This exploratory study is a first output of an ongoing collaboration between the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and UNICEF. It is intended as a contribution towards building a deeper understanding of children's safety in a digital context in developing nations. More specifically, the objectives of the paper are threefold: First (and foremost), it seeks to raise awareness about issues related to digital safety for youth in developing nations. Second, it aims to provide a tentative map of these issues and give insights into the current state of the respective research based on an exploratory literature review. Third, the paper seeks to outline the contours of a research framework through a series of working hypotheses that might inform subsequent research efforts on these issues by connecting efforts in developing and industrialized nations. The topic of this paper is challenging along a number of dimensions, including the complexity of the subject of investigation, cultural expectations and tolerance, language barriers, the highly limited availability of data, and limited access to scholarship from developing nations to the extent that it exists. We therefore decided not only to take a collaborative approach to research this paper (see methodology paragraph in paper), but also to release it as a "learning document" by soliciting feedback, comments, pointers to additional materials, etc. At the end of such a participatory period and after additional research on our end, the hope is to publish a revised and extended version of this paper in the format of a white paper.


By the time the United States officially entered World War II, more than half of American anthropologists were using their professional knowledge and skills to advance the war effort. The range of their war-related work was extraordinary. They helped gather military intelligence, pinpointed possible social weaknesses in enemy nations, and contributed to the army's regional Pocket Guide booklets. They worked for dozens of government agencies, including the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Office of War Information. At a moment when social scientists are once again being asked to assist in military and intelligence work, David H. Price examines anthropologists' little-known contributions to the Second World War.

Anthropological Intelligence is based on interviews with anthropologists as well as extensive archival research involving many Freedom of Information Act requests. Price looks at the role played by the two primary U.S. anthropological organizations, the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology (which was formed in 1941), in facilitating the application of anthropological methods to the problems of war. He chronicles specific projects undertaken on behalf of government agencies, including an analysis of the social effects of postwar migration, the design and implementation of OSS counterinsurgency campaigns, and the study of Japanese social structures to help tailor American propaganda efforts. Price discusses anthropologists' work in internment camps, their collection of intelligence in Central and South America for the FBI's Special Intelligence Service, and their help forming foreign language programs to assist soldiers and intelligence agents. Evaluating the ethical implications of anthropological contributions to World War II, Price suggests that by the time the Cold War began, the profession had set a dangerous precedent regarding what it would be willing to do on behalf of the U.S. government.


In China, a centralized planning culture has created similar neighborhoods across the country. Using a survey of 1,048 individuals conducted in 2016 in Chengdu—located in a carefully conceptualized typology of neighborhood forms—we analyzed the associations between individual and neighborhood characteristics and active or nonmotorized transport behavior. Using several multiple logistic and multilevel models, we show how neighborhoods were categorized and how the number of categories or neighborhood types affected the magnitude of the associations with active transport but not the direction. People taking non-work trips were more likely to use active compared with motorized modes in all neighborhood types. Neighborhood type was significant in models but so too were many other individual-level variables and infrastructural and locational features such as bike lanes and location near the river. Of the 3-D physical environment variables, floor area ratio (a proxy for density) was only significant in one model for nonwork trips. Intersection density and dissimilarity (land-use diversity) were only significant in a model for work trips. This study shows that to develop strong theories about the connections between active transport and environments, it is important to examine different physical and cultural contexts and perform sensitivity analyses. Research in different parts of China can help provide a more substantial base for evidence-informed policymaking. Planning and design recommendations were made related to active transport need to consider how neighborhoods, built environments, and personal characteristics interact in different kinds of urban environments.


This study sought to identify what teachers perceive to be the major factors influencing their selection of content in outdoor education formal curricula in two Western Australian government senior high schools. The study uses comparative and descriptive measures, including a documentary analysis comparing Ministry of Education and school formal curricula. This analysis initially identified discrepancies with content selection, prompting the investigation, through interviewing, of teachers' perceptions of their causes. From the perceptions investigated, five categories of factors were identified: Time, cost; expertise; needs; and resources. These categories were integrated to form a substantive theory for influences on content selection by outdoor education teachers.


Video conferencing is still considered a poor alternative to face-to-face meetings. In the business setting, where these systems are most prevalent, the misuse of video conferencing systems can have detrimental results, especially in high-stakes communications. Prior work suggests that spatial distortions of nonverbal cues, particularly gaze and deixis, negatively impact many aspects of effective communication in dyadic communications. However, video conferencing systems are often used for group-to-group meetings where spatial distortions are exacerbated. Meanwhile, its effects on the group dynamic are not well understood. In this study, we examine the effects that spatial distortions of nonverbal cues have on inter-group trust formation. We conducted a large (169 participant) study of group conferencing under various conditions. We found that the use of systems that introduce spatial distortions negatively affect trust formation patterns. On the other hand, these effects are essentially eliminated by using a spatially faithful video conferencing system.


In connection with hydraulic studies of a new coastal resort development on the south-east coast of Bali in Indonesia, a three-dimensional (3D) physical model study was carried out. The study was aimed at the determination of the wave transformation over a shallow natural reef in front of the resort and for the design of the rubble mound revetments to be built for coastal protection. Due to the heavy wave breaking on the reef, physical model tests were the only viable avenue for obtaining a reliable design of the revetment structures located behind the shallow reef area. The stability of the armour layer as well as the overtopping of the revetments were equally important aspects of this part of the study, since not only should the resort be protected against storm waves, but visitors should also be able to comfortably visit the coastal areas during more normal wave conditions.This paper mainly concerns the wave dynamics on the reef. Due to the limited water depth the wave conditions were dominated by heavy wave breaking and the associated release of the bound long-period wave components in the wave groups of the incident wave train. These long-period wave components caused a dynamic water level set-up with long-period variations in front of the revetments (surf beats). The depthlimited wave conditions on the reef and the dynamic water level set-up had major influence on the evolution of damage and overtopping of the revetments and made the design of the revetments particularly complex.


Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains the leading cause of death in the United States and Europe. Although there has been a decline in the number of deaths from myocardial infarction throughout the western world, the mortality for congestive heart failure has more than doubled. Importantly, CAD accounts for the majority (almost 70%) of congestive heart failure cases.

In the clinical management of patients with congestive heart failure caused by CAD, the accurate assessment of myocardial viability is crucial to guide treatment; this is because revascularisation of dysfunctional but viable myocardium can improve ventricular function and long-term survival.

Another everyday clinical scenario is the risk stratification of patients suspected to have CAD presenting for work up of chest pain syndromes. If left ventricular function is normal, stress testing remains the primary approach for detecting myocardial ischaemia.

Traditionally nuclear imaging, stress echocardiography and (stress) electrocardiography have been the clinical mainstays for assessing myocardial viability as well as to detect myocardial ischaemia. However, cardiovascular MR (CMR) is a rapidly emerging non-invasive imaging technique, providing high-resolution images of the heart in any desired plane and without radiation. Rather than a single technique, CMR consists of several techniques that can be performed separately or in various combinations during a patient examination. For example, cine-CMR can provide assessment of cardiac morphology, function and contractile reserve; perfusion CMR with and without vasodilators can provide assessment of myocardial perfusion reserve, and contrast enhanced CMR (ceCMR) can be used for infarct detection as well as non-invasive tissue characterisation.

This article will review the potential of CMR for managing patients with known or suspected CAD by discussing different CMR techniques for assessment of myocardial viability and myocardial ischaemia.

The most precise definition of infarction, and therefore the loss of viability, is that myocyte death must have occurred. All ischaemic events …


To inform how emotions in speech are implicitly processed and registered in memory, we compared how emotional prosody, emotional semantics, and both cues in tandem prime decisions about conjoined emotional faces. Fifty-two participants rendered facial affect decisions (Pell, 2005a), indicating whether a target face represented an emotion (happiness or sadness) or not (a facial grimace), after passively listening to happy, sad, or neutral prime utterances. Emotional information from primes was conveyed by: (1) prosody only; (2) semantic cues only; or (3) combined prosody and semantic cues. Results indicated that prosody, semantics, and combined prosody–semantic cues facilitate emotional decisions about target faces in an emotion-congruent manner. However, the magnitude of priming did not vary across tasks. Our findings highlight that emotional meanings of prosody and semantic cues are systematically registered during speech processing, but with similar effects on associative knowledge about emotions, which is presumably shared by prosody, semantics, and faces.


