You have a body, but you are a soul or self. Without your body, you could still exist. Your body could be and perhaps is outlasted by the immaterial substance which is your soul or self. Thus the substance dualist. Most substance dualists are Cartesians. The self, they suppose, is essentially conscious: it cannot exist unless it thinks or wills or has experiences. In this paper I sketch out a different form of substance dualism. I suggest that it is not consciousness but another immaterial feature which is essential to the self, a feature in one way analogous to a non-dispositional taste. Each self has moreover a different feature of this general kind. If this is right then simple and straightforward answers are available to some questions which prove troublesome to the Cartesian, consciousness-requiring type of substance dualist. I mean the questions, How can the self exist in dreamless sleep?, What distinguishes two simultaneously existing selves, and What makes a self the same self as a self which exists at some other time?


Waste Strategy 2000 (Waste Strategy for England and Wales) as well as the Waste Strategy for England 2007 laid out a fairly conservative agenda for the future of waste management in England as it responded to the developing EU Legislative drive for sustainable practice. A careful analysis of the Strategy, in around 2001, whereby likely future delivery was compared to EU requirements revealed that the UK (being disaggregated into 4 separate strategies) was unlikely to meet targets, in particular the Landfill Directive. The production of the Strategy Unit report Waste Not Want Not (2002) signalled up the requirement for a rapid increase in the rate of adoption of more sustainable practice. The result was the formation of the Waste Implementation Programme (WIP) in Defra, with its initial 8 streams of activity, including waste minimisation / prevention and pro-environmental behaviour.

This research agenda approaches the topic from considering the requirements of a Regional Waste Management Strategy and in particular the knowledge requirements of a Regional Technology Advisory Board (RTAB) in developing waste strategy for the East Midlands. Firstly, starting with an extensive literature review to ascertain current practice, and based on rigorous methods and methodology the research investigated household waste prevention activities and developed techniques to measure impacts of individual and aggregated waste prevention. This research revealed a significant drop in the volume of waste arisings in a pilot area, indicating that it is possible to reduce household waste with a well designed campaign. Secondly, to support the research, Q methodology was used to identify issues of concern for designing waste prevention campaigns. Thirdly, a case study of Northamptonshire to identify potential suitable areas for siting of waste management facilities, using GIS tools, so as to identify possible target areas for future public information campaigns was developed.


In this paper, we analyze the performance of two-way amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying with best relay selection scheme in the presence of hardware impairment at the relays. We first obtain the tractable closed-form expression of the statistical characteristics for the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To reveal significant insights into the system performance, we also computed the asymptotic symbol error probability (SEP), which is shown extremely tight in the high SNR regime and low hardware impairments level. Our analysis enables us to evaluate the impact of non-ideal hardware on the performance of two-way relaying networks and to highlight as a benchmark for system designers.


The PARPSso thermoprotein from Sulfolobus solfataricus has been identified as a PARP-like enzyme that cleaves -NAD+ to synthesize oligomers of ADP-ribose and cross-reacts with polyclonal anti-PARP-1 catalytic site antibodies. Despite the biochemical properties that allow to correlate it to PARP enzymes, the N-terminal and partial amino acid sequence suggest the sulfolobal enzyme belongs to a different class of enzymes, the DING proteins. Considering the high sequence identity with the human DING protein HPBP and the lack of a nucleotide coding sequence in both human and sulfolobal genomes, we hypothesized that PARPSso might share other features with the human DING. Further analysis of PARPSso amino acid sequence addressed the research towards studying other possible similarities between human and sulfolobal protein and then to explain how PARPSso correlates with canonic PARPs. For the latter question, the peculiar behaviour of the thermozyme, that is biochemically, but not structurally related to the classic PARPs, stimulated to investigate by computational analysis and databank, whether the protein might be phylogenetically related to any already known PARP amino acid sequence.
Moreover, immunochemical and enzymatic crossed analyses were performed to establish whether purified HPBP and PARPSso have common immunoreactive and functional behaviour.
The second part of the research was focused on the localization of PARPSso within the sulfolobal cell. Our interest to this item arose from the property of some DING proteins to be membrane bound, suggested to work as membrane transporters. On the other hand, from previous studies, it is known that PARPSso is only partially solubilized from the starting cell homogenate provided by ICMIB (CNR), and the soluble enzyme is strictly associated with DNA. In this thesis work, whole cells collected by centrifugation from culture medium were subjected to a different extraction procedure. This procedure included also experimental conditions used to differentiate between soluble (i.e. cytoplasmic) and insoluble (i.e. membrane-bound) protein fractions. PARPSso and DNA distributions were determined by enzyme assay, immunoblotting and agarose gel electrophoresis. Reciprocal interactions of thermozyme, nucleic acid and membrane lipids were investigated with different techniques and methodologies (nucleoid preparation, fluorescence binding assays, fluorescence microscopy analysis).


When do enduring value sets, such as political ideologies or party identification, shape policy preferences, and when do policy preferences exhibit independence from entrenched ideologies? We present a model of individual-level politicization of policy preference, which draws on psychological and political explanations, and posits that greater external political efficacy results in a stronger effect of political ideology on concrete policy preference. We report the findings of two empirical studies that test this hypothesis: A correlational analysis that relies on the 2002 wave of the European Social Survey, and an original survey experiment conducted in Israel. The empirical findings support our hypothesis. In contrast to the established conviction that no association exists between political efficacy and policy preferences (Campbell et al. 1954), our findings reveal that external political efficacy has an indirect effect on expressed policy preferences.


This paper analyzes drivers of global change and their impacts on the current and future availability and accessibility of water resources in the Nile Basin. Drivers include changes in demography, climate, the socioeconomy, and politics, all of which are likely to increase the demand for freshwater and thus competition over its use across riparian countries. As a result of historic bilateral agreements, Egypt, as the most downstream country, uses the lion's share of the Nile's waters, which makes reallocation particularly difficult. Egypt is nearly totally dependent on water from upstream countries but considers any change of the status quo a threat to its national (water) security. Ninety-six percent of Egypt's water originates outside its territory—86 percent in Ethiopia. This paper assesses the special upstream–downstream relationship in the Nile Basin and the potential for change as a result of global change. It hypothesizes that under global change, not only will water availability in the Nile Basin change but so will the current hydropolitical situation in the basin. In any case, meeting the challenges in the Nile Basin depends on cooperation among countries and regulation of competing interests and demands. Avenues for hydropolitical reform, including the Nile Basin Initiative, and the role of China and other donors or investors are discussed. The findings—that global change might well bring down the old hydropolitical regime—are confirmed by recent developments, in particular, the signing by five upstream countries of a new framework agreement for management and development of the Nile Basin.


Expanding upon Simon's (1955) seminal theory, this investigation compared the choice-making strategies of maximizers and satisficers, finding that maximizing tendencies, although positively correlated with objectively better decision outcomes, are also associated with more negative subjective evaluations of these decision outcomes. Specifically, in the fall of their final year in school, students were administered a scale that measured maximizing tendencies and were then followed over the course of the year as they searched for jobs. Students with high maximizing tendencies secured jobs with 20% higher starting salaries than did students with low maximizing tendencies. However, maximizers were less satisfied than satisficers with the jobs they obtained, and experienced more negative affect throughout the job-search process. These effects were mediated by maximizers' greater reliance on external sources of information and their fixation on realized and unrealized options during the search and selection process.


This article depicts a complete picture of the profitability of proprietary trading by professional floor traders in four futures contract markets during 1995. Evidence shows a heterogeneous group in that more than one-third of them actually lost money in their proprietary trading. On average, only about 15 of them made annual profits of more than $100,000. Regression results show that proprietary volume increases as the market gets more volatile. However, it is only during the intermediate volatile market days that proprietary traders on the floor take the greatest advantage of these noise traders. During the most volatile market days, the informational advantage or trading skill by proprietary traders does not transform into greater trading profits. Furthermore, the support is mixed for the hypothesis that dual trading has a positive effect on dual traders' profitability.


Anyone with so much as a passing familiarity with bioethics knows how significantly and persistently (at least since mid-century) the law has insinuated itself into healthcare and the process of bioethical decisionmaking. Viewed from the insular perspective of traditional medical practice and medical ethics, it is not surprising that the "legalization" of the patient–physician relationship and clinical judgment has been characterized by some as pernicious. What is much more surprising, however, is when a book by a professor of law evinces the same jaundiced view of the role of law in this area. Nonetheless, the "limits" that Professor Dworkin considers to be inherent in the capacity of the law to resolve bioethical issues are significant, and hence in his opinion the role of the law should be severely circumscribed. This gloomy portrait of the "havoc" wreaked by law upon the landscape of medical practice, painted by a lawyer, stands in stark contrast to an earlier and much more sympathetic account offered by Columbia University historian and medical humanities professor David J. Rothman in his 1991 book Strangers at the Bedside, the informative subtitle of which is A History of How Law and Bioethics Transformed Medical Decision Making.


