Land cover is affected by many factors includ- ing economic development, climate and natural disturbances such as wildfires. The ability to evaluate how fire regimes may alter future vegetation, and how future vegetation may alter fire regimes, would assist forest managers in planning management actions to be carried out in the face of antici- pated socio-economic and climatic change. In this paper, we present a method for calibrating a cellular automata wildfire regime simulation model with actual data on land cover and wildfire size-frequency. The method is based on the obser- vation that many forest fire regimes, in different forest types and regions, exhibit power law frequency-area distributions. The standard Drossel-Schwabl cellular automata Forest Fire Model (DS-FFM) produces simulations which reproduce this observed pattern. However, the standard model is simplistic in that it considers land cover to be binary - each cell ei- ther contains a tree or it is empty - and the model overes- timates the frequency of large fires relative to actual land- scapes. Our new model, the Modified Forest Fire Model (MFFM), addresses this limitation by incorporating infor- mation on actual land use and differentiating among vari- ous types of flammable vegetation. The MFFM simulation model was tested on forest types with Mediterranean and sub-tropical fire regimes. The results showed that the MFFM was able to reproduce structural fire regime parameters for these two regions. Further, the model was used to forecast future land cover. Future research will extend this model to refine the forecasts of future land cover and fire regime sce- narios under climate, land use and socio-economic change.


The allocation to real estate by institutional investors has increased in recent years and as a result the gap between suggested and actual allocations has narrowed. The increased inflow of capital to the real estate market is suggested to be a function of two factors: An increased focus on absolute return target investments amongst institutional investors and an increased target allocation to real estate. We argue that the increased target allocation is made possible mainly by the development of new investment vehicles, in particular of private real estate funds, but also of the growing integration of economic regions and of other factors such as the development of investment benchmarks. The flows needed for the actual allocation by European institutional investors to match the suggested allocation constitute at least 31% of the real estate equity universe held by owner occupiers. We estimate that seven years would be needed to reach the target allocation, but it is unlikely that sufficient investment opportunities will arise unless the willingness of owner occupiers to outsource their real estate assets increases.


Drought during maize (Zea mays L.) growing season in the US Midwest can be mitigated using drainage and runoff water recycling through subirrigation. Limited information regarding subirrigation timing and intensity hinder its promotion across the region. Seven water table management strategies were simulated using DRAINMOD calibrated for three locations with different soil series in northwest Ohio, under 1984 to 2013 climate conditions, and were compared based on annual relative yield, subirrigation water volume, relative water discharge, and management intensity. Annual relative yields ranged between 63.1% and 64.4% at the Defiance site and were not significantly different between the water table management strategies. Under subirrigation, relative yields ranged from 87.3% to 93.2% and 80.4% to 90.8%, respectively, at the Fulton and Van Wert sites and were significantly larger than under free subsurface drainage. Annual subirrigation water volumes were significantly lower under continuous subirrigation from V3 stage at all three locations. Subirrigation water volumes at the Fulton and Van Wert sites were particularly lower with continuous subirrigation starting at V9. Relative water discharges were similar across all water table management strategies at the Defiance site and larger under free subsurface drainage at the Fulton and Van Wert sites. Free subsurface drainage was the most appropriate option for the Defiance site in terms of water table management because subirrigation did not improve the relative yield but consumed water (and, consequently, energy for pumping). For the Fulton and Van Wert sites, continuously subirrigating from V9, with the control weir set at 61 cm below ground surface and raised to 35 cm below ground surface at tasseling improved the relative yield while using less subirrigation water volumes and generating no greater relative water discharge (hence no greater dissolved nutrient loads) than the other subirrigation options. This strategy potentially reduces labor costs at locations where subirrigation is appropriate, enhancing the economic viability of subirrigation, and is the most applicable strategy to other major maize-growing areas in the Midwest. Results indicate water table management and subirrigation will benefit Midwestern maize production under projected climates, which suggests increased potential for water stress in most growing seasons by 2041 to 2070. Future studies, extending this approach to more diverse regions, accompanied by more in-depth economic assessments, are needed to further evaluate potential benefits of subirrigation.


A new FRET-based carbazole rhodamine hybrid (CRH) ratiometric fluorescent sensor is reported for the selective detection of Al3+. The design of the probe involved two parts: a carbazole hydrazone energy donor and a rhodamine spirolactone unit (potential rhodamine monoanion energy receptor). First, the emission of the carbazole chromophore ("donor" moiety) and next the absorption of the ring-opened rhodamine dye were measured, which clearly showed the overlap between these two spectra, indicating the FRET from the carbazole chromophore to the rhodamine moiety. FRET based ratiometric live-cell imaging for Al3+ has been rarely reported. Successful live cell imaging is demonstrated, where on addition of Al3+ solution (20 μL), the color of the CRH (20 μL) treated cells changed from blue to red.


For decades, the United States has enjoyed extensive policy influence stemming from its hegemonic position within the international monetary order – a position defined both by the dollar's status as the principal reserve currency and U.S primacy in international financial forums and institutions. More recently, China has begun to amass many of the trappings of a great monetary power, accounting for 16% of global GDP-PPP, 11% of world merchandise trade, and more than 30% of global foreign exchange reserves. China's emergence is among the key factors leading many analysts to forecast the emergence of a more multipolar international monetary system and diffusion of policy influence in that arena. This paper investigates the extent to which China has translated its growing economic capabilities into monetary policy influence in other capitals, focusing on South and Southeast Asia, one of the first regions in which Chinese influence might be expected to appear. The paper examines various mechanisms through which China could exercise monetary policy influence: through international institutions, regional initiatives, and bilateral engagement. The evidence shows that China's monetary policy influence has been quite limited to date, lagging China's capabilities by a significant margin. This is due largely to a continuing deficit in Chinese "structural power" in a dollar-dominated monetary system that continues to confer major legacy advantages on the United States and upon which China has relied heavily for its own economic development. The paper suggests that while many aspects of the global economic order have changed, it will be some time before China develops monetary policy influence commensurate with its overall economic capabilities.


Since its passage in 1973 over the veto of then-President Nixon, the War Powers Resolution (WPR) has been laden with controversy. Labeled as everything from ineffective to unconstitutional, the WPR has generally failed in its design to require notification and consultation to Congress by the President. Despite numerous proposals to amend the WPR, it continues to languish in the twilight of Executive war powers, and its future is bleak. With emerging technologies such as drones, cyber tools, nanotechnology, and genomics, the ineffectiveness of the WPR will prove even more profound. The WPR's reliance on "armed forces" and "hostilities" as triggers for the reporting and consulting requirements of the statute will prove completely inadequate to regulate the use of these advanced technologies. Rather, as the President analyzes the applicability of the WPR to military operations using these advancing technologies, he will determine that the WPR is not triggered and he has no reporting requirements. Recent conflicts (or potential conflicts) in Libya, Syria and Iraq highlight this inevitability. For the WPR to achieve the aim it was originally intended to accomplish, Congress will need to amend the statute to cover emerging technologies that do not require "boots on the ground" to be effective and which would not constitute "hostilities." This article proposes expanding the coverage of the WPR from actions by armed forces to actions by armed forces personnel, supplies or capabilities. The article also proposes expanding the coverage of the statute to hostilities and violations of the sovereignty of other nations by the armed forces.


In all attempts to emulate the considerable powers of the brain, one is struck by both its immense size, parallelism, and complexity. While the fields of neural networks, artificial intelligence, and neuromorphic engineering have all attempted oversimplifications on the considerable complexity, all three can benefit from the inherent scalability and parallelism of optics. This thesis looks at specific aspects of three modes in which optics, and particularly volume holography, can play a part in neural computation.

First, holography serves as the basis of highly-parallel correlators, which are the foundation of optical neural networks. The huge input capability of optical neural networks make them most useful for image processing and image recognition and tracking. These tasks benefit from the shift-invariance of optical correlators. In this thesis, I analyze the capacity of correlators, and then present several techniques for controling the amount of shift invariance. Of particular interest is the Fresnel correlator, in which the hologram is displaced from the Fourier plane. In this case, the amount of shift invariance is limited not just by the thickness of the hologram, but by the distance of the hologram from the Fourier plane.

Second, volume holography can provide the huge storage capacity and high speed, parallel read-out necessary to support large artificial intelligence systems. However, previous methods for storing data in volume holograms have relied on awkward beamsteering or on as-yet non-existent cheap, wide-bandwidth, tunable laser sources. This thesis presents a new technique, shift multiplexing, which is capable of very high densities, but which has the advantage of a very simple implementation. In shift multiplexing, the reference wave consists of a focused spot a few millimeters in front of the hologram. Multiplexing is achieved by simply translating the hologram a few tens of microns or less. This thesis describes the theory for how shift multiplexing works based on an unconventional, but very intuitive, analysis of the optical far-field. A more detailed analysis based on a path-integral interpretation of the Born approximation is also derived. The capacity of shift multiplexing is compared with that of angle and wavelength multiplexing.

The last part of this thesis deals with the role of optics in neuromorphic engineering. Up until now, most neuromorphic engineering has involved one or a few VLSI circuits emulating early sensory systems. However, optical interconnects will be required in order to push towards more ambitious goals, such as the simulation of early visual cortex. I describe a preliminary approach to designing such a system, and show how shift multiplexing can be used to simultaneously store and implement the immense interconnections required by such a project.