Teachers must strive to enhance their power as educational connoisseurs and critics, professionals who understand how to use technological learning materials that promote growth across multiple intelligences. This case study demonstrates how this demand was met in an "Advanced" Grade 10 English class at Hillcrest High School in Ottawa, Canada. The project came to be known as the MILT.CEU assignment: "MILT" stands for Harvard Professor Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences learning theory and CEU was taken from the title of the computLr-based learning materials Cloze Encounters Unlimited. Cloze Encounters is, in its simplest form, DOS (Disk Operating System) software that allows students to work individually or in teams to create puzzles for other students to do. The assignment consisted of designing a puzzle that could be carried out in each of seven traditional subject domains: language arts, global studies, history, science, mathematics, practical arts, and fine arts. Within rach of these subject domains, the tasks were shaped to suit learning-style preferences including verbal linguistic, logical mathematical, visual spacial, body kinesthetic, musical rhythmic, interpersonal, intrapersonal. The MILT.CEU assignment met Gardner's demands for a responsive, integrated, substantive, cooperative curriculum in which students were called upon to function as active participants in the learning process. The teacher's role is manageable, responsive, and dynamic. (AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. Paper (W1-202A) Beyond Traditional Boundaries: Coping With Multiple Intelligences in Today's Classrooms


In the presence of caspofungin, blunting and abnormal branching of the hyphae in actively growing areas of the cell are observed, primarily at the tips and branching points. These observations are consistent with the mechanism of action but do not fit the classical definitions of a fungicidal or fungistatic agent. Echinocandins are large molecules with a relative molecular weight of approximately 1,200. Due to their large molecule size and poor oral bioavailability (less than 10%), echinocandins are available for parenteral administration only. Recently, the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer reported on their multicenter clinical trial that evaluated caspofungin as first-line treatment for proven and probable invasive aspergillosis in 61 evaluable patients with hematological cancer. Four compassionate use studies conducted prior to licensure in several different countries showed that caspofungin produced favorable responses in a variety of patients with invasive aspergillosis, most of whom demonstrated refractoriness to or intolerance of prior systemic antifungal therapy. Initial reports of combination therapy in invasive aspergillosis have focused on refractory disease. Echinocandins are generally very well tolerated both in the healthy subjects of the clinical pharmacology studies and in patients with a wide spectrum of diseases and receiving many concomitant medications who were included in the clinical trials. In clinical studies of patients with invasive aspergillosis, caspofungin and micafungin are well-tolerated for prolonged treatment durations (up to 162 days for caspofungin), and the favorable safety profile was maintained with extended therapy.


In this article, I consider the neglected question of justice between states in the distribution of responsibility for refugees. I argue that a just distribution of refugees across states is an important normative goal and, accordingly, I attempt to rethink the normative foundations of the global refugee regime. I show that because dismantling the restrictive measures currently used by states in the global South to prevent the arrival of refugees will not suffice to ensure a just distribution of refugees between states, a more detailed account of how responsibilities should be shared between states is required. To this end, I make three claims. First, I argue that the definition of 'refugee' must be broadened beyond those subjected to persecution to include harms of action or omission by states that seriously jeopardise personal security or subsistence needs. Second, I argue that allocating a fair share of refugees to states should be based on state's integrative capacities. Finally, I argue that distributive justice between states must be balanced against the legitimate interests of refugees in their destination country and the duty of states to ensure they are settled in places where they are likely to flourish.


Asset pricing theory has long recognized that financial markets compensate investors who are exposed to some components of uncertainty. This is where macroeconomics comes into play. The economywide shocks, the primary concern of macroeconomists, by their nature are not diversifiable. Exposures to these shocks cannot be averaged out with exposures to other shocks. Thus returns on assets that depend on these macroeconomic shocks reflect "risk" premia and are a linchpin connecting macroeconomic uncertainty to financial markets. A risk premium reflects both the price of risk and the degree of exposure to risk. I will be particularly interested in how the exposures to macroeconomic impulses are priced by decentralized security markets.


State-of-the-art communication standards like RFID and Bluetooth Low Energy enable the development of sensor systems which can be completely embedded into concrete components for long-term SHM and early damage detection. Objective of the project KonSens which is carried out at BAM is the development, implementation, and validation of sensors for measuring of Parameters relevant for corrosion, like moisture, pH value, and electrical conductivity, inside steel reinforced concrete components. The primarily addressed application is detection and evaluation of corrosion processes in concrete bridges.
In contrast to cable connected sensors, embedded wireless sensors avoid any pathways for intrusion of moisture and chemicals, e.g., chlorides which could trigger corrosion activity. To allow for long-term, ideally life-time operation, the once embedded sensor systems must work highly energy efficient. One option are passive RFID sensor systems, which work without battery. The energy is transmitted to the system through the electromagnetic field, even to operate sensors. A crucial parameter is the transmission depth in concrete. First experiments with RFID sensors working at frequencies of 13.56 MHz (HF) and 868 MHz (UHF) embedded in concrete specimen resulted positive for transmission depths of up to 13 cm, which is quite promising, considering that corrosion would appear first at the top level of rebars.
A second generation of passive RFID sensor systems has been implemented with improved antenna design. Current experiments using these systems focus on the Transmission characteristics in terms of transmission depths and the impact of concrete moisture. Low-energy humidity sensors are used and analysed regarding their capability for measuring the material moisture. Additionally, a relation between transmitted power to the embedded sensor and the moisture content of the concrete specimen caused by energy absorption can be presumed and is under systematic investigation.


In Drosophila melanogaster, genes of the sex-determination hierarchy orchestrate the development and differentiation of sex-specific tissues, establishing sex-specific physiology and neural circuitry. One of these sex-determination genes, fruitless (fru), plays a key role in the formation of neural circuits underlying Drosophila male courtship behavior. Conservation of fru gene structure and sex-specific expression has been found in several insect orders, though it is still to be determined whether a male courtship role for the gene is employed in these species due to the lack of mutants and homologous experimental evidence. We have isolated the fru ortholog (Md-fru) from the common housefly, Musca domestica, and show the gene's conserved genomic structure. We demonstrate that male-specific Md-fru transcripts arise by conserved mechanisms of sex-specific splicing. Here we show that Md-fru, is similarly involved in controlling male courtship behavior. A male courtship behavioral function for Md-fru was revealed by the behavioral and neuroanatomical analyses of a hypomorphic allele, Md-traman, which specifically disrupted the expression of Md-fru in males, leading to severely impaired male courtship behavior. In line with a role in nervous system development, we found that expression of Md-fru was confined to neural tissues in the brain, most prominently in optic neuropil and in peripheral sensory organs. We propose that, like in Drosophila, overt sexual differentiation of the housefly depends on a sex-determining pathway that bifurcates downstream of the Md-tra gene to coordinate dimorphic development of non-neuronal tissues mediated by Md-dsx with that of neuronal tissues largely mediated by Md-fru.


We give a complete definition of the entanglement gap separating low-energy, topological levels from high-energy, generic ones, in the "entanglement spectrum" of fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states. This is accomplished by removing the magnetic length inherent in the FQH problem--a procedure which we call taking the conformal limit. The counting of the low-lying entanglement levels starts off as the counting of modes of the edge theory of the FQH state, but quickly develops finite-size effects which we find to serve as a fingerprint of the FQH state. As the sphere manifold where the FQH resides grows, the level spacing of the states at the same angular momentum goes to zero, suggestive of the presence of relativistic gapless edge states. By using the adiabatic continuity of the low-entanglement energy levels, we investigate whether two states are topologically connected.


Para-documentary horror – attempt to define a genre.

This article aims to define the characteristics of horror verite. The author raises issues related to the phenomenon of genealogical contexts – such as cinema verite or mockumentary that have significantly influenced the formal shape of the species discussed. The controversial film Cannibal Holocaust (1979) dir. Ruggero Deodato, which is considered a pioneering image relative to the horror verite is discussed in this article. It is one of the first examples in which blurring the boundary between fiction and reality by an extremely reliable styled on the
documentaries. The use of 16 mm tape or simulated found footage became an extremely effective method to stimulate the viewer bored with conventional, petrified determinants of the horror genre. This paved the way for other films, and the turning point was amazing blockbuster The Blair Witch Project (1999) dir. D. Myrick, E. Sanchez. The story of the witch of Blair was executed in an almost ascetic manner according to the principle "less is more". This film has cemented the characteristics of the documental horror set of tricks: shaky camera, natural lighting, unprofessional acting, reflexivity and specific marketing strategies that activate the viewer using a variety of metatexts (casus Sundance and web site). Series such as Paranormal Activity or [REC] show that through balancing on the edge of fictional and factual order, the recipient accustomed to exaggerated gore, is able to refer again to the basic determinant of horror – fear. Paradocumentalism's immersion can be achieved with varying degrees of intensity and it is up to the viewer to decide whether he will step up to the plate.


The possibility of applying methods of differential thermal analysis (DTA) and thermogravimetry (TG) to the study of nonisothermal oxidation of metals is demonstrated, with zirconium as an example. The zirconium powders studied were produced by the sodium-thermal and electrolytic methods as well as by the electrolytic method with further grinding in a ballmill in alcohol for different time intervals. It was found that zirconium oxidation covers several stages corresponding to the oxidation of different-sized zirconium particles, which is confirmed by the increase in the thermal effect for a fraction of small particles depending on time of grinding and by its decrease for a fraction of large ones. It is also found that grinding affects heat evaluation rate and initial oxidation temperature, which is explained by the occurrence of a tribochemical effect. In order to increase this effect, it is proposed to introduce a liquid passivating agent into the ground powders.


Introduction. Images have a strong presence in online journalism and are used to attract readers' attention to news content. Images are predominantly sourced from online collections offering access to ready imagery. Yet, the literature shows that image retrieval systems fall short of meeting users' needs. This study investigated image selection and use in online journalism, in order to propose improvements to the effectiveness of image retrieval.

Method. Twelve image professionals working in online journalism participated in semi-structured interviews. Eight professionals were observed while performing real illustration tasks in situ. Thematic analysis was used on data to identify common themes. Illustrations created in this study were included in the data, and a social visual semiotics approach was used for the interpretation of visual meaning.

