Abstract. This study presents a comparative evaluation of the impact of WRF-NMM and WRF-ARW meteorology on CMAQ simulations of PM 2.5 , its composition and related precursors over the eastern United States with the intensive observations obtained by aircraft (NOAA WP-3), ship and surface monitoring networks (AIRNow, IMPROVE, CASTNet and STN) during the 2006 TexAQS/GoMACCS study. The results at the AIRNow surface sites show that both ARW-CMAQ and NMM-CMAQ reproduced day-to-day variations of observed PM 2.5 and captured the majority of observed PM 2.5 within a factor of 2 with a NMB value of −0.4% for ARW-CMAQ and −18% for NMM-CMAQ. Both models performed much better at the urban sites than at the rural sites, with greater underpredictions at the rural sites. Both models consistently underestimated the observed PM 2.5 at the rural IMPROVE sites by −1% for the ARW-CMAQ and −19% for the NMM-CMAQ. The greater underestimations of SO 4 2− , OC and EC by the NMM-CMAQ contributed to increased underestimation of PM 2.5 at the IMPROVE sites. The NMB values for PM 2.5 at the STN urban sites are 15% and −16% for the ARW-CMAQ and NMM-CMAQ, respectively. The underestimation of PM 2.5 at the STN sites by the NMM-CMAQ mainly results from the underestimations of the SO 4 2− , NH 4 + and TCM components, whereas the overestimation of PM 2.5 at the STN sites by the ARW-CMAQ results from the overestimations of SO 4 2− , NO 3 − , and NH 4 + . The Comparison with WP-3 aircraft measurements reveals that both ARW-CMAQ and NMM-CMAQ have very similar model performance for vertical profiles for PM 2.5 chemical components (SO 4 2− , NH 4 + ) and related gaseous species (HNO 3 , SO 2 , NH 3 , isoprene, toluene, terpenes) as both models used the same chemical mechanisms and emissions. The results of ship along the coast of southeastern Texas over the Gulf of Mexico show that both models captured the temporal variations and broad synoptic change seen in the observed HCHO and acetaldehyde with the means NMB 2 .


The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different suckling systems in non-dairy sheep on the production and components of milk, sucking behavior and lamb growth from day 4 after lambing until the lambs were 4 weeks old. The sixteen ewes with their lambs were used to compare restricted suckling time (R) and free suckling time (F) methods. The F lambs were maintained with mothers and suckled ad libitum during day. The R lambs were removed from their dams and allowed to suckle their dams for 15 min during morning and afternoon period. After two weeks of age, all lambs were encouraged to consume roughage alfa alfa as ad libitum to stimulate their ruminal activity. Daily milk intakes of R lambs were low, while F lambs consumed more milk in 1st and 3rd weeks. Therefore, F lambs gained more weight in these weeks. The R lambs have been shown to result in lower sucking duration and higher frequency as compared to F lambs until 4th week. There were no significant differences between treatments in change of milk protein during study. However, the milk fat concentrations were higher in the F group than in R group until 4th week


Objective To assess the risk of disease reactivation during pregnancy after natalizumab suspension in women with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods Data of all pregnancies occurring between 2009 and 2015 in patients with MS treated with natalizumab and referring to 19 participating sites were collected and compared with those of pregnancies in untreated patients and patients treated with injectable immunomodulatory agents through a 2-factor repeated measures analysis. Predictors of disease activity were assessed through stepwise multivariable logistic regression models. Results A total of 92 pregnancies were tracked in 83 women receiving natalizumab. Among these pregnancies, 74 in 70 women resulted in live births, with a postpartum follow-up of at least 1 year, and were compared with 350 previously published pregnancies. Relapse rate during and after pregnancy was higher in women treated with natalizumab (p < 0.001). In multivariable analysis, longer natalizumab washout period was the only predictor of relapse occurrence during pregnancy (p = 0.001). Relapses in the postpartum year were related to relapses during pregnancy (p = 0.019) and early reintroduction of disease-modifying drugs (DMD; p = 0.021). Disability progression occurred in 16.2% of patients and was reduced by early reintroduction of DMD (p = 0.024). Conclusions Taken as a whole, our findings indicate that the combination of avoiding natalizumab washout and the early resumption of DMD after delivery could be the best option in the perspective of maternal risk. This approach must take into account possible fetal risks that need to be discussed with the mother and require further investigation. Classification of evidence This study provides Class IV evidence that in women with MS, the risk of relapses during pregnancy is higher in those who had been using natalizumab as compared to those who had been using interferon-β or no treatment. RELATED ARTICLE


This paper presents the first comprehensive analysis of corporate environmental disclosure (CED) in the Arab MENA region. Using a detailed research instrument containing 55 items, content analysis of the annual reports of 180 non-financial companies listed on nine major stock markets was conducted over a five-year period. The calculation of an unweighted disclosure index indicates that, although the level of disclosure might be considered relatively low by international standards, it varies by country. Perhaps of greater significance for the future of sustainable development in the region, disclosure is shown to have increased significantly over the period 2010-2014. Further analysis shows that, although there are some differences relating to categories of disclosure, this is a region-wide phenomenon not driven by a subset of countries or types of company. This benchmark study provides a systematic picture for policy makers in the region and, for future researchers, both substantive findings and methodological insight.


Steatosis of the liver may arise from a variety of conditions, but the molecular basis for lipid droplet formation is poorly understood. Although a certain amount of lipid storage may even be hepatoprotective, prolonged lipid storage can result in an activation of inflammatory reactions and loss of metabolic competency. Apart from drug-induced steatosis, certain metabolic disorders associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and hyperlipidemia give also rise to nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD). It is noteworthy that advanced stages of nonalcoholic hepatic steatosis and steatohepatitis (NASH) result ultimately in fibrosis and cirrhosis. In this regard, the lipid droplets (LDs) have been discovered to be metabolically highly active structures that play major roles in lipid transport, sorting, and signaling cascades. In particular, LDs maintain a dynamic communication with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the plasma membrane via sphingolipid-enriched domains of the plasma membrane—the lipid rafts. These microdomains frequently harbor receptor tyrosine kinases and other signaling molecules and connect extracellular events with intracellular signaling cascades. Here, we review recent knowledge on the molecular mechanisms of drug and metabolically induced hepatic steatosis and its progression to steatohepatitis (NASH). The contribution of cytokines and other signaling molecules, as well as activity of nuclear receptors, lipids, transcription factors, and endocrine mediators toward cellular dysfunction and progression of steatotic liver disease to NASH is specifically addressed, as is the cross-talk of different cell types in the pathogenesis of NAFLD. Furthermore, we provide an overview of recent therapeutic approaches in NASH therapy and discuss new as well as putative targets for pharmacological interventions.


Introduction Achieving a sustained improvement in hand-hygiene compliance is the WHO's first global patient safety challenge. There is no RCT evidence showing how to do this. Systematic reviews suggest feedback is most effective and call for long term well designed RCTs, applying behavioural theory to intervention design to optimise effectiveness. Methods Three year stepped wedge cluster RCT of a feedback intervention testing hypothesis that the intervention was more effective than routine practice in 16 English/Welsh Hospitals (16 Intensive Therapy Units [ITU]; 44 Acute Care of the Elderly [ACE] wards) routinely implementing a national cleanyourhands campaign). Intervention-based on Goal & Control theories. Repeating 4 week cycle (20 mins/week) of observation, feedback and personalised action planning, recorded on forms. Computer-generated stepwise entry of all hospitals to intervention. Hospitals aware only of own allocation. Primary outcome: direct blinded hand hygiene compliance (%). Results All 16 trusts (60 wards) randomised, 33 wards implemented intervention (11 ITU, 22 ACE). Mixed effects regression analysis (all wards) accounting for confounders, temporal trends, ward type and fidelity to intervention (forms/month used). Intention to Treat Analysis Estimated odds ratio (OR) for hand hygiene compliance rose post randomisation (1.44; 95% CI 1.18, 1.76;p<0.001) in ITUs but not ACE wards, equivalent to 7–9% absolute increase in compliance. Per-Protocol Analysis for Implementing Wards OR for compliance rose for both ACE (1.67 [1.28–2.22]; p<0.001) & ITUs (2.09 [1.55–2.81];p<0.001) equating to absolute increases of 10–13% and 13–18% respectively. Fidelity to intervention closely related to compliance on ITUs (OR 1.12 [1.04, 1.20];p = 0.003 per completed form) but not ACE wards. Conclusion Despite difficulties in implementation, intention-to-treat, per-protocol and fidelity to intervention, analyses showed an intervention coupling feedback to personalised action planning produced moderate but significant sustained improvements in hand-hygiene compliance, in wards implementing a national hand-hygiene campaign. Further implementation studies are needed to maximise the intervention's effect in different settings. Trial Registration Controlled-Trials.com ISRCTN65246961


Background and aims: Colonoscopy is an established method of colorectal cancer screening, but has an adenoma miss rate of 10–20%. Detection rates are expected to improve with optimised visualisation methods. This prospective randomised study evaluated narrow-band imaging (NBI), a new technique that may enhance image contrast in colon adenoma detection. Methods: Eligible patients presenting for diagnostic colonoscopy were randomly assigned to undergo wide-angle colonoscopy using either conventional high-resolution imaging or NBI during instrument withdrawal. The primary outcome parameter was the difference in the adenoma detection rate between the two techniques. Results: A total of 401 patients were included (mean age 59.4 years, 52.6% men). Adenomas were detected more frequently in the NBI group (23%) than in the control group (17%) with a number of 17 colonoscopies needed to find one additional adenoma patient; however, the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.129). When the two techniques were compared in consecutive subgroups of 100 study patients, adenoma rates in the NBI group remained fairly stable, whereas these rates steadily increased in the control group (8%, 15%, 17%, and 26.5%, respectively). Significant differences in the first 100 cases (26.5% versus 8%; p = 0.02) could not be maintained in the last 100 cases (25.5% versus 26.5%, p = 0.91). Conclusions: The increased adenoma detection rate means of NBI colonoscopy were statistically not significant. It remains speculative as to whether the increasing adenoma rate in the conventional group may have been caused by a training effect of better polyp recognition on NBI.


