INTRODUCTION In 1956 I published a revision of a part of the genus Bactra Stephens and ventured to state that "To a diligent student of genital characters Bactra does not present any serious problems" (p. 2). Since that time I had the opportunity to examine an extensive new material; and came to the conclusion that my former statement was unduly optimistic, at least, when applied to the species of the subgenus Bactra Stephens. Contrary to my previous opinion discrimination of several of these species proves to be extremely difficult. Therefore, it seems advisable to anticipate my proposed, more definitive, world-wide revision of the entire genus Bactra by publishing the present preliminary paper, representing the latest results of my examination of the Palaearctic species of the subgenus Bactra. This study is chiefly based on the rich collection of the Zoological Institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Leningrad, but for a part also on material studied earlier from other sources. The Palaearctic representatives of the subgenus Bactra form a central furfurana group of closely related species, beside a few species which are less closely related. Most of these species are not identifiable without a minute study of the genital characters of the two sexes. It was necessary to describe these structures at some length. I tried to simplify the descriptions as much as possible by introducing some simple terms which are explained in fig. 1a. It was not easy to put slight differences into words; therefore I tried to illustrate the descriptions by as many figures as possible. Not only type specimens are


This paper presents an alternative analysis of the two Japanese existential verbs: aru and iru. By appealing to the notion of conceptualisation that pervades the cognitive linguistic literature, I demonstrate that the two verbs pattern as motion verbs, and not simply as verbs of existence and/or location. Throughout the paper, I demonstrate that the traditional opposition of inanimacy versus animacy, said to determine the use of aru versus iru, respectively, is not a reliable predictor. Instead, contextual and cognitive factors such as perceived movement/displacement potential of the sentential subject, actual expectation of movement and the relative immediacy of potential displacement, both literally and metaphorically, will be shown to be more at play than the simple dichotomy of inanimacy versus animacy. The data include acceptability judgements by native speakers of Japanese on a 20-item questionnaire. Participants' line item responses and open-ended comments reflect a consistent tendency to draw upon traditional grammatical 'rules' which explicitly place the animacy/inanimacy of the sentential subjects as the primary (if not the sole) distinguishing feature. However, as will be shown, participants also exhibit a clear orientation to the concept of motion as a key element in their selection of one form over other possible competing forms.


Thin cold-formed steel (CFS) structural members in building construction can be designed using one of several approaches: the effective-width plate buckling concept, the Direct Strength Method, or through implementation of a full finite element analysis. While a finite element analysis gives the most complete picture of member behavior, the effort involved in its use and implementation often limits its use to academic or forensic applications. Traditionally, CFS members have been designed using the effective width approach, but the development of the Direct Strength Method (DSM) represents an exciting new tool for use in determining cold-formed steel member capacity. As the steel building industry adjusts to DSM and finite strip analysis, knowledge of how members are analyzed and how strength is determined using this process is critical in giving the practicing engineer the tools to judge the appropriateness of a given computer-based solution for the actual conditions. The goal of this paper is to introduce the practicing engineer to the concepts behind finite strip analysis and show how its results are employed in determining strengths using the Direct Strength Method.


Cooperation between multiple users in a virtual environment (VE) can take place at one of three levels, but it is only at the highest level that users can simultaneously interact with the same object. This paper describes a study in a straightforward real-world task (maneuvering a large object through a restricted space) was used to investigate object manipulation by pairs of participants in a VE, and focuses on the verbal communication that took place. This communication was analyzed using both categorizing and conversation analysis techniques. Of particular note was the sheer volume of communication that took place. One third of this was instructions from one participant to another of the locomotion and manipulation movements that they should make. Another quarter was general communication that was not directly related to performance of the experimental task, and often involved explicit statements of participants' actions or requests for clarification about what was happening. Further research is required to determine the extent to which haptic and auditory feedback reduce the need for inter-participant communication in collaborative tasks.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to analyse the prevalence and factors associated with suicidal ideation among family caregivers of people with mental disorders.

BACKGROUND
Studies conducted with family caregivers of people with dementia and cancer point out a high prevalence of suicidal ideation among these subjects; however, this aspect has not yet been investigated among family caregivers of people with mental disorders.

DESIGN
This is a cross-sectional study, conducted with 537 family caregivers of patients from 16 Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS) of the 21st Health Region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

METHODS
Question 17 of the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) was used for suicidal ideation screening. The prevalence of suicidal ideation was calculated according to sociodemographic and care variables, with confidence interval estimate (95% CI). Crude and adjusted odds ratios were calculated by logistic regression. The Guidelines to Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE Statement) was adhered in this study (See File S1).

RESULTS
The prevalence of suicidal ideation found in this study for the 30 days preceding the interview was 12.5% (95% CI: 10-15). The factors associated with the outcome were lower age, lower schooling, feeling of burden, self-report of stress problem and dissatisfaction with family relationships.

CONCLUSION
The prevalence of suicidal ideation among the studied family caregivers was high and strongly associated with issues regarding care, showing the need for interventions that provide support.

RELEVANCE FOR CLINICAL PRACTICE
Nurses are a large part of the workforce of the community mental health services. The careful characterisation of the subjects who show suicidal ideation, as performed in this study, may reveal specificities capable of refining the diagnostic potential for establishment of action plans in a timely manner, avoiding possible attempts or even the consummation of suicide.


This work addresses and aims to fulfil a very clear need in teaching biosystem engineering. When introducing students to the complexity of soil processes, one of the frustrations that teachers ofen experience is the impossibility to demonstrate practically, in the lab, some of the concepts and processes discussed in class. Either the experiments take far longer than a typical laboratory session or they require access to specific equipment. To deal with this situation, it would be ideal for students to be able to do virtual experiments. The purpose of this work is to display the individual-based simulation model INDISIM-SOM, available free from a website, and to show how it can be used in experiments or as a teaching-learning instrument in the classroom. The computational model has been designed specifically for the study of soil organic matter and is based mainly on the activity conducted by two diferent prototypes of microorganisms. One option of using INDISIMSOM is as a way to introduce the individual-based model as a methodology to improve understanding of the agents involved in soil microbial system and their processes. Another option is to develop the ability to work with simulators by connecting concepts and helping students in the development of modelling competence. Virtual experiments were carried out as an example of what may be expected from using the INDISIM-SOM web simulator. Temporal evolutions of five virtual soils with diferent organic C content and proportional content in organic N, easily hidrolyzable N, nitrate and ammonia were generated and discussed.


* See Last Page for Key 2014 Review Nelson/Kamel Page 1 Reference Study Type Patients/ Events Study Objective (Purpose of Study) Study Results Study Quality 1. Leifer DM, Middleton WD, Teefey SA, Menias CO, Leahy JR. Follow-up of patients at low risk for hepatic malignancy with a characteristic hemangioma at US. Radiology. 2000; 214(1):167-172. ObservationalDx 213 patients To determine if follow-up imaging is needed in patients with low-risk of malignancy and a typical-appearing hemangioma at US. Follow-up imaging is not needed in patients with a low-risk of malignancy and a typicalappearing hemangioma at US. 3


Abstract. The goal of this research is to quantify diesel- and gasoline-powered motor vehicle emissions within the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) using on-road measurements captured by a mobile laboratory combined with positive matrix factorization (PMF) receptor modeling. During the MCMA-2006 ground-based component of the MILAGRO field campaign, the Aerodyne Mobile Laboratory (AML) measured many gaseous and particulate pollutants, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), benzene, toluene, alkylated aromatics, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetone, ammonia, particle number, fine particulate mass (PM2.5), and black carbon (BC). These serve as inputs to the receptor model, which is able to resolve three factors corresponding to gasoline engine exhaust, diesel engine exhaust, and the urban background. Using the source profiles, we calculate fuel-based emission factors for each type of exhaust. The MCMA's gasoline-powered vehicles are considerably dirtier, on average, than those in the US with respect to CO and aldehydes. Its diesel-powered vehicles have similar emission factors of NOx and higher emission factors of aldehydes, particle number, and BC. In the fleet sampled during AML driving, gasoline-powered vehicles are found to be responsible for 97% of total vehicular emissions of CO, 22% of NOx, 95–97% of each aromatic species, 72–85% of each carbonyl species, 74% of ammonia, negligible amounts of particle number, 26% of PM2.5, and 2% of BC; diesel-powered vehicles account for the balance. Because the mobile lab spent 17% of its time waiting at stoplights, the results may overemphasize idling conditions, possibly resulting in an underestimate of NOx and overestimate of CO emissions. On the other hand, estimates of the inventory that do not correctly account for emissions during idling are likely to produce bias in the opposite direction.The resulting fuel-based estimates of emissions are lower than in the official inventory for CO and NOx and higher for VOCs. For NOx, the fuel-based estimates are lower for gasoline-powered vehicles but higher for diesel-powered ones compared to the official inventory. While conclusions regarding the inventory should be interpreted with care because of the small sample size, 3.5 h of driving, the discrepancies with the official inventory agree with those reported in other studies.


