Marketing and entrepreneurship may be described as being both sides of the same coin. Both are different and yet similar. While their focus may differ, both need to co-exist in a firm as they complement and overlap each other. However, the extent of the overlap will depend on contextual issues such as the type of economy, the stage of economic development, the type of entrepreneurial activity pursued and the strategic orientation of the firm.

This research study explores the extent of the marketing-entrepreneurship interface in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore. The choice of Singapore as the context is highly relevant for three main reasons. First, no similar study on Singapore has been done before. Second, Singapore has achieved much since her independence in 1965 and is excellent example of a successful mixed economy and relatively well-developed economy in Asia. Third, continuing efforts by the government to 'remake' Singapore by fostering entrepreneurship makes it a highly suitable context.

A hybrid of qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used in this research study. The findings of this study indicate that while marketing orientation and entrepreneurial orientation are clearly related, entrepreneurial orientation appears to be more important than marketing orientation in contributing to the firm's overall performance. This does not mean that marketing is less important to the SMEs; it means that all things being equal, an entrepreneurial orientation may be more crucial to the firm's performance.

This study also confirms the importance of entrepreneurship if Singapore is to continue to succeed into the future. The low-cost competitive advantage that Singapore had enjoyed in the past is being eroded as other countries in the region catch up with lower costs. Foreign Multinational Corporations (MNCs) now have many other choices of countries to invest in. Furthermore, Singapore's small population of 4 million means that there is no critical mass to provide a ready market for these MNCs. This research reinforces the need for politicians, policy planners and firms to give greater support to promoting entrepreneurship.


The Nankan lineament and the Shanchiao normal fault are two major "structures" at the western and eastern boundaries of the Linkou Tableland. In contrast to the Shanchiao fault, the tectonic causes of the Nankan Iineament have been studied and yet the results are rather inconsistent and controversial. The morphologic evolution is often the result of tectonic processes which can be regarded as the key information for revealing tectonic activity. This study takes advantage of high-resolution LiDAR images to re-examine the causes and tectonic activities of the Nankan lineament based on its morphological; features. High-resolution morphological images enable detailed analyses of the major morphologic features of Nankan lineament and adjacent areas. The studied morphological features were analyzed based with severaI morphotectonic methodologies, including the curve fitting of river profile, topographic anomaly analysis and a variation of contour density. The results reveal that Nankan lineament does not possess significant geomorphologic signs of recent tectonic activities. Thus, with the new morphological information based on LiDAR images, it seems reasonable to assert that the Nankan lineament has not been tectonically active recently or if so the lineament has healed and is now concealed by the subsequent surface processes.


The Human-Rights Debacle in Chechnya The period of respite is over. After three years of uneasy calm, Chechnya once more finds itself in the grip of war. The Khasavyurt Accords of August 31, 1996, which brought an end to two years of conflict, were ultimately nothing more than a brief hiatus in the centuries-old confrontation between Russians and Chechens. It did not take long for the excesses generated by the anarchy in Grozny to be manipulated by the cynical maneuvers of the Kremlin oligarchy and for Chechnya to be set once more on the road to confrontation with Russia. It seemed inevitable that Chechnya, marked by two centuries of resistance to Russian colonialism and so recently devastated by fighting (December 1994 to August 1996), would once again fall into a morass of violence and conflict. After three years, the course of history appears to be repeating itself. It would be comical if it were not so disastrous for Chechnya, Russia, and the Caucasus. This new war will be even crueler than the previous war, which decimated the Chechen population. It will be a more absurd war, too, because neither of the two goals formulated by Russia's reckless leaders--the "liquidation of the terrorists" and the "liberation of Chechnya"--is likely to be achieved. And it will also be a more worrisome war because it casts a particularly harsh light on the present state of Russia's social and political systems and threatens to drag the entire Caucasus into the dispute. State in Crisis For the past three years, Chechnya has been in a state of limbo, tormented both by de facto independence and a state of anarchy that is liable to degenerate into fratricidal conflict. Because the Chechen state has been unable to assert its legitimacy and the Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov has been unable to assert his authority, the country has become a hunting ground for criminal and fundamentalist groups that operate with impunity. The arrival of Islamic fundamentalist groups known as Wahhabis is one such example. Their arrival was unexpected because they oppose all forms of popular religion, including Sufism, which is dominant in the northern Caucasus. In Chechnya, Islam was established by the Naqshbandiya and Qadiriya Sufi brotherhoods. Identifying with the national resistance movement during the wars of the nineteenth century, these brotherhoods became a central element of Chechen society during the era of Stalinist repression and deportation. Despite its antagonism towards the Sufis, the Wahhabi tradition successfully established itself thanks to the previous war, which profoundly disrupted Chechen society and hardened Chechen attitudes. Although the Wahhabi tradition remains marginal, it has consolidated its influence by offering a framework for socialization to disoriented young people in a devastated country. Fundamentalism did not, however, progress entirely unopposed. When the war ended, the Wahhabis were expelled from many ar eas, sometimes after armed struggles, as at Gudermes in the summer of 1998. Although the Wahhabis retreated to their strongholds, they continue to exert tremendous influence because of their economic clout. Aided by the blockade imposed by Moscow and the withdrawal of the few humanitarian organizations present in Chechnya, fundamentalist networks have effectively become the only source of external financing in Chechnya. The Wahhabi groups exhibit considerable potential to destabilize Chechnya as shown by their armed intervention in neighboring Dagestan. In early August 1999, and again in the following month, Shamil Bassaev and Khattab, a Wahhabi commander of Saudi origin who fought in Chechnya during the last conflict, crossed over to Dagestan with several hundred fighters to assist an Islamic group in the region of Botlikh and Tsumada. This incursion by militant Wahhabis was backed by sponsors from the Middle East and was resisted by Dagestani federal forces. Together with the deadly bomb attacks carried out in Russia in August and September 1999, this military escapade (to which Chechen hard-liners either foolishly committed themselves or into which they allowed themselves to be led) provided the trigger, or the pretext, for Russia's present war against Chechnya. …


Student-generated annotated concept sketches provide an alternative approach for instructors to formatively assess students' understanding of environmental topics, such as photochemical smog and ozone layer depletion. The sketches are external representations of students' cognitive models. Results obtained from a group of 150 female students using an action research methodology, suggest that this method is effective in enhancing students' engagement and communication among peers. This further helps students to reinforce scientific theories and concepts. Furthermore, the data gathered also revealed alternative conceptions, misconceptions, and knowledge gaps in students' understanding and provides an opportunity for easy and immediate feedback. In this study, misconceptions define ideas that are in direct contrast with the accepted scientific conceptions, whereas alternative conceptions describe ideas that are incompatible but unconflicting with the accepted scientific conceptions. Students were actively engaged and showed the ability to express their knowledge in ways other than writing, which is especially useful in English Language Learner (ELL) friendly environments. Students were required to participate in the lecture by paying special attention to the source of pollution, environmental impact, and solutions to issues related to air pollution. The representational annotated concept sketches were completed individually or in groups of two to three students. Feedback was provided orally, and/or using a rubric designed to identify and highlight understanding, misconceptions, and knowledge gaps.


Autotrackers on our interactive workstations have long been touted as automatic, implying that they get the tracking done quickly with little human intervention. The trade names given to autotrackers (Zap, Propagator, etc.) reinforce this image. But is this the correct image? Many interpreters have said to me, "The autotracker doesn't work in my data!" Given the above mindset, they are probably correct. Efficient, speedy, automatic autotracking requires good data with continuous horizons. The greatest value of machine autotrackers lies in their precision not in their automation. After the tracker has propagated onto the desired reflection on a given trace, the precision component locates the track exactly on the waveform crest (Figure 1). The precision with which the track is positioned is typically a quarter of a millisecond. Given that digital data is an array of sample values spaced by 2 or 4 milliseconds, this clearly involves interpolation. This interpolation is commonly performed on the postulate th...


In recent years, we have witnessed an increase in scholarship documenting the relevance of theorizing resistance in communication scholarship in globalization contexts. Historically, communication scholars have studied resistance in organizational communication, public relations, health communication, gender, and rhetoric. Our review of this research documents the common threads among distinct yet interdependent lines of scholarship, and we identify additional ways in which communication theorists have explored resistance (and processes for communicating resistance) in the contexts of power, ideology, and hegemony. We conclude our chapter by discussing the need to theorize power, subordination, and resistance as complex and intertwined processes in light of globalization that play out in the complicated terrains of transnational hegemony. In so doing, we suggest an overarching framework for locating studies of resistance in the realm of globalization politics and connecting resistance theories in communication to the possibilities for transformative politics.


The development of thinking skills which will improve learning and problem-solving performance at work is an important aim for vocational education and training. The best of workers - manual, technical, administrative, professional, scientific or managerial - have gained skills in problem solving. This book provides guidelines on how best to teach those problem-solving skills. Rebecca Soden argues that thinking skills are most effectively developed along with vocational competences, and offers practical strategies on which training sessions can be based.


