The 60 th Meeting of the ISSS in 2016 will address an urgent global need for leadership in academic and applied sectors of society to develop a worldwide systemic sustainability agenda , focused on the wellbeing and future health of socio-ecological systems (SES). We ask participants to focus urgent attention on the systemic balance between science, policy, ethics and human action needed to achieve greater synergy between natural and human systems, including technology. This requires new ways to understand and manage the complex socio-ecological interface, 'coupling' natural and human system models scientifically, culturally, and in practical applications; and integrating knowledge to realize a new paradigm for system wholeness. In particular we wish to build interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary partnerships to explore the relationship between 'crisis science', 'anticipatory science', and 'sustainability science', including ways to enhance resilience, ecological health, regeneration, adaptability, and creative potential in socio-ecological systems. We also call upon attendees to address critical development needs for achieving these goals through education, institutional cooperation, community to intergovernmental stewardship, management practice, entrepreneurial opportunities, and both individual and professional development. The related concept of "Unity in Diversity" aims to enhance both diverse and shared qualities necessary to achieve sustainability, and to go beyond it to more creative planetary symbiosis. It captures our aspirations for a better future than is likely to result from disconnected or fragmented ideas and actions. Unity in Diversity recognizes the critical importance, necessity, and beauty of differences and discrete or individual processes, while also finding balance and harmony among those elements in nature and humanity. It means true holism, bringing together diverse philosophies in a new way that resolves conflicts in knowledge and society. Similarly, the concept of "Humanity in Technology" recognizes an extremely bright technological future that is certainly coming, but that should be infused with and designed with humanity; i.e., truly appropriate technology for human development. It refers to a natural balance that has always been necessary between the goals and the means for living in all creatures. Technology is the capacity for doing, which throughout the ages has existed in relation to values, supporting them or savagely curtailing them. "Humanity in Technology" means harmonizing form and function to ensure human values we can agree on. Ancient wisdom, sometimes forgotten in modern times, tells us that 'means' cannot really be different in quality from their 'ends'; that they actually cultivate and characterize what we ultimately achieve and how that serves humanity. Generally guided by these principles of wholeness and appropriate development, we are making a major effort to connect with other societies, government and non-government institutions, political sectors, community and individual actors, and academic disciplines involved in global stewardship. Sharp divisions have fragmented and compartmentalized our collective approaches, and we must now apply clear principles of both science and humanity so that we as a human colony no longer operate in opposition to the natural systems that sustain us. Feedbacks from the imbalances we have created are now threatening to degrade the quality and abundance of human and other life, and thus compelling us to find solutions. 2016 will be the Society's 60 th birthday - "Shasti Poorthi" as it is celebrated in Vedic-Hindu tradition. It is a special time of entering maturity, marking one's transition from a material Being to a Spiritual Being with higher aspirations for humanity and one's own self-knowledge. It is therefore both fitting and symbolic that the 60 th annual meeting of the ISSS will celebrate this renewal and rebirth in partnership with institutions in India. Recognizing our global heritage and joint responsibility we are planning a collaborative venue with Indian Institutions of Higher learning to build multi-cultural understanding, consensus, and exchange on key issues in system science and sustainability. Connecting scholars and professionals in India and the USA in real time creates a valuable opportunity to combine the unique talents of two cultures and their present and historical worldviews. But it also represents a sizeable technological challenge. Facilitating this connection will require advanced communication technology that is capable of exchanging much more than words and facts. We hope to create a semantic presence in which we may share deep scientific, political, cultural, and ethical contexts. We thus call on corporate involvement for a collaborative demonstration of the future of communication technology. We will also mark our 60 th anniversary and 'coming of age' by entering a new phase of global responsibility. In 2016 we will inaugurate the first ISSS "Policy Congress" that will extend the reach of the system sciences to greater society by identifying systemic issues and creating policy recommendations for key decision-makers and institutions. Our conference should thus identify key issues and provide clear statements of fact, need, purpose, and action. We also wish to encourage new international education development, especially at graduate and professional levels, aimed at investigating and applying more whole system understanding from a multi-cultural perspective. We call for participation of ethicists and spiritualists representing a wide variety of organizations, to work in partnership with scientists and decision makers as we together envision the future of our unique planetary and human system.


Not available – first paragraph follows:
Molecular techniques such as recombinant DNA technology may ultimately have their most significant effect on agriculture. Recent advances raise the possibility of the development of new plant germplasm through the introduction of any gene from any organism into plants. Several leading laboratories have achieved the transfer and expression of bacterial and foreign plant genes in plant cells. Increasing attention is now being paid to the use of recombinant DNA technology to isolate and transfer genes governing agriculturally important characteristics such as salinity and drought resistance.


An examination of the passages in Ezekiel related to the "defilement" and "desecration" of the Temple through the spectrum of the Priestly Sources clearly shows a distinction between the two concepts and reveals Ezekiel's precise and deliberate usage of these terms. Although they both relate to idolatrous practices, defilement of the Temple in Ezekiel follows the categories of the Priestly Sources, and thus results primarily from corpse impurity and idol worship. With regard to the Temple's desecration, Ezekiel introduces the aspect of the intense involvement of foreigners, which he viewed as the desecrating agents of his day.


The Macpherson Inquiry (1999) was instrumental in forcing into the public
domain the issue of police racism, which for decades had been an endemic
part of police culture. My thesis, undertaken post Macpherson (1999),
examined ongoing tensions in the policing of minority ethnic communities
through a case study of policing in London's 'Little India'. My thesis highlights
the continuing influence of racism in policing, describing a world of policing
ethnically diverse communities that is far more complex, variable and
contradictory than has yet been documented in the empirical policing
literature.
I describe how policing in Greenfield was a patchwork of continuity and
change, illustrating how, despite the advances the police in Greenfield had
made in eradicating overt racism from the organisation, passive prejudice
remained rife among officers. Most notably, despite acknowledging
Greenfield's long resident Asian communities as the 'indigenous population',
officers still had little knowledge about these communities, tending to classify
them as 'Asians' in a way that obscured, rather than illuminated their
diversity. Furthermore, while officers regarded 'Asians' as the established
communities of Greenfield, new 'problem populations' - most notably
Somalis, Muslims and travellers - emerged, with officers tending to engage
with these communities in antagonistic ways, echoing themes from early
studies of race and policing.
Yet beneath this somewhat depressing overarching picture of policing, a
more complex, contradictory network of attitudes and practice emerged,
3
encompassing both officers who were overtly hostile to ethnic diversity and
also examples of inspirational officers committed to reforming the policing of
minority ethnic communities. Having described policing in Greenfield, I
conclude by discussing the wider ramifications for police legitimacy and
democracy in Britain, arguing that until greater emphasis is placed on
ensuring that the police support the equitable principles of democracy, the
police in Greenfield and other areas will continue to fail the marginalised
people who most need their services.


Abstract—In Morocco, the building sector is largely responsible for the evolution of energy consumption. The control of energy in this sector remains a major issue despite the rise of renewable energies. The design of an environmentally friendly building requires mastery and knowledge of energy and bioclimatic aspects. This implies taking into consideration of all the elements making up the building and the way in which energy exchanges take place between these elements. In this context, thermal insulation seems to be an ideal starting point for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, thermal insulation seems to be an ideal starting point for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this work is to provide some solutions to reduce energy consumption while maintaining thermal comfort in the building. The objective of our work is to present an experimental study on the characterization of local materials used in the thermal insulation of buildings. These are paper recycling stabilized with cement and clay. The thermal conductivity of these materials, which were constituted based on sand, clay, cement; water, as well as treated paper, was determined by the guarded-hot-plate method. It involves the design of two materials that will subsequently be subjected to thermal and mechanical tests to determine their thermophysical properties. The results show that the thermal conductivity decreases as well in the case of the paper-cement mixture as that of the paper-clay and seems to stabilize around 40%. Measurements of mechanical properties such as flexural strength have shown that the enrichment of the studied material with paper makes it possible to reduce the flexural strength by 20% while optimizing the conductivity.


This paper provides estimation and inference methods for a structural function, such as Conditional Average Treatment Effect (CATE), based on modern machine learning (ML) tools. We assume that such function can be represented as a conditional expectation = of a signal , where is the unknown nuisance function. In addition to CATE, examples of such functions include regression function with Partially Missing Outcome and Conditional Average Partial Derivative. We approximate by a linear form , where is a vector of the approximating functions and is the Best Linear Predictor. Plugging in the fi rst-stage estimate into the signal , we estimate via ordinary least squares of on . We deliver a high-quality estimate of the pseudo-target function , that features (a) a pointwise Gaussian approximation of at a point , (b) a simultaneous Gaussian approximation of uniformly over x, and (c) optimal rate of convergence of to uniformly over x. In the case the misspeci cation error of the linear form decays sufficiently fast, these approximations automatically hold for the target function instead of a pseudo-target . The fi rst stage nuisance parameter is allowed to be high-dimensional and is estimated by modern ML tools, such as neural networks, -shrinkage estimators, and random forest. Using our method, we estimate the average price elasticity conditional on income using Yatchew and No (2001) data and provide uniform con fidence bands for the target regression function.


