Recent IPCC assessments highlight a key role for large‐scale carbon removal in meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement. This focus on removal, also referred to as negative emissions, is suggestive of novel opportunities, risks, and challenges in addressing climate change, but tends to build on the narrow techno‐economic framings that characterize integrated assessment modeling. While the discussion on negative emissions bears important parallels to a wider and older literature on carbon sequestration and carbon sinks, this earlier scholarship—particularly from the critical social sciences—is seldom engaged with by the negative emissions research community. In this article, we survey this "long history" of carbon removal and seek to draw out lessons for ongoing research and the emerging public debate on negative emissions. We argue that research and policy on negative emissions should proceed not just from projections of the future, but also from an acknowledgement of past controversies, successes and failures. In particular, our review calls attention to the irreducibly political character of carbon removal imaginaries and accounting practices and urges acknowledgement of past experiences with the implementation of (small‐scale) carbon sequestration projects. Our review in this way highlights the importance of seeing continuity in the carbon removal discussion and calls for more engagement with existing social science scholarship on the subject. Acknowledging continuity and embracing an interdisciplinary research agenda on carbon removal are important aspects in making climate change mitigation research more responsible, and a precondition to avoid repeating past mistakes and failures.


Introduction: Both indole-3-carbinol and dietary lignans have beneficial effects on estrogen metabolism and breast cancer risk. There is no published literature on the effects of a combination product. This study was designed to investigate the impact of a combination product on estrogen metabolism. The major trial objective was to determine whether a breast health supplement containing indole-3-carbinol and hydroxymatairesinol lignan would alter estrogen metabolism to favour C-2 hydroxylation and reduce C-16 hydroxylation. Higher concentrations of C-2 metabolites and lower concentrations of C-16 metabolites may reduce breast cancer risk and risk for other hormonally-related cancers. Methods: Forty-seven pre-menopausal and forty-nine post-menopausal women were recruited for this study, and were divided by random allocation into treatment and placebo group. The treatment supplement contained HMR lignan, indole-3-carbinol, calcium glucarate, milk thistle, Schisandra chinesis and stinging nettle, and each woman consumed either treatment or placebo for 28 days. At day 0 and day 28, blood samples were analysed for serum enterolactone concentrations, and first morning random urine samples were assessed for estrogen metabolites. Repeated measures ANOVA statistical testing was performed. Results: In pre-menopausal women, treatment supplementation resulted in a significant increase (P , 0.05) in urinary 2-OHE concentrations and in the 2:16α-OHE ratio. In post-menopausal women, treatment supplementation resulted in a significant increase in urinary 2-OHE concentrations. In pre- and post-menopausal women combined, treatment supplementation produced a significant increase in urinary 2-OHE concentration and a trend (P = 0.074) toward an increased 2:16α-OHE ratio. There were no significant increases in serum enterolactone concentrations in the treatment or placebo groups. Conclusions: Supplementation with a mixture of indole-3-carbinol and HMR lignan in women significantly increased estrogen C-2 hydroxylation. This may constitute a mechanism for the reduction of breast cancer risk as well as risk for other estrogen-related cancers. Further studies with higher numbers of subjects are indicated. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov registration #NCT01089049.


Accounting for the interactions of light with heterogeneous, anisotropic, absorbing, optically active media is part of the characterization of complex, transparent materials. Stained biological structures in thin tissue sections share many of these features, but systematic optical analyses beyond the employ of the simple petrographic microscopes have not be established. Here, this accounting is made for polycrystalline, spherulitic bundles of twisted d-mannitol lamellae grown from melts containing light-absorbing molecules. It has long been known that a significant percentage of molecular crystals readily grow as helicoidal ribbons with mesoscale pitches, but a general appreciation of the commonality of these non-classical crystal forms has been lost. Helicoidal crystal twisting was typically assayed by analyzing refractivity modulation in the petrographic microscope. However, by growing twisted crystals from melts in the presence of dissolved, light-absorbing molecules, crystal twisting can be assayed by analyzing the dichroism, both linear and circular. The term "helicoidal dichroism" is used here to describe the optical consequences of anisotropic absorbers precessing around radii of twisted crystalline fibrils or lamellae. d-Mannitol twists in two polymorphic forms, α and δ. The two polymorphs, when grown from supercooled melts in the presence of a variety of histochemical stains and textile dyes, are strongly dichroic in linearly polarized white light. The bis-azo dye Chicago sky blue is modeled because it is most absorbing when parallel and perpendicular to the radial axes in the respective spherulitic polymorphs. Optical properties were measured using Mueller matrix imaging polarimetry and simulated by taking into account the microstructure of the lamellae. The optical analysis of the dyed, patterned polycrystals clarifies aspects of the mesostructure that can be difficult to extract from bundles of tightly packed fibrils.


Over the last decade, the installation and operation of extensive offshore wind farms led to a substantial increase in artificial substrates in the North Sea. Man-made structures (MMS) such as wind turbines, oil and gas rigs represent additional hard-substrate habitats in the areas of the North Sea that are predominantly characterized by soft sediments.
Research on large offshore structures has identified a suite of unique effects ranging from biodiversity changes with repercussions on local ecosystem functioning to the provision of habitat for fouling communities, acting as stepping stones also for non-native species. Consequently, MMS might induce structural, functional and process-driven changes over various spatial and temporal scales, that are different from those expected for natural soft-bottom benthic systems. However, our current understanding of how ecological functioning might be modified by the addition of these MMSs is still scarce.
Many ecosystem goods and services of the North Sea such as long-term carbon storage and natural resources (e.g. for fish, birds, mammals and finally humans) are intimately linked to the benthic system. Benthic invertebrates form the major food source for many commercially exploited fish species and thus the production (i.e. species energy that is turned into biomass) of benthic communities is of direct relevance for the food provisioning ecosystem service.
In this study, production was calculated based on species populations as a quantification of energy flow and trophic interactions. The obtained results may thus provide clear signals for status and possible responses of populations and entire ecosystems to the introduction of MMS. The analysis included different datasets from various monitoring programmes of offshore wind farms and oil and gas rigs (i.e. the production and biomass of fouling communities and of natural soft-bottom community) from the Southern North Sea over several years. We analysed production changes due to environmental parameters and the presence of the structures in a meta-analysis. The analysis revealed clear modifications in the upper parts of MMSs, where the highest production values and potential biomass export to soft bottoms were detected. The outcome may thus represent a first step to disentangle the potential effects of additional biomass discharge from MMS on the ecological functioning of benthic systems.


Current complex service systems are usually comprised of many other components which are often external services performing particular tasks. The quality of service (QoS) attributes such as availability, cost, response time are essential to determine usability and eciency of such system. Obviously, the QoS of such compound system is dependent on the QoS of its components. However, the QoS of each component is naturally unstable and di erent each time it is called due to many factors like network bandwidth, workload, hardware resource, etc. This will consequently make the QoS of the whole system be unstable. This uncertainty can be described and represented with probability distributions. This thesis presents an approach to calculate the QoS of the system when the probability distributions of QoS of each component are provided by service provider or derived from historical data, along with the structure of their compositions. In addition, an analyzer tool is implemented in order to predict the QoS of the given compositions and probability distributions following the proposed approach. The output of the analyzer can be used to predict the behavior of the system to be implemented and to make decisions based on the expected performance. The experimental evaluation shows that the estimation is reliable with a minimal and acceptable error measurement.


Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems are inadequate for conceptual design process particularly for sketching. Conventional paper sketching is commonly used for catching the initial inspirational imagination of designers. It is difficult for designers and decision-makers to understand stereoscopic impressions with a two-dimensional (2D) representation. Yet, such designs require a time-consuming process to replicate 2D sketches in computer, in three-dimensional (3D) form using one of the available CAD software. Hence, the demand for a system where the initial design process is performed directly in computer so that the design modifications and the format changes can be done efficiently has been increasing among designers. In this thesis, a free form conceptual design system that allows designers to perform conceptual design directly in computer is introduced. In this method, surfaces of products are created and modified directly and intuitively through control points in 3D space. The artist performs the design process freely and unconstraintly in 3D space by operating his/her hands wearing data gloves. In our system, conceptual design is simply realized in computer.


Differentiation of limiting nutrients within small spatial scales has been observed in coastal mangrove forests, but research on other tropical peatlands suggests it is a more widespread phenomenon. In the Changuinola mire of coastal Panama, oligotrophy was hypothesized to increase along a gradient of peat development (peat doming). Nutrient and carbon concentration of leaf tissue, soil, and soil porewater were characterised over a successive sequence of plant communities along the gradient. Soil phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) concentrations decreased from 1200 μg P g−1 and 27 mg N g−1 to 377 μg P g−1 and 22 mg N g−1 within 2.7 km into the mire interior. These changes coincided with an increase in soil and average leaf N:P molar ratios from 52–128 and 24–41, respectively. Soil P was strongly related to leaf P and soil N:P to foliar N:P. There was a wide range in δ15N values for canopy (4.0 to −9.4‰), Campnosperma panamense (4.0 to −7.8‰) and understorey (4.8 to −3.1‰) species. Foliar δ15N values of canopy species were strongly related to soil N:P, soil P and leaf P. The depleted foliar δ15N values appeared to be an effect of both the N atmospheric source and P limitation. Here, P limitation is likely associated with ombrotrophic conditions that developed as hydrologic inputs became dominated by precipitation.


