OBJECTIVE
To determine the efficacy and safety of treatment with rituximab plus methotrexate (MTX) in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who had an inadequate response to anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapies and to explore the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of rituximab in this population.

METHODS
We evaluated primary efficacy and safety at 24 weeks in patients enrolled in the Randomized Evaluation of Long-Term Efficacy of Rituximab in RA (REFLEX) Trial, a 2-year, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III study of rituximab therapy. Patients with active RA and an inadequate response to 1 or more anti-TNF agents were randomized to receive intravenous rituximab (1 course, consisting of 2 infusions of 1,000 mg each) or placebo, both with background MTX. The primary efficacy end point was a response on the American College of Rheumatology 20% improvement criteria (ACR20) at 24 weeks. Secondary end points were responses on the ACR50 and ACR70 improvement criteria, the Disease Activity Score in 28 joints, and the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR) response criteria at 24 weeks. Additional end points included scores on the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) Disability Index (DI), and Short Form 36 (SF-36) instruments, as well as Genant-modified Sharp radiographic scores at 24 weeks.

RESULTS
Patients assigned to placebo (n = 209) and rituximab (n = 311) had active, longstanding RA. At week 24, significantly more (P < 0.0001) rituximab-treated patients than placebo-treated patients demonstrated ACR20 (51% versus 18%), ACR50 (27% versus 5%), and ACR70 (12% versus 1%) responses and moderate-to-good EULAR responses (65% versus 22%). All ACR response parameters were significantly improved in rituximab-treated patients, who also had clinically meaningful improvements in fatigue, disability, and health-related quality of life (demonstrated by FACIT-F, HAQ DI, and SF-36 scores, respectively) and showed a trend toward less progression in radiographic end points. Rituximab depleted peripheral CD20+ B cells, but the mean immunoglobulin levels (IgG, IgM, and IgA) remained within normal ranges. Most adverse events occurred with the first rituximab infusion and were of mild-to-moderate severity. The rate of serious infections was 5.2 per 100 patient-years in the rituximab group and 3.7 per 100 patient-years in the placebo group.

CONCLUSION
At 24 weeks, a single course of rituximab with concomitant MTX therapy provided significant and clinically meaningful improvements in disease activity in patients with active, longstanding RA who had an inadequate response to 1 or more anti-TNF therapies.


We investigate, model, and design interaction techniques for hand occlusion with direct pen input. Our focus on occlusion follows from a qualitative and quantitative study of direct pen usability with a conventional graphical user interface (GUI). This study reveals overarching problems relating to poor precision, ergonomics, cognitive differences, limited input, and problems resulting from occlusion. To investigate occlusion more closely, we conduct three formal experiments to examine its area and shape, its affect on performance, and compensatory postures. We find that the shape of the occluded area varies across participants with some common characteristics. Our results provide evidence that occlusion affects target selection performance: especially for continuous tasks or when the goal is initially hidden. We observe how users contort their wrist posture during a simultaneous monitoring task, and show this can increase task time. Based on these investigations, we develop a five parameter geometric model to represent the shape of the occluded area and extend this to a user configurable, real-time version. To evaluate our model, we introduce a novel analytic testing methodology using optimization for geometric fitting and precision-recall statistics for comparison; as well as conducting a user study. To address problems with occlusion, we introduce the notion of occlusion-aware interfaces: techniques which can use our configurable model to track currently occluded regions and then counteract potential problems and/or utilize the occluded area. As a case study, we present the Occlusion-Aware Viewer: an interaction technique which displays otherwise missed previews and status messages in a non-occluded area. Within this thesis we also present a number of methodology contributions for quantitative and qualitative study design, multi-faceted study logging using synchronized video, qualitative analysis, image-based analysis, task visualization, optimization-based analytical testing, and user interface image processing.


In 1790, two events marked important points in the development of two young American institutions - Congress decided that the new nation's seat of government would be on the banks of the Potomac, and John Carroll of Maryland was consecrated as America's first Catholic bishop. This coincidence of events signalled the unexpectedly important role that Maryland's Catholics, many of them by then fifth- and sixth-generation Americans, were to play in the growth and early government of the national capital. In this book, William W. Warner explores how Maryland's Catholics drew upon their long-standing traditions - advocacy of separation of church and state, a sense of civic duty, and a determination "to live at peace with all their neighbors," in Bishop Carroll's phrase - to take a leading role in the early government, financing, and building of the new capital. Beginning with brief histories of the area's first Catholic churches and the establishment of Georgetown College, "At Peace with All Their Neighbors" explains the many reasons behind the Protestant majority's acceptance of Catholicism in the national capital in an age often marked by religious intolerance. Shortly after the capital moved from Philadelphia in 1800, Catholics held the principal positions in the city government and were also major landowners, property investors, and bankers. In the decade before the 1844 riots over religious education erupted in Philadelphia, the municipal government of Georgetown gave public funds for a Catholic school and Congress granted land in Washington for a Catholic orphanage. This book closes with a remarkable account of how the Washington community, Protestants and Catholics alike, withstood the concentrated efforts of the virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American nativists and the Know-Nothing Party in the last two decades before the Civil War. This chronicle of Washington's Catholic community and its major contributions to the growth of the nations' capital will be of value for everyone interested in the history of Washington, D.C., Catholic history, and the history of religious toleration in America.


The influence of soil moisture in thermal infrared emissivity is a known fact, but poorly studied in the past. An experiment for quantifying the dependence of emissivity on soil moisture has been designed. Six samples of superficial horizons of different Mediterranean soil types have been selected. Their emissivity has been measured at different soil water contents, using the twolid variant of the box method, whereas the gravimetric method has been selected for obtaining the soil moisture. As a result, the study shows that emissivity increases significantly when water content becomes higher, especially in sandy soils in the 8.2-9.2 μm range. A set of equations has been derived to obtain emissivity from soil moisture at different spectral bands for the analysed soil types.


Previous work with tobacco vein mottling virus (TVMV) has established that a highly conserved three amino acid motif, asp-ala-gly (DAG), located near the N terminus of the coat protein (CP), is important for aphid transmission. However, several other potyviruses which have motifs other than DAG are aphid-transmissible. Creation of these motifs in TVMV through site-directed mutagenesis failed to render TVMV aphid-transmissible from infected plants, and the creation of a putative complementary motif in the helper component did not restore transmissibility. In an isolate of tobacco etch virus (TEV) that contains two consecutive DAG motifs separated by a single ala, transmissibility was abolished or reduced by mutations affecting the first motif, whereas mutations in the second motif had little or no effect. In a TEV mutant made non-transmissible due to an altered first motif, substitution of val for ala in the position immediately before the second DAG restored transmissibility, whereas changing val to ala in the location prior to the first DAG resulted in reduced TEV transmissibility. In contrast, a val to ala change in the position preceding the single DAG motif of TVMV did not affect transmission. Creation of another DAG motif at the beginning of the TVMV CP core, in a position where certain other potyviruses have a second DAG motif, did not restore transmissibility. Our results suggest that the mere presence of a DAG motif does not guarantee transmissibility and that the context in which the DAG or equivalent motif is found plays a role in the process.


Human coronaviruses (HCoVs) commonly cause mild upper-respiratory tract illnesses but can lead to more severe and diffusive diseases. A variety of signs and symptoms may be present, and infections can range in severity from the common cold and sore throat to more serious laryngeal or tracheal infections, bronchitis, and pneumonia. Among the seven coronaviruses that affect humans (SARS)-CoV, the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV, and the most recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) represent potential life-threatening diseases worldwide. In adults, they may cause severe pneumonia that evolves in respiratory distress syndrome and multiorgan failure with a high mortality rate. Children appear to be less susceptible to develop severe clinical disease and present usually with mild and aspecific symptoms similar to other respiratory infections typical of childhood. However, some children, such as infants, adolescents, or those with underlying diseases may be more at-risk categories and require greater caution from clinicians. Available data on pediatric coronavirus infections are rare and scattered in the literature. The purpose of this review is to provide to clinicians a complete and updated panel useful to recognize and characterize the broad spectrum of clinical manifestations of coronavirus infections in the pediatric age.


Since the establishment of the first public library in 1818, the South African library and information services landscape has also been a reflection of the socio-political order and developments in the country. This article presents an historical perspective as well as an overview of libraries in South Africa since 1994, the context within which libraries function, library governance and legislative framework, government funding for redress, library technologies, library and information services education and the professional association. The article further highlights the importance of libraries in meeting the goals of the national development agenda towards entrenching a strong democracy and an educated and informed nation.


This chapter studies Differential Object Marking (DOM) in nonstandard varieties of Basque. DOM in Basque overtly resembles a common DOM pattern of coding direct as indirect objects in both case and agreement, that is absolutives as datives, according to their animacy and specificity, as in Spanish and Hindi-Urdu. However, Basque DOM is also sensitive to properties of the clause such as tense. In both respects, there is variation across Basque. Some varieties let us probe the nature of DOM datives, and reveal systematic patterning with non-DOM absolutives rather than with indirect object datives. This includes robust diagnostics for structural Case, such as ECM and absolutive-dative alternations. We propose a structural Agree/Case mechanism for DOM datives that brings out their relationship to absolutives and allows sensitivity to properties of both the object and the clause.


This thesis explores the representation of mental illness in the UK press. Specifically, it addresses the following central research questions: 'What do the terms 'mental health' and 'mental illness' refer to, 'How are people with mental illness named and referred to in reports on mental illness', 'What are the salient transitivity processes in news reports on mental illness' and 'Do press reports on mental illness accurately portray the symptoms of specific mental illnesses?' In order to investigate these questions, I designed and constructed the MI 1984-2014 corpus, which comprises 50,972,932 words of UK local and national news articles from 1984-2014. The stretch of time covered by the corpus is an important period for legislation related to mental health, including the 1983 Mental Health Act and the amendments to this act in 2007. I use frameworks drawn from corpus linguistics (e.g. keyness and collocation analysis) and Critical Discourse Analysis (e.g. naming and transitivity analysis) to analyse the MI 1984-2014 corpus.

