Objective: The study was aimed to evaluate the relationship between pharmacy supply, self-reported treatment adherence and HIV viral load in HIV-infected children. Methods: A retrospective (52 weeks) cohort study was conducted through the review of the existing databases. Pharmacy supply was classified as "home delivery" when the medications were delivered home and as "in pharmacy pick-up" when they were picked up at the pharmacy. Adherence was assessed through retrospective (3 days recall) self-report. Fisher's exact model, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used. Settings: The study collected data on 140 HIV-infected children (<18 years). Adherence, pharmacy supply information and HIV viral loads were obtained from clinical and research databases. Patients: The data from 127 HIV-infected children (60 boys and 67 girls; mean age 9.9 years) were collected. Main Outcome Measures: Complete adherence (100%) was reported in only 24% of patients. With 40% of patients being rarely or never completely adherent, 64% of children achieved undetectable viral loads during the study period. Results: No association between pharmacy supply and self-reported adherence was found (p = 0.605). Self-reported adherence (p = 0.0328) and age (p = 0.025) were the significant predictors of reaching undetectable viral loads. Adolescents (>13 years) were significantly less likely to reach undetectable viral loads than children under 13 years (odds ratio 0.38; 95% CI 0.16 to 0.89). Conclusion: In our study, pharmacy supply was not associated with self-reported adherence. Most importantly, adherence and age were significant predictors of reaching undetectable viral loads.


Efficient compressors designs reduce the overall energy consumption of industrial buildings. The inlet chambers for turbocompressors have a significant influence on the whole stage operation. An uneven flow in the inlet of an impeller can turn up to be the cause of stage efficiency drop, and also it is able to narrow down the range of its operational stability which in turn is an essential negative factor. Currently, there is no clear methodology of the design of the inlet radial chambers which makes it difficult to design the compressor. The purpose of this work is to develop recommendations for the designing problem formulation of the centrifugal compressor radial inlet chamber and also modify the existing design method for inlet chambers. During the previous research, the most acceptable model of the inlet chamber was obtained with the help of real and numerical experiment. In this paper, different geometric parameters of the inlet chamber are changed and then calculated by means of numerical experiment. Their influence on the inlet chamber loss coefficient, relative velocity distribution and static pressure coefficient is investigated.


Tinospora crispa is a wild plant in Malaysia. Malay community used this plant traditionally for various therapeutic purposes. Despite many studies conducted on its antidiabetic and antipyretic effects, no study has been designed to address the question whether T.crispa could work as an antioxidant and lipid lowering agent. The aim of this experiment is to study the lipid lowering and antioxidant effects of T.crispa in rabbits fed with high cholesterol diet.
The in vitro study was conducted to determine the total antioxidant activity of T.crispa aqueous extract. The scavenging activity of T.crispa measured using DPPH analysis was 85.95±0.52%. The antioxidant activity of T.crispa measured via TBA test and FRAP assay was 39.20±2.97% and 0.89+0.03mmol/L respectively. The types of flavonoids found in T.crispa were catechin, luteolin, morin and rutin. Thirty male New Zealand White rabbits were randomly divided into six groups for the in vivo studies. The normal control (NC) group was fed 100g/rabbit/day normal rabbit chow. Positive control (PC) and Simvastatin control (SC) groups were fed high cholesterol diet (HCD) (0.5% cholesterol). The SC group was supplemented 5 mg/kg/day of Simvastatin. The treatment groups (T150, T300 and T450) were fed with HCD and 150, 300 and 450 mg/kg/day of T.crispa extract respectively. The experimental period was designed for 10 weeks. Ear vein blood sampling were collected at week 0 (w0), week 5 (w5) and week 10 (w10) for plasma analysis. At the end of the experiment, the animals were sacrificed via exsanguinations, the aorta were excised and examined for histomorphometric analysis.
Through plasma analysis, the activity of gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT), aspartate amino transferase (AST) and alanine amino transferase (ALT) were significantly lower (p<0.05) in group T450 at w10 compared to group PC. Group T150 and T300 had a significantly lower (p<0.05) total cholesterol (TC) level compared to PC at w10. Group T450 had a significantly higher (p<0.05) TC level against PC. All groups supplemented with T.crispa had a significantly higher (p<0.05) in high density lipoprotein (HDL) level and significantly lower (p<0.05) LDL level compared to PC at w10. The TG level of T150 and T450 were significantly decreased (p<0.05) from w5 to w10. Activity of catalase (CAT) in T150, T300 and T450 were significantly lower (p<0.05) at w10 compared to PC. Group T450 had significantly higher (p<0.05) total antioxidant activity (TAA), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities compared to PC at w10. No foam cell formation was visible in aorta of rabbits in group NC, SC and T450. However, there were visible foam cell formation in the aorta of group PC, T150 and T300.
In conclusion, this study suggested that supplementation of 450 mg/kg of T.crispa extract would be able to reduce or retard the progression of atherosclerotic plaque development induced by dietary cholesterol. The enhanced serum HDL, increase in antioxidant status and flavonoids composition may be the possible underlying mechanisms of antiatherogenic effect of T.crispa.


Promising and warning are speech acts that have to be credible to be persuasive. 0e question is: When does a promise become incredible and a warning unpersuasive? Whereas credibility has been researched from a social persuasion perspective, this article empirically answers that question, from an adaptive heuristics perspective. First, we present a satis1cing algorithm that discriminates conditional promises, threats, advices, and warnings by pragmatic cues. 0en, we discuss an alternative model of this algorithm that further accounts for the credibility of these conditionals by formal principles, and also adds two hypotheses: (1) 0reats but not promises are more credible with proportionate than disproportionate consequences, and (2) Both advices and warnings are more persuasive with bilateral than unilateral consequences. Finally, we present two experiments and their follow-ups that, consistent with the pragmatic algorithm, provide evidence against both hypotheses.


Dimensionality reduction plays a vital role in pattern recognition. However, for normalized vector data, existing methods do not utilize the fact that the data is normalized. In this chapter, the authors propose to employ an Angular Decomposition of the normalized vector data which corresponds to embedding them on a unit surface. On graph data for similarity/kernel matrices with constant diagonal elements, the authors propose the Angular Decomposition of the similarity matrices which corresponds to embedding objects on a unit sphere. In these angular embeddings, the Euclidean distance is equivalent to the cosine similarity. Thus data structures best described in the cosine similarity and data structures best captured by the Euclidean distance can both be effectively detected in our angular embedding. The authors provide the theoretical analysis, derive the computational algorithm, and evaluate the angular embedding on several datasets. Experiments on data clustering demonstrate that the method can provide a more discriminative subspace.


The Japanese "main bank system" figures prominently in the recent literature on "relationship banking." By most accounts, the main bank epitomizes relationship finance: traditionally, every large Japanese firm had one, and that bank monitored the firm, participated in its governance, acted as the delegated monitor for other creditors, and rescued the firm if it fell into financial distress. Yet all this has begun to change, continue these accounts. Japan deregulated its financial markets in the 1980s, and many firms abandoned their relational lender for market finance. As the main banks then lost their ability to the constrain firms -- as relationship banking unraveled -- the firms gambled in the stock and real estate bubbles, the bubbles burst, and the firms threw the country into recession. Using financial and governance data from 1980 through 1994, we show that none of this is true. The accounts of the Japanese main bank instead represent fables, stories we collectively recite because they so conveniently illustrate the theories and models we hope to develop. Whether during the 1980s boom or the 1990s recession, they bore no resemblance to any aspect of Japanese corporate finance or governance.


The increasing of private vehicles and public transportation are the main cause of traffic jammed on the road. The use of public vehicles in Pekanbaru city is higher than the transportation provided by urban council through Dinas Lalu Lintas Transportasi Jalan Raya (DLLAJR). The aim of this paper is to do a research on public transportation system (oplet, ojek, city bus, taxi), also, to analyse which transportation system that have been chosen by consumer in Pekanbaru. The result shows that people are prefer to use oplet and city bus as their transportation even though it has high risk of safety and danger to them. Most people in town has their own vehicles so that the use of public transportation only for temporary period and it usually used by students who has low income. This study finally found that the ojek services are the only transportation system that can arrive to the destination in short time and it can access anywhere that cannot be accessed by other transportation system. The low cost of ojek services is the main reason that people choose it as their transportation. It is obviously shows that the use of transportation system in Pekanbaru is bused on efficiency and punctuality of the public transportation. Key Words Public Transportation, Efficiency, City Service


Recent work on the last glaciation of the British Isles has led to an improved understanding of the nature and timing of the retreat of the British−Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) from its southern maximum (Isles of Scilly), northwards into the Celtic and Irish seas. However, the nature of the deglacial environments across the Celtic Sea shelf, the extent of subaerial exposure and the existence (or otherwise) of a contiguous terrestrial linkage between Britain and Ireland following ice retreat remains ambiguous. Multiproxy research, based on analysis of 12 BGS vibrocores from the Celtic Deep Basin (CDB), seeks to address these issues. CDB cores exhibit a shell‐rich upward fining sequence of Holocene marine sand above an erosional contact cut in laminated muds with infrequent lonestones. Molluscs, in situ Foraminifera and marine diatoms are absent from the basal muds, but rare damaged freshwater diatoms and foraminiferal linings occur. Dinoflagellate cysts and other non‐pollen palynomorphs evidence diverse, environmentally incompatible floras with temperate, boreal and Arctic glaciomarine taxa co‐occurring. Such multiproxy records can be interpreted as representing a retreating ice margin, with reworking of marine sediments into a lacustrine basin. Equally, the same record may be interpreted as recording similar conditions within a semi‐enclosed marine embayment dominated by meltwater export and deposition of reworked microfossils. As assemblages from these cores contrast markedly with proven glaciomarine sequences from outside the CDB, a glaciolacustrine interpretation is favoured for the laminated sequence, truncated by a Late Weichselian transgressive sequence fining upwards into fully marine conditions. Reworked rare intertidal molluscs from immediately above the regional unconformity provide a minimum date c. 13.9 cal. ka BP for commencement of widespread marine erosion. Although suggestive of glaciolacustrine conditions, the exact nature and timing of laminated sediment deposition within the CDB, and the implications this has on (pen)insularity of Ireland following deglaciation, remain elusive.