Results. A trend in how images were selected and tailored for online news content emerged, and a set of recurring image features was identified in illustrations used for online news content.

Conclusions. The primary contribution of this study is the identification of recurring image features and linking them to visual impact. It is expected that when applied as search functionality, these features will improve the effectiveness of retrieval of visually engaging images as required in online journalism.


Background/Context Historians and researchers have documented and explored the work and role of African American teachers in the U.S. educational system, yet there has been limited attention to the specific work, role, and experiences of African American mathematics teachers. To meaningfully and responsibly conceptualize the role of African American mathematics teachers and better understand their work in U.S. schools, analytic approaches are needed to help us understand cases of African American mathematics teachers as representations of a complex and ever-evolving series of intertwined contexts, forces, and events that include critical events along historical timelines (i.e., U.S. educational system, mathematics education, technological innovation and development, African American teaching force). Purpose/Objective The purpose of this article is to challenge readers to consider the African American mathematics teacher as a conceptual entity that embodies characteristics, practices, and dispositions that are potentially meaningful for students, particularly African American students, in ways that support students' capacity to participate and perform within the racialized contexts of mathematics education, the broader schooling experience, and broader society. Design Structured as an analytic essay, this article provides a rationale and potential directions of inquiry for historians and researchers open to explorations of relationships between race, mathematics education, teacher identity, and teacher practice. Conclusions/Recommendations We make two assertions about the African American mathematics teacher that help to conceptualize his or her role as a theoretical construct. First, the African American mathematics teacher is a boundary spanner with membership in multiple communities—a mathematically proficient and intellectually powerful African American person within a historically disempowered African American community with a history of inaccessibility to and underperformance in mathematics. Second, through various implicit and explicit means and micro-interactions, the African American mathematics teacher has the potential to engage in liberatory mathematics pedagogy, a pedagogy that serves to dismantle racialized hierarchies of mathematics ability. We encourage mathematics education researchers to interrogate, challenge, critique, and build on conceptualizations of the African American mathematics teacher as an entity that represents a unique confluence of experiences, perspectives, dispositions, and knowledge domains critical to the education of students. In doing so, it is our hope that theories of student learning, participation, and performance will more willingly embrace, acknowledge, and incorporate the inescapable dynamics of race, class, student identity, and teacher identity.


The work in this dissertation concerns the construction of a robust iterative learning control (ILC) algorithm for a class of systems characterized by measurement delays, parametric uncertainty, and linear parameter varying (LPV) dynamics. One example of such a system is the twin roll strip casting process, which provides a practical motivation for this research. I propose three ILC algorithms in this dissertation that advance the state of the art. The first algorithm compensates for measurement delays that are longer than a single iteration of a periodic process. I divide the delay into an iterative and residual component and show how each component effects the asymptotic stability properties of the ILC algorithm. The second algorithm is a coupled delay estimation and ILC algorithm that compensates for time-varying measurement delays. I use an adaptive delay estimation algorithm to force the delay estimate to converge to the true delay and provide stability conditions for the coupled delay estimation and ILC algorithm. The final algorithm is a norm optimal ILC algorithm that compensates for LPV dynamics as well as parametric uncertainty and time delay estimation error. I provide a tuning method for the cost function weight matrices based on a sufficient condition for robust convergence and an upper bound on the norm of the error signal. The functionality of all three algorithms is demonstrated through simulated case studies based on an identified system model of the the twin roll strip casting process. The simulation testing is also augmented with experimental testing of select algorithms through collaboration with an industrial sponsor.


Increasingly, European companies in a variety of business sectors as well as professional groups are taking self-regulatory initiatives as a means of gaining competitive and protective leverage in a "meta-regulatory" environment. While these initiatives have obvious legal and economic advantages for the entities and principals who take them, the phenomenon of self-regulation raises profound issues for competition law and even for constitutional law. Although deeply grounded in legal theory, such issues have profound and growing significance for practitioners in many fields of law. In this thought-provoking book, thirteen outstanding authorities from various EU jurisdictions examine the legal basis of self-regulation and its function in the process of European legal integration, with particular reference to European private law. The authors offer in-depth analysis of self-regulation in the context of current economic and political conditions in Europe, and investigate the effects of self-regulation on such societal factors as the following: the European social dialogue, the professions, consumer protection, the media, and corporate social responsibility. This book is among the first to raise these vital issues, and the first to examine self-regulation in depth with reference to specific sectors. The essays identify trends set in motion by self-regulation among major actors, and the authors do not hesitate to offer insightful criticisms and recommendations. For these reasons, this book will be of great value to policymakers and business people, as well as to legal academics, for years to come, as self-regulation assumes ever more salience in our economic and social fabric.


The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed experimental procedure for the quantitative determination of initiation fracture toughness and full-field strain measurement of rock material under dynamic loads. Notched semi-circular bending tests were conducted using a split Hopkinson pressure bar (SPHB) system. Experimental setup, data acquisition and interpretation were described in detail. The digital image correlation (DIC) technique combining with a high-speed cameral was adopted for the measurement of surface deformation characteristics of rock specimens. To verify the accuracy of this technique, comparative tests were performed in which the strains in the specimens were simultaneously determined using the DIC technique and on-specimen strain gauges. Strain gauges were also used to determine the time-to-fracture. Experimental results show that (1) dynamic crack initiation toughness can be well determined; and (2) the high-speed DIC technique provides reliable full-field strain fields in the specimens under dynamic loads.


The recently developed iterated stockholder atoms (ISA) approach of Lillestolen and Wheatley (Chem. Commun. 2008, 5909) offers a powerful method for defining atoms in a molecule. However, the real-space algorithm is known to converge very slowly, if at all. Here, we present a robust, basis-space algorithm of the ISA method and demonstrate its applicability on a variety of systems. We show that this algorithm exhibits rapid convergence (taking around 10-80 iterations) with the number of iterations needed being unrelated to the system size or basis set used. Further, we show that the multipole moments calculated using this basis-space ISA method are as good as, or better than, those obtained from Stone's distributed multipole analysis (J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2005, 1, 1128), exhibiting better convergence properties and resulting in better behaved penetration energies. This can have significant consequences in the development of intermolecular interaction models.


This book describes the failure of the once powerful U.S. newspaper industry to adapt in the online era. From a historical perspective the book examines the issues and forces that shaped the industry, during the formative years of the online era through to today's wireless-based marketplace, taking into account how consumers embraced interactivity and the ensuing emergence of user-generated content. Numerous examples critically detail how newspaper companies viewed online media forms, how they deployed them, and for what purpose. "The Decline of the Daily Newspaper" provides insight into how the decisions made in the early years of the online era have influenced the industry's current economic condition.


Spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) is a technique for interrogating the subsurface composition of turbid samples noninvasively. This study generically addresses a fundamental question relevant to a wide range of SORS studies, which is how deep SORS probes for any specific spatial offset when analyzing a turbid sample or, in turn, what magnitude of spatial offset one should select to probe a specific depth. This issue is addressed by using Monte Carlo simulations, under the assumption of negligible absorption, which establishes that the key parameter governing the extent of the probed zone for a point-like illumination and point-like collection SORS geometry is the reduced scattering coefficient of the medium. This can either be deduced from literature data or directly estimated from a SORS measurement by evaluating the Raman intensity profile from multiple spatial offsets. Once this is known, the extent of the probed zone can be determined for any specific SORS spatial offset using the Monte Carlo simulation results presented here. The proposed method was tested using experimental data on stratified samples by analyzing the signal detected from a thin layer that was moved through a stack of layers using both non-absorbing and absorbing samples. The proposed simple methodology provides important additional information on SORS measurements with direct relevance to a wide range of SORS applications including biomedical, pharmaceutical, security, forensics, and cultural heritage.


We present WIKIREADING, a large-scale natural language understanding task and publicly-available dataset with 18 million instances. The task is to predict textual values from the structured knowledge base Wikidata by reading the text of the corresponding Wikipedia articles. The task contains a rich variety of challenging classification and extraction sub-tasks, making it well-suited for end-to-end models such as deep neural networks (DNNs). We compare various state-of-the-art DNNbased architectures for document classification, information extraction, and question answering. We find that models supporting a rich answer space, such as word or character sequences, perform best. Our best-performing model, a word-level sequence to sequence model with a mechanism to copy out-of-vocabulary words, obtains an accuracy of 71.8%.


Temporal-Difference (TD) learning is a standard and very successful reinforcement learning approach, at the core of both algorithms that learn the value of a given policy, as well as algorithms which learn how to improve policies. TD-learning with eligibility traces provides a way to do temporal credit assignment, i.e. decide which portion of a reward should be assigned to predecessor states that occurred at different previous times, controlled by a parameter $\lambda$. However, tuning this parameter can be time-consuming, and not tuning it can lead to inefficient learning. To improve the sample efficiency of TD-learning, we propose a meta-learning method for adjusting the eligibility trace parameter, in a state-dependent manner. The adaptation is achieved with the help of auxiliary learners that learn distributional information about the update targets online, incurring roughly the same computational complexity per step as the usual value learner. Our approach can be used both in on-policy and off-policy learning. We prove that, under some assumptions, the proposed method improves the overall quality of the update targets, by minimizing the overall target error. This method can be viewed as a plugin which can also be used to assist prediction with function approximation by meta-learning feature (observation)-based $\lambda$ online, or even in the control case to assist policy improvement. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates significant performance improvements, as well as improved robustness of the proposed algorithm to learning rate variation.


