Raising money and directing it into savings is the most important passive task in banking. Restrictive monetary policy makes it increasingly difficult for banking institutions to take loans, thus they turn to the general population as a money source. Their interest is partly served through inclusion of financially inactive population. As the new legislation will correct the current illogical situation (some deposit institutions have not been under control of the central bank), this will eliminate the unfair competition which is at the moment existing in the banking system. At the same time, the operation of a new form of non-profit deposit institutions, i.e. credit unions, will be regulated. With solidarity and common interest as the basic tenets of their operation they can be attractive to this particular segment of population. The paper explores and proposes some possible models and ways of including the financially inferior population into the financial system.


Excel 2010 In Depth is the beyond-the-basics, beneath-the-surface guide for everyone who wants to streamline their work with Excel 2010, and get more done in less time. Legendary Excel expert Bill Jelen provides specific, tested, proven solutions to the problems Excel users run into every day: challenges other books ignore or oversimplify. Jelen thoroughly covers all facets of working with Excel 2010, and adds new chapters on Excel Web App which allows multiple users to edit a spreadsheet simultaneously. New coverage also includes: Slicer, which offers dynamic filtering of PivotTables; Sparklines, which add data visualization to any cell; Calculation engine which improves the speed and accuracy of math, financial, and statistical functions; and the new version of Solver. As with all In Depth books, Excel 2010 In Depth presents comprehensive coverage, breakthrough techniques, exclusive shortcuts, quick access to information, troubleshooting help for tough problems, and real-world examples with nothing glossed over or left out. Step-by-step instructions with icons guide readers through essential tasks such as designing tables, entering data, importing external data, designing and executing queries, and designing data entry forms and printed reports. Additional chapters on advanced form and report design emphasize data entry efficiency and presentation clarity. By Bill Jelen, aka MrExcel, an Excel MVP and the principal behind the leading Excel website, MrExcel.com Covers all aspects of working with Excel 2010, from its updated Ribbon interface to its breakthrough collaboration and improved business intelligence For everyone who wants to get the most out of Excel 2010, from casual users to corporate professionals


ABSTRACT A remote Aboriginal community has adopted the online digital landscape in today's globalised culture and the free market. At the same time, their lives intertwine with a predominantly white Australian affluent neighbourhood on their traditional lands. The development of their traditional lands by a multinational mining company extends the complexity of their traditional lifestyle into a corporate world of trade, boom and economic crisis. This interaction between the affluent mining community of non-Aboriginal residents and the intersection of the digital world made up of smartphones, and social media has flow-on effects within the community. Aboriginal self-determination persists, supported by mobile and internet technology, and involved members from the higher echelons (traditional owners) to the social outliers. This study looks within the community and between the clans. In this ethnographic study, the authors attempt to discuss the effects of social media and mobile technologies that enable power and agency. Our findings bring to the fore a different perspective, inspired by Aboriginal peoples' use of the digital landscape for collective reflexivity. For collective reflexivity to occur, all relationships, according to our generous study participants, are in a continuous cycle of deconstruction and reconstruction.


The history of anthropology reflects a sometimes contentious dynamic between the study of unique cultural features and ones that are broadly shared across cultures, indeed so broadly shared that scholars have identified some as regularly recurring social formations. One aspect of the contention between these two areas of study is that the study of recurrent social formations has been marred by a history of ethnocentric perspectives and, more significantly, by a taxonomic approach lacking a general theory of cultural evolution. I demonstrate one way to remedy problems in the taxonomic approach by applying methods used in evolutionary biology to link the study of cultural variation to similar studies of phylogenetic variation. I employ Guttman scaling, morphospace analysis, and the exploration of adaptive landscapes to suggest a path toward a general theory of recurrent social formations.


The cytolytic delta-endotoxin Cyt1A from Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis is used in commercial preparations of environmentally safe insecticides. The current hypothesis on its mode of action is that the toxin self-assembles into well-defined cation-selective channels or pores, which results in colloid-osmotic lysis of the cell. Recently, a new hypothesis has been put forward suggesting that Cyt1A rather nonspecifically aggregates on the membrane surface and acts in a detergent-like manner. To distinguish between these two hypotheses, we investigated whether in the presence of lipid Cyt1A self-assembles into stoichiometric oligomers, which are characteristic of pores or channels, or aggregates into nonstoichiometric complexes, which would support the detergent-like model. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed that in the presence of lipid Cyt1A forms protein aggregates with a broad range of molecular weights, some being too large to enter the gel. Cyt1A tryptophan (Trp) fluorescence in the presence of lipid exhibited a decrease in anisotropy and quantum yield, but an unchanged lifetime, which is consistent with the presence of toxin aggregates in the membrane. Electrostatic interactions between the charged amino acid residues and the lipid headgroups are responsible for bringing the protein to the membrane surface, while hydrophobic and/or van der Waals interactions make the membrane binding irreversible. Fluorescence photobleaching recovery, a technique that measures the diffusion coefficient of fluorescently labeled particles, and epifluorescence microscopy revealed that upon addition of Cyt1A lipid vesicles were broken into smaller, faster diffusing objects. Since no change in size or morphology of the vesicles is expected when pores are formed in the osmotically equilibrated membranes, our results support the detergent-like mode of action of Cyt1A.


Massively multi-label prediction/classification problems arise in environments like health-care or biology where it is useful to make very precise predictions. One challenge with massively multi-label problems is that there is often a longtailed frequency distribution for the labels, resulting in few positive examples for the rare labels. We propose a solution to this problem by modifying the output layer of a neural network to create a Bayesian network of sigmoids which takes advantage of ontology relationships between the labels to help share information between the rare and the more common labels. We apply this method to the two massively multi-label tasks of disease prediction (ICD-9 codes) and protein function prediction (Gene Ontology terms) and obtain significant improvements in per-label AUROC and average precision.


Rearrangements and fusion of the MLL gene with various alternative partner genes occur in approximately 80% of infant leukemias and are acquired during fetal hemopoiesis in utero. Similar MLL gene recombinants also occur in topoisomerase II-inhibiting drug-induced leukemias. These data have led to the suggestion that some infant leukemia may arise via transplacental fetal exposures during pregnancy to substances that form cleavable complexes with topoisomerase II and induce illegitimate recombination of the MLL gene. A structural feature shared by many topoisomerase II-inhibiting drugs and other chemicals is the quinone moiety. We assayed, by PCR-RFLP, for a polymorphism in an enzyme that detoxifies quinones, NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1), in a series (n = 36) of infant leukemias with MLL rearrangements versus unselected cord blood controls (n = 100). MLL-rearranged leukemias were more likely to have genotypes with low NQO1 function (heterozygous CT or homozygous TT at nucleotide 609) than controls (odds ratio, 2.5; P = 0.015). In contrast, no significant allele bias was seen in other groups of pediatric leukemias with TEL-AML1 fusions (n = 50) or hyperdiploidy (n = 29). In the subset of infant leukemias that had MLL-AF4 fusion genes (n = 21), the bias increase in low or null function NQO1 genotypes was more pronounced (odds ratio, 8.12; P = 0.00013). These data support the idea of a novel causal mechanism in infant leukemia involving genotoxic exposure in utero and modulation of impact on a selective target gene by an inherited allele encoding a rate-limiting step in a carcinogen detoxification pathway.


Aim: The aim of this research is to explore the effect of physical activities in treating depression among elderly population living in an institution using different existing literature. Also, aim is to make this study useful to healthcare professionals and students while working with elderly population suffering from depression. The research question is kept in concern during the study: 1. How do physical activities promote health for elderly suffering from depression living in an institution? Methodology: The materials were acquired through qualitative research leading to deductive content analysis and literature review was also used in order to develop ideas and facts and deal with any problems during the process. Only 7 articles could be accessed due to author's copyright policy while conducting this research, which somehow created some limitations. Result: It was found that physical activities enhances functioning of the bodily systems with improvement in mental health as well in elderly people who have already lost their vibes due to different depression related disorders. The suffering age were found to be physically and psychologically benefited physical activities that increase feelings of self-esteem, self-regard and self-respect, which are important for elderly for recovery. Conclusion: Physical activities have been identified as one of the health-promoting factor on reducing depressive symptoms among elderly population. So, it has to be considered more importantly with more researches on this field.


This paper is a review of the exiting literature on corporate governance focusing on the key attributes of board namely the executive compensation, Board independence and Board busyness. The paper looks into the exiting work on how the foreign investment impacts the corporate governance and the main theories supporting it. The paper provides a model and a research setup for conducting future empirical studies specific to an economy on the impact of different types of foreign institutional investors on the corporate governance through the channel of board attributes. It provides a detailed discussion on how the endogeneity issues are addressed by previous literature and what new empirical research in governance can look forward to.


The aim of the present paper is to provide a single analytical expression of the power transmission coefficient for leaky rays in multi-step index (MSI) fibres. This expression is valid for all tunnelling and refracting rays and allows us to evaluate numerically the power attenuation along an MSI fibre of an arbitrary number of layers. We validate our analysis by comparing the results obtained for limit cases of MSI fibres with those corresponding to step-index (SI) and graded-index (GI) fibres. We also make a similar comparison between this theoretical expression and the use of the WKB solutions of the scalar wave equation.


Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder and among other symptoms, patients have important visual impairments. Visual paradigms are therefore important tools to investigate the mechanisms of schizophrenia. During the last period of the NCCR, we have characterized a very sensitive endophenotype of schizophrenia, based on visual backward masking (VBM). Moreover, we found strongly reduced global field power (GFP) amplitudes to masked stimuli in schizophrenia patients (Plomp et al., 2013). In order to track the progress of the disease and its behavioural and electrophysiological correlates, we have set a longitudinal study with first episode patients (N=20) and have tested them with the masking endophentoype and EEG. We follow up patients every half year and have tested them 3 times up to now (Roinishvili et al., ongoing). The 20 patients tested show clear masking deficits and reduced amplitudes in the EEG compared to controls, but higher amplitudes compared to schizophrenic patients.


In active learning, the user sequentially chooses values for feature $X$ and an oracle returns the corresponding label $Y$. In this paper, we consider the effect of feature noise in active learning, which could arise either because $X$ itself is being measured, or it is corrupted in transmission to the oracle, or the oracle returns the label of a noisy version of the query point. In statistics, feature noise is known as "errors in variables" and has been studied extensively in non-active settings. However, the effect of feature noise in active learning has not been studied before. We consider the well-known Berkson errors-in-variables model with additive uniform noise of width $\sigma$.
Our simple but revealing setting is that of one-dimensional binary classification setting where the goal is to learn a threshold (point where the probability of a $+$ label crosses half). We deal with regression functions that are antisymmetric in a region of size $\sigma$ around the threshold and also satisfy Tsybakov's margin condition around the threshold. We prove minimax lower and upper bounds which demonstrate that when $\sigma$ is smaller than the minimiax active/passive noiseless error derived in \cite{CN07}, then noise has no effect on the rates and one achieves the same noiseless rates. For larger $\sigma$, the \textit{unflattening} of the regression function on convolution with uniform noise, along with its local antisymmetry around the threshold, together yield a behaviour where noise \textit{appears} to be beneficial. Our key result is that active learning can buy significant improvement over a passive strategy even in the presence of feature noise.


Geographical Information Systems, Data trending, and Risk Assessment Software are now available to help pipeline operators execute safe, cost effective maintenance programs. However, to use these analytical tools effectively, large amounts of data pertaining to the integrity of the pipeline system and its environment are required. For this reason, pipeline rehabilitation programs have evolved into complex data collecting procedures, the success of which depends on the ability to efficiently obtain reliable, consistent and accurate information.This article will describe new software technology and Quality Control programs, relating to inspection personnel, which have been developed to increase the efficiency and reliability of the information collected during a pipeline excavation.The pertinent functions of software programs discussed will involve compatibility between databases, on site data validation, code calculations, communications and CAD drawings for a comparison with In Line Inspection results.As well, the need for quality control or training programs will be discussed addressing both the theoretical and practical applications of pipeline integrity and it's relevance to quality data collection. Previous projects using these approaches will be presented showing their effectiveness in significantly increasing the efficiency and accuracy of the information collected while reducing overall inspection time and cost.Copyright © 2000 by ASME


Abstract This paper uses discourse theory to obtain a broader understanding of how research impact of sustainable tourism research develops in the environmental policy domain. Discourse theory shifts emphasis from the substance of science versus policy to the use of science in policy processes and explains the political dimensions of policymaking. We first review a well-documented science-policy gap in sustainable tourism research on climate change to develop an alternative conceptualisation of research impact. Then, using a case study approach, we investigate this framework by evaluating the impact of a PhD thesis about aviation's global CO2 emissions on the Dutch aviation policy process. The case study shows research impact is entwined with various other elements, and embedded in a specific governance context. Research influenced contrasting science-policy interactions and contributed to conflicting policy actions and reactions. The impact of research in this case was manifested through the formation and interplay of multiple knowledge objects that were both embraced and marginalised. In settings like this, research is used to legitimise pre-existing policy positions rather than to develop new policies. We discuss the implications of narrow conceptions of research impact. The paper highlights the need for advanced policy analysis in sustainable tourism research.


In the recent decades the role of new ? rms has been recognized as one of the key elements for economic and social development. While governments dedicated their efforts to design polices and strategies for the support of the entrepreneurial activity, the academy has focused its interest, among other topics, on the analysis of conditioning factors to entrepreneurship. Concretely, scholars from Babson College (USA) and London Business School (United Kingdom) launched in 1999 the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) with the aim to analyze the level of entrepreneurial activity around the world. Specifically, this Project studies the variation of entrepreneurship over time, the differences among the countries, the entrepreneurship support policies and the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and economic development. The GEM Project is based on a theoretical model characterized for the holistic vision of the entrepreneurial activity and the interdependence among the variables. The complexity of this model highlights some limitations of the econometric instruments. Consequently, taking into account that one of the main objectives of the GEM Project is to propose and formulate support policies to new firm creation, system dynamics is considered an adequate tool for this aim. In this context, the paper evaluates, through system dynamics, policies and strategies to support entrepreneurial activity, according the GEM theoretical model. The causal model is presented with the results of the study.


gamma-aminobutyric acidA (GABAA) receptors, the major fast inhibitory neurotransmitter receptors in the brain, are implicated in the acute and chronic effects of alcohol including tolerance, dependence and withdrawal. Recent studies have suggested a linkage of alcohol dependence to the gene encoding GABAA receptor 2 subunit (GABRA2), on chromosome 4p. Therefore we examined the association of alcohol dependence to rs9291283 (hCV8262290) polymorphism, located in the intron 3 of GABRA2 gene, that has been previously reported to be implicated in alcoholism. This study enrolled 379 (303 male and 76 female) alcohol- dependent (diagnosis of alcoholism was made according to DSM-IV criteria) and 226 (198 male and 28 female) healthy subjects of the Croatian origin. Alcohol-dependent patients were further subdivided according to the early/late onset of alcohol drinking, as well as to the presence/absence of aggressive behavior. Genotyping was performed by using TaqMan Real-Time allelic discrimination technique after extraction of DNA from the whole blood with a salting out procedure. There were no significant differences in the distribution of genotypes or in the frequency of different allele carriers for tested polymorphism between alcohol-dependent and control individuals, as well as between different subsets of alcoholics. The results have not provided supporting evidence for the potential involvement of the rs9291283 (hCV8262290) GABRA2 polymorphism in the alcohol dependence. However, since these are preliminary results, further studies with enlarged groups should be conducted in order to find a possible association of investigated polymorphism and alcoholism in Croatian population.


This article aims at grounding critical theories with the help of psy discourses. Even if the relationship between the two disciplines has always been a controversial one, the article argues that therapeutic knowledge that accesses empirical forms of social suffering may offer important insights for critical theory. This general argument is demonstrated by complementing the theories of Bourdieu and Habermas with a clinical description of depression. First, the limitations of the capabilities of these influential theories in terms of how they can be used to conceptualize the variety of social suffering are introduced. Second, the psy discourses on depression are reviewed to identify and highlight latent references to the social. Third, by combining models of depressive suffering and various distortions of integration, an extended normative basis is elaborated. Instead of solely criticizing inequalities or distortions of communication, those social constellations are criticized that trap actors by producing a homogenous pattern of suffering.


For a variety of human malignancies, incidence, treatment efficacy and overall prognosis show considerable variation between different populations and ethnic groups. Disentangling the effects related to particular population backgrounds can help in both understanding cancer biology and in tailoring therapeutic interventions. Because self-reported or inferred patient data can be incomplete or misleading due to migration and genomic admixture, a data-driven ancestry estimation should be preferred. While tools to map and utilize ancestry information from healthy individuals have been introduced, a population assignment based on genotyping data from somatic variation profiling of cancer samples is still missing. We analyzed sequencing-based variation data from the 1000 Genomes project, containing 2504 individuals out of 5 continental groups. This reference was then used to extract population-biased SNPs used in genotyping array platforms of varying resolutions. We found that despite widespread and extensive somatic mutations of cancer profiling data, more than 90% of cancer samples can be correctly mapped to one of the population group when compared to their paired unmutated normals. Prefiltering samples for admixed individuals increased the accuracy to 96%. This work provides a data-driven approach to estimate the population background from cancer genome profiling data. This proof-of-concept study will facilitate efforts to understand the interplay between population and ethnicity related genetic background and differences in understanding statistical and molecular differences in cancer entities with respect to possible hereditary contributions. The docker version of the tool is provided through "baudisgroup/tum2pop" in DockerHub and deposited in "baudisgroup/tum2pop-mapping" in GitHub.


This report is the result of a diploma thesis of Xavier Caron, a computer science student at the Software Engineering Lab (LGL), which is part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). The LGL is currently developing an object-oriented library providing transaction support for Ada programmers. Transactions are actions that have the well-known ACID properties (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability). Durability of objects can be achieved by saving their state to so-called "stable storage". The goal of this project is to implement the two following forms of stable storage: 1) Stable storage using a technique called mirroring. The integrity of the stored data must be guaranteed even in the presence of crash failures. 2) Stable storage based on replication. Using the distributed programming facilities of Ada 95, a mechanism must be devised that allows to broadcast the information that has to be made durable to a group of collaborating machines for storage. Of course, it should also be possible to retrieve the data in a consistent manner. This report describes the system design and implementation in Ada 95.