Array inlining expands the concepts of object inlining to arrays. Groups of objects and arrays that reference each other are placed consecutively in memory so that their relative offsets are fixed, i.e. they are colocated. This allows memory loads to be replaced by address arithmetic, which reduces the costs of field and array accesses. We implemented this optimization for Sun Microsystems' Java HotSpot VM. The optimization is performed automatically and requires no actions on the part of the programmer.
 Arrays are frequently used for the implementation of dynamic data structures. Therefore, the length of arrays often varies, and fields referencing such arrays have to be changed whenever the array is reallocated. We present an efficient code pattern that detects these changes and allows the optimized access of such array fields. It is integrated into the array bounds check. We also claim that inlining array element objects into an array is not possible without a global data flow analysis.
 The evaluation shows that our dynamic approach can optimize frequently accessed fields with a reasonable low compilation and analysis overhead. The peak performance of SPECjvm98 is improved by 10% on average, with a maximum of 25%.


In this paper we address one of the issues raised by the Call for Papers: "Are European Commission evaluation practices giving birth to a European standardisation?" We are mainly concerned with the approach adopted by the European Commission (EC) for the evaluation of the impact of Structural Funds. The EC evaluation guidelines largely ignore the counterfactual methods that the social science community has produced to deal with issues of causal attribution. Counterfactual analysis has become the standard approach for most research institutions and international organizations over the last two decades, with the notable exception of the EC. We offer two main arguments to support the claim that the EC standard approach cannot deal satisfactorily with the estimation of impacts. First, EC evaluation guidelines widely recommend the use of impact indicators: we contend that indicators alone do not identify nor estimate any impact in a meaningful way. Only a properly conducted counterfactual analysis allows the quantification of impacts, provided that suitable data are available and some (often stringent) conditions are met. Second, we argue that the emphasis on indicators is a symptom of an overriding concern with accountability for progress toward objectives, which is different than estimation of causal impacts. We make the case for a partial shift of attention, away from measuring progress toward objectives, and in favour of learning "what works"— that is, gathering evidence on whether the Structural Funds do produce the changes they hold as objectives.


Governments do not have perfect information regarding constituent priorities and needs. This lack of knowledge opens the door for groups to lobby in order to affect the government's taxation levels. We examine the political economy of decentralized revenue-raising authority in light of social protection expenditures by constructing a theoretical model of hierarchical contests and comparing the implications of centralized with decentralized governance. Increasing information available to the government may generate additional expenditures by interest groups trying to affect government taxation decisions. We show the potential existence of a poverty trap as a result of decentralization in taxation decisions.


The paper deals with the provision of infrastructure, water and sanitation in particular, for housing development in Nepal. The management of shelter infrastructure and services with active involvement of the people for better living environment is the major area of focus. The existing condition of shelter infrastructure is first presented. Some of the recent experiences of community involvement in the provision of infrastructure and services are then critically examined. The next section points out the advantages and relevance of community based programmes. Recognising the need to fully utilise community level resources and initiatives, the paper suggests for integrating such efforts with the total infrastructure network and concludes that community actions led to be encouraged at different levels in order to facilitate infrastructure provision.


Alexander disease (AxD) is a rare, autosomal dominant neurological disorder. Three clinical subtypes are distinguished based on age at onset: infantile (0–2 years), juvenile (2–13 years), and adult (>13 years). The three forms differ in symptoms and prognosis. Rapid neurological decline with a fatal course characterizes the early-onset forms, while symptoms are milder and survival is longer in the adult forms. Currently, the sole known cause of AxD is mutations in the GFAP gene, which encodes a type III intermediate filament protein that is predominantly expressed in astrocytes. A wide spectrum of GFAP mutations comprising point mutations, small insertions, and deletions is associated with the disease. The genotype-phenotype correlation remains unclear. The considerable heterogeneity in severity of disease among individuals carrying identical mutations suggests that other genetic or environmental factors probably modify age at onset or progression of AxD. Describing new cases is therefore important for establishing reliable genotype-phenotype correlations and revealing environmental factors able to modify age at onset or progression of AxD. We report the case of a 54-year-old Caucasian woman, previously diagnosed with ovarian cancer and treated with surgery and chemotherapy, who developed dysarthria, ataxia, and spastic tetraparesis involving mainly the left side. Cerebral and spinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a peculiar tadpole-like atrophy of the brainstem. Genetic analysis of the GFAP gene detected a heterozygous mutation in exon 1 (c.219G>C), resulting in an amino acid exchange from methionine to isoleucine at codon 73 (p.M73I). The expression of this mutant in vitro affected the formation of the intermediate filament network. Thus, we have identified a new GFAP mutation in a patient with an adult form of AxD.


Abstract Context. Toe clipping is a widely used method for permanent marking of small mammals, but its effects are not well known, despite the ethical and scientific implications. Most studies do not find any clear effects, but there is some indication that toe clipping can affect survival in specific cases. Although effects on survival are arguably the most important, more subtle effects are also plausible, yet very few studies have included body condition and none has investigated effects on mobility. Aims. We analysed the effects of toe clipping on free-living Mastomys natalensis, a common, morphologically and behaviourally intermediate small rodent. Methods. Using a 17-year capture–mark–recapture dataset, we compared movement, body weight and survival between newly and previously clipped animals, and tested whether any of these parameters correlated with the number of clipped toes. Key results. No evidence for a correlation between total number of clips and any of the variables was found. Newly clipped animals had a slightly smaller weight change and larger travel distance than did those that were already clipped, and we show that this is most likely due to stress caused by being captured, clipped and handled for the first time rather than to the actual clipping. Conclusions. The combination of trapping, handling and marking has a detectable effect on multimammate mice; however, there is no evidence for a clear effect of toe clipping. Implications. Our study suggests a re-evaluation of ethical guidelines on small-mammal experiments, so as to reach a rational, fact-based decision on which marking method to use.


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Microencapsulation of recombinant "universal" cells with immunoprotective membranes is an alternate approach to somatic gene therapy. Therapeutic gene products secreted by these cells can be delivered to different patients without immunosuppression or genetic modification of the host's cells. The encapsulation of different mammalian cell types (epithelial cells, fibroblasts, and myoblasts) is compared among three alginate-based microcapsules: (1) calcium-linked alginate microcapsules with a solubilized core and a poly-L-lysine-alginate-laminated surface; (2) barium-linked alginate beads with a gelled core; and (3) a hybrid formulation of barium-linked alginate beads with a poly-L-lysine-alginate-laminated surface. The mechanical stability of the different microcapsule types, as measured with a cone-and-plate shearing apparatus, was superior in the two barium-linked alginate beads. All cell types maintained high viability (65-90%) in culture after encapsulation. The recombinant gene products secreted by these cells (human growth hormone MW = 22,000, human factor IX MW = 57,000, and murine beta-glucuronidase MW = 300,000) were able to traverse the three microcapsule types at similar rates. Cell numbers within the microcapsules increased twofold to > 20-fold over 4 weeks, depending on the cell type. Epithelial and myoblast cell numbers were not affected by microcapsule formulation; however, fibroblasts proliferated the most in the calcium-linked alginate spheres. These results show that for culturing fibroblasts in a mechanically stable environment the classical calcium-linked microcapsules are adequate. However, where mechanical stability is a more critical requirement, the solid barium-linked gelled beads are more appropriate choices.


Facing the consequence of a decision we made can trigger emotions like satisfaction, relief, or regret, which reflect our assessment of what was gained as compared to what would have been gained by making a different decision. These emotions are mediated by a cognitive process known as counterfactual thinking. By manipulating a simple gambling task, we characterized a subject's choices in terms of their anticipated and actual emotional impact. Normal subjects reported emotional responses consistent with counterfactual thinking; they chose to minimize future regret and learned from their emotional experience. Patients with orbitofrontal cortical lesions, however, did not report regret or anticipate negative consequences of their choices. The orbitofrontal cortex has a fundamental role in mediating the experience of regret.


Hardware Realization of Chaos Based Symmetric Image Encryption Mohamed L. Barakat This thesis presents a novel work on hardware realization of symmetric image encryption utilizing chaos based continuous systems as pseudo random number generators. Digital implementation of chaotic systems results in serious degradations in the dynamics of the system. Such defects are illuminated through a new technique of generalized post proceeding with very low hardware cost. The thesis further discusses two encryption algorithms designed and implemented as a block cipher and a stream cipher. The security of both systems is thoroughly analyzed and the performance is compared with other reported systems showing a superior results. Both systems are realized on Xilinx Vetrix-4 FPGA with a hardware and throughput performance surpassing known encryption systems.


Presented at the Fall 2012 Center for Collaborative Conservation (http://www.collaborativeconservation.org/) Seminar and Discussion Series, "Power and Ethics in (Collaborative) Conservation", November 6, 2012, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. This series focused on the work that the CCC's Collaborative Conservation Fellows have been doing across the Western U.S. and around the world.


