Contact us: firstname.lastname@example.com Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician at the St. Mary's Hospital, London, made two epoch-making discoveries, lysozyme and penicillin, the bacteria killers, in his own words. But contrary to popular fables, the events were not that serendipitous. He was already an established microbiologist and it took him dogged labours to vindicate his discoveries. He simply had the right mind. Penicillin was especially a hard nut to crack upon which he toiled for half a year with his associates just enough to make a convincing conclusion on the antibacterial property. He in fact utterly failed in understanding what it actually was. As he himself unpretentiously stated: "I did not invent penicillin. Nature did that. I only discovered it by accident." But that did not debar him for sharing the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, who isolated the compound and worked out the medicinal applications. Strangely, Fleming's biography has been presented in bits and pieces on the crucial elements of his discoveries, and usually contradictory. This chronicle is trying to mend the gaps and broken pieces in the historical records.


This volume, which is part of the Comparative Public Law Treaties directed by prof. Giuseppe Franco Ferrari, offers the result of a reflection on the characteristics of the constitutional laws of East Asia. In the course of the work, in addition to a deepening of understanding f the legal models considered, investigations were carried out for internal comparison between the Eastern Asian legal systems, as well as for comparison with public legal systems belonging to other, mainly Western, legal traditions. The sectors of the jurisdictions that have been examined concern (a) the constitutional system, with a separate analysis of the legislative, executive and judicial bodies including constitutional justice (in the national experiences that contemplate it), (b) the forms of political-administrative decentralization, and (c) the catalog of fundamental rights. In accordance with the prevalent trends in international literature on comparative legal methodology (as far as we concern, in the area of constitutional law), both diachronic and synchronic profiles of the national legal systems have been examined.


Purpose A Medical Board-approved pharmacy-based inpatient STanding Orders Protocol (STOP) for influenza and pneumococcal vaccination was designed and implemented at Montefiore Medical Center in response to federal and state regulations put in place in 2006. This vaccination program aims to improve historically poor vaccination rates in a complex, urban patient population. Developing this initiative in a large health care system with high turnover and a diverse (many non-English speaking) population represented a formidable challenge. Methods In 2006 the institution initiated a program to improve patient care. The program involved a clinical pharmacist rounding on patient care units specifically to encourage the acceptance of the pneumococcal and influenza vaccine in patients at least 65 years of age at 1 of the 2 campus sites in the Bronx, New York. Medical residents were also employed to facilitate the pharmacist and achieve national standards. Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses are authorized to administer standing orders for vaccines and anaphylaxis treatment agents as needed under this protocol without direct physician examination. Vaccine information sheets (VIS) and gender- and ethnicity-specific patient teaching aids provide statistical information regarding disease and mortality rates. Language barriers are reduced by providing VIS in both Spanish and English, and telephone translation in most languages are utilized when necessary. Documentation of refusal of, previously received, or a newly ordered vaccination is placed in the patient's chart and in the central database. Discussion Prior to the STOP program, the total in-hospital vaccination encounter rates according to various Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) audits was approximately 18% for pneumococcal and 27% for influenza vaccinations, respectively. The institution's current encounter rates have dramatically increased to more than 85% for pneumococcal and 55% for influenza vaccine. Conclusion The cooperative efforts of physicians, pharmacists, and nursing staff have led to the creation of a successful inpatient-based vaccine standing orders protocol. As a result, in 2007 the institution approved a second clinical pharmacist to allow for coverage at both of Montefiore's hospital sites. The hospital's goal is to ultimately decrease pneumococcal disease and its severity, increase and maintain the highest vaccination rates in New York City, and comply with national standards. The implication for decreasing morbidity and readmission of patients is promising. Future plans include the development of an ambulatory-based program with a similar design model.


Dependences among loads and stores whose addresses are unknown hinder the extraction of instruction level parallelism during the execution of a sequential program. Such ambiguous memory dependences can be overcome by memory dependence speculation which enables a load or store to be speculatively executed before the addresses of all preceding loads and stores are known. Furthermore, multiple speculative stores to a memory location create multiple speculative versions of the location. Program order among the speculative versions must be tracked to maintain sequential semantics. A previously proposed approach, the address resolution buffer (ARB) uses a centralized buffer to support speculative versions. Our proposal, called the speculative versioning cache (SVC), uses distributed caches to eliminate the latency and bandwidth problems of the ARB. The SVC conceptually unifies cache coherence and speculative versioning by using an organization similar to snooping bus-based coherent caches. A preliminary evaluation for the multiscalar architecture shows that hit latency is an important factor affecting performance, and private cache solutions trade-off hit rate for hit latency.


The two bishops of Worcester between 1218 and 1266, William of Blois and Walter de Cantilupe, were in many ways very similar. Both were dedicated reformers, who made use of the cathedral chapter's churches for their own households for example. Yet their relationships with the monastic chapter of Worcester were very different. William's episcopate was marked by acrimony and dispute, Walter's by harmony and assent. The reasons for these differences are complex but include the personalities and backgrounds of the bishops, the chapter's growing awareness of the limitations of monastic chapters for bishops' patronage and political changes within England.


In March 2013, the University of Gloucestershire's Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) were commissioned to undertake an assessment of the Local Food programme using the Social Return on Investment (SROI) framework, an established methodology recognised by the Cabinet Office that has been developed from social accounting and cost-benefit analysis.n SROI, monetary values are used to represent outcomes, which enables a ratio of benefits-to-investment to be calculated and the
amount of social, economic and environmental value created for every £1 invested in the programme. Valuing the benefits of Local Food within a consistent framework also provided the basis for comparison across different outcome groups to examine where value is being created. In turn this will assist the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) and Big Lottery Fund in the planning, management and funding of future programmes.Three case study projects were selected for inclusion in the SROI, drawn from each of the project categories identified through the wider Local Food programme evaluation.


As high performance platforms (Clusters, Grids, etc.) continue to grow in size, the average time between failures decreases to a critical level. An efficient and reliable fault tolerance protocol plays a key role in high performance computing. Rollback recovery is the most common fault tolerance technique used in high performance computing and especially in MPI applications. This technique relies on the reliability of the checkpoint storage. Most of the rollback recovery protocols assume that the checkpoint servers machines are reliable. However, in a grid environment any unit can fail at any moment, including components used to connect different administrative domains. Such failures lead to the loss of a whole set of machines, including the more reliable machines used to store the checkpoints in this administrative domain. Thus it is not safe to rely on the high MTBF (mean time between failures) of specific machines to store the checkpoint images. This paper introduces a new coordinated checkpoint protocol, which tolerates checkpoint server failures and clusters failures, and ensures a checkpoint storage reliability in a grid environment. To provide this reliability the protocol is based on a replication process. We propose new hierarchical replication strategies, with two different degrees of hierarchy, adapted to the topology of cluster of clusters. Our solution exploits the locality of checkpoint images in order to minimize inter-cluster communication. We evaluate the effectiveness of our two hierarchical replication strategies through simulations against several criteria such as topology and scalability .


Accounting for resource and service usage in communication networks forms the basis of network operators' business, and is therefore essential. Within a heterogeneous, multidomain mobile environment of emerging new access technologies, the demand for a distributed accounting infrastructure becomes more relevant. Driven by the analysis of current accounting solutions in Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) networks, the newly developed approach presents an integrated accounting architecture based on the Diameter protocol, forming a flexible basis for charging UMTS and WLAN communication services. The system developed is described, discussed and evaluated by a prototypical implementation.


Abstract. In the 2016 fiscal year the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan started a program integrating construction and ICT in earthwork and concrete placing. The new program named "i-Construction" focusing on productivity improvement adopts such new technologies as UAV photogrammetry and TLS. We report a field experiment to investigate whether the procedures of UAV photogrammetry and TLS following the standards for "i-Construction" are feasible or not. In the experiment we measured an embankment of about 80 metres by 160 metres immediately after earthwork was done on the embankment. We used two sets of UAV and camera in the experiment. One is a larger UAV enRoute Zion QC730 and its onboard camera Sony α6000. The other is a smaller UAV DJI Phantom 4 and its dedicated onboard camera. Moreover, we used a terrestrial laser scanner FARO Focus3D X330 based on the phase shift principle. The experiment results indicate that the procedures of UAV photogrammetry using a QC730 with an α6000 and TLS using a Focus3D X330 following the standards for "i-Construction" would be feasible. Furthermore, the experiment results show that UAV photogrammetry using a lower price UAV Phantom 4 was unable to satisfy the accuracy requirement for "i-Construction." The cause of the low accuracy by Phantom 4 is under investigation. We also found that the difference of image resolution on the ground would not have a great influence on the measurement accuracy in UAV photogrammetry.


Especially designed for those with limited background in network management, this volume presents the standard networking concepts and provides readers with one of the only books available to demonstrate how to practice those concepts on a small LAN. The manual uses a network management application that enables users to focus on the fundamentals of network management rather than components important on large production networks. The author provides an overview of network management and network management strategies, networking components, configuration client/server components and infrastructure components, as well as SNMP, RMON, RMON2 and other network management tools and initiatives. For Network Administrators, Network Managers and Network Engineers.