Abstract Objective To evaluate the associations between sociodemographic and psychosocial characteristics and food label (FL) use in US adults. Design Data from the 1994–1996 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals and the Diet and Health Knowledge Survey were used. High socio-economic status (SES) was defined as >high school education and poverty–income ratio (PIR) >350 %, low SES as <high school level or PIR <130 %. Dietary intakes were assessed using 24 h recalls. Setting Metropolitan statistical area-central city, -suburban, and rural areas in the USA. Subjects US adults (n 2797; 1460 men, 1337 women) aged 20–64 years. Results Approximately 80 % of Americans reported using FL, including checking the nutrition panel, list of ingredients, short phrases, serving size, or health benefits. Only 26 % used all FL information. Compared with white women of higher SES, white men, black men and women with lower SES were 77–90 % less likely to use FL. Rural residents were 40 % less likely (OR = 0·60; 95 % CI 0·42, 0·86). Participants with good nutrition knowledge, perceptions and beliefs were twice as likely to check FL for nutrient content of foods (OR = 2·28; 95 % CI 1·53–3·40). Those who were unaware of diet–disease relationships were less likely to use FL (OR = 0·53; 95 % CI 0·32–0·85). Among overweight/obese Americans (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2), those who perceived their weight 'about right' were 51 % less likely to use FL than those perceiving themselves as overweight. Conclusions Men, especially black men, women of low SES, rural residents and overweight Americans with inaccurate self-perception of body weight are less likely to use FL and should be targeted for increased intervention.


The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship -emphasizing the importance of responsibility and accountability-, have been proposed. Last year, a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data was launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and editors belonging to the Editorso Network of the European Society of Cardiology.


This paper explores the design of a smart photovoltaic (PV) module- a PV module in which PV cells in close proximity are electrically grouped to form a pixel and are connected to dc-dc converter blocks which reside embedded in the back pane of the module. An auto-connected flyback converter topology processing less than full power is used to provide high gain and perform maximum power point tracking (MPPT). These dc-dc converters interface with cascaded H-bridge inverter modules operating on feed forward control for dc-link voltage ripple rejection. By means of feed forward control, a significant reduction in dc link capacitance is achieved by enduring higher dc link ripple voltages. The dc link electrolytic capacitors are replaced with film capacitors thus offering an improvement in the reliability of the smart PV module. The proposed configuration is capable of producing 120V/ 240V AC voltage. The PV module now becomes a smart AC module by virtue of embedded intelligence to selectively actuate the individual dc-dc converters and control the output AC voltages directly, thus becoming a true plug and power energy system. Such a concept is ideal for curved surfaces such as building integrated PV (BIPV) system applications where gradients of insolation and temperature cause not only variations from PV module-to-PV module but from group-to-group of cells within the module itself. A detailed analysis along with simulation and experimental results confirm the feasibility of the proposed concept.


What can the Participatory Budget (PB) teach us about slum upgrading in the cities of the Global South? This article describes the process of slum upgrading via PB in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Participatory budgeting _PB is a renowned mechanism of resource allocation that transfers decision-making power over the capital expenditure portion of the municipal budget from the City Council to public assemblies. However, the impact of PB on municipal service delivery in general and housing in particular is understudied. Ethnographic findings are based on slum upgrading process via PB in an informal settlement in the East District of Porto Alegre. Fieldwork included 16 interviews with residents who had been PB delegates, PB councilors, municipal architects, lawyers, and the social worker involved in the slum upgrading project of Vila Radiante, East District. Furthermore, analysis of district-level expenditures on public works required for slum upgrading as well as analysis of site plans informed the conclusions. The Porto Alegre PB demonstrates that slum dwellers' involvement in all stages of the slum upgrading process, from resource allocation to service delivery, contributed to the effective distribution of housing and basic infrastructure. Slum dwellers are a heterogeneous group with diverse housing needs. Housing via PB addresses this diversity and provides an alternative to the dichotomist debate in international planning between, on one hand, slum clearance followed by public housing projects and, on the other, the promotion of assisted self-help housing through programs of land tenure and basic infrastructure provision.


The double-crested cormorant, Phalacrocorax auritus, is considered the primary depredating bird species on commercially produced channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, in the southeastern USA. We simulated different levels of cormorant predation on losses at harvest and economic effects on channel catfish production in a multiple-batch cropping system. We observed significant (P < 0.05) declines in catfish production at increasing levels of cormorant predation in this study. This decline was mitigated by increased individual growth of catfish at higher predation rates (i.e., lower catfish densities). This mitigating effect produced a non-linear relationship with total kg of catfish harvested per pond resulting in a non-linear incremental increase in breakeven price related to predation. Costs of production ($/kg) increased with increasing predation levels up to very high levels of predation with a cumulative maximum increase in breakeven price of $0.143/kg. These results indicate that losses at harvest due to cormorant predation occur immediately but are mitigated in part by compensatory growth of individual catfish. Losses due to cormorant predation in multi-batch systems can be considerable, but there is not a 1:1 relationship between losses and kg of catfish harvested due to compensatory factors.


African cassava mosaic disease (ACMD)is caused by a virus and, as its implies, appears to be confined to Africa.A similar disease caused by a closelyrelated virus occurs in India, but the virus which causes the disease known ascassava mosaic disease, found in South America, belongs to adifferent group. It follows, therefore, that the original cassava introductionsinto Africa were free of the disease and were invaded by a virus present insome other host or hosts whose identity has yet to be established.ACMD was first described in the 19th century (Warburg, 1894)and isnow found wherever cassava is grown in Africa. Ironically, it is because thedisease is widespread that its importance has received little attention-somany plantings few, if any, healthy plants that ACMD infection hasto be regarded as a normal condition of the crop. Consequently, it notgenerally realized that ACMD causes serious yield losses.Plants infected with ACMD are not killed but show pale green or yellow areason the leaves, which are commonly small and distorted. Tubers are reduced insize and number. Stem diameter and overall size are also reduced. Yieldreduction may be severe. of up to 95%have been reported and theoverall reduction in Africa may be as high as 50%.The virus which causesACMD belongs to the gemini virus group, whose paired particles are visibleonly under an electron microscope.A number of strains of the virus have nowbeen recognized (Bock and Harrison, but strain differences are not importantfor practical field control.ACMD is spread in two ways: when the whitefly tabaci) feeds first ondiseased plants and then on healthy plants; or when diseased cuttings areused to establish a crop. The relative importance of the two ways depends onseveral factors, but yield losses are greatest when plants are derived frominfected cuttings (Briant and Johns, 1940).The reduction in yield caused when a previously healthy plant is infected bywhitefly depends on the stage of growth at which this occurs. There nosignificant yield reduction if infection occurs more than 120days afterplanting (Fargette et al., 1986) but of course cuttings taken from such plantswill give reduced yields in the next crop.Cassava has become the most important food crop in Africa because of itshigh yield capacity and its ability to grow in poor soils.


A Micro-Opto-Mechanical-System (MOMS) based technology for the fabrication of Fabry-Perot interferometers on optical fiber is presented. Exploiting silicon micromachining techniques, the fabrication of ultrasonic receiver arrays suitable for wideband and high performance applications is demonstrated. Thanks to their high miniaturization level, the devices presented may be suited to minimally invasive endoscopic applications in medicine. The devices are based on the use of a SU-8 polymer interferometer manufactured on a micromachined silicon frame whose thickness can be modulated by the incoming ultrasound waves. In this way, the ultrasonic detection is performed by measuring the Fabry-Perot thickness modulation from the variation of the reflected intensity of a fiber-driven continuous laser beam hitting the interferometer.


Robot swarms are known to be robust to individual robot failures. However, a reduced swarm size causes a reduced swarm density. A too low swarm density may then decrease swarm performance, that should be compensated by adapting the individual behavior. Similarly, swarm behaviors can also be adapted to changes in the environment, such as dynamic light conditions. We study aggregation of swarm robots controlled by an extended variant of the BEECLUST algorithm. The robots are asked to aggregate at the brightest spot in their environment. Our approach efficiently adapts this swarm aggregation behavior to variability in swarm density and light conditions. First, each robot individually monitors its environment continuously by sampling its local swarm density and perceived light condition. Second, we exploit the collaboration of robots by letting them share features of these measurements with their neighbors by communication. In extensive robot swarm experiments with ten robots we validate our approach with dynamically changing swarm densities and under dynamic light conditions. We find an improved performance compared to robot swarms without communication and without awareness of the swarm density.


World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) is responsible for doping-free sporting contests and is the only sporting body posing relevant competition sanctions. While doping relates to various controversial attitudes and beliefs proposed in the past, the confirmation of a competition ban following a doping violation has many negative connotations for the lives of the athletes. This can elicit multiple significant and far-reaching implications for them and their close ones. Aiming to better understand these implications in an athlete's life, 5 Greek male and female athletes having recently received a competition ban after a doping violation were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of the data showed that many important psychological, social, and financial implications follow such a sanction. Most importantly, these consequences may even contribute to indications of poor mental and physical health. Discussion of the results provides suggestions for the alleviation of the negative consequences following an involuntary sporting career pause or termination.