Using intraday data, we study spillovers from European stock markets to the U.S. in the hours before the flash crash on 6 May 2010. Many commentators have pointed to negative market sentiment and high volatility during the European trading session before the Flash Crash. However, based on a range of vector autoregressive models, we find no robust evidence that spillovers increased at that time. On the contrary, spillovers on 6 May were mostly smaller than in the preceding days, during which there was great uncertainty surrounding the Greek sovereign debt crisis. The absence of evidence for spillovers underscores the difficulties in understanding the nature of flash events in financial markets.


Optimal receiver diversity combining employing linear channel estimation is examined. Based on the statistical properties of pilot-assisted least-squares (LS) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) channel estimation, an optimal diversity receiver for wireless systems employing practical linear channel estimation on Rician fading channels is proposed. Exact analytical expressions for the symbol error rates of LS and MMSE channel estimation aided optimal diversity combining are derived. It is shown that an MPSK wireless system with MMSE channel estimation has the same SER when the MMSE channel estimation is replaced by LS estimation. This is an interesting counter-example to the common perception that channel estimation with smaller mean square error leads to smaller SER. Extensive simulation results validate the theoretical results.


Abstract There is increasing attention in Australia and internationally on advance care planning (ACP), a process which assists competent people to make decisions about their healthcare for a possible future time when they may no longer be competent. ACP can include the use of a written document and/or use of a substitute decision-maker to make healthcare decisions at a time of future incompetence. ACP is much more prevalent in the US than in Australia or other English-speaking countries. Australia is a federation of states and territories, which all make their own health law, resulting in different legislative provision, documentation and terminology. Despite research demonstrating strong support for ACP, it is not well understood, nor is it well utilised. Even in public hospitals, incorrect terminology and documentation put health professionals at risk. A recent position statement by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) recommends uniform national legislation for legally enforceable advance directives. Unfortunately, the AMA statement also proposes allowing doctors to ignore an advance healthcare directive if the doctor believes that it is 'inconsistent with good medical practice or advances in medical science, thereby preserving doctors' clinical judgement and discretion'. It is a fundamental pillar of the doctor/patient relationship that it is the patient who ultimately holds the power to consent to, or refuse, treatment. Competent patients must always have the last say over what happens to their bodies. For those who fear loss of capacity, ACP can provide reassurance and take away some of the fear around the end stage of life.


Since 1982, the New Castle County Superior Court in Delaware has promoted mediation, which attempts to resolve filed conflicts prior to trial. This paper evaluates how spatial land-use conflicts channel through mediation and litigation. Data suggest that mediations fail because one of the key disputing parties does not play a direct role in mediation and litigation. The data then inform a predictive model of litigated outcomes in which disputants share in the responsibility for conflict. By alleviating some of the uncertainty of litigation and proposing win-win, mediated outcomes, the model may be used facilitate future mediations.


Little is known about the role of Abs in determining the outcome of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. By using infectious retroviral pseudotypes bearing HCV glycoproteins, we measured neutralizing Ab (nAb) responses during acute and chronic HCV infection. In seven acutely infected health care workers, only two developed a nAb response that failed to associate with viral clearance. In contrast, the majority of chronically infected patients had nAbs. To determine the kinetics of strain-specific and crossreactive nAb emergence, we studied patient H, the source of the prototype genotype 1a H77 HCV strain. An early weak nAb response, specific for the autologous virus, was detected at seroconversion. However, neutralization of heterologous viruses was detected only between 33 and 111 weeks of infection. We also examined the development of nAbs in 10 chimpanzees infected with H77 clonal virus. No nAb responses were detected in three animals that cleared virus, whereas strain-specific nAbs were detected in six of the seven chronically infected animals after approximately 50 weeks of infection. The delayed appearance of high titer crossreactive nAbs in chronically infected patients suggests that selective mechanism(s) may operate to prevent the appearance of these Abs during acute infection. The long-term persistence of these nAbs in chronically infected patients may regulate viral replication.


Supplemental lighting is required for the production of high-quality vegetable transplants in greenhouses when the photosynthetic daily light integral (DLI) is low. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are a promising alternative to high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps. However, there are a limited number of studies that have evaluated how LED supplemental lighting spectral quality beyond blue (B) and red (R) radiation influences plant growth and development. Seeds of hybrid greenhouse seedless cucumber 'Elsie' (Cucumis sativus), tomato 'Climstar' (Solanum lycopersicum), and pepper 'Kathia' (Capsicum annuum) were sown and placed into a dark growth chamber until radicle emergence. Seedlings were grown in a greenhouse at a 25 °C constant temperature set point and under five lighting treatments. The supplemental lighting treatments delivered a total photon flux density (TPFD) of 120 μmol·m−2·s−1 for 16 h·d−1 based on an instantaneous threshold from HPS lamps or LEDs [three treatments composed of B (400–500 nm), R (600–700 nm), white, and/or far-red (FR; 700–800 nm) LEDs], and a control that delivered 25 μmol·m−2·s−1 from HPS lamps (HPS25). The LED treatments defined by their wavebands (TPFD in μmol·m−2·s–1) of B, green (G, 500–600 nm), R, and FR radiation were B20G10R75FR15, B25R95, and B30G30R60; whereas the HPS treatments emitted B7G57R47FR9 (HPS120) and B1G13R9FR2 (HPS25). Generally, cucumber, pepper, and tomato transplants under B30G30R60 and HPS120 supplemental lighting had the greatest stem diameter. Fresh weight and leaf area of all three species was greater when G radiation replaced R or B radiation. For example, leaf area and fresh weight of cucumber, tomato, and pepper increased (by 33%, 22%, and 49%; and 35%, 14%, and 56%, respectively) for plants under B30G30R60 supplemental lighting compared with plants under B25R95 supplemental lighting. The most compact cucumber and pepper transplants were those grown under B25R95 supplemental lighting, and the most compact tomatoes were those grown under the HPS25 (control) and B25R95 supplemental lighting. Tomato transplants under treatments providing ≥30 μmol·m−2·s−1 of G radiation had an increased incidence of leaf necrosis. From this study, we conclude that plant responses to supplemental lighting quality are generally genera-specific, and therefore high-wire transplants should be separated by genera to optimize production and quality. However, additional studies are required to provide complete LED supplemental lighting recommendations.


ABSTRACT Calcareous green algae (CGA) are an artificially united but highly heterogeneous group of large unicellular benthic algae with one character in common: all have the capability of secreting a calcareous coating on the outer side of the cytoplasmic envelope. Today, they are a major contributor to carbonate sedimentation at all scales from clay-sized particles (aragonitic needles) to coarser grains (sand and gravel) and even to plurimetric sedimentary structures. There are fossil analogues to the features listed above. Phycologists know best Halimeda, Penicillus, Acetabularia and Cymopolia; micropaleontologists and carbonate sedimentologists are most knowledgeable about Acicularia, Clypeina, Neoteutloporella, Salpingoporella, Anthracoporella, Boueina, and Eugonophyllum. The CaCO3 precipitated to form the coating is generally aragonite (the orthorhombic form) but there are short periods in the geologic record during which its calcite variant (the rhombohedric form) existed contemporaneously in discrete species. Recent studies on Halimeda have shown that some of the Bryopsidales have the capability to calcify strongly in the lower portion of the euphotic zone (where respiration becomes more important than photosynthesis in the process of mineralization) and to produce positive sedimentary reliefs (bioherms) in situ below the fair-weather wave base. Previous models of paleoenvironments considered the presence of Dasycladales or Bryopsidales to indicate shallow-water, that is the upper euphotic zone (from the sea surface down to -25 m), and predominantly low-energy, protected, lagoonal environments. When the algal remains were found in grain-supported facies, they were taken to have been subjected to dynamic transport and therefore indicative of high-energy environments of deposition. The new deeper-water finds have changed interpretations of the environments ascribed fossil algae. A current conception is that ancestral inarticulated Bryopsidales could have grown at depths as great as -120 m (near the base of the lower euphotic zone). This preliminary review concludes with suggestions about fields for continuing investigations.


Whether as team members brainstorming or cultures experimenting with new technologies, problem solvers communicate and share ideas. This paper examines how the structure of communication networks among actors can affect system-level performance. We present an agent-based computer simulation model of information sharing in which the less successful emulate the more successful. Results suggest that when agents are dealing with a complex problem, the more efficient the network at disseminating information, the better the short-run but the lower the long-run performance of the system. The dynamic underlying this result is that an inefficient network maintains diversity in the system and is thus better for exploration than an efficient network, supporting a more thorough search for solutions in the long run. For intermediate time frames, there is an inverted-U relationship between connectedness and performance, in which both poorly and well-connected systems perform badly, and moderately connected systems perform best. This curvilinear relationship between connectivity and group performance can be seen in several diverse instances of organizational and social behavior.