Many sarcoma subtypes including Ewing sarcoma (ES), alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS), synovial sarcoma (SS), and desmoplastic small round cell tumor (DSRCT), are driven by oncogenic chimeric transcription factors. Outcomes for these diseases remain unacceptably poor despite intensification of standard therapies. Although these translocation positive sarcomas possess well-defined oncogenic drivers, as transcription factors that lack intrinsic enzymatic activity, they have been considered undruggable. We have developed a two-tiered pre-clinical therapeutic program 1) creating and characterizing faithful in vitro and in vivo models of these rare malignancies and 2) designing next generation antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to directly target the oncogenic chromosomal translocations underlying these multiple sarcoma subtypes. As proof of principle, we present here the program experience with DSRCT, a rare sarcoma for which there has been an overwhelming paucity of both biological tools for pre-clinical investigation, as well as clinical therapeutic options. We have extensively characterized two new DSRCT cell lines harboring the characteristic oncogenic EWSR1-WT1 t(11;22)(p13;q12) fusion, and have used these tools to develop orthotopic xenograft models. Utilizing these accurate model systems we have designed and evaluated a series of ASO compounds directly targeting the EWSR1-WT1 translocation product. Among the series of ASOs developed, we identified D2A, a selective and potent inhibitor of EWSR1-WT1. In vitro, we have shown D2A to abolish the EWSR1-WT1 fusion product with exquisite specificity in a dose-dependent fashion. D2A similarly exhibits efficacy in vivo, with anti-tumorigenic activity in our pre-clinical models resulting in an 80% reduction in xenograft tumor growth. With the aid of authentic in vitro and in vivo modeling systems, this ASO platform has wide-ranging implications for both biological as well as therapeutic advances. Citation Format: Emily Slotkin, Lee Spraggon, Julija Hmeljak, Luciano Martelotto, Romel Somwar, Elisa de Stanchina, Luca Cartegni, Marc Ladanyi. Direct targeting of oncogenic transcription factors using next-generation oligonucleotides as a novel therapeutic strategy for translocation-positive sarcomas. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-238.


We present a combined numerical (particle vortex method) and experimental (soap film tunnel) study of a symmetric foil undergoing prescribed oscillations in a two-dimensional free stream. We explore pure pitching and pure heaving, and contrast these two generic types of kinematics. We compare measurements and simulations when the foil is forced with pitching oscillations, and we find a close correspondence between flow visualisations using thickness variations in the soap film and the numerically determined vortex structures. Numerically, we determine wake maps spanned by oscillation frequency and amplitude, and we find qualitatively similar maps for pitching and heaving. We determine the drag–thrust transition for both pitching and heaving numerically, and we discuss it in relation to changes in wake structure. For heaving with low oscillation frequency and high amplitude, we find that the drag–thrust transition occurs in a parameter region with wakes in which two vortex pairs are formed per oscillation period, in contrast to the common transition scenario in regions with inverted von Karman wakes.


Using a chemical foaming agent (CFA) along with a thermoplastic polymer in a foam extrusion process has a significant effect on the density and thickness of the final product so that highly light-weight and low-cost structures could be achieved. In this experimental study we have investigated the thermal and chemical behavior of two different types of CFA and their effect on the foam quality and physical/mechanical properties of the final product in an extrusion foaming process. A polypropylene-based thermoplastic (PP) sheet was produced via a plastic extrusion machine with 12″ width and 4mm thickness. An exothermic foaming agent Azodicarbonamide (EV AZ-3.0) was added into the PP pellets in 5 wt%. They were completely mixed and melted inside the extruder to decompose and liberate gas. The melt temperature and pressure must be high enough to guarantee a total decomposition of the foaming agent and make the generated gas dissolved inside the polymer melt until it exits from the die opening. The same trial was conducted with an endothermic CFA named Styrene-Ethylene/Butylene-Styrene (PN-40E). Our thermal TGA analysis and physical tests demonstrate that each of the foaming agents has its own unique specifications which could be utilized based on the operating temperature and pressure. However, using the exothermic CFA is recommended for the PP-based thermoplastic foams as it can build up the product with low weight and high specific stiffness.


Article history: Received January 25, 2020 Accepted April 25, 2020 Available online November 5, 2020 This research was conducted to estimate the safety of breast and thigh meat (Ross 308) stored in refrigeration and freezing for different periods (0, 3 and 6) and (0, 15 and 30) days, respectively (total samples 12). High pH found in the 6th day of refrigeration storage for thigh meat; 6.414, while low recorded in the 6th day for breast meat; 5.757. High pH was found in the freezing storage period 0 day for chicken breast meat; 6.168, and low pH was found in breast meat in the 30th day of freezing storage; 5.826. The 6th day of refrigeration storage gave the highest TPC for thigh meat; 111.33×10 cfu/ gm. Also, the 15th day of freezing storage recorded significant increase in TPC for breast and thigh meat; 244×10 cfu/ gm and 274×10 cfu/ gm respectively. Significant differences were noted for histamine, cadaverine and spermidine during storage periods, high levels recorded in the 6th day of storage for breast meat; 0.395, 0.078 and 0.643 mg/ kg respectively. Significant differences were noted between the mean levels of biogenic amines for breast samples during all storage periods. High levels of histamine, putrescine, cadaverine, spermine and spermidine were recorded in the 15h day of storage; 2.654, 0.358, 1.589, 0.124 and 2.652 mg/ kg respectively. In thigh meat, significant differences were recorded for levels of biogenic amines during the freezing storage periods except putrescine. Histamine did not exceed the legal limit set by the US FDA; 50 mg/ kg in all samples.


The recent advances of Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) systems, can provide effective assistance for real time prognosis systems for patients who suffered from epileptic seizures. This paper presents an EEG classification strategy for short-term epilepsy prognosis, using software for Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) systems. A training scenario is presented, where significant features are extracted and a classification algorithm is trained. The training procedure extracts knowledge in terms of a classification model, which is employed in a real-time testing. For the training of the classification scenario a five-classes dataset of EEG signals is employed in which two-classes have been recorded extracranially and the rest three intracranially including one class with epileptic seizure activity and two classes with seizure-free signals. Promising quantitative results are reported.


Background: Classic 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21HD) presents some traits of the metabolic syndrome. Aim: To characterize discrete alterations of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism in children and young adults with classic 21HD, which could predict early atherogenesis. Patients and Methods: Twenty-seven Caucasian patients with classic 21HD (4–31 years); 27 sex-, age- and BMI-matched controls. Clinical parameters, hormonal status and genotype were assessed in all patients. Lipid parameters, including relative (%) and absolute (mg/dl) small-dense low-density lipoproteins subfractions (sd-LDL) were measured in patients and controls. Oral glucose tolerance tests were performed in both groups. Results: sd-LDL (%) was significantly higher in patients than controls (39.7 ± 5.9 vs. 35.5 ± 5.7%; p = 0.008). The same applies for absolute sd-LDL (mg/dl) (42.6 ± 11.9 vs. 36.4 ± 7.5; p = 0.029). HDL-cholesterol was lower in patients (p = 0.032). Fasting glucose and insulin were significantly higher in patients. Similar differences were noticed for HOMA-IR (p = 0.001), IRI (p = 0.001) and HOMA-B (p = 0.002). IRI correlated directly and significantly with the total hydrocortisone dose and the duration of treatment. Fasting glucose correlated with absolute sd-LDL. No obvious differences were seen between clinical forms or genotype groups. Conclusions: Substitution therapy should be adapted particularly at young ages to prevent early atherogenesis and cardiovascular risk in later life.


A Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) is derived from a negotiated consensus on what people believe is a minimum standard. It is a standard of living that meets an individual's or a household's physical, psychological and social needs. This is calculated by identifying the goods and services required by different household types in order to meet their needs. While an MESL is based on needs, not wants, it is a standard of living below which nobody should be expected to live.
This report focuses on food, one of the 16 elements of the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) data. It is based on a methodology called Consensual Budget Standards (CBS). The report is presented in the context of increasing concerns about the issue of food poverty in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and an increase in the number of people reporting that they do not have enough money to buy food. Recent data from The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have shown that the number of people believing they cannot afford food doubled from 4.2% in 2008 to 9% in 2014. Data from Eurostat show that in 2013, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices in Ireland were 17% higher than the EU average. Moreover, research by Carney and Maitre, using data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), found that one in ten people are living in food poverty in Ireland. Food poverty is defined as the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability and access to food. This has related effects on health, culture and social participation.
The 2013 data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) show that 1.4 million people, almost 31% of the population, suffer from deprivation. This means that they are unable to afford two items from a list of 11 very basic items (of which one is not being able to eat a meal with meat, chicken, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every second day). The highest levels of deprivation are experienced by lone parents (63%), unemployed people (55%) and people not at work because of illness or disability (53%). The experience of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice (VPSJ) is that expenditure on food tends to be one of the least important considerations when households are dealing with competing demands on an inadequate income.

A Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) is derived from a negotiated consensus on what people believe is a minimum standard. It is a standard of living that meets an individual's or a household's physical, psychological and social needs. This is calculated by identifying the goods and services required by different household types in order to meet their needs. While an MESL is based on needs, not wants, it is a standard of living below which nobody should be expected to live.
This report focuses on food, one of the 16 elements of the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) data. It is based on a methodology called Consensual Budget Standards (CBS). The report is presented in the context of increasing concerns about the issue of food poverty in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and an increase in the number of people reporting that they do not have enough money to buy food. Recent data from The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have shown that the number of people believing they cannot afford food doubled from 4.2% in 2008 to 9% in 2014. Data from Eurostat show that in 2013, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices in Ireland were 17% higher than the EU average. Moreover, research by Carney and Maitre, using data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), found that one in ten people are living in food poverty in Ireland. Food poverty is defined as the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability and access to food. This has related effects on health, culture and social participation.
The 2013 data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) show that 1.4 million people, almost 31% of the population, suffer from deprivation. This means that they are unable to afford two items from a list of 11 very basic items (of which one is not being able to eat a meal with meat, chicken, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every second day). The highest levels of deprivation are experienced by lone parents (63%), unemployed people (55%) and people not at work because of illness or disability (53%). The experience of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice (VPSJ) is that expenditure on food tends to be one of the least important considerations when households are dealing with competing demands on an inadequate income.
- See more at: http://www.safefood.eu/Publications/Research-reports/The-cost-of-a-healthy-food-basket.aspx#sthash.RiBpj5no.dpuf

A Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) is derived from a negotiated consensus on what people believe is a minimum standard. It is a standard of living that meets an individual's or a household's physical, psychological and social needs. This is calculated by identifying the goods and services required by different household types in order to meet their needs. While an MESL is based on needs, not wants, it is a standard of living below which nobody should be expected to live.
This report focuses on food, one of the 16 elements of the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) data. It is based on a methodology called Consensual Budget Standards (CBS). The report is presented in the context of increasing concerns about the issue of food poverty in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and an increase in the number of people reporting that they do not have enough money to buy food. Recent data from The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have shown that the number of people believing they cannot afford food doubled from 4.2% in 2008 to 9% in 2014. Data from Eurostat show that in 2013, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices in Ireland were 17% higher than the EU average. Moreover, research by Carney and Maitre, using data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), found that one in ten people are living in food poverty in Ireland. Food poverty is defined as the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability and access to food. This has related effects on health, culture and social participation.
The 2013 data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) show that 1.4 million people, almost 31% of the population, suffer from deprivation. This means that they are unable to afford two items from a list of 11 very basic items (of which one is not being able to eat a meal with meat, chicken, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every second day). The highest levels of deprivation are experienced by lone parents (63%), unemployed people (55%) and people not at work because of illness or disability (53%). The experience of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice (VPSJ) is that expenditure on food tends to be one of the least important considerations when households are dealing with competing demands on an inadequate income.
- See more at: http://www.safefood.eu/Publications/Research-reports/The-cost-of-a-healthy-food-basket.aspx#sthash.RiBpj5no.dpuf

A Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) is derived from a negotiated consensus on what people believe is a minimum standard. It is a standard of living that meets an individual's or a household's physical, psychological and social needs. This is calculated by identifying the goods and services required by different household types in order to meet their needs. While an MESL is based on needs, not wants, it is a standard of living below which nobody should be expected to live.
This report focuses on food, one of the 16 elements of the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) data. It is based on a methodology called Consensual Budget Standards (CBS). The report is presented in the context of increasing concerns about the issue of food poverty in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and an increase in the number of people reporting that they do not have enough money to buy food. Recent data from The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have shown that the number of people believing they cannot afford food doubled from 4.2% in 2008 to 9% in 2014. Data from Eurostat show that in 2013, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices in Ireland were 17% higher than the EU average. Moreover, research by Carney and Maitre, using data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), found that one in ten people are living in food poverty in Ireland. Food poverty is defined as the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability and access to food. This has related effects on health, culture and social participation.
The 2013 data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) show that 1.4 million people, almost 31% of the population, suffer from deprivation. This means that they are unable to afford two items from a list of 11 very basic items (of which one is not being able to eat a meal with meat, chicken, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every second day). The highest levels of deprivation are experienced by lone parents (63%), unemployed people (55%) and people not at work because of illness or disability (53%). The experience of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice (VPSJ) is that expenditure on food tends to be one of the least important considerations when households are dealing with competing demands on an inadequate income.
- See more at: http://www.safefood.eu/Publications/Research-reports/The-cost-of-a-healthy-food-basket.aspx#sthash.RiBpj5no.dpuf


E-payment system is increasingly becoming a daring means of payments in today's business world. This is due to its efficiency, convenience and timeliness. It is a payment system that is continuously being embraced and adopted in the financial system of both developed and developing countries with a view to simplify and ease payments in business transactions. As a result, many studies were conducted around the globe by scholars on epayment adoption. It is based on this that this research paper looks at the available past literature on e-payment adoption across the world, with a view to highlight the scope, methodology and Information System (IS) models used by previous researchers so as to identify research gaps and recommend such for future studies. The study employed an extensive literature search on e-payment adoption with the aid of Google Scholar for those recent studies between the years 2010-2015. To facilitate the understanding of the issue under study, previous studies were analysed based on scope-geographical location of the study, theories/models adopted and methodology used. Finally, the paper has identified the patterns of previous researches with regards to these three items and further highlights and recommends key areas in which future research should delve on.


A set of system based on personal computer for the bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) measurement was developed, whose laser wavelengths cover 0.6328, 1.34, 3.39, and 10.6 ?m from visible to infrared. Stray light in BRDF measurement system was analyzed. It can be reduced and suppressed by the design of the system light path in BRDF measurement system, the choice of the measuring scheme, the processing to the optoelectronic signal, and the radiation control of the optical components and mechanical equipments. So the minimum measurable value of BRDF is less than 10^(-5)/sr.


The dual‐probe heat‐pulse (DPHP) method provides a means of estimating volumetric soil water content (θ) and change in volumetric water content (Δθ) from measurements of volumetric heat capacity. The purpose of this investigation was to characterize the accuracy and precision that can be achieved in measuring θ and Δθ with the DPHP method. Tempe pressure cells fitted with DPHP sensors were used to conduct desorption experiments in which DPHP‐based estimates of θ and Δθ were compared with values estimated by the gravimetric method. For water contents corresponding to soil water pressure potentials below −100 kPa, comparisons were made by packing the pressure cells with soil wetted to known water contents. The investigation was conducted with seven soil materials representing a wide range of physical properties for mineral soils. The DPHP sensors slightly overestimated θ at low water contents, but it was shown that the bias could be removed by using an empirical calibration equation, θ = 1.09 θDPHP − 0.045. This relationship appears to be general inasmuch as it was shown to be applicable for all seven soil materials and for water contents ranging from 0.02 to 0.59 m3 m−3 The general calibration equation was also shown to be effective in removing bias in Δθ estimates. Pooled regression analysis (all soil materials) showed that θ can be measured with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.022 m3 m−3 Greater precision can be achieved with Δθ measurements (RMSE = 0.012 m3 m−3); however, the results indicated a decrease in precision with increasing magnitude of Δθ.


Problem: Planners may read plans often, but the profession continues to view the interpretation of plan content as something that is either too obvious or too unimportant to require explicit discussion. Plans are seldom adequately interpreted. This is regrettable because plans contain a rich variety of content and meaning. Purpose: This article calls for planners to "read through" plans, not just to grasp their essential ideas or the means of implementing those ideas, but also to perceive additional levels of meaning relating to a) a plan's place within a larger intellectual sphere, b) a plan's statement on the social and political values of the time, and c) a plan as a part of the history of the planning profession and the life of cities. Methods: I propose a visual approach to plan reading descended from Panofsky's (1939) theory of iconology and use this to examine three very different plans that describe different size cities (small, large, very large) during different periods over the past 80 years (the 1930s, 1960s, 2000s). I analyze three levels of meaning in each plan: its factual meaning, or "plain sense" (Mandelbaum, 1990); its contextual meaning, or relation to political, social, economic, and physical conditions; and its temporal meaning, or setting within the scope of observations made by other plan readers in the perspective of elapsed time. Results and conclusions: Factual readings show that information may be found in diverse aspects of a plan document, from seemingly superficial aspects like its cover to unarguably central elements such as recommendations. Factual readings depend on understanding the relationships among different elements, and reveal information about the plan and its framers that may not otherwise be readily apparent. Contextual readings show us that plan recommendations are as much a product of contemporary conditions and norms as they are of plan-specific "survey and diagnosis" (Nolen, 1936). This raises the question of whether plan quality is to be judged only in terms of skillful execution of concerns of the day or whether innovation is also important. Temporal readings reveal that plans and planning have changed dramatically over time, simultaneously confirming and questioning the conventional wisdom of planning history. Takeaway for practice: Many planners read plans on a regular basis, and plans continue to constitute the major printed currency of the planning profession. Both plans and planning will benefit if planners become more discerning readers of the profession's principal idea vessels. Formal plan interpretation is rare, but each planner can become a better plan interpreter. Research support: None.


