Green Resources is one of the largest companies engaged in carbon forestry on the African continent. The Green Resources carbon forestry plantation in northern Uganda is a particularly interesting case in a Swedish perspective, because the Swedish Energy Agency is committed to buying its carbon emissions reductions within a clean development mechanism (CDM) project under the Kyoto protocol. This thesis examined how wealth is perceived and experienced by the villagers in the area surrounding the Green Resources plantation, and how different wealth groups perceive and have been affected by Green Resources interventions associated with the plantation. The analysis was performed using the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA), which presents the main factors that affect people's livelihoods and typical relationships between these. A qualitative approach was used, based on face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews, observations, wealth ranking, community mapping and a review of the literature. The thesis also examined whether the capitals concept from SLA can be applied to explain the livelihood effects of the plantation. The forms of capital considered were human, financial, natural, social and physical capital. Within these, there are different assets to which people have varying degrees of access, depending on the wealth group to which they belong. The findings revealed exclusion of the poorest from development activities in villages neighbouring the Green Resources plantation. A key reason found for this was that Green Resources operate without taking into consideration the different wealth groups among the villagers, and without a strategy for how it could reach out to the poorest regarding its commitment to poverty alleviation.


. In E & Liu (SIAM J Numer. Anal., 1995), we studied convergence and the structure of the error for several projection methods when the spatial variable was kept continuous (we call this the semi-discrete case). In this paper, we address similar questions for the fully discrete case when the spatial variables are discretized using a staggered grid. We prove that the numerical solution in velocity has full accuracy up to the boundary, despite the fact that there are numerical boundary layers present in the semi-discrete solutions.


Why it won't work and will damage the economy Executive summary There is strong economic evidence that the proposed Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) would not increase the amount of tax revenue collected by governments. In fact it would reduce total tax revenue by shrinking the economy. Workers and consumers in general – not the banks – would carry the main economic burden of the FTT. Wages would be lower because the tax would increase the cost of capital, thereby reducing growth in productivity. Returns on pension funds and other savings would also be lower, in part because the FTT would increase the costs of buying and selling shares as well as reducing their values. The FTT would not have prevented the financial crisis, nor would it have avoided current sovereign debt problems. The tax would shrink those parts of the financial markets which did not contribute to the recent crisis but would not make much difference to the factors that caused the crash. The FTT would not reduce volatility; it would increase it. Market movements will come in larger steps if speculation is discouraged. It is preferable to have deep and liquid markets so that changes are incremental and smooth.


Ten years ago, it was widely accepted conventional wisdom that wattlevel fully integrated power amplifiers (PAs) were not feasible in standard complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Today millions of such devices are commercially produced and shipped every month and are used in hundreds of millions of cellular phones across the world. Such dramatic transition from being considered an impossibility even by most optimistic academics to the obvious future direction to be followed by everyone happened through a series of demonstrations based on new architectures radically different from the known PA topologies applied over more than half a century.


Mechanistic soil-crop models have become indispensable tools to investigate the effect of management practices on the productivity or environmental impacts of arable crops. Ideally these models may claim to be universally applicable because they simulate the major processes governing the fate of inputs such as fertiliser nitrogen or pesticides. However, because they deal with complex systems and uncertain phenomena, site-specific calibration is usually a prerequisite to ensure their predictions are realistic. This statement
implies that some experimental knowledge on the system to be simulated should be available prior to any modelling attempt, and raises a tremendous limitation to practical applications of models. Because the demand for more general simulation results is high, modellers have nevertheless taken the bold step of extrapolating a model tested within a limited sample of real conditions to a much larger domain.
While methodological questions are often disregarded in this extrapolation process, they are specifically addressed in this paper, and in particular the issue of models a priori parameterisation. We thus implemented and tested a standard procedure to parameterize the soil components of a modified version of the CERES models. The procedure converts routinely-available soil properties into functional characteristics by means of pedo-transfer functions. The resulting predictions of soil water and nitrogen dynamics, as well as crop biomass,
nitrogen content and leaf area index were compared to observations from trials conducted in five locations across Europe (southern Italy, northern Spain, northern France and northern Germany). In three cases, the model's performance was judged acceptable when compared to experimental errors on the measurements, based on a test of the model's root mean squared error (RMSE). Significant deviations between observations and model outputs were however noted in all sites, and could be ascribed to various model routines. In decreasing importance, these were: water balance, the turnover of soil organic matter, and crop N uptake. A better match to field observations could therefore be achieved by visually adjusting related parameters, such as field-capacity water content or the size of soil microbial biomass. As a result, model predictions fell within the measurement errors in all sites for most variables, and the model's RMSE was within the range of published values for similar tests. We conclude that the proposed a priori method yields acceptable simulations with only a 50%
probability, a figure which may be greatly increased through a posteriori calibration. Modellers should thus exercise caution when extrapolating their models to a large sample of pedo-climatic conditions for which they have only limited information.


ABSTRACT: In the received history, chemistry began to transform from cookery to science toward the end of the 17th century with the introduction of sustained systematic experiment, color indicators, and the mechanical philosophy. Robert Boyle is usually considered the chief promoter of these improvements. In fact, the mechanical philosophy played a marginal part in the development of chemistry during Boyle9s time and he was too eager an alchemical adept to establish the cooperative enterprise that precipitated modern chemistry. While Boyle sought the philosopher9s stone, members of the Paris Academy of Sciences set the course of modern chemistry by developing a style of thorough, repeated, systematic experimentation and accurate measurement that resemble the practices that historians customarily credit to the late 18th century. The present paper makes this case by reconstructing the Academy9s program of experiments to determine the constituents of chemical ""mixts,"" mainly parts of plants, as recorded in the laboratory notebooks of Claude Bourdelin. These experiments typically employed maceration or a similar technique to ""loosen"" the ingredients of the substance under investigation followed by distillation at various temperatures. The academicians tested the several fractions of distillate thus produced with many reagents, including color indicators of acidity. Some of the preliminary steps lasted for weeks, and some of the distillations for days. To reassure themselves that their procedures did not destroy or discard important constituents, they weighed both raw materials and end products and totted up the sum in a manner worthy of Lavoisier.


The very form and reach of the modern state are changing radically under the pressure of globalization. Featuring nine of the leading scholars in the field, this innovative exploration of these transformations develops an ethnographic methodology and theoretical apparatus to assess perceptions of power in three regions where state reform and violence have been particularly dramatic: Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. Rather than a geographic border, the term "margin" describes areas far from the centers of state sovereignty in which states are unable to ensure implementation of their programs and policies. Understanding how people perceive and experience the agency of the state; who is of, and not of, the state; and how practices at the margins shape the state itself are central themes. Drawing on fieldwork in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Peru, Guatemala, India, Chad, Colombia, and South Africa, the contributors examine official documentary practices and their forms and falsifications; the problems that highly mobile mercenaries, currency, goods, arms, and diamonds pose to the state; emerging non-state regulatory authorities; and the role language plays as cultures struggle to articulate their situation. These case studies provide wide-ranging analyses of the relationship between states and peoples on the edges of state power's effective reign.


Sustainable reuse of human excreta in socially and religiously conservative societies is extremely difficult. People9s perceptions and acceptability regarding the reuse of human excreta is mainly linked to their culture. In addition, certain societies regard the cultural and social barriers more than the religious barriers. The aim of this study is to understand the perceptions of people about the reuse of human excreta for agricultural purposes. Qualitative research methods were used for data collection. Farmers in the village recognized the importance and economic benefit of reusing human excreta. They accepted the reuse of human excreta on their farms only if they were supplied with a treatment facility. Contrary to the farmers, the local community showed reluctance in reusing human excreta while recognizing the nutritional value of it. It was therefore concluded that the main barrier in sustainable and safe re-use of human excreta lies in socio-cultural and religious foundations of traditional societies like Kakul village in Abbottabad District.


Cartilage tissue engineering aims to develop a material that can be implanted with cells to repair damage in articular cartilage. The extracellular matrix is known to play a key role in regulating stem cell behaviour via cell-matrix interactions and integrins are major cell adhesion receptors that act as intermediates between cells and their surrounding matrix. Integrin-mediated signalling is known to be important in chondrocytes and to drive chondrogenesis. In our study, we investigated integrin expression during chondrogenic differentiation of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) between three different high density 3D culture methods: pellet culture, micromass culture and collagen type II 3D hydrogels. Integrins are [alpha][beta] heterodimeric transmembrane proteins, so we quantified the mRNA expression of every alpha and beta subunit using quantitative polymerase chain reaction over a period of 21 days. In all culture methods, alpha and beta integrin subunits were down-regulated in hMSCs undergoing chondrogenesis compared to the same cells in growth medium, with the exception for integrin subunits [alpha]11 and [alpha]V which were upregulated in cells undergoing chondrogenesis . Moreover, similar transcript expression was identified irrespective of the culture system for the alpha subunits related to collagen-binding integrins, while the expression of fibronectin- and laminin-binding receptors was greatly variable and dependent on the culture method. In conclusion, this work has led to an increased understanding of the expression of integrins in hMSCs and during chondrogenesis. This knowledge can be used to design materials that present the ligands for these integrins to further improve cartilage tissue engineering.


