Over the last half-century, around the world, many nations have seen plummeting fertility rates and mounting life expectancies. These two factors are the engine behind unprecedented global aging. In this paper, we explore how the demographic transition may influence financial markets and, in turn, how financial market innovation might help resolve concerns flowing from global aging trends. We first provide context by reviewing the economics, finance, and insurance-related literature on how global aging patterns may influence capital markets. We then turn to insurance markets, and discuss a range of products and policies, including both retail and wholesale financial offerings for various forms of life annuities, long-term care benefits, reverse mortgages, securitization of longevity risk, inflation-protected assets, reinsurance, guarantees, derivative contracts on residential property price indices, mortality swaps and longevity derivative contracts. We also indicate how new public-private partnerships might be beneficial in enhancing the future environment for old-age risk management.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


Bioenergy villages can be defined as villages, municipalities, settlements or communities, which produce and use most of their energy from local bioenergy and other renewable energy sources. A bioenergy village approach has not been applied in Macedonia yet, and it is at a nascent stage of implementation in other South-Eastern European countries. This work aims to integrate a techno-economic, social and environmental assessment and an implementation strategy into a bioenergy village concept, which is not often seen in works dedicated to bioenergy villages and biomass based heating systems. The assessment was conducted by means of energy audit and project-related tools, whilst the strategy was composed by bioenergy working group meetings. Results show that a biomass based district heating system is a more attractive solution for heating several public buildings instead of a fossil fuelled system, with numerous associated benefits. Such concepts can be replicated with variety of renewables, thus contributing to sustainable development pathways of small communities.


Key Messages:

- Covid-19 is disrupting Indonesia's food system. Employment in agriculture is expected to contract by 4.87% and domestic agricultural supply by 6.20%. Imports will decrease by 17.11% while import prices are expected to rise by 1.20% in the short term and by 2.42% in 2022. With reductions in supplies and imports, food shortages and food price inflation must be expected.

- Ministry of Trade regulations require importers to state the country of origin when applying for permits. Therefore, importers cannot flexibly find new supplies when export countries close their border during Covid-19. This exacerbates food security risks, causes shortages, and increases prices in Indonesia.

- The Indonesian government should consider removing trade barriers on food and agriculture by eliminating tariffs and easing non-automatic import licensing (SPI) requirements for imported key food items like beef and sugar. If tariffs are eliminated, the import price of agriculture goods will still increase, but only by 0.65%.

- Indonesia's economic diplomacy should focus on ensuring continuous food supplies from exporting countries.

- The Ministry of Agriculture must protect supply chain actors with additional health measures to ensure flow of goods.


The number of black Caribbean immigrants in America is growing with the most prevalent countries of origin being the Bahamas, Haiti, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago (Schmidley & United States Bureau of the Census, 2001). According to the Bureau of Census (2000), nearly 2.8 million foreign-born immigrants come from the Caribbean region, yet these groups remain largely invisible in America (Waters, 1999). Until recently, there was very little attention given to understanding the experiences of black Caribbean immigrants. This is because, as immigrants, their status is overshadowed by immigration related to Mexico and other Latin American countries--regions that, along with Asia, represent the Largest flow of immigrants to America since the 1980s (Schmidley & U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001). Doe to their physical appearance, they are often seen as part of the black American community, despite differences in language, culture, and religion. Their "invisibility" means that they are not seen as having to face unique issues or having distinct needs. This invisibility, along with the stereotypical images of life in the Caribbean, requires examination for adult education programs serving black Caribbean immigrants. This article explores some of the issues facing Caribbean Americans and bow, from an adult educator's perspective, these issues impact adult learning. Economic Reality and Patterns of Immigration The emigration of black Caribbean persons to the United States can be understood as part of a global pattern of labor migration from poorer countries to wealthier ones (Butcher, 1994). This movement is propelled by the expansion of the global capitalist economy under the hegemony of U.S. economic interests. Where the former colonial powers--England, Spain, and France--dominated the histories and economies of the islands of the Caribbean, the United States has emerged as the dominant economic force in the region and prompted many persons to migrate to America in search of economic opportunity (Daneshvary, 1994). Poverty rates throughout the Caribbean are high: 80% in Haiti, 34% in Jamaica, and 21% in Trinidad and Tobago (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Directorate of Intelligence, 2001). The economy of the region is fragile, although individual islands such as Puerto Rico and Bahamas have comparatively strong economies. Because of the media images of idyllic Caribbean islands, most Americans are unaware of the economic and social problems facing Caribbean residents. Acculturation Issues Black Caribbean immigrants do not arrive in the United States as empty cultural containers waiting to be Americanized. They come with perceptions, images, and values on issues of race, class, and gender relations that are shaped by the home country Similarly, they display multiple forms of identity related to the diverse racial, ethnic, and urban contexts in which they settle and work. For the majority, of Caribbean immigrants, incorporation into American society is a two-fold process. First, most immigrant workers are integrated into the service sector of the economy, which means they have a relatively weak position in the labor market. Second, because race is fundamental in the American social hierarchy, access to resources, rewards, and power as a black immigrant is significantly limited (Hacker, 1992). Consequently, for many black Caribbean immigrants, there is a clear understanding that categories of race and ethnicity as defined in American society are different than in many Caribbean societies. These definitions are used to mark boundaries of social location and therefore place black Caribbean immigrants in a kind of double jeopardy as they seek employment and education opportunities as immigrants. It must be understood that the nations of the Caribbean are also characterized by linguistic diversity in addition to separate histories of colonization and liberation. …


Globally we are faced with billions of people without access to safe water and adequate sanitation. These are generally located in developing communities. Even in developed communities the current large scale systems for supplying water, collecting wastewater and treating it are not environmentally sustainable, because it is difficult to close the cycle of water and nutrients. This paper discusses the advantages of small scale water and wastewater systems in overcoming the difficulties in providing water and wastewater systems in developing communities and in achieving sustainability in both developed and developing communities. Particular attention is given to technology and technology choice, even though technology alone does not provide the complete answer. Disadvantages of small scale systems and how they may be overcome are discussed.


Over the past few years, network management has steadily evolved from a centralized model, where all the management processing takes place on a single network management station, to distributed models, where management is distributed over a number, potentially large, of nodes. Among distributed models, one, the weakly distributed hierarchical model, has been around for several years, whereas a flurry of new ones, based on mobile code, distributed objects or cooperative agents, have only recently emerged. Which of these techniques will eventually win ? Will several ones have to coexist ? How do they compare to each other ? In order to provide a framework to analyze these issues, this paper presents a comprehensive typology of all network management paradigms known to date, whether they have been successfully implemented already or whether they are still confined to the research community. By comparing these models with those used in another research field, enterprise management, we delineate a common trend of evolution, and attempt to predict what the future holds for network management.


Lemmatization is the process of finding the normalized form of a word. It is the same as looking for a transformation to apply on a word to get its normalized form. The approach presented in this paper focuses on word endings: what word suffix should be removed and/or added to get the normalized form. This paper compares the results of two word lemmatization algorithms, one based on if-then rules and the other based on ripple down rules induction algorithms. It presents the problem of lemmatization of words from Slovene free text and explains why the Ripple Down Rules (RDR) approach is very well suited for the task. When learning from a corpus of lemmatized Slovene words the RDR approach results in easy to understand rules of improved classification accuracy compared to the results of rule learning achieved in previous work.


Objectives. To determine the follow-up return rate for a hearing screening programme implemented as part of a very low birth weight project (VLBWP). Design. This was a retrospective, passive archival design. Data were collected from the VLBWP records and participant files from the Department of Audiology, Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. Setting. Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, South Africa, a public sector hospital. Subjects. Eighty-six participants were included for retrospective analysis, consisting of 35 males and 51 females with a birth weight range of 680 - 1 500 g. Outcome measures. Return rate for all neonates referred for follow-up oto-acoustic emissions screening. Results. Of the 86 neonates who were referred for a follow-up screening, only 31.4% (27) returned for a repeat outpatient hearing screening appointment. Conclusions. The follow-up return rate is significantly poor and may influence implementation of early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI). Efforts to improve the return rate should be intensified. These may involve parental education and counselling, as well as involvement of nursing staff and medical professionals in implementation of EHDI programmes. It may be possible to improve followup by aligning follow-up screening with the day of neonatal follow-up clinics in provincial hospitals where such services are available, including it in such clinics, or ensuring follow-up screening at immunisation clinics closer to where patients live.


The paper investigates the effect of variations both in temperature cycling profile and in SAC305 solder Young's modulus in the PBGA256 package on the thermo-mechanical reliability. FE simulations quantify the effect of cycle reduction and counting techniques by introducing different temperature profiles having identical dwell- and period time characteristics. A difference of 30% in predicted accumulated creep strain energy density per cycle has been determined for the studied profiles. Under the provided modelling assumptions and simplifications, the maximum variation of the thermal fatigue life of SAC305 solder joints is within 30% as the result of experimentally determined Young's modulus variation in as-delivered packages.


