Objective This study aims to determine the rate of postoperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) in endometrial cancer patients undergoing robotic hysterectomy with or without extended pharmacologic VTE prophylaxis. Methods/Materials A retrospective chart review of women undergoing robotic hysterectomy with or without other procedures for endometrial cancer from January 2010 to February 2015 was conducted at 2 institutions. Charts were manually abstracted, and rates of VTE within 30 and 60 days after surgery were determined. Patients were then stratified by those who did and did not receive extended VTE prophylaxis. Results A total of 403 patients were included, of which 367 patients (91%) received extended pharmacologic prophylaxis and 36 patients (9%) did not. Low molecular weight heparin prescriptions ranged from 7 to 30 days. Patients receiving extended prophylaxis (EP) were older (63 ± 11 vs 57 ± 12; P = 0.004), more frequently underwent lymphadenectomy (67% vs 34%; P < 0.001), and had higher-grade tumors compared with patients not receiving EP. Overall 30-day and 60-day VTE rates were 0.7% and 1.2%, respectively. There were no significant differences in 30-day and 60-day VTE rates among patients that did and did not receive EP, although a trend toward lower VTE rates in the EP group was observed (30-day rates 0.5% vs 2.8% respectively, P = 0.25; 60-day rates 0.8% vs 5.6%, P = 0.07). Conclusions In this study, 30-day and 60-day VTE rates after minimally invasive surgery for endometrial cancer were low. Rates were also similar to those of previous reports in this setting in which the majority of patients did not receive extended VTE prophylaxis. Given the consistent finding that postoperative VTE in this population is rare regardless of prophylaxis use and the variability in practice patterns for VTE prophylaxis, the development of best practice guidelines for EP use specific to this setting is warranted.


The semi-enclosed Solomon Sea in the southwestern tropical Pacific is on the pathway of a major oceanic circuit connecting the subtropics to the equator via energetic western boundary currents. Waters transiting through this area replenish the Pacific Warm Pool and ultimately feed the equatorial current system, in particular the equatorial undercurrent. In addition to dynamical transformations, water masses undergo nutrient and micronutrient enrichment when coming in contact with the coasts, impacting the productivity of the downstream equatorial region. Broadscale observing systems are not well suited for describing the fine-scale currents and water masses properties in the Solomon Sea, leaving it relatively unexplored. Two multidisciplinary oceanographic cruises were conducted in the Solomon Sea region, the first in July – August 2012 and the second in March 2014, by investigators from France and the United States. The experimental approach combined physical, chemical, geochemical and biogeochemical analyses, providing access to a wide range of space and time scales of the circulation. This collection of data allows describing the fine-scale structure of the currents and the water properties, transformations and mixing from the surface to the sill depth in the Solomon Sea and in the straits connecting it to the equator. Ocean-margin exchanges were documented through a comprehensive sampling of trace elements and isotopes as efficient tracers of natural fertilization processes. As air chemistry is largely impacted by the regional volcanic plumes, rainwater pH was also sampled. Dinitrogen fixation rates were measured and found to be among the highest in the global ocean, highlighting this region as a hot spot of nitrogen fixation. This study provides an overview of the climatic context during both cruises and the physical circulation and water masses properties. It provides a comprehensive description of all measurements made onboard, and presents preliminary results, aiming to serve as a reference for further physical, geochemical and biogeochemical studies.


Bus operations throughout the world are increasingly being equipped with Intelligent Transport Systems such as Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL). AVL can support a variety of functions, including Dynamic Bus Fleet Management (DBFM), which has yet to be established in most bus fleets in the UK in a systematic way. To develop a fundamental understanding of the bus and traffic related incidents in bus-based public transport for DBFM purposes, a microscopic simulation model, capable of modelling these incidents, has been developed and applied to a variety of scenarios. This paper describes the design and development of the model Simulating Incidents for BUs FlEet Management (SIBUFEM), for modelling bus operations during full-day periods in which incidents of different types can occur. The paper describes the model's functionality, including the use of journey time profiles, passenger-dependent bus stop dwell times and deterministic time-dependent queuing theory. Results focus on key performance measures including, but not limited to, bus journey times, passenger waiting times and bus delays resulting from various bus and traffic incidents. SIBUFEM has been applied to a main bus corridor in Southampton, UK, with bus flows increased to produce a high-frequency service. A base case of 'normal' operations has been established, for comparison with results from a number of incident scenarios, using key model performance parameters of average bus journey time, bus speed and excess waiting time. Incidents range from bus breakdowns, to traffic incidents such as road-works, traffic accidents and illegal parking. In SIBUFEM, these are specified in terms of their location, duration and severity (loss of capacity). The paper concludes with a discussion on potential DBFM strategies and how the SIBUFEM can be further developed to allow these strategies to be evaluated.


Intellectual property enables the transformation of knowledge in principle and the link between knowledge and the market. The right of exclusivity guaranteed by the patent refers to the right to interfere with other products and use and sell a patented invention. On the other hand, access to the public is made available on the knowledge of the essential points and as those that characterize a novelty does not exist. Patent registries, because they are available in open access databases, are great bases of technological knowledge, which can be used in research in several areas, among them smoke inhalation treatments. Inhalation injury is the leading cause of death in burn patients and is usually caused by the uninhibited absorption of smoke, which has an extremely toxic effect on the respiratory system. The physiopathology of inhalation injury covers multiple factors, and the injured respiratory system may present deterioration in a few hours. Respiratory distress is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in patients affected by fire incidents. The search for suitable treatments for inhalation injury is continuing, and the treatments used for smoke inhalation are discussed.


Helicobacter pylori is one of the most prevalent causes of gastritis. This pathogen colonizes for many years human stomach and asymptomatically leads the persons to chronic gastritis. The eradication of H. pylori from human stomach is, therefore, important in order to prevent the digestive diseases including peptic ulcers and gastric cancer that develop via chronic atrophic gastritis. Wide-spectrum antibiotics such as amoxicillin and metronidazole are used for the treatment for H. pylori infectious diseases. However, the H. pylori strains resistant to these antibiotics are increasing year by year around the world. On this basis, we need urgently to develop the antibacterial medicines that act on H. pylori with a novel mechanism. Recent studies by our group have demonstrated that H. pylori shows susceptibility to the bactericidal action of indene compounds derived from decomposition of vitamin D. The bactericidal action of indene compounds is selective not against commonplace bacteria but against H. pylori . The indene compounds turned out to target the H. pylori 's phosphatidylethanolamine that retains a myristic acid as the saturated fatty acid side chain. These findings will contribute to the development of new antibacterial medicines specialized to the treatment for H. pylori infectious diseases.


Neural network-based adaptive output feedback approaches that augment a linear control design are described in this thesis, and emphasis is placed on their real-time implementation with flexible systems. Two different control architectures that are robust to parametric uncertainties and unmodelled dynamics are presented. The unmodelled effects can consist of minimum phase internal dynamics of the system together with external disturbance process. Within this context, adaptive compensation for external disturbances is addressed.
In the first approach, internal model-following control, adaptive elements are designed using feedback inversion. The effect of an actuator limit is treated using control hedging, and the effect of other actuation nonlinearities, such as dead zone and backlash, is mitigated by a disturbance observer-based control design. The effectiveness of the approach is illustrated through simulation and experimental testing with a three-disk torsional system, which is subjected to control voltage limit and stiction.
While the internal model-following control is limited to minimum phase systems, the second approach, external model-following control, does not involve feedback linearization and can be applied to non-minimum phase systems. The unstable zero dynamics are assumed to have been modelled in the design of the existing linear controller. The laboratory tests for this method include a three-disk torsional pendulum, an inverted pendulum, and a flexible-base robot manipulator.
The external model-following control architecture is further extended in three ways. The first extension is an approach for control of multivariable nonlinear systems. The second extension is a decentralized adaptive control approach for large-scale interconnected systems. The third extension is to make use of an adaptive observer to augment a linear observer-based controller. In this extension, augmenting terms for the adaptive observer can be used to achieve adaptation in both the observer and the controller. Simulations to illustrate these approaches include an inverted pendulum with its cart serially attached to two carts (one unmodelled), three spring-coupled inverted pendulums, and an inverted pendulum with its initial condition in a range in which a linear controller is destabilizing.


This paper primarily explores the importance of the support group for people infected and affected by HIV+/AIDS. At St. Matthew's Clinic in the rural area of Qoboqobo, I invited women between the ages of 25-49 to freely participate in the focus group discussions. I believe that the health care sector could benefit from these groups, both as formal outreach services and informal support networks. There is a lack of healthcare services in rural areas. Of particular interest, PLWA are continuously encouraged to join an HIV/AIDS support group. This paper aims to explore how people are dealing with stress and HIV/AIDS-related dementia and other psychological impacts. In trying to understand the high rate of unemployment in Qobo Qobo in March 2005, I found an HIV/AIDS support group that works toward self-sustenance. However, there are many HIV+ clients who are not yet in the support group. I want to know how support group members are being educated to decrease stress related to living with HIV/AIDS. Objectives of the study include finding how support groups for HIV/AIDS aid in their mental health. The case study also had the following objectives: a) to explore the psychosocial benefits of an HIV/AIDS support group; b) to establish rapport with the PLWA Support Group at St. Matthew's Clinic; c) to provide agency to those involved in order to address the major mental health concerns through focus group discussions and key informant interviews; and d) to identify what all involved parties are doing to address mental health problems, including nurses, HIV counsellors, provincial government and members of the community. These women, the social worker and all nurses interviewed at S.S. Gida Hospital and St. Matthew's Clinic noted that HIV/AIDS definitely has a negative psychological impact on the person living with HIV/AIDS, family members and society as a whole. Shock and stress-related illnesses were the most cited as affecting a person's mental well-being. Also mentioned by the group members and professionals was depression resulting from the stigma of HIV/AIDS and from the loss of a loved one. Despite the presence of dementia and the loss of motor functioning in the late stages of AIDS, few mentioned this AIDS trait as being a mental health problem.


