Acute Pancreatitis (AP) is a potentially fatal syndrome, associated with a hyper-catabolic state as well as early and late complications that may lead to multi-organ failure and death. Clinical researches produced in recent years suggest that acute pancreatitis may benefit from early oral or enteral nutrition. Nevertheless, many clinicians still believe erroneously that fasting - particularly in the early phase - may reduce AP complications and mortality. The goal of our review is to demonstrate that such false belief may harm the patients and that the whole management paradigm must change, adopting a more rational, evidence-based approach. First, we will describe AP physiopathology and the clinical assessment of its severity. Then we will discuss evidence-based data supporting early oral or enteral nutrition in AP. Finally, we will offer some practice recommendations as regards nutritional support.


The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint envisions the transformation of the ASEAN region into a single market and production base through the facilitation of the free flow of goods and services. With tariffs declining to near-zero levels, nontariff barriers are increasingly the focus of coordination efforts by ASEAN member-countries. The ASEAN standards and conformance measures aim to harmonize national standards, technical regulations, and conformity assessment procedures to achieve connectivity among similar regulatory institutions in the region and to facilitate trade. The Mid-Term Review of the AEC Blueprint set out surveys and a scorecard mechanism to assess each country`s progress in the implementation of standards and conformance in eight key areas, including automotive and rubber-based products, electrical and electronic equipment, cosmetics, medical devices, pharmaceutical products, prepared foodstuff, and traditional medicine and health supplement sectors. This paper presents the survey results and includes a background on key national institutions in-charge of standards and conformance. Overall, the survey results show that the Philippines is committed to aligning national standards with international benchmarks and has achieved significant progress in most sectors through measures that include the amendment of the relevant laws and regulations. While the Philippines remains committed to the AEC and the AEC blueprint, challenges to implementation remain, including adequate funding and support. The way forward for standards and conformance in the Philippines lies in capacity building and strengthening regulatory institutions.


There is a contradiction at the heart of digital media. We use commercial platforms to express our identity, to build community and to engage politically. At the same time, our status updates, tweets, videos, photographs and music files are free content for these sites. We are also generating an almost endless supply of user data that can be mined, re-purposed and sold to advertisers. As users of the commercial web, we are socially and creatively engaged, but also labourers, exploited by the companies that provide our communication platforms. How do we reconcile these contradictions? Feminism, Labour and Digital Media argues for using the work of Marxist feminist theorists about the role of domestic work in capitalism to explore these competing dynamics of consumer labour. It uses the concept of the Digital Housewife to outline the relationship between the work we do online and the unpaid sphere of social reproduction. It demonstrates how feminist perspectives expand our critique of consumer labour in digital media. In doing so, the Digital Housewife returns feminist inquiry from the margins and places it at the heart of critical digital media analysis.


The genus Nerine (Amaryllidaceae) native to Southern Africa, comprises bulbous
perennials with colourful, long-lasting blooms prized for cut-flower and bulb
production. Hybridisation programmes have been undertaken since the late 19th
century, breeding towards specific horticultural traits becoming more intensive in
recent years. This work represents the first major study of the reproductive biology
of Nerine, and provides a scientific basis for ongoing breeding work.
The inflorescence of Nerine is preformed within the bulb scales up to 32 months
prior to anthesis, with floral development occurring continuously during this period.
Sequential floret initiation occurs during the first growing season, followed by
differentiation of the floral organs in year two. Gametogenesis occurs in the final
months prior to anthesis, being asynchronous within an inflorescence. The lengthy
period of floral development renders the inflorescence susceptible to disturbance
over three growing seasons and two critical periods have been identified.
Environmental conditions also act on the inflorescence at the time of scape
emergence.
The fertilisation process from pollen germination to entry of the pollen tube into the
micropyle takes approximately three days. The onset, duration and period of
maximal pistil receptivity has been directly measured via seed set. However, this
period does not correlate with indirect measures of receptivity. The length of the
style at anthesis, relative to anther position, can be in one of three positions in
Nerine (below, level or exsert). In all cases, elongation of the style occurs postanthesis,
with maximal elongation occurring in the short-styled cultivars. These
short-style morphs have a greater rate of seed set from both open and selfpollinations.

The seeds of Nerine are fleshy and have no dormancy period. Following successful
fertilisation, a nuclear endosperm develops and the integumentary tissue increases.
At seed shed, a proembryo is present and the majority of embryo development
occurs during after-ripening. Embryo development is influenced by temperature,
with development and hence germination able to be suspended in some species by
storage at 4°C. There was evidence of parthenogenetic seed production.
A hybridisation programme, operating at intra- and inter-specific and inter-generic
levels, was initiated, with the fertility of seven species and 76 cultivars assessed.
This yielded seeds from 96 intra-specific, eleven inter-specific and eight intergeneric
crosses. In addition, self-compatibility has been established in five species
and 23 cultivars. Pre- and post-zygotic barriers have been identified in failed
crosses at all hybridisation levels, with a number of interventionist techniques being
tested to overcome these barriers. In vitro culture of fertilised ovules was found to
increase germination rates of hybrid seeds and protocols for in vitro pollination and
embryo rescue have been developed. In addition, a successful technique for
gynogenesis has been developed for use in N. flexuosa 'alba'. The hybridisation history of Nerine has resulted in the nomenclature of cultivars
being in a chaotic state. As a result of this project, 1291 Nerine hybrids have been
catalogued, with a collection of 95 Nerine cultivars described to allow assessment
for horticultural purposes. Morphological characters have been assessed for use in
cultivar identification schemes and for indicators of hybrid parentage. In addition a
preliminary RAPD analysis has indicated this will be a useful tool for establishing
relationships between cultivars and individual cultivar identification.


Abstract. A glacial flow model of Smith, Pope and Kohler Glaciers is calibrated by means of control methods against time varying, annually resolved observations of ice height and velocities, covering the period 2002 to 2011. The inversion – termed "transient calibration" – produces an optimal set of time-mean, spatially varying parameters together with a time-evolving state that accounts for the transient nature of observations and the model dynamics. Serving as an optimal initial condition, the estimated state for 2011 is used, with no additional forcing, for predicting grounded ice volume loss and grounding line retreat over the ensuing 30 years. The transiently calibrated model predicts a near-steady loss of grounded ice volume of approximately 21 km3 a−1 over this period, as well as loss of 33 km2 a−1 grounded area. We contrast this prediction with one obtained following a commonly used "snapshot" or steady-state inversion, which does not consider time dependence and assumes all observations to be contemporaneous. Transient calibration is shown to achieve a better fit with observations of thinning and grounding line retreat histories, and yields a quantitatively different projection with respect to ice volume loss and ungrounding. Sensitivity studies suggest large near-future levels of unforced, i.e., committed sea level contribution from these ice streams under reasonable assumptions regarding uncertainties of the unknown parameters.


When hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in the summer of 2011, protesting the high cost of living and demanding "social justice," the ills of the media system including its concentration, the growing digital divide, and the implosion of public broadcasting were not made part of the social movement's agenda. This study employs a justice-based theory for media, analyzing three types of "products" of the social movement: the unionization of media workers, the establishment of alternative media, and the reports recommending regulatory/institutional reform. We attempt to understand why media reform, an essential element without which social justice cannot be fully achieved, has been sidelined in the debate over the ways to achieve "social justice" in Israel.


Objective. Although there is information on biochemical markers of muscle and cardiac damage following strenuous exercise, little is known about the kinetics of these markers in athletes performing sub‐maximal exercise. Material and methods. Fifteen healthy, trained, Caucasian males took part in a 21‐km run. Blood samples were collected before the run, immediately after (post), and 3 h, 6 h and 24 h thereafter. Biochemical markers of muscle and cardiac damage were evaluated on the Modular System, employing proprietary reagents. In no case did the concentration of troponin T increase by >0.03 ng/mL. The values of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), creatine kinase (CK), CK MB, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and myoglobin increased significantly immediately after the run and remained elevated 24 h thereafter. Results. The number of subjects with values above the upper limit of the relative reference ranges did not vary throughout the study period for AST and LDH, while it increased significantly for CK, CK MB and myoglobin. The major variation over the pre‐run value was recorded for myoglobin (3‐fold increment), whereas AST and LDH increased 1.1 and 1.3‐fold, respectively. Conclusions. The results suggest the hypothesis that sub‐maximal exercise influences the concentration of several biomarkers of muscle damage for up to 24 h with no biochemical signs of myocardial damage.


China, like other middle income countries, is facing the challenges of the next stage of development as its leaders seek to guide the nation into becoming a high income country. At this same point of development, however, other countries have faltered, raising the possibility of stagnation or collapse. The stagnation of growth after reaching a level of income high enough to be call "middle income" is a phenomenon which some observers call the Middle Income Trap. In this paper we explore one of the major challenges that nations, including China, must face in the transition from middle to high income: the management of inequality. In particular, we explore the possible roots of future inequality that is associated with a nation's underinvestment in the human capital of broad segments of its population. To meet this goal we first look at several benchmarks of successful transitions from middle to high income (e.g., the case of South Korea) and not-so-successful transitions (Mexico). We then exam more systematically the characteristics of countries that have successfully transitioned (or graduated) from middle to high income (Graduates) and those that are attempting to do so now (Aspirees). With this background, we describe the challenges that China faces in the light of rising wage rates and highly unequal income distribution today. We also document the high levels of human capital inequality in China today, a harbinger of high future inequality. In discussing the sources of the human capital inequality, in addition to the structural and institutional barriers that are discouraging many students (and their parents) from staying in school to achieve the levels of learning that we believe are necessary for preparing individuals for employment in the coming decades, we also identify severe nutritional and health problems. We believe that these nutrition and health problems, unless addressed, are creating serious China's human capital deficiencies in poor areas of rural China and locking in decades of hard-to-address inequality. The paper ends with a call for leaders in China (and countries at the same level of income of China) to launch immediately a war on poor education, health and nutrition as one step in helping such nations avoid the Middle Income Trap in the future.


