The creation and the use of knowledge have increasingly been regarded as important issues for management. A wide range of studies have investigated this topic during the past decade. Notwithstanding these contributions, very little systematic attention has been paid to the linkages between knowledge capabilities and strategy implementation. Drawing from knowledge capabilities theory and strategy implementation literature, two aspects of knowledge capabilities in an organization and their effect on strategy implementation effectiveness are investigated: knowledge process capabilities (KPC) and knowledge infrastructure capabilities (KIC). This study hypothesized that KPC affects strategy implementation effectiveness (SIE) and that KPC affects KIC. The third hypothesis proposed the effect of KIC on SIE by examining the mediating role played by KIC in linking KPC and SIE. 1,321 middle-managers were sent questionnaires via electronic mail and 162 were returned. The findings indicated the presence of a mediation effect of KIC on the relationship between KPC and SIE. This study provides guidelines for middle-managers to better understand how to develop activities of KPC and KIC for SIE. It is hoped that the results of this study will enhance our understanding of the strategic importance of knowledge in an organization, especially in the area of strategy implementation.


The aim of this study was to detect, through PCR usage, the genes which encodes staphylococcal enterotoxins and which belongs to egc cluster (seg, sei, selm, seln and selo) in S. aureus isolated from different foods of animal origin and correlate their presence with the strain origin. Forty-one strains of S. aureus from different sources (chicken meat, raw milk, sausage meat and cheese) were evaluated through PCR by amplifying a fragment of 3375bp (called partial egc), which was used as a marker for the presence of cluster, and fragments of individual genes belonging to egc cluster. There is presence of the egc cluster in strains of S. aureus isolated from foods of animal origin, however, different genotypes could be observed depending on the isolation source. The occurrence of strains isolated from chicken meat that had all the genes of the cluster was high; however, in the strains isolated from the other foods, such occurrence has been reduced.


High-efficiency video coding (HEVC) is an international video coding standard. It can reduce bit rate by almost 50% when preceding state-of-the-art standard H.264/advanced video coding (AVC) with the same objective quality but increase about 40% encoding complexity. The computation complexity of HEVC largely relies on the inter-prediction, which consumes about 60-70% of the total encoding time. This study proposes a fast mode decision method for HEVC inter-prediction. Since current coding unit (CU) is the basic coding zone for HEVC encoding process, the authors apply the edge detection method with Sobel operator to extract the edge information inside CU. It is based on the threshold-oriented means to compare those edge values and then predict the best partition mode for this CU. Furthermore, they define a weighting factor to adopt various resolutions of test sequence from wide quarter video graphics array (WQVGA) to 1600 p. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce computational complexity by 50% on average compared with HEVC reference software, and appear to have almost the same coding performance.


OBJECTIVE
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease of the central nervous system (CNS) characterized by coexisting processes of inflammation, demyelination, axonal neurodegeneration and gliosis. Autoimmune processes play a pivotal role in the disease. The immune system may be modulated by neurotrophins and neurotrophin factors. Aim of the study was to assess plasma levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), activity-dependent neurotrophin protein (ADNP) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) in treatment-naïve humans with newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis. We also elucidated the potential influence of selected inflammatory agents on peripheral concentration of BDNF and ADNP.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The study population comprised of 31 untreated patients with MS and 36 controls from a single hospital centre. Assessment of BDNF and ADNP was performed with use of ELISA methods. VIP was measured with RIA. Selected cytokine levels (IL 6, IL 10, and TNF α) were evaluated with ELISA tests. Statistical analyses were performed.

RESULTS
We failed to find any significant differences between ADNP, BDNF, VIP, CRP levels and concentration of cytokines between individuals with MS and the controls. No correlation was observed between ADNP, BDNF and VIP as the first parameter and CRP, IL 6, IL 10, TNFα levels and the Expanded Disability Status Scale score in MS.

CONCLUSIONS
Newly diagnosed, treatment-naïve patients with MS have comparable levels of plasma BDNF, ADNP and VIP to those of healthy controls.


In cloud computing, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is the foundation of cloud service applications. It enables problems like resource allocation scheduling and bearing capacity to be further optimally solved. Therefore, a genetic optimized IaaS resource optimization evaluation approach is presented. This approach abstractly defines its 7 factors (properties) including usability of server, network performances, load balancing, anomaly notification mechanism, response time support, trusted security and measure payment, and explains quantitative calculation and expressions of each factor. And finally, tested by CloudSim, this approach is indicated to be feasible and effective for resource allocation.


Aim: To provide simple, rapid, reproducible reverse phase HPLC method for the estimation of paroxetine in pure form and tablet formulation. Method: The method is optimised using an inertsil column C18 (250x4.6 mm, 5μm) with the mobile phase consists of 10mM ammonium formate and acetonitrile in the ratio of 50:50v/v at an isocratic flow rate of 1ml/min. The detection is carried out at 220nm. Results: The calibration curve is linear in the concentration range of 5-25 μg/ml. The method is statistically validated for its linearity, precision, accuracy, stability and specificity as per ICH Q2R1 guidelines and the method is found to be robust. The LOD and LOQ values were found to be 0.748 and 2.62 μg/ml respectively. Conclusion: Hence the proposed method was found to be precise, accurate, LCMS compatible and can easily adaptable for quality control of paroxetine in dosage forms , biological fluids, dissolution studies.


Mankind knew ornaments from ancient times, and not only used jewelry in adornment, but some took it as a means to bring good and drive out evil. The search for adornment and beauty was not the result of this era, but it was something that humanity knew by its instinct from ancient times, and that was manifested in taking the teeth of animals and their bones, Peeling ostrich eggs, shells, and others as an ornament for decoration, and with the advancement of human life, jewelry, gold, silver and precious stones were taken as jewelry for adornment, and the women in our Arab societies occupied a high position that they wore in weddings and various occasions. The study was conducted with the aim of identifying the fine formulas for some of the garment and sewing accessories and how to benefit from them in the field of jewelry. And proposing designs for jewelry from some of the garment and sewing accessories in an attempt to break out of the ordinary by using unconventional materials to develop creativity and innovation in the field of jewelry art, and to measure the extent of Successful designs implemented from the point of view of specialists and consumers. The research followed the descriptive approach with the application; in order to suit this research and to answer research questions and achieve goals, where (22) designs were implemented to verify the research objectives. The study included two questionnaires and a statistical analysis to measure several axes of the proposed designs, which were implemented and presented to a group of specialists and consumers to give their opinion .The study found the possibility of making use of the fine wording of some of the garment and sewing accessories in making a plastic art vision. The study recommends the following: - Interest in conducting studies to get acquainted with the nature of artistic fields that can be used in the field of art of jewelry. -Experimentation with the use of various materials those are compatible with the implementation and use of jewelry. - Preparing training programs for students of the clothing and textile department in the field of jewelry art, and studying the principles and methods of its design. - Encouraging productive families to enrich the small industries by implementing various forms of jewelry with unconventional materials and making use of them in the labor market to serve small projects.


In many engineering applications there is need to reduce the level of vibrations that are transmitted from a source to a receiver. Amongst several different techniques, the most commonly adopted solution is to interpose an isolation mount between the source and the receiver. Ideally, a vibration isolation mount would have a high static stiffness to prevent too large a static displacement to occur, but a low dynamic stiffness which reduces the natural frequency and extends the frequency range of isolation. For linear mounts these two features are mutually exclusive. However, an improved compromise can be reached by employing nonlinear mounts. In this thesis the advantages and the limitations of nonlinear isolation mechanisms with a high-static-low-dynamic-stiffness(HSLDS) characteristic are investigated.A study of the static characteristics of two mechanisms with HSLDS is presented. This desired property is obtained by connecting in parallel elements with positive and negative stiffness. For both systems the positive stiffness is given by linear springs. In one model the geometry of the system is exploited to achieve the desired negative stiffness. This is obtained by a pair of linear springs placed at a certain angle to the horizontal (oblique springs). In the second model considered the required negative stiffness is provided by a set of magnets in attracting configuration. In both cases the force and stiffness are approximated to a symmetric cubic polynomial and a quadratic function of the displacement respectively. From a dynamical point of view this allows the system to be treated as a Duffing oscillator. It is argued that for small oscillations about the static equilibrium position the mechanism behaves linearly. A lab-scale rig which reproduces the HSLDS system with magnets and springs is designed and built. The excitation level is chosen to comply with the assumption of small displacement so that the experimental results show that the system responds in a rather linear fashion.The natural frequency of the HSLDS is half that of a linear model with the same static displacement and its transmissibility also compares favourably. A nonlinear analysis is also carried out in order to predict the response of the system when the assumption of linearity no longer holds true. Both cases of harmonic excitation of the payload and of the base are studied. For the two instances an approximate solution to the nonlinear equation of motion is found by applying the method of Harmonic Balance to a first order expansion. The main feature of the dynamic responseof a Duffing oscillator is the jump phenomenon. Herein this is described and analytical expressions for the jump frequencies are also provided. The isolation properties of an HSLDS isolation system are evaluated in terms of the transmissibility and its performance is compared with that of an equivalent linear system. It is shown that the HSLDS has a higher isolation capability.


