Background: Patients with cerebellar hematomas may appear stable but may worsen suddenly. Whether certain clinical or CT scan findings predict worsening is not known. Methods: We reviewed clinical and neuroimaging data in 72 patients with cerebellar hematomas at the Mayo Clinic from 1973 through 1993 to identify predictive features for neurologic deterioration. Patients presenting in coma and patients with vascular malformations or malignancies were excluded. Data were analyzed using chi-square or Fisher's exact test, with calculation of odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed on appropriate variables. Results: Thirty-three patients (46%) deteriorated, with a decrease in level of consciousness, new brainstem signs, or worsened motor response on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Clinical and neuroradiologic predictors for neurologic deterioration at p < 0.05 were admission systolic blood pressure greater than 200 mm Hg, pinpoint pupils and abnormal corneal or oculocephalic reflexes, hemorrhage extending into the vermis, hematoma size more than 3 cm in diameter, brainstem distortion, intraventricular hemorrhage, upward herniation, and acute hydrocephalus. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that hemorrhage located in the vermis (p = 0.03) and acute hydrocephalus (p = 0.0006) on admission CT scanning independently predicted deterioration. Conclusion: Patients with a cerebellar vermian hematoma or acute hydrocephalus are at high risk for neurologic deterioration. These patients should be carefully monitored and are more likely to require consideration for neurosurgical intervention.


Abstract. Peroxyacetic acid (PAA) is one of the most important atmospheric organic peroxides, which have received increasing attention for their potential contribution to the oxidation capacity of the troposphere and the formation of secondary aerosols. We report here, for the first time, a series of data for atmospheric PAA concentrations at urban and rural sites, from five field campaigns carried out in China in summer 2006, 2007 and 2008. For these five measurements, daytime mean (08:00–20:00 LT) PAA concentrations on sunlit days were 21.4–148.0 pptv with a maximum level of ~1 ppbv. The various meteorological and chemical parameters influencing PAA concentrations were examined using Principal Factor Analysis. This statistical analysis shows that the local photochemical production was the major source of PAA, and its concentration increased with increasing temperature, solar radiation and ozone but decreased with increasing NOx (NO and NO2), CO, SO2, and relative humidity. Based on the dataset, several issues are highlighted in this study: (i) Because PAA is a product from the photochemical oxidation of some specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that lead to acetyl peroxy radicals, the importance of various VOCs with respect to the PAA formation is therefore ranked using the incremental reactivity method. (ii) The contribution of PAN thermal degradation to PAA formation under conditions of different NOx concentrations is estimated based on the chemical kinetics analysis. The result shows that PAN seems to play an important role in the formation of PAA when the NO/NO2 concentration ratio was less than 0.2 and PAA would correspondingly have feedback on the PAN-NOx cycle. (iii) PAA and other peroxides, such as methyl hydroperoxide (MHP) and H2O2, usually exhibited a similar asymmetric shape typically shifted to the afternoon. However, under some conditions, H2O2 diurnal cycle was out of phase with MHP and PAA. The combination of linear regression and kinetics analysis indicate that the formation and removal processes of H2O2 may be different from those of MHP and PAA. (iv) Considering that PAA is the reservior of free radicals, its fate is expected to have an effect on the free radical budget in the atmosphere. A box model based on the CBM-IV mechanism has been performed to access its influence on the radical budget. We suggest that the detailed information on PAA in the atmosphere is of importance to better understand the free radical chemistry.


The article provides an overview of instant-loan-related regulation and associated topical problems in Finland. Instant loans are a problematic loan product, and they account for a remarkable proportion of all indebtedness problems of consumers. One factor here is that instant loans are provided by credit companies outside the banking sector. Finland has adopted responsible lending regulations, on good lending practice, a creditworthiness assessment obligation, and identity verification. Consumer lending is a business subject to licence. Also, credit costs and debt-collection costs are regulated, and usury in connection with credit is criminalised by the law. Furthermore, credit-data regulation plays a significant role in consumer lending. The new laws seem to have solved some of the problems, but new problems have emerged. Most significantly, regulation pertaining to a maximum annual percentage rate of charge has caused some decrease in instant loans' numbers and amounts, but, meanwhile, average repayment periods have increased and more complex loan products have emerged. Other noteworthy topical issues in this connection include the multi-layered system for supervision of consumer creditors and the lack of provisions regarding the financial reliability of consumer creditors.


This article examines the complex links between gender, class and the `psy' disciplines. It argues that there is a connection between those understandings of `class' embedded within contemporary `psy' discourse and the concepts utilized to render class intelligible when the working classes became a target and object of psychiatry in the l9th century. By adopting a form of historical-discursive inquiry informed by poststructuralist ideas (Foucault, 1971, 1972) the role that the `psy' disciplines play(ed) in problematizing aspects of social existence and rendering them in relation to sets of normalizing judgements is examined. The article highlights that from psychiatry's inception in the 19th century it has been bound up with governing and regulating a specific conception of personhood, arguing that `class' is one such mechanism through which this conception of sociality is governed, managed and administer-ed.


Background: Several enterococcal species are increasingly being reported from clinical infections, besides the major species. Aim: This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of unusual enterococcal species and their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, virulence factors, and molecular characterization. Study Design and Settings: The study was conducted in Department of Microbiology and associated Tertiary Care University Hospital in North India. Materials and Methods: Enterococcal isolates were collected for a period of 2 years from clinical specimens. Identification and elaborate phenotypic characterization was done biochemically. All the isolates were tested by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method and breakpoint minimum inhibitory concentration for susceptibility against standard antibiotics. Screening for vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), high-level aminoglycoside resistance was done on brain heart infusion agar incorporated with 6 μg/ml vancomycin, 500 μg/ml gentamicin, and 2000 μg/ml streptomycin, respectively. VRE isolates were tested for the presence of vanA, vanB, and vanC genes and high-level gentamicin resistant (HLGR) isolates for aac-6′- aph-2′ gene by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Hemolysin and gelatinase production, hemagglutination and biofilm formation were detected along with asa1, gelE, esp, hyl, and cylA genes by multiplex PCR. Results: Of 403 enterococci, 93 (23.07%) isolates were identified as unusual species and atypical variants. Resistance of 52.68%, 46.23%, 44.08%, and 6.45% for ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, high strength gentamicin, and vancomycin, respectively were noted. Presence of vanC gene in Enterococcus gallinarum and Enterococcus casseliflavus isolates and vanA gene in Enterococcus durans and Enterococcus hirae and aac-6′- aph-2′′ gene was found in 33.14% (14/41) of the HLGR isolates. The most frequent virulence factor was biofilm production. Only a few isolates harbored asa1 (2), gelE (9), and hyl (3) genes. Conclusion: Considerable prevalence of pathogenic unusual species of enterococci was seen along with their emerging drug resistance and virulence. Complete identification and routine speciation is essential to limit their emergence as major species in near future.


Abstract: Today there has been a considerable increase in the variety and range of services that state governments in the country are expected to provide in their area. Government at the state level undoubtedly is expected to provide all the necessary social and infrastructural facilities needed by her citizenries at affordable or no cost. But contrary to this, are recorded infrastructural decays, diversion of funds, projects abandonment, wasteful spending, and low standard of living and so on. For a government to thrive and discharge its responsibilities there is the need for proper planning. Planning in the context of public sector begins with budgeting. It is observed that the issue of budgeting has not been taken seriously in Ondo state However, despite the fact that the government prepared budget annually, the government sees it as an annual event and administrative routine exercise and never show recourse to it. The issue in this paper therefore is to look into the causes and implications of poor performance of budget in ondo state. The research was a case study and data were sourced from government workers using a questionnaire. A total of 150 questionnaires were distributed and 119 retrieved. Data obtain were analysed using descriptive and empirical analyses. The descriptive analysis employs the use of tables, percentages and charts to describe the characteristics of the responses in the questionnaires. The empirical analysis employs the use of multiple regressions of the ordinary least square and covariance and correlation analyses. The results of the analyses show that factors such as poor planning, fraudulent manipulation, lack of adequate professional knowledge, delay in passage of budget, late release of fund are all responsible for poor budget performance in the state. The implication is that it discourages investors due to poor condition of the state infrastructures, it reduces the standard of living of the people of the state, and it slows down economic development through wasteful spending, extra budgetary spending and debt accumulation.


BACKGROUND
It has been suggested that clopidogrel may be less effective in reducing the rate of cardiovascular events among persons who are carriers of loss-of-function CYP2C19 alleles that are associated with reduced conversion of clopidogrel to its active metabolite.

METHODS
We genotyped patients from two large, randomized trials that showed that clopidogrel, as compared with placebo, reduced the rate of cardiovascular events (the primary efficacy outcome) among patients with acute coronary syndromes and among patients with atrial fibrillation. Patients were genotyped for three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (*2, *3, *17) that define the major CYP2C19 alleles.