Abstract The cedi is Ghana's official currency which was introduced on July 19, 1965. The loss in the value of the cedi since its introduction cannot be overestimated. Owing to the low values of the notes and coins(due to persistent loss in value), huge quantities had to be printed and minted resulting in huge cost to the central bank. Meanwhile commercial banks were facing high cash based transaction cost because relatively large quantities of notes were needed for transactions. There was also high risk involved in cash based transaction to the banks and their clients. Bank customers were becoming more uncomfortable carrying huge quantities of cash to and from the banks. These customers also had to spend more time at the banking halls to get served. These and other factors reduced the interest and confidence of the general public in the financial sector affecting banking businesses. The re denomination of the cedi was done in 2007, to deal with these 'huge dead-weight burden' on the banks and the entire economy of Ghana. The objective of this study is to explore its impact on some variables affecting commercial banking businesses. These are cost, operational risk, deposit mobilization, ATM operations, and reliability and convenience of banking services. A pluralistic approach was adopted for this research and the results of both the quantitative and qualitative study done in analyzing my hypothesis reaffirmed each other and provided valuable findings and deeper understanding of the impact of the re denomination on the business of the financial institutions. The main findings showed the following: 1) The re denomination had not affected costs in banks, 2) The re denomination has generally reduced operational loss risks, 3) The re denomination has generally improved deposit mobilization, 4) The re denomination has improved the reliability and profitability of ATM s, 5) The re denomination has improved the reliability and convenience of banking services. With this study I hope to provide new insights on how re denomination affects the business of financial institutions who are key partners to the central banks in the successful implementation of such exercise. I also hope to provide valuable recommendations on how banks can deal with the challenges that may be presented by a re denomination


Mr. C. Hoogerheide, who was stationed at the Netherlands Naval Air Base at Biak Island between July 1953 and December 1954, brought together a small collection of birds, which was sent to the Leiden Museum. It is worth while to put on record those species, which have not been collected before on this island and to give remarks on a few other species. An excellent review of the avifauna of Biak Island is given by Mayr and De Schauensee (1939). Fregata ariel ariel (Gray) A ♂ imm. and a ♀ imm. have been collected by Mr. F. Heuberger at sea near the south coast of Soepiori between Korrido and the kampong Soek on July 26, 1952. Through the intermediary of Dr. L. D. Brongersma the specimens were presented to the Leiden Museum. Near this island the species has been collected before only by Beccari on May 8, 1875. Mayr and De Schauensee (1939, p. 14) already pointed out that the specimen must have belonged to ariel and not to minor as Salvadori (1882, p. 405) stated. It may be added that in the Leiden Museum there are no specimens of minor from the New Guinea region. The measurements of the 2 specimens are: wing 530, 553; middle tail feathers 190, 185; outer tail feathers 308, 330; culmen 88, 88; bill from gape 107, 106; tarsus 25, 22 mm. Aviceda subcristata obscura nov. subspec. Mr. Hoogerheide collected 5 specimens on the south coast of Biak. Moreover the Leiden Museum possesses a specimen collected by Von Rosenberg at Biak on March 25, 1869. Particulars of the specimens follow here: Sex Date Wing Tail Culmen from cere Tarsus ♂ 22- 8-1953 289 168 20 32


The latest edition of Freedom in the World finds that countries suffering declines in political rights and civil liberties outnumbered those with gains for an 11th consecutive year in 2016. Populist and nationalist political forces made astonishing gains in democratic states, while authoritarian powers engaged in brazen acts of aggression, and grave atrocities went unanswered in war zones across two continents. These developments point to a growing danger that the current international order will give way to a world in which leaders and nations pursue their own narrow interests without regard for the shared benefits of global peace and freedom.


Sade's evil influence on Lord Byron haunts the margins of Byronic criticism. In this article I resuscitate the marginalized Marquis by tracing Byron's influence on another son of Sade, the pseudo-Comte de Lautreamont. If Sade's forever violated heroine Justine forms a hopelessly contradictory representation of Byron's desire for in-nocence (or non-noxiousness) in the name of himself, his illicit affair with his half-sister Augusta, and his interminably complex rapport to other feminine, homosocial, and homosexual objects of desire, how does this clandestine influence estrange a user-friendly Byron from our comfortable stereotype of the poet as wholly different from that other aristocrat? An examination of Sade alongside Lautreamont's Sadean strain in Maldoror replaces le mal at the core of Byron's life-writing, thereby foregrounding his lordship's attempt to evade the practical consequences of evil in his own work. Since Sade is also influential on contemporary criticism via poststructuralism or La Pensee 68, I work through the case of Foucault in order to show how this Sadean order of things is responsible for the tendency to evade confronting the ephemeral or merely literary status of "evil" in the nineteenth century (and beyond).


A shareholder's withdrawal from a small and medium sized enterprise (SME)
can significantly impact the financial stability of the company. This may be
because the legislator has not provided precise legal specification of how to
determine indemnity, or that the compensation regulations implemented in the
articles of association do not comply with existing legislative frameworks.
The aim of this study is to identify the most suitable valuation method for
indemnity determination when taking into account the particular, qualitative
characteristics of SMEs and to develop a severance agreement for indemnity
regulation that considers the interests of all shareholders, increases clarity
and meets the statutory requirements.
Previous studies regarding valuation, the characteristics of SMEs and
indemnity determination have addressed indemnity regulation from either a
legal or business administration perspective. This research however
investigates the topic holistically by employing an inductive and qualitative
approach through semi-structured
one-to-one
interviews with experts from
different but apposite professions. It then offers an indemnity regulation
framework that is consistent with current business research and legal
boundaries. This research is hence interdisciplinary, i.e. it takes into account
the most suitable valuation methods for SMEs, the interests of their
shareholders in cases of retirement and the statutory provision by examining current court decisions.
The outcomes contribute to theory and give practical recommendations to
SME owners and consultants to enhance the fairness and transparency of the
retirement process and reduce the probability of legal disputes. The study
demonstrates that SME characteristics should be considered in valuation and
consequently when determining the indemnity of the outgoing owner.
Furthermore, the outcomes suggest that indemnity regulation is advisable and
should be implemented in the articles of association. In cases where
compensation regulation exists, a revision is recommended due to the potential
unethicality in current statutes.


A rational procedure for characterization of water depths for a random sea state is developed, in context with linearized wave theory. The importance of using the expressions for 'intermediate water depths' is established. Numerical algorithms for horizontal and vertical propagation of kinematics are developed. A variety of techniques, involving both digital and analog filters, are used. The filter coefficients are obtained as functions of the propagation distance which is normalized by the local water depth. This procedure is proposed as an alternative to the conventional method of simulation which involves superposition of harmonics with random phases.


The purpose of this paper is to show how the colour and personality contained in texts can be derived and analysed. This colour and personality indicates something important about the respondents' thinking which is lost using normal analytical techniques. The method used to extract the meaningful words was largely intuitive. That is, I selected the words which seemed to me to indicate something about the thoughts of the respondents and provide colour and personality to the text. These words show how the subject under discussion is seen by the respondent. I would suggest that the method described in this paper is of great value since it allows us to understand better the responses of our respondents. It puts the "person" back into the analysis, showing that the respondents are real people not simply abstract figures.


This study explores the use of the progressive in spoken Ugandan English.Like in many other second language varieties of English, the progressive isused with a high frequency, predominantly in the present or past tense active.Detailed analyses show that the most frequent uses of the progressive inUgandan English are reference to non-delimited habitual activities, expressionof an interpretative semantics and reference to activities in progress. The first,extended, use occurs considerably more often with speakers who have Lugandaas their first language than with speakers of Acholi-Lango and Runyankole-Rukiga. The results indicate considerable substrate influence, suggesting, aboveall, that Uganda is home to various Englishes.


The tiny contribution of cadmium (Cd) to the composition of the earth's crust contrasts with its high biological significance, owing mainly to the competition of Cd with the essential zinc (Zn) for suitable metal binding sites in proteins. In this context it was speculated that in several animal lineages, the protein family of metallothioneins (MTs) has evolved to specifically detoxify Cd. Although the multi-functionality and heterometallic composition of MTs in most animal species does not support such an assumption, there are some exceptions to this role, particularly in animal lineages at the roots of animal evolution. In order to substantiate this hypothesis and to further understand MT evolution, we have studied MTs of different snails that exhibit clear Cd-binding preferences in a lineage-specific manner. By applying a metallomics approach including 74 MT sequences from 47 gastropod species, and by combining phylogenomic methods with molecular, biochemical, and spectroscopic techniques, we show that Cd selectivity of snail MTs has resulted from convergent evolution of metal-binding domains that significantly differ in their primary structure. We also demonstrate how their Cd selectivity and specificity has been optimized by the persistent impact of Cd through 430 million years of MT evolution, modifying them upon lineage-specific adaptation of snails to different habitats. Overall, our results support the role of Cd for MT evolution in snails, and provide an interesting example of a vestigial abiotic factor directly driving gene evolution. Finally, we discuss the potential implications of our findings for studies devoted to the understanding of mechanisms leading to metal specificity in proteins, which is important when designing metal-selective peptides.


