OBJECTIVE
As a part of the Public Health Activities and Service Tracking study and in collaboration with partners in 2 Public Health Practice-Based Research Network states, we examined relationships between local health department (LHD) maternal and child health (MCH) expenditures and local needs.

DESIGN
We used a multivariate pooled time-series design to estimate ecologic associations between expenditures in 3 MCH-specific service areas and related measures of need from 2005 to 2010 while controlling for other factors.

MEASURES
Retrospective expenditure data from LHDs and for 3 MCH services represented annual investments in (1) Special Supplemental Nutrition for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), (2) family planning, and (3) a composite of Maternal, Infant, Child, and Adolescent (MICA) service. Expenditure data from all LHDs in Florida and Washington were then combined with "need" and control variables.

STUDY POPULATION
Our sample consisted of the 102 LHDs in Florida and Washington and the county (or multicounty) jurisdictions they serve.

RESULTS
Expenditures for WIC and for our composite of MICA services were strongly associated with need among LHDs in the sample states. For WIC, this association was positive, and for MICA services, this association was negative. Family planning expenditures were weakly associated, in a positive direction.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings demonstrate wide variations across programs and LHDs in relation to need and may underscore differences in how programs are funded. Programs with financial disbursements based on guidelines that factor in local needs may be better able to provide service as local needs grow than programs with less needs-based funding allocations.


Abstract This paper explores the history of radio echo-sounding (RES), a technique of glaciological surveying that from the late 1960s has been used to examine Antarctica's sub-glacial morphology. Although the origins of RES can be traced back to two accidental findings, its development relied upon the establishment of new geopolitical conditions, which in the 1960s typified Antarctica as a continent devoted to scientific exploration. These conditions extended the influence of prominent glaciologists promoting RES and helped them gather sufficient support to test its efficiency. The organization and implementation of a large-scale research programme of RES in Antarctica followed these developments. The paper also examines the deployment of RES in Antarctic explorations, showing that its completion depended on the availability of technological systems of which RES was an integral part.


Despite evident differences between approaches to talent development, many share a set of common characteristics and presumptions. We call this the Standard Model of Talent Development (SMTD). This model is articulated and the relevant literature drawn out to highlight the model's strengths and weaknesses. The SMTD has been enormously influential, in terms of both policy documentation and practice, and it retains an obvious common sense appeal. However, we will argue that not only is its attractiveness illusionary and inconsistent to the emerging evidence base from research, but it is also undesirable from a variety of perspectives and desired outcomes. In short, we suggest that the most common system for identifying talent is unsubstantiated from both a process and an outcome perspective.


Purpose

There is limited empirical research that investigates issues related to strategy and its execution in facility management (FM) business especially in Thailand. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the factors influencing the execution of the strategy of FM companies located in Thailand from employees' perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a qualitative research approach. Five FM companies, both foreign and Thai firms, were selected as case studies in this research because of information accessibility and their leading position and reputation in the FM industry in Thailand. The interviews were conducted with the companies' Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), directors, managers, officers, engineers, technicians and administrators.

Findings

The findings indicate that communication, training and development, as well as reward and recognition, are the three main and critical factors in executing the company's strategy from the employees' perspective in the FM business.

Social implications

This study suggests that strategy execution should be built upon a long-term relationship with employees, and company management should recognize the employees' contribution to the company. Management should also raise employees' knowledge and understanding of the execution of the company strategy.

Originality/value

This paper provides an enhanced understanding of employees' perspective toward strategy execution in the FM business. It offers a basis for further study of human resources practices in the context of the FM business.


Some physics teachers use the PC for interactive teaching of introductory physics courses (Sokoloff, 2000; Laws, 1996). To a large extent, this teaching strategy received positive responses from many students and teachers. However, even without the computer, interactive teaching can still be used effectively (Mazur, 1997; Andre, 1993). This paper reports the use of designed activities, without the use of PC's, for interactive teaching of Magnetism and Electro-Magnetic Induction.


This study examines the relationship between the state in Kuwait and the use of large numbers of migrant workers in the Kuwaiti economy. Migrant labour has become essential not only in every aspect of economic life but also as a means of reproducing state power based on traditional social relations. An understanding of the migrant labour system is thus necessary for any understanding of the nature of political relations and political power. Although imports of foreign labour arose in response to economic,
rather than political, changes (specifically the development of the oil industry) the state has regulated its
presence in such a way as to strengthen its own position by increasin g the loyalty of Kuwaiti citizens. While migrants staff virtually all key sectors of economic and administrative life, oil revenues have been used to guarantee government employment and numerous state welfare benefits to all indigenous workers. The effect of this is an "embourgeoisement" of Kuwaiti labour with a consequence that a significant indigenous working class in the industrial sense does not exist. This situation has, in turn, served to legitimate the political system (and with it the traditional stratum of power holders) in the eyes of Kuwaitis. Migrant labour has also come to serve indigenous capitalists interests. Class fractions such as landlords and import merchants have constructed their prosperity around migrant labour, a factor which has served to lessen tensions between the merchant class and the ruling family and thus further stabilised and legitimised the state. Both Kuwaiti workers and merchants derive numerous state benefits from a legal structure which curtails the civil status of migrants, denying them political rights of expression and association, most social benefits and the right to own property, while simultaneously placing them in relationships of dependence on Kuwaits. The presence of migrants, therefore, makes possible the development
of Kuwait's oil wealth, ensure the profits and privileges of its citizens, and allows the state to use economic development and oil wealth to strengthen its own position and avoid the political challenges which modernisation might otherwise bring through the process of class formation.


Here is a unique book. It describes the theories and processes of repairing and adjusting the modern watch in precise and meticulous detail: a thing which has never been done so completely before in the many books on the same subject. As a text book it is a revelation. Taking nothing for granted, except the ability to read and comprehend a simple description of mechanical processes, de Carle takes his reader through every stage and every operation of watch repairing ...and to deal with them thoroughly is quite a programme - it takes 300 pages containing 24 chapters, two appendices and 553 illustrations. The fine draughtsmanship and accurate technical detail of the illustrations set a new standard. "Practical Watch Repairing" can justifiably claim to be the best illustrated book on practical horology yet issued, and one of the best of its kind on any subject. The publication of the book marks the beginning of a new epoch in the study of the mechanics of horology.


The Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-B (AMSU-B) installed on the NOAA-15, 16, and 17 satellites, is the new generation of a series of microwave imagers/sounders that can sense atmospheric moisture and other hydrometeors through clouds. This paper demonstrates the potential of multi-frequency AMSU-B data for classifying different types of hydrometeors. Ten types of these hydrometers have been collected using meteorological data (synoptic reports, radiosonde data and infrared and water vapor images) over Iran. Co-located AMSU-B data were used to perform a quantitative classification of the hydrometers. Three main classes including heavy precipitating, moderate precipitating, and non-precipitating hydrometeors were found based on the multi-frequency brightness temperature signatures. The distinguishing criteria for this type of analysis are: (a) brightness temperature (BT) at 89 GHz frequency, (b) slopes of the BT between 89 and 150 GHz, and (c) crossover of BT curves between 89 and 183 GHz frequencies.


The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans appears to be a useful model for studying the action of volatile anesthetics. A mutant strain that is hypersensitive to the widely used anesthetic halothane was described earlier. The mutation is now shown to be an allele of unc-79. Other alleles of unc-79 are also associated with hypersensitivity to halothane. A strain with a mutation in a second gene, unc-80, is also hypersensitive to halothane. Nematodes bearing mutations in both unc-79 and unc-80 are slightly more sensitive to halothane than those bearing only one of these mutations. Mutations in a third gene, unc-9, suppress both unc-79 and unc-80. Nematodes bearing the suppressor mutations alone have normal sensitivity to halothane. These results show that sensitivity to halothane can be altered by mutations in several different genes.


We present dispel4py a versatile data-intensive kit presented as a standard Python library. It empowers scientists to experiment and test ideas using their familiar rapid-prototyping environment. It delivers mappings to diverse computing infrastructures, including cloud technologies, HPC architectures and specialised data-intensive machines, to move seamlessly into production with large-scale data loads. The mappings are fully automated, so that the encoded data analyses and data handling are completely unchanged. The underpinning model is lightweight composition of fine-grained operations on data, coupled together by data streams that use the lowest cost technology available. These fine-grained workflows are locally interpreted during development and mapped to multiple nodes and systems such as MPI and Storm for production. We explain why such an approach is becoming more essential in order that data-driven research can innovate rapidly and exploit the growing wealth of data while adapting to current technical trends. We show how provenance management is provided to improve understanding and reproducibility, and how a registry supports consistency and sharing. Three application domains are reported and measurements on multiple infrastructures show the optimisations achieved. Finally we present the next steps to achieve scalability and performance. Keywords-eSciences workflows, data intensive application, run time analysis, distributed systems, python frameworks.


This best-selling review manual has been thoroughly updated to reflect the College Boards elimination of the Level AB course and the updated Level A syllabus. The new edition presents three full-length AP practice exams for the Level A course. The first exam is a diagnostic test and contains charts detailing the topics for each question. All three model tests have questions answered and explained. Test takers will also find an extensive subject review including new sections on static variables, the List interface, Integer.MAX_VALUE, and Integer.MIN_VALUE. A section on two-dimensional arrays is included for the Level A exam. The enclosed CD-ROM contains two additional full-length model AP exams for Level A. These tests are presented with answers, explanations, automatic scoring for the multiple-choice questions, and a scoring chart.


