The value chain is a widely used framework for industry and firm analysis. To our knowledge, the conceptualisation of value chains is so far guided by "soft" criteria like intuition of experts rather than clearly stated methods with regard to the value chain boundaries and the granularity as well as the separation of activities. Therefore, we propose a combination of well-known methods – such as the Delphi study approach and clustering algorithms – to (1) ensure a holistic view of the industry at hand by covering all underlying economic concepts, (2) ensure the uniqueness of activities, and (3) provide a hierarchy of activities that allows deriving value chains at different levels of granularity. Since software is a good with specific economic properties, practitioners and researchers require a value chain framework reflecting the industry specifics. This paper contributes by proposing methods for value chain construction and applying these methods to the software industry. The resulting universal and hierarchical software value chain can serve as a sound foundation for further studies of the software industry. Furthermore, practitioners can tailor the proposed methods to their needs and apply the software value chain to their firms.


The author analyses the reasons behind the electoral success of European right-wing populist parties. Using the Austrian Freedom Party under Jorg Haider as a case study and with a richness of primary material, he argues that their success is only partly caused by «racism». It is also, and more prominently, the result of populism – i.e. a critique of the «elite». These parties and their voters should not, then, be labelled as arrogant insiders attacking downtrodden outsiders like immigrants, workers, and minorities. Instead, the right-wingers are more justly portrayed as outsiders and underdogs, raising their anger and frustration against the insiders: the «media elite» and the «leftists and the artists».


Detailed knowledge of lithospheric structure is essential for understanding the long-term evolution and dynamics of continents. We present an image of lithospheric structure across the central and western North China Craton (NCC), derived using S and P receiver functions from a dense seismic array. A negative velocity discontinuity is identified at ∼80–100 km depth within the thick lithosphere (∼160–200 km), similar to that observed in many other cratonic regions and roughly at the same depth as the base of the lithosphere in the eastern NCC. The intralithospheric discontinuity may indicate an ancient, mechanically weak layer within the overall strong cratonic lithosphere, and probably also existed beneath the eastern NCC before the Mesozoic. The presence of such a weak layer could have facilitated simultaneous lithospheric modification at the base and the middle of the lithosphere in the eastern NCC, especially under the strong influence of the Mesozoic Pacific subduction, leading to the severe lithospheric thinning and destruction recorded in this region. The weak layer probably did not strongly affect the stability and evolution of the central and western NCC and other cratonic regions where effects from plate boundary processes were weak. Our seismic images, integrated with geological data, provide new insights into structural heterogeneities in the subcontinental lithospheric mantle and their roles in the dynamic evolution of continents.


The results of the experimental study of coherent flow structures in turbulent jets with different swirl rates are reported. The focus is placed on analysis of their impact on mixing of a passive scalar in the jets and on regular flame front deformations during combustion of fuel-lean and fuel-rich methane/air mixtures in case of a strongly swirling jet with vortex breakdown. The measurements are performed by applying simultaneously the particle image velocimetry (PIV) and planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) techniques (acetone and HCHO for the nonreacting and reacting flows, respectively). The PIV data are processed by a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), and the PLIF data are conditionally sampled according to the correlation coefficients of the velocity POD modes. The coherent velocity fluctuations are associated with regular patterns in the concentration fluctuation fields and flame front deformations. These patterns correspond to unsteady mixing by large-scale vortex structures in the outer mixing layer and also to variations of the entrainment rate for the flows with swirl.


The research about Waste of Corn as Substrate In Produce Poly-β-Hydroxy Butyrate (PHB) by Bacterial Isolates Origin Sugar Factory Arasoe Bone. The research purpose to determine the ability of bacterial isolates from sugar mills Arasoe Bone is BA9 and MA4 and nitrogen concentration optimal for producing the PHB. With usewaste of corn as a source of carbon with a concentration 1%, 2%, 3% and as control positive glucose 1%, as well as use of ammonium sulfate as nitrogen source at a concentration of 0.05%, 0.1% and 0.15%. Total Analysis of PHB done with use UV-VIS spectrophotometer and a wavelength of 235 nm and using analysis a regression equation. The result of this study that use of corn as a source of carbon waste can produce PHB either by BA9 and MA4 isolates though still lower than glucose as the carbon source. The concentration of nitrogen source (ammonium sulfate), which accumulate PHB optimal concentration of ammonium sulfate that is at 0.1%. Keywords: Poly-β-hydroxy butyrate (PHB), Bacterial Isolates, Waste Corn, incubation time, the waste sugar factory


The Automated Fibre Placement (AFP) process has grown in popularity with an increasing install base that realistically began within the last decade. This growing popularity stems from the technique's promise of higher deposition rates (>10kg/hr), enhanced quality, and reduction of intensive manual labour. However, AFP machines are still relatively few in number as compared to other automated routes for fabrication; with only a few airframers and suppliers proactively developing the technique. The purpose of this paper is to report on the non-value adding activities that detrimentally impact on production rate capability. For example, inspection is typically carried out manually and can account for a large percentage of the cycle time. The risk therefore, is that by not adequately addressing non-value adding activities, a costly level of investment could be needed to achieve the production rates required. We provide a longitudinal case study, accounting for the non-value adding tasks that surround the process. Our results show that, by percentage, these activities have been targeted and reduced over a two year period. We are also able to demonstrate, through coefficient of variation, how the AFP process has stabilized over the two years. A 92% learning curve has emerged that better represents cycle time reductions for each successive part, as opposed to the 80% learning curve traditionally adopted.


This article examines the effect that two important legal and social policy developments are having on adult protection laws and practices in Australia. The first concerns the increasing reach of human rights norms, which encourage minimal reliance to be placed on substitute decision-making arrangements, such as adult guardianship, in favour of providing greater support for people to make and implement their own decisions. The second concerns the consumer choice focus of current aged care and disability reforms in Australia. While both these developments will lead to improvements in the lives of many people, they also present regulatory challenges when it comes to protecting the well-being of at-risk adults, especially adults with significant cognitive impairments or with significant mental ill health. The article draws on work undertaken as part of a Churchill Fellowship and contains reform suggestions that seek to improve our protection of at-risk adults in an era increasingly characterised by freedom of choice.


Public opinion polls in recent years show that Canadians are generally satisfied with their government-funded health care system. If there is any consistent source of dissatisfaction with the "single-payer" system, it is with the amount of time people wait to receive medical care. Requiring patients to queue for medical services presumably saves the government money, at least in the short-run, by reducing expenditures on hospitals and doctors. However, waiting lists impose monetary and non-monetary costs on those waiting for health care. The larger these costs, the more likely it is that waiting lists have net overall costs for Canadian society. What can and should be done to reduce or eliminate wait times for health care? Reducing Wait Times for Health Care: What Canada Can Learn from Theory and International Experience assesses various policy-related issues associated with waiting lists for health care services in Canada. First, Nadeem Esmail attempts to define what "waiting" for health care means and considers the complexities involved in comparing wait times from one country to another. In chapter 3, Dr. Brian Day examines the substantial costs that waiting for health care impose on Canadians. David Henderson then considers various policy approaches for reducing wait times in Canada, while in chapter 5, Steven Globerman addresses the labour market consequences of wait times and the broader impacts of wait times for Canada's economic growth. Finally, in chapter 6 of this volume, Nadeem Esmail reviews the international experience with wait times and reductions in wait times in an effort to identify policies that might work to improve the timeliness of access to health care in Canada. A key point for Canadian policymakers emerges from the chapters in this book: maintaining status quo health care policies is unlikely to improve the timeliness of the provision of health care services in Canada or improve the efficiency of the government-funded system.


A sound field propagating outdoors is perturbed by the turbulence in the atmosphere. To study the fluctuations due to turbulence, the sound field is measured simultaneously at a large number of points using a microphone array. The array consists of 64 microphones which can be configured in a variety of geometries ranging from small patches of only a few square meters to an elongated array spanning 700 m. Remote ''satellite'' arrays are also possible. The data are collected and processed in a mobile equipment trailer. The microphones, electronics, data collection, and processing are described and practical aspects of deploying the array are discussed. The design criteria and example applications of the array are also discussed.


Accurate knowledge of appliance lifetimes helps policy makers set effective energy efficiency policy. The cost-effectiveness of an appliance efficiency measure depends on the length of time consumers will use an appliance. National shipments projections depend on the rate of replacement in the installed appliance stock. Furthermore, early retirement programs need an accurate understanding of the remaining useful life in order to calculate lifetime savings and cost-effectiveness of a program. This paper uses a method for calculating lifetime of appliances based on the most recent data available on appliance shipments, total appliance stock, and the fraction of surviving appliances by age bins. An example of the calculation methodology is provided for residential gas boilers. This paper concludes by comparing the results to other available data on gas boiler lifetime.


A graph is a probe interval graph if its vertices can be partitioned into probes and nonprobes with an interval associated to each vertex so that vertices are adjacent if and only if their corresponding intervals intersect and at least one of them is a probe. A graph G = (V, E) is a tolerance graph if each vertex v is an element of V can be associated to an interval I(v) of the real line and a positive real number t(v) such that uv is an element of E if and only if vertical bar I(u) boolean AND I(v)vertical bar >= min \t(u), t(v)\. In this paper we present O(vertical bar V vertical bar + vertical bar E vertical bar) recognition algorithms for both bipartite probe interval graphs and bipartite tolerance graphs. We also give a new structural characterization for each class which follows from the algorithms.


