This study attempted to analyze the effects of an advertising campaign on American women in to illustrate that these women are vastly unaware of just how influential advertising is on their thoughts and actions. It aimed to make women more aware of the presence of advertising in their lives by giving a brief history of the subject, by outlining some current claims in the field, and by introducing a new concept known as shared gender culture. To follow up on secondary research, this study also conducted an experiment on thirty-four women ages eighteen to fifty-five to discover their reactions to a new, never seen advertising campaign for beef. The study attempted to persuade and analyze the effects of persuasion. The study was conducted by survey and asked women their thoughts on and uses of beef before and after revealing the entire print campaign to them. Results showed that half of the participants were not persuaded by the campaign at all through their first and only viewing of it; 26.5% of the women consider themselves entirely invulnerable to advertising persuasion at all. Many women showed great distrust for claims in advertisements, calling them false. Those who did admit to persuasion did so out of a desire to be sexy, happy, healthy, and nurturing to others. PERSUADING WOMEN THROUGH ADVERTISING 4 Table of


The OAK Law Project aims to facilitate seamless access to knowledge and improve social, economic and cultural outcomes. This guide aims to provide practical guidance for academic authors interested in making their work more openly accessible to readers and other researchers. The guide provides authors with an overview of the concept of and rationale for open access to research outputs and how they may be involved in its implementation and with what effect. In doing so it considers the central role of copyright law and publishing agreements in structuring an open access framework as well as the increasing involvement of funders and academic institutions. The guide also explains different methods available to authors for making their outputs openly accessible, such as publishing in an open access journal or depositing work into an open access repository. Importantly, the guide addresses how open access goals can affect an author's relationship with their commercial publisher and provides guidance on how to negotiate a proper allocation of copyright interests between an author and publisher. A Copyright Toolkit is provided to further assist authors in managing their copyright.


The mass transfer properties of polyglycidylmethacrylate–ethylenedimethacrylate monolithic ion-exchangers (convective interaction media disks) were evaluated. As a reference material, the particulate ion-exchanger Source 30 was selected. The model proteins lysozyme, bovine serum albumin, and IgG were loaded at different concentrations and velocities. The mass transfer zones obtained with the monoliths were affected by neither the linear flow velocity nor the protein concentration in the mobile phase. The reduced height equivalent to one theoretical plate (HETP) of monoliths were independent of the reduced velocity. This was not the case for the particulate material.


The global climate has changed notably since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses (GHG) have increased dramatically followed by an increase in global average temperature. In order to avoid negative potential outcomes of global warming, countries have adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that has so far been ratified by 192 countries. In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol, a binding GHG reduction plan, was adopted and entered into force in 2005. But several countries, including the USA, have had doubts about the potential negative consequences of the planned 5% global joint reduction of GHG. However, studies generally show that on a macroeconomic level: (1) welfare loss in terms of GDP and lost growth in EU is low; (2) it differs among economies; and (3) permit trading and permit price (in either global or regional markets) is highly correlated with the welfare loss. The main objective of the paper is to describe the attitudes and responses to the Kyoto Protocol from a global perspective. The paper has three objectives. First, to provide an overview of global greenhouse gas emissions and the big drivers behind these emissions. Second, to present where different countries, both developed and less developed countries, such as India, China and the countries of South-east Europe currently stand as regards their efforts to achieve the Kyoto Protocol requirements. Third, to analyse the responses and attitudes to the Kyoto Protocol from a country development perspective.


The increased understanding of material behavior with rheology has existed for approximately 80 years as a science and has been applied to roofing products for over 50 years. With asphalt binders, several techniques exist for understanding rheology via the use of models. One of the best recognized models for the evaluation of the rheology of unmodified asphalt binders is the Christensen-Anderson model, and various developments of that model have occurred, enabling its use with filled systems such as those used in roofing applications. In addition to this model, the Rowe-Baumgardner-Sharrock model (developed by the authors) is introduced as an alternate method for defining the properties of roofing products that exhibit visco-elastic solid properties. When rheological data are fitted to master curve functional forms, changes in the model parameters can be rapidly visualized. The performance of various products can be assessed using this technique and can be related to the rheological parameters developed from this model (for example, the rheological index, crossover frequency, etc.). An analysis of the data is presented that includes testing using various rheometers over a wide range of temperatures. These data have been combined into a single master curve and plotted in various formats. The data show how the rheological index and the crossover frequency of the materials change over time, particularly with aging. Performance products can then be assessed and evaluated from both the historical data and models that enable the prediction of cracking and deformation. Adiscussion of the key parameters and a trend analysis are shown. Furthermore, the analysis is applied toward understanding the effectiveness of polymer networks in the roofing materials. As materials age, their properties change, and this can be observed, allowing the study of the effects of polymer network degradation with aging. This paper offers some further understanding of how key rheological parameters change.


There is this great difference between the works of men and the works of God, that the same minute and searching investigation, which displays the defects and imperfections of the one, brings out also the beauties of the other. If the most finely polished needle on which the art of man has been expended be subjected to a microscope, many inequalities, much roughness and clumsiness, will be seen. But if the microscope be brought to bear on the flowers of the field, no such result appears. Instead of their beauty diminishing, new beauties and still more delicate, that have escaped the naked eye, are forthwith discovered; beauties that make us appreciate, in a way which otherwise we could have had little conception of, the full force of the Lord's saying, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." The same law appears also in comparing the Word of God and the most finished productions of men. There are spots and blemishes in the most admired productions of human genius. But the more the Scriptures are searched, the more minutely they are studied, the more their perfection appears; new beauties are brought into light every day; and the discoveries of science, the researches of the learned, and the labours of infidels, all alike conspire to illustrate the wonderful harmony of all the parts, and the Divine beauty that clothes the whole.


My Ph.D research is mainly based on 'calixarene and coordination complex hosts for anion'. The research is to make synthetic chloride ion channels for possible treatment of cystic fibrosis. Our approach is based on derivatives of larger calix[n]arenes. Calixarenes are chalice-shaped molecules that form readily under base catalyzed-condensation of tert-butyl phenol with formaldehyde. We have synthesized calixarenes which were tuned at the lower rim with bromo alkyl nitrile and reduced followed by reaction with a series of different isocyanates bearing fluorescent functional groups capable of binding and sensing chloride and nitrate.
We are also interested how the host ligand binds with metal anions in solution and solid state chemistry. We synthesised simple pyridyl urea ligands and isomorphs. Their anion binding studies are discussed in terms of solid state and solution chemistry. Solid state structures based on silver and copper metal forming contact ion pairs with series of anions like nitrate, chloride, bromide, trifluoroacetate and boron tetrafluoride. Their solution based anion binding studies were performed and control titration results show that these hosts bind anions in a one to one fashion which was confirmed with solid state structures. An interesting aspect is that 2-ureidopyridine
ligand exists in four different anhydrous crystal forms (I – IV0), which can be crystallized by several techniques. It was found that forms I and II only crystallize without another polymorph from methanol solution or in presence of inorganic salts. Thermoanalysis shows that all the modifications melt without previous transition and applying the heat of fusion rule proves this system to be completely monotropic. The crystal structures show that the molecule forms one intramolecular and two intermolecular hydrogen bonds to give S(6) and dimeric R (8) graph synthons in all four structures. However packing arrangements differ strikingly and since the hydrogen-bonding arrangement is the same for all the four forms, the differences in energy measured by thermoanalytical methods can only be caused by the different packing arrangements involving combinations of the weaker interactions, with the CH.S contacts being among the obvious differences. Thus, this system is a clear example in which the presence of robust, reproducible hydrogen bonded synthons does not lead to any control or predictability of polymorphic form.


The purposes of this paper are (1) to examine driving forces and key success factors related to the increasing globalization of the wine industry, and (2) to analyze the current competitive advantage positions of four Old and five New World wine producing countries. Each country will be profiled using key industry data and analyzed regarding their national capabilities to address five key success factors that contribute to their national competitive advantage position. The countries fall into three groups with respect to their national comparative competitive advantage position. The group with the strongest competitive position includes United States, Australia, and Chile. Australia and Chile both have small populations that provide for a tiny domestic market with little potential for growth. However they are very well positioned to produce and export wine with their adaptive, large-scale producers and their great lure for foreign investments, providing them with a position of a strong competitive advantage. With respect to production, cost structures suggest Australia and Chile may be better positioned that the US. However, economies of scale and economies of scope in marketing offer an advantage to the US because it is a populous and affluent nation. While the US wine market is already significantly larger than Australia and Chile, it has even more potential to expand. The group of countries with moderate competitive advantages includes Italy, Spain, Argentina and South Africa. Lingering economic concerns and disadvantages of scale prevent Argentina from being ranked as competitively as neighboring Chile. Likewise, South Africa has strong marketing economies of scale and moderate production economies of scale, but currently domestic unrest has diminished its attraction for foreign investment and ability to expand its home market. In the Old World, Spain and Italy are hampered by decreased consumption rates and weak economies of scale in production. However, on the positive side, they have shown promise in their ability to adapt to an increasingly internationalized marketplace and to attract foreign investment. The countries with the weakest competitive advantage positions in the global wine industry are two traditional strongholds of wine production in the Old World: France and Germany. While they have large domestic markets, there is little opportunity for further growth. The concentration of production into small wineries, scarce land and labor, complex labeling practices and inability to leverage new production, and marketing techniques does not bode well for effective competition in a global market place. Nor does either country hold much potential for attracting foreign investment, save for some traditionally undervalued areas of France, like Languedoc. In conclusion, it is clear that the New World countries are currently positioned better to capitalize on the opportunities created through industry globalization and other current driving forces. Italy and Spain emerge as the best positioned Old World nations. This competitive advantage scenario should be a wake-up call to many wine producing countries. Indeed, some Old World countries have begun efforts to better adapt to industry-wide improvements in production and marketing practices. However, it is clear that many nations need to increase support that will encourage production and marketing innovations to improve their competitive advantage position to help local wineries succeed in the changing and increasingly competitive wine marketplace.