Previous research has linked anti-social behavior (ASB) to subtypes of empathy and also to sensation seeking, but there is limited research on the relative roles of empathy subtypes and sensation seeking traits in predicting ASB subtypes. The current study therefore investigated the relationship between sensation seeking, the three subtypes of empathy (emotional reactivity, cognitive empathy and social skills) and the two subtypes of ASB (physically aggressive and non-aggressive). An online survey consisting of Demographic Variables Questionnaire, Brief Sensation Seeking Scale, Empathy Quotient and the Antisocial Behavior Measure was sent to student volunteers, leading to a total of 537 respondents. Empathy alone accounted for a relatively modest proportion of the total variance in the ASBs, with emotional reactivity being the only significant predictor. Adding sensation seeking to the regression led to a marked improvement in prediction for non-aggressive ASB and a slight but significant improvement for physically aggressive ASB. Sensation seeking, emotional reactivity and social skills (but not cognitive empathy) contributed unique variance for both ASB subtypes. The greatest variance for physically aggressive and non-aggressive ASB were accounted for by emotional reactivity and sensation seeking, respectively. The results indicate that both sensation seeking and sub-types of empathy are important in predicting ASBs. This has theoretical implications for different personality models and has practical implications for the development of preventive measures to avoid such behaviors.


Introduction: Despite the majority of these infections being viral, a high percentage are regarded as bacterial infection by physicians and treated unnecessarily with antibiotics. We aimed to compare changes in patient-physician behaviors and therapeutic approaches and costs with use of Upper Respiratory Tract Infections (URTI) algorithms in primary care.
Material and Methods: This study is a randomized, controlled clinical field study, which was performed with the participation of 34 volunteer family physicians that were, later, divided into 2 groups as algorithm group and control group, with respect to their family center. Both groups were asked to fill surveys that were designed specifically for each group. Differences in therapeutic approaches and treatment costs were compared for both algorithm using and not using physician's groups. At the end of the study, participant physicians were asked to answer a 12-question survey to assess their therapeutic approach to URTI.
Results: A total of 460 patients were included to study. When antibiotic prescribing rates were compared between the groups, significantly fewer antibiotics were prescribed in the algorithm group. Modelling experiments for all cases revealed that group itself and presence of a sore throat, cough and fever were effective variables for antibiotic prescribing. Modelling was performed separately to determine how algorithm affects decision making. Prescription fees are significantly higher in the antibiotics using group.
Conclusion: Although there are guidelines in the primary care practice, this behavioural change after a single training suggests that more training are necessary and application of record-based algorithm systems is required.


As metabolic pathways are highly variable among different patients, then an accurate and continuous monitoring of the personal response to drug treatments is essential especially with critical medications, e.g. anesthetic and anti-cancer cocktails. Currently, for anesthesia monitoring, there are no fully mature point-of-care bio-sensing systems. Indeed, it is still evaluated by mathematical models and with indirect parameters like Bispectral Index, which can not provide the actual concentration in blood. The aim of this paper is to investigate solutions for developing a portable system able to monitor simultaneously several different drugs. For this purpose, Cyclic Voltammetries with an anesthetic product and therapeutic compounds were performed for the validation of the system. A multichannel potentiostat has been realized with Off-The-Shelf Components (COTS). Then, results from electrochemical acquisitions on GC SPEs show that the proposed circuitry is suitable for this aim and they prove its high flexibility to develop portable systems for continuous monitoring of anesthetics and therapeutic compounds.


Enzyme‐substrate interactions are fundamental concepts that span various topics in biochemistry and molecular biology (e.g., kinetics, metabolism, and translation). Deficiencies in understanding of enzyme‐substrate interactions could hinder students' understandings of later concepts in biochemistry. Misconceptions detected during interviews with biochemistry students were used to create the Enzyme‐Substrate Interactions Concept Inventory (ESICI) in order to be able to efficiently measure a large number of students' understandings. The ESICI was administered to N=707 biochemistry students at 16 institutions across the United States. Twenty specific misconceptions measured by the ESICI fall within five categories: enzyme and substrate characteristics, types of complementarities, enzyme conformational change, where and to what an inhibitor binds, and how the enzyme interacts with the substrate. Four specific misconceptions were selected by more than 37% of students, and 85% of students held misconceptions in three or more categories. This presentation will focus on findings from both student interviews and the ESICI of one of the most prevalent misconceptions, the role of shape and charge in enzyme‐substrate interactions.


Enticing groups of passers-by to focused interaction with a public display requires the display system to take appropriate action that depends on how much attention the group is already paying to the display. In the design of such a system, we might want to present the content so that it indicates that a part of the group that is looking head-on at the display has already been registered and is addressed individually, whereas it simultaneously emits a strong audio signal that makes the inattentive rest of the group turn toward it. The challenge here is to define and delimit adequate mixed attention states for groups of people, allowing for classifying collective attention based on inhomogeneous variants of individual attention, i.e., where some group members might be highly attentive, others even interacting with the public display, and some unperceptive. In this article, we present a model for estimating collective human attention toward a public display and investigate technical methods for practical implementation that employs measurement of physical expressive features of people appearing within the display's field of view (i.e., the basis for deriving a person's attention). We delineate strengths and weaknesses and prove the potentials of our model by experimentally exerting influence on the attention of groups of passers-by in a public gaming scenario.


Writing at University offers guidance on how to develop the writing you have to do at university along with a greater understanding of what is involved in this complex activity. Writing is seen as a tool for learning as well as a product to be assessed. The importance of what you yourself can bring as a writer to your academic writing is stressed throughout the book.

The book looks at an array of writing projects, including essays, reports and dissertations, and analyzes what is expected of each form of assignment. The authors provide examples of student writing and reflections on writing by both tutors and students.

This edition includes new sections on:
Making an argument and persuading your reader
Using sources creatively
Avoiding plagiarism
Writing online
Further sources of information about academic writing


Artification' is a term recently coined and developed in Finnish aesthetic theory and proposed by Ossi Naukkarinen in this volume as the process of treating non-art objects as art. In this paper, I distinguish between a superficial sort of artification and a deep sort. The superficial sort is the one we need to worry about. In Part I, I consider various issues surrounding the definition of artification. In the process, I situate artification within the larger question of aestheticization. I understand aestheticization in terms of recent psychological work on supernormal stimuli and Virginia Postrel's defense of style and surface in the commercial world. I conclude the first part with remarks on how the debate goes back to Plato's rejection of arts in the Republic. Part II addresses the issues of artification and aestheticization within aquariums. I argue against scientific cognitivism and in favor of aesthetic pluralism in relation to appreciating natural environments. This pluralism allows for valuing artification and aestheticization, and hence for aquarium displays that show marine animals alongside works of art. However, I reject the shallow form of artification that can be found in the kitsch products sold in aquarium museum stores. I conclude with a reflection on ideals of artification and the role of the professional philosopher of art and aesthetics in contemporary life.


Commodity chemicals are high-value chemicals used by industries to
synthesise countless consumer products of daily use. For example, it was
estimated that the global demand for benzene in 2015 was 46 million tonnes
[1]. Many of these chemicals are mainly derived from petroleum feedstocks. With these feedstocks depleting and global pressure to reduce CO2 emissions, there is an urgent need to turn to sustainable bio-based
methods to produce these chemicals [2].
Computational software can provide insight and be used to design novel
biochemical pathways to produce commodity chemicals. The advantage
being that these tools help engineer routes and suggest enzymes capable of
catalysing these reactions [3].
In this study, the software ReactPRED and RetroPath 2.0 was used to
design pathways to a few bulk chemicals, including benzene, phenol and
1,2-propanediol. These chemicals were chosen due to their high demands
and current pathway knowledge.


Probabilistic methods have gradually gained ground within engineering practices but currently it is still the industry standard to use deterministic safety margin approaches to dimensioning components and qualitative methods to manage product risks. These methods are suitable for baseline design work but quantitative risk management and product reliability optimization require more advanced predictive approaches. Ample research has been published on how to predict failure probabilities for mechanical components and furthermore to optimize reliability through life cycle cost analysis. This paper reviews the literature for existing methods and tries to harness their best features and simplify the process to be applicable in practical engineering work. Recommended process applies Monte Carlo method on top of load-resistance models to estimate failure probabilities. Furthermore, it adds on existing literature by introducing a practical framework to use probabilistic models in quantitative risk management and product life cycle costs optimization. The main focus is on mechanical failure modes due to the well-developed methods used to predict these types of failures. However, the same framework can be applied on any type of failure mode as long as predictive models can be developed.


We examined 1) the potential modifications in both single nephron filtration rate (SNGFR) and the determinants of glomerular ultrafiltration, and 2) the alterations in peritubular capillary (PTC) "physical factors" that may contribute to changes in proximal tubular reabsorption (APR) after acute renal denervation (DNx). Micropuncture measurements were obtained in euvolemic Munich-Wistar rats with DNx or sham operation (sham). The content of norepinephrine in renal tissue homogenates was markedly reduced in DNx kidneys compared with sham kidneys (P less than 0.001). Mean arterial blood pressure, hematocrit, whole kidney GFR, and urinary flow rate were not different between the sham and DNx groups. Absolute urinary sodium excretion was 3 times greater in the DNx than in the sham group (P less than 0.01). SNGFR and its determinants were not statistically different in the two experimental conditions. APR was significantly reduced by approximately 25% in DNx (P less than 0.02). This reduction in APR was not accompanied by significant directional changes in peritubular capillary and renal interstitial pressures and the passive driving forces acting across the PTC-proximal tubular epithelium. These data demonstrate that elimination of renal innervation does not alter SNGFR or its determinants and suggest that the effect of denervation on APR is a primary epithelial event that occurs independent of changes in renal interstitial pressure and peritubular oncotic and hydrostatic pressures.