This paper outlines an approach to disaggregating labor payments in the GTAP, global economic data base. The split between low- and high-skilled labor is based on occupational data. High-skilled labor is assumed to consist of managers, administrators, professionals, and para-professionals. Data are gathered on this occupational split, by sector, in fifteen different economies, and these are mapped to GTAP sectors. Regression analysis shows a systematic relationship between GDP per capita and the national stock of tertiary and secondary educated labor on the one hand, and the sectoral labor payments split on the other. This model is used to predict labor splits, by sector, in the remaining GTAP regions. The results are evaluated in terms of the implied economywide skilled -unskilled labor payment ratio. Overall, the results seem promising enough to warrant inclusion in the GTAP, version 4 data base.


OBJECTIVES
Peer led interventions can enhance patient self-efficacy for managing chronic illnesses, but little is known regarding the moderators or duration of their effects. We hypothesized Homing in on Health (HIOH), a variant of the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program, would be most effective in patients high in neuroticism and low in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and/or conscientiousness.

DESIGN
Analysis of data from subjects (N=415) enrolled in an ongoing randomized controlled trial.

METHODS
Regression analyses were conducted to explore whether Five Factor Model (FFM) personality factors moderated the effects of HIOH, delivered in subjects' homes or via telephone, on disease management self-efficacy. Data were collected at 6 time points over the course of 1 year.

RESULTS
Compared with control and telephone HIOH, home HIOH significantly increased self-efficacy, an effect peaking at 6 weeks and fully attenuating by 1 year. Moderation analyses revealed the benefit was confined to patients higher in neuroticism and/or lower in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion.

CONCLUSIONS
A peer led intervention to enhance disease management self-efficacy had only short-term effects, and FFM personality factors moderated those effects. Measuring personality factors in chronically ill individuals may facilitate targeting of self-management interventions to those most likely to respond.


This article reports on a comparison between, on the one hand, what is called the 'practical rationality of mathematics teaching' of a small selection of teachers in the Western Cape and, on the other, education policy statements on 'mathematics as reasoning' and 'mathematical relationships' in Mathematical Literacy, Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences - the mathematics component during the mid-1990s of the South African government's Curriculum 2005. The article is a theoretical and practical improvement on an original study, which compared contact points between the ways teachers speak and the ways policymakers write about school mathematics reform. The improvement is centred on a consideration of mathematics teaching as a practice and the way that teachers learn in such a practice. Conversations during interviews with the teachers in the sample indicate that Schon's notion of reflection-in-action is a key to understanding how teachers use their practical rationality as they try to understand nuanced meanings of the 'kind' of mathematics teaching with respect to policy statements on mathematics as reasoning and mathematical relationships. Results of the study have practical and theoretical implications for the education of teachers of mathematics.


Several studies have shown that after fibreoptic bronchoscopy there may be a deterioration in lung function but it is not known whether this is due to the premedication, the topical anaesthetic, or the obstruction produced by the bronchoscope. The effects of each part of the procedure on spirometric measurements were studied in patients with lung disease and in normal nonsmokers. Measurements were made after premedication (papaveretum and atropine) in seven patients and after topical anaesthesia of the bronchial tree (340 mg lignocaine) with and without the bronchoscope in the trachea in 21 patients and 10 control subjects. Premedication had no effect. In the normal subjects lignocaine produced significant falls in FEV,, forced vital capacity (FVC), peak expiratory flow (PEF), and peak inspiratory flow (PIF), and insertion of the bronchoscope caused further falls that were also significant. In the patients, however, although anaesthesia produced significant falls in FEV1, FVC, PEF, and PIF of similar magnitude to those found in the normal subjects, there was no further important decrease when the bronchoscope was inserted. It is concluded that the major effect of bronchoscopy on lung function is due to topical lignocaine in the airways, and in patients with lung disease (excluding asthma or a central obstructing carcinoma) the insertion of the bronchoscope causes little additional obstruction. Medicine 1, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton.


This study intends to investigate the influence of age, education, gender, degree of religiosity, income, type of residence, interest in public affairs, social and political trust, and employment status on attitudes toward and interpretations of democracy among 1200 Egyptians living in urban and rural areas who participated in the Afrobarometer survey in 2013. The author uses principle component and regression analyses to test hypotheses about current state of political culture in Egypt after the Arab Spring of 2011 and before the military coup. The variables age, gender, employment status, residence type, and social trust have not been found significant in any of the observed models. Higher income individuals, compared to those with lower incomes valued democratic principles less – instead preferring unlimited control by one party or President – and were more likely to assess the term democracy negatively. More educated citizens tend to positively evaluate occupational gender equality and rejection of one party-one man rule, while less educated prefer material rights over free and fair elections and freedom of speech. Religious citizens tend to show more support for lawful actions imposed by executive governmental bodies on ordinary citizens than less religious people. Higher levels of political trust is positively associated with attitudes toward the term democracy and one partyone man rule. Finally, people interested in public affairs vs. those who are not interested tend to possess negative attitudes toward the term democracy.


Object technology, a necessary but not sufficient condition for software reuse, requires an infrastructure that supports plug compatible Business Object Components for fast and flexible delivery of new or enhanced products to the marketplace. This paper is a retrospective view on key conceptual issues driving the standardization of a Business Object Component Architecture (BOCA) within the Object Management Group (OMG). The seamless integration of BOCA with the Unified Modeling Language (UML), a standardized Meta-Object Facility (MOF), and an emerging CORBA Component specification is essential to design-driven generation of runtime components into heterogeneous distributed object frameworks. BOCA standardization can enhance software productivity with plug compatible, reusable components, the holy grail of object computing.


An important factor for the evaluation of an agricultural system's sustainability is the monitoring of soil quality via its physical attributes. The physical attributes of soil, such as soil penetration resistance, can be used to monitor and evaluate the soil's quality. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been employed to solve many problems in agriculture, and the use of this technique can be considered an alternative approach for predicting the penetration resistance produced by the soil's basic properties, such as bulk density and water content. The aim of this work is to perform an analysis of the soil penetration resistance behavior measured from the cone index under different levels of bulk density and water content using statistical analyses, specifically regression analysis and ANN modeling. Both techniques show that soil penetration resistance is associated with soil bulk density and water content. The regression analysis presented a determination coefficient of 0.92 and an RMSE of 0.951, and the ANN modeling presented a determination coefficient of 0.98 and an RMSE of 0.084. The results show that the ANN modeling presented better results than the mathematical model obtained from regression analysis.


Laccases (benzenediol:oxygen oxidoreductase, EC 188.8.131.52) are multi-copper oxidases that are widely distributed among plants, insects, and fungi. They have been described in different genera of ascomycetes, some deuteromycetes, and mainly in basidiomycetes. These enzymes catalyze the one-electron oxidation of a wide variety of organic and inorganic substrates, including mono-, di-, and polyphenols, aminophenols, methoxyphenols, aromatic amines, and ascorbate, with the concomitant four electron reduction of oxygen to water. Laccase is currently the focus of much attention because of its diverse applications, such as delignification of lignocellulosics, crosslinking of polysaccha-rides, bioremediation applications, such as waste detoxification, and textile dye transformation, food technologic uses, personal and medical care applications, and biosensor and analytical applications. This review helps to understand the properties of this important enzyme for efficient utilization for its biotechnological and environmental applications.


Understanding the nature and dimensions of the world food problem and the policies available to alleviate it has been the focal point of IIASA's Food and Agriculture Program (FAP) since it began in 1977.

National food systems are highly interdependent, and yet the major policy options exist at the national level. Therefore, to explore these options, it is necessary both to develop policy models for national economies and to link them together by trade and capital transfers. Over the years FAP has, with the help of a network of collaborating institutions, developed and linked national policy models of twenty countries, which together account for nearly 80 percent of important agricultural attributes such as area. production, population, exports, imports and so on. The remaining countries are represented by 14 somewhat simpler models of groups of countries.

The countries constituting the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) together are a major influence on the world market. An aggregate food and agriculture model of the CMEA, in which the CMEA is treated as one nation has been developed by the FAP, as part of the IIASA/FAP basic linked system.

In addition, development of detailed models for some of the major nations constituting the CMEA was undertaken. The development of the Soviet Agricultural Model (SOVAM) was started in late 1983 in collaboration with a number of institutions in the Soviet Union. These include the All-Union Research Institute of Cybernetics in Agriculture, Computer Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, All-Union Research Institute for Systems Studies, and the Central Economic Mathematical Institute.

This working paper is one of a series of working papers documenting the work that went into developing the various models of FAP. In this paper V. Iakimets and V. Kiselev describe a first version of the SOVAM.


Objectives: A cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge and practiced behaviors of gynecologists regarding oral health care during pregnancy and the association of periodontal disease with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire consisting of 16 questions was designed and pilot tested. One hundred and fifty gynecologists practicing in the private sector of United Arab Emirates (UAE) were approached to voluntarily participate and fill up the questionnaire during February–March 2014. Data retrieved were entered into Excel database and analyzed using SPSS. Results: Of the 150 gynecologists approached, 108 filled the questionnaire, yielding a response rate of 72%. The majority (95.4%) acknowledged a connection between oral health and pregnancy and 75.9% agreed that periodontal disease can affect the outcome of pregnancy. Moreover, most of the gynecologists (85.2%) advised their pregnant patients to visit the dentist during pregnancy. Almost three-quarter of the participants (73%) regarded dental radiographs to be unsafe during pregnancy and more than half (59.3%) considered administration of local anesthesia to be unsafe during pregnancy. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that gynecologists have a relatively high degree of knowledge with respect to the relationship of periodontal disease to pregnancy outcome. However, there clearly exist misconceptions regarding the provision of dental treatment during pregnancy. To provide better oral health care, more knowledge needs to be made available to the pregnant women and the medical community, and misconceptions regarding the types of dental treatments during pregnancy should be clarified.


