How to create competitive advantage through information technology (IT) in the turbulent environment is an important issue to most organizations. This study contributes to the information systems (IS) literatures by help gaining a greater understanding of whether and how IT skills that an IT department possesses influence the firm's IT capabilities and IT-business alignment. This study proposes a theoretical model to investigate how soft skills and hard skills of the IT department influence a firm's IT capabilities, and how these IT capabilities in turn affect its IT-business alignment. The study identifies three IT capabilities related to the IS development context: IT-user collaboration, IT adaptability, and IT innovativeness. The empirical data collected from 120 IT directors showed that both soft IT skills and hard IT skills positively affect the three IT capabilities simultaneously, IT adaptability and IT-user collaboration significantly affect the IT-business alignment, and IT-user collaboration has significant effect on IT adaptability. Yet the result failed to support the role of IT innovativeness in facilitating IT-business alignment, nor the effect of IT-user collaboration on IT innovativeness. Our findings confirm the importance of IT-related resources and capabilities possessed by the IT department. The implications and limitations of this study are provided.


The Acoustics of Speech and Hearing is an H-Level graduate course that reviews the physical processes involved in the production, propagation and reception of human speech. Particular attention is paid to how the acoustics and mechanics of the speech and auditory system define what sounds we are capable of producing and what sounds we can sense


The local state, and more broadly the logic of the local, remains divorced from accounts of urban governance. Addressing this omission, this article examines how a focus on the local opens up new avenues of enquiry in urban governance. It first discusses the interactions of the 'urban' and the 'local', analysing the significance of both to an understanding of neoliberalism in action. It then evaluates the opportunities and challenges that emerge from the multiple interplays of the 'local' and the 'urban', setting out five focal points for the exploration of the local: understandings of 'crisis'; politics, meaning and affect; agency and regulatory intermediaries; the turn to practice; and place and comparison. The article concludes by calling for the study of local practices, in ways that recognise the multiple logics at play in different conjunctures, and the spaces such ambiguities and 'messiness' open up for different forms of situated agency.


A possible direct effect of guanine nucleotide binding (G) proteins on calcium channels was examined in membrane patches excised from guinea pig cardiac myocytes and bovine cardiac sarcolemmal vesicles incorporated into planar lipid bilayers. The guanosine triphosphate analog, GTP gamma S, prolonged the survival of excised calcium channels independently of the presence of adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP), adenosine triphosphate, cAMP-activated protein kinase, and the protein kinase C activator tetradecanoyl phorbol acetate. A specific G protein, activated Gs, or its alpha subunit, purified from the plasma membranes of human erythrocytes, prolonged the survival of excised channels and stimulated the activity of incorporated channels. Thus, in addition to regulating calcium channels indirectly through activation of cytoplasmic kinases, G proteins can regulate calcium channels directly. Since they also directly regulate a subset of potassium channels, G proteins are now known to directly gate two classes of membrane ion channels.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of exogenous hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) to reduce peel spotting related to oxidative membrane damage in 'Sucrier' bananas stored at 25±1°C. Ripening bananas were dipped in 0 (control), 0.5 and 1.0% (v/v) H(2)O(2) for 10 min, then they were packed in plastic trays and stored at 25±1°C with 75±5% relative humidity for 6 days. Changes in membrane damage, including malondialdehyde (MDA) and conjugated diene (CD) contents, lipoxygenase (LOX) activity and electrolyte leakage (EL), as well as total antioxidant capacity (TAC) using DPPH and ABTS assays and peel spotting score, were determined daily for 6 days. The results showed that membrane damage (indicated by MDA and CD contents, LOX activity and EL) increased during storage, coinciding with the increase in peel spotting. TAC increased gradually on the first 3 days and then decreased thereafter. Dipping bananas in H(2)O(2) significantly reduced peel spotting and membrane damage as well as enhanced TAC when compared with the control during storage. The treatment of 1.0% (v/v) H(2)O(2) was the most effective to protect spotting and membrane damage. These results suggest that exogenous H(2)O(2) could reduce senescent spotting by enhancing antioxidant capacity and reducing oxidative membrane damage in 'Sucrier' bananas during storage at room temperature.


Dryland ecosystems cover large regions of the Earth and have important impacts on global biogeochemistry and the carbon cycle. The plant species that occupy dryland environments have traits that enable them to withstand harsh environmental conditions, and some researchers have hypothesized that dryland vegetation may be comparatively resilient to changing climate, while others have pointed out that dryland vegetation often operates close to the physiological limits of many species, implying a possible vulnerability to warming. Here we use the Landsat archive to analyze vegetation dynamics for part of the Sonoran Desert and adjacent mountains in southern California. We show that large decreases in vegetation cover occurred over the last 34 years (1984–2017), especially across the xeric portions of our study region, where we observed a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) decline of 1.1 ± 0.3% yr−1. Changes in precipitation explain most of the year‐to‐year variation but are unable to fully explain the observed long‐term decline in NDVI. Statistical models that combined summer temperature and mean annual precipitation explained more of the spatial and temporal structure of NDVI trends and implicate climate warming as an important driver of declining vegetation cover. The impact of warming contributed to a change in the precipitation‐vegetation relationship through time for this desert region, indicating a structural change in ecosystem function during the study period. These results suggest that recent climate change has already had significant impact on these drylands and highlight the potential for future warming to increase risks for dryland ecosystems in other regions.


This work presents a defense of the view that philosophical propositions are true in some perspectives and false in others, arguing that the rationalist, intuition-driven method of acquiring basic beliefs favored by analytic philosophy is not epistemically superior to such alternate belief-acquiring methods as religious revelation and the ritual use of hallucinogens. The grand and sweeping claims of many relativists might seem to amount to the argument that everything is relative - except the thesis of relativism. In this book, Steven Hales defends relativism, but in a more circumscribed form that applies specifically to philosophical propositions. His claim is that philosophical propositions are relatively true - true in some perspectives and false in others. Hales defends this argument first by examining rational intuition as the method by which philosophers come to have the beliefs they do. Analytic rationalism, he claims, has a foundational reliance on rational intuition as a method of acquiring basic beliefs. He then argues that there are other methods that people use to gain beliefs about philosophical topics that are strikingly analogous to rational intuition and examines two of these: Christian revelation and the ritual use of hallucinogens. Hales argues that rational intuition is not epistemically superior to either of these alternative methods. There are only three possible outcomes: we have no philosophical knowledge (skepticism); there are no philosophical propositions (naturalism); or there are knowable philosophical propositions, but our knowledge of them is merely relative to doxastic perspective. Hales defends relativism against the charge that it is self-refuting and answers a variety of objections to this account of relativism. Finally, he examines the most sweeping objection to relativism: that philosophical propositions are not merely relatively true because there are no philosophical propositions - that all propositions are ultimately empirical, as the naturalists contend. Hales's somewhat disturbing conclusion - that intuition-driven philosophy does produce knowledge, but not absolute knowledge - is sure to inspire debate among philosophers.


Background/aims To evaluate depression, coping with disease and stress, and the subjective impression of distress and/or life events as triggers for recurrences in HLA-B27-associated anterior uveitis (B27-AU), with attention to gender-specific characteristics. Methods 171 patients with a history of B27-AU responded to a postal survey performed between January 2006 and April 2008 using standardised psychological questionnaires: Beck Depression Inventory, Freiburg Questionnaire on Coping with Illness, and Stress Coping Inventory. Results Patients with B27-AU differed from healthy controls showing more depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory, 31.6%), applying characteristic disease coping as well as negative stress coping strategies. Female B27-AU patients tended to react with depression and male patients to use negative stress coping strategies. 57.9% of patients believed that psychological distress was a trigger for relapses, and 34.5% stated specific life events. Together, this group of patients achieved higher depression scores and used more negative disease and stress coping styles than patients without perception of distress. Conclusion Patients with B27-AU patients exhibited significant psychopathology concerning depression and disease coping. Distress and life events were subjectively suspected to be a trigger. By imparting knowledge to the patients on probable development of depressive moods and the role of stress/life events as trigger for relapses, as well as offering behaviour therapy to optimise coping, may help patients to cope better with B27-AU.


The purpose of this experiment were to study the optimal level of zinc in the form of zinc carbonate in the high fiber diet provided by rice bran, and to study the zinc status as well as the performance of laying hens. one control and 9 treatment groups of hisex brown laying hens, 80 in all, were fed diets with 25,50, or 75% rice bran supplemented with 25, 125, or 225 ppm zinc as zinc carbonate.Rice bran diets were isonitrogenous and isocaloric by virtue of varying levels of corn, fish meal, soybean meal and coconut oil. The experiment started at 20 weeks of age and continued 10 months. All rice bran diets produced significantly more income over feed cost than did the cornsoybean meal control. Diets with 25 or 50% rice bran and 125 ppm zinc did not differ significantly from the control in hen-day egg production. Adding 125 ppm zinc to 25 or 50% rice bran gave higher concentration in whole blood and erythrocytes than did addition of 25 ppm. The supplementation of 125 ppm zinc in 25 or 50% rice bran gave the highest zinc availability in the body. The 75% rice bran diet decreased avaibility of added zinc. Data on zinc status were obtained from randomly selected hens given labeled zinc chloride.


