EU securities regulation has established a taxonomy of environmentally sustainable activities. This article discusses, from a law and economics standpoint, the potential of this taxonomy to support sustainable corporate governance. Corporate governance can be an efficient way to channel investor preferences towards sustainability because the concentration of institutional shareholding has lowered the transaction costs of shareholder action. However, there is a principal-agent problem between institutional investors and their beneficiaries, which depends on greenwashing and undermines sustainable corporate governance. This article argues that introducing environmental sustainability into EU mandatory disclosure aligns the institutional investors' incentives with the interest of their beneficiaries and may foster the efficient inclusion of sustainability in corporate governance. The argument is threefold. Firstly, the EU taxonomy may curb greenwashing by standardizing the disclosure of environmental sustainability. Secondly, this information may become salient for the beneficiaries as the same standards define the sustainability preferences to be considered in recommending and marketing financial products. Thirdly, sustainability disclosure prompts institutional investors to compete for sustainability-minded beneficiaries. Being unable to avoid unsustainable companies altogether, institutional investors are expected to cater to beneficiaries' preferences for environmental sustainability using voice instead of an exit.


Organically modified cage-like double four-ring spherosilicates have received considerable interest in the construction of nanosized hybrid materials, as well as building units for structural well-defined polymers. This group is extended by perfluoroalkyl ligands containing spherosilicates, synthesized by addition reaction of the octahydridodimethylsiloxyoctasilsesquioxane [H(CH3)2Si]8Si8O20 and heptadecafluorodecyl methacrylate. The resultant liquid spherosilicate substituted with eight terminal perfluoroalkyl groups was characterized by 29Si and 13C NMR spectroscopies and MALDI Time-of-Flight mass spectrometry. Partial substitution of perfluoroalkyl ligands by trimethoxysilyl containing groups provides condensable precursors for the synthesis of hydrophobic and oleophobic materials via the sol-gel process. This new spherosilicate, carrying on average four perfluoroalkyl groups and four trimethoxysilyl groups shows better hydrophobic and oleophobic properties compared with commonly used perfluoroalkyltrialkoxysilanes under identical concentration of perfluoroalkyl chains. In addition a comprehensive literature survey is given on structural well characterized, organically modified cage-like double four-ring spherosilicates.


The expanding research on Borderline personality disorder (BPD) increasingly confirms continuity from adolescence to adulthood, in phenomenology, structure, stability, validity and morbidity. This has led to a more developmental perspective on BPD. The current thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of the development of BPD by investigating associations between cluster B personality pathology, and BPD particularly, with mentalizing reflected in social information processing (SIP) and relationships with parents and peers. Chapter 2 integrates two research traditions targeting the understanding of BPD in adolescents; 1) personality according to the Five Factor Model and 2) mentalizing capacities reflected in social information processing (SIP). In a clinical adolescent sample, the hypothesized effects of personality dimensions on personality pathology, was found only for the Neuroticism, most specifically on BPD. This link was mediated by reported memories about past frustrating/conflict situations with peers. Moderating effects suggested that high Agreeableness and sometimes low Neuroticism can buffer the link between SIP and personality pathology. The findings in Chapter 3 showed that the more severe the cluster B personality pathology, the higher the intensity of reported emotions; the more likely adolescents were to choose inadequate coping strategies and aggressive reactions in social situations; and the more positively they evaluated aggressive reactions. Severity of ASPD and BPD had unique associations with distinctive SIP-variables: ASPD being more related to inadequate coping strategies, less reflection on other's motives, and aggressive responses; while BPD being more related to avoidant or prosocial responses and in particular to memories of frustrating events. In chapter 4 it was demonstrated that adolescents with more BPD symptoms experienced less parental support and more negative interactions with parents. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that negative interactions with parents - but not with best friends - are related to symptoms of BPD. Relationships with best friends did not buffer or reinforce the effect of negative interactions with parents. Chapter 5 investigated whether BPD could be predicted by adverse childhood experiences; and the quality of current relations in adolescents with nonsuicidal self-harm (NSSI) disorder referred to mental health care. Higher levels of BPD were related to increased adverse childhood experiences, but not to current social relations. Current social relationships with parent and peers did not show a buffering effect in the relation between adverse childhood experiences and BPD, with the exception of adolescents with full BPD, where a combined effect of adversity and parent relations was found. The closing chapter integrates the results of the previous chapters, indicating that several SIP factors seem to contribute to the understanding of BPD. Relationships with parents, and negative interactions in particular, can play a profound role in adolescents with BPD, as they cannot be compensated for nor buffered by relationships with best friends. Although adverse childhood experiences were highly correlated with current relations with parents, they could not be compensated for by current relations with parents and peers, indicating that parental relations set the stage for psychosocial relations more in general within BPD.


ABSTRACT Western countries are experiencing a wave of violent attacks against places of worship, stores, schools and other crowded locations. The perpetrators of these attacks explain their actions as necessary to stem an "invasion" of immigrants which threatens the very existence of the white race. At the same time, many of the same countries have experienced very similar attacks motivated by a particularly contemporary form of misogyny. Known as incels, an abbreviation of involuntary celibate, young men in this community believe they are denied sexual partners by feminism and societal norms of male attractiveness. These two series of attacks are generally understood to be separate (if overlapping) forms of extremism. In this article I contend that the concepts of white genocide central to white nationalism and misogynistic incelism are more intertwined than it appears. Misogyny and the notion of white genocide are mutually escalatory. Rather than separate and complementary forms of extremism, the two ideologies converge to create a single more volatile worldview, one which makes its proponents more prone to the use of violence. Misogyny and white genocide are synergistic, their effect greater than the sum of their parts.


Abstract Background The incidence of infections is poorly studied in patients (pts) with neuroendocrine (NET) tumors treated with everolimus (eve) outside of clinical trials. We aimed to evaluate the incidence and risk factors for opportunistic infections (OpI) or any serious infection among eligible pts. Methods Retrospective multicenter Latin American cohort of consecutive pts with advanced NET who received at least one dose of eve. Duration of eve, comorbidities, organ dysfunctions, institution, type of prior treatment and concurrent immunosuppressive condition were tested for possible associations with serious (grade 3-5) infections in univariate and multivariable logistic regression models. Results 111 pts from 5 centers were included: most were men (57.7%) and had pancreatic NET (49.5%). The median duration of eve treatment was 8.9 months and 30 (27%) pts required a dose reduction of eve due to any toxicity. The median overall survival of pts was 54.3 months. In a median follow-up of 32.9 months, 34 (30.6%) pts experienced infections of any grade, 24 (21.6%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 12.9 – 28.5%) pts had a serious infection and 8 (7.2%, 95% CI: 2.6 – 12.6%) had at least one OpI. Among pts with OpI, the pathogens were Candida sp, Toxoplasma gondi, Pneumocystis sp and Cryptococcus sp; the most common serious infections were pneumonia and gastrointestinal infection. Eight pts (7.2%) died and all deaths were deemed as related to eve. The multivariable analysis identified eve duration (every 6-month increase; Odds Ratio [OR]: 1.26, 95%CI: 1.02-1.55; p = 0.04) and Charlson comorbidity score (OR: 1.47, 95% CI: 1.03-2.08; p = 0.03) as independent risk factors for serious infection. Conclusions Infections are more frequent in NET pts using eve than previously reported by clinical trials - 2% had serious infections in the RADIANT-3 trial. Pts on eve should be closely monitored for infections, especially those receiving eve for several months. Legal entity responsible for the study Rachel Riechelmann. Funding Has not received any funding. Disclosure J.M. O'Connor: Honoraria (self): Novartis. R.P. Riechelmann: Honoraria (self): Novartis. All other authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


