OF DISSERTATION CRYOGENIC PROCESSING OF AL 7050-T7451 ALLOY FOR IMPROVED SURFACE INTEGRITY Al 7050-T7451 alloy with good combinations of strength, stress corrosion cracking resistance and toughness, is used broadly in the aerospace/aviation industry for fatiguecritical airframe structural components. However, it is also considered as a highly anisotropic alloy as the crack growth behavior along the short transverse direction is very different from the one in the long transverse direction, due to the inhomogeneous microstructure with the elongated grains distributed in the work material used in the sheet/plate applications. Further processes on these materials are needed to improve its mechanical and material properties and broaden its applications. The material with ultra-fine or nano grains exhibits improved wear and corrosion resistance, higher hardness and better fatigue life, compared to the one with coarse grains. In recent times, the development of novel processing technologies has gained great attention in the research community to enhance the properties of the materials employed in the aerospace, biomedical, precision instrument, automotive, nuclear/power industries. These novel processing technologies modify the microstructure of this alloy and improve the properties. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the effects of cryogenic processes, including friction stir processing (FSP), machining and burnishing, on Al 7050-T7451 alloy to solve the inhomogeneity issue and improve its surface integrity. FSP is applied to modify the microstructure of Al 7050-T7451 alloy for achieving more homogeneous structure with near ultra-fine grains (UFG) which were less than 2 μm, particularly in cryogenic FSP with liquid nitrogen as the coolant. Approximately 10% increase could be observed from the hardness measurement from the samples processed by cryogenic FSP, in contrast to dry FSP. Also, the texture change from Al (200) to Al (111) could be achieved in all the samples processed by dry and cryogenic FSP. Cryogenic machining and burnishing processes were also applied to enhance the surface integrity of the manufactured components with near-UFG structure. The highest cutting temperature was reduced by up to 44.7% due to the rapid cooling effect of liquid nitrogen in cryogenic machining, compared with dry machining. Nano grains were produced in the refined layers induced by cryogenic burnishing. And, up to 35.4% hardness increase was obtained within the layer depth of 200 μm in the cryogenically-burnished surface. A numerical finite element method (FEM) model was developed for predicting the process performance in burnishing. Less than 10% difference between the experimental and predicted burnishing forces was achieved in the simulation of cryogenic burnishing, and reasonable predictions were also achieved for temperatures, severe plastic deformation (SPD) layers.


In order to clarify the contribution of solvent use and road traffic to the total NMVOC emissions in
Germany, the NMVOC composition of the city air of Wuppertal was investigated. During three campaigns
NMVOC concentrations were measured at different locations in the city of Wuppertal. The measurements
covered volatile hydrocarbons in the range of C3-C10 and oxygenated compounds such as alcohols,
ketones and esters.
An assessment of the contribution from different emission sources to the observed NMVOC
concentrations was attempted with the Chemical Mass Balance (CMB) modelling technique. Two emission
source categories were investigated, namely road traffic and solvent use. Emission profiles for
traffic were obtained from measurements performed in a traffic tunnel, at a down-town street
intersection and during drives through the city and on free-ways. Solvent emission profiles were
investigated in the vicinity of different solvent factories and workshops in Wuppertal.
Apportionment analysis was performed for several receptor points located down-wind from the city
centre, in residential areas, in dense traffic areas and in industrial areas.
The outcomes of the CMB analysis with the application of source profiles and receptor concentrations
obtained from the city measurements showed that traffic emission rather than solvent use determines
the ambient NMVOC composition. The maximal contribution of solvent use to the NMVOC emission
estimated on the basis of experimentally obtained results amounts to about 23% in the whole city
area of Wuppertal. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the contribution of solvent use to the
NMVOC concentrations in German cities falls in the range of a few to about 20%, provided that
Wuppertal can be considered as a typical German urban area with certain proportions of domestic
activities, traffic and various industries.
The present work clearly shows that the experimentally observed proportions between traffic and
solvent use emissions are in strong disagreement with the German Emission Inventory which states,
that at present (reference year 2000) about 62% of the total NMVOC emissions originate from solvent
use and only 18% from road traffic.


In this extraordinary book, based on 150 in-depth interviews, Lori B. Girshick, a sociologist and social justice activist, brings together the voices of sex- and gender-diverse people who speak with absolute candor about their lives. Girshick presents transpeople speaking in their own voices about identity, coming out, passing, sexual orientation, relationship negotiations and the dynamics of attraction, homophobia (including internalized fears), and bullying. She exposes the guilt and the shame that "gender police" use in their attempts to exert control and points out the many ways transpeople are discriminated against in daily life, from filling out identification documents to gender-segregated bathrooms. By showing us a variety of descriptions of diverse real lives and providing a thorough exploration of the embodied experiences of gender variant people, Girshick demonstrates that there is nothing inherently binary about gender, and that the way each of us experiences our own gender is, in fact, normal and natural.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the growth of infants born small for gestational age (SGA) as a result of 2 different feeding regimens during their hospital stay. A retrospective chart review was performed at 2 hospitals to assess the growth of 42 SGA infants (gestational age: median 37 weeks; range, 30-41 weeks) from birth up to 18 months corrected age. At one hospital, infants were fed according to a proactive nutrition regimen stipulating 200 mL milk/kg per day from day 2 to achieve better weight gain. At the other hospital, milk volumes were gradually increased to 170 mL/kg per day by day 9. Infants fed according to the proactive regimen had lower weight loss and regained their birth weight earlier but did not show better catch-up growth subsequently. The premature SGA infants (n = 20) showed catch-up growth before 40 weeks postmenstrual age. The lower the gestational age at birth, the less negative standard deviation score for length up to a corrected age of 18 months. Although infants fed according to a proactive regimen with liberal volumes of milk during the first days had lower weight loss and regained their birth weight earlier, no evidence was found that this would result in a different pattern of growth in later life.


Coronary microembolization has been reported to increase coronary blood flow (CBF) through adenosine release. Because adenosine may increase ischemic tolerance against infarction, we tested the hypothesis that myocardial microembolization, a common finding in patients with ischemic heart disease, induces cardioprotection. Additionally, because the use of microspheres is a common tool to measure tissue perfusion, the effects of small amounts of microspheres on CBF were examined. Using anesthetized pigs, we measured CBF with a transit time flow probe on the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD). In six pigs the relationship between the amount of injected microspheres (0-40 × 106, 15 μm in diameter, left atrial injections) and the effect on CBF was examined. Coronary hyperemia occurred, which was linearly related to the amount of microspheres injected: maximal increase in CBF (%) = 2.8 ± 1.5 (SE) + (5.8 ± 0.7 × 10-7 × number of injected microspheres). Because injection of 40 × 106 microspheres induced a long-lasting hyperemic response, which could be blocked by 8- p-sulfophenyl theophylline, ischemic tolerance was examined in five other pigs after two injections, each of 40 × 106microspheres, at a 30-min interval. Six control pigs had no injections. Ischemic tolerance was evaluated by measuring infarct size (tetrazolium stain) as the percentage of area at risk (fluorescent particles) after 45 min of LAD occlusion followed by 2 h of reperfusion. Pretreatment by microspheres increased infarct size from 60 ± 3% of area at risk in control animals to 84 ± 6% ( P< 0.05). The injection of microspheres induced a significant hyperemic flow response without causing necrosis by itself. We conclude that microembolization, evoking coronary hyperemia, does not improve but reduces myocardial ischemic tolerance against infarction in pigs.


We show that CSMA is able to spontaneously synchronize transmissions in a wireless network with constant-size packets, and that this property can be used to devise efficient synchronized CSMA scheduling mechanisms without message passing. Using tools from queuing theory, we prove that for any connected wireless networks with arbitrary interference constraints, it is possible to implement self-synchronizing TDMA schedules without any explicit message passing or clock synchronization besides transmitting the original data packets, and the interaction can be fully local in that each node decides when to transmit next only by overhearing its neighbors' transmissions. We also provide a necessary and sufficient condition on the emergence of self-synchronization for a given TDMA schedule, and prove that such conditions for self-synchronization can be checked in a finite number of steps for a finite network topology.


The jazz avant-garde of the 60s and 70s has often been depicted as a movement that signalled the end of jazz as we had come to know it, a movement of unbridled musical energy and passion without the essential restraining influences of formal guidelines and reverence for - traditions. With the benefit of hindsight, from observing the almost neoclassical stance of jazz in the 80s, the notion that this music signified the genre's Armaggedon was patently a misconception. This thesis argues that free jazz was as much a style, concerned with finding its own voice and technical vocabulary, as any other period of jazz history. As an analytical and critical study of pianists and their use of the piano in free jazz and improvised music, this survey is designed to fill a gap in musicological research of this important artistic movement, which hitherto has been primarily concerned with biography and with related sociological issues. The study traces the piano through the turbulent years of radical experirnentalism in jazz and the subsequent refinement in free improvisation in Europe and the U.S. through the work of pianists central to the movement. Rather than adopting the chronological approach, this study considers the music under broad headings specifically related to technique; the instrument's position within the group, and the generation of form, motivic structure and 'language'. Chapter 1, by way of introduction, outlines the argument of what constitutes the 'freedom' in free jazz and looks at the early development of the avant garde as it arose in opposition to the prevailing traditions of bebop and contemporary notated music with special reference to three influential pianists: Herbie Nichols, Lennie Tristano and Thelonius Monk. Chapter 2 is concerned with new concepts in overall form, while Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the smaller components, or motifs, of modular improvisatory structure. Chapter 4 examines the physical nature of piano tones, their unique qualities of sustain and resonance and their changing patterns of distribution in this music; looking at 'space' firstly in the sense of the piano's natural resonance and the pianists whose work has explored this particular characteristic, and secondly, the physical space involved in the act of playing, the sense of movement or kinaesthesis. Chapter 5 will concentrate on the dynamic and percussive approach to free jazz piano. Chapter 6 turns from the physiological to the psychological processes of improvisation; how the opposing forces of habit and originality assert themselves in the improviser's art. Chapter 7 will form a brief conclusion.


