Background: International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as annoying sensations and emotions associated with actual or potential tissue damage or is described as such damage. Pains always are considered to be subjective sensations with multidimensional nature composed from physical, emotional and cognitive components. One of the main tasks in pain syndrome effective therapy is the option to perform objective assessment of pain intensity and quality utilizing principle of continuity. Independent surveys on pain management in postoperative period are performed in different countries of the world. Studies analyze effectiveness of both - medical and non-medical measurements in order to reduce pain syndrome. Very few investigations of chronic and acute pain influence on recovery process, progress and outcome of illness, assessment of pain intensity and quality are performed in Latvia. In the case of acute pain chronification, pain perception and management can be changed; pains become inadequately long lasting and may combine with psychogenic pains. According to the data obtained by the World Health Organization, fifty percent patients after injuries or operations have severe and insufferable pains despite the development of acute pain treatment and care. Insufficiently controlled postoperative pains become a risk factor for development of various abnormalities.
Aim of the study: To study the usage of postoperative period pain intensity and quality assessment scales in the clinical practice of nursing, as well as availability of these methods
Material and methods: Survey utilizes quantitative research method. As an investigation tool was chosen questionnaire. Survey was carried out in the surgical profile wards in Riga and regional clinics of Latvia. Questionnaire embraced 309 nurses, working in the surgical profile.
Results: Assessment of acute pains should be considered as the fifth vital sign providing more successful achievement of aims in pain care. Respondents recognize that in pain assessment pain evaluation scales are rarely used. In clinical practice prevails assessment of patient's subjective condition. Only 5% of nurses – respondents utilize visual analogue scale, 22% - verbal pain scale, 16% - numerical pain rating scale. Investigation data confirm the role of professional experience of nurse in organization of pain assessment and care work, because 98% of respondents mention pain assessment as a constituent of nursing.
Conclusions: One of the main objectives in effective therapy of pain syndrome is the possibility to perform objective assessment of pain intensity and quality. This objective should be achieved only with a help of shared team work – nurse, physician, anesthetist and other medical staff.


A two-wavelength method for endoscopic topography reconstruction is introduced that can be applied to out-of-plane sensitive electronic-speckle-pattern interferometry systems based on rigid endoscope imaging systems. The surface measurement is performed by detection of the phase-difference distribution affected by a change in the applied laser wavelength. Furthermore, the off-axis endoscopic illumination geometry is taken into account by an approximation. Experimental results of the characterization of the endoscopic surface reconstruction technique and the measurement accuracy obtained are described and discussed. Finally, the applicability of the method is demonstrated with results from the topographic reconstruction of a free-form surface.


Although native grasses are often desired and used for revegetation of disturbed areas, genetic differences may exist within and among natural and cultivated germplasm sources. This phylogeographic study compares geographic origin and genealogical linkages of 25 natural and cultivated germplasm sources of mountain brome (Bromus carinatus Hook. & Arn. [Poaceae]) from western North America. Significant variation among accessions (FST = 0.70) was detected by analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), based on the number of amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) between individual plants. Likewise, significant differences among 4 hierarchical genotypic groups, encompassing all but 5 unique accessions, were also detected (FCT = 0.47).This study identified at least one well-defined genealogical lineage, comprising 8 accessions, distributed over a broad geographic region and different ecosystems of western North America.Two other hierarchical groups, comprising 6 accessions and 3 accessions, were located within or near specific ecoregions. Results of this study indicate that natural genealogical lineages of cultivars, such as Garnet mountain brome, have dispersed and succeeded over broad geographical regions. However, more research and plant material work are needed before specific recommendations can be made over the entire species distribution.


ABSTRACT In recent decades, there has been growing interest in renowned gourmet restaurants, and increased awareness about how food is prepared, presented and served. A small and select group of chefs have thereby gained prestigious positions and high-profile images as restaurateurs. Most of these restaurateurs are men. The research question this article sets out to study is: How is the identity and ideology of masculinity imbued into the subjectivity and representations of gourmet restaurateurs? The selection of data sources means that our geographical focus is on Stockholm, Sweden's main urban region. The methodological approach of this article to employ empirical material from interviews and media articles reveals how this masculine discourse is attained through a particular interplay of subjects (the chefs and entrepreneurs) and representations (the media). The focus of this article has included a quite exclusive category of a few restaurants and restaurateurs, which may have implications on the findings pointing to a homogenous profile of the ideals of the gourmet chefs. The results point out that the micro-spaces of gourmet restaurants' kitchens and dining rooms can be understood as nurseries for 'nostalgic and conservative masculinities'.


Inclusive educational practice is a political vision in Norway as in several other Western countries. This article focuses on how the ideal of inclusive practice is realized in one particular classroom. As is the case for most Norwegian teachers, the practitioner in this study, Ann, has children with special needs in her class. Among these is a boy with behavioural problems. We know that inclusive practice is a complex field interwoven with a variety of activities. This article focuses on one aspect of the teacher's inclusive practice; how she deals with transitions so that all her pupils, including this particular boy, can manage them. It also examines Ann's reflections on transitions, and presents a narrative from her classroom to illustrate her practice. In the analysis her use of various scaffolding devices is presented.


Composite materials are being considered for use in the front end structures of vehicles to help reduce overall vehicle mass and, thus, improve fuel efficiency. Acceptance of composite material in structural members will depend on their ability to do crash energy management. Numerical simulations can greatly aid in the design of these critical structures and reduce the number of crash tests. A new finite element, which is based on laminated plate theory with cubic zig-zag approximations, was developed to model the relevant mechanics that occur in composite materials during crash events. The element was cast in the internal force format for use with explicit integration solvers. In the plate theory, the in-plane displacement fields in a laminate are assumed to be piecewise cubic functions and vary in a zig-zag fashion through the thickness of the laminate. The zig-zag functions are obtained by satisfying the continuity of transverse shear stresses at layer interfaces. This in-plane displacement field assumption accounts for discrete layer effects without increasing the number of degrees of freedom as the number of layers is increased. The transverse normal strain predictions are improved by assuming a constant variation of transverse normal stress through the thickness in a laminate. The finite element is developed with the topology of an eight-noded brick. Each node has five engineering degrees of freedom, three translations and two rotations. Thus, this element can be conveniently implemented into general purpose finite element codes. Consistent and lumped mass matrices are derived. The developed element is implemented into Argonne National Laboratory's in-house code, NEPTUNE, which utilizes explicit direct integration method. In NEPTUNE the internal force vector is calculated from the developed element at each time step. Numerical performance of the current element is investigated in this research.


Unistable polyhedra are in equilibrium on only one of their faces. The smallest known homogeneous unistable polyhedron to date has 18 faces. Using a new optimization algorithm, we have found a unistable polyhedron with only 14 faces, which we believe to be a lower bound. Despite the simplicity of the formulation, computers were never successfully used for solving this problem due to the seemingly insurmountable dimensionality of the underlying mathematical apparatus. We introduce new optimization approaches designed to overcome the problem's intractability and discuss its significance to other application areas. We also mathematically prove the unistable property of the found bodies using rational arithmetic. Surprisingly enough, all of our computer-generated unistable polyhedra look similar to the human eye, providing important insights into the nature of the problem.


We present a new dataset for singing analysis and modelling, and an exploratory analysis of pitch accuracy and pitch trajectories. Shortened versions of three pieces from The Sound of Music were selected: "Edelweiss", "Do-ReMi" and "My Favourite Things". 39 participants sang three repetitions of each excerpt without accompaniment, resulting in a dataset of 21762 notes in 117 recordings. To obtain pitch estimates we used the Tony software's automatic transcription and manual correction tools. Pitch accuracy was measured in terms of pitch error and interval error. We show that singers' pitch accuracy correlates significantly with self-reported singing skill and musical training. Larger intervals led to larger errors, and the tritone interval in particular led to average errors of one third of a semitone. Note duration (or inter-onset-interval) had a significant effect on pitch accuracy, with greater accuracy on longer notes. To model drift in the tonal centre over time, we present a sliding window model which reveals patterns in the pitch errors of some singers. Based on the trajectory, we propose a measure for the magnitude of drift: tonal reference deviation (TRD). The data and software are freely available. 1


The aim of this work was to investigate to what extent the performance of a glass fiberreinforced polymer (GFRP) sandwich slab-bridge with uniform high-density balsa core could be improved in terms of structural efficiency and weight thanks to a more complex core assembly. This core consisted of high-density and low-density balsa and a fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) arch inserted into the balsa high-/low-density interface. Quasi-static load-bearing experiments on sandwich arch beams with complex core assemblies under symmetric four-point and asymmetric three-point loading were performed. The FRP arch reduced the force in the upper face sheet in the mid-span region and thus prevented compression failure of the latter, which led to a higher ultimate load. It also contributed to the shear resistance by up to 20% for symmetric loading. The best overall performance in terms of structural efficiency (stiffness and resistance) and weight resulted from a core configuration with a FRP arch between an upper high-density and lower low-density balsa core.


This article reviews various methods that could be used to determine the geographic origin of cultured pearls, potentially allowing a consumer to trace them back to the farm. Chemical marking using different substances is possible due to the porosity of the nucleus and nacre. It is also possible to affi x a logo marker to the nucleus that can later be imaged using X-radiography. In addition, radio-frequency identifi cation chips are today so small that they can be housed within the nucleus of a cultured pearl. Also discussed is the potential of using trace-element chemistry to differentiate mollusc species and pearling regions. Carbon and oxygen isotopes could also be useful given that they refl ect the waters in which a cultured pearl grew, and DNA testing may offer options in the future.