This paper gives a general method for deriving limiting distributions of complete case statistics for missing data models from corresponding results for the model where all data are observed. This provides a convenient tool for obtaining the asymptotic behavior of complete case versions of established full data methods without lengthy proofs. The methodology is illustrated by analyzing three inference procedures for partially linear regression models with responses missing at random. We first show that complete case versions of asymptotically efficient estimators of the slope parameter for the full model are efficient, thereby solving the problem of constructing efficient estimators of the slope parameter for this model. Second, we derive an asymptotically distribution free test for fitting a normal distribution to the errors. Finally, we obtain an asymptotically distribution free test for linearity, that is, for testing that the nonparametric component of these models is a constant. This test is new both when data are fully observed and when data are missing at random.


Executive Summary Most ocean science relies largely on a geospatial infrastructure that is built primarily from bathymetry data collected underway from ships, archived, and converted into maps and digital grids. Bathymetry, the shape and composition of the seafloor, besides having vital importance to geology and navigation, is a fundamental element of studies of ocean modeling, deep water circulation, tides, tsunami forecasting, upwelling, fishing resources, wave action, sediment transport, environmental baselines, slope stability and risk, paleoceanography, site selection for platforms cables and pipelines, waste disposal, mineral extraction and sampling for environmental research. Recent developments in multibeam sonar mapping have so dramatically increased the resolution with which the seafloor can be portrayed, understood, used by other sciences and interacted with, that previous maps must be considered obsolete and scientific conclusions based on them re-examined and refined. The downside is that only about 10% of the Arctic Ocean has been mapped with multibeam; the rest of its seafloor area is portrayed through mathematical interpolation using a very sparse depth sounding database. In order for all Arctic marine actives to benefit fully from the order of magnitude improvement that multibeam provides, the entire Arctic Ocean must be ensonified with multibeam data, a task that only can be accomplished through broad international coordination and collaboration, including both the scientific community and industry.


This paper draws connections between building enclosure technologies from the time of Le Corbusier's mur neutralisant and respiration exacte concepts to a present-day double-skin glass façade system, the closed cavity façade (CCF). The successes and failures of Le Corbusier's thermally controlled interior and hermetically sealed wall concepts are examined as they were applied to Villa Schwob (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland,1916), Centrosoyuz (Moscow, Russia, 1928), and the Salvation Army Building in its originally built form (1933). Building on this historical context, the paper discusses facade technologies that emerged in 1980s and 1990s that sought to improve upon the performance of sealed glazing by eliminating condensation, improving thermal comfort and integrating solar control: the ventilated double-skin facade and the less widely discussed façade pressurisée (pressurized facade) and facade respirante (breathable facade). The facade technologies are elaborated upon in the cases of the French National Library (1989-1995) and the Grenoble Law Court (1994-2002) where facades were fabricated by French manufacturer Rinaldi-Structal. In these projects, non-standard building technologies were developed and applied through the aggregate efforts of French government research labs, manufacturers, architects, and insurers. Today, breathable facade technology is largely limited to use in France; each application receives technical review by a state agency during the design phase. On the other hand, pressurized facade technology has spread to other parts of Europe and beyond under the name CCF. Innovative forms of CCF developed by Gartner/Permasteelisa, based on initial experimentation in coordination with a German research institute, continue to push the performance envelope: CCF with facade-integrated ventilating floor slots (Roche Diagnostics, Rotreuz, Switzerland, 2011), CCF with operable windows (LEO Building, Frankfurt, Germany, 2013), CCF with wooden louvers in the cavity (EY Center, Sydney, Australia, 2014), CCF with tilted exterior faces (JTI Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, 2015). The built works and the threads of technological development between them are identified as applied research that bridges between theory and practice.


The Burakumin is a minority group in Japan that has, since ancient times, been suffering from occupational and social discrimination from the grand majority of Japanese citizens. There is nothing that visually or technically distinguishes them from the rest of the mainstream community. Trivial things like occupation or a specific location played a significant part in the discrimination against the Burakumin from pre-Nara times to modern day civilization. Occupations that dealt with death were considered contaminated and resulted with the exclusion and avoidance of the Burakumin from common villages. This thesis asks the question whether such or similar discrimination still exists in a society that claims to be as close to homogeneous as is possible. In order to obtain such an answer, first it is necessary to dig deeper into the origin of the problem, starting at the medieval period in Japan and then steadily work our way up, to the present day Japan. The history of the prejudice will be examined from early historical background as well as the religious origins pertaining to the Buraku discrimination and will end at couple of years after the Meiji Restoration, where the government issued the Emancipation Edict in 1871. After the introduction of the Emancipation Edict, the focus is on the numerous actions that the Burakumin took in order to free themselves from their plight, starting with their own and then ending with the government"s aid when its legal actions put forth the Special Measures Law in 1969. Insight will be given into the lives of the Burakumin in modern day Japan and the problems they have had to endure, despite the vigorous fights from the Buraku Liberation League for emancipation. It will also describe the relationship between them and the mainstream Japanese as well as briefly examine the Oyabun-Kobun system. Numerous ideas and answers to the discriminatory problem have been expressed, both by the Buraku Liberation League as well as from local Burakumin and hence, we will look into some of the answers and possible solutions and ponder whether they can be put into action, by the Burakumin themselves, the government or the mainstream Japanese.


Can a crime make our world better? Crimes are the worst of humanity's wrongs but, oddly, they sometimes do more than anything else to improve our lives. It is often the outrageousness itself that does the work. Ordinary crimes are accepted as the background noise of everyday existence but some crimes make people stop and take notice – because they are so outrageous or so heart‐ wrenching.
This brief essay explores the dynamic of tragedy, outrage, and reform, illustrating how certain kinds of crimes can trigger real social progress. Several dozen such "trigger crimes" are identified but four in particular are used as case studies to investigate the most interesting questions: Why do some tragedies produce broad outrage while others, often of a very similar nature, do not? Why do some outrages produce reform while others, often with greater claims to outrageousness, do not?
The tragedy‐outrage‐reform dynamic is sometimes society responding to a new problem, sometimes society finding in new solution to an old problem, and sometimes the product of changing societal norms. As it happens, these three different contexts have some explanatory power in understanding why and when the dynamic operates as it does.
Also examined is the period following the tragedy‐outrage‐reform dynamic, which often reveals a serious gap between legislative reform and real‐ world change. On the other hand, it is also common that reforms, especially those generated by the tragedy‐outrage‐reform dynamic, go too far and require further revision to undo the excesses.


Introduction Daily or weekly averages of physical activity and sedentary behavior could mask patterns of behavior throughout the week that independently affect cardiovascular health. We examined associations between day-to-day physical activity and sedentary behavior latent classes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in U.S. youth. Methods Data were from 3984 youth ages 6–17 yr from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2003–2006) and from previously published accelerometry latent classes characterizing average counts per minute and percent of wear time in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behavior. Multiple linear regression was used to examine associations of the classes with waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, HDL-C and LDL-C, triglycerides, glucose, and insulin. Results Participants spent 50.4% of the day in sedentary behavior and 5.3% of the day in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Average counts per minute were 516.4 for a 7-d period. Significant differences in CVD risk factors were between extreme classes with few differences observed in intermediate classes. Youth in latent class 4 (highest average counts per minute) had lower systolic blood pressure (−4.11 mm Hg, 95% confidence interval [CI] = −7.74 to −0.55), lower glucose (−4.25 mg·dL−1, 95% CI = −7.84 to −0.66]), and lower insulin (−6.83 &mgr;U·mL−1, 95% CI = −8.66 to −4.99]) compared with youth in class 1 (lowest average counts per minute). Waist circumference was lower for the least sedentary class (−2.54 cm, 95% CI = −4.90 to −0.19) compared with the most sedentary class. Some associations were attenuated when classes were adjusted for mean physical activity or sedentary level. Conclusions There is some indication that patterns, in addition to the total amount of physical activity and sedentary behavior, may be important for cardiovascular health in youth. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine associations between physical activity and sedentary behavior patterns and changes in CVD risk factors.


Abstract Two deflecting dams were constructed above the village Flateyri, northwestern Iceland, after the catastrophic avalanche accident on 26 October 1995 when 20 people were killed. Both deflectors have since been hit by moderately large avalanches, in each case with a volume of > 100 000 m3 and an estimated return period of 10–30 years. The avalanches hit the deflectors with deflecting angles of 20–25° and a maximum run-up of 12–13 m. They flowed about 500 m along the deflectors after the initial impact and terminated in the ocean on the respective sides of the reef where the village is situated. Back-calculated impact velocities are of the order of 30 m s–1. In both cases, the impact channelized a part of or The whole of the width of the avalanche into a stream 20–80 m wide, the run-out of which is estimated to have been increased by > 100 m by the deflection of the avalanche by the dam. Although the avalanches are much smaller than the design avalanches of the deflecting dams, they have provided avalanche professionals and the public in Iceland with much-welcomed direct evidence of the effectiveness of the defence structures at Flateyri against moderately sized events. They also provide unique direct observations for further scientific investigations of the deflection of avalanches by man-made deflecting dams.


