The great variety of styles of continental extension may reflect different crustal thickness and thermal states of continental lithosphere during the initiation of rifting. To investigate how these and other factors affect rifting and the development of passive continental margins, we develop a simplified model of lithospheric extension. We consider the evolution of extensional deformation for a three-layer model lithosphere bounded laterally by much stronger lithosphere. The cold part of the crust and mantle are treated as thin brittle/plastic layers. The lower crust is approximated as a thin viscous channel. Each brittle/plastic layer can extend in only one location determined by the strength of the layer, shear of the lower crust, and buoyancy forces related to both crustal thickness variations and thermally induced density differences. The lower crust flows in response to crustal thickness variations and is sheared when the loci of extension for the two brittle/plastic layers are horizontally offset, a situation we term shear decoupling. As in previous studies, we see three distinct patterns, or modes, of extensional deformation that occur under different sets of model parameters: the core complex mode, the wide rift mode, and the narrow rift mode. Shear decoupling occurs only in cases with a crustal rheology at the weak end of the spectrum of laboratory estimated values. We are aware of no observations that require that the upper crust and upper mantle strain at laterally displaced positions. We show that for large magnitudes of extension there can be transitions between modes as inferred for some highly extended continental areas. Predicted patterns of crustal thickness and heat flow for some models are similar to observations at several rifted continental margins, including very wide and asymmetric margins.


Over the last 20 years, developments in climatology have provided an amazing array of explanations for the pattern of world climates. This textbook, first published in 2006, examines the earth's climate systems in light of this incredible growth in data availability, data retrieval systems, and satellite and computer applications. It considers regional climate anomalies, developments in teleconnections, unusual sequences of recent climate change, and human impacts upon the climate system. The physical climate forms the main part of the book, but it also considers social and economic aspects of the global climate system. This textbook has been derived from the authors' extensive experience of teaching climatology and atmospheric science. Each chapter contains an essay by a specialist in the field to enhance the understanding of selected topics. An extensive bibliography is included and lists of websites for further study. This textbook will be invaluable to advanced students of climatology and atmospheric science.


The endothelial glycocalyx forms a continuous coat over the luminal surface of all vessels, and regulates multiple vascular functions. The contribution of individual components of the endothelial glycocalyx to one critical vascular function, microvascular permeability, remains unclear. We developed novel, real-time, paired methodologies to study the contribution of sialic acids within the endothelial glycocalyx to the structural and functional permeability properties of the same microvessel in vivo. Single perfused rat mesenteric microvessels were perfused with fluorescent endothelial cell membrane and glycocalyx labels, and imaged with confocal microscopy. A broad range of glycocalyx depth measurements (0.17–3.02μm) were obtained with different labels, imaging techniques and analysis methods. The distance between peak cell membrane and peak glycocalyx label provided the most reliable measure of endothelial glycocalyx anatomy, correlating with paired, numerically smaller values of endothelial glycocalyx depth (0.078±0.016μm) from electron micrographs of the same portion of the same vessel. Disruption of sialic acid residues within the endothelial glycocalyx using neuraminidase perfusion decreased endothelial glycocalyx depth and increased apparent solute permeability to albumin in the same vessels in a timedependent manner, with changes in all three true vessel wall permeability coefficients (hydraulic conductivity, reflection coefficient, and diffusive solute permeability). These novel technologies expand the range of techniques that permit direct studies of the structure of the endothelial glycocalyx and dependent microvascular functions in vivo, and demonstrate that sialic acid residues within the endothelial glycocalyx are critical regulators of microvascular permeability to both water and albumin.


ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: People with no previous cardiovascular events or cardiovascular disease represent a primary prevention population. The benefits and harms of treating mild hypertension in primary prevention patients are not known at present. This review examines the existing randomized controlled trial (RCT) evidence. OBJECTIVE: Primary objective: To quantify the effects of antihypertensive drug therapy on mortality and morbidity in adults with mild hypertension (systolic blood pressure (BP) 140-159 mmHg and/or diastolic BP 90-99 mmHg) and without cardiovascular disease. METHODS: Search: We searched CENTRAL (2011, Issue 1), MEDLINE (1948 to May 2011), EMBASE (1980 to May 2011) and reference lists of articles. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE) were searched for previous reviews and meta-analyses of anti-hypertensive drug treatment compared to placebo or no treatment trials up until the end of 2011. Selection criteria: RCTs of at least 1 year duration. Data collection and analysis: The outcomes assessed were mortality, stroke, coronary heart disease (CHD), total cardiovascular events (CVS), and withdrawals due to adverse effects. MAIN RESULTS: Of 11 RCTs identified 4 were included in this review, with 8,912 participants. Treatment for 4 to 5 years with antihypertensive drugs as compared to placebo did not reduce total mortality (RR 0.85, 95% CI 0.63, 1.15). In 7,080 participants treatment with antihypertensive drugs as compared to placebo did not reduce coronary heart disease (RR 1.12, 95% CI 0.80, 1.57), stroke (RR 0.51, 95% CI 0.24, 1.08), or total cardiovascular events (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.72, 1.32). Withdrawals due to adverse effects were increased by drug therapy (RR 4.80, 95% CI 4.14, 5.57), ARR 9%. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Antihypertensive drugs used in the treatment of adults (primary prevention) with mild hypertension (systolic BP 140-159 mmHg and/or diastolic BP 90-99 mmHg) have not been shown to reduce mortality or morbidity in RCTs. Treatment caused 9% of patients to discontinue treatment due to adverse effects. More RCTs are needed in this prevalent population to know whether the benefits of treatment exceed the harms.


This study presents an analysis of Swedish nanotechnology patents. Currently, Swedish firms and other organisations hold almost 150 US patents. Two out of three of these patents are owned by smaller or start-up firms. There is a strong concentration of patent activity on the three most active companies which together account for more than two in five Swedish nanopatents. Small and start-up enterprises play a dominant role in the instrumentation and sensors field and are also strong in the area of life-science and pharmaceuticals. Large firms are dominant in materials and other established engineering related domains. They also play a role in pharmaceuticals and life-science related nano-patenting, albeit it is not as prominent as some observers may have expected. The study identified also a considerable number of mostly young nanotech-firms for which no patenting activity has been recorded so far. While one must be careful in interpreting these results, the question as to whether proprietary technologies are sufficiently protected might be an issue in individual cases. A patent-based analysis of the industry structure underscores that nanotechnology is not a homogeneous technology area but rather a group of related technologies. Three firm clusters can be identified: (1) a more materials-oriented cluster that includes also firms active in sensors and instrumentation, (2) a life-science/instrumentation related cluster, and (3) an analytics-dominated cluster centred around materials. An analysis purely based on technologies distinguishes two fields - nanotech/pharmaceuticals and optics - that were quite separated from a broad range of instrument/ analytics/semiconductor related technologies. These differences could imply that within nanotechnology fields may follow different 'innovation logics'. Also, subfields may have reached different stages of development. An examination of the science linkage of Swedish nanotech- patents indicated that about a quarter of all nano-patents in Sweden are related to university researchers. Network maps also indicate that universities contribute substantially to Swedish nanotech development. While there is always room for improvement, the evidence shows that the gap between academe and industry is not as large as it was thought to be a decade ago.


OBJECTIVE
We sought to determine the incidence and remission rates of urinary incontinence in a population-based sample of women.

STUDY DESIGN
A total of 382 (87.6%) of 436 eligible women aged 20 to 59 years answered a questionnaire and underwent a gynecologic examination at baseline and were followed up approximately 5 years later.

RESULTS
Urinary incontinence was present in 23.6% of women at baseline and in 27.5% at follow-up. The mean annual incidence rate of incontinence was 2.9%, and the mean annual incidence rate of incontinence weekly or more often was 0.5%. Women that were receiving estrogen at baseline were more likely than other women to have incontinence during follow-up. The mean annual remission rate among the 90 women who were incontinent at baseline was 5.9%. The annual net increase of incontinence in the study population was 0. 82%.

CONCLUSION
Female urinary incontinence seems to be a dynamic condition with a relatively high rate of spontaneous remission, a fact of which physicians should be aware when assessing and planning prevention and treatment strategies.


The financial crisis of 2008 has many causes, with the role of executive compensation in creating excessive risk taking being frequently cited in the press and by policy makers as a leading candidate. The evidence for or against is scarce. This paper assembles panel data on 117 financial firms from 1995 through 2008, using the financial crisis as a type of 'stress test' experiment to determine the relation of equity-based incentives on the probability of default. After estimating default probabilities using a Heston-Nandi specification, we apply a dynamic panel model to estimate statistically the effect of compensation on default risk. The results indicate uniformly that equity-based pay (i.e. restricted stock and options) increases the probability of default, while non-equity pay (i.e. cash bonuses) decreases it. The results are robust across all specifications estimated.


