The electrocardiogram (ECG) of athletes, especially in those that are endurance-trained, frequently shows some alterations; however, abnormalities of athlete's ECG may be an expression of an underlying heart disease, which carries a risk of sudden death during sport. It is important that ECG abnormalities are correctly distinguished. We report a case of an ultramarathon athlete who arrived in Emergency Department, after a 100-kilometer race, showing ECG alterations that required further investigations to rule out a cardiac disease. ECG trace showed anterior repolarization abnormalities with ST-segment elevation in V1 to V3 leads. He was admitted to the Cardiology Department and underwent a coronary study that was normal. A cardiac magnetic resonance was also performed. The final diagnosis was athlete's heart.


With the rapid development of e-government, cross-sector collaboration has been one of the most important issues to academia and practitioners. Although collaboration was a classical topic in public administration research, digital age and e-government environment complicate the related issues from multi-perspectives. Based on accumulated literature in the public administration research area and e-government research area, this paper tries to introduce Bryson's Framework, an important theoretical framework of collaboration in public administration provided on 2006, for analyzing cross-sector collaboration based on e-government development more deeply. Considering the e-government environment, we redefine and extend the detail items of five basic dimensions in the framework, called initial conditions, process, structure and governance, constraints on collaboration, outcomes. The research plan of an empirical study in a local government in China for utilizing this extended framework was also discussed briefly in the paper. Keyword: Cross-sector collaboration, E-Government, Bryson's framework, Public management reform, ICT


Alternatives to fossil fuels must be developed due to several already known reasons. Bioethanol can be an attractive energy concept. Bioethanol gasoline hybrid fuel can be used by most internal combustion engines. First and second generation bioethanol production is already available – here agricultural crops or residues are utilised. There are controversial discussions about these bioethanol production methods – the food versus fuel debate, cost and energy efficiency. Alternative advanced bioethanol production must be established with competitive production costs. Photosynthetic prokaryotes like cyanobacteria are attractive organisms for this purpose – these prokaryotes are fast growing organisms and utilize solar energy and CO2. But these prokaryotes must be genetically manipulated for ethanol production. In this study transformation was performed using homologous recombination to introduce the pyruvate decarboxylase (pdc) and alcohol dehydrogenase B (adhB) genes of Zymomonas mobilis into the photosynthetic prokaryote Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 genome. These cyanobacteria grow in fresh water and seawater or even in wastewater. Both genes were expressed under the control of the strong constitutive promoter of psbA1 gene (encoding photosystem II protein D1). Various cloning strategies were done. Each construct was transformed successful in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 and the potential bioethanol production was determined with HPLC. Only one construct produces bioethanol at detectable level. Diverse reactors and scale up steps were done to increase the bioethanol production. Anyhow further cloning strategies must be implemented to improve the production rate to achieve an effective bioethanol production from Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942.


Objective. The objective of this descriptive study was to assess the practices of South African dietitians regarding the dietary treatment of patients with chronic renal failure. Subjects and design. A questionnaire was mailed to 600 randomly selected dietitians registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. Practices were compared to international standards for pre-dialysis, haemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. Results. A 26% response rate was obtained, with only 28% of these dietitians indicating that they counsel renal patients. The majority of dietitians met the international dietary recommendations, but a substantial number deviated from them. This was especially evident in PD patients, where the deviation ranged from 20% (4 dietitians) in the case of energy and phosphate, to 55% (11 dietitians) in the case of calcium. Parameters used for the assessment of nutritional status included body mass index (45% of dietitians), serum albumin (44%), clinical examinations (43%), bioelectrical impedance (37%) and diet history (36%). Methods used to monitor dietary compliance included biochemistry, dietary history, anthropometric measurements and clinical investigation. The most frequently used approaches in the management of protein-energy malnutrition included supplemental drinks (86%) and dietary enrichment at household level (76%).


Autonomous sensory-motor systems, situated in dynamic environments, must continuously answer the ultimate question: how to control motor commands knowing sensory inputs? Solving this question is a very complex problem, because a huge flow of information must be treated under several restrictions: real-time constraints, bounded memory space, and limited processing power. One additional and major challenge is to deal with incomplete and imprecise information, usually occurring in dynamic environments. In this thesis, we address the problem of controlling autonomous sensory-motor systems and propose a succession of cumulative hypotheses and simplifications. They are defined within a precise and strict mathematical framework, called Bayesian programming, an extension of Bayesian networks. This succession consists of five stages: Utilisation of internal states; First-order Markov assumption, stationarity and Bayesian filters; Exploiting partial independence; Addition of behaviour selection mechanism; and addition of Attention focusing. The validity of these hypotheses can be discussed and challenged. However, the corresponding inferences and resulting decisions are derived mathematically. Each description of a stage is followed by its analysis according to memory requirement, processing complexity, and difficulty of modelling. Further discussions regarding robot programming and cognitive modelling points of view are also presented. Finally, we describe an implementation on a mobile robot. The results demonstrate that the proposed framework is adequate for practical purposes.


The use of detention for immigration purposes is a carceral trend that continues to increase across the world and is a phenomenon no longer limited to so-called western countries or the global north. Linked to the criminalisation of mass migration under conditions of globalisation, immigration detention can be understood as both a policy and a practice that is directed towards the control of unwanted human mobility. The extension of tactics traditionally used in the penal system to the realm of immigration control raises important questions about the purpose, justification, and legitimacy of immigration detention. Broadly defined as the confinement of non-citizens under administrative rather than criminal law powers to achieve immigration-related aims, immigration detention is one amongst an array of border control strategies aimed at the identification of migrants, the prevention of absconding, and the facilitation of their removal. Only recently has this form of confinement become the focus of criminological enquiry. Researchers have found that immigration detention has a profound impact on those who are detained, particularly on mental and physical health as well as on more complex issues of identity, belonging, human rights, and legitimacy. Empirical research has indicated that although the detention of migrants is not punishment, it is often experienced as such, with the prison emerging as a point of comparison through which to make sense of this practice. That the 'usual suspects'―poor men and women of colour―are the primary populations detained raises important questions about the use of immigration detention in the service of punitive and restrictive migration control strategies that further global inequality along the familiar lines of gender, race, and socioeconomic status.


We developed an experimental setup equipped with tube furnace for continuous heating of heterogeneous drops at a constant temperature and high-speed camera to study characteristics of phase transitions at interfaces of these drops. Also, an experimental procedure was proposed to estimate time characteristics of processes occurring when heated heterogeneous drops in high-temperature environment. As an example, at temperature of heating of 1373 K, lifetime of 15 μl water drop with 1 mm solid inclusion made of natural graphite in high-temperature environment equals almost to 1 s. Experimental data also enabled to reveal minimum temperature at which intensive vaporization of 5 μl, 10 μl and 15 μl drops with inclusions in size of 2×2×2 mm proceeds with explosive breakup. This temperature equals to 803 ± 10 K depending on initial water volume in heterogeneous drops.


A revised wind-over-wave-coupling model is developed to provide a consistent description of the sea surface drag and heat/moister transfer coefficients, and associated wind velocity and temperature profiles. The spectral distribution of short wind waves in the decimeter to a few millimeters range of wavelengths is introduced based on the wave action balance equation constrained using the Yurovskaya et al. (2013) optical field wave measurements. The model is capable to reproduce fundamental statistical properties of the sea surface, such as the mean square slope and the spectral distribution of breaking crests length. The surface stress accounts for the effect of airflow separation due to wave breaking, which enables a better fit of simulated form drag to observations. The wave breaking controls the overall energy losses for the gravity waves, but also the generation of shorter waves including the parasitic capillaries, thus enhancing the form drag. Breaking wave contribution to the form drag increases rapidly at winds above 15 m/s where it exceeds the nonbreaking wave contribution. The overall impact of wind waves (breaking and nonbreaking) leads to a sheltering of the near-surface layer where the turbulent mixing is suppressed. Accordingly, the air temperature gradient in this sheltered layer increases to maintain the heat flux constant. The resulting deformation of the air temperature profile tends to lower the roughness scale for temperature compared to its value over the smooth surface.


Objectives Inhalation of a cotton-based particulates has previously been associated with respiratory symptoms and impaired lung function. This study investigates the respiratory health of Nepalese textile workers in relation to dust and endotoxin exposure. Methods A total of 938 individuals from four sectors (garment, carpet, weaving and recycling) of the textile industry in Kathmandu, Nepal completed a health questionnaire and performed spirometry. A subset (n=384) performed cross-shift spirometry. Personal exposure to inhalable dust and airborne endotoxin was measured during a full shift for 114 workers. Results The overall prevalence of persistent cough, persistent phlegm, wheeze ever, breathlessness ever and chest tightness ever was 8.5%, 12.5%, 3.2%, 6.5% and 12.3%, respectively. Symptoms were most common among recyclers and least common among garment workers. Exposure to inhalable dust significantly predicted persistent cough and chest tightness. Exposure to endotoxin did not have any independent predictive effect. Significant cross-shift reduction in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) were found (p<0.001 for both) being largest for FEV1 in the recyclers (−143 mL), and least in the garment workers (−38 mL; p=0.012). Exposure to inhalable dust predicted a cross-shift reduction in FEV1. Conclusions This study is the first to investigate the respiratory health of Nepalese cotton workers. The measured association between inhalable dust exposure and reporting of respiratory symptoms and across-shift decrement in FEV1 and FVC indicates that improved dust control measures should be instituted, particularly in the recycling and carpet sectors. The possible role of other biologically active agents of cotton dust beyond endotoxin should be further explored.