We report novel dynamical regimes of dissipative vortices supported by a radial-azimuthal potential (RAP) in the 2D complex Ginzburg-Landau (CGL) equation with the cubic-quintic nonlinearity. First, the stable solutions of vortices with intrinsic vorticity S = 1 and 2 are obtained in the CGL equation without potential. The RAP is a model of an active optical medium with respective expanding anti-waveguiding structures with m (integer) annularly periodic modulation. If the potential is strong enough, m jets fundamental of solitons are continuously emitted from the vortices. The influence of m, diffusivity term (viscosity) β, and cubic-gain coefficient ε on the dynamic region is studied. For a weak potential, the shape of vortices are stretched into the polygon, such as square for m = 4. But for a stronger potential, the vortices will be broke into m fundamental solitons.


AIM
To test a priori hypotheses concerning client-treatment matching in the treatment of alcohol problems and to evaluate the more general hypothesis that client-treatment matching adds to the overall effectiveness of treatment.

DESIGN
Pragmatic, multi-centre, randomized controlled trial (the UK Alcohol Treatment Trial: UKATT) with open follow-up at 3 months after entry and blind follow-up at 12 months.

SETTING
Five treatment centres, comprising seven treatment sites, including National Health Service (NHS), social services and joint NHS/non-statutory facilities.

TREATMENTS
Motivational enhancement therapy and social behaviour and network therapy.

MEASUREMENTS
Matching hypotheses were tested by examining interactions between client attributes and treatment types at both 3 and 12 months follow-up using the outcome variables of percentage days abstinent, drinks per drinking day and scores on the Alcohol Problems Questionnaire and Leeds Dependence Questionnaire.

FINDINGS
None of five matching hypotheses was confirmed at either follow-up point on any outcome variable.

CONCLUSION
The findings strongly support the conclusion reached in Project MATCH in the United States that client-treatment matching, at least of the kind examined, is unlikely to result in substantial improvements to the effectiveness of treatment for alcohol problems. Possible reasons for this failure to support the general matching hypothesis are discussed, as are the implications of UKATT findings for the provision of treatment for alcohol problems in the United Kingdom.


In its 1915 decision in Mutual Film v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, the Supreme Court held that motion pictures were, as a medium, unprotected by freedom of speech and press because they were mere "entertainment" and "spectacles" with a "capacity for evil." Mutual legitimated an extensive regime of film censorship that existed until the 1950s. It was not until 1952, in Burstyn v. Wilson, that the Court declared motion pictures to be, like the traditional press, an important medium for the communication of ideas protected by the First Amendment. By the middle of the next decade, film censorship in the U.S. had been almost entirely abolished.Why did the Court go from regarding the cinema as an unprotected medium to part of the constitutionally-protected "press"? The standard explanation for this shift is that civil libertarian developments in free speech jurisprudence in the 1930s and 40s made the changed First Amendment status of the movies and the fall of film censorship inevitable. Challenging this account, I argue that the shift was also the result of a dynamic I describe as the social convergence of mass communications. Social convergence takes place when the functions, practices, and cultures associated with different media come to resemble each other. By the 1950s, movies occupied a role in American culture that increasingly resembled the traditional press. At the same time, print journalism took on styles and functions that were like those historically associated with the movies. The demise of film censorship reflected not only more capacious understandings of freedom of expression, but also convergent communications. The article focuses on the efforts of a nationwide anticensorship movement, between 1915 and the 1950s, to engineer the reversal of Mutual using an argument based on media convergence. This significant, lost chapter in the history of modern free speech has much to tell us about the ongoing relationship between the First Amendment and new media. It illustrates how courts and the public in an earlier time dealt with a question that is still pressing today: should the medium of communication have significance for free speech law? Illuminating historical patterns of judicial responses to new media, the work offers insights into what we may predict about the regulation of mass media in our own era of media convergence.


THE THREAT of a "financial crisis" may have motivated the Federal Reserve Board's apparent decision to relax monetary policy earlier this year. Such crises have been a recurrent theme since the mid-1960s, although definition of the term and prediction of the event have proved equally elusive. Corporate bankruptcies, failures in the thrift industry, problems at regional banks, and near-defaults on loans to foreign borrowers have created new concerns about the resiliency of the financial structure. The concerns are especially great because of the linkages between the health of the financial system and the growth of real economic activity. In this paper I propose to differentiate between the ebb and flow of the business cycle on the one hand, and events triggered by financial market weaknesses on the other. In that context, I evaluate recent experience in domestic and international financial markets. My conclusion is that the current episode qualifies as a full-fledged crisis of a magnitude comparable to the 1974-75 experience. The Federal Reserve is seen to play crucial roles both in the development and in the resolution of past and present crises.


The main aims and objectives of this study was to determine if plant essential oils (PEOs) and polyphenol-rich fruit extracts (PRFEs) could reduce the viability of Giardia duodenalis trophozoites, Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigotes and Cryptospordium parvum oocysts in vitro. All PEOs tested reduced epimastigote and trophozoite viability at a concentration of 0.02% v/v, with titrations of the PEOs showing a concentration dependant decrease in viability. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of PEOs demonstrated that myrtle and elemi oil were the most active PEOs (trophozoites = 0.005% v/v; epimastigotes = 0.00125% v/v) with the terpenes, α-pinene and limonene, constituents of these oils, being responsible for their action. Incubation of palmarosa oil and its terpene, geraniol, with C. parvum oocysts caused the almost complete excystation of oocysts (in the presence of increased temperature and time), with geranium oil and its terpene, citronellol, being nearly as effective. PRFEs reduce trophozoite viability, with 4 members of the Rosaceae Family causing complete reduction at 167 μg ml-1, possibly through their ellagitannin content. Cloudberry extract was found to have an MIC comparable to the drug metronidazole (67 μg ml-1). The historical use of blueberries for the treatment of diarrhoeal diseases was demonstrated by the ability of blueberry PRFE, pressed juice and drink to kill trophozoites. Protein expression was both inhibited and upregulated in several proteins in whole cell lysates of PEO treated trophozoites, indicating a supplemental intracellular mode of action. Both PEOs and PRFEs cause morphological changes to epimastigotes and trophozoites through flagellar truncation and internalisation, swelling and rounding of the cell body, cytoplasmic condensation and the formation of large membrane protrusions. These indicate an action on the membrane itself with possible changes in osmoregulation. Both PEOs and PRFEs can be considered to be candidates for novel drug discovery for the treatments of cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis and American trypanosomiasis.


When implementing social media strategies on Facebook brand pages, companies focus on factors that prompt electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWoM) about brand contents. This study examines individual and collective factors that lead to brand content sharing behaviors. The research conducts a field study of a real brand on its Facebook fan page to gather actual behavioral data. Both declarative and behavioral data are used to explain brand eWoM, based on 250 participants. Empirical results show that the Facebook activity has a positive influence on brand content sharing for active users (posters) but not for nonactive users (lurkers), while brand engagement positively affects brand content sharing for both active and nonactive users. Furthermore, brand community involvement does not have an influence on brand content sharing. Findings offer companies useful recommendations for using the determinants included in our research design to understand and analyze the sharing behaviors of users.


The United States government makes a solemn promise to the men and women of the armed forces that if they fall on the field of battle their remains will be returned home. Americans demand that this occur in order for the individual to be properly honored. This commitment and corresponding expectation applies to both current and past conflicts. The Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command (JPAC) is responsible for locating, recovering, and identifying the approximately 90,000 American military personnel who remain missing from the beginning of World War II through to the end of the Vietnam War. To help increase the rate of identifications, this thesis builds a model that predicts where human remains will be found within WWII bombardment and cargo aircraft crash sites based upon each individual duty station. The JPAC's previously resolved loss incidents were critically examined, working through the identification process in reverse. This allowed for the determination of where each crew member was recovered from within their respective crash sites in relation to the corresponding wreckage. Hypotheses are developed for each crew position within the aircraft based upon the patterns observed. The validity of these predictions is then tested against an additional case for each category of aircraft. Results show that bombardment aircraft crew members will be found within approximately 8 m of their assigned duty station and that the distribution of all cargo aircraft personnel mirrors that of the cockpit wreckage. For the cases in this thesis, it is determined that the physics of the crash, not the actions of the crew or subsequent erosion, that primarily dictates where individuals will be found within a crash site. This research is contextualized within archaeology as a discipline, the broader conversation of conflict archaeology by filling a gap in the current historical and archaeological literature, evaluating JPAC's impact on the heritage of material culture, and this type of research can provide temporal and cross-cultural insight into people's interactions with the battlefields and crash sites. Finally, weak points within the JPAC's identification processes are highlighted and recommended solutions provided.


Topography affects abiotic conditions which can influence the structure, function and dynamics of ecological communities. An increasing number of studies have demonstrated biological consequences of fine‐scale topographic heterogeneity but we have a limited understanding of how these effects depend on the climate context. We merged high‐resolution (1 m2) data on topography and canopy height derived from airborne lidar with ground‐based data from 15 forest plots in Puerto Rico distributed along a precipitation gradient spanning c. 800–3,500 mm/year. Ground‐based data included species composition, estimated above‐ground biomass (AGB), and two key functional traits (wood density and leaf mass per area, LMA) that reflect resource‐use strategies and a trade‐off between hydraulic safety and hydraulic efficiency. We used hierarchical Bayesian models to evaluate how the interaction between topography × climate is related to metrics of forest structure (i.e. canopy height and AGB), as well as taxonomic and functional alpha‐ and beta‐diversity. Fine‐scale topography (characterized with the topographic wetness index, TWI) significantly affected forest structure and the strength (and in some cases direction) of these effects varied across the precipitation gradient. In all plots, canopy height increased with topographic wetness but the effect was much stronger in dry compared to wet forest plots. In dry forest plots, topographically wetter microsites also had higher levels of AGB but in wet forest plots, topographically drier microsites had higher AGB. Fine‐scale topography influenced functional composition but had only weak or non‐significant effects on taxonomic and functional alpha‐ and beta‐diversity. For instance, community‐weighted wood density followed a similar pattern to AGB across plots. We also found a marginally significant association between variation of wood density and topographic heterogeneity that depended on climate context. Synthesis. The effects of fine‐scale topographic heterogeneity on tropical forest structure and composition depend on the climate context. Our study demonstrates how a stronger integration of topographic heterogeneity across precipitation gradients could improve estimates of forest structure and biomass, and may provide insight to the ways that topography might mediate species responses to drought and climate change.