The Word According to Eve: Women and the Bible in Ancient Times and Our Own, by Cullen MurphyLiterary editor Cullen Murphy has written an engaging book that has received more than its share of attention in the literary world, given the massive numbers of books written in the last twenty years on the same subject by biblical scholars. This is not a work of scholarship but of journalism, written in the narrative and descriptive style of the interview rather than the carefully informative style of an academic investigation and evaluation, and consistently using secondary rather than primary sources. In the introduction, the author refers to feminism's encounter with religion as the fifth intellectual revolution, following the rise of Israel and the Bible, of Christianity from within Judaism, the Reformation in early modern Europe, and the Enlightenment and the rise of the scientific and rational world view. In the following pages, he seeks to describe through a series of interviews and vignettes the interaction of this most recent revolution with the first and second.After a witty and shrewd assessment of the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, the major professional societies of biblical and religion scholars in the United States, Murphy returns to the saga of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her Women's Bible, which many would mark as the beginning of the modern quest to reinterpret the Bible from women's perspective. The rest of the book is structured around a series of interviews and portraits of some of the most prominent women biblical scholars in the United States: Phyllis Trible of Union Theological Seminary, Carol Meyers of Duke University and the Sepphoris excavation project, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Assyriologist and Sumeriologist at the University of Chicago, literary critic Mieke Bal of the University of Amsterdam, Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza of Harvard Divinity School, Kathleen Corley of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Karen Jo Torjesen of Claremont University, Karen King of Occidental College and now Harvard Divinity School, Bemadette Brooten of Brandeis University, Ross Kraemer of the University of Pennsylvania, and one man, Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale University. Interspersed into the discussion are references to the writings of half a dozen more scholars.The topics of discussion include the findings of archaeology and what light they shed on the lives of women in ancient Israel; the origins and description of ancient patriarchy, with Carol Meyers' careful nuances; ancient Mediterranean female literacy and the question of whether a woman could have authored a biblical book, as has often been suggested. …


Tourism in Tanzania has been on the rise since late 1990s when the markets were fully liberalized. This has created a high demand for horticultural produces from tourist hotels located in Serengeti national park in the northwest of Tanzania. Analysis was carried out to determine supply and demand for horticultural produces in Mara region. The annual requirements for horticulture produces in three Serengeti tourist hotels were about 614 tons. These hotels obtain most of the fruits and vegetables from Arusha, Kenya and South Africa which are very far from the park. Due to long distances and poor roads the hotels obtain high priced, low quality and small quantities of produces. The production of horticulture in Mara region is about 620 tons which is more than what is demanded by the hotels. The major problems hindering horticulture production in Mara region include unstable markets, erratic prices and low demand for horticulture produces. The tourist hotels demand locally produced, regular supply, fresh and medium quality horticulture produces while farmers want regular markets for their produces. The Gross Margin analysis indicated that supplier gross profit and growers' return to labour are high with horticultural crops as compared to other crops. The study recommends that the hotels and growers establish contract agreement to enhance reliable deliveries. To improve production and entrepreneurial skills of the farmers; management support at the beginning of implementation from extension, research, credit and irrigation schemes from local institutions would be necessary. Keywords: Mara Fruits, Tourism, Serengeti, Tanzania


RF-powered computers are small devices that compute and communicate using only the power that they harvest from RF signals. While existing technologies have harvested power from ambient RF sources (e.g., TV broadcasts), they require a dedicated gateway (like an RFID reader) for Internet connectivity. We present Wi-Fi Backscatter, a novel communication system that bridges RF-powered devices with the Internet. Specifically, we show that it is possible to reuse existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide Internet connectivity to RF-powered devices. To show Wi-Fi Backscatter's feasibility, we build a hardware prototype and demonstrate the first communication link between an RF-powered device and commodity Wi-Fi devices. We use off-the-shelf Wi-Fi devices including Intel Wi-Fi cards, Linksys Routers, and our organization's Wi-Fi infrastructure, and achieve communication rates of up to 1 kbps and ranges of up to 2.1 meters. We believe that this new capability can pave the way for the rapid deployment and adoption of RF-powered devices and achieve ubiquitous connectivity via nearby mobile devices that are Wi-Fi enabled.


Given a trained neural network, we aim at understanding how similar it considers any two samples. For this, we express a proper definition of similarity from the neural network perspective (i.e. we quantify how undissociable two inputs A and B are), by taking a machine learning viewpoint: how much a parameter variation designed to change the output for A would impact the output for B as well? We study the mathematical properties of this similarity measure, and show how to estimate sample density with it, in low complexity, enabling new types of statistical analysis for neural networks. We also propose to use it during training, to enforce that examples known to be similar should also be seen as similar by the network. We then study the self-denoising phenomenon encountered in regression tasks when training neural networks on datasets with noisy labels. We exhibit a multimodal image registration task where almost perfect accuracy is reached, far beyond label noise variance. Such an impressive self-denoising phenomenon can be explained as a noise averaging effect over the labels of similar examples. We analyze data by retrieving samples perceived as similar by the network, and are able to quantify the denoising effect without requiring true labels.


The purpose of this study was to assess the relation between myocardial metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) uptake and left ventricular systolic and diastolic functional parameters, both of which are known as predictors of prognosis in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. Echocardiography and iodine-123-MIBG myocardial scintigraphy were performed in 35 patients of dilated cardiomyopathy with normal sinus rhythm. Mean myocardial MIBG uptake in the patient group at early and delayed images were significantly lower than those in normal control subjects (10.6 +/- 1.1, 9.8 +/- 1.2 vs 12.4 +/- 1.0, 12.1 +/- 1.0, p < 0.01). There were, however, no significant differences of mean MIBG uptake in the lung and mediastinum between the two groups (p > 0.05). There were no significant correlations between myocardial MIBG uptake, expressed as the ratio of heart/mediastinum MIBG activity at delayed image, and left ventricular systolic and diastolic functional parameters [left ventricular ejection fraction, left ventricular end-diastolic dimension, peak velocity of early diastolic filling (E velocity), deceleration time of E wave, cardiac output, left ventricular end-diastolic pressure]. In conclusion, the myocardial uptake of MIBG is decreased in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy assessed by iodine-123-MIBG myocardial scintigraphy. There were, however, no significant correlations between myocardial MIBG uptake and left ventricular systolic and diastolic functional parameters derived from echocardiography.


Abstract. The resilience of a marine-based ice sheet is strongly governed by the stability of its grounding lines, which are in turn sensitive to ocean-induced melting, calving, and flotation of the ice margin. Since the grounding line is also a sedimentary environment, the constructional landforms that are built here may reflect elements of the processes governing this dynamic and potentially vulnerable environment. Here we analyse a large dataset (n =  6275) of grounding line landforms mapped on the western Ross Sea continental shelf from high-resolution geophysical data. The population is divided into two distinct morphotypes by their morphological properties: recessional moraines (consistently narrow, closely spaced, low amplitude, symmetric, and straight) and grounding zone wedges (broad, widely spaced, higher amplitude, asymmetric, sinuous, and highly variable). Landform morphotypes cluster with alike forms that transition abruptly between morphotypes both spatially and within a retreat sequence. Their form and distribution are largely independent of water depth, bed slope, and position relative to glacial troughs. Similarly, we find no conclusive evidence for morphology being determined by the presence or absence of an ice shelf. Instead, grounding zone wedge construction is favoured by a higher sediment flux and a longer-held grounding position. We propose two endmember modes of grounding line retreat: (1) an irregular mode, characterised by grounding zone wedges with longer standstills and accompanied by larger-magnitude retreat events, and (2) a steady mode, characterised by moraine sequences that instead represent more frequent but smaller-magnitude retreat events. We suggest that while sediment accumulation and progradation may prolong the stability of a grounding line position, progressive development of sinuosity in the grounding line due to spatially variable sediment delivery likely destabilises the grounding position by enhanced ablation, triggering large-magnitude retreat events. Here, the concept of stability is multifaceted and paradoxical, and neither mode can be characterised as marking fast or slow retreat. Diagnosing grounding line stability based on landform products should be considered for a wider geographic range, yet this large dataset of landforms prompts the need to better understand the sensitivity of marine-based grounding lines to processes and feedbacks governing retreat and what stability means in the context of future grounding line behaviour.


The frontal cortex provides strong excitatory inputs to the subthalamic nucleus (STN), and these cortico-STN inputs play critical roles in the control of basal ganglia activity. It has been assumed from anatomical and physiological studies that STN is innervated mainly by collaterals of thick and fast conducting pyramidal tract axons originating from the frontal cortex deep layer V neurons, implying that STN directly receives efferent copies of motor commands. To more closely examine this assumption, we performed biotinylated dextran amine anterograde tracing studies in rats to examine the cortical layer of origin, the sizes of parent axons, and whether or not the cortical axons emit any other collaterals to brain areas other than STN. This study revealed that the cortico-STN projection is formed mostly by collaterals of a small fraction of small-to-medium-sized long-range corticofugal axons, which also emit collaterals that innervate multiple other brain sites including the striatum, associative thalamic nuclei, superior colliculus, zona incerta, pontine nucleus, multiple other brainstem areas, and the spinal cord. The results imply that some layer V neurons are involved in associative control of movement through multiple brain innervation sites and that the cortico-STN projection is one part of this multiple corticofugal system.