Reburning is an in-furnace combustion modification technology for the reduction of NOx. By staging the introduction of the fuel, an environment is created where NOx generated by the combustion of the main fuel supply is subsequently consumed by the hydrocarbon radicals arising from the reburn fuel under reducing conditions. ENEL has retrofitted unit No. 4 of Vado Ligure power station with coalover-coal reburn technology, with the target of 65% reduction of NOx emissions (425 mg/Nm³ of NOx @ 6% O2, with American Ashland coal). This retrofit represents the first application of the technology to a utility boiler in Europe, and it has been undertaken by a consortium of European companies, research centres and universities, as listed in the following ENEL (Italy), Mitsui Babcock Energy (United Kingdom), Ansaldo (Italy), Electricity Supply Board (Ireland), PowerGen (United Kingdom), Instituto Superior Tecnico Lisbon (Portugal), Electricidade de Portugal, Howden & Sons (United Kingdom), Electricite de France and University of Stuttgart (Germany), with the support of the European Community through the Thermie Programme. Results from the experimental campaign show that it has been possible to achieve NOx emissions in the order of 350 mg/Nm³ (@6% O2), burning a variety of coals, with carbon in ash ranging from 5 to 8%. Calculations performed on the experimental data show that the impact on boiler operation is also minimised, with a negligible change on the boiler heat transfer pattern.


Ocean acidification is a threat to the continued accretion of coral reefs, though some undergo daily fluctuations in pH exceeding declines predicted by 2100. We test whether exposure to greater pH variability enhances resistance to ocean acidification for the coral Goniopora sp. and coralline alga Hydrolithon reinboldii from two sites: one with low pH variability (less than 0.15 units daily; Shell Island) and a site with high pH variability (up to 1.4 pH units daily; Tallon Island). We grew populations of both species for more than 100 days under a combination of differing pH variability (high/low) and means (ambient pH 8.05/ocean acidification pH 7.65). Calcification rates of Goniopora sp. were unaffected by the examined variables. Calcification rates of H. reinboldii were significantly faster in Tallon than in Shell Island individuals, and Tallon Island individuals calcified faster in the high variability pH 8.05 treatment compared with all others. Geochemical proxies for carbonate chemistry within the calcifying fluid (cf) of both species indicated that only mean seawater pH influenced pHcf. pH treatments had no effect on proxies for Ωcf. These limited responses to extreme pH treatments demonstrate that some calcifying taxa may be capable of maintaining constant rates of calcification under ocean acidification by actively modifying Ωcf.


In a developed world, water is used in a variety of installations and devices for the improvement of life standard. It is important for these elements to be suitably managed and maintained, otherwise they can present a risk to people's health. Although potable water from a public plumbing system coming via the water supply into an internal plumbing system normally is compliant with the regulations, the quality of water in an internal plumbing system often changes – water gets contaminated. There are several types of microorganisms that can grow in water. They carry a great potential for the growth and proliferation of bacteria from the genus Legionella that cause Legionnaires' disease and Pontiac Fever. Even the fact that Legionella infection has for several years been mentioned in the accident insurance conditions of insurance companies in relation to receiving the insurance fee as compensation for bed day, shows the extent and foremost the seriousness of the disease (5–15% mortality rate).

The research part of the master thesis focused mainly on determining the presence of bacteria from the genus Legionella in the water of internal plumbing systems of healthcare facilities. During the entire research period of 8 years, 2,676 samples of cold and hot water were acquired from 23 healthcare facilities.

The main purpose of the research was to determine the efficiency or adequacy of applied approaches, i.e. physical disinfection with heat and chemical disinfection with chlorine, in eliminating or reducing the amount of Legionella present in the water of selected healthcare facilities. Another aim was to evaluate the impact of softening potable water with polyphosphates on the proliferation of certain microorganisms in water, and to determine the by-products of chemical disinfection.

Upon sampling, an organoleptic examination of water (appearance, odour), electrometric measurements of water temperature, and colorimetric measurements of free chlorine concentrations in water were performed. The data for the analysis of Legionella presence were acquired by water sampling and the isolation of bacteria found in the water. In order to acquire laboratory results of specific physical and chemical parameters, ion chromatography, gas chromatography, spectrophotometry, titration, and inductively coupled plasma – mass detector were used.

Although water samples from only two healthcare facilities showed no presence of Legionella, the number of water samples with the presence of Legionella decreased for at least 25% from the beginning to the end of period set. Also, after certain general sanitary and technical measures a noticeable improvement within healthcare facilities after 2008 could be observed. Regarding the initial part of the set period, a more favourable relationship between positive and negative samples, a lower number of samples with highest concentrations of present Legionella, and a higher number of samples with lower concentrations of present Legionella were determined. The research has shown that the existing system of ensuring health-compliant water is fairly efficient; however, the results could be improved additionally by investing more into the preparation and renovation of systems. Due to a limited number of samples, a direct impact of adding polyphosphates to potable water could not be linked to the occurrence of Legionella. None of the samples showed an increased concentration of by-products of potable water disinfection.

In its conclusion, the research has shown that the procedures after overheating and after chlorine disinfection result in a similar success. While filtration proved to be most efficient, from the perspective of Legionella infections the use of medical bathtubs can present a high risk to people's health, therefore such devices should be subject to more frequent maintenance and supervision.


The concepts of evolution and complexity theory have become part of the intellectual ether permeating the life sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, and, more recently, management science and economics. In this book, John E. Mayfield elegantly synthesizes core concepts from multiple disciplines to offer a new approach to understanding how evolution works and how complex organisms, structures, organizations, and social orders can and do arise based on information theory and computational science. Intended for the intellectually adventuresome, this book challenges and rewards readers with a nuanced understanding of evolution and complexity that offers consistent, durable, and coherent explanations for major aspects of our life experiences. Numerous examples throughout the book illustrate evolution and complexity formation in action and highlight the core function of computation lying at the work's heart.


Many feminists have argued breastfeeding is a constraint that may prevent women from realizing nonmaternal opportunities. This article presents an alternative feminist perspective, arguing that the view of breastfeeding as a constraint glosses over the mediating role that gender inequality plays in the way breastfeeding impacts women's lives. Rather than focus on breastfeeding as a constraint, attention should be focused on the ways that socially created policies and practices, often based on a gender-similarity framework, sustain gender inequities. Policies and practices based on this framework negate the needs of the body, which exaggerates gender differences, redistributes gender inequities, and raise the costs of breastfeeding. In contrast, locating the constraint in the arena of gender inequality better explains how social decisions that differentially accommodate men's nonlactating bodies privilege men over women and help us recognize how passage of polices that accommodate lactating bodies represents progress toward equal opportunity.


ABSTRACT A large channel which has been eroded in the silty shales and fine-grained sandstones of the Capistrano Formation (Miocene-Pliocene) and filled with contemporaneous thick-bedded, coarse-grained sandstone is exposed in a sea cliff near Dana Point, Orange County, California. Structures suggesting deposition by turbidity currents or related "gravity displacement" processes with paleocurrent directions toward the southwest are present in both eroded beds and fill. Foraminiferal assemblages indicate water depths of more than 2000 feet. The channel is intepreted as a channel across a deep sub-sea fan.


Differences in the properties of organic phosphorus (P) sources, particularly those that undergo treatment to reduce soluble P, can affect soil P solubility and P transport in surface runoff. This 2-yr field study investigated soil P solubility and runoff P losses from two agricultural soils in the Mid-Atlantic region after land application of biosolids derived from different waste water treatment processes and poultry litter. Phosphorus speciation in the biosolids and poultry litter differed due to treatment processes and significantly altered soil P solubility and dissolved reactive P (DRP) and bioavailable P (FeO-P) concentrations in surface runoff. Runoff total P (TP) concentrations were closely related to sediment transport. Initial runoff DRP and FeO-P concentrations varied among the different biosolids and poultry litter applied. Over time, as sediment transport declined and DRP concentrations became an increasingly important component of runoff FeO-P and TP, total runoff P was more strongly influenced by the type of biosolids applied. Throughout the study, application of lime-stabilized biosolids and poultry litter increased concentrations of soil-soluble P, readily desorbable P, and soil P saturation, resulting in increased DRP and FeO-P concentrations in runoff. Land application of biosolids generated from waste water treatment processes that used amendments to reduce P solubility (e.g., FeCl(3)) did not increase soil P saturation and reduced the potential for DRP and FeO-P transport in surface runoff. These results illustrate the importance of waste water treatment plant process and determination of specific P source coefficients to account for differential P availability among organic P sources.


In the last decade, efforts to systematically study the effectiveness of programs in developing countries have expanded dramatically. In this paper, Miguel Szekely, director of the Institute for Innovation in Education at Tecnologico de Monterrey, shows how Mexico has improved the evidence base for public policy in a number of ways. He explains the difficulties of conducting good impact evaluations and assesses the interests of key stakeholders in promoting or opposing the creation and use of evidence. He draws out lessons from the government's effort to evaluate a major antipoverty program (PROGRESA-Oportunidades), publish politically sensitive poverty data, introduce performance measurement in education, and institutionalize learning. He concludes with a proposal for how developing countries could systematically incorporate evidence in policymaking.


Metasurfaces have become a rapidly growing field of research in recent years due to their exceptional abilities in light manipulation and versatility in ultrathin optical applications. They also significantly benefit from their simplified fabrication process compared to metamaterials and are promising for integration with on-chip nanophotonic devices owing to their planar profiles. The recent progress in metasurfaces is reviewed and they are classified into six categories according to their underlying physics for realizing full 2π phase manipulation. Starting from multi-resonance and gap-plasmon metasurfaces that rely on the geometric effect of plasmonic nanoantennas, Pancharatnam–Berry-phase metasurfaces, on the other hand, use identical nanoantennas with varying rotation angles. The recent development of Huygens' metasurfaces and all-dielectric metasurfaces especially benefit from highly efficient transmission applications. An overview of state-of-the-art fabrication technologies is introduced, ranging from the commonly used processes such as electron beam and focused-ion-beam lithography to some emerging techniques, such as self-assembly and nanoimprint lithography. A variety of functional materials incorporated to reconfigurable or tunable metasurfaces is also presented. Finally, a few of the current intriguing metasurface-based applications are discussed, and opinions on future prospects are provided.