The aim of this study was to analysis knowledge management and organizational culture at a Spanish software development enterprise. For this purpose, two different tasks were performed: first, analysis of knowledge management levels and organizational culture; and second, analysis of the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management. The sample consisted of 196 employees between 21 and 45 years old, with 119 (61.3%) men. To achieve the objectives, adaptations of the Organizational Knowledge Practices (OKP) questionnaire (Cortijo, & Quintanilla, 2004) and the "Organizational Culture Inventory" (OCI) were used (Cooke & Lafferty, 1987). Based on the results, it appears that the company is oriented towards a constructive organizational culture. It also seems that the company emphasizes efficient knowledge management practices, especially in regard to teamwork. Finally, the link between organizational culture and knowledge management seems to be proven. As hypothesized, constructive culture is positively related to knowledge management performance, while Passive–Defensive and Aggressive–Defensive cultures are negatively related. All these results are particularly interesting considering that in the scientific literature such relationships have been proposed from a theoretical perspective, but only a few studies have explored these questions at the empirical level.


Pyrethroid insecticides induce an excito-repellent effect that reduces contact between humans and mosquitoes. Insecticide use is expected to lower the risk of pathogen transmission, particularly when impregnated on long-lasting treated bednets. When applied at low doses, pyrethroids have a toxic effect, however the development of pyrethroid resistance in several mosquito species may jeopardize these beneficial effects. The need to find additional compounds, either to kill disease-carrying mosquitoes or to prevent mosquito contact with humans, therefore arises. In laboratory conditions, the effects (i.e., repellent, irritant and toxic) of 20 plant extracts, mainly essential oils, were assessed on adults of Anopheles gambiae, a primary vector of malaria. Their effects were compared to those of DEET and permethrin, used as positive controls. Most plant extracts had irritant, repellent and/or toxic effects on An. gambiae adults. The most promising extracts, i.e. those combining the three types of effects, were from Cymbopogon winterianus, Cinnamomum zeylanicum and Thymus vulgaris. The irritant, repellent and toxic effects occurred apparently independently of each other, and the behavioural response of adult An. gambiae was significantly influenced by the concentration of the plant extracts. Mechanisms underlying repellency might, therefore, differ from those underlying irritancy and toxicity. The utility of the efficient plant extracts for vector control as an alternative to pyrethroids may thus be envisaged.


Two major Na+-dependent nucleoside transporter subtypes implicated in adenosine transport in mammalian cells are distinguished functionally on the basis of substrate specificity: one is selective for pyrimidine nucleosides but also binds adenosine, and the other has selectivity for purine nucleosides but also binds uridine. Transportability of adenosine by the purine-selective system has been established by measurements of [3H]adenosine fluxes, whereas the conclusion that adenosine is permeant of the pyrimidine-selective system is based on inhibition assays. We investigated adenosine transport mediated by a recombinant pyrimidine-selective rat jejunal/kidney Na+/nucleoside cotransporter (rCNT1) expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes and compared it with that mediated by a recombinant purine-selective rat jejunal/liver Na+/nucleoside cotransporter (rCNT2). Adenosine fluxes mediated by rCNT1 were 1 order of magnitude lower than those mediated by rCNT2. In kinetic studies, rCNT1 transported adenosine with an apparent Km value for influx (26 microM) similar to that for uridine but with a very much lower Vmax value, and the Vmax/Km ratios were 0.003 and 0.57 for adenosine and uridine, respectively. Recombinant rCNT1 mediated efflux of [3H]uridine from preloaded oocytes, demonstrating a capacity for bidirectional transport of nucleoside permeants. Uridine efflux was stimulated by extracellular uridine and inhibited by extracellular adenosine, suggesting that the rate of conversion of rCNT1 from its outward-facing conformation to its inward-facing conformation was increased when the transporter was complexed with uridine and decreased when it was complexed with adenosine. Thus, although rCNT1 binds adenosine and uridine with similar affinities, it kinetically favors transport of uridine.


System Verification: Proving the Design Solution Satisfies the Requirements, Second Edition explains how to determine what verification work must be done, how the total task can be broken down into verification tasks involving six straightforward methods, how to prepare a plan, procedure, and report for each of these tasks, and how to conduct an audit of the content of those reports for a particular product entity. This process-centered book is applicable to engineering and computing projects of all kinds, and the lifecycle approach helps all stakeholders in the design process understand how the verification and validation stage is significant to them. In addition to many flowcharts that illustrate the verification procedures involved, the book also includes 14 verification form templates for use in practice. The author draws on his experience of consulting for industry as well as lecturing to provide a uniquely practical and easy to use guide which is essential reading for systems and validation engineers, as well as everyone involved in the product design process. Includes 14 real life templates for use in verification tasks Explains concepts in the context of the entire design lifecycle, helping all project stakeholders engage Contains a process-focused approach to design model verification that can be applied to all engineering design and software development projects


Fluorophores that are fixed during image acquisition produce a diffraction pattern that is characteristic of the orientation of the fluorophore's underlying dipole. Fluorescence localization microscopy techniques such as PALM and STORM achieve super-resolution by applying Gaussian-based fitting algorithms to in-focus images of individual fluorophores; when applied to fixed dipoles, this can lead to a bias in the range of 5-20 nm.We introduce a method for the joint estimation of position and orientation of dipoles, based on the representation of a physically realistic image formation model as a 3-D steerable filter. Our approach relies on a single, defocused acquisition. We establish theoretical, localization-based resolution limits on estimation accuracy using Cram´er-Rao bounds, and experimentally show that estimation accuracies of at least 5 nm for position and of at least 2 degrees for orientation can be achieved. Patterns generated by applying the image formation model to estimated position/orientation pairs closely match experimental observations.


In this book Hugh Beale examines the case for reforming the law on mistake and non-disclosure of fact to bring English law closer to the law in much of continental Europe. There, and in common law countries like the US, a party may avoid a contract for mistake of fact on a more liberal basis, and a party who deliberately keeps silent knowing that the other party is making a mistake may be guilty of fraud. This is not necessarily the case in England and Wales. Developing a proposal for law reform, the author concedes that the English courts require a law that puts great emphasis on certainty and expects parties to look out for their own interests; but posits that this individualistic approach is not suitable for smaller businesses which are less sophisticated and which are likely to be making low value contracts, so that relative cost of taking advice will be high. He argues that the solution may not be to reform English contract law generally, but to support the development of an optional instrument on contract law, along the lines of the Common European Sales Law recently proposed by the European Commission. This measure is aimed specifically at the needs of small and medium enterprises, and contains the protective rules found in the other jurisdictions. It is aimed primarily at cross-border sales, but Member States would be given the option of adopting it for domestic transactions too. This would give small businesses the choice of using the current "hard-nosed" law or adopting the more protective optional instrument, recognizing that different parties require different things from the law governing their contract.


Background: Most of the software engineering empirical studies use students as subjects for conducting experiments. This raises the concern that whether results acquired through students are applicable to the industry or not. The researchers argue that experiment with students lack realism. This situation not only causes the threats to the generalizability of the research results but also becomes a potential barrier to the adoption of novice research in industry. Aim: The objective of the study is to investigate, whether students are representative of professionals in software engineering experiments. We are addressing the objective by investigating the difference in the code quality of the two subject groups – students and professionals in the context of the effectiveness of Test Driven Development (TDD) on the internal code quality. The study tests two hypotheses; the first one aims to test the difference in the code quality of the two subject groups. The second one aims to test the difference in the code quality of tasks implemented following TDD and Test-Last Development (TLD) methodologies. Method: The study follows a quantitative research approach with the experimentation methodology. The study involved graduate students from academia and professionals from the industry in their respective environmental settings. Both of the subject groups implemented tasks in TDD and TLD approaches. The treatments of the first hypothesis are professionals and students for studying the difference in the two subject groups. Furthermore, TDD and TLD are the treatments of the second hypothesis for assessing the difference in the code quality of the two methodologies. Results: Students differed professionals when compared for TLD and TDD1 implementations. The results couldn't show the difference for TDD2 task. The code quality differed as an effect of TDD for professionals in the cases of TLD vs. TDD1 and TLD vs. TDD2. Students' data showed the difference in the code quality for TLD vs. TDD1 but couldn't for TLD vs. TDD2 tasks. The null hypotheses were refuted with the p-value < 0.05. Conclusion: The results of the study are confined to the context of TDD and to some extent with the experimental design. The future extension can be to compare the two subject groups by designing the same experiment. Additionally, comparison can also be studied in other areas of software engineering for a better generalizability of the comparison results.


In the rapidly expanding fields of cellular and molecular biology, fluorescence illumination and observation is becoming one of the techniques of choice to study the localization and dynamics of proteins, organelles, and other cellular compartments, as well as a tracer of intracellular protein trafficking. The automatic analysis of these images and signals in medicine, biotechnology, and chemistry is a challenging and demanding field. Signal-producing procedures by microscopes, spectrometers and other sensors have found their way into wide fields of medicine, biotechnology, economy and environmental analysis. With this arises the problem of the automatic mass analysis of signal information. Signal-interpreting systems which automatically generate the desired target statements from the signals are therefore of compelling necessity. The continuation of mass analyses on the basis of the classical procedures leads to investments of proportions that are not feasible. New procedures and system architectures are therefore required. We will present, based on our flexible image analysis and interpretation system Cell_Interpret, new intelligent and automatic image analysis and interpretation procedures. We will demonstrate it in the application of the HEp-2 cell pattern analysis.


