COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is the most frequent form of chronic respiratory disease. During the progress of this disease, phases of aggravation of pulmonary function (exacerbations) can occur, which reduce the quality of life. Clinical experience shows that single investigations are insufficient. Therefore a prolonged monitoring is required to recognize an exacerbation early. This home monitoring will involve a quick respiratory test and a related application for Android, iOS and Windows phones. This rapid test transmits the relevant pulmonary parameters, converted in an Extensible Markup Language file to the smartphone. The application will analyze the incoming data to evaluate the current health status of the patient. Additionally the data will be transferred to the virtual control point (server) and stored in a database. If critical values are detected, the server will send a notification to prior defined relatives and doctors. A connection to a Hospital Information System will be possible through an included Health Level 7 interface. This offers an improved site-independent patient care. The project is planned to be in development until 2016.


Gill is an animal rights scientist and writer who specialises in non-animal alternatives to animal research and testing. From 1981 to 2008 she was the science director of the Dr Hadwen Trust, a medical research charity funding health research without using animals. Gill has been a member of the British government's Animal Procedures Committee, and has worked as a consultant for the European Commission and for animal protection organisations in Europe and the United States. She is currently Senior Science Advisor to Humane Society International.


Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has handed down a series of rulings that demonstrate the degree to which the First Amendment can be used to thwart economic and social welfare regulation—generating widespread accusations that the Court has created a "new Lochner." This introduction to the Columbia Law Review's Symposium on Free Expression in an Age of Inequality takes up three questions raised by these developments: Why has First Amendment law become such a prominent site for struggles over socioeconomic inequality? Does the First Amendment tradition contain egalitarian elements that could be recovered? And what might a more egalitarian First Amendment look like today?
After describing the phenomenon of First Amendment Lochnerism, we trace its origins to the collapse of the early twentieth-century "progressive" model of civil libertarianism, which offered a relatively statist, collectivist, and labor-oriented vision of civil liberties law. The recent eruption of First Amendment Lochnerism is also bound up with transformations in the economic and regulatory environment associated with the advent of "informational capitalism" and the "information state." First Amendment Lochernism may reflect contemporary judicial politics, but it has deep roots.
To figure out how to respond to the egalitarian anxieties besetting the First Amendment, it is natural to consult normative theories of free speech. Yet on account of their depoliticization and abstraction, the canonical theories prove indeterminate when confronted by these anxieties. Instead, it is a series of midlevel conceptual and jurisprudential moves that most often do the work of resisting First Amendment Lochnerism. This grammar of free speech egalitarianism, we suggest, enables the creative elaboration of a few basic motifs concerning the scope and severity of judicial enforcement, the identification and reconciliation of competing speech interests, and the quality and accessibility of the overall expressive system. If First Amendment Lochnerism is to be countered in any concerted fashion, the roadmap for reform will be found within this grammar; where it gives out, a new language may become necessary.


Importance Checkpoint inhibitors have replaced docetaxel as the new standard second-line therapy in advanced non–small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), but little is known about the potential predictive value of clinical and molecular characteristics. Objective To estimate the relative efficacy of checkpoint inhibitor vs docetaxel overall and in subgroups defined by clinicopathological characteristics. Data Sources This systematic review and meta-analysis searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for randomized clinical trials published in the English language between January 1, 1996, and January 30, 2017. Study Selection Randomized clinical trials that compared a checkpoint inhibitor (nivolumab, pembrolizumab, or atezolizumab) with docetaxel. For each trial included in this study, the trial name, year of publication or conference presentation, patients' clinicopathological characteristics, type of chemotherapy, and type of checkpoint inhibitor were extracted. Data collection for this study took place from February 1 to March 31, 2017. Data Extraction and Synthesis Two reviewers performed study selection, data abstraction, and risk of bias assessment. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% CIs for the overall population and subgroups were extracted. Pooled treatment estimates were calculated using the inverse-variance-weighted method. Results In total, 5 trials involving 3025 patients with advanced NSCLC were included in this meta-analysis. These patients were randomized to receive a checkpoint inhibitor (nivolumab, 427 [14.1%]; pembrolizumab, 691 [22.8%]; or atezolizumab, 569 [18.8%]) or docetaxel (1338 [44.2%]). Checkpoint inhibitors were associated with prolonged overall survival, compared with docetaxel (HR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.63-0.75; P < .001). They prolonged overall survival in the EGFR wild-type subgroup (HR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.60-0.75; P < .001), but not in the EGFR mutant subgroup (HR, 1.11; 95% CI, 0.80-1.53; P = .54; interaction, P = .005), and they prolonged overall survival in the KRAS mutant subgroup (HR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.44-0.97; P = .03) but not in the KRAS wild-type subgroup (HR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.67-1.11; P = .24; interaction, P = .24). The relative treatment benefits were similar according to smoking status (never smokers [HR, 0.79] vs ever smokers [HR, 0.69]; interaction, P = .40), performance status (0 [HR, 0.69] vs 1 [HR, 0.68]; interaction, P = .85), age (<65 years [HR, 0.71] vs ≥65 years [HR, 0.69]; interaction, P = .74), histology (squamous [HR, 0.67] vs nonsquamous [HR, 0.70]; interaction, P = .71), or sex (male [HR, 0.69] vs female [HR, 0.70]; interaction, P = .82). Conclusion and Relevance Checkpoint inhibitors, compared with docetaxel, are associated with significantly prolong overall survival in second-line therapy in NSCLC. The finding of no overall survival benefit for patients with EGFR mutant tumors suggests that checkpoint inhibitors should be considered only after other effective therapies have been exhausted. The findings of this meta-analysis could also assist in the design and interpretation of future trials and in economic analyses.


We identify near-infrared Ks-band counterparts to Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) submillimetre (submm) sources, using a preliminary object catalogue from the VISTA Kilo-degree Infrared Galaxy (VIKING) survey. The submm sources are selected from the H-ATLAS Phase 1 catalogue of the Galaxy and Mass Assembly 9-h field, which includes all objects detected at 250, 350 or inline image with the instrument. We apply and discuss a likelihood ratio method for VIKING candidates within a search radius of 10 arcsec of the 22 000 SPIRE sources with a 5σ detection at inline image. We estimate the fraction of SPIRE sources with a counterpart above the magnitude limit of the VIKING survey to be Q0≈ 0.73. We find that 11 294 (51 per cent) of the SPIRE sources have a best VIKING counterpart with a reliability R≥ 0.8, and the false identification rate of these is estimated to be 4.2 per cent. We expect to miss ∼5 per cent of true VIKING counterparts. There is evidence from Z−J and J−Ks colours that the reliable counterparts to SPIRE galaxies are marginally redder than the field population. We obtain photometric redshifts for ∼68 per cent of all (non-stellar) VIKING candidates with a median redshift of inline image. We have spectroscopic redshifts for 3147 (∼28 per cent) of the reliable counterparts from existing redshift surveys. Comparing to the results of the optical identifications supplied with the Phase 1 catalogue, we find that the use of medium-deep near-infrared data improves the identification rate of reliable counterparts from 36 to 51 per cent.


We study the color reproduction of full-color metallic-ink images. Full-color metallic-ink images are prints whose contributing colorants are exclusively made of colored metallic inks. Due to the presence of metallic particles, metallic inks show a metal-like luster. These particles are opaque and hide the underlying ink or substrate. In order to obtain predictable halftone colors, we need a juxtaposed halftoning method to create halftone dots of different colors side by side without overlapping. Juxtaposed halftoning invalidates many assumptions generally made for the color reproduction workflow. For printing metallic-ink images, one needs a color separation system creating surface coverages for the 8 metallic inks that correspond to the 8 Neugebauer primaries. For this purpose, we introduce a simple and fast method for N-color separation that relies either on Demichel's or on a variant of Kueppers' ink-to-colorant separations. Thanks to a unique set of ink-to-colorant formulas, pseudo-CMY ink values are separated into amounts of printable colorants. We also describe color separation procedures that are able to optimize different properties of the resulting metallic-ink images.


For over twenty-five years, the Armed Career Criminal Act has produced inconsistent results and has taxed judicial economy perhaps more than any other federal sentencing mechanism. This recidivist sentencing enhancement is meant to punish habitual criminals based on their numerous past crimes, but the Supreme Court's application of the Act too often allows habitual criminals to escape the intended enhancement on a legal technicality. This comes as a result of the Court's categorical approach, which punishes habitual criminal offenders based on the statutory elements of their past crimes rather than the conduct of their past crimes.
In an effort to find solutions for this ailing doctrine, this Article analyzes how states have structured their own recidivist sentencing laws to avoid the same problems wreaking havoc in the federal courts. Of all the state approaches, a conduct-based approach is most promising because of its practical application and ideological consistency. Moreover, the many roadblocks articulated by the Court over the years that have supposedly prevented it from taking a conduct-based approach are overcome after considering the constitutional and practical sentencing landscape.


Unilateral versus Bilateral Lower-body Resistance and Plyometric Training for Change of Direction Speed

Change of direction (COD) speed can be considered a key element in sports performance and as such research has considered multiple ways to improve COD performance. It has been shown that unilateral training produces greater muscle activation of the hip abductors than bilateral training, which in turn, are hypothesised to be significantly activated in change of direction movements. The aims of the present study were to compare progressive unilateral and bilateral lower body resistance and plyometric training on COD and linear speed performance. Fifteen collegiate male rugby players were randomly assigned to either unilateral (UNI; n=8) or bilateral (BIL; n=7) training groups. Both groups trained twice per week for 6 weeks, performing either UNI or BIL strength and plyometric exercises. Pre- and post-intervention testing included T- and Illinois agility tests, and 10m sprint. Data analysis revealed significantly greater improvements in absolute change in favour of the UNI group for T-test (p<0.05; UNI = -0.63 ± 0.36 seconds; BIL = -0.11 ± 0.03 seconds) and Illinois agility test (p=0.050; UNI = -0.80 ± 0.25 seconds; BIL = -0.50 ± 0.06 seconds). A significantly greater improvement in absolute change for the 10m sprint test was found for the BIL group (p=0.007; UNI = 0.01 ± 0.12 seconds; BIL = -0.07 ± 0.04 seconds).


