Tool condition prognosis has been an arduous challenge in modern semiconductor manufacturing environment, especially for the foundry and analog companies with high product-mix and complicated technology nodes. More and more embedded and external sensors are installed to capture the genuine tool status for tool fault detection and identification (FDC) and thus, tool condition analysis based on the real-time equipment data becomes promising but also much more complex with this rapidly-increased number of sensors. In this research, the generalized moving variance (GMV) technique is firstly validated to demonstrate that the consolidation of the pure variations within tool FDC data into one indicator is feasible. Based on GMV, a hierarchical tool condition monitor scheme is developed by analyzing the GMV's within functional clusters of sensors. With the introduction of this hierarchy, abnormal tool condition can be diagnosed and drilled down into sensor level for an efficient root cause analysis.


The near-real-time enhanced-resolution QuikScat/SeaWinds (QS) scatterometry composite data are used for daily automatic 48-h sea ice tracking by maximum cross-correlation over the entire Arctic. A correlation window of 61 /spl times/ 61 pixels is used for best performance. Both QS polarizations, vertical (VV) and horizontal (HH), are used independently, which permits to filter the final results for erroneous vectors by comparing the two drift vectors, u/spl I.oarr//sub VV/ and u/spl I.oarr//sub HH/, respectively. Additional filtering is performed by setting a minimum correlation coefficient and by considering the spatial consistency of the motion field. The algorithm has been validated with winter 2002/2003 buoy data from the International Arctic Buoy Program showing error standard deviations in the 48-h displacement of 3.1 and 3.2 km in the latitude and longitude direction, respectively. This corresponds to an error standard deviation in ice drift speed of just 2.6 cm/s. Errors are largest in dynamic regions with lower ice concentrations as for example the southern Fram Strait. The enhanced-resolution data improve previous drift results by about 25%, but are still blurred by the necessary 36-h period to produce the composites.


Twice denied admission to a California medical school despite better grades and test scores than successful minority applicants, Allan Bakke took his grievance to court and set off a major controversy over affirmative action. Bakke claimed that he was a victim of reverse discrimination, and his case has been considered by many as the most important civil rights decision since the end of segregation and also one of the most difficult ever heard by the Supreme Court. Howard Ball now reviews the many issues raised by this case that placed affirmative action on trial. He examines the law and politics surrounding Bakke in an even-handed manner, presenting both sides of the debate and discussing key arguments presented by pressure groups. He also offers a behind-the-scenes look at what transpired during the months between oral arguments before the Court and the justices' final decision, including secret conference sessions and judicial memos. While four justices confirmed that Bakke had been the victim of reverse discrimination, four others agreed that the school's affirmative action plan was a logical application of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Justice Lewis Powell sided with both viewpoints, resulting in Bakke's admission to the school and the upholding of affirmative action. The Court's unusual split decision invalidated UC-Davis's quota program for minorities but also struck down a California court's ruling that race could not be used as a factor in considering applicants. In light of eroding public support for affirmative action today, Ball examines the impact of Bakke and its use as a precedent. He also reviews recent events such as California Proposition 209, Washington Initiative 200, the "One Florida Initiative" program, and the Supreme Court's refusal to overturn "Texas v. Hopwood" a decision that forced the University of Texas to eliminate affirmative action in its law school. As affirmative action continues to divide judges, legislatures, and citizens, the fragile consensus forged by Justice Powell seems to be collapsing. This book offers essential background for anyone interested in the controversy, helping readers to better understand the dynamics of Supreme Court decision making in emotionally charged litigation and to arrive at a more informed opinion over this vexing issue. "


This article aimed to identify those issues that were present in global technological innovation projects carried out by Brazilian multinational companies and which performance criterions these undertakings have met. Besides that, we also sought to understand how strategic issues influenced project performance in multinational companies. We have investigated 36 global technological innovation projects from Brazilian multinational enterprises through a web-survey. Findings show that these companies have gone beyond the traditional iron triangle to evaluate their technological efforts and considered additional performance dimensions such as customer satisfaction, business results, and preparation for the future. Results also show high degree of presence for issues emerging from R&D activities, industry, and external environment, moderate degree of presence for issues emerging from both the project and R&D activities, and low degree of presence for issues emerging from the headquarters and subsidiaries. Regression outputs show that project performance has been impacted under the following dimensions: business results, organization's capabilities, marketing focus, and synergy among organization units.


Abstract As infection control evolved into an art and science through the years, many infection control practices have become infection control dogmas (principles, beliefs, ideas, or opinions). In this "Reality Check" session of the 4th Decennial International Conference on Nosocomial and Healthcare-Associated Infections, we assessed participants' perceptions of prevalent infection control dogmas. The majority of participants agreed with all dogmas having evidence of efficacy, except for the dogma on the frequency of changing mechanical-ventilator tubing. In contrast, the majority of participants disagreed with dogmas not having evidence of efficacy, except for the dogma on perineal care, umbilical cord care, and reminder signs for isolation precaution. As for controversial dogmas, many of the responses were almost evenly distributed between "agree" and "disagree." Infection control professionals were knowledgeable about evidence-based infection control practices. However, many of the respondents still believe in some of the non–evidence-based dogmas.


Structured abstract Objective: To assess the cost-effectiveness of radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) compared with anti-arrhythmic drug (AAD) therapy for the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) from the perspective of the UK NHS. Design: Bayesian evidence synthesis and decision analytic model. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted and Bayesian statistical methods used to synthesise the effectiveness evidence from randomised control trials. A decision analytic model was developed to assess the costs and consequences associated with the primary outcome of the trials over a lifetime time horizon. Main outcome measure: Costs from a health service perspective and outcomes measured as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Results: The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of RFCA varied between £7,763 and £7,910 for each additional QALY according to baseline risk of stroke, with a probability of being cost-effective from 0.98 to 0.99 for a cost-effectiveness threshold of £20,000. Results were sensitive to the duration of quality of life benefits from treatment. Conclusions: RFCA is potentially cost-effective for the treatment of paroxysmal AF in patients' predominantly refractory to AAD therapy provided the quality of life benefits from treatment are maintained for more than 5 years. These findings remain subject to limitations in the existing evidence regarding the nature of life benefits and the prognostic importance of restoring normal sinus rhythm conferred using RFCA.


Skill-biased technical change is usually interpreted in terms of the efficiency parameters of skilled and unskilled labor. This implies that the relative productivity of skilled workers changes proportionally in all tasks. In contrast, we argue that technical changes also affect the curvature of the distribution of relative productivity. Building on Rosen's (1978) tasks assignment model, this implies that not only the efficiency parameters of skilled and unskilled workers change, but also the elasticity of substitution between skill-types of labor. Using data for the United States between 1963 and 2002, we find significant empirical support for a decrease in the elasticity of substitution at the end of the 70s followed by an increase at the end of the 80s. This pattern of the elasticity of substitution has contributed to the slowdown in labor productivity in the late 70s through the 80s and to a speedup in the 90s


Malnutrition during pregnancy causes intrauterine growth restriction and long-term changes in the offspring's physiology and metabolism. To explore molecular mechanisms by which the intrauterine environment conveys programming in fetal kidneys, an organ known to undergo substantial changes in many animal models of late gestational undernutrition, we used a microswine model of maternal protein restriction (MPR) in which sows were exposed to isocaloric low protein (LP) diet during late gestation/early lactation to encompass the bulk of nephrogenesis. To define general v. model-specific effects, we also used a sheep model of placental insufficiency. In kidneys from near-term fetal and neonatal microswine LP offspring, per cell levels of total RNA, poly(A)+ mRNA and transcripts of several randomly chosen housekeeping genes were significantly reduced compared to controls. Microarray analysis revealed only a few MPR-resistant genes that escape such downregulation. The ratio of histone modifications H3K4m3/H3K9m3 (active/silenced) was reduced at promoters of downregulated but not MPR-resistant genes suggesting that transcriptional suppression is the point of control. In juvenile offspring, on a normal diet from weaning, cellular RNA levels and histone mark patterns were recovered to near control levels, indicating that global repression of transcription is dependent on ongoing MPR. Importantly, cellular RNA content was also reduced in ovine fetal kidneys during placental insufficiency. These studies show that global repression of transcription may be a universal consequence of a poor intrauterine environment that contributes to fetal restriction.


Introduction: Relating to the oral and maxillofacial region, there is an increase in the incidence of malignant tumors. The surgical removal of neoplasm with or without the adjuvant therapy is the most preferred treatment. With advances in diagnosis and treatment, the survival rate of the patients has increased. The qualities of survivors become an important issue. Aim of the study: The purpose of current study was to evaluate the patient's quality of life with oral cancer (OC) after surgical treatment at different time intervals. Patients and methods: Total 50 patients were included in the study with oral cancer after surgical treatment, with an age ranged from (41-77) years. All patients were evaluated for their quality of life using the University of Washington quality of life questionnaire (UW-QOL), which was filled after 7 days, 1 month, 3 months and six months after the surgical treatment of oral cancer. The data were analyzed using the SPSS version 20. Results: After the surgical removal of oral cancer, individual domains and subjective complaints deteriorated, which was improved gradually over the time intervals. Pain, mood, and anxiety rated were the most important domains while reaction, activity appearance, shoulder, taste, chewing, saliva, speech, and swallowing were considered to be less important. Conclusion: The University of Washington quality of life questionnaire was a practical and the easiest questionnaire for the assessment of the quality of life of the patients and the subjective complaints. An improvement in the overall and health-related quality of life was necessary to be observed following the surgical treatment for patients with oral cancer.


