This study investigates how candidates' Facebook performance, measured by the number of average shares, likes, and comments per post, affects the personal vote they gained during the Hungarian general election campaign of 2014. The database contains three of the most voted-for candidates owning Facebook pages from all single-member districts. The results show that the average number of shares on candidates' Facebook pages is positively associated with electoral outcome after controlling for, inter alia, the vote share of their respective party on list in the districts, whereas the numbers of likes and comments are not significantly related to the dependent variable.


In different cases in these last years, the Portuguese Constitutional Tribunal (PCT) has reviewed the legality on some of the austerity measures agreed with (but effectively imposed by) the Trojka – the European Commission (Commission), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – as conditions for the release of the loan package granted to Portugal in May 2011. As it is well-known, some of those austerity measures have been declared unconstitutional. This paper tries to shed some light on a number of questions, both theoretical and practical, to which those judgments give rise.
The jurisprudence of the PCT raises crucial issues which the constitutional courts of EU Member States will certainly need to address in the future: what is the boundary between judicial activism and the judicial recognition of fundamental social rights as a remedy to the legislature's minimalism in ensuring the protection of those rights? When can legislative action, insofar as resulting from the democratic process, no longer be regarded as the best way to secure that the rights of citizens are safeguarded? To what extent can judges require the legislature to take social rights 'seriously'?
In this regard, we believe that, even though judges obviously do not create the law, they should be active – rather than activist or creative – agents of change whenever constitutional rights are put at risk by national legislation – whether or not the latter is the result of an international obligation or constraint – in order to behave as guardians of last resort for citizens' fundamental rights.


Computational modeling and simulation has developed and expanded into a diverse range of fields such as digital signal processing, image processing, robotics, systems biology, and many more; enhancing the need for a diversifying problem solving applications in this area.Efficiency and Scalability Methods for Computational Intellect presents various theories and methods for approaching the problem of modeling and simulating intellect in order to target computation efficiency and scalability of proposed methods. Researchers, instructors, and graduate students will benefit from this current research and will in turn be able to apply the knowledge in an effective manner to gain an understanding of how to improve this field.


In this paper, we examine the governmentality and the logics of urban control enacted through smart city technologies. Several commentators have noted that the implementation of algorithmic forms of urban governance that utilize big data greatly intensifies the extent and frequency of monitoring populations and systems and shifts the governmental logic from surveillance and discipline to capture and control. In other words, urban governmentality is shifting from subjectification – molding subjects and restricting action – to modulating affects, desires and opinions, and inducing action within prescribed comportments. We examine this contention through an examination of two forms of urban informatics: city dashboards and urban control rooms and their use in urban governance. In particular, we draw on empirical analysis of the governmental logics of the Dublin Dashboard, a public, analytical dashboard that displays a wide variety of urban data, and the Dublin Traffic Management and Incident Centre (TMIC) and its use of SCATS (Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System) to control the flow of traffic in the city. We argue that there is no one governmentality being enacted by smart city technologies, rather they have mutable logics which are abstract, mobile, dynamic, entangled and contingent, being translated and operationalized in diverse, context-dependent ways. As such, just as disciplinary power never fully supplanted sovereign power, control supplements rather than replaces discipline.


Bank have very important role in economics a state. Bank position in economics system is as monetary medium institution (Financial Intermeditary). Bank have strategic role in pushing growth of economics, so that need construction effort, observation and development for the shake of executing of mission of agent development of. This mission will reach to through fund management of kept by society is bank to be channelled in the form of loan to other society specially at real sector. Biggest portion of earnings of governmental public bank and also private sector public bank still depend on acceptance of loan flower through real saktor which defrayed.
The following Problem formula : (1) How banking efficiency storey;level which is public go in Effect Exchange of Jakarta of year 2001 up to year 2006 if/when seen with
approach of input of output? (2) How relation between to the number of bank office of branch, amount of absorbent labour to banking sector efficiency storey; level?
This Research object is Public Bank which is listed in Effect Exchange of Jakarta in this research in Effect Exchange of Jakarta counted 16 bank during year 2001-2006. Analysis which is used in this research is: (1) Measuring two size measure able to be used to know efficiency storey; level orient banking input that is: (a) Ratio Operating Cost to Totalizeing Assets (b) Ratio Operating Cost to Net Incame (2) To know influence of free variable (X) to variable tied (Y), hence used by analysis with method of regresi panel data. Three technique which commonly use to estimate regresi with panel data, that is: (a) Comman effect (b) Fixed effect (c) Random effect.
Pursuant to result of research can be concluded as follows:
1.Result of calculation of operating expenses to totalizeing asset show natural Bank is make-up of storey; level of inefisiensi. This matter indicate that operating expenses from year to year show tendency storey;level progressively mount or tend to inefficiently
2.Result of calculation of operating expenses to Net Incame have downhill tendency.
Matter this means released operating expenses height to be followed with make-up of earnings. Seen from technique of random effect obtained by calculation of operating
expenses to incame net indicate that natural bank of degradation of efficiency storey;level, 3.Result of calculation of interest net of incame to totalizeing assets from year to year its of natural him of tendency mount so that mount natural bank efficiency is make-up of
efficiency, but later; then have tendency of stagnan so that do not experience of improvement and also degradation of efficiency storey; level 4.From result of calculation of regresi between result of calculation of input analysis with amount of employees amount and branch do not show the existence of influence meaning signifikan
5.Result of calculation of regresi of amount of branch and employees to analysis of output also show the existence of influence which do not signifikan.


This article investigates the understandings and perceptions of (micro)insurance among lowincome people in southern Ghana, using evidence from four focus group discussions. It analyzes how the focus group participants think about various types of insurance – among them a micro life insurance product – and how their negative and/or positive evaluations have come about. The evidence indicates that (micro)insurance is mostly positively perceived by the participants of the focus group discussions. However, it is also found that many people's image of insurance is based on incomplete (and sometimes erroneous) information, or even on intuition. In addition, the experiences or opinions of peers turn out to be critical in shaping an individual's perception of insurance. These two factors potentially have a contagious effect, which can lead to unreasonably positive or overly negative ideas about (micro )insurance. Such ideas, in turn, can become detrimental to the further distribution of microinsurance.


The concept of exergy is defined and applied to district heating systems. The influence from different reference state conditions and system boundaries are explained in some detail. The aim is to show the simplicity and value of using the concept of exergy when analyzing district heating processes. The exergy factor is introduced and applied for a number of Swedish and Danish district heating systems. This varies from 14.2% to 22.5% for Swedish district heating systems. The higher the exergy factor, the more the exergy losses in the passive conversion towards space heating. Large losses revealed in an exergy treatment of a process should be seen as a challenge to achieve technical improvements of the system.


Tyre/road noise and vibration are the main sources of road traffic noise, which is an increasingly big problem in densely populated areas. At the same time, rolling resistance, caused by the energy losses in the tyre, is a significant part of the total vehicle losses and, therefore, directly affects fuel consumption and C02 emissions. In order to reduce both noise emissions and energy consumption a good understanding of tyre/road interaction and of the influence of tyre and road properties is needed. In this paper the main tyre and road parameters that influence tyre/road noise and rolling resistance are discussed. Special emphasis is placed on tyre/road contact, since the contact forces between tyre and road are the key to a reliable prediction of tyre/road noise, rolling resistance and wear. Although tyre/road models are widely applied to the prediction of tyre/road noise and low-noise road design, the potential of these models for low-rolling resistance road design is not yet fully exploited.


Quantitative interpretations of the so-called non-linear lattice strain distributions observed in coatings and thin films are important not only for determining the macro- and microstress fields, but also for inferring the active mechanisms of grain interactions during various deposition processes. In this paper, we present a method, which determines simultaneously both the macro- and micro- stress fields in the coatings and thin films. This method is extended from the previous stress-orientation distribution function (SODF) analysis method, which has already been used for residual stress analysis in bulk materials subjected to rolling and fatigue deformation. The validity of analysis method is demonstrated through measurements of lattice strains by high-energy x-ray and analysis of grain-orientation-dependent stresses in a CrN coating.


Following the decimating events of 9/11, and subsequent subversive activities by militant groups, the world has seen security move up the list of priorities for many. Terrorism has again raised its ugly head and instilled fear in all our lives, irrespective of where we live on the globe.
This problem has impressed a heightened awareness both nationally and globally, of the need for effective, vigilant, public, private and domestic security. This article emphasises that strategic security planning by any state security service, organisation, or private security provider is essential and it needs to take a holistic approach, from development to implementation.
It also stresses that in the private sector security industry in particular, for any security program or plan to succeed, it should form part of an organisation's business plan.
This will only receive priority only if those tasked with implementing security policies, have the support of their colleagues in other areas of business, such as the finance manager, the human resource director or the IT consultant.
The author contends that security must become an integrated part of a company's technological future. In practice, however, this message has not necessarily made its way to most corporate executives. It often happens that a security manager may go about the wrong way in trying to get his peers or employers to understand security policies. The view is expressed that security professionals have failed in many instances to properly educate senior management about the fundamentals of security.
Some of the key factors that are essential in order for the security managers to obtain the support s/he needs from senior management are discussed, while the role and function of the security committee, and the need for a professional presentation to the Board of Directors are alluded to.
The author concludes with some thoughts on preparing an operational security plan, and reiterates that today's security professionals must increase their technical proficiency, adapt to changing trends within the industry and advise their top managers accordingly.