The ability to investigate the proteome of formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded (FFPE) tissues can be considered a major recent achievement in the field of clinical proteomics. However, gel‐based approaches to the investigation of FFPE tissue proteomes have lagged behind, mainly because of insufficient quality of full‐length protein extracts. Here, the 2‐D DIGE technology was investigated for applicability to FFPE proteins, for internal reproducibility among replicate FFPE extracts, and for comparability between FFPE and fresh‐frozen tissue profiles. The 2‐D DIGE patterns obtained upon labeling and electrophoresis of replicate FFPE tissue extracts were highly reproducible, with satisfactory resolution and complexity. Moreover, the implementation of DIGE enabled to highlight and characterize the consistent differences found in the FFPE profiles compared with fresh‐frozen profiles, represented by an acidic shift, directly correlated to the protein pI value, and by a reduction in spot signal intensity, directly correlated to molecular weight and percentage of lysine residues. Being constantly and reproducibly present in all FFPE tissue extract replicates at similar extents, these modifications do not appear to hinder the comparative analysis of FFPE tissue extracts by 2‐D DIGE, opening the way to its application for the differential proteomic investigation of archival tissue repositories.


Introduction: The administration of factorial survey has developed from the traditional methods of providing participants with a low cost set of written vignettes in person to the use of expensive sophisticated online software packages such as Project Implicit. However, new online approaches are being piloted using affordable licensed software such as Qualtrics. This paper will describe a novel approach to a factorial survey on child safeguarding in pregnancy- professional decision making using Qualtrics. Methodological issues: Factorial survey in Qualtrics involves a method of entering questions into blocks in the usual manner but with the addition of a backdrop of variables entered as embedded data. This enables the automatic randomisation of variables within each set of unique vignettes presented to participants accessed through one link generated for all.Findings: Many challenges emerged during this process. The development of the vignettes relies on careful manipulation of variables and levels of variables entered as embedded data. Wording, positioning of blocks and case sensitive piped in data (variables) are important elements which need careful planning in order for the factorial survey to be executed effectively using this software package. Potential challenges can arise in terms of randomisation of variables and their "true to life" presentation within vignettes e.g. the likelihood of an under 16yr old who is pregnant being prescribed methadone. However, it is possible for the embedded data to be manipulated in this case to prevent variables "under 16's and methadone" appearing in the same vignette.Conclusion: Qualtrics is a cost-effective method of distributing building and distributing factorial surveys.


Public health genomics is a subspecialty within public health that deals with the application of genetics, genomics and molecular science to the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. Its subject matter is multidisciplinary in scope and requires an understanding not just of scientific advances, but also the population sciences, biostatistics and epidemiology, and the humanities and social sciences. Its fundamental concept is that genetic variation is an important determinant of health, and that all human traits and pathology come about as a consequence of the combined effects of genetic and environmental factors. These considerations have important implications for the future practice of public health across all its roles: health protection, health promotion and the development and organisation of health services. Its impact is not only just on inherited disorders, but also across the entire range of infectious and noncommunicable diseases. Public policy and regulatory frameworks will need to be adapted to ensure the responsible implementation of genome-based knowledge and technologies within society.

Key Concepts:

Public health genomics is multidisciplinary, with its knowledge base deriving from not just genetic and molecular science, but also from the population sciences, the humanities and social sciences.

Public health genomics relies on understanding that genetic variation is an important determinant of health, and that all human traits and pathology comes about as a consequence of the combined effects of genetic and environmental factors.

The mission of public health genomics is to improve population health through the use of knowledge and technologies in an effective and responsible manner.

Public health professionals must ensure that they understand the part played by genetic variation and other molecular and cellular processes, and how that understanding can be used to contribute to the health of individuals and populations.

Training and education, improving the utility and efficiency of research, ensuring safe and effective services and technologies, supporting the development of relevant public policy and of health service provisions are all essential activities within public health genomics.

Keywords:

public health;
public health genetics;
public health genomics;
genomics and health policy;
public policy;
ethical, legal and social;
stratified medicine;
personalised medicine


VideoSAR is a land-imaging mode where the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is operated in a spotlight configuration for an extended period of time. A sequence of images is continuously formed to a common Cartesian grid, while the radar is either flying towards, by or circling a target area. In general, VideoSAR imaging maintains antenna illumination on a target regardless of changes in squint angle, within theoretical and practical limitations. The video-like nature is a result of the imagery being produced using overlapped synthetic apertures such that the output frame rate can be commensurate with that of a video system. Enhanced exploitation of this product typically requires that the imagery be phase preserving, and that the data acquisition geometries be highly controlled for generation of secondary products such as coherence images (coherence maps) for change detection. One of the most accurate image formation algorithms for the formation of phase preserved imagery is the back-projection algorithm. Though computationally intensive, its attraction lies in its simplicity, the fact that the relative location of each pixel in the output imagery is precisely known and the complex imagery is phase preserved. The backprojection algorithm is presented in terms of its application to VideoSAR imaging. Mathematical decomposition techniques for improving the computational efficiency of the algorithm are reviewed. The application of change detection between pairs of VideoSAR images and `stacks' of VideoSAR images where the benefits of trading off spatial image filtering and temporal image filtering by averaging coherence in slow-time is also examined. Finally, computer topologies applicable to back projection are outlined from the perspectives of both the signal processing architecture and advances in massively parallel computing.


The present teaching manual outlines the first module of a two-module junior to senior standing case study, where each module can be imparted in a different (semester-long) course. Module one is applicable in research method courses in interdisciplinary majors such as Food Systems or Agroecology, while module two is useful for courses with an emphasis in a systems-thinking and community interventions. At the end of both modules, students should be able to identify the socio-environmental factors that impact a rural food system and how they interact at different scales. The case deals with Big Sandy, an agricultural town in Montana. Although Montana has experienced economic growth in different economic sectors, rural towns such as Big Sandy have not benefitted from this trend. Young people especially tend to abandon these communities. One reason therefore is a notably unbalanced food system: in Big Sandy, most of the town is dedicated to the (mono)cropping of wheat; yet, 40% of its inhabitants lack access to affordable food. Bob Quinn, a local farmer and businessman, is the big exception: he produces organically, experiments with unusual crop rotations and other innovations, and has built an internationally successful food business. Apart from increasing the students' awareness about challenges of rural communities in an era of industrialized agriculture, module one of this case study deals with the selection of an appropriate research methodology to identify the stakeholders in Big Sandy's food system (as well as their motives). Depending on the total number of students, the module can be implemented in 7-9 classes. It includes pedagogical tools such as concept mapping, a jig-saw activity, and a debate. Students will produce oral presentations and a research agenda. Module two builds on this agenda. There, we emphasize the socio-environmental system within Big Sandy: How can Bob Quinn's farming practices impact other stakeholders to develop a more sustainable food system in Big Sandy? How may such a food system increase the attractiveness of the town for young people?


In Architecture and Development Ayala Levin charts the settler colonial imagination and practices that undergirded Israeli architectural development aid in Africa. Focusing on the "golden age" of Israel's diplomatic relations in and throughout the continent from 1958 to 1973, Levin finds that Israel positioned itself as a developing-nation alternative in the competition over aid and influence between global North and global South. In analyses of the design and construction of prestigious governmental projects in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia, Levin details how architects, planners, and a trade union--owned construction company staged Israel as a new center of nonaligned expertise. These actors and professionals paradoxically capitalized on their settler colonial experience in Palestine, refashioning it as an alternative to Western colonial expertise. Levin traces how Israel became involved in the modernization of governance, education, and agriculture in Africa, as well as how African leaders chose to work with Israel to forge new South-South connections. In so doing, she offers new ways of understanding the role of architecture as a vehicle of postcolonial development and in the mobilization of development resources.


Abstract. As Arctic regions warm and frozen soils thaw, the large organic carbon pool stored in permafrost becomes increasingly vulnerable to decomposition or transport. The transfer of newly mobilized carbon to the atmosphere and its potential influence upon climate change will largely depend on the degradability of carbon delivered to aquatic ecosystems. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a key regulator of aquatic metabolism, yet knowledge of the mechanistic controls on DOC biodegradability is currently poor due to a scarcity of long-term data sets, limited spatial coverage of available data, and methodological diversity. Here, we performed parallel biodegradable DOC (BDOC) experiments at six Arctic sites (16 experiments) using a standardized incubation protocol to examine the effect of methodological differences commonly used in the literature. We also synthesized results from 14 aquatic and soil leachate BDOC studies from across the circum-arctic permafrost region to examine pan-arctic trends in BDOC. An increasing extent of permafrost across the landscape resulted in higher DOC losses in both soil and aquatic systems. We hypothesize that the unique composition of (yedoma) permafrost-derived DOC combined with limited prior microbial processing due to low soil temperature and relatively short flow path lengths and transport times, contributed to a higher overall terrestrial and freshwater DOC loss. Additionally, we found that the fraction of BDOC decreased moving down the fluvial network in continuous permafrost regions, i.e. from streams to large rivers, suggesting that highly biodegradable DOC is lost in headwater streams. We also observed a seasonal (January–December) decrease in BDOC in large streams and rivers, but saw no apparent change in smaller streams or soil leachates. We attribute this seasonal change to a combination of factors including shifts in carbon source, changing DOC residence time related to increasing thaw-depth, increasing water temperatures later in the summer, as well as decreasing hydrologic connectivity between soils and surface water as the thaw season progresses. Our results suggest that future climate warming-induced shifts of continuous permafrost into discontinuous permafrost regions could affect the degradation potential of thaw-released DOC, the amount of BDOC, as well as its variability throughout the Arctic summer. We lastly recommend a standardized BDOC protocol to facilitate the comparison of future work and improve our knowledge of processing and transport of DOC in a changing Arctic.


