This report provides an introduction to semiotics: the study of symbols and symbol systems. In particular, the report focuses on the symbolic meaning of automobiles, and explores why this meaning is important to consumers. Section 1 defines what a symbol is, identifies the types of symbols, and discusses how consumer goods (such as automobiles) can serve as symbols. Section 2 investigates how individuals use the meaning in their automobiles to form and maintain their self-identities. Several theoretical approaches (including conspicuous consumption, self-congruity theory, and symbolic interactionism) are examined and contrasted with a more comprehensive approach, called products as self-creation, which is based on the theories of Anthony Giddens, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, and Grant McCracken. Section 3 explores how automobiles acquire their meaning, and how this meaning is transferred to the consumer. Finally, Section 4 examines how consumers evaluate the benefits from symbolic meaning relative to other types benefits vehicles provide, such as mobility. This report concludes that symbols matter in vehicle purchases, and that the adoption of new types of vehicles (including hybrid-electric and fuel-cell vehicles) depends partly on the symbolic value these vehicles deliver to buyers.


A review of any field, and perhaps especially that of the evolution of the Scottish crust, should include reference to all the relevant scientific work brought to bear on that field; not excepting studies which provide alternatives to those of the authors or indeed controversial views. The review of Dewey et al. (2015), while it does not 'attempt in-depth analyses of any terrain or tectonic topic … but mainly poses questions' (Dewey et al. 2015, p. 5), clearly does not fit the above criteria, in that it ignores completely the many crucial arguments regarding the evolution of the Scottish crust posed by the late Professor Brian Bluck and his many co-authors over the period 1980 – 2015. Such a body of evidence-based and closely argued work should, of course, be open to challenge but it should not, and cannot be, simply ignored.


BACKGROUND
Blood donation is associated with decreased iron stores in blood donors which may affect the development of physiological functions and overall health. Previous studies reported a wide variation in the prevalence of iron deficiency in this population (1% to 62%). So, we want to establish the prevalence of iron deficiency in blood donors from a systematic review of the literature.

METHODS
Exhaustive and reproducible search of literature in 7 databases, based in a protocol for searching in 4 languages between 2001 to 2011 with inclusion and exclusion criteria and information extraction. The analysis was based on the calculation of frequencies and specific prevalence by sex and number of previous donations, with their respective confidence intervals in Excel and Epidat (3.0).

RESULTS
A total of 16.979 donors, 5.096 regular, with 59% men. The prevalence of iron deficiency found was 13% (IC 95%: 12,4 to 13,4) with a range between 1% and 62%. Prevalence statistically higher was observed in women (19,56%) and repetitive donors (20,36%).

CONCLUSION
We obtained iron deficiency prevalence in blood donors over higher risk groups like children, being higher in female and repetitive donors. That suggests the need to encouraged blood banks in the application of protocols designed to preserve healthy donors and this will result in an adequate blood supply.


The study described in this article explores the functioning of existing community-based child protection mechanisms in two districts in Aceh, Indonesia and identifies issues that need to be addressed for improved prevention and response programming for children experiencing violence, abuse and exploitation. Ninety-six in-depth interviews and 23 focus group discussions were used to document child protection threats and local means of support. The research identified domestic violence, early marriage, school dropout, child labor and violent teachers as key communal concerns. In exploring referral pathways, it was learned that protection concerns are primarily kept secret, addressed within the family, or shared with friends, and that national and regional child protection legislation is viewed as in tension with local values. The study identifies a number of challenges that must be addressed if better linkages between local and national child welfare policies are to be established.


Surveys differ in their topics, language, style and design, and, consequently, in their sensitivity to measurement error. Survey literature presents a range of characteristics of survey items that are assumed to be related to the magnitude and frequency of measurement error. In terms of questionnaire design and testing, it would be very useful to have a questionnaire profile that is a summary of the characteristics of the items contained in a questionnaire. This holds especially true in the context of multi-mode surveys where the detection of measurement error is crucial. The questionnaire profiles may be derived from scores that coders assign to the items in a questionnaire. Given that agreement among coders may be relatively low, as we observe, the number of coders must be large to ensure sufficient precision of the profiles. For multiple surveys, the coding workload may then become infeasible. In this paper, we propose methodology for the estimation of questionnaire profiles when a pool of coders is randomly allocated to a series of surveys. The methodology is based on multiple imputation and applied to eleven general purpose surveys in the Netherlands..


Whereas past studies primarily examined state-level gratitude measured across long periods of time and in the context of positive events, this study assessed situational predictors of state gratitude and its affective outcomes in the context of specific positive and negative naturalistic events. Across seven weeks, 147 undergraduates recorded best and worst weekly events, depressive symptoms, as well as gratitude and positive affect (PA) anchored to those events. Independent raters coded events as dependent or independent of participants' agency and interpersonal or noninterpersonal. Multilevel models showed there was a significant interaction between agency and interpersonal status for positive events, and simple effects tests indicated participants reported higher levels of gratitude for independent-interpersonal events compared to other potential event types. Unexpectedly, participants also reported higher gratitude for dependent events if they were interpersonal in nature. Negative event-anchored state gratitude was also higher for interpersonal events as indicated by a significant main effect. Lastly, within-person variability in event-anchored state gratitude was associated with higher state PA following both best and worst events, but only state gratitude anchored to best events was related to lower weekly depressive symptoms. Overall, results demonstrated that naturally occurring state gratitude for specific events was differentially impacted by situational factors, and that within-person variability in gratitude following both positive and negative events is related to positive affective outcomes.


Abstract A new experimental program, named AMMON, was performed between late 2010 and early 2013 in the EOLE zero-power experimental reactor at CEA Cadarache. It is dedicated to the analysis of the neutron and photon physics of the Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR), the next international materials testing reactor under construction in France. The objective of the program is to provide measurement data for the experimental validation of the calculation tools developed for the JHR design and safety studies. The first core configuration, the so-called reference configuration, was loaded in 2012; it consisted of an experimental zone of seven JHR assemblies with U3Si2-Al, 27% 235U enriched fuel curved plates surrounded by a driver zone with 622 standard pressurized water reactor uranium oxide fuel pins. It has been instrumented and studied throughout the first year of the experimental program. The final analysis of the AMMON/REF neutron measurements is presented in this paper. It is based on calculations performed with the three-dimensional reference Monte Carlo TRIPOLI-4.7 code and the JEFF3.1.1 European library. The comparison between calculation and experiment makes it possible to calibrate the bias due to nuclear data on the calculated neutron parameters. It highlights good agreement between calculation and experiment concerning reactivity, power distribution in the experimental zone, fuel plate conversion ratios, and core kinetics parameters. The reactivity prediction is very satisfactory, despite the presence of a large aluminum quantity in the core: calculation-to-experiment comparison (C – E) = + 365 ± 334 pcm (1σ). For the other neutron parameters (assembly power distribution, plate conversion ratios, and kinetics parameters), the (C – E)/E discrepancies are within the experimental uncertainty (2σ).


This paper uses an in-depth case study of Turkey to examine the complex and contemporary challenges facing the UNHCR. The work of the UNHCR Turkey Program presents a unique example of the problematic relationship between a nation-state and an international refugee regime. The Turkish government ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in March 1962, but maintains the geographical limitation restricting its asylum commitment to applicants from European countries. Turkey, one of only two countries among the signatories of the Convention that keeps the geographical limitation, relies mostly on the UNHCR's eligibility assessment of non-European asylum-seekers. Although the focus of the paper is a country-specific example, its goal is to establish a model that can be used in evaluating any UNHCR regional or country program.


Knowledge-based question-answering systems have become quite competent and robust at answering a wide range of questions in different domains, however in order to ask questions correctly, one needs to have intimate knowledge of the structure of the knowledge base, and typical users lack this knowledge. We address this problem by developing a system that uses the content of the knowledge base to automatically align a user's encoding of a query to the structure of the knowledge base. Our preliminary evaluation shows the system detects and corrects most misalignments, and users are able to pose most questions quickly.


This essay traces some of the paths followed by literary interpretation on the left since the early 1970s. I identify two kinds of symptomatic reading, one multicultural and one Marxist, as well as a style of "situational" reading. I suggest that these styles of reading are limited by their philosophical understandings of "matter" and argue that the history of literary (especially poetic) "matter" might better ground a reading practice that tells historical time.


Migrants and the migration process are implicitly – and sometimes explicitly – assumed to be male. From analyses of economic migration and its impacts on the labour market through to assumptions about the persecution of politically active men, the description of the factors underlying migration to the UK, the experiences of migrants themselves and the costs and benefits that they bring to our society and economy are based on a model of male migration. Unfortunately, this model rarely, if ever, reflects the reality of what is actually going on.

Policy and practice relating to immigration control and management inevitably reflect and reinforce these tendencies. Whilst recent research has highlighted, in particular, the feminisation of labour flows and the need for an interpretation of the 1951 Refugee Convention that takes into account gendered experiences of persecution, the complex relationship between gender and migration remains relatively under researched or taken adequately into account in policymaking.