Abstract The political agenda of the French Popular Front (1935––38) sought to unite workers and intellectuals in solidarity against the forces of European fascism. Many French composers were quickly implicated in this politicized process, supported by the rapid development of Communist-funded cultural organizations like the Feedeeration Musicale Populaire and inspired by tremendous interest in the Soviet cultural model. These political circumstances welcomed the techniques of socialist realism in France under the Popular Front, but Soviet aesthetics were creatively appropriated to reflect French musical traditions and political realities. Libeerons Thaelmann by Charles Koechlin and Jeunesse by Arthur Honegger exemplify this engagement with Communist politics and aesthetics, confirming the musical and political relevance of socialist realism for French composers during the mid-1930s.


This paper uses a combination of Ethier (1982) and Melitz's (2003) models to show that liberalizing trade among developing countries, so-called South-South trade, could contribute to improve the access to international markets of developing countries' would-be exporters. Lower trade barriers among developing countries has the effect of lowering the price of intermediate inputs and eventually allows exporters in those countries to serve international markets. We also compare unilateral and multilateral South-South trade liberalization and find that the latter unambiguously reduces the price of intermediates in all participating countries, whereas the former has ambiguous effects.


The pattern of coronary artery atherosclerosis is valuable in informing mitigation strategies for coronary heart disease. Histomorphological data on this disease among Africans living in Sub Saharan Africa are, however, scarce. The left anterior descending is one of the most commonly afflicted arteries. This study, therefore, examined the left anterior descending artery of 213 black Kenyans [Mean age 36.8 years, range 5 – 82 years] who had died of non cardiovascular causes for features of atherosclerosis. The individuals were divided into male and female, then into 10-yr age groups. Specimens were obtained from the proximal segment of the artery during autopsy at the Department of Human Anatomy University of Nairobi, Kenya. They were processed routinely for paraffin embedding and sectioning. Five micron sections were stained with Haematoxylin/Eosin and Mason's trichrome and examined with light microscope. Micrographs of representative features were taken using a high resolution digital camera. At least one feature of atherosclerosis was present in 54 (25.4%) of the individuals. The features observed included severe intimal hyperplasia (34; 63%), disintegration of the internal elastic lamina [30; 55.6%]; atherosclerotic plaque (20; 37%), adventitial thicknening (14; 26%) and mural neovascularization (10; 18.5%). The mean age of those with features of atherosclerosis was 38.4 years, range 6 – 62 years with 25 (46.3%) being aged 40 years and below. Of these, the male: female ratio was 1.7:1. In conclusion, features of atherosclerosis are present in over 25% of the population studied. The disease affects young people, including women. Proactive preventive measures including follow – up should commence early, and involve both men and women


People often use text in their drawings to communicate their ideas. For visually impaired people, adding textual information to tactile graphics is challenging. Labeling in braille is a laborious process and clutters the drawings. Audio labels provide an alternative way to add text. However, digital drawing tools for visually impaired people have not examined the use of audio for creating labels. We conducted a study comprising three tasks with 11 visually impaired adults. Our goal was to understand how participants explored and created labeled tactile graphics (both braille and audio), and their interaction preferences. We find that audio labels were quicker to use and easier to create. However, braille labels enabled flexible exploration strategies. We also find that participants preferred multimodal interaction commands, and report hand postures and movements observed during the drawing process for designing recognizable interactions. Based on our findings, we derive design implications for digital drawing tools.


Altering reafferent sensory information can have a profound effect on motor output. Introducing a short delay [delayed auditory feedback (DAF)] during speech production results in modulations of voice and loudness, and produces a range of speech dysfluencies. The ability of speakers to resist the effects of delayed feedback is variable yet it is unclear what neural processes underlie differences in susceptibility to DAF. Here, susceptibility to DAF is investigated by looking at the neural basis of within and between subject changes in speech fluency under 50 and 200 ms delay conditions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, networks involved in producing speech under two levels of DAF were identified, lying largely within networks active during normal speech production. Independent of condition, fluency ratings were associated with midbrain activity corresponding to periaqueductal grey matter. Across subject variability in ability to produce normal sounding speech under a 200 ms delay was associated with activity in ventral sensorimotor cortices, whereas ability to produce normal sounding speech under a 50 ms delay was associated with left inferior frontal gyrus activity. These data indicate whilst overlapping cortical mechanisms are engaged for speaking under different delay conditions, susceptibility to different temporal delays in speech feedback may involve different processes.


DOI: 10.1355/ae28-lg Bounding the Mekong: The Asian Development Bank, China, and Thailand. By Jim Glassman. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010. Pp. 208. Jim Glassman has written a well researched book on the economic, political and socio-cultural integration of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Since the GMS entered into the realm of useful knowledge in 1992, a series of studies have been conducted in regards to the evolution of this subregion, most of which focus mainly on the success of cooperation among members of the GMS, the progress of its regionalization and how the GMS has slotted in so perfectly with the ongoing trend of globalization. The study by Glassman, however, represents a major departure from the available literatures on the Mekong subregion. Glassman's objective is ambitious. He sets out to debunk the myth of the GMS as being calculatingly constructed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). To the general understanding of many, the GMS is seen as another kind of representative of regionalization. In reality, unlike other regional organizations of the world, such as the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which were born out of governments' initiatives that intended to bring institutional coherence to their transnational processes, the GMS was arbitrarily "manufactured" by numerous publications of one specific institution - the ADB - to which member countries owe the definition of the GMS. Divided into seven chapters, the book begins with how to best approach the GMS. Glassman lays out an argument that includes recognition of the importance of institutions that regulate regionalization and discursive processes that produce the object of regulation and knowledge about it (p. 15). His argument is best explicated in Chapter 3, while the author deals with the manufacturing process of the GMS. Terms like "strengthening GMS cooperation for economic growth and mutual benefit" and "the river links six countries", according to Glassman, are misguided simply because they inaccurately portray the dynamics of the actual regionalization processes that are taking place in the GMS. Glassman boldly argues that rather than being based in complementarities and the spatial proximity of countries within the GMS, the GMS integration process is indeed driven by more global, but highly uneven, capitalist investment, production, and trade, leading less to the integration of the GMS per se than to the integration of GMS countries into a much larger East Asian regional system (itself embedded in broader global processes), albeit in quite differential - and differentially advantageous - ways (p. 37). In other words, what has been the driving force behind the GMS is neither the comparative advantage nor naturally existing proximity as often claimed by the ADB, but rather competitive profit seeking by different investors, inside and outside the subregion, who are in search of exploiting economic benefits, such as cheap labour and natural resources, offered by countries of the GMS. Thus, the notion of a win-win situation and mutual benefit gained from the cooperation through the GMS is at times illusory and fails to reflect the realities in the Mekong subregion. It also proffers false hope for poorer nations participating in the GMS of a certain degree of fairness. Glassman points out that while various opportunities are emerging for smaller players to play roles in regionalization, the opportunities are not necessarily equitable or winwin; and in some cases particular groups of less empowered actors may be seen as definite "losers" in the process (p. …


Gastrointestinal complications of anticholinergic medications are prevalent, potentially life-threatening, and could be more actively prevented. We present a case report of an ileus that required surgical intervention and developed in the context of clozapine, benztropine, and fluoxetine use. The case exemplifies the potential anticholinergic toxicities of clozapine and benztropine as well as possible pharmacokinetic interactions between fluoxetine, clozapine, and benztropine. We discuss ways to minimize the likelihood of anticholinergic complications with these medications.


The concept of organizational learning (OL) is receiving an increasing amount of attention in the research and practice of management information systems (MIS) due to its potential for affecting organizational outcomes, including control and intelligence, competitive advantage, and the exploitation of knowledge and technology.As such, further development of the salient issues related to OL is warranted, especially measurement of the construct. Based on a domain definition grounded in the literature, this research represents the initial work in developing an empirically reliable and valid measure of organizational learning. The rigorous method utilized in the derivation of this measure, which integrates two methodological frameworks for instrument development, is the main strength of this work. The result is an eightfactor, 28-item instrument for assessing OL, derived from a sample of 119 knowledge-based firms. The empirically derived factors are awareness, communication, performance assessment, intellectual cultivation, environmental adaptability, social learning, intellectual capital management, and organizational grafting. MIS function managers can use these factors to gauge organizational or subunit success in the creation and diffusion of new applications of information technology.


Background
The ability to oxidize fat is associated with a lower risk of chronic metabolic disease. Preclinical data in mice showed that a high-fat "breakfast" increased 24-h fat oxidation relative to a high-carbohydrate breakfast.

Objectives
The objectives of this study were to determine whether the timing of macronutrient intake in humans affects daily fuel utilization and to examine associations between fuel utilization and metabolic indexes.

Methods
Participants were 29 healthy sedentary men and women (aged 55-75 y) with a body mass index (kg/m2) between 25 and 35. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either a high-fat breakfast (FB; 35% carbohydrate, 20% protein, 45% fat; n = 13) or a high-carbohydrate breakfast (CB; 60% carbohydrate, 20% protein, 20% fat; n = 16) for 4 wk while consuming a "neutral" lunch and dinner. Twenty-four-hour and postprandial respiratory quotients (RQs) were measured by whole-room indirect calorimetry. Insulin and glucose measures including insulin sensitivity were determined by an oral-glucose-tolerance test. Measures were taken at baseline and after the 4-wk intervention. Group-by-time interactions were determined by 2-factor repeated-measures mixed-model ANOVA. Pearson's correlation analyses were used to determine associations of 24-h RQs with metabolic measures after the intervention.