The extensive use of global teams to develop software has prompted researchers to investigate various factors that can enhance a team's performance. While a significant body of research exists on global software teams, previous research has not fully explored the interrelationships and collective impact of various factors on team performance. This study explored a model that added the characteristics of a team's culture, ability, communication frequencies, response rates, and linguistic categories to a central framework of team performance. Data was collected from two student software development projects that occurred between teams located in the United States, Panama, and Turkey. The data was obtained through online surveys and recorded postings of team activities that occurred throughout the global software development projects. Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) was chosen as the analytic technique to test the model and identify the most influential factors. Individual factors associated with response rates and linguistic characteristics proved to significantly affect a team's activity related to grade on the project, group cohesion, and the number of messages received and sent. Moreover, an examination of possible latent homogeneous segments in the model supported the existence of differences among groups based on leadership style. Teams with assigned leaders tended to have stronger relationships between linguistic characteristics and team performance factors, while teams with emergent leaders had stronger. Relationships between response rates and team performance factors. The contributions in this dissertation are three fold. 1) Novel analysis techniques using PLS-PM and clustering, 2) Use of new, quantifiable variables in analyzing team activity, 3) Identification of plausible causal indicators for team performance and analysis of the same.


This thesis examines the role of public capital, in particular, "core infrastructure", in private sector production in the United States. The underlying theme is the importance of the individual infrastructure stocks, in particular highways and streets, water and sewer systems and "other structures". Two different empirical approaches are used to shed light on a number of issues.

In the first study in Chapter 3, two cost function models are estimated using data for the total private business sector, one using aggregate infrastructure data and the other using disaggregated infrastructure. The parameter estimates are used to calculate optimal infrastructure stocks (the optimal total infrastructure stock and the optimal individual stocks). The results reveal that, despite the fall in infrastructure investment from 1968-82, none of the infrastructure stocks was undersupplied over the sample period. The estimated output elasticities of the different infrastructure stocks are significantly lower than those obtained in previous research.

In the second study in Chapter 4, use is made of recent development sin the productivity literature to construct a measure of manufacturing total factor productivity (TFP) that takes account of varying returns to scale and variable labour and capital utilisation over the cycle. The adjusted TFP measure is used to shed light on the causal relationship between infrastructure (total, core and disaggregated core) and productivity using a selection of autoregressive model-building techniques and causality testing procedures. Contrary to the stated view of many infrastructure researchers there is no evidence of "reverse causality", i.e. productivity causing infrastructure investment. There is, however, evidence that infrastructure has a small but statistically significant positive effect on TCP. Highways and other roads are the most productive types of infrastructure, followed by "other structures". When the TFP data is disaggregated, the findings is that core infrastructure affects some industries more than others, especially those that are capital intensive and have the largest motor vehicle shares.


We present a congestion-aware routing solution for indoor evacuation, which produces real-time individual-customized evacuation routes among multiple destinations while keeping tracks of all evacuees' locations. A population density map, obtained on-the-fly by aggregating locations of evacuees from user-end Augmented Reality (AR) devices, is used to model the congestion distribution inside a building. To efficiently search the evacuation route among all destinations, a variant of A⋆ algorithm is devised to obtain the optimal solution in a single pass. In a series of simulated studies, we show that the proposed algorithm is more computationally optimized compared to classic path planning algorithms; it generates a more time-efficient evacuation route for each individual that minimizes the overall congestion. A complete system using AR devices is implemented for a pilot study in real-world environments, demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed approach.


In this paper, a comparison between results of a panel method and a RANS solver is made for a ducted propeller system in open-water. The panel method calculations were made at IST with the panel code PROPAN. Different wake models are used in the inviscid computations: rigid wake model with prescribed wake geometry and a vortex pitch wake alignment model without and with a duct boundary layer correction. For the flow in the gap region a closed gap width and a gap flow model with transpiration velocity are considered. The RANS calculations were carried out at MARIN with the RANS code ReFRESCO. A comparison of the blade and duct pressure distributions, wake geometry and thrust and torque coefficients is presented. In general, good agreement of the pressure distributions, wake geometries and force coefficients between the two codes is achieved. A reasonable agreement between the inviscid blade wake position and the blade wake viscous vorticity field is obtained when using the wake alignment model. It is seen that the correlation improves when introducing the duct boundary layer correction. The force coefficients are also compared with experimental data available from open-water tests. A reasonable to good agreement is seen for the thrust and torque coefficients over the entire openwater range.


The main objective of this study was to determine the service life of high-density polyethylene lining when exposed to natural degradation in tropical climates using time-dependant properties. The changes in material density, strength, and strain at fracture over the degradation period were determined. Optical micrographs were obtained to track the changes in the material during aging. An exponential decay equation was developed that estimates of the service life of the high-density polyethylene lining. It was concluded that most of the degradation of the material takes place in the first few months of installation and that both the density and mechanical strength of the material increased in the course of degradation, whereas the fracture strain reduced over time. It was concluded that the most important factor that determines the lifespan of the liner is the ability to maintain high strains. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 51:1198–1205, 2011. a 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers


Basal stem rot is an aggressive disease in oil palm caused by Ganoderma species. The disease threatens the commercial oil palm plantations of South East Asia, especially in Malaysia. In order to understand the mechanism involved in the early stage of interaction between Ganoderma spp. and its host at systemic level, proteomic analysis of oil palm leaves was conducted on protein samples collected over 72 hours during inoculation with pathogenic Ganoderma boninense and non-pathogenic Ganoderma tornatum. A total of 82 proteins resolved during two-dimensional gel electrophoresis with significant differences in the spot abundance. However, only 24 differentially expressed proteins in response to Ganoderma spp. inoculations were successfully identified by mass spectrophotometry as compared to the non-inoculated control. These proteins are mainly involved in photosynthesis, signalling, stress/defense, energy and metabolism regulation. Changes in relative abundance of these proteins suggest an important role in disease susceptibility. Most proteins showed altered abundance in response to both G. boninense and G. tornatum, while some proteins were only affected by either G. boninense or G. tornatum. The putative role of the identified proteins in oil palm leaves during the interaction with both Ganoderma spp. is discussed.


Lack of sustainable approaches for public access venues like telecentres have led to the emergence of several entrepreneurial and market-driven models of telecentres in developing countries that are driven by multinational corporations, governments and social enterprises. This phenomenon falls under the rubric of inclusive capitalism which argues that in the contemporary socioeconomic context, private investment and entrepreneurial activities are crucial for economic growth and job creation in developing countries. In this paper, I undertake three case studies of telecentres in Bangladesh: a private sector enterprise developed and operated by a multinational corporation, a social enterprise, and a public-private partnership. The case studies combine review of organizational documents as well as analysis of survey data from the ' Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information & Communication Technologies'. While a common feature in all three of the cases is the reliance on market mechanisms to provide affordable ICT services to the poor, the findings highlight how in some cases the initiatives approach the issue of 'inclusion' differently. The paper illustrates the convergence in thinking among various institutional domains of development about the indispensability of inclusive capitalism approaches to bring about socioeconomic development through ICTs.


— This paper investigates the application of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique for coordinated design of a Power System Stabilizer (PSS) and a Thyristor Controlled Series Compensator (TCSC)-based controller to enhance the power system stability. The design problem of PSS and TCSC-based controllers is formulated as a time domain based optimization problem. PSO algorithm is employed to search for optimal controller parameters. By minimizing the time-domain based objective function, in which the deviation in the oscillatory rotor speed of the generator is involved; stability performance of the system is improved. To compare the capability of PSS and TCSC-based controller, both are designed independently first and then in a coordinated manner for individual and coordinated application. The proposed controllers are tested on a weakly connected power system. The eigenvalue analysis and nonlinear simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the coordinated design approach over individual design. The simulation results show that the proposed controllers are effective in damping low frequency oscillations resulting from various small disturbances like change in mechanical power input and reference voltage setting. of research include power system transient stability, power system dynamic stability, FACTS, optimization techniques, distributed generation and wind energy.


The Strange Box: The children have grown up. They buy an old box but a strange man tries to take it off them. Mr Mortlock, the school caretaker, zaps the strange man and they all run through a doorway that appears on the horizon. Beyond the Door: The children are on the other side of the doorway, in the Time Vault. When Mr Mortlock comes through he transforms into Mortlock, the Time Guardian. He explains their new mission - to fight the Virans, whose aim is to destroy history as we know it. The Jewel in the Hub: Wilf goes back to Renaissance Italy and meets the young Leonardo Da Vinci. The boys discover the Hub (a part of the TimeWeb), but so do the Virans! The Matrix Mission: Neena goes back to medieval Germany and meets the young Johann Gutenberg. They have to find and retrieve the Matrix (the keyboard element of the TimeWeb). The Power of the Cell: Nadim, Kipper and Wilma go back in time to find the Cell (the 'battery' of the TimeWeb machine). They meet the young Michael Faraday and a new character, Tyler. The TimeWeb: The children and Mortlock put all the pieces of the TimeWeb together, but it doesn't work! They need the magic key.


This paper discusses, from an analytical and operational perspective, the use of reserve requirements and loan loss provisions as countercyclical macroprudential instruments. In recent years both of these instruments have been used extensively in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. The first part of the paper sets the stage with a discussion of the rationale, in the presence of financial frictions, for using macroprudential regulation to mitigate financial system procyclicality. The second part reviews the general arguments, as well as the recent empirical evidence for Latin America, associated with the use of reserve requirements and loan loss provisions. The third part provides a normative analysis of the ways through which countercyclical reserve requirements and cyclically adjusted (or, more commonly called, dynamic) provisioning rules should be formulated, independently and jointly, to address concerns arising from procyclicality and financial volatility. Optimal countercyclical rules are discussed from the perspective of how these rules can either minimize a composite measure of economic volatility (combining measures of both macroeconomic and financial volatility) or maximize social welfare. The last part brings together the lessons for policymakers that can be drawn from the analysis.