[H]igh recidivism rates shows that the threat of jail time alone is not sufficient to curb sex crimes. With this in mind, legislators sought to find other ways that would protect potential victims. Community notification laws were the first policy to be implemented. Community notification methods included press releases, flyers, phone calls, door-to-door contact, neighborhood meetings, and Internet sites, which informed citizens of the name, location, and/or other information of persons who had been convicted of sex crimes. Part II of this note will describe current sex-offender restrictions in place across the country. Part III will provide a constitutional analysis of these sex-offender restrictions. Based on this analysis, Part IV will conclude by advocating against sex-offender restrictions and offering alternatives.


Infringement in fields of Intellectual Property Rights is a global problem causing repeated and sustained attention at national and international levels. A number of different organizations and commissions are constantly control and counteract the growth of these infringements, but despite the taken measures counterfeit and piracy goods continue to be manufactured and sold around the world. The Russian Federation (RF) is a country that has close commercial ties with many foreign states, including Sweden. However the RF is one of the countries, included on the Special 301 Priority Watch List due to the continuing and large scale of Property Rights and Intellectual Property Rights violations. In this connection, a study was conducted with the participation of collaborating Swedish Russian enterprises, whose activities could be subjected to counterfeiting and IP piracy. The aim of the study is to determine how collaborating Swedish – Russian enterprises with branches in the Russian Federation perceive the situation in the country and assess the activities of Russian institutions that play an important role in controlling and combating violations against counterfeiting and IP piracy. Moreover the aim includes identifying the most vulnerable class of actors in the general mechanism of counterfeiting and IP piracy. The research based on elements of the New Institutional Economics Theory and conducted by using a combination of a literature review and semistructured interview with representatives of Swedish Russian enterprises. The study found that organizations are the most vulnerable class of actors in general mechanism of counterfeiting and IP piracy. International firms and companies are in a more difficult situation because they provide own activities simultaneously in several legal and political systems. Representatives of interviewed companies argue that activities of analyzed Russian institutions are insufficiently effective and the state should take a set of measures so the foreign collaborative organizations could feel confident in territory of the RF and Russian market would become more attractive for foreign business.


We introduce a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) composed of liquid-phase Gallium-Indium (GaIn) alloy electrodes embedded between layers of poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) and examine its mechanics using a specialized elastic shell theory. Residual stresses in the dielectric and sealing layers of PDMS cause the DEA to deform into a saddle-like geometry (Gaussian curvature K<0). Applying voltage Φ to the liquid metal electrodes induces electrostatic pressure (Maxwell stress) on the dielectric and relieves some of the residual stress. This reduces the longitudinal bending curvature and corresponding angle of deflection ϑ. Treating the elastomer as an incompressible, isotropic, NeoHookean solid, we develop a theory based on the principle of minimum potential energy to predict the principal curvatures as a function of Φ. Based on this theory, we predict a dependency of ϑ on Φ that is in strong agreement with experimental measurements performed on a GaIn-PDMS composite. By accurately modeling electromechanical coupling in a soft-matter DEA, this theory can inform improvements in design and fabrication.


BACKGROUND
Angelman syndrome (AS) is a genetic disorder with varying degrees of neurological impairment. It is often associated with ocular involvement.

CASE REPORT
We present a child diagnosed with AS who had a deletion on the short arm of chromosome 15. The child seemed to be happy, with developmental delay, speech problem, and altering strabismus. To assess the potential presence and degree of damage in the visual pathway, we recorded monocular flash visual evoked potentials (VEPs). Our results revealed the presence of severe central afferent dysfunction in both optical pathways.

CONCLUSION
VEPs can be used in patients with AS and visual disturbances to assess the integrity of the visual system.


Imitation learning is a class of promising policy learning algorithms that is free from many practical issues with reinforcement learning, such as the reward design issue and the exploration hardness. However, the current imitation algorithm struggles to achieve both high performance and high in-environment sample efficiency simultaneously. Behavioral Cloning (BC) does not need in-environment interactions, but it suffers from the covariate shift problem which harms its performance. Adversarial Imitation Learning (AIL) turns imitation learning into a distribution matching problem. It can achieve better performance on some tasks but it requires a large number of in-environment interactions. Inspired by the recent success of EfficientZero in RL, we propose EfficientImitate (EI), a planning-based imitation learning method that can achieve high in-environment sample efficiency and performance simultaneously. Our algorithmic contribution in this paper is two-fold. First, we extend AIL into the MCTS-based RL. Second, we show the seemingly incompatible two classes of imitation algorithms (BC and AIL) can be naturally unified under our framework, enjoying the benefits of both. We benchmark our method not only on the state-based DeepMind Control Suite, but also on the image version which many previous works find highly challenging. Experimental results show that EI achieves state-of-the-art results in performance and sample efficiency. EI shows over 4x gain in performance in the limited sample setting on state-based and image-based tasks and can solve challenging problems like Humanoid, where previous methods fail with small amount of interactions. Our code is available at https://github.com/zhaohengyin/EfficientImitate.


The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative was undertaken to make education, training, and lifelong learning accessible at any time, anywhere. It has developed specifications and techniques that are being adopted globally by governments, businesses, and schools. Although ADL currently focuses on government and business applications, it has significant implications for the classroom structures, processes, and activities of K–16 education. The authors describe the ADL initiative and its implications for K–16 education and call for increased attention from educators and education researchers to the opportunities and challenges represented by anytime, anywhere, distributed learning.


The heritage of Java is the product of a complex mix of cultures that historically influenced the island: Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Javanese, Chinese, and Dutch. Indonesian cultural heritage is represented through many aspects of the nation; the history, the way of life, the identity which should be preserved not only for the present, but for the future. Unfortunately, Indonesian heritage faces many problems; many historic buildings have been demolished, neglected and not well maintained. Due to these facts, the effort should be done in order to save the heritage in Indonesia, and this can be achieved by maximizing the role of the community. The aim of this research is to describe the role of community participation in the religious heritage conservation management in Indonesia, and specifically looks at the case of Chinese temples and mosques in the urban coastal area of Java. The research is the result of extensive fieldwork that was carried out between 2009-2011 and both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed; survey questionnaires, observation and in-depth interviews. The final finding of the research is the model of the religious heritage management which is developed from the Chinese temples and mosques conservation strategy. The Focus Group Discussion was undertaken in the final step to get input from the stakeholders of the heritage conservation. This stage is needed to validate and verify the model before applying the model to other religious buildings. The findings of this research show the extent to which local communities are involved in temple and mosque activities and how their role is essential to the sustainability of their religious buildings. Because local community involvement still needs to be improved in Indonesia, this approach could be employed as an effective model for the conservation of other religious heritage buildings especially in Java, and hopefully later in the wider area of Indonesia.


To deliver a reliable communication service over the Internet
it is essential for
the network operator to manage the traffic situation in the network.
The traffic situation is controlled by
the routing function which determines what path traffic follows from source
to destination.
Current practices for setting routing parameters in IP networks are
designed to be simple to manage. This can lead to congestion in
parts of the network while other parts of the network are
far from fully utilized. In this thesis we explore issues related
to optimization of the routing function to balance load in the network
and efficiently deliver a reliable communication service to the users.
The optimization takes into account not only the traffic situation under
normal operational conditions, but also traffic situations that appear
under a wide variety of circumstances deviating from the nominal case.

In order to balance load in the network knowledge of the traffic
situations is needed. Consequently, in this thesis
we investigate methods for efficient derivation of the
traffic situation. The derivation is based on estimation of
traffic demands from link load measurements. The advantage
of using link load measurements is that they are easily obtained and consist
of a limited amount of data that need to be processed. We evaluate and demonstrate how estimation
based on link counts gives the operator a fast and accurate description
of the traffic demands. For the evaluation we have access to a unique data
set of complete traffic demands from an operational
IP backbone.
However, to honor service level agreements at all times the variability
of the traffic needs to be accounted for in the load balancing.
In addition, optimization techniques are often sensitive to errors and
variations in input data. Hence, when an optimized routing setting is
subjected to real traffic demands in the network, performance often
deviate from what can be anticipated from the optimization. Thus,
we identify and model different traffic uncertainties and describe
how the routing setting can be optimized, not only for a nominal case,
but for a wide range of different traffic situations that might appear
in the network.
Our results can be applied in MPLS enabled networks as well as in
networks using link state routing protocols such as the widely used
OSPF and IS-IS protocols. Only minor changes may be needed in current
networks to implement our algorithms.

The contributions of this thesis is that we: demonstrate that it is
possible to estimate the traffic matrix with acceptable precision, and
we develop methods and models for common traffic uncertainties to
account for these uncertainties in the optimization of the routing
configuration. In addition, we identify important properties in the
structure of the traffic to successfully balance uncertain and
varying traffic demands.


Error Correcting Output Coding (ECOC) is a multi-class classiffication technique in which multiple binary classiffiers are trained according to a preset code matrix, such that each one learns a separate dichotomy of the classes. While ECOC is one of the best solutions to multi-class problems, it is suboptimal since the code matrix and the base classiffiers are not learned simultaneously. In this thesis, we present three different algorithms that iteratively updates the ECOC code matrix to improve the performance of the ensemble by reducing the decoupling. Firstly, we applied the previously developed FlipECOC+ update algorithm. Second method is applying simulated annealing method on updating ECOC matrix by flipping proposed entries according to ascending order. Last method is applying beam search to find updated ECOC matrix which has highest validation accuracy. We applied all three algorithms on UCI (University of California Irvine) data sets. Beam search algorithm gives the best result on UCI data sets. All of the proposed update algorithms does not involve further training of the classiffiers and can be applied to any ECOC ensemble.