RESULTS
Among 5059 genotyped patients with acute coronary syndromes, clopidogrel as compared with placebo significantly reduced the rate of the primary efficacy outcome, irrespective of the genetically determined metabolizer phenotype (P=0.12 for heterogeneity). The effect of clopidogrel in reducing the rate of the primary efficacy outcome was similar in patients who were heterozygous or homozygous for loss-of-function alleles and in those who were not carriers of the alleles (rate among carriers, 8.0% with clopidogrel vs. 11.6% with placebo; hazard ratio with clopidogrel, 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.49 to 0.98; rate among noncarriers, 9.5% vs. 13.0%; hazard ratio, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.59 to 0.87). In contrast, gain-of-function carriers derived more benefit from clopidogrel treatment as compared with placebo than did noncarriers (rate of primary outcome among carriers, 7.7% vs. 13.0%; hazard ratio, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.42 to 0.73; rate among noncarriers, 10.0% vs. 12.2%; hazard ratio, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.68 to 1.05; P=0.02 for interaction). The effect of clopidogrel on bleeding did not vary according to genotypic subgroups. Among 1156 genotyped patients with atrial fibrillation, there was no evidence of an interaction with respect to either efficacy or bleeding between the study treatment and the metabolizer phenotype, loss-of-function carrier status, or gain-of-function carrier status.

CONCLUSIONS
Among patients with acute coronary syndromes or atrial fibrillation, the effect of clopidogrel as compared with placebo is consistent, irrespective of CYP2C19 loss-of-function carrier status. (Funded by Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00249873.).


Does health care save lives? Commentators such as McKeown and Illich, writing in the 1960s, argued that it played very little part, and might even be harmful. However they were writing about a period when health care had relatively little to offer compared to today. Since then, several writers have described often quite substantial improvements in death rates from conditions for which effective interventions have been introduced. But the debate continues, with some arguing that health care is making an increasingly important impact on overall levels of health while others contend that it is in the realm of broader policies, such as education, transport and housing, that we should look to for future advances in health. Inevitably this is to a considerable extent a false dichotomy. Both are important. But how much does health care contribute to population health?

One way in which this question has been addressed previously is to look at deaths that should not occur in the presence of effective and timely health care, so-called 'avoidable' mortality. However much of this work was undertaken in the 1980s and early 1990s, since when health care has advanced considerably. In addition, 'avoidable' deaths were often limited to those before, for example, the age of 65, a figure that seems inappropriately low in the light of life expectancies that are now about 80 in many countries.

In this review we have traced the evolution of the concept of 'avoidable' mortality from its inception in the 1970s. We have undertaken a detailed methodological critique of this concept, examining questions of attribution, issues relating to comparisons over time and place, and relationships with other indicators of health service provision. To help future researchers we have produced a comprehensive, annotated review of the work that has been undertaken worldwide so far.

We note that 'avoidable' mortality was never intended to be more than an indicator of potential weaknesses in health care that can then be investigated in more depth. We describe examples of where this approach has been successful, drawing attention to problems that might otherwise have been missed.

In contrast, many of the critics of 'avoidable' mortality, or more specifically, mortality amenable to health care (amenable mortality), have asked that it do something it was not intended to do, to be a definitive source of evidence of differences in effectiveness of health care. Thus, it is not unexpected that studies seeking to link amenable mortality with health care resources have failed to do so, especially when undertaken within countries, although it is notable that where gross differences exist, as between western and eastern Europe, the gap in amenable mortality is especially high. For these reasons, it seems justifiable to continue and extend the extensive body of research that has already been undertaken to look at 'avoidable' mortality, updating the list of conditions included to reflect the changing scope of health care and extending the age limit to reflect increasing expectation of life. However it must be recognised that the concept of 'avoidable' mortality does have important limitations, relating to comparability of data, attribution of causes, and coverage of the range of health outcomes.

Comparisons of health system performance are now firmly on the international policy agenda, especially since the publication of the 2000 World Health Report. Incorporation of concept of mortality amenable to medical care into the methodology used to generate the rankings of health systems in that report would be an advance on the current situation. We show how, within Europe, this would lead to different rankings from those based on overall disability adjusted life expectancy, which is used in the current rankings.

However, any approach based on aggregate data would not address one of the major criticisms of such comparisons, that they do not indicate what needs to be done when faced with evidence of sub-optimal performance. This requires a more detailed analysis of the specific issues facing health systems. Here we propose a new method, in which analyses of amenable mortality identify areas of potential concern that are then examined in more detail by studying the processes and outcomes of care for tracer conditions, selected on the basis of their ability to assess a wide range of health system components.
The second part of the review applies the refined method of amenable mortality analysis to patterns of mortality in the countries of the European Union over the past two decades. This shows that deaths that could be prevented by timely and effective care were still relatively common in many countries in 1980. Reductions in these deaths contributed substantially to the overall change in life expectancy between birth and age 75 during the 1980s. The largest contribution was from falling infant mortality but in some countries reductions in deaths among the middle aged was equally or even more important. These countries were Denmark, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France (for men) and Sweden (for women).

In contrast, during the 1990s, reductions in amenable mortality made a somewhat smaller contribution to improved life expectancy, especially in the northern European countries. However they remained important in southern Europe, especially in Portugal and Greece, where the initial death rates had been higher.
These findings provide clear evidence that improvements in access to effective health care have had a measurable impact in many countries during the 1980s and 1990s, in particular through reductions in infant mortality and in deaths among the middle aged and elderly, especially women. However the scale of impact has, to a considerable extent, reflected the starting point. Thus, those countries where infant mortality was relatively high at the beginning of the 1980s, and which had the greatest scope for improvement, such as Greece and Portugal, unsurprisingly saw the greatest reductions in amenable mortality in infancy. In contrast, in countries with infant mortality rates that had already reached very low rates by the beginning of the 1990s, such as Sweden, the scope for further improvement was small.

Similarly, the scope for improvement in amenable deaths in adulthood was greatest in those countries where initial rates were highest. The corollary of this is that as rates fall in all countries, the extent of variation decreases. As a consequence, it seems likely that, in the 21st century, the ability to compare health system performance using mortality data at the aggregate level is likely to be limited, simply because the differences will be relatively small. This does not, however, mean that there is not scope for analyses that use amenable mortality rates to screen for potential problems that can then be explored in more depth. It also does not exclude the use of amenable mortality to gain new insights into inequalities in access to care within populations.


Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow 2012) has given rise to much critical debate, focused primarily on its questionable historical accuracy, apparent political perspective and the extent to which its narrative condones torture as an instrument of intelligence gathering. These are indisputably important issues, however they have tended to crowd out of the critical agenda alternative approaches to the film, two of which I would like to address in this chapter. From a feminist perspective, one of the most striking features of Zero Dark Thirty is the use of a female lead in such a consistently 'masculine' genre as the war film. Critical reaction has inevitably been mixed. Some commentators celebrate Maya as a new feminist icon, some position her as a post-feminist, gender-neutral figure, while others take a more sceptical stance, seeing her presence as providing a form of ideological camouflage for US militarism, ultimately reinforcing a patriarchal status quo. But there has been little by way of sustained analysis of her role in the film. Another striking feature of this film is the extent to which it articulates the relationship between cinema and war proposed by Paul Virilio. The intradiegetic use of surveillance technology exemplifies the 'logistics of perception' discussed in The Vision Machine, while the appropriation of the 'reality effect' of mediated images for the purposes of a Hollywood film speaks to Virilio's 'aesthetics of disappearance'. I would like to address both these perspectives, arguing that there is in fact a close relationship between them. The gender of the protagonist is much more than an incidental detail within the film, having profound implications for the structure and dynamics of the narrative. Without a female protagonist, the central dramatic device of surveillance-as-action and the effective exclusion of the hero from direct engagement in the climatic "battle" (the moment for which the film is named) would be problematic, if not impossible. In effect the re-conceptualisation of the hero as female coincides with a re-conceptualisation of what constitutes 'action' for the purposes of the film. Maya, in her role as professional watcher, is the bearer of a paradoxical gaze. Her gaze is constructed primarily as controlling, authoritative and the source of knowledge – bearing more than a passing resemblance to the role of the film director. However it is also the source of misinformation, frustration and the feelings of impotence associated with witnessing. This paradox points on the one hand to the problematic relationship between the woman and the gaze articulated throughout feminist film criticism and on the other towards the 'paradoxical logic' whereby the image comes to dominate reality – a concept, Virilio associates with precisely the moral relativism which, for many, constitutes an ideological and aesthetic problem at the heart of Zero Dark Thirty.


PURPOSE
To investigate the dosimetric properties of a new synthetic single crystal diamond Schottky diode for accurate relative dose measurements in clinical proton beams.

METHODS
The dosimetric properties of the synthetic single crystal diamond detector (SCDD) were assessed by comparison with a reference parallel plate ionization chamber (PTW Markus Chamber 23343) and a micro ionization chamber (Exradin A16). The diamond detector was operated at zero bias voltage at all times. Comparative dose distribution measurements were performed by means of percent depth dose curves and lateral beam profiles using the diamond detector and a reference ionization chamber in clinical proton beams of energies 155MeV and 250 MeV for a 14cm square cerrobend aperture and 126 MeV for 3cm, 2cm and 1cm diameter circular brass collimators. ICRU 78 recommended beam parameters are used to compare the percent depth dose curves and lateral profiles obtained using the SCDD and the reference ionization chamber. The warm-up/stability of the detector response, dose linearity and dose-rate dependency were also evaluated in a 250 MeV proton beam.