Quantum computers with tens to hundreds of noisy qubits are being developed today. To be useful for real-world applications, we believe that these near-term systems cannot simply be scaled-down non-error-corrected versions of future fault-tolerant large-scale quantum computers. These near-term systems require specific architecture and design attributes to realize their full potential. To efficiently execute an algorithm, the quantum coprocessor must be designed to scale with respect to qubit number and to maximize useful computation within the qubits' decoherence bounds. In this work, we employ an application-system-qubit co-design methodology to architect a near-term quantum coprocessor. To support algorithms from the real-world application area of simulating the quantum dynamics of a material system, we design a (parameterized) arbitrary single-qubit rotation instruction and a two-qubit entangling controlled-Z instruction. We introduce dynamic gate set and paging mechanisms to implement the instructions. To evaluate the functionality and performance of these two instructions, we implement a two-qubit version of an algorithm to study a disorder-induced metal-insulator transition and run 60 random instances of it, each of which realizes one disorder configuration and contains 40 two-qubit instructions (or gates) and 104 single-qubit instructions. We observe the expected quantum dynamics of the time-evolution of this system.


Introduction: Hemolysis is a fundamental feature that contributes to hypercoagulability and thrombotic complications in sickle cell disease (SCD). Factor V Leiden (FVL) and prothrombin G20210A mutations are the most common genetic thrombophilia. Objectives: The aim of this meta-analysis is to determine the relationship between FVL or prothrombin G20210A and susceptibility of vaso-occlusive complications (VOC) in SCD. Patients and Methods: For this meta-analysis, eligible studies were retrieved via two systematic searches performed on PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases. The keywords used in the former search included 'sickle cell anemia', 'SCD', 'Factor V Leiden' and 'G1691A (rs6025) mutation, the letter using the keywords 'sickle cell anemia', 'SCD', 'prothrombin, and 'G20210A (rs1799963). Results: The final number of studies included was 10 about SCD-VOC and FVL (total patients with VOC 1086 and without VOC 933), and 6 about SCD-VOC and prothrombin G20210A mutation (total patients with VOC 609 and without VOC 674). Meta-analysis in fixed effect model showed that mutant genotypes (GA+AA vs. GG) of the FVL mutation was found to be higher in SCD patients with VOC than in SCD patients without VOC (OR, 3.53; 95% CI, 2.24–5.08; P < 0.001). However, the distribution of prothrombin G20210A mutation in SCD patients with or without VOC is similar (OR, 0.900; 95% CI, 0.51–1.59; P = 0.717). Conclusion: Our meta-analysis establishes that the FVL mutation as a high-penetrant risk factor for VOC in SCD patients, whereas the prothrombin G20210A is not associated with the risk of VOC in SCD patients. To further validate the clinical utility of these prothrombotic mutations in SCD patient, large scale and prospective studies in diverse populations are warranted.


DTU Orbit (17/11/2019) Smart solutions, private households and controla case study of experimental projects Over the last decade, energy research has turned its focus on smart grid's ability of increasing the flexibility in the energy system, allowing a growing amount of fluctuating renewables in the energy mix. A main part of achieving flexibility is through various control mechanisms of energy consuming devices on the consumer side. Previous research on how smart grid technologies are domesticated in households has revealed that the design of remote control promotes preferences for unengaged consumers that do not actively take an interest in controlling their electricity consumption (Hansen & Hauge, 2017). Others have pointed out that smart grid devices may concentrate control in one householder's hands (Hargreaves & Wilson, 2017) and furthermore change power relations in families (Nyborg, 2015). However, there is clearly a lack of studies that try to understand how the concept of control is discussed and developed across a number of smart grid demonstration projects. There is a need to understand the different control concepts that are being negotiated among leading actors on the smart grid arena and how the households are responding to them. This paper seeks to address this gap by inquiring into the types of control affecting private households and by tracing the interactions in three influential Danish cases of smart grid experimental projects: EFlex (2011-2012); Insero Live Lab (2013 -2015); and EnergyLab Nordhavn (2018 2019), thus embracing an actor-network theory perspective. This knowledge will increase our understanding of current challenges related to the dissemination of smart grid technologies in Denmark.


This paper reports our new communication components and downlink tests for realizing 2.65Gbps by utilizing two circular polarizations. We have developed an on-board X-band transmitter, an on-board dual circularly polarized-wave antenna, and a ground station. In the onboard transmitter, we optimized the bias conditions of GaN High Power Amplifier (HPA) to linearize AM-AM performance. We have also designed and fabricated a dual circularly polarized-wave antenna for low-crosstalk polarization multiplexing. The antenna is composed of a corrugated horn antenna and a septum-type polarizer. The antenna achieves Cross Polarization Discrimination (XPD) of 37 − 43 dB in the target X-band. We also modify an existing 10m ground station antenna by replacing its primary radiator and adding a polarizer. We put the polarizer and LowNoise Amplifiers (LNAs) in a cryogenic chamber to reduce thermal noise. Total system noise temperature of the antenna is 58K (maximum) for 18K physical temperature when the angle of elevation is 90◦ on a fine winter day. The dual circularly polarized-wave ground station antenna has 39.0 dB/K of Gain system-noise Temperature ratio (G/T) and an XPD higher than 37 dB. The downlinked signals are stored in a data recorder at the antenna site. Afterwards, we decoded the signals by using our non-real-time software demodulator. Our system has high frequency efficiency with a roll-off factor α = 0.05 and polarization multiplexing of 64APSK. The communication bits per hertz corresponds to 8.41 bit/Hz (2.65Gbit/315MHz). The system is demonstrated in orbit on board the RAPid Innovative payload demonstration Satellite (RAPIS-1). RAPIS-1 was launched from Uchinoura Space Center on January 19th, 2019. We decoded 1010 bits of downlinked Rand L-channel signals and found that the downlinked binary data was error free. Consequently, we have achieved 2.65Gbps communication speed in the X-band for earth observation satellites at 300 Mega symbols per second (Msps) and polarization multiplexing of 64APSK (coding rate: 4/5) for rightand left-hand circular polarizations. key words: satellite communications, small satellite, DVB-S2X, Cross Polarization Discrimination (XPD), polarization multiplexing


ELEVEN YEARS AGO, our Brookings Paper "Why Has the Natural Rate of Unemployment Increased over Time?" analyzed long-term changes in joblessness among American men. (1) We documented the dramatic rise between 1967 and 1989 in both unemployment and nonparticipation in the labor force among prime-aged males. Our main conclusion was that a steep and sustained decline in the demand for low-skilled workers had reduced the returns to work for this group, leading to high rates of unemployment, labor force withdrawal, and long spells of joblessness for less-skilled men. We found that time spent out of the labor force and time spent unemployed accounted in roughly equal measure for the long-term growth in joblessness. We concluded that structural factors, primarily the decline in the demand for low-skilled labor, had dramatically changed the prospects for a return to low rates of joblessness any time soon. After that paper was published, things appeared to change. The 1990s opened with a brief recession that was followed by the longest sustained decline in unemployment in modern U.S. history. By the end of that expansion, the unemployment rate had reached its lowest level since the late 1960s, falling below 4 percent for the first time since 1969. Some macroeconomists argued that the so-called natural rate of unemployment had permanently shifted to 5 percent or below. (2) Because we had emphasized changes in the structure of labor demand that had made a return to low rates of joblessness unlikely, these facts presented a challenge to our 1991 framework. Maybe we were just wrong--maybe the demand and supply framework of our previous work is inconsistent with rates of joblessness in the post-1990 period. If so, we would join a distinguished group of social scientists who have drawn attention to a significant empirical phenomenon only to watch that phenomenon disappear immediately thereafter. (3) As it turns out, however, the framework that we developed for thinking about pre-1990 patterns of joblessness also does fairly well in helping to understand jobless time in the post-1990 period. In this paper we look in some detail at employment data from the 1990s, revisiting issues raised in our earlier work. Specifically, we ask: --Have the trends we identified in our earlier paper--the concentration of nonemployment among the less skilled, the growth of nonparticipation in the labor force, and the increased duration of joblessness--been reversed with the fall in aggregate unemployment? --Did the expansion of the 1990s really return the U.S. labor market to conditions of the late 1960s, as unemployment statistics seem to indicate? --Does the economic framework of supply and demand we utilized a decade ago still help in understanding long-term developments in unemployment, nonemployment, and labor force participation? Our answers are surprising. First, the basic trends toward longer spells of joblessness and rising nonemployment have continued in spite of the prolonged expansion of national output and the concomitant fall in unemployment rates. Long jobless spells and labor force withdrawal were more important in the 1990s than ever before. Second, the fall in unemployment to levels close to historical lows is very misleading. Broader measures of joblessness show that the labor market of the late 1990s was more like the relatively slack labor market of the late 1980s than like the booming labor market of the late 1960s. Finally, the basic forces of supply and demand identified in our previous paper continue to have explanatory power. The theory does a reasonably good job of explaining those trends that have continued, as well as those that have changed. Recent data also provide considerable insight into what has happened in the labor market over the past decade. Over the 1990s, even as unemployment was falling, time spent out of the labor force was rising. …


Spiritual Rationality: Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice offers the first book-length study of embargo in a pre-modern period and provides a unique exploration into the domestic implications of this tool of foreign policy. Based on a large and varied body of archival and printed, papal and secular sources, this inquiry covers Europe and the broader Mediterranean from c. 1150 to c. 1550. During this time of an increasing papal role within Christian society, the church employed restrictions on trade with Muslims, pagans, 'heretics', 'schismatics', disobedient Catholic communities and individual Jews in order to facilitate papally-endorsed warfare against external enemies and to discipline internal foes. Various trade bans were originally promulgated as individual responses to specific circumstances. These restrictions, however, were shaped by the premise that sin and the defense of the decorum of the faith and Christendom condoned, or even required, papal intervention into the lives of the laity and by the text-based approach of popes and canonists. Papal embargo, consequently, was not only the sum total of individual trade bans but also a legal and moral discourse that classified exchanges into legitimate and illegitimate ones, compelled merchants to distinguish clearly between themselves as (Roman) Christians and a multitude of others as non-Christians, and helped order symbolically both the relationships between the two groups and those between church and laity. Papal embargo's chief relevance thus lay within Christian society itself, where it functioned as an intangible pastoral staff. While sixteenth-century developments undermined it as a policy tool and a moral discourse alike, papal embargo inscribed the notion of the immorality of trade with the enemy into European thought.


The Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Experiment (LBNE) is proposed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and measure the CP phase in the leptonic sector. The current design of LBNE Phase I consists of a 10 kt liquid argon time projection chamber (LBNE10). The neutrino-antineutrino asymmetry in the electron-neutrino appearance probability has contributions from both the CP phase and the matter effect. For this reason, experimental sensitivity to the mass hierarchy depends both on the true value of the CP phase and the true mass hierarchy; LBNE10 will determine the mass hierarchy at high levels of significance for half of CP phase space. We propose placing a second detector at an off-axis location. Such a detector will share the same beamline as the primary LBNE detector. The detector location is chosen such that this detector focuses on a measurement of electron (anti-)neutrino appearance at the second oscillation maximum. We will show that this configuration will enhance the ability of LBNE to determine the mass hierarchy and to discover CP violation in the leptonic sector.


It is critical for administrators and teachers involved in adult literacy programs to be aware of the rich body of research in the area of literacy studies. Reviewing the research literature in literacy studies demands infinite patience to deconstruct the multilayered meanings of the concept of literacy as well as a critical temperament to determine what is significant from what is not. Clearly, literacy is a loaded term that is also embedded in myths associated with social and economic progress, political democracy, social and educational mobility, and the development of cognitive skills (Graff, 1981, 1987, 1988, 1995). Graff (1995) reminds readers that the concept of literacy has historically represented and continues to represent different things to people. This ambiguity has contributed to what has become known as "the literacy myth." To demythologize the concept, it is necessary to execute what Scribner and Cole (1988) call a process of "unpackaging literacy" and which Scribner (1988) does by using the metaphors of "adaptation," "power" and "state of grace" to refer to literacy.


Neuropathic pain is caused by a primary lesion or dysfunction in the nervous system. Investigations have mainly focused on the spinal mechanisms of neuropathic pain, and less is known about cortical changes in neuropathic pain. Here, we report that peripheral nerve injury triggered long-term changes in excitatory synaptic transmission in layer II/III neurons within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Both the presynaptic release probability of glutamate and postsynaptic glutamate AMPA receptor-mediated responses were enhanced after injury using the mouse peripheral nerve injury model. Western blot showed upregulated phosphorylation of GluR1 in the ACC after nerve injury. Finally, we found that both presynaptic and postsynaptic changes after nerve injury were absent in genetic mice lacking calcium-stimulated adenylyl cyclase 1 (AC1). Our studies therefore provide direct integrative evidence for both long-term presynaptic and postsynaptic changes in cortical synapses after nerve injury, and that AC1 is critical for such long-term changes. AC1 thus may serve as a potential therapeutic target for treating neuropathic pain.


In this work the development of two molecularly imprinted polymers, specific for ochratoxin A, is presented. Ochratoxin A is produced by several Aspergillus and Penicillium species and is common in cereals and other starch rich foods and has also been found in coffee, dried fruits, wine, beer and meats. It demonstrates potent teratogenic, immunosuppressive, mutagenic and carcinogenic properties. The toxin is also linked to Balkan Endemic Nephropathy, a chronic kidney disease found in South-Eastern Europe. Due to this the European Union has set limits on foodstuffs ranging between 2-10 ng g-1. Therefore the requirement of a simple and inexpensive biosensor to monitor this legislation is a necessity. Currently detection is performed by chromatographic methods such as HPLC, and by ELISA formats. In this work two polymeric materials, rationally designed by computational modelling and synthesised using molecular imprinting, are studied. The modelling is complimented with a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) study. The first polymer (Polymer A) consisted of 1 mol of acrylamide and 1 mol of methacrylic acid to 1 mol of template. This material demonstrated an unusual binding mechanism, working solely in aqueous solvents. A theoretical mechanism for this binding is presented and discussed. The second polymer, again rationally designed, but under different conditions, consisted of 1 mol of N,Ndiethylamino ethyl methacrylate (DEAEM) to 1 mol of template. This polymer demonstrated high affinity for the template in acetonitrile. Polymer A is used in combination with an ion-exchange SPE protocol (developed for this purpose) for the extraction of OTA from maize. Both polymer compositions are used in development of a MIP membrane optical sensor, with partial success seen in the detection of OTA in grape juice and white wine.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Arthritis and depression are two of the top disabling conditions. When arthritis and depression exist in the same individual, they can interact with each other negatively and pose a significant healthcare burden on the patients, their families, payers, healthcare systems, and society as a whole. Areas covered: The primary objective of this review is to summarize, identify knowledge gaps and discuss the challenges in estimating the healthcare burden of depression among individuals with arthritis. Electronic literature searches were performed on PubMed, Embase, EBSCOhost, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar to identify relevant studies. Expert Commentary: Our review revealed that the prevalence of depression varied depending on the definition of depression, type of arthritis, tools and threshold points used to identify depression, and the country of residence. Depression exacerbated arthritis-related complications as well as pain and was associated with poor health-related quality of life, disability, mortality, and high financial burden. There were significant knowledge gaps in estimates of incident depression rates, depression attributable disability, and healthcare utilization, direct and indirect healthcare costs among individuals with arthritis.


Different from Laplacian or normal matrix, the properties of the adjacency eigenspace received much less attention. Recent work showed that nodes projected into the adjacency eigenspace exhibit an orthogonal line pattern and nodes from the same community locate along the same line. In this paper, we conduct theoretical studies based on graph perturbation to demonstrate why this line orthogonality property holds in the adjacency eigenspace and why it generally disappears in the Laplacian and normal eigenspaces. Using the orthogonality property in the adjacency eigenspace, we present a graph partition algorithm, AdjCluster, which first projects node coordinates to the unit sphere and then applies the classic k-means to find clusters. Empirical evaluations on synthetic data and real-world social networks validate our theoretical findings and show the effectiveness of our graph partition algorithm.


The authors have used the single-zircon Pb-evaporation technique to determine the age of granitoids in the western Flin Flon domain of the Trans-Hudson orogen in Canada and to constrain the timing of molasse sedimentation, deformation, metamorphism, and mesothermal gold mineralization. The plutons were intruded between 1,860 and 1,834 Ma, about 30 m.y. after volcanism, and provide further evidence of a major period of intrusive activity throughout the Trans-Hudson orogen at that time. The older plutons (1,860 to 1,848 Ma) are synchronous with P2 deformation and the early stages of peak metamorphism, whereas the younger plutons are synchronous with or postdate the P3 deformation event. Molasse sedimentary units are deformed and metamorphosed; thus, deposition must have begun at about 1,860 Ma. Mesothermal gold mineralization postdates all plutons and may be related to high-grade peak metamorphism in adjacent terranes at about 1,815 Ma. This study also provides further support for the use of the Pb-evaporation technique as a suitable method for dating single zircons and indicates that the {sup 208}Pb/{sup 206}Pb ratio of zircons may be a useful tool in detecting the presence and source of xenocrystic zircons.


Previous studies of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have identified several meiosis-specific genes whose products are required for wild-type levels of meiotic recombination and for normal synaptonemal complex (SC) formation. Several of these mutants were examined in a physical assay designed to detect heteroduplex DNA (hDNA) intermediates in meiotic recombination. hDNA was not detected in the rec102, mei4 and hop1 mutants; it was observed at reduced levels in red1, mek1 and mer1 strains and at greater than the wild-type level in zip1. These results indicate that the REC102, MEI4, HOP1, RED1, MEK1 and MER1 gene products act before hDNA formation in the meiotic recombination pathway, whereas ZIP1 acts later. The same mutants assayed for hDNA formation were monitored for meiotic chromosome pairing by in situ hybridization of chromosome-specific DNA probes to spread meiotic nuclei. Homolog pairing occurs at wild-type levels in the zip1 and mek1 mutants, but is substantially reduced in mei4, rec102, hop1, red1 and mer1 strains. Even mutants that fail to recombine or to make any SC or SC precursors undergo a significant amount of meiotic chromosome pairing. The in situ hybridization procedure revealed defects in meiotic chromatin condensation in mer1, red1 and hop1 strains.