The embedded process control system is a new type of control system. In our daily life, it exists in each aspect regardless of food, clothing, live or transportation. However, the algorithm is the most important part that can't be neglected in the research on embedded process control system. This paper introduced the formation of ideas, structure principle and the basic algorithm of the embedded process control system. Firstly, it introduced the theoretical basis of the embedded process control system; Secondly, put forward the open loop embedded process control system and embedded process control of closed-loop system after making further analysis of its basic structure. Then it analyzed the difference between the two principles. Finally, C language, C ++ language, Java, Java Scrip, LOGO several programming languages were introduced on the basis of the study above. In addition, it evaluated them by fuzzy algorithm. Thus put forward that the embedded process control system combines the advantages of embedded systems and process control systems, in open and closed loop process control systems embedded in two, part of the operating system is the main difference lies. C and C ++ language is the basic algorithm, for different embedded process control systems, they need to create a different language its program implementation.


Background: Rural areas are often viewed as lower risk for lead poisoning and toxic exposures seriously impacting development of the brain and central nervous system; this report examines the prevalence of elevated blood lead levels for children <6 years of age in rural Ben Hill County, GA. Methods: Lead surveillance data from the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) were analyzed using SAS®v-9.3 to calculate the prevalence of elevated blood lead levels (≥5ug/dL) among those children in Ben Hill County who had been tested for lead; the results were compared to Georgia and national data. Results: A preliminary analysis of 2010-2015 screening data for Ben Hill County indicates that 8.73% (95%CI: 7.4%-10.1%) of children that were tested for lead exceeded the Centers for Disease Control reference level (≥5ug/dL) and is approximately 3.5 and 2.4 times higher, respectively, when compared to the National (2.5%) and State (3.64%) percentages of children exposed to lead at or above the reference level. Conclusions: While these data are preliminary and more analysis is planned to ascertain the full breadth, source, and scope of the problem, it highlights lead poisoning risks rural communities face that are often overlooked in population-based risk analysis and research on lead exposure in children.


"Everyday OCT: A Handbook for Clinicians and Technicians" is a user-friendly, practical reference that provides all of the information eyecare professionals need to know about the principles, applications, and interpretations of optical coherence tomography. Authorities on OCT technology and imaging, Dr. Joel S. Schuman, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, and Dr. James G. Fujimoto review the value of OCT and provide both the beginning and advanced user with expert pearls on how to effectively perform and interpret OCT imaging. "Everyday OCT" contains a wealth of technical information about the principles of operating the Stratus OCTTM and the main components of this medical diagnostic imaging technology. "Everyday OCT" explains how to: set up and employ OCT technology; select and facilitate scans; ensure and assess the quality of scans; and, accurately interpret OCT images. Additional Features of this work include: over 200 color images; tips and tricks for OCT image acquisition and interpretation; and, case studies of OCT application in retinal diseases, glaucoma, and neuroophthalmology. The clear and concise format combined with a detailed description of the technology and instructions for successful employment and interpretation make "Everyday OCT: A Handbook for Clinicians and Technicians" the ideal resource for eyecare professionals looking to develop or enhance their working knowledge of OCT technology.


Abstract: In 1702 Cotton Mather published his two volume Magnalia Christi Americana: The Ecclesiastical History of NewEngland from its First Planting in the Year 1620 unto . . . 1698. Mather argued that England would come to dominate North America due to God's will that New England become the "New Jerusalem " after the second coming of Christ. Mather detailed the religious development of Massachusetts and the New England colonies. Among many topics, he described the Salem Witch Trials and criticized some of the court's methods in an attempt to distance himself from the event. He also argued that Puritan slaveholders should do more to convert their slaves to Christianity. While the Magnalia is well known, this article examines Mather's intriguing "Exact Mapp of New England" and demonstrates how it illuminates and reinforces the major themes of Mather's narrative. Though the Magnalia has long been regarded as a powerful piece of polemic, the map has received little attention. Mather's employment of a map with a particular rhetorical purpose is placed within the larger context of contemporary New England authors and cartography, particularly William Hubbard. Just over three centuries ago, eminent New England intellectual and theologian Cotton Mather rejoiced at the publication of what has become his most famous work, the Magnalia Christi Americana. Subtitled the "Ecclesiastical History of New-England," it was a blend of history, biography, ecclesiology, and theology. The Magnalia has secured a place as a classic example of early American literature and as an important source document for New England history and American Puritanism, in particular. Less well known, perhaps, and certainly less studied, is the map, "An Exact Mapp of New England and New York," that accompanies Mather's massive text. The "Exact Mapp" appears, at first glance, plain and simplistic, and even, in certain aspects, hurriedly drawn. Certainly when considered alongside the granthose, extravagant text to which it is attached, it seems incongruous. The map, viewed on its surface, seems merely a representation of physical space intended to provide geographic reference points for the Magnalia s readers. Yet if this is the map's only intended purpose, why did Mather not simply include, unaltered, one of the many available high-quality maps of New England? John Thornton, Philip Lea, John Speed, and Cornelius Visscher, among others, had produced detailed maps of the region that were seemingly more than adequate for the simple purpose of depicting a geographic location. The answer lies within the pages of the Magnalia itself. The "Exact Mapp" is more than a map - it is a rhetorical device designed and included to amplify the issues that Mather addresses in the text: the history and legacy of a godly community; an attempt to reverse, or at least forestall, the decline of piety in the colony; and a demonstration of the fidelity of Massachusetts to the English crown. Further, the map may also reflect something of Mather the man, highlighting the spiritual and psychological tensions that existed within him. Cotton Mather was born in Boston in 1663, the son of a famous New England minister, Increase Mather, and the grandson of two equally famous ancestors, John Cotton and Richard Mather. Drawing on a rich spiritual and intellectual heritage, the young Mather excelled in the standard curriculum of Puritan classical learning: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, church history, mathematics, logic, and rhetoric. His education also fostered within him a lifelong interest in the sciences, leading him to explore and even publish papers in the fields of astronomy, geology, geography, and meteorology. In 1678, at the age of fifteen, Mather graduated from Harvard University and began to prepare for a life in the ministry. Two years later, in 1 680, he received his M.A. from Harvard and preached his first public sermon. By 1685, Mather was installed as the pastor at the Second Church of Boston, a position he remained in until his death in 1728. …


The U.S. Army is responsible for preparing a well-trained combat force while maintaining the ecological diversity and integrity of the lands it manages. The ability to efficiently collect data that accurately capture plant community diversity and percent composition is imperative to proper monitoring and land management of military lands. To ensure that the dual goals of military training and land stewardship are met on an army-wide basis, the U.S. Army Land Condition-Trend Analysis (LCTA) Program was developed. The LCTA Program specifies the Army's standard methodology for the collection, analysis, and reporting of natural resource data used for land inventory and monitoring. However, the LCTA sampling technique was developed in Colorado and Texas and little information is available on whether these methods are suitable for vegetation inventory and monitoring in other grassland ecosystems. This study compares LCTA measures of species richness and composition with quadrat sampling in the transitional area between the tall- and mixed-grass prairies of Camp Gilbert C. Grafton (South Unit) in North Dakota. Species richness was 67% higher when sampling with quadrats than using the LCTA technique, suggesting that LCTA samples did not detect a third of the plants present. Compared with the quadrat technique, LCTA samples overestimated the community contribution of Bouteloua gracilis (H.B.K.) Lag. ex Steud. (blue grama) and underestimated proportions of forbs and sedges. Moreover, LCTA samples are labor intensive and time consuming to collect. Other sampling methods may be needed to detect shifts in species composition towards a less desirable plant community or decreases in biodiversity that may be due to land-use. Thus, it is important for Camp Gilbert C. Grafton (South Unit) to re-evaluate the current standard methodology for monitoring the impacts of military training. Since military installations are located in many different ecosystems, it may be necessary for other installations to likewise examine the usefulness of LCTA techniques in their ecosystems. DOI:10.2458/azu_jrm_v56i5_prosser


This paper formalises the idea of substitutability introduced by Zellig Harris in the 1950s and makes it the basis for a learning algorithm from positive data only for a subclass of context-free languages. We show that there is a polynomial characteristic set, and thus prove polynomial identification in the limit of this class. We discuss the relationship of this class of languages to other common classes discussed in grammatical inference. It transpires that it is not necessary to identify constituents in order to learn a context-free language—it is sufficient to identify the syntactic congruence, and the operations of the syntactic monoid can be converted into a context-free grammar. We also discuss modifications to the algorithm that produces a reduction system rather than a context-free grammar, that will be much more compact. We discuss the relationship to Angluin's notion of reversibility for regular languages. We also demonstrate that an implementation of this algorithm is capable of learning a classic example of structure dependent syntax in English: this constitutes a refutation of an argument that has been used in support of nativist theories of language.


Extending the literature on monopsony in academic labor markets, we find that faculty pay is inversely related to seniority in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets for a large public university in the United States. Fixed-effects results indicate that the negative relationship cannot be explained by lower quality of senior faculty. Arguing that mobility costs are higher when both partners work for the same university, we allow monopsony power to vary by employment status of partner. We find that pay of male faculty is negatively and significantly related to the number of years the partner has been employed by the university and that the penalty is greater when couples are hired together.


