Traditionally, early visual cortex (V1-3) was thought of as merely a relay centre for feedforward retinal input, providing entry to the cortical visual processing steam. However, in addition to feedforward retinal input, V1 receives a large amount of intracortical information through feedback and lateral connections. Human visual perception is constructed from combining feedforward inputs with these feedback and lateral contributions. Feedback connections allow the visual cortical response to feedforward information to be affected by expectation, knowledge, and context; even at the level of early visual cortex. In Chapter 1 we discuss the feedforward and feedback visual processing streams. We consider historical philosophical and scientific propositions about constructive vision. We introduce modern theories of constructive vision, which suggest that vision is an active process that aims to infer or predict the cause of sensory inputs. We discuss how V1 therefore represents not only retinal input but also high-level effects related to constructive predictive perception.
Visual illusions are a 'side effect' of constructive and inferential visual perception. For the vast majority of stimulus inputs, integration with context and knowledge facilitates clearer, more veridical perception. In illusion these constructive mechanisms produce incorrect percepts. Illusory effects can be observed in early visual cortex, even when there is no change in the feedforward visual input. We suggest that illusions therefore provide us with a tool to probe feedforward and feedback integration, as they exploit the difference between retinal stimulation and resulting perception. Thus, illusions allow us to see the changes in activation and perception induced only by feedback without changes in feedforward input. We discuss a few specific examples of illusion generation through feedback and the accompanying effects on V1 processing.

In Schizophrenia, the integration of feedback and feedforward information is thought to be dysfunctional, with unbalanced contributions of the two sources. This is evidenced by disrupted contextual binding in visual perception and corresponding deficits in contextual illusion perception. We propose that illusions can provide a window into constructive and inferential visual perception in Schizophrenia. Use of illusion paradigms could help elucidate the deficits existing within feedback and feedforward integration. If we can establish clear effects of illusory feedback to V1 in a typical population, we can apply this knowledge to clinical subjects to observe the differences in feedback and feedforward information.
Chapter 2 describes a behavioural study of the rubber hand illusion. We probe how multimodal illusory experience arises under varying reliabilities of visuotactile feedforward input. We recorded Likert ratings of illusion experience from subjects, after their hidden hand was stimulated either synchronously or asynchronously with a visible rubber hand (200, 300, 400, or 600ms visuotactile asynchronicity). We used two groups, assessed by a questionnaire measuring a subject's risk of developing Schizophrenia - moderate/high scorers and a control group of zero-scorers. We therefore consider how schizotypal symptoms contribute to rubber hand illusory experience and interact with visuotactile reliability. Our results reveal that the impact of feedforward information on higher level illusory body schema is modulated by its reliability. Less reliable feedforward inputs (increasing asynchronicity) reduce illusion perception. Our data suggests that some illusions may not be affected on a spectrum of schizotypal traits but only in the full schizophrenic disorder, as we found no effect of group on illusion perception.

In Chapter 3 we present an fMRI investigation of the rubber hand illusion in typical participants. Cortical feedback allows information about other modalities and about cognitive states to be represented at the level of V1. Using a multimodal illusion, we investigated whether crossmodal and illusory states could be represented in early visual cortex in the absence of differential visual input. We found increased BOLD activity in motion area V5 and global V1 when the feedforward tactile information and the illusory outcome were incoherent (for example when the subject was experiencing the illusion during asynchronous stimulation). This is suggestive of increased predictive error, supporting predictive coding models of cognitive function. Additionally, we reveal that early visual cortex contains pattern representations specific to the illusory state, irrespective of tactile stimulation and under identical feedforward visual input.

In Chapter 4 we use the motion-induced blindness illusion to demonstrate that feedback modulates stimulus representations in V1 during illusory disappearance. We recorded fMRI data from subjects viewing a 2D cross array rotating around a central axis, passing over an oriented Gabor patch target (45°/ 135°). We attempted to decode the target orientation from V1 when the target was either visible or invisible to subjects. Target information could be decoded during target visibility but not during motion-induced blindness. This demonstrates that the target representation in V1 is distorted or destroyed when the target is perceptually invisible. This illusion therefore has effects not only at higher cortical levels, as previously shown, but also in early sensory areas. The representation of the stimulus in V1 is related to perceptual awareness. Importantly, Chapter 4 demonstrated that intracortical processing can disturb constant feedforward information and overwrite feedforward representations. We suggest that the distortion observed occurs through feedback from V5 about the cross array in motion, overwriting feedforward orientation information.

The flashed face distortion illusion is a relatively newly discovered illusion in which quickly presented faces become monstrously distorted. The neural underpinnings of the illusion remain unclear; however it has been hypothesised to be a face-specific effect. In Chapter 5 we challenged this account by exploiting two hallmarks of face-specific processing - the other-race effect and left visual field superiority. In two experiments, two ethnic groups of subjects viewed faces presented bilaterally in the visual periphery. We varied the race of the faces presented (same or different than subject), the visual field that the faces were presented in, and the duration of successive presentations (250, 500, 750 or 1000ms per face before replacement). We found that perceived distortion was not affected by stimulus race, visual field, or duration of successive presentations (measured by forced choice in experiment 1 and Likert scale in experiment 2). We therefore provide convincing evidence that FFD is not face-specific and instead suggest that it is an object-general effect created by comparisons between successive stimuli. These comparisons are underlined by a fed back higher level model which dictates that objects cannot immediately replace one another in the same retinotopic space without movement.

In Chapter 6 we unify these findings. We discuss how our data show fed back effects on perception to produce visual illusion; effects which cannot be explained through purely feedforward activity processing. We deliberate how lateral connections and attention effects may contribute to our results. We describe known neural mechanisms which allow for the integration of feedback and feedforward information. We discuss how this integration allows V1 to represent the content of visual awareness, including during some of the illusions presented in this thesis. We suggest that a unifying theory of brain computation, Predictive Coding, may explain why feedback exerts top-down effects on feedforward processing. Lastly we discuss how our findings, and others that demonstrate feedback and prediction effects, could help develop the study and understanding of schizophrenia, including our understanding of the underlying neurological pathologies.


Adopting a case study approach (Yin, 1984; Stake, 1995;) this study aims to explore the
experiences of 'self-harm' by women who have been given a diagnosis of 'borderline
personality disorder' (BPD) within one area of a Mental Health NHS Trust. By taking a
material-discursive-intrapsychic approach (Ussher, 1999; 2000) this research explores
the accounts that have been constructed around 'self-harm' and 'BPD' by mental health
professionals working with women and women themselves. This research looks at the
ways in which 'self-harm' and the diagnosis of 'BPD' are operationalised by
professionals and the implications arising from these constructions and discourses when
delivering services to women. The study also explores the narrative accounts of women
who access the mental health care arena in relation to their experiences of 'self-harm'
and 'BPD', and in particular how they have constructed and experienced such responses
in their everyday lives.
The process of data gathering for this project was organised in two phases. In the first
phase of data gathering eight mental health professionals participated in conversational
interviews (Nichols, 1991; Conrad and Schober, 1998). These professionals worked for
the Mental Health NHS Trust and each of them aimed to provide care, support and
treatment for individuals accessing mental health services. The second phase of the
research involved the participation of four women, living in the locality of the NHS Trust,
in lengthy narrative interviews (Reissman, 1993). Data analysis for phase one drew
upon the guidelines developed by Willig (1999; 2001) and for phase two Reissman's
(1993) thematic narrative analysis and Langellier's (1989) personal narrative guided the
analytical process.
5
Unlike previous research that has explored 'self-harm' and 'BPD' the present study
draws upon social constructionism, critical realism and post-modern thinking. This
approach has made it possible for an alternate way of considering 'self-harm' and 'BPO'.
Individual women at material, discursive and intrapsychic levels experience this
phenomenon. It's meaning to women, and to the mental health care professionals, has
to be understood in relation to the specific historical and cultural contexts in which both
are positioned and the dominant cultural discourses that exist at these times. By
drawing upon a critical realist epistemological standpoint and adopting a materialdiscursive-
intrapsychic analysis the present study has been able to incorporate these
different layers of the women's subjective experience, and the different types of expert
knowledge about 'self-harm' and 'BPO', into one framework. The present study has
been able to explore 'self-harm' and 'BPO', both as discursive constructs and a set of
symptoms experienced by individual women.


Current developments in technologies and markets stress the importance of exible and robust performance optimisation and congestion control. In intelligent networks, conges- tion control has traditionally taken a mainly technical view and focused on protecting individual nodes from harmful overloads. We take a profit oriented, network wide view and develop a congestion control mechanism to ensure profit maximisation under real time performance. Numerical studies in a simulator show that the proposed mechanism is robust and, in particular in overloaded states, provides a substantial improvement in comparison to conventional load control mechanisms.


