Diaphragm dysfunction accompanies cardiopulmonary disease and impaired oxygen delivery. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) regulates oxygen delivery through angiogenesis, capillary maintenance, and contraction-induced perfusion. We hypothesized that myofiber-specific VEGF deficiency contributes to diaphragm weakness and fatigability. Diaphragm protein expression, capillarity and fiber morphology, mitochondrial respiration and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) generation, and contractile function were compared between adult mice with conditional gene ablation of skeletal myofiber VEGF (SkmVEGF-/-; n=12) and littermate controls (n=13). Diaphragm VEGF protein was ~50 % lower in SkmVEGF-/- than littermate controls (1.45±0.65 vs. 3.04±1.41 pg/total protein; P=0.001). This was accompanied by an ~15% impairment in maximal isometric specific force (F[1,23] = 15.01, P=0.001) and a trend for improved fatigue resistance (P=0.053). Mean fiber cross-sectional area and type I fiber cross-sectional area were lower in SkmVEGF-/- by ~40 % and ~25% (P<0.05). Capillary-to-fiber ratio was also lower in SkmVEGF-/- by ~40% (P<0.05), thus capillary density was not different. Sarcomeric actin expression was ~30% lower in SkmVEGF-/- (P<0.05), while myosin heavy chain and MAFbx were similar (measured via immunoblot). Mitochondrial respiration, citrate synthase activity, PGC-1α, and HIF-1α were not different in SkmVEGF-/- (P>0.05). However mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) flux was lower in SkmVEGF-/- (P=0.0003). In conclusion, myofiber-specific VEGF gene deletion resulted in a lower capillary-to-fiber ratio, type I fiber atrophy, actin loss, and contractile dysfunction in the diaphragm. In contrast, mitochondrial respiratory function was preserved alongside lower ROS generation, which may play a compensatory role to preserve fatigue resistance in the diaphragm.


In most countries, the majority of household solid waste is landfilled because of associated low capital, operation and maintenance costs. However, many existing landfills have exhausted their handling capacities and new facilities are faced with the problem of siting. Alternatives to traditional landfill practice are required to achieve sustainability in managing solid waste. This manuscript discusses an advanced landfill concept, referred to as a biocell, which involves sequential application of anaerobic degradation, aerobic decomposition and waste mining in a single waste cell. Biodegradation of waste in the biocell is enhanced through leachate re-circulation coupled with landfill gas collection in the anaerobic phase and air injection in the aerobic phase. The biocell is expected to realise sustainability by reusing the location where solid waste is treated, thereby eliminating the need of new land for waste disposal. Environmental controls also eliminate ground/surface water contamination and harmful landfill gas emissions.


How important are financing constraints in explaining the cyclical behaviour of investment. How do they affect the investment responses to macroeconomic shocks. This thesis answers these questions by developing a structural model of investment with financing and irreversibility constraints and by analysing its implications both theoretically and empirically. After briefly reviewing the recent advancements of the investment literature in chapter 1, in chapter 2 we present a preliminary empirical analysis of the links between financial structure and firm dynamics. In chapter 3 we develop a basic structural model which analyses optimal investment and saving choices of entrepreneurs in the presence of uncertainty as well as of financing constraints. We show that future expected financing constraints generate a precautionary saving behaviour which affects the optimal allocation between risky investment and saving. In chapter 4 we extend the basic model to include both fixed and variable capital as well as financing constraints and irreversibility of fixed capital. We show that the interactions between financing and irreversibility constraints amplify the effects of financing constraints on the cyclical fluctuations of investment and production. This interaction together with the precautionary saving behaviour is essential in explaining a number of stylised facts about investment dynamics: i) aggregate inventory investment is very volatile and procyclical, especially in recessions; ii) it leads the business cycle, while fixed capital investment lags it; iii) fixed and especially inventory investment are sensitive to net worth; iv) output and inventories are more volatile and procyclical for small firms than for large ones. In chapter 5 we verify empirically the theoretical results derived in chapter 4. We use our panel of balance sheet data on Italian manufacturing firms to test and not reject the financing constraints hypothesis. This hypothesis is also strongly supported by the direct qualitative information about the problems faced by the entrepreneurs in financing new investment projects.


The world demand for energy is rapidly increasing. This demand for energy is increasing due to population growth and rising living standard. World population is doubling about every thirty five years. The combined effect of increasing need and diminishing supply constitutes the energy crises. Besides this, the use of biomass fuels like wood, dung cake and agro waste are used as a source of energy. The combustion of these fuels destructs the earth's atmosphere and directly affects the human life in forms of different ailments. This paper discusses the performance investigations of a conventional burner with different porous media used in LPG cooking stove. Thermal efficiency was found using the water-boiling test. The porous medium combustion test showed that a maximum thermal efficiency of about 61.86% was obtained with ball bearing, which was 10.71% higher than that of the conventional burners 51.15%. The thermal efficiency was found to increase by using porous medium combustion technique.


Purpose: With increasing incidence of renal mass, it is important to make a pretreatment differentiation between benign renal mass and malignant tumor. We aimed to develop a deep learning model that distinguishes benign renal tumors from renal cell carcinoma (RCC) by applying a residual convolutional neural network (ResNet) on routine MR imaging. Experimental Design: Preoperative MR images (T2-weighted and T1-postcontrast sequences) of 1,162 renal lesions definitely diagnosed on pathology or imaging in a multicenter cohort were divided into training, validation, and test sets (70:20:10 split). An ensemble model based on ResNet was built combining clinical variables and T1C and T2WI MR images using a bagging classifier to predict renal tumor pathology. Final model performance was compared with expert interpretation and the most optimized radiomics model. Results: Among the 1,162 renal lesions, 655 were malignant and 507 were benign. Compared with a baseline zero rule algorithm, the ensemble deep learning model had a statistically significant higher test accuracy (0.70 vs. 0.56, P = 0.004). Compared with all experts averaged, the ensemble deep learning model had higher test accuracy (0.70 vs. 0.60, P = 0.053), sensitivity (0.92 vs. 0.80, P = 0.017), and specificity (0.41 vs. 0.35, P = 0.450). Compared with the radiomics model, the ensemble deep learning model had higher test accuracy (0.70 vs. 0.62, P = 0.081), sensitivity (0.92 vs. 0.79, P = 0.012), and specificity (0.41 vs. 0.39, P = 0.770). Conclusions: Deep learning can noninvasively distinguish benign renal tumors from RCC using conventional MR imaging in a multi-institutional dataset with good accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity comparable with experts and radiomics.