Abstract The set of thermodynamic properties of high-temperature, weakly nonideal Flinabe (LiF-NaF-BeF2) gas is calculated and presented. High-temperature Flinabe gases (plasmas) appear in the inertial fusion energy chamber over a wide range of temperatures and pressures due to the absorption of X-rays and debris, emitted from the target microexplosion, within a very thin surface layer of the Flinabe liquid wall. The equation-of-state (EOS) and ionization equilibrium data of the resulting high-temperature gas were computed and are presented in another paper. In this paper, the set of thermodynamic properties (specific enthalpy, specific heats, adiabatic exponent, and sound speed) that are required, in conjunction with the Flinabe EOS, to perform gas dynamics calculations and the required assessments of many research and development issues in nuclear fusion is modeled and computed consistently with the previously presented EOS and ionization equilibrium data. This set of Flinabe thermodynamic properties is missed in the literature, and the need to model and estimate these properties seems to be immediate rather than justifiable. Computational results for Flinabe thermodynamic properties are presented and discussed. These properties have been presented as a set of isobars that have been validated by obtaining the limiting conditions at very high temperatures for a fully dissociated/fully ionized gas.


Under the "loss of use" doctrine, unlike under common law, a plaintiffs right to compensation for their loss of use of chattel for the duration between the time of damage and when a substitute can be attained, is recognized. This Note traces the evolution of this progression, the problems it poses for courts, and analyzes the underlying reasons for this trend. It discusses a split between the Second and Third Department of the New York Courts on whether such compensation should be given in instances when the plaintiff had their own substitute item, e.g. a replacement vehicle after an auto accident, and was thus not required to, and in fact did not, have any out-of-pocket expense in procuring their replacement. Ultimately, this Note concludes that under the land use doctrine a court should not refrain from awarding damages to a plaintiff who has their own replacement available and urges for uniformity on this issue in the New York Courts. LOSS OF USE DAMAGES FOR INJURIES TO INTERESTS IN COMMERCIAL CHATTELS


In October 1992, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that that state could not forcibly medicate condemned, mentally ill prisoners to make them competent to be executed. State v. Perry has been seen as a victory for psychiatrists, but the decision contains bad news as well as good: although the Court extricated psychiatrists from having to medicate convicts involuntarily in preparation for their execution, the Court justified its decision by invoking a distortion-filled, highly critical interpretation of standard psychiatric treatment for psychoses. This article summarizes the Perry case and the Court's opinion, describes the perceptions of antipsychotic medication that animated the majority's legal conclusions, and reviews subsequent decisions in which Perry has been influential. The article suggests that Perry's description of pharmacotherapy may not have been motivated by a reasoned view of neuroleptic therapy so much as the Court's desire to uphold the institution of capital punishment. By studying the Perry majority's opinion, psychiatrists can appreciate how certain characterizations or descriptions of psychotic symptoms and antipsychotic therapy lend themselves to distortion and misunderstanding by legal decisionmakers. Recently developed conceptions of schizophrenic symptoms and pharmacological therapy may provide psychiatrists with sophisticated modes of explanation that courts will find more difficult to misconstrue or misrepresent.


Datasets for training machine learning models tend to be biased unless the data is collected with complete care. In such a biased dataset, models are susceptible to making predictions based on the biased features of the data. The biased model fails to generalize to the case where correlations between biases and targets are shifted. To mitigate this, we propose Bias-Contrastive (BiasCon) loss based on the contrastive learning framework, which effectively leverages the knowledge of bias labels. We further suggest Bias-Balanced (BiasBal) regression which trains the classification model toward the data distribution with balanced target-bias correlation. Furthermore, we propose Soft Bias-Contrastive (SoftCon) loss which handles the dataset without bias labels by softening the pair assignment of the BiasCon loss based on the distance in the feature space of the bias-capturing model. Our experiments show that our proposed methods significantly improve previous debiasing methods in various realistic datasets.


A specially designed quartz liner effectively prevents alloying problems with noble-metal capsules during hydrothermal experiments at elevated pressures and temperatures. The liner consists of three pieces: a cylindrical container made of a single quartz crystal, a SiO 2 glass plug, and a rounded closure lid made of a single quartz crystal. Soon after the final pressure and temperature have been reached, recrystallisation of the SiO 2 glass plug causes the quartz cap to be tightly sealed onto the quartz container, thus producing a quartz capsule that fully isolates the charge from the surrounding noble-metal capsule. The efficiency of the method is demonstrated on experiments with Cu and S (±Fe, Ag)-bearing, NaCl-H 2 O dominated fluids, which are complicated by the fact that all commonly used noble metals (and -alloys) react with either of these elements. Even small amounts of added Ag are still present after the run, showing that interaction with outer gold capsules was minimal. The new method makes it also possible to study chemical systems involving compounds with low melting points, such as Sn, Bi, Te, Tl, and Hg, and it allows the surrounding noble-metal capsules to be replaced by capsules made of non-noble materials if necessary. A disadvantage of the method is that it cannot be used in conjunction with external f O 2 buffers, as the fluid inclusions form before equilibrium with respect to an external f O 2 buffer is reached.


The Gharb plain is one of the richest areas in surface water. This wealth promotes great biodiversity of aquatic and aerial fauna,especially theDiptera Culicidae insects. Unfortunately, many species of these flies are harmful by their bites and by their possibility of transmitting diseases to humans and animals. So, the knowledge the ecology of these insects is useful for any fight against pests. In this work we are interested in studying the influence of the main physico-chemical factors in the ecology of larvae of 13 species of Culicidae which were harvested in ten major hydro-systems located in the Gharb plain and the urban areas of both cities Rabat - Sale (Morocco). The results showed that the water temperature, pH, conductivity, total alkalinity, its calcium and magnesia hardness, its degree of oxidizability, the concentrations in water of chlorides, nitrates and nitrites all combine their influences to determine their effects favorable, or unfavorable, on the development and the geographical distribution of species. Thus, for a given environment, if the physico-chemical conditions are known, we could deduce the potential systematic structure of the settlement in Culicidae Diptera of this environment.


A mathematical model is presented to simulate water and solute transport in a highly viscous fluid with a water-permeable, elastic immersed membrane. In this model, fluid motion is described by Stokes flow, whereas water fluxes across the membrane are driven by transmural pressure and solute concentration differences. The elastic forces, arising from the membrane being distorted from its relaxed configuration, and the transmembrane water fluxes introduce into model solutions discontinuities across the membrane. Such discontinuities are faithfully captured using a second-order explicit jump method [A. Mayo, SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 21 (1984), pp. 285-299], in which jumps in the solution and its derivatives are incorporated into a finite-difference scheme. Numerical results suggest that the method exhibits desirable volume accuracy and mass conservation.


In the pattern recognition domain, deep architectures are currently widely used and they have achieved fine results. However, these deep architectures make particular demands, especially in terms of their requirement for big datasets and GPU. Aiming to gain better results without deep networks, we propose a simplified algorithm framework using fusion features extracted from the salient areas of faces. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm has achieved a better result than some deep architectures. For extracting more effective features, this paper firstly defines the salient areas on the faces. This paper normalizes the salient areas of the same location in the faces to the same size; therefore, it can extracts more similar features from different subjects. LBP and HOG features are extracted from the salient areas, fusion features' dimensions are reduced by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and we apply several classifiers to classify the six basic expressions at once. This paper proposes a salient areas definitude method which uses peak expressions frames compared with neutral faces. This paper also proposes and applies the idea of normalizing the salient areas to align the specific areas which express the different expressions. As a result, the salient areas found from different subjects are the same size. In addition, the gamma correction method is firstly applied on LBP features in our algorithm framework which improves our recognition rates significantly. By applying this algorithm framework, our research has gained state-of-the-art performances on CK+ database and JAFFE database.


Objectives
Nutrition during pregnancy alters the "re-set" of maternal metabolism and in turn the mother's metabolic phenotype later in life. Folic acid (FA, synthetic folate) consumed at intakes above requirements during pregnancy by rats leads to increased weight gain and altered DNA methylation in central and peripheral pathways regulating food intake. The objectives of this study were to examine the effects of intakes below and above FA dietary requirements on the re-set of energy metabolic pathways in Wistar rat mothers early post-birth.

Methods
Pregnant Wistar rats (n = 12/group) were fed an AIN93G diet with 5 levels of FA: 0X, 1X (control, 2 mg FA/kg), 2.5X, 5X or 10X. Dams were fed 1X-FA during lactation up to 1-week post-weaning (PW) when maternal metabolism is thought to re-set to homeostasis and then terminated. Weekly body weight, food intake, expression of hypothalamic food-intake neurons, mRNA and protein expression of folate-related and energy metabolic genes, and glucoregulatory hormones were measured. The homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was used as a surrogate index of insulin resistance.