This paper is the first part of a three-part article series. Simulations of directional brightness temperature over both simple canopies with triangular leaves and the row-planted wheat and corn were used to analyze the thermal emission hot-spot effect on crop canopies. Two models, Cupid and TRGM, were successively used to simulate the thermal hot-spot signatures under conditions which cannot be easily captured in reality. The investigation includes the planting row structure, the leaf area index (LAI), the leaf angle distribution (LAD), the component temperature distribution as well as variations in the microclimate. The results show that there are typically three types of directional emission shapes in the solar principle plane: the bowl, dome and bell shape. Regardless of the shape, the hot spot is significant and can be accurately fitted (R2 = 0.98 and RMSE = 0.04°C) with a function of the phase angle (ξ), the hot-spot amplitude (ΔTHS) and the half width of the hot spot (ξ0)> which can be quantified with the half width in the RED band. The planting row structure can reduce the ΔTHS by a maximum amount (about 1.2°C) when compared with an unstructured horizontal canopy. The ΔTHS is linearly related to the component temperature differences between sunlit and shadowed parts. The linear equation can be used to predict the component temperature differences from ΔTHS. The accuracy is very good for the horizontal canopies with triangular leaves (RMSE <; 0.4°C and R2 > 0.99), and acceptable for the virtual wheat and corn canopies (RMSE <; 1.8°C and R2 > 0.81).


Abstract Although macroseismic reports indicate that great earthquakes have occurred in the vicinity of the Shumagin Gap of the eastern Aleutian arc, the largest, well-documented event within the gap has been an M S 7.5 event that occurred in 1948; this earthquake apparently ruptured only a 75-km-long segment of the 200-km-long gap and as such is not considered a gap-filling event. Relocations of turn-of-the-century seismicity by Boyd and Lerner-Lam (1988) suggest, however, that another, more poorly documented event nucleated near the Shumagin Islands on 31 May 1917. An M S of 7.9, determined from a single station bulletin, has been assigned to this event; although consistent with its apparent aftershock distribution, macroseismic reports appear to be too small for such a large event. We use surface waves to estimate the moment and rupture bounds and body waves to constrain the focal mechanism and depth of the 1917 event. The average M S at 13 azimuthally well-distributed stations is 7.4 ± 0.3, much smaller than the previous estimate of 7.9. The spatial variation in individual magnitude estimates is azimuthally dependent (7.9 to the west and 6.8 to the east), implying source directivity. Assuming a thrust fault mechanism, body-wave inversion yields a source depth of 29 km and M W of 7.4. In addition, assuming rupture velocity and rupture propagation along-arc to the west (consistent with the aftershock distribution), a rupture length of 75 km and M W of 7.5 are required to match long-period surface waves recorded at Uppsala, Sweden, and Gottingen, Germany. These results suggest that the average slip of the 1917 event was only about 75 to 150 cm and was restricted to the easternmost portion of the gap. These results, when combined with rupture zones and recurrence intervals of other eastern Aleutian events, imply a temporally heterogeneous rupture style where the rupture bounds, and consequently the sizes of earthquakes, vary from cycle to cycle. Estimating the magnitudes or rupture extents of the next series of events based on the previous series appears to be unjustified.


Sonoporation is a method for inducing a transient increase in the permeability of cell membranes to otherwise impermeable compounds using ultrasound. This technique has therapeutic potential as it allows for localized delivery of therapeutic agents in a noninvasive and non-cytotoxic manner. The discovery and testing of potential therapeutic agents that can be delivered using this technique requires performing studies on cell cultures in vitro. This thesis presents a prototype sonoporation device which aims to reduce the time and expertise required to perform sonoporation on adherent monolayer cell cultures. First, a prototype sonoporation device was designed and constructed. The device consisted of an array of six ultrasound transducers affixed below a cell culture stage. The six transducers were each constructed and electrically matched to 50 Ω at an operating frequency of 1 MHz. The acoustic near-field of each transducer was characterized using hydrophone scanning and the distance from the transducer at which the plane perpendicular to the beam path was most homogeneous was determined. The mean(±s.d.) treatment distance was 15.9(±0.67) mm and the mean -3 dB width was 1.97(±0.22) mm. The electrical power required to produce 0.7 MPa on this plane was found for each transducer. The mean(±s.d.) electrical power was 101(±12.2) W. Next, the prototype device was experimentally validated. Sonoporation was performed on cervical carcinoma-derived SiHa cells with 70-80% confluency at media temperatures of 37°C, 39.5°C, and 42°C. Pulsed ultrasound of 1 MHz, 4.8% duty cycle, 1.6 kHz pulse repetition frequency, and 0.7 MPa peak pressure was applied to induce sonoporation. Ultrasound contrast agent was added to the cell culture media (0.33% v/v) to provide cavitation nuclei during treatment. Plasmid DNA expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) was added to the cell culture (250 μg/10 mL) to quantify successful permeabilization. While there were no significant effects due to the temperature of the media, transfection was successfully performed using the prototype device given the positive expression of GFP in the cells 24 hours following treatment. The mean(±s.d.) transfection efficiencies of the sonoporation treatment at 37°C, 39.5°C, and 42°C were 5.4(±0.92)%, 5.8(±1.3)%, and 5.3(±1.1)% respectively (n = 3 for each experimental group). Negative control treatments had transfection rates of < 1.5% on average and the detected levels of apoptosis among surviving cells was < 0.5% on average for all treatment groups. These results were in good agreement with those obtained using a different sonoporation experimental set-up on the same cell line with similar experimental parameters. Finally, the design of high-power ultrasound driving circuitry was explored in order to create an electrical device with the ability to provide independent, concurrent, and controlled excitation of the six transducers. A class DE half-bridge amplifier topology was chosen as the output power stage of this device. A design of a class DE amplifier was simulated using LTSpice with both a resistive 50 Ω load and a Butterworth-Van Dyke equivalent circuit model of one of the six transducers, matched to 50 Ω at 1 MHz. The amplifier was designed to deliver 150 W to a 50 Ω resistive load at an output frequency of 1 MHz using a DC supply voltage of 96 V. The simulation of the amplifier using the transducer equivalent circuit yielded an output power of 134 W, a drain efficiency of 98.8%, a power-added efficiency of 89.0%, a gate power gain of 22.6 dB, and a total harmonic distortion at the output of 27.9%. The device presented here was shown to be effective at performing sonoporation on adherent monolayer cell cultures and will reduce the time and expertise required to perform this technique in the future.


No evolutionary signature has been found in the complete proteomes of eukaryotes by now, although amino acid composition signature of the complete proteomes was discovered as molecular signature of the adaptation for thermophiles and halophiles. Arginine and lysine respectively have the guanidinium group and the ∊-amino group as the ionizable side chain groups with different pKa values of about 12.5 and 10.5. The trends of their distribution seem similar in the range of about pIs < 10.0 and diverge in the range of about pIs≥10.0 in most complete proteomes of 387 species from the three domains of life. The complete proteome of Reticulomyxa filose is the one of only in 287 eukaryotic complete proteomes that has a predominance of the trend of lysine over that of arginine in high pI proteins. The unbalanced distribution of the amino aicds(Arg, Lys) in high pI proteins of complete proteomes may originally come from different pKa values of arginine and lysine and be developed by the influences of an average lysine level of a proteome and evolution. Because of this unbalanced distribution, the pattern of arginine and lysine distribution in high pI proteins of some complete proteomes can form a particular proteomic structure as evolutionary signature that may be shaped by massive natural selection in molecular level from hundreds to ten thousands of proteins in the complete proteomes of many animals and green plants.


Intravesical Bacillus Calmette–Guerin (BCG) immunotherapy is the main
treatment for bladder high-grade non-muscle invasive transitional cell carcinoma
(HGNMITCC) following initial resection. Unfortunately, about 30% of patients will not
respond to treatment and they carry a high risk of disease progression. The alternative,
radical cystectomy, has major risks with high morbidity and mortality. The ability to
predict the response to BCG treatment would be a useful tool in the selection of
appropriate treatment modalities. This study investigated a variety of detectable immune
responses in blood and urine to establish if there were differences between responders and
non-responders to BCG treatment. We evaluated whether there were detectable
immunological differences in blood or urine that could explain or predict outcome.


Previous research shows that LRU replacement policy is not efficient when applications exhibit a distant re-reference interval. Recently proposed RRIP policy improves performance for such workloads. However, RRIP lacks of access recency information, which may confuse the replacement policy to make accurate prediction. Consequently, RRIP is not robust for recency-friendly workloads. This paper proposes an Adaptive Insertion and Re-reference Prediction (AI-RRP) policy which evicts data based on both re-reference prediction value and the access recency information. To make the replacement policy more adaptive across different workloads and different phases during execution, Dynamic AI-RRP (DAI-RRP) is proposed which adjusts the insertion position and prediction value for different access patterns. Simulation results show DAI-RRP reduces CPI over LRU and Dynamic RRIP by an average of 8.3% and 4.1% respectively on a single-core processor with a 1MB 16-way set last-level cache (LLC). Evaluations on quad-core CMP with a 4MB shared LLC show that DAI-RRP outperforms LRU and Dynamic RRIP (DRRIP) on the weighted speedup metric by an average of 13.2% and 26.7% respectively. Furthermore, compred to LRU, DAI-RRP requires similar hardware, or even less hardware for high-associativity cache.