Haematological cancers in bone marrow (leukaemia) and the immune system (lymphomas or myeloma) represent the sixth most common adult tumour group in Australia. These cancers often develop without warning and require intensive treatment regimes that last on average eight months, but may continue for a lifetime depending on the diagnosis. Encouragingly, advancing cancer treatments, a key accomplishment of cancer research over the past 40 years, have resulted in a growing community of cancer survivors. Approximately two in three adults diagnosed with haematological cancer (HC) can now expect to survive more than five years. However, they must attempt to navigate the potential side-effects of cancer treatment. Several studies have highlighted the negative physical, social and psychological consequences of a cancer diagnosis such as fear of reoccurrence, infertility, fatigue and depression. However, few studies have explored how these individuals adjust or cope following successful cancer treatment. Cancer survivors who maintain a positive outlook, effectively deal with their health issues and are able to resume normality in their lives are deemed to be resilient. This study aimed to investigate the resilience process that HC survivors adopt following treatment, in order to overcome such adversity. The goal was to enable identification of protective factors that lead to positive mental health outcomes, and risk factors that impede resilience, for the growing HC survivor population. A two-phase, sequential, mixed methods design was adopted. The first (qualitative) developed a model of resilience, by exploring factors that fostered or inhibited HC survivors' abilities to cope with this health crisis. Data were collected though semi-structured, in-depth, interviews with 23 adult HC survivors from Western Australia (M age = 52.87, SD = 16.72). Thematic and Leximancer software analyses of the interview data identified four main themes and subthemes pertaining to the cancer experience faced by these individuals: (1) the burden associated with a HC diagnosis; (2) resilience: coping with HC; (3) pathways and barriers to resilience; and, (4) survivor outcomes. These themes were then developed into a model, based on the current findings and those that had been identified in the literature. Subsequently, in Phase Two (quantitative), a questionnaire was created using factors that surfaced during the interviews or were identified from the literature. It was first piloted (Stage I) among a convenience sample of 17 mixed cancer survivors to determine clarity, reliability and internal consistency. Afterwards, a large survey was conducted (Stage II) to test the validity of the model developed in Phase One. Twenty-four variables were investigated for their ability to predict resilience and 222 (M age = 54.35, SD = 14.31) eligible questionnaires RESILIENCE IN HC SURVIVORS iii were obtained. Using a standard multiple regression analysis, the combined effect of the 24 variables accounted for 61% of the variance in resilience scores. Active coping, positive reframing, exercise and support from family and friends were found to positively influence resilience, while self-blame negatively predicted resilience. Only three variables, venting, selfdistraction and substance use, did not contribute significantly. Greater scores on each of the remaining variables; emotional support, instrumental support, planning, acceptance, religion, humour, support (healthcare professional and significant other), appearance, researching information, alternative treatments, time-out and diet, were associated with higher levels of resilience, except for, behavioural disengagement and denial which were negatively correlated. The results identified that higher resilience levels were significantly associated with lower depression and anxiety. In addition, younger participants (< 40 years of age) or those more recently diagnosed (< 5 years) scored significantly higher on depression and anxiety and lower on resilience. The findings highlight that the model developed in this thesis appropriately represented resilience factors identified among other cancer survivor populations. This research contributes to theory, policy and clinical practice, by providing greater insight into the experience of those living with HC and how these individuals cope. Clinicians including psychologists can use the study's results to improve their clinical assessment and therapeutic approaches to enhance cancer survivor wellbeing. In addition, this information can assist the federal and state governments in formulating improved support infrastructure. Future research should explore how these theoretical findings can be applied practically, and assess the application of this model across cultures. RESILIENCE IN HC SURVIVORS iv Copyright and Access Declaration I certify that this thesis does not, to the best of my knowledge and belief: (i) Incorporate without acknowledgment any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any institution of higher degree; (ii) Contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of this thesis; or (iii) Contain any defamatory material; (iv) Contain any data that has not been collected in a manner consistent with ethics


Education and awareness raising are the primary tools of global health policy to change public behaviour and tackle antimicrobial resistance. Considering the limitations of an awareness agenda, and the lack of social research to inform alternative approaches, our objective was to generate new empirical evidence on the consequences of antibiotic-related awareness raising in a low-income country context. We implemented an educational activity in two Lao villages to share general antibiotic-related messages and also to learn about people's conceptions and health behaviours. Two rounds of census survey data enabled us to assess the activity's outputs, its knowledge outcomes, and its immediate behavioural impacts in a difference-in-difference design. Our panel data covered 1130 adults over two rounds, including 58 activity participants and 208 villagers exposed indirectly via conversations in the village. We found that activity-related communication circulated among more privileged groups, which limited its indirect effects. Among participants, the educational activity influenced the awareness and understanding of "drug resistance", whereas the effects on attitudes were minor. The evidence on the behavioural impacts was sparse and mixed, but the range of possible consequences included a disproportionate uptake of antibiotics from formal healthcare providers. Our study casts doubt on the continued dominance of awareness raising as a behavioural tool to address antibiotic resistance.


In this work, we evaluate the exploration of the Solar system by ad hoc wireless sensor networks (WSN), i.e., networks where all nodes (either moving or stationary) can both provide and relay data. The two aspects of self-organization and localization are the major challenges to achieve a reliable network for a variety of missions. We point out the diversity of environmental and operational constrains that WSN used for space exploration would face. We evaluate two groups of scenarios consisting in static or moving sensing nodes that can be either located on the ground or in the atmosphere of a Solar-system object. These scenarios enable collecting data simultaneously over a large surface or volume. We consider physical and chemical sensing of the atmosphere, surface and soil using such networks. Emerging technologies such as nodes localization techniques are reviewed. Finally, we compare the specific requirements of WSN for space exploration with those of WSN designed for terrestrial applications. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Persistence of unmet therapeutic needs in patients with Crohn's disease with luminal or perianal refractory disease has fostered the interest in innovative cellular immunoregulatory and regenerative medicines. Apart from autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplant, in which efficacy has been suggested in small series of patients and is now being evaluated in controlled trials, various groups have undertaken initiatives to determine the potential of mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-based therapy in Crohn's disease.

Bone marrow MSCs were first identified by Friedenstein, who described an adherent fibroblast-like population able to differentiate into bone. He referred to these cells as osteogenic precursor cells.1 Subsequent studies demonstrated that these cells have the ability to differentiate into various other mesodermal cell lineages, including chondrocytes, tenocytes and myoblasts. Based on this multilineage differentiation capacity, the term 'mesenchymal stem cells' was introduced.2 Although MSCs at a population level fulfil stem-cell criteria (ie, self-renewal and the capacity for multi-lineage differentiation), it remains questionable whether the qualification 'stem cell' is legitimate for MSCs at the single-cell level. It was therefore recently proposed that the term 'multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells' (with the abbreviation MSCs) should be used to describe fibroblast-like plastic-adherent cells.3

Although, originally, MSCs were isolated from bone marrow, similar populations have been isolated from other tissues, including adipose tissue, placenta, amniotic fluid and fetal tissues such as fetal lung and blood.2 To date, the isolation of MSCs still relies on their adherence to plastic, resulting in a heterogeneous population of adherent cells. No specific marker or combination of markers has been identified that specifically defines MSCs. Phenotypically, ex vivo expanded MSCs express a number of non-specific markers, including CD105 (SH2 or endoglin), CD73 (SH3 or SH4), CD90, CD166, CD44, and CD29, and are devoid …


We describe a new training methodology for generative adversarial networks. The key idea is to grow both the generator and discriminator progressively: starting from a low resolution, we add new layers that model increasingly fine details as training progresses. This both speeds the training up and greatly stabilizes it, allowing us to produce images of unprecedented quality, e.g., CelebA images at 1024^2. We also propose a simple way to increase the variation in generated images, and achieve a record inception score of 8.80 in unsupervised CIFAR10. Additionally, we describe several implementation details that are important for discouraging unhealthy competition between the generator and discriminator. Finally, we suggest a new metric for evaluating GAN results, both in terms of image quality and variation. As an additional contribution, we construct a higher-quality version of the CelebA dataset.


The ParB protein forms DNA bridging interactions around parS to condense DNA and earmark the bacterial chromosome for segregation. The molecular mechanism underlying the formation of these ParB networks is unclear. We show here that while the central DNA binding domain is essential for anchoring at parS, this interaction is not required for DNA condensation. Structural analysis of the C-terminal domain reveals a dimer with a lysine-rich surface that binds DNA non-specifically and is essential for DNA condensation in vitro. Mutation of either the dimerisation or the DNA binding interface eliminates ParB-GFP foci formation in vivo. Moreover, the free C-terminal domain can rapidly decondense ParB networks independently of its ability to bind DNA. Our work reveals a dual role for the C-terminal domain of ParB as both a DNA binding and bridging interface, and highlights the dynamic nature of ParB networks in Bacillus subtilis.