The analysis of harmful errors is typically led by a team within the hospital and includes clinicians and staff who were involved at the time of the event. However, the patient and family are often left out of this process and are not asked to participate in the investigation. Because little guidance is available for facilitating patient input, an interprofessional team convened to develop a semi-structured tool to be used in eliciting patient feedback. Some 72 persons who had experienced adverse events were interviewed. Using a thematic analysis approach, the team learned that 51% of the interviewees preferred to participate in event analysis directly through an interview and 47% recommended that patients and families should be offered the opportunity to provide their views immediately (within 24-48 hours of the event). The resulting tool, IMPACT, incorporates a conversational flow of questions that allows patients to tell their story, focus their attention on specific causative factors, and give recommendations to improve healthcare in their institutions or to prevent further harm.


A pressing task for researchers who seek to build systems capable of emulating intelligent narrative agents is to develop a basis for ascribing situationally appropriate (and thus believable) emotional states to participants in storyworlds. In this paper, we use a natural-language narrative to examine discourse processes by which storytellers in face-to-face communication construct themselves as emotionally involved agents in narrated events, arguing that closer study of these processes may afford heuristics for system design. Drawing on techniques for analyzing emotion discourse developed in the field of discursive psychology, we describe how narratives both recruit from and contribute to emotionologies, or systems of emotion terms and concepts deployed by participants in discourse to ascribe emotions to themselves as well as their cohorts. Studying how such terms and concepts figure in the discourse of expert storytellers can provide a basis for enhancing the emotional intelligence of virtual narrative agents, while suggesting how end-users' emotional states might also be factored into system design.


Recent estimates of the number of described species of seed plant have varied by as much as 62%. The underlying methodology of these estimates is characterised and discussed. We present a revised figure for the number of seed plants based on estimating rates of synonymy in a sample of recently monographed taxa. We conclude that some recent figures overestimate the number of described seed plant species by more than 200,000. This discrepancy is explained by an over-reliance on checklists and floristic studies that underestimate synonymy rates.


Aim: This study was conducted to find out the bacterial aetiological agents of burn wound infections with antimicrobial testing of the bacterial isolates. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive study of 203 patients with burn wound infections at Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram during the period January 2010 to April 2011. The specimens were cultured using aerobic microbiological techniques. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing to different agents was carried out using the disc diffusion method. Results: Cultures from burn wound revealed Pseudomonas aeruginosa as the most common organism followed by Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae. There was a high rate of multidrug-resistant organisms. However, all the staphylococci were susceptible to Vancomycin and the gram negatives were susceptible to Carbapenems. Conclusion: Collection of appropriate specimens for culture before starting of antibiotics helps in better management, along with isolation precautions. However close follow-up and repeat specimens are necessary for appropriate change in antibiotics. For empiric treatment Vancomycin and Imipenem appear to be a good combination in this hospital.


Precedence constrained sequencing problem (PCSP) is related to locate the optimal sequence with the shortest traveling time among all feasible sequences. In PCSP, precedence relations determine sequence of traveling between any two nodes. Various methods and algorithms for effectively solving the PCSP have been suggested. In this paper we propose a cuckoo search algorithm (CSA) for effectively solving PCSP. CSA is inspired by the life of a bird named cuckoo. As basic CSA at first was introduced to solve continuous optimization problem, in this paper to find the optimal sequence of the PCSP, some schemes are proposed with modifications in operators of the basic CSA to solve discrete precedence constrained sequencing problem. To evaluate the performance of proposed algorithm, several instances with different sizes from the literature are tested in this paper. Computational results show the good performance of the proposed algorithm in comparison with the best results of the literature.


Abstract The Great Barrier Reef is projected to change substantially over the next 50 years due to the impacts of climate change. These impacts are likely to have severe repercussions for the communities and industries that depend on resources and services provided by the marine ecosystem. Understanding ways to increase community resilience to the impacts of climate change are essential. This study sought to identify barriers and opportunities to foster stewardship action among stakeholders on the Capricorn Coast to build community-based resilience to the impacts of climate change. Barriers to stewardship exemplify the need to develop clear communication networks between community and government agencies to foster trust and interconnectivity. Education also plays an important role in these processes in allowing for information and knowledge transfer across the different stakeholder sectors. To facilitate and reduce these barriers to stewardship, strong leadership, which engages industry and community members, by industry and government organisations, is necessary. To do this, stakeholders will need to acknowledge the uncertainty around climate change impacts, yet be provided with information and knowledge of the resources available to respond to climate-related impacts as well as being encouraged and empowered to make individual changes in the greater interest of the reef.


The concept of real-time systems (RTSs) is presented in the computer science for
decades. During that period, the RTSs have evolved from special purpose microcomputer
systems for industrial application to various forms of embedded system that are deeply
ingrained in wide segments of daily life. The new application domains pose new design
requirements and goals to RTSs, which are now often required to provide both fault tolerance
and energy efficiency in addition to their main objective to compute and deliver correct
results within a specified period of time. There is a fundamental tradeoff between these two
additional requirements because fault tolerance techniques use slack time to improve
reliability while low energy consumption techniques exploits slack time to increase energy
efficiency. The central problem considered in the dissertation is how to optimally distribute
the slack time between these techniques.
Dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) is known as one of the most effective low-energy
technique for RTSs. However, most existing DVS techniques only focus on minimizing
energy consumption without taking the fault-tolerant capability of RTSs into account. In
order to solve specify problem in this dissertation, a new heuristic-based fault-tolerant
dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (FT-DVFS) algorithm is developed. The goal of the
proposed algorithm is to minimize the amount of energy consumed by a real-time system
under fault tolerance constraints while guaranteeing that all real-time tasks can complete
successfully before their deadlines. Basically, the FT-DVFS is a DVS algorithm with
integrated response time analysis (RTA) to check both the schedulability and the fault
tolerant constraints of real-time task sets. The performances of FT-DVFS algorithm are
evaluated by simulation in a custom build simulator. The simulation results are analyzed from
three different points of view: the schedulability, the energy consumption, and the fault
tolerance. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm saves a significant amount
of energy even with only two frequency/voltage levels, and the savings further increases with
the increase of the number of frequency levels. Also, the simulations show that the reduction
in power consumption, which can be achieved with FT-DVFS algorithm decreases with the
increase of the processor utilization factor (i.e. processor spare time). The simulation results
from the fault tolerant point of view show that the higher level of fault tolerance can only be
attained through sacrificing a part of savings in power consumption, and vice versa. The
proposed heuristic FT-DVFS algorithm is compared with the optimal DVS algorithm. The
simulation analysis show that FT-DVFS algorithm achieves near-optimal solutions in very
short computation time even for large task sets.


Some recent developments, particularly the recognition of transform-tectonized and nontransform-tectonized fabrics close to the Southern Troodos transform fault, provide a framework for a new evolutionary model of the Troodos ophiolite. This model proposes that most of the ophiolite formed at the Solea axis, against a dextrally slipping Southern Troodos transform. Spreading was largely accommodated by magmatic accretion. The ridge then jumped to the east, a last phase of amagmatic stretching driving normal faulting above a detachment horizon in the Solea graben. A ridge jump boundary separates the old crust, formed at the Solea axis, from the new crust generated at the outside corner of the new ridge with a dextrally slipping continuation of the Southern Troodos transform. The final episode involved extension of the crust generated at the new ridge to form the Larnaca graben in the eastern part of the ophiolite.


Title: Correlogram method for Comparing Bio-Sequences Author: Gandhali P. Samant, and Debasis Mitra Sequence comparison is one of the most primitive operations used in bioinformatics. It is used as a basis for many other complex manipulations in the field of Computational Molecular Biology. Many methods and algorithms were developed to compare and align sequences effectively. Most of these methods use linear comparison and some standard scoring schemes to calculate the similarity between sequences. We described an alternative approach to compare sequences based on the correlogram method. This method has already been used in the past for comparing images. By using the correlogram method, a sequence is projected on a 3-D space and the difference between two sequences is calculated. This research describes construction of a correlogram and how correlograms can be used for sequence comparison. It also adds additional functionality to the basic correlogram method. Experiments with protein sequences corresponding to different strains of influenza virus and parvovirus will be described and the phylogeny/evolutionary trees constructed using the correlogram method will be compared, with the ones available in literature.


ABSTRACT: Suspended sediment transported in river systems has the ability to degrade water quality and impart negative impacts downstream as material is deposited. This study examines the significance of valley wall slumping as a source of both suspended sediment and phosphorus in the Blue Earth River. Several streambanks on the Blue Earth River in south central Minnesota were repeatedly surveyed from 1997 to 2000 to determine annual rates of streambank slumping. Volumetric changes between digital elevation models from successive topographic surveys were converted into changes in mass, and, subsequently, annual erosion rates were calculated based on surface area. An erosion rate constant was derived based on surface area of surveyed sites and applied to an inventory of eroding escarpments along the entire river to estimate the contribution of streambank slumping to the total suspended sediment (TSS) and total phosphorus (TP) loads in the Blue Earth River. Erosion rates for surveyed sites ranged from 544 to 3,995 t ha−1 yr−1 (242 to 1,782 tons ac−1 yr−1), with an average rate of 2,154 t ha−1 yr−1 (961 tons ac−1 yr−1). The derived erosion rate constant for slumping sites was 0.23 t m−2 yr−1 (0.024 tons ft−2 yr−1). Between 75,804 and 106,213 t (83,536 to 117,047 U.S. tons) of sediment is delivered to the river annually from all eroding escarpments inventoried, with between 28,047 and 39,299 t (30,908 and 43,307 U.S. tons) transported by flow as TSS. Streambank slumping accounts for 31% to 44% of the TSS load at the mouth of the Blue Earth River. The percentage of the TP load originating from streambank slumping is estimated to be from 7% to 10%, with annual contributions of 12 to 17 t P (14 to 19 U.S. tons).


