An early report on the development to date of one key building block of the coming "network" economy A new type of logistics-based alliance is quickly gaining speed in Europe, driven, in large part, by the pressure for restructuring. These alliances represent formal or informal relationships between companies operating in a broad range of industries -- and markets -- and logistics service providers. Despite the current focus of such arrangements on providing "contract" logistics services, they have the potential to offer a much broader range of value-added services, including secondary manufacturing and supply chain integration. COMPANIES AS DIVERSE as computer manufacturers and grocery retailers are increasingly forming alliances with providers of logistics services in an attempt both to improve delivery for their customers and to reduce their own logistics costs. Even so, information on the logistics services market is scarce. National statistics are dispersed between transportation and warehousing classifications, and numbers often shift between categories when alliances are consummated. Though precise information is not available, we estimate that in Western Europe alone logistics alliances to the annual value of one to two billion dollars are now in place. They are also spreading to markets as far apart as the United States and Australia. To find out more about logistics alliances and why their popularity is increasing, we have cooperated with the Center for European Logistics (CELO)(*) in a research program that involved visits and in-depth interviews with 50 customers and 20 logistics services providers across five Northern European countries. Our aim was to build a database covering both sides of the alliances. What is a logistics alliance? For the purposes of the project, we defined alliances as agreements that met three conditions: they must involve at least one full year of cooperation; cover both transportation and warehousing services; and employ a single provider for the services. In other words, we were seeking partnerships -- "win-win" situations from which both parties could benefit. Although the frequency with which such alliances are happening is a recent phenomenon, some companies have been aware of their benefits for much longer. One of the earliest and most definitive of these alliances is that between Rank Xerox and the Dutch transport company Frans Maas, which has evolved over a decade with periodic increases in scope and value-added. TABULAR DATA OMITTED Though every alliance is different in purpose, structure, scope, needs, and results, our research with CELO identified a number of common features. Drivers Logistics alliance development is still in its early stages. There are, as yet, no major service providers that dominate the European scene. Almost half of the alliances in the research sample were less than two years old, and most had not changed their original scope. By far the most important factor driving companies toward such alliances is corporate restructuring. In Europe, typical motives are the need to reconfigure production facilities to respond to globalization pressures, and the increasing harmonization and deregulation within the European Union. Corporate restructuring can lead to a logistics alliance in two ways. If it involves more specialized production and fewer factories, it will be accompanied or quickly followed by a re-evaluation of the logistics configuration. In more than 500 cases to date, disappearing borders, greater distances to market, and improving transport networks have prompted the setting up of one or more European or regional distribution centers. Recent analyses by Dutch information and research institution, Nederland Distributieland, show that one in four of these distribution centers will be outsourced. Our own experience indicates that major US and Japanese companies are in the vanguard of this type of restructuring. …


I. Date BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Neurovascular contact (NVC) of the trigeminal nerve is not only detected at the affected trigeminal nerve in patients with trigeminal neuralgia (TN) but is also observed at the asymptomatic nerves on the side contralateral to the TN as well as in normal nerves in control subjects. The frequency and severity of the NVC among the affected, contralateral, and normal trigeminal nerves were analyzed by 3D MR cisternogram and angiogram fusion imaging in relation to the cause of TN. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The inner view of the fusion MR imaging projected from inside the trigeminal nerve was used. The severity of the NVC was classified as none, simple, moderate, or severe, according to the nerve circumference in contact with the vessel. The NVC was analyzed in the affected nerves ( n (cid:1) 66) and the contralateral nerves ( n (cid:1) 66). Forty patients underwent microvascular decompression surgery, and 26 were treated medically. The NVC at the normal trigeminal nerves ( n (cid:1) 78) was studied in 39 control subjects without symptoms of TN. RESULTS: The NVC in the affected trigeminal nerve was observed more frequently and much more severely than that at the contralateral and normal trigeminal nerves in controls ( P (cid:2) .01). Additionally, the NVC in the surgical patients was more severe than that in the medically treated patients ( P (cid:2) .01). CONCLUSIONS: Severity analysis of the NVC with the inner view of the fusion MR imaging may provide useful information in the diagnosis of TN and can be a helpful adjunct in treatment planning for patients with TN.


Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. From the ancient Romans to the present day, their real nature has been obscured by a tangled web of preconceived ideas and stereotypes. Barry Cunliffe seeks to reveal this fascinating people for the first time, using an impressive range of evidence, and exploring subjects such as trade, migration, and the evolution of Celtic traditions. Along the way, he exposes the way in which society's needs have shaped our visions of the Celts, and examines such colourful characters as St Patrick, Cu Chulainn, and Boudica. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.


This paper considers the role of library support for distance learning activities at the University of Surrey, with specific reference to the MA in Linguistics (TESOL) and the MSc in English Language Teaching Management. These courses represent a major challenge to support services for distance learners, as the students have no face-to-facc contact with staff, and most of them live and work overseas. Firstly the courses are described as operating along a number of clines that define a distance learning operation, and the issue of resource support is considered. We then turn to the role of the library in supporting distance learning students, and consider the ways in which the role of the library in distance learning programs is expanding and changing to meet the challenges of the future. The specific example of the Distance Learners' Information Service (DiLIS) of the George Edwards Library (GEL) is presented as an example of good practice.


Collaborative filtering, especially latent factor model, has been popularly used in personalized recommendation. Latent factor model aims to learn user and item latent factors from user-item historic behaviors. To apply it into real big data scenarios, efficiency becomes the first concern, including offline model training efficiency and online recommendation efficiency. In this paper, we propose a D istributed C ollaborative H ashing ( DCH ) model which can significantly improve both efficiencies. Specifically, we first propose a distributed learning framework, following the state-of-the-art parameter server paradigm, to learn the offline collaborative model. Our model can be learnt efficiently by distributedly computing subgradients in minibatches on workers and updating model parameters on servers asynchronously. We then adopt hashing technique to speedup the online recommendation procedure. Recommendation can be quickly made through exploiting lookup hash tables. We conduct thorough experiments on two real large-scale datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that, comparing with the classic and state-of-the-art (distributed) latent factor models, DCH has comparable performance in terms of recommendation accuracy but has both fast convergence speed in offline model training procedure and realtime efficiency in online recommendation procedure. Furthermore, the encouraging performance of DCH is also shown for several real-world applications in Ant Financial.


ABSTRACT
Health Management Information Systems (HMIS) have been used by many countries using platforms adopted or own-designed. It's implemented by integrating all healthcare services and gives service providers the ability to collect, store and use health data. The System is able to provide information on all aspects of the organization from billing to patient care and beyond. Despite its significance, lack of specificity and clarity hamper systematic understanding, successful implementation, and evaluation of its functional factors. The study is aimed at assessing the functional factors for Health Management Information System performance in Elgeiyo-Marakwet County (EMC). The specific objectives were to: determine technical factors for HMIS performance in Elgeiyo Marakwet County; identify the behavioral factors for HMIS performance in EMC; determine the organizational factors for HMIS performance in EMC; determine health policy framework for HMIS performance in EMC; and identify challenges affecting the use of HMIS in EMC. Quantitative research method was used and data gathered through administration of questionnaires to 52 respondents. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) computer software version 20.0. The study found that there is presence of technical factors, behavioral factors, organizational factors and health policy framework for HMIS performance in Elgeiyo Marakwet County. The study concludes that technical factors, behavioral factors, organizational factors and health policy framework contribute to the performance of health management information system. The study recommends enhanced support for technical inputs, behavioral attributes, organizational systems, and health policy framework for greater performance for HMIS and regular review in the county.
Key words: health management information system, functional factors, technical and behavioral factors.


For much of the 20th century, Islamic politics appeared to lie beyond the pale of legitimate politics in many Muslim-majority states. This book brings about a more a serious understanding of Islamic politics by critically tracing the pathways by which Islamic politics has been transformed in the Middle East and Asia. Through the exploration of dissent and power it argues that Islamic politics had not been encased in ineffectual dissent even before the 'Arab Spring' took the Middle-East closer to historical trends of democratization elsewhere in the world.The findings from country-specific studies of Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia and Turkey demonstrate that Islamic politics has developed a large and resilient capacity for adaptation and reinvention not only in the Middle-East but in Asia as well. Moreover, the international spectrum of Islamic politics stretches from marginalized dissent to established government with political parties and movements competing to different degrees of success for power, frequently by electoral means.This study traces and explains the collective progression of Islamic politics between points of dissent and positions of power, a subject that has not been directly or systematically covered by the extensive literature on Islam and politics.


The a uthors' interest is connected with the application of new technologies in physics education as a means of improving the learning achievement of Physics students at different stages of learning The New Kind of Visual Model instructional strategy introduced in this research is a computer intelligent-based PowerPoint visual simulation used to investigate learning achievement in physics. The research study adopted the Quasi-Experimental Research design. The population comprised of a sample of 168 Secondary School Class-two Physics students purposively selected and treated to 40 minutes tutorials class on the concept of motion. The instrument used consisted in two parts: PowerPoint Computer-simulated visual models which constituted the treatment; and printed materials used to elicit responses to the treatment. There were two activity groups: Experimental group; and Control group. The research study revealed that New Kind of Visual Model instructional strategy contributed positively to learning achievement in physics; result also show that there is significant effect of treatment on students' retention of learned materials; and has positive significant effect on students' learning attitude. New Kind of Visual Model instructional strategy will reduce the effects of novelty in method of instruction in all areas of teaching-learning, and may constitute a basis for the use of conceptualism in Computer-aided physics education.