This unique case study of Lake Okeechobee - a large, shallow and culturally eutrophic lake in south Florida - documents the effects of hurricanes on its water quality, sediment, phytoplankton and submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV). Three hurricanes (Frances and Jeanne in 2004 and Wilma in 2005) that swept directly over the lake led to a number of expected changes throughout the system: 1) high winds produced large seiches, strong waves and currents that redistributed bottom sediments and uprooted SAV and emergent macrophytes; 2) sediment disturbance resulted in increased suspended solids and nutrients in the water column, reduced Secchi transparency and affected SAV recovery, phytoplankton biomass and phytoplankton species dominance; and 3) heavy rainfall increased flows, nutrient loads and lake water levels. Changes in suspended solids, most nutrient concentrations, phytoplankton and SAV persisted for two years after the hurricanes. This persistence was attributed to unconsolidated surface sediment that increased in thickness because of the storms and was more easily resuspended during subsequent wind events. Drought conditions and low lake levels in the second year after the hurricanes led to some recovery of SAV, primarily in the form of the non-vascular musk grass (Chara spp.). The absence of high-intensity hurricanes in the near future should aid in SAV recovery and return the nearshore region to a macrophyte-dominated clear-water state. Our results demonstrate the importance of sediment disturbance and water levels in shallow lakes that are vulnerable to extreme weather events.


Virtual reality is the logical step that started way back in time with the appearance of the very first architectural drawing. This has been a long history of development: architectural drawings in Europe, which date back to the tenth century, were the first kind of abstraction that appeared virtually real to potential clients and builders—real enough to base decisions on. With the discovery of perspective techniques, drawings became more refined and developed into a form of art with numerous branches, ranging from technical drawings to presentation drawings. Wooden models appeared even before the Renaissance and were supplemented in the nineteenth century with cardboard models. Each new invention helped to improve the understanding of projects and architecture by reducing abstraction, while increasing the complexity of the representation (Schmitt, 1993). Toward the end of the twentieth century, the majority of architectural projects were and are never realized. Prominent projects, such as the new Berlin Government Centre, result in several hundred professional competition entries. With the advent of virtual reality (VR) techniques, architects will at first intensely criticise the new technology, before adopting and improving it, and they will modify it with domain specific contributions. The knowledge of architectural abstraction and simulation is useful to the further development of VR and vice versa. Today, the newest methodological and technical instruments help designers to create a more responsible architecture, many aspects of which can be experienced and tested before construction. This includes the possibility of expanding the number of senses addressed for the explanation of an architectural idea. To structure the discussion about VR in architecture, we first describe the theoretical framework, then move to the description of a Architectural Space Laboratory at the Architecture Department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zürich, and follow this with examples of program development. We conclude with speculations on the impact of the new technology on the architecture of the future.


THE EFFECT OF MENTAL MODELS AND EXPERTISE ON RUNNING MEMORY AND CLINICAL HANDOFF EFFECTIVENESS Brittany L. Anderson-Montoya Old Dominion University, 2015 Director: Dr. Mark W. Scerbo The goal of the present study was to examine the effects of mental models and expertise on the ability to process handoffs of information. In addition, the role of active or passive processing was examined. Three groups of participants participated, differing in their level of clinical expertise to represent a novice, intermediate, and expert population. Participants performed an abstract running memory span task and two tasks resembling real world activities, an air traffic control (ATC) handoff task, and a clinical handoff task. For all tasks list length and the amount of information to be recalled was manipulated. Further, in the ATC and the clinical handoff tasks, information was presented in an organized or unorganized sequence. Recall scores decreased as list length increased on all tasks. Regarding processing strategy, all participants used passive processing for the running memory span and ATC tasks. The novices also used passive processing for the clinical task. The experts, however, appeared to use more active processing as they recalled more relevant than irrelevant items. Irrelevant information negatively impacted all participants, resulting in lower handoff scores and decreased recall of relevant items. Regarding organization, experts had lower handoff scores for the clinical unorganized lists while intermediates and novices were not significantly affected. There was no effect of organization on the groups for the ATC task. Overall, the results indicated that individuals with clinical expertise and a developed mental model rely more on active processing of incoming information while individuals with little or no knowledge rely on passive processing. Further, presenting irrelevant information and unorganized information incongruent with a developed mental model can negatively impact performance.


New drivers, especially young new drivers, are over-represented in road collisions worldwide. This Insight Report reviews evidence for the effectiveness of post-licence driving experience, driver education and training, and limiting the exposure of new drivers to risk through graduated driver licensing (GDL) in lowering new-driver collisions. Increased post-licence driving experience is associated with considerable drops in collision risk, with the greatest benefits accruing in the earliest stages of post-licence driving. Driver education and training has little or no direct effect on the collision risk of new drivers. The exception to this is training that focuses on the cognitive skills involved in hazard perception or "reading the road". GDL has been shown to have considerable beneficial effects on the collision risk of new drivers, and the benefits are greatest for the youngest new drivers. It is recommended that all jurisdictions should consider some form of GDL, and a greater focus on the training of hazard-perception skills as part of driver licensing. Broader driver education and training should be relied upon to impart the basic vehicle-control skills required for access to the road system, and for encouraging safer attitudes to driving. However, it should not be expected to produce direct benefits in terms of lowering the collision risk of new drivers. Good-quality evaluation must form the basis of understanding what works, and what does not, in lowering the collision risk of new drivers. (A)


OBJECT
Resected brain metastases have a high rate of local recurrence without adjuvant therapy. Adjuvant whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) remains the standard of care with a local control rate > 90%. However, WBRT is delivered over 10-15 days, which can delay other therapy and is associated with acute and long-term toxicities. Permanent cesium-131 ((131)Cs) implants can be used at the time of metastatic resection, thereby avoiding the need for any additional therapy. The authors evaluated the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of a novel therapeutic approach with permanent (131)Cs brachytherapy at the resection for brain metastases.

METHODS
After institutional review board approval was obtained, 24 patients with a newly diagnosed metastasis to the brain were accrued to a prospective protocol between 2010 and 2012. There were 10 frontal, 7 parietal, 4 cerebellar, 2 occipital, and 1 temporal metastases. Histology included lung cancer (16), breast cancer (2), kidney cancer (2), melanoma (2), colon cancer (1), and cervical cancer (1). Stranded (131)Cs seeds were placed as permanent volume implants. The prescription dose was 80 Gy at a 5-mm depth from the resection cavity surface. Distant metastases were treated with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) or WBRT, depending on the number of lesions. The primary end point was local (resection cavity) freedom from progression (FFP). Secondary end points included regional FFP, distant FFP, median survival, overall survival (OS), and toxicity.

RESULTS
The median follow-up was 19.3 months (range 12.89-29.57 months). The median age was 65 years (range 45-84 years). The median size of resected tumor was 2.7 cm (range 1.5-5.5 cm), and the median volume of resected tumor was 10.31 cm(3) (range 1.77-87.11 cm(3)). The median number of seeds used was 12 (range 4-35), with a median activity of 3.82 mCi per seed (range 3.31-4.83 mCi) and total activity of 46.91 mCi (range 15.31-130.70 mCi). Local FFP was 100%. There was 1 adjacent leptomeningeal recurrence, resulting in a 1-year regional FFP of 93.8% (95% CI 63.2%-99.1%). One-year distant FFP was 48.4% (95% CI 26.3%-67.4%). Median OS was 9.9 months (95% CI 4.8 months, upper limit not estimated) and 1-year OS was 50.0% (95% CI 29.1%-67.8%). Complications included CSF leak (1), seizure (1), and infection (1). There was no radiation necrosis.

CONCLUSIONS
The use of postresection permanent (131)Cs brachytherapy implants resulted in no local recurrences and no radiation necrosis. This treatment was safe, well tolerated, and convenient for patients, resulting in a short radiation treatment course, high response rate, and minimal toxicity. These findings merit further study with a multicenter trial.


Background: Obesity has been identified an epidemic in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and yet the numbers of overweight and obese adults and children continue to grow. The disease is associated with several serious health conditions including: diabetes mellitus type 2, heart disease, high blood pressure, Cancer, Hypoxia, Sleep apnea, Hernia and Arthritis. Objectives: To assess the effect of obesity on other diseases like hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cholesterol levels, heart disease, insomnia, eating habits, exercise and family history of gout among university students. Materials and methods: This study was done among 300 students from different departments of the Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Albaha University. The descriptive analytical method was used which is based on the interview and observation and collection of information through a questionnaire. Results: The results showed hypertension in 11% of obese students, while 9% of them have diabetes mellitus. Further findings among these 300 students showed 7% high cholesterol level, 14% heart diseases, 20% sleep disorders, 85% do not exercise, 19% eats more than three times a day, 17% prefers fast food and 86% does not have meals with group, 15% of students have obesity in their families while 2% have the history of obesity related disease (gout). Conclusion: Obesity is the possible predictor of diseases like hypertension, diabetes and sleep related disorders among the university students.


The issue of missing data in supervised learning has been largely overlooked, especially in the deep learning community. We investigate strategies to adapt neural architectures to handle missing values. Here, we focus on regression and classification problems where the features are assumed to be missing at random. Of particular interest are schemes that allow to reuse as-is a neural discriminative architecture. One scheme involves imputing the missing values with learnable constants. We propose a second novel approach that leverages recent advances in deep generative modelling. More precisely, a deep latent variable model can be learned jointly with the discriminative model, using importance-weighted variational inference in an end-to-end way. This hybrid approach, which mimics multiple imputation, also allows to impute the data, by relying on both the discriminative and the generative model. We also discuss ways of using a pre-trained generative model to train the discriminative one. In domains where powerful deep generative models are available, the hybrid approach leads to large performance gains.