In this work a novel pulse width modulation (PWM) scheme is presented consisting of a mixed digital-analog implementation. The aim of this approach is to obtain maximum flexibility in setting and varying the average switching frequency, as a method to optimally deal with specifications concerning power consumption and bandwidth management. Conventional analog implementations of PWM suffer from inaccuracy due to circuit-level parameters deviation and bandwidth limitations, whereas digital implementations are subject to restrictions imposed by time quantization. Conversely, our mixed approach accurately reproduces the theoretical, natural sampling PWM output without directly comparing the modulating signal to a piecewise-linear carrier, either in the analog or the digital domain. Instead, the proposed design compares suitably pre-distorted versions of both the carrier and the modulating signals, so that their crossing points are not altered. The resulting bandwidths are relatively small to allow a non-aliased discrete-time synthesis. After digital-to-analog conversion, the PWM signal is finally obtained by a simple comparator. We support the proposed design by measuring the PWM spectrum as synthesized by a proof-of-concept prototype.


Objective To determine whether retail stores selling electronic smoking devices or liquid nicotine were compliant with North Dakota's smoke-free law. Methods During June 2015, retail stores selling electronic smoking devices or liquid nicotine (n=16), but not legally required to be licensed to sell tobacco products, were assessed for compliance with North Dakota's smoke-free law by observing for smoking or e-smoking, or evidence of such, in prohibited areas and for the presence of required no-smoking signs. Results Use of e-cigarettes, or evidence of use, was observed inside 8 (50%) stores required to be smoke-free. On the basis of all indicators of compliance assessed, compliance with the state's smoke-free law was low, with only 6% and 44% of stores compliant with all indoor and outdoor requirements, respectively. Conclusions To the best of our knowledge, this is the first U.S. study assessing retail stores selling electronic smoking devices or liquid nicotine for compliance with the smoke-free law. The use of e-cigarettes, or evidence of use, occurred in the stores where it is prohibited by law. Overall compliance with the smoke-free law was low. These stores should be licensed by the state, as are other tobacco retailers, because this may assist in education, enforcement and compliance with the law and increase public health protection.


The study of models, and related concepts such as metamodels, is largely situated within the software engineering community under the banner of model-driven development. Yet these concepts have some obvious parallels with concepts developed within the artificial intelligence community under the banners of ontologies and the semantic web. Although a considerable amount of work has been done that aims to relate the development of ontologies to the model-driven development of software, the place of bidirectional transformations within these connected worlds is (almost) unstudied. Yet, experts in the study of ontologies have experienced the need to check and restore consistency, and have developed techniques, terminology and tools that relate to these tasks. In this paper we provide a high-level introduction to the work that has been done, aiming to promote further study and perhaps collaboration between these communities.


As the next generation of college students prepare to embark on institutions of higher education, colleges and universities are faced with significant budget cuts and state expectations for increased fiscal efficiencies and student graduation rates. A greater emphasis is being placed on improving methods for attracting new students and retaining those who are already enrolled. Institutions should examine characteristics of each phase of the process, including input, in process and output, in order to better attract and equip students to meet employer expectations. With these objectives in mind, this article examines current research on the characteristics of "Generation Z"—defined as individuals born between 1996 and 2012—as well as the employers' expectations of these technologically astute PostMillennials. A model and recommendations are proposed to aid higher education efforts in attracting, preparing and retaining students for their future careers.


The paper introduces a method, called the albedo pumping-up, to derive new, physically plausible BRDFs from an existing one or from any symmetric function. This operation can be applied recursively arbitrary number of times. An important application of this operation is the transformation of the Phong and Blinn models in order to make them produce metallic e ects. The paper also examines the albedo function of re ectance models and comes to the conclusion that widely used models violate energy balance at grazing angles.


1. The formation of thromboxane B 2 and malondialdehyde was studied in human platelet-rich plasma, in gel-filtered platelets and in bovine platelet microsomes. 2. Exogenous sodium arachidonate was converted into thromboxane B 2 and malondialdehyde in a concentration-dependent manner. Pre-incubation of platelets with aspirin inhibited the production of both thromboxane B 2 and malondialdehyde, although malondialdehyde could apparently be detected in the absence of thromboxane B 2 . 3. The aggregating agents, thrombin, collagen and the ionophore A23187 also caused production of thromboxane B 2 and malondialdehyde. ADP and adrenaline produced a smaller rise whilst the endoperoxide analogue U 46619 had only a slight influence on thromboxane and malondialdehyde, even though they all induced aggregation. 4. Pre-incubation of platelets with imidazole or 1- N -butylimidazole, which inhibit thromboxane synthetase, resulted in an inhibition of both thromboxane B 2 and malondialdehyde formation in response to collagen. 5. The results indicate that thromboxane B 2 and malondialdehyde are formed in parallel, in comparable quantities. However, under the conditions used in these studies, the apparent amounts of malondialdehyde exceed those of thromboxane B 2 , especially in the presence of exogenous arachidonate. Thus the thiobarbiturate reaction used to assay malondialdehyde may detect other products of lipid peroxidation. 6. Platelet thromboxane B 2 concentrations did not always relate to the extent of aggregation. In particular, platelet aggregation could occur in the absence of detectable thromboxane B 2 production.


In the field of bioelectronics various electronic materials and devices are used in combination with biological systems in order to create novel applications within cell biology and medicine. A famous example of a successful bioelectronics application is the pacemaker. Metals are the most common electrical conductors, whereas polymers are generally considered being insulators. However, in the late 1970s it was shown that a special class of polymers with conjugated double bonds, could in fact, after some chemical modifications, conduct electricity. This was the start of the research field known as conducting polymers, and then later on organic electronics, a research area that has grown rapidly during the last decades. Conjugated polymers are also suitable to interact and interface with cells and tissues, as they are generally soft, flexible and biocompatible. In addition, their chemical properties can be tailor-made through synthesis to fit biological requirements and functions. During the last years applications using organic bioelectronics have become numerous.This thesis describes applications based on different conjugated polymers aiming to stimulate and control cell cultures. When culturing cells it is of interest to be able to control events such as adhesion, spreading, proliferation, differentiation and detachment. First, the impact of different polymer compositions and redox states on the adhesion of bacteria and subsequent biofilm formation was investigated. Similar polymer electrodes were also used to steer differentiation of neural stem cells, through changes in the surface exposure of a relevant biomolecule. Controlled delivery of molecules was achieved by coating nanoporous membranes with polymers that swell and contract when changing the redox state. Finally, electronic control over cell detachment using a water-soluble polymer was achieved. When applying a positive potential to this polymer, it swells, cracks and finally detaches, taking the cells that was cultured on top along with it. Together, the work and results presented in this thesis demonstrate a versatile conjugated polymer technology to achieve electronic control of the different growth stages of cell cultures as well as cellular functions.


Abstract. General circulation model (GCM) evaluation using ground-based observations
is complicated by inconsistencies in hydrometeor and phase definitions. Here
we describe (GO)2-SIM, a forward simulator designed for objective
hydrometeor-phase evaluation, and assess its performance over the North
Slope of Alaska using a 1-year GCM simulation. For uncertainty assessment,
18 empirical relationships are used to convert model grid-average
hydrometeor (liquid and ice, cloud, and precipitation) water contents to
zenith polarimetric micropulse lidar and Ka-band Doppler radar measurements,
producing an ensemble of 576 forward-simulation realizations. Sensor
limitations are represented in forward space to objectively remove from
consideration model grid cells with undetectable hydrometeor mixing ratios,
some of which may correspond to numerical noise. Phase classification in forward space is complicated by the inability of
sensors to measure ice and liquid signals distinctly. However, signatures
exist in lidar–radar space such that thresholds on observables can be
objectively estimated and related to hydrometeor phase. The
proposed phase-classification technique leads to misclassification in fewer than 8 % of
hydrometeor-containing grid cells. Such misclassifications arise because,
while the radar is capable of detecting mixed-phase conditions, it can
mistake water- for ice-dominated layers. However, applying the same
classification algorithm to forward-simulated and observed fields should
generate hydrometeor-phase statistics with similar uncertainty.
Alternatively, choosing to disregard how sensors define hydrometeor phase
leads to frequency of occurrence discrepancies of up to 40 %. So, while
hydrometeor-phase maps determined in forward space are very different from
model "reality" they capture the information sensors can provide and
thereby enable objective model evaluation.


In the course of this thesis different methods to generate superabsorbents with core/shell structure were employed. These systems were expected to exhibit improved absorbent capabilities in water and in an aqueous saline solution (compared to conventional superabsorbents).
By encapsulating uncrosslinked hydrophilic polymers (guar, sodium polyacrylate) with different shell materials (polycyanoacrylate, polyvinylbutyral, crosslinked polyacrylate) it was impossible to generate stable swellable core/shell systems.
By embedding sodium chloride into crosslinked sodium polyacrylate so-called osmotic superabsorbents were synthesized. These systems were capable of taking up water not only in form of a swollen polyacrylate gel, but (as a consequence of the osmotic effect of the embedded salt) also in form of an aqueous saline solution in the interior of the particles.
Furthermore, by embedding hollow glass spheres into crosslinked sodium polyacrylate superabsorbents were obtained which could take up additional free water between the glass spheres and the polyacrylate matrix.
For characterization of the synthesized superabsorbents swelling measurements and NMR spectroscopic investigations were performed.


