The aim of this systematic review was to determine the effect of exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (EBCR) on mortality, modifiable risk factors and quality of life related to health, in patients with coronary artery disease. Only Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) with follow up equal or higher than six months published between 1990 and 2004 were analyzed. The criteria proposed by the Clinical Practice Guideline: cardiac rehabilitation was adopted to evaluate the selected studies. Twenty-one RCTs met the inclusion criteria in a total of 2220 patients aged between 49 and 63 years of age (86% male). The majority of RCTs results were favorable to EBCR when compared to usual care (control) regarding total and cardiac mortality. This fact was also observed for the reinfarction and myocardial revascularization rates. EBCR results about the modifiable risk factors and quality of life were not conclusive when compared to control intervention, although some studies have presented statistical differences in favor of EBCR. This review confirms the benefits of EBCR therapeutic approach on coronary diseased, showing reduced rates of cardiac and all causes mortality, besides the reduced coronary events occurrence, such as myocardial revascularization and reinfarct rate. There was a favorable trend toward EBCR utilization considering the modified risk factors and quality of life. In addition, it seems that exercise per si constitutes the major responsible factor for the favorable intervention results related to the studied endpoints.


Uniformly carbon-14 labeled wheat plant cell walls (CW-UL¹⁴C) were combined with ground orchardgrass hay substrate and ensiled in order to determine the contribution of cell walls to silage fermentation end-products. Eight samples in half-pint jars were fermented for either 49, 76, 141, 188, 237, 285, 429, or 504 hours. Carbon-14 activity was measured in water solubles, organic acids, and carbon dioxide. Substantial activity was found in lactic and acetic acid, both of which increased at essentially the same rate initially. Eight percent of the labeled cell wall was hydrolyzed, apparently through bacterial mechanisms. Eighty percent was found in the acids and 4.5% in carbon dioxide. The usefulness of this technique for studying various ramifications of silage fermentation is demonstrated.


Abstract This study records the spatial distribution of Spotted Bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) bowers at a study site in central Queensland, and examines how vegetation characteristics, the location of conspecific's bowers and canopy architecture affect bower location. Bowers were preferentially situated in brigalow regrowth habitat, with a mean (±s.d.) nearest-neighbour distance of 1059 ± 516 m. Bowers were evenly spaced within the region of highest bower density (20 bowers), but not within the study area as a whole. Bush canopy above bowers was thicker, attenuated more light, and covered a greater area than that of randomly selected bushes. Bower location within a bush was associated with a narrow range of canopy heights. These results suggest that bower location is primarily determined by large-scale habitat preferences. Secondly, within suitable habitat, bower location is influenced by male—male interactions. At a third, finer scale, choice of bower site is strongly influenced by microhabitat preferences, specifically bush architecture. The possibility that displaying under bushes represents a strategy for minimising aerial predation, and/or enhancing the visual characteristics of display elements, is discussed.


This report describes a study of the hydrology, hydrogeological framework, numerical groundwater-flow models, and results of simulations of the effects of water use and drought for the Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer, northwestern Oklahoma. The purpose of the study was to provide analyses, including estimating equalproportionate-share (EPS) groundwater-pumping rates and the effects of projected water use and droughts, pertinent to water management of the Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer for the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. The Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer consists of unconsolidated sand, gravel, silt, and clay in varying proportions that underlies the Beaver and North Canadian River Valleys for approximately 175 miles (mi) from the Oklahoma Panhandle to the western edge of Oklahoma City in central Oklahoma. The aquifer as delineated for this study varies from 4 to 12 mi wide and is as thick as 308 feet (ft) in the northwest where the aquifer includes the Ogallala Formation. There are two distinct but in most areas hydraulically connected alluvial units that compose the Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer: a Quaternary-age topographically higher terrace deposit and a topographically lower, younger alluvium along the active river channel that includes active and Quaternary-age alluvium. The Beaver River composes the headwaters of the North Canadian River, which begins at the confluence of the Beaver River and Wolf Creek. The aquifer is divided for water management into two geographic areas: Reach I upstream from Canton Dam and Reach II downstream from Canton Dam. Reach I covers an area of approximately 874 square miles (mi2), and Reach II covers an area of approximately 371 mi2. The Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer crosses several climatic zones, from semiarid in the west to continental subhumid in the east. Mean annual precipitation varies from 23.5 inches (in.) in the western part of this aquifer to 35.7 in. in the east. Surface-water demands were met through numerous temporary and permanent surface-water diversions from the Beaver and North Canadian Rivers during the period of study. During the study period, seven diversions removed a mean annual 2,000 acre-feet (acre-ft) of water from Reach I. There were 14 diversions from Reach II with a mean annual permitted volume of approximately 81,000 acre-ft, including diversion into the Lake Hefner Canal for the Oklahoma City public water supply. During the period of this study, 17 temporary surface-water diversion permits were active in Reach I, with total permitted volumes of 2,000 acre-ft, and 41 diversions were active in Reach II, with total permitted volumes of 38,000 acre-ft. The total water use for each temporary permit was assumed to be taken over the 3-month period allotted to temporary withdrawal permits. The groundwater-use analysis full period of record, 1967–2011, was divided into two sub-intervals because of varying water use, 1970–80 and 1981–2011. Groundwater use in Reach I and Reach II was substantially greater from 1970 to 1980 compared to the rest of the period, and the sub-period 1981–2011 was used because this period includes recent population growth and modern irrigation methods. The total mean annual groundwater use in Reach I was 15,309 acrefeet per year (acre-ft/yr) during 1967–2011; 20,724 acre-ft/ yr during 1970–80, and 13,739 acre-ft/yr during 1981–2011. Total mean annual groundwater use in Reach II was similar but slightly less than in Reach I, with 14,098 acre-ft/yr during 1967–2011; 19,963 acre-ft/yr during 1970–80; and 12,285 acre-ft/yr during 1981–2011. Irrigation composed 72 percent of groundwater use in Reach I and 48 percent of groundwater use in Reach II during the 1967–2011 period. Public water supply was a much smaller proportion of total groundwater use in Reach I (15 percent) than in Reach II (39 percent). The proportion of groundwater use for power was 10 percent in Reach I and 5.2 percent in Reach II. All other water-use categories in Reach I only composed 2.2 percent of groundwater use in Reach I. In Reach II, industrial, mining, and commercial categories combined accounted for 4.4 percent of groundwater 2 Hydrogeological Framework, Numerical Simulation of Groundwater Flow, and Effects of Projected Water Use and Drought use; recreation, fish, and wildlife groundwater use accounted for 2.3 percent; and nonirrigated agriculture accounted for 1.5 percent of groundwater use. Permian-age bedrock underlies the Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer. In the east, the Dog Creek Shale, the Duncan Sandstone, and the Blaine and Chickasha Formations, none of which are notable sources of groundwater in the study area, underlie the Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer. In the northwestern part of Reach I, bedrock is composed of the Rush Springs and Marlow Formations, which are productive aquifers in some areas. The Cloud Chief Formation is not a source of groundwater. One hydrogeological unit was delineated in the BeaverNorth Canadian River alluvial aquifer, composed of the terrace deposits and alluvium, with limited flow between this unit and bedrock units. Groundwater in this aquifer generally flows from northwest to southeast and across the aquifer toward the Beaver and North Canadian Rivers. Groundwater recharge from precipitation was estimated for the entire Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer and then itemized for both reaches by using a soil-waterbalance (SWB) model. At two locations in Reach I, a water-table fluctuation method was used to estimate local recharge. Total mean annual groundwater recharge from the soil-water-balance method was estimated to be approximately 136,400 acre-ft in Reach I and 82,400 acre-ft in Reach II; the mean annual recharge for both reaches combined was approximately 218,800 acre-ft. Two sites in Reach I located at observation wells with continuous water-level measurements and nearby streamflow-gaging stations with precipitation gages were used to estimate the percentage of precipitation that becomes groundwater recharge. The Woodward site was located at observation well OW-4 near the Woodward, Okla. (07237500), streamflow-gaging station. Total precipitation and recharge for the Woodward and Seiling sites were calculated for the water year 2013. The Woodward site had a total of 14.18 in. of precipitation and 6.3 in. of recharge was calculated, equaling 44 percent of precipitation. The mean percentage of precipitation that was estimated to become recharge in the SWB model for the period 1980–2011 at that location was 9.2 percent, although adjacent SWB-model cells were as high as 20 percent of precipitation. The Seiling site had a total of 26.84 in. of precipitation during the water year 2013, and a total of 6.9 in. of recharge was estimated, equaling 25.9 percent of precipitation. At the Seiling site, the mean percentage of precipitation that became recharge in the SWB model for the period 1980–2011 was 23.0 percent. The principal inflow to the Beaver-North Canadian River alluvial aquifer was estimated to be surface recharge from precipitation, and plant evapotranspiration was estimated to be the greatest discharge, followed by stream and lake base flow, groundwater pumping, and flow to seeps and springs along the eastern margin of the aquifer. Reach I also included inflow from the High Plains aquifer as lateral inflow of groundwater, though this flow was estimated to be a very minor component of the total water budget. Most of the Beaver and North Canadian Rivers were determined to be gaining streamflow from groundwater, but several reaches in Reach I upstream from Wolf Creek were determined to be losing streamflow through infiltration to the aquifer. Aquifer hydrogeologic characteristics were estimated from borehole lithologic logs, well-construction information, and published aquifer tests and during numerical model calibration. The maximum saturated aquifer thickness in Reach I was estimated to be 308 ft, and the mean thickness was estimated to be 36 ft. The maximum saturated thickness in Reach II was estimated to be 86 ft, and the mean thickness was estimated to be 29 ft. Mean hydraulic conductivity of Reach I was estimated to be 70 feet per day (ft/d) with a range of 7–279 ft/d. Mean hydraulic conductivity in Reach II was estimated to be 92 ft/d with a range of 4–279 ft/d. Both reach models were calibrated manually by using trial-and-error adjustment of recharge, hydraulic conductivity, specific yield, and conductance of boundary conditions. The Reach I model used 28 head observations during the steadystate period of 1980 and 487 head observations during the transient period of 1981–2011. The root-mean-square error of head residuals (observed minus simulated head) was 3.86 ft, and 83 percent of head residuals were between -5 and 5 ft. The Reach II model was calibrated to 75 steady-state head observations and 134 head observations during the transient period. The root-mean-square error of head residuals for that reach was 3.58 ft, and similar to Reach I, 85 percent of residuals were between -5 and 5 ft. Several analyses were performed by using the numeric groundwater-flow models as predictive tools, including estimating the EPS pumping rate for both reaches. The EPS is defined by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board as an annual per-acre groundwater-pumping rate that will reduce saturated thickness in half of the aquifer to 5 ft or less over a period of 20 years; additional estimates were made for periods of 40 and 50 years. Other analyses included using models to estimate the effects of groundwater pumping and a prolonged drought on groundwater in storage and streamflow and lake storage of water. The EPS pumping rate was found to be approximately 0.57 acre-feet per acre per year ([acre-ft/acre]/yr) in Reach I and 0.73 (acre-ft/acre)/yr in Reach II for a 20-year period. For a 40-year period, the annual EPS pumpin