Illite from Muloorina, just south of Lake Eyre in South Australia, is commonly used as a standard ferric iron-bearing illite which has a cation exchange capacity (CEC) of ~22 meq/100 g, too high a value for this clay to conform to the most recent conclusions about illite composition. The objective of the present study was to reassess the Muloorina illite to determine the reason for this high CEC value. The composition determined by X-ray fluorescence analysis calculated to a cation charge of +22 is K0.68(Mg0.39Al1.02Fe0.543+Fe0.042+)[Si3.59Al0.38Fe0.033+]O10(OH)2. X-ray diffraction of glycolated and heated K-saturated Muloorina illite revealed no evidence of expandable layers. The cell dimensions are a = 5.314(1)Å, b = 9.040(1)Å, c = 10.135(3)Å, and b = 100.97(3)° (3σ in parentheses). Transmission electron microscopy revealed that Muloorina illite has a remarkably fine and uniform particle size in the form of irregularly stepped hexagonal crystals, averaging 60 nm in diameter at their widest, and 35 nm thick, each step being ~7 nm high. At most steps and between many steps defects occur where a 2:1 layer terminates, with a wide interlayer spacing beyond, commonly reaching to the crystal edge. Even though uninterrupted stacking of >10 or so 2:1 layers across one crystal is uncommon, the irregular distribution of the dislocations leaves appreciable structural continuity so that the mean diffracting thickness is of the order of 16 nm. Muloorina illite is not an interstratified illite-smectite, but a mica mineral with low-charge regions associated with terminating 2:1 layer defects. Such regions are wedge shaped at the nm scale and stabilized by the bonding of the illitic remainder of that interlayer. Approximately 17% of the total volume of each Muloorina illite crystallite is occupied by such low-charge 2:1 layers.


Secure Scrum is a framework that integrates security into Scrum. In this thesis Secure Scrum has been evaluated in the development environment at Medius. An aim for the thesis was to implement a configuration tool for the module Generic Workflow in Medius' product MediusFlowTM. In order to evaluate Secure Scrum, this framework has been used during the development of the configuration tool. Before this thesis began a configuration tool existed but it was Medius' wish that this configuration tool was redesigned and rewritten. The requirements for the configuration tool were to meet the functionality with the previous configuration tool and add some new functionality. The new implementation of the configuration tool fulfills these requirements successfully. The results of the evaluation of Secure Scrum is that the usage of it during development of the configuration tool went smoothly, and the conclusion of this is that Secure Scrum is a flexible framework that was easily adapted to a smaller development team and a project lifetime of a few months.


Recent developments in the techniques and technologies of collecting, sharing and analysing data are challenging the field of information systems (IS) research let alone the boundaries of organizations and the established practices of decision-making. Coined 'open data' and 'big data', these developments introduce an unprecedented level of societal and organizational engagement with the potential of computational data to generate new insights and information. Based on the commonalities shared by open data and big data, we develop a research framework that we refer to as open big data (OBD) by employing the dimensions of 'order' and 'relationality'. We argue that these dimensions offer a viable approach for IS research on open and big data because they address one of the core value propositions of IS; i.e. how to support organizing with computational data. We contrast these dimensions with two other categories that stem from computer science and engineering, namely 'big/small' and 'open/closed' to address the complex interplay between people and data, social interaction and technological operations. Thus conceived, this paper contributes an alternative approach for the study of open and big data as well as laying the theoretical groundwork for its future


Women athletes were recruited to investigate the experience of 'shifting standards.' Shifting standards occurs when people use stereotypes (e.g. gender and athleticism) to make a relative judgment about performance or behavior. Whereas past research has examined shifting standards from the perceiver's perspective, the current project investigates shifting standards from the target's perspective. To inform our hypotheses, we relied on stereotype threat literature (Stone et al., 1999) and the motivational model for stereotyped tasks (Smith, Sansone & White, 2007). Using athletics as the stereotyped domain, Study 1 demonstrated that the masculine nature of the domain was important in predicting reactions to shifting standards feedback. In addition, there was a positive relationship between stigma consciousness and domain identification. In Study 2, college students and community participants were recruited using a pre-screen questionnaire assessing domain identification and primary sport played. As a result, self-identified women athletes (n = 77, 15.6% community) were blocked on the masculine nature of the sport, resulting in a 2 (type of sport: masculine, non-masculine) x 3 (feedback: positive, shifting standards, no feedback) betweensubjects design. After first engaging in an ambiguous athletic test, participants received the feedback manipulation. Participants were presented with a "word puzzle" and completed a measure of gender stereotype activation. Then, a second unambiguous test was administered to measure performance, and participants completed post-test measures assessing interest, future motivation, and self-esteem. The athletic tasks were ostensibly assessing the sport each woman most identified with, but all participants actually received the same two tests. The proposed relationship between feedback, performance, and motivation was unaffected by type of sport. Explanations are provided for why this relationship was not supported. Instead, stigma consciousness moderated the effect of feedback on performance and motivation. Women high in stigma consciousness receiving shifting standards feedback showed high gender stereotype activation, low performance, and low interest compared to women high in stigma consciousness receiving positive feedback. These results were not due to participants' self-esteem or level of commitment to the test. Theoretical and practical implications for the experience of shifting standards are discussed.


We describe a new type of optical pickup for use in high-density optical storage systems. By changing a conventional pickup design to include a glass element between the objective and the disk, the transverse resolution of the system can be increased by as much as a factor of 1.5. This system is also less sensitive than conventional systems to variations in disk thickness and disk tilt. We demonstrate how the system has been used as a microscope to inspect an optical disk and describe possible design configurations for an optical pickup.


We study the effect of the upsurge of natural resources income from the commodity price boom of the 2000s on the functional distribution of income. To do so, we build a general equilibrium model of Dutch disease that characterizes how natural resource windfalls affect equilibrium factor shares. The theory suggests that the response of factor shares to exogenous changes in commodity prices depends on the relative intensity of factors in the tradable and natural resource sectors. We construct estimates of income shares accruing to raw labor, human capital, physical capital, and natural resources, and quantify the effect of the resource boom on factor shares. For identification, we use a two-way fixed effects strategy and a differential exposure design to instrument commodity prices. We find that a natural resource boom negatively impacts the total labor, human capital, and physical capital shares, while the raw labor share remains unchanged. Our estimates suggest that the natural resource boom explains nearly 25.7 percent of the global decline of the total labor share during the 2000s. We also find a redistribution effect within labor income that indicates that the fall of the labor share was unevenly distributed against human capital.


The main objective of this note is to examine whether the interest elasticity of money demand has increased during the last few years. A simple money demand regression that includes additional intercept and slope dummy variables defined over the interval 1981.01 to 1985.03 is estimated for the whole sample period 1961.01-1985.03. The regression results show that the elasticity of money demand with respect to market interest rates has for now increased. No shifts are detected in income and time trend elasticities. The in-sample predictions of the more interest-sensitive money demand regression are broadly consistent with the actual behavior of Ml observed so far in the 1980s. The residuals also suggest that the MI demand function has been subject to transitory shocks over the same period.


Clinical Case Report: This paper presents the alterations and deficits in executive functions of a 33 years old man with Wilson's disease, patient at the Hospital Universitario La Samaritana in Bogota, who in 2011 was diagnosed with cerebellar ataxia, and beginning to show a clinical picture of dysarthria and generalized motor difficulties. The presence of neuropsychological disorders, as well as the results obtained by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the brain and optical exam (Kayser-Fleischer rings) confirmed the diagnosis of Wilson's disease. Results and Conclusion: The neuropsychological profile of the patient showed alterations of attention and mnemonic processes associated with frontal functioning, as well as slowing-down of motor activities and low speed in processing information. The assessment of executive functions revealed impairment in cognitive flexibility, impulsivity and disinhibition, as well as difficulties in the process of planning, organizing and monitoring. All of these features indicated the presence of a dysexecutive syndrome in the patient and correlated with the results obtained by MRI.


Cell cycle is a highly coordinated and well conserved process and abrogation in the cell cycle are a hallmark of many types of cancer, thus,it has been under the spotlight as a target of anti-cancer therapeutics for decades. A wide range of tumor-associated mutations have been linked to abnormal regulation of protein kinases. MPS1 protein family isdual-specific protein kinases among several that are heavily involved in cell cycle regulation, abrogation in MPS1 have been linked to many types of cancer. Targeting MPS1 by small molecule inhibitors has attracted many researches due to their high involvement in cancer progression. However, despite numerous trials, MPS1 inhibitors failed to reach clinical trials. In this work, we studied the protein-ligand interactions via an automated approach. At least one interaction with the MPS1 hinge region was found to be key for protein ligand binding and was used as basis for creating pharmacophoric docking constraints. Several docking protocols, e.g. standard and constrained docking protocols, were examined for their MPS1 virtual screens' enrichment. It was found that constrained docking followed by refinement step had the superiority over other examined docking protocols. Accordingly, virtual screening for druglike library was pursued. Several hits were nominated for in vitro testing in the future as they showed convenient binding modes with the MPS1 pocket, in particular, satisfying the key interactions with the MPS1 hinge region.The knowledge-based drug design strategy explored and conducted here can potentially inform new MPS1 inhibitors.