Importance
Age-related sensorineural hearing loss is a common health problem among adults. Nearly 16% of US adults 18 years or older report difficulty hearing. The prevalence of perceived hearing loss increases with age. Hearing loss can adversely affect an individual's quality of life and ability to function independently and has been associated with increased risk of falls, hospitalizations, social isolation, and cognitive decline.

Objective
To update its 2012 recommendation, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) commissioned a systematic review on screening for hearing loss in adults 50 years or older.

Population
Asymptomatic adults 50 years or older with age-related hearing loss.

Evidence Assessment
Because of a lack of evidence, the USPSTF concludes that the benefits and harms of screening for hearing loss in asymptomatic older adults are uncertain and that the balance of benefits and harms cannot be determined. More research is needed.

Recommendation
The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for hearing loss in older adults. (I statement).


In an article published in 2011 by the Journal of Competition Law & Economics entitled "Collusion on Private Health Insurance Coverage in Chile," Claudio Agostini, Eduardo Saavedra, and Manuel Willington presented a critical analysis of the 2007 pronouncement by the Chilean antitrust authority rejecting an accusation of collusion against the five largest health insurance companies in Chile. Given the lack of direct evidence of collusion, the accusation against the health insurance providers was based mainly on economic and econometric evidence provided by these authors during the trial. This article shows that, when properly assessed, such empirical evidence does not support the claim of collusion. This article concludes that the Chilean antitrust authority did not make a mistake in rejecting the accusation.


In the long period of adapting to social development, museums have become cultural complexes with multiple functions. With the development of society, the functions of museums are also changing with new functions, forms and solutions continually emerging. The projects featured in this book are focusing on architecture and interior, light and indoor climate and sustainable features in art museums supported with case studies, full colour photographs and architectural plans throughout. Among the projects presented here are Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, New Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, Poland, Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen, Germany, Song & Fjordane Art Museum in Forde, Norway.


Serotonin induces the phenotypic switch from solitary to gregarious behavior in desert locusts. In desert locusts, the radical transformation from a harmless "solitarious" form to the swarm-forming "gregarious" phase is one of the most extraordinary and iconic examples of density-dependent phenotypic plasticity in nature, as well as one of the most economically devastating. Now Anstey et al. (see the Perspective by Stevenson) reveal a neurochemical mechanism linking the changed behavior of individuals to profound changes in population structure, which, in this instance, lead to swarming and mass migration. The key to the phenotypic change is the ubiquitous neurotransmitter serotonin, which is synthesized in response to multiple sensory cues that gauge locust population density, switching locusts from mutual aversion to mutual attraction—the first and essential stage in establishing swarms. M. L. Anstey, S. M. Rogers, S. R. Ott, M. Burrows, S. J. Simpson, Serotonin mediates behavioral gregarization underlying swarm formation in desert locusts. Science 323, 627–630 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text] P. A. Stevenson, The key to Pandora's box. Science 323, 594–595 (2009). [Summary] [Full Text]


In the field of marketing research, researchers can choose what research strategy to be used. Whether the researchers will use quantitative or qualitative methods? Whether the researcher will use survey methods or experiment? At this time in the field of marketing research, many researchers switched to using design of experiments. If we look at the survey and experiment turns each have advantages and disadvantages. Is the design of this experiment could solve marketing research? Experimentation is the objective observation of phenomena that are made to happen in a very controlled situation in which one or more factors left to vary while the other factors held constant. Experimental design has the advantage of having high internal validity, but instead a low external validity. This paper attempts to review how the experimental design, especially in marketing research. Keywords: marketing research, experimental design, survey, internal validity, external validity


Theses days vast amounts of information are continuously being created. By analyzing these data, we could help solve current issues that we are faced with, and we might have a better ability to predict the future.Large high-resolution displays can support increasing the amount of data being displayed. Therefore, large high-resolution environments have the potential to provide affordable infrastructure to maximize insight for exploration and analytic work of large and complex data. Unfortunately the current usage of large high-resolution environment has been limited to presentation, demonstration, or user studies due to usability issues on large high-resolution displays. User behavior analysis researchers have found that it became more difficult and time consuming to access and manipulate information as screen size increased, users were easily frustrated and confused when they changed environments, users wasted more space on large high-resolution displays, and users felt guilty about the wasted space. These usability issues can hinder the user from concentrating on their task and data. This is the serious issue in moving beyond the current usage of large high-resolution display environments. As display size increases, the degree of these usability issues will also increase.
This dissertation focuses on space organization design to solve usability issues. Space organization design can impact how users can effectively make use of large high-resolution display. First, we observed user behaviors in different use cases on large high-resolution displays. We introduced design principles driven from these observations. We proposed space organization design. It consists of space organization policies, new enhanced techniques, and multi-touch interaction. To evaluate the proposed design we conducted a comparative user study in data exploration and analytic workspace, and a case study in small group meeting space. The proposed design significantly impacts the user's analytic activity and usage of the space. Information manipulation time was significantly reduced, so participants could focus more on their task and data. Activity transitions were subtly changed to improve transition flow, which included less space layout activity. Used space ratio was significantly increased, the distribution used space was significantly fair, and focal area of usage was slightly wider.


Law today has entered the digital age. The way law is practiced - how truth and justice are represented and assessed - is increasingly dependent on what appears on electronic screens in courtrooms, law offices, government agencies, and elsewhere. Practicing lawyers know this and are rapidly adapting to the new era of digital visual rhetoric. Legal theory and education, however, have yet to catch up. This article is the first systematic effort to theorize law's transformation by new visual and multimedia technologies and to set out the changes in legal pedagogy that are needed to prepare law students for practice in the new environment. The article explores the consequences for legal theory and practice of the shift from an objectivist to a constructivist approach to human knowledge, using an expanded, multidisciplinary understanding of rhetoric to analyze the elusiveness of evidentiary truth and the nature and ethics of persuasion in the digital era.


A collaborative research project was set up to study peripheral diamond wheel machining damage in silicon nitride ceramics. The objective of the work to be carried out at the University of Surrey was to study the nature and depth of machining damage in 3 point flexural rupture test bars made from 5 wt% Y2O3 sintered hot isostatically pressed silicon nitride. The bars were machined to three surface finishes. The work carried out at Rolls-Royce by Mr R Quinn concentrated on the effects the machining damage had on the fracture strengths of the test bars. Work at the University of Surrey has identified in detail the nature and depth of machining damage in "coarse" 0. 4mum centre line average roughness surfaces. Deep grooves up to 2mum depth, 18mum width are found to have been superimposed on the general surface roughness by singularly large diamonds in the 350 grit diamond wheel. Sub-surface median cracks normal to the machining direction were clearly identified in bar cross-sections using oblique, diffuse "penumbra" illumination in an optical microscope, an as yet undocumented technique. Cross-section views of the machined surface and sub-surface were made possible by the very difficult and delicate technique of producing sandwich cross-sections of the machined bars. An analysis of machining-induced median cracks has not been carried out in such detail before. Semi-elliptical in shape the median cracks extend from 6mum - 45mum below the machined surface, and range from 19mum to 101mum in length parallel to the machining direction. They initiate at the focal point of a tributary system of microcracks at an average depth of 4mum - 5mum below the machined surface. It is believed that the median cracks initiate at the plastic/elastic boundary of a plastically deformed surface layer. Therefore a residual compressive layer, formed by the overlap of localised residual stresses from multi-particle contact events. and bound by an underlying tensile field, is thought to have an average depth of 4mum - 5mum. A very innovative technique was used to reveal sub-surface deformation, where TEM X-ray microdiffraction spots were distorted by mechanical damage in the ceramic grain structure. The "arcing" or "streaking" of the diffraction spots tended to disappear at a depth of 4mum - 5mum below the machined surface. This is further evidence of the existence of a thin layer in residual compression, which has an average depth of 4mum - 5mum. This technique is not known to have been used before. Fine diamond machining with a 600 grit wheel produced a centre line average roughness of 0.01/0.02 mum. However, evidence of machining damage is still present in the form of "remnant tracks" which lie parallel to the machining direction and consist of material pull-out. They are remnants of machining damage under grinding grooves introduced in previous machining stages. Single point Vickers pyramid diamond scratches were implemented at different loads on a polished surface. The morphology of the grooves and material fragmentation and the sub-surface median cracks were examined. Many features were found to resemble the deformation/fracture formed under a deep grinding groove in the coarse machined surface. Work carried out at Rolls-Royce by R Quinn showed that an increase in the quality of surface finish is accompanied by an increase in the mean strength and Weibull modulus of the machined bars. Furthermore a distinct anisotropy in the fracture strengths parallel and normal to the "coarse" machining direction is evidence of anisotropy in machining damage formed by a peripheral diamond grinding wheel. X-ray diffraction tests carried out at the CEGB by P E J Flewitt showed that machining damage produces a long range biaxial residual compressive field with the highest component acting normal to the machining direction. These results are consistent with the nature of machining damage identified at the University of Surrey, namely the strength-controlling median cracks which lie parallel to the machining direction and the residual compressive stress which exists as a thin 4mum - 5mum layer below the machined surface. Processing flaws were discovered in the as-hipped billets received for the project. Their elemental composition and likely origin were examined. A three dimensional "cellular network" flaw ranging from 400mum to 2.1mm in size (in different production batches) is believed to have been formed as a result of flocculation clustering during processing. Clusters of 1mum - 3mum metallic particles were also identified. They range from 5mum - 45mum in size. The contaminant particles are steel and were introduced as a result of the original ceramic powder ball milling process which employed a steel ball mill.


