The present study was conducted to assess the microbiological quality of drinking water collected from different areas of Karachi, Pakistan, during 2014 to 2015.  A total of 320 samples were analyzed; of those 120 were bottled water and 200 samples were collected from the municipal water supply (Tap water). Most probable number (MPN) technique in MacConkey's broth was used for the analysis of coliforms and fecal-coliforms and membrane filtration technique on Dichloran Rose-Bengal Chloramphenicol Agar (DRBC) was used for yeast and mold analysis. All of the bottle samples were free of coliforms and fecal-coliforms but tap drinking water samples were highly contaminated with total bacterial load, coliforms and fecal coliforms. It has been observed that bacterial as well as yeast and mold's count was high in all of the water samples during summer. To overcome high risk of water-borne diseases, provision of improving water quality and adaptation of wash practices considered to be a part of monitoring framework system and a strict code of conduct should be implemented.


Author: Carmen-Cristina Cîrlig 130515REV1 Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Page 1 of 7 North Africa (MENA) region has experienced a steep increase in energy demand in the past decade, prompted by economic and population growth, and improved living stan . dards However, the trend is not sustainable in the long term, in particular for net energyimporting countries such as Morocco. In order to ensure the security of energy supply and an energy mix less dependent on hydrocarbons they have focused on renewable energy sources (RES) – solar, wind, hydropower, biomass, etc. Morocco is a pioneer among MENA countries in establishing a policy and regulatory framework for promoting RES and energy efficiency. Morocco benefits from great solar and wind energy potential, as well as from a key geographical location. Two major RES initiatives – the Moroccan wind and solar projects – have been launched in order to reach the national target of increasing the share of RES in the energy mix to 42% by 2020. EU-Morocco cooperation on RES (solar energy, in particular) would bring benefits to both sides, as well as challenges. Initiative alrea s dy exist, with the Mediterranean Solar Plan as the most significant. Solar energy technologies can also contribute to local job creation and development sm of all and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this briefing:


The eXpress Data Path (XDP) has been gradually integrated into the Linux kernel over several releases. XDP offers fast and programmable packet processing in kernel context. The operating system kernel itself provides a safe execution environment for custom packet processing applications, in form of eBPF programs, executed in device driver context. XDP provides a fully integrated solution working in concert with the kernel's networking stack. Applications are written in higher level languages such as C and compiled via LLVM into eBPF bytecode which the kernel statically analyses for safety, and JIT translates into native instructions. This is an alternative approach, compared to kernel bypass mechanisms (like DPDK and netmap). This talk gives a practical focused introduction to XDP. Describing and giving code examples for the programming environment provided to the XDP developer. The programmer need to change their mindeset a bit, when coding for this XDP/eBPF execution environment. XDP programs are often split between eBPFcode running kernel side and userspace control plane. The control plane API not predefined, and is up to the programmer, through userspace manipulating shared eBPF maps.


The prevailing paradigm of environmental health research has emphazised pathogenesis and disease prevention, instead of salutogenic mechanisms of health promotion. Looking at the historical background of the interconnections between public health and urban planning since the 19 th century, it can be concluded that the practical measures of environmental health concerns have been underpinned by preventive medicine and probabilities of exposure, focusing on screening health risks and fighting epidemics in urban areas. The only major difference today is that the newly emerged healthy urban planning initiatives are triggered by the global epidemics of non-commutable diseases caused by lifestyle and dietary factors. While many of the recent healthy urban planning initiatives and academic studies have originated from the USA or in the institutional sphere of the World Health Organization, the aim of this article is to add a new dimension to this discussion. The article explicates in detail the environmental mechanisms affecting healthiness and elaborates theoretical perspectives and principles of salutogenic planning. The salutogenic model for health promotion is founded on the theoretical basis developed by sociologist Aaron Antonovsky (1996). He has suggested, that the mechanisms generating health and wellbeing are firmly linked to the general resistance recourses and sense of coherense of individuals and societies. The article suggest that understanding better the salutogenesis of healthy communities, possibilities could open to study their adaptation capacity within the transformation processes of the changing North. Shortcomings in the scientific evidence on how to build healthier environments are demonstrated – and noted that clear examples on healthy planning practices in cold climate are missing. 1 Holistic approaches are required, which pay attention to the large number of environmental aspects related to individual and population health and wellbeing in the Arctic areas while seeking sustainable planning solutions in fragile natural environments. The article reveals an undoubted need for further research on building and planning practises which enhance health, social inclusion, resilience and sustainability of northern communities. 1 Reacting to this lack of knowledge, a research initiative called "Health on Thin Ice – urban planning for good health in cold climate" has been launched in 2013 as a Nordic cooperative between University of Oulu, Finland, Lulea university of Technology, Sweden, and Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.


Brine samples were collected from 30 conventional oil wells producing mostly from the Charles Formation of the Madison Group in the East and Northwest Poplar oil fields on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana. Dissolved concentrations of major ions, trace metals, Sr isotopes, and stable isotopes (oxygen and hydrogen) were analyzed to compare with a brine contaminant that affected groundwater northeast of the town of Poplar. Two groups of brine compositions, designated group I and group II, are identified on the basis of chemistry and 87Sr/86Sr ratios. The solute chemistry and Sr isotopic composition of group I brines are consistent with long-term residency in Mississippian carbonate rocks, and brines similar to these contaminated the groundwater. Group II brines probably resided in clastic rocks younger than the Mississippian limestones before moving into the Poplar dome to replenish the long-term fluid extraction from the Charles Formation. Collapse of strata at the crest of the Poplar dome resulting from dissolution of Charles salt in the early Paleogene probably developed pathways for the ingress of group II brines from overlying clastic aquifers into the Charles reservoir. Such changes in brine chemistry associated with long-term oil production may be a widespread phenomenon in the Williston Basin.


Competition authorities and litigants worldwide have increased the use of economic quantitative methods and economic expert witnesses as a means to produce and support evidence in merger and antitrust cases. The application of quantitative techniques to antitrust has arisen naturally from the need to answer the central questions of antitrust analysis, such as, market definition and market structure issues, analysis of pricing and non-pricing behaviour by firms, quantification of damages and efficiencies and dynamic issues of entry and product reallocation. The paper aims, on the one hand, to briefly describe the main aspects of the most commonly used quantitative techniques in antitrust analysis, and on the other hand, to quantify their use in EU merger and antitrust decisions from 2004 until 2011. Moreover, we also codify the Commission's opinion on the techniques utilized. The paper then explores the substantive law framework for the assessment and evaluation of this quantitative evidence in EU competition law by the European Commission and the Courts, in particular topics relating to the standard of proof and evidential cogency and the interaction between the different concepts of causation in law and econometrics, whereas Section 5 provides a unique empirical analysis of the probative value of different kinds of econometric evidence, by performing for the first time a quantitative analysis of the opinion of the European Commission for the particular techniques used and their average evidential weight.


The language of poetry is rich and complex-from abstract language to voice, with all the enjambment, Nashers and sprung rhythm in between. The Poetry Dictionary illuminates and unravels it all with clear, working definitions. In addition, you'll find vivid and thorough descriptions, along with examples from classic and contemporary poetry, Greek to avant-garde, to illustrate the terms. In many cases, several different poems are used to show the evolution of the form, making The Poetry Dictionary a unique anthology of the art. It's a guide to the poetry of today and yesterday, with intriguing hints as to what tomorrow holds. Author/poet John Drury focuses on those terms that are useful to students and teachers. These are words you need to effectively discuss the craft-concepts that will broaden and stimulate your own creative processes. Drury's from-experience viewpoint and spirited voice keep The Poetry Dictionary relevant, immediate and not only easy to read, but hard not to.


Abstract. The tides for the Mediterranean Sea are described through a high resolution model (MEDI10) developed by assimilation of tide-gauge data and T/P data into a barotropic ocean tide model. Tidal parameters from 56 coastal tide-gauge stations around the Mediterranean for eight principal constituents: M2, S2, N2, K2, K1, O1, P1 and Q1 and from 20 stations for M2, S2, K1, O1 are included in the model. TOPEX/Poseidon data with all corrections applied except for the ocean tides and bathymetry from TOPO 13.1 were used for development of the model. Numerical experiments were carried out for the estimation of the friction velocity and of the decorrelation length scale. The experiments related to the friction velocity showed that the use of spatially varying friction velocity, estimated as a function of position in the model domain, gives better results than a constant value. The experiments related to the estimation of the decorrelation length suggest that the results are not sensitive for lengths close to ten times the length of the grid cell. The assessment of the model is based on ten tide-gauge observations that are not used for the assimilation. Comparisons were carried out with contemporary published global or regional models. The final solution is computed using 76 selected coastal tide-gauge stations. The comparison between the observed and the model constituents results in a Root Sum of Squares (RSS) equal to 1.3 cm.


We propose a novel approach to intraocular pressure (IOP) measurement allowing minimal invasive continuous monitoring over prolonged periods, regardless of patient position and activities. The key element of this innovative measurement method is a soft contact lens with a microfabricated strain gage embedded allowing the measurement of the cornea curvature deformation due to IOP changes. Tests on a eye-simulating device have shown that the sensor is capable of monitoring continuously a deformation of cornea radius inferior to 0.0055 mm, which corresponds to a sensitivity of better than 2 mmHg IOP, according to an in vitro and an in vivo studies about the correlation between IOP and corneal curvature in human beings.