Objective We examined cognitive function in older hospitalised patients with chronic atrial fibrillation (AF). Design A prospective substudy of a multicentre randomised trial of an AF-specific disease management intervention (the Standard versus Atrial Fibrillation spEcific managmenT studY; SAFETY). Setting Three tertiary referral hospitals within Australia. Patients A total of 260 patients with chronic AF: mean age 72±11 years, 53% men, mean CHA2DS2-VASc score 4±2. Interventions Cognitive function was assessed at baseline (during inpatient stay) using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Main Outcome Measures The extent of mild cognitive impairment (MCI—defined as a MoCA score <26) in AF patients and identification of independent predictors of MCI. Results Overall, 169 patients (65%, 95% CI 59% to 71%) were found to have MCI at baseline (mean MoCA score 21±3). Multiple deficits in cognitive domains were identified, most notably in executive functioning, visuospatial abilities and short-term memory. Predictors of MCI (age and sex-adjusted) were lower education level (technical/trade school level OR 6.00, 95% CI 2.07 to 17.42; <8 years school education OR 5.29, 95% CI 1.95 to 14.36 vs 8–13 years), higher CHA2DS2-VASc score (OR 1.46, 95% CI 1.23 to 1.74) and prescribed digoxin (OR 2.19, 95% CI 1.17 to 4.10). Conclusions MCI is highly prevalent amongst typically older high-risk patients hospitalised with AF. Routine assessment of cognitive function with adjustment of clinical management is indicated for this patient group.


Sir Isaac Newton (1676) famously said, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Research is a collaborative, evolutionary endeavor—and it is no different with design science research (DSR), which builds upon existing design knowledge and creates new design knowledge to pass on to future projects. However, despite the vast, growing body of DSR contributions, scant evidence of the accumulation and evolution of design knowledge has been
articulated in an organized DSR body of knowledge. Most contributions rather stand on their own feet than on the shoulders of giants, and this continues to limit how far we can see, curtailing the extent of the broader impacts that can be made through DSR. In this editorial, we aim at providing guidance on how to position design knowledge contributions in wider problem and solution spaces. We propose (1) a model conceptualizing design knowledge as a resilient relationship between problem and solution spaces, (2) a model that demonstrates how individual DSR projects consume and produce design knowledge, (3) a map to position a design knowledge contribution in problem and solution spaces, and (4) principles on how to use this map in a DSR project. We show how fellow researchers, readers, editors, and reviewers, as well as the IS community as a whole, can make use
of these proposals, and also illustrate future research opportunities.


Over the last fifty years, psychological science can be credited with persistent efforts
to prevent and treat suicidal behaviours. However, the utility of such interventions is often
moderated by the ability to identity individuals who are likely to engage in suicidal behaviors
ahead of time. Less progress has been made on this front; the ability to accurately predict
such behaviors at an individual level remains limited. Recent evidence suggests that this may
be due in part to the field's reliance on self-report measures. One promising avenue that has
emerged in recent years is the objective behavioural tasks referred to as "implicit measures",
which have shown greater promising predictive validity relative to existing risk factors
derived from self-report measures. The current body of research sought to expand on these
findings and, specifically, to explore implicit evaluations of death in both normative and
suicidal individuals using the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP).
This thesis begins with a systematic review of the literature on implicit measures and
suicide. Based on the conclusions of this review, five analogue studies were conducted
exploring implicit studies to death in normative student populations. Two further experiments
developed a novel experimental methodology (i.e., manipulations of the IRAP's "contrast
category") in order to facilitate a more detailed understanding of what drives effects on the
measure. A final experiment compared implicit death-evaluations on the IRAP between
psychiatric patients with current suicidal ideation and normative controls. All studies
presented participants with one or more implicit measures (IRAP and IAT) and a number of
self-report measures. Generically, the IRAP presents participants with four category pairings
(e.g., "life-positive", "life-negative", "death-positive", and "death-negative"), and compares
the relative ease with which they respond to these pairings with "true" relative to "false". The
difference in mean response-latency between the two response options is referred to as an
implicit bias.
Together, these studies allowed for a more detailed interrogation of how death is
evaluated between individuals with and without a history of suicidal behaviours than was
previously possible. Specifically, across studies, results demonstrated the IRAP's ability to
isolate specific implicit biases between categories, relative to other measures. The results
from the analogue studies were used to development and assess a death-evaluation IRAP that
is sensitive to mortality salience. A final experiment to conclude that suicidal ideation was
found to be associated with a specific rejection of the negativity (i.e., fearlessness) of death.
Results across studies indicate that differential patterns of implicit bias between
normative individuals and suicidal ideators were attributable to suicidality specifically rather
than the salience of mortality more generally, thereby providing a degree of construct validity
for death-evaluations on the IRAP. Importantly, these effects are consistent with leading
theories of suicide (e.g., Interpersonal Theory and Integrated Motivational-Volitional model),
and are in line with our stated goal to attempt to ground the effects found on implicit
measures more closely with existing theory. Overall, results suggest that the assessment of
implicit death-evaluations on the IRAP represents a good candidate for future research on the
prospective prediction of suicidal behaviours.


Unicompartmental knee replacement (UKR) is an appealing alternative to total knee replacement when the patient has isolated medial compartment osteoarthritis. A common observation post-operatively is radiolucency between the tibial tray wall and the bone. In addition, some patients complain of persistent pain over the proximal tibia antero-medially; this may be related to elevated bone strains in the tibia. Currently, there is no intentionally made mechanical bond between the vertical wall of an Oxford UKR and the adjacent bone; whether one exists or not will influence the load transmission in the proximal tibia and may affect the elevated tibia strain. The aim of this study was to investigate how introducing a mechanical tie between the tibial tray wall and the adjacent bone might alter the load carried into the tibia for both cemented and cementless UKRs. Strain energy density in the region of bone adjacent to the tray wall was considerably increased when a mechanical tie was introduced; this has the potential of reducing the likelihood of a radiolucency occurring in that region. Moreover, a mechanical tie had the effect of reducing proximal tibia strain, which may decrease the incidence of pain following implantation with a UKR.


We revisit the idea of using small line buffers in-front of caches. We propose ReCast, a tiny tag set cache that filters a significant number of tag probes to the L2 tag array thus reducing power. The key contribution in ReCast is S-Shift, a simple indexing function (no logic involved just wires) that greatly improves the utility of line buffers with no additional hardware cost. S-Shift can be viewed as a technique for emulating larger cache blocks and hence exploiting more spatial locality but without paying the penalties of actually using a larger L2 cache block. Using several SPEC CPU2000 applications and a model of an aggressive, dynamically-scheduled, superscalar processor we demonstrate that a practical ReCast organization can significantly reduce power in the L2. Specifically, a 64-entry ReCast comprising eight sub-banks of eight entries each can filter about 50% of all tag probes for a 1 Mbyte L2 cache. A conventional line buffer of the same size filters only 32% of all tag probes. The resulting average reduction in L2 tag power is 38% and 85% with writeback or writethrough LI caches respectively. This translates to a reduction of 16% or 52% of the overall L2 power respectively. We also analyze a few representative applications explaining why S-Shift works well.


DEVELOPMENT OF A DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM FOR UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE (UAV) SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION Donald Joseph Lear Old Dominion University, 2017 Director: Dr. Drew Landman Aircraft system identification techniques are developed for fixed wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The use of a designed flight experiment with measured system inputs/outputs can be used to derive aircraft stability derivatives. This project set out to develop a methodology to support an experiment to model pitch damping in the longitudinal short-period mode of a UAV. A Central Composite Response Surface Design was formed using angle of attack and power levels as factors to test for the pitching moment coefficient response induced by a multistep pitching maneuver. Selecting a high-quality data acquisition platform was critical to the success of the project. This system was designed to support fixed wing research through the addition of a custom air data vane capable of measuring angle of attack and sideslip, as well as an airspeed sensor. A Pixhawk autopilot system serves as the core and modification of the device firmware allowed for the integration of custom sensors and custom RC channels dedicated to performing system identification maneuvers. Tests were performed on all existing Pixhawk sensors to validate stated uncertainty values. The air data system was calibrated in a low speed wind tunnel and dynamic performance was verified. The assembled system was then installed in a commercially available UAV known as an Air Titan FPV in order to test the Pixhawk's automated flight maneuvers and determine the final performance of each sensor. Flight testing showed all the critical sensors produced acceptable data for further research. The Air Titan FPV airframe was found to be very flexible and did not lend itself well to accurate measurement of inertial properties. This realization prohibited the construction of the required math models for longitudinal dynamics. It is recommended that future projects using the developed methods choose an aircraft with a more rigid airframe.


Abstract Purpose: Children's oral language samples are regularly analysed in order to describe levels of language development and develop learning goals. However, diagnostic interpretation of language samples from Indigenous Australian children is problematic due to overlap between features of Aboriginal English and features of language impairment in the mainstream non-Indigenous population. Limited studies explore the use of Aboriginal English and its diagnostic impact. This research, therefore, describes the grammatical features of language samples from one group of Indigenous Australian children. Method: Participants were 19 children aged 8;1–13;4 from the same school in a regional city with 100% Indigenous enrolment. The Test of Narrative Language was administered, eliciting three oral narratives, and features of Aboriginal English grammar were coded. Result: Dialect density was highly variable and greater in the Verb Phrase than in the Noun Phrase or Clause Structure. High teacher ratings of oral language ability aligned with lower measures of dialect density and higher grammatical accuracy for Standard Australian English. Grammatical accuracy was frequently higher for Aboriginal English than Standard Australian English. Conclusion: Over-identification of language impairment was identified as a risk when evaluating the language ability of Indigenous Australian children.