This thesis reinterprets the progress of social reform by assessing the variety of responses to the Public Health Act, 1848 that were expressed in three North-East towns. It seeks to challenge the idea that reform was necessarily imposed by a central body onto an unwilling community for Sunderland Corporation were engaged in a collaborative process with the General Board, not only co-operating with the Board's proposals but generating initiatives themselves. The idea that sanitary reform was resisted by local councils made up of tradesmen and shopkeepers is refitted on the grounds that Gateshead Corporation, which was made up of just this socio-economic group, did accept the Public Health Act whereas Newcastle Corporation, which had a wealthier socio-economic structure, resisted state intervention at all costs. It is argued that there was a range of political and cultural patterns of behaviour that determined the individual responses of the three towns to sanitary reform. Some of these are explored by examining the underlying attitudes associated with key words and catch phrases such as "economy", "self-help" and "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". Different groups played their part in shaping public opinion: religious men, medical practitioners, sanitary associations and the local press. The connection between these groups and the local Corporations is examined in some detail to help explain why it was that the three towns reacted so differently to the Public Health Act. It is argued that political, religious and medical factors were principally at work in shaping Sunderland's positive approach to sanitary reform. The environmental factors implicated in typhus, typhoid and pulmonary tuberculosis are considered to provide a context for discussions about specific environmental problems and their solutions. In highlighting the complexities that faced the early sanitary reformers and in describing both sanitarian and dearth models of disease, it is suggested that in the light of current health concerns we need to be less judgmental of the failures of the early Victorians to tackle their health problems.


The linkage tree genetic algorithm (LTGA) learns, each generation, a linkage model by building a hierarchical cluster tree. The LTGA is an instance of the more general gene-pool optimal mixing evolutionary algorithm (GOMEA) that uses a family of subsets (FOS) linkage model. We compare the performance of the linkage model learning LTGA with several predetermined FOS linkage models applied by GOMEA. The predetermined models are matched to the underlying problem structure of four benchmark functions: onemax, deceptive trap functions, maximal overlapping nearest-neighbor NK-landscapes, and weighted MAXCUT problems. Although the a priori fixed models are specifically designed to capture the interactions between the problem variables, experimental results show that - for problems with intricate interaction structure - they are actually less efficient than LTGA that dynamically learns a hierarchical tree model. Some of these observations were unexpected and raise the question of what exactly is the optimal linkage structure for a given problem as used by GOMEA. In the case of the NK-problem a linkage model that is an accurate description of the underlying additively decomposable fitness structure is clearly not an optimal linkage model. Being able to rebuild the linkage model each generation has clear benefits above using fixed, predetermined linkage models.


The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of how collective lending strategies leverage social capital to improve firm performance. Drawing on economic and sociological perspectives and fieldwork in Bulgaria, I argue that social capital may enhance the effects of financial capital on firm performance in microenterprises. Findings show that a collective lending strategy facilitates greater firm performance than individual lending--due partially to the increased social capital it creates for the entrepreneur. These findings come from a multi-method field study conducted in Bulgaria, where qualitative data were collected from over 40 business owner interviews. The findings have implications for theoretical and practical application within the field of microfinance.


ABSTRACT Objectives: The absorption of water by acrylic resins is a phenomenon of considerable importance since it is accompanied by dimensional changes, a further undesirable effect of absorbed water in acrylic resins to reduce the tensile strength of the material. Solubility is also an important property because it represents the mass of soluble materials from the polymers. Methods: Ten acrylic resin-based materials were evaluated: two heat cure acrylic resins (De Trey QC-20, Meliodent Heat Cure) and eight self cure acrylic resins (Meliodent Cold, Akrileks, Akribel, Akribel Transparent, Vertex Trayplast, Formatray, Dentalon Plus, Palavit G). To evaluate water sorption and water solubility, thirty square-shaped specimens (20×20×1.5 mm) were fabricated from the wax specimens. One way ANOVA test, Tukey test and Pearson correlation coefficient performed for data. Results: Water sorption mean values varied from 11.33±0.33 to 30.46±0.55 μg/mm3. Water solubility mean values varied from -0.05±0.23 to 3.69±0.12 �g/mm3. There was statistically significant difference between mean values of the materials (P<.05). There was no linear correlation between sorption and solubility values. Conclusions: The results of the water sorption and water solubility values of both self-cured and heat-cured acrylic resins were in accordance with the ISO specification. No correlation found between water sorption and water solubility values. (Eur J Dent 2008;2:191-197)


Background In Syracuse PHA from 01/11/2007 the drug olanzapine (Zyprexa) was dispensed by the National Health System, in accordance with AIFA guidelines. In October 2011 the generic drug was introduced in the AIFA transparency lists and since February 2012 Syracuse PHA has dispensed Teva generic olanzapine. Purpose Because of the distrust in Italy about generics, the authors collected information about possible adverse reactions to originator and generic olanzapine. Materials and methods The authors collected the spontaneous Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) that were reported in Syracuse PHA, from 01/11/2007 to 31/05/2013. Results From 01/11/2007 to 31/01/2012 767 patients were prescribed Zyprexa 10 mg, from 01/02/2012 to 31/05/2013 63 patients were prescribed olanzapine 10 mg generic, of these all 63 patients switched from originator to generic. 8 reports were received and concerned 7 males and 1 female, between 18 and 51 years old. Olanzapine was prescribed for: psychotic disorder, chronic schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (maniac depression), disorganised schizophrenia. The reports were: – 6 lack of therapeutic response to the generic drug (daily dose: 10 mg in 3 reports and 20 mg in the other 3), the consequences were: 1 non-fatal, 3 serious with life-threatening consequences and 2 serious with hospitalisation or prolongation of hospitalisation. In all cases treatment was discontinued and the pathological conditions improved. One patient restarted Zyprexa 10 mg. – 1 case of psychotic decompensation, confusion with life-threatening consequences, after administration of 10 mg generic olanzapine. It was discontinued and Zyprexa 10 mg was again prescribed with improvement of psychopathological condition. In fact the patient, for several years, was treated steadily with Zyprexa 10 mg, maintaining good mental compensation. – The 1 report on Zyprexa 10 mg concerns a patient aged 37, who attempted suicide with a drugs overdose: Zyprexa 10 mg, Invega 9 mg, Nozinan 25 mg and Felison 30 mg. Conclusions 1/8 reports was about Zyprexa, and 75% reported the ineffectiveness of the generic. Pharmacists are under great pressure to buy generics, whose therapeutic equivalence is guaranteed by AIFA. Reporting the ADRs and ineffectiveness are critical to clarifying the real therapeutic equivalence between generic and originator. No conflict of interest.


Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder that is hypothesized to represent the most extreme manifestation of a continuum of impairment referred to as schizotypy. As such, many of the cognitive, clinical, behavioral, and neuroanatomical features of schizophrenia should be present and detectable in nonpsychotic individuals who share this vulnerability. Recent findings have led to a renewed interest in the role that the gene that codes for catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) plays in the development and expression of schizotypy and schizophrenia. Specifically, an amino-acid polymorphism (Val158Met) in the COMT gene has been associated with schizophrenia based on linkage and association studies, with schizotypy in nonpsychotic adults, and with performance on dopamine-mediated prefrontal functioning in healthy adults and in patients with schizophrenia. Since abnormal functioning in dopaminergic pathways is thought to be associated with schizophrenia, COMT activity may play a role in schizophrenia pathogenesis and expression. The COMT gene is housed at 22q11.2, which maps to the commonly deleted region in 22q11 Deletion Syndrome (22q11DS), a syndrome that is associated with a highly elevated risk for the development of psychosis. The present study investigated the relationship of COMT genotype with neuropsychological impairment and social functioning in a nonpsychotic sample of children with 22q11DS. As hypothesized, participants with the Val allele performed worse on some measures of prefrontal functioning than participants with the Met allele. Additionally, participants with the Val allele exhibited schizophrenic-like social and behavioral deficits. Finally, associations between social and cognitive functioning and a haplotype that has been linked to schizophrenia were examined in patients with 22q11DS.


Gastroschisis and omphalocele are the two most common abdominal wall birth defects, and epidemiologic characteristics and frequency of occurrence as part of a syndromic condition suggest distinct etiologies between the two defects. We assessed complex patterns of defect co‐occurrence with these defects separately using the Texas Birth Defects Registry. We used co‐occurring defect analysis (CODA) to compute adjusted observed‐to‐expected (O/E) ratios for all observed birth defect patterns. There were 2,998 non‐syndromic (i.e., no documented syndrome diagnosis identified) cases with gastroschisis and 789 (26%) of these had additional co‐occurring defects. There were 720 non‐syndromic cases with omphalocele, and 404 (56%) had additional co‐occurring defects. Among the top 30 adjusted O/E ratios for gastroschisis, most of the co‐occurring defects were related to the gastrointestinal system, though cardiovascular and kidney anomalies were also present. Several of the top 30 combinations co‐occurring with omphalocele appeared suggestive of OEIS (omphalocele, exstrophy of cloaca, imperforate anus, spinal defects) complex. After the exclusion of additional cases with features suggestive of OEIS in a post‐hoc sensitivity analysis, the top combinations involving defects associated with OEIS (e.g., spina bifida) were no longer present. The remaining top combinations involving omphalocele included cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and urogenital defects. In summary, we identified complex patterns of defects that co‐occurred more frequently than expected with gastroschisis and omphalocele using a novel software platform. Better understanding differences in the patterns between gastroschisis and omphalocele could lead to additional etiologic insights.