Abstract. H 2 SO 4 vapor is important for the nucleation of atmospheric aerosols and the growth of ultrafine particles to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) sizes with important roles in the global aerosol budget and hence planetary radiative forcing. Recent studies have found that reactions of stabilized Criegee intermediates (CIs, formed from the ozonolysis of alkenes) with SO 2 may be an important source of H 2 SO 4 that has been missing from atmospheric aerosol models. For the first time in a global model, we investigate the impact of this new source of H 2 SO 4 in the atmosphere. We use the chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem, with the online aerosol microphysics module, TOMAS, to estimate the possible impact of CIs on present-day H 2 SO 4 , CCN, and the cloud-albedo aerosol indirect effect (AIE). We extend the standard GEOS-Chem chemistry with CI-forming reactions (ozonolysis of isoprene, methyl vinyl ketone, methacrolein, propene, and monoterpenes) from the Master Chemical Mechanism. Using a fast rate constant for CI+SO 2 , we find that the addition of this chemistry increases the global production of H 2 SO 4 by 4%. H 2 SO 4 concentrations increase by over 100% in forested tropical boundary layers and by over 10–25% in forested NH boundary layers (up to 100% in July) due to CI+SO 2 chemistry, but the change is generally negligible elsewhere. The predicted changes in CCN were strongly dampened to the CI+SO 2 changes in H 2 SO 4 in some regions: less than 15% in tropical forests and less than 2% in most mid-latitude locations. The global-mean CCN change was less than 1% both in the boundary layer and the free troposphere. The associated cloud-albedo AIE change was less than 0.03 W m −2 . The model global sensitivity of CCN and the AIE to CI+SO 2 chemistry is significantly (approximately one order-of-magnitude) smaller than the sensitivity of CCN and AIE to other uncertain model inputs, such as nucleation mechanisms, primary emissions, SOA (secondary organic aerosol) and deposition. Similarly, comparisons to size-distribution measurements show that uncertainties in other model parameters dominate model biases in the model-predicted size distributions. We conclude that improvement in the modeled CI+SO 2 chemistry would not likely lead to significant improvements in present-day CCN and AIE predictions.


Neural dialogue models suffer from low-quality responses when interacted in practice, demonstrating difficulty in generalization beyond training data. Recently, knowledge distillation has been used to successfully regularize the student by transferring knowledge from the teacher. However, the teacher and the student are trained on the same dataset and tend to learn similar feature representations, whereas the most general knowledge should be found through differences. The finding of general knowledge is further hindered by the unidirectional distillation, as the student should obey the teacher and may discard some knowledge that is truly general but refuted by the teacher. To this end, we propose a novel training framework, where the learning of general knowledge is more in line with the idea of reaching consensus, i.e., finding common knowledge that is beneficial to different yet all datasets through diversified learning partners. Concretely, the training task is divided into a group of subtasks with the same number of students. Each student assigned to one subtask not only is optimized on the allocated subtask but also imitates multi-view feature representation aggregated from other students (i.e., student peers), which induces students to capture common knowledge among different subtasks and alleviates the over-fitting of students on the allocated subtasks. To further enhance generalization, we extend the unidirectional distillation to the bidirectional distillation that encourages the student and its student peers to co-evolve by exchanging complementary knowledge with each other. Empirical results and analysis demonstrate that our training framework effectively improves the model generalization without sacrificing training efficiency.


The LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF CLEVELAND, incorporated on May 12, 1905, was the fifth society in the United States organized, according to its charter, "to render legal assistance gratuitously or for a moderate charge to deserving persons not otherwise able to obtain the services of a competent attorney, and to promote measures for their protection." Praised as an innovative program by proponents of legal aid at various points in its history, the Cleveland organization was nevertheless typical of such societies, evolving from an agency for social control to one advocating social change in the 1960s.Two attorneys offering legal services to the poor through different agencies, Arthur D. Baldwin with the CLEVELAND DAY NURSERY AND FREE KINDERGARTEN ASSOCIATION and ISADOR GROSSMAN with B'NAI B'RITH, joined forces to form the Legal Aid Society. Supported by private donations and later by the COMMUNITY FUND, the Legal Aid Society contracted with a specific lawyer or firm to provide legal services for the indigent. Grossman was the society's first attorney (1905-12), followed by Robb Bartholomew (1914-18), and the firm of Charles E. Clark & J. Milton Costello (1918-58). Probate Judge ALEXANDER HADDEN served as president of the society's board of directors until 1920 and as honorary president until 1926. The Society represented 456 clients in its first full year of operation. Judge MANUEL V. LEVINE, a trustee of Legal Aid Society for 32 years, facilitated the creation of the state's first municipal court in 1910, a historical step that ended the exploitation of poor people by township justices of the peace who freely ranged into Cleveland since the city lacked a court of its own. The Society also secured the passage of a bill that led to the creation of the nation's first small claims court in 1913.The Society's decision to end its practice of retaining outside lawyers and to establish its own Civil and Criminal divisions in the early 1960s proved highly controversial among judges and private attorneys, who unsuccessfully challenged it in court. The society expanded its services greatly in the late 1960s with federal antipoverty funds from the Office of Economic Opportunity. Under the leadership of Burt W. Griffin, who later became Common Pleas Court judge, Legal Aid used a $160,000 grant to establish five offices in low-income neighborhoods of Cleveland in 1966 and increased its legal staff from 16 in 1966 to 66 in 1970, when it served 30,000 people. Following the passage of the state's Public Defender Law in 1976, the county took over much of the public defender services which had been provided by the society. Despite national political criticism of legal aid policies and budgetary uncertainties, the Cleveland society continued to expand the scope of its operations. By 1978, its Civil Divisionincluded a Family Law Unit, an Older Persons Unit, and a program which operated two group homes for persons released from state mental hospitals after long-term commitments. Its Legal Reform Section filed class action suits and test cases on a variety of issues, and two other programs provided assistance and support to community organizations.In 1979, the Legal Aid Society moved into a renovated factory at 1223 West 6th Street in the WAREHOUSE DISTRICT. National budget cuts in 1981 and 1982 forced it to close offices, reduce staff, and turn away clients. In 1983, the Bar Association of Greater Cleveland began to urge its members to volunteer for Legal Aid or provide financial support for its work. In 1993, the society sought pro bono staff time from large local law firms: participating firms included SQUIRE, SANDERS AND DEMPSEY, THOMPSON, HINE & FLORY, and Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff. The society handled 11,097 cases in 2009, closing 7,409 of them. As of 2011, Colleen M. Cotter served as Legal Aid's executive director. The society had 55 staff attorneys, 90 staff members, and 1,400 volunteer lawyers, and operated three offices for clients in Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, and Lorain counties.


The National Ocean Service's (NOS) Estuarine Bathymetry is a digital raster compilation of NOS' hydrographic survey data for selected U.S. estuaries. The 70 estuarine bathymetry data sets are available in both 30 meter and 3 arc second resolutions. The gridded bathymetry are an interpolated data set representing the most up-to-date depth sounding information that was available at the time of publication (1998).


To promote active transportation modes (such as bike ride and walking), and to create safer communities for easier access to transit, it is essential to provide consolidated data-driven transportation information to the public. The relevant and timely information from data facilitates the improvement of decision-making processes for the establishment of public policy and urban planning for sustainable growth, and for promoting public health in the region. For the characterization of the spatial variation of transportation-emitted air pollution in the Fresno/Clovis neighborhood in California, various species of particulate matters emitted from traffic sources were measured using real-time monitors and GPS loggers at over 100 neighborhood walking routes within 58 census tracts from the previous research, Children's Health to Air Pollution Study - San Joaquin Valley (CHAPS-SJV). Roadside air pollution data show that PM2.5, black carbon, and PAHs were significantly elevated in the neighborhood walking air samples compared to indoor air or the ambient monitoring station in the Central Fresno area due to the immediate source proximity. The simultaneous parallel measurements in two neighborhoods which are distinctively different areas (High diesel High poverty vs. Low diesel Low poverty) showed that the higher pollution levels were observed when more frequent vehicular activities were occurring around the neighborhoods. Elevated PM2.5 concentrations near the roadways were evident with a high volume of traffic and in regions with more unpaved areas. Neighborhood walking air samples were influenced by immediate roadway traffic conditions, such as encounters with diesel trucks, approaching in close proximity to freeways and/or busy roadways, passing cigarette smokers, and gardening activity. The elevated black carbon concentrations occur near the highway corridors and regions with high diesel traffic and high industry. This project provides consolidated data-driven transportation information to the public including: 1. Transportation-related particle pollution data 2. Spatial analyses of geocoded vehicle emissions 3. Neighborhood characterization for the built environment such as cities, buildings, roads, parks, walkways, etc.