Abstract: The Farlin Creek Wilderness Study Area (MT-076-034) is in the south-central Pioneer Mountains about 24 miles west-northwest of Dillon, Beaverhead County, southwestern Montana. At the request of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an area of 610 acres (less than 1 square mile) was investigated by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Mines in 1984. The area contains no mines or prospects, no visible evidence of mineralization, and no identified mineral resources. Geophysical evidence suggests that three parts of the area have moderate mineral resource potential for undiscovered resources of molybdenum. The entire area has a low resource potential for all other metals and for all nonmetals, fuels, and geothermal energy.


Business processes can use Internet of Things (IoT) information to monitor context data in real-time and to respond to changes in their values in a timely fashion. For this matter, business process definition and execution languages should foresee an easy way for process modelers to define which values to monitor, and which automatic behaviors to adopt when these values change. In this paper, we propose the use of context variables to monitor sensor values, as well as a when-then language construct to detect and handle changes in these values within business processes. We define a Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) extension to convey these constructs, and implement then using a "BPEL language transformation" approach. With these contributions, process modelers can define IoT-aware business processes avoiding the increase of process complexity and keeping their focus on modeling the processes' main logic. In addition, the language transformation approach assures the portability of processes using our constructs amongst WS-BPEL execution engines.


Pressure ulcers are painful, and affect patients' health, mobility and well-being. They also cost the NHS between £1.4-2.1 billion a year. Although a large proportion of pressure ulcers are avoidable, many still occur and, because pressure ulcer incidence is an indicator of care quality, it can put carers under scrutiny. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence states that adequate risk assessment of pressure ulcer development, including the role of malnutrition, improves care. Adequate nutrition is vital for the prevention of pressure ulcers and malnutrition can hinder healing when pressure ulcers have developed. The risk of malnutrition should be assessed with a recognised tool, such as the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool, and appropriate treatment plans should be drawn up for patients identified as being at risk of malnutrition to improve their nutritional state. For example, the dietary intake of people with poor appetite can be supplemented with nutritious snacks between meals. The aims of this article are to help readers understand risk factors for malnutrition and how dietary intake can be manipulated to improve patients' nutritional state. It also aims to highlight how improving nutritional intake helps to prevent pressure ulcers. On completing the article, readers will be able to consider and review their own practice.


Abstract As important components of extinct as well as modern reefs, the measurement of changes in the composition of reef biota is crucial in order to evaluate the influence of extrinsic factors on the marine communities. The dramatic abiotic changes in the eastern and northern Pangea was mirrored by a gradual transition from a photozoan to a heterozoan association and the appearance of cool- (temperate-) water carbonates both in reef and carbonate ramp environments. Analyses of large skeletal and microbiotic components as well as microfacies succession were used for detailed explanation of reef structure, especially for lesser-known heterozoan skeletal mounds. The youngest skeletal mounds are recognized in the Roadian. The stable isotope data demonstrated a negative oxygen shift between latest Sakmarian and late early Artinskian coinciding with the end of P2 glaciation. The multiplicative nature of the event included the series of successive changes of extrinsic factors such as ice melting in interglacial episodes, eustatic ocean level rise, change of oceanic circulation and decrease of water temperature. The late Artinskian and subsequent Kungurian climatic impacts in the Northern Hemisphere were irreversible for the photozoan biota and prevented its further development. Roadian (Guadalupian) bryonoderm extended skeletal mounds developed in rather warm-water environments.


It is difficult to see how one can support the continuum between rules and similarity, as Pothos proposes. A similarity theory could dispense with the rules end of the continuum. The only thing that we need is one (or more than one) theory of similarity that goes beyond the stimulus-carrying information and behavioristic restrictions that have usually been attributed to similarity theories.


The GridFTP extensions to the File Transfer Protocol define a general-purpose mechanism for secure, reliable, high-performance data movement. We report here on the Globus striped GridFTP framework, a set of client and server libraries designed to support the construction of data-intensive tools and applications. We describe the design of both this framework and a striped GridFTP server constructed within the framework. We show that this server is faster than other FTP servers in both single-process and striped configurations, achieving, for example, speeds of 27.3 Gbit/s memory-to-memory and 17 Gbit/s disk-to-disk over a 60 millisecond round trip time, 30 Gbit/s network. In another experiment, we show that the server can support 1800 concurrent clients without excessive load. We argue that this combination of performance and modular structure make the Globus GridFTP framework both a good foundation on which to build tools and applications, and a unique testbed for the study of innovative data management techniques and network protocols.


Abstract Text readability assessment is a challenging interdisciplinary endeavor with rich practical implications. It has long drawn the attention of researchers internationally, and the readability models since developed have been widely applied to various fields. Previous readability models have only made use of linguistic features employed for general text analysis and have not been sufficiently accurate when used to gauge domain-specific texts. In view of this, this study proposes a latent-semantic-analysis (LSA)-constructed hierarchical conceptual space that can be used to train a readability model to accurately assess domain-specific texts. Compared with a baseline reference using a traditional model, the new model improves by 13.88% to achieve 68.98% of accuracy when leveling social science texts, and by 24.61% to achieve 73.96% of accuracy when assessing natural science texts. We then combine the readability features developed for the current study with general linguistic features, and the accuracy of leveling social science texts improves by an even higher degree of 31.58% to achieve 86.68%, and that of natural science texts by 26.56% to achieve 75.91%. These results indicate that the readability features developed in this study can be used both to train a readability model for leveling domain-specific texts and also in combination with the more common linguistic features to enhance the efficacy of the model. Future research can expand the generalizability of the model by assessing texts from different fields and grade levels using the proposed method, thus enhancing the practical applications of this new method.


We present a significant extension of the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) to support the specific aspects of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data. MEG provides direct measurement of brain activity with millisecond temporal resolution and unique source imaging capabilities. So far, BIDS has provided a solution to structure the organization of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, which nature and acquisition parameters are different. Despite the lack of standard data format for MEG, MEG-BIDS is a principled solution to store, organize and share the typically-large data volumes produced. It builds on BIDS for MRI, and therefore readily yields a multimodal data organization by construction. This is particularly valuable for the anatomical and functional registration of MEG source imaging with MRI. With MEG-BIDS and a growing range of software adopting the standard, the MEG community has a solution to minimize curation overheads, reduce data handling errors and optimize usage of computational resources for analytics. The standard also includes well-defined metadata, to facilitate future data harmonization and sharing efforts.


The following study examines the effects of positive visualization on strength training. Positive visualization is being defined as: visualizing yourself performing a physical movement to best of your capability or beyond. Student-athletes were asked to positively visualize themselves performing lifts that they physically executed frequently in their training regimen (bench-press, back squat, clean or deadlift). A directionality analysis demonstrated that, compared to athletes who did not, participants who positively visualized had a significant increase in weight moved during a lift. The positively visualizing group demonstrated a 10-15 lb. increase in weight moved, while the control group only demonstrated a 5 lb. increase. This suggests that athletes are more successful when incorporating positive visualization into their training. Power movements (clean) dramatically increased, suggesting a follow-up study specific to type of muscle development and movement, could further improve the efficiency of athletic training combined with visualization. This research is important to the field of neurophysiology, as it demonstrates a connection between the mind (visualization) promoting potential change in neural circuity and muscle development (measured by strength). If we are better able to understand how thought and visualization influence the brain and the nervous system, we might be better equipped to understand the mind-body connection, and utilize it to promote health and wellness.


Research into the pathogenesis of microbial infections has a long and fruitful history, rich with elucidation of mechanisms that have resulted in better treatments and new strategies for vaccine development. Stanley Falkow's investigations into the intimate relationships between bacteria and host cells followed his comment that, "The microbe is just trying to make a living." Structural Biology of Bacterial Pathogenesis, by Gabriel Waksman, Michael Caparon, and Scott Hultgren, is a state-of-the-art treatise describing the known molecular mechanisms by which bacterial pathogens actively probe, sense, and respond to their environment through 2-component systems and through sigma and anti-sigma factors. In addition, the authors describe in great detail the recognition of host receptors by pili and the pilus biogenesis by chaperon-user pathways. The chapter on the role of sortases on surface expression of surface proteins among gram-positive bacteria is comprehensive and well written. Four excellent chapters describe 6 secretion systems among bacterial pathogens and elucidate the specific mechanisms by which bacterial pathogens usurp intracellular mechanisms of the host cell.