For many years, Westchester County municipalities were resigned to the fact that compaction of utility trenches could not be done satisfactorily and that settlement and road failure would inevitably occur. To reduce the impact of such settlement, they established natural-consolidation time-delay periods which extend up to 6 months. The use of the nuclear moisture-density gauge for testing backfill compaction has proven that settlements need not occur. Advantages of this type testing versus conventional methods are: simplicity, speed; immediate test results while backfill is taking place; no disturbance of the compacted soil. Disadvantages are initial cost of the gauge; need for specially trained personnel; need for a State Radiological Materials License. Twenty-eight governmental agencies in Westchester County have relaxed their time-delay periods and now permit immediate permanent pavement restorations on those projects where nuclear moisture-density testing is used for control. Ancillary benefits include fewer complaints, reduced claims for vehicle damage, and improved public relations.


The present study examined parental opinions of a structured functional curriculum for
children who have significant intellectual disabilities. Parents from the Winston-Salem
Forsyth County School District in North Carolina whose children were involved in a new
structured functional curriculum were asked to participate in this study and provide their
opinion regarding the current curriculum. A significant relationship was found between
parent familiarity with the curriculum and overall satisfaction with the program. There
were no significant differences in parent opinions based on grade level of child or amount
of time their child spent in a general education classroom. Further research is needed in
order to obtain more information regarding parent opinions of their child's curriculum.


PURPOSE
To investigate the effects of grit blasting, acidic or alkaline/heat treatments, and metal primer application on the shear bond strength (SBS) of resin cement to machined commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Titanium plates were machined and received one of the following treatments: grit-blasting (GB), or grit-blasting followed by either acidic treatment (GB/AC) or alkaline/heat treatment (GB/AH). The specimens were randomly divided into 4 groups and treated with Rely X Ceramic Primer (RCP), Z Prime Plus (ZPP), and Alloy Primer (ALP), or without primer as the control. The pairs of titanium plates were cemented together with the Rely X Unicem cement. SBS was measured before and after thermocycling between 5°C and 55°C for 5000 cycles.

RESULTS
SEM observation showed that honeycomb-shaped pores formed on the surface of machined CP-Ti after GB/AC treatment, whereas a uniform net-like pattern formed after GB/AH treatment. In descending order, the surface roughness was GB, GB/AC, and GB/AH. The GB/AH group showed the highest SBS among all the treatments. As for primers, ALP group showed the highest SBS, while the RCP group showed the lowest. GB followed by ALP presented the highest SBS.

CONCLUSION
A fine, uniform network structure was formed on the surface of CP-Ti following GB/AH treatment, providing an effective micromechanical interlocking mechanism for resin bonding. At the same time, after AH treatment, the -OH formed on the surface of the machined CP-Ti triggered a chemical reaction with the acid monomers in the resin adhesives, creating a chemical bond. As a result, GB/AH treatment significantly improved the bond strength relative to GB/AC treatment. In addition, ALP treatment facilitated the formation of hydrogen bonds, which further improved the chemical bond strength. Finally, the combination of the effects mentioned above resulted in the most robust bond between machined CP-Ti and the resin adhesives.


The rising energy costs, increased global competition in terms of both price and quality, and the need to make products in an environmentally benign manner have paved the way for the biological route towards manufacturing. Many of the products obtained by the biological route either cannot be produced, or are very difficult to obtain, by conventional manufacturing methods. Most of these products fall in the low volume/high value bracket, and it is estimated that the production of therapeutic proteins alone generated sales exceeding $25 billion in 2001. By increasing our understanding of these systems it may be possible to avoid some of the empiricism associated with the operation of (fed-)batch bioreactors. Considerable benefit, in terms of reduced product variability and optimal resource utilization could be achieved, and this work is a step in that direction.Biological reactors typically are governed by highly nonlinear behavior occuring on both a macroscopic reactor scale and a microscopic cellular scale. Reactions taking place at these scales also occur at different rates so that the bioreactor system is multi-scale both spatially and temporally. Since achievable controller performance in a model-based control scheme is dependent on the quality of the process model cite{mor89}, a controller based on a model that captures events occuring at both the reactor and cellular scales should provide superior performance when compared to a controller that employs a uniscale model. In the model considered for this work, the specific growth rate is used as a coupling parameter integrating the behavior of both scales. On the cellular level, flux distributions are used to describe cellular growth and product formation whereas a lumped-parameter reactor model provides the macroscopic process representation.The control scheme for the fed-batch bioreactor is implemented in two stages, and the substrate feed rate serves as the manipulated variable. Initially, a constrained optimal control problem is solved off-line, in order to determine the manipulated variable profile that maximizes the end of batch product concentration for the product of interest, while maintaining apre-specified, fixed final volume. The next step involves tracking of the optimal control trajectory, in closed-loop operation. The Shrinking Horizon Model Predictive Control (SHMPC) framework is used to minimize the projected deviations of the controlled variable from the specified trajectories. At every time step, the original nonlinear model is linearized and the optimization problem is formulated as a quadratic program, that includes constraints on the manipulated input and the final volume. Finally, the performance of the controller is evaluated, and strategies for disturbance compensation are presented. The results of this approach are presented for ethanol production in a baker's yeast fermentation case study.


CO2 utilisation technologies—also called Carbon Dioxide Utilisation (CDU) and Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU)—convert CO2 via physical, chemical or biological processes into carbon-based products. CO2 utilisation technologies are viewed as a means of helping to address climate change and broadening the raw material base for commodities that can be sold to generate economic revenue. However, while technical research and development into the feasibility of CO2 utilisation options is accelerating rapidly; at present there has been limited research into the social acceptance of the technology and CO2-derived products. This review article outlines and explores three key dimensions of social acceptance (i.e. socio-political, market, and community acceptance) pertaining to innovation within CO2 utilisation. The article highlights the importance of considering issues of social acceptance as an aspect of the research, development, demonstration and deployment process for CO2 utilisation and explores how key stakeholders operating on each dimension might affect the innovation pathways, investment and siting decisions relating to CO2 utilisation facilities and CO2-derived products. Beyond providing a state-of-the-art review of current research into the social acceptance of CO2 utilisation, this article also outlines an agenda for future research in the field.


Abstract This paper addresses how the wombs of women and the absent skin on the circumcised penises of men become the predominant sites on which racialized and gendered discourses operating during the Bangladesh War are inscribed. This is explored by examining instances of sexual violence by Pakistani soldiers and their local Bengali collaborators. The prevalence of these discourses in colonial documents about the Bengali Muslims underscores the role of history, the politics of identity and in the process, establishes its link with the rapes of Bangladeshi women and men. Through this, the relationship between sexual violence and historical contexts is highlighted. I locate the accounts of male violations by the West Pakistani army within the historical and colonial discourses relating to the construction of the Bengali Muslim and its intertextual, contemporary citational references in photographs and interviews. I draw on Judith Butler's and Marilyn Strathern's work on gendering and performativity to address the citational role of various practices of discourses of gender and race within colonial documents and its application in a newer context of colonization and sexual violence of women and men during wars. The role of photographs and image-making is intrinsic to these practices. The open semiotic of the photographs allows an exploration of the territorial identities within these images and leads to traces of the silence relating to male violations. Through an examination of the silence surrounding male sexual violence vis-à-vis the emphasis on the rape of women in independent Bangladesh, it is argued that these racialized and gendered discourses are intricately associated to the link between sexuality and the state in relation to masculinity.


PURPOSE
Elekta-XiO treatment planning system(TPS) uses the same machine layout to simulate both two level jaw system Linacs like Siemens and three level jaw system like Varian Linacs. The purpose of this study is to perform a systematic investigation of the dose calculated from TPS using superposition convolution algorithm and compare that to the measurements for these two types of Linacs.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Siemens Primus and Artiste accelerators with multi-leaf collimators as lower jaws and Varian Trilogy accelerators with tertiary multileaf collimators were used in this study. A series of specially-designed T-shaped MLC fields with different field-aperture-opening-ratios(FAOR) and several clinically used 3DCRT MLC-blocked fields were calculated using the XiO superposition convolution and Clarkson methods. These plans were delivered on the respective Linacs and measurements were compared to the calculations. Several TMR based dose calculations were performed as independent checks on both superposition convolution and Clarkson methods. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to verify the dose calculation and to study the sources of scattering contribution.

RESULTS
A larger discrepancy was found between the dose calculated by XiO using superposition convolution algorithm and the dose measured for the Siemens Linacs than Varian Linacs. An average difference of 1.8% between Siemens and Varian Linacs was found for the situation of FAOR >0.33, possibly resulted from modeling the non-existant lower jaws for Siemens Linacs in the XiO convolution algorithm. TMR based dose calculations using a combined collimator scatter and phantom scatter factors with a XiO back-projected-blocked equivalent square(BES) can estimate the delivered dose accurately(0.12% of measured values) including extreme cases for Siemens(FAOR<0.33).

CONCLUSIONS
A correction of magnitude of 1.8% should be applied to Linacs that use MLCs to replace a pair of jaws in the XiO superposition convolution algorithm when FAOR is >0.33. For FAOR<0.33, the algorithm cannot predict the delivered doses accurately.


In a historic referendum, Britain has voted to leave the European Union. Some of the polling suggests that a backlash against globalisation played a role, alongside themes such as sovereignty and immigration. The government has insisted that Britain will maintain its global outlook, but how challenging will that be in the face of disengaging from the world's biggest economic entity and forging a novel path? The UK is doing so with some notable weaknesses in its large trade deficit. This article explores the economic uncertainties of Brexit and potential ways forward.