The treatment literature on offender rehabilitation is reviewed with the purpose of deriving further direction for researchers and clinicians in the field of correctional psychology. After addressing the measurement of recidivism and other indicators of effectiveness, this empirically guided article reviews individual studies and meta-analyses on effectiveness of psychosocial correctional treatment for adult offenders and specialized treatment for substance abuse offenders and sexual offenders. A foundation in the general principles of offender intervention is established; principles such as risk, need, and responsivity are upheld; and common themes including the use of cognitive-behavioral interventions and the importance of treatment integrity emerge. However, questions move beyond "what works" to detailed queries about the nuances of effective service delivery, including client motivation. Well-controlled clinical studies and detailed process evaluations are still required. Other new directions include the application of positive psychology to offender treatment and the improvement of conditions under which community reentry is more likely to succeed. Directions for further research on correctional treatment are suggested.


The separation between words and deeds, or rhetoric and reality, is increasingly recognized in every sphere of public life, from the inappropriately-named 'reality TV' shows and the hyper-unreality of advertising, to election razzmatazz, corporate spin and government propaganda. We live in a period where we must recognize what John Kenneth Galbraith, in The Economics of Innocent Fraud, describes as a 'continuing divergence' between 'approved belief ' and reality. We live in the age of the fake. For many, the lies around Iraq crossed a line and revealed concerted government lying which was seen as comparatively new. In my view it is new in the sense that we are in a new, neoliberal period which stands in marked contrast to the period of social democracy (roughly 1945-1979) when the gap between words and actions was of necessity narrower. The compromise between capital and labour forced the creation of a common language. This had its limits, but at least in key aspects of domestic policy the gap between rhetoric and reality was narrower. There was less need to lie, less need to attempt to align capitalist interests with general interests because there was some compromise and mediation of interests.


Stress-related illnesses are major reasons for long-term sick leave and sickness in general in Sweden. The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to get a better understanding of how agroup of middle-managers in elderly care facilities experience their psychosocial work environment. Using the demand-control-support model, the results show that working as a middle-manager in healthcare is an "active" job. This means that it requires a great deal of knowledge and proffessionalism to meet the high mental demands that comes with the job. Service and health care must be equally good both day and night, summer and winter, christmas day and an ordinary Tuesday. For example, If the employee possess the qualities needed to meet these demands, and also has a strong social support from colleagues, managers as well as from friends and family the risk of burnout and other stress-related illnesses aresignificantly lower than otherwise. Although, the results also show that the level of stress and the positioning in the demand-control model is fairly individual, two middle-managers at different workplaces, but with the same workload and job assignments can experience demands, control and support in different ways. Their way to balance work and other aspects of life like family and leisure activities, as well as their different work places in general can play a role in how they experience stress.


Transmembrane (receptor) tyrosine phosphatases are intimately involved in responses to cell-cell and cell-matrix contact. Several important issues regarding the targets and regulation of this protein family are now emerging. For example, these phosphatases exhibit complex interactions with signaling pathways involving SRC family kinases, which result from their ability to control phosphorylation of both activating and inhibitory sites in these kinases and possibly also their substrates. Similarly, integrin signaling illustrates how phosphorylation of a single protein, or the activity of a pathway, can be controlled by multiple tyrosine phosphatases, attesting to the intricate integration of these enzymes in cellular regulation. Lastly, we are starting to appreciate the roles of intracellular topology, tyrosine phosphorylation and oligomerization among the many mechanisms regulating tyrosine phosphatase activity.


Abstract Cognitive rehabilitation treatment (CRT) has been described in patients with brain injury, but it has not been attempted in cases of cognitive dysfunction without organic cause. This case report describes CRT of neurocognitive impairment in a 54-year-old female patient with conversion disorder (CD). She experienced difficulties with regard to speaking, motor function, and pain symptoms, which developed after stressful life circumstances. Baseline neuropsychological assessment (NPA) showed mental slowness and impaired (working) memory. Time Pressure Management (TPM) was used as CRT to teach the patient a compensatory strategy to overcome mental slowness in 12 sessions. During treatment, physical symptoms were monitored with the Physical Symptom Questionnaire (LKV), and mental slowness with the Mental Slowness Questionnaire (MSQ). After treatment, the LKV score dropped from 85 to 47, indicating 54% treatment response. Mental slowness showed improvement based on the MSQ and was confirmed by an NPA after treatment. Other neurocognitive functions improved as well and the motoric CD symptoms subsided. This case report suggests that improvement of mental slowness, as well as motor CD symptoms, can be achieved by TPM in non-organic neurocognitive impairment in CD. This finding has not been described in the literature. Further research is warranted to explore the efficacy of TPM in CD.


Abstract. This paper accompanies the first release of libmpdata++, a C++ library implementing the multi-dimensional positive-definite advection transport algorithm (MPDATA) on regular structured grid. The library offers basic numerical solvers for systems of generalised transport equations. The solvers are forward-in-time, conservative and non-linearly stable. The libmpdata++ library covers the basic second-order-accurate formulation of MPDATA, its third-order variant, the infinite-gauge option for variable-sign fields and a flux-corrected transport extension to guarantee non-oscillatory solutions. The library is equipped with a non-symmetric variational elliptic solver for implicit evaluation of pressure gradient terms. All solvers offer parallelisation through domain decomposition using shared-memory parallelisation. The paper describes the library programming interface, and serves as a user guide. Supported options are illustrated with benchmarks discussed in the MPDATA literature. Benchmark descriptions include code snippets as well as quantitative representations of simulation results. Examples of applications include homogeneous transport in one, two and three dimensions in Cartesian and spherical domains; a shallow-water system compared with analytical solution (originally derived for a 2-D case); and a buoyant convection problem in an incompressible Boussinesq fluid with interfacial instability. All the examples are implemented out of the library tree. Regardless of the differences in the problem dimensionality, right-hand-side terms, boundary conditions and parallelisation approach, all the examples use the same unmodified library, which is a key goal of libmpdata++ design. The design, based on the principle of separation of concerns, prioritises the user and developer productivity. The libmpdata++ library is implemented in C++, making use of the Blitz++ multi-dimensional array containers, and is released as free/libre and open-source software.


OBJECT
The supraorbital eyebrow approach is a minimally invasive technique that offers wide access to the anterior skull base region and parasellar area through asubfrontal corridor. The use of neuroendoscopy allows one to extend the approach further to the pituitary fossa, the anterior third ventricle, the interpeduncular cistern, the anterior and medial temporal lobe, and the middle fossa. The supraorbital approach involves a limited skin incision, with minimal soft-tissue dissection and a small craniotomy, thus carrying relatively low approach-related morbidity.

METHODS
All consecutive patients who underwent the endoscopic supraorbital eyebrow approach were retrospectively analyzed for lesion location, pathology, length of stay, complications, and cosmetic results.

RESULTS
During a 56-month period, 97 patients (mean age 58.5 years) underwent an endoscopic eyebrow approach to resect extra- and intraaxial brain lesions. The most common pathologies treated were meningiomas (n = 41); craniopharyngiomas (n = 22); dermoid tumors (n = 7); metastases (n = 4); gliomas (n = 3); and other miscellaneous frontal, parasellar, and midbrain (n = 23) lesions. The median length of postoperative hospital stay was 2.7 days (range 1-8 days). In 82 patients a total removal of the lesion was performed, while in 15 patients a near-total or subtotal removal was achieved. There were no postoperative hematomas, cerebrospinal fluid leaks, or severe neurological deficits, with the exception of 2 cases of visual deterioration and 1 case each of meningitis, stroke, and third cranial nerve paresis. Other complications directly related to the approach included 2 cases of skin burn as a direct result of heat transmission from the microscope light, 1 case of right frontal palsy, 2 cases of frontal numbness, and 1 case of bone remodeling 1 year after surgery.

CONCLUSIONS
The endoscopic supraorbital eyebrow approach is a safe and effective minimally invasive approach to remove extra- and intraaxial anterior skull base, parasellar, and frontal lesions, promoting a rapid recovery and short hospital stay. The location of the eyebrow incision demands a meticulous cosmetic closure, but, with proper technique, cosmetic results are excellent.


The Egyptian revolution started literally with an open space: at the Tahrir Square in the heart of Cairo. Here it was where many Egyptians for the first time in their lives made the experience of freely talking about politics in public. Since January 2011, many young Egyptians are trying to keep up this "Tahrir experience" by experimenting with new forms of political debate and civic education in Egypt. It was this spirit that resulted in the idea of introducing the Open Space Technology (OST) as a new format of civic education in Egypt. In March 2011 the authors of this article, both working in Egypt for many years, organized the first Open Space in the country. This event encouraged many other national and international institutions and initiatives to adopt and further develop OST in Egypt and other Arab countries. The unexpected popularity of OST in revolutionary Egypt proved that it is in fact the right methodology at the right time in the right context and the right place. OST is a meeting format that fosters dialogue and exchange in a democratic way. It is easy to organize and non-costly. It invites for sharing opinions, discovering common ground, discussing and tackling differences. It helps generating ideas and reflecting about their implementation. This article argues that Open Space (OS), therefore, is a format that perfectly fits the transforming political environment and the socio-cultural setting of Egypt and – most probably – other Arab transformation-states.