Extensive micromagnetic simulations are performed to investigate the impact of the current overshoot amplitude (OSA) on the writer dynamics. The field risetime, dynamic gradient, bubble width, as well as erasure risk due to large stray fields in the neighbouring tracks during the switching are all shown to be very sensitive to the OSA. Numerical results show that increasing OSA can sharply improve the field risetime. However, it also leads to a larger write bubble expansion during switching which could result in a wider track width and reduce track per inch (TPI) capability. The risk of side track erasure for different overshoot conditions are evaluated and also tend to increase with higher OSA. Futhermore, results for remnant fields in the media produced by the writer are shown to be extremely sensitive to the choice of damping parameter used in the simulations.


The Internet was initially seen as a democratising technology that would redistribute power to networked individuals, break the control of information gatekeepers leading to more diverse information and foster an online public sphere in which networked individuals could discuss issues, reaching conclusions that would contribute to the political process (Rheingold, 1993; Shapiro, 2000). However, with the rise of social media, the control of online distribution channels has been concentrated into a small number of hands, with new and less accountable platforms replacing traditional media gatekeepers (Lovink, 2011). As online spaces have become domesticated, their participatory potential has been undermined by colonisation by the market, censorship by organisations, states and industries, and appropriation by political and cultural elites (Cammaerts, 2008). Social media has become an increasingly important source of news for Internet users. In the US and UK, direct entry to the website of the news provider remains the most common way of accessing online news. However, social media also takes a large chunk with 35% of people in the US and 25% in the UK accessing news via social media; in Hungary, Greece and Brazil social media is the most common way of accessing online news with more than 50% of people accessing news via social media (Newman, Fletcher, Levy, & Nielsen, 2016). In addition to users obtaining news information on social media, users posts are also seen as important predictors of public sentiment in elections and other political issues (Gayo-Avello, 2012) and the social information about one's online connections' political opinions and intentions has been shown to influence offline voting behaviour (Bond et al., 2012). This situation has created a structure ripe for exploitation. Rather than becoming a place for the empowerment of networked individuals, rational debate and diverse information, recent events had pointed to the acceleration of online echo chambers and concerted efforts to distribute misleading or false information or to manipulate the online information environment for political purposes. These issues rose to a head in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with automated accounts contributing between 20 and 25 percent of the Twitter traffic about the election during the days leading up to the vote; there was evidence of much greater automation in pro-Trump as opposed to pro-Clinton accounts, with highly automated pro-Trump activity outnumbering pro-Clinton five to one. (Howard, Woolley, & Kollanyi, 2016). By producing a large number of tweets using automation, these accounts, some of which are designed to mimic regular users, flood the public opinion environment on these platforms, play on the way that these platforms calculate popular or trending content and spread particular ideas with the force of automated technology. There have, similarly, been recent concerns about the spread of misinformation (dubbed "fake news") online. It was widely reported that fake news stories generated more engagement on Facebook than those from major news outlets during the U.S. election (Silverman, 2016). Prominent online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have announced measures to tackle false information, automation and online harassment (Solon & Wong, 2016) (other references) and in January 2017 the UK government announced an inquiry into fake news distributed on social media (UK Parliament, 2017). These issues have recently sprung into the headlines but there is still a great deal of misinformation about this misinformation. Furthermore, the vast majority of discussion about these issues has focused on U.S. (and U.K.) politics, ignoring how these issues might play out in different political systems or different media systems. Our proposed panel draws together four papers that address the issues of computational propaganda on social media from a global perspective and taking both citizen-centred and state-centred approaches. The first paper presents a study of the Chinese state's social media propaganda strategy that shows, contrary to established wisdom, that this strategy focuses on distraction and positive propaganda rather than attacking critics. The second paper turns attention to the Middle East, documenting how anti-Shia and anti-Iranian hate bots have flooded conversation about political issues on Twitter in Gulf states, jeopardising free speech and drowning out legitimate debate. The third paper provided a grounded study of alt-right communities on 4Chan in the lead up to the U.S. Presidential election, providing a model of communication in these social media communities can lead to collective action and how active participants in these communities have now started to move into other political spaces, such as the French election. The fourth paper zooms out to provide a global picture of social media manipulation by state actors, comparing the size, scale and extent of this practice in the 25 countries with the highest global military expenditures. Together these four papers will provide global overview of the burgeoning practice of computational propaganda, techniques of influencing human action through the manipulation of emotions and representations using automated, technological or online means.


In this paper we present a new analytic approximation for computing (s, S) policies for single items under periodic review with a set-up cost, linear holding and shortage costs, fixed replenishment lead time, and backlogging of unfilled demand. The approximation formulae are derived by using existing results of asymptotic renewal theory to characterize the behavior of the optimal policy numbers as functions of the model parameters. These functions are then used to construct regressions with coefficients that are calibrated by using a grid of 288 known optimal policies as data. The resulting Power Approximation policies (formulae) are easy to compute and. require for demand information only the mean and variance of demand over lead time. Extensive computational results show that the approximations yield expected total costs that typically are well within one percent of optimal. The approximation's robustness is exemplified by analyzing its performance when statistical estimates are used in place of the actual mean and variance of demand.


Are personality traits of anger and hostility associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) events in healthy people or those with existing CHD?

Included studies evaluated the association between anger and hostility and future CHD events in healthy people and people with CHD. Studies evaluating the effect of acute anger were excluded. Outcomes were CHD events (including CHD mortality, non-fatal myocardial infarction, angina, cardiac arrest, and coronary artery restenosis).

Medline, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed (to Nov 2008); and references were searched for prospective cohort studies published as full-length English-language articles in peer-reviewed journals. 38 articles involving 25 cohorts of healthy people (n = 71 606, duration of follow-up 2–47 …


Background The Balance Evaluation Systems Test (BESTest) is a new clinical balance assessment tool, but it has never been validated in patients with subacute stroke. Objective The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the BESTest in patients with subacute stroke. Design This was an observational reliability and validity study. Methods Twelve patients participated in the interrater and intrarater reliability study. Convergent validity was investigated in 70 patients using the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Postural Assessment Scale for Stroke (PASS), Community Balance and Mobility Scale (CB&M), and Mini-BESTest. The receiver operating characteristic curve was used to calculate the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the BESTest, Mini-BESTest, and BBS in classifying participants into low functional ability (LFA) and high functional ability (HFA) groups based on Fugl-Meyer Assessment motor subscale scores. Results The BESTest showed excellent intrarater reliability and interrater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient=.99) and was highly correlated with the BBS (Spearman r=.96), PASS (r=.96), CB&M (r=.91), and Mini-BESTest (r=.96), indicating excellent convergent validity. No floor or ceiling effects were observed with the BESTest. In contrast, the Mini-BESTest and CB&M had a floor effect in the LFA group, and the BBS and PASS demonstrated responsive ceiling effects in the HFA group. In addition, the BESTest showed high accuracy as the BBS and Mini-BESTest in separating participants into HFA and LFA groups. Limitation Whether the results are generalizable to patients with chronic stroke is unknown. Conclusion The BESTest is reliable, valid, sensitive, and specific in assessing balance in people with subacute stroke across all levels of functional disability.


Summary.  Background: Controversy exists about the indication of thrombolytic therapy in the subgroup of hemodynamically stable patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE) and right ventricular dysfunction. Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is excreted from the cardiac ventricles in response to cardiomyocyte stretch and can be measured with an easy‐to‐perform blood test. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the predictive value of elevated BNP levels for early recurrent venous thromboembolism with or without fatal outcome in hemodynamically stable patients with acute PE. In addition, we assessed the potential clinical consequences of initiating thrombolytic therapy based on the BNP levels alone. Methods: A nested case–control study was performed within the framework of a large randomized‐controlled trial totalling 2213 hemodynamically stable patients with confirmed acute, symptomatic PE. Ninety patients experienced a fatal or non‐fatal recurrent venous thromboembolism during the first 3 months of follow‐up (cases); Two hundred and ninety‐seven patients with uneventful follow‐up served as controls. Blood for BNP levels was obtained at referral and assayed in a central laboratory. Results: Cases had significantly higher mean baseline BNP levels (P = 0.0002). The odds ratio (OR) for every logarithmic (log) unit increase in BNP concentration was 2.4 (95% CI: 1.5–3.7). A BNP cut‐off level of 1.25 pmol L−1 [the optimal point on the receiver‐operating characteristic (ROC) curve] was associated with a sensitivity and specificity of 60% and 62%, respectively. In theory, for every patient correctly receiving thrombolytic therapy at this cut‐off, 16 patients will receive this therapy unnecessarily. Conclusions: Brain natriuretic peptide level at presentation is significantly associated with early (fatal) recurrent venous thromboembolism in hemodynamically stable patients with acute PE. However, this relationship appears clinically insufficient to guide the initiation of thrombolytic therapy.


Conflict between conservation objectives and human livelihoods is ubiquitous and can be highly damaging, but the processes generating it are poorly understood. Ecological elements are central to conservation conflict, and changes in their dynamics — for instance due to anthropogenic environmental change — are likely to influence the emergence of serious human–wildlife impacts and, consequently, social conflict.

We used mixed-effects models to examine the drivers of historic spatio-temporal dynamics in numbers of Greenland barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) on the Scottish island of Islay to identify the ecological processes that have shaped the environment in which conflict between goose conservation and agriculture has been triggered.

Barnacle goose numbers on Islay increased from 20,000 to 43,000 between 1987 and 2016. Over the same period, the area of improved grassland increased, the number of sheep decreased and the climate warmed.

