Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Objectives: To determine the association between targeted temperature management goal temperature of 33°C versus 36°C and neurologic outcome after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Design: This was a retrospective, before-and-after, cohort study. Setting: Urban, academic, level 1 trauma center from 2010 to 2017. Patients: Adults with nontraumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest who received targeted temperature management. Interventions: Our primary exposure was targeted temperature management goal temperature, which was changed from 33°C to 36°C in April of 2014 at the study hospital. Primary outcome was neurologically intact survival to discharge. Secondary outcomes included hospital mortality and care processes. Measurements and Main Results: Of 782 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients transported to the study hospital, 453 (58%) received targeted temperature management. Of these, 258 (57%) were treated during the 33°C period (targeted temperature management 33°C) and 195 (43%) were treated during the 36°C period (targeted temperature management 36°C). Patients treated during targeted temperature management 33°C were older (57 vs 52 yr; p < 0.05) and had more arrests of cardiac etiology (45% vs 35%; p < 0.05), but otherwise had similar baseline characteristics, including initial cardiac rhythm. A total of 40% of patients treated during targeted temperature management 33°C survived with favorable neurologic outcome, compared with 30% in the targeted temperature management 36°C group (p < 0.05). After adjustment for demographic and cardiac arrest characteristics, targeted temperature management 33°C was associated with increased odds of neurologically intact survival to discharge (odds ratio, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.09–2.94). Targeted temperature management 33°C was not associated with significantly improved hospital mortality. Targeted temperature management was implemented faster (1.9 vs 3.5 hr from 911 call; p < 0.001) and more frequently in the emergency department during the targeted temperature management 33°C period (87% vs 55%; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Comatose, adult out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients treated during the targeted temperature management 33°C period had higher odds of neurologically intact survival to hospital discharge compared with those treated during the targeted temperature management 36°C period. There was no significant difference in hospital mortality.


COST REDUCTION has been moved to the top of the list of priorities in most healthcare institutions. As Clark, Savitz, and Pingree noted in their feature article, expense management took on a new meaning in late 2008 as patient utilization declined, charity care and bad debt increased at unsustainable rates, and federal and state reimbursements declined. The perfect storm or the "new normal" had arrived. I am the CEO at a private, not-for-profit, standalone hospital; therefore, my experiences are limited to a single hospital setting. I became a CEO in June 2008. I have been employed at our hospital for 28 years and had been the CFO for 14 years prior to becoming the CEO. In December 2008 two things happened, almost simultaneously. I began to realize that volumes and net revenues were rapidly declining, and I hired our new CFO. We immediately went into cost-reduction mode. We sustained heavy operating losses during the last two months of 2008 and for the first quarter of 2009 before getting the ship turned around. We were able to record positive operating margins in both 2008 and 2009, but 2009 was just at breakeven - an accomplishment that would have seemed abysmal in earlier years. Compared to 2008, projections for 2010 include lower FTEs (by 9 percent) and salaries (by 6 percent). Total operating expenses (excluding bad debt) have been lowered by 4 percent. Bad debt continues to increase. We continue to have a positive (though lower than earlier years) operating margin. We are fortunate to have a senior leadership team that has worked together for many years. Our organization has been committed to a strong budgeting process. Senior leaders are very familiar with each department's operations and FTE budget and we were able work with our management staff to quickly put a plan in place to begin to lower costs. We looked at such things as premium pay and retirement plans. Staffing changes were done thoughtfully and strategically, by not filling open positions, managing staffing on a daily basis, and through attrition. All staff requisitions required CEO approval. Capital expenditures were made for items immediately necessary and for very strategic initiatives. We are fortunate to have a relatively modern physical facility and equipment that has been replaced at regular intervals so we can maintain for the short-term without significant capital equipment outlays. We managed our changes with a financial improvement plan, and reports are provided monthly to our employees and board regarding our progress. Our board, senior leaders, management staff, and employee group have been champions - our people have remained calm and positive and have weathered this perfect storm amazingly well to this point. I am proud of our organization. During the period of these changes, our board president and I met regularly with individual physicians. We asked each one if the cost-cutting changes that we were making were affecting their ability to care for patients, and each and every one asked said no. This was validation that we had made the cost-cutting changes thoughtfully and strategically. QUALITY The feature article by Clark, Savitz, and Pingree focuses on cost cutting without compromising quality care. The authors outline the quality improvement initiatives that their system implemented, and notes that they did so while reducing costs. Quality improvement initiatives are an integral part of healthcare and must be in place. Our hospital uses multidisciplinary teams to address our care processes, and the teams implement evidence-based practices and best practices. We work continuously on the National Patient Safety Goals, the CMS quality indicators, and Joint Commission standards. We use a dashboard reporting process so that progress is tracked quarterly and reported to the board, medical staff, administration, and department directors regularly. We have seen our quality indicators continue to improve during this period of cost reductions. …


The character of the auriferous rocks of Nova Scotia was a subject of some discussion a few years ago*, when it was suggested that the gold obtained was from "quartz beds of contemporaneous age with the quartzite and the slate with which they are interstratified." Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, reporting on this province the year before the subject was brought to the attention of this Society, wrote:—"So far as my present observation goes, I think that to describe the gold-lodes otherwise than as interstratified beds would be to give a false notion of their geognostic relations. The laminated structure of many of the lodes, and the intercalation between their layers of thin continuous films or layers of argillite, can hardly be explained in any other way than by supposing these lodes to have been formed by successive deposition at what was, at the time, the surface of the earth." This description well expresses, the appearance of our gold-districts; but the theory that the "leads," as the lodes are locally called, are contemporary beds with the slates and quartzite has not since been generally accepted; nor has it gained ground with the further knowledge derived from working, nor been adopted by any of the miners, among whom are men experienced in other gold-producing countries. My position having enabled me to visit frequently the several districts and see the leads in their varying stages of exploitation, I have kept in mind the theory in question, and especially examined the relation of the


The Milky Way has a giant stellar structure in the solar neighbourhood, which has a size of ∼1 kpc, a mass of ∼106 M⊙ and a ring-like distribution of young stars. Fundamental physical properties of this local enigmatic structure, known as the Gould belt (GB), have not been reproduced by previously proposed models. We first show that the local enigmatic structure could have formed about 30 Myr ago as a result of a high-speed, oblique collision between a gas cloud with a mass of ∼106 M⊙ and a dark matter clump with a mass of ∼107 M⊙ based on numerical simulations of the collision. We find that strong dynamical impact of the clump transforms the flattened cloud into a ring-like stellar structure after inducing star formation within the cloud. Our simulations furthermore demonstrate that the stellar structure is moderately elongated and significantly inclined with respect to the disc of the Milky Way owing to the strong tidal torque by the colliding clump. We thus suggest that the GB is one of the stellar substructures formed from collisions between gas clouds and dark matter clumps predicted in the hierarchical clustering scenario of galaxy formation. We also suggest that collisions of dark matter clumps with their host galaxies can significantly change star formation histories for some of their gas clouds, and thus influence galactic global star formation histories to some extent. Our simulations predict that unique giant stellar substructures recently discovered in other galaxies can result from dynamical impact of their dark matter clumps on their gas clouds.


Since Benoit Mandelbrot's discovery of the fractal nature of financial price series, the quantitative analysis of financial markets has been an area of increasing interest for scientists, traders, and regulators. Further, major technological advances over this time have facilitated not only financial innovations, but also the computational ability to analyze and model markets. The stylized facts are qualitative statistical signatures of financial market data that hold true across different stocks and over many different timescales. In pursuit of a mechanistic understanding of markets, we look to accurately quantify such statistics. With this quantification, we can test computational market models against the stylized facts and run controlled experiments. This requires both discovery of new stylized facts, and a persistent testing of old stylized facts on new data. Using NASDAQ provided data covering the years 2008-2009, we analyze the trades of 120 stocks. An analysis of the stylized facts guides our exploration of the data, where our results corroborate other findings in the existing body of literature. In addition, we search for statistical indicators of market instability in our data sets. We find promising areas for further study, and obtain three key results. Throughout our sample data, high frequency trading plays a larger role in rapid price changes of all sizes than would be randomly expected, but plays a smaller role than usual during rapid price changes of large magnitude (> .0.5% ∆p). Our analysis also yields further evidence of the long term persistence in the autocorrelations of signed order flow, as well as evidence of long range dependence in price returns.


To understand how to improve the research process for future projects, it is useful to take a retrospective view of a research project. This is especially true for emerging topics in IS where many opportunities are available to shape directions and priorities. This article presents a reflective analysis of a field research project in the area of knowledge management. The article examines the process history and assesses the decisions taken and activities carried out in the early formative stages of a field research project. With a detailed anthropological flavor, the paper describes the ins and outs of the various phases of the research process in a narrative experiential way, and analyzes what was learned. The results should be useful for future researchers. The major lessons learned were: 1. Retrospectively examining the research of others can be useful in learning how to improve one's ability to do research in a particular area, such as field research in information systems. 2. Researchers wishing to develop a long term relationship with a host organization may have to be flexible in their research approaches and Communications of AIS Volume 3, Article 6 3 Designing Field Research for Emerging IS Topics: The Case of Knowledge Management by I.V. Eriksson, G.W. Dickson, and O. A. El Sawy methods, even to the extent of sacrificing rigor for providing outcomes of use to the host organization. 3. Pilot studies should be carefully designed and executed to maximize learning for later, more extensive studies.


