Background: Insulinomas are usually solitary; benign and encapsulated small lesions and majority of them measure <2 cm in diameter. They pose a challenge for pre-operative localization. Definitive treatment is surgical excision of the tumor. Intra-operative ultrasonography (IOUS), transhepatic portal venous sampling (THPVS) and positron emission tomography (PET) scan can be done for tumors not localized by conventional imaging modalities. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study of patients diagnosed with insulinoma during the period 2004-2012 (8 years) was done. Biochemical diagnostic criteria used were plasma concentrations of glucose <55 mg/dl with corresponding insulin level >3.0 μU/ml (18 pmol/L) and C-peptide of >0.6 ng/ml (0.2 nmol/L). The localization of the tumor was done by various modalities namely computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), IOUS, PET and portal venous sampling. The initial localizing technique in most of these patients were CT or MRI imaging, or both and those who were not localized by the above modalities were subjected to PET CT or THPVS or intra-operative ultrasound depending on the initial imaging results and patient's consent. All the modalities were not used in the same patient, but the modalities were decided as per the imaging results, patient's consent and affordability for the procedure. Results: Ninteen cases of insulinoma aged between 10 and 66 years, with a median age of 47 years were included in the analysis. There were 10 males and nine females. Eighty-three percent of patients presented with pre-prandial hypoglycemia (n = 15). Different modalities were employed for pre-operative localization of these patients out of which 5 (26.31%) cases were localized with CT, 5 (26.31) cases with MRI, 5 (26.31%) with THPVS, 1 (5.26%) case with PET CT, 3 (15.78%) of them could not be localized out of which 2 (10.52%) were localized by IOUS and 1 (5.26%) case the lesion could not be localized. Among 19 cases, 12 underwent surgery out of which one patient underwent distal pancreatectomy as tumor was not localized; eight underwent laparoscopic enucleation; three of them required intra-operative exploration and seven of them were not operated, as they did not give consent for surgery. In all the cases, the size of the insulinoma ranged between 1 and 2 cm. Conclusion: We report our experience with 19 cases of insulinoma and analyze the role of pre- and intra-operative imaging modalities in the surgical management of insulinomas. Most of our cases were symptomatic, and the most common presentation was with pre-prandial hypoglycemia. THPVS, PET scan and intra-operative ultrasound added to diagnostic sensitivity in some cases not localized by CT or MRI.


The recent trend in energy research sought for a gas turbine combustor with highest possible thermal efficiency in compliance with the present environment regulation norms. Such a design improvement requires a detailed understanding of all the physical process involved from the air intake
to turbine compressor to final exhaust.

The CFD is one of the most widely used technique for design and process optimization of gas turbine, that considerably reduces the cost involved and overall design time line.

The fuel injection is one of the vital process that determine the course of combustion inside the combustion chamber as it is primarily responsible for the fuel-air mixture formation and subsequent combustion.

The fuel injection itself is a complex process that is highly turbulence in nature and mean time it undergoes different kind of physical phenomena such as such
as breakup (atomization), dispersion, evaporation and subsequent combustion.

The present work is mainly on the development and application of different mathematical sub-models to describe the physics of turbulent spray, which is typical for gas turbine combustors.

The applied models were formulated in the Eulerian-Lagrangian context in Lag-3D code and coupled with FASTEST code as a gas phase solver.

In order to quantify the instantaneous velocity seen by the particle as it appears in the particle motion equation and its effect on the particle distribution, dispersion model is needed. Turbulent dispersion is very important which influences the particle trajectories that are especially important when evaporation takes place. In the present thesis, three dispersion models, namely RWM-Iso,
RWM-Aniso and PLM, are integrated and compared in this work.

Furthermore a systematical study in three configuration of different dispersion models and their influence on mass transfer and different turbulent intensities has been satisfactory carried out.

So the simulations have shown that the PLM model allows for achieving results that agree very well with the experimental
measurement of the droplet mass flux in particular in upper sections. This means that the consideration of the advanced dispersion models like PLM enables to account well for anisotropic turbulence as well as vortex structures inherent to complex turbulent two phase flows.

In order to capture well the unsteady dynamics using RANS calculation, a modified SAS model has been adopted and compared with the standard k-epsilon model. Comparisons with experimental data shows that the SAS model is able to capture well the overall flow dynamics.

To represent the actual atomization dynamics for the dispersed phase in vicinity of particle injection
nozzle, a stochastic model of drops air-blast breakup following the Kolmogorov´s model is
implemented first time in Lag-3D and respective improvement is shown in the results.


While the suburbs of most metropolitan areas are wealthier than their urban counterparts, rapid regional growth can improve the welfare of both city and suburb, according to a new book from Janet Rothenberg Pack. In Growth and Convergence in Metropolitan America, Pack identifies growth trends that have contributed to the convergence of welfare among regions. Pack analyzes demographic, social, and economic data from 277 metropolitan areas in the northeastern, midwestern, southern, and western United States between 1960 and 1990. Her analysis reveals a strong connection between regional growth and improved socioeconomic vitality. She finds little connection between population growth --the focus of many previous studies --and well-being, but a strong connection between per capita income growth and well-being. Moreover, there has been a major change in the factors associated with economic growth between the 1970s and 1980s. In the latter decade, the importance of an educated labor force and major universities have assumed major importance. This appears likely to have continued to be true in the 1990s. While current urban policy has focused on intra-metropolitan cooperation as the key to improving conditions in declining or slow-growing urban areas, Pack's analysis emphasizes the major differences among the larger regions of the country --both their cities and suburbs. From this perspective, national policies, both macro-economic policy and the progressive income tax, appear to be the most effective influences promoting regional convergence and improving the socio-economic well-being of both city and suburban residents.


The aim of this study was to investigate the medical professionals' ethical perceptions of sperm bank marketing. This study was performed by using the ethical decision-making modified model developed by Hunt and Vitell (2006) to understand and interpret the medical professionals' ethical perceptions which sperm banks encounter when marketing themselves. The main ethical issues that emerged in this study were: Should sperm donors be anonymous or non-anonymous? Should donors get paid or should it be solely altruistic? How shall sperm-banks select and how much should they screen the donors? Should sperm banks be commercialized? By examining these issues from the medical professionals' ethical perceptions, the study shows that commercial sperm banks do not market themselves ethically. However findings show that commercial sperm banks should still be an option for infertile couples.


Abstract. The Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) is represented in numerous shallow and deep marine sections of the south–central and western Pyrenees by a 2–4 m thick unit (locally up to 20 m) of clays or marly clays intercalated within a carbonate-dominated succession. This unit records a massive input into the Pyrenean Gulf of fine-grained terrestrial siliciclastics, attributed to an abrupt hydrological change during the PETM. However, the nature of such a change remains controversial. Here we show that, in addition to fine-grained deposits, large volumes of coarse-grained siliciclastics were brought into the basin and were mostly accumulated in incised valleys and in a long-lived deep-sea channel. The occurrence of these coarse-grained deposits has been known for some time, but their correlation with the PETM is reported here for the first time. The bulk of the incised valley deposits in the PETM interval are cross-bedded sands and pebbly sands, almost exclusively made of quartz. The criteria for indicting a relation to the PETM include their stratigraphic position between upper Thanetian and lower Ilerdian marine carbonates, organic carbon isotope data, and a high percentage of kaolinite in the clay matrix. The axially flowing deep-sea channel existed throughout Paleocene times in the Pyrenean Basin, within which coarse-grained calciclastic and siliciclastic turbidites were accumulated. This Paleocene succession is capped by thickly bedded quartz sandstones and pebbly sandstones, probably deposited by hyperpycnal flows, which are here assigned to the PETM based on their stratigraphic position and organic carbon isotopic data. The large and simultaneous increase in coarse- and fine-grained terrestrial siliciclastics delivered to the Pyrenean Gulf during the PETM is attributed to an increased intra-annual humidity gradient. During the PETM a longer and drier summer season facilitated the erosion of landscapes, whereas a dramatic enhancement of precipitation extremes during the wet season led to intensified flood events, with rivers carrying greater volumes of both bed and suspended loads. This scenario argues against the possibility that PETM kaolinites indicate a coeval warm and humid climate in northern Spain. Instead, the kaolinite reflects the erosion of thick Cretaceous lateritic profiles developed on the Hercynian basement.