Based on Green and Porter's (GP) noncooperative game theoretic model, oligopsonists are hypothesized to follow a discontinuous pricing strategy in equilibrium. The model allows for low procurement prices during cooperative phases and high procurement prices (i.e. aggressive purchasing) during noncooperative phases. In this paper, the GP model is applied to the U.S. beef packing industry. Anecdotal evidence of beef packer margins and relevant processing costs suggest part of the margin variability could be attributed breakdowns and returns to cooperative phases. To operationalize the GP framework, we applied Hamilton's regime switching model assuming first order Markov process to test for the cooperative/noncooperative behavior of beef packers in three main fed cattle markets in the central United States and the whole U.S. market. We found that the evidence of cooperative/noncooperative conduct among the beef packers is present in all the markets examined, but the conduct varies across markets.


Using a rigorous electromagnetic analysis of two-dimensional (or crossed) gratings, we account, in a first step, for the enhanced transmission of a sub-wavelength hole array pierced inside a metallic film, when plasmons are simultaneously excited at both interfaces of the film. Replacing the hole array by a continuous metallic film, we then show that resonant extraordinary transmission can still occur, provided the film is modulated. The modulation may be produced in both a one-dimensional and a two dimensional geometry either by periodic surface deformation or by adding an array of high index pillars. Transmittivity higher than 80% is found when surface plasmons are excited at both interfaces, in a symmetric configuration.


We report the highest performance 640-Gb/s transmitter and receiver, based on cavity-less pulse generation and a novel sampling receiver constructed using a single fiber parametric gate capable of self-tracked 40-Gb/s tributary extraction. The performance of the transmitter and sampling receiver was measured with a 640-Gb/s return-to-zero on-off keying (RZ-OOK) signal. Error-free operation was achieved for all 16 tributaries of the 640-Gb/s input stream using the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) noise loading method. The error-free (bit-error rate (BER) =10-9 ) sensitivity of the sampling receiver was measured at an OSNR level of 33.5 dB, which is only 0.5 dB away from the practically achievable detection limit.


opened in the past year, lawmakers across the country are turning to cigarette taxes for added revenue. Twenty states raised cigarette tax rates in 2002, and more hikes may be on the agenda during state legislative sessions in 2003. Proponents of high cigarette taxes portray them as innocuous levies that improve public health. Yet those taxes have long been known to have a dark side. Since the first state cigarette taxes were imposed in the 1920s, black markets and related criminal activity have plagued hightax jurisdictions. Such activity has proven to be resistant to law enforcement curtailment efforts. Thanks to recent cityand state-level tax hikes, New York City now has the highest cigarette taxes in the country—a combined state and local tax rate of $3.00 per pack. Consumers have responded by turning to the city's bustling black market and other low-tax sources of cigarettes. During the four months following the recent tax hikes, sales of taxed cigarettes in the city fell by more than 50 percent compared to the same period the prior year. New York has a long history of cigarette tax evasion. Former governor Malcolm Wilson dubbed the city the "promised land for cigarette bootleggers." Over the decades, a series of studies by federal, state, and city officials has found that high taxes have created a thriving illegal market for cigarettes in the city. That market has diverted billions of dollars from legitimate businesses and governments to criminals. Perhaps worse than the diversion of money has been the crime associated with the city's illegal cigarette market. Smalltime crooks and organized crime have engaged in murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery to earn and protect their illicit profits. Such crime has exposed average citizens, such as truck drivers and retail store clerks, to violence. The failure of New York policymakers to consider the broader effects of high cigarette taxes has been a mistake repeated across the country in the stampede to maximize tax revenue from this demonized product. Too often, policymakers do not consider these effects in the erroneous belief that people do not respond to governmentcreated economic incentives. The negative effects of high cigarette taxes in New York provide a cautionary tale that excessive tax rates have serious consequences—even for such a politically unpopular product as cigarettes. Cigarette Taxes, Black Markets, and Crime Lessons from New York's 50-Year Losing Battle


A group of eleven Ph.D. candidates from seven countries--Robin Cowan, Andrew Foster, Nedka Gateva, William Hodges, Arno Kitts, Eva Lelievre, Fernando Rajulton, Lucky Tedrow, Marc Tremblay, John Wilmoth, and Zeng Yi--worked together at IIASA from June 17 through September 6, 1985, in a seminar on population heterogeneity. The seminar was led by the two of us with the help of Nathan Keyfitz, leader of the Population Program, and Bradley Gambill, Dianne Goodwin, and Alan Bernstein, researchers in the Population Program, as well as the occasional participation of guest scholars at IIASA, including Michael Stoto, Sergei Scherbov, Joel Cohen, Frans Willekens, Vladimir Crechuha, and Geert Ridder. Susanne Stock, our secretary, and Margaret Traber managed the seminar superbly.

Each of the eleven students in the seminar succeeded in writing a report on the research they had done. With only one exception, the students evaluated the seminar as "very productive"; the exception thought it was "productive". The two of us agree: the quality of the research produced exceeded our expectations and made the summer a thoroughly enjoyable experience. We were particularly pleased by the interest and sparkle displayed in our daily, hour-long colloquium, and by the spirit of cooperation all the participants, both students and more senior researchers, displayed in generously sharing ideas and otherwise helping each other.

One of the best of the research reports produced and probably the most original is the report by John Wilmoth that appears in this working paper. Building on some of the work on the mathematics of population surfaces, on the use of shaded contour maps for displaying population surfaces, and on Italian mortality that had been started at IIASA by the two of us and W. Brian Arthur, Bradley A. Gambill, and Graziella Caselli, Wilmoth developed an approach for analyzing age, period, and cohort effects that shows considerable promise for further development and application. This report thus exemplifies the productive role IIASA can play in bringing together diligent, creative scholars from different countries and disciplines.


Whether or not alkaline reduced water (ARW) has a positive effect on obesity is unclear. This study aims to prove the positive effect of ARW in high-fat (HF) diet-induced obesity (DIO) in C57BL/6 mice model. Toward this, obesity was induced by feeding the C57BL/6 male mice with high-fat diet (w/w 45% fat) for 12 weeks. Thereafter, the animals were administered with either ARW or tap water. Next, the degree of adiposity and DIO-associated parameters were assessed: clinico-pathological parameters, biochemical measurements, histopathological analysis of liver, the expression of cholesterol metabolism-related genes in the liver, and serum levels of adipokine and cytokine. We found that ARW-fed mice significantly ameliorated adiposity: controlled body weight gain, reduced the accumulation of epididymal fats and decreased liver fats as compared to control mice. Accordingly, ARW coordinated the level of adiponectin and leptin. Further, mRNA expression of cytochrome P450 (CYP)7A1 was upregulated. In summary, our data shows that ARW intake inhibits the progression of HF-DIO in mice. This is the first note on anti-obesity effect of ARW, clinically implying the safer fluid remedy for obesity control.


Nation as a brand represents the intangible assets of a country, encompassing various dimensions such as politics, economics, culture, history, and technology. However, much of extant work in nation branding has been limited to the empirical investigations of its positioning and implementation for specific countries, while other scholarly works in nation branding are conceptual. Various factors associated with nation branding are discussed in the literature, but there is no organizing mechanism to connect these factors to explore the dynamics underlying nation branding. To fill this gap, this dissertation attempts to identify the relevant factors underlying the deployment of nation branding, and to develop models to assess the association among these factors. Hunt and Morgan's resource advantage theory serves as the theoretical foundation of this dissertation's framework. After establishing panel data models that link the factors of building and developing the nation brand, the strategic implications of nation branding are discussed. Archival data were used for economic factors such as economic development, tourism, export, and inward foreign investment, and cultural, political, infrastructural, and geographical factors. The primary data were collected for qualitative factors perceived reputable brand and perceived reputable industry. The Anholt-GfK Roper's 2008 Nation Brands IndexSM was incorporated into the model as a moderating variable to test its impact on the relationship between the dependent variables and the independent variables. A total of 24 nations were analyzed to build and validate the models. This dissertation makes several contributions to the nation branding literature. First, it clarifies the definition of nation brand and nation branding. Second, it builds a predictive econometric model to connect the critical determinant and outcome factors of nation branding. Finally, it discusses nation branding strategies in terms of resource advantage theory and provides crucial insights on the development and management of a nation brand that can be used by researchers, marketing managers, and stakeholders of the nation brand to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of nation branding.


A new field of robotics is emerging. Robots are today moving towards applications beyond the structured environment of a manufacturing plant. They are making their way into the everyday world that people inhabit. The paper focuses on models, strategies, and algorithms associated with the autonomous behaviors needed for robots to work, assist, and cooperate with humans. In addition to the new capabilities they bring to the physical robot, these models and algorithms and more generally the body of developments in robotics is having a significant impact on the virtual world. Haptic interaction with an accurate dynamic simulation provides unique insights into the real-world behaviors of physical systems. The potential applications of this emerging technology include virtual prototyping, animation, surgery, robotics, cooperative design, and education among many others. Haptics is one area where the computational requirement associated with the resolution in real-time of the dynamics and contact forces of the virtual environment is particularly challenging. The paper describes various methodologies and algorithms that address the computational challenges associated with interactive simulations involving multiple contacts and impacts between human-like structures.