The increasing number of local and regional conflicts around the world in the past several decades has led us to investigate the causes of war and coups. We used economic, cultural and demographic differences as explanatory variables in elucidating the causes of coups and wars between countries. We found that as the culture in a country becomes more individualistic and less collectivistic, the number of coups declines. However, as the uncertainty avoidance increases, the probability of coups also increases. When the standard of living in a country high, the probability of coups is lower. In relation to wars, we found that as the cultural differences between countries are greater, the likelihood of war is higher, and that the probability of war is also higher when the size (economic and demographic) differences are greater.


Extracted from text ... Address to Unisa Street Lawstudents on the occasion of theircertificate ceremony on8 September 2000by Lesley Frescura and Mala Naidoo, Directors, Transformation Education Africa*Lesley Frescura:It is a great pleasure and privilege to bewith you all today.
I have been luckyenough to have been associated with theUNISA Street Law Programme for thelast four years, and I have watched itgrow and alter to accommodate thechanging needs of the communities itserves.
I have worked with WilliamMphilo and Annastacia Mthembu, bothof whom have been dedicated to theprogramme, and it is due in no smallmeasure, through their hard work, thatit has proved to be the success it istoday.
I also ..


The dynamics of viscous flow through a rotating pipe is considered. Small-amplitude stability characteristics are obtained by linearizing the Navier–Stokes equations around the base flow and solving the resulting eigenvalue problems. For linearly unstable configurations, the dynamics leads to fully developed finite-amplitude perturbations that are computed by direct numerical simulations of the complete Navier–Stokes equations. By systematically investigating all linearly unstable combinations of streamwise wave number k and azimuthal mode number m, for streamwise Reynolds numbers Re z ≤ 500 and rotational Reynolds numbers Re Ω ≤ 500 , the complete range of nonlinear travelling waves is obtained and the associated flow fields are characterized.


Abstract Implementation research has often tended to focus on what goes wrong or, less frequently, on why success is achieved, rather than identifying tools or instruments to address problems encountered. Yet, identifying tools to avoid typical implementation problems is crucial to successful implementation. Focusing on one such tool, 'policy dialogue,' and employing a retrospective examination of the implementation process associated with Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), we examine the potential that existed to mitigate the risks associated with policy stakeholders' behavior during implementation. Policy actor positions in implementation are based on differing values, ideologies, perceptions and power bases, and frequently cause degrees of discordance, as demonstrated in the case of Ghana's NHIS. Policy dialogue may promote a greater awareness of other actors' positions and motivations, creating a circumstance in which evidence takes on more significance than it would in more political environments. The study draws extensively from earlier qualitative fieldwork in Ghana, and has been supplemented by desk-based research. Selected key events in the implementation of the NHIS are used to illustrate where and why policy dialogue could have been used to avoid the creation of chokepoints.


Since the onset of the HIV pandemic, the use of nonhuman primate models of infection has increasingly become important. An excellent model to study HIV infection and immunological responses, in particular cell-mediated immune responses, is SIV infection of rhesus macaques. CTL epitopes have been mapped using SIV-infected rhesus macaques, but, to date, a peptide binding motif has been described for only one rhesus class I MHC molecule, Mamu-A*01. Herein, we have established peptide-live cell binding assays for four rhesus MHC class I molecules: Mamu-A*11, -B*03, -B*04, and -B*17. Using such assays, peptide binding motifs have been established for all four of these rhesus MHC class I molecules. With respect to the nature and spacing of crucial anchor positions, the motifs defined for Mamu-B*04 and -B*17 present unique features not previously observed for other primate species. The motifs identified for Mamu-A*11 and -B*03 are very similar to the peptide binding motifs previously described for human HLA-B*44 and -B*27, respectively. Accordingly, naturally processed peptides derived from HLA-B*44 and HLA-B*27 specifically bind Mamu-A*11 and Mamu-B*03, respectively, indicating that conserved MHC class I binding capabilities exist between rhesus macaques and humans. The definition of four rhesus MHC class I-specific motifs expands our ability to accurately detect and quantitate immune responses to MHC class I-restricted epitopes in rhesus macaques and to rationally design peptide epitope-based model vaccine constructs destined for use in nonhuman primates.


The use of lead (Pb) in solders for electronic connections is now extensively restricted in Europe, with its use likely to be phased out completely in the medium term. Although Pb-free solders have been the subject of much research, little investigation has been carried out into their reliability for applications exposed to vibration in service. Aerospace applications, which have service lives measured in decades, are of particular pertinence. The present work shows the development and validation of a method for testing small, model solder joints in high-cycle fatigue. The tests are conducted using common equipment yet provide fast results and objective comparisons between solders without the influence of PCBs or components, which typically obscure the solders' intrinsic contribution. S-N diagrams are presented which compare the performance of traditional Sn-Pb solder to that of Pb-free alloys at room and high temperatures and with copper and nickel substrates. It is found that in all situations the Pb-free alloys offer lower lifetimes to failure than the traditional Sn-Pb, an unexpected result when considering the inferior mechanical properties of the latter. The large disparity at room temperatures and with copper substrates is significantly reduced by elevated temperatures and by soldering to nickel substrates. In order to investigate these results, a number of techniques are employed. In addition to extensive fractography, the damping capacity of the solders is investigated and a scanning acoustic microscope is used in conjunction with resonant decay tracking of specimens to study the crack propagation paths prior to complete failure. The analysis of results focuses on the possible causes for this performance difference, drawing on existing soldering literature and wider engineering principles. It is concluded that the overall pattern of results presents contradictory evidence for the contribution of various factors, such as yield strength or interfacial adhesion, which are hard to reconcile. It is thought likely that more numerous fatigue initiation sites in the Pb-free alloys are responsible to some degree for their lower cycles to failure, although more research into the effect of substrate and interfacial intermetallics is necessary to determine the mechanism by which these influence the results, in the absence of relevant fractographic evidence.


The fundamental argument of this dissertation is that migrant rights are central to understanding the politics of immigration: by defining what migrants can or cannot do in the receiving state, the bundle of rights granted to migrants conditions the effect that migrants have on domestic groups' interests and therefore which societal groups will favor or oppose immigration liberalization. Increasing migrant rights increases the market, fiscal, and cultural costs of immigration to the right, but decreases the market costs and generates political and cultural benefits to the left. As a result, migrant rights condition preferences over immigration – such that the right (left) should favor (oppose) the admission of migrants with few rights and oppose (favor) the admission of migrants with expansive rights – and immigration policy outcomes – such that immigration reform will focus on increasing the admission of migrants with a limited (broad) set of rights when the right (left) is in government. These policy outcomes will vary in predictable ways under divided government and when policymakers are constrained with respect to the provision of migrant rights.

In the first three chapters, I present the puzzle that motivates my project, my critique of the extant literature, my conceptualization of migrant rights as defining societal membership, and the theoretical framework that links migrant rights, societal interests, and immigration policy outcomes. In the following four chapters, I test the expectations of the theoretical chapter in the United States and across the European Union. The first two empirical chapters consider the policy preferences of political actors and immigration policy outcomes in the United States. The second two empirical chapters do so across the European Union. In the concluding chapter, I situate the results of the empirical analysis in the contemporary context, highlight some of the implications for scholarship in both political economy and immigration politics, and consider the compatibility of extending and withholding rights in a liberal democratic society.


Why have certain features of animal body plans, such as bilateral symmetry, been conserved since the early Cambrian period, whereas at the species level, there has been a continuous accumulation of changes? Davidson and Erwin propose that the genetic regulatory networks associated with development contain three components that differ in their evolutionary conservation. Evolutionarily inflexible subcircuits ("kernels") perform essential upstream functions in building given body parts, while other small subcircuits ("plug-ins") have been repeatedly coopted to diverse developmental purposes, leaving highly flexible, individual cis-regulatory linkages to regulate detailed phenotypic variation. E. H. Davidson, D. H. Erwin, Gene regulatory networks and the evolution of animal body plans. Science 311, 796-800 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Thinking Through Theatre and Performance presents a bold and innovative approach to the study of theatre and performance. Instead of topics, genres, histories or theories, the book starts with the questions that theatre and performance are uniquely capable of asking: How does theatre function as a place for seeing and hearing? How do not only bodies and voices but also objects and media perform? How do memories, emotions and ideas continue to do their work when the performance is over? And how can theatre and performance intervene in social, political and environmental structures and frameworks?
 Written by leading international scholars, each chapter of this volume is built around a key performance example, and detailed discussions introduce the methodologies and theories that help us understand how these performances are practices of enquiry into the world.
 Thinking through Theatre and Performance is essential for those involved in making, enjoying, critiquing and studying theatre, and will appeal to anyone who is interested in the questions that theatre and performance ask of themselves and of us.


Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the most common and serious form of childhood muscle wasting is generally caused by protein-truncating mutations in the large DMD gene. Specific removal of an exon from a defective DMD gene transcript has the potential to allow synthesis of a semi-functional dystrophin, thereby reducing the severity and presumably progression of muscle wasting. The efficacy of this treatment will vary greatly between the different mutations that preclude the synthesis of a functional dystrophin. Restoration of the reading frame from a large multi-exon genomic deletion, typically greater than 36 exons, may lead to synthesis of a protein with only partial function and limited clinical benefit, whereas excising a nonsense mutation in a redundant exon should generate a near normal dystrophin. A clinical trial has recently confirmed proof-of-principle that exclusion of Exon 51 from human dystrophin mRNAs, carrying frame-shifting deletions adjacent to this exon, results in dystrophin expression. No major side-effects after local administration of the antisense oligomer were reported. Additional trials are underway, targeting the same exon but using an oligomer of different backbone chemistry. If functional dystrophin synthesis is demonstrated, and safety issues are addressed, subsequent trials will involve systemic delivery. Great challenges are ahead, some technical; establishing an effective delivery regimen, some ethical; choosing subsequent targets for therapy, and others of an administrative and regulatory nature.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To examine the changes in quality of life (QOL), symptoms, self-efficacy for coping with cancer, and factors related to those changes in patients with newly diagnosed advanced lung cancer.