Results
There was a significant group-by-time interaction for change in the 24-h RQ [FB (mean ± SD): 0.88 ± 0.02 to 0.86 ± 0.02; CB: 0.88 ± 0.02 for both; P < 0.05], breakfast RQ (FB: 0.88 ± 0.03 to 0.86 ± 0.03; CB: 0.89 ± 0.02 to 0.90 ± 0.02; P < 0.01), and lunch RQ (FB: 0.089 ± 0.03 to 0.85 ± 0.03; CB: 0.89 ± 0.03 for both; P < 0.01). In the CB group at follow-up, 24-h RQ was positively associated with fasting glucose (r = 0.66, P < 0.05), glucose area under the curve (AUC) (r = 0.51, P < 0.05), and insulin AUC (r = 0.52, P < 0.05) and inversely associated with insulin sensitivity (r = -0.51, P < 0.05).

Conclusions
The macronutrient composition of breakfast affects substrate utilization throughout the day in older adults. The consumption of a high-fat, lower-carbohydrate breakfast may reduce the risk of metabolic disease. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03164200.


This book is a celebration of Leslie Lamport's work on concurrency, interwoven in four-and-a-half decades of an evolving industry: from the introduction of the first personal computer to an era when parallel and distributed multiprocessors are abundant. His works lay formal foundations for concurrent computations executed by interconnected computers. Some of the algorithms have become standard engineering practice for fault tolerant distributed computing - distributed systems that continue to function correctly despite failures of individual components. He also developed a substantial body of work on the formal specification and verification of concurrent systems, and has contributed to the development of automated tools applying these methods.

Part I consists of technical chapters of the book and a biography. The technical chapters of this book present a retrospective on Lamport's original ideas from experts in the field. Through this lens, it portrays their long-lasting impact. The chapters cover timeless notions Lamport introduced: the Bakery algorithm, atomic shared registers and sequential consistency; causality and logical time; Byzantine Agreement; state machine replication and Paxos; temporal logic of actions (TLA). The professional biography tells of Lamport's career, providing the context in which his work arose and broke new grounds, and discusses LaTeX - perhaps Lamport's most influential contribution outside the field of concurrency. This chapter gives a voice to the people behind the achievements, notably Lamport himself, and additionally the colleagues around him, who inspired, collaborated, and helped him drive worldwide impact. Part II consists of a selection of Leslie Lamport's most influential papers.

This book touches on a lifetime of contributions by Leslie Lamport to the field of concurrency and on the extensive influence he had on people working in the field. It will be of value to historians of science, and to researchers and students who work in the area of concurrency and who are interested to read about the work of one of the most influential researchers in this field.


We consider the problem of identifying the Pareto front for multiple objectives from a finite set of operating points. Sampling an operating point gives a random vector where each coordinate corresponds to the value of one of the objectives. The Pareto front is the set of operating points that are not dominated by any other operating point in respect to all objectives (considering the mean of their objective values). We use a confidence bound algorithm to approximate the Pareto front, and we prove problem specific lower and upper bounds, showing that the sample complexity is characterized by some natural geometric properties of the operating points. Experiments confirm the reliability of our algorithm. For the problem of finding a sparse cover of the Pareto front, we propose an asymmetric covering algorithm of independent interest.


The novelty of Ellmann's paper derives primarily from the fact that it moves beyond the separation of powers and counter-majoritarian based critiques and analyses that have dominated academic discourse about South African constitutional law. For instance, in the second edition of the Constitutional law of South Africa, Woolman and Botha outline the multi-part structure of the fundamental rights analysis. The authors describe interpretation as characterised by a two-fold process: determining the meaning or the scope of a fundamental right followed by a determination of whether the right has been infringed. In most instances, a finding that the right has been limited leads to a third stage: limitations analysis. Under section 36, courts are, quite 'controversially', given the power to decide whether a democratically conceived law's infringement of a fundamental right indeed violates the Constitution or whether, in fact, the infringement of a right can be justified.


Abstract Interspecific hybridization has increasingly become regarded as a serious threat to the genetic integrity and persistence of rare plants. Oenothera glazioviana (Onagraceae) is a horticultural species that has escaped cultivation and now threatens the narrow Pacific coastal endemic O. wolfii with hybridization. Reports of morphologically intermediate and ecologically aggressive forms prompted this investigation into the extent of hybridization over the range of O. wolfii. In particular, this study identifies populations of pure and hybrid origins. We used multivariate methods to characterize the morphological variation of Oregon and northern California coastal Oenothera populations. Putatively pure O. wolfii and O. glazioviana individuals do not overlap in many floral characteristics. We found morphologies ranging between the 2 species in northern California populations, however, supporting the inference of hybridization. Remote O. wolfii populations in Oregon were smaller in almost all characters, and discriminant analysis was able to distinguish the rare species from both hybrids and O. glazioviana. However, 5 of 10 O. wolfii populations overlapped significantly with hybrid populations for individual traits and composite morphology, and trait values outside the range of O. wolfii were discovered in 2 populations previously considered to be pure. We also discuss the morphological evidence in light of these species' chromosomal complexes and environmental factors.


Objectives: The objectives of the study are to evaluate the effectiveness of Homoeopathic Constitutional remedy (HC) and Homoeopathic Constitutional + Organ remedy (HCOM) in comparison to Placebo (PL) in cases of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) using International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), ultrasonographic changes in prostate volume, post-void residual urine, uroflowmetry and in WHO Quality of Life (QOL)-BREF. Materials and Methods: A multicentric, three-armed, randomised clinical trial was conducted at five centres. Patients were enrolled following the pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, randomised into three groups in 2:2:1 ratio and were followed up for 6 months. The statistical analysis was done with modified intention-to-treat principle (mITT). Results: Out of 461 patients screened, 254 patients were enrolled in the study and 241 patients were analysed as per mITT. The mean changes in IPSS and QOL due to urinary symptoms from baseline to end of study had shown a positive trend in all the three groups. However, in HC group, the changes were more prominent as compared to the other two groups. There was no difference between HC and HCOM groups and they were equally effective in terms of managing lower urinary tract symptoms due to BPH. With regard to secondary outcome, there was no difference between the groups. The psychological, social and environmental domains of WHOQOL-BREF have shown positive trend, but there was no statistically significant difference in intervention groups. Conclusion: In this study, statistical significance was found in the IPSS in all the three groups but only in HC and not in any of the objective parameters.


The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN includes a silicon pixel detector as its innermost component. Its main task is the precise reconstruction of charged particles close to the primary interaction vertex. This paper gives an overview of the mechanical requirements and design choices for the barrel pixel detector. The distribution of material in the detector as well as its description in the Monte Carlo simulation are discussed in detail.


The Internet has allowed market-based systems to become increasingly pervasive. In this paper we explore the role of user interface (UI) design for these markets. Different UIs induce different mental models which in turn determine how users understand and interact with a market. Thus, the intersection of UI design and economics is a novel and important research area. We make three contributions at this intersection. First, we present a novel design paradigm which we call hidden markets. The primary goal of hidden markets is to hide as much of the market complexities as possible. Second, we explore this new design paradigm using one particular example: a P2P backup application. We explain the market underlying this system and provide a detailed description of the new UI we developed. Third, we present results from a formative usability study. Our findings indicate that a number of users could benefit from a market-based P2P backup system. Most users intuitively understood the give & take principle as well as the bundle constraints of the market. However, the pricing aspect was difficult to discover/understand for many users and thus needs further investigation. Overall, the results are encouraging and show promise for the hidden market paradigm.


We propose a novel dialogue modeling framework, the first-ever nonparametric kernel functions based approach for dialogue modeling, which learns hashcodes as text representations; unlike traditional deep learning models, it handles well relatively small datasets, while also scaling to large ones. We also derive a novel lower bound on mutual information, used as a model-selection criterion favoring representations with better alignment between the utterances of participants in a collaborative dialogue setting, as well as higher predictability of the generated responses. As demonstrated on three real-life datasets, including prominently psychotherapy sessions, the proposed approach significantly outperforms several state-of-art neural network based dialogue systems, both in terms of computational efficiency, reducing training time from days or weeks to hours, and the response quality, achieving an order of magnitude improvement over competitors in frequency of being chosen as the best model by human evaluators.


ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE: This pilot study was conducted to find out the socioeconomic factors leading to depression in married females of district Ghizar, Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan. METHODS: The study was conducted at District Headquarter Hospital Gahkuch, Ghizar from November 2015 to February 2016. Depression was diagnosed using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV) criterion and socioeconomic status was assessed by a self-designed questionnaire. Analysis was performed with SPSS version-23. RESULTS: Out of 73 females, 53 (72.6%) were depressed according to DSM-IV. Majority of women were uneducated (n=23; 31.5%). Most females were married (n=50; 68.5%) followed by divorced females (n=8; 11%). Sixty-one (83%) women had arranged marriage. Majority of women (n=43; 58.9%) were housewives. Most females (n=37; 50.7%) had non-cordial relations with in-laws. Domestic violence was reported by (n=41; 56.2%) women.  Sixty-one (83.5%) women had land ownership of some kind.  Women who were married within the family (OR 1.386, CI .837-2.292), presence of depression in husband (OR 3.530, CI .933-13.359), non-cordial relation of women with in-laws (OR 3.657, CI 1.979-6.755) and domestic violence (OR 3.584, CI 0.717-17.921) were significantly associated with depression. CONCLUSION: Majority of the females had no cordial relations with in-laws, more than half had history of domestic abuse. Marriages outside family had inverse relation with depression. Depression in husband and bad relationship of women with in-laws were strong predictors for depression in married females of district Ghizar, Gilgit Baltistan. Small sample size and hospital-based study were the main limitations of the study. KEY WORDS: Depression (MeSH); Socioeconomic Factors (MeSH); Domestic Violence (MeSH).