The overall aim of this thesis is to study the possible perturbations of the immune system by occupational and environmental risk factors of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and to study these changes in relation to NHL risk in prospective cohorts. In the first section, we validated the application of single blood cytokine measurements as a biomarker of immune status in prospective epidemiological studies. Potential utility of stored blood samples of a prospective cohort was evaluated by the effect of different blood sample types and freeze-thaw cycles on cytokine levels. This study showed strong correlations between different sample types. Moreover, freeze-thaw cycles did not markedly change cytokine levels. The intra-individual variance in cytokine levels was much smaller than the inter-individual variance which supports the notion that a single cytokine measurement can be used to characterize an individual's immune profile prospectively. Subsequently, we assessed the levels of these cytokines in pre-diagnostic blood samples of participants of a case–control study nested into the Italian European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort (EPIC) and determined their association with the risk of developing NHL. The results suggest a possible association between increased/decreased plasma levels of interleukin (IL)2, inter-cellular adhesion molecule, interferon gamma (IFN-γ), and tumor necrosis factor alpha with NHL risk. In the second section, we studied the possible immunological effects of two possibly lymphomagens: an occupational exposure (i.e. 2,3,7,8- tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD)) and an environmental risk factor (i.e. obesity). We assessed a broad range of immunologic parameters directed towards detecting abnormalities in the humoral and cellular arms of the immune system among workers exposed to chlorophenoxy herbicides, chlorophenols and dioxins in particular TCDD. These studies showed that plasma TCDD levels were not associated with markers of humoral immunity with the possible exception of a decrease in complement factor 4 levels. Most lymphocyte subsets, in particular the B cell compartment, showed a decrease in cell counts with increasing levels of TCDD. Moreover, blood levels of most cytokines, chemokines and growth factors had a negative association with TCDD levels with a formal statistical significance for fractalkine, transforming growth factor alpha and fibroblast growth factor 2. These changes were independent from the changes in blood cell counts. Our findings support the notion that dioxin exposure can have an adverse impact on the immune system and likely suppresses the immune system. To identify immunologic hallmarks of obesity, we measured plasma levels of cytokines in pre-diagnostic blood samples of participants of a case-control study nested in the Italian EPIC cohort. IL8, IL10, IFN-γ, and interferon-induced protein 10 (IP10) were related to obesity. However, the set of obesity predictors (IL8, IL10, IFN-γ, IP10) were not associated with future NHL risk. Our studies support that subtle perturbations in the immune system may precede lymphoma development and suggest that B cell activation, chronic inflammation and/or an unbalance in Th1/Th2-responses are likely important phenomena in lymphomagenesis. Although, possible occupational and environmental risk factors of NHL influence the immune system they did not pertubate immune markers shown to be associated with future NHL risk.


Biomaterials are dynamic tools with many applications: from the primitive use of bone and wood in the replacement of lost limbs and body parts, to the refined involvement of smart and responsive biomaterials in modern medicine and biomedical sciences. Hydrogels constitute a subtype of biomaterials built from water-swollen polymer networks. Their large water content and soft mechanical properties are highly similar to most biological tissues, making them ideal for tissue engineering and biomedical applications. The mechanical properties of hydrogels and their modulation have attracted a lot of attention from the field of mechanobiology. Protein-based hydrogels are becoming increasingly attractive due to their endless design options and array of functionalities, as well as their responsiveness to stimuli. Furthermore, just like the extracellular matrix, they are inherently viscoelastic in part due to mechanical unfolding/refolding transitions of folded protein domains. This review summarizes different natural and engineered protein hydrogels focusing on different strategies followed to modulate their mechanical properties. Applications of mechanically tunable protein-based hydrogels in drug delivery, tissue engineering and mechanobiology are discussed.


While offering a public welcome of communicative participation, a communicative dark side of the moderate Enlightenment project emerged. Moderate Enlightenmentrsquo;s corollary companion to wresting power from a limited few is the staggering sense of confidence in the universal ground of assurance that is ldquo;bad faithrdquo; mdash;we fib to ourselves that we can stand above history and affect the future. Absolute conviction of universal access to truth propels through methodological confidence, undergirding the era of ldquo;the rationalrdquo; pursuit of truth, transporting the individual into an ethereal delusionmdash;that one can stand above the historical moment of engagement and cast judgment. This essay calls into question the common assumption that communication begins with the individual. We offer a critique of this assumption in accordance with radical enlightenment scholarship, calling forth a return to Otherness that renders the construct of individual secondary to that which is met.br /


The study delves into the foreign policy plans of Alexei Navalny, the Russian politician who is currently commonly regarded as the most prominent opposition leader and the sole plausible alternative to Vladimir Putin. Drawing on his interviews, public speeches, media publications and electoral manifestos, the author analyses his foreign policy views alongside three topics, that is, Russia's policies towards disputed lands and states in the post-Soviet area (Crimea, Donbas, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria), the country's foreign policy orientation and priorities (especially regarding relations with the West) and assessment of the Putin regime's foreign policy. Following this, the author speculates on the likely foundations of Russia's foreign policy under Navalny's possible presidency and their implications for the West.


Background Studies reporting inadequate nursing care for patients indicate that nurses are negatively affected in such situations, and research is needed to study nursing care in postoperative situations. Objective To describe situations of postoperative pain management in a surgical ward in Thailand. Methods A qualitative approach using the Critical Incident Technique was chosen to investigate situations of postoperative pain management from the perspective of surgical nurses in Thailand. Data were collected through multiple semi-structured interviews with nine nurses over a five-week period. Results The situations of surgical nurses described three elements that heavily influenced the quality of postoperative pain management: engagement in a trustful nurse-patient relationship, availability of pain medication and nursing care when needed, and imbalance between meeting the patient's needs and completing routine nursing duties. Conclusion The results help to expand our understanding of how Thai nurses manage pain in postoperative situations and indicate areas that could be improved in terms of how nurses respond to patients' pain. Nurses challenge existing guidelines and facilitate development of new nursing guidelines and/or policies in pain management.


The aim was to prepare composites of PU and magnetite-functionalized CNTs, using physical blending techniques in melt and solution. Objectives included functionalizing the CNT with magnetite (Fe3O4), preparing PU-CNT-Fe3O4 composites using solvent dispersion and melt mixing, and determining the influence of processing technique on the thermomechanical, thermal and magnetic properties of the composites. Characterization was performed using thermogravimetry, creep and recovery testing (Figure 3), modulated force thermomechanical analysis and magnetic induction (Figure 4). Filler distribution and concentration were found to be crucial factors that determine composite thermal stability. Tensile properties and glass transition temperature (Tg) increased with magnetite-CNT concentration in the PU, while creep deformation decreased. Composites prepared via melt mixing were stronger and less-elastic in behavior than those prepared using solvent dispersion. The four element and Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) models were successfully utilized to describe creep and recovery behavior, respectively. Incorporation of magnetite-CNT caused the films become more solid-like, as indicated by the decrease in retardation time. Material properties were influenced by filler concentration and processing technique.


Process analysis and improvement, one of the core phases in the business process management life cycle, is reaching the top of the agenda for many enterprises and organizations. An emerging approach to analyzing business processes involves the use of process‐oriented data warehouses to collect information about executed processes to enable their detailed analysis and thereby provide bases for possible improvements. However, very little work has been carried out on employing business orientation in the design and utilization of a process warehouse. The approach presented in this study addresses that limitation by proposing a method that relates business goals to the information from the warehouse. To do so, we start by defining a desired goal structure that concerns an existing business process. The obtained goal model is firstly utilized for scoping and designing a corresponding data model for a process warehouse, and further for retrieving the information from the warehouse to examine the fulfillment of the goals of interest. The key benefits of the proposed method are the provision of the relevant and accurate business process information as well as tracing the process‐related goals to the process execution data and further to the analysis of the process. As validation of the proposed method, we develop a prototype, and a healthcare process is used as an illustrative example. Also, to demonstrate the method quality, we perform an experiment on the effectiveness of the information access and retrieval. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This work looks into Swaziland's political, economic, social and cultural relations with Britain (its former colonial master) and South Africa (its big and rich neighbour) in the period since Swaziland's Independence in 1968. The focus is on how Swaziland's relations with Britain and South Africa influence its socio-economic and political developments, and its internal and external security. As a micro-state, with a population of less than 0.7 million people, the assumption is made that Swaziland's progress and security can be reasonably assessed by examining its relations with the two powerful states with whom it has close links. This assumption arises from the fact that (i) Swaziland inherited political institutions from Britain, (ii) there were strong economic links (investments, trade, aid) between it and Britain at Independence and these ties continue today, (iii) there were, and still are, economic links in almost every aspect between Swaziland and South Africa at Independence and (iv) South Africa dominates the Southern Africa region - militarily and economically. The main arguments in the Thesis are (a) that the economic links between Swaziland and the two states provide economic growth for the former, thus helping to maintain stability, although South African domination threatens to undermine Swaziland's independence (b) that Swaziland has pursued a "tightrope policy" in Southern Africa, and that this regional strategy has, on the whole, succeeded in helping the country's survival; and (c) that the political system of Swaziland has an in-built tension in that the traditional institutions exist alongside modern ones and this is a threat to political stability.