A remarkable set of west-northwest-trending left-lateral strike-slip faults intersects the Cascadia subduction zone. Three of these faults have been mapped off northern and central Oregon by using seismic reflection, SeaMARC-1A sidescan sonar, and SeaBeam bathymetry. These faults are highly oblique to the north-south structural grain of the active accretionary wedge. One of them has 6 km of horizontal slip; the average slip rate is 7-10 mm/yr. The faults cut the subducting Juan de Fuca plate, and can be traced into the North American plate. Folds that deform late Pleistocene and Holocene sediments on the upper continental slope and shelf strike north-northwest to west-northwest. Some of the west-northwest-trending folds are associated with the throughgoing strike-slip faults, whereas other northwest-trending folds are approximately normal to the plate convergence direction. Many of these folds are mapped across the shelf, and several active shelf synclines project toward Oregon's coastal bays, where marsh subsidence events are inferred to be the result of great subduction-zone earthquakes. These subsidence events may actually record the growth of local synclines, possibly as secondary effects of slip on the megathrusts. The authors postulate that shortening of the forearc region by clockwise tectonic rotation, associated with movement of the left-lateral faultsmore » and folding of the upper plate, may accommodate a significant amount of plate convergence.« less


In the less than four years since Lithuanian independence, trade and trade policy have changed rapidly; and longer run tendencies in policies and trade patterns are beginning to emerge. This paper provides a brief overview of the traditional prereform trading arrangements and reviews the key stages in policy development by the independent Lithuanian state, the major trade patterns and arrangements, and prospects for the future.


American society does not require civil litigants to bear the actual cost of using the court; those costs are borne almost entirely by the taxpayer (i.e., the "civil judicial subsidy"). In this Article I ask: is that right? Or is there a more desirable way to apportion court usage costs between the state and litigants? I develop an evaluative framework that facilitates analysis of the purpose, contours, and cost of the current judicial subsidy. We subsidize court use because, in theory, there are certain "social positives" associated with public adjudication. To date the unspoken assumption has been that these social positives - which I categorize and identify - apply with equal force to all court uses by all players in all cases. To the extent that assumption is mistaken, a precisely measured, differentiated subsidy - one which distinguishes between different court uses and different players - may be more attractive than the status quo. I propose considering a partial user pays system, with a generous access subsidy to ensure non-wealthy litigants have court access; a subsidy for appeals; and a retributive tax on losing litigants (who are not otherwise exempted from costs) equal to the winner's share of court costs. Such could recapture a significant portion of the current subsidy without threatening the social positives arising from public adjudication.


This paper highlights the ways in which relations of power, specifically those of gender, shape knowledge production, resource distribution, decision-making and thus, adaptation to climate change. I utilize feminist standpoint theory and geographic conceptualizations of social reproduction to argue that policies and programs that seek to enhance adaptation to climate change must understand how gender affects differential access to resources and decision-making in the context of climate variability. Specifically, I argue that situated knowledge and social reproduction are useful conceptual tools for analyzing how women's daily activities and social locations shape what they know and how they respond to social and environmental stressors like drought. In making this argument, I present the results of fieldwork conducted in two rural communities in Mexico's semi-arid highlands to empirically explore the significance of gender in the production of knowledge, provisioning of resources, and the different ways that households adapt to climate change. This kind of critical engagement between feminist and adaptive capacity approaches opens up a conceptual space for reflection and encounters that move the debates closer toward addressing the challenges that climate change presents.


The thesis aims at exploring the relationship between the landscape project, conceived as
a discipline able to transform the material and immaterial territory, and the photographic
practice . It is an interdisciplinary research that attempts to understand the possible
interactions between the two branches of knowledge, avoiding the submission of one
over the other. It is so conceived a field of research on the design culture oriented to
determine the potential use of photography as a contribution to the conception of
space. The study highlights some key issues: Can the photography, as representation and
critical interpretation, perform a role in the process of transformation of the material
and immaterial territory? What is the influence of a practice of selective fragmentation
of the landscape on the design thinking? May a mechanism of reproduction of the
reality propose a concrete way of conceiving the space?
In order to answer these questions the research developed a methodology oriented
to the combination of two levels of study. On the one hand the creation of a broad
knowledge which examines the status of the photography in relation to the landscape,
going beyond the simple categorization of a photographic genre. On the other hand an
experimental practice of photographic action in the context of the coastal landscape
of the Sulcis-Iglesias, in Sardinia. It is an effort aimed at a critical representation of the
territory. The aim is to build a concept of vision paysagere, as a specific visual action,
which avoids the formation of stereotypes. A practice able to offer an interpretative
view on the landscape.


The appearance of new weapons technologies often gives rise to questions of legitimacy. The use of missile weapons against armored knights was considered illegitimate and unchivalrous by some, as well as a destabilizing influence on the conduct of civilized warfare. An acknowledged and accepted set of rules, designed to limit the vulnerability of the ruling elite in combat, made longbow and crossbow technology illegitimate in the eyes of that warrior-class. (1) German U-boat actions against commerce in World War I, the use of aerial bombardment against civilian populations, and defoliation agents in Vietnam, are modern examples of new technologies whose legitimacy was contested in times of conflict. (2) Questions of legitimacy, however, have not always been linked to the condition of war or to a specific technology. British concentration camps curing the Boer War were examples of illegitimate policies related to warfare devoid of any specific technological change. Their illegitimacy came not from technology but from the legal and ethical questions raised by the implementation of those methods of waging war. (3) Throughout these debates over technology and policies, the term legitimacy seldom meant the same thing. Legitimacy has been used in such circumstances interchangeably with concepts such as proportional, moral, ethical, lawful, appropriate, reasonable, legal, justifiable, righteous, valid, recognized, and logical. The recent phenomena of using unmanned vehicles, or drones, to deliver lethality in situations of conflict is yet another instance in which a type of technology has proliferated before considerations of its legitimacy have been agreed upon: The exponential rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of established international law and it is both right as a matter of principle, and inevitable as a matter of political reality, that the international community should now be focusing attention on the standards applicable to this technological development, particularly its deployment in counterterrorism and counter-insurgency initiatives, and attempt to reach a consensus on the legality, of its use, and the standards and safeguards which should apply to it. (4) The current debate over the legitimacy of America's use of drones to deliver deadly force is taking place in both public and official domains in the United States and many other countries. (5) The four key features at the heart of the debate revolve around: who is controlling the weapon system; does the system of control and oversight violate international law governing the use of force; are the drone strikes proportionate acts that provide military effectiveness given the circumstances of the conflict they are being used in; and does their use violate the sovereignty of other nations and allow the United States to disregard formal national boundaries? Unless these four questions are dealt with in the near future the impact of the unresolved legitimacy issues will have a number of repercussions for American foreign and military policies: "Without a new doctrine for the use of drones that is understandable to friends and foes, the United States risks achieving near-term tactical benefits in killing terrorists while incurring potentially significant longer-term costs to its alliances, global public opinion, the war on terrorism and international stability."(6) This article will address only the first three critical questions. The question of who controls the drones during their missions is attracting a great deal of attention. The use of drones by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct "signature strikes" is the most problematic factor in this matter. Between 2004 and 2013, CIA drone attacks in Pakistan killed up to 3,461--up to 891 of them civilians. (7) Not only is the use of drones by the CIA the issue, but subcontracting operational control of drones to other civilian agencies is also causing great concern. …


Print media is backbone of journalism. This study explores the challenges that print media is facing in the present age. The basic purpose of the study was to find the basic hurdles and problems that decreasing the popularity of print media. Secondly, to explores the prospective for the betterment of print media. For data collection, survey method used and questionnaire prepared consisted on 12 close ended questions and 1 open ended question. Questionnaires distributed among 200 editors, newspaper owners and senior journalist of Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and Islamabad for answering the related questions. The study concluded that different factors which decreasing the popularity of print media which includes electronic media and social media's popularity due to fast and large coverage, low literacy rate in the country decreases the readership, lack of advertising in print media, glamour attraction on electronic media, verity of programs on TV, live transmission snatched the reader towards TV, low salary packages, threats to journalists from different political parties and terrorists and lack of government support are the major factors which print media has facing.