Results
Below (0X) and above (5X and 10X) FA requirements during pregnancy suppressed expression of hepatic folate metabolism (methyltetrahydrofolate (MTHF) reductase, and methionine synthase; P < 0.05) genes and led to higher 5-MTHF (P < 0.005) in blood compared to control suggesting dysregulation of 1-carbon pathways. Dams fed 0X- and 5X-FA also had higher plasma insulin and HOMA-IR than controls and changes in glucose and lipid metabolism-regulating genes in muscle (Glucose transporter-4, and Peroxisome-proliferator activated receptors; P < 0.05) but not liver or adipose at 1-week PW. The diets did not affect expression of hypothalamic food intake neurons nor body weight or food intake of the dams from birth to 1-week PW.

Conclusions
FA below (0X) or above (5X, 10X) requirements during pregnancy induce dysregulation of 1-carbon pathways and delay re-set of energy metabolic pathways in Wistar rat dams by 4-weeks after birth, potentially programming long-term negative metabolic effects.

Funding Sources
This research was supported by: Canadian Institute of Health Research, Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes (CIHR-INMD); EP supported by NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarships-Doctoral Program (CGS D).


Merger control exists to help safeguard effective competition. However, findings from a natural experiment suggest that regulatory merger control reduces the profitability of corporate acquisitions. Uncertainty about merger control decisions reduces takeover threats from foreign and very large acquirers, therefore facilitating agency-motivated deals. Valuation effects are more pronounced in countries with stronger law enforcement and in more concentrated industries. Our results suggest that competition policy may impede the efficiency of the M&A market.


Template synthesis is a powerful and useful approach to build a variety of functional materials and complicated supramolecular systems. Systematic study on how templates structurally evolve from basic building blocks and then affect the templated self-assembly is critical to understand the underlying mechanism and gain more guidance for designed assembly but remains challenging. Here we describe the templated self-assembly of a series of gigantic Mo Blue (MB) clusters 1-4 using L-ornithine as structure-directing agent. L-ornithine is essential for the formation of such kind of template⊂host assemblies by providing directional forces of hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. Based on the structural relationship between encapsulated templates of {Mo8} (1), {Mo17} (2) and {Mo36} (4), a plausible pathway of the structural evolution of templates is proposed, thus giving more insight on the templated self-assembly of Mo Blue clusters.


The media landscape has changed dramatically in recent decades, from one predominated by traditional mass communication formats to today's more personalized network environment. Mobile communication plays a central role in this transition, with adoption rates that surpass even those of the Internet. This essay argues that the widespread diffusion and use of mobile telephony is iconic of a shift toward a new 'personal communication society', evidenced by several key areas of social change, including symbolic meaning of the technology, new forms of coordination and social networking, personalization of public spaces, and the mobile youth culture. The conclusion speculates on future trends in the sociotechnological climate. Like the television in the 1950s and the Internet in the 1990s, mobile telephony has emerged as one of the defining communication technologies of our time (Castells et al. 2007). Mobile subscriptions are well into the billions worldwide and growing (International Telecommunication Union 2007). Not surprisingly, the burgeoning adoption and use of mobile communication technology contributes to a host of social consequences, including new representations of the self, new forms of social connection, and private use of public space. The purpose of this essay is to consider some key areas of social change resulting from the widespread adoption and use of mobile telephony, while theoretically situating them in the dynamic relationship between technology and society. Drawing from Marshall McLuhan, Manuel Castells, and others, we argue that the social changes that come out of mobile communication mark a distinctive step in the progression from the age of traditional mass media to a new personal communication society. McLuhan (1962, 1964) argued that characteristics of communication technologies shape cognition and social organization. Accordingly, the development of print moved society into a visual age, while television, radio, and film helped move us into a mass age. This line of reasoning is succinctly captured by McLuhan's (in)famous assertion that 'The medium is the message'. During the mass age of the middle twentieth century, 372 The Rise of Personal Communication Society © 2008 The Authors Sociology Compass 2/2 (2008): 371–387, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00080.x Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd mediated communications were characteristically one-way transmissions, broadcast from media institutions to the public at large. Relative to today's communications environment, media consumption during the mass age involved little human agency and little personalized content. More recently, Manuel Castells developed a theory of equal ambition about networked flows of information. According to Castells (2000), information and communication technologies of the 1980s and 1990s nourished a shift in social organization characterized by decentralized, flexible, network nodes based on shared interests rather than shared geographic space. Similar to McLuhan's characterization of the mass age, Castells described this pervasive shift in social order as the rise of a new network society (2000). In fact, Castells explicitly invoked McLuhan by asserting, 'The network is the message' (2001). It is important to note that while McLuhan attributed social change to the development and use of technologies, Castells did not. Instead, he argued that changes in communication technologies nourish changes in social order rooted in preexisting social conditions. Castells explained, 'My thesis is that the rise of the informational, global economy is characterized by the development of a new organizational logic which is related to the current process of technological change, but not dependent upon it' (2000, 164). Despite their differing views on technological determinism, one can draw a theoretical parallel between McLuhan and Castells in that both use communication technologies as a framework for understanding society, because, in a sense, they are characteristic of social order. This is not to suggest that technologies determine society, but that they can serve as a lens for examining how social order is produced and reproduced through systems of communication. The present article draws from and extends this line of thinking by arguing that we have entered a new personal age of communication technologies. That is, the communication technologies predominant in today's society, particularly mobile telephony, are characteristically personal in nature. Furthermore, the personal nature of technologies such as mobile telephony serves as a useful framework for understanding the social consequences that come out of their adoption and use. Unlike the progression from McLuhan's mass age to Castells's network age, today's personal age is not a radical departure from its predecessor, but rather a natural extension of it. This is to say that the age of personal communication technologies, exemplified by the widespread adoption and use of mobile telephony, is a nuance and accession of the network society of the 1990s. That said, personal communication technologies are distinctive from other network technologies (e.g. the computer) in that they are often worn on body, highly individualized, and regarded as extensions of the self. It has been said that they make us individually addressable regardless of where we are (Ling forthcoming). We argue here that this shift toward an age where personal communication devices are predominant gives rise


In The Dirty Game, investigative reporter and BBC Panorama presenter Andrew Jennings, who has been heralded around the world for his decade-long pursuit of this story, uncovers the eye-watering level of fraud and criminal activity at the heart of FIFA, which has been described as the biggest sporting scandal of the century. From Blatter to Blazer, from bribery to embezzlement, Jennings reveals the key protagonists, crimes and evidence he handed to the FBI which led to the arrests of FIFA executive and the resignation of Sepp Blatter. Written in a gripping narrative, and based on years of research and never-before-seen documents, this is the definitive portrait of the downfall of FIFA, and the men who stole football.


Computations of irregular primes and associated cyclotomic invariants were extended to all primes up to 12 million using multisectioning/convolution methods and a novel approach which originated in the study of Stickelberger codes Shokrollahi (1996). The latter idea reduces the problem to that of finding zeros of a polynomial overFpof degree < (p? 1)/2 among the quadratic nonresidues mod p. Use of fast polynomial gcd-algorithms gives anO (p log2p loglog p)-algorithm for this task. A more efficient algorithm, with comparable asymptotic running time, can be obtained by using Schonhage?Strassen integer multiplication techniques and fast multiple polynomial evaluation algorithms; this approach is particularly efficient when run on primes p for whichp? 1 has small prime factors. We also give some improvements on previous implementations for verifying the Kummer?Vandiver conjecture and for computing the cyclotomic invariants of a prime.


ducers will be afforded by a decline in maintenance and repair work, for as much of this will be deferred throughout the whole economy as is possible. At the same time, the production of automobiles, electrical appliances, and most other consumer durable goods—even including furniture—will of necessity have to be either virtually eliminated or seriously curtailed. Neither the materials, the machinery, nor the necessary manpower can eventually be made available for such output. Production of nondurables in all likelihood will be lower in the aggregate than during 1941. Wool supplies will be reduced, and this will possibly be the case with leather. Cotton and rayon output can be stepped up only to a limited extent, and silk goods production will largely be extinct. Pulp and paper output may decline slightly in the aggregate, and wide changes will occur in the relative importance of the various types and grades. On the other hand, chemical production is to expand very markedly, while the output of manufactured foods should also be increased. Insofar as the total of all industrial output is concerned, the net result of these various changes will be a further advance. Supply considerations are the only limiting factor. At present, raw material shortages and inadequate plant capacity for finished armaments retard the production advance as a whole. But the ultimate limit to output is furnished by the labor force. This—as shown in the discussion on labor—can support a further increase in aggregate production while supporting a large expansion of the armed forces.


In A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People, David Boarder Giles explores the ways in which capitalism simultaneously manufactures waste and scarcity. Illustrating how communities of marginalized people and discarded things gather and cultivate political possibilities, Giles documents the work of Food Not Bombs (FNB), a global movement of grassroots soup kitchens that recover wasted grocery surpluses and redistribute them to those in need. He explores FNB's urban contexts: the global cities in which late-capitalist economies and unsustainable consumption precipitate excess, inequality, food waste, and hunger. Beginning in urban dumpsters, Giles traces the logic by which perfectly edible commodities are nonetheless thrown out—an act that manufactures food scarcity—to the social order of "world-class" cities, the pathways of discarded food as it circulates through the FNB kitchen, and the anticapitalist political movements the kitchen represents. Describing the mutual entanglement of global capitalism and anticapitalist transgression, Giles captures those emergent forms of generosity, solidarity, and resistance that spring from the global city's marginalized residents.


Kjersti Lohne closes out our special section on post-truth with a personal political reflection on the challenges that beset scholars engaging with the world in the post-truth era. She reflects on the challenges of researching and teaching about international criminal justice and military tribunals in an age when the very idea of universality is, like truth, under attack from all sides. What once seemed critical and emancipatory, laying out the challenge to universal claims about humanity and law, now appears part of the corrosive common sense of our era of 'alternative facts'. But we can't simply forget our critical insights, can we? Lohne reveals how this tension creates 'moments of awkwardness' when engaging through both research and teaching.