This thesis presents a chemical and isotopic investigation of well-dated silicic tephra layers sourced from the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ), central North Island, New Zealand, that were recovered from deep ocean sediment cores at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1123 (41 degrees 47.16' S, 171 degrees 29.94' W; 3290 m water depth), located approximately 1000 km east of the TVZ. The relative quiescence of the deep ocean sedimentary setting, the continuous supply of biogenic and terrigenous sediment and the favourable location of Site 1123 close to the main TVZ ash dispersal path have resulted in an extensive TVZ tephra record (70 Quaternary tephra layers preserved in 3 sediment cores) at Site 1123. This record extends and compliments the onshore record of silicic TVZ volcanism which has been obscured by erosion of non-consolidated volcanic material and burial of older units by younger volcanic deposits. The Site 1123 cores comprise an important paleo-oceanographic record for the Southwest Pacific Ocean and as a result of previous paleo-environmental studies, the Site 1123 tephras have been assigned orbitally tuned stable isotope ages that are more precise than is currently possible by any radiometric dating techniques. These features of the Site 1123 tephra record highlight its potential to be established as a type section for Quaternary tephrochronological studies in the New Zealand region. In addition, the continuous stratigraphy and precise age control of these tephras enables the Site 1123 record to be used as a petrogenetic archive to investigate changes in chemical and isotopic composition of these tephras that may be related to changes in the petrogenesis of TVZ silicic magmas during the last ~ 1.65 Ma. This thesis establishes major and trace element chemical 'fingerprints' for the Site 1123 tephras using traditional (electron probe microanalysis) and novel (laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) in situ geochemical techniques. Trace element fingerprints are demonstrated to provide a more precise means of correlating and distinguishing between tephras with essentially identical major element chemistries. These fingerprints are used to refine the original Site 1123 composite stratigraphy and age model and identify a section of repeated sediments in the Site 1123 cores that have introduced a significant error into the original composite stratigraphy and age model for the interval ~1.1 to 1.4 Ma. Correlation of the tephra layers between the 3 sediment cores (1123A, B and C) establishes that ~37-38 individual tephra units are recorded with ages ranging from 1.655 Ma to 27.1 ka. Approximately 50% of the eruptive units and cumulative tephra thickness at the site were recorded during the first ~ 150 ka of silicic TVZ volcanism (1.65 to 1.50 Ma). The fragmentary onshore record does not preserve clear evidence for this early period of hyperactivity. Four broad silicic melt types are identified on the basis of chemistry and eruptive age. Trace element indices of fractional crystallisation suggests the origin of the four melt types is primarily due to differential degrees of fractional crystallisation of accessory zircon, hydrous mineral phases and Fe-Ti oxides. Sr-Nd-Pb isotopic compositions of 13 representative Site 1123 tephras cannot be generated using traditional models in which Torlesse meta-sedimentary rocks are the sole contaminant of mafic magmas. Instead the data support a model in which ascending TVZ basalts assimilate crustal rocks of both meta-greywacke terranes: firstly up to 15% of Waipapa crust is assimilated at depth, followed by assimilation of between 20 and 45% Torlesse crust at shallower levels. In this model the majority of Site 1123 tephras indicate a remarkably uniform amount of crust (~ 35%) with the most evolved sample requiring 45% crustal contribution. However, extensive fractional crystallisation (55-85%) is required to have accompanied crustal assimilation in order to drive the relatively low SiO2 compositions of these contaminated mafic magmas (SiO2 = 53-58 wt% after crustal contamination) to the high SiO2 rhyolite (74-78 wt%) compositions of the Site 1123 tephras. The large crustal contributions to TVZ silicic magmas (35-45%) implied by these data are high compared to large volume silicic magmas from different settings (e.g. Yemen-Ethiopia; Long Valley, USA), a feature that likely reflects the thin crust and high thermal flux into the continental crust beneath the TVZ.


BACKGROUND
Pain management in hospitalized patients remains a priority area for improvement; effective strategies for consensus development are needed to prioritize interventions.

OBJECTIVE
To identify challenges, barriers, and perspectives of healthcare providers in managing pain among hospitalized patients.

DESIGN
Qualitative and quantitative group consensus using a brainstorming technique for quality improvement-the nominal group technique (NGT).

SETTING
One medical, 1 medical-surgical, and 1 surgical hospital unit at a large academic medical center.

PARTICIPANTS
Nurses, resident physicians, patient care technicians, and unit clerks.

MEASUREMENTS
Responses and ranking to the NGT question: "What causes uncontrolled pain in your unit?"

RESULTS
Twenty-seven health workers generated a total of 94 ideas. The ideas perceived contributing to a suboptimal pain control were grouped as system factors (timeliness, n = 18 ideas; communication, n = 11; pain assessment, n = 8), human factors (knowledge and experience, n = 16; provider bias, n = 8; patient factors, n = 19), and interface of system and human factors (standardization, n = 14). Knowledge, timeliness, provider bias, and patient factors were the top ranked themes.

CONCLUSIONS
Knowledge and timeliness are considered main priorities to improve pain control. NGT is an efficient tool for identifying general and context-specific priority areas for quality improvement; teams of healthcare providers should consider using NGT to address their own challenges and barriers.


In this paper, a 2 × 2 split cross-bar optical switch which employs a hybrid actuation configuration is presented. The main advantages of this proposed switch include low actuation voltage, low power consumption, and easy fiber alignment. This optical switch consists of a micromachined micro-mirror structure and a mini-actuator module. The micro-mirror structure, which comprises two movable vertical mirrors with cantilevers, two fixed vertical mirrors, and light-path trenches, is realized by using a simple KOH silicon etching process. The mini-actuator module, which includes two commercially-available electromagnetic bistable actuators attached with L-shaped arms, is used to actuate micro-mirrors. The measured insertion losses of the proposed switch is between -1- -1.2 dB, the cross-talk is about -60 dB, and the switching time is less than 13 ms. The long-term reliability test of the SCB switch is performed by continuously actuating the device for 10 000 cycles at 1 Hz, and the deviation of the measured insertion loss is less than 0.05 dB.


The Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines promotes leukocyte migration. Chemokines bind to G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) on leukocytes, triggering intracellular pathways to recruit the leukocytes from the circulatory system to sites of inflammation. Although a seven-transmembrane receptor like GPCRs, the Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines (DARC), found in venular endothelial cells, does not couple to G proteins and has been postulated to act, like other nonsignaling receptors in the same family, as a "decoy receptor" that binds to chemokines and internalizes them for lysosomal degradation. Pruenster et al. used immunoelectron microscopy to show that, when DARC-binding chemokine was injected into ex vivo human skin, chemokine and receptor colocalized at the luminal and abluminal surfaces of venular endothelial cells, as well as in intracellular vesicles. Addition of cognate chemokine to the basolateral surface of Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cell monolayers transfected with DARC elicited the redistribution of DARC and associated chemokine to the apical surface by way of intracellular vesicles. Experiments with MDCK or human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) monolayers separating fluid compartments showed that DARC increased transcytosis of undegraded 125I-labeled chemokine in the basolateral to apical direction, with retention of a substantial portion at the apical cell surface. Moreover, DARC promoted apical to basal transmigration of human monocytes across MDCK and HUVEC monolayers in response to chemokine in the basal compartment. Neutrophil recruitment after chemokine injection was enhanced in mice overexpressing DARC in endothelial cells (mDARCtg mice), as were contact hypersensitivity (CHS) and leukocyte migration into CHS skin lesions. Thus, the authors conclude that, rather than acting as a decoy receptor, DARC promotes chemokine-mediated leukocyte migration. M. Pruenster, L. Mudde, P. Bombosi, S. Dimitrova, M. Zsak, J. Middleton, A. Richmond, G. J. Graham, S. Segerer, R. J. B. Nibbs, A. Rot, The Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines transports chemokines and supports their promigratory activity. Nat. Immunol. 10, 101–108 (2009). [PubMed]


 Abstract Do judges make decisions that are truly impartial? A wide range of experimental and field studies reveal that several extra-legal factors influence judicial decision making. Demographic characteristics of judges and litigants affect judges' decisions. Judges also rely heavily on intuitive reasoning in deciding cases, making them vulnerable to the use of mental shortcuts that can lead to mistakes. Furthermore, judges sometimes rely on facts outside the record and rule more favorably towards litigants who are more sympathetic or with whom they share demographic characteristics. On the whole, judges are excellent decision makers, and sometimes resist common errors of judgment that influence ordinary adults. The weight of the evidence, however, suggests that judges are vulnerable to systematic deviations from the ideal of judicial


Phenol-formaldehyde (PF) resole and polymeric diphenylmethane diisocyanate (PMDI) are two commonly used exterior thermosetting adhesives in the wood-based composites industry. There is an interest in combining these two adhesives in order to benefit from their positive attributes while also neutralizing some of the negative ones. Although this novel adhesive system has been reportedly utilized in some limited cases, a fundamental understanding is lacking. This research serves this purpose by investigating some of the important aspects of this novel adhesive system. The adhesive rheological and viscometric properties were investigated with an advanced rheometer. The resole/PMDI blends exhibited non-Newtonian flow behavior. The blend viscosity and stability were dependent on the blend ratio, mixing rate and time. The adhesive penetration into wood was found to be dependent on the blend ratio and correlated with the blend viscosity. By using dynamic mechanical analysis, the blend cure speed was found to increase with the PMDI content. Mode I fracture testing of resole/PMDI hybrid adhesive bonded wood specimens indicated the dependence of bondline fracture energy on the blend ratio. The 75/25 PF/PMDI blend exhibited a high fracture energy with a fast cure speed and processable viscosity. Exposure to water-boil weathering severely deteriorated the fracture energies of the hybrid adhesive bondlines. More detailed chemistry and morphological studies were performed with crosspolarization nuclear magnetic resonance and C, N-doubly labeled PMDI. A spectral decomposition method was used to obtain information regarding chemical species concentration and relaxation behavior of the contributing components within the major nitrogen resonance. Different urethane concentrations were present in the cured blend bondlines. Water-boil weathering and thermal treatment at elevated temperatures (e.g. > 200C) caused reduced urethane concentrations in the bondline. Solid-state relaxation parameters revealed a heterogeneous structure in the non-weathered blends. Water boil weathering caused a more uniform relaxation behavior in the blend bondline. By conducting this research, more fundamental information regarding the PF/PMDI hybrid adhesives will become available. This information will aid in the evaluation of, and improve the potential use of PF/PMDI hybrid adhesives for wood-based composites.


