Fish and cephalopod taxa occurring in association with Loligo vulgaris, in Portuguese waters between Lisbon and Vila Real de Santo António, were investigated by sampling with bottom trawling equipment between 1990-1991 and 1993-1995. The family Triglidae, the genera Pagellus and Trachurus and the four species Alloteuthis subulata, Boops boops, Callionymus lyra, and Merluccius merluccius were found, on average, in at least 75% of the trawls with L. vulgaris. Conversely, that cephalopod was found in at least 75% of the trawls with the family Trachinidae, the genera Dentex, Diplodus, Liza and Torpedo and the six species, Hyperoplus lanceolatus, Pagrus pagrus, Pomatoschistus m. minutus, Psetta m. maxima, Scophthalmus rhombus and Spicara flexuosa. An index of "affinity" (ranging from -∞ to 1) between L. vulgaris and the other taxa was used in order to highlight co-occurrences of an unlikely coincidental nature. Lists of taxa with high affinity index scores (0.5 to 1) are given for 5 different situations: all samples together; samples grouped by bottom depth; samples grouped by research cruise; research cruises grouped by season and by year. Pair wise comparisons between all taxa lists for each of the 5 situations were made, indicating a greater influence of depth than any other factor in the composition of the lists. The significance of the degree of similarity between lists of taxa, "preferred" under different circumstances and the reasons for those "preferences" are discussed.


We consider a model in which the level of taxes and seignorage are too low to finance government expenditures and debt service. Government debt will therefore grow without bound, implying the eventual need to change policy. Starting with utility maximization, we analyze the effect of the expected switch on equilibrium time paths before the switch takes place. We analyze stabilization via increasing taxes, increasing money growth rates, or cutting expenditures, both under certainty and under uncertainty about the composition or timing of a stabilization. Under full certainty, inflation may rise, fall, or remain constant before the stabilization, depending on which policy tool is used to stabilize. Uncertainty solely about the composition of the stabilization will yield paths in between the above cases, with a price jump at the time of stabilization. In general there is no simple correlation between changes in the budget deficit and inflation. With uncertainty about the timing OF a stabilization, the inflation rate will most likely exhibit fluctuations and may overshoot its steady state value, even when real balances move monotonically. Uncertainty about the timing of a stabilization can therefore itself induce fluctuation in inflation, even if underlying utility and subjective probability functions are smooth.


The statistical analysis of series of n-of-1 trials in which the treatments are randomized in cycles
within individuals is described. Version 9.4 (TS1M3) of the SAS software is used for the statistical analysis.
The statistical methods demonstrated assume that the outcome variable is normally distributed. The
examples presented are for a comparison between two treatments. Several methods appropriate for the
estimation and inference on the overall treatment effect as well as on the individual treatment effects are
compared and discussed.


Disasters, whether natural or man-made are the most destructive phenomena in human history. Notably, the two forms of disasters have been increasing globally in the recent past due to a myriad of factors such as environmental degradation, rapid unplanned urbanization, technological development, diseases and ethnic conflicts among others. However, even as disasters continue to destroy property, lives and livelihoods, their management in Kenya remains a big challenge and appears to lack the political goodwill. This is despite of the numerous UN recommendations towards DRR as a sine qua non measure to fight poverty and reverse the trend of losses caused by disasters whenever they occur. Here, disaster response has continued to be reactionary, ad hoc and uncoordinated. This is because the country lacks a clear national policy to regulate the various actors in disaster management. Due to inefficiency by the various civil authorities in disaster response, the military have often been called in to respond to emergencies as a last resort but with remarkable success. This study has heavily relied on secondary data obtained through library research and enriched further with primary data that was gathered through use of open ended questioneers that were administered to seven key actors in disaster management who were purposively selected due to their expert knowledge on the area of study. The study finds that the absence of a national disaster management policy is largely responsible for poor coordination of disaster management in Kenya and strongly recommends that the same be completed expeditiously. Further, the study proposes creation of a National Disaster management authority that will merge the activities of the various government agencies that purport to deal with disaster management and regulate the NGO's while recognizing the special role of the military and consider assigning them the lead role in response to certain types of disasters for effective, efficient and timely response.


Laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) for tumors in the posterosuperior liver [segment (S) 7 and deep S6] is a challenging clinical procedure. This area is located in the bottom of the small subphrenic space (rib cage), with the large and heavy right liver on it when the patient is in the supine position. Thus, LLR of this area is technically demanding because of the handling of the right liver which is necessary to obtain a fine surgical view, secure hemostasis and conduct the resection so as to achieve an appropriate surgical margin in the cage. Handling of the right liver may be performed by the hand-assisted approach, robotic liver resection or by using spacers, such as a sterile glove pouch. In addition, the operative field of posterosuperior resection is in the deep bottom area of the subphrenic cage, with the liver S6 obstructing the laparoscopic caudal view of lesions. The use of intercostal ports facilitates the direct lateral approach into the cage and to the target area, with the combination of mobilization of the liver. Postural changes during the LLR procedure have also been reported to facilitate the LLR for this area, such as left lateral positioning for posterior sectionectomy and semi-prone positioning for tumors in the posterosuperior segments. In our hospital, LLR procedures for posterosuperior tumors are performed via the caudal approach with postural changes. The left lateral position is used for posterior sectionectomy and the semi-prone position is used for S7 segmentectomy and partial resections of S7 and deep S6 without combined intercostal ports insertion. Although the movement of instruments is restricted in the caudal approach, compared to the lateral approach, port placement in the para-vertebra area makes the manipulation feasible and stable, with minimum damage to the environment around the liver.


Stressor reduction interventions may have the potential to improve the well-being of those involved in sport. Organizational psychologists have used these primary interventions in various performance domains. The authors describe the stressor reduction design and implementation processes, and the contexts in which they occur, that impact on these interventions. The authors then examine how process evaluation methods can be applied during stressor reduction in sport settings. Process evaluation requires the frequent collection of data about intervention experiences and events from multiple sources using a mixed-methods approach. The article contains practical recommendations for sport psychologists who implement stressor reduction interventions.


Recent international experience with the effective lower bound on nominal interest rates has rekindled interest in the benefits of inflation targets above 2 per cent. We evaluate whether an increase in the inflation target to 3 or 4 per cent could improve macroeconomic stability in the Canadian economy. We find that the magnitude of the benefits hinges critically on two elements: (i) the availability and effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy (UMP) tools at the effective lower bound, and, (ii) the level of the real neutral interest rate. In particular, we show that when the real neutral rate is in line with the central tendency of estimates, raising the inflation target yields some improvement in macroeconomic outcomes. There are only modest gains if effective UMP tools are available. In contrast, with a deeply negative real neutral rate, a higher inflation target substantially improves macroeconomic stability regardless of UMP.


Although the law remains predominately focused on the written word, a growing body of scholarship and legal practice reflect a dramatic increase in the use of visualization in virtually every legal context. Three starting assumptions underpin our ideas of implementing visualization ideas and techniques into what we call "Legal Design" that may aid contract simplification:First, we examine the use of images in business documents and in statutes, rather than for advocacy. Moving away from adversarial settings offers several advantages. It permits us to illustrate the use of images in a broader range of practical legal applications. It also enables us to adopt the thinking, values, and methods of a non-traditional approach to lawyering and the law: "Preventive Law" or "Proactive Law" (combined here as "PPL"). Second, we offer guidelines for using images in conjunction with words rather than in isolation, since the law only rarely abandons its verbal expression. Realistically, visualization is almost always used in hybrid ways — combinations of words and images to enhance the effectiveness of communication. That seems unlikely to change, given the need for detail and refinement when the law is imposing duties on people. Finally, our method analyzes variables surrounding choices and consequences about the process of generating, transmitting, and using images to accompany legal language. Examining this dynamic can deepen our understanding of the information conveyed; it can also reveal the potential of visualization for creating spillover value for businesses or regulatory agencies that employ the images to advance legal and organizational effectiveness.


Abstract Before the 2008 global financial crisis, bank monitoring focused primarily on risks to individual institutions, or what are generally referred to as prudential risks. Regulators thus failed to consider that a buildup of macroeconomic risks and vulnerabilities could pose systemic risk to the financial sector. The global credit crisis showed the inadequacy of purely prudential surveillance systems and the need for bank supervisors to better detect the buildup of macroeconomic risks before they can threaten the financial system. This article presents an empirical framework for analyzing how effectively macroprudential policies control credit growth, leverage growth, and housing price appreciation. Two significant findings emerge. Broadly, macroprudential policies can indeed promote financial stability in Asia. More specifically, different types of macroprudential policies are proved effective for different types of macroeconomic risks.


The research explored how women from the University of KwaZulu-Natal balanced both their personal and professional roles in order to advance into senior management positions. The study used a qualitative research methodology in which semistructured interviews were conducted on nine participants. The data were then analysed using Qualitative Thematic Analysis. The findings of this study revealed that although the participants faced various challenges, which were related to their gender they did manage to advance into senior management positions. What facilitated their advancement was that these women learned how to balance their dual roles through observing and imitating positive role models, which is supported by Bandura's Social Learning Theory. The findings of the study were both confirmed and disconfirmed by the literature. However what this study does show is that women are managing to advance into positions of senior management despite challenges that they may face and thus indicting that the glass ceiling is cracking. Management should therefore be prepared to manage this new breed of managers in their echelons.