We develop sufficient statistics of countries' bilateral income and welfare exposure to foreign productivity shocks that are exact for small shocks in the class of models with a constant trade elasticity. For large shocks, we characterize the quality of the approximation, and show it to be almost exact. We compute these sufficient statistics for over 140 countries from 1970-2012. We show that our exposure measures depend on market-size, cross-substitution and cost of living effects. As countries become greater economic friends in terms of welfare exposure, they become greater political friends in terms of United Nations voting and strategic rivalries.


Photoshop Lightroom is the new software from Adobe aimed specifically at photographers and it's taking the photography world by storm. This no-nonsense guide to setting up an efficient workflow in Lightroom offers all the advice you need to master Adobe's clever workflow tool and make it work for you. As co-founders of the renowned and hugely popular photography training and consultancy company D-65 (D-65.com), Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer are the perfect guides to lead you through the maze technical problems and practical challenges that stand between you and a seamless digital workflow with Lightroom at the core. Keep the lens cap on until you've read the essential pro tips in this new Lightroom book from Focal Press! * The essential guide to setting up an efficient workflow with Photoshop Lightroom from two of the industry's most respected photography trainers* Insider tips and tricks explain not only how to use Lightroom but also how best to work pre-capture to ensure you get the best out of Lightroom post-capture * Packed with essential advice and stunning images to illustrate and inspire, Seth and Jamie explain technical concepts with ease in a way only pro trainers can--buy the book and see why their workshops sell out in a flash!


"But the point of Burke's work, and the significance of his achievement, is not that he points out that religion and language affect each other, for this has been said before, but that he proceeds to demonstrate how this is so by reference to a specific symbolic context. After a discussion 'On Words and The Word,' he analysess verbal action in St. Augustine's Confessions. He then discusses the first three chapters of Genesis, and ends with a brilliant and profound 'Prologue in Heaven,' an imaginary dialogue between the Lord and Satan in which he proposes that we begin our study of human motives with complex theories of transcendence,' rather than with terminologies developed in the use of simplified laboratory equipment...Burke now feels, after some forty years of search, that he has created a model of the symbolic act which breaks through the rigidities of the 'sacred-secular' dichotomy, and at the same time shows us how we get from secular and sacred realms of action over the bridge of language...Religious systems are systems of action based on communication in society. They are great social dramas which are played out on earth before an ultimate audience, God. But where theology confronts the developed cosmological drama in the 'grand style,' that is, as a fully developed cosmological drama for its religious content, the 'logologer' can be further studied not directly as knowledge but as anecdotes that help reveal for us the quandaries of human governance." (Hugh Dalziel Duncan from Critical Responses to Kenneth Burke, 1924 - 1966, edited by William H. Rueckert (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969)).


Background Traditionally, laboratories' turnaround times (TAT) have been calculated by only considering analytical or intralaboratory steps. The measure of the postanalytical impact in TAT has barely been studied and, more specifically, the running time from when finalised results are available to when clinicians make their first enquiry with an electronic medical record. Methods During May–June of 2013, two 'Times' were collected from our laboratory information system for all the priority requests coming from our day hospitals: 'Validation time' (TV), as the request report time with full verified results and 'Enquiry time' (TQ), as the time when the first consult was made via electronic medical record. We classified requests in groups depending on time results, and TQ-TV (percentiles) were calculated for each group. Results 654 (69%) requests were consulted by clinicians before 15 : 00 on the same day with available results. 191 (20%) were consulted after 15 : 00 and had complete results as well (p50 (TQ–TV): 5 days) while 61 (7%) were never consulted (up to 31/12/2013). 39 (4%) requests were finally consulted before 15 : 00 h with no available results, but the average time difference between validation and enquiry was 31 min. Conclusions The results obtained lead us to reconsider the TAT established with our day hospitals in order to know if priority has to be reviewed or if there are failures in follow-up results. 'Enquiry time' appears to be a powerful tool in detecting these issues and shows that TATs are no longer just a 'laboratory problem'.


PURPOSE
The WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office has emphasized health system strengthening among the top five strategic priorities. One of the integral elements of health systems are the hospitals. The purpose of this paper is to review the need for formalized training in hospital management to improve the quality of care.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH
Literature review and hands on experience of conducting a regional training in hospital management for Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) countries.

FINDINGS
Majority of patients in EMR bypass Primary Health Care facilities due to inadequate quality of services and prefer seeking specialized care at a tertiary level. There is mounting evidence of mediocre to poor patient satisfaction due to inefficient health care practices in hospitals of EMR. Strengthening the management capacity of the hospitals through a formal training programme is therefore necessary for improving the performance of health care delivery and the overall health system. Hospital management encompasses hospital planning and operational activities including development and implementation of organizational strategies to ensure adequate numbers and quality of trained human resources and effective financial management, disaster management, health management information system utilization, support services, biomedical engineering, transport and waste management. Such training will prepare health care professionals with leadership skills to deliver quality hospital services.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE
This is one of the first papers emphasizing the need for a formal structured regional training in hospital management for the countries of EMR. A modular incremental training approach developing an EMR Credit Transfer and Accumulation system is proposed.


Cool roofs are defined by the Cool Roof Rating Council as a product with solar reflectivity of at least 0.70 and infrared emissivity of at least 0.75. In its 2005 revision, Title 24, California Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings, cool roofs are prescribed in the standard non-residential building. While cool roofs decrease the solar gain of buildings, thus lowering cooling energy demand, additional insulation also does it. This work investigates the levels of insulation required with a black roof to accomplish the same cooling energy demand that cool roofs have with minimum insulation requirements. Both total and peak energy demands are considered and the levels of insulation to accomplish them are different. Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Simplified Transient Analysis of Roofs (STAR) computer code was used to predict the transient heat gain and structure temperatures. The 16 Climate Zones in California were used, as well as the minimum insulation requirements dictated by 2005 Title 24 legislation. The results were compared with the results predicted by the overall envelope approach of the legislation.


The CESSDA SaW Capability Development Model (CESSDA-CDM) is a structured collection of elements that identify and describe the characteristics of effective preservation processes and activities. Building on established frameworks for trustworthy data preservation and the CESSDA community's prior experiences, the model provides both a starting point for emerging preservation initiatives and a reference tool for established archives that wants to strengthen their services. It is a model that can be used to appraise and/or improve the capability of a service provider to perform and to provide services. The CESSDA-CDM aims to provide a structured view of processes across an organisation (service provider or research infrastructure); it can be used to set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes and activities, and provide a benchmark for assessing and appraising current practices. The Capability Development Model forms part of the submission of the deliverable D3.1 Heuristic Maturity Development Model of the project CESSDA Strengthening and Widening


A considerable body of research exists on the role, and desired capabilities and competencies of the CIO. However, most of these studies have been executed in large, private sector organizations. It seems that the challenges faced by public sector CIOs are often very different to those in the private sector, and this might place different requirements on them in terms of knowledge and competence, as well as the roles they fulfil. To date, there has been little exploration into such requirements in public entities. To address this gap, exploratory research was conducted into the role and competency expectations of CIOs in the public sector, and into the impact of the public sector context. A dyadic approach, involving both CIOs and their business colleagues, was adopted in order to gain more meaningful insights. Semistructured interviews were conducted with both the CIO and the head of their main internal "business" partner of 17 local government organizations. The findings indicate that the CIOs and their business partners differ significantly in their views of required competencies. The business partners require a business knowledge and focus similar to theirs, and most manifest scant regard for the technical expertise necessary or the technical requirements of the organization. IT is there to support them. The government environment often places more onerous constraints on CIOs than in the private sector, especially so in terms of reporting level; the ability to influence strategy; decision making flexibility; and resourcing. The findings from this research extend the application of the RBV and also provide greater understanding of the competencies and roles of the CIO. It also provides insights for recruiters of public service IT professionals and CIOs, human resources managers, as well as for providers of training programmes.


Abstract This paper demonstrates the use of multi-scale curvature analysis, an areal new surface characterization technique for better understanding topographies, for analyzing surfaces created by conventional machining and grinding. Curvature, like slope and area, changes with scale of observation, or calculation, on irregular surfaces, therefore it can be used for multi-scale geometric analysis. Curvatures on a surface should be indicative of topographically dependent behavior of a surface and curvatures are, in turn, influenced by the processing and use of the surface. Curvatures have not been well characterized previously. Curvature has been used for calculations in contact mechanics and for the evaluation of cutting edges. In the current work two parts were machined and then one of them was ground. The surface topographies were measured with a scanning laser confocal microscope. Plots of curvatures as a function of position and scale are presented, and the means and standard deviations of principal curvatures are plotted as a function of scale. Statistical analyses show the relations between curvature and these two manufacturing processes at multiple scales.


How do family members of critically ill patients on mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit (ICU) experience this life-support technology?

Qualitative study using modified grounded theory.

A tertiary care, medical-surgical ICU in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

26 people (10 spouses, 14 children, 1 father, and 1 brother-in-law) who were 45–68 years of age (mean age 52 y, 58% men) and had a family member receiving mechanical ventilation in the ICU. Patients (mean age 71 y, 65% men) were admitted to the ICU in the previous 7–13 days (mean 7.5 d) and had an estimated 50% probability of death according to the ICU attending physician; 81% had a medical diagnosis. No patient had a do-not-resuscitate status.