This article examines the political theory of revelation in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, particularly the theophany at Sinai. Revelation occurs when God communicates information to human beings. The biblical narratives use the modality of a revelation to signal the importance of the message being conveyed. They also identify techniques for limiting revelation's destabilizing potential: embedding, which restricts God's ability to change his mind; authentication, which tests the validity of revelations; and access rules which privilege political elites as recipients of God's word.


Classical embryological experiments suggested that the vertebrate inner ear is initially specified by signals both from mesoderm and neuroectoderm. Ladher et al. have now identified some of the molecular signals involved in the chick. A new variant of the FGF family, FGF-19, is responsible for signaling from the mesoderm to promote development of the otic placode, which becomes the inner ear. FGF-19 is present in the right place for only a brief period of time--just long enough to set up the next steps, such as activating Wnt-8c signaling from the neuroectoderm. Together, these signals direct formation of the otic placode and induce appropriate expression of a variety of ear-specific genes. Graham provides an accompanying perspective on the work. Ladher, R.K., Anakwe, K.U., Gurney, A.L., Schoenwolf, G.C., and Francis-West, P.H. (2000) Identification of synergistic signals initiating inner ear development. Science 290: 1965-1967. [Abstract] [Full Text] Graham, A. (2000) Hear, hear, for the inner ear. Science 290: 1904-1905. [Full Text]


In the past 10 years, computers and cellphones have become one of the most important factors in our lives, and one which has a tremendously negative impact on our muscles. Muscle tension may be one of the causes of sleep disturbance. Tension in the shoulders and neck can affect blood circulation to the muscles. This research uses a dry needling treatment to reduce muscle tension in order to determine if the strain in the head and shoulders can influence sleep duration. All 38 patients taking part in the testing suffered from tinnitus and have been experiencing disturbed sleep for at least one to five years. Even after undergoing drug therapy treatments and traditional acupuncture therapies, their sleep disturbances have not shown any improvement. After five to 10 dry needling treatments, 24 of the patients reported an improvement in their sleep duration. Five patients considered themselves to be completely recovered, while 12 patients experienced no improvement. This study investigated these pathogenic and therapeutic problems. The standard treatment for sleep disturbances is drug-based therapy; the results of most standard treatments are unfortunately negative. The result of this clinical research has demonstrated that: The possible cause of sleep disturbance for a lot of patients is the result of tensions in the neck and shoulder muscles. Blood circulation to those muscles is also influenced by the duration of sleep. Hypertonic neck and shoulder muscles are considered to impact sleeping patterns and lead to disturbed sleep. Poor posture, often adopted while speaking on the phone, is one of the main causes of hypertonic neck and shoulder muscle problems. The dry needling treatment specifically focuses on the release of muscle tension. Keywords—Dry needling, sleep disturbance, sleep duration, muscle tension, trigger points.


204 howardites in the National Meteorite Collection at the Smithsonian were examined for the presence of fine‐grained eucrite clasts, with the goal of better understanding the formation of the uppermost crust of asteroid 4Vesta. Eight clasts were identified and characterized in terms of their textures and mineral chemistry, and their degree of thermal metamorphism was assessed. The paucity of fine‐grained eucrites, both within the unbrecciated eucrites and as clasts within the howardites, suggests that they originate from small‐scale units on the surface of Vesta, most likely derived from partial melting. Six of the eight clasts described were found to be unequilibrated, meaning that they preserve their original crystallization trends. The vast majority of eucrites are at least partially equilibrated, making these samples quite rare and important for deciphering the petrogenesis of the vestan crust. Biomodal grain populations suggest that eucrite melts often began crystallizing pyroxene and plagioclase during their ascent to the surface, where they were subject to more rapid cooling, crystallization, and later metasomatism. Pyroxene compositions from this study and prior work indicate that the products of both primitive and evolved melts were present at the vestan surface after its formation. Two howardite thin sections contained multiple eucrite composition clasts with different crystallization and thermal histories; this mm‐scale diversity reflects the complexity of the current day vestan surface that has been observed by Dawn.


Meta-analysis of 58 controlled studies and analysis of the claims files for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employees Plan for 1974-1978 provide mutually supporting evidence of the cost-offset effects of outpatient mental health treatment. These two complementary resources provide a powerful tool for investigating the nature of associations between mental health services and subsequent reductions in the use of other medical services. The authors found that the reductions in use of medical services are associated with inpatient rather than with outpatient utilization and tend to be larger for persons over 55 years of age.


Non-doped architecture has achieved great success as a universal method for simplifying the structure of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Currently, great challenges remain in the quest to further enhance the efficiency and reduce the pronounced roll-off for ultrathin emitting layer (UEML) based devices. This paper proposes a new strategy by synergistically incorporating the so-called "interface-exciplex" (i-Exc) with a multi-quantum-well structure (MQW). In our green-emitting OLEDs, an extremely low voltage of ∼2.8 V at a current density (j) of 0.2 mA cm−2 is achieved, allowing the attainment of a maximum power efficiency (PE) of 92.8 lm W−1 with an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 26.9%. More impressively, the population of triplet excitons is substantially reduced with the EQE just dropping by ∼5% from its maximum at a luminance (L) of 1000 cd m−2 for our 7-QW device. This compares favorably with a structurally similar device without the MQW whose EQE dropped as much as ∼31%. The nearly 6-fold enhancement in efficiency roll-off suggests that our findings could be a significant step towards realizing non-doped and low-cost OLED applications with outstanding performance at high luminances.


One of the main steps of service assurance is service monitoring using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). We show an approach for service modeling, first starting with an abstract service model that depends on the network. And then, we show how a corresponding model can be realized using a domain specific language. This solution is able to condense various sources of service model requirements into a condense formal and executable model including service decomposition and KPI aggregation. We have described this solution in the context of Magneto project and uses IPTV as a service in our description.


The sports program of the professional higher education focusing on the leisure sports opportunities. New needs, change in taste and new leisure habits of the young generation should be taken into account to design the University's leisure sports program. In my study I was dealing with a questionnaire survey investigating the attitude of the students of the University of Debrecen to leisure sports, and the students' opinions about their own physical status. Data collection was completed on a paper based questionnaire, 42 closed-type questions were included and a total of 213 students completed it. In conclusion I found that the students are satisfied with their physical states although not many of them do sport on a regular basis. I revealed the primary excuses for neglecting sports: lack of time, laziness and timetable discrepancies. These findings make it imperative that by avoiding the existing discrepancies the students be provided the widest range of time in their time tables available for physical activities.


Reduced transition probabilities have been measured for the neutron-rich Ni73,74,75 nuclei with relativistic Coulomb excitation performed at the RIKEN Nishina Center. For the even-even Ni isotope the determined B(E2;0+→2+) value is compatible within errors with the result of a previous intermediate energy Coulomb excitation experiment, although being somewhat larger. For the odd Ni isotopes B(E2) values have been determined for the first time. In the middle νg9/2 shell nucleus Ni73 three peak candidates have been observed and tentatively assigned to the (5/2+), (13/2+), and (11/2+) excitations. Two peak candidates have been observed in Ni75 and tentatively assigned to the (13/2+) and (11/2+) levels. The measured B(E2) values are in line with the large B(E2) reported in Ni70 and at variance with the small strength measured in Ni72. Excitation energies compare well with the result of large-scale shell-model calculations, while B(E2) values are larger than predicted. This could indicate an increasing contribution of proton excitations across the Z=28 shell closure when approaching Ni78.


In this paper, we present a method for measuring antenna group delay (GD) in a planar near-field range. The technique is based on a set of three antenna pairs, measured sequentially, from which the insertion phase of the measurement system and the near-field probe can be resolved. Once these parameters are known, insertion phase for the device under test (that is to say a Tx or Rx antenna) can be measured and GD calculated as the negative frequency derivative of the insertion phase with respect to frequency. An added complexity in the case of a near-field measurement is the near-field probe is in close proximity to the device under test, does not satisfy the far-field condition. We also show that group delay can be extracted from a single near-field measurement point in the antenna's aperture plane, leading to significant test time savings. Measured results are presented and discussed.


