Nickel-Tungsten-reduced Graphene Oxide (Ni-W-rGO) composite coating was developed through composite electrodeposition method, and its electrocatalytic activity for alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) was studied. The development of composite coating with a homogeneous dispersion of rGO nanosheets was achieved from an optimal Ni-W plating bath loaded with nanosheets was achieved from an optimal Ni-W plating bath loaded with graphene oxide (GO), synthesized through the chemical oxidation of graphite. The electrocatalytic efficacy of the composite coating for HER was tested using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronopotentiometry (CP) techniques in 1.0 M KOH medium. A remarkable increase in the HER activity was observed for the Ni-WrGO composite coating compared with the Ni-W alloy coating. The variation in composition, surface morphology and crystal structure of the composite coating effected by the incorporation of rGO into the alloy matrix favor the enhanced HER activity, as evidenced by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).


An analytical solution was proposed for the groundwater flow through a defective pipe, which can be used to estimate the water flow rate into the pipe and predict the pore water pressure distribution in surrounding soils. This analytical solution was verified by comparing with experimental results, and the predicted pressure distribution around the defective pipe is proved to be consistent with numerical simulations using the finite element method. From the parametric analysis, the infiltration rate increases as the defect position changes from top to bottom on the pipe, and the effect of defect position is not significant if the water head above the defect is 10 times greater than pipe radius. An approximated solution for estimating the groundwater flow infiltration rate through a circular orifice on the pipe is proposed as well. From the verification and parametric studies, this proposed analytical solution is proved to be an efficient approach for the estimation of groundwater infiltration through a defective pipe.


Louis Néel was from Norman stock by his father and from Lyon by his mother. He could trace his ancestors to the middle of the eighteenth century. They were leading citizens of small boroughs, his great grandfather a secondary school teacher. His grandfather, a chemist, showed him how to make pills by pressing powders in moulds; he had many coloured jars in his shop windows, one with a colony of leeches! Two of the chemist's sons worked in the colonies, one as administrator and the other as an army physician. Louis's father, a civil servant in the Ministry of Finances, also applied after a while for a post abroad, south of Tunisia, where he met his future wife, a niece of the local French representative. They married in 1903.


ABST•,ACT.--Clutches of 4 eggs accounted for 64-73% of all clutches laid in 3 yr by a population of Turquoise-browed Motmots (Eumomota superciliosa) in Yucatan, Mexico. The consistently high frequency of 4-egg clutches was associated with only a slight advantage in fledging success relative to clutches of 3 eggs, which ranged in frequency from 11% to 33%. Differences in number of young fledged and proportion of hatchlings fledged were not statistically significant over 3 yr or in any particular year. Clutches of 4 yielded more surviving young in 2 of 3 yr, averaging 2.02 compared to 1.71 for clutches of 3. The proportion of hatchlings that fledged was higher in broods of 3 (overall = 0.67) than in broods of 4 (overall = 0.55) in 2 of 3 yr. The proportion of hatchlings fledged from clutches of 5 (0.36) was lower over 3 yr than that fledged from clutches of 4 or 3. Approximately 40% of nestling mortality in nests that escaped predation was due to starvation. Other known causes included falls from nests and parasitism by maggots. Received 12 July 1984, accepted 9 April 1985.


Online delivery of content has changed media advertising markets, undermining the business model which has underpinned provision of 'public media'. Three business models have sustained mass media: direct payment for content, payment for advertising and state subsidy, and the author argues, contrary to others' claims, that advertising finance has made possible production and provision of high-quality, pluralistic and affordable public media. In consequence, substitution of the internet as an advertising medium has undermined the system of finance which, in the UK and societies like it, sustained public media. Global advertising revenues have both fallen and been redistributed, though to differing degrees in different countries, with particularly deleterious effects on local newspapers. Prices have risen, original content production has fallen and reversion to a direct payment-for-content business model is pervasive. And this despite the growth of new entrant online media and established publicly funded media (notably public service broadcasters) resulting in the likelihood of a continued general worsening of affordable and pervasive access to high-quality and diverse public media.


This paper seeks to identify the causal effect of foreign acquisitions on wages of skilled and unskilled workers, using difference-in-differences propensity score matching estimators. Our results suggest that there is substantial heterogeneity in the post-acquisition wage effect depending on the nationality of the foreign acquirer and the skill group of workers. We find sizable post acquisition wage effects on skilled and unskilled wages following an acquisition by a US firm. No such impacts result from acquisitions by EU multinationals. Also we discern some positive wage effects for unskilled workers resulting from acquisitions by multinationals from the rest of the world.


Catherine Crawford, a mother of two young daughters, is tired of the indulgent brand of parenting so popular in her trendy Brooklyn neighbourhood. All of the negotiating and bargaining has done scant more than to create a generation of little tyrants. After being exposed to the well-behaved, respectful children of her French friends, une lumiere went on - French children don't talk back! Why French Children Don't Talk Back is a witty and insightful look at how the French manage to bring up obedient, well-adjusted kids. It occupies a pragmatic place on the book shelf and in life - an anti-Tiger Mother approach to parenting.


Early childhood caries is an aggressive pathology that can destroy the teeth in a short time, reaching the proximal surfaces, causing discomfort, pain and affecting the dental pulp, causing premature loss of deciduous teeth.

 The purpose of this research is to determine the prevalence of early childhood caries in children aged 1 to 5 years of the Metropolitan District of Quito.

 This is a cross-sectional study including a sample of 557 children attending child care centers in Quito, Ecuador, between May and July 2018. The sample was evaluated clinically registering the data in a simplified dental file containing the odontogram and the result of decayed, lost and sealed teeth, according to the dmft index, as well as data such as age and gender. Data were tabulated and analyzed statistically by independent t-test.

 The prevalence of early childhood caries was found to be 59.61%. Children affected by early childhood caries presented a mean age of 2.83 years, the ones suffered the most from this pathology were those of 2 years (35.54%), followed by those of 3 years (34.94%) and 4 years (22.5%). Boys presented more early childhood caries (53.92%) in relation to the girls (46.08%).

 The early childhood caries presented a prevalence of 59.61% and a general dmft index of medium level of severity according to the classification of the World Health Organization, in children from 1 to 5 years of age in Quito, Ecuador.


Abstract Instead of asking whether regional organisations can promote democracy, a well-established conclusion, this article asks what type of democracy regional organisations can promote. Where their commitments to democracy are weak, regional organisations can promote the transition away from authoritarianism but cannot drive that process to completion with the creation of embedded liberal democracies. Under such circumstances regional organisations serve as regimes of bounded toleration, and can provide regional linkages that sustain defective democracies. Through examining the relationship between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Myanmar, three supporting roles are identified; regional legitimacy, defence from external pressure, and future-oriented accommodation. The presence of these linkages between defective democracies and regional organisations provides a caveat to the positive assessments of regional organisations as socialisers of democracy.


Modern smartphones, like iPhone 7, feature touchscreens with co-located force sensing. This makes touch input more expressive, e.g., by enabling single-finger continuous zooming when coupling zoom levels to force intensity. Often, however, the user wants to select and confirm a particular force value, say, to lock a certain zoom level. The most common confirmation techniques are Dwell Time (DT) and Quick Release (QR). While DT has shown to be reliable, it slows the interaction, as the user must typically wait for 1 s before her selection is confirmed. Conversely, QR is fast but reported to be less reliable, although no reference reports how to actually detect and implement it. In this paper, we set out to challenge the low reliability of QR: We collected user data to (1) report how it can be implemented and (2) show that it is as reliable as DT (97.6% vs. 97.2% success). Since QR was also the faster technique and more preferred by users, we recommend it over DT for force confirmation on modern smartphones.


Abstract The paper builds on existing literature, highlighting current understanding and identifying unresolved issues about MeHg exposure, health effects, and risk assessment, and concludes with a consensus statement. Methylmercury is a potent toxin, bioaccumulated and concentrated through the aquatic food chain, placing at risk people, throughout the globe and across the socioeconomic spectrum, who consume predatory fish or for whom fish is a dietary mainstay. Methylmercury developmental neurotoxicity has constituted the basis for risk assessments and public health policies. Despite gaps in our knowledge on new bioindicators of exposure, factors that influence MeHg uptake and toxicity, toxicokinetics, neurologic and cardiovascular effects in adult populations, and the nutritional benefits and risks from the large number of marine and freshwater fish and fish-eating species, the panel concluded that to preserve human health, all efforts need to be made to reduce and eliminate sources of exposure.


Due to the large transmission speeds and enormous volumes of transferred data, network availability performance is one of the key issues in optical long-haul networks, comprising nodes implemented by optical cross-connects (OXCs). In this context, the design of OXCs is becoming very challenging since they have to support both legacy lower bit-rates and future highspeed super-channels by means of flexible allocation of spectral resources, and at the same time provide high availability of established connections. In this paper we study the availability and power consumption of different node architectures. We focus on the design of the new generation of synthetic programmable OXCs based on the Architecture on Demand concept which can reduce the number of utilized node components when a certain part of signals is switched at the fibre level, resulting in lower mean down time and power consumption compared to traditional node architectures.