The main findings from my study are as follows: (i) lexical items in the semantic domain of mental health and illness are undergoing semantic change (e.g. the term 'mental health' is being used more frequently to refer to states of mental illness via a process of socially motivated and euphemistic language change); (ii) with regard to naming practices and, in particular, naming practices that anti-stigma initiatives have identified as problematic and stigmatising, the press use identity-first forms (identified as stigmatising by mental health advocates) to refer to people with mental illness (e.g. 'a schizophrenic') more often than person-first forms (such as 'a person with schizophrenia'); despite this, early evidence suggests the press are increasingly adopting person-first language, which is the linguistic structure promoted by mental health advocates; (iii) with reference to transitivity, whilst the press overall represent the process of having mental illness as 'suffering', first-person accounts from people with mental illness are proportionally 4-times more likely to refer to having mental illness as 'experiencing' it (e.g. "I was experiencing psychosis"). I found that, overall, reports that include symptoms of mental illness are inaccurate, or are reported in contexts that are too specific to serve the purpose of properly informing the public about mental illness.

On the basis of these findings, I argue that it would be beneficial for journalists and mental health charities to make a number of changes to the way they write about mental health. One basic but important change for mental health charities would be to take account of linguistic evidence prior to creating guidelines stipulating prescribed linguistic forms for discussing mental illness in the press. A further important change for journalists would be to more accurately depict the symptoms of mental illness in news articles and ensure that symptoms are contextualised appropriately (e.g. not used in reference to violent attacks).

This thesis is offered as a contribution to the developing field of medical humanities. It provides findings and methods for examining further the issue of the press representation of mental illness and the related impact on society (and on individuals in society) that this can have.


DOI https://doi.org/ 10.1055/s-0041-1732842 ISSN 2457-0206 © 2021. Official Publication of The Simulation Society (TSS), accredited by International Society of Cardiovascular Ultrasound (ISCU). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.


In this work we propose novel numerical schemes for nonlinear Fokker-Planck-type equations with anisotropic diffusion matrix that preserve fundamental structural properties like non negativity of the solution, entropy dissipation and which guarantees an arbitrarily accurate approximation of the steady state of the problem. All the methods presented are at least second order accurate in the transient regimes and high order for large times. Applications of the schemes to models for collective phenomena and life sciences are considered, in these examples anomalous diffusion is often observed and must be taken into account in realistic models.


1. The relationship of basal plasma noradrenaline to blood pressure, age, sex, urinary sodium excretion, and plasma volume has been examined in 117 untreated ambulatory patients with essential hypertension. 2. No significant correlations between basal plasma noradrenaline and either age or sex were apparent in the total group of essential hypertensive patients. In addition, no significant correlations were observed between plasma noradrenaline and 24 h urinary sodium excretion. 3. Basal plasma noradrenaline concentration was significantly higher in high renin essential hypertensive subjects compared with those with normal or low plasma renin activity. 4. Plasma noradrenaline was reduced significantly in relatively young patients with low renin essential hypertension, but appeared to be normal in other low renin subjects. 5. Basal plasma noradrenaline correlated significantly with blood pressure in patients with normal or low renin essential hypertension but the relationships were only significant in male patients. 6. No significant relationship between basal plasma noradrenaline and either blood pressure or plasma volume could be demonstrated in this population of essential hypertensive patients.


The aim of this work was to establish alternative methods for sheep morulae cryopreservation by using vitrification by open pulled straw (OPS) methods and super-cooling ultra-rapid vitrification (SCURV). Both treatments used a vitrification solution (VS) of 20% (3.6 mol L-1) ethylene glycol (EG), 20% (2.4 mol L-1) dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), 0.5 mol L-1 sucrose in DPBS with 10% BSA in both methods. In our experiment we used the Vit-Master™ (MTG, Germany). The super-cooled LN facilitates heat transmission between LN and the cryosolution interface, and this is efficient for bovine semen and blastocyst cryoconservation (Arav et al. 2002). By surgical flushing of 24 super stimulated ewes 121 transferrable morulae were harvested; 30 morulae were transferred fresh to synchronised recipients and the others were cryopreserved by OPS (n = 49) or SCURV (n = 42), respectively thawed or warmed, and transferred to recipients. Embryos were vitrified using the OPS method. They were first incubated in 50% VS for 2 min and then transferred for 30 s into 100% VS. Each embryo was loaded by touching a 1-μL drop with the straw, which was immediately submerged into and stored in liquid nitrogen. Warming was done by placing the narrow end of the straw into DPBS + 0.25M sucrose for 5 min. Embryos were then transferred into DPBS + 0.125 M sucrose for 3 min and finally to DPBS until transfer. The SCURV morulae were then exposed to 50 and 100% VS at 37°C for 2 min and 30 s, respectively. Embryos after saturation VS have been transferred by on a surface of a nylon loop (volume 20 μL, diameter 0.5 mm) and using negative pressure temperature of liquid nitrogen in the chamber for freezing with the VIT-Master. Thawing vitrified embryos was accomplished by placing the vitrified embryos in solutions of sucrose 0.25 and 0.125 with expositions of 2 and 3 min, accordingly. After embryos were thawed, only good quality embryos were transferred. Importantly, our data suggest that by using the SCURV method, the toxic elements contained in the cryopreservation solution can be reduced while maintaining a similar ability to produce viable morulae for implantation as the OPS method. Although further work on the developmental competence of embryos cryopreserved with the SCURV method are needed, these data suggest that the faster freeze rate and lower levels of cryoprotectants of SCURV are able to minimize ice crystal formation and should be further evaluated as a routine mechanism for cryopreserving sheep morulae. Table 1.Effect vitrification and ultra-rapid super-cooling vitrification on the viability and lambing of sheep morulae


Objective: Increased age is associated with improved subjective well-being in the general population. However, there are conflicting findings regarding this association in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). In the present study, we examined differences in depression and quality of life (QOL) among 3 age groups of individuals with MS. Method: Participants consisted of 57 individuals with MS who were divided into 3 age groups: 35–44, 45–54, and 55–65 years. Outcome measures included the Mood and Evaluative scale t scores on the Chicago Multiscale Depression Inventory (CMDI) and the Physical and Mental scale scores on the Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life Instrument (MSQOL-54). Results: After controlling for disease duration, individuals in the oldest group reported significantly less severe depressive symptoms and better physical QOL than the youngest group. Conclusions: Results are consistent with theoretical predictions and observations of improved subjective well-being with age in the general population. Younger individuals with MS may be at higher risk for depression and poor QOL. Additional research is needed to model the findings in larger samples and clarify the theoretical mechanisms of the observed associations.


Abstract Soil redistribution studies are important, especially in water supply catchments, because the rate at which denudation is occurring has implications for offsite water quality. However, the extent to which soil is redistributed within the landscape can be difficult to determine. This challenge can be overcome using fallout caesium-137 (137Cs). This paper describes the rates of soil loss and remobilisation in two sub-catchments within the Sydney Basin region, namely Kembla and Kentish Creeks, which drain to the Cordeaux reservoir. The total inventories of 137Cs in catchment soils were determined, a 137Cs-regression equation and a theoretical diffusion and migration model were used to established relationships between 137Cs inventories and the rates of soil loss. These relationships revealed relatively low occurrence of soil loss in Kentish Creek, but two slopes in the Kembla Creek sub-catchment had losses that appear to be moderate. However, there was no clear evidence to suggest whether slopes in upper and lower reaches of catchments had specific patterns of soil remobilisation. Qualitative categorisation of the slope elements using a 137Cs-sediment hillslope model can be a useful sentinel for land users and decision makers even if absolute rates of soil loss or gain are not certain. The findings suggest that sediments mobilised in the study sub-catchments are not likely to impact significantly on the water quality in the Cordeaux reservoir.


Beat detection systems are widely used in the music information retrieval (MIR) research field for the computation of tempo and beat time positions in audio signals. One of the most important parts of these systems is usually onset detection. There is an understandable tendency to employ the most accurate onset detector. However, there are options to increase the global tempo (GT) accuracy and also the detection accuracy of beat positions at the expense of less accurate onset detection. The aim of this study is to introduce an enhancement of a conventional beat detector. The enhancement is based on the Teager–Kaiser energy operator (TKEO), which pre-processes the input audio signal before the spectral flux calculation. The proposed approach is first evaluated in terms of the ability to estimate the GT and beat positions accuracy of given audio tracks compared to the same conventional system without the proposed enhancement. The accuracy of the GT and average beat differences (ABD) estimation is tested on the manually labelled reference database. Finally, this system is used for analysis of a string quartet music database. Results suggest that the presence of the TKEO lowers onset detection accuracy but also increases the GT and ABD estimation. The average deviation from the reference GT in the reference database is 9.99 BPM (11.28%), which improves the conventional methodology, where the average deviation is 18.19 BPM (17.74%). This study has a pilot character and provides some suggestions for improving the beat tracking system for music analysis.