The objective of this study was to develop and validate a new simple tool for identifying Thai women who are at high risk of having osteoporosis. A total of 322 women, aged > or = 45 years, were randomly divided into two cohorts: a development (n = 130) and a validation cohort (n = 192). Femoral neck and lumbar spine BMD were measured by LUNAR DPX-IQ densitometer. The prevalence of osteoporosis (defined by BMD T-scores < or = -2.5) was 33 per cent by either femoral neck or lumbar spine BMD. Khon Kaen Osteoporosis Study (KKOS), scoring based on age and weight was calculated and applied to the development cohort. Individuals with KKOS score < or = -1 were defined as "high risk"; otherwise a "low risk" was defined. In the validation cohort, the sensitivity and specificity of KKOS was 70 and 73 per cent, respectively. Furthermore, if the high risk individuals identified by KKOS are to be treated, and if the treatment reduces fracture incidence by 50 per cent and assuming that treatment cost is 10 bahts per day, then the cost to prevent one fracture is estimated to be 466,695 bahts per year. These data suggest that although age and body weight can be used to identify Thai women who are at high risk of having osteoporosis, its application to the general population requires further research to arrive at the optimal cost-benefit for the community.


Getting the most out of the pharmaceutical budget is critical across all countries as the financial pressures on healthcare systems intensify. In this paper, we review global practice on encouraging the use of low costs generics versus branded pharmaceuticals, including patented products in the same class where care is not compromised, across countries to guide future practice. Our review ranges widely across European countries as well as other high income countries, including Abu Dhabi, Japan and the USA, and other low and middle income countries. There is a particular focus on Scotland, building on previous publications. We conclude based on multiple publications, including several case studies, that achieving efficiency in pharmaceutical spending is possible in virtually all environments, although there are examples of technologies where generic or therapeutic substitution should not be encouraged. However, there is no magic bullet to achieving full and appropriate use of generics. Countries have to be prepared to use a number of different education, economic, engineering and enforcement methods including prescribing restrictions to achieve success. Similarly, different approaches to achieve low prices for good quality generics given the considerable price differences that currently exist. The combination of low prices and increased use of generics will help achieve or attain universal healthcare, benefiting all key stakeholder groups. We conclude with a call for greater cross-country learning in pursuit of what should be a common goal for all health systems.


How large are the intra-national trade costs that separate consumers in remote locations of developing countries from global markets? What do those barriers imply for the intra-national incidence of the gains from falling international trade barriers? We develop a new methodology for answering these questions and apply it to newly collected CPI micro-data from Ethiopia and Nigeria (as well as to the US). In order to overcome three well-known challenges that arise when using price gaps to estimate trade costs, we: (i) work exclusively with a sample of goods that are identified at the barcode-level (to mitigate bias due to unobserved quality differences over space); (ii) collect novel data on the origin location of each product in our sample (to focus only on the pairs of locations that actually identify trade costs); and (iii) use estimates of cost pass-through to correct for mark-ups that potentially vary over space (to extract trade costs from price variation in an environment with potentially oligopolistic intermediaries). Without these corrections, we find that our estimates of the cost of distance would be biased downwards by a factor of approximately four. Our preferred estimates imply that the effect of log distance on trade costs within Ethiopia or Nigeria is four to five times larger than in the US. We also use our pass-through estimates to calculate the incidence of surplus increases due to falling world prices. We find that intermediaries capture the majority of the surplus, and that their share is even higher in distant locations, suggesting that remote consumers see only a small part of the gains from falling international trade barriers.


Abstract. Global warming is expected to significantly decrease oceanic carbon uptake and therefore increase atmospheric CO2 and global warming. The primary reasons given in previous studies for such changes in the oceanic carbon uptake are the solubility reduction due to seawater warming and changes in the ocean circulation and biological pump. However, the quantitative contributions of different processes to the overall reduction in ocean uptake are still unclear. In this study, we investigated multi-millennium responses of oceanic carbon uptake to global warming and quantified the contributions of the physical and biological pumps to these responses using an atmosphere–ocean general circulation model and a biogeochemical model. We found that global warming reduced oceanic CO2 uptake by 13 % (30 %) in the first 140 years (after 2000 model years), consistent with previous studies. Our sensitivity experiments showed that this reduction is primarily driven by changes in the organic matter cycle via ocean circulation change and solubility change due to seawater warming. These results differ from most previous studies, in which circulation changes and solubility change from seawater warming are the dominant processes. The weakening of biological production and carbon export induced by circulation change and lower nutrient supply, diminishes the vertical DIC gradient and substantially reduces the CO2 uptake. The weaker deep-ocean circulation decreases the downward transport of CO2 from the surface to the deep ocean, leading to a drop in CO2 uptake in high-latitude regions. Conversely, weaker equatorial upwelling reduces the upward transport of natural CO2 and therefore enhances the CO2 uptake in low-latitude regions. Because these effects cancel each other out, circulation change plays only a small direct role in the reduction of CO2 uptake due to global warming but a large indirect role through nutrient transport and biological processes.


Once one of the Chicago Housing Authority's (CHA) largest properties, with 3,200 units in four adjacent developments, the Ida B. Wells community is being demolished to make way for a new, mixed-income community. As the old buildings come down, it remains unclear whether the remaining residents will fit into this new community. A real concern for policymakers and administrators is that the residents who were easy to relocate have already moved, while many of those who remain may be at risk of losing their housing. However, other than anecdotal evidence, little information is available to help CHA administrators assess the true number of residents who may need special housing options or are at risk of losing their housing assistance. The purpose of this study is to help inform the city, the CHA, community groups, and private agencies involved in planning and implementing relocation plans for Wells and CHA's other public housing developments by systematically documenting the characteristics and needs of remaining Wells residents. [View the corresponding press release ]


Accurate coding is an important function of neurologic practice. This contribution to Continuum is part of an ongoing series that presents helpful coding information along with examples related to the issue topic. Tips for diagnosis coding, Evaluation and Management coding, procedure coding, or a combination are presented, depending on which is most applicable to the subject area of the issue.


When Mark Roberge joined HubSpot as its fourth employee, he had no sales experience but still was charged with building the sales team. His background proved to be an advantage, however: With his engineering training, Roberge brought an analytic rigor to the task. And he quickly realized that the sales compensation plan could motivate salespeople not only to sell more but also to behave in ways that advanced the start-up's evolving strategy. Each time the firm entered a new stage of growth, Roberge revised the comp plan to support its changing priorities: Customer acquisition. Early on, HubSpot needed to bring in lots of customers and see how well its offer was working. So it rewarded salespeople for customers who stayed at least four months, and soon grew to 1,000 customers. Customer success and retention. In the second phase, HubSpot focused on ensuring that its product fit the market. Realizing that many customers were jumping ship because they'd been given the wrong expectations, Roberge began tying commission rates to the rate of customer retention. Sustainable growth. After it fixed retention, HubSpot saw that its service worked best for customers who made a commitment to it. So the firm's third plan rewarded salespeople for customers who signed up for a full year at a time. The continual adaptation paid off: In seven years HubSpot hit $100 million in sales. INSETS: Idea in Brief.;Boosting Performance with Sales Contests


Seven evidence-based guidelines for improving the quality and increasing the frequency of desirable behavior are described and illustrated as relevant for benefiting human welfare and well-being. If practiced extensively, these life lessons would most assuredly improve overall quality of life by reducing interpersonal conflict and bullying; preventing the occurrence of unintentional injuries and fatalities; and enhancing work productivity, environmental sustainability, and life satisfaction. The first three guidelines reflect the applied behavioral science principles of positive reinforcement, observational learning, and behavior-based feedback. The subsequent four life lessons are essentially derived from humanism. Techniques for operationalizing these humanistic guidelines are presented, demonstrating social validity in integrating select principles from humanism with behaviorism. The result: humanistic behaviorism—the application of some humanistic fundamentals to make behaviorism more acceptable, effective, and sustainable on a large scale.


The electrical crosstalk between elements in a monolithic array of long wavelength p-i-n photodiodes is analyzed theoretically. It is shown that the parisitic capacitances in the external package are the dominant effects contributing to crosstalk, whereas resistive coupling leads to a negligible crosstalk. A general theory is derived to determine the effects of the capacitive coupling between channels on digital optical receiver sensitivity. The case of a raised cosine output waveform and an FET transimpedance amplifier is then considered to illustrate the tradeoff between crosstalk and receiver sensitivity. It is shown that the tradeoff may be optimized by varying the feedback resistance in a transimpedance amplifier.


The argument for protecting artifacts in Iraq takes on added strength when the United States recognizes that the country is where it is today not just because of its failure to provide sufficient security to overcome the long-festering tribal and religious animosities, but also because of its continuing failure to appreciate the importance Iraqis place on the preservation of their history. This failure to protect a rich heritage going back to the dawn of civilization has convinced many in Iraq and the Middle East that the U.S. does not care about any culture other than its own. And their belief is continually reinforced: four years after the initial looting and despite having recovered almost 6,000 antiquities since then the U.S. cannot keep pace with the artifacts that are being looted every day. THIEVES OF BAGHDAD: COMBATING GLOBAL TRAFFIC IN STOLEN IRAQI ANTIQUITIES Colonel Matthew Bogdanos *


This is a delightful book that encourages gardeners to pay closer attention to the subtle beauty of miniature landscapes and introduces one of the glories of Japanese gardens into American designs. The author writes entertainingly of mosses on rocks and walls, in containers, and as a lush ground cover, and he presents a gallery of his favorite moss species.