Many works related learning from examples to regularization techniques for inverse problems, emphasizing the strong algorithmic and conceptual analogy of certain learning algorithms with regularization algorithms. In particular it is well known that regularization schemes such as Tikhonov regularization can be effectively used in the context of learning and are closely related to algorithms such as support vector machines. Nevertheless the connection with inverse problem was considered only for the discrete (finite sample) problem and the probabilistic aspects of learning from examples were not taken into account. In this paper we provide a natural extension of such analysis to the continuous (population) case and study the interplay between the discrete and continuous problems. From a theoretical point of view, this allows to draw a clear connection between the consistency approach in learning theory and the stability convergence property in ill-posed inverse problems. The main mathematical result of the paper is a new probabilistic bound for the regularized least-squares algorithm. By means of standard results on the approximation term, the consistency of the algorithm easily follows.


The measured underspending over the last 5 years has more to do with ambitious targets rather than apathetic or incompetent bureaucrats: while actual disbursements fell short of planned disbursements by about ten percent per year from 2011 to 2015, real per capita disbursements on capital outlays and maintenance and operating expenses increased relative to levels in 1999 to 2010 by an average of 41.6 and 76.8 percent respectively. The bureaucracy was unable to keep up with its own ambitions because of absorptive capacity constraints which were driven in part by the inertia from three decades of maneuvering in tight fiscal space as well as coordination problems and other structural bottlenecks, some of which have long-attended budget and plan design and execution but have not been recognized as binding constraints until now. The fund absorption problem is not uniform across agencies however indicating more fundamental organizational issues in certain sectors, and the need for actions beyond public finance management reforms to optimize the contribution of fiscal spending to inclusive growth.


The assumption grounding this issue of SAJHE is that; a university or any institution of higher learning comes to its fullness through serious engagement with the community. All authors herein deconstruct the ivory tower notion of a university and attempt to look at it as an integral instance of civil society which has to contribute and learn from other institutions in the community. Thus the common idea bringing all the papers in this volume together is the concern for universities to learn from the community at the same time that as they are providing service thereto. Together the papers demonstrate that for learning to be sustainable and empowering for all, this reciprocal relationship of mutual benefit and respect needs to be put in place (Keene and Colligan 2004; Welch and Billig 2004). Furthermore this issue is informative and exciting because of the new and multiple voices it represents. Most of these voices are couched within social justice paradigm advocating for universities to be inclusive and directly engaged in resolving problems of poverty, oppression and marginalisation as these impede optimal learning especially among rural and immigrant communities in South Africa, Canada and the world over. The primary focus of all papers herein therefore is on the creation of sustainable empowering learning environments through engaged scholarship spearheaded by the university.


This paper studies an optimal renegotiation protocol designed by a benevolent planner when two countries renegotiate with the same lender. The solution calls for recoveries that induce each country to default or repay, trading off the deadweight costs and the redistribution benefits of default independently of the other country. This outcome contrasts with a decentralized bargaining solution where default in one country increases the likelihood of default in the second country because recoveries are lower when both countries renegotiate. The paper suggests that policies geared at designing renegotiation processes that treat countries in isolation can prevent contagion of debt crises.


Communication scholarship has witnessed an explosion of disciplinary divisions and specific topic interest groups in the past 50 years that represents either noteworthy maturation or a troubling splintering, depending on your vantage point. As a result, important intersections remain for us to explore. In this review, we seek to highlight connections between interpersonal communication and mass media campaigns by identifying related streams of research that help us to explain how and why interpersonal talk and mass media efforts routinely affect each other. In doing so, we identify three general categories of roles of interpersonal communication: (planned or unintended) media campaign outcome, mediator of media campaign effects, and moderator of campaign effects.


Primarily focused on idioms and other figurative phraseology, Colouring Meaning describes how the meanings of established phrases are enhanced, refocused and modified in everyday language use. Unlike many studies of creativity in language, this book-length survey addresses the matter at several levels, from the purely linguistic level of collocation, through its abstractions in colligation and semantic preference, to semantic prosody and connotation. This journey through both linguistic and cognitive levels involves the examination of habitual language and its exploitations, both mundane and colourful, explaining the phenomena observed in terms of current psycholinguistic research as well as corpus linguistics theory and analysis. The relationships between meaning in text and meaning in the mind are discussed at length and extensively illustrated with worked case studies to offer the reader a comprehensive overview of metaphorical and other secondary meanings as they emerge in real-world communicative situations.


Sorghum, which is grown internationally as a cereal crop that is robust to heat, drought, and disease, has numerous applications for food, forage, and biofuels. When monitoring the growth stages of sorghum, or phenotyping specific traits for plant breeding, it is important to identify and monitor the panicles in the field due to their impact relative to grain production. Several studies have focused on detecting panicles based on data acquired by RGB and multispectral remote sensing technologies. However, few experiments have included hyperspectral data because of its high dimensionality and computational requirements, even though the data provide abundant spectral information. Relative to analysis approaches, machine learning, and specifically deep learning models have the potential of accommodating the complexity of these data. In order to detect panicles in the field with different physical characteristics, such as colors and shapes, very high spectral and spatial resolution hyperspectral data were collected with a wheeled-based platform, processed, and analyzed with multiple extensions of the VGG-16 Fully Convolutional Network (FCN) semantic segmentation model.In order to have correct positioning, orthorectification experiments were also conducted in the study to obtain the proper positioning of the image data acquired by the pushbroom hyperspectral camera at near range. The scale of the DSM derived from LiDAR that was used for orthorectification of the hyperspectral data was determined to be a critical issue, and the application of the Savitzky-Golay filter to the original DSM data was shown to contribute to the improved quality of the orthorectified imagery.Three tuned versions of the VGG-16 FCN Deep Learning architecture were modified to accommodate the hyperspectral data: PCA&FCN, 2D-FCN, and 3D-FCN. It was concluded that all the three models can detect the late season panicles included in this study, but the end-to-end models performed better in terms of precision, recall, and the F-score metrics . Future work should focus on improving annotation strategies and the model architecture to detect different panicle varieties and to separate overlapping panicles based on an adequate quantities of training data acquired during the flowering stage.


This Article addresses the structure and organization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001. The Article is inspired by the extraordinary controversy that has attended the Fund and its operation. There is-in my view-a universal consensus that it was entirely appropriate for the Congress, on behalf of the American people, to create the Fund. All citizens sympathize with the thousands of victims of the September 11th attacks, and I have seen no serious commentary suggesting that a compensation program like the September 11th Fund should not have been created. Moreover, there is also general consensus that the person to whom widespread discretion for its implementation has been delegated, Special Master Kenneth Feinberg, has executed his duties, as much as he possibly can, with good judgment, commitment, and dedication to the victims whom the Fund aspires to compensate. Nevertheless, the September 11th Fund has generated remarkable controversy. Virtually all of its individual components have been criticized in some form. 1 Although the very large majority (97%) of those eligible for compensation filed claims,2 the Special Master has been sued by sets of families in federal court, chiefly, it appears, by families of comparatively high income victims (many from Cantor Fitzgerald). For months, the press reported heated complaints about the Fund on nearly a weekly basis.


Despite the prevalence of mental health problems in the United Kingdom, there is a
disparity between the number of individuals suffering with such difficulties and those
that seek professional psychological help. Specifically, young adult men account for the
least frequent users of psychological services. A wide body of literature has found that
men's reluctance to seek help is associated with traditional masculine ideologies. The
present research aimed to investigate this further by asking how a sample of young adult
men from London and the surrounding boroughs constructed psychological helpseeking
and masculinity, and the implications these had for their subject positioning and
help-seeking practices.
The research adopted a qualitative methodology, incorporating a social constructionist
paradigm. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten men aged 18-25 years
old. The participants were predominantly white British, and had no mental health
problems or previous experience of psychological service use. An integrative form of
discourse analysis was carried out, which drew on discursive and Foucauldian features
to explore the different interpretative repertoires, ideologies and subject positions that
were available for the participants to work up in their talk.
It was found that the men in the sample drew on a number of interpretative repertoires
in order to construct help-seeking, and also constructed particular masculine identities
within which to position themselves and others. Specifically, psychological helpseeking
presented some ideological dilemmas to the men in the sample, where they
risked being positioned as abnormal within society or weak, feminine men. The
participants discursively managed this by drawing on several discursive strategies and
discourses of 'macho' men who are brave to seek help, and 'new' men who are
comfortable with expressing their emotions. It was concluded that this enabled
psychological help-seeking to become a legitimate practice. However, it was also
discussed how the dominance of traditional hegemonic masculinity constrained the way
in which these men were able to construct psychological help-seeking. The findings of
the present study contribute to therapists' awareness of masculinity-related issues with
their male clients, and also inform the way psychological services could be marketed to
men. The findings also provide support to the literature that has criticised and extended
Connel's (1995) theory of hegemonic masculinity.