Background: Haemoglobinopathy is associated with different pathological conditions especially in Africa and other third world countries. This genetically determined blood disorder has posed continued alarming problem in public health especially in Africa and other third world countries. Many Nigerians are yet to have clear understanding of the generation, presentations and management of Haemoglobinopathies perhaps due to their religion or cultural beliefs. Sequel to this problem, it is imperative to provide adequate information for prompt intervention in order to curb the situation. Study provides information on the incidence of same in Ogbonicha District of Ofu Local Government Area, Kogi State, Nigeria. Methods: A total number of 400 volunteered people and were screened for haemoglobin (Hb) variants by alkaline cellulose acetate electrophoresis. Results: Out of the 400 subjects that were screened regardless of age and status, 222 (55.50%) were females and 178 (44.50%) were males. Only three (3) Hb genotypes HbAA (76.50%), HbAS (22.25%) and HbSS (1.25%) were reported in this study. In female, the sickle-celltrait (HbAS) was 94.37% (67) while the disease state (HbSS) was 5.63% (4) while in males; the sickle-cell-trait was 95.65% (22) and the disease state 4.35% (1). Conclusion: The high prevalence of HbAA with the observed low prevalence of HbSS variants in this population could imply a decline in haemoglobinopathy in the population. However mass literacy campaign and improved counseling on related genetic issuesshould be encouraged and maintained in order to eradicate haemoglobinopathy.


[1] We report paleointensity analyses on a suite of four samples from two axial zero-age mid-oceanic ridge basalt flows from the East Pacific Rise. Paleointensity experiments have been performed on several profiles, each consisting of a batch of small (millimeter scale) subsamples going from the rapidly cooled glassy margin to the interior. The Coe version of the Thellier double-heating procedure was used with back checks performed after every other heating step. Most of the samples show very good behavior, i.e., constant ratio between the lost and acquired magnetization through a large temperature range (quality factor usually above 10) and positive checks, which lead to unambiguous paleointensity determinations. Paleointensities obtained on glasses reported here and in a previously published study are very consistent and reproducible and in agreement with expected in situ values of Earth's magnetic field intensity. However, results found within the crystalline part of the samples show values that are considerably (up to 50%) higher than expected. These variations seem to be correlated with the cooling history of the samples and appear to be universal since all samples exhibit the same intriguing pattern. An extensive study of magnetic properties allows us to link this incongruent behavior to (1) the presence of multidomain effects and (2) the cooling rate difference between laboratory experiments and in situ cooling.


Global hunger, malnutrition, and poverty have declined over the past decades, but a situation of food and nutrition security for all is yet to be achieved, and extreme poverty is still widespread. Around 800 million people globally are still chronically undernourished, about 2 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies which pose serious health consequences, and 767 million people live in extreme poverty – below 1.90 US dollars a day. Hence, eradication of hunger, malnutrition, and extreme poverty continue to rank high on the development policy agenda. A large proportion of the people affected are smallholder farmers in developing countries who depend on agriculture as a source of food and income. Therefore, a key question for improving nutrition is how to make smallholder agriculture more nutrition-sensitive. Previous studies proposed the use of agricultural technologies specifically designed to improve nutrition (e.g. biofortified crop technologies), higher on-farm diversification, and strengthening of smallholder access to markets as part of key strategies to improve nutrition in the small farm sector. These strategies could also reduce poverty in farm households, for instance, through increased labor and land productivity, and cash income gains from market sales.
This dissertation contributes to the emerging research on agriculture-nutrition linkages, particularly addressing three research gaps. The first research gap relates to the adoption of biofortified crops and other pro-nutrition innovations. One particular challenge with the adoption of biofortified technologies is a low incentive among farmers to adopt such technologies due to limited awareness of their nutritional benefits. Agricultural extension could play a crucial role in creating the required awareness to enhance adoption. However, previous research on how to improve extension services primarily focused on the dissemination of technologies with potential agronomic benefits, not on pro-nutrition technologies. The second research gap relates to the link between agricultural commercialization and nutrition. While it is often assumed that subsistence production is particularly important for smallholder diets, effects of agricultural commercialization on household nutrition and dietary quality have hardly been analyzed. The third research gap relates to wider welfare effects of agricultural commercialization. Previous studies evaluated the impacts of commercialization on smallholder income and poverty, but potential effects on other livelihood dimensions and multidimensional poverty are much less understood. These research gaps are addressed with primary data collected from approximately 800 smallholder farm households in Western Kenya and the use of various econometric and experimental techniques.
This dissertation comprises three essays that contribute to the literature on agriculture and nutrition linkages in different ways. In the first essay, we conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effects of new agricultural extension designs on the adoption of a pro-nutrition technology. In particular, we examine how agricultural training can be combined with training in nutrition and marketing to increase farmers' adoption of a new bean variety biofortified with iron and zinc. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze how improved designs of agricultural extension can contribute to making smallholder farming more nutrition-sensitive. This analysis is based on panel data from two survey rounds. Difference-in-difference estimates show that intensive agricultural training tailored to local conditions can increase technology adoption considerably. In less than one year, adoption of biofortified beans increased from almost zero to more than 20%. With additional nutrition training, adoption further increased by 10-12 percentage points, since this helped farmers to better appreciate the technology's nutritional benefits. These results suggest that effective nutrition training through agricultural extension services is possible. Providing additional marketing training did not lead to further adoption effects, possibly because the study period may have been too short to measure these effects properly. Based on the results we argue that closer cooperation between agricultural extension and nutrition and health organizations can be an effective way to promote pro-nutrition innovations among smallholder farm households.
In the second essay, we evaluate the effects of commercialization on household food security and dietary quality, with a particular focus on calorie and micronutrient consumption. The few previous studies on the effects of commercialization on nutrition examined impacts in terms of calorie intake and child anthropometrics, but not dietary quality as we do. We further depart from previous studies by estimating average and continuous treatment effects, and also examine possible transmission channels through which commercialization affects farm household nutrition by looking at the role of income, gender, and possible substitution between the consumption of own-produced (subsistence) and purchased foods. This analysis builds on cross-sectional survey data from 805 farm households. We use a control function approach to address potential endogeneity problems. Generalized propensity scores are employed to estimate continuous treatment effects. The results show that commercialization significantly improves food security and dietary quality measured in terms of calorie, zinc, and iron consumption. For vitamin A, overall effects are statistically insignificant. Commercialization contributes to higher incomes and additional nutrient intake from purchased foods, but it does not reduce the consumption of nutrients from own-produced foods, even after controlling for farm size, possibly due to higher productivity on more commercialized farms. We conclude that enhancing market access is important not only for rural economic growth, but also for making smallholder agriculture more nutrition-sensitive.
In the third essay, we examine the impacts of commercialization on multidimensional poverty. Previous studies examined the effects of commercialization on poverty with income-based poverty indicators, but income-poverty indicators are prone to measurement error and do not capture the many dimensions of poverty (welfare), such as education, health, and living standard. We use cross-sectional data from a sample of 805 farm households and various econometric models to measure average and heterogeneous treatment effects of commercialization on multidimensional poverty. A 10 percentage point increase in the degree of commercialization reduces the likelihood of being multidimensionally poor by 2.3 percentage points and the multidimensional poverty index (intensity) – share of total deprivations in years of schooling, child school attendance, calorie consumption, dietary quality, sanitation, access to safe drinking water, electricity, cooking fuel, floor material and asset ownership – by 1.5 percentage points. Quantile regressions show that commercialization significantly reduces multidimensional poverty across the different quantiles. Commercialization also reduces income poverty. The absolute gains in per capita income are larger for richer households. We conclude that commercialization can contribute to multidimensional and income poverty reduction in smallholder farm households, but may possibly also lead to higher income inequality.
We draw several conclusions and policy implications from the three essays in this dissertation. From the first essay, we conclude that combining agricultural and nutrition training in agricultural extension approaches is feasible, and can contribute to making smallholder farming more nutrition-sensitive. Therefore, closer cooperation between agricultural extension and nutrition and health organizations could provide a cost-effective way to promote pro-nutrition innovations in the small farm sector. However, further research is needed on how the design of agricultural extension approaches can be improved in order to increase the adoption of pro-nutrition technologies. Our study is only an initial step in this direction. From the second essay, we conclude that commercialization can contribute significantly to improved nutrition in the small farm sector. The important policy implication is that enhancing market access is a key strategy to make smallholder agriculture more nutrition-sensitive. But we stress that commercialization alone will not suffice to address all types of malnutrition. Commercialization increases cash income, but the consumption of certain micronutrients – such as vitamin A – does not seem to be particularly responsive to income growth. Hence, more specific complementary interventions may be needed. From the third essay, we conclude that commercialization contributes to multidimensional poverty reduction in the small farm sector. Hence, smallholder access to markets should be strengthened. Further research is needed to quantify the long-term effects of commercialization on multidimensional poverty and to provide more evidence in different contexts.


