BACKGROUND
Overwhelming randomized controlled trial evidence demonstrates that exercise has positive health impacts during and after treatment for breast cancer. Yet, evidence generated by studies in which exercise programs are delivered outside a tightly controlled randomized trial setting is limited. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an evidence-based exercise program with real-world implementation on physical fitness and quality of life (QoL).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Oncologists referred women with early-stage breast cancer who were scheduled to receive adjuvant chemotherapy. The program consisted of supervised aerobic and resistance exercise of moderate to vigorous intensity 3 times per week until the end of treatment (chemotherapy ± radiotherapy), then twice per week for 10 weeks, followed by once per week for 10 weeks. Health-related physical fitness and QoL were assessed at baseline, end of treatment, end of program, and 1-year follow-up.

RESULTS
A total of 73 women were enrolled. Estimated peak VO2 (VO2peak), QoL, and body weight were maintained between baseline and end of treatment, whereas muscular strength improved (P<.01). By the end of the program, VO2peak, heart rate recovery, waist circumference, and some aspects of QoL were improved (all P<.01) relative to baseline. One year later, VO2peak, QoL, and waist circumference were maintained relative to end of program, whereas the improvements in strength and heart rate recovery had dissipated (all P<.01).

CONCLUSIONS
Evidence-based exercise programming delivered with real-world implementation maintained VO2peak, strength, and QoL during adjuvant treatment and improved these measures after treatment completion among women with breast cancer. Continued guidance and support may be required for long-term maintenance of strength improvements in this population.


We have studied self-assembled bismuth (Bi) nanolines on the Bi-terminated InAs(100) surface by core-level and valence-band photoelectron spectroscopy, and ab initio first-principles calculations. A structural model for this intriguing surface is suggested based on the comparison of the measured and calculated core-level shifts. Also, the atomic origins for the core-level shifts are proposed based on the calculations. A clear peak related to this surface was observed in the valence band 0.34 eV below the Fermi level, which can be used as a "fingerprint" of a well-ordered Bi/InAs(100) nanoline surface.


Background and Aim: Analysis of functions enables organizations to identify their special capabilities and weak points accurately and thus they can enhance capabilities and reduce impacts of threats and obstacles through such analysis. The main goal of this work is investigation of status of Weisbord Model's variables (6 variables) as functional dimensions of management in hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive - analytical study. The study population consisted of 384 staffs from hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Standardized questionnaire for organization recognition was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics (frequency distribution, frequency percentage) and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient and significance level) were used for statistical analysis and data analysis was run using SPSS software. Results: The results showed that there is a significant difference (p=0.0001) in hospitals in terms of the internal situation. Internal situation of all hospitals in the study was evaluated as favorable condition by obtaining 94.5 score out of 125. Among the hospitals, Hashemi-Nejad Hospital with highest score (113) showed the better condition and Rasoul Hospital had the lowest score (87) and lower condition as compared to other hospitals. Conclusion: Necessity of systematic perspective in designing and development of fair compensation mechanism with presence of representatives of employees is an action which can considerably influence improvement of current situation in the hospitals and facilitates achieving predetermined goals of the organization.


This reference guide brings together a wide range of essential data on the effects of weather and UV light exposure on plastics and elastomers, enabling engineers to make optimal material choices and design decisions. In both normal and extreme environments, outdoor use has a variety of effects on different plastics and elastomers, including discoloring and brittleness. The data is supported by explanations of real-world engineering applications. The data tables in this book are supported by examples of real-world applications, enabling engineers and scientists to select the right materials for a given situation, across a wide range of sectors including construction, packaging, signage, consumer (e.g. toys, outdoor furniture), automotive and aerospace, defense, etc. The third edition includes new text chapters that provide the fundamental knowledge required to make best use of the data. Author Larry McKeen has also added detailed descriptions of the effect of weathering on the most common polymer classes such as polyolefins, polyamides, polyesters, elastomers, fluoropolymers, biodegradable plastics, etc., making this book an invaluable design guide as well as an industry standard data source. It offers essential data and practical guidance for engineers and scientists working with plastics in outdoor applications and products. It includes new introductory chapters on weathering processes and the effect of light and heat on plastics and 25 per cent new data.


MIND-MATTER INTERACTION: A REVIEW OF HISTORICAL REPORTS, THEORY, AND RESEARCH by Pamela Rae Heath. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. Pp. 319. $45 (paperback). ISBN 978-0-7864-4971-2. Pamela Rae Heath's (2011) newest work, Mind-Matter Interaction: A Review of Historical Reports, Theory, and Research (or MMI for short), is the result of a common postdissertation trajectory. The new scholar publishes his or her dissertation, or parts of it, in a journal article, as Heath (2000) did, and then, much later, in a book. In Heath's case, MMI actually represents an additional step in that trajectory, for it is a second book, a second incarnation, of Heath's (1999) Psy.D. dissertation, Into the Psychokinetic Zone: a Phenomenological Study of the Experience of Performing Psychokinesis (PK). Yet, far from being an overkill repeat performance, MMI is a substantially expanded, revised, and in many respects, very much improved version of her first book (Heath, 2003) based on her dissertation: The PK Zone: A Cross-Cultural Review of Psychokinesis (or The PK Zone for short). Usually, such books stick closely to the original dissertation structure. An introduction and literature review are followed by the study, its findings, and implications for that literature. The opening literature review serves to situate the doctoral study in it. Although such books tend to be geared toward an academic audience, many scholars make more extensive revisions so that the work may become accessible to the general educated public as well. This is what Heath has done with MMI. The potential benefits of doing that are great (e.g., an easier read, fuller explanations, and greater overall clarity), but so are the risks (e.g., oversimplification, generalization, and problematic changes in how sources are acknowledged to facilitate the read). Briefly, in all three of her major works--the dissertation, The PK Zone, and MMI--Heath devotes more than half of the text to a literature review. This is a critical and insightful review of anecdotal accounts (Part I) and scientific research (Part II) on a huge range of phenomena and experiences that potentially entail some form of "psychokinesis" or "mind-matter interaction" as she prefers to call it in MMI. In her revision of The PK Zone for MMI, Heath substitutes "MMI" for "PK" wherever it appears, without any substantive differentiation of the referents for the terms. In fact, she uses a standard definition of PK by Dale and White (1986, p. 931) to define MMI (MMI, p. 3), the same definition she used to define PK in The PK Zone (The PK Zone, p. xxiii), as I will discuss later on. Then, in the remaining sections of Part II, Heath draws on the literature to identify salient factors in the performance of PK, discusses the facilitation and training of PK, and reviews prominent theories. Finally, in Part III, Heath presents her own phenomenological study of the experience of performing PK for eight individuals who meet her criteria of being PK performers. Overall, The PK Zone and MMI reflect the structure of her dissertation. But while the literature review is spectacular and enthralling in the range of phenomena and research it covers (see details below), it is really a separate work of its own. It does not serve to contextualize her study in that literature (substantively or theoretically), as it does not treat what her study focuses on, the experience of performing PK; nor is there any review of the vast number of phenomenological studies of experience and their critiques (e.g., in anthropology, alone: Desjarlais & Troop, 2011; Kultgen, 1975). Of course, I understand that there is comparatively little in the psi literature on the experience of performing PK, and Heath's study certainly helps fill that gap. But the point is that the literature review (Parts I & II) does not serve to directly contextualize the study presented in Part III and thus strikes me as a separate work with separate goals. …


LBA2023 Background: Median survival for patients with glioblastoma is less than a year. Standard treatment comprises surgical debulking if feasible followed by temozolomide (TMZ) chemoradiotherapy. The objective of this clinical trial is to evaluate whether the addition of the CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab (IPI) improves survival. Methods: Ipi-Glio is an academic phase II, open label, stratified randomised multicentre study of IPI + TMZ (Arm A) vs TMZ alone (Arm B), after surgery and radical radiotherapy with concomitant temozolomide in patients with recently diagnosed de-novo glioblastoma. Following completion of chemoRT, patients were randomised 2:1 Arm A:B, with stratification to extent of surgery and MGMT promotor methylation. IPI 3mg/kg was administered q3/52 for 4 cycles, and TMZ 150-200mg/m2 days 1-5 q4/52 for 6 cycles. Primary outcome was overall survival (OS), treatment difference reported as hazard ratio (HR) with 60% confidence intervals (CI) and OS at 18 months. Secondary outcomes were progression-free Survival (PFS) and safety. Results: 119 patients were randomly assigned, 79 to Arm A and 40 to Arm B, at seven centres in the UK between Jan 2019 and April 2021. Patient characteristics (Arm A vs B): median Age 53 vs 48 years; male sex 70% vs 65%; ECOG PS0 70 vs 70%, PS1 30 vs 30%; MGMT promotor methylation 39% vs 40%; IDH mutation 11% vs 10%; surgical gross total resection 61% vs 60%. PFS (Arm A vs B): median PFS 10.9 months (m) vs 12.5mo, HR 1.252 (60%CI 1.01-1.54, p=0.369); 18m PFS 22% (60%CI 17-27%) vs 43% (34-51%). Overall Survival (Arm A vs B): median OS 22.7 vs 26.4 months, HR 1.223 (60% CI 0.986-1.516, p=0.431); 18 month OS 53% (60%CI 48-58%) vs 64% (56-70%). Adverse events (AE) reported by CTCAE grade (Arm A vs B): total reported AEs 1058 vs 329; no. of reported AEs per patient: mean 13.5 (SD 10.1) vs mean 8.2 (SD 7.3). Conclusions: No improvement in PFS or OS was observed with the addition of ipilimumab to temozolomide. This study does not support further investigation of this regimen in this setting. Clinical trial information: ISRCTN84434175 .