Professional football clubs are ubiquitous in Europe. Every small to medium sized city has one. But most cities do not have an F.C. Barcelona or Bayern Munich or Manchester United. These are among the 'super clubs' of Europe: they win more games, attract more supporters, and make more money than other clubs. These clubs were not always the juggernauts one sees today, however. This paper looks at how they emerged. It tells more of an economic story than a sporting one, recounting a narrative similar to that one might tell about the emergence of successful multinational companies. According to this narrative, super clubs rise by producing increasingly more complex products because of expanding productive capabilities, providing growing opportunities for economic spillovers in the process. As indicated, this narrative focuses particularly on the 'capabilities' that have helped super clubs emerge. This focus draws on an emerging theory about economic complexity, which is used to frame the paper and is briefly introduced in section two (following an introduction to super clubs). The theory posits that production results from the creative combination of economic capabilities—or know-how. Some products require few common capabilities, are produced by everyone, and have relatively low value: like the average football club. Other products require many capabilities (including some that are rare), have high value, and are produced by a select group: like the super club. This theory is used to suggest two hypotheses about how football clubs become super: First, clubs do not become super by just producing better versions of the same products (a successful football team). Instead, over time, these clubs produce more complex, higher-value, globally consumed products.Second, clubs become super by accumulating new capabilities (or know-how) over time, manifest in new skills and people accessed through a range of 'catalyst capabilities' that source the skills. The catalyst capabilities include engagement mechanisms (through which skills are located and contracted), capital, infrastructure, and adaptive leadership. These hypotheses are put to the test in this study. Section three discusses the method used in such analysis, which is a version of systematic process analysis. It involved tracking the rise of four (generally agreed) super clubs—F.C. Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, and Real Madrid—and two clubs that are potentially rising into this group—Manchester City and Swansea City. The work centered on identifying and examining key moments in the histories of the clubs, flushing out the factors that influenced their rise, and translating evidence into common narratives about how super clubs emerge. The findings are contrasted with evidence from historical experience in clubs that enjoy close proximity to the focal clubs but are (arguably) not 'super clubs' (like Espanyol, TSV 1860 Munich, Stockport County and Bury, and Rayo Vallecano). Section four offers findings from the analysis. It shows, first, that all of the super clubs have indeed seen a 'complexification' of their product lines—moving progressively towards a more complex and diverse set of services and products revolving around the club 'brand'. Second, the changes in production are clearly facilitated by expanded capabilities. These include expanded skills and people and catalyst capabilities like engagement mechanisms, capital, infrastructure, and adaptive leadership, which have all been growing with time: For instance, all of the clubs started with generalist players and managers but gradually employed specialist players and managers. This has led to the clubs now having large and highly diversified playing and non-playing personnel. The catchment area of this talent has also grown, with skills increasingly sourced from other countries and professions and sectors (showing that skills needed to be super come from a broad community). The engagement mechanisms through which new 'skills and people' were found are impressive. They include factors outside of the clubs' control—like economic and political and legal changes that fostered the mobility of skills and people. They also include club-specific global scouting mechanisms, internal football academies, and networks of feeder clubs. Commercial linkages have also helped engage new business skills. Capital matters in all cases, and is manifest in both direct contributions of money and in the more general support of paying customers and sponsors willing to contribute to club coffers. Capital sources have diversified and became more complex over time in all the super clubs. Infrastructure capabilities also matter a great deal. Super clubs started out with small, locally accessible stadiums where they met, trained, played, and did everything else. Over time, however, the stadiums grew in size, were connected to transportation infrastructure that allowed greater accessibility beyond the local community (through regional roads and trains and even international airports) and added properties to allow for separated match, training, development, and business activities. A set of supporting capabilities inside and outside the clubs has also proved vital to foster the emergence of the more complex production in these clubs. These are called 'adaptive leadership' capabilities and manifest in clear actions of people in club and local government leadership—to respond to threats and opportunities, learn from other experiences, promote new vision in the face of opposition, establish formal and informal negotiation mechanisms and partnerships, and more.A conclusion summarizes the paper's findings by suggesting a simple acronym describing capabilities that foster the rise of super clubs: Special (Skilled People, Engagement mechanisms, Capital, Infrastructure, and Adaptive leadership). It summarizes the story about how emergent and expanded capabilities have fostered production complexity in these clubs, and draws conclusions about the likely capability differences between today's average and great clubs. The ending commentary discusses how this study adds to literature on sports economics and the economics of complexity. It suggests ways in which future work can build on these contributions. Research supported by the International Center for Sports Security (ICSS). All views and contents are those of the author alone and should not be seen to reflect the views of the ICSS.


Threshold loading is a method of incrementally loading the inspiratory muscles, which requires development of an adjustable threshold pressure (Pth) before air will flow. In the ideal device, flow is independent of pressure once Pth is exceeded. A "weighted plunger" apparatus is commonly used, but devices described previously perform unreliably at high inspiratory load. We have modified this apparatus using the diaphragm and valve seating from a threshold valve used to deliver positive airway pressure (AMBU 10, AMBU International, Denmark) to yield improved pressure-flow characteristics. With this device, there was a linear relationship between Pth and weight on the plunger (r = 0.998), and flow was largely independent of pressure once Pth was exceeded: pressure developed at an inspiratory flow of 1.3 +/- 0.1 l.s-1 was 13.6 +/- 7.0% below Pth. Our modified weighted plunger apparatus allows consistent and reliable threshold loading of inspiratory muscles, even at high inspiratory loads.


The problem of modeling the dynamical regulation process within a gene network has been of great interest for a long time. We propose to model this dynamical system with a large number of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs), in which the regulation function is estimated directly from data without any parametric assumption. Most current research assumes the gene regulation network is static, but in reality, the connection and regulation function of the network may change with time or environment. This change is reflected in our dynamical model by allowing the regulation function varying with the gene expression and forcing this regulation function to be zero if no regulation happens. We introduce a statistical method called functional SCAD to estimate a time‐varying sparse and directed gene regulation network, and simultaneously, to provide a smooth estimation of the regulation function and identify the interval in which no regulation effect exists. The finite sample performance of the proposed method is investigated in a Monte Carlo simulation study. Our method is demonstrated by estimating a time‐varying directed gene regulation network of 20 genes involved in muscle development during the embryonic stage of Drosophila melanogaster.


ABSTRACT This article discusses how members of marginalized groups in the Indian state of Gujarat make sense of hegemonic discourses about national development in light of their own experiences and material circumstances. For many, the idea of development resonates even when they do not experience material progress in their lives. This partial hegemony of development discourse can be explained by the concept of "political articulation.". This captures the political process by which parties succeed, at specific historical moments and under certain circumstances, in joining different, even potentially conflictual interests by referring to a common idea and project. The article focuses on Ahmedabad city where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has created a cross-caste bloc through the trope of development. The BJP has been particularly effective in linking the idea of development to mundane concerns about security, identity and spatial order. However, anxieties about the degradation of labour by increased casualization, informalization, and socio-spatial marginalization have disrupted this common sense linkage and weakened the hegemony of the BJP's model of development.


This paper discusses the opening moves of an international multidisciplinary research project involving researchers from Ireland, Northern Ireland and the US, aiming to address the global problem of end-of-life disposal of wind turbine blades. The problem is one of enormous scale on several levels: a typical 2.0 MW turbine has three 50m long blades containing around 20 tonnes of fibre reinforced plastic (FRP). It is estimated that by 2050, 39.8 million tonnes of material from the global wind industry will await disposal. Whilst land-fill is the current means of disposal, the nature of the materials used in the composite construction of wind blades (glass and carbon fibres, resins, foams) means it unsustainable. Hence, the project sets out to deploy innovative design and logistical concepts for reusing and recycling these blades. The project begins within an innovative joint design studio, staged between Queen's University Belfast and the Georgia Institute of Technology, where architecture students will, within the highly-constrained contexts of the blade properties and the potential reuse sites, systematically generate, filter, and prototype a selection of proposals, reusing the decommissioned wind turbine blades in buildings, infrastructure, landscape, and public art. The paper analyzes the potential and challenges of considering this highly constrained and yet multidisciplinary problem within the context of a Masters level Architecture studio. The paper concludes with an analysis of how outcome-driven design problems challenge traditional design studio cultures, acknowledging the need to make processes and ideas more explicit in order to categorise, analyse, rank and refine proposed architectural solutions.


Under the economic substance doctrine as codified in 26 U.S.C. § 7701(o), legislatively unintended tax benefits may be disallowed if a transaction lacks a substantial business purpose or fails to accomplish a meaningful change in the taxpayer's economic position. In a recent article on framing the "transaction" in economic substance cases, David Hariton makes three interrelated points. First, he observes that even though the judicial outcome may depend largely on how the relevant transaction is framed, few courts have explicitly focused on the framing issue. Second, he proposes that courts should presumptively frame the underlying transaction broadly by focusing on the entirety of the taxpayer's undertaking, rather than disaggregating particular tax-motivated steps or structures. Finally, he believes that the principal target of the economic substance doctrine should be "tax shelters" whose defining hallmark is that they are "extraneous to the taxpayer's business rather than merely an aspect of it."In considering framing explicitly, Hariton focuses on what is arguably the most difficult issue that courts are likely to face in applying the economic substances doctrine — namely, whether to disallow tax benefits by disaggregating tax-motivated steps (which, standing alone, clearly lack economic substance) from a purported larger transaction. While Hariton understandably seeks to establish an outer boundary for Coltec's disaggregation approach, his proposed presumption against bifurcation would deprive the economic substance doctrine of much of its essential flexibility. In enacting section 7701, Congress expressly approved of the disaggregation approach and gave courts broad discretion in framing the relevant transaction. Although such flexibility inevitably gives rise to uncertainty, the central question under the codified version of economic substance (as under prior law) is whether the overall result of a multi-step transaction is consistent with Congressional intent. If the tax benefits are clearly contemplated — as arguably was the case in UPS — the taxpayer should win. By contrast, transactions that seek to exploit unintended technical gaps deserve to fail. Perhaps ironically, codification may encourage taxpayers to argue that such transactions do not work technically, in the hope of avoiding strict liability penalties under section 7701.


Biodiversity is multifaceted and represents numerous dimensions expressing variation in richness and abundances of species, ecosystem functions, phylogenetic relationships, morphology, traits and interactions. Such dimensions are correlated to varying degrees and recent research has attempted to better understand behavior of such correlations. We define dimensionality of biodiversity as degree of redundancy in variation among multiple dimensions of biodiversity. One fundamental question regarding biodiversity is whether its dimensionality is spatially structured, also exhibiting geographic gradients. We examine if redundancy among dimensions of biodiversity changes latitudinally thereby contributing to increased tropical complexity. Geographic range maps of bats were overlaid on a 100  100 km grid of the New World to determine species composition of each cell. Species richness and three measures each of phylogenetic, functional and phenetic diversity were calculated. Dimensionality was estimated as evenness of eigenvalues generated from a principal components analysis (PCA) of multiple measures of biodiversity. High dimensionality is characterized by low correlations among biodiversity measures and high evenness of eigenvalues from PCA, whereas low dimensionality is characterized by high correlations and low evenness of eigenvalues. Latitudinal gradients of dimensionality were determined by regression analysis. Slope of the empirical relationship was compared to slopes generated from two null models that randomized the distribution of species. Dimensionality of biodiversity does indeed exhibit a latitudinal gradient, decreasing with increasing latitude. This empirical gradient was stronger than expected by the random distribution of species. Additionally, spatial variation in dimensionality of biodiversity could not be explained by a similar underlying pattern in variation of environmental conditions. Correlations among different dimensions of biodiversity vary spatially, and interpretations of such correlations should be geographically explicit. Mechanisms proposed to explain latitudinal gradients need not only account for gradients of biodiversity, but gradients in dimensionality as well. A gradient in dimensionality suggests that conservation strategies that rely on maximization of a single metric, such as species richness, might be of varying utility in different geographic contexts.