This study was carried out to assess the antibacterial, cytotoxic and antioxidant activities of extracts of Morus nigra L. HPLC was used to determine the fingerprint chromatogram of the crude ethanolic extract (Mn-EtOH). The antibacterial effect was assessed through the method of microdilution. The cytotoxicity was tested against human tumour cell lines using the 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The total phenolic and flavonoid contents were also assessed through the Folin-Ciocalteu and aluminum chloride methods, respectively. Antioxidant activities of the extracts were evaluated by using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazil (DPPH) radical scavenging and β-carotene-linoleic acid bleaching methods. The presence of phenolic compounds in Mn-EtOH was confirmed using HPLC. The extracts showed activity against most microorganisms tested. The extracts did not show any expressive antiproliferative effect in the assessment of cytotoxicity. The most significant total phenolic content was 153.00 ± 11.34 mg of gallic acid equivalent/g to the ethyl acetate extract (AcOEt). The total flavonoid content was 292.50 ± 70.34 mg of catechin equivalent/g to the AcOEt extract, which presented the best antioxidant activity (IC50 50.40 ± 1.16 μg/mL) for DPPH scavenging. We can conclude that this species shows strong antibacterial and antioxidant activities, as well as weak cytotoxic effects.


textabstractMagnetic resonance (MR) imaging is an imaging modality that has evolved rapidly in the past two decades. The development of advanced hardware and new sophisticated pulse sequences have allowed faster imaging, with increased temporal and spatial resolution. This has resulted in the development and implementation of new acquisition techniques that facilitate improved visualisation of neoplastic processes. In addition, faster sequences enable multiphasic dynamic imaging after intravenous administration of contrast material, which results in better tumor characterisation and improved diagnostic confidence by the reading radiologist.

The radiologic imaging work-up of primary hepatic tumors has improved considerably as a result of these developments. MR imaging is an imaging modality that is highly valuable for the diagnostic strategy for these tumors, since the combination of several T1- and T2-weighted sequences before and after administration of a gadolinium-chelates allows determination of intrinsic tissue charactistics of the lesion, with possibility to detect neovasculaturity in an early stage. These characteristics make MR imaging an ideal imaging modality for detection and differentiation of focal liver lesions.

Primary liver nodules are categorized according to the regenerative or dysplastic nature of the lesion, in combination with the anatomic characteristics of adjacent hepatic stroma. Most common lesions are focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH), hepatocellular adenoma (HCA) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The clinical and surgical management of these entities differs, therefore accurate differentiation based on state-of-the-art MR imaging plays an essential role in the diagnostic work-up of these patients.

This thesis describes various new insights in the MR imaging findings of primary hepatocellular tumors, with emphasis on non-invasive diagnostic possibilities in young women with FNH or HCA and improved early diagnosis of developing HCC in cirrhosis. In addition, because of the importance of higher field MR imaging systems for the work-up of primary liver lesions, this thesis also includes a section on the technical developments in high field MR imaging and post-processing strategies for improved semi-automated diagnosis in the future.


Property has long enjoyed civil enforcement through a potent remedy: the permanent injunction. For decades, federal courts across the country roundly granted permanent relief upon finding infringement and a threat of future infringement of one type of property: copyrights. Beyond these showings, a prevailing plaintiff in a copyright infringement case would not have to prove the cornerstone of equitable relief – irreparable harm – to obtain an injunction. But after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in eBay v. MercExchange, some courts have abandoned this truncated equitable inquiry. In its place, the lower federal courts now apply eBay's four-factor test to determine whether a copyright case presents a possibility of irreparable harm. The handful of courts treating the eBay test have taken one of two approaches: rejecting a presumption of irreparable harm or continuing to recognize that presumption. In light of this emerging split of authority, this Comment argues that the presumption of irreparable harm should continue to have a place in American copyright law. Such a rebuttable presumption would protect copyright's exclusivity, address judicial distrust that defendants will voluntarily cease infringing activity, conserve judicial resources, allow courts to shape their equitable powers through general rules as post-eBay case law develops, and adhere to the history and traditions of equity practice eBay implores the courts to follow.


It is generally recognized that, in the absence of policy changes, the U.S. faces a long-term fiscal challenge. But, as a result of the 2007-09 recession, the U.S. is currently facing an unemployment crisis — the unemployment has been above or near 8 percent since February 2009. Furthermore, economic growth has not been great enough to add enough jobs to keep up with the growth of the labor force. The short-term unemployment crisis and the long-term fiscal problems will require that Congress and the President to make difficult choices with regard to federal spending and revenues over the next several years. This chapter examines the U.S.'s long-term fiscal problem within the context of the current economic situation and explores issues that should be considered in addressing these problems. There have been a plethora of formal and informal panels that have examined the fiscal future and developed possible policy packages, often using CBO's budget options report as a Chinese menu in choosing plan provisions. Given what the government does, it will be virtually impossible to solve the long-term fiscal problem through spending cuts alone. Additionally, using tax increases alone to solve the long-term fiscal problem is probably politically unpalatable. Therefore, some combination of the two will have to be used to bring deficits and debt under control. There is no lack of options that could be adopted to address the long-term fiscal problem. The major obstacles are political.


Objective In FarmPath, we propose that increasing sustainability in agriculture is best addressed by enabling flexible combinations of farming models, which vary to reflect the specific opportunity sets embedded in regional culture, agricultural capability, diversification potential, ecology, and historic ownership and governance structures. We will enable progress towards this goal of increased regional sustainability of agriculture through a transdisciplinary research approach, where knowledge is coproduced by scientists, stakeholders and practitioners. FarmPath will specifically integrate theoretical and conceptual approaches to transition and transition management with recent research on adaptive capacity and resilience in farming systems, food regimes, and farm level transitions to multifunctionality, and build on previous EC funded research projects on sustainability and innovation in farming systems, and production and consumption chains. FarmPath will assess a set of farm and regional level sustainability initiatives to identify conflict and complementarity, focusing on how combinations of initiatives, actors, technologies and policies can achieve synergies which initiate transition pathways at regional level. FarmPath will engage in participatory visioning and scenario assessment in contrasting national and European regions, to identify transition pathways: combinations of visions and the social and technical mechanisms and innovations needed to reach these visions. This will lead to the development of a handbook for assessing and identifying actions which can be taken by policy makers to facilitate transition towards regionally sustainable agriculture. FarmPath will also investigate issues surrounding young people and new entrants to farming in specific relation to these initiatives and scenarios. Research findings will be presented and discussed in an international conference, and developed into an academic book.


Accompanying the popularity of high-performance computers, the amount of scholarly study focused on organized, competitive gaming has steadily expanded. To date, user engagement analysis has primarily concentrated on in-game variables, but external influences, including game streams and game-centered communities, affect the intention to both play the game and make in-game transactions. In particular, a new medium for customer engagement is offered by the rise of professional gaming, known as esports. Many non-endemic conventional luxury companies have, however, avoided capitalizing on prospects for esports brand creation. This paper offers a literature analysis of the past and present literature on esports and sports marketing, resulting in the development of a figure representing the history of the esports endemic and non-endemic industry of esports brand use. This study examines the ability for esports to be a powerful element in recognizing both gaming intentions and spending money on games as well as brand development.


This academic listening and note-taking series prepares students for the challenges of attending university lectures. The texts contain 12 lectures per level, topic preview activities to activate background knowledge, and listening strategies such as predicting, inferring and listening for gist.


The prevailing image of sex tourism is one in which a Western male sex tourist travels to the developing world—particularly Southeast Asia—to find an otherized female sex worker. Early studies on sex tourism tended to focus on this image, posing the worker as a victim of both economic and patriarchal power. However, since the mid-1990s, there has been growing acknowledgement that sex tourism is a dynamic feature of the tourism industry, with gender variables constantly changing. One now has the opportunity to study either one or both sexes together, theorizing how behaviors and roles are given gendered meanings, how labor is divided to express gender and gendered differences symbolically, and how social structures incorporate gender values and convey gender advantages in hierarchical relationships.

Based on this broader framework, it is suggested that many of the sex tourists traveling to the developing world are female. Indeed, the entry of women as consumers within the sex tourism industry dates back to the early 1960s. At that time, Scandinavian, British, and German women began to travel to other European destinations—particularly to Italy, Spain, and Greece—in order to engage in situational sexual relations with local men. The arrival of mass tourism allowed women to travel farther afield to find young men.

This article explores the interactions between white female tourists and local men in Barbados, and the implications of these relationships for indigenous gender and sexuality. It also seeks to examine the experiences, views, and attitudes of "beach boys" engaged in sex tourism, and explore the implications of female sex tourism for local communities. It is based on observation, group discussions, and in-depth interviews conducted by the author in Barbados from 1998 to 2000.


Leaves of Taxus wallichiana Zucc. from NE and NW Himalayas were studied to determine the variation in anatomical characteristics of both regions. The present study revealed that the leaves of NE Himalayas were larger in size than that of NW Himalayas. Anatomically, the spongy parenchyma of selected sites (except Morsing) of NE Himalaya did not contain pigmented cells. The number of palisade layers, stomatal bands and stomatal density were greater in leaves of NE Himalayas. Also, palisade cell size and vascular bundle size were larger in leaves of NE Himalayas as compared to NW Himayalas. Statistically, there were significant differences in palisade cell size, stomatal density and diameter of vascular bundle among selected sites of both regions.