ABSTRACT Autocratic governments make claims about why they are entitled to rule. Some autocracies are more talkative than others, but all regimes say something about why they deserve power. This article takes seriously these efforts by introducing and interrogating the concept of autocratic legitimation. After engaging in a definitional discussion, it traces the development of autocratic legitimation in modern political science by identifying major turning points, key concepts, and patterns of inquiry over time. Ultimately, this introductory article aims to not only argue that studying autocratic legitimation is important, but also to propose contexts, concepts, and distinctions for doing so productively. To this end, the article proposes four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation that can facilitate comparative analysis: indoctrination, passivity, performance, and democratic-procedural. Finally, the essay briefly introduces the five original articles that comprise the remainder of this special issue on autocratic legitimation. The article identifies avenues for further research and identifies how each article in the issue advances down productive pathways of inquiry.


In this article, we consider the matrix equation AXB = C, where A, B, C are given matrices and give new necessary and sucient conditions for the existence of the diagonal solutions and monomial solu- tions to this equation. We also present a general form of such solutions. Moreover, we consider the least squares problem minXkC AXBkF where X is a diagonal or monomial matrix. The explicit expressions of the optimal solution and the minimum norm solution are both provided.


The study area is a shallow , bar-built , partially mixed lagoonestuary
system , which undergoes changes in its pat tern of movement
and mixing due to meteorological and river run-off changes. The
Setiu estuary is of primary oceanographic interest since it is one
of the large estuaries of the Terengganu coast into which two major
rivers empty .
A study of the system was conducted in 1985 and 1987 .
Measurement s of the physical parameters were made monthly and during
the anchored-stations period . More than 30 sediment samples were
collected around the sampling stations. Temperature shows a seasonal variation
isothermal at any single point in the system .
and is generally
Salinity variation is
also seasonal and related to periods of high river discharge .
Vertical stratification is present in the estuary but its intensity
varies overtime with river discharge . The stratification is the
result of salinity difference rather than variations in temperature .
Salinity condition varies from near salt wedge to weak
stratification near the estuary ' s inlet . Two major ' water masses '
are identified in the estuary area . Currents in the estuary area are
due to river inf low and tides . The ebb flow is stronger than the
flood due to the geographical and topographical nature of the
system . These also control the circulation in the system. Surface
wind stress also plays a role in setting up the flow pat tern . Most
of the stronger winds occur during the North-east monsoon . This also
influence sea waves and swell . The long-shore current is important
in transporting sediment to the system.
The sediment samples were mostly fine to very fine sands
with mostly negative skewness . The estuary area is under the
influence of transportative and erosive force . The lack of silt and
clay in the estuary is attributable to less depositional factors
under the influence of stronger current as compared to the lagoon
area.


ABSTRACT In September 1871, Johannes Brahms presented Clara Schumann with an untitled work in F## minor for solo piano, which he later revised and published as the Capriccio , op. 76/1. Surviving correspondence demonstrates Clara9s intimate familiarity with the work throughout the 1870s. In May 1876, two years before releasing manuscripts of the Capriccio among his wider circle, Brahms composed the song Alte Liebe (Old Love) to a poem by Carl Candidus; he immediately sent an autograph to the baritone Julius Stockhausen, along with instructions to sing it to Clara, whom he proclaimed the best person to hear it. Examination of the music against the backdrop of its origins and the circumstances of its initial performance reveals that Brahms deliberately incorporated echoes of the Capriccio into Alte Liebe and points to ways in which those echoes might have influenced Clara9s understanding of the song and its text. A broad array of music-analytic and documentary evidence (including the newly rediscovered autograph of Alte Liebe ) permits detailed investigation of the interpretive perspective that Brahms9s compositional choices encouraged from a listener with Clara9s unique musical memories and manner of interacting with chamber music. Imaginatively reconstructing her encounter with Alte Liebe yields fresh insights into Brahms9s compositional practice in the private genres of song and small-scale chamber music, a rich new historical context in which to ground the study of allusion in his works, and a rare opportunity to explore the musical and personal dynamics of his closest friendship.


Global climate change is one of the major threats to biodiversity. Global warming caused by the excess emission of greenhouse gases affects the distribution and physiology of species, and threatens their survival. Thus, predicting and evaluating the consequences of changing climates on species' distributions is important for biodiversity conservation. The goal of our study was to assess the influence of future climate scenarios on the extent and geographic location of climatically suitable areas for Reeves's pheasant Syrmaticus reevesii, a species endemic to China, using geographic information systems and ecological niche modeling techniques. We compared model prediction under present climate with the species' historical range and land-cover data, both of which enable a plausible assessment of present-day climatically suitable areas for the species. The areas predicted suitable under future climates showed differences among emission scenarios, but several common trends emerged. Specifically, our results indicated that future climatically suitable area for S. reevesii would decrease and shift to higher altitudes, and the geographic centroids of the climatically suitable areas would mainly move northwest. Additionally, we assessed future changes of climatically suitable areas in the nature reserves where S. reevesii is known to occur, and provided suggestions for conserving the species under climate change scenarios.


Building upon recent developments in digital music scholarship, Citations: The Renaissance Imitation Mass investigates similarity and borrowing in music on a massive but detailed scale, using digital tools that only a few years ago were beyond our grasp. Our work focuses on the craft of musical counterpoint, and how musicians of the sixteenth century transformed pre-existing pieces to make intricate cyclic compositions from familiar sounds. The CRIM team, an accomplished group of scholars and data scientists active in Europe, North America, and Australia, will assemble a diverse collaborative network of music scholars and students at colleges, music schools and university graduate programs, extending the reach of digital scholarship to new users, and building new communities.


Acute symptomatic seizures occur in 10–20% of patients with acute intermittent porphyria in relapse. There are rarer reports of porphyria in people with chronic epilepsy who are mostly drug resistant. The association between epilepsy and porphyria is unclear. Porphyria might be the cause of chronic symptomatic epilepsy (if so, this would be rare or frequently undiagnosed) or there might be a chance association, given that epilepsy is common. Nevertheless, in drug-resistant epilepsy, clinicians should consider metabolic causes such as the porphyrias, especially when the seizure frequency increases on higher doses of certain antiepileptic drugs. Acute porphyric attacks can be potentially fatal and are usually precipitated, in susceptible individuals, by exposure to commonly used drugs, including certain antiepileptic drugs. It is, therefore, important to determine the correct dose and safety of use of certain drugs in people with porphyria. Having diagnosed porphyria-related seizures, the patient will also need treatment of the porphyria itself; its management includes appropriate selection of a non-porphyrinogenic antiepileptic drug. Enzyme-inducing medications induce hepatic heme synthesis, which can exacerbate porphyria symptoms, or provoke acute attacks.

Clinical experience and findings from experimental systems using whole animal or cell culture models have been used to determine porphyrogenicity (the potential of a drug to induce an acute porphyric attack) and to classify drugs as safe or unsafe in freely available drug lists (eg, http://www.drugs-porphyria.org;  http://www.wmic.wales.nhs.uk/pdfs/porphyria/2015%20Porphyria%20safe%20list.pdf).

In acute porphyric attacks, seizures can be treated with intravenous diazepam, levetiracetam or propofol if status epilepticus develops; a single or few seizures may not require antiepileptic drug treatment in the long term, provided the porphyria itself is properly managed (box 1). Box 1
### Antiepileptic drugs and porphyria

Antiepileptic drugs considered safe for use in the acute porphyrias (not porphyrinogenic or probably not porphyrinogenic)


We achieve tomography of 3D volumetric natural objects, where each projected 2D image corresponds to a different specimen. Each specimen has unknown random 3D orientation, location, and scale. This imaging scenario is relevant to microscopic and mesoscopic organisms, aerosols and hydrosols viewed naturally by a microscope. In-class scale variation inhibits prior single-particle reconstruction methods. We thus generalize tomographic recovery to account for all degrees of freedom of a similarity transformation. This enables geometric self-calibration in imaging of transparent objects. We make the computational load manageable and reach good quality reconstruction in a short time. This enables extraction of statistics that are important for a scientific study of specimen populations, specifically size distribution parameters. We apply the method to study of plankton.


Probabilistic maturation reaction norms (PMRNs) are emerging as a flexible and general tool for characterizing phenotypic plasticity in maturation schedules. Describing an organism's probability of maturing as a function of its age and size, PMRNs offer several beneficial features: (1) PMRNs overcome systematic biases that previously marred the estimation of deterministic matu- ration reaction norms for populations with probabilistic growth and maturation; (2) PMRNs remove the effects of varying mortality rates and average juvenile somatic growth rates from descriptions of maturation schedules; (3) PMRNs are defined at the level of individuals and can thus be treated as phenotypes when applying methods of quantitative genetics; (4) PMRNs serve as indispensable ingredients in process-based dynamical models of a population's age and size structure; and (5) PMRNs are readily extended to include effects on maturation of individual or environmental factors other than age and size. Owing to this combination of features, PMRNs allow many effects of phenotypic plasticity to be stripped away from the description of maturation schedules, so that residual trends are suggestive of genetic adaptation in maturation schedules. Here we review the historical developments that led to the introduction of PMRNs and address frequently asked ques- tions about their interpretation, utility, and application.