A recent method for phase equilibria, the AGAPE method, has been used to predict activity coefficients and excess Gibbs energy for binary mixtures with good accuracy. The theory, based on a generalised London potential (GLP), accounts for intermolecular attractive forces. Unlike existing prediction methods, for example UNIFAC, the AGAPE method uses only information derived from accessible experimental data and molecular information for pure components. Presently, the AGAPE method has some limitations, namely that the mixtures must consist of small, non-polar compounds with no hydrogen bonding, at low moderate pressures and at conditions below the critical conditions of the components. Distinction between vapour-liquid equilibria and gas-liquid solubility is rather arbitrary and it seems reasonable to extend these ideas to solubility. The AGAPE model uses a molecular lattice-based mixing rule. By judicious use of computer programs a methodology was created to examine a body of experimental gas-liquid solubility data for gases such as carbon dioxide, propane, n-butane or sulphur hexafluoride which all have critical temperatures a little above 298 K dissolved in benzene, cyclo-hexane and methanol. Within this methodology the value of the GLP as an ab initio combining rule for such solutes in very dilute solutions in a variety of liquids has been tested. Using the GLP as a mixing rule involves the computation of rotationally averaged interactions between the constituent atoms, and new calculations have had to be made to discover the magnitude of the unlike pair interactions. These numbers have been seen as significant in their own right in the context of the behaviour of infinitely-dilute solutions. A method for extending this treatment to "permanent" gases has also been developed. The findings from the GLP method and from the more general AGAPE approach have been examined in the context of other models for gas-liquid solubility, both "classical" and contemporary, in particular those derived from equations-of-state methods and from reference solvent methods.


This Technical brief is a short summary of the results obtained from the field trials conducted at Anbil Dharmalingam Agricultural College and Research Institute, Trichy, India during Rabi (2010-2011) to evaluate the role of photosynthetic diazotrophs in reducing methane flux from rice soil ecosystem as a part of climarice project. Global warming induced by increasing concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is a matter of great environmental concern. Methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbon are the GHGs which have strong infrared absorption bands and trap part of the thermal radiation from the earth surface. Rice fields have to be considered as a significant source of greenhouse gases and rice field eco systems account for about 60 Tg methane per year or about 12 per cent of the global annual methane emission. The purpose of this study is to explore the potential of blue green algae and azolla in minimizing methane flux at source in paddy field ecosystem. In the present study, combined application of organics and blue green algae not only recorded higher yield, but also found to emit less methane in paddy cultivation than the application of organics alone.


Applications of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in flexible and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-based electronic and energy devices are impeded due to typically low CNT areal densities, growth temperatures that are incompatible with device substrates, and challenges in large-area alignment and interconnection. A scalable method for continuous fabrication and transfer printing of dense horizontally aligned CNT (HA-CNT) ribbon interconnects is presented. The process combines vertically aligned CNT (VA-CNT) growth by thermal chemical vapor deposition, a novel mechanical rolling process to transform the VA-CNTs to HA-CNTs, and adhesion-controlled transfer printing without needing a carrier film. The rolling force determines the HA-CNT packing fraction and the HA-CNTs are processed by conventional lithography. An electrical resistivity of 2 mOmega . cm is measured for ribbons having 800-nm thickness, while the resistivity of copper is 100 times lower, a value that exceeds most CNT assemblies made to date, and significant improvements can be made in CNT structural quality. This rolling and printing process could be scaled to full wafer areas and more complex architectures such as continuous CNT sheets and multidirectional patterns could be achieved by straightforward design of the CNT growth process and/or multiple rolling and printing sequences.


Twenty years after it ceased to exist as a multinational federation, Yugoslavia still has the power to provoke controversy and debate. Bringing together contributions from twelve of the leading scholars of modern and contemporary South East Europe, this volume explores the history of Yugoslavia from creation to dissolution.

Drawing on the very latest historical research, this book explains how the country came about, how it evolved and why, eventually, it failed. From the start of the twentieth century, through the First World War, the interwar years and the Second World War, to the road to socialism under President Tito and the wars of Yugoslav succession in the 1990s, this volume provides up to date analysis of the causes and consequences of a range of events that shaped the development of this remarkable state across its various iterations. The book concludes by examining post-conflict relations in the era of European integration.

Traversing ninety years of history, this volume presents a fascinating story of how a country that once served as the model for multiethnic states around the world has now become a byword for ethno-national fragmentation and conflict.

Contributors include Dejan Djokic, James Ker-Lindsay, Connie Robinson, Mark Cornwall, John Paul Newman, Tomislav Dulic, Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Dejan Jovic, Nebojsa Vladisavljevic, Florian Bieber, Jasna Dragovic-Soso and Eric Gordy.


We reviewed retrospectively the incidence of complications encountered with two different umbilical artery catheters (UACs): a silicone-rubber end-hole catheter and an electrode-tipped, side-hole catheter for continuous, invasive monitoring of arterial oxygen tension (PaO2). During calendar year 1989, there were 457 admissions to the neonatal intensive care unit: 168 patients had placement of a UAC. Two of these were admitted only briefly for cardiac catheterization and were eliminated from analysis. One patient had both types of catheters placed sequentially. Thus the data on 166 patients with 51 PaO2 monitors and 116 silicone-rubber UACs were evaluated. The patients who had a PaO2 monitor UAC had a lower mean birth weight than those in the other group (1621 +/- 1043 gm vs 1972 +/- 1048 gm; p = 0.0473). The catheter life span was not different between the groups, with a range of 1 to 16 days for PaO2 monitors and 1 to 27 days for silicone-rubber UACs. Inability to withdraw blood, poor blood pressure tracing, or both conditions resulted in catheter removal for 5 of 51 PaO2 monitor UACs and 4 of 116 end-hole UACs. The incidence of these problems did not differ significantly between the two groups. There were no cases of thromboembolic complications in the patients who had a PaO2 monitor UAC, whereas two of the silicone-rubber UACs were removed because of perfusion problems in the lower limbs, which resolved with decannulation. We conclude that the use of the PaO2 monitor UAC allows for continuous, invasive monitoring of PaO2 without any significant increase in risk compared with that for the silicone-rubber end-hole UAC.


The goal of this study was to assess the severity of diarrhea caused by Shiga toxins produced by Escherichia coli ( STEC) isolated from human infections in Wassit province of Iraq. Stool specimens from (161) sporadic cases of diarrheal Patients with the mean age of (20 years), and  range from 1 month to 75 years, were collected in AL-Karamma Teaching Hospital   between March  to July 2019. Then they were processed by culture, microscopic tests and VITEK which were used for the identification as E. coli. PCR was performed for detecting shiga toxin genes in  E. coli isolates, and rfb gene (encoding O-antigene )   of STEC- O157. DNA sequencing was done on some positive isolates. The results of PCR detected stx genes in 19 (12 %) culture isolates of E. coli isolated from human diarrheal specimens. While 9 cases were positive for stx genes and have rfb gene. DNA sequences that depend on the sequence of the vtx2 gene have shown a highly homologous sequencing identity with NCBI-Blast Escherichia coli strain( O157:H7) isolates from humans and animals. The phylogenetic study revealed a clear genetic relationship between human and animal E. coli isolates and then gene sequencing was deposited with accession number into NCBI-Genbank (0MN944014.1). In conclusion, prevalence of E. coli O157 in humans remains undiagnosed because there are no traditional O157 detection methods in all our hospitals. Our study showed that the use of molecular methods in the detection can be used to detect STECs which cannot be detected using routine methods.


Hyper-sphere Support Vector Machine (SVM) is very effective for solving multi-class classification problems. Considering data distribution is very important for convergence of solving support vectors, a weight factor is imported into the original hyper-sphere SVM. After computing data for each training class, this weight factor is decided by its center-distance ratio. In the training process, data with bigger weight is put into the data processing thread first and is then followed by smaller ones. To save computation cost, a parallel genetic algorithm based SMO multi-threading is adopted. For a test sample, its class decision is based on its position with each classification of hyper-sphere. If all class-specific hyper-spheres are independent of each other, a new test sample can be classified correctly. But, if some hyper-spheres have common spaces, that is, one hyper-sphere intersects with one or more hyper-spheres, it is hard to decide the class of the test sample. Based on detailed analysis of three decision rules for the intersection data classification, one decision rule that combines the kNN method is put forward in this paper. For other simple inclusion cases, the simple decision rule is defined. Through two real experimental results of navigation tracking and ship meeting situations classification, our new proposed algorithm has a higher classification accuracy and boasts a lower computation cost than other algorithms.


Asuperb book that explains how to design and construct small scale, simple mechanical devices for funperfect for toy makers, woodworkers, crafters, andtinkerers Designing and making successful automata involves combining materials, mechanisms, and magic. Illustrated with color photosthroughout,this wonderful bookexplains the six golden rules for making automata alongside detailed step-by-step projects. Many materials are discussed, including paper and card, wood, wire, tinplate, and plastics; mechanisms discussed include levers and linkages, cranks and cams, wheels, gears, pulleys, springs, ratchets, and pawls.Finally, there is the magican unanalyzable charm, a strong fascination so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.


