These days, a new approach is emerging in the field of Human Resource Management (HRM). Where strategic HRM has been the main approach for the last decades, nowadays more and more scholars are connecting sustainability to HRM (Ehnert, 2009, 2014, Kramar, 2014). There are many different conceptualizations for sustainable HRM, but most scholars agree on defining it as an extension of strategic HRM (Ehnert, 2009; Kramar, 2014). Thereby they agree that sustainable HRM has a broader focus on the organization's performances than only accounting for the financial success of the organization. In fact sustainable HRM incorporates the triple bottom line, namely people, planet and profit (Elkington, 1997) and tries to balance these three different aspects. Even though literature (Ehnert, 2009, De Prins et al., 2014) provides different models about sustainable HRM, we face a lack of practical tools to explore and exploit sustainable HRM in an organization.
To develop a practical tool for monitoring sustainable HRM in an organization, an extended literature review was conducted, complemented with qualitative data (i.e. explorative interviews with practitioners, trade unions and a test panel) to define the field of sustainable HRM. The development of the tool started with a literature review in several different domains such as strategic HRM, sustainable HRM, HR scorecards and strategy mapping. The tool is based upon the idea of scorecards and measuring progress in realizing an HRM strategy.
Deriving from the literature review, two concepts were used as basic principles during the development of the tool. First, the idea of the HR value chain where an input, throughput and output model is presented as a strategic approach to sustainable HRM (den Hartog, Boselie & Paauwe 2004; Vanderstraeten, 2014). Secondly, to increase the applicability of the model, strategic mapping, starting with Kaplan & Norton (2004) and further developed in the field of HRM by Becker (2001) and Huselid (2005), is used as a guideline for implementing sustainable HRM.
After the literature review, a first draft of the tool was developed. We used the Delphi methodology to gain consensus among practitioners about the components and definitions that were used in the first draft of the tool (Linstone & Turoff, 1975). HR managers of twelve organizations participated in this part of the development. This resulted in a tool with 12 different components. The resulting tool can be used to guide social profit and public organizations in the development of a sustainable HRM or to support the evaluation of their current sustainable HRM. For each of the different components (12) in the tool, validated questionnaires and measures are available so that organizations can collect data and measure their progress towards a sustainable HRM. Six experts in HRM were consulted to allocate the measures to the components. To further test the practical usefulness and correctness of the tool seven organizations were willing to test it more in detail and even started implementing it. Because of the importance of sustainability in organizations and the support that a sustainable HRM can provide in transitioning towards such an organization it is important to encourage more organizations towards sustainable HR. The developed tool provides organizations can guide them towards sustainable HRM. In addition more organizations can make the shift towards a sustainable organization based on a scientifically validated and evidence based HRM practice. Future research should reexamine the implementations that were made, their effectiveness and extend the implementation of the tool to different organizations.


Reservoirs are a common way to store and retain water serving for a multitude of purposes like storage of drinking and irrigation water, recreation, flood protection, navigation, and hydropower production, and have been built since centuries. Today, few reservoirs serve only one purpose, which requires management of present demands and interests. Since each reservoir project will cause negative impacts alongside desired advantages both on a local, regional and global scale, it is even more urgent to develop a common management framework in an attempt to mitigate negative impacts, incorporate different demands and make them visible within the discourse in order to avoid conflicts from early on. The scientific publications on reservoirs are manifold, yet a comprehensive and integrative holistic tool about management of this infrastructure is not available. Therefore, a comprehensive and integrated conceptual tool was developed and proposed by the authors of this paper that can contribute to the sustainable management of existing reservoirs. The tool presented herein is based on the results from the interdisciplinary CHARM (CHAllenges of Reservoir Management) project as well as the condensed outcome of relevant literature to aid and enhance knowledge of reservoir management. The incorporated results are based on field, laboratory and empirical social research. The project CHARM focused on five different aspects related to existing reservoirs in southern Germany (Schwarzenbachtalsperre, Franconian Lake District), namely: sedimentation of reservoirs, biostabilisation of fine sediments, toxic cyanobacteria(l) (blooms), greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs and social contestation, respectively consent. These five research foci contributed to the topics and setup of a conceptual tool, put together by the research consortium via delphi questioning, which can be found alongside this publication to provide insights for experts and laymen. Conceptualising and analysing the management in combination with quantitative and qualitative data in one descriptive tool presents a novelty for the case studies and area of research. The distribution within the scientific community and interested public will possibly make a positive contribution to the goal of sustainable water resources management in the future.


The 5th edition of Computer Organization and Design moves forward into the post-PC era with new examples, exercises, and material highlighting the emergence of mobile computing and the cloud. This generational change is emphasized and explored with updated content featuring tablet computers, cloud infrastructure, and the ARM (mobile computing devices) and x86 (cloud computing) architectures. Because an understanding of modern hardware is essential to achieving good performance and energy efficiency, this edition adds a new concrete example, "Going Faster," used throughout the text to demonstrate extremely effective optimization techniques. Also new to this edition is discussion of the "Eight Great Ideas" of computer architecture. As with previous editions, a MIPS processor is the core used to present the fundamentals of hardware technologies, assembly language, computer arithmetic, pipelining, memory hierarchies and I/O. Instructors looking for4th Edition teaching materials should e-mail email@example.com. Includes new examples, exercises, and material highlighting the emergence of mobile computing and the Cloud. Covers parallelism in depth with examples and content highlighting parallel hardware and software topics Features the Intel Core i7, ARM Cortex-A8 and NVIDIA Fermi GPU as real-world examples throughout the book Adds a new concrete example, "Going Faster," to demonstrate how understanding hardware can inspire software optimizations that improve performance by 200 times. Discusses and highlights the "Eight Great Ideas" of computer architecture: Performance via Parallelism; Performance via Pipelining; Performance via Prediction; Design for Moore's Law; Hierarchy of Memories; Abstraction to Simplify Design; Make the Common Case Fast; and Dependability via Redundancy. Includes a full set of updated and improved exercises.


1.1The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader in the field of practice-based approaches to the study of strategy and organization, including its rationale and emergence. These will provide a basis for a clear identification of the key topics covered in the practice approach and a review of the main concepts involved in a key perspective to understand the practice of strategy: the strategy-aspractice perspective. By decoding the key concepts around the strategy-as-practice approach we encourage an appreciation of the micro-level aspects of strategy making and execution. Such micro-level aspects are not only of interest from a scholarly perspective, they are also critical in any strategic review and can help practitioners develop a more nuanced understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their strategy-making and execution processes. Overall, the key objective of this introductory chapter is to help the reader appreciate the micro-level foundations of strategy making and execution.


This paper explores the different ways in which people engage in teaching and learning in the workplace. There is now much more awareness of the symbiotic relationship between workplace learning, the organisation of work, level of employee involvement, and organisational performance, and the broader economic, regulatory, and social context, within which organisations have to operate. The paper argues that we have to identify and take serious account of the contextual factors (external and internal) which affect all organisations as these are central to developing our understanding of the nature of pedagogical practice within any workplace setting. By closely examining the nature and impact of these contextual factors, we can gain greater insight into the mystery of why organisations adopt different practices and why they create such different learning environments. The paper draws on our tentative initial findings from the Learning as Work project and includes vignettes from both the public and private sectors to highlight the issues raised.


Dr. Rajeev Narayanan Electrical Engineering Master of Science by Mohammad Massoud Electronic chip design, aircraft stability, finance, economy and even our social life can be affected by random events. Noise is a random process that occurs due to unwanted signal interactions in electronic circuits and environmental phenomena such as thunder, manufacturing defects or thermal increment. Noise affects the performance of our design and will cause unpredictable results on the output of the system. Consequently, we need to model noise and analyze the system at its presence. Verifying the performance of a dynamic system in the presence of noise requires a highly complicated mathematical skills. There are different verification techniques that rely on impractically expensive techniques. Flight dynamics characterizes the response of an aircraft vehicle to its control inputs, gravitational forces, and perturbations and has to adhere to strict design and safety requirements. In this thesis, we are interested in modeling and verifying the stability of aircrafts such as F4 in presence of noise. In order to study the random behavior of noise, we propose an approach based on modeling the designs using stochastic differential equations (SDE) in the time domain. Furthermore, we propose a modeling and estimation methodology that allows us to capture the perturbation in the form of Stochastic Differential Equations for the statistical monitoring of the stability property. Finally, pattern matching and Monte Carlo based verification methods are used for qualitative estimation of the simulation traces.


Mouse F9 cells differentiate into primitive extraembryonic endoderm (PrE) with retinoic acid (RA) treatment, as the result of an up-regulation of Gata6, which when translated directly activates Wnt6. Canonical Wnt signalling is required for PrE differentiation, and this, like most developmental processes, requires input from one or more additional pathways, including hedgehog (Hh). The Hh pathway is regulated by GATA6, and crosstalks positively/negatively with Wnt signalling. Ihh up-regulation in F9 cells accompanies PrE induction, but a role for GATA6 or Hh pathway activation in obligatory Wnt/ß-catenin signalling is not known. To address this, I show that RA induces Ihh and altered expression of Hh targets. Overexpressing Gata6 alone significantly induced Ihh. When Hh signalling was blocked with cyclopamine, RAinduced differentiation, as analyzed by a decrease in TROMA-1 and DAB-2 signal, was significantly reduced, demonstrating requirement of the Hh pathway for PrE differentiation. Interestingly, each of SAG, BIO, and GLI3A overexpression failed to induce markers of PrE differentiation. These results indicate a regulatory role for Hh in PrE differentiation, as the pathway is required, but is not independently sufficient for this event.