WHAT IS SOUTHERN HISTORY? MORE TO THE POINT, WHAT IS "THE South"? It is a place defined as much by social, cultural, and political dynamics as it is by geography. I am reminded of that fact every time my scholarship is linked to my identity. When people find out that I am a southern historian, they invariably ask whether I am from the South. Actually, the question is less about my identity than the region's identity. Those outside academia are inquiring about my credentials to write about the South, which they see as utterly exotic or intimately familiar, depending on their own backgrounds. Either way, they construe the South as a place so mystifying that only insiders could fathom its secrets. My identity thus serves as the most important line on my curriculum vitae, establishing the expertise they consider necessary to study a unique region. For those inside academia, the question is informed by historiographical traditions drenched in southern exceptionalism, in which regional distinctiveness moves the South outside the major historical currents in U.S. history. Those presumptions put native daughters and sons in an academic bind, positioning them as either the best analysts of the region (because of their familiarity with this exceptional region) or the worst (because of their familiarity with this exceptional region). In the academic context, moreover, the privileges of southern exceptionalism are decidedly limited. For many professional historians, the South's unique identity relegates its historians to a subfield perceived to be as provincial and backward as the region itself. Southern historians study a particular place that is so different from the rest of the United States that it cannot represent the national experience. Or can it? In this essay, I take issue with conceptions of the South and southern history that separate the region from the rest of the United States. I argue that southern distinctiveness exists more as a cultural and historiographical construct than as a useful description of southern history. In fact, many of the issues associated with the South in the historiography were actually national in scope. White southern slaveholders embedded slavery within the governing structures of the new republic, ensuring that the issue would remain a national one, even after northern states abolished the institution. At the same founding moment, black southerners also put slavery and racial inequality on the national agenda by highlighting the difference between the reality of their lives and the Revolutionary ideals of freedom and equality for all. In both instances, southerners turned regional concerns into national issues. But if slavery and racial inequality took particularly extreme forms in the South, they were never uniquely southern. Even as the nation teetered on the brink of civil war, support for slavery continued to cut across regional boundaries. If anything, region had even less to do with questions of racial equality. That was particularly evident during Reconstruction. Southern states, whose electorate included African American men, backed the Reconstruction amendments more enthusiastically than many northern states where the electorate was composed largely of white men with entrenched racial biases. Much later, in the twentieth century, as riots erupted in northern cities following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, it became less and less possible to pretend that racial inequality was just a southern problem. In these instances, as in so many others, the dynamics of southern history are inseparable from central themes in U.S. history. That is why southern historians are often called on to represent U.S. history. In the past thirty years, half of the presidents of the Organization of American Historians (OAH) have worked in the field of southern history, a percentage far out of proportion to the South's share of the nation's population. In that same period, eight presidents of the Southern Historical Association have also served as presidents of the OAH. …


INTRODUCTION
Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) affects global health with increasing incidence and mortality rate. It may involve exposure to carcinogens from tobacco smoking or chewing. Alteration in expression of gene encoding the enzymes concerned with carcinogen biotransformation along with oxidative stress may increase or decrease the risk of cancer.

AIM
To evaluate the expression of CYP1B1 gene in OSCC patients along with its relation with oxidative stress and phase 2 detoxification enzyme status.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In the present study, CYP1B1 genotypic analysis was carried out along with estimation of serum Total Antioxidant Activity (TAA), erythrocyte Malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and serum Glutathione-S-Transferase (GST) activity in 20 OSCC patients and statistically compared with that of age matched 20 healthy subjects, served as control by using student's t-test.

RESULTS
It was observed that 85% of histopathologically diagnosed OSCC patients had CYP1B1 expression with significantly elevated levels of MDA (p<0.001). In addition, plasma total antioxidant status and serum GST levels were decreased significantly (p<0.05) in OSCC patients as compared to the healthy controls to overcome the burden of oxidative stress.

CONCLUSION
On the basis of the present study, we conclude that the expression of CYP1B1 is an important determinant of carcinogenesis and significantly associated with oxidative stress characterized by decreased serum GST and total antioxidant levels in OSCC patients.


Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology is considered as one of the enabling technologies to scale up the data rates for the future communication systems. Traditional MIMO systems employ digital beamforming where each antenna element is equipped with one radio frequency (RF) chain. When the number of the antennas are scaled up, the cost and power consumption of massive MIMO systems also increase significantly. Recently, hybrid analog-and-digital beamformers have attracted a lot of attention as a cost effective approach to benefit from the advantages of massive MIMO. In hybrid structure, a small number of RF chains are connected to a large number of antennas through a network of phase shifters. The optimal hybrid beamforming problem is a complex nonconvex optimization due to the nonconvex constraint imposed by phase shifters. The overall objective of this thesis is to provide simple and effective hybrid beamforming solutions for narrowband point-to-point and multiuser massive MIMO scenarios.

Firstly, hybrid beamforming problem for a point-to-point communication system with perfect channel state information (CSI) is investigated, and an effective codebook based hybrid beamforming with low resolution phase shifters is proposed which is suitable for sparse scattering channels. Then, by leveraging the properties of massive MIMO, an asymptotically optimal hybrid beamforming solution as well as its closed-form formula will be presented. It will be shown that the proposed method is effective in both sparse and rich scattering propagation environments. In addition, the closed-form expression and lower-bounds for the achievable rates are derived when analog and digital phase shifters are employed.

Secondly, hybrid beamforming problem to maximise the total sum-rate for the downlink of multiuser MIMO is investigated, and an effective solution as well as its closed-form expression for this system is proposed. The presented solutions for the single-antenna and multiantenna scenarios are shown to be effective as they can achieve a similar sum-rate as digital beamforming can reach. In addition, it is shown that the proposed technique with low-cost low resolution phase shifters at the RF beamformer demonstrates a comparable performance to that of a hybrid beamformer with an expensive analog beamformer.

Finally, two novel hybrid beamforming techniques are proposed to reduce the power consumption at the RF beamformer. Defining a threshold level, it is shown that half of the phase shifters could be turned off without a performance loss when the wireless channel matrix is modeled by Rayleigh fading. Then, we reduce the number of the phase shifters by using a combination of phase shifters and switches at the RF beamformer. The proposed methods can significantly reduce the power consumption as switches, in general, have lower power consumption compared to phase shifters. It is noted that the presented algorithms and the closed-form expressions of their performance are derived by using the asymptotic properties of the elements of the singular vectors for the rich scattering channel matrix.


The authors investigate hypotheses concerning observed associations between clay minerals and sandstone pressure solution and cementation. By use of a quantitative reaction-transport-deformation model that the authors set forth earlier, simulations of diagenetic interactions in clay-bearing sandstones in time and space show that different combinations of kinetic mechanisms acting as quartz grain-free faces and contacts produce characteristic spatial patterns in clay content, quartz-overgrowth abundance, porosity, and amount of pressure solution-related compaction. Comparison of simulation results to existing data from sandstones provides constraints on the operating diagenetic processes. The authors conclude that thin clay coatings on sand grains sufficiently retard development of quartz overgrowth by slowing precipitation kinetics, intracontact clay minerals promote water-film diffusion pressure solution, and free-face pressure solution operates within clay-free sand-grain boundaries.


Between 1975 and 1983 the Swedish labour movement discussed a proposal to establish wage earner funds that would gradually shift the ownership in medium to large companies from employers to workers. This article starts by shedding light on the genesis of the proposal in the 1960s and 1970s and the reactions it provoked in Swedish society. Focus then switches to how the Meidner plan was understood in Italy in a time of pronounced social conflict marked, on one hand, by the redefinition of the relationship between trade unions and politics and, on the other hand, by soaring opposition among the various trade unions and the growing distance between the two major leftist parties. These divisions reverberated on the ways the wage earner funds – in their various versions – were understood by the organizations of the Italian labour movement; the assessment of the plan's feasibility and its applicability to the Italian case came to reflect conflicting views on industrial and economic democracy and on the relationship between Nordic social-democracies and Italian reformism.


From the cutting-edge of technology comes this book on Building Information Modeling (BIM), the newest technology in the AEC industry that allows the professional to create 3D models of a building that includes much more data than a traditional 2D CAD file. Developing BIM Content explains the type of information that can go into a BIM model from a vendor-neutral perspective and explores different methods for organizing content. For anyone interested in creating feature-rich BIM object and models that work on any platform, this is a must-have reference.


Long-period magnetotelluric data have been used to image the deep electrical structure of the Cascadia subduction zone in British Columbia, Canada. Zones of elevated electrical conductivity were found in both the forearc and backarc regions and are interpreted as a consequence of the fluid release from subducting slab. A shallow zone of high conductivity beneath Vancouver Island is likely due to fluids that are trapped above the subducting plate. East of this structure is a conductive (∼0.03 S/m) forearc mantle wedge that also exhibits low seismic velocities and may be serpentinized. A free fluid phase is required to account for this enhanced conductivity. Elevated conductivities are observed in the upper mantle throughout the backarc (∼0.01 S/m) and strongly support the hypothesis of a shallow, convecting asthenosphere. This enhanced upper mantle conductivity can be explained by either hydrogen ion diffusion in olivine minerals, or by a few percent partial melting (<4%).