Abstract Aim. Burst fractures without neurological deficit are often treated successfully without surgery. A subgroup may fail non-operative treatment owing to pain, and opt for surgery.The following review was conducted to identify predictors of success or failure in the non-operative treatment of thoracolumbar burst fractures. Methods. A cohort of 60 patients with T11-L4 thoracolumbar burst fractures were treated non-operatively, with bed rest and bracing until the pain abated sufficiently to allow mobilization. Patients were followed prospectively for a mean ± SD of 12 ± 14 months, and their data were reviewed retrospectively. Results. Fifty-one patients successfully completed non-operative treatment. Owing to intractable pain in nine, surgery was undertaken. Ages in the non-operative and operative groups were 46 ± 18 and 68 ± 15 years respectively (p = 0.002). The residual canal and angulation at the site of the fracture were 63 ± 12% and 1.6 ± 8.4° in the non-operative group and 47 ± 15% and 6.6 ± 13.6° in the surgical group (p = 0.001 and 0.149 between groups, respectively). Regression analysis of age, gender, angulation, and residual canal showed that only age (OR, 1.099; 95% CI, 1.022–1.183; p = 0.011) and residual canal (OR, 0.795; 95% CI, 0.642–0.985; p = 0.035) were significant predictors of failure, ultimately undergoing surgery. Conclusion. Non-surgical treatment was more likely to prove sufficient in patients aged 46 ± 18 years, and residual canal of 63 ± 12%, than in older patients with ages of 68 ± 15, and canal of 47 ± 15%. The latter group was more likely to fail, undergoing surgery because of pain or instability.


This chapter examines L2 fluency development across Formal Instruction (FI) and Study Abroad (SA) learning periods, thus investigating one of the research questions in the SALA Project, namely whether a three-month SA after a FI period results in significant benefits. The longitudinal approach in the present study focuses both on the period abroad and on the FI periods before and after SA. In addition, we also examined the impact of onset level and language contact profiles on development. L2 fluency improved significantly over time, with gains being mainly obtained during SA. Lower initial fluency levels and greater language contact were associated with fluency gains during SA, but did not fully explain the differential impact of FI and SA on fluency development.


We study the shape of the Young diagram $\lambda$ associated via the Robinson–Schensted–Knuth algorithm to a random permutation in $S_n$ such that the length of the longest decreasing subsequence is not bigger than a fixed number $d$; in other words we study the restriction of the Plancherel measure to Young diagrams with at most $d$ rows. We prove that in the limit $n\to\infty$ the rows of $\lambda$ behave like the eigenvalues of a certain random matrix (namely the traceless Gaussian Unitary Ensemble random matrix) with $d$ rows and columns. In particular, the length of the longest increasing subsequence of such a random permutation behaves asymptotically like the largest eigenvalue of the corresponding random matrix.


The malfunction of the transcriptional regulator RUNX1 is the major cause of several variants of acute human leukemias and its normal function is to regulate the development of the blood system in concert with other transcriptional co-regulators. RUNX1 belongs to a conserved family of heterodimeric transcription factors that share a conserved DNA binding domain, the Runt domain (RD), named after the first member of this group – Runt - found in Drosophila melanogaster. The binding partner CBFβ serves as a regulator of RUNX by enhancing its DNA binding affinity through an allosteric mechanism. The main focus ofo my thesis work has been the crystallization and structural analysis of the RUNX1 RD and involved also more technical methodological aspects that can be applied to X-ray crystallography in general. The high resolution crystal structure of the free RD shows that this immunoglobulin-like molecule undergoes significant structural changes upon binding to both CBFβ and DNA. This involves a large flip of the L11 loop from a closed conformation in the free protein to an open conformation when CBFβ and/or DNA are bound. We refer to this transition as the "S-switch". Smaller but significant conformational changes in other parts of the RD accompany the "S-switch". We suggest that CBFβ triggers and stabilizes the "S-switch" which leads to the conversion of the RD into a conformation enhanced for DNA binding. During the structural analysis of the RD we identified two chloride ions that are coordinated by residues otherwise involved in DNA binding. In electrophoretic mobility-shift analyses (EMSA) we demonstrated a chloride ion concentration dependent stimulation of the DNA binding affinity of RUNX1. We further showed by NMR line width broadening experiments that the chloride binding occurred within the physiological range. A comparable DNA binding stimulation of RUNX1 was seen in the presence of negative amino acids. This suggests a regulation of the DNA binding activity of RUNX1 proteins through acidic amino acid residues possibly provided by activation domains of transcriptional co-regulators that interact with RUNX1. The use of the anomalous signal from halide ions has become a powerful technique for obtaining phase information. By replacing the sodium chloride with potassium bromide in the crystallisation conditions of the RD, we could demonstrate in a single wavelength anomalous diffraction (SAD) experiment that the anomalous signal from 2 bromide ions were sufficient to phase a 16 kDa protein. Due to lack of completeness in the low-resolution shells caused by overloaded intensities, density modification schemes failed and the resulting electron density maps were not interpretable. By combining the highresolution synchrotron data with low-resolution data from a native data set collected on a home X-ray source, the density modified bromide phases gave easily traceable maps.


Since 1993, satellite altimetry has provided accurate measurements of sea surface height with near‐global coverage. These measurements led to the first definitive estimates of global mean sea‐level (GMSL) rise and have improved understanding of how sea levels are changing regionally at decadal time scales. These relatively short records, however, provide no information about the state of the ocean prior to 1993, and with the modern altimetry record spanning only 20 years, the lower frequency signals that are known to be present in the ocean are difficult or impossible to resolve. Tide gauges, on the other hand, have measured sea level over the last 200 years, with some records extending back to 1807. While providing longer records, the spatial resolution of tide gauge sampling is poor, making studies of the large‐scale patterns of ocean variability and estimates of GMSL difficult. Combining the satellite altimetry with the tide gauges using a technique known as sea‐level reconstruction results in a dataset with the record length of the tide gauges and the near‐global coverage of satellite altimetry. Cyclostationary empirical orthogonal functions (CSEOFs), derived from satellite altimetry, are combined with historical sea‐level measurements from tide gauges to create the Reconstructed Sea Level dataset spanning from 1950 to 2009. Previous sea‐level reconstructions have utilized empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) as basis functions, but by using CSEOFs and by addressing other aspects of the reconstruction procedure, an alternative sea‐level reconstruction can be computed. The resulting reconstructed sea‐level dataset has weekly temporal resolution and half‐degree spatial resolution.


The concept of non-territorial autonomy (NTA) has been known since the final years of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was developed as a means to accommodate ethno-cultural groups claiming special privileges in matters pertaining to the maintenance and survival of their cultural identity and traditions. Since then, States wishing to foster social unity have refined the concept and implemented it to varying degrees of entrenchment. Drawing on legal analysis, experts have established a hierarchical order of NTA paradigms using depth, or the extent of vertical legal competences, as an indicator of entrenchment. Some contemporary NTA paradigms have, however, developed through alternative methods of entrenchment. Using both legal and political indicators, this article questions the legal-only approach to assessing entrenchment by examining three different types of NTA implemented in Finland, Germany, and Hungary. By applying an indicator of scope in terms of areas of public administration where degrees of competences reach into private law, examination of these three examples reveals that the way duties are defined in delivery of public services may influence the assessment of entrenchment, and hence, the order of hierarchy. On this basis, the article queries the general perspective that the degree of NTA entrenchment emanates only from a comprehensive legal agreement and entertains the notion that duties in public service delivery may also influence the assessment of entrenchment as an arrangement.


This paper introduces a novel road extraction algorithm in two stages of road detection and road vectorization. In the road detection stage, road class image is obtained using fuzzy C-means clustering and some post processing operations. In the vectorization stage road key points on the road centerline is obtained by an innovative approach of dynamic road pixels clustering using particle swarm optimization. The proposed algorithm is able to automatically optimize number and position of road key points without considering the prior information about the initial number and position of cluster centers by designing a new cost function. The optimized road key points were connected using weighted graph theory. Different high resolution images of Ikonos in urban, non-urban, and mountainous areas were tested and several quality measures including RMSE, correctness, completeness, and quality were calculated. Extracting different road shapes with RMSE less than 1.3 and quality greater than 0.86 in different areas proves the efficiency of the algorithm in yielding complete road networks.


Abstract. A semiempirical method for estimating the error and optimum number of sampled levels in precipitable water vapour (PWV) determinations from atmospheric radiosoundings is proposed. Two terms have been considered: the uncertainties in the measurements and the sampling error. Also, the uncertainty has been separated in the variance and covariance components. The sampling and covariance components have been modelled from an empirical dataset of 205 high-vertical-resolution radiosounding profiles, equipped with Vaisala RS80 and RS92 sondes at four different locations: Guimar (GUI) in Tenerife, at sea level, and the astronomical observatory at Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, 2300 m a.s.l.) on La Palma (both on the Canary Islands, Spain), Lindenberg (LIN) in continental Germany, and Ny-Alesund (NYA) in the Svalbard Islands, within the Arctic Circle. The balloons at the ORM were launched during intensive and unique site-testing runs carried out in 1990 and 1995, while the data for the other sites were obtained from radiosounding stations operating for a period of 1 year (2013–2014). The PWV values ranged between ∼  0.9 and ∼  41 mm. The method sub-samples the profile for error minimization. The result is the minimum error and the optimum number of levels. The results obtained in the four sites studied showed that the ORM is the driest of the four locations and the one with the fastest vertical decay of PWV. The exponential autocorrelation pressure lags ranged from 175 hPa (ORM) to 500 hPa (LIN). The results show a coherent behaviour with no biases as a function of the profile. The final error is roughly proportional to PWV whereas the optimum number of levels (N0) is the reverse. The value of N0 is less than 400 for 77 % of the profiles and the absolute errors are always


International Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Research Robert G. Bringle, Julie A. Hatcher, and Steven G. Jones, Editors Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2011 When I began practicing International Service Learning (ISL) as a junior faculty member, there was no academic literature about this transformational pedagogy. Indeed, at that time, the domestic service-learning literature had just begun to emerge following proliferating calls for community-engaged pedagogies that would enhance the civic education of America's college students (e.g., Boyer & Hechinger, 1981; Barber, 1992). Two decades later, I am happy to report that ISL has become the subject of serious scholarship, certainly informed by decades of research on international education and the more recent growth in service-learning literature, but now elaborated in its own right with empirical support for why and how this pedagogy can produce "high impact" (Kuh, 2008) learning and other outcomes for participating students and communities. International Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Research is a clear sign that ISL has matured as a compelling applied pedagogical approach and also as a field characterized by multiple and inter-disciplinary conceptual frameworks and rigorous academic inquiry. This volume signals the consolidation of several concurrent and intersecting trends in higher education, reveals the progress to date in ISL practice and research, and points the way forward for the field's further progression. The editors divide International Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Research into four parts. The first section focuses on the conceptual work of defining ISL and situating it in relation to other familiar educational trends: service-learning, study abroad, and international education. The second part explores the relationship between ISL courses and research, providing several specific examples of ISL engagements and the study of their learning outcomes. The third section outlines a research agenda for ISL and provides multi-methodological approaches for realizing it. Finally, a single essay in the concluding section offers reflections on ISL from the vantage point of contexts and host communities outside of North America. A quick perusal of the table of contents affirms that the contributing authors are experienced and well-regarded service-learning scholars, the chapters are complementary and together comprise a thorough exploration of the topic, and issues such as context variables and ethical dilemmas are covered. The chapters reference each other throughout, and this contributes to the way the book coheres as a whole, even though most of the chapters succeed well on their own. Some repetition in the introductory material of each chapter is a common occurrence in volumes of this type. The book includes author biographies and is well indexed; the reference section of each chapter supplies an invaluable multi-disciplinary bibliography inclusive of the philosophical foundations for service-learning as well as educational and learning theory, cross-cultural psychology and communication, and many other disciplines whose empirical traditions inform ISL practice and research. In their introductory chapter, Bringle and Hatcher do a fine job of laying out the terrain, pointing out the intersections between service-learning, study abroad, and international education, and identifying ISL at "the triple intersection" (p. 14). The authors provide a useful definition of ISL (achieved through a strategic revision of their earlier definition of service-learning): A structured academic experience in another country in which students (a) participate in an organized service activity that addresses identified community needs; (b) learn from direct interaction and cross-cultural dialogue with others; and (c) reflect on the experience in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a deeper understanding of global and intercultural issues, a broader appreciation of the host country and the discipline, and an enhanced sense of their own responsibilities as citizens, locally and globally. …


Air entrainment and ozonation are the key causes of dissolved gas supersaturation and eventual bubble formation in water treatment plants. Total dissolved gas probes (TDGP) are now available to directly measure supersaturation and have many advantages compared to conventional techniques. Bubble formation during coagulationflocculation hindered particle sedimentation, producing settled turbidities double that of solutions without dissolved gases. In a filtration study, run time to one half of initial flow was decreased by 54% when the source water was increased from 0.1 to 0.2 atm supersaturation. Indeed, even at 0.05 atm supersaturation, run length was only 21 hours in solutions without added particulate matter. A case study confirmed that bubble formation can interfere with coagulation and filtration processes at conventional treatment plants.


Purpose To evaluate the effect of posterior scleral reinforcement in controlling high myopic axial progression in young patients. Methods Only one eye of each patient had posterior scleral reinforcement surgery. Before surgery and at each postoperative follow-up, the best corrected visual acuity, intraocular pressure, refractive errors, indirect ophthalmoscopy, B-type ultrasonography, and IOLMASTER reflected light biometry were performed on both eyes. The changes of axial length and the changes of refractive errors from the baseline were compared between the surgery eyes and the contralateral eyes. Results Thirty patients had a mean age of 7.5 years and a mean spherical equivalent of −9.72 diopters. The mean elongation of axial length was significantly less in the surgery eye group than that in the contralateral eye group (0.75 mm vs. 0.94 mm, p < 0.0001, paired t test) after a mean follow-up of 895 days. The surgical effect was mild but maintained during the follow-up. The eyes with staphyloma gained less surgical effect when compared with the eyes without staphyloma (p = 0.0036). There was also a notable nonstatistically significant trend for younger patients to gain a larger surgical effect (p = 0.0986). Conclusions Posterior scleral reinforcement surgery was found effective in slowing down high myopic axial progression in young patients within the study period, but the size of the effect was small. The surgical procedure is well tolerated without vision-threatening complications.


Embedded software often involves intensive numerical computations and suffers from a number of run-time errors. The technique of numerical static analysis is of practical importance for checking the correctness of embedded software. However, most of the existing approaches of numerical static analysis consider sequential programs, while interrupts are a commonly used facility that introduces concurrency in embedded systems. Therefore, a numerical static analysis approach is highly desired for embedded software with interrupts. In this paper, we propose a static analysis approach specifically for interrupt-driven programs based on sequentialization techniques. We present a method to sequentialize interrupt-driven programs into non-deterministic sequential programs according to the semantics of interrupts. The key benefit of using sequentialization is the ability to leverage the power of the state-of-the-art analysis and verification techniques for sequential programs to analyze interrupt-driven programs, for example, the power of numerical abstract interpretation to analyze numerical properties of the sequentialized programs. Furthermore, to improve the analysis precision and scalability, we design specific abstract domains to analyze sequentialized interrupt-driven programs by considering their specific features. Finally, we present encouraging experimental results obtained by our prototype implementation. CCS Concepts: rSoftware and its engineering→ Software defect analysis;


As a collection of online videos that explores how to create, consume, and live in environmentally responsible ways, TreeHuggerTV offers a productive site for examining environmental activism at the intersection of nature and culture. This paper looks at TreeHuggerTV as a form of environmental activism that emerges on post-network television. This analysis traces how TreeHuggerTV productively re-visualizes the environment, environmentalists, and environmentalism. In the online videos, the environment appears in the urban landscapes where people live, environmentalists are shown as "hip, not hippie," and environmentalism is manifested in the form of green consumerism. Despite the limitations of consumer-driven forms of environmentalism, the author examines the potential of this environmental activism that embraces human culture in relation to the environment. While promoting green consumption may fail to push viewers beyond individual and incremental forms of activism, TreeHuggerTV creates an accessible entrance into environmentalism for viewers in a commercial medium. The fragmented viewing audience of this post-network form of television further indicates that this consumer environmentalism operates as a productive supplement to, rather than replacement of, other forms of environmental activism. The interplay between the form and content of TreeHuggerTV represents an important site to begin studying the future of environmental activism and its intersections with new media developments such as post-network television.


Earthquakes, Tsunamis, major hurricanes and large-scale flooding can create large quantities waste, of building debris, rubble, sediments, organic waste and possibly even toxic wastes. Such waste poses not only a threat to public health, but can also seriously hinder relief programmes and the subsequent reconstruction efforts. The uncontrolled dumping of such wastes impacts negatively on public health and can have a detrimental impact on the environment. Incorrect waste disposal can lead to chemicals and heavy metals leaching into the groundwater, increased vermin presence, negative odour and visual impact. Large quantities of visible waste have a negative psychological impact on affected communities.


Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that targets the central nervous system and exposes the patients to a higher risk of various disabilities that impair their normal daily life activities. Different approaches take a part in the management of multiple sclerosis, in which pharmacological drug therapy is the corner stone and the central player in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. The pharmacological therapy can be categorized into; disease modifying therapies, symptomatic treatments, and relapse management. The discussed disease modifying therapies include; alemtuzumab, dimethyl fumarate, fingolimod, glatiramer acetate, natalizumab, teriflunomide and beta Interferon-1B, that have been found to share a characteristic feature of altering the immune system baseline functions in order to limit multiple sclerosis complications and deaccelerate its progression. The frequently occurring symptoms of multiple sclerosis are; depression, fatigue, general pain, spasticity, muscle spasm and other symptoms, that need to be carefully managed. Patients with multiple sclerosis face "on and off" episodes of aggravated symptoms known as a relapse that may last for days, weeks or even months. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines have recommended the use of high corticosteroid doses as the gold-standard practice in managing a relapse episode. This review article will provide an overview of the different pharmacological therapies and their major role in the management of multiple sclerosis; via exploring the most recent published scientific evidence. In the end, a general discussion is added, focusing on the role of pharmacists and other medical experts in the clinical management of multiple sclerosis and patient support.