This book is enjoyable to read, is extensively referenced, and has 52 superb structural models in full color, based in part on x-ray crystallography. Unfortunately, these plates are all in 1 section and require the reader to page back and forth from specific chapters to the "core color plates." This book is not a compendium of bacterial toxins and virulence factors but rather a selection of molecular mechanisms of host-parasite interaction. This is a unique book that will be a valuable asset for researchers in the field of pathogenesis, graduate students, faculty who teach microbial pathogenesis, biotech companies, and pharmaceutical companies involved in antimicrobial drug or vaccine development.

The sophisticated molecular mechanisms that pathogenic bacteria have developed through their evolution with the human host, as described in this book, are credible evidence that our adversaries, the microbes, are doing better than "just making a living."


The primary responsibility of the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) is to protect online consumer privacy by developing an organization's privacy policy and ensuring compliance with privacy laws and regulations. However, the explosive growth of internet use for business has brought about an escalation of concerns including reduced consumer confidence in internet-related business activities, risk of financial loss, and legal liability from sources categorized as external and internal to the organization. Does the new CPO position provide adequate consideration of the increasing risks? This paper discusses the far-reaching types of misconduct and risks organizations face. The paper concludes by recommending an expanded role for the CPO. In addition to overseeing internet privacy issues, the new role of Chief Privacy and Integrity Officer (CPIO) would encompass internet integrity. This entails formulating or reformulating an expressed internet use policy, undertaking on-going training and other means to maintain awareness of issues, monitoring internal sources, implementing defenses against external sources, and securing adequate liability insurance. The effectiveness of this new role, in overseeing these responsibilities, would be determined by assessing current operations, implementing proactive measures to reduce potential misuse, and continuously keeping abreast of technological advances, legislative and regulatory initiatives, and new areas of vulnerability.


This paper presents an algorithm to automatically map code on a generic intelligent memory system that consists of a high-end host processor and a simpler memory processor. To achieve high performance with this type of architecture, the code needs to be partitioned and scheduled such that each section is assigned to the processor on which it runs most efficiently. In addition, the two processors should overlap their execution as much as possible. With our algorithm, applications are mapped fully automatically using both static and dynamic information. Using a set of standard applications and a simulated architecture, we obtain average speedups of 1.7 for numerical applications and 1.2 for nonnumerical applications over a single host with plain memory. The speedups are very close and often higher than ideal speedups on a more expensive multiprocessor system composed of two identical host processors. Our work shows that heterogeneity can be cost-effectively exploited and represents one step toward effectively mapping code on heterogeneous intelligent memory systems.


Sentiments expressed in user-generated short text and sentences are nuanced by subtleties at lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels. To address this, we propose to augment traditional features used for sentiment analysis and sarcasm detection, with cognitive features derived from the eye-movement patterns of readers. Statistical classification using our enhanced feature set improves the performance (F-score) of polarity detection by a maximum of 3.7% and 9.3% on two datasets, over the systems that use only traditional features. We perform feature significance analysis, and experiment on a held-out dataset, showing that cognitive features indeed empower sentiment analyzers to handle complex constructs.


The advent of e-commerce puts traditional retail companies under a lot of pressure. A way retailers try to attract more customers to their physical stores is by offering online services on the retail sales floor. Such services are enabled through pervasive retail systems. These systems, however, do not only offer new opportunities but also bear risks for retailers because they heavily depend on privacy-related data, which customers could perceive as a potential privacy threat. In the present paper, we thus investigate the antecedents of customers' usage intention towards such systems and the trade-off between the perceived benefits and the perceived privacy costs that are associated with their use. To this end, we propose a model based on the most recent version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) and the Extended Privacy Calculus Theory. We validate our model considering a smart fitting room application and show that the model is able to explain 67.1% of the variance in the behavioral intention to use the system and 43.1% of the variance in a person's willingness to disclose private information. Our results can be leveraged to design pervasive systems that are perceived as valuable instead of privacy threatening.


Hyponatremia and Hypokalemia are Electrolyte Disorders which are less common but serious effects that lead to severe complications such as death. This usually occurs due to imbalance between water and electrolytes in body often presented with signs and symptoms of Vomiting, Diarrhea, and Generalised Weakness. The common causes include decreased intake, increased excretion of Sodium, Potassium and rarely Drug induced. Immediate correction of electrolytes is very crucial by stopping the causative agents and providing additional support. This is a Case Report presenting: A 72 year old male patient presented to the hospital with symptoms of Generalised weakness and with past history of hypertension and Diabetes and he is on regular medication. Laboratory investigations showed abnormal values of Serum & Urinary Sodium and Potassium ions. On observing this case, it is found that it is the effect of ARB+Thiazide drug therapy and is managed by treating with additional supplements of Sodium [0.9% Normal Saline] & Potassium [Syrup Potassium Chloride] together with alteration of ARB+Thiazide therapy with "Loop Diuretics + Potassium Sparing Diuretics", which showed Good Results both by Physical response and Laboratory values.


Online readability tools have been largely used for measuring texts. Determining the readability of written materials using these tools seems to have been the only option left for the researchers to do. Luckily, experimentation comes into play at times, looking at other items in readability indexes. Such is the case with this present work—it compares and contrasts selected variables there at work for the purpose of determining their relationships. Given some data drawn from a study involving readability tools, this inquiry focuses on the correlational aspect of certain variables instead of just zeroing in on the readability, or otherwise, of some given texts. With a case study on the readability of reading texts in a mandated textbook, useful readability tools were browsed, their variables correlated. The results are a number of significant relationships, and tips to benefit from their emphasis.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The European Foundation for Quality Management excellence model includes a framework for evaluating the improvement of organizations that excellence organizations must achieve them. Also, business intelligence as a management philosophy and tool helps organization to achieve enduring advantage and organization excellence. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to investigating the impact of business intelligence on enablers of excellence model with using the mediating role of knowledge sharing. METHODS: According to purpose, the research method is applied and based on data collection is descriptive-survey. The statistical population of this study includes employees of Marvdasht Banks at the Fars province in Iran that 127 respondents were selected based on group sampling. Research data were collected using standard questionnaires (enablers of excellence model questionnaire, Popovic questionnaire for business intelligence and Wang questionnaire for Knowledge sharing) and analyzed through structural equation modeling by Smart-PLS. FINDING: Results showed that business intelligence has a positive and significant direct and indirect effect on enablers of excellence model. The direct effect of business intelligence on enablers of excellence model is equal to 0.482. The indirect effect of business intelligence on enablers of excellence model with the mediating role of Knowledge sharing is equal to 0.780. Also,the indirect effect of knowledge sharing on enablers of excellence model is equal to 0.410.The indirect effect of business intelligence on Knowledge sharing is equal to 0.726. CONCLUSION: Considering the research community, it can be said that in order to increase organizational excellence, bank managers should pay special attention to the variables of business intelligence and knowledge sharing and take action towards business intelligence by integrating data, increasing analytical capacity, increasing information quality, access quality of information and analytical decision-making. With these proceedings, not only affect knowledge sharing in the organization, but also increase organizational excellence. =============================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS: ©2021 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers. ===================================================================================================


Nowadays you will come across the word 'coaching' anytime and anywhere in the world. It is used in education, but also in business. It is used in big organizations, but also in small ones. It is used in non-profit organizations, but also in profit ones. It is used on an executive level, but also on the work floor. You come across various types of coaching, like personal coaching, buddy coaching, peer coaching, executive coaching, board coaching, business coaching, performance coaching, etc. But what exactly is coaching? Is it a philosophy, a concept, a tool or a skill? When is it useful, and when not. And how can coaching be applied in everyday life? In this article I will give a short summary of important elements of coaching.


This paper introduces co-operative caching policies for reducing electronic content provisioning cost in Social Wireless Networks (SWNET). SWNET are formed by mobile devices such as laptops, modern cell phones etc. sharing common electronic contents, data and actually gathering in public places like college campus, mall etc. Electronic object caching in such SWNET are shown to be able to minimize the content provisioning cost which mainly depend on service and pricing dependencies between various stakeholders including content provider(CP),network service provider, end consumer(EC). This paper introduces practical network service and pricing model which are used for creating two object caching strategies for minimizing provisioning cost in networks which are homogeneous and heterogeneous object demand. The paper develops analytical and simulation design for analyzing the proposed caching strategies in the presence of selfish user that deviates from networks-wide cost-optimal policies.


Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a general term for a diverse variety of cause affecting kidney structure and function. The term "chronic" is because the damage to the kidneys happens slowly over a long period of time. Damaged kidneys cannot filter extra water and wastes out of blood as compared to the healthy kidneys. The disease prognosis and control are categorized based on disease severity, which is evaluated by glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and albuminuria, and clinical diagnosis. Progression of CKD thus causes wastes to build up in the body and is associated with a number of severe complications, including increased incidence of cardiovascular disease, hyperlipidemia, anemia, and metabolic bone disease.Forty percent of CKD is a result of complications associated with diabetes. Patients with diabetes are suggested to intake reduced amount of carbohydrates and increased amount of proteins. Patients with CKD are suggested to intake a low protein diet. Thus, there is a fine need for CKD patients to understand the food constituents and functional components. Given the intricacies of the renal diet and the difficulties faced by patients due to conflicting recommendations and complexities faced in understanding processed food labels, there is a lot of emphasis in the present world to change the focus in CKD away from what not to eat to the concept of good nutrition as positive medicine or therapy for kidney patients.Specifically, there has been a surge in consumer interest on the beneficial role of specific foods with physiologically-active food components, so-called functional foods benefitting CKD. In the past century, increased attention to lifestyle and healthy diets has led to an increase in demand for functional foods.Thus, this review will discuss the key components that have been in investigated in vivo using rodent models, some clinical trials and studies for being identified as a 'nutraceuticals' for patients with CKD.KEYWORDS: Chronic kidney disease, Functional food, Conjugated Linoleic acid, LDL, HDL, Protein diet, Omega fatty acids, L-Carnitine.