Over the years, Wendell Berry has sought to understand and confront the financial structure of modern society and the impact of developing late capitalism on American culture. There is perhaps no more demanding or important critique available to contemporary citizens than Berry's writings -- just as there is no vocabulary more given to obfuscation than that of economics as practiced by professionals and academics. Berry has called upon us to return to the basics. He has traced how the clarity of our economic approach has eroded over time, as the financial asylum was overtaken by the inmates, and citizens were turned from consumers -- entertained and distracted -- to victims, threatened by a future of despair and disillusion. For this collection, Berry offers essays from over the last 25 years, alongside new essays about the recent economic collapse, including "Money Versus Goods" and "Faustian Economics," treatises of great alarm and courage. He offers advice and perspective that should be heeded by all concerned as our society attempts to steer from its present chaos and recession to a future of hope and opportunity. With urgency and clarity, Berry asks us to look toward a true sustainable commonwealth, grounded in realistic Jeffersonian principles applied to our present day.


When a service is offered by multiple servers in a mobile ad hoc network (MANETs), the manner in which clients and servers are paired together, referred to as service selection, is crucial to network performance. Good service selection groups clients with nearby servers, localizing communication, which in turn reduces inter-node interference and allows for multiple concurrent transmissions in different parts of the network. Although much previous research has concentrated on service discovery in MANETs, not much effort has gone into understanding the effects of service selection. This paper demonstrates that service selection in MANETs has profound implications for network performance. Specifically, we show that effective service selection can improve network throughput by up to 400%. We show that to maximize performance service selection decisions need to be continuously reassessed to offset the effects of topology changes. We argue that effective service selection in MANETs requires a cross-layer approach that integrates service discovery and selection functionality with network ad hoc routing mechanisms. The cross-layer approach leverages existing routing traffic and allows clients to switch to better servers as network topology changes


We present a contact invariant trajectory optimization formulation to synthesize motions for legged robotic systems. The method is capable of finding optimal trajectories subject to whole-body dynamics with hard contacts. Contact switches are determined automatically. We make use of concepts from bilevel optimization to find gradients of the system dynamics including the constraint forces and subsequently solve the optimal control problem with the unconstrained iLQR algorithm. Our formulation achieves fast computation times and scales well with the number of contact points. The physical correctness of the produced trajectories is verified through experiments in simulation and on real hardware. We showcase our method on a single-legged hopper for which jumping and forward hopping motions are synthesized with an arbitrary number of contact switches. The jumping trajectories can be tracked on the robot and allow it to safely liftoff and land.


Introduction: The Magnetic Poetry Kit of Sex Part One: Did the ancient Greeks accept love, desire and relationships between men? Introduction 1. Guilia Sissa, Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World 2. "Against Timarchus." From Aeschines Part Two: Was Jesus a queer eunuch? Introduction 3. Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom Halvor Moxnes 4. Jesus on Sexuality Part Three: Did the medieval and early modern Islamic world accept men who had sex with male youths? Introduction 5. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 Khaled El-Rouayheb 6. A Book Containing the Risala Known as the Dove's Neck-Ring About Love and Lovers Abu Muhammad Ali Ibn Hazm Al-Andalusi Part Four: Are sexual morality and sexual prohibitions universal, or should they vary by culture? Introduction 7. An Ethics of Cultural Exchange: Diderot's 'Supplement Au Voyage De Bougainville' Claudia Moscovici 8. Diderot, Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville Part Five: Were Victorians sexually repressed? Introduction 9. The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception 1800-1975 Hera Cook 10. Aristotle's Masterpiece 11. Handbook of Dr. Kahn's Museum Part Six: Was women's desire for each other compatible with Victorian marriage? Introduction 12. Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England Sharon Marcus 13. I know My Own Heart Anne Lister Part Seven: How were definitions of prostitution influenced by race, and were experts able to control prostitution? Introduction 14. Prostitution, Race and Politics: Venereal Disease and the British Empire Phillipa Levine 15. An Enquiry into the Causes of the Great Sanitary Failure of the State Regulation of Social Vice Joseph Edmondson Part Eight: Did sexologists impose definitions of homosexuality on men and women who desired those of the same sex? Introduction 16. Stepchildren of Nature: Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the Making of Sexual Identity Harry Oosterhuis 17. Psychopathia Sexualis Richard Krafft-Ebing Part Nine: The problem of heterosexuality. Could men and women find happiness together? Introduction 18. 'A Dark, Impenetrable Wall of Complete Incomprehension': The Impossibility of Heterosexual Love in Imperial Germany Edward Ross Dickinson 19. The Sexual Crisis a Critique of Our Sex Life Grete Meisel-Hess Part Ten: Did Europeans impose foreign sexual mores on Africans, or were they trying to protect women? Introduction 20. Jomo Kenyatta, Marie Bonaparte and Bronislaw Malinowski on Clitoridectomy and Female Sexuality Bodil Folke Frederiksen 21. Facing Mount Kenya Jomo Kenyatta 22. Duchess of Atholl and Eleanor Rathbone's speech Part Eleven: The politics of birth control and abortion Introduction 22. Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Cornelia Osborne 23. Abortion and Sterilization in Denmark Dr. J. Leunbach Part Twelve: Were 60s feminists pro or anti sex? Introduction 24. The Redstocking Movement: Sex, Love, and Politics in 1968 Lynn Walter 26. I Accuse! Mette Ejlersen Part Thirteen: Does regulating prostitution protect or punish women who sell sex? Introduction 27. Through the Prism of Prostitution: Conceptions of Women and Sexuality in Sweden at Two Fins-De-Siecle Yvonne Svanstrom 28. Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex Elizabeth Bernstein


Abstract Pinus sylvestris L. and Pinus mugo Turra originating from two plantations established during the 1960s are invading subalpine heathlands higher than 1 500 m above sea level in Montseny Natural Park (northeast Spain). Both species are native at a regional scale but may not have been present in the park's subalpine vegetation previously. In addition, Abies alba P. Mill., which is in regression in many areas in Europe, is also colonizing the area from a neighboring natural forest. This invasion appears to be stimulated by a combination of natural and human factors, including differences between vegetation components, climate (i.e., drought periods), changes in land use due to conservation policies (i.e., suppressing fire or grazing practices), the creation of the plantations, and probably the nurse role played by accompanying dwarf shrubs (Calluna vulgaris [L.] Hull and Juniperus communis subsp. nana [Willd.] Syme). We examined the effects of this process in terms of the spatial dispersion and characteristics of the established conifers and deduce implications for the conservation of isolated subalpine pastures in Mediterranean Basin mountains. P. sylvestris was the most successful invading species in this area. The P. mugo invasion is distributed mainly near the plantation. The only native conifer species, A. alba, appears to be colonizing only the eastern slope. The invasion process is related to the diversity and species richness recorded on each slope. Conserving valuable subalpine heathlands at the latitude of the Montseny mountain range implies suppressing propagule pressures from the plantations. The option of removing conifers that are nonnative, at a local scale, must be considered. However, in the case of the native A. alba this option leads to a management conflict between conserving former pastureland and the dispersion of A. alba.


