Background: Breast cancer survivors often perceive reduced work ability upon returning to work. Objectives: To identify predictors of perceived reduced work ability following return to work among women treated for breast cancer and to describe workplace interventions and support after returning to work. Methods: A questionnaire was sent to 18-65 years-old women (no. 1578) treated for breast cancer and residing in the catchment area of the Bologna Local Health Authority between 2010 and 2012. The study population was identified through a Hospital Discharge Database. The questionnaires included items about personal characteristics, cancer and work-related factors, perceived work ability and the return to work process. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of reduced work ability upon returning to work. Results: Among the 841 respondents, 503 questionnaires were evaluable. In the study, 43.5% of the respondents reported reduced work ability with respect to the pre-diagnosis period. Reduced work ability was more common in non-cohabiting (OR=1.81, 95%CI 1.10-2.98) than in cohabiting/married women, and after mastectomy (OR=2.77, 95%CI 1.26-6.11) than after breast-conserving surgery. Office staff/sales assistants and managers were less likely to report reduced work ability (OR=0.51, 95%CI 0.30-0.88 and OR=0.21, 95%CI 0.06-0.76, respectively) than labourers. Women who perceived reduced work ability reported more frequently adjustment of work assignments, consultation of an occupational physician, insufficient support from employers and colleagues and discrimination. Conclusions: Reduced work ability is commonly perceived among women who return to work after treatment for breast cancer. Occupational physicians and general practitioners should be aware of a wide range of factors influencing this perception in order to facilitate a successful return to work.


Generalization to out-of-distribution data has been a problem for Visual Question Answering (VQA) models. To measure generalization to novel questions, we propose to separate them into "skills" and "concepts". "Skills" are visual tasks, such as counting or attribute recognition, and are applied to "concepts" mentioned in the question, such as objects and people. VQA methods should be able to compose skills and concepts in novel ways, regardless of whether the specific composition has been seen in training, yet we demonstrate that existing models have much to improve upon towards handling new compositions. We present a novel method for learning to compose skills and concepts that separates these two factors implicitly within a model by learning grounded concept representations and disentangling the encoding of skills from that of concepts. We enforce these properties with a novel contrastive learning procedure that does not rely on external annotations and can be learned from unlabeled image-question pairs. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for improving compositional and grounding performance.1


An experimental investigation was conducted on the internal flowfield of a simulated smooth-wall turbine blade cooling passage. The square cross-sectioned passage was manufactured from quartz for optical accessibility. Velocity measurements were taken using Particle Image Velocimetry for both heated and non-heated cases. Thin film resistive heaters on all four exterior walls of the passage allowed heat to be added to the coolant flow without obstructing laser access. Under the same conditions, an infrared detector with associated optics collected wall temperature data for use in calculating local Nusselt number. The test section was operated with radial outward flow and at values of Reynolds number and Rotation number typical of a small turbine blade. The density ratio was 0.27. Velocity data for the non-heated case document the evolution of the Coriolis-induced double vortex. The vortex has the effect of disproportionately increasing the leading side boundary layer thickness. Also, the streamwise component of the Coriolis acceleration creates a considerably thinned side wall boundary layer. Additionally, these data reveal a highly unsteady, turbulent flowfield in the cooling passage. Velocity data for the heated case show a strongly distorted streamwise profile indicative of a buoyancy effect on the leading side of the passage. Heat transfermore » data show a maximum factor of two difference in the Nusselt number from trailing side to leading side. A first-order estimate of this heat transfer disparity based on the measured boundary layer edge velocity yields approximately the same factor of two. A momentum integral model was developed for data interpretation, which accounts for coriolis and buoyancy effects. Calculated streamwise profiles and secondary flows match the experimental data well.« less


Despite some of the blustery rhetoric attendant to the ongoing market transition, lawyers and the market for legal services are not going away. Lawyers serve integral roles in a wide variety of social and political systems. Their work supports the proper functioning of markets and helps individuals and organizations vindicate their respective rights. At the same time, the processes associated with completing their work — as well as the contours of their respective expertise and judgment — are already changing. These changes are being driven by a number of economic and technological trends, many of which Larry Ribstein identified in a series of important articles published in the years before his untimely death. This Essay is offered as part of a symposium honoring the work of the late Larry Ribstein. This Essay is a thought exercise about a hypothetical MIT School of Law — an institution with the type of curriculum that might help prepare students to have the appropriate level of substantive legal expertise and other useful skills that will allow them to deliver value to their clients as well as develop and administer the rules governing markets, politics, and society as we move further into the 21st Century. It is a blueprint based upon the best available information, and like any other plan of action would need to be modified to take stock of shifting realities over time. It is not a solution for all of legal education. Instead, it is a targeted description of an institution and its substantive content that could compete very favorably in the existing and future market. It is a depiction of an institution whose students would arguably be in high demand. It is a high-level sketch of an institution that would be substantively relevant, appropriately practical, theoretically rigorous and world class. Part I offers an introduction to the question. Part II sets the stage by highlighting several recent trends in the market for legal services. Taking stock of those trends, Part III highlights an alternative paradigm for legal education and describes the polytechnic style of legal education that students might obtain at an MIT School of Law. Part IV carries through on that basic thought experiment by describing the process of attracting, training, and placing students that would occur at MIT Law. Part V provides some concluding thoughts.


The solar radiative absorption by smoke layers above clouds is quantified, using the unique broad spectral range of the space-borne spectrometer Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) from the ultraviolet (UV) to the shortwave infrared (SWIR). Aerosol radiative effects in the UV are separated from cloud radiative effects in the shortwave infrared (SWIR). In the UV, aerosol absorption from smoke is strong, creating a strong signal in the measured reflectance. In the SWIR, absorbing and scattering effects from smoke are negligible, allowing the retrieval of cloud parameters from the measured spectrum using existing retrieval techniques. The spectral signature of the cloud can be modelled using a radiative transfer model (RTM) and the cloud parameters retrieved in the SWIR. In this way, the aerosol effects can be determined from the measured aerosol-polluted cloud shortwave spectrum and the modelled aerosol-unpolluted cloud shortwave spectrum. This can be used to derive the aerosol direct radiative effect (DRE) over marine clouds, independent of aerosol parameter retrievals, significantly improving the current accuracy of aerosol DRE estimates. Only cloud parameters are needed to model the aerosolunpolluted cloud reflectance, while the effects of the aerosol absorption are in the aerosol-polluted cloud reflectance measurements. In this paper we present a case study of the above method using SCIAMACHY data over the South Atlantic Ocean west of Africa on 13 August 2006, when a huge plume of smoke was present over persistent cloud fields. The aerosol DRE over clouds was as high as 128 ± 8 Wm−2 for this case, while the aerosol DRE over clouds averaged through August 2006 was found to be 23 ± 8 Wm−2 with a mean variation over the region in this month of 22 Wm−2.


Expanding access to pre-school education and childcare services has been a key policy on the agenda of many governments for over 30 years. Several motivations have been at the heart of these policies. On the one hand, expanding access to quality pre-school education is expected to have positive effects on child development and reduce socio-economic inequalities in life chances by providing a nurturing and stimulating environment to all children. On the other hand, an increased availability of affordable pre-school services is also hoped to raise maternal employment, which in turn could promote gender equality, reduce poverty, foster economic growth and increase the tax base. By making it easier to reconcile work and family responsibilities, the provision of childcare services might also help to increase fertility, which could contribute to relieving pressures created by ageing populations. A large and robust literature that looks carefully at various policies implemented over the past 30 years provides important insights into the link between universal pre-school and maternal labour supply. It shows that universal pre-school childcare is not always a panacea; instead, the impact of these policies has been very mixed. In what follows, we summarise this evidence, discuss why it is so mixed, and ask whether lessons can be learned to make future policies more effective.


Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. After receiving diagnosis and during treatments breast cancer patients often find themselves vulnerable and in need of social support. Receiving social support may relieve patients' stress, help them cope with the situation and improve their general well-being. The aim of the study was to describe breast cancer patients' experiences of social support during their illness. The purpose was to present most recent information for nurses that can help them to acknowledge patients' individual support needs in order to better meet them. Furthermore, this could improve the outcomes of social support provided by nurses. The study was implemented as a literature review. The data were collected using two databases: CINAHL and MEDLINE, resulting in the selection of seven articles that were analyzed using inductive content analysis. The following four main categories of social support experiences emerged from the analysis: emotional support experiences, informational support experiences, instrumental support experiences and spiritual support experiences. As a conclusion, it was found that breast cancer patients' experiences of social support are highly personal and reflect their individual needs. Women's experiences may further be affected by their native or adapted cultures and also by their religions. Therefore, nurses should provide breast cancer patients with more personalized care that would pay attention to their personality, age, religion and cultural background. Nurses could also routinely contact women who are waiting for surgery and make a follow-up call after treatments, which would improve both emotional and informational support for breast cancer patients.