I read the letter regarding the impending collapse of academic anaesthesia with considerable interest (Jackson et al. Anaesthesia 2003; 58: 911–2). As I am a clinical anaesthetist who does quite a bit of research 'on the side', I feel I can speak with a certain amount of authority on the issues raised, and perhaps suggest alternative solutions to the rather drastic measures proposed. In any case, their proposals are, in my view, impractical and unlikely to improve the lot of academic departments. There is no doubt that clinical academic departments in all specialties are suffering as a result of changes in funding, training, and the focus of Universities. There is also no doubt that anaesthesia has suffered disproportionately. One does not have to look very far to see why. The collective perception of research by anaesthetists themselves must take some of the blame. The following views are repeatedly expressed to me: 1 Anaesthesia is a service speciality and doesn't have time for research 2 Anaesthesia is very safe and cannot be improved upon, so clinical research is pointless 3 Basic science is too difficult for anaesthetists to understand 4 Trainees have no interest in research, and in any case it is no longer a career issue. I will deal with each of these in turn. If you think of yourself as a servant, you will be treated as a servant. There is no doubt that the more assertive approach in recent years by the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Association of Anaesthetists has vastly improved 'in-theatre' standards. Trivial operations are no longer performed at bizarre times of night, and consultant cover for trainees has improved beyond recognition in the past 20 years. Nevertheless, Trusts view anaesthetists simply as a means to an end – getting the patients to lie still long enough for the surgeon to perform the operation and thereby reduce the waiting lists. If we offer ourselves up merely as 'bums on seats', and perform no other extracurricular activity apart from occasional College activities, we can hardly expect our peers, the local hospital management, major research-funding bodies, or even the Government, to take much notice of what we say. 'Nobody asked the anaesthetists' is a frequent complaint. The current controversy surrounding the means of insertion of central lines is a good example. Did anyone from NICE ask you what you thought about it? We only have ourselves to blame. Anaesthesia of itself causes very little major morbidity or mortality in this country. However, in my view, this does not mean we can sit back and let the surgeons take all the blame, tempting as that may be. I have attended several national surgical meetings, and it always strikes me that the surgeons are continually frustrated by complex perioperative issues that limit the type of patient that can undergo a particular operation, and ⁄ or affect outcome. By this I mean such things as nutritional status, preand postoperative fluid balance, pulmonary embolus, wound infection and dehiscence, and MRSA to name but a few. You may think surgeons are a law unto themselves and should sort out their own problems, but I would contend that we are all professionals who have a collective responsibility for the welfare of any patient that we take to theatre. We need to work out how to provide the most relevant pre-operative care, how to maximise intra-operative management, and how to speed their recovery. We are part of the team that brought them into hospital. We have an obligation to get them out., The excuse that basic science is too difficult for anaesthetists to understand is put to me very frequently, and is possibly the scariest. With a very few notable exceptions, the majority of anaesthetic Specialist Registrars are convinced that science is an impenetrable jungle. Many of their consultant colleagues express similar views. In these attitudes, we are no better than the general public. The standard of scientific knowledge and understanding in this country is a national disgrace. Why are we following this herd? Medical schools recruit people with the highest science A-level grades in the country. We need to find out what happens next that turns these bright young people into trainees that are happy to give potent vasopressors without having the faintest idea how they work. Jackson et al. are quite right that we are in danger of turning


The advent of the electron microscope has fostered major advances in a broad spectrum of disciplines. The required vacuum environment of standard electron microscopy, however, precludes imaging of systems containing high vapor pressure liquids. The recent development of liquid cells like the Penn nanoaquarium overcomes this limitation, enabling imaging of temporally evolving processes in liquids with nanoscale resolution at video frame rates. We used Liquid Cell Electron Microscopy to investigate the morphological evolution of the electrode-electrolyte interface during electroplating, the onset of diffusive instabilities in electrodeposits, beam-mediated nucleation, growth, and dissolution of metallic nanoparticles, the nucleation and growth of nanobubbles, and the fundamentals of the electron-water interactions (Radiation Chemistry). The control of interfacial morphology in electrochemical processes is essential for applications ranging from nanomanufacturing to battery technologies. Critical questions still remain in understanding the transition between various growth regimes, particularly the onset of diffusion-limited growth. We present quantitative observations at previously unexplored length and time scales that clarify the evolution of the metal-electrolyte interface during deposition. The interface evolution during initial stages of galvanostatic Cu deposition on Pt from an acidic electrolyte is consistent with kinetic roughening theory, while at later times the behavior is consistent with diffusion limited growth physics. To control morphology, we demonstrate rapid pulse plating without entering the diffusion-limited regime, and study the effects of the inorganic additive Pb on the growth habit. The irradiating electrons used for imaging, however, affect the chemistry of the suspending medium. The electron beam's interaction with the water solvent produces molecular and radical products such as hydrogen, oxygen, and hydrated (solvated) electrons. A detailed understanding of the interactions between the electrons and the irradiated medium is necessary to correctly interpret experiments, minimize artifacts, and take advantage of the irradiation as a tool. We predict the composition of water subjected to electron irradiation under conditions relevant to liquid cell electron microscopy. We interpret experimental data, such as beam-induced colloid aggregation and observations of crystallization and etching of metallic particles as functions of dose rate. Our predictive model is useful for designing experiments that minimize unwanted solution chemistry effects, extend liquid cell microscopy to new applications, take advantage of beam effects for nanomanufacturing such as the patterning of nanostructures, and properly interpreting experimental observations. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics First Advisor Haim H. Bau This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1993


New York Times Bestseller "Schlosser has a flair for dazzling scene-setting and an arsenal of startling facts . . . Fast Food Nation points the way but, to resurrect an old fast food slogan, the choice is yours."--Los Angeles Times In 2001, Fast Food Nation was published to critical acclaim and became an international bestseller. Eric Schlosser's expose revealed how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world. The book changed the way millions of people think about what they eat and helped to launch today's food movement. In a new afterword for this edition, Schlosser discusses the growing interest in local and organic food, the continued exploitation of poor workers by the food industry, and the need to ensure that every American has access to good, healthy, affordable food. Fast Food Nation is as relevant today as it was a decade ago. The book inspires readers to look beneath the surface of our food system, consider its impact on society and, most of all, think for themselves. "As disturbing as it is irresistible . . . Exhaustively researched, frighteningly convincing . . . channeling the spirits of Upton Sinclair and Rachel Carson."--San Francisco Chronicle "Schlosser shows how the fast food industry conquered both appetite and landscape."--The New Yorker Eric Schlosser is a contributing editor for the Atlantic and the author of Fast Food Nation, Reefer Madness, and Chew on This (with Charles Wilson).


OBJECTIVE
Patients with progressive thyroid cancer in distant metastatic sites represent a population with a need for new therapeutic options. Aspiring to improve the treatment of such patients, the objective of this position statement from the International Thyroid Oncology Group (ITOG) is to clarify the importance of incorporating high-quality correlative studies into clinical trials.

PARTICIPANTS
ITOG was formed to develop and support high-quality multicenter and multidisciplinary clinical trials for patients with aggressive forms of thyroid cancer. The Correlative Sciences Committee of the ITOG focuses on the quality and types of correlative studies included in ITOG-associated clinical trials.

EVIDENCE
This document represents expert consensus from ITOG regarding this issue based on extensive collective experience in clinical and translational trials informed by basic science.

CONSENSUS PROCESS
The Correlative Studies Committee identified an international writing group representative of diverse specialties, including basic sciences. Drafts were reviewed by all members of the writing group, the larger committee, and the ITOG board. After consideration of all comments by the writing group and modification of the document, the final document was then approved by the authors and the ITOG board.

CONCLUSIONS
High-quality correlative studies, which include variety in the types of correlates, should be intrinsic to the design of thyroid cancer clinical trials to offer the best opportunity for each study to advance treatment for patients with advanced and progressive thyroid cancer.


Unlike stream ciphers, block ciphers are very essential for parallel processing applications. In this paper, the first hardware realization of chaotic-based block cipher is proposed for image encryption applications. The proposed system is tested for known cryptanalysis attacks and for different block sizes. When implemented on Virtex-IV, system performance showed high throughput and utilized small area. Passing successfully in all tests, our system proved to be secure with all block sizes.