Goose population growth was strongly linked to the increasing area of improved grassland, which provided geese with more high quality forage. Changing climatic conditions, particularly warming temperatures on Islay and breeding grounds in Greenland, have also boosted goose numbers.

As the goose population has grown, farms have supported geese more frequently and in larger numbers, with subsequent damaging effects on grassland. The creation of high-quality grassland appears to have largely driven the problem of serious economic damage by geese. Our analysis also reveals the drivers of spatial variation in goose impacts: geese were more likely to occur on farms closer to roosts and those with more improved grassland. However, as geese numbers have increased they have spread to previously less favoured farms.

Synthesis and applications. Our study demonstrates the primary role of habitat modification in the emergence of conflict between goose conservation and agriculture, alongside a secondary role of climate change. Our research illustrates the value of exploring socio-ecological history to understand the processes leading to conservation conflict. In doing so, we identify those elements that are more controllable, such as local habitat management, and less controllable, such as climate change, but which both need to be taken into account when managing conservation conflict.


I have, in this thesis, studied the interactions between gray-sided voles (Clethrionomys rufocanus) and tundra vegetation, on islands in, and mainland sites close to the lake Iesjavri, in northern Norway. As isolated islands are virtually free of predation, I have been able to compare plant-herbivore interactions in the presence and absence of predators. I transplanted vegetation from an island with predators and voles, to predator-free islands with and with out voles. The results reveal the existence of a terrestrial trophic cascade as voles had a severe impact on the transplanted vegetation on the predator-free islands, but only minor effects on the mainland where predators are present. Moreover, this study shows that plant defence was only a successful strategy when predators were present. Voles reduced the abundance of all available plants during winter on the predator-free islands. The results imply that cascading effects of predation are most important for well-defended plants with grazing-sensitive morphology as these plants escape herbivore impacts in the presence of predators but are vulnerable in their absenceI studied the recovery of intensively grazed vegetation by building exclosures on islands that have been heavily grazed by voles for almost a decade.This study shows that the collective biomass of vascular plants recovered completely on three years, when voles were excluded. Although most species that are dominating the ungrazed vegetation recovered rapidly in the exclosures, the vegetation did not simply return to its ungrazed state. Herbaceous plants increased and there were pronounced differences in response among evergreen dwarf-shrub species. The semi-prostrate and tannin rich crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), showed the strongest recovery of all species, while the erect lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) only showed weak signs of recovery. Thus, growth form determined the potential of plants to recover, whereas the trade-off between defensive investments and capacity to recover was weak or absent.I studied the interaction between gray-sided voles and their main winter food plant, bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) on islands in and mainland sites close to the lake Iesjavri. I compared the abundance, population structure and palatability of bilberry ramets between vole-free islands, islands with voles but no predators and mainland sites with both voles and predators. Voles decreased the abundance of bilberry on the mainland, but the effect was much stronger on predator-free islands. Bilberry was fairly tolerant to grazing as it partially compensated for the lost tissue by producing more new ramets. Moreover, a cafeteria experiment showed that voles preferred the ramets from predator-free islands, which is inconsistent with conjectures emphasizing inducible plant defenses. The vole-bilberry interaction lacks features of delayed density dependence that could explain the vole cycles. I conducted a clipping and fertilization experiment to further investigate the effects of herbivory on palatability of bilberry shoots. Fertilization decreased the concentration of condensed tannins in shoots of bilberry and voles preferred fertilized and clipped shoots. I found no indication of induced defense that could reduce the palatability of bilberry twigs in response to herbivory.The relationships between gray-sided vole densities, levels of invertebrate herbivory and chemical quality of leaves of Northern willow (Salix glauca) were studied on islands and mainland sites with contrasting vole densities. I found a positive correlation between level of invertebrate herbivory and vole density. The number of leaves per shoot, leaf size and leaf nitrogen content were also positively correlated with vole densities, while leaf C/N ratios were negatively correlated with vole densities. The positive correlation between vole densities and level of invertebrate herbivory is probably due to a facilitative effect of voles on invertebrate herbivores, mediated through changes in plant chemistry.


The purpose of this book is to excavate and recover a wealth of under-examined artworks and research materials directly to interrogate, debate and analyse the tangled skeins undergirding visual representations of transatlantic slavery across the Black diaspora. Living and working on both sides of the Atlantic, as these scholars, curators and practitioners demonstrate, African diasporic artists adopt radical and revisionist practices by which to confront the difficult aesthetic and political realities surrounding the social and cultural legacies let alone national and mythical memories of Transatlantic Slavery and the international Slave Trade. Adopting a comparative perspective, this book investigates the diverse body of works produced by black artists as these contributors come to grips with the ways in which their neglected and repeatedly unexamined similarities and differences bear witness to the existence of an African diasporic visual arts tradition. As in-depth investigations into the diverse resistance strategies at work within these artists' vast bodies of work testify, theirs is an ongoing fight for the right to art for art's sake as they challenge mainstream tendencies towards examining their works solely for their sociological and political dimensions. This book adopts a cross- cultural perspective to draw together artists, curators, academics, and public researchers in order to provide an interdisciplinary examination into the eclectic and experimental oeuvre produced by black artists working within the United States, the United Kingdom and across the African diaspora. The overall aim of this book is to re-examine complex yet under-researched theoretical paradigms vis-a-vis the patterns of influence and cross-cultural exchange across both America and a black diasporic visual arts tradition, a vastly neglected field of study.


Slip-initiated falls often cause injury and death, especially in older adults. Previous research involving perturbed walking has to a large extent focused on lower extremity reactions, yet arm responses are often part of postural reactions to such perturbations. This research is focused on arm responses to an unexpected slip. In Aim 1, the relationship between slip severity and shoulder biomechanics was examined. In Aim 2, we determined if the vestibular system is involved in the triggering of arm responses. The correlation between shoulder moment magnitude and the extent of the body center of mass (COM) perturbation was examined in Aim 3.Subjects (17 younger and 12 older adults) were exposed to two conditions: (1) baseline dry (subjects knew the floor was dry), and (2) unexpected slip (a diluted glycerol solution was spread on the floor beneath the stance/left foot). Shoulder Euler angles and moments in flexion/extension and abduction/adduction were derived. The spherical elevation angle was used to further describe shoulder kinematics. Slip severity was quantified using measures reported in the literature.Although arm responses were bilateral, only left (side of slipping foot) shoulder biomechanics, specifically moment generation rates, spherical elevation angle, and abduction angle were positively correlated with slip severity. Left shoulder responses were triggered later than left hip and knee responses. Delayed shoulder moment onsets, slower abduction moment generation rate, and reduced range of motion were found in older adults compared to their younger counterparts. Aim 2 results indicated a weak but statistically significant positive relationship between the timing of the slip-initiated downward head acceleration and the onset of the left shoulder flexion/extension moment (true only when slip severity was controlled in the analysis). In Aim 3, increased left shoulder flexion generation rate correlated with decreased COM perturbation.In conclusion, evidence presented in this study implies (1) arm responses play a role in balance recovery, (2) a legs-to-arms response sequence appears to drive the reaction to a slip, although the potential implication of the vestibular system cannot be ruled out, (3) age-related effects on arm responses may aggravate the risk of slips and falls in older adults.


The last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase of interest in the wisdom literature of the Bible, as scholars have come to appreciate the subtlety and originality of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes as well as of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon. Interest has likewise grown in the wisdom literatures of the neighboring cultures of Canaan, Egypt, and especially Mesopotamia. To help readers understand the place of biblical wisdom within this broader context, including its originality and distinctiveness, this volume offers a rich collection of essays by distinguished Assyriologists and biblicists on the social, intellectual, and literary setting of Mesopotamian wisdom; on specific wisdom texts; and on key themes common to both Mesopotamian and biblical culture. Scholars, pastors, and laity will find these essays both fascinating and enriching. Contributors to the volume include Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Richard J. Clifford, James L. Crenshaw, Edward Greenstein, Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, Karel van der Toorn, and Raymond C. Van Leeuwen. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)


Although recruitment patterns of Pollicipes pollicipes (Crustacea: Scalpelliformes) in the wild have been investigated, no studies have yet focused on the factors that affect settlement. In the present paper, settlement of P. pollicipes on conspecifics (gregarious settlement) was investigated in the laboratory as a function of environmental conditions (hydrodynamics, temperature, light and salinity), larval age and batch. This study aimed to understand how these factors modulate settlement in the laboratory and elucidate how they might impact recruitment patterns in nature. Maximum attachment on adults was 30-35%, with a one-week metamorphosis rate of 70-80%. Batch differences affected both attachment and metamorphosis. Attachment rate was higher at natural salinity (30-40 psu), with lower salinity (20 psu) decreasing metamorphosis rate. Cyprid attachment was stimulated by light conditions and circulating water. This might relate to a preference for positioning high in the water column in nature, but also to increased cyprid-surface contact in conditions of circulating water. Older cyprids (3 or 6 days) showed higher attachment than un-aged larvae, though fewer 6-day-old larvae metamorphosed. Temperature did not affect attachment rate, but the metamorphosis rate decreased at 14°C (compared with 17 or 20°C), implying that differences in temperature during the breeding season can affect how quickly cyprids metamorphose to the juvenile. Cyprids survived for prolonged periods ( ≥ 20 days; 40% survival), likely due to efficient energy saving by intercalating long periods of inactivity with fast bursts of activity upon stimulation.