Title of Document: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIENCES AND PERSPECTIVES OF FAMILY CHILD CARE PROVIDERS WHO CARE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES Tracey Simone Wayne, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006 Directed By: Professor Paula Beckman Department of Special Education Increases in the number of parents in the paid labor force and welfare reform have resulted in more families requiring non-parental child care. Most often this care is provided in environments outside of the child's own home. There is also a trend to promote the inclusion of young children with disabilities in community-based settings. Families of children with disabilities often prefer family child care programs. However, limited research has been conducted on family child care providers who include children with disabilities in their programs. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and perspectives of family child care providers who care for young children with disabilities, using the following research questions: (a) What factors encourage family child care providers to accept young children with disabilities? (b) What strategies do family child care providers use to include young children with disabilities? (c) What supports do family child care providers receive while caring for young children with disabilities? (d) What barriers are reported by family child care providers who care for young children with disabilities? A multiple case study design was used. Data collection involved: (a) interviews with licensed family child care providers, parents of children with disabilities and administrators involved in training and licensure; (b) observations of family child care providers; and (c) a review of documents. Case summaries were written for each provider. Then a cross-provider analysis was conducted. All of the providers had some experience or exposure to children with disabilities in the past. They believed that all children were unique and special and demonstrated a positive attitude toward inclusion. Providers engaged in pre-service and in-service disability-related training. Providers and the parents established strong collaborative relationships. Strategies to include the children with disabilities ranged from using specialized equipment to simple modifications. Early childhood special education staff supported the providers in including the children. Other sources of support included membership in associations, as well as smaller informal networks. Barriers reported were related to lack of training opportunities and funding for specialized equipment, the needs of the child with a disability, and factors associated with the business. A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIENCES AND PERSPECTIVES OF FAMILY CHILD CARE PROVIDERS WHO CARE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES


Thermocompression bonding joins substrates via a bonding layer. In this paper, silicon substrates were bonded using gold thin films. Experimental data on the effects of bonding pressure (30 to 120 MPa), temperature (260 and 300/spl deg/C), and time (2 to 90 min) on the bond toughness, measured using the four-point bend technique, are presented. In general, higher temperature and pressure lead to higher toughness bonds. Considerable variation in toughness was observed across specimens. Possible causes of the nonuniform bond quality were explored using finite element analysis. Simulation results showed that the mask layout contributed to the pressure nonuniformity applied across the wafer. Finally, some process guidelines for successful wafer-level bonding using gold thin films are presented.


Over the past three decades, studies on entrepreneurship reveal its main components, particularly for new venture creation processes and have been widely discussed by the researchers. An entrepreneur is the main actor in entrepreneurship who is responsible for a new ventures creation. Most of the previous researchers had studied aspects of entrepreneurial cognitive and motivation have approached the process of new ventures creation in general, but overlooked on the e-commerce ventures. The past studies paid the least focus on entrepreneurial competencies which lead to e-commerce new venture creations. In order to fill the lacunae, this study aims to identify the role of cognitive, motivation and competencies that contribute to the creation of new e-commerce ventures in Malaysia. The case study approach was used by interviewing a total of 12 e-commerce entrepreneurs from May 2013 until December 2014. The findings revealed that personal background, work and business skills are among the important factors in the creation of new e-commerce ventures in Malaysia. As entrepreneurs are motivated internally and externally, findings from this study identified 2 types of entrepreneurial motivation which are related to internal motivation; (i) need for achievement and (ii) interest. On the other hand, external motivation as a result of interactions with conducive environment such as customers, family members and industries have increased entrepreneur's motivation that gives impact to business success. Research findings also have found that entrepreneurial competencies in both computer and communication skills are largely contribute to the creation of new e-commerce ventures. Hence, the government plays an important role in entrepreneurial activities through the encouragement of entrepreneurs' cognitive ability, motivation, and improve their entrepreneurial competencies. It is certainly that entrepreneurship is among the vital business market that boosts the economic development of the country through the emergence of new ventures in the future. Research paper Keywords: Entrepreneurship; New Venture Creation; Psychology; Competencies; E-Commerce Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Fadzil, A. F. M., Hashim, U. J., Yaacob, M. R., Sallehudin, H., Muhayiddin, M. N., Mukhtar, D., Salleh, F., & Mohamad Ibrahim, R. (2019). Entrepreneurial Psychology and Competencies: Some Perspectives from E-Commerce Entrepreneurs in Malaysia, Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics , 7 (2), 31–79


This contribution investigates the stereotyping of nations in TV news text. It compares the headline appearances of the names Germany and Spain on each other's leading national evening TV news program during the peak of the European financial crisis (2011–13). The paper combines quantitative analysis of word-frequency and topic-distribution in a 621 headline-corpus, with in-depth case analysis of news values underpinning 32 extracted headline examples. A discussion of literature in media anthropology and Critical Discourse Analysis concludes with the argument that intentions and consequences of media discourse should be separated, whereas differences between ordinary and official language should not be overvalued. The case study shows how the textual display of Germans and Spaniards supports the everyday imagining of national belonging, how othering works through the labelling of nations as "economies", and how negativity, competition and relatedness are prevailing values underlying the examined news headlines.


Astigmatism in noncentered mirror systems, including gratings, is briefly discussed. A formula for meridional coma is derived. It is shown how Seidel aberration terms can be calculated for the sagittal cross section, namely spherical aberration, Petzval curvature, and others. The advantages and limitations of this approach are pointed out.


If tobacco smoking did not exist in the United States, there would be no reason, from a public health perspective, to allow addictive, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes to be marketed and sold. Because e-cigarette use, by itself, is neither beneficial nor benign to users and nonusers, the only public health justification for allowing e-cigarettes in the existing U.S. market would be if doing so would not sustain or increase existing smoking levels but would help smokers quit completely or provide addicted smokers a less harmful way to obtain the nicotine they crave. Yet e-cigarettes are now pervasive in the U.S. market, being sold with unnecessary harmful characteristics and being advertised in ways that encourage youth experimentation and use. Unless effectively regulated, e-cigarette use will be more harmful than necessary and their advertising will work to: (a) increase initiation among both youth and non-tobacco-using adults; (b) prompt former smokers to relapse back into addicted nicotine use; (c) encourage smokers to use e-cigarettes where they cannot smoke; and (d) prompt smokers to switch to e-cigarettes instead of quitting all tobacco and nicotine use. This paper proposes a viable way to regulate e-cigarettes and their advertising both to minimize the health harms they might cause and to allow e-cigarettes to fulfill their potential as cessation aids or harm-reduction products. Normally, any efforts by FDA to establish effective advertising restrictions must accommodate considerable constraints from the First Amendment's commercial speech protections. However, because of existing text in the Tobacco Control Act, on the effective date of the final FDA deeming rule that puts e-cigarettes under FDA's active tobacco product jurisdiction all nicotine-containing e-cigarettes will be on the U.S. market illegally until they can obtain permissive orders from FDA. That situation should reduce applicable First Amendment constraints, providing FDA with a tremendous opportunity to place the kinds of substantial restrictions and requirements on e-cigarette advertising necessary to minimize their harmful aspects and maximize their potential to produce substantial net public health benefits.


In this paper, the validity of recommendation ITU-R P.1546 in a short-range terrestrial environment is analyzed. Its three versions (P.1546, P.1546-1, and P.1546-2) are compared against simple models and evaluated using measurement results that were obtained by utilizing the pilot signal of a commercial code-division multiple-access mobile telephone network. Measurement results show that P.1546-2, on average, underestimates the field strength by more than 10 dB for typical Australian rural areas. However, it improves the error standard deviation compared to previous versions. The causes of these effects and the suggestions for further development of the Recommendation are discussed and evaluated.


Is health care a luxury or a necessity? Ever since the publication of Newhouse paper in 1977, this question has put forth a multitude of studies but still the substantive question is open. The empirical research on the nature of health care is mostly based on macro respectively micro level relationships among measures of wealth and expenditure for health care. Depending on the elasticity estimated, health care is classified by a study as a luxury, a necessity or both. Based on a micro level explanation of why wealth may change the preferences of citizens with regard to health care, this paper supplements these studies by making an inference from the satisfaction of the citizens with a health care system in combination with information on what the health care system is actually delivering on the preferences and expectations citizens hold with regard to health care and the health care system. Combining micro and macro level data, the evidence shows that wealth has indeed an effect on what citizens expect from a health care system. However, this change cannot be interpreted in the classical caring or curing distinction of medical services as proposed by Newhouse: even though curing, i.e. a health care system delivering what is necessary and performing well in restoring physiological health, surely no longer is enough to satisfy the citizens, the information available is insufficient to tell what the citizens actually want.


This dissertation reports on a phenomenological investigation of the experience of managerial employment among formerly incarcerated African American men and women. Little is known about the work experience of ex-prisoners. This study addressed that gap in criminology literature and sought to examine and deepen the understanding of the subjective meanings, processes, and experiences of employment for ex-prisoners who secure work beyond transitional and low-wage sector jobs. Transcendental phenomenology was employed as the research method for this study. Thirteen co-researchers were interviewed: (n = 7) men and (n = 6) women. Open-ended, semi-structured interviews were conducted to capture their lived and authentic experience and to allow data to emerge. Findings from the analysis of co-researchers' narratives revealed five central themes: (1) injustice and corruption in the criminal justice system; (2) making change; (3) going to work; (4) no future nest egg; and, (5) giving back. These findings highlight culturally specific and nuanced cognitive processes, routines, and behaviors exercised by co-researchers in this study to turn away from crime and seek legitimacy through meaningful employment. Further, study findings provide new insights and important implications toward improving the effectiveness of corrections policy and practice and community interventions aimed at increasing the reentry success of formerly incarcerated persons.