Orbit Determination is a technique used to estimate the position of a satellite from its observable measurements. Missing or incorrect modeling of troposphere and ionosphere delays is one of the major error source in space geodetic techniques such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Accurate computation of these two delays is a mandatory step to cope with accuracy needs which are close to centimeter or millimeter levels. This paper presents the different steps of development of estimated tropospheric and ionospheric models. All these models are included in the Orekit open-source space flight dynamics library. Adding estimated tropospheric and ionospheric models into an orbit determination process can be a difficult procedure. Computing and validating measurement derivatives with respect to troposphere and ionosphere parameters are critical steps. To cope with this constraint, we used the Automatic Differentiation technique to avoid the calculation of the derivatives of long equations. Automatic Differentiation is equivalent to calculating the derivatives by applying chain rule without expressing the analytical formulas. Therefore, Automatic Differentiation allows a simpler computation of the derivatives and a simpler validation. This paper presents how the Jacobian measurement matrix is computed by Automatic Differentiation. It also describes the impact of using estimated tropospheric and ionospheric models. Finally, a study of different model configurations is performed in order to highlight the relevant tropospheric and ionospheric parameters to estimate. The performance of the different models is demonstrated under GPS orbit determination conditions. Both satellite state vector estimation and measurement residuals quality are used as indicator to quantify the orbit determination performance. This paper addresses that estimated tropospheric and ionospheric models are actually more accurate than empirical models to estimate satellite state vector in GNSS orbit determination. A gain of about 60% is obtained on the estimation of the satellite position when estimated models are used, without altering the computation time.


Abstract Mesaite (IMA2015-069), ideally CaMn2+5 (V2O7)3·12H2O, is a new mineral from the Packrat mine, Gateway district, Mesa County, Colorado, USA. Crystals of mesaite occur as orangish red blades up to 0.1 mm long and ~10 μm thick. The streak is light pinkish orange and the lustre is vitreous, transparent. Mesaite has a brittle tenacity, {010} perfect cleavage; fracture is irregular, and no parting was observed. The mineral has a Mohs hardness ≈ 2. The measured density of mesaite is 2.74(1) g cm−3. Mesaite is biaxial (-), α = 1.760(calc), β = 1.780(5), γ = 1.795(5) in white light; the measured 2V value = 81(2)°. Dispersion is strong, r < v, and pleochroism is present in shades of brownish orange. Mesaite is monoclinic, P2/n, with a = 9.146(2), b = 10.424(3), c = 15.532(4) Å, β = 102.653(7)° and V = 1444.7(6) Å3. The strongest four diffraction lines in the powder diffraction pattern are [(dobs in Å, (Iobs), (hkl)]: 10.47 (100) (010), 2.881 (25) (132, 3̄12, 033, 310), 3.568 (24) (1̄14, 1̄23, 2̄13), 3.067 (17) (1̄24, 1̄32, 2̄23). The composition of mesaite was determined by electron microprobe, and yielded an empirical formula of Mn5.32Ca0.56Zn0.31V5.96As0.04O33H23.61 on the basis of 33 O atoms per formula unit (apfu). The atomic arrangement of mesaite was solved and refined to R1 = 0.0600. The structure is formed of zigzag octahedral chains of edge-sharing Mn2+O6 octahedra. Oxygen atoms of the octahedra are shared with V2O7 groups, which link with adjacent octahedral chains to form {010} heteropolyhedral layers. The interlayer region contains Ca atoms and H2O groups. Each Ca bonds to two O6 atoms in the heteropolyhedral layer and to two fully occupied and six partially occupied O (H2O) sites in the interlayer, resulting in an effective Ca coordination of approximately seven. Similar zigzag chains of edge-sharing MnO6 octahedra decorated with V2O7 groups are also found in the mineral fianelite. Mesaite has been approved by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA2015-069). The name mesaite is conferred for Mesa County, Colorado, USA.


Worldwide, over 200000 people die annually of pancreatic cancer. The highest incidence and mortality rates of pancreatic cancer are found in developed countries. In the United States, pancreatic cancer is the 4(th) leading cause of cancer death, and in Europe it is the 6th. Because of high fatality rates, pancreatic cancer incidence rates are almost equal to mortality rates. Pancreatic cancer is diagnosed late in the natural history of the disease, given the few early indicators of illness, and the lack of screening tests for this disease. Treatment has not improved substantially over the past few decades and has little effect on prolonging survival time. Therefore, prevention could play an important role in reducing pancreatic cancer mortality. International variations in rates and time trends suggest that environmental factors are likely to play a role in the etiology of pancreatic cancer. Variations in rates are substantial and occur even within industrialized nations. While rates have been stabilizing over the past 2 decades in many countries where they are already high, they continue to increase in countries where rates were relatively low 4 decades ago, such as Japan. In the US, the highest rates of pancreatic cancer incidence and mortality are observed among blacks, who have some of the highest rates in the world. A known cause of pancreatic cancer is tobacco smoking. This risk factor is likely to explain some of the international variations and gender differences. A number of studies observed a reduction in pancreatic cancer risk within a decade after smoking cessation, when compared to current smokers. With tobacco smoking as an exception, risk factors for pancreatic cancer are not well-established. Over the past 2 decades, epidemiological studies on pancreatic cancer have been plagued with methodological issues associated with studying a highly fatal disease, and inconsistent findings have hindered our understanding of the etiology of pancreatic cancer. Although familial pancreatic cancer is well-documented, the genes responsible for this condition have not been identified and are unlikely to explain more than 5-10% of all pancreatic cancer cases. Chronic pancreatitis and diabetes mellitus are medical conditions that have been consistently related to pancreatic cancer. Data from numerous studies suggest that these conditions are likely to be causally related to pancreatic cancer, rather than being consequences of the cancer. Recent cohort studies, which are less prone to biases than case-control studies, suggest that obesity increases the risk of pancreatic cancer. Other studies support the hypothesis that glucose intolerance and hyperinsulinemia are important in the development of pancreatic cancer. Other potential risk factors include physical inactivity, aspirin use, occupational exposure to certain pesticides, and dietary factors such as carbohydrate or sugar intake.


The research in this dissertation aims to investigate the acquisition of students' science skills in grades 5 and 6 of primary education in the Netherlands. In most primary science classes, science skills are mainly taught by way of conducting investigations. However, prior research indicates that explicit instruction and separate skills training may be more effective. In this dissertation, four studies are discussed. In the first study, an instructional framework was developed based on a categorization of science skills into thinking skills, science-specific skills and metacognitive skills. This instructional framework was used to develop lessons using systematic instruction aimed at the development of these different skills. The second study describes the development and psychometric quality of the measurement instruments in order to examine the acquisition and transfer of science skills. Two paper-and-pencil tests, three performance assessments and two questionnaires were used for this purpose. In a third study, the effects of two experimental conditions were evaluated, following an experimental pretest-posttest design: a condition with explicit instruction and a condition in which all aspects of explicit instruction were absent. Students in both conditions received an 8-week intervention and were compared to students in a baseline condition who followed their regular science curriculum. The fourth study addresses the use of performance assessments as a diagnostic tool for science teachers. In general, the results indicate that the measurement instruments can be used to reliably measure science skills. Findings also show that explicit instruction facilitates acquisition and transfer of science skills.


This paper describes investigations that have been made with the Schuller-Gollnow water-cooled hollow-cathode tube for the purpose of using it as an analytical source to analyze fuel materials employed in nuclear reactors. A number of unirradiated normal and enriched uranium alloys have been tested with the above tube using a 21-ft, Wadsworth, Jarrell-Ash grating spectrograph and photographic plates. Results obtained for molybdenum, ruthenium, rhodium, and palladium, in the range of 2 5, 2.0, 0 3, and 0.2% respectively, compare favorably with the point-to-plane technique.


The Riverine Plain in south‐eastern Australia contains numerous palaeochannels that are much larger than the present rivers and provide evidence about past hydrological conditions. Previous research suggested optima in fluvial activity both before and after the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 21 ± 3 ka), and, in some cases, throughout the LGM. In this study, we revisit palaeochannel remnants of the Gum Creek and Yanco palaeochannel systems along the Murrumbidgee River, which drains the high‐elevation catchments of the Australian Alps in south‐eastern Australia. We date fluvial and aeolian sediments using single‐grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and apply thermoluminescence (TL) dating to a subset of samples. We compare the OSL ages to new and previously published TL ages and investigate reasons for age discrepancies between these methods, possible effects of partial bleaching and other factors that may affect luminescence ages. We propose a new OSL‐based chronology for the Gum Creek and Yanco palaeochannel systems and assign periods of enhanced fluvial activity for the Tombullen and Yanco phases to 41–29 and 29–18 ka, respectively. Importantly, we infer that conditions of increased sediment and water discharge persisted for the Murrumbidgee River at the time of the LGM.


The aim of this article is to examine the selected attributes of commercial banks security in relation to customer satisfaction. We focused on electronic banking products as these represent a significant segment of today's bank activities. We compared the opinions of different social groups (men and women, university educated respondents and the others, respondents under the age of 35 and the elders). Our empirical research in the banking sector of Slovakia showed that only 71.96% of the respondents think their bank takes proper care over their money. Electronic forms of banking are used by more than 90% of the respondents, particularly by university educated ones. The trust in security of electronic payments was found to be at quite a low level of 78.19%. At the same time, 12.77% of the respondents declared they had been a target for hackers, men being a more frequent target.