Family members participated in in-depth, semistructured interviews (45–60 min) and were asked about their feelings and experiences dealing with loved ones on mechanical ventilation in the ICU. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analysed using grounded theory methods.

Living with dying. The …


By all accounts, life on the American frontier at the end of the eighteenth century could be very lonely, especially in an area as large and pristine as the Northwest Territory. The isolation of life at the fringes of civilization could be remedied by the presence of a newspaper that brought the outer world, which probably seemed so far away, into close proximity, allowing settlers to maintain contact with the eastern seaboard. But there was more to newspapers than mere diversion; they were (and still are) not only sources of news or advertisements but also a medium for informing and shaping public opinion. (1) In the days before mass distribution, newspapers were usually read by multiple readers with the same copy circulated among a large readership of friends or acquaintances. This process of sharing information fostered a sense of engagement within the local community and with the outside world that reinforced common goals by creating a shared sense of risks as well as accomplishments. As such, newspapers can serve as a mechanism for binding a community together and forging a consensus on how to address common problems. (2) In this sense, they can be valuable sources for determining how communities viewed themselves and the difficulties that they faced. This study explores one of the many issues facing Cincinnati during its early years of settlement through the prism of its newspaper, The Centinel of the North- Western Territory, the first (and only) newspaper in the Northwest Territory during the early 1790s. Specifically, it examines how relations with Native Americans were reflected through that newspaper's coverage of the major international news of that period, the French Revolution. The editor of The Centinel of the North-Western Territory published articles on the French Revolution to show how the French dealt with their problems so that local readers could see models of how to "scientifically" improve the quality of life in Cincinnati. Cincinnati is one of the oldest cities in the Midwest. Founded in 1789 and originally known as Losantiville, it quickly became a center of trade and commerce as well as the military capital of the Northwest Territory. By 1793, Cincinnati had about 900 inhabitants, with an additional 200 soldiers stationed at Fort Washington. There was one church, First Presbyterian, but no brick buildings; the entire town was constructed from logs. There was as yet no music hall, theater, or any outward sign of eastern culture. It had, though, a news paper, The Centinel of the North-Western Territory, which printed its first edition in November, 1793, in a log cabin on the corner of Sycamore and Front streets (the site is today beneath a baseball stadium). It was not uncommon for a town the size of Cincinnati to print a newspaper. During the 1790s, the United States had the highest number of newspapers per person in the world (one for every fifty people). Nearly every community, no matter how small, had its own newspaper, most modeled after the Gazette of the United States (printed in Philadelphia) or the National Gazette (printed in New York). (3) Cincinnati's early years were not especially auspicious and it struggled to carve an economic niche for itself out of the virgin forests and fertile plains. In addition to the typical administrative and economic problems facing all new settlements, it had, like most frontier towns, an ambivalent relationship with some of the local Native Americans. To address this problem, the first building of any importance in Cincinnati was Fort Washington (built in 1789). This vital community asset physically dominated the town throughout the 1790s, and its role in shaping relations with local Native Americans was extremely important in ensuring Cincinnati's viability as a city. Like revolutionary France, Cincinnati was at war during 1793; the Northwest Territory may have been formally integrated into the United States, but the army was still grappling with Native Americans who inhabited the area and laid claim to its lands. …


ABSTRACT The single-carrier frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) is used in the uplink of the long-term evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced systems because of the lower peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR) compared with the widely used orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme. However, the non-linearity caused by the characteristic of the radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs) is still a critical problem, and there are few researches about the linearisation for the SC-FDMA signals. The digital predistorter is widely applied by employing digital baseband distortion ahead of the amplifier to compensate for the non-linearity effects and provide efficiency enhancements for high PAs in the different communication systems. This letter presents an efficient and flexible inverse autoregressive moving-average (ARMA) model-based digital predistorter to linearise the PA distortion with memory in the LTE uplink system. The proposed digital predistortion (DPD) algorithm is for the first time applied to SC-FDMA signals and verified with a series of experimental measurements. The spectrum regrowth of SC-FDMA signals is improved by up to 12 dB from both simulation and measurement. The proposed predistorter has been shown to solve the distortion problem caused by the memory effect effectively in RF PA.


Mitochondria provide the primary source of ATP for the oocyte and pre-implantation embryo and undergo a number of redistributions during oocyte maturation which may be related to developmental competence. The experiments presented in this thesis aim to examine the changes in distribution and function of mitochondria during the transition from the germinal vesicle stage to the mature metaphase II arrested egg.
Mitochondrial distribution was monitored throughout oocyte maturation and accumulation of mitochondria around the first meiotic spindle was observed. This was dependent on the activities of microtubules and their associated motor proteins dynein and kinesin. Migration of the spindle to the oocyte cortex was accompanied by mitochondria but at polar body extrusion a dramatic reorganisation of mitochondria away from the cortical domain occurred, suggesting that a mechanism exists for retention of these important organelles in the oocyte during this asymmetric cell division. The role of the mitochondrial adapter proteins Trak and Miro in establishing redistribution of mitochondria was also addressed.
Finally, a novel recombinant FRET probe for measuring ATP was validated for use in oocytes. Use of this probe revealed alterations to both ATP levels and ATP consumption at different stages of oocyte maturation. Furthermore, whilst the first meiotic spindle was found to be dependent on mitochondrial activity to retain its structure and function, attempts to identify subcellular heterogeneity in ATP supply and demand related to the distribution of mitochondria around the spindle did not reveal any differences. However, the presence of cumulus cells surrounding the oocyte as part of a cumulus-oocyte complex was found to influence ATP levels in the oocyte; oocytes matured as part of a cumulus-oocyte complex had higher ATP levels than those observed in oocytes which had been denuded of cumulus cells. This was found to be dependent on the presence of gap junctional communication between the somatic and germ cell compartments, since inhibition of gap junctions abolished the higher ATP levels observed in cumulus enclosed oocytes.


Author(s): Less, Brennan; Walker, Iain; Levinson, Ronnen | Abstract: In this literature review and analysis, we focus on the thermal, moisture and energy performance of sealed and insulated attics in California climates. Thermal. Sealed and insulated attics are expected to maintain attic air temperatures that are similar to those in the house within +/- 10°F. Thermal stress on the assembly, namely high shingle and sheathing temperatures, are of minimal concern. In the past, many sealed and insulated attics were constructed with insufficient insulation levels (~R-20) and with too much air leakage to outside, leading to poor thermal performance. To ensure high performance, sealed and insulated attics in new California homes should be insulated at levels at least equivalent to the flat ceiling requirements in the code, and attic envelopes and ducts should be airtight. We expect that duct systems in well-constructed sealed and insulated attics should have less than 2% HVAC system leakage to outside. Moisture. Moisture risk in sealed and insulated California attics will increase with colder climate regions and more humid outside air in marine zones. Risk is considered low in the hot-dry, highly populated regions of the state, where most new home construction occurs. Indoor humidity levels should be controlled by following code requirements for continuous whole-house ventilation and local exhaust. Pending development of further guidance, we recommend that the air impermeable insulation requirements of the International Residential Code (2012) be used, as they vary with IECC climate region and roof finish. Energy. Sealed and insulated attics provide energy benefits only if HVAC equipment is located in the attic volume, and the benefits depend strongly on the insulation and airtightness of the attic and ducts. Existing homes with leaky, uninsulated ducts in the attic should have major savings. When compared with modern, airtight duct systems in a vented attic, sealed and insulated attics in California may still provide substantial benefit. Energy performance is expected to be roughly equivalent between sealed and insulated attics and prescriptive advanced roof/attic options in Title 24 2016. System performance can also be expected to improve, such as pull down time, performance at peak load, etc. We expect benefits to be reduced for all advanced roof/attic approaches, relative to a traditional vented attic, as duct system leakage is reduced close to 0. The most recent assessments, comparing advanced roof/attic assemblies to code compliant vented attics suggest average 13% TDV energy savings, with substantial variation by climate zone (more savings in more extreme climates). Similar 6-11% reductions in seasonally adjusted HVAC duct thermal losses have been measured in a small subset of such California homes using the ducts in conditioned space approach. Given the limited nature of energy and moisture monitoring in sealed and insulated attic homes, there is crucial need for long-term data and advanced modeling of these approaches in the California new and existing home contexts.


Oral and written presentation of a scientific paper require dissimilar preparation. Properly planned figures carry the theme in oral presentation from introduction through conclusions. The accompanying comments by the speaker, using the slides as notes, explain and emphasize. The planning of figure sequence and practice of the running comments aid mutually in assuring an optimum organization. An integrated delivery results. The complete and permanent disclosure in the published paper utilizes figures and tables primarily for the display of data. The text describes the research and carries the argument. The abstract, tables, figures, and figure captions should provide a good synopsis of the paper. Complete disclosure requires clear writing which is attained by outside criticism and thoughtful and continued revision.