Innovation is the core motivation of the economic development, while the open innovation model provides our country enterprise an opportunity to improve the innovation capability. The implementation of the open innovation improve the enterprise innovation capacity, for it makes the enterprise can effectively integrate internal and external innovation resources, constructs a new innovation system and reduces the uncertainty in the process of innovation. However, excessive open will increase the transaction cost of enterprises, excessively depend on external resources and improve the probability of core technology leakage. All these are not conducive to the promotion of enterprise innovation capacity. This thesis makes an empirical analysis by using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The result shows that the open innovation and enterprise innovation capability is "inverted U" relationship.


Biodiversity is globally recognised as a cornerstone of healthy ecosystems, and biodiversity conservation is increasingly becoming one of the important aims of environmental management. Evaluating the tradeoffs of alternative management strategies requires quantitative estimates of the costs and benefits of their outcomes, including the value of biodiversity lost or preserved. This paper takes a decision-analytic standpoint, and reviews and discusses the alternative aspects of biodiversity valuation by dividing them into three categories: socio-cultural, economic, and ecological indicator approaches. We discuss the interplay between these three perspectives and suggest integrating them into an ecosystem-based management (EBM) framework, which permits us to acknowledge ecological systems as a rich mixture of interactive elements along with their social and economic aspects. In this holistic framework, socio-cultural preferences can serve as a tool to identify the ecosystem services most relevant to society, whereas monetary valuation offers more globally comparative and understandable values. Biodiversity indicators provide clear quantitative measures and information about the role of biodiversity in the functioning and health of ecosystems. In the multi-objective EBM approach proposed in the paper, biodiversity indicators serve to define threshold values (i.e., the minimum level required to maintain a healthy environment). An appropriate set of decision-making criteria and the best method for conducting the decision analysis depend on the context and the management problem in question. Therefore, we propose a sequence of steps to follow when quantitatively evaluating environmental management against biodiversity. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).


The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of auditory-motor mapping training (AMMT) on the speech output of nonverbal elementary age students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Auditory-motor mapping training facilitates the development of association between sounds and articulatory actions using intonation and bimanual drumming activities. This intervention purportedly stimulates neural networks that may be dysfunctional in persons with ASD. Seven nonverbal children with a primary diagnosis of ASD participated in twelve 20-minute weekly sessions consisting of engagement with 15 predetermined target words through imitation, singing, and motor activity (all components of AMMT). Assessments were made at baseline, mid-point, and post AMMT intervention sessions. These probes were used to determine the effects of AMMT on expressive language abilities of speech output. A null hypothesis was tested to determine the significance of the independent variables of singing, showing visual cues, and drumming on the speech output of nonverbal children with ASD, age five through eight years (p = .05). Additionally, effects of AMMT on children's development of social communication skills also were examined at the end of each intervention session. Results of the study revealed no significant effect of the AMMT intervention on the speech output of elementary age children with ASD from the best baseline to probe one and probe two (p = .424), therefore the null hypothesis that there was no significant effect of auditory-motor mapping training (AMMT) on speech output of nonverbal elementary children with ASD was retained. Additionally, a comparison of the growth of the independent 'High Five' gesture from session one to session twelve yielded no statistical significant results (p > .05). The McNemar chi-square was used to compare this secondary AMMT effect from sessions two to eleven, and revealed a positive growth trend that approached a significant outcome associated with the children's social communication responses (p =.063). Although significant changes in the nonverbal children's speech output were not substantiated in this study, there were areas of growth for all children in this study that were highlighted through qualitative analysis and descriptive narratives. Confounding variables that possibly affected children's speech output and social communication development were addressed. Additionally, recommendations were made for future research involving music as a vehicle for speech development for nonverbal elementary age children with ASD.


Most South Africans have enjoyed drinking an ice cold Coca-Cola at some or other time. However, we may not necessarily have thought about the processes that ensure the continuous supply of this favourite drink. Coca-Cola Shanduka Beverages completed a SAP installation at the end of December 2011. Their Group Engineering Manager, Micheal Payne, discussed with Management Today the motivation for implementing a unified operating system, the implementation process followed, the teething problems they experienced and the business changes that have resulted subsequent to the installation.


The linguistic features of academic spoken English are different from those of academic written English. Therefore, for this study, an Academic Spoken Word List (ASWL) was developed and validated to help second language (L2) learners enhance their comprehension of academic speech in English-medium universities. The ASWL contains 1,741 word families with high frequency and wide range in an academic spoken corpus totaling 13 million words. The list, which features vocabulary from 24 subjects across four equally sized disciplinary subcorpora, is graded into four levels according to Nation's British National Corpus and Corpus of Contemporary American English lists, and each level is divided into sublists of function words and lexical words. Depending on their vocabulary levels, language learners may reach 92–96% coverage of academic speech with the aid of the ASWL.


The large distributional areas and ecological niches of many lichenized fungi may in part be due to the plasticity in interactions between the fungus (mycobiont) and its algal or cyanobacterial partners (photobionts). On the one hand, broad-scale phylogenetic analyses show that partner compatibility in lichens is rather constrained and shaped by reciprocal selection pressures and codiversification independent of ecological drivers. On the other hand, sub-species-level associations among lichen symbionts appear to be environmentally structured rather than phylogenetically constrained. In particular, switching between photobiont ecotypes with distinct environmental preferences has been hypothesized as an adaptive strategy for lichen-forming fungi to broaden their ecological niche. The extent and direction of photobiont-mediated range expansions in lichens, however, have not been examined comprehensively at a broad geographic scale. Here we investigate the population genetic structure of Lasallia pustulata symbionts at sub-species-level resolution across the mycobiont's Europe-wide range, using fungal MCM7 and algal ITS rDNA sequence markers. We show that variance in occurrence probabilities in the geographic distribution of genetic diversity in mycobiontphotobiont interactions is closely related to changes in climatic niches. Quantification of niche extent and overlap based on species distribution modeling and construction of Hutchinsonian climatic hypervolumes revealed that combinations of fungal–algal interactions change at the sub-species level along latitudinal temperature gradients and in Mediterranean climate zones. Our study provides evidence for symbiontmediated niche expansion in lichens. We discuss our results in the light of symbiont polymorphism and partner switching as potential mechanisms of environmental adaptation and niche evolution in mutualisms.


At my age a doctor is expected to take an interest in medical history, but actually it became my guilty pleasure long before I retired. Whenever I was asked to give a talk on 'The historical perspective' I cheerfully agreed, even before I knew what the conference was about. Unearthing facts about the past was fascinating whether my title was, say, 'Contraception through the ages' or 'The origins of the endoscope', but I'm afraid audiences found the results equally boring. Seasoned conference-goers know all about crocodile dung in Ancient Egypt or candles in 19th-century Vienna, and could only hope that I would get them the wrong way round.


ABSTRACT The Rocks Sandstone of Thorup (1941), which crops out in the northern Santa Lucia Range, was deposited as a deep-sea fan in a restricted Eocene continental borderland basin. It is as thick as 640 m and consists primarily of medium-grained sandstone with interbedded mudstone and conglomerate. The average grain size and bed thickness increase toward the east, where The Rocks Sandstone is overlain by the nonmarine to shallow-marine Berry Formation and underlain by the deep-marine Lucia Mudstone of Dickinson (1965). To the west, The Rocks Sandstone thins and is overlain by the deep-marine Church Creek Formation and is underlain by the deep-marine Lucia Mudstone. Foraminifers from underlying and overlying units indicate a late early Eocene (Ulatisian) to middle Eocene (Narizian) age for Th Rocks Sandstone and deposition in a moderately deep basin connected to the open ocean. Thick channelized sandstone sequences typical of a middle-fan facies association characterize The Rocks Sandstone. Beds consist primarily of facies B and locally facies A of Mutti and Ricci Lucchi (1972, 1975) and contain graded beds, sole marks, dish structures, and other sedimentary structures indicative of deposition by sediment gravity flows. Amalgamated sequences of thick-bedded sandstone form fining- and thinning-upward channel deposits. These sequences appear to form anastomosing bodies of sandstone that directly overlie basin-plain deposits of the Lucia Mudstone. The middle-fan channel sequences are commonly superposed upon one another, forming thick sections that have very high sandstone-to-shale ratios. Interchannel deposits are relatively rare within these sandstone sequenc s, but where present consist of repetitive, thin, alternating beds of fine-grained sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone dominantly of Multi and Ricci Lucchi facies D and E beds. The minimal development of the outer-fan facies association and difficulties in separating the middle- and inner-fan facies associations characterize this sand-rich borderland-type deep-sea fan deposit. Deposition of large amounts of sand abruptly at the base of slope apparently resulted in a fan characterized chiefly by the middle-fan facies association. Without sufficient clay-sized sediment, turbidity currents that travel long distances and deposit outer-fan and basin-plain turbidites apparently did not develop. The petrographic data indicate derivation mainly from felsic plutonic rocks, with a minor contribution from volcanic rocks. Paleocurrent, thickness, and stratigraphic data indicate primarily northward and westward sediment transport. A granitic source terrane, located to the east and southeast, and probably comprising parts of the Salinian block and possibly part of the present Mojave Desert area, is suggested by the petrography and paleocurrents.