In Letters to a Young Man (1801) Jane West states that "no character is so difficult to invent or support as that of a gentleman" (74). The invention of that character, determining what qualities, qualifications, and behaviour befits a gentleman, preoccupied writers and thinkers throughout the eighteenth century. This thesis traces the evolution of the masculine ideals – chivalry, republican virtue, professional merit – that informed what it meant to be a gentleman. Because gentlemanliness had implications for citizenship and political rights, Defoe, Richardson, Rousseau, and the other men who sought to define gentlemanliness increasingly connected it and citizenship to gendered virtue rather than socio-economic status. Women writers were equally concerned with the developing gentlemanly ideal and, as I will show, its political implications. This thesis brings together masculinity studies and feminist literary history, but also combines the gendered social history that often frames studies of women's writing with the political and military history traditionally associated with men. Doody (1988) suggests that novels are influenced by three separate histories: "the life of the individual, the cultural life of the surrounding society, and the tradition of the chosen art." With the feminocentric novel, however, the historical context is often circumscribed by a concern for what is 'feminine' and what polite lady novelists might be responding to. With the exception of women's participation in the 1790s debates, eighteenth-century women writers have been seen as shying away from divisive political topics, including war. However, I will show that masculinity is central to reevaluating the ways in which women writers engaged with politics through the courtship plot, because, as McCormack (2005) stresses, "politics and the family were inseparable in Georgian England." Furthermore, as Russell (1995) observes, war is a cultural event that affects and alters "the textures of thought, feeling, and behaviour." Focusing on late-eighteenth-century 1 Frances Burney: The Life in the Works (1988). p. 9. 2 The Independent Man (2005) p. 13. 3 The Theatres of War (1995) p. 2-3. 2 wars, this thesis will explore how political and military events influenced masculine ideals – particularly independence – and how these changes were negotiated in women's novels. Beginning with Frances Burney, this thesis explores the ways in which women writers offered solutions to the problem of masculinity while promoting a (proto)feminist project of equality. By rejecting chivalry and creating a model of manliness that builds on republican virtue and adopts the emerging professional ethic, women writers created heroes defined by personal merit, not accidents of birth. Burney begins this process in Evelina (1778) before problematising the lack of manly independence in Cecilia (1782). Charlotte Smith and Jane West take the problems Burney's work exposes and offer alternatives to chivalric masculinity amidst the heightened concerns about liberty and citizenship surrounding the French revolution. Finally, Maria Edgeworth's and Jane Austen's Napoleonic-era novels promote professionalism as a path to gentility but also as a meritocratic alternative to landed and aristocratic social models. Though the solutions offered by these writers differ, in their opposition to chivalric masculinity they demonstrate that liberating men from the shackles of feudal dependence is essential to freeing women from patriarchal tyranny. 3


Objectives. To describe the diarrhoea admissions and the influencing factors in six - 60-month-old children at Morogoro Regional Hospital.

Design. A retrospective descriptive study of the type of diarrhoea, patient age, home address, nutritional status, diagnosed infection, month of admission, admission duration and outcome.

Setting. A hospital-based study: paediatric admissions at Morogoro Regional Hospital.

Subjects. All children aged 6 - 60 months admitted to the infectious diseases ward over the 60-month period from May 2006 to April 2011.

Results. A total of 4 988 records were extracted, among which the prevalence of diarrhoea was 2 855 (57.2%). Among the 2 855 children with diarrhoea, the majority (2 536 (88.8%)), were 6 - 24 months old, with peak admissions at 7 months and 12 months. District of residence, season, undernutrition and infection were the factors significantly associated (p<0.001) with the age at which children were admitted with diarrhoea.

Conclusions. There were increased numbers of admissions for diarrhoea at the ages of 7 months and 12 months, during the dry season and together with diagnosed infection, particularly malaria. However, further study on causes of childhood diarrhoea, given the identified risk factors, may better explain the epidemiology of diarrhoea in Morogoro.


Many 3D computer games incorporate audio renderers simulating room acoustics to provide the user with a high level of immersiveness and realism. Full-scale interactive room auralisation systems are impractical for use in computer games due to their high computational cost. As a low-cost alternative, artificial reverberators can be used. This paper is concerned with the design of a scalable interactive reverberator inspired by digital waveguide mesh (DWM) models and feedback delay networks (FDN). This reverberator is by construction tightly linked to the acoustics of the enclosure that it simulates. Simulation of unequal and frequencydependent wall absorption, as well as directional sources and microphones can also be incorporated. It is shown that the response of the proposed reverberator accurately renders the early reflections and room modes, as well as providing RT60 values consistent with Sabine and Eyring equations.


Second place winner of oral presentations at the 17th Annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Forum (URCAF) held at the Rhatigan Student Center, Wichita State University, April 4, 2017.


Using the ART NOUVEAU method, we study the initial stages of silicon oxide formation. After validating the method's parameters with the characterization of point defects diffusion mechanisms in pure Stillinger-Weber silicon, which allows us to recover some known results and to detail vacancy and self-interstitial diffusion paths, the method is applied onto a system composed of an oxygen layer deposited on a silicon substrate. We observe the oxygen atoms as they move rapidly into the substrate. From these ART NOUVEAU simulations, we extract the energy barriers of elementary mechanisms involving oxygen atoms and leading to the formation of an amorphouslike silicon oxide. We show that the kinetics of formation can be understood in terms of the energy barriers between various coordination environments.


Title of Document: ACHIEVEMENT AND INTEGRATION FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACADEMIC SUCCESS AND INTENT TO PERSIST OF COLLEGE FRESHMEN AND SOPHOMORES WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES. Lisa Marie Wilson DaDeppo Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Directed By: Dr. Deborah Speece, Professor, Department of Special Education The number of students with learning disabilities (LD) attending college has increased over the past several decades, yet outcomes including graduation rates continue to lag behind those of non-disabled students. In addition to students' background characteristics and past academic achievement, Tinto's (1975; 1993) constructs of academic and social integration have been the focus of much of the research identifying factors associated with college student success and persistence. Previous research has validated the impact of academic and social integration on college student persistence and success; however, these factors have not been studied with a sample of students who have disabilities. In this investigation hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to study the relative influence of pre-college achievement and college integration variables on the academic success and intent to persist of college freshmen and sophomores with LD, while controlling for background characteristics. Participants were 97 freshmen and sophomores with LD at a large, public university in the southwestern United States. Students completed a demographic questionnaire as well as portions of the Freshmen Year Survey (Milem & Berger, 1997) to measure integration and intent to persist. High school GPA, SAT scores, and college GPA were obtained from university records. Academic, social and total integration were not unique significant predictors of college GPA beyond background characteristics and past academic achievement. However, total integration was a significant predictor of intent to persist, accounting for 17 percent unique variance. Academic integration was a significant predictor of intent to persist accounting for 12 percent unique variance. Further, social integration was a significant predictor of intent to persist, accounting for 18 percent unique variance beyond background characteristics and past academic achievement and 7 percent unique variance in the model that also included academic integration. These findings suggest academic and social integration are promising constructs to explain the persistence of college students with LD. Implications of this study include the need for continued research on the role of academic and social integration for college students with LD, as well as on the practices of high school and college personnel in preparing students with LD for college. ACHIEVEMENT AND INTEGRATION FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACADEMIC SUCCESS AND INTENT TO PERSIST OF COLLEGE FRESHMEN AND SOPHOMORES WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES.


The ultimate aim of this project was to design new biomaterials which will improve the efficiency of ocular drug delivery systems. Initially, it was necessary to review the information available on the nature of the tear fluid and its relationship with the eye. An extensive survey of the relevant literature was made. There is a common belief in the literature that the ocular glycoprotein, mucin, plays an important role in tear film stability, and furthermore, that it exists as an adherent layer covering the corneal surface. If this belief is true, the muco-corneal interaction provides the ideal basis for the development of sustained release drug delivery. Preliminary investigations were made to assess the ability of mucin to adhere to polymer surfaces. The intention was to develop a synthetic model which would mimic the supposed corneal/mucin interaction. Analytical procedures included the use of microscopy (phase contrast and fluorescence), fluorophotometry, and mucin-staining dyes. Additionally, the physical properties of tears and tear models were assessed under conditions mimicking those of the preocular environment, using rheological and tensiometric techniques. The wetting abilities of these tear models and opthalmic formulations were also investigated. Tissue culture techniques were employed to enable the surface properties of the corneal surface to be studied by means of cultured corneal cells. The results of these investigations enabled the calculation of interfacial and surface characteristics of tears, tear models, and the corneal surface. Over all, this work cast doubt on the accepted relationship of mucin with the cornea. A corneal surface model was designed, on the basis of the information obtained during this project, which would possess similar surface chemical properties (i.e. would be biomimetic) to the more complex original. This model, together with the information gained on the properties of tears and solutions intended for ocular instillation, could be valuable in the design of drug formulations with enhanced ocular retention times. Furthermore, the model itself may form the basis for the design of an effective drug-carrier.