Children from low-income families face persistent barriers to accessing high-quality health care services. Previous research studies have examined the importance of expanding children's health insurance coverage, but there is little prior evidence concerning the impacts of directly expanding primary health care access to this population. We address this gap in the literature by exploring whether teenagers' access to primary health care influences their fertility and educational attainment. We study how the significant expansion of school-based health centers (SBHCs) in the United States since the early 1990's has affected teen fertility and high school dropout rates. Our results indicate that school-based health centers have a negative effect on teen birth rates: adding services equivalent to the average SBHC reduces the 15-18 year old birth rate by 5%. The effects are largest among younger teens and among African Americans and Hispanics. However, primary care health services do not reduce high school dropout rates by very much despite the sizable reductions in teen birth rates


Upon viral infection, the host's immune system can induce the antiviral state to protect from further infection. In this antiviral state, RNA synthesis and protein synthesis are downregulated, and viral replication is inhibited (Kawai and Akira, 2006). Two of the key pathways critical to establishing the antiviral state include the Toll-like receptor (TLR) and the interferon (IFN) receptor (IFNR) pathways (Kawai and Akira, 2006). The TLR pathway is critical to recognizing viral components, while the IFNR pathway is vital to activating genes necessary for inducing the antiviral state. As the host evolves to combat viral infections, viruses have also evolved to circumvent such host antiviral immune response. One viral evasion mechanism is via disruption of cell membrane domains known as caveolae. Caveolae membrane domains are critical to maintaining a platform from which molecules can signal and have been implicated in a variety of disease processes, including breast and prostate cancer, type II diabetes, and atherosclerosis (Cohen et al., 2004). Previous studies show that viral infection leads to a downregulation in caveolin transcripts and the dispersal of IFNR clusters (Gabor et al., Submitted). As a result, the host's antiviral immune response is dampened. In the present study, I suggest a role for caveolae in the TLR9 signaling pathway. Through Fluorescence Photoactivation Localization Microscopy (FPALM) imaging, I observe spatial overlap, or colocalization, of TLR9 and caveolin molecules. When caveolin is depleted, TLR9 signaling, upon exposure to unmethylated CpG DNA, is dampened. Understanding the mechanisms by which a pathogen may evade the host's immune system will provide further insights into new and effective treatments, such as IFN and TLR antiviral therapies.


In the first portion of this chapter, a short review on all-optical processing is pre‐ sented. Following the ideas of all-optical processing, a basic unit cell is introduced for the realization of these systems. To this end, an all-optical semiconductor optical amplifier based on quantum dots (QD-SOA) is presented and used as the basic unit cell. Then, a novel scheme for a high-speed all-optical half-adder based on quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifiers has been theoretically and extensively ana‐ lyzed. We accelerate the gain recovery process in QD-SOA with a control pulse (CP) using the cross-gain modulation (XGM) effect in QD-SOA (based on a novel work reported by Rostami et al published in IEEE J. Quantum Electron in 2010). In this pro‐ posed scheme, a pair of input data streams simultaneously drives the switch to pro‐ duce sum and carry. The proposed scheme is driven by the pair of input data streasms for one switch between which the Boolean XOR function is to be executed to produce a sum-bit. Then, one of the input data is utilized to drive the second switch and another is used as input data for it to produce a carry-bit. In the pro‐ posed structure, we need to use an optical attenuator to reduce the power level of the optical signal. Thee, data pulse is at least an order of magnitude stronger than the incoming pulse; thereforehowever, only the input pulse can alter QD-SOA's op‐ tical properties. Also, an all-optical cross-phase modulation (XPM) wavelength con‐ verter has been utilized to obtain an all-optical AND gate, which is logic CARRY. Logic SUM and CARRY are simultaneously realized in the proposed structure. The operation of the system is evaluated and demonstrated with a Tb/s bit rate. The pro‐ posed structure is mathematically modeled by writing rate equations and then is numerically simulated with success. High-speed operation capabilities of the pro‐ posed all-optical half-adder structure are evaluated by numerical simulation.


The adsorption of a series of charged bottle-brush polymers with side chains of constant length on mica and silica surfaces is modeled using a lattice mean-field theory, and the predicted results are compared to corresponding experimental data. The bottle-brush polymers are modeled as being composed of two types of main-chain segments: charged segments and uncharged segments with an attached side chain. The composition variable X denotes the percentage of charged main-chain segments and ranges from X = 0 (uncharged bottle-brush polymer) to X = 100 (linear polyelectrolyte). The mica-like surface possesses a constant negative surface charge density and no special affinity, whereas the silica-like surface has a constant negative surface potential and a positive affinity for the side chains of the bottle-brush polymers. The model is able to reproduce a number of salient experimental features characterizing the adsorption of the bottle-brush polymers for the full range of the composition variable X on the two surfaces, and thereby quantifying the different nature of the two surfaces with respect to electrostatic properties and nonelectrostatic affinity for the polymer. In particular, the surface excess displays a maximum at X approximate to 50 for the mica surface and at X approximate to 10 for the silica surface. Moreover, the thickest adsorbed layer is obtained at X = 10-25.


A U T H O R S ' S Y N O P S I S The importance of the renin-angiotensin-vasoconstrictor system during haemorrhagic hypotension was quantitated in 44 areflexic dogs by determining the ability of the arterial pressure to recover following haemorrhage to 8.8 kPa (66 mm Hg). In 30 animals with intact kidneys, the arterial pressure following haemorrhage rose to a new steady-state level averaging 11.7 kPa (88 mm Hg), which represented 65.3 k I .8 (SE) % compensation. In 18 nephrectomized animals only 24.4 k 1.5% compensation occurred. The system exhibited a relatively rapid time course for pressure compensation with the new steady state occurring 19.2 k 2.0 min after haemorrhage. Following reinfusion of blood, the pressure returned to the pre-haemorrhage level in 19.2 f 3.0 min. Arterial renin activity was significantly elevated following haemorrhage in the intact kidney group and unchanged in the anephric group. The arterial pressure compensation of two animals with intact kidneys was significantly reduced when the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (SQ 2088 1) was infused before the haemorrhage. The results are consistent with a renin-angiotensinvasoconstrictor mechanism of arterial pressure compensation and indicate that this mechanism possesses sufficient gain and time response characteristics to play a homeostatically significant role during haemorrhagic hypotension.


Sustainable development of agriculture and tourism is primarily based on the
diversification of the rural economy, preservation of rural values with protecting the
environment and rural landscapes, restoration of social, cultural and institutional-management
functions of rural communities. Agriculture and tourism as complex activities achieve the
strongest correlation in the spatial plan. The complexity of touristic products, that point to
environmentally responsible journeys, support the preservation of authentic material and social
values and have a beneficial impact on the local population are closely related and to the
activities within the agriculture. Their interconnections can be seen through the direct and
indirect impacts and benefits, diversification of activities at the national, regional and local
level.
Nature parks are in full conformity with the principles of sustainable development,
because they are aimed to promote meeting the needs of present generations while respecting the
principle that future generations can use the benefits of the same area. Under the protection of
2nd and 3rd level regime, nature park can accommodate facilities for livestock development,
tourism and recreation and provide use of agricultural land and livestock in the stable,
traditional way, which is of great economic and social importance for the sustainable
development of underdeveloped areas. Starting from the place and importance of sustainable
agriculture and tourism, the subject of scientific research in the dissertation is just the process of
formulating, evaluating and implementation of strategies, policies and integrated model of
sustainable agriculture and tourism with special reference to the Nature Park "Golija". In this
sense, the dissertation deals with the significance of promoting and developing sustainable
agriculture and tourism, as well as monitoring and evaluation of programs which support the
developmental opportunities of the Nature Park "Golija".


Due to the rapid increase in video capture technology, more and more tourist videos are captured every day, creating a challenge for organization and association with metadata. In this paper, we present a novel system for annotating and navigating tourist videos. Placing annotations in a video is difficult because of the need to track the movement of the camera. Navigation of a regular video is also challenging due to the sequential nature of the media. To overcome these challenges, we introduce a system for registering videos to geo-referenced 3D models and analyzing the video contents. We also introduce a novel scheduling algorithm for showing annotations in video. We show results in automatically annotated videos and in a map-based application for browsing videos. Our user study indicates the system is very useful.


The reconfigurable mesh is a parallel model of computation, which exploits a massive amount of rather simple processing elements connected through a reconfigurable interconnection network. During the last decades, the model received strong interest and many researchers have devised algorithms for it. However, most of this work focuses on theoretical aspects. Due to some idealistic modeling assumptions only a few attempts have been made to implement the model and to study the practical use of reconfigurable meshes. In this paper, we leverage the reconfigurable mesh model to study potential architectures and programming models for future many-cores. We design a reconfigurable mesh in form of a scalable soft core array with a reconfigurable interconnect and implement it on FPGA technology in order to create a prototype platform. We present an overall hardware/software tool flow for generating and programming reconfigurable mesh prototypes. The new language ARMLang and a corresponding compiler facilitate the programming of the massively parallel processor arrays. To our knowledge, this work is the first practical study of word-level reconfigurable meshes. To analyze the performance of our implementation we study four algorithmic kernels from the application domains arithmetic, sorting, graph algorithms and imaging. For each kernel, we devise a reconfigurable mesh program in ARMLang, compile it to our soft core array and measure its runtime depending on the mesh size. Then, we compare the runtimes to two sequential implementations of the algorithms, which are executed on two single core systems. The results show that many-cores leveraging the reconfigurable mesh model can efficiently use a vast number of processing elements and that, for the chosen algorithms, they come close to optimally parallelized programs.


This paper seeks to contribute to this line of research by examining America's first occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934. As with the occupations of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, the U.S. installed a military government in Haiti. American military officials had virtually complete control over the operations of a parallel, client Haitian government. Unlike other occupations, however, this story begins, ends, and is shot-through with educational concerns. It begins with lessons about Haiti taken by the Woodrow Wilson administration shortly before the U.S. invasion in 1915. The consultants they turned to for advice--particularly captains of the American financial industry with large investments in Haiti--significantly colored the way they approached the country's problems and potential. The story ends with Haitian protests over U.S. imposed educational reforms, protests that spread, intensified, and led to the end of the American occupation in 1934.