Generalized algebraic data types (GADTs) have received much attention recently in the functional programming community. They generalize the (type) parameterized algebraic datatypes (PADTs) of ML and Haskell by permitting value constructors to return specific, rather than parametric, type-instantiations of their own datatype. GADTs have a number of applications, including strongly-typed evaluators, generic pretty-printing, generic traversals and queries, and typed LR parsing. We show that existing object-oriented programming languages such as Java and C# can express GADT definitions, and a large class of GADT-manipulating programs, through the use of generics, subclassing, and virtual dispatch. However, some programs can be written only through the use of redundant runtime casts. Moreover, instantiation-specific, yet safe, operations on ordinary PADTs only admit indirect cast-free implementations, via higher-order encodings. We propose a generalization of the type constraint mechanisms of C# and Java to both avoid the need for casts in GADT programs and higher-order contortions in PADT programs; we present a Visitor pattern for GADTs, and describe a refined switch construct as an alternative to virtual dispatch on datatypes. We formalize both extensions and prove type soundness.


Lichens are symbiotic organisms which produce distinct secondary metabolic products. In the present study, we tested the cytotoxic activity of 17 lichen species against several human cancer cells and further investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying their anti-cancer activity. We found that among 17 lichens species, F. cucullata exhibited the most potent cytotoxicity in several human cancer cells. High performance liquid chromatography analysis revealed that the acetone extract of F. cucullata contains usnic acid, salazinic acid, Squamatic acid, Baeomycesic acid, d-protolichesterinic acid, and lichesterinic acid as subcomponents. MTT assay showed that cancer cell lines were more vulnerable to the cytotoxic effects of the extract than non-cancer cell lines. Furthermore, among the identified subcomponents, usnic acid treatment had a similar cytotoxic effect on cancer cell lines but with lower potency than the extract. At a lethal dose, treatment with the extract or with usnic acid greatly increased the apoptotic cell population and specifically activated the apoptotic signaling pathway; however, using sub-lethal doses, extract and usnic acid treatment decreased cancer cell motility and inhibited in vitro and in vivo tumorigenic potentials. In these cells, we observed significantly reduced levels of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers and phosphor-Akt, while phosphor-c-Jun and phosphor-ERK1/2 levels were only marginally affected. Overall, the anti-cancer activity of the extract is more potent than that of usnic acid alone. Taken together, F. cucullata and its subcomponent, usnic acid together with additional component, exert anti-cancer effects on human cancer cells through the induction of apoptosis and the inhibition of EMT.


ERISA: Supreme Court Holds ERISA Does Not Preempt Illinois Independent Review Law-Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran1-The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, held that the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act (ERISA)2 does not preempt the Illinois Health Maintenance Organization Act (Illinois Act).3 In response to widespread employer mismanagement of employee pension funds, Congress enacted ERISA to create a uniform system of federal law to regulate private sector employee benefits programs, including employment-based health coverage.4 By alleviating the administrative burden of complying with an amalgam of state laws, Congress intended to encourage and enable more employers to provide benefits for their employees and to increase access to these benefits.5 To effectuate these goals of uniform regulation, Congress expressly dictated that ERISA preempts all state laws that relate to ERISA plans.6 ERISA's unbridled preemption raised federalism concerns about the respective roles of the state and federal government. Traditionally, states have regulated insurance; to preserve some role for state authority, ERISA provides a narrow exception to its preemptive power over state laws. Under this "savings clause," state laws that regulate the business of insurance are saved from ERISA preemption even if such state laws relate to ERISA plans. ERISA was enacted in 1974, before the advent of health maintenance organizations (HMOs). As many commentators have noted, the emergence of HMOs as the primary providers of healthcare and health insurance in the U.S. has muddled the question of ERISA preemption. The ERISA preemption quandary results from the fact that many HMOs perform multiple functions, including management and provision of healthcare, and administration of ERISA plans. Moran is the most recent Supreme Court case to address where ERISA regulation ends and state regulation begins under ERISA preemption. Writing for the majority, Justice Souter aptly surmised the general issue that has plagued ERISA jurisprudence, namely the interpretation of the difficult language of ERISA that "seems simultaneously to preempt everything and hardly anything."7 In Moran, the Court addressed another issue stemming from this underlying quandary, which is whether the Illinois Act was a permissible state regulation of insurance or whether the Act was preempted by ERISA. Section 4-10 of the Illinois Act requires HMOs to submit benefit denials to an independent physician reviewer "in the event of a dispute between the primary care physician and the [HMO] regarding the medical necessity of a covered service proposed by a primary care physician."8 Under the Act, an independent physician reviewer must be unaffiliated with the HMO and jointly selected by the HMO and the patient. If the independent reviewer decides that the treatment is medically necessary and is a covered service under the contract, the HMO must provide the covered service. Respondent Debra Moran was a beneficiary of petitioner Rush Prudential's health plan, which was sponsored by her husband's employer. Under its Certificate of Group coverage issued to plan beneficiaries, Rush promised to provide its participants with medically necessary health services. Under Rush's plan, each participant selected a primary care physician from a group of physicians who had a contract with Rush. According to its contract, Rush was obliged to pay for medical services performed by an unaffiliated physician only if the services had been authorized by both the primary care physician and Rush's medical director.9 Moran suffered pain and numbness in her right shoulder. Her primary care physician's attempts to alleviate her discomfort through conservative treatments were unsuccessful. Moran's primary care physician recommended that Rush approve surgery by an unaffiliated specialist who had developed an unconventional treatment for Moran's condition. Despite her physician's recommendations, Rush denied Moran's request for coverage of the surgery because it found that the procedure was not medically necessary. …


The magnitude and waveshape of the induced voltages on 33 kV, three-phase overhead power distribution lines of both single-circuit and double-circuit configurations due to a nearby lightning stroke have been computed. The effect of ground conductivity and the presence of multiple conductors on the magnitude and waveshape of the induced voltages are also studied. A comparison is made on the induced voltages for a single-conductor overhead line as well as for single- and double-circuit power distribution line configurations. It has been observed that the ground impedance as well as the presence of multiple conductors has a significant influence on the induced voltages. The first peak of the induced voltage at the line termination is found to be less when only ground conductivity is taken into account in the horizontal electric field computation. It is reduced further when ground conductivity is included in the calculation of both the horizontal electric field as well as in the coupling of field to overhead conductor. At the midpoint of the line, the influence of ground conductivity on the induced voltage is such that it increases the first peak. The first peak of induced voltage near the line termination gets reduced in the presence of other conductors in a multiconductor line, whereas it remains almost constant at the midpoint of the line. However, the second peak increases with number of conductors in both cases. It is also observed that the induced voltage on a conductor is reduced if the number of conductors in a power distribution line circuit are increased. In the time-domain coupling equation used for the computation of induced voltage, the ground impedance is usually represented by a convolution integral. The low-frequency approximation used for the transient ground resistance presents singularity as $t\rightarrow0$. However, for the solution of the convolution integral a new approximate expression has been used, which circumvents the singularity.


Writing News for Broadcast is the Strunk and White of broadcast newswriting books. Long considered the gold standard of broadcast journalism textbooks, this guide for the student and the professional has inspired generations of newscasters through its eloquent examples and emphasis on the writer's responsibility, commitment, and integrity. It is written in a conversational style reflecting years of professional and teaching experience in radio and television newswriting. This new edition is fully revised with examples throughout, drawn from fine writing by journalists at networks and local stations. It includes updated chapters covering use of the wire services and special formats that have become popular in recent years such as the newsmagazine. But the third edition retains the inspirational quality that has for years made this text so widely respected. In this process of providing clear, succinct instruction in the basics of the trade, it conveys to students and practicing newswriters a sense of the extraordinary tradition within which they work. The authors' emphasis on skill and creativity, responsibility to the listener, and appreciation of the profession's finest hours and finest writers make this book unique.


Background: To be able to measure patient activity in a continuous and unobtrusive manner we are developing a new automated system based on Real Time Location Technology. This would also allow us to overcome limitations of the current activity monitoring methods.
Having established excellent reliability of the system (Intraclass Correlation Coefficients≥0.90) we validated it against Observational Behaviour Mapping Techniques and obtained a high level of agreement between the two methods. The mean differences for time spent in own room and physiotherapy room were 1.1 and 1.5 minutes respectively.
To date, the system has measured continuous activity of 43 patients from admission to discharge.
Methods: Each participant wore a Radio Frequency identification tag with an in-built motion sensor. This tag, worn on the unaffected wrist receives infra-red location signals from room locators fitted in all rooms accessed by the patients. The tag transmits the location and movement signals to a computer. Bespoke software programmes were developed to collect and process data. Descriptive statistics and charts were used for analysis.
Results: Here we report the individual activity profiles of 2 patients. Summary charts (emailed separately) illustrate some individual differences in the activity of these patients.
Both patients spent the majority of their time in their own rooms (mean 88.6% and 77.5%) where patient 2 was less active. Patients were most active whilst in physiotherapy (mean 98% and 95%).
Conclusion: With further development of the software we are aiming to build a comprehensive picture of functional recovery. Therefore, the analysis of other key aspects such as time spent sitting in the chair, lying in bed, transfers or walking in the corridor will be added. This may also give more insight into the kind of activity undertaken in their own rooms. Ultimately, the aim is to generate a better understanding of early rehabilitation post stroke.