The "truth" of historical legends is not identical with the "truth" of legal documents and history books, and official documents themselves are not necessarily "objective" reports. --Brynjulf Alver 1989, 149 Sami singing is called joiking. It is a practice for recalling other people. Some are recalled with hate, and some with love, and some are recalled with sorrow. --Johan Turi 2011, 161 If the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century witnessed a concerted scholarly effort to divorce the then-emerging ethnographic social sciences--folklore studies, ethnology, anthropology--from the realm of the humanities, the latter decades of the century saw growing efforts by scholars in these same fields to recover lost ground and to restore the humanistic natures of their disciplines. The "men of science" of the formative years of Nordic and American folklore studies gave us epic laws (Olrik 1965) for how folktales were constructed, typologies of memory failures involved in the changing lyrics of ballads (Burns 1970), and continual discussion about the possible or unlikely factual reliability of legends as sources for historical reconstruction (something that I will partly repeat myself in the following pages). Folklorists saw themselves as uncovering the mental scaffolding of oral tradition, and when the formal analysis of Vladimir Propp (1968) became known to scholars in Western Europe and America, it seemed to complete the disciplinary journey toward a scientific understanding of the production and transmission of even complex and nuanced cultural creations like the folktale. Yet, even amid the elation of this march toward morphology (cf. Dundes 1980) as a prime metaphor for the field of folklore studies, there were stirrings in the opposite direction, a desire to look at products of oral tradition as works of creativity, and to look at performers of folklore as creative artists rather than as passive bearers of tradition. These folkloristic stirrings were abetted by parallel acts among anthropologists, and eventually a loose confederation of new terms emerged: ethnohistory, ethnopoetics, and indigenous methodology. This paper deals with the ideas behind these terms and what they can tell us about the expressive culture of medieval Scandinavia. In the quotation that opens this paper, Brynjulf Alver (1924-2009) argued cogently that the fascination--indeed, obsession--among folklorists and historians about whether historical legends could be "true" or not misses entirely the core reasons why people retell legends, and the values or truths that they seek to impart through them. Alver argues in a sense for abandoning "historicity" as a measure of quality or value in folklore studies, replacing it with an attention to the moral, ideological, and aesthetic elements of the legend that are more organic to its nature and ongoing popularity. In other words, he sought to redirect folkloristic discourse toward a more humanistic stance toward memory, one not focused on the retention or loss of verifiable facts, but on the cultural and emotional significance of the related narrative to performers and their audiences. In the second quotation above, the great Sami writer Johan Turi (1854-1956) attempts to explain to a non-Sami audience the meaning and workings of a genre of song he knew as luohti, joik. He describes the genre as a means of muitingoansta--a way of remembering, recalling--that is, of encapsulating into the sounds and performance of a song the remembered essence of another being, be it a person, place, animal, or historical event. Johan Turi also recounts historical legends in his book, but he describes joik in particular as the prime means by which Sami remember their world and the beings that share it. I hope to explore in this paper what it would mean for medievalist folklorists to truly follow Alver's call toward a more humanistic approach to narrative, and what it might mean for the field of folklore in general to embrace the idea of genres like joik or poetry or non-narrative song as important sites for the cultural performance of memory. …


Rendering high-definition 3D models is becoming a commonly requested task for scientific simulation, visualization and computer graphics. Many research areas generate extremely complex 3D models, such as industrial CAD models (e.g. airplanes, ships and architectures), composed of more than hundreds of millions of geometric primitives. However, these complex datasets cannot be rendered efficiently using brute-force methods on a desktop workstation. Desktop computer technology has recently reached a point where it has advanced sufficiently to calculate and process a number of photographs of an object from different perspectives to produce an accurate three-dimensional (3D) high-definition digital model. This project explores the potential applications of 3D digital models in terms of extracting complex geological data. Different methods of data acquisition and the scale of outcrops are compared between difficult to access rock outcrops in a remote High Himalayan region of Photoksar, Ladakh to more accessible, low lying coastal areas on the NSW South Coast at Bingie Bingie Point, Narooma, Wolumla and Eden. Archaeological sites and ultrahigh resolution aerial photographs are also applied to the methods outlined. The application of photogrammetry at each site is assessed and compared to determine the benefit of it is applicable in any or all regions. The methods are assessed for efficiency, convenience and relevance of extracting complex structural geological data with emphasis on developing the highest quality digital 3D models possible. Any data extracted is tested for accuracy by comparing it with structural geological measurements obtained on the field by traditional methods using the trusted Field Move mobile application as a compass and clinometer equivalent. The results aim to provide a reliable and informative source of information outlining the methods used, what equipment is needed and what information can be extracted.


This paper discusses features of radiation absorption in the spectral region from 3 to 5 µm by single-crystal silicon: the dependence of the absorption coefficient on resistivity in samples of n- and p-type conductivity, the additional absorption associated with intraband electron transitions in the conduction band, and the influence of short-wavelength illumination on the transmission spectra. Recommendations for the use of silicon as an optical medium are given from an analysis of the calculated and experimental data.


We have investigated metamorphic buffer layers (MBLs), as so-called virtual substrates, for accessing a compositional range of In
 x
Ga
 1-x
As/Al
 y
In
 1-y
As superlattice (SL) materials which would otherwise be prohibited due to excessive strain when grown on conventional substrates. Such materials have application in the realisation of high-performance Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) of short emission wavelengths (i.e., ≤4.0 μm). Simulation studies suggest that significant enhancement of performance in terms of reduced device temperature sensitivity and reduced thermal resistance is possible over conventional InP-substrate devices by employing MBL-based QCL designs on a GaAs substrate. Furthermore, such devices would exhibit significantly lower strain compared to conventional QCLs on InP emitting within the 3.0-4.0 μm wavelength region. To improve the planarity of MBL top surfaces, we employ chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) prior to the growth of the QCL SL structures. 20-period In
 x
Ga
 1-x
As (wells)/Al
 y
In
 1-y
As (barriers) SLs are grown by metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE) on an InGaAs step-graded, hydride vapour phase epitaxy (HVPE)-grown MBL. Employing CMP on the top of the MBL, prior to the SL growth, results in significantly improved X-ray-diffraction SL fringes. Electroluminescent devices, incorporating a single stage of QCL-SL active-region material grown on an MBL subjected to CMP, demonstrate intersubband emission near 3.6 μm.


It is critical to protect the network infrastructure (e.g., network routing and management protocols) against security intrusions, yet dealing with insider attacks are probably one of the most challenging research problems in network security. We study the security threats, especially internal/insider threats, for the standardized routing protocol OSPF. In OSPF, a group of routers collaborate, exchange routing information, and forward packets for each other. If one (and maybe more than one) router is evil or compromised, how can this router damage the whole network? In this paper, we analyze OSPF and identify its strengths and weakness under various insider attacks. Furthermore, to confirm our analysis, we have implemented and experimented one attack, the max sequence number attack, on our OSPF routing testbed. Our attack is very successful against two independently developed router products as it will block routing updates for 60 minutes by simply injecting one bad OSPF protocol data unit.


The debate on transgenic, which is embebed in asymmetrical information, has as a focal point, the risks and uncertainties to them associated. Many are the concerns and questions about the risks for the human health and the environment. Considering the interests of the productive sector in the transgenic technology, the matter sets itself in terms of how fast it wants to be settled taking into consideration the incapability of establishing certainties about the damages or benefits within the process. With the recent liberation by the Brazilian government for its production the sector starts showing segmentation. Therefore, this issue reflects in the market itself. The question is: are the consumers willing to buy transgenic? As an attempt to answer this question, this paper used a Contingent Valuation procedure, with an exploratory character, estimating consumer willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid the consumption of transgenic. This variable (WTP) was measured as a monetary estimate benefits.


One of the first Europeans to discover North America, Leif Eriksson landed on its shores around the year 1000. His expedition was part of a great era of exploration and migration for the Nordic people and the beginning of a long history of Scandinavian involvement in the New World. By the middle of the nineteenth century, huge waves of America fever had spread through the Scandinavian countries and by 1907 an official of the Swedish government reported that it was difficult to find a farm where none of the immediate family was in America. Today, approximately 11.5 million Americans describe themselves as being of Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Finnish, or Danish descent, a number that equals half the population of the five countries from which they and their ancestors came. The Scandinavian American Family Album tells the history of this tremendous wave of immigration and of the contribution of Scandinavian people to the growth and development of the United States. Through their own diaries, letters, and through interviews, rare photographs, and songs, we are treated to a firsthand account of the hardships, challenges, and triumphs that awaited the generations of Scandinavian immigrants who made their way across the ocean to start new lives in America. We learn about their day-to-day life before emigration, the factors--such as social inequality, financial hardship, and overpopulation--that contributed to their decisions to leave, of their experience upon landing at Ellis Island, and the various occupations that they settled into as they began to establish homes and communities. We discover that the Danes were the first European settlers in the Bronx and Harlem in New York City and that Swedes and Finns built the first log cabins. Personal accounts describe homesteads and early colonies set up all over the country, from Maine to Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, and as far west as Utah and Nebraska. These early immigrants and their descendants tell us about pioneering farming ventures, the dangers and hardships of logging and mining, the thrill of the gold rush, and the struggle of early labor movements. All across the country, Scandinavian Americans played a key role in building the institutions and communities that still exist today. Among those who made distinguished contributions to American life and culture are Jacob Riis, the founder of modern photojournalism; Thorstein Veblen, renowned economist; sports legends Knute Rockne and Babe Didrikson Zaharias; aviator Charles Lindbergh; and Knute Nelson, the first Scandinavian American governor of Minnesota. Others profiled include actress Candice Bergen, dancer Peter Martins, Norman Borlaug, the first agricultural scientist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, novelist Ole Rolvaag and Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who created the giant heads of four presidents on Mt. Rushmore. The stories and memories contained in this album, illustrated with vivid photographs drawn from a vast array of archives, make this volume a valuable window into the past of Scandinavian Americans and the country they now call home. The titles in the American Family Albums series tell the multicolored and often heroic stories of American immigrant groups, largely through their own words and pictures. Like any family album or scrapbook, the pages contain many period photographs and other memorabilia. These join with original documents--including selections from diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspapers--to bring the immigrant experience vividly to life."