Ecological indicators are needed to evaluate natural biodiversity and to estimate environmental change. I used bird community composition as an environmental indicator to evaluate forest disturbance (at the community level) in areas of Western Mexico. Surveyed bird and vegetation composition data at 79 sites within regions of the Sierra Madre del Sur and Transvolcanic Belt Provinces of Central Mexico were used. Bird species were classified into four habitat assemblages (groupings) according to their habitat preference (the habitat characteristic for their presence). Birds found primarily in late successional forests are sensitive to forest disturbance and a predominant presence of these species would indicate an undisturbed mature forest habitat. Birds tolerant to forest disturbance are characteristic of early-successional, clearcut, brushy and fragmented landscapes. Presence of predominately disturbance tolerant species would suggest a disturbed habitat. The number of species in each habitat assemblage were counted for each site and used to calculate bird community index values. The bird community index provides a value to assess the habitat disturbance on bird communities. Bird species were also classified into nesting, foraging and feeding guilds. In order to evaluate the relationship between individual species response and responses of other species of that same functional group, correlation coefficients between the presence or absence of each individual species and the number of co-occurring species from the same functional group or habitat assemblage were calculated. Binary logistic regressions were used to predict the probability of occurrence (for the dominant 4 co-occurring birds within each functional group and habitat assemblage) relative to percent canopy cover. Correlations between functional group species richness and average percent canopy cover and average stand basal area were calculated. Habitat assemblage species richness and total species richness for each site were also correlated to those same values. Bird communities on the majority of the surveyed areas were dominated by disturbance sensitive species. Only one site was dominated by disturbance tolerant species. Habitat assemblage and guild members showed internal cohesion (consistent responses to different disturbance levels) but did not show strong correlations to the canopy cover and basal area. The probability of occurrence versus canopy cover for the four top birds in each guild and habitat did not show consistent trends, indicating different responses toward vegetation metrics within the grouped species. The bird community index also did not show strong correlations to the percent cover and basal area, suggesting that the index should not be used independently in assessing bird community and forest condition. Because data on forestry and avian communities in Mexico are not readily available, bird community surveys could still serve as a good tool for assessing forest condition at the community level in this region.


Abstract. The ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model Version 3 (GDEM v3) was evaluated over the conterminous United States in a manner similar to the validation conducted for the original GDEM Version 1 (v1) in 2009 and GDEM Version 2 (v2) in 2011. The absolute vertical accuracy of GDEM v3 was calculated by comparison with more than 23,000 independent reference geodetic ground control points from the U.S. National Geodetic Survey. The root mean square error (RMSE) measured for GDEM v3 is 8.52 meters. This compares with the RMSE of 8.68 meters for GDEM v2. Another important descriptor of vertical accuracy is the mean error, or bias, which indicates if a DEM has an overall vertical offset from true ground level. The GDEM v3 mean error of −1.20 meters reflects an overall negative bias in GDEM v3. The absolute vertical accuracy assessment results, both mean error and RMSE, were segmented by land cover type to provide insight into how GDEM v3 performs in various land surface conditions. While the RMSE varies little across cover types (6.92 to 9.25 meters), the mean error (bias) does appear to be affected by land cover type, ranging from −2.99 to +4.16 meters across 14 land cover classes. These results indicate that in areas where built or natural aboveground features are present, GDEM v3 is measuring elevations above the ground level, a condition noted in assessments of previous GDEM versions (v1 and v2) and an expected condition given the type of stereo-optical image data collected by ASTER. GDEM v3 was also evaluated by differencing with the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) dataset. In many forested areas, GDEM v3 has elevations that are higher in the canopy than SRTM. The overall validation effort also included an evaluation of the GDEM v3 water mask. In general, the number of distinct water polygons in GDEM v3 is much lower than the number in a reference land cover dataset, but the total areas compare much more closely.


The purpose of this introduction is to provide a brief outline of the scope and the progression of the thesis.
Since the latter part of the nineteenth century, it has been a well-established principle of real property law in England and
Wales that the burden of a positive covenant cannot run directly with freehold land at law or in equity. The fact that a positive
covenant cannot run directly with freehold land has for many years been acknowledged to be a major defect of English land law.
In Chapter I, the rules which govern the enforceability of freehold covenants are examined. Further, the chapter identifies
why the Judges in the nineteenth century decided not to permit the burden of a positive covenant to run with freehold land.
Conveyancers use a number of techniques and devices in order to circumvent the aforementioned principle. However, none of them are foolproof. In Chapter II, a number of devices which are used by conveyancers in order to circumvent the aforementioned principle are examined and evaluated.
The difficulties which can arise from the present law's failure to provide a satisfactory means whereby positive
covenants may be made to run with freehold land are identified in Chapter III.
Local authorities possess a number of statutory powers to impose positive covenants on freehold land and to enforce them
against successive owners. In Chapter IV, consideration is afforded to some aspects of their powers in this regard.
The need to reform the present law has long been recognised. However, despite the fact that several Reports have been made and one draft Bill produced reform has still not been achieved. In Chapter V, the major proposals made for reform in the 1960's and 1970's are considered. Further, reasons are advanced to explain why reform of the law of positive covenants has proved to be so difficult to secure.
One of the main consequences of the present law is that the vast majority of flats in England and Wales are held on long
leases. The popular preference is for freehold not leasehold ownership. Several common law countries have comprehensive
"condominium" legislation making full provision for rights and obligations, etc., in regard to freehold flats. The relevant
legislation of New South Wales and Trinidad and Tobago is examined in Chapters VI and VII respectively. One objective of
these chapters is to demonstrate that there are viable alternatives to using leasehold schemes for blocks of flats.
In 1984, the Law Commission published their Report on Positive and Restrictive Covenants. Chapter VIII deals with this
Report and with a number of other relevant recent developments


Primo Levi and Humanism after Auschwitz: Posthumanist Reflections, by Jonathan Druker. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009. 173 pp. $74.95.Jonathan Druker's ambitious and challenging book critiques the philosophical roots in humanistic Enlightenment thought that characterize Primo Levi's corpus of writings on the Holocaust. Addressing a lacuna in literary and Holocaust studies, Druker reassesses Levi's humanism from a critical point of view and exposes the problematic assumptions that organize Levi's representation and experience of the Holocaust. In order to carry out this task, Druker juxtaposes Levi's writing with that of four'posthumanist" theorists - namely, Theodore Adorno, Emanuel Levinas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Michel Foucault. For Druker these theorists serve as useful counterpoints to Levi's work insofar as they assert, each in its own way, "that fascism was not only a bitter enemy but also a logical result of the Enlightenment; that the social and political structures of domination serving totalitarian regimes are implicit in Enlightenment thought; and that the principle of universality [which Levi held so dear], while purporting to emancipate the individual, crushes cultural and ethnic difference of every kind while revitalizing forms of intolerance like antisemitism" (p. 2).The book is organized thematically, with each of the seven chapters devoted to a different concept: man, culture, language, ethics, history, science, and labor. For the most part, the chapters present a different combination of Levi's Holocaust writings together with the writings of one or more of the theorists mentioned above. Chapter One focuses on the ways in which Levi, in Survival in Auschwitz, privileges the humanist concept of Universal Man over an identity based upon difference. Levi's unflagging faith in the validity of the universal human subject leads Druker to see a type of secular theodicy in the text, or an "attempt to integrate particular instances of suffering into a narrative of historical progress directed toward the good" (p. 29). Although Levi's experience in Auschwitz precipitates a crisis of belief in the validity of this theodicy - similar to the end of theodicy as outlined in Levinas and Adorno - for Druker it remains a troublingly predominant conceit of the text. Chapter Two focuses on the figuration of Ulysses in Survival in Auschwitz as a problematic symbol of temporary redemption from the world of the lager and as a "vessel for the humane [cultural] values that promise Levi a means to resist the camp's inhumanity" (p. 36). Reading Levi's figuration of Ulysses against Horkheimer and Adornos discussion of Homer's Odysseus, Druker complicates the traditional understanding of Ulysses that fails to question the links between high culture and violence.Chapter Three uses Lyotard's concept of the differend "to explore the unexpected intersection . . . between Primo Levi's humanism and Hegelian modes of discourse like those of Nazism and Italian Fascism" (p. 55). Druker focuses here in particular on what he calls the "imperial 'we'" in Survival in Auschwitz, that is Levi's use of the first person plural to speak from a distant, analytical, and primarily scientific point of view. Druker stresses that his intention is not to "crudely" say that "Levi's 'we simply recapitulates a Nazi perspective; rather . . . that Levi and the Nazis and all of Europe share the models of Enlightenment thought that lead not only to common ways of understanding history but also to radical programs that seek to remake societies by destroying them" (p. 68).In Chapter Four Druker uses Levinas's writings on ethical engagement with the other in order to draw out, in Survival in Auschwitz, "the muted presence of an anti-Enlightenment counternarrative" which puts into question the validity of humanist ethics. This counternarrative, as Druker sees it, is in constant tension with the opposite impulse that validates the humanist ethical project found throughout Levi's writing. …


Eye-tracking reading times have been attested to reflect cognitive processes underlying sentence comprehension. However, the use of reading times in NLP applications is an underexplored area of research. In this initial work we build an automatic system to assess sentence complexity using automatically predicted eye-tracking reading time measures and demonstrate the efficacy of these reading times for a well known NLP task, namely, readability assessment. We use a machine learning model and a set of features known to be significant predictors of reading times in order to learn per-word reading times from a corpus of English text having reading times of human readers. Subsequently, we use the model to predict reading times for novel text in the context of the aforementioned task. A model based only on reading times gave competitive results compared to the systems that use extensive syntactic features to compute linguistic complexity. Our work, to the best of our knowledge, is the first study to show that automatically predicted reading times can successfully model the difficulty of a text and can be deployed in practical text processing applications.


Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to determine the managerial capabilities that are required of medical and nursing managers, in a Christian-affiliated hospital in Israel, in order to promote the job satisfaction of their subordinates. Design/methodology/approach - – Data were gathered via questionnaires, administered to 107 doctors and nurses of a small Christian-affiliated hospital in Israel, regarding the job satisfaction of the respondents, and their evaluation of the managerial capabilities of their medical and nursing superiors. Correlations and regressions were carried out on the data. Findings - – Overall managerial capabilities of medical and nursing managers were shown to be significantly related to how their subordinates felt about their teams and about their work. The results suggest differences between nurses and doctors. When analyzed for the two dimensions of managerial capabilities and the two dimensions of job satisfaction, the results were significant for the nurses, but not significant for the doctors. When tested for Christians vs non-Christians, the results for the nurses were the same as in the sample as a whole; whereas for the doctors, there were differences between the two religious groups. Research limitations/implications - – The sample is small and culturally specific, thus limiting the generalization potential of this study. Practical implications - – Findings of this research may have practical implications regarding hospitals' recruitment, promotion, instruction and follow-up policies. Originality/value - – This study sheds light on the issue of hospital management and leadership within a specific cultural-religious setting, which has not been previously investigated.


Abstract Following a request from the European Commission, the Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on l‐tryptophan produced by fermentation with Escherichia coli CGMCC 11674 when used as a nutritional additive in feed and water for drinking for all animal species and categories. The production strain did not raise safety concerns. The FEEDAP Panel cannot conclude on the safety of l‐tryptophan produced by E. coli CGMCC 11674 for the target species and for the consumer due to the tryptophan‐related impurities such as 1,1'‐ethylidene‐bis‐l‐tryptophan (EBT). The FEEDAP Panel has concerns on the safety of the simultaneous oral administration of l‐tryptophan via water for drinking and feed. Using unprotected forms of tryptophan in ruminants can be a risk. The FEEDAP Panel cannot conclude on the dermal or ocular irritation and skin sensitisation of l‐tryptophan produced by E. coli CGMCC 11674. The additive poses a risk by inhalation from the exposure to endotoxins for people handling the additive. The use of l‐tryptophan produced by E. coli CGMCC 11674 in animal nutrition does not pose a risk to the environment. The additive under assessment is regarded as an effective source of the amino acid l‐tryptophan for all non‐ruminant species. If the product l‐tryptophan is intended for use in ruminants, it should be protected from ruminal degradation.


Your hands-on guide to Azure SQL Database fundamentals Expand your expertiseand teach yourself the fundamentals of Microsoft Azure SQL Database. If you have previous programming experience but are new to Azure, this tutorial delivers the step-by-step guidance and coding exercises you need to master core topics and techniques. Discover how to: Perform Azure setup and configuration Explore design and security considerations Use programming and reporting services Migrate data Backup and sync data Work with scalability and high performance Understand the differences between SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database


Injuries have become devastating and often under-recognized public health concerns. In Canada, injuries are the leading cause of potential years of life lost before the age of 65. The geographical patterns of injury, however, are evident both over space and time, suggesting the possibility of spatial optimization of policies at the neighborhood scale to mitigate injury risk, foster prevention, and control within metropolitan regions. In this paper, Canada's National Ambulatory Care Reporting System is used to assess unintentional and intentional injuries for Toronto between 2004 and 2010, exploring the spatial relations of injury throughout the city, together with Wellbeing Toronto data. Corroborating with these findings, spatial autocorrelations at global and local levels are performed for the reported over 1.7 million injuries. The sub-categorization for Toronto's neighborhood further distills the most vulnerable communities throughout the city, registering a robust spatial profile throughout. Individual neighborhoods pave the need for distinct policy profiles for injury prevention. This brings one of the main novelties of this contribution. A comparison of the three regression models is carried out. The findings suggest that the performance of spatial regression models is significantly stronger, showing evidence that spatial regressions should be used for injury research. Wellbeing Toronto data performs reasonably well in assessing unintentional injuries, morbidity, and falls. Less so to understand the dynamics of intentional injuries. The results enable a framework to allow tailor-made injury prevention initiatives at the neighborhood level as a vital source for planning and participatory decision making in the medical field in developed cities such as Toronto.


In wireless sensor networks, a node that reports information gathered from adjacent assets should relay packets appropriately so that its location context is kept private, and thereby helping ensure the security of the assets that are being monitored. Unfortunately, existing routing methods that counter the local eavesdropping-based tracing deal with a single asset, and most of them suffer from the packet-delivery latency as they prefer to take a separate path of many hops for each packet being sent. In this paper, we propose a routing method, greedy perimeter stateless routing-based source-location privacy with crew size w (GSLP-w), that enhances location privacy of the packet-originating node (i.e., active source) in the presence of multiple assets. GSLP-w is a hybrid method, in which the next-hop node is chosen in one of four modes, namely greedy, random, perimeter, and retreat modes. Random forwarding brings the path diversity, while greedy forwarding refrains from taking an excessively long path and leads to convergence to the destination. Perimeter routing makes detours that avoid the nodes near assets so that they cannot be located by an adversary tracing up the route path. We study the performance of GSLP-w with respect to crew size w (the number of packets being sent per path) and the number of sources. GSLP-w is compared with phantom routing-single path (PR-SP), which is a notable routing method for source-location privacy and our simulation results show that improvements from the point of the ratio of safety period and delivery latency become significant as the number of source nodes increases.


Two new test statistics were constructed to detect departures from the equilibrium neutral theory that tend to produce genealogies with longer internal branches (e.g. population subdivision or balancing selection). The new statistics are based on a measure of linkage disequilibrium between adjacent pairs of segregating sites. Simulations were run to determine the power of these and previously proposed test statistics to reject an island model of geographic subdivision. Unlike previous power studies, this one uses a coalescent model with recombination. It is found that recombination rates on the order of the mutation rate substantially reduce the power of most test statistics, and that one of the new test statistics is generally more powerful than the others. Two suggestions are made for increasing the power of the statistical tests examined here. First, they can be made more powerful if critical values are obtained from simulations that condition on a lower bound for the population recombination rate. Secondly, for the same total length sequenced, power is increased if independent loci are considered instead of a single contiguous stretch.


Katy Luchini-Colbry is the Director for Graduate Recruiting at the College of Engineering at Michigan State University, where she completed degrees in political theory and computer science. A recipient of a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, she received her Ph.D. and M.S.E. in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. She has published more than a dozen papers related to her interests in educational technology and enhancing undergraduate education through hands-on learning. As a volunteer for Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society, Luchini-Colbry facilitates interactive seminars on interpersonal communications and problem solving skills for engineering students across the U.S.


The Constitution allocates entitlements to individuals and also institutions such as states and branches. It is familiar fare that individuals' entitlements are routinely deployed not only as shields against unconstitutional action, but also as bargaining chips when negotiating with the state. By contrast, the possibility that branches and states could bargain over structural entitlements has largely escaped scholarly or judicial attention. Yet institutional negotiation over federalism and separation-of-powers interests is both endemic and unavoidable. To ascertain when such negotiation should be allowed, this Article develops a general theory of negotiated structural arrangements by leveraging doctrinal, economic and political theory insights. Negotiated structural outcomes, the Article concludes, should be deemed constitutional absent a clear demonstration of negative externalities or paternalism-warranting 'internalities.'


This study is to determine the equilibrium time and removal efficiency of copper by wetland soil. The wetland is located near the car park at College of Engineering, UNITEN. Wetland soil were collected randomly at a depth of 20 cm to 50 cm. Soil samples are then oven dried at 105 oC for 48 hours. After that it is let to cool down for 15 minutes before crushed and sieved through a 2.36 mm size sieve pan. Based on the Batch equilibrium method, the wetland soil is soaked in copper metal solution for different study time of 1, 2, 3, 5, 24, 168 and 336 hours. Each studied time are prepared in three samples, with initial copper metal solution concentration 1 mg/l. Parallel method is used in order to prevent disruption on the soil to solution ratio. Results obtained show that the concentration of copper metal solution decreases gradually and reached a constant during the period of 24 hours to 168 hours. Desorption phenomenon also occurred during that period of time. The removal percentage shows an increase up to 50 %. It clearly shows that adsorption of copper metal solution by wetland soil is effective.