"Inborn Errors of Metabolism" presents the physician with a concise, easily understood, and practical approach to the problem of diagnosis of hereditary disease. Metabolic errors are discussed in the framework of five major divisions: (1) Disturbances in molecular structure—the hemoglobin variants are the major members of this group at the present time. (2) Disturbances in molecular synthesis comprise the deficiencies in formation of macromolecules of plasma proteins and clotting factors. Analbuminemia would probably belong in this group. (3) Disturbances in molecular function is the largest division. It comprises the "metabolic blocks" and may be visualized as a failure of function of the respective enzymes. (4) Disturbances in renal transport mechanisms combines in one division enzymatic defects of a single organ. (5) This section is a category of disease of unknown etiology including disturbances in lipid metabolism and the muscular dystrophies. An appendix of diagnostic methods, many tested in the author's


At the end of the Cold War, we found ourselves living in a world with one superpower, the United States. Now, at the start of the twenty-first century, Parag Khanna argues powerfully that the moment of American supremacy is over, brought about by the increasing influence of what he terms the Second World: Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East and East Asia. Travelling from Azerbaijan to Venezuela, China's hinterlands to Gaddafi's Libya, Parag Khanna explores these countries and their global significance. For as the three superpowers - the US, the EU and China - compete for influence in the Second World, citizens of these countries can already feel the these imperial forces exerting their influence and affecting the global balance of power.In a bold and provocative style, "The Second World" makes clear what's at stake, for whoever dominates the Second World will lead the twenty-first century - or become a part of the Second World itself.


This Article describes the practice of Consumer Racial Profiling (CRP) by attempting to quantify it and to identify its causes and its effects. The author presents the case against Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores to illustrate the nature of modern-day consumer discrimination. The Article identifies the applicable laws and assesses the likelihood that plaintiffs will prevail under each theory. Concluding that § 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 offers CRP plaintiffs the best chance for recovery, the Article includes an analysis of the § 1981 claims against Cracker Barrel based on the case law developed since 1990. Noting the reasons why few CRP plaintiffs succeeded in cases of consumer harassment, the Article concludes that the federal courts must construe the statute more broadly to ensure, as set forth in a piece of civil rights legislation from 1866, "that a dollar in the hands of a Negro will purchase the same thing as a dollar in the hands of a white


EU enlargement policy appears to have reached a deadlock. Following years of stagnation and relative neglect, the European Commission's attempts in 2018 to reinvigorate the EU's engagement with the Western Balkans and to provide a credible enlargement perspective to the region have been thwarted by a lack of commitment on the part of (some) EU member states.

The October 2019 European Council decision to once again postpone the opening of accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia is but the latest in a long series of delays in the enlargement process over the past years. This latest stunt has left the region reeling, with local leaders alternately endorsing a rapprochement with Russia and China or calling for snap elections to confirm their countries' European path.

The new BiEPAG brief which was presented during the policy event in European Policy Centre on November 14, offers recommendations on:

Overcoming the enlargement deadlock: An action plan for the incoming EU Leadership


Financial and human capital resources play a vital role in the ability of a school to fulfill its mission of educating students. Access to these resources varies and this variation is often due to districts' allocation of resources among schools. Research on equity often disregards this concern and focuses attention on differences among district-wide revenue sources. My dissertation explores the implications for equity of intradistrict resource allocation through an examination of school disparities and district practices in a midsized urban school district. First, I establish a comprehensive equity framework which joins together principles of adequacy and vertical equity. Then, using financial, personnel, student enrollment/ demographic, and student achievement and behavior data from the Allentown, Pennsylvania School District (ASD), I employ a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to ascertain how resources are directed to schools in accordance with the comprehensive equity framework. I describe resource allocation using horizontal equity statistics and I provide context by evaluating the relationship between student outcomes and attending a particular school. Subsequently, I test: adequacy, looking at school outcomes for the entire student population and various subgroups with higher needs; vertical equity, identifying how inputs are allocated differentially based on schools' characteristics and demographics; and, comprehensive equity, a construct incorporating both adequacy and vertical equity designed to measure the justness of the district's approach to resource allocation. I also measure the portion of resource allocation in unexplained by vertical and comprehensive equity and conduct a simulation of weighted student funding. Qualitative analysis, comprised of interviews with district administrative personnel at the central office and in schools provides context and the rationale for district resource allocation policies. Overall findings uncover a misalignment between school-level student needs and resources in the ASD. Results are strongest when considering human capital resources, including teacher effectiveness and teacher efficacy. Based on my findings, I conclude that the ASD does not achieve comprehensive equity in school year 2009-2010. This case study provides a window into equal educational opportunity within school districts and offers a template for districts seeking to determine the extent to which they are serving students equitably. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Education First Advisor Richard M. Ingersoll This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/536


In the context of tax system in developing countries, this study examines the effect of internal control quality on tax aggressiveness. Taking China as a unique developing country, we find that better internal control quality is associated with lower corporate tax aggressiveness and smaller tax risk. Further, we take into consideration the impact of regional tax enforcement. The negative effect of internal control quality on tax aggressiveness is less pronounced in the regions with higher tax enforcement. Our results indicate that internal control can depress corporate tax risk in developing countries with lower investor protection. Moreover, these findings show that internal control plays a vital role in corporate risk management and it also has important implications for governments in developing countries in promotion of internal control construction in future.


"Boy and Going Solo" is the whole of Roald Dahl's extraordinary autobiography in one volume. With a new Quentin Blake cover and a whole new end section of fascinating facts about Roald Dahl. Boy is the story of Roald Dahl's very own boyhood, including tales of sweet-shops and chocolate, mean old ladies and a Great Mouse Plot - the inspiration for some of his most marvellous storybooks in the years to come. "Going Solo" tells of how, when he grew up, Roald Dahl left England for Africa and later went flying with the Royal Air Force, before he became the world's number-one storyteller. Roald Dahl, the best-loved of children's writers, was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. After school in England he went to work for Shell in Africa. He began to write after "a monumental bash on the head", sustained as an RAF pilot in World War II. Roald Dahl died in 1990. Quentin Blake is one of the best-known and best-loved children's illustrators and it's impossible now to think of Roald Dahl's writings without imagining Quentin Blake's illustrations.


The common products of modern biotechnology are extremely important for our everyday life. Biotechnology is a pillar of bioeconomy and following the philosophy of European Commission the future economy will be based on biomethods and technologies. We have to take into account further progress of "bio" factor in economy.


Resistance to systemic therapy is a major problem in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) that can be explained by initial tumor heterogeneity as well as by evolutionary changes during therapy and tumor progression. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detected in a liquid biopsy can be sampled and characterized repeatedly during therapy in order to monitor treatment response and disease progression. Our aim was to investigate how CTC derived gene expression of treatment predictive markers (ESR1/HER2) and other cancer associated markers changed in patient blood samples during six months of first-line systemic treatment for MBC. CTCs from 36 patients were enriched using CellSearch (Janssen Diagnostics) and AdnaTest (QIAGEN) before gene expression analysis was performed with a customized gene panel (TATAA Biocenter). Our results show that antibodies against HER2 and EGFR were valuable to isolate CTCs unidentified by CellSearch and possibly lacking EpCAM expression. Evaluation of patients with clinically different breast cancer subgroups demonstrated that gene expression of treatment predictive markers changed over time. This change was especially prominent for HER2 expression. In conclusion, we found that changed gene expression during first-line systemic therapy for MBC could be a possible explanation for treatment resistance. Characterization of CTCs at several time-points during therapy could be informative for treatment selection.


Lawyers' relationships with their "opposing counsel" make a big difference in how well they handle their cases. "Opposing counsel" often do oppose each other, sometimes quite vigorously, though they also regularly cooperate with each other. In the normal course of litigation, lawyers need to cooperate on many procedural matters. In some cases, they also cooperate to achieve their respective clients' substantive interests. If the lawyers have a bad relationship, the case is likely to be miserable for everyone involved. If they have a good relationship, they are more likely to agree on procedural matters, exchange information informally, take reasonable negotiation positions, resolve matters efficiently, satisfy their clients, and enjoy their work. This article suggests general techniques for providing effective representation by building good working relationships between counterpart lawyers. This analysis is based, in part, on interviews with lawyers published in the author's book, Lawyering with Planned Early Negotiation: How You Can Get Good Results for Clients and Make Money. The techniques include getting to know each other personally, initiating mutually helpful actions, and displaying respectful relationships in front of clients. The article argues that these approaches can be helpful even when lawyers take extreme positions or are rascals. Obviously, these methods will not always generate constructive relationships or produce satisfying results. But lawyers who conscientiously use them should substantially increase the likelihood of doing so. The article concludes that lawyers have little to lose and much to gain by trying to develop good working relationships with their counterparts.


The present study sought to answer two research questions. First, how distinctive, as a potential osteogenic stimulus, are short‐duration bouts of treadmill exercise relative to sedentary background activity? Second, how well does daily effective strain stimulus relate the loading history for one such exercise program, in comparison with other experimental loading programs, to bone formation? In vivo cortical strains were measured in the tibiotarsus of White Leghorn chickens at a late stage of skeletal growth (14–34 weeks old) under the conditions of a previous investigation of bone formation in response to an exercise program (15 min/day, treadmill gait at 60% maximum speed while carrying 20% body mass) that included sedentary background activity. These strain data were compiled into 24‐hour loading histories of peak cyclic strain, demonstrating that strains were statistically different for exercise and background activities (p < 0.0001), with both the magnitude and number of cyclic strain events being greater during exercise (generally greater than 500 microstrain, 2,500 cycles/day) than during background activity (generally less than 500 microstrain, mean: 775 cycles/day). Strains during exercise accounted for more than 97% of the daily effective strain stimulus for bone adaptation, despite the fact that exercise comprised only 1% of the daily period (15 min/day). The levels of the daily effective strain stimulus were similar to those calculated for strains engendered by artificial loading of functionally isolated avian ulnae, which either maintained bone mass or resulted in a 15% increase of cortical cross‐sectional area in both sets of studies. These results indicate that short‐duration bouts of treadmill exercise and sedentary background activity can represent distinct osteogenic stimuli for adaptive bone modeling. They also provide experimental support for the use of a daily effective strain stimulus to quantify skeletal loading histories for differing programs of physical exercise, although the relative importance of other mechanical and nonmechanical factors requires further investigation.