The origins of forecasting can be traced back to the beginning of human civilization with attempts to predict the weather, although forecasting as a field first appeared in the 1940s and attracted more followers from the early 1950s, when the need for predictions emerged in different fields of endeavor. It expanded considerably in the 1960s and 1970s when benefits were ascertained and computers were employed to perform the tedious calculations required. But initial successes in the fields of economics and business were first moderated and later reversed, with reality checks, first during the 1973/74 energy crisis, afterwards during the prolonged economic stagflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s and further deteriorated during the severe 2007/8 global financial crisis. The initial, optimistic expectations that social sciences will (using powerful computers and sophisticated models) replicate the predictive accuracy of hard ones were repeatedly shattered. This has left diverse fields like economics, management, political and human sciences and even worse medicine with no objective evidence of successful, accurate predictions, casting doubts to their "scientific" vigor. At the same time, weather forecasting achieved success for immediate term predictions improving its accuracy and reliability over time. This paper starts with a historical overview of nonsuperstition based forecasting as it is practiced in different areas and surveys their predictive accuracy, highlighting their successes, identifying their failures and explaining the reasons involved. Consequently, it argues for a new, pragmatic approach where the emphasis must shift from forecasting to assessing uncertainty, as realistically as possible, evaluating its implications to risk and exploring ways to prepare to face it. It expands Rumsfeld's classification to four quadrants (Known/Knowns, Unknown/Knowns, Known/Unknowns and Unknown/Unknowns) in order to explore the full range of predictions and associated uncertainties and consider the implications and risks involved. Finally, there is a concluding section summarizing the findings and providing some suggestions for future research aimed at turning forecasting into an interdisciplinary field increasing its value and usefulness.


A community mosque IS an important facility located within the Malaysian neighbourhood. It is a place for the Muslim community to gather for the purpose of worship and as a community development centre. The research attempts to gain an
understanding on the multiplicity of function of a community mosque through users feedback on visitation, usage trend, and their evaluation on the spatial conditions of the community mosque. The research employed a mixed methodology approach which combines qualitative and quantitative methods to examine two case study community mosques. The scope of the primary data was limited to two community mosque representations which arc Al-Hasanah Mosque in Bandar Baru Bangi and As-Salam
Mosque in Puchong as case study. Instruments of research were architectural elements inventory, walk through survey, interview and questionnaires. The research revealed the community mosque is regarded primarily as a place for congregational worship, for hosting of dakwah and Islamic learning activities and to hold congregational affairs that open the opportunity to bring together the Islamic community. Analysis of the spatial zoning and arrangements of the two community mosques shows similar concerns in spatial planning, where the focuses are on hierarchy of space, placement of mihrab and minbar, flexibility to cater for change in volume of Jemaah, gender segregation and
integration issues, flow of worship processes, and space hierarchy. Users concerns mainly focus on accessibility, audibility, privacy, cleanliness and hygiene, safety and thermal comfort. Space provisions that users feel that are currently under provided are spaces and facilities to support social gathering activities, seminars and funeral preparations.


The rationale of most restoration strategies is that with reconstruction of natural habitats comes biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning and services will follow suit. Uncertainty and frequent failure in restoration outcomes, however, are recurrent and likely related to the complexity of ecosystem properties. Here, we propose ecological simplification as the general mechanism by which human impacts have modified cross-scale relationships among landscape complexity, integrity, and niche diversity in ecosystems. To manage and reverse the negative effects of ecological simplification, the interplay between research and management must quantify the large-scale complexity of reference to restore simplified systems and to link these measures to niche diversity quantified at finer scales. Because of their historical interaction with human societies, we use riverine floodplains as model ecosystems to review the causes and consequences of simplification and to discuss how contemporary restoration can minimize the effects of simplification on biodiversity, functioning, and services of riverine floodplains.


This article details a set of participatory pedagogical experiments conducted within a research grant PN II IDEI ("Time Maps. Real communities, virtual worlds, experimented pasts") performed with the purpose of helping rural communities in identifying their cultural heritage and transmitting it to the younger generations by means of modern IT technologies, including web 2.0. In a Danubian rural community, several points of archaeological interest (POIs) were identified, which were then included in a geographic Augmented Reality application for smartphones and tablets. Subsequently, the geographic data were collected from the archaeological site by the K-12 children, under the coordination of an academic staff member of the National University of Arts in Bucharest, and stored on their devices using Google Maps. The augmented information provided on the site was annotated and shared with other K-12 children, through different social networks sites (SNS) and content postings. This first stage experiment was extended to the development of a social learning environment complementary to the educational site (www.timemaps.net) to support the transmission of several traditional technologies (textile, ceramic, glass) in a collaborative manner. We consider that our experiments can significantly increase the visibility of the information pertaining to the identity of target places and communities among the younger generation. A mobile-learning paradigm, in combination with web 2.0 technologies, was the support for a distributed and low-cost platform for communication and collaboration. Social networks linked the archaeological heritage and the academic research with the larger community of rural K-12 children. The article analyzes this platform as a solution for creating, collecting and sharing educational content, and presents conclusions on using social media for effective blended learning and transmittal of the cultural heritage.


Purpose/Objectives: Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) play an important role in maintaining immune homeostasis. In malignant disease, however, Tregs contribute to the generation of an immunosuppressive microenvironment. To establish therapeutic approaches it is necessary to uncover activating and suppressive mechanisms. Immune checkpoint-blocking (ICB) monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have been shown to elicit cancer regression and long-lasting tumor control. Particular interest was focused to the mutual influence of Treg cells and therapy by ICB. Materials/Methods: We used a c-MYC transgenic mouse model of spontaneously arising B-cell lymphoma, which mirrors key features of human Burkitt lymphoma. To assess treatment effects mice were intraperitoneally injected with mAbs against PD-1 and CTLA-4. Mice splenocytes and lymphocytes were analyzed by flow cytometry. Results: An augmented fraction of CD4+Foxp3+Tregs was detected in spleens and lymph nodes of tumor-bearing c-MYC mice. Tregs were involved in suppressing antitumor response because specific ablation of Tregs significantly delayed tumor development. Compared to wildtype mice, c-MYC Treg cells showed an activated phenotype as evidenced by upregulated CD69 and CD137. The high expression of the costimulatory molecule CD137 indicated TCR-specific activation. As intratumoral Tregs were predominantly Nrp-1+Helios+nTregs, we suggested that Tregs recognized tumor-associated self-antigens. We identified MHC class II-restricted self-epitopes, which were prevalent in lymphoma as compared to normal B cells and could be recognized by Treg cells resulting in enhanced proliferation (Ki-67) in vitro. Interestingly, effector T cells (Teffs) were able to recognize the same epitopes. Antigen contact apparently led to upregulation of IL-10. In vitro suppression assays showed that Tregs from c-MYC and wt mice potently suppress proliferation of Teffs in a dose-dependent manner. When preventing cell contacts, Teff proliferation was increased and almost restored upon additional IL-10 neutralization. Tregs from c-MYC mice treated with anti-CTLA-4/anti-PD-1 mAbs revealed a lower suppressive capacity.Conclusion: In malignant lymphoma, nTregs directed against self epitopes are involved in cancer immune escape. Taken together, the Treg population is a promising target in future immunotherapies and needs to be further investigated.


Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) is a paradigm that provides data on demand to consumers
across different cloud platforms over the Internet. Yet, a single DaaS provider may not be
able to fulfill a data request. Consequently, the concept of DaaS mashup was introduced to
enable DaaS providers to dynamically integrate their data on demand depending on consumers'
requests. Utilizing DaaS mashup, however, involves some challenges. Mashing
up data from multiple sources to answer a consumer's request might reveal sensitive information
and thereby compromise the privacy of individuals. Moreover, data integration
of arbitrary DaaS providers might not always be sufficient to answer incoming requests.
In this thesis, we provide a cloud-based framework for privacy-preserving DaaS mashup
that enables secure collaboration between DaaS providers for the purpose of generating an
anonymous dataset to support data mining. We propose a greedy algorithm to determine
a suitable group of DaaS providers whose data can satisfy a given request. Furthermore,
our framework securely integrates the data from multiple DaaS providers while preserving
the privacy of the resulting mashup data. Experiments on real-life data demonstrate that
our DaaS mashup framework is scalable to large set of databases and it can efficiently and effectively satisfy the data privacy and data mining requirements specified by the DaaS
providers and the data consumers.


DHL Twilight is a cloud application to extend the delivery window for B2C (Business to Customer) deliveries during peak times so that shipments, where a failed delivery was made, can be re-arranged for a delivery outside of the normal working hours when the customer would be expected to be at home. As an employee working for DHL Express Ireland for over 5 years I was able to monitor courier reports, shipment volumes and have meetings with DHL Operation managers to understand the business case and requirements for the DHL Twilight cloud application. All reports and meetings with the DHL IE Operations management have confirmed year on year increases in deliveries to residential addresses (both in absolute terms and as a proportion of total deliveries) during peak periods including Black Friday weekend and Christmas.