Known since ancient times, sexual excess has been referred to as 'sexual addiction' for three decades. DSM-5 has proposed a new category of 'hypersexual disorder' to bring together disturbing situations of masturbation, pornography use, strip club attendance, multiple affairs, internet procurement of partners, prostitution use, unprotected sex with multiple partners and other sexually arousing behaviors. The conditions under which patients come for assessment differ between single and married, heterosexual and homosexual, paraphilic and nonparaphilic, and sex criminals and law-abiding patients. Treatment depends on apparent causes, comorbidities and the patient's capacities. While questions have been raised about the validity of hypersexual disorder, the numerous requests for assistance from patients should remind the field of psychiatry that utility also drives the employment of a diagnosis.


Number sense requires, at least, an ability to assess magnitude information represented by number symbols. Most educated adults are able to assess magnitude information of rational numbers fairly quickly, including whole numbers and fractions. It is to date unclear whether educated adults without training are able to assess magnitudes of irrational numbers, such as the cube root of 41. In a computerized experiment, we asked mathematically skilled adults to repeatedly choose the larger of two irrational numbers as quickly as possible. Participants were highly accurate on problems in which reasoning about the exact or approximate value of the irrational numbers' whole number components (e.g., 3 and 41 in the cube root of 41) yielded the correct response. However, they performed at random chance level when these strategies were invalid and the problem required reasoning about the irrational number magnitudes as a whole. Response times suggested that participants hardly even tried to assess magnitudes of the irrational numbers as a whole, and if they did, were largely unsuccessful. We conclude that even mathematically skilled adults struggle with quickly assessing magnitudes of irrational numbers in their symbolic notation. Without practice, number sense seems to be restricted to rational numbers.


Inland and coastal waterbodies are critical components of the global biosphere. Timely monitoring is necessary to enhance our understanding of their functions, the drivers impacting on these functions and to deliver more effective management. The ability to observe waterbodies from space has led to Earth observation (EO) becoming established as an important source of information on water quality and ecosystem condition. However, progress toward a globally valid EO approach is still largely hampered by inconsistences over temporally and spatially variable in‐water optical conditions. In this study, a comprehensive dataset from more than 250 aquatic systems, representing a wide range of conditions, was analyzed in order to develop a typology of optical water types (OWTs) for inland and coastal waters. We introduce a novel approach for clustering in situ hyperspectral water reflectance measurements (n = 4045) from multiple sources based on a functional data analysis. The resulting classification algorithm identified 13 spectrally distinct clusters of measurements in inland waters, and a further nine clusters from the marine environment. The distinction and characterization of OWTs was supported by the availability of a wide range of coincident data on biogeochemical and inherent optical properties from inland waters. Phylogenetic trees based on the shapes of cluster means were constructed to identify similarities among the derived clusters with respect to spectral diversity. This typification provides a valuable framework for a globally applicable EO scheme and the design of future EO missions.


Operations planning and decision-making research for emergency management have increased in both academia and industry due to catastrophic events that have occurred in the past two decades. Recovery and reconstruction are intrinsically dependent on events' characteristics and how planning, preparation and response are performed. Numerous transportation research have already focused on mathematical optimization, network reliability, risk management, and decision-making. Findings are still to be combined into common frameworks so better understanding of decision-making during emergency events can be achieved by the transportation community. This paper presents an academic approach to analyze extreme event decision-making within roading organizations using data from practical experiences. An emergency exercise observation and game simulation data collection method as well as a data analysis framework are proposed to study extreme event decision-making. A series of case studies were conducted by rigorously observing seven emergency exercises and simulating twelve game-based scenarios at several New Zealand roading organizations. Data collected during such experiences have proven the applicability of the framework, supporting two major findings: i) Extreme event decision-making is dependent on previous planning and experiences, confirming Naturalistic Decision-making models; and ii) Emergency response and recovery can be associated with two time frames (short and long terms objectives).


SUMMARY: The stalked barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes (Gmelin, 1790) is an important shellfish resource in Portugal. Due to the social-economic importance of barnacle harvesting, a management plan aimed at achieving a controlled and sustainable activity (including temporal and spatial closures, rotational harvesting, a limited number of harvesting licenses, bag and size limits for catches and catch reporting) was implemented in 2000 at the Berlengas Nature Reserve (RNB) in central Portugal. We evaluated the bag and size limits imposed by the management plan, performing observations on harvesting activity and asking licensed harvesters and RNB staff about these measures. Both inquiries and observations suggest that licensed harvesters are not following the bag and size limits imposed. Mean amounts captured in RNB varied from 14 to 24 kg per harvester/day, but 25% of the observations corresponded to higher catches per individual than the total amount allowed (20 kg). Only half of the sampled amounts (taken in autumn 2005 and 2006) were in agreement with the size limit regulation and 50% of the total biomass comprised individuals of maximal rostro-carinal length (RC) ≥25 mm. For most harvesters, size limit is the most difficult management rule to fulfil. Both harvesters and RNB staff agree that surveillance is scarce and is a major problem of this fishing activity. In order to achieve a more sustainable use of this resource, we propose the implementation of a more effective surveillance and monitoring plan, the definition of a unique landing site, the maintenance of the bag limit (20 kg) and a reduction of the size limit (50% of total biomass comprising individuals ≥22 mm RC).


The novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) impacted daily life for residents of the majority of countries worldwide. In this this research note, we explore how the pandemic is changing religious-oriented shopping with a focus on Muslim shopping. While supermarkets provided online shopping and home delivery services, Islamic store, as small business, could not opt for such services in Belgium and many other countries. Therefore, we designed and conducted a consumer survey with a special target of Muslim shoppers between April 27 and May 6 2020 in all Belgium regions. We found that despite stay-at-home directives that is effective since early March 2020, Muslims are still leaving their homes to buy Islamic groceries "Halal". Most importantly, the daily pattern of shopping has significantly been changed, which helped in reducing the density of shoppers in the stores.


Building collapses may constitute a major incident when there are significant numbers of occupants. Even when there is a single occupant special resources may be required and risks to rescuers can be considerable. This case illustrates the problems of restricted access and the specific additional rescue services available.

The prehospital team were called to a building collapse with a person reported trapped. Before landing, aerial survey revealed a large, partially collapsed three-storey house. On arrival, the team was briefed by the on-scene emergency services. There were several workers renovating the house when the collapse occurred, and all but one had managed to escape uninjured and left the scene before emergency service attendance. In addition to the ambulance and fire service an urban search and rescue (USAR) team was present. It was confirmed that a single male patient was trapped on the first floor, lying under two reinforced steel joists (RSJ), a chimney stack and roofing. The house was described as 'extremely unstable' but verbal contact with the patient had been established from a ladder resting against the side of the house. The helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) doctor was asked to carry out a remote assessment in an attempt to determine the state of the patient and urgency …


Over the past century, the Supreme Court has articulated numerous doctrines that protect family privacy. These doctrines are not, however, well-suited to the brave new world of families formed through donor eggs, sperm, and embryos. As the number of donor-conceived children born to same-sex and heterosexual couples and to single parents increases, and as these families develop connections to one another, the law has not yet adjusted. This Article provides an extensive mapping of these "donor-conceived family communities," and it reaches two major conclusions that support the development of these new families. First, relational interests, the traditional focus in family law, should govern the regulation of the donor world. Second, legal recognition should be given to the emotional and psychological ties between donor families in order to provide guidance to the development of donor-conceived family communities. These two principles point the way to integrating changing social realities into a new legal framework for donor families, allowing children from the same donor to connect to one another. While further regulation of relationships has its dangers, this paradigm shift in the donor world could prompt broader beneficial changes, creating options beyond framing all families within the dyadic nuclear-family model.


Bayesian mixture models are increasingly used for model‐based clustering and the follow‐up analysis on the clusters identified. As such, they are of particular interest for analyzing cytometry data where unsupervised clustering and association studies are often part of the scientific questions. Cytometry data are large quantitative data measured in a multidimensional space that typically ranges from a few dimensions to several dozens, and which keeps increasing due to innovative high‐throughput biotechonologies. We present several recent parametric and nonparametric Bayesian mixture modeling approaches, and describe advantages and limitations of these models under different research context for cytometry data analysis. We also acknowledge current computational challenges associated with the use of Bayesian mixture models for analyzing cytometry data, and we draw attention to recent developments in advanced numerical algorithms for estimating large Bayesian mixture models, which we believe have the potential to make Bayesian mixture model more applicable to new types of single‐cell data with higher dimensions.


Selective exploitation can cause adverse ecological and evolutionary changes in wild populations and also affect sex ratios but few studies have empirically documented skewed sex ratios in exploited fishes (other than species with extreme sexual size dimorphism, SSD). To investigate the possibility of sex-selective fishing on Alaskan sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka, we assessed sex ratios in fish at two spatial scales: within each of five fishing districts and among 13 breeding populations in one of these districts. We predicted that populations' sex ratios would vary based on the average size of fish and SSD because size affects vulnerability to fishing. At the larger scale, we found a small but significant bias in fish returning to four of the five fishing districts (average = 52% females), and in four of the five districts males were caught at significantly higher rates than females. At the finer scale there was marked variation in sex ratio on the breeding grounds, ranging from 36% to 47% males. Populations with fish of intermediate sizes experienced the greatest sex ratio biases; the greater vulnerability of males than females to fishing resulted from a combination of larger SSD and different harvest rates between the sexes associated with the fishery size-selectivity curve shape. Skewed sex ratios may change competition and behavior on the breeding grounds, relaxing selection on male traits associated with mate choice by females or intra-sexual competition and altering demographic and evolutionary pressures on the fish. Assessment of the size selectivity of fishing gear and the population's SSD can help to illuminate if and how exploitation can affect sex ratios. Future studies examining size-selective fishing should also evaluate the consequences for sex ratios, as this might help explain changes in harvested population structure and sustainability.