Although the world of banking and finance is becoming more integrated every day, in most aspects the world of financial regulation continues to be narrowly defined by national boundaries. The main players here are still national governments and governmental agencies. And until recently, they tended to follow a policy of shielding their activities from scrutiny by their peers and members of the academic community rather than inviting critical assessments and an exchange of ideas. The turbulence in international financial markets in the 1980s, and its impact on U.S. banks, gave rise to the notion that academics working in the field of banking and financial regulation might be in a position to make a contribution to the improvement of regulation in the United States, and thus ultimately to the stability of the entire financial sector. This provided the impetus for the creation of the "U.S. Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee". In the meantime, similar shadow committees have been founded in Europe and Japan. The specific problems associated with financial regulation in Europe, as well as the specific features which distinguish the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee from its counterparts in the U.S. and Japan, derive from the fact that while Europe has already made substantial progress towards economic and political integration, it is still primarily a collection of distinct nation-states with differing institutional set-ups and political and economic traditions. Therefore, any attempt to work towards a European approach to financial regulation must include an effort to promote the development of a European culture of co-operation in this area, and this is precisely what the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC) seeks to do. In this paper, Harald Benink, chairman of the ESFRC, and Reinhard H. Schmidt, one of the two German members, discuss the origin, the objectives and the functioning of the committee and the thrust of its recommendations.


Our article aims to study the attitudes of the elite to family life and gender equality. This is a social group who still experiences significant gender imbalances. We focus on attitudes to family life, which has thus far been underresearched in elite literature. With the help of the analysis of 34 individual interviews with members of the Hungarian political, economic, and cultural elite, we identify and present three types of narrative identities: dominant, deferential, and egalitarian. The main finding from our qualitative content analysis is that egalitarian partnership norms which were discussed in every narrative and gender equality appear in most cases as a norm among the elite. However, there is a narrative tension between this norm and the couples' actual experiences of their family life. We conclude our article with some comments on how the ideology of egalitarian essentialism strengthens gender inequalities reinforcing the underrepresentation of women in elite positions.


Reinstated soil at restored sites often suffers from severe compaction which can significantly impede root development. Several methods, such as ripping and complete cultivation, are available to alleviate compaction that may occur as a result of soil reinstatement. This paper examines the effectiveness of the industry standard industrial ripper and a prototype modern ripper, the Mega‐Lift, in comparison with the recommended best practice method of complete cultivation. An investigation of the penetration resistance of the soil at a restored sand and gravel quarry was carried out using a cone penetrometer and a 'lifting driving tool' (dropping weight penetrometer) 3 years following cultivation. All the cultivation treatments reduced soil compaction to some degree compared with the untreated control. However, the penetration resistance values suggest that rooting would be restricted at relatively shallow depths in the plots cultivated using the industrial and Mega‐Lift ripper; penetration resistance exceeded 2 MPa within the first 0.33 m. Complete cultivation maintained penetration resistance values of less than 2 MPa within the depth limit of the penetrometer of 0.42 m. In addition, the results from the 'lifting driving tool' indicate that soils treated using complete cultivation remained significantly looser than those treated with the ripper to a depth of at least 0.80 m. The results demonstrate that complete cultivation remains the most effective method of alleviating soil compaction on restored sites, although it is recognized that its relatively high cost may restrict the uptake of the technique.


Following failure to respond to antibiotic therapy, 56 patients (mean age 22yrs; range 15-46yrs) with recorded active Acne vulgaris were treated with a standard course of isotretinoin (1mg/kg body weight for 16 weeks).

This study investigated the recovery and analysis of skin surface organisms from several skin sites at the start of treatment, 8 weeks into treatment, at the end of the course and 1 month post treatment.

The number of anaerobic isolates - presumptive Propionibacterium acnes and also aerobic isolates recovered by appropriate media from each of three specific sites per patient were compared with age-matched controls of healthy volunteers. Patients and controls exhibited similar total numbers of organisms on the cheek, nares and toe web before treatment. Following treatment with isotretinoin the majority of patients had a significant reduction in bacterial numbers (1-2 orders of magnitude) on the cheek. Numbers in the nares and toe web did not show this reduction. Isotretinoin has no antibacterial activity in vitro or in vivo so the observed reduction would strongly suggest that the effect is mediated through alteration of the skin nutritional micro-environment.

The clinic-based patients demonstrated high levels of isolates with antibiotic resistance from the outset; the resistance status of each patients' skin microbiota was determined before, during and after treatment and the dynamics of the population from these sites was investigated.

Previous studies of the nature of skin organisms and of the complex multifactorial mechanisms that lead to the eruption of acne have shown that P. acnes play a significant but as yet poorly explained role in the pathogenesis of the disease although it is traditionally the target organism for anti-acne therapy.

The clinical samples were cultured using conventional methods to confirm the presence of P. acnes and staphylococci. Novel modifications of PCR amplification methodology were developed to enhance the detection of specific organisms. New protocols for comprehensive and detailed RAPD-PCR analysis of whole cell PCR were developed and employed to profile recovered isolates from individual patients before and after clinical treatment.

RAPD-PCR proved to be a useful tool to survey changing bacterial profiles within the cohort. Isolates from some patients were highly similar to each other at the outset, but displayed increased diversity by the end of therapy. Interestingly, other studies have linked clonal populations of bacteria with high pathogenicity.

Some patients appear to have acquired a strain which was not evident at their original sampling, but was present in other patients attending the same clinic. P. acnes persist in the environment and may be found on many inanimate objects, from where they could become a source for transmission. As there is some evidence of acquisition of strains from the environment, this is of considerable significance to the management of dermatology clinics throughout the country.


Rhizoctonia solani, a soil-born plant pathogenic basidiomycetous fungus, affects various economically important agricultural and horticultural crops. The draft genome sequence for the R. solani AG1-IB isolate 7/3/14 as well as a corresponding transcriptome dataset (Expressed Sequence Tags—ESTs) were established previously. Development of a specific R. solani AG1-IB gene model based on GMAP transcript mapping within the eukaryotic gene prediction platform AUGUSTUS allowed detection of new genes and provided insights into the gene structure of this fungus. In total, 12,616 genes were recognized in the genome of the AG1-IB isolate. Analysis of predicted genes by means of different bioinformatics tools revealed new genes whose products potentially are involved in degradation of plant cell wall components, melanin formation and synthesis of secondary metabolites. Comparative genome analyses between members of different R. solani anastomosis groups, namely AG1-IA, AG3 and AG8 and the newly annotated R. solani AG1-IB genome were performed within the comparative genomics platform EDGAR. It appeared that only 21 to 28% of all genes encoded in the draft genomes of the different strains were identified as core genes. Based on Average Nucleotide Identity (ANI) and Average Amino-acid Identity (AAI) analyses, considerable sequence differences between isolates representing different anastomosis groups were identified. However, R. solani isolates form a distinct cluster in relation to other fungi of the phylum Basidiomycota. The isolate representing AG1-IB encodes significant more genes featuring predictable functions in secondary metabolite production compared to other completely sequenced R. solani strains. The newly established R. solani AG1-IB 7/3/14 gene layout now provides a reliable basis for post-genomics studies.


Purpose: To study the feasibility of using transmission type detectors for daily IMRT patient dose reconstruction and verification. Methods and Materials: Because of the complexity of IMRT there is a need for quality assurance for every patient. However, the daily delivered intensities may vary slightly from the planned ones. In this work we investigated the use of transmission type detectors and films for the verification of daily dose delivered to the patient. Films were placed at various distances from the source in air to measure the beam intensity. The fluence maps were also reconstructed from calculations of the TPS at the same planes. Monte Carlo simulations of the same geometries were performed and the intensity maps were also extracted at the same planes. Intead of film, a tray mounted transmission detector can also be used. Results: The film measurements were compared to TPS predicted intensity maps. Corrections based on the Monte Carlo study were applied to remove the electron contamination from the measured intensity maps since it was not accounted by the TPS. MC results indicate that the corrections due to the contaminant electrons can be 15 to 20% for 6MV beams. The corrected measured intensity map was used to calculate and reconstruct the daily dose to the patient using Monte Carlo. The results show good agreement between measurements using films and Monte Carlo calculations. Conclusions: Transmission detectors such as films can be used in order to compare the delivered intensity maps against the TPS predicted ones. The dose to the patient can be reconstructed using Monte Carlo based on the delivered intensity map and the dose can be potentially verified for each fraction, especially if a cone beam CT is performed daily.