Respiratory syndrome related corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) is a new pathogen causing pandemic. People throughout different countries are quarantined with loss of social life and economy. Physicians are generally using drugs for symptomatic treatment including chloroquine etc. Researchers are working to make way out of this pandemic virus keeping in mind the treatment regimens of other pathogens of respiratory tract infection followed by boosting the immunity of the patients. Natural components are in use to get relief from viral infections and as immunity enhancers. Considering mechanism of action and chemical structure of drug component in use, this article aimed at a mini review to postulate that fused heterocyclic moieties with the functional group's carboxylic acid, amines, hydroxyl etc. may be considered in designing antiviral drugs for SARS-CoV-2.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the determinants of the modest correlation between self-report and performance-related measures in patients with osteoarthritis of the hip or knee.

METHODS
Measures included the Lower Extremity Functional Scale (LEFS), the self paced walk, timed up-and-go, and stair test. Each performance measure consisted of 3 domains: time, pain (visual analog scale), and exertion (Borg scale). Activity specificity was assessed by examining correlations between the LEFS with single activity and multiple activity time scores. Domain specificity was examined by comparing correlations between the LEFS and single and multiple domain scores. The impact of measurement error was considered.

RESULTS
Increasing the number of activity time scores had no effect. Forming a composite performance score based on time, pain, and exertion substantially increased the correlation from 0.44 (composite timed score) to 0.59 (pooled domain and activity score) (P = 0.009).

CONCLUSION
Performance scores based on time alone appear to inadequately represent the breadth of health concepts associated with functional status.


The Technical Assistance for Nutrition (TAN) programme, funded with UK aid from the UK government, is a mechanism to provide technical assistance to Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) country governments and build capacities towards advancing their multisectoral nutrition agendas, in line with the SUN Movement principles and roadmap. TAN also strives to generate, learn from, adopt and disseminate knowledge of what works within and across countries in the SUN Movement. TAN partners are the SUN Movement Secretariat (SMS), Maximising the Quality of Scaling up Nutrition Plus (MQSUN+), Nutrition International (NI), and the Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN). MQSUN+ and NI provide TA to SUN countries, while ENN provides knowledge management (KM) support to SUN countries, the TAN programme and SMS more broadly. MQSUN+ and NI TAN also support the SMS as needed.


This title presents an innovative approach to Dewey's view of rhetoric as art, revealing an 'ontology of becoming'. In "Democracy and Rhetoric", Nathan Crick articulates from John Dewey's body of work a philosophy of rhetoric that reveals the necessity for bringing forth a democratic life infused with the spirit of ethics, a method of inquiry, and a sense of beauty. Crick relies on rhetorical theory as well interdisciplinary insights from philosophy, history, sociology, aesthetics, and political science as he demonstrates that significant engagement with issues of rhetoric and communication are central to Dewey's political philosophy. In his rhetorical reading of Dewey, Crick examines the sophistical underpinnings of Dewey's philosophy and finds it much informed by notions of radical individuality, aesthetic experience, creative intelligence, and persuasive advocacy as essential to the formation of communities of judgment. Crick illustrates that for Dewey rhetoric is an art situated within a complex and challenging social and natural environment, wielding influence and authority for those well versed in its methods and capable of experimenting with its practice. From this standpoint the unique and necessary function of rhetoric in a democracy is to advance minority views in such a way that they might have the opportunity to transform overarching public opinion through persuasion in an egalitarian public arena. The truest power of rhetoric in a democracy then is the liberty for one to influence the many through free, full, and fluid communication. Ultimately Crick argues that Dewey's sophistical rhetorical values and techniques form a naturalistic 'ontology of becoming' in which discourse is valued for its capacity to guide a self, a public, and a world in flux toward some improved incarnation. Appreciation of this ontology of becoming - of democracy as a communication-driven work in progress - gives greater social breadth and historical scope to Dewey's philosophy while solidifying his lasting contributions to rhetoric in an active and democratic public sphere.


Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) was explored as a means for physicochemical and biopharmaceutical characterisation of small drug molecules. Special attention was paid to the characterisation of acid-base and lipophilic properties of drug compounds by analysing their migration behaviour in different CE systems. The thesis comprises an overview of the field together with separate studies on the different topics.The utility of CE for the determination of pKa of labile drug compounds was investigated. A general methodology was developed comprising key steps such as the use of a stabilising sample diluent, electromigration injection, and analyte characterisation by UV-Vis spectroscopy. The methodology was successfully applied for two sets of drug compounds, labile at low and high pH, respectively.CE was also evaluated for experimental modelling of passive intestinal membrane permeability by studying analyte migration in liposomal, microemulsion and micellar electrolytes. Good correlation is reported between CE migration and Caco-2 cell absorption estimates and for in vitro inhibition of thrombin. Interestingly, a slightly better correlation was obtained for liposomal electrolytes.The utility of liposomes in CE was further extended by developing a novel procedure for immobilising liposomes inside fused silica capillaries. This approach enabled direct on-line coupling of liposome CE to high sensitivity mass spectrometry. The utility of liposome-coated capillaries is demonstrated for estimating drug passive intestinal membrane permeability. Its use in biopharmaceutical drug profiling is discussed.Utilising advanced molecular descriptors, commonly applied to in silico prediction of passive intestinal membrane permeability, migration of analytes in micellar CE systems could be well predicted. The novel approach was based on hierarchical multivariate analytics and use of molecular descriptors for both analytes and micellar media surfactants. Demonstrated results propose that the CE format could be useful to validate how representative molecular descriptors are for describing molecular behaviour in complex liquid media, e.g. physiological systems.


Osseointegrated implants in 50 edentulous jaws were studied during a 2-year observation period. The implant survival rate was 89% in the maxillae and 97% in the mandibles. The marginal bone loss averaged 1.7 mm in the maxillae and 1.1 mm in the mandibles. Most of this bone loss occurred during the first year. The bone loss was greater in jaws with a preoperatively minor resorption of the alveolar ridge than in those with moderate or advanced resorption. The bone loss was also greater at the medially positioned implants than at those more posterior.


In this work the structural dependence of plastic rotation capacity in RC beams is evaluated using the Finite Element Method. The objective is to achieve a better understanding of the non-linear behavior of reinforced concrete members and perform extensive parameter studies, using a rational model developed by Bigaj [1] to analyze the phenomenon of plastic rotation capacity in reinforced concrete members. It is assumed that only bending failure is relevant due to sufficient member resistance against shear and torsion. The paper begins with the physical and theoretical background of the phenomenon of plastic hinge development in RC structures. Special emphasis is laid on the issue of structural dependence of deformation capacity of plastic hinges in RC members. Member size dependence and influence of properties of construction materials were emphasized as well. The essential components of the Bigajs model for calculating the plastic rotation capacity are discussed. The behaviour of the plastic hinge is analysed taking into account the strain localisation in the damage zones of the hinge region. The Fictitious Crack Model (FCM) and the Compressive Damage Zone Model (CDZ) are adopted in a Fracture Mechanics approach to model the behaviour of concrete in tension and compression, respectively. The approach is implemented in FEMOOP, a FEM in-house solver under development, and applied to evaluate ductility in 2D beams. The models were generated with GiD, a pre-processor and post-processor developed by CIMNE, and analyzed with the capabilities implemented in FEMOOP


Musculoskeletal modeling based on Electromyography (EMG) has many applications in physiotherapy and biologically-inspired robotics. In this article, a novel methodology for the modeling of the dynamics of an antagonistic muscle pair that actuates the human ankle joint movements will be established. As it will be presented, the musculoskeletal model is based on a multi input single output (MISO) auto-regressive integrated moving average with exogenous input (ARIMAX) model, which takes the integrated EMG measurements as input and estimates the corresponding joint angles. Based on this methodology, a Pneumatic Artificial Muscle (PAM) robotic leg setup that mimics the flexion/extension movement of human ankle joint is controlled to replicate the human movement. The experimental results demonstrate the performance of EMG-based joint angle estimation and control of the robotic leg with the proposed model.


The first major example in what would become a long line of popular pre-1914 British invasion-scare narratives was the inflammatory 1871 tale The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer. Through its vivid depiction of a German invasion and conquest of Britain, this story was designed to serve as a warning to Britons about the necessity of securing the nation's defenses. The dramatic impact of this work on the Victorian reading public and the political culture of the era has been treated by a number of scholars, most notably I. F. Clarke. Yet little attention has been accorded to the reaction it elicited from the professional peers of its author, Lieutenant-Colonel George Chesney. This interdisciplinary essay – which joins the study of literature with military history and politics – seeks to shed new light on the circumstances surrounding this extraordinarily influential tale, as well as on the genre it popularized, in large part by examining its reception by British officers. It begins by describing the tale's prehistory and emergence into widespread popularity and then evaluates the work's reception within armed forces circles. Some of the most trenchant assessments of this literary text, it turns out, were delivered within the austere confines of the Royal United Service Institution, a body whose meetings functioned as the crucible in which British military and naval judgments were forged.