RESULTS
During warm-up/stability the diamond detector was irradiated 6 times and the maximum deviation from the average reading was less than 0.5%. The detector response shows a good linear behavior as a function of dose with observed deviations below 0.5% over a dose range of 50cGy to 500cGy. The detector response is dose rate independent, with deviations below 0.5% in the investigated dose-rates of 64cGy/min,47.5cGy/min and 17.5cGy/min. Percent depth dose curves and lateral beam profiles obtained with the diamond detector were in good agreement with those obtained using reference dosimeters.

CONCLUSION
The observed dosimetric properties of the SCDD indicate that its behavior is proton energy independent in the investigated energy range and it is suitable for accurate relative dosimetric measurements in large field and small field clinical proton beams.


Abstract Although the significance of scientific expertise is often proposed and empirically illustrated in academic literature, it is still unclear how environmental expertise becomes authoritative, and how its legitimacy can be challenged. In order to understand the interplay between scientific expertise and civil society engagement, this paper examines how industrial scientific expertise has worked with surrounding communities and civil society to inform scientific decisions, and for the co-creation of scientific knowledge formations. A particular case is analysed, that of the South Durban Industrial Basin in KwaZulu-Natal. This area comprises a mixed use of residential areas juxtaposed with heavy industries. Scientific expertise, especially within the industrial sectors, is therefore important in the prevention, alleviation and management of risks to residents, society and the environment. The study finds that there is poor engagement between scientific expertise with communities and civil society, not least when it comes to environmental issues. A reason for this is poor governance, enforcement and leadership with an overriding objective of industrial expansion for economic development by both government and industry. Another reason is that, with a few exceptions, the communities have mainly been concerned about socio-economic issues. This has resulted in a double bind, where scientific expertise and government have not shared environmental information with civil society at the same as the civil society, has not on the whole requested it.


The scanty literature on the pathology of murine typhus is reviewed and a new case which died of massive pulmonary embolism is descriptionbed. At autopsy, as in previously recorded cases, there was the main lesion of an acute diffuse myocarditis but in addition other lesions, probably related to the disease, were myositis of the tongue, degenerative and regenerative changes in the liver and chronic inflammatory cell infiltration of the suprarenal glands and kidneys. The brain appeared normal. A brief comparison is made between the pathology of epidemic and murine typhus. There appear to be differences, viz., the more frequent occurrence of 'typhus nodes' in the brain and emphasis on endothelial proliferation and thrombosis of small and larae vessels in epidemic typhus. However, until such time as more autopsies of fatal cases of murine typhus are available, no definite conclusions can be drawn.


To better appreciate present-day private international law and its future prospects and challenges, we should consider the history and historiography of the field. This book offers an original approach to the study of conflict of laws and legal history that exposes doctrinal lawyers to historical context, and legal historians to the intricacies of legal doctrine. The analysis is based on an in-depth examination of Medieval and Early Modern conflict of laws, focusing on the classic texts of Bartolus and Huber. Combining theoretical insights, textual analysis and historical perspectives, the author presents the preclassical conflict of laws as a rich world of doctrines and policies, theory and practice, context and continuity. This book challenges preconceptions and serves as an advanced introduction which illustrates the relevance of history in commanding private international law, while aspiring to make private international law relevant for history.


The authors describe a technique with a single anterior incision and fixation with an internal button, the Endobutton. The procedure is performed through a 5-cm transverse skin incision, and the tendon is sutured to the Endobutton with 2 number 5 Ethibond sutures. Surgical repair in the depths of the muscular forearm is not required, because the tendon is simply sutured external to the wound. The Endobutton delivers and locks the tendon into a hole in the radial tuberosity. The Endobutton technique was used in 12 patients who were allowed early active mobilization. All were satisfied, returned to activities, and regained grade 5 strength. Average flexion was from 5 degrees to 146 degrees with 81 degrees supination and 80 degrees pronation. No neurovascular complications or synostosis occurred. In cadaveric studies the average distance from the biceps tendon were ulnar artery 6 mm, median nerve 12 mm, and posterior interosseous nerve 18 mm. The average distance from the posterior interosseous nerve to a Steinman pin advanced through the proximal radius was 14 mm. This technique is a safe and effective method of repair of distal biceps tendon avulsion that allows active mobilization with minimal risk of complication.


In classic supervised learning, a learning algorithm takes a fixed training data of several classes to build a classifier. In this paper, we propose to study a new problem, i.e., building a learning system that learns cumulatively. As time goes by, the system sees and learns more and more classes of data and becomes more and more knowledgeable. We believe that this is similar to human learning. We humans learn continuously, retaining the learned knowledge, identifying and learning new things, and updating the existing knowledge with new experiences. Over time, we cumulate more and more knowledge. A learning system should be able to do the same. As algorithmic learning matures, it is time to tackle this cumulative machine learning (or simply cumulative learning) problem, which is a kind of lifelong machine learning problem. It presents two major challenges. First, the system must be able to detect data from unseen classes in the test set. Classic supervised learning, however, assumes all classes in testing are known or seen at the training time. Second, the system needs to be able to selectively update its models whenever a new class of data arrives without re-training the whole system using the entire past and present training data. This paper proposes a novel approach and system to tackle these challenges. Experimental results on two datasets with learning from 2 classes to up to 100 classes show that the proposed approach is highly promising in terms of both classification accuracy and computational efficiency.


Sodium dithionite (Na2S2O4) may have the potential to be used as a reducing agent for the stabilization of glucomannan in kraft cooking for increased pulp yield. However, due to the fact that dithionite decomposes under the conditions of kraft pulping, studies of the effects of dithionite in kraft pulping are non-conclusive; sometimes clearly showing an increased yield, and in other studies no effect at all. The specific conditions influencing dithionite degradation are also unclear. For that reason, this study was conducted to determine the thermal and chemical stability of sodium dithionite with respect to specific factors, such as the pH, temperature, heating time, and the concentration of sodium dithionite solution. The study was performed under anaerobic conditions using attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The thermal and alkali stability of the sodium dithionite solution was shown to decrease with increasing temperature, heating time, and concentration of the solution at the alkaline conditions studied. The thermal stability decreased rapidly at weak alkalinity (pH 9) as well as in high alkalinity (pH 14), whereas the sodium dithionite was rather stable at moderate alkalinity (pH 11.5 to pH 13).


USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) purchases food products for distribution through several of the Department's food assistance programs. This report describes FSA purchase methods and compares them to procurement strategies used by other Federal agencies and by private sector firms. It summarizes the principal policy issues faced by FSA in designing procurement strategies. And it uses a detailed statistical analysis to compare FSA prices to those realized in the private sector, and to identify the separate effects of agricultural commodity prices, seasonality, client location, purchase volumes, product characteristics, and competition on FSA product prices.


Multis are a new class of computers based on multiple microprocessors. The small size, low cost, and high performance of microprocessors allow the design and construction of computer structures that offer significant advantages in manufacture, price-performance ratio, and reliability over traditional computer families. Currently, commercial multis consist of 4 to 28 modules, which include microprocessors, common memories, and input-output devices, all of which communicate through a single set of wires called a bus. Adding microprocessors together increases the performance of multis in direct proportion to their price and allows multis to offer a performance range that spans that of small minicomputers to mainframe computers. Multis are commercially available for applications ranging from real-time industrial control to transaction processing. Traditional batch, time-sharing, and transaction systems process a number of independent jobs that can be distributed among the microprocessors of a multi with a resulting increased throughput (number of jobs completed per unit of time). Many scientific applications (such as the solving of partial differential equations) and engineering applications (such as the checking of integrated circuit designs) are speeded up by this parallel computation; thus, multis produce results at supercomputer speed but at a fraction of the cost. Multis are likely to be the basis for the next, the fifth, generation of computers—a generation based on parallel processing.

http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/cgb files/multis science 850426 c.pdf


Digital Tools, Spaces and Places as Mediators of Youth Work Practice. In the context of English youth and community work, this research project investigates digital tools, spaces and places as mediators of youth work practice, and proposes a model formulated through the identification of expansive drivers to guide both professional conduct and curriculum-based practice. The lives of English young people today are shaped by technologies which make interaction in a variety of digital spaces and places possible, yet there are divided views within the youth work community of practice about the place of digital tools, spaces and places as mediators of informal learning in a discipline traditionally focused on association, relationships and critical dialogue. Supported by the conceptual framework of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), Developmental Work Research (DWR) techniques have been used to gather data from four English youth and community work practitioners through a workshop-based approach framed by CHAT pre-suppositions and the first three stages of Engestrom's expansive learning cycle. The data analysis uses the four areas where contradictions can manifest within CHAT activity systems to examine how the use of digital tools, spaces and places aligns with youth work values and principles, and to examine how they can mediate informal learning opportunities with young people. The contribution to knowledge comprises the identification of four 'spaces' which are named as safety, production, information and communication, and which form the basis of a model to scaffold the professional use of digital tools, spaces and places as mediators of youth work practice. Expansive drivers, defined as the forces for learning, development and change, are identified within each of the spaces within the model and examined using continuum-based representations portraying professional practice and curriculum-based priorities. Metaphors of digital space and place emerging from within the DWR process are also appraised as a means to situate the work. The model is underpinned firstly by the premise that a youth worker's choice of digital tool, space or place needs to be based on the needs and input of young people. Secondly, that using digital tools, spaces and places as mediators of youth work practice is most effective as an extension to existing face-to-face youth work where relationships between young people and youth workers have already been formed.