The paper deals with Western (Anglo-American) views on the Sarajevo
 assassination/attentat and Gavrilo Princip. Articles on the assassination and
 Princip in two leading quality dailies (The Times and The New York Times)
 have particularly been analysed as well as the views of leading historians
 and journalists who covered the subject including: R. G. D. Laffan, R. W.
 Seton-Watson, Winston Churchill, Sidney Fay, Bernadotte Schmitt, Rebecca
 West, A. J. P. Taylor, Vladimir Dedijer, Christopher Clark and Tim Butcher.
 In the West, the original general condemnation of the assassination and its
 main culprits was challenged when Rebecca West published her famous
 travelogue on Yugoslavia in 1941. Another Brit, the remarkable historian A.
 J. P. Taylor, had a much more positive view on the Sarajevo conspirators and
 blamed Germany and Austria-Hungary for the outbreak of the Great War. A
 turning point in Anglo-American perceptions was the publication of Vladimir
 Dedijer's monumental book The Road to Sarajevo (1966), which humanised the
 main conspirators, a process initiated by R. West. Dedijer's book was
 translated from English into all major Western languages and had an immediate
 impact on the understanding of the Sarajevo assassination. The rise of
 national antagonisms in Bosnia gradually alienated Princip from Bosnian
 Muslims and Croats, a process that began in the 1980s and was completed
 during the wars of the Yugoslav succession. Although all available sources
 clearly show that Princip, an ethnic Serb, gradually developed a broader
 Serbo-Croat and Yugoslav identity, he was ethnified and seen exclusively as a
 Serb by Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks and Western journalists in the 1990s. In
 the past century imagining Princip in Serbia and the West involved a whole
 spectrum of views. In interwar Anglo-American perceptions he was a fanatic
 and lunatic. He became humanised by Rebecca West (1941), A. J. P. Taylor
 showed understanding for his act (1956), he was fully explained by Dedijer
 (1966), challenged and then exonerated by Cristopher Clark (2012-13), and
 cordially embraced by Tim Butcher (2014). [Projekat Ministarstva nauke
 Republike Srbije, br. 177011: History of political ideas and institutions in
 the Balkans in the 19th and 20th centuries]


One of the major challenges facing novice drivers seems to be adequately scanning, detecting, and responding to hazards which present during the course of everyday driving; a process that involves lreading the roadr and modifying driver behaviour accordingly. Previous studies have indicated that inexperienced drivers tend to utilise only a small proportion of the visual field when driving, and this limited visual search behaviour may play a significant role in the over-representation of young novice driversr involvement in crashes. This deficiency in visual search is especially evidenced through crashes occurring at intersections, or other densely populated road environments. More recently, road commentary has become of interest within a number of driver education initiatives, and several current studies have indicated that road commentary indeed improves driversr performance in hazard perception tasks. However, relatively little is known about commentaries influence on the underlying cognitive mechanisms responsible for enhanced situation awareness or hazard awareness, and whether such improvements generalize to a broader range of road scenarios. Using hazard perception and eye-tracking measures, we started to examine how road commentary could influence the way drivers visually accrue and process essential road information. First, our data confirmed that commentary training significantly increased the percentage of hazards identified. But additionally, preliminary eye movement data indicated that road commentary may have influenced visual search behaviour of the participants by lpromptingr them to allocate extra visual attention capacity to hazard rich areas, as evidenced by an increase of their fixation clusters across the visual field. This could help increase situation awareness, and convert to safer driving behaviour and reduced risk-taking.


The significance of food concentration for selec- tivity was analyzed by video microscopy for 3 species of inter- ception-feeding bacterivorous nanoflagellates of the genera Spumella, Ochromonas and Cafeteria. Inert beads and live bacteria were offered simultaneously at 5 different concentra- tions. The fate of individual prey particles was recorded dur- ing the stages of the particle-flagellate interaction: capture, ingestion, digestion and egestion. The experiments revealed passive and active selection mechanisms that were regulated separately. Selective food uptake depended strongly on food concentration, whereas differential digestion was indepen- dent of the food concentration and independent of the num- ber of previously ingested food particles. In addition to active selection of food items, passive selection occurred due to the different contact probabilities of prey. In contrast to the chrysomonads Spumella sp. and Ochromonas sp., the bico- soecid Cafeteria sp. showed no significant active selection, neither during food uptake nor during digestion. The results imply that it is more efficient for some interception-feeding flagellates to feed unselectively all particles that can be mor- phologically ingested and then to attempt to digest these par- ticles. Active selection in advance may only be efficient when the particle concentration is sufficiently high such that vac- uole formation becomes time limiting.


It is widely accepted that climate change constrains biota. Yet, because of the lack of consistent multisite and multitaxon surveys, few studies have addressed general rules about how climate change impacts on structure and diversity of animal communities. Especially, the relative influence of nonclimatic anthropogenic disturbances on this impact is fairly unknown. Here, we present for the first time a meta‐analysis assessing the effect of global warming on stream organisms. Fish communities of large rivers in France undergoing various anthropogenic pressures showed significant increase in proportions of warm‐water species and of specific richness during the last 15–25 years. Conversely, the equitability decreased, indicating a gradual decrease of the number of dominant species. Finally, the total abundance increased, coupled with rejuvenation and changes in size‐structure of the communities. Interestingly, most of these effects were not depressed by the strength of nonclimatic anthropogenic disturbances. Conversely, geographical location of communities and especially closeness of natural barriers to migration could influence their response to climate change. Indeed, increase in the proportion of southern species seemed hindered at sites located close to the southern limit of the European species' geographical ranges. This work provides new evidence that climate change have deep impacts on communities which, by overtaking the effects of nonclimatic anthropogenic disturbances, could be more substantial than previously thought. Overall, our results stress the importance of considering climate change impacts in studies addressing community dynamics, even in disturbed sites.


The possibility of measuring aerosol optical absorption properties in the UV spectral range such as single scattering albedo (SSA), using remote sensing techniques, is currently an open scientific issue. We investigate the limitations on calculating column average SSA using a combination of global UV spectral measurements (that are comon in various UV monitoring stations worldwide) with radiative transfer modeling. To point out the difficulties in such a retrieval we have used the travelling reference spectroradiometer QASUME (Quality Assurance of Spectral Ultraviolet Measurements in Europe) results from 27 visits to UV monitoring stations around Europe. We have used the QASUME instrument as relative reference, analyzing absolute differences and also temporal and spectral deviations of UV irraidances, that are used as basic input for the SSA retrieval. The results comparing the mean SSA derived by all instruments, measuring synchronous UV spectra, showed that 5 were within±0.02 difference from the SSA calculated from the QASUME instrument, while 17 were within ±0.04, for the Solar zenith angle of 60 degrees. As for the uncertainty that has been calculated using the 2 σ standard deviation of the spectral measurements, a mean 0.072 and 0.10 (2 σ ) uncertainties have been calculated for 60 ◦ and 30, respectively. Based on the fact that additional uncertainties would be introduced in the SSA retrieval from AOD model input accuracy, assymetry parameter assumptions, we show that only very few instrumnents could be able to detect long term SSA changes. However, such measurements/results ar useful in order to retrieve SSA at UV wavelengths, a product needed for various applications such as, inputs for modeling radiative forcing studies and satellite retrieval algorithms. Correspondence to: S. Kazadzis (email@example.com)


The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of group new reality
therapy based on choice theory on hopefulness in drug abusers. Hope is defined as a process of
thinking about personal goals, along with the motivation to move towards the goals and methods to
achieve goals.
Materials & Method: This experimental study used pre-test and post-test with a control group. Forty
samples were selected according to low level of hope from treatment center of Mashhad and were
divided randomly into control and experimental groups. For the experimental group intervention trial
(group reality therapy) was administered in 11 sessions of 90 minutes (one session per week), but the
control group did not receive any treatment. Both groups completed Snyder hope scale before and
after treatment. The data were analyzed with covariance.
Results: Findings showed that group new reality therapy based on choice theory results enhanced
hopefulness in substance abusers in the experimental group compared with the control group.
Therefore, this method can be used to enhance hopefulness in substance abusers.
Conclusion: According to the obtained results. It seems essential that health care managers consider
psychological factors prior to drug treatment in drug abuse treatment. Reality therapy can be used as
an effective treatment for substance abuse treatment.
Keywords: Reality therapy, Hopefulness, Substance abuse
Address


William Lichtenwanger died 16 December 2000 at his home near Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Born in 1915, he was among the last of the founders and early members of MLA. These individuals, including Sydney Beck, Frank Campbell, Dena Epstein, Walter Gerboth, Richard Hill, Ruth Hilton, Phil Miller, Ruth Watanabe, and Bill Weichlein, helped shape the organization during its formative years. Bill joined the staff of the Music Division at the Library of Congress in 1940 and spent his entire career there except for service in the Army from 1941 to 1945. He served as head of the Music Division's Reference Section from 1960 until his retirement in 1974. The thing he did best, on which he focused almost all of his considerable talents, and toward which he directed the energies of his staff, was reference work. As he often reminded me and my colleagues during our apprenticeship with him, our job was to serve the scholarship and curiosity of others. Had he taught in a college or university, his writings would fill volumes. Instead, except for a few papers, most notably his account of his researches to establish that John Stafford Smith really composed the music of our national anthem, his legacy is spread out over the world in the countless letters and phone calls through which he helped seekers of obscure yet vital information. He had especially good access to buried information (see, for example, "The Music of the Star-Spangled Banner: From Ludgate Hill to Capitol Hill," Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 34 [July 1977]: 136-70), partly through the tenacity of his bloodhound instincts and temperament, and partly through his legendary knowledge of music history, many languages (including, besides the usual ones, Albanian, Japanese, and Turkish), and the collections not only of the library but of many other institutions--and the people connected with them. Often, the quest for a difficult fact was a social occasion, and his network of accompli ces in the search for rare bits of musical knowledge from Los Angeles to Leningrad (as it then was) was rich and widespread. Acknowledgment in other peoples' books was all the public recognition he expected for the fruits of his seemingly inexhaustible patience and efforts. In 1972, his old friend, Nicolas Slonimsky, opened one of the dozens of letters to Bill that he wrote during their long and copious correspondence: "You are a true scholar, 'one of those rare spirits to whom no musician is too obscure for tender care, no subject too trivial for thorough investigation, no bibliographical minutiae too small for weighing,' as the editor of the belated 1971 Supplement to Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians so aptly puts it." (The editor, of course, was Slonimsky himself, and he follows with a typically humorous account of the ensuing altercation between him and his secretary when she objected to his using the occasion of complimenting his friend to compliment himself for literary aptness.) Bill's relationship with Slonimsky fostered a side of his nature, an irreverent sense of humor, that was not immediately apparent in person, though one might suspect it from the bright twinkle in his pale blue eyes and the incipient smile that animated the corners of his mouth, especially when he had made a particularly good find. They were both insatiable musical detectives who also relished in a particularly musical way words for both their sound and esoteric meanings. Their correspondence, occasionally ribald but unpublishable largely because of the enormous scholarly apparatus it would require, seems, like Finnegans Wake, to have been made for reading aloud with an array of dictionaries at hand. …