The public sector often invests in large projects in different sectors, such as education, health care and infrastructure. It can be argued that investment appraisal process in these projects should differ from conventional approaches due to the complex interests the public sector holds, which often implies that several aspects need to be considered. Conventional techniques may not suffice and therefore this thesis aims to investigate the applicability of real options analysis and multi-criteria analysis in a combined approach. The study is conducted in the form of a case study at publicly owned Sundsvalls Logistikpark, where options in the form of the utilization of development areas and the non-monetary aspect reduction of carbon dioxide are included in the appraisal. The model developed compares two alternative strategies where one is based upon conventional usage of the area and the other represents the environmentally friendly alternative. The results show that including the value of flexibility in the appraisal significantly raises the initial valuation, whereas the comparison of the strategies show that the results either details which strategy is preferred, if input to both strategies are available, or where the threshold for indifference lies. It is concluded that this model is applicable in terms of its ability to capture the value of flexibility and inclusion of several aspects of the decision problem. However, it is also concluded that the numerous simplifications made may lead to unreliability in the results, and the process of obtaining accurate input may time-consuming, depending on the case. The usability of the model is high in terms of its potential, but lower in terms of the knowledge-based threshold required of the user.


We have developed an immortalized oral epithelial cell line, ROE2, from fetal transgenic rats harboring temperature-sensitive simian virus 40 large T-antigen gene. The cells grew continuously at either a permissive temperature of 33°C or an intermediate temperature of 37°C. At the nonpermissive temperature of 39°C, on the other hand, growth decreased significantly, and the Sub-G1 phase of the cell cycle increased, indicating that the cells undergo apoptosis at a nonpermissive temperature. Histological and immunocytochemical analyses revealed that ROE2 cells at 37°C had a stratified epithelial-like morphology and expressed cytokeratins Krt4 and Krt13, marker proteins for oral nonkeratinized epithelial cells. Global-scale comprehensive microarray analysis, coupled with bioinformatics tools, demonstrated a significant gene network that was obtained from the upregulated genes. The gene network contained 16 genes, including Cdkn1a, Fos, Krt13, and Prdm1, and was associated mainly with the biological process of skin development in the category of biological functions, organ development. These four genes were validated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, and the results were nearly consistent with the microarray data. It is therefore anticipated that this cell line will be useful as an in vitro model for studies such as physiological functions, as well as for gene expression in oral epithelial cells.


The success of social insects is governed by remarkable levels of phenotypic plasticity displayed by colony members which is mediated by epigenetic inheritance. Waddington originally defined epigenetics as the study of the mechanisms that led to the development of a particular phenotype from a given genotype. Social insects have been primary model systems used for understanding the importance of insect DNA methylation. Epigenetic states are initiated by some type of environmental stimulus. DNA methylation is recognized as an important chromatin modification providing structural integrity and proper regulation of the genome for many species. In animals DNA methylation typically occurs at CG sites, established de novo by DNA methyl transferase 3 (DNMT3), and maintained by the methyl transferase DNMT1. The sequencing of the honeybee genome led to the discovery of a fully functional methylation system and caste determination has been found to involve epigenetic regulation. Furthermore, Cytosine methylation was reported to play a key role in the learning and memory processes of honey bees. Moreover, dynactin p62 is more highly methylated in worker honeybees than in queens, and queen larvae expressed higher dynactin p62. Zootermopsis nevadensis nuttingi (Termopsidae) also exhibits a high level of DNA methylation, which is helpful in regulating phenotypic plasticity, as for other eusocial Hymenoptera. Fertile queens and sterile workers are alternative forms of the adult female honeybee that develop from genetically identical larvae following differential feeding with royal jelly. Thus nutritional factors have been reported to control the reproductive behaviour in social insects. Nutritional input, acts as an agent of epigenetic modifications leads to different developmental fates, with massive implications for reproductive and behavioral status. In Apis mellifera DNA methylation is a key component of an epigenetic network controlling a most important aspect of eusociality, the reproductive division of labor. Social insects in particular are exceptionally promising models in DNA methylation studies because of the presence of outstanding phenotypic plasticity and ample potential for genomic imprinting. This concern of DNA methylation will grow with the continued exploration of insect genomic data and the continued sequencing of insect DNA methylomes. K e y w o r d s


New and published U‐Pb geochronology and 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology from footwall and hanging wall rocks of a segment of the South Tibetan detachment system exposed in the Annapurna area of central Nepal Himalaya bring additional constraints on the timing of metamorphism, crustal thickening, and normal faulting resulting in exhumation of the Himalayan metamorphic core. Early Oligocene crustal thickening led to Eohimalayan kyanite‐grade metamorphism between 35 Ma and 32 Ma. The resulting thermal event affected the Early Ordovician augen gneiss (Formation III) and produced kyanite‐bearing leucosomes in the upper part of the metamorphic core. This event is linked with underthrusting of the Greater Himalayan metamorphic sequence below the Tethyan sedimentary sequence and the growth of an Oligocene fan structure that has thickened the Tethyan sedimentary sequence to 25 km, thus provoking kyanite‐grade melting at deeper structural levels. Early Paleozoic monazite and zircon populations indicate that part of the metamorphism affecting the Himalayan metamorphic core could be pre‐Cenozoic. Regional correlations indicate that the Annapurna detachment was active during early Miocene time. A weakly deformed leucogranitic dike intruding into the immediate hanging wall yielded reversely discordant monazite ages between 23 and 22.5 Ma, which suggest that the ductile strain in the Annapurna detachment zone terminated at ca. 22 Ma. On the basis of a 40Ar/39Ar muscovite age, renewed southwest verging deformation (D4) is interpreted to occur at ca. 18 Ma. Rapid exhumation resulting from extensional faulting cooled the entire metamorphic core through the muscovite Ar closure temperature (330°–430°C) between 15 and 13 Ma. Muscovites from the immediate hanging wall of the Annapurna detachment yielded slightly younger ages, between 13 and 11 Ma, testifying to late hydrothermal activity in the Annapurna detachment zone that could be linked with the initiation of brittle faulting associated with the late Neogene Thakkhola graben system.


Drs Tuffrey and Pearce are timely in their comments about the importance of structured transition to adult orientated services for young people with chronic neurological disease. We agree that this is a significant problem, and that proper transition (including pretransition planning, transition planning at the appropriate time and multidisciplinary working) must be achieved to maximise the young person's integration into society. There is abundant evidence that those lost to follow up present later with treatable complications of their conditions. It is also known that health status and psychosocial factors have a proved impact on the social participation of young disabled adults. There are a number of well established and well researched models of multidisciplinary team care for young adults in transition with disabling conditions including neurological conditions, such as cerebral palsy, spinal bifida, and muscular dystrophy. The consultant in rehabilitation medicine is well used to working with multidisciplinary teams, in a manner analogous to the paediatrician. An evaluation of a team approach versus ad hoc health services for young people with physical disabilities, in six areas of the UK, which was published in The Lancet in 2002, demonstrated that participation in society was increased threefold for no additional financial cost where organised transition services were involved, compared with non-coordinated care. A team has been in place in Leeds for 14 years. It includes professionals including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists, and speech and language therapists, and sessions of general practitioner health promotion and family planning. The needs of the population served by this team are wider than traditional medical care, and liaison with social services and education authorities is essential. Issues of access to employment and training, occupation of leisure time, relationships, sexuality, and independence are routinely addressed. Consultants in rehabilitation medicine have the diagnostic and management skills necessary to coordinate the health care of these individuals. They liaise with other medical and surgical specialties, including orthopaedics, urology, gastroenterology, respiratory medicine, and neurology. Their training allows them to identify and treat many of the well recognised health problems, including secondary musculoskeletal complications, pain, spasticity, and urological as well as neurological problems. They analyse gait and posture, and prescribe orthoses and special seating. They also prescribe assistive technology. Their paradigm of treatment is not restricted to disease per se, but addresses the whole spectrum of impairment, activity (disability), and handicap (participation). Tuffrey and Pearce are right to point out that the survival of disabled children into adulthood is a challenge to the existing organisation of adult health services. It is our duty to maintain good standards of medical and health care and to enable such individuals to lead as fulfilled a life as possible. The evidence for the value of coordinated transition services for individuals with disabling condition exists and should be widely applied.


Existing research indicates that it is possible to forecast potential long-term returns in the S&P 500 for periods of more than 10 years using the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio (CAPE). This paper concludes that this relationship has also existed internationally in 17 MSCI Country indexes since 1979. In addition, the paper also examines the forecasting ability of price-to-earnings, price-to-cash-flow and price-to-book ratio, as well as that of dividend yield and of CAPE adjusted for changes in payout ratios. The results indicate that only price-to-book ratio and CAPE enable reliable forecasts on subsequent returns and market risks. In countries with structural breaks, price-to-book ratio even exhibits some advantages compared to CAPE. Based on these findings, the long-term equity market potential for various markets is forecasted using CAPE and price-to-book ratio. The current valuation makes it likely that investors with a global portfolio can achieve real returns of 6% over the next 10 to 15 years. Even greater increases can be expected in European equity markets (8%) and in emerging markets (9%). Due to the high valuation of the US stock market, US investors can only expect below-average returns of 4% with a higher drawdown potential.