Many Machine Reading and Natural Language Understanding tasks require reading supporting text in order to answer questions. For example, in Question Answering, the supporting text can be newswire or Wikipedia articles; in Natural Language Inference, premises can be seen as the supporting text and hypotheses as questions. Providing a set of useful primitives operating in a single framework of related tasks would allow for expressive modelling, and easier model comparison and replication. To that end, we present Jack the Reader (JACK), a framework for Machine Reading that allows for quick model prototyping by component reuse, evaluation of new models on existing datasets as well as integrating new datasets and applying them on a growing set of implemented baseline models. JACK is currently supporting (but not limited to) three tasks: Question Answering, Natural Language Inference, and Link Prediction. It is developed with the aim of increasing research efficiency and code reuse.


This paper draws on insights from Translation Studies and Imagology in order to highlight the specific ways in which ethnic images, which are present in literary texts, travel across ideological and linguistic borderlines through translations. Thus, the analyses of a series of case studies of literary translations from and into Romanian provide evidence in support of the idea that, depending on particular configurations of power relations at particular times in history, such ethnic cliches were carefully negotiated by translators, who faithfully propagated but also blocked or recreated the initial images which were present in the source texts. Secondly, the paper aims to show that the very presence of such images in a number of source texts played a significant part in their selection for translation in view of the political and diplomatic benefits that could be reaped from both positive and negative stereotyping.


This paper unites Deely's call for a better understanding of semiotics with Jaeger's insight into the sophists and the cultural history of the Ancient Greeks. The two bodies of knowledge are brought together to try to better understand the importance of rhetorical processes to political forms such as democracy. Jaeger explains how cultural expression, particularly poetry, changed through the archaic and classical eras to deliver, or at least to be commensurate with contemporary politics and ideologies. He explains how Plato (429-347 BCE) struggled against certain poetry and prose manifestations in his ambition to create a 'perfect man' – a humanity which would think in a way which would enable the ideal Republic to flourish. Deely's approach based on Poinsot and Peirce presents a theoretical framework by means of which we can think of the struggle to influence individual and communal conceptualisation as a struggle within semiotics. This is a struggle over the ways reality is signified by signs. Signs are physical and mental indications which, in the semiotic tradition, are taken to produce human subjectivity – human 'being'. Deely's extensive body of work is about how these signs are the building blocks of realist constructions of understanding. This paper is concerned with the deliberate use of oral and written signs in rhetorical activity which has been deliberately crafted to change subjectivity. We discuss: (1) what thought and culture is in terms of semiotics and (2) Jaeger's depiction of Ancient Greece as an illustration of the conjunction between culture and subjectivity. These two fields are brought together in order to make the argument that rhetoric can be theorised as the deliberate harnessing of semiotic affects. The implication is that the same semiotic, subjectivity-changing potency holds for 21 st century rhetoric. However fourth century BCE Athens is the best setting for a preliminary discussion of rhetoric as deliberate semiotic practice because this was when rhetoric was most clearly understood for what it is. By contrast a discussion concentrating on modern rhetoric: public relations; advertising; lobbying; and public affairs would open wider controversies requiring considerably more complex explanation.


Abstract Cattle ranches are cultural icons in many countries. Still, high costs to maintain ranches may force some ranchers to sell their operation. One income alternative is to diversify into agritourism. Empirical research on ranch agritourism is scarce. This study provides an overview of, and assesses the motivations for, and challenges to diversifying into agritourism from the ranchers' perspective. A survey of 400 Oregon ranchers in 2003 found that 21% of 177 respondents promoted agritourism and that it contributed 8% to their annual household income compared to an 84% contribution from livestock production. Working on the ranch and hunting/fishing were the most popular agritourism activities. Main motivations to diversify were to utilize ranch resources, capture additional income, and offset fluctuations in income. Key barriers were insurance and liability, lack of time, regulations, and lack of financial assistance and resources. Agritourism was a success for 79% of those involved; 73% of guests were repeat customers and 38% learned about the operation from friends and family. Most guests (82%) were from Oregon. Findings suggest that agritourism can be compatible with ranching and can help ranches to remain viable. Despite low adoption numbers at the time of this study, agritourism initiatives are likely to increase.


This paper explores the monitoring and evaluation system of the Millennium Villages Project in Potou, rural Senegal. It specifically focuses on the first evaluation report undertaken in 2009 after three years of intervention to assess the impacts of the project on communities in Potou. Theory of change, causal attribution, scaling-up, use of evaluation, and learning are the key issues that are addressed throughout the paper. Interviews with beneficiaries and project staff as well as the analysis of the project's evaluation report revealed that the project has created many positive impacts in the communities of Potou. However, unintended negative results have been observed in the sectors of education, health, and agriculture. Given the weaknesses that have been identified in the evaluation method, this paper suggests some strategies to strengthen the methodology of future evaluations, thus allowing for distinct attribution of the impacts to the project.


We consider price competition models for oligopolistic markets, in which a significant part of the product or service price is paid by a third party, as a subsidy. The consumer is, therefore, impacted by the net price, defined as the difference between the nominal price and the subsidy, while the firms earn the full nominal price, partially paid by the subsidizing third party and the remainder by the consumer. When choosing among the various competing options, the consumer trades off the net price paid with various other product or service attributes, as in standard price competition models. The subsidy may be exogenously specified and pre-announced to the competing firms. Alternatively, it may be endogenously determined, as a function of the set of nominal prices selected by the competing firms, for example the lowest or the second lowest price. We first characterize the equilibrium behavior under a general subsidy scheme of the above type; this in a base model, where we assume that the consumer choice model is of the general MultiNomialLogit (MNL) type. We also derive comparison results for the price equilibria that arise under alternative subsidy schemes. We proceed to apply our results to the Medicare insurance market, both in terms of its existing structure, as well as in terms of various proposals to redesign the program, in particular the Wyden-Ryan plan. We show that implementation of the latter plan in 2010 would have reduced the capitation rates, on average by 18.5% and enabled savings of 16.2% in the governments' costs. These numbers are significantly larger than traditional estimates obtained under the assumption that the plans' premia and market shares would not be affected by the new capitation rate scheme. For beneficiaries continuing to opt for the traditional Medicare plan, the average monthly cost is roughly $64. Finally, we discuss extension of our model to Mixed MultiNominal Logit demand systems and prospect theoretical price competition models.


Subspace segmentation is the process of clustering a set of data points that are assumed to lie on the union of multiple linear or affine subspaces, and is increasingly being recognized as a fundamental tool for data analysis in high dimensional settings. Arguably one of the most successful approaches is based on the observation that the sparsest representation of a given point with respect to a dictionary formed by the others involves nonzero coefficients associated with points originating in the same subspace. Such sparse representations are computed independently for each data point via l1-norm minimization and then combined into an affinity matrix for use in a final spectral clustering step. The downside of this procedure is two-fold. First, unlike canonical compressive sensing scenarios with ideally-randomized dictionaries, the data-dependent dictionaries here are unavoidably highly structured, disrupting many of the favorable properties of the l1 norm. Secondly, by treating each data point independently, we ignore useful relationships between points that can be leveraged for jointly computing such sparse representations. Consequently, we motivate a multi-task learning-based framework for learning coupled sparse representations leading to a segmentation pipeline that is both robust against correlation structure and tailored to generate an optimal affinity matrix. Theoretical analysis and empirical tests are provided to support these claims.


Riparian ecosystems are valuable to the ecological and human communities that depend on them. Over the past century, they have been subject to shifting management practices to maximize human use and ecosystem services, creating a complex relationship between water policy, management, and the natural ecosystem. This has necessitated research on the spatial and temporal dynamics of riparian vegetation change. The San Acacia Reach of the Middle Rio Grande has experienced multiple management and river flow fluctuations, resulting in threats to its riparian and aquatic ecosystems. This research uses remote sensing data, GIS, a review of management decisions, and an assessment of climate to both quantify how riparian vegetation has been altered over time and provide interpretations of the relationships between riparian change and shifting climate and management objectives. This research focused on four management phases from 1935 to 2014, each highlighting different management practices and climate-driven river patterns, providing unique opportunities to observe a direct relationship between river management, climate, and riparian response. Overall, we believe that management practices coupled with reduced surface river-flows with limited overbank flooding influenced the compositional and spatial patterns of vegetation, including possibly increasing non-native vegetation coverage. However, recent restoration efforts have begun to reduce non-native vegetation coverage.


Defines the distinctive characteristics of true Christian discipleship derived from following the pattern of the life and death of Jesus Christ. This pattern consists of the three conditions of, in the author's words, 'self-denial, taking up the Cross, and following Jesus.' Concludes that spiritual discipline and the conditions for discipleship are one and the same reality.


A gas composition sensor based on Raman spectroscopy using reflective metal lined capillary waveguides is tested under field conditions for feedforward applications in combustion control. The capillary waveguide enables effective use of low powered lasers and rapid composition determination, for computation of required parameters to pre-adjust burner control based on incoming fuel. Tests on high pressure fuel streams show sub-second time response and better than one percent accuracy on natural gas fuel mixtures. Fuel composition and Wobbe constant values are provided at one second intervals or faster. The sensor, designed and constructed at NETL, is packaged for Class I Division 2 operations typical of gas turbine and boiler environments, and samples gas at up to 800 psig. Simultaneous determination of the hydrocarbons methane, ethane, and propane plus CO, CO2, H2O, H2, N2, and O2 are realized. The capillary waveguide permits use of miniature spectrometers and laser power of less than 100 mW. The capillary dimensions of 1 m length and 300 μm ID also enable a full sample exchange in 0.4 s or less at 5 psig pressure differential, which allows a fast response to changes in sample composition. Sensor operation under field operation conditions will be reported.