As confirmed the daily inbound volume significantly increased during the month of November and December, Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend and Christmas holiday season. It is these peak periods that DHL Twilight is targeting to assist with the same day completed shipment delivery rate.

The DHL Twilight cloud application provides a scalable delivery platform to allow DHL employees the opportunity to assist with ad-hoc deliveries during these peak periods whilst maintaining full transparency and traceability for the delivery status and reduce the workload on the couriers during peak seasons ensuring that their delivery routes are not impacted by having to re-attempt deliveries. The DHL Twilight cloud application is fully scalable across all platforms reducing the requirement for DHL scanners. This will in turn allow for cost savings on courier scanners and expand the network delivery times to fit that of the customer.


We report new Spitzer 24 μm photometry of 76 main-sequence A-type stars. We combine these results with previously reported Spitzer 24 μm data and 24 and 25 μm photometry from the Infrared Space Observatory and the Infrared Astronomy Satellite. The result is a sample of 266 stars with mass close to 2.5 M☉, all detected to at least the ~7 σ level relative to their photospheric emission. We culled ages for the entire sample from the literature and/or estimated them using the H-R diagram and isochrones; they range from 5 to 850 Myr. We identified excess thermal emission using an internally derived K - 24 (or 25) μm photospheric color and then compared all stars in the sample to that color. Because we have excluded stars with strong emission lines or extended emission (associated with nearby interstellar gas), these excesses are likely to be generated by debris disks. Younger stars in the sample exhibit excess thermal emission more frequently and with higher fractional excess than do the older stars. However, as many as 50% of the younger stars do not show excess emission. The decline in the magnitude of excess emission, for those stars that show it, has a roughly t0/time dependence, with t0 ~ 150 Myr. If anything, stars in binary systems (including Algol-type stars) and λ Boo stars show less excess emission than the other members of the sample. Our results indicate that (1) there is substantial variety among debris disks, including that a significant number of stars emerge from the protoplanetary stage of evolution with little remaining disk in the 10-60 AU region and (2) in addition, it is likely that much of the dust we detect is generated episodically by collisions of large planetesimals during the planet accretion end game, and that individual events often dominate the radiometric properties of a debris system. This latter behavior agrees generally with what we know about the evolution of the solar system, and also with theoretical models of planetary system formation.


The construction industry provides appreciable employment for the unskilled and semi-skilled labour considering the nature of most activities carried out on construction sites. However, the productivity of this categories of labour have trended poor overtime. This study therefore assessed the financial and non financial motivational schemes; in light of their preference to construction site workers so as to assure on their vulnerability in enhancing productivity. The data collected through the administration of questionnaires to construction site operatives were analysed using the relative importance index (RII). The research instrument was also legitimized with content validity index (CVI) for items ≥ 0.80 and cronbach alpha value, as a measure of internal consistency, ≥ 0.70. Allowances, wages stock option and bonuses are the financial motivators while delegation, independence and autonomy, facilities for transportation are the non financial motivations that are important to site workers on construction sites. Giving praises, encouragement to make contributions, free medical care, availability of relaxation centres and first aid provision are the motivation schemes that site operatives believed to enhance their productivity. This paper concludes that both financial and non financial motivational schemes are important to enhancing the productivity of operatives on construction sites. The vulnerable motivational schemes to the enhancement of productivity, as revealed in this study is recommended to the construction and subcontracting firms, foremen, clerk of works, site supervisors, site engineers and all other stakeholders in ensuring a maximum output for a unit input from site operatives.


The 2010 Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, as its detractors like to call it) is a sweeping reform to the US health care system. Despite the fact that nearly every other developed country in the world considers health care a right, the passage of the act in the United States was hard fought, due to a staunch and vocal opposition to universal health care among many American lawmakers. Why has the United States been so continually divided on this issue? In "Health Care for Some", Beatrix Hoffman offers an explanation in the form of an engaging and in-depth look at America's long tradition of unequal access to health care. Hoffman argues that two main features have characterized the US health system: a refusal to adopt a right to care and a particularly American type of rationing. "Health Care for Some" shows that the haphazard way the US system allocates medical services - using income, race, region, insurance coverage, and many other factors - is a disorganized, illogical, and powerful form of rationing. And unlike rationing in most countries, which is intended to keep costs down, rationing in the United States has actually led to increased costs, resulting in the most expensive health care system in the world. While most histories of US health care emphasize failed policy reforms, "Health Care for Some" looks at the system from the ground up in order to examine how rationing is experienced by ordinary Americans - from soldiers' pregnant wives to survivors of Hurricane Katrina - and consequently reveals how experiences of rationing have led to claims for a right to health care. The story of the Affordable Care Act is still being written, and its ultimate success or failure has yet to be determined. To understand how we got here and what might be to come, you could have no better primer than "Health Care for Some".


Use Six Sigma to achieve and sustain excellence in product development and commercialization!To sustain growth and profitability, companies must tightly align product development and commercialization to fast-changing customer requirements. In this book, Clyde Creveling identifies the four process areas most crucial to doing so-and shows executives and managers how to optimize each of them.Creveling introduces a Six Sigma-enabled workflow that encompasses strategic product/technology portfolio definition and development, research and technology development (R&TD), tactical design engineering processes for commercialization, and operational production and service support. He presents tools, methods, and best practices for selecting the right projects, prioritizing them, and executing them rapidly, consistently, and successfully. i? Integrate all key technical processes so they work together in harmony i? Create Phase/Gate control plans for delivering products with minimal risk i? Establish scorecards for risk management in technical processes Use Six Sigma tools, such as Monte Carlo and FMEA, to improve project management Bring discipline to your product and technology portfolio renewal processes Systematically optimize your commercialization processes Define stripped-down "Fast Track" processes for commercializing high-risk, high-reward opportunities Provide effective operational support after you launch your product Preview the future of "lean" and Six Sigma in technical processes Use lean techniques to streamline repeatable processes such as R&D, product design, and post-launch production engineering support Learn how to manage the risk of doing a fast track commercialization project when you really must cut corners to get a product out into the market before your opportunity evaporatesForeword by John Boselli i? xiiiPreface i? xvAbout the Author i? xxiChapter 1: Introduction to Six Sigma for Technical Processes i? 1Chapter 2: Scorecards for Risk Management in Technical Processes i? 21Chapter 3: Project Management in Technical Processes i? 35Chapter 4: Strategic Product and Technology Portfolio Renewal Process i? 51Chapter 5: Strategic Research and Technology Development Process i? 95Chapter 6: Tactical Product Commercialization Process i? 163Chapter 7: Fast Track Commercialization i? 275Chapter 8: Operational Post-Launch Engineering Support Processes i? 293Chapter 9: Future Trends in Six Sigma and Technical Processes i? 317Glossary 323Index 351


The President's use of emergency authority has recently ignited concern among civil rights groups over national executive emergency power. However, state and local emergency authority can also be dangerous and deserves similar attention. This article demonstrates that, just as we watch over the national executive, we must be wary of and check on state and local executives — and their emergency management law enforcement actors — when they react in crisis mode. This paper exposes and critiques state executives' use of emergency power and emergency management mechanisms to suppress grassroots political activity and suggests avenues to counter that abuse. I choose to focus on the executive's response to protest because this public activity is, at its core, an exercise of a constitutional right. The emergency management one-size-fits-all approach, however, does not differentiate between political activism, a flood, a terrorist attack or a loose shooter. Public safety concerns overshadow any consideration of protestors' individual rights. My goal is to interject liberty considerations into the executive's calculus when it responds to political activism. I use the case studies of the 2016 North Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the 2014 Ferguson protests, and the 1999 Seattle WTO protests to demonstrate that state level emergency management laws and structures provide no realistic limit on the executive's power, and the result is suppression of activists' First and Fourth Amendment rights. Under current conditions, neither lawmakers nor courts realistically restrain the executive's emergency management action. I suggest a better check on executive crisis and emergency actions undertaken in response to mass protest. When the protest is the disaster, more robust judicial review of executive emergency declarations and the establishment of a council to guide state and local executives' emergency/crisis response are crucial.


A Metamorphic Studies Group meeting on 'Metamorphic Studies: Research in Progress' and the seventh Annual General Meeting of the Group were held on 9 March 1988. It was well attended, and 15 papers were presented on a range of metamorphic topics, including an invited contribution from J. W. Valley (University of Wisconsin, USA).Four poster contributions were also presented. The meeting was organized by G. T. R. Droop. The morning session concentrated on techniques and low-grade regional metamorphic topics. The first talk was given by G. E. Lloyd who, in a joint presentation with B. W. D. Yardley, promoted the application of cathodoluminescence microscopy to the study of metamorphic rocks. The technique is particularly suited to carbonate minerals, and its usefulness was demonstrated with reference to marble samples from Connemara in which subtle zoning and replacement textures, invisible by conventional light microscopy, could be observed. The authors stressed the paucity of information on the applicability of the technique to metamorphic silicates and urged petrologists to try it their own samples. In the first of two papers on very low-grade metamorphism, D. Robinson (jointly with R. E. Bevins) presented a new model in which sub-greenschist metamorphism develops in extensional settings. Building published thermal models of extensional sedimentary basins, the authors argued that this type of metamorphism should be characterized by pre-tectonic peak assemblages of high T/P facies and 'anticlockwise' P–T paths. Quoted examples of low–grade terranes which may have formed in this way included the Welsh Basin and some


In this investigation, we wanted to find out what the short-term and long-term effects are of explicit and implicit instruction on language learning with 11/12-year-old LI and L2 learners, characteristics, and whether those effects are different for lexical and syntactic language items. The main conclusions we can draw from this investigation are the following:11/12-year-old language learners appear to be capable of adequately acquiring explicit information about language in their language acquisition process. But there is the added condition that this explicit instruction should be imbedded in a communicative context. Also after one year, explicit instruction in a communicative context stul scores the best results, but the effect of explicit instruction only is significantly reduced in the long term.When we construct a combination of explicit and implicit instruction, it appears that explicit instruction foHowed by implicit instruction leads to better results than the reverse order; however, the combined input does not produce significantly better results than the teaching conditions with only explicit or only implicit instruction. The teaching effect for first language learners is generally a lot better than that for second language learners. Only for implicit instruction do first language learners proportionally score lower.Explicit instruction appears to be especially effective for introducing lexical languageitems. For syntactic language items, the results are much less outspoken.