Arthritis is a common degenerative disease of joints, which has become a public health problem affecting human health, but its pathogenesis is complex and cannot be eradicated. Coptis chinensis (CC) has a variety of active ingredients, is a natural antibacterial and anti-inflammatory drug. In which, berberine is its main effective ingredient, and has good therapeutic effects on rheumatoid arthritis (RA), osteoarthritis (OA), gouty arthritis (GA). RA, OA and GA are the three most common types of arthritis, but the relevant pathogenesis is not clear. Therefore, molecular mechanism and prevention and treatment of arthritis are the key issues to be paid attention to in clinical practice. In general, berberine, palmatine, coptisine, jatrorrhizine, magnoflorine and jatrorrhizine hydrochloride in CC play the role in treating arthritis by regulating Wnt1/β-catenin and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways. In this review, active ingredients, targets and mechanism of CC in the treatment of arthritis were expounded, and we have further explained the potential role of AHR, CAV1, CRP, CXCL2, IRF1, SPP1, and IL-17 signaling pathway in the treatment of arthritis, and to provide a new idea for the clinical treatment of arthritis by CC.


The majority of the energy exchanges in buildings are dependent on or at least related to the exterior skin of the building. The exterior skins are the localities of the building's heat exchange with the peripheral environment, solar energy absorption, ventilation, and light and sound infiltration to the interior environment. These spots play an important role in energy savings in buildings. The double-skin facades have been considered a solution to create transparency, control the effect of the environment on the building, and its useful performance in terms of climatic consistency and energy consumption. Given the heat pileup problems stemming from the greenhouse effect of the intermediate cavity, especially in hot and humid climates; it was deemed necessary to carry out a study to figure out the optimum clearance between two skins to reduce energy consumption. The present study is conducted using information collection, simulation of case study with Design builder software, and analysis of the quantitative data obtained from the simulation of the studied buildings in the hot and humid climate of Kish Island. The multi-story DSF is simulated at various distances between the two skins to investigate the amount of cooling energy consumption. The research findings show the amount of cooling energy used at cavity intervals of 30 to 200 centimeters. The research theoretical foundation is laid on the idea that the southern front of the multi-story DSF, compared to the various types of DSF, has a considerable effect on the optimum conditions of the reduction in energy consumption. The results of this study indicate that the cavity depth plays an important role in the reduction of cooling energy, and a double skin facade with the depth of 50 to 70 centimeters is the optimum distance in reducing cooling energy consumption, compared to other intervals in the low-rise office building in the hot and humid climate.


OBJECTIVE
To calculate the necessary pseudophakic intraocular lens (IOL) power to approximate emmetropia in adult tigers.

ANIMALS
17 clinically normal adult tigers.

PROCEDURES
33 eyes of 17 clinically normal adult tigers underwent routine ophthalmic examination and B-scan ultrasonography while anesthetized for unrelated procedures. Specific ultrasound data (globe measurements and corneal curvature) and estimated postoperative IOL positions were utilized to calculate predicted IOL power by use of Retzlaff and Binkhorst theoretical formulas. Applanation tonometry and refraction were also performed.

RESULTS
Mean ± SD axial globe length was 29.36 ± 0.82 mm, preoperative anterior chamber depth was 7.00 ± 0.74 mm, and crystalline lens thickness was 8.72 ± 0.56 mm. Mean net refractive error (n = 33 eyes) was +0.27 ± 0.30 diopters (D). By use of the Retzlaff formula, mean predicted IOL power for the postoperative anterior chamber depth (PACD), PACD - 2 mm, and PACD + 2 mm was 43.72 ± 4.84 D, 37.62 ± 4.19 D, and 51.57 ± 5.72 D, respectively. By use of the Binkhorst equation, these values were 45.11 ± 4.91 D, 38.84 ± 4.25 D, and 53.18 ± 5.81 D, respectively. Mean intraocular pressure for all eyes was 14.7 ± 2.69 mm Hg.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The calculated tiger IOL was lower than reported values for adult domestic felids. Further studies evaluating actual PACD and pseudophakic refraction would help determine the appropriate IOL power to achieve emmetropia in this species.


Children with complex health conditions require care from a large, diverse team of caregivers that includes multiple types of medical professionals, parents and community support organizations. Coordination of their outpatient care, essential for good outcomes, presents major challenges. Extensive healthcare research has shown that the use of integrated, team-based care plans improves care coordination, but such plans are rarely deployed in practice. This paper reports on a study of care teams treating children with complex conditions at a major university tertiary care center. This study investigated barriers to plan implementation and resultant care coordination problems. It revealed the complex nature of teamwork in complex care, which poses challenges to team coordination that extend beyond those identified in prior work and handled by existing coordination systems. The paper builds on a computational teamwork theory to identify opportunities for technology to support increased plan-based complex-care coordination and to propose design approaches for systems that enable and enhance such coordination.


A low-complexity third-order decision-feedback frequency-domain Volterra nonlinear equalizer (DF-FD-VNLE) with superior nonlinearity-compensation performance is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for OFDM long-reach PONs. High optical launch power up to 18 dBm is implemented to mitigate the chromatic dispersion induced power fading and increase the power budget. By reconstructing and subtracting the nonlinear noise in frequency domain with the knowledge of the nonlinear channel, the proposed DF-FD-VNLE outperforms the conventional time-domain VNLE (TD-VNLE) and feed-forward FD-VNLE (FF-FD-VNLE), resulting in better received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance. The nonlinearity-compensation performance of the DF-FD-VNLE can be further improved with the usage of a FF-FD-VNLE or more than one iteration. Complexity and experimental analyses show that similar complexity and higher SNR can be achieved by using the one-iteration DF-FD-VNLE with FD linear equalization (FD-LE), compared with that of the FF-FD-VNLE. Compared with conventional TD-VNLE, the required number of real-valued multiplication (RNRM) of the one-iteration DF-FD-VNLE with FF-FD-VNLE (FD-LE) is reduced by a factor of as much as 82.19% (89.61%) at a memory length of 14 and a truncation factor of 3. Based on the one-iteration DF-FD-VNLE with FF-FD-VNLE, around 53.79 Gb/s single wavelength OFDM IM-DD transmission over 60.8-km SSMF is successfully demonstrated at a BER of 3.8 × 10−3 and a received optical power (ROP) of −2 dBm, achieving 15% capacity improvement compared to the conventional TD-VNLE.


Some calves with neonatal diarrhea and distinctly disturbed general condition have elevated blood levels of D-lactate and respond poorly to the usual correction of acidosis. This observation led to this prospective study with the objective to elucidate whether calves with elevated D-lactate levels require higher doses of sodium bicarbonate and more frequent treatments than calves with normal D-lactate levels.

Among the calves admitted to the clinic between September, 2002, and March, 2003, 73 calves with an age of up to 3 weeks were included in this study. Further selection criteria were diarrhea (according to the history or upon admission), and metabolic acidosis with a base excess below -10 mmol/l. Exclusion criteria were hypoglycemia, hyperkalemia, evidence of myodystrophy, severe bronchopneumonia, and navel ill requiring surgical intervention.
Within the period of investigation (24 hours) the calves received a standardized therapy but no anti-inflammatory drugs and no oral rehydration solutions. Dosage of sodium bicarbonate was calculated using the formula body weight x base deficit x 0.6 and administered in a volume of 2.5 liters within 3.5 hours. During the subsequent 20 hours the calves received infusions of 0.9 % sodium chloride in volumes corresponding to the estimated fluid loss.
Blood samples were taken before the infusion and after four and 24 hours and assayed for D-lactate concentration and base excess; additionally, behavior and posture of the calves were recorded. Voluntary milk intake at the first regular feeding after the end of the investigation was also recorded.

Approximately 85 % of the calves had elevated D-lactate levels.
Significant correlations between D-lactate levels and both behavior and posture were found, allowing for a relatively reliable diagnosis of hyper-D-lactatemia on the basis of clinical signs. Posture and behavior seemed to be more strongly influenced by D-lactate than by degree of acidosis. No correlations were found between either D-lactate level or base excess, and milk intake. Mean D-lactate concentration decreased very little after the first four hours, whereas a distinct drop was observed after the subsequent 20 hours. A possible explanation for this finding is that metabolism of D-lactate increases after the normalization of blood pH.
Significant correlations between D-lactate levels and base excess after the sodium bicarbonate infusion indicate that calves with elevated D-lactate levels have received to little buffer. Furthermore significant correlations between D-lactate levels and base excess after 24 hours indicate that those calves, which still had elevated D-lactate levels after this period of time, in most cases required a repeated treatment with buffer.

Conclusion:
Calves with clinical evidence of D-lactate acidosis require higher doses of buffer and possibly repeated treatments.


Abstract. Significant electron density striations, neutral temperatures 27 K above nominal, and intense wind shear were observed in the E-region ionosphere over the Jicamarca Radio Observatory during an unusual event on 26 July 2005 (Hysell et al., 2007). In this paper, these results are used to estimate eddy turbulence parameters and their effects. Models for the thermal balance in the mesosphere/lower thermosphere and the charged particle density in the E region are developed here. The thermal balance model includes eddy conduction and viscous dissipation of turbulent energy as well as cooling by infrared radiation. The production and recombination of ions and electrons in the E region, together with the production and transport of nitric oxide, are included in the plasma density model. Good agreement between the model results and the experimental data is obtained for an eddy diffusion coefficient of about 1×10 3 m 2 /s at its peak, which occurs at an altitude of 107 km. This eddy turbulence results in a local maximum of the temperature in the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere and could correspond either to an unusually high mesopause or to a double mesosphere. Although complicated by plasma dynamic effects and ongoing controversy, our interpretation of Farley-Buneman wave phase velocity (Hysell et al., 2007) is consistent with a low Brunt-Vaisala frequency in the region of interest. Nitric oxide transport due to eddy diffusion from the lower thermosphere to the mesosphere causes electron density changes in the E region whereas NO density modulation due to irregularities in the eddy diffusion coefficient creates variability in the electron density.