This thesis analyses the financing system of the Roman Catholic Church in
Germany (RCCiG) from both, a church membership- and financial-viewpoint. The RCCiG
invites laymen with expertise in secular aspects of ecclesiastical being to contribute to an
ideal system of church financing (Gemeinsame Synode, 1977, p. 213). Additionally, public
interest in church financing has increased recently. Uhle (2015, pp. 5-6) explains this based
on three recent incidents: (i) the debate on the Staatsleistungen, i.e. payments by the state
based on historical titles, (ii) the Causa Limburg, where the Bishop of Limburg created a
financial scandal while renovating his residence, and (iii) the modification of the church
tax on capital gains. This study is relevant for both, ecclesiastical practice and academic
theory. Practically, the problem is that church financing is embedded into an ever-changing
environment that is challenged by the powers of secularisation. Hence, the continuation of
church disaffiliations implies shrinking church tax revenues, which are the primary source
of the income as only church members pay church taxes. This implies uncertainty about
the size of the ecclesiastical budget which is necessary to secure pastoral care in 10,280
parishes for 23.6m Catholics and to remunerate 180,000 direct employees of the RCCiG
(Deutsche Bischofskonferenz, 2017d, pp. 7-41). Theoretically, a financial analysis of
church financing in Germany is missing, and there is an identified gap in the literature.
Thereby this hermeneutic systematic research adopts academic and non-academic
documents within a non-reactive data gathering method and it abstains from interviews
because relevant church representatives are reluctant to engage into empirical inquiries.
However, the author's presentation of a paper based on this thesis at a conference in June
2018 encouraged this approach and revealed the interest in the outcomes of this study.
Thus, by using a Husserlian understanding of phenomenological reduction the study covers
the legal and socio-economic external environment of, as well as church-internal
preconditions for church financing. Thereby, the thesis entails elements from autoethnography
to facilitate interpretation based on (1) the researcher's stance to the Church,
i.e. being a church member and a former church employee, and (2) the researcher's
academic and professional background, i.e. finance. This position is summarised as an
auto-ethnographic hermeneutic systematic investigation.
The outcome of this research is a new theoretical model of the financing system of
the RCCiG and it systematically captures all church financing instruments and puts them
into relationships with ecclesiastical benefits.


A key variable to be determined in a wind-erosion scheme is the threshold wind speed - the wind speed at which soil movement is initiated. Under typical field conditions with gusty turbulent winds and mixed sediment soils, the correlation between wind speed and soil movement is weak. To accurately establish a single representative value of threshold, the time fraction equivalence (TFE) method is compared with a wind speed fractionating method for a single event with constant sediment conditions but with varying wind parameters and for synthetic time series modeled with an autoregressive Markov process. The TFE method provides a varying threshold with varying wind conditions. The discrepancy between constant sediment conditions and varying threshold is caused by the dependence of the threshold on varying wind statistics and the absence of only one threshold. Periods with wind accelerations and periods of wind delay provide two threshold conditions: the fluid threshold, which is defined as the wind speed at which particles start moving due to the forces of wind only, and the impact threshold, which is the wind speed at which the combined action of wind forces and saltation impacts can just sustain movement. These two thresholds were determined by analysis of gust intervals where the wind speed rises and the saltation begins and lull intervals with falling winds and stopping saltation.


Is it possible to justify imposing criminal liability on corporations? Two basic aspects of criminal law have no application to corporations: Corporations cannot be jailed and they cannot form mental states. Moreover, there is reason to think that much of the deterrent effect generated by corporate criminal liability could be generated more efficiently by civil liability. Still, the demand for criminal prosecution of corporations remains high. This Article seeks to understand why we have corporate criminal liability, and it concludes that expressivism is necessary to justify the practice. Expressivism justifies punishment by reference to the benefits of a statement of moral condemnation. With regard to corporations, however, the power of expressivism is strongest in the absence of liability. While there may be some expressive benefit to holding corporations criminally liable, the expressive cost of excluding corporations from criminal law altogether is the real driving force in justifying corporate criminal liability: Immunity presents a materially harmful expression. This expressive cost of immunity justifies holding corporations criminally liable. Of course, just because it is possible to justify corporate criminal liability by reference to the expressive cost of immunity, it does not necessarily follow that the current practice of prosecuting corporations serves this end well. There are reasons to think it does not, but the relationship between expressivism and corporate criminal liability suggests a fruitful path toward reimagining how and when corporations ought to be subject to criminal liability. The path to reform will be the subject of a subsequent article; this Article lays the theoretical groundwork for reform.


Colon cancer and an increasing number of other cancers have been found to exhibit instability of DNA microsatellite sequences. Such tumors have been designated as replication errors (RER) tumors. However, as microsatellites are only rarely found within coding regions of the genome, instability of these sequences cannot directly contribute to carcinogenesis. Recently, we have shown RER colon cancers also demonstrate a marked 100-fold increase in mutation rates measured within an expressed gene, hprt, suggesting the mutator phenotype in these tumors extends beyond microsatellite sequences. To determine whether the RER phenotype indeed destabilizes non-repetitive DNA sequences we have sequenced hprt gene mutations recovered from the RER colon cancer cell line RKO. Greater than 10% of hprt mutants proved to be a single 3 bp deletion located in a nonrepetitive ATTAT sequence motif. Additionally, 1-4 bp deletions or insertions were found to be randomly located throughout the hprt gene. Lastly, one third of hprt mutations proved to be transitions or transversions. The microsatellite instability demonstrated in RKO is thus a global mutator phenotype which destabilizes DNA sequences both inside and outside of repetitive sequence elements and which augments base substitutions as well as frameshifts. These findings extend the characteristics of mutations associated with RER tumors and suggest additional mechanisms by which mutator phenotypes may alter oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes.


Availability of 'creative computing' toolkits has lowered barriers to the development by educators of complex applications, enabling the development of educational software according to their own assessments of needs. VideoLab presents such a case, an educational software designed to assist the teaching of video technology concepts in accordance to an assessment of the needs at a Film Studies program in a Portuguese higher education institution. This software combines simulations and tutorials and was designed according to principles laid out by the Multimedia Learning Theory (Mayer, 2003) and the Cognitive Load Theory (van Merriënboer & Ayres, 2005), and its use in the classroom is complemented by an exploration guide for students (cf. Paiva & Costa, 2010). Empirical assessment of VideoLab's instructional efficacy was carried out with a total of 40 students over two school years. During specific lessons of the Editing unit, students were given the software and asked to follow the exploration guide while completing some included questions as to measure learning. Other methods were employed simultaneously, including observation by the researcher, screen recording, and a questionnaire based on the Learning Object Evaluation Scale for Students (Kay & Knaack, 2008), as to determine students' perceptions of learning value, design quality, and engagement. VideoLab was found to be an effective learning object and its design quality was found to be very acceptable. Findings from previous research on exploration guides were also replicated, in that students' close adherence to the instructions was a key to learning effectiveness. Educational software development thus shouldn't stop at the software itself, even in the face of a 'self-sufficient' design. Consequent implications for the reusability of educational software and simulations should be considered and can indeed be a focus of future research.


Objective: To study the pattern of cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) in Benin City, Nigeria and to compare the findings with reports from other parts of the world. The results of this study may be used to improve the welfare of affected patients.
Design: A descriptive study.
Setting: The University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.
Subjects: 103 ethnic Nigerian patients with cleft lip and/or palate.
Main Outcome Measures: Consecutive ethnic Nigerian patients presenting with CL/P were studied. Patients' data collected included age, sex, ethnic group, type of CL/P and the laterality pattern. Descriptive statistics were generated for all the variables recorded.
Results: There were 49.5% females and 50.5 % males; 95.1% were children and 4.9% were adults. The ethnic groups most often affected were Urhobo 29.1%, Bini 27.1% and Ibo 17.4%. The combined cleft lip and palate 60.2% was the commonest type of cleft. There were 28.2% patients with cleft lip only. More (7.8%) females were affected by the isolated cleft palate deformity. Twenty five patients had exceeded the time of repair. Their reasons were ignorance (36%) and financial constraints (64%)
Conclusion: The data from this study is consistent with studies from other parts of the world. However, a high proportion of patients did not have access to early treatment due to ignorance and financial constraints. Public enlightenment and financial assistance for the indigent patient is recommended.


Community detection and edge prediction are both forms of link mining: they are concerned with discovering the relations between vertices in networks. Some of the vertex similarity measures used in edge prediction are closely related to the concept of community structure. We use this insight to propose a novel method for improving existing community detection algorithms by using a simple vertex similarity measure. We show that this new strategy can be more effective in detecting communities than the basic community detection algorithms.


With potentially billions of dollars at stake as the price of poor HSE Performance, companies can no longer afford not to understand their underlying safety climate. If the shortcomings of current safety climate surveys render their use inappropriate, then a different approach to understanding corporate safety climate is essential. Typically, safety climate is evaluated using questionnaires which are sent to a sample group within the organisation. Various analysis techniques are then used in an attempt to identify the prevalent safety climate. It has become increasingly apparent to a number of authors over the last few years that this approach is unlikely to provide the desired level of useful output. A variety of factors combine to render the results of a conventional safety climate survey doubtful at best and misleading at worst. Principally, these relate to Question Ordering, Culture, Language, Rating Scales, Bias and Sample Selection. Any or all of which have the potential to impact the validity of the survey questionnaire approach in determining an accurate overview of prevalent safety climate. This paper discusses an alternative approach to identifying safety climate on a continuous basis. While the technique was developed as a standalone module within a training tool designed around an operating oil company, it is equally applicable to any organisation operating in a high safety risk environment. By evaluating the impact of prevalent safety climate on accident causation, the approach produces indicators to safety climate deficiencies which management can address in order to improve overall safety climate.