Software engineering research often requires analyzing multiple revisions of several software projects, be it to make and test predictions or to observe and identify patterns in how software evolves. However, code analysis tools are almost exclusively designed for the analysis of one specific version of the code, and the time and resources requirements grow linearly with each additional revision to be analyzed. Thus, code studies often observe a relatively small number of revisions and projects. Furthermore, each programming ecosystem provides dedicated tools, hence researchers typically only analyze code of one language, even when researching topics that should generalize to other ecosystems. To alleviate these issues, frameworks and models have been developed to combine analysis tools or automate the analysis of multiple revisions, but little research has gone into actually removing redundancies in multi-revision, multi-language code analysis. We present a novel end-to-end approach that systematically avoids redundancies every step of the way: when reading sources from version control, during parsing, in the internal code representation, and during the actual analysis. We evaluate our open-source implementation, LISA, on the full history of 300 projects, written in 3 different programming languages, computing basic code metrics for over 1.1 million program revisions. When analyzing many revisions, LISA requires less than a second on average to compute basic code metrics for all files in a single revision, even for projects consisting of millions of lines of code.


them with unilateral in-volvement or with renal dysfunction. We observed a 62-year-old man with SLE and a 10-year history of moderate-to-severe hypertension who was admitted to our hospital because of uncontrolled blood pressure values (152/95 mmHg), despite drug therapy. No signs of renal impairment were evident. After an initial physical examination, which presented a periumbilical bruit, a renal ultra-sound was performed with evidence of bilateral renal artery stenosis. An angio-MR study also confirmed the diagnosis and showed a double renal artery on the right side. Many different factors can contribute to the bilateral renal artery stenosis in this patient. Chronic inflammatory state associated to SLE, metabolic alterations with dyslipidemia and steroid therapy may all be involved in the development of the renal atherosclerotic lesions.


America's public universities engage students in myriad classroom environments that range from traditional, entirely-in-person classroom environments to entirely-online, virtual classrooms, with every shade of grey in between. These varied learning environments pose a fascinating question with respect to the ways such universities use affirmative action in admissions. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the United States Supreme Court held that "student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions." Indeed, student body diversity remains one of the few "compelling interests" that the Court has held satisfies the constitutional imperative that the "government may treat people differently because of their race only for the most compelling reasons." Yet, can student body diversity exist when there are no student bodies, as in an online classroom? Is the ability of public university students to know the races of their classmates a necessary element of what makes student body diversity sufficiently compelling to justify race-based admission considerations? What remains of Grutter if students stop seeing the color of their classmates' skin, and instead see only their computer screens?


Israel constructs the Mediterranean according to a Manichean schema whereby it classifies the countries which constitute the area as either nations it considers allies or nations and socio-political movements it considers threatening. Furthermore, in certain cases, this construction leaves space for attempting to move countries from the latter category to the former. For the former, the Israeli construction of security discourse consists of trading and military compacts, as well as friendly diplomatic ties. For the latter, Israeli construction of the Mediterranean is based on a discourse of deterrence – preventing such countries from threatening Israeli interests, as Israeli planners understand them – as well as attempting to weaken such countries when possible. Such weakening can in fact be a prelude to transitioning them from the "enemy" category to the "ally" category. Finally, Israeli discourse and construction of its most immediate neighbour, the Palestinians, reflects a combination of both worldviews. On the one hand, it constructs this sector of the Mediterranean as one it seeks to neuter or disarm, identifying as security threats those portions of Palestinian society it considers cooptable – the wider and deeper the scope of cooptation and absorption into the Israeli social and economic fabric, and political containment, the better. On the other, it constructs a discourse around deterrence and weakening concerning those portions and segments of Palestinian society that it is unable to co-opt. The enemy/friend category is in large measure a question of the attitudes of the country in question to what Israel calls its security situation vis-à-vis Palestine. For that reason, it casts countries as security threats when they pursue policies Israel interprets as favourable to the Palestinian struggle, and casts them as friendlier when such countries align with Israeli colonial policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians.


When one thinks of the history of U.S. global expansion, the Department of the Interior rarely comes to mind. Its very name declares its narrow portfolio. Yet The Global Interior reveals that a government organ best known for managing domestic natural resources and operating national parks has constantly supported and projected American power.

Interior's first task was to oversee settler colonialism in the American West. When that seemed complete, the department maintained its role but expanded its reach. Megan Black's detailed analysis shows how, throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Interior cultivated and exploited its image as an innocuous scientific-research and environmental-management organization in order to drive and satisfy America's insatiable demand for raw materials. Interior continues to operate in indigenous lands through, for instance, coal mining on the Crow reservation and oil leasing on the Blackfeet reservation. It pushes the boundaries of territoriality through offshore drilling. And in the guise of sharing expertise with the underdeveloped world, it has led lithium surveys in Afghanistan, among other activities abroad. Indeed, Interior is more than global: the department now manages a satellite that prospects natural resources in outer space.

Black demonstrates that in a period marked by global commitments to self-determination, Interior helped the United States maintain key benefits of empire without the burden of playing the imperialist villain. As other expansionist justifications—manifest destiny, hemispheric pacification, Cold War exigencies—fell by the wayside, Interior ensured that the environment itself would provide the foundational logic of American hegemony.


One of the fundamental issues in image processing and machine vision is texture, specifically texture feature extraction, classification and abnormality detection. This thesis is concerned with the analysis and classification of natural and random textures, where the building elements and the structure of texture are not clearly determinable, hence statistical and signal processing approaches are more appropriate. We investigate the advantages of multi-scale/multidirectional signal processing methods, higher order statistics-based schemes, and computationally low cost texture analysis algorithms. Consequently these advantages are combined to form novel algorithms. We develop a multi-scale/multi-directional Walsh-Hadamard transform for fast and robust texture feature extraction, where scale and angular decomposition properties are integrated into an ordinary Walsh-Hadamard transform, to increase its texture classification performance. We also introduce a highly accurate Gabor Composition method for texture abnormality detection which is a combination of a signal processing and a statistical method, namely Gabor filters and co-occurrence matrices. Furthermore, to overcome the practical drawbacks of traditional classification approaches, that require an extensive training stage, we introduce a method based on restructured eigenfilters for texture abnormality detection within a novelty detection framework. This demands only a minimal training stage using a few normal samples. The proposed schemes are compared with commonly used texture classification methods on different image sets, including a high resolution outdoor scene database, samples of the VisTex colour texture suite, and randomly textured normal and abnormal tiles. The results are then analysed in order to evaluate texture classification performance, based upon accuracy, generality and computational costs.


The Cognitive Radio (CR) or intelligent radio becomes increasingly an anticipated and promising solution to manage spectrum efficiency problems. The most challenging scenario is represented by CR ad hoc networks (CRAHNs) because of their dynamic and flexible nature. The performance of such networks can be further improved by using directional transmissions. This work proposes to use lightweight directional antennas with a fixed beam on small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and evaluates their performance using software simulations. We show that a rotation of an UAV can be used to point a beam in a desired direction. In this case, a system capacity becomes higher comparing to an omnidirectional transmission. The negative impact of the mechanical rotation is discussed as well.


This multi methods research, which is combined both of quantitative and qualitative methods, is about Public Service Announcement (PSA). This study is aimed to find out if something changes in behavior of people and their attitude to social problem in Russia by an impact of PSA and to understand whereby PSA impacts on changes in behavior of people and rise of attention to social problem in Russia. In order to achieve thesis aims, various types of data presented in this research: a survey of 50 people from different age and sex groups and interviews with a workers of two social organizations. To analyze a data, it were used a univariate and bivariate analysis for quantitative data. Analysis of qualitative data is done in a phenomenological way. According to the results, PSA performs its tasks, something it's changed in people by impact of PSA, people of all ages noted an influence of PSA on them, they get to know about social problem, begin to think about or changed their behavior, begun to work as volunteers, made a donation. By all this aspects as emotion, feeling, sensation, design, PSA impact on changes in behavior of people and rise of attention to social problem in Russia. PSA impacts across effective psychological mechanism such as an emotional sphere of personality. Psychological aspects can be divided into cognitive and emotional. Emotion is one of the key factors of the PSAs. It is established that emotional memory is much stronger than other types of memory, affects human behavior. Cognitive component is related to how advertising information is perceived by people. All elements like an illustration, title, text, logo, layout and general features of the image determine the overall effect of advertising. PSA is a display of goodwill of society, its principled position on socially significant values. Social advertising can and should be considered as a mode of operation of social services.


Heart attacks and strokes currently kill more people every year than cancer and HIV combined. These cardiovascular diseases are caused by atherosclerosis ‐ the formation of so‐called "plaques" in blood vessels. Interestingly, an enzyme called "Fibroblast Activation Protein (FAP)" contributes to arthritis and inflammatory liver disease; both of which are governed by similar inflammatory mechanisms as atherosclerosis. However the role of FAP in atherosclerosis had never been investigated. The studies presented in this thesis find that FAP is "switched‐on" by inflammation in potentially life‐threatening atherosclerotic plaques. We also found evidence that FAP contributes to plaque destabilization; the main cause of heart attack and stroke. When plaques rupture open, blood clots form, which block the vital flow of oxygen in a dangerous process known as "atherothrombosis." Our research found that FAP contributes to atherothrombosis in patients who suffered a heart attack. These findings may motivate both the development of anti‐FAP drugs, and also diagnostic measurements of FAP for heart attack and stroke prevention.