DESIGN
Longitudinal and correlational.

SETTING
Oncology inpatient wards and outpatient departments of a medical center in northern Taiwan.

SAMPLE
101 patients newly diagnosed with stage IIIB or IV lung cancer.

METHODS
Questionnaires were used to assess patients' QOL, symptoms, and self-efficacy before treatment and at one and three months following treatment. Factors related to the changes in global QOL and five functional dimensions were analyzed using six generalized estimating equation models.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
QOL, symptoms, and self-efficacy for coping with cancer.

FINDINGS
Patients reported moderate levels of global QOL, symptom severity, and self-efficacy for coping with cancer. They also reported high physical and cognitive functions, but relatively low role and social functions. Factors were significantly related to the most functional dimensions, including self-efficacy, fatigue, pain, sleep difficulties, and demographic- and disease-related factors. Self-efficacy was the most robust factor for predicting QOL.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with advanced lung cancer experience a compromised global QOL and relatively low social and role functioning during the first three months following cancer diagnosis. Levels of self-efficacy and symptoms significantly affected changes in QOL and functioning.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Applying a systematic assessment of changes in QOL and developing comprehensive interventions with self-efficacy training and symptom management are strongly recommended for clinical care to improve the QOL of patients with advanced lung cancer.


The cold tolerance capacity of samples of the marine green alga Caulerpa taxifolia, ob- tained from Moreton Bay, Brisbane, Australia, was investigated by exposing samples to seawater tem- peratures of 9 to 15°C, for periods of 4 to 10 wk, after maintenance at 22°C. Residual effects of cold wa- ter exposure were evaluated by re-acclimating samples to 22°C. Phenotypic expression and survivorship were monitored throughout both cold treatment and re-acclimation phases. Measurements of photo- synthesis and respiration were made toward the end of the cold treatments and after re-acclimation. Samples exposed to 9 and 11°C water exhibited retraction or loss of chloroplasts (or chlorophyll) from the mid-rib regions of the pseudo-fronds. After 4 wk of exposure to 9°C the only green coloured regions of the fronds were the extremities of the pinnules; 1 to 2 wk later these samples began to decompose. Sam- ples kept at 11°C retained the bulk of their photosynthetic pigments and survived throughout experi- ments. The stolons of samples tended to grow upward toward the seawater surface rather than parallel to the substratum. Samples at all treatment temperatures tended to become progressively detached from the substratum through stolon extension without intermittent rhizoid attachment. Several samples be- came fragmented and covered with mucilaginous epiphytes during re-acclimation, such that those lack- ing rhizoid anchorages, rose to the seawater surface, buoyed by metabolic gases trapped in the mu- cilage. During cold treatment, the maximal rates of gross and net photosynthesis (Pm g and Pm n ), normalised to dry weight or tissue protein content, and the ratio of Pm g to dark respiration (-R) varied directly with temperature. The irradiance required for compensation (Ic) varied inversely with temperature. The rate of dark respiration increased with cold exposure. Calculation of whole day net production indicated that rates of photosynthesis among samples incubated at 13°C or below were insufficient to maintain exist- ing tissue biomass. There were no residual effects of cold exposure after re-acclimation, except that 11°C samples failed to increase in relative protein content as a function of ambient irradiance, perhaps due to nitrogen limitation. Results indicate a cold-tolerance threshold of 9 to 11°C, thus genetic modification does not need to be invoked to explain the occurrence of C. taxifolia in the northwest Mediterranean.


In this article, I offer a reflexive account drawing on my role as co-investigator based on a three-year institutional ethnography: Medical Education in a Digital Age. Three problematic issues are discussed: first, the ways by which a reliance on digital technologies for communication between members of the research team impacted on the researchers' discourse; second, the ways by which the multi-sidedness and distributed nature of the ethnography (in terms of field as well as research team) can be theorized; and third, the extent to which differing "traditions" of ethnographic methodology (such as "digital" ethnography and "virtual" ethnography) satisfactorily explicate the standpoint taken by the researchers as both individuals and as members of a research team.


At present, CNT and other nanofiber materials in air can only be detected by deposition on a substrate and the use of off-line imaging analysis such as scanning electron microscopy. The majority of techniques suitable for the quasi-realtime measurement of engineered nanoparticles such as electrical low pressure impactor, condensation particle counter, optionally combined with a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) can not distinguish between nanoparticles in general and airborne nanofibres in particular. In common workplace settings the considerable background of fine and ultrafine particles thus poses a challenge for these instruments. Furthermore, a true portability of the present devices is not given due to their size and power consumption. However, there is an urgent need due to the expected toxicity of nanofibres to control workplace environments with a robust and mobile device to ensure the safety of the working personnel as soon as possible. To meet these challenges, a suitable personal sampler together with a corresponding reading device is under development in the NANODEVICE-project, funded by the European Commission under grant agreement FP7-2114642. A pre-prototype personal sampler for CNT sampling, the used Raman-spectroscopic inspection of deposited CNTs and a possible approach in determining the qualitative presence of CNTs will be shown. Additionally, it seems even possible to distinguish between carbon nanofibers from different manufacturers based on Raman spectroscopy and data analysis.


In a door-to-door survey conducted in two municipalities of Sicily, we ascertained the prevalence of diabetic neuropathy. Our case-finding was restricted to subjects with somatic symptoms. During phase 1, we administered a screening instrument for peripheral neuropathy to 14,540 persons residing in Santa Teresa di Riva (Messina Province) and Terrasini (Palermo Province). During phase 2, neurologists evaluated those subjects who had screened positive. Diagnoses were based on clinical criteria only, and were reviewed by an adjudication panel. We found 39 persons (27 women, 12 men) affected by diabetic neuropathy. The crude prevalence, as of November 1, 1987, was 268.2 cases per 100,000 population. The prevalence increased with advancing age for both sexes and was consistently higher in women. The most common type was distal symmetric polyneuropathy. The median time between diagnosis of diabetes mellitus and onset of diabetic neuropathy was 8 years, and almost all identified persons with diabetic neuropathy were under treatment for diabetes mellitus.


As a part of our ongoing efforts towards finding novel antimycotic and other bioactive agents from marine microflora of the Red Sea, recently secondary metabolites secreted by endophytes of some marine corals or sponges in Egypt were investigated. The new bioactive endophytic Streptomyces sp. Hedaya48 was isolated from the Egyptian sponge Aplysina fistularis and identified, which exhibited strong antimycotic activity against dermatophytes and other clinical fungi. Saadamycin [4-(hydroxymethyl)-5hydroxy-2H-pyran-2-one] a new antimycotic compound, 5,7-dimethoxy-4-methoxylphenylcoumarin and vanillin were isolated from Streptomyces sp. Hedaya48. The producing strain was subjected to different UV irradiation doses and a mutant strain Ah22 with 10.5-fold higher saadamycin production was isolated (420mg/l as compared to 40mg/l produced by the parental strain). Production of saadamycin from mutant Ah22 was enhanced to 2.26 -fold (950mg/l) under optimized culture condition in batch culture and 2.38-fold increasing (1000mg/l) in bioreactor more than the yield obtained with the mutant strain Ah22 in normal production medium. Both saadamycin and 5,7-dimethoxy-4--methoxylphenylcoumarin were exhibited significant antifungal activities against several dermatophytes and other clinical fungal isolates as Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albicans.  2010 Trade Science Inc. INDIA


The progressive success of therapeutic plans for malignant neoplasias that started in childhood allowed an important increase in the survival rate of carriers during the last decades. However, late sequelae secondary to the toxicity of such plans shall be duly monitored. Considering the importance of evaluating the aspects of physical and mental health, as well as emotional and social factors of the survivors, the quality of life of the interviewed persons was evaluated by an alternative approach: telephone calls. The SF-36 questionnaire (Medical Outcomes Study 36 – Item Short Form Health Survey), validated for the Portuguese language, was applied to thirty persons with more than 18 years of age and of both sexes, survivors of acute lymphocytic leukemia, without antineoplastic therapy for at least five years, under medical attendance at the Ambulatory outside the ITACI therapy (experimental group), and also to thirty healthy persons, matched by sex and age to the experimental group (control group). Analyzed survivors scored higher in all aspects SF-36 than the average value. The average results of the total points were statistically similar to the control group. SF-36 provides valuable data for the health team to establish therapeutic procedures to survivors. Evaluation by phone became an important resource in the ambulatory follow-up of this population. Survivors of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia are presently showing appropriate scores of quality of life.