AIM
Food security is defined by four dimensions: food availability, access, utilisation and stability. Resettled refugees face unique struggles securing these dimensions and, thus, food security when moving to a new country. This systematic review aimed to identify the challenges Australian refugees experience in achieving the four dimensions of food security.

METHODS
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed; the SPIDER tool was used to determine eligibility criteria. Three databases were searched using terms relating to food in/security and refugees from 2000 to 20 May 2017.

RESULTS
Seven articles were retained for analysis. Studies were categorised against the four dimensions, with four studies identifying challenges against all dimensions. Challenges contributing to high levels of food insecurity in each dimension included: availability and cost of traditional foods, difficulty in accessing preferred food outlets, limited food knowledge and preparation skills and food stability due to low income and social support.

CONCLUSIONS
Food insecurity adversely impacts refugee health and integration. Methodical research framed by the four dimensions of food security is imperative to address challenges to securing food security in refugee groups and assisting in the development of sustainable interventions.


In the Western Mediterranean, the Neolithic mainly developed and expanded during the sixth millennium BCE. In these early phases, it generally spread through the displacement of human groups, sometimes over long distances, as shown, for example, by the Impressa sites documented on the northern shores. These groups then settled new territories which they gradually appropriated and exploited. The question of their potential interaction with groups of Late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers living in the area prior to their arrival is therefore crucial. Were their encounters based on conflict and resistance or, on the contrary, on exchange and reciprocity? Many hypotheses have been put forward on this matter and many papers written. Before we can consider these potential interactions however, we must first ascertain that these different human groups really did meet—an implicit assumption in all these studies, which is, in reality, much less certain than one might think. The population density of the Late Mesolithic groups varied greatly throughout the Mediterranean, and it is possible that some areas were relatively devoid of human presence. Before any Neolithization scenarios can be considered, we must therefore first determine exactly which human groups were present in a given territory at a given time. The precise mapping of sites and the chronological modeling of their occupation enriches our understanding of the Neolithization process by allowing high-resolution regional models to be developed, which alone can determine the timing of potential interactions between Mesolithic and Neolithic groups. Various international research programs have recently produced several hundred new radiocarbon dates, based on selected samples from controlled contexts. The geochronological modelling of these data at the scale of the Western Mediterranean shows contrasting situations, probably related to different social and environmental processes. These results suggest that we should consider a varied range of Neolithization mechanisms, rather than uniform or even binary models.


Materials Development in Language Teaching aims to help readers apply current theoretical principles and research findings to the practical realities of developing and exploiting classroom materials. The authors also suggest new ideas and directions in materials development, which readers can pursue for themselves. This book is accessible to readers with little previous experience in the field, and is essential reading for all those involved in developing materials for language teaching. In the second edition of this highly popular title, each chapter has been comprehensively revised and updated to take into account both recent research and the significant technological developments since the first edition was published in 1998. Two new chapters have been added to assess the potential of electronic media for materials development. These chapters include an overview of the technologies available, as well as individual case studies and activities.


OBJECTIVES
Rates of Clostridioides (Clostridium) difficile infection (CDI) are higher in North Wales than elsewhere in the UK. We used WGS to investigate if this is due to increased healthcare-associated transmission from other cases.

METHODS
Healthcare and community C. difficile isolates from patients across North Wales (February-July 2015) from glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH)-positive faecal samples underwent WGS. Data from patient records, hospital management systems and national antimicrobial use surveillance were used.

RESULTS
Of the 499 GDH-positive samples, 338 (68%) were sequenced and 299 distinct infections/colonizations were identified, 229/299 (77%) with toxin genes. Only 39/229 (17%) toxigenic isolates were related within ≤2 SNPs to ≥1 infections/colonizations from a previously sampled patient, i.e. demonstrated evidence of possible transmission. Independent predictors of possible transmission included healthcare exposure in the last 12 weeks (P = 0.002, with rates varying by hospital), infection with MLST types ST-1 (ribotype 027) and ST-11 (predominantly ribotype 078) compared with all other toxigenic STs (P < 0.001), and cephalosporin exposure in the potential transmission recipient (P = 0.02). Adjusting for all these factors, there was no additional effect of ward workload (P = 0.54) or failure to meet cleaning targets (P = 0.25). Use of antimicrobials is higher in North Wales compared with England and the rest of Wales.

CONCLUSIONS
Levels of transmission detected by WGS were comparable to previously described rates in endemic settings; other explanations, such as variations in antimicrobial use, are required to explain the high levels of CDI. Cephalosporins are a risk factor for infection with C. difficile from another infected or colonized case.


Holographic microscopy is increasingly recognized as a promising tool for the study of the central nervous system. Here we present a "holographic module", a simple optical path that can be combined with commercial scanheads for simultaneous imaging and uncaging with structured two-photon light. The present microscope is coupled to two independently tunable lasers and has two principal configurations: holographic imaging combined with galvo-steered uncaging and holographic uncaging combined with conventional scanning imaging. We applied this flexible system for simultaneous two-photon imaging and photostimulation of neuronal cells with complex light patterns, opening new perspectives for the study of brain function in situ and in vivo.


Sport Management: principles and application second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the practical application of management principles within sport organisations, ideal for all students studying sport management at an introductory level. It presents an international balanced view between accepted practice and what research evidence tells us about the application of a range of management principles and practices in sport. Structured in two parts it: offers an introduction and explanation of the structure of the sport industry
 covers the fundamental management issues unique to sport including: strategy, human resource management, leadership, finance, marketing, governance and performance management

Each chapter has a coherent learning structure complete with international case studies and accompanying online lecturer and student support material which: presents a conceptual overview of the focus for the chapter
 presents accepted practice supported by specific organisational examples at the community, state/provincial, national and professional level, these organisations will include examples specifically from the UK, Australia and New Zealand presents one big case for analysis per chapter, which is supported by online diagnostics and tutor resource materials
 presents research findings from around the globe
 presents a summary of guiding principles for the focus of the chapter based on a balanced view of practice and research
 presents a section of teaching and learning resources including a review questions, further reading, relevant websites provides online access to PowerPoints per chapter, tutorial activities per chapter and test bank of multiple choice questions for students per chapter

So, if you are teaching or studying sport management this really is the first book which you need on your shelf as it provides the foundation for your studies. This second edition is set to make your teaching and studying easier, superior and more successful!


Background— The G-protein–coupled receptor kinase interacting protein-1 (GIT1) is a multidomain scaffold protein that participates in many cellular functions including receptor internalization, focal adhesion remodeling, and signaling by both G-protein–coupled receptors and tyrosine kinase receptors. However, there have been no in vivo studies of GIT1 function to date. Methods and Results— To determine essential functions of GIT1 in vivo, we generated a traditional GIT1 knockout mouse. GIT1 knockout mice exhibited ≈60% perinatal mortality. Pathological examination showed that the major abnormality in GIT1 knockout mice was impaired lung development characterized by markedly reduced numbers of pulmonary blood vessels and increased alveolar spaces. Given that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is essential for pulmonary vascular development, we investigated the role of GIT1 in VEGF signaling in the lung and cultured endothelial cells. Because activation of phospholipase-Cγ (PLCγ) and extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2) by angiotensin II requires GIT1, we hypothesized that GIT1 mediates VEGF-dependent pulmonary angiogenesis by modulating PLCγ and ERK1/2 activity in endothelial cells. In cultured endothelial cells, knockdown of GIT1 decreased VEGF-mediated phosphorylation of PLCγ and ERK1/2. PLCγ and ERK1/2 activity in lungs from GIT1 knockout mice was reduced postnatally. Conclusions— Our data support a critical role for GIT1 in pulmonary vascular development by regulating VEGF-induced PLCγ and ERK1/2 activation.


Internet of Things technology provides a competent and structured approach to improve health and wellbeing of mankind. One of the feasible ways to offer healthcare services based on IoT is to monitor human's health in real-time using ubiquitous health monitoring systems which have the ability to acquire bio-signals from sensor nodes and send the data to the gateway via a particular wireless communication protocol. The real-time data is then transmitted to a remote cloud server for real-time processing, visualization, and diagnosis. In this paper, we enhance such a health monitoring system by exploiting the concept of fog computing at smart gateways providing advanced techniques and services such as embedded data mining, distributed storage, and notification service at the edge of network. Particularly, we choose Electrocardiogram (ECG) feature extraction as the case study as it plays an important role in diagnosis of many cardiac diseases. ECG signals are analyzed in smart gateways with features extracted including heart rate, P wave and T wave via a flexible template based on a lightweight wavelet transform mechanism. Our experimental results reveal that fog computing helps achieving more than 90% bandwidth efficiency and offering low-latency real time response at the edge of the network.


