Concrete deep beams with a shear span to depth ratio of less than 2.32 [73] will work as tied arches after flexural cracking, provided there is sufficient reinforcement. The compression strut formed between the support and the loading points is under biaxial compressive and tensile stresses. The current Canadian Code [5] stipulates that deep beams and corbels should be designed using the Strut-and-Tie Method. This method incorporates the work done by Collins and Mitchell [8][9] where the cracked concrete behaves as a new material and that the compressive strength of concrete is reduced due to strain-softening. Here-in lies an area of discrepancy. The work done by Collins and Mitchell utilizes beam theory which requires that plane sections remain plane. However, deep beams and corbels are classified as "regions of discontinuity" consequently beam theory does not apply to these structures. An area of the Canadian code which needs to be examined is the dimensioning of the compression strut. To date there is no clear explanation as to how the design guidelines of the compression strut were developed. A weakness of the design code is that numerous assumptions must be made. The designer first assumes that the compression strut reaches a maximum concrete strain of 0.002 [5] , and then must assume the strains in the tension ties. The focus of this research has been to investigate diagonal splitting strength of reinforced concrete deep beams. In conducting this study, twelve deep beams, categorized in four groups were tested. The test variables included the shear span, the amount of web reinforcement and the concrete compressive strength. Surprisingly, no researcher has published measured strain incurred by the compression strut in deep beams. In our research, a single beam from each of the four test groups was fitted with strain gauges to measure the tensile strain in the main tensile reinforcement. As well, the concrete strains along the main diagonal formed between the support and the loading points as well as perpendicular to the strut were measured. The experimental work demonstrated the development of diagonal cracking. These cracks appeared above the supports and propagated towards the loading points. The strain gauges on the concrete surface confirmed that the stresses along the compression strut were under biaxial compression tension stresses. A finite element analysis determined that the compression stress acting parallel to the diagonal were uniform in distribution and symmetrical. Perpendicular to the diagonal, high compressive stresses were seen at the supports and the loading points. However, the stresses in between these areas were uniformly distributed in tension. The measured compressive strains were much less than the recommended value of 0.002, and the compression strut was found to be much wider than that defined by the Canadian Code. As a consequence of these the findings, a truss model was defined using a biaxial concrete strength envelope. This truss model was applied to the test beams of this study as well as too ninety-nine test beams available in literature. In all cases, the truss model was able to accurately predict the strength of these test beams.


Are social movement organizations euro-sceptical, euro-pragmatic, or euro-opportunist? Or do they accept the EU as a new level of governance to place pressure on? Do they provide a critical capital, necessary for the political structuring of the EU, or do they disrupt the process of EU integration? Social Movements and Europeanization includes surveys of activists at international protest events targeting the European Union (for a total of about 5000 interviews); a discourse analysis of documents and transcripts of debates on European politics and policies conducted during the four European social forums held between 2002 and 2006 and involving hundreds of social movement organizations and tens of thousands of activists from all European countries; about 320 interviews with representatives of civil society organizations in six EU countries (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy) and one non-member state (Switzerland), and a systematic claims analysis of the daily press in selected years between 1990 and 2003. The empirical research shows the different paths of Europeanization taken by social movements and civil society organizations. (author's abstract)


The New Zealand ITQ system is a dynamic institution that has had many refinements since its inception more than 15 years ago. Nonetheless, the basic tenets of the system - setting a total allowable catch and leaving the market to determine the most profitable allocation of fishing effort - have remained intact. This paper assesses the New Zealand system to identify areas of success and/or possible improvement or expansion within it. The reasons for doing so are to highlight beneficial features and to identify features of the New Zealand ITQ system that are relevant to other potential tradable permit markets. Beneficial features include simple standardized rules for quota definition and trading across species and areas; very few restrictions on quota trading and holding; relative stability in the rules over time; and low levels of government involvement in the trading process. We find evidence that supports the assertion that fishers behave in a reasonably rational fashion and that the markets are relatively efficient. We do not find major changes in participation in these fisheries as a result of the system. We find evidence that suggests that the ITQ system is improving the profitability of fisheries in New Zealand. In general the evidence thus far suggests that the market is operating in a reasonably efficient manner and is providing significant economic gains. These factors suggest that New Zealand would want to have non-economic justifications for any significant changes to the system.


There is a growing interest in using multiple sources for automatic target recognition (ATR) applications. One approach is to take multiple, independent observations of a phenomenon and perform a feature level or a decision level fusion for ATR. This paper proposes a method to utilize these types of multi-source fusion techniques to exploit hyperspectral data when only a small number of training pixels are available. Conventional hyperspectral image based ATR techniques project the high dimensional reflectance signature onto a lower dimensional subspace using techniques such as Principal Components Analysis (PCA), Fisher's linear discriminant analysis (LDA), subspace LDA and stepwise LDA. While some of these techniques attempt to solve the curse of dimensionality, or small sample size problem, these are not necessarily optimal projections. In this paper, we present a divide and conquer approach to address the small sample size problem. The hyperspectral space is partitioned into contiguous subspaces such that the discriminative information within each subspace is maximized, and the statistical dependence between subspaces is minimized. We then treat each subspace as a separate source in a multi-source multi-classifier setup and test various decision fusion schemes to determine their efficacy. Unlike previous approaches which use correlation between variables for band grouping, we study the efficacy of higher order statistical information (using average mutual information) for a bottom up band grouping. We also propose a confidence measure based decision fusion technique, where the weights associated with various classifiers are based on their confidence in recognizing the training data. To this end, training accuracies of all classifiers are used for weight assignment in the fusion process of test pixels. The proposed methods are tested using hyperspectral data with known ground truth, such that the efficacy can be quantitatively measured in terms of target recognition accuracies.


We study the effect of the fragmentation of intellectual property rights on optimal patent design. The major finding is that when several complementary innovative components must be assembled to operate a new technology, the patentability requirements should be stronger than in the case of stand-alone innovation. This reduces the fragmentation of intellectual property, which is socially costly. However, to preserve the incentives to innovate, if a patent is granted the strength of protection should be generally higher than in the stand-alone case.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether visual analog scales (VAS) can be used over the Internet to assess the patient with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) accurately or if the use of this different medium will affect the results.

METHODS
Patients with AS (n = 50) attending a physiotherapy/educational course completed both an Internet based and a paper based version of the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI) that uses VAS. The Internet version was completed twice to assess intrarespondent variation reliability and compared with the paper version to assess interrespondent variation reliability. Patients were also asked to assess ease of use and to suggest changes to the Internet version.

RESULTS
The interclass coefficient of intra- and interrespondent reliability were 0.989 (p < 0.001) and 0.976 (p < 0.001), respectively. There was a 3% difference in assessments carried out over the Internet compared to those on paper and a 2% difference in repeatability of Internet assessed questionnaires. Bland and Altman plots showed a mean difference between paper compared to the Internet version was 0.0156 with 95% limits of agreement at -1.07 to 1.03. More than half the participants reported that the Internet version was easier to complete than the paper version (96% rated usability as 1 on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being extremely easy and 10 being impossible).

CONCLUSION
Assessment of disease severity by VAS may be accurately carried out over the Internet. This means that the evaluation of disease status and the longterm followup of people in different countries and perhaps in different languages may now be possible, using the Internet.


Objective: To determine the effect of age and frequency of collection on quality parameters of Jersey bull semen at National Livestock Breeding Center (NLBC), Pokhara.
Materials and Methodology: Nine Jersey bulls were selected randomly from NLBC. To obtain the effect of age, six bulls of three different age interval (3-4, 5-7 and 8-9 years) were selected randomly. Remaining three bulls were used to determine the effect of frequency of collection on semen quality. Studies were conducted for three months (Nov/Dec to Dec/Jan, 2016). Semen quality was analyzed using CASA system and SMILE software. ANOVA and paired t- tests were applied to find out level of significance. All the statistical analyses were done using SPSS 17.0
Results: Sperm concentration, post- thaw motility, live sperm, and abnormal sperm were significantly affected by the age of the bulls. Semen quality was found superior in the bulls belonging to 5-7 years of age intervals. Significantly higher value for semen volume, sperm concentration and post- thaw motility was obtained on second collection (P<0.05). However, volume initial motility, pre-filling motility, live sperm and abnormal sperm percentage did not differ significantly among different age intervals and between the frequencies of collection.
Conclusion: Different quality parameters of semen like volume, concentration, initial motility, pre-filling motility, post thaw motility, live and normal spermatozoa percentages were higher in 5-7 years old bulls and in second collection of semen.
Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 7(1): 88-95


This article analyses identity constructions in two manual-based universal parenting training programmes in Sweden, Connect (U) and All Children in Focus (ABC). The analysis was performed with discourse analysis of oral messages during parent training courses. The findings revealed that the parents' subject positions altered between troubled and good while the children's subject positions altered between ambiguous and natural in a confessional discourse of uncertainty and competence. Conclusively, pastoral power operated to support parental self-reflexivity and adult control in a process to improve parenting skills.


At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on June 1st, 1787, James Wilson of Pennsylvania first proposed that the executive powers be rested in a single person. The motion was seconded, and then, as James Madison reported, "a considerable pause" ensued.