High-order interactions between multiple objects are common in real-world applications. Although tensor decomposition is a popular framework for high-order interaction analysis and prediction, most methods cannot well exploit the valuable timestamp information in data. The existent methods either discard the timestamps or convert them into discrete steps or use over-simplistic decomposition models. As a result, these methods might not be capable enough of capturing complex, fine-grained temporal dynamics or making accurate predictions for long-term interaction results. To overcome these limitations, we propose a novel Temporal High-order Interaction decompoSition model based on Ordinary Differential Equations (THIS-ODE). We model the time-varying interaction result with a latent ODE. To capture the complex temporal dynamics, we use a neural network (NN) to learn the time derivative of the ODE state. We use the representation of the interaction objects to model the initial value of the ODE and to constitute a part of the NN input to compute the state. In this way, the temporal relationships of the participant objects can be estimated and encoded into their representations. For tractable and scalable inference, we use forward sensitivity analysis to efficiently compute the gradient of ODE state, based on which we use integral transform to develop a stochastic mini-batch learning algorithm. We demonstrate the advantage of our approach in simulation and four real-world applications.


Nursing Research: An Introduction answers all your questions on the nursing research process. It gives you the knowledge you need to understand nursing research, evidence-based practice and critical appraisal so you can complete your own project and excel in your studies.

Key features of the book are:

Detailed, practical coverage of key methods such as how to do a literature review or conduct a survey so that you are able to do your own research.

A wealth of examples of research in action so you can see how it works in practice.

Reflective exercises to help you critically engage with what is being discussed.

A companion website including free access to relevant journal articles and flashcards to help you remember key terms, as well as resources to help lecturers deliver research courses.

It will be essential reading for nursing undergraduates, postgraduates and all new researchers.

Pam Moule is Professor of Health Services Research and Director of the Centre for Health and Clinical Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Margaret Goodman is part-time Senior Lecturer in Research, based in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Coventry.


How did people learn to distinguish between past and present? How did they come to see the past as existing in its own distinctive context? Zachary Sayre Schiffman explores these questions in his sweeping survey of historical thinking in the Western world. Today we automatically distinguish between past and present, labeling things that appear out of place as "anachronisms." Schiffman shows how this tendency did not always exist and how the past as such was born of a perceived difference between past and present. Schiffman takes readers on a grand tour of historical thinking from antiquity to modernity. He shows how ancient historians could not distinguish between past and present because they conceived of multiple pasts. Christian theologians coalesced these multiple pasts into a single temporal space where past merged with present and future. Renaissance humanists began to disentangle these temporal states in their desire to resurrect classical culture, creating a "living past." French enlighteners killed off this living past when they engendered a form of social scientific thinking that measured the relations between historical entities, thus sustaining the distance between past and present and relegating each culture to its own distinctive context. Featuring a foreword by the eminent historian Anthony Grafton, this fascinating book draws upon a diverse range of sources-ancient histories, medieval theology, Renaissance art, literature, legal thought, and early modern mathematics and social science-to uncover the meaning of the past and its relationship to the present.


PURPOSE
To determine whether pretreatment CT texture features can improve patient risk stratification beyond conventional prognostic factors (CPFs) in stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed 91 patients with stage III NSCLC treated with definitive chemoradiation. All patients underwent a pretreatment diagnostic contrast enhanced CT (CE-CT) followed by a 4D-CT for treatment simulation. We used the average (average-CT) and expiratory (T50-CT) images from the 4D-CT along with the CE-CT for texture extraction. Histogram, gradient, co-occurrence, gray-tone difference, and filtration based techniques were used for texture feature extraction. Penalized Cox regression implementing cross-validation was used for covariate selection and modeling. Models incorporating texture features from the 3 image types and CPFs were compared to models incorporating CPFs alone for overall survival (OS), local-regional control (LRC), and freedom from distant metastases (FFDM). Predictive Kaplan-Meier curves were generated using leave-one-out cross-validation. Patients were stratified based on their predicted outcome being above/below the median. Reproducibility of texture features was evaluated using test-retest scans from independent patients and quantified using concordance correlation coefficients (CCC). We compared models incorporating the reproducibility seen on test-retest scans to our original models and determined the classification accuracy.

RESULTS
Models incorporating both texture features and CPFs demonstrated a significant improvement in risk stratification compared to models using CPFs alone in terms of OS (p=0.046), LRC (p=0.01), and FFDM (p=0.005). The average CCC was 0.89, 0.91, and 0.67 for texture features extracted from the average-CT, T50-CT, and CE-CT, respectively. Incorporating reproducibility within our models yielded 80.4 (SD=3.7), 78.3 (SD=4.0), and 78.8 (SD=3.9) percent classification accuracy in terms of OS, LRC, and FFDM, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
Pretreatment tumor texture may provide prognostic information beyond what is obtained from CPFs. Reproducibility of CE-CT appears inferior to average-CT and T50-CT; however model classification accuracy rates of approximately 80% were still achieved.


Though corporate profits are high, and the stock market is booming, most Americans are not sharing in the economic recovery. While the top 0.1% of income recipients reap almost all the income gains, good jobs keep disappearing, and new ones tend to be insecure and underpaid. One of the major causes: Instead of investing their profits in growth opportunities, corporations are using them for stock repurchases. Take the 449 firms in the S&P 500 that were publicly listed from 2003 through 2012. During that period, they used 54% of their earnings--a total of $2.4 trillion--to buy back their own stock. Dividends absorbed an extra 37% of their earnings. That left little to fund productive capabilities or better incomes for workers. Why are such massive resources dedicated to stock buybacks? Because stock-based instruments make up the majority of executives� pay, and buybacks drive up short-term stock prices. Buybacks contribute to runaway executive compensation and economic inequality in a major way. Because they extract value rather than create it, their overuse undermines the economy�s health. To restore true prosperity to the country, government and business leaders must take steps to rein them in. INSET: Idea in Brief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


The fecal lactoferrin assay was more sensitive (75%) than methylene blue microscopy (40%) for the detection of leukocytes in Clostridium difficile toxin-positive fecal samples. Although limited sensitivity and specificity precludes its use as a laboratory screening test, it may be a more useful initial test in an algorithm for clinically suspected C. difficile-associated disease.


This article discusses the properties of aluminum surface and the applications of aluminum alloys. It explains the effects of trace elements on aluminum alloys. The article considers microstructural development of aluminum in terms of the surface and explains how it will impact corrosion resistance and surface treatment. It describes the thermodynamics of equilibrium oxidation processes and non-equilibrium corrosion processes. The article provides a discussion on aluminum oxidation under atmospheric and dynamic conditions. It presents the potential/pH (Pourbaix) diagram for aluminum under atmospheric and dynamic conditions. The article also explains the polarization effects during the formation of stable aluminum oxide under dynamic conditions. It concludes with information on the designation system for aluminum finishes.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE
To explore patterns of symptoms before and after surgery for cancer of the esophagus.

DESIGN
Longitudinal, descriptive study.

SETTING
An urban comprehensive cancer center in the northeastern United States.

SAMPLE
218 patients with cancer of the esophagus undergoing esophagectomy.

METHODS
Symptoms were assessed by self-report before surgery, at the first postoperative visit, and at 6 and 12 months postsurgery.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Symptoms and demographic and clinical variables, including stage, treatment, gender, and comorbidities.

FINDINGS
Patients with esophageal cancer reported numerous symptoms before and after esophagectomy. Several patterns of symptoms were identified. General cancer symptoms (e.g., pain, cough, shortness of breath, weight loss) were reported as worse after surgery but recovered to baseline by one year. A second pattern of esophageal-specific symptoms (feeling full too quickly, feeling bloated, nausea, and diarrhea) worsened after surgery and did not recover to baseline by one year. Reflux was the only symptom that did not worsen after surgery but did worsen significantly during the first year of recovery.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with esophageal cancer experienced multiple prolonged symptoms following surgical treatment for their disease. General cancer symptoms resolved by one year post-treatment, whereas esophageal-specific symptoms worsened after surgery and did not recover to baseline.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Identification of symptom patterns preoperatively and during recovery can assist nurses in developing intervention protocols to minimize long-term complications for patients with esophageal cancer.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSLATION
Patients with esophageal cancer are at risk for multiple prolonged symptoms following surgery. Symptom assessment should occur often after surgery and include a broad range of symptoms.


Hardly anyone would doubt the potential of information technology (IT) to connect individuals, firms and organisations. Whether this power to connect will actually lead to the integration of markets and societies is a different issue. The articles collected in this book shed light on several aspects that are crucial for the success of global communication networks: they range from an appropriate framework for regulation and suitable strategies of firms that act as international players, to the inclusion of customers in defining product and service strategies, and from problems of access to advanced technology and networks for all groups in society regardless of their social status or geographical location to the role of new technologies in facilitating universal communication.