Through forward multiple-event analysis of teleseismic P-waves using source time functions (STFs), derived by non-negative time-domain deconvolution, we inferred the rupture features of the 2018 Hualien earthquake. At least six sub-events composed the Hualien earthquake, with the largest one (corresponding to Mw = 6.3) occurring 4.8 s later than the initiation of rupture. The total seismic moment (M0) of 6.48 × 1018 Nm (Mw = 6.5) and radiated seismic energy (ES) of 1.76 × 1014 Nm led to the ES/M0 ratio ~2.72 × 10-5. A static stress drop (∆σS) of 5.03 MPa was also derived for the earthquake. On average, the rupture parameters of the 2018 Hualien earthquake from this study were similar to globally average values. From M0 and source duration (10.9 s), this implied an average rupture velocity (Vr) less than 2.0 km s-1. The forward multiple-event modeling showed that ∆σS varied with the sub-events and increased with ES/M0 to imply the frictional strength being heterogeneous along the fault. From the highest STF peak (6.9 s after the initiation) near the land-sea interface, we suggested that the Hualien earthquake be divided into two rupture processes. One with low ∆σS, low ES/M0, and high Vr occurred at sea; the other with high ∆σS, high ES/M0, and low Vr occurred on land. Both seawater and local velocity structures probably played crucial factors behind these rupture discrepancies during the 2018 Hualien earthquake. Article history: Received 31 July 2018 Revised 22 October 2018 Accepted 15 November 2018


Healthcare in the UK is a very important sector; it provides state of the art accommodation that meets the need of patients, visitors, medical professionals and other staff. The UK Government is currently cutting costs within the different sectors of the economy, while there are raising figures in UK National Health Service (NHS) spending. These are due to a growing and ageing population, advancement in modern healthcare delivery and special needs for different facility users. There is a UK Government proposal set out that requires the delivery of £15-20 billion in efficiency savings over the three year period from 2011 (Department of Health, 2010-2015). This study has understood that cost savings can be achieved by adopting and implementing a framework that supports refurbishment, flexibility, standardisation and Building Information Modelling (BIM). These cost savings can be achieved through Mechanical Engineering and Plumbing (MEP) clash detections using (BIM). 65% of hospital designs are centred on MEP services (interviews). The NHS needs to save cost when responding to possible future changes without compromising the quality of standard provided to the public. A change-ready healthcare facility is proposed to address the issue of change and the design of quality spaces that can enhance effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of health and social care. A change-ready healthcare facility can be described as a facility that accommodates known or proposed future changes creating novel pathways to increase the quality and life span of facilities. There is also a large chunk of NHS estates that is underutilised EC Harris, (2013). Therefore, healthcare facilities need to respond to future changes in order to optimise their spaces. To achieve quality and cost efficiency in healthcare buildings, key considerations are refurbishment and reconfiguration, optimisation of flexibility, maximising standardisation and implementation of BIM.
This research explores opportunities to save costs, time and improve quality of healthcare facilities by making emphasis on the design delivery process. Therefore, the new RIBA Plan of Work 2013 was used as a mechanism to help translate ideas into physical form and yet has been hindered by lack of development and ability to keep up with technological development such as BIM. This is the rationale for developing a framework. The RIBA Plan of Work is accepted nationally.
Due to the UK BIM mandate by 2016, this research is focused on the use of BIM to support both space standardisation and space flexibility within a refurbished or new building. Space is a vital component competent in every healthcare facility. It provides the environment for healthcare services to be performed, and links one functional space to another, it can be designed for multifunctional usage. Healthcare spaces are complex entities due to the range of services and technology they support and the number, variety and quality of requirement combined with a rapidly changing environment. Flexibility enables a facility to easily respond to changes, while the introduction of standardisation supports staff performance by reducing the reliance on memory which will reduce human error. But the main question that emerges from current literature is how healthcare designers and planners manage healthcare spaces that cannot easily be standardised due to the constraints of existing structures, diversity in patient and staff needs?
With analysis of different flexibility frameworks in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, there is a need to improve the existing frameworks. Therefore, a framework for designing a change-ready healthcare facility was developed through a sequence of data analysis starting with literature, preliminary data, questionnaire survey and interviews. Three frameworks for designing a change-ready facility were revised, organised and merged to produce a state of the art framework. Three frameworks were revised as different research methods were required. The successful framework can guide the design process of embedding different flexible design options for a defined project brief to save costs and improve design efficiency. The framework was validated with some of the top 100 architectural practices in the UK, NHS Estates, facility managers and the RIBA through an interview process.
Further research and development arising from this research focuses on the process of applying BIM to record or identify key decisions taken for each of the different design options generated from a single brief to inform the designers, clients or other stakeholders involved while collaborating. Findings of this research are described in five peer-reviewed papers.
 The only certainty in healthcare is change Gressel and Hilands, (2008).


This research work covers the development of a novel compact model for a Floating Gate nMOSFET that will be added to the QUCS library. QUCS (Quite Universal Circuit Simulator) is a GPL simulation software package that was created in 2006 and is continuing to develop and evolve, and there is already a substantial library of components, devices and circuits. Fundamentally, a floating gate device is an analogue device, even though modern technology uses it mainly as a non-volatile memory element there are numerous uses for it as an analogue device.

A study has been carried out with regards to the principles of the physical phenomenon of charge transfer through silicon dioxide to a floating gate. The study has concentrated on the physical properties of the fabricated device and the principles of charge transfer through an oxide layer by Fowler–Nordheim principles. The EKV2.6 MOSFET was used as the fundamental device for the model that has been adapted by the addition of the floating gate. An equivalent circuit of an FGMOSFET was developed and analysed theoretically. This was then formulated into the QUCs environment and created as a compact model. Simulations were carried out and the results analysed to compare with the theoretical expectations and previous research works.

It is well documented that the creation of equivalent circuits for floating gate devices is complicated by the fact that the floating gate is isolated as a node and as such cannot be directly analysed by simulators.

For the equivalent circuit created, circuit analysis was achieved by the introduction of high value resistances connected in parallel with the capacitive elements that are representative of the incursion of the floating gate that is intrinsic to a floating gate device. The resistance elements were of such value that the time constants were of the order of 10000s and did not interfere with the simulation. The equations from the analysis were formulated and the anticipated responses were shown. The analytical equations developed were then used within the QUCS environment with explicit use of EDDs(Equation Defined Devices) to create a novel model of a FGMOSFET.

Simulations of the model created were carried out with a range of voltage pulses being applied to the tunnelling terminal to affect a charge transfer to the floating gate by means of Fowler-Nordheim principles. The changes of the charge stored on the floating gate were clearly shown by the measured anticipated associated shift in the Threshold voltage.

Simulated results have been compared with previous research and development work and the new model is considered effective. Also because of the ability of the QUCS software to allow the variation of the multiplicity of the parameters associated with the fabrication process, it is considered to be adaptable to a range of modern floating gate device structures and materials.


This study examines the level of satisfaction of the usage of e-commerce applications among companies in Johor Bahru. To explore the issue, a set of questionnaires was distributed among the companies that have already implemented e-commerce.The finding shows that the majority of the companies are satisfied with the e-commerce applications.Almost all of the companies mentioned that e-commerce has the empathy, tangibility, responsiveness,reliability and assurance criteria with the last two criteria being the most profound. This significant finding will encourage other companies to use e-commerce applications in their business transactions.


Purpose - – This paper aims to report on research aimed at determining the nature of business strategies employed by micro small and medium-sized street vendors in a local market area in Bangkok. Design/methodology/approach - – The research consisted of a longitudinal study of the defined research site, involving ethnographic interaction and observation mediated by the use of a research diary. Findings - – The research found that the use of business strategies was quite limited and varied in line with the street vendor's relationships with other actors and business practitioners. Research limitations/implications - – The research was deliberately limited in terms of space and is ongoing in terms of time. Additional areas of Bangkok will also be studied for comparative purposes. Practical implications - – Street vending and markets offer valuable opportunities for informal employment and for part-time employment to provide additional income generation for the working poor. Vendors also help sustain a decent standard of living for migrant workers. Social implications - – Street vending of this sort reflects the nature of underlying changes in urban life: the building of new mass transit routes, the opening of condominiums in place of shop houses and the flourishing of the frozen food industry. Many street vendors are mobile and flexible but not all of them. Originality/value - – This paper contributes to the literature on street vending and urban micro-entrepreneurs and will be of interest not just to scholars of business but also in planning for social policy and urban management.