Abstract One of the risks faced by retirees is the possibility of outliving money saved for the retirement years. Knowing the sustainability of withdrawal rates from a portfolio, or at least the risks associated with them, would greatly help retirees deal with this problem. Two procedures proposed to analyze the problem are Monte Carlo simulation and the overlapping periods methodology. This study compares and contrasts the implications of these two procedures for sustainable withdrawal rates from a retirement portfolio. Under some conditions, the procedures produce similar results, but in others the differences are quite large. (C) 2003 Academy of Financial Services. All rights reserved. JEL classification: G1; G2 Keywords: Retirement portfolio; Sustainable withdrawal rates; Monte Carlo/overlapping periods 1. Introduction One of the many changes that the Internet has brought to retirement planning is the use of mathematical simulations to assist in retirement investment planning. Investors nearing retirement age become especially interested in how much income their portfolios will provide at reasonable risk-return tradeoffs. In other words, what would be a reasonable withdrawal rate from a retirement portfolio? Withdraw too much and the retiree dies broke, but withdraw too little and the retiree unnecessarily sacrifices a higher standard of living. A portfolio is successful only if it lasts as long as required by the retiree. Money Tree, U.S. News, Fidelity, Vanguard, Financial Engines, and NETirement are examples of companies that offer net-based simulations to help retirees. The typical simulation program provides Monte Carlo simulations that require input assumptions regarding personal characteristics and expected investment performance. The program then outputs estimates of the probability of retirement portfolio success assuming various initial withdrawal rates, portfolio compositions, and payout periods. For retirees who are unfamiliar with mathematical simulation, the process may well be regarded as a "black box" out of which flows investment advice. The alternative approach to simulation relies on actual historical security returns and inflation rates. Referred to as the overlapping (or rolling) periods method, it makes intensive use of historical market returns to calculate periodic portfolio returns and end-of-period values net of planned retirement withdrawals. The sample size in the overlapping periods approach is limited to the available historical returns data, whereas simulation programs can simulate very large numbers of market returns from which a large number of hypothetical portfolios and payout periods may be evaluated. Special care, however, must be taken in simulating security returns so that the underlying time series properties (such as mean reversion) are preserved. An obvious concern for retirees is which methodology produces more reliable results. If one approach reports significantly different portfolio success rates for the same range of withdrawal rates, portfolio compositions, and payout periods, retirees must make a methodological choice. Theoretically, if the simulation faithfully incorporates all meaningful market properties, the simulation methodology should produce highly robust results, looking at the effects of different portfolio withdrawal rates over potentially thousands of simulated holding periods. However, if actual security returns are generated from unstable distributions or different distributions over time, it might not be possible to build a realistic simulation. In such a situation, the overlapping periods methodology would be a more accurate predictor of sustainable withdrawal rates. Fortunately, in many cases we find that the alternative methods produce similar results and no methodological choice is required. In these cases, the simulation methodology closely matches the market conditions of the overlapping methodology. …


Skeletal muscle is one of the many organs that exhibit adaptations in response to exercise. Skeletal muscle undergoes a transcriptional reprogramming to increase mitochondrial biogenesis and oxidative phosphorylation, fatty acid oxidation, and slow-twitch contractile proteins, which not only contribute to enhanced performance and endurance but also contribute to protection from obesity and metabolic disorders. Overexpression of an activated form of the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) in the skeletal muscles of mice appears to preprogram muscle fibers to an oxidative phenotype and increases running endurance in untrained mice. Treatment of adult mice with the PPARγ agonist GW1516 in combination with exercise increases endurance and reprograms skeletal muscle. Narkar et al. show that GW1516 does not increase endurance in the absence of exercise and that both are necessary to increase the proportion of slow-twitch muscle, increase mitochondrial biogenesis, and increase the transcription of genes involved in fatty acid storage and uptake. Adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is constitutively activated in the muscles of the transgenic mice overexpressing activated PPARγ. Treatment of mice with AICAR, an AMPK agonist, increased their endurance in the absence of any training. AMPK activation with AICAR combined with PPARγ activation with GW1516 in sedentary mice produced a transcriptional profile that was unique (189 genes), but 52 of these overlapped with many of the genes regulated by exercise combined with activation of PPARγ with GW1516 (130 genes). Primary muscle cultures from wild-type or PPARγ-null mice revealed that the effects of GW1516 and AICAR on gene expression required PPARγ. Transfected AD293 cells revealed that the α subunits of AMPK coimmunoprecipitated with PPARγ but did not appear to phosphorylate PPARγ. Thus, AMPK may promote PPARγ activity either through a protein-protein interaction or by phosphorylating coactivators. Although the ability of a single drug to mimic the effects of exercise in skeletal muscle in mice is tantalizing, it remains to be determined whether these results can be extrapolated to humans and what effects activation of AMPK may have on other organs that are important for mediating the health benefits of exercise (see Richter et al.). V. A. Narkar, M. Downes, R. T. Yu, E. Embler, Y.-X. Wang, E. Banayo, M. M. Mihaylova, M. C. Nelson, Y. Zou, H. Juguilon, H. Kang, R. J. Shaw, R. M. Evans, AMPK and PPARγ agonists are exercise mimetics. Cell 134, 405-415 (2008). [PubMed] E. A. Richter, B. Kiens, J. F. P. Wojtaszewski, Can exercise mimetics substitute for exercise? Cell Metab. 8, 96-98 (2008). [PubMed]


Prolotherapy is a regenerative therapy method involving the injection of an irritant solution into the painful ligament and tendon insertions and adjacent joint spaces in the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain. Hypertonic dextrose is commonly used solution. The goal is reducing pain and promoting tissue repair and growth. Current hypotheses suggest that prolotherapy stimulates local healing of chronically injured extra-and intra-articular tissue. As a procedure, prolotherapy is safe with few adverse effects or contraindications. It has long history and widespread use as a complementary medical treatment. Although the most frequently published indication is the treatment of chronic low back pain, recent studies have investigated its use in the treatment of refractory tendinopathies as well as osteoarthritis. There is growing evidence to recommend using prolotherapy in the treatment of refractory tendinopathies, specifically lateral epicondylosis and Achilles tendinopathy and osteoarthritis, specifically knee and hand osteoarthritis. There is also an evidence to recommend the use of prolotherapy in the treatment of chronic low back pain in combination with adjunctive therapies as spinal manipulation or exercises. Prolotherapy remains a promising option for the treatment of musculoskeletal pain when other standard treatments have proven to be ineffective. However, further large-scale and well designed clinical studies are needed to obtain more objective evidences.


Food producers and distributors are the main responsible actors to ensure food safety in the People's Republic of China. Where food safety is the goal, hygiene is the means to reach that goal. Food businesses must therefore obtain a license that demonstrates compliance with basic hygiene rules before they can enter into business. Also, food businesses must establish and implement food safety management rules to control food safety during the processing phase. This includes the control of incoming products, packaging, storage and transportation, traceability, and the establishment of a recall system. Under the principle of self-regulation, food producers and distributors are required to formulate self-regulatory rules to comply with their obligations. They are guided by the 2015 Food Safety Law, the administrative rules that further implement the Food Safety Law, as well as by various food safety standards that are characteristic to the food safety regulatory system of the People's Republic of China. This paper covers the chronological steps that food producers and distributors have to take to guarantee food safety. Although this paper mainly focusses on food producers and distributors in the People's Republic of China, overseas producers of certain high-risk food products that wish to export to the People's Republic of China may also be subject to process-related requirements by means of facility registration.


In this work, the reduction of seismic hazard in eastern Sicily is addressed by both studying the fundamental resonant frequency of strategic buildings through low cost geophysical investigation techniques, and exploring a practical approach to earthquake early warning (EEW) system. The fundamental period and the corresponding amplification of some selected strategic buildings has been estimated using ambient vibration and earthquake data. We analyzed the basic dynamic parameters of buildings chosen as target, by using continuous vibration measurements at different floors. The dynamic behavior of structures was evaluated considering both small strains induced by ambient vibrations and larger excitation levels due to the earthquakes occurrence. A practical approach to earthquake early warning in the investigated area was dealt with by using empirical relationships between parameters measured on the initial portion of seismic recordings and related to the earthquake magnitude and peak ground motion. In particular, we performed the first preliminary tests by using empirical relationships calibrated for the considered area and taking into account the geometry of the existing permanent seismic network deployed in the eastern Sicily. The estimated relationships have been used to provide onsite warning around a given seismic station and evaluate the potential damaging effects. The joint of EEW system and geophysical investigation shown in this work may be deemed a useful guide for the future implementation of the in real time seismic monitoring in the region.