Background. While household support is an important component of effective care and treatment in HIV/AIDS, there are few insights from Southern Africa into how household support arrangements change over time for patients starting antiretroviral therapy (ART). Objective. We hypothesised that patients initiating ART are more likely to be living with family, especially their mothers, compared with the general population, but that over time these differences disappear. Methods. A panel survey of ART patients was matched by age, gender and education to a comparison sample drawn from adults in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Results. The results show that there is a substantial potential burden of care on the families of patients starting ART, particularly mothers, and that the use of ART appears to reduce this burden over time. But, even after their health is restored, ART patients are significantly less likely to have a resident sexual partner and more likely to be living in single-person households than their counterparts in the general population.


Hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) in mammals can produce neurological deficits, such as memory loss. The cause of the neurological issues is assumed to be due to homocysteine (HCY) binding to glutamatergic receptors in the central nervous system (CNS). High levels of HCY in the CNS are also associated with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease. Thus, understanding the detailed mechanisms of HCY in model preparations could be useful in developing potential treatments to neurodegenerative diseases with overlapping symptoms to HHcy. The aim of this study is to investigate the efficacy of HCY as an agonist at glutamatergic synapses in invertebrates. The glutamatergic synapses of the larval Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) and Procambarus clarkii (P. clarkii) neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) were utilized to examine the effects of applying HCY. Measurements of evoked synaptic transmission in both preparations revealed that 100 mM of HCY did not have any consistent effect. The expectation was that the acute action of HCY would have activated the glutamate receptors and then desensitized them so evoked transmission would be blocked. The pharmacological receptor profile of these NMJ receptors are of a quisqualate subtype and not a kainate, α-amino-3-hydroxy-5methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) or N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA) subtype. Consequently, HCY may not have any action on quisqualate glutamate receptor subtypes. The findings of this experiments could provide clinical implications regarding relevant pharmacological treatments in neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease.


A new active–passive airborne data correlation technique has been developed which allows the validation of existing in-water ocean color algorithms and the rapid search, identification, and evaluation of new sensor band locations and algorithm wavelength intervals. Thus far, applied only in conjunction with the spectral curvature algorithm (SCA), the active–passive correlation spectroscopy (APCS) technique shows that (a) the usual 490-nm (center-band) chlorophyll SCA could satisfactorily be placed anywhere within the nominal 460–510-nm interval, and (b) two other spectral regions, 645–660 and 680–695 nm, show considerable promise for chlorophyll pigment measurement. Additionally, the APCS method reveals potentially useful wavelength regions (at 600 and ~670 nm) of very low chlorophyll-in-water spectral curvature into which accessory pigment algorithms for phycoerythrin might be carefully positioned. In combination, the APCS and SCA methods strongly suggest that significant information content resides within the seemingly featureless ocean color spectrum.


Specialized microenvironments called niches keep stem cells in an undifferentiated and self-renewing state. Dedicated stromal cells form niches by producing a variety of factors that act directly on stem cells. The size and signaling output of niches must be finely tuned to ensure proper tissue homeostasis. Although advances have been made in identifying factors that promote niche cell fate, the mechanisms that restrict niche cell formation during development and limit niche signaling output in adults remain poorly understood. Here, we show that the histone lysine-specific demethylase 1 (Lsd1) regulates the size of the germline stem cell (GSC) niche in Drosophila ovaries. GSC maintenance depends on bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signals produced by a small cluster of cap cells located at the anterior tip of the germarium. Lsd1 null mutant ovaries carry small germline tumors containing an expanded number of GSC-like cells with round fusomes that display ectopic BMP signal responsiveness away from the normal niche. Clonal analysis and cell type-specific rescue experiments demonstrate that Lsd1 functions within the escort cells (ECs) that reside immediately adjacent to cap cells and prevents them from ectopically producing niche-specific signals. Temporally restricted gene knockdown experiments suggest that Lsd1 functions both during development, to specify EC fate, and in adulthood, to prevent ECs from forming ectopic niches independent of changes in cell fate. Further analysis shows that Lsd1 functions to repress decapentaplegic (dpp) expression in adult germaria. The role of Lsd1 in regulating niche-specific signals may have important implications for understanding how disruption of its mammalian homolog contributes to cancer and metastasis.


Are there forms of violence that are likely to expand our possibilities? Usually we associate political violence with terror and repression, i.e. with forms of violence that lead to the restriction of possibilities or to the consolidation of social conditions. In this article, I examine various approaches that promote the use of grassroots based political violence as midwife of expanded possibilities and discuss different shortcomings of these approaches. In the second part of the article I suggest that today, the use of legitimate political violence that seeks to enable new possibilities has more to do with poetry and poiesis than with the use of raw force. I show how this notion of symbolic violence, among others, applies to the example of pieing.


With 60% of practicing physician assistants (PAs) being women, it is critical to identify any gender-related differences in career satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to identify practice characteristics and lifestyle choices of men and women practicing PAs, determine any gender-related differences, and identify whether a relationship exists between gender and career satisfaction. This descriptive study used a survey addressing career satisfaction, lifestyle choices, professional practice characteristics, and gender concerns. Randomly selected PAs completed an on-line survey. Nonparametric testing was used to analyze the data. Analyses included 85 men and 97 women respondents. More men (82.4%) than women (59.8%) were married; a significant association between gender and domestic status was found (p=0.009). The way that men rated career satisfaction was not significantly different than the way women did (p=0.47). Sixty-five percent of men and women completely agreed that they are satisfied with their career. Eighty-three percent of men and women PAs believed that they can balance their personal and professional responsibilities. While the sample was small, it does represent the demographics of PAs currently in practice and thus supports the assumption that the PA profession affords the ability to balance responsibilities and promotes career satisfaction.


This study aims to explore the experiences and perceptions of school educators on how school principals monitor curriculum delivery. It investigates the principal-agent problem and accountability in education in the Eastern Cape. Two types of data are used: qualitative data from interviews with school principals and teachers, and quantitative data from an international educational evaluation. The interview data were collected in 2015 at selected primary schools within three Eastern Cape education districts. Respondents at each school included the school principal and three foundation phase teachers. To triangulate findings from interviews, the association between school leadership and student academic scores in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 dataset was examined for both Grade 5 and 9. The association between measures of instructional leadership (e.g. teachers' understanding of curricular goals and teachers' degree of success in implementing curricular goals) and student scores for mathematics and science was explored using linear probability models. Findings confirm the existence of the principal-agent problem in education, since many school respondents indicated that curriculum delivery monitoring was not conducted as expected. From the multivariate analysis, instructional leadership variables, such as teachers' understanding of curricular goals and teachers' degree of success in implementing the curriculum appear as important correlates of student achievement, though significance differs according to level of schooling and whether the questions were answered by principals or teachers. Policy implications point to a need to hire, empower and support principals to create a culture of accountability in schools.


The current focus of organometallic chemistry is based upon their synthesis, eloectrochemical properties, diverse biological behavior and their facet towards a new field of bioorganometallics concerning both organometallic and coordination chemistry. Organometallic complexes involving metal - cyclopentadienyl linkages have been an important fragment due to their unique structural variety, stability and their potential applications in organic synthesis, catalysis, bioorganometallic, advance materials, molecular recognition etc. Ferrocene and its derivatives are the most versatile aspect in organometallic chemistry because of their unique structural integrity, reversible redox behavior and have been responsible for the development of material science, molecular wires, catalysis, molecular recognition, sensing, electronic communication, bio-conjugates and medicinal chemistry. The use of ferrocenyl compounds as bioactive molecule has been established recently and several reports show that a large number of ferrocene containing compounds display interesting cytotoxic and DNA cleaving activities. Ferrocene substituted tamoxifen and chloroquine derivatives are among the many examples where systematic functionalization of ferrocene has improved the cytotoxic activity of the standard drug itself. In parallel, the half sandwich based organometallic compounds are also drawing interest because their various biological properties ranging from antimalarial, antimicrobial, anticancer, enzyme inhibitors and phototoxicity. Half sandwich compounds containing metal carbonyls are the most significant ligands in medicinal chemistry and can play a vital role as tracers in immunological analysis based on several analytical methods like FTIR, electrochemical, atomic absorption techniques etc. Moreover, ferrocenyl Schiff base compounds have been reported for their interesting coordination features and exciting biological properties. In view of the enormous potential applications of ferrocenyl and half sandwich based organometallic compounds, we focused our study to synthesize some sandwich and half sandwich based Schiff base compounds and to study their biological properties. We have been able to synthesize a range of novel ferrocene and cymantrene based Schiff base compounds and characterize by spectroscopic and crystallographic technique. We have also described the synthesis of hetero-bimetallic chalcones containing both ferrocenyl and cymantrenyl fragments and studied their reactivity towards mono- and diphosphine substitution. In addition, compounds containing multiple redox centers have also been highly focused due to their various application related to electronic communication, sensors and molecular wires. In this regard, we focused on the synthesis of diferrocenyl bifunctional molecular systems containing both hydrazone and enone units using simple and systematic synthetic route. Efforts have been made to study the unique structural feature and to understand the biological and sensing properties of some of the compounds. We have carried out cyclic-voltammetric studies with different analogs of the diferrocenyl compounds to understand the electronic communication behavior inside the molecule. DFT calculation was also performed to establish some of the interesting features related to structural stability, metal ion interaction and molecular orbital energies.