Should university endowments divest from fossil fuels? A public discussion of this question has included some university presidents issuing statements that they would not, that investments should not be used for "political action." Many universities hold large endowments that have significant positions in fossil fuel companies and/or funds that hold fossil fuel assets. Universities consume fossil fuels in most aspects of campus operations. But universities also support most of the research that has identified the existence, nature, and consequences of climate change, and the principal purpose of the university is to educate, particularly the young adults who will live and work in the climate of the future.Arguments for divestment by universities from fossil fuels are frequently based on moral grounds. Ignoring the moral issue at the core of the climate challenge presents real peril to the reputation of universities and their standing in society. The costs of climate change stretch across generations due to the long atmospheric lifetimes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and the inertia in the Earth's climate system, posing the question of what the impacts of today's societies are on the well being of their children and grandchildren. The poor bear the brunt of the economic and health impacts of climate, a relationship that holds within every nation, and between rich and poor nations. Climate change requires development of the capacity to manage our collective impact on our environment, and universities have a duty to help foster this development. Universities cannot pretend they have no such responsibility without forsaking the role they have historically engendered as trustees of humanity's capacities, values, and understanding.But the case for divestment is not limited to moral imperatives. Holding assets in fossil fuel companies, and in companies that are fossil fuel-intensive, poses a significant array of risks for universities that appear on multiple, simultaneous fronts. Fossil fuel companies will eventually experience a dramatic decline in demand for their products, producing so-called "stranded carbon." Price volatility of fossil fuel assets is the norm, and it will be exacerbated by rising concerns about extractive practices and the forced internalization of external costs, shareholder advocacy, the elimination of generous subsidies, and intense competition from energy efficiency and fast-developing, low-carbon sources of energy. Taken as a whole, the financial, moral, and reputational risks associated with holding assets in fossil fuel companies create a compelling case for divestment, even without considering the rising opportunity costs of not transferring investments to cleaner alternatives. Careful examination of the stated reasons for not divesting shows that they do not hold water.Instead of viewing the choice as "business as usual" or "disinvest," universities should engage with other universal owners and learn how to invest responsibly. Aligning their financial interests with their commitments to sustainability will not be accomplished overnight, but that does not justify turning a blind eye to the fact that a healthy portfolio requires a healthy economy. Universities can first disinvest in the highest polluting and irresponsible operations, and launch a process of learning where to reinvest in the cleaner opportunities of the future. Developing the capacity to identify good investments that make sense from both a moral and a financial standpoint, and doing that work will help inform the rest of us. Doing this work visibly fulfills the university's role in society, and will attract high quality students, faculty, and donors. Once this work is commenced, the question concerning where the line is to be drawn recedes in importance.These actions would provide the world with a lesson worthy of educational institutions that really are concerned with the future. These actions would demonstrate that universities understand that money management is not separate from its moral and environmental consequences, and that they will not participate in the fiction that holds that they are separate. That alone would have incalculable value because it would help convince others. Even the most cold-blooded investor will eventually have to acknowledge that these risks are growing, as is the value of industries that are not vulnerable to regulation, resistance, and devaluation. University leaders should recognize how intelligently going down the road of divestment fulfills their role in society, and that failing to fulfill the university's basic mission will eventually degrade its reputation and capacities.


Each year, the federal government provides billions of dollars in support for low-income families in their acquisition of housing. In this analysis, we examine how several of these subsidized housing programs, public housing and Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) financed housing, relate to patterns of school segregation for children. We use GIS to examine the location of subsidized housing vis-a-vis district boundaries and school attendance boundaries in four Texas counties. We then examine patterns of segregation between schools with and without subsidized housing in their attendance zones, as well as the extent of economic and racial isolation experienced by students in those schools. Our results illustrate that public housing and LIHTC housing developments are zoned to racially and economically isolated schools, and that developments are associated with especially high levels of economic and racial isolation for Black and Latinx students. We conclude by discussing implications for housing and education policy to ameliorate these patterns.


Chondroitin sulfate (CS) is a sulfated glycosaminoglycan (GAG) that is usually found attached to proteins as part of a proteoglycan. The use of CS-based biomaterials in the field of tissue engineering applications has been intensively growing over the past decades because CS is a biopolymer with the major advantages of being biodegradable, biocompatible, easily available, and highly versatile. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that CS-based biomaterials upregulate cartilage-specific gene expression in chondrocytes and mesenchymal stem cells and also support osteogenic differentiation by increasing the effectiveness of bone anabolic growth factors. Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan plays a key role during the acute recovery stage after spinal cord injury by activating microglia/macrophages and modulating neurotrophic factor secretion. In addition, CS-based materials promote the wound-healing process and stimulate the regeneration of skin defects. Moreover, CS can be used to construct high toughness gels by having a double network structure. Taken together, CS-based biomaterials would be a useful material for successful replacement and regeneration of damaged cartilage, bone, skin, and neural tissues.


Stress fractures are common injuries in endurance athletes, and are due to high-intensity, repetitive training activities.1 ,2 Although these fractures occur more frequently in weight-bearing bones, the ribs are a common site for non-weight-bearing stress fractures.3 Rib stress fractures are the most common type of stress fracture in rowers, with an incidence that has been reported as being between 6.1% and 12%.2–5 This relatively large range of estimated incidence rates is likely due to both under-reporting and underdiagnosis of rib stress fractures, as well as an overall lack of epidemiological studies on musculoskeletal injury rates in rowers.3 4 6 For these reasons, the burden of rib stress fractures is likely higher than the literature suggests.3 7 In fact, there is so little epidemiological data available that some recommendations suggest that focal rib pain in any elite rower should be regarded as a stress fracture until proven otherwise.8

Rib stress fractures are of great concern to elite-level rowers and their teams. Rib-related injuries account for the most time lost from training and competition, which can have a negative impact on the affected rower, and on crew members and coaches.3 6 8 Furthermore, because injuries can require up to 6–8 weeks of rest, a rib stress fracture can be a season-ending injury at the elite level.8 This is especially worrisome because a stress fracture that occurs during training for a major championship could prevent the injured athlete from competing altogether.3 Finally, elite level athletes may be more reluctant to abstain from training, and training despite a suspected rib stress fracture may lead to even more serious injury such as a displaced fracture and greater time lost from sport.8–10

Much like stress fractures in weight-bearing bones, rib stress fractures are thought to result from …


The purpose of this paper is to examine from a North American liberal feminist perspective, the relationship between fair play and gender ideals and norms demonstrated at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics. Three specific examples of fair play that took place during these Games will be analyzed, and I will attempt to draw a connection between each instances and socially perceived gender norms. This paper involves the following: (1) an explanation of fair play; (2) a discussion of gender norms in sport; (3) an analysis of three specific examples from the 2006 Winter Olympics; and (4) summary and conclusions. Fair Play Prior to engaging with the specific examples, the notion of fair play needs to be briefly addressed. It should be noted that the primary purpose of this paper is not to focus on the conceptualization of the notion of fair play, but rather to briefly describe it in order to concentrate on the three main examples from the Olympics. The term 'Fair Play' is regularly addressed in the sport philosophy literature, mainly because of its unclear meanings and lack of conceptualization of the term. To demonstrate why the notion of fair play lacks universality, consider the following six conceptions of the term: * Fair play as formalism * Fair play as respect * Fair play as contract or agreement * Fair system of rational norms * Fair play as play * Fair play as virtue (1) The multitude of values, virtues, actions, and expectations espoused within these descriptions of fair play demonstrates the difficulty in fostering agreement on one particular definition. It should also be stressed that fair play is not a "new" concept, for its roots, according to some but not all scholars, can be traced back to the ancient Olympic Games in Greece where fair play was embodied through competitors' demonstration of honour and just behaviour in front of the gods. The athletes accomplished this by obeying the rules of the game. (2) Some scholars, like Liponski, argue that fair play has Roman-Celtic roots, since honourable battles were fought in the fifth Century AD during the Roman occupation of England. (3) Despite its somewhat contested historical background, the most popular and most researched account of the history of fair play involves the British School System in the United Kingdom. Through novels like Tom Brown's School Days, British public schools such as Winchester, Eton, and Rugby, and later the universities of Oxford and Cambridge adopted the practices of fair play, which ultimately involved an ideal conduct appropriate for gentlemen. (4) The schools also played a role in establishing an amateur ideal for male athletes, where the "ideal" education was comprised of moral religious education as well as vigorous physical activity. (5) This history of fair play is most relevant to my overall argument; since it establishes that fair play in its initial development concerned appropriate behaviour for elite males. Therefore, it can be argued that the original conception of fair play was a strictly masculine ideal. Through participation in sport, young men were taught physical and mental toughness and basically learned how to be "real men," which led to the creation of the muscular Christianity movement. The amateur ideal played a major role in the creation of the Modern Olympic Movement in that the roots of the amateur ideal are the principles upon which the Baron Pierre De Coubertin founded his Modern Olympic Games in 1896. It is reasonable to suggest that Coubertin's original plan for reviving the Games did not include both men and women. He did not think that the Olympic Games were a place for women to compete; rather he thought they were better suited to cheering and supporting their male counterparts on the sidelines and presenting awards to the victors. In his book, Fair Play in Sport: A Moral Norm System, Sigmund Loland argues that fair play comprises how we ought to act. …