Ironically, William Wordsworth (1770-1850)--"the greatest English poet since Milton" and one whose "historical influence on language, ideas, and manners has been immense" according to the respected scholar of English Romanticism, Carl Woodring--"has been translated to little effect ... relative to a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Bunyan, or a Dostoevsky." (2) One of the relatively few translators of Wordsworth has been Samuil Marshak (1887-1964), quintessential Soviet Russian man of letters of his time. Marshak was a successful poet, translator, political satirist and state propagandist, magazine editor, and author of children's books. Moreover, he was the founder of the state children's publishing house, and in his moving depiction of pre-revolutionary Jewish life in his memoirs he established himself as "a link in the chain of many generations of Russian Jewry." (3) One of the projects Marshak undertook as poet-translator involved four of the five short lyrics of Wordsworth that posterity has brought together under the rubric of the "Lucy" poems. (These four poems appear below in Appendix A; Marshak's translations, in Cyrillic, appear in Appendix B; our back-translations of Marshak's versions appear in Appendix C.) (4) It should be noted at the outset that much is lost if the reader tends to view the "Lucy" poems as simply traditional "love" poems. The "Lucy" poems are in fact, first of all, as Geoffrey Durrant says, "'lyrical ballads,' each of which tells a verse story and presents it dramatically. To confuse the mode of the 'Lucy' poems with that of the love lyric is to overlook their structure, in which, as in the traditional ballad, a story is told as boldly and briefly as possible.... (5) A comparison of, say, the first stanza of "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" with the first stanza of the traditional ballad "Katharine Jaffray": There livd a lass in yonder dale, And doun in yonder glen, O. And Kathrine Jaffray was her name, Well known by many men, O. and the last stanza of "A slumber did my spirit seal" with stanza 26 of" The Lass of Roch Royal": O cherry, cherry was her cheek. And gowden was her hair, But clay cold were her rosey lips, Nae spark of life was there. (6) demonstrates that Wordsworth follows the folk ballad in his handling of rhythm, structure, and, to a certain extent, theme and imagery, although he--followed by Marshak--uses a variant ballad stanza: a4--b3--a4 b3. (Wordsworth bought a copy of Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, the great repository of British ballad materials, in Hamburg in 1798 a few months before he started to write the "Lucy" poems during his and Dorothy's sojourn in Germany.) (7) Secondly, the "Lucy" poems are, as Carl Woodring suggests, elegies. They "are elegiac in the sense of sober meditation on death or a subject related to death," and they "have the economy and the general air of epitaphs in the Greek Anthology.... If all elegies are mitigations of death, the Lucy poems are also meditations on simple beauty, by distance made more sweet and by death preserved in distance." (8) A side-by-side comparison of a poem from the Greek Anthology, the "Epitaph of the Singing-Girl Musa," with both stanzas of "A slumber did my spirit seal" reveals the similarity in tone and structure of the "Lucy" poem, ironic and spare as it is, to the Greek epitaph and thus helps to support Woodring's point: Musa the blue-eyed, the sweetly singing nightingale, Lies here suddenly mute in this little grave, Still as a stone, who was once so witty, so much loved: Pretty Musa, may this dust rest lightly upon you. (9) Though one is not obliged to accept F. W. Bateson's thesis that the figure of Lucy is Wordsworth's device for sublimating his incestuous feelings for his sister Dorothy, (10) it does seem likely that, as Wordsworth's editor, Ernest De Selincourt, suggests, the figure of Lucy is in fact inspired by Dorothy). …


This thesis is a study of Iranian-Islamic social movements. Iran has witnessed four major social movements in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Except for the
Islamic Revolution of 1978-79 which attracted a great deal of sociological attention, and the Constitutional Revolution which has received some specialist study, the other two, regardless of their importance and influence in the Iranian history, have been grossly neglected. In order to have a better sociological understanding and a more
general model of this type of social movements there is need to review all of them according to the same theory and with an identical method. These cases which are
explored in this study are: the Tobacco Movement (1892) - an 'anti colonialism' movement, the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1906) - a 'justice' movement, the 15th
of Khordad movement (1963) - an 'anti modernisation' movement, and the last in chain, the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79 - an 'anti imperialism' movement.

This thesis also attempts to provide a contribution to the theory of social movements with a review and synthesis of the existing major theories of the area. Ten key social
movement theories are reviewed and a new synthetic one is developed. The models under review belong to Smelser (1962), Davies (1962), Toch (1966), Blumer (1969),
Wilson (1973), Tilly (1978), Touraine (1981), McCarthy and Zald (1987), Melucci (1989) and Scott (1990). These theories identify quite different 'engines' of the social
movement and thus can be classified according to whether they regard the individual, society, or their relations as the main cause or initiator of the social movements.
Following the discussions of the relationship between the individual and society, this thesis recognises the need for an approach to social explanation which looks at the fine
texture of the interrelationship of the structure, agency, and their relations, and so proposes a 'synthetic' theory of social movements which recognises the importance of
the conjunction of the three elements of the individualist, the structural and the relationalist models. In this theory of social movements, social context provides the ground for the underlying mechanism of the movement to be released. Ideology plays the part of the relational factor between the individual and the society. It is the main mobilisational factor of social movements. Actors then 'perform' the movements at three levels of social actions: leadership, distribution, and enactment of the outburst.

The synthetic theory provides a framework for a more comprehensive study of the four cases. Each of the movements is explained using it as a 'conceptual grid' and it is shown on each occasion to be useful tool in identifying the main agents, antagonisms, ideologies, social opportunities and constraints, and the accomplishment of the movements. So whilst the movements vary by 'focus' and by 'success' it is shown that it is Islamic ideology which shapes the goals of 'justice', 'freedom', 'independence' and 'democracy'. In all of the reviewed movements the authority of the shah came into dispute with the command of the ulama, and it was religious rituals and organisations which mobilised the people.

Whilst the synthetic theory proposed here can provide an analytic framework with which to compare the movements, the history of the analysed movements reveals the significance of the 'political sociology' of Iran's last hundred years. This dimention provides an understanding of some of the 'initial conditins' which underpin the Iranian
social movements. The thesis attempts to outline some crucial elements in this sociopolitical history, and attest their importance by examination of one further Iranian
social movement, the National Movement of Iran (195 1-1953). This was a predominantly non-Islamic movement which failed because it declined to take the advantage of the authority of the ulama as one of the major sways at the socio-political setting of Iranian society.

The adequacy of the resultant knowledge from the proposed model of Iranian-Islamic social movements is further tested against the some writings of nine scholars on Iranian
social movements: Fischer (1980), Milani (1988), Parsa (1989), Amuzegar (1991), Ray (1993), Zubaida (1993), Moaddel (1993), Foran (1994) and Keddie (1995).


More than sixty percent of today's email traffic is spam, according to email filtering firm Brightmail. This year alone, five trillion spam messages will clog Internet users in-boxes, costing society an estimated $10-billion in lost productivity, filtering software, and other expenses. Spam Kings: The Real Story behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and %*@)# Enlargements is the first book to expose the shadowy world of the people responsible for the junk email problem. Author and veteran investigative journalist Brian S. McWilliams delivers a compelling account of the cat-and-mouse game played by spam entrepreneurs in search of easy fortunes and those who are trying to stop them. Spam Kings chronicles the evolution of Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a notorious neo-Nazi leader (Jewish-born) who got into junk email in 1999. Using Hawke as a case study, Spam Kings traces the twenty-year-old neophyte's rise in the spam trade to his emergence as a major player in the lucrative penis pill market--a business that would eventually make him a millionaire and the target of lawsuits from AOL and others. Spam Kings also tells the parallel story of Susan Gunn, a computer novice in California who is reluctantly drawn into the spam wars and eventually joins a group of anti-spam activists. Her volunteer sleuth work puts her on a collision course with Hawke and other spammers, who try to wreak revenge on the antis. You'll also meet other cyber-vigilantes who have taken up the fight against spammers as well as the cast of quirky characters who comprise Hawke's business associates. The book sheds light on the technical sleight-of-hand--forged headers, open relays, harvesting tools, and bulletproof hosting--and other sleazy business practices that spammers use; the work of top anti-spam attorneys; the surprising new partnership developing between spammers and computer hackers; and the rise of a new breed of computer viruses designed to turn the PCs of innocent bystanders into secret spam factories.


Applications hosted in the cloud have become indispensable in several contexts, with their performance often being key to business operation and their running costs needing to be minimized. To minimize running costs, most modern virtualization technologies such as Linux Containers, Xen, and KVM offer powerful resource control primitives for individual provisioning – that enable adding or removing of fraction of cores and/or megabytes of memory for as short as few seconds. Despite the technology being ready, there is a lack of proper techniques for fine-grained resource allocation, because there is an inherent challenge in determining the correct composition of resources an application needs, with varying workload, to ensure deterministic performance. This paper presents a control-based approach for the management of multiple resources, accounting for the resource consumption, together with the application performance, enabling fine-grained vertical elasticity. The control strategy ensures that the application meets the target performance indicators, consuming as less resources as possible. We carried out an extensive set of experiments using different applications – interactive with response-time requirements, as well as noninteractive with throughput desires – by varying the workload mixes of each application over time. The results demonstrate that our solution precisely provides guaranteed performance while at the same time avoiding both resource over-and underprovisioning.


ABSTRACT We draw on Rampton's Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents (2014. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge) notion of 'crossing' to explore contestations in ethnolinguistic, cultural and racial affiliations at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), a university built for 'Coloureds' in apartheid South Africa, but which rebelled by admitting students of all races and ethnic backgrounds. Using interviews and observation data, we show contestations around Xhosa and Afrikaans as languages for black and coloured solidarity, respectively. We argue that the multilingual and multicultural contexts in place entail that social legitimacy is not achieved through fixed linguistics forms, bounded ethnolinguistic categories and predetermined racial characteristics but in negotiated in-group and out-group codes all of which are part of the students' repertoire. We conclude that diversity is a function of discourses of convergence and divergence as social practice, which give the institution its unique character. The contestations and contradictions thus reflect the democratic conditions on which discourses of diversity are produced and consumed by the multiple socio-cultural range of student populace.


This article chronicles the milling of wheat beginning with its cultivation about ten thousand years ago. It describes the milling of the grain, starting with primitive hand tools, progressing to larger mills, then the use of animal power to turn milling stones. Changes in the design of the mills made them more efficient. Using flowing water to turn the millstone greatly increased output; people without access to flowing water devised mills turned by the wind. As wheat became a more important crop, an automated system, using elevators and gravity chutes, made it possible to mill even more grain. Technological advances led to changes——rollers replaced stones, steam replaced water, and electricity eventually replaced steam as the mill9s energy source. Modern mills employ sophisticated machinery in an attempt to extract as much flour from the wheat kernels as possible.