Political Zionism is based on the fallacy that there exists a single nation encompassing all the world9s Jews. How can Zionism claim that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, since the only attribute shared by all Jews is Judaism, a religion and not an attribute of nationhood in any modern sense of the word? Jews can belong to various nations—a Jew may be French, American, Indian, Argentinian, and so forth—but being Jewish excludes other religious affiliations. Thus, this essay argues, the Zionist claim that all the world9s Jews constitute a single distinct national entity is an ideological myth, invented as a misconceived way of dealing with the persecution and discrimination suffered by European Jews, in particular. Indeed, from its earliest iterations and up to the present day, Zionism—a colonizing project—has been fueled by an inverted form of anti-Semitism: if, as it claims, Israel acts on behalf of all Jews everywhere, then all Jews must be collectively held responsible for the actions of that state—clearly an anti-Semitic position.


The American Kinesiology Association has constructed an undergraduate core for degree programs that reside in kinesiology-based academic units. Since many Physical Education Teacher Education programs are housed in such units, there is a need to prioritize the areas of the undergraduate core, particularly the place of the scientific dimensions of physical activity and the practice of physical activity, in Physical Education Teacher Education curricula. Maurice Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the lived body is employed to (a) challenge the predominant inclusion of the scientific dimensions of physical activity in teacher preparation curricula and (b) suggest that preservice physical education teachers need "lived body knowledge" of the subject matter to teach physical education. Lived body knowledge is skillful and meaningful engagement in dance, exercise, games, play, and/or sport. It is then argued that the practice of physical activity deserves a significant presence in Physical Education Teacher Education curricula.


Title of Document: ELEMENTARY TEACHERS' GRADING PRACTICES: DOES THE REALITY REFLECT THE RUBRIC? Katherine B. Shanahan, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Directed By: Professor, Gary Gottfredson, Counseling and Personnel Services Report cards are the primary way that teachers, students, and parents communicate about student achievement in the classroom. Although many school districts develop rubrics to guide teacher grading practices, most research finds that in reality, grades represent a hodgepodge of factors that vary across teachers and across school systems. The current study investigates student factors that explain variance in elementary report card grades in a suburban school district. The sample includes 4 and 5 grade students (N = 8,555) and their classroom teachers (N = 374) from 45 schools. Multilevel structural equation models, with students nested within classrooms, tested two models describing variance in report card grades. One model included the factors listed on the school system grading rubric along with additional factors thought to be related to grades (non-rubric model). An alternative, nested, model included only the factors from the grading rubric (rubric model). Results suggested that the non-rubric model provided a better fit for the data, but effects for the additional non-rubric factors were uniformly small.


This title features contributors such as: Susan Clair Imbarrato, Carol Berkin, Brett Barney, Lisa Paddock, Matthew J. Bruccoli, George Parker Anderson, Judith S. Baughman, Carl Rollyson, and Marshall Boswell.Advisory Board includes: Emory Elliott, University of California, Irvine; Wendy Martin, Harvey Mudd Graduate College; Sandra Adell, University of Wisconsin; Matthew J. Bruccoli, University of South Carolina; Richard Layman, Bruccoli Clark Layman/Manly, Inc.; and Park Bucker, University of South Carolina - Sumter.A thoroughly expanded and revised edition of the award-winning set, "Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition" is an extensive reference work that spans the entire scope of American literature, from the colonial period to the present. Now in four chronological volumes and arranged alphabetically within each volume, this comprehensive encyclopedia includes entries reflecting writers, works, literary movements, and more that high school students and undergraduates are likely to encounter.This major update boasts one new volume, approximately 1,000 new entries, and 300 new black-and-white illustrations. The majority of the new entries are on works of literature, with a particular emphasis on those most read by high school and college students. In addition, existing entries have been expanded and revised to reflect the latest scholarship, and each entry on a major author now contains a special section on how to research that author. Bibliographies have been expanded and updated, and epigraphs have been added to the most important author entries.Regionally and culturally inclusive, entries on writers describe key life events, provide thumbnail descriptions of and critical reactions to their works, and discuss the writer's significance in the literary period. Also included are bibliographies listing key critical and biographical resources, an index for each volume, and a general list of entries for the entire set. A chronology in each volume puts the literature of the period in context.


TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE CASEY LITIGATION STRATEGY II. THE CASEYDECISION III. ASSESSING THE MIXED OUTCOME IN CASEY CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION "Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt." (1) With these opening words, the Supreme Court in its landmark joint opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey reassured those who had doubted whether Roe v. Wade would survive and ultimately reaffirmed what it deemed Roe's "essential holding." (2) As lead counsel for Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania and other Pennsylvania reproductive health care providers in the Casey litigation, we greeted the decision with a mixture of surprise, relief, and uncertainty. After a nineteen-year concerted assault on Roe in which anti-choice forces fought for its wholesale overruling and the resulting recriminalization of abortion in America, by the narrowest of margins the Supreme Court declined to take that step. Yet, even as it reaffirmed Roe, the Court proceeded to overhaul it, replacing Roe's highly protective strict scrutiny standard (3) with a new, less protective undue burden test for measuring the constitutionality of restrictions on abortion. (4) This new standard was protective enough to sustain a facial challenge to two of the restrictive provisions challenged in Casey--the Pennsylvania law's husband notification requirement (5) and its related reporting provision (6)--and to raise concerns about the constitutionality of others despite the limited record before the Court. Moreover, the Casey plurality insisted that it intended to provide a level of protection for abortion fully consistent with Roe's core objective of "ensur[ing] that the woman's right to choose not become so subordinate to the State's interest in promoting fetal life that her choice exists in theory but not in fact." (7) At the time Casey was decided, and indeed in much commentary that followed, the litigation strategy and resulting decision was credited as a significant legal and political victory. (8) In light of the expectations of most court watchers at the time, who fully believed that the Court was prepared to overrule Roe, (9) as well as a first--and thankfully never published--draft of the Casey opinion written by Chief Justice Rehnquist that had reduced constitutional review to the most minimally protective rational basis standard, (10) the decision in Casey was a significant victory. But as interpreted by the lower courts and later applied by the Supreme Court in the two decades since Casey, the undue burden standard has proven to be far less protective of abortion rights than the Roe standard. (11) Moreover, the public's relief that Roe was not overturned, coupled with its perception--however faulty--that Casey adequately protected women's reproductive choices, has limited the ability of advocates to organize successfully to secure the abortion right in the past two decades. Indeed, by winning only a partial victory, we secured Roe's formal status, but were unable to forestall a plethora of burdensome abortion restrictions that increasingly threaten to make abortion services unavailable to America's most vulnerable women. On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Casey and the upcoming fortieth anniversary of Roe, this Article will describe our litigation strategy in seeking to preserve Roe, assess the mixed outcome in Casey, and highlight both the advantages of the surprising decision and some of its drawbacks. We are particularly concerned that the Supreme Court's erosion of federal constitutional protection for abortion in Casey and subsequent judicial rulings that fail to place teeth into the undue burden standard have led to an avalanche of new legal restrictions on abortion. (12) Together with other barriers to access, such as the high cost of abortions, misinformation, harassment, and provider shortages, these governmental restrictions have made it increasingly difficult for American women to obtain abortion services and have been particularly burdensome for young, poor, and rural women and for those who are survivors of physical abuse and sexual assault. …


Background: Even in developed countries suboptimal anticoagulation and low adherence to guidelines is frequently observed in Atrial fibrillation (AF) patients. There is no data from our regional population and very scarce Indian data about the utilization patterns and adherence to guidelines for stroke prevention in AF. Aims and Objectives: To characterize clinical profile and assess adherence to guidelines in stroke prevention in AF in north Indian population. Material and Methods: It was a single centre observational study. All patients presenting to outpatient department or admitted in cardiology wards from May 2014 to April 2016 with AF were included. Detailed history, examination and relevant investigations were carried out .CHADS2 score was used for risk stratifying and prescribing oral anticoagulants in nonvalvular AF. The effectiveness of oral anticoagulant was assessed by INR. Result: Total of 446 patients were included. Mean age of our patients was 60.83±16.86 years. 48% were males and 52% were females. Rheumatic heart disease was most common (37.2%) ethology followed by hypertensive cardiovascular disease (18.2%). Mean CHADS2 score was 2.63±1.5 in non valvular AF. Out of 446 patients, 409(92%) patients were found to have indication for prescription of OAC as per guidelines, out of which only 290 (71%) patients actually received OAC. OAC prescription was significantly higher in valvular vs. non valvular AF ( p=0.0001).The rates of OAC prescription in our patients in age group, ≤65, 66-75, >75 years were 84.4%, 65% and 60.2% respectively Out of 290 patients who were eligible for OAC ,only 102(25%) patients were optimally anti-coagulated. Conclusion: Discordance between guidelines and practice was found regarding prescription of OACs and maintenance of optimal anticoagulation for stroke prevention in our population. Optimal anticoagulation needs to be emphasized on both patients as well as physicians to prevent strokes and achieve better outcomes.