As a field of study, global social policy has grown in strength and remit since the late 1990s and offers a fresh set of perspectives on contemporary debates within social policy. This book is the first student-aimed textbook that engages comprehensively with this field of study, examining the key theoretical, conceptual and policy issues and debates. Edited by a leading scholar in global social policy, and with chapter contributions from an international team of social policy analysts, the book comprehensively examines the impact of the prefix 'global' on the construction of social policy as a field of academic study and research, explores how the globalising strategies of state and non-state actors interset with social policy concerns and evaluates their impacts on social welfare.


Trematode metacercaria populations infecting cichlids in Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) were used as sentinels for the changing limnological environment. Parasitological data from 0+ cichlid fingerlings (Tilapia zillii, Oreochromis aureus, Sarotherodon galilaeus) were collected from the northwest shore of the lake during 1999 to 2001 and compared with data obtained from 1982 to 1984. The results show that the composition of the metacercarial populations changed significantly between the 2 samplings periods. The total number of metacercarial species found in the Kinneret cichlids was lower in 1999 to 2001 than in 1982 to 1984. Metacercariae transmitted by the snail Bulinus truncatus (Clinostomum tilapiae, Euclinostomum heterostomum, Bolbophorus levantinus and Neascus-type metacercariae--black spot and others) that were commonly found in 1982 to 1984 were absent from the fishes sampled during 1999 to 2001. The other trematode metacercariae (Centrocestus sp. and Haplorchis sp. transmitted by Melanoides tuberculata, Pygidiopsis genata transmitted by Melanopsis costata, as well as Phagicola longa, Strigeidae sp.1, an unidentified metacercaria typically found in the liver, and glochidia) increased in abundance in fishes sampled during 1999 to 2001. The calculated 'true' species richness of the habitat, extrapolated as a function of sampling effort, was significantly lower in the 1999 to 2001 versus 1982 to 1984 samples, while significantly fewer fishes needed to be sampled ('sampling effort') during 1999 to 2001 in order to reach the 'true' species richness. The higher calculated values of species richness and diversity for the 1999 to 2001 samples despite the overall decline in species number is explained by the overall increase in metacercariae prevalence.


*The geographical designations employed in this document do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the CMS Secretariat (or the United Nations Environment Programme) concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The responsibility for the contents of the document rests exclusively with its author. CMS


Background: Sarcopenia is a structural and functional decline in the cells and tissues of all organs resulting in age related decreased skeletal muscle mass and strength in elderly adults. The purpose of this study is to prove that resistance exercise is an extremely effective countermeasure to reduce the severity of the skeletal muscle wasting in elderly sarcopenic individuals especially in the quadriceps muscle. Objective of the study was to identify the efficacy of resisted quadriceps exercise on aging skeletal muscles in sarcopenia patients.Methodology: This is an experimental study conducted in Friend in Need old age home and Cure 'n' Care physiotherapy center. Both men and women with age group between 60-75 years participated in this study. Resisted Quadriceps strengthening exercises, aerobic exercises were given as intervention for this study. Results: The result shows that resisted quadriceps exercise was effective in treating patients with Sarcopenia. Conclusion: The conclusion of the study is that quadriceps resistance training can counteract the decline in quadriceps muscle function and loss of muscle mass normally associated in sarcopenia individuals.


Hand-Drawn sketches are natural means by which abstract descriptions of environments can be provided. They represent weak prior information about the scene, thereby enabling a robot to perform autonomous navigation and exploration when a full metrical description of the environment is not available beforehand. In this paper, we present an extensive evaluation of our navigation system that uses a sketch interface to allow the operator of a robot to draw a rough map of an indoor environment as well as a desired trajectory for the robot to follow. We employ a theoretical framework for sketch interpretation, in which associations between the sketch and the real world are modeled as local deformations of a suitable metric manifold. We investigate the effectiveness of our system and present empirical results from a set of experiments in real-world scenarios, focusing both on the navigation capabilities and the usability of the interface.


Abstract. Traditional geoprocessing techniques often rely on the use of multiple softwares for data handling and management which consumes almost 80% of the time and requires the user to be well versed with all the intricacies of pre-processing. Therefore, there is a need to reverse the trend on analysis and data management, so as to enable scientists and researchers to focus on the science rather than data handling and pre-processing. The concept of a Data Cube which is a massive multi-dimensional array of raster or gridded data, 'stacks' satellite images and addresses the problems faced by traditional remote sensing practices and provides an interactive environment where datasets can be analysed with relative ease as compared to its traditional counterparts. This framework allows multi-format and multi-projection datasets spanning decades to be used in various geoprocessing techniques from simple GIS tasks such as data conversion, time series generation, and to do more complex tasks such as change detection, NDVI generation, unsupervised classification and modelling. LISS III data for the state of Uttarakhand, India was used on an interactive interface called the Jupyter Notebook where scripts written in Python allowed data to be ingested, analysed and visualised. The Data Cube framework hence proved to be a flexible and extensive development environment which can be extended to meet more complex modelling requirements.


Abstract. By characterizing the dynamics of a convective boundary layer above a relatively sparse and uniform orchard canopy, we investigated the impact of the roughness-sublayer (RSL) representation on the predicted diurnal variability of surface fluxes and state variables. Our approach combined numerical experiments, using an atmospheric mixed-layer model including a land-surface-vegetation representation, and measurements from the Canopy Horizontal Array Turbulence Study (CHATS) field experiment near Dixon, California. The RSL is parameterized using an additional factor in the standard Monin–Obukhov similarity theory flux-profile relationships that takes into account the canopy influence on the atmospheric flow. We selected a representative case characterized by southerly wind conditions to ensure well-developed RSL over the orchard canopy. We then investigated the sensitivity of the diurnal variability of the boundary-layer dynamics to the changes in the RSL key scales, the canopy adjustment length scale, Lc, and the β = u*/|U| ratio at the top of the canopy due to their stability and dependence on canopy structure. We found that the inclusion of the RSL parameterization resulted in improved prediction of the diurnal evolution of the near-surface mean quantities (e.g. up to 50 % for the wind velocity) and transfer (drag) coefficients. We found relatively insignificant effects on the modelled surface fluxes (e.g. up to 5 % for the friction velocity, while 3 % for the sensible and latent heat), which is due to the compensating effect between the mean gradients and the drag coefficients, both of which are largely affected by the RSL parameterization. When varying Lc (from 10 to 20 m) and β (from 0.25 to 0.4 m), based on observational evidence, the predicted friction velocity is found to vary by up to 25 % and the modelled surface-energy fluxes (sensible heat, SH, and latent heat of evaporation, LE) vary up to 2 and 9 %. Consequently, the boundary-layer height varies up to 6 %. Furthermore, our analysis indicated that to interpret the CHATS measurements above the canopy, the contributions of non-local effects such as entrainment, subsidence and the advection of heat and moisture over the CHATS site need to be taken into account.


High poverty rate persists in rural Kenya, where farming households continue to depend on agriculture for food and income, despite economic growth. Maize is the most widely grown crop, with the maize-growing smallholder population quite heterogeneous and diversified.However, less than half the growers enter the market to sell at least a portion of their harvest.Our objective in this paper is to test the effects of maize market participation on household income, poverty status, and income diversification among Kenya's smallholder maize growers. We employ a combination of propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression on household panel data covering a ten-year period. The propensity score matching results show that in the overall, participation in the maize market has a significant impact on household income and poverty, with the magnitude of impact estimates differing across segments of maize growers, while the impact on diversification of income sources is not significant in most cases. These results persist after controlling for hidden selection bias through endogenous switching regression, with the impact estimates larger. Heterogeneity effects attest to existence of underlying differences among the maize-producing households that make sellers better off than non-sellers regardless of participation in the maize market. Our findings reinforce the call for interventions to expand the capacity of smallholder maize farmers to produce for the market in efforts to raise incomes and contribute to a more widespread poverty reduction.


[1] A greater abundance of shrubs in semiarid grasslands affects the spatial patterns of soil temperature, moisture, and litter, resulting in fertile islands with potentially enhanced soil metabolic activity. The goal of this study was to quantify the microsite specificity of soil respiration in a semiarid riparian ecosystem experiencing shrub encroachment. We quantified the response of soil respiration to different microsite conditions created by big mesquite shrubs (near the trunk and the canopy edge), medium-sized mesquite, sacaton bunchgrasses, and open spaces. We hypothesized that soil respiration would be more temperature sensitive and less moisture sensitive and have a greater magnitude in shrub microsites compared with grass and open microsites. Field and incubation soil respiration data were simultaneously analyzed in a Bayesian framework to quantify the microsite-specific temperature and moisture sensitivities and magnitude of respiration. The analysis showed that shrub expansion increases the heterogeneity of respiration. Respiration has greater temperature sensitivity near the shrub canopy edge, and respiration rates are higher overall under big mesquite compared with those of the other microsites. Respiration in the microsites beneath medium-sized mesquites does not behave like a downscaled version of big mesquite microsites. The grass microsites show more similarity to big mesquite microsites than medium-sized shrubs. This study shows there can be a great deal of fine-scale spatial heterogeneity that accompanies shifts in vegetation structure. Such complexity presents a challenge in scaling soil respiration fluxes to the landscape for systems experiencing shrub encroachment, but quantifying this complexity is significantly important in determining overall ecosystem metabolic behavior.