David Hattem, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey The following is a qualitative case study presenting three vignettes exploring the use of language play while microblogging during an academically sanctioned task. Ten students and one teacher used Twitter in an intensive, English as a second language advanced grammar course to practice writing sentences with complex grammatical constructions from the academic genre. In turn, the students received occasional corrective feedback from the instructor. Drawing on qualitative data consisting of a corpus of timeand datestamped tweets, retrospective interviews and discourse analysis of the students' tweets, the author presents three "micro-vignettes" demonstrating how three students responded to contradictions within the original task by qualitatively transforming its context. As a result, they created new learning opportunities, 'spinning-off' (Wertsch, 1998) the microblogging tool, due to the tool's features, the students' previous cultures-of-use, (Thorne, 2003) and their pre-existing social networks (Stefanone & Gay, 2008). The students used Twitter as an instant messaging chat room, moving from the sentence to the utterance (Bakhtin, 1953/1986), embedding target grammar constructions in various forms of ludic language play (Cook, 2000). By dynamically reframing (Goffman, 1974) their own learning activities students took ownership of the task and went through a process of expansive learning (Engëstrom, 2007).


In a media ecosystem besieged with misinformation and polarizing rhetoric, what the news media chooses not to cover can be as significant as what they do cover. In this article, we examine the historical production of silence in journalism to better understand the role amplification plays in the editorial and content moderation practices of current news media and social media platforms. Through the lens of strategic silence (i.e., the use of editorial discretion for the public good), we examine two U.S.-based case studies where media coverage produces public harms if not handled strategically: White violence and suicide. We analyze the history of journalistic choices to illustrate how professional and ethical codes for best practices played a key role in producing a more responsible field of journalism. As news media turned to online distribution, much has changed for better and worse. Platform companies now curate news media alongside user generated content; these corporations are largely responsible for content moderation on an enormous scale. The transformation of gatekeepers has led an evolution in disinformation and misinformation, where the creation and distribution of false and hateful content, as well as the mistrust of social institutions, have become significant public issues. Yet it is not just the lack of editorial standards and ethical codes within and across platforms that pose a challenge for stabilizing media ecosystems; the manipulation of search engines and recommendation algorithms also compromises the ability for lay publics to ascertain the veracity of claims to truth. Drawing on the history of strategic silence, we argue for a new editorial approach—"strategic amplification"—which requires both news media organizations and platform companies to develop and employ best practices for ensuring responsibility and accountability when producing news content and the algorithmic systems that help spread it.


The purpose of the experiment was to investigate the organizing and disorganizing effects of induced positive emotion upon the constructive play of 5-year-old children. It was hypothesized that low and medium levels of induced positive emotion would increase the children's attention to the play task, increase their smiling behavior, and decrease the noise made by the children. In addition, it was hypothesized that a high level of positive emotion induction would decrease the children's attention to the play task, increase still further their smiling behavior, and increase the noise made by them. Thirty children from one of the centers of United Day Care, Inc. in Greensboro, North Carolina, were selected at random from among the 5-year-old population at the center. The subjects were randomly assigned to two groups of 15 children each. Both groups were involved in identical constructive play activities (painting). However, the experimental group experienced emotion induction in the form of their teacher's pleasant promises just prior to play. The children's behavior was rated in a randomized, time-series fashion by two paid observers.


Reinterpreting the principle of self-determination, some theorists have proposed that victimized ethnic groups ought to have a right to secede from states in which they are located. Proponents of such a right assert that, by separating antagonistic groups, secession can alleviate ethnic conflict. Secession, however, does not create homogeneous successor states or assure protection of remaining minorities, and its converts domestic ethnic conflict into more dangerous international conflict. Recognition of a right to secede would dampen attempts to adopt conciliatory policies in the undivided state, and would likely increase ultimately fruitless secessionist warfare. The best hope for severely divided societies lies not in encouraging secession or partition but in devising institutions to increase the satisfaction of minorities in existing states.


Reconstruction studies of Old Chinese (OC hereafter) and Proto Sino-Tibetan (PST hereafter) have yielded numerous significant discoveries related to the phonological histories of these two ancient languages. Despite recent advancements into OC and PST phonological histories, a few mysteries remain yet unsolved. One such mystery, the 'stop coda' problem, is as hotly debated now as it was when it was first raised seventy years ago. This long-running debate focuses on the existence and identity of the 'stop codas' in OC and in its parent language, PST. One reason why this debate has failed to reach a satisfactory conclusion is that the reconstruction methodology is limited, which assumes the Neogrammarian law of sound change. This law holds that sound change occurs without exception in every form that meets the structural description. Although this law applies to many sound changes in myriad world languages, it is not the only possible pathway of sound change. In this paper, I will argue that the key to the 'stop-coda' problem of OC belongs to another sound change type — lexical diffusion.The organization of the paper is as follows. In Part One, I will introduce the background of the debate over the 'stop codas' in OC. Part Two reviews previous opposing analyses of the 'stop coda' debate. Part Three details my proposal for a lexical diffusion analysis of the 'stop coda' problem based on internal evidence in Chinese. Part Four investigates the problem using the Comparative Method based on external evidence from Tibetan and loan words from Chinese to Sino-Japanese. In Part Five, I will present my solution to the 'stop coda' problem, which is based on the analysis in the two preceding sections. Finally, in Part Six, I will discuss the general methodology of phonological reconstruction in light of the sound change mechanism.


The strategy behind the desupersaturation unit (DU) is rapid desupersaturation of the membrane concentrate stream by forced precipitation of sparingly soluble inorganic compounds on seed crystals. The efficiency of deposition will depend on the supersaturation and the condition of seeds, i.e. their reactivity. Poisoning of seeds by adsorption of natural organic matter and/or added commercial antiscalant will hinder the desupersaturation efficiency by blocking centres available for crystallisation. Barium sulphate precipitation in a laboratory scale DU was examined from natural reverse osmosis (RO) concentrates from surface water treatment pilot plant. Tests indicated similar effects on poisoning the barite seed grains by commercial antiscalant and natural organic matter from surface water (the Rhine River) treatment RO pilot plant (80% conversion) while no effect was observed from supersaturated synthetic (no organic matter) concentrate. An attempt was made to relate the effects of organic matter and the RO system conversion (50–85%). The rate of barite seed grain poisoning was attributed to the relative barium supersaturation in the concentrate. The efficiency of natural organic compounds started to decline above the supersaturation ratio of 3.3. Addition of commercial antiscalant enhanced the effect of natural organic matter. If the effects of organic matter in membrane systems are quantified and related to the RO system conversion, a laboratory DU can practically be used to control scaling.


Providing higher education students with opportunities to participate in peerreview feedback activities may facilitate interaction between students and enhance academic skills. Such activities are reported to help students transition from passive to active learners whilst increasing social connectedness and developing employability skills. This research aimed to evaluate student perceptions of a peer-review of assessment process offered in an undergraduate Health Science unit at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, and their subsequent unit satisfaction. Before students began the peer-review process, a sample assignment was used to coach them on how to provide constructive feedback. They subsequently prepared a draft of their assignment for peer-review, and then reviewed the work of another student. Preand post-surveys were administered to assess students' perceptions about the usefulness of the peer-review activity. Thirty-two students completed the pre-survey wherein 94% (n=30) reported the peer-review coaching helped them prepare their own assignment and 85% (n=27) reported learning how to provide constructive written feedback. Twenty-one students completed the post-survey, 76% (n=16), reporting they modified their own assignment as an outcome of their peer-review participation. Many respondents also reported improvements in their critical thinking (76%; n=16) and written communication skills (62%; n=13). Overall unit satisfaction increased exponentially.


In previous research, children have been shown to be involved in pedestrian-vehicular crashes in high numbers due to improper pedestrian behaviors. Little research has been conducted to examine the relationship between schools and pedestrian crashes. This study analyzes pedestrian-vehicular crashes in the city of Baltimore, Maryland to determine any relationships that may exist between crashes near public schools and the physical and social attributes of these schools. It was found that the presence of a driveway decreases crash occurrence and severity. Recreational facilities are shown to increase the crash occurrence and severity of crashes.


This article is devoted to changes in the functional structure of Poland's rural areas in the years 1988-1999, that is – in the period of transition from the socialist to market economy and the country's preparations for the EU accession. As the result of functional classification of rural areas carried out in 1999, it proved possible to identify ten functional classes, which can be associated into five groups (i.e. areas with an agricultural function, with equal contribution from different functions, with prevalent forestry, with prevalent tourist/rest-and-recreation function, and with prevalent non-agricultural function). The functional classification obtained revealed that the ten-year period brought a strengthening of the agricultural function in central and eastern Poland, while the West and parts of the South witnessed an increase in the significance of functions outside agriculture. The latter were the result of the development of new economic activities, including farms engaging in the processing of agricultural products and the rendering of different kinds of services. In areas with a prevailing agricultural function, there has in general been a decline in the significance of the market- related agriculture, and an increase of its role in the self-supply for rural inhabitants.