We consider data fusion for the purpose of smoothing and interpolation based on observation records with missing data. Stochastic processes are generated by linear stochastic models. The paper begins by drawing a connection between time reversal in stochastic systems and all-pass extensions. A particular normalization (choice of basis) between the two time-directions allows the two to share the same orthonormalized state process and simplifies the mathematics of data fusion. In this framework, we derive symmetric and balanced Mayne–Fraser-like formulas that apply simultaneously to continuous-time smoothing and interpolation, providing a definitive unification of these concepts. The absence of data over subintervals requires in general a hybrid filtering approach involving both continuous-time and discrete-time filtering steps.


In the Fall of 2013, soon after the reduction in applications that many law schools experienced in 2011-13, the University of Denver's law school lead the way nationally in making a significant additional investment in experiential learning. Starting that fall, it provided the option for all incoming students to spend one entire year of law school in experiential learning courses and programs. While this commitment was being rolled out, the authors prepared a study of the impact of the program on enrollment and the educational experience of students. A three-year study - each year surveying 1Ls - also included follow up surveys of 2Ls and 3L/4Ls, with additional "look back" questions for the 3L/4L surveys. What we learned was that applicants chose Denver Law on several traditional factors (such as cost and location) but also strongly indicated that the experiential learning component was an important part of their decision. In the 3L/4L surveys, students reflected back on their law school education, and still ranked experiential learning as very important to them, while noting the importance of other practical concerns, such as employment outcomes for graduates. Further, they indicated that many opportunities for professional formation were offered in experiential courses that they took. Finally, we noted a significant increase in overall satisfaction with their legal education, as compared to a similar question prior to the implementation of the expansion of experiential learning at Denver Law.


In the midst of the economic crisis, the management of urban farming represents a key challenge for improving ecological performances within the city. Indeed agricultural areas have a great potential in terms of urban re-generation, fostering a city's resilience and its energy efficiency, even in the perspective of climate change hazards. Further agricultural areas are also crucial for social opportunities and new job creation in the perspective of integrating both ecological and urban services in the framework of more competitive (and attractive) cities. According to the MEA definition of ecosystem services as constituents of well-being (MAE, 2005), this paper presents a case study that addresses the following questions: Can we consider the urban agricultural areas as an ecological infrastructure for the city? And, if affirmative, can we manage it in a more integrated way? The study is structured as a research case study and focuses on a former agricultural area in the city centre of Naples, Italy. This is an almost three hectares area on the hill of San Martino featured by being an important city's landmark. Despite the abandonment of crops, the agricultural land use is still typical of the hill and it represents a core potential to provide ecological and urban services for the city. The study discusses a demonstration project aimed at assessing comprehensive viability for managing agricultural use in order to protect the natural soils and updating both urban and ecological services (such as waste management, social security, sliding risk reduction) through a non-conventional public service policy.


Beginning Mathematics Teachers from Alternative Certification Programs: Their Success in the Classroom and How They Achieved It Edward Ham This dissertation focuses on beginning mathematics teachers from alternative certification programs and their perceptions of what is required to be successful. A mixed – methods research study was completed with several goals in mind: (1) identifying how beginning mathematics teachers define success in the classroom during their earliest years, (2) identifying what important factors, attributes, or experiences helped them achieve this success, and (3) determining where these beginning mathematics teachers learned the necessary attributes, or experiences to become successful in the classroom. A sample of beginning mathematics teachers (n = 28) was selected from an alternative certification program in California for a quantitative survey. A subsample of teachers (n = 7) was then selected to participate further in a qualitative semi-structured interview. The results of the study revealed that beginning teachers defined success in their beginning years by their classroom learning environment, creating and implementing engaging lessons, and a belief in their own ability to grow professionally as educators. Mathematics content knowledge, classroom management, collaboration with colleagues and coaches, reflection, a belief in one's ability to grow professionally as a teacher, a belief in the ability to have a positive impact on students, personality, and previous leadership experiences were several of the factors, attributes, or experiences identified as most important by the participating teachers. The participating teachers also felt that before and after, but not during, their teacher preparation program were the stages of teacher development that best instilled the necessary factors, attributes, or experiences to become successful in a mathematics classroom.


The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (GORTT) has received a Policy-Based Loan (PBL) (TT-L1023) from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This PBL for the Sustainable Energy Program consists of three different operations, each with specific institutional and policy goals. The IDB hired the consortium of Centre of Partnerships for Development (CAD), Projekt-Consult and LKS in 2012 to support the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs (MEEA) with technical assistance in the development of policies and activities that will promote the deployment of Renewable Energy (RE) and the implementation of Energy Efficiency (EE) measures. The following is the Final Report of the consultancy services undertaken. It defines the baseline for electricity generation and carbon dioxide emissions, provides recommendations on policies for a Sustainable Energy future, assesses the potential for EE in T&T and analyses the options for different RE technologies and their possible uptake in T&T.


Timely forecasts of the onset or possible evolution of droughts are an important contribution to mitigate their manifold negative effects. In this paper we therefore analyse and compare the performance of the first month of the probabilistic extended range forecast and of the seasonal forecast from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in predicting droughts over the European continent. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI-1) is used to quantify the onset or likely evolution of ongoing droughts for the next month. It can be shown that on average the extended range forecast has greater skill than the seasonal forecast, whilst both outperform climatology. No significant spatial or temporal patterns can be observed, but the scores are improved when focussing on large-scale droughts. In a second step we then analyse several different methods to convert the probabilistic forecasts of SPI into a Boolean drought warning. It can be demonstrated that methodologies which convert low percentiles of the forecasted SPI cumulative distribution function into warnings are superior in comparison with alternatives such as the mean or the median of the ensemble. The paper demonstrates that up to 40 % of droughts are correctly forecasted one month in advance. Nevertheless, during false alarms or misses, we did not find significant differences in the distribution of the ensemble members that would allow for a quantitative assessment of the uncertainty.


Electron localization and tunneling in quantum dot (QD) arrays are discussed in this paper. Various arrays of InAs/GaAs QDs are modelled as laterally distributed dots, using single sub-band effective mass approach with effective potential simulating the strain effect. Triple QDs (TQD) configured in triangle and in linear chain is considered. Electron localization in double quantum dot (DQD) and in TQD is studied over the entire electron energy spectrum by varying the geometry parameters of these QD arrays. The spectral distribution of localized and delocalized states appeared very sensitive to the violation of the mirror symmetry of the systems. The effect of adding a third dot to a DQD is also investigated. We show that the presence of a third dot increases the tunneling in the initial DQD


This paper is concerned with the tagging of spatial expressions in German newspaper articles, assigning a meaning to the expression and classifying the usages of the spatial expression and linking the derived referent to an event description. In our system, we implemented the activation of concepts in a very simple fashion, a concept is activated once (with a cost depending on the item that activated it) and is left activated thereafter. As an example, a city also activates the nodes for the region and the country it is part of, so that cities from one country are chosen over cities from different countries. A test corpus of 12 German newspaper articles was tested regarding several disambiguation strategies. Disambiguation was carried out via a beam search to find an approximately cost-optimal solution for the conflict set of potential grounding candidates for the tagged spatial expression. Test showed that the disambiguation strategies improved accuracy significantly.


A tentative interpretation of the structure of the south-eastern part of the Voltri Group, at a regional scale, is presented from field data collected during regional mapping. The new interpretation implies that the Voltri Group lherzolites, serpentinites and metasediments were folded in large isoclinal folds (F 1 -F 2 events) and subsequently refolded into a megafold with a NNE-SSW horizontal axis. The eastern part of the Voltri Group could represent the sub-vertical (slightly overturned towards the W) limb of a megasynform, while its western part would be the sub-horizontal limb of the same megastructure. The regional scale implications of this hypothesis are discussed, and compared with the structural setting of the surrounding units. A structural stacking, with the Voltri Group in the highest position, overlying the Cravasco-Voltaggio-Montenotte complex, the Triassic-Liassic unit, the Valosio crystalline massif and a Brianconnais crystalline massif (Savona and probably Arenzano) is proposed; this hypothesis about the structural stacking is also based on data from other areas (the contact between the Voltri Group and the Savona crystalline massif). The consistency of the new interpretation with geophysical data from the area under investigation is checked and some field aspects which disagree with the proposed megastructure are discussed.


Proposes a new mechanism for implementing an electronic shopping cart system system on the World Wide Web. The shopping cart system is a typical client-server system, and it includes the essential tasks to be implemented in a typical Web-based client-server system. The most important task is to maintain context data between successive user sessions. Although several methods which can be applied to implement the shopping cart system on the Web system have been proposed, none of them can attain the task of maintaining context data sufficiently. In this paper, we analyze the task and point out the following difficulties: (1) reliability, (2) safety and (3) session management. We then propose a new mechanism, called the context data storage (CDS) mechanism, to solve all of the above difficulties. In the proposed CDS mechanism, the context data for the session management is stored in the main memory of the client computer. As a result, the CDS mechanism can achieve both high reliability and high safety, as well as the capability of managing tuser sessions. Next, we use component object technology to implement the CDS mechanism. Then, we compare the performance of the shopping cart system using the proposed CDS mechanism with one using the previous methods. The results show that our proposed mechanism has solved all of the above difficulties (1), (2) and (3) and has attained efficient communications between clients and Web servers.