Abstract Context Obesity is responsible for an increased risk of sub-fecundity and infertility. Obese women show poorer reproductive outcomes regardless of the mode of conception, and higher body mass index (BMI) is associated with poorer fertility prognosis. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the leading causes of infertility, and many women with PCOS are also overweight or obese. Evidence Acquisition The aim of the present narrative review is to describe the mechanisms responsible for the development of infertility and PCOS in women with obesity/overweight, with a focus on the emerging role of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) as a therapeutic option for obese women with PCOS. Evidence synthesis Weight reduction represents the most significant factor affecting fertility and pregnancy outcomes. Current experimental and clinical evidence suggests the presence of an underlying pathophysiological link between obesity, GLP-1 kinetic alterations, and PCOS pathogenesis. Based on the positive results in patients affected by obesity, with or without diabetes, the administration of GLP-1 RA (mainly liraglutide) alone or in combination with metformin has been investigated in women with obesity and PCOS. Several studies demonstrated significant weight loss and testosterone reduction, with mixed results relative to improvements in insulin resistance parameters and menstrual patterns. Conclusions The weight loss effects of GLP-1 RA offer a unique opportunity to expand the treatment options available to PCOS patients.


Abstract We have determined the concentration profiles across the interface of a natural garnetgarnet couple in a biotite-grade rock from eastern Vermont. The couple consists of a grossular-spessartine garnet that had formed during regional metamorphism associated with the Acadian orogeny on an almandine core, which had crystallized during an earlier episode of metamorphism related to the intrusion of Fairlee granite at 411 ± 5 Ma. The concentration profiles were measured by both electron microprobe and analytical transmission electron microscope, and they were modeled to retrieve the value of ∫D(t)dt through the time that diffusion was effective but without recourse to any diffusion data. The length of the concentration profiles measured in microprobe is barely resolvable from that resulting from a convolution effect from the spatial averaging in the spot analyses. Deconvolution of the microprobe profiles yields a value of ∫D(t)dt = 0-3.4 × 10-11 cm2, suggesting very little or no diffusion. TEM analyses of the concentration profiles, which are not subject to any significant convolution effect, show a very small but definitive diffusion zone across the interface of the garnet-garnet couple, which yields a value of ∫D(t)dt = 7.6 × 10-12 cm2. Because D is a function of time through its dependence on temperature, this value of ∫D(t)dt provides an important constraint on the thermal history during the regional metamorphism. As an example, we used it in conjunction with the available diffusion data for garnet to derive ∼40-50 Ma as the probable time scale for the biotite-grade metamorphism, taking into account the effects of the off-diagonal terms and thermodynamic nonideality on the diffusion process.


Background: The identification of nursing diagnoses in patients with morbid obesity contributes to the planning of interventions, through a systematized and scientifically grounded care. This study aimed to identify nursing diagnoses in morbidly obese patients treated in outpatient care using the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP®), version 2.0. Methods: This is a cross-sectional and descriptive study, with a quantitative approach, carried out through the application of an instrument based on Orem's Self-Care Theory. The sample consisted of 31 patients treated at the gastroenterology outpatient unit of a university hospital in the city of Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil. Results: One identified 12 nursing diagnoses, standing out: impaired adaptation (90.3%); impaired socialization (67.7%); adherence to the physical exercise regime (58.4%); impaired sleep pattern (58.4%); functional dyspnea (58.1%); and adherence to the medication regime (51.6%). Conclusions: Knowing the nursing diagnoses of people with morbid obesity undergoing outpatient care allows nurses to plan the individual care provided to this clientele, and contribute to the development and maintenance of self-care abilities. One hopes this study can contribute to the development of scientific practices in the process of caring for patients with morbid obesity, in order to encourage and improve the production of further researches addressing nursing care in this growing practice field.


Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is commonly used for soft drink water bottles and other applications. However, disposal of this waste PET in large quantities causes environmental problem, as it is considered non-biodegradable material. This study investigated utilization of waste PET mixed with 60/70 penetration grade of bitumen to be as a raw material for road construction. The effect of temperature (140, 150, 160°C), composition of PET (4, 8, 12%) and mixing time (20, 40, 60 min) for penetration test result were investigated. The experimental design was done using Design Expert 7.0.0 software. The experimental design selected for this study was general factorial design with full factorial type. The optimization of penetration results was carried out using three factors, three replicates and three levels. From the analysis of the experimental results, the minimum amount of penetration result was found to be 43.67(0.1 mm) under selected optimal condition of temperature (150°C), composition (8%) and mixing time (40 min). Temperature, composition and mixing time had a significant effect on penetration test results. The influences of optimum operating conditions of PET and bitumen mix performance were investigated. The PET and bitumen mix performance test includes ductility, softening point, flash and fire point and the results were found to be 42.67 cm, 58.34, 351 and 358 °C respectively. The PET coated aggregate with bitumen mix performances were also investigated. The PET coated aggregate with bitumen mix performance of indirect tensile and compressive strength ratio results were found to be 97.85 and 95.06% respectively. The study indicated that utilization of waste PET with bitumen for road construction is considered, not only as a positive option in terms of sustainability, as an attractive option in enhancing the performance and service life of road. Cite this Article Belete Tessema Asfaw. Utilization of Waste Polyethylene Terephthalate with Bitumen for Road Construction. Journal of Modern Chemistry & Chemical Technology. 2017; 8(2): 30–39p.


We introduce a novel algorithm for selectively aligning high-throughput sequencing reads to a transcriptome. This algorithm attempts to bridge the gap between fast "mapping" algorithms and more traditional alignment procedures. The former of these simply provide the transcripts, loci and orientations that likely generated a read (or, perhaps, simply the transcripts that are "compatible" with a read), while the latter produces the optimal edit distance and nucleotide-level correspondence between the read and reference sequences. We adopt a hybrid approach that is able to produce accurate alignments while still retaining much of the efficiency of fast mapping algorithms. To achieve this, we make fundamental modifications to an existing mapping algorithm, quasi-mapping, which increases the sensitivity of the procedure. Additionally, unlike the strategies adopted in most aligners which first align the ends of paired-end reads independently, we introduce a notion of co-mapping. This procedure exploits relevant information between the "hits" from the left and right ends of paired-end reads before full alignments or mappings for each are generated, which improves the efficiency of filtering likely-spurious alignments. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of selective alignment in improving the accuracy of efficient transcript-level quantification from RNA-seq reads. Specifically, we show that selective-alignment is able to resolve certain complex mapping scenarios that can confound existing fast mapping procedures, while simultaneously eliminating spurious alignments that fast mapping approaches can produce. Availability and implementation: Selective-alignment is implemented in C++11 as a part of RapMap, and is available as open source software, under GPL v3, at https://github.com/COMBINE-lab/RapMap/tree/selective-alignment.


A mouse hybridoma has been isolated which secretes a hemagglutinating monoclonal antibody (MoAb) recognizing the N and 'N' blood group antigens. This conclusion is based upon the following observations. First, all red cells expressing either N or one of the alleles of Ss (ie, 'N' were strongly agglutinated by the MoAb diluted fourfold. The only cells not reactive were of the M+N‐S‐s‐(U‐) and M+N‐S‐s‐(U+) phenotype and cells (J.R. and A.G.) expressing Lepore‐type hybrids of the MN and Ss sialoglycoproteins, which do not express N or 'N'. Secondly, red cells of the N+S‐s‐(U‐) phenotype were rendered unreactive to MoAb following treatment of the cells with trypsin, which is known to destroy N antigen activity. Conversely, cells expressing S and/or s maintained their reactivity with MoAb following trypsin treatment, which does not cleave 'N' from the Ss sialoglycoprotein. When spent culture medium containing MoAb was diluted and tested against a panel of red cells, the antibody titer fell into two distinct categories depending upon the MNSs phenotype of the target. Red cells expressing either homozygous or heterozygous N‐sialoglycoprotein (N‐ SGP) were agglutinated by 128‐fold diluted MoAb. In contrast, a 16‐fold dilution of MoAb was the endpoint for agglutination of cells lacking N‐ SGP, but expressing S and/or s.


