Time delays in international transactions impose trade costs. We examine transaction level Peruvian import data to show that firms are subject to significant costs of port-of-entry delays. At the airport an additional day of delay raises costs by about 1.6 percent for all firms. At the seaport, an additional day of delay raises costs for small firms by about 0.7 percent and by 0.9 percent for large firms. The higher costs at the airport are partially offset by a clearance time that is on average about 5 days faster than at the seaport. These estimates inform policy where limited public resources realize the highest bang for the buck to mitigate trade costs. We also find that median delays are heterogeneous across importers and importer-exporter relationships. Therefore, firm specific trade facilitation that improves shipment and document handling to reduce delays is an alternative to policy
action that reduces average delays.


We show that the chiral-limit vacuum quark condensate is qualitatively equivalent to the pseudoscalar meson leptonic decay constant in the sense that they are both obtained as the chiral-limit value of well-defined gauge-invariant hadron-to-vacuum transition amplitudes that possess a spectral representation in terms of the current-quark mass. Thus, whereas it might sometimes be convenient to imagine otherwise, neither is essentially a constant mass-scale that fills all spacetime. This means, in particular, that the quark condensate can be understood as a property of hadrons themselves, which is expressed, for example, in their Bethe-Salpeter or light-front wave functions.


In the landmark 1953 case of Haelan Laboratories v. Topps Chewing Gum, Judge Jerome Frank first articulated the modern right of publicity—a transferable intellectual property right. The right has since been seen to protect the commercial value of one's "persona"—the Latin-derived word meaning the mask of an actor. Among other frequent criticisms, the right of publicity is accused of lacking a coherent justification, permitting only economic redress against public harms to the persona, and stripping away individual identity by allowing for a proprietary right in one's personality. Why might Judge Frank have been motivated to fashion a transferable right in the monetary value of one's public persona distinct from the psychic harm to feelings, emotions, and dignity rooted in the individual and protected under the rubric of privacy?

Judge Frank was a leading figure in the American legal realist movement known for his unique and controversial "psychoanalysis of certain legal positions" through influential books including Law and the Modern Mind and Courts on Trial. His work drew heavily on the ideas of psychoanalytic thinkers, like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, to describe the distorting effects of unconscious wishes and fantasies on the decision-making process of legal actors and judges. For Judge Frank, the psychoanalytic interplay between public and private aspects of the personality supported his realist interpretation of lawmaking as a subjective and indeterminate activity. Indeed, though Frank provided little rationale for articulating a personality right separate from privacy in Haelan, he had given a tremendous amount of attention to the personality in his scholarly works.

This Article suggests that the modern right of publicity's aim, as perhaps intended by Judge Frank in considering his psychoanalytic jurisprudence, may be usefully understood through the psychoanalytic conception of the personality—one divided into public and private subparts. In the psychoanalytic sense, the term persona, or "false self," is used to indicate the public face of an individual, i.e., the image one presents to others for social or economic advantage, as contrasted with their feelings, emotions and subjective interpretations of reality anchored in their private shadow, or "true self." Yet, the law's continued reliance on this dualistic metaphor of the personality appears misguided, particularly as technology, internet, and new media increasingly blur the traditional distinctions between public and private. The Article thus concludes by examining intersubjective personality theory. Intersubjectivity could provide publicity law with a useful conceptual update given its view of the self and personality as a relational, contextual, and social construct, rather than a public-private dichotomy.


Seven species of Pliocene brachiopods belonging to the genera Aphelesia Cooper, 1959, Terebratula Muller, 1776, Gryphus Megerle von Muhlfeld, 1811, Terebratulina d'Orbigny, 1847, Megathiris d'Orbigny, 1847 and Megerlia King, 1850 have been recognised in an old collection from Algeria and Morocco, held in the Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris. This is the first record of Gryphus from North Africa, while Aphelesia and Megerlia are reported for the first time from Morocco. This brachiopod fauna displays close affinity with those from the Mediterranean province where assemblages of similar composition are associated with shallow water, high-energy environments.


The objective of this study is to determine the mechanism of action of anti-CD52 mAb treatment in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of the disease, was used to address the role of T regulatory cells (Tregs) in the anti-CD52 mAb–induced suppression of the disease. In vitro studies on PBMCs from RRMS patients and matched healthy controls determined the effect of IL-7 on the expansion of CD4+CD25+CD127− Tregs and induction of their suppressive phenotype. This study using EAE animal models of MS has shown that mouse anti-CD52 mAb suppression of clinical disease was augmented by coadministration of IL-7 and partially reversed by anti-IL-7 mAb. In vitro human studies showed that IL-7 induced expansion of CD4+CD25+CD127− Tregs and increased their FOXP3, GITIR, CD46, CTLA-4, granzyme B, and perforin expression. Anti-CD52 mAb treatment of mice with relapsing-remitting EAE induced expansion of Foxp3+CD4+ Tregs and the suppression of IL-17A+CD4+ and IFN-γ+CD4+ cells in peripheral immune organs and CNS infiltrates. The effect was detected immediately after the treatment and maintained over long-term follow-up. Foxp3+CD4+ Treg-mediated suppression of IL-17A+CD4+ and IFN-γ+CD4+ cells in the spinal cord infiltrates was reversed after inducible Foxp3 depletion. Our results demonstrated that the therapeutic effect of U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved anti-CD52 mAb is dependent on the presence of Tregs. Key Points Anti-CD52 mAb suppresses EAE via Treg expansion. IL-7 induces expansion of CD4+CD25+CD127− Tregs from RRMS patients. Anti-CD52 mAb induces suppression of IL-17+ and IFN-γ+ CD4+ cell responses.


The Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme (AACES) is a collaborative partnership between Oxfam Australia's Southern Africa office and a group of South African-based organisations working at a grassroots level to affect social change.  The breadth of issues these organisations tackle is diverse and includes health, sustainable livelihoods which typically involves food security and income-generating activities, early childhood development (ECD), water, sanitation and health (WASH) and empowering people with disabilities.  These organisations work at achieving social justice for communities that ensure vulnerable  groups such as children, women and people with disabilities are aware of their human rights and  given the knowledge and capacity to articulate their place in society and engage stakeholders  to ensure accountability. The AACES collaboration makes for a unique cross-sharing platform, where each local partner is recognised for their individual expertise and is able to share and reflect on this with other partners across the network. This publication shares the stories from partner organisations Woza Moya, OneVoice SA, Save the Children, and Tholulwazi Uzivikele in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.


OBJECTIVE
We pilot tested the efficacy of computer-based training implementing rhythm and timing in chronic, severe, stroke-induced hemiparesis.

METHOD
Two chronic stroke patients were administered the upper-extremity section of the Fugl-Meyer Impairment Scale (FM), the Arm Motor Ability Test (AMAT), Stroke Impact Scale (SIS), and Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). We then administered the computer-based intervention for 60 min, 3 days/wk for 4 wk. One week after intervention, we administered the FM, AMAT, COPM, and SIS.

RESULTS
After intervention, participants exhibited reduced arm impairment (indicated by FM scores of + 2.0 and +4.0) and increases in average functional ability (+0.85 and +1.1 points on the AMAT), perceived quality of life (+2.0 and +32.0 points on the SIS), and perception of overall recovery (+10.0 points for each participant on the SIS).

CONCLUSION
This study provides preliminary evidence suggesting efficacy of computer-based rhythm and timing in chronic stroke.


Injured endothelium is an important target for drug and/or gene therapy because brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) play critical roles in various pathophysiological conditions. RNA-mediated gene silencing presents a new therapeutic approach for treating such diseases, but major challenge is to ensure minimal toxicity and target delivery of siRNA to injured BMECs. Injured BMECs overexpress tissue factor (TF), which the fusion protein EGFP-EGF1 could be targeted to. In this study, TNF alpha (TNF-α) was chosen as a stimulus for primary BMECs to produce injured endothelium in vitro. The EGFP-EGF1-PLGA nanoparticles (ENPs) with loaded TF-siRNA were used as a new carrier for targeted delivery to the injured BMECs. The nanoparticles then produced intracellular RNA interference against TF. We compared ENP-based transfections with NP-mediated transfections, and our studies show that the ENP-based transfections result in a more efficient downregulation of TF. Our findings also show that the TF siRNA-loaded ENPs had minimal toxicity, with almost 96% of the cells viable 24 h after transfection while Lipofectamine-based transfections resulted in only 75% of the cells. Therefore, ENP-based transfection could be used for efficient siRNA transfection to injured BMECs and for efficient RNA interference (RNAi). This transfection could serve as a potential treatment for diseases, such as stroke, atherosclerosis and cancer.


The definition of catch intention in multispecies fisheries is a key step toward building abundance indexes based on commercial fishing data. Previous analysis to determine catch intention in the pink cusk-eel ( Genypterus blacodes ) has been based on the idea that fishing tactics remain constant over time (static fishing tactics). We propose a statistical procedure to determine the catch intention of each haul in the industrial longline fisheries in southern Chile, where fishing tactics may vary over time. This procedure is based on principal component analysis and agglomerative hierarchical analysis of the catch composition, and relaxes the assumption of static fishing tactics by selecting a subset of data that is informative for fishing intention (target versus by-catch) every year. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of variable fishing tactics on the nominal catch rates in pink cusk-eel. Targeted and by-catch time series of nominal catch rates showed a different trend, so determining the catch intention became relevant. Sensitivity analyses showed that trends in targeted catch rates are robust to the variations of fishing tactic per year. We recommend the use of variable fishing tactics for further use in effort standardization and stock assessment of the pink cusk-eel fishery in southern Chile.