In the present study, a weekly operational planning model has been developed using a simulation technique for the Tambiraparani river system in Tamil Nadu, India. A planning model has been developed incorporating the important features of the existing operational policy. Paddy is the main crop cultivated in three seasons, although banana is cultivated to an appreciable extent, it has not been recognized in the existing operational policy. The major task of the water resources manager is to find the area under paddy during the third season namely, the Advance Kar season. The main objective of the present study is to simulate the temporal distribution of the available water in the Tambiraparani river system. Simulation is carried out for various possible extents of Advance Kar area and banana area for various initial storage conditions. It is found that the entire Tambiraparani river system could be managed without deficit by reducing the release of water by 10–25% during the non-stress crop periods and also by lagging the starting period of the season by one or two weeks. If this management is practiced during average inflow years, it is possible to maintain the same final storage as the initial storage during the start of the season. Thus the polices derived using the present study would be more useful to the system managers enabling them to authorize the area under paddy during the Advance Kar season and also to help them to maintain the required storage for the next season.


Most beginning actors assume that rehearsing a play or scene involves taking home the script, memorizing lines, and rehearsing scenes over and over until everything - timing, movement, facial expression - is perfect. But that's only partially correct. One missing element in that approach is improvisation, an invaluable technique that can be used in acting classes and in rehearsals for school, amateur and professional productions. Most teachers and directors realize that value of improvisation as a regular part of their classes or rehearsals, but many find it difficult to come up with fresh ideas on a daily basis. The nine hundred improvisation ideas in this book should provide enough material to last for years. What the book includes can be applied to many theater situations. For example, there are many improvisation starters for character conflicts - teen/parent, peer relationships, love relationships, co-workers, doctor/patient, brother/sister, and more; solo improvisations; physical positions (for one or two players); lines of dialogue; and reactions to environment. The author also has included a section suggesting a variety of improvisations for the production of Romeo and Juliet.


The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of presenting a concise English translation of the book which Martin Agricola wrote in 1528 in German on the musical instruments and practices of his time. In addition to the translation itself, there is a major section devoted to a comparison of the material of Musica instrumentalis deudsch with other books and treatises on the same and related subjects which were written at approximately the same time or within the next hundred years. Agricola states that the purpose of his book was to teach the playing of various instruments such as organs, lutes, harps, viols, and pipes. He also noted that the material was prepared expressly for young people to study. To facilitate the accomplishment of this purpose Agricola wrote the book in short, two-lined, rhymed couplets so that the youths might quickly memorize the material and thus retain the instructions better.


Dynamic textures are common in natural scenes. Examples of dynamic textures in video include fire, smoke, clouds, trees in the wind, sky, sea and ocean waves etc. In this showcase, (i) we develop real-time dynamic texture detection methods in video and (ii) present solutions to video object classification based on motion information. 1.OBJECTIVE OF THE SHOWCASE PROJECT Researchers extensively studied 2-D textures and related problems in the field of image processing. On the other hand, there is very little research on dynamic texture detection in video. It is well known that tree leaves in the wind, moving clouds etc. cause major problems in outdoor video motion detection systems. If one can initially identify bushes, trees, and clouds in a video, then such regions can be excluded from the search space or proper care can be taken in such regions, and this leads to robust moving object detection and identification systems in outdoor video. One can take advantage of the research in 2-D textures to model the spatial behaviour of a given dynamic texture. To be able to detect and segment dynamic textures in challenging real world applications, differences in dynamics must be also analyzed. Two different approaches will be studied in this showcase. In the first approach, dynamic textures are classified as weak dynamic textures will be analysed with standard optical flow algorithms relying on the brightness constancy assumption. However, self-occlusion, material diffusion, and other physical processes not obeying the brightness constancy assumption make such algorithms inappropriate for strong dynamic textures. An alternative to the brightness constancy assumption, the brightness conservation assumption enables the brightness of an image point to propagate to its neighborhood and thus to model complex brightness changes. A non-regular optical flow calculation based on the brightness conservation assumption provides a better model for strong dynamic textures. In the second approach, prior information about dynamic textures is used for detecting smoke and flames in video. It is experimentally observed that flame flicker process is not a narrow-band activity but it is wide-band activity covering 2 to 15 Hz. Zero-crossings of wavelet coefficients covering the band of 2 to 15 Hz is an effective feature and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) can be trained to detect temporal characteristics of fire using the wavelet domain data. Similarly, temporal behaviour of tree leaves in the wind or cloud motions will be investigated to achieve robust video understanding systems including content based …


Publish/Subscribe (P/S) is a communication paradigm of growing popularity for information dissemination in large-scale distributed systems. The weak coupling between information producers and consumers in P/S systems is attractive for loosely coupled and dynamic network infrastructures such as ad hoc networks. However, achieving end-to-end timeliness and reliability properties when P/S events are causally dependent is an open problem in ad hoc networks.
 In this article, we present, evaluate benefits of, and compare with past work an architecture design that can effectively support timely and reliable delivery of events and causally related events in ad hoc environments, and especially in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs).
 With observations from both realistic application model and simulation experiments, we reveal causal dependencies among events and their significance in a typical use notional system. We also examine and propose engineering methodologies to further tailor an event-based system to facilitate its self-reorganizing capability and self-reconfiguration. Our design features a two-layer structure, including novel distributed algorithms and mechanisms for P/S tree construction and maintenance. The trace-based experimental simulation studies illustrate our design's effectiveness in both cases with and without causal dependencies.


This paper describes four features of the German economy which lie at the root of its external imbalances: the evolution of its real exchange rate; the underlying trends in productivity and unit labour costs; the persistent shortfall of investment relative to domestic savings; and the deployment of much of the current external surplus in portfolio investments outside the euro area.

The euro has helped Germany maintain a strong competitive position for its exports within the euro area and has helped moderate the appreciation of its exchange rate vis-à-vis the main third-country currencies.

Moreover, the currency union has eliminated much of the pressure on Germany to adjust its burgeoning external surplus, since capital inflows no longer affect its monetary base creation. The export strength of German manufacturing has been built, on one hand, upon a rate of growth in productivity in manufacturing, which even if declining has been almost constantly higher than that of its European partners; on the other hand, upon a remarkable measure of wage restraint. The analysis of sectoral balances between savings and investment shows that the enormous increase in Germany's current external surplus in the euro years was determined by rising profits and low investment in the corporate sector, and by the shift of the public sector budget from deficit to surplus. Increased savings by the household sector do not contribute to the explanation of the surplus, contradicting the view whereby the surplus was the result of higher savings by an ageing population.

Finally, the analysis of the capital account of the balance of payments shows that Germany has contributed neither to real investments within the euro nor to sharing the risks implicit in an incomplete monetary union with divergent national fiscal policies.


Language‐related communication barriers between minority patients and their physicians may contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in mental health care. Accordingly, the current study sought to examine whether perceived mental health needs and discussion of these needs differed as a function of race or ethnicity and language concordance in older Latinos and Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs). Using the 2007 California Health Interview Survey, the analytical sample included Latinos and APIs aged 55 and older (N = 2,960) who reported having seen a primary care provider within the past 2 years. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine differences according to race or ethnicity and language concordance status (three groups: English‐language concordant, other‐language concordant, language discordant) in perceived mental health needs and discussion of those needs with a physician, adjusting for respondents' sociodemographic characteristics and mental health status. There were no significant differences in respondents' perceptions of their mental health needs across race or ethnicity or level of language concordance status (Ps > .41), although there were significant differences in whether respondents had discussed their mental health needs with their physicians according to participant race or ethnicity and language concordance status (adjusted odds ratio = 0.47, P = .04). Specifically, Spanish language‐concordant Latinos were just as likely to discuss their mental health needs with their physicians as English language‐concordant Latinos. In contrast, Asian language‐concordant APIs were less likely to discuss their mental health needs with their physicians than English language‐concordant APIs. There were no significant differences between language‐discordant and English language‐concordant older adults in predicting discussion of mental health concerns. These findings underscore the importance of overcoming language‐related and cultural barriers to improve patient‐provider discussions of older adults' mental health needs.


Interpenetrating polymer networks (lPN's), have been defined as a combination of two polymers each in network form, at least one of which has been synthesised and / or crosslinked in the presence of the other. A semi-lPN, is formed when only one of the polymers in the system is crosslinked, the other being linear. lPN's have potential advantages over homogeneous materials presently used in biomedical applications, in that their composite nature gives them a useful combination of properties. Such materials have potential uses in the biomedical field, specifically for use in hard tissue replacements, rigid gas permeable contact lenses and dental materials. Work on simply two or three component systems in both low water containing lPN's supplemented by the study of hydrogels (water swollen hydrophilic polymers) can provide information useful in the future development of more complex systems. A range of copolymers have been synthesised using a variety of methacrylates and acrylates. Hydrogels were obtained by the addition of N-vinyl pyrrolidone to these copolymers. A selection of interpenetrants were incorporated into the samples and their effect on the copolymer properties was investigated. By studying glass transition temperatures, mechanical, surface, water binding and oxygen permeability properties samples were assessed for their suitability for use as biomaterials. In addition copolymers containing tris-(trimethylsiloxy)-y-methacryloxypropyl silane, commonly abbreviated to 'TRlS', have been investigated. This material has been shown to enhance oxygen permeability, a desirable property when considering the design of contact lenses. However, 'TRIS' has a low polar component of surface free energy and hence low wettability. Copolymerisation with a range of methacrylates has shown that significant increases in surface wettability can be obtained without a detrimental effect on oxygen permeability. To further enhance to surface wettability 4-methacryloxyethyl trimellitic anhydride was incorporated into a range of promising samples. This study has shown that by careful choice of monomers it is possible to synthesise polymers that possess a range of properties desirable in biomedical applications.