Aims. We investigated whether the predictions and results of Stanishev et al. (2002, A&A, 394, 625) concerning a possible relationship between eclipse depths in PX And and its retrograde disc precession phase, could be confirmed in long term observations made by SuperWASP. In addition, two further CVs (DQ Her and V795 Her) in the same SuperWASP data set were investigated to see whether evidence of superhump periods and disc precession periods were present and what other, if any, long term periods could be detected. Methods. Long term photometry of PX And, V795 Her and DQ Her was carried out and Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis undertaken on the resulting light curves. For the two eclipsing CVs, PX And and DQ Her, we analysed the potential variations in the depth of the eclipse with cycle number. Results. The results of our period and eclipse analysis on PX And confirm that the negative superhump period is 0.1417 ± 0.0001d.We find no evidence of positive superhumps in our data suggesting that PX And may have been in a low state during our observations. We improve on existing estimates of the disc precession period and find it to be 4.43 ± 0.05d. Our results confirm the predictions of Stanishev et al. (2002). We find that DQ Her does not appear to show a similar variation for we find no evidence of negative superhumps or of a retrograde disc precession. We also find no evidence of positive superhumps or of a prograde disc precession and we attribute the lack of positive superhumps in DQ Her to be due to the high mass ratio of this CV. We do however find evidence for a modulation of the eclipse depth over a period of 100 days which may be linked with solar-type magnetic cycles which give rise to long term photometric variations. The periodogram analysis for V795 Her detected the likely positive superhump period 0.1165d, however, neither the 0.10826d orbital period nor the prograde 1.53d disc precession period were seen. Here though we have found a variation in the periodogram power function at the positive superhump period, over a period of at least 120 days.


We present CURL: Contrastive Unsupervised Representations for Reinforcement Learning. CURL extracts high-level features from raw pixels using contrastive learning and performs off-policy control on top of the extracted features. CURL outperforms prior pixel-based methods, both model-based and model-free, on complex tasks in the DeepMind Control Suite and Atari Games showing 1.9x and 1.2x performance gains at the 100K environment and interaction steps benchmarks respectively. On the DeepMind Control Suite, CURL is the first image-based algorithm to nearly match the sample-efficiency of methods that use state-based features. Our code is open-sourced and available at this https URL.


This paper seeks to make a critical review of the current status of the constitionalised panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) in India as institutions of self government and as instruments of planning for economic development and social justice in the light of empirical evidence collected by the researchers and critical analysis of the some of the actions of state . The background of the rise of the "new" panchayat system has been narrated in a nut shell to enable the readers to have an idea of the conceptual and institutional framework of the panchayat system Keeping the central objective in mind the article focuses on the challenges faced by the third generation PRIs in India from within and without and attempts to make an assessment about the future of these institutions. Reference has been made to the experience of some of the states in order to support the comments and observations. The article argues that despite the constitutional amendment to regenerate the PRIs there is still lack of genuine and strong political interest and bureaucratic support to fuel the institutions. These have been manifested in the actions of the state after the constitution has been amended. The traditional factors rooted in the socio-economic structure and political dynamics of the rural society continue to plague the working of these democratic institutions. It has been contended that there is need for another round of constitutional amendment coupled with continuous political and administrative support to ensure steady growth of the PRIs. The author finds a ray of hope in the rise of civil society organizations which have started acting as watchdogs in some of the states. They are working not only for generating awareness among the stakeholders but also for organizing the villagers to assert their rights and in this respect, the right to information has come as great boon.


Tourism is an important section of economy representing a huge development potential. It has a large share in creating workplaces, the national product, etc. The market economy results in a situation where there is strong competition to win customers. On the world's competitiveness list, Poland is ranked on the 50th place and holds a fairly low position, i.e. 96th, among 136 countries with respect to a broadly understood tourism policy. The tourism policy, as other areas of the socio-economic policy, remain a domain of the government administration. The purpose of the article is to present the results of research into how this role is played by the administration of the Torun County and the 9 communes it consists of.


The importance of optimal marketing communications mix decisions is well-recognized by both marketing scholars and practitioners. A significant volume of work has addressed the problem of dynamic marketing mix optimization assuming constant effectiveness of marketing instruments. However, the effectiveness of marketing communications varies over time for a variety of reasons. Moreover, due to factors such as inflation or deflation in media prices and/or raw material inputs, there can be differential changes in the costs of communications and/or margins on the good (or service) sold over time. The academic literature offers little normative direction on how time-varying marketing effectiveness and costs drive optimal marketing-mix levels and their relative allocation. The authors shed light on these issues by solving a monopoly firm's finite horizon dynamic marketing communications mix optimization problem involving two marketing instruments with time-varying parameters, i.e., the marketing effectiveness parameters, media costs, and product margin are all allowed to vary over time. First, they find that the structure of the solutions is similar to that of the classic Nerlove–Arrow model, for a completely general nature of time-varying effectiveness. Second, their model can be used by managers to exactly determine whether and when to switch their marketing-mix emphasis (defined by the marketing element receiving the dominant portion of the budget) over a finite planning horizon. In sum, the authors expand knowledge on optimal allocation of marketing resources with time-varying effectiveness. They also extend their solution to incorporate multiple (more than two) marketing instruments. © 2011 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Because of its long commitment to inclusive/integrated education, Italy leads the world in educating the largest percentage of its students with disabilities in general education classes. It also boasts the fewest special classes and schools. Inclusion in Italy is based on a principle that disability is not a problem, but rather a positive force in the classroom. Focused on developing the competencies of each student, inclusion/integration shares a belief in the capacity for growth of all learners and an assumption that non-disabled and disabled peers, even those with the most significant learning needs, learn in mutually reinforcing and reciprocal ways. Integrazione scolastica is not, therefore, simply a moral or ethical project but has led to increased achievement for learners with and without disabilities. Yet, despite progressive laws and policies and a 30-year history of inclusive education, there remains a need to be hypervigilant to pressures to revert back to the status quo of segregated education. The problem is not a lack of a US-centric approach, as advocated by Anastasiou, Kaufman, and Di Nuovo (2015), which is increasingly out of step with international policy and deeply mired in racial inequalities and a overall lack of efficacy, but rather to find ways to recommit to fully inclusive practices in an era of increased diversity, diminished economic resources and increasing pressures of neoliberal reforms.


Engineering complex tissues for research and clinical applications relies on high-performance biomaterials that are amenable to biofabrication, maintain mechanical integrity, support specific cell behaviours, and, ultimately, biodegrade. In most cases, complex tissues will need to be fabricated from not one, but many biomaterials, which collectively fulfill these demanding requirements. Gellan gum is an anionic polysaccharide with potential to fill several key roles in engineered tissues, particularly after modification and blending. This review focuses on the present state of research into gellan gum, from its origins, purification and modification, through processing and biofabrication options, to its performance as a cell scaffold for both soft tissue and load bearing applications. Overall, we find gellan gum to be a highly versatile backbone material for tissue engineering research, upon which a broad array of form and functionality can be built.


When predicting class labels for objects within a relational database, it is often helpful to consider a model for relationships: this allows for information between class labels to be shared and to improve prediction performance. However, there are different ways by which objects can be related within a relational database. One traditional way corresponds to a Markov network structure: each existing relation is represented by an undirected edge. This encodes that, conditioned on input features, each object label is independent of other object labels given its neighbors in the graph. However, there is no reason why Markov networks should be the only representation of choice for symmetric dependence structures. Here we discuss the case when relationships are postulated to exist due to hidden common causes. We discuss how the resulting graphical model differs from Markov networks, and how it describes different types of real-world relational processes. A Bayesian nonparametric classification model is built upon this graphical representation and evaluated with several empirical studies.


A novel hybrid three-phase multilevel converter is proposed for medium-voltage applications. The converter employs a conventional three-phase voltage source inverter (VSI) linking series connected half-bridge modules at each phase. With the proposed connection, a large portion of energy can be processed by the VSI without the need for insulation or by employing a single transformer, while smaller power shares are processed within the half-bridge modules. Thus, the requirements for galvanically insulated dc sources are reduced. Modularity is naturally achieved. A modulation scheme for a four-level version is proposed and analyzed in detail. This scheme allows unidirectional power flow in all dc sources and, consequently enables diode bridges to be employed in the rectification input stage for unidirectional applications.