ABSTRACT
 Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann is considered one of the most important economic and ecological forest pests in the United States, Mexico, and Central America. Recently, two apparent morphological variants of this species were discovered occurring syntopically in Central America and southern Mexico. Morphotype A beetles lack a series of fine parallel ridges on the episternal area of the prothorax that are present on morphotype B. The goal of the present work was to clarify the taxonomic status of the morphotypes of the D. frontalis species complex. Geometric morphometric analyses of seminal rod and spermatheca shape together with the characterization of 16 attributes of external morphology revealed differences in quantitative and qualitative characters that distinguished adults of the two morphotypes from each other as well as from the closely related species Dendroctonus vitei Wood and Dendroctonus mexicanus Hopkins. Karyotype analysis of morphotype B revealed a chromosomal formula (5AA + Xyp) distinct from that found in morphotype A previously reported for D. frontalis (7AA + Xyp). In the laboratory, forced intermorphotype crosses produced F1 progeny but at lower frequency than intramorphotype pairings, and dissections of spermatheca revealed a lower frequency of insemination at least one type of heterotypic cross. Phylogenetic analysis of the D. frontalis species complex based on 786 bp of the cytochrome oxidase I gene indicated that morphotypes B and A are two independent groups with 98% nodal support within D. frontalis. These data provide compelling evidence that the two syntopic morphotypes represent two distinct sibling species.


Abstract Objective: To examine the associations between measures of iron status and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in South African women. Method: In a cross-sectional study, demographic information and health history were obtained during individual interviews using validated questionnaires in the North West Province, South Africa. Anthropometric indices, iron indices, blood pressure, blood glucose and lipid profiles were measured using standard procedures in 1 262 apparently healthy black South African women aged 35 years or older. Iron status was assessed using serum concentrations of ferritin, transferrin receptor (TfR) and TfR:ferritin ratio. Results: Associations between iron status parameters and CVD risk factors were generally weak (r < 0.3, p < 0.01) and were not retained when adjustment was made for age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol consumption and C-reactive protein in the analysis. Waist circumference (WC) and waist:hip ratio (WHR) were higher in the fourth quartile of serum ferritin than in the third quartile, and also in the third quartile compared to the second quartile (P < 0.05). Based on WC and WHR respectively, 31% and 52% of the women had excess abdominal obesity. The mean (95% confidence interval) serum TfR concentration was high, at 9.09 µg/ml (8.77, 9.44), indicating risk of iron deficiency. The mean (95% confidence interval) concentrations of lipids [total cholesterol 4.78 mmol/l (4.64, 4.93), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol 1.45 mmol/l (1.39, 1.52), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol 1.65 mmol/l (1.53, 1.78), triglyceride 1.12 mmol/l (1.07, 1.18)] were within reference ranges. Conclusion: No significant association was found between iron status parameters and established CVD risk factors. However, excessive abdominal adiposity indicated by high WC and WHR contributes significantly to increased serum ferritin concentration in this population.


This essay is a speculation on how recent digitization and simulation technologies are providing a means of mapping cultural processes that may contribute to new ways of enclosing the musical commons. Three broad, shifting, and interwoven themes permeate this speculation: contested concepts of ownership between a disorganized and reorganized capitalism; blurred distinctions between cultural products and human processes; living beings between the convergence of technologies for mapping and simulation. By outlining a potential paradigm shift in how people understand music, the essay suggests some new directions for ownership and control of primary cultural resources, especially with respect to embodied and simulated musical processes.


The emergence of multidrug resistant bacteria world wide is a serious problem, and very few new drugs are under development. The selection of resistant bacteria is affected by factors such as mutation rate, biological fitness cost and the rate of fitness compensation. This thesis is focused on how mutation rate affects resistance to fluoroquinolones and on exploring a dosing strategy that might slow resistance development. In a set of urinary tract Escherichia coli isolates MIC values above the breakpoint for the fluoroquinolones norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin carried at least three resistance-associated mutations. In these isolates the number of resistance mutations correlated with the mutation rate. During step-wise selection for decreased susceptibility to fluoroquinolones, the accumulation of mutations in E. coli was associated with an increasing biological cost both in vitro and in vivo. However, in some lineages an additional selection step for resistance was associated with a partial restoration of fitness. During step-wise selections we found, as expected, that reduced ciprofloxacin susceptibility frequently hitchhiked with a strong mutator phenotype. More surprisingly, we also found that reduced susceptibility was frequently associated with the emergence of rifampicin-resistant populations. We hypothesise that this correlation reflects selection for fitness-compensating mutations in RNA polymerase.Mutant prevention concentration (MPC) dosing has been proposed as a strategy to reduce the selection of resistant bacterial populations. Based on limited data it had been thought that MPC might be a simple multiple of MIC, which can easily be determined. However, we showed for a collection of susceptible urinary tract E. coli that MPC could not be predicted from MIC and must be measured directly for relevant populations. Using an in vitro kinetic model we also showed that the pharmacodynamic index that best predicted prevention of resistance development in wild type E. coli was an AUC/MPC of > 22 for ciprofloxacin.


From classical connectionist and symbolic models, the new field of neurosymbolic integration has emerged, whose aim is to benefit from the advantages of both domains to model human perceptive and cognitive capabilities. To reach this goal, some strategies are envisaged, among which connectionist cognitive processing claims that these desired capabilities can emerge from pure neuronal structures and processes. This approach refers to the substratum of cognition, the human brain and gives rise to perceptually grounded models whose goal is to reach higher cognitive levels. Its principles are presented here and, as an illustration, an application to invariant pattern recognition is described. From basic connectionist models, a biologically inspired model of neuronal networks cooperation is implemented to allow for internal information translation. This mechanism leads to automatic pattern centring in a classical character recognition application with excellent performances.


This paper reports on fuel design optimization of a PWR operating in a self sustainable Th-{sup 233}U fuel cycle. Monte Carlo simulated annealing method was used in order to identify the fuel assembly configuration with the most attractive breeding performance. In previous studies, it was shown that breeding may be achieved by employing heterogeneous Seed-Blanket fuel geometry. The arrangement of seed and blanket pins within the assemblies may be determined by varying the designed parameters based on basic reactor physics phenomena which affect breeding. However, the amount of free parameters may still prove to be prohibitively large in order to systematically explore the design space for optimal solution. Therefore, the Monte Carlo annealing algorithm for neutronic optimization is applied in order to identify the most favorable design. The objective of simulated annealing optimization is to find a set of design parameters, which maximizes some given performance function (such as relative period of net breeding) under specified constraints (such as fuel cycle length). The first objective of the study was to demonstrate that the simulated annealing optimization algorithm will lead to the same fuel pins arrangement as was obtained in the previous studies which used only basic physics phenomena as guidancemore » for optimization. In the second part of this work, the simulated annealing method was used to optimize fuel pins arrangement in much larger fuel assembly, where the basic physics intuition does not yield clearly optimal configuration. The simulated annealing method was found to be very efficient in selecting the optimal design in both cases. In the future, this method will be used for optimization of fuel assembly design with larger number of free parameters in order to determine the most favorable trade-off between the breeding performance and core average power density. (authors)« less


Congressional interest in the Chinese military, or People's Liberation Army (PLA), has increased as a result of the March 1996 tensions in the Taiwan Strait, continuing allegations of Chinese proliferation of technology useful in weapons of mass destruction, and reports that some Chinese defense-related corporations have circumvented U.S. export controls to acquire dual-use technology. The Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), an important, high-level PLA organization, plays a role in China's weapon programs, sales of civilian goods, acquisition of military technology, and arms sales and export controls. The purpose of this CRS Report is to examine the origins and command, roles, and influence of COSTIND.


Abstract. Using a GC/FID/MS system, we analyzed the mixing ratio of 16 halocarbon species in more than 100 air samples collected in 2004 from the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of southern China. The results revealed that there are elevated mixing ratios for most of halocarbons, especially for HClC = CCl 2 (trichloroethylene, TCE), CH 2 Cl 2 (dichloromethane, DCM), CH 3 Br (bromomethane), HCFC-22, CHCl 3 (trichloromethane), CCl 4 (tetrachloromethane), Cl 2 C = CCl 2 (perchloroethylene, PCE), CH 3 CCl 3 (methyl chloroform, MCF), and CFC-12. Comparisons were done with the data from TRACE-P and ALE/GAGE/AGAGE experiments, we found that the large variability in mixing ratios (relative standard deviation ranged from 9.31 % to 96.55 %) of the halocarbons suggested substantial local emissions from the PRD region in 2004. Correlations between the mixing ratio of each species and carbon monoxide (CO) was examined, and then the emission of each halocarbon was quantified based on scaling the optimized CO emission inventory with the slope of the regression line fitted to each species relative to CO. The calculated results revealed that mass of CH 2 Cl 2 (7.0 Gg), CH 3 CCl 3 (6.7 Gg), and Cl 2 C = CCl 2 (2.3 Gg) accounted for about 62.9 % of total halocarbon emissions, it suggested a significant contribution from solvent use in the PRD region. Emissions of HCFC-22 (3.5 Gg), an alternative refrigerant to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), were about 2.3 times greater than those of CFC-12 (1.6 Gg). CFC-12 and HCFC-22 accounted for 21.5 % of total emissions of halocarbons, so that the refrigerant would be the second largest source of halocarbons. However, the ratio approach found only minor emissions of CFCs, such as CFC-11, and the emission of CFC-114 and CFC-113 were close to zero. Emissions of other anthropogenic halocarbons, such as CCl 4 , CHCl 3 , CH 3 Br, and CH 3 Cl, were also estimated. Where possible, the emissions estimated from the measured ratios were compared with results from source inventory techniques, we found that both approaches gave emissions at similar magnitude for most of the halocarbons, except CFC-11. The comparison suggested that the ratio method may be a useful tool for assessing regional halocarbon emissions, and emission uncertainty could be further reduced by incorporating both longer-term and higher-frequency observations, as well as improving the accuracy of the CO inventory.