Understanding of mechanical behaviour of food particles will provide researchers and designers essential knowledge to improve and optimise current food industrial technologies. Understanding of tissue behaviours will lead to the reduction of material loss and enhance energy efficiency during processing operations. Although, there are some previous studies on properties of fruits and vegetables however, tissue behaviour under different processing operations will be different. The presented paper is a part of FE modelling and simulation of tissue damage during mechanical peeling of tough skinned vegetables. In this study indentation test was performed on peeled and unpeeled samples at loading rate of 20 mm/min for peel, flesh and unpeeled samples. Consequently, force deformation and stress and strain of samples were calculated. The toughness of the tissue also has been calculated and compared with the previous results.


Cancer is nowadays a global health problem constantly increasing, being the second cause of death in developed countries. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma, often referred as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in Europe and EEUU with a mortality tax greater than 90%, even though it only represents a 3-6 % of cancer cases within population.
The glucidic alteration associated to tumoral processes is a well described feature. In this context, the overexpression of the glucidic antigens Sialyl Lewis X (SLeX) and Sialyl Lewis A (SLeA) in PDAC, significally enhances the aggressiveness of the pathology (more migration, invasion and metastasis capability).
The synthesis of these antigens is complex and involves the sialyltransferases (STs) and other enzymes. STs are enzymes that place sialic acids (Sias) in terminal position of glucidic chains. The sias are diverse in structure, but they all are negatively charged, promoting de-adhesion of tumour cells by charge repulsion (and thus, contributing to metastasis formation).
In this work, the attention is centred on SLeX and SLeA antigens, and on ST implicated in their formation: ST3Gal III and ST3Gal IV. In this line, a lack of these enzymes should directly mean a reduction of the antigens and the metastatic behaviour of the cells.
The starting point is having different cell lines of PDAC: parental (non-silenced), and silenced in ST3GAL3, ST3GAL4 or in both genes. Thus, the objective is to define an experimental design by searching bibliography, allowing to, firstly, characterise the silencing, and secondly, characterise the metastatic phenotype. Attempting to achieve this objective, different analyses have been proposed.
The first part includes: quantification of protein expression levels (by western blot, in order to quantify the STs), quantification of the antigens (by flow cytometry against the SLeX and SLeA structures) and a viability assay (MTT), with the intention to check out if lack of STs or SLeX and/or SLeA antigens aren't a significant compromise for cell viability. These analyses make up the silencing characterisation


Background: Patients living with HIV/AIDS have complex medication regimens. Pharmacists within community pharmacy settings can have a role managing patients living with HIV/AIDS. Patients' perspectives surrounding implementation about community pharmacist-based services is needed as limited information is available. Objective: To identify medication-related needs of HIVinfected patients who receive prescriptions from a community pharmacy. To determine patient perspectives and knowledge of community pharmacist-based services. Methods: A qualitative research study involving in-depth, semi-structured interviews with patients was conducted. Inclusion criteria included: HIV positive men and women at least 18 years of age who receive care at a HIV clinic, currently take medication(s) and use a community pharmacy for all prescription fills. Patients were recruited from one urban and one rural health center. Patients answered questions about their perceptions and knowledge about the role and value of pharmacy services and completed a demographic survey. The recordings of the interviews were transcribed verbatim and were analyzed using principles of Grounded Theory. Results: Twenty-nine interviews were conducted: 15 participants from the urban site and 14 from the rural site. Five main themes emerged including: patients experience ongoing and varying medication-related needs; patients desire a pharmacist who is caring, knowledgeable and integrated with health care providers; patients expect ready access to drug therapy; patients value an individualized patient encounter, and patients need to be informed that a pharmacist-service exists. Conclusion: Patients with HIV value individualized and personal encounters with pharmacists at time intervals that are convenient for the patient. Patients felt that a one-on-one encounter with a pharmacist would be most valuable when initiating or modifying medication therapy. These patient perspectives can be useful for pharmacists and pharmacies interested in providing advanced care to patients with HIV.


As with other countries, Australia has been grappling with the identification, measurement and impact of disadvantage in higher education. In particular, the measurement of socio-economic status (SES) has been of central concern. The immediate solution in Australia has been the introduction of an 'area' measure in which students' SES is categorised on the basis of census data for their neighbourhoods rather than on individual or household data. This paper assesses the veracity of the area measure in capturing individual SES for school-aged entrants, using a longitudinal data set, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, to construct individual measures of SES and a national ranking of sample individuals on the basis of probability of attending a higher education institution. The results demonstrate the tendency for area measures to misclassify individuals' higher education opportunity and the associated potential for perverse policy outcomes.


The aim of this study is to examine the prospects of developing intercultural understanding through English as a foreign language (EFL) in the Swedish comprehensive school. The study draws on perspectives applied to culture theory (Street, Hannerz, Thavenius, Sjogren), current theories about language and culture (Kramsch, Byram, Risager), critical discourse analysis (Fairclough) and curriculum theory (Svingby, Englund). The intercultural dimension of EFL is analysed as an order of discourse with competing discourses: research discourse, education authority discourse and language teacher discourse. The findings are summarized as two categories: opportunities and obstacles for developing intercultural understanding in EFL education. Finally the three discourses are related to each other and a model is presented showing a space for the interpretation of teaching and learning in EFL.


In recent years, the private sector has been recognized as a key engine of Africa's economic development. Yet, the most simple and fundamental question remains unanswered: how large is the African private sector? We present novel estimates of the size of the private sector in 50 African countries derived from the analysis of national accounts and labor market data. Our results point to a relatively large size of the African private sector. National account data shows that this accounts for about 2/3 of total investments, 4/5 of total consumption and 3/4 of total credit. In relative terms, large private sector countries are concentrated in Western Africa (Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Niger, Senegal and Togo), Central Africa (Cameroun, Republic of Congo) and Eastern Africa (Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania), with the addition of Mauritius. Countries with small private sectors include a sample of oil-exporters (Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Nigeria), some of the poorest countries in the continent (Burundi, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Sao Tome e Principe), Zambia and Botswana. Over the last ten years, the size of the private sector has been contracting significantly in oil exporting countries, although the variation in its size does not appear to be significantly correlated with growth performance. Labor market data reinforces the idea of a large private sector, which provides about 90% of total employment opportunities. However, most of this labor is informal and characterized by low productivity: permanent wage jobs in the private sector account on average for only 10% of total employment (a share similar to that provided by public administration and state owned enterprises). South Africa is the notable exception, with formal wage employment in the private sector representing 46% of total employment. Finally, we find evidence of negative private sector earning premiums, suggesting that market distortions abound. These are likely to prevent the efficient allocation of human resources, and to reduce the overall productivity of the African economies.


In this article we consider the legal position of presumptions, be they of fact or of law, in the light of the South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996). Where necessary and appropriate, account is taken of the provisions of the interim constitution, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 200 of 1993. In South African law presumptions are found in both civil actions and criminal cases. For present purposes we shall concentrate on presumptions operative in criminal cases, although reference to presumptions found in civil cases will be made when relevant. The term 'presumption' is best understood when explained from the perspective of its effect. Presumptions have the following effects: First, they shift the onus from the state to the accused. A presumption presumes the accused guilty until proven not guilty and, as such, runs counter to the presumption of innocence found in section 35 (3)(h) of the 1996 constitution which reads: Every accused person has a right to a fair trial which includes the right to be presumed innocent, remain silent and not to testify during the proceedings.


Introduction
This study aimed to explore the role of haematological markers and predictive factors on the stump healing in patients who underwent lower extremity amputation surgery at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

Methods
Retrospective analysis of 300 patients was retrieved who had undergone lower extremity amputation surgery between 2006 and 2010. A predictive model was developed using backward stepwise logistic regression. The model discrimination was assessed by the receiver operating characteristics curve and its calibration by the Hosmer and Lemeshow goodness of fit test.