Can an ecological perspective provide cues for hybrid arts practice? Over the last fifteen years, Bonemap's novel collaborative method has produced hybrid and genre independent works within the broad field of contemporary arts. Their specific creative methodology relates to a practice and process imbued with an ecological perspective. The approach incorporates a multimodal and intermedial praxis that expands static representations of human creative environments and genres. Using flux, improvisation, participatory and responsive strategies to harness generative form it is argued that Bonemap work articulate a metaphor of fluid hybridisation.

The authors cite the creative works of Bonemap and other influencers to approach contemporary arts practice with an ecological perspective producing evidence of a fluid hybridisation of artistic genre. Bonemap's key methodological operations are responsive through the embodiment of ecological perceptions, improvisatory through the virtual and the visceral, and participatory through the experience of the implied and explicit. Practiced as spatial concepts, that inform methodological approaches to practice, Bonemap's ecological and artistic concerns consider hybridity and intermediality as linking materiality and immateriality. The evidence considers the hybrid materiality of 'unknowing' and 'ephemerality' within creative research that further challenges conventions of knowledge creation and the categorization of form. Bonemap's methods are shown as moving towards a proposal for fluid hybridity that is set adrift in the sublime aim to articulate an ecological understanding of interconnected meaning and associations as a unique poetic vessel that bridges the interstices of genre.


Pitaya (Stenocereus griseus H.) is an exotic fruit produced in some regions of Mexico, where it is mainly consumed fresh and valued in local markets. Its pulp has an intense red color, sweet flavor, small and easily chewable seeds, and compounds with antioxidant capacity, such as betalains and phenolics, which confer the fruit an important nutraceutical value. Therefore, in selected markets, the price of pitaya is considered high. However, pitaya has big spines that cause consumer rejection, due to the possibility of puncture. The spines also make it difficult to handle pitaya and cause mechanical damages. These circumstances make it indispensable to remove the spines from the fruit, but collaterally, the shelf-life is decreased, and consequently, its commercialization in distant markets is more difficult. It has been reported that postharvest treatments, such as application of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) and chitosan (Ch) coatings added with hydrophobic components like oleic acid (OA), aid in preserving the quality of several horticultural products, but this effect has not been studied in pitaya. In the present study, the effects of 1-MCP (4.2 µL L-1) and/or a coating prepared with 9.1 g L-1 of Ch + 6.4 mL L-1 of OA (CO) were evaluated over the quality of pitayas, which were previously despined (D) during refrigeration (11 ± 1 °C; 93 ± 2 % relative humidity (RH)) for 15 d. The quality parameters studied were respiration pattern, ethylene production, weight loss, titratable acidity, skin firmness, and total soluble solids (TSS). It was found that the respiration rate and ethylene production corresponded to the climacteric type, independently of the treatment.
The refrigeration conditions, minimized notoriously the weight loss of the fruits of practically all treatments. CO alone maintained the quality parameters and delayed the appearance of fungi, extending the shelf-life of despined pitayas up to 15 d. However, 1-MCP alone was not capable of preserving the evaluated quality parameters. The best treatment was D+CO+1-MCP, since it reduced notoriously the respiration and ethylene production rates, and inhibited loss of skin firmness, TSS, and acidity of the fruit. The results obtained herein are a progress in the limited knowledge of the postharvest physiology of pitaya fruit. More research is needed to deepen this knowledge and to optimize the postharvest handling of pitaya, in order to develop its market at global level for the benefit of producers and consumers.


7
a taxonomic revision of the genus noronhia (oleaceae) in Madagascar and the Comoro islands
A
taxonomic revision of the genus
Noronhia
 Stadtm. ex Thouars
(Oleaceae)
 in Madagascar
and the Comoro Islands is presented. Using results from previous phylogenetic and
morphometric analyses along with consideration of potential diagnostic features and eco
-
geographic characters, 87 species are recognized, 36 of which are described as new, a two-
fold increase since the last treatment 60 years ago, resulting mainly from new botanical
collections accumulated during the last three decades. In addition, three new combina
-
tions are proposed and 18 lectotypes are designated. The treatment includes also a synop
-
sis of morphological variation of vegetative and reproductive structures, an identification
key to the species as well as distribution maps of all species plus illustrations and field
photographs of selected taxa. Preliminary conservation assessments following the IUCN
Red List Criteria indicate that 54 species, representing 62% of the total number of species
treated here, are threatened, of which five are considered Critically Endangered [CR], 22
Endangered [EN] and 27 Vulnerable [VU]. An evaluation of the biogeographic patterns of
Noronhia
 in Madagascar shows that species richness is higher in mountainous areas of the
north and south than elsewhere, supporting the idea that they are centers of diversification
of the Malagasy flora as well as fauna. Of the 87 species recognized, 82 are endemic to
Madagascar, three occur only in the Comoros, one is shared between Madagascar and the
Comoros, and another is shared between the Comoros and Mascarenes.


Null data frames are a special but important type of frames in IEEE 802.11 based wireless local area networks (e.g., 802.11 WLANs). They are widely used for power management, channel scanning and association keeping alive. The wide applications of null data frames come from their salient features such as lightweight frame format and implementation flexibility. However, such features can be taken advantage of by malicious attackers to launch a variety of attacks. In this paper, we identify the potential security vulnerabilities in the current applications of null data frames. We then study two types of attacks taking advantage of these vulnerabilities in detail, and evaluate their effectiveness based on extensive experiments. Finally, we point out that our work has broader impact in that similar vulnerabilities exist in many other networks.


Objective: To examine the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary, discovery-oriented teaching unit designed to provide science and health information about HIV from the perspective of viral biology, population statistics and epidemiology. Design: Single group pre- and post-curriculum pilot study. Setting: Fifteen middle and high school classrooms recruited from districts in and around a large, diverse, urban area in the mid-southern USA. Method: Science educators, clinicians, virologists and biologists collaborated to develop a set of five activities intended to increase content knowledge related to HIV, while developing students' science-related skills in the context of an authentic, relevant example. The activities were piloted with six hundred and twenty-four 12- to 18-year-old students. Multiple-choice pre- and post-tests were used to assess changes in students' knowledge, and teacher evaluations were used to gauge appropriateness of content, ease of activity implementation and teacher perceptions of student skill development, learning and engagement. Results: Student pre- and post-tests and teacher post-evaluations indicated that the curriculum was effective in increasing content knowledge for students across all age ranges, with 13- to 14-year-old, grade 8 students achieving the greatest knowledge gains. Teacher-reported information also suggested that students were able to apply relevant skills to their interpretation of authentic data related to the incidence and transmission of HIV infection around the world. Conclusion: The developed activities have the potential to provide timely, relevant information to students while strengthening science-related content knowledge and skills as well as health literacy.


In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case a New York jury was asked to apportion liability among all potentially responsible actors. The jury apportioned responsibility for the devastation as follows - terrorists 32%, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey 68%. The Port Authority was twice as responsible for the devastation as were the terrorists themselves. Public bewilderment, even outrage, over the jury's verdict has been palpable. But what if the jurors' verdict was correct? In this article, Professor Bublick argues that the problem with the World Trade Center apportionment is not the particular jury verdict, but rather the tort-reform-produced state apportionment law that, in a minority of jurisdictions including New York, asks juries to divide responsibility between these negligent and intentional tortfeasors. Consequently, the paper argues that courts should avoid all or at least certain intentional-negligent responsibility comparisons. However, the paper then discusses courts' second-best position - to uphold all jury apportionments, even those that assign greater, or perhaps far greater, responsibility to negligent than intentional parties.


Investigations into professional accountancy education gathered impetus with the publication of The impact of globalisation on accountancy education by Karreman in 2002. This publication provided a comparative analysis of professional accountancy education in 25 countries worldwide, using a model developed for the classification of accountancy education systems. The rationale behind such an exercise is to promote educational exchange and facilitate educational development. The Karreman study only covered two countries in Africa, namely South Africa and Kenya. This study expands the Karreman study by comparing and benchmarking the professional accountancy education programmes in six member countries of the Eastern, Central and Southern African Federation of Accountants (ECSAFA) using the Karreman methodology. This study reports the results of a questionnaire survey to which seven accountancy bodies located in six countries responded. The results of this study revealed mostly agreement with the Karreman model. All the countries could be categorised as developing countries with common law/Roman‐Dutch legal systems and with a strong British influence. Thus similarities in regulation, education and practical experience are expected. The professional bodies tend towards professional selfregulation with low to medium membership regulation. All countries require practical experience before qualifying, and a theoretical approach to the final examination predominates. The study also shows that there is co‐operation in the region.