Embedded system development frequently uses the "trial and error" approach for Operating System (OS) porting, resulting in incomplete or inconsistent porting results. In this paper, we present an original work addressing this issue. We propose a complete method for detecting OS parts that should be adjusted in order to port the OS into a new hardware platform. The proposed method combines information from the OS source-code and peculiarities of the new hardware platform, resulting in: a complete list of source-codes that must be adjusted; the interdependence between these source-codes; the priority order of modifications for each source-code; and an effort-based schedule, in order to plan the modifications.


The underlying rationale of joint-stock companies is that equity holders bear the largest proportional risk of an enterprise, and are rewarded with the most control over the firm and all of its upside risk. Equity owners are lowest in the debt hierarchy: their claims come after all other legitimate claimants of a defaulted enterprise. However, they are the highest in the hierarchy of control: in principle they select the directors of the enterprise who in turn select its management. This article argues that the rationale behind equity owner control should be extended in the debt and control hierarchies at least one more level. The unsecured debt of a firm should have a junior-most tranche, and control of the firm should devolve on the owners of that debt automatically and immediately upon the failure of the firm. Although the reorganization proposal described in this article would function effectively for any failing enterprise, this article considers the important and challenging problem of restructuring a failing systemically important financial institution (SIFI).


Background: Protein energy malnutrition is the major cause of poor prognostic outcome in patients on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD). The assessment of nutritional status in patients on maintenance hemodialysis should be done both subjectively and objectively by integrating clinical, biochemical and anthropometric measurements. A study was conducted to assess the possible correlations between the subjective global assessment-dialysis malnutrition score (SGA-DMS), anthropometric measurements, and biochemical parameters in hemodialysis patients. Methods: The study included 90 patients (55 males and 35 females; age range of 25 to 73 years; mean age 52.62 ± 11.7 years) undergoing twice/thrice weekly maintenance hemodialysis for six months and above in the dialysis unit of a tertiary care teaching hospital. The MHD patients were assessed by SGA -DMS, anthropometry and biochemical indicators (serum albumin, iron, ferritin and transferrin) of nutritional status. Results: According to the SGA-DMS 54.4 % were moderate to severely malnourished, 31% were mild to moderately nourished and 14.4% were well nourished. There was a highly significant negative correlation between SGA –DMS and serum albumin, iron, transferrin; positive correlation between SGA-DMS and ferritin (P<0.0001). Body mass index, upper arm circumferences, and skin fold thickness had a highly significant negative correlation with SGA-DMS (P<0.001), where as the lean body mass, total body water and the fat free mass had a significant negative correlation (P<0.05). Conclusion: SGA-DMS correlated with anthropometric and biochemical parameters that are indicative of nutritional status. SGA –DMS used in conjunction with other objective nutritional assessment methods may be of greater impact in determining nutritional status of hemodialysis patients.


Utilizing a Compact Color Microscope Imaging System (CCMIS), a unique algorithm has been developed that combines human intelligence along with machine vision techniques to produce an autonomous microscope tool for biomedical, industrial, and space applications. This technique is based on an adaptive, morphological, feature-based mapping function comprising 24 mutually inclusive feature metrics that are used to determine the metrics for complex cell/objects derived from color image analysis. Some of the features include: Area (total numbers of non-background pixels inside and including the perimeter), Bounding Box (smallest rectangle that bounds and object), centerX (x-coordinate of intensity-weighted, center-of-mass of an entire object or multi-object blob), centerY (y-coordinate of intensity-weighted, center-of-mass, of an entire object or multi-object blob), Circumference (a measure of circumference that takes into account whether neighboring pixels are diagonal, which is a longer distance than horizontally or vertically joined pixels), . Elongation (measure of particle elongation given as a number between 0 and 1. If equal to 1, the particle bounding box is square. As the elongation decreases from 1, the particle becomes more elongated), . Ext_vector (extremal vector), . Major Axis (the length of a major axis of a smallest ellipse encompassing an object), . Minor Axis (the length of a minor axis of a smallest ellipse encompassing an object), . Partial (indicates if the particle extends beyond the field of view), . Perimeter Points (points that make up a particle perimeter), . Roundness [(4(pi) x area)/perimeter(squared)) the result is a measure of object roundness, or compactness, given as a value between 0 and 1. The greater the ratio, the rounder the object.], . Thin in center (determines if an object becomes thin in the center, (figure-eight-shaped), . Theta (orientation of the major axis), . Smoothness and color metrics for each component (red, green, blue) the minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation within the particle are tracked. These metrics can be used for autonomous analysis of color images from a microscope, video camera, or digital, still image. It can also automatically identify tumor morphology of stained images and has been used to detect stained cell phenomena (see figure).


Chronic rejection necessitates a return to dialysis or retransplantation for a significant number of patients with renal allografts. Although alloresponses between donor organ and recipient importantly determine this process, the detailed immunologic processes and organ physiology of chronic rejection are unclear; in consequence its mechanism and therapy are uncertain. A model of chronic rejection in the rat was used to examine several facets of this process. Fisher-to-Lewis (F-L), allogeneic, and Lewis-to-Lewis (L-L), syngeneic, renal transplants were performed in nephrectomized recipients. All rats were treated with cyclosporin A (5 mg.kg-1.day-1) for 10 days from the time of grafting. At 6 wk, allogeneically grafted animals had a higher protein excretion rate (F-L, 47 +/- 30 mg/day; L-L, 17 +/- 6 mg/day; P < 0.05) and an increase in glomerular capillary pressure (F-L, 69 +/- 5 mmHg; L-L, 58 +/- 8 mmHg; P < 0.05) and fractional cortical interstitial volume (F-L, 29.8 +/- 4.3%; L-L, 19.5 +/- 4.0%; P < 0.01). This model of chronic rejection is characterized by glomerular capillary hypertension, proteinuria, and cortical interstitial expansion. Because these findings are also present in other models of chronic renal injury, mechanisms in addition to alloresponses may operate in chronic rejection.


The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) was set up in 2001 in order to make changes at a national level, and lead work on improving patient safety in England and Wales. A core function of the NPSA is to identify trends and patterns in patient safety problems, using its own National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) and data from other sources. Almost all reports to the NRLS come directly from local risk management systems; staff can also report directly to the NPSA via an electronic form. By the end of August 2005, nearly 230,000 incidents had been reported to the NRLS; 76% of these were reported from acute/general hospitals. The analysis of data in the NRLS is a function of the NPSA's Patient Safety Observatory (PSO), which has been established to quantify, characterise and prioritise patient safety issues in order to support the NHS in making healthcare safer. The PSO works with key national organisations which hold data relevant to patient safety, such as healthcare regulators, patient's organisations, clinical negligence bodies and national information and statistics functions. Triangulating information from different data sources enables a fuller picture of the nature and severity of patient safety incidents to be obtained. The key challenges for the PSO are to strengthen the quality of NRLS data, extend the ways in which feedback from the NRLS is provided, and continue to develop methods and tools for the systematic analysis of the huge volumes of incidents reported to the NRLS.


President Barack Obama campaigned on a platform of governmental transparency. This Essay examines how his administration has implemented this commitment in two policy areas: Internet communication, and intellectual property. It finds a sharp contrast between rhetoric and reality. The Obama administration's statements on Internet freedom do not comport with its efforts to impede challenges to seizures of allegedly unlawful domain names, its resistance to disclosing its role in the new "graduated response" system being implemented by Internet Service Providers, or its panoply of pressures on WikiLeaks. In the intellectual property arena, the administration has refused to disclose materials on new, key international agreements, and has outsourced critical enforcement decisions to private entities. The Essay suggests that seemingly abstruse issues, such as IP and the Internet, function well as leading indicators of transparency. An administration unwilling to endure scrutiny on less consequential issues is unlikely to do so on more weighty or controversial ones. Finally, the Essay argues that disappointment with Obama's promises was inevitable: structural features of the modern presidency penalize transparency politically.


Rural and remote Australia suffers a severe, chronic shortage of a diverse range of health professionals. This is of major concern, because the people living in rural and remote Australia have worse health in several health outcome areas than their metropolitan peers. Australian and overseas studies have reported that health professionals who grew up in a rural or remote area are more likely than those from urban environments to return to work in a rural area after graduation. Career development theories indicate that children begin to shape ideas about careers in early childhood, and emphasise the importance of career exposure, including occupational role models, in shaping career choice. However, the severe chronic shortage of health professionals in rural and remote Australia means there is also a severe chronic shortage of health professional role models to which children in these areas can aspire. According to career development theories, career education should start long before high school if it is to make up for the absence of visible occupational role models. Any health career information in rural and remote Australia has focused on mid to late high school students. Career information provided to mid to late high school students is also too late for many students and their families to overcome the educational, cultural, social, family and financial barriers between them and participation in tertiary education for a health professional career at a distant university.