A practical, clinically-oriented handbook of iron overload disorders giving a compact guide to normal iron metabolism, iron-related pathobiology, and the diagnosis and management of heritable and acquired iron overload disorders. Many of these disorders were discovered and characterized only in the last decade, and are unmentioned or inadequately described in most texts. Written by clinicians for clinicians, this handbook summarizes information on diverse iron overload conditions, including their history, signs, symptoms, physical examination findings, genetics, genotype-phenotype correlations, pathophysiology, differential diagnosis and treatment. Most physicians, regardless of specialty, encounter patients with systemic or organ-specific iron overload conditions. This book contains essential information for practising adult and pediatric medical specialists in the fields of hematology, gastroenterology, hepatology, rheumatology, endocrinology, diabetology, neurology, oncology, dermatology and internal medicine. Pathologists, pharmacologists, geneticists, genetic counselors and epidemiologists will also find substantial, up-to-date sections in this handbook that are pertinent to their respective fields of interest.


The Doctoral School initiative, set up by the ANDROID network with the aim to strengthen the nexus between the 'disaster resilience' research and teaching is a core element of the overall ANDROID project. The mixed teaching space developed as part of this project has encouraged and promoted the work of doctoral students in the area of disaster resilience. The Doctoral School signifies the ongoing effort of the ANDROID network to continue the processes developed through the ANDROID project beyond the duration of original funding, demonstrating the commitment of the network to develop Doctoral education in the area of disaster resilience.

The Residential Doctoral School (RDS) programme for 2015 aims to provide space and opportunity for doctoral students to engage, present, discuss and widely disseminate their research work in the area of disaster resilience. This involve (a) calling for submissions of original piece of doctoral research internationally, (b) providing feedback on the submissions through expert peer review process, (c) providing an opportunity to participate/present research work in a two-day workshop in which additional feedback is provided by a review panel, (d) providing an opportunity to network with experts in the field and (e) disseminate doctoral research work to a wider audience. For this purpose, the ANDROID network international conference (5th International Conference in Building Resilience) in Newcastle Australia ran parallel to the Residential Doctoral School.

This volume brings together the contributions of all the doctoral researchers. The papers collated here demonstrate the richness and interdisciplinary nature of the research topics and the theoretical and practical nature of challenges/opportunities addressed by disaster resilience researchers. The submissions cover a wide spectrum of topics including risk assessment and mitigation, post-disaster reconstruction, disaster governess, social/community resilience, and stakeholder engagement. Given the growing need for evidence-based approaches to dealing with disaster situations created by increasing exposure to human/natural hazards and the need for development of research skills/expertise in this area of disaster resilience, the work of the doctoral researchers in this volume is a valuable contribution to a body of knowledge.


Background Occurrence of early-onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC) under the age of 30 is very rare and the molecular characteristics are poorly understood. A low BRAF mutation rate has been noted in several studies of EOCRC from Western countries. Aims To determine the clinicopathological and molecular features of EOCRCs in Taiwan. Methods KRAS/BRAF gene mutation, mismatch repair protein immunohistochemistry, microsatellite instability and CpG island methylation phenotype analyses were examined to determine the molecular characteristics of EOCRC. Results Sixty-six patients with EOCRC at our hospital between 2000 and 2012 were studied. BRAF mutation was detected in 11 of the 59 tumours analysed (19%) and the rate was significantly higher than the overall BRAF mutation rate of colorectal cancer in patients older than 30 years (p<0.001). Clinically, 9 of 11 patients with BRAF-mutated tumours presented with advanced-stage diseases and they presented significantly more frequently with stage IV disease than those with BRAF wild-type tumours (p=0.042). Histologically, BRAF mutation was associated with a poorly differentiated histology, a serrated precursor polyp and focal signet ring cell differentiation (p=0.042, 0.008 and 0.008, respectively). None of the BRAF-mutated tumours was mismatch repair protein-deficient and/or microsatellite instability-high. Overall survival of patients with BRAF-mutated tumours was significantly worse than that of patients with BRAF wild-type tumours, despite adjustment for the disease stages and tumour differentiation. Conclusions BRAF mutation was frequent in EOCRCs in Taiwan and was associated with distinct clinicopathological and molecular features.


Riparian areas have not responded consistently to grazing systems, suggesting that more knowledge is needed to explain how different areas respond to specific stresses. Several studies were conducted to determine herbaceous plant response to simulated grazing on riparian areas. One low-elevation redtop (Agrostis stofoniferu L.) site in Oregon and 2 high-elevation sedge (Curer spp. L.) sites in Idaho were studied for 3 years. Several combinations of defoliation, compaction, nutrient return, and season of use were examined. The redtop community responded to spring, fall, or spring-fall defoliations by maintaining or increasing the following year's aboveground biomass production. The sedge communities maintained or decreased the following years's biomass production after spring, mid summer, or late summer defoliations. An increase in forbs occurred in 1 sedge community following spring defoliations to l- or S-cm residual stubble heights. The most consistent plant response among areas was reduction in height growth and biomass production following compaction treatments. When both defoliation and compaction are considered, it appears that spring, fall, or spring and fall grazing to a 5 cm stubble height on the redtop site would not decrease riparian herbage production. In contrast, when defoliation, compaction, and nutrient return effects are considered in the mountain meadow sedge-dominated communities, grazing once annually during the growing season to a 5-cm stubble height in the spring, or to a IO-cm stubble height in late summer, or at a utilization rate exceeding 30% of the total annual biomass production can reduce herbage production significantly. Results suggest that many of the land management agency riparian guidelines would maintain biomass productivity in these sedge-dominated communities.


The Tampa Harbor Project involves deepening and widening approximately 50 miles of existing shipping channel in Tampa Bay, Florida, with the removal of approximately 70 million cubic yards of dredged material. Some of the removed dredged material has been disposed of adjacent to the main channel, and some was used to construct diked disposal lagoons in upper Tampa Bay; however, a substantial amount of the dredged material has been barged beyond the limits of Tampa Bay for ocean disposal. The material disposed of is virtually uncontaminated, and is geologically laid-down consolidated clays, silts, and sands present since the formation of Tampa Bay approximately 20,000 years ago, due to the rise in sea level following the last Ice Age.


OBJECTIVE
To review blunt traumatic abdominal wall hernias (TAWHs) in our institution.

METHOD
Retrospective review of blunt abdominal trauma cases over a 6-month period.

RESULTS
Four patients with TAWH were identified. The mean age was 36 years. Three had been involved in vehicular collisions, and 1 had been assaulted with a large stone. All were diagnosed on presentation, 3 by computed tomography scan and 1 clinically. Two were repaired as emergencies, and 1 was repaired after 4 months. The 4th patient refused surgery.

CONCLUSION
This uncommon injury requires a high index of suspicion and a low threshold for intervention. CT scan offers the best imaging potential.


The future annotation introduced by MultiLisp provides a simple method for taming the implicit parallelism of functional programs. Prior research on futures has concentrated on implementation and design issues, and has largely ignored the development of a semantic characterization of futures. This paper presents four operational semantics for an idealized functional language with futures with varying degrees of intensionality. The rst semantics deenes future to be a semantically-transparent annotation. The second semantics interprets a future expression as a potentially parallel task. The third semantics explicates the coordination of parallel tasks and the need for touch operations on placeholder-strict arguments to certain primitive operations by introducing placeholder objects. The fourth and last semantics is a low-level reenement of the third semantics, which explicates just enough information to permit the smooth derivation of program analyses. The paper includes proofs showing the equivalence of these semantics.