Two distinctive uppermost Silurian to Lower Devonian radiolarian assemblages, the Pseudospongoprunum tauversi Assemblage and the Futobari solidus - Zadrappolus tenuis Assemblage, occur in new localities of felsic tuffaceous strata in the Hitoegane area of the Hida-gaien terrane of central Japan. The first is characterized by the presence of P. tauversi and diverse inaniguttids, which can be correlated with the well-constrained Pridolian radiolarian zonal fauna defined in west Texas. The second occurs stratigraphically above beds containing the P. tauversi Assemblage and in strata correlative to beds from which a probably Lower Devonian flora has been recovered. These occurrences indicate that the F. solidus - Z. tenuis Assemblage ranges from uppermost Silurian to Lower Devonian. Based on the stratigraphic context for the underlying Pridolian P. tauversi Assemblage, the probably Lower Devonian flora, and the reinterpretation of the previously dated zircon U/Pb age, the F. solidus - Z. tenuis Assemblage is the first confirmed radiolarian assemblage from the lowermost Devonian. Previous workers have suggested that entactiniid radiolarians became increasingly dominant in the latest Silurian to Early Devonian, but the present study shows that inaniguttids such as Futobari and Zadrappolus were dominant in the early to probably middle Early Devonian. A new inaniguttid species is described: Zadrappolus (?) nudus n. sp.


The emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is a major threat to public health and there is a constant need for education to limit dangerous practices. Here, we propose to use alife software to develop training media for the public and the physicians. On the basis of the Aevol model we have been developing for more than six years, we built a game in which players fight bacterial infections using antibiotics. In this game the bacteria can evolve resistance traits, making the infection more and more difficult to cure. The game has been tested with automatic treatment procedures, showing that it behaves correctly. It has been demonstrated during the French "Nuit des Chercheurs" in October 2012.


Twenty years ago, Anthony Galton vanished, along with his streetwise bride and several thousand dollars of the Galton fortune. Now his dying mother wants him found, and Lew Archer is on the case: is Anthony hiding somewhere, happy and eager not to be discovered? But what Archer finds - a headless skeleton, a clever con and a terrified blonde - reveals a game whose stakes are so high that someone is willing to kill. "The Galton Case" is a wonderfully devious and poetic look at poverty, greed, murder and identity. Ross Macdonald's "Lew Archer" mysteries rewrote the conventions of the detective novel with their credible, humane hero, and with Macdonald's insight and moral complexity won new literary respectability for the hardboiled genre previously pioneered by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. They have also received praise from such celebrated writers as William Goldman, Jonathan Kellerman, Eudora Welty and Elmore Leonard.


The privatisation policy pursued in the UK by Mrs Thatcher's government (1979-1990) and subsequently by Mr Major's government (1990-1997) was the largest experiment in public divestitures among capitalist economies. It had a deep impact on economic policy-making world wide, and was vastly imitated, in Western Europe, in the former planned economies, in a number of less developed countries. In this paper we test the impact of privatisation on macroeconomic performance in the United Kingdom using quarterly data from 1979 to 1999. In the econometric model, we use privatisation proceeds as an explanatory variable and we control for several other variables. Testing for cointegration the results show that there is a long run equilibrium relationship between GDP growth and the variables used in the model. However, in our empirical analysis we find a weak evidence that privatisation generated an aggregate shock on output in the UK. This result is consistent with empirical literature on microeconomic evidence that shows that in the UK ownership change per se had little impact on long term productivity trends.


Forest lands in Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) are largely
owned and administered by the government. The government allocates forest
logging areas to private companies through long-term contracts which defines the
rights and other duties of the concessionaires to extract logs from the forest.
Concessionaires have to pay timber fee to the provincial government under the
agreement for rights to extract the logs. The timber fee collected by the
government is the royalty rate, assessed on volume timber extracted and
differentiated by species. The royalty collected does not reflect the appropriate
stumpage value concessions, most obvious is the loss in revenue which reduces the
apparent viability of government investment in forest management.
This study was conducted to estimate stumpage values of various
compartments and their capture by the government and concessionaires for three
logging concessions in Lao PDR.


DNA metabarcoding is a promising method for describing communities and estimating biodiversity. This approach uses high-throughput sequencing of targeted markers to identify species in a complex sample. By convention, sequences are clustered at a predefined sequence divergence threshold (often 3%) into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) that serve as a proxy for species. However, variable levels of interspecific marker variation across taxonomic groups make clustering sequences from a phylogenetically diverse dataset into OTUs at a uniform threshold problematic. In this study, we use mock zooplankton communities to evaluate the accuracy of species richness estimates when following conventional protocols to cluster hypervariable sequences of the V4 region of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (18S) into OTUs. By including individually tagged single specimens and "populations" of various species in our communities, we examine the impact of intra- and interspecific diversity on OTU clustering. Communities consisting of single individuals per species generated a correspondence of 59–84% between OTU number and species richness at a 3% divergence threshold. However, when multiple individuals per species were included, the correspondence between OTU number and species richness dropped to 31–63%. Our results suggest that intraspecific variation in this marker can often exceed 3%, such that a single species does not always correspond to one OTU. We advocate the need to apply group-specific divergence thresholds when analyzing complex and taxonomically diverse communities, but also encourage the development of additional filtering steps that allow identification of artifactual rRNA gene sequences or pseudogenes that may generate spurious OTUs.


At one stage of the long-lasting Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israel launched a military operation, Protective Edge, on the Gaza Strip in July–August of 2014. As a consequence, approximately 2,280 people died and over 11,000 people were injured, the majority of them Palestinian civilians (including children and women). These numerous casualties resulted in a pronounced interest in this particular event by international media such as CNN and the BBC, as well as other Western media including the Australian media. This paper investigates how Australian print and online media portrayed the Israeli and Palestinian casualties during the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza. Specifically, through using critical discourse analysis, it examines how the casualties were represented by four Australian news sources: The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC and Crikey. Based on the concept of framing theory (a technique used to shape an event or issue, reflecting the power embedded in media texts), the paper analyses news items published in Australian mainstream media during the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza to identify the frames employed in reporting Israeli and Palestinian casualties. The conflict frame was dominant in the Australian print and online media coverage of casualties during the Gaza War of 2014. As a result, this coverage did not provide the contexts of news stories about casualties who were portrayed in a statistical frame. Officials and medics' voices were dominant, while the voices of Israeli and Palestinian casualties themselves were largely excluded from the Australian media representations of Gaza War casualties.


We have carried out molecular modeling of a triple stranded pyrimidine(Y). purine(R): pyrimidine(Y) (where ':' refers to Watson-Crick and '.' to Hoogsteen bonding) DNA, formed by a homopurine (d-TGAGGAAAGAAGGT) and homo-pyrimidine (d-CTCCTTTCTTCC). Molecular mechanics calculations using NMR constraints have provided a detailed three dimensional structure of the triplex. The entire stretches of purine and the pyrimidine nucleotides have a conformation close to B-DNA. The three strands are held by the canonical C+.G:C and T.A:T hydrogen bonds. The structure also contains two mismatch C+.G-T and T.A+-C base triples which have been characterized for the first time. In the A+-C base-pair of the T.A+-C triple, both hydrogen donors are situated on the purine (A+(1N) and A+(6N)). We observe a unique hydrogen bonding interaction scheme in case of C+.G-T where one acceptor, G(60), is bonded to three donors (C+(3NH), C+(4NH2) and T(3NH)). Though the C+.G-T base triple is less stable than C+.G:C, it is significantly more stable than T.A:T. On the other hand, T.A+-C is as stable as the T.A:T base triad.


Citizenship is high on the agenda of education systems in many of the world's democracies. As yet, however, discussions of citizenship education have neglected issues of religious diversity and how the study of religions can contribute to our understanding of citizenship. International Perspectives on Citizenship, Education and Religious Diversity brings together an international range of contributions from religious studies scholars and educators specialising in the study of religions. Together, these illustrate and explore the key questions for educational theory and pedagogy raised by drawing issues of religious diversity into citizenship education. The chapters address and extend debates over the nature of citizenship in late modernity, highlighting local and global dimensions of citizenship in relation to issues of national, religious, ethnic and cultural identity. As well as emphasising the role religious education has to play in citizenship education, this book also covers wider issues such as state-supported faith schools and cultural diversity in relation to common citizenship. The authors argue that critical, yet reflective, approaches to religious education have a distinctive and valuable contribution to make to citizenship education. Issues addressed within the study of religions are related to new forms of global and cultural citizenship, as well as citizenship within the nation state. Ultimately, this stimulating and original collection highlights the challenges and possibilities for teaching and learning about religion, religions and religious diversity within an inclusive educational practice.