Abstract The Electra laser system is currently being developed at the Naval Research Laboratory to serve as a test bed for laser driver technologies needed for an inertial fusion energy power plant. The main amplifier has produced 730 J of laser light operating in an oscillator mode. These results as well as advancement of the laser physics, electron beam deposition, and the pulse power technologies give us projections of >7% wall plug efficiency for an IFE system. The Electra main amplifier in oscillator configuration has run continuously at 1 Hz, 2.5 Hz, and 5 Hz for multi-thousand shot runs. This paper will discuss recent results of the Electra program at the Naval Research Laboratory including integrating the Electra main amplifier into a complete laser amplifier system. Issues addressed will include development paths for the cathode, window coating, and foil longevity to attain the durability required for a fusion power plant.


It has become fashionable for politicians to extol the virtues of the family. Yet, in this economic analysis of family policy, Patricia Morgan shows how politicians have been at war with the family over at least the last 25 years. The family is an important vehicle for welfare provision and for income transfers to the most needy and dependent members of society. Yet the state, by providing extensive welfare provision, by financing child-care services and by taxing families on an ever-greater proportion of their income, provides strong incentives for families to break up rather than to hold together, and to form family relationships that are hidden from the authorities. Government policy has crowded out voluntary welfare within families and caused otherwise law-abiding people to commit fraud on a very extensive scale. The author begins by showing the economic benefit of self-sustaining families. She then shows how government policy has increasingly taken over the role of the family in supporting children. It is clear from the evidence presented here that government policy has caused the breakdown of families: policy has not simply responded to autonomous changes in social behaviour. Patricia Morgan then examines changes to divorce laws and to tax and benefit systems that should help reverse the trend and once again make the family the building block of a welfare society.


Marketing material used in promotion of industrial heritage sites for tourism creates representations of said cultural heritage. In order to increase the touristic value of the historical industrial sites marketers can create or make a place attractive through careful selection of images and texts. It is believed that simplifying the image can make it comprehensible and thus more attractive to potential visitors. However, simplifying images of heritage can result in creation of stereotypical representations. This research aimed to analyse what representations of the industrial heritage of Bergslagen, in the middle of Sweden, could be found in marketing material of tourism destinations today. Post-feminist theory was applied as a tool for analysis of the content as a contextual and critical perspective in order to interpret what meanings these representations found were conveying. By understanding the data in relation to androcentric discourse and the context of Bergslagen as a patriarchal system representations of continued polarization of gender was found. By conducting a content analysis of three destinations, Långban, Engelsbergs bruk and Axmar Bruk, four dominating themes of their representations in visual and textual promotional material were found. The narratives in the re-imagination and reproduction of the sites and their industrial heritage were also discovered during the analysis. The findings thus indicated that the marketing perpetuated stereotypes of the inherent gender roles that have existed in the past but were accentuated even through the modern mediums. As tourism is a tool for rejuvenation of industrial heritage sites it is important to note that, the need for increasing the attractiveness by consciously or unconsciously deciding which narratives should be told, marketers act as facilitators of generic ideas and impositions. When trying to simplify something as complex as a heritage, meaning can become lost in translation. The representations can become distorted, which they have in Bergslagen, according to the findings of this research. Representations can thus inform us of what is being marginalized. The understanding and interpretations of the representations can therefore become a resource in the marketing the real and genuine heritage.


When the winner of one auction gains a cost advantage in the next, bids reflect not only the value of winning the auction, but also the value of gaining an incumbent advantage in future auctions. If a larger firm's advantage derives from a cost or product advantage, it has a greater chance of holding onto incumbency status which, in turn, increases the value it places on gaining incumbency. As a consequence, larger firms bid more aggressively than their smaller rivals, where "size" is measured by the probability of winning. In this environment, mergers eliminate competition among the merged firms but they also change bidding behavior by both merging and non-merging firms. Computational experiments suggest that the scope for pro-competitive mergers is much wider than in auctions without an incumbent advantage. In particular, mergers among smaller firms are likely to be pro-competitive because they tend to create better losers, i.e., firms who bid more aggressively but still lose a large part of the time.


Social networks are known to influence migration decisions, but connections between individuals can hardly be observed. We rely on individual-level surveys conducted by Gallup in 147 countries that provide information on migration intentions and on the existence of distance-one connections for all respondents in each of the potential countries of intended destination. The origin-specific distribution of distance-one connections from Gallup closely mirrors the actual distribution of migrant stocks across countries, and bilateral migration intentions appear to be significantly correlated with actual flows. This unique data source allows estimating origin-specific conditional logit models that shed light on the value of having a friend in a given country on the attractiveness of that destination. The validity of the distributional assumptions that underpin the estimation is tested, and concerns about the threats to identification posed by unobservables are substantially mitigated.


Interactive casing and distributor hydraulic design and flow analysis software has been developed and tested. Until now, its application is limited to radial distributor turbo-machines. The design software offers excellent flexibility, including the ability to interact directly through numerous graphics. Modeler software produces the 3-D casing and vaneless distributor finite element grid and the 2-D wicket gate and stay vane cascade finite volume grid. Potential flow analysis is applied to the first grid system, and the solution superposition technique allows quick analysis results for different operating conditions. Viscous flow analysis for the distributor is performed by solving full Navier-Stokes equations coupled with a standard turbulence model. Theoretical and experimental results are presented, and the impact of the use of such design and analysis softwares is discussed.


This chapter describes how the adaptive web technologies discussed in this book have been applied to news access. First, we provide an overview of different types of adaptivity in the context of news access and identify corresponding algorithms. For each adaptivity type, we briefly discuss representative systems that use the described techniques. Next, we discuss an in-depth case study of a personalized news system. As part of this study, we outline a user modeling approach specifically designed for news personalization, and present results from an evaluation that attempts to quantify the effect of adaptive news access from a user perspective. We conclude by discussing recent trends and novel systems in the adaptive news space.


When Bruce Nolop was an investment banker, he saw only the glamorous side of acquisitions. Since becoming executive vice president and chief financial officer of Pitney Bowes, however, he's learned how hard it is to pull them off. In this article, he shares the lessons his organization has learned throughout its successful six-year acquisition campaign, which comprised more than 70 deals: Stick to adjacent spaces, take a portfolio approach, have a business sponsor, know how to judge an acquisition, and don't shop when you're hungry. Pitney Bowes's management and board of directors now use these five basic rules to chart the company's growth course. For example, when evaluating a potential acquisition, Pitney Bowes distinguishes between "platform" and "bolt-on" acquisitions to set expectations and guide integration efforts; the company applies different criteria, depending on the type. According to Nolop, any company can improve its acquisition track record if it is able to learn from experience, and he suspects that Pitney Bowes's rules apply just as well to other organizations. Buying a company should be treated like any other business process, he maintains. It should be approached deliberately and reviewed and improved constantly. That means mapping a complex chain of actions; paying attention to what can go right or wrong at different stages; and using standard, constantly honed, approaches and tools.


We present evidence on the effect of social connections between workers and managers on productivity in the workplace. To evaluate whether the existence of social connections is beneficial to the firm's overall performance, we explore how the effects of social connections vary with the strength of managerial incentives and worker's ability. To do so, we combine panel data on individual worker's productivity from personnel records with a natural field experiment in which we engineered an exogenous change in managerial incentives, from fixed wages to bonuses based on the average productivity of the workers managed. We find that when managers are paid fixed wages, they favor workers to whom they are socially connected irrespective of the worker's ability, but when they are paid performance bonuses, they target their effort toward high ability workers irrespective of whether they are socially connected to them or not. Although social connections increase the performance of connected workers, we find that favoring connected workers is detrimental for the firm's overall performance.


In order to design effective Persuasive Technology (PT) interventions, it is essential that designers understand the multitude of factors that lead to behavioral change, rather than guessing at a solution or imitating successful techniques without understanding why. The few available PT design frameworks solely distinguish behavioral determinants on an individual (micro) level (e.g., motivation), whereas successfully persuading a user is a multifaceted and complex task depending also on factors on a meso (e.g., available resources) and macro (e.g., social support and praise) level. We developed an analysis grid that enables PT designers to acknowledge the multifaceted character of determinants leading to behavioral change and select appropriate PT channels and strategies, preventing the failure of PT design. This analysis grid was validated in a case study in which we designed a PT intervention aimed at reporting minor crime incidents among citizens.


The thermal behavior of iron nanoclusters on a porous substrate has been studied using classical molecular dynamics simulations. The substrate has been modeled with a simple Morse potential and pores with different shapes have been modeled in order to mimic the porous substrates used for carbon nanotube growth. It has been confirmed that the presence of the substrate increases the cluster melting temperature compared to the free cluster. In addition, the magnitude of this increase in melting point depends on the existence, shape, and diameter of the pore. For example, the increase in melting point is larger for clusters supported on flat (nonporous) substrates than for clusters which straddle pores with smaller diameters than the cluster diameter.