Abstract Large, well-preserved carpofloras from Miocene and Pliocene lignite-bearing sequences of the Lower Rhine Basin in Germany occur in a variety of fluvial and lacustrine facies, including channel, point-bar, cut-off channel (oxbow-lake), crevasse-splay, channel-bar (sand-gravel flat), and lake-delta deposits. Despite their occurrence in a wide spectrum of depositional facies, the accumulations share a suite of distinctive characteristics. They appear as a jumble of woody material dominated by abraded pieces of wood, including conifer cones, woody fruits, seeds, small branches, and charcoal in an unconsolidated matrix of medium- or coarse-grained sand. The key characteristic of the fossil plant remains is woodiness. Close association between the lignified material and these grain sizes indicates that these woody fruits are hydrodynamically equivalent to medium- to coarse-sized sand, and were transported as bedload during flood events. Transport by bedload also is evidenced by the high degree of roundness in associated wood clasts, by abrasion in some diaspores, and by the lack of non-resistant plant parts (e.g., leaves, flowers, fleshy or delicate tissues) in the accumulations. Thus, the lignified plant remains behave as sedimentary clasts in the water column, but only after they have been fully saturated with water. Mass carpological accumulations in very coarse-grained sand on active point bars in the Sieg River near Bonn and their formation during events of extreme discharge serve as a modern analog for the fossil carpofloras. New terminology and concepts pertaining to these mass carpological deposits, or "bedload carpodeposits," also include the terms "bedload carpobiofacies," and "bedload carpolithofacies." A basic depositional model for the genesis of bedload carpodeposits is presented.


Abstract. The integration and use of different space technology applications for disasters management, play an important role at the time of prevents the causes and mitigates the effects of the natural disasters. Nevertheless, the space technology counts with the appropriate technological resources to provide the accurate and timely information required to support in the decision making in case of disasters. Considering the aforementioned aspects, in this research is presented the design and implementation of an Emergency Communications Network for Disasters Management in Venezuela. Network based on the design of a topology that integrates the satellites platforms in orbit operation under administration of Venezuelan state, such as: the communications satellite VENESAT-1 and the remote sensing satellites VRSS-1 and VRSS-2; as well as their ground stations with the aim to implement an emergency communications network to be activated in case of disasters which affect the public and private communications infrastructures in Venezuela. In this regard, to design the network several technical and operational specifications were formulated, between them: Emergency Strategies to Maneuver the VRSS-1 and VRSS-2 satellites for optimal images capture and processing, characterization of the VENESAT-1 transponders and radiofrequencies for emergency communications services, technologies solutions formulation and communications links design for disaster management. As result, the emergency network designed allows to put in practice diverse communications technologies solutions and different scheme or media for images exchange between the areas affected for disasters and the entities involved in the disasters management tasks, providing useful data for emergency response and infrastructures recovery.


Moral Politics in the Philippines offers an in-depth examination of the political participation and discourse of the urban poor in Manila. After the ousting of Ferdinando Marcos in 1986, society in the Philippines fractured along socioeconomic lines. The educated middle class began to recognize themselves as moral citizens and political participants while condemning the poor as immoral "masses" who earn money illegally and support corrupt leaders. Conversely, the poor believe themselves to be morally upright and criticize the rich as arrogant oppressors. Wataru Kusaka looks at the dangers of this moralization of politics during the last several decades, and he analyzes the damaging effects it has had on democracy by excluding much of society and marginalizing the interests of those most in need of resources.


Description Metformin is an AMPK activator that exhibits anti-diabetic, antihyperglycemic, antioxidative, immunosuppressive, anticancer chemotherapeutic, anti-metastatic, and chemopreventive activities. Metformin modulates glucose-6-phosphatase activity, decreasing glucose production and glycogenolysis. Additionally, it inhibits expression of TNF-α in the liver, reversing pathology of fatty liver disease in vivo. In podocytes, metformin decreases activity of NADPH oxidase and generation of free radicals. In other in vitro models, metformin inhibits expression of MHC molecules and co-stimulatory factors on dendritic cells, preventing antigen presentation. Across several hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines, metformin decreases expression of cyclin D1, cyclin E, and CDK4, inducing G0/G1 phase cell cycle arrest and inhibiting cell proliferation. In vivo, this compound also downregulates expression of c-myc, preventing neoplasia initiation in prostate cancer models. Metformin's activation of AMPK also inhibits Shh signaling in breast cancer models, suppressing proliferation, migration, and invasion. M2076 Metformin Hydrochloride


We theoretically studied a left-hand structure based on a two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal (PC) with a negative refractive index. The propagation of electromagnetic waves in the proposed PC structure is investigated through dispersion characteristic analysis and numerical simulation of field pattern. The designed PC structure can exhibit all angle negative refraction, and the corresponding effective refractive indices along all directions are almost same and close to the ideal value of -1. A flat lens formed from such a PC has been designed and its imaging properties have been investigated systematically.


Abstract Interior surface deposition effects of vaporized radioactive aerosols are important in understanding their behavior in accident conditions such as the Japanese nuclear laboratory accident in 1999 and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986, where entire communities had to be abandoned because of surface contamination, and the hopefully unlikelihood of a terrorist dirty nuclear bomb attack. Airborne radon progeny offers an opportunity to study radioisotope surface deposition. A significant annual lung cancer rate is also attributed to airborne radon progeny in the interior domestic environment. Surface deposition rates influence the airborne progeny levels. Here, we report extensive 218Po deposition rates over typical air change rates (ACHs) from 0.02 to 1.0 h-1 for interior furnishings surfaces in a 0.283-m3 test chamber to supplement earlier reported deposition rates for interior wall, ceiling, and floor surfaces. In analyzing the deposition results from the different materials, it is found that they correlate in terms of roughness with relative static friction and aerodynamic shear stress. Extrapolation to perfectly smooth surfaces provides a good estimate of the Fick's law value. Contrary to prior radon analysis at higher air flow, where the Crump and Seinfeld (CS) turbulent deposition models seemed to fit, at low ACH below 0.5 h-1 the deposition data found excellent agreement with a new Brownian diffusive deposition model for laminar flow. A composite model using the Brownian diffusive laminar flow and the CS turbulent flow models provides an excellent fit to all data. These results provide insight into contamination issues relative to other airborne radioisotopes, with the relative effects being dependent on the airborne contaminant particle sizes and their respective diffusion coefficients as seen in the two deposition models.


Promoter Polymorphisms in Interferon Regulatory Factor 5 Daniel N. Clark Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BYU Doctor of Philosophy The promoter region of interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) contains the rs2004640 T or G single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and a CGGGG indel. Both of these polymorphisms have been implicated as genetic risk factors for several autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, whose pathology involves altered apoptosis and cytokine signaling. The polymorphisms' overall effect is to increase IRF5 levels. IRF5 is a transcription factor of several cytokines, including interferon, and is pro-apoptotic. Thus an alteration of cytokine levels and apoptosis signaling due to high IRF5 levels is the proposed source of autoimmune risk. Each of IRF5's four first exons (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D) has its own promoter and responds to specific stimuli. rs2004640 is a T or G polymorphism; T is the risk allele. The SNP creates a sequence-specific recognition site for the spliceosome, making exon 1B spliceable. Analysis of the 1B promoter showed putative p53 binding site. IRF5 and p53 are pro-apoptotic transcription factors, and the p53 site may provide a positive feedback loop. Apoptosis levels were altered in cells with the rs2004640 risk T/T allele when treated with DNA damaging agents (extrinsic apoptosis), but not when activating death receptors (intrinsic apoptosis). The 1B promoter was the only one to activate expression after inducing DNA damage in a luciferase reporter assay, and this activation was abolished after mutating the p53 site. The exon 1A promoter contains either three or four copies (4X) of CGGGG; the 4X variant is the risk allele. The 1A promoter is constitutively active and is responsive to the Toll-like receptor 7 agonist imiquimod. RNA folding analysis revealed a hairpin encompassing exon 1B. Mutational analysis showed that the hairpin shape decreased translation five-fold in a luciferase reporter assay. Cells with the CGGGG or rs2004640 risk allele exhibited higher levels of IRF5 mRNA and protein, but demonstrated no change in mRNA stability. Quantitative PCR in cell lines with either risk polymorphism demonstrated decreased usage of exons 1C or 1D, although no other correlated splicing events were observed. Also, several mRNA splice variants of IRF5 were sequenced. The risk polymorphisms altered cytokine signaling as well. Expression of interferon, Tolllike receptor, and B cell receptor pathways were affected by a risk haplotype which includes the rs2004640 SNP. The CGGGG polymorphism decreased the levels of CC-chemokine receptor 7. Specific transcription factor binding sites define promoter activity and thus first exon usage and transcription levels. Translation levels are affected by mRNA folding. Overall, the rs2004640 SNP and the CGGGG indel cause high levels of IRF5. High IRF5 expression causes altered cytokine and apoptosis signaling, and may bias the immune system toward autoimmunity.