The delegates' hesitation was hardly surprising. Only recently had they freed themselves from the tyranny of King George III, and they were firmly committed to creating a new government that would not abuse its powers and oppress its citizens. It must have seemed preposterous to replace a hereditary monarch with an elected monarch.

To be sure, the framers invoked important reasons in favor of a unitary executive. With the passage of time, however, it has become clear that the founding fathers misjudged the consequences of a single president. They did not anticipate the extent to which executive power would expand and give us an "imperial presidency." They did not predict the role that political parties would come to play and how battles to capture the White House would greatly aggravate partisan conflict. They did not recognize that single presidents would represent party ideology much more than the overall public good. And they misjudged the advantages and disadvantages of single versus multiple decision makers.

If the presidency is to fulfill the founding fathers' vision, it needs to be reconceived. This need for constitutional change led me to the proposal for reform that I consider in this paper - the replacement of our single-person presidency with a two-person presidency, in which each of the two presidents would come from a different political party.

A two-person presidency would yield many important benefits - a balancing of power between the executive and legislative branches, a dampening of partisan conflict in Washington, an executive branch more representative of the entire electorate, real opportunities for third-party candidates to win election, and wiser presidential decision making.

A dual executive would be far more faithful to the framers' views of executive power and constitutional design. They wanted a president with limited authority who would serve as a co-equal with Congress. They also believed that power should be limited by dividing it and requiring it to be shared. A two-person presidency relies on the framers' structural devices to promote their core values.


Direct connection schemes have been a subject of recent investigation, offering operational flexibility and substantial reductions in AC components. In these schemes, the use of active DC filters has been suggested to replace the conventional tuned passive filter design. This paper presents the smoothing transformer as a new means for reducing DC harmonics at characteristic and noncharacteristic frequencies using only passive components. A realistic smoothing transformer design is examined using the New Zealand HVDC power system operating in the direct connection mode. The steady-state and transient performance of the smoothing transformer design is compared with that of the existing DC smoothing reactor and filter bank.


The Food and Drug Administration Kicks the Habit- The FDA's New Role in Regulation of Tobacco Products- Smoking is one of the leading causes of death in the United States.1 On June 22, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act ("the Act").2 One of the major purposes of this legislation was to reduce tobacco use by children and adolescents.3 After signing the Act, President Obama declared victory in the "decades-long effort to protect our children."4 In order to accomplish this goal, the Act expressly granted the Food and Drug Administration (the "FDA") the ability to regulate tobacco products for the first time. The Act creates a new Chapter IX in the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act ("FDCA") that grants the FDA oversight over the sale, distribution, manufacturing, advertising and marketing of tobacco. Historically, tobacco products have been legal, widely available in the United States, and not subject to extensive federal safety regulation.5 In 1996, the FDA attempted to assert jurisdiction over the regulation of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco absent an express grant of authority by Congress.6 The FDA declared that nicotine is a "drug" within the meaning of the FDCA," and that cigarettes and smokeless tobacco are "combination products" that deliver the addictive drug to the body.8 Tobacco manufacturers challenged the FDA's assertion of jurisdiction. As such, on March 21, 2000, the Supreme Court held that Congress had not given the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products because such authority was inconsistent with Congressional intent expressed in the FDCA's overall regulatory scheme.9 Under the new Act, however, the FDA will regulate tobacco products based on a public health standard rather than the safety and effectiveness standards that the FDA uses to regulate pharmaceutical products and medical devices.10 Thus, any tobacco product regulations promulgated by the FDA must be appropriate for the protection of public health, taking into consideration the risks and benefits to the entire population.11 This legal update addresses the implications of this new law on tobacco manufacturers and retailers. A. REGULATION Congress bases this new legislation on grounds that under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to regulate interstate commerce: the sale, distribution, marketing, advertising and use of tobacco products substantially affect interstate commerce because these activities occur nationwide.12 Among its provisions, the Act requires registration with the FDA and biannual facility inspections of all tobacco product manufacturers.13 More explicit health warnings in bold type will replace current health warning labels, with new labels occupying at least 50% of the front and back of the product package for cigarettes and 30% for smokeless tobacco.14 To manufacture any new tobacco product, unless it is a minor product modification, the maker must submit a marketing application to the FDA for approval.15 In order to market a tobacco product with a reduced-risk or a reduced-exposure claim (e.g., "light" or "mild"), the manufacturer must seek FDA approval, agree to conduct post-market surveillance, and provide scientific evidence to substantiate the claim.16 The Act authorizes the FDA to establish tobacco product standards "as appropriate for the protection of public health," such as reducing nicotine yields, reducing nicotine levels below the point where it causes addiction, and eliminating harmful constituents of tobacco.17 The FDA cannot, however, ban all tobacco products or require that the nicotine yields of a tobacco product be reduced to zero.18 The Act requires the FDA to develop new regulations for the testing, reporting, and public disclosure of tobacco product ingrethents and smoke constituents.10 It also creates the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee ("the Committee") to provide advice, information, and recommendations to FDA. …


Increasing terrestrial biomass has important impacts on the climate that affects it. The vegetation-climate loop Just as terrestrial plant biomass is growing in response to increasing atmospheric CO2, climate change, and other anthropogenic influences, so is climate affected by those variations in vegetation. Forzieri et al. used satellite observations to analyze how changes in leaf area index (LAI), a measure of vegetation density, have influenced the terrestrial energy balance and local climates over the past several decades. An increase in LAI has helped to warm boreal zones through a reduction of surface albedo and to cool arid regions of the southern hemisphere by increasing surface evaporation. Furthermore, more densely vegetated areas displayed a greater capacity to mitigate the impact of rapid climate fluctuations on the surface energy budget. Science, this issue p. 1180 Changes in vegetation cover associated with the observed greening may affect several biophysical processes, whose net effects on climate are unclear. We analyzed remotely sensed dynamics in leaf area index (LAI) and energy fluxes in order to explore the associated variation in local climate. We show that the increasing trend in LAI contributed to the warming of boreal zones through a reduction of surface albedo and to an evaporation-driven cooling in arid regions. The interplay between LAI and surface biophysics is amplified up to five times under extreme warm-dry and cold-wet years. Altogether, these signals reveal that the recent dynamics in global vegetation have had relevant biophysical impacts on the local climates and should be considered in the design of local mitigation and adaptation plans.


Alternating-current losses in a two-layer superconducting cable, each layer being composed of 15 closely-spaced rectangular wires made up of second-generation superconductors when the ends of wires are coated by either a non-magnetic or strong ferromagnetic material having a U profile is numerically investigated. Computations are carried out through the finite-element method. The alternating-current losses do not increase significantly if the relative permeability of the coating is increased three orders of magnitude, provided that the current amplitude is less than half of the critical current in a superconducting wire. However, the losses are much higher for ferromagnetic coating if the amplitude of the applied current oscillating at 50 Hz is close to the critical current. The ferromagnetic coating is seen to accumulate the magnetic field lines normally on its surfaces, while the field lines are parallel to the long axes of the wires, leading to more significant flux penetration in the coated regions. This facilitates a uniform low-loss current flow in the uncoated regions of the wires. In contrast, coating with a non-magnetic material gives rise to a considerably smaller current flow in the uncoated regions, whereas the low-loss flow is maintained in the coated regions. Moreover, the current flows in opposite directions in the coated and uncoated regions, where the direction in each region is converse for the two materials.


After the Philippine government established the Central Bank and implemented import and exchange controls as part of economic decolonization, a Great Debate evolved as a clash of ideas and interests among politico-economic elites. The Central Bank governor tried to maintain a tight monetary policy and foreign exchange controls while some cabinet members, backed by the powerful sugar industry, advocated the implementation of a more liberal monetary policy and a change of the exchange rate. The debate became a major political as well as policy issue through a series of elections, and led to the resignation of cabinet members and reappointment of the governor. In contrast to the conventional view, a political consequence of the debate showed that the state bureaucracy acted strongly vis-a-vis vested interests. In fact, the debate represented a new type of politics in the Philippines: the politics of economic policy. Focusing on two prominent economists, Miguel Cuaderno and Salvador Araneta, this paper analyzes how different ideas and interests were contested in the debate, and how the politics of economic decolonization shaped the direction of economic policymaking at an initial phase of economic development.