The paper describes a new macro-scale direct shear test device for assessing the large-displacement soil/solid interface drained shear strength at low effective normal stresses. The testing method arises from a need to obtain the interface friction between soils and pipelines under low effective normal stress levels, which is an important consideration in the design of pipelines laid on the sea bed. The test device is fundamentally similar to the conventional small-scale direct shear box device except for its large footprint that provides a plan interface shear area of 3 m2 (1.72 m by 1.75 m). The device is designed to impart displacement-controlled interface-shearing at displacement rates ranging from 0.0001 mm/s to 1 mm/s and with the ability to reach a maximum interface shear displacement of 1.2 m. The desired normal stress at the soil/solid interface is obtained using surcharge loads externally applied by means of bulk sand or water masses, or both in certain cases. The device is instrumented with transducers mounted flush with the top of the solid surface for the measurement of pore-water pressure at the shear interface. As a result, the device allows for accurate determination of the effective normal stress at the soil/solid interface during interface shear testing. The key features of this device are described, and the device capabilities are demonstrated using tests conducted on Fraser-River-sand/mild-steel, plastic-silt/epoxy-coated-mild-steel, non-plastic-silt/epoxy-coated-mild-steel, and kaolinite/epoxy-coated-mild-steel interfaces at effective normal stresses between 3 and 7 kPa. The results can be also used as benchmarks to justify possible modifications of the currently available small-scale apparatus to reliably measure interface shear strength at such low effective normal stresses.


Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (HOIPs) have recently emerged as highly promising solution-processable materials for photovoltaic (PV) and other optoelectronic devices. HOIPs represent a broad family of materials with properties highly tuneable by the ions that make up the perovskite structure as well as their multiple combinations. Interestingly, recent high-efficiency PV devices using HOIPs with substantially improved long-term stability have used combinations of different ionic compositions. The structural dynamics of these systems are unique for semiconducting materials and are currently argued to be central to HOIPs stability and charge-transport properties. Here, we studied the impact of ionic composition on phonon speeds of HOIPs from Brillouin spectroscopy experiments and density functional theory calculations for FAPbBr$_3$, MAPbBr$_3$, MAPbCl$_3$, and the mixed halide MAPbBr$_{1.25}$Cl$_{1.75}$. Our results show that the acoustic phonon speeds can be strongly modified by ionic composition, which we explain by analysing the lead-halide sublattice in detail. The vibrational properties of HOIPs are therefore tuneable by using targeted ionic compositions in the perovskite structure. This tuning can be rationalized with non-trivial effects, for example, considering the influence of the shape and dipole moment of organic cations. This has an important implication to further improvements in the stability and charge-transport properties of these systems.


Fundamental frequency (f0) is a highly speaker-specific feature. Consequently, practitioners often use f0 information in forensic casework. Current research principally examines the use of long-term f0 statistics such as f0 means and standard deviations for forensic voice comparison. The present study investigates how short-term f0 features such as measured by the Fujisaki intonation model capture speaker-individuality. Based on data of a homogeneous group of Zurich German speakers, we conducted an experiment on a large corpus of read speech and on a subset of sentences that included speaking style variability (spontaneous vs. read). The latter is characteristic of forensic casework. Speakers demonstrated high between-speaker variability and low within-speaker variability across the two speaking styles for a number of f0 features. Given this evidence of speaker-individuality, we discuss Fujisaki f0 features' potential for forensic voice comparison.


The helicity dependence of the two-electron photoemission from isotropic targets is analysed. As prototype reactions, we consider the double ionization of , , , and upon the absorption of a circularly polarized photon. Assuming the Coulomb field of the nucleus to be dominant over other involved interactions, we derive analytical expressions for the cross sections and their dependence on the photon helicity, i.e. for the circular dichroism in these cross sections. This analysis indicates that the cross sections and the circular dichroism are influenced in a markedly different manner by the interelectronic correlation. With increasing strength of the Coulomb nuclear field the cross section rapidly diminishes whilst the dichroism remains finite and its sign varies considerably with the nuclear charge. It is analytically concluded that the absence of the dichroism at certain `non-geometrical' points as well as at certain intermediate excess energies is a direct manifestation of the interelectronic correlation. At threshold and in the high-energy limit negligible dichroism is anticipated.


Tracer Technology-Octave Levenspiel 2011-11-18 The tracer method was first introduced to measure the actual flow of fluid in a vessel, and then to develop a suitable model to represent this flow. Such models are used to follow the flow of fluid in chemical reactors and other process units, in rivers and streams, and through soils and porous structures. Also, in medicine they are used to study the flow of chemicals, harmful or not, in the blood streams of animals and man. Tracer Technology, written by Octave Levenspiel, shows how we use tracers to follow the flow of fluids and then we develop a variety of models to represent these flows. This activity is called tracer technology.


Both district heating and solar collector systems have been known and implemented for many years. However, the combination of the two, with solar collectors supplying heat to the district heating network, is relatively new, and no comprehensive review of scientific publications on this topic could be found. Thus, this paper summarizes the literature available on solar district heating and presents the state of the art and real experiences in this field. Given the lack of a generally accepted convention on the classification of solar district heating systems, this paper distinguishes centralized and decentralized solar district heating as well as block heating. For the different technologies, the paper describes commonly adopted control strategies, system configurations, types of installation, and integration. Real‐world examples are also given to provide a more detailed insight into how solar thermal technology can be integrated with district heating. Solar thermal technology combined with thermally driven chillers to provide cooling for cooling networks is also included in this paper. In order for a technology to spread successfully, not only technical but also economic issues need to be tackled. Hence, the paper identifies and describes different types of ownership and financing schemes currently used in this field.


Over the past few decades, Côte d'Ivoire has been a passive and often problematic actor within its region. This has been the case since the death of the first president of the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, on 7 december 1993. under Houphouët-Boigny the country encouraged migration by opening up its borders to neighbouring countries and actively linking France to the region. However, after his death the country fell into a cycle of crises characterised by political and economic instability as a result of coups d'état and civil war. This saw the country's influence decline in west africa and beyond. Côte d'Ivoire's diplomacy and foreign policy is embedded in key documents such as the country's constitution, act 2007-669 and decree 2011-248. This is indicative of its aspirations as an influential political and economic actor in the region. since the election of President alassane Ouattara in 2011 Côte d'Ivoire has slowly re-emerged as a stable regional and international actor. The country has sought to improve relations with neighbouring states, focusing on the policy of 'good neighbourliness', which entails fostering regional stability and economic prosperity through dialogue. The country has re-established itself as a key player in regional forums such as ECOwas and the west african Economic and Monetary union. On a continental level, critics had predicted that relations between Côte d'Ivoire and south africa would sour due to former president Thabo Mbeki's support for laurent Gbagbo, Ouattara's predecessor. However, relations between the countries have remained stable, indicating Côte d'Ivoire's commitment to strengthening its regional and international diplomacy. However, the country also needs to strengthen its governance and economy, and improve the living standard of its people while more firmly establishing itself as an influential regional, continental and international actor.


ABSTRACT The class I epitope of streptococcal M protein is an epidemiological marker for acute rheumatic fever (ARF)-associated serotypes of group A streptococci and is recognized by anti-M protein monoclonal antibody (MAb) 10B6. Using MAb 10B6, we determined the relationship between the class I epitope of M protein and the α-helical coiled-coil protein myosin. MAb 10B6 reacted by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and Western blotting with human cardiac myosin and rabbit skeletal myosin and its heavy meromyosin (HMM) subfragment. Overlapping synthetic peptides of M5 protein were used to identify the region of M5 protein recognized by MAb 10B6. Two C repeat peptides (C2A and C3) containing the amino acid sequence KGLRRDLDASREAK reacted with MAb 10B6. Partial sequence identity, RRDL, was found in the HMM fragment of myosin, which reacted with MAb 10B6. However, not all peptides of M5 protein and myosin containing the RRDL sequence reacted with MAb 10B6. ARF sera and sera from uncomplicated pharyngitis (UNC) reacted with C repeat region peptides of M protein, while acute glomerulonephritis sera were not as reactive. Affinity-purified human antibody to peptide C3 reacted with myosin. The data demonstrate that the class I epitope of M protein is immunologically cross-reactive with myosin and the HMM subfragment, and antibodies to peptide C3 and myosin were present in ARF and UNC sera.


1. The effect of clonidine on the relationship between sympathetic nervous system activity and the state of sodium-volume balance was studied in 15 patients with essential hypertension and normal renal function (group 1) and in 14 patients with hypertension and mild to moderate renal failure (group 2). 2. Acutely, clonidine (200 μg) produced significant falls ( P P 3. Chronic therapy with clonidine also produced significant falls in mean blood pressure and plasma noradrenaline, but not in plasma renin activity or aldosterone. 4. Exchangeable sodium and plasma volume decreased significantly in patients of group 1 but not in patients of group 2. 5. The data indicate that sympathetic nerve activity may be important for the abnormal relationship between pressure and natriuresis in subjects with essential hypertension and normal renal function, but not in hypertensive subjects with impaired renal function.


Between the 1880s and 1910s, thousands of African Americans passed civil service exams and became employed in the executive offices of the federal government. However, by 1920, promotions to well-paying federal jobs had nearly vanished for black workers. Eric S. Yellin argues that the Wilson administration's successful 1913 drive to segregate the federal government was a pivotal episode in the age of progressive politics. Yellin investigates how the enactment of this policy, based on Progressives' demands for whiteness in government, imposed a color line on American opportunity and implicated Washington in the economic limitation of African Americans for decades to come.Using vivid accounts of the struggles and protests of African American government employees, Yellin reveals the racism at the heart of the era's reform politics. He illuminates the nineteenth-century world of black professional labor and social mobility in Washington, D.C., and uncovers the Wilson administration's progressive justifications for unraveling that world. From the hopeful days following emancipation to the white-supremacist "normalcy" of the 1920s, Yellin traces the competing political ideas, politicians, and ordinary government workers who created "federal segregation."