At the core of what we know as popular culture studies today is the work of scholars associated with or influenced by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Popular culture itself and intellectual interest in its risks and possibilities, however, long predate this moment. Earlier in the 20th century, members of the Frankfurt School took an active interest in what was then referred to as "mass culture" or the culture industry. Semiotics, emerging in the latter half of the 20th century as an exciting new methodology of cultural analysis, turned to popular culture for many of its objects as it redefined textuality, reading, and meaning. The works of Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco are exemplary in this regard. The work of the Birmingham school, also known as British cultural studies, drew from both of these intellectual traditions but went on to forge its own unique methods drawing on Marxist and poststructuralist theoretical legacies. Quickly spreading across the Anglophone world, Cultural Studies is now widely recognized, if not as a discipline proper, as a distinctive branch of the humanities. Other methodologies contemporaneous with this trend are also now clubbed together as part of this generalized practice of cultural studies. Important among these are feminist approaches to popular culture exemplified by work on Hollywood cinema and women's melodrama in particular, the study of images and representations through a mass communications approach, and ethnographic studies of readers of popular romances and television audiences. A minor, theoretically weak tradition of popular culture studies initiated by Ray Browne parallelly in the Unites States may also be mentioned. More recently, Slavoj Zizek has introduced startlingly new ways of drawing popular cultural texts into philosophical debates. If all of these can be taken together as constituting what is generally referred to as popular culture studies today, it is still limited to the 20th century. Apart from the Frankfurt School and semiotics, British cultural studies also counts among the precursors it had to settle scores with, the tradition of cultural criticism in Britain that Matthew Arnold and in his wake F. R. Leavis undertook as they sought to insulate "the best of what was thought and said" from the debasing influence of the commercial press and mass culture in general. But the history of popular culture as an object of investigation and social concern goes further back still to the 18th and 19th centuries, the period of the rise and spread of mass literature, boosted by the rise of a working-class readership.


In this research we used the structure of
SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) for docking with Anti-HIV protease inhibitor drug molecules within pH 4-8. By carrying
out the variance analysis of binding energies at pH 4-8, it was revealed that the
binding energy and mode of interaction of the potential ligands with
SARS-CoV-2 Mpro, was dependent on variation of pH. We found out that two of the
selected protease inhibitors have differential binding characteristics with
changing pH hence their binding energies and mode of interaction depends upon
intracellular pH. This differential
binding behavior can lead to development of pH selective potent drug molecules
for binding with viral protease at lowered intracellular pH of virus infected
cell.


In this paper a new healthcare system has been proposed that will provide patients with a NFC tag. The NFC tag contains patient information. NFC smart tag can be used when patients and Elderly People go to hospitals or emergency units. Instead of carrying many files they can simply carry the smart tag. Such smart tag can be read using a reader either using smart phone or a reader connected to PC in order to retrieve patient information when placed near NFC tag. This tag can be assigned to patient with a unique ID at the time of registration. Every time the health checkup is performed, it will be updated. This improves patient's identification by eliminating the paper based documentation work by decreasing mistakes in healthcare. Pharmacist can also view medicine prescribed by the doctor. Data log are stored on centralized cloud server NFC can be used also to identify, query, and update patients data form the server. Doctors can view medical records by tapping his Smartphone that is enabled with a NFC reader over the NFC tag. Such system will improve the quality of healthcare sector by reducing clinical errors resulting of lack of medical information and prescriptions.


This paper presents the real-time monitoring results of operational RC Kawane Bridge in the suburbs of Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture of Japan. The effects of seasonal changes and earthquake occurrence in addition to the traffic loadings over an interval of six months were evaluated in terms of global and local modal parameters. The response of bridge to ambient and controlled traffic conditions was monitored using accelerometers, conventional strain gauges and long-gauge (FBG) sensors mounted on the underside of the bridge girder. The objectives of the study were to: (1) evaluate the performance of the long-gauge FBG sensors packaged in the laboratory for longterm monitoring of existing bridge structure, and (2) condition assessment of Kawane Bridge using dynamic response measurements due to operational and environmental loading on the bridge. The modal frequencies extracted from the different measurement data agreed. The condition of the bridge was assessed on the basis of the proposed data normalization approach using the normalized modal macrostrain (NMMS) vectors between the target and the reference macro-strain measurements. This procedure, previously deployed to laboratory setups, was an improved modal curvature method with potential to conveniently detect and localize small degrees of damage. Some changes in first modal frequency of the bridge were observed which was mainly due to the variations in environmental parameters. However, no significant changes in the slope of the fit lines were noticed indicating the healthy condition of the monitored bridge. Intensive visual inspection of the Kawane Bridge during the experimentation confirmed the same. The algorithm was verified to be suitable for practical civil SHM applications where variability in response and modal parameters due to measurement noise and environmental influence is often inevitable.


Differential Item Functioning (DIF) is a widely used term in test development literature. It is very important to analyze test's data for DIF because It is a serious threat to validity. If the same data matrix was transposed, similar analysis can be carried for Differential Person Functioning (DPF). The purpose of this paper is to introduce and encourage the use of DPF analysis in tests of emotional or cognitive intelligence as a diagnostic approach through two examples illustrating the presence of DPF. ********** Tests and testing play a major role in today's society. Therefore, it is extremely important that test developers and users strive to insure the validity of their tests and instruments for the target population and purposes for which they were designed for. Therefore, many writers, investigators, and researchers have addressed the notion of test\ or item bias. Many definitions of item bias have been offered. Runder (1978) suggested that a biased item is one that "behaves differently for members of two different culture groups" (p.33). Angoff (1993) explains that "statistically biased" means a tendency for an estimate to deviate in one direction or another from a true value. It means that, whenever systematically inaccurate estimation occurs, bias is there. However, he believes that "there should be an educational and psychological rational for deciding that a statistically biased item is indeed biased" (p. 114). O'Neal (1991) argues that empirical and statistical indices of bias do not necessarily indicate bias as equivalent to unfairness. Unfair advantages of an item could arise in subpopulation (e.g., males & females) when compared to another subpopulation. This unfair advantage will exist if within the subpopulations both have equal standing on the construct\ or trait being measured. This means that irrelevant sources of variation are not distributed similarly for both subpopulations (Cromwell, 2002). In other words, even when an item shows a significant statistical bias, it might be still judged as a fair item depending on the purpose of the test unless a criterion of overall measure is used to control for the compared subpopulations (Angoff, 1993). To come over this argument, the term Differential item functioning (DIF) was introduced to mean that an item is functioning differentially (i.e., presents a real and clear bias) if showed different statistical properties in different group settings provided that similar ability levels were controlled while comparing all groups. In DIF analysis, a data matrix resulting usually from different assessment situations consists of many persons or cases (i. e., the column variable) responding to many test items (i.e., the raw variable). For a particular person, his score on each item is assumed to reflect his\her standing point on the scale of the trait measured by that item. In other words, persons' abilities are being rated by items. But, is it possible to draw the same logic for the opposite case if the same typical data matrix was transposed? Can we think of items being rated (agreed upon\ or persons' proportion correct) by persons. In short, an item shows DIF when it functions differentially between matched subgroups of persons. An item in a mathematical test, for example, functions differentially for two classes a & b if the item is easier for one class than the other when comparing between subgroups of the same ability level (i.e., total test score) from both classes. Such item functioning behavior is referred to as DIF. Similarly, a person may function differently on two groups of items after controlling for an overall measure. Such person functioning behavior is referred to as differential person functioning or DPF (Johanson & Alsmadi 2000; Alsmadi, 1998). In their study on DPF in Attitude assessment, Johanson & Osborn (2000) presented an example of DPF with positively and negatively phrased item format. …


Using Sos1 knockout (Sos1-KO), Sos2-KO, and Sos1/2 double-knockout (Sos1/2-DKO) mice, we assessed the functional role of Sos1 and Sos2 in skin homeostasis under physiological and/or pathological conditions. Sos1 depletion resulted in significant alterations of skin homeostasis, including reduced keratinocyte proliferation, altered hair follicle and blood vessel integrity in dermis, and reduced adipose tissue in hypodermis. ABSTRACT Using Sos1 knockout (Sos1-KO), Sos2-KO, and Sos1/2 double-knockout (Sos1/2-DKO) mice, we assessed the functional role of Sos1 and Sos2 in skin homeostasis under physiological and/or pathological conditions. Sos1 depletion resulted in significant alterations of skin homeostasis, including reduced keratinocyte proliferation, altered hair follicle and blood vessel integrity in dermis, and reduced adipose tissue in hypodermis. These defects worsened significantly when both Sos1 and Sos2 were absent. Simultaneous Sos1/2 disruption led to severe impairment of the ability to repair skin wounds, as well as to almost complete ablation of the neutrophil-mediated inflammatory response in the injury site. Furthermore, Sos1 disruption delayed the onset of tumor initiation, decreased tumor growth, and prevented malignant progression of papillomas in a DMBA (7,12-dimethylbenz[α]anthracene)/TPA (12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate)-induced skin carcinogenesis model. Finally, Sos1 depletion in preexisting chemically induced papillomas resulted also in decreased tumor growth, probably linked to significantly reduced underlying keratinocyte proliferation. Our data unveil novel, distinctive mechanistic roles of Sos 1 and Sos2 in physiological control of skin homeostasis and wound repair, as well as in pathological development of chemically induced skin tumors. These observations underscore the essential role of Sos proteins in cellular proliferation and migration and support the consideration of these RasGEFs as potential biomarkers/therapy targets in Ras-driven epidermal tumors.