Amidst the animated conversations about recent national and county development plans for the city, one wonders when Nairobi's real residents will actually appear. In one of the most recent iterations of this master planning, the Integrated Urban Development Masterplan for the city of Nairobi (NIUPLAN), the now normalized images of futuristic highway networks and buildings (that appear to all derive from a singular neoliberal toolbox) persist unabated. Did the people fall from the many anticipated skyscrapers and super thoroughfares of this aspirational 'world class city'? Or are they buried under the literal and literary rubble of these master plans? While there are gestures towards participatory consultation that one notes in the NIUPLAN, in the litany of pages devoted to this document we still do not seem to see or hear the 60-70% of this city who live in the poor zones that account for only 6% of Nairobi's geography. Instead we encounter the globally sanctioned trademarks of what a city should look like; the fervent ambition to be 'world-class'1 that endures as a "regulating fiction" for much of our urban life (Robinson 2002). I argue here that despite their invisibility, it is the residents from these Nairobi ruins, its most marginalized spaces, who will determine the viability of the NIUPLAN in their neighbourhoods and in Nairobi broadly. For if we are to track the "long-running drama" (Manji 2015,7) of master planning in Nairobi, we see that within and despite the imprints of colonial zoning, it is less the overdetermined templates of formal spatial management and more the "messy-labours" (Simone 2015) of urban ruin residents that shape our city geographies for present and future.
if we are to track the "long-running drama" (Manji
2015, 7) of master planning in Nairobi, we see that
within and despite the imprints of colonial zoning, it
is less the overdetermined templates of formal spatial


Immigration is not only about changing countries, but also about shifting identities. This change is especially important for adolescents. This article examines identity formation among 1.5 and 2nd generation adolescent immigrants to Israel. A survey of 125 children of immigrants aged 12-19 examined the role of social structures such as pace of life, culture, religion and language on identity formation in 1.5 and 2nd generational groups. We have identified several significant factors affecting the identities of children of migrants in each group. Looking beyond self-labeling, we argue that identity formation among children of immigrants is a continuous process in which the host country and origin country, both or neither of them, create dynamic hybrid patterns of identifications.


Single-mode and multimode 2-24 optical fiber ribbon cables have been developed and installed in many countries in recent years. Meanwhile, several different types of mass fusion splicers have been produced and deployed in field for ribbon cable installation. However, a reliable method for local splice-loss evaluation remains a critical subject and an attractive topic to many scientists. A new concept for ribbon-fiber splice evaluation is developed and presented in this paper. With the concept, hot fiber images are taken during the fusion splicing. Core deformation observed from the hot images is combined with the cladding deform information from cold images to evaluate the splice loss. Reasonably good correlation between the calculated and measured splice losses are obtained in a large number of splice tests in our experiment. The Bellcore accuracy criteria for splice loss estimation are met by most of ribbon-fiber types.


In this paper, an overview of the Higgins project and the research within the project is presented. The project incorporates studies of error handling for spoken dialogue systems on several levels, from processing to dialogue level. A domain in which a range of different error types can be studied has been chosen: pedestrian navigation and guiding. Several data collections within Higgins have been analysed along with data from Higgins' predecessor, the AdApt system. The error handling research issues in the project are presented in light of these analyses.


The first large-scale American museum exhibition to survey the colorful history of graffiti and street art movements internationally. Highlighting the connection between graffiti and street art and other vibrant subcultures, such as those that developed around Hip Hop in the Bronx and skateboarding in Southern California, Art in the Streets explores parallel movements in dance and music. The exhibition is curated by MoCA Director Jeffrey Deitch, working with a curatorial advisory committee that includes Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose.


Continuous-wave lasing has been obtained on the 2 → 1 vibrational transition of impurity CN− ions in KBr. Population inversion is produced by optical pumping of the weakly allowed first-overtone level of the molecule with a tunable (F2+)A color-center laser.


Why has some cyber-attacks been more successful than others? There has been in the near past examples of cyber-attacks used with different purposes. How do we understand these chosen targets and what result the attack accomplished?Research has discussed similarities between aviation warfare and cyber warfare, and how the first could explain what is happening in cyber warfare now. There is also opposing opinions whether cyber warfare should be seen as a method to alone force a will on your opponent or if cyber warfare should mere be supporting other military means. The essay test Warden's theory "The Enemy as a System" capacity to explain why the effect of cyber-attacks can differ. It will also compare the effect in different cases based on standalone and supporting cyber-attacks.The essay concludes that Warden's theory does not have any explanatory value but the difference in effective and ineffective cases is whether the cyber-attack was supporting other military means or a standalone attack.


Democratic erosion has led scholars to query how voters respond to leaders who violate norms. Given polarization and the centrality of identity in partisan affiliations, criticism by co-partisan elites may be crucial to checking party leaders. We draw on theories of partisanship as a social identity as well as perspectives on leadership and dissent to theorize how partisans respond to misbehavior by an ingroup leader, and to criticism of the leader by a co-partisan. We test our expectations through multiple survey experiments. We find evidence of ingroup bias in evaluations of the misbehaving leader and little evidence that ingroup dissent is an effective constraint on leaders. Except in the most serious leadership transgressions of 'hard' norms, people rally around leaders when confronted with dissent by co-partisan elites. Overall, the results suggest that ingroup dissent may not lead to leader accountability.


The purpose of this research is to examine how effective the used of illustration to portrays
Usman Awang's poem. Illustration can be used to catches attention to certain information.
Illustration is something that the person will look first before they read the text, in any
information in regard with any text for example short stories, novel and story books for
children. Illustration also is one of the best methods in conveying messages. The presence of
illustration can be the supporting tools to illustrate the content ofthe text. A good book cover
illustration can determine the general success ofthe book unless you are a well-known writer
who does not even need an illustration on his/her book cover to be noticed and purchased.
The poem's book which has the touch of conceptual illustration can produce a good book
with high commercial value especially in Malaysia; very seldom we find a poem's book
which is translated into illustration


Most Varroa induced colony losses occur during the autumn or winter season as a consequence of an elevated Varroa infestation level and an insufficient health status of the adult bees. Even with an initial low Varroa infestation in early spring, critical mite and virus infection levels can be reached before winter if colonies continuously rear brood throughout the whole season. To overcome this challenge, beekeepers can artificially interrupt brood production by suitable management procedures, depending on their type of beekeeping operation. To assess their efficacy, associated workload, and impact on colony development, different methods for brood interruption (queen caging with the combination of oxalic acid treatment, total brood removal, trapping comb technique) were tested during two seasons in 11 locations on 370 colonies in 10 European countries. A protocol was developed to standardize the methods' application across different environmental conditions. The efficacy of queen caging depended on the mode of oxalic acid application and ranged from 48.16% to 89.57% mite removal. The highest efficacies were achieved with trickling a 4.2% solution (89.57%) and with the sublimation of 2 g of oxalic acid (average of 88.25%) in the broodless period. The efficacy of the purely biotechnical, chemical-free trapping comb and brood removal methods did not differ significantly from the queen caging groups. We conclude that a proper application of one of the described brood interruption methods can significantly contribute to an efficient Varroa control and to the production of honey bee products meeting the highest quality and food-safety standards.


Nitric oxide (NO) is key free-radical messenger and neuronal signal which is closely related to many brain diseases. It is a challenge to develop a sensitive and reliable biosensor for in vivo monitoring of NO in the brain. In this research, a simple ratiometric electrochemical biosensor for NO monitoring in rat brain following cerebral ischemia was developed using a carbon nanotube fiber (CNF) modified with hemin, in which the CNF not only served as a platform to assemble the hemin molecule, but greatly facilitated the electron transfer of hemin on to the electrode surface. Additionally, the hemin molecule was found to play dual roles: as a stable catalyst for the reduction of NO for selective detection of NO at -0.67 V versus silver/silver chloride, as well as an inner reference element to provide a built-in correction, to avoid the interference from the complicated brain environment. The developed ratiometric biosensor can detect NO with a linear range from 25 to 1000 nM, with a low limit of detection down to 10 nM, which fulfills the requirements for in vivo measurement of NO. The remarkable analytical performance of the present biosensor, as well as the long-term stability and good reproducibility established this as a reliable approach for in vivo monitoring of NO in the hippocampus of rat brains following cerebral ischemia. This is the first report that the average level of NO increased from 61 ± 23 nM to 141 ± 18 nM after cerebral ischemia for 15 min.


This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of Sarcocystis infections in camels slaughtered using different detection methods. Tissues from the oesophagus, tongue, skeletal muscle, diaphragm and heart were collected from 80 camels (60 males and 20 females) slaughtered. Pepsin-digestion and histological methods were used in the study. Bradyzoites were purified using Percoll density gradient centrifugation and molecular detection was attempted from the DNA extracted from purified bradyzoites. The prevalence of Sarcocystis infections in camels in Riyadh city was 50% using the pepsindigestion method and 41.3% using microscopic method. Males revealed 24 (40%) Sarcocystis infection following the pepsin digestion method while 13 (21.7%) showed microscopic cysts in histological sections (Chi square=4.7281 and p<0.05). While females revealed 80% and 45% prevalence using the pepsindigestion and the microscopic methods, respectively (Chi square=5.2267 and p<0.05). The skeletal muscle showed the highest bradyzoites count in the 5 minutes count (606 ± 74) while the heart showed the lowest count (101 ± 18). The highest prevalence on histological sections was reported from the tongue while the skeletal muscle revealed the lowest. Attempts to amplify the 18S rDNA from purified bradyzoites DNA revealed successful amplification of the expected DNA fragment for Sarcocystis spp.