Most fluid flows of practical interest involve and are affected by turbulence. One of the most promising computational methods for the prediction of turbulent flows is the so-called large eddy simulation (LES) methodology. Experience over the past decades have shown the capability of LES to provide accurate predictions for several types of flow at a reasonable computational cost. It has also become clear, however, that the LES methodology fails when applied to boundary layer flows at high Reynolds numbers. Since many engineering applications fall in exactly that category, this failure is often considered the most severe bottleneck of LES. The present thesis is an attempt to move towards a solution of this problem. Inspired by the idealized picture of a turbulent boundary layer, a statistical model is used for the approximately universal turbulence in the inner boundary layer, whereas the more flow dependent outer boundary layer is solved by LES. Ideally, this results in a computational method that provides accurate predictions of rather general turbulent flows, while maintaining a tractable computational cost. In practice, the results are a vast improvement compared to LES without any inner layer modeling, but a transition layer appears where the state of the turbulence changes from being modeled statistically to resolved by LES. This so-called 'artificial buffer layer' results in the skin friction being consistently underpredicted by 10-15%. The physics and dynamics of this artificial buffer layer are investigated and characterized, and it is argued that there exist several similarities with true buffer layer turbulence. Additional forcing of the momentum equations is used as a means to trigger resolved turbulence motions more quickly, and it is demonstrated that the results are better: the artificial buffer layer is smaller, the skin friction is accurately predicted, and the dynamics in the inner layer have more correct length scales. The results with the additional forcing are very sensitive to the forcing amplitude, and a simple control algorithm for this parameter is proposed and tested with favourable results.


a Abstract Objectives : This study investigated the correlation between Tannerella forsythia, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Fusobacterium nucleatum, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans at dual sites in concurrent endodontic-periodontal diseases. Material and methods : Samples were collected from endodontium and periodontium in cases of concurrent endodontic-periodontal diseases from thirty participants. The sensitivity and specificity of SYBR Green real-time PCR was used to identify the targeted species. Absolute number of targeted genome copies in tested samples were extrapolated from respective calibration curve. Results : No statistical difference was found in the number of detected endodontic-periodontal pathogens between the endodontium and periodontium . The Pearson test detected significant correlation (P<0.001) between targeted bacteria; T. forsythia, F. nucleatum, and P. gingivalis from endodontic-periodontal lesions. Synergistic component observed separately in endodontic biofilm was found only between T. forsythia and F. nucleatum (r=0.380, P=0.03) while in periodontal biofilm T. forsythia, F. nucleatum and P. gingivalis gave high synergism result (P<0.0001). Correlation analysis showed that T. forsythia in primary endodontic infection and in periodontal lesion was significantly decreased with the increase of patients age (r=-0.308, P=0.017). Conclusions : Correlation between targeted bacterial species levels from concurrent endodontic-periodontal diseases confirmed that coronal and cervical dentinal tubules may represent a viable pathway that allows spreading and maintaining of dual sites infection. Periodontal bacteria detected in root canal of concurrent endodontic-periodontal infections may originate from the local periodontal lesions.


The true story, told minute by minute, of the soldiers who defeated Napoleon - from Brendan Simms, acclaimed author of Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy Europe had been at war for over twenty years. After a short respite in exile, Napoleon had returned to France and threatened another generation of fighting across the devastated and exhausted continent. At the small Belgian village of Waterloo two large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of Europe. Unknown either to Napoleon or Wellington the battle would be decided by a small, ordinary group of British and German troops given the task of defending the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte. This book tells their extraordinary story, brilliantly recapturing the fear, chaos and chanciness of battle and using previously untapped eye-witness reports. Through determination, cunning and fighting spirit, some four hundred soldiers held off many thousands of French and changed the course of history.


The anticancer drug tamoxifen is widely used in breast cancer therapy. Tamoxifen has been reported to cause ocular toxicity and impairment of vision in epidemiological studies. To study the possible role of an excitotoxic mechanism in the ocular toxicity of tamoxifen, we investigated the effect of tamoxifen on retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) glutamate uptake in vitro. RPE, a layer of cells between photoreceptors and choroidal capillaries, contributes to the regulation of the concentration of the major excitatory amino acid, glutamate, in the sub-retinal space. Dysfunction in RPE glutamate uptake can lead to accumulation of extracellular glutamate and can cause various excitotoxic effects in the retina. The study was conducted by using cultured pig RPE cells. Six different tamoxifen citrate concentrations, ranging from lμM to 100μM, and [3H]-L-glutamate were added to the culture medium. To specify the glutamate uptake, 1mM dinitrophenol was added and a Na+-free culture was used. Due to the anti-oestrogenic character of tamoxifen, the possible effect of β-oestradiol on the glutamate uptake of RPE was also examined. The results show that glutamate uptake by RPE cells was reduced in the presence of tamoxifen, and that the reduction was dose-dependent. These results suggest that tamoxifen exposure could lead to the extracellular accumulation of glutamate. Disturbances in glutamate uptake can cause eye toxicity via an excitotoxic mechanism. The glutamate uptake of RPE cells was reduced under Na+-free conditions and was also reduced in the presence of dinitrophenol.


We evaluated several behavioral coaching procedures with two young adults who had intellectual and developmental disabilities and were preparing for a Special Olympics track event. The primary dependent measure was their time running a 100 m sprint. Following a baseline phase, the athletes were coached to improve sprint times through different combinations of goal setting, performance feedback, positive reinforcement, and video modeling. In a sequential design, the average sprint time of both athletes was lower during intervention conditions compared with baseline. Following intervention, they ran faster than their baseline average in competition at a regional Special Olympics event. We discuss intervention and research issues in behavioral coaching of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.


Abstract. Atmospheric particles containing organic species and inorganic salts may undergo liquid–liquid phase separation when the relative humidity varies between high and low values. To better understand the parameters that affect liquid–liquid phase separation in atmospheric particles, we studied the effects of molecular weight and temperature on liquid–liquid phase separation in particles containing one organic species mixed with either ammonium sulfate or ammonium bisulfate. In the molecular-weight-dependent studies, we measured liquid–liquid phase separation relative humidity (SRH) in particles containing ammonium sulfate and organic species with large molecular weights (up to 1153 Da). These results were combined with recent studies of liquid–liquid phase separation in the literature to assess if molecular weight is a useful parameter for predicting SRH. The combined results, which include results from 33 different particle types, illustrate that SRH does not depend strongly on molecular weight (i.e., a clear relationship between molecular weight and SRH was not observed). In the temperature-dependent studies, we measured liquid–liquid phase separation in particles containing ammonium sulfate mixed with 20 different organic species at 244 ± 1 K, 263 ± 1 K, and 278 ± 1 K; a few particles were also studied at 290 ± 1 K. These new results were combined with previous measurements of the same particle types at 290 ± 1 K. The combined SRH data illustrate that for the organic–ammonium sulfate particles studied, the SRH does not depend strongly on temperature. At most the SRH varied by 9.7% as the temperature varied from 290 to 244 K. The high SRH values (> 65%) in these experiments may explain the lack of temperature dependence. Since water is a plasticizer, high relative humidities can lead to high water contents, low viscosities, and high diffusion rates in the particles. For these cases, unless the temperature is very low, liquid–liquid phase separation is not expected to be kinetically inhibited. The occurrence of liquid–liquid phase separation and SRH did depend strongly on temperature over the range of 290–244 K for particles containing α,4-dihydroxy-3-methoxybenzeneacetic acid mixed with ammonium bisulfate. For this particle type, a combination of low temperatures and low water content likely favored kinetic inhabitation of the liquid–liquid phase separation by slow diffusion rates in highly viscous particles. The combined results suggest that liquid–liquid phase separation is likely a common occurrence in atmospheric particles at temperatures from 244–290 K, although particles that do not undergo liquid–liquid phase separation are also likely common.


The study accessed the profitability of the usage of all input in crop production through Community-Based Agricultural and Rural Development Project (CBARDP) among rural dwellers in the Northern part of the country with the view of comparing the input usage to recommended practices. The study was carried out in five States where the IITA/AfDB-CBARD project was implemented. The States were Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna and Kwara. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to randomly select 720 farmers for the study for primary data generation. Farmers in study areas cultivated so many crops but the two most important crops (maize and cowpea) were used for the study. The analytical techniques used were descriptive statistics, Gross Margin and Income-Expenditure Ratio. The results showed that maize and cowpea production were profitable in the study area. However, farmers underutilized available production resources with the exception of land input. In addition, farmers did not comply with the recommended agronomic and management practices. The low usage of inputs especially fertilizer would affect the efficiency levels of maize and cowpea farmers implying that famers were not using the available inputs optimally therefore, effort must be geared towards enhancing input use to promote competitiveness of maize and cowpea production in the area. Finally, since land input was overutilized, there may be need for farmers to reduce land under cultivation for better utilization of resources.


We present results from the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) photometric redshift methods investigation. In this investigation, the results from 11 participants, each using a different combination of photometric redshift code, template spectral energy distributions (SEDs), and priors, are used to examine the properties of photometric redshifts applied to deep fields with broadband multi-wavelength coverage. The photometry used includes U-band through mid-infrared filters and was derived using the TFIT method. Comparing the results, we find that there is no particular code or set of template SEDs that results in significantly better photometric redshifts compared to others. However, we find that codes producing the lowest scatter and outlier fraction utilize a training sample to optimize photometric redshifts by adding zero-point offsets, template adjusting, or adding extra smoothing errors. These results therefore stress the importance of the training procedure. We find a strong dependence of the photometric redshift accuracy on the signal-to-noise ratio of the photometry. On the other hand, we find a weak dependence of the photometric redshift scatter with redshift and galaxy color. We find that most photometric redshift codes quote redshift errors (e.g., 68% confidence intervals) that are too small compared to that expected from the spectroscopic control sample. We find that all codes show a statistically significant bias in the photometric redshifts. However, the bias is in all cases smaller than the scatter; the latter therefore dominates the errors. Finally, we find that combining results from multiple codes significantly decreases the photometric redshift scatter and outlier fraction. We discuss different ways of combining data to produce accurate photometric redshifts and error estimates.