RFID has been gaining popularity due to its variety of applications, such as inventory control and localization. One important issue in RFID system is tag identification. In RFID systems, the tag randomly selects a slot to send a Random Number (RN16) packet to contend for identification. Collision happens when multiple tags select the same slot, which makes the RN packet undecodable and thus reduces the channel utilization. In this paper, we redesign the RN pattern to make the collided RNs decodable. By leveraging the collision slots, the system performance can be dramatically enhanced. This novel scheme is called DDC, which is able to directly decode the collisions without exact knowledge of collided RNs. In the DDC scheme, we modify the RN generator in RFID tag and add a collision decoding scheme for RFID reader. We implement DDC in GNU Radio and USRP2 based testbed to verify its feasibility. Both theoretical analysis and testbed experiment show that DDC achieves 40% tag read rate gain compared with traditional RFID protocol.


Deep reinforcement learning could be used to learn dexterous robotic policies but it is challenging to transfer them to new robots with vastly different hardware properties. It is also prohibitively expensive to learn a new policy from scratch for each robot hardware due to the high sample complexity of modern state-of-the-art algorithms. We propose a novel approach called Hardware Conditioned Policies where we train a universal policy conditioned on a vector representation of robot hardware. We considered robots in simulation with varied dynamics, kinematic structure, kinematic lengths and degrees-of-freedom. First, we use the kinematic structure directly as the hardware encoding and show great zero-shot transfer to completely novel robots not seen during training. For robots with lower zero-shot success rate, we also demonstrate that fine-tuning the policy network is significantly more sample-efficient than training a model from scratch. In tasks where knowing the agent dynamics is important for success, we learn an embedding for robot hardware and show that policies conditioned on the encoding of hardware tend to generalize and transfer well. Videos of experiments are available at: https://sites.google.com/view/robot-transfer-hcp.


A central figure in contemporary Turkish cinema, Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a director who uses cinema to develop, consider and communicate ideas about the world he films. Although language has long been the dominant vehicle for thought in Western scholarship, this thesis will argue that the image is an equally effective tool for the development and communication of thought, using the presentation of nature and technology in Ceylan's work as an example. Through a method of visual study devised from the theory of Nicole Brenez, Andrew Benjamin and Alain Bergala and the film work of Harun Farocki, this thesis examines the ways nature and technology diverge, intersect and merge in Ceylan's films, to argue that, in his view, technology and nature are rhythms of experience. Despite the concentration on a single director, this work is not an auteur study and does not seek to establish a map of the director's style. It does, however, pay particular attention to the aesthetic dimension of his work. Concentrating on medium, materiality, rhythm, and the presence of space, light and colour, I demonstrate how Ceylan uses these elements to think about nature and technology. This approach is without precedent in existing accounts of his ouevre. From the ecological anxiety of Clouds of May to the sublime synthesis of natural world and digital colour in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Ceylan presents a range of perspectives on the experience of technology and nature. The thesis contributes to two key areas of film studies: the growing body of work on Ceylan and Turkish cinema and the argument for cinema as a method of complex and philosophical thought. The idea that images can be both immanently critical and critical tools has precedents in books like Yvette Biro's Turbulence and Flow, which takes up Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers' arguments for science and philosophy as "'open systems' that endlessly dialogue with the cultural environment, effecting change and in turn being marked by the exchange" and in Nicole Brenez's comparative analyses, where one film speaks back to another, challenging, supporting and completing it. My work contributes to this area and offers a further example of the image as critical tool. It also challenges traditional notions of photographic ontology and seeks to contribute to a non-oppositional ontology of digital cinema, arguing that the 'truth' of an image does not lie in its indexicality. This places the work in a growing field of study that is moving away from critical theory, cultural studies, psychoanalysis and semiotics, choosing instead to revive early film theory and ask questions of cinema's ontology via the cinema itself. Two dominant positions emerge from the analyses. The first is of nature and technology as quotidian experiences. The second is of them as overwhelming and in excess of the space made available for them in the lives of the characters. Both constitute rhythms that are absorbed by the films and influence their pace and rhythmic design.


Editing bibliographic data is an important part of library information systems. In this paper we discuss existing approaches in developing of user interface for editing MARC records. There are two basic approaches, screen forms that support entering bibliographic data without knowledge of the MARC structure and direct editing of MARC records that is shown on the screen. The main result presented in the paper is Eclipse editor for MARC records that fully supports editing of MARC records. It is written in Java as Eclipse plug-in so it is platform-independent. It can be extended for using with any data store. At the end, the paper presents Rich Client Platform application made of MARC editor plug-in which can be used outside of Eclipse. The practical application of the results is integration of created Rich Client Platform application in BISIS library information system.


OBJECTIVES To develop a simulation model to examine the effects of clean indoor air laws on prevalence rates and smoking attributable deaths. METHODS Based on empirical and theoretical research, the effects of clean air laws are modelled by type of law. The model considers clean air laws at the state levels between 1993 and 2000, and projects the number of smokers and smoking attributable deaths in the USA under different scenarios from 2000 onward. RESULTS The model predicts that comprehensive clean air laws have the potential to reduce substantially the number of smokers and smoking attributable deaths, and these effects are predicted to grow over time. The predicted impact of new worksite laws are reduced when previously implemented private and public worksite restrictions are taken into account. CONCLUSIONS Clean indoor air laws have the ability to reduce smoking rates substantially and save lives, but their impact is likely to depend on their comprehensiveness and prior private worksite restrictions in place.


Problem A suspected high proportion of unnecessary blood transfusions occur in patients undergoing total joint replacement. Design Prospective before and after study evaluating the impact of a one page flow chart aimed at reducing the use of blood transfusions. Setting Orthopaedic tertiary care centre in Winterthur, Switzerland. 208 patients underwent primary total joint replacement of hips or knees during the control period (October 1998 to September 1999) and 217 during the intervention period (October 1999 to September 2000). Key measures for improvement Proportion of patients receiving allogeneic blood transfusions. Strategies for change A simple one page flow chart, which summarised graphically the perioperative decision pathways for anaemic patients, was placed in all charts of patients undergoing total joint replacement and handed out to medical staff from 4 October 1999 onwards. The implementation of the flow chart focused on its endorsement by chief physicians and the development of a sense of "ownership" among physicians and nurses. Effects of change The proportion of patients receiving allogeneic blood decreased from 35.0% to 19.8% (absolute difference -15.2%, 95% confidence interval -23.3 to -7.0%). The percentage of patients donating and receiving autologous blood also decreased. This led to overall savings of about £23 000 ($42 470; €34 441) (£103.50 per patient undergoing total joint replacement). Differences became more pronounced after adjustment for confounding factors. Lessons learnt Allogeneic blood transfusions in primary hip and knee replacement surgery may be reduced cost effectively by implementing a one page flow chart. Five key elements may have contributed: simplicity; wide distribution; no requirement for major changes; endorsement by local opinion leaders; and development of a sense of ownership. These elements may be used in other contexts to achieve sustained change of clinical practice.


The increase in apprenticeships and on-the-job experiences at schools and vocational institutions has increased school administrators' and employers' legal responsibilities. One major legal concern is responsibility for student injury at the training site. While all states have workers' compensation laws, states have varying laws concerning minors. Federal laws may also apply to minors and workers' compensation. Other factors may influence the applicability of workers' compensation laws. If a minor is illegally hired, workers' compensation laws may not apply and the employer may be held liable for injuries. Another contractual question is whether an apprentice is a paid employee or a student learner. If apprentices are paid, they are most likely legally defined as employees and are eligible for benefits, with some exceptions. Violation of child labor laws is another concern that is greater for trade and industrial educators than others. Different states have approached the legal problems concerning apprenticeships in different ways. Some states have provisions in their workers' compensation laws to include minors. Other states regulate insurance companies' ability to limit apprenticeship programs. (Contains 23 references.) (JPT) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ***********************************************************************


Importance The comorbid conditions of patients with cancer affect treatment decisions, which in turn affect survival and health-related quality-of-life outcomes. Comparative effectiveness research studies must account for these conditions via medical record abstraction or patient report. Objective To examine the agreement between medical records and patient reports in assessing comorbidities. Design, Setting, and Participants Patient-reported information and medical records were prospectively collected as part of the North Carolina Prostate Cancer Comparative Effectiveness & Survivorship Study, a population-based cohort of 881 patients with newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer enrolled in the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry from January 1, 2011, through June 30, 2013. The presence or absence of 20 medical conditions was compared based on patient report vs abstraction of medical records. Main Outcomes and Measures Agreement between patient reports and medical records for each condition was assessed using the &kgr; statistic. Subgroup analyses examined differences in &kgr; statistics based on age, race, marital status, educational level, and income. Logistic regression models for each condition examined factors associated with higher agreement. Results A total of 881 patients participated in the study (median age, 65 years; age range, 41-80 years; 633 white [71.9%]). In 16 of 20 conditions, there was agreement between patient reports and medical records for more than 90% of patients; agreement was lowest for hyperlipidemia (68%; &kgr; = 0.36) and arthritis (66%; &kgr; = 0.14). On multivariable analysis, older age (≥70 years old) was significantly associated with lower agreement for myocardial infarction (odds ratio [OR], 0.31; 95% CI, 0.12-0.80), cerebrovascular disease (OR, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.01-0.78), coronary artery disease (OR, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.20-0.67), arrhythmia (OR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.25-0.79), and kidney disease (OR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.06-0.52). Race and educational level were not significantly associated with &kgr; in 18 of 19 modeled conditions. Conclusions and Relevance Overall, patient reporting provides information similar to medical record abstraction without significant differences by patient race or educational level. Use of patient reports, which are less costly than medical record audits, is a reasonable approach for observational comparative effectiveness research.