Understanding the genetic basis of adaptation has been and remains to be one major goal of ecological and evolutionary genetics. The variation in diapause propensity in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster represents different life-history strategies underlying adaptation to regular and widespread environmental heterogeneity, thus provides an ideal model to study the genetic control of ecologically important complex phenotype. This work employs global genomic and transcriptomic approaches to identify genetic polymorphisms co-segregating with diapause propensity, as well as genes that are differentially regulated at the transcriptional level as a function of the diapause phenotype. I show that genetic polymorphisms cosegregating with diapause propensity are found throughout all major chromosomes, demonstrating that diapause is a multi-genic trait. I show that diapause in D. melanogaster is an actively regulated phenotype at the transcriptional level, suggesting that diapause is not a simple physiological or reproductive quiescence. I also demonstrate that genetic polymorphisms co-segregating with diapause propensity, as well as genes differentially expressed as a function of diapause are enriched for clinally varying and seasonal oscillating SNPs, supporting the hypothesis that natural variation in diapause propensity underlies adaptation to spatially and temporally varying selective pressures. In addition to global genomic and transcriptomic screens, I also performed functional analysis of one candidate polymorphism on the gene Crystalllin, which represents an intersection of multiple global screens related to seasonal adaptation. I show that this polymorphism affects patterns of gene expression and a subset of fitness-related phenotypes including diapause, in an environmentspecific manner. Taken together, this work provide a holistic view of the genetic basis of a complex trait underlying climatic adaptation in wild populations of D. melanogaster, linking genetic polymorphism, gene regulation, organismal phenotype, population dynamics and environmental parameters. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Biology First Advisor Paul S. Schmidt


Public sector organizations are fundamentally different to their private sector counterparts. They are multi-functional, follow a political leadership, and the majority do not operate in an external market. In an era of rapid reform, reorganization and modernization of the public sector, this book offers a timely and illuminating introduction to the public sector organization that recognizes its unique values, interests, knowledge and power-base.Drawing on both instrumental and institutional perspectives within organization theory, as well as democratic theory and empirical studies of decision-making, this text addresses five central aspects of the public sector organization:

 goals and values
 leadership and steering
 reform and change
 effects and implications
 understanding and design.

This volume challenges conventional economic analysis of the public sector, arguing instead for a democratic-political approach and a new, prescriptive organization theory. A rich resource of both theory and practice, Organization Theory for the Public Sector: Instrument, Culture and Myth is essential reading for anybody studying the public sector.


Abstract The Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (LAS) at North Carolina State University, funded by the National Security Agency, is a collaborative, long-term research enterprise focused on improving intelligence analysis using Big Data. In its work, LAS has recently begun dealing with the trade-off between the collection, storage, and use of large unclassified data-sets and analyst privacy. We discuss particular privacy challenges at LAS, analyze privacy principles in the life cycle of LAS unclassified data-sets, what intelligence analysts themselves think about these privacy concerns, and recommend possible best practices potentially applicable to LAS, as well as future Big Data laboratories and research centers that collaborate with intelligence communities.


Concerns have been raised about our recent study suggesting that arsenic (As) substitutes for phosphorus in major biomolecules of a bacterium that tolerates extreme As concentrations. We welcome the opportunity to better explain our methods and results and to consider alternative interpretations. We maintain that our interpretation of As substitution, based on multiple congruent lines of evidence, is viable.


In 2016, Colombia's left-wing guerrilla FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo) began demobilisation. While demobilisation and the ensuing peace accords brought renewed hope that the country could imagine different political and social relations—and new ecological and economic conditions—multinational corporations filled the 'void' left by FARC-EP forces. Corporate interests in Colombia's natural resources predated the demobilisation. However, extractive processes were restricted by the dynamics of the armed conflict. In 2016, immediately following the demobilisation, deforestation in Colombia jumped 44 per cent. In the transitional demobilisation period, huge swaths of the country were opened for economic development. Thus, while the environment is often a victim in armed conflict, in Colombia, conflict contributed to the preservation of some areas. Among the forms of development that have emerged in Colombia, 'ecotourism' has risen quickly to the fore. While ecotourism may offer some promise, it should be viewed with caution.


This chapter investigates the nature of follow-ups in interpreter-mediated interaction.The data come from international press conferences and interviews. Theinvolvement of an interpreter as an active participant in the exchange betweenpoliticians and journalists has consequences for analysing question – response –follow-up patterns. Follow-ups are understood here in the wider sense ofthematic progression and speaker positioning towards prior talk. The chapterillustrates effects of interpreter-mediated encounters on role construction andpositioning of politicians. It also illustrates how different interpreting modesand institutional arrangements influence the flow of the interaction and subsequentrecontextualisation processes such as the transfer of a press conferenceto news reports. It is argued that multiple and multilingual data can enrich theanalysis and may lead to different interpretations, also in respect of follow-ups.


PURPOSE
The orbital layer of each rectus extraocular muscle (EOM) inserts on connective tissue, and the global layer inserts on the eyeball. The active-pulley hypothesis (APH) proposes that a condensation of this connective tissue constitutes a pulley serving as the functional origin of the rectus EOM, and that this pulley makes coordinated, gaze-related translations along the EOM axis to implement a linear ocular motor plant. This study was designed to measure gaze-related shifts in EOM pulley locations.

METHODS
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed in eight normal volunteers in 2-mm thickness coronal planes perpendicular to the orbital axis for nine cardinal gaze directions. Intravenous gadodiamide contrast was administered to define EOM tendons anterior to the globe equator. Paths of EOMs, defined by their area centroids, were transformed into an oculocentric coordinate system. Sharp inflections in EOM paths in secondary and tertiary gaze positions defined pulley locations which were then correlated with gaze direction and compared with theoretical predictions.

RESULTS
Rectus pulley positions were consistent with a central primary position. In tertiary gaze positions, each of the four rectus pulleys translated posteriorly with EOM contraction and anteriorly with EOM relaxation by a significant (P < 0.02) amount predicted by the APH, but more than 100 times greater than the translation predicted by a passive pulley model.

CONCLUSIONS
The APH prediction of coordinated anteroposterior shifting of EOM pulleys with gaze is quantitatively supported by changes in EOM path inflections among tertiary-gaze positions. Human rectus pulleys move to shift the ocular rotational axis to attain commutative behavior of the ocular motor plant.


PURPOSE OF REVIEW
The continued emergence of multiresistant pathogens and widespread antimicrobial use has led to a greater emphasis on antimicrobial stewardship programs. Concurrently, an increased awareness of the rising number of antibiotic allergy labels and impact on antimicrobial use has surfaced. The integration of antibiotic allergy de-labeling and antimicrobial stewardship programs may be a pathway worthy of further focus and investigation.

RECENT FINDINGS
Recent literature has evaluated the efficacy of antibiotic allergy management (historical de-labeling, in-vitro testing, skin prick testing, intradermal testing, and oral challenges) and impact of antibiotic allergy labels on patient outcome. The importance of true and perceived antibiotic allergy cross-reactivity in the setting of β-lactam allergies has been highlighted. The impact of dedicated antibiotic allergy de-labeling clinics, inpatient antibiotic allergy testing, and integrated antimicrobial stewardship programs has been recently appraised.

SUMMARY
More recent literature supports that appropriate antibiotic allergy in-vitro and in-vivo testing and subsequent antibiotic allergy de-labeling, particularly in regard to β-lactams, can decrease broad-spectrum antibiotic use, costs, patient length of stay, and mortality. Integration of antibiotic allergy management into the decision support systems of inpatient and outpatient antimicrobial stewardship programs represents an important opportunity to further improve measured outcomes from antibiotic utilization.


From its roots in the writings of Robert Anthony and his colleagues at Harvard Business School, the field of management control has expanded greatly, drawing on a wide variety of perspectives. With reference to a case study of a British automotive parts distributor, this paper considers the usefulness of a Foucauldian perspective for understanding management control. Some support is expressed for the usefulness of the notions of disciplinary power and surveillance, but it is concluded that, because of the empirically contingent degree of agency that remains available to managers, it is better to appropriate Foucault's contribution via the work of Anthony Gidd


Religion has long been playing a significant role in influencing human behavior. However, its business value as a predictor of buyer behavior has not been sufficiently examined in e-commerce context. The main contribution of this paper is to show the connection between the degree of religiosity and interpersonal trust (cognitive and affect-based trust) in Business to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce. The study uses responses obtained from a convenient sample from Muslims and Christians in two different societies, Pakistan and Australia respectively. The data of the survey were analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS) approach. The results indicate that interpersonal trust related to religiosity in a web-based retailer can vary with culture, at least as represented by affiliation to a religion. It is suggested that religiosity should be considered as possible determinant of trust in online shopping in the future.


. This article focuses the attention to the right to peaceful assembly and the freedom of expression in the European region, basically, the region that is covered by the European Convention For the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter The European Convention on Human Rights, or the Convention), which was signed on 4 November 1950 in the scope of the Council of Europe. Without a broad guarantee of the rights to peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of expression protected by all governmental institutions and independent courts there could be no democratic country in full meaning of this word. The Article 11 of the Convention foresees that ― Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests‖. The protection given by Article11 extends to any assembly, notwithstanding its content, disseminated by any individual, group as long as it is peaceful. As a qualified right it is for the concerned persons to establish the activity that they wish to carry out or that is being restricted falls within the protection of Article 11 Paragraph 1 and that there has been an interference with it. The object of the research is the content of the right to peaceful assembly, the obligations of the states in respect of this right and possible derogations in the conditions of public safety protection. The objective of this research therefore is to disclose the scope of right to freedom of assembly foreseen in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and to discuss the possible circumstances in which a state may legitimately interfere with the exercise of the freedom of assembly.