The transition to market-oriented economies in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, like the Great Depression in the U.S. and Germany in the 1930s, generated sharp declines in real incomes and a corresponding drop in fertility. This is contrary to the robust negative relationship between income and fertility that has been extensively documented. This paper presents a theoretical model that explains the positive relationship between fertility and income. The model predicts that: i) the perceived level of subsistence consumption fundamentally determines whether fertility and income are positively or negatively related; ii) once incomes decline below a threshold, declining labor income causes fertility to fall; and iii) rising income inequality has a negative impact on fertility rates. Empirical tests using both aggregate and microeconomic data provide strong support for the predictions of the model. Our empirics predict that the perceived subsistence level is a statistically significant determinant of fertility and that the average country in our sample will remain in a Mathusian fertility regime for twenty more years.


The Remote Agent Experiment (RAX) on the Deep Space 1 (DS1) mission was the first time that an artificially intelligent agent controlled a NASA spacecraft. One of the key components of the remote agent is an on-board planner. Since there was no opportunity for human intervention between plan generation and execution, extensive testing was required to ensure that the planner would not endanger the spacecraft by producing an incorrect plan, or by not producing a plan at all.

The testing process raised many challenging issues, several of which remain open. The planner and domain model are complex, with billions of possible inputs and outputs. How does one obtain adequate coverage with a reasonable number of test cases? How does one even measure coverage for a planner? How does one determine plan correctness? Other issues arise from developing a planner in the context of a larger operations-oriented project, such as limited workforce and changing domain models, interfaces and requirements. As planning systems are fielded in mission-critical applications, it becomes increasingly important to address these issues.

This paper describes the major issues that we encountered while testing the Remote Agent planner, how we addressed them, and what issues remain open.


Background Case studies suggest that late hiring timelines are common in large urban school districts and result in the loss of qualified teachers to surrounding suburbs. To date, however, there has been no large-scale quantitative investigation of the relationship between the timing of teacher hires and teacher qualifications. Purpose This study examines the pervasiveness of late teacher hiring in urban and suburban school districts and explores the association between the timing of teacher hires and teacher qualifications, including certification, master's degree, and selectivity of undergraduate institution. Research Design Nationally representative cross-sectional data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics are used. Data Analysis The study uses data on school districts, public schools, and teachers from the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey. Secondary data are analyzed using multiple regression, including labor market fixed effects, to estimate the relationship between the timing of teacher hires and teacher qualifications. Results On average, districts hire 45% of their new teachers late—during the second half of summer and once the school year has already begun. Late hiring is more pervasive in urban and low-socioeconomic-status districts where over half of new hires take place during this late period. In urban districts, fully one fifth of new hires are made once the school year has already begun. The proportion of teachers hired late, however, does not predict the Barron's ratings of teachers' undergraduate institutions, certification, or master's degree. Conclusions Although descriptive results indicate that late hiring is pervasive and more pronounced in urban districts, analyses do not provide evidence supporting the notion that earlier hiring is associated with hiring better credentialed teachers. Despite these null results, it is important to remember that late hires are still likely to cause problems for students, as well as for teachers, schools, and districts.


Background In the United States, chlamydia screening has been recommended for pregnant women of all ages by CDC, and for pregnant women younger than 25 years by USPSTF. The benefits of chlamydia screening are highly dependent on chlamydia prevalence. Very limited evidence, such as age-specific positivity in pregnant women, has been available to support these recommendations. We analysed data from a large commercial laboratory corporation with a substantial share of the U.S. market, with testing in all 50 states, to estimate the positivity of chlamydia among pregnant women. Methods Among all chlamydia tests performed at a woman's first pregnancy-related visit between June 2008 and July 2010, we estimated chlamydia positivity by age, then further stratified by insurance coverage and geographic region. Results Of 600,990 pregnant women aged 15–44 years, 61.9% had private insurance and 34.1% had Medicaid coverage; 60.8% resided in the South region; 43.4% were aged 15–24 years, 26.7% 25–29 years, and 19.1% 30–34 years. Chlamydia positivity significantly decreased by age (15–19 years: 10.3%; 20–24 years: 5.6%; 25–29 years: 1.9%; 30–34 years: 0.9%; and 35–44 years: 0.6%). The pattern of decreased age-specific positivity was similar among insurance and region subgroups. Conclusions Our findings of age-specific positivity, derived from a very large number of tests among pregnant women in the United States, suggest that it is more effective to screen younger pregnant women than older ones. Harmonizing CDC and USPSTF recommendations for pregnant women could be explored by review of age-specific positivity data and estimates of prenatal adverse health outcomes caused by chlamydia (miscarriage, preterm birth, and infant mortality) in order to develop consensus regarding quantitative thresholds of these health outcomes.


Annotation. It was proved that the studied new phytopreparation Lesbachol under experimental conditions exhibits a pronounced protective effect on the gastric mucosa. And so, under the influence of lesbachol, the area of ulceration decreases by 58.5%, and in the group of the studied drug to glycerol by 32.7%. The results showed that lesbohol with small punctate ulcers compared with the control group was reduced 2.6 times, with large ulcers it was reduced 2.8 times, with striped ulcers 2.6 times, the total number of ulcers decreased 2.6 times ... Therefore, Lesbokhol, as a potential highly effective anti-ulcer agent, is of practical interest and can be recommended for the prevention and treatment of gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer.


Digital fabrication technologies are becoming of importance to a number of knowledge areas and sectors, including medicine, entertainment, design, engineering, education, arts and architecture, due to their accessibility and versatility. These technologies are changing the design of digital models, materials and manufacturing processes which enable to build previously unachievable physical objects. Since many constraints imposed on the design of objects have changed significantly, a growing research community is working on graphical tools and techniques to enable the conception, automation, production and usage of innovative and complex designs for fabrication. In the present work, we survey the state of the art of computer graphics contributions to functional fabrication design tools and techniques. By functional fabrication we understand the design and manufacture of physical objects which functionalities exploit the capabilities of digital fabrication technologies. These functionalities include improving the mechanics of a workpiece, producing articulated models, capturing aerodynamics, planning deformable workpieces and controlling the object's appearance and acoustics. The resulting design tools are clearly taking advantage of relevant computer graphics techniques. Furthermore, they are extending these techniques to realise new physical forms as well as bringing innovation to feed into the design space.


This paper presents two algorithms, namely clustered simple polling and neighbor relay polling, for solving the typical "silent node" problem in automatic meter reading (AMR) systems using power-line communications (PLC)-access networks. These schemes are tested through computer simulations to be both effective and efficient in overcoming the "silent node" problem in AMR systems. The construction of the PLC-access network model in this paper is based on the actual structure of the PLC-access networks of Singapore public residential buildings. Also, a two-state transition Markov model is used to simulate a meter unit with such a "silent node" problem in a PLC network. The processing time model is established on a meter topology of three-level clustering. By using these models for our computer simulations, the performance of our proposed schemes can be evaluated in terms of reliability and efficiency.


Recent theoretical and empirical studies confirm that male mate choice and/or female--female mate competition can be expressed in the absence of sex-role reversal. Such reproductive patterns may select for the evolution of female traits that indicate female phenotypic or genotypic quality among non--role-reversed species. Although attention to the evolution and function of female ornaments is increasing, additional focus is needed on female-specific ornaments (those not expressed in conspecific males) and on nonavian systems in order to gain a broad understanding of how selection acts directly on ornamentation of female animals. In the striped plateau lizard, Sceloporus virgatus, only females develop orange throat patches during the reproductive season. The color peaks in expression near the time of ovulation and appears to stimulate male courtship. Here, I examine whether this female-specific ornament can be used by males to reliably assess female phenotypic quality. Using multivariate regression analyses, I show that the area of the orange color patch predicts body condition and mite load, the chroma (i.e., saturation) of the color patch predicts body size, and both patch area and chroma reliably predict average egg mass. Thus, female reproductive color may function as a condition-dependent signal, indicating phenotypic quality to potential mates. Copyright 2006.


Rosacea is a common chronic, and sometimes progressive, dermatosis. It is characterized, alone or in combination, by central facial erythema,symmetric flushing, stinging sensation, inflammatory lesions (papules and pustules), telangiectasias, and phymatous changes (tissue hyperplasia and nodules). Rosacea can occur in adults of any ethnicity,and adversely affects patients' quality of life. The condition can be effectively controlled with therapy tailored to the specific subtype of rosacea that is affecting the patient. Topical metronidazole, sulfacetamide/sulfur, and azelaic acid are generally effective for patients with mild rosacea. For moderate papulopustular rosacea, combination therapy with oral tetracyclines and topical agents is the first-line choice. Treatment with a topical agent, such as metronidazole, may help maintain remission. Patients with ocular involvement may benefit from long-term oral antibiotics and metronidazole gel. Referral to a subspecialist is necessary for patients who have ocular rosacea with ophthalmic complications, severe or recalcitrant rosacea, or phymatous changes.