Less than 10 years ago, Volvo Cars was known for spacious family cars with high levels of safety but fuel consumption well above the EU average. When in 2007, customers started to demand more efficient cars, the company had little to offer and few projects in the pipeline, whereas competitors rapidly launched less-emitting models. Without waiting for formal executive decisions, a team of experienced engineers took the initiative and organized a broad reengineering campaign labeled "DRIVe" ("Drive towards zero"). The basic idea was to build on existing models and platforms and in a very focused process introduce modifications and fuel-saving modules and so launch a low emitting model within less than 12 months. Incentives on various national markets, for example Belgium or the Netherlands were important factors to convince the market organization and get internal acceptance. In 2008, production started of the first DRIVe versions of Volvo's compact cars with emissions at 119 gram CO2/km, a reduction by 10+ grams. Six months later more advanced versions with start/stop functionality reduced emissions to 104 g/km. DRIVe versions of the larger models followed, and in 2010, production started of a new version of the large V70 DRIVe with fuel consumption reduced to 0.45 l/100 km and emissions to 119 g CO2/km, a 25% improvement. Later in 2010, improved versions S40 and V50 reported emissions at 99 g/km. The flow of rapid reengineering projects continued and in 2014, the team could present the compact V40 model with a new powerful engine, boasting emissions as low as 85gra/km – without the help of any hybrid systems. An important driver of this flow constantly improved models has been the purchasing incentives in the Netherlands which are tightened annually, 88 gram/km in 2013, 85gram/km in 2014, 82gram/km in 2015, etc. Compliance with these levels is critical for success in the Dutch company car segment and has been very effective in setting a target for the DRIVe projects in recent years, and has contributed to Volvo Cars repositioning from fuel consumption well above the EU average to the lowest fuel consumer within its segment. In total, the DRIVe program has delivered 25 improved models from 2008 to 2014. In this paper we analyze its success factors, management particularities and lessons and limitations for other development projects.


Why does possibility exist and where does it come from? These are questions not usually asked because possibility is so deeply woven into the fabric of the universe we take its existence completely for granted. By exploring a well known, but essentially unexamined absolute first principle, we describe why possibility exists, where it comes from and the form it takes in our universe. We describe the fundamental mechanism which enables possibility to exist and to resolve to choice in context, which means we also generate the existence of context and choice. We discuss a number of examples to demonstrate how this mechanism operates and what it means.

In the late 19th Century, paradoxes revealed that no true universal set, no true set of all sets, can exist. Axiomatic set theory was developed as the solution to the problem this impossibility presented and the impossibility was treated as a failure of the naive conception of set theory and was set aside. We do not address set theory except in passing. Set theory assumes possibility exists to describe which sets are possible. We look instead directly at the meaning of the impossibility uncovered by the paradoxes to uncover why possibility itself can exist. This has never been done. We show that deriving without assumptions from this impossibility generates a specific structure which enables the existence of possibility, context and choice.

We begin by explaining the process by which we focused on this impossibility; we describe the process by which we can answer a question so obvious we take it for granted. We then derive the existence of possibility, context and choice and define the inherent structure we call the Choice Mechanism. To use a metaphor from the paper, we describe a box whose sides are absolute impossibility and which can be filled with all the possibility that can exist. By structure, we mean an actual structure in which possibility occurs and through which all resolution of possibility happens.

The rest of the paper consists of five discussion groups. We present in these a number of illustrative examples all of which cannot currently be explained. To be clear, we use the Choice Mechanism to provide the missing "why" for a number of otherwise unexplainable, fundamental phenomena, with each discussion group covering a major aspect of how this underlying structure for possibility appears and operates.

1. The first group explains how the Choice Mechanism calculates: we explain why numbers exist, meaning both Base 2 and Base 10, why the fundamental analytic constant e, the base of natural logarithms, exists and why functions exist. Again to be clear, we mean we derive the actual existence of numbers, of e and of function. We show in this and other sections how the universe actually calculates possibilities and how those become results.
2. The second group discusses physical examples which literally manifest the Choice Mechanism context structure; we explain why the logarithmic spiral occurs in nature and how the context structure of the Choice Mechanism completely explains certain fundamental behaviors of elementary particles.
3. The third group focuses on how the Choice Mechanism context structure operates, specifically on how coherent resolution to choice of context expresses as a force; we explain why natural selection and economic "markets" exist.
4. The fourth discusses fundamental aspects of how the Choice Mechanism acts on persistent structures, meaning how coherence interacts with things that have a past, present and future. This section contains too many examples to list.
5. The fifth discussion group describes how the Choice Mechanism functions at scale, meaning the effects of coherent resolution of context to choice at various scales of existence: we explain why the arrow of time exists and why the subjective experience of time exists. We also explain why and how constants of infinite depth can exist in a universe in which time exists.

Please understand this work completely agrees with established fact and theory, does not in any way rely on "hidden variables" or new particles or forces, and is not in any way mystical. We do not advance any new paradigms. We merely explain what we in essence already know: that possibilities exist and that somehow these come together to make our universe and all that happens in it. We provide the missing "why". We understand this is difficult to believe. You have to read it. We can't otherwise persuade you.

The material is presented in a non-technical manner. The math is trivial.

No contact information is provided because we prefer to remain unknown.


The studies were conducted in nine stations with varying ecological characteristics along Cochin backwaters and adjoining canals. Many workers opined that the distribution of rotifers is cosmopolitan. The significance of rotifers as first food for early larvae was indicated by Fujita. Aquaculture is a fast growing field in fisheries sector and it is gaining more importance as the fish landings and supply are getting irregular. A consistent supply of fish/shellfish can only be achieved through aquaculture. The success of any culture activity depends on the timely production of seeds of finfishes/shellfishes. The availability of wild seed is seasonal and erratic. So, a dependable source of seed of fishes and shellfishes is possible only through large scale production in hatchery. A successful seed production activity depends on the availability of a variety of suitable live feed organisms in sufficient quantities at the proper time for use in the larval stages. As the live feeds promote high growth rates, easy digestion, assimilation and the quality of not contaminating the culture water when compared to other artificial feeds, make the culture of live feed organisms the principal means of providing food for the larvae of finfishes and shellfishes. Rotifers are considered to be an excellent and indispensable food for larvae of many finfishes and crustaceans. It (1960) was the first to culture Brachionus plicatilis for feeding marine fish larvae, and now it is being extensively used as live feed in hatcheries all over the world. They are a group of microscopic organisms coming under the Phylum Rotifera which comprises of about 2000 species. Their slow swimming habits, ability to tolerate a wide range of salinities, parthenogenetic mode of reproduction and ability to get enriched easily, make rotifers an ideal live feed organism. The major factors such as temperature, salinity and food that influence the reproductive potential and thereby the population size of rotifer, Salinity is one of the most important aspect influencing the reproductive rate of rotifers. The feed type and feed concentration play a vital role in influencing the reproductive rate of rotifers. For culture of rotifers, the commonly used micro algae belong to Chlorella, Nannochloropsis, Isochrysis and Tetraselmis. While some studies have suggested that, algal diet has little effect on reproductive rates in 1979 while using the rotifer, Brachionus plicatilis as feed for the larvae of red sea bream, Pagrus major. It is generally accepted that rotifers play a pivotal role in the successful rearing of marine fish larvae.


Background The traditional model of promotion and tenure in the health professions relies heavily on formal scholarship through teaching, research, and service. Institutions consider how much weight to give activities in each of these areas and determine a threshold for advancement. With the emergence of social media, scholars can engage wider audiences in creative ways and have a broader impact. Conventional metrics like the h-index do not account for social media impact. Social media engagement is poorly represented in most curricula vitae (CV) and therefore is undervalued in promotion and tenure reviews. Objective The objective was to develop crowdsourced guidelines for documenting social media scholarship. These guidelines aimed to provide a structure for documenting a scholar's general impact on social media, as well as methods of documenting individual social media contributions exemplifying innovation, education, mentorship, advocacy, and dissemination. Methods To create unifying guidelines, we created a crowdsourced process that capitalized on the strengths of social media and generated a case example of successful use of the medium for academic collaboration. The primary author created a draft of the guidelines and then sought input from users on Twitter via a publicly accessible Google Document. There was no limitation on who could provide input and the work was done in a democratic, collaborative fashion. Contributors edited the draft over a period of 1 week (September 12-18, 2020). The primary and secondary authors then revised the draft to make it more concise. The guidelines and manuscript were then distributed to the contributors for edits and adopted by the group. All contributors were given the opportunity to serve as coauthors on the publication and were told upfront that authorship would depend on whether they were able to document the ways in which they met the 4 International Committee of Medical Journal Editors authorship criteria. Results We developed 2 sets of guidelines: Guidelines for Listing All Social Media Scholarship Under Public Scholarship (in Research/Scholarship Section of CV) and Guidelines for Listing Social Media Scholarship Under Research, Teaching, and Service Sections of CV. Institutions can choose which set fits their existing CV format. Conclusions With more uniformity, scholars can better represent the full scope and impact of their work. These guidelines are not intended to dictate how individual institutions should weigh social media contributions within promotion and tenure cases. Instead, by providing an initial set of guidelines, we hope to provide scholars and their institutions with a common format and language to document social media scholarship.