Contemporary societies have more vibrant markets than past ones. Yet they are more heavily populated by private and public regulators. This book explores the features of such a regulatory capitalism, its tendencies to be cyclically crisis-ridden, ritualistic and governed through networks. New ways of thinking about resultant policy challenges are developed.


This dissertation examines the causes and consequences of the recent growth in Euroamerican mental health practice in Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest and most ethnically diverse states with a thriving tradition of indigenous medicine. Based on 18 months of fieldwork in Oaxaca City and the Mixteca region, I explore how and why mental health services have grown so dramatically; what they consist of and what discourses they promote; for what problems they are being utilized; and what impacts they are having in the region. In so doing, I advance a number of central claims. First and most broadly, I argue that Oaxaca is experiencing a shift in its culture of mental health, one in which globalizing conceptions and practices are taking hold and impacting understandings of illness, self, and social relations. Social problems such as migration and violence are increasingly dealt with in the clinical setting as matters of mental health, and concepts such as trauma, stress, self-esteem, and self-expression are gaining traction throughout the state. Secondly, I argue that mental health professionals themselves are integral to these broader shifts. As conduits of the global attempting to mold the local, practitioners' enterprise goes well beyond the provision of treatment: I show how they are actively attempting to foment culture change in the region. Representations of `culture'--which practitioners view as incompatible with mental health and with modern forms of subjectivity--are central to this project. Finally, community members do not merely absorb these globalizing concepts; rather, they actively engage with and alter them on the ground. Thus the expansion of Euroamerican mental health practice is not simply a homogenizing process, but one in which globalizing concepts articulate with local meaning systems to generate novel social practices, experiences, and self- understandings. As a fine-grained ethnographic analysis of social and cultural change, the dissertation (1) advances social scientific theory on the reciprocal relationships between global trends, cultural discourse, professional practice, and individual experience; (2) provides qualitative data on health ideologies, disparities, and access to treatment in marginalized communities; and (3) contributes to anthropological and cross-disciplinary scholarship on culture, mental health, and globalization


OBJECTIVE
In this study, we evaluated used aluminum tuning forks (TFs) for fundamental frequencies (FF), overtones, and decay times.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In total, 15 used (1 C1, 11 C2, and 3 C3) and 1 unused (C2) TFs were tuned, and the recorded sound data were analyzed using the Praat sound analysis program.

RESULTS
It was found that FFs of the recorded sounds produced by the used C2-TFs presented a high variability from 0.19% to 74.15% from the assumed FFs, whereas this rate was smaller (1.49%) in the used C3-TFs. Further, decay times of the used C2-TFs varied from 5.41 to 40.97 s.

CONCLUSION
This study, as the first of its kind in the literature, reported that some of the used aluminum TFs lost their physical properties that are important for clinical TF tests. It could be said that this is a phenomenon related to metal fatigue, which is common in aluminum products due to the cyclic load.


Designing spaces that are able to balance human comfort, energy-efficiency and well-being in a given climate is a real challenge, yet a problem faced every day by architects and building designers. Within the overall framework of promoting linkages between the engineering and design fields, this talk will discuss new approaches in research and education that are being developed to better integrate building performance considerations in the architectural design process. Daylighting is chosen as a strategic focus for this effort, being inherent to architectural design and one of the main drivers of a building's technical performance and resulting human comfort and health. The talk will present research and teaching perspectives for the recently founded Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Performance-Integrated Design (LIPID), which include new calculation methods, evaluation tools, instruments and metrics that will support this integration effort in the course as well as the lab environments.


The quantities and wavelength dependencies of the dust extinction along the lines of sight toward 33 nearby gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with redshifts z < 2 are derived from fitting their afterglow spectral energy distributions. Unlike previous studies which often assume a specific extinction law like that of the Milky Way (MW) and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC/SMC), our approach—we call it the "Drude" approach—is more flexible in determining the true wavelength dependence of the extinction (while the shape of the extinction curve inferred from that relying on a priori assumption of a template extinction law is, of course, fixed). The extinction curves deduced from the Drude approach display a wide diversity of shapes, ranging from relatively flat curves to curves which are featureless and steeply rise toward the far-ultraviolet, and from curves just like that of the MW, LMC, and SMC to curves resembling that of the MW and LMC but lacking the 2175 Å bump. The visual extinction AV derived from the Drude approach is generally larger by a factor of ∼2–5 than that inferred by assuming a SMC-type template extinction law. Consistent with previous studies, the extinction-to-gas ratio is mostly smaller than that of the MW, and does not seem to correlate with the shape of the extinction curve. It is shown that the standard silicate–graphite interstellar grain model closely reproduces the extinction curves of all 33 GRBs host galaxies. For these 33 bursts at z < 2, we find no evidence for the evolution of the dust extinction, dust sizes, and relative abundances of silicate to graphite on redshifts.


The question of the nationalism of the Haitian writer Louis-Joseph Janvier (1855-1911) is more complex than it seems on the surface. An all-pervading theme in most of his texts, the nationalist imperative takes on different forms, the majority of which are based on facts which occurred at the time Janvier was writing. Janvier tries to exhaust the subject by establishing the facts and by challenging beliefs. He desperately tries to portray a positive, benevolent, welcoming image of Haitian nationalism, but as is often the case, this figure is also made up of contradictory aspects, which have been present since its emergence at the time of the French Revolution, and which undoubtedly found one of its first political expressions at the battle of Valmy, in September 1792. Janvier has thus to overcome the dissatisfaction that accompanies Haitian nationalism for its underlying exclusiveness. These paradoxical relationships of the author with the national founding ideal undergo significant changes throughout his career as an essayist, pamphleteer and novelist, diplomat and politician, ranging from the severe judgment, even contempt, for those who dispute the basis of this requirement to the radical criticism of an ideology which reveals its dark and deadly face. The proposed contribution seeks first to identify, through texts of various origins, the themes, the facts or just the simple echoes of this idea of nation that seems to run through Janvier's text.


Magnetic core–shell nanoparticles (CSNs) have potential applications in spintronic devices, drug delivery systems, and magnetic random access memory. By use of our hydrothermal nano-phase epitaxy method, we have accomplished synthesis of novel, well-ordered α-Cr_2O_3@α-Mn_0.35Cr_1.65O_2.94 inverted CSNs. XRD and TEM analyses show a core–shell structure with corundum phase throughout the core and shell with a minimal amount of interface defects. TEM-EDX and XPS data show Mn having the +2 oxidation state in the shell of the CSNs. Magnetization measurements at 5 K show a weak coercivity ( H _C) value of 8 Oe and an exchange bias field ( H _E) of 293 Oe. Ab initio calculations show that Mn incorporation in α-Cr_2O_3 results in narrowing of the energy band gap, substantiated by UV–Vis measurements, and half metallic behavior in case of Mn(III) substitution. Our calculations substantiate that Mn substitution in α-Cr_2O_3 results in a combination of antiferromagnetic and weak ferrimagnetic character of our CSNs.


This lecture evaluates the low-frequency variability of surface air temperature that was obtained from a 1000-yr integration of a coupled ocean-atmosphere-land surface model. The model simulates reasonably well the variability of local and global mean surface air temperature (SAT) at decadal timescales. The physical mechanisms responsible for this variability are explored. Based upon an analysis of the time series of the simulated global mean SAT, it is indicated that the warming trend of ∼0.5°C century -1 since the end of the last century was not generated internally through the interaction among the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface. Instead, it appears to have been induced by a sustained change in the thermal forcing such as that resulting from changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration, solar irradiance, and aerosol loading.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze the profile of the HLA-B27 and B7 cross-reactive group (CREG) alleles and the role of these markers in disease characterization and progression in patients with undifferentiated spondyloarthropathies (uSpA).

METHODS
A total of 80 patients with a diagnosis of uSpA (40 HLA-B27 positive and 40 HLA-B27 negative) were prospectively studied for 2 years. The control group consisted of 66 HLA-B27 positive and 112 HLA-B27 negative individuals without a history of seronegative SpA. HLA-B alleles were typed at low (B7-CREG alleles, i.e., B*7, B*54, B*55, B*56, B*40, B*42) or high resolution (B*27 alleles) using polymerase chain reaction-amplified DNA hybridized with sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes.

RESULTS
HLA-B*2705 was the most frequent allele, observed in 92.5% of the patients and in 77% of the controls, followed by the HLA-B*2702, observed in 5% of the patients and in 12% of the controls. HLA-B*2704 was observed in only one patient (2.5%), and was absent in the control population. HLA-B*2703 (6%) and HLA-B*2707 (5%) alleles were observed only in controls. No associations between HLA-B*27 alleles or B7-CREG alleles and any specific manifestation of uSpA were observed. HLA-B27 positive patients more frequently presented juvenile onset SpA (p = 0.002) and progression to ankylosing spondylitis (AS) (p = 0.03) than did HLA-B27 negative patients. The B7-CREG alleles were observed in 5% of the HLA-B27 positive uSpA group, in 25% of the HLA-B27 negative uSpA group, in 7% of the HLA-B27 positive controls, and in 13% of the HLA-B27 negative controls; a significant association was observed between the presence of the B7-CREG and the HLA-B27 negative uSpA group (p = 0.012).