A dissociation between categorization and similarity was found by Rips (1989) In one experiment, Rips found that a stimulus half-way between a pizza and a quarter was categorized as a pizza but was rated as more similar to a quarter. Smith & Sloman (1994) discuss these results in terms of the role of necessary and characteristic features. In one experiment, participants had to learn to categorize new stimuli (unknown shapes) built with necessary and characteristic features. We compared two experimental conditions in which we manipulated the association between the characteristic features and the two categories. Contrary to the suggestion made by Smith and Sloman, subjects categorized the stimuli on the basis of a necessary feature. However, their similarity judgments relied on the characteristic features. This resulted, for one of the two experimental conditions, in a perfect dissociation between similarity and categorization. According to Rips, the dissociation indicates that categorization and similarity rating are different processes. On the contrary, we suggest that categorization and similarity are the same processes, but that they sometimes operate on different subsets of


In this groundbreaking book Christian Gerlach traces the social roots of the extraordinary processes of human destruction involved in mass violence throughout the twentieth century. He argues that terms such as 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' are too narrow to explain the diverse motives and interests that cause violence to spread in varying forms and intensities. From killings and expulsions to enforced hunger, collective rape, strategic bombing, forced labour and imprisonment he explores what happened before, during, and after periods of widespread bloodshed in countries such as Armenia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nazi-occupied Greece and in anti-guerilla wars worldwide in order to highlight the crucial role of socio-economic pressures in the generation of group conflicts. By focussing on why so many different people participated in or supported mass violence, and why different groups were victimized, he offers us a new way of understanding one of the most disturbing phenomena of our times.


For the past 35 years a battle has raged due to the conflicting goals, standards, focus, and methods among the U.S. species protection laws and U.S. pesticide law. The unwitting casualties of this battle are the literally millions of birds, fish, and other wildlife species that have been killed and the hundreds of legally-protected species that have been put at risk of extinction. In the past several years the battle has intensified. A number of environmental organizations have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its continued failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Rather than come into compliance, EPA has invoked every legal defensive strategy imaginable and become more entrenched in its position of non-compliance. EPA's reluctance to comply with the law is due in part to EPA's institutional bias in favor of registering pesticides and its generic bureaucratic inertia. A significant cause of the non-compliance, however, is the catch-22 in which EPA finds itself due to the conflicts in the law. This Article chronicles the history of the interaction among species protection and pesticide statutes, describing the litigation the conflict has spawned, EPA's regulatory action and inaction, and the legislative response. The picture that emerges is one of an unresolved crisis and massive noncompliance with federal mandates. To complicate matters more, in July 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in National Association of Home Builders et al. v. Defenders of Wildlife created more controversy, throwing the relationship between federal pesticide law and federal species protection into even greater disarray. This Article examines the sources of tension between the statutes: their conflicting goals, standards, geographic and temporal focuses, and risk reduction methods. Based on this exposition of the fundamental tension, the Article suggests legislative reform targeted to eliminate, or at least alleviate, the conflict while promoting the reconcilable goals of wildlife protection and availability or pesticides in the public interest.


The lack of standardised access and interchange formats for knowledge organisation systems (KOS) are a barrier to their interoperability and wider use in automated Web and retrieval applications. Programmatic access to thesaurus (and other types of KOS) resources requires a commonly agreed distributed service protocol, building on lower-level standards, such as Web services. This paper reflects on our experiences in building a Web demonstrator of some novel thesaurus browsing and search tools, developed as part of a research project on the role of the thesaurus in controlled vocabulary retrieval applications. The Web system provides dynamically generated interface components for finding terms and browsing the thesaurus, building a query and returning ranked results using term expansion from a collections database. We designed a custom application programming interface of lower-level thesaurus functions to support the various user interface requirements of the application demonstrator. Based on our experience with developing the system, we review the literature on protocols for distributed access to thesauri and offer suggestions for further development of thesaurus service protocols. The FACET project, its semantic expansion and ranked result, multi-concept matching capabilities are briefly outlined. We provide a detailed description of key elements of the Web demonstrator and their rationale, together with a discussion of the data elements required by the different interface components. Existing proposals (Ceres, Zthes and ADL) for thesaurus service protocols are reviewed. The paper concludes by reflecting on lessons from constructing the Web demonstrator and implications for separating the service protocol from the interface. We argue that basing distributed protocol services on the atomic elements of thesaurus data structures and standard relationships is not necessarily the best approach. Client interfaces with similar components to the Web demonstrator require a service-oriented approach, with base services that group primitive KOS data elements (via their relationships) into composites. This leads to a proposal for a novel, unified semantic expansion service, which can be used both for specifying composite display formats and for query expansion services. Thesaurus (KOS) representations and service protocols for retrieval are closely linked. A service protocol should be explicitly expressed in terms of a well defined but extensible set of KOS data elements and relationships.


The tradition of the printed versions of Historie van Floris ende Blanceflour is quite complicated because the oldest printed version has been preserved in fragments only and some of the other versions are not availabe anymore. In the first part of the paper it is shown that the earliest complete edition, printed by Guillaume van Parijs in Antwerp in 1576, can be used as representative of the oldest edition in order to compare the printed tradition in prose with the verse tradition in manuscript form. The prose tradition shows conscious processes of intervention of the text by the prose writer. The figure of the narrator retreats and the history more or less tells itself as a subject. The prose author reduces the text, he adds chapter titles and uses other narrative techniques in order to adapt the text for a new public (the prologue addresses young men and women) which is able to follow the story without any problems. In a totally new prologue he asks the recipients not to deliver themselves to the dangers of secular love. In accordance with this opinion he reduces "minneˮ in general and he also reduces the description of emotions. This tendency is accompanied by a regulation of emotion in the so-called "refreins". For some of the refreins the prose writer falls back on known refreins and, in this way, accomplishes that the public recognizes the refreins als something known. Nevertheless the prose author in a clever way manages to make the refreins part of the story and creates a coherent and poetically appealing story.


Since last four to five years the buzz of continuous growing of agile development has been spread all around the world, specially Extreme Programming as the most important methodology of this kind. From the other side, ISO 9001:2000-TickIT Guide 5.0 has been established mainly in Europe as one of the well-known Quality Management Systems, in order to create a continuous software process improvement throughout software organizations that is mainly related to a certi¯cation process. This thesis is developed to mainly answer the question of how Extreme Programming and the standard ISO 9001:2000 with its interpretation for software development as TickIT Guide 5.0 can be used together, in order to have a continuous software process improvement with the agility to respond quickly to environment changes and satisfy the customer needs and expectations.


Robot competitions run the gamut from research-oriented challenges to K-12 contests aimed at basic problem-solving skills. For faculty and students at small colleges, with limited resources, finding the right level of competition can be a difficult proposition. At Macalester College we have hosted a series of robot competitions, inviting nearby colleges to participate. Our goals are to engage students with robots and artificial intelligence, to raise the profile of AI on campus, and to create ties among the different colleges. The contests succeeded in forging ties among the faculty who participated, and succeeded as extracurricular activities to interest students in computer science. The contests failed, however, to teach students much about AI and robotics techniques, and to engage students closely with sponsoring faculty members. I propose a model of local-area competitions that focus on AI and robotics concepts, rather than physical robot design, and that are respectful of the limited time and resources faculty and students have to contribute.


A series of miktoarm star polybutadienes were investigated in the melt and dilute solution state by neutron and light scattering and viscometry techniques. The stars had 8-arms, with a single asymmetric arm of varying molecular weight. Living anionic polymerisation synthesised the arms to be coupled by chlorosilane core molecules, with the molecular weight of the hydrogenous arms being 3 x 10(^4) g mol(^-1) and increasing for the deuterated arm from 3 x 10(^4) g mol(^-1) to 3 x 10(^5) g mol(^-1). Global properties of Mw, RG, A(_2), D(_0) and [η] were ascertained for these stars in the good solvent of cyclohexane, and over a temperature range in the 6-solvent of 1,4-dioxane. Branching ratios calculated from the cyclohexane data indicated that increasing the asymmetric arm length yielded values similar to a linear polymer of equivalent molecular weight, with a reduction of segment density near the star core. This was seen more clearly by calculating the size ratios of Rt/Rg, RhIRg and RylRc from the equivalent sphere radii. Aggregation of the stars was found with the dioxane solutions, as the Mw of these stars increased with decreasing temperature to values higher than obtained in cyclohexane, where they remained constant and equal to the good solvent data for the linear polymers. Small-angle neutron scattering was used to determine the Rg and interaction parameters for the asymmetric arm in the melt and solution states. The increase of Rg in the order of unperturbed linear equivalent<melt<cyclohexane was due to the presence of the branch point and the excluded volume effect. Higher Rg values obtained in the 9-solvent suggested aggregation. An increase in temperature in the melt state was found to promote inter-star mixing of the asymmetric arms and this was greater for shorter arms. In cyclohexane, the intra-star interaction parameters were found to decrease with increasing asymmetric arm length, and lower values were found in 1,4-dioxane as the solvent became thermodynamically more favourable.