Dual-process theories hold that there are two distinct processing modes available for many cognitive tasks: one (type 1) that is fast, automatic and non-conscious, and another (type 2) that is slow, controlled and conscious. Typically, cognitive biases are attributed to type 1 processes, which are held to be heuristic or associative, and logical responses to type 2 processes, which are characterised as rule-based or analytical. Dual-system theories go further and assign these two types of process to two separate reasoning systems, System 1 and System 2 – a view sometimes described as 'the two minds hypothesis'. It is often claimed that System 2 is uniquely human and the source of our capacity for abstract and hypothetical thinking. This study is an introduction to dual-process and dual-system theories. It looks at some precursors, surveys key work in the fields of learning, reasoning, social cognition and decision making, and identifies some recent trends and philosophical applications.


The thesis is a study of male clerical workers in London between 1880 and 1914. It aims to examine the working conditions and experiences of clerks and to analyse organisational structures in the context of the changes that were taking place in the wider London office economy. Chief amongst these alterations was a growth in clerical numbers, an increase in the size of many offices, a more rational approach to office work with increased division of labour, and application of office machinery to clerical work, the rise of formal commercial education, and the introduction of women in large numbers into the office. Its chief aim is to measure the impact of these changes on clerical workers. Existing historiography has in the main argued that the effects of these changes were on the whole negative. This thesis argues that in the context of London these claims are unfounded. Incomes are shown to have increased rather than deteriorated. There is little sign of unemployment, lack of promotional opportunities, deskilling or a fundamental sense of disquiet amongst clerks. Female clerks and technology did not have a negative effect on male clerical workers. Indeed, the opposite appears to be the case. Rationalisation and an increased application of division of labour often led to specialisation. Technology often relieved clerks of performing repetitive and unskilled work and allowed them to concentrate on other, more demanding and rewarding areas. Women were chiefly employed in the lower tier of clerical work, and the near universal application of the marriage bar, which obliged female clerks to resign on marriage, meant that they posed no real competition to the future prospects of clerical worker. Although growth in companies did lead to more impersonal working relations, the introduction of company welfare such as pensions and paid holidays, and the establishment of sport and social clubs and staff magazines in many organisations did much to compensate for this. Overall, clerical work in London remained popular throughout the period and attracted recruits due to the economic stability it offered and the opportunities it gave for advancement.


Nanofluids are being evaluated as alternative heat transfer fluids, and thus their behavior during storage or low velocity applications in which natural convection can be significant has to be known and documented. Buoyancy induced flows in rectangular enclosures using nanofluids can be studied experimentally using thermocouples, thermistors, surface heat flux sensors, and ultrasound thermometry. The effects of the mass fraction concentration of nanoparticles, the enclosure aspect ratio, and the inclination have been studied experimentally, but more could be done. The opacity of nanofluids does not permit the use of particle image velocimetry, laser induced fluorescence, or any other means of flow visualization or visual temperature measurement of the local fluid temperature. However, the temperature field can be observed using a non-invasive method such as ultrasound thermometry. The experimental enclosure here was validated using water as the initial fluid; measured values of the local fluid temperature were compared with numerical simulations utilizing commercial software. Nanofluid mass fractions of 10% and 25% were used for comparative purposes to study the effects of concentration on the temperature field. Buoyancy force reversal effects were witnessed in both 10% and 25% concentrations. The nanofluid also prolonged the multicellular effects that occur in buoyancy inversion flows. A Rayleigh number inversion was observed with the 25% mass fraction nanofluid. The multicellular regime transitions to a boundary layer regime at about Ra = 1 × 107 when the aspect ratio is 2.625 and at about Ra = 2 × 108 when the aspect ratio is 1.000 for different concentrations of nanofluid. The observations could be physically explained. The current work confirms that temperature measurements of the flow field can be made to assess convective regimes and flow phenomena that induce significant temperature variations. The use of ultrasound thermometry is successfully demonstrated for opaque nanofluid.


Deep Neural Networks have been shown to succeed at a range of natural language tasks such as machine translation and text summarization. While tasks on source code (ie, formal languages) have been considered recently, most work in this area does not attempt to capitalize on the unique opportunities offered by its known syntax and structure. In this work, we introduce SmartPaste, a first task that requires to use such information. The task is a variant of the program repair problem that requires to adapt a given (pasted) snippet of code to surrounding, existing source code. As first solutions, we design a set of deep neural models that learn to represent the context of each variable location and variable usage in a data flow-sensitive way. Our evaluation suggests that our models can learn to solve the SmartPaste task in many cases, achieving 58.6% accuracy, while learning meaningful representation of variable usages.


In many descriptors, spatial intensity transforms are often packed into a histogram or encoded into binary strings to be insensitive to local misalignment and compact. Discriminative information, however, might be lost during the process as a trade-off. To capture the lost pixel-wise local information, we propose a new feature descriptor, Circular Center Symmetric-Pairs of Pixels (CCS-POP). It concatenates the symmetric pixel differences centered at a pixel position along various orientations with various radii; it is a generalized form of Local Binary Patterns, its variants and Pairs-of-Pixels (POP). Combining CCS-POP with existing descriptors achieves better face identification performance on FRGC Ver. 1.0 and FERET datasets compared to state-of-the-art approaches.


KEVIN J. HARTY, ed. The Vikings on Film: Essays on Depictions of the Nordic Middle Ages. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. Pp. viii, 228. ISBN: 978-0-7864-6044-1. $38.00 Kevin J. Harty is well known to readers of this journal. His King Arthur on Film: New Essays on Arthurian Cinema (1999) was reviewed in Arthuriana 10.1, 137-39 and the second edition of his Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays (2000) was reviewed in 13.2 (Summer 2003), 114-16. He also coined the phrase 'the "reel" Middle Ages,' which has gained some currency as a convenient way to refer to cinematic representations set in Medieval Europe. The current volume is in the same vein. However, this time the focus is on films which purportedly deal with the Viking incursions into Europe, c. 800-c. 1200, including those films in which Vikings are characters in a fantasy or science-fiction plot. It consists of an introduction by Harty followed by fourteen essays, concluding with a filmography on 'The Vikings on Film' (193-214). The anthology begins, as is appropriate, with a challenging and sophisticated analysis by Kathleen Coyne Kelly of The Vikings (1958), directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, and Janet Leigh. In my mind this is still the best film on the Vikings, despite its faults, and it serves as the template against which any number of Viking films can be compared and found wanting. Fleischer and Douglas (whose production company was involved in the film) had a commendable desire to produce an 'authentic' depiction of the Viking period and went to extraordinary lengths to achieve this. Nevertheless, they were involved in a Hollywood action film, not a documentary; that is, they were involved in creating a fantasy world to be consumed as entertainment with the goal of making money for the backers of the enterprise. Various incidents were invented for the film such as a fidelity test in which the mistress of Einar (Kirk Douglas), played by the German actress Almut Berg, is pinned to a board by her braids to be proven innocent if her (drunken) husband can cut her loose by throwing an axe at twenty paces. Other set pieces such as the game of running along the oars are attested to in the medieval sources. The script, based on the novel The Viking (1952) by Edison Marshall, also works remarkably well, focused as it is on the two half-brothers who do not know they are related and who are rivals for the same woman, Morgana (Janet Leigh), a Welsh princess captured on the high seas on her way to her nuptials with the current king of Northumbria, the usurper Aella. Kelly also has an interesting discussion of the casual violence in the film which still retains its powers to shock after more than half a century. Eric (Tony Curtis), the son of the Viking chieftain Ragnar (Ernest Borgnine), Einar's father, as the result of his rape of the queen of Northumbria, has been sent by his mother overseas to safety from king Aella, but is captured by Ragnar en route. He is now a slave, but he and Einar get under each other's skin, which culminates in Eric's setting his falcon on Einar who loses one of his eyes and is scarred on his face (his father thinks this is highly amusing). Kelly discusses the consequences of this limited vision on Einar's behavior but fails to note that this also makes the one-eyed Einar a type of Oðin. Later in the film, king Aella cuts off one of Eric's hands as punishment for having given his sword to Ragnar so that he can die with honor as he is pushed into a pit filled with wolves. Eric is now a Týr figure (the Norse god who lost his hand in the mouth of the wolf, Fenrir) and this gives the final duel between the two half-brothers an almost mythical quality. Violence of this magnitude on screen was not permitted by the Production Code Association (PCA), the industry watchdog. Films were seen by the industry as wholesome family entertainment, and it was the job of the PCA to ensure that such was the case. Kelly provides many fascinating details of the exchanges between Fleischer and the censor, Geoffrey Shurlock, the president of the PCA, and the compromises which ensued-one of them being the deletion of an episode where Einar was to bathe with six naked maidens in a barrel of beer, a scene that maybe never was intended in the first place. …


A method of producing a soybean-based biomaterial which is suitable for use in a biomedical product, the method comprising: defatting soy flour; either prior to or at the same time as, performing a solvent extraction; to produce a biomaterial comprising variable levels of soy proteins, carbohydrates and isoflavones. The resulting biomaterials have a range of biomedical uses and are particularly desirable because of their isoflavone content. Examples of biomedical products containing the biomaterials include wound dressings; scaffolds for tissue engineering; fillers or implants for use in surgery; temporary barriers for use in dental or surgical procedures or to prevent post-surgical tissue adherence; carriers for the delivery of drugs, bioactive peptides or plasmids; anti-inflammatory agents; coatings for wound dressings or for dental, medical, surgical or veterinary devices or implants; and compositions for soothing skin or gum irritation.