This article presents a study where the overall objective is to measure any changes found as a result of the application of a program to facilitate the development of the semantic memory of people with Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder, following the implementation of a specific program to facilitate the creation of conceptual categories. The study, based on a quasi-experimental design, analyzes the effectiveness of the program designed around four cognitive variables, comparatively observed in three groups of participants (N:19), distributed across one experimental group (N:7) and two control groups (made up of 7 and 5 participants respectively), conducted over three successive measures, 1 pre-test and 2 post-test measures at 6-month intervals. The results, found by repeatedly testing measures of intra-subject effects, show the effectiveness of the designed program, as it has aided in the development of meaningful learning for the members of the experimental group.


This article focuses on two phases of Baudrillard's theorizing about models; the first from his early analyses of consumer society and its array of objects, and the second from his concern with simulation. Baudrillard often used the concepts of model and simulation interchangeably, entailing an absolute critique of the model in its difference from symbolic exchange. However, my task is to delicately separate these concepts by inserting Baudrillard's discussion of modeling into a philosophy of science context in which modeling appears aligned but not reducible to simulation. In short, a middle ground is sought. To this end I introduce the mediating models perspective. further, Baudrillard's example of how his position on modeling may be applied is directed at models of communication, specifically Roman Jakobson's poetic model and, in particular, my interest is in how Baudrillard isolates the phatic function in a way that turns communication into simulation. I conclude with the need for a strategy of reading Baudrillard on modeling that detotalizes simulation and allows for something of the symbolic to persist in communication.


Urinary stone disease, particularly calcium oxalate, is common in both humans and cats. Calcifying nanoparticles (CNP) are spherical nanocrystallite material, and are composed of proteins (fetuin, albumin) and inorganic minerals. CNP are suggested to play a role in a wide array of pathologic mineralization syndromes including urolithiasis. We documented the development of a clinically relevant protocol to assess urinary CNP in 9 healthy cats consuming the same diet in a controlled environment using Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA®). NTA® is a novel method that allows for characterization of the CNP in an efficient, accurate method that can differentiate these particles from other urinary submicron particulates. The predominant nanoscale particles in feline urine are characteristic of CNP in terms of their size, their ability to spontaneously form under suitable conditions, and the presence of an outer layer that is rich in calcium and capable of binding to hydroxyapatite binders such as alendronate and osteopontin. The expansion of this particle population can be suppressed by the addition of citrate to urine samples. Further, compounds targeting exosomal surfaces do not label these particulates. As CNP have been associated with a number of significant urologic maladies, the method described herein may prove to be a useful adjunct in evaluating lithogenesis risk in mammals.


Abstract.  Eucalyptus cladocalyx F. Muell., is a tree with a restricted distribution in the Southern Flinders Ranges, South Australia. It was originally introduced into the urban bushland of Kings Park, Perth, Western Australia in 1932 as an ornamental. Since its planting, E. cladocalyx has become invasive, spreading into the bushland up to 70 m away from planting sites. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the E. cladocalyx population is increasing at a greater rate than the two principal native tree species, E. gomphocephala DC. and E. marginata Donn ex Smith, but little is known about the factors influencing its invasion, or its biology. This study describes the population structure of E. cladocalyx, E. gomphocephala and E. marginata in Kings Park and the role of fire in the recruitment process. The study indicated that the three species have characteristics common to temperate Eucalyptus species that mass recruit seedlings following fire, with high numbers of seedlings found in recently burnt areas and low numbers in unburnt areas. Seedling survival in E. cladocalyx was higher than either of the native species. Furthermore, E. cladocalyx adults showed higher rates of canopy recovery following fires. It is argued that although fire in Kings Park is providing opportunities for E. cladocalyx, E. gomphocephala and E. marginata recruitment, the E. cladocalyx population is more resilient in an environment frequently disturbed by fire compared with the native populations.


Growing up in Witbank in the seventies and eighties was traumatic. Like most places in South Africa, ours was community divided along racial and cultural lines. White people stayed in the suburbs, black people in the townships. English-medium schools dreaded rugby games against their Afrikaans counterparts as no local derby of that nature went by without a burly boertjie settling a score on behalf of a great grandmother who may have suffered in a concentration camp decades ago. Running circles around the same Afrikaans boys in the odd soccer match somehow did not make up for the broken noses and black eyes sustained on the stone-ridden, icy Highveld rugby fields..


We characterized epidemiologic and genetic features of nosocomially originated multiple-antibiotic-resistant Salmonella typhimurium isolates from two hospitals. A total of 32 multiply resistant strains, isolated during a 28-month period, were studied. Four resistance phenotypes were distinguished on the basis of the results of disc diffusion tests. Group 1 was resistant to chloramphenicol, gentamicin, tobramycin, amikacin, and the newer cephalosporins because of the production of an extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (PER-1). Group 2 exhibited the same pattern plus resistance to sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (Sxt). Except for Sxt resistance, dominant phenotypes of both groups were transferred on an identical plasmid, pSTI1 (81 MDa). Group 3 was resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, gentamicin, tobramycin, and Sxt. This pattern was also transferred on an 81-MDa plasmid (pSTI2) which differed from pSTI1 on the basis of EcoRI and HindIII restriction fragments. Group 4 was resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, and tetracycline, and a 74-MDa nonconjugative plasmid was detected. Restriction fragment length polymorphism of RNA-encoding DNA and arbitrarily primed PCR tests revealed that bacteria from groups 1, 2, and 3 were clonally related. Epidemiologic data also supported the clonal-dissemination hypothesis. We concluded that S. typhimurium isolates acquire and exchange multiple-resistance plasmids in hospital microflora.


Palisade bodies, mineral assemblages with spinel shells, in coarse‐grained Ca‐, Al‐rich inclusions (CAIs) have been considered either as exotic "mini‐CAIs" captured by their host inclusions (Wark and Lovering ) or as in situ crystallization products of a bubble‐rich melt (Simon and Grossman ). In order to clarify their origins, we conducted a comprehensive study of palisade bodies in an Allende Type B CAI (BBA‐7), using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), micro‐computed tomography (Micro‐CT), electron probe microanalysis (EPMA), and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). New observations support the in situ crystallization mechanism: early/residual melt infiltrated into spinel‐shelled bubbles and crystallized inside. Evidence includes (1) continuous crystallography of anorthite from the interior of the palisade body to the surrounding host; (2) partial consolidation of two individual palisade bodies revealed by micro‐CT; (3) a palisade body was entirely enclosed in a large anorthite crystal, and the anorthite within the palisade body shows the same crystallographic orientation as the anorthite host; and (4) identical chemical and oxygen isotopic compositions of the constituent minerals between the palisade bodies and the surrounding host. Oxygen isotopic compositions of the major minerals in BBA‐7 are bimodal‐distributed. Spinel and fassaite are uniformly 16O‐rich with ∆17O = −23.3 ± 1.5‰ (2SD), and melilite and anorthite are homogeneously 16O‐poor with ∆17O = −3.2 ± 0.7‰ (2SD). The latter ∆17O value overlaps with that of the Allende matrix (∆17O ~ −2.87‰) (Clayton and Mayeda ), which could be explained by secondary alteration with a 16O‐poor fluid in the parent body. The mobility of fluid could be facilitated by the high porosity (1.56–2.56 vol%) and connectivity (~0.17–0.55 vol%) of this inclusion.


In recent years decentralized development approaches have gained prominence in the agricultural sector. A host of community based watershed management projects have been implemented that encourage community organizations to undertake management of previously government controlled irrigation systems and forests. Community organizations have been given the responsibility of managing water distribution, collection of irrigation service fees and undertaking routine maintenance of irrigation infrastructure. In this context, analysis of irrigation management has concluded that groups that are relatively homogeneous may fare better than heterogeneous groups in facilitating collective action. However, this article argues that analysis of the influence of group heterogeneity on collective action is complicated because of its multi-dimensional nature and the presence of non-monotonic effects in mechanisms linking heterogeneity and collective outcomes. The article discusses the importance of context specification in analysis of group heterogeneity through a discussion of elements of a joint management contract in Haryana (India), identification of key variables with a potential to explain collective action in irrigation management and construction of household endowment and water interest scores to account for the influence of group heterogeneity in facilitating collective action. In the process of applying household endowment and water interest scores, the authors highlight the role of local ecological variation and non-farm employment in influencing collective action. Proper specification of local context enables the researchers to rely on household endowment and water interest scores to predict conflicts and potential for irrigation service provision and compliance with irrigation service rules.


In this paper, we study the interaction between financial advisors and customers with a potential conflict of interest. We show in a simple analytical framework that advisors have an incentive to provide better advice to consumers who appear to be better informed. From this, we derive an identification strategy to infer the quality of advice received from variables observed in a representative survey of German consumers. Our identification strategy makes use of the fact that we observe both a generally observable signal of a customer's financial literacy as well as an objective measure, which is not observed by the advisor. We apply this strategy to three different empirical settings. In each of these settings, we find consistent evidence that consumers with worse signals of financial literacy on average receive worse financial advice. In particular, both women and individuals without tertiary education are negatively affected.