The type IV C-X-C-motif chemokine receptor (CXCR4) is expressed in a large variety of human cancers, including hematologic malignancies, and this receptor and its ligand, stromal cell–derived factor-1 (SDF-1), play a crucial role in cancer progression. We generated a humanized immunoglobulin G1 mAb, hz515H7, which binds human CXCR4, efficiently competes for SDF-1 binding, and induces a conformational change in CXCR4 homodimers. Furthermore, it inhibits both CXCR4 receptor–mediated G-protein activation and β-arrestin-2 recruitment following CXCR4 activation. The binding of the hz515H7 antibody to CXCR4 inhibits the SDF-1–induced signaling pathway, resulting in reduced phosphorylation of downstream effectors, such as Akt, Erk1/2, p38, and GSK3β. Hz515H7 also strongly inhibits cell migration and proliferation and, while preserving normal blood cells, induces both antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity and complement-dependent cytotoxicity against neoplastic cells. In mouse xenograft models, hz515H7 displays antitumor activities with multiple hematologic tumor cell lines, with its Fc-mediated effector functions proving essential in this context. Furthermore, hz515H7 binds to primary tumor cells from acute myeloid leukemia and multiple myeloma patients. Collectively, our results demonstrate two major mechanisms of action, making hz515H7 unique in this regard. Its potential as a best-in-class molecule is currently under investigation in a phase I clinical trial. Mol Cancer Ther; 15(8); 1890–9. ©2016 AACR.


Attribution 4.0 United States License. This journal is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Japanese Language and Literature Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese jll.pitt.edu | Vol. 56 | Number 2 | October 2022 | DOI: 10.5195/jll.2022.277 ISSN 1536-7827 (print) 2326-4586 (online)


INTRODUCTION
For decades, predicting response to the antidepressant medication has been a critical unmet need in depression treatment in clinic, and a technical challenge in depression research.

METHODS
In this study, a recently developed functional brain network controllability (fBNC) analysis approach was employed to identify the antidepressant treatment responders and non-responders from depression patients at pre-treatment period. The fBNC, which captures the ability of brain regions to guide the brain's behavior from an initial state to a desired state with suitable choice of inputs, may provide valuable features for antidepressant response prediction. The performance of prediction was evaluated using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected from a six-week longitudinal clinical trial with escitalopram in treating unmedicated depression patients (n = 20). Treatment outcomes were assessed using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) scores. Patients were considered as the treatment responders if their post-treatment HAMD scores were decreased by 50% or more at 6-week post-treatment.

RESULTS
Results showed significantly larger global average controllability and lower global modal controllability, greater regional average controllability, and smaller regional modal controllability of default mode network in treatment responders compared to the treatment non-responders at pre-treatment period. By performing optimal control analysis, our results showed that no significant difference of the neuromodulation effects between the treatment responders and non-responders.

DISCUSSION
Our results suggest that the functional brain network controllability measures may be utilized as novel biomarkers to predict antidepressant response on depression and provide theoretical support to employ neuromodulation for treating antidepressant non-responders.


Knee osteoarthritis causes physical, functional limitations and difficulty in performing activities of daily living and mobility. The study aimed to assess patient-relevant outcomes in knee osteoarthritis patients using the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) scale. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 patients. KOOS scale contains five subscales: pain, symptom, activities of daily living, sports/recreation, and quality of life. Score zero indicates the worst possible knee problems, while score 100 indicates no knee problems. Non-parametric tests, multiple linear regression analysis, and correlation were calculated for the data. The level of significance was p<0.05 and p<0.01. The mean age group of patients was 54.58±10.73 years. There was a statistically significant association observed between pain and disease duration (p=0.031); symptom and gender, comorbidities, and body mass index (p=0.038, 0.022, and 0.017, respectively); activities of daily living and knee surgery (p=0.043); sports/recreation and knee involved, disease duration (p=0.031, 0.033, respectively); and knee-related quality of life and gender (p=0.011). Knee surgery was an independent predictor for pain (p=0.008) and activities of daily living (p=0.008). There was a severe problem with sports/recreation in the patients. The knee-related quality of life was moderate. Knee surgery was found to be a strong independent predictor for pain and activities of daily living. However, socioeconomic status influenced the knee surgery in our patients.


Political developments in Sri Lanka in 2009 centered primarily around the end of the protracted civil war between the state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with the total military defeat of the LTTE. Sri Lanka subsequently entered an uncertain phase of post-civil war political reconstruction. The announcement to hold early presidential elections in January 2010 added to uncertainties to Sri Lanka9s post-civil war political process. Sri Lanka also moved away from the West toward other Asian and Middle Eastern powers.


Organisational career outcomes are often related to organisational
mobility which is described in the literature as movement of
individuals between organisational positions. The outcomes are
usually described in terms of rate, direction and patterns. Two
factors suggest this is a narrow perspective of organisational
mobility:
1) this simple description masks the variety in the situations which
give rise to mobility outcomes;
2) this approach fails to explain the changes which can occur whilst
an individual is within an organisational position.
These factors can be accommodated by considering organisational
mobility outcomes in terms of changes in an individual's job and job
environment. An analysis of the literature revealed the following
dimensions to be the most appropriate descriptors of this change:
job duties, organisational relationships, physical environment,
remuneration, job opportunities and job involvements.
An empirical study of these changes over time revealed that
organisational mobility outcomes can be meaningfully represented as
a multidimensional spectrum of change circumstances. An analysis
revealed that several significant dimensions strongly influenced the
variation amongst the sets of change circumstances. Relating the
change circumstances to these dimensions identified several
characteristic groupings of circumstances: associated with interpositional changes; associated with
organisation structure changes; associated with changes in job duties
and organisational relationships; associated with cyclical or
reoccurring duties; those characterised by very little change.
The analysis also revealed that the outcomes can be described at
different levels of generality. This allows mobility patterns to
be described in broad terms or in terms which reflect the variety
of situations which give rise to mobility outcomes.


This paper reports on plant propagation of select staple and cash crops in the Micronesian region. While discussing various climatic, socio-economic and technical issues that limit agricultural production, the paper emphasizes the feasibility of plant tissue culture techniques for sustainable plant propagation in the region. The findings include development of successful in vitro plant propagation methods and field transfer techniques for regional cultivars of banana, taro, cassava, sweet potato, pineapple, and black pepper. Plant propagation systems developed for crops at the Micronesia Plant Propagation Research Center serve as a foundation for establishing sustainable agriculture practices and attaining food self-sufficiency in Micronesia.


Monitoring a diffuse event with a wireless sensor network differs from well studied applications such as target tracking and habitat monitoring and therefore we suggest that new approaches are needed. In this paper we propose a novel low power technique based on a multiple agent framework. We show how a set of simple rules can produce complex behavior that encompasses event characterization and data routing. We demonstrate the approach and examine its accuracy and scalability using a simulated gaseous plume monitoring scenario.


There are many models in the literature that consider the main characteristics of Internet traffic noise either by processing real measurements of packets (or bytes) traffic in the time or the frequency domain. Fractals are applicable when the underlying processes being modeled have a similar appearance regardless of the time or observation scale and much of the traffic 'riding' the Internet can be modeled using fractals. Further, it is arguable that as the Internet has become larger and larger, the fractal nature of the traffic has become more and more pronounced. In this paper we introduce a novel method that depends on the frequency analysis through which we attempt to capture the fractal behavior of Internet traffic by adopting a Random Scaling Fractal model to characteristics of the traffic. The relevance and validation of the proposed model are demonstrated by application studies for measured Internet traffic.


OBJECTIVE It is not known whether calorie restriction (CR) has additive benefits to those from exercise (EX)-induced weight loss. We hypothesized that weight loss from CR and EX (CREX) improves insulin sensitivity more than matched weight loss induced by EX or CR alone and that the incretin system may be involved in adaptations to CR. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Sedentary, overweight men and women (n = 52, 45–65 years of age) were randomized to undergo 6–8% weight loss by using CR, EX, or CREX. Glucose, insulin, C-peptide, insulin sensitivity, and incretin hormones (glucagon-like peptide 1 [GLP-1] and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide [GIP]) were measured during frequently sampled oral glucose tolerance tests (FSOGTTs). Incretin effects on insulin secretion were measured by comparing insulin secretion rates from the FSOGTTs to those from a glycemia-matched glucose infusion. RESULTS Despite similar weight losses in all groups, insulin sensitivity index values increased twofold more in the CREX group (2.09 ± 0.35 μM/kg/pM × 100) than in the CR (0.89 ± 0.39 μM/kg/pM × 100) and EX (1.04 ± 0.39 μM/kg/pM × 100) groups. Postprandial GLP-1 concentrations decreased only in the CR group (P = 0.04); GIP concentrations decreased in all groups. Incretin effects on insulin secretion were unchanged. CONCLUSIONS CR and EX have additive beneficial effects on glucoregulation. Furthermore, the adaptations to CR may involve reductions in postprandial GLP-1 concentrations. These findings underscore the importance of promoting both CR and EX for optimal health. However, because data from participants who withdrew from the study and from those who did not adhere to the intervention were excluded, the results may be limited to individuals who are capable of adhering to a healthy lifestyle intervention.


Increasing the light absorption in the weakly absorbing near-bandgap region is of great significance for improving efficiency in a thin-film silicon solar cell. In this study, light absorption enhancement near the infrared domain was realized by coating Ag nanoshells on the front side of amorphous silicon film. Detailed investigations prove that the enhancement can be related to the excitation of localized surface plasmons (LSPs). LSP scattering-induced light coupling in the guided mode, intense in-phase interference between the scattering field and the transmitted field, and the Floquet mode were observed in the simulated E-field profile, and the significant absorption enhancement was accounted for by these effects.