Phytoplankton play a key role as the base of the marine food web and a crucial component in the Earth's carbon cycle. There have been a few regional studies that have utilized satellite‐estimated phytoplankton functional type products in conjunction with other environmental metrics. Here we expand to a global perspective and ask, what are the physical drivers of phytoplankton composition variability? Using a variety of satellite‐observed ocean color products and physical properties spanning 1997–2015, we characterize spatial and temporal variability in phytoplankton community size structure in relation to satellite‐based physical drivers. We consider the relationships globally and by major thermal regimes (cold and warm), dominant size distribution, and chlorophyll concentration variability. Globally, euphotic depth is the most important parameter driving phytoplankton size variability and also over the majority of the high‐latitude ocean and the central gyres. In all other regions, size variability is driven by a balance of light and mode of nutrient delivery. We investigated the relationship between size composition and chlorophyll concentration and the physical drivers through correlation analysis. Changes in size composition over time are regionally varying and explained by temporal shifts in the varying physical conditions. These changes in phytoplankton size composition and the varying underlying physical drivers will ultimately impact carbon export and food web processes in our changing ocean.


This report contains the most comprehensive assessment of the status and trends of the world's invertebrates conducted to date. It introduces the staggering diversity of invertebrates, ranging from microscopic zooplankton to giant squid. Together these organisms represent around 80% of the known species on our planet. They not only provide a bewilderingly rich and varied component of the natural world, they are our natural capital; the engineers of the many benefits which humans accrue from an intact and fully functioning environment. This report documents several reasons for concern about the health of invertebrates. The conservation attention paid to invertebrates to-date lags far behind that of vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish). If their path follows that of many of the high profi le vertebrate species, our world would not only be depauperate in the organisms that give it life, but we would compromise the many benefits that humans gain from our environment.


Will the use of artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and smart machines be the end of journalism as we know it—or its savior? In Newsmakers, Francesco Marconi, who has led the development of the Associated Press and Wall Street Journal's use of AI in journalism, offers a new perspective on the potential of these technologies. He explains how reporters, editors, and newsrooms of all sizes can take advantage of the possibilities they provide to develop new ways of telling stories and connecting with readers.

 Marconi analyzes the challenges and opportunities of AI through case studies ranging from financial publications using algorithms to write earnings reports to investigative reporters analyzing large data sets to outlets determining the distribution of news on social media. Newsmakers contends that AI can augment—not automate—the industry, allowing journalists to break more news more quickly while simultaneously freeing up their time for deeper analysis. Marshaling insights drawn from firsthand experience, Marconi maps a media landscape transformed by artificial intelligence for the better. In addition to considering the benefits of these new technologies, Marconi stresses the continuing need for editorial and institutional oversight. Newsmakers outlines the important questions that journalists and media organizations should consider when integrating AI and algorithms into their workflow. For journalism students as well as seasoned media professionals, Marconi's insights provide much-needed clarity and a practical roadmap for how AI can best serve journalism.


Hyperthermophilic microorganisms (those with maximum growth temperatures of 90°C and above) are known to inhabit deep-sea hydrothermal vent environments and are suspected of being present in the associated subsurface biosphere. One characteristic of the growth physiology of many heterotrophic hyperthermophiles is the capacity to use complex polysaccharides (e.g., α- and β-linked glucans as well as non-glucan hemicellulases) as carbon and energy sources. Polysaccharides may also play an important ecological role in the deep-sea subsurface biosphere as the structural elements of biofilms harboring both heterotrophic and chemolithotrophic microorganisms, representing a range of growth temperatures. Genome sequence analysis of several hyperthermophiles indicates that the enzymatic machinery to synthesize and hydrolyze polysaccharides is present in this group of microorganisms. This is supported by the biochemical characteristics of glycosidases from hyperthermophiles in addition to the observation that several hyperthermophiles form biofilms in pure and co-culture. It remains to be seen if biofilms form the basis for a subsurface biosphere but this possibility seems likely given the physiological characteristics of several hyperthermophiles and mesophiles, representative of microorganisms previously isolated from vent sites.


Permafrost is a subsurface phenomenon whose ground thermal regime is mainly influenced by air temperature,
land cover, soil and rock properties and snow parameters. Many spaceborne-derived parameters are potentially
indicative of the thermal state of Permafrost, such as land surface temperature, surface moisture, surface
frozen/thawed state, terrain displacement, vegetation cover, and changes in surface waters. The major task
of the ESA DUE PERMAFROST project is to develop high-latitudinal Earth Observation services of these
parameters with extensive involvement of the permafrost research community. Further information is available at
www.ipf.tuwien.ac.at/ permafrost.
In order to setup the required validation tasks and information services, a target area approach with specified
case study regions is used. Most of the foreseen DUE PERMAFROST remote sensing applications are
well established and can optimally become operational. A major component is the evaluation of the DUE
PERMAFROST products to lend confidence in their scientific utility for high-latitude permafrost landscapes.
Ground measurements in the high-latitude landscapes involve challenging logistics and are networked on
multidisciplinary and circum-arctic level by the Permafrost community (User group). The International Permafrost
Association IPA has built up the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) that is a network of the
Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) and the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) projects. A major
part of the DUE PERMAFROST users is contributing to GTN-P. Additional members of these programs and
circum-arctic networks have also been involved in the consultation process and the provision of ground-based data.
Match-up data sets of ground data and remote sensing products coincident in time and location are being built up.
The tests regions are the West Siberian transect (RU) (continuous to discontinuous/ taiga-tundra) including Yamal
Peninsula and Ob Region, the Laptev Sea Region (RU) (continuous very cold permafrost/tundra), the Yakutsk
Region (RU) (continuous cold permafrost/taiga), the Alaska Highway Transect (US) (continuous to discontinuous/
taiga-tundra), and the Mackenzie Delta and valley Transect (CA) (continuous to discontinuous/taiga-tundra).
There are no standard evaluation methods for all the diverse remote sensing products, specifically not for
these latitudes. Evaluation experiments and intercomparison is done on a case-by-case basis, adding value and
experience in validating products for these regions.


Porous noble metal nanoparticles exhibit many attractive nanoplasmonic features, and these structures have potential applications in many fields. However, such applications have been hindered by a lack of synthetic methods with the ability to mass-produce mono-disperse nanoparticles. Current synthetic approaches to porous gold nanostructure fabrication involve galvanic replacement approaches or electrochemical deposition methods that are generally limited by stringent multi-step protocols and relatively low yields. Here, we introduce the facile synthesis of scalable, mono-disperse, mesoporous gold nanoparticles (MPGNs) using an acidic emulsification method. This method facilitates high synthetic yields (>93%) and tunable particle sizes (130–400 nm). MPGNs exhibit enhanced payloads of gadolinium (Gd), a contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging. Additionally, they permit photo-thermal conversion under near-infrared light (NIR) irradiation due to the increased surface area to volume ratio and the unique, structure-mediated LSPR effect. Specifically, MPGNs fabricated using our method provided Gd payloads 2–4 orders of magnitude greater than previously reported theranostic nano-probes. We believe that our novel synthetic technique will not only contribute to large-scale production of homogeneous porous gold nanoparticles, but will also promote further research in porous noble metal nanostructures.


In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, legislators, business owners, consumers and everyday citizens, all with a view of how to protect our interests, voiced their opinions on how to improve national security with patriotic zest. FIFRA's main purpose is to ensure federal regulation of pesticide distribution and use. This power is of particular importance given the terroristic threat of possible chemical warfare. Chemical professionals were cognizant of the importance of site security even prior to the September 11th terrorist attacks. With respect to the risk of terrorist attacks using pesticides or other chemical agents, EPA suggested that "those who manufacture, distribute, transport or store pesticides should continue to be vigilant regarding the physical security of those pesticides. An intricate aspect of any response plan is the identification of responders in the event of a terrorist attack. Who regulates pesticides on store shelves? Can anyone walk into a store and buy one bottle of a potentially lethal chemical and, if so, how about a ton of such a compound? Is society at risk of being poisoned by the unregulated sale of pesticides? Are we assisting illicit users by publishing what appear to be innocuous documents on methodologies of pesticide use? Just as a person cannot walk into a store and purchase a firearm without precautionary requirements, so should a potential pesticide or chemical purchaser undergo similar scrutiny.


We analyze how an increasing share of Renewable Energy Sources on Electricity generation (RES-E) affects Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions using a 3 variable Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) methodology. We used a sample of four countries with different levels of economic development and social and economic structures but a common effort of investment in RES in the last decades. The period considered was 1960 to 2004. The existence of unit roots was tested to infer the stationarity of the variables. Through the impulse response functions (IRF), the SVAR estimation showed that, for all countries in the sample, except for the USA, the increasing RES-E share had economic costs in terms of GDP per capita. There was also an evident decrease of CO2 emissions per capita. The variance decomposition showed that a significant part of the forecast error variance of GDP per capita and a relatively smaller part of the forecast error variance of CO2 per capita were explained by the share of RES-E.


We present a new algorithm, trimed, for obtaining the medoid of a set, that is the element of the set which minimises the mean distance to all other elements. The algorithm is shown to have, under certain assumptions, expected run time O(N^(3/2)) in R^d where N is the set size, making it the first sub-quadratic exact medoid algorithm for d>1. Experiments show that it performs very well on spatial network data, frequently requiring two orders of magnitude fewer distance calculations than state-of-the-art approximate algorithms. As an application, we show how trimed can be used as a component in an accelerated K-medoids algorithm, and then how it can be relaxed to obtain further computational gains with only a minor loss in cluster quality.