The draft Regulation on a Common European Sales Law (CESL) proposes the introduction of a sui generis regime for the implied terms in contracts for the supply of digital content. The question which this article explores is how far that regime might extend to cloud computing contracts with an EU element.Because CESL is an opt-in law, those who draft the terms for cloud contracts (almost always cloud service providers) will only choose to adopt the CESL regime if it has advantages over choosing a single national law. There are many potential advantages, in particular the reduction of uncertainty whether a choice of law is valid, and what the implied terms might be under that national law. Additionally, there would be no need to localise contracts for those countries where a different choice of national law risks being invalid. But these advantages will only be achieved in reality if CESL makes adequate provision for cloud transactions.Unfortunately the CESL's definition of digital content is simultaneously both too vague, and too specific. It is vague because it relies on concepts like "supply" and "access" whose definitions are themselves not clear, and excludes "mixed purpose" contracts. Thus there is real uncertainty how far cloud services which make available streamed content can fall within the definition, and whether a bundle of services which, for example, includes both digital content together with the tools to generate new content therefrom, might be excluded as being mixed purpose. The definition is too specific because it concentrates on the method of delivery, rather than the nature of the content and the purpose for which it is made available. If the content made available falls outside the definition, then the choice of CESL is invalid and there is no choice of law at all – the worst possible result!Our proposed solution is to recognise that technical certainty is unachievable in a field of activity which is changing so rapidly. Mixed purpose contracts should not be excluded, and instead the test should be whether the primary purpose of the contract is to supply digital content. "Supply" should be left undefined in technical terms, but instead defined in terms of the ability of the customer to use the content in a similar way to which the customer could use goods. The vagueness thus deliberately introduced could be clarified by means of regularly updated guidelines as to the meaning of "digital content." This might reduce the uncertainties to a level which would persuade cloud service providers to adopt CESL for their EU-related cloud contracts.


In the past, endogenous retroviral sequences have been isolated from patients suffering from different kinds of autoimmune diseases. Recently, a full length retroviral genome, termed IDDMK(1,2)22, was isolated from patients with new-onset IDDM. This genome contains a major histocompatibility complex II-dependent superantigen within its envelope gene. The viral sequence was found in ten patients with new-onset IDDM, but not in age-matched control subjects (Conrad et al. [9]). We searched for the presence of this viral genome by nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in a cohort of six patients with new-onset IDDM and six control subjects of the same age. We found all samples to be positive without any differences between patients and control subjects. The same results were obtained with supernatants of activated peripheral blood mononuclear cells. We performed isopycnic ultracentrifugation in sucrose density gradients on all samples and were unable to detect particles of the new virus in any of our samples. However, positive signals were obtained from all pellet fractions. RNase, DNase treatment and nested PCRs without reverse transcription showed that the positive signals were probably derived from intracellular RNA and DNA. In summary, no correlation between a positive nested PCR signal for IDDMK(1,2)22 and diabetes was found indicating that the new sequence represents just an additional member of the human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) family with lack of an exogenous counterpart.


This response essay probes three themes that tie together three articles submitted for a tort symposium on "The Limits of Predictability and the Value of Uncertainty." First, I explore the use of unpredictability as a code word for an assault on tort doctrine in response to an out-of-control tort system. In his historical account of the evolution of tort, Professor Rabin focuses on the canonical "no duty" rules of the nineteenth century and the contemporary rules-based limitations on open-textured liability in the twentieth century. But largely missing from this account is the story of rules promoting tort liability, such as strict liability, vicarious liability, negligence per se, and the like. Second, I probe the link between unpredictability and insurance. I argue that Professor Sebok's efforts to distinguish champerty from illegal gambling and to analogize it to a form of insurance will inevitably fall short of establishing social acceptance or embrace of the practice. Third, I highlight the role of the U.S. Supreme Court and its incursions into the state law domain of tort in the name of predictability. Professor Rabin is doubtful that the U.S. Supreme Court will achieve great strides in its endeavor to quell unpredictability in punitive damages. Professor Zipursky has considerable angst about the Court's making inroads into privacy and emotional distress torts. Such incursions are in keeping with the Court's longer-term project of procedural reform of the civil litigation system in the name of unpredictability, but are novel in their ambition to launch frontal attacks.


In several areas of the Alps, steep grassland is characterized by shallow erosions. These erosions represent a hazard through the increased availability of unconsolidated material in steep locations, loss of soil and impaired landscape aesthetics. Generally, the erosions concern only small areas but sometimes occur in large numbers. Remote sensing technologies have emerged as suitable tools to study the spatio-temporal changes of these eroded areas. The detection of such eroded areas is often done by manual digitalization of aerial photographs, which is labour-intensive and includes a certain risk of subjectivity. In this study we present a methodological tool that allows the automatic classification of shallow erosions on the basis of orthophoto series. The approach was carried out within a test site in the inner Schmirn Valley, Austria. The study covers both the detection of erosion areas and a multi-temporal analysis of the geomorphological changes. The presented approach is an appropriate tool for detecting shallow erosions and for analysing them in multi-temporal terms. The multi-temporal analysis revealed one period of higher increases in eroded areas compared to shrinking during the other periods. However, the analysis of the change of all single erosions indicates that in each study period there was both increase and decrease of erosion areas. The differences in the rates of increase between the observation years are most likely due to the irregular occurrence of events that encourage erosion. In contrast, the rates of decrease are almost constant and suggest a continuous rate of recovery.


Already know Python but want to learn more? A lot more? Dive into a variety of topics used in practice for real-world applications. Covers regular expressions, Internet/network programming, GUIs, SQL/databases/ORMs, threading, and Web development.Learn about contemporary development trends such as Google+, Twitter, MongoDB, OAuth, Python 3 migration, and Java/Jython. Presents brand new material on Django, Google App Engine, CSV/JSON/XML, and Microsoft Office. Includes Python 2 and 3 code samples to get you started right away!Provides code snippets, interactive examples, and practical exercises to help build your Python skills. The Complete Developers Guide to Python Python is an agile, robust, and expressive programming language that continues to build momentum. It combines the power of compiled languages with the simplicity and rapid development of scripting languages. In Core Python Applications Programming, Third Edition, leading Python developer and corporate trainer Wesley Chun helps you take your Python knowledge to the next level. This book has everything you need to become a versatile Python developer. You will be introduced to multiple areas of application development and gain knowledge that can be immediately applied to projects, and you will find code samples in both Python 2 and 3, including migration tips if thats on your roadmap too. Some snippets will even run unmodified on 2.x or 3.x. Learn professional Python style, best practices, and good programming habits Build clients and servers using TCP, UDP, XML-RPC, and be exposed to higher-level libraries like SocketServer and Twisted Develop GUI applications using Tkinter and other available toolkits Improve application performance by writing extensions in C/C++, or enhance I/O-bound code with multithreading Discover SQL and relational databases, ORMs, and even non-relational (NonSQL) databases like MongoDB Learn the basics of Web programming, including Web clients and servers, plus CGI and WSGI Expose yourself to regular expressions and powerful text processing tools for creating and parsing CSV, JSON, and XML data Interface with popular Microsoft Office applications such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook using COM client programming Dive deeper into Web development with the Django framework and cloud computing with Google App Engine Explore Java programming with Jython, the way to run Python code on the JVM Connect to Web services Yahoo! Finance to get stock quotes, or Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and others to download or send e-mailJump into the social media craze by learning how to connect to the Twitter and Google+ networks Core Python Applications Programming, Third Edition, delivers Broad coverage of a variety of areas of development used in real-world applications today Powerful insights into current and best practices for the intermediate Python programmer Dozens of code examples, from quick snippets to full-fledged applications A variety of exercises at the end of every chapter to help hammer the concepts home


This contribution to the Higher Education Encyclopedia considers how higher education institutions can embrace national and international policy aspirations to widen access and participation in higher education by traditionally under-served groups. In particular it focuses on how to lead and manage institutions to recruit a diverse population, expanding higher education beyond traditional elites, and enable them to be successful in higher education and beyond.
There are three ways in which institutions can respond to this challenge: the academic, the utilitarian and the transformative approaches . The academic perspective ascribes non-participation to 'low aspirations' amongst certain target groups, and thus seeks to raise the aspirations of the already qualified potential entrants. The 'utilitarian' institution views non-traditional students as not just lacking aspirations, but also lacking academic qualifications and skills, thus requiring interventions and additional support to enable students to participate in an unreformed higher education, and progress into the graduate labour market. A 'transformative approach' seeks rather to change the institution to allow it to work with a more diverse population, and to become more inclusive. The latter therefore requires institutional change, and cannot be achieved by bolting on interventions.
This contribution draws on current research in England exploring a 'whole institution' approach to widening participation, which is premised on the need for an inclusive institution, in which everyone contributes to widening access. In this context and viewing higher education institutions as complex organisations, this study has found that institutions need to address both cultural and structural issues, where culture refers to the values, attitudes and practices of the staff (and students), and structure refers to the institutional policies, processes and organisation and this is effectively underpinned by data about student diversity and outcomes.


Recent court rulings question the ability of commodity groups to fund generic promotions through mandatory check-off programs. A model examining incentives to fund brand advertisements when both brand and generic advertising exist is presented. Brand advertising expands the market by attracting new consumers to the industry, and allows the advertising firm to take customers from rivals in the industry. Homogeneous products are advertised too little relative to the amount that maximizes total industry profits, and brandable products are advertised too much. The optimal check-off rate is derived, and the Dorfman-Steiner condition is shown to be a special case of this model.