CONCLUSION
The frequency of the HLA-B*2705 allele among the B27 positive uSpA patients of this series was closely similar to that reported for patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). The presence of HLA-B*27 alleles was associated with the progression to AS, and the presence of B7-CREG was associated with uSpA in the HLA-B27 negative group.


This paper draws on the thinking of the French philosopher and biologist Henri Bergson, and attempts an understanding of the environment while considering Bergson's metaphysics. Why is it that the bulk of the discussion concerning environmental problems takes place within a narrow framework that has difficulty recognizing the intrinsic value of nature? In this paper I try and explain Bergson's description of the ways that consciousness seeks to know the world around it, and conclude that modern thought fails to recognize the sensual, sympathetic nature of experience. Only through understanding the ecology of our own thoughts can we hope to reach an understanding of the environment and how to live with it in a harmonious and ecologically conscious manner.


Source: China Daily http://english.people.com.cn/90882/7613629.html GUANGZHOU The Italian brand Gucci became the subject of criticism after five former employees at its Shenzhen flagship store publicly released an open letter claiming that the company was a "sweatshop". In the letter, which was addressed to Gucci senior executives, the five former workers said they had been maltreated at Gucci's Shenzhen outlets in the previous months. They contended that they had to work overtime without fair compensation and had to obtain permission before they could drink water or go to the washroom. As result of the overtime and late nightshifts demanded at the outlets, more than one pregnant saleswoman had a miscarriage, said the letter, which was published online in late September. The five employees have since resigned. The letter also claims that workers at the shops had to stand for more than 12 hours a day and would still not receive overtime pay. The company's outlets usually close at 10 pm but, according to the letter, workers had to stay from 2 am to 3 am to conduct inventory checks. One of the letter writers, who would only state his surname, He, said that if wares were stolen from a certain store, employees there had to pay the company compensation. Staff members at Gucci's Shenzhen stores lost more than 70,000 yuan ($11,111) from their salaries when 16 items in their charge were found to have disappeared from 2009 to the end of August. He said that happened even though Gucci had had its products insured. "Gucci gets double compensation (from its staff and the insurance company) when its products are stolen or lost," He was quoted by Xinhua as saying. In the letter, the five employees asked for the overtime pay they said is owed them and for compensation for health damages. Gucci China declined to comment on the case, only saying by e-mail on Monday that the company is investigating the accusations. According to Xinhua, Gucci has issued a notice asking staff members to avoid speaking to reporters about the matter. Insiders said the accusations will impede Gucci's expansion in the Chinese mainland. "Chinese people should no longer purchase Gucci products," said a netizen who used the name "an angry bird". Yang Qianwu, a lawyer from the Shenzhen-based Dacheng Law Firm, encouraged the city's labor supervision departments to take steps to protect workers' legal rights and interests. "Relevant labor departments have the right and obligation to help workers and protect their legal interests," Yang said. Wang Hongli, deputy director of the Shenzhen Trade Unions's rights and interest protection department, said many international companies never allowed their employees to form unions in Shenzhen, making it difficult for union officials to collect evidence in labor disputes. He encouraged Gucci employees to report maltreatment to the Shenzhen Trade Union. An official from the Shenzhen Luohu district bureau of labor and human resources has promised to investigate the case.


Scene classification is a valuable classification subtask and has its own characteristics which still needs more in-depth studies. Basically, scene characteristics are distributed over the whole image, which cause the need of "seeing" comprehensive and informative regions. Previous works mainly focus on region discovery and aggregation, while rarely involves the inherent properties of CNN along with its potential ability to satisfy the requirements of scene classification. In this paper, we propose to understand scene images and the scene classification CNN models in terms of the focus area . From this new perspective, we find that large focus area is preferred in scene classification CNN models as a consequence of learning scene characteristics. Meanwhile, the analysis about existing training schemes helps us to understand the effects of focus area, and also raises the question about optimal training method for scene classification. Pursuing the better usage of scene characteristics, we propose a new learning scheme with a tailored loss in the goal of activating larger focus area on scene images. Since the supervision of the target regions to be enlarged is usually lacked, our alternative learning scheme is to erase already activated area, and allow the CNN models to activate more area during training. The proposed scheme is implemented by keeping the pairwise consistency between the output of the erased image and its original one. In partic-ular, a tailored loss is proposed to keep such pairwise consistency by leveraging category-relevance information. Experiments on Places365 show the significant improvements of our method with various CNNs. Our method shows an inferior result on the object-centric dataset, ImageNet, which experimentally indicates that it captures the unique characteristics of scenes.


This paper gives a brief introduction to structure analysis using STAN, a static code analysis tool bringing together Java development and quality assurance in a natural way. STAN encourages developers and project managers in visualizing their design, understanding code, measuring quality and reporting design flaws. STAN supports a set of carefully selected metrics, suitable to cover the most important aspects of structural quality. Special focus has been set on visual dependency analysis, a key to structure analysis. STAN seamlessly integrates into the development process. That way, developers take care about design quality right from the start. Project managers use STAN as a monitoring and reporting tool. STAN – Structure Analysis for Java


A theoretical analysis is given of the propagation of a linearly polarized electromagnetic wave through a medium with a harmonically oscillating birefringence and a static birefringence whose principal axis is inclined to the oscillation axis. The theory is applied to the photoelastic modulator (PEM) to predict the transmitted light flux in experimental configurations of particular spectroscopic and polarimetric importance. Included is the general configuration of a modulator between two polarizers (applicable to nearly all PEM-based light-transmission experiments) and the single-polarizer configuration (characteristic of recent experiments to measure natural optical activity by light reflection). Good agreement between observed results not only provides a test of the theory but accounts for recently observed anomalies that are not explicable on the basis of the standard description of the photoelastic modulator.


This study was carried out to determine the critical operational parameters for pneumatic handling of MR219 paddy seeds, with emphasis to seeding of system of rice intensification (SRI) seedling tray. The relevant physical and aerodynamic properties of MR219 seeds were studied. Twenty nozzle designs were developed based on the physical properties. A suitable operational vacuum pressure for single paddy seed picking was determined from established models based on one thousand kernel mass M1000, true density, sphericity and projected area of MR219 paddy seed. The performances of the twenty nozzle designs were evaluated experimentally using an automated platform consisting of screw mechanism, vacuum manifold, solenoid valve, vacuum pump and Atmel microcontroller. The amount of vacuum suction required for single seed picking derived from the established models was found to be 18.30 to 29.15 mbar. However, the amount of vacuum suction was optimized experimentally where 25 to 30 mbar was found to be suitable vacuum pressure for single seeding of MR219 paddy seed using 1 mm to 1.5 mm seed-hole diameter. The highest performance of 96.7% single seeding, 3.3% multiple seeding, and 0% miss seeding was achieved using nozzle with 1 mm seed hole diameter at 30 mbar vacuum pressure.


Encourage the development of human technology took all the potential to develop themselves and make use of facilities and resources. People can make ends meet, both physically and psychologically with work. Someone working because there is something to be achieved and hope work activities  will performed changing a state that is more satisfying than ever. Shift work is a choice in how the organization of work that was created because of the desire to maximize the productivity of labor as the fulfill of customer demands. This reaserch analyzes the level of general fatigue between morning shift and afternoon shift. In this case used the Bourdon Wiersma method and questionnaire 30 Items of Rating Scale (IoRS). Based on this research, the results obtained mean subjective fatigue scores for the morning shift 3.8 (the fatigue level is 1 and the classification of fatigue is low), for day shift 6.5 (the fatigue level is 2 and the classification of fatigue is medium), the mean fatigue objective score to speed before work 8.40 (Value 9, WS 14) includes group B (good) and after work 8.20 (Value 9, WS 14) includes group B (good), for constancy before work 2.66 (Value 8.5, WS 13) includes group CB (pretty good) after works 2.25 (Value 8.5, WS 13) includes group CB (pretty good), and accuracy before work 3.375 (Value8.5, WS 13) includes group CB (pretty good) after work 5.75 (Value 7,5, WS 11), includes group C (enough). Keyword      :  objective fatigue, subjective fatigue, work shift, Bourdon Wiersma,   30 Items of Rating Scale


Neither of the major negotiations underway in the Asia-Pacific region, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, includes both China and the United States. By failing to connect these economies, these agreements would leave much of the economic and political gains from Asia-Pacific economic integration unexploited. A China-US free trade and investment agreement, although not likely to be concluded soon, would address this gap and offers a range of policy options for the two economies. This paper uses a state-of-the-art computable general equilibrium model to estimate the benefits and adjustment implications of such an effort and compares them to the effects of the current smaller regional initiatives.