Climate change caused by various factors of environmental damage is a phenomenon that occurs in all aspects of human life on this earth. Especially urban areas, which has become the center of civilization and the economy has suffered severe environmental damage.Green open space is a space that can be covered with trees or other plants, which, although narrow, but may help in reducing the effects, of environmental degradation. Studies on the content of biomass and carbon stored in the green open space is very important to determine the ability of green open space to absorb carbon. This research involves various sectors that cause carbon emissions in Kendari the capital city of Southeast Sulawesi Province in Indonesia, namely from the transport sector, industry and trade, education and office and residential activities. This research was conducted in three areas, namely business district, offices and settlements. The availability of green open space based on the calculation of the absorption of CO 2 and produce O 2 as well as the calculation of the availability of the number of trees to produce O 2 and absorb CO 2. The needs of green open space is calculated based on the needs of oxygen in humans and vehicles, carbon emissions in humans, vehicles, and household electronic equipment and green open space broad needs and the number of trees to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in the business district, offices and settlements. The results showed that the availability of green space based on oxygen consumption in the business district should have a green open space covering 61% of the total area, the settlement area must have a comprehensive RTH minimum of 15.3% of the area of the region, which means a minimum area of RTH not eligible based on oxygen demand, while for an office area, the existing green open space area is 53.16% that an area has exceeded the minimum requirement of extensive green open space based on the need for oxygen. It is relevant to a comparison of emissions and carbon deposits in the three regions, namely the business area amounted to 0.2189 tons of carbon savings with the amount of emissions to 3.5 tons per day, the settlement area total carbon storage is 62.545 producing an emission of 10.6 tons per day, while the office area produces carbon deposits is amounted to 5,464.93 tons per day by the number of emissions of 34.3 tons per day.


Aim/Purpose
This paper identifies and examines cross-cutting experiences from the perspective of two doctoral students, whose research was affected by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).

Background
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be challenging for higher education scholars in terms of proceeding with their research and how the pandemic sets the scene for changes in higher education's future. Due to increased anxiety levels because of uncertainties, the paper provides a reflection of doctoral experiences from two students – one in Russia at the data collection stage, and one in China (enrolled in New Zealand) at the proposal stage.

Methodology
Through collaborative autoethnography and joint-reflection, we analyze our experiences as doctoral students focusing on methodological adjustments, ethical dilemmas, adaptation strategies and supervisor-supervisee relationships. Conducting a collaborative autoethnography provides a richer analysis of the interplay between perspectives, compared to a traditional autoethnography. Collaborative autoethnography also provides conditions for a collective exploration of subjectivities of doctoral students through an iterative process. After providing separate individual accounts, we discussed our experiences, analyzed them, and engaged in a joint-reflection from our consensual interpretations.

Contribution
Our work aims to contribute to existing discussions on how COVID-19 impacted on doctoral students' coping strategies during the pandemic. The paper encourages doctoral students to further discuss how they navigate their doctoral experiences through auto-ethnography and joint-reflections.

Findings
Three main themes transpired in our analysis. First, we encountered roadblocks such as interruptions, frustrations and resistance to adapt our doctoral studies in the pandemic context, which align with the recent literature regarding education during the coronavirus pandemic. Second, we faced a diversity of burdens and privileges in the pandemic, which provided us with both pleasant (opportunity to create change) and unpleasant (unknown threats) situations, thereby enabling us to construct and reconstruct our stories through reflection. Third, we experienced a shared unfamiliarity of doing doctoral studies during the pandemic, to which the role of the academic community including our supervisors and doctoral colleagues contributed to how we managed our circumstances.

Recommendations for Practitioners
We speak to our fellow doctoral students to dare navigate their doctoral experiences through collaborative reflections. In practice, by reflecting on our experience, we recommend that new doctoral students remain flexible and mindful of their doctoral journeys and recognize their agency to deal with the unexpected. We thus encourage the view of doctoral studies as a process rather than outcome-oriented, as we gain experience from processes.

Recommendations for Researchers
We recommend using both collaborative autoethnography and joint-reflection as an instructive tool for qualitative research. Such engagements offer important discussions towards further communications and exchange of ideas among doctoral students from various backgrounds.

Impact on Society
More broadly, this work is an invitation to reflect and provoke further thoughts to articulate reflections on the impact and various ways of thinking that the pandemic might bring to the fore.

Future Research
Doctoral students are welcome to contribute to a collectivity of narratives that thicken the data and analyses of their pandemic experiences in higher education to reinforce the role of doctoral researchers as agents of history in the trying times of a pandemic.


While cerebral plasticity has been extensively studied and demonstrated – during ontogenetic development, few studies have considered adult plasticity in different social contexts using relevant social communication signals. Communication requires adaptability throughout the life of an individual, especially in species for which breeding periods (when intersexual signaling prevails) are interspersed with more 'social' (non‐sexual) periods when intrasexual bonding prevails. In songbirds, structure or frequency of songs or song elements may convey different information depending on the season. This is the case in the European starling, where some song structures characterize social bonds between females while other song structures are more characteristic of male courtship. We hypothesized that the female perceptual system may have adapted to these changes in song structure and function according to season, and we tested for potential seasonal brain plasticity. Electrophysiological recordings from adult female starlings during playback of song elements with different functions showed clear seasonal (breeding/non‐breeding) changes in neuronal responses in the primary auditory area. The proportion of responsive sites was higher in response to social (non‐sexual) songs during the non‐reproductive season, and higher in response to sexual songs during the reproductive season.


D-serine is present in the vertebrate retina and serves as a coagonist for the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors of ganglion cells. Although the enzyme D-amino acid oxidase (DAO) has been implicated as a pathway for d-serine degradation, its role in the retina has not been established. In this study, we investigated the role of DAO in regulating D-serine levels using a mutant mouse line deficient in DAO (ddY/DAO(-)) and compared these results with their wild-type counterparts (ddY/DAO(+)). Our results show that DAO is functionally present in the mouse retina and normally serves to reduce the background levels of D-serine. The enzymatic activity of DAO was restricted to the inner plexiform layer as determined by histochemical analysis. Using capillary electrophoresis, we showed that mutant mice had much higher levels of D-serine. Whole cell recordings from identified retinal ganglion cells demonstrated that DAO-deficient animals had light-evoked synaptic activity strongly biased toward a high NMDA-to-AMPA receptor ratio. In contrast, recordings from wild-type ganglion cells showed a more balanced ratio between the two receptor subclasses. Immunostaining for AMPA and NMDA receptors was carried out to compare the two receptor ratios by quantitative immunofluorescence. These studies revealed that the mutant mouse had a significantly higher representation of NMDA receptors compared with the wild-type controls. We conclude that 1) DAO is an important regulatory enzyme and normally functions to reduce D-serine levels in the retina, and 2) D-serine levels play a role in the expression of NMDA receptors and the NMDA-to-AMPA receptor ratio.


In many cities and urban areas in Africa, land acquisition for urban redevelopment, land readjustment, and resettlement of affected urban residents are currently framed as innovative approaches to eradicating informal settlements, improving the living environments, and supporting the implementation of newly adopted city Master Plans. Nevertheless, it is not yet known how the responses of institutions and affected people shape these processes. Based on research conducted in Kigali, Rwanda, this article discusses affected residents' responses to land expropriation and resettlement necessary for urban redevelopments. Our findings show that affected informal settlement dwellers voiced their concerns over the deviations from the Expropriation Law, compensation decision-making made behind closed doors, lack of transparency in property valuation, and compensation packages that they perceive to be unfair. Some of the consequences of these concerns are strong feelings of unfairness, exclusion, and marginalisation; distrust and increased perceptions of impoverishment risks, all of which fuel contestation and resistance attitudes among the affected landowners. The affected landowners agitate to assert their rights and stake their claims through contestations, community mobilisation, and legal recourse. We conclude that such contestations constitute claimed spaces and interactions in which affected landowners are laying claim to fair processes against the ''exceptionality'' and the "decide-defend" decision-making approaches, while local authorities assert legitimacy of their decisions. Critically, informal households affected by urban redevelopments see opportunities for participation in their resettlement decision-making as fundamental to securing their future.


Anatomically modern humans (AMHs) left Africa ˜60,000 years ago, marking the first of multiple dispersal events by AMH between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The southern dispersal route (SDR) out of Africa (OOA) posits that early AMHs crossed the Bab el-Mandeb strait from the Horn of Africa into what is now Yemen and followed the coast of the Indian Ocean into eastern Eurasia. If AMHs followed the SDR and left modern descendants in situ, Yemeni populations should retain old autochthonous mitogenome lineages. Alternatively, if AMHs did not follow the SDR or did not leave modern descendants in the region, only young autochthonous lineages will remain as evidence of more recent dispersals. We sequenced 113 whole mitogenomes from multiple Yemeni regions with a focus on haplogroups M, N, and L3(xM,N) as they are considered markers of the initial OOA migrations. We performed Bayesian evolutionary analyses to generate time-measured phylogenies calibrated by Neanderthal and Denisovan mitogenome sequences in order to determine the age of Yemeni-specific clades in our dataset. Our results indicate that the M1, N1, and L3(xM,N) sequences in Yemen are the product of recent migration from Africa and western Eurasia. Although these data suggest that modern Yemeni mitogenomes are not markers of the original OOA migrants, we hypothesize that recent population dynamics may obscure any genetic signature of an ancient SDR migration.