: Dental study casts on 35 patients with unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) were evaluated at the late primary and early mixed dentition stages for the presence of significant (more than one tooth) posterior crossbites. Using this crossbite criterion patients were divided into "acceptable" and "unacceptable" groups. Eleven arch dimensions on the presurgical dental casts were measured to see if any, either singly or in combination, could be used to predict the later occurrence of significant crossbite. No single measurement of infant arch dimensions significantly differed between children with and without crossbite. Data from 26 patients were used for discriminant function analysis. This produced an equation correctly predicting the presence or absence of posterior crossbites in 88% of cases in the primary and 91% in the mixed dentitions.


Political and social forces exert pressure on our globalized economy in many forms, from formal and informal policies to financial theories and technical models. Our efforts to shape and direct these forces to preserve financial stability reveal much about the ways we perceive the financial economy. "The Handbook of Safeguarding Global Financial Stability" examines our political economy, particularly the ways in which these forces inhabit our institutions, strategies, and tactics. As economies expand and contract, these forces also determine the ways we supervise and regulate. This high-level examination of the global political economy includes articles about specific countries, crises, and international systems as well as broad articles about major concepts and trends. Substantial articles by top scholars sets this volume apart from other information sources. Diverse international perspectives result in new opportunities for analysis and research. Rapidly developing subjects will interest readers well into the future.


Teaching Practice (TP) is an essential part of all teacher training processes. It is both a practice that all teacher trainees go through, but is also an examination. The world over, who mans the education sectors is critical to national development. Who is approved to be a teacher is a critical question then, and how assessments are done, of interest to all stakeholders. In the study, we examined the following: i. the nature of assessments school administrations and/or cooperating teachers made of practicing teachers, ii. Academic supervisors' assessments of students iii. tested relationships between lecturer scores and school supervisor scores, and  iv. differences between the performance of Diploma and Bachelors students. The study utilized reports made on each student at the end of the three months of Teaching Practice (TP) by both in-school supervisors (heads and/or cooperating teachers) and lecturers. Students in the study were visited at least three times by their academic supervisors and all their scores on each occasion were then converted to just one aggregate mark, as is done, because the practicum is considered as one examination. The study wanted to establish whether students who did well in their teaching also did well according the heads of schools and cooperating teachers in other measures. On-TP student teachers were assessed on: preparation (scheming, planning, writing of focused objectives;)  and actual teaching: introduction, development, and closure of lessons, in addition to their rapport with learners, mastery of subject matter, use of teaching materials and aids as well as body language and appropriate dressing. At the end of the three months the heads of schools also assessed them using a short questionnaire. A total of 113 students were randomly selected using from each group for the study (41 diploma, 72 bachelors). Confidential school assessments ranging between '3' (average) and '5' (excellent), and lecturer ratings ranging between 41% and 86% were used for comparison. The results of the study show that on all aspects, there were no significant differences in the scores of diploma and bachelors students. However, the degree trainees had significantly better mastery of content than their diploma counterparts even though it did not translate into better performance in other measures of actual teaching. Keywords : teaching practice, assessment, supervisor, performance, mastery


This paper reports the development and evaluation of an online distance course making available most of the elements of established on-campus phonetic training within a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Issues associated with the use of phonetic symbols in the teaching materials and communication tools of a VLE are addressed. An outline is presented of an up-to-date, researchdriven syllabus for a distance course in English phonetics with associated exercises, ear-training and assessments. An eight-week pilot of the new course attracted 25 students across five continents, indicating a healthy global market for a course of this type. Retention rate to final assessment was 64%; an evaluation questionnaire assessing satisfaction on a five-point scale (1=best) showed an average score of 1.34


Probably no region's economists have had greater public visibility or greater impact on regional and national public policy than Latin America's and no region has been more directly affected by the spread of US economics. Economists in the Americas joins a small but important comparative literature on economics as a profession and is the first comparative treatment of professional economists in the United States and Latin America.


Food is the most basic need for all human being. However, shifts in the demographic and economic structures have influenced the food consumption pattern directly or indirectly. Changes in the consumers' lifestyle, taste and preferences, food safety awareness, environmental protection, health and animal welfare have a great impact on the demand for healthy and nutritious foods. Green foods are used to name as a healthy, environmental friendly, concern on food safety and animal welfare products. However, the concept of green foods is still very new in Malaysia and there is only a little knowledge about what factors influence the public intention to purchase green foods. These paper aims to assess consumers' perception and the factors that can influence their perception towards green foods consumption in Malaysia. 1355 respondents were interviewed. Descriptive statistic and factor analysis were used to analyze the information on public intention to purchase green foods. Factor analysis was used to determine the factors which can influence the consumers' purchasing behaviour and binary logistic model was used to determine the extent to which selected socio-economic/demographic characteristics and the extracted factors form factor analysis influence the public intention to purchase green foods. The results indicated that socio-demographic variables play an important role in explaining consumers' green purchasing behaviour. The major factors determining Malaysian consumers' green purchasing behaviour are consumers' referent, knowledge towards green foods, purpose to purchase green foods, motivation to consume green foods, green concept understanding and product price.


Database-backed applications typically grant complete database access to every part of the application. In this scenario, a flaw in one module can expose data that the module never uses for legitimate purposes. Drawing parallels to traditional privilege separation, we argue that database data should be subject to limitations such that each section of code receives access to only the data it needs. We call this data separation. Data separation defends against SQL-based errors including buggy queries and SQL injection attacks and facilitates code review, since a module's policy makes the extent of its database access explicit to programmers and code reviewers. We construct a system called Diesel, which implements data separation by intercepting database queries and applying modules' restrictions to the queries. We evaluate Diesel on three widely-used applications: Drupal, JForum, and WordPress.


The aim of the present study is to evaluate the transverse strength, modulus of elasticity, surface roughness, hardness, and water sorption/solubility of nanoparticle zirconium oxide (nano-ZrO2) added to heat-cured poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) after thermocycling. The specimens were divided into four groups according to the ratio of nano-ZrO2 addition to heat-cured PMMA; group 1: 5% nano-ZrO2; group 2: 10% nano-ZrO2; group 3: 20% nano-ZrO2, and group 4 (control): PMMA without nano-ZrO2. A statistically significant decrease in transverse strength was observed by all additional rates of nano-ZrO2 compared with group 4 (control; P < 0.025). When hardness results were evaluated, groups 1 and 2 showed statistically higher values compared with groups 3 and 4 (P < 0.025). The surface roughness of group 3 was statistically higher than the other groups (P < 0.025), but it was within the clinically acceptable limits. As the nano-ZrO2 addition rate increased, water sorption/solubility values of the specimens also increased. Although nano-ZrO2 addition had an adverse effect on some mechanical and physical properties of heat-cured PMMA, it increased hardness values, implying that the addition of nano-ZrO2 would contribute positively to some mechanical properties of PMMA denture base material when nano-ZrO2 was homogeneously distributed in PMMA.


Introduction. Peyronie's disease (PD) is a fibromatosis of the penis, with a pathology very similar to what is seen in the hand (palmar fascia) in Dupuytren's disease (DD). Recently, we performed a genome-wide association study and identified nine genetic loci containing common variants associated with DD. Seven of these loci mapped within or near genes of the canonical WNT pathway and each locus yielded relatively large odds ratios (ORs) for DD disease status. Aim. Given the clinical overlap between PD and DD, we examined whether the nine DD susceptibility loci are also involved in PD. Methods. An association study was performed using a case/control design. From 2007 to 2010, we prospectively included 111 men who had been clinically diagnosed with PD. Control subjects (N = 490 males) were randomly drawn from a population-based cohort from the same region of the Netherlands. Allele frequencies in the 111 PD cases and 490 controls were compared using a 1-degree-of-freedom basic chi-square test. A P value < 0.05 after Bonferroni correction for the nine tested single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was considered statistically significant (i.e., P < 0.0056). Main Outcome Measure. Association of genetic markers (SNPs) with PD. Results. We observed significant association with SNP rs4730775 at the wingless-type MMTV integration site family member 2 (WNT2) locus on chromosome 7 (P = 0.0015, OR 0.61), but found no evidence for the other eight loci being involved with PD despite the large effect size seen for some of these variants in DD. The WNT2 association was even more significant after we removed 15 patients with comorbid DD. Conclusions. WNT2 is a susceptibility locus for PD and our finding provides evidence for a partly shared genetic susceptibility between PD and DD. Dolmans GH, Werker PM, de Jong IJ, Nijman RJ, LifeLines Cohort Study, Wijmenga C, and Ophoff RA. WNT2 locus is involved in genetic susceptibility of Peyronie's disease. J Sex Med 2012;9:1430-1434.