Abstract. Floods resulting from the outbursts of glacial lakes are among the most far-reaching disasters in high mountain regions. Glacial lakes are typically located in remote areas and space-borne remote sensing data are an important source of information about the occurrence and development of such lakes. Here we show that very high resolution satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data can be employed for reliably mapping glacial lakes. Results in the Alps, Pamir and Himalaya using TerraSAR-X and Radarsat-2 data are discussed in comparison to in-situ information, and high-resolution satellite optical and radar imagery. The performance of the satellite SAR data is best during the snow- and ice-free season. In the broader perspective of hazard management, the detection of glacial lakes and the monitoring of their changes from very high-resolution satellite SAR intensity images contributes to the initial assessment of hazards related to glacial lakes, but a more integrated, multi-level approach needs also to include other relevant information such as glacier outlines and outline changes or the identification of unstable slopes above the lake and the surrounding area, information types to which SAR analysis techniques can also contribute.


The challenge facing new technologies is whether they can contribute to a qualitative step up and to education for all as a process of facilitating the development of creative people with the ability to think critically and to engage in socially relevant decision making. In this paper, we describe a project whose purpose is to develop a learning environment that takes into account current expertise in learning theory in order to facilitate productive collaboration in a way that leads to active construction of meaning.


Objectives
We aimed to describe the human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) composition of breast milk from Bangladeshi women, overall and by galactoside 2-alpha-L-fucosyltransferase 2 (FUT 2) secretor status, and to estimate the effect of prenatal and postpartum vitamin D3 supplementation on HMO composition.

Methods
In a sub-study of the Maternal Vitamin D for Infant Growth trial in Dhaka, Bangladesh, we selected 96 participants from the placebo group and 96 who were administered 28,000 IU/week vitamin D3 from 17-24 weeks gestation to 6-months postpartum. Breast milk collected at 13 ± 1 week(s) postpartum were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography to determine absolute concentrations, relative abundancies of 19 HMOs and total amount HMOs, summarized using medians (interquartile range (IQR)). Associations between each HMO and selected maternal factors (e.g., age, parity, breastfeeding pattern) were estimated by multiple linear regression, adjusting for vitamin D group.

Results
Total median HMO concentration was 16.8 mmol/mL (IQR 9.5-18.7) overall, but varied by secretor status: 18.0 mmol/mL (IQR 16.9-19.2) in secretors (66%) and 9.2 mmol/mL (IQR 8.9-9.5) in non-secretors (34%). Individual HMO concentrations also varied within secretor groups: 2'FL, the most abundant HMO among secretors, ranged from 1.3 to 15.8 mmol/mL among secretors and LNFP II, most abundant among non-secretors, ranged from 0.02 to 4.3 mmol/mL among non-secretors. Vitamin D3 supplementation did not affect total or individual HMO concentration. Other maternal factors were not significantly associated with secretor status, total or individual HMO concentration; however, breastmilk collected during winter had a significantly higher concentration of 3'FL compared to breastmilk collected during spring. The proportion of secretors in Bangladesh was similar to cohorts in Africa and North America. Relative HMO concentrations within secretor groups were similar to other international cohorts.

Conclusions
The HMO composition of breast milk from Bangladeshi women is predominantly determined by secretor status, similar to other countries worldwide. Further research is required to understand the effect of variations in HMO composition on infant health outcomes.

Funding Sources
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.


The Annieopsquotch Accretionary Tract comprises a tectonic collage of Ordovician peri-Laurentian terranes that formed during closure of Iapetus Ocean and imbricated beneath the composite margin of Laurentia. New zircon U–Pb geochronological data (n = 8) for felsic volcanic rocks representing three distinct tectonostratigraphic units (the Mary March Brook group, the Buchans Group and the Red Indian Lake Group) indicate deposition over a short interval between 465 and 462 Ma. These tectonostratigraphic units are characterized by submarine mafic and felsic magmatism, and sedimentation typical of intra-oceanic arc systems. New and compiled whole-rock geochemical (n = 315) and Sm–Nd isotopic (n = 33) data for mafic and felsic volcanic rocks indicate that these tectonostratigraphic units formed in tholeiitic island arc to calc-alkaline arc settings. Isotopic (εNd −11.2 to +6; TDM 1.0–2.4 Ga) and zircon inheritance data (0.5–3.4 Ga) are consistent with presence of Laurentian continental crust in the basement. Relationships within and between these and adjacent tectonostratigraphic units in the Annieopsquotch Accretionary Tract suggest that they represent imbricated slices of a submarine arc that experienced disorganized arc rifting, similar to sectors of the modern Tonga–Kermadec and Izu–Bonin–Mariana arcs. The recognition of disorganized spreading in the Annieopsquotch Accretionary Tract has significant implications for along-strike correlations within the Appalachian orogen, as the nature of the arc systems is expected to differ significantly along-strike. The presence of a clear isotopic and inheritance signature of peri-Laurentian continental crust within the Annieopsquotch Accretionary Tract submarine arc system is consistent with the discoveries of older arc and continental basement in modern intra-oceanic arc systems. Supplementary materials: Geochronological analytical procedures and data, summary of geochemical data and isotopic data are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18860.


Study of the Gospel according to Philip, an important gnostic Christian text, has been hampered by unresolved questions about the unity, genre, and sectarian contexts of the work. This book argues that terms of self-designation, use of controversial vocabulary, style, hermeneutic strategies, and theological commitments together present persuasive evidence of derivation from multiple sectarian milieux. The document's organizing principles are found to be in accord with the excerpting and collection practices of Late Antiquity. The coherence of the text lies in its compiler's distinctive interests and choices, not in the uniformity of its materials. The persuasive case made by this book will help to advance research on this significant document of early Christianity.


This article reviews macroeconomic models with heterogeneous households. A key question for the relevance of these models concerns the degree to which markets are complete. This is because the existence of complete markets imposes restrictions on (i) how much heterogeneity matters for aggregate phenomena and (ii) the types of cross-sectional distributions that can be obtained. The degree of market incompleteness, in turn, depends on two factors: (i) the richness of insurance opportunities provided by the economic environment and (ii) the nature and magnitude of idiosyncratic risks to be insured. First, I review a broad collection of empirical evidence--from econometric tests of "full insurance," to quantitative and empirical analyses of the permanent income ("self-insurance") model that examine how it fits the facts about life cycle allocations, to studies that try to directly measure where economies place between these two benchmarks ("partial insurance"). The empirical evidence I survey reveals significant uncertainty in the profession regarding the magnitudes of idiosyncratic risks as well as whether or not these risks have increased since the 1970s. An important difficulty stems from the fact that inequality often arises from a mixture of idiosyncratic risk and fixed (or predictable) heterogeneity, making the two challenging to disentangle. I also discuss applications of incomplete markets models to trends in wealth, consumption, and earnings inequality both over the life cycle and over time, where this challenge is evident. Third, I discuss "approximate" aggregation--the finding that some incomplete markets models generate aggregate implications very similar to representative-agent models. What approximate aggregation does and does not imply is illustrated through several examples. Finally, I discuss some computational issues relevant for solving and calibrating such models and I provide a simple yet fully parallelizable global optimization algorithm that can be used to calibrate heterogeneous agent models.


The purpose of this paper is to provide firms in the food and agricultural sector a model that enables them to assess their corporate social initiatives in conjunction with their stakeholders. Building on the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate social performance (CSP) and the relational view the paper argues that firms can improve the results of their corporate social initiatives by setting up a dialogue with their stakeholders and to relate this to their internal organizational delivery system. The CSP model is based on the SERVQUAL methodology. The model addresses how a potential (mis)match between a firm's CSR initiative and stakeholders expectations and experiences is related to four gaps in the firm's internal organizational delivery system and how this effects the firm's CSP. CSP measurement is a fundamental part of a firm's strategy if one accepts the tenet that firm survival and growth depends on the ability of firms to meet the needs of their stakeholders and to manage corporate image. It is to the firm to make stakeholder's expectations transparent and plan action in alignment with the firm's business strategy. The paper contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of CSP measurement by linking a firm's CSP to the firm's delivery system. It addresses how CSP can evolve over time by putting the dialogue with stakeholders central.


In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world. Miranda Carter uses the cousins correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. "George, Nicholas and Wilhelm "is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy arch-vulgarian who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect. For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication."


This article reports the effects of hedonic versus utilitarian consumption goals on consumers' choices between middle and extreme options and the compromise effect. The authors formulate competing hypotheses regarding the role of different types of consumption goals on consumers' preferences for middle vs. extreme options and the compromise effect based on three different research streams (i.e., the justification mechanism, different types of valuation mechanism, and self-regulatory focus mechanism). Two studies are conducted, and the findings suggest that the compromise effect is higher for the utilitarian (vs. hedonic) consumption situation.