Wax models were made of three basic types of lovebug, Plecia neartica Hardy, antenna sensillum. Polar plots of amplified guided radiation at 3.1 cm are given. Highly directional beamwidths of 20 and 30° and 4× amplification are demonstrated by two of the configurations and a circular pattern 3× amplification by the third steeply curved model. All three radiation patterns correlate very well with the known behavior of the lovebug. This exact model is evidence for an IR-dielectric antenna (scent) system of sensillum insect communication.


There is often a requirement to interface a new model to a legacy implementation by creating a shim between them to make the legacy appear as close to the new model as possible. This is a common exercise, usually fraught with frustrations, but here we find the exercise reveals fundamental aspects about nature of layers that were previously not well understood. Here we will be primarily concerned with creating a shim between RINA and IEEE 802.1q (VLANs). The Recursive InterNet Architecture (RINA) proposes a network architecture derived from the fundamentals of InterProcess Communication (IPC). This yields a recursively layered architecture of Distributed IPC Facilities (DIFs).


The roles that self-worth protection, goal orientation, and academic selfefficacy play in student behavior and achievement outcomes have been well documented for students in middle school through college. Research has also shown the impact of parenting style on student achievement motivation and outcomes. However there is little research focused on determining how well these findings and theories apply to students below sixth grade. One issue is whether younger children are aware of such relatively abstract constructs and able to selfreport them validly. An alternative is to have parents rate their children.

Previously used measures of task goal orientation and academic selfefficacy were adapted for younger children. A Children's Self-Worth Protection (CSWP) scale was developed for this study and showed promise in identification of self-worth protective students in Grades 3 to 6. It exhibited adequate test-retest reliability and internal consistency and related in predicted directions, although weakly, with other measures.

In a school district where students transition to middle school at Grade 5, children in Grades 3 (n = 42), 4 (n = 36), and 5 (n = 51) were followed as they transitioned to a new school year. They completed measures of self-worth protection, approach/avoidance, task goal orientation, and academic self-efficacy at the end of one school year and again at the beginning and the end of the next school year. School GPAs and reading and math test scores were obtained at the end of the school year before and after the grade transition. Parents rated their children on approach/avoidance, task goal orientation, academic self-efficacy, and perceived evaluative threat at the beginning of the study. Parents also self-rated their parenting style. Contrary to expectations, parenting style was unrelated to all other measures. Although the expected disruption in self-worth protection, goal orientations, academic self-efficacy and achievement did not occur as a result of transition to middle school, a reduction in task focus and increase in avoidance was t!viuent as students progressed from Grade 3 to Grade 6.

Correlations indicated little discrimination between goal orientations and academic self-efficacy by children or parents. Children's ratings of approach/avoidance, task goal orientation, and academic self-efficacy were substantially correlated and combined to form one factor, called Achievement Orientation, which was predictive of achievement. Parent ratings on the same measures plus perceived evaluative threat were also substantially correlated and combined to form another factor. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicated parent-rated Achievement Orientation correlated .64 with school achievement, compared with .36 for children's self-reported Achievement Orientation. Children's rated self-worth protection was distinct from Achievement Orientation, and made a significant additional contribution to parent- and child-rated Achievement Orientation in the prediction of school achievement.

This study has shown that children in Grades 3 to 6 who self-rate as higher self-worth protective are already beginning to achieve at a lower level than their peers. Assessing self-worth protection early in the school system would allow teachers to consider interventions that may reduce its negative effect on academic achievement.


For pt. I see ibid., vol. 42, no. 5, p. 497-506 (1995). In pt. I the authors developed complete expressions for the power dissipated by and for the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of a coil of arbitrary geometry facing an infinite lossy dielectric cylinder. They now consider an example coil geometry, a "cylindrical window", and demonstrate the effects of coil size and position, tissue properties, and source location on the S/N. Frequencies ranging from 1 to 170 MHz are investigated for two coil sizes, the larger having four times the surface area of the smaller. For a dipole source of strength assumed independent of frequency, the S/N is constant for frequencies up to about 10 MHz. Both coil sizes yield similar optimal S/N values when imaging structures deep within the body, the larger coil showing less dependence on the source location. For more superficial structures, the smaller coil has a better performance at all frequencies investigated while still being more sensitive to source position. Hence, when imaging superficial structures the choice of coil size should be balanced between image uniformity and the need for a higher S/N. For each coil size, there is an optimal position away from the tissues which yields the highest S/N when imaging deep. By contrast, the coil should be placed as close as possible to the body when the source is near the surface. From an electromagnetic standpoint and aside from the increased equilibrium magnetization in the tissues, the S/N of both coils is actually improved by operating at a higher frequency when imaging superficially, whereas it is degraded when imaging deep. Experimental results gathered on a saline-filled cylinder correlate very well with these simulations and show the model will also predict with good accuracy the S/N for a finite length cylinder as long as that length is at least three or four times the coil longitudinal dimension. >


Epic Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd, it was operates on early 1990, it was a full service event management company. Epic Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd always looks for the customers wants to create and implement a successful strategy that will exceed customer satisfaction. The company operates in three branches that is Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka. There are many types of event the company do such as property launch, concert and road show, conference, seminar, family day, product launches and others.
Researcher do the research study on effectiveness of promotional tools used by Epic Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd come with the objectives of to determine the level of awareness of the public towards Epic Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd. Next is to determine the best promotional tools that can be used for Epic Evolution Sdn Bhd to promote their services to their customers and last is to know the relationship between effectiveness of promotional tools and 5 promotional tools. In this study, the researcher used the research design of descriptive research and causal research. For sampling technique, researcher used convenience sampling in non-probability for this study. Researcher distributed the questionnaire to respondents randomly around Johor Bahru to have primary data for data analysis and other sources are from journals. The researcher also gave recommendations for Epic Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd to improve their promotion efforts to become more effective.


BACKGROUND
Pathological gambling is a rare potential complication related to treatment of Parkinson disease (PD). However, the etiology of this behavior is poorly understood.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the relationship between medical therapy for PD and pathological gambling.

METHODS
In our routine movement disorders practice (2002-2004), we encountered 11 patients with idiopathic PD who had recently developed pathological gambling. We assessed the relationship to their medical therapy and compared them with cases identified by systematic review of the existing literature on pathological gambling and PD.

RESULTS
All 11 patients with PD and pathological gambling were taking therapeutic doses of a dopamine agonist; 3 of these patients were not treated with levodopa. In 7 patients, pathological gambling developed within 3 months of starting to take or escalating the dose of the agonist; in the other 4 with a longer latency, gambling resolved after the agonist use was discontinued. Pramipexole dihydrochloride was the agonist in 9 of 11 cases in our series and 10 of 17 in the literature (68% in total).

CONCLUSIONS
Dopamine agonist therapy was associated with potentially reversible pathological gambling, and pramipexole was the medication predominantly implicated. This may relate to disproportionate stimulation of dopamine D(3) receptors, which are primarily localized to the limbic system.


I argue that Rawls's liberalism is compatible with feminist goals. I focus primarily on the issue of liberal neutrality, a topic suggested by the work of Catharine MacKinnon. I discuss two kinds of neutrality: neutrality at the level of justifying liberalism itself, and state neutrality in political decision-making. Both kinds are contentious within liberal theory. Rawls's argument for justice as fairness has been criticized for non-neutrality at the justificatory level, a problem noted by Rawls himself in Political Liberalism. I will defend a qualified account of neutrality at the justificatory level, taking an epistemic approach to argue for the exclusion of certain doctrines from the justificatory process. I then argue that the justification process I describe offers a justificatory stance supportive of the feminist rejection of state-sponsored gender hierarchy. Further, I argue that liberal neutrality at the level of political decision-making will have surprising implications for gender equality. Once the extent of the state's involvement in the apparently private spheres of family and civil society is recognized, and the disproportionate influence of a sexist conception of the good on those structures—and concomitant promotion of that ideal—is seen, state neutrality implies substantive change. While—as Susan Moller Okin avowed—Rawls himself may have remained ambiguous on how to address gender inequality, his theory implies that the state must seek to create substantive, not merely formal, equality. I suggest that those substantive changes will not conflict with liberal neutrality but instead be required by it.