Pocket milling operation is one of the widely used milling operations. CAM packages offer different tool path strategies to execute a machining operation. In the presented work zigzag, constant overlap spiral, parallel spiral and oneway tool path strategies were compared in terms of power and energy consumption for pocket milling of Al 6061 aluminum alloy. All pocketing operations were conducted using 8 mm diameter High Speed Steel (HSS) end milling cutters. Energy utilization was analysed for all tool path strategies. This work aims to develop better understanding towards sustainability concept in core machining phase.


A tubular and fibrous scaffold was fabricated from an elastic polymer, poly (L-lactideco- ε-caprolactone) (PLCL; Mn 193,813, Mw 538,623) 50:50 by using a novel gel spinning apparatus. To characterize the gel-spun scaffold, we investigated morphology, tensile property, tissue in-growth rate and degradation rate. From SEM images, fibrous structure in the scaffold wasn't fabricated well in the condition of 4% gel concentration. In general, the thickness level of microfibers increased as the gel concentration increased. In addition, the gel-spun scaffolds showed stronger tensile properties in the circumferential direction than the longitudinal direction. 5%, 7.5%, 10% and 12.5% scaffolds were analyzed in both directions: circumferential direction and longitudinal direction. On the other hand, the gel-spun scaffolds have been implanted in mouse to examine the degradation rate in vivo and tissue in-growth aspects, compared to extruded scaffolds. Both shows very similar degradation rates, but the aspect in tissue in-growth was different. In conclusion, gel-spun PLCL scaffolds have good characteristics as a plausible scaffold for cardiovascular tissue engineering.


The development of effective nonpoint pollution control programs has become one of the most complex challenges facing local and state authorities. Because of the multifarious nature of nonpoint pollution sources and possible solutions, a comprehensive combination of integrated treatment devices and source control techniques must be used to reduce pollutant loads to the maximum extent possible. The Prince George's County, Maryland's Department of Environmental Resources under the auspices of the U.S. EPA's Chesapeake Bay Nonpoint Source Program and Maryland's Department of the Environment is conducting a demonstration project to showcase and measure the effectiveness of a comprehensive watershed based urban nonpoint pollution reduction program.


Drug resistance continues to be a major problem in the effective treatment of many diseases. Resistance to chemotherapy, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, is the result of at least three well defined mechanisms: prevention of the interaction of drug with the target, decreased intracellular concentration of the drug due to an increased efflux or a decreased influx, and enzymatic modification or destruction of the drug. With the advancement in technology, the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance have been unravelling at a rapid rate. This book is a timely review of such advances in drug resistance research. The nine chapters of this book, written by a group of clinicians and scientists, elegantly summarises recent advances in our understanding of this important clinical problem with emphasis on cisplatin, fibroblasts, natural compounds, erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, prostate cancer and kidney cancer. This book will be an important contribution to science, and an invaluable tool for researchers who are interested in drug resistance.


The Sharpe ratio is widely used as a performance measure for traditional (i.e., long only) investment funds, but because it is based on mean-variance theory, it only considers the first two moments of a return distribution. It is, therefore, not suited for evaluating funds characterised by complex, asymmetric, highly-skewed return distributions such as hedge funds. It is also susceptible to manipulation and estimation error. These drawbacks have demonstrated the need for new and additional fund performance metrics. The monthly returns of 184 international long/short (equity) hedge funds from four geographical investment mandates were examined over an 11-year period. This study contributes to recent research on alternative performance measures to the Sharpe ratio and specifically assesses whether a scaled-version of the classic Sharpe ratio should augment the use of the Sharpe ratio when evaluating hedge fund risk and in the investment decision-making process. A scaled Treynor ratio is also compared to the traditional Treynor ratio. The classic and scaled versions of the Sharpe and Treynor ratios were estimated on a 36-month rolling basis to ascertain whether the scaled ratios do indeed provide useful additional information to investors to that provided solely by the classic, non-scaled ratios.


For more than a decade the government of Georgia, following consultations with international and transnational actors involved in financial politics and development work, is attempting to stimulate economic development in the countryside by encouraging tourism. The mountainous regions play a specific role in this process. Mountains provide a seemingly good starting point for the development of tourism as they can be defined as being very rich in both cultural heritage and natural landscapes. The main question addressed here is whether the current spatial plans and heritagization strategies of the government for Tusheti are subtle steering mechanisms primarily concerned with encouraging a free market economy. Towards this end, the local population are expected to become entrepreneurs in tourism services. In order to theoretically embed and explain what is happening in Georgia, the concepts of governmentality and heritage regimes will be used. The focus of this paper is on governmentality as it is perceived from the perspective of critical heritage studies and the anthropology of development.


Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is a major complication of viral respiratory infections and immunodeficient states. Although the innate immune response mediated by neutrophils plays a major role in the clearance of MRSA, the cytokine regulation of this process is poorly understood. Here, we investigated the role of IL-21 in the host response to pulmonary MRSA infection. In experiments using a mouse model, Il21r-deficient mice more efficiently cleared pulmonary MRSA infection, suggesting a negative role for IL-21 in MRSA clearance. Interestingly, Il21r KO mice displayed an enhanced "interferon signature" response after pulmonary MRSA infection as compared to WT mice, and blocking the type I IFN response eliminated the ability of Il21r KO mice to more efficiently clear the infection. Despite the more efficient clearing of pulmonary MRSA in Il21r KO than in wild-type mice, when IL-21 was administered to wild-type mice, there was enhanced clearance of MRSA, and this clearance was accompanied by the induction of cytolytic proteases and other components of pulmonary defense. Correspondingly, human peripheral blood neutrophils responded directly to IL-21 with the induction of cytolytic proteases including granzymes, and they displayed enhanced IL-21-induced killing of MRSA that was granzyme-dependent. These data demonstrate that although the chronic absence of IL-21 signaling in Il21r KO leads to the dominant action of type I IFN responses that result in MRSA clearance, IL-21 directly induces a cytolytic program in both human and mouse neutrophils that results in MRSA killing. These data suggest that manipulation of IL-21 signaling may be a strategy for controlling bacterial infections.


To get an idea of how personalized medicine could reshape patient care in the years ahead, one need only look at how it is beginning to reshape the care of patients with cancer. Cancer is where personalized medicine has gained its firmest foothold. The longstanding scattershot practice of prescribing the same drugs to virtually all patients with a particular type of cancer is giving way to a more selective approach in which genetic tests are run on tumor samples to identify which patients are likely to benefit from which drugs, or to tell whether they need drugs at all. This shift holds the prospect of improving cancer care and the stewardship of costly cancer care resources. It has had its successes and failures, its swells of enthusiasm and ebbs of skepticism. It has interjected the talk of genetic markers, like KRAS and EGFR, into the doctor-patient conversation, giving it the gloss of scientific certitude. But in reality much of the decision-making that is taking place now requires a giant leap of faith. Nowhere are this shift and its mashup of effects more apparent than with breast cancer. Until just a few years ago, it was a given that most women with operable breast cancer--including many with early-stage disease--would get chemotherapy to prevent recurrence. Doctors and patients knew that chemo was a blunt instrument: it could increase survival but would also damage healthy cells, causing hair loss and other severe side effects. But doctors knew something else: that chemo would do more harm than good for many patients. Their risk of recurrence was so low that chemotherapy probably would not increase their survival. The trouble was, it was impossible to tell in advance who these women were. In the absence of a crystal ball, the safest decision seemed to be to give chemotherapy and hope for the best. Now, there are a few crystal balls: genetic tests on the market that predict the likelihood of breast cancer recurring based on the expression of certain genes in a tumor sample. The test with the strongest evidence behind it, according to a panel sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate genetic tests, is Oncotype DX. It is designed for women newly diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer that is estrogen-receptor positive and has not spread to the lymph nodes. About half of the 207,000 women expected to get a breast cancer diagnosis this year will fall into this category. The test is cited in two breast cancer treatment protocols--from the American Society for Clinical Oncology and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network--as a tool for deciding whether to recommend chemotherapy, along with pathological features and other information that indicates a tumor's aggressiveness. Medicare and most private insurers cover the $3,900 cost of the test, and ninety thousand women have had it, fifty thousand of them in 2009 alone, according to Genomic Health, the manufacturer. On its Web site, Genomic Health has revolving photographs of two chairs: a hospital chair next to an intravenous drip, and a wing chair next to an elegant table with fresh flowers and a mug. The words "Chemo? No Chemo?" are superimposed on the photographs. The implication is that Oncotype DX makes the choice simple and straightforward. Does it? That depends. A look at how the test works reveals why the choice is often neither simple nor straightforward. The test measures the expression of twenty-one genes--sixteen related to cancer recurrence and disease-free survival and five noncancer genes included as reference points to verify the results. The results are used to calculate a "recurrence score" on a scale of one to one hundred. A score of one to seventeen indicates a low risk (about 7 percent) of distant recurrence within ten years, evidence that chemotherapy might not be beneficial. A score of thirty-one to one hundred indicates a high risk (about 30 percent) of recurrence, evidence that chemotherapy could be lifesaving. …


Abstract This paper provides the radiation absorbed dose rates (rad-h-1) to a tissue-equivalent torus ring at 1 meter from radioactive spallation products in Ta, W, Pb, Bi, and LBE target materials used in Accelerator Transmutation of Waste (ATW) applications. No previous works have provided an estimate of the absorbed dose rates (rad-h-1) to tissue from activated targets for ATW applications. In addition, this paper provides the characterization of target materials of high-energy particle accelerators for the parameters of (a) spallation neutron yield (neutrons/proton), (b) spallation products yield (nuclides/proton), (c) energy-dependent spallation neutron fluence distribution (n-cm-2 MeV-1), and (d) identification of the optimal target dimensions to yield the maximum radial spallation neutron leakage from the target. A beneficial characteristic of these target materials (Ta, W, Pb, Bi, and LBE) is they do not produce radioactive transuranic isotopes, which have very long half-lives and require special handling and disposition controls. In addition, these activated, spent targets are not considered high-level radioactive waste for disposal purposes such as spent fuel from a nuclear power reactor.