Result
Three variables were identified which influenced stump healing.
Serum Sodium – The lower limb stump healing was 75% likely in patients with normal serum sodium compared to that of patients with abnormal serum sodium (odds ratio [OR] 1.756; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.048-2.942)
Serum Creatinine– Patients with normal serum creatinine were 66% more likely to have their stump healed (OR 1.664; 95% CI 0.94 to 2.946)
Serum High Density Lipoproteins – A normal serum HDL resulted in a 75% more likely chance of healing compared to those with abnormal serum HDL (OR 1.753; 95% CI 1.061 to 2.895). There was a good calibration as indicated by Hosmer and Lemeshow goodness of fit test (P=0.879) and the c-index was 0.612.

Conclusion
Serum Sodium, Serum High Density Lipids and Serum creatinine are useful predictors of lower limb stump. The clinical utility of these risk categories in the healing of a lower limb stump requires further clinical evaluation in a prospective study.


Shore based monitoring, communication, coordination and management of vessel traffic in ports worldwide is a real world problem. Informed by ethnomethodological studies of work, this thesis explores the ordered in situ work of Vessel Traffic Service Operators (VTSOs); the coordination of vessel traffic; the fine grained artful performance and achievement of safe fairway navigation and the challenges faced by the VTS operators in the daily accomplishment of their institutional role. An important source of data in this ethnographic study is the naturally occurring interaction on the main working Very High Frequency (VHF) radio channel of the port, which helps explore institutional talk at work deployed to facilitate interaction, negotiation and the accomplishment of safe navigation. Three additional research techniques are utilised for data generation – observations, semi structured interviews and unstructured interviews. The case of a major Indian world port is utilised to explore the daily work of marine traffic coordination and the (pro)active interactional accomplishment of channel navigation.

Research takes place against the dynamic backdrop of the harbour – a complex space with a myriad of social actors populating the scene – the VTS operators atop their tower; shipboard seafarers negotiating restricted waters; pilots rendering pilotage services; Dock Master commanding the station; seafarers aboard small local craft and lively fishermen who at times pepper the marine radio with colourful language. Two categories of findings emerge – port interaction order, institutional talk and the contingent practices that accomplish the safety/time critical work and the technological, organisational and social constraints that shape, affect and inform the work of the VTS operators.

This study fills a gap in ethnomethodological studies of work with its focus on the VTS work site – a centre of coordination; it explores social order and contributes to the understanding of the local practical achievement of traffic coordination and channel navigation in restricted waters. It also contributes to our understanding of the constraints faced by the workers in the safety critical VTS work setting. Also discussed are the status of VTS operators and occupational hierarchy in the world port. The thick description of in situ VTS' work informs maritime safety, particularly relevant in safety critical, congested and restricted sea areas.


Abstract. We present snow observations and a validated daily gridded snowpack dataset that was simulated from downscaled reanalysis of data for the Iberian Peninsula. The Iberian Peninsula has long-lasting seasonal snowpacks in its different mountain ranges, and winter snowfall occurs in most of its area. However, there are only limited direct observations of snow depth (SD) and snow water equivalent (SWE), making it difficult to analyze snow dynamics and the spatiotemporal patterns of snowfall. We used meteorological data from downscaled reanalyses as input of a physically based snow energy balance model to simulate SWE and SD over the Iberian Peninsula from 1980 to 2014. More specifically, the ERA-Interim reanalysis was downscaled to 10 km  ×  10 km resolution using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The WRF outputs were used directly, or as input to other submodels, to obtain data needed to drive the Factorial Snow Model (FSM). We used lapse rate coefficients and hygrobarometric adjustments to simulate snow series at 100 m elevations bands for each 10 km  ×  10 km grid cell in the Iberian Peninsula. The snow series were validated using data from MODIS satellite sensor and ground observations. The overall simulated snow series accurately reproduced the interannual variability of snowpack and the spatial variability of snow accumulation and melting, even in very complex topographic terrains. Thus, the presented dataset may be useful for many applications, including land management, hydrometeorological studies, phenology of flora and fauna, winter tourism, and risk management. The data presented here are freely available for download from Zenodo ( https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.854618 ). This paper fully describes the work flow, data validation, uncertainty assessment, and possible applications and limitations of the database.


A Priori Regularity of Parabolic Partial Differential Equations Francisco Pinto Berkemeier In this thesis, we consider parabolic partial differential equations such as the heat equation, the Fokker-Planck equation, and the porous media equation. Our aim is to develop methods that provide a priori estimates for solutions with singular initial data. These estimates are obtained by understanding the time decay of norms of solutions. First, we derive regularity results for the heat equation by estimating the decay of Lebesgue norms. Then, we apply similar methods to the Fokker-Planck equation with suitable assumptions on the advection and diffusion. Finally, we conclude by extending our techniques to the porous media equation. The sharpness of our results is confirmed by examining known solutions of these equations. The main contribution of this thesis is the use of functional inequalities to express decay of norms as differential inequalities. These are then combined with ODE methods to deduce estimates for the norms of solutions and their derivatives.


After almost 100 years of international drug control agreements, that have pursued prohibitions on the production, distribution and use of some psychoactive substances, questions about the efficacy, and even the validity, of these strategies are growing louder. It seems clear that the objective of a 'drug free world' - or at least a significantly reduced illegal market in plant based drugs such as cocaine, heroin and cannabis, and synthetically produced drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines, and LSD – is as far away as ever. This paper examines why the vision of the architects of the global prohibition regime has not been achieved, but also goes on to describe the damage to human health and welfare that has arisen from badly conceived and implemented drug control policies and programmes. The author goes on to analyse the political and institutional barriers to objective review and modernisation of drug policies at national government level, and at the United Nations. Finally, the concluding section lays out the broad options that policy makers face for a future 'direction of travel'.


Let 0 be the one-one degree consisting of the infinite recursive sets whose complements are also infinite. In this paper are studied initial segments of the one-one degrees ^ 0 . A characterization is stated of the order types of those initial segments with greatest member which are at the same time initial segments of the many-one degrees. It is shown that any finite initial segment with greatest member is a lattice, and that any finite recursively enumerable initial segment with greatest member is a distributive lattice.


Over the centuries, artists across sub-Saharan Africa have memorialized eminent figures in their societies using an astonishingly diverse repertoire of naturalistic and abstract sculptural idioms. Adopting complex aesthetic fromulations, they idealized their subjects but also added specific details-such as emblems of rank, scarification patterns, and elaborate coiffures-in order to evoke the individuals represented. Imbued with the essence of their formidable subjects, these works played an essential role in reifying ties with important ancestors at critical moments of transition. Often their transfer from one generation to the next was a prerequisite for conferring legitimacy upon the leaders who followed. The arrival of Europeans as traders, then as colonizers, led to the dislocation of many of these sculptures from their original sites, as well as from the contexts in which they were conceived; thus, today, they are seen primarily as timeless representations of generic archetypes. Heroic Africans reexamines the sculptures in terms of the individuals who inspired them and the cultural values that informed them, providing insight into the hidden meaning and inspiration behind these great artistic achievements. Author Alisa LaGamma considers the landmark sculptural traditions of the kingdoms of Ife and Benin, both in Nigeria; Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire's Akan chiefdoms; the Bangwa and Kom chiefdoms of the Cameroon Grassfields; the Chokwe cheifdoms of Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.); and the D.R.C's Luluwa, Kuba, and Hemba chiefdoms. More than 140 masterpieces created between the 12th and the early 20th century-complemented by maps, drawings, and excavation and ceremonial photographs-reveal the religious and aesthetic conventions that defined distinct regional genres.


In recent years the little-known research group Forensic Architecture began using novel research methods to undertake a series of investigations into human rights abuses. While providing crucial evidence for international courts and working with a wide range of activist groups, NGOs, Amnesty International and the UN, Forensic Architecture has not only shed new light on human rights violations and state crimes across the globe, it has also given rise to a new form of investigative practice, to which it has given its name. The group uses architecture as a methodological device with which to investigate armed conflicts and environmental destruction, and to cross-reference multiple other evidence sources such as new media, remote sensing, material investigation and witness testimony. This exhibition introduces the practice, outlining its origins, history, assumptions, potential and double binds. With these investigations and the critical texts that accompany them, Forensic Architecture examines how public truth is produced, technologically, architecturally and aesthetically; how it can be used to confront state propaganda and secrets; and how to expose newer forms of state violence.


The United Kingdom's postwar economic recovery and the usefulness of Marshall Plan aid depended heavily on a rapid increase in exports by the country's manufacturing industries. American aid administrators, however, shocked to discover the British industry's inability to respond to the country's urgent need, insisted on aggressive action to improve productivity. In partial response, a joint venture, called the Anglo-American Council on Productivity (AACP), arranged for sixty-six teams involving nearly one thousand people to visit U.S. factories and bring back productivity improvement ideas. Analyses of team recommendations, and a brief review of the country's industrial history, offer compelling insights into the problems of relative industrial decline. This dissertation attempts to assess the reasons for British industry's inability to respond to the country's economic emergency or to maintain its competitive position faced with the challenge of newer industrializing countries.