Sheath folds are highly curvilinear folds, typically considered to develop by hinge rotation toward the transport direction during intense deformation. Most sheath folds are recognized on the centi meter to meter scale, with very few detailed studies of larger kilometer-scale structures. We here present evidence for a megascale sheath fold superbly exposed in the northern Oman Mountains. The Saih Hatat culmination consists of an exhumed highpressure subduction zone with deep-level eclogites and garnet blueschists (As Sifah unit), epidote blueschists (Hulw unit) and carpholite-bearing metasediments (part of the "Upper plate"). Sheath folds are present at a variety of scales throughout the As Sifah, Hulw, and Upper plate tectonic packages. Curvilinear fold hinges along a 15-km-long profi le outline the Wadi Mayh mega–sheath fold, which closes to the SSW and faces to the NNE. It consists of at least four secondary sheath folds with cross-sectional (y-z) eye folds measur ing 200 m stacked on top of one another within Permian and Triassic shelf car bonates. These eye folds display highly elliptical geometries (Ryz > 5) and cat's-eye fold patterns consistent with simple/general shear. The sheath fold is enveloped by Ordovician and older rocks that do not show equal amounts of internal deformation. The upper bounding envelope is a detachment that has been subsequently sheath folded. The lower boundary of the sheath fold is the Upper plate–Lower plate detachment, which forms a major high-strain shear zone showing little vertical displacement but signifi cant horizontal displacement. The sheath fold displays a SSW elongation (x axis) of at least 15 km and possibly up to 25 km, coupled with signifi cant amounts of vertical fl attening and WNW-ESE shortening.


In 1967 a county Cork farmer wrote to the Sunday Independent (Dublin) to express his hope that the Gaelic Athletic Association (G.A.A.) would ban women from attending the upcoming All-Ireland finals. The G.A.A is a male-only organisation, he argued, and the presence of women at Croke Park would take up 'valuable space'. His letter generated many outraged responses from both men and women, all arguing against his opinion and illustrating that women played a vital role within the sporting community—whether as supporters, sandwich-makers or jersey-washers. The responses highlighted how people in Ireland were reconsidering the role of women in the public sphere more generally in the late 1960s. The emergence of ladies' Gaelic football as a 'serious' sport for women in the 1970s is reflective of this changing society. Current Irish sports historiography is considerably lacking in its examination of the space women occupied in modern sport in Ireland. This piece will draw on newspapers and archival material to examine the emergence of what came to be known as ladies' Gaelic football in the late 1960s and early 1970s and to analyse the debates about the changing position of women in sport and society at this time. In so doing, this piece will aim to bring the historiography of women in Irish society in conversation with the growing historiography on sport in Ireland.


Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are the accreting super massive black hole (SMBH) at the center of massive galaxies. The tight M-σ and M_BH-M_bulge correlations reveal that the host galaxies are affected by the effects of the SMBHs. In addition, many works studying on the rest-frame color-magnitude relation have shown that AGN host galaxies have intermediate colors, which are considered as a transition from the blue cloud to red sequence in host-galaxy color evolution. Some works interpreted this result as an evidence for the AGN feedback, in the sense that the accretion process not only builds up the massive black holes, but also has a powerful influence on the surrounding environment, triggering or suppressing the star-forming activity in the host galaxy.

These correlations make obvious the need to investigate AGN-host coevolution. One way to understand this coevolution is to study the AGN duty cycle (i.e., the time scale that the SMBH is active), which can be obtained by estimating AGN population among all the galaxies through cosmic times. Such demographic studies require a well-sampled census and accurate redshift information. In particular at high redshift, objects are extremely faint and sample numbers are very small. This could cause large statistical errors. For example, Aird et al. (2010) argued that luminosity-dependent density evolution with a flattening faint-end slope of the X-ray luminosity function (XLF) at z > 1.2 may result from catastrophic photo-z failures caused by observational limitations and improper templates used for photo-z computation. However, spectroscopic redshifts are time-consuming and difficult to be obtained for faint sources at high redshifts. Therefore we have to rely on photometric redshifts (photo-z) techniques which need to be tuned specifically to be reliable for AGNs (i.e., proper magnitude priors, appropriate AGN-galaxy hybrid template for SED-fitting, and correct multi-wavelength counterparts). In recent years, many deep and high-resolution observations become available in multiple wavebands, specially at near/mid-infrared. This allows us to reach higher redshift, and make more accurate analysis on the multi-wavelength properties of AGNs.

In this thesis, we focus on the ECDFS area which comprise also the GOODS-S and CDFS regions. This is the portion of the sky with the deepest and most complete photometric information from X-ray to radio, including intermediate bands from the Subaru telescope, and optical/near-infrared data from the Hubble space telescope. To compute accurate photo-z using these data, first we combined multi-wavelength catalogs from UV to infrared after the astrometric calibration and correction for the different methods of flux extraction (e.g., total fluxes, flux apertures and PSF- fitted photometry). Second we identified the best multi-wavelength counterparts for X-ray sources from the 4Ms-CDFS and 250ks-ECDFS surveys, taking into account the positional errors and multiple magnitude distributions as priors simultaneously. We found that more then 96% of X-ray sources have multi-wavelength counterparts. Thirdly we built a new library of active galactic nuclei/galaxy hybrid templates appropriate for the faint X-ray population in the CDFS to simulate the AGN spectral energy distribution from low to high redshift. For X-ray-selected AGNs, we achieved a photo-z accuracy of 0.013 with an outliers fraction of 5.3%, while for non-X-ray galaxies, the photo-z accuracy is 0.010 with an outlier fraction of 4.6%.

With the SED-fitting results of our well-trained AGN-galaxy hybrids, we further studied the galaxy and AGN host properties via the rest-frame color-magnitude diagram (CMD) which is an useful probe to trace the stellar populations. We made corrections for dust extinction and/or AGN contamination for the galaxy/AGN host colors in the CANDELS/GOODS-S region. We found that the AGN host colors also present bimodality in the CMD up to z~2.5 as found in normal galaxies, and the position of the blue peaks in the AGN samples are almost constant with cosmic time. This implies a weak connection between AGN activity and star formation in the host galaxy.
For the X-ray sources in the 4Ms-CDFS survey, we found that for most of the sources, the correction for dust extinction is larger than the correction for the AGN contribution. This is because the AGN population in this field is dominated by low-luminosity AGNs which have host-dominated SEDs. However for few bright sources, their host colors are strongly effected by AGN contribution rather than by the dust extinction. For these sources, the correction for AGN contribution is about two times larger than the correction for dust extinction in general. Therefore AGN/galaxy decomposition becomes more important in a shallower and wider X-ray surveys, e.g., XMM-COSMOS and eROSITA, which contains a larger fraction of bright AGNs.

Furthermore, with our accurate redshifts for galaxies and AGNs, we defined a high-redshift (high-z) sample using the redshift probability distribution function P(z) rather than relying on the best-fit value of photo-z. We integrated P(z) within a given redshift range to obtain the photo-z probability in that range and selected high-z sources above a given threshold. When computing the number of sources in a given redshift range, each source will not be counted as "1" but as the proportion of it. We compared this P(z) technique with traditional color techniques adopted for galaxy evolutionary stages, like the Lyman break galaxy and the BzK color-color selection via sample completeness and purity. We found that the P(z) technique is the most efficient and reliable method for selecting high-z sources. This is not surprising as it makes use of photometric information from the entire SED rather than using only three photometric points.
Lastly, we built a high-z (z > 3) sources list for X-ray sources in ECDFS region, and compared our list with previous work. In our work, we made better X-ray-to-optical/NIR associations considering the positional errors and magnitude distribution. In addition, we obtained accurate photo-z using well-established AGN-galaxy hybrids for X-ray selected AGNs and applied P(z) for each source. These procedures help improving on our high-z sample selection.


This study is the first to investigate the anticancer effect of isoliquiritigenin (ISL) in human cervical carcinoma HeLa cells. The results reveal that ISL inhibits HeLa cells by blocking cell cycle progression in the G2/M phase and inducing apoptosis. Blockade of cell cycle is associated with increased activation of ataxia telangiectasia-mutated (ATM). Activation of ATM by ISL phosphorylated p53 at Serine15, resulting in increased stability of p53 by decreasing p53 and murine double minute-2 (MDM2) interaction. In addition, ISL-mediated G2/M phase arrest was also associated with decreases in the amounts of cyclin B, cyclin A, cdc2, and cdc25C, and increases in the phosphorylation of Chk2, cdc25C, and cdc2. The specific ATM inhibitor caffeine significantly decreased ISL-mediated G2/M arrest by inhibiting the phosphorylation of p53 (Serine15) and Chk2. ISL induced apoptotic cell death is associated with changes in the expression of Bax and Bak, decreasing levels of Bcl-2 and Bcl-X(L), and subsequently triggering mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. In addition, pretreatment of cells with caspase-9 inhibitor blocked ISL-induced apoptosis, indicating that caspase-9 activation is involved in ISL-mediated HeLa cell apoptosis. These findings suggest that ISL may be a promising chemopreventive agent against human uterine cervical cancer.


OBJECTIVE
It has been suggested that social phobia is associated with dysfunction of the noradrenergic and dopaminergic systems, but there are no published anatomic data on the monoaminergic abnormalities found in the brains of phobic patients. The authors studied the density of dopamine reuptake sites in patients with social phobia.

METHOD
The study included 11 patients with social phobia and 28 healthy comparison subjects, 11 of whom were age- and gender-matched to the patients for the analyses. Measurement of the density of dopamine reuptake sites was performed by using a 123I-labeled cocaine analogue, [123I]beta-CIT, with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).

RESULTS
Blind quantitative analysis revealed that striatal dopamine reuptake site densities were markedly lower in the patients with social phobia than in the age- and gender-matched comparison subjects.

CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that social phobia may be associated with a dysfunction of the striatal dopaminergic system.


Global climate change is having a major impact on the viability of species. Whether a particular population will survive or go extinct will depend on its potential to adapt to new environmental conditions. In migratory birds, the timing of spring migration is one of the major determinants of the timing of reproduction and as spring temperatures increase, we expect birds to return earlier to their breeding grounds. In accord with this expectation, the timing of spring arrival has advanced in many bird populations within the last 30 years. Yet, despite the presence of genetic variation in the timing of migration and fitness advantages in birds arriving early we still lack conclusive evidence for evolutionary change. One reason for this may be that weather conditions en route, particular the direction and speed of winds, have an important influence on individual migration speed. Moreover, there is strong evidence that physical condition may modify the timing of departure from the wintering grounds, migration speed and ultimately the timing of arrival and breeding. We also expect nestling condition and maternal effects to influence spring migration timing. Long-term population studies monitoring individual arrival in combination with experimental approaches will be needed to tease apart genetic and different environmental effects on the traits determining migration timing. This knowledge will be crucial for predicting adaptive responses of the timing of spring arrival in the future.


Callanan's work explores apparatuses of power. Gathered here are the responses to his mass letter writing. Each letter poses a deceptively simple question or even inane rhetorical statement and the collected responses reveal the absurdity of bureaucracy and the egos of those that claim power. Collected here are a selection of responses to a series of letters mailed between 2004-06, ranging from the bemused response of the Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury to the question "When will it end?" to appreciative letters from the offices of President Mubarak of Egypt in response to the declaration "I respect your authority".


Broad‐billed Sandpipers Limicola falcinellus were counted and trapped in Puck Bay on the southern Baltic coast in autumn. The number of arriving birds varied greatly between years. The observed pattern was not completely convergent with data gathered at Ottenby, Sweden, 220 km north of Puck Bay. It seems that within years these two stop‐over sites might be used by different groups of migrants with the majority of birds that stopped in southern Sweden being able to fly over the Polish coast, making their next stop somewhere closer to the wintering grounds. Adult Broad‐billed Sandpipers migrated in the second half of July, and juveniles in August and the first half of September. There were no significant differences in biometrics between adults and juveniles. Morphometric variables were not correlated with date in either age group. Hence, the assumption of earlier departure of females from the breeding grounds was not supported. On average, Broad‐billed Sandpipers gained 1.6 g/ day in body weight, with a maximum value of 4.0 g/day (from 29 g to 33 g after one day). The theoretical flight range of Broad‐billed Sandpipers departing from the Puck Bay region ranged between 1,300 and 1,400 km. Thus, it seems that the majority of Broad‐billed Sandpipers are able to reach the northern Black Sea coast, which is one of the most important stop‐over sites, in one flight.


Waterfowl hunters participate in hunting for appreciative-, affiliative-, and achievement-oriented reasons. To investigate the influence of achievement-oriented factors on hunt quality, we analyzed post-hunt surveys completed by waterfowl hunters at four Mississippi Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), 2008–2015. We used these questions to calculate a hunt quality score for each participant and tested whether variation in hunt quality was best explained by total number of ducks harvested, number of mallards harvested, total bag weight, or palatability of ducks. Hunt quality increased with total number of ducks and mallards harvested. Hunt quality scores increased with an increasing number of ducks harvested up to six total ducks (i.e., the daily allowable bag) and number of mallards up to 3 ducks (i.e., 1 less than the daily allowable bag during study). Our results indicate that harvesting ducks, especially mallards, is important to hunters at Mississippi WMAs. The importance of duck harvest to hunters should be considered in developing waterfowl management plans in Mississippi and elsewhere in the southeastern United States where these ducks are common.


Quarterly data on the duration of unemployment for males and females are used to derive measures of the probability of remaining on the live Register for another quarter for persons who have been on the register for very short, short, medium, and long durations. A logit transformation is applied to the survival probabilities and a general model of unemployment is tested to see if it can account for variations in the probability of remaining unemployed for these four duration categories during the period 1967-78. Regression results suggest that the survival probabilities are responsive to changes in the maximum period for which unemployment benefits are payable and to changes in labour market conditions. The results are used to derive the survival probabilities which would have obtained if there had been no change in the unemployment insurance (UI) variables. These hypothetical values are used in conjunction with the actual values within a demographic projection framework to estimate the effects which changes in the UI variables may have on the steady state level of the Live Register.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of our study was to analyze body CT utilization trends, indications, fetal radiation doses, and scanning parameters associated with high fetal radiation doses (defined as > 30 mGy).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A retrospective review of all chest and abdominopelvic CT examinations performed between 1998 and 2005 of patients known to be pregnant was conducted. Demographics, gestational age, examination indication, and scan parameters were recorded. Fetal radiation dose was calculated for those abdominopelvic examinations with direct fetal irradiation.

RESULTS
From a database of more than 170,000 chest and more than 180,000 abdominopelvic CT examinations, 74 chest and 86 abdominopelvic examinations of pregnant patients were identified. Chest CT use increased on average 75%/y/1,000 deliveries in pregnancy versus 19%/y increase in all patients (p = 0.2700). Abdominopelvic CT utilization increase was on average 22%/y/1,000 deliveries in pregnant patients versus 13%/y increase in all patients (p = 0.1865). The most common indication for chest CT during pregnancy was suspected pulmonary embolism (85%, 63/74) and for abdominopelvic CT, suspected appendicitis (58%, 50/86). The average fetal dose from abdominopelvic CT was 24.8 mGy (range, 6.7-56 mGy); one examination exceeded the 50-mGy threshold for increased risk of childhood cancer. Scanning parameters associated with a dose of more than 30 mGy were a pitch of less than 1 (p = 0.0080) and more than one series acquisition (p = 0.0136).

CONCLUSION
Growth of CT during pregnancy reflects the trend of increased CT utilization in the general population. Avoiding use of CT in pregnant patients with suspected appendicitis would significantly decrease fetal radiation exposure. Abdominopelvic CT during pregnancy should be carefully planned and monitored so as not to exceed the fetal radiation dose for negligible risk.


In Asian countries, depressed patients has been reported to present physical symptoms more mainly than psychiatric symptoms. However, there is no valid and suitable rating scale for those kinds of depression, especially in accordance with Eastern medicine. With this background, we have developed an original rating scale, the K–Style Acupuncture Score (KSAS), to assess the depression such as masked depression. To verify the KSAS measure, we examined the correlations with other depression scales. We also assessed whether the KSAS could be an indicator to detect the therapeutic effect of acupuncture on depression. Twelve healthy subjects and 30 depressed patients participated in this study and underwent the assessments of psychological batteries and the KSAS measure before and after Press Needle (PN) acupuncture intervention in a randomized, placebo-controlled design. To evaluate a cross-sectional difference between the healthy subjects and depressed patients and longitudinal changes before and after the PN acupuncture in the KSAS, we performed a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with time as a within-subject factor and intervention (active vs. sham) and group (healthy subjects vs. depressed patients) as between-subject factors. We also performed correlation analysis between the KSAS measures and each of the psychological tests. The ANOVA for the total score of the KSAS showed significant main effect of group (F1, 38=9.893, P=0.003) and time-intervention interaction (F1, 38=4.403, P=0.043). Further, we observed significant cross-sectional and longitudinal correlations between the KSAS measure and other psychological metrics. The present study demonstrated the validity and utility of the KSAS measure to assess depression in the context of acupuncture medicine.


Abstract. Aerosols are often advected above cloud decks, and the amount of aerosols over cloud has been assumed to be similar to that at the same heights in nearby clear sky. In this assumption, cloud and aerosol above cloud-top height are considered randomly located with respect to each other. The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) data are analyzed here to investigate this assumption on global scales. The CALIPSO data reveal that the aerosol optical depth (AOD) above low cloud tends to be smaller than in nearby clear sky during the daytime, and the opposite is true during the nighttime. In particular, over oceanic regions with wide-spread low cloud, such as the tropical southeastern Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, the daytime AOD above low cloud is often 40 % smaller than in surrounding clear skies.


HIV/AIDS is currently a major public health problem in Ethiopia and mother to child transmission (MTCT]. The transmission of HIV from infected mothers to babies could occur during antenatal period, as well as during delivery and breastfeeding (postnatal period). Since breastfeeding is essential for child survival, it is also necessary to assess mothers' knowledge attitude and practice towards HIV transmission and its prevention during breastfeeding. Objective of the study is to assess knowledge attitudes and practice of pregnant women attending Durame general hospital regarding PMTCT of HIV infection. A cross sectional, descriptive study was conducted to assess knowledge attitude and practice towards PMTCT among ANC clients in Durame general hospital from November 28, 2018 to June 20, 2018. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select 200 ANC attendants. Data was analyzed using tally sheet, and finally presented with table and graphs. 220 pregnant women were participated in the study which accounts (100%). 215 of the respondents reported that they have heard about HIV/AIDS. 165(75%) know that MTCT of HIV is preventable. 210(95.5%) of them were willing to have HIV test and the reasons mentioned were to protect their partner and child. Finally, it is concluded that most of the ANC clients knew HIV transmissions from infected mothers to their child during pregnancy, delivery and breast feeding and it is preventable.