Abstract For the second qualification of the blanket First Wall (FW) procurement of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a semi-prototype of the FW has been designed with increased local surface heat flux up to 5 MW/m2. In order to investigate the fabrication procedure and methods, two types of mock-up were fabricated; one was with twelve Be tiles for high heat flux test to check the joining integrity between Be tiles and the bending Cu block and the other was for testing the thermal-hydraulic prediction by commercial code, ANSYS-CFX when it has a complex geometry such as hypervapotron, which was used for designing the semi-prototype. The former was successfully fabricated and the test conditions were obtained through the preliminary analysis with ANSYS-CFX. The later was successfully fabricated and the test with KoHLT-2 (Korea Heat Load Test facility) was performed; mass flow rate of inlet coolant was the same as the ITER condition and heat flux was loaded up to 0.65 MW/m2. The results show that the temperature of the mock-up can be predicted using the ANSYS-CFX even with the complex geometry.


One of the most fundamental changes in today's political information environment is an increasing lack of communicative truthfulness. To explore this worrisome phenomenon, this study aims to investigate the effects of political misinformation by integrating three theoretical approaches: (1) misinformation, (2) polarization, and (3) selective exposure. In this article, we examine the role of fact-checkers in discrediting polarized misinformation in a fragmented media environment. We rely on two experiments (N = 1,117) in which we vary exposure to attitudinal-congruent or incongruent political news and a follow-up fact-check article debunking the information. Participants were either forced to see or free to select a fact-checker. Results show that fact-checkers can be successful as they (1) lower agreement with attitudinally congruent political misinformation and (2) can overcome political polarization. Moreover, dependent on the issue, fact-checkers are most likely to be selected when they confirm prior attitudes and avoided when they are incongruent, indicating a confirmation bias for selecting corrective information. The freedom to select or avoid fact-checkers does not have an impact on political beliefs.


In the past decade, the importance of teamwork training in higher education and employers' enthusiasm for recruiting team players have been widely discussed in the literature. Yet, the process through which effective teamwork training is developed in a higher education setting has not yet been properly discussed. The present study aims to map the precedence relationships among the key determinants of teamwork training effectiveness and explain the process through which an effective teamwork training program can be developed. The study first conducted an extensive review of the literature to highlight the key determinants of effective teamwork training. Next, the study benefitted from an interpretive structural modeling technique and captured the opinions of a group of teamwork training experts to further map the interrelationships among the potential determinants that were identified. By listing the key determinants of effective teamwork training, mapping their interrelationships, and identifying their driving and dependence power, the present study is expected to help practitioners and academicians through providing a detailed understanding of the process through which an effective teamwork training program can be developed in a higher education context.


Popular Abstract in English During recent decades, significant changes in fertility pattern are seen in the Western World. Declining birth rates and smaller family sizes affect the population size, but also cause unwanted effects for the desired number of children to be achieved by the individual couple. Also involuntary childlessness is a consequence of postponing childbearing to an age where the chance of spontaneous pregnancy is less likely. A major age-related factor to limit a couple's chance of conception is the declining quantity and quality of the eggs in the women's ovary. The total amount of eggs available for a woman during her reproductive life is deposited in the ovaries as a number of quiescent eggs already in fetal life. On the earliest stages of development the pool of eggs reaches millions in number, but a vast majority of them decay before the female has reached her reproductive age. During women's fertile period of life, a proportion of these non-growing eggs are activated to grow throughout 5-6 months and finally reach a stage where they can ovulate and become fertilized or go through so-called programmed cell death. In this manner, women's supply of eggs is slowly depleted and finally, when all eggs are used, menopause will occur. The term ovarian reserve designates the pool of eggs present in the ovaries at any given time. A huge individual difference is seen in the size of the initial pool and how rapidly it is used. For a woman or a couple planning to build a family, questions like; when to start to reproduce and how long could pregnancy potentially be postponed without jeopardizing the chance of obtaining a family of a size of choice often are raised. In order to be able to answer these questions professionally, a reliable test to assess ovarian reserve, including the amount of remaining eggs in the ovaries, is requested. Today, the levels of Anti Mullerian Hormone (AMH) or the number of small follicles measurable by ultrasound are considered to be the best markers of ovarian reserve. Both tests measure certain developing stages in between the quiescent stage and eggs ready to be selected for ovulation, and this number mirrors the number of remaining eggs in the ovaries. Several scientific publications claim AMH to be so stable a test that only one blood test is sufficient for estimating a woman's ovarian reserve. Also different cut-off levels believed to predict the chance of natural as well as assisted conception are suggested. For a quiescent egg in the ovary to be activated and start growing, a signal from the brain is necessary. The signal originates in the part of the brain called the hypothalamus and is transmitted to the hypophysis via a signal substance named Gonadotropin Releasing Factor (GnRh). This signal controls two hormones secreted from the hypophysis, the Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) and Luteinizing Hormone (LH), which both are brought to the ovaries by the blood and exert a crucial impact on the recruitment of quiescent follicles to start growing into an ovulating follicle. In order to add more clinically useful knowledge, the aim of the present thesis was to explore whether there is a variation over time in secretion of AMH, and to study its relation to the two gonadotropins; FSH and LH. In studies I and II, the variability of AMH was examined throughout 24 hours (circadian variation), by drawing blood for analysis every second hour from 8:00 a.m. the first morning, until the next. The study was performed both in normal menstruating women as well as in women diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), which is a fairly common endocrine disorder in young women, characterized by anovulation, causing infertility and ovaries with numerous of small follicles. This group of women was chosen for the study since AMH is produced in the small follicles. Hence, the levels of AMH in PCOS women are much higher compared to normally menstruating women. The stability of AMH was also tested over three menstrual cycles by blood tests every fifth day. To find out whether the level of AMH was correlated to the number of small follicles, a three-dimensional vaginal ultrasound was performed at the fifth day of the menstrual cycle. In Study III, the variation of AMH and its co-variation to the antral follicle count was explored over 3 menstrual cycles. In study IV, blood from pregnant women was analyzed and the level of AMH related to the number of months necessary to obtain pregnancy. The aim of the study was to test AMH as marker of fertility in women/couples with normal fertility. The data for this study came from women in Ukraine, Poland and Greenland. 16 In study V, we wanted to explore if the level of LH in women undergoing In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) could influence the result of the treatment. This was performed by measuring the level of LH in 207 women undergoing hormonal stimulation prior to IVF. According to the level of LH, the women were divided into groups and compared by the number of eggs retrieved, fertilization and pregnancy rate. The results of this thesis reveal that normal menstruating women show a significant circadian variation in AMH. Also, for this group of women, AMH levels were shown to fluctuate significantly, both between cycle days within one cycle as well as between cycles. Furthermore, data from the thesis show that in women with PCOS, the level of AMH in average was three-fold higher compared to the normal menstruating women. However, the circadian variation in AMH as seen for the normal menstruating women was not seen for those with PCOS. For both groups, however, a clear correlation between levels of AMH and LH was found, suggesting that LH masters the secretion of AMH. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was found between levels of AMH and the number of small antral follicles. This finding was, however, expected as AMH is produced in such small follicles. Moreover, in a cohort of women obtaining spontaneous pregnancy, levels of AMH were found to be related to the number of months required to obtain pregnancy. In women undergoing hormonal stimulation prior to IVF, the rate of pregnancy and the consumption of hormones required for the hormonal stimulation were correlated to the LH levels. The number of successful pregnancies, as well as the amount of stimulating hormones needed, decreased by rising levels of LH. In conclusion, results from the present thesis have demonstrated that AMH is closely linked to LH, both key factors during development and recruitment of follicles and eggs. In women with a normal menstrual cycle, the level of AMH fluctuates significantly, both between cycle days within one cycle as well as between menstrual cycles. These fluctuations reach such an extent, that the current practice of using only one measurement of AMH to evaluate the ovarian reserve in a woman is questioned. Despite this, AMH seems to have the potential to indirectly measure a couple's chance of obtaining pregnancy, as the time to pregnancy is longest in couples where AMH levels are lowest. (Less)


Soccer, a sport played mostly by blacks, received a boost when FIFA decided to award the hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup (SWC) to South Africa. Throughout its existence over many decades, soccer in South Africa played second fiddle to sports such as rugby and cricket, which were popular with the country's white citizens. This situation was exacerbated by the banning of South African soccer by FIFA. South Africa was excluded from the global soccer community. Deprived of any contact with the international soccer world, it flourished in obscurity. In the past, soccer was not associated with higher education, as it was played by people who did not progress very far with their education. This picture changed with the advent of professional soccer, as a number of younger players furthered their education at tertiary institutions. The readmission of South Africa to the world soccer body opened avenues for local soccer. The World Cup engendered a spirit of togetherness among South Africa's people that will hopefully continue and be used as a stepping stone towards nation-building.