When considering the performance of HRV systems, the discussion is generally focusing on the reported effectiveness of the air-to-air heat exchanger. Although some excellent presentations at the AIVC conference in the past have dealt with uncertainties related to the test of that effectiveness, the fact that the heat recovered by the HRV unit might not be useful in an intermittently heated dwelling without room-by-room based demand control is usually not considered. Therefore, the 'use-factor' for the recovered heat is quantified in this paper. The goal of this project was to investigate the performance of heat recovery units in low energy buildings by simulating different buildings under varying conditions. The influence of several parameters on this performance is studied: the type of building, the insulation and airtightness, the ventilation flow rates, the ventilation strategy, the heat exchanger effectiveness, the occupancy pattern and the demanded comfort level. The results suggest that, although a heat exchanger can have an effectiveness of e.g. 75%, only approximately 40% of the heat in the extracted air is recovered and supplied usefully to the rooms.


In the CO2 heat pump system, Poly alkyl glycol (PAG) oil is commonly used for lubrication of the compressor, while it is reported that the PAG oil has influence on the heat transfer performance due to its immiscibility against CO2 within its working condition. Experimental work has been carried out to investigate the heat transfer performance of fin and tube heat exchangers using CO2 as a refrigerant with taking PAG oil into account. From previous study it was found that the heat transfer performance decreased significantly in both evaporator and gascooler conditions when oil was mixed. The present work presents experimental results on three types of air-cooled heat exchangers with smooth and inner grooved tubes. It was found that the deterioration ratio of heat transfer performance with oil was different depending on the inner surface geometry of the grooved tubes. To understand this, flow visualization inside these tubes has also been carried out through transparent section made of glass, which can withstand high pressure. It was confirmed that the oil behavior inside tubes was related to heat transfer performance. Heat transfer performance can be improved by using inner grooved tubes with the optimal pattern to remove oil away from inner surface. These tubes are effective to develop high performance heat exchangers for the CO2 heat pump system.


textabstractUser-Generated Content in online platforms or chatter for short provides a valuable source of consumer feedback on market performance of firms. This study examines whether chatter can predict stock market performance, which metric of chatter has the strongest relationship, and what the dynamics of the relationship are. The authors aggregate chatter (in the form of product reviews) from multiple websites over a four year period across six markets and fifteen firms. They derive multiple metrics of chatter (volume, positive chatter, negative chatter, and 5-start ratings) and use multivariate time series models to assess the short and long term relationship between chatter and stock market performance. They use three measures of stock market performance: abnormal returns, risk, and trading volume.

The findings reveal that two metrics of chatter can predict abnormal returns with a lead of a few days. Of four metrics of chatter, volume shows the strongest relationship with returns and trading volume, followed by negative chatter. Whereas negative chatter has a strong effect on returns and trading volume with a short "wearin" and long "wearout," positive chatter has no effect on these metrics. Negative chatter also increases volatility (risk) in returns.

A portfolio analysis of trading stocks based on their chatter provides a return of 8% over and above normal market returns. In addition to the investing opportunities, the results show managers that chatter is an important metric to follow to gauge the performance of their brands and products. Because chatter is available daily and hourly, it 2 can provide an immediate pulse of performance that is not possible with infrequent sales and earnings reports. The fact that negative chatter is more important than positive, indicates that negatives are more diagnostic than positives. The negatives suggest what aspects of the products managers should focus on.


What happens when Chinese American youths travel to mainland China in search of their ancestral roots, only to realize that in many ways they still feel out of place, or when mainland Chinese realize that the lives of the Chinese abroad may not be as good as they had imagined? By considering programs designed to facilitate interactions between overseas Chinese and their ancestral homelands, Andrea Louie highlights how these programs not only create opportunities for new connections but also reveal the disjunctures that now separate Chinese Americans from China and mainland Chinese from the Chinese abroad.

Louie focuses on "In Search of Roots," a program that takes young Chinese American adults of Cantonese descent to visit their ancestral villages in China's Guangdong province. Through ethnographic interviews and observation, Louie examines the experiences of Chinese Americans both during village visits in China and following their participation in the program, which she herself took part in as an intern and researcher. She presents a vivid portrait of two populations who, though connected through family ties generations back, are meeting for the first time in the context of a rapidly changing contemporary China. Louie situates the participants' and hosts' shifting understandings of China and Chineseness within the context of transnational flows of people, media, goods, and money; China's political and economic policies; and the racial and cultural politics of the United States.


Electronics devices need a direct current power supply although now only one alternating current power supply is available. Therefore, ac-dc converters which can convert an alternating current power supply to a direct current power supply will be needed. However, the use of this ac-dc converters will cause distortion in the form of current waves which are called harmonics. This harmonics can fault the work of the other electric devices which are attached to the same power source. Therefore, it is recommended that the harmonics generated by rectifiers should be under IEC 61000-3-2 standard. In this research will the reduction of harmonics by using LCL filter. At load of 2 kW, R of 5 , L of 0,05 H at PWM rectifiers single phase full bridge with RL load produce the third harmonics current of 2.57 amperes, the installed LCL filter produces the third harmonics current of 1.26 amperes. According to IEC-61000-3-2 standard, the allowed third harmonics current is 2.3 amperes.


Smoking is the most preventable cause of premature death in the world. And its disadvantages imposes heavy financial burden on the health system. Due to the great advances in health education, health care approach to identify factors associated with smoking cessation changed and models of health education emphasized, and most useful of them are transtheoretical model (TTM). This study examined predictors of smoking cessation among male staff in the hospitals. This study included a convenience sample of 200 current and former smokers staff employed at four hospitals. The instruments included decisional balance scale, self-efficacy scale, processes of change scale (behavioral and experiential), and stages of change which self-reportly completed. The results showed that 66.5% of participant were located in earlier stage of change, self-efficacy and processes of change and decisional balance significantly correlate with stage of change, and experiential processes of change (β=0.067), self-efficacy (β=-0.059) and behavioral processes (β=0.027) were the strongest predictor of stage of change respectively. The results revealed that increases in readiness to quit smoking were significantly predicted by mechanisms of self-efficacy and experiential process of change such as environmental reevaluation and behavioral process of change such as stimulus control and counter conditioning, which can lead to positive progress in stage of change in smokers. These results support the application of TTM for smoking cessation interventions and indicate that the procedure was very effective in improving intention to quit smoking among hospitals staff.


By the mid-1970s, Tanzania had the biggest co-operative movement in Africa and the oldest in East Africa. Despite such achievement, for decades, the literature on Tanzania's small-scale coffee and cotton cultivation and marketing co-operatives has suffered from a dearth of substantive historical accounts. The available literature is fragmented along various academic disciplines, mostly political science and sociology. In addition, there is no single substantive secondary historical study specifically dedicated to the co-operative movement since the inception in 1932. The neglect is more critical given the current renaissance in Africa and increasing international interest in the co-operative movement at either national or local levels. This thesis seeks to fill this gap by utilising primary sources from the Co-operative College archive in Manchester and Tanzania National Archive (TNA) to examine and evaluate the coffee and cotton marketing co-operatives during the 1932 to 1982 period. The study further explores the interlocking forces and policies that led to its growth and development. The development is also examined against the changing political and ideological influences during the interwar, and post-war to independence periods.
This thesis is structured under three cases, two of which are coffee marketing co-operatives, the Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union (KNCU) and Bukoba Co-operative Union (BCU) in Kagera; and the cotton apex marketing co-operative in the WCGA, the Victoria Federation of Co-operative Unions (VFCUS) which was formed in 1955. Study findings show that the time gap in the formation of the mentioned co-operatives were due to the colonial authority neglecting its own co-operative development policy. The evidence shows that, the KNCU which was formed in 1933 and BCU in 1950 were both established at the behest of the British colonial government in a move to control the coffee industry. Importantly, the study examines the power relations involved and the government interventions in the process and the extent to which the co-operatives were promoted and controlled by the government through the co-operative and agricultural marketing policies and legislations. This was particularly provided under Section 36 of the 1932 co-operative legislation and was further reinforced by three policies, the 1934 Chagga Rule, the 1937 Native (control and marketing) Ordinance and the Defence Ordinance, Orders of 1939 and 1940; and the African Agricultural Products (Control and Marketing) Ordinance, 1949.
The post-colonial authority perpetuated the colonial policies in promoting co-operatives and the control of agricultural export revenues provided under the 1962 by the National Agricultural Products Board (Control and Marketing) Act by intensifying the intervention, effectively strangling and restructuring them to provide for effective control. Again, there was an increased politisation of the movement's function as they became an integral part of the propagation of the socialist/ujamaa ideology and the national development plan as the 1976 villagisation policy.
This study is of the view that the colonial and post-colonial authorities intervened in the formation of co-operatives given the fact that they were economically strategically vital. During the phases covered in this thesis, the established legislations reinforced the government's control over the co-operative movement and the producers; and granted themselves a monopoly over the handling and export of small-scale produced coffee and cotton through the control of marketing boards by appointing co-operatives as crop handling agents. Thus, the co-operative movement never attained autonomous status as it became part of the government machinery in extracting resources and exploiting small-scale growers.