The International Civil Aviation Organization (2005) Global Operational Concept proposes significant changes to the organization and delivery of air traffic management (ATM) services in the next 15 years. The aim of this article is to envisage the potential impact that these changes could have on the organization of work, the allocation of roles and responsibilities, and the demands that are placed on the people in those roles. The analysis is carried out using an abstraction hierarchy, analyzing the changes in the purpose and priorities of the future ATM system, the functions that it performs, the way that these functions might be allocated, and the types of displays and decision support tools that people will require to carry out these functions.


We propose a sequential learning policy for noisy discrete global optimization and ranking and selection (R&S) problems with high dimensional sparse belief functions, where there are hundreds or even thousands of features, but only a small portion of these features contain explanatory power. Our problem setting, motivated by the experimental sciences, arises where we have to choose which experiment to run next. Here the experiments are time-consuming and expensive. We derive a sparse knowledge gradient (SpKG) decision policy based on the `1-penalized regression Lasso to identify the sparsity pattern before our budget is exhausted. This policy is a unique and novel hybrid of Bayesian R&S with a frequentist learning approach. Theoretically, we provide the error bound of the posterior mean estimate, which has shown to be at the minimax optimal p s log p/n rate. Controlled experiments on both synthetic data and real application for automatically designing experiments to identify the structure of an RNA molecule show that the algorithm e ciently learns the correct set of nonzero parameters. It also outperforms several other learning policies.


Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a rapid, in vitro deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis process, which can amplify up to a billion copies of a given nucleic acid target. It has been extensively applied for the identification, detection and diagnosis of genetic and infectious disease. In the article, we provide a general overview of the PCR process, describe methods to identify and minimize exogenous contamination, and highlight limitations of product size and polymerase-dependent errors. We present many of the applications for which PCR is used, particularly in creating recombinant DNA constructs, in detecting genetic variation, in preparing templates for DNA sequence analysis and in quantitating gene transcripts or viral copies. Whole genome amplification and the ligation chain reaction are also presented, which we believe this article provides the reader with a comprehensive viewpoint of the variety of amplification-based methods used in molecular biology today.

Key Concepts

Polymerase chain reaction is an in vitro amplification method widely used in molecular biology.

PCR contamination can occur from a single molecule of foreign or exogenous DNA, which, if gone unchecked, can confound the interpretation of results.

PCR cloning of full-length genes can be problematic because mutations can result in amino acid substitutions in wild-type sequences.

PCR can reliably amplify target sizes up to 3–4 kb from a variety of source materials.

Recombinant PCR products can be created by mismatching sequences between the primer and the template DNA or by adding 5′ exogenous sequences to the primers.

PCR can detect human genetic variation associated with hereditary disease and cancer.

Degenerate PCR is a powerful tool for identifying novel gene family members that are important in drug development.

Quantitative PCR has been widely used for studying gene expression and estimating viral copy number.

Emulsion PCR is used to prepare templates in a cell-free system for next-generation sequencing platforms.

Whole genome amplification uses the highly processive φ29 DNA polymerase to amplify nanogram quantities of precious samples into microgram amounts.

Keywords:

polymerase chain reaction;
PCR;
Taq DNA polymerase;
multiplex PCR;
emulsion PCR;
whole genome amplification


Objective:To compare a strategy of combination therapy with a strategy of monotherapy with broad-spectrum antibiotics for suspected late ventilator-associated pneumonia. Design:Randomized trial. Setting:Twenty-eight intensive care units in Canada and the United States. Patients:The study included 740 mechanically ventilated patients who developed suspected ventilator-associated pneumonia after 96 hrs in the intensive care unit. Patients known to be colonized or infected with Pseudomonas or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or who were immunocompromised were excluded from the study. Interventions:As initial unblinded therapy, patients were allocated to receive meropenem (1 g every 8 hrs) and ciprofloxacin (400 mg every 12 hrs) or meropenem alone. Before starting antibiotics, patients were also randomized to bronchoalveolar lavage with quantitative cultures or endotracheal aspirates. When culture results were available, physicians were encouraged to adjust antibiotics. Adequacy of antibiotics was defined as the organism present in the enrollment culture having in vitro susceptibility to one or more of the study antibiotics. Measurements and Main Results:Baseline characteristics and etiologies of ventilator-associated pneumonia were similar in the two groups. There was no difference in 28-day mortality between the combination and monotherapy groups (relative risk = 1.05, 95% confidence interval 0.78–1.42, p = .74). Duration of intensive care unit and hospital stay, clinical and microbiological treatment response, emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, isolation of Clostridium difficile in stool, and fungal colonization were also similar in the two groups. In a subgroup of patients who had infection due to Pseudomonas species, Acinetobacter species, and multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli at enrollment (n = 56), the adequacy of initial antibiotics (84.2% vs. 18.8%, p < .001) and microbiological eradication of infecting organisms (64.1% vs. 29.4%, p = .05) was higher in the combination group compared with the monotherapy group, but there were no differences in clinical outcomes. Conclusions:For critically ill patients who have suspected late ventilator-associated pneumonia and who are at low risk for difficult-to-treat Gram-negative bacteria, monotherapy is associated with similar outcomes compared with combination therapy. For those patients at high risk of difficult-to-treat Gram-negative bacteria, combination therapy is safe and may be associated with better microbiological and clinical outcomes.


Tetrachloroethene (PCE) is a major groundwater pollutant as a result of extensive use and spillage since 80 years. Several obligate anaerobic bacteria have the ability of using chlorinated aliphatic compounds as terminal electron acceptor in a process called dehalorespiration. Lines of investigation such as the maturation of the reductive dehalogenase and the identification of the respiratory chain components are currently being studied with Desulfitobacterium hafniense strain TCE1 as model organism. The pce gene cluster containing the gene pceA encoding the key enzyme in dehalorespiration, PCE reductive dehalogenase, is embedded in a composite transposon. Additional genes present are pceB, pceT and pceC as well as tatA1, a putative gene of the Twin-Arginine Translocation (Tat) system. PceA is the actual catalytic subunit containing a corrinoid cofactor and two iron-sulfur clusters, and PceB is possibly functioning as membrane anchor for PceA. PceA is synthesized in an immature form containing a twin-arginine signal peptide with the conserved motif RRxFLK that is found in a class of complex redox proteins exported to or across the cytoplasmic membrane by the Tat system. Overexpressed PceA was used for the preparation of anti-PceA antibodies and a combination of cell fractionation, proteinase K mediated proteolysis, and Western blot analyses, was applied for the localization of PceA. The gene pceT is encoding a putative trigger factor possibly involved in correct folding of PceA. However, PceT is missing the typical N-terminal domain constituting the ribosome-binding domain of trigger factor. Experiments with mutant strains of Escherichia coli lacking the trigger factor will be carried out in order to get experimental evidence on the proposed function of pceT. Additional missing links of the dehalorespiratory chain were investigated by two-dimensional proteomic analysis. Membrane proteins were extracted from cells cultivated on lactate or hydrogen as electron donor in combination with fumarate or PCE as terminal electron acceptor. Preliminary results revealed the presence of PceA as the most induced protein when strain TCE1 grows on PCE. Moreover proteins predicted to function as ABC-type transporters, a CO dehydrogenase and especially a sulfur transferase (rhodanese-like protein) are also strongly induced, but their dedicated role in PCE dehalorespiration remains to be elucidated.


This contribution aims to outline the main ways in which solidarity is elicited in nineteenth-century narratives of ocean crossings. In addition to materials transcribed for the Corpus of Nineteenth-century Scottish Correspondence (19CSC) and those available in the Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing (CMSW), my analysis will take into consideration Robert Louis Stevenson's The Amateur Emigrant (1895) and Edmondo De Amicis's Sull'oceano (1889), in order to compare texts written by authors of varying levels of education, both in English and in Italian. Special attention will be given to the representation of dialogue and personalization strategies; the methodological framework of corpus-based discourse studies will combine with recent approaches to historical pragmatics and sociolinguistics, especially in relation to 'language history from below'.


Calcium‐aluminum‐rich inclusions (CAIs) are the first solid materials formed in the solar nebula. Among them, ultrarefractory inclusions are very rare. In this study, we report on the mineralogical features and oxygen isotopic compositions of minerals in a new ultrarefractory inclusion CAI 007 from the CV3 chondrite Northwest Africa (NWA) 3118. The CAI 007 inclusion is porous and has a layered (core–mantle–rim) texture. The core is dominant in area and mainly consists of Y‐rich perovskite and Zr‐rich davisite, with minor refractory metal nuggets, Zr,Sc‐rich oxide minerals (calzirtite and tazheranite), and Fe‐rich spinel. The calzirtite and tazheranite are closely intergrown, probably derived from a precursor phase due to thermal metamorphism on the parent body. The refractory metal nuggets either exhibit thin exsolution lamellae of Fe,Ni‐dominant alloy in Os,Ir‐dominant alloy or are composed of Os,Ir,Ru,Fe‐alloy and Fe,Ni,Ir‐alloy with troilite, scheelite, gypsum, and molybdenite. The later four phases are apparently secondary minerals. The Zr,Sc,Y‐rich core is surrounded by a discontinuous layer of closely intergrown hibonite and spinel. The CAIs are rimmed by Fe‐rich spinel and Al‐rich diopside. Perovskite has high concentrations of the most refractory rare earth elements (REEs) but is relatively depleted in the moderately refractory and volatile REEs, consistent with the ultrarefractory REE pattern. Based on this unusual Zr,Sc,Y‐rich mineral assemblage, the layered distribution in CAI 007, and the REE concentrations in perovskite, we suggest that CAI 007 is an ultrarefractory inclusion of condensation origin. In CAI 007, hibonite, spinel, and probably Al‐rich diopside are 16O‐rich (Δ17O ~–22‰) whereas perovskite and davisite are 16O‐poor (Δ17O ~–3‰). Such oxygen isotope heterogeneity suggests that the UR inclusion formed in the various degrees of 16O‐rich nebular setting or was originally 16O‐rich and then experienced oxygen isotope exchange with 16O‐poor fluid on the CV3 chondrite parent body.