Under Bitcoin protocol and payment scheme, anyone can send any amount of bitcoins that he owns to anywhere in the world via internet, near instantly for near zero fees. While the popular crypto-currency enjoys low transaction fees, a feature that is highly promoted and is working fine for the current state of the Bitcoin ecosystem, we argue that in an unforeseeable future, zero or infinitesimal transaction fees will not be sustainable. We apply a financial reasoning via depicting the interrelation of fees with mining, securing the network against 51% attacks, scarcity of supplies and the price of bitcoin, which in addition are the essential parameters involved in the problem of setting the right transaction fee in the future that we


Importance
Cesarean scar ectopic pregnancy (CSEP) has a high rate of morbidity with nonspecific signs and symptoms making identification difficult. The criterion-standard treatment of CSEP has been subject to debate.

Objective
This review defines CSEP, discusses pathogenesis and diagnosis, and compares treatment options and outcomes.

Evidence Acquisition
A literature review was performed utilizing the term cesarean scar ectopic pregnancy and subsequently selecting only meta-analyses and systematic reviews. Only articles published in English were included. Relevant articles within the reviews were analyzed as necessary.

Results
Five basic pathways have been identified in treatment of CSEP: expectant management, medical therapy, surgical intervention, uterine artery embolization, or a combination approach. Expectant management has the highest probability of morbid outcomes, including hemorrhage, uterine rupture, and preterm delivery. Medical management often requires further treatment with additional medication or surgery. Different surgical methods have been explored including uterine artery embolization; dilation and curettage; surgical removal via vaginal, laparoscopic, or laparotomic approach; and hysterectomy. Each method has various levels of success and depends on surgeon skill and patient presentation.

Conclusions
Recent research supports any method that removes the pregnancy and scar to reduce morbidity and promote future fertility. Laparoscopic and transvaginal approaches are options for CSEP treatment, although continued research is required to identify the optimal approach.

Relevance
As cesarean delivery numbers rise, a subsequent increase in CSEPs can be anticipated. The ability to accurately diagnose and treat this morbid condition is vital to the practice of any specialist in general obstetrics and gynecology.


The aim of this paper is to extend the discussion on the free-energy principle (FEP), from the predictive coding theory, which is an explanatory theory of the brain, to the problem of autonomy of self-organizing living systems. From the point of view of self-organization of living systems, FEP implies that biological organisms, due to the systemic coupling with the world, are characterized by an ongoing flow of exchanging information and energy with the environment, which has to be controlled in order to maintain the integrity of the organism. In terms of dynamical system theory, this means that living systems have a dynamic state space, which can be configured by the way they control the free-energy. In the process of controlling their free-energy and modeling of the state space, an important role is played by the anticipatory structures of the organisms, which would reduce the external surprises and adjust the behavior of the organism by anticipating the changes in the environment. In this way, in the dynamic state space of a living system new behavioral patterns emerge enabling new degrees of freedom at the level of the whole. Thus, my aim in this article is to explain how FEP, as a principle of self-organization of living system, contributes to the configuring of the state space of an organism and the emergence of new degrees of freedom, both important in the process of gaining and maintaining the autonomy of a living organism.


Effect of B-cell activating factor of the tumor necrosis factor family (BAFF) on the expression of pro- and anti-apoptotic bcl-2 family members in chicken B cells

The recently discovered chicken cytokine BAFF (B-cell activating factor of the tumor necrosis factor family) was characterised as an important regulator of chicken B-cell homeostasis. Besides regulating B-cells in secondary lymphatic organs BAFF seems to have a significant impact on chicken B-cell development in the Bursa of Fabricius, too. Past studies already showed that chicken BAFF plays a vital role in the survival of B-cells both in vitro and in vivo. Yet molecular correlation for this effect has still to be established in the chicken. In mouse and man, the antiapoptotic effect of BAFF was linked to a regulation of certain bcl-2 family members. Thus this study focused on the identification of bcl-2 family members in the chicken and their regulation by BAFF at transcriptional level.
By means of RT-PCR the expression of both anti-apoptotic (e.g. bcl-2, bcl-xL and Nr13) as well as pro-apoptotic (e.g. bak, bid, bim and bok) transcripts was shown in bursa, spleen and heart muscle at various developmental stages.
To enable further studies quantitative RT-PCR assays were established for both anti-apoptotic (e.g. bcl-2, bcl-xL and Nr13) and pro-apoptotic (e.g. bak, bid, bim and bok) bcl-2 family members as well as for the B-cell specific marker chB6 and chBAFF. During bursal development, transcripts for pro-apoptotic bok and anti-apoptotic bcl-xL are increased while the level of bcl-2 mRNA is decreased. Considering the vast raise in B-cell number within the developing bursa, a means of correlating this with characterised changes in transcription levels had to be established. This was done based on expression levels of the B-cell marker chB6. Thus it could be shown that transcription of both anti-apoptotic genes like bcl-2 and Nr13 and pro-apoptotic genes such as bak and bim were decreased based on the amount of B-cell. In contrast, levels of bok transcript remained unchanged in B-cells during bursal development.
Isolated lymphocytes taken from the spleen were used for inital studies on the impact of BAFF in vitro. In agreement with published data, the anti-apoptotic effect of BAFF could be demonstrated in this study, too. At transcriptional level, this was linked to a decrease in the transcription of pro-apoptotic bim. In contrast, incubation of spleen cells with chicken CD40-ligand resulted in the vast proliferation of B-cells from both juvenile and mature birds. However, age-related differences in the survival of lymphocytes were observed in this study, which correlated with a lower increase of anti-apoptotic bcl-xL in mature cells than in juvenile in response to CD40-ligand stimulation.
To further analyse the effect of BAFF on bursal B-cell development in vivo a previously published retroviral vector system (RCAS) was utilized. Both the effect of overexpression of BAFF as well as its neutralization using a soluble decoy receptor (BCMA) were characterised at transcriptional level. Overexpressing BAFF led to insignificant changes during the development of the bursa. Since BAFF is expressed at high levels during all stages of bursal development, gene overexpression may not exert additional effects. Neutralization of BAFF on the other hand caused distinct changes among bcl-2 family members at the transcriptional level. It again proofed necessary to correlate these changes with B-cell numbers represented by the level of chB6 transcription. By this method genes highly expressed within the remaining B-cell population were characterised. Anti-apoptotic bcl-2 along with Nr13 was shown to be significantly increased in comparison to control cells.


We study how business customers make multi-product purchase decisions and how the distributors who sell those products can make inferences about their demand functions with incomplete information. The problem is that distributors rarely observe a competitor's price directly, and must infer competitor response indirectly from their own observations about customer purchases. In this research we propose that customers make their product orders by minimizing procurement costs. Using the first order conditions from this optimization problem we characterize the regions of the parameter space where consumers buy from each distributor. We use these conditions to estimate a model of purchase behavior that enables us to identify the likelihood of each consumer buying from the competitor versus a direct change in consumption patterns. Our proposed model is applied to a wholesale food distributor and we find widespread heterogeneity in purchase patterns. The empirical results shed light on the competitive elements of customer demand that cannot be studied with traditional reduced form response models. For example, we found that some costumers satisfy most of their requirement from one of their distributors, while others consistently split their demands across suppliers. Also, we found that price sensitivity of customers making most of their purchases with the focal supplier are less affected by the volume of purchases in previous periods. We expect this result to provide valuable information for vendors to negotiate prices with the customers. It allows the distributor to make efficient inferences about competitors in those occasions when competitor price is not directly observed.


One of the critical issues in brain-computer interface (BCI) research is how to translate a person's intention into brain signals for controlling computer programs. The motor system is currently the primary focus, where signals are obtained during imagined motor responses. However, cognitive brain systems are also attractive candidates, in that they may be more amenable to conscious control, yielding better regulation of magnitude and duration of localized brain activity. We report on a proof of principle study for the potential use of a higher cognitive system for BCI, namely the working memory (WM) system. We show that mental calculation reliably activates the WM network as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Moreover, activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) indicates that this region is active for the duration of mental processing. This supports the notion that DLPFC can be activated, and remains active, at will. Further confirmation is obtained from a patient with an implanted electrode grid for diagnostic purposes, in that gamma power within DLPFC increases during mental calculation and remains elevated for the duration thereof. These results indicate that cortical regions involved in higher cognitive functions may serve as a readily self-controllable input for BCI applications. It also shows that fMRI is an effective tool for identifying function-specific foci in individual subjects for subsequent placement of cortical electrodes. The fact that electrocorticographic (ECoG) signal confirmed the functional localization of fMRI provides a strong argument for incorporating fMRI in BCI research.


Abstract. As the linear array sensor such as multispectral and hyperspectral sensor has great potential in disaster monitoring and geological survey, the quality of the image geometric rectification should be guaranteed. Different from the geometric rectification of airborne planar array images or multi linear array images, exterior orientation elements need to be determined for each scan line of single linear array images. Internal distortion persists after applying GPS/IMU data directly to geometrical rectification. Straight lines may be curving and jagged. Straight line feature -based geometrical rectification algorithm was applied to solve this problem, whereby the exterior orientation elements were fitted by piecewise polynomial and evaluated with the straight line feature as constraint. However, atmospheric turbulence during the flight is unstable, equal piecewise can hardly provide good fitting, resulting in limited precision improvement of geometric rectification or, in a worse case, the iteration cannot converge. To solve this problem, drawing on dynamic programming ideas, unequal segmentation of line feature-based geometric rectification method is developed. The angle elements fitting error is minimized to determine the optimum boundary. Then the exterior orientation elements of each segment are fitted and evaluated with the straight line feature as constraint. The result indicates that the algorithm is effective in improving the precision of geometric rectification.