This paper examines data on actual reductions in consumption of water supply due to the widespread installation of rainwater tanks at residential properties in the Sydney metropolitan area and surrounding areas connected to Sydney Water Corporation water supply mains. The water consumption was based on metered potable water usage between 2002 and 2009. The number of properties in the study database totalled 962,697 single residential dwellings. Of this a total of 52,576 or 5.5% of Sydney's households had a rainwater tank registered with Sydney Water Corporation. The water usage consumption before and after the installation of the rainwater tank was analysed to quantify the extent to which rainwater tanks reduced mains water consumption. The average percentage of water savings by installing rainwater tanks across all 44 local government authorities was 9%. In some Sydney localities this reduction was up to 15%. On average, a household was able to save around 24 kilolitre of water annually by installing a rainwater tank even without considering other factors that affect water usage. The results were compared against socio-demographic factors using variables such as household size, educational qualifications, taxable income, rented properties, and non-English-speaking background, etc., to gain an appreciation of how these factors may have influenced the outcomes evident in the data. Among the co-relations found were that most properties within inner Sydney with a rainwater tank achieved at least a 9 to 11% additional reduction in water usage, with more than half of those local government authorities achieving more than 11%; properties with larger land area were more likely to have a rainwater tank installed; local government authorities with more people born in non-English speaking countries had lower reduction in water consumption reductions. * Corresponding author Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Year 2017 Volume 5, Issue 2, pp 202-218


The Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS; Lau et al., 2006) has been widely used to assess the state mindfulness of participants after practicing mindfulness. Recently, a trait version of the Toronto Mindfulness Scale was developed and initially validated (TMS-T; Davis et al., 2009). We further examined the psychometric properties of TMS-T using three hundred and sixty-eight Chinese college students (233 females and 135 males) from a public university in Hong Kong. We found that factor analyses failed to support the existence of two-dimensional structure of the Chinese version of the TMS-T (C-TMS-T). The model fit indices indicated a marginal model fit, and the concurrent and convergent validities of the C-TMS-T were not confirmed. The moderate item-to-subscale fit of the decentering subscale indicated that its structural validity was not satisfactory. In addition, the internal consistency coefficient of the decentering subscale using composite reliability (p = .61) was under the acceptable level. Based on the results, we concluded that the application of the C-TMS-T to the Chinese population is premature. Further validation of the C-TMS-T using another sample of participants is recommended, in particular, individuals with meditation experiences.


We introduce a large-scale 3D shape understanding benchmark using data and annotation from ShapeNet 3D object database. The benchmark consists of two tasks: part-level segmentation of 3D shapes and 3D reconstruction from single view images. Ten teams have participated in the challenge and the best performing teams have outperformed state-of-the-art approaches on both tasks. A few novel deep learning architectures have been proposed on various 3D representations on both tasks. We report the techniques used by each team and the corresponding performances. In addition, we summarize the major discoveries from the reported results and possible trends for the future work in the field.


In this background report we review the literature on migration forecasts, evaluate different methods for forecasting migration and present a new approach to forecast the migration potential from the new member states (NMS) into the EU-15. There has been a large literature attempting to forecast the migration from the NMS before enlargement. At a long-run migration potential of about 3 to 5 per cent of the population and an influx of between 200,000 and 300,000 persons, the mainstream of these forecasts is by and large consistent with the actual migration movements from the NMS-8 into the EU-15, while the migration potential from Bulgaria and Romania has been underestimated. Moreover, these studies employed explicitly or implicitly the counterfactual assumption that all EU-15 countries will open their labour markets at the same time, such that they were not able to forecast the substantial changes in regional migration patterns which took place after EU enlargement. While this literature had to rely on coefficients from other countries, the post-Enlargement migration enables us to exploit information on recent migration stocks and flows for forecasts of the migration potential. However, the selective application of transitional arrangements for the free movement of workers has distorted bilateral migration patterns, such that the coefficients derived from bilateral migration movements are likely to be biased. We therefore refer to the EU-15 as a single destination which allows us to circumvent this problem. Moreover, we use information on migration stocks and flows within the EU countries to estimate the migration potential under the conditions of free movement. Based on this approach, we estimate the longrun migration potential from the NMS-8 at about 6 per cent of the population in the sending countries, and the migration potential from the NMS-2 (Bulgaria and Romania) at about 14 per cent of the population in the sending countries. The short-run net inflow of migrants from the NMS-8 is estimated to be at about 240,000 persons p.a., and that from the NMS-2 at about 190,000 persons p.a. These net inflows may decline in the course of the financial crisis, since immigration and return migration are largely determined by the conditions in host countries. The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the European Commission.


Many reviews support fluoride varnish (FV) as a caries-inhibitory agent. Evidence from 6 Cochrane systematic reviews involving 200 trials and more than 80,000 participants further confirms the effectiveness of FV, applied professionally 2-4 times a year, for preventing dental caries in both primary and permanent teeth. The relative benefit of FV application seems to occur irrespective of baseline caries risk, baseline caries severity, background exposure to fluorides, use of fluoride toothpaste and application features such as prior prophylaxis, concentration of fluoride or frequency of application. While the efficacy of FV is acknowledged in clinical practice guidelines globally, the implementation of this recommendation may still be an issue. Factors that may facilitate FV application in the USA include Medicaid eligibility, relationships with dentists/community centers and strong cooperation and communication between physicians and support staff. Barriers include insufficient time to integrate oral health services into well-child visits, difficulty in applying FV (lack of skills/training) and resistance among colleagues and staff. Research in the UK/Scotland also suggests encouraging clinicians in their motivation to perform this treatment and addressing professional and parental concerns relating to possible negative consequences may be influential. Further research targeting cost-effectiveness and how FV in routine care may fit in with political agendas relating to, for example, inequalities in health care provision and access will also play a key part in stakeholder decisions to put resources into this issue.


BACKGROUND
Gait training with the help of assistive technological devices is an innovative field of research in neurological rehabilitation. Most of the available gait training devices do not allow free movement in the environment, which would be the most suitable natural and motivating condition for training children with neurological gait impairment.

AIM
To evaluate the potential applicability of a new robotic walking aid as a tool for gait training in non-ambulatory children with Cerebral Palsy.

DESIGN
Single case study

SETTING
Outpatient regimen

POPULATION
A 11-years-old child unable to stand and walk independently as a result of spastic tetraplegic cerebral palsy (CP).

METHODS
The experimental device was a newly actuated version of a dynamic combined walking and standing aid (NF-Walker®) available in the market which was modified by means of two pneumatic artificial muscles driven by a foot-switch inserted in the shoes. The child was tested at baseline (while maintaining the standing position aided by the non-actuated NF-Walker®) and in the experimental condition (while using the actuated robotic aid). The outcome measures were: 2-minute walking test, 10-metre walking test, respiratory and heart parameters, energy cost of locomotion.

RESULTS
At baseline, the child was unable to perform any autonomous form of locomotion. When assisted by the actuated aid (i.e. during the experimental condition), the child was successful in moving around in his environment. His performance was 19.63 m in the 2-minute walking test and 64 s in the 10-metre walking test. Respiratory and heart parameters were higher than healthy age-matched children both at baseline and in the experimental condition. The energy cost of gait, which was not valuable in the baseline condition, was significantly higher than normality during the experimental condition.

CONCLUSION
The new robotic walking aid may help children suffering from CP with severe impairment of gait to move around in their environment.

CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT
This new robotic walking device may have a potential impact in stimulating the development and in training of gait in children with neurological gait impairment. Future studies are warranted in order to test this hypothesis.