Abstract This short paper sets out the basic dilemma of transport policy making today, as how to strike the balance between the benefits of accessibility and the induced externalities in terms of sprawl, greenhouse gas emissions and congestion. The impacts of the Corona-19 pandemic sharpens the dilemma. They are presented using a large Swiss GPS tracking panel collected at the IVT, ETHZ in conjunction with WWZ, Universität Basel. The facets presented are the share of mobiles, miles travelled by mode and work status. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible solutions in the expected "new normal" at the pandemic.


In this work, a novel spectral interferometry technique called vertical travelling scatterometry (VTS) is introduced, demonstrated, and discussed. VTS utilizes unique information from spectral interferometry and enables solutions for applications that are infeasible with traditional scatterometry approaches. The technique allows for data filtering related to spectral information from buried layers, which can then be ignored in the optical model. Therefore, using VTS, selective measurements of the topmost part of an arbitrarily complex stack are possible within a single metrology step. This methodology helps to overcome geometrical complexities and allows focusing on parameters of interest through dramatically simplified optical modelling. Such model simplifications are specifically desired for back-end-of-line applications. Three examples are discussed in this paper: monitoring (i) critical dimensions of a first metal level on top of nanosheet gate-all-around transistor structures, (ii) the thickness of an interlayer dielectric above embedded memory in the active area, and (iii) critical dimensions of trenches on top of tall stacks in the micrometer range comprising many layered dielectrics. It was found that, in all three cases, data filtering through VTS allowed for a simple optical model capable of delivering parameters of interest. The validity and accuracy of the VTS solution results were confirmed by extensive reference metrology obtained by traditional scatterometry, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy.


A BSTRACT: The articles in this volume reinforce the power of ethnographic humanism, of anthropology in action. The focus is on the relationship between macro political forces and their influence on the varied experiences of health in advanced industrial capitalist contexts. Our approach views migrants as capable agents negotiating new lives for themselves and confronting the challenges they face. We strongly advocate socially informed policy that offers at minimum recognition to migrants as full fledged members of the new society that they have voluntarily or involuntarily migrated to.


The amount of taxes paid by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in host and home countries continues to make headline news. Corporate tax regimes, particularly those in many OECD countries, have never been more complex and the competition to attract and retain foreign direct investment (FDI) has perhaps never been so great. All of these political, legal, economic and competitive realities face countries at a time when they need additional budget revenues. At the June 2012 G-20 Summit in Los Cabos, leaders identified base erosion and profit shifting as key fiscal issue to be addressed. Many are expecting this to translate into a new approach to applying existing international tax standards, an increased pressure to eliminate "corporate tax breaks," enact tougher anti-abuse provisions, and less tolerance of aggressive tax planning. There has been an increased critical focus on transfer pricing, corporate restructuring and double tax treaties. Some have suggested that double tax treaties are eroding the domestic tax bases of developing countries, while others conclude that double tax treaties promote development and FDI and thereby expand the tax base. Dividing up a "revenue pie" has never been easy and the implementation of international tax rules to transparently and predictably allocate revenue to avoid double taxation and double non taxation has never been more adversarial between taxpayers and tax authorities and between tax jurisdictions. It was for these reasons that the Global Tax Policy Center of the Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law (Vienna University of Economics and Business) and the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) decided to undertake this study. The objective of our study was to look at the development impact of double taxation treaties and, more broadly, how tax policy can help generate economic growth and prosperity. Legally domestic tax laws are normally subordinate to international double taxation treaties, but in reality a double tax treaty only serves a country as well as its domestic tax regime. We've concluded that the problems affecting developing countries lie not with double tax treaties but rather in weak domestic tax legislation. Our study reviews empirical data from 20 developing countries, including LDCs, middle-to-high income developing countries, resource-rich countries, and BRIICS countries. We hope that the empirical analysis and the conclusions that can be drawn from it can help guide policymakers to refocus their policy objectives to boost capital formation, expanding exports, and protect their domestic tax bases. We believe that a country with strong domestic tax legislation can advance their pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals by affectively utilizing double tax treaties and the related international tax rules to more transparently share and grow their tax base.


Abstract. The island of Seram, which lies in the northern part of the 180°-curved Banda Arc, has previously been interpreted as a fold-and-thrust belt formed during arc-continent collision, which incorporates ophiolites intruded by granites thought to have been produced by anatexis within a metamorphic sole. However, new geological mapping and a re-examination of the field relations cause us to question this model. We instead propose that there is evidence for recent and rapid N–S extension that has caused the high-temperature exhumation of lherzolites beneath low-angle lithospheric detachment faults that induced high-temperature metamorphism and melting in overlying crustal rocks. These "Kobipoto Complex" migmatites include highly residual Al–Mg-rich garnet + cordierite + sillimanite + spinel + corundum granulites (exposed in the Kobipoto Mountains) which contain coexisting spinel + quartz, indicating that peak metamorphic temperatures likely approached 900 °C. Associated with these residual granulites are voluminous Mio-Pliocene granitic diatexites, or "cordierite granites", which crop out on Ambon, western Seram, and in the Kobipoto Mountains and incorporate abundant schlieren of spinel- and sillimanite-bearing residuum. Quaternary "ambonites" (cordierite + garnet dacites) emplaced on Ambon were also evidently sourced from the Kobipoto Complex migmatites as demonstrated by granulite-inherited xenoliths. Exhumation of the hot peridotites and granulite-facies Kobipoto Complex migmatites to shallower structural levels caused greenschist- to lower-amphibolite facies metapelites and amphibolites of the Tehoru Formation to be overprinted by sillimanite-grade metamorphism, migmatisation, and limited localised anatexis to form the Taunusa Complex. The extreme extension required to have driven Kobipoto Complex exhumation evidently occurred throughout Seram and along much of the northern Banda Arc. The lherzolites must have been juxtaposed against the crust at typical lithospheric mantle temperatures in order to account for such high-temperature metamorphism and therefore could not have been part of a cooled ophiolite. In central Seram, lenses of peridotites are incorporated with a major left-lateral strike-slip shear zone (the "Kawa Shear Zone"), demonstrating that strike-slip motions likely initiated shortly after the mantle had been partly exhumed by detachment faulting and that the main strike-slip faults may themselves be reactivated and steepened low-angle detachments. The geodynamic driver for mantle exhumation along the detachment faults and strike-slip faulting in central Seram is very likely the same; we interpret the extreme extension to be the result of eastward slab rollback into the Banda Embayment as outlined by the latest plate reconstructions for Banda Arc evolution.


The paraneoplastic neurological disorders provide perhaps the best known example of naturally occurring tumor immunity in humans. For example, patients with paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD) appear to suppress the growth of occult breast or ovarian tumors that express a neuronal antigen termed cdr2. PCD patients harbor cdr2-specific CTLs in their peripheral blood, and these cells are likely mediators of the tumor suppression. Whereas cdr2 therefore appears to be the target of an effective immune response in patients with PCD, the general relevance to cancer patients has been unclear, due in part to reports indicating that cdr2 is not expressed in tumors obtained from neurologically normal patients. We have reexamined this question, and we find that cdr2 is widely expressed in such tumors, indicating that cdr2 is in fact an important tumor antigen in the general population of breast and ovarian cancer patients.


Background. Simulation is a commonly used method for clinical learning and assessment in the health sciences. However, despite technological advancements, we are unable to perfectly simulate the appearance and behaviour of real patients, including the stressors, distractions and surroundings commonly encountered in the authentic clinical environment. In South Africa, simulations are used extensively in the education and training of emergency care practitioners (ECPs). Objective. To investigate and describe the views of ECP students regarding the value of simulation v. four other learning methods in preparing them for real-world practice. Methods. ECP students ( N =79) completed a purposefully designed questionnaire. A Likert scale was used to obtain participants' views on how well simulation ranks compared with theoretical lectures, tutorials, inhospital and prehospital work in preparing them for clinical practice. Results. Participants valued simulation as an educational tool. Simulation was ranked as the best method for teaching clinical assessments and procedures and came second only to the real clinical environment for teaching clinical decision-making. Simulation was ranked third, after theoretical classes and prehospital shifts, with regard to learning to take a history and identify life-threatening conditions. Conclusions. ECP students view simulation as a valuable learning method to manage incidents, conduct clinical assessments, perform procedures and make clinical decisions. Simulation, however, has limitations and was seen as less suited for teaching history-taking and identification of life-threatening conditions. Further research is needed to determine the ideal blend of simulation with other pedagogies in the education of ECP students.


The papers presented in this volume address the concepts and workings of authenticity and replication with a view to understanding better their role in the investigation and conservation of works of art and cultural heritage objects. They provide insight into topics such as the ethics and practicalities of replication, the impact of different interpretations of authenticity on conservation and interpretative approaches, cultural heritage online, and developing the audience's understanding of history through the methodology of replication.

The concept of authenticity is one of the core factors driving decision making in conservation and restoration, as reflected in the professional ethical codes. These judgements are becoming more complex due to rapidly changing conservation methodologies, both technical and virtual, and the increasing amounts of information provided by advances in conservation science. New approaches to interpretation, display and use of collections by the cultural heritage sector compound the situation. The tangible and intangible qualities and conceptual aspects of contemporary and non-western artefacts in particular have made the role of curators, conservators, art historians, and conservation scientists even more challenging and pressing.

A culmination of a series of meetings of the Research Network for Textile Conservation, Dress and Textile History and Technical Art History, The Real Thing? conference provided a platform for these issues to be explored. The resulting papers – with a wide range of approaches, some object- and practice-based, some more philosophical – enable the continuation of a discussion that is at the heart of interpretation, display and conservation of artworks and cultural heritage.