Articulatory motion is a skilled sequential movement in which a phonemic string is converted into continuous movements in the articulatory coordinate system. In generating articulatory movements, the phonemic target or task is often defined as a compact region of either articulatory, vocal‐tract geometric, or acoustic space. In this paper, statistical analysis of the phonemic targets obtained from the empirical articulatory and acoustic data is described. The target distribution shows different variants in each space for different classes of sounds. The variance of the target is examined for different conditions of syllable, stress, and utterance speed. Also examined is which articulatory, geometric, or acoustic space is appropriate for specifying the target in forming the articulatory movements using the trajectory formation model with a stochastic target representation [M. Honda and T. Kaburagi, ICSLP 1, 179–184 (1994)].


Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas and contributes to stratospheric ozone depletion. Soil physical conditions may influence N2O reduction and subsequent N2O emissions. We studied how soil water‐filled pore space (WFPS) and soil bulk density (ρb) affect N2O reduction and surface fluxes. Columns were repacked with soil and arranged in a factorial design at three levels of WFPS (60, 75, and 90%) and three levels of soil ρb (0.94, 1.00, 1.07 Mg m−3). Over 19 d, 15N‐enriched N2O was introduced at the base of the soil columns and N2O fluxes were measured. Relative gas diffusivities (Dp/Do) were also calculated. Soil ρb and WFPS interacted to affect the recovery of N2O‐15N and the antecedent inorganic‐N contribution to surface fluxes. Reduction rates of N2O‐15N ranged from 0.15 to 0.47 mg N2O‐N g−1 soil d−1. Calculated Dp/Do values correlated (P < 0.01) with soil NH4+–N (r = −0.73), NO3−–N (r = 0.93), cumulative N2O‐N flux (r = 0.76), and N2O‐N 15N enrichment (r = 0.80) and were affected by a soil WFPS × soil ρb interaction. Soil N transformations and the net surface N2O flux is dependent on the soil's Dp/Do, and WFPS alone does not suffice to discriminate between N2O emission sources. Consequently, the soil surface N2O flux may be comprised of N2O originating from deeper soil layers transported upward and/or from production in the topsoil.


Links between erosion/sedimentation history and soil carbon cycling were examined in a highly erosive setting in Mississippi loess soils. We sampled soils on (relatively) undisturbed and cropped hillslopes and measured C, N, 14C, and CO2 flux to characterize carbon storage and dynamics and to parameterize Century and spreadsheet 14C models for different erosion and tillage histories. For this site, where 100 years of intensive cotton cropping were followed by fertilization and contour plowing, there was an initial and dramatic decline in soil carbon content from 1870 to 1950, followed by a dramatic increase in soil carbon. Soil erosion amplifies C loss and recovery: About 100% of the original, prehistoric soil carbon was likely lost over 127 years of intensive land use, but about 30% of that carbon was replaced after 1950. The eroded cropland was therefore a local sink for CO2 since the 1950s. However, a net CO2 sink requires a full accounting of eroded carbon, which in turn requires that decomposition rates in lower slopes or wetlands be reduced to about 20% of the upland value. As a result, erosion may induce unaccounted sinks or sources of CO2, depending on the fate of eroded carbon and its protection from decomposition. For erosion rates typical of the United States, the sink terms may be large enough (1 Gt yr−1, back‐of‐the‐envelope) to warrant a careful accounting of site management, cropping, and fertilization histories, as well as burial rates, for a more meaningful global assessment.


Experimental one-way decoy pulse quantum key distribution running continuously for 60 hours is demonstrated over a fiber distance of 20km. We employ a decoy protocol which involves one weak decoy pulse and a vacuum pulse. The obtained secret key rate is on average over 10kbps. This is the highest rate reported using this decoy protocol over this fiber distance and duration.


Essays on how history's victors distort and suppress the documentary record in order to perpetuate their power and privilege, and how historians are influenced by the professional and class environment in which they work. "Michael Parenti, always provocative and eloquent, gives us a lively as well as valuable critique of orthodoxy posing as 'history.'"-Howard Zinn "Solid if surely controversial stuff." -Kirkus Table of Contents Prologue: Against the Mainstream History as Miseducation Mainstream Orthodoxy The Hunt for Real History Textbooks: America the Beautiful For Business, Against Labor The School as a Tool Priests and Pagans, Saints and Slaves Triumph of the One True Faith Silencing the Pagans Accepting the Powers that Be Affluent Believers Saints For Slavery Bishops and Barbarians, Jezebels and Jews The Myth of the Devout Peasant The Curse of Eve The Burning of Books Preparing the Holocaust History in the Faking Suppression at the Point of Origin Cold War in the Archives Classified History, USA Listening to the Muted Masses In Ranke's Footsteps His Majesty's Servant An Aristocratic Profession' Purging the Reds Publishing and Privishing' Marketing the Right Stuff The Strange Death of President Zachary Taylor, a Study in the Manufacture of Mainstream History Examining the Examination Confrontation with the Slavocracy A lethal Dose of Cherries and Milk? Honorable Men and Official History Against Psychopolitics Depoliticizing the Political Dubious Clinical Data Lenin as Oedipus The Compulsive Hoover The Political Hoover When the Political Becomes Personal Afterword


This document describes the behavior of signaling intermediaries in
Real-Time Communication (RTC) deployments, sometimes referred to as
Session Border Controllers (SBCs), when performing Hosted NAT
Traversal (HNT). HNT is a set of mechanisms, such as media relaying
and latching, that such intermediaries use to enable other RTC devices
behind NATs to communicate with each other. This document is non-
normative and is only written to explain HNT in order to provide a
reference to the Internet community and an informative description to
manufacturers and users. Latching, which is one of the HNT
components, has a number of security issues covered here. Because of
those, and unless all security considerations explained here are taken
into account and solved, the IETF advises against use of the latching
mechanism over the Internet and recommends other solutions, such as
the Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) protocol.


The purpose of this article is to explore the role of neighborhood characteristics, specifically economic disadvantage/advantage, residential instability, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity on emotional distress (depressed affect, anxiety, hopelessness) among youth. Using a regional sample of adolescents and matching their data to census tracts, we use hierarchical linear modeling to examine the relationship of neighborhood spatial factors on distress while controlling for individual, family, peer, and school factors. Results show neighborhood effects for adolescent distress are consistent with a stress process model where economic disadvantage and residential instability are positively associated with emotional distress, and indicators of economic advantage are negatively related. Specifically, we find neighborhood unemployment and housing vacancy rates are associated with increased distress, while the percentage of college graduates and foreign-born residents in the neighborhood is associated with reduced distress. We discuss the implications of our findings for ongoing research on neighborhood contextual effects and adolescent health.


The author shows that although Shelley is taken as a "leftist", the poet is not an enemy of capitalism, but of feudalism and mercantilism. Shelley advocated the abolition of government intervention in economy, and the implementation of free market to increase the welfare of England, reducing the gap between rich and poor. In addition, Shelley criticized the mercantilist government's manipulation of the currency and the British national debt, as well as he supported full rights to property and inheritance. The author concludes that Shelley was much more a liberal than a socialist or proto-socialist.


This article investigates the phenomenon of present-day globalisation from a Christian perspective to determine whether the principle of sphere-sovereignty can provide an antidote to globalisation's harmful consequences. Firstly, it is explained how the principle of sphere-sovereignty is founded on the biblical message, and that it includes two interrelated dimensions, viz. that of life-orientation and of responsible differentiation. Secondly, the following four characteristics of contemporary globalisation are reviewed: it is (1) of a more or less autonomous nature, (2) a seemingly unavoidable project, (3) a process of a dynamic nature, and (4) a product of Western modernisation. In the third place the implications of the acceptance of the principle of sphere-sovereignty for globalisation are investigated. It seems that globalisation, in many areas of life, is detrimental to healthy forms of differentiation – the first dimension of sphere-sovereignty. From the perspective of orientation(the second dimension of sphere-sovereignty), it becomes evident that the present project of globalisation has in some respects already deteriorated into a kind of blinding, oppressive ideology. This type of globalisation "ad malam partem" is finally contrasted with a better road of globalisation "ad bonam partem". This last type of globalisation – not driven by selfish greed, desire and power, but by love for our Lord Jesus Christ,and for one's neighbours – may help to prevent the ominous crisis of our time.