Farmlets, each of 20 cows, were established to field test five milk production systems and provide a learning platform for farmers and researchers in a subtropical environment. The systems were developed through desktop modelling and industry consultation in response to the need for substantial increases in farm milk production following deregulation of the industry. Four of the systems were based on grazing and the continued use of existing farmland resource bases, whereas the fifth comprised a feedlot and associated forage base developed as a greenfield site. The field evaluation was conducted over 4 years under more adverse environmental conditions than anticipated with below average rainfall and restrictions on irrigation. For the grazed systems, mean annual milk yield per cow ranged from 6330 kg/year (1.9 cows/ha) for a herd based on rain-grown tropical pastures to 7617 kg/year (3.0 cows/ha) where animals were based on temperate and tropical irrigated forages. For the feedlot herd, production of 9460 kg/cow.year (4.3 cows/ha of forage base) was achieved. For all herds, the level of production achieved required annual inputs of concentrates of ~3 t DM/animal and purchased conserved fodder from 0.3 to 1.5 t DM/animal. This level of supplementary feeding made a major contribution to total farm nutrient inputs, contributing 50% or more of the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium entering the farming system, and presents challenges to the management of manure and urine that results from the higher stocking rates enabled. Mean annual milk production for the five systems ranged from 88 to 105% of that predicted by the desktop modelling. This level of agreement for the grazed systems was achieved with minimal overall change in predicted feed inputs; however, the feedlot system required a substantial increase in inputs over those predicted. Reproductive performance for all systems was poorer than anticipated, particularly over the summer mating period. We conclude that the desktop model, developed as a rapid response to assist farmers modify their current farming systems, provided a reasonable prediction of inputs required and milk production. Further model development would need to consider more closely climate variability, the limitations summer temperatures place on reproductive success and the feed requirements of feedlot herds.


The Internet has transformed the practice of mathematical writing, and mathematical texts of all kinds are moving online. But the fundamental change to come in mathematical publication is not just moving print forms to electronic documents, but recreating mathematics in a new architecture: a hypertext that reflects the deep unity and universality of mathematics, that can grow and diversify as mathematics changes. It is argued that hypertext is a natural representation of mathematical thought, with its deep interconnection of ideas, the need for constant revision, and the multiplicity of viewpoints. The design of a hypertext must take into account how mathematics is structured and how it is understood: its internal consistency, the need for preparation and review, and the importance of strong tool support for reading and writing text. A high-level design is proposed, combining structured and network hypertext, with a simple link and editorial structure, and design issues concerning language representation, medium- and high-level structure, editorial policy, administration, and technology are examined. A hypertext of sufficient quality and usability will powerfully influence how mathematics is taught, communicated and used, in the classroom, in the workplace and in research. This change in how the Internet is used is not primarily technical: it is the extension of current technology towards a new goal. Gaps and weaknesses of the design are discussed, as well as possible solutions, and a plan to implement the hypertext on the Web is developed.


This paper introduces ArtELingo, a new benchmark and dataset, designed to encourage work on diversity across languages and cultures. Following ArtEmis, a collection of 80k artworks from WikiArt with 0.45M emotion labels and English-only captions, ArtELingo adds another 0.79M annotations in Arabic and Chinese, plus 4.8K in Spanish to evaluate "cultural-transfer" performance. 51K artworks have 5 annotations or more in 3 languages. This diversity makes it possible to study similarities and differences across languages and cultures. Further, we investigate captioning tasks, and find diversity improves the performance of baseline models. ArtELingo is publicly available at 'www.artelingo.org' with standard splits and baseline models. We hope our work will help ease future research on multilinguality and culturally-aware AI.


Abstract Background Low-quality housing may confer risk of malaria infection, but evidence in low transmission settings is limited. Methods To examine the relationship between individual level housing quality and locally acquired infection in children and adults, a population-based cross-sectional analysis was performed using existing surveillance data from the low transmission setting of Swaziland. From 2012 to 2015, cases were identified through standard diagnostics in health facilities and by loop-mediated isothermal amplification in active surveillance, with uninfected subjects being household members and neighbors. Housing was visually assessed in a home visit and then classified as low, high, or medium quality, based on housing components being traditional, modern, or both, respectively. Results Overall, 11426 individuals were included in the study: 10960 uninfected and 466 infected (301 symptomatic and 165 asymptomatic). Six percent resided in low-quality houses, 26% in medium-quality houses, and 68% in high-quality houses. In adjusted models, low- and medium-quality construction was associated with increased risk of malaria compared with high-quality construction (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 2.11 and 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.26–3.53 for low vs high; AOR, 1.56 and 95% CI, 1.15–2.11 for medium vs high). The relationship was independent of vector control, which also conferred a protective effect (AOR, 0.67; 95% CI, .50–.90) for sleeping under an insecticide-treated bed net or a sprayed structure compared with neither. Conclusions Our study adds to the limited literature on housing quality and malaria risk from low transmission settings. Housing improvements may offer an attractive and sustainable additional strategy to support countries in malaria elimination.


Ability grouping is a common practice among Hong Kong primary schools. This study examines the effect of ability grouping on students' self-esteem, mood problems, and coping strategies. Eight hundred and ninety-two grades 3-6 primary school students completed a questionnaire that measured self-rated coping strategies, mood problems, and self-esteem. Students in high-ability classes showed higher self-esteem and reported using more emotion-oriented and problem-oriented coping strategies compared to students in regular classes. The differences in the use of emotion- and problem-oriented coping strategies or in self-esteem for high-ability versus regular classes were not attributable to differences in other variables, such as mood problems. Most of these ability-grouping effects disappeared after the students' self-rated academic performance or conduct was taken into account. The impact of ability grouping on Hong Kong primary school students differs from those discussed in the literature, which could be accounted for by cultural factors, such as pride.


—The term healthcare has a very wide scope that ranges from lifestyle and wellness right up to care for acute conditions. With the availability of digital accessories for monitoring basic biological functions, the potential for obtaining detailed data on life style, habits and behaviour of an individual exists. Such data can enable diagnosis of the causes for a condition with higher accuracy. In the recent past, a large number of devices have become available in the market, that can monitor various aspects of lifestyle and biological functions. Such data provides a feedback to an indi- vidual for compliance with "healthy guidelines" as well as contribute information to the healthcare provider for use in diagnosis, in the event of an ailment. In this paper, we identify the various aspects of care that can benefit from consumer grade health monitoring devices and present the overall landscape in the context of self care. We qualify the term "consumer healthcare", assigning the context to it and identifying the services available in the context.


Few parties in political history have had such a swift metamorphosis from one end of the political spectrum to the other as did the Social Credit Party of Alberta. Between its establishment in the 1930s and the defeat of the Social Credit government in 1971, the party changed from a movement-based reformist organization to a cliquish, religious-oriented outfit whose main purpose was to hold the levers of power. In this account of the Social Credit transformation, Alvin Finkel challenges earlier works which focus purely on Social Credit monetary fixations and religiosity. He argues that the early party is best seen as a coalition of reformers, including working-class social democrats, the unemployed, small business owners, and farmers placed in jeopardy by the Depression. In its first term of office, Social Credit was perceived as on the left, opposed in the 1940 provincial election by a right-wing coalition. During the later Aberhart years, and especially after Ernest Manning's accession to the premiership, Social Credit switched its fire from bankers to socialists and the party's rhetoric became extremely right-wing. Manning opposed, on ideological grounds, most of the social programs introduced by federal government after 1945. Though patronage was rife, most Albertans regarded Social Credit as righteous because of the leadership of Manning, a radio evangelist. Only Manning's departure from the political scene began the slow process of decay of the governing party.


Refugees are individuals who hold a well-founded fear of persecution based upon their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group and who have resultingly been forced to flee their country. Public awareness of refugee resettlement has grown exponentially in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis, raising questions about the risks and costs that arise from providing refuge and resettling foreigners. This article takes a look at the most frequently cited risks of the resettlement process and analyzes how they are weighted by the public and regulatory bodies. It compares the approach of the United States to strategies adopted in Europe and Australia for recognizing refugees and implementing resettlement programs.


We estimate the relationship between 10th grade binge drinking in 1990 and labor market outcomes in 2000 among National Educational Longitudinal Survey respondents. For females, adolescent drinking and adult wages are unrelated, and negative employment effects disappear once academic achievement is held constant. For males, negative employment effects and, more strikingly, positive wage effects persist after controlling for achievement as well as background characteristics, educational attainment, and adult binge drinking and family and job characteristics. Accounting for illegal drug use and other problem behaviors in 10th grade eliminates the unemployment effect, but strengthens the wage effect. As the latter is not explicable by the health, income or social capital justifications that are often used for frequently observed positive correlations between adult alcohol use and earnings, we conjecture that binge drinking conveys unobserved social skills that are rewarded by employers.


Abstract Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) has replaced native Artemisia (sagebrush)/bunchgrass communities throughout the Intermountain West. Using the framework of Jenny (1941), we hypothesized that invasion by B. tectorum could alter pedogenic trajectories. Hypothesis testing involved monitoring the invasion of a Krascheninnikovia lanata (winterfat) community by B. tectorum. In 1999, 13 points were established, 50 m apart, extending from the invasion front to noninvaded areas. For more than 11 years, soils were sampled randomly near each point, 0 to 20 cm, and analyzed for various soil attributes. Using autoregression, trends with time between invaded and noninvaded soils differed significantly (P ⩽ 0.05) in solution-phase ortho-P and Ca + 2, phosphatase activities, and net 30-day N mineralization potentials. Notable trends with time, regardless of invasion status, included a decline in solution-phase Mg + 2 and K + and an increase in soil pH and the molar proportion of NH4 + in the mineral N fraction. Relative to noninvaded soils, B. tectorum soils had greater mineral N and greater molar proportion of NH4 + in that fraction; greater amidase and phosphatase activities; greater solution-phase ortho-P and molar proportion of NO2− in the NO2−−N + NO3−−N pool; greater micronutrient availability of Fe and Cu; and higher soil pH. The decline in solution-phase Ca + 2 and ortho-P and the increase in soil pH are likely caused by an invasion-fostered increase in bioturbation from rodents, which mixes carbonate-bearing soil from lower horizons to the soil surface. Changes in surface soil properties induced by both B. tectorum invasion and elevated bioturbation have potential long-term ramifications to soil pedogenesis and plant successional trajectories.