Background and aim: Diabetic Nephropathy (DN) is a major microvascular complication in Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Several environmental and genetic factors play a pivotal role in the development and pathogenesis of DN. The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene insertion (I)/deletion (D) polymorphism is one of the various genetic factors associated with DN. This study was undertaken to assess the frequency and distribution of ACE I/D polymorphism in T2DM with and without nephropathy patients and controls. Materials and methods: We conducted a case-control study. In a population of 61 patients suffering from T2DM without nephropathy and 61 patients T2DM with nephropathy along with the 52 age matched controls in Saudi populations. ACE I/D polymorphism was detected by PCR amplification using allele specific primers and some biochemical and behavioral markers were monitored. Chi-square and multiple logistic regression analyses were done to determine the odds ratio for development of nephropathy. Results: The observed genotype frequencies of II, ID and DD in T2DM with nephropathy were 8.2%, 34.4% and 57.4%, in T2DM without nephropathy 16.4%, 44.2% and 39.4%, in control 30.8%, 48.1%, 21.1% respectively. The DD genotype of the T2DM with nephropathy group was higher than the T2DM without nephropathy patients (OR=2.075, 95% CI: 1.008-4.272, p=0.047). Conclusion: The study illustrated that significant association was observed between the D allele, DD genotype of the ACE gene polymorphism and T2DM with nephropathy in Al- Quwayiyah region of Saudi Arabia. We suggest potential and new multi-property of ACE inhibitors therapy for the prevention or delay of progression of nephropathy.


Abstract A plausible physical explanation of a new advanced high-density H (HDH)-mode operational regime on the W7-AS stellarator is discussed. The HDH regime can be achieved only under a high rate of particle fueling during the starting phase of the discharge. It can be shown that at high enough fueling rates, the density profile grows at the source position, because the relatively weaker diffusivity hinders redistribution of the plasma. This leads to formation of a density gradient at the edge and brings about the radial electric field, which suppresses the plasma turbulence [the edge transport barrier (ETB) formation]. The appearance of the ETB depends on the initial condition, i.e., on the fueling rate, but a steady-state operation depends on the average density value. This critical value can be assessed from the energy and particle balance at the edge, where the transport coefficients depend on the plasma parameters in such a way that bifurcation can occur. The bifurcation occurs between two stable solutions, which are characterized by different values of the particle flux and energy confinement time, reminiscent of the normal confinement and HDH stages. The scaling analysis shows that the threshold average density required for transition increases weakly with power and inverse aspect ratio.


This newly updated reference uses scientific laws, principles, models, and concepts to provide a basic foundation for understanding and evaluating the impact that chemicals and technology have on the environment. Designed for both professional and student use, the new Second Edition includes recent improvements in the application of new technologies and materials on the environment. It places greater emphasis on the three environmental media of air, water, and soil and discusses how technology can be used to mitigate contamination of all three. This edition has been made even more user-friendly by communicating with more environmental terms and fewer scientific ones. Major topics covered include connections between environmental science and technology, air quality, water quality, soil science, and the impact of solid and hazardous waste on the environment. Each chapter includes a list of objectives, discussion questions, and a bibliography for further research.


The sulfuric acid speleogenesis (SAS) model was introduced in the early 1970s from observations of Lower Kane Cave, Wyoming, and was proposed as a cave-enlargement process due to primarily H 2 S autoxidation to sulfuric acid and subaerial replacement of carbonate by gypsum. Here we present a reexamination of the SAS type locality in which we make use of uniquely applied geochemical and microbiological methods. Little H 2 S escapes to the cave atmosphere, or is lost by abiotic autoxidation, and instead the primary H 2 S loss mechanism is by subaqueous sulfur-oxidizing bacterial communities that consume H 2 S. Filamentous " Epsilonproteobacteria " and Gammaproteobacteria , characterized by fluorescence in situ hybridization, colonize carbonate surfaces and generate sulfuric acid as a metabolic byproduct. The bacteria focus carbonate dissolution by locally depressing pH, compared to bulk cave waters near equilibrium or slightly supersaturated with calcite. These findings show that SAS occurs in subaqueous environments and potentially at much greater phreatic depths in carbonate aquifers, thereby offering new insights into the microbial roles in subsurface karstification.


A career is, seen as a central part of an individual's life in that it contributes to the development of one's identity, and it is suggested that individuals, to a larger extent today than before, are looking for personal development and growth in their working environments and careers (Baruch & Budhwar, 2006). This increasing emphasis placed on individual's career related needs can be argued to constitute new challenges for employers with regard to the choice and delivery of human resource management (HRM) activities such as career management. The death of traditional onward and upward, centrally managed career lead to the emergence of 3 major concepts, 'career self-management', 'employability', and 'marketability'. The responsibility of career development shifted more towards employees. So in this changing career scenario, the role of the organization in understanding and managing the career development practices of individuals became highly relevant. This paper is a qualitative research study which deals with the changing nature of careers and it primarily addresses various individual career management practices in the changing organizational career context and its major antecedents. The study is intended to develop a New model for career self-management. The article concludes by considering the implications for future research. Keywords:  Careers, Career Self-Management, Organizational Support, Career Goal


Objective: To investigate the relationships between dimensions of PTSD and clinical everyday pain, physiological adaptation to a sub maximal test, i.e. moderate intensity exercise in terms of systolic blood pressure (SBPR) in women with fibromyalgia (FM), and to compare the result to a gender- and age-matched healthy control group.
Materials and method: Twenty-two women presenting FM and twenty-six healthy women were education- and age-matched. All the women completed questionnaires regarding background, Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and the short form health related quality of life instrument SF 36. All the women performed a stepwise load increment submaximal exercise test on a cycle ergometer to the severe perceived exertion level. Systolic blood pressure (SBPR) pressure was recorded before, during and after the test.
Results: In comparison to healthy women, the women presenting FM showed higher IES-R values of intrusion, avoidance and hypertension and a tripled impact from clinical pain over 4 weeks. During recovery from the test, the successive decrease in SBPR was smaller in women presenting FM. In both groups the SBPR domain and IES-R domain presented intra correlation. In FM, a correlative link concerned avoidance and SBPR from baseline and through the test. In parallel, hypertension was correlatively linked to SBPR during recovery from the test. Clinical pain correlated with blunted SBPR responses through the test and also during recovery from the test.
Conclusion: Both FM and PTSD are known to mirror suboptimal resources in dimensions such as avoidance, hyper-arousal and different ANS regulatory resources. This situation may be manifested by an interplay avoidance and hypertension and SBPR where in turn, both a vigorous a SBPR response and vigorous SBPR recovery after the test relates to less clinical pain. Further examinations regarding this blunted dynamic and clinical pain together may unfold the role of various agents on resting values and response versus recovery, respectively.


In 2010, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the Prince of Wales' Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S), in conjunction with the accounting profession, formed The International Integrated Reporting Committee1 (IIRC). Their vision and guiding principles are contained in their prototype for a single corporate reporting framework (IIRC, 2012) which highlights the disclosure of content relating to the strategic stance of the individual firm. The aim of this paper was to gain historical insights on the integration of environmental issues within the internal cost information systems of institutions operating under the umbrella of an industry group's strategic stance. Underpinned by institutional theory, the study sought to illuminate interconnections. Data was obtained through mixed methods, and the early evidence displayed a landscape of diversity between environmental costs, and their accumulation and integration within the accounting information system.


This paper examines the use of Igbo English, one of the ethnic varieties of Nigerian English, in the Nigerian video film. By Nigerian video film, we mean video films produced in, and/or about Nigeria in English as opposed to those produced in Nigerian indigenous languages which are variously known as Igbo video films, Yoruba video films, or Edo video films, among others. The data for this study come from a random selection from video films produced in Nigeria between 2003 and 2006. In all the films studied, it is observed that Igbo English is essentially the medium of communication. Igbo English is one of the three major ethnic varieties of Nigerian English and is characterized by the fact that, while the vocabulary is mostly English, the sentence pattern is essentially Igbo. The choice of Igbo English as the medium for the films seems to be part of the efforts by the producers to retain, as much as possible, the "Nigerianness" of the films, which inevitably have to be produced in English to accommodate the international audience. This study observes that Igbo English, as used in the films studied, manifests itself in four forms: Igbo English proper, composed of English vocabulary in Igbo sentence structure; Engligbo, a form of code-mixing that is almost a fifty-fifty blend of English and Igbo; translation, in which Igbo idiomatic and other rhetorical expressions are transferred literally into English; and errors induced by the influence of the mother tongue (Igbo) on English.