ABSTRACT The production of biofuels from lignocellulose yields a substantial lignin by-product stream that currently has few applications. Biological conversion of lignin-derived compounds into chemicals and fuels has the potential to improve the economics of lignocellulose-derived biofuels, but few microbes are able both to catabolize lignin-derived aromatic compounds and to generate valuable products. While Escherichia coli has been engineered to produce a variety of fuels and chemicals, it is incapable of catabolizing most aromatic compounds. Therefore, we engineered E. coli to catabolize protocatechuate, a common intermediate in lignin degradation, as the sole source of carbon and energy via heterologous expression of a nine-gene pathway from Pseudomonas putida KT2440. We next used experimental evolution to select for mutations that increased growth with protocatechuate more than 2-fold. Increasing the strength of a single ribosome binding site in the heterologous pathway was sufficient to recapitulate the increased growth. After optimization of the core pathway, we extended the pathway to enable catabolism of a second model compound, 4-hydroxybenzoate. These engineered strains will be useful platforms to discover, characterize, and optimize pathways for conversions of lignin-derived aromatics. IMPORTANCE Lignin is a challenging substrate for microbial catabolism due to its polymeric and heterogeneous chemical structure. Therefore, engineering microbes for improved catabolism of lignin-derived aromatic compounds will require the assembly of an entire network of catabolic reactions, including pathways from genetically intractable strains. Constructing defined pathways for aromatic compound degradation in a model host would allow rapid identification, characterization, and optimization of novel pathways. We constructed and optimized one such pathway in E. coli to enable catabolism of a model aromatic compound, protocatechuate, and then extended the pathway to a related compound, 4-hydroxybenzoate. This optimized strain can now be used as the basis for the characterization of novel pathways.


This paper develops a historical social psychology that can be used to understand young children's social development. It compares the theoretical frameworks of three of the most important relational thinkers in the 20th century – Norbert Elias, Pierre Bourdieu, and Erich Fromm – to shed light on their attempts to integrate the insights of psychoanalysis into their sociological perspectives. I begin by exploring Bourdieu's "uneasy" relationship with psychoanalysis, arguing that this has led to a less than successful quest by his followers for bridging concepts that can further develop the concept of social habitus. Fromm, one of the foremost but relatively neglected psychoanalysts of his generation, developed a relational psychoanalysis to explain the social relatedness of individuals in society. However, although his key concept of social character is a bold attempt to make sense of the historical forces that shape our individual and collective lives, it is still too heavily tied to the influence of economic structures in society. I argue that Elias is a more consistent, relational sociologist, able to develop highly nuanced concepts that can fully explain the social habitus of young children, focusing on his concept of "love and learning relationships" to explain how they grow up in society.


A novel study presented herein correlates the multidimensional morphology with the electrochemical performance of activated bio-carbon materials, for supercapacitor devices over multiple length scales. The optimization of the potassium hydroxide (KOH)/cellulose ratio for supercapacitor electrode materials is related to morphological characteristics and corresponding electrochemical performance, as described in terms of porosity, specific surface area, specific capacitance and electrochemical impedance. KOH/cellulose samples with ratios 0.5 : 1 and 1 : 1 exhibited the best performance, characterized by a hierarchal porous network structure, high surface area and low cell resistance. Compared with the rest of the manufactured samples and commercial activated carbons, Ketjen Black (KB), Norit activated carbon (NAC) and bead-shaped activated carbon (BAC), the former two samples showed better results in three-electrode systems and coin cells, with specific gravimetric capacitances as high as 187 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1. The high performance is attributed to the morphology of the samples that constituted a combination of micro-, meso- and macroporosity which consequently gave high specific surface area, high porosity, low cell resistance and high specific capacitance. This further corroborates the structure-performance relationship observed in the author's model KOH/cellulose system, highlighting that the work can be extended to other similar systems. It is clear that the three-dimensional nanostructure of a material must be understood in its entirety in order to optimize the electrochemical performance.


Although much has been written on the topic of economic globalization, few volumes examine the social foundations of the global economy in a way that puts power and contestation at the forefront of the analysis. This book addresses this gap by emphasizing the contested social processes that underpin global production chains and financial structures. It demonstrates not only how the uneven effects of global economic integration impact upon workers and communities across the globe, but also how the agency of these individual and collective actors have reciprocal effects that reconfigure the terrain of global capitalism. Multidisciplinary in its approach, the book brings together an international group of social scientists who share a common interest in providing critical examinations of contemporary globalizations. With perspectives from sociologists, political scientists and political economists, it juxtaposes the examination of global trends with the diverse contexts of specific regions and countries. It features a range of case studies from North and Latin America, Europe, Africa, East and South-East Asia and post-communist Russia to explore the issues surrounding: •global production chains and the international division of labour •corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investing •new forms of labour organizing and internationalism. It will be of interest to students and researchers in international political economy, the sociology of globalization, development studies, economic geography and labour studies.


BACKGROUND
Migraine is a common neurovascular disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of disabling headache, autonomic nervous system dysfunction, and, in some patients, neurological aura symptoms. Sumatriptan is one of a class of selective serotonin 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT1B/1D) agonists (triptans) thought to relieve migraine attacks by several mechanisms, including cranial vasoconstriction and peripheral and central neural inhibition.

OBJECTIVES
To describe and assess the evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) concerning the efficacy and tolerability of oral sumatriptan for the treatment of a single acute attack of migraine in adults.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Cochrane Library, Issue 4, 2001), MEDLINE (1966 through November 2001), and reference lists of articles and books.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included double-blind RCTs comparing oral sumatriptan (100 mg, 50 mg, 25 mg) with placebo, no intervention, other drug treatments, behavioral therapy, or physical therapy for the treatment of an acute attack of migraine in adults. Trials comparing different doses of sumatriptan or dosing regimens were also included. Outcomes considered were: 2-hour pain-free response, headache relief/headache intensity, and functional disability; headache recurrence; and adverse events.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Data were abstracted by one reviewer and over-read by the other. The two reviewers independently assessed trial quality. Information on adverse events was collected from trial reports.

MAIN RESULTS
Twenty-five trials involving 16,200 participants were included. Methodological quality was generally good. Sixteen trials were placebo comparisons and showed that sumatriptan in doses of 100 mg (14 trials), 50 mg (five trials), and 25 mg (three trials) provided significantly better pain-free response (100 mg and 25 mg only), headache relief, and relief of disability at 2 hours. Numbers-needed-to-treat (NNTs) for pain-free response at 2 hours were 5.1 (3.9 to 7.1) for the 100-mg dose (n = 2221) and 7.5 (2.7 to 142) for the 25-mg dose (n = 131); there was no significant difference between the 50-mg dose and placebo for this outcome (n = 127). For headache relief at 2 hours, NNTs were 3.4 (3.0 to 4.0), 3.2 (2.4 to 5.1), and 3.4 (2.3 to 6.6) for sumatriptan 100 mg (n = 2940), 50 mg (n = 420), and 25 mg (n = 226), respectively. Precise estimates of the efficacy of the 50- and 25-mg doses relative to the 100-mg dose could not be obtained.Adverse events were more common with sumatriptan 100 mg than with placebo (risk difference [RD] = 0.14 [0.09 to 0.20]; number-needed-to-harm [NNH] = 7.1 [5.0 to 11.1]; n = 3172). RDs for the 50- and 25-mg vs. placebo comparisons were not statistically significant.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Oral sumatriptan has been shown to be an effective drug for the treatment of a single acute attack of migraine. It is well tolerated, though minor adverse events were not uncommon in the included trials. Other triptans were generally similar in efficacy and adverse events. Among non-triptan drugs, ergotamine + caffeine was significantly less effective than sumatriptan, and other drugs have been insufficiently studied to draw firm conclusions.


The aims of the present study were to determine the level of (-)-epicatechin (EC) and its metabolites in rat plasma after oral administration of cocoa powder and to evaluate the protective effect of cocoa powder in terms of suppressing the oxidation of plasma components. Rats were orally administered 1 g cocoa powder/kg body weight, containing 7·80 mg EC, and their blood was collected before administration and at designated time intervals thereafter. The EC and its metabolites in plasma were treated with β-glucuronidase and/or sulfatase, then analysed by HPLC and by liquid chromatography–MS. Several EC-related compounds were detected in plasma such as free EC, and glucuronide, sulfate, and glucuronide–sulfate conjugates of non-methylated or methylated EC. All EC metabolites showed a maximum concentration in plasma at 30–60 min post-administration. Glucuronide conjugates of both non-methylated and methylated EC were found in high concentration in plasma. Moreover, administration of cocoa powder significantly reduced the accumulation of lipid peroxides in plasma and significantly reduced the consumption of α-tocopherol in plasma oxidized by treatment with 2,2′-azobis-(2-amidinopropane) dihydrochloride (AAPH (25 mmol/l)) or CuSO4 (100 μmol/l) compared with that in the case of plasma obtained before administration. The total EC concentration in plasma was negatively correlated with the level of accumulation of lipid peroxides in plasma oxidized by treatment with AAPH (25 mmol/l) and was positively correlated with the level of residual α-tocopherol in plasma oxidized by treatment with CuSO4 (100 μmol/l). These results indicate that EC in cocoa powder was absorbed from the digestive tract, that various conjugated forms of EC were generated in the digestive tract and distributed to the plasma, and that these enhanced the antioxidative activity of plasma.


Mitochondrial biogenesis is primarily a critical adaptation aimed to balance an increased workload in an attempt to maintain appropriate body perfusion. Until recently, the signaling mechanisms responsible for this response are poorly understood. To examine the role of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), an evolutionarily conserved fuel sensor, in mitochondrial biogenesis, we used constitutively active and antisense inhibition genetic tools in Dictyostelium discoideum. Constitutive activation of AMPK culminated in mitochondrial proliferation and elevated ATP generation; this became marked with higher plasmid copies. Antisense inhibition of AMPK yielded non–significant decrease in the mitochondrial content at low levels. However, the more severe the antisense inhibition, the more significant the diminution of AMPK function, resulting in the more apparent decrease in the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and mitotracker fluorescence. This finding provides direct genetic evidence that AMPK plays a significant role in ameliorating the effects of cellular energy deficit through mitochondrial proliferation. Thus, the constitutive activation of AMPK initiates signalling to downstream targets. The result perturbation of these pathways would culminate in the mitochondrial biogenesis. Taken together, these findings show the constitutive activation of AMPK propels in vivo mitochondrial biogenesis and ATP generation in D. discoideum as in other organisms.

