This paper reports on the effectiveness of the learning and teaching approaches incorporated into a small scale interprofessional education pilot project, as evaluated by the participating students. The pilot brought together second-year nursing students and third-year medical students, for a period of four weeks of clinical practice, taught classroom sessions, self-directed study and facilitated reflective sessions.

The findings suggest that interprofessional learning in practice for undergraduate students on health care programmes is a highly valued experience, however, it requires extensive facilitation and structuring. Students involved in this pilot reported that they better understood the roles and remit of other healthcare professionals, including strengths and challenges that are present. The variety of learning and teaching approaches were evaluated positively although these elicited different views from student respondents.

Students highlighted the importance of structuring, focusing and facilitating such experiences to maximise the true interprofessional learning opportunities. Recommendations are made around the need for focussed and facilitated interprofessional learning opportunities in practice and the need for the incorporation of a variety of learning and teaching approaches. Although it is not within the scope of this article, these recommendations highlight the need for good interprofessional facilitation skills.


In the pages of her account books, Abigail Robinson, a single woman from a Newport, Rhode Island merchant family at the turn of the nineteenth century, represented the mundane tasks of domestic life as monetary transactions. With each stroke of her pen, she linked the ways and concerns of the market with the "women's work" performed by herself and by the women she employed, corresponded with, and cared for. This article explores each kind of transaction recorded in Abigail's account books—hiring servants, buying imported goods for family and friends, stewarding young relatives, and investing in paper securities—to illuminate the complex ways in which emotion, social obligation, and economic calculation intersected. Strikingly and explicitly, market transactions constructed social relationships and affective ties shaped economic transactions. Women such as Abigail Robinson led lives that were at once more profoundly embedded in market concerns than those of their colonial forebears and clearly different from the emerging ideal of the private, sheltered home. Forged in networks of work and exchange, a commercial consciousness served variously as complement and alternative to "domesticity" for middling and well-to-do free women.


Abstract Arthritis is a common cause of pain and disability in adults. In this article, the first in a series of two articles on arthritis, a clinical approach to musculoskeletal disorders is reviewed, with emphasis on the history and examination as the basis for diagnosis of common rheumatic disorders. A simple step-by-step clinical approach is discussed and basic investigations are considered in the context of clinical findings. Some common clinical pitfalls in diagnosis are highlighted. Broad principles of management of rheumatic diseases are briefly discussed as a prelude to the second article in which an in-depth approach to the management of rheumatoid arthritis is covered.


To the Editor: Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) is a rodent-borne pathogen that causes a spectrum of disease in humans, ranging from self-limiting meningoencephalitis to congenital birth defects to severe disseminated illness in organ transplant recipients (1). It is not known how frequently cases of LCMV infection are diagnosed in the United States. We performed a retrospective case analysis of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) patients treated within the Indian Health Service (IHS) health care system who had an LCMV-associated diagnosis defined by the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM). Our goal was to estimate the incidence of LCMV-associated aseptic meningitis and encephalitis diagnosed within a well-defined population.

Inpatient and outpatient visit data from fiscal years 2001–09 were obtained from the IHS National Patient Information Reporting System (2). For each fiscal year, records for AI/AN patients with at least 1 inpatient or outpatient visit within the year that listed the ICD-9-CM code 049.0 (lymphocytic choriomeningitis and meningoencephalitis) were selected (3,4). A subset of medical records was reviewed for patients with the diagnosis code of interest in the IHS Southwest and Southern Plains regions. Health care facilities were located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, USA. Suspected LCMV infection was defined as a diagnosis of meningitis, choriomeningitis, encephalitis, or meningoencephalitis not explained by another etiologic agent. A confirmed case of LCMV infection required laboratory detection of antibodies, virus antigen, or virus. A patient with no evidence of suspected LCMV infection in his or her medical record was not considered to have a case of LCMV infection.

Annual population denominators were determined by using annual IHS Southwest and Southern Plains region user populations, which includes all registered AI/ANs who received IHS-funded health care at least once during the previous 3 years (5). The annual average incidence rate for diagnosed cases of infection with LCMV was determined. Rates were also determined for viral meningitis not otherwise specified (ICD-9-CM code 047.9); for unspecified causes of encephalitis, myelitis, or encephalomyelitis (323.9); and for unspecified non-arthropod–borne viral diseases of the central nervous system or viral encephalitis not otherwise specified (049.9) (3). Annual numbers were calculated on a patient basis, whereby the first time a diagnosis was coded for a given patient during each fiscal year was counted.

Twenty-six AI/AN patients received the diagnosis code of 049.0 during fiscal years 2001–09. Of these patients, 16 received the diagnosis in the Southwest or Southern Plains regions. Fourteen available medical charts from these 2 regions were reviewed, and 4 patients were classified as having signs and symptoms consistent with suspected LCMV infection (Table), although no patients were confirmed by diagnostic testing as having LCMV infection. All 4 suspected cases of LCMV infection were in women (age range 16–43 years) who had a 1–2-day history of headache, nausea, and vomiting. Photophobia and neck or back pain were present in patients 1–3. Cerebrospinal fluid from patients 2–4 had increased leukocyte counts that were lymphocytic.

Table

Clinical features and diagnoses for 14 American Indian patients with an ICD-9-CM diagnosis code of 049.0 (lymphocytic choriomeningitis), Southwest and Southern Plains IHS regions, United States, fiscal years, 2001–09*

The diagnoses of the 10 remaining patients were classified as miscodes because the written diagnoses in the charts did not mention lymphocytic meningitis. Two patients had central nervous system disease (Lyme encephalitis and tuberculosis meningitis) although an etiologic agent was confirmed that was not LCMV. Additional diagnoses mistakenly coded are shown in the Table.

Among the 4 patients identified as having clinical signs and symptoms of suspected LCMV infection in the Southwest and Southern Plains regions during fiscal years 2001–09, the average annual incidence rate was estimated to be 0.06 cases/100,000 persons. In the same population, viral meningitis not otherwise specified was reported for 971 patients (incidence rate 13.69 cases/100,000 persons/year). Unspecified causes of encephalitis, myelitis, or encephalomyelitis were diagnosed for 444 patients (incidence rate 6.26 cases/100,000 persons), and unspecified non-arthropod–borne viral diseases of the central nervous system or viral encephalitis not otherwise specified were diagnosed for 56 patients (incidence rate 0.78 cases/100,000 persons).

Using a population-based analysis of diagnoses for patients who visited the IHS system at least 1 time as an inpatient or outpatient, we found that LCMV-associated aseptic meningitis and encephalitis were infrequently diagnosed and that confirmatory testing was not conducted. We also found that the code for LCMV was used incorrectly for several patients, probably because the virus is named ambiguously, and LCMV could be mistaken for other unrelated diseases with a lympho prefix. In addition, the definition for the code does not specify LCMV infection. We recommend that description of the ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 codes should be adjusted accordingly to clarify and reduce coding errors.

LCMV infection is considered to be underdiagnosed (6,7), although the virus was not detected in several studies that prospectively tested for LCMV in large numbers (>90) of clinical encephalitis or meningitis patients (8–10). Despite infrequently causing aseptic meningitis or mild disease in immunocompetent persons, LCMV has the potential to cause severe disease and should be considered for patients with a compatible illness and potential rodent exposure.


The process of evolution underpins all in biology, directs research and provides a unifying explanation for the history and diversity of life. The study of evolutionary biology draws on many disciplines (from molecular biology to ecology to palaeontology), and has applications in numerous areas, such as medicine, conservation, and agriculture. How then do we use evolution to train university undergraduates in a meaningful way, and what do we want them to learn? There are many aspects of evolution that could be taught at the undergraduate level, and content will vary depending on the course-context. Some basic components include the evidence for evolution, microevolution, speciation and macroevolution. However, teaching evolution offers exciting opportunities to convey more than just content. Evolutionary biology immerses students in the process of science and should encourage them to think critically and to carefully analyse concepts, problems and evidence. It offers students nearing graduation the opportunity to draw together their learning across different areas in biology, asking them to synthesize their thinking and appreciate how problems in evolution can be analysed with multidisciplinary tools. In this paper we argue the importance of teaching evolution and justify its place in the teaching curriculum by providing examples of its wide applications, and by using case studies to illustrate the value of inquiry learning in teaching evolution at all undergraduate levels.


The paper is a record of the panel discussion taking place as part of the conference 'Theatre, Artistic and Research Collectives', organised by the Institute of Theatre and Media Art (Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology, at the Adam Mickiewicz University) in cooperation with the Malta Festival, held on 19 June 2018 in Poznan. The main topic of the discussion concerned possible alternatives to the existing system of organising theatrical life in Europe. Participants discussed historical and contemporary Flemish artistic collectives and their ways of functioning. The conversation also included topics related to the forms of artists' associations, the democratisation of production, funding and values generated by artistic collectives. Another important topic of the conversation was the situation of independent artists and the mechanism of institutional support for artists in the field of performing arts.


The precision of location tracking technology has improved greatly over the last few decades. We aim to show that by tracking the locations of individuals in a closed environment, it is now possible to record the nature and frequency of interactions between them. Further, that it is possible to use such data to predict the way in which an infection will spread throughout such a population, given parameters such as transmission and recovery rates. We accordingly present a software package that is capable of recording and then replaying location data provided by a high-precision location tracking system. The software then employs a combination of SIR modelling and the epidemiological technique of contact tracing in order to predict the spread of an infection. We use this software to conduct a number of experiments using a sample data set, and compare the SIR graphs generated from these to similar graphs generated using the traditional SIR differential equations.