The test about the resistance to chloride permeability of the high performance concrete structure has been carried on in this article. The performance of the concrete resistance has been researched by the water-cement ratio, fly ash's content and age. The results showed that with the reduction of the water-cement ratio of the concrete, the compaction degree and the permeability resistance of the concrete are higher; With the increasing dosage of fly ash, the concrete pore system and permeability resistance have been effectively improved; Finally, the concrete combination reaction is more sufficient with the longer age, and then permeability resistance is superior


Presented are results demonstrating that, in developing a system with its first objective being the sustained detection of adults and young children as they move and interact in a normal preschool setting, the direct application of the straightforward RGB-D innovations presented here significantly outperforms even far more algorithmically advanced methods relying solely on images. The use of multiple RGB-D sensors by this project for depth-aware object localization economically resolves numerous issues regularly frustrating earlier vision-only detection and human surveillance methods, issues such as occlusions, illumination changes, unexpected postures, atypical morphologies, erratic or unanticipated motions, reflections, and misleading textures and colorations. This multiple RGB-D installation forms the front-end for a multi-step pipeline, the first portion of which seeks to isolate, in situ, 3D renderings of classroom occupants sufficient for a later analysis of their behaviors and interactions. Towards this end, a voxel-based approach to foreground/background separation and an effective adaptation of supervoxel clustering for 3D were developed, and 3D and image-only methods were tested and compared. The project's setting is highly challenging, but then so are its longer term goals: the automated detection of early childhood precursors, ofttimes very subtle, to a number of increasingly common developmental disorders.


Starred angles form a useful configuration for light compression members. However, it has been found in the past that the design requirements for these members have been very conservative and their restrictiveness has led to starred angles being used less than they might otherwise have been. Tests and analysis of starred angles using a much less conservative layout of battens have been carried out and are described. These have shown that batten spacing can be much greater than the limit set by the South African code, SABS 0162, although not as generous as the Canadian code, CAN3-S16.1, allows. On the basis of this research, simple and adequate recommendations are made for the design of these members.


Africo Christian's association with George Schmidt, 1737-1743. In the annals of the Moravian Church Africo (Christian) is only remembered for being one of George Schmidt's Khoikhoi converts. This article attempts to give a more detailed account of his life. In the 1730's he introduced Schmidt, first missionary to South Africa, to the Khoikhoi lifestyle, and is a unique example of how the process of transformation manifested itself in the life of a colonial Khoikhoi. Africo Christian is thus portrayed as the most remarkable Khoikhoi personality known at the Cape between 1737 and 1743 in terms of his adaptability to the socio-economic order of the Cape and his tran~formation from heathen to Christian. Despite the strained relations between missionary and convert, at times, Schmidt had to acknowledge the leadership qualities and social standing of Africo as a clan leader. This seemed to have been an important reason for entrusting the mission station at the time of his departure in October 1743 to Africo Christian.


The simplicity and the intuitive appeal of portfolio construction using modern portfolio theory have attracted significant attention both in academia and in practice. Yet, despite considerable effort it took many years until portfolio managers started using modern portfolio theory for managing real money. Unfortunately, in real world applications there are many problems associated with it, and portfolio optimization is still considered by many practitioners to be difficult to apply. Introducing a simple crosssectional momentum strategy, we show how we can combine this strategy with market equilibrium using the Black-Litterman model in the mean-variance framework to rebalance the portfolio on a monthly basis.


This study explores the development of the technical
institutes in Hong Kong,from the mid 1960s, when the first
one was planned, to August 31, 1980, and places on record
some of the experience gained in the process. The thesis
includes a short history of technical education in Hong Kong
and examines the rapidly changing industrial and social
background, and the way in which it affected the technical
institutes.
The rate of development in student numbers and build up
of staff has been rapid and these factors, together with
the number of female students and the size of classes, are
examined and comparisons are made with other countries such
as Britain and Singapore. There have also been developments
in Hong Kong in areas such as secondary education, higher
education, apprenticeships, industrial-training centres, levy
schemes, credit-units and handicapped students which, have
affected the technical institutes and these too are examined.
The different types and levels of courses are then reviewed
and reasons are given why emphasis has been placed on part time
day studies.
This thesis goes on to examine the standard of education
provided in the technical institutes. This is done by analysing attitudes towards technical education, by examining
various surveys and by looking at other "indicators of
excellence". These include the demand for student places
and employment prospects; the views of educationalists,
employers, students, parents and the general public; and the
recognition of technical institute courses by overseas bodies.
The study is reviewed in Chapter 7 and the general conclusion
arrived at is that despite the very rapid development of the
technical institutes they have provided a satisfactory
standard of education which has risen over the years. The
postscript (Chapter 8) looks briefly at important events which
have taken place from the end of the period covered in this
thesis to February 1982.


This article reports and discusses the perceptions that kuia (older Māori female or grandmother) have of their health and, how their connections to marae (place and space, often consisting of a collection of buildings and in many instances considered to be the physical embodiment of ancestors) influence these perceptions. The research was undertaken and driven by a group of Māori communities through their individual marae (6) and hapū (sub-tribe/extended family), and provides the data source for this paper. The study involved quantitative (survey) and qualitative (focus groups) methods with data collected from over 350 Māori participants; half of these were Māori women. Information and data relating to kuia have been extracted from the quantitative survey and their views and perspectives from a focus group session are discussed in this paper. Drawing from these two sources not only confirmed what earlier research and literature asserted - that kuia have significant influence in their whānau (family/extended family), hapū (sub- tribe/extended family) and iwi (tribe/people) — it showed that kuia particularly endorse the idea of marae "place and space" being living, breathing, entities, and the focal point of the community; being a location for the provision of health services would be an extension of this. Having health services provided on the marae along with other activities is likely to have positive effects and bring whānau back to the marae.


Background: It has been acknowledged that the mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been 'bedevilled' by the inappropriate application of non-Indigenous models of mental health. Given that more than 35% of admissions to the neonatal unit at The Townsville Hospital are neonates of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander decent, it is necessary for non-Indigenous practitioners to find in a culturally safe way in which to engage these families.

Method: This study explored urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander's understandings of mental health using a positive psychology framework. A qualitative research design was conducted with a sample of 19 Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants. Data was collected via individual semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Qualitative analysis was conducted using a grounded theory method.

Results: Four themes emerged as reflecting health and wellbeing – coping skills, knowledge social support, with an overarching theme of connectedness to culture, family and kinship, and social networks emerged as reflecting a unique contribution to mental health and cultural identify.

Conclusions: This information will support the development of culturally safe health and wellbeing programs that sustain and nurture the cultural identity and mental health of Indigenous people while on the neonatal unit. In this way, meaningful contributions may be made by health professionals to 'closing the gap' in health and mental health outcomes for Indigenous people.


A significant issue affecting the aquaculture and water industries is the presence of off-flavour compounds in water, which cause problems by imparting an undesirable earthy/musty flavour and smell to water and fish. Two predominant off-flavour compounds are geosmin (GSM) and 2-methylisoborneol (MIB). These compounds are produced by several varieties of cyanobacteria and actinomycetes as metabolic products and can be detected by humans at concentrations as low as 0.015 mg L-1. Removal of GSM and MIB from potable waters has proven to be inefficient using standard water treatment such as filtration, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation and chlorination. Activated carbon and membrane processes can physically remove GSM and MIB, but do not destroy them, and ozone treatment can be expensive. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) photocatalysis has recently been demonstrated to rapidly degrade GSM and MIB. When the semiconductor catalyst is illuminated with ultraviolet light simultaneous oxidation and reduction reactions occur. Pollutants are broken down into mineral acids, carbon dioxide and water. This study was conducted to determine if TiO2 photocatalysis, using a pelleted form of TiO2 called Hombikat K01/C, was a suitable method for the treatment of potable water. Additionally an analytical method was developed to rapidily analyse the large number of samples generated. Two reactors, a bench scale batch reactor and pilot scale flow reactor, were developed and used to evaluate the efficacy of Hombikat K01/C TiO2 photocatalysis in degrading GSM. The batch reactor, containing Hombikat K01/C, was used to investigate the effect of numerous experimental variables on the photocatalysis of GSM, including initial substrate concentration, pH, light intensity, aeration rate, the presence of additional reactants, and catalysis conducted in deuterated water. GSM was rapidly degraded using the TiO2 batch reactor, with the rate of GSM degradation most affected by light intensity and additional reactants, though pH also had a notable effect. A kinetic isotope effect of 1.61 was observed for the destruction of GSM using Hombikat K01/C TiO2. The flow reactor was also found to efficiently degrade GSM in raw waters. The rate of GSM destruction was found to be significantly lowered by UV shielding of the catalyst, caused by constituents of raw the water used, and the presence of additional reactants. The pilot scale flow reactor was also successfully evaluated in Denmark using gesomin contaminated water from an eel farm


Although various ophthalmic imaging methods, including fundus photography and optical coherence tomography, have been applied for effective diagnosis of ocular diseases with high spatial resolution, most of them are limited by shallow imaging penetration depth and a narrow field of view. Also, many of those imaging modalities are optimized to provide microscopic anatomical information, while functional or cellular information is lacking. Compared to other ocular imaging modalities, photoacoustic imaging can achieve relatively deep penetration depth and provide more detailed functional and cellular data based on photoacoustic signal generation from endogenous contrast agents such as hemoglobin and melanin. In this paper, array-based ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging was demonstrated to visualize pigmentation in the eye as well as overall ocular structure. Fresh porcine eyes were visualized using a real-time ultrasound micro-imaging system and an imaging probe supporting laser pulse delivery. In addition, limited photoacoustic imaging field of view was improved by an imaging probe tilting method, enabling visualization of most regions of the retina covered in the ultrasound imaging.