Background The postural stability is a major factor that helps prevent developing knee osteoarthritis with aging. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of Baduanjin qigong on postural control and physical function in older adults with knee osteoarthritis. Methods Fifty-six individuals over 60 years of age with knee osteoarthritis were randomly assigned to either an experimental group (n = 28) or a control group (n = 28). Participants in the experimental group received a 12-week Baduanjin training, while those in the control group did not receive any additional physical exercise during the study period. The postural control was quantified by perimeter and ellipse area of center of pressure movement trajectory. The assessments were conducted three times (baseline, week 8, and week 12). Results The perimeter and ellipse area with both open- and closed-eyes conditions and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) function were significantly improved at week eight in the experimental group (p < 0.005). The ellipse area with open-eyes condition, WOMAC index, and stiffness and physical function domains were significantly decreased after the 12 weeks of Baduanjin training compared to the control group (p < 0.005). Only the perimeter area with both open- and closed-eyes conditions was not statistically significant at week 12 in the intervention group (p > 0.005). Conclusions Baduanjin is an effective and adjuvant therapy for older adults with knee osteoarthritis. Regular Baduanjin training can improve postural control and WOMAC function of old individuals with knee osteoarthritis. More advanced techniques and biopsychological measurements are required for further understanding of Baduanjin exercise in this population. The trial was registered in Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR-IOR-16010042).


The functional relationship between response probability and time is investigated in data from Rubin, Hinton and Wenzel (1999) and Anderson (1981). Recall/recognition probabilities and search times are linearly related through stimulus presentation lags from 6 seconds to 600 seconds in the former experiment and for repeated learning of words in the latter. The slope of the response time vs. probability function is related to the meaningfulness of the items used. The Rubin et al data suggest that only one memory structure is present or that all memory structures probed show the same linear relation of response probability and time. Both sets of data also suggest that the memory items, presumably in the neocortex, have a finite effective size that shrinks in a logarithmic fashion as the time since stimulus presentation increases or the overlearning decreases, away from the start of the search. According to the logarithmic decay, the size of the memory items decreases to a couple of neurons at about 1500 seconds for recall and 1100 seconds for recognition – this could be the time scale for a short term memory being converted to a long term memory. The incorrect recall time saturates in the Rubin et al data (it is not linear throughout the experiments), suggesting a limited size of the short term memory structure: the time to search through the structure for recall is 1.7 seconds. For recognition the corresponding time is about 0.4 seconds, to compare with the 0.243 seconds given by the data analysis of Cavanagh of Sternberg-like experiments (1972).


Annually, between the Christian seasons of Christmas and Lent, Trinidadians devote themselves to island-wide Carnival activities. A season in itself, the Carnival period culminates in a two-day street celebration marked by music, dancing and masquerade performances. For many Trinidadians, Carnival is the quintessential expression of Trinidadian-ness. On one level, this thesis is an ethnographic "enactment" of one particular Carnival celebration in the circumscribed space and time of Port of Spain 1992. On another, this study explores the historical, systemic, political and hermeneutical linkages between Trinidad's "national" identity, its culture and its annual Carnival. I argue that Trinidad's Carnival is more properly understood, not as a rite of reversal, but as a performance which constitutes and expresses the Trinidadian Self. For many Trinidadians, Carnival time is not the-world-turned-upside-down, but the-worldturned-right-side-up. An embedded argument in my thesis is a critique of discourses of identity which assume the oppositional categories of a unified Self over and against a distinctive Other. This distinction is found not only in the specific case of Trinidad's Carnival, but in all analyses of cultural identity, and in the anthropological endeavour itself. I show how the modem Carnival, as the dominant "national" icon of Trinidadian identity, subverts the very ideal of a "national" identity it is meant to create and reinforce. Based on fourteen months of fieldwork in Trinidad, I present multiple views and experiences of the Trinidad Carnival. These representations are situated within the theoretical frameworks provided by both academic Euro-American anthropology and the multiple discourses honed in Trinidadian rumshops, yards, homes, media depictions and academia. Carnival is examined in order to open up new spaces for the re-articulation of identity and a reconstituted politics of difference.


The nature of human relationships (HR) within supply chains has received a superficial attention in the drive for continuous improvement (CI). Persistent pressures affecting global engineering companies have limited the potential to address the HR element. Simply transferring mature western concepts and analytical tools does not capture the dynamics of the global production workforce. This paper proposes a new theoretical perspective encompassing an evaluative tool, thus moving beyond formulaic implementations of initiatives that erroneously assume maturity of production practices and outcomes. This study helps advance organizations by adding contextualization to the human-centric perspectives of organizational citizenship behavior and discretionary effort. Case-based data from engineering production workers in Thailand were factor analyzed to test the research hypotheses. This research reports on an alternative operationalization of these core ideas, while significantly extending the empirical base through validating the propositions. Furthermore, it contributes and responds to extant literature identifying HR as the missing link in enacting CI programs in practice. This paper addresses this gap, and the data collected support the theory that the proposed HR concepts positively impact organizational CI interventions. Findings have important implications for such interventions encompassing practical and theoretical relevance for global engineering managers with a local engineering production workforce.


The intent of this article is to examine the issue of trauma among animal advocates and ways of addressing the problems that arise in this context. The discussion will include background on the development of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, and general theories related to treatment of healing of this trauma. I will also consider a number of specific conditions in contemporary society that contribute to the trauma faced by advocates for animals. Next, I will look at the negative impact on animals and their advocates of the few laws that exist to protect animal welfare. Finally, I will consider activities in which all animal advocates can engage, and in which legal advocates for animals, in particular, can become involved. I propose that some forms of legal advocacy will advance the cause of animal protection, and, at the same time, aid in the healing of traumatic exposure to animal suffering.


Objective: Conflicting data exist regarding false vocal fold (FVF) anatomy; it is unclear if this structure is an extension of the thyroarytenoid muscle or an independent muscle system. This confusion is amplified by diverse clinical findings in the setting of unilateral recurrent laryngeal neuropathy and presbylarynges. We sought to characterize FVF behavior in these contexts. Methods: Laryngoscopic/stroboscopic examinations from 11 patients with unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve paresis and 12 patients with presbylarynges were reviewed by 4 laryngologists, blinded to the goal of the study but informed of diagnosis. Variables related to FVF structure and function at rest and during phonation were rated. Results: In recurrent laryngeal neuropathy, no significant association between atrophic/paretic vocal fold (VF) and FVF size was observed at rest (P = .69). During phonation, FVF compression was noted bilaterally; contralateral FVF hypertrophy was more common (P = .002). In presbylarynges, neither FVF size at rest (P = .86) nor compression during phonation (P = .37) was associated with the more atrophic VF; FVF compression/hypertrophy was common. Conclusions: Consistent with clinical dogma, FVF compression was more common contralateral to VF neuropathy. This finding, however, was inconsistent and may suggest individual variability in FVF innervation and/or morphology. Intra- and interrater reliability of these clinical findings was poor.


Accurate simulation of water transport (percolate, runoff, soil water content) under
various management practices is important to accurately simulate water quality. Furthermore,
simulation of macropore flow can be important to accurately simulate chemical transport to
shallow groundwater. Therefore, we compared RZWQM simulated water transport to eighty
days of data from two macroporous field plots (a short term no-till plot and a rototilled plot). The only calibrated parameters were the average macropore radius and the surface crust saturated
hydraulic conductivity. The other parameters were determined from the literature or measured.
The results indicate that RZWQM reasonably simulated runoff, percolate, and soil water content
compared to daily observations with minimal calibration and reasonable input parameters.


PURPOSE
The goal of this project was to investigate the educational experiences and the use of local anesthesia by dental hygiene providers in the U.S.

METHODS
Approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Pittsburgh and undertaken from February to May 2009, this study was designed using a questionnaire-based survey. Using a randomized list obtained via the American Dental Hygienists' Association (ADHA), the survey questionnaires were sent via mail to 1,200 dental hygienists in the U.S. Quantitative evaluations were confined to descriptive statistics including standard summation, an estimation of means and a valid percent for identified variables.

RESULTS
A total of 432 (n=432) of the 1,200 survey questionnaires were returned, which represents a 36% response rate. The respondents represented a total of 296 dental hygiene educational programs, and included practice sites that span all 50 states. Findings indicate that the majority of responding dental hygienists perceive a need for the use of this pain control modality in their practice and administer local anesthetic injections. Additionally, the majority of respondents that administer local anesthetic injections reported that they perform local anesthetic administration for cases in which the dentist provides total care. Furthermore, the results revealed that the hygienists that received training in the administration of local anesthesia injections reported a higher rate of educational preparedness in 6 of the 7 educational topics listed in this survey: local anesthesia related topics (local anesthesia administration, local anesthetic pharmacology and local anesthetic complications), basic pharmacology, medical emergency management and special needs care.

CONCLUSION
This examination parallels the results presented in previous studies, while offering new data relating to local anesthesia administration by dental hygienists. With the majority of dental hygienists reporting a perceived need and the use of this method of pain control, this practice appears to be a significant addition to overall dental care and dental hygiene education.