Rocas is the only atoll of the South Atlantic and it is built almost exclusively by coralline red algae, vermetid gastropods and encrusting foraminiferans. Patterns in the community structure of meiofauna and macrofauna, particularly nematodes and polychaetes, at Rocas Atoll, north-east Brazil, are determined and compared for different habitats: sublittoral, tidal flat, reef pools and lagoon. Nematodes and copepods were the most abundant meiofaunal taxa. In all studied habitats at Rocas Atoll, oligochaetes, nematodes and polychaetes numerically dominate the macrofauna. Univariate and multivariate analyses reveal clear differences in community structure between the habitats of the atoll, especially between the sublittoral and the inner habitats. The number of species, total density, diversity (H') and trophic structure vary significantly between the habitats, but the differences are dependent on which faunistic category (meiobenthic or macrobenthic) is analysed. Nematodes belonging to the Epsilonematidae and Draconematidae, together with a diverse community of meiobenthic polychaetes, characterize the sublittoral habitat of Rocas Atoll. Both meiofauna and macrofauna are depressed in the tidal flat, and the local sediment instability particularly affects the polychaete abundance. Reef pools and lagoons support a very dense aggregation of invertebrates, particularly the macrofauna, when compared with other carbonate reef sediments. However, differences in the structure of meiofauna and macrofauna communities between reef pools and lagoons are not significant. Changes in meiobenthic and macrobenthic community structure are related to the gradation in the physical environment of the atoll.


This paper describes how cleaner production strategies are being implemented by the metal finishing industry, in the face of increasingly strict pollution regulations as well as to deal with a permanent need to innovate. These preventive measures have a positive impact on the competitiveness of these firms as well as the environment. This is due to the diminished use of raw materials, lower energy consumption, subsequent reduction of contaminated materials and outflow, as well as inherently lessening the risks or hazards of environmental pollution. However, employing diverse, cleaner production methods is complex. Moreover, this can have a negative effect especially when the entire situation is taken into account, demonstrating the need for effective decision aids in this sector. This paper presents the conception of a diagnostic tool for cleaner and safer production (CSP) impacts. The proposed tool is based on a system of CSP indicators, which quantifies the firm's overall impacts and estimates the level of risk generated. The main issues of this paper are: (1) environmental: considering whether the tool will help reduce firms' impacts; (2) regulatory: because this approach helps industry to comply with existing legislation and anticipate new constraints; and (3) safety: taking into account risks generated by the implementation of CSP practices. This decision aid can be used in choosing a CSP set up strategy as well as to promote innovation initiatives.


The development of efficient methods to convert plant material (lignocellulose) to fermentable sugars is a promising avenue towards the development of renewable biofuels. Anaerobic fungi that reside within the digestive tract of large herbivores are among the most efficient and robust digesters of lignocellulosic material known in nature. Despite the powerful cellulose degrading capacity of gut fungi, remarkably little is known about the cellulolytic enzymes from these organisms due to the difficulties associated with their isolation and culture. We have cloned five such saccharolytic enzymes (bglA, cel48A, celpin, xylA, and xylB) from a cDNA library prepared from the anaerobic fungus Piromyces sp E2 for expression and extracellular secretion in the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae. All enzymes were readily produced, but only low‐molecular weight proteins (xylA and xylB) were secreted efficiently into the extracellular medium. Piromyces sp E2 enzymes were posttranslationally modified in S. cerevisiae according to their sequence prediction, suggesting compatibility between the two systems, yet not all of the recombinant proteins were catalytically active. Activation of cellular stress mechanisms in the secretory pathway suggest enzyme misfolding during the production of cel48A and bglA, which likely limits activity. However, bglA, exhibited moderate reactivity against pNPG when produced in S. cerevisiae. Furthermore, since we aim to understand how the cellulolytic enzymes of anaerobic fungi are produced in their native system, we have implemented methods to isolate and culture anaerobic fungi obtained from the digestive tract of a horse. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2012


Nowadays, the European Ecodesign Directive has emerged as a new approach to integrate environmental concerns into the product design and related processes. Ecodesign aims to minimize environmental impacts throughout the product life cycle, without compromising performances and costs. In addition, the recent Ecodesign Directives require products which are increasingly ecofriendly and eco-efficient, preserving high-performances. It is very important for producers measuring performances, for electric cooking ranges, hobs, ovens, and grills for household use, and a low power consumption of appliances represents a powerful selling point, also in terms of ecodesign requirements. The Ecodesign Directive provides a clear framework about the sustainable design of products and it has been extended in 2009 to all energy-related products, or products with an impact on energy consumption during the use. The European Regulation establishes measures of ecodesign of ovens, hobs, and kitchen hoods, and domestic use and energy efficiency of a product has a significant environmental aspect in the use phase which is the most impactful in the life cycle. It is important that the product parameters and performances are not affected by ecodesign requirements from a user's point of view, and the benefits of reducing energy consumption in the use phase should offset the possible environmental impact in the production stage. Accurate measurements of cooking appliance performance are essential to help the industry to produce more energy efficient appliances. The development of ecodriven products requires ecoinnovation and ecodesign tools to support the sustainability improvement. The ecodesign tools should be practical and focused on specific ecoobjectives in order to be largely diffused. The main scope of this paper is the development, implementation, and testing of an innovative tool, which could be an improvement for the sustainable design of induction hobs. In particular, a prototypical software tool is developed in order to simulate the energy performances of the induction hobs. The tool is focused on a multiphysics model which is able to simulate the energy performances and the efficiency of induction hobs starting from the design data. The multiphysics model is composed by an electromagnetic simulation and a thermal simulation. The electromagnetic simulation is able to calculate the eddy current induced in the pot, which leads to the Joule heating of material. The thermal simulation is able to measure the energy consumption during the operational phase. The Joule heating caused from the eddy currents is the output of electromagnetic simulation and the input of thermal ones. The aims of the paper are the development of integrated tools and methodologies of virtual prototyping in the context of the ecodesign. This tool could be a revolutionary instrument in the field of industrial engineering and it gives consideration to the environmental aspects of product design and focus on the ecodesign of energy-related products, in order to achieve a reduced environmental impact. Keywords—Ecodesign, induction hobs, virtual prototyping, energy efficiency. Anna Costanza Russo is with the Marche Polytechnic University, Italy (email: firstname.lastname@example.com).


A-type voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels self-regulate their activity by inactivating directly from the open state (open-state inactivation [OSI]) or by inactivating before they open (closed-state inactivation [CSI]). To determine the inactivation pathways, it is often necessary to apply several pulse protocols, pore blockers, single-channel recording, and kinetic modeling. However, intrinsic hurdles may preclude the standardized application of these methods. Here, we implemented a simple method inspired by earlier studies of Na+ channels to analyze macroscopic inactivation and conclusively deduce the pathways of inactivation of recombinant and native A-type Kv channels. We investigated two distinct A-type Kv channels expressed heterologously (Kv3.4 and Kv4.2 with accessory subunits) and their native counterparts in dorsal root ganglion and cerebellar granule neurons. This approach applies two conventional pulse protocols to examine inactivation induced by (a) a simple step (single-pulse inactivation) and (b) a conditioning step (double-pulse inactivation). Consistent with OSI, the rate of Kv3.4 inactivation (i.e., the negative first derivative of double-pulse inactivation) precisely superimposes on the profile of the Kv3.4 current evoked by a single pulse because the channels must open to inactivate. In contrast, the rate of Kv4.2 inactivation is asynchronous, already changing at earlier times relative to the profile of the Kv4.2 current evoked by a single pulse. Thus, Kv4.2 inactivation occurs uncoupled from channel opening, indicating CSI. Furthermore, the inactivation time constant versus voltage relation of Kv3.4 decreases monotonically with depolarization and levels off, whereas that of Kv4.2 exhibits a J-shape profile. We also manipulated the inactivation phenotype by changing the subunit composition and show how CSI and CSI combined with OSI might affect spiking properties in a full computational model of the hippocampal CA1 neuron. This work unambiguously elucidates contrasting inactivation pathways in neuronal A-type Kv channels and demonstrates how distinct pathways might impact neurophysiological activity.


This chapter investigates the presence of Legionella-specific DNA in patient serum using a 5S RNA PCR. The DNA extraction was monitored by a control PCR , which amplified part of the β-globin gene, and the specificity of the PCR was verified by a combination of Southern blotting with a 50-oligomer Legionella-specific probe and TaqI restriction digestion of the PCR products. The Biotest urinary antigen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was performed as per the manufacturer's instruction. The serology and culture tests were performed. In patients with multiple samples there were variations in PCR reactivity depending on the time of sample. In patient 10, the 5S RNA PCR was positive in the first two serum samples (the acute- and early convalescent-phase samples) but negative in the later two convalescent-phase serum samples. The Southern blotting has the advantage that it can be performed on all PCR reactions, but the Taql digest requires a PCR product to confirm the specificity of the PCR reaction. The 5S RNA PCR was sensitive and specific and should increase laboratory diagnosis of Legionella infection when there is a nonvalidated serological response.