This article aims to better understand the complex role of technology in peer victimization events with recent depressive symptomatology and suicide ideation (SI). Telephone interviews were conducted with a national sample of 791 youth in the United States, aged 10 to 20 years, collected from December 2013 to March 2014. Rates of any peer harassment victimization varied by past month depressive symptomatology and SI —28% of youth with no/low depressive symptomatology reported past year peer harassment as did 43% of youth with high depressive symptomatology without SI, and 66% of youth with SI. When examining the role of technology in peer harassment, youth experiencing any mixed harassment (i.e., those incidents that occurred both in-person and through technology) were almost 4 times more likely to report past month depressive symptoms without SI (RRadj = 3.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.5, 10.0], p ≤ .01) and 7.5 times (95% CI = [1.9, 28.9], p ≤ .01) more likely to report past month SI compared with youth who had no past year peer harassment. Given the multilayered relationships among these variables, schools, medical, and mental health professionals might screen youth who are involved in higher risk peer victimization situations, for depressive symptoms and SI to improve their access to appropriate mental health services.


A comparison study of three Boundary Element Method approaches is attempted on the basis of a typical three-dimensional, dynamic soil-structure interaction problem. The vertical transient response of a square foundation resting on the surface of an elastic half-space and subjected to externally applied dynamic loads is obtained numerically using: i) a direct time domain step-by-step algorithm, ii) a Fourier transform formulation and solution of the problem, and subsequent inversion into the time domain, and iii) a Laplace transform formulation and solution of the problem followed by an inversion into the time domain. This study demonstrates a good agreement in the results obtained by all three methods. Moreover, a detailed discussion of the efficiency of each approach, as related to the required computer effort, is presented.


Various studies on the National Policy on Education (NPE) have concentrated on the cognitive value of pedagogy and learning of the language aspect but few have viewed its importance on the togetherness of the nation - Nigeria. This paper deals with how the language policy can influence and ensure the co-existence of Nigeria in achieving self-actualisation, national unity, social, cultural, economic, and educational advancement for collective benefit. It also reveals that, the language aspect of the NPE is also providing sustainable attempts using the three major languages in Nigeria – Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba - and English language as well. The paper suggests that, the language policy can be used to foster a desirable and the real Nigerianism philosophy of our forefathers. It moreover concludes and recommends that, Nigeria leaders should exhibit patriotism; shun the (audible and bodily) language of disintegration and division for the sake of national unity.


Background Ketogenic therapy (KT) in the form of ketogenic diets (KDs) and/or supplements that induce nutritional ketosis have gained interest as a complementary treatment for cancer patients. Besides putative anti-tumor effects, preclinical and preliminary clinical data indicate that KT could induce favorable changes in body composition of the tumor bearing host. Here we present first results of our ongoing KETOCOMP study (NCT02516501) study concerning body composition changes among rectal, breast and head & neck cancer (HNC) patients who underwent concurrent KT during standard-of-care radiotherapy (RT). Methods Eligible patients were assigned to one of three groups: (i) a standard diet group; (ii) a ketogenic breakfast group taking 50-250 ml of a medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) drink plus 10 g essential amino acids in the morning of RT days; (iii) a complete KD group supplemented with 10 g essential amino acids on RT days. Body composition was to be measured prior to and weekly during RT using 8-electrode bioimpedance analysis. Longitudinal data were analyzed using mixed effects linear regression. Results A total of 17 patients underwent KT during RT thus far (rectal cancer: n=6; HNC: n=6; breast cancer: n=5). All patients consuming a KD (n=14) reached nutritional ketosis and finished the study protocol with only minor problems reported. Compared to control subjects, the ketogenic intervention in rectal and breast cancer patients was significantly associated with a decline in fat mass over time (−0.3 and −0.5 kg/week, respectively), with no significant changes in skeletal muscle mass. In HNC patients, concurrent chemotherapy was the strongest predictor of body weight, fat free and skeletal muscle mass decline during radiotherapy, while KT showed significant opposite associations. Rectal cancer patients who underwent KT during neoadjuvant RT had significantly better tumor response at the time of surgery as assessed by the Dworak regression grade (median 3 versus 2, p=0.04483). Conclusions While sample sizes are still small our results already indicate some significant favorable effects of KT on body composition. These as well as a putative radiosensitizing effect on rectal tumor cells need to be confirmed once the final analysis of our study becomes possible.


Wearable technology is an important development in the field of rehabilitation as it has the potential to progress understanding of activity and function in various patient groups. For lower limb amputees, falls occur frequently, and are likely to affect function in the community. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to use wearable technology to assess activity and participation characteristics in the home and various community settings for transtibial amputee fallers and non-fallers. Participants were provided with an accelerometer-based activity monitor and global positioning system (GPS) device to record activity and participation data over a period of seven consecutive days. Data from the accelerometer and GPS were linked to assess community activity and participation. Forty-six transtibial amputees completed the study (79% male, 35% identified as fallers). Participants with a history of falls demonstrated significantly lower levels of community activity (p=0.01) and participation (p=0.02). Specifically, activity levels were reduced for recreational (p=0.01) and commercial roles (p=0.02), while participation was lower for recreational roles (p=0.04). These findings highlight the potential of wearable technology to assist in the understanding of activity and function in rehabilitation and to further emphasise the importance of clinical falls assessments to improve the overall quality of life in this population.


Aircraft design is a very complex process because several disciplines are involved at the same time: aerodynamics, structures, performances, propulsion, costs.
From this point of view, the real aircraft is a compromise between several requirements, often each conflicting with each other.
An important consequence of this research of a good compromise, is that, in general, the overall design process is a succession of blocks, each one connected with more blocks; this means that it is not easy to decide when to "freeze" a configuration.
The main goal of the present research is to propose the usage of numerical optimization concepts as a new approach for aircraft design and investigate the potentialities of this new approach.
Numerical optimization is the mathematical formulation of the optimum-finding problem; more in general, numerical optimization is central to any problem involving decision making, whether in engineering or in economics. The task of decision making entails choosing between various alternatives. This choice is governed by our desire to make the "best" decision. In this sense, numerical optimization can be applied also in design problems.
The main advantages of this approach are evidently, the opportunity to reduce design time and development costs. This is because any kind of parameters regarding the airfoil or more in general the aircraft and any kind of constraints are taken into account during the same block of optimization process. In other words, by using this approach it is possible to condensate several steps in one step only.
In order to "build" an optimization process, several ingredients are necessary:

• choice of optimization method
• choice of parameterization
• evaluation of objective function
• choice of constraints

In the present thesis the attention is focused on aerodynamic and performances aspects of the aircraft design, but the approach is very versatile and easy to adapt to different contexts.


Reinforcement learning provides a powerful and flexible framework for automated acquisition of robotic motion skills. However, applying reinforcement learning requires a sufficiently detailed representation of the state, including the configuration of task-relevant objects. We present an approach that automates state-space construction by learning a state representation directly from camera images. Our method uses a deep spatial autoencoder to acquire a set of feature points that describe the environment for the current task, such as the positions of objects, and then learns a motion skill with these feature points using an efficient reinforcement learning method based on local linear models. The resulting controller reacts continuously to the learned feature points, allowing the robot to dynamically manipulate objects in the world with closed-loop control. We demonstrate our method with a PR2 robot on tasks that include pushing a free-standing toy block, picking up a bag of rice using a spatula, and hanging a loop of rope on a hook at various positions. In each task, our method automatically learns to track task-relevant objects and manipulate their configuration with the robot's arm.


The present research was conducted to investigate the relationship between coping strategies and personality dimensions among gynecologists. Sample included gynecologists (N=100) was purposively selected from 3 public hospitals of Lahore city of Pakistan. Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOCQ) by Folkman, and Lazarus (1985) and Big Five Inventory by John and Kentle (1991) were used to measure the coping strategies and two personality dimensions; openness to experience and conscientiousness. Pearson product moment correlation was applied to find the relationship between two personality dimensions and different coping strategies. Hierarchical regression analysis was carried out to find the predictors of personality dimensions. Results showed that openness and conscientiousness had statistically significant correlation with problem-focused, self-blame and focusing on positive and problem focused, seeking social support and self blame turned out strongest predictors of openness and conscientiousness personality dimensions. Keywords: Coping strategies, Personality dimensions, Ways of coping questionnaire (WOCQ), Big Five Inventory (BFI).


In this work we present our participation in the ImageCLEF 2017 tuberculosis task. The task consists of detecting five tuberculosis (TB) types and predicting drug resistance from lung CT (Computed Tomography) volumes. Our approach is based on a previously developed non-parametric method. Tested on CT images of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients, it consists of describing each subject as a collection of local feature descriptors embedded in a dissimilarity space. The set of local features was extended for this work adding new 3D texture descriptors. The results shows that our approach is able to characterize several TB types, achieving a Cohen's Kappa coefficient of 0.1533, but does not suit for predicting drug resistance were it only achieved an AUC of 0.5241.


This paper reviews data on the compatibility of nasalization with manner and voicing features. First, it addresses the relations between nasalization and manner features and discusses the scales of nasalization spreading in the light of aerodynamic and acoustic factors. Second, it examines the interdependent relations between voicing and nasality. These observations lead to propose disfavoured sequences involving nasals. The paper argues that aerodynamic and acoustic interactions between features determine their likelihood to combine within segments and when segments follow each other.