The skin is an amazing elastic and relatively impermeable barrier that provides protective, perceptive and communication functions to the body. The stratum corneum is widely accepted as the barrier of the skin limiting the transport of molecules into and across the skin. It is evident that the transdermal permeation of drugs depend on a number of factors of which the physicochemical properties play the most prevalent role. The potential of using intact skin as the site of administration for dermatological preparations to elicit pharmacological action in the skin tissue has been well recognised. Transdermal drug delivery offers several advantages over oral and parenteral dosing. They include avoiding hepatic first pass metabolism, maintaining constant blood levels for longer periods of time, improving bioavailabiliv, decreasing the administered dose, adverse effects and gastrointestinal side effects, easy discontinuation in case of toxic effects and improved patient compliance. Optimal transport through the skin requires a drug to possess lipophilic as well as hydrophilic properties. Research has indicated that the ideal log P value for optimal transdermal permeation is between 1 and 2. Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) possesses anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic activity, and as an anti-inflammatory analgesic agent it is used in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Its use is limited to the relief of pain and inflammation, as it does not halt the progression of the pathological injuty caused to the tissue. Acetylsalicylic acid is also used in the treatment of fever, prevention of thromboembolic disorders, reducing the incidence of colon cancer and it delays the onset of Alzheimer's disease. The most common adverse effect of acetylsalicylic acid occurring with therapeutic doses is gastro-intestinal disturbances. The primary aim of this study was to determine the transderrnal penetration of acetylsalicylic acid and some of its derivatives and to establish a correlation, i f any, with selected physicochemical propetiis. The ten derivatives of acetylsalicylic acid were prepared by esterification of acetylsalicyloyl chloride with ten different alcohols. The structures of the products were confirmed by mass spectroscopy (MS), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), infrared spectroscopy (IR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) for methyl acetylsalicylate. Experimental aqueous solubility and partition coefficients were determined for acetylsalicylic acid and its different derivatives at a pH of 4,5. In vitro penetration was measured through excised female human abdominal skin in diffusion cells. The prediction software Interactive Analysis (IA) was used to predict aqueous solubility, while prediction software IA, &,Win and ACD Labs were used to predict the log P values for each derivative. None of the predicted values correlated with the experimental values. The experimental aqueous solubilily, partition coefficient and transdermal flux values were determined for acetylsalicylic acid and its derivatives. The experimental aqueous solubilily of acetylsalicylic acid (6,56 mglml) was higher than that of the synthesised acetylsalicylate derivatives (ranging from 1,76 x lo3 to 3,32 mglml), and the partition coefficient of acetylsalicylic acid (-0,85) was lower than that of its derivatives (ranging from -0,25 to 1,954. There was thus a direct correlation between the aqueous solubility data and the partition coefficients. The experimental transdermal flux of acetylsalicylic acid (4733 pg/cm2/h) was much higher than that of its derivatives (ranging from 0,03 to 28,32 pg/cm2/h). With the ethyl derivative (28,32 pg/cm2/h) and the methyl derivative (10,06 pg/cm2/h) being the only derivatives with appreciable flux. Pentyl acetylsalicylate (0,03 pg/cm2/h) had the lowest flux. The higher flux values of acetylsalicylic acid and its methyl and ethyl derimtives might be due to the fact that it is more hydrophilic and had better aqueous solubilily, thus permeating through the proteins of the skin. Pentyl acetylsalicylate had a log P valueof 1,95, but had the lowest flux (0,03 pg/cm2/h), just proving once again that to cross the stratum corneum a drug should posses both hydrophilic and lipophilic properties. Tert-butyl acetylsalicylate had a flux (7,30 &cm2/h) lower than that of methyl and ethyl acetylsalicylate, but a higher flux than the other synthesised derivatives which could be due to its log P value being slightly greater than 1 and having an average aqueous solubility. The low transdermal permeation may also be attributed to the fact that at the pH (45) chosen for transdermal studies, acetylsalicylate was only 9,09 % unionised. A higher degreeof unionised species results in higher flux values. This study has confirmed that transdermal flux is dependent on several factors including optimum solubility, partitioning, diffusion and the degree of ionisation in the stratum corneum in addition to a suitable partition coefficient and high aqueous solubilily. The solution to the increased transdermal delivery of lipophilc drugs does not simply lie in producing a derivative with a higher aqueous solubilily and more ideal partition coefficient. Other means of increasing the transdermal permeation of lipophilic acetylsalicylic acid derivatives will have to be investigated in further studies.


A haptic interface is a kinesthetic link between a human operator and a virtual environment. This paper addresses stability and performance issues associated with haptic interaction. It generalizes and extends the concept of a virtual coupling network, an artificial connection between a haptic display and a virtual world, to include both the impedance and admittance models of haptic interaction. A benchmark example exposes an important duality between these two cases. Linear circuit theory is used to develop necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of a haptic simulation, assuming the human operator and virtual environment are passive. These equations lead to an explicit design procedure for virtual coupling networks which give maximum performance while guaranteeing stability. By decoupling the haptic display control problem from the design of virtual environments, the use of a virtual coupling network frees the developer of haptic-enabled virtual reality models from issues of mechanical stability.


Smoothened signals through small G proteins in one type of noncanonical Hedgehog signaling. The vertebrate Hedgehog (Hh) pathway has essential functions during development and tissue homeostasis in normal physiology, and its dysregulation is a common theme in cancer. The Hh ligands (Sonic Hh, Indian Hh, and Desert Hh) bind to the receptors Patched1 and Patched2, resulting in inhibition of their repressive effect on Smoothened (Smo). Smo is a seven-transmembrane protein, which was only recently shown to function as a G protein–coupled receptor (GPCR) with specificity toward the heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide-binding protein Gi. In addition to activating Gi, Smo signals through its C-terminal tail to inhibit Suppressor of Fused, resulting in stabilization and activation of the Gli family of transcription factors, which execute a transcriptional response to so-called "canonical Hh signaling." In this Presentation, we illustrate two outcomes of Hh signaling that are independent of Gli transcriptional activity and, thus, are defined as "noncanonical." One outcome is dependent on Smo coupling to Gi proteins and exerts changes to the actin cytoskeleton through stimulation of the small guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases) RhoA and Rac1. These cytoskeletal changes promote migration in fibroblasts and tubulogenesis in endothelial cells. Signaling through the other noncanonical Hh pathway is independent of Smo and inhibits Patched1-induced cell death.


Virtual Exchange is a collective term for a set of collaborative online learning practices that cut across institutional, cultural, and international borders. Moving outside their learning environments, the participants engage in project work with foreign peers. The teams have to work across time zones, use foreign languages, manage cultural differences and apply digital tools for communication and collaboration. The virtual projects enhance the development of transversal work/life skills, which are an asset in today's global labour market. The aim of the present study is to explore the emotional trajectory of Virtual Exchange based on the students' e-portfolios. By analysing the self-evaluations, we can get a better understanding of the emotional experience of participating in Virtual Exchange and use the findings to develop the pedagogical facilitation of such projects. The research questions address the emotions that the students described when they were reporting on their learning experiences and the individual emotional trajectories that emerge in the students' reports. Data was collected in the form of e-portfolios that the student participants submitted at the end of a Finnish-Polish Virtual Exchange project in 2019. The "Combining Expertise from Linguistics and Tourism: A Tale of Two Cities Told in Videos" collaboration had promotional discourse in tourism as its main theme. The participants (N=25) were university students majoring in tourism (Poland) and in foreign language studies (Finland). The e-portfolios were analysed with the help of dialogical approach combined with discourse analytical insights (Sullivan, 2012).


Airways inflammation has been associated with increased nitric oxide (NO) in the exhaled breath. It was, therefore, questioned whether exhaled NO could act as an indicator of the severity of airways inflammation in the chronic suppurative lung diseases cystic fibrosis (CF) and bronchiectasis. NO levels in a single exhalation were measured using a chemiluminescence analyser. Thirty-six patients with CF and 16 with bronchiectasis were studied and compared with 22 normal subjects and 35 asthmatic patients. All subjects were nonsmokers and all measurements were made when patients were clinically stable. In addition, exhaled NO was measured in 10 CF patients at the time of onset of an acute infective exacerbation and followed for 7 days during the treatment of the exacerbation in eight of the 10 patients. No significant differences were found in NO levels in patients with CF or bronchiectasis compared with normals (median 4.0, 5.5 and 4.4 parts per billion (ppb), respectively), but all were lower than in asthma patients (10.4 ppb). The NO levels in the CF patients at time of exacerbation were not increased and did not change during treatment. These data show that nitric oxide levels in the exhaled breath of patients with chronic suppurative lung diseases, in contrast to asthma, are not elevated, despite the presence of substantial airways inflammation. Possible explanations include poor diffusion of nitric oxide across increased and viscous airway secretions, removal of nitric oxide by reaction with reactive oxygen species in the inflamed environment and failure of upregulation of epithelial inducible nitric oxide synthase in chronic suppurative conditions.


Dried blood spot (DBS) sampling is recognized as a valuable alternative sampling strategy both in research and in clinical routine. Although many advantages are associated with DBS sampling, its more widespread use is hampered by several issues, of which the hematocrit effect on DBS-based quantitation remains undoubtedly the most widely discussed one. Previously, we developed a method to derive the approximate hematocrit from a nonvolumetrically applied DBS based on its potassium content. Although this method yielded good results and was straightforward to perform, it was also destructive and required sample preparation. Therefore, we now developed a nondestructive method which allows to predict the hematocrit of a DBS based on its hemoglobin content, measured via noncontact diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The developed method was thoroughly validated. A linear calibration curve was established after log/log transformation. The bias, intraday and interday imprecision of quality controls at three hematocrit levels and at the lower and upper limit of quantitation (0.20 and 0.67, respectively) were less than 11%. In addition, the influence of storage and the volume spotted was evaluated, as well as DBS homogeneity. Application of the method to venous DBSs prepared from whole blood patient samples (n = 233) revealed a good correlation between the actual and the predicted hematocrit. Limits of agreement obtained after Bland and Altman analysis were -0.076 and +0.018. Incurred sample reanalysis demonstrated good method reproducibility. In conclusion, mere scanning of a DBS suffices to derive its approximate hematocrit, one of the most important variables in DBS analysis.