Requirements analysis is a process of analyzing requirements of various stakeholders that represents a specification of system behaviour that must be stated precisely to proceed to the design phase. It is noted that the current process of requirements analysis is not sufficient to identify and represent the existence of multiple stakeholders which could lead to various conflicts and overlapping requirements. Furthermore, the involvement of various stakeholders normally leads to inconsistencies and misinterpretation of requirements. In this study, the goal modelling representation has been improvised and named as role-based goal modelling. The role-based goal modelling highlights each stakeholder's role identification in discovering the intentions and requirements of various stakeholders including the integration of data elements in order to determine the dependency of data when dealing with multiple stakeholders. Labour Management System (LMS) owned by Gates IT Solution Sdn Bhd is selected as a case study with participation of different stakeholders. Yet, no standard evaluation method can be used to measure and compare our improved goal modelling with the previous work. Thus, NIMSAD evaluation framework is proposed to compare the effectiveness of our solution with other solutions. In the expected result, this evaluation provides a gap analysis in goal modelling solution. Furthermore, the proposed method could facilitate the process of analyzing and prioritizing requirements from multiple stakeholders in the early stages of the software development process.


Aim: Techniques that predict species potential distributions by combining observed occurrence records with environmental variables show much potential for application across a range of biogeographical analyses. Some of the most promising applications relate to species for which occurrence records are scarce, due to cryptic habits, locally restricted distributions or low sampling effort. However, the minimum sample sizes required to yield useful predictions remain difficult to determine. Here we developed and tested a novel jackknife validation approach to assess the ability to predict species occurrence when fewer than 25 occurrence records are available. Location: Madagascar. Methods: Models were developed and evaluated for 13 species of secretive leaf-tailed geckos (Uroplatus spp.) that are endemic to Madagascar, for which available sample sizes range from 4 to 23 occurrence localities (at 1 km2 grid resolution). Predictions were based on 20 environmental data layers and were generated using two modelling approaches: a method based on the principle of maximum entropy (Maxent) and a genetic algorithm (GARP). Results: We found high success rates and statistical significance in jackknife tests with sample sizes as low as five when the Maxent model was applied. Results for GARP at very low sample sizes (less than c. 10) were less good. When sample sizes were experimentally reduced for those species with the most records, variability among predictions using different combinations of localities demonstrated that models were greatly influenced by exactly which observations were included. Main conclusions: We emphasize that models developed using this approach with small sample sizes should be interpreted as identifying regions that have similar environmental conditions to where the species is known to occur, and not as predicting actual limits to the range of a species. The jackknife validation approach proposed here enables assessment of the predictive ability of models built using very small sample sizes, although use of this test with larger sample sizes may lead to overoptimistic estimates of predictive power. Our analyses demonstrate that geographical predictions developed from small numbers of occurrence records may be of great value, for example in targeting field surveys to accelerate the discovery of unknown populations and species. © 2007 The Authors.


Nearest-neighbor distribution functions characterize the probability of finding a nearest neighbor at some given distance from a reference point in systems of interacting particles and are of fundamental importance in a variety of problems in the physical and biological sciences. We extend the formalism of Torquato, Lu, and Rubinstein [Phys. Rev. A 41, 2059 (1990)] for identical spheres to obtain exact series representation of nearest-neighbor functions (void and particle probability densities) and closely related quantities for systems of interacting D-dimensional spheres with a polydispersivity in size. Polydispersivity constitutes a basic feature of the structure of random systems of particles and leads to a wider choice of possible definitions for nearest-neighbor functions. The most relevant definition for a polydispersed system of particles involves the ``nearest particle surface'' rather than the ``nearest particle center'' and thus we refer to them as ``nearest-surface distribution functions.'' For the special cases of D-dimensional hard and overlapping spheres, we obtain analytical expressions for the nearest-surface functions that are accurate for a wide range of sphere concentrations. Employing these results, we are able to compute the corresponding mean nearest-surface distances for polydispersed hard spheres. Finally, we determine the nearest-surface functions for bidispersed systems from Monte Carlo computer simulations and find that our theoretical results are in very good agreement with the data.


This paper presents a modified instantaneous power control of D-STATCOM for enhancement of steady state performances of the system. Power factor and harmonic content of a controlled feeder section are two vital roles in steadystate power distribution system operation. The conventional power control in single-phase or threephase circuits has been defined on the basis of the average value concept for sinusoidal voltage and current waveforms in steady states. The instantaneous power is defined on the basis of the instantaneous value concept for arbitrary voltage and current waveforms, including transient states. The proposed control strategy has been introduced in order to enhance some steady state performances. Utilizing an already installed D-STATCOM to achieve these additional objectives can maximize the overall system performances. In this paper, a control scheme with constant power and sinusoidal current compensation is exploited. In order to correct the power factor, a power factor control loop is required and therefore included in the control block. The system is evaluated with MATLAB/SIMULINK software.


Abstract The Caribbean islands harbor rich biodiversity with high levels of single island endemism. Stretches of ocean between islands represent significant barriers to gene-flow. Yet some native species are widespread, indicating dispersal across oceans, even in wingless organisms like spiders. Argiope argentata (Fabricius, 1775) is a large, charismatic, and widespread species of orb-weaving spider ranging from the United States to Argentina and is well known to balloon. Here we explore the phylogeography of Argiope argentata in the Caribbean as a part of the multi-lineage CarBio project, through mtDNA haplotype and multi-locus phylogenetic analyses. The history of the Argiope argentata lineage in the Caribbean goes back 3-5 million years and is characterized by multiple dispersal events and isolation-by-distance. We find a highly genetically distinct lineage on Cuba which we describe as Argiope butchko sp. n. While the argentata lineage seems to readily balloon shorter distances, stretches of ocean still act as filters for among-island gene-flow as evidenced by distinct haplotypes on the more isolated islands, high FST values, and strong correlation between intraspecific (but not interspecific) genetic and geographic distances. The new species described here is clearly genetically diagnosable, but morphologically cryptic, at least with reference to the genitalia that typically diagnose spider species. Our results are consistent with the intermediate dispersal model suggesting that good dispersers, such as our study species, limit the effect of oceanic barriers and thus diversification and endemism.


Nonlinear reflection and diffraction measurements have been performed on a GaAs/AlGaAs photonic-crystal waveguide patterned with a square lattice: The basis in the two-dimensional unit cell consists of rings of air in the dielectric matrix. The measured angles of diffracted second-harmonic beams agree with those predicted for nonlinear diffraction conditions. Results for second-harmonic intensities as a function of incidence angle, polarization, and pump wavelength show that the reflected second-harmonic signal is dominated by the crystalline symmetry of GaAs, whereas nonlinear diffraction is determined by the photonic-crystal structure.


The effect of projectile nose geometry on the resulting critical velocity and failure mechanism of high-performance yarn is explored during single yarn transverse impact. Kevlar® KM2 yarns have been shot with three different projectile nose geometries, namely 0.30-cal round, 0.30-cal fragment simulation projectiles (FSP), and razor blades, at velocities surrounding the critical velocity required to initiate immediate yarn failure. In efforts to negate effects of wave interaction, strains developed at the experimental critical velocities are compared to quasi-static experiments designed to promote similar geometric loading conditions to those created during transverse impact. Additionally, above said critical velocities, strikes with 18-mm flat disc projectiles have been performed in efforts to ascertain the location of yarn failure at the initial stages of impact using high-speed imaging.


China is a country of intense intracontinental seismicity. Most earthquakes in western China occur within the diffuse Indo-Eurasian plate-boundary zone, which extends thousands of kilometers into Asia. Earthquakes in eastern China mainly occur within the North China block, which is part of the Archean Sino-Korean craton that has been thermally rejuvenated since late Mesozoic. Here, we summarize neotectonic and geodetic results of crustal kinematics and explore their implications for geodynamics and seismicity using numerical modeling. Quaternary fault movements and global positioning system (GPS) measurements indicate a strong infl uence of the Indo-Asian collision on crustal motion in continental China. Using a spherical three-dimensional (3-D) fi nite-element model, we show that the effects of the collisional plate-boundary force are largely limited to western China, whereas gravitational spreading of the Tibetan Plateau has a broad impact on crustal deformation in much of Asia. The intense seismicity in the North China block, and the lack of seismicity in the South China block, may be explained primarily by the tectonic boundary conditions that produce high deviatoric stresses within the North China block but allow the South China block to move coherently as a rigid block. Within the North China block, seismicity is concentrated in the circum-Ordos rifts, refl ecting the control of lithospheric heterogeneity. Finally, we calculated the change of Coulomb stresses associated with 49 major (M ≥ 6.5) earthquakes in the North China block since 1303. The results show that ~80% of these events occurred in regions of increasing Coulomb stresses caused by previous events.


With prose that is every bit as raw, intense and bitingly honest as the world it depicts, Barry Hines' "A Kestrel for a Knave" contains a new afterword by the author in "Penguin Modern Classics". Life is tough and cheerless for Billy Casper, a troubled teenager growing up in the small Yorkshire mining town of Barnsley. Treated as a failure at school, and unhappy at home, Billy discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk. Billy identifies with her silent strength and she inspires in him the trust and love that nothing else can, discovering through her the passion missing from his life. Barry Hines' acclaimed novel continues to reach new generations of teenagers and adults with its powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world. Ken Loach's renowned film adaptation, "Kes", has achieved cult status and in his new afterword Barry Hines discusses his work to adapt the novel into a screenplay, and reappraises the legacy of a book that has become a popular classic. Barry Hines (b. 1939) was born in the mining village of Hoyland Common, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Leaving Ecclesfield Grammar School without any qualifications, Hines worked as an apprentice mining surveyor for the National Coal Board before entering Loughborough Training College to study Physical Education. Working as a teacher in Hoyland Common, he wrote novels in the school library after work, later turning to writing full-time. If you enjoyed "A Kestrel for a Knave", you might like "The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories" by Jack London, published in "Penguin Classics".