Rate and diversity impose a fundamental tradeoff in wireless communication. High-rate space-time codes come at a cost of lower reliability (diversity), and high reliability (diversity) implies a lower rate. However, wireless networks need to support applications with very different quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, and it is natural to ask what characteristics should be built into the physical layer link in order to accommodate them. In this paper, we design high-rate space-time codes that have a high-diversity code embedded within them. This allows a form of communication where the high-rate code opportunistically takes advantage of good channel realizations while the embedded high-diversity code provides guarantees that at least part of the information is received reliably. We provide constructions of linear and nonlinear codes for a fixed transmit alphabet constraint. The nonlinear constructions are a natural generalization to wireless channels of multilevel codes developed for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel that are matched to binary partitions of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and phase-shift keying (PSK) constellations. The importance of set-partitioning to code design for the wireless channel is that it provides a mechanism for translating constraints in the binary domain into lower bounds on diversity protection in the complex domain. We investigate the systems implications of embedded diversity codes by examining value to unequal error protection, rate opportunism, and packet delay optimization. These applications demonstrate that diversity-embedded codes have the potential to outperform traditional single-layer codes in moderate signal-to-noise (SNR) regimes.


The δ 18 O and δ 13 C values of benthic foraminifera from the cold stadials of the last glacial period in the Nordic seas are low, whereas the values from the warm interstadials are high. The low values have been attributed to brine formation carrying a low stable isotope signal from the surface water into deep water, as occurs around Antarctica today. Brines are often considered to have played a major role for the abrupt millennial-scale climate shifts during the last glaciation. However, very little is known of the isotopic composition of modern brines in the Northern Hemisphere, greatly hampering the interpretation of past data. Here we report on the oxygen and carbon isotope composition of benthic foraminifera in two cores from a brine-influenced shelf environment in Storfjorden, Svalbard, in the Barents Sea. The results indicate that brines with sufficient density to contribute significantly to intermediate and deep water are formed from cold, salty waters and have high δ 18 O and δ 13 C values. Brines with low δ 18 O values formed from cold, fresher water have relatively low density, and they are unable to penetrate the deeper parts of the Arctic and Nordic seas. This indicates that the low benthic δ 18 O and δ 13 C values obtained from the Nordic seas during stadials cannot be attributed to brines. The implication is that brines did not contribute significantly to the millennial-scale climate shifts.


A series of charts are presented by which the wing torsional stiffness required to meet a given standard of rolling effectiveness may be quickly determined. The charts may also be used to obtain quickly the aileron reversal speed and the variation of the loss in rolling effectiveness with airspeed. The charts apply to linearly tapered wings and elliptical wings of tubular-shell construction having various aspect ratios with aileron span and location of ailerons as variables. In the derivation of the charts, induced lift effects have been taken into account and the form of the wing-torsional-stiffness curve has been assumed.


The Swedish species of Leiophron nees are reviewed. The species Leiophron reclinator (Ruthe, 1856), L. fulvipes (Curtis, 1833) and L. duploclaviventris (Shenefelt, 1969) are reported for the rst time from Sweden. Leiophron similis (Curtis, 1833) is introduced as a new synonym of L. basalis (Curtis, 1833). a key and diagnoses for the identifcation of the Swedish species are also provided. There are currently nine species known in Sweden, most parasitize on Miridae (hemiptera) and Psochidae (Psocoptera).


The RADP (Random amplified polymorphic DNA) technique was used to detect tissue-culture-induced variations in sugarcane. Plants of the Brazilian variety RB83-5486 propagated via rhizomes and via meristem cultures were studied. The polymorphism rate for 98 RAPD loci was 6.93% when the plants derived from meristems. Besides, in order to evaluate the influence of the number of subcultures on the generation of somaclonal variation, field-grown RB83-5486 plants derived from 10 meristems were studied after five subcultivations. Although different rates of polymorphism were observed, there was no direct association with the stage of subcultivation. The analysis of plants of two sugarcane varieties cultivated in vitro from meristems showed that variety RB83-5486 was more unstable than variety SP80-185.


Tritiated water can be standardized by internal gas proportional counting following its chemical reduction, by means of a tritium gas generator, to produce tritiated hydrogen. In this paper a new tritium gas generator is described in detail together with the method of measurement based on the internal gas counting. It has new and improved features and offers the advantage of being simpler and easier to operate than other tritium generators available. Thus, this tritium generator has the following new features: (i) it performs the water reduction at a lower temperature (450°C) than the other generators which need 600°C ; (ii) the reduction yield is always unitary. Also, it has a simple and compact construction by using the same components for water degassing and water reduction. Its simple disassembly and reassembly allow for easy maintenance


Abstract. On 5 July 2005, simultaneous observations of Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes (PMSE) were made using the EISCAT VHF (224 MHz) and UHF (933 MHz) radars located near Tromso, Norway and the ALWIN VHF radar (53.5 MHz) situated on Andoya, 120 km SW of the EISCAT site. During the short interval from 12:20 UT until 12:26 UT strong echoes at about 84 km altitude were detected with all three radars. The radar volume reflectivities were found to be 4×10−13 m−1, 1.5×10−14 m−1 and 1.5×10−18 m−1 for the ALWIN, EISCAT-VHF and UHF radars, respectively. We have calculated the reflectivity ratios for each pair of radars and have compared them to ratios obtained from the turbulence-theory model proposed by Hill (1978a). We have tested different values of the turbulent energy dissipation rate e and Schmidt number Sc, which are free parameters in the model, to try to fit theoretical reflectivity ratios to the experimental ones. No single combination of the parameters e and Sc could be found to give a good fit. Spectral widths for the EISCAT radars were estimated from the spectra computed from the autocorrelation functions obtained in the experiment. After correction for beam-width broadening, the spectral widths are about 4 m/s for the EISCAT-VHF and 1.5–2 m/s for the UHF radar. However, according to the turbulence theory, the spectral widths in m/s should be the same for both radars. We also tested an incoherent scatter (IS) model developed by Cho et al. (1998), which takes into account the presence of charged aerosols/dust at the summer mesopause. It required very different sizes of particles for the EISCAT-VHF and UHF cases, to be able to fit the experimental spectra with model spectra. This implies that the IS model cannot explain PMSE spectra, at least not for monodisperse distributions of particles.


It is often assumed that medical treatment creates a trade-off between good health and income; that is, an individual "pays" for good health by an income loss (at least at the early stages of treatment) compared, for example, with the no-treatment choice. We examined empirical data on hypertensive steelworkers in Canada to evaluate whether such a trade-off exists. We found none. Indeed, those who participated in a treatment program to reduce their blood pressure not only gained improved health but also made small income "gains." Our findings thus challenge the validity of the trade-off assumption and call for further studies of its generalizability.


Over the past 25 years, technological and other changes have dramatically transformed the Australian workplace. Continuous demands for quick results, an ever improving bottom line, shorter time frames and constant change have had particular impact on the role of leadership, which has become more nebulous yet, at the same time, is held more responsible for organisational success. The research question―What is the role of leaders and leadership in contemporary Australian-based organisations undergoing change? ― addresses the nature of modern leadership and the role of organisational leaders. The study has three broad aims: to understand the nature of contemporary organisational leadership; to examine whether current leadership practice is meeting organisational demands; and to identify how our current and future leaders can be better supported in a changing organisational context. The study explores the perceptions and practices of 61 leaders who work in a wide range of Australian public and private organisations through analysis of in-depth interviews. Key themes relevant to these leaders' experiences are identified. These provide insight into the activities and thinking that support or hinder leadership success and their implications for the organisation as a whole. The findings suggest that oganisational leadership is best conceptualised not as a unitary phenomenon but, rather, as comprising two largely interdependent―though frequently confused―disciplines. The investigation identified eight ways in which both forms of leadership can be hijacked from their intended purposes. Drawing on the study data, the researcher has developed a leadership and management taxonomy that depicts how leadership and management should work together in order to achieve an organisation's short- and long-term goals. The research thus makes an original contribution to empirical and theoretical work in the field of organisational leadership education policy and design. The study's recommendations provide a framework and guidelines for improving the performance and competence of contemporary Australian organisational leaders during these challenging and often uncertain times.


Background Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a heterogeneous disease; its prognosis depends on the disease stage at diagnosis as well as the presence or absence of high-risk markers to determine the treatment strategy. Aim To evaluate the expression of BCL6 and Ki67 in patients with CLL and to assess their clinical prognostic significance in relation to other established prognostic markers such as Zeta-associated protein of 70-Kd (ZAP70) and β2 microglobulin (β2M). Participants and methods BCL6 and Ki67 were measured using flow cytometry in thirty newly diagnosed CLL patients who presented to the Hematology units in Alexandria Main University Hospital and the Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, they were also measured in 20 healthy age-matched and sex-matched controls. Results A statistically significant difference was found between cases and controls for both BCL6 and Ki67 expressions (P<0.0001). Significantly positive correlations were found between both BCL6 and Ki67 expressions and the following parameters: Rai staging (P=0.000 and 0.000, respectively), serum marker lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (P=0.001 and 0.000, respectively), β2M (P=0.005 and 0.000, respectively), and ZAP70 expression (P=0.000 and 0.000, respectively). Similarly, a positive significant correlation was found between BCL6 expression and Ki67 expression (P=0.000). Rai staging showed a significant positive correlation with β2M, LDH, and ZAP70 (P=0.000, 0.001, and 0.003, respectively). Conclusion BCL6 expression and Ki67 expressions were positively correlated with the established prognostic markers (clinical staging, LDH, β2M, and ZAP70), so both of them may be considered as prognostic factors in patients with CLL.