The purpose of image restoration is to recover the original state of damaged images. To overcome the disadvantages of the traditional, manual image restoration process, like the high time consumption and required domain knowledge, automatic inpainting methods have been developed. These methods, however, can have limitations for complex images and may require a lot of input data. To mitigate those, we present "interactive Deep Image Prior", a combination of manual and automated, Deep-Image-Prior-based restoration in the form of an interactive process with the human in the loop. In this process a human can iteratively embed knowledge to provide guidance and control for the automated inpainting process. For this purpose, we extended Deep Image Prior with a user interface which we subsequently analyzed in a user study. Our key question is whether the interactivity increases the restoration quality subjectively and objectively. Secondarily, we were also interested in how such a collaborative system is perceived by users. Our evaluation shows that, even with very little human guidance, our interactive approach has a restoration performance on par or superior to other methods. Meanwhile, very positive results of our user study suggest that learning systems with the human-in-the-loop positively contribute to user satisfaction. We therefore conclude that an interactive, cooperative approach is a viable option for image restoration and potentially other ML tasks where human knowledge can be a correcting or guiding influence.


Study Design. Iterative discussion and consensus by a multidisciplinary task force scientific secretariat reviewing scientific evidence on neck pain and its associated disorders. Objective. To provide an integrated model for linking the epidemiology of neck pain with its management and consequences, and to help organize and interpret existing knowledge, and to highlight gaps in the current literature. Summary of Background Data. The wide variability of scientific and clinical approaches to neck pain described in the literature requires a unified conceptual model for appropriate interpretation of the research evidence. Methods. The 12-member Scientific Secretariat of the Bone and Joint Decade 2000–2010 Task Force on Neck Pain and Its Associated Disorders critically reviewed and eventually accepted as scientifically admissible a total of 552 scientific papers. The group met face-to-face on 18 occasions and had frequent additional telephone conference meetings over a 6-year period to discuss and interpret this literature and to agree on a conceptual model, which would accommodate findings. Models and definitions published in the scientific literature were discussed and repeatedly modified until the model and case definitions presented here were finally approved by the group. Results. Our new conceptual model is centered on the person with neck pain or who is at risk for neck pain. Neck pain is viewed as an episodic occurrence over a lifetime with variable recovery between episodes. The model outlines the options available to individuals who are dealing with neck pain, along with factors that determine options, choices, and consequences. The short- and long-term impacts of neck pain are also considered. Finally, the model includes a 5-axis classification of neck pain studies based on how subjects were recruited into each study. Conclusion. The Scientific Secretariat found the conceptual model helpful in interpreting the available scientific evidence. We believe it can assist people with neck pain, researchers, clinicians, and policy makers in framing their questions and decisions.


The morphology of the ejected shell of the He/N Nova Monocerotis 2012 outburst was studied in detail. Synthetic line profile spectra were compared to the [O iii] 4959, 5007 Å emission line profiles in order to find the best-fit morphology, an inclination angle, and a maximum expansion velocity of the ejected shell. The simplest morphology was found to be that of a bipolar structure with an inclination angle of 82°± 6° and a maximum expansion velocity of 2400 km s−1 (at day 130 after outburst). Such a high degree of shaping is unexpected for a system with a main-sequence star (as suspected from the systems colors). The degree of shaping may be disentangled with resolved optical imaging. Furthermore, these results may be confirmed with radio imaging which is expected to follow the same gross features of the outburst as the optical band and the high inclination implied here can be corroborated with a 7.1 hr period which has been suggested to arise from partial eclipses of extended emission by an accretion disk rim.


Abstract Figures in the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) global annual survey indicate, by their absence, that there is under-recognition of bleeding disorders in women. The WFH and its national member organisations (NMOs) are working to raise awareness and improve the diagnosis of care of women with bleeding disorders globally, regionally and locally. WFH initiatives include a global programme focused on improving the diagnosis, care and treatment of women with von Willebrand disease (VWD), and programmes involving education and training in conjunction with NMOs in countries including Honduras and Malaysia. NMOs in Slovakia, Latvia and Sweden describe their local activities. The Slovak Hemophilia Society is in the process of establishing a Women's Committee and considers peer support and network building as essential tools in addressing the issues faced by women with bleeding disorders. In Latvia, access to resources is difficult and von Willebrand factor is not available. There is concern in the Latvia Hemophilia Society that the fundamental human right of access to healthcare is not being met. It supports WFH initiatives through education and advocacy, and believes that the voices of women with bleeding disorders will be better heard through working together. The Swedish Hemophilia Society's Women's Project has worked since 2006 to promote better care for women with bleeding disorders and to raise public awareness. Despite resistance, their campaign to increase the identification of girls and women with VWD, improve diagnosis and care, and raise awareness has been well received by healthcare professionals and has had extensive media coverage.


A series of analogues of 4,4-bisdimethylaniinobenzophenone, Michler's ketone, in which the terminal dimethylamino-groups have been replaced by diethylamino, pyrrolidino, piperidino, N-methylpiperazino and morpholino moieties has been prepared utilising the reaction between an aryl-lithium and a substituted benzonitrile. The aromatic ketones have been reduced to their hydrols and pinacols with sodium borohydride and aluminium amalgam, respectively.
The UV-visible spectra of the substituted benzophenones in cyclohexane and ethanol are similar to those of Michler's ketone in the same solvents. All the compounds fluoresce in solution at room temperature with quantum yields of the order of 0.001 and decay times shorter than 100 psec. At 77 K both fluorescence and phosphorescence are observed. The phosphorescence spectra usually exhibited a shoulder to the red of the emission maximum, although a second peak is occasionally observed. In methylcyclohexane, phosphorescence lifetimes of the order of 10 - 20 msec were found, which increased by a factor of ten when ethanol was used as solvent.
Photolysis of the ketones in cyclohexane resulted in their decomposition with high efficiency. The hydrol and the pinacol
were identified amongst the photolysis products in most cases. No reaction was observed when 2-propanol was used as the solvent. Microsecond flash photolysis revealed two transient species which were assigned to the excited triplet state and to the ketyl radical. The transient absorption spectra of the former were recorded. The decay kinetics of both species were found to be strongly dependent on the age of the ketone sample; different kinetics were observed for new samples which had not been flashed and for samples which had been flashed at least once. The results have been rationalised in terms of abstraction of hydrogen from both the solvent and any photolysis product by the excited triplet state. The decay of the ketyl radical was also dependent on the presence or absence of previously formed products.
A series of some twenty pyridyl analogues of Michlers ketone has also been synthesised and their UV-visible, fluorescence and phosphorescence spectra have been measured in ethanol or methylcyclohexane. Fluorescence decay times in the region of 0.5 - 2.5 nsec were recorded and 3-(4-dimethylaminopyridyl) 2-pyridyl ketone was found to fluoresce very efficiently.


Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) often carry JAK2(V617F), MPL(W515L), or CALR(del52) mutations. Current treatment options for MPNs include cytoreduction by hydroxyurea and JAK1/2 inhibition by ruxolitinib, both of which are not curative. We show here that cell lines expressing JAK2(V617F), MPL(W515L), or CALR(del52) accumulated reactive oxygen species-induced DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and were modestly sensitive to poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors olaparib and BMN673. At the same time, primary MPN cell samples from individual patients displayed a high degree of variability in sensitivity to these drugs. Ruxolitinib inhibited 2 major DSB repair mechanisms, BRCA-mediated homologous recombination and DNA-dependent protein kinase-mediated nonhomologous end-joining, and, when combined with olaparib, caused abundant accumulation of toxic DSBs resulting in enhanced elimination of MPN primary cells, including the disease-initiating cells from the majority of patients. Moreover, the combination of BMN673, ruxolitinib, and hydroxyurea was highly effective in vivo against JAK2(V617F)+ murine MPN-like disease and also against JAK2(V617F)+, CALR(del52)+, and MPL(W515L)+ primary MPN xenografts. In conclusion, we postulate that ruxolitinib-induced deficiencies in DSB repair pathways sensitized MPN cells to synthetic lethality triggered by PARP inhibitors.


BACKGROUND
Lumbar interbody fusion has been extensively studied in the civilian population; however, data regarding its efficacy in the military are lacking.

OBJECTIVE
To identify the rate of return to unrestricted active military duty after single-level lumbar interbody fusion surgery.

METHODS
The surgical database at a single tertiary care military treatment facility was queried for active-duty patients who underwent a single-level lumbar interbody fusion over a 5-year period. A retrospective chart review was performed with backward stepwise logistic regression analysis, and Fisher exact and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS
A total of 102 patients met the inclusion criteria. Mean age at surgery was 34.0 years (range, 19-51 years). Most surgeries (59%) were performed for discogenic pain secondary to degenerative disc disease; the remaining patients underwent surgery for spondylolisthesis (39%) or spinal stenosis (2%). Thirty-nine patients (38%) were treated via an anterior approach (anterior lumbar interbody fusion), whereas 63 patients (62%) underwent fusion via a posterior approach (transforaminal or posterior lumbar interbody fusion). Fifty-six patients (55%) were able to return to unrestricted full active duty, and the remaining 46 patients (45%) were separated from the military. The return to active duty rate was significantly higher in older patients and those ranking E7 (Chief Petty Officer) and above (84.8%).

CONCLUSION
Fifty-five percent of the service members who underwent a single-level lumbar interbody fusion returned to unrestricted full duty. Older age and higher rank were statistically significant positive predictors of a successful return to active duty.