NADPH oxidase 2 (Nox2) by generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) plays an important role in endothelial oxidative stress associated with obesity, insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes. In order to investigate the roles of Nox2 activation and ROS in high fat diet (HFD)-induced endothelial dysfunction and metabolic disorders, we crossed the Nox2-/- mice with the apolipoprotein E knockout (ApoE-/-) mice which is an established animal model to study dietary metabolic disorders. Littermates of ApoE-/- and Nox2/ApoE double knockout mice on the C57BL/6J background (6 weeks old, n = 9) were fed with HFD (45% kcal fat, 20% kcal protein and 35% kcal carbohydrate) or normal chow diet (NCD, 9.3% kcal fat, 25.9% kcal protein and 64.8% kcal carbohydrate) for 10 weeks. Body weights were measured weekly and mice were used at 16 weeks of age. Compared to age-matched NCD-fed mice, HFD ApoE-/- mice had hyperlipidaemia, hyperglycaemia and significant increases in body weight (NCD 27.9 ± 1.5 vs HFD 31.3 ± 1.1 g; p < 0.05). These metabolic changes were accompanied by significant increases in aorta ROS production as measured by lucigenin (5 µM)-chemiluminescence and DHE fluorescence, and a decrease in endothelium-dependent vessel relaxation to acetylcholine (Emax NCD 82.2 ± 5.5% vs HFD 68.7 ± 10.7%; p < 0.05) as assessed by an organ bath. HFD ApoE-/- mice had high blood pressure as compared to NCD controls (p < 0.05). Compared to ApoE-/- mice, Nox2/ApoE double knockout mice under the same HFD had no significant increases in levels of fasting LDL, triglyceride and glucose and their body weights were maintained at the NCD levels (NCD 29.1 ± 0.8 vs HFD 29.0 ± 0.7 g). The aorta ROS production and the endothelium-dependent vessel relaxation to acetylcholine were well preserved (Emax NCD 75.1 ± 11.0% vs HFD 78.1 ± 3.6%). HFD Nox2/ApoE double knockout mice had normal blood pressure. In conclusion, Nox2-derived oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of dietary obesity-associated metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction. Targeting Nox2-derived ROS represents a valuable therapeutic strategy to these diseases.


The role of fathers in the development of children with special needs has been emphasized in theoretical studies. The implications of these contributions to research in the field, however, are not clear. This paper presents a review of Brazi - lian and international studies published in the last 15 years in the field of fatherhood and children with special needs, focusing on the analysis of the main topics of research and methods used. A search was conducted in the PsycINFO international database and two Brazilian databases, Index Psi and the database of Dissertations and Theses organized by CAPES, which generated an initial list of 415 publications. Analysis of the list enabled an overview of scientific production in the field. The profiles of Brazilian and international studies were compared. There is a change in the configuration of research in this field, driven by theoretical contributions, although the father is not the main focus of such studies.


The financial success or otherwise of a maintenance strategy can be determined realistically only when actual costs are compared with target 'predicted' values. This is because, in the absence of accurate cost control mechanisms, maintenance expenditure can exceed capital cost. In order to address this problem, a methodology is presented for predicting life cycle maintenance expenditure over the useful life of tracked hydraulic excavators. First, time series analysis (using a moving centred average) illustrates that the trend in maintenance cost expenditure is difficult to isolate due to large perturbations in periodic unscheduled maintenance. Such expenditure accounts for 92% of total maintenance cost. Second, cumulative costs of maintenance are modelled using a cubic equation, with time (in hours) as the predictor (xn) variable. Model performance is robust with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.99 and a mean percentage error (MPE) of minus 3.94. The paper concludes with direction for future research in this field, particularly with respect to expanding the model's application to machines of various weights, manufacturers and machines operating in other industries, and determination of criteria with which to predict when a plant item will reach the end of its useful life.


Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are remarkably sensitive and responsive while interacting with humans. Pet dogs are known to have social skills and abilities to display situation-specific responses, but there is lack of information regarding free-ranging dogs which constitute majority of the world's dog population. Free-ranging dogs found in most of the developing countries interact constantly with familiar and unfamiliar humans receiving both positive and negative behavior. Thus, understanding human intentions and subsequent behavioral adjustments are crucial for dogs that share habitats with humans. Here we subjected free-ranging dogs to different human social communicative cues (friendly and threatening – low and high), followed by a food provisioning phase and tested their responsiveness. Dogs exhibited higher proximity seeking behavior as a reaction to friendly gesture whereas, they were prompted to maintain distance depending on the impact of the threatening cues. Interestingly, only the high-impact threatening showed to have a persistent effect which also remained during the subsequent food provisioning phase. An elevated approach in the food provisioning phase elicited the dependency of free-ranging dogs on humans for sustenance. Our findings suggest that free-ranging dogs demonstrate behavioral plasticity on interacting with humans; which provides significant insights into the establishment of the dog-human relationship on streets.


Background
The mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (mini-CEX) and direct observation of procedural skills (DOPS) are reliable tools for work-based assessment of medical trainees. Tools of this type do not yet exist for evaluation of practical laboratory skills of pathology residents.

Objective
We developed and piloted a 9-item instrument for direct observation of laboratory skills (DOLS).

Methods
We used the DOLS tool with 10 hematopathology residents (PGY-1 to PGY-5) from Aga Khan University. Each resident was evaluated by 3 faculty members in the laboratory during 4 separate encounters using the DOLS instrument. We assessed construct validity, interrater reliability and G coefficient, feasibility of using DOLS, and learner satisfaction.

Results
A total of 120 encounters were observed with a mean score (±1 SD) of 56.7% (±12.44). Assessment scores moderately correlated with the number of laboratory procedures previously performed by participants (r = 0.658 and 0.641; P = .0001) and with PGY level. Interrater reliability ranged between 0.47 and 0.96. Cohen's d was 1.64. Residents accounted for a large component of estimated variance (73%), suggesting DOLS can differentiate residents' laboratory skills; variance associated with assessors was small (0.01%). Residents reported being satisfied with the tool. Mean time (±1 SD) taken for observing and feedback was 17.89 ± 5.89 minutes.

Conclusions
The new DOLS instrument could provide reliable scores for observing laboratory skills. Residents were satisfied with the tool, and rating times make the tool feasible for formative assessments.


The protective efficacy of mAbs to Cryptococcus neoformans glucuronoxylomannan depends on Ab isotype. Previous studies in A/JCr and C57BL/6J mice showed relative protective efficacy of IgG1, IgG2a ≫ IgG3. However, we now report that in C57BL/6J × 129/Sv mice, IgG3 is protective while IgG1 is not protective, with neither isotype being protective in 129/Sv mice. IgG1, IgG2a, and IgG3 had different effects on IFN-γ expression in infected C57BL/6J × 129/Sv mice. IgG1-treated C57BL/6J × 129/Sv mice had significantly more pulmonary eosinophilia than IgG2a- and IgG3-treated C57BL/6J × 129/Sv mice. C. neoformans infection and Ab administration had different effects on FcγRI, FcγRII, and FcγRIII expression in C57BL/6J, 129/Sv, and C57BL/6J × 129/Sv mice. Our results indicate that the relative efficacy of Ab isotype function against C. neoformans is a function of the genetic background of the host and that IgG3-mediated protection in C57BL/6J × 129/Sv mice was associated with lower levels of IFN-γ and fewer pulmonary eosinophils. The dependence of isotype efficacy on host genetics underscores a previously unsuspected complex relationship between the cellular and humoral arms of the adaptive immune response.


In 1968 James T. Gillam was a poorly focused college student at Ohio University who was dismissed and then drafted into the Army. Unlike most African Americans who entered the Army then, he became a Sergeant and an instructor at the Fort McClellan Alabama School of Infantry. In September 1968 he joined the First Battalion, 22nd Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. Within a month he transformed from an uncertain sergeant—who tried to avoid combat—to an aggressive soldier, killing his first enemy and planning and executing successful ambushes in the jungle. Gillam was a regular point man and occasional tunnel rat who fought below ground, an arena that few people knew about until after the war ended. By January 1970 he had earned a Combat Infantry Badge and been promoted to Staff Sergeant. Then Washington's politics and military strategy took his battalion to the border of Cambodia. Search-and-destroy missions became longer and deadlier. From January to May his unit hunted and killed the enemy in a series of intense firefights, some of them in close combat. In those months Gillam was shot twice and struck by shrapnel twice. He became a savage, strangling a soldier in hand-to-hand combat inside a lightless tunnel. As his mid-summer date to return home approached, Gillam became fiercely determined to come home alive. The ultimate test of that determination came during the Cambodian invasion. On his last night in Cambodia, the enemy got inside the wire of the firebase, and the killing became close range and brutal. Gillam left the Army in June 1970, and within two weeks of his last encounter with death, he was once again a college student and destined to become a university professor. The nightmares and guilt about killing are gone, and so is the callous on his soul. Life and Death in the Central Highlands is a gripping, personal account of one soldier's war in Vietnam.