Background: Elderly hip fractures are a very frequent orthopaedic issue.Although varioustreatment methods have been suggested in past for the management of intertrochanteric fractures in geriatric population,itstill emainscontroversial as regards the treatment of choice to manage these fractures . The current study demonstrates the efficacy of proximal femur-intramedullary nail antirotation (PFNA2) of Asia inmanaging fractures of inertrochanteric.Our study will be based upon the comparision of effectiveness and shortcomings we encounter while using short proximal femoral nailA2vs long femoral nailA2 for managing fractures of intertrochanteric.Methods& Materials:The above research has beendone at IMS and SUM hospital between November 2016 to November 2019. 87 individuals having fracturesare chosen.Group-a had 45 patients treated with short PFNA2,group-bhad 42 patients,whowere treated with long PFNA2.All fractures were classified as per Orthopedic Trauma Association(OTA) AS 31A1,31A2,31A3.All the patients were evaluated on immediate post-operatively, 1st, 3rd, 6th and 12th month using Harris hip score. Results:Current study shows that the frequently occurring fracture modes is trivial traumafollowed by fall, which was observed within 58 out of 88 cases,which comes out to be 65.5% of reason behind the fracture. Average operative loss of blood was 226.5ml withinPFNA2group,whereas it was 124.5ml in the short PFNA2group.The factor regarding union was better in the short PFNA2(10.2weeks)than the long PFNA2 group(20.1weeks).However,limb shortening was found to be more in the short PFNA2 as against the long PFNA2.Anterior femoral canal impingement was found to be more with long PFNA2(5 cases)compared to short PFNA2(1case). Conclusion:Observing the above findings for method of managing trochanteric fractures ,short PFNA2 emerges as a better choice vs long PFNA2,if proper preop planning is used leading to less soft tissue damage and as a result high rate of union,especially in the Asian population who have a small femur.


Design and Experimental Testing of Nanoinjection Protocols for Delivering Molecules into HeLa Cells with a Bio-MEMS Device Zachary K. Lindstrom Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science Delivering foreign molecules into living cells is a broad and ongoing area of research. Gene therapy, or delivering nucleic acids into cells via non-viral or viral pathways, is an especially promising area for pharmaceutics. All gene therapy methods have their respective advantages and disadvantages, including limited delivery efficiency and low viability. Nanoinjection, or delivering molecules into cells using a solid lance, has proven to be highly efficient while maintaining high viability levels. In this thesis, an array of solid silicon lances was tested by nanoinjecting tens of thousands of HeLa cancer cells simultaneously. Several molecule types were injected in different tests to understand cell uptake efficiency and cell viability. Voltage was used to determine the impact of an electric field on molecule delivery. Propidium iodide, a dye that fluoresces when bound to nucleic acids and does not fluoresce when unbound, was delivered into cells using the lance array. Results show that the lance array delivers propidium iodide into up to 78% of a nanoinjected HeLa cell culture, while maintaining 78%-91% viability. Using similar protocol as in propidium iodide experiments, plasmid DNA containing the code for a fluorescent protein was nanoinjected into HeLa cells, resulting in an average expression rate of up to 0.21%. Since gene expression only occurs in cells which have integrated DNA into the genome in the nucleus, a different DNA detection method was developed to determine total DNA count in cells following nanoinjection. DNA strands tagged with a radioactive isotope were nanoinjected into HeLa cells. Liquid scintillation was employed to quantify and discriminate between DNA delivered to cells and DNA that remained in solution around cells following nanoinjection. The largest average amount of DNA delivered to cells was 20.0 x 103 DNA molecules per cell. Further development of the radioactive nanoinjection process is needed to more fully understand the parameters that affect DNA delivery efficiency. In all experiments with propidium iodide and DNA molecules, low accumulation voltage, coupled with a short pulsed release voltage, resulted in the greatest molecule delivery efficiencies when compared to tests without voltage or with a constant voltage only. Lastly, an automated nanoinjection system was developed to eliminate variability in user applied nanoinjection force. The automated system was found to reduce variability in average propidium iodide uptake values by 56%. In conclusion, experimental testing of the multi-cell nanoinjection process has shown promising molecule delivery results into human cells, suggesting that further optimization of the process would have positive implications in the field of academic and clinical gene therapy.


Although the concept of constructing active optical waveguides in crystalline silicon has existed for over twenty years, it is only in the past few years that silicon photonics has been given serious attention as a displacing technology. Fueled by the predicted saturation of "Moore's Law" within the next decade, universities and industries from all over the world are exploring the possibilities of creating truly integrated silicon opto-electronic devices in a cost effective manner. Some of the most promising silicon photonics technologies are chip-to-chip and intra-chip optical interconnects. Now that compact high-speed modulators in silicon have been achieved, the limiting factor in the widespread adoption of optical interconnects is the lack of practical on-chip optical sources. These sources are critical for the generation of the many wavelengths of light necessary for high-speed communication between the logical elements between and within microprocessors. Unfortunately, crystalline silicon is widely known as a poor emitter because of its indirect bandgap.

This thesis focuses on the many challenges in generating silicon-based laser sources. As most CMOS compatible gain materials possess at most 1 dB/cm of gain, much of our work has been devoted to minimizing the optical losses in silicon optical microresonators. Silicon microdisk resonators fabricated from silicon-on-insulator wafers were employed to study and minimize the different sources of scattering and absorption present in high-index contrast Si microcavities. These microdisks supported whispering-gallery modes with quality factors as high as 5 x 10^6, close to the bulk limit of lightly doped silicon wafers. An external silica fiber taper probe was developed to test the microcavities in a rapid wafer-scale manner. Analytic theory and numerical simulation aided in the optimization of the cavity design and interpretation of experimental results. After successfully developing surface chemistry treatments and passivation layers, erbium-doped glasses were deposited over undercut microdisks and planar microrings. Single-mode laser oscillation was observed and carefully characterized for heavily oxidized silicon microdisks. Dropped power thresholds of 690 nW, corresponding to 170 nW of absorbed power, were measured from gain-spectra and Light in-Light out curves. In addition, quantum efficiencies for these lasers were as high as 24%, indicating that this technology may be ready for further development into real-world devices.


Five mineralogical stages are recognized in the metamorphism of Alpine ophiolites from one area in the Zermatt–Saas zone. Constraints on P-T values indicate an abrupt change at the metamorphic peak (550–600 °C, 17–20 kbar) from a cold positive slope of 25°C/kbar or less, to cooling initially without discernible change of pressure. Correspondence of the prograde path to the P-T trend of T (in °C) = 150 + 23P (in kbar) shown by a variety of Alpine units suggests that they all have P-T histories for which an England & Richardson (1977) relaxation model (also England & Thompson 1984) is inappropriate. Major tectonism at the peak pressure is indicated by association between minerals (kyanite, chloritoid, lawsonite in eclogite), vein growths, fluid action and thrust surfaces. The proposed metamorphic environment involves thrust repetition, subcreting ophiolite to the over-riding slab in a thermally mature subduction zone at a depth of approximately 70 km. Preservation is favoured when ocean closure leads to subduction of sialic crust, so providing a combination of buoyant uplift with the continued refrigeration by underthrusting of cold surface materials.


Introduction
This study reflects on the access system of the CT scan modality in the Academic Medical Center.
Earlier research in this hospital has shown that short access times and the combination of multiple
hospital appointments on the same day are preferred by patients over short waiting times. Enabling
patients to visit the CT scan without an appointment, which is called walk-in, contributes to a higher
patient service as access time is completely eliminated.
Problem description
The effects of introducing walk-in on logistical performance indicators as patient waiting time,
resource utilisation and overtime are largely unknown, as minor quantitative research has been done
regarding walk-in. The goal of this research is to investigate the logistical feasibility when
implementing various degrees of walk-in at the CT scan modality.
Approach
Allowing walk-in inherently results in a non-stationary arrival pattern as demand fluctuates, both
within as between days. As our process analysis phase shows that walk-in would not be possible for
all patient types, we investigate ways to counteract for the non-steady behaviour by scheduling
appointments during periods of low expected demand. We introduce several interventions in which
the degree of walk-in is varied. Furthermore, we explore an intervention where inpatients are called
in from the ward at times the expected waiting time for the CT scan is low. To quantify the input
variables, patient data is acquired over the year 2008 and several time-stamp measurements were
performed. A discrete-event simulation model is developed to explore the logistical performance of
each intervention. The model is validated by performing independent-samples t-tests on access time
and patient waiting time. An important principle is that we do not wish to affect waiting time for
planned patients. This research took place in close cooperation with the radiology department of
AMC, as well as the Alysis hospital in Arnhem.
Results
The logistical performance of introducing walk-in for various interventions is shown in terms of
average access time, waiting time, overtime, production and utilisation. Access times of planned
patients have been shown to decrease in comparison with the current situation, indicating a more
timely access for all patients since walk-in patients' access times are eliminated completely. The
current waiting time is 9 minutes on average. When introducing walk-in, waiting time for walk-in
patients is determined to be 35 minutes on average, while planned patients' waiting time decreases
to between 4 to 8 minutes depending on the intervention chosen. On average no overtime exists,
Table of contents
[4]
with a deviation of maximally 25 minutes from the planned closing time in 90% of the days.
Utilisation is equal in the various interventions due to equal demand, but is shown to increase
significantly when an increase of 10% in demand is attained under the same available capacity.
Under a 10% growth and same capacity, the average waiting time of walk-in patients increases to
approximately 42 minutes. The various interventions put forward proved particularly useful in
eliminating the average overtime, and reduce the number of patients that are rejected or decide to
go home because of high waiting times.
Conclusions and recommendations
Our context analysis shows, that walk-in for 100% of the patients is not feasible from a practical point
of view, as some examinations require the presence of other medical specialists, because large
preparation times are required, or simply because some patients will prefer to make an
appointment. This research demonstrates that by introducing walk-in in combination with
appointments, patient service can significantly be improved. It enables patients to combine multiple
appointments on the same day, while lower access times for planned patients can be achieved.
Simultaneously, the logistical performance indicators do not exceed the threshold values set. Callingin
inpatients from the ward at times of low expected waiting time reduces the number of rejections
and patients that decide to leave because of high expected waiting times. In addition, we have
shown that by introducing walk-in, the CT department is able to serve more patients under the same
capacity, indicating a higher attainable efficiency. Further improvement of the results is possible, as
the model currently imposes strict priorities on planned patients which might be loosened, and
prudence is applied in the data analysis.
A few hospitals in the Netherlands have already implemented walk-in at their radiology department,
or are starting a pilot aimed at doing so (Tweesteden hospital Tilburg, Alysis hospital Arnhem). This
research provides the scientific guidelines for such a system, and creates a deeper understanding of
the effects of introducing walk-in on patient logistics. The experience in practice provides several
success factors. For a walk-in system to come to full fruition, broad support and clear communication
from the radiology department at all levels is indispensable. The work process changes considerably,
and the responsibility of laboratory workers and other directly involved in the process increases.
Recent trials in other hospitals that are piloting walk-in however show that the work process is
perceived as more dynamic and fun due to the increased responsibility and flexibility required.
The approach chosen, where walk-in and appointments are combined to balance non-stationary
demand is new in literature. It might find application in areas wider than health care alone, for
example in call-centres and bank tellers.