This thesis is about software development in enterprises such as the public company Elektro-Slovenija d.o.o. whose core business is not software development. What is also common to these enterprises is that they are publicly owned and that they must follow public procurement laws. These enterprises have usually a department or a sector dedicated to information technology (IT). IT departments provide to other departments IT support, both computer hardware and software. User applications for the business information system are today the nerve system of every modern enterprise. Enterprises cope with this support in different ways. In this thesis, the following case is analyzed. The IT department has their own developers but not enough to cope if big software development projects are at stake.
Computer applications are in general a result of software development projects. A project is a process where a certain goal must be reached in a certain amount of time using limited resources. Project management has its roots in civil and mechanical engineering. The project management methodology is therefore not entirely suitable for software engineering projects. The results of software engineering projects are computer applications which are far more intangible that the results of other engineering projects. The quality of the end product is in the case of software engineering projects hard to predict and is often regarded as the fourth crucial factor, besides time, resources and cost, influencing the success of a project. Quality assurance should be predetermined and built into the software development process itself. In this way, user demanded late changes of software can be prevented. Different standards and best practice approaches in software development can help in achieving quality.
Adaptive Software Development (ASD) method is only one of agile approaches to software development which are since 2000 becoming very popular. The ASD method can help project managers to organize the work and assign the prescribed roles in the project team. Since changes are a constant in today's business, ASD anticipates the importance of the people on the project, because they are the one that can adapt to ever present changes. This thesis is built upon this presumption and tries to prove the following hypothesis that relationships between project team members are capable of adaptation to change.
Outsourcing part of the software development to sub-contractors is studied in detail. The biggest problem arises because the subcontractor cannot be selected based on the purely subjective choice of the project manager, but through some objective technical and economic criteria, price being one of the most important. In a project team that is composed of in-house programmers and analysts, and programmers that come from a subcontractor, the relationships established between team members gain on their importance. This thesis tries to prove that relationships between people influence the quality of the finished product but this factor is hard to predict and is of personal nature.
In this thesis the methodology of assessing the quality of organization in an enterprise (MUKOZ) is used. MUKOZ was developed by Slovenian experts in the Slovenian chamber of commerce in 1988. This methodology established five basic relationships and combinations of pairs of them that influence the quality of organizations. Some of these relationships (of personnel nature) are in software development more important than others and can even surmount other quality factors of more technical nature. Relationships of personnel nature are founded on personal and professional characteristics of project team members on the environment in which the project is carried out, and on the software applications itself.
The purpose of this thesis is to combine the knowledge of everyday business practice in a Slovenian publicly owned enterprise with theory of project management and quality assurance. The goal of this thesis is to single out the factors that are the most influential for the personnel relationships in the project team during software development. A survey among sub-contracting software developers was carried out to determine these factors. A project manager must exploit not only the technical knowledge of his team members but also their other characteristics. Personal characteristics of team members enable the synergy and development of a project team. In the thesis twenty such characteristics are identified that team managers must take into consideration. The characteristics are weighted according to their influence on building the project team.
An ideal combination of characteristics assures relationships where trust and self-initiative prevail. In such circumstances the organization as a structure of relationships turns toward a more friendly organization. A friendly organization produces solutions of best quality. Beside proper use of documentation and standards we propose for quality results also the use of positive personal and professional characteristics of project team members. This is even more important in heterogeneous groups where team members come from different environments. For the success of a software development project, relationships in the project team play a vital role.


ABSTRACT Throughout the world, conversion to evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity produces what Joel Robbins calls 'duplex cultural formations', whereby surviving aspects of local cosmology and worldview are brought into tension with paramount Christian values through a process of critical evaluation. I explore the dynamics of this process within Oksapmin understandings of human and cosmic origins. Traditional anthropogonic models explaining the emergence of lineages from primordial figures have been brought into tension with more-valued understandings of God as creator of the universe through the process of diabolisation, in this case, local figures being associated with fallen angels expelled from Heaven. I argue that these beings are permitted to continue because the anthropogenic and historic nature of their power does not significantly contradict the cosmogonic and eternally present conception of God's creative capacity, but are diabolised owing to their continued existence as symbols of creative power and the source of sinful ritual practices.


On 31 May 2011 it was fifty years since the advent of the Republic of South Africa. This article examines the Republican Constitution of 1961 in the light of subsequent constitutional and political developments and in particular against the background and values contained and espoused in the democratic and non-racial Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996.
Whereas the 1961 Constitution brought about a significant political change, it did not, as the 1983 Constitution purported to do, initiate a process of constitutional reform. Nor did the Republican Constitution introduce any fundamental changes or reforms. Although the Republican Constitution of 1961, like the South Africa Act of 1909, appeared to be apolitically neutral instrument of government and was not specifically designed to reflect the philosophy and politics of separate development or institutionalised inequality, it was however an oligarchic and racist constitution, that facilitated white hegemony in an unambiguous way.
Afrikaner nationalism's great political and constitutional struggle against imperialism attained its goal when South Africa became a republic. This was therefore an event of singular political importance for white South Africans, but the price that the country paid was its ignominious departure from the Commonwealth.
Only with the advent of the Interim Constitution, following the first historic democratic election of 27 April 1994, did South Africa and its people obtain a democratic constitution within a republican framework, involving an entrenched Bill of Rights, with a democratically elected government. This article revisits and re-evaluates the Constitution of 1961 that brought into being a republic outside the Commonwealth.


Abstract. Complex network theory has been successfully applied to understand the structural and functional topology of many dynamical systems from nature, society and technology. Many properties of these systems change over time, and, consequently, networks reconstructed from them will, too. However, although static and temporally changing networks have been studied extensively, methods to quantify their robustness as they evolve in time are lacking. In this paper we develop a theory to investigate how networks are changing within time based on the quantitative analysis of dissimilarities in the network structure. Our main result is the common component evolution function (CCEF) which characterizes network development over time. To test our approach we apply it to several model systems, Erdős–Renyi networks, analytically derived flow-based networks, and transient simulations from the START model for which we control the change of single parameters over time. Then we construct annual climate networks from NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data for the Asian monsoon domain for the time period of 1970–2011 CE and use the CCEF to characterize the temporal evolution in this region. While this real-world CCEF displays a high degree of network persistence over large time lags, there are distinct time periods when common links break down. This phasing of these events coincides with years of strong El Nino/Southern Oscillation phenomena, confirming previous studies. The proposed method can be applied for any type of evolving network where the link but not the node set is changing, and may be particularly useful to characterize nonstationary evolving systems using complex networks.


This research poster is part of my doctoral research, Light and the Choreographic: dancing with Tungsten ( supervisors Dr Rachel Hann and Dr Adam Alston). The artistic and affective relationship of light and the performing body has gained recent scholarly attention in the fields of scenography (Abufalia, Moran, Palmer) and digital technologies (Salter, Sutil). Similarly, significant critical analysis through both feminist (Albright) and Modernist lenses (Garelick) has been given to the revolutionary light dance performances of Loie Fuller (18621928). Distinctly, from the perspective of the choreographing dancer, 'Attenuating Light and the Choreographic' sits within my PhD practice research that explores the transformative encounters and perceptual disturbances that are available in the intensification and attenuation of lighting scapes. The conceptual developments grounding my work recognize that we live in a world of ever-increasing luminescence, argued by philosopher Paul Virilio as "an artificial condition of paradoxical wakefulness" (2009:51), which alters the ways in which we think and respond to light. Within this context, my research suggests how choreographies created through sensitized approaches to lighting allow for a re-attunement of our relationship with light. Through generating experiences of dazzling and attenuation in dance performance, I offer a space where these nuances may be felt and critiqued. My research contributes to the current political debate that is witnessing an increased regulation on the use of Tungsten halogen lighting. Framed as an 'eco-political gesture', the imminent implementation of new legislation aimed specifically at theatre and performance environments is marking a critical moment in the history of theatre lighting. It is, therefore, with a sense of urgency that my research wishes to speak of the copoiesis of lighting and the choreographic.


Heat shock proteins, first observed because they are preferentially synthesized by organisms exposed to heat or other physiological stress, are also synthesized constitutively. These proteins are divided into several families, namely, HSP100, 90, 70, 60 (chaperonin), and the small heat shock/α-crystallin proteins. They enjoy a wide phylogenetic distribution and are important because they function as molecular chaperones, able to mediate many cellular processes through an influence on higher order protein structure. For example, molecular chaperones assist in the transport of proteins into mitochondria and chloroplasts, as well as influencing clathrin lattice dynamics, viral replication and transcriptional activation. Under conditions of stress, some molecular chaperones prevent denaturation of proteins while others may dissociate protein aggregates, refolding monomers derived therefrom or directing their proteolytic destruction. We present in this review an analysis of the emerging literature on the relationship between molecular chaperones and the cytoskeleton, a collection of polymeric structures consisting of microtubules, microfilaments and intermediate filaments. A recent development in this field is identification of the TCP-1 complex as the eukaryotic cytoplasmic chaperonin which directs folding of cytoskeletal proteins such as α/β/γ-tubulin, actin and centractin. Moreover, the TCP-1 complex is a centrosomal component, apparently involved in the nucleation of microtubules. Other molecular chaperones recognize one or more cytoskeletal elements and in most cases they modulate the assembly of and/or provide protection for their constituent proteins. For example, HSP70 protects the centrosome and perhaps intermediate filaments during heat shock, and like HSP90, it binds to microtubules. Small heat shock proteins interact with microfilaments and intermediate filaments, affect their polymerization and guard them from heat shock by a phosphorylation-dependent mechanism. We conclude that molecular chaperones have different but cooperative roles in the formation and function of the eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton. SUMMARY