This study explored the current state of ruminant value chains in two regions of northern Ghana (Northern region (NR); Upper East region (UER)) and studied the role of grain legume residues (GLRs) as a livestock feed among livestock value chain actors. Semistructured questionnaires were designed to conduct interviews with three different stakeholders: 99 smallholder farmers in two districts (Savelugu-Nanton (NR) and Binduri (UER)); and 108 livestock fatteners and traders in Tamale (NR) and Bawku (UER). Data was analysed by applying value chain mapping and using SPSS Statistics. Results showed that smallholder livestock production mainly contributed to sustaining livelihoods and household food security, based on the importance of non-market roles of livestock keeping (e.g. small ruminants) and overall low market participation (incl. livestock and GLRs). Livestock fattening and trading in the NR focused on a combination of cattle and sheep, as opposed to predominantly cattle in the UER. Two ruminant value chains were identified in each region: local ruminant market chains, mainly for the distribution of small ruminants, and cross-regional market chains, mainly used by UER chain actors for the distribution of cattle. Unlike livestock trading, livestock fattening showed to be characterized by seasonality. Increasing livestock production through fattening schemes may offer a way to improve incomes, increase the value of the overall livestock trade, and to improve the supply of livestock produce. GLRs were among the main feeds used by fatteners and traders, and were especially important during the dry season. Opportunities for increasing urban livestock production and trade strongly depend on the availability and accessibility of feed resources, such as the supply of GLRs by farmers. Based on heterogeneity among smallholder farmers (within and between regions), possibilities to increase market participation and value chain integration through increased livestock production, need to be considered in the context of their current livelihood strategies and changing market demands. In addition, potential trade-offs related to the allocation of GLRs (on-farm/off-farm) should be carefully considered in order to assess the opportunities for the commercialization of farming practices.


Objective: Recent research demonstrates an increased need to understand the contribution of social determinants of health (SDHs) in shaping an individual's health status and outcomes. We studied patients with diabetes in safety-net centers and evaluated associations of their disease complexity, demographic characteristics, comorbidities, insurance status, and primary language with their HbA1c level over time. Methods: Adult patients with diabetes with at least 3 distinct primary care visits between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2013, were identified in the CHARN data warehouse. These patients were categorized into 4 groups: those without a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease (CVD) or depression; those with CVD but not depression; those with depression but not CVD; and those with CVD and depression. Charlson score; demographic characteristics such as age, sex, and race/ethnicity; and SDHs such as primary language and insurance status were used as predictors. The outcome measure was HbA1c. Hypothesis testing was conducted using 3-level hierarchical linear models. Results: Baseline HbA1c differed significantly across the 4 diabetes groups and by race/ethnicity. The amount of HbA1c change over time differed by insurance status. Patients who were continuously insured tended to have lower baseline HbA1c and a smaller increase. Chinese-speaking patients tended to have lower baseline HbA1c but a larger increase over time compared with English speakers. There were various unexpected associations: compared with the diabetes-only group, mean HbA1c tended to be lower among the other more complex groups at baseline; women tended to have lower measures at baseline; older age and higher Charlson scores were associated with lower HbA1c. Conclusions: There is still unexplained variability relating to both baseline HbA1c values and change over time in the model. SDHs, such as insurance status and primary language, are associated with HbA1c, and results suggest that these relationships vary with disease status among patients with diabetes in safety-net centers. It is important to recognize that there are complex relationships among demographic and SDH measures in complex patients, and there is work to be done in correctly modeling and understanding these relationships. We also recommend prioritizing the collection of SDH and enabling services data for safety-net patients that would be instrumental in conducting a more comprehensive study.


BACKGROUND
A link between cigarette smoking and suicidal behavior has been reported in clinical and epidemiological studies.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the association between smoking and suicidal thoughts or attempt in a longitudinal study, in which proximate status of smoking and psychiatric disorders in relation to timing of suicidal behaviors is taken into account.

DESIGN
A longitudinal study of young adults interviewed initially in 1989, with repeated assessments over a 10-year follow-up.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
The sample was selected from a large health maintenance organization representing the geographic area, except for the extremes of the socioeconomic range. The response rate at each follow-up (3, 5, and 10 years after baseline) exceeded 91%.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Relative risk of occurrence of suicidal behaviors during follow-up intervals by status of smoking and psychiatric disorders at the start of the interval, estimated by generalized estimating equations with repeated measures. The National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule was used at baseline and at each reassessment.

RESULTS
Current daily smoking, but not past smoking, predicted the subsequent occurrence of suicidal thoughts or attempt, independent of prior depression and substance use disorders (adjusted odds ratio, 1.82; 95% confidence interval, 1.22-2.69). Additionally, current daily smoking, but not past smoking, predicted the subsequent occurrence of suicidal thoughts or attempt, adjusting for suicidal predisposition, indicated by prior suicidality, and controlling for prior psychiatric disorders (adjusted odds ratio, 1.74; 95% confidence interval, 1.17-2.54).

CONCLUSIONS
The biological explanation of the finding that current smoking is associated with subsequent suicidal behavior is unclear. Recent observations of lower monoamine oxidase activity (which may play a role in central nervous system serotonin metabolism) in current smokers but not ex-smokers might provide clues, but interpretations should proceed cautiously.


The use of computers to assist in map-making has been growing for two decades; their speed of operation, large data storage capacity and flexibility of usage have been major factors in establishing many development and working computer mapping systems throughout the world. In Britain, the Ordnance Survey has supported a digital solution to the production, storage and display of large scale topographic maps since 1972. Until now, the work of the Ordnance Survey - and, indeed, most topographic map-makers in Britain who are investigating digital techniques - have adopted a vector-based strategy to digital mapping in which the data are held as a series of coordinate-points describing the lines shown on the map images. Comparatively little work has been undertaken in Britain on the use of raster-based methods of data capture and storage in which map images are resolved into arrays of small cells or picture elements by appropriately tuned scanning devices. This alternative strategy is known - from work carried out in other countries, chiefly the United States - to be suitable for some types of data manipulation, although its suitability for Ordnance Survey mapping applications is unknown. Very little investigation has been made anywhere in the world of the manipulation of raster data structures by the recently developed array processor computers; almost all existing work is restricted to the use of traditional serial machines. This thesis reports on a three year study carried out in the University of Durham to investigate the applicability of raster data processing for the work of the British national mapping organisation. In particular, it describes the distinction between vector and raster applications with geographic data and the likely characteristics of suitable raster data structures on both serial and parallel computers. A section is also included which describes the nature of scanning trials carried out on a number of commercial devices; it has thus been possible to assess not only the likely advantages and limitations of handling British large-scale map data in raster form but also its technical feasibility. The work reports on the likely volumes of data to be expected and describes parallel algorithms for operations such as polygon creation (and, indirectly, the creation of node and link vector files).


The paper is structured in three parts. The first part reviews the process and the debates related to the adoption of the principle of a living wage at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and when it was restated in Philadelphia in 1944. The two following parts deal with the implementation of the principle. The second part reviews the initial work of the International Labour Office (the Office) and the debates among the ILO's constituents that led to the adoption of the Minimum Wage-Fixing Machinery Convention, 1928 (No. 26) and the corresponding Recommendation (No. 30). It also presents examples of countries which used the concept of a living wage in their legislation regarding minimum wage fixing. The third part reviews the renewed debates on minimum wages in the 1960s at the ILO Governing Body and at the International Labour Conference, which led to the adoption of the Minimum Wage Fixing Convention, 1970 (No. 131) and the corresponding Recommendation (No. 135).


The paper discusses the respective roles of competition policy and sector-specific regulation for industries such as telecommunications, electricity, and gas, in which network infrastructures that are natural monopolies serve as essential facilities for anybody who wants to provide services in downstream markets. Whereas, in the past, such industries tended to be organized as state-owned or state-regulated vertically integrated monopolies, after a fundamental change of paradigm, appropriate governance nowadays is considered to involve downstream competition supported by a state-mandated access provision to the monopoly infrastructures. Following a brief sketch of the paradigm change, the paper enters into a systematic discussion of (i) the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the two policy regimes in enforcing access provision, (ii) the appropriate framework for drawing the line between regulated and unregulated parts of the industry, and (iii) a set of issues that arise when competition policy and to sector-specific regulation apply to a given industry at the same time. The discussion refers to (i) the German experience before 2005 when competition policy was used to regulate access in the energy sector, (ii) the European Directives of 2002, which rely on the concepts of "market" and "significant market power" to determine which parts of the industry should be subject to regulation, and (iii) the recent cases in the telecommunications and postal sectors in which European competition law was used to proscribe behaviour that had been accepted by national regulators.


In this paper, we uncover the issue of knowledge inertia in visual question answering (VQA), which commonly exists in most VQA models and forces the models to mainly rely on the question content to "guess" answer, without regard to the visual information. Such an issue not only impairs the performance of VQA models, but also greatly reduces the credibility of the answer prediction. To this end, simply highlighting the visual features in the model is undoable, since the prediction is built upon the joint modeling of two modalities and largely influenced by the data distribution. In this paper, we propose a Pairwise Inconformity Learning (PIL) to tackle the issue of knowledge inertia. In particular, PIL takes full advantage of the similar image pairs with diverse answers to an identical question provided in VQA2.0 dataset. It builds a multi-modal embedding space to project pos./neg. feature pairs, upon which word vectors of answers are modeled as anchors. By doing so, PIL strengthens the importance of visual features in prediction with a novel dynamic-margin based triplet loss that efficiently increases the semantic discrepancies between pos./neg. image pairs. To verify the proposed PIL, we plug it on a baseline VQA model as well as a set of recent VQA models, and conduct extensive experiments on two benchmark datasets, i.e., VQA1.0 and VQA2.0. Experimental results show that PIL can boost the accuracy of the existing VQA models (1.56%-2.93% gain) with a negligible increase in parameters (0.85%-5.4% parameters). Qualitative results also reveal the elimination of knowledge inertia in the existing VQA models after implementing our PIL.


Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is a potent vasoconstrictive peptide which is produced by the cleavage of the inactive precursor, big ET-1 at the Trp21-Va2l 2 bond by endothelin
converting enzyme( ECE). ECE has been found to be expressed by a variety of cell types and tissues.

Using the human endothelial cell line, EA. hy926, ECE has been demonstrated, by analogy to the related protein, E-24.11 to be an integral transmembrane protein which
is not anchored by a G-PI moiety. The relationship between E-24.11 and ECE was further investigated by screening of antibodies raised to E-24.11 for cross-reactivity
with the ECE protein. Immobilised GK4A9, a monoclonal antibody to E-24.11 was found to immunoprecipitate >80 % of the total E-24.11 and ECE activity from Triton X-100 solubilised membrane preparations of EA. hy926 cells. The
immunoprecipitation was reproduced using a transfected cell line which expressed high levels of ECE activity but was shown not to express E-24.11. Immunoprecipitation of
ECE from transfected cells was confirmed by enzyme assay and immunoblotting. The immunoreactivity of GK4A9 was shown to be specific for ECE and E-24.11 suggesting a shared epitope between the two proteins. These data were consistent
with the hypothesis that E-24.11 and ECE originated from the same protein family, sharing significant structural and sequence homology.

The cell specific expression of ECE was demonstrated by radioimmunoassay in the neuroblastoma cell line, SH-SY5Y, and the Bu17, C6 and D384 glioma lines. The identity of the activity was confirmed by immunoblotting which revealed a polypeptide of approximately 120 kDa in each of these cell lines.

Pre-treatment of EA. hy926, Bu17 and SH-SYSY cells with the zinc metalloprotease inhibitor phosphoramidon (PR) resulted in an accumulation of the ECE protein. This increase was reproduced by treatment of cells with thiorphan and suggests the possible involvement of a novel PR and thiorphan-sensitive metalloprotease in the turnover of
ECE.

Other possibler egulatory mechanismsin volved in ECE production were investigated. The protein tyrosine phosphatasein hibitor vanadatew as found to causea 2-3-fold upregulation of ECE in EA. hy926 and Bu17 cells and appeared to induce ECE expression in rat pheochromocytoma PC12 cells which had been stimulated to differentiate to a neuronal phenotype in response to vanadate treatment.

The identification of two distinct human isoforms of ECE-1, a and s (Schmidt et al.,1994; Shimada et al., 1995) which were found to differ only in N-terminal amino acid
sequence allowed the generation of antibodies specific for each isoform. Peptides corresponding to immunogenic
regions of the N-terminal sequence in each isoform
were synthesised attached to a carrier protein and used to raise anti-peptide antibodies. The immunoreactivity of the antiserum was monitored using an E. L. I. S. A.
with the peptide as the antigen. The most immunoreactive antiserum was affinity purified and the antibody characterised by detection of each ECE-1 isoform using
transfected cell lines expressing high levels of each isoform. One antibody (ECE1a I was successfully raised to ECE-1 a and found to be specific for this isoform.


While this article broadly agrees with Peter Gowan's concern about the new militarism of the United States and the appalling consequences that have emerged as a result of U.S. preemption in Iraq, it questions the extent to which his portrait of U.S. hegemony addresses all the relevant issues as they affect the Asian region. Given the numerical dominance of Asia in world population and the rising power of China and India, how Gowan's "American Grand Strategy" applies to this part of the world is of fundamental importance to the relevance and sustainability of his argument. Part 1 on U.S. economic hegemony argues that U.S. capital has not been an unmitigated evil for India and where U.S. interests have been damaging they are not uniquely so: the European Union's economic policies have also been deeply damaging even though Europe is not a hegemon. Part 2 on U.S. political hegemony argues that bringing Pakistan and India into the U.S. alliance system has been beneficial for regional security and domestic political-ethnic stability. Part 3 considers responses to U.S. hegemony, arguing that this supremacy is more fragile than Gowan assumes because new powers, such as China and India, have long-term strategies to reduce their dependency. The conclusion suggests that despite widespread criticism and dissatisfaction with the nature of U.S. engagement in Asia, the dominant view in the region is one that sees the United States as a useful wedge between the emerging interests of China, India, and Japan. In short, the "American Grand Strategy" is not as negative, overwhelming, or as unpopular as Gowan suggests.


For roughly the past three years, Indonesia's growth has maintained its slight upward trend while inflation has been broadly on target. The budget deficit has been kept under control and government debt is low relative to that of many other countries. Nevertheless, this sound macroeconomic performance is now under threat because the government's aversion to depreciation of the currency has led it to introduce unnecessary contractionary fiscal measures—including cutbacks of spending on infrastructure on which output growth depends. Along with many other currencies, the rupiah has depreciated significantly throughout much of 2018—despite the attempts of Bank Indonesia, the central bank, to prevent this—partly because of rapidly growing imports, but also because of a reversal of portfolio capital inflow. This reversal reflects various factors, including Bank Indonesia's policy, until recently, of pushing interest rates down while global interest rates have been rising; fear that rapid depreciation in poorly managed economies such as Turkey and Argentina may prove contagious; market recognition that expansion of the current account deficit is likely to require depreciation beyond that desired by the central bank; and concern that the forthcoming presidential election creates conditions in which it will be difficult to pursue sound economic policies. This survey discusses the rather unexpected currency depreciation and associated selling pressure in the stock exchange in detail before going on to provide evaluations of, and suggestions in relation to, a range of microeconomic policies, including infrastructure development; the provision of subsidised loans to small businesses; the fiscal aspects of decentralisation; minimum wages; and management of the bureaucracy. To a large extent, most of these policies can be characterised as reflecting a distrust of market forces, including a reluctance to adopt market-mimicking processes in the public sector—specifically, in relation to the funding of local governments, and to the staffing of the bureaucracy. From another perspective, the adoption of a wide variety of objectives for economic policy reflects the absence of any consistent analytical framework, making it highly likely that policies will turn out to be mutually inconsistent and, in particular, that they will conflict with the ultimate economic objective of increasing living standards, especially those of the poor.


BACKGROUND
In this study, 2 main hypotheses have been put forward to explain the variation in childhood intelligence or school performance by season of birth. In the first hypothesis, it is suggested that it is due to school policy concerning school entry, whereas the second suggests that a seasonally patterned exposure such as temperature, maternal nutrition, or infection during critical periods of brain development have a lasting effect on intelligence.

AIMS
To determine whether childhood performance on tests of different domains of intelligence is patterned by season of birth and to examine possible mechanisms for any associations.

SAMPLE
12,150 individuals born in Aberdeen, Scotland between 1950 and 1956.

METHODS
Birth cohort study in which the variation in different domains of childhood intelligence measured at ages 7, 9, and 11 by season of birth were examined.

RESULTS
Reading ability at age 9 and arithmetic ability at age 11 varied by season of birth, with lowest scores among those born in autumn or early winter (September-December) and highest scores among those born in later winter or spring (February-April); p=.002 for joint sine-cosine functions for reading ability at age 9 and p=.05 for sine-cosine function for arithmetic ability at age 11. The child's perception and understanding of pictorial differences at age 7, verbal reasoning at 11, and English language ability at 11 did not vary by season of birth. Age at starting primary school and age relative to class peers were both associated with the different measurements of childhood intelligence and both attenuated the association between month of birth and reading ability at age 9 and arithmetic ability at age 11 towards the null. Both adjusted and unadjusted differences in reading ability at age 9 and arithmetic ability at age 11 between those born from September to December compared with other times of the year were less than 0.1 of a standard deviation of the test scores. Ambient temperature around the time of conception, during gestation, and around the time of birth did not affect intelligence.

CONCLUSION
Any variation in mean childhood intelligence by season of birth is weak and largely explained by age at school entry and age relative to class peers.


This essay addresses two important problems with mainstream economics that reduce its usefulness for people of religious faith: its eclipse of the causal forces operating within the 'black box' of the market, and its empiricist methodological underpinnings. Yet neither of these problems requires religious resources for a solution. The critical realist philosophy of science of Roy Bhaskar provides a fruitful alternative to empiricism. The insights of critical realist sociologists to understand markets as social structures provide a helpful way to direct economists' attention to important but neglected market relations.


Public displays have lately become ubiquitous thanks to the decreasing cost of such technology and public policies supporting the development of smart cities. Depending on form factor, those displays might use touchless gestural interfaces that therefore are becoming more often the subject of public and private research. In this paper, we focus on touchless interactions with situated public displays, and introduce a pilot study on comparing two interfaces: an interface based on the Microsoft Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), a de facto standard in the field, and a novel interface, designed by us. Differently from the HIG-based one, our interface displays an avatar, which does not require any activation gestures to trigger actions. Our aim is to study how the two interfaces address the so-called interaction blindness --- the inability of the users to recognize the interactive capabilities of those displays. According to our pilot study, although providing a different approach, both interfaces has proven effective in the proposed scenario: a public display in a hall inside a University campus building.