The main objectives are to develop an anthropometric database for Saudi Students and to compare it relative to two other Middle Eastern people. A national anthropometric standard for Saudis does not exist and
few studies have focused on the development of Saudis anthropometric data and the comparison of them with other races. The availability of these data is necessary to design new products and to reduce the discomfort/pain from using the man-machine systems. A random sample of 900 male students aged 19-30 years at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia participated in the study. Twelve body dimensions were measured and described in terms of mean, standard deviations, 5/95th percentiles and the significance value for Kolmogorov-Smirnov test by using the Minitab software. The 2-sample t test was performed at 0.05 to compare the means of two Saudi
anthropometric studies (including this one) relative to other published studies for two Turkish and two Iranian studies. Hutson (1999) procedure was used to estimate the confidence interval for 5/95th percentiles and to compare
them among Saudi, Turks and Iranians. The 12 dimensions were found to be normally distributed with significance values ≥0.054. The Saudi body weight, bideltoid breadth, buttock-popliteal length and sitting popliteal height were found to be larger than those of the Turkish and Iranian students, while in every other dimension, the Saudis were smaller. There is a statistically significant difference between the mean and 5/95th percentile weight (71.61, 46.65, 93.69) kg among Saudi, Turks and Iranians. The 5/95th percentiles (31.39, 39.39) cm for sitting hip breadth, the 5th percentile (55.08 cm ) of buttock-knee length and the 95th percentile (46.98 cm) of sitting popliteal height are significantly equal for the Saudis and Turks. The sitting eye height 5th percentile of 72.12 cm and the sitting popliteal height 95th percentile of 46.98 cm are significantly equal Saudis and Iranians. This study updates the anthropometric data for Saudi people that is rare in literature. The mean for the 12 anthropometric dimensions are significantly different among Saudis, Turks and Iranians. Also, most of 5th and 95th percentiles for Saudis dimensions are different from Turks and Iranians. There is a very noticeable difference between the body types of Saudis and those of Turks and Iranians. Therefore, the anthropometric information of
one country cannot necessarily be implemented in other regions. The study data provides a great value for designing university facilities. The comparison results can be used to give priority for importing tools/equipments to countries of dimensions near to Saudi students.


We have developed a software suite for the biophysical analysis of high-throughput sequencing experiments, and applied it to the interplay between nucleosome positioning, DNA methylation and transcription factor binding during ES cell differentiation. DNA cytosine methylation (5mC) and hydroxymethylation (5hmC) are among the most important epigenetic marks. The interplay of 5mC/5hmC marks, the arrangement of nucleosomes and transcription factors (TFs) links DNA methylation with cellular gene expression programs but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we analyzed nucleosome positioning, DNA methylation and TF binding in conjunction with additional dinucleosome occupancy maps. Our study provides a novel quantitative description for the relations between DNA methylation/demethylation, TF binding and nucleosome occupancy changes.


Using the business cycle accounting (BCA) framework pioneered by Chari, Kehoe and McGratten (2007, Econometrica) we examine the causes of the 2008-09 recession in the UK. There has been much commentary on the finnancial causes of this recession, which we might expect to bring about variation in the intertemporal rate of substitution in consumption. However, the recession appears to have been mostly driven by shocks to the efficiency wedge in total production, rather than the intertemporal (asset price) consumption, labour or spending wedge. From an expenditure perspective this result is consistent with the observed large falls in both consumption and investment during the
recession. To assess this result we also simulate artifcial data from a DSGE model in which asset price shocks dominate and and no strong role for the intertemporal consumption wedge using the BCA method. This result does not imply that .nancial frictions did not matter for the recent recession but that such frictions do not necessarily impact only on the intertemporal rate of substitution in consumption.

We investigate the ability of three standard nowcasting methodologies, bridge equations, unrestricted Mixed Data Sampling regressions and mixed frequency VARs, to nowcast the UK GDP. All three methodologies may have advantages over the other, bridge equations are the simplest to construct and are the most transparent. The direct forecasting approach of MIDAS may reduce errors in the face of model misspecification while remaining relatively simple to estimate and forecast with. The mixed frequency VAR allows for dynamics between the variables which may help to reduce the forecast error. We evaluate these methods using a final dataset which mimics the data availability at each period in time for 5 monthly indicators. We find that the VAR on average across all forecast horizons is the most consistent, while MIDAS has the best predictive power at the 1 step ahead horizon. The bridge equations do not appear useful until the final month of the quarter. Throughout the evaluation period the predictive accuracy of the methods varies, the MFVAR performs best during the 'Great Recession' period while MIDAS is better during normal growth periods.

In this paper, we apply the factor-augmented VAR of Bernanke, Boivin and Eliasz (2005) in the context of mixed frequencies for a US and a UK dataset. For the US we further extend the model to allow for regime switching dynamics, we compare the short-term predictive ability of the two models against the standard Mixed Frequency VAR of Murasawa and Mariano (2004, 2010). We find that in general, the MFVAR with factors performs slightly worse than the standard MFVAR for the US dataset, marginally so for forecast horizons greater than one and significantly worse at the single period ahead forecast. This result was broadly consistent for the UK dataset, except at the FAMFVAR performed slightly better at the single period ahead horizon. The Markov switching extension was the worst performing of all of the models. Studying the filtered probabilities for the recessionary regime indicated that
only the deeper of the recessions were captured. Further work on dealing with the label switching problem may be required for better performance for the Bayesian treatment of MFVARs with regime switches.


Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the ambulation skills, sitting balance, and upper extremity functions according to the lesion level in children with spina bifida (SB). Patients and methods: A total of 90 SB patients (44 boys, 46 girls; mean age 7 years; range 4 to 12 years) and 42 ageand sex-matched healthy children (20 boys, 22 girls; mean age 7.5 years; range 4 to 12 years) were included in the study. The ambulation skills and upper extremity functions of the patients were analyzed. The upper extremity functions were assessed using the box and blocks test (BBT), nine-hole peg test (NHPT), and dynamometer. Results: Spina bifida patients had worse performance on the NHPT, BBT and their handgrip hold was weaker, compared to healthy controls. The presence of shunt was found to be an important factor which deteriorated the upper extremity functions; however, SB patients without a shunt also had worse upper extremity function test performance, compared to healthy controls. As the lesion level increased, ambulation worsened and the sitting ability was adversely affected. The ambulation skill and sitting duration were also found to be correlated to each other. Conclusion: Patients with SB have troubles with sitting abilities and upper extremity functions besides the ambulation problems. During the evaluation of SB patients with a shunt, particularly, these considerations should be kept in mind and the workouts for upper extremity functions and trunk balance should take part in the rehabilitation program.


This article explores how urban space produced by the Japanese railway system is appropriated by people for common use in Tōkyō. Drawing from ethnographic research among musicians at a central train station, I explore how individuals enmeshed within the schedules of the commuter network negotiate mobilities that fall outside the purview of railway urbanism. Station tsūro are passageways monitored by rail staff and local authorities, protected by traffic and railway commerce laws, and influenced by competing pressures from the overburdened network and local neighborhoods. Musicians sensitive to these shifting relationships identify leeway within, performing in ways that open tsūro up, producing temporary, finely balanced spaces of encounter and connection. Through these processes, the commuter system creates rail-specific forms of human relationships.