In this work, the problem of detecting radio spectrum opportunities in spectrum-heterogeneous cognitive radio networks is addressed. Spectrum opportunities are the frequency channels that are underutilized by the primary licensed users. Thus, by enabling the unlicensed users to detect and utilize them, we can improve the efficiency, reliability, and the flexibility of the radio spectrum usage. The main objective of this work is to discover the spectrum opportunities in time, space, and frequency domains, by proposing a low-cost and practical framework. Spectrum-heterogeneous networks are the networks in which different sensors experience different spectrum opportunities. Thus, the sensing data from sensors cannot be combined to reach consensus and to detect the spectrum opportunities. Moreover, unreliable data, caused by noise or malicious attacks, will deteriorate the performance of the decision-making process. The problem becomes even more challenging when the locations of the sensors are unknown. In this work, a probabilistic model is proposed to cluster the sensors based on their readings, not requiring any knowledge of location of the sensors. The complexity of the model, which is the number of clusters, is automatically inferred from the sensing data. The processing node, also referred to as the base station or the fusion center, infers the probability distributions of cluster memberships, channel availabilities, and devices' reliability in an online manner. After receiving each chunk of sensing data, the probability distributions are updated, without requiring to repeat the computations on previous sensing data. All the update rules are derived mathematically, by employing Bayesian data analysis techniques and variational inference. Furthermore, the inferred probability distributions are employed to assign unique spectrum opportunities to each of the sensors. To avoid interference among the sensors, physically adjacent devices should not utilize the same channels. However, since the location of the devices is not iii known, cluster membership information is used as a measure of adjacency. This is based on the assumption that the measurements of the devices are spatially correlated. Thus, adjacent devices, which experience similar spectrum opportunities, belong to the same cluster. Then, the problem is mapped into a energy minimization problem and solved via graph cuts. The goal of the proposed graph-theory-based method is to assign each device an available channel, while avoiding interference among neighboring devices. The numerical simulations illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed methods, compared to the existing frameworks.


Charles Williams: The Third Inkling. Grevel Lindop. Reviewed by Scott McLaren. The Chapel of the Thorn: A Dramatic Poem. Charles Williams. Edited and Introduced by Sørina Higgins. Reviewed by Scott McLaren. Women and C.S. Lewis: What His Life and Literature Reveal For Today's Culture. Carolyn Curtis and Mary Pomroy Key, eds. Reviewed by Rebekah Choat. Tolkien Among the Moderns. Edited by Ralph C. Wood. Reviewed by Andrew C. Stout. Tolkien. Raymond Edwards. Reviewed by Cait Coker. Children into Swans: Fairy Tales and the Pagan Imagination. Jan Beveridge. Reviewed by Brian Roberts. Trilby/The Crumb Fairy. Charles Nodier. Translated and adapted by Ruth Berman. Reviewed by Kelly Orazi. The Prince of the Aquamarines. Louise Cavalier Levesque. Trans. and with an afterword by Ruth Berman. Reviewed by Kelly Orazi. The Lessons of Nature in Mythology. Rachel S. McCoppin. Reviewed by Kristine Larsen. Hither Shore: Jahrbuch der Deutschen Tolkien Gesellschaft. Special issue: Nature and Landscape in Tolkien. Ed. Thomas Fornet-Ponse et al. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Ed. Marjorie Lamp Mead. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review. Ed. Michael D.C. Drout, Verlyn Flieger, and David Bratman. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. The Skill of a Seeker: Rowling, Religion and Gen 9/11. Marilyn R. Pukkila. Reviewed by Emily Moniz Mirova. Light: C.S. Lewis's First and Final Short Story. Charlie W. Starr. Reviewed by Melody Green. The Story of Kullervo. J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited and introduced by Verlyn Flieger. Reviewed by Mike Foster. The Victorian Approach to Modernism in the Fiction of Dorothy L. Sayers. Aoife Leahy. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher. Reading Joss Whedon. Rhonda V. Wilcox, Tanya R. Cochran, Cynthea Masson, and David Lavery, eds. Reviewed by by Janet Brennan Croft. Authors Rebekah Choat, Joe R. Christopher, Cait Coker, Janet Brennan Croft, Mike Foster, Melody Green, Kristine Larsen, Scott McLaren, Emily Moniz Mirova, Kelly Orazi, Brian Roberts, and Andrew C. Stout This book reviews is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol34/iss2/12


The paper investigates interactions in a two-period closed-loop supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and a single remanufacturer. In the context of recycling and remanufacturing by the remanufacturer, the manufacturer and remanufacturer choose different production strategies. By comparing the costs, profits and equilibrium quantity of supply chain members in decentralized and centralized models, we focus on the conditions under which the remanufacturer chooses to sell the remanufactured products and compete with the manufacturer. Different cooperative strategies can affect closed-loop supply chain decision-making. The article analyzes the impact of each cost and recycling rate on the productions and profits of the manufacturer and remanufacturer, and compares the total profits of members between two models. The sensitivity analysis of the models shows that the centralized model can be an effective way of achieving greater efficiency in terms of the overall supply chain. This study provides insights into the remanufacturing theory, which might guide remanufacturing operations and strategies.


Volunteer activities attempt to promote a sense of community unity and ownership. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of Labor, approximately 59 million people participated in volunteer activities in the year beginning September 2001. Although utility is derived from participation, no monetary compensation is received. Therefore, the value of volunteer output is generally not recognized in the national economic accounts, as defined by the 1993 System of National Accounts. This research paper has three primary objectives. The first is to estimate a monetary value for volunteer activities. The second is to identify demographic characteristics of individuals most likely to volunteer. The third and final objective is to explore those industries with the greatest number of volunteer labor hours. Data for this study come from the September 2002 Current Population Survey Volunteer Supplement and are analyzed using a cross-section Probit analysis coupled with supplementary econometric estimation techniques. Contingent upon the valuation technique, this analysis assesses volunteer labor output to range between $79 to $130 billion. Further, the data suggest that over one-third of total volunteer hours is provided by those not in the labor force and those in the labor force, but unemployed. Examination by industry reveals that the educational services industry within the services sector provides the greatest number of volunteer hours. The data also show that professional specialty workers contribute the most time relative to other occupational groups. This research contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, it conceptualizes the issue of volunteerism, and offers an approach to value output generated by volunteer labor based on detailed wage data. Second, it enables the determination of approximately how much volunteer labor output is not covered because of the definitional constraints of GDP as a measure of largely market activities. Finally, identifying characteristics of those individuals who volunteer enables the formulation of targeted initiatives that would promote greater participation. ______________________ * US Department of Commerce, Bureau Of Economic Analysis, Washington, DC, 20230. The author would like to acknowledge the research and analytical assistance provided by Jaime Harris. Many thanks to all the reviewers who provided constructive comments. Any errors in this document are the author's own. In addition, the opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Bureau of Economic Analysis or the US Department of Commerce.


Interest in the improvement of the structural performance of aircraft has begun in the substitution of aluminum alloys due to the possibility of reduction of density, an increase of stiffness, high fracture toughness, greater resistance to the propagation of cracks by fatigue and greater resistance to corrosion. In these issues, the aluminum-copper-lithium alloy 2050-T84 is outstanding, which presents excellent mechanical properties even when subjected to aggressive atmospheres. The failure of structural components of aircraft occurs due to several factors that may arise from microstructural defects and/or applied static or cyclic stresses associated with atypical environments such as cryogenic or corrosive. In this sense, the results have evidenced the presence of precipitates that influence in the increase of the mechanical strength, behavior of fracture toughness, fatigue life, and corrosion fatigue, in different temperatures and aggressive means. Tensile and fracture toughness tests at 23 and (cid:1) 60°C the material showed ductility retention without a significant difference in the results. Fatigue crack growth in air and corrosion fatigue with 3.5 and 5% NaCl and aqueous solution with 3.5% NaCl showed a meaning difference in the threshold region; however, for the Paris region at the saline environment, fatigue crack growth (FCG) rates are similar.


Real-life processes are characterized by dynamics involving time. Examples are walking, sleeping, disease progress in medical treatment, and events in a workflow. To understand complex behavior one needs expressive models, parsimonious enough to gain insight. Uncertainty is often fundamental for process characterization, e.g., because we sometimes can observe phenomena only partially. This makes probabilistic graphical models a suitable framework for process analysis. In this thesis, new probabilistic graphical models that offer the right balance between expressiveness and interpretability are proposed, inspired by the analysis of complex, real-world problems. We first investigate processes by introducing latent variables, which capture abstract notions from observable data (e.g., intelligence, health status). Such models often provide more accurate descriptions of processes. In medicine, such models can also reveal insight on patient treatment, such as predictive symptoms. The second viewpoint looks at processes by identifying time points in the data where the relationships between observable variables change. This provides an alternative characterization of process change. Finally, we try to better understand processes by identifying subgroups of data that deviate from the whole dataset, e.g., process workflows whose event dynamics differ from the general workflow.


Stereoisomeric compositions of 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) and 1,2-dibromo-4-(1,2-dibromoethyl)cyclohexane (TBECH) were investigated in the blubber of two species of marine mammals, finless porpoises ( Neophocaena phocaenoides) and Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins ( Sousa chinensis), from the South China Sea between 2005 and 2015. The concentrations of ΣHBCD in samples of porpoise ( n = 59) and dolphin ( n = 32) ranged from 97.2 to 6,260 ng/g lipid weight (lw) and from 447 to 45,800 ng/g lw, respectively, while those of ΣTBECH were both roughly 2 orders of magnitude lower. A significant increasing trend of ΣHBCD was found in dolphin blubber over the past decade. The diastereomeric profiles exhibited an absolute predominance of α-HBCD (mostly >90%), while the proportions of four TBECH diastereomers in the samples appeared similar. A preferential enrichment of the (-)-enantiomers of α-, β-, and γ-HBCD was found in most blubber samples. Interestingly, the body lengths of porpoises showed a significant negative correlation with the enantiomer fractions of α-HBCD. Significant racemic deviations were also observed for α-, γ-, and δ-TBECH enantiomeric pairs. This is the first report of the presence of TBECH enantiomers in the environment. The estimated hazard quotient indicates that there is a potential risk to dolphins due to HBCD exposure.


Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are often categorized as either on-policy or off-policy depending on whether they use data from a target policy of interest or from a different behavior policy. In this paper, we study a subtle distinction between on-policy data and on-policy sampling in the context of the RL sub-problem of policy evaluation. We observe that on-policy sampling may fail to match the expected distribution of on-policy data after observing only a finite number of trajectories and this failure hinders data-efficient policy evaluation. Towards improved data-efficiency, we show how non-i.i.d., off-policy sampling can produce data that more closely matches the expected on-policy data distribution and consequently increases the accuracy of the Monte Carlo estimator for policy evaluation. We introduce a method called Robust On-Policy Sampling and demonstrate theoretically and empirically that it produces data that converges faster to the expected on-policy distribution compared to on-policy sampling. Empirically, we show that this faster convergence leads to lower mean squared error policy value estimates.


The transition from the G1 to S phase is controlled by the Cyclin E:Cdk2 complexes. As the Cyclin E:Cdk2 complexes are formed, the Cdk2 is phosphorylated by the Wee1 and Myt1 kinases. This phosphorylation keeps the Cdk2 inactive. In yeast this control is called the cell size checkpoint control. The dephosphorylation of the Cdk2 by Cdc25A activates the Cdk2, and is coordinated with the cells reaching the proper size, and with the DNA synthesis machinery being ready. The Cdk2 then phosphorylates G1/S spe-cific proteins, including proteins required for DNA replication initiation. The beginning of S-phase is marked by the first nucleotide being laid down on the primer during DNA replication at the early-firing origins.Failure to appropriately regulate cyclin E accumulation can lead to accelerated S phase entry, ge-netic instability, and tumorigenesis. The amount of cyclin E protein in the cell is controlled by ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis (see Woo, 2003).This pathway has not yet been annotated in Reactome.


Biofouling Control in Spiral-Wound Membrane Systems: Impact of Feed Spacer Modification and Biocides Amber Siddiqui High-quality drinking water can be produced with membrane-based filtration processes like reverse osmosis and nanofiltration. One of the major problems in these membrane systems is biofouling that reduces the membrane performance, increasing operational costs. Current biofouling control strategies such as pre-treatment, membrane modification, and chemical cleaning are not sufficient in all cases. Feed spacers are thin (0.8 mm), complex geometry meshes that separate membranes in a module. The main objective of this research was to evaluate whether feed spacer modification is a suitable strategy to control biofouling. Membrane fouling simulator studies with six feed spacers showed differences in biofouled spacer performance, concluding that (i) spacer geometry influences biofouling impact and (ii) biofouling studies are essential for evaluation of spacer biofouling impact. Computed tomography (CT) was found as a suitable technique to obtain three-dimensional (3D) measurements of spacers, enabling more representative mathematical modeling of hydraulic behavior of spacers in membrane systems. A strategy for developing, characterizing, and testing of spacers by numerical modeling, 3D printing of spacers and experimental membrane fouling simulator studies was developed. The combination of modeling and experimental testing of 3D printed spacers is a promising strategy to develop advanced spacers aiming to reduce the impact of biofilm formation on membrane performance and to improve the cleanability of spiral-wound membrane


This new edition is an indispensable introduction to the core principles of counselling for those interested in counselling and those considering training. It describes the main styles of counselling, provides an excellent framework for helping, and introduces some of the approaches and key tools used within a counselling relationship Offers a stimulating and highly accessible introduction to the key aspects of counselling Recurring case studies to illustrate clearly the practical application of the range of styles and approaches in counselling and experiential exercises are included in each chapter to facilitate the reader's learning and understanding Guides the reader, in a straightforward, readable style, through the main issues that arise within counselling/helping relationships A book to enthuse, excite and empower those contemplating counselling training, or those who have embarked on a course and want a broad introduction


Which cities have the highest risk of human and economic losses due to natural hazards? And how will urban exposure to major hazards change over the coming decades? This paper develops a global urban disaster risk index that evaluates the mortality and economic risks from disasters in 1,943 cities in developing countries. Concentrations of population, infrastructure, and economic activities in cities contribute to increased exposure and susceptibility to natural hazards. The three components of this risk measure are urban hazard characteristics, exposure, and vulnerability. For earthquakes, cyclones, floods, and landslides, single hazard risk indices are developed. In addition, a multi-hazard index gives a holistic picture of current city risk. Demographic-economic projection of city population growth to 2050 suggests that exposure to earthquake and cyclone risk in developing country cities will more than double from today's levels. Global urban risk analysis, as presented in this paper, can inform the prioritization of resources for disaster risk management and urban planning and promote the shift toward managing risks rather than emergencies.


This paper investigates the use of politeness in various parts of the pauper letters of the 18th century. While grounded in Brown & Levinson's framework (1987), the paper argues that the writers had much more discursive leeway in choosing politeness strategies to achieve their communicative goals than Brown & Levinson (1987) predict. This in turn shows that the socio-cultural factors such as power and distance do not work out in the same way in all sub-cultural groups, and that politeness is best viewed as local norms operating in a particular socio-cultural context.


This article explores the personal and artistic relationship between Marcel Duchamp and Samuel Beckett. It examines the biographical evidence for a connection between the two men and in particular focuses on chess. It explores some apparent evocations of Duchamp, both as a man and as an artist, in writings such as Murphy and Eleutheria. It suggests that some key aspects of the dramatic structure, staging, and dialogue in Endgame derives from Beckett's awareness of the peculiar endgame position described in L'opposition et les cases conjuguees sont reconciliees (Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled) by Duchamp and Halberstadt. To reach a detailed understanding of this argument, it sets out an expository account of a typical chess position and its accompanying terminologies from the book, then applies those to the play itself.


It is often thought that the judicial recognition of customary international law depends on jurisprudential assumptions about the nature of legal norms, law, and legal validity. This is a mistake. The limits on a judicial reliance on customary international law are constitutional or evidentiary, not jurisprudential. Although Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins fairly can be read to require domestic authorization for customary international law to have domestic legal effect, the case and its reasoning do not rely on commitments to a theory of law. Acceptance of the claims of legal positivism is neither necessary nor sufficient for Erie's result, nor for its application to customary international law. In fact, reliance on positivism has an unwelcome consequence for the legally binding character of customary international law even on states. Finally, the same conception of law or legal validity can ground different views about the relation between international and domestic law. Positions on the priority of customary international law are determined by views about that relation, not by views on the source of its authority. Taken together, these considerations suggest that jurisprudence isn't needed to answer the questions that courts and legal authorities ask about customary international law's content, the legal obligations it creates, and its domestic legal effect.


Microbes seeking food and phagocytic immune cells stalking their prey rely on chemical signals, or chemoattractants, to guide their paths. Chemotactic cells can orient their anterior edge toward a stimulus gradient despite their uniform distribution of cell surface receptors. Five reports focus on the role that phosphatidylinositol 3' kinases (PI3Ks) play in chemotaxis (see the Perspective by Dekker and Segal). Hirsch et al., Li et al., and Sasaki et al. describe the phenotype of mice that lack PI3Kγ an isoform that is activated in response to G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Defects in these animals show that PI3Kγ is required for a number of functions of neutrophils and T cells in vitro and in vivo. All three groups note that the inflammatory response is disrupted in several ways. Neutrophils from the mutant animals showed impaired migration and respiratory burst in response to stimulation through GPCRs. Sasaki et al. also found T cell activation through the T cell receptor was disrupted. Li et al. also generated mice lacking phospholipase C (PLC)-β 2 and PLC-β 3. They report that whereas PI3Kγ is required for normal production of immunoglobulin (Ig) containing the λ light chains, the PLC pathway can inhibit chemotaxis and production of Igλ L. The results should enhance efforts in the development of pharmaceuticals to manage inflammation. An internal signaling gradient may accommodate such the directional chemotatic response. Jin et al. show that in highly polarized amoeba cells, membrane-bound G protein subunits were present in a shallow anterior-posterior gradient. Servant et al. also determined that such an internal signal gradient involves the activities of Rho family of guanosine triphosphatases and PI3K in neutrophil-like cells. Hence, signaling molecules appear to regulate an internal gradient that determines chemotactic sensitivity. Hirsch, E., Katanaev, V.L., Garlanda, C., Azzolino, O., Pirola, L., Silengo, L., Sozzani, S., Montovani, A., Altruda, F., and Wymann, M.P. (2000) Central role for G protein-coupled phosphoinositide 3-kinase γ in inflammation. Science 287: 1049-1053. [Abstract] [Full Text] Li, Z., Jiang, H., Xie, W., Zhang, Z., Smrcka, A.V., and Wu., D. (2000) Roles for PLC-β2 and -β3 and PI3Kγ in chemoattractant-mediated signal transduction. Science 287: 1046-1049. [Abstract] [Full Text] Sasaki, T., Irie-Sasaki, J., Jones, R.G., Oliveira-dos-Santos, A.J., Stanford, W.L., Bolon, B., Wakeham, A., Itie, A., Bouchard, D., Kozieradzki, I., Joza, N., Mak, T.W., Ohashi, P.S., Suzuki, A., and Penninger, J.M. (2000) Function of phosphoinositide 3-kinase γ in thymocyte development, T cell activation, and neutrophil migration. Science 287: 1040-1046. [Abstract] [Full Text] Jin, T., Zhang, N., Long, Y., Parent, C.A., Devreotes, P.N. (2000) Localization of the G protein βγ complex in living cells during chemotaxis. Science 287: 1034-1036. [Abstract] [Full Text] Servant, G., Weiner, O.D., Herzmark, P., Balla, T., Sedat, J.W., and Bourne, H.R. (2000) Polarization of chemoattractant receptor signaling during neutrophil chemotaxis. Science 287: 1037-1040. [Abstract] [Full Text] Dekker, L.V. and Segal, A.W. (2000) Signals to move cells. Science 287: 982-985. [Abstract] [Full Text]


Two prominent progressive senators, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have recently proposed that employees should be allowed to elect 40 to 45 percent of the directors of large corporations. If implemented, such a reform would bring U.S. corporate law substantially closer to European countries like Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, where worker codetermination has long been a central feature of corporate governance.