Islamic banking is based on the Muslim precept that interest, riba, is prohibited. In 1983 an Islamic Bank named Bank Islam was established in Malaysia. This was the first Islamic bank to be supported by a Government and be legislatively accommodated within a mixed financial system. It has succeeded in mobilizing funds from the general public and corporate sector and has introduced a wide range of relatively sophisticated financial services in a short period of time. As with other Islamic banks. Bank Islam's operations have relied upon the use of Islamic pre determined financial instruments. These instruments, however, are regarded with superstition by Islamic economists who contend that Islamic banks should base their operations solely on the profit-sharing principles of mudarabah and musharakah. Within the financial development of Malaysia, the introduction of an Islamic bank can be regarded as an extension of the, "Supply-following," and, "Malayani-sation," policies pursued since independence by the Central Bank (Bank Negara). The supply-leading policy is based on the theory that active government development of the financial system will induce economic growth. For example, the savings generated from Bank Islam depositors (who as Muslims were previously denied the opportunity to save in a riba-dominated system), will be used in investments within the economy. Bank Islam, however, has had a qualitative, rather than quantitive impact upon financial development, being a development consistent with the Government's policy of building an economy and financial system that meets the indigenous needs. In the case of Bank Islam, this means the indigenous needs of the Muslims.


Basophilia has been reported to indicate an accelerated phase of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), heralding a poor prognosis. We have studied 47 patients with chronic‐phase CML by basophil growth and differentiation assays in vitro, demonstrating an association between basophil growth index (BGI) and clinical time to blast crisis as well as overall survival. In addition to confirming an association between positive BGI and phase of CML in a larger group of patients, a positive BGI predicted death or blast crisis within 2 years' study of chronic phase CML (p<0.01), with a sensitivity of 78%, specificity, 81%; the positive predictive value of a positive test, 64%; and a negative predictive value of a negative test, 89%. The survival experience of the 22 evaluable patients with chronic‐phase CML and a positive BGI was significantly worse than the survival of the 19 patients with a negative BGI (p<0.0001). At 1, 2, and 3 years the proportion of surviving patients with a positive BGI was 0.64, 0.32, and 0.23, respectively, compared with 1.00, 0.90, and 0.79 for those with a negative BGI. The median survival of chronic phase CML patients with a positive test at diagnosis (n = 14) was 27 months versus 54 months for those with a negative diagnosis (n = 14) (p<0.05). These findings emphasize the prognostic utility of basophil growth assays in CML and suggest a molecular relationship between leukemic transformation and basophil lineage expression.


The journal does NOT have most of the publications listed and readers wishing to refer to any articles, or borrow a book, should apply to their nearest library. There is one exception. The Occupational Therapy Journal of Research' (published in the USA), which is held by the Journal, and readers should apply accordingly. Any suggestions for the next list should be sent to the Secretary of the Fellowship Award and Research Committee.


In this article, I seek to demonstrate how research on cultural industries and tourism combined yields insights into the contemporary dynamics of cultural survival in the age of globalization. Tourism is increasingly an important economic force that facilitates cultural mobility and promotes cultural consumption, and in turn contributes to the growth of a regionally embedded cultural industry. I take the example of flamenco music and dance in southern Spain and focus on three agents that help shape this art complex - the cultural industry, the tourists and the state. I analyze how these agents interact, and show how their engagements at multiple geographic scales result in a distinctive and successful cultural tourism in Seville, Andalusia. The flamenco art complex survives and thrives today through the combination of resilient local talent closely linked to identity maintenance, domestic and foreign tourists that engage in cultural consumption, and the government subsidizing the artists through state-sponsored spectacles. Copyright (c) 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation(c) 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


Source separation, or demixing, is the process of extracting multiple components entangled within a signal. Contemporary signal processing presents a host of difficult source separation problems, from interference cancellation to background subtraction, blind deconvolution, and even dictionary learning. Despite the recent progress in each of these applications, advances in high-throughput sensor technology place demixing algorithms under pressure to accommodate extremely high-dimensional signals, separate an ever larger number of sources, and cope with more sophisticated signal and mixing models. These difficulties are exacerbated by the need for real-time action in automated decision-making systems.


Using data from the 128 bit video game industry this paper evaluates the eect of vertical integration and the foreclosure of complementary software to rival hardware. Foreclosure occurs when a console hardware manufacturer produces software which is incompatible with rival hardware. Estimation of video game console demand deviates from previous research by incorporating video game heterogeneity and software com- petition into demand for consoles-consumers dierentiate between games rather than assume video games are homogeneous. There are two important trade-os to verti- cal integration. The …rst is a foreclosure eect which increases console market power and forces prices higher. The second, an e¢ ciency eect, drives prices lower. Coun- terfactual exercises determine vertical integration with foreclosure is pro-competitive. It increases price competition as well as consumer welfare and console manufacturer pro…ts, and is due to console makers subsidizing consumers in order to increase video games sales, in particular their own developed games, where the greatest proportion of industry pro…ts are made.


The silicides have obvious attractive characteristics that make them promising materials as thermoelectric energy converters. The constituting elements are abundant and have low price, many of compounds have good high temperature stability. Therefore, considerable efforts have been made, especially in the past 10 years, in order to develop efficient silicide-based thermoelectric materials. These efforts have culminated in creation of Mg 2 (Si-Sn) n-type thermoelectric alloys with proven maximum thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of 1.3. This success is based on combination of two approaches to maximize the thermoelectric performance: the band structure engineering and the alloying. In this chapter, we review data on crystal and electronic structure as well as on the thermoelectric properties of Mg 2 X compounds and their solid solutions.


Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) is the most important annual culinary herb in the United States. It is grown commercially for the fresh market as a food flavor and as a source of essential oils and oleoresin for manufacturing perfumes and aromatherapy products. In November 2010, grayish to dark, necrotic lesions were observed on the stem of sweet basil plants of the cv. Genovese grown in 10-cm diameter pots containing "Fafard" soilless medium in a greenhouse in Homestead, FL. Symptoms started 3 weeks after planting at the soil line and extended 2 to 5 cm up the stem. Nearly 99% of the plants were symptomatic after another 1 to 2 weeks. The lesions coalesced and reached as high as 12 to 15 cm up the stem. Severely affected plants were stunted (as short as 10 cm compared to 25 cm for non-infected plants), became weak, and lodged as infection progressed. Stem sections from five diseased plants were surface sterilized with 0.6% sodium hypochlorite for 15 min, plated on potato dextrose agar (PDA), and incubated in the dark at 25°C. Pale to pink, slimy, appressed colonies with whitish, sparse aerial mycelia grew on PDA. Hyaline, smooth, ellipsoidal conidia, each tapering gradually to a broadly rounded apex and base, with one to two guttulation droplets, were observed microscopically. Conidial dimensions averaged 9.4 (4.2 to 13.2) × 2.5 (2.2 to 3.2) μm. The isolated fungus was morphologically similar to Plectosporium tabacinum (van Beyma) M.E. Palm, W. Gams et Nirenberg (synonyms M. tabacinum (van Beyma) von Arx, 1984 and F. tabacinum (Gams & Gerlagh, 1968)) (3). Fungal DNA was extracted and an 834-bp fragment of partial 28S rDNA was amplified with primers LROR and LR5 (4), and the amplified fragment was sequenced (GenBank Accession No. JQ999955). Sequence comparison using BLAST revealed 99% identity with that of Plectosphaerella cucumerina (GenBank Accession No. U17399). Pathogenicity tests were carried out three times by inoculating three 2-week-old, healthy basil seedlings in each test with a conidial suspension of the isolate sprayed onto the plants at 1 × 106 conidia/ml. Non-treated control plants were sprayed similarly with deionized water. Lesions identical to the above descriptions appeared on stems of all inoculated plants 2 to 4 days after inoculation (plants were held at 25°C), and the same pathogen was reisolated on PDA. Additionally, leaves of inoculated plants showed extensive chlorosis and necrosis. All noninoculated plants remained symptomless. Black leg, caused by P. tabacinum, was reported on hydroponically grown basil in Indiana (1). It was also reported to cause necrosis on the stem of basil plants in Italy (2). In Homestead, FL, seven cultivars (Cinnamon, Genovese, Broad leaf Italian, Red Rubin, Lemon, Thai, and Common basil) of basil grown in plastic pots have shown black leg symptoms in the greenhouse. To our knowledge, this is the first report of P. cucumerina (anamorph P. tabacinum) causing black leg on greenhouse grown basil in Florida. Approximately 50% of the 12-week-old plants in a field trial at Homestead, FL, showed identical symptoms in spring 2012. The high incidence of this disease in Homestead and the potentially aggressive nature of the pathogen on foliage suggest a need for development of effective management strategies. References: (1) D. Egel et al. Plant Dis. 94:484. 2010. (2) A. Garibaldi et al. Plant Dis. 81:124. 1997. (3) M. Palm et al. Mycologia. 87:397. 1995. (4) Rehner and Samuels. Can. J. Bot. 73:816. 1995.