We know much about how opinion leaders drive mass partisan polarization with position-taking cues but little on how different message types polarize citizens, and who responds most to those messages attributes. This article contributes new insights by investigating how exposure to common violent metaphors interacts with audience personality traits to polarize partisans on issues. Building from research on conflict orientations, we theorize that aggressive rhetoric primes aggression in aggressive partisans, motivating greater intransigence on party positions. As a consequence, aggressive partisans are pulled further apart on issues, thereby reducing prospects for compromise. We find support for our predictions in two large nationally diverse survey experiments conducted in very different political contexts. Our results demonstrate the subtle power of aggression in public opinion and highlight the important moderating role of individual differences in the communication of partisan conflict.


This paper presents a conjectured supply function (CSF) equilibrium models of oligopolistic competition among electricity producers formulated as mixed linear complementarity problems (MLCP). Similar to the conjectured supply function approach, a conjectured transmission price (CTP) response function is formulated in order to model how generating companies can influence the transmission price. The model simulates a bilateral market design based on a point-to-point transmission pricing scheme corresponding to the locational marginal pricing (LMP) based congestion management. The focus of this paper is to study the outcome of the market equilibrium by a stepwise increase of each strategic generator's CTP response parameter. An estimation of this parameter will not be within the scope of this paper. The results show that strategic generators behave more profitably when they have some information about how to affect transmission prices. However, depending on where they are located with respect to the congested transmission line, they pursue different policies in terms of manipulating congestion prices. A three-node network is presented to illustrate the application.


We report the confirmation and mass determination of three hot Jupiters discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission: HIP 65Ab (TOI-129, TIC-201248411) is an ultra-short-period Jupiter orbiting a bright (V=11.1 mag) K4-dwarf every 0.98 days. It is a massive 3.213 +/- 0.078 Mjup planet in a grazing transit configuration with an impact parameter of b = 1.17 +0.10/-0.08. As a result the radius is poorly constrained, 2.03 +0.61/-0.49 Rjup. The planet's distance to its host star is less than twice the separation at which it would be destroyed by Roche lobe overflow. It is expected to spiral into HIP 65A on a timescale ranging from 80 Myr to a few gigayears, assuming a reduced tidal dissipation quality factor of Qs' = 10^7 - 10^9. We performed a full phase-curve analysis of the TESS data and detected both illumination- and ellipsoidal variations as well as Doppler boosting. HIP 65A is part of a binary stellar system, with HIP 65B separated by 269 AU (3.95 arcsec on sky). TOI-157b (TIC 140691463) is a typical hot Jupiter with a mass of 1.18 +/- 0.13 Mjup and a radius of 1.29 +/- 0.02 Rjup. It has a period of 2.08 days, which corresponds to a separation of just 0.03 AU. This makes TOI-157 an interesting system, as the host star is an evolved G9 sub-giant star (V=12.7). TOI-169b (TIC 183120439) is a bloated Jupiter orbiting a V=12.4 G-type star. It has a mass of 0.79 +/- 0.06 Mjup and a radius of 1.09 +0.08/-0.05 Rjup. Despite having the longest orbital period (P = 2.26 days) of the three planets, TOI-169b receives the most irradiation and is situated on the edge of the Neptune desert. All three host stars are metal rich with [Fe/H] ranging from 0.18 - 0.24.


Abstract. Nucleation in coal-fired power-plant plumes can greatly contribute to particle number concentrations near source regions. The changing emissions rates of SO2 and NOx due to pollution-control technologies over recent decades may have had a significant effect on aerosol formation and growth in the plumes with ultimate implications for climate and human health. We use the System for Atmospheric Modeling (SAM) large-eddy simulation model with the TwO-Moment Aerosol Sectional (TOMAS) microphysics algorithm to model the nucleation in plumes of coal-fired plants. We test a range of cases with varying emissions to simulate the implementation of emissions-control technologies between 1997 and 2010. We start by simulating the W. A. Parish power plant (near Houston, TX) during this time period, when NOx emissions were reduced by ~90% and SO2 emissions decreased by ~30%. Increases in plume OH (due to the reduced NOx) produced enhanced SO2 oxidation and an order-of-magnitude increase in particle nucleation in the plume despite the reduction in SO2 emissions. These results suggest that NOx emissions could strongly regulate particle nucleation and growth in power-plant plumes. Next, we test a range of cases with varying emissions to simulate the implementation of SO2 and NOx emissions-control technologies. Particle formation generally increases with SO2 emission, while NOx shows two different regimes: increasing particle formation with increasing NOx under low-NOx emissions and decreasing particle formation with increasing NOx under high-NOx emissions. Next, we compare model results with airborne measurements made in the W. A. Parish power-plant plume in 2000 and 2006, confirming the importance of NOx emissions on new particle formation and highlighting the substantial effect of background aerosol loadings on this process (the more polluted background of the 2006 case caused more than an order-of-magnitude reduction in particle formation in the plume compared to the cleaner test day in 2000). Finally, we calculate particle-formation statistics of 330 coal-fired power plants in the US in 1997 and 2010, and the model results show a median decrease of 19% in particle formation rates from 1997 to 2010 (whereas the W. A. Parish case study showed an increase). Thus, the US power plants, on average, show a different result than was found for the W. A. Parish plant specifically, and it shows that the strong NOx controls (90% reduction) implemented at the W. A. Parish plant (with relatively weak SO2 emissions reductions, 30%) are not representative of most power plants in the US during the past 15 yr. These results suggest that there may be important climate implications of power-plant controls due to changes in plume chemistry and microphysics, but the magnitude and sign of the aerosol changes depend greatly on the relative reductions in NOx and SO2 emissions in each plant. More extensive plume measurements for a range of emissions of SO2 and NOx and in varying background aerosol conditions are needed, however, to better quantify these effects.


The International EMBnet-RIBio Conference 2009, "Bioinformatics for High Throughput Technologies and the Interface of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology" was successfully held in Puerto Morelos, in the heart of the Mexican Caribbean, from October 26 th to 29 th . The meeting was jointly organized and sponsored by the Center for Genomic Sciences (CCG), the Coordination of Scientific Research (CTIC) and the Institute of Biotechnology (IBt) of UNAM, as well as the EMBnet International Organization, RIBio (the Iberoamerican network for bioinformatics) and the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). Some of the principal events during the reunion were: 1) The foundation of the Iberoamerican Society for Bioinformatics (Sociedad Iberoamericana de Bioinformatica, SoIBio), within the RIBio Annual General Meeting. 2) The EMBnet Annual General Meeting (AGM) which, for the very first time, took place outside of the European Continent. This, together with the SoIBio meeting, brought together scientists of Bioinformatics from the 5 continents. It should be mentioned that this is the second time of such a joint conference after the one in Malaga a couple of years ago. 3) The Keynote lecture, " Systems Biology of Cancer Cells", presented by Dr. Chris Sander, Head of the Computational Biology Center of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, recognized founder of bioinformatics as well as a founder of the EMBnet organization. 4) The EMBnet Internal Meeting, attended by several node managers from all the member countries, where in addition to internal issues, they emphasized the EMBnet interest in defining collaborations worldwide with regional societies and scientific organizations.


Abstract Based on field data collected from 131 small scale dairy farmers that were randomly selected from four agro-ecological zones, this study assessed the potential of adoption of fodder bank technology as a means for improving livestock production and income generation for smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe. Using a logit modelling approach, it also identified the drivers of adoption of the technology by analysing the influence of household characteristics and ecological factors on farmers' decision to adopt the technology. The model correctly predicted 75% of observed adoption and non-adoption by farmers. Results reveal that dairy herd size, land holding size, membership of dairy association and agro-ecological potential are the key factors influencing farmers' adoption of fodder bank. Age, sex, household size and educational level of farmers play lesser role. Male and female farmers were equally likely to take up and practice fodder bank if they are given equal access to information and incentives. The study recommends farmer-led extension approaches where farmers who possess certain key characteristics should constitute the initial group for disseminating information regarding the technology in rural communities. The results highlight the importance of access to dairy product markets as a driver for the adoption of fodder banks. It is recommended that forging a strategic partnership with the Dairy Development Programme (DDP) will offer high potential for enhancing the scaling up of the adoption and impact of fodder bank technology in the country.


Extruded sandstone mounds and sandstone sheets are increasingly recognized in the geological record and seismic data, yet the underlying mechanisms that control these features, and determine whether deposits form discrete accumulations or areally extensive sheets, remain poorly understood. Here we address these issues through study of a well-exposed ancient sand sheet in the Shannon Basin, Ireland. Sand volcanoes are shown to have erupted contemporaneously following liquefaction and fluidization of delta-front mouth-bar sands and silts, the expelled sediment forming an extruded sheet of sand. The sand sheet formed during a single prolonged eruption event with the interaction of radial gravity currents from the hundreds of vents exerting control on the internal architecture of the extrudite. Based on our observations, here we develop a process-based model that demonstrates that sand extrusions can form sheets only if (1) multiple vents are extruding coevally, causing gravity currents to interact, or (2) topographic forcing, such as channelling, redirects the otherwise radial gravity currents, resulting in sheet-like deposition of extruded material away from the vent site. This study provides a new model of sand extrudite formation, and examines the potential for identifying extrudites from core and bed-scale studies and differentiating them from liquefied beds.