Background: Immunosuppressive agents and corticosteroids are the standard treatments for patients with connective tissue disease associated ILD (CTD-ILD). This retrospective study aimed to provide data on tolerability and efficacy of azathioprine in CTD-ILDs.
Methods: 56 CTD-ILD patients treated with azathioprine between 2003 and 2014 were included in the study. Azathioprine was added to oral corticosteroids as a corticosteroid sparing agent. Patients were assessed every 3 months in the outpatient clinic.
Results: 15 patients (27%) discontinued treatment due to side effects, mostly due to elevated liver enzymes, within the first 3 months. The mean treatment duration was 34 months with a range of 3 to 105 months. 41 patients were treated for longer than 3 months, and 27 of those (66%) had stable or improved pulmonary function during treatment. In patients who remained stable or improved, the mean FVC was 62 ± 17 % pred at the initiation of treatment and 65 ± 17 % pred at the last follow up visit (p=0.036), and the mean DLCO was 38 ± 16 % pred at initiation of treatment and 39 ± 17% pred at the last follow up visit (p=0.06). The mean serum level of Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6) was elevated in all patients, it was 1655±821 U/mL at start of treatment and 1589±744 U/mL at the last follow up visit. Serum KL-6 levels showed a decline in stable or improved patients during treatment, but this was not significant (p= 0.210).
Conclusions: Our findings confirm the role of azathioprine in treatment of CTD-ILD. While early drug intolerance is frequent, most patients who tolerated the drug well achieved long-term stabilisation or improvement of lung function. Randomised controlled trials are still needed to validate these results. KL-6 seems to be a promising biomarker for monitoring CTD-ILDs under treatment.


The first book on the house of Baccarat, one of the oldest and most preeminent luxury brands in the world, renowned for its fine crystal creations. Baccarat celebrates more than 250 years as one of the most important and prestigious luxury houses. Acclaimed for its high-quality traditional craftsmanship of fine crystal stemware, barware, candelabra, perfume bottles, and jewelry, Baccarat is known the world over as a symbol of quality and refinement. Highlighting the extraordinary range of Baccarat s crystal creations from its trademark iconic glassware commissioned by royalty and heads of state from around the world and throughout the centuries to their contemporary creative collaborations with star designers such as Philippe Starck, Andree Putman, Arik Levy, and Marcel Wanders this volume showcases the enduring glamour and style of the most important crystalworks house of all time. With beautiful historic photographs and drawings from Baccarat s extensive archive, which display the incredible craftsmanship and technical innovations of the highly skilled glassblowers, glasscutters, engravers, and gilders, and captivating images from its advertising campaigns and celebrity clientele, Baccarat is a sumptuous celebration. Offering a lavish and in-depth look at some of the most stunning crystal creations in history, this volume is for anyone interested in design and craftsmanship."


In terms of the National Credit Act a credit provider may conclude a credit agreement with a consumer only after he has made a proper financial assessment and concludes that the consumer will be able to satisfy all of his obligations under all his credit agreements. However, a practice of not conducting this affordability assessment has evolved amongst certain credit providers where the credit agreement involved is a suretyship agreement. This article investigates whether or not a suretyship agreement is indeed a credit agreement in terms of the National Credit Act, and if a financial assessment should be conducted in the case of a suretyship agreement. The main aim of the article is to try to identify what the concept of a "credit guarantee", as defined in the Act, encompasses and ultimately if the common-law contract of suretyship falls under this definition. Our conclusion is that "credit guarantee" is as vague and problematic as many of the other definitions in the Act. If one reads the Act in its entirety (including the regulations to the Act), it seems unlikely that the legislature intended not to regulate common-law suretyships also.


One of the central issues in the theory of speech community is whether speech community is a naturally-existing entity or a research construct without any restricted empirical basis. The issue is attacked here by way of a language survey. The survey was on language-choice behavior in public places, conducted in the city of Nanjing in 2002. The survey results show: (a) Nanjing residents' verbal behavior exhibits a specific order of social convention and the urban population thus makes up an effective body of social communication. (b) The ordered behavior reflects a community-wide evaluative system that governs linguistic heterogeneity. (c) The thinning-out of the regularity among the individuals' behaviors is typically found both in the spatial and the temporal marginals of the urban population. The study supports the hypothesis that a speech community is a naturally-existing entity. An attitudinal-behavioral and impactal unity is the core of such existence. With the approach taken here, a speech community can be discovered with certain well-defined empirical procedures. The wider significance invoked is that the organizational system of speakers is an important linguistic system alongside the other linguistic systems.


The generalized quadrangle $Q(4,q)$ arising from the parabolic quadric in $PG(4,q)$ always has an ovoid. It is not known whether a minimal blocking set of size smaller than $q^2 + q$ (which is not an ovoid) exists in $Q(4,q)$, $q$ odd. We present results on smallest blocking sets in $Q(4,q)$, $q$ odd, obtained by a computer search. For $q = 5,7,9,11$ we found minimal blocking sets of size $q^2 + q - 2$ and we discuss their structure. By an exhaustive search we excluded the existence of a minimal blocking set of size $q^2 + 3$ in $Q(4,7)$.


Many real-world applications have to tackle the Positive-Unlabeled (PU) learning problem, i.e., learning binary classifiers from a large amount of unlabeled data and a few labeled positive examples. While current state-of-the-art methods employ importance reweighting to design various risk estimators, they ignored the learning capability of the model itself, which could have provided reliable supervision. This motivates us to propose a novel Self-PU learning framework, which seamlessly integrates PU learning and self-training. Self-PU highlights three "self"-oriented building blocks: a self-paced training algorithm that adaptively discovers and augments confident positive/negative examples as the training proceeds; a self-calibrated instance-aware loss; and a self-distillation scheme that introduces teacher-students learning as an effective regularization for PU learning. We demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of Self-PU on common PU learning benchmarks (MNIST and CIFAR-10), which compare favorably against the latest competitors. Moreover, we study a real-world application of PU learning, i.e., classifying brain images of Alzheimer's Disease. Self-PU obtains significantly improved results on the renowned Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database over existing methods. The code is publicly available at: this https URL.


Introduction: Malignant pleural effusions are common pathology in clinical practice in patients with malignant disease .Malignant pleural effusion represents 40% of chronic pleural effusion and is the leading cause of recurrent pleural effusion, which has an additional impact on morbidity in patients with malignant disease. Lung cancer is the predominant cause of malignant pleural effusion confirmed by more research series. Primary lung cancer associated with malignant pleural effusion is metastatic disease (7-th edition of TNM classification of lung cancer at the American Cancer Committee). Primary lung cancer associated with malignant pleural effusion further increases the morbidity of these patients reducing therapeutic options and affect survival (a median survival of less than 4 months).Pleural metastases originating from bronchogenic origin appear relatively early in the disease unlike other primary visceral tumors and is sufficient reason to determine the incidence of pleural effusions among different histological types of primary lung cancer and the condition of the malignant pleural effusion in different histopathological types of lung cancer during the course of disease. Material and methods: The study is a retrospective study in which data from 800 patients (35-75 years old) with primary lung cancer classified according to the recommendations of the WHO were processed over a period of three years from 2010 to 2013 at the Clinic of Oncology and Radiotherapy. The study included all patients with the presence of malignant pleural effusion associated with primary lung cancer regardless of the time of occurrence of pleural effusion. Data from patients for the purposes of the study were evaluated by the following parameters: Incidence of pleural effusion in evaluated lung cancer patients; Development of pleural effusion in certain histopathological types of lung cancer and Condition of the malignant pleural effusion in different histopathological types of lung cancer during the course of disease. Results: Research has shown that malignant pleural effusion associated with primary lung cancer appeared in 193 patients/28.1%. The right lung malignant pleural effusion appeared with 54.4% of the total number of pleural effusions, and left with 43.5%, and 10.9% of the difference was statistically significant. The right lung showed no statistically significant trend in the separate histopathological type development pleural effusion, while only adenocarcinoma in the left lung showed a tendency to develop pleural effusion for 20.6% more than squamous cell carcinoma. In the right lung 59% of the effusions persisted,14.3% withdrew and 6.7% progressed, while 63.1% of the effusions in the left lung persisted,16.7% withdrew, 6% progressed during disease. In the right lung there wasn't difference in the condition of pleural effusion between different histological types, but in the left lung adenocarcinoma effusions withdrew as much as they progressed during the disease (13,6%) and squamous cell carcinoma effusions didn't progress. Discussion: Pleural effusions in lung cancer are a major problem (appearing in 28%) given that they mostly persist during illness regardless of histological type which increases the problem in the treatment and in survival of those patients. Keywords lung cancer, malignant pleural effusion


Background. Updating knowledge and skills on an ongoing basis is an important requirement if one is to remain professionally relevant. Formalised continuous professional development (CPD) is, therefore, essential to stay up to date in a dynamic work environment. The majority of radiographers in Kenya work in remote rural health facilities, where CPD activities are limited. The question therefore arose: 'To what extent are radiographers participating in CPD activities and what constitute barriers to participation?' Objective. To describe the challenges that affect diagnostic radiographers' participation in CPD activities in Kenya. Methods. The study targeted radiographers who were registered with the Society of Radiography in Kenya (SORK). Two hundred and fifty prospective participants were recruited from the SORK database, using the fish-bowl sampling method. Questionnaires with self-addressed stamped envelopes were posted by ordinary mail to facilitate ease of return, while telephonic follow-up improved the response rate. Results. The study revealed that 69% of diagnostic radiographers in Kenya were effectively participating in CPD activities. Barriers to CPD participation included time constraints (62%), financial constraints (66%), lack of information (54%), organisational culture (47%), paucity of resources (58%), and difficulty in being selected by their organisation to attend CPD activities (42%). Conclusion. Professional development in a rapidly developing and expanding profession such as radiography is critical for best practice. Although the majority of diagnostic radiographers in Kenya participate in CPD, a large number do not owing to various challenges. A lack of finances was one of the most significant factors that served as a barrier. SORK, employers and institutions of higher education all have a responsibility towards the culture of lifelong learning. As the professional organisation representing radiographers, SORK should engage all stakeholders to collectively address the barriers to CPD participation for radiographers in Kenya.