 Key words: Antisense, constitutive activation, Dictyostelium discoideum, mitochondrial mass, plasmid copies.


Sound Event Early Detection (SEED) is an essential task in recognizing the acoustic environments and soundscapes. However, most of the existing methods focus on the offline sound event detection, which suffers from the over-confidence issue of early-stage event detection and usually yield unreliable results. To solve the problem, we propose a novel Polyphonic Evidential Neural Network (PENet) to model the evidential uncertainty of the class probability with Beta distribution. Specifically, we use a Beta distribution to model the distribution of class probabilities, and the evidential uncertainty enriches uncertainty representation with evidence information, which plays a central role in reliable prediction. To further improve the event detection performance, we design the backtrack inference method that utilizes both the forward and backward audio features of an ongoing event. Experiments on the DESED database show that the proposed method can simultaneously improve 13.0% and 3.8% in time delay and detection F1 score compared to the state-of-the-art methods.


The present investigation reports an elucidation of genetic diversity among four-populations of most economically and ecologically important tree species, sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn.) for the first time in India, using ISSR markers. A total of one-hundred individual S. robusta trees were sampled from four different populations, considering twenty-five individuals from each population. In total, twenty-ISSR primers were screened with S. robusta DNA, and out of twenty, sixteen-primer produced reproducible amplicons. Sixteen selected ISSR markers were amplified a total of 118 alleles and the total number of amplicons for individual primers ranged from 5 to 12, with a mean of 7.37 alleles per primer, of which 74 were polymorphic with an average of 4.62 alleles per primer. The ISSR primer (GA)8YG yielded highest number of alleles (12) and primers (CA)8RG and (CT)8G yielded lowest number of alleles (5), with an average alleles size between 200-3500bp. The percentage of polymorphic alleles ranged from 40 [(CA)8RG] to 83.33 [(AC)8C]. A dendrogram based on UPGMA analysis grouped the four populations into two major clusters, having Keonjhar population into first cluster and rest three populations into second cluster. It was notable that the second major cluster was further divided into three-separate sub-clusters, representing population from each three locations. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that the majority of genetic variation exists within populations, compared to the variation that exists among the populations. The present study is a clear-cut indication that inter- and intra-population genetic variation exists in S. robusta and ISSRs appears to be an efficient marker system in quantifying genetic variability in different populations of S. robusta.


A systematic analysis of the inhibition transporter data available in New Drug Applications of drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2018 (N = 42) was performed. In vitro‐to‐in vivo predictions using basic models were available for the nine transporters currently recommended for evaluation. Overall, 29 parents and 16 metabolites showed in vitro inhibition of at least one transporter, with the largest number of drugs found to be inhibitors of P‐gp followed by BCRP. The most represented therapeutic areas were oncology drugs and anti‐infective agents, each comprising 31%. Among drugs with prediction values greater than the FDA recommended cutoffs and further evaluated in vivo, 56% showed positive clinical interactions (area under the concentration‐time curve ratio (AUCRs) ≥ 1.25). Although all the observed or simulated inhibitions were weak (AUCRs < 2), seven of the nine interactions (involving five drugs) resulted in labeling recommendations. Interestingly, more than half of the drugs with predictions greater than the cutoffs had no further evaluations, highlighting that current basic models represent a useful, simple first step to evaluate the clinical relevance of in vitro findings, but that multiple other factors are considered when deciding the need for clinical studies. Four drugs had prediction values less than the cutoffs but had clinical evaluations or physiologically‐based pharmacokinetic simulations available. Consistent with the predictions, all of them were confirmed not to inhibit these transporters in vivo (AUCRs of 0.94–1.09). Overall, based on the clinical evaluations available, drugs approved in 2018 were found to have a relatively limited impact on drug transporters, with all victim AUCRs < 2.


We study the problem of how to match a formally structured restaurant menu item to a large database of less structured food items that has been collected via crowd-sourcing. At first glance, this problem scenario looks like a typical text matching problem that might possibly be solved with existing text similarity learning approaches. However, due to the unique nature of our scenario and the need for scalability, our problem imposes certain restrictions on possible machine learning approaches that we can employ. We propose a novel, practical, and scalable machine learning solution architecture, consisting of two major steps. First we use a query generation approach, based on a Markov Decision Process algorithm, to reduce the time complexity of searching for matching candidates. That is then followed by a re-ranking step, using deep learning techniques, to meet our required matching quality goals. It is important to note that our proposed solution architecture has already been deployed in a real application system serving tens of millions of users, and shows great potential for practical cases of user-entered text to structured text matching, especially when scalability is crucial.


We introduce a quantile-adaptive framework for nonlinear variable screening with high-dimensional heterogeneous data. This framework has two distinctive features: (1) it allows the set of active variables to vary across quantiles, thus making it more flexible to accommodate heterogeneity; (2) it is model-free and avoids the difficult task of specifying the form of a statistical model in a high dimensional space. Our nonlinear independence screening procedure employs spline approximations to model the marginal effects at a quantile level of interest. Under appropriate conditions on the quantile functions without requiring the existence of any moments, the new procedure is shown to enjoy the sure screening property in ultra-high dimensions. Furthermore, the quantile-adaptive framework can naturally handle censored data arising in survival analysis. We prove that the sure screening property remains valid when the response variable is subject to random right censoring. Numerical studies confirm the fine performance of the proposed method for various semiparametric models and its effectiveness to extract quantile-specific information from heteroscedastic data.


This paper introduces a principled approach for the design of a scalable general reinforcement learning agent. This approach is based on a direct approximation of AIXI, a Bayesian optimality notion for general reinforcement learning agents. Previously, it has been unclear whether the theory of AIXI could motivate the design of practical algorithms. We answer this hitherto open question in the affirmative, by providing the first computationally feasible approximation to the AIXI agent. To develop our approximation, we introduce a Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm along with an agent-specific extension of the Context Tree Weighting algorithm. Empirically, we present a set of encouraging results on a number of stochastic, unknown, and partially observable domains.


Background Prostatitis is associated with a characteristic increase in prostatic fluid pH; however, the underlying mechanism and its physiological significance have not been elucidated. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study a primary culture of rat prostatic epithelial cells and a rat prostatitis model were used. Here we reported the involvement of CFTR, a cAMP-activated anion channel conducting both Cl− and HCO3 −, in mediating prostate HCO3 − secretion and its possible role in bacterial killing. Upon Escherichia coli (E coli)-LPS challenge, the expression of CFTR and carbonic anhydrase II (CA II), along with several pro-inflammatory cytokines was up-regulated in the primary culture of rat prostate epithelial cells. Inhibiting CFTR function in vitro or in vivo resulted in reduced bacterial killing by prostate epithelial cells or the prostate. High HCO3 − content (>50 mM), rather than alkaline pH, was found to be responsible for bacterial killing. The direct action of HCO3 − on bacterial killing was confirmed by its ability to increase cAMP production and suppress bacterial initiation factors in E coli. The relevance of the CFTR-mediated HCO3 − secretion in humans was demonstrated by the upregulated expression of CFTR and CAII in human prostatitis tissues. Conclusions/Significance The CFTR and its mediated HCO3 − secretion may be up-regulated in prostatitis as a host defense mechanism.


The complete works of one of England's greatest Edwardian writers Saki is perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England's 'Golden Afternoon' - the slow and peaceful years before the First World War. Although, like so many of his generation, he died tragically young, in action on the Western Front, his reputation as a writer continued to grow long after his death. His work is humorous, satiric, supernatural, and macabre, highly individual, full of eccentric wit and unconventional situations. With his great gift as a social satirist of his contemporary upper-class Edwardian world, Saki is one of the few undisputed English masters of the short story and one of the great writers of a bygone era. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.


Since the beginning of the 90th of the last century Small and Medium Sized Enterprises have gained a high boom in the Czech Republic. Many Czech SMEs entered foreign markets, benefiting from the highly competitive operating environment in the Czech Republic. In a globalized world, SMEs need to be able to confront an increasing competition from developed and emerging economies and to plug into the new market opportunities these countries provide. There is a direct link between internationalization and increased SMEs performance. International activities reinforce growth, enhance competitiveness and support the long term sustainability of companies. Yet Czech SMEs still depend largely on their domestic markets despite the opportunities brought by the enlarged single market and by globalization at large.The aim of this article is to examine the main barriers of internationalization, to explore managerial competencies for cross-border business cooperation and to give some hints how the problems concerning the internationalization process could be solved. The article has both theoretical and empirical parts. The theoretical part is aimed at general issues concerning the topic of this article, the empirical one is based on research using semi-structured interviews and the questionnaire investigating entrepreneurs.During this research performed in 2016 – 2017, 110 small and medium sized businesses were investigated to collect data. The paper answers the following research questions: Are you interested in cooperation with a foreign business partner? How are you prepared for the internationalization process? Are you motivated or not? What are the main barriers to your business internationalization? Thanks to this research the author found that the basic prerequisites of success in the internationalization process are a continuous preparation of entrepreneurs and their motivation for entering the international business.