Purpose To investigate fundus autofluorescence (FAF) lifetimes in patients with nonexudative AMD. Methods A total of 150 eyes of 110 patients (mean age: 73.2 ± 10.7 years) with nonexudative AMD, as well as a healthy group of 57 eyes in 38 subjects (mean age: 66.5 ± 8.7 years), were included. Investigations were conducted at the University Eye Clinic in Jena, Germany, as well as the Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, using the Heidelberg Engineering Spectralis-based fluorescence lifetime imaging ophthalmoscope (FLIO). A 30° retinal field centered at the fovea was investigated. FAF decays were detected in short (498–560 nm) and long (560–720 nm, LSC) spectral channels. The mean fluorescence lifetimes (τm) were calculated. Optical coherence tomography scans and fundus photographs were also recorded. Results In patients with nonexudative AMD, FLIO shows a ring-shaped pattern of prolonged τm in the LSC. This pattern occurs in all patients with AMD (including very early stages) and in one-third of the healthy controls. FAF lifetimes were longer with more advanced stages. The presence of drusen is associated with prolonged τm when compared with the healthy fundus, but drusen identification is difficult with FLIO only. Conclusions FLIO detects a clear pattern of changes within the fundus, which appears to be AMD-associated. These changes are already visible in early AMD stages and not masked by the presence of other coexisting retinal diseases. These findings may be useful for the early diagnosis of AMD and to distinguish AMD from other retinal diseases.


It's nineteen fifty-something, in a dark, cramped, smoke-filled room. Everyone's wearing black. And on-stage a tenor is blowing his heart out, a searching, jagged saxophone journey played out against a moody, walking bass and the swish of a drummer's brushes. To a great many listeners--from African American aficionados of the period to a whole new group of fans today--this is the very embodiment of jazz. It is also quintessential hard bop. In this, the first thorough study of the subject, jazz expert and enthusiast David H. Rosenthal vividly examines the roots, traditions, explorations and permutations, personalities and recordings of a climactic period in jazz history. Beginning with hard bop's origins as an amalgam of bebop and RB the stark, astringent, tormented music of saxophonists Jackie McLean and Tina Brooks; the gentler, more lyrical contributions of trumpeter Art Farmer, pianists Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, composers Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce; and such consciously experimental and truly one-of-a-kind players and composers as Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. Hard bop welcomed all influences--whether Gospel, the blues, Latin rhythms, or Debussy and Ravel--into its astonishingly creative, hard-swinging orbit. Although its emphasis on expression and downright "badness" over technical virtuosity was unappreciated by critics, hard bop was the music of black neighborhoods and the last jazz movement to attract the most talented young black musicians. Fortunately, records were there to catch it all. The years between 1955 and 1965 are unrivaled in jazz history for the number of milestones on vinyl. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners, Horace Silver's Further Explorations--Rosenthal gives a perceptive cut-by-cut analysis of these and other jazz masterpieces, supplying an essential discography as well. For knowledgeable jazz-lovers and novices alike, Hard Bop is a lively, multi-dimensional, much-needed examination of the artists, the milieus, and above all the sounds of one of America's great musical epochs.


This paper describes the design of spiral electrodes for forming a volume discharge in electroionization lasers. It is experimentally determined that using such electrodes improves the delivery by 20%. It is established that, for a definite choice of the attachment site of the electrodes to the supply source (the anode) and the ground (the cathode), the gain at the edge of the cavity volume can exceed the gain at the center. The distribution nonuniformity in the energy-contribution range from 1.5to2.3kJ was from 10% to 14% in these experiments, whereas the nonuniformity was at least 20% for electrodes with a profiled surface.


A data sheet is presented outlining the performance and characteristics of a Kodak DCS 200mi camera. In addition to providing information on this camera, the format and content of the data sheet could serve as a guide in the organization and display of pertinent information on electronic still cameras in general. Such data sheets are already common in silver halide photography. Pictorial electronic still photographers could benefit greatly from the publication of data sheets which enable them to judge the possibilities and limitations of the hardware and software. The proposed data sheet will contain descriptive specifications and numerical values such as sensor type, active sensor area, photoelement size, fill factor, filters, normal lens focal length, lens MTF, shutter type, shutter speed range, exposure metering modes, image storage, data output, compression, saturation speed, noise equivalent quanta (NEQ) speed, resolution, spatial frequency response (SFR), optoelectronic conversion function (OECF), noise power spectrum, effective bit depth (and spatial frequency dependence), peak equivalent image quality (EIQ) values, spectral response, etc. Where appropriate, the numerical values will be calculated according to the developing ISO standards in electronic photography. The graphical format of the data sheet as well as the information depth will be discussed.


Motivated by the need to identify new and clinically relevant categories of lung disease, we propose a novel clustering with constraints method using a Dirichlet process mixture of Gaussian processes in a variational Bayesian nonparametric framework. We claim that individuals should be grouped according to biological and/or genetic similarity regardless of their level of disease severity; therefore, we introduce a new way of looking at subtyping/clustering by recasting it in terms of discovering associations of individuals to disease trajectories (i.e., grouping individuals based on their similarity in response to environmental and/or disease causing variables). The nonparametric nature of our algorithm allows for learning the unknown number of meaningful trajectories. Additionally, we acknowledge the usefulness of expert guidance by providing for their input using must-link and cannot-link constraints. These constraints are encoded with Markov random fields. We also provide an efficient variational approach for performing inference on our model.


Background: Radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy (r-ESWT) is commonly used for the treatment of chronic plantar fasciitis. Previously in the urology literature, some studies reported hearing impairment after extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy. However, there is no study that evaluates the possible side effects of r-ESWT on the hearing function of patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of r-ESWT on the pure tone audiometry of the patients on whom r-ESWT was applied for chronic plantar fasciitis. Material and Methods: Patients with the diagnosis of plantar fasciitis who were treated with r-ESWT were included in this prospective case-control study. Before and after the r-ESWT application, all patients were consulted to our otolaryngology department for pure tone audiometric examination to detect any hearing impairment before and after the treatment. A control group was also constructed that consisted of patients who were admitted to our department for any complaint. Results: A total of 67 patients participated in the study. Radial ESWT group consisted of 47 patients (39 female, 8 male) with the mean age of 44.1 years. The control group consisted of 20 patients (12 female, 8 male) with the mean age of 36.9 years. We observed a 20-dB threshold shift at 8000Hz in 1 patient who had no clinical symptom. This patient had no threshold shift at the 1-month control audiometric measurement. Conclusion: According to the results acquired from this study, we can consider that r-ESWT treatment in patients with chronic plantar fasciitis has no markedly detrimental effect on the hearing function.


ABSTRACT
 The date palm is an important part of the religious, cultural, and economic heritage of the Arabian Peninsula. This heritage is threatened by the recent invasion of the red palm weevil (RPW) from Southeast Asia. In Saudi Arabia, a national campaign for control of RPW by containment/destruction of infested plants, injection and spraying of biochemical and chemical pesticide treatments in heavily infested and newly infested areas, and the use of pheromone/ kairomone traps for monitoring and reduction of RPW populations has been only partially successful in controlling its spread. New methods are needed to help manage the RPW populations. At a workshop in Riyadh in March 2010, plans were recommended to 1) devise and test new biological, chemical, and biotechnological methods to manage RPW in farms and urban palms; 2) compare the economic and logistic feasibility of acoustic and other detection methods against RPW larvae; and 3) develop biosensor indicators of RPW infestation in date palms. If these initiatives are successful, they will be of great assistance to landscape and orchard managers dealing with such a challenging pest of a highly valuable tree.


With high-speed networks, mobile code applications have become common. One of the important considerations for users (code consumers) of such applications is the guarantee that the downloaded programs are safe. Proof-carrying code is one of the frameworks that allow code consumers to independently verify the safety of untrusted code.
For any such framework to be usable, however, significant trust must be placed in the correctness of that framework itself. The Proof-Carrying Code (PCC) project at Princeton addresses this issue, and aims to build a foundational PCC system that has a trusted component of a very small size. This system consists of a certifying compiler that generates the executable code, and a safety prover that generates the proof of the safety of this code.
The certifying compiler also generates hints that help the prover in generating the safety proof. These hints are in the form of a typed assembly language program that corresponds to the output object-code program. Therefore, while the hints are specified as high-level type annotations, the prover must prove the safety of machine-level programs that operate on memory and register banks.
In this thesis, I present Typed Machine Language (TML), which is used to bridge this gap. TML is a calculus of type operators that can express constructs in high-level languages like core ML at a sufficiently low level to correspond directly to the concrete realisations of these type constructs at the machine level. These operators are expressive enough to be able to allow provably safe optimisations like array-bounds-check eliminations and sum-type discriminations. I shall first present a semantic model for these operators, and typing rules based on them. This model is then used to provide models for assembly-level instructions. The typing rules, along with the instruction models provide an interface which allows typed assembly languages to be type checked without exposing the complex underlying semantic model.
Finally, I shall present a proof technique that shows how the typability of the typed assembly languages can be connected to the safety of corresponding machine-level programs using the foundational semantic models for types and instructions provided by TML.