During the past two decades, there has been an increasing demand for medical image registration. Deformable image registration has a great importance, because the majority of the registration applications deal with the conditions in which the rigid assumption would not create accurate results. Soft tissue organs (e.g. liver, kidney, and prostate) can change in shape during an intervention. Therefore, a sophisticated registration essentially needs to take into account the geometrical deformations. In this thesis, we study the problem of deformable liver image registration between Magnetic Resonance (MR) and Ultrasound (US) images of the liver. In our approach, a tracking system is proposed to acquire and rigidly register a 2D US image (Ius) with the previously taken MR volume. According to the information obtained from the tracking system, a 2D MR image (IMR) is reconstructed as the match of Ius. Mutual information is chosen as the similarity measure between the two modalities in our rigid registration problem. A search optimization problem on the registration parameters is then performed, to provide us with a fine tuned reconstructed I MR . Our proposed strategy begins with visually identifying corresponding anatomical landmarks on Ius and IMR. These landmarks are the inputs of the two proposed methods of deformation in this thesis. The first method, Finite Element Modeling (FEM) approach, produces the deformed images based on the linear elasticity and iv the static analysis assumptions. This method uses the positions of landmarks to solve a linear system of equations, in order to generate the final deformations of the MR images. The second method of deformation is the Moving Least Squares (MLS). To the best of our knowledge, MLS has never been used in medical image registration. This technique analytically solves a number of least squares problems to find the local rigid transformations. Applying these local rigid transformations on the MR volume creates the deformations throughout the MR images. In our experiments, Root Mean Square Target Registration Error (RMS TRE) is used as the quantitative measure for the evaluation of performance. FEM-based method produces the best result with an RMS TRE of 7.2mm, while MLS-based method creates an RMS TRE of 8.9mm. According to the literature, an accuracy of 7.2mm is acceptable for most intra-operative abdominal procedures, particularly those involving the liver. The drawback of FEM-based method is its higher computational complexity. Our implementation of the MLS-based method could be executed at least 20 times faster than that of the FEM-based method. Therefore, in applications, where the accuracy is critical, FEM-based method should be used. The MLS-based method is more suitable of the applications demanding higher speed or a parallel implementation of the FEM-based method can solve the computation speed problem.


In the present study, we report the fabrication and characterization of novel acetate-based butylimidazolium ionic liquid immobilized silica-coated magnetic nanoparticles (IL-OAc@FSMNP). The synthesized nanocomposite proves its supremacy as an environmentally benign catalyst in the reaction of aniline and its derivatives with ethylene carbonate to form bioactive N-aryl oxazolidin-2-ones under metal-, ligand-, and solvent-free conditions. The catalyst offers excellent assemblies of hydrogen-bond donors and acceptors, which activate the substrates, thereby delivering good-to-excellent product yields with a conversion and selectivity of more than 99%. Additionally, mild reaction conditions, wide substrate scope, effortless catalytic recovery and recyclability of the catalyst up to eight consecutive cycles offer the potential for scale-up in various pharmaceutical applications.


Modernization of Russian education, the trends of the international educational integration put forward before the Russian higher education new goals, the solution of which are to be seen in the deep qualitative transformations that are reasonable to provide in the form of two interrelated processes: the reforming of the existing system of higher professional education and the formation of new conceptual approaches and the conditions of its development based on forward-looking assessments and strategic directions, in accordance with structural shifts in the economy and social policy, taking into account the constructive international experience in this field. This trend requires a detailed examination of the organization of educational process in high school; development and testing of alternative models of training; introduction of variability of innovative and flexible educational curricula aimed at their target and address training, the research component strengthening in the learning process, the formation of the intercultural competence of the entities of the educational process; development of their academic mobility; ensuring of information and migration security of the educational process; ensuring the continuity of the university scientific schools, the development of new approaches to standardization of education, focused on the university competitive participation in the international market of educational services.This special issue presents the theoretical and practical studies of modern scientists, dealing with a wide range of problems of modern education. The problems of professional and personal development of the future teachers are solved, organizational - pedagogical and methodological conditions for their effective training in high school are justified; adaptive educational potential of foreign experience in the field of students' training is identified, as well as conditions for its effective extrapolating to the national system of professional education are proposed; the content and technological aspects of family upbringing of children are revealed; theoretical and practical approaches to the development of the content of educational curricula are presented, the factors and conditions of complex implementation of effective educational technology in high school are identified; the advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of students' project activities are revealed; the theoretical and methodological bases of formation of students' research skills are disclosed; content and methodological aspects of the adults' training are actualized; problems of students' foreign language training, both in Russian and in foreign universities are presented; socio-psychological factors of foreign students' adaptation and training in Russian universities are identified; the criteria and indicators of the competitiveness of professional education are revealed and others. Presented in this special issue studies provide a conceptual basis for the theoretical understanding of the Russian experience, its synthesis and structural implementation in the continuing education of other countries taking into account their traditions prevailed and socio-economic development. These papers can have as theoretical so practical value for teachers, researchers, masters, post-graduates, doctoral students of pedagogical and psychological spheres.


Recurrent neural networks have achieved remarkable success at generating sequences with complex structures, thanks to advances that include richer embeddings of input and cures for vanishing gradients. Trained only on sequences from a known grammar, though, they can still struggle to learn rules and constraints of the grammar.
Neural Attribute Machines (NAMs) are equipped with a logical machine that represents the underlying grammar, which is used to teach the constraints to the neural machine by (i) augmenting the input sequence, and (ii) optimizing a custom loss function. Unlike traditional RNNs, NAMs are exposed to the grammar, as well as samples from the language of the grammar. During generation, NAMs make significantly fewer violations of the constraints of the underlying grammar than RNNs trained only on samples from the language of the grammar.


Increasing traffic is a major problem in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. In March 1990, the Washington State Legislature passed Senate Bill 6358, enabling local jurisdictions to impose a commercial parking tax. This paper analyzes Senate Bill 6358. During the course of the evaluation, several alternative tax structures were developed and redesigned to work within the Bill's legal requirements. The alternatives were evaluated on the basis of public opinion, revenue generation, and administrative efficiency.


Because temperature affects the growth, development, and survival of embryos, oviparous mothers should discriminate carefully among available nesting sites. We combined a radiotelemetric study of animal movements with a spatial mapping of environmental temperatures to test predictions about the nesting behavior of the eastern fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus). Females made large excursions from their typical home ranges to construct nests in exposed substrates. These excursions appeared to be related solely to nesting because all females returned to forested habitat immediately afterward. On average, <1% (range = 0-8%, n = 19) of the area used by a female during nesting was contained within the area used before and after nesting. The selection of nesting sites matched predictions based on laboratory studies of embryonic performance; specifically, females nested in extremely open habitat at a mean of 6 cm depth. Spatial mapping of soil temperatures revealed that temperatures of nesting areas exceeded those of areas typically used by females, indicating that females preferred to construct warm nests that speed embryonic growth and development. However, this behavior could reduce the survivorship of females because of the need to rapidly navigate unfamiliar and exposed terrain.


Up to 30% of patients with metastatic breast cancer eventually develop brain metastasis, yet the pathologic mechanism behind this development remains poorly understood. Here, we profiled long noncoding RNAs in brain metastatic tumors from patients with breast cancer and found that the X-inactive-specific transcript (XIST) was significantly downregulated in these tissues. XIST expression levels inversely correlated with brain metastasis, but not with bone metastasis in patients. Silencing of XIST preferentially promoted brain metastatic growth of XISThigh cells in our xenograft models. Moreover, knockout of XIST in mice mammary glands accelerated primary tumor growth as well as metastases in the brain. Decreased expression of XIST stimulated epithelial-mesenchymal transition and activated c-Met via MSN-mediated protein stabilization, which resulted in the promotion of stemness in the tumor cells. Loss of XIST also augmented secretion of exosomal miRNA-503, which triggered M1-M2 polarization of microglia. This M1-M2 conversion upregulated immune suppressive cytokines in microglia that suppressed T-cell proliferation. Furthermore, we screened an FDA-approved drug library and identified fludarabine as a synthetic lethal drug for XISTlow breast tumor cells and found that fludarabine blocked brain metastasis in our animal model. Our results indicate that XIST plays a critical role in brain metastasis in breast cancer by affecting both tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment and that the XIST-mediated pathway may serve as an effective target for treating brain metastasis.Significance: These findings describe mechanisms of how loss of the lncRNA XIST promotes brain metastasis in breast cancer and identify fludarabine as a potential therapeutic agent that specifically eliminates XISTlow tumor cells in the brain. Cancer Res; 78(15); 4316-30. ©2018 AACR.


Lightweight and camera-equipped wearable devices such as Android-backed Google Glass— with their potential for wide-spread and mobile data capture—have piqued the imagination of technologists and privacy advocates alike. This paper describes an experimental system which confirms the feasibility of such devices for surveillance through live data collection and facial recognition. Furthermore, even though effective surveillance tasks are computationally demanding, this work illustrates that performance of such systems is scalable through careful architecting of communication between static servers and mobile collection devices. When the bulk of the complexity can be offloaded to the server, and with the availability of highlyavailable communication channels between collector and processor, we have the foundation upon which future surveillance systems might be constructed. Such systems awaken nightmares for those advocating privacy of the modern citizen, while inspiring innovators to push forward the bounds of what can be accomplished with today's technology. The present project enables advocates from both ends of the spectrum to debate privacy policy as it can be seen through the lens of systems that are possible today.