Livestock is a vital resource for smallholder farmers' livelihoods in Central Asia, but shortage of winter season fodder is a major constraint to livestock productivity in this region. Three pearl millet populations were compared with a locally adapted improved maize variety in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for their forage potential in wheat-based cropping system as a second crop after wheat harvest. Two medium-maturity, dual-purpose populations (HHVBC-Tall and Raj 171) significantly out-yielded locally adapted improved maize cultivars in both countries that had different productivity levels. While HHVBC-Tall had 6.56 t ha -1 of dry forage yield in Kyrgyzstan and 13.70 t ha -1 of dry forage yield in Tajikistan (28% higher than maize cultivars in both countries), Raj 171 had 18% higher dry forage yield than the locally adapted improved maize variety in Kyrgyzstan and 10% higher dry forage yield than locally adapted improved maize variety in Tajikistan. The benefit-cost ratio from forage production of both pearl millet populations was highest for HHVBC-Tall (0.89 in Kyrgyzstan and 1.56 in Tajikistan), followed by Raj 171 (0.74 in Kyrgyzstan and 1.20 in Tajikistan), which were much higher than those for maize varieties. These results showed that medium-maturity pearl millet varieties have good potential to fill in the fallow land after wheat harvest and significantly contribute to fodder security in


The foster care system in America has evolved as a means of providing protection and shelter for children who require out-of-home placement.1 It is designed to be a temporary service, with a goal of either returning children home or arranging for suitable adoptive homes. In recent years, child welfare agencies have been directing greater efforts toward supporting families in crisis to prevent foster care placements whenever feasible and to reunify families as soon as possible when placements cannot be avoided. Increasingly, extended family members are being recruited and assisted in providing kinship care for children when their biologic parents cannot care for them. However, during the past decade the number of children in foster care has nearly doubled, despite landmark federal legislation designed to expedite permanency planning for children in state custody.2 It is estimated that by 1995 more than 500 000 children will be in foster care.3 In large part, this unrelenting trend is the result of increased abuse and neglect of children occurring in the context of parental substance abuse, mental illness, homelessness, and human immunodeficiency virus infection.4 As a result, a disproportionate number of children placed in foster care come from that segment of the population with the fewest social and financial resources and from families that have few personal and limited extended family sources of support.5

It is not surprising then that children entering foster care are often in poor health. Compared with children from the same socioeconomic background, they suffer much higher rates of serious emotional and behavioral problems, chronic physical disabilities, birth defects, developmental delays, and poor school achievement.6-13


"Power and Water in the Middle East" provides a powerful new perspective on the Palestinian-Israeli water conflict. Adopting a new approach to understanding water conflict - hydro-hegemony - the author shows the conflict to be much more deeply entrenched than previously thought and reveals how existing tactics to control water are leading away from peace and towards continued domination and a squandering of this vital resource. Existing approaches tend to play down the negative effects of non-violent water conflict, and what is presented as co-operation between countries often hides an underlying state of conflict between them. The new analytical framework of hydro-hegemony exposes the hidden dynamics of water conflict around the world and yields critical insights in to the Middle East water problem. This important work will interest researchers, professionals and policy makers involved with the politics of the Middle East and with water conflict more generally.


Good journalism examines its sources critically, it takes nothing at face value, places its topics in a historical context, and it values above all the public interest. Such journalism is, most people agree, essential to any equitable and open system of government. These statements are, if anything, especially applicable to the science media. But while the media in general has recently taken much criticism, for trivialising news and other flaws, the science media has somehow escaped serious attention. This is unfortunate because no country in the world has a healthy science media.


One of the most promising problems associated with the use of chemotherapeutic agents for cancer is cardiac toxicity. The root cause of multiple cardiac toxicity disorders such as left ventricular failure, pericarditis, myocarditis, myocardial ischemia, arrhythmias, thromboembolism, prolongation of QT and hypertension are the antineoplastic agents.Anthracyclines, alkylating agents, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, antimetabolites and HER2-directed therapy are some major medications that can induce cardiotoxicity. A detailed literature survey on different chemotherapeutic agents for cancer has been carried out.The present review and analysis address cardiovascular risks, potential mechanistic mechanisms of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity and cardio-protective agents used in chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer.


The effect of short-term cold exposure on the performance of 600 commercial Ross 308 male broiler chickens was examined. On the fifth and sixth days of life the trial group was exposed to 15 °C ambient temperature for 3 h, both days, while the control group was kept under conventional brooding conditions. Thereafter, both control and trial birds were exposed to standard rearing temperatures until the 21st day, and from the 21st day to slaughter they were exposed to 15 °C ambient temperature. The mortality rate was significantly lower in the trial group (5%) compared to the control group (11%). The differences between body weight (control group: 2475.9 g; trial group: 2423.7 g) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (control group: 1.95; trial group: 1.92) were not statistically significant. Performance and livability were not negatively affected by short-term cold exposure. It may be concluded that early age short-term cold conditioning improves thermotolerance to cold weather in broiler chickens in their later life.


Asia's economic miracle is often associated with large, multi-national companies. While these organizations have been important drivers of the region's growth, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) accounting for more than 98% of the enterprises have played a key role. These SMEs contribute around 40% to their country's GDP in the ASEAN region. In developed nations such as the USA, UK, France and Singapore, SMEs contribute more than half of their country's GDP.Addressing SMEs' needs for finance, it is assessed that formal financial lending organizations represent a weak link in the financial supply chain for SMEs in the region. The problem also hinders the physical supply chain in that SME's are key drivers of business growth in the region. This paper proposes a framework for financial lending to allow formal lending organizations to compete with the alternate sources of finance SMEs seek.This research work is built upon case studies from Malaysia and India, and surveys conducted on the supply and demand of SME finance in Malaysia. A lack of collateral and limited access to venture and growth capital are some of the obstacles that SME owners face when seeking finance for their businesses. Cash flow shortages caused by long or delayed payment cycles exacerbate the problem. On the supply side, a number of issues including high transactions costs, inadequate information about borrowers and weak governance, deter large banks from developing SME lending portfolios. In the absence of bank lending options many SMEs turn to other sources of finance such as unregistered money lenders that charge high interest rates. It is realized that the local money lenders are accessible and understand the SME business model better. They are also able to keep a tight rein on costs and have developed ways to make sure that investment funds are used by borrowers for profit-making purposes.This work identifies nine areas of demand for capital, including funds to pay for fixed assets and raw materials, to pay for seasonal periods of low demand, and to ramp up operations ahead of product launches. In addition to money lenders, SME's typically use eight types of financing options including family and friends, micro finance institutions and owner's equity. There are also various government schemes to help SMEs find the financing they need, but the research finds that that penetration is a key challenge to these interventions. These programs only reach a relatively small fraction of the total population of businesses.The lack of affordable financing options stymies the growth of SMEs in Asia. This work suggests that banks in the region need to redesign their lending portfolios so that they are better able to evaluate and manage the SME's needs for finance. To help clarify the risks, this paper includes a grid showing how the different sources of SME financing are weighed in terms of the so-called 5Cs: capacity, capital, character, collateral and condition. It is recommended that banks should adopt more innovative ways to analyze SME loans, and gain a deeper understanding of how these enterprises fund their supply chains.This does not necessarily require a complete overhaul of current practices; financial institutions can tap into the SME market by learning to work within current financing systems. To this end, MISI describes 11 key devices that can be leveraged to catalyze the lending process. For example, Joint Liability Groups comprise farmers with compatible businesses who come together to borrow from financial institutions. Group members can borrow individually or collectively by offering mutual guarantees for each other. Technological advances such as the growth of internet banking and electronic funds transfers can also be harnessed to facilitate SME lending. New standards such as the Bank Payment Obligation (BPO) rolled out by SWIFT and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) are helping to unlock IT-related advances in banking.With mass customization and fragmentation of manufacturing, creating a viable market for SME financing benefits both the financial institutions and the enterprises involved. Regional and global supply chains also benefit in that there is an increasing need for sustainable and financially viable SMEs in Asia. This work thus addresses the factors responsible for widening the supply - demand gap for SME finance by studying the flow of finance through SME supply chains.


Governments in many countries are facing the challenge of providing sufficient retirement incomes for a population that is ageing as a result of lower mortality and fertility rates. An ageing population places considerable financial stress on government budgets as spending on welfare increases, further compounded by a proportional reduction in working-age taxpayers. Exposure to financial education programs can positively influence the retirement planning and savings behaviour of individuals. Research indicates that seminars, written communications and website information are effective methods in communicating financial education. In this study an investigation is conducted into the views of retirement fund members regarding elements of financial education resources made available to them through their retirement fund. Four aspects are investigated, that is, whether there are differences with respect to members' views between the genders, older and younger members, levels of qualification, and size of superannuation balances. Empirical evidence suggests that gender and age are important factors with females and younger people less likely to utilise educational information and more at risk of not accumulating sufficient funds for retirement.


Inter-organisational information systems (IOIS) have been introduced to support collaborative retail supply relationships, yet how these systems are used is not well understood. This paper presents analysis of an ideographic case study of a dynamic United Kingdom grocery sector supply network. Using Archer's (1995) social change theory we explore how changes to buyer-supplier relationship structures re-conditioned individual actors' situational logics in a way that created network learning difficulties. Our analysis shows how actors' inter-organisational information system use reinforced pre-existing bargaining positions and improved already powerful actors' relative negotiating strength. This paper demonstrates the value of multi-level analysis in furthering understanding of the complex relationships between processes of network and individual learning.


ABSTRACT We present factor extension procedures for confirmatory factor analysis that provide estimates of the relations of common and unique factors with external variables that do not undergo factor analysis. We present identification strategies that build upon restrictions of the pattern of correlations between unique factors and external variables. The first restriction minimizes the sum of squared correlations between unique factors and external variables. This approach is similar to the traditional factor extension procedure. The second restriction minimizes the complexity of the pattern of external correlations of unique factors. This approach has similarities with the simple structure ideal imposed on most factor rotation strategies. The procedures are illustrated with a real data example that demonstrates their applicability to real-world research questions.