This thesis describes experimental work on electrochemical sensing mechanisms. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 provide an introduction to electrochemical and surface science techniques as well as nano-carbon materials which are of interest in electroanalysis and sensing. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 focus on electrochemical processes at liquid | liquid | electrode triple phase boundary systems. In Chapter 3 the electrochemical behaviour of CoPc (cobalt phthalocyanine) dissolved into an organic water –insoluble liquid and deposited as microdroplets on a graphite electrode is studied. Both cation and anion transfer are observed at the liquid | liquid phase boundary. Chapter 4 describes redox processes of a highly hydrophobic anthraquinone derivative where preferential transfer of protons and pH sensitivity are observed. Both systems, CoPc and anthraquinone derivative, are investigated towards CO2 sensitivity. In Chapter 3 and 4 graphite electrodes are employed, but in Chapter 5 graphitic carbon nanoaprticles are employed with a surface functionalisation to provide binding capability to DNA fragments. Layer-by-layer deposition of DNA-carbon nanoparticle composite film electrodes is demonstrated and the electrochemical properties of the films are investigated. A novel type of DNA hybridisation sensing mechanism based on a nano-gap generator – collector electrode system is proposed. Chapters 6 and 7 are dedicated to gas sensing with a novel electrochemical system based on ionomer spheres in contact to the working electrode. In Chapter 6 Dowex ionomer particles are impregnated with carbon nanoparticles which are functionalised with DOPA to provide redox activity and Faradaic current responses. The effect of ionomer type and gas composition is studied. In Chapter 7 Prussian blue nanoparticles are immobilised onto the ionomer particle surface to provide a sensing system with peroxide sensitivity. Overall, this thesis contributes to sensing of bio-molecules and of gases. By introducing new types of interfaces (triple phase boundary, ionomer contacts, carbon nanoparticle redox systems) it is shown that sensitivity and selectivity can be tailored. In future these types of sensor prototypes could be further developed for specific applications.


Abstract—Fluidized bed reactors are known as highly exothermic and endothermic according to uniformity in temperature as a safe and effective mean for catalytic reactors. In these reactors, a wide range of catalyst particles can be used and by using a continuous operation proceed to produce in succession. Providing optimal conditions for the operation of these types of reactors will prevent the exorbitant costs necessary to carry out laboratory work. In this regard, a hydrodynamic analysis was carried out with heat transfer in the solid-gas fluidized bed reactor for solar thermal applications. The results showed that in the fluid flow the input of the reactor has a lower temperature than the outlet, and when the fluid is passing from the reactor, the heat transfer happens between cylinder and solar panel and fluid. It increases the fluid temperature in the outlet pump and also the kinetic energy of the fluid has been raised in the outlet areas.


We here present a 10-17 Degrees of Freedom (DoF) sensory gloves for Smart Healthcare implementing an energy harvesting architecture, aimed at enhancing the battery lasting when powering the electronics of the two different types of gloves, used to sense fingers movements. In particular, we realized a comparison in terms of measurement repeatability and reliability, as well as power consumption and battery lasting, between two sensory gloves implemented by means of different technologies. The first is a 3D printed glove with 10 DoF, featuring low-cost, low-effort fabrication and low-power consumption. The second is a classical Lycra® glove with 14 DoF suitable for a more detailed assessment of the hand postures, featuring a relatively higher cost and power consumption. An electronic circuitry was designed to gather and elaborate data from both types of sensory gloves, differing for number of inputs only.  Both gloves are equipped with flex sensors and in addiction with the electronics (including a microcontroller and a transmitter) allow the control of hand virtual limbs or mechanical arts in surgical, military, space and civil applications.Six healthy subjects were involved in tests suitable to evaluate the performances of the proposed gloves in terms of repeatability, reproducibility and reliability. Particular effort was devoted to increase battery lasting for both glove-based systems, with the electronics relaying on Radio Frequency, Piezoelectric and Thermoelectric harvesters. The harvesting part was built and tested as a prototype discrete element board, that is interfaced with an external microcontroller and a radiofrequency transmitter board. Measurement results demonstrated a meaningful improvement in battery operation time up to 25%, considering different operating scenarios.


We present an alternative method based on the time-reversal process to locate faults in transmission line networks. The proposed procedure considers different media for the forward and the backward propagation phases. Specifically, the transverse branch representing the fault is removed from the circuit in the backward propagation since its location represents the solution of the process and, therefore, is not known in advance. The advantage of the proposed method is twofold. First, the proposed backward model requires only one simulation for the time-reversed backward propagation phase, thus reducing significantly the computational burden. Second, we demonstrate that this modified backward propagation medium satisfies a property such that the fault location can be identified by computing, in the frequency domain, the argument of the voltage along the line. The theory is first formulated for the case of a lossless homogeneous single-phase transmission line; then, its applicability is extended to lossy inhomogeneous transmission line networks. A single-phase inhomogeneous transmission line and an inhomogeneous Y-shape network are specifically considered to support this claim. We show that the proposed procedure can provide high fault location accuracy (i.e., in the range of $\pm 1$ m), using only one observation point. Furthermore, we propose a criterion to link the bandwidth of the sampling system to the desired fault location accuracy.


CONTEXT
Little is known about the neuroendocrine effects of androgens on the GnRH-LH unit in females.

OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to evaluate androgen negative feedback on the GnRH-LH axis in eumenorrheic and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) adolescents.

DESIGN AND SETTING
We conducted a prospective, longitudinal, randomized, double-blind study at a pediatric endocrinology clinical research center.

PARTICIPANTS
Seven nonobese PCOS adolescents and seven matched controls (C) were studied in the early follicular phase of three consecutive menstrual cycles or in three consecutive months.

INTERVENTION
Pulsatile LH release was determined during saline [baseline (B)] and constant testosterone (T) infusions: low dose (T-LD) 0.75 and high dose (T-HD) 2.5 mg/12 h iv. Blood samples were drawn every 20 min overnight.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
LH (immunofluorometric assay) and T (electrochemiluminescence immunoassay) were determined at B, and during both T-LD and T-HD. LH profiles were analyzed by deconvolution and approximate entropy analyses.

RESULTS
On T-LD, C and PCOS serum T levels increased 2- to 3-fold vs. B. On T-HD, T values doubled in both groups vs. T-LD. Controls on T-LD had greater 12-h pulsatile LH secretion rate (P < 0.05 vs. B) and on T-HD had lower mean, pulsatile, basal LH release and LH approximate entropy (vs. B, P < 0.05). PCOS did not respond to T-LD. High-dose T did not alter mean LH in PCOS but increased pulsatile and reduced basal LH secretion.

CONCLUSIONS
PCOS adolescents have impaired suppression of pulsatile LH secretion rate consistent with reduced androgen negative feedback. Attenuation of T feedback in nonobese adolescents with PCOS extends the pathophysiology of this syndrome.


Throughout the thesis, the issue of whether eyewitness decision strategy (relative or absolute) is indicative of accuracy was examined. Results were mixed but where an effect emerged (studies 1, 2a & 2b), the data suggested that eyewitnesses were more likely to be accurate when using an absolute decision strategy. The likelihood of using such a strategy was maximised when lineup members were viewed under a sequential presentation rather than a simultaneous presentation. In this respect, the sequential lineup was recommended over the more usual simultaneous lineup. The effect of lineup member similarity on accuracy and decision strategy usage was also examined through the manipulation of lineup construction methods (similarity-to-suspect; match-to-description). Results indicated that neither construction method significantly influenced accuracy or decision strategy usage. The thesis also examined the influence of an emergent factor - facial distinctiveness - with the expectation that a distinctive target would be easier to identify from a line-up because of (i) a more resilient memory trace, (ii) a representation which elicits less confusion with similar faces, or (iii) a more heterogeneous set of foils as a match to the distinctive target face. In a series of experiments (studies 2a, 2b, & 3) in which target presence, lineup construction, and lineup presentation type (simultaneous; sequential) were manipulated, distinctiveness failed to influence eyewitness performance. A partial replication of experiments of 2a and 2b in which delay was shortened also failed to find the expected distinctiveness advantage (study 4). The lack of a distinctiveness advantage was unlikely to be due to the particular targets used as a traditional laboratory-based old/new task yielded the expected advantage when recognising distinctive faces over typical faces in general, and the distinctive target over the typical target in particular (study 5).


Abstract. The volcanic eruption of Grimsvotn in Iceland in May 2011 affected surface-layer air quality at several locations in Northern Europe. In Helsinki, Finland, the main pollution episode lasted for more than 8 h around the noon of 25 May. We characterized this episode by relying on detailed physical, chemical and optical aerosol measurements. The analysis was aided by air mass trajectory calculations, satellite measurements, and dispersion model simulations. During the episode, volcanic ash particles were present at sizes from less than 0.5 μm up to sizes >10 μm. The mass mean diameter of ash particles was a few μm in the Helsinki area, and the ash enhanced PM 10 mass concentrations up to several tens of μg m −3 . Individual particle analysis showed that some ash particles appeared almost non-reacted during the atmospheric transportation, while most of them were mixed with sea salt or other type of particulate matter. Also sulfate of volcanic origin appeared to have been transported to our measurement site, but its contribution to the aerosol mass was minor due the separation of ash-particle and sulfur dioxide plumes shortly after the eruption. The volcanic material had very little effect on PM 1 mass concentrations or sub-micron particle number size distributions in the Helsinki area. The aerosol scattering coefficient was increased and visibility was slightly decreased during the episode, but in general changes in aerosol optical properties due to volcanic aerosols seem to be difficult to be distinguished from those induced by other pollutants present in a continental boundary layer. The case investigated here demonstrates clearly the power of combining surface aerosol measurements, dispersion model simulations and satellite measurements in analyzing surface air pollution episodes caused by volcanic eruptions. None of these three approaches alone would be sufficient to forecast, or even to unambiguously identify, such episodes.