Small molecules that target KSR inhibit oncogenic Ras signaling. Mutations that activate the guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) K-RAS promote tumorigenesis and are the most common oncogenic mutations in human cancers. Various drugs that target Ras have been developed but are ineffective in vivo. When activated, K-RAS promotes the activity of the kinase RAF by stabilizing RAF signaling complexes. The kinase suppressor of RAS (KSR) proteins are pseudokinases that act as scaffolding proteins for RAF signaling complexes by simultaneously binding to both RAF and its targets, the kinases of the MEK family. Dhawan et al. analyzed mutations in KSR that suppress RAS signaling and identified residues near the adenosine triphosphate (ATP)–binding pocket of KSR2 that were likely important for the ability of KSR2 to bind RAF and MEK1 simultaneously. To identify small molecules that might bias KSR2 towards a conformation that bound MEK1 but not RAF, the authors screened a library of kinase inhibitors for the ability to compete with ATP for binding to KSR2-MEK1. They identified a compound that competed with ATP and then generated a collection of modified forms of this compound. Among these related compounds, APS-2-79 most effectively competed with ATP for binding to KSR2-MEK1 and inhibited RAS signaling in cultured cells and in vitro. Structural analysis of APS-2-79 bound to KSR2-MEK1 and in vitro binding assays indicated that APS-2-79 disrupted RAS signaling by stabilizing an inactive conformation of KSR2 that could neither bind to RAF nor accommodate the conformational changes associated with MEK activation. APS-2-79 alone did not reduce the viability of KRAS-mutant cell lines, but the compound enhanced the ability of various MEK inhibitors, including the clinical inhibitor trametinib, to reduce growth of these cells. Thus, combination therapy with APS-2-79 or related compounds and MEK inhibitors may increase therapeutic effectiveness. N. S. Dhawan, A. P. Scopton, A. C. Dar, Small molecule stabilization of the KSR inactive state antagonizes oncogenic Ras signalling. Nature 537, 112–116 (2016). [PubMed]


1. Introduction This paper is concerned with the evaluation of a speech output Web browser for the blind and visually impaired, with special reference to how it supports users in building conceptual models of the World Wide Web in the way that sighted users do. The browser named BrookesTalk reads out the Web page, using speech synthesis, in word, sentence and paragraph mode and offers different views of the page to simulate 'scanning' , (Zajicek et al, 1998c), (Zajicek et al, 1998d). Abbreviated views of the page take the form of keywords, summary and abstract and are derived using information retrieval and natural language processing techniques. BrookesTalk also offers a special search facility, a configurable text window for visually impaired users and a standard visual browser so that blind or visually impaired users can work alongside other people who can fully utilise a standard graphical interface. Since winning a medal in the British Computer Society It Awards 1998 BrookesTalk received considerable publicity and as a result has been requested and distributed free on CD to around 200 blind and visually impaired Web users around the world. It is available from the Web site This paper describes how BrookesTalk functions help blind and visually impaired users to build conceptual models of the Web. It also reports the results of the evaluation program designed to categorise the approaches taken by individuals in scanning the Web using speech.


Over the last 20 years, Hawaii's agriculture has shifted from a focus on sugar cane (Saccharum offi cinarum) and pineapples (Ananas comosus) produced on large farms to a diverse array of products produced on a multitude of smaller farms. This dramatic shift in production, in addition to the introduction of many new avian species, has resulted in a concomitant change in the problems faced by agriculture. We surveyed farmers to determine the extent of bird damage to crops, the species responsible, the crops most vulnerable, and control methods employed. Bird problems varied by island, but cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis, Paroaria coronata, and P. capitata) and pheasants (Phasianus colchicus and Lophura leucomelanos) were signifi cant problems on all islands. Seed corn (Zea mays), fruit, vegetables, rice (Oryza sativa), and orchids (Orchidaceae) all sustained notable damage to their crops by birds, and growers expressed much interest in gaining information on control measures. Most farmers incurred little damage, while a few reported losing 80 to 100% of their crops at certain times of the year. We recommend a multidimensional approach to control invasive bird species, including habitat alterations, scare tactics, cessation of game bird releases, prevention of the spread of known pests among islands, and the development of chemical repellents for use when other methods are not suffi cient.


This field verification study is part of the effort to develop small-area poverty maps for all regions in Indonesia. The small-area poverty maps that contain consumption based poverty estimates at the provincial, district, sub-district and village levels have been developed based on data available from the 1999 Socio-economic Survey (SUSENAS) core and consumption module, the 2000 Village Survey (PODES) and the 2000 Population Census, using the small-area estimation method (poverty mapping). This field verification study was conducted in three sample provinces (Riau, North Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara) and particularly covers three districts (Indragiri Hulu, Bolaang Mongondow and West Sumbawa). The main objective of this study is to assess whether the poverty estimates calculated by poverty mapping match the poverty condition of the communities in the field. The assessment is done by comparing the rankings of regions based on poverty mapping and the rankings based on qualitative judgments which are determined through focus group discussions (FGDs) with relevant stakeholders at the provincial, district, sub-district and village levels. These comparisons found that the rankings of districts and sub-districts based on these two methods were fairly consistent, even with the rankings for 2004, and it indicates that the results from poverty mapping down to sub-district level can be used to date with a sufficient degree of confidence. The comparisons between the ranking of villages, however, vary across sub-districts, indicating the need to use the village level poverty estimates with caution. The findings of this study also highlight some possibilities to improve both the poverty mapping and the FGD methods for poverty analysis.


This thesis explores how transnational tourism and "development" practices in post-colonial spaces promote and rely upon each other, creating constant tension between expectations to "develop" and tourist requirements of authenticity/exoticism. Utilizing Foucauldian, Constructivist, and Post-Colonial scholarship, I argue that cultural and ethnic tourism in "developing" or "transitioning" countries is contingent upon the commodification of local culture and environment. Content analysis and literature reviews show that the discourse around tourism and development in international relations literature has changed over time. The following chapters substantiate and provide qualitative support for four hypotheses: H1) International discourse around "development" and "tourism" is constantly changing and being produced according to interests, norms, beliefs, and resistance. H2) Patterns of discourse around "development" and "tourism" are similar and are have been produced to achieve similar goals. H3) The tourism industry offers powerful industrialized states and corporations opportunities to continue imperialist practices of political, cultural or economic advantages over previously colonized territories. H4) Cultural and ethnic tourism in Indonesia relies upon markers of perceived authenticity and exoticism that can prevent host communities from using tourism revenue to "economically develop" as policy and discourse suggests.


Objectives The lack of a common definition for precarious employment (PE) severely hampers the comparison of studies within and between countries, consequently reducing the applicability of research findings. We carried out a systematic review to summarize how PE has been conceptualized and implemented in research and identify the construct's dimensions in order to facilitate guidance on its operationalization. Methods According to PRISMA guidelines, we searched Web of Science and Scopus for publications with variations of PE in the title or abstract. The search returned 1225 unique entries, which were screened for eligibility. Exclusion criteria were (i) language other than English, (ii) lack of a definition for PE, and (iii) non-original research. A total of 63 full-text articles were included and qualitative thematic-analysis was performed in order to identify dimensions of PE. Results We identified several theory-based definitions of PE developed by previous researchers. Most definitions and operationalizations were either an accommodation to available data or the direct result of qualitative studies identifying themes of PE. The thematic-analysis of the selected articles resulted in a multidimensional construct including the following three dimensions: employment insecurity, income inadequacy, and lack of rights and protection. Conclusions Despite a growing number of studies on PE, most fail to clearly define the concept, severely restricting the advancement of the research of PE as a social determinant of health. Our combined theoretical and empirical review suggests that a common multidimensional definition could be developed and deployed in different labor market contexts using a variety of methodological approaches.


The rapid development of high power density devices requires more efficient heat dissipation. Recently, two-dimensional layered materials have attracted significant interest due to their superior thermal conductivity, ease of production and chemical stability. Among them, hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is electrically insulating, making it a promising thermal management material for next-generation electronics. In this work, we demonstrated that an h-BN thin film composed of layer-by-layer laminated h-BN nanosheets can effectively enhance the lateral heat dissipation on the substrate. We found that by using the BN-coated glass instead of bare glass as the substrate, the highest operating temperature of a reduced graphene oxide (RGO) based device could increase from 700 °C to 1000 °C, and at the same input power, the operating temperature of the RGO device is effectively decreased. The remarkable performance improvement using the BN coating originates from its anisotropic thermal conductivity: a high in-plane thermal conductivity of 14 W m-1 K-1 for spreading and a low cross-plane thermal conductivity of 0.4 W m-1 K-1 to avoid a hot spot right underneath the device. Our results provide an effective approach to improve the heat dissipation in integrated circuits and high power devices.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) as widely distributed vegetable crop in the world is an excellent source of nutritive and biologically active compounds. The characteristic compounds, capsaicinoids and carotenoids, highlight the importance of the red hot pepper varieties and their oleoresin extracts in the food and pharmaceutical industry. In the Ph.D. thesis was studied the possibility for a separate and integral utilization of the red hot pepper for obtaining the oleoresins from pericarp, placenta, seeds and stalk.
Pre-treatment of the raw material (drying, separation of anatomical structures i.e. pericarp, placenta and seeds, and determination of theirs physico-chemical
characteristics and determination of the he characteristic bioactive compounds:
capsaicinoids, carotenoids and volatiles was studied, also. The second part of the Ph.D. thesis was focused of the determination of the optimal
conditions for isolation of the bioactive capsaicinoids and coloured compounds,
through comparative following of the thermodynamical parameters by application of organic solvents and supercritical fluids. Influence of the working parameters: temperature, time, pressure, solid to liquid phase ratio, density, type of solvents, and particle size of raw material on the yield of extract and content of capsaicinoids, colour compounds and volatiles was studied. Modelling of the experimental phase data by application of mathematical methods was performed. Re-utilization of seed and stalk from red hot pepper in form of extracts for development of new formulations as edible films, biopesticides and nanoemulsions was studied, also.