This thesis is focused on CuO/CeO2 catalysts for the preferential oxidation of CO in H2 rich mixtures (CO PROX). After a brief introduction of the general problem (energy production with novel processes or raw materials, fuel cells) and a more detailed description of the CO PROX unit in a fuel processor in order to deliver to fuel cells a CO-free H2-containing stream. An overview of most representative and interesting catalytic systems proposed or utilised for the process has been also presented, before introducing the properties and the motivation of the choice of investigating catalysts based on copper oxide supported on ceria (or mixed ceria-zirconia).
Results of catalytic tests carried out under experimental conditions in the range of interest for applications show that an increase of redox properties of catalyst obtained by supporting CuO on Ce-Zr mixed oxide is not directly linked to higher activity, the optimal catalyst formulation found corresponds to 4wt% CuO/CeO2, whose performances appear higher than commercially available Pt based catalysts. The catalyst is very selective (100% up to about 100°C, about 60-80% at higher temperatures), the selectivity is a unique function of temperature, slightly depending on the CO/H2 ratio, on O2 partial pressure and on the presence of CO2 and H2O in the gas. The kinetics has been modelled by considering reactions of both CO and H2 oxidation. The experimental data have been fitted by rate expressions based on LH (or Eley-Rydeal) reaction mechanism decribing the interaction between surface oxygen species and adsorbed CO or gas phase CO. For both reactions of CO and H2 oxidation a weak dependence on O2 partial pressure has been found, while the competitive adsorption with reactants of CO2 and H2O on the active sites limits th CO conversuion in the range of lower temperatures.
The analysis of the redox properties evidenced that CO is a stronger reductant than H2 for catalyst sites. Indeed CO strongly interacts with completely oxidized sites already at room temperature, while hydrogen adsorbs exclusively on a pre-reduced sample. The re-oxidation rate of the active sites is faster than the hydrogen oxidation up to a temperature of 100°C, thus in this region the hydrogen oxidation does not take place and 100% selectivity is found for CO PROX process. The catalytic sites active in this temperature range (from room temperature up to 100°C) have been identified with TPR/TPD/TPO experiments with highly dispersed copper particles strongly interacting with ceria. Indeed it is strongly suggested that ceria also participates to redox processes already at very low temperatures and the sites at the borderline between ceria and copper have been identified as the main responsible for the activity and high selectivity in the process. At a temperature higher than 150°C CuO clusters are more active in the hydrogen oxidation, thus decreasing the overall efficiency of the CO PROX process.


Although there has been increased knowledge about the molecular biology of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), little is known about thymic carcinoids and even less about those with excessive hormone disorders, such as ectopic ACTH syndrome. This study was designed to gain insights into the molecular networks underlying the tumorigenesis of thymic carcinoids with ACTH secretion. By an approach integrating cDNA microarray and methods of computational biology, we compare gene expression profile between ACTH-producing thymic carcinoids and the normal thymus. In total, there are 63 biological categories increased and 108 decreased in thymic carcinoids. Cell proliferation was stimulated, which may explain the relatively uncontrolled cell growth of the tumor. Dysregulation of the Notch-signaling pathway was likely to be underlying the neuroendocrine features of this type of tumors. Moreover, inhibition of immunity and increased neuropeptide signaling molecules (POMC and its sorting molecule CPE) made the clinical manifestation reasonable and thus validated the array data. In conclusion, thymic carcinoids have a distinct gene expression pattern from the normal thymus, and they are characterized by deregulations of a series of biofunctions, which may be involved in the development of NETs. Hence, this study has provided not only a detailed comprehension of the molecular pathogenesis of thymic carcinoids with ectopic ACTH syndrome, but also a road map to approach thymic NETs at the system level.


Real data are often with multiple modalities or from multiple heterogeneous sources, thus forming so-called multi-view data, which receives more and more attentions in machine learning. Multi-view clustering (MVC) becomes its important paradigm. In real-world applications, some views often suffer from instances missing. Clustering on such multi-view datasets is called incomplete multi-view clustering (IMC) and quite challenging. To date, though many approaches have been developed, most of them are offline and have high computational and memory costs especially for large scale datasets. To address this problem, in this paper, we propose an One-Pass Incomplete Multi-view Clustering framework (OPIMC). With the help of regularized matrix factorization and weighted matrix factorization, OPIMC can relatively easily deal with such problem. Different from the existing and sole online IMC method, OPIMC can directly get clustering results and effectively determine the termination of iteration process by introducing two global statistics. Finally, extensive experiments conducted on four real datasets demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed OPIMC method.


Research synthesis provides the methodological and statistical tools for the scientific integration of results of ecological research, and consists of methods and standards for systematic review and meta-analysis. Systematic reviews use scientific approaches for searching and selecting publications, and meta-analyses provide the statistical tools to quantitatively summarise study results. These tools can be used to synthesise the outcomes from many different kinds of ecological studies, including both experimental and observational studies taken from published literature, and the outcomes of studies conducted across different systems by coordinated research groups. Based on the rationale for such synthesis efforts, the article presents the types of effect sizes used as well as statistical analyses to test hypotheses.

Key Concepts

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are essential for generalising the outcomes of ecological, conservation and evolutionary studies.
Meta-analysis is the basis for evidence-based decisions and conclusions in conservation and fundamental ecology
Systematic review is a set of scientific methods for searching, inclusion and reporting results in research syntheses.
Meta-analysis provides the statistical methods for the quantitative synthesis of the results of different studies.
Meta-analytic methods offer ways to model and account for heterogeneity in the outcomes of different studies
Meta-analyses offer the potential to resolve apparent discrepancies in study results and to reconcile longstanding scientific controversies
Meta-analysis has altered the way ecologists and evolutionary biologists develop general insights beyond the specific contexts of individual studies.

Keywords:

quantitative synthesis;
meta-analysis;
community ecology;
effect sizes;
statistical methods;
review techniques


In this thesis, I investigate the nature of circumstellar material around massive young stellar objects
(MYSOs). I make extensive use of spatially-resolved observations, and examine spatial structure at
scales ranging from tens of astronomical units up to nearly a parsec.
In the first of three scientific studies presented in this thesis, I present the results of a survey to
observe MYSO candidates with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer at mid-infrared wavelengths,
using the MIDI instrument. I consider the properties of this sample of 20 objects as a whole, and address
the sources individually.
In the second study, I focus on the well-known MYSO IRAS 13481-6124. By combining interferometric
data from both near- and mid-infrared wavelengths, I derive a temperature profile for the circumstellar
disk around this object, which I discuss in the context of theoretical disk models.
In the third study, I examine the high-luminosity source AFGL 4176 at wavelengths of 1 mkm–1 mm. I construct one-dimensional radiative transfer models of the envelope, and interpret the interferometric observations in terms of a parameterized disk model.
The observations and results presented in this thesis will be of use to future studies of MYSOs, both theoretical and observational, and provide an important groundwork for observations of such objects with the next generation of interferometric instruments at the Very Large Telescope.


The so-called 'Leiden Manuscript', the collection of Turkic and Mongolic glossaries titled Kitāb Majmūʿ Turjumān Turkī wa-ʿAjamī wa-Muğalī wa-Fārsī, has a yet undeciphered inscription on f. 75b. In this article, the author identifies the script of the inscription as a type of Coptic cursive numerals called ḥurūf al-zimām, which was primarily in use in Egypt for accounting purposes. The consecutive numbers and multiples of 10 and 100 in the inscription may indicate that they were written for practicing numerical letters by someone who had nothing to do with the creation or the copying of the manuscript. The use of zimām numerals in the inscription indicates that the manuscript may have existed in Egypt, and this strengthens the theory advanced by M.Th. Houtsma that the manuscript was created there. Yemen is another possible place of origin of the manuscript due to the close relationship of the Rasūlid dynasty with the Mamlūk sultanate and the fact that some documents with zimām numerals have been found there.


In geophysics and planetary science, it is important to understand the shock devolatilization process of minerals as these represent key elements in our understanding of the formation and evolution of atmosphere and ocean.

Shock vaporization experiments were carried out for porous (70% crystal density) anhydrite and porous (54% crystal density) up to 76 and 19 GPa, respectively. Velocity histories of aluminum-LiF window interface, which were driven by the vapor, were measured using velocity interferometer. Incipient and complete vaporization of CaSo4 and CaCO3 criteria have been obtained through thermodynamic calculations in which chemical dissociation or shock melting is taken into account. The incipient and complete vaporization pressures are 81±7 and 155±13 GPa for crystal anhydrite, and 27±1 and 67±6 GPa for porous anhydrite. For porous calcite, the incipient and complete vaporization pressure are 5.4±1.9 and 14.6±3.8 GPa, respectively. For crystal calcite, they are 54±6 and 103±12 GPa, respectively.

One-dimensional numerical simulation was used to simulate the measured velocity profiles. The vaporized products can be described by equation, P=(γ-1)ρE, where γ varied as pressure changes.