Summary
The number of donkeys and mules throughout the world is stable, and awareness of their use and concern for welfare, pain recognition and treatment are receiving increasing veterinary interest. Therefore, accurate information about anaesthesia and analgesia in donkeys and mules is important to ever more equine practitioners. Since donkeys are physiologically and pharmacologically different from horses, knowledge on species specific aspects of anaesthesia and analgesia are very important. Mules combine elements from both donkey and horse backgrounds, leading to great diversity in size, temperament and body type. Physiologically, they seem to resemble horses more than donkeys. This review highlights the current knowledge on various anaesthetic and analgesic approaches in donkeys and mules. There is still much information that is not available about donkeys; in many circumstances, the clinician must use available equine information to treat the patient, while monitoring carefully to observe for differences in response to therapy compared to the horse.


Background Limited data describe the sustained impact of hand hygiene programs (HHPs) implemented in teaching hospitals, where the burden of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) is high. We use a quasi-experimental, before and after, study design with prospective hospital-wide surveillance of HAIs to assess the cost effectiveness of HHPs. Methods and Findings A 4-year hospital-wide HHP, with particular emphasis on using an alcohol-based hand rub, was implemented in April 2004 at a 2,200-bed teaching hospital in Taiwan. Compliance was measured by direct observation and the use of hand rub products. Poisson regression analyses were employed to evaluate the densities and trends of HAIs during the preintervention (January 1999 to March 2004) and intervention (April 2004 to December 2007) periods. The economic impact was estimated based on a case-control study in Taiwan. We observed 8,420 opportunities for hand hygiene during the study period. Compliance improved from 43.3% in April 2004 to 95.6% in 2007 (p<.001), and was closely correlated with increased consumption of the alcohol-based hand rub (r = 0.9399). The disease severity score (Charlson comorbidity index) increased (p = .002) during the intervention period. Nevertheless, we observed an 8.9% decrease in HAIs and a decline in the occurrence of bloodstream, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, extensively drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, and intensive care unit infections. The intervention had no discernable impact on HAI rates in the hematology/oncology wards. The net benefit of the HHP was US$5,289,364, and the benefit-cost ratio was 23.7 with a 3% discount rate. Conclusions Implementation of a HHP reduces preventable HAIs and is cost effective.


Why did the Netherlands reject multicultural policies in the mid-2000s? This article identifies a two-stage process: First, a discursive shift preceding policy change, enabled by a synergy between developments in media culture and "celebrity politicians," who championed an anti-Islam rhetoric which resonated with significant Dutch audiences because it rejected the "immigrant other" on more socially acceptable cultural rather than racial grounds, and appealed to popular discourses on gender and sexuality rights. Second, open political opportunity structures and the absence of a developed public discourse on multiple racisms enabled translation of this discursive shift into policy. Finally, modes and cases of resistance to cultural racism in Dutch society are discussed. ABSTRACT Racism in the Netherlands: A Social Scientific Analysis of the Dynamics of the Dutch Multicultural Backlash


The members of human Herpesviridae family are fully acknowledged as pathogenic agents in immunocompromised individuals, often responsible for a number of severe diseases. On the other hand, in immunocompetent hosts, Herpesviridae-related infections typically display an asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic course, sometimes manifesting with flu-like symptoms. However, such infections can occasionally cause organ damage or multisystemic involvement in healthy subjects. Herein, we describe the first case of a simultaneous co-infection by five different Herpesviridae family members in an apparently immunocompetent young subject. A 30-year-old Caucasian man presented to our medical unit with colitis. During hospitalization, he developed multi-organ damage involving heart, pancreas and liver. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis showed positive results for cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, human herpes virus 6, human herpes virus 7, and human herpes virus 8. Remission of clinical manifestations and complete negativization of viral load were achieved by antiviral therapy. To the best of our knowledge, such simultaneous infection by multiple herpesviruses causing a severe multi-organ dysfunction has never been described in patients with preserved immune function. Careful literature review showed that organ damage in immunocompetent subjects was reported in very few cases of co-infection by two herpesviruses, and in only one case of co-infection by three herpesviruses. Multi-organ damage in our patient likely resulted from additional effects induced by Epstein-Barr virus, human herpes virus 6, human herpes virus 7, and human herpes virus 8, through either a superinfection occurring after initial cytomegalovirus disease, or a simultaneous co-infection of the different viral agents. Moreover, the possibility of a transient and partial immune dysfunction, predisposing the patient to develop a severe herpesvirus-associated disease, cannot be completely ruled out. Although a formal indication to antiviral therapy has not been established in herpesvirus-infected immunocompetent individuals, our case supports the usefulness of such therapy in case of severe multi-systemic clinical manifestations. This original case report suggests that the possibility of multiple herpesvirus simultaneous infections should be taken into account in differential diagnosis for severe organ dysfunction, also in apparently immunocompetent subjects. J Med Cases. 2017;8(9):265-268 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jmc2865w


Glossy magazines write about them, celebrities give their names to them, and you'd better believe there's an app (or ten) committed to finding you the right one. They are New York City restaurants and food shops. And their journey to international notoriety is a captivating one. The now-booming food capital was once a small seaport city, home to a mere six municipal food markets that were stocked by farmers, fishermen, and hunters who lived in the area. By 1890, however, the city's population had grown to more than one million, and residents could dine in thousands of restaurants with a greater abundance and variety of options than any other place in the United States. Historians, sociologists, and foodies alike will devour the story of the origins of New York City's food industry in Urban Appetites. Cindy R. Lobel focuses on the rise of New York as both a metropolis and a food capital, opening a new window onto the intersection of the cultural, social, political, and economic transformations of the nineteenth century. She offers wonderfully detailed accounts of public markets and private food shops; basement restaurants and immigrant diners serving favorites from the old country; cake and coffee shops; and high-end, French-inspired eating houses made for being seen in society as much as for dining. But as the food and the population became increasingly cosmopolitan, corruption, contamination, and undeniably inequitable conditions escalated. Urban Appetites serves up a complete picture of the evolution of the city, its politics, and its foodways.


We examine the question of which services are tradable within a concrete setting: the outsourcing of IT services across a broad cross-section of establishments in the US. If markets for IT services are local, then we should expect increases in local supply should increase the likelihood of outsourcing by lowering the cost of outsourcing. If markets are not local then local supply will not affect outsourcing demand. We analyze the outsourcing decisions of a large sample of 99,775 establishments in 2002 and 2004, for two types of IT services: programming and design and hosting. Programming and design projects require communication of detailed user requirements whereas hosting requires less coordination between client and service provider than programming and design. Our empirical results bear out this intuition: The probability of outsourcing programming and design is increasing in the local supply of outsourcing, and this sensitivity to local supply conditions has been increasing over time. This suggests there is some non-tradable or "local" component to programming and design services that cannot be easily removed. In contrast, the decision to outsource hosting is sensitive to local supply only for a minority of firms for which network uptime and security concerns are particularly acute.


Large-scale interactive services usually divide requests into multiple sub-requests and distribute them to a large number of server components for parallel execution. Hence the tail latency (i.e. The slowest component's latency) of these components determines the overall service latency. On a cloud platform, each component shares and competes node resources such as caches and I/O bandwidths with its co-located jobs, hence inevitably suffering from their performance interference. In this paper, we study the short-running jobs in a 12k-node Google cluster to illustrate the dynamic resource demands of these jobs, resulting in both individual components' latency variability over time and across different nodes and hence posing a major challenge to maintain low tail latency. Given this motivation, this paper introduces a dynamic and interference-aware scheduler for large-scale, parallel cloud services. At each scheduling interval, it collects workload and resource contention information of a running service, and predicts both the component latency on different nodes and the overall service performance. Based on the predicted performance, the scheduler identifies straggling components and conducts near-optimal component-node allocations to adapt to the changing workloads and performance interferences. We demonstrate that, using realistic workloads, the proposed approach achieves significant reductions in tail latency compared to the basic approach without scheduling.


Since its introduction in the 1970s percutaneous treatment of lumbar disc herniation has been an attractive concept that has been the object of technical development and clinical application throughout the world. Little scientific evaluation of the efficacy and effectiveness of the procedure has been done. To estimate the success rates of automated percutaneous and conventional discectomy in comparable patients and to document the resource consumption of patients treated in these ways, a multicenter randomized clinical trial designed to compare both treatment efficacy and cost-effectiveness of automated percutaneous discectomy and conventional discectomy in adult patients with no prior lumbar spinal surgery, no coexistent lumbar spinal disease, unilateral single level lumbar radiculopathy with images confirming disc herniation at the appropriate level. In the course of the trial important technical advances allowing epidural extraction of free-fragment disc herniation was incorporated into the trial. It was not possible to enroll the required number of patients to complete the trial. Of 5735 screened patients, 95 were eligible and 36 were enrolled. Two elected watchful waiting and did not have any surgical procedure. Eight patients were lost to follow-up. Among the 27 evaluable patients, 41% of the percutaneous discectomy patients and 40% of the conventional discectomy patients were assessed as achieving "success" on the primary outcome measure. No clinical trial of any percutaneous discectomy technique provides definitive evidence supporting the efficacy or effectiveness of the procedure. Such evidence should be required by patients to whom such procedures are proposed and those who are asked to pay for them.