Background and aim: It is not known why some reflux episodes evoke symptoms and others do not. We investigated the determinants of perception of gastro-oesophageal reflux. Methods: In 32 patients with symptoms suggestive of gastro-oesophageal reflux, 24 hour ambulatory pH and impedance monitoring was performed after cessation of acid suppressive therapy. In the 20 patients who had at least one symptomatic reflux episode, characteristics of symptomatic and asymptomatic reflux episodes were compared. Results: A total of 1807 reflux episodes were detected, 203 of which were symptomatic. Compared with asymptomatic episodes, symptomatic episodes were associated with a larger pH drop (p 0.001), lower nadir pH (p 0.05), and higher proximal extent (p 0.005). Symptomatic reflux episodes had a longer volume and acid clearance time (p 0.05 and p 0.002). Symptomatic episodes were preceded by a higher oesophageal cumulative acid exposure time (p 0.05). The proximal extent of episodes preceding regurgitation was larger than those preceding heartburn; 14.8% of the symptomatic reflux episodes were weakly acidic. In total, 426 pure gas reflux episodes occurred, of which 12 were symptomatic. Symptomatic pure gas reflux was more frequently accompanied by a pH drop than asymptomatic gas reflux (p 0.05). Conclusions: Heartburn and regurgitation are more likely to be evoked when the pH drop is large, proximal extent of the refluxate is high, and volume and acid clearance is delayed. Sensitisation of the oesophagus occurs by preceding acid exposure. Weakly acidic reflux is responsible for only a minority of symptoms in patients off therapy. Pure gas reflux associated with a pH drop (" acid vapour" ) can be perceived as heartburn and regurgitation.


Research on migration and development has recently changed, in two ways. First, it has grown sharply in volume, emerging as a proper subfield. Second, while it once embraced principally rural–urban migration and international remittances, migration and development research has broadened to consider a range of international development processes. These include human capital investment, global diaspora networks, circular or temporary migration, and the transfer of technology and cultural norms. For this special issue, we present a selection of frontier migration-and-development research that instantiates these trends.


Many signals involved in pathophysiology are controlled by hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs), transcription factors that induce expression of hypoxia-responsive genes. HIFs are highly conserved master regulators of oxygen homeostasis. These factors are post-translationally regulated by a family of oxygen-dependent HIF hydroxylases, whose members include four prolyl 4-hydroxylases (PHD1-4) and an asparaginyl hydroxylase (FIH-1). All HIF hydroxylases require molecular oxygen, Fe(II), ascorbate, and 2-oxoglutarate as cofactors. We hypothesized that alterations in subcellular localization may provide an additional point of regulation for the HIF pathway in response to hypoxia. Most of these enzymes are abundant in resting liver, an organ which is itself unique due to its physiologic oxygen gradient, and they can exist in both nuclear and cytoplasmic pools. In this study, we analyzed the localization of endogenous HIFs and their regulatory hydroxylases in primary rat hepatocytes cultured under hypoxia-reoxygenation conditions. We observed an absence of nuclear HIF-1a activation in hypoxic hepatocytes, even though several known HIF target genes were upregulated, suggesting that HIF-2a and HIF-3a are the predominant isoforms in liver. We show that in hepatocytes, hypoxia-reoxygenation targets HIF-1a to the peroxisome rather than the nucleus, where it co-localizes with the von Hippel Lindau protein (VHL) and the HIF hydroxylases. Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy demonstrated that the HIF hydroxylases can translocate from the nucleus to the cytoplasm in response to hypoxia, with increased accumulation in peroxisomes upon reoxygenation. These results were confirmed via immuno-transmission electron microscopy and Western blotting. Surprisingly, in resting liver tissue, peri-venous localization of the HIF hydroxylases was detected, consistent with areas of low oxygenation. This was in contrast to nuclear HIF-1a, which was undetectable in a number of liver injury models. In conclusion, these studies establish the peroxisome as a highly relevant site of subcellular localization and function for the endogenous HIF pathway in hepatocytes.


Part I: Dynamic Voltage RestorerIn the present power grids, voltage sags are recognized as a serious threat and a frequently occurring power-quality problem and have costly consequence such as sensitive loads tripping and production loss. Consequently, the demand for high power quality and voltage stability becomes a pressing issue. Dynamic voltage restorer (DVR), as a custom power device, is more effective and direct solutions for "restoring" the quality of voltage at its load-side terminals when the quality of voltage at its source-side terminals is disturbed. In the first part of this thesis, a DVR configuration with no need of bulky dc link capacitor or energy storage is proposed. This fact causes to reduce the size of the DVR and increase the reliability of the circuit. In addition, the proposed DVR topology is based on high-frequency isolation transformer resulting in the size reduction of transformer. The proposed DVR circuit, which is suitable for both low- and medium-voltage applications, is based on dc-ac converters connected in series to split the main dc link between the inputs of dc-ac converters. This feature makes it possible to use modular dc-ac converters and utilize low-voltage components in these converters whenever it is required to use DVR in medium-voltage application. The proposed configuration is tested under different conditions of load power factor and grid voltage harmonic. It has been shown that proposed DVR can compensate the voltage sag effectively and protect the sensitive loads.Following the proposition of the DVR topology, a fundamental voltage amplitude detection method which is applicable in both single/three-phase systems for DVR applications is proposed. The advantages of proposed method include application in distorted power grid with no need of any low-pass filter, precise and reliable detection, simple computation and implementation without using a phased locked loop and lookup table. The proposed method has been verified by simulation and experimental tests under various conditions considering all possible cases such as different amounts of voltage sag depth (VSD), different amounts of point-on-wave (POW) at which voltage sag occurs, harmonic distortion, line frequency variation, and phase jump (PJ). Furthermore, the ripple amount of fundamental voltage amplitude calculated by the proposed method and its error is analyzed considering the line frequency variation together with harmonic distortion. The best and worst detection time of proposed method were measured 1ms and 8.8ms, respectively. Finally, the proposed method has been compared with other voltage sag detection methods available in literature.Part 2: Power System Modeling for Renewable Energy IntegrationAs power distribution systems are evolving into more complex networks, electrical engineers have to rely on software tools to perform circuit analysis. There are dozens of powerful software tools available in the market to perform the power system studies. Although their main functions are similar, there are differences in features and formatting structures to suit specific applications. This creates challenges for transferring power system circuit models data (PSCMD) between different software and rebuilding the same circuit in the second software environment. The objective of this part of thesis is to develop a Unified Platform (UP) to facilitate transferring PSCMD among different software packages and relieve the challenges of the circuit model conversion process. UP uses a commonly available spreadsheet file with a defined format, for any home software to write data to and for any destination software to read data from, via a script-based application called PSCMD transfer application. The main considerations in developing the UP are to minimize manual intervention and import a one-line diagram into the destination software or export it from the source software, with all details to allow load flow, short circuit and other analyses. In this study, ETAP, OpenDSS, and GridLab-D are considered, and PSCMD transfer applications written in MATLAB have been developed for each of these to read the circuit model data provided in the UP spreadsheet. In order to test the developed PSCMD transfer applications, circuit model data of a test circuit and a power distribution circuit from Southern California Edison (SCE) - a utility company - both built in CYME, were exported into the spreadsheet file according to the UP format. Thereafter, circuit model data were imported successfully from the spreadsheet files into above mentioned software using the PSCMD transfer applications developed for each software. After the SCE studied circuit is transferred into OpenDSS software using the proposed UP scheme and developed application, it has been studied to investigate the impacts of large-scale solar energy penetration. The main challenge of solar energy integration into power grid is its intermittency (i.e., discontinuity of output power) nature due to cloud shading of photovoltaic panels which depends on weather conditions. In order to conduct this study, OpenDSS time-series simulation feature, which is required due to intermittency of solar energy, is utilized. In this study, the impacts of intermittency of solar energy penetration, especially high-variability points, on voltage fluctuation and operation of capacitor bank and voltage regulator is provided. In addition, the necessity to interpolate and resample unequally spaced time-series measurement data and convert them to equally spaced time-series data as well as the effect of resampling time-interval on the amount of error is discussed. Two applications are developed in Matlab to do interpolation and resampling as well as to calculate the amount of error for different resampling time-intervals to figure out the suitable resampling time-interval. Furthermore, an approach based on cumulative distribution, regarding the length for lines/cables types and the power rating for loads, is presented to prioritize which loads, lines and cables the meters should be installed at to have the most effect on model validation.


We study the communication complexity of combinatorial auctions via interpolation mechanisms that interpolate between non-truthful and truthful protocols. Specifically an interpolation mechanism has two phases. In the first phase, the bidders participate in some non-truthful protocol whose output is itself a truthful protocol. In the second phase, the bidders participate in the truthful protocol selected during phase one. Note that virtually all existing auctions have either a non-existent first phase (and are therefore truthful mechanisms), or a non-existent second phase (and are therefore just traditional protocols, analyzed via the Price of Anarchy/Stability). The goal of this paper is to understand the benefits of interpolation mechanisms versus truthful mechanisms or traditional protocols, and develop the necessary tools to formally study them. Interestingly, we exhibit settings where interpolation mechanisms greatly outperform the optimal traditional and truthful protocols. Yet, we also exhibit settings where interpolation mechanisms are provably no better than truthful ones. Finally, we apply our new machinery to prove that the recent single-bid mechanism of Devanur et. al. [DMSW15] (the only pre-existing interpolation mechanism in the literature) achieves the optimal price of anarchy among a wide class of protocols, a claim that simply can't be addressed by appealing just to machinery from communication complexity or the study of truthful mechanisms.