RFID: A Communication System Perspective Colby Scott Boyer Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Sumit Roy Electrical Engineering Backscatter modulation is the keystone behind the technical and commercial success of Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) in applications that require fast, efficient, and automatic identification of tagged objects. Owing to RFID's ultra low cost and low power attributes, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and other biological/physiological sensing applications now use backscatter modulation as a communication link. These systems build upon existing RFID industry protocols such as ISO 18000-6C (or EPC Gen2). RFID tags do not use an active RF transceiver architecture, but instead operate on a principle similar to RADAR. A nearby RFID reader transmits a continuous wave that the tag's antenna partially scatters back to the reader's antenna array. By switching its antenna impedance loading between different values, the tag modulates the antenna scattering observed by the reader. Therefore reverse engineering RFID at the systems level will provide new insights and design recommendations. This dissertation focuses on three key areas relating to backscatter modulation and RFID systems: 1) analyze the co-design of backscatter modulation and error correction coding, 2) characterize space-time coding and MIMO performance limits of the dyadic backscatter channel, and 3) hybrid-ARQ (HARQ) and random access improvements to the Gen2 protocol. Passive and semi-passive RFID tags depend on scavenged energy to power their IC. While backscatter modulation itself consumes a negligible amount of energy, the modulator creates an impedance mismatch between the tag's antenna and power harvester, thereby decreasing the antenna to the tag power transfer efficiency. This required impedance mismatch couples the link performance to the power harvester's performance, so to quantify this tradeoff, we introduce a new metric: backscatter power efficiency loss per bit. Higher order constellations improve the link's spectral efficiency, but have lower power efficiency as compared to binary modulation schemes. We propose new coded modulation schemes based on unequal error protection, which improves both the spectral efficiency and the backscatter power efficiency loss metric. MIMO processing is a canonical technique to improve wireless link capacity and reliability, which will require future tags and readers to have multiple antennas. The dyadic backscatter channel (DBC) models the behavior of small-scale fading in RFID MIMO systems, however, its statistics differ from those of the classic Rayleigh fading MIMO channel. We analytical characterize the performance of space-time trellis codes and orthogonal spacetime block codes, derive an upper bound to the pairwise error probability (PEP), and derive the maximum diversity order of the DBC. Unlike Rayleigh fading, the diversity order only depends on the number of tag antennas but not the number of reader receive antennas. In fading channels, MIMO techniques offer two opposing performance gains: diversity (reliability against outage events) or multiplexing gain (spectral efficiency). The diversity multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) is an asymptotic measure that quantifies the achievable diversity for a given multiplexing gain. Starting from the definition of the DBC and the DMT of the double scattering channel, the corresponding DMT of the DBC is derived. The statistics of the DBC limit the amount diversity when compared to the Rayleigh MIMO channel, although the available multiplexing gain is unchanged. Increasing the number of receive antennas improves both diversity and multiplexing gain until the receive antenna count equals the number of tag antennas, otherwise additional receive antennas offer no gains with respect to the DMT. The current EPC Gen2 standard does not use any form of error correction and does not allow for fast link adaption between reading separate tags. We consider a protocol that uses HARQ algorithms without requiring major changes to the Gen2 protocol. In addition, we develop theoretical models that capture EPC Gen2's baseline performance and capacity in terms SNR and tag read rate. Existing HARQ algorithms, such as Chase combining (CC) and incremental redundancy (IR), are studied via simulations and the performance quantified in terms of tag read rate. The simulation results show that CC allows for graceful system degradation and IR achieves read rates close to EPC Gen2's capacity limit. Random access plays a critical role in RFID tag singulation. EPC Gen2 uses frame slotted ALOHA (FSA) to arbitrate channel resources between tags, but FSA has low efficiency due to empty slots and collisions. To aid in tag collision resolution, we consider multiuser detection (MUD) and incremental redundancy enhancements to the FSA protocol. The theoretical performance of the MUD receiver is analyzed from a compressive sensing viewpoint. As an example of a practical code construction, we evaluate the performance of punctured second order Reed Muller codes. These enhancements improve FSA's throughput and its response to high system loads.


We explore the idea of obtaining valid inequalities from a finite-domain formulation of a problem, rather than a 0-1 formulation. A finite-domain model represents discrete choices with variables that have several possible values, as is frequently done in constraint programming. We apply the idea to graph coloring and identify facet-defining cuts that, when converted to cuts in a 0-1 model of the problem, provide tighter bounds on the chromatic number than known 0-1 cuts. In particular, we show that finite-domain cuts for webs and odd holes are superior to standard cuts, and that two cuts for an odd cycle (a generalization of an odd hole) yield substantially tighter bounds, in much less time, than hundreds or thousands of standard cuts. We also identify a large family of facetdefining cuts for intersecting systems, for which there are apparently no previously known 0-1 cuts.


Reliability of railway track is important for the safety and security of railway operation and control of maintenance costs. This paper develops reliability models for track facility-segment level and improves reliability models for track segment-line level based on the track segment analysis method. The reliability and failure rates of track facilities, segments and lines, which reflect the health status of railway track, are calculated with the method of Markov chain. The reliability hierarchy models for railway track facility-segment-line systems are formed at last.


One of the challenges in in-service teacher education is how teachers can be given professional development (PD) that enables them to respond to national curriculum and policy change. In recent years primary teachers in New Zealand have been inundated with Ministry of Education-funded professional development programmes to help them implement a plethora of curriculum policy and reform initiatives. This paper explores how the design and delivery of one PD programme, the Physical Activity Initiative (PAI), positioned and supported teachers as learners. An evaluation of the programme sought data from 25 teachers and 14 advisers to schools. The focus was the impact of the PD on how and what teachers learnt about teaching physical education and how their learning impacted upon their classroom practices. The data highlight the difficulty of accommodating the teacher as a learner, within a "one size fits all" PD model. Little attention was paid to the learning differences among the teachers. It is argued that providers of PD need to understand the unique complex web of contextual factors that impacted upon each teacher, and that each teacher's learning needs and learning approaches vary and this needs to be accounted for in the design and the delivery of PD


The effective usage of the automatically collected software process data may be challenging. By using general purpose query languages like SQL, retrieval of software process information introduces a cost and competence barrier, which limits the adoption of Automated In-process Software Engineering Measurement and Analysis (AISEMA) systems, since it requires a considerable effort for query writing as well as a deep understanding of process data collection and representation. In this paper, we describe the implementation of a query language, SyQL, mainly but not exclusively designed for software process data. SyQL significantly reduces the competence barrier by providing a query interface aimed to software process data.


In managing HIV/AIDS with highly active antiretroviral agents, the historical therapeutic aim remains to maintain the plasma concentrations at a level above the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) required for 50% inhibition in viral replication. Concentration dependent toxicity is often observed in patients with elevated drug exposure and high peak plasma levels in lieu of accurately calculated drug dosages. Similarly low plasma concentrations are frequently witnessed in individuals receiving adequate dosage regimens. Pharmacogenetic variations in drug metabolizing enzymes may contribute to this phenomenon. Over the last decade, knowledge about the role of pharmacogenetics in the treatment and prediction of ARV plasma levels have increased significantly. However, the extent of these genetic variations remain largely unknown in the South African population, which has sparked a renewed enthusiasm for local pharmacogenetic studies.


Introduction: In Iran, hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the most prevalent cause of chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis in patients with hemophilia, thalassemia, and renal failure. Recent studies suggest that patients infected with different HCV genotypes have different clinical profiles, severity of liver disease and response to therapy. Several molecular methods targeting different HCV genomic regions have been introduced for genotyping. Direct sequencing of amplified PCR products is the gold standard method, followed by phylogenetic analysis of clinical material. The aim of this study was to determine genotypes of HCV-infected patients with thalassemia in Golestan Province, Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 217 patients (mean age: 21.82 ± 16 years, 50.7% male) with thalassemia major. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used for detection of HCV antibodies. Positive HCV-Ab samples were confirmed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and sequencing. HCV genotypes were determined by aligning nucleotide sequences of patients with the standard nucleotide sequences obtained from GenBank (accession number: AB520610). Results: Of 217 patients with thalassemia major, 14 (6.45%) were found as anti-HCV-positive in the ELISA test. Among them, two patients (14.28%) had positive RT-PCR results. In addition, all patients were infected with HCV genotype 1a. Conclusions: Genotype 1a is the predominant HCV genotype in patients with thalassemia major in the Golestan province, Iran.


The diagnosis and treatment of the behaviors associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) predominantly involves pharmacological interventions.  Many children experience significant negative side effects (e.g., appetite suppression, insomnia, headaches, stomachaches, irritability, and impaired height) from the initial and continued use of stimulant medication.  Consequently, many parents are motivated to consider alternative treatments for ADHD such as neurofeedback.  This paper presents an archival review of the improvements in auditory and visual attention and response control after 40 sessions of artifact-corrected neurofeedback for 51 children ages 6 to 17 with ADHD.  Initially, the majority of these clients were identified as having severe to extreme auditory and visual attention impairments.  The IVA-2 CPT was administered prior to treatment and after 20 and 40 treatment sessions were completed.  After 20 sessions of neurofeedback significant improvements of both auditory and visual attention and response control were found with small to large size effects.  The clients continued to improve after an additional 20 sessions, with medium to large size effects after 40 sessions.  At completion of treatment the mean of eight of the nine attention and response control scores fell within the "normal" range.