There is a lipid oxidation problem in edible oils and fats due to the fact that they are continuously exposed to various storage conditions or overheating. Therefore, investigation of the stabilization of edible oil products is an area worth researching due to consumer-related health concerns. Consequently, thermal oxidative deterioration might be prevented if the stability of the product is comprehended fairly. Thus, food formulations can be regulated depending on the findings of the stability measurements. In this review article, the mechanism and structure of lipid oxidation process have been explained. Furthermore, the significance of prediction of shelf-life has been mentioned as well as kinetic and thermodynamic comprehension in oxidation process. Additionally, all the mentioned stability measuring methods have been discussed, respectively.


Many of the oil installations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf are dependent on shuttle tankers transporting the produced oil to shore. Shuttle tanker operations contribute to considerable emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC). VOC is oil vapor that is mainly produced during offloading of oil between the offshore storage facility and the shuttle tanker. VOC is harmful to human and animal life and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. It is possible to recover the VOC and utilise it as fuel for the shuttle tankers. VOC recovery and utilisation reduces environmental harmful emissions and reduces the overall fuel consumption. Automatic Identification System (AIS) data is analysed in order to find an operational profile for the shuttle tankers. AIS is a global collision avoidance system mandatory on all larger vessels. The AIS provide information about the vessel such as position, speed and identification. The operational profile is used to assess the effect of implementing VOC recovery and utilisation as fuel for shuttle tankers operating on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The AIS data consists of 33 shuttle tankers with over 1.8 million individual AIS messages. In order to reduce the scope and complexity of the analysis, only four shuttle tankers are included in the analysis. First, a heuristic analysis of the four vessels is conducted to find an operational profile. Thereafter, a detailed analysis of one vessel for a 23 day period is conducted in order to assess the quality of the heuristic method. The results show that the heuristic approach is a sufficient method for analysing large amounts of data. The average operational profile for the analysed shuttle tankers is notable close to expected outcome. However, a detailed analysis points out certain flaws in the heuristic analysis that show significant changes for the 23 day period. Average operational profile from the heuristic method Offloading Transit Ballast Transit Laden Waiting [%] Port [%] Operation [%] [%] [%] 18.75 36.17 23.75 8.02 13.31 There is a considerable VOC reduction potential. Assuming a recovery rate of 100% of the VOC emissions, the shuttle tankers can save fuel corresponding to 27-70 of hours of transit per offloading operation.


In this thesis the world trade model with bilateral trade is applied to a large database. The model is based on the economic theory of comparative advantage, equilibrium production levels and benefit of trade. Statistical data on a large number of countries and sectors are applied to the model. Input-output calculations are used to convert the statistical variables to the necessary technology coefficient matrix, factor coefficient matrix and transportation matrix. These matrices are the basis for the world trade model with bilateral trade. The no trade version of the model, where there is no international trade, is solved to give grounds for comparison and the use of the benefit-of-trade constraint. The world trade model with bilateral trade opens up for trade based on comparative advantage. In addition the cost of transportation between countries is included so to integrate the cost and environmental consequences of different trade patterns. The model is applied with a large database from GTAP that provides information on 113 countries, 57 sectors, 5 primary factors, and 3 transportation sectors. The statistical values are in US dollars for the year 2004. The model solves for an alternative production layout and trade pattern based on comparative advantage, which would reduce the primary factor and product use. Comparing the statistical values to the model values gives a clear picture of the effect of comparative advantage on international trade. The total production levels were reduced due to lower inter-industry demand. The primary factor use was consequently reduced both from a lower production level and because production occurs in the country with comparative advantage. Higher levels of international trade were also observed due to production being more widespread. Even though emissions were not calculated in this thesis, the overall reduction indicates lower levels, as well as the reduced use of natural resources and land. This thesis is the first step to apply the world trade model with bilateral trade to a large database, hence some desired aspects were not included. Suggestions as to how the model can further be developed by including more constraints are put forth, such as restriction on factor movements, distances and transportation costs. The results clearly show the benefit of having a world economy based on comparative advantage. It illustrates how it is possible to have sustainable development by keeping the same consumption level as we have today while simultaneously reducing factor use.


Privatisation of the Nigerian Electricity Service Industry represents a bold first step on a multi-dimensional journey to social and economic development. Significant challenges remain to be overcome. This paper examines the reforms through the lens of New Institutional Economics in order to determine how weak institutions have so far confounded seasoned local investors and international advisors, by looking for the presence of excessive transaction costs. The reform environment is based on Williamsons 4 levels of social analysis and subjected to evaluation based on four areas deemed critical for reform success, namely property rights, market structure, conflict resolution mechanisms and policy implementation capabilities. The study is restricted to investors in electricity distribution companies, and the presence of high transaction costs used as proxy for institutions in need of further improvement. The study finds that providing quality asset performance data and changing a culture that tacitly accept electricity theft and late bill payment, will reduce the transaction costs associated with defining and protecting Investors property rights. However, the regulatory environment must mature to enjoy the confidence of government, consumers and investors, who continue to remain optimistic.


Emissions Trading Systems (ETSs) with fixed caps lack provisions to address systematic imbalances in the supply and demand of permits due to changes in the state of the regulated economy. We propose a mechanism which adjusts the allocation of permits based on the current bank of permits. The mechanism spans the spectrum between a pure quantity instrument and a pure price instrument. We solve the firms' emissions control problem and obtain an explicit dependency between the key policy stringency parameter – the adjustment rate – and the firms' abatement and trading strategies. We present an analytical tool for selecting the optimal adjustment rate under both risk-neutrality and risk-aversion, which provides an analytical basis for the regulator's choice of a responsive ETS policy.


In this first section of a three-part article the author looks at concentrations of Community dimension, beginning with an outline of the evolution of the Community's merger legislation and its objectives before providing general remarks on concentrations of Community dimension followed by description and definition of: the concept of concentrations; types of acquistions of control; the notion of Community dimension; turnover; and ancillary restraints. The second section will deal with the procedure of control and the final section with the assessment of the compatibility of concentrations with the EU. '[ . . .] what matters for economic development most is the quality of institutions in different countries. The biggest explanatory factor of income differences between countries, of productivity differences between countries, is the way people interact with each other, is the way they trust each other, is the way competition works.'


Introduction: Neuroblastoma is known as one of the most common solid tumors in children, which is recently under the investigation for the expression of CD133, a marker of cancer stem cells. Revealing the prognostic value of CD133 marker expression is important in predicting the outcome and survival of neuroblastoma patients. In this systematic review, we aimed to review the studies on association between CD133 expression and other peripheral neuroblastic tumor prognostic factors.Methods: PubMed was searched for the relevant articles. No time and language limitation were included in our search strategy. Data regarding the patients' number and age, tumor stage, histology and CD133 expression were extracted.Results: Overall, only 4 relevant articles were retrieved. One articles revealed the positive association between CD133 expression in neuroblastoma samples and its resistance to chemotherapy treatment. Three of the included articles showed the positive relation between CD133 expression rate and tumor stage progression. Two of the included studies revealed much worse survival of the neuroblastoma patients with more expression of CD133.Discussion: Based on included studies, CD133 expression is positively related with poor outcome prognosis in patients, more advanced tumor stage, shorter disease-free survival and overall survival. Conclusion: Although the expression of CD133 has shown increasing trend by advancing the neuroblastoma tumor stage, more studies with larger sample size are needed to accurately reveal the relation.


Soil water dynamics at an experimental hillslope site is studied by means of a one‐dimensional dual‐continuum model. The model is based on Richards' equation for vertical soil water flow and the advection–dispersion equation for transport of the stable isotope 18O. The water body contained in the soil‐matrix pore space and the one transmitted through the system of preferential pathways are treated as two separate, mutually communicating soil water continua. The 18O isotope, monitored in precipitation, subsurface hillslope discharge, and soil water, was used as a natural tracer to study the role of preferential flow in the formation of shallow subsurface runoff. It is shown that the dual‐continuum approach can, in principle, explain the observed variations of 18O content in the subsurface hillslope discharge. The model successfully describes mixing of new water, which reflects the isotope signatures of the individual precipitation events, with old water, reflecting the seasonal variability of the isotope signal.


Information technology in the workplace is vital to the management of workflow in the company; therefore, IT security is no longer considered a technical issue but a necessity of an entire corporation. The practice of IT security has rapidly expanded to an aspect of Corporate Governance so that the understanding of the risks and prospects of IT security are being properly managed at an executive level. IT Security Governance Innovations: Theory and Research provides extraordinary research which highlights the main contributions and characteristics of existing approaches, standards, best practices, and new trends in IT Security Governance. With theoretical and practical perspectives, the book aims to address IT Security Governance implementation in corporate organizations. This collection of works serves as a reference for CEOs and CIOs, security managers, systems specialists, computer science students, and much more.