ABSTRACT This model presents the both direct and indirect effects of incremental and major environmental change on competitive strategies employed by organizational participants in rapidly changing environments; specifically, environmental change is viewed as having both incremental and major components. The model developed in this paper predicts that organizations that are accustomed to rapid environmental change will gain competence at learning under incremental environmental change. However, accurate learning for firms under conditions of major environmental change will continue to be problematic. INTRODUCTION This paper develops a predictive model of the impact of environmental change on the relationship between past performance and strategic change for rapidly changing environments. This model aims to enhance our understanding of how firms learn to navigate in rapidly changing environments and set an agenda for empirical research on the impact of environmental granularity on strategic change. Using an organizational learning perspective, this paper describes the forces that drive volatility in this competitive environment. The extreme volatility and ambiguity of this environment may make it difficult for organizations to interpret changes in their performance. Organizational interpretation of performance feedback leads to firms' strategic action or inaction. An example of this type of environment is the microcomputer hardware industry has been described as the quintessential turbulent or high velocity industry (Eisenhardt & Bourgeois, 1990). BACKGROUND The ideas contained in this research are based on the underlying assumption that organizations respond to their experience, including their prior performance and their perceived environment, as adaptive learning systems (Cyert & March, 1992; March & Simon 1993; March & Olsen, 1976). It is proposed that an organizational learning perspective can explain the strategic adaptations of organizations in rapidly changing environmental, such as microcomputer makers. Some authors suggest that superstitious learning occurs when spurious correlations are drawn from learning based on erroneous perceptions and interpretations of environmental signals or performance feedback in ambiguous environments (March & Olsen, 1976; Levin thai & March, 1981). However, others suggest that organizations can learn to cope with rapid environmental change as a baseline condition (Milliken & Lant, 1991; Levitt & March, 1988). The strategic responses of organizations to an ambiguous, turbulent environment and to their own performance are investigated over time. This paper develops theoretical mechanisms for including both the direct and indirect effects of environmental change in an organizational learning framework and dividing environmental change into incremental and major components. This conceptualization may explain why some prior research has indicated that accurate learning is problematic under conditions of rapid environmental change while others have suggested that firms can gain competence at learning in rapidly changing environments. The model developed in this study predicts that organizations that are accustomed to environmental change will gain competence at learning under conditions of incremental environmental change. However, accurate learning for these firms under conditions of major environmental change will continue to be problematic. ADAPTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING The model of learning used in this study is consistent with an adaptive organizational learning perspective that models organizations as goal-oriented systems that respond to experience (Cyert & March, 1992; Glynn, Lant, and Milliken, 1994; March & Simon 1993; March & Olsen, 1976; Milliken & Lant, 1991; Levinthal & March, 1981; Levitt & March, 1988; Lant & Mezias, 1990, 1992). Organizations continue or repeat actions that have been successful and search for alternatives in light of negative feedback. …


Forest ecosystems are subjected to global change drivers worldwide, such as increasing temperature, atmospheric carbon dioxide, nutrient pollution, as well as changes in fire and precipitation regimes. These global change drivers have greatly modified the biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P), which has an impact on primary productivity in forest ecosystems and in turn, affect the quality and quantity of resources entering the soil food web. However, C, N, and P soil dynamics have been mostly studied without considering their coupling effects on soil organisms. This is of critical interest because changes in nutrient stoichiometry may have a strong effect on soil biota and the ecosystem functions they drive. Further, most studies have focused on global change effects on bacteria and fungi and their C:N:P stoichiometry, while neglecting other soil organisms at higher trophic levels. This has led to an incomplete understanding of how the entire soil food web drives ecosystem processes involved in organic matter turnover and nutrient cycling. Here, we review studies that investigated how global change drivers impact C:N:P stoichiometry of soil organisms at different trophic levels in forest ecosystems and identify important knowledge gaps. We propose future directions for research on global change impacts on the linkages between soil biota and C:N:P stoichiometry.


Morphological variation of vipers of the Vipera berus complex in Eastern Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Western and Central Ukraine was studied using multivariate statistics. Discriminant analysis, based on ten meristic characters in 89.7% of cases (males) and in 92.0% cases (females), was able to separate reference samples of subspecies Vipera berus berus and Vipera berus nikolskii and was conducted to classify snakes from the studied territory. According to these results, V. b. nikolskii inhabits the broad-leaved forests in the forest-steppe zone in the Republic of Moldova, the hilly part of Eastern Romania and Central Ukraine. Specimens from a contact zone between V. b. berus and V. b. nikolskii have intermediate morphology and, thus, could represent the result of introgression. Populations of the Nikolsky's viper from the western part of its range combine high level of morphological differentiation from V. b. berus with the presence of non-black specimens and even include populations without melanistic specimens, previously thought not to occur in this taxon. A morphological description of the largest samples is given and determination of V. b. nikolskii is discussed.


[1] The Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) launched on the NASA Aura satellite in July 2004 offers unprecedented spatial resolution, coupled with contiguous daily global coverage, for space-based UV measurements of sulfur dioxide (SO2). We present a first validation of the OMI SO2 data with in situ aircraft measurements in NE China in April 2005. The study demonstrates that OMI can distinguish between background SO2 conditions and heavy pollution on a daily basis. The noise (expressed as the standard deviation, σ) is ∼1.5 DU (Dobson units; 1 DU = 2.69 · 1016 molecules/cm2) for instantaneous field of view boundary layer (PBL) SO2 data. Temporal and spatial averaging can reduce the noise to σ ∼ 0.3 DU over a remote region of the South Pacific; the long-term average over this remote location was within 0.1 DU of zero. Under polluted conditions collection 2 OMI data are higher than aircraft measurements by a factor of two. Improved calibrations of the radiance and irradiance data (collection 3) result in better agreement with aircraft measurements on polluted days. The air mass–corrected collection 3 data still show positive bias and sensitivity to UV absorbing aerosols. The difference between the in situ data and the OMI SO2 measurements within 30 km of the aircraft profiles was about 1 DU, equivalent to ∼5 ppb from 0 to 3000 m altitude. Quantifying the SO2 and aerosol profiles and spectral dependence of aerosol absorption between 310 and 330 nm are critical for an accurate estimate of SO2 from satellite UV measurements.


Current research into indirect phytopathogen–herbivore interactions (i.e., interactions mediated by the host plant) is carried out in two largely independent directions: ecological/mechanistic and molecular. We investigate the origin of these approaches and their strengths and weaknesses. Ecological studies have determined the effect of herbivores and phytopathogens on their host plants and are often correlative: the need for long-term manipulative experiments is pressing. Molecular/cellular studies have concentrated on the role of signaling pathways for systemic induced resistance, mainly involving salicylic acid and jasmonic acid, and more recently the cross-talk between these pathways. This cross-talk demonstrates how interactions between signaling mechanisms and phytohormones could mediate plant–herbivore–pathogen interactions. A bridge between these approaches may be provided by field studies using chemical induction of defense, or investigating whole-organism mechanisms of interactions among the three species. To determine the role of phytohormones in induced resistance in the field, researchers must combine ecological and molecular methods. We discuss how these methods can be integrated and present the concept of "kaleidoscopic defense." Our recent molecular-level investigations of interactions between the herbivore Gastrophysa viridula and the rust fungus Uromyces rumicis on Rumex obtusifolius, which were well studied at the mechanistic and ecological levels, illustrate the difficulty in combining these different approaches. We suggest that the choice of the right study system (possibly wild relatives of model species) is important, and that molecular studies must consider the environmental conditions under which experiments are performed. The generalization of molecular predictions to ecologically realistic settings will be facilitated by "middle-ground studies" concentrating on the outcomes of the interactions.


Welfare state spending cuts constitute one of the most economically efficient ways to achieve fiscal consolidation, but some policymakers prefer other methods of fiscal consolidation when government debt levels are high. In this paper I examine this phenomenon and hypothesize that the economic incentive to cut welfare spending when government debt levels are high can be undermined by the political incentive to stay in power. Specifically, I hypothesize that government debt and median voter preferences interact to shape welfare state outcomes; high levels of government debt lead to welfare retrenchment, but only if the median voter does not oppose cuts in welfare spending. Using data on government spending and median voter preferences from 18 OECD countries, I estimate a series of regressions, showing that government debt does lead to overall welfare spending cuts when the median voter does not oppose overall welfare retrenchment, and that government debt has a negative impact on unemployment spending, but not on old age pension spending. This is consistent with the theoretical framework as unemployment spending is consistently less popular with the median voter than old age pension spending because unemployment benefits protect against labor market risks, whereas old age pensions protect against life course risks.