Eve Darian-Smith, Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. xvii + 256 pages. $50.00 cloth; $19.95 paper. Ronen Shamir, The Colonies of Law: Colonialism, Zionism, and Law in Early Mandate Palestine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xvi + 216 pages. $64.95 cloth. Myth, community identity, tradition. Scholars across theoretical and political divides characterize modern law as abstract, rational, and universalizing-in other words, modern law supersedes and is at war with those enchanting aspects of premodern life. And legal liberalism, that archetype of modern law, is either celebrated or condemned for being antagonistic toward the value of solidarity. In light of their focus on the abstract, rights-bearing individual, liberals argue that legal rights should protect the autonomous individual against the potentially suffocating effects of community. Critics, in turn, lament the fact that liberal legal rights function as "trumps" for individuals against the community, thereby fraying the bonds that hold society together. It is interesting to note that liberalism's critics share a conception of law and its relation to society that liberalism claims for its form of law-liberal legal rights are theorized as instruments that derive from elsewhere, intrude upon society, and then create and preserve an island of sovereignty for an isolated individual. By acting as a barrier for the individual against society, liberal rights abstract the individual from the real social relations that define and sustain the individual's life and cause fragmentation where once there was community. Through all of this, law remains seemingly unaffected by social forces. Thus, there is common ground between liberals and their critics at the level of describing modern law's characteristics even if there is no evaluative agreement to be had. The scholarship of many identified with the Law and Society movement challenges this theory of legal rights and the relationship of law to society. Stuart Scheingold (1974), for instance, suggests in The Politics of Rights that the promise of legal rights may very well be mythical, but if their mythological status is as deeply and as widely held as it seems to be in the United States, then using a discourse of rights to pursue one's claim to justice might not be as deluded as Critical Legal Studies (CLS) or, more recently, Communitarians have claimed (Glendon 1991). Legal rights might have purchasing power in the United States precisely because legal decisionmakers and the American public believe rights are real and act on this basis to protect "rights" despite the best efforts of theorists to demystify rights as figments of a collective imagination (Scheingold 1974:143; Tushnet 1984). Scheingold (1974:58) argues that to "claim a right is thus to invoke symbols of legitimacy that transcend your personal problems. At the same time, you tacitly commit yourself to accept obligations which inhere in the existing system-that is to say, the pattern of mutual and reciprocal commitments that defines the fabric of the society." Law, from this perspective, is not completely Other to society-it is one of the discursive registers within a social formation, albeit an especially significant one that articulates with other signifiers of social standing and political legitimacy. As such, legal mobilization wields not only divisive potential but interpellative possibilities that can produce forms of association and affiliation (Scheingold 1974:147; McCann 1994; Passavant 2000; Passavant & Dean 2001). In this essay, I echo Peter Fitzpatrick (1992b) and ask whether the abstraction of modern law is in fact its greatest myth. That is, generations of liberalism's critics have condemned it for putting a disembodied individual at the center of the legal universe-for excessive abstraction. …


There have been a number of recent papers arguing that there has been considerable convergence in macro research and to the good. This paper considers the question whether what has been converged to is good. Has progress been made in understanding how the macro economy works?


Homeosis has played an important role in the evolution of the flowers of the Zingiberales, especially those of the Ginger Group. In the Zingiberaceae, two members of the outer androecial whorl are replaced by a lip, and two members of the inner androecial whorl are replaced by petaloid staminodes. Most of the androecium of the Costaceae has also been replaced by petaloid structures, and the single fertile stamen is often attached to an enlarged petaloid "filament." The Cannaceae and Marantaceae have one-half of one fertile anther and three to four variously modified staminodes. In contrast, homeosis has played a minor role in floral evolution of the Banana Group. Only in the Heliconiaceae has a stamen been replaced by a staminode. In none of the families of the Zingiberales do the staminodes assume the total "form or character" of any perianth members. Because of this, it is reasonable to extend the definition of homeosis to include replacement by an organ like, but not identical to, some other part of the plant.


Three colour vision tests, the Ishihara test, the City University Test (CUT) and the D-15 test were studied as a function of induced intraocular straylight, using a commercially available light-scattering filter. Thirty young individuals (aged 17-28 years) with no ocular abnormalities and normal colour vision participated in the study. Intraocular straylight was estimated in all individuals using a psychophysical compensation method with the C-Quant straylight meter, with and without the light-scattering filter which caused an increase in intraocular straylight typical of that found for cataract. Under normal viewing conditions all the subjects passed each of the three tests with no errors. When viewing the Ishihara test plates through the filter, 10 out of the 30 observers made at least one error. Three subjects also made errors on the desaturated CUT test plates, but all subjects still passed the D-15 test with the filter. The errors in the Ishihara test correlated with the amount of intraocular straylight, as measured with the C-Quant. This study indicates that interpretation of the Ishihara test in a clinical environment will be made more difficult in individuals with higher levels of straylight.Introduction.


Biomass gasification technology offers a cost effective option of power generation at power levels up to 3 MWe, for a wide variety of applications such as captive power in industry, grid linked independent power producer and distributed power generation. Today this technology is being utilized for power generation applications at a number of industrial sites in India and abroad. In India there are nearly 6 MWe equivalent power plants which are based on the state-of-the-art IISc's (Indian Institute of Science) open top re-burn down draft biomass gasification technology. One among this is installed as an Independent Power Producer (IPP), which is the largest fixed bed gasification system in the country. The The grid linked power plant operates on a range of feed stocks such as coconut shell, Julifora Prosopis and converts into electricity. Apart from electricity the plant also generates value added product namely partially activated carbon. The specific biomass consumption is measured to be within 1.0 ± 0.1 kg/kWh with an overall efficiency of 24- 26%. It is also found to be environmentally benign in terms of emissions; NOx and CO levels are found to be much lower than most of the existing emissions norms of various countries.


Purpose: Neural stem cells in the adult brain participate in both the repair of normal tissue and inhibition of tumor growth. Here we investigate the effects of localized irradiation on neural stem cells in the rodent subventricular zone (SVZ) emplying a novel device to precisely localize this stem cell niche. Method and Materials: We selectively targeted the SVZ of the mouse using a precision CT‐guided radiation device developed in our laboratory. We delivered 10 Gy to the right SVZ through a 3 mm field (n=4). The left SVZ serves as its own control, but sham mice were also employed (n=4). Mice were sacrificed 7 days after irradiation and braintissue was harvested, fixed, frozen and sectioned. Immunohistochemical staining was performed for H2Ax, a marker of DNA double strand breaks, and Ki67, a marker of cell proliferation in this neurogenic region. Results: H2Ax stains indicated that the right lateral ventricle was specifically irradiated. A strong asymmetry was observed in the right (irradiated) vs. left (unirradiated) SVZ with 14,106±626 vs. 2,323±1094 cells (p<0.001). The data also showed that the unirradiated (left) SVZ has the same number of Ki67+ cells as a sham mouse (p=0.27) indicating that local irradiation produces no systemic effect under these conditions. Conclusion: Localized irradiation is capable of selectively ablating proliferating cells in neurogenic regions of the mouse brain. This local dose response as well as the irradiating device can be used to study locoregional effects and migration of neural stem cells.


The controlled motion of objects through narrow channels is important in many fields. We have fabricated asymmetric weak-pinning channels in a superconducting thin-film strip for controlling the dynamics of vortices. The lack of pinning allows the vortices to move through the channels with the dominant interaction determined by the shape of the channel walls. We present measurements of vortex dynamics in the channels and compare these with similar measurements on a set of uniform-width channels. While the uniform-width channels exhibit a symmetric response for both directions through the channel, the vortex motion through the asymmetric channels is quite different, with substantial asymmetries in both the static depinning and dynamic flux flow. This vortex ratchet effect has a rich dependence on magnetic field and driving force amplitude.


Microcavities with subwavelength features, such as oxide apertures and etched-mesa edges, suffer wide-angle scattering that cannot be captured by the paraxial propagation limit; hence the scattering cannot be fully accounted for by index guiding or by lenslike phase shifts. We present a systematic treatment by using the Born approximation in the vector Maxwell equations. We then introduce the scattering losses in the cavity round-trip matrix, by using a Gauss–Laguerre representation of the cavity modes. Optimization of the round-trip coefficient including confinement, diffraction, and scattering losses yields the mode waist in laterally open vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) cavities. A simple equation relating the current aperture to mode spot size is obtained. The analytic results are applied to etched-mesa and oxide-confined VCSEL designs. Predictions for the mode waist and threshold current are comparable with experimental results in oxide-confined VCSELs.