Emotion recognition in user-generated videos plays an important role in human-centered computing. Existing methods mainly employ traditional two-stage shallow pipeline, i.e. extracting visual and/or audio features and training classifiers. In this paper, we propose to recognize video emotions in an end-to-end manner based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Specifically, we develop a deep Visual-Audio Attention Network (VAANet), a novel architecture that integrates spatial, channel-wise, and temporal attentions into a visual 3D CNN and temporal attentions into an audio 2D CNN. Further, we design a special classification loss, i.e. polarity-consistent cross-entropy loss, based on the polarity-emotion hierarchy constraint to guide the attention generation. Extensive experiments conducted on the challenging VideoEmotion-8 and Ekman-6 datasets demonstrate that the proposed VAANet outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches for video emotion recognition. Our source code is released at: https://github.com/maysonma/VAANet.


Visualizing diverse anatomical and functional traits that span many spatial scales with high spatio-temporal resolution provides insights into the fundamentals of living organisms. Light-field microscopy (LFM) has recently emerged as a scanning-free, scalable method that allows for high-speed, volumetric functional brain imaging. Given those promising applications at the tissue level, at its other extreme, this highly-scalable approach holds great potential for observing structures and dynamics in single-cell specimens. However, the challenge remains for current LFM to achieve subcellular level, near-diffraction-limited 3D spatial resolution. Here, we report high-resolution LFM (HR-LFM) for live-cell imaging with a resolution of 300-700 nm in all three dimensions, an imaging depth of several micrometers, and a volume acquisition time of milliseconds. We demonstrate the technique by imaging various cellular dynamics and structures and tracking single particles. The method may advance LFM as a particularly useful tool for understanding biological systems at multiple spatio-temporal levels.


Information is at the heart of research. Every stage of the research cycle involves discovering, accessing, generating, manipulating, interpreting or presenting information, in order to advance knowledge. Researchers operate within a complex information environment, with needs that they themselves perhaps do not always fully understand, and are dependent upon services which are fast-changing and affected by much wider social trends. This paper examines how researchers in the humanities currently access, use and share information, paying particular attention to the influence of new technologies in changing information — and consequently wider research — practices. It finds that researchers are adopting new technologies where this helps them to work more effectively, but that traditional practices still dominate in some areas. There is mixed evidence of new research questions emerging as a result of engagement with new technologies.


The economics of climate change and the various measures that should be implemented to reduce future damages are highly tied to the use of cost-benefit analysis. Traditional approaches ignore the fact that environmental amenities do not experience the same growth rate as do most of the sectors in the economy, which leads to changing relative prices. Uncertainty should also be considered, especially when one is conducting cost-benefit analysis involving the long-run damages from climate change. This article reviews some theoretical approaches to the economics of discounting and discusses issues associated with unbalanced growth, uncertainty, and spatial discounting.


With the Behrami and Saramati decision the European Court of Human Rights misses an important opportunity to close the credibility gap in human rights protection during the international administration of territories such as Kosovo. The article criticises the attribution of KFOR acts to the United Nations. It holds that the equation of delegation and attribution as well as the ultimate authority and control test as a criterion for attribution are not in line with UN practice. Instead the article argues in favour of a responsibility of the Troop Contributing Nations. Their responsibility is either based on dual attribution or on the jurisprudence of the Court on the transfer of powers to international organisations. The Court's intention is understandable to protect the universal UN security system by not declaring acts of the Security Council incompatible with European standards. However, it will harm the credibility of UN administration of territories in the long run if collective security concerns prevail over human rights protection. In view of the exercise of quasi-governmental acts by the UN Security Council the article stresses the obligations of ECHR Member States to work towards the establishment of a human rights tribunal on the level of the United Nations.


In recent years, calls have been made to address the relative dearth of qualitative sociological investigation into the sensory dimensions of embodiment, including within physical cultures. This article contributes to a small, innovative and developing literature utilizing sociological phenomenology to examine sensuous embodiment. Drawing upon data from three research projects, here we explore some of the 'sensuousities' of 'intense embodiment' experiences as a distance-running-woman and a boxing-woman, respectively. Our analysis addresses the relatively unexplored haptic senses, particularly the 'touch' of heat. Heat has been argued to constitute a specific sensory mode, a trans-boundary sense. Our findings suggest that 'lived' heat, in our own physical-cultural experiences, has highly proprioceptive elements and is experienced as both a form of touch and as a distinct perceptual mode, dependent upon context. Our analysis coheres around two key themes that emerged as salient: (1) warming up, and (2) thermoregulation, which in lived experience were encountered as strongly interwoven.


Research in this article traces the origins of a not-for-profit financial institution the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (S.W.I.T.). Swift is a core part of the financial services infrastructure and widely regarded as the most secure trusted third party network in the world serving 200 countries with over 8000 users. Our analysis focuses on how the design and current state of SWIFT was influenced by its historical origins. In order to ensure widespread compatibility in a sector experiencing asynchronous technological development, legacy Telex specifications had to be accommodated in SWIFT's design. Over time, what began as a closed "society" founded to reduce errors and increase efficiency in inter-bank payments grew into an industry co-operative supporting an enthusiastic community of practice and transformed into an unexpected network phenomenon. SWIFT achieved such success that it has been accused of being an installed base stifling innovation. In recent years, SWIFT has had to institute new categories of membership in an effort to counter concerns about its bank dominated governance and it continues to search for ways to meet the requirements of key constituents in the financial supply chain.


The gains to developing countries from agricultural reform in developed countries is found to benefit most, even the net food importers, although the gains vary depending on a country's trade pattern. This results because the agricultural policy of a small number of developed countries cause the major distortions in world markets, and developing countries whose major share of agricultural trade is with the E.U. are impacted quite differently than those trading with the U.S. Even though Japan and Korea maintain high trade barriers, these barriers are found to have small effects on developing countries. The long-run benefits of reform are found to greatly exceed the short-run gains.


The phenomenon called cold-fusion has been studied for the last 21 years since its discovery by Profs. Fleischmann and Pons in 1989. The discovery was met with considerable skepticism, but supporting evidence has accumulated, plausible theories have been suggested, and research is continuing in at least 8 countries. This paper provides a brief overview of the major discoveries and some of the attempts at an explanation. The evidence supports the claim that a nuclear reaction between deuterons to produce helium can occur in special materials without application of high energy. This reaction is found to produce clean energy at potentially useful levels without the harmful byproducts normally associated with a nuclear process. Various requirements of a model are examined.


The study of wave production and propagation is a common phenomenon seen within a variety of math and physics problems. This thesis in particular will investigate the production and propagation of sound waves through musical instruments. Although this field of work has been examined since the late 1800s, approaching these types of problems can be very difficult. With the exception of the last fifty years, we have only been able to approach such problems by linearizing the necessary equations of gas dynamics. Without the use of a computer, one can only get so far in studying nonlinear acoustic problems. In addition, the numerical theory for nonlinear problems is incomplete. Proving stability is challenging and there are a variety of open problems within this field. This thesis will be examining the propagation of sound waves specifically through brass instruments. However, we will not be able to fully examine this problem in a masters thesis because of the complexity. Instead, the objective is to provide a foundation and global picture of this problem by merge the fields of nonlinear acoustics as well as computational and analytical gas dynamics. To study the general behaviour of nonlinear wave propagation (and to verify previous findings), experiments have been carried on a trumpet. The purpose of these experiments is take measurements of the sound pressure waves at various locations along the instrument in order to understand the evolution of the wave propagation. In particular, we want to establish if the nonlinear distortion is strong enough to have musical consequences; and if there are such outcomes, what prerequisites are required for the observable behaviour. Additionally, by using the discontinuous Galerkin numerical method, a model of the system will be presented in this thesis. It will then be compared with the experimental data to verify how well we were able to describe the nonlinear wave motion within a trumpet.


In Melbourne, poems are everywhere. They are in lounge rooms, hotels, festivals, toilets, wedding ceremonies and funerals. Poems are pasted in alleyways, spray-painted on walls, emailed and facebooked and blogged. In this research project, by applying Bourdieu's concept of a symbolic good, I track the exchange of symbolic and commodity values in the cultural field of poetry participation in Melbourne. I focus on two public domains of reception. The first domain is where poems are presented in hard-copy journals and books, and the second is where poems are seen and heard in public performance. I do not assume that a poet who presents their poems in performance made a decision during the composition process to present their poem in performance only. I define the dominant categories of page poetry and performance poetry as presentations of poems and acts of participation in poetry as a literary genre. I argue that the nomenclature of literary categories, which are given orthodoxy in arts funding, journal submission, prize entry and book solicitation guidelines in the cultural field of Australian poetry, constitutes symbolic violence. In current means of evaluation, poems presented in performance are often excluded from the literary genre of poetry. The conditions of access to the evaluation of a poem perpetuate this exclusion, as I find in the research setting of Melbourne, 2013 to 2015. The thesis has two parts, a written component and a performance component. The written component outlines the investigation and findings of the research project. I locate the means, terms and categories of poetry evaluation within international, national and local public settings and present the analysis as a series of contextual landscapes. The exegesis explores the practice-led investigation which is the last and overarching landscape. The production and presentation of poems is another approach to the research questions, and another way to further investigate previous findings. Yet even here, the poem drives the inquiry. I suggest that, in order to more closely evaluate poetry, the poem remain the object of evaluation and, in this case, the research subject. Additional material(s) submitted with thesis.