Abstract. Phenology is the study of periodic biological occurrences and can provide important insights into the influence of climatic variability and change on ecosystems. Understanding Australia's vegetation phenology is a challenge due to its diverse range of ecosystems, from savannas and tropical rainforests to temperate eucalypt woodlands, semi-arid scrublands, and alpine grasslands. These ecosystems exhibit marked differences in seasonal patterns of canopy development and plant life-cycle events, much of which deviates from the predictable seasonal phenological pulse of temperate deciduous and boreal biomes. Many Australian ecosystems are subject to irregular events (i.e. drought, flooding, cyclones, and fire) that can alter ecosystem composition, structure, and functioning just as much as seasonal change. We show how satellite remote sensing and ground-based digital repeat photography (i.e. phenocams) can be used to improve understanding of phenology in Australian ecosystems. First, we examine temporal variation in phenology on the continental scale using the enhanced vegetation index (EVI), calculated from MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Spatial gradients are revealed, ranging from regions with pronounced seasonality in canopy development (i.e. tropical savannas) to regions where seasonal variation is minimal (i.e. tropical rainforests) or high but irregular (i.e. arid ecosystems). Next, we use time series colour information extracted from phenocam imagery to illustrate a range of phenological signals in four contrasting Australian ecosystems. These include greening and senescing events in tropical savannas and temperate eucalypt understorey, as well as strong seasonal dynamics of individual trees in a seemingly static evergreen rainforest. We also demonstrate how phenology links with ecosystem gross primary productivity (from eddy covariance) and discuss why these processes are linked in some ecosystems but not others. We conclude that phenocams have the potential to greatly improve the current understanding of Australian ecosystems. To facilitate the sharing of this information, we have formed the Australian Phenocam Network ( http://phenocam.org.au/ ).


Portfolio Decision Analysis (PDA) is applicable in many domains and is therefore an important part of Decision Analysis (DA). PDA enables the identification of a preferred portfolio of alternatives instead of a single alternative, which is the typical case in traditional DA. The DELTA framework for interval decision analysis enables a decision maker to model and evaluate decision problems in vague domains with imprecise information, however, it does not support PDA. This paper presents an extension of the DELTA method so that portfolio decision problems can be modelled and evaluated within that framework. The extension is based on a set of reasonable requirements, and an evaluation of the PDA methods PROBE, RPM and Equity.


Carcass classification is an essential part of efficient animal production, price fixing and meeting consumer demands. Carcass classification (or grading) is based on the description of carcasses by means of clearly defined characteristics that are of prime importance to the meat industry, retailers and consumers. Significant variation exists in carcass composition and quality due to the effects of species, age, maturity type, sex and interaction effects with animal production systems. A number of extrinsic and intrinsic factors affects carcass and meat quality and the purpose of carcass classification in South Africa is to classify carcasses to ensure more consistent meat quality, composition and consumer satisfaction. Although carcass inspection is compulsory in South Africa, carcass classification is not a requisite at all South African abattoirs. South Africa employed a carcass grading system from 1944 to 1992, which was replaced by a carcass classification system in 1992. Carcass classification differs fundamentally from carcass grading. In carcass classification there is a shift of emphasis to classifying carcasses in order to provide the meat industry and consumers with a choice of different types of carcasses in terms of carcass composition and physical attributes, while there is no indication of perceived quality as is provided in a grading system. In a carcass grading system, an indication is provided of standard, prime and superior carcass grades which relate to standard, prime and superior meat quality. The conceptual basis of the carcass classification system is therefore based on the principle that producers, retailers and consumers differ in terms of their perceptions and expectations of carcass and meat quality, and subsequent eating experience. More recently it has become apparent that the current classification system is being used as a grading system due to the use of preferred classes, which defeats the original purpose of a classification system. Furthermore, recent research suggests that the variation within carcass classification categories has increased considerably due to differences between livestock breeds and types, animal production systems and the use of modern feedstuffs and growth enhancing technologies. The purpose of this paper is to review the characteristics and goals of the current South African carcass classification system, grading systems in other countries and the implications for effective marketing, price fixing and consumer satisfaction based on the complex cycle from 'farm to fork'. Keywords : Carcass classification, carcass grading, beef, sheep, marketing, consumer acceptance


When governments face severe political violence, they regularly respond with violence. Yet not all governments escalate repression under such circumstances. We argue that to understand the escalation of state violence, we need to pay attention to the potential costs leaders might face in doing so. We expect that the decision to escalate state violence is conditional on being faced with heightened threats and on possessing an information advantage that mitigates the expected cost of increasing state violence. In an environment where media freedom is constrained, leaders can deny or reframe an escalation of violations and so expect to reduce potential domestic and international costs attached to that decision. Using a global dataset from 1981 to 2006, we show that state violence is likely to escalate in response to increasing violent threats to the state when media freedom is curtailed – but not when the media are free from state intervention. A media environment that the government knows is free to sound the alarm is associated with higher political costs of repression and effectively reduces the risk of escalating state violence, even in the face of mounting armed threats.


Adoption of stall feeding (SF) as well as choices of animals and seasons for its application were assessed in northern Ethiopia in 2015 using a household field survey. The study was conducted in 21 communities to account for differences in agro ecology and to better understand the adoption process. A Heckman selection model was used to estimate adoption and extent of adoption based on a model of technology adoption within an agricultural household framework. A Poisson model was also applied to explain the number of SF adopting seasons. Further a multinomial logit model was estimated in order to reinforce understanding of the choices. The purpose of this study was to understand the driving factors of full or seasonal SF adoption and its intensity as well as animal and seasonal choices. The study results indicate that farmers actually practicing SF in a full year are 36% while those of actual seasonal adopters are 55.6%. The choice of animals allocated to SF include cow (40%), ox (31%) and other animals (29%) of the given sample indicating feeding cow under SF takes the largest share. Similarly, the choice for season were, 65% full year, 29 % wet (summer and autumn) and 6% dry (winter and spring), implying that more than half of the sample farmers practice SF the year round. Empirical results of this study showed that result is in favour of the Boserupian hypothesis indicating that small grazing land and large exclosure are associated with a higher probability of use of SF and with a higher number of SF adopting seasons throughout the year. In a similar vein, small average village farm size stimulated full SF adoption and SF adopting seasons, Availability of labour relative to farm size and a number of breed cows significantly increased the probability of using SF by 0.01% and 66% respectively. While animal shock appeared to have a marginal effect of 14%.The finding also revealed that factors such as access to information and early exposure increased the probability of SF adoption by 18% and 6%. Similarly, the positive marginal effect of real milk price is 15%. However, SF appears to be less attractive to those farmers with more herd size relative farm size and less crop residue. Regarding the intensity of SF adoption, while total labour time, farm size positively affect the extent of SF adoption, total herd size and grazing land ratio negatively influence farmers' extent of SF adoption in all seasons.


Recent developments in massive open online courses (MOOCs) have brought renewed attention to online learning, but most of the attention has been centered on courses offered through platforms such as Coursera and edX. This paper focuses on the importance of examining alternative, large-scale learning initiatives that promote more participatory modes of education production and delivery. It presents a comprehensive description of the Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), a social computing platform that promotes peer-created, peer-led, online learning environments. Using log data from the P2PU platform, the ecosystem of this learner-generated education platform is described. The descriptive analysis highlights P2PU's growth in terms of the participatory learning environments that have been created – such as online study groups, courses, and challenges – and also describes the participation patterns of P2PU members. This paper provides one of the first empirical descriptions of an emerging open learning platform and illuminates how log data from the platform, particularly in relation to open courses, open badges, and learning tasks embedded in courses, can be used to track development of courses and engagement in learning activities across P2PU. The analyses reported here are aimed at helping researchers understand the P2PU ecosystem and identify potential areas for future study as P2PU works to open its data for public analysis.


This report details the presence of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) concepts in the education systems of four countries: Cambodia, Colombia, Mongolia and Uganda. It highlights the main findings of eight reports: four expert reports, which predominately analyse curriculum content, and four situational analysis reports, which take a broader view and detail some of the country-specific challenges and opportunities with regard to GCED. Findings reveal the presence of GCED concepts across the curricula of the four countries. In addition to cognitive content related to GCED, competency-based content is also found present within the curricula of these countries. However, the majority of this content can only be indirectly linked to GCED, and it is better interpreted as part of the more traditional civics or citizenship education approach. As such, it generally lacks a global perspective and does not engage with all key themes of GCED. Furthermore, this content is often concentrated at the lower and upper secondary levels, instead of being equally distributed across all grade levels. This is particularly true in the case of behaviour-based competencies. Findings also reveal challenges beyond the curriculum. These include lack of teacher training and lack of support to implement GCED, which are concerns expressed by stakeholders in all four countries. A lack of GCED content in textbooks and lack of supplementary materials were also found to be issues. The report concludes with recommendations regarding the effective implementation of GCED within curricula. Among others, the report suggests the transversal integration of GCED across the curriculum at all grade levels, while at the same time, actors from all levels of the education system, ranging from central government to teachers, should be engaged to ensure the use of complementary learning materials, pedagogies and assessment techniques.