Using the new criteria, the amount of degassed carbon and sulfur have been estimated from Chicxulub impact and their effects on the global temperature have been calculated and discussed. The global warming caused by the degassed CO2 is 0.2-1.1°C and the degassed SO2 may caused a global cooling of is 8.5-16°C.

Shock temperature measurements place constraints on high-pressure equation-of-states, permit detection and quantification of phase transformations.

A high-sensitivity (24 mv/µW @850nm ), time-resolved six-channel pyrometer has been designed and constructed and used in shock temperature measurements. Due to the high gain of the system, small mineral samples (~5 mm in diameter) can be used in shock temperature experiments. Thermal conductivities of LiF and Al2O3 were measured, for the first time, using this new system, their values are 2-3 orders of magnitude less than theoretical values.


This paper is the summary report of a seminar which was held at
the Institute for Development Studies from 2 to 19 June 1976, The seminar
was sponsored by USAID through a contract to Cornell University in Ithaca,
New York. Participants were government officers and employees of nongovernment
agencies from ten English-speaking African countries whose
responsibilities are clearly related to nutrition planning and policy making.
The report includes short summaries of the sessions conducted
by the seminar staff members. Some of these sessions were devoted to the
salient nutritional problems of Africa and their complex causes, to sociocultural
factors that influence the condition and its alleviation, and to
the basic economic considerations relating to the cause and control of
malnutrition and food shortages. However, much more time was devoted to
planning and policy relating to nutrition. The participants formed working
groups and prepared short reports on nutrition planning for Tanzania's
Ujamaa villages, on nutrition activities and goals in Kenya, on increased
wheat consumption and the trend toward bottle feeding in West Africa, and
on nutrition actitivities in the Sudan. The working group reports are also
included in this paper.


As the profiles of colleges and universities have changed due to the influx of adult, international, and part-time students, institutions of higher learning have faced difficulties in developing students' character. With the diverse interests, schedules, needs, and backgrounds of today's students, maintaining personal contact with each student can be difficult. Dalton and Crosby (2006) recommended that institutions provide collegiate experiences that promote the values of honesty, fairness, compassion, and respect for others as a vehicle for teaching character. These scholars espoused that infusing these values in academic and co-curricular programs promotes principled reflection and decision-making. Employing a constructivist research paradigm, the purpose of this study was to understand how the environment for character education is established at a historically Black institution and how students experience it. This case study also examined the role of the president in establishing this climate and the encounters of a group of students related to character. By considering the perceptions and reflections of these students, educators can better understand how the in-class and out-of-class experiences of students influence their ethical growth and development. Institutional documents and speeches of the executive officer were analyzed, along with the transcripts of semi-structured and group interviews. There were a total of 20 student participants. Fourteen respondents were interviewed individually and six participated in a focus group. Results indicated that institutional mission and clearly communicated community standards influenced character development among participants. Courses, convocations, study abroad, and campus leadership were among the character building experiences discussed by informants. Additionally, students cited the president, staff, faculty, and fellow students as contributing to their ethical education. Findings suggest that character is not permanently engaged when students come to campus and that college experiences do influence the development of the value systems of students.


Coding systems is the assignment of symbols such as letters and numbers to provide specific identification of an object. Effective code provide unique and concise information of an object. In many cases, coding is used for making classification schemes that is useful for accounting systems. A coding systems consist of character set that is symbols that are used to define something. Accountants commonly use coding systems when they design chart of accounts.


An approach for computer perception of outdoor scenes is presented. The approach is based on integrating information extracted from thermal images and visual images, which provides information not available by processing either type of image alone. The thermal image is analyzed to provide estimates of surface temperature. The visual image provides surface absorptivity and relative orientation. These parameters are used together to provide estimates of heat fluxes at the surfaces of viewed objects. The thermal behavior of scene objects is described in terms of surface heat fluxes. Features based on estimated values of surface heat fluxes are shown to be more meaningful and specific in distinguishing scene components. >


We demonstrate the ability to simulate complex flows of entangled polymer melts using a high-fidelity slip-link model. Given the strong connections of the underlying molecular model to an atomistic description, nearly ab initio predictions of complex processing are feasible. Moreover, the method retains sufficient information which might allow extraction of detailed polymer chain conformations imposed by the flow. The macroscopic transport equations are solved using smoothed-particle hydrodynamics consistently with the stresses calculated using stochastic simulation of an ensemble of polymer chains in each particle. The polymer model uses only a single adjustable parameter whose value is determined from equilibrium stress relaxation. All other parameters are determined from atomistic simulation. Thereafter, nonlinear rheology predictions are made without any parameter adjustment. As a demonstration, we simulate journal-bearing flow of a moderately entangled polymer. Although the flows considered here are two dimensional, the required computational resources demonstrate that three dimensional flow calculations are accessible.


Building Information Modeling (BIM) has made a considerable impact on the construction industry and the way in which building design information can be accessed and interrogated. This impact is now being seen in the Schools of Architecture in the UK. Academia is beginning to see the feasibility and benefits of converting to such a new technology; will this inevitably start to filter into teaching BIM to architecture students? The concern by many in academia is that design will become secondary to pedagogy of building design. This viewpoint is based on the impact of CAD, where the art of hand drawing was feared lost forever. The use of computers in schools of architecture has become the norm, and the creative moving of a pen across paper has been replaced, to a degree, by the cursor across the CAD screen. As academia moved to respond to this change, the need to teach CAD became increasingly important. Therefore, will the paradigm shift of BIM require the inevitable move to a new approach in the design and construction of buildings? There are many misconceptions of BIM and the dilemma is that those teaching within the schools need to understand how BIM can readily interface with the design process and allow interrogation of the design are far earlier stages of the concept. Will academia ensure that BIM is used to enhance the creative process not hinder it?


Regular large-scale edifice collapse and regrowth is a common pattern during the long lifespans of andesitic stratovolcanoes worldwide. The >130 k.y. history of Mount Taranaki, New Zealand, is punctuated by at least 14 catastrophic collapses, producing debris avalanche deposits of 1 to >7.5 km 3 . The largest of these sudden events removed as much as one-third of the present-day equivalent cone. The resulting deposits show similar sedimentary and geomorphic features, suggesting similar proto-edifice characteristics, failure trigger mechanisms, and runout path conditions. Each collapse was followed by sustained renewed volcanism and cone regrowth, although there are no matching stepwise geochemical changes in the magma erupted; instead a stable, slowly evolving magmatic system has prevailed. Last Glacial climatic variations are also uncorrelated with the timing or magnitudes of edifice collapse. We demonstrate here that, if the magmatic composition erupted from stratovolcanoes is constant and basement geology conditions are stable, large-scale edifice collapse and the generation of catastrophic debris avalanches will be governed by the magma supply rate. Using a mass balance approach, a volume-frequency model can be applied to forecasting both the probable timing and volume of future edifice failure of such stratovolcanoes. In the Mount Taranaki case, the maximum potential size of a present collapse is estimated to be 7.9 km 3 , while the maximum interval before the next collapse is 3 ).


pISSN: 2093-940X, eISSN: 2233-4718 Copyright c 2015 by The Korean College of Rheumatology. All rights reserved. This is a Free Access article, which permits unrestricted non-commerical use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Clinical Image Journal of Rheumatic Diseases Vol. 22, No. 5, October, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.4078/jrd.2015.22.5.332


Chromatographic separation of the methanol extract of Garcinia mangostana (mangosteen, Guttiferae) dried pericarps led to the isolation and structural characterization of a new xanthone, namely garcimangostin A (5), together with garcixanthone A (1), gartanin (2), normangostin (3), and garcinone C (4). Their structural characterization was achieved using various NMR spectroscopic tools as well as HRMS. Their α-amylase inhibitory (AAI) potential was assessed. It is noteworthy that 5 had the most potent inhibitory effect with % inhibition 94.1 compared to acarbose (96.7%). Moreover, the molecular modeling studies were estimated. The observed scoring results correlated to those results of the AAI assay. Interestingly, 5 was completely fitting with acarbose structure and a superimposition of acarbose complexed structure with 5 in the enzyme binding site was observed. The AAI activity of 5 could be attributed to the xanthone moiety insertion in the active site of the enzyme via H-bonds network and pi-pi interactions. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Garcinia mangostana is a widely consumed fruit for its unique pleasant aroma and sweet taste. Also, it contains valuable nutritious compounds that are advantageous for human body. It is used as various traditional medicines for treating several ailments such as skin infection, hyperkeratosis, eczema, wounds, psoriasis, amebic dysentery, cholera, diarrhea, and suppuration. The findings of this work can demonstrate the significant AAI potential of G. mangostana xanthones. Therefore, mangosteen as a functional food could help in lowering the postprandial glucose absorption and identifying lead compounds from α-amylase inhibition for the treatment and/or prevention of diabetes and obesity.


In order to face the new competitive scenario, Apulian textile firms are involved in a process of change and are trying to adopt a networking approach in analysing the international propensity of SMEs. The case of the textile network in Apulia has been analysed using a semi-structured questionnaire submitted to a sample of family businesses in order to verify the influence of network on their internationalisation process. The contribution that the network can give to the single firm in its internationalisation process depends also on the level of cooperation in the network. In fact, relationships – at least dual vertical relationships – are the key to overcoming size limit and providing value to all the partners involved. The research attempted to offer a better academic understanding of the role of network in international competitive advantage. Future research should be based on cross countries analysis, in order to determine whether or not the set of internal determinants of internationalisation pensity remain stable from one country to another. The findings should also be useful to local governance for a better understanding of the network phenomenon in order to develop appropriate programmes for training and supporting SMEs in the global market. This paper provides a wide analysis of the network role in the internationalisation process in a low technology sector.