In this paper, I introduce lumpy micro-level capital adjustment into a sticky information general equilibrium model. Lumpy adjustment arises because of inattentiveness in capital investment decisions instead of the more common assumption of non-convex adjustment costs. The model features inattentiveness as the only source of stickiness. I find that the model with lumpy investment yields business cycle dynamics which differ substantially from those of an otherwise identical model with frictionless investment and are much more consistent with the empirical evidence. These results therefore strengthen the case in favour of the relevance of microeconomic investment lumpiness for the business cycle. Keywords: sticky information, general equilibrium, lumpy investment, business cycle JEL classification: D83, E10, E22, E32


Learning to coordinate between multiple agents is an important problem in many reinforcement learning problems. Key to learning to coordinate is exploiting loose couplings, i.e., conditional independences between agents. In this paper we study learning in repeated fully cooperative games, multi-agent multi-armed bandits (MAMABs), in which the expected rewards can be expressed as a coordination graph. We propose multi-agent upper confidence exploration (MAUCE), a new algorithm for MAMABs that exploits loose couplings, which enables us to prove a regret bound that is logarithmic in the number of arm pulls and only linear in the number of agents. We empirically compare MAUCE to sparse cooperative Q-learning, and a state-of-the-art combinatorial bandit approach, and show that it performs much better on a variety of settings, including learning control policies for wind farms.


The argument of J. M. E. McTaggart in 'The Unreality of Time' (Mind 1908) fails logically. There is no A series as such, but there is a shifting past-present-future arrangement within and consistent with the earlier-later B series, past being always earlier, future always later, present always a position earlier or later. An exactly similar logical structure is constructible within the number series, by making each number as one goes up it in turn (it does not matter what 'it', or 'present', means, ontologically). The subsequent argument that past-present-future time falls into contradiction then fails also, and proves to be equivocal.


In 1569, thirty years after its abbey had been dissolved, the large town of Bury St Edmunds remained unincorporated. These accounts show how the feoffees (still essentially the medieval Candlemas guild) experimented with town government. The pre-Reformation landed endowments were increased throughout the period. This enabled the feoffees to address many aspects of town life. In addition to payments for housing and clothing the poor, and the provision of medical care, they also contributed to the cost of providing clergy (whose theology was akin to their own) for the two town churches. To encourage trade, they built the town's first covered Market Cross, while the acquisition of the Shire House enabled the assizes and quarter sessions to move into the town. After the turn of the century, the Charitable Uses Act of 1601 was used to recover land which had long ago been alienated. At the same time some of the up and coming men successfully petitioned for a charter of incorporation for Bury St Edmunds, so that in 1606 the town acquired the borough status which had eluded it for centuries. Unless new sources are discovered, these accounts, though inevitably slanted to the feoffees' activities, are the most revealing source for the work of the new corporation in its early years.


Actinomycetes are a gram-positive, filamentous subgroup of bacteria most known for antibiotic production. In fact, most of the antibiotics available today have originated from actinomycetes, namely from the genus Streptomyces. Novel bacteria with antimicrobial activities have been discovered from bacterial screen studies for decades and there is still much more yet to be unearthed. One hundred seventy five strains of actinomycetes were isolated from 38 different soil samples from different locations in Patna, India. Potential antibiotic producers were screened against four test microorganisms (Escherichia coli MTCC 739, Staphylococcus aureus MTCC 96, Streptomyces lividans TK23 MTCC 4 and Candida albicans MTCC 227). The bioassay revealed that about 26% of actinomycetes isolates were active against at least one of the test microorganism. Characterization of a selected isolate has led to identification of a unique strain of actinomycetes (MP 525) showing broad-spectrum antibacterial and antifungal properties. The strain MP 525 has been morphologically characterized as Streptomyces sp. and deposited at MTCC, Chandigarh, India with accession number 8723. The 16S rRNA gene of the strain Streptomyces sp. US7 MTCC 8723 was sequenced and the DNA sequence was deposited at NCBI, Bethesda (GenBank accession. No. HQ659005). On the basis of λmax values of culture filtrates, it has been suggested that the strain might be producing LL-E19085-like antibacterial and a flavone glycoside-like antifungal antibiotics, which can be further exploited for industrial and biological applications.


Handbook of Biofuels Production, Second Edition, discusses advanced chemical, biochemical, and thermochemical biofuels production routes that are fast being developed to address the global increase in energy usage. Research and development in this field is aimed at improving the quality and environmental impact of biofuels production, as well as the overall efficiency and output of biofuels production plants. The book provides a comprehensive and systematic reference on the range of biomass conversion processes and technology. Key changes for this second edition include increased coverage of emerging feedstocks, including microalgae, more emphasis on by-product valorization for biofuels' production, additional chapters on emerging biofuel production methods, and discussion of the emissions associated with biofuel use in engines. The editorial team is strengthened by the addition of two extra members, and a number of new contributors have been invited to work with authors from the first edition to revise existing chapters, thus offering fresh perspectives. Provides systematic and detailed coverage of the processes and technologies being used for biofuel production Discusses advanced chemical, biochemical, and thermochemical biofuels production routes that are fast being developed to address the global increase in energy usage Reviews the production of both first and second generation biofuels Addresses integrated biofuel production in biorefineries and the use of waste materials as feedstocks


We study the role of social network structure in peer-to-peer educational spillovers by leveraging a two-year field experiment in primary schools in rural Bangladesh. We implement a randomized educational intervention--the provision of free after-school tutoring--offered to a random subsample of students in treatment schools. We exploit the experimentally induced across-classroom variation in the centrality of treated students to provide the first causal evidence of centrality-based spillover effects. We find that a one standard deviation (SD) increase in the average centrality of treated students within a classroom leads to improvements in the test scores of their untreated classmates of 0.57 SD in English and 0.62 SD in math. Further evidence indicates that more central students have higher academic ability, better social skills, and interact more with classmates on matters related to learning, which suggests that they can be more influential for their peers. In addition, we offer the private tutoring intervention to the most central students on a separate group of schools. We find that this targeted approach provides larger educational benefits both for treated and untreated students than the policy that treats a random subset of students. We conclude that targeting the most central students in a network to offer an intervention can be a cost-effective way to improve the educational outcomes of all students in a classroom.


A detailed procedure to learn a nonlinear model together with its first-order derivative data is presented. Two correlated multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural networks providing the model and its first-order derivatives, respectively, are trained simultaneously. Applying this method to FET devices leads to nonlinear models for current and charge fitting derivative parameters. The training data is the bias-dependent equivalent circuit parameters extracted from S-parameter measurements. The resulting models are suitable for both small-signal and large-signal analyses, in particular for intermodulation distortion prediction. Examples for power amplifier simulations of power transfer, efficiency and intermodulation distortion performances are presented.


Lipshitz showed that the diagonal of a D-finite power series is still D-finite, but his proof seems hard to implement. This paper may be regarded as the first step towards an efficient algorithm realizing Lipshitz's theory. We show that the idea of a reduced form may be a big saving for computing the D-finite functional equation. For the residue in one variable of a rational function, we develop an algorithm for computing its minimal algebraic functional equation.


Background and Objectives: Ultrasonography is one of the prenatal diagnostic methods, which is applied to detect any genetic diseases, defects, and anomalies. This study aimed to evaluate the changes in foetal heart rate (FHR) and maternal heart rate due to four-dimensional (4D) ultrasonography immediately after ultrasound imaging. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on the foetus of pregnant women who were referred to the ultrasound clinic for undergoing a (4D) ultrasonography. After filling out the demographic forms, the baseline FHR was measured at the beginning of the 2D and 4D ultrasonography. All haemodynamic parameters were recorded at the end of the combined ultrasound imaging. Data were compared before and after ultrasonography using paired t-test and correlation coefficient in SPSS software. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to adjust the effect of baseline heart rate in foetus and sonography. Results: The mean duration of combined 2D and 4D ultrasound imaging was 1249.8 ± 257 s. Moreover, the mean 4D ultrasound duration was 246.1 ± 83.3. A significant decrease were observed in maternal heart rate following the combined ultrasonography (P < 0.001), while the changes in FHR were not significantly different after the ultrasound imaging (P = 0.394). The ANCOVA showed that sonography was not related factors for change in FHR (β = 0.006, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.011–0.024, P = 0.467) while the base FHR (β = 0.659, 95% CI: 0.482–0.836, P < 0.001) was directly associated with FHR change. Conclusion: The 4D ultrasonography was not effective factor on the FHR and it seems that the ultrasound imaging is a safe diagnostic method for FHR. However, we recommended long-term studies to evaluate the effect of the 4D ultrasound imaging on preterm labour, post-partum complications, and mental problems.