Condition assessment of hydropower generators is important to ensure high serviceability of power stations. Many of the in-service generators are old and current load operation schemes demands more than the design load, which makes the remaining lifetime of the generators uncertain. The reviewed literature shows many works regarding identifying signature PRPDA patterns for different relevant defects in the generator. Calibration is however impossible, due to variable signal propagation in the generator from the partial discharge source. The results regarding complex permittivity as function of frequency as a measure on water ingress are promising. However, the field grading paint at the ends of the bars are affected by the low frequency and gives a variable capacitance. The literature is still focused on qualitative measurements without giving quantitative answers.


It is commonly appreciated that solving search problems optimally can overrun time and memory constraints. Bounded suboptimal search algorithms trade increased solution cost for reduced solving time and memory consumption. However, even suboptimal search can overrun memory on large problems. The conventional approach to this problem is to combine a weighted admissible heuristic with an optimal linear space algorithm, resulting in algorithms such as Weighted IDA* (wIDA*). However, wIDA* does not exploit distance-to-go estimates or inadmissible heuristics, which have recently been shown to be helpful for suboptimal search. In this paper, we present a linear space analogue of Explicit Estimation Search (EES), a recent algorithm specifically designed for bounded suboptimal search. We call our method Iterative Deepening EES (IDEES). In an empirical evaluation, we show that IDEES dramatically outperforms wIDA* on domains with non-uniform edge costs and can scale to problems that are out of reach for the original EES.


We propose a simple procedure for designing an integrated single-chip grating-based thin-film filter. A simulation from a rigorous coupled-wave analysis shows that structural adjustment based on the effective medium theory can achieve the desired integration without notable performance degradation. Our spectropolarimetric filter design maintains spectral filter characteristics, while its extinction ratio is significantly enhanced over the passband. The integrated spectropolarimetric filter can be a basis for building multispectral multipolarimetric filters for spectropolarimetry in remote-sensing applications.


MacFarlane (2014) advocates a radical form of semantic relativism. He argues that his proposal complies with the norms governing our assertion practices in various areas of discourse. These practices also include norms regarding the conditions in which it is inappropriate not to retract an assertion. Ferrari & Zeman (2014) identify an asymmetry concerning retractions in two relevant areas of discourse and argue that assessment-sensitivity needs to be supplemented with further theoretical tools to explain it. I dispel the asymmetry and conclude that assessment-sensitivity needs no supplementation to account for it.


Inquiry into the evolution of syntactic universals is hampered by severe limitations on the available evidence. Theories of selective function nevertheless lead to predictions of local optimaliiy that can be tested scientifically. This thesis refines a diagnostic, originally proposed by Parker and Maynard Smith (1990), for identifying selective functions on this basis and applies it to the evolution of two syntactic universals: ( I ) the distinction between open and closed lexical classes, and (2) nested constituent structure. In the case of the former, it is argued that the selective role of the closed class items is primarily to minimise the amount of redundancy in the lexicon. In the case of the latter, the emergence of nested phrase structure is argued to have been a by-product of selection for the ability to perform insertion operations on sequences a function that plausibly pre-dated the emergence of modem language competence. The evidence for these claims is not just that these properties perform plausibly fitness-related functions, but that they appear to perform them in a way that is improbably optimal. A number of interesting findings follow when examining the selective role of the closed classes. In particular, case, agreement and the requirement that sentences have subjects are expected consequences of an optimised lexicon, the theory thereby relating these properties to natural selection for the first lime. It also motivates the view that language variation is confined to parameters associated with closed class items, in turn explaining why parameter confiicts fail to arise in bilingualism. The simplest representation of sequences that is optimised for efficient insertions can represent both nested constituent structure and long-distance dependencies in a unified way, thus suggesting that movement is intrinsic to the representation of constituency rather than an 'imperfection'. The basic structure of phrases also follows from this representation and helps to explain the interaction between case and theta assignment. These findings bring together a surprising array of phenomena, reinforcing its correctness as the representational basis of syntactic structures. The diagnostic overcomes shortcomings in the approach of Pinker and Bloom (1990), who argued that the appearance of ^adaptive complexity' in the design of a trait could be used as evidence of its selective function, but there is no reason to expect the refinements of natural selection to increase complexity in any given case. Optimality considerations are also applied in this thesis to filter theories of the nature of unobserved linguistic representations as well as theories of their functions. In this context, it is argued that, despite Chomsky's (1995) resistance to the idea, it is possible to motivate the guiding principles of the Minimalist Program in terms of evolutionary optimisation, especially i f we allow the possibility that properties of language were selected for non-communicative functions and that redundancy is sometimes costly rather than beneficial.


BACKGROUND
The development of allergic rhinitis (AR) is caused by the interaction between genetic predisposition and environmental factors. In this study, the association between GATA3 single nucleotide polymorphisms and AR in an Iranian population was identified.

METHODS
This case-control study was performed on 86 patients with AR and 86 healthy subjects. This study aimed to evaluate a potential association between two GATA3 SNPs, rs1269486 and rs2229360, and AR. Blood samples were collected and DNA was extracted for the evaluation of these SNPs by RFLP-PCR.

RESULTS
A statistically-significant association was found between rs1269486 and AR (P<0.001). The frequencies of the A and GA genotypes were less in patients than in controls. The frequencies of the G allele and the GG genotype were greater in patients than in controls (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
SNP rs1269486 of GATA3 was associated with AR and sensitivity to aeroallergens in our population. Because of the significance of this gene in AR, studying the association between GATA3 polymorphisms and AR is recommended for other populations.


World Food Safety Day (WFSD) (1) celebrated on 7 June 2021 aims to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development. The theme of 2021, "Safe food today for a healthy tomorrow", stresses that production and consumption of safe food has immediate and long-term benefits for people, the planet and the economy. Recognizing the systemic connections between the health of people, animals, plants, the environment and the economy will help us meet the needs of the future. Recognizing the global burden of foodborne diseases, which affect individuals of all ages, in particular children under-5 and persons living in low-income countries, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed in 2018 that every 7 June would be World Food Safety Day. In 2020, the World Health Assembly (WHA) further adopted a decision on strengthening efforts on food safety to reduce the burden of foodborne disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) jointly facilitate the observance of World Food Safety Day, in collaboration with Member States and other relevant organizations. Food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers. Everyone has a role to play from farm to table to ensure the food we consume is safe and healthy. Through the World Food Safety Day, WHO works to mainstream food safety in the public agenda and reduce the burden of foodborne diseases globally. Food safety is everyone's business.


OBJECTIVE Type B insulin resistance due to autoantibodies against the insulin receptor is characterized by diabetes refractory to massive doses of insulin, severe hypercatabolism, hyperandrogenism, and a high mortality rate. We analyzed the efficacy of combined immunosuppressive therapy in the management of this extreme form of diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We performed a prospective cohort study including patients with confirmed insulin receptor autoantibodies, monitored for median 72 months (25th, 75th interquartile range 25, 88), and treated with rituximab, high-dose pulsed steroids, and cyclophosphamide until remission, followed by maintenance therapy with azathioprine. Remission was defined as the amelioration of the hyperglycemia and discontinuation of insulin and/or normalization of hyperandrogenemia. RESULTS All data are given as median (25th, 75th interquartile range). Twenty-two patients aged 42 (25, 57) years, 86.4% women, fulfilled inclusion criteria. At baseline, fasting glucose was 307 (203, 398) mg/dL, HbA1c was 11.8% (9.7, 13.6), total testosterone (women) was 126 (57, 571) ng/dL (normal 8–60), and daily insulin requirement was 1,775 (863, 2,700) units. After 5 (4, 6.3) months, 86.4% (19 of 22) of patients achieved remission, documented by discontinuation of insulin in all patients, normal fasting glucose of 80 (76, 92) mg/dL, HbA1c of 5.5% (5.2, 6), and testosterone (women) of 28 (20, 47) ng/dL. During follow-up of 72 (25, 88) months, 13.6% (3 of 22) of patients developed disease recurrence, occurring 24 (22, 36) months after initial remission, which responded to repeated therapy. None of the patients died. CONCLUSIONS Combined immunosuppressive therapy has changed the natural history of this disease, from 54% mortality to a curable form of diabetes and, as such, should be recommended in patients with type B insulin resistance.


We analyzed a diverse set of 1,646 north‐temperate lakes to evaluate the nutrient‐color paradigm that integrates total phosphorus (TP) and colored dissolved organic carbon to define lake trophic status. Our objectives were to quantify the combined influence of TP and color (Col) on lake trophic status, to determine if TP and Col had similar relationships with hydrogeomorphic (HGM) variables, and to examine how TP and Col affected the balance of heterotrophic and autotrophic processes. For the latter we examined the Col to chlorophyll a ratio (Col : Chl a), an index of allochthonous contributions of carbon to pelagic consumers, and deviations of lake pCO2 from atmospheric, an index of net heterotrophy. Both Col and TP had strong effects on Chl a (positive) and Secchi transparency (negative), suggesting that ignoring Col would lead to misinterpretation of these widely used trophic status indicators. Lakes with high TP and Col tended to be shallower with large catchment to lake area ratios. Negative correlations with water retention time (WRT) were stronger for Col than for TP. Both TP and Col were related to forest and wetland land cover, although the direction of the relationships were opposite. Only 29% of the lakes had relatively high allochthony according to their Col : Chl a ratios; these were predominately high color, oligotrophic or mesotrophic lakes with short WRT. Over 90% of a subset of 682 lakes were net heterotrophic, with pCO2 exceeding atmospheric levels. The positive relationship between pCO2 and Col : Chl a suggests that only in very heterotrophic systems was the transfer of allochthonous carbon to pelagic consumers appreciable. Our results provide strong empirical support for the nutrient‐color paradigm and highlight its importance both for management applications and for expanding our understanding of how lakes are influenced by terrestrial subsidies of carbon and nutrients.