This book is the number one Sunday Times bestseller. Dinah Jefferies' unforgettable new novel, The Tea Planter's Wife is a haunting, tender portrait of a woman forced to choose between her duty as a wife and her instinct as a mother...Nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper steps off a steamer in Ceylon full of optimism, eager to join her new husband. But the man who greets her at the tea plantation is not the same one she fell in love with in London. Distant and brooding, Laurence spends long days wrapped up in his work, leaving his young bride to explore the plantation alone. It's a place filled with clues to the past - locked doors, a yellowed wedding dress in a dusty trunk, an overgrown grave hidden in the grounds, far too small for an adult...Gwen soon falls pregnant and her husband is overjoyed, but she has little time to celebrate. In the delivery room the new mother is faced with a terrible choice, one she knows no one in her upper class set will understand - least of all Laurence. Forced to bury a secret at the heart of her marriage, Gwen is more isolated than ever. When the time comes, how will her husband ever understand what she has done? The Tea Planter's Wife is a story of guilt, betrayal and untold secrets vividly and entrancingly set in colonial era Ceylon.


Local and state government officials in South Dakota and Hawaii have implemented a creative way to address some of the problems stemming from alcohol and drug use. The South Dakota 24/7 Sobriety program and Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) project seek to deal with those problems by combining an old criminological theory with modern technological devices. Criminologists, both old and contemporary, have believed that the certainty and celerity of punishment are more effective components of deterrence than is the severity of a penalty. In fact, anyone who has been a parent will tell you that the swift and certain use of a mild or moderate punishment is far more likely to deter unwanted conduct than the threat of an infrequently used severe punishment imposed at some point down the road. South Dakota and Hawaii have developed innovative programs to deal with substance use and noncompliance with the conditions of supervision. Both programs address this problem. Starting from the proposition that certainty and celerity are more important than severity when measuring the effectiveness of punishment and using a rigorous alcohol-testing regimen, South Dakota has made strides toward the reduction of problem drinking and the attendant harms that it can produce. Hawaii has independently developed and followed a similar approach to the use of drugs and crime, subjecting certain offenders to rigorous, random drug urinalysis punished by the certain imposition of a modest stint in jail for those who fail the required tests. Those creative approaches are worth serious consideration as an effective and humane means of addressing the grim problems that alcohol- and drug-abusers pose for victims and society.


[1] The search for evaporites on Mars has important implications for the role that liquid water has played in shaping the planet's geologic, climatic, and potential biologic history. Orbital investigations of surface mineralogy are crucial to this exploration effort. With the exception of coarse-grained gray hematite at a restricted number of sites and trace amounts of carbonate in globally distributed dust deposits, the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) and Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) instruments have yet to find widespread mineralogical evidence of aqueously formed minerals. This may reflect the coarse spatial resolution of TES (3 × 5 km/pixel) and low spectral resolution of THEMIS (10 bands between 6.5 and 14.5 μm). Spectral mapping in the Badwater Basin, Death Valley, California, was conducted to better understand the capabilities of TES and THEMIS in detecting evaporite minerals. High-resolution MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) data, degraded to TES and THEMIS spatial resolutions, were used to evaluate the detection limits of sulfates and carbonates. To assess the validity of this spectral remote sensing, a quantitative ground truth analysis of surface mineralogy in the Badwater Basin was performed. The analysis was based on thin section petrography, X-ray diffraction, electron microprobe, and laboratory and field thermal emission spectrometer analyses. Taken together, the results of all five methods provided enough constraints for a robust interpretation that was in general agreement with the spectral remote-sensing mapping study for ∼90% of the surface samples examined.


A framework for the event-triggered control synthesis under signal temporal logic (STL) tasks is proposed. In our previous work, a continuous-time feedback control law was designed, using the prescribed performance control technique, to satisfy STL tasks. We replace this continuous-time feedback control law by an event-triggered controller. The event-triggering mechanism is based on a maximum triggering interval and on a norm bound on the difference between the value of the current state and the value of the state at the last triggering instance. Simulations of a multi-agent system quantitatively show the efficacy of using an event-triggered controller to reduce communication and computation efforts.


Abstract It is well documented that sea level fell during the Last Glacial Maximum, shifting graded-stream profiles out of equilibrium and causing rivers to incise into continental shelves. Although incised valleys have been heavily researched, the interplay between upstream and downstream controls on incised-valley dimension are not well constrained. To address this lack of understanding, we examined the cross-sectional dimension of nine incised valleys located across the northern Gulf of Mexico margin and bounded by the sequence boundary associated with the last sea-level lowstand. These incised valleys are distinguished by drainage basins that vary in size by three orders of magnitude, cover a margin that presently has a steep climate gradient, and extend across a continental shelf that varies along strike in width and gradient. Incision depths vary for valleys that have similar gradient profiles but different drainage-basin areas, suggesting significant control of upstream variables on incised-valley morphology. Additionally, these data show a strong linear correlation between drainage-basin area and incised-valley cross-sectional area. This suggests applicability of the empirically derived relationship between modern discharge and cross-sectional channel area to incised valleys when compared at the maximum highstand shoreline of the previous sequence. Incised-valley dimension adjusts over a longer period than the lowstand and is in equilibrium with drainage-basin area, which is considered a proxy for long-term discharge. Although base-level fall promotes incision, upstream variables control incised-valley dimensions.


The Westphalian B in the Campine Basin in Belgium contains a low net-to-gross succession of fluvial channel and crevasse sandbodies embedded in lacustrine and floodplain claystone and siltstone. Study and correlation of closely spaced boreholes reveals a localized 15–25 m thick succession of stacked fluvial channel sandbodies in this overall low net-to-gross setting. This concentration of sandbodies is interpreted as the fill of a tectonically induced palaeo-valley based on the orientation of syn-sedimentary faults and the palaeogeographical setting of the Campine Basin, far away from the Westphalian sea. The depositional model was used to interpret stacks of fluvial sandstone of the Caister Sandstone (Westphalian B) in the Dutch offshore and may guide finding economic reservoirs in the overall low net-to-gross labyrinth-type fluvial architecture in this area and in comparable structural settings.


Arti cial feed-forward neural networks ( -ANNs) serve as powerful machine learning models for supervised classi cation problems. They have been used to solve problems stretching from natural language processing to computer vision. -ANNs are typically trained using gradient based approaches, which only require the computation of rst order derivatives. In this thesis we explore the bene ts and drawbacks of training an -ANN with a method which requires the computation of second order derivatives of the objective function. We also explore whether stochastic approximations can be used to decrease the computation time of such a method. A numerical investigation was performed into the behaviour of trust region methods, a type of second order numerical optimization method, when used to train -ANNs on several datasets. Our study compares a classical trust region approach and evaluates the e ect of adapting this method using stochastic variations. The exploration includes three approaches to reducing the computations required to perform the classical method: stochastic subsampling of training examples, stochastic subsampling of parameters and using a gradient based approach in combination with the classical trust region method. We found that stochastic subsampling methods can, in some cases, reduce the CPU time required to reach a reasonable solution when compared to the classical trust region method but this was not consistent across all datasets. We also found that using the classical trust region method in combination with mini-batch gradient descent either successfully matched (within 0.1s) or decreased the CPU time required to reach a reasonable solution for all datasets. This was achieved by only computing the trust region step when training progress using the gradient approach had stalled.


How Nations Innovate compares how affluent capitalist economies differ in their patterns of technological innovation. Building on the 'varieties of capitalism' literature, this book goes beyond the traditional focus on 'radical versus incremental innovation' in existing scholarship, and takes the comparison of capitalism to an entirely new set of questions around technological innovation. For example, which type of capitalism engages in job-threatening innovation? Whose innovation widens income inequality? Whose innovation raises productivity? Which type of capitalism has more effective financial markets for innovation? Whose innovators emphasize 'control' rather than 'flexibility' during innovation? By addressing these questions, the author demonstrates that the way nations innovate often has deep, and sometimes counter-intuitive, implications for how they compare in many areas of socio-economic performance. For example, although venture capital is most active in Anglo-Saxon economies, it seems that venture-capital performance in stimulating innovation is also poorest in precisely these countries. On the issue of employment, the author argues that, whilst technological innovation in Anglo-Saxon economies creates jobs, innovation in European economies destroys jobs. Nations also differ in the nature of income inequality driven by innovation. While innovation pushes top earners further ahead of median earners in Anglo-Saxon economies, it drags bottom earners further behind the median in European economies. Finally, varieties of capitalism also differ in their ability to cope with the volatilities of innovation. While Anglo-Saxon economies face a trade-off between low volatility and high innovation output, these two goals seem jointly achievable in European economies.


Literature citations were used to determine geographical distribution data and parasitization levels from larva colections from corn, alfalfa, three species of grass, peanut, and sorghum for the principal parasitoids of the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith). The highest parasitization levels found for corn, alfalfa, grass, peanut, and sorghum were 77, 30, 54, 37, and 20%, respectively. Chelonus insularis (Cresson) had the highest parasitization rates of all the parasitoids for North and Central America. This parasitoid was not recovered from South America or the Caribbean. Cotesia marginiventris (Cresson) had approximately the same geographical distribution as C. insularis, but attained its highest parasitization levels in grass rather than corn. None of the parasitoids exerted substantial mortality throughout any major portion of the fall armyworm's range.