Abstract. Before tree-ring series can be used to quantify climatic influences on growth, ontogenetic and microenvironmental effects must be removed. Existing statistical detrending methods struggle to eliminate bias, caused by the fact that older/larger trees are nearly always more abundantly sampled during the most recent decades – which happens also to have seen the strongest environmental changes. Here we develop a new approach to derive a productivity index (P*) from tree-ring series. The critical stem diameter, when an initial rapid increase in stem radial growth gives way to a gradual decrease, is estimated using a theoretical approximation; previous growth rings are removed from analysis. The subsequent dynamics of stem radial growth are assumed to be determined by: tree diameter and height; P* (gross primary production per unit leaf area, discounted by a "tax" due to the respiration and turnover of leaves and fine roots); and a quantity proportional to sapwood specific respiration (r1). The term r1 depends not only on the growth rate but also on tree height, because a given leaf area requires a greater volume of living sapwood to be maintained in taller trees. Height-diameter relationships were estimated from independent observations. P* values were then estimated from tree ring-width measurements on multiple trees, using a non-linear mixed-effects model in which the random effect of individual tree identity accounts for the impact of local environmental variability, due to soil or hydrological conditions, and canopy position (i.e. shading and competition). Year-by-year P* at a site should then represent the influence of year-by-year changes in environment, independently of the growth trend in individual trees. This approach was applied to tree-ring records from two genera (Picea and Pinus) at 492 sites across the Northern Hemisphere extratropics. Using a multiple linear mixed-effects regression with site as a random effect, it was found that estimated annual P* values for both genera show consistent, temporally stable positive responses of P* to total photosynthetically photon flux density during the growing season (PPFD5) and soil moisture availability (indexed by an estimate of the ratio of actual to potential evapotranspiration). The partial effect of mean temperature during the growing season (mGGD5) however was shown to follow a unimodal curve, being positive in climates with mGGD5


This article investigates the earliest Hebrew rendition of a Shakespearean comedy, Judah Elkind's מוסר סוררה Musar Sorera (The Taming of the Shrew), which was translated directly from the English and published in Berditchev in 1892. Elkind's translation is the only comedy among a small group of pioneering Shakespeare renditions conducted in late nineteenth-century Eastern Europe by adherents of the Jewish Enlightenment movement as part of a strongly ideological initiative to establish a modern European-style literature in Hebrew and reflecting Jewish cultural values at a time when the language was still primarily a written medium on the cusp of its large-scale revernacularization in Palestine. The article examines the ways in which Elkind's employment of a Judaizing translation technique drawing heavily on imagery from prominent biblical intertexts, particularly the Book of Ruth and the Song of Songs, affects the Petruccio and Katherine plotline in the target text. Elkind's use of carefully selected biblical names for the main characters and his conscious insertion of biblical verses well known in Jewish tradition for their romantic connotations serve to transform Petruccio and Katherine into Peretz and Hoglah, the heroes of a distinctly Jewish love story. Hence, examination of Elkind's work offers a unique and intriguing perspective on the translation of Shakespearean comedy.


The subject of this work is the study of the electrochemical promotion of catalysis (EPOC), also called non-Faradaic electrochemical modification of catalytic activity (NEMCA). In this phenomenon, application of small currents or potentials on catalysts in contact with solid electrolytes leads to very pronounced strongly non-Faradaic and reversible changes in catalytic activity and selectivity. This work concerns the system composed of platinum film electrodes, deposited on the YSZ electrolyte (ZrO2 doped with 8% Y2O3), in contact with an oxygen containing atmosphere (the O2(g),Pt/YSZ system). The aim of this work was to focus on two points in the phenomenon of EPOC: 1) The nature of the species present on the surface of the catalyst and their impact on the catalytic activity. 2) The phenomenon of permanent promotion of catalysis (P-EPOC), for which the catalytic rate enhancement is not totally reversible, leading to a long lasting activated state. The Pt electrodes were prepared via three different methods (sputtering, thermal decomposition and screen-printing) and, as expected, the resulting microstructure, observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), was found to depend greatly on the preparation technique. The electrochemical response of each electrode was characterized by the technique of cyclic voltammetry. Due to the occurrence of different site-related electrochemical reactions, the voltammogram shape was highly influenced by the microstructure of the Pt/YSZ contact. Based on the preliminary studies, the cermet electrode was chosen for additional electrochemical experiments, using chronoamperometry, chronopotentiometry, cyclic voltammetry, steady state polarization and impedance spectroscopy. The results of all these techniques suggest that under anodic polarization, two parallel reactions take place. The first reaction is the oxygen evolution, giving rise to a steady state current under a constant applied potential. The other reaction is the oxygen storage (oxygen injection) in the form of Pt-O species. This second process gives rise to a time dependant current under a constant applied potential, and is therefore responsible for the pseudocapacitive behavior of the electrode. Moreover, linear sweep voltammetry measurements indicated that, by application of an anodic potential, at least three types of Pt-O species were stored, following distinct kinetics. Based on the amount of stored Pt-O and on the corresponding storage kinetics, they were attributed to three different locations on the electrode: 1) at the Pt/YSZ interface, 2) diffusing from the tpb toward the Pt/gas interface, 3) diffusing from the Pt/YSZ interface toward the bulk of the platinum electrode. It has been shown that the Pt film exhibited various activity states toward the catalytic oxidation of ethylene, depending on the oxygen species present at its surface. As evidenced by XPS measurements and in agreement with the thermodynamic data for the given system, the inactive (deactivated) state has been attributed to the formation of surface platinum oxide at T > 550°C. Decreasing the reaction temperature to 525°C caused the slow spontaneous reactivation of the catalyst and several days were necessary to reach the active state, where most of the catalyst was present in its metallic state. The catalyst activity recovery could be accelerated by the application of anodic potential pulses. In agreement with the mechanism of EPOC, this was explained by the oxide destabilizing effect of the anodically produced Oδ- species. Anodic polarization also caused reversible electrochemical promotion of catalysis at unusual high temperature (600°C). In addition, very intriguing catalytic relaxation transients were observed after prolonged anodic polarization times. Indeed, it was found that enhanced catalytic activity could be maintained for up to 10 hours after current interruption. Combination of these latter results, the related literature, the state of the art model of EPOC, and the results obtained by electrochemical techniques led to the proposition of an original model based on the processes of Pt-O storage/release at various locations of the O2(g),Pt/YSZ system. According to this model, anodic polarization produces Oδ- back-spillover species, promoting the catalytic activity, in agreement with the mechanism of EPOC. In parallel, hidden oxygen species are stored at the Pt/YSZ interface and diffuse toward the Pt phase. When the polarization is switched off, these hidden oxygen species diffuse to the gas-exposed surface and cause non-Faradaic promotion, as back-spillover Oδ- do. The large amount of stored charge and its slow diffusion controlled emergence causes the rate enhancement to last for hours.


In this reflective piece, the new editors of the historic journal Men and Masculinities explicate how key tenets of Raewyn Connell's scholarship informed their expanded vision of the journal. It begins with a meta-analysis of empirical research published in the journal for the last 20 years, and highlights its emphasis on contemporary scholarship from various disciplines and fields. Each facet of the journal's new vision is relayed thereafter, including its feminist perspective, international focus, and interdisciplinarity. It concludes with efforts by the editors to actualize their vision in the service of broadening the field of gender, boyhood, and masculinity studies.


Abdominal aortic aneurysm is an important cause of death globally, however, its impact is less today than two decades ago due to a decline in AAA mortality. Within the same timeframe changes have occurred to the way that AAA may be treated, for example an increasing use of endovascular surgical techniques. Type II endoleak is one of the most common complication of endovascular aneurysm repair. The sequela of having a type II endoleak is however unknown. My objectives within this thesis were to analyse causes of the decline in aneurysm mortality being seen in many developed countries using data derived from the World Health Organisation and investigate short/medium term outcomes of patients with type II endoleak at a single centre in the United Kingdom. Through these studies I have demonstrated a robust association between trends in established cardiovascular risk factors and mortality from AAA suggesting that a reduction in the global burden of high cholesterol (P=0.0082), hypertension (P=0.028) and smoking (P=0.017) have led to a drop in AAA mortality. Aneurysm rupture in patients with an isolated type II endoleak appears to be rare occurring in less than 1% of all literature reported type II endoleaks and no ruptures were recorded in patients with type II endoleak followed up prospectively. Patients with isolated type II endoleak demonstrate equivalent aneurysm related mortality to those without, however, there is a strong independent association between type II endoleak and 5mm of aneurysm sac expansion (P=0.0001). A conservative strategy to the treatment of type II endoleak appears to be safe and given time isolated type II endoleak appear to have a good chance of spontaneously resolving without the need for invasive intervention. For those patients with type II endoleak and 10mm of aneurysm sac expansion, further research is needed to investigate the risk versus benefit of intervention.


Emotions and the management of emotions have a vital role in sales (Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer 1999; Bande, Fernandez-Ferrin, Varela, & Jaramillo 2015; Kadic-Maglajlic, Micevski, Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, & Lee, 2017; Kidwell, McFarland, & Avila 2007; Mulki, Jaramillo, Goad, & Pesquera, 2015). However, critical affective processes in personal selling and sales management have not yet been studied sufficiently (Erevelles & Fukawa, 2013). To remedy this, the objective of our qualitative study, based on a C.I.T. survey, is to understand and explain the impact of salespeople's emotional labor (i.e., emotion management) on success and failure in sales interactions. Notably, the literature is both sparse and conflicting regarding the impact on sales level of salespeople's emotional labor in interactions with customers. Researchers have found either a positive relationship (e.g., Brotheridge, 2006) or a negative one (e.g., Sutton & Rafaeli, 1988). Furthermore, some researchers claim that authenticity has a greater impact on customers (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002; Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen, & Sideman, 2005; Hennig-Thurau, Groth, Paul, & Gremler, 2006).In the current study, we try to answer the following research questions: Does salespeople's emotion management have an impact on success and failure in sales interactions? What is the impact of salespeople's subjective emotional experience? What role is played by customers' emotional behaviors? We are striving to answer these questions by means of an exploratory and inductive qualitative study concerning 454 salesperson-customer interactions. This C.I.T. study has collected accounts of salespeople's and customers' emotional behaviors during both successful and failed sales interactions, i.e. involving or not a subsequent buying decision (Tang, Seal, & Naumann, 2013; Tang, Seal, Naumann, & Miguel, 2013).


We report on an high power ultra-short pulse regenerative Yb:KLuW amplifier based on the thin disk concept. A maximum pulse energy of 571 microJ was extracted at a repetition rate of 20 kHz. Compression of the output pulses resulted in a pulse duration of 197 fs assuming a deconvolution factor of 2.16. At a repetition rate of 125 kHz a maximum average power of 17.9 W was measured in front of the compressor.