Most of the existing methods for estimating the local intrinsic dimension of a data distribution do not scale well to high-dimensional data. Many of them rely on a non-parametric nearest neighbors approach which suffers from the curse of dimensionality. We attempt to address that challenge by proposing a novel approach to the problem: Local Intrinsic Dimension estimation using approximate Likelihood (LIDL). Our method relies on an arbitrary density estimation method as its subroutine and hence tries to sidestep the dimensionality challenge by making use of the recent progress in parametric neural methods for likelihood estimation. We carefully investigate the empirical properties of the proposed method, compare them with our theoretical predictions, and show that LIDL yields competitive results on the standard benchmarks for this problem and that it scales to thousands of dimensions. What is more, we anticipate this approach to improve further with the continuing advances in the density estimation literature.


Astrocytes elicit transient Ca2+ elevations induced by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), yet their role in vivo remains unknown. To address this, transgenic mice with astrocytic expression of the optogenetic Gq-type GPCR, Optoα1AR, were established, in which transient Ca2+ elevations similar to those in wild type mice were induced by brief blue light illumination. Activation of cortical astrocytes resulted in an adenosine A1 receptor-dependent inhibition of neuronal activity. Moreover, sensory stimulation with astrocytic activation induced long-term depression of sensory evoked response. At the behavioral level, repeated astrocytic activation in the anterior cortex gradually affected novel open field exploratory behavior, and remote memory was enhanced in a novel object recognition task. These effects were blocked by A1 receptor antagonism. On the other hand, compelling evidence for astrocytic Ca2+-induced diameter changes of arteries was not observed. Together, we demonstrate that GPCR-triggered Ca2+ elevation in cortical astrocytes has causal impacts on neuronal activity and behavior.


Hinduism (Dasa, 2009) unlike Buddhism, Christianity and Islam does not have a founder. While most major religions derive from new ideas taught by a charismatic leader, Hinduism, the Santana Dharma or the eternal tradition is simply the religion of the people of India, which has gradually developed over four thousand years. The origins and authors of its sacred texts are largely unknown. Yet an understanding of Krishna (Richard, 1994) is critical to understand Hinduism. The universal nature of Krishna's teaching is explored here.

 Key words: Enigmatic, Krishna, catalyst, emancipation, gopis, Devine-in-human, human-in-devine, bhakta (Devotee), Viswarupa Darshana (Vision of the Almighty), Bhagavad Gita-(song celestial), samskara (Impression), maya (Illusion).


OBJECTIVE
To conduct patient and public involvement (PPI) to gain insight into the experience of healthy eating and weight management advice during pregnancy.

DESIGN
PPI in the planning and development of health interventions, aiming to ensure patient-centred care. Optimum nutrition and weight management are vital for successful pregnancy outcomes, yet many services report poor attendance and engagement.

SETTING
Community venues in Liverpool and Ulster (UK).

PARTICIPANTS
Two PPI representatives were involved in all aspects of the study: design, interview questions, recruitment and collection/analysis of feedback.

INTERVENTION
Feedback was collected via note taking during group discussions, two in Liverpool (n = 10 & 5); two in Ulster (n = 7 & 9) and an interview (n = 1, in Ulster).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Transcript data were collated and thematic analysis was applied in analysis.

RESULTS
Thematic analysis identified three themes: (i) weight gain is inevitable in pregnancy; (ii) healthy eating advice is important but currently lacks consistency and depth and (iii) expectations regarding the type of knowledge/support.

CONCLUSIONS
PPI provides opportunity to enhance research design and offers valuable insight towards the needs of healthcare users. Pregnant women want positive health messages, with a focus on what they can/should do, rather than what they should not do. Midwives need to consider their communication with pregnant women, to ensure that their unique relationship is maintained, especially when the topics of diet and weight management are addressed. A well-designed digital intervention could improve access to pregnancy-specific nutrition information; empowering midwives to communicate patient-centred, healthy eating messages with confidence. This has the potential to change dietary and weight management behaviour in pregnant women.


The integration of ad hoc electronic product catalogues (EPCs) is an important issue in constructing dynamic global electronic markets. A particular issue in this integration process is that millions of ad hoc EPCs are autonomously distributed around the world on Internet and fully behave in their own ways. This leads to the unknown sources of their schemas and semantics and cannot adopt traditional product ontologies to mediate heterogeneous product information. To investigate the specific issues, this paper articulates both semantic conflict relations of ad hoc EPCs and their unique uneven distribution properties. By these articulations, it has developed a novel ConexNet on which uneven distributed and autonomous EPCs are aligned and linked in a semantic conflict-free way. Features are provided to examine how ConexNet is made to resolve semantic conflicts. Measuring criteria are proposed to evaluate the quality of ConexNet


Conservation of historical urban patterns in the traditional neighborhoods is a part of creating integrated urban environments that are socially more sustainable. Urbanization reflects on life conditions and social, physical, economical characteristics of the society. In this regard, historical zones and traditional regions are affected by dramatic interventions on these characteristics. This article focuses on the Uch Dukkan neighborhood located in Ardabil City in Azarbaijani region of Iran, which has been up to such interventions that leaded its transformation from the past to the present. After introducing a brief inventory of the main elements of the historical zone and the neighborhood; this study explores the changes and transformations in different periods; and their impacts on the quality of the environment and its social sustainability. The survey conducted in the neighborhood as part of this research study revealed that the Uch Dukkan neighborhood and the unique architectural heritage that it possesses have become more inactive physically and functionally in a decade. This condition requires an exploration and comparison of the present and the expected transformations of the meaning of social space from the most private unit to the urban scale. From this token, it is argued that an architectural point of view that is based on space order; use and meaning of space as a social and cultural image, should not be ignored. Based on the interplay between social sustainability, collective memory, and the urban environment, study aims to make the invisible portion of ignorance clear, that ends up with a weakness in defining the collective meaning of the neighborhood as a historic urban district. It reveals that the spatial possessions of the neighborhood are valuable not only for their historical and physical characteristics, but also for their social memory that is to be remembered and constructed further. Keywords—Urban integrity, social sustainability, collective memory, social decay.


An integrative approach for managing a patient with cancer should target the multiple biochemical and physiological pathways that support tumor development while minimizing normal tissue toxicity. Angiogenesis is a key process in the promotion of cancer. Many natural health products that inhibit angiogenesis also manifest other anticancer activities. The authors will focus on natural health products (NHPs) that have a high degree of antiangiogenic activity but also describe some of their many other interactions that can inhibit tumor progression and reduce the risk of metastasis. NHPs target various molecular pathways besides angiogenesis, including epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), the HER-2/neu gene, the cyclooxygenase-2 enzyme, the NF-kB transcription factor, the protein kinases, Bcl-2 protein, and coagulation pathways. The herbalist has access to hundreds of years of observational data on the anticancer activity of many herbs. Laboratory studies are confirming the knowledge that is already documented in traditional texts. The following herbs are traditionally used for anticancer treatment and are antiangiogenic through multiple interdependent processes that include effects on gene expression, signal processing, and enzyme activities: Artemisia annua (Chinese wormwood), Viscum album (European mistletoe), Curcuma longa (turmeric), Scutellaria baicalensis (Chinese skullcap), resveratrol and proanthocyanidin (grape seed extract), Magnolia officinalis (Chinese magnolia tree), Camellia sinensis (green tea), Ginkgo biloba , quercetin, Poria cocos , Zingiber officinale (ginger), Panax ginseng , Rabdosia rubescens (rabdosia), and Chinese destagnation herbs. Quality assurance of appropriate extracts is essential prior to embarking on clinical trials. More data are required on dose response, appropriate combinations, and potential toxicities. Given the multiple effects of these agents, their future use for cancer therapy probably lies in synergistic combinations. During active cancer therapy, they should generally be evaluated in combination with chemotherapy and radiation. In this role, they act as biological response modifiers and adaptogens, potentially enhancing the efficacy of the so-called conventional therapies. Their effectiveness may be increased when multiple agents are used in optimal combinations. New designs for trials to demonstrate activity in human subjects are required. Although controlled trials might be preferred, smaller studies with appropriate end points and surrogate markers for antiangiogenic response could help prioritize agents for the larger resource-intensive phase 3 trials.


An infrared detector using a photoeffect in mercury selenide is described which responds from the visible to 15 μ. Although the detector construction and sample geometry are similar to that employed in the photoelectromagnetic (PEM) effect, performance differs from that expected of the PEM effect. The spectral response for constant power input per unit wavelength interval peaks in the visible and is wavelength independent in the interval from 3 to 15 μ. The frequency response indicates a detector response time of 150 μsec. A thermal response mechanism is proposed.


Physiological hand tremor and other manual positioning errors limit precision in microsurgical procedures. Our research has involved development of adaptive algorithms and neural network methods for real-time compensation of such errors. This paper presents a novel design for an active hand-held microsurgical instrument to implement these algorithms, particularly during vitreoretinal microsurgery. The basic vitreoretinal instrument consists of a handle fitted with a narrow freedom inertial sensing to determine the 3D position of the instrument tip. The intraocular shaft is attached to the instrument handle via a miniature parallel manipulator with three degrees of freedom, controlled by three piezoelectric elements. The manipulator actuates the intraocular shaft in pitch, yaw, and axial extension, allowing the system to perform active compensation of errors in the position of the tip of the intraocular shaft. The paper includes the formulation of the inverse kinematics of the instrument in a manner suitable for on-line computation. A discussion of practical design considerations and the methods and results of preliminary experiments are also presented.