On 8th November 2013, the super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) struck the Eastern Visayas Region of the Philippines with wind speeds of 315 km/h. As a result, 14.1 million people were affected, with the estimated number of fatalities reaching 6,201 and more than 1,785 missing. The municipality of Tanauan estimated the damage cost of 34 elementary and primary schools to be 91,419,944 PHP (as of February 2014). The Face-to-Face Method survey was employed at 11 elementary schools near the coast in the cities of Tanauan and Palo to understand damage to the school buildings and their recovery process. School roofs, windows, doors, and ceilings were heavily damaged. For example, Santa Cruz primary school in Tanauan was completely destroyed by a storm surge that reached 3.8 m in height. Most schools reopened within two months for the purpose of providing care for students rather than providing education. UNICEF and international NGOs provided school supplies, foods, sanitary goods, and building tools; a Taiwanese NGO, the Tzu Chi Foundation, built temporary classrooms in schoolyards. Damaged schools were repaired by ARAW, South Korea's biggest and longest international campaign for humanitarian assistance between January 3 and November 27, 2014. The students need to be structurally educated and the program materials and necessities prepared so that when another disaster strikes, the younger generations of today can face the disaster and overcome the challenges by strong will or with structured systems and tools. The schools in each community need to develop a suitable disaster risk reduction strategy and resilience program.


Reinforcement learning with linear and non-linear function approximation has been studied extensively in the last decade. However, as opposed to other fields of machine learning such as supervised learning, the effect of finite sample has not been thoroughly addressed within the reinforcement learning framework. In this paper we propose to use L2 regularization to control the complexity of the value function in reinforcement learning and planning problems. We consider the Regularized Fitted Q-Iteration algorithm and provide generalization bounds that account for small sample sizes. Finally, a realistic visual-servoing problem is used to illustrate the benefits of using the regularization procedure.


Plant pathologists most often obtain quantitative information on disease severity using visual assessments. Category scales have been used for assessing plant disease severity in field experiments, epidemiological studies, and for screening germplasm. The most widely used category scale is the Horsfall-Barratt (H-B) scale, but reports show that estimates of disease severity using the H-B scale are less precise compared with nearest percent estimates (NPEs) using the 0 to 100% ratio scale. Few studies have compared different category scales. The objective of this study was to compare NPEs, the H-B midpoint converted data, and four different linear category scales (5 and 10% increments, with and without additional grades at low severity [0.1, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10.0, 15.0, 20.0…100%, and 0.1, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10.0, 20.0, 30.0…100%, respectively]). Results of simulations based on known distributions of disease estimation using the type II error rate (the risk of failing to reject H0 when H0 is false) showed that at disease severity ≤ 5%, a 10% category scale had a greater probability of failing to reject H0 when H0 is false compared with all other methods, while the H-B scale performed least well at 20 to 50% severity. The 5% category scale performed as well as NPEs except when disease severity was ≤ 1%. Both the 5 and 10% category scales with the additional grades included performed as well as NPEs. These results were confirmed with a mixed model analysis and bootstrap analysis of the original rater assessment data. A better knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of category scale types will provide a basis for plant pathologists and plant breeders seeking to maximize accuracy and reliability of assessments to make an informed decision when choosing a disease assessment method.


We report on the development of Mezcal-SRHD, a new adaptive mesh refinement, special relativistic hydrodynamics (SRHD) code, developed with the aim of studying the highly relativistic flows in gamma-ray burst sources. The SRHD equations are solved using finite-volume conservative solvers, with second-order interpolation in space and time. The correct implementation of the algorithms is verified by one-dimensional (1D) and multi-dimensional tests. The code is then applied to study the propagation of 1D spherical impulsive blast waves expanding in a stratified medium with ρ∝r−k, bridging between the relativistic and Newtonian phases (which are described by the Blandford–McKee and Sedov–Taylor self-similar solutions, respectively), as well as to a two-dimensional (2D) cylindrically symmetric impulsive jet propagating in a constant density medium. It is shown that the deceleration to nonrelativistic speeds in one dimension occurs on scales significantly larger than the Sedov length. This transition is further delayed with respect to the Sedov length as the degree of stratification of the ambient medium is increased. This result, together with the scaling of position, Lorentz factor, and the shock velocity as a function of time and shock radius, is explained here using a simple analytical model based on energy conservation. The method used for calculating the afterglow radiation by post-processing the results of the simulations is described in detail. The light curves computed using the results of 1D numerical simulations during the relativistic stage correctly reproduce those calculated assuming the self-similar Blandford–McKee solution for the evolution of the flow. The jet dynamics from our 2D simulations and the resulting afterglow light curves, including the jet break, are in good agreement with those presented in previous works. Finally, we show how the details of the dynamics critically depend on properly resolving the structure of the relativistic flow.


The Liturgy of the Medieval Church. Edited by Thomas J. Heffernan and E.Ann Matter. (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University. 2001. xviii, 778. $60.00 casebound; $30.00 paperbound.) When Etienne Gilson set out in the 1920's to establish an institute dedicated to the study of medieval culture, he challenged the prejudices of the postEnlightenment Zeitgeist which dismissed the Middle Ages as a benighted period characterized by ignorance, superstition, and barbarism. "Through the work of the Institute of Medieval Studies; Gilson wrote, "we shall be able to reach back to the sources of our spiritual traditions, to drink more deeply of their waters and draw from them full life-giving strength." Gilson and his colleagues sought to provide an academic center where scholars could gather to read with appreciation and to plumb with sagacity and wisdom the wellsprings of medieval civilization. Crucial to any serious undertaking of Medieval Studies, of course, is a firm grasp of the nature and importance of Christian liturgy, the cultus which gave rise to the cultura of medieval western Europe. In Gilson's day, familiarity with Catholic liturgy as well as Latin, the language of that liturgy, could be presumed on the part not only of clergy and religious who were obliged by vows or promises to the recitation of the Divine Office and to the celebration of Mass, but also many layfolk who followed the liturgical movement inaugurated in the nineteenth century by Dom Prosper Gueranger, the founding abbot of Solesmes. Non-Catholics, too, by merely attending Mass and Vespers in a parish or cathedral church, could get a fairly good, firsthand sense of how the liturgy might have been celebrated throughout most of the medieval West. In the train of Vatican Council II, however, such familiarity with medieval liturgy has become a rather rare commodity no less in the academy than in the general population. Beyond the steady secularization of western society over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, developments within the Catholic Church itself have contributed to a wider margin between the liturgical experience of medieval westerners and that of their spiritual heirs and descendants at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The vernacularization and simplification of both the Order of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, the 1970 revision of the general Roman calendar, and late-twentieth-century trends in ecclesiastical art and architecture, have all made the medieval liturgy more remote than had been the case in relatively recent history. Hence the need for a book like this, which seeks to aid medievalists in approaching liturgical sources for the first time. The volume is aimed at "teachers who are preparing classes on the Middle Ages and [ ... ] advanced students who are beginning serious study of the liturgy." The editors have divided this collection of essays into six parts: the shape of the liturgical year; particular liturgies; the physical setting of the liturgy; the liturgy and books; the liturgy and the arts; and, finally, liturgy as social performance. Three articles comprise the first section, which treats the liturgical year. Stephan Borgehammar explains the sanctification of time over the succession of fasts and feasts that comprise the liturgical calendar. Using a set of twelfthcentury sermons from the Benedictine abbey of Admont in Styria, a province in what is now Austria, as a lens through which to glimpse a typical monastic conception of the liturgical year, Borgehammar shows how medieval interpretations of the liturgical seasons and feasts reflected contemporary approaches to the fourfold "senses" or meanings of the Bible. Jonathan Black introduces readers to the intricacies of the Liturgy of the Hours, laying out the structure of the Divine Office in the Latin West and tracing the increasing privatization of what had been more clearly in Antiquity the public liturgical prayer of the Church. …


Summary. Meloidogyne incognita and Fusarium solani cause the root-knot and root-rot diseases of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) in Egypt. Therefore, the effect of several commercial products containing either the fungi Paecilomyces lilacinus, P. fumosoroseus and Trichoderma album and the bacteria Bacillus subtilis and B. megaterium were tested against both pathogens on sugar beet, and compared with the nematicides fenamiphos and cadusaphos, under in vitro, greenhouse and field conditions. In vitro, the mortalities of M. incognita were within the range of 61-94% with bio-control products, compared to 96-98% with fenamiphos and cadusaphos. All treatments significantly reduced the mycelial growth of F. solani, with the greatest reduction given by T. album. In the greenhouse, B. megaterium greatly reduced the numbers of galls, females and egg-masses of the nematode in the roots of sugar beet, followed by B. subtilis, P. lilacinus, P. fumosoroseus and T. album, respectively. All treatments increased shoot length and weight, root weight and percentage of total soluble solids (TSS) in sugar beet plants. In the field, all treatments greatly reduced the population densities of second-stage juveniles in soil, and the numbers of galls, females and egg masses of M. incognita in the roots, more so at the recommended than at half the recommended dose. Aspergillus spp., A. niger, F. solani, F. oxysporum, Penicillium spp., Rhizoctonia solani, Rhizopus nigricans and Trichoderma spp. were the most common fungi found in the rhizosphere of treated and untreated sugar beet plants. All treatments affected the frequency of the isolated fungi. Soil treatments with P. lilacinus, P. fumosoroseus, fenamiphos and cadusaphos increased plant weight, foliage weight, length, diameter and weight of roots, survival of plants and tap root yield. The treatments also affected total soluble solids, sucrose content, the sucrose purity of tap roots and sugar yield.