Sharks of the family Carcharhinidae occurring in the nearshore waters (<5m depth) of Cleveland Bay, northern Queensland, were studied between June 1987 and February 1990. Specimens were collected using gillnets at three sites in Cleveland Bay, as well as demersal otter trawls throughout Cleveland Bay. The aims of the study were to examine the biology of the species of carcharhinid sharks that occur in the nearshore waters of Cleveland Bay and to determine the importance of this area to populations of carcharhinid sharks.

Thirteen species of the family Carcharhinidae were examined. One species - Rhizoprionodon taylori - was particularly abundant and most of the research was directed at this species. Of the remaining twelve species all were normally caught as juveniles. At least six species, not including R. taylori, utilise Cleveland Bay as a communal nursery area. Two patterns of nursery area utilisation were identified. Juvenile R. taylori also occurred, but their distribution overlapped with that of the adults. The importance of nearshore waters to populations of carcharhinid sharks, and the role that the sharks have in these areas, are discussed.

The distribution of R. taylori was analysed using catch rates from gillnets. There was no significant difference in the catch rate of R. taylori between bottom or surface set nets, or between nets set at each of the three main sampling sites. The catch rate of R. taylori was significantly different between seasons and years of this study, and was influenced by temperature, salinity, tidal variation and the amount of teleost by-catch. Mechanisms for the possible action of these factors are discussed.

Age and growth of R. taylori were studied using the techniques of vertebral ageing, back calculation and length frequency analysis. Vertebrae contained circuli produced annually in January or February, possibly as a result of stress during mating. The oldest male examined was 5.7 years old, and the oldest female 6.9 years. The age at maturity was one year. Von Bertalanffy growth parameters estimated from vertebral ageing data for males were to =0.41yr, K=1.337, L m= 652mm TL, and for females to =0.46yr, K=1.013, L = 733mm TL. Growth parameters estimated by length frequency and back calculation techniques concurred with those from vertebral ageing.

Stomach content analysis was used to investigate the food and feeding habits of R. taylori. The most common identifiable prey were members of the demersal teleost families Leiognathidae, Clupeidae and Teraponidae, the prawn family Penaeidae, and the squid family Loliginidae. 59.4% of specimens had no food in their stomachs. The mean weight of prey in the stomachs containing food was 14.1g (1.1% body weight), and the mean weight of original prey items (prior to digestion) was estimated to be 29.5g (2.3% body weight). It was estimated that individual R. taylori feed, on average, every two days, normally on a single prey item.

Maturity in R. taylori occurs at 560mm TL in males and 575mm TL in females. Mating occurs in late January and early February. Mature females mate every year, producing litters of one to ten offspring. The gestation period of 11.5 months is divided into an initial seven month period of embryonic diapause, followed by a 4.5 month period of development. During the diapause period embryos remain at the blastoderm stage. Nutrition of the embryos is initially lecithotrophic, however, embryos over 30mm TL have structures to absorb secretions from the uterus and a yolk sac placenta forms during the third month of development. The young of R. taylori are born in mid-January of each year at sizes ranging from 220 to 260mm TL.

The results indicate that R. taylori has an atypical life history when compared to other members of the family Carcharhinidae. Factors that may cause intra- and inter-specific variations in life history traits are discussed. Finally, the results are discussed in relation to the management of shark stocks and nearshore waters.


The reproductive cycle of the Norway lobster ( Nephrops norvegicus ) female was investigated to determine the size and age at onset of sexual maturity (SOM), as a baseline to establish the minimum catchable size. Samples were gathered in four seasonal (Spring 1986 - Winter 1987) trawl surveys on the Italian side of the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea). The relative frequency of females in different stages of maturation and in berried conditions was observed. According to the ovary stages, gonadal maturation is attained during Spring and Summer; berried animals occur almost exclusively in Summer and Autumn, in about 40% of the sample. Length structure changes slightly by location and by season; recruitment to the gear occurs more or less continuously. Gaussian components appear to be highly overlapped; the resolution of the length frequency distribution values leads to the identification of multiple cohorts, five of which were well represented. The population attains 50% of maturity at 30-32 mm CL, corresponding to an age of 5 years. The mean size of the first Gaussian component from the catch (about 22 mm CL) is well below the estimated size at 50% maturity, suggesting a precocious recruitment to the fishery.


The report describes measurements of the entry capacities of seven entries to grade-separated roundabouts. All entries were fed by exits from motorways. The objective of the study was to compare the entry capacities of these entries with those predicted by a 'unified' formula developed recently for at-grade roundabouts, and so to develop a capacity prediction method for grade-separated roundabouts. The entry capacities of the grade-separated roundabouts at the mean value of circulating flow did not differ significantly from the predictions of the unified formula. The entry/circulating flow relationships, however, were found to have steeper slopes than those appropriate to at-grade roundabouts. A modification to the 'unified formula' for the entry capacity of at-grade roundabouts has accordingly been derived so as to provide a method for predicting the capacities of grade-separated roundabouts. Observations have also been made at four of the entries after traffic engineering measures had been taken to try to improve their capacity. Increases in capacity between 15 and 40 per cent were achieved either by changes in the give-way arrangement or by the introduction of peak hour traffic signals. (Author/TRRL)


With the increased installations of distributed generators (DGs) within power systems, load flow analysis of distribution systems needs special models and algorithms to handle multiple sources. In this paper, the development of an unbalanced three-phase load flow algorithm that can handle multiple sources is described. This software is capable of switching the DG mode of operation from constant voltage to constant power factor. The algorithm to achieve this in the presence of multiple DGs is proposed. Shipboard power systems (SPS) have other special characteristics apart from multiple sources, which make the load flow difficult to converge. The developed software is verified for a distribution system without DG using the Radial Distribution Analysis Package (RDAP). The developed software analyzes an IEEE test case and an icebreaker ship system. System studies for the IEEE 37-node feeder without the regulator show the effect of different models and varying DG penetration related to the increase in loading. System losses and voltage deviations are compared.


Generative search engines directly generate responses to user queries, along with in-line citations. A prerequisite trait of a trustworthy generative search engine is verifiability, i.e., systems should cite comprehensively (high citation recall; all statements are fully supported by citations) and accurately (high citation precision; every cite supports its associated statement). We conduct human evaluation to audit four popular generative search engines -- Bing Chat, NeevaAI, perplexity.ai, and YouChat -- across a diverse set of queries from a variety of sources (e.g., historical Google user queries, dynamically-collected open-ended questions on Reddit, etc.). We find that responses from existing generative search engines are fluent and appear informative, but frequently contain unsupported statements and inaccurate citations: on average, a mere 51.5% of generated sentences are fully supported by citations and only 74.5% of citations support their associated sentence. We believe that these results are concerningly low for systems that may serve as a primary tool for information-seeking users, especially given their facade of trustworthiness. We hope that our results further motivate the development of trustworthy generative search engines and help researchers and users better understand the shortcomings of existing commercial systems.


We present an algorithm for imputation of incomplete datasets based on Bayesian exchangeability through Polya sampling. Each (donee) unit with a missing value is imputed multiple times by observed (real) values on units from a donor pool. The donor pools are constructed using auxiliary variables. Several features from kernel estimation are used to counteract unbalances that are due to sparse and bounded data. Three balancing features can be used with only one single continuous auxiliary variable, but an additional fourth feature need, multiple continuous auxiliary variables. They mainly contribute by reducing nonresponse bias. We examine how the donor pool size should be determined, that is the number of potential donors within the pool. External information is shown to be easily incorporated in the imputation algorithm. Our simulation studies show that with a study variable which can be seen as a function of one or two continuous auxiliaries plus residual noise, the method performs as well or almost as well as competing methods when the function is linear, but usually much better when the function is nonlinear.


There are many socio-demographic risks factors for pulmonary tuberculosis. However there are limited studies done in Delhi. The objective of the study to determine the socio-demographic risk factors associated with confirmed TB patients registered in Dots centre of Delhi. Method this was hospital based study a case was defined as individual 17- 20 years. Then 21-55 years age group has clubbed. Results Occupational levels of the subjects indicate that in settled population males are involved in private jobs 48.6%. While 55% females are house wives, 26.1% males are self-employed, 24.5 % females are students in settled population. Similarly in migrated population 58.7% males are in private jobs and 26.4 % are students and 70.5 % females are house wives and 15.4 % females are students.


ABSTRACT Personal pornography viewing has been associated with lower sexual satisfaction in both experimental and observational research. The language used to hypothesize this relationship typically suggests that it is frequent viewing, rather than infrequent or only occasional viewing, that is responsible for any adverse effects. When the nature of the relationship between a predictor and a criterion depends on the levels of the predictor, a curvilinear relationship is indicated. Nevertheless, studies have assumed linearity in their analytical approach. Curvilinear relationships will go undetected unless they are specifically tested. This article presents results from a survey of approximately 1,500 U.S. adults. Quadratic analyses indicated a curvilinear relationship between personal pornography viewing and sexual satisfaction in the form of a predominately negative, concave downward curve. The nature of the curvilinearity did not differ as a function of participants' gender, relationship status, or religiosity. But the negative acceleration was slightly more pronounced for men than for women, for people not in a relationship than for people in a relationship, and for religious people than for nonreligious people. For all groups, negative simple slopes were present when viewing reached once a month or more. These results are correlational only. However, if an effects perspective were adopted, it would suggest that consuming pornography less than once a month has little or no impact on satisfaction, that reductions in satisfaction tend to initiate once viewing reaches once a month, and that additional increases in the frequency of viewing lead to disproportionately larger decrements in satisfaction.