Tin dioxide (SnO2) is a well–known gas sensing material, but it becomes sensitive only at elevated temperatures (e.g., above 200 &degC). Nanoparticles (NPs) combined with nanocarbons, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene, form a new class of hybrid nanomaterials that can exhibit fascinating gas sensing performance due to tunable electron transfer between NPs and nanocarbons induced by gas adsorption. Indeed, sensors made of SnO2 NPs&ndascoated CNTs have shown outstanding room–temperature sensing performance to various gases, including those that are undetectable by either SnO2 or CNTs alone. The objectives of this dissertation study are to synthesize various NP–nanocarbon hybrid materials and to fabricate and characterize sensing platforms based on the resulting hybrid nanomaterials. Two simple and efficient methods have been used for the hybrid synthesis. One is a simple NP synthesis and assembly system for NP–nanocarbon hybrid nanomaterials production through combining a mini–arc plasma reactor with electrostatic force–directed assembly. The other is a simple wet–chemical method for direct fabrication of doped SnO2 NP–decorated reduced graphene oxide (RGO) sheets. In particular, CNT/Ag NP and RGO/Ag NP hybrids have been produced for fast, sensitive, and selective detection of NH3. Furthermore, a ternary hybrid of Ag NPs and SnO2 NPs–decorated CNTs has been demonstrated and showed better sensing performance than CNT/SnO2 NP hybrids likely due to the enhanced gas adsorption and electron transfer. Additionally, hybrid sensors of In–doped SnO2 NPs on RGO are shown to exhibit high selectivity to NO2 sensing. Finally, the sensing mechanism for the NP–nanocarbon system has been extensively discussed. Based on this study, we conclude that the sensing performance (including sensitivity, selectivity, and response time) can be fine–tuned by coating nanocarbons with carefully–selected NPs (pure or doped). An attempt has been made to compare the sensing performance of hybrids based on various types of nanocarbons (e.g., multiwalled CNTs, semiconducting single–walled CNTs, RGO). Nanocarbons with superior semiconducting properties as building blocks of hybrid nanomaterials are shown to exhibit better gas sensing performance. This study provides a scientific foundation to engineer practical room–temperature gas sensors with enhanced performance.


Microsoft System Center Enterprise Suite Unleashed is the first and only definitive real-world guide to the entire Microsoft System Center Enterprise Suite. It brings together tips, tricks, best practices, and lessons learned by top consultants whove deployed System Center in some of the worlds largest enterprises and most successful small businesses. Drawing on years of early adopter and production experience, Rand Morimoto, Chris Amaris, and their team cover the entire System Center lifecycle and its components for system configuration, operations management, data protection, virtual machine management, help desk support, change management, asset control, capacity planning, and mobile device management. Youll learn about individual components and how to integrate them to build automated, exceptionally efficient managed environments. For smaller businesses, the book also presents Microsofts streamlined, lower-cost IT management offering, System Center Essentials 2010. Use System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to image, update, manage, and support servers and clientsProactively monitor your systems to identify and fix problems before they failUse System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 to provide reliable, timely backup/recoveryImplement and manage all aspects of virtualization, including virtual guest sessions on both Microsoft Hyper-V and VMwareMake the most of System Center Service Manager 2010s integrated tools for managing help desks, incidents, assets, and changes Use System Center Capacity Planner to properly size, procure, and deploy new systemsRemotely track, secure, patch, update, and support mobile devices with System Center Mobile Device ManagerSimplify small business IT management with System Center Essentials 2010s wizards and auto-configuration components


Niacin has recently been demonstrated to lower blood pressure in hypertensive patients and to reduce cardiovascular events when combined with a statin. As a consequence, niacin has been elevated from being of historical interest as the treatment for pellagra, to being a compound with possible relevance to contemporary therapeutics. In spite of this, niacin deficiency leading to pellagra continues to be a health problem in some countries. Characterized by an exposed‐site hyperpigmented dermatitis, pellagra is generally accepted to have been the first photosensitivity syndrome described. At its worst, pellagra manifests as one of the most striking examples of systemic photosensitivity. This is the only photosensitivity syndrome where death is included as a cardinal clinical feature (the often quoted four 'Ds': dermatitis, diarrhoea, dementia and death). However, the pathogenetic mechanism for the photosensitivity caused by niacin deficiency has yet to be determined. This review seeks to update the classification and phenotypic characterization of the various forms of niacin‐deficient photosensitivity. Previous speculation about possible mechanisms for the pathogenesis of photosensitivity due to niacin deficiency is reviewed in the context of advances in the understanding of the photochemical basis of photosensitivity reactions. The review concludes by highlighting research required to advance the understanding of this photosensitivity syndrome.


This essay examines the living affinity between two complex and charismatic writers, Jonathan Swift and Edward Said, in order to revitalize our understandings of both. Said's career-long engagement with Swift took the form of a passionate amateurism that has a claim upon us at a moment when the humanities are being asked to justify themselves to opponents within and beyond the university. Reading Said's humanism through Swift's inhumane satire, this essay both analyzes and attempts a mode of literary engagement that operates "between the world and the archive," where Said argued that "Swift lasts." Beginning with Said's 1982 polemic against the church of high theory, "Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, Community," what follows demonstrates how Swift's libertine wit, in its daring reconciliation of the human imagination with religious devotion and perhaps even divine power itself, inspired Said's ideal of the secular intellectual.


"Why should my employees and I care about delivering great service? How can I learn more about customer needs and desires? How do other companies deliver superior service? How do I build long-term relationships with customers? The litany of customer service questions goes on and on..."Best Practices in Customer Service" is a one-stop resource designed to help anyone involved in customer service answer these questions and more. With 35 chapters written by customer service experts, it illustrates best practices in customer service and provides the tools readers need to implement those practices in their own companies. From classic issues like customer retention to contemporary concerns like providing customer service on the Internet, it helps readers: fully understand the connection between excellent customer service and organizational performance; deliver a higher level of customer service at a lower cost; and, develop a customer base that fuels growth and profitability".


Improving welfare is still a critical issue in pig husbandry. Upgrades of the housing environment seem to be a promising solution to optimise resilience as a whole, and therefore improve animal welfare. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of an alternative housing system to enhance cognitive resilience and also to promote the pigs' welfare. A total of 96 piglets from two contrasted housing systems [alternative housing system (AHS) vs. conventional system (CONV)] was used. The major upgrades of the alternative system were multi-litter housing during lactation, delayed weaning, extra space allowance, and environmental enrichment from birth onwards. To estimate welfare, weight, and feed intake (as a general indicator of performances), the tear staining area (as a chronic stress indicator), behavioural postures, heart rate traits, and saliva cortisol concentration were measured over a 21 h-isolation. To assess cognitive resilience, the pigs were subjected to a maze with a social reward both before and after the isolation challenge and indicators of cognitive abilities were followed. The AHS pigs showed lower cortisol levels and tear staining area before the challenge, demonstrating overall better welfare due to the alternative housing conditions. During the challenge, AHS pigs had a lower heart rate, higher heart rate variability, and higher vagal activity than the CONV pigs, which might indicate a reduced sensitivity to the stressor. AHS pigs appeared to have a better long-term memory tested in a maze. Providing social and environmental enrichments, that fit the satisfaction of the essential needs of the pigs better, appears to be beneficial for pig welfare as a whole. Its effects on cognitive resilience still need to be proven.


Recent years have witnessed significant progresses in deep Reinforcement Learning (RL). Empowered with large scale neural networks, carefully designed architectures, novel training algorithms and massively parallel computing devices, researchers are able to attack many challenging RL problems. However, in machine learning, more training power comes with a potential risk of more overfitting. As deep RL techniques are being applied to critical problems such as healthcare and finance, it is important to understand the generalization behaviors of the trained agents. In this paper, we conduct a systematic study of standard RL agents and find that they could overfit in various ways. Moreover, overfitting could happen "robustly": commonly used techniques in RL that add stochasticity do not necessarily prevent or detect overfitting. In particular, the same agents and learning algorithms could have drastically different test performance, even when all of them achieve optimal rewards during training. The observations call for more principled and careful evaluation protocols in RL. We conclude with a general discussion on overfitting in RL and a study of the generalization behaviors from the perspective of inductive bias.


This study aims to assess the level of critical thinking dispositions, attitudes and perceptions in cooperative teaching with mind map among teachers in Negeri Sembilan. This study also examined the relationship between critical thinking disposition, attitude and perception of Special Education teacher in cooperative teaching with mind map. Critical thinking disposition has seven subscales measured by curiosity, open-minded, systematic, accuracy, truth-seeking, self-confidence and maturity. Special education teacher attitudes in cooperative teaching with mind map has three subscales namely cognitive, affective and behavioural. Special Education teachers in cooperative teaching with mind map has three subscales which are interpersonal relationships, motivation, support and guidance in their studies lessons. A total of 190 primary school of Special Education teachers in Negeri Sembilan have been selected using proportional sampling method. The instrument is based on previous research instrument and modifications made to the item so that it's relevant to the current study. Raw data obtained were analysed using SPSS. The descriptive analysis showed that the respondents have a level of critical thinking dispositions (M = 2.99, SD = 0.160), attitude in cooperative teaching with mind map (M = 2.96, SD = 0.194) and the perception of the cooperative teaching with mind map (M = 3.00, SD = 0.240) were moderate. The inference analysis showed novice teachers have a significantly higher critical thinking dispositions and attitudes of cooperative teaching with mind map compared with experienced teachers. For the gender, no significant differences between male and female teachers to construct critical thinking dispositions, attitudes and perceptions of cooperative teaching with mind map. The findings shows there is a significant positive relationship between critical thinking disposition and attitude (r = .443, p <.01) and perception (r = .442, p <.01) among Special Education teacher. This study suggested that the critical thinking disposition of teachers should be given special attention in order to improve the effectiveness of teaching to their Special Education student. Special Education teachers should also be exposed to the latest teaching methods so that student achievement can be improved.