According to many philosophers and psychologists, we are each not one, but many. The origins of multiplicity theories are briefly outlined before several contemporary theories are described in more detail. In this conceptual paper, it is argued that a multiplicity perspective of self, challenges us to think differently about coaching. Six specific implications are considered, and a pragmatic link between multiplicity theory and post-modernist principles explored. It is argued that a narrative approach to coaching may be particularly useful for the coach interested in experimenting with multiplicity theory, and some initial approaches to applying multiplicity theory in practice are suggested.


PURPOSE
To investigate a deep learning approach that enables 3D segmentation of an arbitrary structure of interest given a user provided 2D contour for context. Such an approach could decrease delineation times and improve contouring consistency, particularly for anatomical structures for which no automatic segmentation tools exist.

METHODS
A series of deep learning segmentation models using a Recurrent Residual U-Net with attention gates was trained with a successively expanding training set. Contextual information was provided to the models, using a previously contoured slice as an input, in addition to the slice to be contoured. In total, 6 models were developed, and 19 different anatomical structures were used for training and testing. Each of the models was evaluated for all 19 structures, even if they were excluded from the training set, in order to assess the model's ability to segment unseen structures of interest. Each model's performance was evaluated using the Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC), Hausdorff distance and relative Added Path Length (APL).

RESULTS
The segmentation performance for seen and unseen structures improved when the training set was expanded by addition of structures previously excluded from the training set. A model trained exclusively on heart structures achieved a DSC of 0.33, HD of 44 mm and relative APL of 0.85 when segmenting the spleen, whereas a model trained on a diverse set of structures, but still excluding the spleen, achieved a DSC of 0.80, HD of 13 mm and relative APL of 0.35. Iterative prediction performed better compared to direct prediction when considering unseen structures.

CONCLUSIONS
Training a contextual deep learning model on a diverse set of structures increases the segmentation performance for the structures in the training set, but importantly enables the model to generalize and make predictions even for unseen structures that were not represented in the training set. This shows that user-provided context can be incorporated into deep learning contouring to facilitate semi-automatic segmentation of CT images for any given structure. Such an approach can enable faster de-novo contouring in clinical practice.


The main recommendations contained in the IAC's reports on rural references are outlined. The Commission's reasoning on four issues that are widely viewed as important to the formulation of rural policy is examined. The four issues are: assistance to industry; terms of trade; uncertainty and instability; and adjustment policy. Criticisms are made of the IAC's argument on these issues, and some inconsistencies between reports are indicated. It is concluded that the IAC has made a valuable contribution to the discussion of rural policy in Australia even though its recommendations are sometimes sounder than the argument offered to support them.


[Burden] lay bolted with copper bands to a concrete floor, near two buckets of water in which live 110-volt lines had been submerged. Had anyone visiting the gallery chosen to spill the water, Burden would have been electrocuted. Such performances created a context in which it was possible (though not probable) that the artist would die. Fear or pain, Burden said, "energize the situation," and that energy was his subject.


Thyroid hemiagenesis (TH) is a rare inborn anomaly, resulting from failure of one thyroid lobe development. It is usually detected incidentally during investigation of concomitant thyroid disorders. The reported patient first presented hypothyroidism at the age of 49, when Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) and left thyroid lobe agenesis was diagnosed. L-thyroxine (LT4) replacement therapy restored hormonal balance. Two years later, the patient developed features of Graves' hyperthyroidism. The antithyroid pharmacotherapy by thiamazole was used. However, due to severe side-effects it was discontinued, and radioiodine treatment was applied. Four months after 131I administration, symptoms of hypothyroidism appeared, so thyroid hormone substitution was reintroduced. The patient, whose observation period has now reached 5 years, under LT4 replacement therapy, remains both clinically and biochemically euthyroid. The described case displays a very rare coincidence of hypothyroidism due to HT converted into Graves' hyperthyroidism, accompanying TH. Each of these three entities, may influence the thyroid function in a different way, hence, systematic follow-up and individual therapeutic management is required.


The "Task Force Meeting on Decision Support Systems (DSS)" held at IIASA in June 1980 has stimulated some new thinking in this area of research in the MMT group (Management and Technology Research Area). The discussion pointed out the important role that DSS can play in assisting decision makers. DSS should be seen as a complicated socio-technical system for solving relevant problems in the wider social context.

This paper is oriented towards technical aspects of DSS, but human factors have been taken into account as well. It contains some points of view of implementation; it reviews some basic functions which are to be performed by DSS and techniques which can simplify DSS design. A possible implementation structure based on computer network theory is presented, and in addition, some of the problems involved are discussed

The author Jan Janecek participated in the IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program 1980. He was attached to the MMT Research Area for three months. This report is one of the results of his work during that period.


Once the darling of the legal academy, criminal procedure has fallen into disrepute. Thirty-five years ago, when Gideon was decided, criminal procedure was the flagship of constitutional law, criminal defense attorneys were heroes, and courts and lawyers were perceived as themselves agents of social justice. Today, there are still heroes. But the conventional wisdom, within the academy and the country at large, no longer associates criminal law or procedure with heroism. Indeed, in some quarters, criminal procedure has become the enemy. Increasingly, scholars urge revisionism, popular pundits brand procedural innovations as a loss of "common sense," and philosophers warn that the "procedural republic" has helped us to lose our way.Striking is this scholarly skepticism when compared to the disturbing fate of those who spawned this conference: they are vulnerable, poor, friendless; they have never seen a lawyer and they have talked to a judge speaking from a remote televised location. They sit in jail for ten or twenty or thirty days, losing their jobs and their families, only to have the charges ultimately dismissed. Douglas Colbert's cases raise important questions about a failed legal revolution. For when the charges have been dismissed, what will Colbert's defendants understand about "criminal procedure"? The majesty of Gideon? The wisdom of the Warren Court? No doubt, the jailed and abandoned defendant would agree with critics of criminal procedure. How else could he see the "process" except as his punishment?


Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis (CTX; OMIM #213700) is a rare lipid storage metabolic disease with autosomal recessive inheritance. It is characterized by deficiency of mitochondrial sterol 27-hydroxylase (CYP27) which is a key enzyme in bile acid biosynthesis. The enzyme converts cholesterol into bile acids hence deficiency results in abnormal deposition of cholesterol and cholestenol in multiple tissues. The defect in CTX is located on CYP27A1 gene localized on the long arm of chromosome 2 [1]. Van Bogaert and colleagues first described CTX in 1937 [2]. It is estimated to occur in 3-5 out of 100,000 individuals worldwide and is more commonly seen in the Moroccan Jewish population with an incidence of 1 in 108 individuals in that group. It is also commoner in the in Druze population in Israel with incidence of 1:440.


In Feb 2006, a Danish newspaper printed twelve highly provocative caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The drawings landed on the internet and quickly circled the globe. As a direct result, riots ensued and at least 139 people died. This is just one example of overconnection. The consequences of an over-connected world cannot be ignored. In this important book, William H. Davidow takes a highly pragmatic approach by recognising that the digital clock cannot be turned back in terms of ubiquitous connectivity, but urges that caution and forethought is applied to the systems we build in the future. Davidow identifies four distinct levels of connection: Underconnected, Interconnected, Highly Connected and Overconnected. Highly Connected is the ideal state we must strive for and avoid spilling into Overconnected.


Downside management is an important topic in the field of recommender systems. User satisfaction increases when good items are recommended, but satisfaction drops significantly when bad recommendations are pushed to them. For example, a parent would be disappointed if violent movies are recommended to their kids and may stop using the recommendation system entirely. A vegetarian would feel steak-house recommendations useless. A CEO in a mid-sized company would feel offended by receiving intern-level job recommendations. Under circumstances where there is penalty for a bad recommendation, a bad recommendation is worse than no recommendation at all. While most existing work focuses on upside management (recommending the best items to users), this paper emphasizes on achieving better downside management (reducing the recommendation of irrelevant or offensive items to users). The approach we propose is general and can be applied to any scenario or domain where downside management is key to the system. To tackle the problem, we design a user latent preference model to predict the user preference in a specific dimension, say, the dietary restrictions of the user, the acceptable level of adult content in a movie, or the geographical preference of a job seeker. We propose to use multinomial regression as the core model and extend it with a hierarchical Bayesian framework to address the problem of data sparsity. After the user latent preference is predicted, we leverage it to filter out downside items. We validate the soundness of our approach by evaluating it with an anonymous job application dataset on LinkedIn. The effectiveness of the latent preference model was demonstrated in both offline experiments and online A/B testings. The user latent preference model helps to improve the VPI (views per impression) and API (applications per impression) significantly which in turn achieves a higher user satisfaction.