Urban systems operate at a multitude of scales, densities and levels of specialization over vast areas of the planet, as has been pointed out by Lefebvre in The Production of Space and The Urban Revolution and more recently by Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid in their essay Planetary Urbanization. Pressure on ocean space for energy production, extraction of resources, infrastructural and logistical development is steadily increasing, making the ocean a site of spatial and environmental convergence, a type of urban "hinterland".While ephemeral in relative dimensions over time , critical nodes are beginning to emerge where the vast scale of the ocean is confined by physical limits.The first part of this paper examines ocean space in terms of scarcity within this context. Scarcity has been discussed as a relational term, relative to need or demand (Samuel and Robert, 2010) and in fact as a condition produced by ever-changing and newly created "needs"(Luks, 2010). In spite of market dynamics, some commodities have a stable and absolute quantity. "[...] the total quantity of the stuff named H2O remains unchanged through the hydrological cycle, neither created nor destroyed"(Samuel and Robert, 2010, p.110). The limitedness of ocean space completes the conception of a finite world. It also highlights the inherent problematic of measurable quantities and boundaries in relation to scarcity, both of which pose challenges to current design vocabulary and planning methods. Marine resources are considered a common heritage of mankind.The UN supports the "Marine Spatial Planning" (MSP) initiative, currently being carried out by a handful of countries and ideally aimed at a bal- ance of both use and protection of marine resources. Examples of MSP demonstrate, however, the strong link between economic priorities and ocean planning.This point will be illustrated by spatial plans for the German EEZs in the North Sea, since MSP is well advanced in Germany. Limits to conventional planning, and the need for a new form of design when dealing with a complex, three-dimensional ecosystem such as the ocean, become apparent. Part one concludes with selected theoretical positions, which can serve to inform spatial conceptualizations better adapted to ocean conditions. This discussion draws on a case-study carried out by the EPFL laboratoire Bale (laba) on the Barents Sea- a resource-rich territory four times the size of Norway. Here, for the first time, the receding ice-front has made both the vast oil and gas reserves more readily accessible and the Northern Sea Route commercially viable, posing a critical environmental dilemma.The design re- search resulted in both long-term development plans, called 'Territorial Constitutions' - consisting of a plan and written articles of constitution- followed by architectural projects anchored within this framework. Selected projects, which illustrate innovative ways of designing with the specific characteristics of the ocean, will be discussed in the second part of this paper.


The Russian-Ukraine gas supply crisis in January 2009 brought an unprecedented disruption for the gas supply in Europe. As a response, the SoS Regulation put in place an ambitious plan to mitigate not only the risks of another gas supply crisis, but also to protect a defined group of customers in case of unavoidable gas shortage - households, small and medium enterprises, institutions providing essential social services among others. While it was thought the SoS Regulation had pursued exhaustive harmonization standards in the definition of protected costumers, the ECJ's judgment in Eni and Others reopened the question. This article, instead, argues that the Court got it wrong. Neither the judgment nor the opinion of the Advocate General took into sufficient account the legal content Fof the provision that defined protected customers. If the Court had done so, the judgment would have likely taken additional linguistic, systemic, and teleological arguments into account. The analyses and comments on Eni and Others here offered focus on the first referred question about whether Member States could impose additional obligation on gas undertakings by reviewing the definition of protected customer.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this investigation was to measure urine mercury level for a sample comprising 42 dental patients and 7 dental professionals and whether the concentration of mercury in urine had reached a disturbing level under chronic conditions of exposure. Urine samples were collected and concentration of mercury was measured for each of 49 volunteers. The individuals were divided into two groups of the 42 dental patients and 7 staff professionals. The experimental data involving urine mercury concentration, number of dental fillings and duration of fillings were assembled in tables. Multiple comparisons based on least Significant Difference (LSD) between six subgroups of patients and between two subgroups of dental professionals were drawn. Correlation studies between urine mercury concentration and number of fillings on one hand and duration of filling on another were conducted for the six subgroups of patients as well as the two subgroups of dental professionals. Furthermore, the F- ratio and T-test of significance were performed for the two subgroups of the dental professionals. The study indicated that the level of urine mercury found out was substantially high compared to WHO benchmark which is ˂ 2 µg/L for chronic exposure to mercury. The levels of mercury in urine discerned in this study for the volunteers under chronic exposure are remarkably high. Subtle disorders and ailments may be induced with concomitant public health hazards.


Providing access to up-to-date and expensive instruments
for a large classroom is challenging for courses of analytical chemistry and
physical chemistry, where knowledge on analytical methods or demonstration of
phenomena is associated with a specialized instrument. In this technology
report, we present our solution to this challenge: a virtual reality (VR)
chemical educational tool that provides in
situ user experience on research equipment to a large classroom. The VR
educational tool consists of a VR camera in the laboratory attached to a
teaching assistant who performs the experiment and many virtual reality playing
devices in a classroom watched by students. The experience of experimenting is shared
with the students in the classroom. Moreover, the VR educational tool can also
provide an immersive experience on laboratory demonstrations to the general
audience for outreach, without the constraint from safety concerns. Further
utilization of the VR educational tool is expected to remove the barrier
between the lecture room and the laboratory and enable new pedagogical methods
for lectures in STEM education.


Longitudinal Association Between Self-Esteem in Adolescence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Older Adults: A Cohort Study John Anthony Blue Star Department of Psychology, BYU Doctor of Philosophy Background: Posttraumatic-Stress Disorder (PTSD) is less common in older adults than in younger adults, and little is known about specific risk factors for PTSD in older adults. We investigated the association between self-esteem in late adolescence and PTSD in older adults. Method: Using a cohort design, 1,436 individuals who had been assessed approximately 40 years earlier in their junior and senior year of high school with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were evaluated for PTSD using the PTSD Checklist (PCL-17). Results: Fully controlled logistic regression models indicated that lower self-esteem in late adolescence predicted PTSD in the overall sample of older adults but not in the veterans-only subgroup. Limitations: The main limitations include self-completed measures to estimate PTSD diagnosis and lack of specific information on traumatic events. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that lower self-esteem from a young age may be a risk factor for PTSD in older age.


The conference "Lithuanian MSc Research in Informatics and ICT" is a venue to present research of Lithuanian MSc theses in informatics and ICT. The aim of the event is to raise skills of MSc and other students, familiarize themselves with the research of other students, encourage their interest in scientific activities. Students from Kaunas University of Technology, Vilnius University, and Vytautas Magnus University will give their presentations at the conference.


Ten years ago, thousands of people risked their lives in wooden boats called cayucos to reach Spain's Canary Islands. This sudden influx of tens of thousands of desperate migrants and refugees overwhelmed the islands and created a humanitarian crisis for Spain and the European Union. But a decade later, very few are heading to the Canaries.
What triggered the refugee crisis in the Canary Islands in 2006? What was the response? Why are almost no migrants and refugees heading to the Canary Islands today? And what lessons can be learned for other parts of the world? The latest report from IPI, by Walter Kemp, addresses these questions. It is the first in a series of reports on desperate migration and forced displacement.
Although the cayucos crisis differs from other migration crises in Europe — the Canaries are islands, most of the countries of origin were not failed states, and most of those arriving were migrants rather than refugees — the report identifies a number of lessons that could be transferable:
- Involvement of the whole government, effective leadership, and coordination among all stakeholders are necessary to develop an effective long-term approach. - Pursuing a coherent regional strategy can help address the push and pull factors at the root of the crisis and ensure the problem is not simply displaced elsewhere. - Saving lives should take precedence over border management. - If migrants are to be pushed back to their point of departure, there must be mechanisms to ensure respect for their rights.


Tribological coatings are mainly used to reduce adhesive wear, which often leads to the seizure or the formation of cold welds. The low coefficient of friction and good sliding properties make it ideal for applications with low lubrication or even dry running. The result is an ideal way to reduce surface fatigue and tribo-oxidation. Tribological coatings have good sliding properties, a low coefficient of friction and low adhesive wear. Thin layers of WC/C and TiC/C of the MeC/a-C: H coating group were deposited onto the surface of ISO 683/1170 steel. The third tribological coating deposited on the same substrate was a ta-C coating a tetrahedral amorphous layer (stoichiometry: sp3 bonds > 50%). Tribological measurements were performed at a load of 10 N, a rotational speed of 60 rpm, and with a counterpart of ceramic material Al2O3.


Thunbergia grandiflora, commonly called blue trumpet vine, sky vine or sky flower belongs to Acanthaceae, which is native in Australia, Central America, the West Indies, Africa, and numerous islands in the Pacific including Hawaii, Fiji, French Polynesia, Palau, and Samoa. In the present investigation, Thunbergia Grandiflora extracts were studied for in-vivo acute toxicity, anticancer and antioxidant activity. According to the toxicity study, 200 and 400mg/kg body weight was selected as dose. In the evaluation of anticancer activity the tumour yield and tumour burden were not detected up to 4 th weeks; but in 8 th week, observed the formation of tumours and it become maximum in 16 th week in all treated groups of mice. In carcinogenic control group of mice maximum tumors activity was observed due to carcinogenic nature but it got decreased after the treatment with sample 1,2,3 and isolated compound. Also, carcinogen increased LPO and reduced SOD, GSH, and catalase in lung homogenate. Extracts significantly reversed the effect of carcinogen on LPO level. The isolated compound was found more effective than the extracts (200 mg/kg an 400 mg/kg) on LPO, SOD, GSH and catalase. Moreover the extract of Thunbergia grandiflora showed down regulated effect on the levels of TNF-α and IL-6.