Random Boolean networks, the Kauffman model, are revisited by means of a novel decimation algorithm, which removes variables that cannot be relevant to the asymptotic dynamics of the system. The major part of the removed variables have the same fixed state in all limit cycles. These variables are denoted as the stable core of the network and their number grows approximately linearly with N, the number of variables in the original network. The sensitivity of the attractors to perturbations is investigated. We find that reduced networks lack the well-known insensitivity observed in full Kauffman networks. We conclude that, somewhat counterintuitive, this remarkable property of full Kauffman networks is generated by the dynamics of their stable core. The decimation method is also used to simulate large critical Kauffman networks. For networks up to N=32 we perform full enumeration studies. Strong evidence is provided that the number of limit cycles grows linearly with N. This result is in sharp contrast to the often cited square root of [N] behavior.


Abstract Leora Auslander writes that: "Human beings need objects to effectively remember and forget; and we need objects to cope with absence, with loss and with death." This text discusses the personal memories and thoughts about my own Jewish family history in the context of the holocaust, which are embedded in the design of a picture, embroidered in wool on canvas, that I made in the mid-1990s in memory of my great-grandmother, Anna Binderowska. The picture was displayed in the exhibition "Hand Made Tales," curated by Carol Tulloch at the Women's Library, Whitechapel, London in 2011, when I was also asked to lecture about it at the related conference. Anna, who married in 1864 and had a large number of children, lived and died in the poor Jewish district of the Polish city of Słonim, then in the Russian Pale of Settlement. Four of her children, including my grandfather, Morris, emigrated and settled in Manchester, England in the mid-1890s. Never having been to Słonim, I invented a naive, comforting, idyllic vision of Anna's gravestone in the old Jewish cemetery in the town, under fallen leaves and a blue sky. Researching that cemetery's specific history twenty years later for Carol Tulloch's conference, I found that in July 1942, SS Brigadeführer Eric Naumann, in command of Himmler's special SS Einsatzgruppen B battalion, reached Słonim. The little town became an infamous killing ground, a place of mass Jewish slaughter and destruction. As all over Poland, the town's Jewish cemeteries, including Anna's gravestone, were smashed one by one. This text reflects finally on the fact that Naumann was tried at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal and executed in 1951. While he took no part in the Naumann trial, my father had been a member of the British prosecution team at Nuremburg and I realized that my embroidery had also been made in memory of my parents, my Jewish mother and my Welsh father.


Across America, newspapers that have defined their cities for over a century are rapidly failing, their circulations plummeting even as opinion-soaked Web outlets like the Huffington Post thrive. Meanwhile, nightly news programs shock viewers with stories of horrific crime and celebrity scandal, while the smug sarcasm and shouting of pundits like Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann dominate cable television. Is it any wonder that young people are turning away from the news entirely, trusting comedians like Jon Stewart as their primary source of information on current events? In the face of all the problems plaguing serious news, "What Is Happening to News" explores the crucial question of how journalism lost its way - and what is responsible for the ragged retreat from its great traditions. Veteran editor and newspaperman Jack Fuller locates the surprising sources of change where no one has thought to look before: in the collision between a revolutionary new information age and a human brain that is still wired for the threats faced by our prehistoric ancestors. Drawing on the recent discoveries of neuroscience, Fuller explains why the information overload of contemporary life makes us dramatically more receptive to sensational news, while rendering the staid, objective voice of standard journalism ineffective. Throw in a growing distrust of experts and authority, ably capitalized on by blogs and other interactive media, and the result is a toxic mix that threatens to prove fatal to journalism as we know it. For every reader troubled by what has become of news-and worried about what the future may hold - "What Is Happening to News" not only offers unprecedented insight into the causes of change but also clear guidance, strongly rooted in the precepts of ethical journalism, on how journalists can adapt to this new environment while still providing the information necessary to a functioning democracy.


The increasing interest in the application of optical communications to underwater communications and networks calls for reliable simulation models, that allow a system designer to realistically assess the performance of optical systems before actual deployment in water. In this paper, we present an optical channel model that is based on samples of the total attenuation coefficient and of the solar light irradiance taken during the NATO STO CMRE ALOMEX'15 scientific cruise, in different water conditions. The data set includes both strong and mild solar illumination conditions, as well as a number of different settings for the light absorption and scattering coefficients. We implement the model as part of the DESERT Underwater network simulator, and employ it to show that the throughput of underwater optical links depends not only on the distance between the transmitter and the receiver, but also on the depth at which the devices are deployed. The corresponding insight is empirically validated in dry tests and lake experiments using a proof-of-concept optical modem, and helped drive the next stage of the modem development.


The goal of this study was to identify the subset of emotion regulation behaviors that were effective in both short-term (associated with a reduction in observed negative affect within a 2-s window at 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years of age), and long-term (associated with fewer externalizing and internalizing behavior at 1 year, 2 years and 4.5 years of age) as main effects and/or by buffering the link between temperamental reactivity and later behavior problems). Infants and their mothers participated in a series of observational tasks and mothers completed questionnaires when infants were 6 months old, 1 year and 2 years old and the sample size was 245. The results from the sequential analyses illustrated that looking away behavior at 6 months during the fear task was reliably associated with reductions in negative affect. In addition, looking at mom behavior and withdrawing to mom behavior at 1 year were associated with reduction in negative affect in both the anger and fear context. Overall, emotion regulation behaviors that involved the mother seemed to be more effective in alleviating infant distress, compared to similar emotion regulation behaviors that did not involve the mother. In terms of long-term effectiveness, early looking away and looking at mom behavior were associated with fewer behavior problems at 2 years. Looking at mom behavior at 6 months also moderated the association between infant temperamental anger at 6 months and externalizing behavior at 2 years. Infants who had higher reported temperamental anger had lower externalizing behavior at 2 years, when they engaged in higher looking at mom behavior at 6 months. In addition, self-soothing and self-soothing with mom behavior were associated with fewer behavior problems in the anger and fear context respectively. In sum, the current study provided evidence as to short-term and long-term effectiveness of gaze behaviors and self-soothing behaviors. These findings have implications for interventions such that mental health professionals may need to work closely with infants' caregivers to cultivate their awareness and ability to support infant emotion regulation skills during daily interactions, which are important in preventing future behavior problems in young children.


This paper describes two novel complementary techniques that improve the detection of lexical stress errors in non-native (L2) English speech: attention-based feature extraction and data augmentation based on Neural Text-To-Speech (TTS). In a classical approach, audio features are usually extracted from fixed regions of speech such as the syllable nucleus. We propose an attention-based deep learning model that automatically derives optimal syllable-level representation from frame-level and phoneme-level audio features. Training this model is challenging because of the limited amount of incorrect stress patterns. To solve this problem, we propose to augment the training set with incorrectly stressed words generated with Neural TTS. Combining both techniques achieves 94.8% precision and 49.2% recall for the detection of incorrectly stressed words in L2 English speech of Slavic and Baltic speakers.


Do you need to get up to speed quickly on the technologies and services that could transform the wireless world over the coming decade? Whether you work directly with wireless or in a sector where wireless solutions could be beneficial (e.g. healthcare, transport, sensor networks, location and smart metering), this concise guide provides a critical insight into future developments. For the first time, you will have a clear view of all the key technologies, including mesh networks, white space/cognitive devices, 4G/LTE and femtocells, and all the sectors or applications in which they could be used, with a comparison of the positives and negatives of each technology and sector area. You'll also see where the technologies required overlap and so could bring benefits across multiple areas, as well as how the key drivers of change in the past may impact on the future.


Electrochromic windows (ECWs) are windows which are able to regulate the solar radiation throughput by application of an external voltage. The ECWs may decrease heating, cooling and electricity loads in buildings by admitting the optimum level of solar energy and daylight into the buildings at any given time, e.g. cold winter climate versus warm summer climate demands. In order to achieve as dynamic and flexible solar radiation control as possible, the ECWs may be characterized by a number of solar radiation glazing factors, i.e. ultraviolet solar transmittance, visible solar transmittance, solar transmittance, solar material protection factor, solar skin protection factor, external visible solar reflectance, internal visible solar reflectance, solar reflectance, solar absorbance, emissivity, solar factor and colour rendering factor. Comparison of these solar quantities for various electrochromic material and window combinations and configurations enables one to select the most appropriate electrochromic materials and ECWs for specific buildings. Measurements and calculations were carried out on two different electrochromic window devices.


Updated and detailed indoor models are being increasingly demanded for various applications such as emergency management or navigational assistance. The consolidation of new portable and mobile acquisition systems has led to a higher availability of 3D point cloud data from indoors. In this work, we explore the combined use of point clouds and trajectories from SLAM-based laser scanner to automate the reconstruction of building indoors. The methodology starts by door detection, since doors represent transitions from one indoor space to other, which constitutes an initial approach about the global configuration of the point cloud into building rooms. For this purpose, the trajectory is used to create a vertical point cloud profile in which doors are detected as local minimum of vertical distances. As point cloud and trajectory are related by time stamp, this feature is used to subdivide the point cloud into subspaces according to the location of the doors. The correspondence between subspaces and building rooms is not unambiguous. One subspace always corresponds to one room, but one room is not necessarily depicted by just one subspace, for example, in case of a room containing several doors and in which the acquisition is performed in a discontinue way. The labelling problem is formulated as combinatorial approach solved as a minimum energy optimization. Once the point cloud is subdivided into building rooms, envelop (conformed by walls, ceilings and floors) is reconstructed for each space. The connectivity between spaces is included by adding the previously detected doors to the reconstructed model. The methodology is tested in a real case study.


OBJECTIVE
Although clinical trials recommend that women with hormone-dependent primary breast cancer remain on endocrine therapy for at least 5 years, up to 60% discontinue treatment early. We determined whether these women had consulted with clinicians or had investigations for cancer recurrence or metastasis around the time they discontinued endocrine therapy, and whether clinical contact continued after discontinuation.