In Britain, the song thrush Turdus philomelos is categorized as a species of high national conservation concern because of a large population decline during the last three decades. We calculated a series of annual national population estimates for woodland and farmland habitats combined for the period 1964-2000. We then used turning points analysis to identify seven blocks of years within the period of decline (1968-2000) with uniform rates of population change in the smoothed trend. 2. We used recoveries of song thrushes ringed as nestlings, juveniles and adults during April-September to estimate survival rates separately for the post-fledging period, the remainder of the first year and for adults. Daily survival probability was lower during the post-fledging period than during the remainder of the first year or for older birds. 3. There was evidence for variation in survival rates among blocks of years with different rates of population change, particularly for first-year survival. There were significant positive correlations across blocks between mean population multiplication rate (PMR) and both post-fledging and first-year survival. 4. Survival of first-year birds was correlated negatively with the duration of the longest run of frost days and the survival of adults was correlated negatively with the duration of the longest summer drought. Variation among blocks in mean PMR was correlated with block means of the duration of runs of frost days and drought days, but significant correlations between PMR and both post-fledging and first-year survival remained after allowing for the influence of weather on survival. 5. Changes in survival in the first winter, and perhaps also the post-fledging period, are sufficient to have caused the song thrush population decline. The environmental causes of these changes are not known, but changes in farming practices, land drainage, pesticides and predators are all candidates. Adverse weather conditions contributed to the decline, but were not the primary driver. [KEYWORDS: demographic models juvenile mortality population change ringing recoveries survival rates]


In Malaysia, public transportation has become the main way for citizen to go from one place to another. One of the popular and yet the very important ways of public transportation is the bus. Ease of availability, cheap and fast were the reasons why people choose bus in comparison to other means of public transport. In order to maintain the bus life span so that it can be used for a long time without any major problem; the bus should be maintained and serviced according to its mileage usage.Thus, this research focuses on the analysis of transmission fluid sample by using
experimental approach after a certain mileage. The objectives of this work are to collect the oil sample from automatic and manual transmission systems of engine bus according to manufacturer's recommendations, to analyse collected oil sample using oil analysis technique i.e. ferrographic, FTIR, AES and to predict the wear morphology, spectral outcomes and wear element concentration from the oil analysis results. The sample transmission fluid which was taken from the automatic and
manual transmission gearbox has been experimentally analyzed. The oil sample were taken with an interval of 5,000km, 30,000km, 50,000km, 80,000km, 180,000km and 300,000km for automatic transmission bus operation, and 5,000km, 50,000km, 100,000km, 150,000km and 200,000km for manual transmission bus operation. This sample then has been analyzed by comparing between new and used transmission fluid using FM-III Ferrogram Maker, FTIR and spectrometer. Oil analysis by ferrographic, FTIR and spectrometric technique is a form of Predictive Maintenance
(PdM) to avoid major failure in machine elements. Most machine elements are not easily accessible in the transmission system. Having a reliable technique would avoid the needs to open the components unnecessarily, hence, help to prevent catastrophic
failure which are very costly, and ease of regular monitoring. In order to identify the major failures of automatic gearbox, forecasts can be made regarding the lube transmission fluid analysis test. By using these test, the minor problem can be determine before become into major failures. At the end of this research, the wear
particles profile for interval mileage of automatic and manual transmission system were obtained


Purpose: The aim of the current investigation was to compare and contrast societal perceptions and attitudes towards men in nursing as reported by male and female nursing and non-nursing university students. Methods: A comparative study design was employed to investigate societal attitudes and perceptions towards male nurses enrolled in school of nursing in a mid-sized university in Ontario, Canada. A convenience non-random sampling method was employed that consisted of undergraduate nursing (N = 82) and non-nursing (N = 67) students. Perceptions and attitudes towards men in nursing were assessed using the Attitudes Towards Men in Nursing Scale (ATMINS). Results: Sixty-seven non-nursing students partook in this investigation, including 36 males and 31 females. The non-nursing female students ranged in age from 19 to 25 years (mean = 21.6 +/standard deviation [S.D.] 4.9), and non-nursing male students ranged in age from 19 to 37 years (mean = 23.9 +/- 4.9 S.D.). The nursing female students ranged in age from 19 to 44 years (mean = 21.8 +/- 8.8 S.D.), and the male nursing students ranged in age from 19 to 46 years (mean = 28.9 +/- 8.8 S.D.). Overall, both female nursing and non-nursing students were found to have less favourable perceptions and negative attitudes towards male nursing students. Conclusions and Recommendations: Our findings suggest that there is a general perception in Canadian society that nursing is a more suitable career choice for women than men. Moreover, societal perceptions and stereotypes towards male nurses (e.g., they are gay, effeminate, less compassionate and caring than females nurses) prevail, which may negatively contribute to their recruitment and retention in nursing programs. Greater efforts need to be taken to recruit more positive male role models in clinical practice and academia. Furthermore, recruitment ads for nursing should make greater efforts to portray the male presence in the profession. These strategies will help to address in part the current national and global shortages for nurses and also help to encourage diversity in the profession.


(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Brill's commitment to publishing a series of reference books and handbooks on the intellectual and religious life of Europe is to be praised, and this volume of heavily footnoted essays with extensive bibliographies will be particularly useful.The best aspect of this volume is its open struggle with its title term: "Catholic Enlightenment." Ulrich Lehner in his excellent introduction is the first to point out that the term is slippery. This volume of essays, he notes, is a companion not a manual . What the essays make clear in their own ways is that distinctively Catholic thinkers were engaged in a multiplicity of negotiations with exuberant rationality, Baroque spirituality, political philosophies concerning centralization of power, and moral philosophies of varying degrees of laxity and rigor. The essays emphasize the particular negotiations of individuals and religious orders. At the physical center of the book is Mario Rosa's depiction of the mediation skills of Pope Benedict XIV who was able to open spaces for Christian tradition and apologetics to be enriched by "the powerful flow of the new culture of Enlightenment" (227). However, most of the book is not about popes and papal pronouncements. Writing about Benito Jeronimo Feijoo in Spain, Andrea Smidt notes the pervasive issue for enlightened Catholics was to avoid the extremes of "blind belief and obstinate unbelief" (418). Tensions between the tendencies of Jansenists and Jesuits play a variety of roles in most of the essays. In France, Jeffrey Burson describes the psychological and cultural tensions between Jesuit optimism about moral progress and the more pessimistic social reformism of the Jansenist form of an "Augustinian Catholic Enlightenment" (65). Harm Klueting describes the inability of Austrian Jansenism to remain viable within the moderate Catholic Enlightenment as it was co-opted by politics and Protestantism after the Jesuits were repressed. In most of these essays the Jesuit and Jansenist relationship to centralized politics of different countries affects the way each promoted regional versions of enlightened Catholicism.Evident in all the essays is a Catholic eclecticism that undermines old reference-book traditions of hard categories and simple definitions. Jeffrey Burson, for example, writes of a "Jesuit Synthesis" that was "sculpted and refined in various forms by Claude Buffier and Rene-Joseph Tournemine" (79). This synthesis responded to radical statements in Spinoza and Descartes while adapting Malebranche and Descartes to Aquinas by way of Locke (79-80). This kind cut-and-paste thinking was usually regional and ephemeral. It responded to specific needs at specific times, usually supporting specific political and ecclesiastical situations. Andrea Smidt describes the predominance in Spain of a particular Spanish Jansenism, rooted in humanist, Erasmian, episcopalist, and Augustinian traditions peculiar to Spain. Michael Printy writes about rival Catholic enlightenments in the Holy Roman Empire that were not simply manifestations of anti-clerical or anti-religious ideas, but rather, "the culmination of several generations of pious renewal and revival" (173). …