PURPOSE
Recent studies from the authors' laboratory have suggested that reduced audibility in the high frequencies (because of the bandwidth of hearing instruments) may play a role in the delays in phonological development often exhibited by children with hearing impairment. The goal of the current study was to extend previous findings on the effect of bandwidth on fricatives/affricates to more complex stimuli.

METHOD
Nine fricatives/affricates embedded in 2-syllable nonsense words were filtered at 5 and 10 kHz and presented to normal-hearing 6- to 7-year-olds who repeated words exactly as heard. Responses were recorded for subsequent phonetic and acoustic analyses.

RESULTS
Significant effects of talker gender and bandwidth were found, with better performance for the male talker and the wider bandwidth condition. In contrast to previous studies, relatively small (5%) mean bandwidth effects were observed for /s/ and /z/ spoken by the female talker. Acoustic analyses of stimuli used in the previous and the current studies failed to explain this discrepancy.

CONCLUSIONS
It appears likely that a combination of factors (i.e., dynamic cues, prior phonotactic knowledge, and perhaps other unidentified cues to fricative identity) may have facilitated the perception of these complex nonsense words in the current study.


Walking at the Edge of Water was a world premiere over five years in the making. It was a drawing together of tribal stories collected from across the United States by indigenous choreographer Rulan Tangen, artistic director of Dancing Earth - surprisingly one of very few contemporary Native American dance companies - based in Turtle Island (USA). I was fortunate enough to have been awarded an AMP scholarship, as a representative of Maori Contemporary Dance, to explore indigenous perspectives with other cultures, thus allowing me the opportunity to travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico to work with the company in the lead up to the production.


Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, a highly complex and multi-levelled narrative, is a challenge for any translator. The emphasis in the current research is on the translation strategies used when translating culturally-specific elements, or historical realia, referred to as "Sovietisms," in three English translations of the novel by Glenny (1967), Pevear and Volokhonsky (1997) and Aplin (2008). Sovietisms refer to items characteristic of the Soviet discourse of the 1930s: word-formations of the non-standard "Soviet Russian." Bulgakov's language is sated with Soviet vocabulary, which refers to various cultural and socio-political elements of Soviet reality. Sovietisms occur at various levels (lexical, syntactic, stylistic and rhetorical) and should be carefully translated as a significant characteristic of Bulgakov's style. A complete domestication of Sovietisms may lead to a loss of a connotative meaning essential for understanding the context, while a foreignisation of these terms, which are most likely unknown to western readers, may disturb fluidity of reading and cause confusion. The purpose of this analysis, thus, is to illustrate the use of domesticating/foreignising strategies employed by Bulgakov's translators and to assess the translation choices. The comparative analysis employs the taxonomies suggested by Vlakhov and Florin (1995) and Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1989) as the grounds for the case study.


This review will aim to establish if there is strong evidence to suggest a student preference for delivery format within information literacy teaching. This research supports and builds on research previously undertaken by Cardiff University (Weightman et al., 2017). Weightman et al (2017) addressed the effect of face-to-face or online learning specifically on learning outcomes. This review specifically focuses on the effects of these methods, and blended formats, on student preference. This research informs teaching practice specifically within Cardiff University's library service but also teaching practice generally. A comprehensive systematic literature search was undertaken in four databases: Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), British Education Index, ERIC and Scopus. Seven new papers were identified to update the previous discussions on student preference of information literacy teaching format (Weightman et al., 2017). Critical appraisal was undertaken of these newly identified papers. Weightman et al.'s (2017) systematic review suggested that there was no student preference in relation to delivery format. Of the seven new papers identified in this review, two (DaCosta, 2007; Gorman & Staley, 2018) show a slight preference for format; one for online and one for face-to-face although there are limitations to the studies. Of the five remaining studies (Craig & Friehs, 2013; Kelly, 2017; Lag, 2016; Lapidus et al., 2012; Matlin & Lantzy, 2017) all showed a comparable experience between formats, although limitations of these studies are also acknowledged. The update search and appraisal of the literature concurs with previous conclusions (Weightman et al., 2017) that experiences are comparable and student preference is generally neutral in relation to delivery format. Student learning outcomes and student preference are comparable regardless of format (Weightman et al., 2017).


The objective of the present work was to develop stability indicating RP-HPLC method for determination of impurities in Malathion on YMC-Pack ODS AQ 250 X 4.6mm 5μm column using a gradient mixture of solvent A ( Milli Q water, adjust the pH of the above solution to 2.5 using Orthophosphoric acid) and solvent B (Methanol). The flow rate is 0.7ml/min and the detection wavelength is 210nm. Statistical analysis proved the method to repeatable, specific and accurate for estimation of Malathion and its impurities. It can be used as a stability indicating method due to its effective separation of the drug from its impurities.


Leaf stomata are the main channels for water loss of plants including cut flowers. In this study, we investigated the organographic distribution, morphological characteristics, light–dark response, and water loss contribution of stomata in cut carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus L. 'Master'), which are prone to typical water deficits despite a few and small leaves. Stomata were observed in the upper and lower leaf epidermis, stem surface, abaxial bract epidermis, and abaxial sepal epidermis. Stomatal density (SD) on the stem surface was the highest and significantly greater than that on the upper and lower leaf and abaxial bract epidermis. The sepal epidermis had the lowest SD and the smallest stomata whereas the upper leaf epidermis had the largest stomata. Changes in the water loss rate increased in the light and decreased in the dark in both intact and leaves-removed cut carnations. The water loss rate of the former was greater than that of the latter. However, the water loss rate for the stem-only cut carnations had weak change rhythms and was much lower than that for the intact and leaves-removed cut carnations. These findings demonstrate the differential contributions of stomata in leaves, stems, and floral organs to water loss, and help to elucidate further the mechanism underlying postharvest water deficit in cut carnations.


In many fiber optic distributed temperature sensing (DTS) systems, a dual-ended configuration can correct the temperature measurement error associated with wavelength dependent loss (WDL) of the optical fiber and can provide a more accurate temperature measurement in comparison with a single-ended fiber system. In this configuration, two pieces of fiber are laid parallel to each other and connected at the distal end by a turn-around device, creating a U-shaped optical path that provides accessibility to both legs from the proximal end of the system. In many applications, tightly confined spaces constrain the fiber bend diameter and thus the size of the turn-around device. In this paper we will report a miniature turn-around built with a short section of a graded index (GI) fiber. The device measures less than 300 μm in diameter and less than 2 mm in length. The insertion loss of the miniature turn-around is measured and will be compared with the theoretical simulations.


Interoception is a complex process encompassing multiple dimensions, such as accuracy, learning and awareness. Here, we examined whether each of those dimensions relies on specialized neural regions distributed throughout the vast interoceptive network. To this end, we obtained relevant measures of cardiac interoception in healthy subjects and patients offering contrastive lesion models of neurodegeneration and focal brain damage: behavioural variant fronto-temporal dementia (bvFTD), Alzheimer's disease (AD) and fronto-insular stroke. Neural correlates of the three dimensions were examined through structural and functional resting-state imaging, and online measurements of the heart-evoked potential (HEP). The three patient groups presented deficits in interoceptive accuracy, associated with insular damage, connectivity alterations and abnormal HEP modulations. Interoceptive learning was differentially impaired in AD patients, evidencing a key role of memory networks in this skill. Interoceptive awareness results showed that bvFTD and AD patients overestimated their performance; this pattern was related to abnormalities in anterior regions and associated networks sub-serving metacognitive processes, and probably linked to well-established insight deficits in dementia. Our findings indicate how damage to specific hubs in a broad fronto-temporo-insular network differentially compromises interoceptive dimensions, and how such disturbances affect widespread connections beyond those critical hubs. This is the first study in which a multiple lesion model reveals fine-grained alterations of body sensing, offering new theoretical insights into neuroanatomical foundations of interoceptive dimensions. This article is part of the themed issue 'Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health'.