Purpose

The paper aims to estimate the segment size and alphabet size of Symbolic Aggregate approXimation (SAX). In SAX, time series data are divided into a set of equal-sized segments. Each segment is represented by its mean value and mapped with an alphabet, where the number of adopted symbols is called alphabet size. Both parameters control data compression ratio and accuracy of time series mining tasks. Besides, optimal parameters selection highly depends on different application and data sets. In fact, these parameters are iteratively selected by analyzing entire data sets, which limits handling of the huge amount of time series and reduces the applicability of SAX.

Design/methodology/approach

The segment size is estimated based on Shannon sampling theorem (autoSAXSD_S) and adaptive hierarchical segmentation (autoSAXSD_M). As for the alphabet size, it is focused on how mean values of all the segments are distributed. The small number of alphabet size is set for large distribution to easily distinguish the difference among segments.

Findings

Experimental evaluation using University of California Riverside (UCR) data sets shows that the proposed schemes are able to select the parameters well with high classification accuracy and show comparable efficiency in comparison with state-of-the-art methods, SAX and auto_iSAX.

Originality/value

The originality of this paper is the way to find out the optimal parameters of SAX using the proposed estimation schemes. The first parameter segment size is automatically estimated on two approaches and the second parameter alphabet size is estimated on the most frequent average (mean) value among segments.


The worldwide observed dramatic decline of seagrasses has typically been attributed to multiple stressors such as eutrophication, disease, sedimentation, and toxicity events. Using principal component analysis and (multivariate) logistic regression, we investigated the importance of 30 commonly measured variables in explaining the presence and absence of the temperate seagrass species Zostera marina and Zostera noltii at 84 Western European locations. Although many interrelated variables influence seagrass presence in our dataset, presence or absence of both species could be reliably predicted by using only two easy‐to‐measure variables. A logistic regression model of Z. marina correctly predicted 77% of all observations by including water column light attenuation and sediment pore‐water reduction oxidation potential (RedOx). The Z. noltii model had an 86% accuracy based on only tidal location (intertidal or subtidal zone) and pore‐water RedOx. Applying the models to five evaluation sites demonstrated that both models can be usefully applied as tools for seagrass ecosystem restoration and conservation.


The present morphological expression of the continental margin off NW Britain is a mid- to late Cenozoic phenomenon, initiated by a major phase of rapid subsidence in the Rockall Trough and Hatton-Rockall Basin during the early late Eocene. This led to a deepening of the basins and the onset of bottom-current activity in this region. On seismic-reflection profiles, this basin-subsidence event is manifest in the form of a widespread deep-water unconformity caused by bottom-current erosion. This boundary is particularly enhanced at the basin margins and adjacent to the axial seamounts of Rosemary Bank and Anton Dohrn, where the downwarped and eroded surface of lower upper Eocene and older strata is onlapped by middle to upper Cenozoic sediments. The latter comprise two megasequences of late Eocene to mid-Miocene and mid-Miocene to Holocene age, which consist predominantly of deep-marine contourites both in the Rockall Trough and the Hatton-Rockall Basin, although a clastic wedge has built out along the Hebridean shelf-margin since the mid-Miocene. These megasequences reflect a gross, two-stage, depositional history; a response to intra-plate tectonism which modified sedimentation patterns and palaeoceanographic circulation. The development of the bounding unconformities (early late Eocene and mid-Miocene) was coincident with major phases of regional tectonism.


T he hydrochloride salt of xaliproden, an orally-active, synthetic, non-peptidic 5hydroxytryptamine (5-HT ) 1A receptor agonist with neurotrophic and neuroprotective activities. Although its mechanism of action is not fully understood, xaliproden appears to either mimic the effects of neurotrophins or stimulate their synthesis, thereby stimulating neuronal cell differentiation and proliferation and inhibiting neuronal cell death. T he neuroprotective effect of this agent involves the activation of MAP kinase pathways via stimulation of the 5-HT 1A receptor. Qeios · Definition, February 7, 2020


A joint model for plot yield in response to fertility trends and interplot competition is described. The model combines the mixed model representation of a cubic smoothing spline to model fertility and a regression model with auto-regressive terms to model competition. Estimation is based on a generalization of residual maximum likelihood. The methods were applied to a series of 70 sugar beet trials conducted by the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge, UK, and the results summarized.


In this paper we analyse financial implications of exchangeability and similar properties of finite dimensional random vectors. We show how these properties are reflected in prices of some basket options in view of the well-known put-call symmetry property and the duality principle in option pricing. A particular attention is devoted to the case of asset prices driven by Levy processes. Based on this, concrete semi-static hedging techniques for multi-asset barrier options, such as certain weighted barrier spread options, weighted barrier swap options or weighted barrier quanto-swap options are suggested.


Landslides can cause major economic damage and a large number of casualties as it is possible to see from past events occurred all over the world. Being able to predict these kind of hazards would then suppose the achievement of great benefits. Here a model that combines a depth integrated description of the soil-pore fluid mixture together with a set of 1D models dealing with pore pressure evolution with in the soil mass is presented. The mathematical model is based on the Biot-Zienkiewicz equations, from where a depth averaged model is derived. Concerning the material behaviour, the approach used is the one suggested by the Perzyna viscoplasticity, which has been extensively used in the past to model solid behavior prior to failure. In this framework, a simple shear rheological model is derived, providing the basal friction needed in depth integrated models. The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) has been the numerical technique chosen to spatially discretized the depth integrated equations of the mathematical model. The purpose of this work is to apply the SPH depth integrated numerical model, together with the sub-model that predicts the evolution of the pore water pressure inside the landslide, to simulate the propagation phase of the Aberfan flowslide occurred in1966.


Semantic Web Services (SWSs) represent the most recent and revolutionary technology developed for machine-to-machine interaction on the web 3.0. As for the conventional web services, the problem of discovering and selecting the most suitable web service represents a challenge for SWSs to be widely used. In this paper, we propose a mapping algorithm that facilitates the redefinition of the conventional web services annotations (i.e., WSDL) using semantic annotations (i.e., OWL-S). This algorithm will be a part of a new discovery mechanism that relies on the semantic annotations of the web services to perform its task. The "local ontology repository" and "ontology search and standardization engine" are the backbone of this algorithm. Both of them target to define any data type in the system using a standard ontology-based concept. The originality of the proposed mapping algorithm is its applicability and consideration of the standardization problem. The proposed algorithm is implemented and its components are validated using some test collections and real examples. An experimental test of the proposed techniques is reported, showing the impact of the proposed algorithm in decreasing the time and the effort of the mapping process. Moreover, the experimental results promises that the proposed algorithm will have a positive impact on the discovery process as a whole.


If indicators of international competitivity of the Portuguese industry reveal very strong weaknesses in the field of education and vocational training, the achievement of a solution is not based only (and should not!) in a decisive increase of investment and support in the education and training system. It seem not logical to think in that way, once normally when one tries to solve a problem that is done in the context of that same problem. Eventually there are other strategies. Which are, then, the fields where is necessary to orient the investiment to improve an industrial competitivity? To try to answer this question, we analise one of the sectors that have contributed the most for an improvement of the Portuguese economical performance, and for a true innovative process as in terms of industrial product, or in terms of manufacturing and distribution processes. Is the automotive sector where that happens, taken in its two most important sub-sectors: the one of automobile manufacturing and assembly, and the one of components manufacturing.


Characterizing the existing funding portfolio of a federal agency is difficult due to the number, complexity, and diversity of funded projects and associated metadata. Determining the impact of a funded project can be even more challenging, especially in terms of qualifying the return on investment of the research activity. Deep Insights Anywhere, Anytime (DIA2) is an interactive data-mining and Web-based visualization platform that makes it easy to access and understand funding portfolios. The authors performed an assessment of DIA2's usability and asked users at the US National Science Foundation how DIA2 can provide meaningful representations that contribute to determining the impact of a research portfolio. Their results show that DIA2 has good usability, and the study participants identified several indicators of impact as a result of the visualizations that can be realized through DIA2.


Several studies in tropical settings have reported that ∼20% of patients infected with Monkeypox virus (MPXV) also tested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive for Varicella zoster virus (VZV). Researchers have hypothesized that VZV infection predisposes to monkeypox (mpox), or vice versa, or that MPXV triggers the reactivation of VZV. We tested samples for VZV from a cohort of patients infected with clade IIb MPXV diagnosed between May 23 and October 14, 2022 in Antwerp, Belgium. Leftover DNA extracts of skin lesion samples from 108 mpox patients were tested with in-house PCR for VZV. No VZV infections were found. The absence of concurrent VZV-MPXV infections in our cohort indicates that VZV did not cocirculate in the population at risk for MPXV during the Belgian 2022 outbreak, but also that MPXV does not commonly trigger reactivation of latent VZV in adult men.