Background: The overall prognosis of multiple myeloma has improved significantly over the last 15 years. We wondered whether the overall improvement would also be seen in unselected patients in an academic center in Northwest Louisiana with a high proportion of minority patients, and if second malignant neoplasms are relevant for our patients. Materials and Methods: Between 1998 and 2009, 215 patients were treated for multiple myeloma at our center and had complete follow-up until May 2013. Results: The mean survival of patients with multiple myeloma increased from 3.25 to 5.34 years, which is comparable to patients treated at larger centers. No prognostic difference was observed in the subgroups of myeloma patients. Among 215 patients followed for the development of secondary cancers, 16 already had a preexisting or concomitant malignancy (7.4%) and 10 developed secondary cancers. Our data indicate a significant background of histologically unrelated cancers and a cumulative incidence of new cancers of about 20% after 10 years of follow-up. Based on SEER data, preexisting or secondary cancers were not statistically increased in our population. Conclusions: The use of autologous transplantation and the introduction of new agents resulted in a significant improvement in the prognosis of multiple myeloma. Other cancers are not statistically increased before or after multiple myeloma is diagnosed and are not prognostically relevant.


"I often feel that we're stuck in a sort of 'no man's land' between the recognized need for technology to be a part of the educational process, and our still-developing sense of best practice and how to leverage this really powerful tool to get kids learning in exciting ways," said a recent participant of our School Technology Leadership Initiative (STLI; www.schooltechleadership.org) at the University of Minnesota. He is not alone in that no man's land. In fact, few mechanisms exist today in K-12 education to prepare school leaders to understand and espouse innovative technologies, even as technological innovation is occurring so rapidly. Although nearly all public school teachers now have access to computers or the Internet somewhere in their schools, only one-third of them feel "well prepared" or "very well prepared" to integrate the use of computers and the Internet into their teaching, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (Stats in Brief: Teacher Use of Computers and the Internet in Public Schools, 2000, nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/2000090.pdf). What's more, it's been demonstrated that in recent years, few school administrators use technology meaningfully to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their own work (Richard Riedl et al., Leadership for a Technology-Rich Educational Environment, 1998). Simply put, schools experience difficulty connecting technology infrastructure with effective leadership in order for students, faculty, staff, and the community to reap benefits from technology. And despite the fact that administrative leadership may be "the single most important factor affecting schools' successful integration of technology" (Elizabeth Byrom and Margaret Bingham, Factors Influencing the Effective Use of Technology for Teaching and Learning: Lessons Learned From the SEIR-TEC Intensive Site Schools, 2001), surprisingly little attention focuses on the technology-related needs of school administrators. Most educational leadership preparation programs are slow to recognize the unique leadership issues related to technology confronting their graduates, and the only current large-scale initiative in this area, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation State Challenge Grants for Leadership Development, is temporary and focuses on professional development of current practitioners rather than on leadership pipeline issues. The STLI Takes Shape With all this in mind, we began forging a solution in 2002 at the University of Minnesota: The first academic program in the country designed to comprehensively address the need for effective technology leaders in K-12 schools--a bridge across the no man's land between technology and leadership that might be considered a national model for other technology leadership initiatives in the future. The STLI was funded initially through a grant from the US Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), but it has also received broad corporate and organizational support. In 2002, we developed our curriculum and nurtured strategic partnerships with Microsoft, IBM, the National School Boards Association, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and the Consortium for School Networking. In 2003, we began offering our graduate certificate program, working with higher education partners and increasing our outreach activities. Importantly, our solution targets both current practitioners and future school leadership candidates. Graduates of the STLI can lead and manage technology use in schools. They plan for the technological future of school organizations and provide options for growth and greater success in student achievement, teacher proficiency, and employee professional development through their technology decision-making. We prepare them to increase overall efficiency of their organizations through effective implementation of technology; in addition, they have a greater understanding and recognition of the safety, security, legal, and ethical issues inherent in the implementation of technology in K-12 schools. …


Tribology, one of the applied sciences in mechanical engineering which studies friction, wear and lubrication, contributes in the effort of minimizing wear and loses due to contact between two surfaces. Tribology is an essential technology for most of industries due to the impacts on energy efficiency, machine life, engine design, maintenance schedules and machine downtime. In the medical area, tribology is also critical to the long term mobility, healthy and the quality of life of patients with for instance replacement joints. An energy efficiency which is related to green technology is an important issue nowadays. However, it appears that possibilities to save energy by reducing the losses due to wear and friction have not sufficiently been taken into account in a large number of countries, especially in the developed-countries. It can be said that through tribology strategies for energy conservation can be reached. Industry could savings 1.5 % of GNP for the UK from better tribology application, based on the report made by Jost in 1966. It was a surprising value at that time. The number can be larger at this moment after considering the increasing of the use of the components in mechanical systems. A value at the same level is expected for Indonesia if the better tribology technology is applied.
Running-in, as a part of the tribology science, has a significant role in the reliability of mechanical components. Running-in occurs in the first period in the life-time of a rolling or sliding contact of a lubricated system. The running-in phase cannot be avoided in any mechanical system in which moving parts are present. For this, the running-in behaviour of surfaces has to be understood to be able to give guidelines to industry how to produce in a simple way their surfaces.
The long term project in the Laboratory for Engineering Design and Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering UNDIP focuses on the research of running-in of rolling-sliding contact system. Study of the layered surface becomes important related to the running-in because the layered surface contributes specific surface roughness. The specific surface roughness controls the running-in process.
One of the effective ways to improve the tribological properties of the contacting surface during running-in is by laminating or coating the surface with thin layers. The layers which can be deposited from several nano to a few microns are designed to control the surface roughness. The appropriate initial surface roughness, produced by good design of the thin layers, can contribute in reducing the friction and the wear rate in the running-in process and, as a result, prolong the component life.
It is important to realize that the mechanical contact between solids is localized to micro-scale contact spots that together form the real contact area. The contact pressure in these tiny areas is of the order of their hardness irrespective of the nominal contact pressure. Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that damage can occur even in apparently very mildly loaded tribological contacts. One such example is the damage occurring on ceramic seals in sliding contact despite the nominal contact pressure being a hundred thousand times lower than their hardness. A layered surface can fail prematurely due to the detachment, delamination, cracking and/or spalling of the coating material. The present research will obtain the situation where the coating/layer, the substrate and the interface show a good performance during the sliding contact.
The conventional way to determine the layered surface behaviour is by performing experiments. The different material pair of the thin layer/film, coefficient of friction and load will show a different state of the stress distribution, the contact pressure, and the wear. The experimental research on layered surface requires a large number of experiments and the costs are enormous. Due to the difficulty in making precise measurements and the lack of the measurement setup in Indonesia, numerical method is the best approach to study the behaviour of the layered surface contact system. Therefore, in this project, finite element analysis (FEA), as one of the useful numerical tools, will be used to solve the problem in the present study.
Different arrangement of the thin film, i.e. layer/film thickness and the structure of the layer, will be used as the variable in the sliding contact simulation. The commercial finite element software package ANSYS is used for the simulation. Several geometrical models will be used for the simulation based on the previous results from the research conducted in the Laboratory for Engineering Design and Tribology UNDIP. Variations of load, below and beyond the critical load, are applied to the contacting layered bodies. The critical stress distribution, strain, contact pressure, and deformation due to sliding contact on the layer, the substrate and the interface will be reported. Finally, the optimum model for the layered surface is presented where stresses, pressure and strain is satisfactory in preventing damage of the layer due to sliding action.

Key words: layer, coating, elastic-plastic, contact mechanics, sliding.


This is a concise, step-by-step guide to conducting qualitative nursing research using various forms of data analysis. It is part of a unique series of books devoted to seven different qualitative designs and methods in nursing, written for novice researchers and specialists seeking to develop or expand their competency. This practical resource encompasses such methodologies as Content Analysis, a means of organising and interpreting data to elicit themes and concepts; Discourse Analysis, used to analyse language in order to understand social or historical content; Narrative Analysis, in which the researcher seeks to understand human experience through participant stories; and Focus Groups and Case Studies, used to understand the consensus of a group or the experience of an individual and his or her reaction to a difficult situation such as disease or trauma. Written by a noted qualitative research scholar and contributing experts, the book describes the philosophical basis for conducting research using data analysis and delivers an in-depth plan for applying its methodologies to a particular study, including appropriate methods, ethical considerations, and potential challenges. It presents practical strategies for solving problems related to the conduct of research using the various forms of data analysis and presents a rich array of case examples from published nursing research. These include author analyses to support readers in decision-making regarding their own projects. The book embraces such varied topics as data security in qualitative research, the image of nursing in science fiction literature, the trajectory of research in several nursing studies throughout Africa, and many others. Chapters include objectives, critical thinking exercises, competencies, resources, and review material. Written for novice researchers and specialists seeking to develop or expand their competency, it will be of value to health institution research divisions, in-service educators and students, and graduate nursing educators and students. Key Features:* Explains how to conduct nursing research using Content Analysis, Discourse* Analysis, Narrative Analysis, and Focus Groups and Case Studies* Presents state of the art designs and protocols* Focuses on solving practical problems related to the conduct of research* Features rich nursing exemplars in a variety of health/mental health clinical settings in the US and internationally* Includes objectives, critical thinking exercises, competencies, resources, and review material


We give theorems that can be used to upper bound the densities of packings of different spherical caps in the unit sphere and of translates of different convex bodies in Euclidean space. These theorems extend the linear programming bounds for packings of spherical caps and of convex bodies through the use of semidefinite programming. We perform explicit computations, obtaining new bounds for packings of spherical caps of two different sizes and for binary sphere packings. We also slightly improve the bounds for the classical problem of packing identical spheres.