Direct from the creators of the Java™ programming language, the completely revised fourth edition of The Java™ Programming Language is an indispensable resource for novice and advanced programmers alike.Developers around the world have used previous editions to quickly gain a deep understanding of the Java programming language, its design goals, and how to use it most effectively in real-world development. Now, Ken Arnold, James Gosling, and David Holmes have updated this classic to reflect the major enhancements in Java™ 2 Standard Edition 5.0 (J2SE™ 5.0).The authors systematically cover most classes in Java's main packages, java.lang.*, java.util, and java.io, presenting in-depth explanations of why these classes work as they do, with informative examples. Several new chapters and major sections have been added, and every chapter has been updated to reflect today's best practices for building robust, efficient, and maintainable Java software.Key changes in this edition include New chapters on generics, enums, and annotations, the most powerful new language features introduced in J2SE 5.0 Changes to classes and methods throughout to reflect the addition of generics Major new sections on assertions and regular expressions Coverage of all the new language features, from autoboxing and variable argument methods to the enhanced for-loop and covariant return types Coverage of key new classes, such as Formatter and ScannerThe Java™ Programming Language, Fourth Edition, is the definitive tutorial introduction to the Java language and essential libraries and an indispensable reference for all programmers, including those with extensive experience. It brings together insights you can only get from the creators of Java: insights that will help you write software of exceptional quality.


The relentless pace at which textual data are generated on-line necessitates novel paradigms for their understanding and exploration. To this end, we introduce a methodology for discovering strong entity associations in all the slices (meta-data value restrictions) of a document collection. Since related documents mention approximately the same group of core entities (people, locations, etc.), the groups of coupled entities discovered can be used to expose themes in the document collection. We devise and evaluate algorithms capable of addressing two flavors of our core problem: algorithm THR-ENT for computing all sufficiently strong entity associations and algorithm TOP-ENT for computing the top-k strongest entity associations, for each slice of the document collection.


a given precision is left for the individual programmer. Programmed for the GE-225, accurate answers of tan-1 1 = ~-/4 were obtained for double precision in comparison with the known values. The semiiterative method can be programmed in a very short time for any multiple precision and is efficient in comparison with taking more terms of the Taylor's series, taking into account the divisions required for the square root process. Telescoped Taylor's series may be used if desired, but a shorter telescoped Taylor's series can be used if the semi-iterative scheme is employed. Telescoping, however, is expected to take more storage for the coefficients than a simple truncated series. Telescoping also discards the advantage of flexibility and applicability to n-tuple precision programs. A contribution to this department must be in the form of an Algorithm, a Certification, or a Remark. Contributions should be sent in duplicate to the Editor and should be written in a style patterned after recent contributions appearing in this department. An algorithm must be written in ALGOL 60 (see Communications of the ACM, January 1963) and accompanied by a statement to the Editor indicating that it has been tested and indicating which computer and programming language was used. For the convenience of the printer, contributors are requested to double space material and underline delimiters and logical values that arc to appear in boldface type. Whenever feasible, Certifications should include numerical values. Although each algorithm has been tested by its contributor , no warranty, express or implied, is made by the contributor , the Editor, or the Association for Computing Machinery as to the accuracy and functioning of the algorithm and related algorithm material, and no responsibility is assumed by the contributor, the Editor, or the Association for Computing Machinery in connection there-with. The reproduction of algorithms appearing in this department is explicitly permitted without any charge. When reproduction is for publication purposes, reference must be made to the algorithm author and to the Communications issue bearing the algorithm. comment If the array S contains a certain permutation of the N digits 1, 2,... , N before call, the procedure will replace this with the lexicographically next permutation. If initializa-tion is required set the Boolean variable I equal true, which will be changed automatically to false through the first call, otherwise set I equal false. If no further permutation can be generated, exit will be made to …


Context: Mycetoma is a chronic suppurative infective disorder of skin, subcutaneous tissue, fascia, and bones caused by the traumatic inoculation of either fungal (eumycotic) or bacterial (actinomycotic) organisms present in the soil. Triad of tumefaction, discharging sinuses, and grains characterizes the disease. Aims: This study was undertaken to study the clinical spectrum and treatment response of mycetoma in central India. Settings and Design: It was a retrospective study of clinical and/or biopsy-proven and treated cases of mycetoma from November 2015 to October 2016. Subjects and Methods: Medical records of diagnosed and treated mycetoma patients were enrolled retrospectively during November 2015 and October 2016. Case records of patients were evaluated with respect to demographic, clinical, microbiological details, bone involvement, and treatment. Type of therapies and outcome, wherever available, were also assessed. Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis was done using proportion, mean, and percentages. Results: Eleven cases (male = 8) were seen during the study period (seven actinomycetoma and four eumycetoma). Foot and lower extremity was the most common site (9/11), whereas upper extremity and forehead were involved in one case each. On culture, the organisms isolated were Phialophora and Fusarium. Modified Welsch regimen was started in six of seven patients with actinomycetoma, whereas one was started on sulfamethoxazole–trimethoprim and a combination of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid therapy. All four cases of eumycetoma were treated with itraconazole. On follow-up, six cases of actinomycetoma cases showed significant improvement. Two cases of eumycetoma showed mild to moderate improvement and one case required surgical intervention. One case each of actinomycetoma and eumycetoma were lost to follow-up. Conclusion: Mycetoma has been recognized as a neglected tropical disease by the World Health Organization, recently. There are very few case reports from the central part of India. Prominent case detection in our study emphasizes the need of larger studies to know the extent of disease in this part of India.


Quinolones (ciprofloxacin) are synthetic broad-spectrum antibiotics with good oral absorption and excellent bioavailability. Due to the chemical functions found on their nucleus (a carboxylic acid function at the 3-position) and in most cases a basic piperazinyl ring (or another N-heterocycle) at the 7-position and a carbonyl oxygen atom at the 4-position) quinolones bind metal ions forming complexes which they can act as bidentate. Bidentate ligands L2=2-phenyl-2-(1-Naphthylamine) acetonitrile was prepared by the reaction of Primiry amine with benzaldehyde, in presence of potassium cyanide and acidic media. The metal complexes were characterized by the micro element analysis (C.H.N.), chloride content, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, FTIR and UV-Vis spectra, molar conductivity as well as magnetic susceptibility measurement. The coordination chemistry and bonding behaviors of the metal ions and ligands has been studied according to the spectra of the complexes on UV-vis and IR regions. According to the obtained data the probable coordination geometries of these complexes were suggested as octahedral. Some complexes were found to be non-electrolyte others were found to be weak electrolyte. The following metal ion complexes were prepared along with their suggested formulae base on the following: The metal ion complexes of the ligands (L1and L2) by condensation a solutionmixture of [Mn(II),Cu(II) and Cr(III)] ions respectively, in absolute ethanol with stirring gave the formulae: [ML1L2 Cl(H2O)X].2H2O Where M:{Mn2+ or Cu2+}, x=1 or 2 and [CrL1L2Cl(H2O)]Cl.3H2O.


This thesis details the design and implementation of an Interactive Storytelling Framework. Using software engineering methodology and framework development methods, we aim to design a full Interactive Storytelling system involving a story manager, a character engine, an action engine, a planner, a 3D game engine and a set of editors for story data, world environment modelling and real-time character animation. The framework is described in detail and specified to meet the requirement of bringing a more dynamic real-time interactive story experience to the medium of computer games. Its core concepts borrow from work done in the fields of narrative theory, software engineering, computer games technology, HCI, 3D character animation and artificial intelligence. The contributions of our research and the novelties lie in the data design of the story which allows a modular approach to building reusable resources such as actions, objects, animated characters and whole story 'levels'; a switchable story planner and re-planning system implementation, allowing many planners, heuristics and schedulers that are compatible with PDDL (the "Planning Domain Definition Language") to be easily integrated with minor changes to the main classes; a 3D game engine and framework for web launched or in browser deployment of the finished product; and a user friendly story and world/environment editor; so story authors do not need advanced knowledge of coding PDDL syntax, games programming or 3D modelling to design and author a basic story. As far as we know our Interactive Storytelling Framework is the only one to include a full 3D cross-platform game engine, procedural and manual modelling tools, a story -editor and customisable planner in one complete integrated solution. The finished interactive storytelling applications are presented as computer games designed to be a real-time 3D first person experience, with the player as a main story character in a world where every context filtered action displayed is executable and the player's choices make a difference to the outcome of the story, whilst still allowing the authors high level constraints to progress the narrative along their desired path(s).


We present a model family called Morfessor for the unsupervised induction of a simple morphology from raw text data. The model is formulated in a probabilistic maximum a posteriori framework. Morfessor can handle highly inflecting and compounding languages where words can consist of lengthy sequences of morphemes. A lexicon of word segments, called morphs, is induced from the data. The lexicon stores information about both the usage and form of the morphs. Several instances of the model are evaluated quantitatively in a morpheme segmentation task on different sized sets of Finnish as well as English data. Morfessor is shown to perform very well compared to a widely known benchmark algorithm, in particular on Finnish data.


How does consumer credit access impact job flows, earnings, and entrepreneurship? To answer this question, we build a new administrative dataset which links individual employment and entrepreneur tax records to TransUnion credit reports, and we exploit the discrete increase in consumer credit access following bankruptcy flag removal. After flag removal, individuals flow into self-employment. New entrants earn more, borrow significantly using unsecured and secured consumer credit, and are more likely to become an employer business. In addition, after flag removal, non-employed and self-employed individuals are more likely to find unemployment-insured "formal" jobs at larger firms that pay greater wages. These estimates imply that firms believe previously bankrupt workers are 3.8% less productive than non-bankrupt workers, on average. These results suggest that consumer credit access matters for each stage of entrepreneurship and that credit-checks may be limiting formal sector employment opportunities.