A central goal of metapopulation ecology is to determine which subpopulations have the greatest value to the larger metapopulation. That is, where are the 'sources' that are most essential to persistence? This question is especially relevant to benthic marine systems, where dispersal and recruitment are greatly affected by oceanographic processes. In a single-species context, theoretical models typically identify 'hotspots' with high recruitment, especially high self-recruitment, as having the highest value. However, the oceanographic forces affecting larval delivery of a given species may also influence the recruitment of that species' predators, prey, and competitors. We present evidence from the Virgin Islands and Bahamas that oceanographic forces produce spatial coupling between the recruitment of planktivorous fishes, the recruitment of their predators, and the productivity of their zooplankton prey. We examined the consequences of this type of multi-trophic coupling using a simple analytical population model and a multispecies numerical simulation model with parameter values based on the Virgin Islands system. In both analyses, strong coupling caused planktivores at the highest recruitment sites to experience higher mortality (a consequence of higher predator densities) but faster growth and higher fecundity (a consequence of higher zooplankton densities) than planktivores at low recruitment sites. As such, the relative strength of oceanographic coupling between the three trophic levels strongly determined whether a particular reef acted as a source or sink. In the simulation model, density-dependent competition for zooplankton limited overall metapopulation biomass more severely than predation, so oceanographic coupling between planktivore larval supply and zooplankton productivity had a stronger effect on the metapopulation value of a patch. We argue that the potential for such tri-trophic coupling should be incorporated into future metacommunity models and has considerable implications for the design and evaluation of marine reserves.


When setting out to write this thesis it was with the purpose to
understand modern film scoring. The question I was asking myself
was in the lines of: ''What is going on with modern film music? This
does not sound like it used to! There is a subtle difference - what is
it?'' What I was trying to formulate back then was that I had noticed a
change of focus in film music of today, i.e. how composers now choose
to ''talk'' to the audience. My theory was that film music was moving
away from the strong concept of melody given to us with John Williams
and Star Wars, to make room for texture: Enormous walls of sound
featuring huge orchestras with lots and lots of synths and sound effects.
This made me think that perhaps the new leitmotif was texture. My
wanderings aside however, the scope of a single thesis is not enough
to cover such an extensive topic. But, one must start some place and I
landed on figuring out how film music has evolved. To further narrow
it down I chose to study science fiction, specifically the music of Star
Trek. Star Trek is a special case in movie history. It has been running
since 1969 in one form or another. The first movie came out in 1979 and
the last one in 2013. It is ideal to use as a case tracking its evolution
over time. The most available material to conduct research on is the
Star Trek motion pictures. All of the scores has been released as special
edition CD's containing most cues from the motion pictures, making it
easy to focus on the music. I will discuss Star Trek in depth in chapter
2.
But even so, there are no official scores to procure. I was able to get
in touch with people able to help me get a look at the actual scores
used during the different recording sessions, but that meant traveling
to Hollywood and Paramount studios. By the time I had gotten this
information any window to apply for funding was past. Therefore I
chose to transcribe the music myself. One challenge of transcribing
music this detailed is the amount of time required transcribing the
examples. With twelve movies to chose from the question regarding
what I was going to focus on arose. Star Trek is divided into four epochs.
I thought it best to choose two movies from each epoch. One composer
in the Star Trek universe stands out: Jerry Goldsmith. He has scored
five of the twelve movies during a timespan of 23 year making him
part of the quintessential sound of Star Trek. The choice fell on the two first films, ''The Motion Picture'', by Goldsmith and ''The Wrath of
Kahn'', by James Horner. Both critically acclaimed for their music. The
next obvious candidates was the newest films from the reboot series:
''Star Trek'' and ''Into Darkness'' featuring composer Michael Giacchino.
What to chose from ''The Next Generation'' era was harder. I wanted
to study how the music has evolved over time therefore looking for
some sort of continuity. The choice fell on Goldsmiths scores for ''First
Contact'' and ''Nemesis''. I present my analysis in chapter 5 through
10. That being said, the other scores are well worth the attention and
should be included in a later research. A table containing the complete
list of Star Trek movies can be found on page 27 and the complete list
of all composers associated with the Star Trek universe can be found
on page 29.

Now my quest was crystalizing, I wanted to study the musical conventions
of Star Trek. How to go about it? My formal training is for the
most part traditional so the analytical tools I already knew was not ideal
to handle the diverse tonality of movie scores. I knew ''Hollywoodian''
movie scores since Erich Wolfgang Korngold and John Williams had their
roots in nineteen century classical music, also know as the romantic
period of classical music. Romantic music is mostly tonal, meaning it
uses major and minor chords and scales to build the tonality, but it is
not necessarily functional. By that I mean progressions build upon the
circle of fifths and the famous I - IV - V7 - I. This brings us to the
idea of a tonic, a tonal ''home'' where we feel at peace after pursuing the
chord furthest away from the tonic, the dominant. It would be wrong to
say that romantic music does not utilize the idea of a tonic, but it was
not a concept expanded upon as they did in the classical era. Instead
they had what I call tonal centers. These are focal point for any given
progression and stands as the root of origin. This differentiation is
necessary because harmonic progressions can be made with a different
logic than that of the circle of fifths. There are plenty of analytic tools
to chose from when working with functional music and atonal music but I was having a hard time finding the right tool for non-unified tonal
music.
After some research I came upon Frank Lehman's dissertation on
''Reading Tonality Through Film: Transformational Hermeneutics and the
Music of Hollywood'' (2012). His research was focusing on neo-Riemannian
Theory, a theory made to address the analytical challenges nineteen
century music presented, applied to film music. I will discuss the application
and execution of this theory in chapter 4. To further explain
how my analysis is constructed, I will discuss music analysis in general
in chapter 3.
To aid the reader in analytic process I have chosen to include the
transcriptions immediately following the corresponding analysis. The
analytic legend will be discussed on page 31 and finally I will present
my conclusions in chapter 11.
As a final note I want to talk about what I am not covering in this
thesis. First of all, I have chosen to use musical terms and notation
to explain my findings. This means the reader will have to have a
fairly advanced understanding of musical theory to fully appreciate
the content of this thesis. I will not talk about film music history in
general: How the film music traditions has evolved from live music
to Korngold to Steiner to Williams and even Zimmer is extremely
interesting, but it is covered to such an extent elsewhere there simply is
no point including it and secondly, I do not believe being reminded of
this knowledge will have an impact on the understanding of the main
topic of this thesis. My goal is that the content of this thesis provides
ample understanding of the main analysis and that the reader will
come to appreciate the inner workings of the music in question and
how it has evolved.


We theoretically demonstrate control of the plasmalike effective response of a metamaterial composed of aligned metallic nanorods when the electric field of the incident radiation is parallel to the nanorods. By embedding this metamaterial in a coherent atomic/molecular medium, for example, silver nanorod arrays submerged in sodium vapor, we can make the metamaterial transmittive in the forbidden frequency region below its plasma frequency. This phenomenon is enabled by having Lorentz absorbers or other coherent processes in the background medium, which provide a large positive dielectric permittivity in the vicinity of the resonance, thereby rendering the effective permittivity positive. In particular, processes such as electromagnetically induced transparency are shown to provide additional control to switch and tune the new transmission bands.


Experiments were carried out to test the ability of L. pholis to learn and remember the
position of a food reward in a hierarchical maze during daily trials. This task was
completed in 9 days in the presence of LegoTM landmarks. Learning did not take place
in the presence of a white screen clue or in the absence of any obvious visual clues
after 15 days.
An attempt was made to identify the effect of a change in conditions on L. pholis who
had already learned to successfully navigate the hierarchical maze, and to identify the
clues utilised in learning, by altering the intra and extramaze clues. Geomagnetic,
olfactory / gustatory and current direction clues were eliminated as the source of spatial
information, as was the use of a cognitive map (Tolman 1948, O'Keefe & Nadel 1978).
Rather, evidence suggested that the fish were learning a specific route through the
hierarchical maze using the LegoTM towers as beacons, and as a prompt as to which
direction to turn at important stages in the journey. This memory was retained for a
period of at least 30 days. A hierarchy of clue use was suggested by the fact that the
subjects used the direction of entry to the experimental arena, or the direction by which
the experimenter left the arena just prior to a daily test, as a directional clue to the
position of the reward box in the absence of Lego towers. These experiments
suggested that in the wild L. pholis uses the position of local landmarks, such as rocks
and clumps of algae, to direct movements towards feeding patches.
A study of behaviour of L. pholis placed in a novel artificial habitat was also carried
out. L. pholis moved along the edges of the objects placed in the arena, followed
regularly used paths between refuges, and explored the arena from a series of "base"
refuges. In the more active individuals, each refuge was investigated until the subject
took up residence in a preferred refuge. This adopted shelter was often centrally placed
and commanded a good view of a large area of the arena. Activity was concentrated
in the more complex half of the arena and experienced fish directed their movement
towards this area 24 hours after 6 hours exploration of the novel habitat. There was
also evidence to suggest that certain individuals learned the position of a specific
preferred refuge after the 6 hour exploratory period.
Finally, the ability of L. pholis to remember the position of a refuge was tested in an
artificial habitat under the influence of different clues. L. pholis learned the position
of the refuge in the presence of an A4 sized black screen clue only. They responded
to this clue by moving towards it and pressing themselves up against it while LegoTM
towers and a white screen clue did not provoke such a response. L. pholis continued
to respond to the black screen in this way even when it was moved to another location
further from the refuge. After 12 days L. pholis learned to use the black screen as an
indirect clue and navigate to the refuge directly without first touching it. These results
suggested that when placed in a novel habitat the immediate reaction of L. pholis is to
move quickly towards the first dark area they see. Later, they systematically explore
all available shelters and choose a preferred one according to complexity of the
surrounding habitat. With experience, they can use the position of objects around
them to navigate quickly and efficiently to their preferred refuge or the nearest suitable
refuge depending on the severity of the threat.