One of the most important forecasts provided by the Ronkonkoma, NY Center Weather Service Unit (CWSU) to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) is the Severe Weather Avoidance Plan (SWAP) Statement. The SWAP Statement is the CWSU's forecast of the probability for the FAA to implement a SWAP when convection causes a significant number of aircraft reroutes and arrival/departure delays in New York ARTCC airspace (ZNY). The SWAP Statement is a decision-support planning tool used by the FAA and commercial airlines to anticipate impacts to the National Airspace System (NAS) that would significantly affect operations and staffing. SWAP originated from the need to improve planning due to the complexity of ZNY airspace and the impact on operations at other ARTCCs during convection. This technical note summarizes the verification of SWAP Statements issued by the Ronkonkoma, NY CWSU for ZNY during the 2008 convective season (April 15 th through September 30 th ). Results indicate that the CWSU demonstrated excellent skill forecasting SWAP events, which aids the FAA, the airlines and other customers in planning for operational changes caused by convection.


Several emerging technologies for treatment or resource recovery from wastewater are based on the combination of membranes and biochemical conversions. In this chapter, we review gas-diffusion, extractive, biocatalytic, and electrochemical membrane bioreactors (MBRs). Gas-diffusion MBRs facilitate efficient delivery of a gaseous oxidant or reductant such as oxygen, hydrogen, or methane to microbial biofilms treating wastewater. Extractive MBRs completely separate the wastewater stream from the microbes and make toxic wastewaters amenable to biological treatment. Biocatalytic MBRs utilize enzymes or immobilized microbial cells for degradation of persistent xenobiotics or for synthesis of fine chemicals. Electrochemical MBRs make it possible to utilize organic compounds in wastewater for production of energy or chemicals. All four technologies are currently in the research and development stage, but can potentially contribute to more efficient removal of pollutants and recovery of resources from wastewater.


The paper performs aid allocation analysis using OECD-DAC data covering 20 aid donors and 176 recipients over the period 1980-2003. We improve upon earlier work in this area by employing inter alia the variable 'past outcome' measuring aid effectiveness in order to link together aid allocation and aid effectiveness. In line with previous work, we also account for both altruistic and selfish donor motives in the empirical analysis. As expected, empirical results based on Tobit estimates of aid allocation for individual donors vary quite significantly among donors. We also test the robustness of our results by estimating individual regressions for the major donors over the period 1990-2003 in view of major events in the aid arena during that time that could potentially have an impact on the aid allocation process. Our results seem to be similar to those derived over the 1980-2003 period, thus implying that this was not the case. Overall, both altruistic and selfish donor motives seem to motivate aid allocation for most donors over the two periods under examination. However, when we further restrict our time dimension to the 1999-2003 period, some important policy changes with regard to selectivity seem to emerge for a small group of donor countries.


The announcement of the United States Supreme Court in 1965 that a right to privacy existed, and that it predated the Bill of Rights, launched a historical and legal quest to sound the origins and extent of the right that has continued to the present day. Legal scholars have produced countless books and articles examining the history and scope of the right to privacy. Many historians, however, have steered clear of the debate, concentrating instead on the emergence of a modern, nineteenth-century worldview based on differentiated private and public spheres. Despite disagreements about the extent to which privacy was a value - much less a right - in early America, few scholars have focused on eighteenth-century notions of privacy. This is an unfortunate trend, for it ignores the many early Americans who thought and wrote extensively about the interaction between private activity and public life in the revolutionary and early republican periods. The writings of John Adams demonstrate that at least one member of the founding generation devoted substantial consideration to the problem of privacy. Adams's writings suggest that privacy was not always among the chief goals of the American republic. On the contrary, Adams displayed a marked suspicion of privacy and the private life. Adams argued that the private passions (e.g., for reputation and luxury) had to be subdued and controlled by the institutions of government in order for the Republic to function. Adams thus despaired of the private sphere as a source, by itself, of republican virtue and order. This article traces some of the major themes of Adams's writings on privacy, discussing the impact of his Puritan background on his thought and then moving to the broader issues that most interested him: virtue, passion, and decay, and their consequences for public life.


The Convex C220 and C240 supercomputers are a family of 64-bit multiprocessors, tightly coupled through a shared main memory. Each processor contains an integrated vector processor. All processor features, including the vector processor, are controlled by a microcoded instruction set. The system is implemented in 100 K emitter-coupled logic, with a cycle time of 40 ns. The author shows some of the real-life problems faced by the design team and relates their approach to resolving them. He begins by comparing the C2 family to its predecessor, the C1. He describes the processes of product definition and technology selection, staffing and organizing the design team, and the design tool set. He examines the problems that arose during the execution of the initial concept.<<ETX>>


Self-regulation has been portrayed as superior to government regulation for addressing problems of new media such as digital television and the internet. This article reviews the literature on self-regulation to define what is meant by the term, to identify the purported advantages and disadvantages of self regulation and to identify the conditions needed for its success. It then analyzes the effectiveness of self-regulation by looking at the track record of self-regulation in other media. After describing and analyzing past uses of self-regulation in broadcasting, children's advertising, news, alcohol advertising, comics books movies, and video games, it concludes that self regulation rarely lives up to the claims made for it, although in some cases, it has been useful as a supplement to government regulation. It identifies five factors that may account for the success or failure of self-regulation. These include the industry incentives, the ability of government to regulate, the use of measurable standards, public participation and industry structure. Applying these five factors to digital television public interest responsibilities and privacy on the internet, it concludes that self regulation is not likely to be successful in these contexts.


Large-scale comparative and systematic studies rely on the seamless merging of multiple datasets. However, taxonomic nomenclature is constantly being revised making it problematic to combine data from different resources or different years of publication, which use different synonyms. This is certainly true for amphibians, which have experienced a spike in taxonomic revisions in part as the result of the widespread use of DNA barcoding to resolve cryptic species delimitation issues and large-scale collaborative efforts to revise the entire amphibian tree. The 'Amphibian Species of the World Online Reference' (ASW) is one of the most widely used and most regularly updated databases for amphibian taxonomy, but existing R tools for querying synonyms such as 'taxize' do not include this resource. 'AmphiNom' is a tool suite written in the R programming language designed to facilitate batch-querying amphibian species names against the ASW database. This facilitates the merging of datasets that use different nomenclature and its functionality is easily integrated into customizable R workflows. Moreover, it allows direct querying of the ASW website using R and straightforward reporting of summary information on current amphibian systematics.


The early interest in selenium (Se) focused on its toxicity, but since 1957 it has been recognized as an essential dietary element. The diet is the major Se source and approximately 80% of dietary Se is absorbed, depending on the type of food consumed. In several regions of the world, the content of Se in diets has been estimated as insufficient. The dietary requirement for Se for most species is about 0.3 ppm. Deficiencies of Se in animals have been confirmed under natural grazing conditions in many countries. Symptoms of deficiencies such as white muscle disease occur primarily in young calves or lambs born in low Se regions and thus we need to provide sufficient amounts in animal diets. Numerous studies have demonstrated that Se plays an important role in animal health. Therefore, this review gives a brief outline of the current information on the physical, chemical and metabolic properties of Se, oxidative stress, antioxidant defense, dietary requirement, deficiency, toxicity and effects of Se on fertility and performance.


Ensuring the safety, health, and overall well-being of animals raised for food is both an ethical obligation and a critical component of providing safe food products. The use of antibiotics for maintaining animal health has come under scrutiny in recent years due to the rise of antibiotic resistance globally. Some U.S. producers, especially in the poultry industry, have responded by eliminating their antibiotic use. The number of animals raised without antibiotics (RWA) is growing in the U.S., but there are concerns that RWA practices might negatively impact animal health and welfare. Therefore, the objective of this study was to survey U.S. veterinarians and producers about their experiences and opinions regarding RWA production. Veterinarians, farmers, ranchers, producers, and other stakeholders involved in raising broilers, turkeys, swine, beef cattle or dairy cattle were surveyed. Of the 565 completed responses received, 442 self-reported as practicing veterinarians or producers. Just over half of respondents reported having past or current experience with RWA programs. The main indicated reasons for raising animals without antibiotics were market driven; switching to RWA production was less commonly made for health-related reasons, such as to reduce antibiotic resistance or to improve animal health and welfare. Although respondents felt that RWA production has negative impacts on animal health and welfare, they overwhelmingly (>70%) indicated that the customer (retailer/restaurant/food service) believes that animal and health welfare will be significantly improved. Veterinarians and producers indicated that RWA programs will increase production costs with questionable effect on meat, egg or dairy consumer demand. Many respondents felt that there are times when the RWA label takes priority over animal health and welfare. Respondents generally felt that there was a need for increased auditing/assessment of animal health and welfare in RWA systems.


Problem statement: Hand washing with soap is an important means of preventing hospital
acquired infections .However the rate of hand washing with soap and water is unacceptably low
amongst health workers. Few studies on this subject have been done amongst health workers in
Nigeria. The aims of this study were to explore perceptions, attitudes and hand washing practices
amongst health workers in a tertiary health institution in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Approach: This was a
descriptive cross sectional survey carried out amongst randomly selected doctors and nurses in
University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. A simple questionnaire exploring perceptions, attitudes
and self reported behavior was used. Information obtained included bio data, awareness information
and practice. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 258 health workers
(139 doctors and 119 nurses) participated in this study. Male to female ratio was 1: 3.3. The rate of
hand washing before and after interacting with patients were 9.3 and 51.2% respectively (χ2= 105.19,
p-value=0.000). The rate of hand washing before and after simple procedures were 13.6 and 59.7%
respectively (χ2 = 116.25, p-value = 0.000). Soapy water in a basin was most frequently (55.8%) used
for hand washing. Doctors were more likely than nurses to wash hands before interacting with patients
(χ2 = 7.98, p-value = 0.005) and before simple procedures (χ2 = 4.29, p-value = 0.039). The rates of
hand washing before meals and after defaecation were 69.0% and 58.1% respectively. Soap and
running water were more frequently used after defecation (61.6%) than before meals and snacks
(46.5%).The greatest motivation for hand washing was fear of contracting disease, whilst constraints
included lack of soap and water. Conclusion/Recommendations: Hand washing rates are low
amongst health workers in Port Harcourt. There is need for regular education and re-education and
provision of facilities for hand washing.