Sustainability of concrete construction necessitates exploring potential renewable resource, especially from industrial waste products. Electric arc furnace dust (EAFD), a by-product of the modern electric arc furnace (EAF) process from the steel manufacturing industry has an adverse impact on the environment. Utilizing EAFD in concrete production as a cement replacement material together with silica fume (SF) and fly ash (FA) has raised the interest of many researchers.  This study investigates the use optimum 5% EAFD content refers to both 15% SF and 20% FA in water binder ratio of 0.5 and sand to cement ratio of 2. The aim of this study is to obtain the percentage replacement levels of EAFD that are equivalent to the SF and FA regarding workability, setting time, compressive strength and resistance to rapid chloride permeability. The compressive strength results showed that replacement of 5% SF and 15% FA are the equivalent replacement levels to 3% EAFD. Similarly, results from resistance to rapid chloride permeability showed that the optimum EAFD content performed better than the replacement levels of FA.  However, SF replacement levels showed the best resistance to rapid chloride permeability. Therefore, 3% replacement of EAFD provided an intermediate performance between the optimum SF and FA contents and exceeded that of the control.


Haptic displays serve great importance in creating the immersiveness sense that block virtual reality (VR) users from the contradictory impressions from the real world. We introduce the general structure of virtual reality systems. It reports common approaches in constructing different virtual scenarios and the way they are utilised. We integrate a motion platform with an application program interface (API) based virtual environment authoriser to provide force feedback for simulating inertia related applications such as virtual gliding, driving, and snowboarding.


Web-based Information Systems (WIS) are used for diffusing and processing information over the Internet. Because of the large amounts of information they manage, it is crucial to adapt the delivered information to users and to give them a progressive access to information. For this purpose, we propose to stratify the Information Space of a WIS by decomposing it into personalized subInformation Spaces. Multimedia data can also be stratified into multiple formats used for their presentation. These stratifications are described through a Progressive Access Model (PAM) written in UML. In order to personalize the progressive access, the PAM is linked to both the data model of the application domain and to a Generic User Model describing the rights and preferences of users. We also show that, based on these stratifications, navigation mechanisms allow users to access first some minimum and essential information, and then larger and/or smaller personalized Information Spaces.


Polyamines induce the transport in vitro of the precursor of ornithine transcarbamylase (pOTC) into isolated rat liver mitochondria by facilitating its functional binding to these organelles. Comparative studies of the effect on the in vitro transport of pOTC of polyamine derivatives and related compounds have allowed us to establish that: (i) at least two protonated amino groups per molecule are necessary to induce the pOTC transport; (ii) a distance of three -CH2- groups between the amino groups in diamines is enough to induce this effect, although no differences were observed with diamines having distances of three to eight -CH2- groups. Longer distances resulted in a marked decrease of the effect.


This paper argue that there is a strong and undeniable link between gestalt psychology and the teaching of art and design in the early part of the twentieth century, specifically the work of Gyorgy Kepes in the Language of Vision. It maintains that gestalt is a complex discipline with diverse philosophical, scientific and social orientations. Gestalt psychology emerges at an exciting historical moment, when a diverse range of voices, interests and disciplines collide. The work of Gyorgy Kepes can be usefully re-read in the context of this collision, whereby gestalt can take many turns: scientific, humanistic, mechanistic and therapeutic.

The diverse individuals, institutions and ideas - discussed under the nomenclature of gestalt - are linked by a shared interest in experiments with perception and making direct observations from human experience. In spite of these connections, however, gestalt has been consistently characterised - within the field of graphic design history and theory - as a unitary science with abstract and unchanging laws. This paper demonstrates that such a reading of gestalt is grossly oversimplified; it is an interpretation that is predicated on the practice of taking gestalt theory out of its original (and ongoing) contexts. As Roy Behrens and Mitchell G. Ash have shown, gestalt is a populated and variegated theory, one that has humanistic, as well as experimental aspects. This paper adds to this reappraisal of gestalt by re-visiting and re-reading the texts of its early pioneers, specifically those by Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka. Their work demonstrates a strong interest in social, historical and therapeutic relations, in a way that overturns the dominant reading of gestalt as an "autonomous" scientific theory. As the work of Gyorgy Kepes further reveals, Gestalt is about people (not just forms) and human tendencies (not just spontaneous brain functions), if only it were reinterpreted in this way.


In this paper, a power quality (PQ) knowledge discovery and modeling framework has been developed for both temporal and spatial PQ event data collected from transformer substations supplying iron and steel (I&S) plants. PQ event characteristics of various I&S plants have been obtained based on clustering and rule discovery techniques. The data are collected by the PQ analyzers, which detect the voltage sags, swells, and interruptions according to the IEC Standard 61000-4-30. The constructed clustering strategy ensures feasible system monitoring by reducing unmanageable number of PQ events collected by the distributed PQ measurement systems into event clusters count. An abstraction for event representation has been developed, through which representative feature bags are constructed for each event to be used in the similarity decisions. The developed model has been applied satisfactorily to PQ event data obtained from 15 major transformer substations supplying heavy industry zones of the transmission system up to a five-year time period and from two additional transformer substations supplying some other industrial zones, for comparison purposes. The developed PQ data mining framework, which is used to identify PQ event distributions based on the event descriptions given in the IEEE Std. 1159, provides a useful analysis and evaluation infrastructure for taking countermeasures against the most probable event occurrences, specific to those feeders of I&S plant transformer substations.


This thesis is concerned with the Schrodinger representation of quantum field theory. We describe techniques for solving the Schrodinger equation which supplement the standard techniques of field theory. Our aim is to develop these to the point where they can readily be used to address problems of current interest. To this end, we study realistic models such as gauge theories coupled to dynamical fermions. For maximal generality we consider particles of all physical spins, in various dimensions, and eventually, curved spacetimes. We begin by considering Gaussian fields, and proceed to a detailed study of the Schwinger model, which is, amongst other things, a useful model for (3+1) dimensional gauge theory. One of the most important developments of recent years is a conjecture by Mal-dacena which relates supergravity and string/M-theory on anti-de-Sitter spacetimes to conformal field theories on their boundaries. This correspondence has a natural interpretation in the Schrodinger representation, so we solve the Schrodinger equation for fields of arbitrary spin in anti-de-Sitter spacetimes, and use this to investigate the conjectured correspondence. Our main result is to calculate the Weyl anomalies arising from supergravity fields, which, summed over the supermultiplets of type JIB supergravity compactified on AdS(_s) x S(^5) correctly matches the anomaly calculated in the conjecturally dual N = 4 SU{N) super-Yang-Mills theory. This is one of the few existing pieces of evidence for Maldacena's conjecture beyond leading order in TV.


What Does it Mean to Be Saved? Broadening Evangelical Horizons of Salvation. Edited by John G. Stackhouse, Jr. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic Press, 2002. 198 pp. $17.99 (paper). If evangelicals are anything, they are gospel people because of gospel theology. The gospel is Gods plan in Jesus Christ for the salvation of his people in a recreated cosmos. Problems arise, however, when evangelicals and evangelical theology limit the gospel's view of salvation. This collection of essays, edited by John Stackhouse, argues that contemporary evangelicalism has done just this. We have a deficient eschatology, understanding of our humanity or creatureliness, and the holistic purposes of God. Accordingly, the contributors plead (to use the title s analogy) for evangelicals to broaden their view of salvation to see the breadth, depth, and majesty of God's salvation. The collection begins with some reconsiderations of the theology of salvation. Rikki Watts s recapitulation of his impressive Isaiah's New Exodus ana Mark views the "big picture" of salvation through an exegetical lens, aided further by the lens of biblical theology. Bruce Hindmarsh offers a fascinating historical study of John Wesley's teaching on salvation-one that, according to Hindmarsh, was more comprehensive than today's evangelical theology. Henri Blocher's outstanding study on the atonement as vicarious and penal is worth the price of the book alone as he rebuts Gustaf Aulen's widely held view of the atonement. Surely, at the heart of salvation is the cross of Christ; but, regrettably, how easy it is for evangelicals to reduce the meaning and significance of Christ's death by minimizing substitutionary atonement. The remaining articles form the second part of the book. Each of the articles in this section attempt to expand particular zones within an evangelical view of salvation: Vincent Bamcote on a soteriology and pneumatology that necessitate, for example, racial reconciliation; Cherith Fee Nordling on Christology as the model for the new humanity; Amy Sherman on salvation associated with God's promised place (symbolized in the New City) for his saved people; and Loren Wilkinson on the necessity for Christians to see biblical salvation as the true response to paganism's misguided but legitimate quest. There are particular strengths to this collection. First, Watts's essay is a model of careful biblical theology. One might wish for a clearer treatment of the atonement from Watts than he presents in his essay when he pushes the picture of salvation as the exodus and Christ as the true image-bearer. Whatever is missing from Watts's essay is more than redressed by Blocher's essay on the atonement. Equally, Sherman's study of the New City as the locus of God's eschatological salvation reveals a biblical theology that can be preached. In fact, Sherman is to be congratulated for incorporating material from notable evangelical preachers like Tim Keller and John Piper-showing that evangelical scholarship and evangelical pulpits can and must work together if todays evangelicals are to gain (or, as Hindmarsh would put it, regain) a comprehensive view of salvation. …


Visualizing and manipulating volumetric data is a major component in many areas including anatomical registration in biomedical fields, seismic data analysis in the oil industry, machine part design in computer-aided geometric design, character animation in the movie industry, and fluid simulation. These industries have to meet the demands of the times and be able to make meaningful assertions about the data they generate. The shear size of this data presents many challenges to facilitating realtime interaction. In the recent decade, graphics hardware has become increasingly powerful and more sophisticated which has introduced a new realm of possibilities for processing volumetric data.
This thesis focuses on a suite of techniques for viewing and editing volumetric data that efficiently use the processing power of central processing units (CPUs) as well as the large processing power of the graphics hardware (GPUs). This work begins with an algorithm to improve the efficiency of a texture-based volume rendering. We continue with a framework for performing realtime constructive solid geometry (CSG) with complex shapes and smoothing operations on watertight meshes based on a variation of Depth Peeling. We then move to an intuitive technique for deforming volumetric data using a collection of control points. Finally, we apply this technique to image registration of 3-dimensional computed tomography (CT) images used for lung cancel treatment, planning.