Traditionally, multiphase flow in porous media is described by the so-called extended Darcy's Law, which is based on the original Darcy's Law by including the relative permeability. The driving force in the horizontal direction is only the pressure gradient, which means that flow will cease without a pressure gradient. However, this is contradicted by experimental evidence (Kona, 1997). Hassanizadeh and Gray (1993b) found that the actual driving force for the horizontal flow of a phase is the gradient in the Gibbs free energy, which itself is a function of saturation, specific interfacial area, and fluid pressure. Thus, in addition to the pressure gradient, gradients in saturation and the specific interfacial area also appear in the generalized Darcy's law. This means that in principle it is possible to maintain gradients in pressure and saturation under no flow conditions. Since few studies of the generalized formula exist, in this thesis we only consider the saturation gradient as a new driving force in order to reduce uncertainties in the estimation of parameters. In addition to the generalized Darcy's law, the constitutive relationship between capillary pressure and saturation is fundamental to characterizing unsaturated flow in soils. Traditionally, capillary pressure, defined as the difference in fluid pressures, is assumed to be a function of saturation. Rather than resorting to a hysteretic relationship, Hassanizadeh and Gray (1993b) have suggested that non-uniqueness in the capillary pressure-saturation relationship can be modelled by introducing the air-water specific interfacial area into the formulation. The main objective of this research is to provide an increased understanding of the advanced theories of two-phase flow presented above. To achieve this objective, experiments, numerical simulations, and mathematical analyses have been performed. Specific objectives are as follows: simulating an existing horizontal redistribution experiment, to test the validity of the generalized Darcy's law; designing, performing and simulating well-defined horizontal redistribution experiments, to have a better understanding of the generalized Darcy's law; simulating an existing downward infiltration experiment, including dynamic capillarity effects; analysing the dynamic capillarity effect term mathematically, in order to gain insights in its effect on the solutions; designing and performing well-defined experiments to quantify the dynamic capillarity effect.


The recipes in this book are easy to understand and follow as the author discusses real-world scenarios. The range of topics covered in this book will bring out the forward-thinking WCF developer in you. It is not a comprehensive reference to the whole of WCF, but a practical guide that boosts proficiency when working with the various features of WCF. The examples are supported by relevant background information for ease of understanding. If you work with Windows Communication Foundation 4.0 and you want to be efficient when working with WCF features such as interoperability, proxy generation, and security, you will find this book very useful. With this book you will be able to find quick and handy solutions for various kinds of service development scenarios using Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation 4.0. To follow the recipes you will need to be comfortable with .NET Framework, C# programming, and the basics of SOA and how to develop them.


This paper analyzes the theoretical foundations of Giffen goods and details the difficulty with which prior studies have encountered limited empirical proof of Giffenity. Subsequently, a discussion of the economic overview of Russia during the early 1990s is provided. The paper then applies Giffenity to the newly established free market system of post-Soviet Union Russia while acknowledging changes in the prices for goods, specifically, for inferior food commodities. The paper concludes by advocating for the need to incorporate Giffenity into current economic theory to make it more comprehensive.


Relatively small lifestyle modifications related to weight reduction, physical activity and diet have been shown to decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes. Connected with diet, low consumption of meat has been suggested as a protective factor of diabetes. The aim of the present study was to examine the association between the consumption of total meat or the specific types of meats and the risk of type 2 diabetes. The Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention cohort included middle-aged male smokers. Up to 12 years of follow-up, 1098 incident cases of diabetes were diagnosed from 24 845 participants through the nationwide register. Food consumption was assessed by a validated FFQ. In the age- and intervention group-adjusted model, high total meat consumption was a risk factor of type 2 diabetes (relative risk (RR) 1·50, 95 % CI 1·23, 1·82, highest v. lowest quintile). The result was similar after adjustment for environmental factors and foods related to diabetes and meat consumption. The RR of type 2 diabetes was 1·37 for processed meat (95 % CI 1·11, 1·71) in the multivariate model. The results were explained more by intakes of Na than by intakes of SFA, protein, cholesterol, haeme Fe, Mg and nitrate, and were not modified by obesity. No association was found between red meat, poultry and the risk of type 2 diabetes. In conclusion, reduction of the consumption of processed meat may help prevent the global epidemic of type 2 diabetes. It seems like Na of processed meat may explain the association.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In biophilic sketching terms of what epistemic theories of maladies and nosologic theories of diseases involve in tautological ethical theories of clinical interrelationships between physicians and patients, we have accounted their assessments with the span boundaries of materialistic, socialistic, and spiritualistic conventional value systems of physicians' professional codes of ethics and natural and civic rights of patients. Our objectives in this paper are, first, to define what we mean by tautological and epistemological interpretations concerning both patients and physicians value systems. Second, we have indicated that diseases are essentially viewed as extrinsic affective causes and maladies are intrinsic effective consequences that are related to patients' illnesses and sicknesses within biosophical and biophilic ethical boundaries of "vitalism" and "naturalism" view points. Third, we have analyzed different philosophical foundations of alternative medicine in relationships among scientific, pragmatic, and spiritual value systems in Occidental and Oriental oriented cultures. Fourth, we have analyzed the levels of tolerance of pain and suffering among different groups of patients. Keywords: Clinical Intervention, Psychosomatic, Life, Death, multiculturalization, Meta-Knowledge, Experiential, Experimental, and Expediential Research, Medical logic, Biosciences, Biotechnology, Brain Death, Vegetable-Life, Patients' rights, Ethical Medical Stewardship, Biosophy, Biophilia INTRODUCTION Biosophy (a biosystem of thought) and/or biophilia (a thoughtful tendency towards natural life) are the holistic bedrocks of medical ethics. They are global innate affinity of good faith for the sanctity of life and the beauty of the synergistic natural and artificial world in which we live in. Such incorporated visionary thoughts encompass global medical ethics to integrate human life and the environmental contradictory conditions of the realm of existence. Within such a thoughtful deliberation, two phenomena are viewed as the basic foundation for human existence: (1) tautological of ethical and epistemological of moral dimensions of life and (2) nosologic conditions of scientific thoughts that deal with orderly rating or classifying maladies and diseases. In biophilic sketching terms of what nosologic theories of maladies and diseases involve, we first have defined what we mean by tautological ethical and epistemological moral approaches with accounts of maladies and diseases explanations. Second, we have argued that diseases are essentially viewed as extrinsic affective causes, and maladies are intrinsic effective consequences that are related to patients' illnesses and sicknesses within biosophical and biophilic boundaries of "vitalism" and "naturalism" view points. For effective development of ideas, theories, and paradigms of existence, a clear use of terms is necessary. So in terms of ethical and moral relationships between physicians and patients in pain and suffering management clinics customary professional relationships are to begin with definitions of these terms. Originally, to define something within a scientific framework meant to set limit on it. Tautological relationships between physicians and patients have broad intents of two kinds: (1) the view that the practice of medicine is an art and regards it as roughly ontological (ontology refers to knowledge of the nature of the world around us) and (2) the view that the practice of medicine is a science and regards it as roughly epistemic (epistemology has to do with scientific problem-solving of knowledge). Parhizgar and Parhizgar (2008: 223) indicated: The term art is the production or expression of what is creative, beautiful, appealing, and/or of what is more than ordinary significant. Arts are the establishment of human unity in variety, similarity, proximity, and connectivity in bounded perceptions. Arts are expository of an individual's emotional conceptions, sensational feelings, and critical thinking to explain or manifest something in specific causal forms. …


Tax avoidance strategies of well-known U.S. multinationals such as Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Hewlett-Packard Co. have received much attention recently. Multinationals' use of foreign shell entities to shift income away from the United States is subject to scrutiny. The debate is primarily about the sourcing of income, not about the tax residence of the corporate entities involved. That is hardly surprising, because many view the tax residence of corporations as meaningless. That meaninglessness is occasionally cited to support the adoption of a territorial system of taxation, in which residence is arguably less relevant for tax outcomes. This report summarizes some conclusions from a forthcoming Boston College Law Review article in which Marian recommends a fresh look at corporate tax residence. Marian argues that the perception of meaninglessness is a result of misguided normative discussion and that it cannot be avoided by adopting a territorial system. In his report, Marian develops a functional model under which corporate tax residence tests are designed to support the policy purposes of corporate taxation, and the tests are not independently justified in normative terms. A functional approach suggests that the United States should adopt a corporate tax residence test under which domestic corporations for tax purposes are corporations whose securities are listed for public trading in the United States, or whose place of central management and control is in the United States.


Aim: To compare stress, morale, and intended job turnover in staff in non-congregate settings where the minority of residents had CB and congregate settings where the majority of residents had CB. Method: A self-completion survey questionnaire was used to collect information on the characteristics of staff, staff stress, job satisfaction, and propensity to leave employment. Information was also collected on the characteristics and working practices of settings. Results: There were few significant differences between non-congregate and congregate settings. Over 25% of staff reached criterion on the GHQ-12 for experiencing emotional distress. Over 33% were likely to seek new employment in the next year. The greatest sources of stress were lack of resources and lack of staff support, not service user CB. Lowest satisfaction was with rate of pay. Those in non-congregate settings reported greater stress due to lack of procedures to deal with CB. Conclusions: High levels of staff intended turnover are due more to job insecurity and lack of support than service user CB, even in settings where the majority of residents display CB. Employers seeking to reduce turnover should pay attention to pay and conditions, and staff training in methods for dealing with CB.