French foreign policy in the 1960's seemed unique because it was dominated by the anachronistic ideals of Charles de Gaulle. Edward L. Morse argues that in fact the foreign policies of all highly modernized states are so similar that they can be described and explained by a general theory of interdependence. He uses France as a case study of his theory, and shows that what makes French foreign policy in this period so fascinating is the way in which the behavior of the President brought into sharp focus the problems interdependence poses for nation-states.The book is divided into two parts. The first develops the theory of the conduct of foreign policy in any highly modernized society. The second part tests the theory by examining such characteristics of French foreign policy as: the erosion of the distinction between foreign and domestic affairs; the constraints put on foreign policy by the growth of international economic interdependence, which has also affected the autonomy of decision-making in a purely national context; the increased importance of foreign economic policy; the questioning of governmental priorities in foreign affairs; and the emergence of crisis management and manipulation as part of the routine procedures of foreign policy operations. Edward L. Morse's work is valuable both for the theory it offers and because it gives a balanced view of foreign policy in an important period in recent French history.Originally published in 1973.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Atherosclerosis is an immune-mediated disease associated with lipid accumulation and formation of atherosclerotic plaques in the major arteries of the body. Vascular dendritic cells (DC) are present throughout the adventitia of the normal mouse aorta and expand under atherosclerotic conditions, but their function remains incompletely understood. To test whether DC can mediate productive antigen presentation directly in the aortic wall, we used two-photon microscopy. CD11cYFP tagged DC were motile in mouse aortas and interacted with T cells in an antigen dependent manner. In atherosclerotic Apoe-/- CD11cYFP mice, DC interacted with transferred T cells from Apoe-/-, but not C57BL/6 mice. Interaction with DC decreased T cell migration velocity and induced secretion of IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-17, which enhanced oxLDL uptake by primary macrophages. Using flow cytometry of digested whole aorta from C57BL/6 and Apoe-/- mice fed either Western diet or regular chow diet, we found CD11b+CD11c+ and CD11b-CD11c+ DC in the aortic wall of C57BL/6 mice, and this population expanded in Apoe-/- mice on western diet. Under these conditions, CD8a+ and CD103 DC appear among the CD11c+ DC population. Taken together, our data show the emergence of distinct subsets of DC in the mouse aorta during the progression of atherosclerosis and demonstrate that the aortic wall can be a site of active antigen presentation leading to the induction of a pro-atherogenic immune response.


A 54-year-old female living in Europe presented with gait ataxia, dizziness, and bilateral hearing loss. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed non-specific white matter changes. The patient's condition gradually deteriorated over two years without diagnosis. The patient continued to decline cognitively and neurologically with worsening ataxia and upper motor neuron signs. Repeat MRI showed worsening white matter changes. Lumbar puncture, not previously done, showed positive Lyme testing. Treatment with intravenous ceftriaxone resulted in marked neurological improvement. Four years after symptom, the patient has short-term memory deficits and chronic fatigue, but is otherwise neurologically, cognitively, and functionally intact. Follow up MRI findings remain largely unchanged. Because cases of intraparenchymal or encephalopathic neuroborreliosis in America are lacking, so are treatment options. We present a rare case and discuss our experience with antibiotic treatment. This case lends evidence to define optimal treatment of this disease, imperative for hastening neurological recovery.


A radiograph visualizes the internal anatomy of a patient through the use of X-ray, which projects 3D information onto a 2D plane. Hence, radiograph analysis naturally requires physicians to relate their prior knowledge about 3D human anatomy to 2D radiographs. Synthesizing novel radiographic views in a small range can assist physicians in interpreting anatomy more reliably; however, radiograph view synthesis is heavily ill-posed, lacking in paired data, and lacking in differentiable operations to leverage learning-based approaches. To address these problems, we use Computed Tomography (CT) for radiograph simulation and design a differentiable projection algorithm, which enables us to achieve geometrically consistent transformations between the radiography and CT domains. Our method, XraySyn, can synthesize novel views on real radiographs through a combination of realistic simulation and finetuning on real radiographs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on radiograph view synthesis. We show that by gaining an understanding of radiography in 3D space, our method can be applied to radiograph bone extraction and suppression without requiring groundtruth bone labels.


Abstract Risks associated with exposure of individual plant species to ozone (O3) are well documented, but implications for terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem processes have received insufficient attention. This is an important gap because feedbacks to the atmosphere may change as future O3 levels increase or decrease, depending on air quality and climate policies. Global simulation of O3 using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) revealed that in 2000, about 40% of the Global 200 terrestrial ecoregions (ER) were exposed to O3 above thresholds for ecological risks, with highest exposures in North America and Southern Europe, where there is field evidence of adverse effects of O3, and in central Asia. Experimental studies show that O3 can adversely affect the growth and flowering of plants and alter species composition and richness, although some communities can be resilient. Additional effects include changes in water flux regulation, pollination efficiency, and plant pathogen development. Recent research is unraveling a range of effects belowground, including changes in soil invertebrates, plant litter quantity and quality, decomposition, and nutrient cycling and carbon pools. Changes are likely slow and may take decades to become detectable. CESM simulations for 2050 show that O3 exposure under emission scenario RCP8.5 increases in all major biomes and that policies represented in scenario RCP4.5 do not lead to a general reduction in O3 risks; rather, 50% of ERs still show an increase in exposure. Although a conceptual model is lacking to extrapolate documented effects to ERs with limited or no local information, and there is uncertainty about interactions with nitrogen input and climate change, the analysis suggests that in many ERs, O3 risks will persist for biodiversity at different trophic levels, and for a range of ecosystem processes and feedbacks, which deserves more attention when assessing ecological implications of future atmospheric pollution and climate change.


The university sector at the beginning of the 21 Century is shifting in response to national and global changes in the role and purpose of Higher Education. Some universities, including the University of Hertfordshire, have chosen to focus attention on engagement with business and commerce. This practice based research examines the experience of academics in relation to the new challenges posed by this strategic development. There are three threads of investigation; interviews, examination of key concepts and the practitioner dimension. Drawing on a qualitative and constructivist approach, individual interviews with a range of business facing academics explore their experience of engaging with new activities. My perspective, as a manager of business facing academics, provides an important thread and situates the work firmly in the practice context. The implicit expectations arising from strategic positioning as a business facing university are examined. A conceptual framework is established with a focus on the nature of business facing activity, including its relationship with traditional forms of teaching and research, learning through work in the Higher Education setting and the idea of an enabling local context. The research found that amongst those undertaking business facing activity, academic identity is a fluid and multi-faceted construct reconfigured through experience and learning in the workplace; by its nature not easily defined, labelled or bounded. The challenge for universities is to nurture and sustain individuals in the creation and use of academic identities, in order to meet the undoubted challenges to come. This requires a forward looking, inclusive and innovative stance, resisting the temptation to judge current academic identities by the established notions of the past. Management of academics involved in business facing activity requires a more flexible, trusting and individual approach than is traditionally seen in universities.


Investigating the political ecologies of everyday engagements with environments—including material as well as policy and ideological interactions—requires consideration of the moral economy at play, as well as the political economy and social ecology. A.V. Chayanov (1966/1925), E.P. Thompson (1971, 1991), and Jim Scott (1976) have provided useful ways to think about moral economy. They framed moral economy as a way of enacting understandings of just commons, subsistence entitlements, and desirable economic relations based on social struggle. This framing can be particularly useful in combination with political ecology approaches to investigate 'moral ecologies.' These are society-environment assemblages that are often more aspirational than enacted, but toward which considerable effort is expended, and whose moral and ecological dynamics are functionally linked, perhaps as best illustrated in recent attention to agroecology as a powerful mechanism for ensuring rights to food (De Schutter 2011a, 2011b, 2012). Given political ecology's focus on power relations, moral ecologies that do not exercise considerable power are often overlooked by political ecologists. However, even if particular understandings may not be highly efficacious in exercising power, they may have considerable influence on relational conceptualizations. This mismatch between habitual inattention to moral ecologies and their potential importance contributes to tensions within contemporary society-environment scholarship between structuralist and poststructuralist modes of engagement. Given the value of both modes, particularly for understanding what Peet and Watts (1993) describe as liberation ecologies (and the regional discourse formations that shape them), I argue that political ecology provides useful frameworks for documenting and analyzing the socio-ecological experience of regions—in terms not only of the functions of society and environment, but also of the performance and curation of knowledge about those functions. Keywords: moral economy, food systems, curation, critical regional studies, land use planning, participatory action research, environmental justice, integrated natural resource management science


Previous studies suggested that the use of inward torque direction in hand-related manual activities not only increases the total normal force and torque capacity but also reduces grip force. This means lesser effort is required to perform the task, which prevents overexertion and hand injuries. Manual screwdrivers are the most common hand tools used in the industry and daily life. However, due to the difficulty users face when unfastening screws, it can also be a hand tool that potentially leads to the development of cumulative trauma disorders. In this study, 50 subjects participated in a psychophysical testing of an ergonomic inward directional screwdriver and a normal manual screwdriver. The comparative study involved the perceptions of grip, comfort and ease-of-twist for both normal and ergonomic manual screwdrivers. The data was analysed using the analysis of variance via Minitab 16. The results showed that grip, comfort and ease-of-twist are significantly affected by torque direction and ergonomics features. Further observations on participant justifications also suggested that participants rated the inward screwdriver as a better tool to be used compared to the normal screwdriver.


The p-i-n a-Si:H photodiode is a promising device as a transducer in biosensors. The native and light-induced localized state density and energy distribution in the energy gap of a-Si:H have a large effect on the photoconductivity of thin-film photodiodes. Depending on their nature, they play a crucial role in trapping and recombination processes and consequently influence the photodiode capacitance. The optical bias depen- dence of modulated photocurrent, OBMPC, method using the blue LED light is applied to clarify the nature and energy distribution of the energy gap density of states and their influence on the photodiode capacitance, from photodiodes transient response. It is observed that the deep defect states of the i-layer contribute to the capacitance at various bias voltages. Also, the capacitance achieves the upper limit around the built-in potential. Based on this method and obtained results, the a-Si:H p-i-n photodiode is used as a bio- sensor transducer in the detection of mammalian cell chemiluminescence.