A persulfate chemical wet oxidation (CWO) method for the determination of particulate phosphorus (PP) was improved and then compared with a conventional high‐temperature dry combustion (HTDC) method. In the improved CWO method, the concentration of the digestion reagent, potassium persulfate, was increased from 0.5% to 3% (w/v); the method exhibited high recoveries of P from various test materials under commonly used autoclave conditions (at 120°C for 30 min). The recoveries of P relative to those of the HTDC method were 102 ± 6.7% from standard organic and inorganic P compounds, and 100 ± 3.8% from natural particulate matter analogues including riverine suspended particulate matter (SPM), sediments, plankton, and geochemical reference materials of rock. However, low recoveries of 14% to 69% were observed for reference samples of clay minerals. Comparison using many samples of estuarine and pelagic SPM showed that the CWO method produced PP values consistent with those obtained by the HTDC method, except for some estuarine samples enriched in inorganic matter. The low recoveries were ascribed to the presence of an inorganic P fraction highly recalcitrant to chemical digestion. The procedural blank was lower for the CWO method than for the HTDC method. The filter blanks showed large variation among the filter materials tested; aluminum oxide membrane filters were shown to contain a considerable amount of P that could cause significant contamination in both methods. Analytical precision was equivalent between the two methods. Considering its simplicity and its less time‐consuming nature, the CWO method presented here is suitable for PP determination in aquatic environments.


Background:  Business rescue, in terms of Chapter 6 of the Companies Act No 71 of 2008, is still relatively new to the South African business environment. The need for a successful business rescue regime is beyond doubt. However, a consistent manner to measure the success of the regime has not been determined. Previous research into possible indicators of business rescue success was based on a review of international business rescue regimes that share the same underlying philosophy as the South African business rescue regime. Aim and Setting:  This study extends previous research efforts by soliciting the opinions of 16 South African, senior business rescue practitioners on the indicators of business rescue success. Method:  The researchers used a qualitative research approach. The Delphi research technique was used to gather qualitative and quantitative empirical data from business rescue practitioners. Results:  The experts reached a high level of consensus on various indicators of a successful business rescue. Most notable are that business rescue should save as many jobs as possible and that the actual outcome should be compared to that estimated in the business rescue plan. A novel indicator of success is the business rescue points saved or rescued, when using the public interest score. Conclusion:  The study makes a valuable contribution to the debate on what constitutes a successful business rescue by adding the considered opinion on indicators of success by one group of experts in the field of business rescue, namely senior business rescue practitioners.


Logistics is becoming a critical element of competitiveness and economic performance both in itself and within the context of increasing globalization. Most Latin American and Caribbean countries are focusing on export-led growth strategies. For such strategies to succeed, a key component is an effective and efficient logistics framework that addresses the full spectrum-upstream, midstream, and downstream-of the value and production chain. This report illustrates the relevance and impact of logistics for competitiveness in the region and provides a framework, priorities, interventions, and solutions to address the issues. This paper was presented at the Fifth Americas Competiveness Forum for the Inter-American Development Bank and Compete Caribbean Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, October 5-7, 2011.


To leverage modern hardware platforms to their fullest, more and more database systems embrace compilation of query plans to native code. In the research community, there is an ongoing debate about the best way to architect such query compilers. This is perceived to be a difficult task, requiring techniques fundamentally different from traditional interpreted query execution. In this dissertation, we contribute to this discussion by drawing attention to an old but underappreciated idea known as Futamura projections, which fundamentally link interpreters and compilers. Guided by this idea, we demonstrate that efficient query compilation can actually be very simple, using techniques that are no more difficult than writing a query interpreter in a high-level language. We first develop LB2: a high-level query compiler implemented in this style that is competitive with the best compiled query engines both in sequential and parallel execution on the standard TPC-H benchmark. Query engines process a variety of data types and structures including text, spatial, graphs, etc. Several spatial and graph engines are implemented as extensions to relational query engines to leverage optimized memory, storage, and evaluation. Still, the performance of these extensions is often stymied by the interpretive nature of the underlying data management, generic data structures, and the need to execute domain-specific external libraries. On that basis, compiling spatial and graph queries to native code is a desirable avenue to mitigate existing limitations and improve performance. To support compiling spatial queries, we extend the LB2 main-memory query compiler with spatial predicates, indexing structures, and spatial operators. To support compiling graph queries, we extend LB2 with graph data structures and operators. The spatial extension matches the performance of hand-written code and outperforms relational query engines and map-reduce extensions. Similarly, the graph extension matches, and sometimes outperforms, low-level graph engines.


While peacebuilding dialogue would normally take place face to face, restrictions in ensuring a safe space and travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the geographical dispersion of participants necessitated the move towards an online platform to avoid its collapse. The shift towards online platforms has presented new opportunities and challenges to peacebuilding – both official and unofficial. Online peacebuilding dialogue is cheaper, quicker, and easier to organise than face-to-face meetings. These advantages have allowed for the inclusion of wider and typically marginalised groups. Online tools have also made it simpler and indeed possible for those groups to join peace talks from their homes allowing a wide geographical coverage of participants. Despite these advantages, there are challenges to whether Online Peacebuilding Dialogue can replace in-person dialogue. Furthermore, the shift has presented facilitation challenges to peacebuilders due to the increased number of participants and the nature of online dialogue. Moreover, online tools can amplify existing marginalisation leading to dialogue domination by certain classes. This paper aims to understand the challenges and opportunities arising from this shift to conducting dialogue and peace talks – both formal and informal – to online platforms due to the spread of COVID-19. The paper concludes by proposing a set of facilitation recommendations to those organising and facilitating peacebuilding dialogue to ensure the successful creation of a safe online communicative space suited to conducive peacebuilding dialogue.


Background: Depression is a distressing side effect of cancer and its treatment. In the general population, exercise is an effective antidepressant. Objective: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the antidepressant effect of exercise in cancer survivors. Data Sources: In May 2011, we searched MEDLINE, PsycInfo, EMBASE, CINAHL, CDSR, CENTRAL, AMED, Biosis Previews, and Sport Discus and citations from relevant articles and reviews. Study Eligibility Criteria: We included randomized controlled trials (RCT) comparing exercise interventions with usual care in cancer survivors, using a self-report inventory or clinician rating to assess depressive symptoms, and reporting symptoms pre- and postintervention. Study Appraisal: Around 7,042 study titles were identified and screened, with 15 RCTs included. Synthesis Methods: Effect sizes (ES) were reported as mean change scores. The Q test was conducted to evaluate heterogeneity of ES. Potential moderator variables were evaluated with examination of scatter plots and Wilcoxon rank-sum or Kruskal–Wallis tests. Results: The overall ES, under a random-effects model, was −0.22 (confidence interval, −0.43 to −0.09; P = 0.04). Significant moderating variables (ps < 0.05) were exercise location, exercise supervision, and exercise duration. Limitations: Only one study identified depression as the primary endpoint. Conclusions: Exercise has modest positive effects on depressive symptoms with larger effects for programs that were supervised or partially supervised, not conducted at home, and at least 30 minutes in duration. Impact: Our results complement other studies showing that exercise is associated with reduced pain and fatigue and with improvements in quality of life among cancer survivors. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 21(1); 3–19. ©2011 AACR.


When enzymes are in low dielectric nonaqueous media, it would be expected that their charged groups would be more closely associated with counterions. There is evidence that these counterions may then affect enzymatic activity. Published crystal structures of proteins in organic solvents do not show increased numbers of associated counterions, and this might reflect the difficulty of distinguishing cations like Na(+) from water molecules. In this paper, the placement of several Cs(+) and Cl(-) ions in crystals of the serine protease subtilisin Carlsberg is presented. Ions are more readily identified crystallographically through their anomalous diffraction using softer X-rays. The protein conformation is very similar to that of the enzyme without CsCl in acetonitrile, both for the previously reported ( 1SCB ) and our own newly determined model. No fewer than 11 defined sites for Cs(+) cations and 8 Cl(-) anions are identified around the protein molecule, although most of these have partial occupancy and may represent nonspecific binding sites. Two Cs(+) and two Cl(-) ions are close to the mouth of the active site cleft, where they may affect catalysis. In fact, cross-linked CsCl-treated subtilisin crystals transferred to acetonitrile show catalytic activity several fold higher than the reference crystals containing Na(+). Presoaking with another large cation, choline, also increases the enzyme activity. The active site appears only minimally sterically perturbed by the ion presence around it, so alternative activation mechanisms can be suggested: an electrostatic redistribution and/or a larger hydration sphere that enhances the protein domain.