There is ample evidence that people use spatial concepts to think and speakabout time. Consistent with this notion, recent reaction time experimentshave documented that the spatial coordinates of responses influence speededdecisions regarding temporal information. Specifically, classifying temporal linguisticinformation produces a space-time congruency effect on reaction timewhen responses with the left and right hand are arranged on the left-right axis.A similar effect can be observed for responses that consist of movements alongthe back-front axis. These findings are consistent with the view that time runsfrom left to right or from back to front. In the present article we review theseresults and assess the linguistic relevance of these two mental timelines for thecomprehension of linguistic information at the word and sentence level.


A particular class of finite-state automata, christened by the authors "counter-free," is shown here to behave like a good actor: it can drape itself so thoroughly in the notational guise and embed itself so deeply in the conceptual character of several quite different approaches to automata theory that on the surface it is hard to believe that all these roles are being assumed by the same class.This is one of the reasons it has been chosen for study here. The authors write that they "became impressed with the richness of its mathematical complexity" and that "a sure sign of gold is when profound mathematical theory interacts with problems that arise independently. And indeed it is noteworthy that the class of automata we shall discuss was defined more or less explicitly by several people working from very different directions and using very different concepts. The remarkable happening was that these definitions could not be recognized as equivalent until algebraic tools of analysis were brought to the field in the works of Schutzenberger and in the works of Krohn and Rhodes."The theme of the monograph is the utility and equivalence of these different definitions of counter-free automata. Its organization follows the plan of taking up, one by one, each of a number of different conceptualizations: the historically important "nerve net" approach; the algebraic approach, in which automata are treated as semigroups; the "classical" theory based on state transition diagrams; the "linguistic" approach based on the concept of regular expressions; and the "behavioral" descriptions using symbolic logic. In each of these conceptual areas, the class of automata under study is found in a new guise. Each time it appears as yet another special case. The authors' burden is to show that all these definitions are in fact equivalent.Care has been taken so that this research monograph can be used as a self-sufficient text. Notations have been defined carefully and always in the context of the discussion. Most of the chapters end with a substantial number of exercises. It is self-contained in that all concepts are defined, and all theorems used are, with one exception, either fully proved or safely left as exercises for the student.


On March 11 2011 the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan struck off the coast of the Tohoku region. This 9.0 magnitude earthquake induced shaking and tsunamis along more than 2000 km of Japanese coastline and damaged port and harbor facilities from metropolitan Tokyo to the northern extent of Honshu. In May 2011 the ASCE-COPRI Port and Harbor Facilities Field Survey Team worked closely with Japan's Ports and Airports Research Institute to conduct extensive field reconnaissance examining the tsunami and earthquake effects specific to port waterfront structures and ancillary components such as cargo cranes conveyance systems and piping equipment. This investigation focused on the design and construction of these structures with an emphasis on the lessons learned from both failures and successes. Information from on-site observations and interviews with facility owners eyewitnesses researchers and government officials are incorporated into this report. The broad area covered from Soma to Hachinohe in the northern prefectures of Aomori Iwate Miyagi and Fukushima facilitated the interpretation of damage patterns across the region affected by the earthquake with a primary goal of distinguishing port damage due to strong ground shaking from that caused by subsequent and significant tsunami inundation. This report highlights field observations and initiates efforts to develop an extensive collection of geotechnical structural coastal and seismological data. Port engineers structural engineers and disaster risk managers will find the field observations helpful in highlighting the most prevalent port vulnerabilities and the recommendations useful in improving the seismic performance of port facilities and protecting the lives of port personnel.


This study looks at how community structure affects the portrayal of women as sources and subjects in contemporary newspapers. Women and men have been unequally represented in contemporary newspaper coverage, a pattern that may contribute to differences in public perceptions of males and females. (1) Through their coverage patterns, newspapers help create a social reality that can contribute to gender stereotyping or categorization. These portrayals may differ by the nature of the community in which the newspaper is situated. This study examines gender coverage by looking at the role of community structure on newspaper coverage of men and women. Tichenor, Donohue and Olien (2) argued that structural pluralism, a measure of the way power is distributed in a community, has an effect on news coverage. They theorized that social systems consist of a number of interdependent control mechanisms, including population, employment, geographic location and education, (3) which can be combined to capture an understanding of the social structure of a community. Many elements of a community, including media, may reflect that structure. In communities where power is centralized and stable, newspapers are given the role of maintaining order and the status quo through their coverage. In effect, newsgatherers deliver the message of the centralized power structure; they may even be a part of the structure itself. Conversely, a community with a decentralized power structure uses its media as primary information conduits among those different centers of power. These loci of power depend on media channels to keep them apprised of the activities of others, and coverage of structural conflict and tension is not only tolerated but often rewarded. (4) Hindman, Littlefield, Preston and Neumann recently expanded the pluralism concept by arguing that ethnic diversity should be considered independently of other structural pluralism measures. (5) They contend that ethnicity is a key component in structural pluralism, that institutional power and ethnic power are linked. The expansion is based on the idea that, within American borders, some assimilation of individuals from different nationalities occurs over time, but certain ethnic traditions are carried on from one generation to the next. This characteristic of ethnic groups provides group cohesion for people of the same ethnic heritage. Hindman et al. found that news editors were more likely to consider ethnic minorities as community social actors if a high percentage of ethnic minorities resided within the community. (6) Communities high in ethnic pluralism may also be more eager to represent women fully in media accounts. Because of the potential for differences in newspaper coverage, it follows that media accounts may vary their story and source selection. That is, newspaper sources may receive a different level of public status depending upon the community in which the newspaper is situated. Public status refers to the manner in which sources and subjects are portrayed in the media, generally through words, phrases, locations and approaches. This study uses two dimensions of public status in newspaper coverage as its primary dependent variables. The first is attention, which was defined as frequency of mentions with news coverage. The second is emphasis, which refers to the prominence of mentions within the newspaper. Therefore, the following hypotheses were developed. H1: Attention to females in news coverage will be greater in newspapers situated in more structurally pluralistic communities. H2: Emphasis on females in news coverage will be greater in newspapers situated in more structurally pluralistic communities. H3: Attention to females in news coverage will be greater in newspapers situated in more ethnically pluralistic communities. …


Concentrating on technology, economics, labor, and social history, Cradle to Grave documents the full life cycle of one of America's great mineral ranges from the 1840s to the 1960s. Lankton examines the workers' world underground, but is equally concerned with the mining communities on the surface. For the first fifty years of development, these mining communities remained remarkably harmonious, even while new, large companies obliterated traditional forms of organization and work within the industry. By 1890, however, the Lake Superior copper industry of upper Michigan started facing many challenges, including strong economic competition and a declining profit margin; growing worker dissatisfaction with both living and working conditions; and erosion of the companies' hegemony in a district they once controlled. Lankton traces technological changes within the mines and provides a thorough investigation of mine accidents and safety. He then focuses on social and labor history, dealing especially with the issue of how company paternalism exerted social control over the work force. A social history of technology, Cradle to Grave will appeal to labor, social and business historians.


BACKGROUND
 CYP2C19 loss-of-function genotype (*2 and/or *3 alleles) is related to low responsiveness to clopidogrel, which is a risk factor for ischemic cardiac events. The contribution of these genotypes to platelet reactivity in Japanese patients in a steady state receiving dual antiplatelet therapy after coronary stenting was evaluated.

METHODS AND RESULTS
 A total of 155 Japanese patients were classified according to their CYP2C19 loss-of-function genotype. Platelet reactivity was assayed by plasma levels of soluble P-selectin and platelet-derived microparticles, light transmittance aggregometry induced by ADP (ADP-LTA), shear stress-induced platelet aggregometry, vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein phosphorylation (VASP) index and the VerifyNow-P2Y12 assay. Linear and logistic regression models were used to assess the associations between CYP2C19 loss-of-function genotype and high on-treatment platelet reactivity. In total, 62 patients (40.0%) were extensive metabolizers (EMs), 70 (45.2%) were intermediate metabolizers (IMs) and 23 (14.8%) were poor metabolizers (PMs). ADP-specific assays (ADP-LTA, the VASP index and VerifyNow-P2Y12) differed according to CYP2C19 genotype, with a significant gene-dose effect (PMs>IMs>EMs). CYP2C19 loss-of-function carrier status was associated with more frequent high platelet reactivity. CYP2C19 loss-of-function genotype alone could explain 12.2%, 14.3%, and 14.7% of the variability in the ADP-LTA, VASP and VerifyNow-P2Y12 assays, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
 CYP2C19 loss-of-function genotype is associated with more frequent high platelet reactivity, as assessed by ADP-specific platelet function tests, in Japanese patients.