Context. Every day software practitioners need information for resolving a number of questions. This information need should be identified and addressed in order to successfully develop and deliver a software system. One of the ways to address these information needs is to make use of some information sources like blogs, websites, documentation etc. Identifying the needs and sources of software practitioners can improve and benefit the practitioners as well as the software development process. But the information needs and sources of software practitioners are partially studied and rather it is mostly focused on the knowledge management in software engineering. So, the current context of this study is to identify the information needs and information sources of software practitioners and also to investigate the practitioner's perception on different information sources. Objectives. In this study we primarily investigated some of the information needs of software practitioners and the information sources that they use to fulfill their needs. Secondly we investigated the practitioner's perception on available information sources by identifying the aspects that they consider while using different information sources. Methods. To achieve the research objectives this study conducted an empirical investigation by performing a survey, with two data collection techniques. A simple literature review was also performed initially to identify some of the information needs and sources of software practitioners. Then we started survey by conducting the semi-structured interviews, based on the data obtained from the literature. Moreover, an online questionnaire was designed, after conducting the preliminary analysis of the data obtained from both the interviews and literature review. Coding process of grounded theory was used for analyzing the data obtained from the interviews and descriptive statistics were used for analyzing the data obtained from the online questionnaire. The data obtained from both the qualitative and quantitative methods is triangulated by comparing the identified information needs and sources with those that are presented in the literature. Results. From the preliminary literature review, we identified seven information needs and six information sources. Based on the results of the literature review, we then conducted interviews with software practitioners and identified nine information needs and thirteen information sources. From the interviews we also investigated the aspects that software practitioners look into, while using different information sources and thus we identified four major aspects. We then validated the results from the literature review and interviews with the help of an online questionnaire. From the online questionnaire, we finally identified the frequency of occurrence of the identified information needs and the frequency of use of different information sources. Conclusions. We identified that the software practitioners are currently facing nine type of information needs, out of which, information on clarifying the requirements and information on produce design and architecture are the most frequently faced needs. To address these needs most of the practitioners are using the information sources like blogs and community forums, product documentation and discussion with colleagues. While the research articles are moderately used and the IT magazines and social networking sites are least used to address their needs. We also identified that most of the practitioners consider the reliability/accuracy of the information source as an extremely important factor. The identified information needs and sources along with the practitioner's perception are clearly elucidated in the document.A future direction of this work could be, testing the applicability of the identified information needs by extending the sample population. Also, there is a scope for research on how the identified information needs can be minimized to make the information acquisition more easy for the practitioners.


A substantial body of research since the early fifties has been conducted addressing the economic benefits from higher education. A more limited body of research has further demonstrated that there exist important qualitative differences in the academic returns or academic performances due to college education. It has been established that such qualitative differences occur because of the choice of the major, quality of institution and quality of the students. Although graduates from higher quality institutions generally exhibit higher academic performance, this can explain only a small proportion of the variability of student's performance. The present study attempts to address the institutional quality issue from a value-added perspective. We investigate how the business school education from an undergraduate institution can affect the academic performance of its students. Data for this study were collected in a four-year college in the northeast region of the United States. The School of Business in that institution offers majors in Accounting, Business Administration (with five specializations), and Economics. All business students must take a common core of required courses including accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management, information technology, and statistics prior to taking their courses in the major discipline. Our sample size contains 415 graduating students over two time periods: 2008 and 2012. Results suggest that undergraduate business school education accounts for about 25% to 35% of the variability of the academic performance for the students.


Simple recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and their more advanced cousins LSTMs etc. have been very successful in sequence modeling. Their theoretical understanding, however, is lacking and has not kept pace with the progress for feedforward networks, where a reasonably complete understanding in the special case of highly overparametrized one-hidden-layer networks has emerged. In this paper, we make progress towards remedying this situation by proving that RNNs can learn functions of sequences. In contrast to the previous work that could only deal with functions of sequences that are sums of functions of individual tokens in the sequence, we allow general functions. Conceptually and technically, we introduce new ideas which enable us to extract information from the hidden state of the RNN in our proofs -- addressing a crucial weakness in previous work. We illustrate our results on some regular language recognition problems.


The paper reports the first experimental study on people's fairness views on extreme income inequalities arising from winner-take-all reward structures. We find that the majority of participants consider extreme income inequality generated in winner-take-all situations as fair, independent of the winning margin. Spectators appear to endorse a "factual merit" fairness argument for no redistribution: the winner deserves all the earnings because these earnings were determined by his or her performance. Our findings shed light on the present political debate on redistribution, by suggesting that people may object less to certain types of extreme income inequality than commonly assumed.


Little is known about the basic ecology of albuneid sand crabs because they conceal themselves by digging in sand, and are typically found at low densities. I sampled sand crabs, Lepidopa benedicti were sampled at South Padre Island, Texas, regularly for more than five years. Density is high in the summer, and low in the winter. The sex ratio is slightly, but consistently, female skewed. Ovigerous females, carrying about one thousand eggs, are found in mid-summer, with most of the young of the year settling in autumn. The average size of individuals in the South Texas population is smaller than individuals in the Atlantic Ocean, but the population density appear to be higher in Texas. I also describe a new orange colour morph. The results are not consistent with an earlier suggestion that South Texas acts as a population sink for L. benedicti.


In this study, antibacterial, antifungal, antimycobacterial, cytotoxic, antitumor, cardiovascular, antifeedant, insecticidal, antileishmanial and some other single activities of diterpenoids and norditerpenoids isolated from Turkish Lamiaceae plants, are reviewed. The diterpenoids were isolated from species of Salvia, Sideritis, and Ballota species growing in Anatolia. Fifty abietanes, ten kaurenes, seven pimaranes, six labdanes with their biological activities were reported. While twenty five diterpenoids showed antibacterial activity, eight of which showed activity against fungi. The most cytotoxic one was found to be taxodione (44) isolated from species of Salvia. Antifeedant, insecticidal and insect repellent activity of kaurenes, antimycobacterial activity and cardioactivity of abietanes and norabietanes together with labdanes were also reported.


This paper discusses the status of financial inclusion in Indonesia and examines the impact of financial inclusion – based on availability of bank branches on household outcomes – in Indonesia. Based on analysis of the World Bank's Financial Inclusion Survey (FINDEX) data, Indonesia has made some progress on expanding financial inclusion. The share of individuals with bank accounts rose from less than 20% to just under 50% in 2017. Interestingly, while the gain between 2011 and 2014 was greater for individuals in the upper 60 percentile of income, the gains between 2014 and 2017 were more pro-poor. This progress was made possible due to concerted government efforts to expand financial inclusion. In our empirical analysis, we study how financial inclusion enables households with income gains into savings for assets and earnings. Using the Indonesian Family Life Survey data, we find that living in areas with high density of bank branches helps poor households accumulate savings. The marginal effect of financial inclusion on savings is highest amongst the households in the bottom quintile of per capita consumption distribution. Thus, access to formal financial institutions can lead to improvement in household welfare.


After the execution of Socrates in 399 BC, a number of his followers wrote dialogues featuring him as the protagonist and, in so doing, transformed the great philosopher into a legendary figure. Xenophon's portrait is the only one other than Plato's to survive, and while it offers a very personal interpretation of Socratic thought, it also reveals much about the man and his philosophical views. In 'Socrates' Defence' Xenophon defends his mentor against charges of arrogance made at his trial, while the 'Memoirs of Socrates' also starts with an impassioned plea for the rehabilitation of a wronged reputation. Along with 'The Estate-Manager', a practical economic treatise, and 'The Dinner-Party', a sparkling exploration of love, Xenophon's dialogues offer fascinating insights into the Socratic world and into the intellectual atmosphere and daily life of ancient Greece.


The coherence of a squeezed sodium atom laser generated from a Raman output coupler, in which the sodium atoms in Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) interact with two light beams consisting of a weaker squeezed coherent probe light and a stronger classical coupling light, is investigated. The results show that in the case of a large mean number of BEC atoms and a weaker probe light field, the atom laser is antibunching, and this atom laser is second-order coherent if the number of BEC atoms in traps is large enough.


This thesis presents a report on original research, extending a result published as joint work with Merschen and von Stengel in Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics [4]. We present a polynomial time algorithm for two problems on labeled Gale strings, a combinatorial structure introduced by Gale [11] that can be used in the representation of a particular class of games.
These games were used by Savani and von Stengel [25] as an example of exponential running time for the classical Lemke-Howson algorithm to find a Nash equilibrium of a bimatrix game [16]. It was therefore conjectured that solving these games was a complete problem in the class PPAD (Polynomial Parity Argument, Directed version, see Papadimitriou [24]). In turn, a major motivation for the definition of PPAD was the study of complementary pivoting methods, such as the Lemke-Howson algorithm.
Our result, unexpectedly, sets apart this class of games as a case where a Nash equilibrium can be found in polynomial time. Since Daskalakis, Goldberg and Papaditrimiou [6] and Chen and Deng [5] proved that finding a Nash equilibrium in general normal-form games is PPAD-complete, we have a special class of games, unless PPAD = P.
Our proof exploits two results. As seen in Savani and von Stengel [25] [26], we represent the Nash equilibria of these special games as Gale strings. We then give a graph where the perfect matchings correspond to Nash equilibria via Gale strings, and we exploit Edmonds' polynomial-time algorithm for a
perfect matching in a graph [7]. The proof given in Casetti, Merschen and von Stengel [4] covered only the case of even-dimensional Gale strings; here we extend the result to the general case.
Merschen [19] and V´egh and von Stengel [28] expanded on our ideas, proving further results on the index of Nash equilibria (see Shapley [27]) in the framework of "oiks" introduced by Edmonds [8] and Edmonds and Sanit`a [9].