The role of clathrin in retention of Golgi membrane proteins has been investigated. Prior work showed that a precursor form of the peptide mating pheromone alpha-factor is secreted by Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells which lack the clathrin heavy chain gene (CHC1). This defect can be accounted for by the observation that the Golgi membrane protein Kex2p, which initiates maturation of alpha-factor precursor, is mislocalized to the cell surface of mutant cells. We have examined the localization of two additional Golgi membrane proteins, dipeptidyl aminopeptidase A (DPAP A) and guanosine diphosphatase (GDPase) in clathrin-deficient yeast strains. Our findings indicate that DPAP A is aberrantly transported to the cell surface but GDPase is not. In mutant cells carrying a temperature-sensitive allele of CHC1 (chc1-ts), alpha- factor precursor appears in the culture medium within 15 min, and Kex2p and DPAP A reach the cell surface within 30 min, after imposing the nonpermissive temperature. In contrast to these immediate effects, a growth defect is apparent only after 2 h at the nonpermissive temperature. Also, sorting of the vacuolar membrane protein, alkaline phosphatase, is not affected in chc1-ts cells until 2 h after the temperature shift. A temperature-sensitive mutation which blocks a late stage of the secretory pathway, sec1, prevents the appearance of mislocalized Kex2p at the cell surface of chc1-ts cells. We propose that clathrin plays a direct role in the retention of specific proteins in the yeast Golgi apparatus, thereby preventing their transport to the cell surface.


The Italian education system has gained prominence worldwide thanks to its pioneering history in initiating the process of mainstreaming students with disabilities, in providing educational plans tailored to students' needs, and in the gradual broadening of the vision of inclusion as a means to guarantee quality education for all. At the same time, teacher education programs have reinvigorated their key role in preparing and supporting teachers who are inclusive of all students. Several factors over the past 50 years have been fundamental in shaping the way inclusion is perceived in the 21st century. First, the theoretical frameworks underpinning pedagogy and teaching practices have undergone a complete paradigm shift from an individualized-medical model to a biopsychosocial model, bringing about a new challenge for all stakeholders involved. Second, in line with this evolution, latest reforms and ministerial provisions in initial teacher education and continuous professional development are evidence of the change in perspective regarding the teachers' pivotal role in promoting and facilitating inclusive practices. However, this shift has not only called for a rethinking of the teachers' pedagogical and didactic stances. It has also entailed a reconsideration of the necessary professional competencies, understood as a complex interplay of pedagogical knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills to be able to implement effective teaching methods and strategies that favor inclusion. Thus, it has placed a heavy responsibility on teacher education institutions to ensure that current and future teachers are ready, willing, and able to face the complexity characterizing 21st-century classrooms. Italian schools have also been doing their utmost to ensure better school experiences for all their students. An array of projects, both ministerially funded and school-based schemes, have been designed and implemented to create universally functional curricula to meet all the students' learning styles and promote inclusion. One of the most important lessons to be learned from these intricate developments and initiatives is that collaboration among all stakeholders on micro, meso, and macro levels lies at the heart of effective and sustainable inclusive education.


We describe an argon-ion-laser-pumped erbium-doped fiber laser at 1.55 microm that incorporates low-rate frequency modulation of an intracavity acousto-optic modulator to provide repeated, continuous tuning of the output spectrum. The spectral width of this wavelength-swept fiber laser is as large as 20 nm with 9 mW of output power, even though erbium in silica has a mostly homogeneously broadened gain. The time-averaged visibility curve for a 14-nm-wide source indicates a short (160-microm) coherence length, which is of interest for fiber-optic gyroscopes that operate with long integration times and short-coherence-length sources.


In this thesis, I present a detailed analysis of the role cell morphology, solution rheology, and swimming mechanism has on the motility of Helicobacter Pylori. H. Pylori, the bacterium that causes gastric ulcers, has a helical cell shape that has long been believed to provide an advantage in penetrating the viscous mucus layer protecting the stomach lining, its niche environment. I present results obtained by performing optical microscopic live cell bacteria tracking of wild-type H. Pylori and cell shape and flagella mutants of H. Pylori. Bacteria tracking experiments show that helical shaped bacteria swim faster than straight rod-shaped bacteria, and bacteria with larger number of flagella swim faster. Altering cell shape is found to have a smaller e↵ect on swimming speed than altering the number of flagella a bacterium has. These experimental observations are then compared to resistive force theory predictions. Resistive force theory shows qualitative agreement to our experimental observations, but overestimates the increase in swimming speed for a helical cell when compared to straight rod cell. In addition to e↵ect of cell morphology on motility, I explore how motility is altered in di↵erent polymer environments by tracking bacteria in pig gastric mucin, methylcellulose, and gelatin solutions and gels. Bacteria are found to increase their swimming speed non-monotonically with increasing polymer concentration, while the number of mobile bacteria is found to decrease with increased polymer concentration. I also present an analysis of the swimming mechanism used by H. Pylori. H. Pylori is found to v use a run-reverse swimming mechanism which I model as a random walk. This random walk model fits well to the experimental data and provides a theoretical tool for interpreting H. Pylori's swimming mechanism. Taken together these results provide a detailed description of the motility of H. Pylori in di↵erent media and are applicable to the broad question of how H. pylori infects and colonizes the mucus layer of the stomach.


Background Despite the high prevalence of Exercise Associated Muscle Cramping (EAMC) in endurance athletes, the aetiology and risk factors for this condition are not fully understood. Objective The objective of this prospective cohort study was to identify risk factors associated with EAMC in endurance triathletes. Setting Field study during an international Ironman triathlon. Participants 210 triathletes competing in an Ironman triathlon. Assessment Prior to the race, subjects completed a detailed validated questionnaire and blood samples were taken for serum electrolytes. Immediately before the race, pre-race body weight was obtained. Body weight and blood samples for serum electrolyte concentrations were obtained immediately post-race. Clinical data on EAMC experienced during or immediately after the race were also collected. Main outcome measurements Training data, serum electrolyte and body weight changes were compared between 44 triathletes who reported EAMC (CR group) and 166 triathletes who did not report EAMC (NC group). A regression analysis was conducted to determine independent risk factors for EAMC in triathletes. Results There were no significant differences between groups in any pre-post race serum electrolyte concentrations and body weight changes. The development of EAMC was associated with faster predicted race times and faster actual race times, despite similarly matched preparation and performance histories in subjects from both groups. A regression analysis identified faster overall race time (and cycling time) and a past history of cramping (in the last 10 races) as the only two independent risk factors for EAMC. Conclusion The results from this study add to the evidence that dehydration and altered serum electrolyte balance are not causes for EAMC. Rather, endurance runners competing at a fast pace, which suggests that they exercise at a high intensity, are at risk for EAMC.


This chapter discusses the use of on-line materials to enhance the student's dissertation experience. This project began in the School of Hospitality Management and Tourism in 2009 partly as a reaction to the fact that from that September the final years of all honours degree programmes would complete a dissertation. This necessitated a more structured approach to the management of this process and also meant that supervisors would be supervising many more students than heretofore. As part of this new system it was decided to investigate the possibility of developing on-line support materials which would be available to all students in conjunction with the support that their supervisor would provide. In the current academic year such resources are being made available on a weekly basis. They primarily take the form of video podcasts. These materials have two objectives. Firstly they impart important information which is relevant to the stage in the process at which they should be that week. This includes for example video interviews regarding how to write a questionnaire, a discussion regarding the role of supervisors and how to read critically. But the second objective is equally as important and that is to motivate the students and to keep them on track. For this reason the resource is released every Monday morning with the intention of reminding them of the tasks they need to conduct for their dissertation this week and to motivate them. Examples of materials in this regard include the first video about the challenges of the dissertation and how to overcome them and another video interview with the Counselling service in DIT, relating to getting back on track after first semester exams and how to manage your time and motivate yourself. This chapter discusses the process by which the resources were developed, presents examples of materials that have been used successfully and engages in an analysis of how the success of such materials can be measured. The experience and views of students are also incorporated in the chapter as a key way of evaluating the tools. This chapter will be of interest to supervisors and those managing the dissertation process in their own institutions. It provides ideas of how on-line resources can be utilised effectively for this purpose and also makes the resources that have been developed to date available for those who wish to use them. The challenge of changing technology, changing students, changing institutional environments and independent research necessitates supervisors to think beyond traditional ways of engaging with students, not necessarily replacing the personal contact that is an important part of this process but about ways to supplement this contact. This chapter contributes to this thinking by outlining and evaluating the first efforts of doing this in one institution.