This project explored the health professional careers with a small number of predominantly primary students living in rural and remote Australia and studying by distance education, as well as their teachers, parents and governesses. Issues around the knowledge, perceptions and aspirations of students in relation to these careers, before and after health professional career education, were central to this research. The aims were to contribute to long-term solutions to the severe health professional shortage in rural and remote areas, and to widen the career choices of these students. No previous documented research in Australia had explored the health professional careers with primary students or with distance education students living remotely.

This project drew broadly on an action research framework, fundamental to which was a suite of activities aimed at informing the students about health professional careers. The research component involved initial qualitative interviews with parent, teacher, governess and student volunteers from two schools of distance education. The action component occurred over one school year and involved only one school, which serviced an area greater than 500,000 square kilometres. The action component was negotiated with the school community, and explored a diverse range of health careers. Follow-up interviews with volunteers from this school occurred at the end of the year. Observations, informal communications and curriculum review completed the data collection.

These students had little opportunity to learn about professional careers, including the health professional careers, either in their daily lives or from the school. In contrast, they had rich opportunities to learn about working on the land. With few exceptions, students on initial interview showed very limited knowledge and few positive perceptions of, or aspirations towards, health professional careers. This contrasted with their knowledge, perceptions and aspirations in relation to these careers on follow-up by year's end.

Interviews with parents, teachers and governesses unveiled factors contributing to the initial limited knowledge, perceptions and aspirations of these students in relation to health professional careers which suggested a recursive nature to the health professional shortage. This generation's students may have greater difficulty imagining themselves as health professionals than previous generations. These students, in general, have far less opportunity to become health professionals than to work on the land in the beef cattle industry. They also have far less opportunity to participate in tertiary education than many students living in university cities.

This study explored how health professional career information can be disseminated to rural and remote students—in this case, students living in highly inaccessible areas, and serviced by distance education—as part of their education. The study also reports on participants' overall positive response to the program to which they were exposed. The data tentatively suggests that programs to address the shortage of health professionals in rural and remote Australia should include carefully planned integration of health professional career information in the school curriculum from an early age. The data also recognises the complexity of the shortage of health professionals in rural and remote Australia reported in previous studies. Finally, this research highlights the self perpetuating nature of the shortage of health professionals in rural and remote Australia, and the need for wide, sweeping changes to achieve a long-term stable health workforce in these areas.


Two methods for measuring the modulation transfer function (MTF) of a charge-coupled device (CCD) that are based on the generation of laser speckle are analyzed and compared. The method based on a single-slit aperture is a quick method, although the measurements are limited to values of less than the Nyquist frequency of the device. The double-slit method permits the measurement of values of as much as some 1.8 times the Nyquist frequency, although it is a slower method because of the necessity to move the CCD. The difference between the MTF values obtained with the two methods is less than 0.1 in magnitude; the root-mean-square error between the two curves is 0.046 (4.6%).


On one hand, web services have demonstrated their important roles in the field of computing. On the other, networked games need server support, which is usually based on socket programming. For example, in a two-player taketurn game using TCP protocol, a server communicates and coordinates the two game GUIs utilized by the two players. This gives rise to one important research question, "Can the server take the advantages of web services in order to replace the sockets while supporting networked games?" This article describes some technical aspects for accomplishing this goal.


In this work, mid-infrared (mid-IR), far-IR, and Raman spectra are presented for the distinct (meta)stable phases of the flexible metal–organic framework MIL-53(Al). Static density functional theory (DFT) simulations are performed, allowing for the identification of all IR-active modes, which is unprecedented in the low-frequency region. A unique vibrational fingerprint is revealed, resulting from aluminum-oxide backbone stretching modes, which can be used to clearly distinguish the IR spectra of the closed- and large-pore phases. Furthermore, molecular dynamics simulations based on a DFT description of the potential energy surface enable determination of the theoretical Raman spectrum of the closed- and large-pore phases for the first time. An excellent correspondence between theory and experiment is observed. Both the low-frequency IR and Raman spectra show major differences in vibrational modes between the closed- and large-pore phases, indicating changes in lattice dynamics between the two structures. In addition, several collective modes related to the breathing mechanism in MIL-53(Al) are identified. In particular, we rationalize the importance of the trampoline-like motion of the linker for the phase transition.


The performance of a given portfolio policy can in principle be evaluated by comparing its expected utility with that of the optimal policy. Unfortunately, the optimal policy is usually not computable, in which case a direct comparison is impossible. In this paper, we solve this problem by using the given portfolio policy to construct an upper bound on the unknown maximum expected utility. This construction is based on a dual formulation of the portfolio optimization problem. When the upper bound is close to the expected utility achieved by the given portfolio policy, the potential utility loss of this policy is guaranteed to be small. Our algorithm can be used to evaluate portfolio policies in models with incomplete markets and position constraints. We illustrate our methodology by analyzing the static and myopic policies in markets with return predictability and constraints on short sales and borrowing.


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the impact of an 'intervention' consisting of revised antibiotic guidelines for empirical treatment of common infections and enhanced stewardship on reducing broad-spectrum antibiotic usage and its effect on incidence of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI).

METHODS
This was a retrospective, quasi-experimental study using interrupted time series (ITS) over 12 months before and after the intervention. The setting was adult medical and surgical wards in University Hospital Lewisham, an acute general hospital in London. The intervention was introduced in April 2006. Revised guidelines avoided broad-spectrum antibiotics, e.g. fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins, clindamycin, amoxicillin and co-amoxiclav, as they were considered to be 'high risk' for CDI. Instead, 'low risk' antibiotics such as penicillin, clarithromycin, doxycycline, gentamicin, vancomycin, trimethoprim and nitrofurantoin were recommended. Changes in antibiotic usage and incidence of CDI before and after the intervention were compared using segmented regression analysis. The negative binomial model was used to analyse the time series to estimate the CDI incidence rate ratio (IRR) following the intervention.

RESULTS
The intervention was associated with a significant reduction in the use of fluoroquinolones by 105.33 defined daily doses (DDDs)/1000 occupied bed-days (OBDs) per month [95% confidence interval (CI) 34.18-176.48, P < 0.001] and cephalosporins by 45.93 DDDs/1000 OBDs/month (95% CI 24.11-67.74, P < 0.0001). There was no significant change in total antibiotic, clindamycin, amoxicillin or co-amoxiclav use. There was a significant decrease in CDI following the intervention [IRR 0.34 (0.20-0.58), P < 0.0001].

CONCLUSIONS
Revised antibiotic guidelines and enhanced stewardship was associated with a significant stepwise reduction in the use of cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones and a significant decrease in the incidence of CDI.


Abstract We test the hypothesis that the combination of kiln drying of double-stacked boards and contact heat treatment will reduce the susceptibility of treated boards to colonization by mold fungi. Winter-felled Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) sapwood boards were double-stacked in an industrial kiln in ''sapwood out'' and ''sapwood in'' positions. Dried samples were then contact heat-treated using a hot press at three different temperatures (140°C, 170°C, and 200°C) for three different periods (1, 3, and 10 min). An accelerated mold test was performed in a climate chamber where naturally mold-infected samples were used as a source of mold inocula. Contact heat treatment degraded the saccharides that accumulated at dried surfaces, and reduced the mold growth. The threshold temperature and time for inhibiting mold growth were 170°C for 10 min. However, for industrial application, the most feasible combination of temperature and time would be 200°C for 3 min. We concluded that double stacking/contact heat treatment used is an environmentally friendly alternative to chemicals for reducing mold on Scots pine sapwood boards.


OBJECTIVE
To elucidate the relative importance of the HLA-DR and HLA-DQ loci in conferring genetic predisposition to rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

METHODS
HLA-DRB1 and HLA-DQB1 alleles were typed in a set of 685 patients with RA using sequence-specific polymerase chain reaction. Allele and phenotype frequencies were compared with those in 2 large sets of historical, ethnically matched healthy controls, using the relative predispositional effect method.

RESULTS
Positive association was confirmed with the shared epitope positive HLA-DRB1 alleles associated with RA in Caucasians. A significant susceptibility effect was observed with HLA-DRB1*09, described in other ethnically diverse populations but not in Caucasians. A significant underrepresentation of the HLA-DRB1*0103 variant was noted among the RA cases, supporting the proposed protective role of the DERAA motif at residues 70-74 of the DRbeta molecule. No HLA-DRB1 independent association of the HLA-DQB1 alleles, implicated in predisposing to RA, was evident.

CONCLUSION
These data corroborate the shared epitope hypothesis of susceptibility to RA and provide strong evidence for the DRB1 locus as the primary RA susceptibility factor in the HLA region.


A systematic study was conducted over six years (1994-1999) on a shallow ice covered lake in the Russian Republic of Karelia with the aim of developing better understanding of some physical processes occurring in shallow ice-covered lakes. The average ice-covered period was 182 days while the longest ice-covered period was 193 days. The average lake water temperature at ice formation was 0.5-10degreesC, while the average water temperature just before ice break-up was close to 4degreesC. The heat flux from water to ice was low during early winter but could increase above 5 Wm-2 (daily average) during the last month before ice break-up. The heat flux from sediment to water was the main source of heat to the water body during early to mid winter being about 2-6 W.m-2 during early winter but decreasing to about 1-2 Wm-2 during early spring. (Less)


Under the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has the dual objectives of facilitating a cost-effective way of meeting greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and contributing to global sustainable development. Due in part to a lack of consensus on definitions of sustainability and sustainable development and a lack of capacity to address these concepts, there is a risk that CDM projects may fail to move the host country towards sustainability. We suggest the use of a scientific, principle-based definition of sustainability to guide project participants in their decision-making process. We propose a user-friendly project planning tool – CDM Select – that can build capacity for project developers to employ a strategic, whole-system approach to sustainable development and increase the likelihood that CDM projects move society towards sustainability. Early review of CDM Select by experts and practitioners in the CDM arena indicate that it has strong potential to assist in these efforts.