Web-based social media is increasingly being used across different settings in the health care industry. The increased frequency in the use of the Internet via computer or mobile devices provides an opportunity for social media to be the medium through which people can be provided with valuable health information quickly and directly. While traditional methods of detection relied predominately on hierarchical or bureaucratic lines of communication, these often failed to yield timely and accurate epidemiological intelligence. New web-based platforms promise increased opportunities for a more timely and accurate spreading of information and analysis. This article aims to provide an overview and discussion of the availability of timely and accurate information. It is especially useful for the rapid identification of an outbreak of an infectious disease that is necessary to promptly and effectively develop public health responses. These web-based platforms include search queries, data mining of web and social media, process and analysis of blogs containing epidemic key words, text mining, and geographical information system data analyses. These new sources of analysis and information are intended to complement traditional sources of epidemic intelligence. Despite the attractiveness of these new approaches, further study is needed to determine the accuracy of blogger statements, as increases in public participation may not necessarily mean the information provided is more accurate.


The substantial variation in the real price of oil since 2003 has renewed interest in the question of how to forecast monthly and quarterly oil prices. There also has been increased interest in the link between financial markets and oil markets, including the question of whether financial market information helps forecast the real price of oil in physical markets. An obvious advantage of financial data in forecasting oil prices is their availability in real time on a daily or weekly basis. We investigate whether mixed-frequency models may be used to take advantage of these rich data sets. We show that, among a range of alternative high-frequency predictors, especially changes in U.S. crude oil inventories produce substantial and statistically significant real-time improvements in forecast accuracy. The preferred MIDAS model reduces the MSPE by as much as 16 percent compared with the no-change forecast and has statistically significant directional accuracy as high as 82 percent. This MIDAS forecast also is more accurate than a mixed-frequency realtime VAR forecast, but not systematically more accurate than the corresponding forecast based on monthly inventories. We conclude that typically not much is lost by ignoring high-frequency financial data in forecasting the monthly real price of oil. JEL Classification Codes: C53, G14, Q43.


The finite layer method (FLM) is an extension of the finite strip method familiar in structural engineering. The idea behind the method is to discretize two space dimensions using truncated Fourier series, approximating variations in the third via finite elements. The eigenfunctions used in the Fourier expansions are orthogonal, and, consequently, the Galerkin integrations decouple the weighted residual equations associated with different Fourier modes. The method therefore reduces three-dimensional problems to sets of independent matrix equations that one can solve either sequentially on a microcomputer or concurrently on a parallel processor. The latter capability makes the method suitable for such computationally intensive applications as optimization and inverse problems. Four groundwater flow applications are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of FLM as a forward solver.


In this paper we introduce a new clustering technique called Regularity Clustering. This new technique is based on the practical variants of the two constructive versions of the Regularity Lemma, a very useful tool in graph theory. The lemma claims that every graph can be partitioned into pseudo-random graphs. While the Regularity Lemma has become very important in proving theoretical results, it has no direct practical applications so far. An important reason for this lack of practical applications is that the graph under consideration has to be astronomically large. This requirement makes its application restrictive in practice where graphs typically are much smaller. In this paper we propose modifications of the constructive versions of the Regularity Lemma that work for smaller graphs as well. We call this the Practical Regularity partitioning algorithm. The partition obtained by this is used to build the reduced graph which can be viewed as a compressed representation of the original graph. Then we apply a pairwise clustering method such as spectral clustering on this reduced graph to get a clustering of the original graph that we call Regularity Clustering. We present results of using Regularity Clustering on a number of benchmark datasets and compare them with standard clustering techniques, such as k-means and spectral clustering. These empirical results are very encouraging. Thus in this paper we report an attempt to harness the power of the Regularity Lemma for real-world applications.


A parallel program usually incurs operations on multiple processing resources, interleaving computations, I/Os, and communications, where each task can only be executed on a processor of a matching category. Many parallel systems also embed special-purpose processors like vector units, floating-point co-processors, and various I/O processors. Presently, there is no provably good scheduling algorithm that ensures efficient use of multiple resources with functional heterogeneity. This paper presents K-RAD, an algorithm that adoptively schedules parallel jobs on multiple processing resources without requiring prior information about the jobs, such as their release times and parallelism profiles. Let K denote the number of categories of heterogenous resources and Pmax denote the maximum number of processors among all categories. We show that, for any set of jobs with arbitrary release times, K-RAD is (K + 1 - 1/Pmax)- competitive with respect to the makespan. This competitive ratio is provably the best possible for any non-clairvoyant deterministic algorithms for K-resource scheduling. We also show that K-RAD is (4K + 1 - 4K/(|J| + 1))- competitive with respect to the mean response time for any batched job set J. For the special case of K = 1, i.e., scheduling on homogeneous resources, the best existing mean response time bound for online non-clairvoyant algorithm is 2 + radic(3) ap 3.73 proved by Edmonds et al. in STOC'97. We show that K-RAD is 3-competitive with respect to the mean response time when K = 1, which offers the best competitive ratio to date.


BLOG is a powerful language to express models with an unknown number of objects and identity uncertainty. Current inference engines for BLOG are either too slow or require users to write a model-specific proposal distribution. We describe here, ongoing work to design a new, fast, generic inference engine for BLOG called blogc. The new implementation uses Gibbs sampling for finite-valued variables and performs an analysis of the model to generate customized sampling code in C. We describe our algorithms and methods in the context of various commonly used models and demonstrate significant performance improvement.


Passwords are a very convenient way to authenticate. In terms of simplicity and portability they are very difficult to match. Nevertheless, current password-based login mechanisms are vulnerable to phishing attacks and typically require users to create and manage a new password for each of their accounts. This research investigates the potential for indirect/decentralized approaches to improve password-based authentication. Adoption of a decentralized authentication mechanism requires the agreement between users and service providers on a trusted third party that vouches for users' identities.
Email providers are the de facto trusted third parties on the Internet. Proof of email address ownership is typically required to both create an account and to reset a password when it is forgotten. Despite its shortcomings (e.g., latency, vulnerability to passive attack), this approach is a practical solution to the difficult problem of authenticating strangers on the Internet. This research utilizes this emergent, lightweight relationship with email providers to offload primary user authentication from service providers; thus reducing the need for service provider-specific passwords. Our goal is to provide decentralized authentication that maintains the convenience and portability of passwords, while improving its assurances (especially against phishing).
Our first step to leverage this emergent trust, Simple Authentication for the Web (SAW), improves the security and convenience of email-based authentications and moves them from the background into the forefront, replacing need for an account-specific password. Wireless Authenticationg using Remote Passwords (WARP) adapts the principles of SAW to authentication in wireless networks. Lightweight User AUthentication (Luau) improves upon WARP and unifies user authentication across the application and network (especially wireless) layers. Our final protocol, pwdArmor, started as a simple wrapper to facilitate the use of existing databases of password verifiers in Luau, but grew into a generic middleware framework that augments the assurances of conventional password protocols.
Keywords: authentication, email-based authentication, passwords, password-authenticated key exchange, single sign-on, authentication in wireless networks


Despite numerous advantages, mobile phones cause
serious health issues to people due to electromagnetic radiation. Various head
models already exist to study the impact of radiation on a human head. The accuracy
of the measurement of power absorbed by different layers of a head should be
high. A new head model with six layers is proposed in this paper. Parameters
such as dielectric constant, conductivity and mass density of different tissue
layers skin, fat, bone, Dura, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and brain are
extracted from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) database. To study
the impact of radiation in the proposed model, standard planar inverted F-antennas
(PIFA) capable to radiate at 1.7 GHz and 2.4 GHz are used. Simulations are
performed using ANSYS Electromagnetics Suite. The analysis shows that the specific
absorption rate (SAR) in the brain layer decreased in the proposed model when
compared to the existing model.


Abstract This paper investigates how children of immigrants from Turkey are integrated into Swedish society. The educational achievements and labour market outcomes of this group are compared with the performance of the offspring of native-born parents. The aim of the study is to explore whether we can observe a tendency towards 'downward mobility' among young people of immigrant background in Sweden and thereby provide reflections on the existing formulation of the 'segmented assimilation' theory. Findings show that descendants of immigrants seem not to be in the process of downward assimilation, that is, social exclusion and therefore formation of a distinct 'underclass' in Sweden. The concept of 'subordinate inclusion' is a more appropriate description of the experiences of children of immigrants.