It's nearly impossible to pick up a newspaper or read your favorite online news source these days without seeing yet another article about identity theft or credit card numbers being stolen from unprotected databases. Cyber crime and the threat of computer-related attacks are growing daily, and the need for security professionals who understand how attackers compromise networks is growing right along with the threat. Government agencies and private companies rely on "ethical hackers"--professional security testers--to put their networks to the test and discover vulnerabilities before attackers do. If you have an understanding of computers and networking basics and are considering becoming a security tester, HANDS-ON ETHICAL HACKING AND NETWORK DEFENSE will show you how to get started in this fascinating, growing field. This book covers the gamut, from the legalities of ethical hacking to the details of malware, network attacks, cryptography, OS vulnerabilities, wireless network hacking, and much more. Successful security testers know their work calls for creative, critical thinking, and they enjoy the challenge of digging deep to solve complex problems. Step up to the challenge with HANDS-ON ETHICAL HACKING AND NETWORK DEFENSE.


With the rapid advance of urbanization construction process and the rapid expansion of urban areas in China, cultural heritage has suffered a huge impact; its history characteristic has been gradually disappeared. This paper returns to the construction idea of Chinese traditional city, extracts and purifies the structure features of integrating "mountain-water -city" into unity, and interprets this characteristic from three perspective including culture, function and aesthetic, constructs the interpretation framework for the idea of "mountain water city". On this basis, this paper puts forward the development ideas of the historical and cultural environment protection system based on the idea of spatial unit about the multi-scale "mountainwater city". Finally through performing analysis and interpretation for the idea of "mountain-water-city" in the process of planning and designing CBD (central business district) in Dexing, it expects to provide reference and direction for the current status of urban construction, as well as the historical and cultural environment protection in our country, finally this historical ideal of inheriting and carrying forward the Chinese traditional culture in the process of pushing forward economic development will come true.


Judah ben Moses Romano's most important translation from the works of Albert the Great is, as Steinschneider recognized, his long extract from the Liber tertius de anima , a paraphrastic commentary on the Aristotelian book. The Latin original is usually dated between 1254 and 1257. The translated portion of the text extends over slightly more than twenty-six chapters, to which the translator added one article from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae . Jean-Pierre Rothschild calls cod. Parma 2629 the most complete collection of Judah's Latin-Hebrew translations. While his judgment regarding the quantity of texts is correct, one must add that the quality of the copying is not very satisfying. The intercalated chapter from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae was counter-checked with the Editio Leonina; while the author's edition adopts the division of paragraphs found here. Keywords: Albert; Judah ben Moses Romano; Liber tertius de anima


Cytogenetic analysis was performed on 16 primary tumors, 2 effusions, and 3 cell lines from 21 patients with non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In 20 patients specimens were obtained prior to initiating cytotoxic therapy. Extensive clonal chromosome alterations were found in all cases. The most frequent numerical changes were polysomy 7 and polysomy 20 (each seen in 12 specimens). In addition, tumor cells from another six cases exhibited partial trisomy 7, with the shortest region of overlap (SRO) at 7p11–p13. Rearrangements of chromosomes 1, 3, 6, 8, 11, 15, 17, and 19 were each observed in nine or more tumors. Breakpoints were clustered at several chromosomal sites, including 1p13, 3p13, 15p11–q11, 17p11, and 19q13. Recurrent loss involving 1p, 3p, 6q, 11p, 15p, 17p, and 19q were each seen in at least eight cases. The SRO of 3p losses was at band 3p21. Double minute chromosomes were found in three tumors. Overall, our findings indicate that even though karyotypes in newly diagnosed NSCLC are very complex, recurrent cytogenetic changes can be identified. The high incidence of loss of 17p (14 of 21 specimens) appears to be compatible with reports implicating the TP53 gene (at band 17p13) as a frequent site for genetic alteration in lung cancer. Moreover, the recurrence of loss of 3p (12 cases) and 11p (10 cases) is also consistent with recent molecular evidence. The existence of other "hot spots" for cytogenetic change, particularly those involving specific regions on chromosomes 7, 15, and 19, warrants further molecular investigation of these sites in NSCLC.


The geophysical and geological submarine features (pockmarks, gas chimneys, salt domes, etc).,identified by multi-beam echosounders and sidescan sonars ,seismic surveys in the region South, South-west and South-east of Cyprus, as well as the corresponding international interest of investors, especially in the marine region of the Levantine Basin, lead to the conclusion that, from a geopolitical standpoint, Greece must be urged to accelerate the consolidation of its sovereign rights and understand anew and in practical terms, that "Cyprus is not far away, not at all actually". With respect to Kastelorizo and the submarine area of its EEZ, we note that detailed geophysical and bathymetric surveys have confirmed the fact that the region of the submarine Anaximander Mountains presents active mud volcanoes that are linked to the presence of gas hydrates. Samples of gas hydrates were collected by means of indicative samplings in mud volcanoes thoroughly mapped in sub-seabed layers that do not exceed 1.5 m. These "ice-crystal" like features will probably have a significant socioeconomic impact in the near feature as an energy resource. New mud volcanoes were also discovered ("Athens" and "Thessaloniki"). Gas hydrates were found in samplings conducted in the "Thessaloniki" M.V. According to preliminary assessments, the total capacity of the mud volcanoes of the Anaximander mountains complex is estimated between 2.56 - 6.40 c. km.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
Bowel obstruction is a frequent event in patients with adenocarcinoma, affecting, in some series, almost one-third of the patients. In the last decades, in addition to surgery, self-expanding metallic stents (SEMSs) are available both as a bridge to surgery (BTS) or palliation. The aim of our study was to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the use of SEMSs as BTS in selected patients with acute colonic malignant obstructions.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In total, 125 patients with malignant colonic obstruction who underwent emergency surgery or stent insertion were retrospectively enrolled in our study; 62 patients underwent surgery initially, whereas 62 were subjected to stenting as BTS. The 6-month and 1-year survival rates after the procedure (stenting or surgery) and short-term and long-term complication rates were considered as primary endpoints; the recanalization rate after Hartmann's procedure and the length of hospitalization were considered as secondary endpoints.

RESULTS
On comparing the surgery group (SG) and the BTS group (BG), we observed a lower short-term complication rate (p<0.05) and a reduction in the mean hospital stay (16.1±7.7 vs. 13.5±3.0, p<0.05) in the latter. No differences in long-term complications were found. The recanalization rate after Hartmann's procedure was higher in BG than in SG, although this was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION
Our experience shows that SEMS insertion is a safe and effective technique in selected patients with colonic malignant obstruction; the reduction in hospital stay and short-term complications in BG is an important cost-saving aim.


Despite anti-discrimination legislation and the potential for hefty fines, labor market discrimination remains an issue for ethnic minorities and women, particularly in the recruitment and screening process. The apparent failure of legal and voluntary interventions has created a call for anonymous application procedures (AAP), in which key identifying data is hidden from recruiters in the initial recruiting process. Using unusually rich Swedish data on actual applications and recruitments, the authors show that AAP increased the chances of both women and individuals of non-Western origin of advancing to the interview stage. In addition, results show that women experienced an increased probability of being offered a job under AAP. However, applicants belonging to ethnic minorities were equally disadvantaged in terms of job offers under conventional and anonymous hiring procedures, suggesting that racial and ethnic discrimination may be harder to circumvent than gender discrimination.


There is a direct association between the lack of estrogen and the progress of osteoporosis. This study was done to evaluate the biological effect of diet supplementation with calcium (Ca), and vitamin D (VD) on osteoporosis in ovariectomized (OVX) rats and to examine the possible potential mechanisms. Twenty-eight rats were randomly divided into 4 equal groups (n=7). To induce estrogen deficiency in rats, bilateral ovariectomy and sham (SHAM; negative control) surgery were done. In the basal diet, Ca and VD was supplemented with 210 mg/kg and 600 IU/kg, respectively, for 6 weeks. Alendronate as a standard anti-osteoporotic drug was used in a single weekly dose (3 mg/kg) for 6 weeks. After six weeks, serum markers of osteoporosis and bone femur status were evaluated. The results exposed that Ca and VD supplementation increased the body weight gain and diminished the uterine weight as a result of ovariectomy operation. These supplements significantly raised the serum Ca, bone-specific alkaline phosphatase, free thyroxin, and osteocalcin in OVX-rats, while the serum interleukin-1beta, interleukin-6, parathormone, and pyridinoline levels were significantly dropped. There were also significantly improved in femur bone mineral density and bone ash contents, mainly Ca and phosphorous. In conclusion, feeding of Ca and VD dietary supplements have an anti-osteoporotic activity in OVX rats due to improvement of bone formation and abolition of bone loss. The study recommends that intake of Ca and VD together may be beneficial for the inhibition of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women due to estrogen deficiency.


C 60 fullerene thin films of average thickness of more than 100 nm on silicon substrates can be produced in vacuum by matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE). A 355 nm Nd:YAG laser was directed onto a frozen target of anisole with a concentration of 0.67 wt% C 60 . At laser fluences below 1.5 J/cm 2 the dominant fraction of the film molecules are C 60 transferred to the substrate without any fragmentation. For high fluences high-resolution SEM images of MAPLE deposited films reveal large circular features on the surface with high amount of material concentrated at edges. These features, observed over a wide range of laser fluences, are caused by ejection of large matrix-fullerene liquid droplets into the gas-phase and subsequent deposition. At similar laser energies, but using an unfocused laser beam, MAPLE favours evaporation of matrix and organic molecules, resulting in films with smooth surfaces and minimal contamination.