In an attribute-based encryption (ABE) scheme, a ciphertext is associated with an l-bit public index pind and a message m, and a secret key is associated with a Boolean predicate P. The secret key allows to decrypt the ciphertext and learn m iff P(pind) = 1. Moreover, the scheme should be secure against collusions of users, namely, given secret keys for polynomially many predicates, an adversary learns nothing about the message if none of the secret keys can individually decrypt the ciphertext.
 We present attribute-based encryption schemes for circuits of any arbitrary polynomial size, where the public parameters and the ciphertext grow linearly with the depth of the circuit. Our construction is secure under the standard learning with errors (LWE) assumption. Previous constructions of attribute-based encryption were for Boolean formulas, captured by the complexity class NC1.
 In the course of our construction, we present a new framework for constructing ABE schemes. As a by-product of our framework, we obtain ABE schemes for polynomial-size branching programs, corresponding to the complexity class LOGSPACE, under quantitatively better assumptions.


In the UK, the water resource problems during the droughts of 1988-1992 and the well- publicized problems of 1995-1996, serve to highlight the finite nature of the potable water resource. Demand management is increasingly considered a fundamental tool in promoting a sustainable water resource strategy. However, of equal importance is the development of accurate water demand forecasts that work in parallel with demand management measures. These forecasts should predict all components ot water use on different planning horizons. Presently, water plcs have a very limited understanding of factors influencing short-term domestic water demands and rely upon crude methods of forecasting. However, no precise definition of short-term exists within the water industry. Previous research defined 'short- term to be between twenty-four hours and seven days ahead. It was argued that effective weather prediction and operationally useful forecast times were the determining factor in the definition.
The domestic water consumption data used in this research is derived from two different methods, (i) zonal metering and (ii) individual household metering. Welsh Water and Yorkshire Water provided zonal metering data, which refers to the flow to a zone that has many households. Essex and Suffolk Water, Thames Water and Yorkshire Water provided individual household metering data, which is a measure of consumption in single households. These data were used in the determination of: (i) underlying factors that influence the demand for water in both the short- and the medium- to long-term and (ii) factors that influence short-term demands. The influential factors aided in the exploration of modelling strategies to forecast short-term domestic water demands. Approaches explored included a pragmatic approach, based on a form of accounting using a series of 'lookup tables', and advanced approaches, including stepwise regression, both with and without k-means cluster analysis, and univariate and multivariate ARMA time-series modelling. The most successful approach was then used to determine how future scenarios such as changes in the population base, climate, culture and technology might influence the characteristics of short-term domestic water demands.

Household size and property type appears to exert the greatest underlying influence on medium- to long-term domestic water demands. In the short-term, domestic water demand appears to be influenced by the two days antecedent and the prevailing day's weather conditions, day of the week, calendar effects, school holidays and demand management measures. No single approach provided the best overall prediction of short-term domestic water demands. However, the pragmatic approach emerged as one of the most promising techniques. The pragmatic approach, used to determine how future scenarios might change the characteristics of short-term domestic water demand, suggests that increases in demands are associated with changes in the population base, climate and culture. However, changes in technology associated with the widespread implementation of demand management measures have the potential to suppress the increases and indeed reduce demands to less than those of the present day.


Over the last century nighttime minimum temperatures have been increasing at a faster rate than daily maximum temperatures. This warming trend has caught the attention of climatologists and agricultural scientists as they attempt to address the potential effects of elevated nighttime minimum temperatures on the health of these crops, which are so important to the U.S. economy. In this study, ten sites represent the Corn Belt of the United States. Those sites are spread across an area in which the average minimum nighttime temperatures for each of the three primary growing months of the year (June, July, August) increased from 1950-2011. Since this is a relatively new phenomenon, the effects of increased nighttime temperatures are not well understood. The main variables that can affect the growth of crops under elevated nighttime temperatures are: a shift in agro climatic zones resulting in an introduction of new pests formerly foreign to the crops, deviation from prime respiration temperatures and lastly the subsequent change in the properties of air associated with warmer air that would likely exist in a changing climate. Warmer nighttime temperatures raise the respiration rate of corn plants to levels above the optimum rate. This leads to " wasteful respiration, " which often compromises the plant structure (leading to " stalk cannibalization "), negatively affects the overall health of the plant, and jeopardizes maximum production. Most crop simulation models and experimental results used in climate and agriculture studies were not designed well enough to quantify multiple stress effects associated with this research. The complexity and input requirements of a reliable agro ecosystem model are such that the predictive capacity of the simulation models represents a much smaller area than desired, decreasing the validity of a large-scale application. More research needs to be conducted comparing differing agro environments (since each environment contains a different set of target variables like soil type, rainfall, plant species, and climate events). Such research is necessary to help untangle climate effects from other factors affecting maximum crop yield.


Throughout many countries in the world, the measurement of food security currently includes accounting for the importance of perception and anxiety about meeting basic food needs. Using panel data from Malawi, this paper shows that worrying about food security is linked to self-reports of having experienced food insecurity, and the analysis provides evidence that rapidly rising food prices are a source of the anxiety and experiences of food insecurity. This finding controls for individual-level fixed effects and changes in the economic well-being of the individual. A particularly revealing finding of the importance of accounting for anxiety in assessing food insecurity is that individuals report a significant increase in experiences of food insecurity in the presence of rapidly rising food prices even when dietary diversity and caloric intake is stable.


Background and objectives: Antibiotics are usually prescribed by surgeons before and after surgery to prevent postoperative infections. Prophylaxes used for cesarean section in Lamerd are cefazolin and cephalexin. According to studies carried out, urinary tract infections can also occur in spite of the above prescribed antibiotics. So, this research was carried out to determine those strains resistant to the mentioned antibiotics and also to identify genes causing resistance in antibiotic-resistant strains. Methods: 140 cases of mothers who had cesarean section (C-section) were considered in this study. The research began in April and lasted till July 2014 for case selection and sampling. It was emphasized to those women delivered via C-section to refer to laboratory 15 days after delivery. UA-UC tests were done on them. Phenotypic confirmatory test was performed for cefazolin and cephalexin antibiotic-resistant strains in the presence of ceftazidime, ceftazidime/clavulanic acid and cefotaxime, cefotaxime/clavulanic acid discs. The presence of CTX-M and TEM genes in the resistant strains were examined finally by performing PCR test. Results: Of 140 studied C-sections, 10 cases of urinary tract infections including 3 cases of E. coli (2.1%), 1 Klebsiella (0.7), 2 cases of Proteus (1.4%) and 4 cases of Staphylococcus (2.8%) were observed. According to phenotypic confirmatory test, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella strains were isolated as strains containing ESBL for next studies. Finally, according to PCR test for Escherichia coli and Klebsiella isolates, all of them contained CTX-M and TEM genes. Conclusion: It is necessary that microbial culture and antibiogram tests to be done before administering any antibiotics, in order to prevent the spread of strains containing ESBL with proper prescription of antibiotics.


This review briefly summarises the history of the hydrogen materials community as an important part of the World Hydrogen Movement. It analysis the history and current status of the interrelation between the Hydrogen Energy (HE) and Hydrogen Materials (HM) communities. During the last 15 years, great advances in this cooperation have come about, thanks to the thorough activities of the Permanent Working International Scientific Committee on Hydrogen Treatment of Materials and the international conferences 'Hydrogen economy and hydrogen treatment of materials' under the auspices of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy (IAHE). The conclusion is that promoting this cooperation will be the responsibility of the World Hydrogen Movement in the 21st century, in general, and of nuclear HE technology, in particular.


The national extinction risk of 103 New Zealand chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimaeras), ~10% of the global chondrichthyan fauna, was evaluated for the first time using the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species Categories and Criteria. Across 32 families, 103 species were assessed. New Zealand holds a high degree of species endemism (20%) with deepwater species dominating the fauna (77%). Sharks were the most speciose group with 68 species (66%), followed by 24 rays (23%), and 11 chimaeras (10%). Most species were assessed as Least Concern (60%, 62 species) or Data Deficient (32%, 33 species), with four (3.8%) species listed as Near Threatened and four (3.8%) in a threatened category (Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered). Threatened species are all oceanic pelagic, of which two are only visitors to New Zealand waters, and their status the result of broader regional declines. These results are in stark contrast to other recent regional assessments in Europe and the Arabian Sea and adjacent areas, where up to half of species were listed in a threatened category. However, given New Zealand's extensive deepwater fishing effort and rapid collapses of deepwater chondrichthyan fisheries elsewhere, it is possible that New Zealand populations of many deepwater species are the remnants of previously reduced populations that are now at a low, yet stable level. Ongoing species‐level catch monitoring will be required to ensure these species do not become threatened. Recommendations for future research and conservation efforts include resolving taxonomic uncertainties, understanding habitat use, and increasing regional collaborations to better understand the effects of fishing on wider‐ranging species.


Using receiver eigenmodes, we perform a time-dependent analysis of optical receivers whose optical inputs are corrupted by the amplified spontaneous emission. We use Gaussian receivers for the analysis with Gaussian input pulses. We find the number of contributing eigenmodes increases as the measurement time moves from the pulse center towards the pulse edges at the output of the optical receiver's electrical filter. This behavior is dependent on the bandwidth ratio between the optical and the electrical filters as well as the input pulse's time width.