A number of parallel concatenated convolutionally coded (PCCC) photon communication systems is introduced and investigated. It is assumed that the optical channel is an intensity modulated (IM) channel and that the received optical signal is detected using a direct-detection (DD) scheme. Two modes of operation are considered. In one scenario, it is assumed that the receiver is limited by shot noise (i.e., negligible receiver thermal noise, or Poisson channel). In the other case, we consider a nonnegligible receiver thermal noise where an avalanche photodetector (APD) is employed to detect the received optical signal. It is also considered that the modulation scheme is the binary pulse-position modulation (PPM). With the aid of the best available upper bounds, the performance of the rate 1/n PCCC encoded optical PPM systems is assessed in terms of the upper bound on the system bit error rate (BER) for the shot-noise-limited IM/DD systems with nonnegligible background noise and for the thermal-noise-limited systems with APD detectors when a uniform interleaver is used. Numerical results for the rate 1/3 PCCC encoded PPM channels are presented. The numerical results demonstrate the enormous potential of this novel coding scheme in enhancing the performance of the aforementioned optical channels by a sizeable margin across the board.


Microwave Imaging (MI) of breast cancer is an emerging non-invasive and non-ionizing technique for breast cancer diagnosis based on microwave radiation backscattered by breast tissues. Usually, MBI explore dielectric properties of breast tissues to increase the imaging contrast between tumor and healthy tissue through an Inverse Image Reconstruction Algorithm. Furthermore, MBI systems could be cost-effectively, compact and recent developments drive them to wearable soon. Even X-ray Mammography is the gold-standard for imaging tumors inside breast; it still is low contrast for early diagnostic, painful and age- and dose-restricted because ionizing radiation. Then, in long-term, our group is motivated to develop MBI technique and cost-effectively wearable systems for in vivo early diagnosis of breast cancer as a complimentary to X-ray Mammography. In short-term, we had been designing our systems by simulations, manufacturing and initial in vitro tests in lab. This work presents initial results of design and simulation of a system based on hard and/or flexible antennas ranging between 0.001 GHz to 3 GHz for in vitro experimentation. In detail, two different shapes (rectangular patch and circular slot) of Micro strip Patch antennas were designed and simulated in FR4, Cotton, Polyester and Pyralux Polyimide (for Flexible antennas) materials. The resonance frequency of antennas depends on permittivity of substrate material and its geometry, so the High Frequency Simulation Software (HFSS) simulated scattering parameters of designed antennas, which were also tested on mimic-phantoms of breast. The simulation of rectangular patch and bow-tie antennas resulted on a like-Gaussian curve of microwave emission / detection peaked at 1.9-2.7 GHz with ~50-90MHz band width.


A parametric reduced order model based on proper orthogonal decomposition with Galerkin projection has been developed and applied for the modeling of heat transport in T-junction pipes which are widely found in nuclear power plants. Thermal mixing of different temperature coolants in T-junction pipes leads to temperature fluctuations and this could potentially cause thermal fatigue in the pipe walls. The novelty of this paper is the development of a parametric ROM considering the three dimensional, incompressible, unsteady Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the heat transport equation in a finite volume approximation. Two different parametric cases are presented in this paper: parametrization of the inlet temperatures and parametrization of the kinematic viscosity. Different training spaces are considered and the results are compared against the full order model.


Polymorphisms in DNA repair genes may be associated with differences in the repair capacity of DNA damage and may influence an individual's susceptibility to smoking-related cancer. We investigated the association between two polymorphisms of the DNA repair gene XPA and risk of lung cancer in the Korean population. Two XPA polymorphisms (A23G and G709A) were typed in 265 lung cancer patients and 185 healthy controls who were frequency-matched on age and sex. The XPA G709A polymorphism was not detected in cases and controls. The XPA 23 GG genotype was associated with a significantly decreased risk for lung cancer [odds ratio (OR), 0.56; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.35-0.90] when the combined AA and AG genotype was used as the reference. The reduction in risk for the XPA 23 GG genotype was significant in males (OR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.30-0.86), younger individuals (OR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.19-0.80), and current smokers (OR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.25-0.83). These results suggest that the XPA A23G polymorphism contributes to genetic susceptibility for lung cancer.


Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable B-cell malignancy mainly localized to the bone marrow. Our aim was to examine the growth- and survival-promoting role of the IGF-IR and its downstream signaling components in MM cells to identify potential targets for therapy. Octreotide, a somatostatin analog that has been demonstrated to interfere with the actions of IGF-I, induced growth inhibition in both IL-6-dependent and IL-6-independent MM cell lines expressing the somatostatin receptors sst2, sst3 and sst5. Additionally, a slight pro-apoptotic effect could be observed in a few cell lines. In primary MM cells octreotide induced apoptosis, an effect that was abrogated by exogenously added IGF-I, but not by IL-6.Inhibition of IGF-I signaling in Karpas 707 cells, using either the anti-IGF-IR antibody αIR3 or the PI 3-K inhibitors LY294002 and wortmannin, increased sensitivity to apoptosis induced by dexamethasone. Exogenously added IGF-I prevented dexamethasone-induced apoptosis, an effect that could partly be mimicked by the pharmacological GSK-3β inhibitors LiCl and SB415286. Thus, we suggest the GSK-3β as an important mediator of the anti-apoptotic effects of IGF-IR signaling in MM.Using rapamycin we selectively inhibited mTOR, a phosphoprotein downstream of the IGF-IR. In MM cell lines rapamycin induced G0/G1-arrest, an effect being associated with an increase of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27 and a decrease of the cyclins D2, D3 and E. Interestingly, in primary MM cells rapamycin induced apoptosis. Moreover, rapamycin potentiated dexamethasone-induced apoptosis, an effect that was associated with a downregulation of the anti-apoptotic protein survivin. Strikingly, the combinatorial treatment with rapamycin and dexamethasone suppressed the anti-apoptotic effects of exogenously added IGF-I and IL-6, thus suggesting this drug-combination to be active also in vivo. Two newly developed, selective IGF-I RTK inhibitors proved to be very effective in MM cell lines and in primary MM cells providing 50-90% growth inhibition within 48 h of incubation. The inhibitors induced massive apoptosis together with a prominent cell cycle arrest in the G2/M-phase. Importantly, the IGF-I RTK inhibitors downregulated the tyrosine phosphorylation of the IGF-IR β-chain but not of the insulin receptor β-chain. In conclusion, the IGF-IR potently promotes growth and survival of MM cells. Therefore, interfering with the IGF-IR signaling pathway might be a suitable strategy to improve MM treatment.


This paper reviews the literature on economic development as it relates to indigenous people in the United States and Canada, and focuses on how institutions affect economic development of reservation and reserve economies. Evidence shows that strong property rights to reservation and reserve land and natural resources, whether communal or individual, are and always have been important determinants of productivity. Political and legal institutions that are perceived as stable and predictable to tribal members and to non-Natives also improve economic opportunities for indigenous people living on reservations and reserves. Research reviewed here also shows that culture and acculturation are important in the development process. Although our emphasis is on North America, the findings are applicable to indigenous people in other parts of the world and shed light on growth questions that loom large for developing countries around the world.


The global outbreak of novel corona virus has exposed a severe crisis and threat in the human security of the thousands of Nepali workers abroad It has challenged a rather limited conception and understanding of security in the context of Nepali migrant workers and has led to rethink policies and plans about safe, dignified, and managed migration This article seeks to identify the situations of Nepali migrant workers in major destinations such as the Persian Gulf and Malaysia and discusses the factors that shape a sense of insecurity/security and dignity among them In this article, first, we argue that Nepali migrant workers have become vulnerable due to the challenges and risks facing them related to infection and deaths, loss of jobs and income, lack of safe and dignified repatriation, no access to essential services including food, accommodation and health, unsafe working and living situation and discrimination and ill-treatments Second, we highlight that the government of Nepal needs to effectively regenerate and exercise its labour diplomacy to make the destination countries more accountable to their responsibilities towards labour migrants and their human rights, and equally tailor its development policies to create adequate and decent opportunities within the country


In the past decade, North Dakota has experienced a substantial shift in economic and political activity due to oil. In addition to jobs and revenue, corporate interests have surged into the state with a dominating force. As players in a highly valued industry, oil companies have worked hard to protect and uphold viable markets in the state. These interests are observed in relationships with key politicians, especially among those regulating the oil industry as members of the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC). Critics label this development as misguided, as an example of big business manipulating government. This thesis, on the other hand, contends that such arguments are predicated on prevailing, yet unhelpful standards, and offers an understanding of how ND's government operates in the real world through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods. By testing the relationship between political contributions and oil spills in North Dakota and interpreting the results using three political theories—liberalism, realism, and elite theory—the case study shows the allegations against key politicians and the oil industry are not substantiated. Instead of a case of political corruption, the thesis shows that the case of the NDIC is in fact a paradigmatic example of how liberal-democracy really works. Oil and Politics in North Dakota


Self-esteem and lack of social phobia are considered amongst the components of mental health. These features are more likely to be created during the early years of life like any other mental aspect. Hence, the present research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral play therapy in selfesteem and social anxiety of student. The statistical population included all the students in Tehran, from whom a sample of 24 was drawn through multi-stage cluster sampling. They were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. The data gathering tools included Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale and Connor Social Phobia Inventory. The experimental group underwent the group play therapy while the control group received no treatment. The findings indicated that group play therapy was effective in the increase of self-esteem and decrease of social phobia among the students. Therefore, it is recommended that children's counseling and therapy centers as well as school officials employ the necessary interventions to enhance health, improve self-esteem, and decrease social phobia with regard to the necessary constructs for the improvement of children's and adolescents' mental health.