In this article I look at issues around access to material for researching the pasts of women in Wales and two archives in Wales are discussed: The Butetown History and Arts Centre (BHAC) which has recorded oral interviews with women from the community of Butetown ('Tiger Bay') in Cardiff, as well as collecting other material about the community, and Archif Menywod Cymru/Women's Archive of Wales (WAW), which is working to 'rescue' sources of women's history across Wales. Access to all archives is vital as there is a general lack of material about women's pasts in Wales which can be used to challenge stereotyped representations of Welsh women, particularly of working-class women. Both BHAC and WAW have relied on public funding to differing degrees and this has been an increasingly important element in helping a large number of groups and organisations in Wales in the areas of community and local history to carry out their own research. However, public funding often comes with obligations regarding access to material which might not tie in with the aims and ethos of some more specialist archives. The changing nature of county record offices/archives is also important as they continue to become much more involved in collaborative projects with community groups and other organisations.


This paper seeks to answer two questions: How can we further develop a country?s microfinance industry and what impact might this have on the country?s income distribution?. Also it presents substantial arguments and data to support the contention that improving the access of micro and small enterprises to financial services could have an important salutary impact on a country's income distribution. To demonstrate this, the paper shows first that many poor own or are employed by smaller enterprises, second that smaller enterprises are indeed poorly served with formal and semi-formal credit, and third that providing financial services to smaller enterprises increases their income and employment and reduces income inequality to an important degree. Using household survey data from 15 Latin American countries, the paper finds that while the microenterprise sector accounts for 56 percent of all earners in the region, it includes 70 percent of the region's poor earners (with 35 percent of the poor earners being single-person-firm owners and the other 35 percent microenterprise employees).


Most of the high-speed trains in operation today have the electrical power supply delivered through the pantograph–catenary system. The understanding of the dynamics of this system is fundamental since it contributes to decrease the number of incidents related to these components, to reduce the maintenance and to improve interoperability. From the mechanical point of view, the most important feature of the pantograph–catenary system consists in the quality of the contact between the contact wire of the catenary and the contact strips of the pantograph. The catenary is represented by a finite element model, whereas the pantograph is described by a detailed multibody model, analysed through two independent codes in a co-simulation environment. A computational procedure ensuring the efficient communication between the multibody and finite element codes, through shared computer memory, and suitable contact force models were developed. The models presented here are contributions for the identification of the dynamic behaviour of the pantograph and of the interaction phenomena in the pantograph–catenary system of high-speed trains due to the action of aerodynamics forces. The wind forces are applied on the catenary by distributing them on the finite element mesh. Since the multibody formulation does not include explicitly the geometric information of the bodies, the wind field forces are applied to each body of the pantograph as time-dependent nonlinear external forces. These wind forces can be characterised either by using computational fluid dynamics or experimental testing in a wind tunnel. The proposed methodologies are demonstrated by the application to real operation scenarios for high-speed trains, with the purpose of defining service limitations based on train and wind speed combination.


A smooth web transfer in a paper machine requires sufficient tension. It is well known that excessive tension leads to web breaks. However, too low a tension can also be fatal. Particularly with wet web, the maintenance of the tension is challenging due to the fast relaxation of the tension. Some factors that affect the tension and relaxation of wet web were studied in this paper. The initial tension and the tension after constant relaxation time, called residual tension, was found to depend on factors such as the applied strain, straining rate, dry solids content, fibre and fines properties, substances in the white water, and the dry strength chemicals. The residual tension was reduced by increased straining rate, addition of TMP filtrate, and addition of cationic starch. The tension and residual tension seemed to be dependent on both the properties of the fibre fraction, such as inand out-ofplane stiffness, and on the factors affecting the stress transfer conditions at the inter-fibre contact areas.


Over several decades the physician and astronomer Wilhelm Olbers (1758--1840) has consistently made air temperature and pressure readings in Bremen and written many manuscripts to meteorological topics. Few of his works were published, most fell into oblivion, so also Olbers' measurements of temperature and pressure from the years 1803--1822, although these meteorological observations are the first continuous and reliable measurements of this kind in Bremen.

In this article we look at the monthly and annually averaged temperatures from 1803 to 1822 (see \Fig{T03_22}), which are taken from the literary legacy of Olbers and are partially reconstructed. We discuss the linkage of these series of measurements to the well-known Bremen temperature series, which begins in 1829 and is today continued by the German Weather Service (DWD). The method we propose for this adjustment is based on the extremely high correlation which the annually averaged data of the Bremen time series have with corresponding data from other monitoring sites. We use data from De Bilt, Berlin, Prague, Stockholm and Hohenpeissenberg. The result is a temperature time series for Bremen from 1803 to today, which has only a short interruption and may be regarded as homogeneous at least to some extent.


In recent years, nanotechnology has attracted significant interest in cancer therapeutics for its touted ability to offer innovative solutions to existing problems associated with chemotherapeutic agents. Specifically, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have garnered recent attention in the fields of bioimaging and biosensing. SWCNTs possess an intrinsic and unique near-infrared (nIR) photostable fluorescence and biocompatibility. Several past studies have revealed how SWCNTs interact with biological systems in vitro and in vivo. In this study, the specific effect of flow and shear stress on the interactions between SWCNTs and live cells in vitro are more closely investigated. The nature of binding and endocytosis of SWCNTs with adenocarcinomic human alveolar epithelial (A549) cells was explored with intensity-based measurements acquired through the use of nIR fluorescence hyperspectral microscopy. Furthermore, the effect of Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) in addition to nanoparticles' protein corona under shear stress conditions was examined. The investigations in this novel study predict, that SWCNTs will internalize more likely into endothelia cells, which are exposed to high shear stress. Despite this, the results concerning the shear stress independently of the SWCNT concentration showed, that the shear stress has only a marginal influence on their adsorption and desorption, compared to the impact that proteins binding to the surface of SWCNTs create.


Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP) are known as an effective treatment barrier for micropollutants. Well known AOP combinations are UV/H 2 O 2 and O 3 /H 2 O 2 . This paper will present a more detailed view on how to use the different options combining UV; ozone and H 2 O 2 . The focus of this investigation is on treatment effects (reduction of specific contaminats), water matrix, energy consumption and cost calculation (CAPEX, OPEX). The presented data are extracted from extended pilot trials carried out at DUNEA in 2009 and 2010. Dunea (The Netherlands,The Hague) produces drinking water from the Meuse River, which contains a variety of organic micropollutants as a result from upstream activity. Dunea is performing research to extend the current multiple barrier treatment (e.g. pre-treatment, artificial recharge and recovery (ARR), post-treatment) with an advanced oxidation processes (AOP), situated at the pre-treatment location in Bergambacht, before ARR. The degradation of organic micropollutants as a result of advanced oxidation using different combinations of hydrogen peroxide, ozone, low pressure (LP) UV lamps has been assessed by means of pilot-scale (5 m 3 /h) experiments. The influent was pre-treated river water, with an yearly average UV-transmission of 80% and a DOC concentration of 4 mg/L.The peroxide doses were varied as 0, 5 and 10 ppm, the ozone doses were varied as 1, 2 and 3 g ozone/m 3 . The UV doses were varied between 300 and 650 mJ/cm 2 . The installed power for the LP reactor was 0.26 kWh/m 3 . Atrazine, bromacil, ibuprofen and NDMA were spiked (10-20 µg/L) and used as model compounds. Bromacil was completely (>99%) removed by ozone/peroxide. Atrazine and ibuprofen were good (58% and 85% respectively) removed by O 3 /H 2 O 2 and NDMA was not (9%) removed by this technique, whereas NDMA showed good (82%) removal by UV/H 2 O 2 . Atrazine, bromacil and ibuprofen were degraded by UV/H 2 O 2 at 53, 46 and 59 %, respectively. In addition also combined AOP was tested; spiked water was treated by O 3 /H 2 O 2 first and let over the LP-UV reactor directly afterwards. All four compounds showed highest degradation during combined AOP treatment. With this combined AOP, lower ozone dose and lower UV dose result in comparable degradation compared to single AOP treatment. For all these techniques a detailed capital expenditure operational expenditure (CAPEX / OPEX) evaluation was carried out based on a daily water flow of 240,000 m 3 /d. This evaluation resulted in the finding, that the combined AOP is the most economical solution with the best treatment result. Other advantages of the combined AOP are limited by-product formation, especially bromate, and a future barrier against OMPs encompassing a broad spectrum of properties.


The four cases of Old Norse were lost in Norwegian during the Late Middle Ages. The present paper examines what happened in more detail, aiming to sort out discernible stages in the deflexion process and suggesting a relative and absolute chronology. Some Modern Norwegian (and Swedish) dialects still retain a dative case, which in itself shows that case inflection did not simply disappear. Two main phenomena will be discussed here: (a) Former genitive-governing prepositions are increasingly found with dative complements, showing that the genitive was lost as a lexical case; and (b) changes in the paradigm of some pronouns and especially the demonstrative þessi "this" indicate that marking the dative remained decisive. It thus seems that Norwegian at one stage, presumably much more widely than in present dialects, had a two-case system where dative was the only marked alternative.


OBJECTIVE
Pharmacological treatment of postpartum depression is frequently complicated by the mother's desire to breast-feed. Although breast milk levels of several selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have been reported to be relatively low, a critical question is whether SSRI exposure during nursing results in clinically significant blockade of serotonin (5-HT) reuptake in infants. This study determined the degree of transporter blockade in infants exposed to sertraline through maternal breast milk.

METHOD
The extent of maternal and infant transporter blockade was assessed by measurement of platelet levels of 5-HT in 14 breast-feeding mother-infant pairs before and after 6-16 weeks of maternal treatment with sertraline for major depression with postpartum onset. Plasma sertraline and desmethylsertraline levels were obtained in 13 of these mothers and 11 of their infants.