Background: There is recent evidence to show that patients suffering from acute kidney injury are at increased risk of developing chronic kidney disease despite the fact that surviving tubular epithelial cells have the capacity to fully regenerate renal tubules and restore renal function within days or weeks. The aim of the study was to investigate the impact of acute kidney injury on de novo chronic kidney disease. Methods: The authors conducted a retrospective population-based cohort study of patients initially free from chronic kidney disease who were scheduled for elective cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass and who developed an episode of acute kidney injury from which they recovered. The study was conducted at two French university hospitals between 2005 and 2015. These individuals were matched with patients without acute kidney injury according to a propensity score for developing acute kidney injury. Results: Among the 4,791 patients meeting the authors' inclusion criteria, 1,375 (29%) developed acute kidney injury and 685 fully recovered. Propensity score matching was used to balance the distribution of covariates between acute kidney injury and non- acute kidney injury control patients. Matching was possible for 597 cases. During follow-up, 34 (5.7%) had reached a diagnosis of chronic kidney disease as opposed to 17 (2.8%) in the control population (hazard ratio, 2.3; bootstrapping 95% CI, 1.9 to 2.6). Conclusions: The authors' data consolidate the recent paradigm shift, reporting acute kidney injury as a strong risk factor for the rapid development of chronic kidney disease.


Background In the United States, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) continues to have a heavy impact on men who have sex with men (MSM). Among MSM, black men under the age of 30 are at the most risk for being diagnosed with HIV. The US National HIV/AIDS strategy recommends intensifying efforts in communities that are most heavily impacted; to do so requires new methods for identifying and targeting prevention resources to young MSM, especially young MSM of color. Objective We piloted a methodology for using the geolocation features of social and sexual networking applications as a novel approach to calculating the local population density of sex-seeking MSM and to use self-reported age and race from profile postings to highlight areas with a high density of minority and young minority MSM in Atlanta, Georgia. Methods We collected data from a geographically systematic sample of points in Atlanta. We used a sexual network mobile phone app and collected application profile data, including age, race, and distance from each point, for either the 50 closest users or for all users within a 2-mile radius of sampled points. From these data, we developed estimates of the spatial density of application users in the entire city, stratified by race. We then compared the ratios and differences between the spatial densities of black and white users and developed an indicator of areas with the highest density of users of each race. Results We collected data from 2666 profiles at 79 sampled points covering 883 square miles; overlapping circles of data included the entire 132.4 square miles in Atlanta. Of the 2666 men whose profiles were observed, 1563 (58.63%) were white, 810 (30.38%) were black, 146 (5.48%) were another race, and 147 (5.51%) did not report a race in their profile. The mean age was 31.5 years, with 591 (22.17%) between the ages of 18-25, and 496 (18.60%) between the ages of 26-30. The mean spatial density of observed profiles was 33 per square mile, but the distribution of profiles observed across the 79 sampled points was highly skewed (median 17, range 1-208). Ratio, difference, and distribution outlier measures all provided similar information, highlighting areas with higher densities of minority and young minority MSM. Conclusions Using a limited number of sampled points, we developed a geospatial density map of MSM using a social-networking sex-seeking app. This approach provides a simple method to describe the density of specific MSM subpopulations (users of a particular app) for future HIV behavioral surveillance and allow targeting of prevention resources such as HIV testing to populations and areas of highest need.


Abstract A new method has been proposed to generalize Burr-XII distribution, also called Burr distribution, by adding an extra parameter to an existing Burr distribution for more flexibility. In this method, the exponent of the Burr distribution is modeled using a nonlinear function of the data and one additional parameter. The models of this newly introduced generalized Burr family can significantly increase the flexibility of the former Burr distribution with respect to the density and hazard rate shapes. Families expanded using the method proposed here is heavy-tailed and belongs to the maximum domain of attractions of the Frechet distribution. The method is further applied to yield three-parameter classical Pareto and generalized exponentiated distributions which shows the broader application of the proposed idea of generalization. A relevant model of the new generalized Burr family has been considered in detail, with particular emphasis on the hazard functions, stochastic orders, estimation procedures, and testing methods are derived. Finally, as empirical evidence, the new distribution is applied to the analysis of large-scale heavy-tailed network data and compared with other commonly used distributions available for fitting degree distributions of networks. Experimental results suggest that the proposed Burr distribution with nonlinear exponent better fits the large-scale heavy-tailed networks better than the popularly used Marhsall-Olkin generalization of Burr and exponentiated Burr distributions.


Chemokines are central to the migration of leukocytes around the body, during both
inflammatory and homeostatic conditions. Chemokines mediate their effects by binding to
chemokine receptors found on the migrating cell's surface. Chemokine binding to the
chemokine receptor results in signaling, which allows the cell to migrate towards the
epicenter of chemokine production.
In addition to 'classical' chemokine receptors which are involved in leukocyte migration, a
discrete family of chemokine receptors exist which are considered to be 'atypical', as
binding to their cognate ligands does not result in classical signaling as detected by
calcium flux assays. One of these atypical chemokine receptors is the chemokinescavenging
receptor D6, which can bind to and internalize at least 14 inflammatory CC
chemokines in vitro. In addition, an analysis of D6 function in vivo has shown that D6 is
important for the resolution of the inflammatory response. D6 KO mice treated with
phorbol ester to the shaved dorsal skin developed an inflammatory skin pathology that
resembled the human condition psoriasis in many respects. In contrast, WT mice treated
with phorbol ester developed a very mild inflammatory response, which quickly resolved.
These data suggested that a loss of D6 expression 'primed' the mouse to develop a
psoriasisform pathology, requiring only minor irritation/trauma to develop the pathology.
Similarly, histologically normal (uninvolved) skin from a psoriatic patient has a propensity
to developing inflammatory lesions upon minor trauma, and could also be suggested to be
'primed' for lesion development. Collectively, these data led us to the following
hypothesis,
'A loss of D6 expression in uninvolved psoriatic skin is associated with the development
of psoriatic lesions'.
To test this hypothesis, D6 expression in clinical samples from psoriasis patients was
analysed. Full thickness biopsies from psoriasis patients were taken from a histologically
normal site (uninvolved psoriatic skin), in addition to an elliptical biopsy covering the skin
directly adjacent to the psoriatic lesion (peri-lesional psoriatic skin), in addition to the
lesion itself (lesional psoriatic skin). D6 expression was analysed in these biopsies by
QPCR and immuno-staining. It was observed that D6 expression was significantly elevated
in psoriatic skin compared to healthy control skin. In particular, in uninvolved psoriatic
skin D6 was significantly increased compared to healthy control skin, or peri-lesional
3
psoriatic skin or lesional psoriatic skin. The increase in D6 expression in uninvolved
psoriatic skin localised to the epidermis and the LVs. A significant increase in PBMC-D6
expression was also noted in psoriatic patients compared to healthy control PBMCs. These
data suggest that at sites not directly involved in the pathology, D6 is elevated in an
attempt to limit inflammation-induced damage.
Further immuno-staining showed the inflammatory CC chemokines CCL2 and CCL5 (both
high affinity D6-binding ligands) were detected in uninvolved psoriatic epidermis, but
were apparently unable to mediate their function due to the lack of significant leukocyte
infiltration into the tissue. These data gave rise to the idea that D6 in uninvolved psoriatic
skin was significantly elevated in an attempt to block the release of inflammatory CC
chemokines into the dermis, and subsequent migration of inflammatory leukocytes into the
tissue, and the onset of lesion formation. Interestingly, D6 expression on the epidermis was
strongest towards the lower layers of the epidermis, which suggested a role for epidermal-
D6 in 'barrier function', preventing the uncontrolled release of inflammatory CC
chemokines into the dermis.
In addition to inflammatory CC chemokines, a variety of inflammatory cytokines have
been previously detected in uninvolved psoriatic skin. Several of these cytokines were
shown to increase D6 expression in vitro in this study. Therefore, it is possible the
significant increase in D6 expression in uninvolved psoriatic skin is partly mediated by
cytokine stimulation.
A loss of D6 expression was observed when comparing uninvolved psoriatic skin and perilesional
psoriatic skin. These data suggested that a loss of D6 expression occurs directly
before the onset of lesion formation. It was also shown in this study that a loss of D6
expression could occur after micro-trauma to uninvolved psoriatic skin, which suggests a
possible mechanism of how D6 expression is lost in peri-lesional psoriatic skin.
To analyze whether the increase in D6 expression in psoriatic skin was disease specific, or
a generic response to cutaneous inflammation, D6 expression in eczema skin was studied.
It was found that D6 expression in eczema skin is elevated compared to healthy control
skin, but less so compared to psoriatic skin. Collectively these data suggest that increased
D6 expression may be a feature of inflammatory skin diseases.


OBJECTIVES
To examine the clinical characteristics of subjects referred to the Substance Abuse Clinic of the Prince of Wales Hospital between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2009 in Hong Kong.

METHODS
A chart review of 131 subjects referred to the Substance Abuse Clinic during the study period was carried out. Psychiatric diagnoses were made by a psychiatrist, according to the 10th edition of the International Classification of Diseases.

RESULTS
Social workers were increasingly a main source of referrals, accounting for 34% of referrals during the entire study period (and 43% in 2009). Another important referral source was the Hospital Authority system in Hong Kong, which accounted for 38% of referrals over the 3-year study period. Ketamine, methamphetamine, and cough mixtures were the most common drugs of primary misuse, the proportion of users being 34%, 24% and 12%, respectively. In these referals, the most common psychiatric diagnosis was substance-induced psychotic disorder, followed by depressive disorder, made in 44% and 22% of the subjects, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Among Hong Kong substance abusers, psychotic and depressive disorders are common, and ketamine is the most commonly misused drug.


Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) were firstly described by Köhler and Milstein in 1975, and their potential as powerful therapeutic agents recognized in the following years. Currently, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already approved 56 monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of several diseases, including cancer (e.g. breast cancer, leukemia and prostate cancer), auto-immune disorders (rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease), asthma, and cardiovascular and infectious diseases. Despite their advantages and therapeutic potential, the cost of manufacturing these biopharmaceuticals with high quality and purity level is still extremely high due to the absence of current cost-effective extraction/purification methods, and which has also impaired their widespread application as recurrent therapeutic agents. The upstream processing of mAbs has gone through several improvements in recent years, by using alternative expression systems or by optimizing the medium formulations and feeding strategies. On the contrary, the downstream processing is considered the bottleneck in the manufacturing of mAbs for therapeutic purposes at reliable costs, representing up to 80% of their total production costs – which is a frontier in clinical drug research. In the past years, several chromatographic and non-chromatographic alternatives have been explored for this purpose, resulting in the development of efficient platforms for the purification of mAbs, that are overviewed and discussed in this chapter. In summary, this chapter provides a vision on the current state of the art of the biopharmaceuticals market, on the production and use of mAbs as valuable therapeutic agents, including their use for the treatment of infectious diseases, while summarizing the mAbs-based products already approved by regulatory agencies. New insights concerning the development of new and alternative platforms or the extraction * Corresponding authors Mara G. Freire: CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials, Chemistry Department, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal; Tel: +351-234-401422; Fax: +351-23-370084; E-mail: email@example.com Ana M. Azevedo: iBB – Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Department of Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal; E-mail: email@example.com Atta-ur-Rahman (Ed.) All rights reserved-© 2017 Bentham Science Publishers Monoclonal Antibodies Frontiers in Clinical Drug Research Anti-Infectives, Vol. 4 143 and purification of mAbs are also discussed, while envisaging the adoption of the most relevant techniques by the pharmaceutical industry to allow the widespread use of biopharmaceuticals in the near future.


Is the activity of volunteering something that benefits the volunteer as well as the recipient of the volunteer's activities? We analyze this relationship and apply matching estimators to the large-scale British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set to estimate the causal impact of volunteering on happiness. We take into account personality traits that could jointly determine volunteering behaviour and happiness. We find that the causal impact of volunteering on happiness is positive and increasing over time if volunteering is sustained. In a quantile analysis, we find that this effect seems to be driven by reducing the unhappiness of the less happy quantiles of the well-being distribution. We test the robustness of our findings and discuss their relevance for public policy.


Theory development is a high priority in organizational and management research. However, theory development is often equated with building new theory, a practice that is rewarded in the publication process and encouraged by norms that pervade the field. This practice has produced a proliferation of theories, most of which are not exposed to rigorous empirical research that probes core propositions and puts theories at risk. In the interest of theory development, management and organizational research would make better progress if we devoted more attention to theoretical refinement, conducting research that identifies the boundaries and limitations of theories, stages competitive tests between rival theories, and increases the precision of theories so they yield strong predictions that can be falsified. These issues are addressed by the articles that constitute this feature topic, with the goal of enhancing theoretical progress in management and organizational research.


The removal efficiency of different pollutants of wastewater treated by Chemically Enhanced Primary Treatment (CEPT) process and pollutants distribution with particle size were studied in this paper. The distributions of contaminants with particle size were studied using synthetic cellulose esters micro-porous filtering membrane of different porous size to separate the wastewater and samples after coagulation in sequence. Turbidity, UV254, COD, total phosphorus and ammonia nitrogen of the samples were measured. The results showed that the removal efficiency of the pollutants and their distributions with particle size were closely related. For contaminants in wastewater associated with particles larger than 1.2µm, the removal efficiency was very high; on the contrary, it was difficult for CEPT to remove particles smaller than 0.2µm. The removal capabilities of CEPT also correlate to the pollutants characteristics. Therefore CEPT had effective removal efficiency for total phosphorus and pollutants associated with particles larger than 1.2µm.


Illustrations of human movements are used to communicate ideas and convey instructions in many domains, but creating them is time-consuming and requires skill. We introduce DemoDraw, a multi-modal approach to generate these illustrations as the user physically demonstrates the movements. In a Demonstration Interface, DemoDraw segments speech and 3D joint motion into a sequence of motion segments, each characterized by a key pose and salient joint trajectories. Based on this sequence, a series of illustrations is automatically generated using a stylistically rendered 3D avatar annotated with arrows to convey movements. During demonstration, the user can navigate using speech and amend or re-perform motions if needed. Once a suitable sequence of steps has been created, a Refinement Interface enables fine control of visualization parameters. In a three-part evaluation, we validate the effectiveness of the generated illustrations and the usability of DemoDraw. Our results show 4 to 7-step illustrations can be created in 5 or 10 minutes on average.


Breathing and breath support are two of the most important elements of flute playing and are therefore discussed in great detail throughout the history of flute pedagogy. Though many ideas are similar between nineteenth century and contemporary flutists, there are extensive differences and developments, particularly across anatomical language and concepts. In the past century, new ideas on how musicians can interact with their bodies have become more prominent, especially through the practices of Alexander Technique and Body Mapping. These areas of teaching have the potential to impact how flutists understand breath and support because of their foundations in somatic awareness. Another crucial consideration for an updated flute pedagogy is the changing socio-cultural environment experienced by students. Female students, in particular, are subject to unrealistic expectations of body image through constant exposure to social media. This issue negatively impacts students' abilities to navigate stressful surroundings with confidence and also limits them physically, mentally, and emotionally. Flute teaching philosophies have the room to become more empowering and inclusive by acknowledging the importance of lived-in, bodily experiences, especially within the context of gender and space.


: Practicum is a key element of initial teacher education (ITE) programmes, designed to support the professional growth of student teachers. Practicum is also a key point of assessment, leading to a determination of the student's professional growth and their readiness to teach and enter the teaching profession. This study sought to understand the way in which the assessment of practicum was enacted and experienced within New Zealand early childhood ITE programmes. Case study methodology was used to explore the experiences of practicum triads from four participating institutions. Data included recordings of triadic assessment meetings, post-assessment interviews with the student teachers, associate teachers and teacher educators, and examination of associated assessment documentation. In presenting key features of the four case studies it is argued that practicum assessment is complex and multi-faceted, enacted with institutional parameters, but highly individualised in practice.


OBJECT
Cingulotomy has been reported in the literature as a potential treatment option for refractory cancer-related pain. However, the optimal candidates for this intervention and the outcomes are not well characterized. The goal of this study was to review the available literature on cingulotomy, specifically for cancer-related pain.

METHODS
A search of PubMed, PubMed Central, the Cochrane Library, and MEDLINE was performed to identify all articles discussing cingulotomy for cancer pain. The text strings "cingul*" and "pain" were separated by the Boolean AND operator, and used to perform the query on PubMed. Only studies in which a stereotactic technique was used, as opposed to an open technique, and specifically detailing outcomes for cancer pain were included. For centers with multiple publications, care was taken not to double-count individual patients.

RESULTS
The literature review revealed only 8 unique studies describing outcomes of stereotactic cingulotomy for cancer pain. Between 32% and 83% of patients had meaningful pain relief. The location of the lesion was variable, ranging between 1 cm and 4 cm posterior to the tip of the anterior horn. Although serious adverse events are rare, a decline in focused attention can been seen in the early postoperative period, along with apathy and decreased activity.

CONCLUSIONS
For patients with cancer pain with diffuse pain syndromes, head and neck malignancies, and significant emotional distress, cingulotomy may be a safe treatment option with minimal cognitive changes.


EISCAT (the Incoherent System at the northern polar region) data are used in discussion of the magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. Compcrison between samples in geomagnetic quiet days and during magnetic storms shows a significant effect of the basic magnetospheric processes on the features of the polar ionosphere. It not only demonstrates that the polar ionosphere can be regarded as a 'panoramic screen', of these process, but also indicates an importance of the simultaneous observation of southern and northern polar regions (especially, at the magnetic conjugate points). A few topics concerned are suggested for the further study of the southern polar region.


This study explored the psychological coercion of trafficking in human person, antecedents such as causes, psychological coercion and processes and psychosocial consequences. We adopted Victimological paradigm which explains why some people are more vulnerable to victimization than others through victimtrafficker relationship, repeat victimization and role of lifestyle in victimization risk. The study presented causes of trafficking in human persons as the desire to migrate. The tendency to migrate may be precipitated by poverty, oppression, lack of human rights, lack of social or economic opportunity, dangers from conflict or instability. Political instability, militarism, civil unrest, internal armed conflict and natural disasters could result to desire to migrate. We presented psychological coercion as the means of obtaining initial victim and posited that this instills psychological disorders, for example depression, absence of emotional reactions, anxiety disorder, self-blame, helplessness or hopelessness, nightmare, suicidal ideation, paranoia, anger and rage control problems, psychoactive substance and alcohol abuse, dissociative disorders and host of others (Kornzinski, 2013). The psychological processes involve recruitment, initiation and indoctrination and were applied to obtain, maintain and gain control over the victims. Trafficking in human person has negative psychosocial consequences in its entirety. Psychosocial consequences of trafficking in human persons varied with undermining the extended family ties, and in many cases, the forced absence of women leads to the breakdown of families and neglect of children and the aged (Danailova-Trainor & Laczko 2010). The study concluded that the traffickers and the victim of trafficking need rehabilitation and recommended cognitive therapy for necessary rehabilitation.