Numerical investigation of Marine Hydrokinetic Turbines: methodology development for single turbine and small array simulation, and application to flume and full-scale reference models. Amir Teymour Javaherchi Mozafari Professor Alberto Aliseda Department of Mechanical Engineering A hierarchy of numerical models, Single Rotating Reference Frame (SRF) and Blade Element Model (BEM), were used for numerical investigation of horizontal axis Marine Hydrokinetic (MHK) Turbines. In the initial stage the SRF and BEM were used to simulate the performance and turbulent wake of a flumeand a full-scale MHK turbine reference model. A significant level of understanding and confidence was developed in the implementation of numerical models for simulation of a MHK turbine. This was achieved by simulation of the flume-scale turbine experiments and comparison between numerical and experimental results. Then the developed numerical methodology was applied to simulate the performance and wake of the full-scale MHK reference model (DOE Reference Model 1). In the second stage the BEM was used to simulate the experimental study of two different MHK turbine array configurations (i.e. two and three coaxial turbines). After developing a numerical methodology using the experimental comparison to simulate the flow field of a turbine array, this methodology was applied toward array optimization study of a full-scale model with the goal of proposing an optimized MHK turbine configuration with minimal computational cost and time. In the last stage the BEM was used to investigate one of the potential environmental effects of MHK turbine. A general methodological approach was developed and experimentally validated to investigate the effect of MHK turbine wake on the sedimentation process of suspended particles in a tidal channel.


Unicellular organisms exhibit elaborate collective behaviors in response to environmental cues. These behaviors are controlled by complex biochemical networks within individual cells and coordinated through cell-to-cell communication. Describing these behaviors requires new mathematical models that can bridge scales-from biochemical networks within individual cells to spatially structured cellular populations. Here we present a family of "multiscale" models for the emergence of spiral waves in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Our models exploit new experimental advances that allow for the direct measurement and manipulation of the small signaling molecule cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) used by Dictyostelium cells to coordinate behavior in cellular populations. Inspired by recent experiments, we model the Dictyostelium signaling network as an excitable system coupled to various preprocessing modules. We use this family of models to study spatially unstructured populations of "fixed" cells by constructing phase diagrams that relate the properties of population-level oscillations to parameters in the underlying biochemical network. We then briefly discuss an extension of our model that includes spatial structure and show how this naturally gives rise to spiral waves. Our models exhibit a wide range of novel phenomena. including a density-dependent frequency change, bistability, and dynamic death due to slow cAMP dynamics. Our modeling approach provides a powerful tool for bridging scales in modeling of Dictyostelium populations.


The Internet provides a space for new interpretations and conversations concerning religious practices to take place without the direct interference of religious authorities. The intention of this article is to highlight one vivid aspect of this development, Islamic themed hip-hop video clips distributed online. The visual aesthetics, the selection of pictures (or no pictures), themes and storylines supplementing the musical message can be used to mobilize and promote different traditions of interpretation of Islam. They can also convey interesting insights in the negotiations and compromises of Muslim identities in the consumer culture logic of the modern society. Lastly, they can provide a route to analyze the articulations of alternative interpretations of Islam often, but not always, rooted in a deep social-justice activism that connects marginalized communities within and beyond the Middle East (Less)


In 1984, Congress simultaneously eliminated state-local regulation of cable television rates and banned telephone companies from offering cable service in their own franchise areas. Five years later, the General Accounting Office discovered that basic cable rates had risen more than four times as rapidly as the overall consumer price level since rate deregulation. As a result, Congress began to move to reimpose cable rate regulation once again, finally succeeding (over President Bush's veto) in 1992. In this book, Robert Crandall and Harold Furchtgott-Roth examine the case of reregulating cable television and find that viewers gained far more than they lost during the brief deregulatory era because cable services expanded so rapidly in the deregulated environment. Moreover, they show that new technologies, such as direct-broadcast satellites, are likely to provide considerable market discipline for cable operators in the next few years, weakening any case for rate regulation. Given regulation's history of impeding innovation, they conclude that economic welfare is more likely to be enhanced by policies aimed at encouraging new entry into video services than by rate regulation.


One of the instruments for determination of position used in several applications is the Global Positioning System (GPS). With a cheap GPS receiver, we can easily find the approximate position of an object. Accuracy estimation depends on some parameters such as dilution of precision, atmospheric error, receiver noise, and multipath. In this study, position accuracy with GPS receiver is classified in three classes. Nine classification methods are utilized and compared. Finally, a new method is selected for classification. Results are verified with experimental data. Success rate for classificationis approximately 84%.


Abstract

 The work presented in this thesis has focused on the development of novel and concise syntheses of Alangium and Mitragyna alkaloids, and especial approaches towards (±)-protoemetinol (a), which is a key precursor of a range of Alangium alkaloids such as psychotrine (b) and deoxytubulosine (c). The approaches include the use of a key radical cyclisation to form the tri-cyclic core.

 Chapter 1 gives a general overview of radical chemistry and it focuses on the application of radical intermolecular and intramolecular reactions in synthesis. Consideration is given to the mediator of radical reactions from the classic organotin reagents, to more recently developed alternative hydrides. An overview of previous synthetic approaches to a range of Alangium and Mitragyna alkaloids is then explored.

 Chapter 2 follows on from previous work within our group, involving the use of phosphorus hydride radical addition reactions, to alkenes or dienes, followed by a subsequent Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction. It was expected that the tri-cyclic core of the Alangium alkaloids could be prepared by cyclisation of a 1,7-diene, using a phosphorus hydride to afford the phosphonate or phosphonothioate, however this approach was unsuccessful and it highlighted some limitations of the methodology.

 Chapter 3 explores the radical and ionic chemistry of a range of silanes. Initial studies explored the radical addition of a range of silicon hydrides to alkenes to afford the corresponding hydrosilylation products. The chemistry of the hydrosilylation products was then explored – it was hoped that a subsequent Peterson olefination or Fleming-Tamao oxidation would afford the corresponding alkene or alcohol. Subsequent investigations looked into the possibility of combining the radical and ionic reactions, to afford alkenes or alcohols, in a one-pot transformation.

 Chapter 4 explores the radical cyclisation of various compounds, including unsaturated alpha-haloamides (d and e), xanthates (f), vinyl bromides (g and h). For this, a robust and efficient synthesis of an allyl tetrahydroisoquinoline core (i and j) was developed, following conversion into the desired radical precursors these compounds were treated with tributyltin hydride and a radical initiator. Finally, Chapter 4 investigates the radical cyclisation of some unsaturated phenylselenides (k and l), which resulted in the isolation of the desired target alkaloid (±)-protoemetinol (a) in 4 steps and in 2% overall yield.

 Chapter 5, which builds on previous work within Chapter 4, discusses the cyclisation of vinyl bromides bearing an a,β-unsaturated ester (n and o). This resulted in short 4-step syntheses of both (±)-des-methyl-protoemetinol (m) and (±)-protoemetinol (a) (along with some epimers). Subsequent studies then expanded the synthetic strategy to include the synthesis of a structurally simpler analogue of mitragynine (p).


Sarawak is situated in the north-west of Borneo, which is the largest state in Malaysia. Limestone hills and mountains are a natural landmark in parts of Sarawak and Padawan Formation is the largest outcrop in Sarawak. Padawan area is located at the south-west part of Kuching District and limestone hills are mostly of the wet type. The favourable climate and various forms of microhabitat strongly enhance the richness and diversity in the composition of limestone orchids in Padawan, especially rare and endemic species. Nonetheless, the Padawan orchid is poorly known due to the very few specific literature made and most of the documentations in field have not been published. This study is an attempt to document the orchid diversity in limestone areas not covered in the previous study by Phoon (2004). From this study, a total of 94 taxa in 36 genera from 4 subfamilies of orchids on 14 limestone hills and one riverbank from northern to central part of Padawan Limestone Area were recorded and botanized. A total of 25 taxa and one genus are new records for Padawan Formation. Out of these, eight taxa are new records for Sarawak and one taxon is a new record for Malaysia. Bulbophyllum reticulatum and Paphiopedilum stonei are endemic to Sarawak; whilst, B. longiflorum, B. reticulatum, Cleisostoma discolor, C. nieuwenhuisii, Dossinia marmorata, P. stonei, Phalaenopsis cochlearis, Trichoglottis winkleri var. minor and Vanda scandens are limestone endemic species. Discussions were based upon two main aspects: (i) floristic diversity significance, for analyzing species diversity and morphological diversity of Padawan orchids; and (ii) the geographical significance, for conferring the diversity patterns of Padawan limestone orchids distributed in different places and endemism. The Orchidaceae of Padawan principally comprised the Bornean element at the generic and species level given its geographical, geological, climatic and floristic proximity. Gunung Bekap, Gunung Mentawa and Gunung Timurang covered the most diverse amount of orchid species together with those rare and endangered species. Therefore, they have to be conserved broadly by implementing in situ conservation techniques.


Contemporary societies are characterized by complex interdependence, with industrial activity increasingly having the potential to cause effects beyond local and national borders. Courts have previously illustrated that liability for injurious action must lie with the individual who created the risk of damage under the common law rule of Rylands v. Fletcher. Having fallen out of favour in the twentieth century, this article proposes a re-articulation of the rule to cover situations in modern society in which invasive methods are used in the extraction of volatile fuels from the earth, specifically in the case of 'fracking'. The article examines recent rulings from the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as precedent from the United Kingdom and Ireland to establish the manner in which the rule of Rylands v. Fletcher might be successfully re-articulated in the context of contemporary common law jurisdictions – specifically focusing on Ireland – as a means for redressing environmental damage.