METHODS
We performed case-control and cohort studies of women from the 45 and Up Study who were diagnosed with invasive primary breast cancer between January 2003 and December 2008, and who had ≥12 months of anastrozole, exemestane, letrozole or tamoxifen subsequently dispensed.

RESULTS
Women who consulted general practitioners and surgeons/oncologists, and women who had breast ultrasound/mammogram were just as likely to discontinue endocrine therapy within 30 days as those who did not consult these clinicians or have this investigation. In the 6 months after early discontinuation, women who discontinued endocrine therapy were less likely to consult general practitioners (adjusted risk ratio [RRadj] 0.80; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.75, 0.86) and surgeons/oncologists (RRadj 0.62; 95% CI 0.54, 0.72) than those who remained on therapy.

CONCLUSIONS
For most women, endocrine therapy discontinuation did not appear to follow consultation with doctors managing their breast cancer treatment or investigations for recurrence or metastasis. However, women who discontinued endocrine therapy were less likely to consult their general practitioner or surgeon/oncologist in the 6 months following discontinuation than those who remained on therapy. Of the clinician groups studied, general practitioners are best placed to engage and support women to continue pharmacotherapy. However, mechanisms are needed to prompt clinicians to do this at every visit.


The problem of selecting the best $k$-element subset from a universe is involved in many applications. While previous studies assumed a noise-free environment or a noisy monotone submodular objective function, this paper considers a more realistic and general situation where the evaluation of a subset is a noisy monotone function (not necessarily submodular), with both multiplicative and additive noises. To understand the impact of the noise, we firstly show the approximation ratio of the greedy algorithm and POSS, two powerful algorithms for noise-free subset selection, in the noisy environments. We then propose to incorporate a noise-aware strategy into POSS, resulting in the new PONSS algorithm. We prove that PONSS can achieve a better approximation ratio under some assumption such as i.i.d. noise distribution. The empirical results on influence maximization and sparse regression problems show the superior performance of PONSS.


The dominant components of the χ(2)(-ω; ω, 0) nonlinear quadratic susceptibility tensor of a poled polymer-based nonlinear organic thin film are measured independently with a Fabry–Perot interferometric technique. Electro-optic dispersion is obtained from visible wavelengths up to 1.550 μm leading to a wavelength-independent χ333(2)/χ113(2) nonlinear anisotropy ratio close to 5 for the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) Disperse Red 1 (DR1) copolymer and close to 3 for the PMMA DR1 guest–host blend. Interaction of the chromophores with their environment is pointed out to be at the origin of these anisotropy ratios and is consequently designated as an important feature in electro-optic device design in view of polarization independence or polarization rotation requirements.


Abstract. Isotopes of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) along with C / N ratios of particulate organic carbon (POC) were used to identify source and transformation of organic carbon in the suspended and surface sediments in a typical karstic watershed (the Wujiang River, an important tributary of the Changjiang River). Isotope data for suspended sediments indicate that POC was mainly derived from phytoplankton and C3-dominated soil with an increased contribution of phytoplankton in sites directly affected by the reservoir. In contrast, the POC in surface sediments was mainly derived from C3- and C4-dominated soil with little reservoir influence. The positive correlations of carbon and nitrogen isotopes between suspended and surface sediments indicated that these two carbon pools are tightly coupled. Our conservative estimation suggests that 1.17  ×  1010 g of POC is transported to the Three Gorges Reservoir during the study period in 2013. POC yield in the Wujiang River (0.13 t km−2 yr−1) is much lower than those of large rivers with a high abundance of carbonate minerals. Based on the distribution pattern of POC yield, it is inferred that carbonate minerals (lithology) do not contribute significantly to the riverine POC. The cascade of reservoirs and extreme drought had a significant influence on the POC flux in the Wujiang River.


1. INTRODUCTION Enrollments in Information Technology (IT)-related academic programs have declined significantly in recent years, (Granger, et al., 2007; Patterson, 2005; Pollacia and Russell, 2007). Several studies have investigated potential causes of the enrollment decline, attributing it most often to factors such as curriculum problems (Abraham, et al., 2006; Granger et al., 2007; McGann, et al., 2007), issues that influence students to choose (or not choose) an IT-related major (Walstrom, et al., 2008; Zhang, 2007), lack of availability of accurate information about the IT industry and related employment opportunities to high school students (Lomerson and Pollacia, 2006), and offshore outsourcing of IT jobs (Rossheim, 2006; Tastle, et al., 2008). The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that employment demand for IT-related professionals will grow much faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2016. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the number of jobs will increase 16% from 2006 to 2016 for the occupation entitled "computer and information systems managers", 37% for "computer scientists and database administrators", and 53% for "network systems and data communications analysts" (Bureau, 2008a; Bureau, 2008b). It is also estimated that the United States will have only half of the qualified graduates needed to meet the rapidly increasing demand for IT professionals through 2012 because of the declining number of student enrollments (Longo, 2006). To meet anticipated demand, it is urgent for IT-related academic programs to attract more students and prepare graduates with critical knowledge and skills. A number of studies have been conducted to determine the critical knowledge and skill sets that graduates need to perform IT-related jobs successfully, and whether there exists a perception gap between academicians and practitioners with regard to this required body of knowledge and skills (Cappel, 2001/2002; Doke and Williams, 1999; Kim, Hsu and Stern, 2006; Lee and Han, 2008; Lee, et al., 2002; Tang, Lee and Koh, 2000/2001; Trauth, Farwell and Lee, 1993). In a recent study, the authors compared the perceptions of IT managers and IT workers with respect to the knowledge and skills needed for entry-level IT professionals (Aasheim and Williams, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the importance of various skills for entry-level IT professions is perceived differently by faculty in academia and IT managers in industry. The approach of this study is to conduct a survey of IT managers and faculty teaching in IT-related academic programs to examine their views on the knowledge and skills required of entry-level IT workers. 2. BACKGROUND Despite the existence of model curricula for computing-related degree programs, several studies suggest that there is a gap between the skills achieved by Information Systems (IS)/Information Technology (IT) graduates and the skills required by employers (Cappel, 2001/2002; Kim, Hsu, and Stern, 2006; Lee and Han, 2008; Lee et al., 2002; Trauth, Farwell, and Lee, 1993; Doke and Williams, 1999; Tang, Lee and Koh, 2000/2001). These studies have examined this gap as it is perceived by IT professionals, academicians, students, and users. Some have made recommendations to improve the IS curriculum (Lee and Han, 2008; Lee, Trauth, and Farwell, 1995; Leitheiser, 1992; Trauth, Farwell and Lee, 1993; Young and Lee, 1996). Lee and Han (2008) studied skill requirements for entry-level programmers/analysts in Fortune 500 companies and investigated the gap between the IS 2002 model curriculum and the requirements of the industry. They found that application development, software, social and business skills were highly valued, and recommended that knowledge of technological trends, knowledge of business functions and general problem solving skills be taken into account by the designers of future IS curricula. …


This report presents the findings of an evaluation of the Straight Talk (ST) mass media communication programs which have been implemented in Uganda since 1993. The mass media programs largely comprise three main materials: multilingual Straight Talk Radio Shows multilingual Straight Talk newspapers and an English language Young Talk newspaper. Straight Talk also implements a wide array of school-based activities to engender a youth-friendly school environment. It has invested in many community activities such as community health fairs and has worked to support youth-friendly health care services. The evaluation described here employed several strategies including a household survey of adolescents the main subject of this report. Other components included a household survey of parents an assessment of the school environment and a cost study. The adolescent household survey was conducted with 2040 males and females between the ages of 10 and 19 years. It was conducted in six districts in Uganda: Apac Arua Ntungamo Soroti Kisoro and Kamuli. While ST has been active in all six districts it has been particularly active in the first four. This study therefore allowed an assessment of the impact of ST in four high intensity and two low intensity districts. It also allowed an assessment of dose response i.e. impact of incremental exposure to ST activities on specific outcomes. Data were gathered using face-to-face interviews after obtaining informed consent from the adolescents parent or guardian and from the adolescent himself or herself. The study was powered at 80 percent with a confidence of 95 percent. Analysis employed bivariate and multivariate methods. (excerpt)


BACKGROUND
The effect of blood component ratios on the survival of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) has not been studied.

METHODS
A database of patients transfused in the first 24 hours after admission for injury from 22 Level I trauma centers over an 18-month period was queried to find patients who (1) met different definitions of massive transfusion (5 units red blood cell [RBC] in 6 hours vs. 10 units RBC in 24 hours), (2) received high or low ratios of platelets or plasma to RBC units (<1:2 vs. ≥ 1:2), and (3) had severe TBI (head abbreviated injury score ≥ 3) (TBI+).

RESULTS
Of 2,312 total patients, 850 patients were transfused with ≥ 5 RBC units in 6 hours and 807 could be classified into TBI+ (n = 281) or TBI- (n = 526). Six hundred forty-three patients were transfused with ≥ 10 RBC units in 24 hours with 622 classified into TBI+ (n = 220) and TBI- (n = 402). For both high-risk populations, a high ratio of platelets:RBCs (not plasma) was independently associated with improved 30-day survival for patients with TBI+ and a high ratio of plasma:RBCs (not platelets) was independently associated with improved 30-day survival in TBI- patients.

CONCLUSIONS
High platelet ratio was associated with improved survival in TBI+ patients while a high plasma ratio was associated with improved survival in TBI- patients. Prospective studies of blood product ratios should include TBI in the analysis for determination of optimal use of ratios on outcome in injured patients.