We consider a single-asset investment fund that in the absence of transactions costs would hold a constant amount of wealth in the risky asset. In the presence of market frictions wealth is allowed to fluctuate within a control band: Its upper (lower) boundary is chosen so that gains (losses) from adjustments to the target minus (plus) fixed plus proportional transaction costs maximize (minimize) a power utility function. We compare stochastic impulse control policies derived via ergodic and discounted optimization criteria. For the solution of the ergodic problem we use basic tools from the theory of diffusions whereas the discounted problem is solved after being characterized as a system of quasi-variational inequalities. For both versions of the problem, derivation of the control bands pertains to the numerical solution of a system of nonlinear equations. We solve numerous such systems and present an extensive comparative sensitivity analysis with respect to the parameters that characterize investor's preferences and market behavior.


Recent scientific studies by researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) presented the worst-case explosion pressures that can develop if a methane-air mixture of a certain composition and dimension accumulates and ignites within a sealed area of a mine. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) issued its final rule on sealing of abandoned areas which considers potential explosion pressures and the risk of achieving the necessary conditions. The new MSHA seals regulation has increased the pressure design criteria an order of magnitude beyond the old standard of 140 kPa (20 psi) to 800 kPa (120 psi). However, there still are major knowledge gaps pertaining to seals and sealed areas including: (1) the composition of the sealed area atmosphere and how it changes in time and space, (2) explosion pressures that might actually develop within sealed areas, (3) engineering procedures to follow when designing seals and seal installations, and (4) guidelines to manage the atmosphere within sealed areas with monitoring or inertization. NIOSH has initiated a seals research program with collaborators from Safety in Mines Testing and Research Station (SIMTARS) in Australia, West Virginia University (WVU), the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and USACE. Highlights of progress so far include: (1) construction of a gas explosion tube at Lake Lynn Laboratory for studying large methane-air explosions, (2) computer simulation of the fluid dynamics of high pressure methane-air explosions, (3) development of seal analysis methods considering construction materials, reinforcement and the seal foundation, and (4) development and testing of innovative seal designs that utilize inexpensive, readily-available rock rubble to resist high explosion pressures. NIOSH researchers aim to provide sound engineering guidelines to better address the new MSHA seal regulations. DISCLAIMER: The findings and conclusions in this report have not been formally disseminated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy.


Germinal matrix haemorrhage–intraventricular haemorrhage (GMH–IVH) remains a common neurological complication of preterm birth, occurring in about 10–20% of preterm infants with a gestational age (GA) below 30 weeks and is predictive of an adverse neurological outcome.1 About 30–50% of infants with a large IVH develop posthaemorrhagic ventricular dilatation (PHVD) and around 20–40% of infants with a severe GMH–IVH will consequently need a permanent ventriculo-peritoneal shunt.1 ,2 The presence of associated white matter injury, due to either a unilateral parenchymal haemorrhage or a more diffuse bilateral white matter damage, and development of PHVD increase the risk of an adverse neurodevelopmental outcome. Around 45–60% of infants with PHVD have marked cognitive impairment (developmental quotient equivalent of less than 70).1

When to intervene with drainage of cerebrospinal fluid is a challenge for the neonatologists who care for them. In an accompanying article, Klebermass-Schrehof and colleagues address this question, when to intervene?2 As they have shown previously,3 several neurophysiological parameters may change in preterm infants with PHVD following a large IVH. Recording amplitude-integrated EEG (aEEG) and visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) before and after insertion of a ventricular reservoir, they found deterioration in aEEG background pattern and an increase in VEP latency with progressive ventricular dilatation and improvement in these parameters within a week of insertion of the reservoir. Their findings are especially interesting as most of the infants they studied showed …


Given a fixed energy budget for the operation of a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), on-demand recharging is the technique of charging the nodes initially with identical, but reduced energy level called the recharge quantum, and then recharging the nodes with the recharge quantum of energy whenever the energy level at a node goes below a threshold level. Transmission power control is the technique of adjusting the transmission power at a sender node depending on the distance to the receiver node. The high-level contribution of this paper is a simulation-based analysis of the network lifetime obtained for each of the following four scenarios: [a] No power control, No on-demand recharging; [b] Power control, but no on-demand recharging; [c] On-demand recharging, but no power control and [d] Both power control and on-demand recharging. Network lifetime is defined as the time of first node failure due to the exhaustion of energy level at the node and the inability to further charge the node. The on-demand routing protocols studied are: Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Flow-Oriented Routing Protocol (FORP) and the Min-Max Battery Cost Routing (MMBCR) algorithm run on the top of DSR. We illustrate the improvement obtained in network lifetime as we transition from scenarios [a] through [d]. Simulation results illustrate that scenarios involving on-demand recharging ([c] and [d]) yield a higher network lifetime than scenarios [a] and [b]. When we operate the network with both on-demand recharging and power control, we obtain the maximum improvement in network lifetime. The percentage of the supplied energy that has been consumed in the network at the time of first node failure for each of the four scenarios and the three routing protocols is also measured to illustrate the effectiveness of on-demand recharging in maximizing the usage of the available energy budget.


Solutions to environmentally damaging human practices require cooperation between many different communities. This article explores sustainability-focused education through the lens of a current work-in-progress, Sugar vs the Reef?, which involves collaboration between sugarcane farmers and artists in the arable catchment of the Great Barrier Reef in North Queensland. This is a socially engaged art project that is addressing the fraught relationship between the region's agriculture and the fragile ecology of the Reef. We introduce some of the specific aspects of socially engaged art (SEA) which commend it as a cross-disciplinary method for bridging diverse individuals and organisations in particular, the notion of a "holding environment" for complex socio-ecological situations. We consider how this approach might broaden the agricultural practice of "extension" which aims to transform farming through educational outreach. Ideas emerging from contemporary socially engaged art practice may contribute to a toolkit for researchers and practitioners within and beyond the academy who are searching for ways to overcome the limitations of current methodologies and movements for social change.


Simulation modelling and individual-based modelling in particular is widely applied to analyse socio-ecological systems (SES). However, the degree of complexity of SES and the corresponding characteristics of individual-based models challenge their analysis. In particular, the analysis might be aggravated by characteristics such as a high number of entities and parameters, interdependent relations as well as several layers of effects. In addition, the analysis has to cover sometimes multivariate simulation model outputs. Further challenges concerning the analysis of these complex models and their results are their subsequent understanding and communication, which are crucial but often neglected tasks in simulation modelling. Overall, these challenges affect the credibility of results and may also impede the validation and verification of simulation models. To address this, we propose an integrated statistical modelling approach based on structural equation modelling using the partial least squares algorithm (PLS-SEM). It has been recently suggested as a new metamodeling technique for agent-based modelling. This method integrates models' entities, their parameters and their conceptual relations as well as the resulting simulation model output. Based on this, we can estimate and evaluate highly networked systems in metamodels to depict their underlying characteristics. In this sense, the resulting metamodel is able to expose the complex behaviour and relationships of the simulation model and further improves the understanding of SES. Furthermore, this method can be conveniently applied by means of standard software and provides a consumable graphical presentation of the models' entities, their parameters and their relations to stakeholders. Overall, the resulting link between the simulation model behaviour and the thereby generated data displayed in a graphical language considerably supports the understanding and communication of individual-based simulation models and their results.


Whether patients with asymptomatic bacteriuria should be investigated and treated before elective hip and knee replacement is controversial, although it is a widespread practice. We conducted a prospective observational cohort study with urine analyses before surgery and three days post-operatively. Patients with symptomatic urinary infections or an indwelling catheter were excluded. Post-discharge surveillance included questionnaires to patients and general practitioners at three months. Among 510 patients (309 women and 201 men), with a median age of 69 years (16 to 97) undergoing lower limb joint replacements (290 hips and 220 knees), 182 (36%) had pre-operative asymptomatic bacteriuria, mostly due to Escherichia coli, and 181 (35%) had white cells in the urine. Most patients (95%) received a single intravenous peri-operative dose (1.5 g) of cefuroxime as prophylaxis. On the third post-operative day urinary analysis identified white cells in 99 samples (19%) and bacteriuria in 208 (41%). Pathogens in the cultures on the third post-operative day were different from those in the pre-operative samples in 260 patients (51%). Only 25 patients (5%) developed a symptomatic urinary infection during their stay or in a subsequent three-month follow-up period, and two thirds of organisms identified were unrelated to those found during the admission. All symptomatic infections were successfully treated with oral antibiotics with no perceived effect on the joint replacement. We conclude that testing and treating asymptomatic urinary tract colonisation before joint replacement is unnecessary.


Recent national trends in investments in global energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) are inconsistent around the world. Public RD&D investments in energy are the metric most commonly used in international comparative assessments of energy‐technology innovation, and the metric employed in this article. Overall, the data indicate that International Energy Agency (IEA) member country government investments have been volatile: they peaked in the late 1970s, declined during the subsequent two decades, bottomed out in 1997, and then began to gradually grow again during the 2000s. The allocation of funding for different energy‐technology areas also varies hugely across different countries, but investments in fossil fuel and nuclear technologies continue to dominate spending. We have very poor data for private investments, but it is very likely that they have decreased as a result of the recent recession. Despite their increasing significance in the world's energy sector, little is known about public or private energy innovation investments in the rapidly developing countries. None of the six 'BRIMCS' countries reviewed here are members of the IEA, which is one of the few agencies that collects international statistical data on energy RD&D budgets. Like energy RD&D patterns in the United States and other IEA countries, BRIMCS country energy RD&D appears to take place predominantly in fossil fuel and nuclear technologies. WIREs Clim Change 2011 2 373–396 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.112