Linguistic research on computer-mediated communication has frequently addressed the supposed or actual orality (broadly, 'spoken-likeness' or 'conversationality') of written language in online contexts, and tends to construe orality in 'discourse-external' terms – e.g., in terms of theoretically or computationally motivated formal categories. This study presents an approach toward complementing extant research by focusing on 'discourse-internal' construals, or participant orientations (Schegloff 1997). The aim is to examine how Twitter users construe talk, on their own terms, when explicitly describing Twitter discourse as 'talk-like'. The material comprises manually collected retrievals (via Twitter's web-based search interface) of tweets containing the string "tweet/s like [pronoun] talk/s", for the pronouns I, you, he, she, and they (N=300). Two research questions are addressed:i. When Twitter users refer to their own or their peers' Twitter discourse as being talk-like, how, if at all, do they substantiate notions of talk-likeness?ii. What attitudes or values are attached to the notions talk-likeness expressed?The results show that construals are often left implicit, but sometimes elaborated either in the body of a single tweet or over the course of a conversational exchange between multiple users. When elaborated, the construals are very diverse, but sometimes directly pertinent to categories common in both popular debate and scholarly work, such as mode, register, correctness, and appropriateness (see e.g. Baron 2008; Crystal 2006, 2008; Hard af Segerstad 2003; Jonsson 2013; Meredith & Stokoe 2014; Wikstrom 2014). For instance, some users associate talk-likeness with grammatical or orthographic (in-) correctness (Example 1), and others associate it with orthographic or lexical representation of dialect or accent (2), or less tangible notions of voice or tone (3).I tweet like I talk so if I spell some wrong it was on purpose. ... shiiid I passed all my English classes.......Hate it when scots tweet like they talk, you're not even writing real words@username oh my. He tweets like he talks. I can literally hear his overly preachy tone in those tweets…The reason I know it's not really [Jennifer] is because she's too grammatically correct. [Jen] tweets like she talks.The expressed attitudes and values concern, inter alia, perceived problems of comprehensibility or appropriateness, both amusement and annoyance at the novelty of talk-like written language, and affiliation with identity categories or notions of authentic identity (Example 4; cf. Benwell & Stokoe 2006:245; Deumert 2014). Overall, the results suggest that a focus on users' construals of their own computer-mediated discourse offers a window on how issues of theoretical interest to linguists, such as mode and register, are not only instantiated but also actively negotiated in online language use.ReferencesBaron, N. S. (2008). Always on: Language in an online and mobile world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Benwell, B., & Stokoe, E. (2006). Discourse and identity Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Crystal, D. (2006). Language and the Internet (2 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Crystal, D. (2008). Txtng: The gr8 deb8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Deumert, A. (2014). The performance of a ludic self on social network(ing) sites. In P. Seargeant & C. Tagg (Eds.), The language of social media: Identity and community on the internet (pp. 23-45). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Hard af Segerstad, Y. (2003). Use and adaptation of written language to the conditions of computer-mediated communication (2 ed.). Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg.Jonsson, E. (2013). Conversational writing: A multidimensional study of synchronous and supersynchronous computer-mediated communication. Uppsala University: Engelska institutionen.Meredith, J., & Stokoe, E. (2014). Repair: Comparing Facebook 'chat' with spoken interaction. Discourse & Communication, 8(2), 181-207. doi: 10.1177/1750481313510815Schegloff, E. A. (1997). Whose text? Whose context? Discourse & Society, 8(2), 165-187. doi: 10.1177/0957926597008002002Wikstrom, P. (2014). & she was like "O_O": Animation of reported speech on Twitter. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 13(3), 83-111.


Routing is in fact a simple task, yet the implementation of routing protocols requires specific operating system related knowledge. The developer has to deal with particular kernel internals that might have severe side effects. Furthermore, novel routing protocols require features that are not provided by current operating systems. Thus, routing protocols for mobile ad-hoc networks and wireless mesh networks are often studied in simulation environments. However, simulations have limitations that can result in conclusions that do not hold in real networks. A framework for the implementation of routing protocols in operating systems is required to enable real world oriented research. We introduce the DES Simple and Extensible Routing-Framework for Testbeds (DES-SERT). It supports the implementation, experimentation, and evaluation of routing protocols in a testbed environment. A structured protocol implementation is advocated by transmitting data in extensions attached to packets and by its pipeline based architecture. Several steps are elaborated how to derive an implementation from a routing protocol specification. A gossip implementation is presented as a simple example.


A proposed runway extension located on the Aleutian islands was designed to withstand forces of Bering Sea storm generated waves using a unique armor protection concept. The proposed runway was to extend 2,600 feet seaward into the Bering Sea with water depths approaching 60 feet. The design storm had a significant wave height of approximately 30 feet at the head of the structure. A unique armor design employing the concept of a rock berm which would allow utilization of 100 percent of quarry production in constructing the runway extension and armor protection is described. The berm concept of armor protection has since been applied to other rubble mound structures, including breakwaters and seawalls. These applications have resulted in lower construction bids, compared to conventional armpor protection schemes. A brief historial perspective is presented as well as a discussion of advantages and disadvantages of the berm concept over conventional armor layer designs.


Background: Understanding the biomechanics of the medial longitudinal arch (MLA) may provide insights into injury risk and prevention, as well as function of the arch-supporting structures. Our understanding of MLA deformation is currently limited to sit-to-stand, walking, and running. Material and Methods: Three-dimensional deformation of the MLA of the right foot was characterized in 17 healthy participants during several simulated activities of daily living. MLA deformation was quantified by both changes in arch length and navicular displacement during the stance phase of three motions: walking, stair ascent, and stair descent. Three levels of load were also evaluated: no load, a front load (13.6 kg), and a backpack load (13.6 kg). Force platforms and an eight-camera motion capture system were used to collect relevant lower extremity kinetic and kinematic data. Results: Motion type had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on navicular displacement and arch length elongation with navicular displacement being greatest during stair descent, while the walking and stair descent conditions showed the greatest increase in arch length. External load did not significantly affect either of these two measures (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Differences in the MLA deformation variables resulting from varied dynamic activities of daily living can be greater than those during walking and should be considered. Clinical Relevance: Detailing the mechanics of the MLA may aid in further understanding injuries associated with the MLA, and the results of the current study indicate that these mechanics change based on activity.


NGO's, activists and others protested recently outside Novartis's annual shareholders meeting in Basel, Switzerland, and also at Novartis offices in New York, Washington, and Cambridge, Mass., demanding that the company drop the case. Demonstrators complain that Novartis is trying to stop generic reproductions of its drugs that millions in poor countries depend on. The problem started when the Chennai HC approved the Govt. of India's decision not to grant patent to Gleevec. Novartis appealed in the Supreme Court of India, and the case has been winding through for the last six years and now the Court is preparing to hear final arguments in the month of March, 2012. It represents a high-stakes showdown between defenders of intellectual property rights, who say the generic knockoffs stifle innovation by drug makers, and Indian drug companies and international aid groups, who warn that a ruling in favor of Novartis could dry up the global supply of inexpensive medicines to treat AIDS, cancer, and other diseases. The said drug is approved by United States Food and Drug Administration in 2001. The drug, which is sold outside the United States by Novartis as Glivec and known generically as imatinib mesylate, has turned deadly chronic myelogenous leukemia into a manageable chronic disease for many patients. It is also used to treat a form of gastrointestinal cancer. India is the world's third-largest drug producer by volume and exports about $10 billion worth of generic medicines every year, more than any other country, primarily selling to other fast-growing developing countries that are expected to become significant new markets for big drug companies. The decision could also help determine how much Western drug companies invest in India at a time when they want to increase sales in emerging markets to compensate for slowing business in the United States and Western Europe. India resumed granting drug patents in 2005 as part of a World Trade Organization agreement on patents, but medicines created before 1995 did not qualify. And that's where the disagreement arises over Gleevec. The case before the Supreme Court revolves around Section 3(d) of The Indian Patent Act 1970, that prohibits a newer form of a known substance from receiving a patent unless it significantly improves the medicine's "efficacy," or effectiveness. The standard was aimed at preventing a practice known as evergreening, in which a pharmaceutical company makes minor changes to existing drugs and earns new patents, thereby providing many more years of protection from generic competition. Gilead Sciences, for instance, is appealing India's rejection of a patent application for its drug Viread, or tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, which is used to treat H.I.V. infection. And Roche is fighting several court cases to uphold its patent on the anticancer drug Tarceva, or erlotinib, that Indian drug makers argue does not meet the effectiveness standard. Courts have allowed generic versions of that drug to be sold in India while the case is being litigated. India's patent law does not define "efficacy" or say how it should be measured. Novartis is arguing that the term should encompass modifications that might make a drug safer or easier to use, not just more effective in treating a disease. It says more than 40 other countries have granted a patent on Gleevec. Novartis maintains that the current version of Gleevec is 30 percent easier for the body to absorb than an older chemical that it developed but never marketed as a drug. The older compound was patented in the United States, Europe and elsewhere in the early 1990s, but not in India because India did not allow patents on drugs at that time. Generally, when drug companies discovered a compound that fits some specifications in a test tube or animal study, they patented it to protect themselves from copycats. But that initial compound is often not suitable for use as a drug because it might not be absorbed into the bloodstream well enough, or it might be chemically unstable, or unsafe. So, modifications are made until a suitable form is found, and that new form is then also patented. The United States and European Union often grant patents for chemical modifications of existing drugs. The chances are there that the victory for Novartis would not shut off the production of generic Gleevec or of other existing generics, but could impede the ability of Indian manufacturers to develop generic versions of future drugs. The decision of the case will clarify about what kind of innovation is and is not patentable in India. The court while interpreting Section 3 (d) of the Patent Act 1970, must keep in mind the balance of the need for innovation and public health.