Sanskrit /n/-retroflexion is one of the most complex segmental processes in phonology. While it is still star-free, it does not fit in any of the subregular classes that are commonly entertained in the literature. We show that when construed as a phonotactic dependency, the process fits into a class we call input-output tier-based strictly local (IO-TSL), a natural extension of the familiar class TSL. IO-TSL increases the power of TSL's tier projection function by making it an input-output strictly local transduction. Assuming that /n/-retroflexion represents the upper bound on the complexity of segmental phonology, this shows that all of segmental phonology can be captured by combining the intuitive notion of tiers with the independently motivated machinery of strictly local mappings.


The disastrous earthquakes that struck Christchurch in 2010 and 2011 seriously impacted on the individual and collective lives of Maori residents. This paper continues earlier, predominantly qualitative research on the immediate effects on Maori by presenting an analysis of a survey carried out 18 months after the most destructive event, on 22 February 2011. Using a settheoretic approach, pathways to Maori resilience are identifi ed, emphasising the combination of whanau connectivity and high incomes in those who have maintained or increased their wellbeing postdisaster. However, the results show that if resilience is used to describe a "bounce back" in wellbeing, Maori are primarily enduring the postdisaster environment. This endurance phase is a precursor to any resilience and will be of much longer duration than fi rst thought. With continued uncertainty in the city and wider New Zealand economy, this endurance may not necessarily lead to a more secure environment for Maori in the city.


This paper discusses the range of factors that can stimulate the further development of the domestic institutional sector through pension system reform measures. The development of the institutional sector in emerging market economies is compared with the experiences of OECD countries. The focus is on the key factors that have been (and are) driving the growth of OECD institutional investor activities and the impact of institutional investors on securities markets.


Abstract This article focuses on the development of soft and hard infrastructures to support a life science ecology in a peripheral European city region. Liverpool City Region has received almost £1.7bn in capital investment through the EU Cohesion Policy to redevelop the city region and reinvigorate its economy towards knowledge based industries. The analysis of the city regions life science ecology highlights the uneven development of hard and soft infrastructures. Due to the diversity of firms within the region it has proven difficult to establish soft infrastructure related to scientific knowledge. The outcome has led to soft infrastructures being more business support orientated rather than scientific knowledge based, reducing inter-firm connections on a product or service basis. The evidence shows that not all types of soft infrastructure emerge as an outcome of investment. Hence, policy makers need to provide a clearer narrative on their investments, focusing on fewer core competencies rather than breadth of activities.


The creation of a specialized, "problem-solving" court is a ubiquitous response to the issues that plague our criminal legal system. The courts promise to address the factors believed to lead to repeated interactions with the system, such as addiction or mental illness, thereby reducing recidivism and saving money. And they do so effectively – at least according to their many proponents, who celebrate them as an example of a successful "evidence-based," data-driven reform. But the actual data on their efficacy is underwhelming, inconclusive, or altogether lacking. So why do they persist?

This Article seeks to answer that question by scrutinizing the role of judges in creating and sustaining the problem-solving court movement. It contends problem-solving courts do effectively address a problem – it is just not the one we think. It argues that these courts revive a sense of purpose and authority for judges in an era marked by diminishing judicial power. Moreover, it demonstrates that the courts have developed and proliferated relatively free from objective oversight. Together, these new insights help explain why the problem-solving court model endures. They also reveal a new problem with the model itself – its entrenchment creates resistance to alternatives that might truly reform the system.


Very well-known advantages of aluminum alloys, such as low mass, good mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, machining-ability, high recycling potential and low cost are considered as a driving force for their development, i.e. implementation in new applications as early as in stage of structural design, as well as in development of new technological solutions. Mechanical and technological properties of the castings made from the 3xx.x group of alloys depend mainly on correctly performed processes of melting and casting, design of a mould and cast element, and a possible heat treatment. The subject-matter of this paper is elaboration of a diagrams and dependencies between parameters of dispersion hardening (temperatures and times of solutioning and ageing treatments) and mechanical properties obtained after heat treatment of the 356.0 (EN AC AlSi7Mg) alloy, enabling full control of dispersion hardening process to programming and obtaining a certain technological quality of the alloy in terms of its mechanical properties after performed heat treatments. Obtained results of the investigations have enabled obtainment of a dependencies depicting effect of parameters of the solutioning and ageing treatments on the mechanical properties (Rm, A5 and KC impact strength) of the investigated alloy. Spatial diagrams elaborated on the basis of these dependencies enable us to determine tendencies of changes of the mechanical properties of the 356.0 alloy in complete analyzed range of temperature and duration of the solutioning and ageing operations.


Research aims and tasks:
* Research aims:
- Systematizing theoretical knowledge about franchise and franchise
consultation
- Analyzing franchise consultation in relation with franchise system in
general in typical countries in the world and give experiences and solutions
to develop franchise division and franchise system in Vietnam
- Preparing to set up companies specializing on franchise consultation in
Vietnam
* Research tasks:
- Explaining contents and roles of franchise consultation activities for
franchsie buyers, potential franchise buyers, franchise seller, potential
franchise sellers and franchise system in a country.
- Analyzing and comparing development situation in typical countries and
Vietnam generally. Analyzing and comparing franchise consultation activities in some
countries and Vietnam, and gaining experiences and solutions to build and
develop consultation in particular and franchise in general in Vietnam.
Research objectives and scope:
Research objectives:
- Activities of franchise consultation in franchise system in countries in the
world and in Vietnam; in details:
- Consultation division belongs to franchise models in countries in the world
and Vietnam
- Experts, companies and independent organizations specialize in franchise
consultation in other countries in the world and in Vietnam
Research scope:
- About spare: the topic limits analysis about franchise consultation activities
only in typical countries that developed and have been developing franchise
like the US, England, and Singapore.
- About time: since 1980s when franchise became a popular system
Research methods:
Using basic research methods such as analysis, comparison, collection,
observation, statistics, interview and survey.
- Making a survey about 24 Pho model and Vietnam KFC
- Interview Nguyen Quang Hien- Director of business development , 24 Pho
joint stock company. Eric Cheong- business consultant, Asian Buzan centre (Singapore):
franchise model about training
Le Thi Luong- manager of Lyly flower shop
- Statistics: post-graduation Group of HSB business administration
Post- graduation group in economics faculty, Vietnam National University,
Hanoi Managers 24 Pho Restaurants in Hanoi. Predicting topic's new contributions:
- Finding out contents and important roles of franchise
- Finding out situation of franchise activities in some typical countries and
gain experiences for Vietnam.
- Suggest solutions to develop franchise in Vietnam.
Topic's structure:
 Chapter 1: Common factors about franchise and franchise consultation
 Chapter 2: Researching and comparing franchise consultation activities in
some countries and experiences for Vietnam
 Chapter 3: solutions to develop franchise consultation in Vietnam. Research achievements:
In over 80 pages done in nearly 4 months, the topic answers all its
questions and and achieve its purposes and task; in details:
- Systematizing theoretical knowledge about franchise and franchise
consultation. Finding out contents and roles of franchise consultation for
franchise buyers, potential franchise buyers, franchise seller, potential
franchise seller and franchise system in every country.
- Generally analyzing and comparing development situation of franchise in
some typical countries and in Vietnam
- Analyzing franchise consultation in relation with franchise system in
general in developing countries in the world and giving experiences and
solutions to develop consultation division and franchise system in Vietnam.
Through analysis, it can be shown that:
- Franchise is a good business technology that is easy to succeed and
contributes to national economics.
- Franchise consultation has a relation with and roles in developing
franchise system.
- Franchise in developed countries has developed for tens of years. It
covers many fields, brings huge profit and attracts a large number of labour. However, in Vietnam franchise is a new and young field and do not
contribute much to Vietnam's economy
- With franchise, franchise consultation in typical countries developes about
both quantity, content and ways of service supply. Franchise consultation
will become a key factor in the development process of franchise system.
However, in Vietnam, franchise is still new and young. It does not develop
about both quantity and service quality and does not contribute to the
development of franchise field.
- Experts forecast that there is franchise booming in Vietnam in the next
period. Together with franchise's development, franchise consultation will
develop quickly and become a key factor in franchise.
- To develop franchise consultation, Vietnam need to focus on:
+ Developing franchise consultation in all franchise system.
+ Encouraging establishment and development of professional franchise
consultation organizations
+ Founding and developing information channel, evaluation and quality
checking systems in franchise system
+ Completing laws about franchise in general and franchise consultation in
particular
The author believes in development of franchise as well as franchise
consultation in Vietnam in the coming years and hopes to make contributions to development and prosperity of trademarks in Vietnam and in the world through franchise.


The buildings of Helmut Jahn, Werner Sobek and Matthias Schuler represent a symbiotic collaboration between architecture, engineering and building technology. This innovative team has taken up the challenge of turning optimum technical solutions into intelligent and resource-saving constructions, creating internationally acclaimed architecture of the very highest technical and aesthetical quality: "Modern buildings make the highest demands of technology. And it is not the architect who fulfils them but the engineer" (Helmut Jahn) This volume documents in detail a large number of recent projects in Europe, the USA and Asia by Jahn, Sobek and Schuler including the European Union Headquarters in Charlemagne, the Sony Centre in Berlin, office buildings for the Deutsche Post in Bonn, Shanghai International Expo Centre, Bishopsgate (London), MANN (Chicago), New Bangkok International Airport, Illinois Institute of Technology Campus Center, and Shenzhen Convention and Exhibit Center.