The recent string of major child sexual assault scandals, in Australia and other countries, can create a feeling of disgust and an urge to look away from an ugly reality. Yet we must confront and take collective responsibility for child protection by acknowledging that it happens every day and that we have to talk about it. Societal silence on child sexual abuse protects perpetrators and enables abuse to continue. Child sexual assault is a lot more common than we may think. The Australian Institute of Family Studies reported in 2013 that as many as one in six boys and one in three girls has experienced sexual abuse. Most recently, the media reported sexual exploitation on a mass scale of an estimated 1,400 children in Rotherdam, UK, between 1997 and 2013, and the failure of social services and the police to intervene appropriately. The Rotherdam report is full of examples of how children were groomed for eventual abuse in public view, receiving inappropriate gifts and attention from men.


Comparing Apples with Oranges: Revisiting the Gender Wage Gap in an International Perspective Using a rich and comparable micro-data set, we analyse international differences in gender pay gaps in the private sector for a sample of five European economies: Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Spain. Using different methods, we examine how wage structure, differences in the distribution of measured characteristics, occupational and industrial segregation contribute to explain the pattern of international differences. Furthermore, we take into account indirect discrimination influencing female occupational and industrial distributions. We find significant impacts of those latter factors on gender differentials. However, the magnitude of their effects varies across countries. JEL Classification: J16, J31, J71


In the first part we study critical points of random polynomials. We choose two deterministic sequences of complex numbers,whose empirical measures converge to the same probability measure in complex plane. We make a sequence of polynomials whose zeros are chosen from either of sequences at random. We show that the limiting empirical measure of zeros and critical points agree for these polynomials. As a consequence we show that when we randomly perturb the zeros of a deterministic sequence of polynomials, the limiting empirical measures of zeros and critical points agree. This result can be interpreted as an extension of earlier results where randomness is reduced. Pemantle and Rivin initiated the study of critical points of random polynomials. Kabluchko proved the result considering the zeros to be i.i.d. random variables.
In the second part we deal with the spectrum of products of Ginibre matrices. Exact eigenvalue density is known for a very few matrix ensembles. For the known ones they often lead to determinantal point process. Let $X_1,X_2,...,X_k$ be i.i.d matrices of size $n \times n$ whose entries are independent complex Gaussian random variables. We derive the eigenvalue density for matrices of the form $Y_1.Y_2....Y_n$, where each $Y_i = X_i$ or $X_i^{-1}$. We show that the eigenvalues form a determinantal point process. The case where $k=2$, $Y_1=X_1,Y_2=X_2^{-1}$ was derived earlier by Krishnapur. The case where $Y_i =X_i$ for all $i=1,2,...,n$, was derived by Akemann and Burda. These two known cases can be obtained as special cases of our result.


The decline of political efficacy and trust in the United States is often linked to the rise of money in politics. Both the courts and reform advocates justify restrictions on campaign donations and spending as necessary for the improvement of links between the government and the governed. We conduct the first test of whether campaign finance laws actually influence how citizens view their government by exploiting the variation in campaign finance regulations both across and within states during the last half of the 20th century. Our analysis reveals no large positive effects of campaign finance laws on political efficacy. Public disclosure laws and limits on contributions from organizations are in some cases associated with modest increases in efficacy, but public financing is associated with a similarly modest decrease in efficacy.


Abstract The 2010 UNPD's Assessment of Development Results defined the Maldives "a vulnerable Small Island Developing State" by pointing out the influence of both external and local human factors on their fragile ecosystems. This impact is deeply related to a main geographical feature: the high dispersion of land mass and population, both of them spread over a distance of 860 km. Above all, this dispersion has an effect on two environmental issues: energy distribution and solid waste management. The latter is particularly interesting for the geographical analysis of Small Island Countries. Due to centre-periphery distance and cost benefits analysis, in the Maldives public and private actors have developed different solid waste management models: central and regional waste management dumpsites, hybrid systems implemented by resorts and "informal" practices still followed by local communities. In this paper, we discuss these systems stressing on the relevance of combining infrastructural measures with "informal" practices at local level. Furthermore, we report the outcomes of The Right Place, a participatory waste management action carried out by MaRHE Center (a Milano- Bicocca Research Center) in Faafu Magoodhoo Island.


This thesis examines the possible outcomes (expired with no loss, settled for loss, still performing) of loans and the time to hazard events of over 19,000 guaranteed operating and farm ownership loans which were provided by the Farm Service Agency (FSA). Loans guaranteed by FSA are made by commercial banks, Farm Credit System (FCS), or other lenders to farmers who have limited ability to obtain loans from normal sources without the Federal guarantee. The guarantee allows for payment up to 95 percent when borrowers default. Cox proportional hazards models for operating loans and farm ownership loans are estimated to identify borrower characteristics, loan characteristics, lender types, and farm and macro-economic environment factors that influence loan outcomes. The estimation results indicate that beginning farmer loans are more likely to expire and more likely to have loss claims and loans with interest assistance are less likely to expire and less likely to have loss claims than are regular loans. Loan outcomes also differ by loan amount, loan term, lender type, and region. In addition, preferred or certified lenders are less likely to have operating loan loss claims. Finally, contemporaneous variables, in particular delinquency status, have a significant impact on loan outcomes.


BACKGROUND
Adaptation models of the horizontal disparity vergence system assume a nonadaptable transient component. They also predict identical postadaptation dynamics during convergence and divergence movements.

METHOD
To test the adaptation property of the transient component, a set of experiments were performed in which closed-loop vergence dynamics measured before and after sustained convergence were compared, primarily by comparing the peak vergence velocity, occurrence time of peak vergence velocity, and steady-state vergence posture. Vergence dynamics after durations of 30, 60, and 90 s of sustained convergence were compared with those after a control duration of 5 s.

RESULTS
The peak divergence velocity was reduced by about 25% within 30 s of sustained vergence. However, the peak convergence velocity was unchanged for all the exposure durations. Additionally, for all durations, the peak divergence velocity was significantly higher than peak convergence velocity. In contrast to peak velocities, the occurrence time of peak convergence and divergence velocity did not differ significantly and remained unchanged for all durations.

CONCLUSIONS
The transient component is adaptable. Furthermore, the adaptation is direction dependent and affects divergence and convergence dynamics differently, thereby suggesting involvement of separate pathways for convergence and divergence in the vergence sensorimotor control.


Background: Interference screw is a popular fixation device used to rigidly fix bone-patellar tendon-bone (B-PT-B) graft both in femoral and tibial tunnels in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Parallel placement of screw is difficult in transtibially drilled femoral tunnel but always desired as it affects pullout strength of the graft. Commonly, interference screw into the femoral tunnel is inserted through the anteromedial (AM) or accessory AM portal. These portals are not-in-line with the transtibially drilled femoral tunnel. Furthermore, these portals increase the divergence of the interference screw in the femoral tunnel. We hypothesized that interference screw placement through patellar tendon (PT) portal (through donor defect) in transtibially drilled femoral tunnel can be less divergent. We report the prospective randomized study to investigate the difference of divergence of interference screw placed through PT portal and AM portal and its clinical relevance. Materials and Methods : Forty-one patients underwent femoral tunnel B-PT-B graft fixation through AM portal (group 1) and other 41 (group 2) through PT portal. Femoral tunnel-interference screw divergence was measured on postoperative digital lateral X-rays. Ha's method was used to grade divergence. The clinical outcome was assessed by postoperative intervention knee documentation committee grading (IKDC) and Lysholm score at 2 years followup. Results: Mean tunnel-screw divergence in sagittal plane through AM portal was 13.38o (95% CI: 12.34–14.41) and through PT portal was 7.20o (95% CI: 6.25–8.16) ( P <0.0001). In AM portal group, 82.9% patients had divergence in either grade 3 or 4 category, whereas in PT portal group, 82.9% patients were in grade 1 or 2 category ( P <0.0001). Mean Lysholm score were 92.8 and 94.5 at two-year follow-up in both groups which were statistically not significant. The International knee documentation committee grades of patients in both groups were similar and had no statistical significance. Conclusion: Femoral interference screw placement through the PT portal leads to significantly less screw divergence as compared with screw placement through the AM portal. However, this difference in divergence is not reflected in clinical outcome.


Proof, verification and analysis methods for termination all rely on two induction principles: (1) a variant function or induction on data ensuring progress towards the end and (2) some form of induction on the program structure. The abstract interpretation design principle is first illustrated for the design of new forward and backward proof, verification and analysis methods for safety. The safety collecting semantics defining the strongest safety property of programs is first expressed in a constructive fixpoint form. Safety proof and checking/verification methods then immediately follow by fixpoint induction. Static analysis of abstract safety properties such as invariance are constructively designed by fixpoint abstraction (or approximation) to (automatically) infer safety properties. So far, no such clear design principle did exist for termination so that the existing approaches are scattered and largely not comparable with each other.
 For (1), we show that this design principle applies equally well to potential and definite termination. The trace-based termination collecting semantics is given a fixpoint definition. Its abstraction yields a fixpoint definition of the best variant function. By further abstraction of this best variant function, we derive the Floyd/Turing termination proof method as well as new static analysis methods to effectively compute approximations of this best variant function.
 For (2), we introduce a generalization of the syntactic notion of struc- tural induction (as found in Hoare logic) into a semantic structural induction based on the new semantic concept of inductive trace cover covering execution traces by segments, a new basis for formulating program properties. Its abstractions allow for generalized recursive proof, verification and static analysis methods by induction on both program structure, control, and data. Examples of particular instances include Floyd's handling of loop cutpoints as well as nested loops, Burstall's intermittent assertion total correctness proof method, and Podelski-Rybalchenko transition invariants.