The disintegration of drops in strong electric fields is believed to play an important part in the formation of thunderstorms, at least in those parts of them where no ice crystals are present. Zeleny showed experimentally that disintegration begins as a hydrodynamical instability, but his ideas about the mechanics of the situation rest on the implicit assumption that instability occurs when the internal pressure is the same as that outside the drop. It is shown that this assumption is false and that instability of an elongated drop would not occur unless a pressure difference existed. When this error is corrected it is found that a drop, elongated by an electric field, becomes unstable when its length is 1.9 times its equatorial diameter, and the calculated critical electric field agrees with laboratory experiments to within 1 %. When the drop becomes unstable the ends develop obtuse-angled conical points from which axial jets are projected but the stability calculations give no indication of the mechanics of this process. It is shown theoretically that a conical interface between two fluids can exist in equilibrium in an electric field, but only when the cone has a semi-vertical angle 49.3°. Apparatus was constructed for producing the necessary field, and photographs show that conical oil/water interfaces and soap films can be produced at the calculated voltage and that their semi-vertical angles are very close to 49.3°. The photographs give an indication of how the axial jets are produced but no complete analytical description of the process is attempted.


The Indian (southwest) summer monsoon is one of the most intense climatic phenomena on Earth. Its long-term development has been linked to the growth of high topography in South and Central Asia. The Indian continental margin, adjoining the Arabian Sea, offers a unique opportunity to investigate tectonic–climatic interactions and the net impact of these processes on weathering and erosion of the western Himalaya. During International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 355, two sites (U1456 and U1457) were drilled in Laxmi Basin in the eastern Arabian Sea to document the coevolution of mountain building, weathering, erosion, and climate over a range of timescales. In addition, recovering basement from the eastern Arabian Sea provides constraints on the early rifting history of the western continental margin of India with special emphasis on continental breakup between India and the Seychelles and its relationship to the plume-related volcanism of the Deccan Plateau. Drilling and coring operations during Expedition 355 recovered sediment from Sites U1456 and U1457 in the Laxmi Basin, penetrating 1109.4 and 1108.6 m below seafloor (mbsf), respectively. Drilling reached sediment dated to 13.5–17.7 Ma (late early to early middle Miocene) at Site U1456, although with a large hiatus between the lowermost sediment and overlying deposits dated to <10.9 Ma. At Site U1457, a much longer hiatus occurs near the base of the cored section, spanning from 10.9 to ~62 Ma. At both sites, hiatuses span ~8.2–9.2 and ~3.6–5.6 Ma, with a possible condensed section spanning ~2.0–2.6 Ma, although the total duration for each hiatus is slightly different between the two sites. A major submarine fan draining the western Himalaya and Karakoram must have been supplying sediment to the eastern Arabian Sea since at least ~17 Ma. Sand mineral assemblages indicate that the Greater Himalayan Crystalline Sequence was fully exposed to the surface by this time. Most of the recovered sediment appears to be derived from the Indus River and includes minerals that are unique to the Indus Suture Zone, in particular glaucophane and hypersthene, most likely originating from the structural base of the Kohistan arc. Pliocene sandy intervals at Site U1456 were deposited in lower fan "sheet lobe" settings, with intervals of basin plain turbidites separated by hemipelagic muddy sections deposited during the Miocene. Site U1457 is more distal in facies, reflecting its more marginal setting. No major active lobe appears to have affected the Laxmi Basin since the Middle Pleistocene (~1.2 Ma). We succeeded in recovering sections spanning the 8 Ma climatic transition, when monsoon intensity is believed to have changed strongly, although the nature of this change awaits postcruise analysis. We also recovered sediment from a large mass transport deposit measuring ~330 and ~190 m thick at Sites U1456 and U1457, respectively. This section includes an upper sequence of slump-folded muddy and silty rocks, as well as underlying calcarenites and limestone breccias, together with smaller amounts of volcanic clasts, all of which are likely derived from the western Indian continental shelf. Identification of similar facies on the regional seismic lines in Laxmi Basin suggests that these deposits form parts of one of the world's largest mass transport deposits. Coring of igneous basement was successful at Site U1457. Recovery of massive basalt and associated volcaniclastic sediment at this site should address the key questions related to rifting and volcanism associated with formation of Laxmi Basin. Geochemical analysis is required to understand the petrogenesis and thus the tectonic setting of volcanism that will reveal whether it is oceanic basalt or volcanic rock contaminated by underlying continental crust or continental flood basalt. However, the fact that the lavas are massive and have few vesicles implies water depths of eruption likely deeper than 2000 m. This precludes opening of the basin in the presence of a major mantle thermal anomaly, such as that associated with the Deccan Large Igneous Province. Other observations made at the two sites during Expedition 355 provide vital constraints on the rift history of this margin. Heat flow measurements at the two drill sites were calculated to be ~57 and ~60 mW/m2. Such heat flow values are compatible with those observed in average oceanic crust of 63–84 Ma age, as well as with the presence of highly extended continental crust. Postcruise analyses of the more than ~1722 m of core will provide further information about the nature of tectonic– climatic interactions in this global type area for such studies.


Published species lists were analysed to determine the contributions of dispersal, habitat preference, river channel size, body size, and glacial history to large-scale patterns in freshwater fish species richness in North America, north of central Mexico. Total species richness declines to the north and west but the pattern for endemics differs from that of widespread species. Mississippi Basin regions are more species rich than more isolated, coastal, regions. Richness declines more rapidly with increasing latitude in riverine specialist than in habitat generalist species. Levels of endemism are greatest in species found in small- to medium-sized river channels. The strong Rapoport effect, more marked in migratory than resident species, is correlated with habitat preference, channel size, and glacial history. Body size increases with latitude, largely as a result of a trend from small resident to large migrant species. In unglaciated regions, ancestral species survived in large habitats because these are longer-lived, more extensive, less isolated and more stable than headwaters, permitting larger populations and lower extinction levels. Reduced levels of gene flow in small, peripheral, channels isolated by larger downstream habitats have resulted in the production of many, small range, small-bodied species. The latitudinal richness gradient is a consequence of speciation and extinction events in unglaciated faunas and an increasing domination of faunas by generalist, large bodied, large channel, recolonizing species in more northern regions. (C) 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 100, 46-61.


Several mechanical models, in which a material is treated as a composite of crystalline and amorphous and/or interphase material, were used to predict the tensile modulus of spider dragline along the fiber direction. The models included the Voigt average (which assumes that the fibers/crystals are continuous, and that the strain is the same in all components of the composite); a modified Halpin-Tsai model (which is suitable for predicting the longitudinal elastic modulus for short aligned fiber composites, and is thus more appropriate for silk); and the shear-lag or Cox model (which is a modification of the Voigt average that takes into account a discontinuous nature of stiff fibers/crystals and the resulting shear stress in the amorphous matrix). The latter two models yielded close approximations of an experimentally measured elastic modulus of Latrodectus hesperus (black widow spider) dragline under conditions of controlled temperature and humidity, given realistic inputs for the moduli of the individual components and the percent crystallinity. A literature model for the stress-strain behavior of silk [1] was also considered, in the context of our experimental results from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies of L. hesperus dragline. TEM and XRD results indicated a bimodal size distribution of ordered regions; one population of crystals has a mean size of 2 nm, and another spans the size range 40–120 nm. The average elastic modulus measured from L. hesperus dragline is 23 GPa - close to the 25 GPa theoretical modulus for the case of large crystals in Termonia's model. The tensile strength of L. hesperus dragline is ca. 1.7 GPa, close to the case predicted for small crystals in Termonia's model. A combination of the small and large crystals could explain the forced elongation behavior of L. hesperus dragline.


PURPOSE
To determine the effect of intravenous streptokinase on early mortality in patients with suspected acute anterior and acute inferior myocardial infarctions.

DATA IDENTIFICATION
A literature search of English-language studies on the use of intravenous streptokinase in the treatment of suspected acute myocardial infarction for the period 1966 to 1989 using Medlars II and the bibliographies of relevant articles. In a number of instances, additional details on early mortality by location of myocardial infarction were provided by the authors.

STUDY SELECTION
Of 140 originally identified articles, 6 that specifically met our inclusion criteria were selected: randomized trials that used intravenous streptokinase in a dose of 1.5 million units, with or without additional agents, compared with a group that differed only by the absence of streptokinase. Trials were selected by review of the methods section without regard for the results.

DATA EXTRACTION
Data were extracted independently by two observers using specific methodologic criteria for infarct location and early mortality. After they conferred, the observers agreed completely on the data.

RESULTS OF DATA SYNTHESIS
Among the 9155 patients with suspected acute anterior myocardial infarction, the mortality rate in the control group was 17.4%. In contrast, patients treated with streptokinase had a 12.5% mortality. The mean risk difference was -4.8% (95% CI, -7.5% to -2.1%) and the summary risk ratio was 0.72 (CI, 0.65 to 0.79). A total of 9650 patients with suspected inferior infarction had a mortality rate in the control group of 7.6% [corrected]. The mortality for streptokinase-treated patients was 6.6%. The mean risk difference was -0.8% (CI, -1.8% to 0.2%) and the summary risk ratio was 0.87 (CI, 0.76 to 1.01).

CONCLUSIONS
Intravenous streptokinase clearly confers a protective effect against early mortality in patients with suspected acute anterior myocardial infarction. The magnitude of this effect is on the order of a 5% absolute reduction in risk of death by 21 to 35 days. For these patients, 21 need to be treated to save 1 additional life. For patients with suspected acute inferior infarction, the benefit of treatment on reducing early mortality is of smaller magnitude and less certain. These patients have an estimated absolute reduction of early mortality of approximately 1%, which would require treating 125 patients to save 1 additional life.