This review, reflecting the then youthful skepticism of the reviewer, expressed reservations about the extent to which international law does, can, and should constrain the use of force. The review also contains some incredibly wrongheaded predictions, about, for example, the longevity of the Soviet Union


The thesis is an in-depth research into the management and control of subcultures in a multicultural and geographically dispersed organisation. Primarily the thesis focuses on the Distribution function in Bass Brewers North where there is much cultural diversity and a high resistance to change in areas where regional subcultures have developed over long periods.Based on methods used in ethnographic studies and within an inductivist framework, 15 Distribution depots were researched in order to understand cultural and managerial differences in the regions. With the use of theoretical data analysis, three different subculture groupings were identified from the early stages of the research, these were categorised as being either positive, negative or changing cultures in relation to the Bass 'corporate' culture. Further detailed research was carried out in three representative Distribution depots in order to ascertain the degree to which the beliefs and values of the dominant culture were dispersed throughout the three subculture groupings.In order to assess cultural dispersion the research was extended to include other regions of Bass Brewers, and the Bass Headquarters at Burton. At this stage of the research the thesis explored culture management and leadership, cultural change and cultural impact on outcomes. From this, an understanding of the relationship between corporate cultures, subcultures and managerial control was developed.The research into the management and control of cultures and subcultures was analysed, from a middle management view and 'bottom up', rather than the traditional approach to corporate culture research and to culture change programmes, which is generally 'top down' with a senior management bias. The thesis argues that large complex organisations are composed of multiple possibly conflicting cultures, and that corporate cultures and subcultures cannot be readily changed. It is also argued that strategies designed to 'quickly' change an organisation's culture(s) are not likely to succeed. The contribution the thesis makes to existing knowledge is in three areas. Firstly the thesis provides a contribution in the area of research methodology both from a manager carrying out research within his own organisation, and the methodological approach used to study cultures and subcultures in organisations. Secondly the thesis provides a contribution in the area of culture and performance in that it explores the relationship between subcultures and an organisation's corporate culture and provides an explanation for different culture types and their impact on business performance. Finally the thesis provides a contribution in the area of culture and managerial control in that the research identifies the links between leadership and control at both senior and middle management levels.


Preliminary layout design of buildings has a substantial effect on the ultimate design of structural components and accordingly influences the construction cost. Exploring structurally efficient forms and shapes during the conceptual design stage of a project can also facilitate the optimum integrated design of buildings. This paper presents an automated method of determining column layout design of rectilinear orthogonal building frames using Charged System Search (CSS) algorithm. The layout design problem is presented as a combinatorial optimization problem named multi-dimensional knapsack problem by setting some constraints to the problem, where the minimum cost and maximum plan regularity are the objectives. The efficiency and robustness of CSS to solve the combinatorial optimization problem are demonstrated through a numerical design problem. The results of the algorithm are compared to those of an ant colony algorithm in order to validate the solution.


Prepared by Yuliya Labko, RN, BSN These annotated references are from 2010-1014 published literature. PubMed, CINAHL Plus, and PsycINFO were searched using the terms: grief, bereavement, perinatal loss, infant death, and culture. Articles are cited as research articles, practice recommendations, or systematic/ research reviews. The previous NFIMR bereavement bibliography contains earlier publications.


The Zn-to-Cu ratio in brass was measured by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. The influence of laser beam properties (pulse width, wavelength, and power density) on fractional laser ablation was investigated. The behavior of the Zn/Cu ratio vs. laser power density shows that there are different mechanisms influencing ps and ns laser ablation. With the use of a 30 ns pulse duration from an excimer laser, thermal vaporization appears to be the dominant process in the low-power density region. The Zn/Cu ratio approaches stoichiometry at higher power density, but the ablated mass still remains Zn rich. With a 35 ps pulse Nd:YAG laser, a nonthermal mechanism appears to govern the laser ablation process. When a 3 ns Nd:YAG laser is used, both thermal and nonthermal processes exist. For both 3 ns and 30 ps Nd:YAG lasers, stoichiometric ablation can be achieved at higher power densities.


In the past decades, spectral unmixing has been studied for deriving the fractions of spectrally pure materials in a mixed pixel. However, limited attention has been given to the collinearity problem in spectral mixture analysis. In this paper, quantitative analysis and detailed simulations are provided, which show that the high correlation between the endmembers, including the virtual endmembers introduced in a nonlinear model, has a strong impact on unmixing errors through inflating the Gaussian noise. While distinctive spectra with low correlations are often selected as true endmembers, the virtual endmembers formed by their product terms can be highly correlated. It is found that a virtual-endmember-based nonlinear model generally suffers more from collinearity problems compared to linear models and may not perform as expected when the Gaussian noise is high, despite its higher modeling power. Experiments were conducted on a set of in situ measured data, and the results show that the linear mixture model performs better in 61.5% of the cases.


Abstract Declining greater sage-grouse populations are causing concern for the future of this species across the western United States. Major ecosystem issues, including exotic annual grass invasion and conifer encroachment, threaten vast acreages of sagebrush rangeland and are primary threats to sage-grouse. We discuss types of problems facing sage-grouse habitat and argue that complex ecosystem problems may be difficult to address under the Endangered Species Act as currently applied. Some problems, such as anthropogenic development, can be effectively regulated to produce a desired outcome. Other problems that are complex and involve disruption of ecosystem processes cannot be effectively regulated and require ongoing commitment to adaptive management. We believe that historical inertia of the regulatory paradigm is sufficient to skew management toward regulatory mechanisms, even though complex ecosystem problems impact large portions of the sage-grouse range. To overcome this situation, we suggest that the regulatory approach embodied in the Endangered Species Act be expanded to include promoting management trajectories needed to address complex ecosystem problems. This process should begin with state-and-transition models as the basis for a conceptual framework that outlines potential plant communities, their value as sage-grouse habitat, and their ecological status. Desired management trajectories are defined by maintenance of an ecologically resilient state that is of value as sage-grouse habitat, or movement from a less desired to a more desired state. Addressing complex ecosystem problems will involve shifting conservation roles. Under the regulatory approach, programmatic scales define regulatory policies, and local scales focus on implementing those policies. With complex ecosystem problems, programmatic scales empower local conservationists to make decisions necessary to adaptively manage problems. Putting ecosystem management on par with traditional regulatory actions honors obligations to provide regulatory protections while maintaining the capacity of the ecosystem to produce habitat and greatly expands the diversity of stakeholders willing to participate in sage-grouse conservation.


Political corruption is a type of market failure. One area of public policy where corruption is relatively common is the contracting out of public services. Private firms can improve their chances of obtaining contracts by bribing politicians or public servants and funding political parties. In the same vein, firms can gain access to policy makers by hiring influential former politicians –a practice commonly referred to as revolving-doors. In Spain, a number of corruption cases, involving all the major political parties, are presently under judicial investigation. Some of these cases involve water contracts. Also, there is evidence showing that private firms have been funding political parties as well as hiring former politicians for top positions. In this paper, we use information from 892 privatizations of water services in Spanish municipalities between 1984 and 2014 and logistic multinomial regression techniques to study the association between specific firms securing contracts and the political parties ruling the municipalities. We find evidence of a systematic association between the Popular Party (Partido Popular or PP) and the firm, Aqualia, part of the large Spanish holding company, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), which is known to have funded the PP. Furthermore, former PP politicians have been appointed to top positions in the FCC board of directors.


It is estimated that 41 per cent of the population aged under 5 in the developing world has an inadequate vitamin A dietary intake resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. Half a million children go blind each year as a result of vitamin A deficiency. Thirteen and a half million have night blindness, the first sign of vitamin A deficiency. Unfortunately, there is no simple, sensitive and inexpensive means to identify the child who has marginal levels of vitamin A and thus institute means to prevent their development of severe deficiency. A low cost, simple, easy-to-use instrument designed to detect a young child's ability to adapt to darkness was tested in children admitted to the Mwanamugimu Nutrition Unit at Makerere Medical School in Kampala, Uganda. Despite the severe degree of malnutrition found in these children, Night Vision Threshold Test results and serum retinol levels were related (r = 0.41, p < 0.05). Further efficacy trials for this instrument are planned at community sites in Nepal.


Use of environmentally benign materials such as plant extract used to synthesize silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) offers numerous benefits such as being eco-friendly and compatibility for pharmaceutical and other biomedical applications. Metallic nanoparticles are used in different applications including, electronics, catalyst, and photonic. Silver metal has a great toxicity against a wide range of microorganisms, particularly silver nanoparticle which has promising antimicrobial properties. Silver nanoparticles are found to be effective as anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenesis, antiviral, anti-platelet activity against cancer cells. The synthesized Ag-NPs of Cassia tora L. roots were characterized using UV-vis spectra, FT-IR, TEM, and XRD analysis. The antimicrobial activities were assessed by disc diffusion method. The Ag-NPs were also examined against the fresh cultures of one Gram-positive and three Gram-negative bacteria.


Objectives: To determine the hemodynamic effect of tracheal suction method in the first 36 hours after high-risk infant heart surgery on the PICU and to compare open and closed suctioning techniques. Design: Pilot randomized crossover study. Setting: Single PICU in United Kingdom. Participants: Infants undergoing surgical palliation with Norwood Sano, modified Blalock-Taussig shunt, or pulmonary artery banding in the first 36 hours postoperatively. Interventions: Infants were randomized to receive open or closed (in-line) tracheal suctioning either for their first or second study tracheal suction in the first 36 hours postoperatively. Measurements and Main Results: Twenty-four infants were enrolled over 18 months, 11 after modified Blalock-Taussig shunt, seven after Norwood Sano, and six after pulmonary artery banding. Thirteen patients received the open suction method first followed by the closed suction method second, and 11 patients received the closed suction method first followed by the open suction method second in the first 36 hours after their surgery. There were statistically significant larger changes in heart rate (p = 0.002), systolic blood pressure (p = 0.022), diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.009), mean blood pressure (p = 0.007), and arterial saturation (p = 0.040) using the open suction method, compared with closed suctioning, although none were clinically significant (defined as requiring any intervention). Conclusions: There were no clinically significant differences between closed and open tracheal suction methods; however, there were statistically significant greater changes in some hemodynamic variables with open tracheal suctioning, suggesting that closed technique may be safer in children with more precarious physiology.


Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is an emerging rapid and non-destructive technology that has promising application within feed mills and processing plants in poultry and other intensive animal industries. HSI may be advantageous over near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as it scans entire samples, which enables compositional gradients and sample heterogenicity to be visualised and analysed. This study was a preliminary investigation to compare the performance of HSI with that of NIRS for quality measurements of ground samples of Australian wheat and to identify the most important spectral regions for predicting carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) concentrations. In total, 69 samples were scanned using an NIRS (400–2500 nm), and two HSI cameras operated in 400–1000 nm (VNIR) and 1000–2500 nm (SWIR) spectral regions. Partial least square regression (PLSR) models were used to correlate C and N concentrations of 63 calibration samples with their spectral reflectance, with 6 additional samples used for testing the models. The accuracy of the HSI predictions (full spectra) were similar or slightly higher than those of NIRS (NIRS Rc for C = 0.90 and N = 0.96 vs. HSI Rc for C (VNIR) = 0.97 and N (SWIR) = 0.97). The most important spectral region for C prediction identified using HSI reflectance was 400–550 nm with R2 of 0.93 and RMSE of 0.17% in the calibration set and R2 of 0.86, RMSE of 0.21% and ratio of performance to deviation (RPD) of 2.03 in the test set. The most important spectral regions for predicting N concentrations in the feed samples included 1451–1600 nm, 1901–2050 nm and 2051–2200 nm, providing prediction with R2 ranging from 0.91 to 0.93, RMSE ranging from 0.06% to 0.07% in the calibration sets, R2 from 0.96 to 0.99, RMSE of 0.06% and RPD from 3.47 to 3.92 in the test sets. The prediction accuracy of HSI and NIRS were comparable possibly due to the larger statistical population (larger number of pixels) that HSI provided, despite the fact that HSI had smaller spectral range compared with that of NIRS. In addition, HSI enabled visualising the variability of C and N in the samples. Therefore, HSI is advantageous compared to NIRS as it is a multifunctional tool that poses many potential applications in data collection and quality assurance within feed mills and poultry processing plants. The ability to more accurately measure and visualise the properties of feed ingredients has potential economic benefits and therefore additional investigation and development of HSI in this application


The late 1960s and early 1970s was a time of widespread social upheaval; universities around the world witnessed an explosion with activism and demands for a better world. The University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus was founded during these turbulent years and thus developed a strong culture of student radicalism. This paper examines the two major events that shook the university during this period. The first, the so-called Carillon Crisis, was an attempt by the University Board of Governors to censor the Regina Campus student newspaper, The Carillon. The second, the occupation of the offices of the Dean of Arts and Science and the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research was an attempt by students to formalize student representation within the university community. Demanding that the university and surrounding society live up to the ideals of democracy they proclaimed, these protests left a lasting impression not only on the development of the university, but on the students themselves.


Auxiliary ventilation of the blind development heading in underground mines is one of the most challenging work activities amongst mining underground operations. The auxiliary forcing ventilation system provides positive pressure, cooling, controlling gas layering, and removing diesel fumes and dust levels from development headings, stopes, and services facilities. The effectiveness of the auxiliary forcing ventilation system depends upon many system variables. Currently, no scientific models and calculations are available that can be used to estimate the optimal distance from the outlet of the auxiliary forcing ventilation system to the development heading in underground mines that can provide the most efficient ventilation close to the face of the heading. In this work, scenarios are developed and simulated with a validated CFD model inside the ANSYS Fluent software. In each scenario, the system parameters such as dead zone, mean age of air, and face velocity are calculated, which are later used in the optimization process. By examining these parameters at the development heading zone, we can quantify the effectiveness of the ventilation system and confirm that the system design meets the government regulations. This work is carried out using the k-epsilon realizable turbulent model inside the ANSYS Fluent software.


One major drawback of multipath transferring schemes, which is inspired by the usage of different paths with diverse delays, is the emergence of reordering among packets of a flow. This reordering brings some substantial problems (like larger delay and buffer space) to the transport applications. In this paper, we present a novel UDP-based multipath scheme for in-order delivery to the receiver by scheduling of packets among multiple paths. This method imposes the minimum possible delay and a small buffer space on the receiver's application. We theoretically prove the optimality of the proposed method. Finally, through simulation experiments, we show that the performance of our multipath method is comparable with the best-case one-path transmission with aggregated bandwidth.


A new color quantization (CQ) technique and its VLSI implementation is introduced. It is based on image split into windows and uses Kohonen self organized neural network classifier (SONNC). Initially, the dominant colors of each window are extracted through the SONNC and then are used for the quantization of the colors of the entire image. The image split in windows offers reduction of the memory requirements and feasibility of suitable VLSI implementation of the most time consuming part of the technique. Applying a systematic design methodology into the developed CQ algorithm, an efficient system-on-chip based on the ARM processor, which achieves high speed processing and less energy consumption, is derived.


An adjust ejector was designed based on classical gas dynamical function method in single phase dual temperature ejector refrigeration system. Further more ejector optimal dimension influenced by mass flow distribution ratio, high and low evaporating temperature was also analyzed in this paper. The velocity field and pressure field of the adjustable ejector was simulated by CFD software. Moreover, the simulated ejector ratio agreed with experimental ejector ratio well. The effect of primary flow pressure, suction flow pressure and out flow pressure on ejector ratio was investigated through using CFD software. Finally the experimental comparison result indicated that the single phase dual temperature ejector system expressed superior performance than on off valve dual temperature system. The maximal cooling capacity and EER elevation was close to 12.9% and 9.5% respectively as high and low temperature evaporating temperature difference reached 16℃, this means that the single phase dual temperature ejector system was suitable for larger temperature difference situation such as freezing and cooling storage area.


This thesis focuses on a kind of problems thoroughly studied in operational research, in particular in Vehicle Routing Problems. Despite there are a lot of studies about them, the most basic are still difficult to solve optimally, even for small size and the lacking practical use. Because of that, this thesis develops exact and heuristic algorithms to solve a particular problem known as The split-demand one-commodity pickup-and-delivery travelling salesman problem (SD1PDTSP). This combines three vehicle routing problems. The first one is the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP), aiming at designing the routes for a vehicle fleet to deliver a commodity from the depot to a set of customers. Each route starts and ends at the depot, and the load of a vehicle through a route should never exceed the vehicle capacity. A fundamental assumption is that each customer cannot be visited more than once. The aim of the CVRP is to satisfy the demand of each customer while minimizing the total distance travelled by the fleet. The second problem is the Split Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem (SDVRP), which allows a customer to be visited more than once. The third problem still moves one commodity while it allows more than one pickup location. It is the One Commodity Pickup-and-Delivery Travelling Salesman Problem (1-PDTSP). Using the elements of these three problems, the SD1PDTSP is defined as follows. Let us consider a finite set of locations. The travel distances (or costs) between the locations are assumed to be known. Each location is related to a customer, with a known positive or negative demand of a commodity (e.g. bicycles). We assume that the sum of all demands is equal to zero. Customers with negative demands correspond to pickup locations, and customers with positive demands correspond to delivery locations. It is assumed that there is one vehicle with a given capacity that must visit each location at least once through a route to move the commodity and satisfy all the customer demands. Each visit may partially satisfy a customer, and all the visits to that customer must end up with exactly its full demand. The SD1PDTSP consists of finding a minimum-cost route for the vehicle such that it satisfies the demand of all customers. Note that such a route may not exist, and in general checking whether a feasible solution exists is a NP-complete problem due to the limitation in the number of visits to each location and the vehicle capacity. The importance of these kind of problems is not due to the computational complexity only, but also the variety of practical applications. In fact, the idea of Operational Research appears formally in 1938 in the SecondWorldWar, in the frame in collaborative researches between soldiers and scientists about planning of fight military operations. A part of the most obvious examples in logistic (distribution of commodities, scholar routes,etc.), there are more examples as operational control of traffic light, those that can be found in robotic systems that allow to solve production problems, in genetic, etc. Other kind of practical applications arise due to the growing worry about environment. This thesis studies the case of the management of bicycle sharing systems. These are increasingly in demand due to the need of space, the high traffic density and the high emission of noise and CO2.


Food systems contribute 19%–29% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, releasing 9,800–16,900 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2008. Agricultural production, including indirect emissions associated with land-cover change, contributes 80%–86% of total food system emissions, with significant regional variation. The impacts of global climate change on food systems are expected to be widespread, complex, geographically and temporally variable, and profoundly influenced by socioeconomic conditions. Historical statistical studies and integrated assessment models provide evidence that climate change will affect agricultural yields and earnings, food prices, reliability of delivery, food quality, and, notably, food safety. Low-income producers and consumers of food will be more vulnerable to climate change owing to their comparatively limited ability to invest in adaptive institutions and technologies under increasing climatic risks. Some synergies among food security, adaptati...


displayed. The significant magnitude of stator heat transfer in many cases indicates the importance of proper stator modeling to rotor and disk-cavity heat transfer results. Results are presented from an experimental study designed to obtain detailed radial heat transfer coefficient distributions applicable to the cooling of diskcavity regions of gas turbines. An experimental apparatus has been designed to obtain local heat transfer data on both the rotating and stationary surfaces of a parallel geometry disk-cavity system. The method employed utilizes thin thermochromic liquid crystal coatings together with video system data acquisition and computer-assisted image analysis to extract heat transfer information. The color display of the liquid crystal coatings is detected through the analysis of standard video chromanance signals. The experimental technique used is an aerodynamically steady but thermally transient one which provides consistent disk-cavity thermal boundary conditions while yet being inexpensive and highly versatile. A single circular jet is used to introduce fluid from the stator into the disk-cavity by impingement normal to the rotor surface. The present study investigates hub injection of coolant over a wide range of parameters including disk rotational Reynolds numbers of 2 to 5 • 10 5 , rotor/stator spacing-to-disk radius ratios of .025 to .15, and jet mass flow rates between .10 and .40 times the turbulent pumped flow rate of a free disk. The results are presented as radial distributions of local Nusselt numbers. Rotor heat transfer exhibits regions of impingement and rotational domination with a transition region between, while stator heat transfer shows flow reattachment and convection regions with evidence of an inner recirculation zone. The local effects of rotation, spacing, and mass flow rate are all Nomenclature A heat transfer area


This book focuses on how the demand for microfinance can be met on a global scale. It documents the contributions of institutions and of people who have led the development of commercial finance for the poor, and it analyzes the principles on which the microfinance revolution is based. In sum, this work offers a detailed overview of the development of microfinance over the past 20 years; a global view of microfinance in the developing world (largely excluding Eastern Europe); a thesis on the future path of microfinance; a coherent theory about microfinance--why it works when so many other development interventions fail; detail on a number of important microfinance topics--such as informal moneylending and savings; an important study on, and lessons from Indonesia, with detailed analysis of Bank Rakyat Indonesia; and, brief studies of many other microfinance institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.