Objective. To compare the effects of a 3-month land- and waterbased exercise programme among rheumatoid arthritis (RA) sufferers. Methods. Patients with RA Functional Class I and II ( N =10) were randomly assigned to a land-based exercise group (Group L) ( N =4), water-based exercise group (Group W) ( N =4) or a control group (Group C) ( N =2). Testing parameters included swollen joint count (SJC), tender joint count (TJC), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), haemoglobin (Hb), 50-ft (15.2-m) walk test, grip strength, isokinetic strength of knee extensors and flexors, knee range of motion (ROM) and aerobic capacity. Results. There were individual improvements in most of the physical status parameters tested for the experimental groups (land-based exercise group and water-based exercise group) while the general trend for the control group was that of deterioration. Appropriate land-based exercises did not appear to aggravate disease activity. However, the water-based exercise programme was superior in controlling the disease activity with regards to the tender and swollen joint counts. Conclusion. Both exercise interventions appeared to be beneficial in the treatment of RA. Further research is required comparing various modes of exercises for the treatment of RA, using larger samples and evaluating the long-term effects.


Occupational health is concerned with health in its relation to work and the working environment. This study was undertaken to present an overview of occupational health in South Africa, with national and international perspectives on the discipline, in the light of : (a) the recent commissions of enquiry into aspects of occupational health in South Africa (b) the development of the national and self-governing states (c) new strategies by the authorities in the form of decentralization and deregulation. Information on the health profile of its workers, current legislative and service provisions and on policies for economic development and urbanization is vital for health administrators, occupational health and safety practitioners and policy makers. Data was collected through the use of literature surveys and postal questionnaires to the various interested persons and groups involved with occupational health. The findings reveal that (a) an inadequate occupational health policy exists in that the responsibilities of government(s), employers, workers and
health professionals are not defined (b) there is an absence of an organizational and service framework for an occupational health system in South Africa although the morbidity and mortality data are significant (with their concomitant economic and social consequences) (c) there is a lack of financial and human resources for the practice of occupational health in South Africa. Recommendations are made taking into account the developed and developing components of South Africa.


This exhibition is about the physical environment and everyday life in Toxteth. It aims to enhance our understanding
of the way urban dwellers, both locals (L) and migrants (M),experience belongingness to urban space, and the
effect that aesthetics have on this dynamic. The exhibition as a whole celebrates the particularity of Toxteth as a
locality, its key features in terms of human-spatial relations, and some of its distinct landmarks. The photos, quotes
and captions derive from a British Academy funded project titled Bringing the aesthetics in: migrants' relationship
with urban space in Toxteth. Fieldwork for this project took place in 2015 (June-November) and generated a
substantial amount of visual material in the form of photos taken by both participants and the research team. The
exhibition was prepared as part of Festival 31 and Refugee Week (June-July 2016) in Liverpool, with a focus on
diversity and refugees in the city.


In order to improve the working environment inside the mine, to reduce the mine accident rates, this paper established a pipeline fluid models based on tunnel modeling theory. And on this basis, using CAD rendered 2D models of pipeline mechanical ventilation fluid field, using COMSOL Multiphysics simulated the model and solved the numerical value. In addition, this paper made in the implementation of the metal mine site piping mechanical ventilation system. The experimental results show that the content of harmful gases, dust particle inside the mine ventilation have been reduced very large. Except the reference point 5 the rest four points oxygen content have certain of ascension. This system improves the working environment inside the mine. Besides the outlet maximum speed of 11.6m/s, with digital simulation results obtained close to the pipe diameter is 1.06m, which is consistent with the actual situation.


Modern manufacturing information systems allow fast distribution of, and access to, information. One of the main purposes with an information system within manual assembly is to improve product quality, i.e. to ensure that assembly errors are as few as possible. Not only must an information system contain the right information, it must also provide it at the right time and in the right place. The paper highlights some of the concerns related to the design and use of information systems in manual assembly. The paper describes a study that focuses on the correlation between active information seeking behaviour and assembly errors. The results are founded on both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study indicates that by using simplified information carriers, with certain characteristics, the assembly personnel more easily could interpret the information, could to a higher degree be prompted (triggered) about product variants and could also be able to prepare physically and mentally for approaching products arriving along the assembly line. These conditions had positive influence on quality, i.e. gave a reduction of assembly errors.


The goal of this chapter is to analyse the forms and communicative functions of quotations as follow-ups in mediated political discourse where they are used strategically to achieve the following goals: (1) intensify the force of an argument, (2) demonstrate ideological coherence or non-coherence, (3) construct, reconstruct and deconstruct the credibility of self and others, and (4) express alignment and disalignment. On a more global level, quotation contribute to the construal of interdiscursitivity by beckoning the addressees out of the on-going discourse into a more or less specified prior discourse and back again, thus following-up on what has been mentioned before. In interviews, they are used to challenge the argumentative coherence and credibility of a politician (and her/his party). In British Prime Minister's Questions and in speeches, they are used to provide relevant background information against which the deconstruction of the opponent's ideological coherence and the reconstruction of ideological coherence of self are based.


BACKGROUND
Accumulating data support the involvement of the serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine [5-HT]) system in the pathophysiology of chronic fatigue syndrome. Neuropharmacologic studies point to a hyperactive 5-HT system, and open-label treatment studies with 5-HT(3) receptor antagonists have shown promising results. In this randomized controlled clinical trial, the effect of ondansetron, a 5-HT(3) receptor antagonist, was assessed on fatigue severity and functional impairment in adult patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.

METHOD
A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial was conducted at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands. Sixty-seven adult patients who fulfilled the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome and who were free from current psychiatric comorbidity participated in the clinical trial. Participants received either ondansetron 16 mg per day or placebo for 10 weeks. The primary outcome variables were fatigue severity (Checklist Individual Strength fatigue severity subscale [CIS-fatigue]) and functional impairment (Sickness Impact Profile-8 [SIP-8]). The effect of ondansetron was assessed by analysis of covariance. Data were analyzed on an intention-to-treat basis. All patients were recruited between June 2003 and March 2006.

RESULTS
Thirty-three patients were allocated to the ondansetron condition, 34 to the placebo condition. The 2 groups were well matched in terms of age, sex, fatigue severity, functional impairment, and CDC symptoms. Analysis of covariance showed no significant differences between the ondansetron- and placebo-treated groups during the 10-week treatment period in fatigue severity and functional impairment.

CONCLUSIONS
This clinical trial demonstrates no benefit of ondansetron compared to placebo in the treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
www.trialregister.nl: ISRCTN02536681.


This article is a first attempt of combining sedimentological analysis and geochemical systematics of the Alveolina Limestone Formation as a tool to identify the major stratigraphic surfaces, and to improve the sequence stratigraphy interpretation. This formation is Early Eocene in age and crops out in several well-exposed cliffs in the Serraduy – Roda de Isabena area (Graus-Tremp basin, NE Spain). Within this succession, nineteen carbonate and siliciclastic facies have been identified and grouped in environmental facies associations (based on their vertical stacking and lateral relationships) : 1) coastal plain; 2) clastic deltaic complex; 3) shallow carbonate inner-ramp; 4) midramp; 5) outer-ramp; 6) reefal facies. The depositional architectures studied in the Serraduy area can be directly assessed on the field, and a 3D reconstruction is proposed. This enables us to build a synthetic depositional model and to identify five small-scale T/R cycles, bounded by different kinds of sedimentary discontinuities : angular unconformity, firmground, erosional surface… In parallel, geochemical analyses (C and O isotopes, major, minor and trace elements) were carried out to help at hierarchizing the cycles and the boundaries previously identified. Four of them may be considered as major stratigraphic surfaces, corresponding either to regional-scale angular unconformities, or to exposure surfaces. The latter are characterized by a selective dissolution, a slight but sharp decrease in δ13 CV-PDB and in Mg, Fe and Sr contents below the surface. The absence of typical sedimentary criteria of exposure (with the exception of these geochemical signatures) may be explained by short-term exposure, an arid to semi-arid climate, and a dominant low-magnesian calcite original mineralogy, precluding the development and the preservation of widespread vadose diagenetic products. A new sequence stratigraphy model for the Alveolina Limestone Fm is finally proposed and discussed.