STEVEN PINKER CLAIMS in The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) that nearly all social-scientific evidence tells us violence is declining. This paper makes no claims against Pinker's main argument; criticisms of it having been addressed elsewhere (Pinker 2015). However, one secondary hypothesis Pinker puts forward is that the development of strong states was a key factor in the decline of violence (2011, 42). Summarizing his reading of the evidence, Pinker writes, "[t]he reduction of homicide by government control is so obvious to anthropologists that they seldom document it with numbers... It goes without saying that people that have been brought under the jurisdiction of a government will not fight as much, so they are simply excluded from studies in indigenous societies" (2011, 55–56). While Pinker cites one survey of traditional societies that finds that before World War I such societies were frequently more violent,1 he otherwise deems the connection between the rise of states and the decline of violence obvious and uncontroversial.


Lips is a zine first published in 2007 by Annie Brown, Ashley Poling, Janet King, and Sarah Ruth Goldman for a Women's Studies Project at the College of William and Mary. The stated goal of the magazine was to combine art and information to create an intelligent, entertaining, creative and honest discourse about sex from the female perspective. The zine accepts art, poetry, short stories, essays, magazine clippings, or anything that authors think expresses their views on sex and/or your homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual or any other type of sexual relationships.


Abstract. For the self-test of semiconductor gas sensors, we combine two multi-signal processes: temperature-cycled operation (TCO) and electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). This combination allows one to discriminate between irreversible changes of the sensor, i.e., changes caused by poisoning, as well as changes in the gas atmosphere. To integrate EIS and TCO, impedance spectra should be acquired in a very short time period, in which the sensor can be considered time invariant, i.e., milliseconds or less. For this purpose we developed a Fourier-based high-speed, low-cost impedance spectroscope. It provides a binary excitation signal through an FPGA (field programable gate array), which also acquires the data. To determine impedance spectra, it uses the ETFE (empirical transfer function estimate) method, which calculates the impedance by evaluating the Fourier transformations of current and voltage. With this approach an impedance spectrum over the range from 61 kHz to 100 MHz is acquired in ca. 16 μs. We carried out TCO–EIS measurements with this spectroscope and a commercial impedance analyzer (Agilent 4294A), with a temperature cycle consisting of six equidistant temperature steps between 200 and 450 °C, with lengths of 30 s (200 °C) and 18 s (all others). Discrimination of carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4) is possible by LDA (linear discriminant analysis) using either TCO or EIS data, thus enabling a validation of results by comparison of both methods.


Trajectories of decline have been described in coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific region, with long-term losses of abundance, diversity and habitat structure. Since European settlement of the Queensland coastline in the mid-18th century, widespread changes in land use have occurred within Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchments (e.g. extensive land clearing, agriculture and grazing). Despite direct and indirect evidence indicating decline of inshore reefs, it has proven difficult to ascertain links between land use changes, terrestrial discharge, water quality and the decline of coral reefs at regional scales, and the contributions of anthropogenic influences to the disturbance regimes of inshore reefs remains highly controversial. This thesis uses palaeoecological reconstruction of coral assemblages and high-precision U-Series dating to examine changes in community structure of inshore coral reefs in the Palm Islands region across decadal and centennial scales. Comparisons of modern and historical coral assemblages provide evidence of a collapse of Acropora coral communities at Pelorus Reef in the early 20th Century. Fossil assemblages in an adjacent site at Pelorus provide further evidence of an extrinsic shift from historical Acropora assemblages to more sediment-tolerant corals in modern assemblages, a change without precedence in 800 years of record. Sediment cores (2-5m length) were extracted from Pandora and Havannah reefs to determine long-term rates of reef growth throughout the late Holocene. Computer Axial Tomography (CAT) scans of cores revealed a framework dominated by coral fragments, and U-Series dating of corals revealed rapid and continuous reef growth at both reefs throughout the last 1000 yrs. Comparisons of reef accretion (m ka-1) from cores with published accretion rates from early-mid Holocene inshore GBR reefs show that reef slope environments are now accreting at rates equal to and exceeding those of the last 8000 years. This result contradicts assumptions that inshore reefs are undergoing or have undergone natural trajectories of geomorphic decline. A bayesian approach to determine stability of coral communities from the Pandora and Havannah cores indicates that those coral communities have existed in stable states for upwards of 400yrs, punctuated by periods of instability. Contrary to some paradigms of biodiversity, the high diversity communities were unstable on centennial scales, 4 yet the low diversity assemblages did not necessarily confer stability to these assemblages. Growth rates of inshore reefs were independent of diversity or community structure. From a management perspective, these results provide a longer-term (decades to centuries) understanding of coral community dynamics on inshore reefs of the GBR that provides a basis for detecting and understanding changes following European settlement, and a baseline for the management and potential restoration of coral communities at local and regional scales.


Infrared absorptions occur over a range of frequencies, and absorption coefficients measured at any single frequency may not express the true intensity of a molecular transition. The integrated absorption coefficient is the sum of the absorption coefficients for all such frequencies in the band A = ∫ e(v) dv. Integrated absorption coefficients have been used for a variety of applications, for the most part ignoring any inherent differences in molar absorptivity for molecules in different states of aggregation. Eischens and Jacknow have used a system using combined gravimetry and spectroscopy to calculate the e for adsorbed species; that is, the extinction coefficient for a functional group of a molecule adsorbed on another surface. They also report that the e for carbon monoxide on a surface vs. the same compound in solution can be assumed to be the same within the experimental accuracy; whether this conclusion can be generalized is not known.


The existence of a nation is determined by the character possessed. However, the
question of national character is the issues raised in today's society. The question is can be the
perfect solution to this problem is to build and develop our country's nature and character of
its own. One of them is the ideal medium for developing and expanding human nature is
through education. In the course of the learning process within the scope of education is
certainly supported by the Medium of learning. Looking at the fact that the lack of effective
instructional media used, it will require a change and innovation.
Therefore, the media should also be adapted to learning the identity and culture of the
country. The learning process is based on the character of education, one that can be
supported by traditional game to produce a vehicle for educational fun. The data used in this
paper come from a variety of speaker's literature and support related issues. In writing this
paper using the methods of research and literature related to the research and analysis to
support the discussion. Followed by the synthesis process by linking formulation of the
problem, purpose of writing, and discussion conducted by systematic logical. Next is drawn a
general nature and some recommendations for further action. It was found that the potential
of traditional games in imparting education pillars of the nation's character can be evidenced
by the many linkages between the traditional games with character education of the nation.
Along with the implementation of traditional game activities can be done in order to establish
the character of the younger generation, among others through the family environment
(informal), school environment(formal), and society (non-formal)


»Innovationsprozesse empirisch erfassen. Ein Plädoyer für die Erweiterung des Methodenspektrums«. During the past decades, innovation research has yielded countless empirical studies in a variety of disciplines. For all this quantity, we still lack an adequate understanding of basic qualities and mechanisms of its central subject. Which processes and conditions bring innovation about? How does it spread? And what is its genuine nature? Critics argue that these shortcomings have their roots in the conceptual limitations of established perspectives on innovation and in the fact that researchers confine themselves to studying technical and scientific novelties or marketable products. This selfrestriction stands in marked contrast to the observation that innovation plays an important role in contemporary societies. The term is at least ubiquitous and its usage common in all societal fields. In the introduction to this HSR Special Issue, we subscribe to this critique and argue that the conceptual reductionism comes along with severe methodical and methodological limitations. These become manifest in a joint dominance of quantitative indicator-based research and ethnographic single case studies. Thus, researchers of innovation disregard a variety of possible data types and forms of analysis and rarely apply complex designs. It is also not common to consider the combination of multiple types of data and analysis in mixed methods approaches. The most serious issue, however, is that mainstream innovation research remains ignorant of a multitude of potential research questions and thereby loses sight of whole areas of interest. An overview of the empirical studies in this HSR Special Issue shows that the range of methods used is wider at the edges of the field of research. In order to relate these methods to each other and to the theoretical foundations of innovation research, we suggest a middle-range debate on methodology.


This paper considers different ways of approaching service design, exploring what professional designers who say they design services are doing. First it reviews literature in the design and management fields, including marketing and operations. The paper proposes a framework that clarifies key tensions shaping the understanding of service design. It then presents an ethnographic study of three firms of professional service designers and details their work in three case studies. The paper reports four findings. The designers approached services as entities that are both social and material. The designers in the study saw service as relational and temporal and thought of value as created in practice. They approached designing a service through a constructivist enquiry in which they sought to understand the experiences of stakeholders and they tried to involve managers in this activity. The paper proposes describing designing for service as a particular kind of service design. Designing for service is seen as an exploratory process that aims to create new kinds of value relation between diverse actors within a socio-material configuration. This has implications for existing ways of understanding design and for research, practice and teaching.


The fiscal incentives literature emphasizes how the design of transfer systems has a significant implication on the behavior of local governments within decentralized systems. The empirical findings on the relationship between intergovernmental transfers and the incentives they create for local revenue generation are inconclusive and differ from country to country. Given the lack of data on local public finances, this type of study rarely involves developing countries. Using a unique and rich socio-economic and public finance data covering a large set of Moroccan municipalities over the period 2005 to 2009, this paper contributes to the new generation of fiscal federalism literature by assessing the fiscal incentive effects of two types of transfers: general purpose transfers (unconditional) defined by a formula and specific purpose transfers (conditional) allocated on an ad-hoc basis. After correcting for the endogeneity problem, our findings support the existence of a significant incentive effect of unconditional transfers and a less robust effect of conditional transfers. Suggesting that transfers from the central government complement local own revenues by encouraging Moroccan municipalities to collect more revenues.