In a print-based society the physical characteristics of books not only controlled how knowledge was accessed, stored and disseminated, but also exerted a powerful unconscious influence over our perceptions about the status of knowledge. Textbooks, encyclopaediae, journals, comics and magazines were allocated status according to their material composition for example, the amount of time it took to produce and disseminate the publication. The knowledge tools of Western pedagogy (textbooks) have traditionally been accorded powerful credibility and respectability because they were presented in tomes that imply content with enduring value. This pre-weighting of knowledge was difficult to discern in a print-based society but now, as meaning is increasingly digitally mediated, and teachers and learners are freed from the exigencies of print/textbook based knowledge, we are reassessing and reallocating our often unconscious perceptions of the status of knowledge. This paper examines the changing materiality of three sample pedagogical texts over a 16 year period in order to reveal, through an analysis of the changing dialectics in their material modes of representation, the epistemology embedded in each text. It then generalises these findings in order to shed light on the question: how does the changing materiality of texts shape our perceptions of knowledge.


The use of service dogs for people with disabilities has increased in the last few decades. The service dogs come in the form of companion dogs, socialization dogs, medical alert dogs, and dogs for the mobility and hearing impaired. Therapy dogs are also used in clinical settings to ease the tension in hospital, and school settings. Since their use has increased, so has the demand. Training of service dogs can take anywhere from 12-18 months and can cost upwards of $20,000. Organizations have become creative in meeting the needs of their clients and turned to recruiting incarcerated persons in correctional facilities in helping them meet their demands. What is missing from the research is the sociological question of why people volunteer to become weekend puppy raisers. They are asked to give up their weekends to care for a puppy and socialize it in public places. There are many rules that need to be followed to ensure the puppy has positive initial experiences. After the puppy has grown up and is now a service dog, the weekend puppy raiser must say good-bye and may choose to start the process all over again with another dog. The research in this article is to examine why people participate in such programs and what keeps them returning as volunteers. Through qualitative interviews, the findings will support that volunteers in the NEADS organization believe strongly in the organizations' mission, feel loyalty to members of the community needing assistance and have a strong sense of dog responsibility.


Background: The terms used for defining complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) including the methods, procedures and therapies vary greatly. The task of the CAMbrella working group on terminology was to explore the existing CAM terminologies and to develop a pragmatic definition of CAM that is acceptable Europewide. This can then be used to systematically research, e.g., its prevalence and legal status and to investigate the citizens' demands on CAM and the perspectives of providers of CAM in Europe. Methods: Terms and definitions were collected from both scientific and non-scientific sources. The terms and definitions identified were analysed and discussed among the CAMbrella working group participants on several occasions with the aim of arriving at a consensus. Results: We developed a proposal for a pragmatic European definition of CAM: 'Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) utilised by European citizens represents a variety of different medical systems and therapies based on the knowledge, skills and practices derived from theories, philosophies and experiences used to maintain and improve health, as well as to prevent, diagnose, relieve or treat physical and mental illnesses. CAM has been mainly used outside conventional health care, but in some countries certain treatments are being adopted or adapted by conventional health care.' Conclusion: Developing a uniform, pragmatic pan-European definition of CAM was complicated by a number of factors. These included the vast diversity of existing definitions, systems, disciplines, procedures, methods and therapies available within the EU.


A variety of phantoms simulating the human head have been used to test compliance of mobile telecommunications equipment with safely standards. Whereas numerical compliance procedures have mostly been performed using complex anatomical phantoms based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, experimental procedures have mainly relied on homogeneous phantoms, the ears of which have often been modeled as lossless spacers. Previous studies had indeed demonstrated that the absorption in the head tissue, except the outer ear, can be well represented by a homogeneous head of appropriate shape and material. The objectives of this paper were to fill the gap of the remaining open issues, namely: to evaluate the exposure in the ear region with respect to the spatial-peak specific absorption rate and to evaluate the most appropriate modeling of the ear for experimental evaluations such that it represents the maximum exposure of a reasonable cross section of cellular phone users. This paper is based on a detailed numerical phantom produced using high-resolution MRI scans. During scanning, the ear was naturally collapsed as it occurs when using a cellular phone. The results of this study lead to the conclusion that the spatial-peak absorption occurring in the inner and outer ear can be reliably modeled either by a lossless spacer of not thicker than 3-4 mm or by partially filling the simulated pinna with head tissue simulating media, whereas the minimum distance between the device and liquid should not be larger than 3 mm.


Over the past ten years, methods from statistical physics have provided a deeper inside into the average complexity of hard combinatorial problems, culminating in a rigorous proof for the asymptotic behaviour of the k-SAT phase transition threshold by Achlioptas and Peres in 2004. On the other hand, when dealing with individual instances of hard problems, gathering information about specific properties of instances in a pre-processing phase might be helpful for an appropriate adjustment of local search-based procedures. In the present paper, we address both issues in the context of landscapes induced by k-SAT instances: Firstly, we utilize a sampling method devised by Garnier and Kallel in 2002 for approximations of the number of local maxima in landscapes generated by individual k-SAT instances and a simple neighbourhood relation. The objective function is given by the number of satisfied clauses. Secondly, we outline a method for obtaining upper bounds for the average number of local maxima in k-SAT instances which indicates some kind of phase transition for the neighbourhood-specific ratio m/n = Theta(2k/k).


Using the stellar kinematic maps and ancillary imaging data from the Sydney AAO Multi Integral field (SAMI) Galaxy Survey, the intrinsic shape of kinematically selected samples of galaxies is inferred. We implement an efficient and optimized algorithm to fit the intrinsic shape of galaxies using an established method to simultaneously invert the distributions of apparent ellipticities and kinematic misalignments. The algorithm output compares favourably with previous studies of the intrinsic shape of galaxies based on imaging alone and our re-analysis of the ATLAS^(3D) data. Our results indicate that most galaxies are oblate axisymmetric. We show empirically that the intrinsic shape of galaxies varies as a function of their rotational support as measured by the 'spin' parameter proxy Λ_(Re). In particular, low-spin systems have a higher occurrence of triaxiality, while high-spin systems are more intrinsically flattened and axisymmetric. The intrinsic shape of galaxies is linked to their formation and merger histories. Galaxies with high-spin values have intrinsic shapes consistent with dissipational minor mergers, while the intrinsic shape of low-spin systems is consistent with dissipationless multimerger assembly histories. This range in assembly histories inferred from intrinsic shapes is broadly consistent with expectations from cosmological simulations.


Determining velocities for seismic processing and imaging remains a big challenge, especially for seismic data with poor data quality or from complex geological settings. State-of-the-art methods to determine velocities for depth imaging can often not be applied to seismic data with poor signal/noise ratio(S/N) or data gaps due to restrictions from acquisition challenges. Multi-parameter stacking techniques simultaneously enhance the data quality and use the related wavefront attributes obtained by coherence analysis for velocity model building in the time and depth imaging workflow. We demonstrate examples using the Common Reflection Surface (CRS) method to efficiently derive velocity models for low quality and/or sparse acquisition data examples. Algorithms including CRS-Tomography, iterative Reverse Time Migration (iRTM) and Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) benefit from the CRS processing sequence, e.g. by addressing challenges in the application to onshore field data related to rugged topography as well as to poor data quality. Recently the CRS technology was extended to derive azimuth dependent wavefront attributes for anisotropic velocity model building. Furthermore, recent research on Diffraction-Tomography indicates the improvement of the resolution of CRS-Tomography using the diffracted wavefield energy.


Open communication over the Internet poses a serious threat to countries with repressive regimes, leading them to develop and deploy censorship mechanisms within their networks. Unfortunately, existing censorship circumvention systems face difficulties in providing unobservable communication with their clients; this highly limits their availability as censors can easily block access to circumvention systems that make observable communication patterns. Moreover, the lack of unobservability may pose serious threats to their users. Recent research takes various approaches to tackle this problem, however they introduce new challenges, and the provided unobservability is breakable. In this paper we propose an easy-to-deploy and unobservable censorship-resistant infrastructure, called FreeWave. FreeWave works by modulating a client's Internet traffic into acoustic signals that are carried over VoIP connections. Such VoIP connections are targeted to a server, the FreeWave server, that extracts the tunneled traffic and proxies them to the uncensored Internet. The use of actual VoIP connections, as opposed to traffic morphing, allows FreeWave to relay its VoIP connections through oblivious VoIP nodes (e.g., Skype supernodes), hence keeping the FreeWave server(s) unobservable and unblockable. In addition, the use of end-to-end encryption, which is supported/mandated by most VoIP providers like Skype, prevents censors from distinguishing FreeWave's VoIP connections from regular VoIP connections. To utilize a VoIP connection's throughput efficiently we design communications encoders tailored specifically for VoIP's lossy channel. We prototype FreeWave over Skype, the most popular VoIP system. We show that FreeWave is able to reliably achieve communication throughputs that are sufficient for web browsing, even when clients are far distanced from the FreeWave server. We also validate FreeWave's communication unobservability against traffic analysis and standard censorship techniques. Keywords-Internet Censorship; Circumvention; VoIP;