Although he is revered as one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln seems to lack the legacy of others like Jefferson or Jackson who brought about new conceptions of American political life. In this study of Lincoln's political thought, Eric Sands blends political science, history, and political theory to offer a fresh perspective on Lincoln, his thought, and the politics of Reconstruction. In this new consideration of Lincoln's 'public philosophy' - the nation's understanding of itself - Sands seeks to determine why the spirit that successfully led the Union through the Civil War was unable to sustain itself during Reconstruction. He defines Lincolnism as a rededication to the principle of natural rights, a narrative of Divine Providence, a sentiment of brotherhood, and an augmentation of founding principles. He then explains how Lincoln's assassination, Johnson's succession, and developments in philosophy and science worked to undermine this philosophy after the war.Sands investigates why the Republican Party was unable to sustain Lincoln's ideas and why neither Republicans nor Democrats were able to formulate a compelling substitute public philosophy for Lincolnism. He describes how Radical Republicans and Purist Democrats battled for control over America's public philosophy, then how Moderate Republicans and Legitimist Democrats abandoned battles over first principles completely. By the end of Reconstruction, public philosophy politics were rejected altogether, ultimately frustrating efforts to move the nation toward the realization of full equality under the law. By reflecting on public policy formation and change, Sands evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of public philosophy politics and shows that the most inspiring and noble kind of politics, even if oriented toward moral principles, can also be dangerous and divisive.His work lends new insight into the role of ideas in politics and offers readers a new understanding of the consequences of Lincoln's actions and death of Reconstruction policies - and of why no concept of a 'Lincolnian democracy' survived during the Reconstruction Era.


Objective and participants: The present study measured the difference in plantar pressure between the preferred and non-preferred foot in four soccer-related movements in 15 male university soccer players (mean (SD) age 20.9 (1.3) years, mean (SD) height 173 (4) cm and mean (SD) weight 61.7 (3.6) kg). Design: To record plantar pressure distribution, players randomly wore three types of soccer shoes (classical 6-stud and 12-stud, and specially designed 12-stud) embedded with an insole pressure recorder device with 99 sensors, divided into 10 areas for analysis. Plantar pressure was recorded in five successful trials in each of the four soccer-related movements: running (at 3.3 m/s), sideward cutting, 45° cutting and landing from a vertical jump. Results: Plantar pressures of the preferred and non-preferred foot were different in 115 of 120 comparisons. The overall plantar pressure of the preferred foot was higher than that of the non-preferred foot. Specifically, in each of the four movements, higher pressure was found in the preferred foot during the take-off phase, whereas this was found in the non-preferred foot during the landing phase. This would suggest a tendency of the preferred foot for higher motion force and of the non-preferred foot for a greater role in body stabilisation. Conclusions: The data indicate that the preferred and non-preferred foot should be treated independently with regard to strength/power training to avoid unnecessary injuries. Different shoes/insoles and different muscular strengthening programmes are thus suggested for each of the soccer player's feet.


A work in defining and implementing a biometric system based on hand geometry identification is presented here. Hand features are extracted from a color photograph taken when the user has placed his hand on a platform designed for such a task. Different pattern recognition techniques have been tested to be used in classification and/or verification from Euclidean distance to neural networks. Experimental results, up to a 97 percent rate of success in classification, will show the possibility of using this system in medium/high security environments with full acceptance from all users.


As an example of a postcolonial critique to certain hegemonic Spanish discourses in the Philippines, this essay examines the practice-as-research dance piece Love, Death, and Mompou (2006), which was a revision of the traditional Maria Clara dance suite. It argues that the show uses the expressiveness of the body as a trigger to subvert, re-represent and perform a range of "colonial" discourses that were reinforced by Spanish cultural producers, through funding policies, such as the Spanish Program for Cultural Cooperation. In this context, this essay argues that these policies echo a colonial past by influencing the local arts scene, and by establishing what can be perceived as a "neo-colonial" relationship between Spanish official institutions and those local artists involved in the arts events.


The development of efficient biocatalysts for industry remains a challenge. Over the past decade, the group of Professor Thomas R. Ward (University of Basel, Switzerland) has developed various artificial metalloenzymes for enantioselective catalysis. For this purpose, a biotinylated organometallic catalyst is incorporated in (Strept)avidin, thereby providing a hybrid catalyst that displays attractive features, reminiscent of both chemo- and biocatalysts.

Relying on knowledge acquired within the group, the main objective of my reasearch was to rationally design and study a novel class of artificial metalloenzymes centered on an alternative biomolecular scaffold: human Carbonic Anhydrase II (hCA II). The interest in hCA II is motivated by the possibility to use this protein as a target, because it is overexpressed in various forms of cancers. This feature may be exploited to accumulate a catalytic drug in cells requiring therapeutic action. A library of ruthenium piano-stool complex bearing a sulfonamide anchor was designed in silico, synthesized and tested as organometallic hCA II inhibitor.

An additional second recognition motif was subsequently introduced to further fine-tune the binding affinity of the metal complex for the hCA II. In parallel with these synthetic efforts, we developed widely applicable force field parameters amenable to molecular dynamics simulations of hCA II-inhibitor interactions. These were experimentaly validated and used to predict the affinity of fluorinated arylsulfonamide inhibitors for hCA II.

Based on computational results, a second generation of inhibitors with improved binding affinities for wild-type hCA II (10 nM) were designed in silico. Coupled to a second recognition element, which ensured precise localization of catalytic metals within the hCA II binding pocket, a well-defined chiral environment was tailored to provide a favourable environment for enantioselective catalysis. A chemogenetic optimization strategy (i.e. genetic variation of the hCA II combined with chemical fine-tuning of the piano-stool moiety) allowed for improving the catalytic performance of the artificial metalloenzyme for the reduction of prochiral imines.

During my PhD thesis, I gained expertize in the in-silico design, synthesis and biophysical characterization of organometallic inhibitors and their interaction with a model protein: human Carbonic Anhydrase II. The multidisciplinary environment provided in the group of Professor Thomas R. Ward gave me a unique opportunity to collaborate on a daily basis with molecular biologists, computational chemists, protein crystallographers etc.


Scholarship on judicial elections has all but neglected the primary actors in the drama: the voters themselves. All too frequently, the electorate's role in choosing its judges is relegated to secondary status, and the specific question of how citizens decide to cast their vote in judicial elections is almost totally ignored. But the question is important, and the answer may be surprising. Drawing from decades of research by social scientists and case studies of recent high-salience judicial elections in Iowa and Wisconsin, this Article argues that judicial voters are motivated first and foremost by considerations of procedural fairness, not policy preferences or expected case outcomes. The Article then assesses the consequences of this finding for both contestable judicial elections and retention elections, concluding that retention elections are better able to provide voters with the information they value most.


The past decade has witnessed the emergence of science diplomacy, both as a formalized set of operations and new field of study and research (Lord and Turekian , ). A number of factors continue to drive this trend, but the most important one is the recognition that (1) more and more, major challenges are international in nature and that (2) science and its applications are part of the cause as well as the cure. As a result, while much of the international science regime is still focused on discovery, there is an increasing need/demand for the integration of science cooperation in international relations. This article provides a brief overview of the evolution of science diplomacy over the past decades (and beyond) with special focus on recent developments. It will conclude by looking forward.


South Sudanese refugees are strongly motivated to effect change in South Sudan. After resettlement to the US, this motivation has resulted in much transnational political activism on their part. In Australia, Sudanese refu ge s have concentrated primarily on domestic political and social integration. Why? In thi s project I examine the possible causes of this difference, including the institut ons, the policies, and the agents who implement settlement programs. I argue that ref ugee settlement policies of host countries directly shape the political activit ies of their refugees. When a host country provides assistance to integrate refugees, th e government's policies and the individuals who implement policy (professional service providers and volunteers) influence what activities refugee lea d rs re likely to pursue. I find evidence that professional service providers are more likely to channel refugees toward domestic political goals, especially when they a re implementing specific refugee capacity building programs. In contrast, volunte ers are more likely to support refugee leaders in the political activities tha t the leaders themselves are eager to pursue. Due to different levels of centralization and institutionalization across these two host country contexts, they have different compositions of policy implementers and utilize capacity building programs to differing degrees. These factors play a significant role in shaping the direction of South Sudanese political activities. I use evidence from examination of instit ut onal policies and semi-structured interviews of Sudanese refugees, professional and volunteer service providers, and government officials in the USA and Australia. THE EFFECTS OF SETTLEMENT POLICY ON REFUGEE POLITICAL ACTIVISM: SUDANESE REFUGEES IN AUSTRALIA AND THE US


cells. Most of these tumors are intracranial; some are intraspinal and few extra cranial. There are many histological variants classified into three grades depending on clinical behavior. Classification is important for determining the modality of treatment. Objectives: To study the incidence, location, sex and age predilection, histological variants and grading of meningiomas based on WHO 2007 classification and recurrence if present. Materials and methods: All128 cases of meningiomas. Based on Histological features, typing and grading of meningiomas was done as per the WHO 2007 classification of Meningiomas. Age, Sex incidence, Location of meningiomas were studied. Results: Meningiomas comprised 25.25% of all CNS tumors during the study period. Of 507 CNS tumors, 128 were meningiomas. Most of them were intracranial, predominantly involving the convexities of brain, females and the 41 – 50 age group. Of these, 116 were benign grade I tumors, 9 were grade II and 3 were grade III. The most common histological variant was fibroblastic and meningothelial. Intraspinal meningiomas were 16 (12.5%) cases with the psammomatous variant being more common. Grade II and Grade III tumors located in parafalcine or parasagittal area commonly recurred. Conclusion: Meningiomas are slow growing tumors arising from the meningothelial cells accounting for 25.25% of all CNS neoplasms showing a variety of histological patterns, more common in women, predominantly Grade I tumors. Recurrence of tumors depends on histological grade and extent of surgery.