RESULTS
Marked declines in platelet 5-HT levels of 70%-96% were observed in mothers after sertraline treatment, 25-200 mg/day. In contrast, infants showed little or no change in platelet 5-HT levels after exposure through breast-feeding. Mean levels of maternal plasma sertraline and its major metabolite, desmethylsertraline, were 30.7 ng/ml and 45.3 ng/ml, respectively. Drug and drug metabolite concentrations in the infants were at or below the lower limit of quantitation.

CONCLUSIONS
The data indicate that while mothers receiving clinical doses of sertraline experience substantial blockade of the platelet 5-HT transporter, platelet 5-HT uptake in nursing infants of treated mothers is unaltered. The observations suggest that mothers taking sertraline can breast-feed without appreciably affecting peripheral or central 5-HT transport in their infants.


The continuously growing number of short-life electronics equipment inherently results in a massive amount of problematic waste, which poses risks of environmental pollution, endangers human health, and causes socioeconomic problems. Hence, to mitigate these negative impacts, it is our common interest to substitute conventional materials (polymers and metals) used in electronics devices with their environmentally benign renewable counterparts, wherever possible, while considering the aspects of functionality, manufacturability, and cost. To support such an effort, in this study, we explore the use of biodegradable bioplastics, such as polylactic acid (PLA), its blends with polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and composites with pyrolyzed lignin (PL), and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), in conjunction with processes typical in the fabrication of electronics components, including plasma treatment, dip coating, inkjet and screen printing, as well as hot mixing, extrusion, and molding. We show that after a short argon plasma treatment of the surface of hot-blown PLA-PHB blend films, percolating networks of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) having sheet resistance well below 1 kΩ/□ can be deposited by dip coating to make electrode plates of capacitive touch sensors. We also demonstrate that the bioplastic films, as flexible dielectric substrates, are suitable for depositing conductive micropatterns of SWCNTs and Ag (1 kΩ/□ and 1 Ω/□, respectively) by means of inkjet and screen printing, with potential in printed circuit board applications. In addition, we exemplify compounded and molded composites of PLA with PL and MWCNTs as excellent candidates for electromagnetic interference shielding materials in the K-band radio frequencies (18.0–26.5 GHz) with shielding effectiveness of up to 40 and 46 dB, respectively.


Mshomba provides a systematic study of Africa as it relates to the World Trade Organization. He examines the WTO's enforcement mechanism; the WTO's broadened mandate, illustrated by the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights; agriculture in the Doha Round; issues relating to transparency in government procurement; and the endeavor to streamline assistance to developing countries through an 'Aid for Trade' initiative. The author integrates theory and practice, with a clear presentation of important economic concepts. He provides a rigorous analysis of key issues and proposals. He presents African countries as having an important role to play in the WTO, especially as they actively engage in bargaining through various coalitions. Mshomba acknowledges that WTO negotiations will always be complex and at times contentious due to wide economic and political differences between countries. He views the differences, however, as creating opportunities for a mutually beneficial exchange of goods, services and ideas.


We have demonstrated a 2D droplet manipulation platform allowing fully optical manipulation of droplets on a photosensitive surface. Optically controlled injection, transport, separation, and multiple droplet manipulation have been achieved for nanoliter-size droplets. These functions are realized by sandwiching the droplets between two optoelectrowetting (OEW) surfaces. Optical illumination on OEW surfaces changes the surface wettability locally through the electrowetting mechanism. Optical illumination turns the initially Teflon-coated surface from hydrophobic to hydrophilic. This process is reversible and can be controlled in real time. We have achieved a maximum transport speed of 78 mm/s for a 100-nL droplet using a scanning laser beam. We have also demonstrated a fully decoupled 2D multidroplet manipulation on the OEW surfaces. Potentially, the OEW mechanism can be scaled up to process a large number of liquid droplets using projected optical images for high throughput applications.


Cryopreservation of oocytes and embryos is commonly used to preserve fertility. However, women undergoing cancer treatment may not have the time or may not be good candidates for these options. Ovarian cortical tissue cryopreservation and subsequent tissue transplant has been proven successful yet inefficient in preserving larger secondary follicles, and is not recommended as a fertility preservation option for women with certain cancers. We evaluated cryopreservation of individual follicles as an alternative option in rodents, nonhuman primates, and human primates. Under optimal conditions, cryopreserved mouse secondary follicles were able to reestablish granulosa cell-oocyte interactions, which are essential for subsequent follicle growth. Individual secondary follicles survived cryopreservation, were able to be cultured in a three-dimensional alginate hydrogel matrix to the antral stage, and the enclosed oocytes were competent for fertilization. Using a vital imaging technique (pol-scope) employed in many fertility centers, we were able to bioassay the thawed, cultured follicles for the presence of transzonal connections between the somatic and germ cells. Perturbations in these linkages were shown to be reversed when follicles were cryopreserved under optimal freezing conditions. We applied the optimized cryopreservation protocol to isolated rhesus monkey and human secondary follicles, and using the birefringent bioassay, we were able to show good correlation between early follicle growth and healthy somatic cell-oocyte connections. Our results suggest that ovarian follicles can be cryopreserved, thawed, and analyzed noninvasively, making follicle preservation an additional option for young cancer patients.


When exposed to prostatic and vaginal fluids, ejaculated mammalian sperm undergo increased motility, capacitation, and the acrosome reaction. These processes can be triggered by bicarbonate ions and depend on increased production of cAMP (cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate). Chen et al. now report that the bicarbonate sensor appears to be the recently cloned soluble adenylyl cyclase (sAC), which is activated in the presence of bicarbonate to produce more cAMP. The mammalian sAC protein is closely related to adenylyl cyclases from cyanobacteria that are also stimulated by bicarbonate ions. Thus, regulation of cAMP signaling through bicarbonate-sensitive sACs appears to be an evolutionarily conserved mechanism that could also function in other animal tissues where sAC is present and bicarbonate concentrations are regulated. Chen, Y., Cann, M.J., Litvin, T.N., Iourgenko, V., Sinclair, M.L., Levin, L.R., and Buck, J. (2000) Soluble adenylyl cyclase as an evolutionarily conserved bicarbonate sensor. Science 289: 625-628. [Abstract] [Full Text]


Digestion of biological materials is very important for trace element determinations. Although the microwave technique is mostly used, there are cases where open wet digestion is needed. This study examined the optimum conditions for the minimum loss of trace elements during the wet digestion of a sample. The effect of acid composition and digestion time for about 21 ions was investigated. The trace element concentrations were determined by differential pulse polarography. For the digestion procedure, a HClO4-HNO3 mixture was used for the first step and, after its evaporation (60 min), HCl was added as the second step, since in some cases it was necessary. The recoveries were high for ions like Zn, Cu, Ti(IV), Cd, Fe, Mn(II), Co(II), V(III) and Mo(VI) after digestion (60 min) with the HNO3-HClO4 mixture and the addition of HCl had no effect. However, although care was taken to minimize losses by using a long-necked (30 cm) flask, low recoveries were obtained for Pb, Se(IV), As(III), Cr(III) and Cr(VI) when HCl was used after HClO4-HNO3 digestion. Since Se(IV), As(III), Cr(III), Sn(II) and Sb(III) were oxidized by the acid mixture this fact has to be considered for some procedures and they have to be reduced before their determination. It was found that when HNO3 was used alone or in an acid mixture for digestion, the recovery of Ni was only 40%. However, with the use of HClO4 or H2SO4, the recovery was very high.


Abstract Current paradigm suggests that spatial and temporal competition for resources limit an exotic invader, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.), which once established, alters fire regimes and can result in annual grass dominance in sagebrush steppe. Prescribed fire and fire surrogate treatments (mowing, tebuthiuron, and imazapic) are used to reduce woody fuels and increase resistance to exotic annuals, but may alter resource availability and inadvertently favor invasive species. We used four study sites within the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) to evaluate 1) how vegetation and soil resources were affected by treatment, and 2) how soil resources influenced native herbaceous perennial and exotic annual grass cover before and following treatment. Treatments increased resin exchangeable NH4+, NO3−, H2PO4−, and K+, with the largest increases caused by prescribed fire and prolonged by application of imazapic. Burning with imazapic application also increased the number of wet growing degree days. Tebuthiuron and imazapic reduced exotic annual grass cover, but imazapic also reduced herbaceous perennial cover when used with prescribed fire. Native perennial herbaceous species cover was higher where mean annual precipitation and soil water resources were relatively high. Exotic annual grass cover was higher where resin exchangeable H2PO4− was high and gaps between perennial plants were large. Prescribed fire, mowing, and tebuthiuron were successful at increasing perennial herbaceous cover, but the results were often ephemeral and inconsistent among sites. Locations with sandy soil, low mean annual precipitation, or low soil water holding capacity were more likely to experience increased exotic annual grass cover after treatment, and treatments that result in slow release of resources are needed on these sites. This is one of few studies that correlate abiotic variables to native and exotic species cover across a broad geographic setting, and that demonstrates how soil resources potentially influence the outcome of management treatments.