The New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) in central United States is a good example of intraplate seismicity, which cannot be readily explained by the plate tectonics theory and remains poorly understood. I have developed a 3D FE model to simulate stress evolution in the NMSZ and surrounding regions. I find that, following a large earthquake, intraplate seismic zones tend to stay in a Coulomb stress shadow for thousands of years, while significant amount of stress and strain energy relieved from the large earthquakes may migrate to and remain within the surrounding crust. The results are consistent with seismicity in the NMSZ region following the 1811-1812 large events. To investigate fault evolution and seismicity in plate boundary zone, I have built a 3D dynamic model for the entire San Andreas Fault (SAF) system in California, with the first-order characters of its surface geometry. The results indicate that the geometry of the SAF may be the primary cause of the observed along-strike variation of slip rate, stress states, and seismicity. In particular, the Big Bend of the SAF causes the scattered seismicity in southern California and may have facilitated the development of the San Jacinto Fault (SJF) and other active faults there. I have explored the dynamic interactions between the SAF and SJF in the model and found that the initiation of the SJF tends to decrease fault slip rate on the southernmost SAF and focus strain energy in the Mojave Desert and along the East California Shear Zone. These results are consistent with the spatial distribution of earthquakes in southern California, and provide some insights into evolution of fault systems in the plate boundary zone as it continuously seeks the optimal way to accommodate the relative plate motion.


Refinding electronic information is a common problem, yet it has received less study than the problem of how to find information for the first time. In this dissertation, I examine how people approach tasks to refind information they have seen on the Web and factors that may affect refinding. I conducted a controlled, laboratory study in which participants participated in two sessions: one to find information for a set of 18 tasks and a second session, about a week later, to attempt a set of counterpart refinding tasks. Results indicate that finding and refinding do have differences, but not for all types of tasks. The use of Web search engines was not observed to change significantly from the first session to the second. However, for tasks that participants were more familiar with, search engines were used less. Tasks that involved refinding a subset of the information that was found in the first session took longer to complete and were perceived as more difficult. Participants often went directly to known resources on the Web to start their searches. These sets of known resources included many on-line counterparts of paper resources such as telephone directories, dictionaries, and newspapers. For many tasks, participants used the same starting strategy to refind the information that they used find it, indicating strong patterns of access. This work contributes to the base of knowledge about how people refind information and the factors that affect refinding. It also contributes to the research field of information refinding and personal information management by identifying dimensions and factors that affect refinding. The results reported have implications for the design of Web sites and information repositories, the design of tools to help users find and refind information, and for the research community studying personal information management.


In this paper, we present a generative model based approach to solve the multi-view stereo problem. The input images are considered to be generated by either one of two processes: (i) an inlier process, which generates the pixels which are visible from the reference camera and which obey the constant brightness assumption, and (ii) an outlier process which generates all other pixels. Depth and visibility are jointly modelled as a hiddenMarkov Random Field, and the spatial correlations of both are explicitly accounted for. Inference is made tractable by an EM-algorithm, which alternates between estimation of visibility and depth, and optimisation of model parameters. We describe and compare two implementations of the E-step of the algorithm, which correspond to the Mean Field and Bethe approximations of the free energy. The approach is validated by experiments on challenging real-world scenes, of which two are contaminated by independently moving objects.


The incidence of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is rising rapidly in developed countries, posing a growing challenge due to the poor management of this type of malignancy at present. In this study, we profiled tumor suppressive microRNAs (miRNAs) that are silenced by DNA hypermethylation in OSCC using a function-based screening approach. This approach employed a cell proliferation assay for 327 synthetic miRNAs in two OSCC cell lines. Among the 110 miRNAs identified in this set that exhibited inhibitory properties, we compared DNA methylation and expression status in a wider panel of OSCC cell lines and primary tumor tissues, resulting in the identification of miR-218 and miR-585 as functionally significant miRNA genes that are frequently silenced in OSCC by DNA hypermethylation. Ectopic expression of miR-218 and miR-585 in OSCC cells lacking endogenous expression reduced cell growth in part through caspase-mediated apoptosis. Notably, miR-218 reduced levels of the rapamycin-insensitive component of mTOR, Rictor, in a manner associated with a suppression of Akt S473 phosphorylation. Together our findings define miR-585 as a tumor suppressive function that is often epigenetically silenced in OSCC, and they identify Rictor as a novel target of miR-218, suggesting that activation of the mTOR-Akt signaling pathway induced by Rictor contributes centrally to oral carcinogenesis.


This Discussion Paper critically examines the pivotal role religion plays in Nigerian politics, particularly as it relates to the ways Islamic and Christian identities have been manipulated by competing political elites in their struggle for power. It provides a concise but well-informed history of the evolution of the religious factor in politics and its adverse implications for Nigeria's democracy. Its point of departure is a critique of the notion of a secular Nigerian state (as prescribed by the constitution), which shows how governments and politicians have taken advantage of constitutional loop holes and used state resources to foster the politicisation of religion, with serious consequences for society at large. Some of the adverse consequences identified include religious conflict, political instability, insecurity and the undermining of the country's democracy and development. The study carefully peels away the outward display of religious piety by political elites and leaders to reveal some of the underlying personal and narrow calculations. Over time, these calculations have eroded the social elements binding relations in a multi ethnic, multi-religious setting such as Nigeria, and there have been periodic explosions of sectarian and communal violence in various parts of the country. The authors show how the politicisation and ethnicisation of religious differences have further fuelled conflict between competing groups and geopolitical interests in Nigeria and raised serious questions for Nigeria's democracy, development and the nation-state project. While noting that religion cannot be completely de-linked from politics, the study proffers some suggestions to begin to address and reverse the adverse effects of the intrusion of religion into democratic politics in Nigeria, Africa's largest country and leading oil producer.


Aims To improve medical outcomes in a RPC by using improved assessments to drive up standards in learning. Background Basic health indicators in Somaliland are among the worst in the world with high rates of maternal, newborn and child mortality and morbidity and poor immunisation coverage. There is a shortage of qualified healthcare professionals. This is exacerbated by Somaliland not being recognised internationally and therefore excluded from government aid. Hargeisa and Amoud Universities have established Faculties of Medicine with the aim of producing future doctors in Somaliland to address these healthcare issues. Methods Five UK external examiners (including one paediatrician) travelled to Somaliland to work with the local faculty in implementing OSCE's to replace traditional clinical exams. Each examiner worked with local faculty in his own specialty in designing the exam and acted as lead examiner in his own subject but also as a station examiner in other subjects. Outcomes Barriers to implementing the OSCE's were encountered. Somaliland has few experienced doctors many having fled the civil war. At Amoud University the most senior paediatrician had been qualified for 3 years. Very junior doctors had to be used as examiners and surrogates threatening the validity of the exam. Transport problems meant it was difficult to use out-patients as examination subjects and in-patients were generally too unwell. Local faculty varied in their understanding of the principals of an OSCE some marking generically while others followed the mark scheme rigorously but without considering overall performance. Having to repeat each OSCE three times led to potential and actual breaches in security. Nontheless an 8 station paediatric OSCE was delivered (2 clinical exam, 2 history, 2 counselling, and 2 unmanned data interpretation and management). The clinical exam and counselling stations demonstrated a good level of discrimination. Of 32 candidates in Hargesia 2 failed and 2 were borderline. Individual candidate's performance across the 5 OSCE's showed a high degree of concordance suggesting that the results were valid and reliable. Feedback from candidates was overwhelmingly positive. Conclusions OSCE's are deliverable in RPC's. Ethical and professional behaviour needs reinforcing. Validating medical students' achievements will encourage further input from key stakeholders.


Historical research in accounting and business includes many subject areas, including the writing of histories of accounting and business firms. Each subject area of historical research must be undertaken by utilizing appropriate research methodology. In this article, a research methodology is presented to assist those interested in writing an accounting or business history. Of all kinds of writing, that of preparing an accounting or business history is the one, in the opinion of the authors, that requires the most patience, fortitude, and attention to detail. Moreover, it is the one that historians often avoid because it has the potential of introducing between the writer and subject a bureaucratic barrier that unless approached skillfully and diplo- matically can scuttle the best intentions of the best historian. A number of histories of accounting and business firms have been written. Examples would be Arthur Andersen & Co.'s (1974) The First Sixty Years, 1913-1973, Jones's (1981) Accoun- tancy and the British Economy 1840-1980: The Evolution of Ernst & Whinney, Wise's (1982) Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co.: 85 Years, Swanson's (1972) Touche Ross: A Biography, and Robert's (1983) ETHYL: A History of the Corporation and the People Who Made It. Basically there are two categories of accounting and busi- ness histories. The first and least complex are those that center on companies that no longer exist and whose executives and employees are deceased. The writer's task in preparing histories such as these revolves primarily around gathering extant data, including peripheral materials of how the company interfaced with other businesses of the time. Next the job is to assimilate thesc data, arrive at conclusions concerning the company, and


This paper proposes a theoretical approach to hybridity, a flexible or "wet" theory that does not pretend to be universal, that can accommodate flux, and that is contextualised in locational terms and comfortable with empirical facts. More specifically, it argues for reconsideration of one of the foundational binaries, that of land and water, within the rubric of hybrid environments. The paper suggests that it is possible, thinking through the historical production of water/lands, for geographers to move beyond what has become an indissoluble dichotomy. To make these points, it takes readers to the floodplains of Bengal, which have conventionally been seen as products of fluvial action, and shows the critical roles played by colonial (and postcolonial) interventions – including changes in land tenure and revenue collection – to have produced hybrid environments that can potentially destabilize the conventional water-land binary characterised by their uncertain existence, their indeterminacy, and their fluid liminal presence as ambiguous temporal, cultural, and political geographies.