Biometrics is the use of physical characteristics like face, fingerprints, iris etc. of an individual for personal identification. Some of the challenging problems of face biometrics are face detection, face recognition, and face identification. These problems are being researched by the computer vision community for the last few decades. Considering the large population, the authentication process of an individual usually consumes a significant amount of time. One of the possible solutions is to divide the population into two halves based on gender. This will help to reduce the search space of authentication to almost half of the existing data and save substantial amount of time. Gender identification through face demands use of strong discriminative features and robust classifiers to separate the female and male faces without any ambiguity. In this thesis, an investigation has been made on gender classification through facial images using principal component analysis (PCA), and support vector machine (SVM). PCA is a dimensionality reduction technique, which is used to represent each image as a feature vector in a low dimensional subspace. SVM is a binary classifier for which PCA is the input in the form of features and predicts which of the two possible classes forms the output. Initially face region is extracted using a proposed skin colour segmentation approach. The face region is then subjected to PCA for feature extraction, which encodes second order statistics of data. These principal components are fed as input to SVM for classification.


We propose two classes of mixed finite elements for linear elasticity of any order, with interior penalty for nonconforming symmetric stress approximation. One key point of our method is to introduce some appropriate nonconforming face-bubble spaces based on the local decomposition of discrete symmetric tensors, with which the stability can be easily established. We prove the optimal L2-error estimate for displacement and optimal Hh(div) error estimate for stress by adding an interior penalty term. The elements are easy to be implemented thanks to the explicit formulations of its basis functions. Moreover, the method can be applied to arbitrary simplicial grids for any spatial dimension in a unified fashion. Numerical tests for both 2D and 3D are provided to validate our theoretical results.


Traditional bank competition policy seeks to balance efficiency with incentives to take risk. The main tools are rules guiding entry/exit and consolidation of banks. This paper seeks to refine this view in light of recent changes to financial services provision. Modern banking is largely market-based and contestable. Consequently, banks in advanced economies today have structurally low charter values and high incentives to take risk. In such an environment, traditional policies that seek to affect the degree of competition by focusing on market structure (i.e. concentration) may have limited effect. We argue that bank competition policy should be reoriented to deal with the too-big-to-fail (TBTF) problem. It should also focus on the permissible scope of activities rather than on market structure of banks. And following a crisis, competition policy should facilitate resolution by temporarily allowing higher concentration and government control of banks.


A quantitative postweld shift (PWS) correction employing a notch-saddle-compensation technique (NSCT) in a laser-welded butterfly-type laser module package is presented. A predetermined notch geometry is proposed to guide the welding compensation in the specific direction and magnitude precisely. The results show that 82% to 99% of the relative coupling efficiency before welding for the laser modules is achieved by using the NSCT. The fiber shifts due to the PWS can be realigned back closer to their original optimum position after applying the NSCT, and hence, the coupling loss due to the PWS can be regained. In comparison to the published studies on PWS compensation by the mechanical adjustment using the qualitative estimation and plastic deformation, the advantages of using this novel NSCT are the quantitative and nondestructive compensations in butterfly-type laser module packages. Therefore, high-yield butterfly-type laser modules used in lightwave transmission systems are developed and fabricated.


Background: Burnout is a physical and psychological syndrome. It involves fatigue, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and negative attitudes towards work and life. The aim of this study was to evaluate the burnout level of nurses dealing with increasing patient load due to the influx of postwar Syrian Refugees in Turkey. Material and Methods: This study was conducted on a total of 42 nurses working in the Surgical Services and Intensive Care Units of Killis State Hospital. The data of the study were a collection of survey questions prepared by the researchers to determine the sociodemographic characteristics of nurses and the determination of burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. These questions were divided into three components, and scored for Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (D) and Personal Accomplisment (PA). Results: In this study, 88.1% of nurses were female (37 staff) and 11.9% were male (5 staff). The mean age was 28.35 ±5.73. 49.9% of the nurses had worked 40 hours a week, 50.1% had worked for more than 40 hours a week. 78.6% stated that they perceive their socioeconomic status as average. EE score of Maslach Burnout Inventory components of nurses was 20.26 ±6.12 (Normal values of the EE score: 0-36). The D score was 7.00 ±3.65 (Normal values of the D score: 0-20). and PA score was 3.75 ±13.47 (Normal values of the PA score: 0-32). EE score was higher among women than that of men (p <0.05). 76.2% of the nurses described their relations with patients as "bad". 52.4% of the nurses stated that they were satisfied with their profession in overall. Conclusion: Emotional Exhaustion levels were found moderate while depersonalization and diminished personal accomplishment levels were low among nurses serving Syrian war refugees.
Key words: Refugee patients, civil war, Syria, nurses, burnout level


The effect of a double-walled stent-graft (DWSG) design on arterial compliance was evaluated using pulse wave velocity (PWV) measurements in an in vitro mock arterial flow loop. The DWSG prototype was compared to a rigid stent-graft and to an unstented aorta model. The time delay between two pressure sensors a fixed distance apart was used to calculate PWV. Latex tubing simulated the compliant aorta, and a needle valve provided downstream resistance. A series of pulse rates and stroke volumes was applied to enable measurements at different mean pressures for the same system. PWV for the rigid stent-graft was higher than in the other two cases across all mean pressures. The DWSG exhibited behavior similar to the unstented model, demonstrating the capability of the DWSG to maintain aortic compliance in patients requiring an aortic stent-graft.


of a Thesis Immunological Strategies to Study GRP170 in Caenorhabditis elegans Characterization of the ER protein folding chaperone GRP170 of Caenorhabditis elegans could be greatly facilitated by an antibody which recognized the chaperone. Antibodies have not been raised against nematode GRP170. Groups have prepared polyclonal antibodies against vertebrate forms of GRP170. My thesis goal was to investigate whether anti-vertebrate GRP170 antibodies can recognize the nematode homologue on a standard Western Blot assay. Sequences of antigens that groups used to generate anti-vertebrate GRP170 antibodies were analyzed. Peptides used by Ruan et al. (2013), which correspond to regions of human GRP170, shared greatest sequence similarity with nematode GRP170. I investigated whether the Ruan GRP170 antibody recognized nematode protein on Western Blots. I extracted mouse liver proteins and whole worm proteins from C. elegans, separated proteins by SDS-PAGE, transferred proteins to a PVDF membrane, and probed membranes with the Ruan anti-human GRP170 antibody. Although this antibody did recognize a high molecular weight mouse protein, it did not bind to an equivalent high molecular weight C. elegans protein. This antibody would have limited utility for studies of nematode GRP170. Isoform-specific antibodies generated against C. elegans GRP170 proteins would be valuable tools to differentiate the functions of the two GRP170 isoforms. I analyzed amino acid sequences of the two GRP170 isoforms of C. elegans. I identified two peptides in a highly-diverged region of C. elegans GRP170, possible isoform specific antigens. Antibodies raised against these peptides could show isoform specific recognition and be useful for characterizing the two-gene, two-protein GRP170 system in C. elegans.


Ghana has a long fishing tradition, including industrial fishing. After many of the countries where Ghanaian fleets were actively fishing declared an Exclusive Economic Zone in the 1980s, the distant-water fleet of Ghana returned to its home waters, precipitating a collapse of some local stocks. While official catches reported to the FAO document this decline, the catches of other sectors (artisanal, subsistence, and recreational fishing) were not reported, their contribution to the livelihoods of Ghanaians was simply not documented, and their impact on fish stocks overlooked. Herein, total catches were estimated at 20.8 million tonnes between 1950 and 2010 compared to 11.8 million tonnes reported to the FAO. Subsistence catches, notably from coastal lagoons represented the bulk of unreported catches and seemed to have increased overall during this period, while the artisanal and large-scale sector catches decreased. Furthermore, the economic contribution of artisanal fisheries to Ghana is declining mainly due to use of non-sophisticated technology and activities of industrial fisheries making already poor communities poorer while industrial (particularly tuna) fisheries are increasing their profitability margin due to high technology being adopted and operating in less exploited parts of the continental shelf of Ghana. Accurate catch statistics and a better understanding of the contribution of the marine fisheries sector are needed for sustainable management of the fishing industry in Ghana and its contribution to the Ghanaian economy.


The aim of this study was to quantify image noise and signal recovery in respiratory gated PET. A Jaszczak phantom filled with 18F was placed on a custom built motion platform. Different source to background activity ratios were used. An Anzai belt, a surface tension monitoring device, was strapped around the phantom to track the motion and to trigger the gated PET cycle. Data were acquired into 12 bins throughout one gating cycle. The binned data were also summed to produce image sets representing acquisitions with different numbers of gates, including a non-gated image set. The image noise was estimated using the bootstrap method. Images were generated from 100 sinogram replicates and reconstructed using ordered subsets-expectation maximization (OSEM), 4 iterations and 8 subsets. From the reconstructed image replicates, mean and standard deviation images were created, from which the average image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of each sphere were calculated. The SNR and CNR were evaluated as a function of the number of gates. The SNR and CNR result in the expected Poisson limited correlation with the number of gates for the larger lesions. Because of the motion, the CNR calculated from the images produced with no or few gates is nearly a factor of 2 less than the expected value for the 3 smallest spheres. As the number of gates increases, the CNR correlates with the expected values. Beyond 6 gates, image noise dominates over any signal improvement, which is reflected in the low CNR values of the smallest spheres. The results of this study show that gating can provide improvement in signal recovery with minimal loss of CNR for small, moving lesions