A generalized algorithm for spacecraft three-axis attitude and rate estimation is presented. The filter concept presented here is quite general and applicable to a wide range of sensor systems. The structure of the filter is built using spacecraft nonlinear dynamics in the presence of momentum exchange devices. Then quaternion kinematics are augmented with spacecraft dynamics to represent the filter process dynamics. Magnetometer measurements and their corresponding time derivatives are utilized to represent the filter measurement model. The filter is designed to suit spacecraft in low-Earth orbits, so the aerodynamic drag in addition to spacecraft magnetic residuals are included as disturbance torques to the process dynamics. To test the filter EgyptSat-1 is used as a real test case where a magnetometer and fiber-optic gyros are used for attitude and rate determination. A Monte-Carlo simulation is then applied to study the performance of the proposed filter with initial attitude and angular velocity sampled from a uniform distribution, each axis respectively. The filter shows the capability of estimating the attitude within 5 deg and rate on the order of 0.03 deg/s in each axis.


This paper presents new simulation models and global stability charts that have been developed to analyze the principal instabilities and constraints involved in the throughfeed centerless grinding process. In addition to a frequency domain stability analysis of the three characteristic instabilities of the process (geometric lobing, chatter and spinning), new models have been developed and implemented to analyze the other main restrictions, namely, process power, temperature and burning power, roughness, and final part geometrical tolerance due to machine compliance. As a result, new global stability charts have been devised where instabilities are plotted against different productivity rates by combining the two principal variables in the throughfeed process: regulating wheel speed and feed angle. The use of such charts has led to the development of new optimization strategies for throughfeed operation mode and their implementation in a web based SET-UP ASSISTANT software tool developed to improve machining accuracy and productivity in centerless grinding.


A survey of 106 conservatoire students and professional string players is reported in which information was gathered regarding practices and views on leadership in the string quartet. The questions were structured using Likert scales, focussing on respondents' background, experiences of string quartet playing, their experiences of leadership and their views on what works in their own ensembles. There were a number of open ended questions to capture additional comments. Measures of total playing time and identity suggest that string quartet playing is an important aspect of players' portfolio of activities. The concept of shared leadership is supported; overall, players strongly agreed with the statement, "in the quartet, leadership is equally shared between members". Self -assessment of leadership abilities were equal across all instruments. Views also suggest that the nature of leadership varies according to its purpose, which in this study were defined as musical, administrative or team leadership. Factors relating to leadership were considered important for long term success of the quartet. Differences emerged between violinists and non-violinists, particularly in relation to views on sharing musical leadership, and on leadership in rehearsal and performance. Non-violinists agreed more strongly than violinists with the statements, "musical leadership is important for the long term success of the quartet" (t(61)=-1.96, p<0.05) and "sharing musical leadership is important to success" (t(61)=-2.51, p<0.05). Differences also emerged in relation to leadership in rehearsal and performance, particularly the role of the first violin. The results are discussed in the light of previous research, and analysed in the context of a theoretical framework proposed by Smith and Lewis (2011) for categories of organisational tensions relating to paradox theory in organisations. Keywords: String quartet, leadership, shared leadership, paradox References Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36 (2), 381-403.


The U.S. Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO) is a product-driven organization that provides new scientific research capabilities to the astronomical community. Software development for the VAO follows a lightweight framework that guides development of science applications and infrastructure. Challenges to be overcome include distributed development teams, part-time efforts, and highly constrained schedules. We describe the process we followed to conquer these challenges while developing Iris, the VAO application for analysis of 1-D astronomical spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Iris was successfully built and released in less than a year with a team distributed across four institutions. The project followed existing International Virtual Observatory Alliance inter-operability standards for spectral data and contributed a SED library as a by-product of the project. We emphasize lessons learned that will be folded into future development efforts. In our experience, a well-defined process that provides guidelines to ensure the project is cohesive and stays on track is key to success. Internal product deliveries with a planned test and feedback loop are critical. Release candidates are measured against use cases established early in the process, and provide the opportunity to assess priorities and make course corrections during development. Also key is the participation of a stakeholder such as a lead scientist who manages the technical questions, advises on priorities, and is actively involved as a lead tester. Finally, frequent scheduled communications (for example a bi-weekly tele-conference) assure issues are resolved quickly and the team is working toward a common vision.


The state law of South Africa consists of the common law and the customary law. However, in reality there exist various cultural and religious communities who lead their private lives outside of state law. For example, the Muslim community in South Africa is a close-knit community which lives according to their own customs and usages. Muslims are subject to informal religious tribunals whose decisions and orders are neither recognised nor reviewable by the South African courts.
The non-recognition of certain aspects of Muslim personal law causes unnecessary hardships, especially for women. A Muslim woman is often in a "catch two" situation. For example, on the one hand her attempts to divorce her husband in terms of Muslim law may be foiled by the relevant religious tribunal and, on the other hand, the South African courts may not provide the necessary relief, because they might not recognise the validity of her Muslim marriage.
Increasingly, South African courts are faced with complex issues regarding the Muslim community. The last few years there has been a definite change in the courts' attitude with regard to the recognition of certain aspects of Muslim personal law. Contrary to pre1994 court cases, the recent court cases attempt to develop the common law to give recognition to certain aspects of Muslim personal law. This article attempts to give an overview of the recent case law that dealt with issues regarding the recognition of aspects of Muslim personal law.
Another issue, which eventuates from the current situation, is whether the South African legal order should continue to have a dualistic legal order or whether we should opt for a unified legal order or even a pluralistic legal order. In order to address this issue, some comments on the current status of Muslim personal law will be made and, finally, in order to contribute to the debate regarding the recognition of Muslim personal law, optional models for the recognition of Muslim personal law will briefly be evaluated.


Abstract Historical tsunamis and tsunami propagation are synthesized in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea region, with particular attention to the Hellenic and the Cyprus arcs and the Levantine basin, to obtain a better picture of the tsunamigenic zones. Historical data of tsunami manifestation in the region are analysed, and compared with current seismic activity and plate interactions. Numerical simulations of potential and historical tsunamis reported in the Cyprus and Hellenic arcs are performed as case studies in the context of the nonlinear shallow-water theory. Tsunami wave heights as well as their distribution function are calculated for the Paphos earthquake of 11 May 1222 and the Crete earthquake of 8 August 1303 as illustrative examples depicting the characteristics of tsunami propagation, and the effects of coastal topography and near-shore amplification. The simulation studies also revealed that the long-normal distributions are compatible with reported damage. Furthermore, it is necessary to note that high-resolution bathymetry maps are a crucial component in tsunami wave simulations, and this aspect is rather poorly developed in the Eastern Mediterranean. The current study also demonstrates the role of bottom irregularities in determining the wave-height distribution near coastlines. Assuming the probability of occurrence of destructive tsunamigenic earthquakes, these studies will help us to evaluate the tsunami hazard for the coastal plains of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea region. We suggest that future oceanographic and marine geophysical research should aim to improve the resolution of bathymetric maps, particularly for the details of the continental shelf and seamounts.


Purpose of review This review will assess whether the 25-year-old evidence base to support routine prescribing of &bgr;-blockers after myocardial infarction (MI) is relevant to modern management. Recent findings The evidence base to support the recommendation for the widespread use of &bgr;-blockers after MI was near-finalized in the mid-1980s. Whereas the use of intravenous &bgr;-blockers is waning, the routine use of oral &bgr;-blockers after MI is still regarded as evidence based. In the past 25 years, the introduction of coronary reperfusion and of effective nonreperfusion therapies has changed the natural history of MI and there have been substantial changes in the definition of MI. The relevance of old clinical trial data collected in patients who bear little resemblance to today's MI patients is questioned. Recent analyses have shown that there is no convincing evidence for the use of &bgr;-blockers as first-line therapy in hypertension or in patients with stable coronary heart disease. In contrast, the evidence base for the use of &bgr;-blockers in heart failure is strong and contemporary. Summary A rational recommendation for the modern treatment of MI would be to limit the use of &bgr;-blockers in the post-MI patient to higher-risk patients with evidence of ongoing ischemia, heart failure, or left ventricular dysfunction. There is no evidence to support the routine use of oral &bgr;-blockers in low-risk MI patients.


Indispensable for students, invaluable for researchers, this comprehensive treatment of contemporary quasi-Monte Carlo methods, digital nets and sequences, and discrepancy theory starts from scratch with detailed explanations of the basic concepts and then advances to current methods used in research. As deterministic versions of the Monte Carlo method, quasi-Monte Carlo rules have increased in popularity, with many fruitful applications in mathematical practice. These rules require nodes with good uniform distribution properties, and digital nets and sequences in the sense of Niederreiter are known to be excellent candidates. Besides the classical theory, the book contains chapters on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and weighted integration, duality theory for digital nets, polynomial lattice rules, the newest constructions by Niederreiter and Xing and many more. The authors present an accessible introduction to the subject based mainly on material taught in undergraduate courses with numerous examples, exercises and illustrations.


Article type: Case Report Normal Pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) is characterized by gait apraxia, urinary incontinence, and dementia. Mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD) is an autoimmune connective tissue disease that has never been reported to cause NPH. Our patient was a 67-year man with a one-year history of gradual worsening gait and balance, urinary urgency with urge incontinence and decreased short-term memory. Previously he was diagnosed with mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD). For him an endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) with brain biopsy was agreed upon. Gliotic brain parenchyma and focal perivascular lymphocytes were noted in the gray matter. There was no lymphocytic infiltration in brain parenchyma. Immunohistochemical stains demonstrated that the mononuclear inflammatory infiltrate was limited to several small cortical blood vessels surrounded by CD3 T-cell lymphocytes with no vessel wall invasion or necrosis. No CD20 B-cell lymphocytes were observed. Viral inclusions, microglial nodules, granulomas, and amyloid deposits in the blood vessels were not noted. In summary, there was no definitive evidence of vasculitis. However, the presence of a perivascular lymphocytic infiltrate around the cortical vessels was "unusual". Considering this probable co-occurrence suggests the need for a protocol to better evaluate idiopathic NPH in patients with an underlying autoimmune component.