Background
The proper use of Partograph supports to capture key maternal and fetal data. Paper-based Partograph are prone to error, incompleteness, delayed decisions and loss of clients' information. Electronic (e-Partograph) enables to easily retain and retrieve client data to ensure quality of care. Mobile technologies found an opportunity for resource-limited countries to improve access and quality of health care. Evidences were lacking on end users' acceptance to e-Partograph.

Objective
This study aimed to assess obstetric care providers' willingness to use mobile based e-Partograph and its associated factors.

Methods
Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted from December 30, 2016 to January 21, 2017. A total 466 obstetric care providers were selected using multistage sampling technique in North Gondar Zone, Northwest Ethiopia. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data were entered in to Epi info version 7 and analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Cronbach's Alpha test was calculated to evaluate the reliability of data. A multivariable logistic regression analysis were used to identify factors associated with dependent variable. Adjusted odds ratio with 95%CI was used to determine the presence of association.

Results
The study found that 460(99.6%) of care providers owned mobile phone. Smartphone owners accounted only 102(22%). Of them, 205(46%) were willing to use mobile-phone for e-Partograph. Care providers aged >30 years (AOR=2.85, 95% C.I: 1.34-6.05), medical doctors and higher level clinicians (AOR=8.35, 95% C.I: 2.07-33.63), Health Center (AOR=4.41, 95% C.I:0.10-9.26), favorable attitude towards Partograph (AOR=2.76, 95% C.I: 1.49-5.09) and related in-service trainings (AOR=7.63, 95% C.I: 3.96-14.69) were enabling factors for willingness to use mobile phone.

Conclusions
Almost all obstetric care providers had access to mobile phone, however; smartphone ownership is still low. Willingness to use mobile-phone for e-Partograph was low. Younger aged, lower level clinicians, Hospital based workers, unfavorable attitude on Partograph and lack of in-service trainings were main factors for non-willingness. Hence awareness creation on partograph use and digital capacity building are crucial for effective e-partograph management.


This paper studies the performance of different algorithms for solving a dense symmetric indefinite linear system of equations on multicore CPUs with a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). To ensure the numerical stability of the factorization, pivoting is required. Obtaining high performance of such algorithms on the GPU is difficult because all the existing pivoting strategies lead to frequent synchronizations and irregular data accesses. Until recently, there has not been any implementation of these algorithms on a hybrid CPU/GPU architecture. To improve their performance on the hybrid architecture, we explore different techniques to reduce the expensive data transfer and synchronization between the CPU and GPU, or on the GPU (e.g., factorizing the matrix entirely on the GPU or in a communication‐avoiding fashion). We also study the performance of the solver using iterative refinements along with the factorization without pivoting combined with the preprocessing technique based on random butterfly transformations, or with the mixed‐precision algorithm where the matrix is factorized in single precision. This randomization algorithm only has a probabilistic proof on the numerical stability, and for this paper, we only focused on the mixed‐precision algorithm without pivoting. However, they demonstrate that we can obtain good performance on the GPU by avoiding the pivoting and using the lower precision arithmetics, respectively. As illustrated with the application in acoustics studied in this paper, in many practical cases, the matrices can be factorized without pivoting. Because the componentwise backward error computed in the iterative refinement signals when the algorithm failed to obtain the desired accuracy, the user can use these potentially unstable but efficient algorithms in most of the cases and fall back to a more stable algorithm with pivoting only in the case of the failure. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This article offers a pragmatic and relational analysis of the controversial heuristic of cultural resistance and presents some of the problems that affect the production and distribution of the poetic discourses of resistance and emancipation. To that end, it focuses on the incorporation of the historicity and the historic contingency of conflict as key elements of the subjectification constituted by the poem of resistance as "poem for the political". It also explores the applicability of certain notions common to the contemporary critical tradition, as developed by scholars such as Badiou, Mouffe, Ranciere, Bal and Žižek.


We analyze the effects of governmental redistribution of income on migration patterns, using an Italian administrative dataset that includes information on almost every Italian citizen living abroad. Since Italy takes a middle ground in terms of redistribution, both the welfare-magnet effect from more redistributive countries and the propensity of the high-skilled to settle in countries with lower taxes can be empirically studied. Our findings confirm the hypothesis that destination countries with more redistribution receive a negative selection of Italian migrants. This holds true after accounting for many individual and country level covariates, migration costs, and when testing for stochastic dominance of the skill distributions of migrants and stayers. Policy simulations are run in order to gauge the magnitude of these migration effects. Based on estimated elasticities, we find that sizable increases in the amount of redistribution in Italy have small effects on the skill composition of the resident population.


Here, the effects of individual electron withdrawing groups on halogen bond strength are investigated using Raman spectroscopy and electronic structure calculations. Halogen bonding is a unique and relatively unexplored noncovalent interaction that has recently garnered considerable attention due to its applications in materials development. When a halogen, such as chlorine, bromine, or iodine, accepts electron density from a Lewis base such as the nitrogen of pyridine a halogen bond arises. The anisotropic distribution of electron density about a covalently bound halogen, also known as the σ-hole, plays a significant role in halogen bond formation. The magnitude of the electropositive region increases from chlorine < bromine < iodine. Using a combination of Raman spectroscopy and computational chemistry, eight halogen bond donors with four unique electron withdrawing moieties were evaluated for use as potential molecular building blocks in organic optoelectronic devices. First, the C-I stretches of the ten monomers were assigned using experimental Raman spectra in junction with computed Raman frequencies and activities. The C-I stretch was tracked as a function of electron withdrawing moiety, producing trends that directly connected donor strength to molecular structure. The observation of a red shift in the C-I stretch of the halogen bond donor suggested an electrostatically stronger σ-hole and thus a greater binding energy with halogen bond acceptors. Additionally the C-I stretch, in twelve co-crystals synthesized from promising donors and acceptors, was assigned and tracked. The change in the C-I stretch for the co-crystals was similar to that of the monomers. With this, the change in the C-I stretch as a function of complexation was determined by comparing the C-I stretch of the monomeric halogen bond donor with the C-I stretch of the halogen bond complex. The trend observed agreed with that of the C-I stretch within both the monomer and co-crystal systems. Interestingly, the results of this project suggest that although the σ-hole present on the halogen plays a large role in halogen bond formation, the concentrated belt of electron density surrounding the halogen also significantly contributes to halogen bond strength as well as the vibrational characterization of the molecule.


An apparently well early adolescent presented at the emergency unit with history of multiple convulsions and left sided hemiparesis within 2 hours of receiving intra-tonsillar injection of phenol. Brain MRI showed features of acute infarction of right middle cerebral artery-posterior cerebral artery. He was treated with subcutaneous clexane and Nootropil, Omeprazole, Vitamin B complex and diazepam infusions. He was also given oral carbamazepine, Aspirin and Vitamin E. He responded well, there was no seizure while on admission and had started moving both the left upper and lower limbs within 72 hours. There is no information about intra-tonsillar local phenol injection to treat tonsillitis in literature. Therefore, intra-tonsillar, oral or parenteral phenol usage should be evaluated as a medical malpractice.


Disorders of the shoulder are extremely common, with reports of prevalence ranging from 30% of people experiencing shoulder pain at some stage of their lives up to 50% of the population experiencing at least one episode of shoulder pain annually. In addition to the high incidence, shoulder dysfunction is often persistent and recurrent, with 54% of sufferers reporting ongoing symptoms after 3 years. To a large extent the substantial morbidity reflects (i) a current lack of understanding of the pathoaetiology, (ii) a lack of diagnostic accuracy in the assessment process, and (iii) inadequacies in current intervention techniques. Pathology of the rotator cuff and subacromial bursa is considered to be the principal cause of pain and symptoms arising from the shoulder. Generally these diagnostic labels relate more to a clinical hypothesis as to the underlying cause of the symptoms than to definitive evidence of the histological basis for the diagnosis or the correlation between structural failure and symptoms. Diagnosing rotator cuff tendinopathy or subacromial impingement syndrome currently involves performing a structured assessment that includes taking the patient's history in conjunction with performing clinical assessment procedures that generally involve tests used to implicate an isolated structure. Based on the response to the clinical tests, a diagnosis of rotator cuff tendinopathy or subacromial impingement syndrome is achieved. The clinical diagnosis is strengthened with the findings from supporting investigations such as blood tests, radiographs, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed axial tomography (CT), radionucleotide isotope scan, single photon emission computed tomography, electromyography, nerve conduction and diagnostic analgesic injection. This process eventually results in the formation of a clinical hypothesis, and then, in conjunction with the patient, a management plan is decided upon and implemented. This paper focuses on the dilemmas associated with the current process, and an alternative method for the clinical examination of the shoulder for this group of patients is proposed.


We study the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in symmetric double-well potentials following a sudden change of the potential from the Mott-insulator to the superfluid regime. We introduce a continuum approximation that maps that problem onto the wave-packet dynamics of a particle in an anharmonic effective potential. For repulsive two-body interactions the visibility of interference fringes that result from the superposition of the two condensates following a stage of ballistic expansion exhibits a collapse of coherent oscillations onto a background value whose magnitude depends on the amount of squeezing of the initial state. Strong attractive interactions are found to stabilize the relative number dynamics. We visualize the dynamics of the system in phase space using a quasiprobability distribution that allows for an intuitive interpretation of the various types of dynamics.