The new wealth of microbial genome sequences is threatening to overturn evolutionists9 "tree of life." In the current tree, a universal common ancestor gave rise to the two microbial branches, the archaea and bacteria (which lack cell nuclei), and the archaea then gave rise to the eukarya (all organisms that have cell nuclei). But the new sequences show that genes don9t evolve at the same rate or in the same way, so the evolutionary history inferred from one gene may be different from what another gene appears to show. Even more perplexing, some genomes have been found to contain a mix of DNAs from both the archaea and the bacteria. Many evolutionary biologists are coming to believe that these mosaics arose because genes hopped from branch to branch as early organisms either stole genes from their food or swapped DNA with their neighbors. If this gene swapping was extensive enough, the tree9s "base" may turn out to be indecipherable: a network of branches that merge and split and merge again before sprouting the modern kingdoms.


We introduce a simple framework for designing private boosting algorithms. We give natural conditions under which these algorithms are differentially private, efficient, and noise-tolerant PAC learners. To demonstrate our framework, we use it to construct noise-tolerant and private PAC learners for large-margin halfspaces whose sample complexity does not depend on the dimension.
We give two sample complexity bounds for our large-margin halfspace learner. One bound is based only on differential privacy, and uses this guarantee as an asset for ensuring generalization. This first bound illustrates a general methodology for obtaining PAC learners from privacy, which may be of independent interest. The second bound uses standard techniques from the theory of large-margin classification (the fat-shattering dimension) to match the best known sample complexity for differentially private learning of large-margin halfspaces, while additionally tolerating random label noise.


PURPOSE
Malignant mesothelioma (MM) arising in the peritoneal cavity is a rare neoplasm characterized by peritoneal progression and for which there are limited therapeutic options. We evaluated the peritoneal progression-free and overall survival (PFS and OS, respectively) for patients with peritoneal MM after surgical resection and regional chemotherapy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Forty-nine patients (28 males, 21 females; median age, 47 years; range, 16 to 76 years) with MM underwent laparotomy, tumor resection, continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion with cisplatin (median dose 250 mg/m2), and a single postoperative intraperitoneal dwell of fluorouracil and paclitaxel (n = 35) on protocols approved by the Institutional Review Board. Standard techniques for actuarial analyses of potential prognostic variables (Kaplan-Meier method with two-tailed log-rank test and Cox proportional hazards model) were performed.

RESULTS
At a median potential follow-up of 28.3 months, median actuarial PFS is 17 months and actuarial OS is 92 months. Factors associated with improved PFS and OS by the Cox proportional hazards model were a history of previous debulking surgery, absence of deep tissue invasion, minimal residual disease after surgical resection (OS only), and age younger than 60 years (OS only).

CONCLUSION
Surgical resection and regional chemotherapy for MM results in durable PFS and OS. Favorable outcome is associated with age, tumor biology (selection of patients with a history of previous debulking), lack of invasive tumor growth, and minimal residual disease after tumor resection.


Target-oriented Opinion Words Extraction (TOWE) is a fine-grained sentiment analysis task that aims to extract the corresponding opinion words of a given opinion target from the sentence. Recently, deep learning approaches have made remarkable progress on this task. Nevertheless, the TOWE task still suffers from the scarcity of training data due to the expensive data annotation process. Limited labeled data increase the risk of distribution shift between test data and training data. In this paper, we propose exploiting massive unlabeled data to reduce the risk by increasing the exposure of the model to varying distribution shifts. Specifically, we propose a novel Multi-Grained Consistency Regularization (MGCR) method to make use of unlabeled data and design two filters specifically for TOWE to filter noisy data at different granularity. Extensive experimental results on four TOWE benchmark datasets indicate the superiority of MGCR compared with current state-of-the-art methods. The in-depth analysis also demonstrates the effectiveness of the different-granularity filters.


Robust Signaling, Scheduling and Authentication in the Multi-user MIMO Channel Yan Shi Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Doctor of Philosophy Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks are known to be able to achieve throughput performance superior to that available from single-input single-output (SISO) systems. However, when applying MIMO in multi-user networks, achieving this throughput advantage requires efficient precoding and optimal network scheduling. Furthermore, MIMO radios can help ensure security in a multi-user network. Previous work has proposed various precoding techniques for the MIMO broadcast channel, based either on channel state information (CSI) or channel distribution information (CDI), which achieve optimal or nearoptimal MIMO channel throughput. The performance of these techniques largely depends on the availability of the channel information at the transmitter that must be fed back from the receiver. However, the past work has not examined the impact of latency caused by feedback of channel information and computation. This research proposes a performance metric to measure the throughput degradation caused by compression and feedback of channel information. We further propose an effective data compression technique based on the Karhunen-Loeve (KL) Transform and show that linear precoding (beamforming) based on CDI can achieve superior performance by providing stable channel throughput in both timevarying and frequency-selective channels. Very little prior work exists on optimal scheduling for multi-user MIMO networks, particularly in time-varying channels. One reason for this is that hybrid MIMO channels permit much more complex channel structures, such as broadcast channel (BC) and multiple access channel (MAC), whose capacity is limited not only by random channel noise but also by the multi-user interference. Furthermore, the achieved MIMO channel throughput depends on the spatial characteristics of the multi-user channels, a feature not captured by traditional network models based on signal-to-noise ratio and Doppler. Therefore, achieving near optimal performance requires development of scheduling techniques that depend on detailed channel characteristics. This dissertation proposes a novel parametric representation of the channel that simply describes the complex multi-user MIMO channels and allows for efficient scheduling. Because of the computational and feedback efficiency enabled by this parametric approach, it achieves low latency and therefore excellent performance. Finally, in any network setting, security is an important consideration. Specifically authentication ensures that unauthorized users do not gain network access. Unfortunately, user identity can be relatively easy to forge. This work therefore explores the user of radiometric fingerprinting that uniquely identifies a device by unique imperfections in its transmitted waveform. This work shows that by applying this fingerprinting technique to MIMO devices, authentication reliability can be dramatically improved. The work also develops an information-theoretic approach to identify the optimal set of radiometric features to use for authentication and further considers the impact of drift in radiometric features on authentication performance.


Ecosystems containing multiple nonnative plant species are common, but mechanisms promoting their co-occurrence are understudied. Plant-soil interactions contribute to the dominance of singleton species in nonnative ranges because many nonnatives experience stronger positive feedbacks relative to co-occurring natives. Plant-soil interactions could impede other nonnatives if an individual nonnative benefits from its soil community to a greater extent than its neighboring nonnatives, as is seen with natives. However, plant-soil interactions could promote nonnative co-occurrence if a nonnative accumulates beneficial soil mutualists that also assist other nonnatives. Here, we use greenhouse and field experiments to ask whether plant-soil interactions (1) promote the codominance of two common nonnative shrubs (Ligustrum sinense and Lonicera maackii) and (2) facilitate the invasion of a less-common nonnative shrub (Rhamnus davurica) in deciduous forests of the southeastern United States. In the greenhouse, we found that two of the nonnatives, L. maackii and R. davurica, performed better in soils conditioned by nonnative shrubs compared to uninvaded forest soils, which. suggests that positive feedbacks among co-occurring nonnative shrubs can promote continued invasion of a site. In both greenhouse and field experiments, we found consistent signals that the codominance of the nonnatives L. sinense and L. maackii may be at least partially explained by the increased growth of L. sinense in L. maackii soils. Overall, significant effects of plant-soil interactions on shrub performance indicate that plant-soil interactions can potentially structure the co-occurrence patterns of these nonnatives.


I show that the field known as industrial relations (IR) leans overwhelmingly to the political left. I investigate the voter registration and political contributions of IR researchers, showing overwhelming Democratic Party favor. I construct a data set of participants in the IR field, which contains 920 U.S.-based person-roles (deriving from 709 actual persons). Included are the authors of the 539 research articles published in four periodicals 2009–2013: (1) the annual meeting proceedings volume of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), (2) Industrial and Labor Relations Review, (3) Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, and (4) the Journal of Labor Research. I also include the editors of the periodicals, the officers of LERA, and a sample of LERA's ordinary members. The data suggests that the ratio of Democratic-to-Republican voter registration among participants in IR is roughly 10 to one. I find a similar ratio when looking at those who have made contributions to Democratic and Republican candidates for office. I also show that Democratic lopsidedness at the three mainstream IR journals becomes more extreme at the higher stations (officers and editors, as opposed to ordinary members and authors). Also, I analyze the content of the 539 articles for union support and regulation support; the mainstream IR journals are overwhelmingly pro-union and pro-regulation.


Electric power in and transportation to remote communities in the Amazon basin are almost entirely derived from the use of diesel engines. To increase the fuel efficiency and decrease CO2 emissions, cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2 NPs) are increasingly used as diesel fuel additives. The waters of the Rio Negro (Amazon, Brazil) have very low ion concentrations ( 12 mg L−1), all factors which would improve the solubility, dispersibility and bioavailability of CeO2 NPs. Furthermore, the high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation present can activate CeO2 NPs given that they are known photocatalytic particles. Thus, the release of CeO2 NPs into the Amazon environment represents the most likely environment for CeO2 NPs to exert any effect. The goals of this study were to determine 1) if toxicity of CeO2 NPs occurs in vivo using a native species, cardinal tetra, 2) if sunlight mediates increased toxicity of CeO2 NPs and 3) if the natural organic matter (NOM) present in Rio Negro waters mitigates or mediates the toxicity of CeO2 NPs. CeO2 NPs were found to produce hydroxyl radicals (·OH) in the presence of artificial sunlight. CeO2 NPs also significantly induced gill lipid peroxidation, but only in the presence of artificial sunlight/on exposure to UV light. CeO2 NPs and UV light were also combined to increase interlamellar cell mass resulting in pathohistological alterations in the gill morphology. The presence of NOM from the Rio Negro (∼13–15 mg L−1) reduced but did not necessarily eliminate these noted effects.