In this paper we analyze the valuation of options stemming from the flexibility in an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) Power Plant. First we use as a base case the opportunity to invest in a Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) Power Plant, deriving the optimal investment rule as a function of fuel prices and the remaining life of the right to invest. Additionally, the analytical solution for a perpetual option is obtained. Second, the valuation of an operating IGCC Power Plant is studied, with switching costs between states and a choice of the best operation mode. The valuation of this plant serves as a base to obtain the value of the option to delay an investment of this type; it deals with an American option on a series of European nested options. Finally, we derive the value of an opportunity to invest either in a NGCC or IGCC Power Plant, that is, to choose between an inflexible and a flexible technology, respectively. Numerical computations involve the use of oneand two-dimensional binomial lattices that support a mean-reverting process for the fuel prices. Basic parameter values refer to an actual IGCC power plant currently in operation.


Background and Aims: Several treatment modalities and protocols for ischaemic foot ulcers are available. However, little consensus exists on optimal treatment. The aim of this study was to compare Standard Wound Care (SWC) alone vs. SWC with adjunct hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) in the treatment of ischaemic Diabetic Foot Ulcers (DFUs). Patients and Methods: Twenty-six patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) presenting with a newly diagnosed ischaemic foot ulcer were included. These were divided into group A (SWC with adjunct HBOT) and group B (SWC only). Participants were followed every week for 4 weeks and their ulcers were measured for their surface area and depth to assess any change in wound size. Results: Both treatment arms succeeded in reducing ulcer area and depth (p<0.001). However, ulcer area (p<0.001) and depth (p<0.001) exhibited superior improvement in group A. Conclusion : Adjunctive HBOT appears to improve wound healing in ischaemic DFUs and merits further study.


Cleft lip or palate is one of the most common types of craniomaxillofacial birth anomalies. Midface deficiency is a common feature of cleft lip and palate patients due to scar tissue of the lip and palate closure. Cleft lip and palate patients should be carefully evaluated by the craniofacial team in order to detect potentially serious deformities. Craniofacial team is involved with diagnosis of facial morphology, feeding problems, guidance of the growth and development of the face, occlusion, dentition, hearing and speech problems, and psychosocial issues and jaw discrepancy of the patients with cleft lip and palate or craniofacial syndromes. Treatment for cleft children requires a multidisciplinary approach including facial surgery in the first months of life, preventive and interceptive treatment in primary dentition, speech therapy, orthodontics in the mixed dentition phase, oromaxillofacial surgery, and implant and prosthetics in adults. Treatment plan from orthodontic perspective can be divided into the following stages based on the dentition stages: (1) presurgical orthopedics, (2) primary dentition, (3) mixed dentition, and (4) permanent dentition. The aim of this chapter is to assess a rational team work approach in the management of the patient with cleft lip and/or palate from birth to adulthood.


The thesis aims to: (a) broaden the knowledge base that makes up the foundation for decisions with regard to how traffic law enforcement is best outlined, as well as increasing the understanding of how the shaping of different public instruments of control affects the chances of success; and (b) contribute to the development of theory and methodology within sociology of law. The relationship between legal rules and social norms play a crucial part in the analysis. The study takes place within the framework of the broader question of how traffic control and sanctioning systems in general influence the road-users behaviour. Other strategies such as education, information or various technical solutions are ever so important but fall outside the scope of the specific issue being investigated in this study. The specific research question is: Can the observance of the laws on the roads be increased through increased traffic control and/or through more stringent sanctions? The question is delimited to speed, seat belt use and sobriety.

The thesis thus operates using three fundamental unities of analysis: speed, seat belt use and sanction. The question will be answered using five main instruments. Firstly, it concerns a theoretical model of analysis developed for the study, which has been used in the design of the empirical analyses as well as in the analysis of empirical results. Secondly, the investigation originates from a description of the law and the authorities that are administrators of justice in the field. Thirdly, the results from an empirical investigation are presented that was directed towards Swedish embassies around the world and that gives an illustration of how supervision and sanctions are used in other countries. Fourthly, it relates to a literature study where European research results in the field are presented. Fifthly, the results from an empirical study of social norms in Sweden are presented, which has been conducted through a survey that a thousand people responded to.

To conclude, it can be ascertained that the supervision and the sanctions are determining factors in terms of ensuring the observance of the laws on the roads. This is shown by both the literature study and the embassy study. The survey showed that the scope to improve the observance of the laws through increased supervision of the speed, seat belt and sobriety rules is decidedly broadest in the speed domain.

If one wants to understand the reasons behind the reality that the law has not been able to ensure observance of the laws within the speed domain, one must proceed from the political action that forms the basis of Swedish road safety work. A fundamental problem is that the politicians have chosen to convey the zero vision to the authorities concerned through a concentrated proposed law, which is an exceedingly weak instrument of control. The political apparatus marks averseness and the authorities concerned turn downwards in the system directly towards the citizens to construct legitimacy. This kind of steering can in some areas be efficient and bring about positive results. But when dealing with an area where a gap has developed between the social norm system and the legal system, it is rather a counterproductive form of steering. When the authorities responsible for implementing the legislation must turn towards the public to seek support for their actions, it is clearly difficult to come to the conclusion of pressuring the public to act against their will. The legislation says one thing and the social norms another and the authorities concerned lack clear signals from both political quarters and from the public.


Both inducible nitric oxide (NO) synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) have been implicated in the biliary tract carcinogenesis. However, it is not known whether these inflammatory mediators are induced by interdependent or parallel pathways. Because iNOS activity has been associated with diverse gene expression, the aim of this study was to determine whether iNOS induces COX-2. To address this objective, immortalized, but nonmalignant, murine cholangiocytes, 603B cells were employed for these studies. Both iNOS and COX-2 protein and mRNA were expressed in these cells. However, iNOS inhibition with either N-[3-(aminomethyl) benzyl]acetamidine or stable transfection with an iNOS antisense construct inhibited COX-2 mRNA and protein expression, an effect that was reversed by NO donors. COX-2 mRNA expression in 603B cells was reduced by pharmacological inhibitors of the p38 MAPK and JNK1/2 pathways. In contrast, neither inhibitors of the soluble guanylyl cyclase inhibitor/protein kinase G nor p42/44 MAPK pathways attenuated COX-2 mRNA expression. Finally, 603B cells grew at a rate threefold greater than 603B-iNOS antisense cells. The low growth rate of 603B-iNOS antisense cells could be restored to near that of the parent cell line with exogenous PGE(2.) In conclusion, iNOS induces COX-2 expression in cholangiocytes, which promotes cell growth. COX-2 induction may contribute to iNOS-associated carcinogenesis.


Collaboration-based distributed systems are becoming more prevalent these days. Two such systems are Community Clouds, where a large number of anonymous private users share their computational resources within the community, and smart grids, a distributed modernized electrical grid. Albeit with differences in ultimate goals, these two systems share many specifications and requirements such as decentralization, pay-as-you-go mechanism, reliability, scalability, availability and security. We argue that a model inspired by the two collaborative systems, with relevant common traits, is a good starting point to sketch the big picture of an economics-driven approach to make collaboration between them. We define a comprehensive economic model as key step towards managing and driving negotiation and resource arbitration, within and among both collaborative distributed systems. The main factors affecting such an economic model are QoS, cost effectiveness and energy efficiency, accounting for their interdependencies that strengthen and weaken each other in different cases. Towards such an economic model, we devise a cost model that controls the level of collaboration or resource sharing among vicinities, via community currency, which enables trading through converting local currencies and managing exchange taxes.


This paper looks at the role Sovereign Wealth Funds have played in the Pacific Island Countries in achieving key macro-fiscal policy objectives, namely, protecting the budget from high revenue volatility and strengthening fiscal prospects. Evidence shows that the funds' effectiveness has been hampered by lack of integration with the budget, institutional weaknesses, and inadequate controls. These factors, together with weak asset management, have sometimes led to substantial financial losses and undermined fiscal policy. Funds, if well designed, could be used as a tool to support a sound fiscal framework, but should not be seen as a substitute for fiscal reforms.


INTRODUCTION
Urocortin 1 (Ucn 1) is an endogenous peptide related to the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). Ucn 1 is mainly expressed in the perioculomotor area (pIII), and its involvement in alcohol self-administration is well confirmed in mice. In other species, the relationship between the perioculomotor Ucn 1-containing population of neurons (pIIIu) and alcohol consumption needs further investigation. The pIII also has a significant subpopulation of dopaminergic neurons. Because of dopamine's (DA) role in addiction, it is important to evaluate whether this subpopulation of neurons contributes to addiction-related phenotypes. Furthermore, the effects of gender on the relationship between Ucn 1 and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) in pIII and alcohol preference in rats have not been previously assessed.