Measuring patent value is an important goal of scholars in both patent law and patent economics. However, doing so objectively, accurately, and consistently has proved exceedingly difficult. At least part of the reason for this difficulty is that patents themselves are complex documents that are difficult even for patent experts to interpret. In addition, issued patents are the result of an often long and complicated negotiation between applicant and patent office (in the United States, the United States Patent & Trademark Office), resulting in an opaque "prosecution history" upon which the scope of claimed patent rights depends. In this article, we approach the concept of patent value by using the relative positions of issued United States patents embedded within a comprehensive patent citation network to measure the importance of those patents within the network. Thus, we tend to refer to the "importance" of patents instead of "value," but there is good reason to believe that these two concepts share a very similar meaning. Our study examines both patent litigation and patent importance, and suggests that litigated patents tend to be more important than non-litigated patents, and the higher the federal court level in which patent litigation takes place the more important the patents there litigated tend to be. These findings are consistent with the findings of influential studies on patent value carried out by Allison et al. in 2004 and 2009, in which litigated patents were generally found to be more valuable than non-litigated patents and those litigated most often were found to be especially valuable. Our findings also reveal marked differences in the mean and median importances of patents litigated in different federal district courts. Finally, we find several geographic clusters of federal district courts characterized by the litigation of disproportionately important patents. These clusters do not cleanly correspond to traditional assumptions about where, geographically, important technologies, and the owners of patents that claim them, tend to be located. Somewhat unexpectedly, the largest federal district court cluster for highly important patent litigation spans the southern-central United States. Future studies will attempt to address a number of additional questions that arise out of our findings in this article.


Kinetics of oxidation of malic acid by morpholinium fluorochromate (MFC) in 50% (v/v) acetonitrile-water solvent mixture at 298 K in the presence of perchloric acid has been studied spectrophotometrically. The reaction is first order each with respect to malic acid, MFC and H ion. Variation of ionic strength of the reaction medium or addition of acrylonitrile does not influence the reaction. However, the rate of reaction decreases significantly on addition of manganese sulphate. The reaction is favoured by lowering of solvent polarity. Activation parameters, Ea, ∆H , ∆S and ∆G have been evaluated from the rate constant values measured at four different temperatures using Arrhenius and Eyring equations. Based on these findings, a suitable mechanism has been proposed.


Studies examining the value of switching to a variable rate technology (VRT) fertilizer program assume producers possess perfect soil nitrate information. In reality, producers estimate soil nitrate levels with soil sampling. The value of switching to a VRT program depends on the quality of the estimates and on how the estimates are used. Larger sample sizes, increased spatial correlation, and decreased variability improve the estimates and increase returns. Fertilizing strictly to the estimated field map fails to account for estimation risk. Returns increase if the soil sample information is used in a Bayesian fashion to update the soil nitrate beliefs in nonsampled sites.


More than half the river-lengths of rivers in southern Africa dry up occasionally or – more commonly – seasonally. Here we review the literature on water quality (WQ) in non-perennial rivers (N-PRs), with emphasis on river management and southern African systems. Hydrological regimes cover a spectrum from relatively predictable and unvarying in perennial rivers, to unpredictable and highly variable in non-perennial rivers, which are complex, continually shifting mosaics of flowing water, standing-water pools and terrestrial habitats. N-PRs are uncommonly difficult to manage because they represent a limited source of water that is renewed unpredictably and is competed for by local people as well as being required by wildlife. Groundwater, and therefore its chemical and physical features, contributes significantly to base flow and to the maintenance of pools remaining in the bed when the river is not flowing. Water chemistry reflects catchment geology except in polluted systems. Salinity varies temporally, and spatially over three dimensions, and is the variable controlling the composition of the biotas of many N-PRs. Hydrological regimes are seldom predictable with any certainty; WQ varies naturally over time and space; groundwater often determines the WQ of surface water, especially in pools; and WQ in non-perennial rivers and pools may be affected by activities far upstream in the catchment. As yet we have no more than a sketchy understanding of the extent to which data on any one system can be applied to any other. Until we have a better understanding of these systems, the following basic principles should guide the management of WQ in N-PRs: (i) Rivers need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. (ii) Understanding of the groundwater regime, including its chemistry, is crucial. (iii) Effluents need to be controlled by conservative effluent standards set for both ground and surface waters. (iv) Flows may need to be augmented at certain times of the year.


The proponents of practice approaches to organizational routines claim that Herbert Simon's conceptualization of routines overlooks issues of mindfulness, agency, and interpretation. We show that this criticism of Simon's account of rule-based behavior in organizations is unsound. More importantly, Simon's account overcomes some serious limitations of practice approaches with regard to understanding reflexivity, subjectivity, and improvisation. We reconstruct Simon's view of organizational rules and cognition as part of his decision-making theory. In this view, rules are not rigid repetitive patterns of action, but mental structures allowing for various degrees of subjective interpretation, behavioral flexibility, and strategic action. We emphasize the central place that Simon assigns to the concept of a shared cognitive model governing representations of reality, and the importance of this concept in understanding the issue of rule-based behavior. Simon's analysis is contemporary and powerful, insofar as it offers a valuable and comprehensive alternative to current understandings of routine and cognition in organizations.


High-performance coatings for micromechanical mirrors were developed. The high-reflective metal systems can be integrated into the technology of MOEMS, such as spatial light modulators and microscanning mirrors from the near-infrared down to the vacuum-ultraviolet spectral regions. The reported metal designs permit high optical performances to be merged with suitable mechanical properties and fitting complementary metal-oxide semiconductor compatibility.


This paper presents uCR, a C++ runtime package for embedded program development. We make the case that in certain situations embedded programming is best done without the aid of a conventional operating system. A programming environment in the form of a C++ runtime is presented, and the environment, including the C++ language, is evaluated for appropriateness. Important factors are code size, performance, simplicity and applicability to a wide range of embedded targets.


This article proposes an extension to Kintsch's Construction–Integration (CI) model of text comprehension, which changes its mathematical implementation and emphasizes the connectionist features of the model. Specifically, the extension proposed here (a) simulates the learning process in a connectionist manner by making explicit changes in the connecting values among processing units; (b) takes into account individual differences in prior background knowledge activation and individual ability to make logical inferences, using these parameters to adjust the results of the simulation; and (c) implements an algorithm that constructs the connectivity matrix W from text processing. The proposed extension is tested on existing recall and contradiction-detection data from readers of science texts, and its predictions fit the empirical data better than the CI model's prediction.


This work presents a machine learning approach for facial image-based age estimation. The idea is to first extract age relevant texture and shape features from a set of images and use them in combination with the subject's age to learn a model of the human aging process. The classification is done in two steps. At first a classification between youths and adults is done. In the second step the exact age is estimated by a more specific classifier based on the result of the first step. Extensive experiments on the FGNET aging database are conducted using the leave one person out evaluation scheme. Modifications regarding the feature extraction and taking a soft decision in the first step of the classification are found to improve the performance, leading to a mean absolute error of 4.77 years, which is the lowest mean absolute error reported on the FG-NET aging database.


PURPOSE
Bevacizumab treatment at 7.5 mg/kg every 3 weeks results in improved hearing in approximately 35%-40% of patients with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) and progressive vestibular schwannomas (VSs). However, the optimal dose is unknown. In this multicenter phase II and biomarker study, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of high-dose bevacizumab in pediatric and adult patients with NF2 with progressive VS.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Bevacizumab was given for 6 months at 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks, followed by 18 months at 5 mg/kg every 3 weeks. The primary end point was hearing response defined by word recognition score (WRS) at 6 months. Secondary end points included toxicity, radiographic response, quality of life (QOL), and plasma biomarkers.

RESULTS
Twenty-two participants with NF2 (median age, 23 years) with progressive hearing loss in the target ear (median baseline WRS, 53%) were enrolled. Nine (41%) of 22 participants achieved a hearing response at 6 months (1 of 7 children and 8 of 15 adults; P = .08). Radiographic response was seen in 7 (32%) of 22 patients with VS at 6 months (7 of 15 adults and 0 of 7 children; P = .05). Common mild to moderate adverse events included hypertension, fatigue, headache, and irregular menstruation. Improvement in NF2-related QOL and reduction in tinnitus-related distress were reported in 30% and 60% of participants, respectively. Paradoxically, high-dose bevacizumab treatment was not associated with a significant decrease in free vascular endothelial growth factor but was associated with increased carbonic anhydrase IX, hepatocyte growth factor, placental growth factor, stromal cell-derived factor 1α, and basic fibroblast growth factor concentrations in plasma.

CONCLUSION
High-dose bevacizumab seems to be no more effective than standard-dose bevacizumab for treatment of patients with NF2 with hearing loss. In contrast to adults, pediatric participants did not experience tumor shrinkage. However, adult and pediatric participants reported similar improvement in QOL during induction. Novel approaches using bevacizumab should be considered for children with NF2.