Although the popular map by William Smith " A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales with Part of Scotland " is properly celebrated as the first complete geological map of an entire country, the basic principles used by the famous English canal surveyor were epistemologically founded and utilized by the Italian Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili about a century earlier. Marsili, " uomo d'arme e scienza " ("man of army and science"), represents a vitally important pioneer in the fields of geography, cartography, and oceanography, with farther-ranging knowledge that included, for example, the field of archaeological survey. With his geologic map of the Cesenate sulphur mines Marsili was the first geologist to make the quantum leap from simple mineralogical maps – which report the location and access of mines on a topographic background – to a proto-geological map, wherein the areas represented by corresponding lithostratigraphic units are delimited. If Smith's map is rightly regarded as an ambitious work for the areal extent covered, Marsili's " Treatise on the Structure of the Earthy Globe " (lamentably unfinished) was by far more ambitious. The 200 sheets that come down to us include about 50 pen drawings and more than 35 water-colored plates. These clearly show how the work of Marsili took radical departure from the classic systems or " Theories of the Earth " espoused by British contemporaries such as Burnet and Woodward: in the Italian scientist we find the first arguments on the mountain roots and the observations that, much later, led to the principle of isostasy. In the fields of stratigraphy, regional geology, oceanography, and geological mapping, Marsili anticipated scholarly thought by at least a century.


Abstract Data from the Population Censuses for 1891 and 1991 are analysed to assess long term trends in the degree and pattern of occupational segregation. Two competing theories are addressed: that occupational segregation is linked to levels of female employment, and that occupational segregation was prompted in the nineteenth century by a concern to control sexuality and fertility behaviour. Sociologists have overlooked the impact of social factors outside the labour force on developments within the workforce.


A recent emergence of small, resource-constrained, and highly mobile computing platforms presents numerous new challenges for software developers. We refer to development in this new setting as programming-in-the-small-and-many (Prism). This paper provides a description and evaluation of Prism-MW, a middleware platform intended to support software architecture-based development in the Prism setting. Prism-MW provides efficient and scalable implementation-level support for the key aspects of Prism application architectures, including their architectural styles. Additionally, Prism-MW is extensible to support different application requirements suitable for the Prism setting. Prism-MW has been applied in a number of applications and used as an educational tool in graduate-level software architecture and embedded systems courses. Recently, Prism-MW has been successfully evaluated by a major industrial organization for use in one of their key distributed embedded systems. Our experience with the middleware indicates that the principles of architecture-based software development can be successfully, and flexibly, applied in the Prism setting.


Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease. In the majority of patients the course is progressive and leads to destruction of joints, functional disability, reduced quality of life and increased morbidity and mortality. Advances in treatment for RA have been associated with an improvement in the health status of patients with RA in recent years.1 While the management of RA varies widely across Europe,2 the underlying pathophysiology does not differ between countries. A cross-sectional comparison of patients with RA in 15 different countries (largely European) revealed great variation in the drug management of patients with RA, including the delay in starting a disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) ranging from 12 months, use of methotrexate ( 40% in France and Ireland vs. <10% in Serbia and Poland).3 It is also noteworthy that disease activity scores varied and were highest, on average, in Serbia and Poland.3

Although tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors have undoubtedly significantly advanced the treatment of RA, they are a higher cost treatment option and may not be suitable for all patients.4 Hence, guidelines have been developed in order to assist the appropriate use of TNF inhibitors within individual countries.

In order to establish the level of access to TNF inhibitors across Europe, European guidelines were translated and reviewed with regard to their similarities and differences in the recommended criteria for the initiation of TNF inhibition. Particular attention was paid to recommended duration of disease and prior treatment with DMARDs, as well as disease activity levels.

The guidelines selected for inclusion were those from Belgium,5 Czech Republic,6 Denmark,7 France,8 9 Germany,10 Italy,11 Romania,12 Spain,13 Sweden14 and the …


In this paper, we develop and evaluate models for estimating various performance metrics for unicast traffic using a single frequency channel virtual-circuit Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol in mobile wireless ad-hoc networks. Time is divided into periodic frames with a portion reserved for control traffic and the rest divided into timeslots for data traffic. In order to avoid interference between neighboring links, the virtual-circuit MAC protocol uses a set of reservation rules to assign timeslots to links. One such virtual-circuit MAC protocol is the hard scheduling mode of the reservation based Unifying Slot Assignment Protocol (USAP) with the number of frequency channels in a frame set to one. USAP uses a set of generic reservation rules to avoid interference between neighboring links. We model the performance of a single frequency channel virtual-circuit MAC protocol using reduced load loss network models that couple the physical, MAC, and routing layers effects. The blocking probability of a call at a particular link is calculated by considering cliques of neighboring interfering links that cannot transmit simultaneously. These neighboring interfering links and the conflict graph are calculated using the virtual-circuit reservation rules. We compare our results with simulation and show good match for large networks across various offered loads.


This chapter focuses on S in porphyry-type ore deposits, layered-mafic-intrusion-hosted ore bodies, and magmatic sulfide deposits. Porphyry-type ore deposits, e.g., Bingham Canyon, Utah, U.S.A. and Grasberg, Irian Jaya, are important hosts of Cu, Mo, Au, and Ag. Ore deposits hosted in layered mafic intrusions, e.g., the Bushveld and Stillwater complexes, contain significant quantities of Ni, Cu, Cr, Au and the platinum group elements (PGE: Pt, Pd, Rh, Re, Ir, Ru). Magmatic sulfide deposits, differentiated from layered mafic intrusions in that the former evince more clearly a role for immiscible sulfide accumulation without the possible presence of an aqueous fluid(s), e.g., Noril'sk and Voisey's Bay, contain significant quantities of Cu, Ni, and the PGE. Allowing for some variability within any given ore deposit type, each of these types is unique in terms of the range of pressure and temperature of ore deposit formation, tectonic setting, and the compositional type(s) of parental causative magma. However, most porphyry-type ore deposits, layered-mafic-intrusion-hosted ore bodies, and magmatic sulfide deposits share the following features: 1) they are related chemically and physically to silicate magma; 2) they are the byproduct of differentiation of magma; 3) metals are hosted dominantly in sulfide minerals and the deposits can be thought of primarily as S anomalies (e.g., the Butte and Bingham Canyon porphyry ore deposits, located in Montana and Utah, U.S.A., respectively, contain 60 and 100 times, respectively, the ~20 Mt of S emitted during the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo); and 4) the metal(s) and S in each deposit type, albeit not necessarily the total quantity of S, are together derived from the same magmatic source. It is the connectivity of these commonalities that serves as the basis for this review chapter.

The ubiquitous presence of S in magmatic systems is manifested in the commonly observed mass of S …


Internet of Things (IoT) is a pervasive technology covering many applications areas (Smart Mobility, Smart Industry, Smart Healthcare, Smart Building, etc.). Its success and the technology evolution allow targeting more complex and critical applications such as the management of critical infrastructures and cooperative service robotics, which requires real time operation and a higher level of intelligence in the monitoring-control command for decision-making. Furthermore, these applications type need to be fully validated in advance considering that bugs discovered during real operation could cause significant damages. In order to avoid these drawbacks, IoT developers and system integrators need advanced tools and methodologies. This paper presents a methodology and a set of tools, defined and developed in the context of the BRAIN-IoT European Union (EU) project. The overall framework includes both Open semantic models to enforce interoperable operations and exchange of data and control features; and Model-based development tools to implement Digital Twin solutions to facilitate the prototyping and integration of interoperable and reliable IoT system solutions. After describing the solution developed, this paper also presents concrete use cases based on the two critical systems mentioned above, leveraging the application scenarios used to validate the concepts developed and results obtained by the BRAIN-IoT project.


A flow injection technique for the determination of dissolved vanadium in natural waters has been developed. The technique utilizes the vanadium‐catalyzed oxidation of Bindschedler's green leuco base by bromate with tiron and tartrate as reaction activators. The reaction product is quantified colorimetrically. A chelator column of immobilized 8‐hydroxyquinoline reduces matrix effects but can be eliminated if samples with a constant matrix are being analyzed. By using the chelator column, 1 ml of sample can be analyzed in < 10 min with a detection limit of 0.2 nM. The method has been used successfully for the determination of dissolved vanadium in river and estuarine waters.


Maternal bacterial infection is known as a causal factor for preterm labor and neonatal morbidity. In recent years, both epidemiological and experimental studies have identified maternal bacterial infection as one of the causal factors for the development of cerebral palsy (CP) in the offspring. This review examines accumulating evidence that as critical mediators of the host's response to fighting the infecting bacteria, inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress also play important roles in maternal bacterial infection-induced white matter damage and ultimately the development of CP in the offspring. Understanding the actions of cytokines and oxidative stress in CP development could potentially lead to novel and effective therapeutic strategies.

 Key words: maternal infection; cerebral palsy; lipopolysaccharide; cytokine; oxidative stress


Drug use is pervasive, generally private, and of long standing. The social effects are sometimes problematic, but it is a large step to declare a war on drug use. This review considers how that approach came to be adopted in the United States and why it persists despite its evident shortcomings. This war could not be maintained without societal racism and the manipulation of racial stereotypes to make drugs something to be feared. Beneath society's adherence to a failed criminalization approach is a startling indifference to its racial impact, which includes a vast increase in the number and representation of poor minorities in the prison system, particularly young African American males. Tracing the war on drugs to its roots reveals a broader domain in which harsh legislation, prosecution, and incarceration combine to harm and stigmatize minority populations, while a pervasive ideology of color blindness discourages serious discussion of inherent racial bias in the criminal justice system.