Fuzzy relation equations are becoming extremely important in order to investigate the optimal solution of the inverse problem even though there is a restrictive condition for the availability of the solution of such inverse problems. We discussed the methods for finding the optimal (maximum and minimum) solution of inverse problem of fuzzy relation equation of the form $R \circ Q = T$ where for both cases R and Q are kept unknown interchangeably using different operators (e.g. alpha, sigma etc.). The aim of this study is to make an in-depth finding of best project among the host of projects, depending upon different factors (e.g. capital cost, risk management etc.) in the field of civil engineering. On the way to accomplish this aim, two linguistic variables are introduced to deal with the uncertainty factor which appears in civil engineering problems. Alpha-composition is used to compute the solution of fuzzy relation equation. Then the evaluation of the projects is orchestrated by defuzzifying the obtained results. The importance of adhering to such synopsis, in the field of civil engineering, is demonstrated by an example.


Living coccolithophores and coccoliths from surface sediments were investigated in the western equatorial Indian Ocean off Tanzania, from the coast and Pemba Channel to the open ocean. In total, 49 plankton samples from 8 stations and 20 surface sediment samples collected in February 2008 were analysed. Coccolithophore standing stock ranged from barren up to almost 23,000 coccospheres/l in the upper water column and the living community comprised 47 different taxa in total. In addition, six more species were only found as detached coccoliths. Coccolithophore numbers were generally low and only Florisphaera profunda, Gephyrocapsa oceanica, and Emiliania huxleyi were numerically important (>5,000 coccospheres/l). Two distinct depth-related assemblages were identified. The upper photic zone (down to about 50m) in the Pemba Channel was dominated by G. oceanica and can be related to slightly increased nutrient conditions. In contrast, the upper photic zone community in the open ocean (down to about 70m) is characterised by high numbers of Umbellosphaera irregularis, typically indicating oligotrophic stratified waters, high sea-surface temperatures and strong water stratification. The lower photic-zone flora in the whole study area is generally dominated by F. profunda and accompanying species. A total of 40 species were identified in the surface sediments and total coccolith numbers vary drastically from <1000 to 18,200 x 106 coccoliths/g of sediment. The absolute numbers are much lower near-shore and strikingly enhanced further offshore mainly due to heavy dilution by fine-grained terrigenous sediments. Nevertheless, the occurrence of species in the plankton communities compares well to those of the surface sediment assemblages although plankton samples are from just one season. This points to an excellent preservation potential in this area, which can be explained by high supply of clay-rich sediments and a therefore rapid burial of the coccoliths in shelf and upper slope sediments.


One crucial locus of gridlock is appointments to the United States Courts of Appeals, which have grown extremely contentious, as the circuits resolve disputes about controversial issues and can effectively be tribunals of last resort for designated areas. Continuous Republican and Democratic charges, recriminations, and divisiveness have roiled the process for decades. The bench constitutes 179 judgeships; however, seventeen remained vacant at President Barack Obama's second inauguration notwithstanding his pledge to end the "confirmation wars" by assiduously consulting senators. Laboring without ten percent of the appellate court members subverts prompt, inexpensive and fair case disposition and undermines citizen respect for selection and the government. These propositions demonstrate that upper chamber gridlock and circuit appointments merit review, which this piece undertakes. Part One explores the conundrum. The assessment concludes that it derives from rampant partisanship and skyrocketing caseloads, which necessitate more judicial positions; they enlarge the number of vacancies, which complicates selection. The paper next descriptively and critically recounts developments in Obama's tenure. Scrutiny reveals that appointees principally comprised very qualified ethnic minority and female jurists who averaged fifty-five years of age upon nomination. Their confirmations improved diversity and signaled the realization of a career judiciary while marginally widening the experience and age range of the appeals courts. Determining that Obama has proffered sufficient, highly competent individuals, whom the Senate Judiciary Committee has robustly approved, to facilitate processing, but that the chamber has neglected to expeditiously vote on many, this Article canvasses promising ideas that will enhance selection and counter gridlock. I. THE HISTORY OF THE JUDICIAL SELECTION DIFFICULTY A. Introduction The history of the appointments predicament requires limited consideration in this Article because the concern's origins and development have experienced comprehensive investigation elsewhere (1) and the contemporary situation is most relevant. The problem actually comprises two aspects. One salient element has been the persistent vacancies dilemma, which resulted from expanding federal court jurisdiction and soaring dockets initially manifested throughout the 1960s. These enlarged the regional circuit and district court judgeships, radically increasing the quantity and frequency of open posts while slowing confirmations. Another essential dimension of the modern vacancy conundrum is political and can be ascribed to conflicting Republican and Democratic control of the White House and Senate that commenced about a quarter century ago. (2) B. The Persistent Vacancies Problem Congress enhanced federal jurisdiction around the 1960s. (3) It criminalized much behavior and recognized numerous federal civil actions, developments that have contributed to accelerated cases and concomitant burgeoning appeals. (4) Congress mainly addressed the rises by expanding judgeships to the present complement: 179. (5) A study of the decade and a half following 1980 concluded that appointment times rapidly mushroomed. (6) Circuit nominations demanded one year and confirmations three months, and both perceptibly increased. (7) Conditions acutely worsened subsequently. For example, nominations consumed practically twenty months while appointments reached six months in 1997--the earliest year of President Bill Clinton's last term--and in 2001--the starting year of President George W. Bush's inaugural administration. (8) The specific periods closely resemble Obama's term and merit systematic comparative analysis. The numerous and convoluted steps and number of participants in the contemporary nomination and confirmation processes mean that a certain amount of delay seems inevitable. (9) Presidents and staff charged with responsibility for picking appellate nominees traditionally consult home state elected officers, pursuing much support and constructive advice regarding putative choices. …


Behavioural Finance Theory is a modern approach to finance theory – which, in turn has three wings in its standard versions: the theory of finance based on subjective expected utility theory, in conjunction with the efficient market hypothesis theory (with Bayes's rule as an auxiliary assumption for updates); the Shafer-Vovk approach via the use of Ville's arithmetic game version; and that which is based on the work of Bachelier, Osborne and Mandelbrot which is called the Econophysics vision. Dissatisfaction with the theoretical, empirical and experimental fundamentals of these three approaches has led, in the last quarter of a century, to the development of the field of modern behavioural finance theory. This is based on the early work of Thaler, Tversky and Kahneman. In this paper, this view is contrasted with the prior work of Herbert Simon, and is called Classical Behavioural Finance Theory.


Why some people are rich and others poor can be explained in a number of ways. Income and Wealth focuses on who gets what and why. It explains the dynamics of income generation, how it is measured, and how such dramatic disparities in distribution come about. The book first defines various characteristics of income, with an emphasis on the gap between the rich and the poor, and reviews several theories to explain the disparities. Subsequent chapters discuss such timely topics as the vanishing middle class and the sky-high salaries of CEOs, Hollywood stars, and athletes. The final chapters consider the implications of policies, such as the minimum wage, taxes, immigration, and trade quotas, and expand the discussion to consider international comparisons. Featuring graphs and charts, a glossary of key terms, and a listing of references and resources, Income and Wealth explains the intricate, and often controversial, effects of economic policies on individuals, families, and communities. Moreover, it shows how the numbers can be manipulated by policymakers, pundits, journalists, and academics to promote various agendas-and shows readers how to recognize hyberbole and make better-informed decisions.


This OHE Consulting Report reviews "Estimated costs of production and potential prices of medicines for the World Health Organization Essential Medicines List" (Hill et al., 2018) in which the authors argue for "greater transparency in drug pricing" and propose generating estimates of the cost of manufacturing essential medicines to inform negotiations on drug pricing. The OHE Consulting Report argues against use of a costing exercise to negotiate generic drug prices irrespective of the quality of the analysis. The implication that prices should be reduced to the level predicted by a model is likely to lead to an increase in generic drug shortages. The Report's authors state that the way to tackle generic drug prices is through more effective procurement arrangements which brings in competitive global suppliers. More efficient medicines prices may only be achieved by bringing in regional or global suppliers who are more efficient than local producers. Price transparency could help payers understand how effective their generic procurement process appeared to be. However, price transparency also conveys information to suppliers. Although Hill et al. (2018) set out that 85% of EML drugs are generic, Hill et al. discuss the use of cost estimates and the removal of patent protection in the context of on-patent drugs. However, in many markets some recovery of R&D cost is both to be expected and is necessary. Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is the tool that can inform price negotiation or decisions about use of a product. In some low income markets or for some low income population groups we might expect to see tiered pricing bringing prices close to generic levels. Governments and international organisations could usefully seek to facilitate the use of tiered pricing. The OHE Consulting Report also critiques the methods used to generate the cost estimates. The model is not a good predictor of price for the three countries Hill et al. (2018) analyse. In India, 47% of medicines have observed prices that are more than 50% below the projected efficient price. In contrast, 78% of the prices observed in South Africa are in the range of three times above or below the estimated prices and around 60% of the medicines included for the UK have prices three times above the estimated price. The OHE Consulting Report is funded by the IFPMA.