Image segmentation is one of the fundamental problems in image processing. The goal is to partition a given image into regions that are uniform with respect to some image features and possibly to extract the region boundaries. Recently methods based on PDEs have been found to be an effective way to address this problem. These methods in general fall under the category of shape optimization, as the typical approach is to assign an energy to a shape, say a curve in 2d, and to deform the curve in a way that decreases its energy. In the end when the optimization terminates, the curve is not only at a minimum of the energy, but also at a boundary in the image.
In this thesis, we emphasize the shape optimization view of image segmentation and develop appropriate tools to pursue the optimization in 2d and 3d. We first review the classes of shape energies that are used within the context of image segmentation. Then we introduce the analytical results that will help us design energy-decreasing deformations or flows for given shapes.
We describe the gradient flows minimizing the energies, by taking into account the shape derivative information. In particular we emphasize the flexibility to accommodate different velocity spaces, which we later demonstrate to be quite beneficial. We turn the problem into the solution of a system of linear PDEs on the shape. We describe the corresponding space discretization based on the finite element method and an appropriate time discretization scheme as well.
To handle mesh deterioration and possibly singularities due to motion of nodes, we describe time step control, mesh smoothing and angle width control procedures, also a topology surgery procedure that allows curves to undergo topological changes such as merging and splitting. In addition we introduce space adaptivity algorithms that help maintain accuracy of the method and reduce computational cost as well.
Finally we apply our method to two major shape energies used for image segmentation: the minimal surface model (a.k.a geodesic active contours) and the Mumford-Shah model. For both we demonstrate the effectiveness of our method with several examples.


From the theoretical point of view, the silicon nanocrystal physics still today
is not a completely clear subject. While the quantum confinement effect has
been recognized as the major cause of the photoluminescence, many doubts
remain on the way in which the phenomenon takes place in real nanocrystals.
This thesis is the result of a deep work in the understanding of the optical
properties of silicon nanocrystals. A Tight Binding method has been used for
studing the energy levels and the dielectric properties of spherical and ellipsoidal
silicon nanocrystals. The method is very efficient, allowing the study
of structures with more than 10000 atoms, and being able to reproduce with
a great accuracy the Bulk Silicon dielectric function. The comparison with
the experimental results shows that for Si nanocrystals the method works
well, both for the energy gap and the absorption spectra prediction. The
optical gap, the imaginary part of the dielectric function, the static dielectric
function, and the radiative electron-hole recombination times have been
calculated for a set of silicon spheres, on increasing their size. An interesting
feature is the existence of an energy gap between the energy of the first
transition and the threshold of the absorption cross section. This is an indication
that the electronic features of the bulk silicon are always reflected
into the silicon nanocrystal physics. A very nice confirmation of this trend is
the k-space projection of the nanocrystal states, which gives a fair explanation
of this phenomenon. Finally, the shape effects on the optical properties
are shown. Several sets of ellipsoidal nanocrystals, with different sizes and
shapes, have been analyzed, and the effects of the geometrical anisotropy on
the polarization of the dielectric tensor is discussed.


Social media (SM) allow users to easily create, edit, or share content. The vast numbers of individuals that converge around sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter embody a rich source of external knowledge that could be utilized for new product development (NPD). Complementing other channels for open innovation (OI), SM can provide access to novel information about customer needs and technological solutions unknown to the firm. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are considerable benefits from using SM during an innovation project, but empirical evidence is scarce. Contributing to the perspective of openness in search, a number of hypotheses propose how SM as a new channel for OI can contribute to firm performance. This model is tested using data from the PDMA Comparative Performance Assessment Study, identifying factors influencing the relationship between SM and NPD performance. The findings indicate that utilizing information from SM channels can lead to higher performance, but that this link is influenced by the formalization of a firm's NPD process. This study also finds that the ability of a firm to benefit from external search in SM strongly depends on complementary internal processes when organizing and conducting this activity. Furthermore, managers have to take care when utilizing information from SM channels in radical projects, as for this kind of project only a weak significant performance contribution of SM could be found.


Abstract The Pakistan Research Reactor-1 (PARR-1) was converted from highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel in 1991. The reactor is running successfully, with an upgraded power level of 10 MW. To save money on the purchase of costly fresh LEU fuel elements, the use of less burnt HEU spent fuel elements along with the present LEU fuel elements is being considered. The proposal calls for the HEU fuel elements to be placed near the thermal column to gain the required excess reactivity. In the present study the safety analysis of a proposed mixed-fuel core has been carried out at a calculated steady-state power level of 9.8 MW. Standard computer codes and correlations were employed to compute various parameters. Initiating events in reactivity-induced accidents involve various modes of reactivity insertion, namely, start-up accident, accidental drop of a fuel element on the core, flooding of a beam tube with water, and removal of an in-pile experiment during reactor operation. For each of these transients, time histories of reactor power, energy released, temperature, and reactivity were determined.


Perinatal and maternal health statistics are used extensively as markers for the effectiveness of health service provision in a country. Because of their importance in this role, several of the rates were incorporated into the Millennium Development Goals (particularly Goals 4 and 5). In Minister Trevor Manuel's forward to the Millennium Development Goals, Country Report 2013 compiled by Statistics South Africa (SA), he highlighted the lack of consensus on the actual levels of maternal mortality because of different data sources and methodology; however, he acknowledged that SA was lagging behind that particular target. The official 2010 figure was 269/100 000 live births, which is seven-fold greater than the 2015 goal of 38/100 000 live births. The report indicated that SA was unlikely to achieve its 2015 target for maternal deaths, but was likely to achieve the target of 100% of births being attended by skilled health personnel by 2015. According to Statistics SA, our infant mortality rate was 38/1 000 live births in 2010, with the 2015 target being 18/1 000 live births. Approximately 40% of our <5-year-old mortality is made up of neonatal deaths, therefore if SA is going to effectively reduce <5 mortality, it will have to substantially reduce its neonatal mortality rate.


Under the information
asymmetrical theory, the Chinese securities analysts are affected by many
benefit factors, so the purpose of the study is trying to figure out what benefit elements and how to
affect analysts' earnings forecasts. Using data from 2012 to 2015, the author creatively quantifies interest
factors, and does the empirical analysis. Regression results indicate that the closer relationship
between securities analysts and the listed companies management or
institutional investors, the greater accuracy of their earnings forecasts.
Besides, analysts' reputation exists a negative correlation between earnings forecasts accuracy. Furthermore, securities'
underwriting relationships have no significant influence on the accuracy of analysts'
earnings forecasts, but the underwriting analysts are more likely to
overestimate earnings per share of the target companies.


Learn C++, Patterns, and Qt 4 Cross-Platform DevelopmentMaster C++ and design patterns together, using the world's leading open source framework for cross-platform development: Qt 4.An Introduction to Design Patterns in C++ with Qt 4 is a complete tutorial and reference that assumes no previous knowledge of C, C++, objects, or patterns. You'll walk through every core concept, one step at a time, learning through an extensive collection of Qt 4.1-tested examples and exercises.By the time you're done, you'll be creating multithreaded GUI applications that access databases and manipulate XML files--applications that run on platforms including Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X. Best of all, you'll be writing code that's efficient, reusable, and elegant. Learn objects fast: classes, inheritance, polymorphism, and more Master powerful design patterns Discover efficient high-level programming techniques using libraries, generics, and containers Build graphical applications using Qt widgets, models, and views Learn advanced techniques ranging from multithreading to reflective programming Use Qt's built-in classes for accessing MySQL data Includes a complete C++ language reference


Driven by recent evolutionary history, pigmentation traits significantly contribute to the most obvious parts of the overall human phenotypic diversity with skin colour varying between worldwide individuals, while eye and hair colour differences only exist in individuals of European (and neighbouring region) descent. Genetic association studies have discovered various DNA variants that together explain large proportion of phenotypic variance in eye, hair and skin colouration. Besides providing leads in the molecular understanding of human pigmentation, multiple associated DNA variants have also been used for prediction modelling of pigmentation traits. The success of DNA-based pigmentation prediction laid the foundation for a new subfield of forensic genetics known as Forensic DNA Phenotyping, which aims to help finding unknown perpetrators. Pigmentation DNA prediction is further relevant in anthropological research from old and ancient human remains for reconstructing colour phenotypes of deceased persons including those of historical importance.

Key Concepts

Driven by recent evolutionary history, differences in pigmentation significantly contribute to the phenotypic diversity in humans.
Eye, hair and skin colour reflect complex traits with multiple genes and environmental factors determining phenotypic variation distributed differently around the world.
Gene mapping studies identified a number of pigmentation genes that typically but not necessarily determine all three pigmentation traits in humans.
Multiple pigmentation-associated DNA variants have proven useful to predict all three human pigmentation traits with varying accuracies.
Several DNA test systems are available for accurate prediction of blue and brown eyes, while for other eye colours further research is needed.
Available DNA test systems for hair colour provide accurate prediction of red and (albeit less so) of black hair, while the DNA prediction of blond and brown hair is troubled by age-dependent hair colour changes in some (but not all) individuals not yet understood on the molecular level.
Of the three human pigmentation traits, DNA prediction of skin colour is least advanced, requiring considerable further research.
Current DNA prediction on the level of categorical eye, hair and skin colour shall be improved towards more detailed colour phenotypes, if the necessary DNA predictors become available via dedicated future research.
Forensic science is a major recipient of pigmentation predictive DNA tests, where they are used to trace unknown perpetrators unidentifiable via conventional DNA profiling.
Pigmentation DNA prediction is also relevant in anthropological and human evolutionary research particularly from old and ancient human remains.