Food loss and food waste are urgent global problems relating to environmental and social challenges including biodiversity loss, climate change, health, and malnutrition. Reduction targets have been set, including Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3, which aims to halve per capita food waste at retail and consumer levels globally by 2030, as well as reduce food losses along production and supply chains. Citizen science, the engagement of members of the public in data collection and other elements of the scientific process, can play a role in tackling the problem of food waste and food loss. In this paper, we scope opportunities for using citizen science to answer 26 priority research questions identified by experts in the field of food waste and food loss as being critical to achieving SDG12.3. We describe how citizen science can be used to quantify and understand causes of food loss and waste. Crucially, we demonstrate the value of citizen science in being not just a data gathering tool but also a method of bringing about change through influencing action, from individual behavior to policy making. Furthermore, we argue the need to bring together all actors in the food system in citizen science projects in order to build shared understanding that will ultimately lead to reduced loss and waste across the food system.


Abstract Chronic stress is a leading risk factor for heart diseases, diabetes, asthma and depression. However, physicians find it difficult to continuously track a person's stress levels throughout the day, as current techniques of electrocardiogram and blood pressure monitoring are not practical. There is thus a critical need for a non-invasive, ambulatory device to track physiological stress over extended periods of time. Such information would allow physicians to assess precisely the affect of stress and determine the most appropriate interventions. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between non-invasive, physiological signal parameters and the stress level as perceived by the subject. The mapping of physiological parameters onto stress levels to accurately monitor the stress levels in a subject under various conditions will assist the diagnosis of subjects at risk of various stress related disorders. An ambulatory, wireless device was developed with respiratory rate, galvanic skin response and heart rate sensors, which the subjects can wear comfortably while performing their everyday tasks. An experiment involving 13 activities with different stress levels was conducted on 22 subjects during which physiological data was collected using the developed device. While participating in the experiment, subjects had to record the stress level of each activity on a scale of 1 and 7. The data collected was processed in MATLAB, appropriate signal parameters extracted and then correlated with the subject's perceived stress levels. Analysis of the data showed that the stress levels varied as the subjects progressed into different activities due to their varying current mental states. The perceived nature of stress varied considerably amongst the individuals with certain activities able to induce a stronger variation in stress compared to others. The derived features were shown to be effective in tracking the variation in stress induced in the subjects. Results of the experiment showed that the developed device was effective in recording non-invasive physiological for use in tracking the stress levels and mental state of the subjects. Further work is being done to develop an effective model that accurately predicts stress levels based on the physiological data collected.


Abstract Tinkering with technologies and other human-made artifacts is a longstanding practice. Freedom to tinker has largely existed without formal legal recognition. Tinkering has typically taken place in an unregulated zone within which people were at liberty to act unobstructed by others so long as they did not harm others. The main reason why it now seems desirable to articulate some legal principles about freedom to tinker and why it needs to be preserved is because freedom to tinker is being challenged by some legal developments. This Article explains that user-innovators have traditionally had considerable freedom to tinker under trade secrecy, patent, and trademark laws. Although copyright law permits a modest degree of tinkering with existing products, it restricts freedom to tinker more than other IP laws. Copyright law and sometimes contract law place substantial constraints on user rights to tinker with and modify computer programs and other digital works. These constraints are of particular concern to tinkerers because computer programs are embedded in such a wide range of technologies these days. This Article offers suggestions about how and why the law should protect a zone of freedom to tinker for socially beneficial purposes.


Online education continues to grow at a rapid pace. Assessment of the effectiveness of online programs is needed to differentiate legitimate programs from diploma mills. The authors examined the perceptions of CPA firm recruiters on whether an online Master of Accounting (MACC) matters in the hiring decision. Results show that recruiters do not perceive a difference in a candidate who receives an online MACC and a candidate who receives a MACC from a traditional classroom-based accounting program. Results also show that having passed all or part of the CPA exam or enrollment in a CPA review course are the most highly rated attributes of a new accounting graduate, bad communications skills are the lowest rated attributes, and both accounting GPA and overall GPA do matter to recruiters.


Expiratory flow limitation (EFL) during tidal breathing is a major determinant of dynamic hyperinflation and exercise limitation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Current methods of detecting this are either invasive or unsuited to following changes breath-by-breath. It was hypothesised that tidal flow limitation would substantially reduce the total respiratory system reactance (Xrs) during expiration, and that this reduction could be used to reliably detect if EFL was present. To test this, 5‐Hz forced oscillations were applied at the mouth in seven healthy subjects and 15 COPD patients (mean±sd forced expiratory volume in one second was 36.8±11.5 % predicted) during quiet breathing. COPD breaths were analysed (n=206) and classified as flow-limited if flow decreased as alveolar pressure increased, indeterminate if flow decreased at constant alveolar pressure, or nonflow-limited. Of these, 85 breaths were flow-limited, 80 were not and 41 were indeterminate. Among other indices, mean inspiratory minus mean expiratory Xrs (ΔXrs) and minimum expiratory Xrs (Xexp,min) identified flow-limited breaths with 100% specificity and sensitivity using a threshold between 2.53–3.12 cmH2O·s·L−1 (ΔXrs) and −7.38– −6.76 cmH2O·s·L−1 (Xexp,min) representing 6.0% and 3.9% of the total range of values respectively. No flow-limited breaths were seen in the normal subjects by either method. Within-breath respiratory system reactance provides an accurate, reliable and noninvasive technique to detect expiratory flow limitation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


Three lignins: Indulin AT, LignoboostTM, and Acetocell lignin, were characterized and pyrolyzed in a continuous-fed fast pyrolysis process. The physical and chemical properties of the lignins included chemical composition, heat content, ash, and water content. The distributed activation energy model (DAEM) was used to describe the pyrolysis of each lignin. Activation energy distributions of each lignin were quite different and generally covered a broad range of energies, typically found in lignins. Process yields for initial continuous-fed fast pyrolysis experiments are reported. Bio-oil yield was low, ranging from 16 to 22%. Under the fast pyrolysis conditions used, the Indulin AT and LignoboostTM lignin yielded slightly more liquid product than the Acetocell lignin. Lignin kinetic parameters and chemical composition vary considerably and fast pyrolysis processes must be specified for each type of lignin.


The coupling of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) with spark ablation (SA) was applied for the semi-quantitative determination of impurities in different types of ferroalloys. The sparking operating conditions were optimized, and a restrictive path including a cyclone and a spray chamber was used to decrease the quantity of sparked material reaching the plasma, to prevent torch injector and sampling cone blockage. Samples were mixed in a 1:2 sample-to-graphite ratio and pressed into pellets for direct solid sampling by the spark. The advantage of the technique includes the benefit of easily determining some refractory elements that are very difficult to dissolve. The method was tested on three different types of ferroalloys: Fe-Ti, Fe-Nb, and Fe-V. A single standard ferroalloy sample was used as an external calibration sample to create a complete response curve for each type of ferroalloy base. Industrial ferroalloys, chemically characterized by using different analytical methods, were applied as calibration samples. The use of a calibration sample closely matching the ferroalloy material to be analyzed was found to be essential if accurate analyses were to be obtained. Certified Reference Materials of the three ferroalloys types tested—BAS (Bureau of Analyzed Samples) 579-1 (Fe-Nb alloy); BAM (Bundesanstalt für Materialprüfung) 589-1 (Fe-Ti alloy); and BAS 577-1 (Fe-V alloy)—were analyzed to evaluate the accuracy attainable in this panoramic mode. Most of the results, ranging from 0.05% to 5% m/m, were observed to be accurate to within 6–18.6% of the certified value, and the precision was better than 17.8% relative standard deviation. Determination limits based on 10 times the standard deviation of six replicates of a blank graphite pellet were on the μg g−1 level.


To study the impact of iron nanoparticles foliar application on mitigating the effects of drought stress on yield, yield components and oil percentage of Goldasht spring safflower cultivar, an experiment was carried out in 2012 in the Agricultural Research Farm Station of Islamic Azad University, Roudehen branch as split plot in a completely randomized blocks design with three replications. In this experiment, the major factor of drought stress treatment included four levels (optimum irrigation, stopping the irrigation at flowering stage, stopping the irrigation at seed formation stage and stopping the irrigation at two stages of flowering and seed formation). The minor treatment factor consisted of Fe nanoparticles foliar application at four levels (non-applying the foliar, foliar application at flowering stage, foliar application at seed formation stage and foliar application at two stages of flowering and seed formation). After data analysis by SAS software, the parameters including analyses of variance and means were compared using the Duncan's Multiple Range Test at probability level of 5%. The results showed that the effects of drought stress and Fe nanoparticles were significant at probability level of 1% on traits such as the number of boll per branch, number of seeds per boll, the thousand seed weight and yield at probability level of 1%. Among the levels of drought stress, the highest yield and yield components losses were seen for most of the traits and between the levels of 2 times drought stress. The maximum yield and yield components rates related to the control treatment (optimum irrigation). Also, among the levels of Fe nanoparticles, the use of nanoparticles produced the highest rates of yield and yield components in two stages of flowering and granulation. Also, the foliar application at flowering stage was better than seed formation. Meanwhile, the control treatment had the lowest yield and yield components. Finally, the interactions of Fe nanoparticles and different levels of drought stress at 1% probability level had significant impacts on traits, including boll number per branch, number of seeds per boll, the thousand seed weight and the yield. At the end of the experiment, the 2 times stress had the highest yield and yield components losses, and 2 times of using nanoparticles had the highest rates of yield and yield components. Thus, the adverse effects of drought stress can be reduced in this area and similar areas by application of Fe nanoparticles.