There are many systems and techniques that address stochastic scheduling problems, based on distinct and sometimes opposite approaches, especially in terms of how scheduling and schedule execution are combined, and if and when knowledge about the uncertainties are taken into account. In many real-life problems, it appears that all these approaches are needed and should be combined, which to our knowledge has never been done. Hence it it first desirable to define a thorough classification of the techniques and systems, exhibiting relevant features: in this paper, we propose a tree-dimension typology that distinguishes between proactive, progressive, and revision techniques. Then a theoretical representation model integrating those three distinct approaches is defined. This model serves as a general template within which parameters can be tuned to implement a system that will fit specific application needs: we briefly introduce in this paper our first experimental prototypes which validate our model.


Abstract. Trends in the vertical distribution of ozone are reported and compared for a number of new and recently revised data sets. The amount of ozone-depleting compounds in the stratosphere (as measured by equivalent effective stratospheric chlorine – EESC) was maximised in the second half of the 1990s. We examine the periods before and after the peak to see if any change in trend is discernible in the ozone record that might be attributable to a change in the EESC trend, though no attribution is attempted. Prior to 1998, trends in the upper stratosphere (~ 45 km, 4 hPa) are found to be −5 to −10 % per decade at mid-latitudes and closer to −5 % per decade in the tropics. No trends are found in the mid-stratosphere (28 km, 30 hPa). Negative trends are seen in the lower stratosphere at mid-latitudes in both hemispheres and in the deep tropics. However, it is hard to be categorical about the trends in the lower stratosphere for three reasons: (i) there are fewer measurements, (ii) the data quality is poorer, and (iii) the measurements in the 1990s are perturbed by aerosols from the Mt Pinatubo eruption in 1991. These findings are similar to those reported previously even though the measurements for the main satellite and ground-based records have been revised. There is no sign of a continued negative trend in the upper stratosphere since 1998: instead there is a hint of an average positive trend of ~ 2 % per decade in mid-latitudes and ~ 3 % per decade in the tropics. The significance of these upward trends is investigated using different assumptions of the independence of the trend estimates found from different data sets. The averaged upward trends are significant if the trends derived from various data sets are assumed to be independent (as in Pawson et al., 2014) but are generally not significant if the trends are not independent. This occurs because many of the underlying measurement records are used in more than one merged data set. At this point it is not possible to say which assumption is best. Including an estimate of the drift of the overall ozone observing system decreases the significance of the trends. The significance will become clearer as (i) more years are added to the observational record, (ii) further improvements are made to the historic ozone record (e.g. through algorithm development), and (iii) the data merging techniques are refined, particularly through a more rigorous treatment of uncertainties.


The feed-forward architectures of recently proposed deep super-resolution networks learn representations of low-resolution inputs, and the non-linear mapping from those to high-resolution output. However, this approach does not fully address the mutual dependencies of low- and high-resolution images. We propose Deep Back-Projection Networks (DBPN), that exploit iterative up- and downsampling layers, providing an error feedback mechanism for projection errors at each stage. We construct mutually-connected up- and down-sampling stages each of which represents different types of image degradation and high-resolution components. We show that extending this idea to allow concatenation of features across up- and downsampling stages (Dense DBPN) allows us to reconstruct further improve super-resolution, yielding superior results and in particular establishing new state of the art results for large scaling factors such as 8× across multiple data sets.


The ability to detect anomaly has long been recognized as an inherent human ability, yet to date, practical AI solutions to mimic such capability have been lacking. This lack of progress can be attributed to several factors. To begin with, the distribution of "abnormalities" is intractable. Anything outside of a given normal population is by definition an anomaly. This explains why a large volume of work in this area has been dedicated to modeling the normal distribution of a given task followed by detecting deviations from it. This direction is however unsatisfying as it would require modeling the normal distribution of every task that comes along, which includes tedious data collection. In this paper, we report our work aiming to handle these issues. To deal with the intractability of abnormal distribution, we leverage Energy Based Model (EBM). EBMs learn to associates low energies to correct values and higher energies to incorrect values. As its core, the EBM employs Langevin Dynamics (LD) in generating these incorrect samples based on an iterative optimization procedure, alleviating the intractable problem of modeling the world of anomalies. Then, in order to avoid training an anomaly detector for every task, we utilize an adaptive sparse coding layer. Our intention is to design a plug and play feature that can be used to quickly update what is normal during inference time. Lastly, to avoid tedious data collection, this mentioned update of the sparse coding layer needs to be achievable with just a few shots. Here, we employ a meta learning scheme that simulates such a few shot setting during training. We support our findings with strong empirical evidence.


Contemporary critiques of globalization processes often focus on the potential leveling of regulatory standards and the export by the United States of neoliberal norms of deregulation and market facilitation. This article, in contrast, examines the extra-jurisdictional impact of EU data protection policy on the behavior of private parties in the United States, leading to a ratcheting up of U.S. privacy standards. The article takes a socio-legal approach, exploring the many ways in which the EU Directive on the Processing of Personal Data affects U.S. practice through changing the stakes of U.S. players - including regulators, businesses, privacy advocates, lawyers and privacy service providers - and thereby changing the playing field in the United States on which competing interest groups clash. In examining the interaction of EU law, U.S. practice and international trade rules, the article finds that WTO law, rather than constraining the Directive's extra-jurisdictional impacts, provides the EU with a shield against U.S. retaliatory threats, thereby further facilitating a trading up of data privacy standards. The article concludes by examining the conditions under which cross-border exchange can lead to a leveraging up of social protections such as data privacy standards. These include, the desire for firms to expand their markets, subjecting themselves to foreign regulatory policy; European states' ability to enhance their bargaining power by acting collectively, using the large EU market as leverage to change foreign standards; the nature of data privacy protection as a luxury good demanded by residents of relatively wealthy, more powerful jurisdictions; the externalities of U.S. under-regulation of privacy protection, legitimizing EU intervention; and the constraints of WTO supranational trade rules on U.S. unilateral retaliatory threats. While the article focuses on the issue of data privacy, its analysis applies to broad areas of law affected by economic globalization.


"Many developing countries have moved into the production of non-traditional agricultural products to diversify their exports and increase foreign currency earnings. Accessing developed country markets and urban domestic markets requires meeting the food safety requirements due to several demand and supply side factors. Food retailers have developed protocols relating to pesticide residues, field and packinghouse operations, and traceability. In this changing scenario where food safety requirements are getting increasingly stringent, there are worries regarding the livelihood of the poor since companies that establish production centers in LDCs might exclude them. Poor producers face problems of how to produce safe food, be recognized as producing safe food, identify cost-effective technologies for reducing risk, and be competitive with larger producers with advantage of economies of scale in compliance with food safety requirements. In enabling the smallholders to remain competitive in such a system, new institutional arrangements are required. In particular, public-private partnerships can play a key role in creating farm to fork linkages that can satisfy the market demands for food safety while retaining smallholders in the supply chain. Furthermore, organized producer groups monitoring their own food safety requirements through collective action often become attractive to buyers who are looking for ways to ensure traceability and reduce transaction costs. This paper compares how small producers of different fruit and vegetable products in different countries have coped with increased demands for food safety from their main export markets. These commodities are Kenyan green beans, Mexican cantaloupes, and Indian grapes." authors' abstract


Aim/Purpose: This paper presented the framework for the integration of digital technologies in education, implemented in InTecEdu Program, developed by Remote Experimentation Laboratory (RExLab), Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil.

Background: The main objective of the model presented is to arouse interest in science and technology among adolescents. Therefore, it sought to develop STEM competencies (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in children and adolescents. Understanding learning in STAM areas can favor the development of professionals who can supply the demand in related sectors, especially in the scientific-technological scope. To fulfill the main objective, strategies related to students and teachers were developed. With activities aimed at students, it was hoped to promote vocations to scientific-technological careers and encourage entrepreneurship. On the other hand, the activities related to teachers aimed at training them to integrate technology into their lesson plans. Inspired by the Maker Culture, the model sought to make it possible for teachers to become the main agents in the process of integrating technology in their lesson plans, since they were in charge of building and producing their digital content and other resources to support their didactic activities. The maker movement is a technological extension of the "Do It Yourself!" culture, which encourages ordinary people to build, modify, repair, and manufacture their objects, with their own hands. The training actions were preceded by a diagnosis, inspired by the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model, as well as the lesson plans prepared and made available by the teachers.

Methodology: Methodologically, the framework's work plan was composed of five Work Packages (WP), which include management, resource mapping, strategies related to teachers, strategies related to students, and the dissemination and exploitation of results. In the 2014-2018 period, 367 teachers participated in training activities, intending to integrate technologies into lesson plans. At the end of 2018, 27 Basic Education schools, including an indigenous and a rural school, from the public-school system, in the states of Santa Catarina, Minas Gerais, and the Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil, using the project's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). In these 70 teachers, 230 classes, and 6,766 students accessed didactic content, produced by teachers, at VLE. Also, 20 laboratories were available in 26 instances, for use in practical activities in disciplines in the STEM areas. Specifically, in the STEM areas, 3,360 students from 98 classes from 9 schools had integrated the Remote Laboratories, in lesson plans in the subjects of Physics and Biology (High School), Science (Elementary School).