Image search with text feedback has promising impacts in various real-world applications, such as e-commerce and internet search. Given a reference image and text feedback from user, the goal is to retrieve images that not only resemble the input image, but also change certain aspects in accordance with the given text. This is a challenging task as it requires the synergistic understanding of both image and text. In this work, we tackle this task by a novel Visiolinguistic Attention Learning (VAL) framework. Specifically, we propose a composite transformer that can be seamlessly plugged in a CNN to selectively preserve and transform the visual features conditioned on language semantics. By inserting multiple composite transformers at varying depths, VAL is incentive to encapsulate the multi-granular visiolinguistic information, thus yielding an expressive representation for effective image search. We conduct comprehensive evaluation on three datasets: Fashion200k, Shoes and FashionIQ. Extensive experiments show our model exceeds existing approaches on all datasets, demonstrating consistent superiority in coping with various text feedbacks, including attribute-like and natural language descriptions.


Night vision improvement is gaining increased importance in the domain of video-based driver assistance systems. In comparison to conventional low-beam headlights, the active infrared night vision system of Bosch provides an extended visibility at night without blinding oncoming traffic. Since night sceneries in the automotive environment are characterized by uncontrolled and strongly varying light intensities, high-dynamic-range (HDR) video cameras with an image sensor in modern, nonlinear CMOS technology are applied in order to acquire the outperforming wide luminance range of at least five decades of brightness difference between darkest and brightest object. The downside of using these HDR cameras is that their performance is especially critical if exposed to glaring situations, which, for example, might be caused by uncontrollable illumination in typical street sceneries due to oncoming traffic or reflections at traffic signs. In these situations, unwanted and disturbing stray light artefacts might occur in the acquired images which mainly arise from reflections and scattering due to mechanical defects, impurities or other effects of the image sensor or lens. Therefore, the night vision cameras are currently tested for stray light by means of subjective visual inspection according to a failure catalogue which represents one of the most important steps in the quality control among other optical inspection methods. To guarantee a realistic test in a glaring situation, the camera is shifted manually in dark surroundings with respect to an external light source which is mapped as a bright spot on dark background at different positions in the acquired images. In order to improve repeatability and reproducibility of test results, to enhance test coverage and to reduce inspection error rates at acceptable inspection times, the main focus of the thesis lies in the automation and development of an objective stray light inspection procedure. After introducing an overall inspection framework, the first part of the thesis describes the development of a motorized concept which replaces the current manual swivel unit in order to realize automated spot positioning and image acquisition. For the sake of determining the spot position in different regions inside and outside the image field, approaches such as the weighted centroid algorithm, affine transformation in combination with a Gauss-Helmert adjustment as well as extrapolation are implemented. In a second step, an algorithm based on supervised machine learning is presented which aims to objectively detect different types of stray light artefacts in the acquired images. This algorithm is composed of a combination of specific approaches for image preprocessing, feature extraction and classification using a random forest ensemble classifier. The task of the proposed procedure is to separate the inspected images into two distinct classes: those that indicate any type of stray light artefact (niO, defect) and those without any artefacts (iO, non-defect). While the steps of image preprocessing and feature extraction are explained by the concrete example of wide beam artefacts, the performance of the classification is evaluated with respect to different types of stray light artefacts by means of a kfold cross-validation procedure. In the scope of performance assessment, the out-of-bag estimation error as an internal error measure of random forests is compared with the receiver operating characteristic based on predicted artefact probabilities. Finally, the thesis discusses two different approaches for feature analysis and selection in order to evaluate individual extracted features with respect to their importance in the scope of decision making. The first procedure represents a significance test of differences between the distributions of feature values extracted from iO and niO images. In the second approach, feature selection is realized by the ranking of variable importance scores which are determined as internal estimation measures during the training phase of a random forest. The outcome of both approaches is evaluated by repeating the classification procedure based on the reduced feature subsets and by comparing the classification results with those found using the original set of features. While the significance test is rather deemed to be an approach for an a priori interpretation of each feature's ability to separate iO from niO distributions, the outstanding advantage of feature selection based on variable importance scores is that the multivariate interactions between all features and the random forest model are taken into account. In conclusion, the thesis demonstrates that the proposed approach for automated and objective stray light inspection enables highly reproducible and repeatable classification results at improved false negative rates and acceptable inspection times which are almost independent of subjective human perception.


Light allows us to see everything around us, but humans can only see a sliver of all light, known as the electromagnetic spectrum. Here, Kim Arcand and Megan Watzke present the subject of light as never before. Organized along the order of the electromagnetic spectrum, each chapter focuses on a different type of light. From radio waves, harnessed for telecommunications, to X-rays, which let us peer inside the human body and view areas around black holes in deep space, Arcand and Watzke show us all the important ways light impacts us. An introductory chapter describes what light is and how it behaves, while hundreds of full-color photographs and illustrations demonstrate concepts and make for a stunning book that's a joy to read and browse.


This biennial Review summarizes much of Particle Physics. Using data from previous editions, plus 2205 new measurements from 667 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We also summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as Higgs bosons, heavy neutrinos, and supersymmetric particles. All the particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We also give numerous tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as the Standard Model, particle detectors, probability, and statistics. This edition features expanded coverage of CP violation in B mesons and of neutrino oscillations. For the first time we cover searches for evidence of extra dimensions (both in the particle listings and in a new review). Another new review is on Grand Unified Theories. A booklet is available containing the Summary Tables and abbreviated versions of some of the other sections of this full Review. All tables, listings, and reviews (and errata) are also available on the Particle Data Group website: http://pdg.lbl.gov.


The third edition of the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing was published in January, 2018. This edition, which consists of 16 principles related to all aspects of scholarly publishing such as journal governance, publication ethics, copyright, archiving and profit model, has been prepared by the collaboration of four organizations, which are the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) [1]. Most of these principles are self-evident and can be considered as essential ingredients in publishing scholarly journals in an ethically, academically and entrepreneurially transparent manner. Since July, 2018, Science Editing has fully adopted them in the editorial policy, which can be found in our web page about Best Practice (https:// www.escienceediting.org/about/best_practice.php). This has been followed by many Korean journals since then. The Korean Council of Science Editors (KCSE) has also actively advocated these principles. A Korean translation of them was published in March, 2018 in the KCSE Newsletter. They were also included in the educational program of the KCSE. In the KCSE General Meeting and Conference held in January, 2019, Soon Kim presented the results of an extensive survey of the websites of all 793 journals published by non-profit academic societies and listed in the Science Citation Index Extended about whether the editorial policies of those journals were consistent with the 16 principles or not. She found that in surprisingly many categories including copyright, archiving and profit model information, the principles of transparency were poorly represented in the editorial policies of the majority of journals. This was especially the case for those in Asia, Africa and South America. Since it is not difficult to implement these principles, we strongly encourage many journals, especially those in Asia, to do so. This will enhance the transparency of those journals, thereby helping to develop them to better ones.


Objective: The importance of involving patients in reporting on safety is increasingly recognized. Whilst studies have identified barriers to clinician incident reporting, few have explored barriers and facilitators to patient reporting of safety experiences. This paper explores patient perspectives on providing feedback on safety experiences. Design/Participants: Patients (n=28) were invited to take part in semistructured interviews when given a survey about their experiences of safety following hospital discharge. Transcripts were thematically analysed using NVivo10. Setting: Patients were recruited from four hospitals in the UK. Results: Three themes were identified as barriers and facilitators to patient involvement in providing feedback on their safety experiences. The first, cognitive-cultural, found that whilst safety was a priority for most, some felt the term was not relevant to them because safety was the "default" position, and/or because safety could not be disentangled from the overall experience of care. The structural-procedural theme indicated that reporting was facilitated when patients saw the process as straightforward, but that disinclination or perceived inability to provide feedback was a barrier. Finally, learning and change illustrated that perception of the impact of feedback could facilitate or inhibit reporting. Conclusions: When collecting patient feedback on experiences of safety, it is important to consider what may help or hinder this process, beyond the process alone. We present a staged model of prerequisite barriers and facilitators and hypothesize that each stage needs to be achieved for patients to provide feedback on safety experiences. Implications for collecting meaningful data on patients' safety experiences are considered.


The uncertainty around future changes to the Federal Reserve target rate varies over time. In our results, the main driver of uncertainty is a "path" factor signaling information about future policy actions, which is filtered from federal funds futures data. The uncertainty is highest when it signals a loosening cycle. The uncertainty raises the risk premium in a loosening cycle, reducing the transmission of target changes to longer maturities. Our results trace the information content of federal funds futures to hedging demand.