ABSTRACTCode-switching is a language-contact phenomenon in which the juxtaposition of languages is intentional and purposeful. The Kuwaiti speech community has a distinctive code-switching mechanism because of the unique sociolinguistic and cultural setting; as they code-switch to English even though they are neither an immigrant community nor are/were colonised by an English speaking country. In Kuwait, code-switching between Kuwaiti Arabic and English is very common among the youth, even though English is considered to be a foreign language. It is observed that the code-switching behaviour of Kuwaiti bilinguals attending bilingual/multilingual schools differs from that of those attending monolingual schools.In this thesis, an ethnographic study has been conducted to corroborate this observation. Both bilingual/multilingual school students and bilingual students attending monolingual schools were interviewed in order to identify the motivations behind their code-switching behaviour. The interviews were analysed sequentially by adopting the conversational analysis framework. The sequential approach (Auer 1984) focuses on a turn-by-turn participant-oriented analysis (Li Wei 1994) to seek answers to the questions of how and why bilingual speakers code-switch. Here, the different code-switching behaviours of these young Kuwaitis were investigated in an attempt to analyse the conversational functions behind them.Without exception, bilinguals in monolingual schools preferred conversing in Kuwaiti Arabic with a few one-word English insertions here and there, even though free language choice was emphasised at the beginning of each conversation. On the other hand, the language choice of bilingual school students varied from choosing Kuwaiti Arabic or English as the language of conversation to code-switching between the two languages on a continuous basis. Code-switching ranged from English insertions into Kuwaiti Arabic speech or Kuwaiti Arabic insertions into English speech to alternating between the two languages. In addition to the different code-switching styles, various conversational functions behind code-switching were also recognised. In this thesis, code-switching was treated as a contextualisation cue (Gumperz 1982), highlighting the pragmatic functions and contributing to an understanding of the intended meaning. At least five motivations behind code-switching among bilingual school students were identified in our corpus: accommodation, repair, contrastiveness, filling linguistic gaps, and floor holding, among others.


Introduction The Strategic Clinical Network CM SCN has developed a unique clinical pathway for atrial fibrillation (AF) as part of a 3 phase approach to improve outcomes for people with AF or at risk of AF. Phases 1 and 2: promotion of NICE guidance (with audit review) on anticoagulation (AC) and education and support to primary care are complete. The pathway includes key process and outcome measures based on best practice and guidance. This facilitates robust clinical management of AF and reduces associated morbidity and mortality. Clinicians, providers, cardiac networks and commissioning organisations can now measure the validity and effectiveness of clinical interventions across the full pathway of AF-related care in addition to promoting effective collaborative working. Methods The CM SCN identified and brought together an expert panel of clinicians and managers to create the pathway. The experience of the expert panel ranged from public health, primary, secondary and tertiary care and included specialists from general practice, general cardiology, nursing, pharmacy, electrophysiology and interventionists. An independent external facilitator (funded by Boehringer Ingelheim) managed the process and delivered the pathway on time. The pathway was developed by email (Delphi technique) and required three half day meetings. Process and outcome measures were agreed by both clinicians and managers. Aims of the pathway are: Prevention of atrial fibrillation, early detection of atrial fibrillation, treatment of atrial fibrillation in acute and long-term settings, reduction of complications and support at the end of life. There are four sections to the pathway 1) Screening 2) Identification and assessment of AF 3) Initial management 4) Long-term management. Each section contains a flow chart, key points on the purpose, importance and consequence of each section, specific notes on each section and a table with indicators, standards, guidelines and competencies. Conclusion We have shown that it is possible within nine months to produce a comprehensive pathway for people with AF that is measurable, fits within the current NHS landscape and maximises clinicians and managers time effectively. We have educated over 100 clinicians in the use of the pathway to date. We anticipate the this pathway will increase the detection of AF, increase in the number of people with AF treated with effective and appropriate AC, reduce the number of people with AF related stroke and increase support to clinicians, providers and commissioning organisations. We are currently evaluating this pathway over a 24 month period at both general practice and network level using GRASP-AF, CHA2DS2-VASc and other KPIs within the pathway. We anticipate that this pathway will benefit all professional stakeholders involved in AF care but more importantly, improve outcomes for people with AF.


Muslim women in Australia are at the forefront of a culture war, and not necessarily by choice. As visible representatives of Islam, veiled women face discrimination and abuse, and carry the stigma of a culture frequently deemed unacceptable and inferior. Despite these adverse conditions, Muslim women have demonstrated a remarkable resilience by maintaining their presence in the public domain and by continuing to make a positive contribution to Australia. The experiences of Muslim women in Australia cannot be typecast as a sisterhood of oppressed females. Challenging Identities questions the assumption of incompatible 'Australian values' and 'Islamic values', and provides valuable first-person accounts from the lives of Muslim women in Australia.


Two new oligothiophene derivatives of the acceptor–donor–acceptor type, incorporating double rhodanine or 1,3-dimethylpyrimidine-2,4,6(1H,3H,5H)-trione units as the terminal acceptor groups, D2R(8 + 2)7T and DTDMP7T, have been designed and synthesized for solution-processable small molecule BHJ solar cells. The impacts of these different end dye moieties on their optical, electrochemical properties, morphology, mobility and solar cell performance were studied. Both compounds exhibit broad and highly efficient solar absorption with low bandgaps of 1.70 and 1.62 eV for D2R(8 + 2)7T and DTDMP7T, respectively. The D2R(8 + 2)7T and DTDMP7T based BHJ solar cell devices achieved a PCE of 2.46% and 4.05%, respectively, under the illumination of AM.1.5, 100 mW cm−2.


Ice cores at Siple Dome, West Antarctica, receive the majority of their precipitation from Pacific Ocean moisture sources. Pacific climate patterns, particularly the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), affect local temperature, atmospheric circulation, snow accumulation, and water isotope signals at Siple Dome. We examine borehole temperatures, accumulation, and water isotopes from a number of shallow ice cores recovered from a 60 km north–south transect of the dome. The data reveal spatial gradients partly explained by orographic uplift, as well as microclimate effects that are expressed differently on the Pacific and inland flanks. Our analyses suggest that while an ENSO and SAM signal are evident at Siple Dome, differences in microclimate and possible postdepositional movement of snow makes climate reconstruction problematic, a conclusion which should be considered at other West Antarctic coastal dome locations.


This paper develops a perspective of interorganizational relationships based on the concept of exploitation of expertise. Insights from marketing channel theory and resource-based views of the firm are integrated to test the effects of expertise exploitation capabilities in electronic channels. The distinctiveness of this study is based on the role of information and computer technology in creating advantage through differential expertise. A model of IT-induced quasi-integration was developed and tested on a sample of 117 travel agencies targeted by American Airlines using the Sabre system and SMARTS. We find that while the degree of quasi-integration is moderately explained by the Sabre link, it is more significantly explained by American Airlines' use of an expertise exploitation capability using SMARTS. These results show the necessity of extending the theoretical perspectives on IT-induced interorganizational relationships from an efficiency perspective to an expertise point of view.


To the Editor: Brucellosis is a worldwide zoonosis caused by Brucella spp. The 4 species known to infect humans are B. melitensis, B. suis, B. abortus, and B. canis (1). Since 1999, 11 cases in Japan have been reported. Although no bacteria were isolated, serum antibody detection indicated that 4 were caused by B. melitensis or B. abortus acquired abroad and the other 7 by B. canis (2). Of these 7 patients, 2 were presumed to have received their infection from dogs, and the sources of infection for the other 5 are unclear. We report 2 cases of B. canis infection diagnosed by blood culture.

Patient 1 was a 71-year-old male pet shop manager with hypertension. He came to Chubu Rosai Hospital, Nagoya, Japan, on August 9, 2008, after having fever and fatigue for 3 weeks, which were nonresponsive to third-generation cephalosporins. At the time of admission, his temperature was 37.8°C, but physical examination findings were unremarkable. On day 2, gram-negative coccobacilli were detected in a culture of blood collected at the time of admission. Ceftriaxone (1 g 1×/d) was administered, but fever persisted. On day 5, coccobacilli were growing poorly on culture media. Because the patient's history indicated the possibility of a zoonotic disease, doxycycline (100 mg 2×/d) was administered. Thereafter, the patient's fever and generalized symptoms resolved. The blood specimen and isolated bacteria were sent to the National Institute of Infectious Disease, B. canis was identified by combinatorial PCR (3). Serum tube agglutination test indicated an antibody titer against B. canis of 1,280 (Table). On day 10, streptomycin (1 g 1×/d) was added to the treatment regimen. On day 33, the patient was discharged; his laboratory values were almost within reference limits, and he continued taking doxycycline for 6 weeks and streptomycin for 2 weeks.

Table

Laboratory data for 2 patients infected with Brucella canis, Japan, 2008

Patient 2, a previously healthy 44-year-old co-worker of patient 1, exhibited similar signs and symptoms—fever and general fatigue—that started around the same time as for patient 1 (3 weeks before August 9, 2008). Physical examination findings at that time were unremarkable. Blood tests indicated moderate liver dysfunction. Treatment with fosfomycin was not effective. On August 19, the day after the diagnosis of brucellosis was made for patient 1, patient 2 came to Chubu Rosai Hospital, where B. canis was identified from blood culture. Serum antibody titer was 320 (Table). This patient was treated with doxycycline (100 mg 2×/d) plus rifampin (600 mg 1×/d) for 6 weeks. All signs, symptoms, and liver dysfunction resolved.

Neither patient had an immune disorder. About 2 months before illness onset they had each handled, without protection, the placenta of an aborted dog fetus. Negative antibody results were obtained for other persons at risk for infection: laboratory workers who were exposed to the patients' specimens, the patients' families, and a veterinarian who had been stuck by a needle when collecting blood from pet shop dogs to examine for antibody against B. canis. We prescribed doxycycline plus rifampin for 3 laboratory workers because brucellosis is among the most commonly reported laboratory-acquired bacterial infections and because postexposure prophylaxis is recommended for persons at high risk for exposure (4).