One of the characteristics of modern society are more massive tourist trends. Tourists overcame all parts of our planet and provoked line of positive and negative phenomena and processes. Positive dominate negative and that's the reason why many countries develop domicile and foreign tourism. Environment and tourism perform indivisible totality. Contemporary tourism demands important areas of original or well protected environment, because only on this areas can be develops planned and brings economic and social advantages to domicile population (receptive) and to tourists (initiative). Science and practice for needs of tourism considers line of positive relations toward environment, because some of her elements are special tourist values. For need of tourism is underlines need of acceptation principles of active protection environment, because it is always better to plan, than to reclaim negative effects. In work which treats environment, modern tourism and planning, is appeared to scope of international tourism in world and dynamics of tourism development in a last six decades. It was special emphasized relations between tourism and nature, because in many countries offer of natural tourist values is more massive than offer of monuments. It is a word about need of nature protection for tourism, because nature is a real tourist value only when she is authentic or well protected. In second part it was analyzed importance of tourism planning on different levels, considering local and national traits in areas favorable for tourism development.


Staff in six Community Environment and Natural Resources Offices (CENROs) − four in Leyte Province, three in Southern Leyte Province and one in Biliran − were interviewed to establish baseline information on tree registration. In general, the rate of tree registration was found to be low, except in CENRO Maasin, where during 1997 to 2006 a total of 2799 tree farms were registered, covering an aggregate area of 2807 ha and with 1,292,495 trees registered. The highest number of tree farms registered in CENRO Maasin took place in 2004, when a total of 531 were registered, covering an area of 373 ha. Measures and strategies practiced by this CENRO to promote tree registration include: conducting an information, education and communication (IEC) campaign including distribution of extension materials; establishing a link between farmers and buyers in marketing products; and encouraging barangay officials to disseminate tree registration information. Factors leading to the low tree registration rate in Leyte and Biliran CENROs include: long distance between farms and CENR offices; weak tenure (farms under timberland status); inefficient processing of the registration documents; absence of the officer-in-charge of tree registration during farmer visits to Department of Environment and Natural Resources offices; land under common ownership; and farmers unaware about the tree registration process. Suggestions by respondents to improve tree registration include: regularly conducting IEC activities including distribution of extension material, supported by necessary funding; hiring of additional personnel for this purpose, to be assigned in every municipality; enhancing the timber market network; deputizing barangay officials as Environment and Natural Resources Officers (ENROs) to conduct tree inventory, authorized by municipal officials to collect Tree Inventory Certification. Keywords: , ,


Herein is discussed the performance of spaceborne nulling interferometers searching for extra-solar planets, in terms of their extinction maps projected on-sky. In particular, it is shown that the designs of Spatial Filtering (SF) and Achromatic Phase Shifter (APS) subsystems, both required to achieve planet detection and characterization, can sensibly affect the nulling maps produced by a simple Bracewell interferometer. Analytical relationships involving cross correlation products are provided and numerical simulations are performed, demonstrating marked differences in the aspect of extinction maps and the values of attained fringes contrasts. It is concluded that depending on their basic principles and designs, FS and APS will result in variable capacities for serendipitous discoveries of planets orbiting around their parent star. The mathematical relationships presented in this paper are assumed to be general, i.e. they should apply to other types of multi-apertures nulling interferometers.


Canonical inference rules and canonical systems are defined in the framework
of non-strict single-conclusion sequent systems, in which the succeedents of
sequents can be empty. Important properties of this framework are investigated,
and a general non-deterministic Kripke-style semantics is provided. This
general semantics is then used to provide a constructive (and very natural),
sufficient and necessary coherence criterion for the validity of the strong
cut-elimination theorem in such a system. These results suggest new syntactic
and semantic characterizations of basic constructive connectives.


This article examines the role consumer tactics played in the American Federation of Labor's (AFL) strategy of business unionism. In particular, it explains how the AFL used its consumer tactics to try to mobilize the purchasing power of union members and their families to fight for higher wages and shorter working hours. The historical data collected for this article demonstrates that the AFL was not ignorant of the relationship between production and consumption, or the worker and the consumer. I discuss how the AFL used its consumer tactics to try to build solidarity across its affiliated trade unions and provide a way for the wives, daughters, and mothers of union men to become involved in the labor movement through consumption. I argue that these consumer tactics need to be fully acknowledged, as they were pivotal in some of the most contentious struggles between the AFL and business at the turn of the 20th century.


Wheat stem rust, caused by Puccinia graminis Pers.:Pers f. sp. tritici Eriks.& Henn., is of renewed concern due to the emergence of a new virulent race in East Africa. Landrace accessions of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L. subsp. Aestivum) and durum wheat (T. turgidum L. subsp. Durum) from the National Small Grains Collection (NSGC) could be sources of new stem rust resistance genes. In an effort to better target the screening of NSGC landrace accessions against the new race, data from the NSGC were analyzed for the geographic distribution of resistance. We used data for 5700 landrace accessions of common wheat and 2719 of durum wheat. Areas with a high incidence of stem rust resistance were found in Ethiopia, Chile, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and adjacent areas of the former Yugoslavia. Resistance to multiple races at the seedling stage was most frequent in accessions from Ethiopia and Turkey. Resistance in durum wheat was more frequent than resistance in common wheat. The distribution of the areas with high incidence of resistant durum landraces was similar to that for common wheat landraces. A logistic regression model predicting resistance in common wheat accessions (n = 3607) from 10 traits identifi ed 192 previously untested accessions with a greater than 50% chance of being resistant. Based on this model and on the identifi cation of geographic centers for resistance, accessions will be prioritized for future screening against new stem rust races.


A family of three
imidazolate-based Co-MOFs, IFP-5, -8 and -10 (Imidazolate Framework Potsdam), with different peripheral group –R (-Me,
-OMe and –OEt, respectively) have been synthesized by a solvothermal method and
tested toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Remarkably, IFP-8 presents low
overpotentials (319 mV at 10 mA/cm2, and 490 mV at 500 mA/cm2)
and extraordinary stability during 120 h, even when used as a catalyst toward overall
water splitting reaction. An integrated ex-situ
spectroscopic study, based on PXRD, EXAFS, and ATR, allows the identification
of the active species and the factors that rule the catalytic activity. Indeed,
it was found that the performances are highly affected by the nature of the -R
group, because this small change strongly influences the conversion of the initial MOF to the
active species. As a consequence, the remarkable activity of IFP-8 can
be ascribed to the formation of Co(O)OH
phase of few nanometers particle size (3-10 nm) during the electrocatalytic oxygen
evolution.


According to the Common Ground account proposed by Stalnaker (2002, 2009), speakers involved in a verbal interaction have different propositional attitudes towards presuppositions. In this paper we propose an experimental study aimed at estimating the psychological plausibility of the Stalnakerian model. In particular, the goal of our experiment is to evaluate variations in accepting as appropriate a sentence that triggers a presupposition, where different attitudes are taken towards the presupposition required. The study conducted suggests that if a speaker has the attitude of belief towards the content of a presupposition, she may evaluate an utterance as more appropriate in a shorter time than in cases where she holds an attitude of presumption or of assumption . Therefore, data collected support the psychological soundness of what might be considered the main, but also most debated, theory of presupposition on the market.


The value of emergency endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) in the setting of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm remains controversial owing to differing results. However, interpretation of published results remains difficult as there is a lack of generally accepted protocols or standard operating procedures. Furthermore, such protocols and standard operating procedures often are reported incompletely or not at all, thereby making interpretation of results difficult. We herein report our integrated logistic system for the endovascular treatment of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms. Important components of this system are prehospital logistics, in-hospital treatment logistics, and aftercare. Further studies should include details about all of these components, and a description of these logistic components must be included in all future studies of emergency EVAR for ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms.


1. Lysosomal proteinase activity was assayed in human cadaver kidney, urine, granules from polymorphonuclear leucocytes of normal persons, and urine samples from 154 patients with renal disease. 2. Granules from polymorphonuclear leucocytes showed proteinase activity at acid and neutral pH, whereas cadaver kidney showed proteinase activity at acid pH only. 3. The urine from 13 patients with glomerulonephritis showed proteinase activity at both acid and neutral pH as well as increased amounts of antigenic glomerular basement membrane fragments. The properties of the urinary proteinases suggested that they had originated in polymorphonuclear leucocytes. 4. Only the urine samples containing these proteinases were capable of degrading isolated human glomerular basement membrane in vitro. 5. Clinical recovery, where it occurred, was accompanied by the disappearance of urinary proteinase activity, and reduction in glomerular basement membrane antigen excretion.