Introduction: Epilepsy is the most common heterogeneous neurological disorder affecting approximately 42 million people worldwide. Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is a common form of idiopathic generalized epilepsy representing 5-10% of all epilepsy cases. Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) is one of the most severe epileptic encephalopathies of childhood onset, the cause of which may be symptomatic, i.e., secondary to an underlying brain disorder or cryptogenic, i.e., with no known cause. Sodium channels are integral membrane proteins which play a central role in neuronal membrane excitability and action potential generation. Alpha subunit of voltage gated sodium channels encoded by SCN1A, SCN2A and other genes is pivotal for neuronal signalling. It was planned to analyse the roles of SCN1A Thr1067Ala and SCN2A Arg19Lys polymorphisms in the pathophysiology and risk JME and LGS in the Indian population.
Methods: A total of 50 JME patients, 50 LGS Patients and 100 age and sex matched healthy volunteers were recruited in this study. The genotyping of SCN1A Thr1067Ala i.e., 3184 A>G (rs2298771) and SCN2A Arg19Lys i.e., 56 G>A (rs17183814) polymorphism was performed by polymerase chain reaction- restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis.
Results: The SCN1A Thr1067Ala polymorphism genotypic distribution in LGS was significantly different from the normal population (P=0.008), with mutant homozygous (GG) plus heterozygous (AG) genotypes' percentage in LGS patients (16%) being lower than in healthy controls (24%). Frequency of the mutant 'G' allele of this SNP in LGS patients was 0.1, while it was 0.2 in control subjects (P=0.04). These observations which suggest a protective role of SCN1A Thr1067Ala polymorphism in LGS, were in sync with computation of an odds ratio of 0.21 (95% CI 0.07 to 0.66, p=0.005) for the GG genotype in LGS patients. Though no correlation of SCN1A Thr1067Ala SNP with the severity of disease phenotype in LGS viz. frequency/duration of seizures etc. was noted, a conflicting finding was the significant association of its mutant genotypes with an early age of onset of the syndrome (p=0.007). Contrary to the findings in SCN1A Thr1067Ala, in case of SCN2A Arg19Lys polymorphism, though a significantly different genotypic distribution was present in LGS, in comparison to normal population (p=0.03), the mutant homozygous (AA) and heterozygous (GA) combined percentage in LGS patients (16%) was greater than in healthy controls (11%). This was complemented by observation of an odds ratio of 4.24 (95% CI 1.15 to 15.55, p=0.029, in case of LGS patients with heterozygous (GA) genotype, indicative of an increased disease susceptibility. Unlike LGS, in JME patients no significant differences in genotypic/allelic frequencies of SCN1A Thr1067Ala and SCN2A Arg19Lys polymorphisms were noted and the associated odds ratios for mutant genotypes were also non-significant.
Conclusion: The SCN1A Thr1067Ala and SCN2A Arg19Lys polymorphisms may play contrary roles in the pathophysiology of LGS. Inheritance of SCN1A Thr1067Ala mutant allele decreases the susceptibility for LGS occurrence, and may hamper Na+ channels opening and neuronal excitability. On the other hand, the mutant allele of SCN2A Arg19Lys polymorphism confers an increased risk for development of LGS, consequent to a likely facilitatory effect on action potential generation and misfiring in neurons. Neither of these two SNPs appears to influence the pathogenesis/susceptibility to JME.


The significant weight of CO2 emissions resulting from car use in the total of CO2 emissions is enough of a signal to set up policy tools aiming at reducing such emissions. This paper investigates the effects of setting a penalty on the purchase of high emitting cars (i.e. a Malus). With static comparative analyses of a basic model of consumer's behaviour facing two alternatives: a clean and a dirty vehicles, we essentially find that a rebound effect does not necessarily accompany the reduction in the average fuel consumption per kilometre resulting from the implementation of a differentiated car purchase tax such as a Malus scheme. This is because the improvement of the fuel-efficiency is achieved thanks to a new distribution of vehicles over the fleet, and not solely thanks to a reduction of the vehicles' fuel consumption. Thereby, it happens that we observe a rebound effect only under certain conditions pertaining to the characteristics of the vehicles that make up the fleet (i.e. their unit consumption and market price). We also show that, from the moment that a rebound effect occurs, the higher the amount of Malus, the higher the rebound effect. It implicitly means that because of the rebound effect, the higher the pricing scheme, the less efficient the purchase tax.


This sixth book in the Prevention Practice Kit provides an introduction to evidence-based prevention in psychology. Counselors, psychologists and mental health workers in schools, government agencies, community settings, and in private practice are increasingly expected to select evidence-based practices and programs, and to document the effectiveness of the care they provide. The book addresses the types of questions that may be most pertinent to counselors, psychologists, and other mental health workers who are engaged in prevention and interested in understanding evidence-based programs, including:What does it mean to for a program to be evidence-based? How should I go about selecting an evidence-based program? How do I know if evidence is trustworthy? How do I gather evidence to evaluate my own prevention program? The book introduces several definitions of evidence-based practice and the common components of these definitions. A broad overview of considerations for evaluating the quality and trustworthiness of prevention research is provided along with a discussion of common features of effective prevention programs. Guidance is provided on identifying evidence-based programs, including detailed descriptions of online registries of prevention programs. The book also provides recommendations for determining the need for a prevention program, selecting and implementing an appropriate program, and evaluating outcomes. Throughout the text, examples from research and practice are used to illustrate important concepts, and learning exercises at the end of each chapter augment comprehension and relevance.


Vertical vibration serviceability of an as-built concrete floor, whose 41.55 m span is currently the longest in China, are investigated in this paper by field measurements and numerical analysis. A vibration monitoring system were designed and installed on the floor. Different types of human-induced excitation are simulated such as single person walking, multi-person walking at the same pace rate, multi-person jumping and multi-person randomly walking. The dynamic properties and responses of the floor are also computed using finite element method. It is found in this paper that the acceleration vibration amplitudes of the floor under different excitations are lower than the limitation. The amplitudes of floor response are quite different for different types of excitation. The response of wooden floor is much higher than the structure floor at the same location therefore, cannot be directly adopted for serviceability assessment. The fundamental frequency of the floor can be accurately predicted if the mass properties and boundary conditions are properly modelled. Finally, it is suggested that the vibration amplitude control is much more important than frequency control for vibration serviceability design of long-span concrete floor.


This paper studies efficient allocation of resources in an economy in which agents are initially heterogeneous with regard to their wealth levels and whether they have ideas or not. An agent with an idea can start a business that generates random returns. Agents have private information about (1) their initial types, (2) how they allocate their resources, and (3) the realized returns. The unobservability of returns creates a novel motive for subsidizing agents who have ideas but lack resources to invest in them. To analyze this motive in isolation, the paper assumes that agents are risk-neutral and abstracts away from equality and insurance considerations. The unobservability of initial types and actions implies that the subsidy that poor agents with ideas receive is limited by incentive compatibility: the society should provide other agents with enough incentives so that they do not claim to be poor and have ideas. The paper then provides an implementation of the constrained-efficient allocation in an incomplete markets setup that is similar to the U.S. Small Business Administration's Business Loan Program. Finally, the paper extends the model in several dimensions to show that the results are robust to these generalizations of the model.


ABSTRACT Supportive school and classroom climates can add to student achievement and compensate for the negative contribution of low-socioeconomic status (SES) to academic achievement. We tested the added contribution of school and classroom climate to Chilean students' mathematics test scores. We performed a secondary analysis of 151,015 eighth-grade students (attending 8,412 classrooms in 5,619 schools) who completed the Sistema de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación (SIMCE) test in Chile. We identified six dimensions of school climate, which we aggregated to the classroom and school level to fit three-level regression models. Students' gender (girls) and low SES were major negative predictors of test scores. School and classroom climate made an additional contribution to the explained variance in test scores. A positive school and classroom climate compensates for the detrimental effects of gender and low SES on students' mathematics achievement, which justifies investing resources to promote positive school and classroom climates.


African American children are disproportionately overrepresented in the child welfare system. Many of these children linger in the system and experience disconnection from their biological families, communities, cultural beliefs, values, and practices. Familial socialization and cultural exposure are essential to developing a positive ethnic identity and self-concept. For African American female adolescents, hair and hair care are critical areas for such socialization and support. This qualitative study explored the hair and hair care perceptions and experiences of African American female adolescents in foster care. The goal was to examine hair and hair's connection to, and influence on, sense of self and self-esteem for African American female adolescents in foster care. Eleven African American female adolescents participated in individual interviews, and grounded theory was used to analyze the data. Four major themes emerged: hair care, perception of hair and identity as an African American female, societal influences on self-awareness, and influence of the foster care system. Results from the study indicated African American female adolescents in foster care identify hair as important. Participants noted hair is connected to appearance and shapes who they are and how they view themselves as African American females. Participants addressed the complexity of hair and politics associated with hair. The findings further emphasized the role of racial socialization and the importance of a supportive hair care environment. Participants also discussed their awareness of societal influences on their perception of African American women. They offered recommendations for improving the hair care


Abstract. For the first time a high mass resolution thermal desorption proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (hr-TD-PTR-MS) was deployed in the field to analyze the composition of the organic fraction of aerosols. We report on measurements from the remote Mt. Sonnblick observatory in the Austrian alps (3108 m a.s.l.) during a 7 week period in summer 2009. A total of 638 mass peaks in the range 18–392 Da were detected and quantified in aerosols. An empirical formula was tentatively attributed to 464 of these compounds by custom-made data analysis routines which consider compounds containing C, H, O, N, and S atoms. Most of the other (unidentified) compounds must contain other elements – most likely halogenated compounds. The mean total concentration of all detected compounds was 1.1 μg m−3. Oxygenated hydrocarbons constitute the bulk of the aerosol mass (75%) followed by organic nitrogen compounds (9%), inorganic compounds (mostly NH3, 8%), unidentified/halogenated (3.8%), hydrocarbons (2.7%), and organic sulfur compounds (0.8%). The measured O/C ratios are lower than expected and suggest a significant effect from charring. Organic carbon concentrations measured with TD-PTR-MS were about 25% lower than measurements on high volume filter samples.