Several days after identification of B. canis for patient 1, the dogs in the pet shop (37 dogs, 23 adults and their 14 puppies) were examined for antibody against B. canis by using the microplate agglutination test (5) and for the B. canis–specific gene by combinatorial PCR (3). A total of 6 dogs were positive for antibody (titers 320–5,120) and the specific gene; 5 were positive for antibody only (titers 320–5,120), and 4 were positive for the specific gene only. Only adult dogs had positive results. Blood cultures were positive for 6 dogs that were antibody positive. Dogs that were determined by any method to be infected and their puppies (with negative test results) were euthanized. Since January 2008, a total of 8 puppies from the infected dogs had been sold; they were located, tested, and found to not have antibody against B. canis. The local government reported this information to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, and the ministry shared the information with related organizations.

Caution is necessary when basing diagnosis on serum tube agglutination test because B. canis has rough surface antigen and does not cross-react with B. abortus antigen (smooth Brucella spp.), which is usually used to diagnose brucellosis (1). Furthermore, because brucellosis is relatively rare and signs and symptoms are nonspecific, the number of cases reported is thought to be underestimated (6–8). A recent report showed that 2.5% of dogs in Japan have antibody against B. canis, but adult dogs are rarely seriously ill despite this generalized systemic infection (5,9). Thus, if a febrile person has signs and symptoms of unknown cause and a history of close contact with dogs, brucellosis should be considered and appropriate action to prevent spread of infection should be taken.


According to the conventional wisdom, the likelihood that a country will suffer various forms of political instability rises sharply when economic growth is slow and declines when growth is fast. Although this view is widely held, it has not been subjected to a great deal of careful empirical analysis, and evidence from prior studies does not unambiguously support it. Using statistical models with smoothing splines and multiple lags to allow for nonlinear and dynamic effects, this paper re-examines the relationship between economic growth and various forms of political stability: social unrest, civil-war onset, coups d'etat, and transitions to and from democracy. Some of our findings are surprising. Consistent with the conventional view, we find that the rate of civil protest and the risk of coup attempts in democracies rise during periods of slow economic growth. Contrary to conventional expectations, however, we find that the effects of economic growth on the risks of civil violence, civil-war onset, coup attempts in autocracies, and transitions to and from democracy are nonlinear, and that risks are generally highest during periods of fast, not slow, growth. We also show that GDP growth is a poor predictor of nearly all of these forms of political instability. Taken together, these findings suggest that the effects of short-term economic growth on prospects for political stability are both less powerful and more complex than is widely presumed.


Unlike hot Jupiters or other gas giants, super-Earths are expected to have a wide variety of compositions, ranging from terrestrial bodies like our own to more gaseous planets like Neptune. Observations of transiting systems, which allow us to directly measure planet masses and radii and constrain atmospheric properties, are key to understanding the compositional diversity of the planets in this mass range. Although Kepler has discovered hundreds of transiting super-Earth candidates over the past 4 yr, the majority of these planets orbit stars that are too far away and too faint to allow for detailed atmospheric characterization and reliable mass estimates. Ground-based transit surveys focus on much brighter stars, but most lack the sensitivity to detect planets in this size range. One way to get around the difficulty of finding these smaller planets in transit is to start by choosing targets that are already known to host super-Earth sized bodies detected using the radial velocity (RV) technique. Here we present results from a Spitzer program to observe six of the most favorable RV-detected super-Earth systems, including HD 1461, HD 7924, HD 156668, HIP 57274, and GJ 876. We find no evidence for transits in any of their 4.5 μm flux light curves, and place limits on the allowed transit depths and corresponding planet radii that rule out even the most dense and iron-rich compositions for these objects. We also observed HD 97658, but the observation window was based on a possible ground-based transit detection that was later ruled out; thus the window did not include the predicted time for the transit detection recently made by the Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars space telescope.


This study aims to determine whether administrators' spiritual leadership style predicts school culture according to the perceptions of teachers working at different school levels. The study was carried out according to the correlation survey model used in quantitative research methods. The population of the study consists of 3657 teachers working in primary, secondary, and high schools in the Kartal district of Istanbul in the 2018-2019 academic year. The sample of the study was selected using a simple random sampling method; It consists of a total of 446 teachers working in primary, middle school, and high school levels. The Managerial Spiritual Leadership Perception Scale that was developed by Akinci and Eksi (2017) and The School Culture Scale that was developed by Terzi (2005) were used to collect the data. Data were analyzed by t-test, ANOVA, correlation, and regression analysis. The findings of the study showed that there was a moderate and positive relationship between school culture and the spiritual leadership styles of administrators according to teachers' perceptions. In addition, it was concluded that the spiritual leadership styles of school administrators were a predictor of school culture according to the teachers' perceptions. While significant differences were found between gender and school-level variables in the support culture sub-dimension of the school culture, age and school-level variables in the success culture sub-dimension, age, occupational seniority, and school-level variables in the bureaucratic culture sub-dimension, age and school-level variables in the task culture sub-dimension, there was no difference between the sub-dimension of school culture and educational status. While there was a significant difference in the level of spiritual leadership perceived by teachers according to the school level variable, there was no significant difference according to the variables of gender, educational level, age, and professional seniority.According to the results of the research, some suggestions were developed.


Athens, 404 BC. The Democratic city-state has been ravaged by a long and bloody war with neighbouring Sparta. The search for scapegoats begins and Athens, liberty's beacon in the ancient world, turns its sword on its own way of life. Civil war and much bloodshed ensue. Defining moments of Greek history, culture, politics, religion and identity are debated ferociously in Athenian board rooms, back streets and battlefields. By 323 BC, less than 100 years later, Athens and the rest of Greece, not to mention a large part of the known world, has come under the control of an absolute monarch, a master of self-publicity and a model for despots for millennia to come: 'megas alexandros', Alexander the Great. Michael Scott, Finley Fellow in Ancient History at Darwin College, Cambridge, explores the dramatic and little-known story of how the ancient world was turned on its head from Democratic Athens to King Alexander the Great in this superb example of popular history writing. "From Democrats to Kings" also gives us a fresh take on the similar challenges we face today in the 21st century - a world in which many democracies - old and new - fight for survival, in which war-time and peace-time have become indistinguishable and in which the severity of the economic crisis is only matched by a crisis in our own sense of self.


Recently, high-power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have attracted great attention on the study and made remarkable progress. In this paper, method for enhancing uniform white light of a multi-chip white light LED by adding silicon dioxides in the phosphor layer is presented. Firstly, theory of study by using Mie theory and Monte Carlo ray-tracing is proposed. And then simulation and experimental results by using package LightTools software are performed. The experimental results and theory have the same direction: 1) the angular color temperature in narrow angles is much higher than that in wider angles for the non-SiO2 case and 2) in significantly reducing CCT deviation of a multi-chip white light LED by adding silicon dioxides in the phosphor layer. Keyword: Color uniformity, multi-chip white light LEDs, phosphor, silicon dioxide


Introduction. Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a rare neurodegenerative disease, occasionally late onset, whose prevalence is underestimated especially in the geriatric population. The initial symptoms can be confused with some psychiatric disorders, such as depression, so the differential diagnosis may require careful investigations. Here we report the case of a 75 years old patient presenting with severe anxiety symptoms, initial social withdrawal and mild cognitive impairment. Materials and methods. Longitudinal observational clinical study of 3 years. The patient underwent three successive cognitive assessments that included the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and a battery of neuropsychological tests, imaging studies of the brain with a computer tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) and genetic analysis of a few possible mutations involved in FTD (C9ORF72, progranulin). Results. The results after the first visit showed a picture of non amnesic single cognitive domain (dysexecutive) Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) associated with anxious-depressive symptomatology. The initial neuroimaging demonstrated fronto-temporal cortical atrophy with mild enlargement of the frontal horns of the lateral ventricles, and moderate glucose hypometabolism of bilateral prefrontal cortex. Genetic tests were instead negative. These data were suggestive of a diagnosis of prodromal FTD. However, in the three years follow-up, following a treatment with paroxetine the patient completely resolved her depressive symptoms, and in parallel she did not worsen her cognitive status nor developed behavioural disorders. Therefore we concluded for a depressive disorder and we diminished our suspects for a prodromal dementia.


While keyword query empowers ordinary users to search vast amount of data, the ambiguity of keyword query makes it difficult to effectively answer keyword queries, especially for short and vague keyword queries. To address this challenging problem, in this paper we propose an approach that automatically diversifies XML keyword search based on its different contexts in the XML data. Given a short and vague keyword query and XML data to be searched, we first derive keyword search candidates of the query by a simple feature selection model. And then, we design an effective XML keyword search diversification model to measure the quality of each candidate. After that, two efficient algorithms are proposed to incrementally compute top-k qualified query candidates as the diversified search intentions. Two selection criteria are targeted: the k selected query candidates are most relevant to the given query while they have to cover maximal number of distinct results. At last, a comprehensive evaluation on real and synthetic data sets demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed diversification model and the efficiency of our algorithms


Objective: To determine the definite and potential frequency of seizures and epilepsy as a cause of death (COD) and how often this goes unrecognized. Methods: Prospective determination of seizures or epilepsy and final COD for individuals aged 18–90 years with out-of-hospital sudden cardiac deaths (SCDs) from the population-based San Francisco POST SCD Study. We compared prospective seizure or epilepsy diagnosis and final COD as adjudicated by a multidisciplinary committee (pathologists, electrophysiologists, and a vascular neurologist) vs retrospective adjudication by 2 epileptologists with expertise in seizure-related mortality. Results: Of 541 SCDs identified during the 37-month study period (mean age 62.8 years, 69% men), 525 (97%) were autopsied; 39/525 (7.4%) had seizures or epilepsy (mean age: 58 years, range: 27–92; 67% men), comprising 17% of 231 nonarrhythmic sudden deaths. The multidisciplinary team identified 15 cases of epilepsy, 6 sudden unexpected deaths in epilepsy (SUDEPs), and no deaths related to acute symptomatic seizures. The epileptologists identified 25 cases of epilepsy and 8 definite SUDEPs, 10 possible SUDEPs, and 5 potential cases of acute symptomatic seizures as a COD. Conclusions: Among the 25 patients identified with epilepsy by the epileptologists, they found definite or possible SUDEP in 72% (18/25) vs 24% (6/25) by the multidisciplinary group (6/15 cases they identified with epilepsy). The epileptologists identified acute symptomatic seizures as a potential COD in 5/14 patients with alcohol-related seizures. Epilepsy is underdiagnosed among decedents. Among patients with seizures and epilepsy who die suddenly, seizures and SUDEP often go unrecognized as a potential or definite COD.