Crime suspects in the USA are typically questioned in a two-step process aimed, first, at behavioural lie detection during a pre-interrogation interview, followed by the elicitation of a confession during the interrogation itself (in Great Britain, the practice of investigative interviewing does not make this sharp distinction). Research conducted on the first step shows that police investigators often target innocent people for interrogation because of erroneous but confident judgments of deception. Research on the second step shows that innocent people are sometimes induced to confess to crimes they did not commit as a function of certain dispositional vulnerabilities or the use of overly persuasive interrogation tactics. Citing recent studies, this paper proposes that laboratory paradigms be used to help build more diagnostic models of interrogation. Substantively, we suggest that the British PEACE approach to investigative interviewing may provide a potentially effective alternative to the classic American interrogation. As a matter of policy, we suggest that the videotaping of entire interrogations from a balanced camera perspective is necessary to improve the fact finding accuracy of judges and juries who must evaluate confession evidence in court.


The George Institute in Australia and China collaborated on a pilot study, funded by the FIA Foundation, to develop and evaluate a driver education and training program to reduce novice driver crashes in China. The program was established and implemented in Beijing during 2010-2011. A randomised control trial was conducted with recently licensed drivers recruited through official driving schools. Block randomisation was used to randomise participants to the intervention (n=64) or control group (n=63), with the latter receiving roadside assistance memberships to similar monetary value as the intervention. The intervention included a DVD education program on novice-specific risks plus six hours of in-vehicle training focused on maintaining a safety gap around the vehicle. Participants completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires at approximately four months apart. Recruitment proved challenging, however, once involved, all participants bar one continued through to follow-up. Relatively equal distribution by age, gender and other characteristics was achieved. Very low incidence of any risk taking was reported. Trained participants were significantly more likely to transition to driving-related employment positions and also, but not significantly, reported greater average driving exposure, driving risks and inflated perceptions of their ability than controls. There was no difference in crash involvement (9 participants or 14 per cent in each group). Findings may reflect cultural differences in research familiarity and reporting as much as actual outcomes of the intervention; notwithstanding limitations in participant numbers and self-reported methods applied. The potential for the program to lead to over-calibration and increased risk cannot be discounted. More effort is needed in future studies to build rapport with participants and to have local endorsements to support truthful responding without consequences. Representative research and more local data on novice crash and offence issues is also needed to increase our understanding of novice driver risks in China and how to best address them.


Compressed Sensing (CS) and Total Variation (TV)- based iterative image reconstruction algorithms have received increased attention recently. This is due to the ability of such methods to reconstruct from limited and noisy data. Local TV methods fail to preserve texture details and fine structures, which are tedious for the method to distinguish from noise. In many cases local methods also create additional artifacts due to over smoothing. Non-Local Total Variation (NLTV) has been increasingly used for medical imaging applications. However, it is not updated in every iteration of the algorithm, has a high computational complexity and depends on the scale of pairwise parameters. In this work we propose using Adaptive Graph- based TV in combination with CS (ACSGT). Similar to NLTV our proposed method goes beyond spatial similarity between different regions of an image being reconstructed by establishing a connection between similar regions in the image regardless of spatial distance. However, it is computationally much more efficient and scalable when compared to NLTV due to the use of approximate nearest neighbor search algorithm. Moreover, our method is adaptive, i.e, it involves updating the graph prior every iteration making the connection between similar regions stronger. Since TV is a special case of graph TV the proposed method can be seen as a generalization of CS and TV methods. We test our proposed algorithm by reconstructing a variety of different phantoms from limited and corrupted data and observe that we achieve a better result with ACSGT in every case.


PURPOSE
To determine the antitumor activity of ABX-EGF, a fully human monoclonal antibody to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr), in previously treated patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and to characterize its toxicity, immunogenicity, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
The antitumor activity, as well as the toxicity, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and immunogenicity of ABX-EGF, were assessed.

RESULTS
Eighty-eight patients were treated with ABX-EGF doses of 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, or 2.5 mg/kg weekly with no loading dose. EGFr immunostaining was performed on 76 tumor biopsy specimens (86%), and 69 (91%) scored positive. Major responses occurred in three patients, and two patients had minor responses. Forty-four patients (50%) also had stable disease at their first 8-week assessment, and the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 100 days (95% CI, 58 to 140 days). Low hemoglobin and high alkaline phosphatase predicted for short PFS. The principal toxicity, an acneiform rash, occurred in 68%, 95%, 87%, and 100% of patients who received at least three doses of ABX-EGF at 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 mg/kg/wk, respectively. A trend indicated that the severity of the rash may relate to PFS. No human antihuman antibodies were detected. ABX-EGF pharmacokinetics fit a model that incorporated both linear and saturable EGFr-mediated clearance mechanisms, and interindividual variability was low. At 2.5 mg/kg/wk, ABX-EGF concentrations throughout treatment exceeded those estimated to saturate nonlinear clearance and inhibit xenograft growth by 90%.

CONCLUSION
ABX-EGF was generally well tolerated. The objective response rate was low in previously treated patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Although skin rash may be a pharmacodynamic marker of drug action, its potential as a surrogate marker of clinical benefit requires further evaluation.


This study aims to determine the student's response to the D-PBL learning model on the material of payment system and the means of economic exchange. The research method used was pre-experimental design using one-shot case study design. The sample of this research were 21 tenth grade students of high schools in Indonesia. The data collection methods used in this study were interviews, observations and questionnaires. Observations were used to assess the syntax implementation of the D-PBL learning model in the classroom learning process, and the questionnaire was used to find out the students' responses to the D-PBL model covering the display aspect, material relevance aspects, contextual learning aspects, and advantage aspects. The observation data were analysed using Guttman scale while the students' responses were analysed using five-point Likert scale. The results showed that the syntaxes implementation of the D-PBL model in the classroom learning process was 100%, and the average score of the students' responses to the D-PBL model was categorized as very good with a score of 91.9%. This study also showed that the students responded very positively to the D-PBL learning model. This indicates that the D-PBL learning model aims to construct the knowledge of the students through meaningful problem solving as well as to assist them in understanding the material of the payment system and the means of economic exchange.


Creating effective education programs for students with autism spectrum disorder is challenging for schools for a variety of reasons, most notably because of the increase in population, a widespread lack of expertise, and the variability in the presentation of the disorder itself. This study takes a systems approach to understanding how to meet the needs of students with autism. It examines the reliability and validity of an observational tool that was designed to analyze the quality of an educational program for students with autism spectrum disorders. The Best Practice Measures for Educating Students with Autism: Lesson Observation and Document Audit Matrix (Autism LODAM) was created by synthesizing the relevant research on those program elements that are essential to an appropriate education for all students with autism. It is a tool created specifically for school systems and is designed to assist program administrators in analyzing their specific needs and creating steps for change. The study examined content validity, interrater reliability and predictive validity. Overall, the Autism LODAM was determined to be a reliable and valid measure of program quality for students with autism spectrum disorders. It can be used by schools to help them more systematically understand the present state of their educational program for this population, and more importantly can be used to outline specific areas for improvement. It is hoped that this study and the Autism LODAM can help generate real change in the quality of education for students with autism on a broad scale by providing a comprehensive tool that will measure all elements of program quality for this unique population.


The privatisation of the British railway industry was announced in 1992, and a central plank of the government's strategy was to liberalise British Rail's (BR's) passenger market at the time of its divestiture. Competition was to be introduced both for the market, through franchising, and in the market, by freeing up access to the rail network. This thesis examines the policy adopted to promote competition in the British passenger railway industry. Its central aim is to assess the extent to which the promotion of competition between passenger train operators was an appropriate policy goal. In pursuit of this aim, the thesis critically evaluates the evolution, outcome and future prospects of rail liberalisation policy and closely examines the translation of neoliberalism the theory of political economy upon which rail privatisation was based into practical policy measures. A significant original investigation, drawing upon the experiences of key personnel involved in framing, executing and operating within the policy, augments secondary data to provide an in-depth level of analysis not currently available within the literature. The study employs predominantly inductive, qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, which together constitute a relatively novel investigative approach within transport geography. The empirical results are presented and discussed against the background of the other `network' industry privatisations of the 1980s and early 1990s. The main findings are that, despite the sale of BR having been considered by the government for more than a decade, the privatisation and liberalisation strategy advanced by the 1992 White Paper, New Opportunities for the Railways, was not the result of a coherent policy analysis. The opportunities for, and even appropriateness of, a neoliberal agenda to promote competition between train operators were not sufficiently well understood by government when the proposals were adopted. Competition for the market, nevertheless, would appear to be a workable and `successful' policy option, with the scope to offer long-term benefits to the rail industry should future governments choose to seek them. Competition in the market, on the other hand, is far less appropriate and continued emphasis on this aspect of rail policy could damage the industry's prospects in the coming years. Finally, the overall success of franchising seems to have occurred despite the muddled circumstances in which the Conservatives formulated rail privatisation policy, whereas the general failure of `on-rail' competition seems to reflect them.