High-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) methods are on a constant rise; however, the interaction between the user and the assistive technology is still challenged for an optimal user experience centered around the desired activity. This review presents a range of signal sensing and acquisition methods utilized in conjunction with the existing high-tech AAC platforms for individuals with a speech disability, including imaging methods, touch-enabled systems, mechanical and electro-mechanical access, breath-activated methods, and brain–computer interfaces (BCI). The listed AAC sensing modalities are compared in terms of ease of access, affordability, complexity, portability, and typical conversational speeds. A revelation of the associated AAC signal processing, encoding, and retrieval highlights the roles of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) in the development of intelligent AAC solutions. The demands and the affordability of most systems hinder the scale of usage of high-tech AAC. Further research is indeed needed for the development of intelligent AAC applications reducing the associated costs and enhancing the portability of the solutions for a real user's environment. The consolidation of natural language processing with current solutions also needs to be further explored for the amelioration of the conversational speeds. The recommendations for prospective advances in coming high-tech AAC are addressed in terms of developments to support mobile health communicative applications.


Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is a complex figure. On the one hand, he has publicly backed those who assert that human races do not exist. On the other hand, by aggregating large volumes of genetic data, he has proven the existence of large continental races, as well as smaller regional and micro ones. By developing the theory of gene-culture co-evolution, he has also shown that humans did not stop evolving genetically when they began to evolve culturally. In fact, the two processes have fed into each other, with humans having to adapt not only to the natural portion of their environment (climate, vegetation, wildlife, etc.) but also to the portion they themselves have created (mode of subsistence, behavioral norms, gender roles, class structure, belief system, etc.). This has led some to see a double game at work. While bowing to the mainstream taboos, Cavalli-Sforza has quietly amassed evidence that human races not only exist but also differ in ways that are more than skin deep. In time, his weighty tomes will speak louder than his official statements on race. This may indeed be how he sees himself, and it might explain certain contradictions between his public persona and his academic self. Oh, those naive antiracists, if only they knew how they're being outfoxed! Time will tell who is outfoxing whom. To date, the results speak for themselves. When in 1994 Cavalli-Sforza published The History and Geography of Human Genes, academics and nonacademics alike were talking more openly about race, as seen by the publication the same year of The Bell Curve and by the willingness of previously silent anthropologists, like Vincent Sarich, to step forward and speak out. That interval of glasnost soon ended, in no small part because of Cavalli-Sforza's apparent conversion, as attested in his book, to the view that human races do not exist in any meaningful sense. Why did he convert? And did he really? I doubt there was any conversion. His change of heart was too rapid, and it happened while the zeitgeist was moving in the other direction. Perhaps he saw a chance to gain acceptance for his new tome. Or perhaps he received a letter one day, detailing his wartime record, the people he worked with, and the testing on human subjects … Cavalli-Sforza had to remake his life when the war ended. He never denied the nature of his wartime research (the time it takes for anthrax to kill its host) but tried to create the impression that he was doing pure research with no military implications. Yet this was Berlin, in 1943-1944. There was no money for pure research. Was he motivated by opportunism, the chance to gain experience in his field of study? Or did he feel loyalty to the Axis cause? It is difficult to say, and perhaps it doesn't matter. It is enough to say that he later saw his wartime research as a stain on his record and tried to minimize it as much as possible. He was thus vulnerable to blackmail, or rather to his chronic fear of blackmail. We will probably never know the full story. One thing is sure. If Cavalli-Sforza is playing a double game, he has been playing it far too long. Such a strategy is excusable for an academic who is young, untenured, poorly known, and far from retirement, but these excuses hardly apply to a professor emeritus like Cavalli-Sforza. The time is overdue to speak frankly and, if need be, pay the price. Anyway, what else can he do now with his vast reserves of public esteem? Take it with him to the next world?


We are moving from a physical world based on atoms to a digital world based on bits. Today new techniques of Information packaging and delivery ensure its availability at the point of demand instantly. This is achieved by exploiting the technologies provided by telecommunications, computer networking and broadcasting media. Some major Value-Added Services like E-mail & the WWW ( World Wide Web ) , Cable TV and Internet Access, Education via Internet E-business, Telebanking , Radio and Television Broadcast on the Internet are a result of this convergence bringing up various Security and Cryptography aspects . Internet telephony reflects the beginning of a new communication era, which is characterized by running real-time applications over Internet/Intranet based computer communication infrastructure. Mobile communications and Internet based computer communications are the two fastest growing areas of communications indicating an enormous potential in the intersection of these two domains. Emerging trends are 4G, the Wireless Broadband Access which gives way to applications like Virtual Navigation, Tele medicine, Tele-geoprocessing applications, Crisis management applications and Virtual Laboratories. The interaction between human and the 3C's ( Computer + Communication + Content (Multimedia) is becoming a daily staple as we witness powerful computers uniting in a networked environment where wired and wireless communications enjoy broadening bandwidths that permit the transmission of multimedia content.


We investigate the ionization structure of the nebular gas in M83 using the line diagnostic diagram, [O iii](5007 Å)/Hβ versus [S ii](6716 Å+6731 Å)/Hα, with the newly available narrowband images from the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We produce the diagnostic diagram on a pixel-by-pixel (0.″2 × 0.″2) basis and compare it with several photo- and shock-ionization models. We select four regions from the center to the outer spiral arm and compare them in the diagnostic diagram. For the photoionized gas, we observe a gradual increase of the log ([O iii]/Hβ) ratios from the center to the spiral arm, consistent with the metallicity gradient, as the H ii regions go from super-solar abundance to roughly solar abundance from the center out. Using the diagnostic diagram, we separate the photoionized from the shock-ionized component of the gas. We find that the shock-ionized Hα emission ranges from ∼2% to about 15%–33% of the total, depending on the separation criteria used. An interesting feature in the diagnostic diagram is a horizontal distribution around log ([O iii]/Hβ) ≈ 0. This feature is well fit by a shock-ionization model with 2.0 Z☉ metallicity and shock velocities in the range of 250–350 km s−1. A low-velocity shock component, <200 km s−1, is also detected and is spatially located at the boundary between the outer ring and the spiral arm. The low-velocity shock component can be due to (1) supernova remnants located nearby, (2) dynamical interaction between the outer ring and the spiral arm, and (3) abnormal line ratios from extreme local dust extinction. The current data do not enable us to distinguish among those three possible interpretations. Our main conclusion is that, even at the HST resolution, the shocked gas represents a small fraction of the total ionized gas emission at less than 33% of the total. However, it accounts for virtually all of the mechanical energy produced by the central starburst in M83.


Objectives Our work aims to: assess occupational disability for medical reasons in hospitals across the entire work stoppages substantiated by a medical certificate,- to identify the reasons and describe the causes and medical certificates responsible for this phenomenon. Method It is a descriptive epidemiological study on the whole of the medical absences reported by employees between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012 in two hospitals: CHU and EHS Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Sidi-Bel-Abbes. Support for the survey is a questionnaire completed by the doctor, it collects informations about: individual characteristics (gender, age …), socio-professional characteristics (marital status, professional category, function, service …), and information on the declared absence (place of occurrence, the date of delivery to the employer, the type of certificate, the acute or chronic nature of the disease, the nature of the injuries …) - Medical causes listed according to the International Classification of Diseases (CIM 10). Results The study population represents a workforce of 2,884 employees and includes the entire staff of the CHU and EHS Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Sidi-Bel-Abbes. We recorded 331 medical certificates off work reported by our study population. However we objectified about 3/4 of the certificates are initial certificates and 72% that are issued by the public sector. The rate of medical absenteeism in the hospital surroundings is estimated at 7.68% with a predominance of medical absences related to illness (98%) against only 2% for those related to accidents with a male predominance (5%) containing 1% for females. Conclusion Our results can be used in a preventive perspective to improve the professional environment.


It is generally agreed upon the fact that the quality of Identity- and Access Management (IAM) data such as user accounts, access privileges or consistent user representation among different security domains is low. Grow- ing user populations in medium- and large-sized organizations lead to a so called "identity chaos" in which over-privileged employees increase the risk of insider misuse. Recent governance and compliance mandates have amplified the importance of minimizing these risks. In order to fulfill these requirements, organizations focus on implementing role-based user management. To set up a role-based access control system, they face the challenge of modeling suitable roles for their employees. In this paper we show how the role modeling process can be improved by utilizing the so called access grid, a visualization technique to incorporate human interaction into the process of role creation.


Congenital agenesis of seminal vesicles and vas deferens is rare and its co-existence with structural abnormality on the contralateral side is even rarer. We report a case of an adult male presenting with infertility due to obstructive azoospermia, in which transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed the agenesis of Wolffian derivatives on the left side with stenosis of the ejaculatory duct on the contralateral side. This dual combination of uncommon anomalies is the rarest phenomenon and poses as a diagnostic dilemma for the radiologist. Emphasis is given to MRI as a one-stop shop modality in the evaluation of complete genitourinary system; as well as on the importance of TRUS as a screening tool in patients with infertility due to obstructive azoospermia.