In the recent case Doe v. Reed, the Supreme Court announced the test for associations to get exemptions for their members from membership disclosure laws under the First Amendment. The Doe test requires an organization to "show 'a reasonable probability that the compelled disclosure of personal information will subject [its members] to threats, harassment, or reprisals from either Government officials or private parties.'" However, the Court's stated test is inconsistent with its membership disclosure cases, including Doe's own dicta. In response to this inconsistency, this Note identifies the secret two-part purposivist test the Court has actually applied in its eighty years of membership disclosure case law — one that focuses only on "Government officials." Under its actual test, the Supreme Court asks (1) whether the association deserves judicial protection from the disclosure law at issue because the government has targeted it, and (2) whether the association's activities are economic or criminal such that disclosure is outside the realm of paradigmatic — and therefore deeply felt — First Amendment harm. This Note then argues that the Supreme Court's secret test is more consistent with existing doctrine than its announced Doe test once the private parties that target associations are understood to be like a hostile audience.


Since its inception, the contemporary women's movement has had a contentious relationship with religion. This was demonstrated most clearly in the debates around the cases of Shah Bano and Roop Kanwar during the 1980s, which sparked a period of reflection within the women's movement over the question of representation. Since then, the movement has evolved considerably, becoming increasingly institutionalised at one level, and at the same time experiencing fragmentation and diversification. This article looks at the emergence of two networks advocating Muslim women's rights, the Muslim Women's Rights Network (MWRN) and the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), and contextualises their emergence within the wider context of the women's movement and the evolution of feminism in India. MWRN and BMMA are indicative of the growing assertion of 'minority feminisms' in India and aim to represent women's multiple identities, including their religious identities, while also struggling for gender justice. Both networks differ in the way they approach religion ideologically and strategically as well as in the way they position themselves vis-à-vis the women's movement. However, their appearance marks an important shift both within the women's movement as well as in the formulation of community identities in India, with 'Muslim women' being positively reformulated by these networks as a category that asserts political agency rather than passivity and victimhood.


Critically coupled resonant optical cavities are often used as mode cleaners in optical systems to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a signal that is encoded as an amplitude modulation of a laser beam. Achieving the best SNR requires maintaining the alignment of the mode cleaner relative to the laser beam on which the signal is encoded. An automatic alignment system that is primarily sensitive to the carrier field component of the beam will not, in general, provide optimal SNR. We present an approach that modifies traditional dither alignment sensing by applying a large amplitude modulation on the signal field, thereby producing error signals that are sensitive to the signal sideband field alignment. When used in conjunction with alignment actuators, this approach can improve the detected SNR; we demonstrate a factor of 3 improvement in the SNR of a kilometer-scale detector of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. This approach can be generalized to other types of alignment sensors.


While vehicle to everything (V2X) communication enables safety-critical automotive control systems to better support various connected services to improve safety and convenience of drivers, they also allow automotive attack surfaces to increase dynamically in modern vehicles. Many researchers as well as hackers have already demonstrated that they can take remote control of the targeted car by exploiting the vulnerabilities of in-vehicle networks such as Controller Area Networks (CANs). For assuring CAN security, we focus on how to authenticate electronic control units (ECUs) in real-time by addressing the security challenges of in-vehicle networks. In this paper, we propose a novel and lightweight authentication protocol with an attack-resilient tree algorithm, which is based on one-way hash chain. The protocol can be easily deployed in CAN by performing a firmware update of ECU. We have shown analytically that the protocol achieves a high level of security. In addition, the performance of the proposed protocol is validated on CANoe simulator for virtual ECUs and Freescale S12XF used in real vehicles. The results show that our protocol is more efficient than other authentication protocol in terms of authentication time, response time, and service delay.


Silvopastoral systems of the Swiss Jura Mountains serve as a traditional source of forage and timber in the subalpine vegetation belt, but their vulnerability to land use and climate change puts their future sustainability at stake. We coupled experimental and modeling approaches to assess the impact of climate change on the pasture-woodland landscape. We drew conclusions on the resistance potential of wooded pastures with different management intensities by sampling along a canopy cover gradient. This gradient spanned from unwooded pastures associated with intensive farming to densely wooded pastures associated with extensive farming. Transplanted mesocosms of these ecosystems placed at warmer and drier conditions provided experimental evidence that climate change reduced herbaceous biomass production in unwooded pastures but had no effect in sparsely wooded pastures, and even stimulated productivity in densely wooded pastures. Through modeling these results with a spatially explicit model of wooded pastures (WoodPaM) modified for the current application, results were extrapolated to the local landscape under two regionalized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios for climate change. This led to the suggestion that within the Jura pasture-woodlands, forage production in the near future (2000-2050 AD) would be affected disproportionately throughout the landscape. A stable forage supply in hot, dry years would be provided only by extensive and moderate farming, which allows the development of an insulating tree cover within grazed pastures. We conclude that such structural landscape diversity would grant wood-pastures with a buffering potential in the face of climate change in the forthcoming decades.


Africa has welcomed a new nation. As a result of the January 9th referendum, Southern Sudan will remove 640,000 square kilometers of land, nine million people, and a plethora of natural resources, including oil, from the control of Sudan's central government under the National Congress Party (NCP). Since civil war broke out between the North and the South in 1956, the Sudanese have endured perpetual conflict and the loss of millions of lives. In addition to disagreement on economic and political issues, religious tensions have fueled the clash between the Islamic north and predominantly Christian and animist south. The NCP's ongoing battle for Darfur has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese as well as an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for President and NCP leader Omar al-Bashir. The recent vote was held in accordance with the 2005 Naivasha Agreement between the Northern Sudanese government in Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), a rebel movement based in the south. For the most part, the international response to the orderly and legal referendum was optimistic. Southern Sudanese, 85 percent of whom are illiterate, poured into polling stations during the week-long voting period to make a choice between unity and separation--illustrated by images of a clasped hands or a solitary hand. However, over a month after the election, Southern Sudan finds itself at the juncture of an impoverished, war-torn past and a very uncertain future. Even after Southern Sudan officially becomes Africa's 54th nation in July 2011, it will not be able to function with complete autonomy. Southern Sudan faces a wealth of economic concerns as a result of the massive debt that Sudan has accumulated from foreign nations since the 1970s to fund development projects. The governments of both Sudans have requested the international community to relieve the debt, as the north will face a loss of oil revenues and the south is in the midst of structuring a new nation. With its rich oil fields, present border disputes with Uganda, and location at the center of a ring of conflicted countries, Africa's newest country will likely be at the heart of several international debates. The existence of two separate Sudans would require shift in the economic dynamics of the region. According to UN reports, Southern Sudan's land is fertile enough to feed the entire Middle East. Its output of 490,000 barrels a day makes it sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil crude oil exporter. It will undoubtedly take time for the north and south to agree upon how to transfer the management of the oil industry to Southern Sudan, and even longer to resume business with foreign countries. In anticipation of its independence, Southern Sudan had been ramping up efforts to diversify its economy and improve business. Investors in China, Kenya, and the Middle East have expressed interest in projects that would develop infrastructure and build food-processing plants in Southern Sudan. …


The Animal That Therefore I Am is the long-awaited translation of the complete text of Jacques Derrida's ten-hour address to the 1997 Cerisy conference entitled "The Autobiographical Animal," the third of four such colloquia on his work. The book was assembled posthumously on the basis of two published sections, one written and recorded session, and one informal recorded session.The book is at once an affectionate look back over the multiple roles played by animals in Derrida's work and a profound philosophical investigation and critique of the relegation of animal life that takes place as a result of the distinction--dating from Descartes--between man as thinking animal and every other living species. That starts with the very fact of the line of separation drawn between the human and the millions of other species that are reduced to a single "the animal." Derrida finds that distinction, or versions of it, surfacing in thinkers as far apart as Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Lacan, and Levinas, and he dedicates extended analyses tothe question in the work of each of them.The book's autobiographical theme intersects with its philosophical analysis through the figures of looking and nakedness, staged in terms of Derrida's experience when his cat follows him into the bathroom in the morning. In a classic deconstructive reversal, Derrida asks what this animal sees and thinks when it sees this naked man. Yet the experiences of nakedness and shame also lead all the way back into the mythologies of "man's dominion over the beasts" and trace a history of how man has systematically displaced onto the animal his own failings or betises. The Animal That Therefore I Am is at times a militant plea and indictment regarding, especially, the modern industrialized treatment of animals. However, Derrida cannot subscribe to a simplistic version of animal rights that fails to follow through, in all its implications, the questions and definitions of "life" to which he returned in much of his later work.


Stochastic composite mirror descent (SCMD) is a simple and efficient method able to capture both geometric and composite structures of optimization problems in machine learning. Existing strategies require to take either an average or a random selection of iterates to achieve optimal convergence rates, which, however, can either destroy the sparsity of solutions or slow down the practical training speed. In this paper, we propose a theoretically sound strategy to select an individual iterate of the vanilla SCMD, which is able to achieve optimal rates for both convex and strongly convex problems in a non-smooth learning setting. This strategy of outputting an individual iterate can preserve the sparsity of solutions which is crucial for a proper interpretation in sparse learning problems. We report experimental comparisons with several baseline methods to show the effectiveness of our method in achieving a fast training speed as well as in outputting sparse solutions.