The present paper discusses a theoretical model to explain the link between servitization and territorial competitiveness based on the situation in Italy. A key assumption of the model is that once the link between manufacturing and KIBS is established within a TES, there is a positive feedback between the increasing productivity (competitiveness) and the link between firms and KIBS, which becomes stronger and stronger triggering a self-reinforcing dynamic. This means that every evolutionary step of the system influences the next and thus the evolution of the entire system, so generating path dependence. Such a system has a high number of asymptotic states, and the initial state (time zero), unforeseen shocks, or other kinds of fluctuations, can lead the system into any of the different domains of the asymptotic states (1). In other words, both the theoretical assumptions and the empirical model outlined in this paper demonstrate that when a functional relationship between manufacturing and services is established (servitization), economic performance is positive or very positive.


Platform-based product development is about sharing components and product architectures between products in a product family to save costs and free engineering resources. The intension is that the components and product architectures must be shared both across existing and future products, but continuous product family evolution challenges this strategy. The concept of continuous platform development is based on the fact that platform development should not be a one-time experience but rather an ongoing process of developing new platforms and updating existing ones, so that product family evolution does not make the platforms irrelevant. This research is based on case studies and applications in the two Danish companies, LEGO and Grundfos, where several platform development projects have been followed. LEGO is exceptional for their long experience with platform development and maintenance, while Grundfos is relatively new within this area. This study puts emphasis on platform projects and defines such projects as something very different from product development projects and more similar to industrial research projects, due to the fact that they are continuous activities with relatively low risks and investments but also with relatively fuzzy results. When looking for new platform projects, it is important to make sure that the company and market is ready for the introduction of platforms, and to make sure that people from marketing and sales, product development, and downstream departments are all consulted. Platform ideas originate primarily from experienced workers, managers, or platform thinkers. Platform projects are presented regularly for future users and decision makers in structured presentations consisting of both quantitative estimates of costs and benefits and qualitative platform concept descriptions. This happens in a structured process, where platform projects are developed in parallel and prioritized in a stage-gate process. When platform projects end the responsibility of the platform components is passed on to the platform maintenance organization. Product developers can add new platform components and clean-up and replacements of platform components are organized. Platform performance can be evaluated based on platform component usage and growth. Platform development is effectively split from product development, but platform project are aligned through constant presentations and product developer involvement. When the two processes are brought back together timing of platform project is essential because it must be ready in time – too early starts can however make the platform irrelevant.


Abstract The most sensitive way to determine the neutrino mass scale without further assumptions is to measure the shape of a tritium beta spectrum near its endpoint. Tritium is the nucleus of choice because of its low endpoint energy, superallowed decay, simple nuclear properties and simple atomic structure. Tritium beta decay experiments have been performed for more than 60 years yielding in an upper limit of the electron neutrino mass of 2 eV/c2. The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN) will improve the sensitivity on the neutrino mass by another order of magnitude. This article gives a short survey of 6 decades of tritium beta decay experiments and discusses the future steps.


Summary Goal: An exploratory study evaluated best-management techniques for replanting a commercial vineyard suffering from both a high incidence of Grapevine leafroll associated virus-3 and high densities of northern root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne hapla). The grower had two goals: to reduce the density of plant-parasitic nematodes, which can delay establishment of young vines, using a pre-plant fumigant, and to reduce survival of virus-infected vine tissue by applying an herbicide to the foliage prior to vine removal. Key Findings: Fall-applied metam sodium reduced densities of M. hapla in the following growing season. Its herbicidal properties also resulted in high root mortality. In cases where vines survived, only a few shoots (and suckers) emerged, displaying typical morphology. Fall-applied foliar glyphosate significantly reduced shoot and sucker regrowth, but did not kill root tissue. In the few instances where shoots and suckers grew the following spring, that tissue expressed typical symptoms of glyphosate phytotoxicity. While low rates of abnormal growth would eliminate much of the aerial reservoir of virus, the presence of live roots indicates that rogue vines and living root debris could contribute to infection of new, virus-free planting stock. Combining fumigant and foliar glyphosate was additive: nematode control, root mortality, and a lack of healthy shoot/crown sucker regrowth. Impact and Significance: This preliminary work showed that the combination of fall fumigation and foliar glyphosate application reduced nematode populations and vine survival. In situations where plant-parasitic nematodes are the sole issue facing replanting, fumigation alone suffices. Where virus alone is the impetus for replanting, fall-applied foliar glyphosate may provide sufficient overall vine mortality, with a caveat of low root mortality and its attendant risk of root-feeding vectors spreading the virus to new planting stock.


Decades of studies have suggested several criteria to detect interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICME) in time series from in situ spacecraft measurements. Among them, the most common are an enhanced and smoothly rotating magnetic field, a low proton temperature, and a low plasma beta. However, these features are not all observed for each ICME due to their strong variability. Visual detection is time-consuming and biased by the observer interpretation, leading to non-exhaustive, subjective, and thus hardly reproducible catalogs. Using convolutional neural networks on sliding windows and peak detection, we provide a fast, automatic, and multi-scale detection of ICMEs. The method has been tested on the in situ data from WIND between 1997 and 2015, and on the 657 ICMEs that were recorded during this period. The method offers an unambiguous visual proxy of ICMEs that gives an interpretation of the data similar to what an expert observer would give. We found at a maximum 197 of the 232 ICMEs of the 2010–2015 period (recall 84% ± 4.5%), including 90% of the ICMEs present in the lists of Nieves-Chinchilla et al. and Chi et al. The minimal number of False Positives was 25 out of 158 predicted ICMEs (precision 84% ± 2.6%). Although less accurate, the method also works with one or several missing input parameters. The method has the advantage of improving its performance by just increasing the amount of input data. The generality of the method paves the way for automatic detection of many different event signatures in spacecraft in situ measurements.


Background: The liver is an organ that has important functions in the body. Liver damage can be caused by oxidative stress and free radicals. White turmeric (Curcuma zedoaria L) contains antioxidants that can be used to neutralize the effects of free radicals. This study was conducted to determine the effect of white turmeric infusion on histological appearance of liver cells in male mice induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4). Methods : This laboratory experimental study was conducted using male mice (Mus musculus) with Balb/c strain. Thirty-three mice were randomly divided into 3 groups i.e.,group 1 as a control group was given standard food and drink, group 2 was given 10% of CCl4 0.1 ml by intraperitoneal injection on the first day and group 3 was given 10% of CCl4 0.1 mL by  ntraperitoneal injection on the first day, followed by the administration of 50% of white turmeric infusion 0.2 mL. Kruskal-Wallis test method was used to analyse the significant differences of the average percentage of damaged liver cells in the group given CCl4 alone with the group given CCl4 and white turmeric infusion and control group. Results: The percentage of damaged liver cells between groups of mice given CCl4 alone and the group given CCl4 followed by white turmeric infusion were respectively(p <0.05) compared to group1. Conclusions : Administration of white turmeric infusion gave an influence by decreasing the percentage of damaged liver cells in CCl4-induced mice. White turmeric can serve as an alternative antioxidants that can be used to neutralize the effects of free radicals. [ AMJ .2015;2(4):506–10] DOI:  10.15850/amj.v2n4.498


The quiet of Longboat Key, Florida, is shattered when an old man is shot to death and his murderer is killed while fleeing the police. Strange documents in German and Arabic are found in the killer's car then an old friend of the murdered man disappears. The island's only detective, Jennifer Diane (JD) Duncan receives a text message with a picture taken that morning of a college friend whom she thought was dead. Matt Royal and JD are pursued by men who would do them harm, and Matt's best friend, Jock Algren, a shadowy operative of the U.S. government's most secretive intelligence agency comes to visit the island. As the mystery deepens, a ragtag group of devious and dangerous characters intrudes on the lives of the islanders, creating a kind of havoc unusual for a sun-splashed island full of retirees and beach bums. Matt, JD and Jock rush to find the answer to why one old man was killed and another disappeared, the meaning of the photo sent to JD of her almost surely dead college friend, and why somebody is trying to kill them.


IMPORTANCE
The Lariat device has received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for soft-tissue approximation and is being widely used off-label for left atrial appendage (LAA) exclusion. A comprehensive analysis of safety and effectiveness has not been reported.

OBJECTIVES
To perform a systematic review of published literature to assess safety and procedural success, defined as successful closure of the LAA during the index procedure, of the Lariat device. We performed a formal analytic review of the FDA MAUDE (Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience) database to compile adverse event reports from real-world practice with the Lariat.

DATA SOURCES
For the systematic review, PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Library were searched from January 2007 through August 2014 to identify all studies reporting use of the Lariat device in 3 or more patients. The FDA MAUDE database was queried for adverse events reports related to Lariat use.

DATA EXTRACTIONS AND SYNTHESIS
Data were abstracted in duplicate by 2 physician reviewers. Events from published literature were pooled using a generic inverse variance weighting with a random effects model. Cumulative and individual adverse events were also reported using the FDA MAUDE data set.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
Procedural adverse events and procedural success.