Predicting the future has long been regarded as a powerful means to improvement and success. The ability to make accurate and timely predictions enhances our ability to control our situation and our environment. Assistive robotics is one prominent area in which foresight of this kind can bring improved quality of life. In this article, we present a new approach to acquiring and maintaining predictive knowledge during the online ongoing operation of an assistive robot. The ability to learn accurate, temporally abstracted predictions is shown through two case studies: 1) able-bodied myoelectric control of a robot arm and 2) an amputee's interactions with a myoelectric training robot. To our knowledge, this research is the first demonstration of a practical method for real-time prediction learning during myoelectric control. Our approach therefore represents a fundamental tool for addressing one major unsolved problem: amputee-specific adaptation during the ongoing operation of a prosthetic device. The findings in this article also contribute a first explicit look at prediction learning in prosthetics as an important goal in its own right, independent of its intended use within a specific controller or system. Our results suggest that real-time learning of predictions and anticipations is a significant step toward more intuitive myoelectric prostheses and other assistive robotic devices.


The optical behavior of a thin film (i.e., peak positions and intensities of infrared spectra) has been discussed for reflection under a thin-film approximation. The reflection spectra of anisotropic and isotropic thin films on various substrates (transparent, dielectric and absorbing, and semi-metal) have been simulated at various angles of incidence in the infrared region for external and internal reflection. For spectral simulation, the matrix method has been used in conjunction with noise-free complex refractive indices based on dispersion theory. The peak positions in the simulated spectra have been compared with transverse optic and longitudinal optic frequencies based on macroscopic theory. The simulated peak intensities for the films have been compared with the prediction based on the thin-film approximation. The optical behavior of reflection spectra has also been examined in detail for a thin film on water or highly oriented pyrolytic graphite.


Abstract. One important contribution to the magnetic field measured at satellite altitude and at ground level comes from the external currents. We used the total field data sampled by the Overhauser Magnetometer on CHAMP and the horizontal magnetic field measurements of the IMAGE ground-based magnetometer network to study the ionospheric Hall current system in the auroral regions. For the CHAMP data a current model consisting of a series of lines and placed at a height of 110km is fitted to the magnetic field signature sampled on the passage across the polar region. The derived current distributions depend, among others, on season and on the local time of the satellite track. At dawn/dusk the auroral electrojets can be detected most clearly in the auroral regions. Their intensity and location are evidently correlated with the A E activity index. For a period of almost two years the results obtained from space and the currents determined from ground-based observations are studied. For the full IMAGE station array a newly-developed method of spherical elementary current systems (SECS) is employed to compute the 2-D equivalent current distribution, which gives a detailed picture of an area covering latitudes 60° – 80° N and 10° – 30° E in the auroral region. Generally, the current estimates from satellite and ground are in good agreement. The results of this survey clearly show the average dependence of the auroral electrojet on season and local time. This is particularly true during periods of increased auroral activity. The correlation coefficient of the results is close to one in the region of sizeable ionospheric current densities. Also the ratio of the current densities, as determined from above and below the ionosphere, is close to unity. It is the first time that the method of Hall current estimate from a satellite has been validated quantitatively by ground-based observations. Among others, this result is of interest for magnetic main field modelling, since it demonstrates that ground-based observations can be used to predict electrojet signatures in satellite magnetic field scalar data. Key words. Ionosphere (auroral Ionosphere; electric fields and currents; ionosphere-magnetosphere interactions)


In 2013, the SEC departed from its long-standing policy of settling enforcement matters on a no-admit/no-deny basis, and for the first time began to require admissions when settling certain cases. The new admissions policy was greeted with considerable concern by many who thought it would lead to fewer settlements, more litigation, and a decline in the effectiveness of SEC enforcement. After more than four years, a full assessment of the policy is in order. The SEC continues to report record enforcement numbers and has touted the admissions policy as a great success. However, this Article empirically demonstrates that the SEC has obtained admissions in a very small number of cases since adopting the new policy, and on only a few occasions in cases involving the most serious charges, namely scienter-based fraud. Moreover, it shows that the SEC has applied the new policy inconsistently and haphazardly, treating like cases differently—a problem that is compounded by a complete lack of transparency in the process. This Article contends that these trends reveal a deliberate strategy of accommodation on the part of the SEC, through which the agency has trumpeted a message of tough enforcement and public accountability, while in reality continuing business as usual. In light of these issues, this Article concludes that the admissions policy should be reconsidered or abandoned altogether.


CONTEXT
Early marriage limits girls' opportunities and compromises their health, yet in Sub-Saharan Africa many girls are married before the age of 18, and few programs have sought to increase the age at marriage on the continent.

METHODS
Berhane Hewan was a two-year pilot project conducted in 2004-2006 that aimed to reduce the prevalence of child marriage in rural Ethiopia, through a combination of group formation, support for girls to remain in school and community awareness. A quasi-experimental research design with baseline and endline surveys was used to measure changes in social and educational participation, marriage age, reproductive health knowledge and contraceptive use. Chi-square tests, proportional hazards models and logistic regressions were conducted to assess changes associated with the project.

RESULTS
The intervention was associated with considerable improvements in girls' school enrollment, age at marriage, reproductive health knowledge and contraceptive use. Particularly among girls aged 10-14, those exposed to the program were more likely than those in the control area to be in school at the endline survey (odds ratio, 3.0) and were less likely to have ever been married (0.1). However, among girls aged 15-19, those in the intervention area had an elevated likelihood of having gotten married by the endline (2.4). Sexually experienced girls exposed to the intervention had elevated odds at endline of having ever used contraceptives (2.9).

CONCLUSIONS
The success of the Berhane Hewan program, one of the first rigorously evaluated interventions to delay marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa, suggests that well-designed and effectively implemented programs can delay the earliest marriages until later adolescence.


While security is often recognized as a top priority for organizations and a push for competitive advantage, repeatedly, Internet of Things (IoT) products have become a target of diverse security attacks. Thus, orchestrating smart services and devices in a more open, standardized and secure way in IoT environments is yet a desire as much as it is a challenge. In this paper, we propose a model for IoT practitioners and researchers, who can adopt a sound security thinking in parallel with open IoT technological developments. We present the state-of-the-art and an empirical study with IoT practitioners. These efforts have resulted in identifying a set of openness and security thinking criteria that are important to consider from an IoT ecosystem point of view. Openness in terms of open standards, data, APIs, processes, open source and open architectures (flexibility, customizability and extensibility aspects), by presenting security thinking tackled from a three-dimensional point of view (awareness, assessment and challenges) that highlight the need to develop an IoT security mindset. A novel model is conceptualized with those characteristics followed by several key aspects important to design and secure future IoT systems.


ABSTRACT This special issue expands on the existing literature on the international dimension of democratization by focusing on democracy projection, defined as the projection of (democratic) norms in the every-day practice of interactions, beyond any donor-recipient relationship, between states and foreign civil society actors on issue areas where both have interests to defend. The SI examines the issue areas of trade, anti-corruption, applied research, gender and LGBTI, focusing on EU practices in its everyday dealings with civil society in the Southern Mediterranean. The authors conclude, based on comparative case studies relying on extensive interviews, direct observations and content analysis, that democracy projection varies according to four main factors: EU's perceived interest, its ideational commitment to norms of dialogue and inclusion, the degree of institutional inertia and discourses/structures of meanings dominating in some policy areas which preclude EU engagement on substance.


Integrated label-free photonic biosensors provide an excellent limit of detection in combination with a low-cost disposable. Their application has thus far been limited by the necessity of an expensive tunable laser. In this article, we present a novel sensor, eliminating the tunable laser by combining a sensitive Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a broadband light source and an on-chip spectral filter. By curve fitting the original Mach-Zehnder spectrum can be accurately reconstructed from the output of the spectral filter. Bulk sensing experiments yield a limit of detection comparable to conventional integrated photonic biosensors, paving the way for a more widespread range of application.


Contemporary educational thought holds that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate school performance is the inability of schools to adequately staff classrooms with qualified teachers. It is widely believed that schools are plagued by shortages of teachers, primarily due to recent increases in teacher retirements and student enrollments. This report summarizes a series of analyses that have investigated the possibility that there are other factors tied to the organizational characteristics and conditions of schools that are behind school staffing problems. The data utilized in this investigation are from the Schools and Staffing Survey and its supplement, the Teacher Follow-up Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. These data indicate that school staffing problems are not primarily due to teacher shortages, in the sense of an insufficient supply of qualified teachers. Rather, the data indicate that school staffing problems are primarily due to a "revolving door" where large numbers of qualified teachers depart their jobs for reasons other than retirement. The data show that the amount of turnover accounted for by retirement is relatively minor when compared to that associated with other factors, such as teacher job dissatisfaction and teachers pursuing other jobs. This report concludes that teacher recruitment programs traditionally dominant in the policy realm will not solve the staffing problems of such schools if they do not also address the organizational sources of low teacher retention. Comments Reprinted from A Research Report Co-sponsored by The Consortium for Policy Research in Education and The Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, September 2003, 30 pages. This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/133 Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?