Escherichia coli is the most common cause of urinary tract infections. Knowledge of its local antimicrobial susceptibility patterns can be used to inform choice of empiric antimicrobial therapy. In this article, we review data on antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of E. coli isolated from unselected urine specimens, in both the private and public sectors of South Africa from 20072011. Between 65 000-84 000 E. coli urinary isolates were reported annually from 19 laboratories located across South Africa. Susceptibility to fluoroquinolone and beta-lactam antibiotics decreased significantly and steadily in both private and public sectors over the five-year period, although laboratory-based surveillance data may underestimate susceptibility rates due to selection bias and lack of differentiation between community- and hospital-acquired infections. Our data suggest that fluoroquinolones, co-amoxiclav and first- and second-generation cephalosporins can still be used for empiric treatment in many local settings, but clinicians should be alert to the risk of treatment failure. With the withdrawal of nitrofurantoin from the local market, other oral antibiotic options are limited, and fosfomcyin may become increasingly important. Given their sustained high susceptibility rates, aminoglycosides should be considered to treat pyelonephritis more often. Judicious use of laboratory testing is advised and further research and surveillance is warranted.


"Nothing in life was really watertight"1 Joan Lindsay It is an axiom of film criticism that no single interpretation of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock can resolve its insoluble mystery, or what Gary Hentzi labels its plots "central absence" (5). Everett Eugene Corum concurs, adding that Picnics "unclosable situation [is] a result of the director's ambiguity about the events and the metaphors used to describe them" (49). But as Corum rightly observes, Weir's is a "tantalizing ambiguity" that opens Picnic to "possibilities of interpretation" (49). Consequently, given that Weir himself contends with David Castell that "the film is as good as [one's] own imagination"2 (94), one could possibly shed some mythic light on its puzzling proceedings by interpreting them through Marek Haltof s suggestion that Hanging Rock is not only "a sacred Aboriginal ground" (810), but "a symbol of ancient knowledge, in this context comparable with Aboriginal dreamtime" (820). Worth quoting here is Stephanie Gauper's defining admonition: "our term 'dreamtime' is a misnomer [for] the Aborigines define being in terms of place and space rather than time. . . . Dreaming is not a time but a symbol, a location, and a source of energy" (213). Intrigued by Gaupers "earth forces" (216), whom she sees claiming Weir's schoolgirls, this paper attempts to chart the latter s hypothetical trajectory in terms of Amero Alii 's Hellenic twisting of Dreamtime into an "Aboriginal Neptune" whose constantly shifting waters, obliterating "all sight and perspective," liquefy the abductees into "a state of sightless navigation."3 Hence Weir's cryptic landscape, with its unfathomable fluidity seeping through what Jonathan Rayner aptly describes as a collage of "time-lapse, slow-motion, unexplained voice-over and omnipotent revelation" (56). Just as thematically crucial, however, is the equally intriguing possibility that Weir, inspired by Joan Lindsay, transmutes his Aboriginal fluid daemon into a Dionysiac_ge»/«i loci. For what Joan Kirkby animistically terms Lindsay s Forsterean "earth spirit" (257), an invisible "living force" (268) lurking in numinous haunts like the Marabar Caves and Hanging Rock, becomes in such classical readings Pan-ically suggestive. Donald Barrett, for instance, conceives Lindsay 's Rock as "[a] metaphor for Pan" (Mythology of Pan 308), and hence her Appleyard picnickers as implicit victims of this Arcadian nymph abductor. So does Karelisa V. Hartigan who likewise senses the Goat-God "castfing] his spell" upon Weir's counterparts through the "haunting notes of the pan-pipe" (97). Significantly, while the typically enigmatic Lindsay4 refrains from corroborating Barren's "Pan" interpretation, she readily endorses Weir's choice of Gheorghe Zamfir's Flute de Pan as appropriate film music.5 Such an approval indicates that Lindsay concerns herself less with Barrett s query about her alleged "Pan" novel "giv[ing] no hint of Pan the musician" (760) than with her feeling that the film's pipe music is emotionally congenial to "the fatal Picnic."6 But Weir's vision crucially transcends Lindsay s, for his equally hoofless Piper turns a Derridean screw on her immaterial entity by spectralizing into the ghostlier irruption of nondiegetic piping. Michel Chions concept of the filmic acousmetre or acoustical "phantom" (128) becomes in Picnic a subject of uncanny variation. In fact, by being absently present in Weir's visual/aural diegesis, the Piper mutates into what Jacques Derrida would call "a ghost of the ghost" (126). Shedding even the Rocks "dreadful shape" lumbering across Lindsay s schoolgirls' visionary plain ( 1 33), Weir's impalpable Piper waxes and wanes in an extradiegetic soundscape of flutings that fades into a realm of the inaudible. Weir's Picnic recreates Lindsay s Terra Incognita Australis as an out-of-filmic text, beyond what is seen and heard: the visual/aural hors-champ is virtually its fantastic territory. But this statement can be viewed in truer perspective if we analyze in detail how Weir transcribes the "Aboriginal 'dreamtime' ideas" (815) from which Haltof sees Lindsay molding her enchanted characters into a filmic insubstantiality of spectral sounds and silences. …


Background/Objectives: A large number of patients with coronary artery disease experience angina that is not suitable for revascularization and is refractory to conventional medical therapy. Laboratory and preclinical studies have provided evidence for the safety and potential efficacy of autologous CD34+ stem cell therapies as treatment for angina. Clinical studies investigating intramyocardial transplantation of autologous CD34+ stem cells by catheter injection for patients with refractory angina show that this is safe and feasible. It remains unclear whether intracoronary infusion of CD34+ stem cells exerts beneficial effects in patients with angina as well. We addressed this question with a controlled clinical trial by enrolling 112 patients with refractory angina. Previous trials have investigated the safety and beneficial effects of CD34+ cells isolated from granulocyte colony-stimulating factor-mobilized peripheral blood; in our trial, we isolated CD34+ cells directly from the patient's bone marrow. Methods: One hundred and twelve patients with diffuse triple-vessel disease and Canadian Cardiovascular Society class III or IV angina were enrolled in a double-blind, randomized (1:1), placebo-controlled study. Patients received optimal medical treatment but were not candidates for mechanical revascularization (percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary artery bypass grafting). Fifty-six patients (27 women and 29 men aged 42–80 years) were enrolled in the treatment group, and 56 patients (28 women and 28 men aged 43–80 years) who received optimal medical treatment and intracoronary saline injections were enrolled in the placebo control group. Bone marrow was collected from all enrolled patients at a volume of 120–150 ml each in both groups. Selections of CD34+ cells were performed by a CE-marked device approved by the Security, Food and Drug Administration of China. Coronary angiography had been performed before enrollment in this study. Results: No myocardial infarction was observed during intracoronary infusion. The intracoronary infusion of cells or saline did not result in cardiac enzyme elevation, cardiac perforation or pericardial effusion. No arrhythmia, such as ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation, was induced by intracoronary infusion. No serious adverse events occurred in either group. The reduction in the frequency of angina episodes per week 3 and 6 months after infusion was significantly higher in the treatment group (–14.6 ± 4.8 at 3 months and –15.6 ± 4.0 at 6 months) than in the control group (–4.5 ± 0.3 and –3.0 ± 1.2, respectively; p < 0.01). Other efficacy parameters such as nitroglycerine usage, exercise time and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society class also showed an improvement in the treatment group compared to the control group. A significant improvement in myocardial perfusion was noted in the treatment group compared to the control group, as measured by single-photon emission computed tomography. Conclusions: This randomized trial investigating intracoronary infusion of autologous CD34+ cells in patients with intractable angina shows the safety and feasibility of this therapy and provides evidence for efficacy.


Tech companies (e.g., Google or Facebook) often use randomized online experiments and/or A/B testing primarily based on the average treatment effects to compare their new product with an old one. However, it is also critically important to detect qualitative treatment effects such that the new one may significantly outperform the existing one only under some specific circumstances. The aim of this paper is to develop a powerful testing procedure to efficiently detect such qualitative treatment effects. We propose a scalable online updating algorithm to implement our test procedure. It has three novelties including adaptive randomization, sequential monitoring, and online updating with guaranteed type-I error control. We also thoroughly examine the theoretical properties of our testing procedure including the limiting distribution of test statistics and the justification of an efficient bootstrap method. Extensive empirical studies are conducted to examine the finite sample performance of our test procedure.


The current study replicated MacQuarrie, Tucker, Burns, and Hartman (2002) with a sample of 20 students who had been identified with a disability and had an IQ score that was between 1 and 3 standard deviations below the normative mean. Each student was taught 27 words from the Esperanto International Language with the following conditions: (a) traditional drill in which unknown words were rehearsed until correctly stated three times, (b) three unknown words interspersed among six known words and repeated three times (interspersal), and (c) incremental rehearsal involving the rehearsal of unknown words among nine known words so that each new word was rehearsed nine times. Consistent with the previous study, the condition with the most opportunities to respond led to the best retention. The correlation between IQ and the number of words retained 1 to 2 weeks later for the most effective condition (incremental rehearsal) was .03 and .15 after correcting for range restriction. Moderate correlation coefficients between IQ and number of words retained were found for the other two conditions. Implications for research and practice are discussed.