This is paper I of a series of two papers, offering a self-contained analysis of the role of electromagnetic stress–energy–momentum tensors in the classical description of continuous polarizable perfectly insulating media. While acknowledging the primary role played by the total stress–energy–momentum tensor on spacetime we argue that it is meaningful and useful in the context of covariant constitutive theory to assign preferred status to particular parts of this total tensor, when defined with respect to a particular splitting. The relevance of tensors, associated with the electromagnetic fields that appear in Maxwell's equations for polarizable media, to the forces and torques that they induce has been a matter of some debate since Minkowski, Einstein and Laub, and Abraham considered these issues over a century ago. The notion of a force density that arises from the divergence of these tensors is strictly defined relative to some inertial property of the medium. Consistency with the laws of Newtonian continuum mechanics demands that the total force density on any element of a medium be proportional to the local linear acceleration field of that element in an inertial frame and must also arise as part of the divergence of the total stress–energy–momentum tensor. The fact that, unlike the tensor proposed by Minkowski, the divergence of the Abraham tensor depends explicitly on the local acceleration field of the medium as well as the electromagnetic field sets it apart from many other terms in the total stress–energy–momentum tensor for a medium. In this paper, we explore how electromagnetic forces or torques on moving media can be defined covariantly in terms of a particular 3-form on those spacetimes that exhibit particular Killing symmetries. It is shown how the drive-forms associated with translational Killing vector fields lead to explicit expressions for the electromagnetic force densities in stationary media subject to the Minkowski constitutive relations and these are compared with other models involving polarizable media in electromagnetic fields that have been considered in the recent literature.


In this work, we study the guaranteed delivery model which is widely used in online advertising. In the guaranteed delivery scenario, ad exposures (which are also called impressions in some works) to users are guaranteed by contracts signed in advance between advertisers and publishers. A crucial problem for the advertising platform is how to fully utilize the valuable user traffic to generate as much as possible revenue. Different from previous works which usually minimize the penalty of unsatisfied contracts and some other cost (e.g. representativeness), we propose the novel consumption minimization model, in which the primary objective is to minimize the user traffic consumed to satisfy all contracts. Under this model, we develop a near optimal method to deliver ads for users. The main advantage of our method lies in that it consumes nearly as least as possible user traffic to satisfy all contracts, therefore more contracts can be accepted to produce more revenue. It also enables the publishers to estimate how much user traffic is redundant or short so that they can sell or buy this part of traffic in bulk in the exchange market. Furthermore, it is robust with regard to priori knowledge of user type distribution. Finally, the simulation shows that our method outperforms the traditional state-of-the-art methods.


This paper analyzes the strategic use of bilateral supply contracts in sequential negotiations between one manufacturer and two differentiated retailers. Allowing for general contracts and retail bargaining power, I show that the first contracting parties have incentives to manipulate their contract to shift rent from the second contracting retailer and these incentives distort the industry profit away from the fully integrated monopoly outcome. To avoid such distortion, the first contracting parties may prefer to sign a contract which has no commitment power and can be renegotiated from scratch should the manufacturer fail in its subsequent negotiation with the second retailer. Renegotiation from scratch induces the first contracting parties to implement the monopoly prices and might enable them to capture the maximized industry profit. A slotting fee, an up-front fee paid by the manufacturer to the first retailer, and a menu of tariff-quantity pairs are sufficient contracts to implement the monopoly outcome. These results do not depend on the type of retail competition, the level of differentiation between the retailers, the order of sequential negotiations, the level of asymmetry between the retailers in terms of their bargaining power vis-a-vis the manufacturer or their profitability in exclusive dealing.


Purpose: This study assessed the relationship between CNS treatment and psychologic mood using the Profile of Moods State (POMS), a standardized measure of affect, among a large sample of young adult survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL; N 555). Patients and Methods: Survivors of childhood ALL (ages 18 to 33 years at study entry) participated in a structured telephone interview eliciting demographic, health, and behavioral data and the POMS. Treatment data included total dose of CNS irradiation (CRT) and intrathecal methotrexate (MTX) obtained from medical records. Results: Mood disturbance was reported by 24% of survivors. High-dose CRT and MTX predicted disturbance rates modestly and primarily in combination with education variables. Interactions between educational achievement, a history of attendance in special education classes, and sex were better predictors than treatment type or dose. Nonwhite males, those younger than 12.5 years of age at diagnosis, and those with negative perceptions of current health and cancer's impact on employment were also at greater risk for mood disturbance (P < .01 to .001). Conclusion: Although most survivors are doing well psychologically, a subset of long-term survivors show potentially serious mood disturbance. Mood disturbance seems to be a function of interactions between preexisting individual difference variables (eg, sex, race/ethnicity), treatment factors, and posttreatment educational experiences. Prevention strategies aimed at childhood cancer survivors at greatest risk for mood disturbance may be improved by focus on posttreatment psychosocial and educational supports. J Clin Oncol 21:4395-4401. © 2003 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.


Objective: The mechanism of action of antidepressant drugs is not fully understood. Application of genomic methods enables the identification of biochemical pathways that are regulated by antidepressants, and this may provide novel clues to the molecular and cellular actions of these drugs. The present study examined gene expression profiles in the hippocampus of rats exposed to chronic antidepressant treatment. Methods: Animals were treated for 12 days with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor paroxetine; then, hippocampal ribonucleic acid was recovered, and changes in gene expression were assessed by microarray analysis. Results: A total of 160 genes that showed differential expression after paroxetine exposure were identified. Using functional relevance and observed fold change as selection criteria, the expression changes in a subset of these genes were confirmed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Conclusion: Of this subset, only two genes, cyclin D1 (Ccnd1) and hairy and enhancer of split 6 (Hes6), showed robust and consistent changes in expression. Both genes were downregulated by paroxetine, and both have been previously implicated in neurogenesis. Further investigation of these two genes may provide new insight into the mechanism of action of antidepressants.


The consensus scientific view holds that our world is indeterministic at the micro level, but practically deterministic at all other levels. In an indeterministic world, live alternative possibilities at the moment of decision render it impossible for agents to guarantee what they will choose; regardless of their personality and deliberative processes. Critics of indeterminist free will argue that this lack of a necessary connection between mental state and choice makes the ultimate decision fundamentally a matter of luck. As such, indeterminism opens free will up to potential problems of present luck. Additionally, large-scale determinism opens up free will to a separate "luck pincer". Our initial set of beliefs, desires and deliberative patterns (endowment) are settled by luck. Since our initial endowment forms our initial character, only (lucky) factors outside ourselves can modify it. Our decisions and characters are practically determined by either luck in our initial endowment or in the outside circumstances that modify it. In order to defuse these objections, free will defenders must develop an answer to both the problem of present luck and the determinist "luck pincer" presented by Neil Levy. I will argue that the problem of present luck is resolvable by applying a modified version of Frankfurt cases to the actual sequence of decisions. In the majority of these cases, I argue indeterminism plays no significant freedom-endangering role. Additionally, I will argue that the luck pincer is not lethal to free will since our endowments constitute our characters, desires and beliefs. I will argue that decisions that decisions originating from our endowments constitute a direct outpouring of our identities, and such decisions are free. The aim of my paper is to present responses to contemporary luck objections relevant to all views, particularly those aiming to defend free will in the world agents most likely inhabit. 3 The Curse of Fortune; Responding to Luck Objections in an Uncooperative World.


On a number of fourth and fifth century calendars, a block of feasts commemorating Stephen, James, John, Peter, and Paul immediately follows 25 December. Contemporary studies have lost sight of the rationale for its position. This paper defends a proposal of Hans Lietzmann and suggests that the community that created the block recognized Christmas as the starting point of the sanctoral cycle. This community elected to place the memorials of Christianity's earliest confessors at the head of this annual order, symbolizing their historical priority over other martyrs. Stephen occupied the first of these dates precisely so his commemoration could precede that of every other confessor on the calendar, a position that illustrates the intensity of his cult in the late fourth-fifth centuries. The study proceeds to develop this insight into a framework capable of explaining similar commemorations on other early Christian calendars.


Abstract This article offers a critical review of the literature on 21st century knowledge frameworks, with a particular focus on what this means for teachers and teacher educators. The authors accomplish this by identifying common themes and knowledge domains in 15 reports, books, and articles that describe the kinds of knowledge that researchers state are integral and important for success in the 21st century. The authors argue that seemingly disparate frameworks converge on three types of knowledge, as necessary for the 21st century: foundational, meta, and humanistic. Although 21st century frameworks are thought to advocate new types of knowledge, little has actually changed in the new century with respect to the overall goals of education. Despite this sense of continuity, significant changes related to how technologies change all three types of knowledge need to be conveyed. The article ends with specific conclusions and recommendations for teacher education.