An extensive body of theoretical and empirical scholarship analyzes codetermination's economic impact on corporations and their employees. This Article focuses on a different issue. It examines codetermination's potential for protecting our democracy against the dangers inherent in the accumulation of extreme wealth and power by private corporations.

Concentrated corporate wealth creates the risk that corporations will use their resources to undermine democratic institutions. This Article argues that codetermination can mitigate this risk by splitting corporate voting rights between shareholders and employees, thereby playing a role that is broadly similar to that of the Constitutional separation of powers.


Background Enzyme-inducing antibacterial drugs can impair the efficacy of hormonal contraceptives. Suspicion that other antibiotics might do likewise led to advice that extra contraceptive precautions should be taken during a course of antibiotics. However, current advice is that the purported interaction does not occur, based on small studies observing few pregnancies, assuming that all women are susceptible, and without measuring unbound hormone concentrations. Objective To test the null hypothesis that antibiotics do not impair the effectiveness of oral contraceptives. Design A database review of Yellow Card reports to the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Data Spontaneous reports of suspected adverse drug reactions in people taking antibacterial drugs (n=74 623), enzyme-inducing medicines (n=32 872), or control medicines (n=65 578). Main outcome measures Reports of the primary outcome—unintended pregnancies; reports of cardiac arrhythmias and headaches (control events); reports of congenital abnormalities (positive control events); and reports of diarrhoea (a possible confounding factor). Results Compared with control medicines, unintended pregnancies were seven times more commonly reported with antibiotics and 13 times more commonly reported with enzyme inducers (the positive controls). Congenital abnormalities were reported seven times more often with enzyme inducers but were not more common with antibiotics. Diarrhoea was not a confounding factor. Conclusion This study provides a signal that antibacterial drugs may reduce the efficacy of hormonal contraceptives. Women taking hormonal contraceptives should be warned that antibiotics may impair their effectiveness. Extra precautions can be taken during a course of antibiotics; an unintended pregnancy is a life-changing event.


From the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world. Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with the crimes of the Bush era, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud.


A chip disposition criterion is used to decide whether to accept or discard a chip during chip testing. Its quality directly impacts both yield and product quality loss (PQL). The importance becomes even more significant with the increasingly large process variation. For the first time, this paper rigorously formulates the optimal chip disposition problem, and proposes an elegant solution. We show that the optimal chip disposition criterion is different from the existing industry practice. Our solution can find the optimal disposition criterion efficiently with better yield under the same PQL constraint, or lower PQL under the same yield constraint.


The purpose of this study is to reduce the uncertainty of early stage startups success prediction and filling the gap of previous studies in the field, by identifying and evaluating the success variables and developing a novel business success failure (S/F) data mining classification prediction model for Iranian start-ups. For this purpose, the paper is seeking to extend Bill Gross and Robert Lussier S/F prediction model variables and algorithms in a new context of Iranian start-ups which starts from accelerators in order to build a new S/F prediction model. A sample of 161 Iranian start-ups which are based in accelerators from 2013 to 2018 is applied and 39 variables are extracted from the literature and organized in five groups. Then the sample is fed into six well-known classification algorithms. Two staged stacking as a classification model is the best performer among all other six classification based S/F prediction models and it can predict binary dependent variable of success or failure with accuracy of 89% on average. Also finding shows that "starting from Accelerators", "creativity and problem solving ability of founders", "fist mover advantage" and "amount of seed investment" are the four most important variables which affects the start-ups success and the other 15 variables are less important.


Wireless sensor networks are often battery-powered, and hence extending the network lifetime is one of the primary concerns in the ubiquitous deployment of wireless sensor networks. One approach to efficiently utilize the limited energy supplies of the sensors is to have the medium access control (MAC) protocol duty-cycle the sensors, periodically putting the sensors to sleep and waking them up to reduce idle listening, which is energy intensive. Among duty-cycled MAC protocols, some protocols are synchronized so that nodes wake up at the same time in each cycle, and other protocols are asynchronous, where nodes have arbitrary offsets to start their cycles. For protocol designers, it is important to understand which type of duty-cycled MAC protocol should be chosen (synchronized or asynchronous), as well as what values should be assigned to the protocol parameters under a given network scenario in order to achieve a desirable performance for throughput, delay, or energy consumption. However, previous work to analyze the performance of different duty-cycled MAC protocols is either protocol-specific, or limited to one aspect of the performance metric. In this paper, we propose a Markov queuing model to analyze the throughput, delay, and energy consumption of both synchronized and asynchronous duty-cycled MAC protocols with applications to S-MAC and X-MAC. Our contributions include: 1) proposing a Markov queuing model to describe the queuing behavior of both synchronous and asynchronous duty-cycled nodes, 2) modeling the queue dynamics and the stationary probability of packet transmissions for S-MAC, a synchronized duty-cycled MAC protocol, to analyze its performance, 3) modeling the queue dynamics and the stationary probability of packet transmissions for X-MAC, an asynchronous duty-cycled MAC protocol, to analyze its performance, 4) providing comprehensive performance estimation and comparison for different duty-cycled MAC protocols, and 5) providing flexibility to tradeoff different performance metrics by optimizing the protocol parameters. Our model results are validated by comparing with NS-2 and Matlab simulations.


MVC (Model-View-Controller) is the popular Microsoft technology which enables you to build dynamic, data-driven, mobile websites, TDD site. Hands-On with ASP.NET MVC is not only written for those who are going to have affair with MVC for the 1st time, rather it is written in such a way that even experienced professional will love reading this book. This book covers all the tiny steps on using MVC at its best. With complete practical tutorials to illustrate the concepts, you will step by step build one End to End application which covers below mentioned techniques - Controllers, Views, Models, Forms and HTML helpers, Data annotation and Validation, Membership, Authorization, Security rather you will also learn how to bootstrap your design, then how to host the app in AZURE, Web API and Dependency Injection. It also covers MVC 5 and MVC 6 features like, Mobile optimization, Improved Scaffolding, ASP.Net Identity, One ASP.Net, Bootstrap Common framework for MVC, Web API and WebPages, Self hosting, Cloud Optimized, No Build Dependency, Cross platform support, And many more out of the box things.


OBJECTIVE
We describe an educational intervention that involved simulation scenarios of medically complex patients to teach transfer training and promote clinical reasoning.

METHOD
Scenarios were developed with practitioner input that described (1) a patient who was acutely ill, (2) a critical medical management event that occurred during a bed-to-wheelchair transfer of the patient, and (3) an occupational need. Transfer training, using the scenarios, occurred in a high-technology laboratory with SimMan(®) and a mock hospital suite. Evaluation was based on student performance and perceptions of simulation effectiveness.

RESULTS
On average, students completed 66%-88% of the transfer items correctly. Student performance suggested that the simulation scenarios were more difficult than practitioners rated them. Students rated the simulation scenarios as effective teaching tools.

CONCLUSION
Scenario use in simulations for transfer training makes a positive curricular contribution to teaching procedural skills and clinical reasoning simultaneously.


In the 1850s, the American scientist and educator Frederick A. P. Barnard created a collection of scientific apparatus at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, of a size and expense that surpassed any collection in the United States at that time. The collection, which would come to include over three hundred instruments of both American and European manufacture, was the attempt by Barnard, born and educated in the North, to bring Big Science to the South and challenge the dominance of Northern schools in science education. In this respect it failed, and the collection became a forgotten footnote in the history of Southern science. This article examines the importance of the collection in understanding science at U.S. universities before the Civil War and what Barnard referred to as the "scientific atmosphere" of the South. The first section compares the collection to others of the period, highlighting its historical uniqueness and significance. The second section uses Barnard's correspondence to construct a narrative of the collection's assembly, providing insight into the international scientific instrument market of the period as well as the difficulties he faced working in the antebellum South. Finally, an examination of Barnard's perceptions regarding intellectual isolation and the failure of his endeavor highlights differences perceived by scientists of the day concerning the practice of science in the North versus in the South prior to the Civil War.