The paramfistomosis is an infection caused by a trematode belonging to the sub order Paramphistomata, some their species are parasitics of the rumen and reticulo of ruminant. One of the most frequent trematodos in the world is Cotylophoron, it affects to domestic and wild ruminant, especially cows, sheep, goats and buffalos in tropical and subtropical regions. We evaluate the parasitism in 61 specimens of apparently healthy cattle (42 adult females and 19 under one year), fed with wild pastures on a farm located on the Nanay River Basin, Iquitos. The samples of fresh grounds were obtained by means of rectal palpation and processed by means of the method of Dennis modified. Two cows were sacrificed to collect mature parasites. The results indicate the presence of Cotylophoron cotylophorum (Fischoeder, 1901) Stiles & goldeberger, 1910, in the studied animals, which is a new record from Peru, being percentages of 62 and 53% respectively in adults and calves. The range of the parasitic load (egg/grams of grounds) in adults was 1—44 and 1—55 in animals smaller than one year. The study reveals the existence of the trematodo in a group of livestock crusader managed to the shepherding, although one ignores the negative effects that it could be causing in the reduced Amazon cattle raising.


Not many Americans think of the legal profession as a monopoly, but it is. Abraham Lincoln, who practiced law for nearly twenty-five years, would likely not have been allowed to practice today. Without a law degree from an American Bar Association-sanctioned institution, a would-be lawyer is allowed to practice law in only a few states. ABA regulations also prevent even licensed lawyers who work for firms that are not owned and managed by lawyers from providing legal services. At the same time, a slate of government policies has increased the demand for lawyers' services. Basic economics suggests that those entry barriers and restrictions combined with government-induced demand for lawyers will continue to drive the price of legal services even higher. Clifford Winston, Robert Crandall, and Vikram Maheshri argue that these increased costs cannot be economically justified. They create significant social costs, hamper innovation, misallocate the nation's labor resources, and create socially perverse incentives. In the end, attorneys support inefficient policies that preserve and enhance their own wealth, to the detriment of the general population. To fix this situation, the authors propose a novel solution: deregulation of the legal profession. Lowering the barriers to entry will force lawyers to compete more intensely with each other and to face competition from nonlawyers and firms that are not owned and managed by lawyers. The book provides a much-needed analysis of why legal costs are so high and how they can be reduced without sacrificing the quality of legal services.


The recent revolution in information technology and the Internet led to the emergence of new business models in financial services. The author starts by observing that institutions began working on improving operational efficiency and offering new capabilities such as mass customization, anticipating the idea that electronic access was set to become a necessity in wealth management. Yet, the recent market fall has led numerous firms to curtail if not discontinue significant technology projects. The author discusses the business case for continued investment in information technology.


Risk and poverty are inextricably linked. Susceptibility to risk is a defining feature of what it means to be poor. Poor people often live in environments characterized by high weather and disease risk, and it is poor households that have the fewest tools to deal with drought, floods, and disease when they occur. Breaking the link between risk and poverty by insuring poor people both lessens the affliction of poverty and allows poor people to participate in income growth. This set of briefs considers how to increase the tools available to poor households to manage agricultural and health risks. The focus is how to develop insurance markets, along with other financial instruments such as credit, savings, and social protection policies. The series does not document the proven impact of insurance markets for the welfare of poor people; rather, it brings together briefs written by businesspeople, policymakers, and researchers that document innovations, lessons learned, and areas of future work and action. Table of Contents: •Innovations in insuring the poor: Overview by Ruth Vagas Hill and Maximo Torero •Risk and the rural poor by John Hoddinott •Risk, poverty and insurance by Stefan Dercon •Microinsurance for health and agricultural risks by Richard Leftley •Sustainability and scalability of index-based insurance for agriculture and rural livelihoods by Ulrich Hess and Peter Hazell •Intelligent design of index insurance for smallholder farmers and pastoralists by Michael R. Carter •Experience with weather index-based insurance in India and Malawi by Xavier Gine •Providing weather index and indemnity insurance in Ethiopia by Eyob Meherette •Index-based livestock insurance in Mongolia by Olivier Mahul, Nathan Belete and Andrew Goodland •Health insurance for the rural poor by David I. Levine •Innovations in health insurance by Johannes Jutting •Microfinance and unexpected consumption expenditures by Richard Hornbeck •Providing insurance through microfinance institutions by Rupalee Ruchismita and Sona Varma •Social protection and risk by John Hoddinott •Index insurance applied to agriculture by Amado Villarreal Gonzalez


&NA; See Legrain (doi:10.1093/awx188) for a scientific commentary on this article. Some patients with complex regional pain syndrome report that movements of the affected limb are slow, more effortful, and lack automaticity. These symptoms have been likened to the syndrome that sometimes follows brain injury called hemispatial neglect, in which patients exhibit attentional impairments and problems with movements affecting the contralesional side of the body and space. Psychophysical testing of patients with complex regional pain syndrome has found evidence for spatial biases when judging visual targets distanced at 2 m, but not in directions that indicate reduced attention to the affected side. In contrast, when judging visual or tactile stimuli presented on their own body surface, or pictures of hands and feet within arm's reach, patients with complex regional pain syndrome exhibited a bias away from the affected side. What is not yet known is whether patients with complex regional pain syndrome only have biased attention for bodily‐specific information in the space within arm's reach, or whether they also show a bias for information that is not associated with the body, suggesting a more generalized attention deficit. Using a temporal order judgement task, we found that patients with complex regional pain syndrome processed visual stimuli more slowly on the affected side (relative to the unaffected side) when the lights were projected onto a blank surface (i.e. when no bodily information was visible), and when the lights were projected onto the dorsal surfaces of their uncrossed hands. However, with the arms crossed (such that the left and right lights projected onto the right and left hands, respectively), patients' responses were no different than controls. These results provide the first demonstration of a generalized attention bias away from the affected side of space in complex regional pain syndrome patients that is not specifically related to bodily information. They also suggest a separate and additional bias of visual attention away from the affected hand. The strength of attention bias was predicted by scores on a self‐report measure of body perception distortion; but not by pain intensity, time since diagnosis, or affected body side (left or right). At an individual level, those patients whose upper limbs were most affected had a higher incidence of inattention than those whose lower limbs were most affected. However, at a group level, affected limb (upper or lower) did not predict bias magnitude; nor did three measures designed to assess possible asymmetries in the distribution of movements across space. It is concluded that inattention in near space in complex regional pain syndrome may arise in parallel with a distorted perception of the body.


The #1 WPF Book--Now Updated for WPF 4! Full Color: Code samples appear as they do in Visual Studio! Thorough, authoritative coverage, practical examples, clear writing, and full-color presentation make this one of the most widely acclaimed programming books of the last decade. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is the recommended technology for creating Windows user interfaces, giving you the power to create richer and more compelling applications than you dreamed possible. Whether you want to develop traditional user interfaces or integrate 3D graphics, audio/video, animation, dynamic skinning, multi-touch, rich document support, speech recognition, or more, WPF enables you to do so in a seamless, resolution-independent manner. WPF 4 Unleashed is the authoritative book that covers it all, in a practical and approachable fashion, authored by WPF guru and Microsoft developer Adam Nathan. Covers everything you need to know about Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) Examines the WPF feature areas in incredible depth: controls, layout, resources, data binding, styling, graphics, animation, and more Highlights the latest features, such as multi-touch, text rendering improvements, XAML language enhancements, new controls, the Visual State Manager, easing functions, and much more Delves into topics that arent covered by most books: 3D, speech, audio/video, documents, effects Shows how to create popular UI elements, such as Galleries, ScreenTips, and more Demonstrates how to create sophisticated UI mechanisms, such as Visual Studio-like collapsible/dockable panes Explains how to create first-class custom controls for WPF Demonstrates how to create hybrid WPF software that leverages Windows Forms, DirectX, ActiveX, or other non-WPF technologies Explains how to exploit new Windows 7 features, such as Jump Lists and taskbar customizations


Everywhere you look today people are being drawn, often unawares, into the trend of 'development': sponsored charity walks, pay per click internet fundraising, the donation of time and money, concerts and album recordings, 'Fairtrade' shopping. Whilst living in the UK in the early 2000s it became increasingly noticeable to me that in the highly competitive charity and travel sectors alternatives were being sought to either assist in the development of poor communities or to attract customers via new products. Volunteering as part of a holiday was becoming the new 'fad'. Promoted as an opportunity to experience a different culture whilst doing something constructive and worthwhile for a developing community, it was the new fashionable way to 'do development'.

Like many other initiatives in development, concern has been raised as to whether volunteer tourism can truly add value to the development of poor communities. Is it, in fact, merely a tourism product? This thesis is an innovative attempt to call volunteer tourism to account. Through examination of the new phenomenon and an analysis of literature and examples in relation to development and volunteer tourism, it will consider whether volunteer tourism has a place in development.