Invasive exotic plants usurp forest productivity, hinder forest-use activities, and limit diversity on millions of acres of forest land in the Southeast Infestations of these plants and their range are constantly expanding, This paper examines the various aspects of the problem. Outlined are the biology, origin, range, uses, and herbicide control for 14 of the most prevalent exotic trees, shrubs, vines, and grasses. Losses on forest lands will continue to increase until importation of new exotic spyies is controlled, Integrated Weed Management Programs are organized, and effective control procedures are implemented. Biological control technology using insect and pathogenic predators from the plant's home country offers the best long-term solution for subduing exotic invasive species. XNTIKODUCTXON


In this work, we investigate the application of Taylor expansions in reinforcement learning. In particular, we propose Taylor expansion policy optimization, a policy optimization formalism that generalizes prior work (e.g., TRPO) as a first-order special case. We also show that Taylor expansions intimately relate to off-policy evaluation. Finally, we show that this new formulation entails modifications which improve the performance of several state-of-the-art distributed algorithms.


Purpose: To report a case of intratumoral gene expression profile discordance in a malignant uveal melanoma, associated with intratumoral heterogeneity based upon histopathologic features. Methods: The clinical history, fundus findings, imaging and histopathologic features, and DecisionDx-UM gene expression profile results (Castle Biosciences, Inc., Phoenix, AZ, USA) of the tumor were reviewed. Results: A trans-retinal fine-needle aspiration biopsy was performed for a thin, pigmented choroidal tumor in a 33-year-old man. Cells obtained from this biopsy were tested using the DecisionDx-UM gene expression profile test and the tumor was classified as class 1A. Cytology confirmed melanoma. The patient subsequently elected to undergo enucleation. On microscopic examination of the globe, the tumor was composed primarily of spindle B cells, but had a focal area composed of epithelioid cells. This portion of the tumor was subsequently tested and demonstrated a class 1B gene expression profile. Conclusion: Intratumoral discordance in gene expression profile results has been described in uveal melanomas. Here we demonstrate that this discordance may be associated in some cases with intratumoral heterogeneity based upon histopathologic features.


We are pleased to present a short update on the progress being made in the Busan International Finance Center (BIFC). BIFC is a member of Z/Yen's Vantage Financial Centres programme. The aim of this update is to provide readers with news about the exciting progress being made by the city of Busan in attracting more financial services activity to the area.

Since 2009 Busan Metropolitan City has been developing a financial hub specialising in maritime finance and derivatives. With its strategic location in the center of the southeast economic bloc of Korea and the crossroads of a global logistics route, Busan envisions growing into an international financial city in Northeast Asia. Following the successful launch of the 63-story Busan International Finance Center in 2014, the second phase development of the Busan Financial Hub will be completed in 2018 and is expected to provide world-class business infrastructure for financial institutions.

BIFC offers an attractive incentive package to global financial leaders and cooperation network of Busan Metropolitan City, the BIFC Promotion Center, the Busan Economic Promotion Agency (BEPA) and Financial Hub Korea will support you to identify opportunities in Busan, one of the fastest developing cities in Asia.


BACKGROUND
Inositol hexaphosphate (InsP6 or IP6) has shown a striking anti-cancer activity in both in vivo and in vitro models. In an attempt to elucidate the mechanism(s) underlying the anti-neoplastic potential of IP6, we investigated its effect on cell cycle progression of MCF-7 estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and MDA-MB 231 ER-negative human breast cancer cell lines and HT-29 human colon cancer cells.

METHODS
The anti-proliferative effect of IP6 was evaluated using dual-parameter flow cytometric measurements of DNA content, versus the incorporation of 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU) to determine cells actively synthesizing DNA. Combined analysis of the expression of cell cycle-related proteins, proliferation marker Ki-67 and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) versus DNA content were used to determine the amount of proliferating cells in each phase, engaged in cell cycle transit.

RESULTS
After 3 days of treatment with 5 mM IP6, S-phase, as estimated by BrdU uptake, was significantly decreased in all three cell lines (p = 0.002). MCF-7 and HT-29 cells accumulated in the G0/G1 range of DNA contents (p = 0.002 and p = 0.001, respectively). MDA MB-231 cells transiently accumulated in G0/G1 only after 2 days (p = 0.01). There was a significant decrease in the percentage of Ki-67 expression in IP6-treated cells, from 82.8+/-3.0% to 66.8+/-4.2% in MCF-7 (p = 0.007), from 93.4+/-4.6% to 71.7+/-3.3% in MDA-MB 231 (p = 0.004), and from 95.2+/-1.2% to 73.5+/-2.5% in HT-29 cells (p = 0.002) respectively. PCNA expression levels were also significantly decreased by IP6 in all three cell lines (MCF-7 p = 0.0007; MDA-MB 231 p = 0.0006; HT-29 p = 0.0001).

CONCLUSION
These results show that IP6 controls the progression of cells through the cycle by decreasing S- phase and arresting cells in the G0/G1-phase of the cell cycle. A significant decrease in the expression of proliferation markers indicated that IP6 disengaged cells from actively cycling. Further investigations of cell cycle regulators may lead us to a better understanding of the mechanism(s) of the anti-neoplastic action of IP6.


Bio-monitoring is the use of biological responses to assess changes in the environment. Biological monitoring is considered to provide an integrated approach to assess water and overall environmental quality. The ultimate objective of bio-monitoring in the Rampur Ghol is to ensure that local resource users in the water sector to apply biodiversity friendly management practices within their day to day activities. In this research macro invertebrates are used to classify the Rampur Ghol into different Water Quality Classes based on Saprobic Water Quality Classification (SWQC) approach. Rampur Ghol was selected as research site for biological monitoring, situated in Chitwan district, Mangalpur VDC Ward No. 2. Macrophytes were collected from both the aquatic habitat and buffer zone of the Rampur Ghol in seasonal basis using fixed quadrate of 1×1m2 . Benthic macro-invertebrates were sampled by using bin sampler and grab sampler and then analysed. During study period altogether 14 families belonging to 10 orders of aquatic macroinvertebrate were found in dry season and 18 families belonging to 12 orders of aquatic macro-invertebrates were found in rainy season. Accessing the Biotic Index of macro-invertebrates, it was found that eight sites fall in water quality class III and site 7 and site 10 were rated class II-III and class III-IV respectively in dry season. Similarly, seven sites were rated water quality class III and three sites were rated water quality class II-III in rainy season. Study of the macrophytes in site 7, 8 and 10 concluded that the macrophytes from sites 8 and 10 showed high degree of organic pollution and showed the dominance of Pistia stratiotes throughout the study, which is considered to be indicator of organic pollution. High anthropogenic activities show fluctuation of water quality in Rampur Ghol. It can be concluded that humans are the key factor for degrading the Ghol.


Abstract. Size and time-resolved roadside enrichments of atmospheric particulate pollutants in PM 10 were detected and quantified in a Mediterranean urban environment (Barcelona, Spain). Simultaneous data from one urban background (UB), one traffic (T) and one heavy traffic (HT) location were analysed, and roadside PM 10 enrichments (RE) in a number of elements arising from vehicular emissions were calculated. Tracers of primary traffic emissions (EC, Fe, Ba, Cu, Sb, Cr, Sn) showed the largest REs (>70%). Other traffic tracers (Zr, Cd) showed lower but still consistent REs (25–40%), similar to those obtained for mineral matter resulting from road dust resuspension (Ca, La, Ce, Ti, Ga, Sr, 30–40%). The sum of primary and secondary organic carbon showed a RE of 41%, with contributions of secondary OC (SOC) to total OC ranging from 46% at the HT site, 63% at the T site, and 78% in the UB. Finally, other trace elements (As, Co, Bi) showed unexpected but consistent roadside enrichments (23% up to 69%), suggesting a link to traffic emissions even though the emission process is unclear. Hourly-resolved PM speciation data proved to be a highly resourceful tool to determine the source origin of atmospheric pollutants in urban environments. At the HT site, up to 62% of fine Mn was attributable to industrial plumes, whereas coarse Mn levels were mainly attributed to traffic. Similarly, even though Zn showed on average no roadside enrichment and thus was classified as industrial, the hourly-resolved data proved that at least 15% of coarse Zn may be attributed to road traffic emissions. In addition, our results indicate that secondary nitrate formation occurs within the city-scale, even in the absence of long atmospheric residence times or long-range atmospheric transport processes. Characteristic tracer ratios of road traffic emissions were identified: Cu/Sb = 6.8–8.0, Cu/Sn = 4.7–5.4 and Sn/Sb = 1.5.


Many researchers have examined the influence of the financial planning horizon variable in the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Health and Retirement Study. The question asks respondents to choose the most important time period for saving and spending decisions. These researchers have assumed that the variable reflects the time preference of respondents. However, it is also possible that the variable reflects respondent situations. To examine whether the variable is situational or is a measure of a persistent preference, we used the 1992-2007 U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances datasets and examined the relationship between household characteristics and the financial planning horizon. After controlling for demographic and economic variables, the estimated planning horizon shows a hump shape along with age that peaks at age 43. The results suggest that the financial planning horizon variable is a situational factor rather than measuring a constant time preference.