Keywords:

human appearance;
eye colour;
hair colour;
skin colour;
pigmentation genetics;
genotype to phenotype;
prediction modelling;
molecular anthropology;
forensic genetics;
forensic DNA phenotyping


At the turn of the 20th century, Herman Bellstedt (1858-1926) was well-known throughout the country as a cornet soloist and performer. Coming to the United States as an immigrant from Germany in 1867, his father taught him to play the cornet at a young age. Bellstedt began performing with local bands as his talents were revealed, and he continued to become more refined as a soloist. His reputation was built on his technical skills, and he eventually began touring throughout the country with bands of increasing prominence. He performed with some of the most prestigious professional bands in American history including those of Patrick S. Gilmore and John Philip Sousa, and associated with many of the most well known cornet soloists in the United States such as Herbert L. Clarke. Bellstedt's impeccable technique and impressive musical abilities brought him great success in his career, but his compositional repertoire allows his acclaim to continue. Bellstedt's legacy continues through his compositions and his creativity and expressiveness is continually evident in them. He demonstrated his musical prowess throughout his repertoire by writing pieces that audiences enjoy; his works have interesting musical direction, contrasting moods, diverse harmonic color, and impressive technical feats. All of these attractive features make Bellstedt's cornet solos especially popular with younger students, although many present significant technical challenges that are better suited for more accomplished musicians. Two pieces in particular--La Coquette: Fantasia Capprisioso and Introduction and Tarantelle--exhibit the depth of Bellstedt's musicianship. Interesting musical features such as starkly contrasting sections and lively dance forms make these works ideal candidates for transcription as they retain the interest of the listener throughout and finish in grand style. In this project, La Coquette: Fantasia Capprisioso and Introduction and Tarantelle were transcribed for brass ensemble in order to add fresh and unheard music to this genre's repertoire. Even the most advanced performers will find difficult technical challenges in them, but each one also provides many opportunities that can be used as learning experiences for developing musicians, both for the soloist and ensemble players. Because the pieces were transcribed in their original keys, the original piano accompaniment can be used for rehearsals with a soloist as preparations for ensemble accompaniment are made.


Railway service terminals are the places of a railway network usually equipped with costly technology based on highly complicated technological procedures demanding a high degree of coordination and control skills. Design of these systems and the organization of their operation should facilitate reaching to the required capacity together with high quality of service processes as well as minimal costs of resources. Due to the complexity of such systems, a simulation model seems to be the only suitable tool for performing investigations under realistic conditions. The paper focuses on the possible utilization of simulation methods to support the design and optimisation of infrastructure, operation, and process control algorithms in railway terminals. The paper also deals with the most important properties and possibilities offered by the simulation tool Villon and comments on the experience gained during its utilization. The tool supports tactical (mid-term) and strategic (long-term) planning usually related to infrastructural or operational proposals which are supposed to guarantee the optimal (or at least effective) behaviour of the modelled terminal.


The resolution
of near-surface seismic reflection data is often limited by attenuation and
scattering in the shallow subsurface which reduces the high frequencies in the
data. Compensating for attenuation and scattering, as well as removing the
propagating source wavelet in a time-variant manner can be used to improve the
resolution. Here we investigate continuous non-stationary iterative time-domain
deconvolution (CNS-ITD), where the seismic wavelet is allowed to vary along the
seismic trace. The propagating seismic wavelet is then a combination of the
source wavelet and the effects of attenuation and scattering effects, and can
be estimated in a data-driven manner by performing a Gabor decomposition of the
data. For each Gabor window, the autocorrelation is estimated and windowed
about zero lag to estimate the propagating wavelet. Using the matrix-vector
equations, the estimated propagating wavelets are assigned to the related
columns of a seismic wavelet matrix, and these are then interpolated to the
time location where the maximum of the envelope of the trace occurs within the
iterative time-domain deconvolution. Advantages of using this data-driven,
time-varying approach include not requiring prior knowledge of the attenuation
and scattering structure and allowing for the sparse estimation of the
reflectivity within the iterative deconvolution. We first apply CNS-ITD to
synthetic data with a time-varying attenuation, where the method successfully
identified the reflectors and increased the resolution of the data. We then
applied CNS-ITD to two observed shallow seismic reflection datasets where
improved resolution was obtained.


This paper considers linear discrete-time systems with additive bounded disturbances subject to hard control input bounds and constraints on the expected number of state-constraint violations averaged over time, or, equivalently, constraints on the probability of a state-constraint violation averaged over time. This specification facilitates the exploitation of the information on the number of past constraint violations, and consequently enables a significant reduction in conservatism. For the type of constraint considered we develop a recursively feasible receding horizon scheme, and, as a simple modification of our approach, we show how a bound on the average number of violations can be enforced robustly. The computational complexity (online as well as offline) is comparable to existing model predictive control schemes. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by means of a numerical example.


Globally, non-typhoidal salmonellosis accounts for approximately 80.3 million cases of human infections annually. Estimates of salmonellosis due to consumption of pork or pork products is difficult to determine but, it ranges from < 1% to 25%. These invasive pathogens colonize intestinal mucosal surface but, they are self-limiting in health individuals due to a noble immunity. Utilization of antimicrobial agents in pig farming has been associated with the spread of resistant Salmonella species to man and the carrier status presents a major hazard to human health. This study examined 54 isolates for antimicrobial resistance, sequenced seven housekeeping genes, and performed Multi-Locus Sequence Type (MLST) analysis.  We detected â-lactamase and tetA(B) genes in 100% and 80% of the isolates respectively. Data analysis using Codon-based Test of Neutrality analysis between sequences revealed P-value less than 0.05, an indication of strong forces of natural selection pressure acting at the sequence type level. Further data analysis using the Maximum Composite Likelihood Estimate of the Pattern of Nucleotide Substitution discovered frequencies of 0.177 (A), 0.244 (T/U), 0.263 (C), and 0.317 (G). The transition/transversion rate ratios were found to be k1 = 2.698 (purines) and k2 = 20.089 (pyrimidines) with an overall transition/transversion bias of R = 6.565, where R = [A*G*k1 + T*C*k2]/[(A+G)*(T+C)] further confirming that indeed the Salmonella isolates studied here were divergent. These results suggest that, sequence types (STs) coexist in the intestine thereby providing for an efficient intestinal colonization and multiple adaptations. Our results offer general and rapid approaches for identifying genetic diversity of Salmonella serotypes in individual pig carcasses which can be adopted for molecular epidemiological surveys of important food contaminating bacterial pathogens.


This dissertation concentrates on the problem of designing and developing a conversational technical assistant. The main focus is to identify and address issues related to producing a system that allows for conversational question answering that utilizes a new methodology called Answers First. Additionally the mechanics of translating traditional technical communications into a knowledge base of question-answer pairs that will allow for effective information retrieval, pose another significant challenge, especially as the technical communications will be manufacturer-independent.
The resulting system should enable manufacturers to provide a new medium to their consumers for technical assistance. In this proposal, a prototype of a conversational technical assistant is developed using the technical communications from a manual published by O'Reilly. The approaches used to improve upon the aforementioned issues are described in detail. Through experiments performed on the developed application the performance and potential of the selected approaches will be evaluated.


Are we entitled to be confident that our moral judgements can be objective? Can they express insights into aspects of reality, rather than mere feelings, tastes, desires, decisions, upbringing, or conventions? Why must we consider some of our choices to be free, and how do our free choices matter? How far should our moral judgements be based on assessments of expected consequences? Can utilitarianism, and other consequentialist or proportionalist theories, be anything more than the rationalization of positions taken on other grounds? The main theme of this book is the challenge to ethics from philosophical scepticism and from contemporary forms of consequentialism. But in seeking to meet this challenge, the book develops a sustained philosophical argument about many of the central questions of ethics. It reviews classical positions, and challenges some long-influential interpretations of those positions. It also reviews and participates in some recent developments and controversies in Anglo-American ethical theory. The activity of ethical theorizing itself is shown to be a matter of free and intelligent decision, in pursuit of intelligible good; it thus provides a test-case for any ethical theory.


This book presents the state-of-the-art in the general subject of structures for enhanced safety and physical security. The technical papers written are by engineers and researchers who are involved with various subjects in this field. The book contains the following four parts: Part 1 - Threat Environments and Facility Planning, is devoted to problem definition, and to describing approaches for planning safe and secure structures. Part 2 - Structural Testing and Response, contains a collection of papers which address the observed behavior of various types of structures, structural elements, or test models under the effects of specific threats. Part 3 - Analysis and Design methods, discusses approaches that have been employed for the analysis and/or the design of structures subjected to the severe loads described in the first two parts. Part 4 - Case Histories and Industrial Safety provides detailed information on specific real cases for illustrating the severe problems under consideration, and additional discussions on industrial safety.


This paper suggests a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. But while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.


The University Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro partnered with Information Technology (ITS) and the Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED) to develop a needs assessment survey. This "UNCG Faculty Research Data Support Needs Survey" was administered to all faculty members in spring 2013 and included questions on the format(s) of their research data, how they store and backup data, how they share/disseminate data, data management plans, and their priorities for support. This paper will discuss the background literature, the survey methodology, how the results were used to identify priorities, steps taken to address priorities, and the benefits of cross-campus collaboration in an assessment project.