The summertime Arctic lower troposphere is a relatively pristine background aerosol environment dominated by nucleation and Aitken mode particles. Understanding the mechanisms that control the formation and growth of aerosol is crucial for our ability to predict cloud properties and therefore radiative balance and climate. We present an analysis of an aerosol growth event observed in the Canadian Arc-tic Archipelago during summer as part of the NETCARE project. Under stable and clean atmospheric conditions, with low inversion heights, carbon monoxide less than 80 ppb v , and black carbon less than 5 ng m −3 , we observe growth of small particles, < 20 nm in diameter, into sizes above 50 nm. Aerosol growth was correlated with the presence of organic species, trimethylamine, and methanesulfonic acid (MSA) in particles ∼ 80 nm and larger, where the organ-ics are similar to those previously observed in marine settings. MSA-to-sulfate ratios as high as 0.15 were observed during aerosol growth, suggesting an important marine influence. The organic-rich aerosol contributes significantly to particles active as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN, su-persaturation = 0.6 %), which are elevated in concentration during aerosol growth above background levels of ∼ 100 to ∼ 220 cm −3. Results from this case study highlight the potential importance of secondary organic aerosol formation and its role in growing nucleation mode aerosol into CCN-active sizes in this remote marine environment.


Background: Traditional continuing education (CE) approaches have limited impact on patient management and outcomes. Continuing interprofessional education is an innovated educational approach that can improve patient care and outcomes related to health care. There is a need to provide guidance to continuing education professionals in the development, implementation, and evaluation of continuing interprofessional education activities. Objectives: This study attempted to identity effective elements of continuing interprofessional education in programs or models. Study Design: Database searches of published papers using Eric. Ovid, Science direct and PubMed (1990-2016) were conducted for existing IPE model post-registration. Broad search terms were used, including interprofessional education, continuing interprofessional education models and interprofessional education post-registration models. Results: Seven continuing interprofessional education models were identified in the literature. Topic, Goals, Content, learning strategy and Evaluation strategy were the components used in these patterns. Conclusions: Healthy topics, Content sharing between the participating professions, common educational goals for all professions, interactive learning and interprofessional learning methods and diverse assessment methods with feedback to learners, helps to make better be implemented inter-professional training programs.


Interdependencies in consumer behavior stem from either status-seeking consumption or compliance with social norms. This paper analyzes how a consumption act changes from a means to signal the consumer's status to a means of norm compliance. It is shown that such a transformation can only be understood when consumer motivations other than social recognition are taken into account. We depict norm emergence as a learning process based on changing associations between a specific consumption act and widely shared, non-subjectivist consumer needs. Our conjectures are illustrated by means of a case study: the emergence of the cleanliness norm in the 19th century.


This research provides an overview on horticulture innovations in the last decade through a literature review and the use of a computer qualitative data analysis. We used Leximancer text mining software to identify concepts, themes and pathways linked with horticulture innovations. The software tool enabled us to "zoom out" to gain a broad perspective of the pooled data, and it indicated which studies clustered around the dominant topic. It displays the extracted information in a visual form, to wit, an interactive concept map, which summaries the interconnected themes and demonstrates any interdependencies. The text mining analysis revealed that the themes strongly related to "innovation" are "water", "urban", "system", "countries" and "technology". The outputs identified have been interpreted to discover meaning from the content analysis, since the software can facilitate a comprehensive and transparent data coding but cannot replace researcher's interpretive work. Furthermore, we focused on the diffusion and the barriers for the spread of innovation, pointing out the differences about developing and advanced countries. This analysis allows the researcher to have a holistic understanding of the examination area and could lead to further studies.


The present study was conducted to investigate the chemo preventive effects of garlic extract on carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced hepato toxicity in male albino rats, were studied for its protective effects against hepato toxic, abnormal blood hemolysis and viscosity induced using carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) in rats. Male Wistar rats were administered CCl4 by intra peritoneal injection for 7 weeks and received a normal diet or normal diet with extracted garlic for the same period. Extracted garlic significantly reduced the liver damage, including fibrosis and fatty infiltration, vaculation, and sinusoid dilated in a dose dependent manner. Moreover, extracted garlic significantly decreased the elevation in plasma aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and total bilirubin (P < 0.01). It also restored the decrease in blood hemolysis (P < 0.05) and viscosity (P < 0.01) during CCl4 treatment. These results suggested that extracted garlic may protect the liver against CCl4-induced fibrosis, abnormal blood hemolysis and viscosity. This protective effect appears due to garlic antioxidant properties.


Cities can only exist because of the highly developed systems which underlie them, ensuring that energy, clean water, etc. are moved efficiently from producer to user, and that waste is removed. The urgent need to make the way that these services are provided more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable means that these systems are in a state of transition; from centralized to decentralized energy; from passive to smart infrastructure; from toll-free to road pricing. Such transitions are widely studied in the context of the influence of service providers, users, and regulators. Until now, however, relatively little attention has been given to the growing role of intermediaries in these systems. These consist of institutions and organizations acting in-between production and consumption, for example; NGOs who develop green energy labelling schemes in collaboration with producers and regulators to guide the user; consultants who advise businesses on how to save resources; and travel agents who match users with providers. Such intermediaries are in a position to shape the direction that technological transitions take, and ultimately the sustainability of urban networks. This book presents the first authoritative collection of research and analysis of the intermediaries that underpin the transitions that are taking place within urban infrastructures, showing how intermediaries emerge, the role that they play in key sectors - including energy, water, waste and building - and what impact they have on the governance of urban socio-technical networks


The aim of this thesis was to examine aspects of conceptual and non-inferential role-taking that are intact or limited in individuals with autism. More specifically, this thesis examined the ability to adopt different psychological perspectives, based on the hypothesis that basic non-inferential role-taking processes, related to the way we identify with the attitudes and feelings of other people, are relatively lacking in individuals with autism. Such processes might be important for the understanding of different perspectives in other people. The series of studies presented in this thesis investigated role-taking in individuals with autism, relative to chronological and verbal mental age matched groups of participants without autism. The studies focused on three main areas of research: narrative role-taking, deictic understanding, and interpersonal non-verbal communication. In the first study, participants were asked to tell stories from the point of view of different characters. In the second study, a set of tasks examined production and comprehension of verbal and non-verbal deictic expressions. The third study examined the processes of interpersonal engagement and role-taking, by focusing on the nonverbal communication exchanged between two people in the context of a one-to-one interaction. The results from the studies provide evidence suggesting that individuals with autism show aspects of role-taking ability that are both limited and intact, which may be better explained by an impairment in interpersonal, and non-inferential role-taking, than by cognitive, and conceptual, limitations.


The objective of this letter is to present a solution methodology for the analysis of arbitrary frequency-dependent losses on conducting structures in a time-domain electric field integral equation. The analysis of arbitrary frequency-dependent losses is incorporated in the newly developed marching-on-in-degree (MOD) method to solve the time-domain electric field integral equation. The novelty of this methodology is that both the arbitrary temporal dependence of the frequency-dependent losses and the transient current variations on the conducting structures are expanded in terms of the causal orthonormal associated Laguerre functions. The advantage of implementing these temporal expansion functions is that the convolution between two functional variations, namely the loss factor and the current density, can be treated in an analytical fashion resulting in an accurate and efficient solution methodology. Numerical examples dealing with both time-varying concentrated loads and skin-effect losses on electrically large conducting structures are analyzed to illustrate the potential of this method.


Background: Energy and time constraints experienced by dispersing animals often limit individual dispersal and subsequent habitat selection decisions. When substantial variation in individual dispersal capability is present, these constraints may have significant impacts on populations where condition-dependent evaluation of habitat sites interacts with statedependent habitat selection. Latty and Reid (2010) hypothesize that the internal state of the dispersers and characteristics of their habitat mediate habitat selection ('condition matching'). Hypothesis: Individual beetles in better energetic condition are more likely to attack betterdefended trees (i.e. riskier habitat). Organism: Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins). Field sites: Two field sites were used, and work at both sites coincided with the start of the beetles' emergence and flight period. Beetles used for lipid extraction analysis were collected near Merritt, BC, Canada in 2006, and host tree acceptance experiments were performed in 2010 near Field, BC, Canada. Methods: We sampled a population of beetles to characterize the relationship between beetle size and lipid content, then examined the variation in individual somatic energy condition and date of emergence. We separately tested the effect of somatic energetic condition on habitat (host) selection decisions by experimentally manipulating beetles' somatic energy reserves, placing them on host trees of different nutritional qualities, and measuring the latency in beetles' host tree acceptance. Results: Most beetles emerged early. Their somatic energy condition is higher at the start of the emergence period than near the end, although there is substantial individual variation in both timing and condition upon beetle emergence. Beetles' host selection decisions are influenced by both host tree nutritional quality and individuals' lipid reserves. Trees of good nutritional quality are accepted sooner than ones of poor nutritional quality. Individuals with lower energy reserves are less selective, accepting host trees of poorer quality sooner than beetles with higher energy reserves.


As audience reception scholars commute from audiences to literacies, both of which share the concept of interpretation, this article sets out to draw together themes around the changing nature of interpretive work, from 6 texts that have reflected recently, in different ways, on interpretation in new media environments. In reviewing a multithreaded conversation across 4 books from literacy studies, media and communications, and user studies, I select 2 essays, written at a crucial moment for reception studies, to provide her a narrative. Speaking from diverse fields, these works suggest a widespread agreement that there is a need to rethink terminologies and concepts from mass-mediated communication in the age of interactive media, not because they no longer prove useful, but because they provide constructive intellectual challenges in thinking through the changing natures of texts and readers, genres and interpretation, literacies, and legibilities, as we await new modes every day, for all of these, but also perhaps, new modes of interpretative engagement.