Meta-learning models transfer the knowledge acquired from previous tasks to quickly learn new ones. They are trained on benchmarks with a fixed number of data points per task. This number is usually arbitrary and it is unknown how it affects performance at testing. Since labelling of data is expensive, finding the optimal allocation of labels across training tasks may reduce costs. Given a fixed budget of labels, should we use a small number of highly labelled tasks, or many tasks with few labels each? Should we allocate more labels to some tasks and less to others?
We show that: 1) If tasks are homogeneous, there is a uniform optimal allocation, whereby all tasks get the same amount of data; 2) At fixed budget, there is a trade-off between number of tasks and number of data points per task, with a unique solution for the optimum; 3) When trained separately, harder task should get more data, at the cost of a smaller number of tasks; 4) When training on a mixture of easy and hard tasks, more data should be allocated to easy tasks. Interestingly, Neuroscience experiments have shown that human visual skills also transfer better from easy tasks. We prove these results mathematically on mixed linear regression, and we show empirically that the same results hold for few-shot image classification on CIFAR-FS and mini-ImageNet. Our results provide guidance for allocating labels across tasks when collecting data for meta-learning.


Requirements engineering (RE) practices are critical to success during the development of business software. As managers assess RE practices, they apply specific perspectives that determine problems identified and recommendations for improvement. Two perspectives have recently dominated managerial thinking within the software industry, one rooted in software process improvement and the other rooted in agile software development. Underpinning these perspectives are two theories about what constitutes good software practice. In this paper, we explicate these theories in relation to RE and show how they differ in basic assumptions about the nature of requirements, requirements capture, requirements usage, change management, and approach to improvement. The repeat-ability theory holds that good requirements practices are plan-driven and follow generic best practices to arrive at an agreed-upon baseline of software requirements. Response-ability holds that good requirements practices are adaptive and involve close interaction between customers and developers to arrive at satisfactory software solutions. We use case study data from a software firm, TelSoft, to show how the theories lead to different interpretations about why current practices are problematic and how problems are resolved. Relating to the improvement strategy adopted at TelSoft, we demonstrate the superiority, for managers, of negotiating response-ability and repeat-ability concerns when improving RE practices. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for research and practice.


Mutual Funds is a specialized financial institution that is invested by funds investors in diversed portfolio of investment securities, in return their investment units assigned to them. Each unit of investment fund is the relative representation of securities that is bought or managed on behalf of investers. Mutual fund as one of the most important financial intermediares are responsible to the transfer of weelth from consumers (society) to the resource owners (manufacturing and service companies, and others). With the creation of common investment funds, due to professional management and investment strategies, according to willingness and ability to take risks, investors have been able to enter the house of investors and capital market participants by management fee of common investment funds. Clearly, for developing of this process, the positive points in common investment funds should be strengthened, to lead more investors to take advantages of the funds. The purpose of this paper is introducing the common investment funds to develop and strengthen funds more and lead more investors to take advantages of the funds. Research methodology of this paper is descriptive and content analysis by using reliable sources.


PROFESSOR REGAN: Well, good morning and welcome back from your break. My name is Paul Regan and I'm a professor at Widener Law School. Originally, I was to have been on the earlier interesting panel on corporate litigation into the next century, but I'm substituting for Professor Stilson on this panel who was unable to be with us this morning. It falls to us to bring to you the last segment of this very interesting conference and it's been very pleasurable to be here the last couple of days with such distinguished speakers, and this panel is no exception. It's my privilege to be on this panel with such esteemed colleagues. The first member I'd like you to meet, on my immediate left, is Peter Atkins who is an M&A partner at Skadden, Arps in New York. Further to my left is Art Fleischer, from the firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. Peter and Art are both very experienced practitioners in this field and appropriate presenters for us on this topic today of the practitioner's prognosis. And we, on this panel, will also hazard some predictions about the near and long-term future. Sharing responsibilities with me as a commentator is Vice-Chancellor Stephen Lamb of the Delaware Court of Chancery. We are all most grateful for the time and insight which our Delaware judges have contributed to the conference, and I know all of us are looking forward to Vice-Chancellor Lamb's remarks as well. So without further ado, Peter, you can kick us off. Thanks. MR. ATKINS: It is a real pleasure to be here ? although I almost declined the invitation. Somehow I had a hard time imagining myself publicly prognosticating about what would happen over the next 100 years ? even in a very targeted area of human endeavor. However, I decided to say yes. Mostly because it seemed like an interesting exercise ? to peek above the trenches and look into the future of corporate law. Also, I recognized that it is quite unlikely that I'll be around at the next centennial symposium to see how off-base I was. Having said yes, naturally, as a good corporate lawyer, the first thing I did was to make a list. I've kept it short in the interests of time ? there are many other subjects that could be added. My thought was to pick out a few topics which seemed to have a potential for influencing the direction and nature of the practice of corporate law well into next century. For better or worse, I now have such a list. Your lists may be quite different. However, I would like to say a few words about each of the items on mine. These items are: The impact of globalization The impact of information technology developments Corporate governance and director responsibility And finally, change in control in the unsolicited bid context


This exploratory qualitative study examines various culturally specific interventions practitioners use to support the mental health needs of adolescent immigrants and refugees. Studies have noted that resilience, family involvement, peer support, art-based interventions, school-based interventions, and accessible community resources are all protective factors that promote positive mental health outcomes for adolescents adjusting to a new host country. The researcher conducted eight semi-structured interviews with three licensed clinical social workers (LICSW), one licensed graduate social worker (LGSW), one psychotherapist with a doctorate in psychology, a school counselor, and two clinical counselors. All of the participants of the study serve the refugee and immigrant adolescent population directly. The author used an analytic induction method, transcribing and coding the interviews with the research Chair for reliability checks. Seven themes emerged in the literature to analyze for this study: 1) Protective Factors 2) Parent/Family Involvement in the Adolescent's Therapeutic Process 3) Expressive Arts Interventions 4) Multi-Disciplinary Teams 5) Group Work 6) Cultural Brokers 7) Culturally Responsive Clinician. There were four additional themes that emerged from the data collection: 1) Not enough providers 2) Parents misunderstanding of the mental health provider's role 3) Physical Discipline 4) Mindfulness Interventions. The study found culturally responsive clinicians are using interventions that acknowledge the protective factors and build off of these factors in their treatment of adolescent immigrants and refugees. Clinicians who are immigrants themselves, bilingual, or bicultural were found to be more culturally competent. However, the systemic barriers that immigrant and refugee families face, the cultural stigma, language barriers and parents' lack of education make it challenging for immigrant and non-immigrant clinicians to implement culturally relevant interventions such as involving parents in the treatment. The INTERVENTIONS FOR ADOLESCENT IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES 4 study found the use of multi-disciplinary teams and group work interventions are rare, despite clinicians' awareness of their efficacy and desire to implement them in practice. Additional practice-based and evidence-based, empirical research pertaining to the efficacy and effectiveness of culturally appropriate, applied treatments specifically for the adolescent immigrants and refugees is greatly needed.


The aim of this sociology of law-orientated article is to analyse and describe legislative and regulatory processes concerning the task given to schools focusing on environment and sustainable development. We are describing the policy-making processes in this field from 1990 to 2011. The study involves key interviews and content analysis of national policy documents as well as legal sources, in order to describe and categorize legal norms that society, through its political and administrative institutions, highlight in school activities. The article takes a starting point in a model developed by Lindensjo and Lundgren, who used the terms arena of formulation and arena of realization, to illustrate what is happening with policy at national level. The policy-making processes and their results are in the end interpreted and understood through a perspective based on the concept of inertia and path dependence. It is evident as a result that the legal changes on the national political level are not hindering the continuing policy-making development and enactment of sustainable development on the professional administrative national arena. (Less)


An $r$-edge-coloring of a graph is an assignment of $r$ colors to the edges of the graph. An exactly $r$-edge-coloring of a graph is an $r$-edge-coloring of the graph that uses all $r$ colors. A matching of an edge-colored graph is called rainbow matching , if no two edges have the same color in the matching. In this paper, we prove that an exactly $r$-edge-colored complete graph of order $n$ has a rainbow matching of size $k(\ge 2)$ if $r \ge max\{{2k-3\choose 2}+2, {k-2\choose 2}+(k-2)(n-k+2)+2 \}$, $k \ge 2$, and $n \ge 2k+1$. The bound on $r$ is best possible.