This study described the nature and component themes captured within the intuitive practice of emergency nursing; it also explicates the nature of expert practice as define by Patricia Benner in 1984. The history of intuitive practice or as noted in this study the experience of knowing has to this point only been anecdotal. The experience of knowing needed to either be validated or refuted so that its place in emergency nursing could be found.
The study was informed by the philosophy and method of phenomenology. The participants in the study were fourteen experienced emergency nurses with between 4.5 – 23 emergency nursing years. These participants through their stories and experiences of emergency practice expressed their experience of knowing. Through a van Manen process and Gadamerian analysis six themes associated with the ways in which my participants experienced knowing, were identified. These were named, knowledge, experience, connection, feeling, syncretism and trust.
Further analysis uncovered a developmental relationship between the themes in general and with each other. Culminating in the reconstruction of Benner's expert stage into three distinct phases, Cognitive intuition, transitional intuition and embodied intuition. To enable the full expression of these findings a mathematical theory has been put forward.


The authors present empirical universal distributions for the halting time (measured by the number of iterations to reach a given accuracy) of optimization algorithms applied to two random systems: spin glasses and deep learning. Given an algorithm, which we take to be both the optimization routine and the form of the random landscape, the fluctuations of the halting time follow a distribution that remains unchanged even when the input is changed drastically. We observe two main universality classes, a Gumbel-like distribution that appears in Google searches, human decision times, QR factorization and spin glasses, and a Gaussian-like distribution that appears in conjugate gradient method, deep network with MNIST input data and deep network with random input data.


Reductive catabolism of pyrimidine nucleotides occurs via a three-step pathway in which uracil is degraded to β-alanine, CO2 and NH3 through sequential activities of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (EC 18.104.22.168, PYD1), dihydropyrimidinase (EC 18.104.22.168, PYD2) and β-ureidopropionase (EC 18.104.22.168, PYD3). A proposed function of this pathway, in addition to the maintenance of pyrimidine homeostasis, is the recycling of pyrimidine nitrogen to general nitrogen metabolism. PYD expression and catabolism of [2-14C]-uracil are markedly elevated in response to nitrogen limitation in plants, which can utilize uracil as a nitrogen source. PYD1, PYD2 and PYD3 knockout mutants were used for functional analysis of this pathway in Arabidopsis. pyd mutants exhibited no obvious phenotype under optimal growing conditions. pyd2 and pyd3 mutants were unable to catabolize [2-14C]-uracil or to grow on uracil as the sole nitrogen source. By contrast, catabolism of uracil was reduced by only 40% in pyd1 mutants, and pyd1 seedlings grew nearly as well as wild-type seedlings with a uracil nitrogen source. These results confirm PYD1 function and suggest the possible existence of another, as yet unknown, activity for uracil degradation to dihydrouracil in this plant. The localization of PYD-green fluorescent protein fusions in the plastid (PYD1), secretory system (PYD2) and cytosol (PYD3) suggests potentially complex metabolic regulation.


Within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) of Europe the responsibility for the single monetary policy lies with the European Central Bank (ECB). By contrast, economic policies remained national and must therefore be coordinated to ensure the proper functioning of EMU. A central government that could have taken measures to reduce the burden on monetary policy to stabilise the eurozone in the more challenging economic and financial circumstances since 2008 was and still is missing.

This paper argues that euro area governments could build on the cooperative model of Europe's economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic to establish a permanent fiscal framework alongside monetary policy that is more similar to those found in other currency areas. First, they could create a central fiscal capacity to ensure a euro area economic policy stance that is consistent with the orientation of monetary policy. Second, member countries could introduce a safe sovereign asset for the eurozone in order to anchor financial integration and facilitate the implementation of monetary policy. Third, euro area governments could commit when necessary to recapitalise their NCB and (indirectly) the ECB to underpin the credibility of large central bank balance-sheet operations.

Taking these three steps towards fiscal integration aligned with monetary policy and in full respect of the ECB's political independence would reduce systemic risks and strengthen confidence in the euro.


Background Certain patient groups are deemed as 'high-risk' of developing severe and fatal RSV infection including premature infants with CLD and CHD. Palivizumab has been reported to be safe and effective in reducing RSV bronchiolitis hospitalisation and reducing serious complications among 'high-risk' children. Aims To audit the local palivizumab usage practice in preterm infants with CLD and study the impact on infants receiving and not receiving palivizumab as per local criteria. Design and methods All preterm infants eligible for palivizumab as per Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) were identified from the database for 2011/12 and 2012/13 winter seasons and all infants who actually received palivizumab were also identified. Data was collected from case notes for bronchiolitis needing hospitalisation and respiratory support. Results 24 infants received palivizumab during the winter seasons of 2011–2013, a further 2 infants were identified that met the CLD JVCI criteria but were not immunised. None of the infants meeting local criteria but not the JCVI criteria required hospitalisation or escalation of care. Eight infants (32%), who met JCVI criteria, were automatically funded by prior agreement with commissioners for palivizumab. Sixteen (64%), not meeting JCVI criteria, were funded through Individual Funding Requests to the Primary Care Trust. Around 50% infants received palivizumab in special community clinic while rest received as in-patient. Conclusion A careful case to case based discussion can help in judicious usage of palivizumab in high-risk patients and could be more cost-effective than a blanket criterion for its usage in all high-risk patients. References Department of Health, Immunisation Against Infectious Disease, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Chapter 27a, accessed from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239274/Green_Book_updated_110913.pdf, accessed 09.10.13 Müller-Pebody B, Edmunds WJ, Zambon MC, et al. Contribution of RSV to bronchiolitis and pneumonia-associated hospitalizations in English children, April 1995–March 1998. Epidemiol Infect. 2002;129(1):99–106


Campaigns are a critical part of the political process in the United States, but until now, reference sources on campaigns have only covered selected parts of the process or have been written for political insiders. "The Guide to Political Campaigns in America" is the first resource to examine and explain every aspect of campaigns in a manner that satisfies the needs of many different audiences. This unique and comprehensive volume explores history, issues, processes and people, and types of campaigns. Editor Paul Herrnson, a well-respected government and politics scholar who has worked on many campaigns himself, brings to the work a dynamic combination of high-level scholarship and hands-on experience that sets this guide apart from all other campaign resources. Readers will find information on every aspect of political campaigning in America, including: The evolution of political campaigns; The political and regulatory environment of campaigning, including suffrage and ballot access; The importance of the voters and what influences the vote; The key players in the campaign organization, including the candidate and various managers; Other players who interact with the campaign, including the media and political parties; Key strategies and tactics, such as polling and campaign financing; Specific types of campaigns, including the well known, such as the presidency, House, Senate, governorship, and key state and local races; as well campaigns for the judiciary and for initiatives and referenda; and, Campaign and election reform. The expansive coverage and distinctive approach of this resource will appeal to a wide variety of library patrons, including students, professors, teachers of AP high school courses, and professionals in the media and campaigning fields.


Traditional call button networks that control elevator systems utilize a wired connection for communication. The communication cables are run through the elevator shaft from one call button to another and finally to the controller on the roof. Installing this wired link is highly time consuming. In this thesis, we propose the design for a wireless call button network. Two important features of this wireless network design are low cost and low power consumption. Controller Area Network (CAN) is a widely used protocol for wired networks and has been proposed for use in next generation elevator control systems. A modified CAN for wireless (MCANW) protocol has been developed for the wireless call button network. The wireless link will be implemented via the use of data radios. A modified form of traditional Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulation scheme for the radios is proposed. The proposed modulation scheme, like differential BPSK, can be detected non-coherently but it offers better performance than differential BPSK. Its implementation includes an innovative tracking algorithm to maintain synchronization at the receiver.


Left-libertarianism, like the more familiar right-libertarianism, holds that agents initially fully own themselves. Unlike right-libertarianism, however, it views natural resources as belonging to everyone in some egalitarian manner. Left-libertarianism is thus a form of liberal egalitarianism. In this article, I shall lay out the reasons why (1) left-libertarianism holds that (a) private discrimination is not intrinsically unjust and (b) it is intrinsically unjust for the state to prohibit private discrimination, and (2) that, nonetheless, a plausible version of left-libertarianism holds that it is unjust for the state (and many private individuals) to take no steps to offset the negative effects of systematic private discrimination. The basic line is not new. It is simply that there is nothing unjust in principle with private discrimination, but there is (at least typically) something unjust about doing nothing to promote equal life prospects.


There is a growing recognition that needs more to be done to ensure that research contributes to better health services and patient outcomes. Stakeholder engagement in research, including co-production, has been identified as a promising mechanism for improving the value, relevance and utilization of research. This article presents findings from a prospective study which explored the impact of stakeholder engagement in a 3-year European tobacco control research project. That research project aimed to engage stakeholders in the development, testing and dissemination of a return-on-investment tool across five EU countries (the Netherlands, Spain, Hungary, Germany and the UK). The prospective study comprised interviews, observations and document review. The analysis focused on the extent to which the project team recognized, conceptualized and operationalized stakeholder engagement over the course of the research project. Stakeholder engagement in the European research project was conceptualized as a key feature of pre-designated spaces within their work programme. Over the course of the project, however, the tool development work and stakeholder engagement activities decoupled. While the modelling and tool development became more secluded, stakeholder engagement activities subtly transformed from co-production, to consultation, to something more recognizable as research participation. The contribution of this article is not to argue against the potential contribution of stakeholder engagement and co-production, but to show how even well-planned engagement activities can be diverted within the existing research funding and research production systems where non-research stakeholders remain at the margins and can even be seen as a threat to academic identify and autonomy.