Abstract. Atmospheric aerosols and their impact on cloud properties remain the
largest uncertainty in the human forcing of the climate system. By
increasing the concentration of cloud droplets (Nd), aerosols
reduce droplet size and increase the reflectivity of clouds (a
negative radiative forcing). Central to this climate impact is the
susceptibility of cloud droplet number to aerosol (β), the
diversity of which explains much of the variation in the radiative
forcing from aerosol–cloud interactions (RFaci) in global climate
models. This has made measuring β a key target for developing
observational constraints of the aerosol forcing. While the aerosol burden of the clean, pre-industrial atmosphere has
been demonstrated as a key uncertainty for the aerosol forcing, here
we show that the behaviour of clouds under these clean conditions is
of equal importance for understanding the spread in radiative
forcing estimates between models and observations. This means that
the uncertainty in the aerosol impact on clouds is,
counterintuitively, driven by situations with little
aerosol. Discarding clean conditions produces a close agreement
between different model and observational estimates of the cloud
response to aerosol but does not provide a strong constraint on the
RFaci. This makes constraining aerosol behaviour in clean conditions
an important goal for future observational studies.


Abstract A model with omitted resource constraints is suggested as an alternative to a risk aversion model for explaining economic behavior. This paper uses two standard mathematical programming models to further explore this issue. One model is a standard profit maximization linear programming model and the other is a risk averse quadratic programming model with part of the constraints deleted. Theoretical investigation of these models demonstrates that risk aversion can substitute for omitted resource constraints. A small empirical model is then solved under both formulations. With resource constraints deleted, positive risk aversion is necessary to obtain a similar enterprise organization as under profit maximization with complete constraints. These two solutions are then interpreted with the theoretical optimality conditions.


PROLOGUE People v. Boss(1) arose from a March 25, 1999 Bronx County Grand Jury Indictment charging the defendants, New York Police Department (NYPD) officers Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy, with two counts of second degree murder and one count of first degree reckless endangerment(2) based on the fatal shooting of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo, as he stood in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building on Wheeler Avenue in the early morning hours of February 4, 1999.(3) The four officers, each members of the NYPD's aggressive Street Crimes Unit with five to seven years experience on the force, encountered the unarmed Diallo while searching for a rape suspect.(4) When Diallo failed to respond to the officers' commands and made gestures which the officers interpreted as threatening, the police proceeded to fire 41 shots, 19 of which struck Mr. Diallo and fatally wounded him.(5) Contending that "It]he trial [of the officers] will presumably include testimony addressing, among other things, what prompted the ... officers to fire forty-one times at a victim who had no weapon, and whether the fusillade of shots was justifiable ..." and that, "[t]hese issues are of public dimension,"(6) RNN sought to persuade the trial court that, because N.Y. Civil Rights Law section 52(7) imposed a per se ban on audio-visual coverage of the trial in this case, it violated RNN's rights of "`liberty of speech [and] of the press' under article 1, section 8, and of `equal protection of the laws' under article 1, section 11, respectively, of the New York State Constitution."(8) Pursuant to those state constitutional rights, RNN also sought to provide audio-visual coverage of the trial.(9) On June 4, 1999, Bronx County Supreme Court Judge Patricia A. Williams denied RNN's motion.(10) Following the transfer of the trial from Bronx County to Albany County,(11) Courtroom Television Network (Court TV) petitioned Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Teresi for permission to televise the trial on the grounds that section 52 was unconstitutional. Noting the change in venue and that Court TV's challenge (unlike RNN's) was premised on both Federal and State Constitutional grounds,(12) Justice Teresi granted Court TV's motion and allowed Court TV to televise the trial.(13) Subsequently, a number of New York trial courts have followed Justice Teresi's lead and allowed audio-visual coverage of both trials and related proceedings.(14) The issue of section 52's continued force and constitutionality, however, has not been addressed by New York's appellate courts.(15) This Memorandum will contend that, as a matter of New York state constitutional law, section 52 is unconstitutional, "hopelessly anachronistic and [in need of] permanent shelving"(16) by the courts.(17) PRELIMINARY STATEMENT "A trial is a public event. What transpires in the court room is public property." Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 374 (1947). WRNN-TV Associates, Ltd., the owner of WRNN-TV/Regional News Network ("RNN"), respectfully submits this memorandum of law in support of the station's motion to intervene in the above-captioned criminal proceeding for the limited purposes of (a) seeking to persuade the Court that, to the extent N.Y. Civil Rights Law [sections] 52 prohibits audio-visual coverage of the trial in this case, it violates RNN's rights of "liberty of speech [and] of the press" under Article 1, Section 8, and of "equal protection of the laws" under Article 1, Section 11, respectively, of the New York State Constitution, and (b) requesting a determination that RNN is entitled, pursuant to those state constitutional rights, to provide audio-visual coverage of the trial in People of the State of New York v. Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, and Richard Murphy (Bronx County Grand Jury # 40894/99). Based on the authority cited below, RNN has standing to bring this motion and request a determination that, as applied in this case--a trial probing the veracity of what took place "[i]n the early morning hours of February 4, [1999] [when] 19 of 41 bullets fired at Amadou Diallo ripped into his body as he stood blameless, unarmed and defenseless in the vestibule of his building" (Ex. …


Conclusions NATO (and EU) enlargement has been successful in establishing incentives for aspiring members to resolve border and ethnic minority issues. Hungarian bilateral treaties have stabilized the situation more in Romania than Slovakia because, unrelated to its treaty, Slovakia has been moving in autocratic directions. Both treaties have marginalized nationalist extremists and helped transform Hungarian minorities from being a potential "bloc" to becoming a "bridge" for Euro-Atlantic integration. If Hungary enters NATO with no clear prospect for Romania, it could undermine recent positive developments in Bucharest. Historical Legacy Hungarian minorities are the legacy of the defeat and collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. The Treaty of Trianon (1920) reduced Hungary's size by roughly two-thirds; the Romanian crown occupied Transylvania, the Serbs southern Hungary, and the new Czechoslovakia northern Hungary. Hence, the Versailles Peace settlement divided the states of Central Europe into winners and losers. During the 1920s Hungary's appeals to the League of Nations on behalf of minority rights were undermined by its irredentist aspirations and by France who allied itself with the Little Entente of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia to protect the status quo. Hitler's rise to power gave momentum for revision; the September 1938 Munich agreement accepted dismemberment of Czechoslovakia as the British and French policy shifted to appeasement. Hungary's revisionism occurred in stages. (1) In November 1938 an Italo-German "Vienna Award" returned to Hungary 4,600 square miles from Slovakia with predominantly Hungarian populations; and in early 1939 gave Hungary another Hungarian minority fragment--Ruthenia--from Slovakia. (2) In August 1940, the Second Vienna Award gave Hungary northern Transylvania, which left large numbers of Romanians and Hungarians on the wrong side of the border. (3) In April 1941 when Germany invaded Yugoslavia, Hungary followed suit and re-annexed the ethnically-mixed Vojvodina and formally allied itself with the Axis powers. At the end of World War II, neither Britain nor the USSR supported any change in Hungary's pre-1938 borders, and the 1946 Paris Peace Conference restored the partitions of the Trianon Treaty. While Slovaks, Romanians, and Serbs retained grievances against Hungary for its role in the pre-Trianon era and during World War II, Hungarians remained bitter about their treatment as minorities in the inter-war period and after 1945. During the Communist era, Marxist-Leninist ideology and Stalin's theory on nationalities considered nationalism to be a malady of Abourgeois capitalism." In Hungary, the minorities question disappeared from the political agenda. Communist hegemony guaranteed a facade of inter-ethnic peace while failing to secure a lasting accommodation of minority interests in unitary states. The fall of Communism aroused the expectations of Hungarian minorities in neighboring countries and left Hungary unprepared to deal with the issue. Hungarian politicians campaigned to formalize the rights of Hungarian minorities in neighboring countries, thus causing anxiety in the region. They secured agreements on the necessity for guaranteeing collective rights and formed new Hungarian minority organizations to promote cultural rights and political participation. In Romania, Slovakia, and Serbian Yugoslavia, former Communists secured popular legitimacy by accommodating nationalist tendencies that were hostile to minority rights. Contemporary Situation Some 3 million Hungarians live in neighboring countries; 2 million in Transylvania, 600,000 in Slovakia, 350-400,000 in Vojvodina, Serbia, and 160-200,000 in Ukraine (see Map). Extremes in the treatment of Hungarian ethnic minorities are evident in Ukraine, where no major issues prevail, and Vojvodina, where the situation of those who live in the north and south-central regions has deteriorated since Serbian President Milosevic stripped the province of autono-mous status in 1989. …


This book provides a contextual study of the development of Alfred Marshall's thinking during the early years of his apprenticeship in the Cambridge moral sciences. Marshall's thought is situated in a crisis of academic liberal thinking that occurred in the late 1860s. His crisis of faith is shown to have formed part of his wider philosophical development, which saw him supplementing Anglican thought and mechanistic psychology with Hegel's Philosophy of History. This philosophical background informed Marshall's early reformulation of value theory and his subsequent wide-ranging reinterpretation of political economy as a whole. The book concludes with the suggestion that Marshall's mature economic science was conceived by him as but one part of a wider, neo-Hegelian, social philosophy.