NOTE: This teaching activity showcase is one of two during the 2:45pm-4:15pm session.  It will be presented within that session from 3:45pm to 3:25pm.BRIEF SESSION DESCRIPTION:Research suggests that students can improve their study habits and exam performance through meta-cognition (thinking about your thinking) and reflection.  This session showcases an example and details how faculty members can create a test reflection that helps students realize the connection between study strategies and test performance.  This activity also helps students develop a plan for more effective ways to study test material, resulting in better content retention and test performance.  Faculty who attend this session will be able to create a test reflection tailored to just about any course, in any format, using that course's specific learning outcomes. ____________________________________________________________FULL ABSTRACT:Students often do not like to deviate from how they generally study for exams, despite lackluster results. Research suggests that students can improve their study habits and exam performance through meta-cognition (thinking about your thinking) and reflection (Bowen, 2013; Lovett, 2013; Winkelmes, 2013).   Using these basic principles, I designed a test reflection, to help students improve how they prepare for tests, with the goal of increasing content retention and test performance.  After the first test is returned in my GCH 412 Fundamentals of Epidemiology class, students complete a brief test reflection. The target learning outcomes for the test are discussed, and I note that the reflection is to help students evaluate their own preparation and performance, so they can adjust their study habits in the future. The reflection asks them how much time they spent preparing for the test, whether they used the study guide, and how much time they spent studying alone and in a group. They then indicate which techniques they used to study and how much time was spent using each techniques. More effective learning and retention techniques are marked with an asterix.  Students then assess the list of concepts assessed by the test and note where they lost points. This list also includes points lost to lack of concentration, arithmetic errors, and lack of preparation. students are asked to name two thing they plan to differently to prepare for the next test. They are asked to be specific and to not just say "I will study harder." Students who scored well are asked to think about what they did well and what they will continue to do to maintain their performance. I collect the reflections until the week before the next test, when I return them so that students are reminded of their plan for the next test.  I often see significant improvements in test performance after the students engage in this type of meta-cognition and reflection.Faculty who attend this session will be able to create a test reflection tailored to just about any course, in any format, using that course's specific learning outcomes. The process of creating the reflection itself, since it is based on student learning outcomes, can help faculty assess whether the content of their tests actually do tap into the expected learning outcomes for the course.


Arguably, English is now an international language used by more non-native speakers of English than native. The English for Future Careers course is taught in many government universities in Thailand by native and non native teachers of English in the hope that students will be armed with the necessary skills to apply for employment, whilst communicating in English appropriately in multi-national communities. However, there seems to be a scarcity of published materials available for use when teaching low-level learners these vital skills. This paper recounts the process of course and materials development, focusing on the need to create materials that meet the desired outcomes of the course whilst accommodating the generally low language proficiency and motivation level of the learners. The process included the development of materials that were designed initially to be used at a government university in the northeast of Thailand and were then successfully adapted as supplementary worksheets to accompany an existing course book Get Ready for Business, designed to be used by college students throughout Asia.


The ownership of the means of production and the history of apartheid in South Africa are always linked to the level of inequality in the country. South Africa has been described as one of the world's most unequal society not only because of the figure of Gini-coefficient of (0.6) but also because of the racial pattern of wealth and income distribution. As a result, this research examines the socio-economic determinants of investment among low income households also referred to as Non-Ricardian Households (NRH) in South Africa. The Ricardian Households (RH) comprise medium and high-income households, who are involved in the financial market, participate in buying of bonds or stocks, and are classified as saving households. Non-Ricardian households comprise of low-income households, which largely dependent on government welfare grants for sustenance, and are classified as the low investment households. The research uses the National Income Dynamics Study ( NIDS ) dataset (wave one to five). Socio-economic characteristics of NRH in South Africa are determined by using panel estimators including Pooled OLS, fixed and random effects methods. The result show household income, household size, household geographical location and household grants, among others, are major determinants of households' investment in South Africa. Government grants to households is found to impact negatively on households' investment. The grants received by more than 17 million households' costs the government over R170 billion in 2019 reveals households over-depend on the government for present and future expenditures and discourage productive efficiency.


Fezzeh Khanom (c. 1835–82), an African woman, was a slave of Sayyed 'Ali-Mohammad of Shiraz, the Bab. Information about her life can be recovered from various pious Baha'i histories. She was honored, and even venerated by Babis, though she remained subordinate and invisible. The paper makes the encouraging discovery that a history of African slavery in Iran is possible, even at the level of individual biographies. Scholars estimate that between one and two million slaves were exported from Africa to the Indian Ocean trade in the nineteenth century, most to Iranian ports. Some two-thirds of African slaves brought to Iran were women intended as household servants and concubines. An examination of Fezzeh Khanom's life can begin to fill the gaps in our knowledge of enslaved women in Iran. The paper discusses African influences on Iranian culture, especially in wealthy households and in the royal court. The limited value of Western legal distinctions between slavery and freedom when applied to the Muslim world is noted.


How can we qualify slowness in cinema? What is the relationship between a cinema of slowness and a wider socio-cultural "slow movement"? A body of films that shares a propensity toward slowness has emerged in many parts of the world over the past two decades. This is the first book to examine the concept of cinematic slowness and address this fascinating phenomenon in contemporary film culture. Providing a critical investigation into questions of temporality, materiality, and aesthetics, and examining concepts of authorship, cinephilia, and nostalgia, Song Hwee Lim offers insight into cinematic slowness through the films of the Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based director Tsai Ming-liang. Through detailed analysis of aspects of stillness and silence in cinema, Lim delineates the strategies by which slowness in film can be constructed. By drawing on writings on cinephilia and the films of directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, he makes a passionate case for a slow cinema that calls for renewed attention to the image and to the experience of time in film. Tsai Ming-Liang and a Cinema of Slowness will speak to readers with an interest in art cinema, queer studies, East Asian culture, and the question of time. In an age of unrelenting acceleration of pace both in film and in life, this book invites us to pause and listen, to linger and look, and, above all, to take things slowly.


The body, as the common ground for objectivity and (inter)subjectivity, is a phenomenon with a perplexing plurality of registers. Therefore, this innovative volume offers an interdisciplinary approach from the fields of neuroscience, phenomenology and psychoanalysis. The concepts of body image and body schema have a firm tradition in each of these disciplines and make up the conceptual anchors of this volume.

Challenged by neuropathological phenomena, neuroscience has dealt with body image and body schema since the beginning of the twentieth century. Halfway through the twentieth century, phenomenology was inspired by child development and elaborated a specifically phenomenological account of body image and schema. Starting from the mirror stage, this source of inspiration is shared with psychoanalysis which develops the concept of body image in interaction with the clinic of the singular subject. In this volume, the creative encounter of these three perspectives on the body opens up present-day paths for conceptualisation, research and (clinical) practice. (Series B)


Pancreatic acinar cells synthesize and secrete about 20 digestive enzymes and ancillary proteins with the processes that match the supply of these enzymes to their need in digestion being regulated by a number of hormones (CCK, secretin and insulin), neurotransmitters (acetylcholine and VIP) and growth factors (EGF and IGF). Of these regulators, one of the most important and best studied is the gastrointestinal hormone, cholecystokinin (CCK). Furthermore, the acinar cell has become a model for seven transmembrane, heterotrimeric G protein coupled receptors to regulate multiple processes by distinct signal transduction cascades. In this review, we briefly describe the chemistry and physiology of CCK and then consider the major physiological effects of CCK on pancreatic acinar cells. The majority of the review is devoted to the physiologic signaling pathways activated by CCK receptors and heterotrimeric G proteins and the functions they affect. The pathways covered include the traditional second messenger pathways PLC-IP3-Ca2+ , DAG-PKC, and AC-cAMP-PKA/EPAC that primarily relate to secretion. Then there are the protein-protein interaction pathways Akt-mTOR-S6K, the three major MAPK pathways (ERK, JNK, and p38 MAPK), and Ca2+ -calcineurin-NFAT pathways that primarily regulate non-secretory processes including biosynthesis and growth, and several miscellaneous pathways that include the Rho family small G proteins, PKD, FAK, and Src that may regulate both secretory and nonsecretory processes but are not as well understood. © 2019 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 9:535-564, 2019.


In this paper, we address a beamforming application based on the capture of far-field speech data from a single speaker in a real meeting room. After the position of the speaker is estimated by a speaker tracking system, we construct a subband-domain beamformer in generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) configuration. In contrast to conventional practice, we then optimize the active weight vectors of the GSC so as to obtain an output signal with maximum negentropy (MN). This implies the beamformer output should be as non-Gaussian as possible. For calculating negentropy, we consider the Gamma and the generalized Gaussian (GG) pdfs. After MN beamforming, Zelinski postfiltering is performed to further enhance the speech by removing residual noise. Our beamforming algorithm can suppress noise and reverberation without the signal cancellation problems encountered in the conventional beamforming algorithms. We demonstrate this fact through a set of acoustic simulations. Moreover, we show the effectiveness of our proposed technique through a series of far-field automatic speech recognition experiments on the Multi-Channel Wall Street Journal Audio Visual Corpus (MC-WSJ-AV), a corpus of data captured with real far-field sensors, in a realistic acoustic environment, and spoken by real speakers. On the MC-WSJ-AV evaluation data, the delay-and-sum beamformer with postfiltering achieved a word error rate (WER) of 16.5%. MN beamforming with the Gamma pdf achieved a 15.8% WER, which was further reduced to 13.2% with the GG pdf, whereas the simple delay-and-sum beamformer provided a WER of 17.8%. To the best of our knowledge, no lower error rates at present have been reported in the literature on this automatic speech recognition (ASR) task.