ABSTRACT: Agitation is a behavior frequently associated with residents of nursing home facilities, especially persons with diagnoses of dementia or associated brain disorders. Agitated behaviors can affect the entire facility and have the potential to impact overall quality of life. Finding positive, non-pharmaceutical, interventions to control agitation is a challenge for health care professionals. This study describes a program using multiple interventions of environmental noise reduction, controlled background music, individualized receptive and active music therapy, and vibroacoustic sessions with the Somatron. The program was implemented for 6 months and included 2 interventions. The first intervention was to manipulate the facility environment. The second intervention was to identify residents not responding to the environmental manipulation and refer them to music therapy. Three residents were referred during the intervention period. An original assessment instrument Somatron Placement Matrix was developed to assign residents to individualized music therapy sessions, Somatron sessions, or a combination of the two. Results indicated a reduction of 82% in accidents/incidents, 91% reduction of PRN medication, 36% reduction in STAT orders by physicians, and a reduction of unplanned staff absences of 44% during the intervention period. Case study information (n = 1) of individualized music therapy sessions resulted in a 100% decrease of 2 identified agitation behaviors, 71% decrease in one identified behavior, and 11% decrease in one behavior. Case study information of the Somatron sessions (n = 2) resulted in none of the baseline agitation behaviors being present and an increase in positive behaviors of closing eyes during sessions, coherent verbalizations during sessions, and an increase in positive verbalizations. Introduction Agitation behaviors are easily observed when entering a nursing home, especially a facility in which residents have psychiatric disorders. Behaviors associated with agitation may include muscle tension, irritability, aggression, repetitive body movements, restlessness, and inappropriate verbalizations (Cohen-Mansfield, Marx, & Rosenthal, 1989). Identifying precipitators of agitation and finding positive, non-pharmaceutical, interventions to reduce agitation will benefit individual residents and can create a calm, relaxing milieu that enhances quality of life. Causes for agitation stem from a variety of factors and usually have multiple influences. The individual's personality before hospitalization, level of cognitive functioning, medication, and degree of disorientation and confusion may all play a role in exhibiting behaviors (Giacino, 2003). The nursing home setting consists of heterogeneous placements, large numbers of persons residing in close proximity, and regimens that are necessary for medical treatment. These factors can produce a stressful environment. Agitation may be related to this potentially stressful environment and even is a means for patients to communicate displeasure at their surroundings (Ragneskog, Kihigren, Gerdner, & Josefsson, 1998). Environmental noise levels have also been frequently cited as a contributing factor in agitation behaviors. McClaugherty, Valibhai, Womack, and Desai (2003) evaluated the effects of noise on patients and staff in 13 nursing homes. Typical noises were intercom systems, telephones, cleaning equipment, and televisions. Behaviors reported by staff in response to high noise levels were irritability, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and increases in errors. It is a rational assumption that patients will have similar responses to the same stimuli. Patients, however, may not have the communication or coping skills necessary to tolerate the noise. Even more importantly, patients have limited control over the situation and cannot remove themselves from the stimuli. Using background music to mask environmental noises in conjunction with lowering the actual noise levels has been shown to reduce episodes of agitation among patients. …


Previous empirical studies of the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) have not reached a consistent conclusion. The existing literature is primarily based on anecdotes and scattered case studies. This study analyzes the trade flows and composition change of the most polluting industries in manufacturing sectors among countries in order to offer a more general conclusion. This study finds that stricter environmental regulation stringency decreases the net export and production share of the most polluting production, which provides the evidence for pollution haven effect (PHE). However, we find no evidence to support PHH. Contrary, we find stricter environmental regulation stringency corresponds to larger net export and polluting production as trade openness increases. We also find that the ability to innovate in environmental-related technology creates a comparative advantage in polluting production. This finding implies that governments do not have to constrain their policies on the tradeoff between pollution control and international competitiveness since the innovative ability may both obtain the goals of pollution control and strengthening international competitiveness.


The first step to ensure the success of applications in a specific field consists in producing a complete and representative model of the studied system. This alignment with reality is not easy to achieve though. This is particularly true in the humanitarian context, as in all new research areas, where researchers have difficulty identifying the right decision variables and parameters to be able to develop accurate and relevant models. At the same time, the uncertainty of the humanitarian operational environment does not facilitate data collection and analysis. This gap is true for many applications in the humanitarian sector, including research on ICT. This paper proposes an overview of the requirements and issues linked with the designing of decision support systems for humanitarian organisations


Laser technology is used in many basic and clinical disciplines and specialties, and it has played an important role in promoting the development of ophthalmology, especially corneal refractive surgery. We provide an overview of the evolution of laser technology for use in refractive and other ophthalmologic surgeries, mainly focusing on two types of lasers and their applications. First, we discuss the characteristics of the excimer laser and its application in corneal refractive surgery treating ametropia (e.g., photorefractive keratectomy (PRK), laser epithelial keratomileusis (LASEK), epipolis laser in situ keratomileusis (Epi-LASIK), and transepithelial photorefractive keratecto‐ my (Trans-PRK) and presbyopia surgery). Second, we discuss the characteristics of the femtosecond laser and its application in corneal refractive surgery (e.g., femtosecond laser in situ keratomileusis (FS-LASIK), insertion of intracorneal ring segments, small-incision lenticule extraction (SMILE), and femtosecond lenticule extraction (FLEx)) and other ophthalmologic surgeries (e.g., penetrating keratoplasty (PKP), deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty, Descemet's stripping endothelial keratoplasty (DSEK), and cataract surgery). The patients studied received many benefits from the excimer laser and femtosecond laser technologies and were satisfied with their clinical outcomes.


Rhizobia are members of the Gram-negative α-proteobacteria. Rhizobium
leguminosarum controls genes involved in iron uptake through repression under
conditions of iron sufficiency. This part of iron regulation is co-ordinated by the
dimeric rhizobial iron regulator, RirA. The sequence of RirA contains four cysteines
in close proximity, three of which have been shown to be essential to the regulatory
functions of RirA and have been proposed as the binding site of an iron-sulfur
cluster. RirA has been overexpressed, purified and reconstituted with an ironsulphur
cluster. EPR spectroscopy combined with iron and sulphide assays suggests
that the protein binds a [4Fe-4S] or [3Fe-4S] cluster per monomer.
Cytochrome cd1 is a homodimeric nitrite reductase found in denitrifying
bacteria. Each monomer binds a heme c that transfers electrons to the structurally
unique heme d1 at the active site. It is shown that the inactive as-prepared form of
cd1 from Paracoccus pantotrophus is activated by pre-exposure to the substrate
NO2
−. Although oxidised cd1 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa does not require
similar activation, it undergoes the same reaction with NO2
− to produce a novel form
of nitrosyl-heme d1. The NO derivative of Pseudomonas aeruginosa cd1 was
prepared and characterised using variable-temperature variable-field (VTVF)
Magnetic Circular Dichroism (MCD) spectroscopy. The novel heme d1 nitrosyl has
thus been identified as an unprecedented FeIII-NO• species. In absorption spectra,
this form of nitrosyl-heme d1 is indistinguishable from the low-spin FeIII state. But
simulation of EPR spectra of the oxidised cd1s has allowed quantitation of the two
hemes and shows that there are no populations of the FeIII-NO• product-bound active
site heme.


Exploitation of some individuals and groups by others is a depressingly familiar aspect of human society which enables one individual or group to succeed at the expense of another. Whilst not seeking to downplay abuse of men and male children, this paper focuses on sexual exploitation of women and girls, whether through direct violence, the imposition of fear or coercion, and whether or not for financial motivation. We have chosen sexual exploitation because, as we shall see, it is predominantly directed at women and girls and has uniquely traumatic effect. Sexual exploitation may occur within territorial boundaries but it has become increasingly transnational through travelling abusers (often serial intimate partners), human trafficking and online sexual exploitation (which has a particular effect on the progress of female children ). Law and policy have both developed separate approaches in relation to sexual exploitation within relationships as opposed to where it occurs for profit. In our view, any policy or legislative distinction between domestic and organised sexual crime is artificial, unnecessary and counter-productive. The common manipulation of the intimate partner relationship for commercial sexual exploitation is an obvious example of the failure of this approach. Tackling this as purely commercial or purely domestic ignores vital causes and consequences. Although the causes of sexual exploitation may differ depending on the relationship between victim and exploiter, the result is the same: an exploited victim. Importantly, the longer term consequences for the victims are often the same whether the exploitation takes place in a purely domestic or commercial context.Health consequences from sexual exploitation are well researched. Women and girls are inhibited by the lack of empowerment this brings in reaching their full potential. This has a knock on effect in the workforce of any state, with a consequent effect on economic prosperity. In November 2014, the G20 countries committed to a "goal of reducing the gap in participation rates between men and women [in the G20 countries] by 25% by 2025, taking into account national circumstances, to bring more than 100 million women into the labour force in order to significantly increase global growth and reduce poverty and inequality". It has been said that there are three key levers to achieve female workforce participation – social change in the sense of changing norms and stereotypes about work undertaken, policy change in relation to incentives and child care and workplace change closing gaps in wages and increasing the number of women in leadership positions . This paper seeks to add a fourth dimension in the context of empowering women by tackling sexual exploitation. We suggest the need to focus on legal uniformity, extra territoriality and corporate responsibility. We argue that there is a link between legal and policy approaches to sexual exploitation and the successful empowerment of women through employment. If equality is a genuine goal then the policy on sexual exploitation needs to be addressed at global level in the context of law and economic progress.