The current research included a study of photocatalytic degradation of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) films prepared by the pouring method after adding different weight ratios of nickel complex to a leucine derivative (0.4%, 0.2%, 0.1%, 0.05%, 0.025%) with thickness of 75±5 μm. The effect of the additive ratio on the photocatalytic degradation speed of polymeric films relative to pure films before and after exposure to the source of ultraviolet was studied, which showed the highest absorption at the wavelength of 356 nm with irradiation times starting from 25-100 hrs. The photocatalytic degradation process has been monitored by using the UV-VIS spectrophotometer to calculate the degradation rate constant (Kd), the infrared (FT-IR) device to calculate the growth coefficient of carbonyl (ICO) and hydroxyl (IOH) groups and the viscosity technique to follow the change in the viscosity-average molecular weight. It was found through FT-IR and UV-Vis that the degradation rate constant and growth coefficients of carbonyl and hydroxyl were inversely proportional with the concentration of the added nickel complex and the irradiation time. The results of viscosity measurements obtained from the calculation of the degradation degree and the numerical rate of chain (S) scission showed that increasing concentrationS of the added nickel complex reduces the degradation of the polymer molecular weight. Thus it is considered a stabilizer for photocatalytic degradation.


A study was conducted to purify and characterize a novel protease produced from Aspergillus niger using different lignocellulosic agro-based by-products including corncobs, wheat bran, and rice bran as substrates under SSF. Maximum protease activity was recorded on wheat bran fermented culture media after the 3rd day of incubation. The optimal conditions found for protease production using wheat bran were cultivation period (3 days), substrate concentration (10 g), pH (7), incubation temperature (45oC), inoculum size (4 mL), and 3% surfactant Tween-80 (2 mL). A purification fold of 2.41 with 29 U/mg specific activity and 70.73 % recovery was achieved after purification. Purified protease from A. niger had a molecular weight of 47 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The enzyme activity profile showed that purified protease was optimally active at pH 7 and 45oC as optimum values. A. niger protease was reasonably stable in the pH range 5-8 and 35-60oC for up to 1 h incubation. Protease was activated by various metal ions/inhibitors tested, Mn2+, Cd2+, Mg2+, Cu2+, PMSF, Pepstatin and Iodoacetic acid at 1 mM, proving the enzyme as metalloprotease, whereas an inhibitory effect was shown by certain agents including EDTA and SDS. The purified protease was compatible with five local detergents with up to 25 days of shelf life at room temperature. The maximum production of protease in the presence of a cheaper substrate at low concentration and its potential as a detergent additive for improved washing makes the strain and its enzymes potentially useful for industrial purposes, especially for the detergent and laundry industry.


Background: Histiocytic sarcoma is an aggressive neoplasm of dendritic cells that carries a grave prognosis. The efficacy of chemotherapy against this disease is unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of 1-(2-chloroethyl)-3cyclohexyl-1-nitrosourea (CCNU) in dogs with incompletely resected or metastatic histiocytic sarcoma, to describe the clinical characteristics of these dogs, and to identify factors affecting prognosis. Hypothesis: Our hypothesis is that CCNU has activity against canine histiocytic sarcoma and can improve survival in dogs with advanced disease. Animals: Included in analysis are dogs diagnosed with histiocytic sarcoma who had gross measurable or residual microscopic disease and who received CCNU. Methods: A multi-institutional, retrospective, single-arm cohort study was conducted. Available biopsy samples were tested with an antibody against CD18 when possible to confirm the diagnosis of histiocytic sarcoma. Results: Fifty-nine dogs were treated at 8 institutions. Twenty-three tumor specimens were confirmed to be CD18 positive. Treatment with CCNU at 60 to 90 mg/m 2 resulted in an overall response rate of 46% in the 56 dogs with gross measurable disease. All 3 dogs with minimal residual disease experienced tumor relapse but lived 433 days or more after starting CCNU. The median survival of all 59 dogs was 106 days. Thrombocytopenia (,100,000 platelets/mL) and hypoalbuminemia were found to be negatively associated with prognosis and were predictive of ,1 month survival. Conclusions and Clinical Importance: Results suggest that CCNU is active against canine histiocytic sarcoma and may be useful in the treatment of dogs without negative prognostic factors.


Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.


The near-invisibility of ice-slurry flows in the geological record belies their signifi-cant hazard at snow-capped volcanoes. These four-phase flows exhibit extreme rates of volumetric bulking and unusually high mobility. Mechanisms of their motion are clarified through two examples generated on 25 September 2007 at Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand. Brief explosions through Crater Lake ejected 5700 m 3 of acidic water that entrained 60 times this volume of snow as it traveled over a snow-covered glacier. The resulting ice-slurry traveled up to 7.7 km (height/length [H/L] ratio of 0.16). A cogenerated second flow took a more tortuous initial path before riding over the already frozen deposits of the first unit and beyond (H/L 0.13). For the first time, downstream evolution of the kinematic properties of propagating ice-slurry fronts could be characterized as well as the longitudinal variation of the physical properties of their resulting deposits. The chemistry and composition of the deposits show that during flow, vertical percolation of water through the porous ice–particle–water–air mixture generated a basal zone of high internal pore pressure. This effect was particularly strong when a thick, high-density flow front formed, which raced ahead of the tail to control runout and consequent hazard.


We present an amplitude damping channel for Laguerre-Gaussian modes. Our channel is tested experimentally for a Laguerre-Gaussian mode, having an azimuthal index l = 1, illustrating that it decays to a Gaussian mode in good agreement with the theoretical model for amplitude damping. Since we are able to characterize the action of such a channel on orbital angular momentum states, we propose using it to investigate the dynamics of entanglement.


This thesis aims to investigate the potential of Participatory Video (PV) as a method for facilitating collaborative research; and, by this methodology, produce an ethnographic description of Karrayyu Oromo community, lifestyle and culture which is accessible by and useful for community members, as well as researchers.

The Karrayyu are one of the last Oromo groups to practice pastoralism and Oromo traditions such as the Gadaa system and Waaqeffata, the Oromo religion. However, they are struggling due to a range of pressures, including the recent introduction of a large scale irrigation scheme which aims to convert them from pastoralism to agriculture. This thesis attempts to document aspects of Karrayyu culture and way of life, as well as attitudes towards the transition from pastoralism to agriculture.

The overall research approach falls under collaborative anthropology. Community members were involved throughout, from designing research questions and areas of inquiry, to gathering data and analysis. Although I specified a methodological approach I did not define the research area or specific research questions. Video was used as a tool to engage participants as co-creators of knowledge, thus shifting the power dynamics of knowledge creation away from purely researcher driven enquiry. Throughout this thesis I merge ideas taken from collaborative ethnography, engaged anthropology and participatory research in order to provide a theoretical background for the study of PV.

This research seeks to generate a more in-depth, critical and reflexive understanding of PV as a research tool. The thesis explores PV as a method and its potential uses for anthropological research. I focus on power dynamics and representation, PV and indigenous knowledge, PV and vertical communication, and PV as a form of cultural brokerage. I argue that PV answers calls for collaborative forms of research and offers opportunities for a new form of "engaged" anthropology, whilst also acknowledging the challenges raised by the use of PV.

As well as investigating the use of PV, this research aims to make a positive contribution to the Karrayyu community. PV enabled participants to convey their reality as they see it, which was particularly important for members of a marginalised group who have been denied opportunities to represent their culture and history, and who currently have little influence over the policies that affect them. The thesis explores issues of representation, attempts to address access to and ownership of knowledge, and raises questions about the relevance and application of research for indigenous groups like the Karrayyu.


We conduct an exploratory analysis of how researchers can address the issue of "construct validity", which poses a major challenge to all studies of the effect of corporate governance on firm performance. Many corporate governance studies rely on aggregate governance "indices" to measure underlying, unobserved governance. But we are not confident that we know how to build these indices – often we are unsure both as to what is "good" governance, and how one can proxy for this vague concept using observable measures. These are construct validity questions.As the basis for analysis, we begin with our prior work, in which we build governance indices in four major emerging markets (Brazil, India, Korea, and Turkey). In that work, we argue that one must build country-specific indices, which use country-specific elements that reflect local norms, local institutions, and local data availability. We show that these similar-but-not-identical indices predict firm market value in each country and when pooled across countries, in firm fixed-effects (FE) regressions with extensive covariates. This approach puts great stress on the construct validity challenge of assessing how well a governance measure matches the underlying concept. We address here what can be said about how well these four country-specific indices, and subindices for aspects of governance such as board structure or disclosure, measure unobserved, underlying actual governance quality.


There are many teachers trying new teaching techniques in the classrooms with the intention of making learning process more effective. In this research, comparison has been made between the spaced and massed learning methods to determine which teaching method is the most effective and helpful learning methods enhancing academic performance and retention rate of students. Results revealed that the performance of the students who were taught through spaced learning was better as compared to massed learning. On the other hand, a comparison between multimedia and chalk & talk teaching tool have shown that chalk & talk is more effective tool in both spaced learning and massed learning, and they increase and improve the academic performance and retention rate of students both.