During the first half of the 20th century a moose ( Alces alces ) population gradually established itself on the North Slope of Utah's Uinta Mountains from founders in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Formal management of the species commenced with an aerial survey conducted in 1957, and the first legal hunt in 1958. From this small initial population moose have expanded into other areas of northern Utah and, augmented by transplants, the statewide population has increased to an estimated 3,200 animals as of 2009. In the northern portion of the state moose appear to prosper in riparian willow ( Salix sp. ) habitats as well as upland shrub-dominated and forested habitats. However, there are indications that these herds are at or approaching carrying capacity. Management programs have included regular aerial surveys, harvest regulation, transplants, and dealing with "nuisance" animals along the urban-wildland interface. Since 1958 a total of 6,119 moose (bulls and cows) have been legally harvested, averaging 288 animals annually in 2004-2008. Since 1973 a total of 345 moose have been translocated within Utah and an additional 115 animals moved to Colorado. These transplants have resulted in disparate success with starter populations generally failing to achieve viability in central and southern Utah. Poaching, predation by cougars ( Puma concolor ), and to a lesser extent disease have contributed to losses in southern target populations. The limited success of these efforts raises questions regarding the viability of populations in areas with high summer temperatures as well as the specter of climate variation on the persistence of southern populations, generally. Several research projects have been conducted on moose in Utah. Early studies on the Uinta North Slope focused on the nutritional quality of key browse species and the determination of carrying capacity, and subsequent investigations included the effects of experimental manipulation of bull-cow ratios on calf recruitment, and telemetry-based survival studies of transplanted herds. The future of moose in Utah is discussed in light of potential limiting factors including climate change.


Despite its growing popularity, gesture typing suffers from a major problem not present in touch typing: gesture ambiguity on the Qwerty keyboard. By applying rigorous mathematical optimization methods, this paper systematically investigates the optimization space related to the accuracy, speed, and Qwerty similarity of a gesture typing keyboard. Our investigation shows that optimizing the layout for gesture clarity (a metric measuring how unique word gestures are on a keyboard) drastically improves the accuracy of gesture typing. Moreover, if we also accommodate gesture speed, or both gesture speed and Qwerty similarity, we can still reduce error rates by 52% and 37% over Qwerty, respectively. In addition to investigating the optimization space, this work contributes a set of optimized layouts such as GK-D and GK-T that can immediately benefit mobile device users.


The 10 species of Galaxias in Tasmania, G. olidus from mainland Australia and the four species of Paragalaxias were studied using principal co-ordinates analysis (PCOA) and cluster analysis of a standardized Euclidean distance matrix based upon variate means, and by canonical variate analysis (CVA) conducted as a stepwise multiple discriminant analysis. Thirty-five variables comprising 30 morphometric and five meristic characters were analysed. The meristic characters were not included in the CVA. Excellent separation of the two genera was achieved in all analyses. The multivariate analyses were repeated on each genus separately to see if relationships suggested by the overall analysis remain stable. When the resultant groupings of species are compared for the different analyses, no consistent, distinct groupings of species within each genus are apparent. Despite the absence of distinct groupings, some trends in the affinities of some species are evident. In particular, species affinities as indicated by the CVA are more consistent with established opinions of species relationships. From the results of the study it is suggested that caution be exercised in the application of multivariate statistical analyses of morphological data to ichthyological systematics and phylogeny.


The period in Northern Ireland known as 'the Troubles' (1968-98) seemed to have been conclusively ended by the official peace process. But recent violence from dissident Republicans shows that tensions from the past remain unresolved.

State Violence, Collusion and the Troubles reveals disturbing unanswered questions about the use of state violence during this period. Maurice Punch documents in chilling detail how the British government turned to desperate, illegal measures in a time of crisis, disregarding domestic and international law. He broadens out his analysis to consider other cases of state violence against 'insurgent groups' in Spain and South Africa.

This is the story of how the British state collaborated with violent groups and directly participated in illegal violence. It also raises urgent questions about why states around the world continue to deploy such violence rather than seeking durable political settlements.


Patent systems are often justified by an assumption that innovation will be spurred by the prospect of patent protection, leading to the accrual of greater societal benefits than would be possible under non-patent systems. However, little empirical evidence exists to support this assumption. One way to test the hypothesis that a patent system promotes innovation is experimentally to simulate the behavior of inventors and competitors under conditions approximating patent and non-patent systems. Employing a multi-user interactive simulation of patent and non-patent (commons and open source) systems ("The Patent Game"), this study compares rates of innovation, productivity, and societal utility. The Patent Game uses an abstracted and cumulative model of potential innovations, a database of potential innovations, an interactive interface that allows users to invent, make, and sell these innovations, and a network over which users may interact with one another to license, assign, infringe, and enforce patents. Initial data generated using The Patent Game suggest that a system combining patent and open source protection for inventions (that is, similar to modern patent systems) generates significantly lower rates of innovation (p


In this paper, we study the problem of active learning for cost-sensitive multiclass classification. We propose selective sampling algorithms, which process the data in a streaming fashion, querying only a subset of the labels. For these algorithms, we analyze the regret and label complexity when the labels are generated according to a generalized linear model. We establish that the gains of active learning over passive learning can range from none to exponentially large, based on a natural notion of margin. We also present a safety guarantee to guard against model mismatch. Numerical simulations show that our algorithms indeed obtain a low regret with a small number of queries.


Hypervascular hepatocellular lesions include both benign and malignant etiologies. In the benign category, focal nodular hyperplasia and adenoma are typically hypervascular. In addition, some regenerative nodules in cirrhosis may be hypervascular. Malignant hypervascular primary hepatocellular lesions include hepatocellular carcinoma, fibrolamellar carcinoma, and peripheral cholangiocarcinoma. Vascular liver lesions often appear hypervascular because they tend to follow the enhancement of the blood pool; these include hemangiomas, arteriovenous malformations, angiosarcomas, and peliosis. While most gastrointestinal malignancies that metastasize to the liver will appear hypovascular on arterial and portal-venous phase imaging, certain cancers such as metastatic neuroendocrine tumors (including pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, carcinoid, and gastrointestinal stromal tumors) tend to produce hypervascular metastases due to the greater recruitment of arterial blood supply. Finally, rare hepatic lesions such as glomus tumor and inflammatory pseudotumor may have a hypervascular appearance.


A study is made of parametric estimation of 2-D transfer functions using the least-squares method which is the dominant method for causal systems. The analysis concentrates on the frequency-domain accuracy of the estimated models. There exist results for the accuracy of the parameter estimates. The parameters are asymptotically Gaussian distributed. The variance of the polynomial in the frequency domain can be expressed using these results for the parameters. This, however, gives no insight into the dependence on the true transfer function. An illuminating result is obtained if the model order tends to infinity. The limiting results show good correspondence with Monte-Carlo simulations for small data sets obtained with low model orders.<<ETX>>


Long-term time series of physical and chemical parameters collected between 1960 and 2010 along the Pala- gruSill transect, Middle Adriatic Sea, have been inves- tigated in terms of average water properties and their vari- ability. Nutrients, especially orthophosphates, reached rather high levels of concentration below the euphotic zone be- tween 1991 and 1998, the highest levels in the investigated period. Simultaneously, the N:P ratio, which is normally higher than 25:1, decreased to values less than 16:1 in the euphotic zone, indicating a switch from typical phosphorus to nitrogen- limited preconditioning for the primary produc- tion. Higher-than-usual nutrient levels peaking in the mid- 1990s, coupled with lower-than-usual temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and pH values, are presumably related to the flow of the nutrient richer Western Mediterranean waters to the Adriatic below the euphotic layer. These waters, which keep their footprint in the N:P ratio, enter the Adriatic during the anticyclonic phase of the Bimodal Adriatic-Ionian Os- cillation (BiOS), which has been uniquely strengthened by the Eastern Mediterranean Transient occurring in the early 1990s. This hypothesis should be confirmed through targeted research and modelling exercises, as it is highly relevant for the biogeochemistry of the Adriatic Sea.


Parkinson's disease patients have been shown to have abnormal visually evoked cortical potentials (VEPs) to pattern stimulation. Whereas dopamine is not an important neurotransmitter in the central visual pathways, the retina is rich in dopamine and, together with previous animal and human studies, this suggests that the abnormal VEPs in Parkinson's disease patients may be due to a biochemical and electrophysiological disorder in the retina. This hypothesis has been examined by studying the VEPs and pattern electroretinogram (PERG) of Parkinson's disease patients and matched control subjects. The amplitudes of the cortical and retinal evoked potentials were significantly reduced in Parkinson's disease patients compared with the control subjects and this could not be attributed to any particular feature of the disease or its treatment. There was a significant relationship between the VEP P100 latency and the PERG amplitude. Moreover for those subjects in whom there was an interocular difference in both cortical and retinal evoked potentials, the abnormality was more commonly found in the potentials from the same eye. These findings suggest that the abnormality of the VEP in Parkinson's disease patients is, at least in part, secondary to an abnormality of the retina itself.


This paper argues that transparency projects retain a political hue from the socialtechnological context from which they are created. Thus, radical transparency is considered as an opportunity to evolve both journalistic and democratic practices. Transparency in practice reveals diverse expectations of how journalists reporting should be used, and these expectations in turn, seem dependent on specific worldviews. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the effects of the current exemplar of radical journalism, WikiLeaks. It compares Wikileaks to its historical equivalents, including Hansard in the 18 th century, and the reporting of open diplomacy in the early 20 th century. This analysis shows how journalism evolves along with radical transparency projects, and how the current context of networked radical transparency can, and will, be made into news with specific political effects. In conclusion, this paper argues that practitioners should be aware of the political hues that new transparency mechanisms afford. Being cognizant of context and design choices can increase the degree to which new initiatives can have a deep systemic impact—as well as acknowledge the qualities and repercussions of that impact.