RESULTS
In the systematic review, 5 reports of Lariat device use in 309 participants were identified. Specific complications weighted for inverse of variance of individual studies were urgent need for cardiac surgery (2.3%; 7 of 309 procedures) and death (0.3%; 1 of 309 procedures). Procedural success was 90.3% (279 of 309 procedures). In the FDA MAUDE database, there were 35 unique reports of adverse events with use of the Lariat device. Among these, we identified 5 adverse event reports that noted pericardial effusion and death and an additional 23 reported urgent cardiac surgery without mention of death.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
This review of published reports and case reports identified risks of adverse events with off-label use of the Lariat device for LAA exclusion. Formal, controlled investigations into the safety and efficacy of the device for this indication are warranted.


Development of surimi processing in the industry regions which have huge potential of raw material, can be done through aiming at the business feasibility existed either by modern surimi processing business as weel as semi modern. In general, theaim of this research is to analyze the feasibility business of surimi processing either by modern surimi processing business or semi modern. Sampling of surimi processing business for modern surimi processing was located in Pekalongan, Central Java Province and semi modern surimi processing was located in Pulau Moro, Riau Island Province. Data collection was done by questionaire and interview to stakeholders of surimi processing industry. Method of analysis was carried out by using criteria of financial feasibility i.e. Payback Period (PB), Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Profitable Index (PI), Net B/C, and Break Event Point (BEP). Result of research showed that surimi processing business either by modern surimi processing business or semi modern is feasible shown from (1) Value of NPV for PT. A is Rp.22,647,400,670 and PT.B is Rp.29,866,797,485 for 10 years, (2) Value of IRR at surimi business in PT.A is 49.28% and PT.B is 56.11%, (3) PT. A needs 2 years 1 month and 6 days to return the investment that has been invested in surimi processing, meanwhile PT.B needs 1 year 10 months and 6 days, (4) Value of profitability index PT.A is 2.43 and PT.B is 2.78, and (5) figure of Net B/ C Ratio PT.A is 1.89, and PT.B has figure of Net B/C Ratio 1.58.


Large gaps in education levels persist, but all faiths are making gains – particularly among women.

Jews are more highly educated than any other major religious group around the world, while Muslims and Hindus tend to have the fewest years of formal schooling, according to a Pew Research Center global demographic study that shows wide disparities in average educational levels among religious groups.

These gaps in educational attainment are partly a function of where religious groups are concentrated throughout the world. For instance, the vast majority of the world's Jews live in the United States and Israel – two economically developed countries with high levels of education overall. And low levels of attainment among Hindus reflect the fact that 98% of Hindu adults live in the developing countries of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Drawing on census and survey data from 151 countries, the study also finds large gender gaps in educational attainment within some major world religions.


Abstract This article presents a case study of a child who attended Projeto Clicar, an extended education program designed for the social and educational development of children living on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brasil. We discuss how his discovery of the existence of dinosaurs unleashed a sustained artistic output at Projeto Clicar. We document the "third space" of Projeto Clicar, which offered repertoires of practice that represented alternative modes of relation for the children of Projeto Clicar. We discuss how this alternative relational space provided the tools for ecological resilience in a hazardous world, as the child's dinosaur art became both a exploration of inter-relatedness and a means of expressing his own predicament of place, navigating between the open, inclusive world of Projeto Clicar and the closed, exclusive geographies of the city streets outside its reach. Keywords: social inclusion, third space, relational habitus, participatory appropriation, anticipatory appropriation ----- Bibliography: Underwood, Charles/Welsh Mahmood, Mara/Pranzetti, Dirce M.F./Toloza O. Costa, Maria Cecilia: Dinosaurs and Other Dangers: Navigational Play in a World of Trouble, IJREE, Vol. 5, Issue 1-2017, pp. 76-99. https://doi.org/10.3224/ijree.v5i1.05


During infectious disease outbreaks, data collected through health institutions and official reporting structures may not be available for weeks, hindering early epidemiologic assessment. By contrast, data from informal media are typically available in near real-time and could provide earlier estimates of epidemic dynamics. We assessed correlation of volume of cholera-related HealthMap news media reports, Twitter postings, and government cholera cases reported in the first 100 days of the 2010 Haitian cholera outbreak. Trends in volume of informal sources significantly correlated in time with official case data and was available up to 2 weeks earlier. Estimates of the reproductive number ranged from 1.54 to 6.89 (informal sources) and 1.27 to 3.72 (official sources) during the initial outbreak growth period, and 1.04 to 1.51 (informal) and 1.06 to 1.73 (official) when Hurricane Tomas afflicted Haiti. Informal data can be used complementarily with official data in an outbreak setting to get timely estimates of disease dynamics.


Nanotechnology promises new solutions for many applications in the biomedical, industrial and military fields as well as in consumer and industrial goods. The interconnection of nanoscale devices with existing communication networks and ultimately the Internet defines a new networking paradigm that is further referred to as the Internet of Nano-Things. Within this context, this paper discusses the state of the art in electromagnetic communication among nanoscale devices. An in-depth view is provided from the communication and information theoretic perspective, by highlighting the major research challenges in terms of channel modeling, information encoding and protocols for nanonetworks and the Internet of Nano-Things.


Purpose: To streamline and automate analysis of dosimetry checks for treatment planning system (TPS) commissioning, and TPS and linac QA, through scripts. Methods: A dosimetric analysis tool was developed using scripts written in Python language. A "standard" dosimetry dataset, ideally data measured for commissioning and/or verification of linac and TPS using a water scanning system, is generated and structured into an Excel spreadsheet. Annual dosimetry measurements, made with water a scanning system, are converted to the same format; measurements with a 2D ion chamber array (Matrixx) are kept in their original format in a separate folder. Plans for the same setup geometries are generated, or existing plans recalculated, and associated 3D dose files are exported in DICOM format into proper folders. Python scripts cycle through the planned DICOM dose files, match the information (beam energy, field size, SSD, depth) in the DICOM header with the data in the Excel files, or in the Matrixx data files, extract relevant dosimetric data from the 3D dose files (PDDs, profiles, output factors), compare to measurement using an in‐house developed gamma analysis routine and display the results in a pdf file (profiles, PDDs, planar dose distributions) or tabulate in an Excel sheet (output factors, absolute doses for reference geometries, wedge factors). For points failing the gamma analysis default passing criteria, an optimization is done to iteratively find at which tolerance levels these points pass for further evaluation. Results: Using our dosimetric analysis software, a test analysis of planned and measured dosimetric data for TPS commissioning of photon and electron beams was completed in about half hour, once data were converted into the proper format. Conclusion: Scripts written in Python facilitate more comprehensive analysis of dosimetric data for TPS and linac commissioning/QA. Streamlining the data analysis through scripts increases efficiency by reducing repetitive manual tasks.


In book "Innovation and Its Enemies" Professor Calestous Juma takes us to a fascinating journey of disruptive technological innovations that took place across the world impacting lives of several billions of people for generations. In the beginning, the author indicates "This book identifies the dynamics of social opposition to innovation" (p. 1). New technologies are outcomes of disruptive innovations for satisfying the changing societal needs. New technologies are the matter of public scrutiny, which could be opposed by a group of people concerning the social norms, health implications, social disruption, while some other groups could be influenced by prejudices or human ignorance. The innovation is essentially a creative process for economic transformation of creators and entrepreneurs making the new technologies available to the larger consumers. Gradually, modern society becomes more technology savvy than the people lived in the pre-modern era.


Using data from a large U.S. retail firm, we examine how racial matches between managers and their employees affect rates of employee quits, dismissals, and promotions. We exploit changes in management at hundreds of stores to estimate hazard models with store fixed effects that control for all unobserved differences across store locations. We find a general pattern of own-race bias in that employees usually have better outcomes when they are the same race as their manager. But we do find anomalies in this pattern, particularly when the manager-employee match violates traditional racial hierarchies (for example, nonwhites managing whites).


The aims of this study were to assess the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of food handlers and to assess the level of microbiological hygiene indicators at slaughterhouses and markets. Cross-sectional study was conducted during December 2014 to May 2015 in 16 slaughterhouses and 31 markets in Chiang Mai province, Thailand. A total of 32 slaughterhouse workers and 51 pork sellers were assessed KAP using questionnaires combining likert scales. Two focus group discussions were performed in slaughterhouse workers and in-depth interviews were conducted for animal health and public health authority, market and slaughterhouse managers, and consumers regarding food hygiene and food safety issues. Knowledge which assessed from the questionnaire indicated higher scores in personal hygiene and cross contamination and lower scores in foodborne illness. This result is in accordance with the result from focus group discussion. There are some contract finding between attitudes and practices; for example food handlers agreed that protective equipment can reduce cross contamination, but they practically do not wear gloves and mask and still work when they got sick. The qualitative data indicated that some good hygiene measures are inappropriate in the context of their practical implementation and some of these hygiene practices are not in accordance with their socio-economic status.


We describe Sketch-Sketch Revolution, a new tutorial system that allows any user to experience the success of drawing content previously created by an expert artist. Sketch-Sketch Revolution not only guides users through the application user interface, it also provides assistance with the actual sketching. In addition, the system offers an authoring tool that enables artists to create content and then automatically generates a tutorial from their recorded workflow history. Sketch-Sketch Revolution is a unique hybrid tutorial system that combines in-product, content-centric and reactive tutorial methods to provide an engaging learning experience. A qualitative user study showed that our system successfully taught users how to interact with a drawing application user interface, gave users confidence they could recreate expert content, and was uniformly considered useful and easy to use.