The Final Project has been developed in the framework of the ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission [1], during the development of Pre-Commissioning and Commissioning phases. The first steps of this work were in September 2009 with the Remote Sensing Laboratory group of TSC (Theory of Signal and Communications Department) at UPC [2]. One of the main objectives of any mission is to obtain and provide stable and accurate final products. So, a well-calibrated instrument provides the basis for stable and accurate measurements. The calibration of any Earth Observation sensor is a key stage which encompasses those tasks which are necessary to convert the raw measurement data into science data. The characterization of the instrument is a requirement for the development of the calibration activities. Characterization consists of the measurement of the typical behavior of instrument performances, including subsystems, which may affect the accuracy or quality of its response or derived data. The aim of this Final Project is to perform a comprehensive temperature sensitivity analysis of the instrument that is the SMOS payload. To do this, it is necessary to characterize the Power Measurement System (PMS) included in each receiver over the physical temperature. Additionally, the correlation phase related to the Local Oscillator (LO) located in each segment of the instrument is also analyzed. PMS calibration parameters (gain and offset) and the correlation phase (LO phase) are planned to be periodically updated during the mission to account for possible instrumental drifts. These parameters are tracked, initially on-ground and after in orbit, during the measurement mode using their respective corrections to remove physical temperature drifts.


A textbook that teaches students to read and write proofs using Athena. Proof is the primary vehicle for knowledge generation in mathematics. In computer science, proof has found an additional use: verifying that a particular system (or component, or algorithm) has certain desirable properties. This book teaches students how to read and write proofs using Athena, a freely downloadable computer language. Athena proofs are machine-checkable and written in an intuitive natural-deduction style. The book contains more than 300 exercises, most with full solutions. By putting proofs into practice, it demonstrates the fundamental role of logic and proof in computer science as no other existing text does. Guided by examples and exercises, students are quickly immersed in the most useful high-level proof methods, including equational reasoning, several forms of induction, case analysis, proof by contradiction, and abstraction/specialization. The book includes auxiliary material on SAT and SMT solving, automated theorem proving, and logic programming. The book can be used by upper undergraduate or graduate computer science students with a basic level of programming and mathematical experience. Professional programmers, practitioners of formal methods, and researchers in logic-related branches of computer science will find it a valuable reference.


This paper demonstrates the effect of an innovative community-based management programme on acute malnutrition among children under three years of age, through an observational longitudinal cohort study in tribal blocks in central-eastern India. The key components of the programme include child care through creches, community mobilisation and systems strengthening to ensure better child feeding and caring practices and delivery of public health and nutrition services. For a cohort of 587 children, the increase in children in the non-wasting category is from 72% to 80% (p<0.001) and the reduction in Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) from 8% to 4% (p<0.005), a reduction of 46.6%. Normalcy is fairly well maintained at 89%. Among the severely wasted, 16% show no improvement, 49% moved into a moderate wasting category and 36% to normalcy over 4-6 months. Among the moderately wasted, 26% showed no improvement and 7% declined to a severely wasted category, and 67% moved to normalcy. The average Weight for Height Z-score (WHZ) for the cohort improved from -1.41 in the initial period to -1.13 in November (p<0.0001). This study suggests that this medium term strategy using a rights-based participatory approach for community based management of malnutrition may be comparatively effective by current WHO guidelines and other known community based interventions in terms of mortality, cost, degree and pace of improvements.


Objective To examine the association between ethnicity and survival following acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in White European (WE) and South Asian (SA) patients from a multiethnic UK population. Methods Retrospective, cohort study of 4111 (N=730, 17.8% of SA ethnicity) hospitalised patients, with AMI from a tertiary coronary care centre in the UK, admitted between October 2002 and September 2008. The primary end point was all-cause mortality. The association of ethnicity with survival post AMI was assessed using the Cox regression analysis. Results Compared with WE patients, SA patients were on average younger (62.0 years vs 67.3 years) and had higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors including diabetes (39.7% vs 16.1%). During follow-up (median 912, range 1–2556, days), crude mortality rate was 22.6% in SA patients and 26.0% in WE patients (p=0.061). SA ethnicity did not show univariate (HR 0.85 (0.72 to 1.01)) or multivariate (HR, 1.12 (0.94 to 1.34)) association with mortality. Findings were similar for mortality during 0–30 days (1.30 (0.99 to 1.70)), >30 days−1 year (0.97 (0.67 to 1.40)), >1 year–3 years (1.21 (0.83 to 1.76)), >3 years (0.82 (0.47 to 1.41)), and for long-term mortality in survivors from 30 days (1.02 (0.81 to 1.29)). Conclusions When adjusted for differing prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in the two ethnic groups, survival following AMI was similar for SA and WE patients in the UK.


The citizen science paradigm and the practices related to it have for the last decade called a wide attention, beyond academics, in many application fields with as a result a significant impact on discipline-specific research processes and on information sciences as such. Indeed, in the specific context of minor heritage (tangible and intangible cultural heritage assets that are left aside from large official heritage programs), citizen-birthed contributions appear as a major opportunity in the harvesting and enrichment of data sets (notwithstanding data quality and heterogeneity issues). In parallel, it seems we have today reached a moment when the acquisition and analysis of spatio-historical information appears "easier" since citizens are seen as potential (and legitimate) sensors. But is it really "easier"? And if so, at what cost? Having a closer look on practical challenges behind the curtain can avoid turning the above mentioned opportunity into a lost one. In this contribution we present a research initiative that aims at better circumscribing the difficulties one has to foresee when wanting to harvest and visualize pieces of data on minor heritage collections, and then to derive from them spatial, temporal, and thematic knowledge. The contribution focuses on three aspects: a short analysis of citizen contributions in the context of minor heritage, a description of the case study and of the data modeling bottlenecks we are facing, and an exemplification of the visual analysis solutions we experiment in order to portray and question our understanding of collections. The case study acts as a test bench helping to investigate data harvesting and modeling challenges, as well as potential added-value of the visualization step.


When the days turn hot, or when you're looking for that perfectly refreshing and light dessert or snack, ice pops are a natural, as are slushies, granitas, frozen yogurt, ice cream, shakes, floats, and more. In Icy, Creamy, Healthy, Sweet author Christine Chitnis has you covered. With 75 recipes for a full range of frozen sweets, you'll find healthy treats that use fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs, that are free of refined sugars, and that include vegan and dairy-free options. The results are flavorful, unique, refreshing, and healthy—making the whole experience a little sweeter.


This paper traces the evolution of thinking about the technical concept of the end-to-end principle and the legal concept of the regulation of the flow of packets across the Internet. We focus on the manner in which the state, in concert with private parties, has approached the tension between restricting the flow of certain packets and vindicating their citizens' interests, legal and otherwise, in free expression. We argue that the primary mode of legal regulation on the Internet has shifted from a focus on outlawing activities at the nodes—end-points in the network—to a growing emphasis on regulating closer to the middle of the network. This trend is, on its face, good for the law enforcement officer but worrisome to the technologist and the democratic activist: the end-to-end principle, held dear for decades by those who built the Internet, is under threat. In the process, this shift also places corporations, often based in jurisdictions beyond those in which they are doing business, in the position of enforcing the rules of the regime in which they are doing business, but whose views on free expression and other civil liberties the corporations' officers and directors do not share. We argue that the end-to-end principle, once translated loosely into political speak as "net neutrality," is a forceful rhetorical concept - and, if done right, sound public policy - but that it no longer describes Internet on the ground, if it ever did.


Owing to the long-time collaborations with the students/postdocs/professors from Philippines since I was an exchange student in Instrumentation Physics Laboratory (headed by Prof. Caesar Saloma), NIP, UPD in 1998-1999, tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) has been successfully developed in the various environments such as ambient, liquid, and low temperature (UHV-LT). The spatial resolution and the sensitivity of TERS has been proven to achieve sub-nanometer and single molecule level, respectively. Based on our prediction in 2006, TERS in UHV-LT achieved even the atomistic spatial resolution that visualized the interior of the single molecule.
While TERS and the related techniques showed the unprecedented resolution in space, the resolution in time has been very poor. This fact opened up the second opportunity to reinforce the collaboration with Filipino scientists in the field of THz science. In this presentation, we will introduce our challenge towards ultrafast time resolution up to sub-picosecond based on the combination between scanning probe microscopy and THz spectroscopy.


This article discusses multiple perceptions and views about policy in Malaysian education policy which aims for achieving national integration in a multicultural setting. The discussion in this article is based on the policy research about Malaysian education policy and ethnicity issues that continue to be an important aspect in Malaysian education policy process aimed at achieving integration through the education means. Using a quasi-historical and a qualitative research approach, eleven Malaysian participants across different ethnic and professional backgrounds who have been involved directly and indirectly in the production of Malaysian education policy were interviewed using semi-structured interview method. Based on the interview data gained from the interview with these individuals, this research shows that Malaysian plural society remains in a contested landscape in ideology and aspiration of building a united and harmonious Malaysian nation.