In the present essay I explain how the exaltation of glamour in Russia and the persecution of queer sexual practices belong to the same normalizing strategy, which aims to freeze ideological discourse and empower conservative nodal points of Vladimir Putin's political regime. By analyzing the genealogy of "glamour" and the emergence of the term in the post-Soviet context, I explore how the glorifi cation of certain sexual practices to the exclusion of others limits the possibilities for symbolic alternatives within Russian society. The study of certain erotic phenomena intimately related with the process of subjectifi cation illuminates how hegemony is articulated in post-Soviet Russia.


This paper presents an alternative view of the Information Systems identity crisis described recently by Benbasat and Zmud (2003). We agree with many of their observations, but we are concerned with their prescription for IS research. We critique their discussion of errors of inclusion and exclusion in IS research and highlight the potential misinterpretations that are possible from a literal Ron Weber was the accepting senior editor for this paper. Iris Vessey and Rudy Hirschheim served as reviewers. reading of their comments. Our conclusion is that following Benbasat and Zmud's nomological net will result in a micro focus for IS research. The results of such a focus are potentially dangerous for the field. They could result in the elimination of IS from many academic programs. We present an alternative set of heuristics that can be used to assess what lies within the domain of IS scholarship. We argue that the IS community has a powerful story to tell about the transformational impact of information technology. We believe that a significant portion of our research should be macro studies of the impact of IT. It is important for academic colleagues, deans, and managers to understand the transformational power of the technology. As IS researchers with deep knowledge of the underlying artifact, we are best positioned to do such research.


Visualization
 of high-dimensional data, such as text documents, is useful to map out the
 similarities among various data points. In the high-dimensional space,
 documents are commonly represented as bags of words, with dimensionality
 equal to the vocabulary size. Classical document visualization directly
 reduces this into visualizable two or three dimensions. Recent approaches
 consider an intermediate representation in topic space, between word space
 and visualization space, which preserves the semantics by topic modeling.
 These approaches consider the problem of semantic visualization which
 attempts to jointly model visualization and topics. With semantic
 visualization, documents with similar topics will be displayed nearby. This
 dissertation focuses on building probabilistic models for semantic
 visualization by modeling other aspects of documents (i.e., document
 relationships and document representations) in addition to their texts. The
 objective is to improve the quality of similarity-based document
 visualization while maintaining topic quality. In addition, we find
 applications of semantic visualization to various problems. For document
 collection visualization, we develop a system for navigating a text corpus
 interactively and topically via browsing and searching. Another application
 is single document visualization for visual comparison of documents using
 word clouds.


A direct conversion modulator-demodulator with even harmonic mixers with emphasis on noise analysis is presented. The circuits consist of even harmonic mixers (EHMs) realized with antiparallel diode pairs (APDPs). We evaluate the different levels of I/Q imbalances and DC offsets and use signal space concepts to analyze the bit error rate (BER) of the proposed transceiver using M-ary QAM schemes. Moreover, the simultaneous analysis of the signal and noise has been presented.


You are an intensivist and team leader for a "Critical Care Transportation Team", consisting of an ICU nurse, CCM physician and technologist. The team frequently goes out by helicopter to small outlying hospitals where medical disasters happen that they do not have the technology or expertise to deal with effectively. The team brings with it technology and expertise needed to stabilize disasters before transport to tertiary medical centers for definitive treatment. This expertise includes intubation, aggressive fluid, inotrope, vasopressor management and placement of portable intraaortic balloon. However the team members all go home at 6 pm and must come in from home if called in the middle of the night. In addition, during bad weather, the helicopter does not fly and so the team must go by ground ambulance. It is 0300 on a Friday night and you receive a panicky call from a small hospital approximately 70 miles from you requestion an immediate deployment of your CCM Transport Team. The patient is a 66 y/o female with a history of hypertension who came to their ED complaining of severe interscapular back pain and shortness of breath. CAT Scan shows what their radiologist considers to be a leaking thoracic aneurysm. They do not have the ability to deal with this and want the patient out of there post-haste. There is no nearby hospital capable of dealing with this either. The bad news. Your area is socked in with hurricane-like storms. Flailing sheets of wind and rain, nonstop lightning. Obviously, there is no helicopter service. In the ED at the referring hospital, they have her on a nitroprusside drip. They tell you that her blood pressure is 160 systolic and she continues to complain of back pain. When you inform them that the helicopter is kaput, they say they will put the patient in a local meat wagon ambulance and send her with one of their nurses to watch the nitropruside infusion. They say they can have an ambulance there and the patient loaded in 15 minutes. The area is not served by an Interstate Highway. It is normally an hour drive (with lights and sirens) in good weather. It will probably take longer in bad weather. Total estimated time for their meat wagon to reach you from the time the decision is made to do itabout one and a half hours. The benefit: Fastest possible transport time. The risk: If serious complications en route, patient is at high risk that the Low-tech equipment and low-experience accompanying personnel will not be able to handle it. An alternative possibilitycall out the CCM Transport Team at 0300, have them come in to your hospital, gather their equipment, proceed to the scene by ground ambulance, stabilize the situation, then transport the patient back under the care of an experienced CCM physician and high tech modularized monitoring equipment, full range of treatment options. The furthest CCM Team member lives about 30 minutes from the hospital. Once there consider another 15 minutes at least to get equipment mobilized and moved to the ambulance. It is about the same time-in-transit. So 45 minute mobilization time plus an hour and fifteen minutes transit time through the storm gives you a time to arrival of about 2 hours. The benefit You will be able to stabilize the patient and keep her stabilized during the trip back. The risk-To get your high-tech and high-experience team to the scene will take 30 minutes longer than if they simply put the patient in a meat wagon and put the pedal to the metal. They want to know if they should send or if you want to Inter Hospital Transport of Critically Ill Patients: Problems and Pitfalls 2 of 4 send your team. What is your decision? It has become almost a knee-jerk reflex to validate sending a specialty team for critically ill patients in outlying areas where stabilization pays dividends. So when helicopter service is available, it makes sense to combine the "golden hour" of trauma with the ability to stabilize and maintain on portable life support systems for a trip back to the tertiary center for definitive treatment. Intuitively, rapid specialty team assisted inter-hospital transports of critically ill patients seem to be desirable in order to fit the expertise with the perceived need. Baxt(1) looked at the mortality rates of patients transferred to tertiary care hospitals by a standard ambulance versus a helicopter service. He also matched both groups for types of injury, trauma scores. Only patients transferred by air had an improvement in survival compared to that predicted. Interestingly, although the mortality of the group transferred by air was better, the time from injury to arrival at the hospital was an average of 23 minutes longer than the ground transferred group due to time spent at the scene stabilizing the patient. Moylan (2) compared aeromedical transports and ground transports, matching trauma scores, mechanism of injury and organ systems involved. There was a statistically significant survival advantage for air transported patients with trauma scores between 10 and 5. (82% versus 53% for ground transports). He also found that more therapeutic interventions by the helicopter team contributed to better outcome for the air transported group. These included endotracheal intubations, blood transfusions, larger volumes of electrolyte resuscitation and increased use of MAST trousers. Moylan (3) in his review of aeromedical transportation, observed: " Reports presented in this review demonstrate clearly that the interval between the accident and arrival of the helicopter medical personnel at the scene of the accident or outlying hospital-not the speed with which the patient is delivered to the tertiary care facility-is the key factor in improving survival. Gore (4) reported establishing a physician staffed transport system specifically for the stabilization and transport of unstable patients with cardiac disease. He characterized 78% of these patients as "unstable". Approximately one third of his transferred patients had life threatening complications during transfer, "the majority of which could not have been predicted". The presence of a physician trained in critical care resulted in seemingly successful management of all but one of these life threatening conditions. He discharged 74.5% home after tertiary level treatment. However, it should be noted that most of these projections of need for on-site physician expertise relies heavily on speed of patient access by knowledgeable resuscitators. It is unknown whether it is best to "scoop and run" or "stay and play" when the potential arises for the patient to reach the referring hospital long before the physician can reach the patient at an outlying location. When the helicopter isn't flying, it may take at 30 minutes to an hour longer just to get the team to the patient than if they sent the patient to the referral center. The patient is going to have to sit there for the additional time, then make the entire trip again, doubling or tripling the potentially unstable circumstances of the transport time. In addition, data on whether physician presence on interhospital transports improve outcomes is murky? Himmelstein described substandard stabilization of 33 out of 103 patients who were at risk for life threatening complications in transit (5). Schiff described substandard stabilization for 89% of 467 patients transferred from emergency departments to surrounding hospitals (6). Schiff also reported a 40% higher death rate in patients transferred with inadequate stabilization versus non-transferred patients. However, most patients in these two series were transferred due to socio-financial considerations rather than for medical indications. West (7) reports inadequate stabilization on on trauma transports, and Olson (8) on critically ill medical/surgical patients. Olson also reports that a sizable number of inadequacies in their group were of an extremely basic nature. Mayer , in his review of the literature, found between 24 and 70% of transferred patients are inadequately stabilized prior to transport (9). There is no reason to imply that adequate paramedic protocols could not resolve this issue without direct physician intervention. Much of the other debate in the literature has been in the form of subjective, retrospective assessments of various personnel as to whether or not physician presence might have been needed or useful (10,11). Most of the current studies show that transportation medicine is relatively safe in that no harm comes to the patient as a result of the transport process. However, it seems obvious if enough expensive resources are brought to bear, almost any transport can be accomplished with safety to the patient. These studies don't show that high technology critical care transports have a good cost benefit ratio, they simply demonstrate they are Inter Hospital Transport of Critically Ill Patients: Problems and Pitfalls 3 of 4 relatively safe. A more compelling question is: Would a physician accompanied critical care transport improve outcome and be much more cost effective than transports without a physician present but with physician input (ie: by portable cellular phone after assessment by an experienced ICU nurse)? The entire premise of physician accompanied transports rests on the supposition that life threatening exigencies cannot be predicted prior to transport and life saving procedures may be necessary during the transport can only effectively be performed by physicians. But physicians are rarely available for immediate transport "after hours", dramatically increasing response times. Additionally, if rapid deployment is unavailable, tying up physician time on long ground ambulance trips detracts from their potential usefulness elsewhere. The argument has been brought forth that the patient is safer in an outlying emergency department than on a transport with inadequate expertise. There is little objective data to support this. The person in charge