Exploring the Quintessential: Art for a Nation Two imported cultural references come to mind upon visiting the (world class) Art Gallery of Ontario's OH! Canada Project and its central exhibition The Group of Seven: Art for a Nation. One is theme music from the film The Magnificent Seven, rising to triumphal crescendo, and the other is author Jane Smiley's critique of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who pronounces that it "has little to offer in the way of greatness. There is more to be learned about the American character from its canonization than through its canonization."(f.1) It costs $12.50 Canadian to see this show, and while it's perfectly possible to see many Group of Seven paintings in the regular part of the gallery, or to trek to Kleinberg and see many, many Group of Seven paintings, still, it seems interesting and important to see this particular show, because: i) it has been mounted by the National Gallery in honour of the Group's anniversary and has been travelling across the country; ii) some pieces have not been exhibited since their first showing in the 1920s; iii) the AGO has made an energetic effort to make it special through a comprehensive, multi - dimensional exploration, including lectures, a film series, musical events and various participatory activities; and iv) Canada has canonized this group of artists. Curator Charles Hill's summation in the accompanying catalogue articulates this position: The ideas debated and promoted by the Group of Seven have had a long life - for some, far too long. They would inform cultural policy into the 1950s and beyond; of the seventeen recipients of the prestigious Canada Council Medal from 1961 to 1964, for example, twelve had played some role in the events narrated in this text: Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, Fred Varley, Wilfred Pelletier Sir Ernest MacMillan, E.J. Pratt, Marius Barbeau, Brooke Claxton, and Vincent Massey. Like other major art innovators, the Group were united in their intent and cooperative action, and together they were remarkably effective in promulgating their vision across Canada and internationally. Theirs is a notable record of achievement, and their ideals have left a permanent trace on the culture of Canada.(f.2) The show is solemn, beautiful and simply organized in chronological order, selectively recreating exhibitions that the Group held from 1920 - 1931 at the Art Gallery of Toronto, now the Art Gallery of Ontario. Original members were Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Frank H. Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald and F.H. Varley. Tom Thomson, who died in 1917, continued to exert a presence, while Johnston remained a member for only two years. In 1926 the members invited A.J. Casson to join the Group, bringing it back to seven. Each member was an individual, and while they all espoused the promotion of painting that connected in style and subject matter to the Canadian environment, they each had their own ways of doing so. The gallery is well attended on a Saturday morning, its audience respectfully progressing from one piece to another, including the accompanying installations which the AGO has mounted to complement the Art for a Nation travelling show, and the handsome AGO shop where clever marketing tactics and enthusiastic consumerism make stopping by obligatory. (I'm getting a BOYZ IN THE WOOD T - shirt.) But in spite of its solemnity, its explication of something quintessentially Canadian, its catechism of "the spirit of young Canada"(f.3) the artists themselves have managed to subvert their own doctrine in little, but important ways, and perhaps in spite of themselves. Ethnologist Marius Barbeau compared the importation of cultural values to importing wine, olive oil and silk.(f.4) Apparently Canadians were not willing to live by corn and tobacco alone, and Canadian cultural consumers were getting their values from abroad at the expense of indigenous products. …


This paper calls fresh attention to ethical problems surrounding prenatal testing by focusing on genetic knowledge gained through evolving testing procedures. Advances in reproductive and prenatal genetic testing include non-invasive tests, such as Verifi and Materniti21, designed to gather detailed information regarding fetal DNA as early as 10 weeks. Meanwhile, a new method of chromosomal microarray has proved more reliable than karyotyping (visual screening) in detecting fetal abnormality. This method detects abnormalities in 1 out of every 60 pregnancies in which karyotyping identified the fetus as "normal." Chromosomal microarray directly compares fetal DNA to DNA from a presumptively "healthy person" to identify genetic deviations (Wapner et al 2012, Fitzgerald 2012). The chromosomal microarray method thus assumes a human genetic blueprint—that is, a normal genotype, deviance from which is risky and open to medical diagnosis. But, according to philosopher and geneticist Jackie Leach Scully (2008), there is no genetic blueprint for human beings. Rather, genetic variation is constant. Thus, notes Scully, genetic discourse could free medical discourse from the dictates of the binary between normal and abnormal, although mistaken belief in a genetic blueprint can foil this alternative way of speaking and thinking.
Prenatal testing has received critical philosophical attention from both disability theorists and feminists. Adrienne Asch (2003, 2005) suggests that prenatal testing and diagnosis stigmatizes already-existing persons with disabilities by suggesting that bodily deviance is intolerable. Licia Carlson (2002) coined the phrase "prenatal prototypes" to describe the obfuscating results of genetic profiling carried out on the fetus (she claims that prenatal prototypes are constructed from genetic information divorced from phenotype and so are necessarily partial). The philosophical conversation Asch and Carlson stimulate involves higher stakes now that testing uncovers fetal genotype and reveals mere genetic deviation in order to aid reproductive decision-making.

I argue that prenatal testing, and especially the most recently developed testing procedures described above, forecloses Scully's alternative discourse of genetic variation by supporting an ideal of a singular "healthy genotype," deviance from which is to be uncovered and avoided. Mobilizing this insight by drawing on the work of feminist disability scholars like Asch and Carlson, I seek to foreground the play between norm and deviance. I expose the normalizing field of statistical risk, operating in excess of medical diagnosis, which requires potential parents to manage and avoid deviance itself.


Although there is well-documented evidence of an association between company
size and injury incidence, evidence addressing relationships between company size and
the duration of occupational disability is not as well established. To gain a better
understanding of differences in temporary disability (i.e., timeloss days) between
workers employed in small (100 or fewer workers) versus larger companies
(>100 workers), data from 340 workers with low back pain were examined using
bivariate and multivariate analyses. Overall, 41% of workers accrued at least one
timeloss day during the course of their claim, with no differences between the
percentage of workers with at least one timeloss day employed in small versus larger
companies. However, the duration of timeloss was significantly greater for workers in
small versus larger companies. Workers employed in small companies were more likely
to have very long claims. In addition, separate multiple linear regression models were
built to explain absenteeism duration in small and larger companies. Both physical
(e.g., more severe injury, discontinuing exercise post injury) and psychological (e.g.,
lower social support, ambiguity in job tasks) were found to be significant predictors of
absenteeism duration. Possible reasons for the longer duration of work-related
absenteeism in small versus larger companies include limited opportunities for
modified work tasks in small companies, more proactive management of absenteeism
and return to work issues in larger companies, and less recognition of the importance of
early return to work programs in smaller companies. Because of the large numbers of
North American workers employed in small companies, there is a need for a more
comprehensive understanding of disability trends and return to work impediments
among this subgroup of workers.


This book describes a powerful and flexible technique for the modeling of behavior, based on evolutionary principles. The technique employs stochastic dynamic programming and permits the analysis of behavioral adaptations wherein organisms respond to changes in their environment and in their own current physiological state. Models can be constructed to reflect sequential decisions concerned simultaneously with foraging, reproduction, predator avoidance, and other activities. The authors show how to construct and use dynamic behavioral models. Part I covers the mathematical background and computer programming, and then uses a paradigm of foraging under risk of predation to exemplify the general modeling technique. Part II consists of five "applied" chapters illustrating the scope of the dynamic modeling approach. They treat hunting behavior in lions, reproduction in insects, migrations of aquatic organisms, clutch size and parental care in birds, and movement of spiders and raptors. Advanced topics, including the study of dynamic evolutionarily stable strategies, are discussed in Part III.


Study groups are common approaches for students to study together at schools. However, little is known about how this approach is suited to MOOC based learning, where learners watch and discuss MOOC lecture videos in a collaborative manner. Watching MOOCs with peers creates learning experiences that blend the way students learn in classroom with learning through a computer: Students get a chance to "pause" the professor as well as to discuss with other learners. In this paper, we explore this type of MOOC-based learning. Findings from our longitudinal study on spontaneous collocated MOOC study groups suggest that groups tend to stick to a certain kind of study style. A strong positive relationship was found between how often students pause and replay the videos and the synchronicity among groups. Further, synchronous groups tended to perceive better group learning experience, in terms of self-assessed quality and mutual participation. Future MOOC designers as well as schools that offer courses in a flipped classroom format can use the insights to provide guided support for group learners of MOOCs.


The Jacobaea hybrid system has been proved to be a good tool to study the interaction between PA variation and herbivore resistance. Based on this hybrid system, we have explored how the biotic and abiotic factors influence the PA diversity. All the herbivore tests were integrated to draw the general conclusion that the selection pressures from different herbivores contribute to the diversity in PA composition and that generalist and specialist herbivores exert a divergent selection pressure on PA concentrations. The PAs showed seasonal variation within each genotype and the relative differences between genotypes remained constant over time, which was the first study to report the seasonal variation of SMs. The application of MeJA can lead to a shift in PA composition and primary metabolites. Importantly the shift in metabolite diversity induced by MeJA application can conversely affect the feeding of chewing herbivores and cell-content feeders. However, SA application did not lead to significant changes in PAs and the metabolite profile changes detected by NMR rendered J. aquatica more resistance to piercing-sucking herbivore thrips, showing that PAs did not affect thrips resistance. Several metabolites detected by NMR were found to be correlated with resistance and susceptibility to thrips F. occidentalis.