The study aimed to examine the effectiveness of using multimedia elements in teaching English for the eighth graders in public schools. For answering the questions of the study, the researchers adopted the experimental approach. The sample of the study consisted of (58) female students from Navid girl high School in an urban setting in Mashhad (a city in Northeast of Iran). The results of a pretest indicated that the participants of the two groups were homogenous with regard to their proficiency level. The researchers divided the sample of the study into two groups, experimental and control group. In addition to official book (prospect 2), the experimental group was exposed to multimedia elements as animations, cartoons, and Power Point Presentation (P.P.P.). But in control group, prospect 2 was taught through traditional chalk and board instruction in the first term of the academic school year (2014−2015). The results of the post-test indicated that using multimedia elements has a positive and significant influence on learners' achievement as well as on their achievement goal orientation (mastery, performance, and avoidance). In particular, students in experimental group tended to adopt a mastery-goal orientation as the result of technology-based instruction. In the light of these results, the study recommended the necessity of implementing multimedia in teaching English.


This paper analyzes two potential trade liberalization scenarios – a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and possible links between MERCOSUR and the European Union (EU) – in a world computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The model also incorporates some macro elements such as a cashin-advance mechanism and rigidities in wages and exchange rates. The empirical results show that the two alternative regional integration scenarios are good for the participants while have little impact on the nonparticipants. Both scenarios are net trade creating, as trade creation greatly exceeds trade diversion, and the trade-diversion has relatively minor effects on the affected regions. The gains are larger for the Latin American participants than for their large potential partners – the U.S. and EU. These results are consistent with earlier studies of NAFTA, which also predicted small positive gains for the U.S. and large gains for Mexico. Many countries in Latin America are currently undergoing macroeconomic strains, and growth in the region has slowed. In this environment, external shocks and stabilization and structural adjustment programs are likely to lead to significant swings in trade balances and exchange rates. These issues will have to be considered in acknowledging that it is hard to reap the long-term benefits of trade liberalization in an environment of macroeconomic instability.


Social robot navigation aims to generate human-friendly paths in human-robot interactive environments. This paper focuses on maintaining humans' physical safety and mental comfort during robot navigation in an unknown dynamic environment. To achieve this goal, we use a variant of a pedestrian model that is particularly developed for low or average density environments. Design decisions on the representation of the obstacle and pedestrian are important for smooth motion planning. Limiting the local obstacles as a region centered at the robot would be taken into consideration has weaknesses in terms of time complexity because a much detailed map has a great number of cells to be evaluated. The study contributes to the theoretical field with extensions such as the development of the obstacle representation model which aims to overcome the computational cost of the current solutions for smooth motion planning which can be a bottleneck for the entire system. The proposed method is tested on a physical mobile robot in hallway scenario both in real-world environment and simulation, and its success is experimentally shown.


Two dimensional contingency tables or co-occurrence matrices arise frequently in various important applications such as text analysis and web-log mining. As a fundamental research topic, co-clustering aims to generate a meaningful partition of the contingency table to reveal hidden relationships between rows and columns. Traditional co-clustering algorithms usually produce a predefined number of flat partition of both rows and columns, which do not reveal relationship among clusters. To address this limitation, hierarchical co-clustering algorithms have attracted a lot of research interests recently. Although successful in various applications, the existing hierarchial co-clustering algorithms are usually based on certain heuristics and do not have solid theoretical background. In this paper, we present a new co-clustering algorithm with solid information theoretic background. It simultaneously constructs a hierarchical structure of both row and column clusters which retains sufficient mutual information between rows and columns of the contingency table. An efficient and effective greedy algorithm is developed which grows a co-cluster hierarchy by successively performing row-wise or column-wise splits that lead to the maximal mutual information gain. Extensive experiments on real datasets demonstrate that our algorithm can reveal essential relationships of row (and column) clusters and has better clustering precision than existing algorithms.


Objective: The study was to investigate antibiotic prescription patterns at outpatient departments (OPDs) at four hospitals in Aden-Yemen. Settings and Design: A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in the four hospitals in different areas of Aden city, the commercial capital of Yemen, from November 2015 through December 2015. WHO indicators were chosen. The study sampled the prescriptions conveniently. The data collection form used include Core Indicators and Complimentary Indicators of WHO such as average number of medicines per encounter, percentage of medicines prescribed by generic name, percentage of medicines prescribed from the EML and percentage of prescriptions in accordance with treatment guidelines. Data was analysed descriptively. Results: Out of the 400 prescriptions received from the outpatient clinics in the four hospitals during the study period, 337 antibiotic prescriptions were counted for. The percentage of prescriptions involving antibiotics was 84.2%. The average number of drugs per prescription was 3.2. Out of the surveyed antibiotic prescriptions, 65% contain one antibiotic and more than one-third were in the cephalosporin group (38.8%). Generally, 41% of the prescriptions were generic, furthermore, 44.8% of the prescribed medicines across all hospitals were from the EML. Conclusion: Important number of the prescribing indicators showed deviation from the standard values recommended by WHO. This deviation indicated an obvious degree of irrational/inappropriate prescribing in the hospitals, particularly poly pharmacy, underuse of international nonproprietary names (generic names), and over prescription of antibiotics. The study recommended to more adherence to WHO antibiotic prescribing guidelines and improving knowledge of proper and good prescribing procedure among health system prescribers. Key words: Antibiotics, Hospital, Prescribing pattern, WHO indicators, Yemen.


We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel time-multiplexed autostereoscopic multi-view full resolution 3D display based on the lenticular lens array in association with the control of the active dynamic LED backlight. The lenticular lenses of the lens array optical system receive the light and deflect the light into each viewing zone in a time sequence.


The life of a power transformer is dependent on the life of the cellulose paper, which influenced by the hot spot temperature. Thus, the determination of the cellulose paper's life requires identifying the hot spot temperature of the transformer. Currently, however, the power transformer uses a heat run test is used in the factory test to measure top liquid temperature rise and average winding temperature rise, which is specified in its specification. The hot spot temperature is calculated by the winding resistance detected during the heat run test. This paper measures the hot spot temperature in the single-phase, 154kV, 15/20MVA power transformer by the optical fiber sensors and compares the value with the hot spot temperature calculated by the conventional heat run test in the factory test. To measure the hot spot temperature, ten optical fiber sensors were installed on both the high and low voltage winding; and the temperature distribution during the heat run test, three thermocouples were installed. The hot spot temperature shown in the heat run test was 92.6℃ on the low voltage winding. However, the hot spot temperature as measured by the optical fiber sensor appeared between turn 2 and turn 3 on the upper side of the low voltage winding, recording 105.9℃. The hot spot temperature of the low voltage winding as measured by the optical fiber sensor was 13.3℃ higher than the hot spot temperature calculated by the heat run test. Therefore, the hot spot factor (H) in IEC 60076-2 appeared to be 2.0.


Abstract Increasing the minimum retirement age is a widespread option chosen by policy makers to reduce spending in financially constrained public pension systems. Yet, the effectiveness of such a reform strongly depends on the ability of individuals to postpone their withdrawal from the labor force. In this paper, we study the immediate impact of the 2010 reform of the French pension system by carrying out a short-term evaluation on the increase of the statutory eligibility age from 60 to 61. We use a differences-in-differences methodology, comparing the trajectories from work to retirement for succeeding generations facing a different statutory age. Using a detailed social security administrative database, we provide a global assessment of the effects of the reform, accounting for the potential substitution effects from old-age insurance toward unemployment, sickness or disability insurance schemes. Our findings suggest that despite a sizable effect on the employment rate, the reform also strongly increased unemployment and disability rates.


Antibiotic‐associated infections with Clostridioides difficile are a severe and often lethal risk for hospitalized patients, and can also affect populations without these classical risk factors. For a rational design of therapeutical concepts, a better knowledge of the metabolism of the pathogen is crucial. Metabolic modeling can provide a simulation of quantitative growth and usage of metabolic pathways, leading to a deeper understanding of the organism. Here, we present an elaborate genome‐scale metabolic model of C. difficile 630Δerm. The model iHD992 includes experimentally determined product and substrate uptake rates and is able to simulate the energy metabolism and quantitative growth of C. difficile. Dynamic flux balance analysis was used for time‐resolved simulations of the quantitative growth in two different media. The model predicts oxidative Stickland reactions and glucose degradation as main sources of energy, while the resulting reduction potential is mostly used for acetogenesis via the Wood–Ljungdahl pathway. Initial modeling experiments did not reproduce the observed growth behavior before the production of large quantities of a previously unknown polysaccharide was detected. Combined genome analysis and laboratory experiments indicated that the polysaccharide is an acetylated glucose polymer. Time‐resolved simulations showed that polysaccharide secretion was coupled to growth even during unstable glucose uptake in minimal medium. This is accomplished by metabolic shifts between active glycolysis and gluconeogenesis which were also observed in laboratory experiments.


There is now converging evidence that others' actions are represented in the motor system. However, social cognition requires us to represent not only the actions but also the interactions of others. To do so, it is imperative that the motor system can represent multiple observed actions. The current fMRI study investigated whether this is possible by measuring brain activity from 29 participants while they observed two right hands performing sign language gestures. Three key results were obtained. First, brain activity in the premotor and parietal motor cortex was stronger when two hands performed two different gestures than when one hand performed a single gesture. Second, both individual observed gestures could be decoded from brain activity in the same two regions. Third, observing two different gestures compared with two identical gestures activated brain areas related to motor conflict, and this activity was correlated with parietal motor activity. Together, these results show that the motor system is able to represent multiple observed actions, and as such reveal a potential mechanism by which third-party social encounters could be processed in the brain.


Perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT), which reduces vascular contractility, is dysfunctional in the male offspring of rats fed a high-fat diet (HFD), partially due to a reduced NO bioavailability. O-GlcNAcylation of eNOS decreases its activity, thus we investigated the role of O-GlcNAcylation in the prenatal programming of PVAT dysfunction. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a control (10% fat) or an obesogenic HFD (45% fat) diet for 12 weeks prior to mating, and throughout pregnancy and lactation. Offspring were weaned onto the control diet and were killed at 12 and 24 weeks of age. Mesenteric arteries from the 12-week-old offspring of HFD dams (HFDO) contracted less to U46619; these effects were mimicked by glucosamine in control arteries. PVAT from 12- and 24-week-old controls, but not from HFDO, exerted an anticontractile effect. Glucosamine attenuated the anticontractile effect of PVAT in the vessels from controls but not from HFDO. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation (with A769662) partially restored an anticontractile effect in glucosamine-treated controls and HFDO PVAT. Glucosamine decreased AMPK activity and expression in HFDO PVAT, although phosphorylated eNOS expression was only reduced in that from males. The loss of anticontractile effect of HFDO PVAT is likely to result from increased O-GlcNAcylation, which decreased AMPK activity and, in males, decreased NO bioavailability.


One of the greatest challenges facing patent holders is the enforcement of their rights against foreign (non-U.S.) infringers. Jurisdictional rules can prevent patent holders from filing patent infringement suits where they have the greatest likelihood of success in enforcement, such as where the infringer is located, has his seat, or holds his assets; instead, patent holders must file lawsuits in the country where the infringed patent was issued. But filing a patent lawsuit in a U.S. court against a non-U.S. infringer may be subject to various difficulties associated with the fact that U.S. substantive patent law (particularly as regards its territorial scope) and conflict of laws rules are not always compatible and interoperable with the conflict of laws rules of other countries. Such insufficient compatibility and interoperability can lead to U.S. judgments not being enforceable outside the United States. In the Hague Conference's Judgments Project, which the Conference re-launched in 2012, the United States has an opportunity to negotiate internationally uniform conflict of laws rules to improve cross-border litigation, including cross-border patent litigation. This article provides data on cross-border patent litigation that can be used to assess the extent to which the United States should be concerned about cross-border patent litigation problems and the degree to which the United States should be involved in the Judgments Project to improve cross-border patent litigation. The statistics in this article are the result of an empirical study of 6,420 patent cases filed in 2004, 2009, and 2012 in nine selected U.S. federal district courts – the federal district courts in which the largest numbers of patent cases per court were filed in 2012. The results show that the numbers of patent cases involving foreign parties are on the rise, although the percentage of such cases in the total number of patent cases filed did not increase from 2009 to 2012. The article brings up to date the author's earlier research on cross-border aspects of patent litigation, contributes to the rapidly growing body of empirical literature on patent litigation (including the literature on the "patent troll" phenomenon), and enriches the literature on foreign litigants in patent disputes and on transnational litigation in general (both of which suffer from a dearth of statistical data).


Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a popular method for extracting independent features from visual data. However, as a fundamentally linear technique, there is always nonlinear residual redundancy that is not captured by ICA. Hence there have been many attempts to try to create a hierarchical version of ICA, but so far none of the approaches have a natural way to apply them more than once. Here we show that there is a relatively simple technique that transforms the absolute values of the outputs of a previous application of ICA into a normal distribution, to which ICA maybe applied again. This results in a recursive ICA algorithm that may be applied any number of times in order to extract higher order structure from previous layers.


Objectives: The aim of this study is to compare the effects of intracanal treatments with calcium hydroxide (CH) or triple antibiotic paste (TAP) on bond strength of a calcium silicate-based sealer (MTA Fillapex) and an epoxy resin- based sealer (MM Seal). Materials and Methods: Sixty extracted maxillary central incisors were prepared with a rotary system to size 40. The specimens were randomly divided into two groups, which received either intracanal CH or TAP. After rinsing, the teeth in each group were further divided into two additional groups, which were obturated with gutta percha and either the MTA Fillapex or MM Seal root canal sealer. Then, slices were obtained from three sections of the canal (coronal, middle, and apical). A push-out test was performed to measure the bond strength between the root canal dentin and the sealer. Results: The push-out bond strengths of the root canal sealers were significantly affected by the type of intracanal medicament. Both the sealers showed bond strengths that were nearly two-fold higher after TAP application than after CH application, and these results were independent of the position along the canal. Conclusions: The use of TAP rather than CH improves the bond strength of calcium silicate- and epoxy resin-based sealers throughout the root canal.


On two occasions, on opposite sides of the African continent (Cape Coast, Ghana, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), high adult population densities in the polymorphic butterfly Hypolimnas misippus (a presumed mimic of Danaus chrysippus) were followed by linkage disequilibrium in combinations of fore- and hindwing colour patterns. On both occasions, disequilibrium was caused by significant changes in morph frequencies favouring rarer and more mimetic forms. Recaptures were too few for analysis at Dar, although the changes there took place within a single generation and must have been the result of differential survival. Recapture rate data and survival rate estimates at Cape Coast support the hypothesis that selective predation was responsible, as does the observation of synchronous linkage disequilibrium at Dar in the model D. chrysippus, indicating parasitic mimicry. There was clear selection for the perfection of mimicry for forewings at Dar and for hindwings at Cape Coast. Disequilibrium is also reported for two other sites, Legon (Ghana) and Boksburg (South Africa) and, in all four sites, it was associated with an increase in the most mimetic forms. New chemical evidence is presented to support the contention that D. chrysippus is a defended model. Although all the evidence leads to the conclusion that H. misippus is a Batesian mimic of D. chrysippus, many questions remain, particularly with regard to the identity of predators, the episodic nature of selective predation events, and their apparent lack of lasting and significant impact on overall gene frequencies. We conclude that H. misippus presents both challenges and opportunities for studies on mimicry, and we suggest that linkage disequilibrium can be a useful generic indicator for Gestalt predation on polymorphic prey. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 100, 180–194.


This paper seeks to explore the legal structure of consent and its particular application to the health care context. The emphasis upon the ethical principles of respect for autonomy and self‐determination in this context raises the question of the extent to which current legal norms accommodate the spiritual diversity within the patient population. Whilst the liberal theories upon which the structure of consent have been built suggest that such diversity, as well as more generally multiculturalism, are not only respected but encouraged, it is questionable whether this has occurred in a context which concerns the beginning and ending of life as well as decisions about quality of life. The diversity within the patient population raises the issue of how amenable healthcare law, structured as it is around the ethics and beliefs of a ʺdominantʺ white, middle‐class culture, is to the challenges presented by ʺminorʺ religious and spiritual beliefs. These challenges are most commonly a result of fundamental differences as to the meaning of life and death and what constitutes a "worthwhile" life. It is concluded that the law of consent is dominated by values which do not accord any preference to any faith held by the patient decision‐maker. It is contended that this may not be the case in those jurisdictions which have constitutionally entrenched human rights guarantees, but an analysis of the case law in those countries suggests otherwise. It is concluded that the appropriate prescriptive model is one which accords priority to the protection of bodily integrity given the continuing need to resist paternalistic approaches in this context. However it also suggests that an approach to decision making which is more conciliatory is necessary in such a context where the law is often too blunt in its attempts to resolve difficult questions about the ending and quality of life.


The estimate of the genetic parameters associated with processing (fresh-cut) traits, including root length (RL), is crucial for carrot breeding programs in tropical areas. The cultivar Alvorada is an important germplasm due to its resistance to nematodes, leaf blight, heat-tolerance, and high carotenoid content. Seventy-four 'Alvorada' half-sib progenies were evaluated during the summer of 2005 in the Federal District, Brazil, in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Thirteen competitive plants in each block were randomly selected and evaluated and/or classified for RL and for number of leaves (NL), leaf length (LL), root tip type (RT), root mass (RW), crown shape (CS), root diameter (RD), and xylem diameter (XD). The Pearson's correlation coefficients and the heritability values were estimated for all traits. The path analysis was also used considering the RL trait as dependent variable. The heritability for RL ranged from 12 to 44%. For the other traits, the values ranged from 3% (RD) to 79% (LL). Phenotypic and genotypic correlations among all traits were low to intermediate. Path analysis indicated positive direct relationship between RL and RW, whereas RD and XD displayed negative direct effect on RL. Longer roots had narrow diameter and narrow XD. Recurrent selection based upon either half-sib or S1 families would be more effective than mass phenotypic recurrent selection in increasing RL and to develop populations expressing multiple desirable processing traits in tropical-adapted carrot germplasm.


Seismographs are sufficiently sensitive to detect ground motions induced by atmospheric pressure waves, so seismic networks have the potential to monitor sonic booms over large areas of the United States. They are especially well suited for the analysis of long‐range sonic‐boom propagation. Ground motion or displacement data provide accurate arrival times and useful estimates of wave amplitude and waveform. The instrumentation is most sensitive to the disturbance produced by the arrival of sonic booms at the measuring station, thus serving as sonic‐boom event recorders, but seismographs have also detected seismic waves remotely generated by anomalous coupling of sonic boom into soil. Direct and indirect sonic booms from aircraft operations are routinely detected by the Southern California Seismic Network which consists of 250 seismic stations covering 50 000 sq km. Indirect booms from space shuttle landings has been observed at ranges of hundreds of kilometers from the flight path. Data from the network identified ''mystery booms'' heard in 1992–93 to be long‐range indirect sonic booms from offshore operations. Sonic booms generated by space shuttle reentry at Mach 20 and by meteoritic entries into the atmosphere have been detected by seismic networks in the Northwest and Canada.