In an earlier study (Koretz, 1997), we reported that Kentucky had been unusually successful in testing most students with disabilities, but we found numerous signs of poor measurement, including differential item functioning in mathematics, apparently excessive use of accommodations, and implausibly high mean scores for some groups of students with disabilities. This study used newer data to test the stability of the findings over a two-year period, to extend some of the analyses to additional subject areas, and to compare performance on open-response items to that on multiple-choice items, which were not administered in the assessment investigated earlier. We analyzed test score data from students in Grades 4, 5, 7, 8, and 11. The inclusiveness of the assessment persisted, and the frequency of specific accommodations remained unchanged. The mean performance of elementary school students with disabilities dropped substantially, however, apparently because of a lessened impact of accommodations—particularly dictation—on scores. These lower scores, while discouraging as an indication of student performance, appear to be more plausible. The differences in scores between disabled and non-disabled students tended to be larger on the multiple-choice components in the elementary grades, whereas the differences were generally similar or larger for open-response components in the higher grades. Across grades, the effects of accommodations were stronger on the open-response than on the multiple-choice tests. Correlations among parts of the assessment were different for accommodated students with disabilities than for others, with higher correlations across subjects for the openresponse components. This may indicate that some accommodations change the dimensionality of the assessment. DIF was apparent in both the open-response and multiple-choice components of the assessment, but it was mostly limited to students who received accommodations. DIF was found in both formats. Further research and more detailed data concerning the specific uses of accommodations are needed to clarify the reasons for these findings and to guide the development of more effective approaches to the assessment of students with disabilities.


Intertidal wetlands such as salt marshes are complex hydrological systems characterized by strong, dynamic interactions between coastal surface water and groundwater, driven particularly by tides. We simulated such interactions with a focus on 3D, variably saturated pore water flow in a salt marsh with a two-layer soil configuration (with a low-permeability mud layer overlying a high-permeability sandy-loam layer), which is commonly found in natural marshes. Simulated intra-tidal groundwater dynamics exhibited significant flow asymmetry with non-zero mean flow velocities over the tidal period. The tidally averaged flow led to 3D pore water circulation linked strongly to the marsh topography, over a range of spatial scales: near the creek bank, around the creek meander and over long marsh sections inclined towards the main channel. Time scales associated with these circulations differed by orders of magnitude. Under the simulated conditions, the creek served as the main outlet of the pore water circulation paths, especially those with infiltration taking place in the upper marsh surface areas away from the main channel. Water infiltrating the soil in the lower marsh surface areas away from the creek tended to discharge to the main channel directly. These flow characteristics have important implications for mass and nutrient transport and transformations in the marsh soil. Since the origin of pore water in the marsh soil is largely the coastal surface water, the travel paths and times revealed by the particle tracking are key factors that determine the (modified) chemical composition of the recycling water at the circulation outlet, which in turn affects the net exchange between the marsh and coastal surface water. Our study highlights the hydrological complexity of intertidal marshes and the need for further research on interactions among marsh morphology, hydrology and ecology, which underpin the functionalities of these wetland systems.


Education is the key to development in any society. It is also true to say that the condition of the educational institution in any given society reflects the standard of living and the attitudes towards life of that society. The major purpose of this study was to investigate the access and equity in basic education in Northern. The main objectives of the study were: To assess the extent of availability of primary level schools in West Frontier Province. To compare the reasons of repetition and dropout rates among children at primary level. To understand the views of teachers and parents regarding access and equity in basic education. To recommend some measures for the improvement of basic education in West Frontier Province. Two questionnaires, one for teacher and for parents were administered to collect data. The collected data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted in the light of objectives of the studies. In the light of conclusions it is recommended that more primary schools should be established for reducing distance from home to school for small children particularly in rural area. Moreover, maximum physical facilities may be provided. Measures should be taken to reduce gender disparity in West Frontier Province. Syllabus may be revised and developed according to the mental level and requirements of the students. Education may be made cheap/free and trained/qualified teachers may be appointed wherever needed.


BACKGROUND
With social structures changing and the average life-span of individuals increasing, Taiwan is experiencing a steady rise in its elderly population. Thus, caring for older parentsis an urgent problem. Many foreign caregivers have been hired tocare for older parents.However, measuring the quality ofinformal care has not yet been fully explored in Taiwan, particularly among older people who are cared for by foreign caregivers in home settings.

PURPOSE
The purposes of this study were to understand the differences in quality of care for older Taiwanese and to explore the predictors of quality of care in two types of caregiving.

METHODS
A comparative descriptive study design was conducted. The study was held in several community healthcare centers in the middle and southern regions of Taiwan. Study data were collected over an 18-month period between 2012 and 2014. t Tests were used to compare continuous variables according to the types of caregiving. Multiple linear regressions with group analyses were performed to evaluate the underlying statistical assumptions.

RESULTS
One hundred fifty-nine participants were included. The study results showed that age, activities of daily living level, and quality of care were significantly different between the two types of caregiving. Relationships with caregivers, social support, and depressive symptoms contributed to the quality of care in family caregiving, explaining 50.2% of the variance. Social support and depressive symptoms contributed to the quality of care in foreign caregiving, explaining 36.6% of the variance.

CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
The study results support that the types of primary caregiving affect the quality of care that is received by elderly Taiwanese. This study may be used as a reference for families whose family members need long-term care when considering hiring foreign caregivers as an alternative option to Taiwanese caregivers.


This article is part of several contributions that was presented at the 2015 Southern African Missiological Society (SAMS). The conference theme was undergirded by the theme of the World Council of Churches (WCC) assembly in Busan, South Korea and the recent Encyclical of Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church; "Together towards life". The specific contribution of this article lies with the role of personhood in development. The question that I seek to address is to what extent the influential models of development proposed by Korten and more importantly, the ecumenical movement, can do justice to the category of personhood. A secondary question is the complex process through which people come to accept responsibility for addressing their situations.


SOA refers to the coordination of people, processes and technologies within an organization that has the aim of achieving certain strategic benefits, both by increasing the return on investment (ROI) and organizational agility and by reducing the information technology governance (IT) burden. The ability of SOA to interoperate many different information systems helps to accelerate the integration of core systems. From a combination of established methods that include system thinking, Godet's strategic prospective, discrete event simulation, agent based modeling and System Dynamics comes an adaptation of Forrester's Market Growth model to formulate a decision-making governance flight simulation model to represent the interactions of intended rational policies in the study of dynamics that can arise from the complex combinations of SOA Governance factors, principles, and structures.


Genres provide a conceptual framework for the mediation (if not the `solution') of intractable problems, a method for rendering such problems intelligible. Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel 20 In Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie writes of "a painter whose paintings had grown larger and larger as he tried to get the whole of life into his art. `Look at me,' he said before he killed himself, `I wanted to be a miniaturist and I've got elephantiasis instead'" (50). While the short story as a genre is not equivalent to the miniature, this passage implicitly suggests a nagging dilemma for short story enthusiasts: is there a relationship between narrative length and aesthetic scope? If Rushdie's painter finds it necessary to create a succession of ever-widening canvases in order for him to encapsulate "the whole of life into his art," does this then mean that condensed narratives such as the short story offer a reduced spectrum of human experience when compared with more expanded forms?(1) In order to differentiate between techniques of narrative compression and those that accentuate elaboration and expansion, let us first turn to McKeon's observation that genres crystallize certain philosophical predicaments. One problem explicitly manifested by the short story pertains to the complexity of negotiating temporal experience through narrative. All narratives engage temporality in some way, but short fiction intimates how thoroughly our apprehension of historicity has been conditioned by sequential narrative forms such as the novel. Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the "threshold," a chronotope in which "time is essentially instantaneous ... and falls out of the normal course of biographical time" (248) sets up a useful paradigm for thinking about short fiction's tendency to accentuate a single event, as opposed to the novel's propensity to knit numerous events together in a serial fashion. As we shall see, emphasizing the isolated event over the event-as-series has far-ranging hermeneutical repercussions. Suspending continuity, the short story intimates that the impulse to mold time into a sequential narrative is often incommen-surate with our experience of temporality.(2) Many short stories depict situations where characters are perplexed by a given set of circumstances, circumstances that seem to preclude a mode of interpretation that will allow a mediation back into what Bakhtin calls the "normal course of biographical time," where events are understood through their being integrated into a series. As a means of making my discussion more concrete, I would like to use William Sansom's short story "The Vertical Ladder," as an illustration to describe short fiction's treatment of temporality. In this story, a young man attempts to impress a young woman by accepting a dare to climb two ladders, a 20-foot wooden ladder that leads to a second, this one attached to a gasworks that towers high above the ground. Most of the story pertains to the character's increasing terror as he painfully works his way to the summit. Close to the apex of the gasworks, after having taken with him the young woman's handkerchief to affix onto the rooftop, he sees that his companions have removed the first ladder and are about to leave him alone. To his horror, at the story's end, the young man discovers that the last rungs of the ladder are missing, which was something that couldn't be perceived from the ground. He can neither complete his quest, nor return to safety: Flegg stared dumbly, circling his head like a lost animal ... then he jammed his legs into the lower rungs and his arms past the elbows to the armpits in through the top rungs and there he hung shivering and past knowing what more he could ever do ... (original ellipses; 422). Alone, paralyzed in a present that seems endless, Flegg; might be said to embody the manner in which short stories suspend the single event from the future and, often, the past. …