As threats to species continue to increase, precise and unbiased measures of the impact these pressures are having on global biodiversity are urgently needed. Some existing indicators of the status and trends of biodiversity largely rely on publicly available data from the scientific and grey literature, and are therefore prone to biases introduced through over-representation of well-studied groups and regions in monitoring schemes. This can give misleading estimates of biodiversity trends. Here, we report on an approach to tackle taxonomic and geographic bias in one such indicator (Living Planet Index) by accounting for the estimated number of species within biogeographical realms, and the relative diversity of species within them. Based on a proportionally weighted index, we estimate a global population decline in vertebrate species between 1970 and 2012 of 58% rather than 20% from an index with no proportional weighting. From this data set, comprising 14,152 populations of 3,706 species from 3,095 data sources, we also find that freshwater populations have declined by 81%, marine populations by 36%, and terrestrial populations by 38% when using proportional weighting (compared to trends of -46%, +12% and +15% respectively). These results not only show starker declines than previously estimated, but suggests that those species for which there is poorer data coverage may be declining more rapidly.


Herman Melville wrote "White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War "during two months of intense work in the summer of 1849. He drew upon his memories of naval life, having spent fourteen months as an ordinary seaman aboard a frigate as it sailed the Pacific and made the homeward voyage around Cape Horn. Already that same summer Melville had written" Redburn, " and he regarded the books as "two "jobs, " which I have done for money--being forced to it, as other men are to sawing wood." The reviewers were not as hard on "White-Jacket "as Melville himself was. The English liked its praise of British seamen. The Americans were more interested in Melville's attack on naval abuses, particularly flogging, and his advocacy of humanitarian causes. Soon Melville was acclaimed the best sea writer of the day. Part autobiography, part epic fiction, "White-Jacket" remains a brilliantly imaginative social novel by one of the great writers of the sea. This text of the novel is an Approved Text of the Center for Editions of American Authors (Modern Language Association of America).


Abstract Canada and Norway are similar in many ways. They share a strong commitment to international law and humanitarian issues, consistently rank amongst the most developed countries in the world, and have aligned themselves with the United States on security matters. They are also two of the five Arctic coastal states that have most actively engaged in northern issues over the last decade. Yet, on the issue of security in the Arctic, their interests have historically differed. This difference came to the fore during the governments of Stephen Harper (2006–2015) and Jens Stoltenberg (2005–2013). This article compares the divergent approaches to security and national defence in Canada and Norway under the Harper and Stoltenberg governments. It asks what role traditional military concerns in the circumpolar region had for the two countries during the period, and how threat perceptions in Ottawa and Oslo shaped their respective Arctic policies. We argue that, to understand the contrasting approaches to Arctic security, two factors are key: (1) the inherent difference in the two countries' approach to, and utilisation of, NATO as a defence alliance; and (2) a clear difference in the role the Arctic holds for security considerations in the two countries given their disparate geographic locations. Ultimately, we make the case that to understand the different approaches adopted by Canada and Norway during the period examined, the Arctic needs to be understood not as one uniform region, but instead as a series of sub-regions where the dominant security variable – Russia – is present to a greater or lesser degree.


OBJECTIVES
Multidisciplinary care of cancer patients in varied settings is well described in the literature, but there is little specifically describing the multidisciplinary care of the patient with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The purpose of this article is to describe HCC and the multidisciplinary approach at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
HCC is one of the most common solid tumors in the world, but it is rare in North America. It is associated with environmental carcinogens identified in animal studies, hepatitis B and C, cirrhosis of any etiology, and various metabolic diseases. No reliable therapy has been established for HCC. Surgical resection is the best treatment, but it is possible only in the patient with adequate hepatic reserve and limited-stage cancer. From January 1995 to May 1998, 22 patients at PVAMC received a diagnosis of primary HCC. One patient was a candidate for surgery, two patients received radiation therapy, and one patient underwent chemoembolization. Eighteen patients presented with an advanced-stage disease and comorbidities.

RESULTS
Therapy goals in these 18 patients were limited to supportive care and enhancement of quality of life. A multidisciplinary team provided care to this challenging patient population. The multidisciplinary team treating HCC at PVAMC consisted of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and a chaplain. Most care occurred in the outpatient setting. Supportive therapy included the controlling of ascites and abdominal discomfort, hepatic encephalopathy, and pruritus. Opioids relieved abdominal pain. Psychiatric support and counseling helped patients and families cope with the poor prognosis.

CONCLUSIONS
A multidisciplinary team approach helped provide care for this challenging population. Through anecdotal reports, patients and family expressed satisfaction with their care. Research is needed to systematically test interventions designed to enhance quality of life in patients with HCC.


Women's labor force participation has nearly doubled in the past 50 years. The increase has been even more dramatic for women with young children, and recent reforms to welfare programs are likely to push the participation rate for this segment even higher. This article examines the economic determinants of a woman's decision to return to work quickly following childbirth, looking in particular at sensitivity to child care costs.


The ability of proteins to form ordered, structured complexes is central to their biological function. Such complexes, which can be homo-oligomers or heterooligomers, can control different attributes such as activity, stability and localization. Understanding how these complexes form, and the controlling mechanism behind them, is fundamental to our knowledge of protein signaling pathways and the physiological responses they control. Of particular interest in this field, is the assembly of virulence factors complexes from pathogenic microbes. These factors are secreted by such micro-organisms to facilitate infection, survival and/or colonization of the host and are therefore crucial for the onset of disease. The ability to target and inhibit these virulence factors could lead to the development of a new generation of anti-microbial therapies. A prerequisite is to understand the mechanisms leading to the formation of heteroand homo-oligomers. In order to characterize the protein-protein interactions of selected microbial virulence factors, advanced light scattering detectors, combined with liquid chromatography methods, were employed.


Comprehensive and practical, The Internet and CBT: A Clinical Guide describes how cognitive behavioural therapy can be delivered via the Internet, email, open access programmes, online communities and via smartphone. Detailing how these alternative methods of CBT support can be integrated within a busy practice, it is invaluable for all CBT clinicians and students wishing to find out more about assessing and supporting people in innovative ways. This book enables you to:Learn how to best give advice concerning online support communities and when to recommend guided self help onlineUnderstand how to integrate online and smartphone CBT delivery into your daily practiceExplore the resources and treatment programmes availablePerform online assessmentsGuide and supervise the people in your careComprehend issues of patient confidentiality and what you need to do to ensure safe and ethical practiceWith its no-nonsense and down-to-earth approach, this book covers the dos and don'ts of CBT delivery online and via smartphone and provides a highly accessible guide for students and practitioners wishing to incorporate online CBT into their work. It will be of great interest to CBT clinicians, psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors and mental health nurses.


The huge quantities of waste produced by commercial fisheries worldwide attract large numbers of scavengers. Reducing this wasteful practice is desirable, but may have implications for marine ecosystems as scavengers will face a major shortfall in food. Predicting the impact of reduced discarding requires information on the strength of the link between scavengers and fisheries. We analysed sagittal otoliths regurgitated by great skuas Stercorarius skua over 5 yr from 8 different colonies in Shetland, UK, and over 18 yr from 1 of these sites, in relation to spatial and temporal vari- ation in fisheries activity. The proportions of 2 demersal fish not normally available to skuas, haddock Melanogrammus aeglefinus and whiting Merlangius merlangus, are positively correlated with annual variation in discard estimates. The proportion of whiting at 8 colonies is positively correlated with spatial differences in fish biomass estimates, and blue whiting Micromesistus potassou are only eaten in colonies close to the continental shelf edge, where this species is fished. Non-breeding great skuas tend to eat smaller and significantly more variable discarded fish compared with breeders. Our results indicate that great skuas rely heavily on fishery discards and are also sensitive to spatial and temporal changes in fisheries activity. Differences between breeding status indicate that the non- breeding component of the population may respond differently to changing discard policy. The strength of the link between fisheries and scavengers appear to be species-specific, and testing the strength of these relationships should be an important avenue of future research to interpret the response of scavengers to changes in fisheries management.


In this study, a novel kinematic analysis procedure of the double wishbone suspension mechanism regarding steering input is proposed. In the previous study, published by the authors, the double wishbone mechanism was investigated disregarding steering input. To the best of our knowledge, there is no analytical method available in the literature for the analysis of double wishbone suspension mechanism regarding steering input. Initially, analysis of the mechanism for variable steering input, while keeping wheel travel fixed is considered. Then, kinematic analysis is performed analytically for the ultimate case of two inputs. Analysis simultaneously for both variable steering and variable wheel travel is presented. The essential parameters; camber, caster, kingpin angles are defined according to the kinematic model. For verification, a synthesized mechanism is established in Catia software and same results with the analytical model are obtained. Another presented novel analytical approach is anti-dive/lift analysis of the double wishbone mechanism.


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