcriptional activity of p53 was not required. However, cells expressing a COOH-terminally truncated version of p53 did not redistribute nucleolin in response to IR, nor was a complex detectable between the p53 COOH-terminal truncation mutant and nucleolin. Nucleolin when present in nucleoli is important for processing of precursor ribosomal RNA. Once released from the nucleoli into the nucleoplasm, nucleolin may inhibit DNA replication through interactions with replication protein A and may stimulate DNA annealing, which would promote DNA repair. Y. Daniely, D. D. Dimitrova, J. A. Borowiec, Stress-dependent nucleolin mobilization mediated by p53-nucleolin complex formation. Mol. Cell. Biol. 22, 6014-6022 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This paper examines the role of computer-aided systems (CAS) for enhancing organizational learning in distributed environments. The basic research questions are: how do features of CAS enhance organizational learning, and how does organizational context influence the role of CAS in organizational learning?The theoretical framework focuses on the decision to contribute and adopt knowledge in distributed environments. Specifically, we investigate the intersections between the features of CAS and inhibitors to contributing or adopting knowledge, in the light of different organizational context variables.Two cases of information environments for knowledge sharing are examined: a formal electronic library system and an informal community that uses a variety of communication technologies. The cases are used to illustrate how the intersection between CAS features and the decisions to adopt and contribute enhance or inhibit knowledge sharing.


In recent years, advances in energy-efficient design and wireless technologies have enabled exciting new applications for wireless devices. These applications span a wide range, including real-time and streaming video and audio delivery, remote monitoring using networked microsensors, personal medical monitoring, and home networking of everyday appliances. While these applications require high performance from the network, they suffer from resource constraints that do not appear in more traditional wired computing environments. In particular, wireless spectrum is scarce, often limiting the bandwidth available to applications and making the channel error-prone, and the nodes are battery-operated, often limiting available energy.
My thesis is that this harsh environment with severe resource constraints requires an application-specific protocol architecture, rather than the traditional layered approach, to obtain the best possible performance. This dissertation supports this claim using detailed case studies on microsensor networks and wireless video delivery. The first study develops LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy), an architecture for remote microsensor networks that combines the ideas of energy-efficient cluster-based routing and media access together with application-specific data aggregation to achieve good performance in terms of system lifetime, latency, and application-perceived quality. This approach improves system lifetime by an order of magnitude compared to general-purpose approaches when the node energy is limited. The second study develops an unequal error protection scheme for MPEG-4 compressed video delivery that adapts the level of protection applied to portions of a packet to the degree of importance of the corresponding bits. This approach obtains better application-perceived performance than current approaches for the same amount of transmission bandwidth. These two systems show that application-specific protocol architectures achieve the energy and latency efficiency and error robustness needed for wireless networks. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)


David Abramson has been involved in computer architecture and high performance computing research since 1979. Previous to joining Monash University in 1997, he has held appointments at Griffith University, CSIRO, and RMIT. At CSIRO he was the program leader of the Division of Information Technology High Performance Computing Program, and was also an Adjunct Associate Professor at RMIT in Melbourne. He served as a program manager and chief investigator in the Co-operative Research Centre for Intelligent Decisions Systems and the Co-operative Research Centre for Enterprise Distributed Systems. Abramson is currently an ARC professorial fellow; Professor of Computer Science in the faculty of Information Technology at Monash University, Australia, and associate director of the Monash e-Research Centre. Abramson has served on committees for many conferences and workshops, and has published over 150 papers and technical documents. He has given seminars and received awards around Australia and internationally and has received over $3.6 million in research funding. He also has a keen interest in R&D commercialization and consults for Axceleon Inc, who produce an industry strength version of Nimrod, and Guardsoft, a company focused on commercializing the Guard relative debugger. Abramson's current interests are in high performance computer systems design and software engineering tools for programming parallel, distributed supercomputers.


This paper describes an experimental effort in a sociology class to learn about socialization and about oneself from personal experience. With the help of autobiographies and self-disclosure sessions, problematic and/or "irrational" areas of everyday life were examined. The distress engendered, and the accompanying emotion, were brought into special focus by each class member. These everyday experiences were considered in light of past experiences in the socialization process to which they seemed connected. The outcome of this effort, it was hypothesized, would lead to improvement in the lives of student participants. Self-reports of students themselves provided evidence in support of the hypothesis.