Language brokers are children of immigrants who use their skills as bilinguals to interpret or translate for their family and/or community members. Although language brokering may begin in childhood or preadolescence, language brokering may continue until adulthood. While there are a small number of studies that have touched upon change over time, this study's primary focus is on language brokers' experiences relating to change over time. This was accomplished through semi-structured in depth retrospective interviews among Latina/o young adults attending small liberal arts colleges. Three aspects of language brokering were examined, the practice of language brokering, feeling towards language brokering, and family dynamics. Three new aspects of language brokering emerged, brokering for parent's business, brokering for the community, and brokering technology. Siblings played the role of the language broker at different points in time and to different extents. Parents' English language developed, and they were able to navigate some tasks due to their language development and their experience completing typical forms. Feelings of joy and frustration, in deed, coexist. Feelings towards language brokering also changed from embarrassment and nervousness to confidence and satisfaction. The patterns and experiences found in this study highlight the complexity and dynamic nature of language brokering. LANGUAGE BROKERING AS A DYNAMIC PHENOMENON 4


Background Clinical evaluation of CNVs identified via techniques such as array comparative genome hybridisation (aCGH) involves the inspection of lists of known and unknown duplications and deletions with the goal of distinguishing pathogenic from benign CNVs. A key step in this process is the comparison of the individual's phenotypic abnormalities with those associated with Mendelian disorders of the genes affected by the CNV. However, because often there is not much known about these human genes, an additional source of data that could be used is model organism phenotype data. Currently, almost 6000 genes in mouse and zebrafish are, when knocked out, associated with a phenotype in the model organism, but no disease is known to be caused by mutations in the human ortholog. Yet, searching model organism databases and comparing model organism phenotypes with patient phenotypes for identifying novel disease genes and medical evaluation of CNVs is hindered by the difficulty in integrating phenotype information across species and the lack of appropriate software tools. Methods Here, we present an integrated ranking scheme based on phenotypic matching, degree of overlap with known benign or pathogenic CNVs and the haploinsufficiency score for the prioritisation of CNVs responsible for a patient's clinical findings. Results We show that this scheme leads to significant improvements compared with rankings that do not exploit phenotypic information. We provide a software tool called PhenogramViz, which supports phenotype-driven interpretation of aCGH findings based on multiple data sources, including the integrated cross-species phenotype ontology Uberpheno, in order to visualise gene-to-phenotype relations. Conclusions Integrating and visualising cross-species phenotype information on the affected genes may help in routine diagnostics of CNVs.


Accountability is an essential element in all societies and to the organizations that inhabit this world. Corporate scandals have been linked to failures in accountability and business leaders are now more than ever challenged to be accountable. Leadership can also be understood as a response to transparency and accountability issues that are an important concern in the area of public administration. In substance, leadership and accountability are both attributional phenomena. We conduct an evidence-based review using an integrative synthesis of published peer-reviewed literature on leadership and accountability. Our search in Web of Science databases identified 37 articles on this topic of several research areas. Our review of these articles addresses the following 5 questions: (1) What kind of studies have been developed on the topic? (2) What is the possible relationship between leadership and accountability? (3) What is the impact of studies identified in the literature? (4) What is the incidence of studies in the area of Business and Economics? (5) Which direction should subsequent studies take? To answer these questions, we use an evidence-based review with bibliometric methods of citation analysis, co-citation analysis, co-author analysis, and co-word analysis. We conclude that despite evidence linking the adoption of a relationship between leadership and accountability, adoption is very low, particularly in the field of business and economics, and therefore, evidence on this topic is sparse. This study intends to contribute to a more complete reflection and understanding of literature review, impact and relevance of accountability in organizational leadership. We offer potential explanations for this paradox and suggest avenues for future research.


Student-run free clinics (SRFCs) provide services to underserved populations while enhancing student education. Occupational therapy (OT) participation in integrated care SRFCs is an emerging area of practice and enhances the interprofessional model necessary for holistic patient care. The Student Health Outreach for Wellness (SHOW) organization, located in Phoenix, Arizona, is a SRFC comprised of three state universities that incorporates nine different health professional programs to deliver interprofessional care, including OT. The SHOW clinic provides direct care services where student volunteers practice clinical and interprofessional skills under the guidance of licensed health care providers. OT preceptors and students participate in team-based assessment and care delivery to practice their discipline-specific treatment knowledge of upper-extremity impairments, musculoskeletal pain, medication management, fall prevention, and behavioral health issues, among many others. OT integration into the clinic provides students and preceptors an opportunity to build a unique skill set in interprofessional care, educate other disciplines about OT, and become emerging leaders in the field. Challenges for OT involvement in this SRFC include recruitment and sustainability of volunteers and lack of knowledge and understanding about the role of OT on an interprofessional team. Further research is needed to identify additional benefits of OT services in SFRCs.


There is currently much policy emphasis on both partnership working between health and social services in the UK and on the outcomes delivered by services. This article provides an account of two consecutive projects centred on these two themes. The first project, at the University of Glasgow, sought to address the lack of evidence about the outcomes delivered to service users by partnerships. Following from this project, the Joint Improvement Team of the Scottish Government commissioned the researchers to develop a toolkit to involve users and unpaid carers in performance management in community care in Scotland. The remit of this second project expanded during 2007 as it became linked with the development of the emerging National Outcomes Framework for community care in Scotland. This article outlines the outcomes-based piloting work currently under way in Scotland.


At diagnosis and throughout disease course, patients with high-grade glioma (HGG) experience a diminished quality of life (QoL), increase in fatigue, and reduction in cognition. Naltrexone, an orally semisynthetic opiate antagonist, is FDA-approved for treatment of heroin/ alcohol addiction, and low dose naltrexone (LDN) has been observed to improve QoL and lower fatigue in other neurological illnesses, such as multiple sclerosis. LDN is believed to function as a partial agonist and can lead to shifts in neurochemicals that reduce fatigue. Based on this, we sought to study whether LDN has an impact on QoL, fatigue, sleepiness, and cognition in patients with HGG. In a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized study, 110 HGG patients were randomized to receive placebo (N = 56) or LDN 4.5 mg orally at night (N = 54). Treatment was initiated at day 1 of concurrent radiation and temozolomide and continued for 16 weeks. Change from baseline was evaluated in all study assessments including patient-reported outcomes of QoL (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Brain), fatigue (Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue), sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale), depression (Beck Depression Inventory II), and cognitive testing. Safety of LDN was monitored with standard laboratory testing and adverse event reporting. Demographics were WHO grade IV (85%), male (56%), KPS 90-100 (51%), grossly resected (55%) and mean age of 56 years. For all QoL, fatigue, depression, and cognition measures, change from baseline at 16 weeks was not significantly different in patients receiving LDN or placebo. At 16 weeks, LDN patients reported a significantly greater increase in sleepiness from baseline compared to placebo (p = 0.0088). Adverse events were seen in similar frequencies for LDN and placebo. Of note, overall survival did not significantly differ between treatment groups. While LDN is safe to administer, LDN has no effect on QoL, fatigue, cognition, or survival, but may increase sedation, in HGG patients.


This paper presents the results of an experimental study related to thermal effects on kaolin clay cyclic mobility. The thermal effects were identified by comparing the experimental results of cyclic triaxial tests performed at high temperature (90°C) with results of the same type of test carried out at ambient temperature (22°C). For the testing, a new temperature-controlled triaxial apparatus, developed by the authors, was employed. Experimental evidence shows that shear cycles on the heated samples induced smaller axial strain and pore-water pressure per cycle in comparison with the unheated samples. In addition, shear-induced pore-water pressure at large strains in the heated sample was slightly lower than in the unheated sample. In other words, the heated samples behaved as if they were denser, which is a result of thermal hardening. These results may be applied in geotechnical and earthquake engineering applications as a soil improvement technique.


How do EU law and international law interact? Is the relationship between EU law and international law different from the relationship between general international law and one of its specialised legal orders, for example the relationship between international law and the law of the sea? In other words, is the question of the relationship only one about the fragmentation of international law? Are the rules of interaction between the legal orders just 'technical' conflict rules in this context? Or are the rules of interaction between the international and the EU legal order which has been described as an autonomous legal order, akin to rules that govern the interaction between international law and national legal orders? Elements of both the international and the constitutional paradigms are reflected in most areas of EU law. But they are particularly prominent when analysing the relationship between international and EU law, a topic that has enjoyed increasing attention in recent years. In this paper, firstly, the more formal basis for the relationship is considered by looking at the international law framework of EU law before, secondly, looking at the relationship between the two legal orders and the realities of the relationship as expressed in the status of international law within the EU legal order.


A plan to tie a proportion of the funding for clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to reductions in "avoidable" admissions to hospital of patients with long term conditions risks distorting priorities and creating a new "target culture," a senior doctors' leader has warned.

A quarter of the new "quality premium" incentive payment paid to new commissioning organisations in England from 2014-15 would depend on their achieving a reduction or no change in emergency admissions for specific conditions between 2013-14 and 2014-15, says draft guidance from the NHS Commissioning Board.1

The money allocated to the premium, proposed as part of the UK government's changes to healthcare,2 will be determined after parliament sets regulations in the next few months. It will be paid on top of each commissioning group's main financial allocation for 2014-15 and the running costs allowance of £25 (€30; $40) per head …


The occupational therapy literature has been comprehensively reviewed to identify various theoretical answers to the question of what is clinical reasoning. Authors to date have two primary answers to this question, which we labeled scientific reasoning and narrative reasoning. Additional literature addresses the influence of personal and practice contexts on clinical practice. These are labeled pragmatic reasoning and are proposed to be an integral part of clinical reasoning. Pragmatic reasoning considers issues such as reimbursement, therapists' skills, and equipment availability. To be comprehensive, further study of clinical reasoning should include these contextual issues as an inherent part of the clinical reasoning process.