Quaternary ammonium exchanged laponites (Quat-laponites) show selectivity in the adsorption of phenols and chlorinated phenols. Strong adsorbate-adsorbent interactions are indicated by adsorption isotherms. Adsorption of phenols and chlorinated phenols by Quat-smectites is greater than that by the Bi Quat-Smectites prepared in this study. It is thought that the quaternary ammonium exchanged smectite components of the Bi Quat-smectites interact with each other (adsorbent-adsorbent interactions) reducing the number of sites available for adsorbate-adsorbent interactions. Solidification/stabilisation studies of 2-chlorophenol show that a blend of ground granulated blast furnace slag and ordinary Portland cement attenuates 2-chlorophenol more effectively than ordinary Portland cement alone. Tetramethyl ammonium- (TMA-) and tetramethyl phosphonium- (TMP-) montmorillonites were exposed to solutions of phenol or chlorinated phenols. TMP- montmorillonite was the better adsorbent and preferentially adsorbed 4-chlorophenol over phenol. Hydration of the interlayer cations occurs to a greater extent in the TMA-montmorillonite than the TMP-montmorillonite restricting interlayer adsorption. Contrary to that observed for phenols and chlorinated phenols, the Quat-smectites were ineffective as adsorbents for triphenyltin hydroxide and bis(tributyltin) oxide at room temperature. Under microwave conditions, only bis(tributyltin) oxide was adsorbed by the quaternary ammonium exchanged smectites. Bis(tributyltin) oxide was adsorbed from ethanol on the surface of the smectite clays at room temperature and under microwave conditions. The adsorbate-adsorbent interactions were weak. Adsorption is accompanied by conversion of bis(tributyltin) oxide to a different tin(IV) species and the release of sodium cations from the montmorillonite interlayer region. Attempts to introduce conditions suitable for charge transfer interactions between synthesised quaternary ammonium compounds and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol are documented. Transition metal complex exchanged clays adsorb 2,4,6-trichlorophenol and phenol. Strong adsorbate-adsorbent interactions (Type I isotherms) occur when the adsorbate is 2,4,6-trichlorophenol and when the adsorbent is [Fe(bipy)3]2+ exchanged montmorillonite or [Co(bipy)3]3+ exchanged montmorillonite. The 2,2'-bipyridyl ligands of the adsorbents are electron rich and the 2,4,6-trichlorophenol is electron deficient. This may have enhanced adsorbate-adsorbent interactions.


Over 40 years ago, the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela put forward the notion of autopoiesis as a way to understand living systems and their phenomenology. Varela and others subsequently extended this framework to an enactive approach that places biological autonomy at the foundation of situated and embodied behavior and cognition. In this talk, I will describe an attempt to place these ideas on a firmer foundation by studying them within the context of a toy model universe, John Conway's Game of Life (GoL) cellular automata. The talk has both pedagogical and theoretical goals. Simple concrete models provide an excellent vehicle for introducing some of the core concepts of autopoiesis and enaction and explaining how these concepts fit together into a broader whole. In addition, a careful analysis of such toy models can hone our intuitions about these concepts, probe their strengths and weaknesses, and move the entire enterprise in the direction of a more mathematically rigorous theory. In particular, I will identify the primitive processes that can occur in GoL, show how these can be linked together into mutually-supporting networks, map the responses of such entities to environmental perturbations, and investigate the paths of mutual perturbation that these entities and their environments can undergo. Some of the topics that can be examined in GoL include the structure/organization distinction, organizational/operational closure, self-production, self-individuation, destructive vs. nondestructive perturbations, precariousness, cognitive domain, subjectivity, significance, sense-making, structural coupling, and enaction. I will end with some comments on the limitations of the GoL model and directions for future work.


The 7th Workshop on Metallization and Interconnection for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells took place in October 2017. Through presentations and discussions, it was evident that progress in the field is continuing at a fast pace. The limits of screen printing metallization are being pushed further through innovations in screens and process to finger width below 40 µm while keeping high aspect ratio and industrial applicability, and new screen printing pastes enable the introduction of advanced cell structures. While there does not seem to be much push anymore towards using plated metallization in today's mainstream cell technology, it is being further improved and used as a key enabler for future cell and module technologies for very high power PV panels. Passivated contacts is an intensively researched topic and progress was reported towards industrial implementation. In the field of cell interconnection, a drop-in replacement to SnPb solder was introduced, while emerging disruptive interconnection technologies were seen to progress well, particularly multiwire interconnection where key improvements in cost and durability have been achieved which are needed for wide adoption.


BACKGROUND: Generic drug use in the outpatient setting is typically measured with adjudicated pharmacy claims; however, not all delivery systems have access to these data for their clinical populations. OBJECTIVE: To develop an algorithm to estimate generic drug use in an outpatient setting using electronic health records (EHR) data. METHODS: Twenty-five therapeutic classes were chosen with the potential for low generic use that were prescribed to managed care beneficiaries in a health care system in Northern California. An algorithm was developed to estimate generic drug use based on medication names and dispense-as-written requests from electronic prescriptions, as well as information on generic availability at the time the prescriptions were written. The algorithm was used to quantify a generic utilization rate (GUR) across therapeutic classes and was validated by comparing the estimated GUR to the true GUR, using pharmacy claims corresponding to prescriptions in the same patient cohort. RESULTS: Among managed care beneficiaries, 104,859 prescriptions were identified for drugs in the therapeutic classes of interest with corresponding pharmacy claims. The algorithm estimated a GUR of 73.7% across 25 unique classes. The actual GUR based on pharmacy claims was 73.1%. Sensitivity (97%) and specificity (89%) of the algorithm were high, and total percentage of agreement was 95%. CONCLUSIONS: An algorithm that estimates generic drug use performed well in a population of managed care beneficiaries. Health care delivery systems may apply methods described in this article to quantify generic drug use in their ambulatory populations for quality improvement and research initiatives, particularly when pharmacy claims are unavailable.


For a $d$-dimensional log-concave distribution $\pi(\theta) \propto e^{-f(\theta)}$ constrained to a convex body $K$, the problem of outputting samples from a distribution $\nu$ which is $\varepsilon$-close in infinity-distance $\sup_{\theta \in K} |\log \frac{\nu(\theta)}{\pi(\theta)}|$ to $\pi$ arises in differentially private optimization. While sampling within total-variation distance $\varepsilon$ of $\pi$ can be done by algorithms whose runtime depends polylogarithmically on $\frac{1}{\varepsilon}$, prior algorithms for sampling in $\varepsilon$ infinity distance have runtime bounds that depend polynomially on $\frac{1}{\varepsilon}$. We bridge this gap by presenting an algorithm that outputs a point $\varepsilon$-close to $\pi$ in infinity distance that requires at most $\mathrm{poly}(\log \frac{1}{\varepsilon}, d)$ calls to a membership oracle for $K$ and evaluation oracle for $f$, when $f$ is Lipschitz. Our approach departs from prior works that construct Markov chains on a $\frac{1}{\varepsilon^2}$-discretization of $K$ to achieve a sample with $\varepsilon$ infinity-distance error, and present a method to directly convert continuous samples from $K$ with total-variation bounds to samples with infinity bounds. This approach also allows us to obtain an improvement on the dimension $d$ in the running time for the problem of sampling from a log-concave distribution on polytopes $K$ with infinity distance $\varepsilon$, by plugging in TV-distance running time bounds for the Dikin Walk Markov chain.


Jiang Menglin, President of Peking University during the May Fourth Movement in 1919, describes in his autobiography The West Wave how life in the villages of old China remained unchanged as the political scene was changing drastically. "For hundreds of years," he wrote, "no matter how dynasties changed, no matter at time of peace or war, the morals, beliefs, and customs in the Chinese villages remained the same." (1) This statement reflects how little political upheavals in the history of China affected the thinking and way of life of the common people who lived in farming villages all over the country. For thousands of years, throughout the history of China, most political upheavals have been limited to high officials and aristocrats of court. There might be changes of regimes or dynasties, but the Chinese peasants, who comprise the vast majority of citizens of the country, live calmly in the same manner as in past generations, unaffected by court politics. In 1966, Mao Zedong initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Movement (1966-1976), commonly known as the Cultural Revolution, on a nationwide scale. It involved all common citizens of China in political fights and chaos, deeply influencing the mindset of the entire Chinese people as never before in the history of China. Officially launched in 1966 and lasting until 1976, with an intense period between 1966 and 1969, the Cultural Revolution of China was a political power struggle aroused and directed by Mao in order to unseat his political rivals, then powerful people of the Communist Party of China, including Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and their followers. (2) This movement as never before triggered political humiliation, persecution, torture, and murder all over the country among people on all levels of society, friends, neighbors, co-workers, schoolmates, teachers, and even family members. It is regarded as the worst manmade disaster in modern Chinese history. The Cultural Revolution as Motivated by Rhetoric Shaorong Haung, in his book To Rebel Is Justified, pointed out: "The Cultural Revolution Movement in China was a revolution, a social upheaval, a political drama, and above all, a rhetorical movement." (3) In Haung's opinion, rhetoric has tremendous power and influence on its audience in any movement. Haung cited Leland M. Griffin's theory to explain that men as beings moved and were moved through speech, the rhetorical power of the word, and the persuasive power of language. (4) Judged from this aspect, the Cultural Revolution of China was truly motivated, sustained, and completed using rhetorical propaganda. However, all sorts of persecuting and violent activities of the movement were performed on the basis of the teachings of Mao Zedong, which were mostly written in the Dialogue of Mao Zedong (the "Little Red Book"), accompanied by political slogans, propaganda posters, revolutionary dances, and songs. The rhetoric of the movement, Mao's teachings, was presented and promoted most often in the form of paintings, dances, and songs at the gatherings of the masses. The arts were thus highlighted to such an extent that they became the integral and essential part of the Cultural Revolution. During the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, with school systems in China mostly paralyzed and non-functioning, teenagers from all over the country were organized by Mao and his followers to become Red Guards. Their function was to persecute followers of Mao's political rivals. On August 8, 1968, one million Red Guards gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to pay tribute and claim loyalty to Mao Zedong. (5) For ten years, especially between 1966 and 1969, countless political fights occurred all over the country among groups of people belonging to opposing political backgrounds. (6) These fights usually took place in the form of public gatherings, where individuals or groups were accused of being anti-revolutionary and then persecuted by the Red Guards. …