Abstract During the past years many researchers have focused their attention on autobiographical memory and its deficits in clinical samples suffering of emotional disturbance. The aim of this research was to study autobiographical memory functioning in anorexia nervosa patients, taking into account the duration of illness, the subjective evaluation and the date of the recalled memory, the pleasantness of the recalled memory and the level of depression. Patients with restrictive anorexia nervosa were compared with a group of healthy teenagers using the Autobiographical Memory Test, the Child Depression Inventory and the Eating Disorder Inventory. Anorexic girls recalled more general (extended and categoric) memories than the controls for each type of cue word (positive, negative and neutral), suggesting a general difficulty in the access to emotional memories. Keywords: anorexia nervosa, autobiographical memory, specific memory, depression Introduction In the past few decades a new line of research focusing on autobiographical memories has drawn increasing attention of scientists all over the world (Healey & Williams, 1999). Autobiographical memory refers to memories with personal content retrieved easily by the individual, that are not part of a generic script or semantic memory, but which form individual autobiography (Swales & Williams, 2001). The dominant paradigm for assessing autobiographical memory - the autobiographical memory test (AMT) - was developed by Williams and Broadbent (1986). They studied patients a few days after they had been hospitalized for a serious suicide attempt. These individuals were asked to retrieve specific autobiographical memories to positive or negative cue words (e.g., happy, angry). A specific memory is defined as 'something that happened at a particular place and time and took no longer than a day to occur'(for example, "Last Sunday when I went out for a coffee with Mary"). Responses were compared to normal controls. Despite the fact that they were asked to retrieve specific memories, the overdose patients tended, as a first response to the cues, to retrieve more inappropriately general memories than controls (For example: "When I am with Mary". These general memories can be further qualified as categoric general memories, referring to events that occur often, and extended general memories, referring to events that last more than one day, or no memories (semantic associations) and no response or same event. Several studies found that depressed patients (Brewin, Reynolds & Tata, 1999; Hermans, Van den Broeck, Belis et al., 2004), patients with bipolar depression (Mansell & Lam, 2004) and patients suffering from PTSD (McNally, Lasko, Macklin et al., 1995) show lack of specificity compared to controls. A number of studies have demonstrated that general memory is associated with poor problem solving (Arie, Apter Orbach et al., 2008; Sutherland & Bryant, 2008; Williams, Barnhofer & Beck, 2005). Eating disordered patients often experience depression (Santos, Richards & Bleckley, 2007; Speranza, Corcos & Loas, 2005) and they have problem solving deficits (Cooper, 1995). Memory functioning in eating disorders was analyzed in many studies (Carter, Bulik, McIntosh et al., 2000; Hunt & Cooper, 2001; Davidson & Wright, 2002), but studies related to autobiographical memory functioning in eating disorders are scarce. Dalgleish and colleagues (Dalgleish, Golden, Barett et al., 2007) studied autobiographical memory functioning in 32 patients suffering from eating disorders and found that these patients are less specific on the autobiographical memory test then healthy controls. Laberg and Andersson (2004) studied autobiographical memory in a sample of 18 women recently treated for bulimia nervosa. Results showed that bulimic patients had difficulties retrieving specific memories and retrieved an excess of categoric memories. …


Ethnic favoritism is seen as antithetical to development. This paper provides credible quantification of the extent of ethnic favoritism using data on road building in Kenyan districts across the 1963–2011 period. Guided by a model, it then examines whether the transition in and out of democracy under the same president constrains or exacerbates ethnic favoritism. Across the post-independence period, we find strong evidence of ethnic favoritism: districts that share the ethnicity of the president receive twice as much expenditure on roads and have five times the length of paved roads built. This favoritism disappears during periods of democracy. (JEL D72, H54, J15, O15, O17, O22, R42)


This course presents the fundamentals of digital signal processing with particular emphasis on problems in biomedical research and clinical medicine. It covers principles and algorithms for processing both deterministic and random signals. Topics include data acquisition, imaging, filtering, coding, feature extraction, and modeling. The focus of the course is a series of labs that provide practical experience in processing physiological data, with examples from cardiology, speech processing, and medical imaging. The labs are done in MATLAB® during weekly lab sessions that take place in an electronic classroom. Lectures cover signal processing topics relevant to the lab exercises, as well as background on the biological signals processed in the labs.


Few people are aware of the great diversity of resin-producing plants or the remarkable roles resins play for plants and people. Resins evolved millions of years ago to defend plants against their enemies, as recorded by fossil resins like amber, and humans have used them since prehistory. "Plant Resins" tells the whole story about these fascinating plant products. The book is richly illustrated with maps, color and black-and-white photographs, and exquisite line drawings by Jesse Markman. This comprehensive and integrated discussion of resins will appeal to botanists, ecologists, ethnobotanists, chemists, anthropologists, archeologists, museum conservators, and amber enthusiasts.


The nucleotide sequences of two pol gene regions (codons 41 to 108 and 181 to 219 of reverse transcriptase) of 60 human immunodeficiency virus type 1 genomes obtained directly from primary lymphocytes from infected individuals are reported. In addition, the mutant spectra of several quasispecies have been sampled by repetitive sequencing of molecular clones representing the same pol genomic regions. Average mutation frequencies ranged from 1.6 x 10(-2) to 3.4 x 10(-2) substitutions per nucleotide for independent samples (relative to their consensus nucleotide sequence) and from 3.6 x 10(-3) to 1.1 x 10(-2) substitutions per nucleotide for individual quasispecies distributions. Several mutations leading to amino acid substitutions related to loss of sensitivity to reverse transcriptase inhibitors have been identified in samples from patients not subjected to antiretroviral therapy. Mutation frequencies in the codons previously identified as involved in resistance to reverse transcriptase inhibitors were very similar to the average mutation frequencies in the pol region analyzed. Thus, the finding of mutations related to drug resistance (even in the absence of positive selection by the corresponding drugs) is the expected consequence of the statistical distribution of mutations along the pol gene. The presence of such critical amino acid replacements in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 populations underscores the importance of viral quasispecies as reservoirs of phenotypic virus variants and has a number of implications for AIDS control.


Abstract. This letter presents a study of equatorial F region irregularities using the NRL SAMI3/ESF model, comparing results using a two-dimensional (2-D) and a three-dimensional (3-D) electrostatic potential solution. For the 3-D potential solution, two cases are considered for parallel plasma transport: (1) transport based on the parallel ambipolar field, and (2) transport based on the parallel electric field. The results show that the growth rate of the generalized Rayleigh–Taylor instability is not affected by the choice of the potential solution. However, differences are observed in the structures of the irregularities between the 2-D and 3-D solutions. Additionally, the plasma velocity along the geomagnetic field computed using the full 3-D solution shows complex structures that are not captured by the simplified model. This points out that only the full 3-D model is able to fully capture the complex physics of the equatorial F region.


The main implication of this research is that the relinquishment of motherhood is socially constructed phenomenon. The idea of social constructionist is that all everyday reality's knowledge is the consequence of social interactions given through language. The definition of motherhood has been changing during different periods of time. Traditionally it is related with gender and it is given the compulsory primal functions – child delivering and bearing. In the point of view of social constructionist this research aims to reveal how motherhood which has a strong gendered background can be constructed as a social phenomenon. The situation of women and motherhood is being critically explained by Marxist feminist theories which claim that motherhood is the characteristic of disempowered status. Women without children do not match the traditional societal expectations and women that relinquish their children are placed out of society. The aim of this article is to present discussion about emotional aspects of motherhood's relinquishment experience. The object – the reflection of the motherhood's relinquishment experience. The aim was reached by revealing what meanings of emotional experience the mother gives to the child relinquishment process. The qualitative research approach was chosen. Face to face semi-structured interviews with fragments of indepth interviews were used as data collection method. A grounded theory methodological strategy was chosen for the data analysis process. Six women who have relinquished a child have participated in the research. During the data analysis the main category as giving a better life for child (especially relevantly expressed by one research participant as "it will be better for him") was revealed. Economical factors, positions of different participants and manifestation of emotions were interrelated in construction of the category. Looking at manifestation of emotions it was revealed that the relinquishment of motherhood during research process was constructed as a loss of a child that causes the long-term consequences. Feelings of guilt and shame were dominant and being blamed by others was interrelated with the research participants' experience of relinquishment of motherhood as a 'taboo' theme. Invitation of mothers to talk about this 'taboo' theme in their life was considered as liberating experience for women.


Privacy is a difficult design issue that is becoming increasingly important as we push into ubiquitous computing environments. While there is a fair amount of theoretical work on designing for privacy, there are few practical methods for helping designers create applications that provide end-users with a reasonable level of privacy protection that is commensurate with the domain, with the community of users, and with the risks and benefits to all stakeholders in the intended system. Towards this end, we propose privacy risk models as a general method for refining privacy from an abstract concept into concrete issues for specific applications and prioritizing those issues. In this paper, we introduce a privacy risk model we have developed specifically for ubiquitous computing, and outline two case studies describing our use of this privacy risk model in the design of two ubiquitous computing applications.


Abstract. Volcanic eruptions induce a dynamical response in the climate system characterized by short-term global reductions in both surface temperature and precipitation, as well as a response in biogeochemistry. The available observations of these responses to volcanic eruptions, such as to Pinatubo, provide a valuable method to compare against model simulations. Here, the Community Climate System Model Version 3 (CCSM3) reproduces the physical climate response to volcanic eruptions in a realistic way, as compared to direct observations from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The model's biogeochemical response to eruptions is smaller in magnitude than observed, but because of the lack of observations, it is not clear why or where the modeled carbon response is not strong enough. Comparison to other models suggests that this model response is much weaker over tropical land; however, the precipitation response in other models is not accurate, suggesting that other models could be getting the right response for the wrong reason. The underestimated carbon response in the model compared to observations could also be due to the ash and lava input of biogeochemically important species to the ocean, which are not included in the simulation. A statistically significant reduction in the simulated carbon dioxide growth rate is seen at the 90% level in the average of 12 large eruptions over the period 1870–2000, and the net uptake of carbon is primarily concentrated in the tropics, with large spatial variability. In addition, a method for computing the volcanic response in model output without using a control ensemble is tested against a traditional methodology using two separate ensembles of runs; the method is found to produce similar results in the global average. These results suggest that not only is simulating volcanoes a good test of coupled carbon–climate models, but also that this test can be performed without a control simulation in cases where it is not practical to run separate ensembles with and without volcanic eruptions.