To do so, the first chapter will examine the ground breaking initiatives that have infiltrated the development cause in recent decades and assess the value they have provided in poverty alleviation and capacity building. Chapter Two, focuses on one ground breaking initiative in particular, volunteer tourism. The main interest of Chapter Two is to introduce the reader to the concept of volunteer tourism and to evaluate it as a niche tourism product in today's post modern world. Chapter Three provides an analysis of development initiatives of the past and what approaches have the greatest potential for success. This analysis forms the basis of an examination later in the chapter; assessing whether volunteer tourism fits within the framework of development. Finally, concluding remarks highlight the complexity of the volunteer tourism concept and call for further research into the new phenomenon – volunteer tourism.


Single-cell RNA sequencing identifies cell types with central roles in regeneration The ability to regenerate missing body parts is a prominent feature of many animals. Investigation into the cellular and molecular basis of regeneration using highly regenerative model organisms should identify principles that explain how regeneration can occur and might clarify why such regenerative capacity is limited in humans. Hydra are freshwater cnidarians capable of whole-body regeneration after amputation. On page 341 of this issue, Siebert et al. (1) report a cell type transcriptome atlas of all major cell types of Hydra, generated by single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). In another recent study, Aztekin et al. (2) used scRNA-seq to study Xenopus tadpole tail regeneration and identified a cell that regulates regeneration, which they call the regeneration-organizing cell (ROC). These sequencing approaches provide a wealth of molecular data that should enable future dissection of regeneration mechanisms.


Water quality monitoring of estuarine ecosystems relies on measurement of biogeochemically important elements, including nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), carbon (C), and silicon (Si) at a time‐step relevant to the environmental conditions affecting the estuary. To improve the temporal resolution of sample collection from the Neuse River estuary, North Carolina, USA, a water sampling system was installed on a state‐operated motor vehicle ferry. A gravity‐filtration device consisting of a plastic cylinder (15 cm long, 4 cm wide) with a 0.7 µm pore size filter at the bottom was suspended inside the mouth of the collection bottle. Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), orthophosphate, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), ammonium, and silica were analyzed from filtered water samples, whereas nitrate plus nitrite analysis required acidification of samples in addition to filtration. Refrigerated storage of samples for 7 days had minimal effect on nutrient concentrations. A daily sample collection scheme was employed during September and October 2005 in the Neuse River estuary. There were relatively minor changes in N, P, C, and Si nutrients during and after passage of Hurricane Ophelia in September, but high concentrations of ammonium, silica, and orthophosphate occurred at the onset of high riverine discharge during a separate storm in October. In contrast, DOC, nitrate plus nitrite, and DON reached highest values after the peak riverine discharge. This high temporal resolution sampling regimen was essential for examining estuarine response to brief meteorological and hydrologic perturbations and is applicable to many other estuaries worldwide.


This essay explores the relations between perception, phenomenology and art practice. The object of my inquiry is the kind of perceptual repertoire available to the artist in relation to his art, which extends beyond the technical means available to art making in its varying forms. I invoke an artist's innate perception as the source and locus of art's creation. This creation of art also has an outward or phenomenological dimension. In this respect, I investigate the ways in which phenomenological perception, via Maurice Merleau-Ponty's hermeneutic insights into artistic activity, might offer to contemporary arts practice a means of reappraising its thoughts and actions. Here I propose the artist as one who embodies and uncovers artistic sensation: something which is embedded in an artist's working consciousness. In addition, I evaluate the ways in which Merleau-Ponty's perception into art might revivify an artist's laboring body in the formative conditions of artistic expression and how such expression might be instructive for aestheticians in the analysis they bring to art-making itself.


This paper is devoted to the problem of image semantic segmentation for machine vision system of off-road autonomous robotic vehicle. Most modern convolutional neural networks require large computing resources that go beyond the capabilities of many robotic platforms. Therefore, the main drawback of such models is extremely high complexity of the convolutional neural network used, whereas tasks in real applications must be performed on devices with limited resources in real-time. This paper focuses on the practical application of modern lightweight architectures as applied to the task of semantic segmentation on mobile robotic systems. The article discusses backbones based on ResNet18, ResNet34, MobileNetV2, ShuffleNetV2, EfficientNet-B0 and decoders based on U-Net, DeepLabV3 and DeepLabV3+ as well as additional components that can increase the accuracy of segmentation and reduce the inference time. In this paper we propose a model using ResNet34 enconding and DeepLabV3+ decoding with Squeeze & Excitation blocks that was optimal in terms of inference time and accuracy. We also demonstrate our off-road dataset and simulated dataset for semantic segmentation. Furthermore, we increased mIoU metric by 2.6 % on our off-road dataset using pretrained weights on simulated dataset, compared with mIoU metric using pretrained weights on the Cityscapes. Moreover, we achieved 76.1 % mIoU on the Cityscapes validation set and 85.4 % mIoU on our off-road validation set at 37 FPS (Frames per Second) for an input image of 1024×1024 size on one NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 card using NVIDIA TensorRT inference framework.


Mounting evidence suggests that nongenetic paternal effects on offspring may be widespread among animal taxa, but the mechanisms underlying this form of nongenetic inheritance are not yet fully understood. Here, we show that seminal fluids underlie paternal effects on early offspring survival in an insect, the cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus, and quantify the contribution of this paternal effect to the inheritance of this important fitness trait. We used castrated males within a full‐sib half‐sib experimental design to show that seminal fluid donors were responsible for variation in the survival of developing embryos to hatching, and in their subsequent survival to adulthood. Increased expression of two seminal fluid protein genes, previously found to be positively associated with sperm quality, was found to be negatively associated with embryo survival. These nongenetic paternal effects hold important implications for the evolution of adaptive maternal responses to sperm competition, and more broadly for the interpretation of sire effects from classic quantitative genetic breeding designs.


IRS Office of Research Headquarters measures and models taxpayer burden, defined as expenditures of time and money by taxpayers to comply with the federal tax system. In this research activity, IRS created two microsimulation models using econometric techniques to enable the Service to produce annual estimates of taxpayer compliance burden for individual and small business populations. Additionally, a discrete event simulation (DES) model was developed to represent taxpayer activities and IRS administration in post-filing processes. This paper discusses the development of the DES Post-filing Model and compares microsimulation and DES approaches from the perspectives of policy measurement, flexibility and reporting by IRS analysts. The main strengths of microsimulation are robust segmentation of results and the ability to support representation of imbedded, joint distributions in a complex, structural model. The strengths of using DES are its queuing capability and increased flexibility to update the granularity of both the data and process changes.


Time-of-flight (ToF) 3-D cameras like the Microsoft Kinect, are prevalent in computer vision and computer graphics. In such devices, the power of an integrated laser is amplitude modulated at megahertz frequencies and demodulated using a specialized imaging sensor to obtain subcentimeter range precision. To use a similar architecture and obtain micrometer range precision, this paper incorporates beat notes. To bring telecommunications ideas to correlation ToF imaging, we study a form of "cascaded Time of Flight" which uses a hertz-scale intermediate frequency to encode high-frequency pathlength information. We show synthetically and experimentally that a bulk implementation of opto-electronic mixers offers: 1) robustness to environmental vibrations; 2) programmability; and 3) stability in frequency tones. A fiberoptic prototype is constructed, which demonstrates 3- $\mu \text{m}$  range precision over a range of 2 m. A key contribution of this paper is to study and evaluate the proposed architecture for use in machine vision.


There is a widespread belief among the public and policy makers that quality of care in terms of user satisfaction can be improved with increased spending. However, recent research indicates that structural resources (e.g., budget per elderly) in elderly home care do not predict quality of care in terms of older persons' satisfaction with care. In the present study, we analyzed the longitudinal trends in costs and perceived quality of care across 3 years using nationwide data in Swedish elderly home care. The results showed that although costs have been steadily increasing, perceived quality of interpersonal treatment in care has remained at the same level. An important implication is that future research and policy efforts to improve quality should more directly target the mechanisms generating satisfaction.


To the Editor: Leprosy (Hansen disease) is caused by Mycobacterium leprae, an extremely slow-growing, intracellular, acid-fast bacillus with a typical incubation period >2–5 years, ranging up to 20 years. Anesthetic, thickened skin lesions and granulomatous inflammation in biopsy specimens are typical findings because direct visualization of the organism from biopsy specimens is unreliable (1).

The worldwide prevalence of leprosy is estimated to be <181,000 cases (annual incidence ≈220,000 new cases in recent years), of which 96% (173,760) occur in 14 countries (2). In the United States, ≈150 cases are reported annually, two thirds of which are associated with overseas exposure; the remainder are believed to be domestically acquired (3).

We report a case of multibacillary leprosy in a 44-year-old man, an active member of the US military, residing in southern California, USA, who had a 2-week history of fatigue and large, erythematous plaques on the extremities. He was born in the Philippines and resided there until immigrating to the United States at 23 years of age. He subsequently joined the US military and served as an administrator in clinical and microbiology research laboratories. He resided in California, Maryland, Japan, Egypt, Guam, and Indonesia. He also was deployed to Afghanistan and had vacationed in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Family history was unremarkable. No household or other ill contacts were identified.

Initial evaluation showed a weakly positive antinuclear antibody titer, which prompted consideration of cutaneous lupus. Annular skin lesions subsequently developed on his face, limbs, and trunk (Figure, panel A). His fatigue persisted, and further rheumatologic evaluation did not show any unusual results. Dermatologic evaluation showed madarosis, thickening of the glabella, and 8 large annular plaques. Light touch sensation was impaired, but all lesions were hypersensitive to trauma.

Figure

Physical examination and histopathologic manifestations of leprosy in a 44-year-old man in California, USA (active member of the US military). A) Large, annular, cutaneous plaque on the thigh. B) Skin biopsy specimen showing perineural lymphohistiocytic ...