Aim/Purpose: The research reported here aims to demonstrate a method by which novel applications of qualitative data in quantitative research can resolve ceiling effect tensions for educational and psychological research.

Background: Self-report surveys and scales are essential to graduate education and social science research. Ceiling effects reflect the clustering of responses at the highest response categories resulting in non-linearity, a lack of variability which inhibits and distorts statistical analyses. Ceiling effects in stress reported by students can negatively impact the accuracy and utility of the resulting data.

Methodology: A longitudinal sample example from graduate engineering students' stress, open-ended critical events, and their early departure from doctoral study considerations demonstrate the utility and improved accuracy of adjusted stress measures to include open-ended critical event responses. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the ceiling effects in stress data and adjusted stress data. The longitudinal stress ratings were used to predict departure considerations in multilevel modeling ANCOVA analyses and demonstrate improved model predictiveness.

Contribution: Combining qualitative data from open-ended responses with quantitative survey responses provides an opportunity to reduce ceiling effects and improve model performance in predicting graduate student persistence. Here, we present a method for adjusting stress scale responses by incorporating coded critical events based on the Taxonomy of Life Events, the application of this method in the analysis of stress responses in a longitudinal data set, and potential applications.

Findings: The resulting process more effectively represents the doctoral student experience within statistical analyses. Stress and major life events significantly impact engineering doctoral students' departure considerations.

Recommendations for Practitioners: Graduate educators should be aware of students' life events and assist students in managing graduate school expectations while maintaining progress toward their degree.

Recommendation for Researchers: Integrating coded open-ended qualitative data into statistical models can increase the accuracy and representation of the lived student experience. The new approach improves the accuracy and presentation of students' lived experiences by incorporating qualitative data into longitudinal analyses. The improvement assists researchers in correcting data with ceiling effects for use in longitudinal analyses.

Impact on Society: The method described here provides a framework to systematically include open-ended qualitative data in which ceiling effects are present.

Future Research: Future research should validate the coding process in similar samples and in samples of doctoral students in different fields and master's students.


This paper presents a new framework for traffic flow control based on an integrated model description by means of a hybrid dynamical system. The geometrical information on the traffic network is characterized by a hybrid Petri net (HPN). Then, the algebraic behavior of the traffic flow is transformed into a mixed logical dynamical system (MLDS) form to introduce an optimization technique. These expressions involve both a continuous evolution of the traffic flow and an event-driven behavior of the traffic light. The HPN allows us to easily formulate the problem for a complicated and large-scale traffic network due to its graphical understanding. The MLDS enables us to optimize the control policy for a traffic light by means of its algebraic manipulability and use of the model predictive control framework. Since the behavior represented by the HPN can be directly transformed into the corresponding MLDS form, the seamless incorporation of two different modeling schemes provides a systematic design scenario for traffic flow control.


Metabolomics has grown into a prominent field contributing to the molecular understanding of complex biological processes in both health and disease. Furthermore, single-cells are known to display metabolic differences between seemingly homogeneous populations of cells. Single-cell metabolomics attempts to analyze many cellular metabolites from single cells to understand phenotypic heterogeneity, which is a significant challenge due to the low analyte abundances and limited sample volumes. Label-free metabolite detection can be achieved with mass spectrometry, which is capable of simultaneously analyzing hundreds of metabolites. Herein, we review the recent advances in mass spectrometry based single-cell metabolomics, highlighting the current state-of-the-art within the last three years, and identify the challenges to move the field forward.


Self-employment grants and employment subsidies are active labor market programs that aim at helping unemployed workers to escape unemployment by becoming self-employed or being hired at an initially reduced cost for the employer. In Sweden in the 1990's the participation rate in the self-employment program increased from virtually none to almost same as in the employment subsidy program. The advancement of the self-employment program is likely to be a result of (i) a change in the labor market program policy, and (ii) an increase in the supply of skilled unemployed workers. The justification for the policy change is unclear, however. The literature indicate that a rather specific group of unemployed workers may benefit from self-employment programs; Neither are there any strong reasons to believe in general that self-employment should be preferable to conventional employment through subsidies. We examine, ex post, the justification for the policy change by comparing the post-program duration of employment for the two programs. In addition, we focus in some detail on the outcome for female workers and workers of foreign citizenship. The reason for this is the explicit policy to direct those workers to self-employment. The data we study are the inflow to the two programs from June 1995 to December 1996. The program participants are followed to March 1999. The data contain detailed spell and background information on 9,043 unemployed workers who participated in the self-employment program and 14,142 who participated in the employment subsidy program. The second explanation, see (ii), for the increase in self-employment program implies a potentially serious selection problem. We discuss how the selection process may bias the effect estimate in the non-linear duration model that we use. Simulations help us to determine the magnitude of the selection bias in our application. Moreover, we exploit the existing behavioral heterogeneity across labor market offices to reduce the selection bias. We find that the risk of re-unemployment is more than twice as high for the subsidized employment program compared with the self-employment program. The large positive effect is, however, limited to male and female workers of Swedish origin. We thus conclude that the policy change in general has been successful, though we note that directing immigrant workers to self-employment is unlikely to improve the situation for this group of unfortunate workers on the Swedish labor market.


Immigration is an ongoing, global phenomenon and schools and teachers in host countries must continually find new ways of working with the increasing numbers of immigrant pupils, including refugees and asylum seekers. Language and literacy are crucial for inclusion in a new context but these must be developed in spaces where these children feel safe to explore themes that resonate with their experiences; to express their understanding and to engage in intercultural exchange.

Visual Journeys Through Wordless Narratives presents the exploration of response strategies to Shaun Tan's The Arrival. The inquiry was carried out in educational settings, with children from many different parts of the world, in four host countries: the UK, Spain, Italy and the USA. The findings reveal the benefits of using wordless narratives such as picturebooks and graphic novels together with visual strategies to support immigrant children's literary understandings and visual literacy. They also reveal the wealth of experiences the children bring with them which have the potential to transform educational practices.


When the whole wave of "ethnic conflicts" exploded, as if out of the blue, in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 1990s, I spent a total of more than 24 months as a social anthropologist and reporter in the war areas of Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia, Chechnya, Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. It surprised me that despite the considerable cultural differences between these areas, the post-communist nationalist conflicts were in many respects very similar. In this work I focus on their common features from the point of view of the agency of the participants as actors -the activists, soldiers and wider groups of those who agreed with or even supported them. What interests me is "why the boys go to war and why those who ought to have had some sense applaud them for it". This question is all the more urgent because these conflicts were often dominated by paramilitary volunteer units, even the regular armies were often formed at the beginning on a strikingly activist principle and initially the conflicts had unbelievably broad mass nationwide support. Using the extensive material of my own observations, and studies of nationalist political aesthetics, pre-war urban legends and popular metaphors I show how the conflicts developed from a political aesthetic of post-modern nationalisms (cultivated in a similar way in all cases), with its source deep in the contradiction between the universalism of radical modernisation and the nationally orientated cultural politics both cultivated by communist regimes. I try to show that war did not come out of the blue, or result from some politician pressing a button. I show how its political aesthetic first emerged very inconspicuously in the cultural sphere of the imagination of works of art, dreams and later manifestos, and then "exploded" on the squares in the form of great national spectacles (carefully followed by the media), to be followed by the performance of smaller already armed street-dramas, prewar parades, exercises and provocations from which the real armed conflict was eventually born. I seek to show the steps along the way from the ethos of war "on paper" and "in the marble of statues" to war in the field. I stress that for any real understanding of these movements of mass mobilisation it is essential not to consider the phenomena of nationalist (pre)war aesthetics, their embodiment through ritualisation and a certain mass ecstasy in isolation from each other, but to study them all as parts of one process. Particular emphasis is placed on work with temporality and the typical liminally ecstatic feeling, so typical for post-communist
societies in the time of discontinuity, that an "explosion" is simply inevitable, that (in this time of the crisis of modernity and universalism), we must now finally "wake up", "be reborn" and "return to roots". To the expectation that everything is about to "hatch out".


Background The objective of the research was to study the association between school bonding dimensions (school commitment and school attachment) and current adolescent smoking in Chile, controlling for confounding variables using the fifth Chilean School Population National Substance Use Survey, 2003 (CHSS-2003) data set. Methods The CHSS-2003 is a stratified cross-sectional survey that gathers information about personal, familial, peer, and school factors and cigarette use using a self-reported questionnaire. Complete data from 21,956 adolescent students for all the variables of interest were used in the analyses. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed in order to explore the construct validity of the questionnaire and create the main exposure and potential confounding variables. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were undertaken to study the association between school bonding and smoking. Results The construct validity of the school attachment and school commitment scales was mainly supported by the EFA. Multivariable analyses showed strong evidence that, after adjusting for factors from different domains, school commitment (student's good grades and school attendance) appears to have a clear inverse association with current smoking (odds ratio [OR] = 0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.38–0.56). On the other hand, school attachment (their feelings towards their school and their teachers) was not associated with adolescent smoking (OR = 1.16, 95% CI: 0.88–1.53). Conclusions School commitment was strongly associated with current smoking. It is important to further study this variable with the aim of ascertaining whether or not interventions that improve school commitment may prevent or reduce smoking amongst adolescent students.