Carbon and strontium isotope stratigraphy has been applied to constrain the depositional ages of high-grade marble sequences in the Ofoten district of the North-Central Norwegian Caledonides. Two marble formations hosted by diverse schists from the Bogen Group, all previously correlated over long distances with a Late Ordovician–Early Silurian, low-grade, fossiliferous succession, have been studied for carbon, oxygen and strontium isotopes. The least altered 87Sr/86Sr ratios ranging between 0.7062 and 0.7068, and the best preserved δ13C values falling between +5.0 and +6.5‰ obtained from two marble formations, are consistent with a seawater composition in the time interval 700–600 Ma. The results obtained do not support the previously proposed correlation of the Bogen Group with an Ordovician–Silurian lithostratigraphic succession further north. The apparent depositional ages suggest that the tectonostratigraphic succession studied is inverted and that the tectonostratigraphy of the region requires revision. The Neoproterozoic depositional ages combined with the palaeogeographic position of Baltica imply that carbonates were initially accumulated in seas on a continental shelf, probably Laurentia, and were tectonically transported onto Baltica during Early Silurian, Scandian collision, at c. 425 Ma. Prospecting for new dolomite marble deposits of the Hekkelstrand type and carbonate-hosted manganese–iron ores should be restricted to 700–600 Ma sequences in the Uppermost Allochthon of the Norwegian Caledonides.


Abstract Dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, or dysautonomia, is an uncommon disease. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is one of the several types of dysautonomia. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, also known as chronic orthostatic intolerance, is the most common but least severe of the dysautonomic disorders; it will serve as the model for evaluation and management of the other dysautonomias. Overall, these patients can have variable dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system that is more severe than that observed in typical neurocardiogenic syncope. Frequently, providers are not familiar with either the evaluation or the management of this syndrome, or are just not interested in doing so. This article attempts to describe strategies for evaluation and management of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. The diagnosis of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is made by the finding of orthostatic intolerance associated with a pulse greater than 120 beats per minute in the first 10 minutes of upright position or an elevation in pulse greater than 30 beats per minute in the first 10 minutes of upright position. Overall, these patients can have variable dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system that is more severe than that seen in typical neurocardiogenic syncope. A wide variety of associated symptoms may exist and these symptoms can have tremendous impact on the lives of the patients and their families. Management of these patients can be difficult as well as rewarding. It is helpful to perform an extensive education up front with these patients and their families. Interventions for patients with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome typically fall into two broad categories: non-pharmacological and pharmacological. Non-pharmacological therapies are varied, but are based primarily on ensuring adequate status of intravascular fluid. Polypharmacy may be required to control symptoms associated with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. On account of the severity of their symptoms, these patients frequently have difficulty in completing their school assignments. The physician may need to help support the attempts of the family to work with the school to help the patient stay in school. As postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is underdiagnosed and poorly understood, it is a disease that provides an excellent opportunity to perform research. The most important studies would be those that aim to elucidate an aetiology and a pathophysiology of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. In the final analysis, the role of the cardiologist in the evaluation and management of a patient with dysautonomia is to help a patient with severe disability to feel as if they are normal, or much closer to it.


Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) infers a reward function from demonstrations, allowing for policy improvement and generalization. However, despite much recent interest in IRL, little work has been done to understand the minimum set of demonstrations needed to teach a specific sequential decisionmaking task. We formalize the problem of finding maximally informative demonstrations for IRL as a machine teaching problem where the goal is to find the minimum number of demonstrations needed to specify the reward equivalence class of the demonstrator. We extend previous work on algorithmic teaching for sequential decision-making tasks by showing a reduction to the set cover problem which enables an efficient approximation algorithm for determining the set of maximallyinformative demonstrations. We apply our proposed machine teaching algorithm to two novel applications: providing a lower bound on the number of queries needed to learn a policy using active IRL and developing a novel IRL algorithm that can learn more efficiently from informative demonstrations than a standard IRL approach.


Drawing primarily on policy considerations, social science research, and the relevant statutory and doctrinal frameworks within veterans benefits law, this article argues that Congress should subject the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to a clear and enforceable deadline for making initial eligibility determinations on claims for service-connected compensation. Despite widespread media coverage of delays in VA's adjudication system and countless oversight hearings and congressional proposals for reform, this simple idea – to impose a hard deadline upon VA has either been overlooked entirely or drowned out by a preoccupation with other types of legislative responses to the VA claims backlog. This article seeks to enter the debate about remedying the backlog from a slightly different vantage point than the perspectives used to date, one that focuses on the nature of deadlines – including the psychology of deadlines, the enforcement of deadlines, and the role deadlines might play in promoting perceptions of agency fairness and legitimacy. Along the way, the article draws on VA's own data to reveal the long-standing gap between the agency's timeliness goals and its performance. The reform proposed here is admittedly modest in many respects; it is far from a cure all for delay. But it does reflect certain fundamental values that should animate any reforms to the VA system: expanding enforcement tools, applying lessons learned from past VA failures, and treating veterans with dignity.


The role of limpet grazing in preventing the development of algal canopies is a recurrent theme in intertidal ecology. Less is known about interactions of limpets with the long-term dynamics of established canopies. Aerial photographs indicate that intertidal canopy cover has declined over the past 44 yr in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland. There has been a loss of the previously continuous cover of Ascophyllum nodosum (L.) Le Jolis in the mid-shore. A barnacledominated assemblage now fills gaps in the A. nodosum canopy. The rates at which barnacle patches become established and grow have increased since 1990. Changes in canopy cover have been accompanied by increases in limpet densities since the 1980s. Measurements between 2003 and 2004 showed no increase in length of A. nodosum fronds when limpets Patella vulgata had access to the algal holdfasts. In contrast, when limpets were experimentally excluded from the holdfasts, there was net frond growth. In the Isle of Man, which is climatically similar to Strangford Lough but has fewer limpets, growth occurred regardless of limpet grazing. The breaking force for A. nodosum declined with increasing local densities of limpets. A. nodosum is a sheltered shore species, potentially vulnerable to changes in wave exposure. There is no evidence, however, that Strangford Lough has become windier over the past 3 decades. Variation in wave exposure among locations within the lough was not related to rates of barnacle patch creation or expansion. Limpet population density has increased following a series of mild winters. Climate change may have a role in causing canopy loss, not by direct effects on the growth of fucoids, but by increasing the severity of grazing through changes to limpet populations.


The yellow passionfruit (Passiflora edulis f flavicarpa Degener), a perennial vine grown in the tropics and subtropics, was successfully grown as an annual crop in a temperate zone. Fruit maturity was hastened by ethephon treatments to allow harvest before the mean date of the first killing frost. Maturity was advanced in a linear manner with application rates of 150, 300, and 600 ppm ethephon. Total yield was not affected by ethephon treatment; however, cull fruit producing no juice increased with increasing rates of ethephon, thereby reducing marketable yields. Soluble solids and ascorbic acid contents of the juice were not affected by ethephon treatment. Purple passionfruit (Passiflora edulis Sims) did not produce blossoms.


Background: Executive functions (EFs) are commonly theorised to be related yet separable constructs in adults, and specific EFs, such as prepotent response inhibition and working memory, are thought to have clear and distinct neural underpinnings. However, recent evidence suggests that EFs are unitary in children up to about 9 years of age. The aim of the current study was to test the hypothesis that event-related potential (ERP) components of individual EFs are related to behavioural performance, despite EFs being psychometrically indistinguishable in children. Specifically, P3b ERP (associated with updating of working memory), N2 ERP, and N2 difference waveform (both associated with inhibition) latent variables were created and entered into confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models with a unitary executive functioning factor.
Methods: Children aged 7-9 years (N = 215) completed eight measures of inhibition, working memory, and shifting. A modified flanker task was also completed during which EEG data were recorded.
Results: The P3b ERP and the N2 difference waveform factors both significantly correlated with (and were predictors of) the executive functioning factor; however, the N2 ERP factor was not.
Discussion: These results provide support for the utility of ERPs as a counterpoint to psychometric measures of executive functioning, and, more broadly, for the relationship between brain and behaviour.