A skin biopsy specimen showed perineural lymphohistiocytic inflammation and nonnecrotizing granulomata (Figure, panel B). Results of acid-fast and Grocott's methenamine silver (fungal) staining were negative. A presumptive diagnosis of leprosy was made, and he was referred to the Division of Infectious Diseases at Naval Medical Center San Diego for subspecialty management. Dapsone and rifampin were given for multibacillary leprosy. Clofazamine was not available from the manufacturer at time of treatment. After 6 months of therapy, the patient's lesions were less prominent, and cutaneous sensation had improved. A 2-year treatment course was completed and resulted in total resolution of cutaneous lesions. Residual anesthesia remained only over the right pinna. His course was without complication by either reversal reaction or erythema nodosum leprosum.

Understanding of the transmission of M. leprae has been impeded by difficulty cultivating the organism in vitro. Transmission is believed to occur by prolonged exposure to nasal secretions of patients with high bacillary loads. Infection might also result from exposure to cutaneous lesions or animal reservoirs, such as 9-banded armadillos (3).

Leprosy has been linked to defects in cell-mediated immunity. Milder disease has been associated with human leukocyte antigen HLA-DR3, and more severe disease has been associated with HLA-DQ/DR variants (4). Although most persons lack susceptibility, high nasal carriage rates in disease-endemic areas and living conditions associated with poverty further increase infection risk for susceptible persons because acquisition is facilitated by malnutrition, overcrowding, and poor sanitation (5).

Leprosy treatment is determined according to disease severity. The Ridley-Jopling system assesses lesion quantity, neurologic involvement, and bacterial load, and the current World Health Organization system simplifies this system to facilitate clinical classification, defining paucibacillary leprosy as 6 lesions (6).

Combination drug regimens for 6–24 months are highly effective. Together with efforts of the World Health Organization toward eradication, combination therapy has dramatically reduced the prevalence to current levels from previously stable levels of 10–12 million in the 1960s–1980s (7). Typical regimens include dapsone and rifampin, and clofazimine is available in the United States by investigational new drug application for multibacillary disease.

Patients undergoing treatment must be monitored for immunologic complications, such as cell-mediated reversal reaction (type 1 reaction) or interferon-α–mediated erythema nodosum leprosum (type 2 reaction). Reversal reactions may be especially severe and require urgent immunosuppression to avoid neurologic and vascular complications.

Leprosy is extremely rare in the United States (150 annual cases). Because transmission by prolonged close contact is more common than by casual contact, it is likely that the infection in this patient may have been acquired during childhood in a disease-endemic area, which represents the upper limit of incubation time. However, rare cases have been reported among military members, which makes it difficult to exclude the question of acquisition during military service in disease-endemic areas (8–10). Therefore, in patients with geographically appropriate foreign service or prolonged travel history, leprosy must be considered in the differential diagnosis of progressive skin lesions, particularly when lesional anesthesia is present.


[Pasteurella] pneumotropica is a ubiquitous bacterium frequently isolated from laboratory rodents. Although this bacterium causes various diseases in immunosuppressed animals, little is known about major virulence factors and their roles in pathogenicity. To identify virulence factors, we sequenced the genome of [P.] pneumotropica biotype Heyl strain ATCC 12555, and compared the resulting non-contiguous draft genome sequence with the genome of biotype Jawetz strain ATCC 35149. Among a large number of genes encoding virulence-associated factors in both strains, four genes encoding for YadA-like proteins, which are known virulence factors that function in host cell adherence and invasion in many pathogens. In this study, we assessed YadA distribution and biological activity as an example of one of virulence-associated factor shared, with biotype Jawetz and Heyl. More than half of mouse isolates were found to have at least one of these genes; whereas, the majority of rat isolates did not. Autoagglutination activity, and ability to bind to mouse collagen type IV and mouse fibroblast cells, was significantly higher in YadA-positive than YadA-negative strains. To conclude, we identified a large number of candidate genes predicted to influence [P.] pneumotropica pathogenesis.


Written by well-known computer scientists, this accessible and succinct introduction to database systems focuses on database design and use. It provides in-depth coverage of databases from the point of view of the database designer, user, and application programmer. The authors provide an overview of important programming systems (e.g., SQL, JDBC, PSM, CLI, PHP, XQuery, etc.) and the intellectual framework to put them into context. For software engineers, database engineers, and programmers.


This paper describes the emergence of a quotable gesture for HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The gesture has its origin in the Zulu phrase amangama amathathu 'the three letters', an expression South Africans began to use from the mid-1990s to refer to the acronym HIV. This phrase generated a plethora of words and phrases for HIV using the concept of 'three'. With these spoken references, speakers would sometimes use a manual expression for 'three' by showing three extended fingers. With repeated use, the manual expression by itself came to be established as a quotable gesture for HIV. The gesture became independent of speech as a noticeable increase in the number of deaths from HIV occurred. From observations of use in every day situations, speakers use the gesture primarily to mitigate the crude or indelicate effect of directly saying a person has HIV in speech. Use of the gesture also demonstrates sensitivity and empathy on the part of the speaker and lessens the speaker's commitment to, and consequently their responsibility for suggesting a person has the disease. Whether for secret communication or openly displayed for dramatic effect, speakers use this gesture in conjunction with speech in nuanced ways to avoid breaking the spoken taboo and flouting social norms. The emergence of this gesture suggests that speech taboos are a key reason for gestures becoming quotable; hence the large number of quotable gestures that represent socially awkward and potentially offensive words and speech acts. The adaptation of a counting gesture demonstrates that one source for new quotable gestures may be the re-semanticization of an existing gesture through spoken semantic links. In the case of the HIV gesture, spoken language played a key role in disseminating the metonym of 'three' and establishing a common ground for a quotable gesture to emerge across many communities in South Africa.


BACKGROUND
Although the vast majority of children with acute infections are managed at home, this is one of the most common problems encountered in children attending emergency departments (EDs) and primary care. Distinguishing children with serious infection from those with minor or self-limiting infection is difficult. This can result in misdiagnosis of children with serious infections, which results in a poorer health outcome, or a tendency to refer or admit children as a precaution; thus, inappropriately utilising secondary-care resources.

OBJECTIVES
We systematically identified clinical features and laboratory tests which identify serious infection in children attending the ED and primary care. We also identified clinical prediction rules and validated those using existing data sets.

DATA SOURCES
We searched MEDLINE, Medion, EMBASE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature and Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects in October 2008, with an update in June 2009, using search terms that included terms related to five components: serious infections, children, clinical history and examination, laboratory tests and ambulatory care settings. We also searched references of included studies, clinical content experts, and relevant National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines to identify relevant studies. There were no language restrictions. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they were based in ambulatory settings in economically developed countries.

REVIEW METHODS
Literature searching, selection and data extraction were carried out by two reviewers. We assessed quality using the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS) instrument, and used spectrum bias and validity of the reference standard as exclusion criteria. We calculated the positive likelihood ratio (LR+) and negative likelihood ratio (LR-) of each feature along with the pre- and post-test probabilities of the outcome. Meta-analysis was performed using the bivariate method when appropriate. We externally validated clinical prediction rules identified from the systematic review using existing data from children attending ED or primary care.

RESULTS
We identified 1939 articles, of which 35 were selected for inclusion in the review. There was only a single study from primary care; all others were performed in the ED. The quality of the included studies was modest. We also identified seven data sets (11,045 children) to use for external validation. The most useful clinical features for ruling in serious infection was parental or clinician overall concern that the illness was different from previous illnesses or that something was wrong. In low- or intermediate-prevalence settings, the presence of fever had some diagnostic value. Additional red flag features included cyanosis, poor peripheral circulation, rapid breathing, crackles on auscultation, diminished breath sounds, meningeal irritation, petechial rash, decreased consciousness and seizures. Procalcitonin (LR+ 1.75-2.96, LR- 0.08-0.35) and C-reactive protein (LR+ 2.53-3.79, LR- 0.25-0.61) were superior to white cell counts. The best performing clinical prediction rule was a five-stage decision tree rule, consisting of the physician's gut feeling, dyspnoea, temperature ≥ 40 °C, diarrhoea and age. It was able to decrease the likelihood of serious infections substantially, but on validation it provided good ruling out value only in low-to-intermediate-prevalence settings (LR- 0.11-0.28). We also identified and validated the Yale Observation Scale and prediction rules for pneumonia, meningitis and gastroenteritis.

LIMITATIONS
Only a single study was identified from primary-care settings, therefore results may lack generalisability.

CONCLUSIONS
Several clinical features are useful to increase or decrease the probability that a child has a serious infection. None is sufficient on its own to substantially raise or lower the risk of serious infection. Some are highly specific ('red flags'), so when present should prompt a more thorough or repeated assessment. C-reactive protein and procalcitonin demonstrate similar diagnostic characteristics and are both superior to white cell counts. However, even in children with a serious infection, red flags will occur infrequently, and their absence does not lower the risk. The diagnostic gap is currently filled by using clinical 'gut feeling' and diagnostic safety-netting, which are still not well defined. Although two prediction rules for serious infection and one for meningitis provided some diagnostic value, we do not recommend widespread implementation at this time. Future research is needed to identify predictors of serious infection in children in primary-care settings, to validate prediction rules more widely, and determine the added value of blood tests in primary-care settings.

FUNDING
The National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment programme.