The attainment of postsecondary credentials holds particular promise in improving economic security for low-income single mothers. However, the type of school attended may matter when determining whether postsecondary credentials will foster positive labor market outcomes and financial stability for former students. This paper describes the pre-test of a field experiment to examine whether the school type listed on a job applicant's resume has an impact on receiving a call for a job interview, in fields commonly pursued by low-income women. School types tested were for-profit schools and community colleges. Results revealed little difference in outcomes for job seekers with credentials from each school type. However, more reliable results could be obtained by repeating this study in a stronger economy, using job candidates with minimal applicable experience, applying to a greater number of positions, and selecting occupations for which an academic credential is widely seen as a prerequisite for entry. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v5i1_arcand


The Maker Movement and Three-Dimensional Printing (3DP) have the ability to engage individuals/consumers in the design and fabrication of interior products, potentially transforming a passive consumer to an active creator. Together, they could have significant impact on the design process, fabrication and distribution of interior products. This thesis aims to research the impact 3DP has on the design process and fabrication of interior products through three methodological phases. The first phase focuses on gaining a first-hand experience and critical understanding of the capabilities and limitations of 3DP in the product design process, as I engage in a project investigating 3DP as an iterative design tool. In the second phase, I collaborate with a fellow graduate student to investigate the role of 3DP in both the design process and as a final fabrication method for a furniture prototype. Finally in the third phase, I facilitate a 3DP product design workshop, in which undergraduate students are asked to incorporate and examine the role of 3DP in the design process of an innovative new product. The research and analysis generated through the phases reveal that when used effectively 3DP could significantly impact the design process and the fabrication of interior products. 3DP enables the conceptualization and realization of new forms in product design, as well as, allows designers to evaluate and redesign a product based on the fit, form, and function derived from a rapidly fabricated 3D printed product. However, the results from the third phase illustrate the importance of having familiarity and experience in 3DP and 3D modeling in order to be successful in fully utilizing 3DP in the design process and as a final fabrication method in product design.


The marimba is rapidly achieving greater importance as a solo percussion instrument. Solo compositions for the marimba have been commissioned and performed only in the last sixty years. The 1986 National Endowment for the Arts Solo Marimba Commission is considered one of the most important commissioning projects in the history of marimba literature. Two compositions created through this project, Velocities by Joseph Schwantner and Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman have become two of the most influential works in contemporary marimba music. This thesis will focus on a historical perspective of the project, as well as theoretical aspects and performance issues related to these two compositions. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) issued a consortium commissioning grant through the Percussive Arts Society (PAS) in 1986 to three internationally renowned marimbists, William Moersch, Leigh Howard Stevens and Gordon Stout. Three Pulitzer Prize winners were brought together to compose three new works for the marimba. The resulting pieces were: Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman, Velocities by Joseph Schwantner, and Islands from Archipelago: Autumn Island by Roger Reynolds. A brief history of the classical concert marimba and the development of solo marimba literature is provided in the second chapter. The fourth and fifth chapters provide individual information about the pieces, including concise biographical information about the composers and an analysis of the two compositions.


KenKen puzzles are popular logic puzzles similar to the ubiquitous Sudoku puzzles. However, solving KenKen puzzles requires more than making sure that numbers are used only once in a row and column of a matrix. In fact, depending on the size of the NxN grid, the number (and size) of the cages, as well as the arithmetic operations used, a KenKen puzzle offers a formidable challenge for logic puzzle fans. This paper proposes a methodology based on the Cartesian Product of viable sets representing the several cages. The implementation uses SAS® an application software package that generates the viable sets for each cage straight-away and solves the puzzle by identifying the only appropriate aggregate collection of cage-specific sets.


The epidote-bearing Rocks. Occurrence and eruptive Origin .—Very conclusive evidence has been found recently showing that certain granites of Maryland are eruptive in origin. The granitic masses occur in irregular bosses breaking through gneiss, gabbro and other crystalline rocks. In the central part of the state, at Dorseys Run station, Woodstock, Ilchester and Ellicott City, the acid eruptives are true granitites, granular aggregates, consisting essentially of quartz, feldspar and black mica, with considerable amounts of epidote and allanite as accessory constituents. These rocks vary considerably in color, from dark iron-gray to nearly white, according to the percentage of ferro-magnesian silicates they contain. Microscopic Characteristics .—Under the microscope thin sections sometimes show that the incipient stages of dynamic metamorphism have set in. In other occurrences the granites show little or no signs of mechanical deformation. The occurrence of the two prominent accessory minerals in the Maryland acid rocks was first noted . . .


The article analyses basic provisions of the theory of revolution by Israeli sociologist Shmuel Eisenstadt. His sociological concept of revolution remains still understudied, meanwhile, it is of huge interest due to its impact on a large number of researchers from various social sciences, especially in problems of the theory of revolution, the generalizing works and studying of the specific revolutions. The first large work of Sh. Eisenstadt devoted to revolutions was published in 1978, but the author kept reflecting on revolutions until the end of life, partially refreshing his conclusions and developing them. Special attention in the article is paid to two corner stones, from the point of view of the author, of Eisenstadt's theory of revolution: theory of modernization and «axial civilizations» concept. Questions connected with the reasons and consequences of revolutions, social composition and ideologies are considered. From Eisenstadt' point of view, revolutions are complex social phenomena which involve various big social groups. The ideology of revolutions which provides motivation of participation to these social groups in many respects is based on the principles, classical for social psychology, which by the time of the revolutions became already traditional, including Utopian ideas connected with traditional social demand for a just society. At the same time, revolutions lead to new society – the society constructed on other principles, the principles differentiating modern style civilization from the previous ones. The first cases of such transition occurred in one of axial civilizations – Christian and European that made westernization the first and main model for modernization, but not the only one for the non-European societies.


With the massive increase in wireless data traffic in recent years, multi-tier wireless networks have been deployed to provide much higher capacities and coverage. However, heterogeneity of wireless networks bring new challenges for interference analysis and coordination due to spatial randomly distributed transmitters. In this paper, we present a distance-dependent interference alignment (IA) approach for a generic two-tier heterogeneous wireless network, where transmitters in the first and second tiers are distributed as poisson point process (PPP) and poisson cluster process, respectively. The feasibility condition of the IA approach is used to find upper bound of the number of interference streams that can be aligned. The proposed IA scheme maximizes the second-tier throughput by using the tradeoff between signal-to-interference ratio and multiplexing gain. It is shown that acquiring accurate knowledge of the distance between the receiver in the second-tier and the nearest cross-tier transmitter only brings insignificant throughput gain compared with statistical knowledge of distance. Furthermore, the remaining cross-tier and intercluster interferences are modeled and analyzed using stochastic geometry technique. Numerical results validate the derived expressions of success probabilities and throughput, and show that the distance-dependent IA scheme significantly outperforms the traditional IA scheme in the presence of path-loss effect.


Irritation assumes a critical part in numerous sorts of growth and is known not included in their introduction and advancement. In this way, it is in a matter of seconds perceived as an imperative danger element of a few sorts of diseases, for example, "bladders, prostate and breast" growths. The disclosure of a novel strategy for recognition breast malignancy infection in the research facility furthermore in mitigating mixes can have enormous ramifications for the treatment of growth as well as preventive and defensive treatment modalities. Breast growth is the most regularly analyzed malignancy and the second driving reason for tumor-related passing's. Enhanced comprehension of breast tumourigenesis may improve the advancement of more powerful treatments. The clinical and obsessive quality of this breast growth subtype is not yet entirely caught on. This study was given a progression of essential, preclinical and clinical studies. As a hopeful biomarker of reaction to breast malignancy, we accepted this perception-response of tumor cells in breast disease.
Objective: Very more studies are directed to figure out the impact of breast growth, particularly in right on time recognition. Henceforth in the present study, we have endeavored mostly to research the biomarkers as parameters on breast growth. Moreover, was to use to measure the littlest simple systems that could be distinguished by presently accessible biomarker tests. The second and an essential target was to recognize biomarker-related rules that influence early disease recognition and to evaluate through a research facility test rules must be balanced (expanded or diminished) to enhance it. The creators picked as the objective for more recognition and disclosure of the novel technique for identification breast tumor sickness. In the research facility can likewise be communicated in human tissues, and are helpful in biomarkers for breast malignancy. Our goal was asymptomatic breast growth biomarker and as a guide to the sub-characterization of obtrusive breast malignancy.
Strategies: Patients determined to have kindhearted or harmful breast sickness were focus by natural clinical chemistry investigated. The level of patients determined was consequently connected to have the accessible clinical information, for example, judgments and malady stage. Results: A variable Serum and plasma blood areas from patients determined to have benevolent or threatening breast malady were distinguished in all example's research facility and investigated by utilizing biomarker as a part of blood. The outcome test was in this manner connected with accessible clinical information, for example, determinations and sickness stage. Breast tumor contrasted and considerate breast sickness or early stage breast growth. Treatment of human breast tumor cells in Vitro
Conclusions: Most ladies won't create breast tumor amid their lifetime. However, late information can help distinguish the subset of ladies who are at higher danger of breast malignancy. Besides, enhanced screening methods and treatment alternatives are currently accessible that could diminish the danger for these ladies. In science, each critical disclosure ought to be tested and checked by others. We land at our startling decision of thinking little of the biomarkers in breast tumor. This information proposes a part in biomarker for ailment movements and a promising target treatment in breast tumor. Numerous will take a gander at the information to this study. The breast growth issue reflected in the assessments.