Elshtain presents a case for the primacy of politics if one would argue persuasively about international justice. Without political stability, all attempts to assist developing states, or to sustain persons caught in the chaos of "failed states," must fail. A concept of justice lies at the heart of this discussion and revolves around the fundamental questions of to whom justice is owed and in what justice consists. Have we any obligations beyond our own borders? If so, what form do these take? These questions are addressed by developing a concept of comparative justice indebted to the just war tradition and tying it to the equal moral regard of persons. This leads, in turn, to two further difficulties. First, what does it mean to make a claim under the equal regard norm? Just war criteria posit certain universal claims in a political universe in which particular bodies politic either respond, or do not, to such claims in light of their own principles and interests. The article develops a citizenship model for cases of humanitarian intervention, rejecting any and all approaches that involve an asymmetrical valuing of human life. Second, who can be called upon to use coercive force in behalf of justice? Elshtain argues that all states have a stake in creating and sustaining an international system of equal regard. But, at present, there is no universal body that can be turned to with any confidence in situations of catastrophic violence, like ethnic cleansing. UN Peacekeepers are effective only after a measure of order is restored. As a result the state, or states, with the greatest capability to project power bears the lion's sharer of responsibility for enforcing an equal regard norm. Elshtain acknowledges the difficulties of articulating a strong universal justice claim while assigning a particular state, or states, and their people a disproportionate enforcement burden. But that best describes the present moment and it is better by far that those with power deploy that power within a framework of principles and constraints rather than solely along the lines of classic realpolitik.


This paper investigates whether, and through which channel, the active use of credit derivatives changes bank behavior in the credit market, and how this channel was affected by the crisis of 2007–2009. Our principal finding is that banks with larger gross positions in credit derivatives charge significantly lower corporate loan spreads, while banks׳ net positions are not consistently related to loan pricing. We argue that this is consistent with banks passing on risk management benefits to corporate borrowers but not with alternative channels through which credit derivative use may affect loan pricing. We also find that the magnitude of the risk management effect remained unchanged during the crisis period of 2007–2009. In addition, banks with larger gross positions in credit derivatives cut their lending by less than other banks during the crisis and have consistently lower loan charge-offs. In sum, our study is suggestive of significant risk management benefits from financial innovations that persist under adverse conditions – that is, when they matter most.


BACKGROUND
 Infection with the herpes simplex virus (HSV) is common but not well understood. Furthermore, there remains a social stigma surrounding HSV that can have psychosocial implications for those infected. Despite many patients infected with HSV experiencing mild-to-severe physical symptoms, only one subeffective treatment is available. A registry collecting real-world data reported by individuals potentially infected with HSV could help patients to better understand and manage their condition.

 OBJECTIVE
 This study aimed to report on the development of a registry to collect real-world data reported by people who might be infected with HSV.

 METHODS
 A case study design was selected as it provides a systematic and in-depth approach to investigating the planning phase of the registry. The case study followed seven stages: plan, design, prepare, collect, analyze, create, and share. We carried out semistructured interviews with experts, which were thematically analyzed and used to build use cases for the proposed registry. These use cases will be used to generate detailed models of how a real-world evidence registry might be perceived and used by different users.

 RESULTS
 The following key themes were identified in the interviews: (1) stigma and anonymity, (2) selection bias, (3) understanding treatment and outcome gaps, (4) lifestyle factors, (5) individualized versus population-level data, and (6) severe complications of HSV. We developed use cases for different types of users of the registry, including individuals with HSV, members of the public, researchers, and clinicians.

 CONCLUSIONS
 This case study revealed key considerations and insights for the development of an appropriate registry to collect real-world data reported by people who might be infected with HSV. Further development and testing of the registry with different users is required. The registry must also be evaluated for the feasibility and effectiveness of collecting data to support symptom management. This registry has the potential to contribute to the development of vaccines and treatments and provide insights into the impact of HSV on other conditions.


We are engaged in a long-term project to monitor the polarized intensity structure of 15 blazars (including quasars, BL Lac objects, and radio galaxies) at 7 mm with the VLBA at bimonthly or, in some cases, more frequent intervals. The polarization is observed contemporaneously at 230 GHz with the JCMT and at optical wavelengths, in total flux at BIMA, and, in 5 cases, in X-rays with RXTE. This follows polarization snapshots of many gamma -ray bright blazars. In some parts of the jets in many sources, the magnetic field lies either parallel or perpendicular to the jet, but in many components it is oriented at an oblique angle to the jet axis. In some cases, there is good correspondence between the polarization at 1.35 mm and that of one of the most compact components in the jet at 7 mm, but in other sources it appears that the polarized component at 1.35 mm does not appear on the 7 mm image, probably because of opacity effects and/or Faraday rotation/depolarization. In the 2 radio galaxies (3C 120 and 3C 111), and in 3C 273, the core is unpolarized. The polarization at 7 mm changes very rapidly --- on timescales less than 2 months --- in several sources. Many sources contain a mixture of stationary and superluminally moving knots. The VLBA by itself (i.e., without the addition of the VLA) produces high-quality polarized intensity images at 7 mm. However, in order to monitor variability of the polarized structure in many blazars, the time sampling must be at least bimonthly. This research is supported in part by the National Science Foundation through grant AST-9802941 and by various NASA guest investigator grants (RXTE and CGRO).


With about 30% increase over three months, Facebook has become a major online venue among Arabic young generation. However the understanding of its adoption as well as the cultural influence remains in its infancy. In recent study, Srite and Karahanna (2006) examined the cultural impact at the individual level and, built upon Hofstede's framework, conceptualize it as espoused national cultural values, which were proposed to moderating the effects of TAM variables, i.e., perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and subjective norms, on IT acceptance. Although insightful, the conceptualization of espoused national cultural values and its impacts requires further validation with subjects from different cultural backgrounds and IT artifacts which may be more subject to cultural influences, e.g., social networking sites. Therefore, this study is aimed to validate and extend the work by Srite and Karahanna (2006) by examining the role of espoused national cultural values in Facebook adoption among Arabic female college students. Considering the cultural differences, we extended the original cultural dimensions in (Srite and Karahanna 2006) to incorporate long-term orientation and also explicate the dimension of collectivism/individualism along two directions, e.g., horizontal vs. vertical. Different from the IT artifacts (PC and PDA) examined in (Srite & Karahanna, 2006), the IT artifact examined in this study is Facebook and its usage may be subject to more cultural influences than using PC and/or PDA, since Facebook involves a lot of social interaction and socialization. A survey study with 200 college female students in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of UAE was conducted to validate the research model. 127 students returned the valid responses. At the moment of data collection, all respondents were new users of Facebook. Data collection involved two stages. The first stage was to collect the response for TAM variables and espoused national cultural values; while the second one, after one week, was for Facebook adoption. Smart PLS was used for data analysis. We expect that the results not only provide further empirical validation of Srite & Karahanna's theory (2006) with Arabic sample, but also extend the original research by demonstrating complete range of cultural dimensions. Currently, we are in the stage of finalizing data analysis results. By the time of the conference, we shall be able to provide the complete results.


In this thesis is presented the first high-field structural study of the vortex lattice in YBa\(_2\)Cu\(_3\)O\(_7\). Small-angle neutron scattering was used to deduce the configuration of vortices in a twinned sample of YBa\(_2\)Cu\(_3\)O\(_7\) over the field range 1–11T applied parallel to the crystal c-axis. The experiments revealed a field-induced continuous transition from a distorted London-like vortex lattice at 1T, to an unconventional square vortex lattice with a slight rectangular distortion. It is clear from the data that some kind of unconventional intrinsic anisotropy is responsible for the high-field square lattice and the data are suggestive of two possible origins, Fermi surface anisotropy and d-wave effects, both of which may be described as non-local effects. However, from the present data it is not possible to determine which of these effects is more important. The dependence of the vortex lattice structure upon temperature and angle of applied field was also studied. In accordance with expectation, it was found that the unconventional anisotropy responsible for the stability of the square vortex lattice is diminished with increasing temperature and the distorted triangular configuration eventually reappears via a continuous transition. Similarly, the square vortex lattice is suppressed by rotating the applied field away from the crystal c-axis. However, in this case the transition between the triangular and square vortex lattices becomes firstorder. Moreover, the low-field triangular domains are very different to those observed with the field parallel to the c-axis. Three other neutron studies in which this author was involved were also briefly presented. Of these, two were small-angle neutron scattering studies of the vortex lattice (in Nd\(_{1.85}\)Ce\(_{0.15}\)CuO\(_4\) and detwinned YBa\(_2\)Cu\(_3\)O\(_7\)−δ) and are thus intimately related to the main topic. In Nd\(_{1.85}\)Ce\(_{0.15}\)CuO\(_4\), a square vortex lattice was observed, but at unprecedentedly low fields (20 mT). The detwinned YBa\(_2\)Cu\(_3\)O\(_7\)−δ samples have provided confirmation of the results observed in the twinned sample and hold prospect for further studies, particularly of the effect of doping on the transition to square. Lastly, vii measurements by inelastic neutron scattering of the spin fluctuations at the metamagnetic field in Sr\(_3\)Ru\(_2\)O\(_7\) were shown. These important experiments have demonstrated the first microscopic evidence for a wholesale change in the character of the spin correlations at the metamagnetic field.