This report provides an overview of recent work that harnesses the Big Data Revolution and Large Scale Computing to address grand computational challenges in Multi-Messenger Astrophysics, with a particular emphasis on real-time discovery campaigns. Acknowledging the transdisciplinary nature of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics, this document has been prepared by members of the physics, astronomy, computer science, data science, software and cyberinfrastructure communities who attended the NSF-, DOE- and NVIDIA-funded "Deep Learning for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics: Real-time Discovery at Scale" workshop, hosted at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, October 17-19, 2018. Highlights of this report include unanimous agreement that it is critical to accelerate the development and deployment of novel, signal-processing algorithms that use the synergy between artificial intelligence (AI) and high performance computing to maximize the potential for scientific discovery with Multi-Messenger Astrophysics. We discuss key aspects to realize this endeavor, namely (i) the design and exploitation of scalable and computationally efficient AI algorithms for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics; (ii) cyberinfrastructure requirements to numerically simulate astrophysical sources, and to process and interpret Multi-Messenger Astrophysics data; (iii) management of gravitational wave detections and triggers to enable electromagnetic and astro-particle follow-ups; (iv) a vision to harness future developments of machine and deep learning and cyberinfrastructure resources to cope with the scale of discovery in the Big Data Era; (v) and the need to build a community that brings domain experts together with data scientists on equal footing to maximize and accelerate discovery in the nascent field of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics.


S UMMARY . We evaluated the performance of several sweetpotato ( Ipomoea batatas ) cultivars grown on raised beds covered with biodegradable black mulch in New Hampshire. Six cultivars were evaluated over 4 years, and an additional four cultivars were evaluated in 2 or 3 years. Cultivars showed significant differences in marketable yield, percent cull, and percent small roots. The cultivars Covington and B94-14 Beauregard consistently produced high yields, whereas Vardaman consis- tently produced the lowest yields. 'Georgia Jet' exhibited variable performance, with marketable yields among the highest in 1 year and the lowest in another, largely because of a high percentage of cull roots due to severe cracking. Yields measured in our study compare favorably with average U.S. yields, with several cultivars producing over 400 50-lb bushels/acre in all years in which they were grown. In a 2-year study with the cultivar Beauregard, biodegradable mulch increased overall yields (marketable, cull, and small roots) as compared with bare ground production on raised beds. However, the percentage of culled roots was higher in mulch treatments, primarily due to breakage during digging, and the observed increases in marketable yields were not statistically significant.


Anxiety disorders are common disorders associated with marked impairment and reduced quality of life. In the general practitioner's office as well as in the specialist's consultation, patients with anxiety disorders frequently present primarily somatic complaints. Many patients run through numerous checkups prior to be referred to psychiatric treatment. Some basic aspects can help to earlier identify patients suffering from anxiety disorders and to initiate sufficient therapy. With evidence-based treatment with cognitive-behavioral therapy and adequate psychopharmacotherapy, many patients can achieve complete remission of symptoms. Initial treatment can comprise specific psycho-education as well as first-line psychopharmacological treatment with e.g. SSRI.


One of the most critical challenges faced by many manufacturing industries is to produce high quality products using cost-efficient methods and tools in the shortest possible time and at the lowest operating costs. Many past researches had shown that in order to reduce setup time and manufacturing costs it need for fast setups and changeovers. Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) is one of the Lean Manufacturing System (LMS) tools used to measure setup and changeover efficiency. Setup time reduction is an important key parameter for improving manufacturing flexibility and reducing manufacturing costs. The three main objectives of this study are: first, to reduce machine setup time by 35% during a mould changeover; second, to identify the root causes of the bottlenecks operations; third, to propose and implement possible solutions to the bottleneck problems. SMED methods were applied at two major bottlenecks during setup operations, they are cast on strap and heat seal. Results and findings on the data analysis of the two bottlenecks before and after implementation of SMED are examined and analyzed. The setup operations performance is measured based on data analysis result with respect to machine setup time reduction. The result of this study shows significant reduction of cast on strap setup time to 54% and heat seal setup time to 47%. In other words, this study has achieved more than 35% of setup time reduction.


Studies of energy use at the household level show a large degree of variability in consumption that cannot be entirely explained by infrastructural differences. For example, families living in identically-designed homes use strikingly different amounts of energy. These findings were responsible for highlighting the influential role of the occupant in energy demand some thirty years ago. The extent of this variability also implies that there are no "typical" energy-using households within a society. This paper reviews evidence of the variability in domestic energy consumption and presents data from student apartments in a UK university where both the infrastructure and the number of occupants are comparable. As expected, the variability in consumption is less in this homogeneous sample than previously reported in heterogeneous samples of households. Nonetheless, there is variation, particularly in electricity consumption, that can only be explained by reference to some kind of occupantrelated feature(s). Further qualitative enquiry explores the idea that this difference arises from the practices of the occupants. It is clear that practices do vary between households. This paper develops hypotheses regarding the resulting differences in energy use. To explore these hypotheses, detailed micro-level consumption data is required. But this is difficult data to gather empirically and is not available here, nor widely reported in the literature. However, a framework based on practices could provide a cross-cutting and meaningful structure to relate details of micro-variations to macro-level understanding of the dynamics of energy demand in a society. In this way, analysis based on a practice theory perspective offers much potential to understand and interpret the variation in domestic energy consumption. In particular, it challenges any view that such difference, as it currently exists, is due to idiosyncrasies of individual behaviour.


A remarkable amount of data center energy is consumed in eliminating the heat generated by the IT equipment to maintain and ensure safe operating conditions and optimum performance. The installation of Airside Economizers, while very energy efficient, bears the risk of particulate contamination in data centers, hence, deteriorating the reliability of IT equipment. When RH in data centers exceeds the deliquescent relative humidity (DRH) of salts or accumulated particulate matter, it absorbs moisture, becomes wet and subsequently leads to electrical short circuiting because of degraded surface insulation resistance between the closely spaced features on printed circuit boards. Another concern with this type of failure is the absence of evidence that hinders the process of evaluation and rectification. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a practical test method to determine the DRH value of the accumulated particulate matter found on PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards). This research is a first attempt to develop an experimental technique to measure the DRH of dust particles by logging the leakage current versus RH% (Relative Humidity percentage) for the particulate matter dispensed on an interdigitated comb coupon. To validate this methodology, the DRH of pure salts like MgCl2, NH4NO3 and NaCl is determined and their results are then compared with their published values. This methodology was therefore implemented to help lay a modus operandi of establishing the limiting value or an effective relative humidity envelope to be maintained at a real-world data center facility situated in Dallas industrial area for its continuous and reliable operation.


Abstract:The 2006 presidential elections pushed Mexico's fledgling democracy from relative stability into a period of tension and uncertainty. Left-wing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador lost by a razor-thin margin to the conservative Felipe Calderón. He claimed fraud, took his followers to the streets in massive protest, and finally declared himself the "legitimate president" of Mexico. The article examines the contingent and structural sources of the post-electoral dispute. Allegations of vote-rigging were unfounded, yet credible, due to two principal factors: (1) a self-reinforcing spiral of distrust among political actors, and (2) discrete failures by the institutions of electoral governance and dispute settlement that provided easy pretexts for the loser's discourse of fraud.


1. Learning may enable insects to obtain nectar from flowers more efficiently. Learning in nectar foraging has been shown primarily in studies of bees and butterflies. Here, learning is demonstrated in the nectar foraging behaviour of a noctuid moth,Helicoverpa armigera . 2. The present studies show that: (1) previous experience with a flowering host species increases the probability of that species being selected for nectar foraging, and (2) previous experience of a particular flower type (food source at bottom or top of the corolla tube) increases the likelihood of the food source being found when that flower type is being searched. 3. The implications of these findings for understanding the pattern of oviposition observed in wild populations of this important pest species are discussed.


This study reports the mechanical properties of paddy soil in respect to vehicle mobility
in Sungai Burong, Tanjung Karang, Malaysia. Soil samples were taken from the topsoil layer of 0-5
cm and subsoil layers of 5-15 cm, 15-25 cm and 25-35 cm depths at fifteen different locations in
triplet replications using 216 cm3 volume core samplers. Soil shearing characteristics, parameters that
include water content, bulk density, soil cohesion, angle of internal friction, shear deformation
modulus were determined in the laboratory using oven and direct shear box apparatus. The loadsinkage
test was carried out in field using soil bearing capacity apparatus. The mean values of paddy
soil water content and bulk densities obtained were 47.08 %, 60.65 %, 79.78 %, 94.07 % and 9. 8
x 10-10 g/cm3, 1.24 x 10-9 g/cm3, 1.30 x 10-9 gc/m3, 1.45 x 10-9 g/cm3 at depths of 0-5 cm, 5-15 cm,
15-25 cm and 25-35 cm respectively. Mean values of soil cohesion, angle of internal friction and
shear deformation modulus were found to be 6.22 kN/m2, 5.03 kN/m2, 3.15 kN/m2, 1.40kN/m2 and
30.73o, 27.87o, 18.22o, 17.86o at depths of 0-5 cm, 5-15 cm, 15-25 cm and 25-35 cm respectively. It
was found that the in-situ shearing strength of the paddy soil dropped from 3.32 kN/m2 to 2.16 kN/m2
to 1.74 kN/m2 and to 1.59 kN/m2 as the depths increased from 0-5 cm, 5-15 cm, 15-25 cm and 25-35
cm respectively. This shows that vane blade size and depth had significant effect on the in-situ
shearing strength. It was also observed that the plate sinkage in the paddy soil increased with
increasing pushing load


We present a similarity criterion based on feature weighting. Feature weights are recomputed dynamically according to the performance of cases during problem solving episodes. We will also present a novel algorithm to analyze and explain the performance of the retrieved cases and to determine the features whose weights need to be recomputed. We will perform experiments and show that the integration in a feature weighting model of our similarity criterion with our analysis algorithm improves the adaptability of the retrieved cases by converging to best weights for the features over a period of multiple problem solving episodes.