Significance Endocytic sorting of amyloid precursor protein (APP) governed by the vacuolar protein sorting (Vps10) family of receptors plays a decisive role in controlling the outcome of APP proteolytic processing and the generation of amyloid β (Aβ) peptides, the key pathogenic factor of Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study provides the first evidence to our knowledge that a G protein-coupled receptor, namely, the α2A adrenergic receptor, modulates APP endocytic sorting and promotes Aβ generation through disrupting APP interaction with a Vps10 family protein, sorting-related receptor with A repeat. Significantly, blockade of α2AAR by a clinical antagonist reduces AD-related pathology and ameliorates cognitive deficits in an AD transgenic model, suggesting repurposing clinical α2AR antagonists as a new direction for AD treatment. Accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) peptides in the brain is the key pathogenic factor driving Alzheimer's disease (AD). Endocytic sorting of amyloid precursor protein (APP) mediated by the vacuolar protein sorting (Vps10) family of receptors plays a decisive role in controlling the outcome of APP proteolytic processing and Aβ generation. Here we report for the first time to our knowledge that this process is regulated by a G protein-coupled receptor, the α2A adrenergic receptor (α2AAR). Genetic deficiency of the α2AAR significantly reduces, whereas stimulation of this receptor enhances, Aβ generation and AD-related pathology. Activation of α2AAR signaling disrupts APP interaction with a Vps10 family receptor, sorting-related receptor with A repeat (SorLA), in cells and in the mouse brain. As a consequence, activation of α2AAR reduces Golgi localization of APP and concurrently promotes APP distribution in endosomes and cleavage by β secretase. The α2AAR is a key component of the brain noradrenergic system. Profound noradrenergic dysfunction occurs consistently in patients at the early stages of AD. α2AAR-promoted Aβ generation provides a novel mechanism underlying the connection between noradrenergic dysfunction and AD. Our study also suggests α2AAR as a previously unappreciated therapeutic target for AD. Significantly, pharmacological blockade of the α2AAR by a clinically used antagonist reduces AD-related pathology and ameliorates cognitive deficits in an AD transgenic model, suggesting that repurposing clinical α2AR antagonists would be an effective therapeutic strategy for AD.


Smart Cities are called to change the daily life of human beings. This concept permits improving the efficiency of our cities in several areas such as the use of water, energy consumption, waste treatment, and mobility both for people as well as vehicles throughout the city. This represents an interconnected scenario in which thousands of embedded devices need to work in a collaborative way both for sensing and modifying the environment properly. Under this scenario, the majority of devices will use wireless protocols for communicating among them, representing a challenge for optimizing the use of the electromagnetic spectrum. When the density of deployed nodes increases, the competition for using the physical medium becomes harder and, in consequence, traffic collisions will be higher, affecting data-rates in the communication process. This work presents mDARAL, a multi-radio routing algorithm based on the Dynamic and Adaptive Radio Algorithm (DARAL), which has the capability of isolating groups of nodes into sub-networks. The nodes of each sub-network will communicate among them using a dedicated radio frequency, thus isolating the use of the radio channel to a reduced number of nodes. Each sub-network will have a master node with two physical radios, one for communicating with its neighbours and the other for being the contact point among its group and other sub-networks. The communication among sub-networks is done through master nodes in a dedicated radio frequency. The algorithm works to maximize the overall performance of the network through the distribution of the traffic messages into unoccupied frequencies. The obtained results show that mDARAL achieves great improvement in terms of the number of control messages necessary to connect a node to the network, convergence time and energy consumption during the connection phase compared to DARAL.


It was proposed that most biological processes are performed by different protein complexes. In contrast to individual proteins and enzymes, their complexes usually have other biological functions, and their formation may be important system process for the expansion of diversity and biological functions of different molecules. Identification and characterization of embryonic components including proteins and their multiprotein complexes seem to be very important for an understanding of embryo function. We have isolated and analyzed for the first time a very stable multiprotein complex (SPC; approximately 1100 kDa) from the soluble fraction of extracts of the sea urchin embryos. By fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC) gel filtration the SPC was well separated from other extract proteins. Stable multiprotein complex is stable in different drastic conditions but dissociates moderately in the presence of 8M urea + 1.0M NaCl. According to sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis data, this complex contains many major, moderate and minor proteins with molecular masses from 10 to 95 kDa. The SPC was destroyed by 8M urea or SDS, and its components were separated using thin layer chromatography, ion‐exchange chromatography, gel filtration, and reverse phase chromatography. Using matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry of partially dissociated SPC, it was shown that the complex contains not only proteins (10‐95 kDa) but also few dozens of peptides with molecular masses from 2 to 9.5 kDa. Short peptides form very strong complexes, which at the treatment of SPC with urea or SDS can be partially break down into smaller complexes having different peptide compositions. Reverse phase chromatography of these complexes after all type of abovementioned chromatographies led to detection from 6 to 11 distinct peaks corresponding to new complexes containing up to a few dozens of peptides. The SPCs possess alkaline phosphatase activity. Progress in the study of embryos protein complexes can help to understand their biological functions.


Abstract. Apart from the well-known applications like positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has manifested its ability in many other areas that are vital to society largely. With the dense setting of the regional continuously operating reference station (CORS) networks, monitoring the variations in atmospheric water vapour using a GNSS technique has become the focus in the field of GNSS meteorology. Most previous studies mainly concentrate on the analysis of relationship between the two-dimensional (2-d) Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) and rainfall while the four-dimensional (4-d) variations of atmospheric water vapour derived from the GNSS tomographic technique during rainfall events are rarely discussed. This becomes the focus of this work, which investigates the emerging field of GNSS technology for monitoring changes in atmospheric water vapour during rainfall, especially in the vertical direction. This paper includes an analysis of both 2-d, and 4-d, precipitable water vapour profiles. A period with heavy rainfall events in this study was selected to capture the signature of atmospheric water vapour variation using the ground-based GNSS tomographic technique. GNSS observations from the CORS network of Hong Kong were used. Analysed results of the 2-d PWV/4-d water vapour profiles change during the arrival, occurrence, and depression of heavy rainfall show that: (i) the PWV time series shows an increasing trend before the arrival of heavy rainfall and decreases to its average value after the depression of rainfall; (ii) rainfall leads to an anomalous variation in relative humidity and temperature while their trends are totally opposite and show daily periodicity for periods without rain (this is highly correlated with the changes in solar radiation); (iii) atmospheric water vapour presents unstable conditions with intense vertical convective motion and hydrometeors are formed before the arrival of rainfall while returning to relatively stable conditions during heavy rainfall. This study indicates the potential for using GNSS-derived 2-d PWV and 4-d profiles to monitor spatio-temporal variations in atmospheric water vapour during rainfall, which provides a better understanding of the mechanism of convection and rainfall induced by the extreme weather events.


ABSTRACT This paper investigates computing students' entrepreneurial intentions, motivations, recognisable barriers and encouragements towards entrepreneurship, with a focus on gender. Two universities, one in Australia and one in the UK (n = 247), were used as locations for the research to consider two distinct contexts. In each university there were similarly high levels of interest in entrepreneurship among computing students, however some significant differences in responses were found, especially between male and female participants. Job flexibility was a strong motivation for the UK-based female participants; while female participants at the Australian university identified internal barriers (such as lack of confidence and experience). Enablers to entrepreneurial activity were identified, including access to incubators and academic support. Directing such support towards computing students, while recognising gender differences, could increase interest in, and take-up of, entrepreneurship. Recommendations are made regarding how universities can best support would-be entrepreneurs and encourage inclusive entrepreneurship into the future.