Ribosome inactivating proteins (RIPs) are RNA N-glycosidases that depurinate a specific adenine residue in the conserved sarcin/ricin loop of 28S rRNA. These enzymes are widely distributed among plants and their presence has also been confirmed in several bacterial species. Recently, we reported for the first time in silico evidence of RIP encoding genes in metazoans, in two closely related species of insects: Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus. Here, we have experimentally confirmed the presence of these genes in mosquitoes and attempted to unveil their evolutionary history. A detailed study was conducted, including evaluation of taxonomic distribution, phylogenetic inferences and microsynteny analyses, indicating that the culicine RIP genes derived from a single Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) event, probably from a Cyanobacterial donor species. Moreover, evolutionary analyses show that, after transference, these genes evolved under purifying selection, strongly suggesting that they play functional roles in these organisms. In this work we confirm the presence of RIP genes in Culicinae species, and show solid evidence supporting the hypothesis that these genes are derived from a single prokaryotic transferred gene through HGT. In addition, clear evidence of purifying selection pressure has been recorded, supporting the hypothesis that these genes are functional within this subfamily.


The existence of the cyclic variation of the flow inside an cylinder affects the performance of the engine. Developing methods to understand and control in-cylinder flow has been a goal of engine designers for nearly 100 years. In this paper, passive control of the intake flow of a 3.5-liter DaimlerChrysler engine was examined using a unique optical diagnostic technique: Molecular Tagging Velocimetry (MTV), which has been developed at Michigan State University. Probability density functions (PDFs) of the normalized circulation are calculated from instantaneous planar velocity measurements to quantify gas motion within a cylinder. Emphasis of this work is examination of methods that quantify the cyclic variability of the flow. In addition, the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) of the flow on the tumble and swirl plane is calculated and compared to the PDF circulation results.


In the present research, commercially pure Ti (grade-2) has been diffusion bonded with Ti and Cu plate under static force without any interlayers. The diffusion bonded samples were tested for micro hardness and micro structural analysis through optical microscopy and SEM. It is found from the present investigation that the bonded zone is affected by the processing variables such as bonding time (1 - 2 h), bonding force (250 N), bonding temperature (973 - 1073 K) and surface roughness. Results of the investigation revealed that temperature range of ?973 - 1073 K along with time duration of 1 - 2 hours in vacuum has resulted in a joint having high hardness with minimum pores. Hardness of the bond depends on the grain boundary diffusion at the interface and maximum hardness was achieved in the case of Ti-Cu joints. When Ti-Cu plates were used for bonding at 973 K for 2 hours, Cu-Ti solid solution along with a zone of different intermetallics was formed in the bonded zone. However, at higher temperatures, no continuous zone of intermetallics was found in the bonded region but instead Ti-Cu solid solution appeared.


Proliferation of wearable devices and the "quantified self" behavior creates massive amounts of data acquired from physiological sensors. Unfortunately this vast amount of data is to date largely untapped for clinical purposes because of low data reliability caused by issues such as contact noise and motion artifacts. One important physiological signal is ECG and one of its important features is the heart rate, obtained from the QRS complex of the ECG signal or beat detection algorithms. This feature is important in characterizing Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and detecting various pathologies such as arrhythmia, chronic heart failure, or sleep apnea. Many such algorithms simply discard data segments which are deemed "unreliable" due to errors in QRS detection. This paper analyzes the impact of changing the noise level and noise duration on the percentage of data segments that are discarded. The paper proposes an approach to improve the usability of ECG data corrupted by noise by analyzing the impact of noise on features of interest and adapting relevant system parameters accordingly. The proposed approach can be used with any classifier operating on short-term HRV features.


Abstract Objective To examine the associations between the intake of total and individual whole grain foods and the risk of type 2 diabetes. Design Prospective cohort studies. Setting Nurses' Health Study (1984-2014), Nurses' Health Study II (1991-2017), and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2016), United States. Participants 158 259 women and 36 525 men who did not have type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer at baseline. Main outcome measures Self-reports of incident type 2 diabetes by participants identified through follow-up questionnaires and confirmed by a validated supplementary questionnaire. Results During 4 618 796 person years of follow-up, 18 629 participants with type 2 diabetes were identified. Total whole grain consumption was categorized into five equal groups of servings a day for the three cohorts. After adjusting for lifestyle and dietary risk factors for diabetes, participants in the highest category for total whole grain consumption had a 29% (95% confidence interval 26% to 33%) lower rate of type 2 diabetes compared with those in the lowest category. For individual whole grain foods, pooled hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for type 2 diabetes in participants consuming one or more servings a day compared with those consuming less than one serving a month were 0.81 (0.77 to 0.86) for whole grain cold breakfast cereal, 0.79 (0.75 to 0.83) for dark bread, and 1.08 (1.00 to 1.17) for popcorn. For other individual whole grains with lower average intake levels, comparing consumption of two or more servings a week with less than one serving a month, the pooled hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 0.79 (0.75 to 0.83) for oatmeal, 0.88 (0.82 to 0.94) for brown rice, 0.85 (0.80 to 0.90) for added bran, and 0.88 (0.78 to 0.98) for wheat germ. Spline regression showed a non-linear dose-response association between total whole grain intake and the risk of type 2 diabetes where the rate reduction slightly plateaued at more than two servings a day (P<0.001 for curvature). For whole grain cold breakfast cereal and dark bread, the rate reduction plateaued at about 0.5 servings a day. For consumption of popcorn, a J shaped association was found where the rate of type 2 diabetes was not significantly raised until consumption exceeded about one serving a day. The association between higher total whole grain intake and lower risk of type 2 diabetes was stronger in individuals who were lean than in those who were overweight or obese (P=0.003 for interaction), and the associations did not vary significantly across levels of physical activity, family history of diabetes, or smoking status. Conclusion Higher consumption of total whole grains and several commonly eaten whole grain foods, including whole grain breakfast cereal, oatmeal, dark bread, brown rice, added bran, and wheat germ, was significantly associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. These findings provide further support for the current recommendations of increasing whole grain consumption as part of a healthy diet for the prevention of type 2 diabetes.


This paper presents the results from a number of measurements of the harmonic emission from installations that contain a large number of energy-efficient lamps. Two of the measurements concern the replacement of incandescent lamps with CFL and LED; the other measurement concerns an installation with up to 48 fluorescent lamps with high-frequency ballasts. The paper also contains a discussion on why the (total) power factor is not a good measure to quantify the performance of lamps or installations containing large numbers of lamps.


Background: Software maintenance (SM) environment is highly complex,knowledge-driven and collaborative. Therefore, a knowledge Management System (KMS) is critical to provide an environment for sharing and sustaining knowledge among members of SM community of practice (CoP). An agent-based KMS prototype system called Software Maintenance Collaborative Agent Team (SCAT) was developed based on a new KMS framework, to assisst maintainers to share information and perform their SM activities.
Aims: The aim of this study is to evaluate SCAT'ssuccess as a KMS tool against another existing similar tool called Rodriguez KMS SCAT was benchmark against another agent-based KMS prototype. We hypothesize that the extent of KMS success of SCAT is better than Rodriguez KMS
Sample: A total of 15 users and maintainers took part in the evaluation of both tools and survey, consisting of 3 users, 6 helpdesk personnel, 8 developers, 2 systems analyst, a maintenance manager and a quality assurance analyst. Some SA and developers also doubled as helpdesk personnel, hence the extra numbers.
Method: A survey was conducted to gauge the responses of users and maintainers on the success of both KMS tools, covering system quality,knowledge quality, user satisfaction, perceived KMS benefits and system use. The result of the survey are analyzed using Rasch rating-scale model to determine if SCAT fares better than Rodriguez model.Two Winsteps sessions were used, with person means set to 0. T-Test was used to compare both tools measure means and Common Person Equating plot and Measure Difference chart are used to further explain the results.
Results:Based on t-test, we cannot conclude that SCAT KMS is better than Rodriguez KMS. However, in several important aspects such as Effectively Managing Knowledge, Improves Quality, and Efficient, SCAT fares significantly better. Rodriguez strong point is in decision making.
Conclusion: Rasch could be utilized to effectively evaluate two KMS tools vis-a-vis a questionnaire survey. In our case, even though SCAT could not be concluded better than the benchmarked KMS tool, the analysis managed to identify several strong and weak key areas. As such, in future, SCAT could be enhanced to improve the meak areas.