 Key words: Educational policy, ethnicity, ethnic arithmetic, national integration


Can an artist claim that an object is a work of art if it has been made for him or her by someone else? If so, who is the author of such a work? And just what is the difference between a work of art and a work of craft? In the first book of its kind, Michael Petry tackles these questions head on, exploring the concepts of authorship, artistic originality, skill, craftsmanship and the creative act, and highlighting the vital role that skills from craft and industrial production play in creating some of todays most innovative and highly sought-after works of contemporary art. "The Art of Not Making" includes artworks by Grayson Perry, Ai Weiwei, Matthew Barney, Chris Burden and Louise Bourgeois alongside original interviews with craftsmen who explore how the collaboration with a skilled maker results in objects that are exquisitely made and finished.


Detecting events such as major routing changes or congestions in the dynamics of the internet topology is an important but challenging task. We explore here a top-down approach based on a notion of statistically significant events. It consists in identifying statistics which exhibit a homogeneous distribution with outliers, which correspond to events. We apply this approach to ego-centerd measurements of the internet topology (views obtained from a single monitor) and show that it succeeds in detecting meaningful events. Finally, we give some hints for the interpretation of such events in terms of network events.


While the concept 'Romantic nationalism' is becoming widespread, its current usage tends to compound the vagueness inherent in its two constituent terms, Romanticism and nationalism. In order to come to a more focused understanding of the concept, this article surveys a wide sample of Romantically inflected nationalist activities and practices, and nationalistically inflected cultural productions and reflections of Romantic vintage, drawn from various media (literature, music, the arts, critical and historical writing) and from different countries. On that basis, it is argued that something which can legitimately be called 'Romantic nationalism' indeed took shape Europe-wide between 1800 and 1850. A dense and intricately connected node of concerns and exchanges, it affected different countries, cultural fields, and media, and as such it takes up a distinct position alongside political and post-Enlightenment nationalism on the one hand, and the less politically-charged manifestations of Romanticism on the other. A possible definition is suggested by way of the conclusion: Romantic nationalism is the celebration of the nation (defined by its language, history, and cultural character) as an inspiring ideal for artistic expression; and the instrumentalization of that expression in ways of raising the political consciousness.


Folding of the earth's crust, wrinkling of the skin, rippling of fruits, vegetables and leaves are all examples of natural structures that can have periodic buckling. Periodic buckling is also present in engineering structures such as compressed lattices, cylinders, thin films, stretchable electronics, tissues, etc., and the question is to understand how wave propagation is affected by such media. These structures possess geometrical nonlinearities and intrinsic dispersive sources, two conditions which are necessary to the formation of stable, nonlinear waves called solitary waves. These waves are particular since dispersive effects are balanced by nonlinear ones, such that the wave characteristics remain constant during the propagation, without any decay or modification in the shape. It is the goal of this thesis to demonstrate that solitary waves can propagate in periodic buckled structures. This manuscript focuses specifically on periodically buckled beams that require either guided or pinned supports for stability purposes. Buckling is initially considered statically and investigations are made on stability, role played by imperfections, shape of the deflection, etc. Linear dispersion is analyzed employing the semi-analytical dispersion equation, a new method that relates the frequency explicitly to the propagation constant of the acoustic branch. This allows the quantification of the different dispersive sources and it is found that in addition to periodicity, transverse inertial and coupling effects are playing a dominant role. Modeling the system by a mass-spring chain that accounts for additional dispersive sources, homogenization and asymptotic procedures lead to the double-dispersion Boussinesq equation. Varying the pre-compression level and the support type, the main result of this thesis is to show that four different waves are possible, namely compressive supersonic, rarefaction (tension) supersonic, compressive subsonic and rarefaction subsonic solitary waves. For high-amplitude waves, models based on strongly-nonlinear PDEs as the one modeling wave propagation in granular media (Hertz power law) are more appropriate and adaptation of existing work is done. Analytical model results are then compared to finite-element simulations of the structure and experiments, and are found in excellent agreement. In this thesis, in addition to the semi-analytical dispersion equation, two other new methods are proposed. For periodic structures by translation with additional glide symmetries (e.g. buckled beams), Bloch theorem is revisited and allows the use of a smaller unit cell. Advantages are dispersion curves easier to interpret and computational cost reduced. Finally, the last contribution of this thesis is the use of NURBS-based isogeometric analysis (IGA) to solve the extensible-elastica problem requiring at least C1-continuous basis functions, which was not possible before with classical finite-element methods. The formulation is found efficient to solve dynamic problems involving slender beams as buckling.


This study examines the use of instant messaging (IM) for student-teacher communication in distance education (DE) courses. IM is a simple Internet communication tool that may reduce the sources of dissatisfaction cited by many DE students and improve their performance, perception of the amount of information learned, and satisfaction with a class. As a relatively synchronous communication tool, IM may reduce the DE student's sense of social isolation, mediate quality interactions with the instructor, reduce the DE student's perception of the dissimilarity between the DE course and the traditional course, and facilitate instructor immediacy behaviors. A quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate whether IM is associated with these improvements. The results suggest that DE students who use IM to communicate with their instructor performed better and perceived IM to be higher in social presence than those students who used only asynchronous communication tools such as email.


The Emu-myc transgenic mouse has provided a valuable model for the study of B-cell lymphoma. Making use of gene expression analysis and, in particular, expression signatures of cell signaling pathway activation, we now show that several forms of B lymphoma can be identified in the Emu-myc mice associated with time of tumor onset. Furthermore, one form of Emu-myc tumor with pre-B character is shown to resemble human Burkitt lymphoma, whereas others exhibit more differentiated B-cell characteristics and show similarity with human diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in the pattern of gene expression, as well as oncogenic pathway activation. Importantly, we show that signatures of oncogenic pathway activity provide further dissection of the spectrum of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, identifying a subset of patients who have very poor prognosis and could benefit from more aggressive or novel therapeutic strategies. Taken together, these studies provide insight into the complexity of the oncogenic process and a novel strategy for dissecting the heterogeneity of B lymphoma.