Sequential anomaly detection is a challenging problem due to the one-class nature of the data (i.e., data is collected from only one class) and the temporal dependence in sequential data. We present One-Class Conditional Random Fields (OCCRF) for sequential anomaly detection that learn from a one-class dataset and capture the temporal dependence structure, in an unsupervised fashion. We propose a hinge loss in a regularized risk minimization framework that maximizes the margin between each sequence being classified as "normal" and "abnormal." This allows our model to accept most (but not all) of the training data as normal, yet keeps the solution space tight. Experimental results on a number of real-world datasets show our model outperforming several baselines. We also report an exploratory study on detecting abnormal organizational behavior in enterprise social networks.


This paper presents a multi-layered case representation for addressing the problem of comparing and indexing cases in a case-based reasoning system using both the facts and the underlying themes associated with those cases. In many domains, experts discuss problems in terms of multiple layers of abstract principles, classifying problems by conflicts, strategies, or themes important to the domain. For example, when lawyers compare cases, they compare the facts, each side's interpretation of the facts, each side's arguments, and disagreements about those arguments. Representing the case as a single flat frame does not support reasoning about the underlying themes in the case because it does not represent interconneetions among the facts and themes of the case. Instead a case-based reasoner should use a multi-layered representation including both these facts and interconnections. This representation has implications for much of the case-based reasoning process including case comparison, selection and retrieval mechanisms. The paper will describe the CHASER case-based reasoning system which uses a multi-layered case representation approach to reason about tort law cases.


The study estimates an empirical model of return intentions using a dataset compiled from an internet survey of Turkish professionals and Turkish students residing abroad. In the migration literature, wage differentials are often cited as an important factor explaining skilled migration. The findings of the study suggest, however, that other factors are also important in explaining the non-return of Turkish professionals. Economic instability in Turkey is found to be an important push factor, while work experience in Turkey also increases non-return. In the student sample, higher salaries offered in the host country and lifestyle preferences, including a more organized environment in the host country, increase the probability of not-returning. For both groups, the analysis also points to the importance of prior intentions and the role of the family in the decision to return to Turkey or stay overseas.


This Article seeks to understand who supports renewable energy mandates (and why) by analyzing a variety trends found in political and socio-economic data by state, as well as by state renewable energy opportunities (or the lack of such opportunities). The review finds little shocking in the way of politics: Democratic states tend to favor mandates and Republican states tend not to have mandates. Somewhat surprisingly, the correlations among states with wind and solar resources (as well as most of the demographic data) ranged from limited to inconclusive. In religion, however, a strong trend developed. The states with higher Catholic populations strongly favored renewable energy mandates, and the states with higher non-Catholic Christian populations almost uniformly shunned such mandates.


In this paper we tackle the estimation of apparent age in still face images with deep learning. Our convolutional neural networks (CNNs) use the VGG-16 architecture [13] and are pretrained on ImageNet for image classification. In addition, due to the limited number of apparent age annotated images, we explore the benefit of finetuning over crawled Internet face images with available age. We crawled 0.5 million images of celebrities from IMDB and Wikipedia that we make public. This is the largest public dataset for age prediction to date. We pose the age regression problem as a deep classification problem followed by a softmax expected value refinement and show improvements over direct regression training of CNNs. Our proposed method, Deep EXpectation (DEX) of apparent age, first detects the face in the test image and then extracts the CNN predictions from an ensemble of 20 networks on the cropped face. The CNNs of DEX were finetuned on the crawled images and then on the provided images with apparent age annotations. DEX does not use explicit facial landmarks. Our DEX is the winner (1st place) of the ChaLearn LAP 2015 challenge on apparent age estimation with 115 registered teams, significantly outperforming the human reference.


In the nineteenth century knowledge of Antarctica was gained through the reports of whalers and scientific expeditions. Their reports of a hostile environment and limited economic potential did nothing to attract the involvement of colonial governments.

At the start of the twentieth century a connection was fostered by British sponsored expeditions which called at Australian ports en route to Antarctica and sought personnel and financial support. Several Australian scientific adventurers joined these expeditions, but although greater awareness of Antarctica was gained, especially through the deeds of Douglas Mawson, Phillip Law and Richard Casey, Antarctica remained a territory of minor interest to Australian governments.

This thesis seeks to explain how Antarctica, generally accorded very low priority in the estimation of government, could at times occupy the attention of Ministers, occasionally of the Prime Minister. It is argued that in the absence of economic interest explanation requires recognition of the role of highly motivated individuals for whom Antarctica became a ruling obsession in their lives. This study, while not downplaying the occasional role of international political concerns, focuses on the role of eight individuals, from diverse backgrounds, who it is argued played key roles in the development of Australian Antarctic policy in the twentieth century. It presents a fresh contribution to understanding the factors behind Antarctic policy from 1900 to 1991.


Extracellular microvesicles present in the epididymal fluid have been named epididymosomes. Many epididymosome-associated proteins are transferred to spermatozoa during their maturation in the excurrent duct. Epididymosomes are heterogeneous, with their size varying between 50 and 250 nm. Two distinct population of epididymosomes characterized by different protein compositions and diameters have been isolated from the bovine epididymal fluid using different centrifugation protocols. One subpopulation of epididymosomes was characterized by CD9 and other tetraspanin partners. Transfer of proteins from these epididymosomes to maturing spermatozoa in co-incubation experiments was inhibited by antibodies against tetraspanin proteins. This suggests that this subpopulation of epididymosomes is involved in the acquisition of proteins involved in maturation by spermatozoa in the epididymis. The other population of epididymosomes was characterized by ELSPBP1 (epididymal sperm binding protein 1), known for its affinity for the phospholipid choline group. Flow cytometric analyses showed that ELSPBP1-positive epididymosomes only interacted with dying or dead epididymal spermatozoa in a Zn 2 + -dependent manner. BLVRA (biliverdin reductase) was identified as a partner of ELSPBP1. This enzyme reduces biliverdin to bilirubin: two molecules with powerful anti-oxidant properties. We hypothesize that BLVRA is involved in an ROS-scavenging mechanism protecting live epididymal spermatozoa against detrimental molecules (ROS) released by dying cells. Therefore, it appears that there are at least two epididymosome population with distinct functions: targeting specific proteins to transiting spermatozoa by tetraspanin-mediated membrane fusion, and protection of epididymal spermatozoa against ROS released from dying cells. Further work is needed to understand functions of epididymosomes in epididymal physiology and sperm maturation and storage.


Learning is more than knowledge acquisition; it often involves the active participation of the learner in a variety of knowledge- and skills-based learning and training activities. Interactive multimedia technology can support the variety of interaction channels and languages required to facilitate interactive learning and teaching. We will present a taxonomy for interactive educational multimedia that supports the classification, description and development of such systems. Such a taxonomy needs to embed multimedia technology into a coherent educational context. A conceptual framework based on an integrated interaction model is needed to capture learning and training activities in an online setting from an educational perspective, describe them in the human-computer context, and integrate them with mechanisms and principles of multimedia interaction.


Here we describe a second nyctosaurid pterosaur from the Late Cretaceous laminated limestone deposits of northeast Mexico. The specimen was discovered in the Muzquiz quarry area in northern Coahuila and comprises an isolated right wing skeleton including the humerus, radius/ulna, carpus, wing finger metacarpus and the proximal segment of wing finger phalanx I. The specimen is likely to be a primarily isolated wing, at least the basal wing finger phalanx of which was complete prior to collection. The specimen is referred to cf. Muzquizopteryx sp. on account of its humerus morphology, which is coincident with that of Muzquizopteryx coahuilensis, although a lack of diagnostic characters at the species level prevents any further identification. Its discovery from the Late Turonian deposits of northern Coahuila near Muzquiz, confirms it as the oldest nyctosaurid discovered to date.


The landscape agenda as looking at the global contact nowadays is gaining its popularity and dominates the need and importance of a good surrounding. In peeling the dilemma of the Malay contemporary community, a study has been conducted in conjunction with identifying the needs and their favouritism in accordance to the need and current lifestyle. Desa Wawasan reflects villages that adapt Gerakan Daya Wawasan (GDW) has been chosen specifically in order to see the efficiency and effectiveness of systematic planning and maintenance held by it's society regard to their surrounding. This research imposes a qualitative approach. The collected information is based on the secondary data, field studies such as on-site observation, interview, and questionnaire to the selected respondent based on the study sample. Based on the research conducted, the study has discovered the design characteristics with the usage of a typical element at Desa Wawasan residential which have been identically more systematic and comprehensive. Hence, the effectiveness of GDW concept can be considered as a module as it can be highlighted as one of the sentiments that contributes in creating image and identity of Malay contemporary landscape.
Keywords: Malay landscape, contemporary community, systematic planning, maintenance.
© 2017 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Malaysia.


Pregnancy begins with the fertilization of an egg and continues through to the birth of the individual. The length of time of gestation varies among animals, but is very similar among the great apes: human gestation is 266 days, while chimpanzee gestation is 237 days, a gorilla's is 257 days, and orangutan gestation is 260 days long. The fox has a 57-day gestation. Dogs and cats have similar gestations averaging 60 days. The longest gestation for a land mammal is an African elephant at 640 days. The longest gestations among marine mammals are the beluga and sperm whales at 460 days.