The purpose of this study is a map of the readiness of Malang in achieving the MDGs by 2015 and the right strategy based on SWOT analysis to accelerate the achievement of the target MDGs.Dari can be concluded that the MDG targets by 8 item in Malang in 2015 still can not be reached. The number of poor people was 43,400 people, the open unemployment of 5.19% (22.185%). The adult literacy rate of 4.57% or 34 717 persons. Percentage of the population 10 years and over who do not have a diploma of 21.21%, finished primary school / MI amounted to 23.77% and 18.17% of junior high school graduation. In the field of gender equality, the contribution of women in politics is still very low. In the health field there are still 245 the number of infant deaths and 10 cases of maternal mortality. People with HIV and March 2013 reached 2,134 and AIDS as many as 341 people with high risk factors through needle drugs and high risk in men (65%) at the age of 25-49 years. The field of environmental sustainability in some respects much decreased as the quality of drinking water, air quality and temperature.


This paper analyses socially optimal nuclear plant operation and nuclear waste management. Two waiting rules are derived: the first characterizes the optimal continuation of electricity production, and the second gives the optimal nuclear waste disposal date. Both rules balance the cost and benefit of either continuing production or delaying waste disposal into a deep geological repository. In addition, multiple regulatory options are investigated. The optimized waste storage and disposal cost forms the payment that should be collected from the nuclear power firm into a nuclear waste fund. The properties of this payment and other regulatory options including a tax to be paid at the shutdown date of the plant are investigated, and it is shown that the money can be collected by a plant-specific constant fee targeted at firm's profit or output. Numerical illustration shows that waste disposal to a deep geological repository is a cost-minimising solution only with very low interest rates. For interest rates above one percent it is optimal to store the waste in an on ground storage facility in perpetuity.


Luteolin, 3', 4', 5,7-tetrahydroxyflavone, belongs to a group of naturally occurring compounds called flavonoids that are found widely in the plant kingdom. It possesses many beneficial properties including antioxidant, anti- inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-diabetic and anti-proliferative actions. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer related deaths worldwide. Many signaling pathways are deregulated during the progression of colon cancer. In this review we aimed to analyze the protection offered by luteolin on colon cancer. During colon cancer genesis, luteolin known to reduce oxidative stress thereby protects the cell to undergo damage in vivo. Wnt/β-catenin signaling, deregulated during neoplastic development, is modified by luteolin. Hence, luteolin can be considered as a potential drug to treat CRC.


Objective: Cells that are encapsulated into immunoprotective and implantable devices provide a means of enabling targeted, longterm, continuous, de novo synthesized delivery of very high levels of therapeutic molecules. In this study, we examined effects of polymer encapsulated glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) secreting ARPE-19 cells on the in vitro viability of odontoblast-like cells (KN-3 cells) under normally lethal starvation conditions. Materials and methods: Devices (polymeric hollow fibers) were loaded with either GDNF-secreting ARPE-19 cells (GDNF-device) or non-modified ARPE-19 cells (ARPE-control device). KN-3 cell survival and function was quantified under starvation conditions when the cells were co-cultured with either control or GDNF devices. We further examined the specificity of GDNF by neutralizing the activity of GDNF with the soluble GDNF receptor (GFRα-1). Results: When KN-3 cells were co-cultured with either device under starvation, the cells exhibited a concentration gradient-dependent enhancement of survival in the area immediately surrounding the device. Similar survival benefits occurred when KN-3 cells were cultured in media previously used to maintain the cells encapsulated in the device. Because ARPE-19 cells also normally secrete low levels of VEGF, the maintenance medium from each device group was pretreated with soluble Flt-1 or soluble GFRα-1 to neutralize VEGF or GDNF. The survival of KN-3 cells was suppressed when cultured in VEGF-neutralized medium from ARPE-control devices, but not in that from GDNF-devices. In contrast, when GDNF was neutralized with soluble GFRα-1, the survival of KN-3 cells was intensely suppressed. Conclusion: These results suggest that GDNF delivered from encapsulated cells can augment the survival of odontoblast-like cells, and that the delivery of growth factors by encapsulated cells may be useful for enhancing pulp wound healing and regeneration. These data also pave the way for additional in vivo studies to determine the utility of this approach in regenerative endodontics.


The study aimed at determining which of the two landslide hazard assessment methods, heuristic and logistic regression is more appropriate in predicting landslide prone areas in Wahig - Inabanga Watershed, Bohol. Comparison was performed by comp uting the predictive power of each method based on the frequency distribution of past landslide events. Findings revealed that the combined bivariate statistical analysis and logistic regression method outdone heuristic method in predicting landslide occur rences. Results indicated high prediction accuracy on logistic regression method greater than the 75% threshold level set for evaluation on both pooled moderate to very high hazard zone and the combined high and very high hazard zone with accuracy values of about 83.82% and76.72%, respectively. Conversely, the heuristic method failed to meet the accuracy threshold. The study, then, showed that logistic regression method, though relatively difficult to implement, can be a better substitute to heuristic meth od as decision - support tool for watershed management and land use planning in relation to landslide risk mitigation, reduction, adaptation and management.


This first standard work on the past 25 years in postmodern architecture documents a rich and controversial period. It provides a fascinating, clear, and provocative definition of the phenomena of postmodernism, particularly in relation to the major ideas of modernism. Over 500 illustrations, including 96 in full color, are in themselves a substantial record of the aesthetic preoccupations of postmodernist architects, their patrons, and their detractors.Heinrich Klotz is one of Europe's leading architectural critics. In this panoramic work he challenges popular notions of postmodernism as synonymous with the stylistic license of eclecticism. He seeks to clarify the postmodern in other than stylistic, historic, or regional terms and identifies a long tradition of canonical, "modern" buildings which were breaking ground for what would become "postmodern" long before the word existed. His criteria for what defines postmodern will be challenged, debated, and quoted by historians and architects alike.Klotz focuses both on architects' individual projects and their work as a whole, combining structural analysis with an assessment of programmatic and philosophical content. "Not only function, but also fiction!" that is the guiding concept of this book. His approach leads quite naturally to a gallery of celebrities from the modern as well as the postmodern period: Mies, Kahn, Venturi, Moore, Ungers, Rossi, Stirling, Hollein, Gehry, Graves, Meier, Hedjuk, Eisenman, Botta, Krier, and Stern among them. Also included are a host of less well-known contemporary practitioners including Rem Koolhas, Thomas Gordon Smith, and Maurice Culot.Heinrich Klotz is Professor at the University of Marburg and Director of the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, the most distinguished showcase of contemporary architectural exhibitions in Europe. He is the author of 14 books, founder and editor of "Architectura" magazine, the "Jahrbuch fuer architecktur," and winner of the Schinkel prize of the German Society of Architects.


Application programming interfaces (APIs) allow the reuse of software artefacts by providing abstractions to other software layers, and their design is critical to enable the effective use of the underlying software and avoid programming errors. As such, the role of an API designer should be strengthened in any software project that has reuse among its goals. Also, we should be able to evaluate the effectiveness of an API in communicating its design to programmers and identify the tools and techniques that help the designers to accomplish this task, so that APIs may be easier to understand and use. This paper describes a work in progress that proposes the use of a combined semiotic and cognitive method to evaluate APIs as an artefact mediating the communication process between designers and programmers, and also aims to investigate some possibilities of enhancing this communication.


Introduction: Cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in developed countries, is commonly due to atherosclerosis. Studies have demonstrated association between leukocyte telomere shortening (LTS), extent of atherosclerotic lesions and accelerated cell senescence. Further LTS is associated with dietary intake. However, efforts to link LTS, diet and extent of lesions have been unsuccessful in humans due to difficulties controlling diet in large human population studies. To begin addressing these critical issues, we controlled dietary fat (high-fat, HF) in baboons for 2yrs - a well-developed primate model of human atherosclerosis. This is the first study in primates showing correlation of LTS with both chronic HF diet and atherosclerotic lesions.

Hypothesis: We hypothesized that leukocyte telomere length decreased with chronic HF diet in baboons and is correlated with extent of atherosclerotic lesions.

Methods and Results: A cohort of pedigreed baboons (n=107; females=46, males=61) was fed a HF diet for 2yrs. Absolute leukocyte telomere lengths (LTL; kb/diploid genome) were quantified by qPCR before and after diet challenge. Total telomere length was calculated by computing the ratio of telomere quantity per single copy gene quantity (baboon LIPG). Mean LTL was significantly shorter after feeding baboons a HF diet for 2 yrs (paired t test, p=0.03). Baboons (n=232) maintained on a low fat diet for 2yrs showed no significant difference in LTL (p=0.47). These findings suggest that a HF diet accelerates LTS. Further we quantified the extent of atherosclerotic lesions in baboons after 2yr HF diet and found that LTL, adjusted for age and sex, were correlated with lesions in descending aorta (Pearson correlation, r=0.19; p=0.03). Interestingly this correlation was significant in females but not in males after adjusting for age (r=0.27, p=0.03).