When Maud Russell (1893-1989) first sailed for China in 1917, she traveled as one of a number of "foreign secretaries" dispatched by the YWCA to do "Woman's Work for Woman." A product of the Progressive Era, she sought to bring the benefits of Christianity and Western civilization to a new generation of Chinese women struggling to find their own path to modernity in the wake of the 1911 Republican Revolution. Instead, over the next twenty-six years, Russell was herself transformed - from Christian liberal reformer to committed Marxist revolutionary. According to Karen Gamer, Russell's personal political trajectory paralleled that of the YWCA in China, which evolved during the 1920s and 1930s from a Westernled, middle-class-oriented institution into a Chinese-led organization that addressed the needs of revolutionary working women. Crossing class, race, and cultural boundaries to learn from their Chinese associates, Russell and a few other western YWCA secretaries developed a shared vision of feminist social change that included support for the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership. Returning to the United States during World War II, Russell joined American liberals and leftists in promoting government cooperation with the Soviet Union and other Communist Party-led states and movements. After the war her views, including her advocacy of a "one world" Progressive Party, collided with the anticommunist imperatives of the emerging Cold War. In response, Russell adopted a defensive and dogmatic pro-communist stance from which she would never retreat. During a long and at times lonely career as a radical activist and publisher of the Far East Reporter (1952-1989), Russell was defamed and investigated by the anticommunist right and embraced by the antiwar New Left Her notoriety as a proponent of friendship with the People's Republic of China soared during the restoration of U.S-China diplomatic relations in the 1970s, only to dissolve in the 1980s as she denounced the revival of capitalist economics in China on ideological grounds. Although Russell's own political vision may have narrowed over the years, Garner's reconstruction of her life broadens our understanding of U.S.-China relations during the twentieth century. Not only did Russell come to see her own country through the eyes of an ideological antagonist, she also brought to that vantage point the experiences of a modern American woman. As Garner shows, even if one did not agree with Russell's views, one could not deny the fervor of her commitment to gender equality, social justice, and internationalism.


This research investigates context effects in social surveys. Context effects, the ways in which previous questions affect responses to later questions, can occur when questions deal with aspects of closely related issues. Such effects have been explained by reference to social cognition, social judgement and cognitive consistency theories. Following a review of the literature, three 'split-ballot' experiments, exploring how increasing the salience of particular topics affects responses to related questions, were conducted in a multi-wave national panel survey in Iceland. The first experiment investigates the effects of knowledge questions on expressed political interest. Respondents who were asked the knowledge questions first reported less interest in politics than did other respondents. Contrary to self-perception theory, it is argued that the knowledge questions serve as a frame of reference for the interpretation of the vague phrase, 'to follow what is going on in government and public affairs'. In the second experiment the accessibility of particular topics was increased by providing specific or general examples in the preamble to a question asking about the most important problems facing the nation. The results lend support to the principle of cognitive accessibility, which suggests that respondents do not systematically retrieve all relevant information stored in memory but base their answers on the most accessible information. It is argued that the specific examples widen the question's frame of reference and thus change its meaning. In the third experiment general attitude questions about abortion and nuclear weapons were placed either in pro- or anti-contexts. Respondents who agreed with the context items showed an assimilation effect, whereas those who disagreed showed a contrast effect. It is concluded that due to the inherent instability and complexity of attitudes, responses to attitude questions are likely to be influenced by the immediate context in which they are asked.


Abstract Introduction Although there has been considerable progress in the use of administrative data for applied health research, the family justice field lags behind. Better use of administrative data are essential to enhance understanding of how the family justice system is working, as well as the characteristics of, and outcomes for, children and families. The Family Justice Data Partnership (FJDP) supports this aim through analyses of core family justice and linked datasets in the SAIL Databank (Secure Anonymised Information Linkage). Cafcass Cymru provide expert advice for children involved in family court proceedings in Wales, ensuring decisions are made in the best interests of the child. We provide an overview of Cafcass Cymru data. We also describe and illustrate linkage to administrative datasets within SAIL. Methods Cafcass Cymru data was transferred to SAIL using a standardised approach to provide de-identified data with Anonymised Linking Fields (ALF) for successfully matched records. Three cohorts were created: all individuals involved in family court applications; all individuals with an ALF allowing subsequent health data linkage; and all individuals with a Residential Anonymised Linking Field (RALF) enabling area-level deprivation analysis. Results Cafcass Cymru application data are available for child protection matters (public law, range 2011-2019, n=12,745), and child arrangement disputes (private law, range 2005-2019, n=52,023). An 80% data linkage match rate was achieved. 40% had hospital admissions within two years pre or post application; 54% had emergency department attendances and 61% had outpatient appointments. Individuals were more likely to reside in deprived areas regardless of law type. Conclusion Cafcass Cymru data can be accessed through the SAIL Databank. The FJDP will continue to enhance research opportunities for all to better understand the family justice system, and outcomes for those involved, such as health and wellbeing for children and family members.


This collected work, written primarily by practical theologians, reflects on the phenomenon of corruption in the liberal democracy of post-apartheid South Africa. Liberal democracy has considerable salience in the contemporary world. Not only is it the form that many of the world's most powerful and influential nations approve of, but it is a political system that has been tried – and used – by many developing countries. South Africa is described as predominantly Christian, and in such a context corruption should not be expected. However, it is strongly prevalent and undermines the values of both democracy and Christianity. Not only does corruption promote a general lack of trust in institutions and leadership, but it stimulates a perpetual culture of corruption that invades all spheres of life. The book suggests strategies for redressing the current 'culture of corruption'. Although the chapters represent different perspectives, the shared objective is to emphasise that corruption is unethical, as well as to describe and explain why it is taking place and how the situation should appear. The explanation focuses on the negative consequence of corruption: it does not respect human dignity or the 'otherness' of others; it exacerbates poverty; it weakens religious values and norms; and it is not conducive to social cohesion in the country. The authors also share the theological premise that God is present in this world. In the kingdom of God, believers are encouraged to participate in the 'clean-up' process which includes combating the phenomenon of corruption.


In spite of the
fully-hinged shell being the defining characteristic of box turtles, few
studies have quantified the behavioural use of the shell in response to
predator encounters. While it is often assumed that box turtles simply withdraw
into their shell in response to threats, we expected variability among
individuals in shell usage and in the degree of head and limb retraction
because withdrawal is likely to be costly. We tested the behavioural and
physiological responses of free-ranging eastern box turtles to stimuli of
varying intensity: observation only, a visual stimulus, a poke on the leg, or a
pinch on the leg before being flipped. The more intense the simulated predatory
stimulus, the more likely turtles were to fully close their shell. However, stimulus
intensity did not affect plasma corticosterone or lactate levels. This may be
due to too brief or weak of a stimulus, increased parasympathetic activity, or
seasonal effects. Upon capture and during handling, almost all turtles withdrew
into their shells and closed their anterior plastron, although fewer closed
their posterior plastron, and a few engaged in other behaviours such as biting
and urinating. Older, larger turtles were able to close their shells with
greater strength than younger and smaller turtles. Our results indicate that in
spite of their fully closable shell, box turtles exhibit a graded response to
perceived threats. This suggests that full closure of the shell is likely to be
costly and occurs only in response to the most intense stimuli.


A common design pattern in spoken dialog systems is to reject an input when the recognition confidence score falls below a preset rejection threshold. However, this introduces a potentially non-optimal tradeoff between various types of errors such as misunderstandings and false rejections. In this paper, we propose a data-driven method for determining the relative costs of these errors, and then use these costs to optimize state-specific rejection thresholds. We illustrate the use of this approach with data from a spoken dialog system that handles conference room reservations. The results obtained confirm our intuitions about the costs of the errors, and are consistent with anecdotal evidence gathered throughout the use of the system.


We set up a two-sided market framework to model competition between a Prefered Provider Organization (PPO) and a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). Both health plans compete to attract policyholders on one side and providers on the other. The PPO, which is characterized by a higher diversity of providers, attracts riskier policyholders. Our two-sided framework allows us to examine the consequences of this risk segmentation on the providers' side, especially in terms of remuneration. The outcome of the competition depends mainly on two effects: a demand effect, influenced by the value put by policyholders on the providers access and an adverse selection effect, captured by the characteristics of the health risk distribution. If the adverse selection effect is too strong, the HMO receives a higher profit in equilibrium. On the contrary, if the demand effect dominates, the PPO profit is higher in spite of the unfavorable risk segmentation. We believe that by highlighting the two-sided market structure of the health plans' competition, our model provides a new insight to understand the increase in the PPOs' market share as observed in the USA during the last decade.


A Wonder Woman and bride-to-be finds herself worse for wear at the end of a hen night; a funeral director's love of Manchester United proves unhelpful when talking to the bereaved; two overly-vigilant mothers wrestle with their paranoia in the queue for Santa's Grotto; a widow recounts her disastrous return to the world of dating and a father realises that his son is growing away from him as he helps him tie his football boots. In these snippets of overheard conversations from across the length and breadth of the country, Craig Taylor captures the state we're in with humour and pathos and perfect timing. Laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes heartbreakingly moving, these tiny plays in which every one of us could have a starring role are little windows into other people's lives that reveal the triumphs, disasters, prejudices, horrors and joys of twenty-first-century life. Hugely entertaining and utterly addictive, this is book that can be dipped into or feasted upon in one sitting. It will change the way you listen to the world around you, and train journeys will never be the same again.