Construction, improvement and maintenance of beaches through the artificial deposition of sand on the shore is rapidly gaining prominence in the field of shore protection engineering. The trend toward this type of shore improvement has resulted from our changing economy, modes of transportation and recreational habits. As our mode of transportation improved and people had more time for recreation, beach resorts developed and grew to proportions typified by Atlantic City, N. J. Numerous factors control the growth of a resort of this size but undoubtedly all will agree that it is the beach which is the resorts' primary asset. This fact was recognized very early in resort development and every effort was made to preserve the beaches from the ravages of the sea. Unfortunately the science of shore protection lagged behind resort development and beaches soon became covered with a maze of structures which discouraged rather than encouraged their use. At this point something had to be done to restore the beaches to their original attractiveness. The obvious means for this improvement was to eliminate all structures as far as possible and to replace the beach material which had been removed. Was it possible that such plans could succeed? Careful study convinced a number of engineers that beach restoration employing artificial nourishment had possibilities and in some instances might be the most economical as well as best method of improvement. More importantly, there has developed a growing recognition of the fact that preventing erosion by means of protective structures is a dangerous practice, in the sense that in many cases such protection is secured at the expense of producing an ever expanding problem area. Artificial nourishment, on the other hand, benefits not only the shore upon which it is placed but adjoining shores as well. The economic merit of this type of treatment has often been difficult to evaluate because of uncertainties in prospective maintenance cost and in determination of the extent of shore which would be benefited. It is needless to say here that although the method has been employed without a complete understanding of all the factors controlling an ideal installation the results have been gratifying.


Most curve-fitting procedures deal with an unknown, variable baseline by modeling it with a function involving a number of parameters. In view of the facts that (1) there is often no analytically relevant information in the baseline, and (2) there is usually no functional form known, a priori, for the baseline, we have chosen to eliminate it by means of the second-derivative transformation. The resulting profile is deconvoluted by fitting it with the second derivative of the sum of an appropriate number of component curves. The utility of this procedure is demonstrated on simulated data with typical baselines and noise levels, and on real FT-IR data. Peak parameters (such as position, width, and area) obtained from this technique are comparable to those obtained by fitting the original spectrum with Lorentzian curves and a simple baseline. The major advantage of this procedure is the reduction in the number of parameters that must be optimized in the fitting method. Applications of the technique could eliminate contributions from other complex baseline profiles in the quantitative analysis of spectral components.


We analyzed the functional and binding properties of the "normal" pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (N-PACAP) type I, PACAP type II/vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP)1, and chimeric N-PACAP/VIP1 receptors expressed in Chinese hamster ovary cells. The binding properties of the three receptors were investigated using three radioiodinated tracers: 125I-VIP, 125I-PACAP-27, and 125I-PACAP-29 (125I-PACAP-27-Gly28,Lys29-amide). The three tracers labeled very different receptor densities; 125I-PACAP-29 labeled more receptors than either 125I-VIP or 125I-PACAP-27 in the three cell lines. Analysis of the competition curves suggested that the three tracers labeled in a different manner three PACAP I receptor states, two PACAP II/VIP1 receptor states, and three chimeric N-PACAP/VIP1 receptor states in transfected Chinese hamster ovary cells. The previously described PACAP1A and PACAP1B receptors, which differ by their affinities for PACAP-27 and PACAP-38, actually correspond to different PACAP I receptor states. The three receptors were able to increase adenylate cyclase activity when activated by PACAP-38, PACAP-27, or VIP. In contrast with the two parent receptors, the chimeric N-PACAP/VIP1 receptor was activated by PACAP-38 at lower concentrations than PACAP-27, suggesting that the amino-terminal and core receptor domains influence each other and that the conformation of one or both domains was altered in the chimeric compared with wild-type receptors. Comparison of the binding and functional properties of three clones expressing different chimeric N-PACAP/VIP1 receptors densities indicated that 125I-PACAP-29 was necessary to correctly estimate the receptor number and that 125I-PACAP-27 or 125I-VIP labeled only a fraction of the functional receptors. We suspect (but could not demonstrate) that this might also be true for PACAP I and PACAP II/VIP1 receptors.


The steep drop in the U.S. personal saving rate over the last decade has fueled speculation that Americans are spending recklessly. But alternative measures of personal saving show that households are actually setting aside a larger share of their resources than the official figures suggest. In addition, government saving has risen markedly, leading to an increase in overall domestic saving that has helped finance a surge in U.S. investment.


Abstract
Research in the area of alternative conceptions in Science has been
suggesting that students hold conceptualisations which are different from
those learned at school. This thesis aims to investigate possible structured
patterns of commonsense reasoning about the physical world present in the
way students (ranging from 8-9 year old to undergraduate students of
Physics) conceptualise entities in Science.
The theoretical framework was developed mainly from previous Piagetian
studies (see Mariani and Ogborn 1990, 1991) about the child's construction
of reality (Piaget 1937), particularly in what concerns the fundamental role
of actions in this construction, and also with a basis in some more recent
studies on the representation of knowledge in the area of the cognitive
sciences.
With a basis in this theoretical framework some very fundamental
'ontological' questions were addressed to the students about a selected
group of entities (Can you touch it? or Can you create it? etc.). Also students
were asked to compare entities and to locate them in a given number of
'ontological' dimensions (static or dynamic, cause or effect, etc.)
The empirical data was collected with the use of questionnaires and
interviews. The sample consisted of five different agelinstructional groups of
Brazilian students. Multidimensional scaling was used to analyse the
quantitative data. The qualitative data was analysed using a systemic
network with which different answers given by students could be classified.
The general result of the quantitative analysis was a common fourdimensional
'ontological' space for all five groups, with the dimensions
being interpreted in the same way as in a previous published pilot study
(Mariani and Ogborn, 1991), and being fundamentally related to the
distinctions static or dynamic, place or localized, cause or motion and
immaterial fluid (continuous) or action (discrete). In these spaces entities can
be located and may change their positions with different agelinstructional
groups. The results of the qualitative analysis give some more support to
these quantitative results.


This document specifies a framework to build HIP-based (Host Identity Protocol) overlay networks. This framework uses HIP to perform connection management. Other functions, such as data storage and retrieval or overlay maintenance, are implemented using protocols other than HIP. These protocols are loosely referred to as "peer protocols".


New road infrastructure projects are important and constitute of large investments that have to serve the society for a long time. The investments have to be durable at the lowest life cycle cost and the pavements have to sustain loads from increasing traffic intensity and heavy traffic loads. In Sweden less than 1 ‰ of the national road network consists of concrete pavements. In parts of Europe and in the U.S., on the other hand, concrete roads are used to a large extent for highways as well as rural roads. To encourage the competition between different road materials in Sweden, the tools for designing robust concrete pavements have to be brought forward. In order to emphasize plain concrete pavements as an alternative in road construction, the design must also be competitive. The current Swedish design method for concrete pavements is straightforward but offers no flexibility when designing roads with, for instance higher traffic loads. The method calculates concrete thicknesses on the conservative side since only a limited number of parameters are treated. Modern methods that take into account many more parameters in the design are being developed internationally. For a new Swedish design method, these parameters have to be established for actual conditions in Sweden. Also, the design has to be flexible and meet the demands from contractors and clients for a wider use. The aim of this project is to develop a new design method for plain concrete pavements that is more flexible than today. A new design method is also intended for the Swedish Road Administrations' (SRA) computer based public design guide, PMS Objekt. Information for a new design method has been assembled mainly by investigating two newly developed design methods, VENCON2.0 in the Netherlands, and the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) in the USA. Comparative calculations between the Swedish design method and the MEPDG are presented. The comparison is made on the level of input parameters and highlights the advantageous aspects of a semi-mechanistic design procedure where the functional properties of a concrete pavement are calculated incrementally over the design period. Plain and lean concrete, separately, but also the in composite beams, have been studied in flexural fatigue testing. The results show that Tepfers' fatigue criterion is valid for both plain and lean concrete when subjected to flexural fatigue loading. The results also show that the fatigue strength of composite beams of plain and lean concrete is mainly dependent on the strength of the lean concrete but that Tepfers' fatigue criterion is applicable. The bond between plain in lean concrete is found to be strong and fatigue resistant, making the composite section able to accommodate higher stresses. The bond nevertheless contributes to the risk for reflection cracks in the plain concrete wear layer and a recommendation to focus on stresses in the bottom of the lean concrete is formulated. Also, well distributed expansion joints in the lean concrete are necessary. A new project for measuring temperature gradients for use in concrete pavement design is also presented. This is done with means of concrete prisms placed in the pavement and are done in order to establish actual temperature gradients for various locations in Sweden. Also, the nonlinear gradients that act in the pavement as well as the negative temperature gradients will be analysed for the use in the design. Finally, the thesis outlines a new design method for Swedish conditions. The method is possible to develop gradually and is based on FE-analysis for fast computations. In the design, stresses from traffic and temperature loads are calculated simultaneously in a number of critical locations in the concrete slab. The method will also make it possible to alter design features as slab lengths and widths, with various connections between the slabs.


Romanticism though in its beginning little concerned with politics or the state, prepared the rise of German nationalism after 1800. It was an aesthetic revolution, a resort to imagination, almost feminine in its sensibility; it was poetry more deeply indebted to the spirit of music than the poetry of the eighteenth century had been, rich in emotional depth, more potent in magic evocation. But German romanticism was and wished to be more than poetry. It was an interpretation of life, nature and history—and this philosophic character distinguished it from romanticism in other lands. It was sharply opposed to the rationalism of the eighteenth century; it mobilized the fascination of the past to fight against the principles of 1789. In that indirect way romanticism came to concern itself with political and social life and with the state. It never developed a program for a modern German nation-state, but with its emphasis on the peculiarity of the German mind it helped the growth of a consciousness of German uniqueness.