Lake ice phenology parameters (dates of ice onset and thaw) provide an integrative climatic description of autumn to springtime conditions. Interannual variations in lake ice duration and thickness allow estimates of local climatic variability. In addition, long-term changes in lake ice phenology may provide a robust indication of climatic change. The relationship between lake ice and climate enables the use of process-based models for predicting the dates of freeze-up and thaw. LIMNOS (Lake Ice Model Numerical Operational Simulator) is one such model, which was originally designed to simulate the ice phenology of several lakes in southern Wisconsin. In this study, LIMNOS is modified to run globally on a 0.5° by 0.5° latitude-longitude grid using average monthly climate data. We initially simulate the ice phenology for lakes of 5- and 20-m mean depths across the northern hemisphere to demonstrate the effects of lake depth, latitude, and elevation on ice phenology. To evaluate the results of LIMNOS we also simulate the ice phenology of 30 lakes across the northern hemisphere which have long-term ice records. LIMNOS reproduces the general geographic patterns of ice-on and ice-off dates, although ice-off dates tend to occur later in the model. Lakes with extreme depths, surface areas, or precipitation are simulated less accurately than small, shallow lakes. This study reveals strengths and weaknesses of LIMNOS and suggests aspects which need improving. Future investigations should focus on the use of geographically extensive lake ice observations and modeling to elucidate patterns of climatic variability and/or climate change.


Published by Palgrave Macmillan Since the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 bilateral and multilateral donors have stressed that development assistance has increasingly been oriented towards climate-friendly interventions. With respect to energy aid, this should lead to a substantial increase in projects related to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Given a new database of hundreds of thousands of bilateral development assistance projects, we can assess whether such a reorientation has indeed taken place. We find that, contrary to expectations, the share of bilaterally-funded renewable energy and energy efficiency projects did not increase over the period from 1980 to 2008. This share fluctuated greatly, following the price of oil, peaking with the second oil crisis of the early 1980s. The impacts of global climate policy treaties are minor or inexistent. 'Traditional' renewable energies such as hydro and geothermal declined, while "new" renewables showed two peaks in the early 1980s and late 1990s. Differences between donor countries are huge. Several countries, including climate sceptics such as the US and Australia, but also the UK and Switzerland, saw a consistent decline. The self-proclaimed climate pioneers such as Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden show peaks related to both the oil crises and international climate policy. Only in Austria, Denmark, Finland and Spain can 'new' climate mitigation development assistance be found.


"The Companion Species Manifesto" is about the implosion of nature and culture in the joint lives of dogs and people, who are bonded in "significant otherness". In all their historical complexity, Donna Haraway tells us, dogs matter. They are not surrogates for theory, she says; they are not here just to think with. Neither are they just an alibi for other themes; dogs are fleshly material-semiotic presences in the body of technoscience. They are here to live with. Partners in the crime of human evolution, they are in the garden from the get-go, wily as Coyote. This pamphlet is Haraway's answer to her own "Cyborg Manifesto", where the slogan for living on the edge of global war has to be not just "cyborgs for earthly survival", but also, in a more doggish idiom, "shut up and train".


Recent macroeconomic literature has stressed the importance of resource allocation between firms for aggregate productivity. An important issue, therefore, is how to measure allocative efficiency. We compare popular indicators of allocative efficiency, paying special attention to firm turnover. We first show how entering and exiting firms contribute to aggregate productivity and to the Olley-Pakes (OP) covariance component, which is currently the most popular measure of allocative efficiency. Our data cover essentially all firms and plants in the Finnish business sector. We then build a model of firm dynamics with endogenous turnover that is consistent with the main patterns of our empirical results and use it to test how well alternative indicators capture different allocation distortions. Our results demonstrate how and why commonly used indicators fail to capture certain distortions because of endogenous changes in firm turnover.


Interest groups seek to influence economic activity through public and private politics. Public politics takes place in the arenas of public institutions, whereas private politics takes place outside public institutions often in the arena of public sentiment. Private politics refers to action by interest groups directed at private parties, as in the case of an activist group launching a campaign against a firm. This paper presents a model of informational competition between an activist and an industry, where each interest group seeks to influence public sentiment and does so by advocating its position through the news media. Citizen consumers make both a private consumption decision and a collective choice on the regulation of a product that has an externality associated with it. In the absence of the news organization the collective choice in not to regulate. The activist and the industry obtain private, hard information on the seriousness of the externality and advocate favorable information and may conceal unfavorable information. The news media can conduct investigative journalism to obtain its own information and based on that information and the information it has received from its sources, provides a news report to the public. Due to its role in society, the media has an incentive to bias its report, and the direction of bias is toward regulation. Its bias serves to mitigate both the market failure by decreasing demand and a government failure by leading to regulation. The activist then has an incentive to conceal information unfavorable to its interests, whereas the industry fully reveals its information.


"All that have ever tried to impose change in their organization will immediately recognize and truly value the in-depth knowledge and experience captured in this book. It contains a collection of eye-openers that is a treasure chest for pioneers of new organizational ideas, A fantastic toolbox for use in future missions!" -Lise B. Hvatum, product development manager, Schlumberger"If you have need of changing your organization, and especially of introducing new techniques, then you want to understand what is in this book. It will help you avoid common pitfalls that doom many such projects and will show you a clear path to success. The techniques are derived from the experience of many individuals and organizations. Many are also fun to apply. This stuff is really cool-and really hot." -Joseph Bergin, professor of computer science, Pace University, New York"If change is the only guarantee in life, why is it so hard to do? As this book points out, people are not so much resistant to change itself as they are to being changed. Mary Lynn and Linda have successfully used the pattern form to capture and present the recurring lessons of successful change efforts and have placed a powerful knowledge resource in the hands of their readers." -Alan O'Callaghan, researcher, Software Technology Research Laboratory, De Montfort University, United Kingdom"The most difficult part of absorbing patterns, or any technology, into an organization is overcoming the people issues. The patterns in this book are the documentation of having gone through that experience, giving those that dare push the envelope a head start at success."-David E. DeLano, IBM Pervasive Computing"If you have ever wondered how you could possibly foster any cultural changes in your organization, in this book you will find a lot of concrete advice for doing so. I recommend that everyone read this book who has a vast interest in keeping his or her organization flexible and open for cultural change." -Jutta Eckstein, Independent Consultant, Objects In Action Author of Agile Software Development in the Large 48 Patterns for Driving and Sustaining Change in Your OrganizationChange. It's brutally tough to initiate, even harder to sustain. It takes too long. People resist it.But without it, organizations lose their competitive edge. Fortunately, you can succeed at making change. In Fearless Change, Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising illuminate 48 proven techniques, or patterns, for implementing change in organizations or teams of all sizes, and show you exactly how to use them successfully.Find out how to Understand the forces in your organization that drive and retard change Plant the seeds of change Drive participation and buy-in, from start to finish Choose an "official skeptic" to sharpen your thinking Make your changes appear less threatening Find the right timing and the best teaching moments Sustain your momentum Overcome adversity and celebrate success Inspired by the "pattern languages" that are transforming fields from software to architecture, the authors illuminate patterns for every stage of the change process: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. These flexible patterns draw on the experiences of hundreds of leaders. They offer powerful insight into change-agent behavior, organizational culture, and the roles of every participant.Best of all, they're easy to use-and they work!