THE CHURCH AS SYMBOLIC MEDIATION: REVELATION ECCLESIOLOGY IN THE THEOLOGY OF AVERY DULLES, S. J. Abraham B. Fisher, B.S., M.A. Marquette University, 2013 This dissertation examines closely the theology of Avery Dulles, S.J., arguing that when Dulles' symbolic-mediation theology of revelation is viewed through the lens of his sacramental ecclesiology, there emerges an ecclesiology that recognizes and emphasizes the revelatory nature of the church. This study constructs this "revelation ecclesiology" by bringing Dulles' signature theologies of the church and revelation into conversation. At the intersection of those two theologies stands the reality of symbol – a defining characteristic for both the theology of the church as a sacramental reality and the theology of revelation as an event of divine self-communication. The study begins, therefore, by defining the concept of symbol, and the related foundational concepts of revelation, church and sacrament, as they function theologically within Dulles' corpus. The study then demonstrates the crucial role of symbol in the development of Dulles' sacramental ecclesiology, arguing that the unique efficacy of symbol lies at the heart of the sacramental reality. Because of its sacramental nature, the church demonstrates the efficacy and modality of symbol, but also possesses an ontological connection to Christ, the primordial sacrament. The study continues with a demonstration of Dulles' conviction that the phenomenon of divine revelation is an event of communication with a transactional character. Revelation requires both an offer and a reception in order to realize itself as an accomplished event, however, this reception must be according to the mode of the receiver and thus requires a mediation. Symbol is the reality that is uniquely capable of providing this necessary mediation. Finally, the study concludes that Dulles' corpus provides evidence that the sacrament of the church functions as precisely that symbolic mediation which characterizes the event of revelation. Thus the sacrament of the church is what Dulles has termed a revelatory symbol, i.e., one which expresses and mediates God's selfcommunication in Christ. A final chapter concludes the study with an exploration of the implications of the constructed revelation ecclesiology for several significant current theological issues and questions: the mission of the church, the unity of revelation, the possibility and necessity of ecclesial reform, ecumenical dialogue, and the question of the closure of revelation.


The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries urgently need a dramatic increase in electricity production to support rapid economic and social development in the coming decades. Yet, the populations of the GCC countries are among the highest users of energy in the world today, due to the harsh climate and to inefficiencies in transmission and consumption. In this volume, experts discuss the future composition of the Gulf energy sector, the challenges faced in meeting growing energy requirements, the need for greater energy conservation, and ways of reducing the anticipated surge in demand. The region will depend on a variety of energy sources, including alternatives such as renewable energy, and nuclear energy - which, in a vitally important region such as the Gulf, will have technical, geopolitical and strategic concerns that must be addressed.


Part 1 will consider why many of the key libel cases at the heart of libel tourism have arisen from terrorism-related speech. It will be necessary to reflect upon why late modernity engenders speech about terrorism across borders. Part 2 tackles the recent practice of libel tourism itself, as related to the paradigm case of allegations about involvement in terrorism. It explains the relevant English libel law litigation, based in London, and the U.S. reactions to it, initially hatched in New York. Part 3 suggests why this apparently contrasting tale of two cities might be a "tall tale". The paper does not deny the different approaches and outcomes in libel laws in the respective jurisdictions. Rather, its point is to set those differences in the wider context of the legal treatment of speech about terrorism. If one considers public law rights to speech about the state as well as private law rights to speech about persons, a more balanced picture emerges. In that light, U.S. reactions to speech about terrorism and the restrictions imposed are in some ways more threatening than those on the other side of the Atlantic.


The important relationship between structure and function has always been a fundamental question in neuroscience research. In particular in the case of movement, brain controls large groups of muscles and combines it with sensory informations from the environment to execute purposeful motor behavior. Mapping dynamics encoded in a high dimensional neural space onto low-dimensional behavioral space has always been a difficult challenge as far as theory is concerned. Here, we develope a framework to study spike/burst dynamics having low dimensional phase description, which can readily be extended under certain biological constraints on the coupling to low dimensional functional descriptions. In general, phase models are amongst the simplest of neuron models reproducing spike-burst behavior, excitability and bifurcations towards periodic firing. However, the coupling among neurons has only been considered using generic arguments valid close to the bifurcation point, and the distinction between electric and synaptic coupling remains an open question. In this thesis we aim to address this question and derive a mathematical formulation for the various forms of biologically realistic coupling. We begin by constructing a mathematical model based on a planar simplification of the Morris-Lecar model. Using geometric arguments we then derive a phase description of a network of neurons with biologically realistic electric coupling and subsequently with chemical coupling under the fast synapse approximation. We then demonstrate that electric and synaptic coupling are expressed differently on the level of the network's phase description, exhibiting qualitatively different dynamics. Our numerical investigations confirm these findings and show excellent correspondence between the dynamics of the full network and the network's phase description. Following the success of the phase description of the spiking neural network, we extend this approach in order to propose a generating mechanism for parabolic bursting captured by only a single phase variable. This is the first model in the literature which captures bursting dynamics in one dimension. In order to study the emergent behavior we extend this to a network of bursters with global coupling and analytically reduce a high dimensional system to only two dimensions. Further, we investigate the bifurcation properties numerically as well as analytically. One of the key conclusion is that the stability states remain invariant to the increasing number of spikes per burst. Finally we investigate a spikeburst neuron network coupled via mean field type of fast synapses developed in this thesis and systematically carry out a detailed bifurcation analysis of the model, for a tractable special case. Numerical simulations investigate this mean field model beyond special case and clearly reveals qualitative correspondence with the full network model. Moreover, these network displays rich collective dynamics as a function of two parameters, mainly the synaptic coupling strength and the width of the distribution in applied stimulus. Besides incoherence, frequency locking, and oscillator death (a total cessation of firing caused by excessively strong coupling), there exist multistable solutions in the full and the phase network of neurons.


Geographically referenced databases of species records are becoming increasingly available. Doubts over the heterogeneous quality of the underlying data may restrict analyses of such collated databases. We partitioned the spatial variation in species richness of littoral algae and mol- luscs from the UK National Biodiversity Network database into a smoothed mesoscale component and a local component. Trend surface analysis (TSA) was used to define the mesoscale patterns of species richness, leaving a local residual component that lacked spatial autocorrelation. The analysis was based on 10 km grid squares with 115 035 records of littoral algae (729 species) and 66 879 records of littoral molluscs (569 species). The TSA identified variation in algal and molluscan species richness with a characteristic length scale of approximately 120 km. Locations of the most species- rich grid squares were consistent with the southern and western bias of species richness in the UK marine flora and fauna. The TSA also identified areas which showed significant changes in the spa- tial pattern of species richness: breakpoints, which correspond to major headlands along the south coast of England. Patterns of algal and molluscan species richness were broadly congruent. Residual variability was strongly influenced by proxies of collection effort, but local environmental variables including length of the coastline and variability in wave exposure were also important. Relative to the underlying trend, local species richness hotspots occurred on all coasts. While there is some justifica- tion for scepticism in analyses of heterogeneous datasets, our results indicate that the analysis of col- lated datasets can be informative.


With the rapid growth of the production and storage of large scale data sets it is important to investigate methods to drive the cost of storage systems down. Many energy conservation techniques have been proposed to achieve high energy efficiency in disk systems. Unfortunately, growing evidence shows that energy-saving schemes in disk drives usually have negative impacts on storage systems. Existing reliability models are inadequate to estimate reliability of parallel disk systems equipped with energy conservation techniques. To solve this problem, we firstly propose a mathematical model - called MINT - to evaluate the reliability of a parallel disk system where energy-saving mechanisms are implemented. In this dissertation, MINT is focused on modeling the reliability impacts of two well-known energy-saving techniques - the Popular Disk Concentration technique (PDC) and the Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID). Different from MAID and PDC which store a complete file on the same disk, the Redundancy Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) stripes file into several parts and stores them on different disks to ensure higher parallelism, hence higher I/O performance. However, RAID faces more challenges on energy efficiency and reliability issues. In order to evaluate the reliability of power-aware RAID, we then develop a Weibull-based model–MREED. In this dissertation, we use MREED to model the reliability impacts of a famous energy efficiency storage mechanism– the Power-Aware RAID (PARAID). Thirdly, we focus on validation of two models–MINT and MREED. It is challenging to validate the accuracy of reliability models, since we are unable to watch certain energy-efficiency systems for a couple of decades due to its time consuming and experimental costs. We introduce validated storage system simulator–DiskSim–to determine if our model and DiskSim agree with one another. In our validation process, we compare a file access trace in a real-world file system. Last part of this dissertation focuses on improvement of energy-efficient parallel storage systems. We propose a strategy–Disk Swapping–to improve disk reliability by alternating disks storing data that is frequently accessed with disks holding less accessed data. In this part, we focus on studying reliability improvement of PDC and MAID. At last, we further improve disk reliability by introducing multiple disk swapping strategy.


In structural reliability In reliability analysis of structure, the limit state function is often implicit and nonlinear influenced by many factors, usually using the response surface simulation. And the structure of the small failure probability is difficult to get a large number of reliability data to verify the correctness of the response model. The form of polynomial limits the accuracy of reliability calculation.Therefore the optimization kriging model method is put forward to improve the precision, optimize deviation and reduce the sample. A function of variables and the response is obtained by the approximate model, which replace the limit state function in reliability analysis. But the kriging model requires a lot of sample verification, global optimization(GO) is used to determine the sample points near the limit state and relatively high uncertainty as the new sample. And so a less sample is used to build kriging surrogate model meeting precision, and then the structural reliability is computed gradually with H-L(Hasofer-Lind) method. The numerical simulation results show this method is the higher accuracy. Comparing with the classical kriging, MCS and FOSM, the method is less computation error and less sample. It can meet the engineering demand and greatly reduce the amount of calculation..


Three ideas, not always juxtaposed to one another in the literature, have had a profound impact on what archivists preserve. The ideas that archivists should create a universal record of human activity, that social justice should inform archival selection decisions, and that archivists hold a unique form of power that can be exercised through appraisal have led some to posit a professional obligation not only to work toward a more equitable future but also toward a moral one. This article argues that these ideas are generally not helpful to archivists. Local autonomy and unique archival missions better define how archivists can best perform their core functions, rather than ideas based on assumptions of universal documentation or social justice, each rooted in a notion of archival power.