Nickel (Ni) catalyzed carbon-carbon (C−C) cross-coupling has been considerably developed in last decades and has demonstrated unique reactivities compared to palladium. However, existing Ni catalyzed cross-coupling reactions, despite success in organic synthesis, are still subject to the use of air-sensitive nucleophiles (i.e. Grignard and organozinc reagents), or catalysts (i.e. Ni0 pre-catalysts), significantly limiting their academic and industrial adoption. Herein, we report that, through electrochemical voltammetry screening and optimization, the redox neutral C(sp2)‒C(sp3) cross-coupling can be accomplished in an undivided cell configuration using bench-stable aryl halide or β-bromostyrene (electrophiles) and benzylic trifluoroborate (nucleophiles) reactants, non-precious, bench stable catalysts consisting of NiCl2•glyme pre-catalyst and polypyridine ligands under ambient conditions. The broad reaction scope and good yields of the Ni-catalyzed electrochemical coupling reaction were confirmed by 48 examples of aryl/β-styrenyl chloride/bromide and benzylic trifluoroborates. Its potential applications were demonstrated by late-stage functionalization of pharmaceuticals and natural amino acid modification. Furthermore, this electrochemical C−C cross-coupling reaction was demonstrated at gram-scale in a flow-cell electrolyzer for practical industrial adoption. Finally, an array of chemical and electrochemical studies mechanistically indicates that electrochemical C−C cross-coupling reaction proceeds through an unconventional radical trans-metalation mechanism.


Background: A contributing factor to development of malignant wounds is patient-related delay caused by health care avoidance. Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the experience of health care avoidance in women with advanced breast cancer who have developed malignant wounds. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted based on semistructured interviews. Seventeen women with advanced breast cancer (median age, 69 years; range, 47-90 years) who had avoided medical treatment despite development of malignant wounds participated. Systematic text-condensation analysis was used. Results: The women deliberately avoided health care for a median of 24 months (minimum, 3 months; maximum, 84 months). Despite being aware of the development of a malignant wound from a breast lump, the women avoided health care because of negative health care experiences and extremely burdening life situations. The women did not seek health care until their situations became unmanageable. The essence-"an avalanche of ignoring"-is pointing to the escalating, powerful development of destructive feelings behind health care avoidance. Conclusions: Health care avoidance may be a way of coping both for women who are primary and/or bereaved caregivers. Oncologists and nurses may contribute to the prevention hereof by means of information about the early signs of cancer, benefits of early diagnosis and treatment, and by paying special attention to these women, who may be at high risk for avoidant behaviors. Implications for Practice: In a preventive perspective, it seems advantageous to bring into focus the health of primary and bereaved caregivers, thereby potentially reducing patient delay and ultimately improving survival.


This manuscript is based on cooperation between the universities in Tampere, Finland, and Braunschweig, Germany. One of the main goals of the two institutes involved in research for public transport is a continuous increase in ridership. Therefore, the aim of this study is to (1) investigate the level of service attributes of public transport in Tampere and Braunschweig and evaluate their current state and (2) give advice to each city to further increase the ridership. At the beginning, the individual attributes and indicators for comparing public transport in both cities are presented and combined with theses from the literature. The attributes are divided into four chapters: "Level of Service", "Pricing", "Information and Marketing" and "Quality of travel". In the following, the individual indicators, such as the travel speed (Level of Service) or information at stop (Information and Marketing) of the two study areas, are analysed and evaluated. Additionally, the public transport system in both investigated cities is expanded with new a tramway system (Tampere) or new tramway expansions (Braunschweig), which gives a lot of opportunities for improving the attractiveness of public transport.


TiC reinforced titanium matrix functionally graded materials (FGM) has been produced by processes of laser metal deposition through changing the powder feed rate of Ti and Cr3C2 powder. The OM, SEM, EDS methods were used to analyze the components and microstructure of the coatings. Microhardness and wearing resistance at 500°Ctemperature of the FGM coating were examined by microhardness tester and wear tester respectively. The results show that FGM coating reinforced by in-situ TiC apparently improved hardness of Ti alloy; the microhardness can reach HV1100, and present gradient distribution along deposition direction. Dry sliding wear properties of these FGM coatings have been compared with substrate materials wearing. The observed wearing mechanisms are summarized and related to detailed microstructural observations. The results show the wear resistance of the coating can be improved by 2.8 times.


Every year, approximately 62 000 people with stroke and transient ischemic attack are treated in Canadian hospitals. The 2014 update of the Canadian Secondary Prevention of Stroke guideline is a comprehensive summary of current evidence-based recommendations for clinicians in a range of settings, who provide care to patients following stroke. Notable changes in this 5th edition include an emphasis on treating the highest risk patients who present within 48 h of symptom onset with transient or persistent motor or speech symptoms, who need to be transported to the closest emergency department with capacity for advanced stroke care; a recommendation for brain and vascular imaging (of the intra- and extracranial vessels) to be completed urgently using computed tomography/computed tomography angiography; prolonged cardiac monitoring for patients with suspective cardioembolic stroke but without evidence for atrial fibrillation on electrocardiogram or holter monitoring; and de-emphasizing the need for routine echocardiogram. The Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations include a range of supporting materials such as implementation resources to facilitate the adoption of evidence to practice, and related performance measures to enable monitoring of uptake and effectiveness of the recommendations using a standardized approach. The guidelines further emphasize the need for a systems approach to stroke care, involving an interprofessional team, with access to specialists regardless of patient location, and the need to overcome geographical barriers to ensure equity in access within a universal health-care system.


Measuring Self-Perceived Clinical Preparedness with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Clients by Kimberly D. Patterson MA, Prairie View A&M University, 2010 MS, Prairie View A&M University, 2007 BS, Prairie View A&M University, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Counselor Education and Supervision Walden University November 2018 Abstract Counselors and counselor educators must serve clients regardless of culture, race, disability, sexual orientation, and age. Counselor educators have attempted to stay abreast of new methods to enhance counselor competencies to adequately counsel lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clients. The purpose of this quantitative study was toCounselors and counselor educators must serve clients regardless of culture, race, disability, sexual orientation, and age. Counselor educators have attempted to stay abreast of new methods to enhance counselor competencies to adequately counsel lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clients. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the extent of the relationship between self-perceived clinical preparedness of working with LGBT clients and self-perceived attitudinal awareness towards LGBT clients as moderated by levels of religious commitment of licensed professional counselor (LPC) using a feminist and multicultural theory framework. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) quantitative analysis software program was used to generate descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means, modes, correlations, and regression models for each research variable. According to study results, there was a statistically significant relationship between the criterion variable self-perceived clinical preparedness of working with LGBT clients, the predictor variable self-perceived attitudinal awareness towards LGBT clients, and the moderator religious commitment (F (2, 123) = 4.76, p < .05). The study findings promote insight for counselors to understand how their religious commitment moderates the relationship between clinical preparedness and attitudinal awareness when working with LGBT clients. Measuring Self-Perceived Clinical Preparedness with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Clients by Kimberly D. Patterson MA, Prairie View A&M University, 2010 MS, Prairie View A&M University, 2007 BS, Prairie View A&M University, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Counselor Education and Supervision


The 1985 autobiography of the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan (1917–2003), Rihla Jabaliyya, Rihla Saʿba: Sira Dhatiyya, translated into English as A Mountainous Journey: A Poet's Autobiography (1990), has been studied in diverse critical works. Unlike most scholars, I am attentive to interiority and psychology in A Mountainous Journey, which I read to examine the writing of self in relation to intimates in Tuqan's life. I examine Tuqan's writing of life-as-journey and the protagonist's struggle to articulate a self in a traumatic family context the author experienced as committed to disappearing and containing her. I argue that this process works through disidentification, an ambivalent and unstable combination of identification and counteridentification.


An empirical study of implementation tradeoffs (choice of ready queue implementation, quantum-driven vs. event driven scheduling, and interrupt handling strategy) affecting global real-time schedulers, and in particular global EDF, is presented. This study, conducted using UNC's Linux-based LITMUSRT on Sun's Niagara platform, suggests that implementation tradeoffs can impact schedulability as profoundly as scheduling-theoretic tradeoffs. For most of the considered workloads, implementation scalability proved to not be a key limitation of global EDF on the considered platform. Further, a combination of a parallel heap, event-driven scheduling, and dedicated interrupt handling performed best for most workloads.


An in vitro system for the investigation of the behaviour of contrast microbubbles in an ultrasound field, that provides a full diagnostic range of settings, is yet to be presented in the literature. The evaluation of a good compromise of such a system is presented in this paper. It is based on (a) an HD13000 ATL scanner (Bothell, WA, USA) externally controlled by a PC and (b) on the use of well-defined reference materials. The suspensions of the reference ultrasonic scattering material are placed in an anechoic tank. The pulse length ranges from 2 to 10 cycles, the acoustic pressure from 0.08 to 1.8 MPa, the transmit frequency from 1 to 4.3 MHz, and the receive frequency from 1 to 8 MHz. The collection of 256 samples of RF data, at an offset distance from the transducer face, was performed at 20 MHz digitization rate, which corresponds to approximately 1 cm depth in water. Two particle suspensions are also presented for use as reference scatterers for contrast studies: (a) a suspension of Orgasol (ELF Atochem, Paris, France) particles (approximately 5 microm mean diameter) and (b) a suspension of Eccosphere (New Metals & Chemicals Ltd, Essex, UK) particles (approximately 50 microm mean diameter). A preliminary experiment with the contrast agent Definity (DuPont Pharmaceutical Co, Waltham, MA) showed that the above two materials are suitable for use as a reference for contrast backscatter.