Studies of recent destructive megathrust earthquakes and tsunamis along subduction margins in Japan, Sumatra, and Chile have linked forearc morphology and structure to megathrust behavior. This connection is based on the idea that spatial variations in the frictional behavior of the megathrust influence the tectono-morphological evolution of the upper plate. Here we present a comprehensive examination of the tectonic geomorphology, outer wedge taper, and structural vergence along the marine forearc of the Cascadia subduction zone (offshore northwestern North America). The goal is to better understand geologic controls on outer wedge strength and segmentation at spatial scales equivalent to rupture lengths of large earthquakes (≥M 6.7), and to examine potential linkages with shallow megathrust behavior.
 We use cross-margin profiles, spaced 25 km apart, to characterize along-strike variation in outer wedge width, steepness, and structural vergence (measured between the toe and the outer arc high). The width of the outer wedge varies between 17 and 93 km, and the steepness ranges from 0.9° to 6.5°. Hierarchical cluster analysis of outer wedge width and steepness reveals four distinct regions that also display unique patterns of structural vergence and shape of the wedge: Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada (average width, linear wedge, seaward and mixed vergence); Washington, USA (higher width, concave wedge, landward and mixed vergence); northern and central Oregon, USA (average width, linear and convex wedge, mixed and seaward vergence); and southern Oregon and northern California, USA (lower width, convex wedge, seaward and mixed vergence). Variability in outer wedge morphology and structure is broadly associated with along-strike megathrust segmentation inferred from differences in oceanic asthenospheric velocities, patterns of episodic tremor and slow slip, GPS models of plate locking, and the distribution of seismicity near the plate interface. In more detail, our results appear to delineate the extent, geometry, and lithology of dynamic and static backstops along the margin. Varying backstop configurations along the Cascadia margin are interpreted to represent material-strength contrasts within the wedge that appear to regulate the along- and across-strike taper and structural vergence in the outer wedge. We argue that the morphotectonic variability in the outer wedge may reflect spatial variations in shallow megathrust behavior occurring over roughly the last few million years. Comparing outer wedge taper along the Cascadia margin to a global compilation suggests that observations in the global catalog are not accurately representing the range of heterogeneity within individual margins and highlights the need for detailed margin-wide morphotectonic analyses of subduction zones worldwide.


The oldest sedimentary rocks penetrated by exploration wells on the northeastern Møre Basin margin are of Early Triassic age. These sediments were deposited in a continental, arid climate. A large hiatus separates these sedimentary rocks from the overlying Jurassic strata of Bathonian age, which were deposited in a humid continental environment. Marginal marine conditions were first established in early Callovian times, and late Middle Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous sediments were deposited in a fully marine anoxic to suboxic environment. Early Cretaceous sediments were deposited in a dominantly oxic, marine environment. Extensional tectonic movements were probably initiated during Early to Middle Triassic times. This caused erosion of local highs, while basinal areas underwent subsidence and sediment accumulation. A phase of uplift and erosion took place between late Early Jurassic and early Middle Jurassic times. In Bathonian times rift movements resumed, but fault block rotation was relatively gentle and gradual until the end of the Kimmeridgian. Extension and fault block rotation accelerated in early Volgian times, and climaxed in middle Volgian times, resulting in present da y dips of up to 50'. The area went in to a thermal relaxation p hase in earliest Cretaceous times with relatively uniform subsidence, although some of the major faults remained active until Turonian times.


The present work has been focused on the development of analytical and numerical techniques for the analysis of highly convoluted antennas and microwave devices including fractal shaped antennas. The accurate prediction of the frequency response of a high-iterated pre-fractal structure is frequently a very consuming task, in terms of computer resources. The techniques presented in this work try to ameliorate some of the bottlenecks in the solving process of fractal shaped or highly convoluted devices. First, in the frame of the Mixed Potential Integral Equation (MPIE) technique, a new set of basis functions for the discretization of the currents in the Method of Moments (MoM) solution is presented. The basis functions are defined over quadrangular domains and their aim is, on one hand, to allow a good representation of the current while preserving the main longitudinal direction existing in many practical surfaces, used as metalization in printed circuits, and on the other hand, to reduce the number of unknowns compared to a standard triangular mesh. The basis functions over quadrangular cells comprise as particular cases the classic rectangular and triangular rooftops. However, a new basis function over triangular domains is also included as a case derived from the general quadrangle, and has the particularity of being able to model the connection between two triangles with a common vertex, instead of the conventional attachment at the edge of the classic triangular pair. Second, different highly convoluted Euclidean structures have been studied in order to provide a benchmark for fractal devices performance. The considered structures are a meander line and a two-arm square spiral antenna. Both structures show miniaturization capabilities, the spiral being one of the outstanding shapes in terms of miniaturization keeping a reasonable frequency behavior. With the study of these two structures it has been shown that some properties, considered exclusive of the fractal shaped family, appear also in non-fractal shapes. Third, several analysis techniques based on a transmission line approach and specially suited to solve highly convoluted printed line devices have been developed. The aim is to have a simple and fast tool to allow a rapid analysis of complicated structures, providing reasonably accurate results taking into account the simplicity of the model. These methods have been applied to a set of fractal curves belonging to the family of the fractal tree. Some prototypes have been built in microstrip technology and measured to verify the validity of the method. Finally, in order to obtain a fast full-wave analysis of printed-line or wire-strip devices, a new technique is developed. The method takes advantage of the geometry of the structures presenting currents flowing mainly in the longitudinal direction. These 2D structures are then considered as 1D ones, thus, the cells are reduced to their axis or backbones. This approximation is valid for the limiting cases, namely, very narrow structures or interactions between far away cells. However, once the width compensation factor that is computed analytically is included, the approximation becomes valid for all the structures not having a width bigger than the standard mesh density limit in a 2D problem. Values of the error committed with respect to a classic 2D method are given, and the analysis of some line structures is performed, proving the validity of the proposed method.


Glypican-3 (GPC-3) is a glycoconjugate protein of heparan sulfate proteoglycan family and is important for embryogenesis but silenced in adult healthy tissue. GPC-3 protein is abnormally expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and has been used as a marker for pathological diagnosis of primary and metastatic HCC. However, GPC-3 expression has also been found in some tumors other than HCC. This study is to investigate the expression of GPC-3 expression immunohistochemically and the staining pattern in poorly differentiated carcinomas of lung primary in order to assess the value of GPC-3 as a marker for diagnosing metastatic HCC in lung. Lung tissue from 44 patients diagnosed with poorly differentiated carcinoma were evaluated, including 23 lung adenocarcinomas, 19 squamous cell carcinomas and 2 adenosquamous carcinomas. Immunohistochemical stains of GPC-3 was performed on tumor tissue samples. The expression pattern of GPC-3 was analyzed. Expression of GPC-3 was found in 45% of primary lung cancers, including 79% of squamous cell carcinomas, 18 % of adenocarcinomas, and 50% of adenosquamous carcinomas. The poorly differentiated carcinomas showed predominantly patchy positivity. The staining pattern ranged from weak granular cytoplasmic positivity to a strong membranous and cytoplasmic positivity, and both cytoplasmic and nuclear positivity. GPC-3 expression was not seen in non-neoplastic lung tissue. GPC-3 is a relatively specific marker for HCC. In this study, we demonstrated the expression of GPC-3 in a significant number of poorly differentiated carcinoma of lung. Therefore, in context of a possible metastatic HCC to the lung, caution should be made by using GPC-3 as a differential marker for HCC, and a panel of stains should be considered. [N A J Med Sci. 2020;1(1):018-023.   DOI:  10.7156/najms.2020.1301018] Key Words : glypican-3, lung carcinomas, immunohistochemistry, hepatocellular carcinoma


Although moral dilemmas such as the trolley and footbridge dilemmas (Thomson, 1986) have been widely employed to investigate the nature of moral reasoning, but their psychometric properties remain a mystery. In this study, 219 participants completed 62 moral dilemma tasks used in Greene et al. (2001), and the correlation structure among the dilemmas was analyzed through factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results show the following two points. First, the moral-personal dilemma tasks studied are composed of one factor, indicating that the assumption in Greene et al. (2001) was supported. Second, the trolley and footbridge problems fall into the same factor category; therefore, the difference between the two problems cannot be attributed to emotional involvement. In addition, results of the structural equation modeling suggest that they differ in engagement of the rational processing. Some theoretical suggestions were discussed.


This paper is a continuation of a recent ASME Conference paper entitled "Design of a Python-Based Plug-in for Benchmarking Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics Computer Codes with Failure Event Data" (PVP2009-77974). In that paper, which was co-authored by Fong, deWit, Marcal, Filliben, Heckert, and Gosselin, we designed a probability-uncertainty plug-in to automate the estimation of leakage probability with uncertainty bounds due to variability in a large number of factors. The estimation algorithm was based on a two-level full or fractional factorial design of experiments such that the total number of simulations will be small as compared to a Monte-Carlo method. This feature is attractive if the simulations were based on finite element analysis with a large number of nodes and elements. In this paper, we go one step further to derive a risk-uncertainty formula by computing separately the probability-uncertainty and the consequence-uncertainty of a given failure event, and then using the classical theory of error propagation to compute the risk-uncertainty within the domain of validity of that theory. The estimation of the consequence-uncertainty is accomplished by using a public-domain software package entitled "Cost-Effectiveness Tool for Capital Asset Protection, version 4.0, 2008" (http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/ or NIST Report NISTIR-7524 ), and is more fully described in a companion paper entitled "An Economics-based Intelligence (EI) Tool for Pressure Vessels & Piping (PVP) Failure Consequence Estimation," (PVP2010-25226, Session MF-23.4 of this conference). A numerical example of an application of the risk-uncertainty formula using a 16-year historical database of probability and consequence of main steam and hot reheat piping systems is presented. Implication of this risk-uncertainty estimation tool to the design of a risk-informed in-service inspection program is discussed.Copyright © 2010 by ASME