Iraq and Argentina each launched a $100 billion debt restructuring last year. The two cases are rarely mentioned together. Most think of Argentina as the quintessential case of financial globalization gone awry - a lapsed market reformer that sank under the weight of (depending on your perspective) misguided liberalization or its own financial chutzpah, and took with it Argentine depositors, Italian retirees, Japanese banks, and offshore investment funds. Iraq's debt has a distinctly preglobalization flavor. Most of its obligations precede the recent wave of financial liberalization. In the words of Iraq's own advisers, its debt restructuring is a quintessential geopolitical case, a classic outlier framed by strategic more than financial concerns. Aside from the obvious intuition that no case of government debt is immune from politics and no multibillion dollar restructuring is devoid of finance, Argentina and Iraq appear to be on opposite ends of the finance-politics spectrum. Despite, or because of this distance between them, each of these two restructurings offers insights for policy and doctrinal problems normally associated with the other. This essay focuses on two such problems: shielding sovereign debtors from lawsuits, now most acutely associated with Argentina, and restructuring debts inherited from bad regimes, such as those Iraq had incurred under Saddam Hussein. Early evidence reveals that existing legal, policy and financial techniques offer governments considerable flexibility to achieve deep debt relief and frame it in the political terms of their choice. These techniques, invoked ad hoc with the blessing of major economic powers and accepted by the financial markets, help preempt the emergence of more radical doctrines such as sovereign bankruptcy and odious debt.


The Theoretical Relevance of an Updated Marxian Theory of Commodity in Economics Pablo Emiliano Ahumada Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand. How does material production become socially recognised in Capitalist production? Capitalism breaks down the immediate unity of the material and social moments of production, characteristic of previous modes, into two interlocked yet autonomous spheres: material production and market exchange. Commodity, its basic unit, renders production global and atomistic for the first time in history, with material production taking place in social isolation; that is, privately and independently. This paper analyses why the above fundamental question is unanswerable in Classical Political Economy and Neo-Classical Economics; the former being unilaterally focussed on material production and the latter on the market. It also assesses Marx's attempted account of the differentiated unity characterising commodity production. That is, private work becomes objective social labour as the substance of the value of commodities, and social labour finds its necessary expression in the money-form of commodities. The paper concludes by highlighting the gaps in Marx's economic argument.


Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a rapid prototyping process, which operates by using a laser to locally heat an area within a layer of powder material, causing it
to fuse together, creating a thin cross-section of solid material. 3D shapes are built by repeatedly depositing a layer of fresh powder on top of the cross-section
and then locally heating it, causing it to fuse together and to the layer beneath. However, during SLS processing, temperature differences that exist in different
regions of the fabricated parts lead to uneven shrinkages. The shrinkages cause surfaces in the part, which are intended to be flat, to exhibit a curved profile; a
phenomenon termed curl. The development of curl is highly influenced by the SLS machine parameters selected in fabrication. The production of geometrically acceptable parts involves numerous fabrication trials before the optimum machine parameters can be found. The procedure can be time consuming and expensive.

The aim of the work presented in this thesis was to develop finite element models for the purpose of predicting curl in SLS fabricated polycarbonate parts. The ultimate goal was to use the models to estimate the optimum SLS machine
parameters for the physical fabrication of geometrically acceptable parts, produced in any material, and therefore avoid the costly and time consuming process of using SLS machines for experimental purposes.

The prediction of curl was made through heat transfer and stress finite element models that were both coupled using the sequentially coupled thermal-stress analysis technique. Experimental work was carried out to measure material
properties used as input to the models and to validate results predicted. The sensitivity of curl predicted to assumptions considered in the heat and stress models was introduced, and the assumptions highly influencing the accuracy of curl predictions were identified.


This paper revisits traditional human capital models and proposes a new conceptual framework of human capital accumulation, anchored in skills development, to illustrate the phenomenon and implications of youth economic disengagement. In the framework, youth economic disengagement is defined as a state (temporary or permanent) where individuals stop accumulating human capital due to inadequate access and quality of opportunities for skills development through formal education and employment. Total economic disengagement is a rational choice that individuals make when (i) the formal education system and labor market do not contribute to build skills that are valued by the labor market, and (ii) the costs related to economic engagement (that is, studying and working) surpass its benefits. The phenomenon of economic disengagement has lifelong implications that not only constrain and restrain future earnings, but also undermine prospects for improvements in productivity and economic growth.


This paper presents an ongoing study that is being conducted jointly by Lancaster University, University of Birmingham, University of Southampton, and University College of London as part of the Liveable Cities programme. Liveable Cities is a five-year interdisciplinary research programme aimed at developing guidelines to implement radical solutions for low-carbon, resource-secure UK cities that prioritise societal wellbeing and aspirations. "Sharing City" is the first of a series of seven cross-disciplinary themes that bring together the research teams involved in Liveable Cities in localized "thought experiments" aimed at developing scenarios of desirable and provocative urban futures in the form of social conversations, policy recommendations, and prototypes. Although the term "Sharing Economy" has only recently grown in popularity, literature indicates sharing as an essential component of cities. The city itself is a complex product of shared creation and/or co-production. Sharing in cities was and is needed to maintain the environment, support the civic society, sustain the economy, and promote individual and community wellbeing. Despite the quality, safety, and accessibility of most essential infrastructures and services of our cities (e.g. energy and water networks, libraries, roads) depending on them being shared, we are experiencing increasing privatisation and commercialisation of many resources that were "public". Moreover, particularly in wealthier societies, the crisis of urban commons might contribute to an increase in the social value and importance of owning goods and resources to fulfil everyday needs. We define Sharing Cities as cities where individualistic consumption of resources and ideologies are valued less than those that emphasise the collective benefit to citizens and other stakeholders. A Sharing City is more than simply a city in which models of Sharing Economy become mainstream. It is a city that needs to rethink its infrastructure, spaces, services, and governance. A number of questions need to be asked: •How can we design and engineer cities that maintain/improve/prioritise sharing? •What does a sharing city look like and how does it function? •What are the barriers to creating and maintaining such a sharing city? •How do sharing cities impact individual, community and planetary wellbeing? •Can sharing cities reduce carbon and other resource use while positively impacting wellbeing? •What gets shared in the sharing city? •Who shares (e.g., between groups, between cities)? •Is sharing equal for all parties involved? •How does sharing occur? While we can draw upon research that is being conducted in different areas of the Liveable Cities project to understand some of these issues, studies on cities are rarely complete without a contextualisation. We chose therefore to understand what would it mean for the city of Lancaster (one of the three Liveable Cities case studies) to become a Sharing City. We are also aiming to conduct a shorter comparative study for the city of Birmingham. Lancaster is a small city in the North-West of England, characterised by a rich historical and cultural heritage, its proximity to nature, and two universities. A large number of groups involved in formal and informal initiatives of sharing are active in the city. We decided to directly involve these groups early on in our research project, to learn from their expertise and day-to-day experience. To do so, we organised a one-day workshop for researchers and members of the local community involved in or with a strong interest in sharing. The aims of the workshop included mapping current initiatives of formal and informal sharing in Lancaster, discussing worst-case scenarios (worries, dangers and risks of sharing), and imagining a future city in which positive initiatives of sharing could be amplified, new forms of sharing could be created, and barriers could be destroyed. A summary report is forthcoming. One of the key-concepts of the day was the need for "building bridges". The "Lancaster Map of Sharing" produced at the beginning of the workshop captured a rich landscape of initiatives, particularly in the areas of food and urban farming, ethical and fair trade, knowledge and skills exchange. However, there seems to be a need for better communication and understanding across the groups and with the rest of the population that is not directly involved (but might be interested). "Bridges" are also constituted by spaces and infrastructures. The ill-designed transport network in Lancaster, and the limited spaces that are available for shared use, constitute practical barriers to sharing. Finally, to design a sharing city, "bridges" between communities and the local government should be improved, by supporting models of participatory governance. However, the ultimate condition for sharing is trust. This leads to an additional research question: what are the conditions to be designed for a city that promotes trust?