A growing body of scholarship addresses intellectual property's "negative spaces": areas in which creation and innovation thrive without significant formal protection from intellectual property law. Negative space scholars have, for the most part, taken a utilitarian approach, using case studies to examine the relationship between negative spaces and economic incentives for creation and innovation. For a full understanding of intellectual property's negative spaces, however, we must examine them not only as they relate to incentive and efficiency considerations, but also as they relate to alternative conceptions of intellectual property, such as those based on labor-desert, personality, and distributive justice theories. This paper undertakes such an examination. The result suggests areas of misalignment between traditional intellectual property rights and remedies and the interests of many creators and innovators.


Previous quality-of-service (QoS) routing/multicasting protocols in mobile ad hoc networks determined bandwidth-satisfied routes for QoS applications. However, they suffer from two bandwidth-violation problems, namely, the hidden route problem (HRP) and the hidden multicast route problem (HMRP). HRP may arise when a new flow is permitted and only the bandwidth consumption of the hosts in the neighborhood of the route is computed. Similarly, HMRP may arise when multiple flows are permitted concurrently. Not considering the bandwidth consumption of two-hop neighbors is the reason that the two problems are introduced. In this paper, a novel algorithm that can avoid the two problems is proposed to construct bandwidth-satisfied multicast trees for QoS applications. Furthermore, it also aims at minimizing the number of forwarders so as to reduce bandwidth and power consumption. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can improve the network throughput.


Two different elementary approaches for deriving an explicit formula for the distribution of the range of a simple random walk on $\mathbb{Z}$ of length $n$ are presented. Both of them rely on Hermann Weyl's discrepancy norm, which equals the maximal partial sum of the elements of a sequence. By this the original combinatorial problem on $\mathbb{Z}$ can be turned into a known path-enumeration problem on a bounded lattice. The solution is provided by means of the adjacency matrix $\mathbf Q_d$ of the walk on a bounded lattice $(0,1,\ldots,d)$. The second approach is algebraic in nature, and starts with the adjacency matrix $\mathbf{Q_d}$. The powers of the adjacency matrix are expanded in terms of products of non-commutative left and right shift matrices. The representation of such products by means of the discrepancy norm reveals the solution directly.


This paper discusses the system performance of a magnetic heat pump with an active magnetic regenerator. The heat-transfer coefficient and pressure drop in the AMR are performed analytically. Measurements on the experimental magnetic heat pump test device are performed using distilled water as the working fluid. The coupling of a one-dimensional thermal model is presented. The thermal model takes into consideration the magneto-caloric effect as a source term and the energy conservation between a solid and a fluid. At cyclic steady states, the temperatures of the fluid on both sides of the regenerator are calculated numerically and compared with the measurement results. A reasonable agreement between simulations and experiments confirms the validity of the proposed model.


Uplift of the Himalayas has been proposed to have locally accelerated chemical weathering, thus leading to enhanced CO2 sequestration and global cooling. This hypothesis assumes that rapid erosion exposes fresh, highly reactive minerals at Earth's surface. Empirical studies quantifying the relationship between erosion and weathering have produced apparently conflicting results, where the nature of the relationship is dependent on the weathering regime of the sampled landscapes. We derive a quantitative model that defines this relationship across the range of weathering regimes, from supply-limited to kinetically limited conditions. The model matches trends in field data collected by others and reconciles apparently conflicting results. The model also demonstrates that, as erosion rates increase, potential increases in weathering rate from the exposure of fresher materials are offset by the decrease in the total volume of minerals exposed due to thinner regolith. We conclude that the relationship between weathering and erosion is one of diminishing returns, in which increases in erosion rate lead to progressively smaller increases in weathering rate; indeed, at the highest erosion rates, weathering rates may decline. The ability, therefore, of accelerated uplift and erosion to stimulate greater CO2 sequestration may be significant in landscapes eroding at rates of 10–102 t km−2 yr−1. However, where erosion rates are greater than 102 t km−2 yr−1, increases in denudation may not be matched by increases in chemical weathering. Finally, our results suggest that watersheds with regolith thicknesses of ~0.5 m will yield the greatest solute fluxes.


BACKGROUND
Simulation-based bronchoscopy training is increasingly used, but effectiveness remains uncertain. We sought to perform a comprehensive synthesis of published work on simulation-based bronchoscopy training.

METHODS
We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ERIC, Web of Science, and Scopus for eligible articles through May 11, 2011. We included all original studies involving health professionals that evaluated, in comparison with no intervention or an alternative instructional approach, simulation-based training for flexible or rigid bronchoscopy. Study selection and data abstraction were performed independently and in duplicate. We pooled results using random effects meta-analysis.

RESULTS
From an initial pool of 10,903 articles, we identified 17 studies evaluating simulation-based bronchoscopy training. In comparison with no intervention, simulation training was associated with large benefits on skills and behaviors (pooled effect size, 1.21 [95% CI, 0.82-1.60]; n=8 studies) and moderate benefits on time (0.62 [95% CI, 0.12-1.13]; n=7). In comparison with clinical instruction, behaviors with real patients showed nonsignificant effects favoring simulation for time (0.61 [95% CI, -1.47 to 2.69]) and process (0.33 [95% CI, -1.46 to 2.11]) outcomes (n=2 studies each), although variation in training time might account for these differences. Four studies compared alternate simulation-based training approaches. Inductive analysis to inform instructional design suggested that longer or more structured training is more effective, authentic clinical context adds value, and animal models and plastic part-task models may be superior to more costly virtual-reality simulators.

CONCLUSIONS
Simulation-based bronchoscopy training is effective in comparison with no intervention. Comparative effectiveness studies are few.


This ICHRP report addresses issues central to technology policy at a critical time. Following the June 2008 ICHRP report, Climate Change and Human Rights: A Rough Guide, the latest report addresses the concerns of both environmental activists and human rights advocates, so shared principles might be found and a common position forged. Technology is central to the challenge of climate change. Making technologies available where they are needed is vital both to reducing greenhouse gases worldwide and to adapting to climate change in vulnerable places. The transfer of technologies has long been recognised as an indispensable element of a stable future and is central to any global deal. But beyond all this, as the latest ICHRP report shows, technology is a principal means by which to pursue basic human rights standards for the world's most vulnerable people in a climate-constrained future. This report shows the way ahead for a vital policy tool that has been stalled for too long. The information in this report was a key element of a September 2011 panel discussion at the UN Human Rights Council that included the President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives; the Deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kyung-Wha Kang; and Mary Robinson, President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ). The report is intended for policy-makers in local, national and international bodies; civil society organisations; and others concerned with technology policy, human rights, and the impacts of a changing global climate. A supplement to the full report is also available, condensing the key themes discussed and providing a concise checklist of recommendations for further action. The purpose of the Discussion Paper is to open up a set of issues for consideration by human rights groups and scholars and also to encourage those in the privacy field to think about human rights. It is intended as a platform for further investigation and research and, as such, is deliberately dilatory rather than comprehensive and conclusive. The paper indicates a number of areas where further research will be indispensable to understanding the full implications of current trends in information technology for human rights and to determine how those concerned by these impacts might orient themselves in the future. This paper lays the foundation for the next phase of our work on issues of privacy and data technologies.


A plethora of research has linked negative affect with binge eating in people with binge eating disorder (BED). Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and interpersonal therapy (IPT) have not traditionally addressed emotional regulation deficits. Failure to address emotional aspects of binge eating may explain why some individuals do not respond to CBT or IPT, and why many of those who do respond relapse shortly after finishing treatment. Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) specifically targets the inability to accurately recognise and regulate affect. Preliminary investigations have shown that DBT may be efficacious in treating BED. However, it can take up to 10 months, and a shorter intervention targeting affect regulation and recognition may produce similar effects. Four studies evaluating a ten session emotion-focussed group psychoeducational intervention for BED were conducted. In the first, 25 women diagnosed with subthreshold or full syndrome BED (using DSM-IV-TR criteria) were treated. The second study tested whether the specific components of the intervention, or the treatment as a whole, was required to produce positive outcomes in women. Study three, examined the efficacy of the treatment programme with three men diagnosed with subthreshold or full syndrome BED (also using DSM-IV-TR criteria). The fourth study compared the women's and men's response to treatment. Following the intervention with women, binge abstinence rates, comparable to those of CBT and IPT, and various other positive changes to eating and general pathology, were observed. These effects were well-maintained up to one-year later. Overall, it was concluded that the whole treatment programme was necessary to produce the optimum outcome for BED in women. A positive outcome was measured in the men, although the effects were not as dramatic as those found in the women. Suggestions for improvements, and suggestions for further research, are discussed. The results provide support for the Affect Regulation Model of BED in women and men.


The legal system of water rights in California is highly developed. So far, however, it has failed to recognize in any comprehensive fashion the importance of the sand which is transported to our beaches by streams and littoral currents. This paper argues that a system of 'sand rights' should be integrated into the existing legal framework. The focus is on California beaches, where an insufficient sand supply, coupled with two years of severe winter storms, cost billions of dollars in public and private property damage and badly hurt one of the State's prime recreational resources. Sand rights integrates two natural laws. One is physical - the natural transport of sand within the greater littoral cell. The other is societal - involving property rights based on natural law concepts dating back to early Roman times. A theory of sand rights would require that new water projects be designed and existing projects be reevaluated to mitigate interference with the system which transports sand to the beach. It would also provide a legal basis for funding sand replenishment through fees, taxes and assessments.