World Kidney Day 2016 focuses on kidney disease in childhood and the antecedents of adult kidney disease that can begin in earliest childhood.  Chronic kidney disease (CKD) in childhood differs from that in adults, as the largest diagnostic group among children includes congenital anomalies and inherited disorders, with glomerulopathies and kidney disease in the setting of diabetes being relatively uncommon.  In addition, many children with acute kidney injury will ultimately develop sequelae that may lead to hypertension and CKD in later childhood or in adult life. Children born early or who are small-for date newborns have relatively increased risk for the development of CKD later in life.  Persons with a high-risk birth and early childhood history should be watched closely in order to help detect early signs of kidney disease in time to provide effective prevention or treatment.  Successful therapy is feasible for advanced CKD in childhood; there is evidence that children fare better than adults, if they receive kidney replacement therapy including dialysis and transplantation, while only a minority of children may require this ultimate intervention Because there are disparities in access to care, effort is needed so that those children with kidney disease, wherever they live, may be treated effectively, irrespective of their geographic or economic circumstances.  Our hope is that World Kidney Day will inform the general public, policy makers and caregivers about the needs and possibilities surrounding kidney disease in childhood.


Unlike traditional media, our interactions with political parties via social media are generally public, subject to scrutiny by others and, consequently, a self-presentation concern. This paper contributes to theory on impression management within social network sites (SNSs) by providing an understanding of the effect of visible affiliation on page 'Liking' behavior in the context of political parties; specifically, the possible association with social anxiety and the use of protective impression management. We predict that while users may be motivated to 'Like' a political party, some may feel socially anxious about the impressions their friends may derive from this action, and so ultimately choose to refrain from 'Liking' the party. Furthermore, we propose a new function of 'Secret Likes' (i.e. 'Likes' that others cannot see) as a means to increase gateway interactions. A survey of eligible voters ( n =225) was conducted in the month prior to the 2015 UK general election, examining behavior associated with the Facebook pages of the two largest political parties. Results support that conspicuous affiliation with political parties indeed hinders intention to 'Like' political pages and is associated with social anxiety. 'Secret Likes' were found to be a successful method to increase gateway interactions. In addition to the theoretical contribution, implications for political party communications and site designers are considered.


The main objective of the present work was to assess and compare the wave power resources in various offshore and nearshore areas. From this perspective, three different groups of coastal environments were considered: the western Iberian nearshore, islands and an enclosed environment with sea waves, respectively. Some of the most representative existent wave converters were evaluated in the analysis and a second objective was to compare their performances at the considered locations, and in this way to determine which is better suited for potential commercial exploitation. In order to estimate the electric power production expected in a certain location, the bivariate distributions of the occurrences corresponding to the sea states, defined by the significant wave height and the energy period, were constructed in each coastal area. The wave data were provided by hindcast studies performed with numerical wave models or based on measurements. The transformation efficiency of the wave energy into electricity is evaluated via the load factor and also through the capture width, defined as the ratio between the electric power estimated to be produced by each specific wave energy converters (WEC) and the expected wave power corresponding to the location considered. Finally, by evaluating these two different indicators, comparisons of the performances of three WEC types (Aqua Buoy, Pelamis and Wave Dragon) in the three different groups of coastal environments considered have been also carried out. The work provides valuable information related to the effectiveness of various technologies for the wave energy extraction that would operate in different coastal environments.


This thesis aims to expand our understanding of inter-organisational collaborations by
exploring how the process of collaboration emerges over time and how collaboration
partners (re)form their identities in the developing collaboration space. For the
exploration of these aims, a practice-based study of inter-organisational collaborations
is followed.
The study analyses the KEDDY Aitoloakarnanias collaboration in Greece. In order to
examine how the KEDDY collaboration unfolds, a longitudinal ethnographic research
was conducted, collecting 43 in-depth interviews, 48 documents, observations of 13
partners' meetings and numerous field notes. The data was analysed qualitatively using
thematic and narrative analysis.
The results show how, as they engaged in everyday working practices, organisational
members demarcated the boundaries of the collaboration by producing two types of
psychosocial spaces. The 'spaces of regulation' provided a stable meaning framework
where the partners found continuity, while the 'learning spaces' offered them
opportunities for renewal and change. These working spaces helped partners engage
with the collaborative process in a flexible way. However, they required the activation
of different types of boundaries and the establishment of different types of identities
through identification loops. In this way partners were able to make sense of the
constant changes in the collaboration space and organise their actions accordingly.
Therefore, although some of the KEDDY collaboration features were designed a priori
and provided continuity through regulatory spaces, this research illustrates how the day
to day collaboration unfolds as partners also explore new practices. This indicates that it
is not possible to predict the outcome of the collaboration process.
Notwithstanding the limitations due to the small-scale nature of this study, the results
have useful implications for the understanding of the development and transformations
of inter-organisational collaborations over time. This research contributes to the body of
research in the area in that it strengthens the view of inter-organisational collaboration
as a process and questions in which way it is currently understood in the context of
contemporary inter-organisational collaboration studies.


Writers of memoir and narrative nonfiction are experiencing difficult days with the discovery that some well-known works in the genre contain exaggerations-or are partially fabricated. But what are the parameters of creative nonfiction? Keep It Real begins by defining creative nonfiction. Then it explores the flexibility of the form-the liberties and the boundaries that allow writers to be as truthful, factual, and artful as possible. A succinct but rich compendium of ideas, terms, and techniques, Keep It Real clarifies the ins and outs of writing creative nonfiction. Starting with acknowledgment of sources, running through fact-checking, metaphor, and navel gazing, and ending with writers' responsibilities to their subjects, this book provides all the information you need to write with verve while remaining true to your story.


We report a patient who developed biclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance during treatment with
efalizumab for psoriasis. This plasma cell disorder was found during the evaluation of the patient's complaint of mild lower extremity paresthesia. The gammopathy spontaneously remitted following cessation of therapy and has not recurred to date. Given the increasing use and development of biological agents for the treatment of psoriasis and  other disorders, this finding and the mechanisms by which it may have occurred is of clinical significance.


It has been suggested that anthropology operates in "liminal spaces" which can be defined as "spaces between disciplines". This study will explore the space where the fields of art and anthropology meet in order to discover the epistemological and representational challenges that arise from this encounter. The common ground on which art and anthropology engage can be defined in terms of their observational and knowledge producing practices. Both art and anthropology rely on observational skills and varying forms of visual literacy to collect and represent data. Anthropologists represent their data mostly in written form by means of ethnographic accounts, and artists represent their findings by means of imaginative artistic mediums such as painting, sculpture, filmmaking and music. Departing from a paradigm that acknowledges the importance of transdisciplinary enquiry, the paper proposes a position suggesting that by combining observational and knowledge producing practices, both anthropology and art can overcome the limits that are inherent in their representational practices. The paper will explore how insights from complexity theory offer the necessary conceptual tools with which anthropology and art can work together in offering solutions to problems of presentation that emerge when dealing with complex issues.


In this paper, the study and implementation of a task generation system that uses the information obtained from the user and already known cases is presented. One of the main objectives of the system is to introduce a new approach in robotics that takes into account the physical limitation of teaching and learning time, and thus the amount of knowledge that a robot can obtain of a given environment (tasks, objects, user preferences...), as a critical bottleneck of any robotic system. For this, the study of the Case Based Reasoning (CBR) problem is presented. Additionally, Base Trajectory Combination (BATC), a novel trajectory combination method based on a simplified CBR structure, using trajectories instead of high-level tasks, is proposed and explained. Finally, this system is tested with Moveit! as the simulation environment, using the humanoid robot TEO from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid as the robotic platform. The results of these experiments are also presented with the corresponding conclusions and future research lines.


The decisive conclusions to be drawn from the geography and prevalence of MS are: (1) a north-south (as well as west-east in the United States) gradient exists independent from genetic/racial factors; (2) major differences in prevalence occur in the absence of difference in latitude; (3) individuals from the same ethnic derivation have either the similar prevalence or have very different prevalence rates in widely separated geographical areas, and (4) specific resistance isolates are shown to exist regardless of latitude. Existing prevalence information leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that the geography of MS cannot be explained by any single known environmental or genetic factor(s) in isolation. A combination of a heterogeneous distribution of both genetic and environmental factors appears to be required to explain the available data on MS and geography.


Shares with more voting rights than cash flow rights provide their owners with a disproportional influence that is often found to destroy the value of outside equity. This is taken as evidence of discretionary use of power. However, concentration of power does not necessarily result from control enhancing mechanisms; it could also be that some shareholders retain a large block in a one share-one vote structure. In this paper, we develop a methodology to disentangle disproportionality, which allows us to test the effect of deviations from one share-one vote more precisely. Our empirical findings add to the existing literature.


Burnout research has mostly been performed in human service fields. However, it has recently been expanded to cover diverse settings and even non-occupational samples, such as students. In this study, we defined the construct of academic burnout, which is the burnout experienced by students. Next, we described the concept of academic burnout by introducing measurements for assessing academic burnout. On the basis of the demand-control model (DCM) and effort-reward imbalance model (ERIM), which are the most predominant theoretical burnout models, we described the causal factors and the pathway to experiencing academic burnout symptoms. The ERIM was a more influential model than the DCM when explaining the academic burnout of Korean students. Based on the results of previous longitudinal studies on academic burnout, we recognized emotional exhaustion and academic inefficacy as the initial symptoms of academic burnout. Finally, we discussed the prevention and intervention programs with specific components that should be included in those programs.