: Purpose: The main aim of the paper is to assess the implementation of the social goals of the Europe 2020 strategy by the EU Member States in the period 2010-2019, i.e. a year before its expiry, as well as to compare the results achieved by them. Design/Methodology/Approach: the article proposes an effective and easy-to-use measure of ranking and monitoring member states in terms of their results using a procedure based on the taxonomic research with application of zero-unitarization method (min-max normalization). This method allows the integration of 10 indicators - 7 main statistical indicators provided for this purpose and 3 additionally selected by the authors - which is an extension of the previously used set of variables serving this purpose. Findings: The obtained results allow not only to assess the implementation of the social goals of Strategy 2020, but also to use the knowledge gained on this subject when planning future strategic goals and their indicators. Practical Implications: The practical advantage of the analytical method used in the article is not only the possibility of using taxonomic research using the zero unitarization method to evaluate individual objects in terms of the implementation of multidimensional goals, but also obtaining additional information about the internal structure and characteristics of this implementation. Originality/value: The added value of the applied research method, apart from the aforementioned extension of the set of variables, is the fact that the level of achieving the social goal of each object is assessed on the basis of the results obtained in each group of indicators taken into account for this purpose. It is also worth emphasizing that this work focuses solely on the implementation of social goals, while other researchers deal with the synthetic (general) evaluation of the Strategy.


A comparative study on seasonal dynamics of cyanobacteria and microcystins in relation to physical and chemical parameters was carried out in three polymictic shallow lakes. Lakes were predominated by Oscillatoriales: Planktothrix agardhii in one lake and Limnothrix spp. in the other two lakes. Considerable populations of Nostocales occurred in two of the lakes prior to mass developments of Oscillatoriales. The lake predominated by P. agardhii differed from the lakes predominated by Limnothrix spp. by higher total phosphorus concentrations and a larger surface area. Phosphorus is discussed as the crucial factor in the competition between Oscillatoriales, with P agardhii as the stronger competitor under higher phosphorus concentrations. Both Oscillatoriales outcompeted Nostocales populations under a declining intensity of PAR (photosynthetically active radiation). The decline of PAR intensity was promoted by the cyanobacteria itself and had a positive feed back on the development of Oscillatoriales but a negative effect on the development of Nostocales populations. Furthermore, the presence and concentration of microcystin was related to the presence and biovolume of P agardhii, respectively. No microcystins were found when only Limnothrix spp. were present.


BACKGROUND
Sedentary behavior is emerging as an independent risk factor for chronic disease and mortality. However, the evidence relating television (TV) viewing and other sedentary behaviors to cancer risk has not been quantitatively summarized.

METHODS
We performed a comprehensive electronic literature search in Cochrane, EMBASE, Medline, and SciSearch databases through February 2014 for published articles investigating sedentary behavior in relation to cancer incidence. Because randomized controlled trials are difficult to perform on this topic, we focused on observational studies that met uniform inclusion criteria. Data were extracted independently by both authors and summarized using random-effects meta-analysis and meta-regression. All statistical tests were two-sided.

RESULTS
Data from 43 observational studies including a total of 68936 cancer cases were analyzed. Comparing the highest vs lowest levels of sedentary time, the relative risks (RRs) for colon cancer were 1.54 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.19 to 1.98) for TV viewing time, 1.24 (95% CI = 1.09 to 1.41) for occupational sitting time, and 1.24 (95% CI = 1.03 to 1.50) for total sitting time. For endometrial cancer, the relative risks were 1.66 (95% CI = 1.21 to 2.28) for TV viewing time and 1.32 (95% CI = 1.08 to 1.61) for total sitting time. A positive association with overall sedentary behavior was also noted for lung cancer (RR = 1.21; 95% CI = 1.03 to 1.43). Sedentary behavior was unrelated to cancers of the breast, rectum, ovaries, prostate, stomach, esophagus, testes, renal cell, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

CONCLUSIONS
Prolonged TV viewing and time spent in other sedentary pursuits is associated with increased risks of certain types of cancer.


The Montello is an elongated hill about 15 km long and 5 km wide located south of the Venetian Alps front and ∼100 km southwest of Gemona, site of the destructive Ms ∼6, 1976 earthquake sequence. Mio-Pliocene strata in the core of the hill are folded. Seven Quaternary terraces across the western termination of the anticline have also been folded and uplifted. The terraces flank the abandoned Biadene valley, a former course of the Piave river which now flows eastwards along the north side of the hill. Topographic profiles along and transverse to the valley and terraces are used to measure the progressive development of the anticline. Fossil remains and archaeological sites dated with 14C suggest that the Biadene paleovalley was abandoned between 14 and 8 ka (11±3 ka). The successive terraces appear to have been emplaced at the onset of interglacials and interstadials, since about 350 ka. The best fitting terrace ages suggest vertical uplift rates of about 0.5 mm/yr before 172 ka and of about 1 mm/yr after 121 ka. The Montello thus appears to be a growing ramp anticline on top of an active, north dipping thrust that has migrated south of the mountain into the foreland. Modeling the deformation of the terraces as a result of motion on such a thrust ramp requires that it propagated both south and upwards with time but with a constant slip rate (1.8–2 mm/yr). For at least 300 kyr the lateral growth of the anticline kept pushing the course of the Piave river southwestwards, at a rate at first of 10 mm/yr, and then 20 mm/yr. Though the growth rate doubled more than 120 kyr ago, the anticline kept a constant height/length growth ratio (≃20) implying self-similar depth/length growth of the thrust underneath. The clustering of historical earthquakes north of Treviso suggests that the thrust responsible for ongoing folding of the Montello slipped seismically three times (778, 1268, 1859 A.D.; intensity I ≥ VIII) in the last 2000 years, with events of maximum magnitude close to 6 and with average recurrence time between 500 and 1000 years. NW shortening on NE-SW trending thrusts along the Venetian Alps front is compatible with the direction of convergence between Africa and Europe but does not suffice to absorb this convergence.


An analytical approach, as a reduced form of the more general multi-flux and discrete ordinates method for radiative transfer, is proposed in this article with clarified theoretical basis. The main assumption inherent in the proposed method is that the radiation intensities along positive and negative paths are isotropic and have constant values in each direction. A realistic nonisothermal absorbing/emitting medium with isotropic scattering is analytically treated between fire sources and structural members. General energy equations, including possible heat generation within the medium, can be adopted to solve for radiative flux and temperature distribution along the radiation path. The usage of the `optical length' can readily incorporate the compound and realistic extinction coefficient of a participating medium, including gas and particle absorption and particle scattering effects. Application of the proposed method to temperature predictions of unprotected steel members in fire yields good accuracy and reliable stability, especially for those with large section factors.


Much empirical evidence shows that female and male partners look alike along a variety of attributes. It is, however, unclear how this positive sorting comes about because marriage is an equilibrium outcome arising from a process that entails searching, meeting, and choosing one another. This study takes advantage of unique data to shed light on the forces driving choices at the earliest stage of a relationship. Both women and men value physical attributes, such as age and weight, and reveal that their dating choices are assortative along several traits. Importantly, meeting opportunities have a substantial role in determining dating proposals.


Why do people at certain historical moments choose to define themselves in terms of their ethnicity? What concrete concerns are embedded in such identification? What does the creation of this identity mean in the larger context of history and social relationships? These are some of the questions April R. Schultz addresses in this interdisciplinary study of the way in which ethnic identity has been shaped and expressed in American culture. Drawing on the work of historians, anthropologists, literary critics, and cultural theorists, Schultz analyzes one national celebration - the 1925 Norwegian-American Immigration Centennial - as a strategic site for the invention of ethnicity. She shows how Norwegian Americans used this ceremony to create a distinctive vision of their past and present - a social and cultural construction that both accommodated and resisted dominant Anglo-American conceptions of assimilation. By taking a close look at the experiences of a white, middle-class, Protestant ethnic community, this book challenges many assumptions about the "Americanization" of immigrant groups and offers new insight into the uses of historical memory.


Civil inspection images are notoriously difficult to interpret for those who were not present during an inspection, and so they have historically had limited value in ongoing condition monitoring applications. Within the last decade the advent of inexpensive digital imaging has compounded this problem by making it possible and common to capture and report numerous images, creating information overload that can easily overwhelm engineers and structure owners. More recently, developments in electronics manufacturing and robotics have made automated structural inspection an emergent technology for civil engineers, which inevitably is leading to even more digital image data that must be handled. This dissertation presents a systematic approach to capturing, processing, and representing inspection image data such that the inherent value of these increasingly large data sets can be realized. Using a data pipeline combining automated image capture, contextualized 3D visualization, and robust computational imaging and regression techniques, the goal is to allow engineers to view inspection images in their 3D spatial context, while aiding them through enhanced damage detection routines, all while helping to minimize field inspection disruptions through the use of robotic imaging. In the development of this pipeline and an associated prototype implementation, several key challenges have been addressed: (i) automated systems capable of comprehensive field imaging; (ii) 3D reconstruction algorithms which provide accurate, photorealistic image interpretations; (iii) robust computer vision algorithms suitable for field applications; and (iv) nonlinear regression models which correlate the relationships between extracted image information and structural performance. The results of prototype testing show that, given due consideration to the inherently large data sets that robots produce, systematic imaging can enable entirely new ways of visualizing and interacting with inspection information.