An examination of research and information needs in urban hydrology
suggested the investigation of urban water balances and micro-
hydrological processes. This should facilitate more accurate modelling
of the rainfall-runoff process from urban impermeable surfaces.
Greater London data produced annual water balances for 5 heavily
urbanized Thames tributaries and estimates of the annual yield ranging
from 12-72%. Mean annual runoff for largely rural basins in South
East England in comparison was 15-44% of rainfall. The inadequacy of
the data for water balance studies led to the instrumentation of a small
urbanized catchment at Redbourn, Hertfordshire.
Standard meteorological measures were recorded. New instrumentation
was designed to measure runoff from shallow pitched roofs while
commercially produced instruments were adapted and installed to monitor
runoff from a block of flat asphalt-and-chippings garage roofs, and
runoff from asphalt roads and pavements at the highway drain outfall.
Runoff from these impermeable surfaces is less than 100% even during
winter months when evaporation is low. Percentage runoff is 76% for
both the pitched and flat roofs while that from the paved surfaces is
only 17%. Despite differences in slope, runoff volumes from the
pitched and flat roofs are almost identical suggesting that the flat
roof does not afford much greater depression storage and evaporation
losses. The flat roof does however attenuate storm runoff producing lower
flow rates and longer runoff duration than the pitched roofs. Road
runoff is very low because of infiltration. The calculated depression
storage is 0.25 mm for both roof types and 1.00 mm for the road surface.
An average water balance compiled for the roofs gave evaporation as the
residual 19% of rainfall. Using an average roof evaporation rate in
the road surface water balance gave infiltration as 36% of rainfall with
17% runoff, 21% evaporation and 26% depression storage.
Runoff from metre-square roof samples produced slightly different
percentage runoff figures for the same winter period. Average percent
runoff from red Redland 49 tiles (set at 30°) was 98%, grey Stonewold
tiles (set at 17½°) produced 85% and asphalt roofing felt produced 38%
runoff. These results are evaluated in the light of probable errors in
measurements.


The implementation of ICT in Africa pales in comparison with developed economies. Data of the use of landline phones, cellular phones and internet connectivity indicates that the most equipped African countries, of which there are only a handful, are worse off than the poorly connected countries in developed regions such as the European Union. Africa also lacks in other requirements for the use of ICT: literacy, infrastructure and access. It is concluded that poverty on one hand, and a top-down implementation of ICT on the other are the major contributing factors of the poor implementation of ICT in Africa. This impacts on the use of ICT to capture and distribute community memories. As the situation has not improved over the past decade despite good intentions, it seems that this problem will continue for several decades into the future, thus increasing the digital divide, resulting in the inability of the larger proportion of African communities to capture their memories.


Work in design and technology can provide a unique insight into quality through the process of evaluation. However , this is a two-edged sword in that evaluation can expose children ' s work to the perceived cold, hard light of public scrutiny. For many children at Key Stages 1 and 2 , evaluation can be a daunting , high-risk enterprise due to a lack of self-esteem . Drawing upon case study evidence from work with children in schools , a number of strategies are proposed for children to develop a critical awareness of products and through this, a more confident approach to evaluating their designing and making . These include a graduation from evaluating familiar products made or produced by others , with a key emphasis on food , to evaluation of their own designing and making through the support of ' critical friends ' within a group context . It is proposed that product evaluation should be a key feature of primary teaching, based upon regular, simple and brief whole class and group teaching sessions .


In the first half of the 20th century, white adipose tissue (WAT) was mainly viewed as an isolated tissue protecting the organism from heat loss and a passive energy storage compartment. Similarly to other species such as Drososophila melanogaster , it is now well recognised that mammalian fat tissue is not solely a reservoir for excess nutrients but also an active and dynamic organ involved in the development of metabolic syndromes and the regulation of immunity and inflammation. The older anatomical literature repeatedly mentions a close association between adipose tissue and lymphoid organs in various mammals including humans, suggesting a potential role of WAT in the host immune response. Several recent studies indicate that adipocytes could function as macrophage-like cells1 as they express receptors related to the innate immune system and secrete major mediators of inflammation, such as tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα). Consistent with this hypothesis,2 the biology of adipocytes is particularly implicated in chronic diseases, such as obesity3 and atherosclerosis.4

This review will focus on the normal and pathophysiological functions of mesenteric WAT (mWAT), which may play an important role in the inflammatory and fibrotic processes in Crohn's disease, a frequent and complex form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Long considered as the "anatomists' Cinderella",5 mWAT is now recognised as a multifunctional organ. Notably located around organs such as the gut or the lungs, adipocytes may have evolved strategies to drive immune responses to microbial invaders by expressing different innate immune sensors. In addition its function as a storage organ, WAT plays a major endocrine and immune role by expressing several hormones and various mediators (fig 1). To clarify the nomenclature, we will refer to the hormones and immunomodulatory molecules derived from adipocytes as adipormones and adipocytokines, respectively.

 Figure 1
 Adipormones, adipocytokines and their receptors. …


This monograph studies cognitive operations on cognitive models across levels and domains of meaning construction. It explores in what way the same set of cognitive operations, either in isolation or in combination, account for meaning representation whether obtained on the basis of inferential activity or through constructional composition. As a consequence, it makes explicit links between constructional and figurative meaning. The pervasiveness of cognitive operations is explored across the levels of meaning construction (argument, implicational, illocutionary, and discourse structure) distinguished by the Lexical Constructional Model. This model is a usage-based approach to language that reconciles insights from functional and cognitive linguistics and offers a unified account of the principles and constraints that regulate both inferential activity and the constructional composition of meaning. This book is of value to scholars with an interest in linguistic evidence of cognitive activity in meaning construction. The contents relate to the fields of Cognitive Grammar, Cognitive Semantics, Construction Grammar, Functional Linguistics, and Inferential Pragmatics.


Within 21 months Blue Bell reduced its inventory by more than 31 percent, from 371 to 256 million dollars, with no decrease in sales or services by applying management science models. A combination of innovative problem solving and enthusiastic management support ensured success. Many of the models are standard, but a new marker design and selection model makes the systems approach practical. Management paid close attention to systems development and provided resources that enhanced the effectiveness of the project.


It is crucial to grasp wheel-rail contact forces in the evaluation of running safety and curving performance of railway vehicles. To measure the wheel-rail contact forces, instrumented wheelset, which has the strain gauges on the wheel surface, is widely used. The purpose of this research is to increase the measurement accuracy of the wheel-rail contact forces by understanding the detailed characteristics of the instrumented wheelset. Although the various researches on the instrumented wheelset have been carried out to increase the measurement accuracy of wheel-rail contact forces, there are few works considering the longitudinal force and the lateral shift of the wheel-rail contact point. However, sometimes the longitudinal force has a non-negligible influence on the measurement accuracy on the instrumented wheelset. In this paper, the authors clarify the cross-sensitivity characteristics of the instrumented wheelset when the longitudinal force is applied to the various lateral position on the wheel tread through the FEM analysis and the static load test. The authors also propose a method to approximate the cross-sensitivity as an analytical function of the lateral and circumferential contact positions.


This article discusses the role of valency as a lexico-grammatical phenomenon which can only be fully accounted for in terms of such concepts as Sinclair's idiom principle. It is argued that insights from corpus linguistics and foreign language linguistics can be accommodated in cognitive approaches such as Construction Grammar. The article outlines various levels of abstraction involved in a valency description and argues that although to a certain extent generalizations can be made, the idiosyncratic nature of valency should not be underestimated. Using largely data from the Valency Dictionary of English, it is shown that this is true of practically all levels of a valency description, ranging from correspondences of valency patterns and the meanings of the items to the lexical realization of particular complements.


Abstract: In a life‐cycle assessment (LCA) involving only one of several products from the same process, how are the resource consumption and the emissions associated with this process to be partitioned and distributed over these co‐products? This is the central question in co‐product allocation, which has been one of the most controversial issues in the development of the methodology for life‐cycle assessment, as it may significantly influence or even determine the result of the assessments. In this article, it is shown that in prospective life‐cycle assessments, co‐product allocation can always be avoided by system expansion. Through a number of examples, it is demonstrated how system expansion is performed, with special emphasis on issues that earlier have been a focus of the allocation debate, such as joint production (e.g., of chlorine and sodium hydroxide, zinc and heavy metals, and electricity and heat), the handling of "near‐to‐waste" by‐products, processes simultaneously supplying services to multiple product systems, and credits for material recycling and downcycling. It is shown that all the different co‐product situations can be covered by the same theoretical model and the same practical procedure, and that it is also possible to include the traditional co‐product allocation as a special case of the presented procedure. The uncertainty aspects of the presented procedure are discussed. A comparison is made with the procedure of ISO 14041, "Life‐cycle assessment—Goal and scope definition and inventory analysis," the international standard.


The issue of management of international rivers has proven to be a difficult subject to deal with at major international fora. Even though the subject has become increasingly important since the 1970s, international organizations are conspicuous by their absence in this area in terms of playing an active role in facilitating operational agreements. The paper briefly reviews developments in this since 1972. It provides a historical background to how the Register of International Rivers was prepared in 1976 and published in 1978. This document is widely quoted, but one would be hard pressed to identify a single reference in recent years that is correct. This probably indicates that very few people have actually read it, but are quoting the text from secondary and tertiary sources.