ABSTRACTMultiples are traditionally treated as undesired noise, but they are also real reflections from the subsurface as primaries. Smaller reflection angles and longer travel paths usually make them provide more structural information and more balanced illumination than primaries. Instead of multiple elimination in conventional seismic data processing, the migration of multiples has drawn great attention in recent years. The most commonly used method is performed by replacing the source wavelet with the observed data and using separated multiples as the receiver wavefield to apply traditional migration algorithms. However, crosstalk artifacts caused by crosscorrelation of unrelated events severely degrade the image quality of multiples. We have analyzed the cause of artifacts followed by a novel proposal of migrating the multiples by separating surface-related multiples into different orders. First, we combine surface-related multiple elimination and the focal transform to do the separation of multiples...


From 1868-1872, German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen went on an expedition to China. His reports on what he found there would transform Western interest in China from the land of porcelain and tea to a repository of immense coal reserves. By the 1890s, European and American powers and the Qing state and local elites battled for control over the rights to these valuable mineral deposits. As coal went from a useful commodity to the essential fuel of industrialization, this vast natural resource would prove integral to the struggle for political control of China. Geology served both as the handmaiden to European imperialism and the rallying point of Chinese resistance to Western encroachment. In the late nineteenth century both foreign powers and the Chinese viewed control over mineral resources as the key to modernization and industrialization. When the first China Geological Survey began work in the 1910s, conceptions of natural resources had already shifted, and the Qing state expanded its control over mining rights, setting the precedent for the subsequent Republican and People's Republic of China regimes. In Empires of Coal, Shellen Xiao Wu argues that the changes specific to the late Qing were part of global trends in the nineteenth century, when the rise of science and industrialization destabilized global systems and caused widespread unrest and the toppling of ruling regimes around the world.


The concept of positive action features as a traditional theme of controversy in the contemporary legal and political discourse on equality. The paradox of resorting to unequal treatment in order to achieve "full and effective equality" - according to the wording of the Preamble to Protocol 12 of the ECHR - has been dealt with in a parochial and incoherent way. This is true with regard to both the theoretical justifications provided and the concrete legal measures of domestic jurisdictions. This thesis aims to explore the nature of the relationship between positive action and equality in a European normative and philosophical framework. The principal enquiry is whether it is possible to find a common European denominator regarding the content and legal consequences of the concept of equal treatment, understood as full equality. The analytical process is carried out in four stages. Part I constitutes an attempt to map the theoretical debate and identify the main problems in the justificatory rationale of the "classical" conception of positive action. Part II provides a thorough examination of the current position of the European legal order on the matter. The latter is understood broadly, with EU law and the ECHR being the two pillars of a common normative framework that determines what counts as equal treatment across Europe. Part III explains why a "one size fits all" approach on positive action fails to adequately account for the idiosyncratic requirements of equal treatment in different areas of the public sphere, such as the employment field, politics and the judiciary. Finally, Part IV introduces the notions of indistinctibility of respect and proportionality of concern as the symbiotic conceptual axes of equality. Against this theoretical construct positive action should be properly understood not as an exception to equal treatment but as an expression of proportionality of concern.


"This paper presents a framework for investigating the intersection of collective action and gender; i.e. how gender-oriented analysis can foster more effective collective action in the context of agriculture and natural resource management and how collective action can be used as a vehicle for gender equity. We begin with definitions of the key concepts and then present three entry points for a gendered analysis of collective action-motivations, effectiveness, and impact on gender equity- vis-a-vis the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework(Oakerson 1992; Ostrom 1991). At the heart of this framework is the action arena, which is shaped by a host of initial conditions, including asset endowments, vulnerabilities, and legal and governance systems that influence a range of outcomes. Applying a gender lens to this framework, we present an analysis of how women and men experience the initial set of conditions differently and thus, have different motivations and capacities for engaging in collective action. Next, we look at how the gender composition of groups affects theeffectiveness of collective action, and finally, at the impact of collective action on gender equity and women's empowerment. We conclude with a discussion of how this framework can improve our understanding of gender and collective action in order to facilitate more effective collective action while fostering gender equity." Author's Abstract


Abstract This article examines the processes of labor market restructuring and welfare reform in South Korea since the 1997/98 crisis, arguing that the Korean state-capital complex has succeeded in effecting a substantial redistribution of income from labor to capital. This redistribution of income has played a critical role in enhancing Korea's international competitiveness and in facilitating a return to sustained growth. The principal mechanisms through which this redistribution has been achieved are the intensified exploitation of weaker sections of the proletariat and the reduction of the traditionally more protected organized sections of the workforce in major firms. At the same time, the state has strengthened welfare safety nets and sought to place concerns about structural competitiveness at the heart of the welfare regime through the promotion of vocational training. What has been most striking about the process of welfare reform, however, has been the capacity of the state to limit the growth of welfare expenditures/provision whilst simultaneously creating massive new labor market insecurities. As a result of the success of the Korean state in restructuring labor markets in order to effect a redistribution of income from weaker sections of the proletariat to capital and limiting the growth of social spending we have witnessed a marked increase in inequality since 1997. Korea's apparent success in transforming itself into a competitive, dynamic neoliberal economy must, therefore, be understood as being symbiotically linked to the intensification of inequality.


We present a Bayesian nonparametric framework for multilevel clustering which utilizes group-level context information to simultaneously discover low-dimensional structures of the group contents and partitions groups into clusters. Using the Dirichlet process as the building block, our model constructs a product base-measure with a nested structure to accommodate content and context observations at multiple levels. The proposed model possesses properties that link the nested Dirichlet processes (nDP) and the Dirichlet process mixture models (DPM) in an interesting way: integrating out all contents results in the DPM over contexts, whereas integrating out group-specific contexts results in the nDP mixture over content variables. We provide a Polyaurn view of the model and an efficient collapsed Gibbs inference procedure. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate the advantage of utilizing context information via our model in both text and image domains.


Global risk maps are unified databases that provide risk exposure data to supervisors and the broader financial market community worldwide. We think of them as giant matrices that track the bilateral (firm-level) exposures of banks, non-bank financial institutions and other relevant market participants. While useful in principle, these giant matrices are unlikely to materialise outside the narrow and targeted efforts currently being pursued in the supervisory domain. This reflects the well known trade-offs between the macro and micro dimensions of data collection and dissemination. It is possible, however, to adapt existing statistical reporting frameworks in ways that would facilitate an analysis of exposures and build-ups of risk over time at the aggregate (sectoral) level. To do so would move us significantly in the direction of constructing the ideal global risk map. It would also help us sidestep the complex legal challenges surrounding the sharing or dissemination of firm-level data, and it would support a two-step approach to systemic risk monitoring. That is, the alarms sounded by the aggregate data would yield the critical pieces of information to inform targeted analysis of more detailed data at the firm- or market-level.


GMPLS provides control for multiple switching technologies and for
hierarchical switching within a technology. GMPLS routing and
signaling use common values to indicate the type of switching
technology. These values are carried in routing protocols via the
Switching Capability field, and in signaling protocols via the
Switching Type field. While the values used in these fields are the
primary indicators of the technology and hierarchy level being
controlled, the values are not consistently defined and used across
the different technologies supported by GMPLS. This document is
intended to resolve the inconsistent definition and use of the
Switching Capability and Type fields by narrowly scoping the meaning
and use of the fields. This document updates all documents that use
the GMPLS Switching Capability and Types fields, in particular RFCs
3471, 4202, 4203, and 5307.


INTRODUCTION: Body image perception refers to an individual's idea about his/her body. Dissatisfaction regarding body image may have a major impact on one's psychological well-being and may be a risk factor for eating disorders. This is generally seen to be more prevalent among growing individuals, namely, adolescents, and this study was conducted to assess the prevalence, find the underlying risk factors, and assess means to manage the conditions effectively to prevent an adverse impact on mental health and well-being. This study was aimed at estimating the prevalence of body image dissatisfaction among adolescents and to make a comparison of these findings among male and female adolescents, and also between the early, middle, and late teens. METHODOLOGY: A total of 309 adolescents (M = 128, F = 181; age range 10–19 years; and mean age = 15.2) were assessed using anthropometric measurements, Body Mass Index calculation, and body image perception questionnaire. This information was correlated with the self-esteem scores of these individuals using Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Questionnaire. RESULTS: Both males and females were found to be equally concerned about their appearance and body shape (51.46% and 48.53%, respectively). Among these, we found that the middle (14–16 years) and late teens (17–19 years) had higher scores of body image dissatisfaction compared to early teens (10–13 years). Majority (62.38%) of the early teens was unconcerned with their body shapes. Not only overweight but also even underweight adolescents had higher body shape dissatisfaction with 64.72% perceiving their body shape wrongly. Mental health and self-esteem scores were shown to have a positive correlation with body dissatisfaction indicating that those who were dissatisfied with their body were more likely to have lower self-esteem (p = 0.036). CONCLUSION: The present study found that majority of the adolescents has body dissatisfaction, which negatively affects their self-esteem.


This paper addresses the problem of handling deformable linear objects (DLOs) in a suitable way to avoid acute vibration. Different types of adjustment-motions that eliminate vibration of deformable objects and can be attached to the end of an arbitrary end-effector trajectory are presented. For describing the dynamics of deformable linear objects, the finite element method is used to derive the dynamic differential equations. Genetic algorithm is used to find the optimal adjustment motion for each simulation example. Experiments are conducted to verify the presented manipulating method.