Abstract Objective: The objective of the study was to identify factors associated with being overweight or obese, and perceptions of weight by hypertensive patients living in rural South Africa. Design: This was a nested cross-sectional study. Setting: The setting was primary healthcare clinics close to Manguzi Hospital, KwaZulu-Natal. Subjects: Subjects were 109 males and 391 females, prescribed at least one antihypertensive medication aged ≥ 18 years. Outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was body mass index (BMI) ≥ 25 kg/m2. The secondary outcome measure was recognition of being overweight by those with a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2. Results: The mean age was 58 years. Three hundred and ninety-one (78%) participants were female, and the majority had never been to school or had attended primary school only. Three hundred and eleven (62%) participants were overweight or obese, with a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2. Factors associated with being overweight or obese included having high cholesterol [adjusted odds ratio (OR) 10.62, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.22-92.4, p-value 0.032], and having never smoked (adjusted OR 3.22, 95% CI: 1.38-7.52, p-value 0.007. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was associated with a lower risk of being overweight or obese (adjusted OR 0.52 for BMI ≥ 25, 95% CI: 0.31-0.89, p-value < 0.0001). Only 12% of participants who were overweight or obese perceived that they were overweight. Participants with a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2 were most likely to recognise they were overweight if they had high cholesterol, diabetes or HIV. Conclusion: Almost two thirds of participants were overweight or obese, and of these, only 12% perceived that they were overweight. Educating patients about obesity, particularly when they have other cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, is of public health importance.


Over the last decade feed-in tariffs offering a stable and favourable price for electricity generated from renewable sources over that generated from fossil-fuels have been employed in support of renewable energy sectors in several European countries. Feed-in tariffs were initially criticised by more market-oriented countries which favoured more complex renewable obligations and tradable certification schemes. Nonetheless, they have become widely recognised for their effectiveness in creation of renewables markets, and have also been taken up by several low and middle-income countries, including Sri Lanka, which introduced such a measure in its energy policy of 2006. More recently, feed-in tariffs have been grouped under the wider heading of Advance Market Commitments (AMCs). Following pilot application in vaccine markets, AMCs have been proposed for wider application in support of low carbon energy markets in developing countries. Analysis of the performance of AMCs in Sri Lanka to date implies that while AMCs may play a role in incentivising market development, they are not sufficient on their own. Additional measures are required in order to overcome other market barriers and enable a sector-wide response if AMCs are to be an effective stimulus. Bioenergy Advance Market Commitments (AMCs) in Sri Lanka PISCES Policy Brief No. 5 October 2010


We use scanning near-field optical microscopy and spectroscopy to investigate the near field of one-dimensional periodic arrays of gold nanowires on top of a slab waveguide. The Bragg resonance of these one-dimensional metallic photonic crystal slabs can coincide with the particle-plasmon resonance of the metal nanowires, giving rise to an avoided crossing. We find a rich behavior when systematically varying the polarization of the incident light, the lattice constant, and the slab thickness. Numerical simulations of the transverse magnetic component of the near field qualitatively reproduce the experiment, in agreement with the expectation from the Bethe-Bouwkamp theory. Furthermore, these calculations give insight into those electromagnetic field components which cannot easily be measured.


We present an empirical analysis of the determinants of labour cost in OECD countries, with particular reference to the impact of labour market institutions from 1960 to 1994. The main contribution of the paper is to show that labour market regulations can explain a large part of labour cost rise in OECD countries in the last decades once we control for productivity. These results are consistent with the findings of a companion paper (Nickell et al., 2001) where the effects of institutions on unemployment are examined. The model controls for macroeconomic shocks, and include the possibility of interactions among institutions. We present also a discussion of the potential problems encountered when estimating a macro pooled model like ours. We focus, among other things, on the hypothesis of poolability and on the cointegration properties of the model, suggesting a two way fixed effects specification in GLS form that corrects for heteroskedasticity and serial correlation. The explanatory power of the model is finally tested by means of a series of by country dynamic simulations.


Mobile device user interface elements tend to be based on desktop widgets that were not originally intended for small screen finger-based interfaces. Mobile usage scenarios afford many completely different interactions, so should be designed accordingly. This paper presents a new type of widget, the T-Bar, designed specifically for finger-based touchscreen interfaces using tactile feedback. Using the tactile feedback for orientation, the user's fingertip is guided along the T-Bar until an item is successfully selected. This paper offers observations on our finger-based touchscreen widget and two applications of the T-Bar widget. Both, File-o-Feel and Touch 'n' Twist are multi-touch information browsing applications that deviate from traditional desktop GUI paradigms and are tailored for fingertip input where all interaction takes place through the use of T-Bars; eliminating the need for any other widgets.


This practical lesson on greenhouses implements standards of the Next Generation Science Standards (K2 ETS I-2; K-LS1-1) and the preschool objectives from the Teaching Strategies GOLD. Teaching Strategies GOLD is an assessment tool available online and in print that can be used with any developmentally appropriate early childhood curriculum. The lesson structure follows the 5E's Learning Cycle Constructivist Model for teaching and the project-based, hands-on approach to learning. The preschool-aged children went on a field trip to a working greenhouse and then collaborated in groups to produce a three-dimensional model of a greenhouse as arts integration into this science project. The children affixed photo stickers from their greenhouse visit onto a recycled plastic container to make the greenhouse building. They used clay, toothpicks, and colored paper leaves to recreate models of plants they had seen and then planted real seeds. The following lesson on plants and greenhouses serves as a successful example of positive arts-integrated science; the children worked together with enjoyment and took pride in their work while the teacher evaluated it as rewarding. Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions Volume 1, Number 1, Pages 18-26. The Journal's Website: http://scholarworks.uni.edu/journal-stem-arts/


Some of the features of water enhanced deformation of rocks by diffusive mass transfer (pressure solution) in nature which are pertinent to the rate controlling mechanism of the deformation are reviewed, and it is inferred that (a) the diffusion of matter in an aqueous intergranular film which can support shear stress is an essential part of the process, and (b) the diffusion is driven by stress induced chemical potential gradients, together with gradients due to local chemical reactions. The theoretical approach to the derivation of constitutive flow laws for creep by diffusive mass transfer is outlined, and a simplified flow law proposed. Crucial to the absolute rate of deformation predicted by the flow law is the estimation of the phenomenological coefficient which links diffusive flux to chemical potential gradient. It is argued that this should be several orders of magnitude less in thin, stressed aqueous films than for solutions of ions in large water volumes. Some simple experiments are described to address the question of (a) the existence of thin intergranular aqueous films which can support shear stress, and(b) the magnitude of the above phenomenological coefficient. The results obtained are consistent with the inferences made from the study of microstructures in naturally deformed rocks, and this is illustrated by means of extrapolation of theoreticallv derived relationships to conditions of natural rock deformation and sediment compaction by pressure solution.


Most counting questions in visual question answering (VQA) datasets are simple and require no more than object detection. Here, we study algorithms for complex counting questions that involve relationships between objects, attribute identification, reasoning, and more. To do this, we created TallyQA, the world's largest dataset for open-ended counting. We propose a new algorithm for counting that uses relation networks with region proposals. Our method lets relation networks be efficiently used with high-resolution imagery. It yields stateof-the-art results compared to baseline and recent systems on both TallyQA and the HowMany-QA benchmark.


Based on integrated interpretation of acoustic (PARASOUND), detailed bathymetric and seismic data of the shelf north of Spitsbergen, the published extend of the submarine Yermak Slide (Cherkis et al., 1999) has been refined. Key profiles across the margins of the slide have been sampled for sedimentological characterisation and dating of the submarine slide. AMS radiocarbon dating on shells of N. Pachyderma sin. of carefully selected key-cores allowed a solid characterisation of the age of the Yermak Slide. The data gives evidence of one large scale failure event at the termination of the Hinlopen cross shelf trough during MIS 3. This first event was followed by repeated minor events. The submarine megaslide developed into a submarine debris avalanche with tens of megablocks reaching extensions of up to 5 km and a relief of more than 300 m above the surrounding debris. The slides debris rushed into the semi-enclosed Sophia Basin and finally funneled out into Nansen Basin. First calculations on the slides area of more than 10.000 km2 and its volu me of app. 2.400 km3 puts the Yermak Slide among the largest exposed submarine slides worldwide.


A tracer study has been performed for two summers in 2003 and 2004 with a regional chemistry-transport model in order to evaluate the potential constraint that tropospheric ozone observations from nadir viewing infrared sounders like IASI or TES exert on modelled near surface ozone. As these instruments show high sensitivity in the free troposphere, but low sensitivity at ground, it is important to know how much of the information gained in the free troposphere is transferred to ground through vertical transport processes. Within the European model domain, and within a time span of 4 days, only ozone like tracers initialised in vertical layers above 500 hPa are transported to the surface. For a tracer initialised between 800 and 700 hPa, seven percent reaches the surface within one to three days, on the average over the European model domain but more than double over the Mediterranean Sea. For this region, trajectory analysis shows that this is related to strong subsident transport. These results are confirmed by a second tracer study taking into account averaging kernels related to IASI retrievals, indicating the potential of these measurements to efficiently constrain surface ozone values.