In the middle of the post-merger integration process voices expressing a need for innovation was heard. What was the reason for this change of focus in the organization and why did they use the concept innovation? This paper is based on a study of a merger between a Finnish and a Swedish company. Both companies had historically been family companies but one of them was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1993 which had changed the business logic in the organization. When talking to the managers after the merger they referred to cultures to explain problematic issues. In this paper, the frame concept is used to analyze organizational cultures, and to compare them with the notion of an innovative organization. It turned out that the two pre-merger organizational cultures had stronger innovative features, compared to the culture in the new, merged company. This is followed by a suggestion that innovation should be seen as a method for integration, rather than a goal for the new organization.


We present a formalization of a version of Abadi and
Plotkin's logic for parametricity for a polymorphic dual intuitionistic/linear type theory with fixed points, and show, following Plotkin's suggestions, that it can be used to define a wide collection of types, including existential types, inductive types, coinductive types and general recursive types. We show that the recursive types satisfy a universal property called dinaturality, and we develop reasoning principles for the constructed types. In the case of recursive types, the reasoning principle is a mixed induction/coinduction principle, with the curious property that coinduction holds for general relations, but induction only for a limited collection of ``admissible'' relations. A similar property was observed in Pitts' 1995 analysis of recursive types in domain theory. In a future paper we will develop a category theoretic notion of models of the logic presented here, and show how the results developed in the logic can be transferred to the models.


ABSTRACT We develop a social systems theory perspective on Central Asian post-Socialist transition, placing particular emphasis on the coordination problems in transboundary water governance. The extensive Soviet water-energy infrastructure around the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers required coordination, but this could no longer be politically secured after the 1991 Soviet disintegration. According to the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, coordination problems are generally endemic to any modern regime of functional differentiation. We show that each Central Asia state had to tackle substantial internal adaptation problems, which were rendered even more formidable by the need for transboundary coordination. We further demonstrate how the new riparian states offer a complex picture of several forms of differentiation, where functional differentiation is in some ways reinforced by the new national boundaries and the collapse of Soviet planning. We identify possible sources of flexibility, opening up avenues toward adaptation and enhanced coordination across boundaries.


Rapid urbanization and proper urban planning are two variables in the equation of environmental stability. In Bamenda municipality these have been moving in opposite directions. This indicates the lopsidedness in which the problems of urban planning and urban development, masterminded by urbanization have been handled over time. This paper therefore examines the pattern of urbanization and urban development in the Bamenda area, with respect to the implication on the hydrology, geomorphology and sustainable urban space management. The study made use of primary and secondary sources to collect the necessary data. The results show that Bamenda started experiencing a rapid rate of urbanisation and urban development from the 1980s. This forced many people especially the poor to reside in cheap marginal areas which naturally constitute the pathways for catastrophic hydrological and geomorphological phenomena. Although these hazards originate from natural systems and mechanisms, anthropogenic modifications spearheaded by urbanisation have reinforced the frequency and magnitude of certain hazards like floods and landslides. In order to mitigate these hydro-geomorphologic problems, the study recommends the development of an alternative land use system on occupied slopes and flood plains, the creation of levees and the construction of adequate storm drains.


The lateral line (LL) system is a key non-visual sensory modality founded in all fishes and larval and adult aquatic amphibians. In bony fishes, the LL system consists of series of superficial neuromasts (on the skin surface) and canal neuromasts (housed in bony canals). Differences in LL canal phenotype have consequences for LL sensory capabilities, and, as such, could contribute to speciation. The LL system develops with a process of neuromast patterning followed by the genesis of canals from dermal bone around a subset of neuromasts. This study used histochemical methods to describe canal morphogenesis by assessing osteoblast (OB, bone building cells) and osteoclast (OC, bone resorbing cells) activity through ontogeny. OB and OC activity was studied along the length and around the circumference of the mandibular LL canal in two species of Lake Malawi cichlids. Aulonocara stuartgranti (widened canals) and Tramitichromis sp. (narrow canals) are known to develop their different canal phenotypes as a result of dissociated heterochrony. In both species, OB activity is concentrated in the canal roof and floor (behind the neuromast), while OC activity is focused primarily in the canal walls. Further, both species demonstrate one pulse of bone deposition early in ontogeny and another pulse of bone resorption later in ontogeny, but in Aulonocara not Tramitichromis, the pulse of bone resorption is accompanied by high levels of OB activity. Thus, the second pulse of bone cell activity in Aulonocara is defined by bone resorption and bone deposition: active bone remodeling by the simultaneous action of OBs and OCs. These results corroborate the observation of dissociated heterochrony (Bird and Webb, 2014) at the cell level, suggesting that the nature of neuromast-centered canal morphogenesis may differ depending on LL canal phenotypes.


Fury is the story of a dollmaker whose dolls run wild, of living women turned into dolls and then broken, and of a revolt on the planet's far side led by an army of living dolls. Fury is a novel of an old, deep love gone wrong, of a second, twisted passion rooted in wrongness, and of a third, passionate love that just might turn out right. Fury is a novel of furious energy, a study of the workings of fury at the heart of human lives: the personal fury that poisons human relations, the psychotic fury that fuels murderers, the social fury born of our raised and disappointed hopes, the creative fury that sets free our greatest gifts, the political fury that starts revolutions and burns whole cities down. Fury is a novel of today, an utterly contemporary portrait of life at the beginning of the third millennium, life in New York during an apparently endless time of prosperity that is paradoxically also a time of barrenness in many people's lives, and also in the world-empire that America rules, although it barely knows where it is.


Title of Document: MICROFLUIDIC PLANAR PHOSPHOLIPIDS MEMBRANE SYSTEM ADVANCING DYNAMIC STUDIES OF ION CHANNELS AND MEMBRANE PHYSICS Chenren Shao, 2012 Directed By: Professor, Donald L. DeVoe, Department of Mechanical Engineering The interrogation of lipid membrane and biological ion channels supported within bilayer phospholipid membranes has greatly expanded our understanding of the roles membrane and ion channels play in a host of biological functions. Several key drawbacks of traditional electrophysiology systems used in these studies have long limited our effort to study the ion channels. Firstly, the large volume buffer in this system typically only allows single or multiple additions of reagents, while complete removal either is impossible or requires tedious effort to ensure the stability of membrane. Thus, it has been highly desirable to be able to rapidly and dynamically modulate the (bio)chemical conditions at the membrane site. Second, it is difficult to change temperature effectively with large thermal mass in macro device. Third, traditional PPM device host vertical membranes, therefore incompatible with confocal microscopy techniques. The miniaturization of bilayer phospholipid membrane has shown potential solution to the drawbacks stated above. A simple microfluidic design is developed to enable effective and robust dynamic perfusion of reagents directly to an on-chip planar phospholipid membrane (PPM). It allows ion channel conductance to be readily monitored under different dynamic reagent conditions, with perfusion rates up to 20 μL/min feasible without compromising the membrane integrity. It is estimated that the lower limit of time constant of kinetics that can be resolved by our system is 1 minute. Using this platform, the time-dependent responses of membrane-bound ceramide ion channels to treatments with La and a Bcl-xL mutant were studied and the results were interpreted with a novel elastic biconcave distortion model. Another engineering challenge this dissertation takes on is the integration of fluorescence studies to micro-PPM system. The resulting novel microfluidic system enables high resolution, high magnification and real-time confocal microscope imaging with precise top and bottom (bio)chemical boundary conditions defined by perfusion, by integrating in situ PPM formation method, perfusion capability and microscopy compatibility. To demonstrate such electro-optical chip, lipid micro domains were imaged and quantitatively studied for their movements and responses to different physical parameters. As an extension to this platform, a double PPM system has been developed with the aim to study interactions between two membranes. Potential application in biophysics and biochemistry using those two platforms were discussed. Another important advantage of microfluidics is its lower thermal mass and compatibility with various microfabrication methods which enables potential integration of local temperature controller and sensor. A prototype thermal PPM chip is also discussed together with some preliminary results and their implication on ceramide channel assembly and disassembly mechanism.


This study aims to identify the influence of emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ) on the level of student outcomes (SO) of college students in Tawau Sabah, Malaysia. In addition, researchers also measure the level of emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence and student outcomes based on respondents' demographic characteristics. This study involved 322 students randomly selected as a sample of the study. The instrument was modified from Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-I), Emotional Spiritual Intelligence (ESQ) and Malaysian Education Quality Standard. The findings showed that the level of EQ, SQ and SO students was high. The data analysis also showed that there were no differences in EQ, SQ and SO levels by gender. While the student flow group shows the difference according to SO level. Category of racial groups shows a significant difference to EQ, SQ and SO. The findings also showed that there was a strong positive relationship between EQ and SQ with SO students. both of these variables are able to predict 56.70% of the student's outcomes. The implication of this study will hopefully reinforce the teaching and learning theory and practice to help improve students' outcomes by applying the EQ and SQ elements in line with the basic philosophy of National Education (FPN) to produce a balanced, physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual person.