Preface. Contributors. Water Quality Control. Acid Mine Drainage-Extent and Character. The Control of Algal Populations in Eutrophic Water Bodies. Arsenic Compounds in Water. Arsenic Health Effects. Background Concentration of Pollutants. Waterborne Bacteria. Water Assessment and Criteria. Physiological Biomarkers and the Trondheim Biomonitoring System. Biomarkers, Bioindicators, and the Trondheim Biomonitoring System. Active Biomonitoring (ABM) by Translocation of Bivalve Molluscs. Biochemical Oxygen Demand and Other Organic Pollution Measures. Biodegradation. Bioluminescent Biosensors for Toxicity Testing. Biomanipulation. Genomic Technologies in Biomonitoring. Macrophytes as Biomonitors of Trace Metals. Biosorption of Toxic Metals. Bromide Influence on Trihalomethane and Haloacetic Acid Formation. Activated Carbon: Ion Exchange and Adsorption Properties. Activated Carbon-Powdered. Chlorination. Chlorination By-Products. Classification and Environmental Quality Assessment in Aquatic Environments. Coagulation and Flocculation in Practice. Colloids and Dissolved Organics: Role in Membrane and Depth Filtration. Column Experiments in Saturated Porous Media Studying Contaminant Transport. Cytochrome P450 Monooxygenase as an Indicator of PCB/Dioxin-Like Compounds in Fish. Water Related Diseases. Dishwashing Water Quality Properties. Disinfection By-Product Precursor Removal from Natural Waters. Alternative Disinfection Practices and Future Directions for Disinfection By-Product Minimization. Water Quality Aspects of Dredged Sediment Management. The Economics of Water Quality. Understanding Escherichia Coli O157:H7 and the Need for Rapid Detection in Water. Eutrophication and Organic Loading. Trace Element Contamination in Groundwater of District Hardwar, Uttaranchal, India. Iron Bacteria. Cartridge Filters for Iron Removal. Irrigation Water Quality in Areas Adjoining River Yamuna At Delhi, India. Water Sampling and Laboratory Safety. Municipal Solid Waste Landfills-Water Quality Issues. Land Use Effects on Water Quality. Monitoring Lipophilic Contaminants in the Aquatic Environment using the SPMD-TOX Paradigm. Use of Luminescent Bacteria and the Lux Genes For Determination of Water Quality. Water Quality Management. Water Quality Management and Nonpoint Source Control. Water Quality Management in an Urban Landscape. Water Quality Management in the U.S.: History of Water Regulation. Water Quality Management in a Forested Landscape. Trace Metal Speciation. Metal Ion Humic Colloid Interaction. Heavy Metal Uptake Rates Among Sediment Dwelling Organisms. Methemoglobinemia. Microbial Activities Management. Microbial Dynamics of Biofilms. Microbial Enzyme Assays for Detecting Heavy Metal Toxicity. Microbial Forms in Biofouling Events. Microbiological Quality Control in Distribution Systems. Water Quality Models for Developing Soil Management Practices. Water Quality Modeling-Case Studies. Field Sampling and Monitoring of Contaminants. Water Quality Models: Chemical Principles. Water Quality Models: Mathematical Framework. Environmental Applications with Submitochondrial Particles. Interest in the Use of an Electronic Nose for Field Monitoring of Odors in the Environment. Oil-Field Brine. Oil Pollution. Indicator Organisms. pH. Perchloroethylene (PCE) Removal. A Primer on Water Quality. Overview of Analytical Methods of Water Analyses With Specific Reference to EPA Methods for Priority Pollutant Analysis. Source-Water Protection. Protozoa in Water. Water Quality. Water Quality. Emerging and Recalcitrant Compounds in Groundwater. Road Salt. Review of River Water Quality Modeling Software Tools. River Water Quality Calibration. Salmonella: Monitoring and Detection in Drinking Water. Lysimeter Soil Water Sampling. Regulatory and Security Requirements for Potable Water. A Weight of Evidence Approach to Characterize Sediment Quality Using Laboratory and Field Assays: An Example For Spanish Coasts. Remediation and Bioremediation of Selenium-Contaminated Waters. Shellfish Growing Water Classification. Sorptive Filtration. Quality of Water in Storage. Quality of Water Supplies. The Submitochondrial Particle Assay as a Biological Monitoring Tool. Microscale Test Relationships to Responses to Toxicants in Natural Systems. Toxicity Identification Evaluation. Whole Effluent Toxicity Controls. Development and Application of Sediment Toxicity Tests for Regulatory Purposes. Algal Toxins in Water. Ground Water Quality in Areas Adjoining River Yamuna at Delhi, India. Chlorine Residual. Source Water Quality Management. Dose-Response of Mussels to Chlorine. Metallothioneins as Indicators of Trace Metal Pollution. Amphipod Sediment Toxicity Tests. Ciliated Protists as Test Organisms in Toxicity Assessment. SOFIE: An Optimized Approach for Exposure Tests and Sediment Assays. Passive Treatment of Acid Mine Drainage (Wetlands). Biomarkers and Bioaccumulation: Two Lines of Evidence to Assess Sediment Quality. Lead and its Health Effects. Microbial Detection of Various Pollutants as an Early System for Monitoring of Water Quality and Ecological Integrity of Natural Resources, in Russia. Luminescent Bacterial Biosensors for the Rapid Detection of Toxicants. Development and Application of Sediment. Toxicity Test for Regulatory Purposes. Water Resource Development and Management. Water Resources Challenges in the Arab World. Effluent Water Regulations in Arid Lands. California-Continually the Nation's Leader in Water Use. Lessons from the Rising Caspian. Institutional Aspects of Water Management in China. Will Water Scarcity Limit China's Agricultural Potential? Water and Coastal Resources. Water Use Conservation and Efficiency. Conservation of Water. The Development of American Water Resources: Planners, Politicians, and Constitutional Interpretation. Water Markets: Transaction Costs and Institutional Options. Averting Water Disputes. Water Supply and Water Resources: Distribution System Research. Drought in the Dust Bowl Years. Drought Management Planning. Drought and Water Supply Management. Assessment of Ecological Effects in Water-Limited Environments. Reaching Out: Public Education and Community Involvement in Groundwater Protection. Integration of Environmental Impacts into Water Resources Planning. The Expansion of Federal Water Projects. Flood Control History in the Netherlands. Food and Water in an Emergency. Water Demand Forecasting. Remote Sensing and GIS Application in Water Resources. Globalization of Water. Water Science Glossary of Terms. Harvesting Rainwater. Urban Water Resource and Management in Asia: Ho Chi Minh City. Hydropower-Energy from Moving Water. Water Markets in India: Economic and Institutional Aspects. Water Resources of India. Water Infrastructure and Systems. Overview and Trends in the International Water Market. Best Management Practices for Water Resources. Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Management of Water Resources for Drought Conditions. Water Resources Management. NASA Helping to Understand Water Flow in the West. Transboundary Water Conflicts in the Nile Basin. Planning and Managing Water Infrastructure. Application of the Precautionary Principle to Water Science. Water Pricing. Spot Prices, Option Prices, and Water Markets. Water Managed in the Public Trust. Water Recycling and Reuse: The Environmental Benefits. State and Regional Water Supply. River Basin Decisions Support Systems. Water Resource Sustainability: Concepts and Practices. The Provision of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries. Sustainable Management of Natural Resources. Sustainable Water Management On Mediterranean Islands: Research and Education. Meeting Water Needs in Developing Countries with Tradable Rights. Water Use in the United States. How We Use Water in These United States. Valuing Water Resources. Water-Here, There, and Everywhere in Canada. Water Conservation-Every Drop Counts in Canada. Ecoregions: A Spatial Framework for Environmental Management. Flood of Portals on Water. Fuzzy Criteria for Water Resources Systems Performance Evaluation. Participatory Multicriteria Flood Management. Water Resources Systems Analysis. Index.


The efficacy of the entry price policy in the European fresh fruits and vegetables sector is not well understood. We investigate econometrically the efficacy of the import policy. The analysis estimates a threshold vector autoregressive model using data on imports the main competing country on the European Union domestic markets. Our results allow concluding on the insulating effects induced by the entry price system. We argue that the quota restrictions are likely to provide larger contribution to the domestic market stabilization. Policy implications are provided.


A review and comparison of design procedures for binary-phase and multiphase Fourier gratings used as array generators is presented. Grating structures include one- and two-dimensional binary-phase Dammann gratings, general binary-phase gratings, quarternary-phase Dammann gratings, and kinoforms for which coherent and incoherent designs are considered. One coherent method of design is that due to Dammann, which involves the solution of a set of N nonlinear equations in N unknowns. Although Dammann's method generates little error, it does not permit the explicit maximization of diffraction efficiency. To increase diffraction efficiency, Dammann's method is modified such that diffraction efficiency is a design parameter. To ensure the existence of a grating that has high diffraction and generates the desired source array, the number of grating parameters are increased, and an incoherent design is considered. Simulated annealing is applied to the solution of this problem. Examples of grating design using the different techniques are presented.


David Lodge's first full-length play examines that curious fixture in the writing game where the amateurs met the professionals - on a course in creative writing. Maude, author of nine bestsellers, and Simon, with one sensational success to his name, are veterans of this particular course: Leo, a campus-based American novelist astounded by the dilettante approach of the English, is the odd man out. The idea is to put the students under pressure, but in the converted barn that houses the tutors, professional and sexual tensions, past slights and current rivalries rapidly build to a fierce head of steam. Out of these pressures, David Lodge distils a sharply observed comedy of the problems and preoccupations of the writer as the professionals, striving to explain to enthusiastic beginners how to do it, are forced to confront an altogether trickier question: why on earth do they themselves write in the first place? Delicately probing, nimbly parodic, uncomfortably on target, Lodge's incisive study of writers at work and at odds will bring the pleasure of recognition to all readers of fiction - and to most of those in the game.


During domestication, the dog( Canis familiaris), have become skilful in understanding human communication and also in communicating with humans. The wolf ( Canis lupus), is not as skilled with this interspecific communication. When dogs are faced with an unsolvable problem, they seek help from human by e.g. gazing at them. This behaviour has been studied and both age and breed group differences have been showed. In this study, we presented dogs with a task that consisted of a solvable and unsolvable problem in order to see if they gazed at their owner and/or an unfamiliar person for help. Although we did not find any difference in breed groups regarding gazing at humans, we did find that adult dogs (dogs older than 2 years) gazed more frequently at their owner and for a longer duration than adolescent dogs (6 months to 2 years). This may be because the adult dogs have more experience of this communication with humans, as they have lived longer with them. These findings empathize the bond between a dog and its owner that seems to grow stronger during the dogs' life.


A numerical technique based on the mode-matching method with a smoothing procedure is presented for analyzing the diffraction of electromagnetic waves by a grating. The general algorithm for the problem of an arbitrarily shaped periodic surface is described taking the case of H polarization. To show the validity of this algorithm, plane-wave diffraction by a triangular grating is analyzed, and the results are compared with those obtained by the conventional mode-matching method. It is demonstrated that the sequence of approximate solutions calculated by the algorithm presented in this paper converges to the true solution much faster than the sequence produced by the conventional mode-matching method. Some numerical examples on the efficiency are presented.


BACKGROUND
A "taller-than-wide" shape is associated with thyroid malignancy, but taller-than-wide in which plane is most accurate is unclear. We determined in which ultrasonography (US) plane a taller-than-wide shape is most predictive of malignancy.

METHODS
A total of 471 thyroid nodules from 435 patients were studied. The final diagnosis was based on histopathology in 145 nodules in 120 patients, and cytology in the remaining patients. A taller-than-wide shape was defined as a ratio of ≥1, calculated by dividing the anteroposterior diameter by the transverse diameter. Three criteria were formulated as follows: criterion 1, a taller-than-wide in any plane as a suspicious feature; criterion 2, that in the transverse plane; criterion 3, that in the longitudinal plane. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (Az) were compared among the three criteria.

RESULT
Of the 471 lesions, 125 (26.5%) were classified as malignant, and 346 (73.5%) were classified as benign. Criterion 1 showed high sensitivity (68%) and negative predictive value (87.7%), whereas criteria 2 and 3 showed high specificity (83.5% and 94.5%, respectively). The Az vale of criterion 1 was significantly higher than criteria 2 and 3 (p values = 0.0061 and 0.0362, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
A taller-than-wide shape was a useful US feature for predicting thyroid malignancy. Criterion 1, a taller-than-wide shape in either transverse or longitudinal plane, was most accurate and sensitive for predicting thyroid malignancy among the three criteria.


While factories across the Midwest shutter their doors, Cleveland-based manufacturer Lincoln Electric has thrived for more than a century. In addition to being profitable and technologically innovative, through good times and bad, the company has fulfilled its unique promise of guaranteed continuous employment. Workers are viewed as assetsnot liabilities. Through flexible hours and job assignments, as well as a merit-based bonus system, Lincoln Electrics employment policies have proven healthy for the companys bottom line its employees and its shareholders. In Spark, veteran journalist Frank Koller tells the story of how this unusual and profitable Fortune 1000 multinational company challenges the conventional wisdom shaping modern managements view of the workplace. Through insightful storytelling and extensive interviews with executives, workers, and leading business thinkers, Koller uses the Lincoln Electric example to illustrate how job security can inspire powerful growth and prosperity in our communities.