Objectives:Coronary artery x-ray angiography (XRA) is currently the gold standard for the assessment of coronary artery disease. A substantial minority of patients referred for coronary angiography have no significant coronary artery disease. The purpose of this study is to evaluate magnetization-prepared contrast-enhanced breath-hold volume-targeted imaging (MPCE-VCATS), a new 3-dimensional breath-hold coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) technique, in detecting hemodynamically significant coronary artery stenoses in a patient population, with XRA correlation. Materials and Methods:A total of 19 subjects who were referred for conventional coronary angiography were enrolled in the study. ECG-triggered MPCE-VCATS coronary artery scans were acquired for the left main coronary artery (LCA), left anterior descending (LAD), and right coronary artery (RCA). Coronary MRA and XRA results were compared. Results:The overall sensitivity, accuracy, and negative predictive value for diagnosing any hemodynamically significant coronary artery disease (≥50% diameter reduction) was 91%, 80%, and 90%, respectively. The sensitivity of the technique in the LCA, LAD, and RCA was 100%, 100% and 78%, respectively. The negative predictive value of the technique was 100%, 100%, and 71%, respectively. Discussion:MPCE-VCATS is a promising technique for coronary artery imaging. It has a relatively high sensitivity as well as a high NPV. The results of the study may indicate a future role for the technique in obviating the need for some patients to undergo XRA.


A closed-trajectory evolution of a quantum state generally imprints a phase that contains both dynamical and geometrical contributions. While dynamical phases depend on the reference system, geometric phase factors are uniquely defined by the properties of the outlined trajectory. Here, we generate and measure geometric phases in a Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{87}$Rb using a combination of dynamical quantum Zeno effect and measurement-free evolution. We show that the dynamical quantum Zeno effect can inhibit the formation of a geometric phase without altering the dynamical phase. This can be used to extract the geometric Aharonov-Anandan phase from any closed-trajectory evolution without requiring knowledge or control of the Hamiltonian.


Today's blockchain designs suffer from a trilemma claiming that no blockchain system can simultaneously achieve decentralization, security, and performance scalability. For current blockchain systems, as more nodes join the network, the efficiency of the system (computation, communication, and storage) stays constant at best. A leading idea for enabling blockchains to scale efficiency is the notion of sharding: different subsets of nodes handle different portions of the blockchain, thereby reducing the load for each individual node. However, existing sharding proposals achieve efficiency scaling by compromising on trust - corrupting the nodes in a given shard will lead to the permanent loss of the corresponding portion of data. In this paper, we settle the trilemma by demonstrating a new protocol for coded storage and computation in blockchains. In particular, we propose PolyShard: "polynomially coded sharding" scheme that achieves information-theoretic upper bounds on the efficiency of the storage, system throughput, as well as on trust, thus enabling a truly scalable system. We provide simulation results that numerically demonstrate the performance improvement over state of the arts, and the scalability of the PolyShard system. Finally, we discuss potential enhancements, and highlight practical considerations in building such a system.


Part I of this essay outlines a neo-Aristotelean theory of political virtue, an instance of virtue generally, that serves as the basis of excellent citizenship in the polis. As such, political virtue contributes its share to the achievement of eudaimonia, or the fulfillment of an individual's natural, human function. In fact, political virtue is especially important because people are political beings, i.e. they seek the good most comprehensively in the context of association with others. Therefore, Aristotle describes politics as the master science of the supreme good, because politics orders the community of the polis and thereby establishes the norms that shape people's lives.The theory of political virtue outlined here is not prominently or even explicitly presented in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. However, the theory is a faithful interpretation, in that it is clearly implied by (or at least logically derived from) his most basic ideas. Prominent among them is the idea that the achievement of eudaimonia requires not only cultivation of virtuous dispositions, but action motivated by virtuous dispositions and guided by practical reason (phronesis). As a result, the achievement of eudaimonia depends, in part, upon engagement in ethically significant activity that contributes directly to the shape of the political community in which one lives.Part II asks whether this theory of political virtue is compatible with strong judicial review, i.e., the form of review that empowers courts to strike down legislation duly enacted by democratically chosen representative bodies. Since the theory of political virtue requires consensual and continuous decision-making, it is found incompatible with strong judicial review as a preliminary matter. In a more extended analysis, it is also found incompatible with both a pluralist-democratic defense of strong judicial review and a popular sovereignty defense, advocating strong judicial review based on originalist interpretation of the Constitution. From the neo-Aristotelean perspective, the former fails to appreciate the qualitative uniqueness of majoritarian representation as the embodiment of morally significant action. The latter fails to appreciate the importance of continuous political activity for the attainment of eudaimonia. As a result, the neo-Aritotelean theory of political virtue appears to interpose a genuinely normative objection to strong judicial review from the standpoint of virtue ethics.


Energy-efficient and reliable data gathering using highly stable links in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is challenging because of time and location-dependent communication characteristics of the acoustic channel. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic firefly mating optimization inspired routing scheme called FFRP for the internet of UWSNs-based events monitoring applications. The proposed FFRP scheme during the events data gathering employs a self-learning based dynamic firefly mating optimization intelligence to find the highly stable and reliable routing paths to route packets around connectivity voids and shadow zones in UWSNs. The proposed scheme during conveying information minimizes the high energy consumption and latency issues by balancing the data traffic load evenly in a large-scale network. In additions, the data transmission over highly stable links between acoustic nodes increases the overall packets delivery ratio and network throughput in UWSNs. Several simulation experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme against the existing schemes through NS2 and AquaSim 2.0 in UWSNs. The experimental outcomes show the better performance of the developed protocol in terms of high packets delivery ratio (PDR) and network throughput (NT) with low latency and energy consumption (EC) compared to existing routing protocols in UWSNs.


This study presents the manufacture of macroporous hydroxyapatite scaffolds with a small amount of calcium phosphate glass powder as sintering additives. Hydroxyapatite slurry was prepared by suspending the hydroxyapatite and glass powder in water. Polyurethane sponge was used to produce highly macroporous scaffolds. The rheological characteristic of the slurry was measured to identify the effect of adding calcium phosphate glass powder into hydroxyapatite slurry. Sintered scaffolds could be repeatedly coated to improve mechanical properties. Scaffolds prepared by single and double replication cycle process were characterized by density, porosity and compressive strength measurements by increasing amount of the calcium phosphate glass powder to the hydroxyapatite slurry, viscosity by increased more than same amount of pure hydroxyapatite, and the capillary force was similar to pure hydroxyapatite slurry. The compressive strength of the macroporous hydroxyxapatite scaffold containing the calcium phosphate glass powder showed higher value than that of pure hydroxyapatite at single replication cycle. SEM demonstrated that the microstructure of the scaffold became denser with the introduction of the calcium phosphate glass powder. The pore struts were thicker as replication cycle was increased.


"Translational Neuroimaging: Tools for CNS Drug Discovery, Development and Treatment" combines the experience of academic, clinical and industrial neuroimagers in a unique collaborative approach to provide an integrated perspective of the use of small animal and human brain imaging in developing and validating translational models and biomarkers for the study and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. "Translational Neuroimaging: Tools for CNS Drug Discovery, Development and Treatment" examines the translational role of neuroimaging in model development from preclinical animal models, to human experimental medicine, and finally to clinical studies. The focus of this book is to identify and provide common endpoints between species that can serve to inform both the clinic and the bench with the information needed to accelerate clinically-effective CNS drug discovery. This book covers methodical issues in human and animal neuroimaging translational research as well as detailed applied examples of the use of neuroimaging in neuropsychiatric disorders and the development of drugs for their treatment. Offering an accompanying website with illustrations and text available for further knowledge and presentations, "Translational Neuroimaging: Tools for CNS Drug Discovery, Development and Treatment" appeals to non-clinical and clinical neuroscientists working in and studying neuropsychiatric disorders and their treatment as well as providing the novice researcher or researcher outside of his/her expertise the opportunity to understand the background of translational research and the use of imaging in this field. It provides a background to translational research and the use of brain imaging in neuropsychiatric disorders. It includes critical discussion of the potential and limitations of neuroimaging as a translational tool for identifying and validating biomarkers. It identifies cross species neurosystems and common endpoints necessary to help accelerate CNS drug discovery and development for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. It features an accompanying website with additional images and text.