Contribution: The main results of the application of the framework are related to the training of human resources, knowledge production, and educational innovation. About the training of human resources, we sought to contribute to the training of teachers concerning technology in education and, with that, arouse greater interest on the part of students, as well as obtain improvements in their learning from teaching methodologies supported on the use of digital technologies. On the other hand, the production of knowledge, in the program and the socialization of research, is favored by the model based on open-source resources, both in terms of software and hardware and with open educational resources. This characteristic favor and expands the potential for reapplying research and, consequently, its contribution to educational innovation.

Findings: The results, about students, indicated an increase in motivation due to the creation of new teaching and learning opportunities. The fact of extending the classroom and school, through remote laboratories, to support practical activities and the use of VLE, was also pointed out as a very positive factor. On the other hand, the realization of the workshops, inspired by practices of the Maker Culture, provided an approximation of these to the skills of the real world, which will certainly favor their employability. Regarding the teachers, it is noticed the continuity and expansion in the use of technological resources in the classroom; many sought and have participated in new training actions.

Recommendations for Practitioners: Provision of a repository of practices for sharing and reuse of lesson plans developed by teachers participating in the research. Technical documents, manuals, and guides for robotics, computer programming, electronics and new technology workshops for students.

Recommendation for Researchers: Technical documents, manuals, and guides for remote laboratories. Data collected in the applied questionnaires. Technical documents, manuals, and guides for robotics, computer programming, electronics and new technology workshops for students.

Impact on Society: The main results of the framework application are related to human resources formation, knowledge production, and educational innovation. Regarding the formation of human resources, we sought to contribute to the formation of teachers concerning technology in education and, about the students the creation of teaching and learning opportunities, to extend the classroom and also the school, through the remote laboratories, to support the practical activities and the use of the VLE.

Future Research: The socialization and reapplication of the framework since it is based on open-source resources, both software and hardware, and with open educational resources.


In recent decades, a number of fantastically successful, mainly American, multinational entities (MNEs) – led and epitomized by the "Four Horsemen," Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google – have risen to global economic hyper-prominence. While their market capitalizations and profits are high, reflecting that they earn substantial rents or quasi-rents, their aggregate global taxes are generally quite low, reflecting their ability to create stateless income.

Often, these MNEs are technology companies, like the Four Horsemen – but not always. Starbucks, for example, enjoys high global profits and low taxes despite its following a classic brick-and-mortar retail business model. This reflects that, like its more obviously high-tech peers, it relies on valuable intellectual property that helps it in creating both global pretax profitability and stateless income.

Such MNEs' rise has placed substantial pressure on existing corporate income tax models. While the existing models might perhaps be significantly improved, this would still leave market countries (where the MNEs' consumers are located) well short of being able to tax, as fully as they might like, the location-specific rents that these companies earn by interacting with their residents.
Market countries that use novel tax instruments, such as properly designed digital services taxes (DSTs) to expand their capacity to reach such location-specific rents, are not acting unreasonably, as judged within existing (and fairly lax) norms for constraining and channeling countries' self-interested behavior. DSTs also have the potential (although whether it will be realized is uncertain) to improve, rather than worsen, global efficiency and distribution. Whether they prove permanent or merely transitional, DSTs look like harbingers of a new era in which entity-level corporate taxation rightly focuses more on locational rents, and less on decades-old doctrinal and semantic debates concerning the supposedly "true" source of economic income and value creation.


We have measured the optical fluorescence spectra of dye incorporated in high-quality photonic crystals made from colloids. The spectra reveal a stopgap that is due to Bragg reflection with strikingly reduced attenuation compared with plane-wave transmission. The modified attenuation is independent of the position of the sources in the sample and is brought about by diffuse scattering from defects near the surface. In the presence of a photonic bandgap, the diffuse component would disappear. Thus we have found a simple, unambiguous probe for the presence of photonic bandgaps.


Since 2001, Canada's successive federal governments have gone to great pains to explain the military intervention in Afghanistan to Canadians. In spite of these attempts, communicating with the public about Canada's involvement in Afghanistan has been a challenge for political leaders. Many commentators have been critical of the Canadian government's communication strategy and have alleged that disapproval for the mission was greatly influenced by the inability of Canadian officials to present a clear and transparent public message on Afghanistan.' Though this view is widely held, there has been no rigorous empirical examination of the content of the official discourse on the Canadian operation in Afghanistan since 2001. Given the absence of such analyses, the following questions must be addressed: is this harsh judgment of Canadian officials warranted? If so, does it imply that successive Canadian governments have failed to effectively explain Canada's presence in, and policies towards, Afghanistan?This article examines how successive Canadian governments have explained and justified Canada's presence in Afghanistan between September 2001 and March 2008. In particular, I examine how successive Canadian governments (those of Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and Stephen Harper) have presented and sold Canada's presence in Afghanistan. My findings reveal that there has been a significant variation in the quality and content of government speeches on Afghanistan. Based on these findings, the article reinforces criticisms that this varying quality and content has weakened the coherence of the successive governments' Afghan message.To conduct this study, I collected all published speeches made by prime ministers, ministers of national defence, and ministers of foreign affairs and international trade between September 2001 and March 2008. In all, 101 speeches mentioning the Afghan issue were examined.2 Though I endeavoured to collect all the speeches available, it is possible that some may have escaped my attention. However, on an aggregate level, this should not overly affect the analysis. It should be noted, furthermore, that it is not my aim to analyze the accuracy of the speeches, but rather to analyze their coherence. As such, I have observed that the Canadian government's message on Afghanistan has been chaotic for most of the past seven years, with the rationales and justifications for the mission undergoing notable shifts. This leads me to conclude that the federal government has not succeeded in clearly communicating the logic behind Canada's intervention and actions in Afghanistan.The article begins by reviewing critiques of the Canadian government's efforts to explain the Afghan mission. Next, it outlines the three types of justification used to legitimize Canada's intervention in Afghanistan, and compares how the Chretien, Martin, and Harper governments employed these justifications. In conclusion, the article assesses whether existing critiques of the governments' communication strategies are fair.CANADA GOES TO AFGHANISTAN: COMMUNICATION KERFUFFLECertain high-profile commentators have been dismayed by the Canadian government's efforts to communicate and explain Canada's role in Afghanistan. Janice Stein and Eugene Lang, for instance, assert that the Afghan mission suffers from a personality disorder. The federal government was unable, they say, to explain the various reasons why Canada invested substantial military and financial assets in Afghanistan, describing the mission as being one of sanction, combat, and/or reconstruction. Stein and Lang argue that "[n]o country can afford to go to war with... confusion of purpose. Canada's leaders would need to make compelling arguments for why Canada is fighting far away from home."3 They further contend that the rationale behind the mission was confused and deficient.The independent panel on Canada's future role in Afghanistan, chaired by John Manley and whose report was published in January 2008, agreed with this critical assessment. …


The aim of the present work is to identify the appropriate framework for analyzing photoluminescence and photocurrent (EQE) spectra of charge transfer (CT) states in donor–acceptor blends used as active materials for organic solar cells. It was stimulated by the work of Vandewal et al. (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2017, 139(4), 1699–1704) who analyzed EQE spectra of CT states of a series of blend systems in terms of Marcus theory assuming that, first, the spectral shape reflects the reorganization energy of the donor upon ionization and, second, that disorder effects are unimportant. To test this assumption we applied gated photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy within a temperature range from 5 to 295 K combined with EQE as well as electroluminescence (EL) experiments on 1 : 1 Me-LPPP : PCBM blends by weight. We find that the PL spectra are virtually temperature independent and the temporal decay of the emission features a power law with an exponent close to −3/2 as Hong and Noolandi predicted for distributed geminately bound electron-holes pairs. The EL spectrum reveals a red-shift by 100 meV relative to the PL spectrum. The results are inconsistent with both Marcus' electron transfer theory and the original Marcus–Levich–Jortner (MLJ) theory, and they prove that disorder effects are crucial. Both PL and EQE spectra can be rationalized in terms of the classic Franck–Condon picture of electronic transitions that couple to intra-molecular vibrations as well as low frequency modes of the donor–acceptor pair that forms the CT state.


The story of Pocahontas, simultaneously celebrated and contained, presents the favored path for Native American women in the newer legal culture: absorption into the Euro-American race and ultimate disappearance of the non-European element. The alternative path was reserved for women whose assimilation did not reach this level of absorption and disappearance but retained their allegiance to both the Indian and white society. Federal and state legislatures and courts marginalized such women, denied them the treaty rights accorded their male companions, and denied them stable marriages, rights of descent, and the power within the family that they had had within Indian culture. As white people and white values encroached ever further into formerly untouched Indian communities, and as the standards for acceptable assimilation grew higher, this second category came to include virtually all Indian women. With few exceptions, no one has studied the ways in which the role of Indian women - as property owners, as wives, as heads of families, as members of their communities - was defined by American law throughout (and even before) the history of the United States. This article attempts to begin to fill this gap. Starting from the federal and state case law of the century preceding the Indian New Deal of 1934, it examines the ways judges and legislators perceived and treated Indian women in the century preceding this watershed in federal Indian law. It concludes with the ways tribes themselves forced Indian women from tribal land or otherwise diminished their power, and the extent to which nontribal policies may have influenced those actions.