Two-electron transfer chemistry based on earth-abundant Mg and S offers great possibilities of delivering higher energy density than current Li-ion technology. The development of non-nucleophilic electrolytes that reversibly and efficiently plate and strip Mg is believed to be a major obstacle to the implementation of this divalent battery technology. In this study, we present a new type of organic magnesium borate-based electrolyte that primarily comprises tetrakis(hexafluoroisopropyl)borate anions [B(HFP)4]− and solvated cations [Mg4Cl6(DME)6]2+, which was synthesized via a facile in situ reaction of tris(hexafluoroisopropyl)borate [B(HFP)3], MgCl2 and Mg powder in 1,2-dimethoxyethane (DME). Rigorous analyses including NMR, mass spectroscopy and single-crystal XRD were conducted to identify the equilibrium species in the abovementioned solution. The as-prepared Mg-ion electrolyte exhibited unprecedented Mg plating/stripping performance, such as high anodic stability up to 3.3 V (vs. Mg/Mg2+), high ionic conductivity of 5.58 mS cm−1, a low overpotential of 0.11 V for plating processes and Coulombic efficiencies greater than 98%. By virtue of the non-nucleophilic nature of this electrolyte, a fully reversible Mg/S battery was constructed that displayed an extremely low overpotential of 0.3 V and a high discharge capacity of up to 1247 mA h g−1 and yielded a specific energy of approximately 1200 W h kg−1 (10 times higher that of the Chevrel benchmark) based on the weight of active sulfur. More significantly, commonly used sulfur-carbon nanotube (S-CNTs) cathodes with S contents of 80 wt% and S loadings of 1.5 mg cm−2 were demonstrated to withstand more than 100 cycles without obvious capacity decay and to enable fast conversion processes, which achieved a charging current rate of up to 500 mA g−1. Our findings convincingly validate the pivotal role of the newly designed non-nucleophilic Mg-ion electrolyte for practical Mg/S battery chemistry.


In an adapted population in which most mutations are deleterious, the mutation rates are expected to be low. Indeed, in recent experiments on adapted populations of asexual mutators, beneficial mutations that lower the mutation rates have been observed to get fixed. Using a multitype branching process and a deterministic argument, we calculate the time to fix the wildtype mutation rate in an asexual population of mutators, and find it to be a ${\tt U}$-shaped function of the population size. In contrast, the fixation time for mutators is known to increase with population size. On comparing these two time scales, we find that a critical population size exists below which the mutators prevail, while the mutation rate remains low in larger populations. We also discuss how our analytical results compare with the experiments.


Gray mold, caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea, usually has been considered a minor disease in field-grown lettuce. However, for the past two lettuce production seasons, the incidence of this disease has increased significantly in Southwestern Arizona lettuce fields. Most of the infected fields were planted to romaine lettuce; however, some iceberg lettuce plantings were involved as well. The occurrence of gray mold was most prevalent during February and March. The primary symptoms of the disease include plant wilting accompanied by a fuzzy gray growth at the plant base, which contains masses of airborne spores. Sclerotia may also be present on infected tissue. Infected plants that show these symptoms usually wilt and die. Botrytis cinerea can survive on crop debris, as a pathogen on numerous crops and weed hosts, and as sclerotia in soil. Airborne spores that land on senescent or damaged lettuce stems and leaves germinate and rapidly colonize this tissue. Once established, the pathogen grows into adjacent healthy stems and leaves. A field trial was established to 1) evaluate the effectiveness of some fungicides to reduce the incidence of Botrytis gray mold and 2) compare the susceptibility of some lettuce cultivars to this disease. Botrytis gray mold did not develop in plots of the crisphead cultivar 'Winterhaven'; however, the disease was present in all plots planted with cultivars of romaine lettuce. Among the tested romaine cultivars, Botrytis gray mold incidence was lowest in 'A 35585-1', 'Fresh Heart' and 'Rome 59' in untreated plots as well as in plots treated four times with the fungicides Rovral, Endura, or Switch. On the other hand, disease incidence was highest on the cultivar 'Green Towers' in untreated plots as well as those treated with one of the three tested fungicides. To compare the ability of tested fungicides to control Botrytis gray mold, the disease incidence values for each of the five romaine cultivars treated with each specific fungicide were pooled together and compared to disease levels recorded on untreated plants. Foliar applications of treatments were made Jan 24, Feb 1, Feb 16 and Feb 28, 2007. A 31% reduction in disease was recorded on romaine lettuce plants treated with Switch, whereas a 17% reduction in Botrytis gray mold was observed on plants treated with Endura. Rovral did not significantly reduce Botrytis gray mold in this trial. Additional field trials are planned to verify these initial findings.


This article explores the circuits of migration among American prostitutes in Mexican border towns between the years 1910 and 1930. After California's Progressive movement shut down the state's red light districts, American prostitutes found that the vice districts of Mexicali and Tijuana offered opportunities for economic and social advancement not available to them in the United States. As transnational subjects, these U.S. women exploited the ethno-cultural complexities of the border to claim "whiteness" as "Americans" and yet also relied on the Mexican state to guarantee their rights and liberties. Their story contributes to scholarly debates about prostitution and speaks to the absence of research on American women in the historiography of the twentieth-century U.S.-Mexican border.


In the last decade, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have been widely studied as an effective method for providing wireless communication connectivity in vehicular transportation systems. In particular, vehicular cloud systems (VCSs) have received abundant interest for the ability to offer a variety of vehicle information services. We consider the data dissemination problem of providing reliable data delivery services from a cloud data center to vehicles through roadside wireless access points (APs) with local data storage. Due to intermittent wireless connectivity and the limited data storage size of roadside wireless APs, the question of how to use the limited resources of the wireless APs is one of the most pressing issues affecting data dissemination efficiency in VCSs. In this paper, we devise a vehicle route-based data prefetching scheme, which maximizes data dissemination success probability in an average sense when the size of local data storage is limited and wireless connectivity is stochastically unknown. We propose a greedy algorithm and an online learning algorithm for deterministic and stochastic cases, respectively, to decide how to prefetch a set of data of interest from a data center to roadside wireless APs. Experiment results indicate that the proposed algorithms can achieve efficient data dissemination in a variety of vehicular scenarios.


Fashion and opera are natural arenas for collaboration. In 2009-2010 alone, Viktor & Rolf, Miuccia Prada, Emmanuel Ungaro and Christian Lacroix made successful sorties as costumers for operas in New York, Baden-Baden, Naples and Berlin. This partnership is a fruitful one: the most theatrical of arts inspires the most visionary fashion designers to create extraordinary costumes for extraordinary productions. This book profiles ten leading figures in the world of fashion, together with illustrations of their costume designs. Guaranteed to appeal to opera fans as well as fashionistas, this glorious book applauds the awe-inspiring achievements of couturiers-turned-costume designers.


Generally, the functionality of information retrieval (IR) could be divided into two
categories where one section deals with search and retrieval while the other
component concerns with the subject or content analysis. In the search and retrieval
part, the IR systems present a ranked list of relevant documents depending on the
user submitted query as the representation of the user's information need. The ranked
list given indicates the probability of the document is relevant to the query by
ordering the highest relevant document at the top position and so forth. However,
queries are often formulated with simplified short words, such as "Java". These
words are unable to summarise precisely the user's information need and its context,
i.e. "java, programming language" or "java, the island". Consequently, the user's
information need is not satisfied as the highest relevant document was not positioned
accordingly or too much relevant document was presented in the ranked list.
Besides, by using the simplified query made the context is not easily extractable, and
in recent years there has been much research interest in contextual retrieval. Likewise IR, contextual retrieval retrieved the relevant document by using the combination of
query, user context and search technology into a single framework. Furthermore, in
contextual retrieval, the user's context is exploited to differentiate the relevant
document that is useful at that time the requests occur.
On the other hand, in order to match the queries and the document representation,
different IR schemes were applied to calculate the probability. As a result, often
retrieval precision is different for differing IR schemes, where dissimilar lists of
relevant documents for the same query submitted are presented. Thus, data fusion
approach is implemented in the IR to overcome this complication where multiple
sources of results are combined. The implementation of data fusion approach in IR
involves the merging of retrieval result from different IR schemes into a single
unified ranked list that supposedly presents a list of high precisely relevant
document.
This study presents an approach to incorporate contextual retrieval and data hsion
by using a one-keyword query towards improving retrieval precision. The methods to
identify user context are categorised into four approaches; relevance feedback, user
profiles, word-sense disambiguation and knowledge engineering. In order to extract
user context and to model contextual retrieval, term-weighting scheme based on user
profiles and knowledge engineering approaches for Watson scheme and word-sense
disambiguation approach for Wordsieve scheme are implemented in this study. Five
randomly selected documents are selected and submitted to these schemes and the
user's context extracted is used to expand the initial query for retrieval process.In addition, the feasibility of adopting a data fusion approach was assessed in this
study by testing two preconditions; --the efficacy and dissimilarity tests for the IR
scheme candidates, as there is a possibility that the precision improvement may not
be accomplished. Two queries which are Java and Jaguar, expanded by using user's
context extracted by Watson and WordSieve are submitted and more than ten
thousand documents are collected as the data collection for conducting the
experiment. The performance of the experiment is evaluated by using three
assessments; precision recall graph, precision evaluation based on document ranked
and mean average precision. The data fusion experiment based on contextual
retrieval results has reveals significant improvement on retrieval precision where the
lowest percentage gained compared to the basic IR scheme is approximate to thirty
seven percent, ten percent improvement compared to Watson and fifthteen percent
improvement compared to WordSieve based on mean average precision calculation


The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate an operational flexibility construct that can serve as a general theory in operations management in the context of the hospital industry. The effects of management capability and competitive intensity on operational flexibility and performance relationships are also explored. We used data collected from a sample of 152 administrators of hospitals in the mid-west region of the USA and performed a systematic series of analyses. Following the transformation model, grounded in the fundamental and powerful concept of operations management, we develop a psychometrically validated, 11-item, three-dimensional (input, process, output) scale of operational flexibility (OF) construct for the hospital industry. As the degree of operational flexibility allowed in any transformation system is influenced by management capability, it is established as a complementary mediator in strengthening the OF-performance relationship in the presence of competitive intensity (i.e. moderator). The paper concludes with limitations and directions for future research.