Several trends in technology have important implications for embedded systems of the future. One trend is the increasing density and number of transistors that can be placed on a chip. This allows designers to fit more functionality into smaller devices, and to place multiple processing cores on a single chip. Another trend is the increasing emphasis on low power designs. A third trend is the appearance of bottlenecks in embedded system designs due to the limitations of long electrical interconnects, and increasing use of optical interconnects to overcome these bottlenecks. These trends lead to rapidly increasing complexity in the design process, and the necessity to develop tools that automate the process. This thesis will present techniques and algorithms for developing such tools.
Automated techniques are especially important for multiprocessor designs. Programming such systems is difficult, and this is one reason why they are not as prevalent today. In this thesis we explore techniques for automating and optimizing the process of mapping applications onto system architectures containing multiple processors. We examine different processor interconnection methods and topologies, and the design implications of different levels of connectivity between the processors.
Using optics, it is practical to construct processor interconnections having arbitrary topologies. This can offer advantages over regular interconnection topologies. However, existing scheduling techniques do not work in general for such arbitrarily connected systems. We present an algorithm that can be used to supplement existing scheduling techniques to enable their use with arbitrary interconnection patterns.
We use our scheduling techniques to explore the larger problem of synthesizing an optimal interconnection network for a problem or group of problems.
We examine the problem of optimizing synchronization costs in multiprocessor systems, and propose new architectures that reduce synchronization costs and permit efficient performance analysis.
All the trends listed above combine to add dimensions to the already vast design space for embedded systems. Optimizations in embedded system design invariably reduce to searching vast design spaces. We describe a new hybrid global/local framework that combines evolutionary algorithms with problem-specific local search and demonstrate that it is more efficient in searching these spaces.


Objective To test the hypothesis that higher level of cognitive activity predicts older age at dementia onset in Alzheimer disease (AD) dementia. Methods As part of a longitudinal cohort study, 1,903 older persons without dementia at enrollment reported their frequency of participation in cognitively stimulating activities. They had annual clinical evaluations to diagnose dementia and AD, and the deceased underwent neuropathologic examination. In analyses, we assessed the relation of baseline cognitive activity to age at diagnosis of incident AD dementia and to postmortem markers of AD and other dementias. Results During a mean of 6.8 years of follow-up, 457 individuals were diagnosed with incident AD at a mean age of 88.6 (SD 6.4, range 64.1–106.5) years. In an extended accelerated failure time model, higher level of baseline cognitive activity (mean 3.2, SD 0.7) was associated with older age at AD dementia onset (estimate 0.026; 95% confidence interval 0.013–0.039). Low cognitive activity (score 2.1, 10th percentile) was associated with a mean onset age of 88.6 years compared to a mean onset age of 93.6 years associated with high cognitive activity (score 4.0, 90th percentile). Results were comparable in subsequent analyses that adjusted for potentially confounding factors. In 695 participants who died and underwent a neuropathologic examination, cognitive activity was unrelated to postmortem markers of AD and other dementias. Conclusion A cognitively active lifestyle in old age may delay the onset of dementia in AD by as much as 5 years.


In the emergency management related to either natural or anthropogenic disasters, transport and communication infrastructures play a key role for a good realisation of the emergency plans. Communication in this phase is essential both from a bottom-up (information related to the actual state of a catastrophic event), and from a top-down point of view (information related to the policy of the decision makers relevant to resources management). On the other hand, the importance of transport infrastructures is fundamental, as it is an essential instrument for emergency resource intervention, as well as for population evacuation. Thus, an effort should be made in order to define instruments capable of aiding decision makers in using infrastructures during emergency management. In this paper, a Decision Support System (DSS) for resource intervention in real-time emergency management is proposed. The general methodological framework and the mathematical formulation of one of the problems solved by the DSS are described.


In recent past years, PAPR (Peak-to-Average Power Ratio) of OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing) system has been intensively investigated. Published works mainly focus on how to reduce PAPR. Since high PAPR will lead to clipping of the signal when passed through a nonlinear amplifier. This paper proposes to extend the work related to "Gaussian Tone Reservation Clipping and Filtering for PAPR Mitigation" which has been previously published. So, in this paper, we deeply investigate the statistical correlation between PAPR reduction, and the distortion generated by three (3) adding signal techniques for PAPR reduction. Thereby, we first propose a generic function for PAPR reduction. Then, we analyse the PAPR reduction capabilities of each PAPR reduction technique versus the distortion generated. The signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR) metric is used to evaluate the distortion generated within each technique by assuming that OFDM baseband signals are modelled by complex Gaussian processes with Rayleigh envelope distribution for a large number of subcarriers. The results related to one of the techniques is proposed in the first time in this paper, unlike those related to the other two PAPR reduction techniques where the studies were already published. Comparisons of the proposed approximations of SNDR with those obtained by computer simulations show good agreement. An interesting result highlighted in this paper is the strong correlation existing between PAPR reduction performance and distortion signal power. Indeed, the results show that PAPR reduction gain increases as the distortion signal power increases. Through these 3 examples of PAPR reduction techniques; we could derive the following conclusion: in an adding signal context, the adding signal for PAPR reduction is closely linked to the distortion generated, and a trade-off between PAPR-reduction and distortion must be definitely found.


The impact of social networks on features of embedded couples, like, for instance, marital stability, has been discussed in sociology for about half a century. However, empirical findings are little cumulative and lack a theoretical integration. We present a framework for the analysis of couples, where their social embeddedness is conceptualized as social capital. Two aspects or dimensions of social capital are distinguished. On the one hand social capital can be seen as a property of a collective system of actors, which makes it a collective good, causing positive external effects (system capital). On the other hand it can be regarded as the pool of valuable resources or services controlled by others, that can be mobilized via social relations (relational capital). These two dimensions are roughly corresponding to the distinct views of social capital in literature. In our judgment, both aspects of social capital are important for marital stability. System capital facilitates co-operation between the spouses and hence fosters risky specific investments as an important precondition for a successful relationship. Relational capital, insofar as it is marital-specific, rises the costs of exiting the relationship, as it will lose its value if a disruption occurs. Structural factors that are assumed to constitute system capital are the closeness and homogeneity of networks, where orientations are shared and social control can be exercised. However, closeness has been captured in different ways: as personal network density, as joint network density or as network overlap, respectively. As a matter of fact these are analytically distinct concepts, though. The spouses individual networks can be dense due to high joint network density or clustering. For matters of empirical clarification, these concepts should be measured simultaneously. Moreover, a stabilizing effect of network overlap is theoretically ambiguous. It can as well be seen as an indicator for the marital-specificity of existing relational capital. As the marriage disrupts, formerly common friends might discontinue the relationship to one or both partners. We use event-history data on divorce (N=5020) to investigate the effect of closed networks on marital stability and test the assumption, that the overlap effect on marital stability is merely an effect of marital-specific relational capital. Non-specific relational capital, in contrast, is hypothesized to promote marital disruption. Further implications for the measurement of couples' social capital and the data required are discussed.


State-of-the-art firstand second-order optimization methods are able to achieve either fast global linear convergence rates or quadratic convergence, but not both of them. In this work, we propose an interpolation between firstand second-order methods for regularized empirical risk minimization that exploits the problem structure to efficiently combine multiple update directions. Our method attains both optimal global linear convergence rate for first-order methods, and local quadratic convergence. Experimental results show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art firstand second-order optimization methods in terms of the number of data accesses, while is competitive in training time.


We study the impact of selected parameters on the size of the password space for "Draw-A-Secret" (DAS) graphical passwords. We examine the role of and relationships between the number of composite strokes, grid dimensions, and password length in the DAS password space. We show that a very significant proportion of the DAS password space depends on the assumption that users will choose long passwords with many composite strokes. If users choose passwords having 4 or fewer strokes, with passwords of length 12 or less on a 5 /spl times/ 5 grid, instead of up to the maximum 12 possible strokes, the size of the DAS password space is reduced from 58 to 40 bits. Additionally, we found a similar reduction when users choose no strokes of length 1. To strengthen security, we propose a technique and describe a representative system that may gain up to 16 more bits of security with an expected negligible increase in input time. Our results can be directly applied to determine secure design choices, graphical password parameter guidelines, and in deciding which parameters deserve focus in graphical password user studies.


After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he's still in good health, and in one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn't interested (and he'd like a bit more control over his vodka consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention a death by elephant).