METHODS
To address these issues, we compared 2 Sardinian alcohol-preferring sublines of rats, a population maintained at the Scripps Research Institute (Scr:sP) and a population maintained at University of Camerino-Marchigian Sardinian preferring rats (msP), to corresponding nonselectively bred Wistar rats of both sexes. Ucn 1- and TH-positive cells were detected on coronal midbrain sections from 6- to 8-week-old alcohol-naïve animals using brightfield and fluorescent immunohistochemistry. Ucn 1- and TH-positive cells in pIII were counted in the perioculomotor area, averaged across 2 to 3 sets, and binned into 3 bregma levels.

RESULTS
Results demonstrated increased average counts of Ucn 1-positive cells in the middle bregma level in preferring male rats compared to Wistar controls and no difference in TH-positive cell counts in pIII. In addition, fluorescent double labeling revealed no colocalization of Ucn 1-positive and TH-positive neurons. Ucn 1 but not TH distribution was influenced by gender with female animals expressing more Ucn 1-positive cells than male animals in the peak bregma level.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings extend previous reports of increased Ucn 1-positive cell distribution in preferring lines of animals. They indicate that Ucn1 contributes to increased alcohol consumption across different species and that this contribution could be gender specific. The results also suggest that Ucn1 regulates positive reinforcing rather than aversive properties of alcohol and that these effects could be mediated by CRF(2) receptors, independent of direct actions of DA.


Congress might repeal the residual U.S. tax imposed when non-U.S. subsidiaries repatriate earnings to U.S. parent corporations. Repeal would raise the transition issue of how to tax the $1 trillion to $2 trillion of offshore earnings held by such non-U.S. subsidiaries. This article proposes a 5%-10% corporate offshore profits transition tax on non-U.S. subsidiaries' untaxed earnings and profits, without downward adjustment for a foreign tax credit. It suggests using the financial accounting measure of unremitted earnings to help determine pre-1987 earnings and police aggressive efforts to reduce the earnings and profits base. The article's policy analysis is based on the metrics of efficiency, administrability and equity.


We propose a method that modifies the Mel cepstral coefficients of HMM-generated synthetic speech in order to increase the intelligibility of the generated speech when heard by a listener in the presence of a known noise. This method is based on an approximation we previously proposed for the Glimpse Proportion measure. Here we show how to update the Mel cepstral coefficients using this measure as an optimization criterion and how to control the amount of distortion by limiting the frequency resolution of the modifications. To evaluate the method we built eight different voices from normal read-text speech data from a male speaker. Some voices were also built from Lombard speech data produced by the same speaker. Listening experiments with speech-shaped noise and with a single competing talker indicate that our method significantly improves intelligibility when compared to unmodified synthetic speech. The voices built from Lombard speech outperformed the proposed method particularly for the competing talker case. However, compared to a voice using only the spectral parameters from Lombard speech, the proposed method obtains similar or higher performance.


Previous studies have shown that collegiate level music students are exposed to potentially hazardous sound levels. Compared to professional musicians, collegiate level music students typically do not perform as frequently, but they are exposed to intense sounds during practice and rehearsal sessions. The purpose of the study was to determine the full-day exposure dose including individual practice and ensemble rehearsals for collegiate student musicians. Sixty-seven college students of classical music were recruited representing 17 primary instruments. Of these students, 57 completed 2 days of noise dose measurements using Cirrus doseBadge programed according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health criterion. Sound exposure was measured for 2 days from morning to evening, ranging from 7 to 9 h. Twenty-eight out of 57 (49%) student musicians exceeded a 100% daily noise dose on at least 1 day of the two measurement days. Eleven student musicians (19%) exceeded 100% daily noise dose on both days. Fourteen students exceeded 100% dose during large ensemble rehearsals and eight students exceeded 100% dose during individual practice sessions. Approximately, half of the student musicians exceeded 100% noise dose on a typical college schedule. This finding indicates that a large proportion of collegiate student musicians are at risk of developing noise-induced hearing loss due to hazardous sound levels. Considering the current finding, there is a need to conduct hearing conservation programs in all music schools, and to educate student musicians about the use and importance of hearing protection devices for their hearing.


This study investigates the socio-economic impact of tourism in two wards of Ghandruk VDC, western Nepal. The analyses are based on (i) primary data collected through household surveys using a random sample of 46 respondents and (ii) published and un-published secondary data, office records, informal and formal interviews and direct observation were the other sources of information. The results show that in Ghandruk both forest and tourism contribute to increase livelihood and sustainable development of the region. This is due to the good management practices of Ann apurna Conservation Area project and other local organizations. The community forest income is more important for the poor people and has a strong equalizing effect on local income distribution. Further more, alternative energy technologies should be promoted in future conservation programs. Sustainable tourism is able to enhance nature conservation by opening up new opportunities. The study suggests that there is a trade-off between economic benefits and environmental and social-cultural costs, which requires a good balance to implement the concept of ecotourism, which boons for forest conservation, livelihood, and community development. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/init.v4i0.5535 The Initiation Vol.4 2011 35-45


Anania Širakac'i was a 7th century AD Armenian mathematician trained in the Byzantine Empire whose works embrace treatises in various fields of science. Of the almost 30 texts attributed to him, most await investigation. His Cosmology is the focus of our research, and we highlight its elements of similarity with Greek tradition, in particular with St Basil's Hexameron, and in the Armenian tradition, to which Anania brings novelty especially in his deeper understanding of astronomical phenomena. We suggest that this work, like Isidore's De Natura Rerum, represents a new genre of Christian literature, and attempts to understand it through the meaning of Cosmos found in Aristotle's De Mundo.


In the last few decades, evidence has been accumulating for a role for xanthine
oxidoreductase (XOR)-generated toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) in a variety of
pathological conditions that affect different organ systems. This enzyme in mammals
exists in two inter-convertible forms: xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH) (the predominant
intracellular form under physiological conditions) and xanthine oxidase (XO). A
combination of XO and its oxidizable substrate xanthine (X) (or hypoxanthine (HX)) is
widely used as a model to produce ROS and to study their effects in a variety of cell
culture studies. However, the effect of the combination of XOR and the reduced
nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) in cell cultures is much less studied. NADH
is another oxidizable substrate for XOR that binds to a different site on the enzyme from
that of X binding.
The aim of this project was to investigate some aspects of the in vitro toxicity of XOR,
which might provide more insights into its in vivo toxicity. The main investigation was
a comparison between the well studied X / XO and the much less studied NADH / XO
toxicity models. Also, secondary studies were undertaken to investigate those aspects of
X / XO toxicity where there are uncertainties about them.
These studies were performed using primary cell cultures. Cell cultures are now widely
used to study different diseases, and although they have their drawbacks, they have their
advantages over the in vivo studies. For this project, primary cultures of cerebellar
granule neurons (CGNs) were used. In the beginning, some problems were encountered
with CGNs. The main problem was the immediate damage induced to the neurons
(including those in the control groups) at the intervention/experiments day (i.e. day 8 or
9 after plating) by manipulating the cultures (i.e. aspirating the culture medium, adding
treatment and control vehicles, and adding the restoration medium).
After several months of investigation, it was serendipitously discovered that the
immediate damage seen in the neurons (including those in the control groups) when
they are manipulated at the experiments/intervention day was due to glutamate
excitotoxicity (through activating its N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors). The
source of glutamate was the fresh serum which is present at 10% V/V in the fresh
culture medium that is added to the cultures at that day. After solving this problem, it
was possible to conduct reliable experiments to investigate XO toxicity models.
Regarding investigating XO toxicity, it was found that both of the X / XO and NADH /
XO combinations were toxic to cultures of CGNs. However, the concentration of
NADH needed to cause the toxicity was much higher than that of the other substrate, X,
which is in agreement with previous cell-free experiments that showed that NADH is a
much weaker substrate than X for the bovine milk XO used here. Blocking the site of X
binding on XO prevented X / XO toxicity, but did not prevent NADH / XO toxicity. On
the other hand, blocking the site of NADH binding prevented both X / XO and NADH
/XO toxicities. Another difference between the two systems was that deactivating either
superoxide or hydrogen peroxide (both are ROS) generated by XO prevented NADH /
XO toxicity, whereas although deactivating hydrogen peroxide prevented X / XO
toxicity, deactivating superoxide generated from this combination did not. In the NADH
/ XO system, an extracellular metal contaminant (likely contaminating XO
powder/preparation) seemed to be involved in the toxicity. The two toxicity models
were similar in the mediation of toxicity by intracellular iron ion. In X / XO toxicity,
although superoxide generated extracellularly from the combination has no role in the
toxicity, intracellularly produced superoxide seemed to play a role.

Conclusions:
1. Culturing/experimental conditions have been optimised for viability studies in
CGNs cultures.
2. The combination of NADH and XO induces damage to CGNs, where although
blocking the NADH binding site prevents this damage, blocking the X binding
site does not. It is feasible that the oxidation of NADH by some forms of XOR
(other than the one used here) that are known to be very efficient in oxidizing
NADH might produce in vivo toxicity.
3. A possibility raised by this study is that a metal (like the metal contaminant
proposed to play a role in NADH / XO toxicity in this study) might contribute to
XOR toxicity in vivo.
4. Intracellular superoxide often mediates XOR toxicity.
5. The results add support to many previous studies which suggested that
intracellular hydroxyl radical (or a similar species) is involved in XOR toxicity.