Conclusions: LTS correlates with chronic feeding with a HF diet in baboons, is significantly correlated with arterial lesions and the correlation is sex-specific. These findings suggest that LTS may be a potential biomarker of extent of atherosclerosis.


Shapes are generally used to convey meaning. They are used in video games, films and other multimedia, in diverse ways. 3D shapes may be destined for virtual scenes or represent objects to be constructed in the real-world. Fonts add character to an otherwise plain block of text, allowing the writer to make important points more visually prominent or distinct from other text. They can indicate the structure of a document, at a glance. Rather than studying shapes through traditional geometric shape descriptors, we provide alternative methods to describe and analyse shapes, from a lens of human perception. This is done via the concepts of Schelling Points and Image Specificity. Schelling Points are choices people make when they aim to match with what they expect others to choose but cannot communicate with others to determine an answer. We study whole mesh selections in this setting, where Schelling Meshes are the most frequently selected shapes. The key idea behind image Specificity is that different images evoke different descriptions; but 'Specific' images yield more consistent descriptions than others. We apply Specificity to 2D fonts. We show that each concept can be learned and predict them for fonts and 3D shapes, respectively, using a depth image-based convolutional neural network. Results are shown for a range of fonts and 3D shapes and we demonstrate that font Specificity and the Schelling meshes concept are useful for visualisation, clustering, and search applications. Overall, we find that each concept represents similarities between their respective type of shape, even when there are discontinuities between the shape geometries themselves. The 'context' of these similarities is in some kind of abstract or subjective meaning which is consistent among different people.


We describe the identification of zyxin as a regulator of synapse maintenance in mechanosensory neurons in C. elegans. zyx-1 mutants lacked PLM mechanosensory synapses as adult animals. However, most PLM synapses initially formed during development but were subsequently lost as the animals developed. Vertebrate zyxin regulates cytoskeletal responses to mechanical stress in culture. Our work provides in vivo evidence in support of such a role for zyxin. In particular, zyx-1 mutant synaptogenesis phenotypes were suppressed by disrupting locomotion of the mutant animals, suggesting that zyx-1 protects mechanosensory synapses from locomotion-induced forces. In cultured cells, zyxin is recruited to focal adhesions and stress fibers via C-terminal LIM domains and modulates cytoskeletal organization via the N-terminal domain. The synapse-stabilizing activity was mediated by a short isoform of ZYX-1 containing only the LIM domains. Consistent with this notion, PLM synaptogenesis was independent of α-actinin and ENA-VASP, both of which bind to the N-terminal domain of zyxin. Our results demonstrate that the LIM domain moiety of zyxin functions autonomously to mediate responses to mechanical stress and provide in vivo evidence for a role of zyxin in neuronal development.


Background Hospital-at-home (HaH) care has been proposed as an alternative to inpatient care for patients with COVID-19. Previous reports were hospital-led and involved patients triaged at the hospitals. To reduce the burden on hospitals, we constructed a novel HaH care model organised by a team of local primary care clinics. Methods We conducted a multi-center retrospective cohort study of the COVID-19 patients who received our HaH care from Jan 1st to Mar 31st, 2022. Patients who were not able to be triaged for the need for hospitalization by the Health Center solely responsible for the management of COVID-19 patients in Osaka City were included. The primary outcome was receiving medical care beyond the HaH care defined as a composite outcome of any medical consultation, hospitalization, or death within 30 days from the initial treatment. Results Of 382 eligible patients, 34 (9%) were triaged for hospitalization immediately after the initial visit. Of the remaining 348 patients followed up, 37 (11%) developed the primary outcome, while none died. Obesity, fever, and gastrointestinal symptoms at baseline were independently associated with an increased risk of needing medical care beyond the HaH care. A further 129 (37%) patients were managed online alone without home visit, and 170 (50%) required only one home visit in addition to online treatment. Conclusions The HaH care model with a team of primary care clinics was able to triage patients with COVID-19 who needed immediate hospitalization without involving hospitals, and treated most of the remaining patients at home.


Objective To examine the association of serum lipids, inflammation and seropositivity on coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods The incidence of hospitalised myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke was calculated in a cohort of patients with RA receiving care within the national Veterans Health Administration from 1998 to 2011. Cox proportional hazard models were used to examine the association between these outcomes and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), C reactive protein (CRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) as time-varying variables, divided into quintiles. Results There were 37 568 patients with RA in the cohort with mean age of 63 years (SD 12.1); 90% were men. There was a no clear association between LDL-C and CHD/stroke. Compared with lower HDL-C (<34 mg/dL), higher HDL-C (≥54 mg/dL) was inversely associated with MI (hazard ratio (HR)=0.68, 95% CI 0.55 to 0.85) and stroke (HR=0.69, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.96). Higher CRP >2.17 mg/dL (vs CRP <0.26 mg/dL) was associated with increased risk (HR=2.43, 95% CI 1.77 to 3.33) for MI and 2.02 (95% CI 1.32 to 3.08) for stroke. ESR >47 mm/h compared with <8 mm/h had an HR 1.87 (95% CI 1.39 to 2.52) for MI and 2.00 (95% CI 1.26 to 3.18) for stroke. The association between MI was significant for RA seropositivity (HR=1.23, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.48). Conclusions In this predominantly older male RA cohort, there was no clear association between LDL-C and CHD, whereas higher HDL-C was inversely associated with MI and stroke. CRP and ESR were similarly associated with increase MI risk and stroke, reflecting the prominent role of inflammation in CHD risk in RA.


In this thesis freeze-thaw along roads in northern Sweden is examined. The examinations are put in a context of changing climate and its amplification towards the Arctic region on earth. The research focuses on the impact of a warmer climate on ground freeze-thaw and in exten- sion road maintenance in the region. The investigation is presented through two scientific papers, where the first examines how ground temperatures are developed during a single frost season experiment, where a natural accumulation of snow cover and a continual removal of snow cover occur respectively. In the second paper, ground temperature data from sub-Arctic Sweden that has been logged by the Swedish Transport Administration, has been collected and freeze-thaw cycles have been calculated and analysed. The results are related to regional landscape factors and are in the context of regional climate change discussed to reach understanding of challenges for road maintenance in the region and opportunities to reach resilience. The results in Paper 1 show that also a thin cover of snow has impact on the freeze-thaw frequency, duration and intensity that occur in and on the surface of the ground. Furthermore the results show that the ground temperatures rise in due to an increase in snow cover amounts and that this process occurs in several steps. Paper 2 shows that the occurrence of ground freeze-thaw is affected by the proximity to open waters. Warmer temperatures in the air may cause later ice freeze-up and earlier ice break-up on lakes, rivers and on the Gulf of Bothnia and roads in northern Sweden are in general situated on the coast or near rivers. Ground temperatures around 0 °C has a high negative impact on road stability and a warmer and wetter climate in northern Sweden may thus increase road deterioration. The economic development in Sweden stays dependent on extraction of natural resources in sub-Arctic Sweden and thus it is of major concern to main- tain and improve road infrastructure in the region.


Abstract This study presents the first record of Eocene birds from the western margin of southernmost South America. Three localities in Magallanes, southern Chile, have yielded a total of eleven bird remains, including Sphenisciformes (penguins) and one record tentatively assigned to cf. Ardeidae (egrets). Two different groups of penguins have been recognized from these localities. The first group is similar in size to the smallest taxa previously described from Seymour Island, Marambiornis Myrcha et al., 2002, Mesetaornis Myrcha et al., 2002, and Delphinornis Wiman, 1905. The second recognized group is similar in size to the biggest taxa from Seymour Island; based on the available remains, we recognize the genus Palaeeudyptes Huxley, 1859, one of the most widespread penguin genera in the Southern Hemisphere during the Eocene. The stratigraphic context of the localities indicates a certain level of correlation with the geological units described on Seymour Island. The newly studied materials cast more light on the paleobiogeography of the group, extending the known ranges to the South American continent. In addition to the newly discovered birds, the presence of several taxa of elasmobranchs previously recovered exclusively from Eocene beds in the Southern Hemisphere help to clarify the age of the studied localities, widely discussed during the last decades. This paper verifies the presence of extensive Eocene sedimentary successions with fossil vertebrates along the western margin of southern South America, contrary to the previous assumption that such a record is lacking in Chile.


This survey research studied the number of meals that children consume in a day and their school attendance. The study is a correlation study employing a survey method with a sample of 390 children whose parents participated in the study. The main objective of the study was to establish the number of meals that pre-school age going children in Kenya consume in a day. The study is conducted in five Kenyan divisions. The researcher utilized a questionnaire to parents of pre-school age going children with children attending and children not attending pre-school education. The t-test (two tailed) for testing equality of means for independent samples was used to test H01.  This study concludes that A t-test (two tailed) for independent samples found a significant relationship between the number of meals consumed in a day and attendance in pre-school.


Contemporary nursing education in Australia needs to respond to the imperatives facing clinical practice (A* that nurses be work-ready, resilient, multi-skilled, good team communicators, compassionate and responsive to the diverse needs of clients and families. Transformative learning principles combined with effective, action-based learning experiences can provide a focused pedagogical basis for cultivating and achieving these graduate outcomes. In this paper, a novel framework is presented that provides a structure to support educators and curriculum development. The STAR framework, which stands for Sensitivity, Taking action and reflection, is easily remembered and embodies key aspects of transformative learning.