ABSTRACT  Fibrous dysplasia is considered as a benign disease of the bone having an unknown etiology, characterized by a slow progression. Medullary bone that is replaced by mildly to highly cellular tissue composed of irregular trabeculae of woven bone and spindle-shaped fibroblasts. Craniofacial involvement frequently affects the maxilla and frontal bone and induced local facial swelling, facial asymmetry and exophthalmos. Currently three general subtypes of disease are recognized:monostotic, polyostotic, and McCune-Albright syndrome. We present 15-year-old male with left proptosis, superior eyelid swelling and nasal obstruction. Our case demonstrated an extensive bony lesion involving bilateral frontal, ethmoid, sphenoid sinuses, left maxillary bone, inferior turbinate, septum, and skull base. Hence we report a case of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia with extensive bony involvement. (J Clinical Otolaryngol 2002;13:220-224)


The oxidation of maleic, fumaric, crotonic and cinnamic acids by tributylammonium chlorochromate (TBACC) in dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO) leads to the formation of corresponding epoxide. The reaction is of first order with respect to TBACC. A Michaelis-Menten type of kinetics are observed w.r.t. the acids. Due to non-aqueous nature of the solvents, toluene-p-sulphonic acid (TsOH) was used as the source of hydrogen ions. The reaction is catalysed by hydrogen ions. The hydrogen-ion dependence has the form: kobs = a + b [H+]. The oxidation of these acids was studied in nineteen different organic solvents. The solvent effect was analyzed by Kamlet's and Swain's multiparametric equations. Solvent effect indicated the importance of the cation-solvating power of the solvent. A mechanism involving a three-centre transition state has been postulated.


Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) benefits are strongly tied to the decision-making that follows the assimilation and interpretation of prognostics information. Hence, we deal in this study with the post prognostic decision making in order to improve system safety and avoid downtime and inopportune maintenance spending. We investigate the problem of scheduling production jobs in a single multifunctional machine subjected to predictive maintenance based on PHM results. For this reason, we propose a new interpretation of PHM outputs to define the machine degradation corresponding to each job. We develop a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to find the best integrated scheduling that optimizes the total maintenance cost. Unfortunately, the MILP is not able to compute the optimal solution for large instances. Therefore, we design a Prognostic based Genetic Algorithm (Pro-GA). Computational results of different benchmarks setup show the efficiency and robustness of our scheme with an average deviation of about 0.2% over a newly proposed lower bound.


The Paleocene was characterized by high global temperatures and elevated concentrations of atmospheric CO2. Paleoclimate records of this epoch are of particular interest to understanding the effects of anthropogenic climate forcing as well as linkages between the Paleocene climate and major tectonic and evolutionary events. However, terrestrial paleoclimatic records of the Paleocene are limited in their spatial extent, and few such records are known from western North America. In this study, paleosols from two members in the late Paleocene Goler Formation of Southern California were used to investigate local paleoclimatic conditions. The paleosols were described in detail and analyzed for morphology, clay mineralogy, and bulk geochemistry. Carbonate nodules present in paleosols from the upper member (member 4a) were characterized using petrographic and cathodoluminescence microscopy and were analyzed for carbon and oxygen stable-isotope composition. Enrichment and retention of soluble elements (Ca, Mg, and Na) and the mobilization of Fe and Mn in the paleosol profiles suggest a climate with strongly seasonal precipitation. This interpretation is further supported by the presence of pedogenic slickensides and the clay minerals smectite and illite. The appearance of pedogenic carbonate nodules in paleosols from the upper member is suggestive of a shift to more arid or more seasonal conditions that is coincident with a prominent change in sediment provenance and an inferred increase in sedimentation rate. Uplift of the ancestral Sierra Nevada during the late Paleocene was likely an important control on regional paleoclimate due to the effects of elevated topography on mean annual precipitation and seasonal distribution of precipitation. The correlation of a shift in pedogenic processes with changes in provenance and sedimentation rate suggests that the evolution of regional tectonic activity was an important control on these processes during the deposition of the Goler Formation.


ross-linguistically, languages are largely head initial or head final. Most permit some disharmony, but Holmberg (2000) and Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts (2012), among others, have argued that the structure shown in (1) is ruled out, where YP is X's complement and ZP is Y's complement: (1) *[XP [YP Y ZP] X] In structures such as (1), a head-final phrase immediately dominates a head-initial phrase, violating the so-called 'Final-Over-Final Constraint' (FOFC). Descriptively however, final question particles are readily found in languages with VO order, resulting in a structure that appears to violate FOFC. (2) illustrates this violation in Tetun (an Austronesian language of East/West Timor), and (3) shows the structure, with a final question particle ka immediately dominating a head-initial TP: (2) o la ba sekola ka? 2S not go school or (Said to child playing:) 'Didn't you go to school?' (Van Klinken 1999: 212) (3) iii If ka constitutes the C head of CP, as is standardly assumed, the structure in (3) violates FOFC. I show, following Aldridge (2011), that these particles are best analysed as disjunctive elements, heading an elided clause: (4) [ConjP CP [Conj CP]] The particle is the head of the phrase, with the second CP as its complement and the first (pronounced) CP in Spec,ConjP. This solves the FOFC problem because the 'particle' is not final, and therefore the derivation does not include a head-final phrase dominating a head-initial phrase. Instead, the particle precedes its complement (which is not pronounced), and the clause that it follows (which is pronounced) is its specifier. I provide evidence for this position through typological investigation and theoretical analysis. In addition, the various proposals that have been put forward in the literature to avoid this FOFC-violation are considered, but are shown to be problematic in different respects. I discuss the idea that particles are not heads (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts 2012). However, they cannot be specifiers and an adjunction analysis fails to explain their properties, so it is unclear what they could be if not heads. Julien (2001), Lee (2005, 2008) and Simpson & Wu (2002) argue that final particles are derived by TP-movement to a Topic or Focus position. This is a promising explanation, but fails to derive the difference between final particles and other types. If the particle is syncategorematic (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts 2012), the fact that they appear in fixed positions is mysterious. Processing explanations of the data (Hawkins 2004, Philip 2012) go some way towards deriving the FOFC facts but do not, among other things, explain the high number of final particles in VO languages. The syntax of question particles is discussed in detail, and it is proposed that polar questions consist of two functional heads in combination: Force, giving a (main clause) question illocutionary force, and Polarity, giving a (neutral) iv question open polarity. A true polar question particle is therefore related to one or both of these heads: (5) With this background, the argument is defended in subsequent chapters that some particles cannot be true question elements in this sense and are instead instantiations of the disjunction. Cross-linguistic data demonstrate that final particles in VO languages differ from other types of question particle (initial particles, or final particles in OV languages) in very rarely marking embedded questions: they do so in only one language in the corpus. Homophony between the question particle and disjunction in many languages, combined with attested grammaticalisation paths, adds support to this claim. Furthermore, this analysis explains a number of properties of such particles in addition to their propensity to violate FOFC, including their frequent absence from negative questions, alternative questions and wh-questions. All of these are straightforward consequences of the particle being a disjunction. Finally, the analysis is applied to a particular language, Thai, as a case study, and it is compared with languages of the other types. It is shown that the disjunctive analysis is best able to explain the data and offer an elegant explanation of the FOFC facts.


This paper examines the correlation between poor health and asset accumulation for households in the first nine waves of the Health and Retirement Survey. Rather than enumerating the specific costs of poor health, such as out of pocket medical expenses or lost earnings, we estimate how the evolution of household assets is related to poor health. We construct a simple measure of health status based on the first principal component of HRS survey responses on self-reported health status, diagnoses, ADLs, IADL, and other indicators of underlying health. Our estimates suggest large and substantively important correlations between poor health and asset accumulation. We compare persons in each 1992 asset quintile who were in the top third of the 1992 distribution of latent health with those in the same 1992 asset quintile who were in the bottom third of the latent health distribution. By 2008, those in the top third of the health distribution had accumulated, on average, more than 50 percent more assets than those in the bottom third of the health distribution. This "asset cost of poor health" appears to be larger for persons with substantial 1992 asset balances than for those with lower balances.


Background Computed tomographic angiography (CTA) has recently emerged as a non-invasive alternative to digital subtraction angiography (DSA) for the detection of residual cerebral aneurysms (RA). Objective To compare the diagnostic accuracy of CTA with the current 'gold standard', DSA, in the postoperative detection of RA. Methods Patient data from this single institution were prospectively gathered, and imaging results retrospectively blinded and analyzed. Between 2001 and 2005 eligible patients received microsurgical repair of cerebral aneurysms and were evaluated postoperatively by DSA and CTA. These single-institutional data were compiled with qualified studies published from 1997 to 2009, and a meta-analysis was performed. Results This institutional series reports sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative predictive values (NPV) of 100%. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. A total of 427 patients with 513 aneurysms were included, with 61 RA detected by DSA and 40 detected by CTA. Unweighted analysis resulted in pooled sensitivity of 73.8%, specificity of 96.3%, PPV of 91.0% and NPV of 86.1%. Stratified analysis of studies using 16-slice CTA versus 2D DSA reported pooled sensitivity of 92.6%, specificity of 99.3%, PPV of 95.8%, and NPV of 97.8%. Conclusions This meta-analysis supports CTA as an acceptable modality for postoperative detection of RA, although DSA remains the gold standard. By implementing multidetector CTA technology in experienced centers, the sensitivity and specificity of CTA may approach that of traditional DSA for detecting RA. As a cost-effective, non-invasive modality, CTA is a promising alternative to DSA for initial and long-term evaluation of RA.