In this paper we discuss Monte Carlo simulation based approximations of a stochastic programming problem. We show that if the corresponding random functions are convex piecewise linear and the distribution is discrete, then an optimal solution of the approximating problem provides an exact optimal solution of the true problem with probability one for sufficiently large sample size. Moreover, by using the theory of large deviations, we show that the probability of such an event approaches one exponentially fast with increase of the sample size. In particular, this happens in the case of linear two- (or multi-) stage stochastic programming with recourse if the corresponding distributions are discrete. The obtained results suggest that, in such cases, Monte Carlo simulation based methods could be very efficient. We present some numerical examples to illustrate the ideas involved.


New 2nd edition features step-by-step skill instruction, and practice-focused exercises. Developed by a distinguished editorial board, the Perinatal Continuing Education Program (PCEP) is a comprehensive, self-paced education program in four volumes.

The PCEP workbooks have been significantly revised and brought up-to-date with leading-edge procedures and techniques. The revised volumes are filled with clear explanations, step-by-step skill instruction, and practice-focused exercises. They offer time- saving, low-cost solutions for self-paced learning or as adjuncts to instructor-led skills training.

New 2nd edition features 10 units covering information and skills for assessment and initial management of frequently encountered neonatal illnesses, plus the comprehensive unit Review: Is the Baby Sick?, which ties all neonatal therapies and skills together for management of sick and at-risk newborns. In addition, Preparation for Neonatal Transport presents care for the newborn and for the baby's family.


The importance of the role of partnerships in research is evidenced by the federal government's, private sector's, and nonprofit organizations' continued interest in and approach to funding research through these vehicles. In education research involving interorganizational partnerships, partnerships are needed to create coordination and alignment across institutions of higher education as well as within K-12 systems. Successful partnership building requires significant resources in terms of human effort and dollars spent. It is therefore critical that partnerships evaluate themselves and their activities. This article provides a description of and reviews instruments that measure different aspects of partnerships and further suggests that instead of using any instrument in toto, that it be modified for evaluation of specific traits of a partnership and validated in the local context. The article further provides an illustrative example of educational evaluation from the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership Program, which calls for interinstitutional partnerships among institutions of higher education, local education agencies, state education agencies, and other for-profit and nonprofit entities.


Neuroblastoma, the most common extracranial solid tumor of childhood, is a heterogeneous tumor. In some patients, the tumor can go into spontaneous regression and disappear whereas other patients have rapidly growing tumors with a poor prognosis. The overall long-term survival rate in patients with high-risk neuroblastoma is less than 30%, indicating the need for new treatment strategies. Angiogenesis inhibition hampers the formation of new blood vessels, thereby limiting the tumors' metabolic exchange. Neuroblastoma is rapidly growing and high tumor angiogenesis has been associated with poor outcome. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to investigate the effect of novel treatment modalities for angiogenesis inhibition on high-risk neuroblastoma xenografts. For that purpose, we used subcutaneous mouse models and characterized orthotopic mouse models for high-risk neuroblastoma. We found that xenotransplantation of neuroblastoma cells into the adrenal gland of SCID and SCID beige mice resulted in orthotopic tumors resembling clinical neuroblastoma in respect to tumor site, growth and spread. Using contrast-enhanced ultrasound, we observed that the receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor SU11248 reduced orthotopic neuroblastoma growth and spread by reducing tumor angiogenesis.In subcutaneous xenografts for high-risk neuroblastoma, valuable for studies requiring continuous assessment of tumor volume, we demonstrated that immune-neutralizing VEGF with the anti-VEGF antibody bevacizumab significantly reduced neuroblastoma growth. Finally, we found that formulations of the chemotherapeutic drug GMX1778 inhibited angiogenesis and induced tumor regression in a dose dependent manner without host toxicity. We showed that relapsing tumors remained responsive to GMX-therapy without accelerated growth or induced drug resistance.In conclusion, SU11248, bevacizumab, and formulations of the active compound GMX1778 may become useful for treating high-risk neuroblastoma.


Raymond of Peñafort's Summa de casibus conscientiae, including its fourth book, the Summa de matrimonio, was one of the most successful texts for pastors and confessors composed in the Middle Ages. Written by a Dominican friar in the thirteenth century, it treated cases of conscience in a systematic manner. It also examined matrimony and the other sacraments. The Summa was subject to detailed commentary by William of Rennes, updates by John of Freiburg reflecting new papal pronouncements, and abridgment for pastors' greater convenience. One important summary was done in Latin verse, a work attributed to Adam of Aldersbach, a Cistercian monk. Eventually Adam's Summula de summa Raymundi itself received a detailed prose commentary. This commented version was printed in Cologne in the late fifteenth century. Gordan Manuscript 95 at Bryn Mawr College, from the collection of Phyllis Goodhart Gordan, contains Raymond's Summa with his commentary on the trees of consanguinity and affinity, which indicated whether couples were not permitted to marry because of blood kinship or sexual contact. It concludes with an extended extract from Adam's work added after the texts by Raymond had been copied. That extract varies from the printed version and two manuscripts located at the University of Pennsylvania. The excerpts display differences from the other available texts of Adam's work, including additional lines of verse, suggesting that it was drawn from a different manuscript tradition.


We propose a model for acid-mediated tumor invasion involving two different scales: the microscopic one, for the dynamics of intracellular protons and their exchange with their extracellular counterparts, and the macroscopic scale of interactions between tumor cell and normal cell populations, along with the evolution of extracellular protons. We also account for the tactic behavior of cancer cells, the latter being assumed to biase their motion according to a gradient of extracellular protons (following [2,31] we call this pH taxis). A time dependent (and also time delayed) carrying capacity for the tumor cells in response to the effects of acidity is considered as well. The global well posedness of the resulting multiscale model is proved with a regularization and fixed point argument. Numerical simulations are performed in order to illustrate the behavior of the model.


Due to its broad applicability in machine learning, resource allocation, and control, the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) has been extensively studied in the literature. The message exchange of the ADMM in multiagent optimization may reveal sensitive information of agents, which can be overheard by malicious attackers. This drawback hinders the application of the ADMM to privacy-aware multiagent systems. In this article, we consider consensus optimization with regularization, in which the cost function of each agent contains private sensitive information, e.g., private data in machine learning, and private usage patterns in resource allocation. We develop a variant of the ADMM that can preserve agents' differential privacy by injecting noise into the public signals broadcast to the agents. We derive conditions on the magnitudes of the added noise under which the designated level of differential privacy can be achieved. Furthermore, the convergence properties of the proposed differentially private ADMM are analyzed under the assumption that the cost functions are strongly convex with Lipschitz continuous gradients, and the regularizer has smooth gradients or bounded subgradients. We find that to attain the best convergence performance given a certain privacy level, the magnitude of the injected noise should decrease as the algorithm progresses. Additionally, the choice of the number of iterations should balance the tradeoff between the convergence, and the privacy leakage of the ADMM, which is explicitly characterized by the derived upper bounds on convergence performance. Finally, numerical results are presented to corroborate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. In particular, we apply the proposed algorithm to multiagent linear-quadratic control with private information to showcase its merit in control applications.


Shrubland birds are disturbance dependent species and are experiencing population declines of 1–3%/year rangewide. In our study, we determined nest success rates of four shrubland species, Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora pinus), Prairie Warbler (Dendroica discolor), Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea), and Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla), at Bent of the River Audubon Center, Southbury, Connecticut, USA. Field sites were conservation-managed fi elds that were actively managed for shrubland specialists. Data were collected on 123 nests (May–August, 2004–2006) and nest success rates (calculated using the Mayfi eld method) were 0.37 ± 0.003 for Blue-winged Warbler, 0.35 ± 0.013 for Prairie Warbler, 0.65 ± 0.009 for Indigo Bunting, and 0.50 ± 0.014 for Field Sparrow. Our study of these species is one of only three from the New England/ Mid-Atlantic Coast Region. We compiled data from studies from all regions reporting nest success of these species, conducted in a variety of managed and unmanaged shrublands. We compared our results to these studies and found nest success rates in conservation-managed fi elds to be similar to or higher than studies in different habitat management types in different regions. Based on our comparision of results from the limited number of studies on nest success rates of shrubland birds, the rotational mowing, selective tree removal, and invasive plant control regimes used to maintain conservation-managed shrublands are effective management practices to maintain high to moderate rates of nest success and may even be preferable to other management practices where shrubland species are targets for conservation.


Osteo-articular diseases affect many elderly people, resulting in worse quality of life and a substantial public health cost. Osteoarthritis, inflammatory articular diseases and conditions associated with cartilage disruption are the most frequently diagnosed. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, glucocorticoids and physiotherapy are used to treat affected patients, while some nutraceutical products containing chondroprotective and osteotropic substances have been shown to improve their signs and symptoms. However, the true absorption and efficacy of these substances in humans is largely unknown. The absorption of hyaluronans and chondroitin sulfate is likely negatively affected by their high molecular weight. Nevertheless, many published papers have reported significant improvements in symptoms and articular functionality in patients taking these compounds. This paper attempts to clarify the apparent dichotomy between absorption and efficacy, and compare the clinical evidence for the bioavailability of hyaluronic acid with that of its precursor N-acetyl glucosamine.