In this article, I ask how state ethnography deploys, demands, and ultimately instantiates the ethnological forms of a particular multicultural order. Extending recent interests in paraethnographics, I take as my "object" the interface of state ethnography itself. Specifically, I examine an ethnographic survey government anthropologists conducted in Darjeeling to determine the eligibility of ten ethnic groups seeking recognition as Scheduled Tribes of India. Refiguring the proverbial encounter of anthropologists and tribes, I interrogate the real-time dynamics through which both sides negotiate, take up, and take on normative ethnological paradigms—thus actualizing the ethno-logics of Indian multiculturalism within and, indeed, beyond the classificatory moment.


Many researchers have noted that not only natural ecosystems but also landscapes actively modified by humans (engineered or designed ecosystems) can significantly impact the level of ecosystem goods and availability of services, thereby impacting human and social welfare. In New Zealand, agricultural lands are the largest area of engineered ecosystems on the national landscape. Study of the welfare effects of ecosystem services delivered by agricultural land can provide important insights into the management of engineered or designed ecosystems. This paper uses the contingent valuation method (CVM) and choice modelling to estimate values of four key ecosystem services: climate regulation, water regulation, soil retention and scenic views, for New Zealand land used for arable farming.


Purpose To evaluate the effectiveness of new management policies on the incidence of invasive Candida infections Methods This observational study involved a retrospective analysis of the patients' medical records. In total, 99 very low birth weight infants, who were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Ajou University Hospital from January 2010 to December 2011, were enrolled for the study. Period I, defined as the period before the revision of management policies, comprised 57 infants; whereas, period II, defined as the period after the implementation of new management policies, comprised 42 infants. The new management policies entailed a reduction in antibiotic and histamine type 2 receptor blocker (H2 blocker) use, duration of central venous catheterization, and duration of endotracheal intubation. Results There was a significant overall decrease in the use of antibiotics including 3rd generation cephalosporin and H2 blockers (P<0.05), and a significantly lower incidence of invasive Candida infections in period II as compared to period I (0/42 vs. 6/57, respectively; P=0.037). Comparison between infants with invasive Candida infections (n=6) and those without (n=93) showed that gestational age (odds ratio [OR], 0.909; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.829 to 0.996; P=0.042) and the duration of 3rd generation cephalosporin use (OR, 1.093; 95% CI, 1.009 to 1.183; P=0.029) were statistically significant risk factors. Conclusion The new management policies effectively decreased overall use of antibiotics, especially 3rd generation cephalosporin, and H2 blockers, which led to a significantly lower incidence of invasive Candida infections.


PURPOSE
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the periimplant conditions and the maintenance requirements for implant-supported overdentures in the mandible retained with ball or bar attachments during a 5-year period.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Twenty-six completely edentulous patients had two Astra Tech dental implants placed in the anterior part of the mandible. The denture attachment system for the patients was chosen randomly by drawing lots. Eleven patients drew the bar attachment system and fifteen patients drew the ball attachment system. Plaque Index, Gingival Index, and probing pocket depth were assessed around each implant. Periotest values were recorded, and periodically identical intraoral radiographs were obtained with a specially designed film-holding device.

RESULTS
No implants were lost from baseline to the 5-year registration. The periimplant conditions were very healthy after 5 years. No significant differences of the periimplant variables were recorded between the bar and the ball groups. During the first year of function, significantly more complications/repairs were registered in the bar group than in the ball group. In the following years, no significant differences were registered. The mean frequency of complications/repairs per patient per year was 1.0 in the bar group and 0.6 in the ball group during the 5-year observation period.

CONCLUSION
Two implants with ball or bar attachment supported an overdenture in the mandible for 5 years with a 100% survival rate. No differences in marginal bone loss or health of the periimplant mucosa were observed between bar and ball attachment, but the frequency of technical complications/repairs per patient was higher around bar than ball attachments.


: 6 Thermoelectric (TE) devices are regarded as alternative and environmentally friendly 7 for harvesting and recovering heat energy. Particularly, thermoelectric generators (TEGs) 8 are used for converting heat into electricity. One of the challenges behind TEG is that the 9 power generated is unstable and therefore needs proper power conditioning mechanism 10 before it is supplied to the load. Moreover, it is necessary to track the maximum power 11 point (MPP) at all times so that maximum power is always extracted from TEG devices. 12 The objective of this work is to analyse the performance of a dc-dc converter with 13 maximum power point tracking (MPPT) enabled by incremental conductance (IC) method. 14 The simplified model is used as the basis for TEG design while the dc-dc boost converter 15 is used for boosting and stabilising the power generated from TEG. The results of the IC 16 based MPPT approach have been compared with those of perturb and observe (P&O) based 17 MPPT from a previous researcher. The results indicate that the IC based MPPT approach 18 is able to track the MPP but with relatively lower efficiencies than the P&O based MPPT 19 method. The matching efficiency within a temperature range of 200 o C– 300 o C is in the 20 range of 99.92% - 99.95% for P&O and 99.46% - 99.97% for IC method. However IC 21 based MPPT method has higher voltage gain and converter efficiency than the P&O based 22 MPPT method. Therefore, dc-dc converters are able to improve the steady state 23 performance of TEG system as well as boosting the voltage to the desired level, hence improving the overall performance of TEG system. Although both P&O and IC are two classical algorithms that can be implemented to extract the maximum power from TEG, the comparative study has established that P&O technique outperforms the IC method.


Being functioned as the main transportation line for passengers and cargo, any distress on the pavement of South Ring Road in Yogyakarta requires rehabilitation to prevent severe condition. But before the rehabilitation is carried out, it is required to evaluate the road pavement condition. The objective of this study is to appraise or to value the road pavement condition. This research implementation was visually completed by using Pavement Condition Index Method. It was started by dividing the road into several research units in 100 x 3.5 m by size for each unit sample. Then, each of the research unit was observed and measured to identify the distress type and severity level in order to obtain PCI rating value of the pavement. Result of the study showed that the distress types included the alligator cracking, block cracking, depression, longitudinal and transverse cracking, patching, polished aggregate, shoving, slippage cracking and weathering/graveling. The prevailing ones were block cracking and alligator cracking. The damages occurred only on some parts of the segment. Therefore, it was better to adjust the treatment for such damage for the distress type. Treatment priorities should be given to sample unit 23 B (lane 1) due to its smallest PCI value, which was 22, with VERY POOR condition pavement rating.


Does appraisal co-ordinate emotional responses? Are emotions usually reached via mental representations of relational meaning? This comment considers alternative causal routes in order to assess the centrality of appraisal in the explanation of emotion. Implicit and explicit meaning extraction can certainly help steer the course of emotion-related processes. However, presupposing that appraisals represent the driving force behind all aspects of emotion generation leads to inclusive formulations of appraisal or restrictive formulations of emotion.


During the economic boom of the early 2000s, most Latin American countries increased their minimum wages. In Brazil, the real minimum wage increased by upwards of 60 percent from 2003 through 2012. In this paper, we take advantage of administrative data to explore whether the minimum wage resulted in negative employment impacts in Brazil's formal sector. We explore different measures of the incidence of the minimum wage across states and examine various empirical specifications, yet find no significant disemployment impacts associated with this policy. On the other hand, we find significant negative impacts in microregions which were less exposed to the commodities boom. Since empirical strategies relying on incidence measures are inherently limited, we additionally exploit the introduction of a 2000 law which allowed states to implement regional wage floors. While these floors vary in scope and size, we find that the five states which implemented this policy included provisions directly targeting workers in the accommodation and restaurant sector. As a result, we adapt Dube, Lester and Reich's (2010) empirical strategy to Brazil and estimate the impact of these floors on employment in this sector by exploiting variation in microregions straddling state borders. As in our initial estimates, we find no significant negative employment impacts arising from the wage floors, indicating that during the early 2000s, the minimum wage did not result in negative employment impacts in Brazil's formal sector. Nonetheless, we caution that this result may not hold in a recessionary context, as shown in our commodity boom-incidence results.


Abstract This article, part of a larger work in progress, uses archives, key secondary sources, and oral histories from participants in the 1970 United States postal wildcat strike for better pay and working conditions to argue that this was a monumental event both unique and representative of the times. It was a rank-and-file effort that began in New York City – with a history of labor militancy – and rapidly spread across the country. The strike defied federal statute outlawing federal employee strikes, and also union leaders who opposed striking. A spike in 1960s hiring of blacks, veterans, women, and young people, combined with established labor unity tradition, a nationwide workplace and long-simmering frustrations produced the strike. But its dual character (both spontaneous and organized by local union officials and activists) allowed it to grow and maintain for eight days with no central coordination. Besides winning a living wage, the strike triggered the transformation of the US Post Office Department into the US Postal Service (USPS) with full collective bargaining rights for postal unions representing its employees. Moreover, it brought rank-and-file politics into postal unions while contributing to the increased strength of postal unions, public union organizing, and the labor movement in general.