In this paper we propose a new algorithm to perform clustering of multivariate and functional data. We study the case of two populations different in their covariances, rather than in their means. The algorithm relies on a proper quantification of distance between the estimated covariance operators of the populations, and subdivides data in two groups maximising the distance between their induced covariances. The naive implementation of such an algorithm is computationally forbidding, so we propose a heuristic formulation with a much lighter complexity and we study its convergence properties, along with its computational cost. We also propose to use an enhanced estimator for the estimation of discrete covariances of functional data, namely a linear shrinkage estimator, in order to improve the precision of the clustering. We establish the effectiveness of our algorithm through applications to both synthetic data and a real data set coming from a biomedical context, showing also how the use of shrinkage estimation may lead to substantially better results.


The flow over sharp-edged wings is almost always separated. The control of separated flows is possible and benefits can be achieved but only in a time average sense. A new design of an actuator was designed and tested which can achieve a wide range velocity of without frequency dependence, is free of oscillating components as well as free of secondary frequencies and therefore can be scaled up easily, unlike a traditional synthetic jet. The actuator can achieve a considerable amount of jet vectoring, thus aligning the disturbance with the leading edge shear layer. Results indicate that unsteady mini-jet actuation is an effective actuation device capable of increasing the lift in the stall region of the airfoil. Moreover, pressure measurements showed that two parameters could be altered to maximize the lift. The momentum coefficient needed a minimum value to exert influence and the actuating frequency need not be at exact the natural shedding frequency to improve the lift and can be operated at harmonics of the natural shedding frequency and obtain improvements.


In this paper the spatial and temporal variability of climatic seasons and phenological phases in Estonia are estimated, and the correlation between them is analysed. The start dates and durations of 8 climatic seasons at 23 stations and of 16 spring and summer phenological phases in Estonia between 1946 and 1998 were used for data analysis. The homogeneity of long-term series of climatic seasons was tested using an SNHT (standard normal homogeneity test). The time series can be considered nearly homogeneous. The phenological calendar method was applied. Significant spa- tial and temporal variability of climatic seasons was detected. The thermal influence of the Baltic Sea is the main factor in the formation of spatial differences. Due to the comparatively cold sea surface, the spring season lasts longer in coastal regions. On average, beginning of summer is observed first in southeast Estonia, at the end of May. In North Estonia summer starts at the beginning of June, and in coastal areas in the middle of June. The onset of the springtime phenological phases has a pattern similar to that of the start dates of spring and summer. The onset migrates over Estonia from south- east to northwest. In coastal areas, climatic seasons during the autumn period start 1 to 5 wk later than in continental Estonia. This spatial difference increases from the beginning of autumn to the beginning of winter. Climatic seasons in the spring period have tended to start earlier over the period between 1891 and 1998. At the same time, seasons in the autumn period tended to start later. In con- clusion, the summer season has lengthened significantly (by 11 d), while winter has contracted by 30 d. Correlation between start dates of climatic seasons and phenological phases is moderate in Estonia. In most cases, correlation coefficients are statistically significant at the 0.05 confidence level. The highest values are typical for seasons and phases that occur nearly at the same time. In general, the space-time variability of phenological phases is much lower than that of climatic seasons in the same period.


Experimental situations where the subjective judgements or
appraisals of the individuals , lead to qualitative, comparative
responses or situations where quantifications through measure
ments are difficult or illusary, the method of paired comparison
has a significant role to play. Interest in paired comparison
has been generated through the paired nature of competitions of
many kinds, through the experimental simplicit:y of sensory
comparisons of items observed in pairs, and through combinatorial
properties associated with the construction of experimental
designs or tournaments.
The method of paired comparisons has had a long and honourable
history in psycological experiments. During the past three
decades this method has attracted the attention of people from
a wide spectrum of interest. In general, the method would be
applicable whenever the objects can be presented to judges to
assess their non-measurable quality in pairs either simulteniously
or in succession.
The basic goal in the method of paired comparison is to
discriminate between t> 2 treatments, on the basis of preference
data obtained by presenting the treatments in pairs in a given
order to a set of judges according to a specified paired comparison
design. In such experimental situations the method has led to
a surprising amount of model building to provide simple stochastic
representation. The main statistical problem with these models
have generally been that of estimation of the true worths of the
treatments, testing of goodness of fit of the model, testing the
hypothesis of equality of treatments etc based on the score
vector obtained by using a suitable economical paired comparison
design. Another type of problem that is of interest is to select
the best treatment with at least a specified high probability,
using a definite selection rule. Selection rules are defined in
terms of the score vector that is obtained by using the given
design. A related problem i s that o f choosing a subset of given
treatments which includes the best treatment with at least a
specified high probability. These problems are respectively
special cases of the two basic formulations referred to as
Indifference zone formulation end Subset s e l ection formulation
in the area of Ranking and Selection procedures for statistical
populations.


The American response to Lysenkoism took place at a crucial moment in the evolving relationship between science and the public. Like many professional scientific organizations in the early Cold War, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) resisted involvement in political issues. In contrast to similar societies in the physical sciences, however, the geneticists' silence cannot be explained solely by the fear of financial or political repercussions. Rather, the GSA's reluctance to engage in political discussion reflected an ongoing debate within the scientific community on the proper role for professional societies in political controversy. Those geneticists who did become embroiled in the controversy did so as individuals rather than as emissaries of the profession. Geneticists H.J. Muller, L.C. Dunn, and Theodosius Dobzhansky attempted to reach the public through a variety of outlets, including books, magazines, newspapers, and the radio, but their interventions were shaped by their individual personal and political commitments. The GSA, in contrast, attempted to combat the spread of Lysenkoism with the help of a public relations firm and a Golden Jubilee celebration of the rediscovery of Mendel's laws. The messy story of the American response to the Lysenko crisis demonstrates the limits of scientists' political involvement during the early Cold War.


Orexin/hypocretin terminals innervate noradrenergic locus coeruleus (LC) neurons that project to the prefrontral cortex, which may influence spontaneous physical activity (SPA) and energy balance. Obesity-resistant (OR) rats have higher orexin receptors (OXR) mRNA in the LC and other brain regions, as well as lower adiposity compared with obese rats. These findings led us to hypothesize that orexin activity in the LC is relevant for the OR phenotype. We compared OR rats to Sprague-Dawley rats. We predicted that: 1) brain OXR expression pattern is sufficient to differentiate OR from non-bred Sprague-Dawley rats; 2) nonresting energy expenditure (NREE) and orexin A (OXA)-stimulated SPA after injection in LC would be greater in OR rats; and 3) the effect of OXA on SPA would be greater than its effect on feeding. OXR mRNA from 11 brain sites and the SPA and feeding responses to OXA in the LC were determined. Body composition, basal SPA, and EE were determined. Principal component analysis of the OXR expression pattern differentiates OR and Sprague-Dawley rats and suggests the OXR mRNA in the LC is important in defining the OR phenotype. Compared with Sprague-Dawley rats, OR rats had greater SPA and NREE and lower resting EE and adiposity. SPA responsivity to OXA in the LC was greater in OR rats compared with Sprague-Dawley rats. OXA in the LC did not stimulate feeding in OR or Sprague-Dawley rats. These data suggest that the LC is a prominent site modulating OXA-stimulated SPA, which promotes lower adiposity and higher nonresting EE.


Labor intermediation services are used to improve the connection between job seeker and job. They aim not only to get job seekers more quickly into new jobs but also to make a better quality match, getting the more appropriate worker into the right job. Done well, labor intermediation helps reduce short-term unemployment, reduce job rotation, reduce the cost of new hires, improve productivity and firm growth, and importantly, reduce job discrimination. For many years, labor intermediation services were embodied in a single national public employment service that varied in quality and investment. Today, we find a range of public and private intermediation services and a wider range of products and services, including those to link workers to training, self-employment, and social services. This policy brief first examines the characteristics of labor intermediation services, then reviews key reform efforts in developed and Latin America and Caribbean economies, and lays out the principal institutional models or public/private configurations that can be found in these countries. It concludes by providing a series of recommendations and considerations for Latin American and Caribbean countries seeking to reinvigorate or reform labor intermediation services. In particular, the policy brief offers some key considerations for adapting labor intermediation services to the realities of Latin American and Caribbean economies.


A marked increase in crises, uncertainties and perceived risks has impelled the government of Norway to reconsider its contingency plans and devolve its emergency management capacity to local authorities. It has become imperative that any effective emergency management require collaborative effort at the local level, with municipalities sharing strategic resources, including knowledge repositories. The municipalities' lack of necessary resources to provide emergency management services, as required of them by law, compel them to seek ways of cooperation and coordination with other municipalities in their proximity. Municipalities have come to a realization that efficiency in anticipating and handling crises is dependent on the way they collaborate with each other. To remain prepared municipalities must share the knowledge needed to plan, anticipate and handle emergencies. Participating municipalities are obliged to establish knowledge-sharing strategies in order to promote interactions between crisis management practitioners. This paper examines the emergence of communities of practice in a crisis management inter-organizational partnership in a county in Norway. The paper identifies factors that advance or inhibit knowledge sharing process in this partnership.