During brain development, instructive signals between the midbrain and the isthmus (the boundary region between the midbrain and hindbrain) control the development of the future tectum and cerebellum. One critical signal is mediated by fibroblast growth factor 8 (FGF8). Hirate and Okamoto report studies of this developmental regulatory system and identify a previously unrecognized regulator of FGF signaling. The authors previously identified a zebrafish gene they named canopy1 in a screen for genes expressed at the isthmus in response to signaling between the midbrain and the isthmus. Their new work showed that implantation of FGF8b-soaked beads in the midbrain of zebrafish embryos increased expression of canopy1. Experiments in which expression of Canopy1 protein was blocked with antisense morpholino oligonucleotides showed that Canopy1 was essential for normal development of the tectum and cerebellum. Such inhibition of Canopy1 function also inhibited FGF8b-induced expression of a target gene, eng2a. The defect in FGF signaling appeared to be at the level of the receptor, because an artificially constructed FGF receptor activated by a dimerizing agent could still activate expression of eng2a in the absence of Canopy1. Canopy1 contains a sequence similar to ER (endoplasmic reticulum) retention signals, and, in transfected HeLa cells, this domain appeared to be required for retention of the protein in the ER. The human ortholog of Canopy1 was also localized to the ER in HeLa cells. Immunoprecipitation studies on extracts of cells transfected with a tagged Canopy1 protein along with full-length or fragmented FGF receptor protein suggested that Canopy1 may interact with the extracellular domain of the FGF receptor. The authors note that Canopy1 has structural similarity to saposins, proteins that bind sphingolipids, and speculate that Canopy1 could influence association of the receptor with lipid rafts. Y. Hirate, H. Okamoto, Canopy1, a novel regulator of FGF signaling around the midbrain-hindbrain boundary in zebrafish. Curr. Biol. 16, 421-427 (2006). [PubMed]


Alzheimer's Disease Pathogenesis: Core Concepts, Shifting Paradigms, and Therapeutic Targets, delivers the concepts embodied within its title. This exciting book presents the full array of theories about the causes of Alzheimer's, including fresh concepts that have gained ground among both professionals and the lay public. Acknowledged experts provide highly informative yet critical reviews of the factors that most likely contribute to Alzheimer's, including genetics, metabolic deficiencies, oxidative stress, and possibly environmental exposures. Evidence that Alzheimer's resembles a brain form of diabetes is discussed from different perspectives, ranging from disease mechanisms to therapeutics. This book is further energized by discussions of how neurotransmitter deficits, neuro-inflammation, and oxidative stress impair neuronal plasticity and contribute to Alzheimer's neurodegeneration. The diversity of topics presented in just the right depth will interest clinicians and researchers alike. This book inspires confidence that effective treatments could be developed based upon the expanding list of potential therapeutic targets. following:


Diversity of both social networks and livelihood sources plays a central role in determining the sustainability of natural resource use and resilience of social–ecological systems, not least in resource-dependent economies. Yet the types of social capital and characteristics of diversity are not well understood. Here we examine social capital and livelihood diversification strategies in dynamic lakeshore social–ecological systems in Uganda adapting to climate variability and change. Water and land use data are used to explain lake system variations and lakeshore people's livelihood responses in terms of adaptive cycles and examine how system resilience changes over time in response to climatic and other stresses. Interview and household survey data are used to explain household adaptations to climate variability based on livelihood diversification and social capital and to determine which adaptations were dominant during different stages of adaptive cycles. Results show that households adapt to climate variability using concurrent, spatial, and temporal diversification of livelihoods and by drawing on social capital, but these sources of resilience are not sufficient in all circumstances. The availability of adaptation options varies according to the different stages in the adaptive cycle of the lakeshore's dynamic, coupled human–ecological system; to the degree and nature of the climatic stress; and to differences in household access to assets and adaptation options. This implies a need to maintain multiple sources of resilience for use in times of system collapse or crisis.


Comparative Observational Study of Two Ethnic Population Groups of Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Background: In order to elucidate potential differences in the natural history, clinical presentation and prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) from two different continents, we studied demographics, management and outcome data of two groups of patients from Egypt and Greece. To our knowledge this is the first study to do so.
Patients and Methods: Record-based data from one hundred and five Egyptian and seventy eight Greek patients with HCC, were retrieved and analyzed for demographic, tumor and disease characteristics as well as for treatment and prognostic features.
Results: Median age at HCC diagnosis was 61 years for Egyptians and 70.5 years for Greeks (p<0.05). Positive serology hepatitis C virus (HCV) status was seen in 69% vs. 8% and HBV status in 7% vs. 20% of Egyptian and Greek patients, respectively (p<0.05 and p<0.011). Alcoholic cirrhosis was present in 52% of Greek patients and in none of the Egyptian patients. Median time of preexisting liver disease was 40 months for Egyptians and 12 for Greeks, while the incidence of cirrhosis was 85% vs. 52%,respectively (p<0.05). The Egyptian population showed more diffuse type of HCC in imaging studies (p<0.009) and more frequent occurrence of hepatic biochemical abnormalities (p<0.003-0.007). Regarding systemic dissemination, the Egyptian group had a predilection for bone metastases, whereas the Greek group for visceral metastases (p<0.02). Interestingly, lymph nodal involvement was a harbinger of metastatic dissemination in the Greek, but not in the Egyptian population (p=0.023). No statistical difference in overall survival between the two ethnic groups was found.
Conclusions: In a record based group study, substantial differences emerged between an Egyptian and a Greek population in terms of the etiological factors of HCC (infectious vs. alcoholic), the radiological and biochemical pattern of involvement and the pattern of metastatic dissemination. Further epidemiologic and molecular studies may provide insights into interpretation of these discrepancies.


In this paper, it is argued that Spinoza is far from being a 'denier' of international law. Instead, it is shown that Spinoza offers a nuanced argument for why states are compelled to cooperate with one another in the form of international law.
The argument is developed as follows: Part II outlines Spinoza's realist starting point which can be called the 'international state of nature'. Part III reconstructs – drawing on his ethical and ontological theory outlined in the Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (Ethics, E) and in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Theological-Political Treatise, TTP) – Spinoza's international legal argument, i.e. the conditions that must be fulfilled for international law to exist. Part IV condenses and generalizes Spinoza's international legal argument in the form of three analytical concepts (normativity of international law, being a State sui iuris and the concept of international cooperation). Part V concludes by outlining Spinoza's lasting contribution to the theory of international relations and law.


The ubiquity of cell phones in today's society has forced courts to change or dismiss established, but inapplicable analytical frameworks. Two such frameworks in the school setting are regulations of student speech and of student searches. This Article traces the constitutional jurisprudence of both First Amendment off-campus speech protection and Fourth Amendment search standards as applied to the school setting. It then analyzes how the Supreme Court's ruling in Riley v. California complicates both areas. Finally, it proposes a pragmatic solution: by recognizing a categorical First Amendment exception for "substantial threats" against the school community, courts could accommodate students' constitutional rights while upholding school administrators' ability to maintain a safe environment.


How does power work in practice? Much of the 'stuff' that state agents and other international actors do, on an everyday basis, remains impenetrable to existing International Relations theory. This is unfortunate, as the everyday performance of international practices actually helps shape world policy outcomes. In this article, we develop a framework to grasp the concrete workings of power in international politics. The notion of 'emergent power' bridges two different understandings of power: as capability or relation. Emergent power refers to the generation and deployment of endogenous resources — social skills and competences — generated in particular practices. The framework is illustrated with an in-depth analysis of the multilateral diplomatic process that led to the 2011 international intervention in Libya. Through a detailed account of the negotiations at the United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the European Union, the article demonstrates how, in practice, state representatives translate their skills into actual influence and generate a power politics that eschews structural analysis. We argue that seemingly trivial struggles over diplomatic competence within these three multilateral organizations played a crucial role in the intervention in Libya. A focus on practice resituates existing approaches to power and influence in International Relations, demonstrating that, in practice, power also emerges locally from social contexts.


The educational reform movement, with its heavy emphasis on restructuring and collaboration, has brought into the open a serious credibility gap between teachers and the role that schools of education and the education professorate have played in educational development., and leadership. Many teachers believe that professors do not understand, or have lost touch with, the realities of public school education and have no accurate concept of what goes on in the classroom. Using a traditional elementary education program as an example, this paper describes the collaborative mentorship program, a professional approach to teacher education designed to establish credibility between and among teachers and professors due to the level and depth of collaboration involved. The approach offers the following: (I) more relevant and less redundant methods courses; (2) more field experiences; (3) no additional semester hours in the program; (4) no additional financial expenditures; (5) no additional faculty positions; (6) real and meaningful collaboration with public schools; and (7) leadership in educational philosophy and practice. The collaborative mentorship program almost completely eliminates the need for regular faculty to supervise student teachers. The approach allows all to work from their strengths, and it allows for greater flexibility for student placement. Overall the mentorship program is considered a true collaborative approach that benefits everyone: Contains 14 references. (LL) *********************************************************************** R3 productions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. *********************************************************************** A Collaborative Field Based Elementary Education Program: Bridging the Credibility Gap Between Teachers and Teacher Training Programs Garlon Bloodsworth, Ed. D.