Nowadays, resilience is a necessary component for a sustainable development of cities. Achieving increased resilience requires improved risk assessment and modeling, better planning and design, increased communication and collaboration. The aim of this study is to propose a flexible methodology in order to analyse the energy sustainability and the risks of the metropolitan cities, in this case the method has been applied to the City of Turin. The main objectives are to evaluate the characteristics of the existing energy systems, their impact on sustainability and to understand how to satisfy the high-energy demand in a critical urban environment with few available renewable energy sources. This work describes a methodology to identifying energy risks, vulnerabilities and resilience for residential and tertiary buildings in Turin. Three indicators to evaluate the energy resilience and security assessment were used. In particular, the assessment of impact of individual indicators was conducted by using the aggregation and weighting method. To improve energy resilience, two future scenarios were assumed: the expansion of the existing district heating and the exploitation of roof-integrated solar-thermal collectors. The first results on historical trend show that the annual thermal energy consumption depends on climate data but also on per capita earning, with an annual decrease of 3% after 2007. A similar trend can be observed in natural gas consumption, in fact every year, natural gas decreases by 3%, while the district heating network increases by 8%. The results of future scenarios show an improvement of energy resilience, with a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions up to 12% with district heating expansion and 39% with also the use of solar collectors.


Augmented Reality (AR) can be described as one of possible steps between real world and fully virtual reality. Into this mixed reality we can make an overlay with virtual objects onto the real world typically by capturing camera images in real-time to produce a new layer to the environment with which we can interact. Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) is a term used when equipment through which we achieve AR is small in size and typically easy to carry e.g. a smartphone or a tablet. The concept of using AR in facilitating learning and improving its quality seems to attract more attention in the academic world in recent years. One of the areas that receive much attention is AR language learning. In this thesis an experiment on a group of 20 people was conducted to answer the question: "Is MAR language learning system a viable solution for language learning?" For the purpose of the experiment an AR Language Learning Tool was designed for Android smartphones. This AR Language Learning Tool facilitated vocabulary learning by displaying 3D objects along with their spelling and providing audio of pronunciation. Participants were divided into an equal control group and test group. The control group learned new vocabulary through classic flashcards while the test group used the previously designed AR Language Learning Tool. The Vocabulary Knowledge Scale questionnaires were provided for both groups right after learning and one week later. By performing statistical analysis with Student's t-test on gathered data it was discovered that there is a positive improvement in long term recall rate in the AR Language Learning Tool group when compared with the flashcards learning group. No difference was found in short term recall rate between both groups. Participants also provided feedback about their quality of experience and enthusiasm for new learning methods. Their answers were very positive and provided proof that mobile AR is a viable method of learning vocabulary.


A continuous 48,000-year-long paleoecological record from Neotropical lower montane forest reveals a consistent forest presence and an ice-age cooling of ∼5° to 9°C. After 30,000 years of compositional stability, a steady turnover of species marks the 8000-year-long transition from ice-age to Holocene conditions. Although the changes were directional, the rates of community change were no different during this transitional period than in the preceding 30,000-year period of community stability. The warming rate of about 1°C per millennium during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition was an order of magnitude less than the projected changes for the 21st century.


The goal of the project is to realize a setup for fly collisions observation. The flies are usually very good at avoiding obstacles and maneuvering in complex environments. But, collisions do occur sometimes, and the insects are very good at coping with them and at stabilizing their flight. From the fly collision observation, the goal is to be able to build more robust bio-inspired flying robots in the future.


Internet worms, which spread in computer networks without human mediation, pose a severe threat to computer systems today. The rate of propagation of worms has been measured to be extremely high and they can infect a large fraction of their potential hosts in a short time. We study two different methods of patch dissemination to combat the spread of worms. We first show that using a fixed number of patch servers performs inadequately against Internet worms. We then show that by exploiting the exponential data dissemination capability of P2P systems, the spread of worms can be halted effectively. We compare the two methods by using fluid models to compute two quantities of interest: the time taken to effectively combat the progress of the worm, and the maximum number of infected hosts. We validate our models using simulations.


Until recently, only mesoporous TiO2 and ZnO were successfully demonstrated as electron transport layers (ETL) alongside the reports of ZrO2 and Al2O3 as scaffold materials in organometal halide perovskite solar cells, largely owing to ease of processing and to high power conversion efficiency. In this article, we explore tungsten trioxide (WO3)-based nanostructured and porous ETL materials directly grown hydrothermally with different morphologies such as nanoparticles, nanorods and nanosheet arrays. The nanostructure morphology strongly influences the photocurrent and efficiency in organometal halide perovskite solar cells. We find that the perovskite solar cells based on WO3 nanosheet arrays yield significantly enhanced photovoltaic performance as compared to nanoparticles and nanorod arrays due to good perovskite absorber infiltration in the porous scaffold and more rapid carrier transport. We further demonstrate that treating the WO3 nanostructures with an aqueous solution of TiCl4 reduces charge recombination at the perovskite/WO3 interface, resulting in the highest power conversion efficiency of 11.24% for devices based on WO3 nanosheet arrays. The successful demonstration of alternative ETL materials and nanostructures based on WO3 will open up new opportunities in the development of highly efficient perovskite solar cells.


The aim of this study was to investigate if elemental and isotopic signatures of Argentinean wheat can be used to develop a reliable fingerprint to assess its geographical provenance. For this pilot study we used wheat cultivated at three different regions (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Entre Ríos), together with matching soil and water. Elemental composition was determined by ICP-MS. δ(13)C and δ(15)N were measured by isotopic ratio mass spectrometry, while (87)Sr/(86)Sr ratio was determined using thermal ionization mass spectrometry. Wheat samples from three sampling sites were differentiated by the combination of 11 key variables (K/Rb, Ca/Sr, Ba, (87)Sr/(86)Sr, Co, Mo, Zn, Mn, Eu, δ(13)C, and Na), demonstrating differences among the three studied regions. The application of generalized Procrustes analysis showed 99.2% consensus between cultivation soil, irrigation water, and wheat samples, in addition to clear differences between studied areas. Furthermore, canonical correlation analysis showed significant correlation between the elemental and isotopic profiles of wheat and those corresponding to both soil and water (r(2) = 0.97, p < 0.001 and r(2) = 0.96, p < 0.001, respectively). To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating the correspondence between soil, water, and wheat samples using different statistical methods, showing that wheat elemental and isotopic compositions are mainly related to soil and irrigation water characteristics of the site of growth.


OBJECTIVE
Several kinds of functional water are used in the fields of food hygiene and medicine. The purpose of this study was to evaluate both the disinfection and cytotoxic effects of functional water in comparison with commonly used root canal irrigants such as sodium hypochlorite solution and hydrogen peroxide solution.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Three kinds of functional water were examined: alkaline electrolysis water (AEW), strong acid electrolyzed water (SAEW), and hypochlorous acid water (HAW). The disinfection effect was studied using Enterococcus faecalis and Candida albicans with or without organic substance. Each kind of functional water was applied to samples, and the colony formation was evaluated. The cytotoxic effect was evaluated by mitogenic assay (MTT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALPase) activity in pulp cells.

RESULTS
SAEW and HAW showed microbicidal effects in the presence of organic substance, with an effect almost similar to sodium hypochlorite solution. AEW did not show any microbicidal effect. SAEW, AEW, and HAW at 10- and 1,000-times dilution did not inhibit the MTT assay and ALPase activity. The cytotoxicity of SAEW and HAW against pulp cells was mild compared to that of sodium hypochlorite solution.

CONCLUSION
Functional water like SAEW and HAW have a good microbicidal effect under existing organic substance and are also mild to pulp cells.


Drought recurrently occurs in Indonesia, and it is one of the climate-related hazards that has a major impact on agriculture and food security. However, there is no a scheme, which allows any damages in agriculture associated with drought event will get an insurance. This study aims to analyze the climate index based on the potency of drought in Pacitan District, East Java to support the development of climate index insurance as an effort to climate change adaptation. This study used a climate index derived from monthly rainfall data, which was calculated based on the historical burn analysis (HBA) method. We examined climate index and measured exit value as representing of the lowest value which payment of insurance should be fully paid. Our results showed that the value varies among sub-districts in Pacitan. Kebonagung sub-district revealed the highest exit value (89 mm), which means the insurance company should pay the full insurance coverage if the rainfall in the period insured below 89 mm. The lowest exit value (18 mm) was in Pringkuku sub-district. Our finding revealed that the index HBA is suitable to be applied in regions with limited climate data. Furthermore, our approach could be one of the strategies to cope with drought to stabilize rice production during the dry season. For wide implementation, supports from government through regulation is needed.