This article explores the characteristics, experiences, and motivations of men and women who secure work through digital platforms. Drawing on quantitative survey data – the first of its kind – of Australian men (n = 251) and women (n = 253) it finds that the gig economy, much like the wider economy, is highly gender-segregated. Men dominate platforms which specialise in what might be considered traditionally male tasks like transport and women dominate platforms which specialise in more traditional female tasks like caring. The results suggest that the gig economy may be an alternative for women in the creative industries. Men and women are both drawn to the gig economy for income-related reasons, despite a significant proportion of them holding a job outside the gig economy. Flexibility was an important motivator for both genders, but women were more likely than men to report that they did gig work because it 'fitted with their schedule', indicating that non-work commitments such as family constrain women more than men. More men than women reported that gig work was effective in generating income.


Abstract— Radiometric age dating of the shergottite meteorites and cratering studies of lava flows in Tharsis and Elysium both demonstrate that volcanic activity has occurred on Mars in the geologically recent past. This implies that adiabatic decompression melting and upwelling convective flow in the mantle remains important on Mars at present. I present a series of numerical simulations of mantle convection and magma generation on Mars. These models test the effects of the total radioactive heating budget and of the partitioning of radioactivity between crust and mantle on the production of magma. In these models, melting is restricted to the heads of hot mantle plumes that rise from the core‐mantle boundary, consistent with the spatially localized distribution of recent volcanism on Mars. For magma production to occur on present‐day Mars, the minimum average radioactive heating rate in the martian mantle is 1.6 times 10−12 W/kg, which corresponds to 39% of the Wanke and Dreibus (1994) radioactivity abundance. If the mantle heating rate is lower than this, the mean mantle temperature is low, and the mantle plumes experience large amounts of cooling as they rise from the base of the mantle to the surface and are, thus, unable to melt. Models with mantle radioactive heating rates of 1.8 to 2.1 times 10 −12 W/kg can satisfy both the present‐day volcanic resurfacing rate on Mars and the typical melt fraction observed in the shergottites. This corresponds to 43–50% of the Wanke and Dreibus radioactivity remaining in the mantle, which is geochemically reasonable for a 50 km thick crust formed by about 10% partial melting. Plausible changes to either the assumed solidus temperature or to the assumed core‐mantle boundary temperature would require a larger amount of mantle radioactivity to permit present‐day magmatism. These heating rates are slightly higher than inferred for the nakhlite source region and significantly higher than inferred from depleted shergottites such as QUE 94201. The geophysical estimate of mantle radioactivity inferred here is a global average value, while values inferred from the martian meteorites are for particular points in the martian mantle. Evidently, the martian mantle has several isotopically distinct compositions, possibly including a radioactively enriched source that has not yet been sampled by the martian meteorites. The minimum mantle heating rate corresponds to a minimum thermal Rayleigh number of 2 times 106, implying that mantle convection remains moderately vigorous on present‐day Mars. The basic convective pattern on Mars appears to have been stable for most of martian history, which has prevented the mantle flow from destroying the isotopic heterogeneity.


Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting to donors on progress and results are a fundamental but also controversial part of the relationship between development actors. In this interaction, between the official and civil society, frictions appear and problems arise because of the differences between these actors with different purposes, agendas, structures and organisational logic behind them. This dissertation is devoted to studying aid relationships in the context of results based management, a management approach introduced as part of global reforms directed at making international aid more effective and accountable. However, previous research has showed that results based management risk having the opposite effects if implemented in the wrong way. Through a case study of support to civil society within Swedish development cooperation, it focuses on how civil society organisations have experienced the influences of a context which requires them to devote more and more time to administration and internal control, and thereby also pressuring them to become more professionalised. The study indicates that by doing so, the results based management context is creating further tensions in already unequal aid relationships. The results based management context is placing demands on the frame organisations, which need to be 'managed' in the already complex internal and external environments they operate. The study also illustrate examples of how organisations experience and respond to such influences differently, depending on their individual preconditions. Therefore, this study argues that organisations can benefit from relating to their environments, including the results context, consciously. By that I mean reflect on how such influences might affect attitudes, relationships etc. and in the end also the results themselves. By doing so, they are in a better position to mitigate the risks that have been identified in previous research about the potential negative impact of the results based management context.


ABSTRACT The classic inventory management dominantly pays attention to the internal inventory control of business, and is neglectful of supply chain coordination and partnering. The local optimization approach results in impeded logistics, cost increase, lack of business and supply chain competitiveness. Supply chain coordination and partnering become significant means to improvement of supply chain performance, enhancement of business competitiveness. The paper introduces concept of effective inventory level, which is used to evaluate upstream shortage's impact on downstream inventory, models the inventory at warehouse and retailer under random lead time and demand, and makes the global optimization of safety factor to minimize channel inventory cost. It is shown that optimization and coordination of safety factor lead to inventory cost savings at two sites, especially under large lead time variability and stock value-adding rate. Meanwhile, authors present the coordination mechanism of global optimization of safety factor, i.e., cost-sharing contract, which makes both supplier and buyer benefiting from global optimization. Finally, this paper makes sensitivity analyses on value of global optimization. INTRODUCTION Inventories exist throughout the supply chain in various forms for various reasons. At any manufacturing point, distribution warehouses and retailers, they may exist as raw materials, work in progress, or finished goods. Ballou (1992) estimates that carrying these inventories can cost anywhere between 20 and 40% of their value per year. Inventory cost is a key factor that influences supply chain performance. Lee and Billington (1992) site several opportunities that exist in managing supply chain inventories. Among them are making coordinated decisions between the various echelons, incorporating sources of uncertainty, and designing proper supply chain performance measures. The central premise here is that the lowest inventories result when the entire supply chain is considered as a single system. Such coordinated decisions have produced spectacular results at Xerox (Stenross and Sweet, 1991), and at Hewlett Packard (Lee and Billington, 1995), which were able to reduce their respective inventory levels by over 25%. Inventory systems are often subject to randomly changing environmental conditions that may affect the demand for the product, the supply, and the cost structure. The environment represents various important factors such as the randomly changing economic conditions, market conditions for new products or products that may be obsolete or any exogenous condition that may affect the demand as well as the supply and the cost parameters. Supply chain models in the literature that are related to uncertain environment mostly concentrate on the demand process, which may vary stochastically in a random environment. In most of the inventory models that involve uncertainties in the environment, the attention has been focused on the probabilistic modeling of the customer demand side. For example, large amount of literature have made qualitative and quantitative research on Bullwhip Effect of demand variability (Lee et al., 1997a, 1997b; Chen, 2000) and inventory collaboration under non-deterministic demand [Kefeng Xu and Yan Dong, 2000]. However, with economic globalization and intensification of competition, supply uncertainty increases apparently, which causes more and more important effect on supply chain performance. In previous literature, the uncertainty in the supply side has not received the amount of treatment it deserved. Up until the recent years supply uncertainty has received greater attention. In the literature, there is growing interest in models where an order that is placed may not be received due to uncertainty involved in the supply process. Parlar and Berkin (1991) propose an EOQ-type formulation where the supply is available or disrupted for random durations in the planning horizon. …


Two interactive computer-based systems have been evaluated: a teaching program with text and animated graphics and a multiple-choice knowledge-assessment program (KAP) with optional prescriptive feedback. One hundred seventy-four routine-attending insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) patients were allocated to active and control groups to determine the effect of these programs on knowledge and control after a 4- to 6-mo follow-up period. Interactive computer teaching (ICT) resulted in a significant knowledge increment in both IDDM and NIDDM patients (P < .05), together with a mean fall of 0.8 and 0.7%, respectively, in HbA1c (P < .05 and P > .1), but no changes were observed in respective control groups. The KAP with feedback also produced a significant knowledge increment in both IDDM and NIDDM patients (P < .05), of similar magnitude to the ICT program, and a mean fall in HbA1c of 1.2 and 1.3%, respectively (P < .05), with no changes in the corresponding control groups. Even when KAP was used without prescriptive feedback, smaller but significant mean falls in HbA1c of 0.7 and 0.8% (P < .05) were seen in IDDM and NIDDM patients, respectively, suggesting a motivational effect resulting from program participation. An inverse correlation was demonstrated between knowledge increment and final HbA1c in the ICT and KAP/feedback groups, which was significant for NIDDM patients (r = −.43, r = −.45; P < .05) but not for IDDM patients (r = − .2, r = .25;P=.1). Our studies confirm positive educational benefit of both computer-based programs, probably acting through enhancement of both knowledge and motivation.