Over the past decade Russia's economy has been buoyed by renewal and newfound prosperity. Since the financial meltdown of 1998, the country has achieved positive economic progress. Driven by higher oil prices, Russian exports totaled US$317 billion, and annual GDP growth reached a significant 6.8 percent. The percentage of population below subsistence level dropped from 29 percent in 2000 to 17.6 percent in 2004 and continues to decline. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] However, while economic indicators provide reason for optimism among Russia's citizens, the poor financial state of the national pension system poses a threat to the standards of living of current and future Russian retirees. Without the right kind of reform, these retirees will find themselves with a lower standard of living and increased poverty. Most current retirees live on a basic fixed-income pension provided by the state--the monthly pension is roughly 2,726 rubles (US$103) per month. Even though particular groups such as World War II veterans receive an extra 550 rubles (US$21), fixed-income payments from the government for retirees are not sufficient to sustain a comfortable standard of living. As Rimma Markova, a pensioner and the head of the Pensioners Party in Russia told Lateline, "They've kicked us in the teeth and the most vulnerable people remain neglected. The current pension is 20 percent of the average salary, it's just enough to stop us dying of hunger." Others echo a similar sentiment: Tonya Fominyh, a 79-year-old pensioner, told the Guardian, "now our pensions means nothing [sic]." In addition, the small base pension rate is only periodically indexed to the price level. Given that inflation has been above 10 percent over the last five years, the purchasing power of these pension payments is being constantly eroded. Russia's population--in particular, its proportion of workers to pensioners--is also shrinking: the UN Population Division projects that the country's citizenry will fall from around 140 million people to around 108 million by 2050. This population dynamic poses additional challenges for Russia's pay-as-you-go pension system in the long term. While the system has undergone gradual reform since 2001, continuing these efforts is necessary. In order for the government to ensure adequate living standards for its retired population, the Russian pension system requires initiatives that address the following challenges: the aging dynamic of Russia's population, the need for the pension system to provide adequate retirement income, and the proper role of the government in encouraging this reform. Demographics As with other countries around the world--including the United States--Russia's current pension system is pay-as-you-go: a portion of current taxation levied by the government on businesses is used to pay the benefits of current retirees. As long as the working population and wages have a positive growth rate, current workers can expect their future retirement benefits to be larger than the total tax they paid to social security as workers. However, the population of Russia currently is shrinking. In 1992, the rate of natural decrease was 219,800 persons. The rate of natural decrease in the population since then has increased markedly and now hovers around 800,000 per year. As a result, the proportion of the population over the working age is now 20.4 percent, and the population under the working age has fallen as recently as 2005 to around 16.8 percent. Given that retirement benefits under Russia's pay-as-you-go pension system come solely from government taxation of then-current workers' wages, this presents a problem for the solvency of the Pension Fund of Russia (PFR), the government organization responsible for distributing payments. Fundamental pension reform is probably the most economically and politically effective way of maintaining the solvency of the Pension Fund. …


Oxydromus humesi is a strict bivalve endobiont, probably a parasite, living in
association with Tellina nymphalis in north of Pointe-Noire (Congo mangrove swamps, West
Africa) and Scrobicularia plana (intertidal) and Psammotreta cumana (subtidal) in Cadiz Bay
salt marshes (southern Atlantic coast of Iberian Peninsula). The symbiont shows a regular
distribution (one, exceptionally two or three symbionts per host, being one male, one female
and one small worm) with intraspecific competition and complex host-entering behaviour
observed in experimental conditions. This work aims to study the population dynamics of the
above-mentioned species hosted by S. plana in Cadiz Bay to increase knowledge on the
biology of O. humesi and to contribute to the growing knowledge on symbiotic polychaetes.
The population of the symbiont in the intertidal area of Rio San Pedro (Cadiz Bay) seems to
reproduce actively through all the year, with a higher number of ripe females in spring and,
particularly, in summer. Although S. plana is very abundant in the studied area, with a large
amount of specimens having the size most preferred by the symbiont (i.e., from >26 mm to
about 36 mm long), the prevalence tends to be very low (usually <5% and reaching up to
~20%). This fact, together with the presence of a highly infested population (>85% in the
specimens longer than 20 mm) of P. cumana in Rio San Pedro mouth, lead us to discuss on
the environmental requirements and host-specificity of O. humesi. We suggest that the studied
intertidal could be at the limit of the ecological distribution of this symbiont in the Cadiz Bay
region. The symbiotic hesionid seems to show a seasonal pattern of prevalence, which may be
related with its reproduction (the periods with more ripe females tended to coincide with those
of lower prevalence). Taking into account these data, we propose that males undertake
reproductive migrations probably to improve the possibilities of fertilization, whilst the
females stay throughout the whole life inside the host. The life-cycle of O. humesi remains
unknown since the species' discovery in the coasts of the Republic of Congo. However, our
data allow us to suggest that its life span may be of one year, with the adults dying after
reproducing


In this paper a new intelligent system designed to support the researcher in the development of a workflow for bioinformatics experiments is presented. The proposed system is capable to suggest one or more strategies in order to resolve the selected problem and to support the user in the assembly of a workflow for complex experiments, using a a Knowledge base, representing the expertise about the application domain, and a Rule-Based system for decision-making activity. Moreover, the system can represent this workflow at different abstraction layers, freeing the user from implementation details and assisting him in the correct configuration of the algorithms. A sample workflow for protein complex extraction from protein-protein interaction network is presented in order to show the main features of the proposed workflow representation.


Objective. To examine the frequency, timing, and factors associated with abnormal cognitive and motor development during the first 30 months of life in infants born to women infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Methods. Serial neurodevelopmental assessment was performed with 595 infants born to women infected with HIV-1 in a multicenter, prospective, natural history cohort study. Survival analysis methods were used to evaluate 6 outcome events related to abnormal cognitive and motor growth (time to confirmed drop of 1 SD, time to first score <69, and time to confirmed drop of 2 SD) in Bayley Scales of Infant Development Mental Developmental Index (MDI) and Psychomotor Developmental Index (PDI) scores among infected (n = 114) and uninfected (n = 481) infants. Proportional hazards modeling was used to evaluate the effects of HIV infection status, prematurity, prenatal exposure to illicit drugs, maternal educational attainment, and primary language. Results. HIV-1 infection was significantly associated with increased risk for all outcome events related to abnormal mental and motor growth. Differences between infected and uninfected infants were apparent by 4 months of age. Prematurity was associated with increased risk for MDI <69 and PDI <69. Maternal education of <9 completed years was associated with increased risk for MDI <69. Neither prenatal exposure to illicit drugs nor primary language other than English was associated with abnormal development. Conclusion. A significant proportion of infants with HIV-1 infection show early and marked cognitive and motor delays or declines that may be important early indicators of HIV disease progression. These abnormalities are independent of other risk factors for developmental delay.


In this paper the problem of cyclic instability in dynamic environments is presented. This cyclic instability is generated when binary rule-based nomadic agents (agents entering or leaving the environment) interact in complex ways, generating undesirable outputs for the final user. Our strategy is focused on minimizing this cyclic behaviour, using optimization algorithms, in particular Genetic and Differential Evolution Algorithms. These algorithms are applied to the Average Change Function. Different test instances were used to evaluate the performance of these algorithms. Additionally, statistical tests were applied to measure their performance.


In their examiniation of written and photographic newspaper reporting of interscholastic sports, Pedersen and Whisenant (2003) determined the existence of hegemonic masculinity within the sports pages of the Florida print media. Based upon their analysis, they found that both female and male athletics were over-represented in both written and photographic coverage of traditionally accepted "sex appropriate" sports. Male athletics were under-represented in both written and photographic coverage of "sex inappropriate" sports. Female athletics, when analyzing their participation in isex inappropriatei sports, were under-represented in the photographic coverage but not in the written coverage. Pedersen and Whisenant (2003) used content analytic methodology to examine articles and photographs of interscholastic athletics appearing over a one-year period in every general circulation daily newspaper (N=43) published in Florida. The sampling frame selected for this content analysis was from June 1, 1999 through May 31, 2000. The researchers constructed two weeks for each newspaper by randomly selecting through stratified sampling procedures 14 issues from each paper (Riffe, Aust, & Lacy, 1993). The study, which included a total sample size was 602 issues, involved a descriptive analysis of the written and photographic areas of high school sports included in the selected issues. Each of the two coders participated in a pre-coding session, which was followed by a pilot study. After successful completion of these preliminary steps, the coders independently examined the 120 randomly selected newspaper sports sections (20% of the sample) to test for intercoder reliability (Riffe, Lacy & Fico, 1998). In the intercoder reliability testing phase, the agreement between the coders in the overlap area resulted in percentages that ranged from 84.9 to 97.2. The calculated scores for probability of chance agreement between the two coders ranged from .845 to .972. These high numbers are understandable as most of the material coded was manifest content in nature (i.e., gender, sport). Furthermore, the percentages and numbers confirmed that the two coders had become thoroughly familiar with the coding protocol and codebook by the time the study was conducted. After reliability coding was completed, the coders received and coded the remaining 482 daily editions. The analysis of data in the study by Pedersen and Whisenant (2003) included a determination of proportional and disproportional coverage. According to Malec (1994), in order for there to be an accurate comparison of the amount of coverage given to female and male athletics it must be tested against an independent standard. Cho (1993), Mathesen and Flatten (1996), and Urquhart and Crossman (1999) argued that the independent standard is best accomplished by placing gender equity in sport reporting in the context of participation rates. …


The paper focuses on online consumer activism targeting Belarusian vyshyvanka, i.e. commodities with geometric ornament. Its reinvention was spurred by a global trend of nation branding and by post-socialist nation building. The consumption of ornamented products incites 'rebranding of the nation' which gets resemanticized and reinvented via online user-led content creation, as prosumers, often younger cosmopolitan urbanites, like, share, discuss, remix and perform other kinds of digital manipulations with recognizable geometric imagery. In their online incarnations, ornamented products become a semiotic space where ideas about nationhood are explored. At the same time, as online communities reinvent the meaning and socially reinforce the use of ornamented commodities, they re-create their group solidarity and social cohesion. The mechanics of this integration relies on the ability of some digital units to serve as memes and pointers, with the help of which, users can become aware of each other.