The normalization of overthickened orogenic crust after a continent-continent collision typically involves several different processes, including erosion, plate divergence, gravity-driven collapse of the orogenic wedge, and viscous flow of the lower crust. As a contribution to this discussion, we here utilize reprocessed deep seismic data to image the Scandinavian part of the major Caledonian continent-continent collision zone where we identify a double set of extensional shear zones: one in the upper to middle crust (Hardangerfjord shear zone) and a major oppositely dipping Moho-offsetting shear zone in the lower crust and upper mantle. The latter shear zone may have a true displacement close to 50 km and appears to offset the Moho vertically by ~10 km, extending downward beyond the 50 km depth limit of the seismic data. While the upper structure offsets the basal Caledonian thrust, the Moho shear zone is more difficult to date. However, they are kinematically consistent and located at the transition zone between thick- and thin-skinned post-collisional tectonics, and we suggest that they may represent a crustal "pinch" or zipper-like structure that separated viscously flowing Caledonian lower crust from cooler rigid basement representative for the rest of the Baltic Shield. Later extension created the North Sea rift, but the general rift axis and the associated riftrelated thinning developed in a narrower zone that runs oblique to the Devonian trend, hence the two generations of extension and thinning can be distinguished at the crustal scale.


PURPOSE
To evaluate stand-alone performance of computer-aided detection (CAD) for colorectal polyps of 6 mm or larger at computed tomographic (CT) colonography in a large asymptomatic screening cohort.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this retrospective, institutional review board-approved, HIPAA-compliant study, a CAD software system was applied to screening CT colonography in 1638 women and 1408 men (mean age, 56.9 years) evaluated at a single medical center between March 2006 and December 2008. All participants underwent cathartic preparation with stool tagging; electronic cleansing was not used. The reference standard consisted of interpretation by experienced radiologists in all cases. This interpretation was further refined for the subset of cases with positive findings by using subsequent colonoscopic or CT colonographic confirmation, as well as retrospective expert localization of polyps with CT colonography. This test set was not involved in training the CAD system. The Fisher exact test was used to evaluate significance; 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were obtained by using the exact method.

RESULTS
Per-patient CAD sensitivities were 93.8% (350 of 373; 95% CI: 90.9%, 96.1%) and 96.5% (137 of 142; 95% CI: 92.0%, 98.8%) at 6- and 10-mm threshold sizes, respectively. Per-polyp CAD sensitivities for all polyps, regardless of histologic features, were 90.1% (547 of 607; 95% CI: 88.0%, 92.8%) and 96.0% (168 of 175; 95% CI: 91.9%, 98.4%) at 6- and 10-mm threshold sizes, respectively; CAD sensitivities for advanced neoplasia and cancer were 97.0% (128 of 132; 95% CI: 92.4%, 99.2%) and 100% (13 of 13; 95% CI: 79.4%, 100%), respectively. The mean and median false-positive rates were 4.7 and 3 per series, respectively (9.4 and 6 per patient). Among 373 patients with a positive finding at CT colonography, CAD marked an additional 15 polyps of 6 mm or larger, including four large polyps, that were missed at the prospective three-dimensional reading by an expert but were found at subsequent colonoscopy.

CONCLUSION
Stand-alone CAD demonstrated excellent performance for polyp detection in a large screening population, with high sensitivity and an acceptable number of false-positive results.


Abstract Parallel job schedulers are mostly evaluated using performance metrics. Deductions however can be misleading due to selective job starvation (unfairness). To choose a better scheduler, therefore, there is a need to compare schedulers for fairness as well. Performance and fairness, however, have mostly been studied independently. We examine characteristics of three approaches to fairness evaluation in parallel job scheduling. We examine how they represent job starvation and other aspects of discrimination. We show that the implied unfairness is not always starvation/discrimination in practice. We use simultaneous consideration of performance and fairness and compare deductions with scheduler effectiveness derived from group-wise performance evaluation. We observe that due to possible misrepresentation of starvation by fairness metrics, schedulers shown as superior may not be so in practice.


Pulmonary lymphangiomatosis is a rare clinical and pathological entity which is distinct from lymphangiomyomatosis and from pulmonary lymphangiectasis. We report a case of a 20 year old man with diffuse lymphangiomatosis involving the mediastinum, lungs and retroperitoneum. The patient's intrathoracic lymphangiomatosis produced restrictive and obstructive impairment of his pulmonary function, but did not result in chylothorax or chylopericardium, which are two common manifestations of the disease. The patient's clinical course was remarkable for the concomitant development of chronic disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). Lymphangiomatosis involving both the mediastinum and pulmonary parenchyma is rare, and DIC is a very unusual complication of lymphangiomatosis.


All of the work described in this dissertation
involves the use of Indigenous research frameworks to design research projects,
to facilitate communication with Indigenous communities that I have
collaborated with, and also to teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate
students. Indigenous research frameworks
emphasize the importance of place in relation to the integrity of cultural
values espoused by many Indigenous communities.
This entails a respect for the spirituality component of Indigenous
people because this is often directly tied to relationships between the land,
animals, and plants of their local environments.

While some research has
been conducted to help understand Indigenous people's understandings of
geoscience, less emphasis has been placed on recognizing and leveraging common
connections Indigenous students make between their Traditional cultures and
Western science. Thus, the research
presented in this dissertation identifies connections Indigenous learners make
between geology concepts and their everyday lives and cultural traditions in
both formal and informal settings. Some
of these connections have been integrated into place-based geoscience education
modules that were implemented within an introductory environmental science
course.

Qualitative analysis,
using a socioTransformative constructivism theoretical lens, of semi-structured
interviews after implementation of a Sharing/Learning program for an Acoma
pilot project, implemented informally, and for a series of geoscience education
modules at a private university provides evidence that elements reflective of the use of sociotransformative
constructivism (e.g. connections between global and localized environmental
issues) were acknowledged by the participants as particularly impactful to
their experience during implementation of the geoscience-focused activities. In addition to the socioTransformative
theoretical perspective, Indigenous research frameworks (i.e. Tribal Critical
Race Theory) were used to contextualize the educational interventions for two
different Indigenous communities, Acoma Pueblo and the Confederated Tribes and
Bands of the Yakama Nation. Tribal
Critical Race Theory was not used to analyze the semi-structured
interviews. Instead the Indigenous
research frameworks were used to ensure that the research practices undertaken
within these Indigenous communities were respectful of the Indigenous
community's cultural values, that Indigenous data sovereignty was paramount,
and so that the research objectives were transparent. In addition, permission to publish the
results of this research was sought from the governing entities of both Tribal
Councils of Acoma Pueblo and the Yakama Nation.

The research presented in this dissertation provides
evidence that academic research can be undertaken in respectful ways that
benefit Indigenous communities. The
connections that participants in the Acoma Sharing/Learning program could
potentially be used to create more culturally relevant educational materials
for the Acoma Pueblo community, if that is what the governing entities of the
Acoma Pueblo community desire. The
modules implemented more formally at a private university could potentially,
with permission from the governing entities of the Yakama Nation, be integrated
into geoscience programs at a broader level creating opportunities for
contemporary Indigenous perspectives to be valued alongside Western modern
science. Moving forward, this could
potentially increase interest among Indigenous community members in pursuing
academic pathways within geoscience disciplines.

The research pursued in this dissertation is only a
beginning. Approaches to research that
promote the agency of local communities in the types of research questions
asked and how that research is conducted should be a priority for Western
scientists to maintain a respectful relationship with the many communities,
Indigenous and non-Indigenous, in which they work. It is my intention to be part of this
revolution in how academic researchers interact with contemporary Indigenous
communities as well as the next generation of scientists. In the future, my research will continue to
serve and benefit Indigenous communities, but I will also begin asking research
questions that will help increase the use of diverse and equitable practices
within academia. In this way, I hope to
bridge the two worlds of Indigenous Knowledge systems and Western science with
the primary purpose of maintaining respect among these two communities. In the future, my research will focus on how
these respectful practices can move beyond academic research and pedagogy into
the realms of professional development, mentoring, and community
revitalization.


In this paper we study the well-known greedy coordinate descent (GCD) algorithm to solve $\ell_1$-regularized problems and improve GCD by the two popular strategies: Nesterov's acceleration and stochastic optimization. Firstly, we propose a new rule for greedy selection based on an $\ell_1$-norm square approximation which is nontrivial to solve but convex; then an efficient algorithm called ``SOft ThreshOlding PrOjection (SOTOPO)'' is proposed to exactly solve the $\ell_1$-regularized $\ell_1$-norm square approximation problem, which is induced by the new rule. Based on the new rule and the SOTOPO algorithm, the Nesterov's acceleration and stochastic optimization strategies are then successfully applied to the GCD algorithm. The resulted algorithm called accelerated stochastic greedy coordinate descent (ASGCD) has the optimal convergence rate $O(\sqrt{1/\epsilon})$; meanwhile, it reduces the iteration complexity of greedy selection up to a factor of sample size. Both theoretically and empirically, we show that ASGCD has better performance for high-dimensional and dense problems with sparse solution.


This study discusses the impacts of leisure travels on individuals which is developed based on a qualitative study using a combination of qualitative survey, and in-depth interviews conducted to people who have traveled both domestic and/or international more than once. In general, travels effect individuals constructively in which leisure travel significantly impacts individuals' personal growth majoring in cognitive and affective domains; the expressions made such as to broaden life perspectives and way of thinking, promote an open mind, increase knowledge and wisdom. Change and personal growth occur by means of learning by which travels contribute and facilitate this process of individual development. Learning happens through experiences; travels facilitate opportunities to be away from the mundane, insert the element of dynamic, surprise and beyond expectation; thus, enable individuals to see matters more objectively beyond one"s habits and traditions. As to how far thoughts, attitudes and actions are in concurrence is yet another research topic to investigate. Nonetheless, leisure travel is encouraged as a means of indulging in an intelligent leisure.