Conventional approaches to measuring endogenous nutrient allocations to reproduction in birds have relied on the sampling of several individuals within populations in order to contrast mass gains of the clutch with mass loss of the laying female's tissues. The reasoning has been that mass loss of female endogenous tissues during laying can be attributed to 'capital' investment into reproduction. Apart from the destructive nature of this work, problems associated with this approach involve uncertain conversion efficiencies between endogenous reserves and eggs and the general loss of information on individual strategies. As a result, the role of endogenous reserves have likely been overestimated in most cases. Stable isotope measurements of endogenous reserves and egg components can help to trace quantitatively the relative allocation of endogenous vs. exogenous reserves to eggs in cases where local (breeding season) diets differ isotopically from endogenous reserves typically acquired on the wintering or staging grounds prior to arrival to breed. Fortunately several avian species change 'isoscapes' when travelling to breed and so are amenable to isotopic tracking of their body nutrients to eggs. For example, birds wintering in coastal marine biomes and travelling to terrestrial or freshwater biomes experience a general depletion in the isotopes of several elements (C, N, H, O and S) in their local foodwebs. Previous captive studies have allowed us to estimate the isotopic (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) fractionation factors between diet and several egg components (lipid-free yolk, albumen, yolk lipid, shell carbonate) for herbivorous and carnivorous 'income' breeders. Currently, we are using the carnivore model to also estimate fractionation expected between endogenous reserves and eggs. The net result of this work has been an isotopic multi-source mixing model to predict the relative allocation of endogenous vs. exogenous protein and lipid capital to eggs. While refinement is needed for this model, it provides a firm basis for future avian isotopic tracking studies involving nutrient allocations.


Increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has been documented in several chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases. In addition to the traditional cardiovascular risk factors, disease activity itself may contribute to this increase.

Tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α, a pivotal cytokine in chronic inflammation, also affects lipid metabolism, insulin resistance and endothelial function. Therapeutic use of TNF-α blockers reduces inflammation and modifies the lipoprotein spectrum of patients. A significant increase in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels has been documented after short-term infliximab therapy.1–5 However, this beneficial effect seems to be transient and more prolonged use of TNF-α blockers may lead to an increase in total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, inducing a more "atherogenic" phenotype.6 7

The …


The southeast Atlantic has expansive aerosol plumes overlying clouds for a third of each year. Aerosol optical depths (AODs) were measured from the airborne Sun photometer and lidar during the 2016 NASA ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS field campaign. We compare these measurements with one another and with collocated Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) observations at native spatial resolutions using <15‐min and 3‐h temporal collocation criteria. We find better statistical relationships for the <15‐min temporal resolution, indicating that AODs in the southeast Atlantic commonly vary below three‐hourly temporal scales over MODIS spatial resolutions. We also use the airborne Solar Spectral Flux Radiometer (SSFR) to conduct the first comprehensive evaluation of attenuation‐corrected below‐aerosol cloud optical depths (CODs) from MODIS and the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI). MODIS COD retrievals improve their agreement with the SSFR when accounting for overlying aerosol attenuation whereas SEVIRI CODs are mostly underestimated.


The Ehrhart polynomial $L_P$ of an integral polytope $P$ counts the number of integer points in integral dilates of $P$. Ehrhart polynomials of polytopes are often described in terms of their Ehrhart $h^*$-vector (aka Ehrhart $\delta$-vector), which is the vector of coefficients of $L_P$ with respect to a certain binomial basis and which coincides with the $h$-vector of a regular unimodular triangulation of $P$ (if one exists). One important result by Stanley about $h^*$-vectors of polytopes is that their entries are always non-negative. However, recent combinatorial applications of Ehrhart theory give rise to polytopal complexes with $h^*$-vectors that have negative entries. In this article we introduce the Ehrhart $f^*$-vector of polytopes or, more generally, of polytopal complexes $K$. These are again coefficient vectors of $L_K$ with respect to a certain binomial basis of the space of polynomials and they have the property that the $f^*$-vector of a unimodular simplicial complex coincides with its $f$-vector. The main result of this article is a counting interpretation for the $f^*$-coefficients which implies that $f^*$-coefficients of integral polytopal complexes are always non-negative integers. This holds even if the polytopal complex does not have a unimodular triangulation and if its $h^*$-vector does have negative entries. Our main technical tool is a new partition of the set of lattice points in a simplicial cone into discrete cones. Further results include a complete characterization of Ehrhart polynomials of integral partial polytopal complexes and a non-negativity theorem for the $f^*$-vectors of rational polytopal complexes.


The optics of rainbows and fogbows is investigated theoretically for monodisperse drops using Mie theory. Included in the calculations are a realistic solar illumination spectrum and the finite size of the sun. Drop sizes range from 3 to 300 microm (3800 > X > 38). Results are presented on the location, width, contrast, polarization, and color of both primary and secondary rainbows. Particular attention is given to rainbows formed in small drops (fogbows).


Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have recently achieved great success in single-image super-resolution (SISR). However, these methods tend to produce over-smoothed outputs and miss some textural details. To solve these problems, we propose the Super-Resolution CliqueNet (SRCliqueNet) to reconstruct the high resolution (HR) image with better textural details in the wavelet domain. The proposed SRCliqueNet firstly extracts a set of feature maps from the low resolution (LR) image by the clique blocks group. Then we send the set of feature maps to the clique up-sampling module to reconstruct the HR image. The clique up-sampling module consists of four sub-nets which predict the high resolution wavelet coefficients of four sub-bands. Since we consider the edge feature properties of four sub-bands, the four sub-nets are connected to the others so that they can learn the coefficients of four sub-bands jointly. Finally we apply inverse discrete wavelet transform (IDWT) to the output of four sub-nets at the end of the clique up-sampling module to increase the resolution and reconstruct the HR image. Extensive quantitative and qualitative experiments on benchmark datasets show that our method achieves superior performance over the state-of-the-art methods.


This dissertation analyzes the discourse of three infotainment television shows built around their hosts – characters who have gained considerable importance and influence in their respective countries: American Jon Stewart (host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart); British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (the actor who incarnates the popular characters Borat, Bruno, and Ali G in the Da Ali G Show), and Peruvian Jaime Bayly (host of the Peruvian TV show El Francotirador/The Sniper). These three shows responded to their specific national, cultural, social, and political contexts, while simultaneously demonstrating important similarities: they parody journalistic genres while questioning traditional journalism authority and arbitrary media norms; they use humor to develop political, social, and cultural critiques; and they revolve around a talented character who is a media celebrity.

Drawing upon theory and literature related to media spectacle, infotainment, tabloidization, celebrity, and the carnivalesque, this research analyzes the three media characters' discourse and critiques within their respective national and cultural contexts in order to understand their role in those societies and how they negotiate discursive power in the public sphere. This analysis also seeks to reveal how Stewart challenges the mainstream news media by exposing the difficulties of debate in the U.S.; how the subaltern voices of Ali G, Bruno, and Borat position Sacha Baron Cohen to confront hegemonic culture and identity; and how ambiguity and contradiction allow Bayly to be a transgressor in a society where entertainment has a particular political history. This research establishes commonalities and differences among these three representative cases in relation to the broader, global phenomenon of satiric infotainment, and introduces the notion of "critical infotainment" to characterize this satiric trend that combines entertainment, comedy, journalism, popular culture, and politics to develop social critique. Critical infotainment is interpreted as a result of and a transgressive reaction to the process of tabloidization and the cult of celebrity in the media spectacle era. Finally, this dissertation includes recommendations for future critical infotainment experiments to fill the gap left by the traditional press in today's mediascape.


This paper attempts to contribute in two directions. First, concepts and results of our Matrix Graph Grammars approach [ VL06b, VL06a] such as coherence and minimal initial digraph are applied to Petri nets, especially to reachability criteria and to the state equation. Second, the state equation and related Petri nets techniques for reachability are generalized to cover a wider class of graph grammars.


Deciding whether to purchasing or leasing machinery and equipment is one of the most important decisions making in management of the roads construction project. In this paper, a new model has been designed and used for estimating the cost of one ton of asphalt in the state of purchase of asphalt plant, and compare it with the cost of one ton of asphalt in the state of lease. The cost of producing each tone of asphalt in the state of lease is a specified and deterministic cost and it is part of the decision-making process in terms of certainty, while that the cost of ownership and operation in the purchase terms are uncertain and variable. Therefore, in this paper, decision making methods in terms of uncertainty (risk) and expected value has been used for calculate purchasing costs. According to the results in each project, depending on the amount of asphalt required, there is a break-even point that for values less than this point, the rent will be economic and for more values than this point, the purchase will be economic.