Abstract Oxalic acid (1 mM) when applied as a foliar spray to rice plants induced resistance to challenge infection with Rhizoctonia solani, the rice sheath blight pathogen. Maximum reduction in sheath blight incidence was observed when the plants were sprayed with oxalic acid three days before inoculation with the fungus. The biochemical alterations in rice plants treated with oxalic acid was also investigated. When rice plants were treated with oxalic acid, a two-fold increase in phenolic content in leaf sheaths was recorded three days after treatment. Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase and peroxidase activities increased significantly starting from two days after treatment. Peroxidase (PO) isozyme analysis indicated that PO-3 and PO-4 were induced two days after treatment with oxalic acid. Western blot analysis revealed that two chitinases (28 and 35 kDa) and two β-1,3-glucanases (30 and 32 kDa) were strongly induced in rice sheaths four to six days after treatment with oxalic acid. Immunoblot analysis of protein extracts from oxalic acid-treated plants demonstrated the induction of a 23 kDa thaumatin-like protein (TLP) cross-reacting with bean TLP antibody. These results suggest that the enhanced activities of defense enzymes and defense-related compounds in oxalic acid-treated rice plants may contribute to resistance against R. solani.


Purpose: of the study is to analyse the determinants of wine price mark-up in restaurants. Wine sold at the restaurants is a substantial contributor of the restaurants' profitability and better understanding factors impacting mark-up is critical for the industry. Methodology: Sommeliers around the world, mostly members of the International Sommeliers Association (ASI), have been approached to complete an internet based questionnaire, from February to May 2014. Of the 800 who started the survey, 267 fully completed the questionnaire, generating 1869 observations. We regress the declared mark-up against restaurant's and wine list characteristics, including managerial practices, and wine steward characteristics. Findings: suggest to adopt a more holistic perspective on mark-up decision, based on various criterion including: the long experience of the sommeliers, the ability to 'capture' clients of the hotel attached to the restaurant, and a fine dining positioning. Practical Implications: If the restaurants apply a simple rule of thumb to set wine prices, when focusing on every price segment, it appears that sommeliers doesn't matter that much. The restaurant positioning and style is more likely to explain a positive impact on wine prices' mark-up.


The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman; if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world. Walt Whitman Song of the Broad‐Axe The provision of clean drinking water, sanitation and stormwater disposal has become a major challenge for the urban centres of the developing world. The number of cities with a population of more than 10 million has increased from one in 1950, to 16 in 2000, and is expected to increase to 21 by 2015. In 2000, 47.2% of the global population was urban, and this percentage is increasing steadily. The rapid rate of urbanization has far exceeded the management and financial capacities of all the levels of governments of all developing countries from about 1960. While more and more people have received access to water and sanitation in recent years, much more remains to be done. At the present rate, it is unlikely that the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to drinking water by 2015, can be achieved universally. The problems faced by the major urban centres of the developing world are analysed, and the opportunities and constraints they face are assessed.


Video surveillance is an important tool to enhance public safety and privacy protection. It is used to analyze video content and to monitor the activity required to effectively transmit and store surveillance video data. Video compression techniques can be used to reduce or resize video. A less sophisticated encoding method based on the Weiner-Civ coding principle can be used for surveillance video compression, and the backwardchannel-aware Weiner-Civ video coding approach is applied to improve coding efficiency. Encoder Motion vectors obtained from the decoder are sent back to the encoder via the feedback channel for object detection and event analysis. Encoder and decoder use different motion vectors in motion compensation for the same frame. Rebuilt frames on the encoder and decoder therefore lose synchronization, which causes a drift problem and propagates to the rest of the range. To address the reliability of credible broadcasts, an error replacement plan has been proposed for BCAWZ for reliable transmission on the back-channel, which is essential for direct and reliable object identification, event analysis and video data quality. Watermarking is also applied to securely transmit surveillance video stream. Key Terms: IoT, Closed Circuit Television, Surveillance, Backward Channel Compression


Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which aims at enabling organisations to realize a customer focus is believed to be useful and has risen to the agenda of many organisational strategies. It can be seen as an approach to marketing that has its origins in Relationship Marketing (RM). In Hong Kong, CRM has been gathering attention from attorneys, accountants, merchants, bankers and financial advisors. However, there are few studies specifically investigating the factors that may influence the adoption of CRM. In order to bridge the gap in understanding, an exploratory study utilising in-depth interviews was conducted. A conceptual model was developed in order to deal with the two major objectives in this research 1) to investigate the factors which lead organisations to adopt CRM; and 2) the impact of CRM on the organisational performance. The conceptual model was tested with the relevant hypotheses, using a survey method by mailing questionnaires to the organisations of services industry in Hong Kong. Important findings from the examination of research objectives were discussed with regard to their implications for researchers and practitioners. Analysis results supported that attributes of innovation proposed by Rogers' (1995), attitude towards change, market orientation, innovation orientation, perceived accessibility of IT solutions, competition intensity and desire of customer intimacy were the antecedents of CRM adoption. Also, it was discovered that information utilisation would be a possible mediator between CRM adoption and the performance. Finally, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and business performance was found to be influenced by CRM adoption. Limitations of study were reported together with recommendations for future research programmes.


This paper investigates persuasion in the context of the current economic-financial crisis by focusing on the strategies employed by banks to attract and preserve confidence. The targeted genre is senior executives' letters to the shareholders issued before and during crisis. Theoretically, the study predicates on two crucial perspectives: it relies on Aristotle's rhetorical appeals ( ethos, pathos, logos ) and on Close Textual Analysis (Browne 2009), an interpretive practice whose aim is to decipher the linguistic particulars underlying the rhetorical force of a text, and it equally tackles other semiotic resources that are considered to be persuasion markers. The twofold investigation (both quantitative and qualitative) shows that the crisis exerts psychological and economic pressures upon the communication stream even between high-performing banking institutions and their website audience, and, therefore, the three rhetorical appeals, ethos, pathos, logos are fully enhanced and appropriately adjusted towards shaping the desired corporate image.


Rhodiola rosea L., or 'golden root', is a popular plant in traditional medicine in Eastern Europe and Asia, with a reputation for improving depression, enhancing work performance, eliminating fatigue and treating symptoms of asthenia subsequent to intense physical and psychological stress. Due to these therapeutic properties, R. rosea is considered to be one of the most active adaptogenic drugs. To confirm and extend results obtained in the few preclinical and clinical studies available in English language journals, the purpose of the present study was to re‐investigate the effects produced by a single oral administration of an R. rosea hydroalcohol extract (containing 3% rosavin and 1% salidroside) on the central nervous system in mice. The extract was tested on antidepressant, adaptogenic, anxiolytic, nociceptive and locomotor activities at doses of 10, 15 and 20 mg/kg, using predictive behavioural tests and animal models. The results show that this R. rosea extract significantly, but not dose‐dependently, induced antidepressant‐like, adaptogenic, anxiolytic‐like and stimulating effects in mice. This study thus provides evidence of the efficacy of R. rosea extracts after a single administration, and confirms many preclinical and clinical studies indicating the adaptogenic and stimulating effects of such R. rosea extracts. Moreover, antidepressant‐like and anxiolytic‐like activities of R. rosea were shown in mice for the first time. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Amongst the churches, Anglicanism is distinctive by virtue of its attempt to participate in the life and purposes of God and to make them known through history and in the practicalities of particular situations. Yet the distinctiveness of this position, and what its implications are for the Church's ongoing life, are not well appreciated. As a result, the churches of the Anglican Communion often find themselves caught in painful struggles about major issues concerning their own basis and practice, to such a degree that there are constant threats of division. The essays in this book begin from the struggles which have emerged in recent years, since the 1998 Lambeth conference, and show the deeper issues at stake. They respond with proposals for the future, focusing especially on the wisdom which manifests itself in the Church, and how this needs to be furthered in the worship, order and practice of the Church in the breadth of its mission in each place. They conclude with some considerations of the wider role of the Church in responding to spirituality and money. Together they form a powerful statement of the tasks of Anglicanism today from which other traditions have much to learn.


Suppose we observe n independent and identically distributed observations of a finite dimensional bounded random variable. This article is concerned with the construction of an efficient targeted minimum loss-based estimator (TMLE) of a pathwise differentiable target parameter based on a realistic statistical model. The canonical gradient of the target parameter at a particular data distribution will depend on the data distribution through an infinite dimensional nuisance parameter which can be defined as the minimizer of the expectation of a loss function (e.g., log-likelihood loss). For many models and target parameters the nuisance parameter can be split up in two components, one required for evaluation of the target parameter and one real nuisance parameter. The only smoothness condition we will enforce on the statistical model is that these nuisance parameters are multivariate real valued cadlag functions and have a finite supremum and variation norm. We propose a general one-step targeted minimum loss-based estimator (TMLE) based on an initial estimator of the nuisance parameters defined by a loss-based super-learner that uses cross-validation to combine a library of candidate estimators. We enforce this library to contain minimum loss based estimators minimizing the empirical risk over the parameter space under the additional constraint that the variation norm is bounded by a set constant, across a set of constants for which the maximal constant converges to infinity with sample size. We show that this super-learner is not only asymptotically equivalent with the best performing algorithm in the library, but also that it always converges to the true nuisance parameter values at a rate faster than $n{-1/4}$. This minimal rate applies to each dimension of the data and even to nonparametric statistical models. We also demonstrate that the implementation of these constant-specific minimum loss-based estimators can be carried out by minimizing the empirical risk over linear combinations of basis functions under the constraint that the sum of the absolute value of the coefficients is smaller than the constant (e.g., Lasso regression), making our proposed estimators practically feasible. Based on this rate of the super-learner of the nuisance parameter, we can establish that this one-step TMLE is asymptotically efficient at any data generating distribution in the model, under very weak structural conditions on the target parameter mapping and model. We demonstrate our general theorems by constructing such a one-step TMLE of the average causal effect in a nonparametric model, and presenting the corresponding efficiency theorem.