---Migraine is one of the most chronic disable headache diseases, and it effects 5% to 10% of adults. Patients could not work effectively, or even keep a high quality of life. As a complex neuro-vascular disease, the pathology of migraine is still not fully understood. Many medical methods are applied to release symptoms or prophylaxis of migraine, such as behavior therapy, pyschotherapy, acupuncture, massage, and drug therapy. In China, Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) are also used to treat migraine. Through the long history, and also in modern era, various CHMs are prescribed in different formulae. In clinical practice, a proportion of patients in China will not only take biomedical drugs, but also receive CHMs therapy or combinational theatment. This combination will broaden new field in the management of migraine. To explore some answer to which CHMs are most prescibed in formulaes and basic traits of these CHMs, as well as biomedical drugs in combination with these CHMs, we designed a study based on text mining technology for these three questions. In this study, we built a dataset from the information downloaded in Sinomed database. With our novel text mining method, CHMs in this dataset were counted, and some fundamental parameters of each CHM, such as cold/heat property, flavours, and channel tropism were also recorded. Besides, biomedical drugs prescribed together with CHM were also involved in statistic. Results showed that Chuan Xiong, Tian Ma, Dan Shen, Dang Gui and Xi Xin are the top 5 CHMs used to cure migraine. Among all these CHMs, warm CHMs were most frequently used in the treatment of migraine, pungent was the most frenquent flavour, and liver, heart are the top 2 channels, both these two visceras were related to human psychoactivity in TCM theory, and further regulate the disease acitivity of migraine. Cinnarizine, flunarizine, nimodipine, and nitroglycerin were drugs most combined with CHM to cure migraine. These results indicated that text mining could be an effective method in exploring the rules of CHMs prescription and the combination of biomedicine and CHMs in treatment of migraine.


The 15th International Multimedia Modeling Conference (MMM2009) was held on January 7–9, 2009 at EURECOM, Sophia-Antipolis, France. MMM is a leading international conference for researchers and industry practitioners to share their new ideas, original research results, and practical development experiences from all multimedia-related areas. MMM2009 is held in co-operation with the ACM Special Interest Group on MultiMedia (ACM SIGMM). This 15th edition of MMM marks the return of the conference to Europe after numerous years of activity in Asia, and we are proud to have organized such a prestigious conference on the French Riviera. MMM2009 featured a comprehensive program including three keynote talks, six oral presentation sessions, three poster sessions, and one demo session. The 135 submissions included a large number of high-quality papers in multimedia content analysis, indexing, coding, as well as applications and services. We thank our 153 Technical Program Committee members and reviewers who spent many hours reviewing papers and providing valuable feedbacks to the authors. Based on the 3 or 4 (sometimes even 5) initial reviews per paper, the Program Chairs decided to accept only 22 as oral papers and 20 as poster papers. The overall acceptance rate of 32% follows the MMM tradition of accepting only the papers of the highest technical quality. Additionally, one award for the Best Paper was chosen. This special issue presents some of the best papers submitted and presented at the conference. Indeed only those papers among the shortlisted for the MMM2009 Best Paper Award were invited to submit an extended paper to this special issue. All the papers published here have been subject to a set of reviews on three separate occasions. The first was during the reviewing process for preparing the program of the conference, the second for determining the Best Paper Award, and the third following the usual reviewing process of the EURASIP Journal on Image and Video Processing. The six papers that made it through the final reviewing stage cover the two major multimedia modeling themes addressed by the conference, namely, Multimedia Content Analysis and Multimedia Signal Processing and Communications.


In this study, we used auditory priming to examine the phonological content of lexical entries for adult second language speakers. In particular, we investigated whether, for native speakers of Quebec French, words like they and day as well as three and tree have identical (i.e., homophonous) phonological forms in these speakers' lexicons, which would explain these speakers' difficulty producing and perceiving words containing difficult /ð/ and /θ/ consonants. We found that our participants did not distinguish between these pairs of words in their lexicons, but were able to produce at least some of the words containing English /ð/ and /θ/ accurately. We discuss both theoretical and pedagogical implications of these findings.


The sedimentation of particulate organic material was investigated in Disko Bay, West Greenland, during June 2001. Post spring-bloom conditions were encountered, with seasonally decreasing phytoplankton biomass associated with the pycnocline. Calanus finmarchicus, C. glacialis, and C. hyperboreus dominated the zooplankton community, comprising up to 88% of the copepod biomass. Faecal pellet production by C. finmarchicus and C. glacialis was positively correlated to the available food (chlorophyll a > 10 mu m). Results from short-term sediment trap deployments (6 h) showed that particulate organic carbon (POC) sedimentation from the euphotic zone was, on average, 628 mg C m(-2) d(-1), with copepod faecal pellets contributing, on average, 29% of this amount. The faecal pellet contribution to the vertical sinking export of POC was equivalent to that of phytoplankton and amorphous detritus. Yet, on average, 35% of the copepod faecal pellet production was retained within the euphotic zone. The POC: PON (particulate organic nitrogen) ratio of the suspended material in the euphotic zone (8.1 +/- 0.4) was comparable to that of the material collected in the sediment traps just below the euphotic zone (8.0 +/- 0.9). In addition, the daily loss rates of POC and PON within each sampling depth were similar, and the carbon to nitrogen ratio in the sediment traps did not change with depth. These results indicate that the pelagic system had a low retention efficiency of nitrogen just after the spring bloom.


Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine differences in the way Britain and the United States invest in and deploy a new medical technology. We used structured interviews to obtain information on the technical sophistication and approximate replacement value of all hospital-based obstetrical ultrasound machines in every maternity hospital in Washington state and Wales. The supply of hospital-based ultrasound machines—approximately two machines per 1,000 births—was similar in both countries. Wales had fewer advanced ultrasound machines than Washington state, and they were based exclusively in high-volume district general hospitals; there were no obstetric ultrasound machines in the private sector. In Washington state, the majority of advanced machines were in small and medium-sized hospitals, and many private offices had ultrasound machines. The approximate replacement value of hospital-based machines was three times as high per birth in Washington state as in Wales. In the case of obstetrical ultrasound, centralization of facilities, a relatively small private sector, and global budgeting lead to lower expenditures per patient within the National Health Service without compromising access to care.


Abstract. Ancient lakes, such as lakes Ohrid and Prespa on the Balkan Peninsula, have become model systems for studying the link between geological and biotic evolution. Recently, the scientific deep-drilling project Scientific Collaboration on Past Speciation Conditions in Lake Ohrid (SCOPSCO) was initiated to better understand the environmental, climatic, and limnological evolution of the lake. It revealed that Lake Ohrid experienced a number of environmental disturbances during its ca. 2.0 million year long history. These are comprised of disturbances that lasted over longer periods of time ("press events") such as glacial–interglacial cycles and Heinrich events, as well as sudden and short disturbances ("pulse events") like the deposition of landslides, earthquakes, and volcanic ash depositions. The latter includes one of the most severe volcanic episodes during the Late Pleistocene: the eruption of the Campanian Ignimbrite (known as Y-5 marine tephra layer) from the Campi Flegrei caldera, dated to 39.6 ± 0.1 thousand years ago. The event is recorded by the deposition of a ca. 15 cm thick tephra layer in sediment cores of lakes Ohrid (DEEP-5045-1) and Prespa (Co1204). Coincidently, this pulse event is superimposed by the Heinrich H4 event, 40.4–38.4 thousand years ago. In the current paper, diatoms were used as proxies to compare the responses of these lakes to the Y-5 (pulse) and the H4 (press) disturbances. Based on stratigraphically constrained incremental sum of squares cluster (CONISS) and unconstrained Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM) analyses, we found little evidence that diatom community compositions in either lake responded to the H4 event. However, the Y-5 influx caused clear and rapid diatom community changes. After the initial response, community compositions in Lake Ohrid and, to a lesser extent, in Lake Prespa slowly returned to their quasi pre-disturbance state. Moreover, there is no evidence for disturbance-related extinction events. The combined evidence from these findings suggests that lakes Ohrid and Prespa likely did not experience regime shifts. It is therefore concluded that both lakes show resilience to environmental disturbance. However, it seems that Lake Ohrid is more resilient than Lake Prespa, as the recovery of diatom communities is more pronounced and its estimated recovery time is only ca. 1100 years vs. ca. 4000 years in Lake Prespa. The reasons for the differential responses remain largely unknown, but differences in geology, lake age, limnology, and intrinsic parameters of the diatom proxies may play an important role.


In this paper, a new technique for pricing of European and American Parisian options, that we call the quebecoisation method, is developed. We study the pricing of Parisian options in a hyper-exponential jump-diffusion model using the double Laplace-Carson transform with respect to the time to maturity and the residual Parisian time (time to expiration of the Parisian window) of the system of two partial integro-differential equations describing the option price dynamics. The transformed, i.e., quebecoised, option price and hedging parameters delta and gamma are computed in a closed form, and the final results are obtained via the two-dimensional Gaver-Stehfest inversion algorithm. Our pricing method is analytically tractable, and it provides important economic insights for pricing and hedging of European and American Parisian options in the presence of jumps.


Aims The demand for test requests from general practice to laboratory services remains high. Tests performed at the point of care could reduce turnaround time and speed up clinical decision making. Replicating laboratory testing in the community would require panels of tests to be performed simultaneously, which is now approaching technological feasibility. We assessed frequencies and combinations of test requests from community settings to inform the potential future development of multiplex point-of-care panels. Methods We assessed all laboratory test requests made from general practice in Oxfordshire, UK, from January 2014 to March 2017. We summarised test request frequency overall and in combination, using heatmaps and hierarchical cluster analysis. Results are also presented by age/sex subgroups. We further assessed patterns of tests requested within 7 and 14 days after an initial test request. Results 11 763 473 test requests were made for 413 073 individuals (28% age >65). Of more than 500 test types, 62 were requested at least 5000 times, most commonly renal function tests (approximately 296 000/year), full blood count (278 000/year) and liver function tests (237 000/year). Cluster analysis additionally identified a clear grouping of tests commonly used to investigate anaemia. Follow-up test frequency was much lower than the frequency of multiple tests ordered at initial presentation. Conclusions The current high volume of single and combination test requests highlights an opportunity for reliable multiplex point-of-care panels to cover a core set of frequently requested tests. The impact on test use of introducing such panels to general practice requires additional research.