OBJECTIVE
People affected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have a higher risk of invasive pneumococcal disease. Therefore, vaccination against streptococcus pneumoniae is recommended for that group. The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of implementing a hospital appointment to assess vaccination status as part of the vaccination schedule of HIV patients.

METHODS
We carried out a quasi-experimental uncontrolled before and after study with a sampling of consecutive cases of HIV patients referred to our department from November 1, 2014 to June 30, 2018. The study compared the vaccination coverage on the date of the appointment for an assessment of their vaccination status in our department and after the appointment. The analysis used the chi-squared test and the values on the date of the first appointment were taken as a reference.

RESULTS
209 patients were analyzed, and a statistically significant improvement was observed regarding their vaccination coverage: 2.9% of the patients had been vaccinated on the date in which they made an appointment for assessment by our department, and 88.0% were vaccinated after they left (OR [95%CI]: 30.7 [13.92-67.58]) with the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; and 16.3% had been vaccinated on the date they made the first appointment vs. 83.7% after they came to the appointment (OR [95%CI]: 5.2 [3.76-7.04]) with the 23-valent polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine.

CONCLUSIONS
Implementing a hospital appointment for vaccination is an effective intervention to improve vaccination coverage against streptococcus pneumoniae in HIV patients.


Effectively teaching sociological theories to undergraduate students is challenging. Students often enroll in theory courses due to major requirements, not personal interest. Consequently, many students approach the study of theory with anxiety. This study examined the effectiveness of an experiential learning activity designed to teach Karl Marx's theory of alienation. Based on pretest/posttest surveys, responses to open-ended questions, and observational data, students reported that the activity helped them gain a clearer understanding of Marx. They also reported finding the activity interesting, enjoying being able to apply theory, and being able to see how Marx's theory related to real life. Assessment data revealed that students were confident in demonstrating their understanding of Marx's theories on assignments but not always effective in doing so. The findings contribute to literature on active and experiential learning techniques as successful methods for teaching abstract sociological concepts.


Thinking about space is thinking about spatial things. The table is on the carpet; hence the carpet is under the table. The vase is in the box; hence the box is not in the vase. But what does it mean for an object to be somewhere? How are objects tied to the space they occupy? In this book Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi address some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial representation. Their starting point is an analysis of the interplay between mereology (the study of part/whole relations), topology (the study of spatial continuity and compactness), and the theory of spatial location proper. This leads to a unified framework for spatial representation understood quite broadly as a theory of the representation of spatial entities. The framework is then tested against some classical metaphysical questions such as: Are parts essential to their wholes? Is spatial co-location a sufficient criterion of identity? What (if anything) distinguishes material objects from events and other spatial entities? The concluding chapters deal with applications to topics as diverse as the logical analysis of movement and the semantics of maps.


A great deal of western research on post Khmer Rouge Cambodia has been directed at the social devastation that followed the Khmer Rouge reign and on the abuse, exploitation and violence against Cambodian women and children in particular. In this discourse Cambodian men are either ignored or presented as contributing to the problems of women and children. The research in this thesis does away with such a binary perspective and assumes that the problems of Cambodian women and children will be solved only when Cambodian men are incorporated as an element of the solution. Accordingly the thesis reexamines some of the problems encountered by Cambodian women and children by considering these from the perspective of Cambodian men. The thesis does this by modelling an abstract Cambodian family unit using real life accounts from a large group of Cambodian informants and rendering these accounts as a linear narrative for a feature film entitled Bngvel (Eng. Turn).

Ethnographic data was collected and recorded over six years in a rural Cambodian context often with real-time feedback from key informants. These accounts and observations were used to construct a script depicting the life of a Cambodian father as he strives to provide for this wife and two children in both rural and urban contexts. All the recordings for the film took place on location in the rural province of Takeo, and in the capital city of Phnom Penh, using ordinary Khmer people as actors and the majority of the production crew. While the scripted account invokes many of the problems investigated by previous research, the accounts that arise from the Cambodian informants presents a picture that is much more complex than the simple victim/perpetrator narratives that characterised the earlier research. The film modelling suggests that solutions to social problems in Cambodia will be found when Cambodian men and women are able to address their problems together.


The Electric Network Frequency (ENF) is a signature of power distribution networks that can be captured by multimedia recordings made in areas where there is electrical activity. This has led to an emergence of several forensic applications based on the use of the ENF signature. Examples of such applications include estimating or verifying the time-of-recording of a media signal and inferring the power grid associated with the location in which the media signal was recorded. In this paper, we carry out a feasibility study to examine the possibility of using embedded ENF traces to pinpoint the location-of-recording of a signal within a power grid. In this study, we demonstrate that it is possible to pinpoint the location-of-recording to a certain geographical resolution using power signal recordings containing strong ENF traces. To this purpose, a high-passed version of an ENF signal is extracted and it is demonstrated that the correlation between two such signals, extracted from recordings made in different geographical locations within the same grid, decreases as the distance between the recording locations increases. We harness this property of correlation in the ENF signals to propose trilateration based localization methods, which pinpoint the unknown location of a recording while using some known recording locations as anchor locations. We also discuss the challenges that need to be overcome in order to extend this work to using ENF traces in noisier audio/video recordings for such fine localization purposes.


The question of how people interpret (decode) and construct (encode) the meaning of social behavior is central to the understanding of social interaction. Early research has suggested that there may be differences in the level of difficulty involved in the processes of encoding and decoding social behavior. These differences are surprising, given that people engage in both processes constantly in everyday life. This research is an initial exploration of this problem. Groups of research participants were asked to either construct social behaviors or to interpret social behaviors. It was hypothesized that the encoding of interpersonal behavior would be more difficult than the decoding of behavior. The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis. ABSTRACT The question of how people interpret (decode) and construct (encode) the meaning of social behavior is central to the understanding of social interaction. Early research has suggested that there may be differences in the level of difficulty involved in the processes of encoding and decoding social behavior. These differences are surprising, given that people engage in both processes constantly in everyday life. This research is an initial exploration of this problem. Groups of research participants were asked to either construct social behaviors or to interpret social behaviors. It was hypothesized that the encoding of interpersonal behavior would be more difficult than the decoding of behavior. The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis.


Background and Objectives: Biometric authentication is an important process for the identification and verification of individuals for security purposes. There are many biometric systems that are currently in use and also being researched. Tongue print is a new biometric authentication tool that is unique and cannot be easily forged because no two tongue prints are similar. The present study aims to evaluate the common morphological features of the tongue and its variations in males and females. The usefulness of alginate impression and dental cast in obtaining the lingual impression was also evaluated. Materials and Methods: The study sample included twenty participants. The participants were subjected to visual examination following which digital photographs of the dorsal surface of the tongue were taken. Alginate impressions of the tongue were made, and casts were prepared using dental stone. The photographs and the casts were analyzed by two observers separately for the surface morphology including shape, presence or absence of fissures and its pattern of distribution. Three reference points were considered to determine the shape of the tongue. Results: The most common morphological feature on the dorsum of the tongue was the presence of central fissures. Multiple vertical fissures were observed in males whereas single vertical fissure was a common finding in females. The fissures were predominantly shallow in males and deep in females. The tongue was predominantly U shaped in males and females. V-shaped tongue was observed in 25% of females. Conclusion: Tongue prints are useful in biometric authentication. The methodology used in the study is simple, easy and can be adopted by dentists on a regular basis. However, large-scale studies are required to validate the results and also identify other features of the tongue that can be used in forensics and biometric authentication process.


Abstract : Several emerging fields of science and engineering are increasingly characterized by computationally intensive programs. Without parallelization, such programs do not benefit from the increasing core counts available in todays chip multiprocessors. However, writing correct and well-performing parallel programs is widely perceived to be an extremely hard problem. In order to understand the challenges faced by scientific programmers in effectively leveraging parallel computation, this dissertation first presents an in-depth field study of the practice of computational science. Based on the results of the field study, this dissertation proposes two new implicit parallel programming (IPP) solutions. With IPP, artificial constraints imposed by sequential models for automatic parallelization are overcome by use of semantic programming extensions. These preserve the ease of sequential programming and enable multiple parallelism forms without additional parallelism constructs, achieving the best of both automatic and explicit parallelization. The first IPP solution, Commutative Set, generalizes existing notions of semantic commutativity. It allows a programmer to relax execution orders prohibited under a sequential programming model with a high degree of expressiveness. The second IPP solution WeakC, provides language extensions to relax strict consistency requirements of sequential data structures, and dynamically optimizes a parallel configuration of these data structures via a combined compiler-runtime system. This dissertation evaluates both Commutative Set and WeakC on real-world applications running on real hardware, including some that are actively used by some scientists in their day-to-day research. The detailed experimental evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed techniques.