As the world becomes interdependent in economic dimension, external sector today is widely accepted as a national economic motivator. Trade polices yield the various effects on economy. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effects of free trade policy in Thailand to its top 5 trading partners on economic performance and the level of household income through CGE model using GTAP. The study reveals that the most worthy trading policy for Thailand, aimed at raising its national prosperity, is to remove tariff to trading partners, primarily with the E.U., followed by China and the U.S. JEL classification: C68;F13


Excerpt] "This paper explores the impact of Justice O'Connor on the Court's race and education jurisprudence, both in the context of primary through secondary school education and in public universities. Section II outlines Justice O'Connor's biography and explores several external influences on the Justice. Section III reviews the Court's race and education jurisprudence prior to Justice O'Connor's appointment to the Court. Section IV exposes the Court's jurisprudence in this area during Justice O'Connor's time on the Court, with an emphasis on those opinions authored by Justice O'Connor. Section V offers an analysis of the aftermath of Justice O'Connor's race and education jurisprudence, beginning with Section V(A) addressing the state of the law after Justice O'Connor's majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger. Section V(B) discusses the Court's race and education jurisprudence following Justice O'Connor's tenure, primarily through an analysis of Parents Involved in Community Schools. Finally, Section V(C) hypothesizes the future of raceconscious decision-making in education and Justice O'Connor's legacy through the lens of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Section VI concludes this paper."


The study covered in this thesis has been carried out for the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) in Stockholm, Sweden. It is a qualitative study of Web usage on cell phones, with the purpose to characterize frequent users who access many different websites. With this information it is possible to adjust the Web application development for cell phones to the factors that affect the user, and thus make using the Web on the cell phone easier. To get a better picture of this user group, contextual factors (motive, time, activity, location, distractions, interaction and privacy) were reviewed in terms of how they affect how people use the Web on their cell phone. This was done by using a so-called diary study, letting the participants write down information about their Web usage habits for one week. Depth interviews were used as a complement. The results showed that the Web on cell phones was most commonly used for pastime services such as reading the news and E-mail. The Web was not used as much when the participants were in a hurry, mainly because pastime services are not fit for time restricted situations, and the most frequently used location was at home, even though all participants had a computer at home with Internet access.


This qualitative study explored the stigma of mental illness within the African American community from the perspective of African American clinicians. Nine clinicians were interviewed and were asked to discuss personal messages received about mental illness within their family, community, and religious organizations. They also shared their perceptions of African American attitudes, based upon client interactions, towards mental illness and whether a change has occurred within the past 5-10 years; identifiable stigmas within the African American community; inhibitors to help-seeking behaviors; variables that influences help-seeking behaviors; and their recommendations for improving African Americans' comfort with disclosure within the therapeutic setting. The findings from the study revealed that negative stigma about mental illness remains dominant within the African American community and that many of its members also hold negative attitudes about mental illness. However, the findings did also show that a slight positive shift in stigma and attitudes has occurred. Additional findings addressed the key role that family plays in messages received about mental illness, the association between mental illness and religion/spirituality for many African Americans, and the importance of establishing rapport as being central to the therapeutic relationship in improving African Americans' comfort with disclosure within the therapeutic setting. Future research should focus on the further development of recommendations to decrease the negative attitudes and stigmas regarding mental illness within the African American community, as well as further exploring the role of the African American family as it relates to mental illness symptom identification and seeking mental health services. STIGMA, RACE AND MENTAL ILLNESS: AFRICAN AMERICAN CLINICIANS' PERCEPTION OF HOW THESE FACTORS INFLUENCE HELP-SEEKING BEHAVIORS IN AFRICAN AMERICANS A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work


In this paper, we develop a novel, intuitive and objective measure of time-varying parameter uncertainty (PU) based on a simple statistical test. Investors who are averse to parameter uncertainty will react to elevated levels of PU by withdrawing from the market and causing prices to fall, a behavior that is well described by the model of portfolio selection with parameter uncertainty of Garlappi et al. (2007). We show that this model in combination with our measure, outperforms all other tested variables including the strongest known predictor to date. Additionally, it is the only predictor that fulfills all criteria generally expected from a stable predictor of the equity premium. All our results are statistically and economically significant and robust to a large variety of different specifications.


We synthetize some new perovskite thin layers: p-fluorophenethylamine tetraiodoplumbate pFC(6)H(4)C(2)H(4)NH(3))(2)PbI(4) perovskite molecules, included in a PMMA matrix. We report on the optical properties of the perovskite doped PMMA thin layers and we show that these layers are much more stable under laser illumination and present a smaller roughness than the spin-coated (C(6)H(5)C(2)H(4)NH(3))(2)PbI(4) layers. These new layers are used as the active material in vertical microcavities and the strong-coupling regime is evidenced by a clear anti-crossing appearing in the angular-resolved reflectivity experiments at room temperature.


An experiment with 45 Theobroma cacao L. clones grafted onto a common rootstock was established between September 1991 and November 1997 to determine the yield potential of trees selected from interclonal families. Scionwood of 40 promising trees selected from among 1,320 trees, representing five families and three locations "m Puerto Rico, were patch bud grafted onto the rootstock clone EET-400. Additionally, scionwood of five of the eight parental clones involved in the combination of the families was also grafted onto the same rootstock. The 45 treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with six replications, each containing two experimental trees per replication. The trees reached full production in 1994, during the third growing year. Between 1994 and 1997 the mature pods were harvested, and the dry bean weight and pod index were determined. The means of the 40 grafted selections were compared with the combined means of five parental clones or to the mean of their highest yielding parent (P < 0.01). At the termination of the experiment in November 1997, only nine of the grafted clones significantly outyielded their parents, with a mean production of 2,170 kg/ha/year of dry beans. This finding indicated that fewer than 1% of the trees in the original five-family population were exceptionally superior yielders. Five of the nine superior yielding clones also had a significantly higher pod index. None of the 16 clones representing families IMC-67 X SCA-12 and IMC-67 x UF-613 performed as superior yielders. We concluded that either one or both parents involved in these interclonal crosses lack combining ability and may be excluded from cacao improvement programs, in addition, we found a direct relation between high pod index and superior dry bean weight in the progeny of family SCA-6 x EET-62.


Video over IP (VIP) is becoming a tool of communication in corporate environments to reduce the time spent conducting meetings face-to-face. This has been driven by efficiencies of time saving, management's monitoring of staff and to communicate with flexibilities without placing additional disadvantages on employees who must regularly attend personal meetings amongst hectic business schedules. With technology excelling beyond the old telegraphy of analogy video over hard copper wire to dark fibre technology, VIP is a technology that is starting to receive more attention in the corporate world as more organisations have the equipment to support this additional plug-in. But whilst corporate management may consider VIP a cost saving enterprise, the security implications it may pose to the information environment and internal networking communications are still a valid concern. This paper will review the risks for VIP systems in the corporate arena, and relevant models used in these systems will be analysed and reviewed for their specific networking vulnerabilities. This paper suggests much is still unknown about the risks VIP poses to uneducated corporate users and the technologically reliant business sector, and presents certain cases that support this argument.


In this work, we report about optical spectrometry using gold nano-structures printed on a polymer based integrated optical waveguide. The optical waveguide is a single mode buried waveguide, having dimensions of 3×2.2μm2. It is made from a combination of photo-polymerizable materials and is fabricated by photolithography on a glass substrate. To sense the electric field inside the waveguide, a gold nano-coupler array of thin lines (50 nm thick and 8 μm length) is embedded on top of the aforementioned waveguide. They are produced by E-beam lithography. The array pitch is 2.872 μm and the number of lines 564, which yields an array of 1.619 mm length. The device is enclosed with a glass superstrate to prevent it from dust and destruction. Both waveguide ports are polished and the output port in particular, is coated with a thin gold layer to assimilate a mirror and hence, it enables the creation of stationary waves inside the structure. The measurement procedure involves light injection using a single mode fiber carrying both visible light (658nm) and infrared light (785nm), used for alignment and measurement purposes respectively. Stationary waves generated inside the guide constitute the spatial interferogram. Locally, light is out-coupled using the nano-couplers and allows measuring the interferogram structure. The resulting pattern is imaged by a vision system involving an optical microscope with a digital camera mounted on-top of it. Signal processing, mainly based on Fast Fourier transform is performed on the captured signal to extract the spectral content of the measured signal.


In late 2009 US guidelines for HIV treatment were revised to recommend the initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) earlier in the course of the disease. We analyzed the life expectancy gains of people infected with HIV between the introduction of cART in 1996 and the 2009 guideline revisions. Compared to people who initiated cART late (defined as having a CD4 cell count of less than 350 per cubic millimeter of blood), those who initiated treatment early (with a CD4 count of 350-500) could expect to live 6.1 years longer, and the earliest initiators (with a CD4 count of more than 500) could expect an extra 9.0 years of life. The total value of life expectancy gains to the early and earliest initiators of treatment was $80 billion, with each life-year valued at $150,000. The value of the survival gains was more than double the increase in drug manufacturers' revenues from early cART initiation. Our results clarify the economic implications of adherence to treatment guidelines.