Cat-scratch disease (CSD) is a zoonotic disease, caused by Bartonella henselae, a gram-negative bacillus, that has a variable clinical presentation and must be suspected in immunocompetent patients or immunocompromised patients with prolonged febrile syndrome of unknown origin that have history of interaction with cats. Diagnosing CSD may be challenging, so clinical suspicion and a thorough clinical interview and workup are essential to come up with a definitive conclusion. Typically, CSD presents with regional lymphadenopathies and subsequent systemic compromise. However, it can present with a unique manifestation such as hepatosplenic compromise. Herein, we present a patient with prolonged febrile syndrome with systemic symptoms and reticuloendothelial compromise.


The standard narrative of the meltdown of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers assumes that the wealth of the top executives of these firms was largely wiped out along with their firms. In the ongoing debate about regulatory responses to the financial crisis, commentators have used this assumed fact as a basis for dismissing both the role of compensation structures in inducing risk-taking and the potential value of reforming such structures. This paper provides a case study of compensation at Bear Stearns and Lehman during 2000-2008 and concludes that this assumed fact is incorrect. We find that the top-five executive teams of these firms cashed out large amounts of performance-based compensation during the 2000-2008 period. During this period, they were able to cash out large amounts of bonus compensation that was not clawed back when the firms collapsed, as well as to pocket large amounts from selling shares. Overall, we estimate that the top executive teams of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers derived cash flows of about $1.4 billion and $1 billion respectively from cash bonuses and equity sales during 2000-2008. These cash flows substantially exceeded the value of the executives' initial holdings in the beginning of the period, and the executives' net payoffs for the period were thus decidedly positive. The divergence between how the top executives and their shareholders fared implies that it is not possible to rule out, as standard narratives suggest, that the executives' pay arrangements provided them with excessive risk-taking incentives. We discuss the implications of our analysis for understanding the possible role that pay arrangements have played in the run-up to the financial crisis and how they should be reformed going forward.


The relationship between the British government and the City of London has become central to debates on modern British economic, political and social life. For some the City's financial and commercial interests have exercised a dominant influence over government economic policy, creating a preoccupation with international markets and the strength of sterling which impaired domestic industrial and social well-being. Others have argued that government seriously constricted financial markets, jeopardising Britain's most successful economic sector. This collection of essays was the first book to address these issues over the entire twentieth century. It brings together leading financial and political historians to assess the government-City relationship from several directions and by examination of key episodes. As such, it will be indispensable not just for the study of modern British politics and finance, but also for assessment of the worldwide problem of tensions between national governments and international financial centres.


The Barbados economy has been challenged over the last decade by elevated fiscal deficits and a rapid build-up in debt. While the country has made efforts to address this challenge through revenue and expenditure measures, budget targets have often been missed. This study indicates that budget underperformance has contributed to the debt accumulation in Barbados. When comparing actual to budgeted targets set out in the budget, the study indicates that there has been an underestimation of expenditure and lower-than-expected revenue in several years. Particularly, systematic underestimation of transfers without adequate compensation in revenues has increased debt, underscoring the need for institutional and fiscal reforms. At the same time, the under-execution of capital expenditure highlights the need for better allocation to this growthpromoting spending, which has suffered from limited fiscal space.


Data-intensive analytics on large clusters is important for modern Internet services. As machines in these clusters have large memories, in-memory caching of inputs is an effective way to speed up these analytics jobs. The key challenge, however, is that these jobs run multiple tasks in parallel and a job is sped up only when inputs of all such parallel tasks are cached. Indeed, a single task whose input is not cached can slow down the entire job. To meet this "all-or-nothing" property, we have built PACMan, a caching service that coordinates access to the distributed caches. This coordination is essential to improve job completion times and cluster efficiency. To this end, we have implemented two cache replacement policies on top of PACMan's coordinated infrastructure fb-LIFE that minimizes average completion time by evicting large incomplete inputs, and LFU-F that maximizes cluster efficiency by evicting less frequently accessed inputs. Evaluations on production workloads from Facebook and Microsoft Bing show that PACMan reduces average completion time of jobs by 53% and 51% (small interactive jobs improve by 77%), and improves efficiency of the cluster by 47% and 54%, respectively.


To identify the economic stars of the future we should abandon the habit of extrapolating from the recent past and lumping wildly diverse countries together. We need to remember that sustained economic success is a rare phenomenon. After years of rapid growth, the most celebrated emerging markets-Brazil, Russia, India, and China-are about to slow down. Which countries will rise to challenge them? In his best-selling book, writer and investor Ruchir Sharma identifies which countries are most likely to leap ahead and why, drawing insights from time spent on the ground and detailed demographic, political, and economic analysis. With a new chapter on America's future economic prospects, Breakout Nations offers a captivating picture of the shifting balance of global economic power among emerging nations and the West.


This paper reexamines the treatment of subordination in Cognitive Grammar. Subordination is not susceptible to simple, categorical description. Understanding it requires the elucidation of numerous factors, with respect to which one can describe its many types, distinguish them from one another, and properly relate them to other phenomena. Among the relevant factors are asymmetries in prominence, including profiling, trajector/landmark organization, and status as the important content in a discourse. Special attention is devoted to how these interact with limited "windows of attention" in an integrated account of grammar and dynamic processing.


This paper presents an evaluation of the status and direction of toxic/hazardous waste reduction in the chemical and petrochemical industries from an international perspective. Pertinent approaches, experiences and trends are described. Industrial waste management has evolved from an "end-of-pipe" treatment mentality to source reduction as the preferred option. It is generally agreed that the Chemical/Petrochemical Industries generate more hazardous and toxic waste than any other industrial sector. Also because of the large quantities of materials and energy used by these industries, significant opportunities are available for waste reduction. In almost all cases costs savings have resulted, many of which are significant. The importance of pollution prevention by "clean technologies" instead of remediation, multi-media considerations and the significance of product life-cycle assessment in pollution prevention programs is stressed. Examples are provided which demonstrate, that a proactive approach by DOW, E.I. DuPONT, AMOCO, 3M Corp., CIBA-GEIGY and others is now becoming the norm. From an international policy perspective, important commonalities and differences in strategy and efforts for toxics/hazardous waste management exist. Much can be learned by the mistakes and solutions between cultures and countries. Much progress has been made in protection of public health and the environment - but much remains to be done. This paper is intended to provide a stimulus for discussion aimed at optimizing future waste minimization activities in the chemical and petrochemical industries.


Exposure to high irradiance results in dramatic changes in nuclear gene expression in plants. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which changes in irradiance are sensed and how the information is transduced to the nucleus to initiate the genetic response. To investigate whether the photoreceptors are involved in the response to high irradiance, we analyzed expression of EARLY LIGHT-INDUCIBLE PROTEIN1 (ELIP1), ELIP2, ASCORBATE PEROXIDASE2 (APX2), and LIGHT-HARVESTING CHLOROPHYLL A/B-BINDING PROTEIN2.4 (LHCB2.4) in the phytochrome A (phyA), phyB, cryptochrome1 (cry1), and cry2 photoreceptor mutants and long hypocotyl5 (hy5) and HY5 homolog (hyh) transcription factor mutants. Following exposure to high intensity white light for 3 h (1,000 μmol quanta m−2 s−1) expression of ELIP1/2 and APX2 was strongly induced and LHCB2.4 expression repressed in wild type. The cry1 and hy5 mutants showed specific misregulation of ELIP1/2, and we show that the induction of ELIP1/2 expression is mediated via CRY1 in a blue light intensity-dependent manner. Furthermore, using the Affymetrix Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) 24 K Gene-Chip, we showed that 77 of the high light-responsive genes are regulated via CRY1, and 26 of those genes were also HY5 dependent. As a consequence of the misregulation of these genes, the cry1 mutant displayed a high irradiance-sensitive phenotype with significant photoinactivation of photosystem II, indicated by reduced maximal fluorescence ratio. Thus, we describe a novel function of CRY1 in mediating plant responses to high irradiances that is essential to the induction of photoprotective mechanisms. This indicates that high irradiance can be sensed in a chloroplast-independent manner by a cytosolic/nucleic component.


Background Cognitive impairment in patients with schizophrenia is a core symptom of this disease. The computerized CogState Battery (CSB) has been used to detect seven of the most common cognitive domains in schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the CSB (CSB-C), in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. Methodology/Principal Findings Sixty Chinese patients with schizophrenia and 58 age, sex, and education matched healthy controls were enrolled. All subjects completed the CSB-C and the Repeated Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS). To examine the test-retest reliability of CSB-C, we tested 33 healthy controls twice, at a one month interval. The Cronbach α value of CSB-C in patients was 0.81. The test-retest correlation coefficients of the Two Back Task, Gronton Maze Learning Task, Social Emotional Cognition Task, and Continuous Paired Association Learning Task were between 0.39 and 0.62 (p<0.01) in healthy controls. The composite scores and all subscores for the CSB-C in patients were significantly (p<0.01) lower than those of healthy controls. Furthermore, composite scores for patients on the RBANS were also significantly lower than those of healthy controls. Interestingly, there was a positive correlation (r  =  0.544, p<0.001) between the composite scores on CSB-C and RBANS for patients. Additionally, in the attention and memory cognitive domains, corresponding subsets from the two batteries correlated significantly (p<0.05). Moreover, factor analysis showed a two-factor model, consisting of speed, memory and reasoning. Conclusions/Significance The CSB-C shows good reliability and validity in measuring the broad cognitive domains of schizophrenia in affected Chinese patients. Therefore, the CSB-C can be used as a cognitive battery, to assess the therapeutic effects of potential cognitive-enhancing agents in this cohort.