In August 1991 a Committee for State Emergencies, consisting of the minister of defence and the chief of the KGB, ousted Mikhail Gorbachev from power in the Soviet Union. The coup was important for several reasons. The platoons of tanks that moved in Moscow's streets ended a long tradition of obedience by the Soviet military to the civilian Communist Party. In addition, the military coup also marked a decisive shift in the foundation of civilian control in the Soviet Union. By analysing Soviet civil-military relations before the coup, this essay tries to determine how the military became involved in the coup. The essay then seeks to determine whether different theoretical frameworks, mostly based on American experience, could explain the breakdown of civil-military relations in the Soviet Union.


Although institutions have invested much in developing on-line environments or using already established commercial platforms, only few studies have been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of on-line courses based on empirical data (Jung and Rha, 2000). A review of the literature conducted in this study showed that most of online learning studies investigated the effectiveness of Web-based interaction or Internet conferencing on learning, not the entire learning environment. Even in those studies that investigated entire on-line environments, student achievement was the most common indicator for evaluation and no other indictors or factors, which may influence students' achievement, were investigated. This study sheds light on current research in online learning and provides guidelines for future research needed in this area.


The potential enhancement of root colonization and nitrogenase activity of wheat cultivars (Baccross and Mahdavi) was studied with application of two Azospirillum brasilense strains (native and Sp7) co-inoculated with two Rhizobium meliloti strains (native and DSMZ 30135). The results indicated that the colonization was different due to the strains and cultivars of wheat were used. Native A. brasilense colonized wheat root better than Sp7 strain. However, Baccross cv. reacted better with native Azospirillum compared to Mahdavi cv. which reacted better with Sp7. When plants inoculated with dual inoculants (SP7 with standard Rhizobium), the colonization of Azospirillum were increased significantly (from 1.67 x 10(5) to 22 x 10(5) cfu g(-1) FW for Baccras cv. and 3.67 x 10(5) to 26 x 10(5) cfu g(-1) FW for Mahdavi cultivar). When the standard Rhizobium as co-inoculants changed to the native Rhizobium, the colonization of Azospirillum was higher when compared to the single inoculants but was almost the same when compared to the standard Rhizobium. When the standard or native strains of Rhizobium used as single inoculation of wheat roots, the number of Rhizobium in the wheat roots were not changed significantly. However, when plants co-inoculated with Rhizobium and Azospirillum, the colonization of Rhizobium was increased. Co-inoculation of standard strain of R. melilot with A. brasilense Sp7 showed that the colonization of Rhizobium were increased from 0.67 x 10(5) to 21 x 10(5) cfu g(-1) FW for Baccross cv. and 0.33 x 10(5) to 18 x 10(5) cfu g(-1) FW for Mahdavi cv. This behavior was the same when inoculation of Rhizobium was happened with the native one. In dual inoculation, the highest nitrogenase activity was measured in combination of the local strains (native A. brasilense with the native R. meliloti) and the lower one belongs to the combination of standard strains (Sp7 with standard R. meliloti). The difference in nirtogenase activity for different cultivars of wheat with Sp7 and standard Rhizobium is not significant but the difference for Sp7 strain plus native Rhizobium is significant (p > 0.05). However, the differences were not significant (p < 0.05) for nitrogenase activity in bacterial tubes, the difference for nitrogenase activity of co-inoculated plants with combination of Sp7 and Rhizobium either standard or native were significantly different.


A healthy system of shareholder voting is crucial for any regime of corporate law. The proper allocation of governance power is subject to debate, of course, but everyone should be concerned with the fitness of the underlying mechanism used to stuff the ballot boxes. Proponents of shareholder power, for instance, cannot argue for greater control if the legitimacy of the resulting tallies is suspect. And those who advocate for board deference do so on the bedrock of authority that reliable shareholder elections supposedly confer.
Unfortunately, our trust in the corporate franchise was forged during an era that predates modern complexities in the way that stock ownership is now tracked and traded. We do not trace shares, and any clear-eyed look at the conferral of voting rights via back-end stock clearing practices is unsettling. Evidence of the various entanglements crops up from time to time—in the form of questionable voting outcomes or disputes about standing for shareholder lawsuits—but the underlying problems are systemic, not episodic. Our stock clearing system is a kludge.
This is an important moment for corporate law, however, because new technology is approaching a state where clearing and settlement systems may soon support traceable shares. The rise of distributed ledgers and blockchain technology is poised to allow for specific share identification and precise records of share provenance. This may sound like an uninteresting technical sideshow, but, as this article will argue, the impact of traceable shares on corporate law will be profound. It will change the structure of shareholder lawsuits, alter the allocation of corporate governance rights, and require lawmakers to rethink fundamental principles of shareholder responsibility for corporate misdeeds.


The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of beta-carotene on the cell viability and antioxidant status of hepatocytes from chronically ethanol-fed rats. Rats in the ethanol group were given an ethanol-containing liquid diet that provided 36 % of total energy as ethanol, while rats in the control group were fed an isoenergetic diet without ethanol. After 4 weeks, hepatocytes were taken out and cultured for 24 h. Hepatocytes from the rats in the control and ethanol groups were cultured in medium without (HC, HE) or with beta-carotene (HC+B, HE+B). The results showed that lactate dehydrogenase leakage was significantly increased in the HE compared with that in the HC group. However, lactate dehydrogenase leakage of the HE+B group was similar to that of the HC group. When compared with the HC group, activities of glutathione peroxidase and catalase in the HE group were significantly decreased by 54 and 31 %, respectively. Catalase activity in the HE+B group was significantly increased by 61 % compared with that in the HE group. However, activities of glutathione reductase and superoxide dismutase showed no difference among the groups. The level of glutathione in the HC+B and HE+B groups was significantly increased to 155 and 143 % compared with those in the HC and HE groups, respectively. The concentration of lipid peroxides showed no difference among the groups. The present results demonstrate that beta-carotene improved the cell viability of hepatocytes, and increased catalase activities and glutathione levels in hepatocytes from chronically ethanol-fed rats.


The article critiques the new right to Free Exercise of Discrimination recently created in American law and its effect on equality, and in particular on women's equality, which is uniquely susceptible to religious and cultural norms. Recent developments in American law have obliterated the distinctions between religious institutions and other civil society institutions in two important ways. Following the Boy Scouts case all "expressive associations" are entitled to exemptions from anti discrimination laws that until now were reserved for religious institutions alone. Following the Zelmann case and developments in charitable choice law, religious institutions can now receive unprecedented amounts of money from the government without being barred from using this money to teach and practice discrimination against women. The combined result of these developments is that the state sanctions, enforces and increasingly funds religiously and culturally based discrimination against women in contravention of women's constitutional right to equality. The article will employ two very different models of relationship between religion, community and the state, the CEDAW model and the Israeli model, and compare them to the American model. I will show that the effects of the American model on women's equality are very similar to the effects of the seriously flawed Israeli model on women's equality. I will further show that the American model is clearly at odds with the CEDAW model, which is the only model that can guarantee women's right to equality through its insistence on the need for intervention in the private sphere. Analyzing the centrality of community to the individual and considering accounts of women's agency in patriarchy, I will argue that the assumption underlying the right to free exercise of discrimination, namely, that women who object to the discrimination can simply exit the community, is patently false, and that the right of exit cannot substitute the need for equality within community.


Background and aim: Hospitals in the developed world are increasingly adopting digital systems such as electronic health records (EHRs) for all kinds of documentation. This move means that traditional paper case notes and nursing records are often documented in EHRs. Documentation of vital signs is important for monitoring a patient's physiological condition and how vital signs are presented in a clinical record can have a profound impact on the ability of clinicians to recognise changes, such as deterioration in a patient's condition. Vital signs have received minimal attention with regard to how they are documented in EHRs which suggests that there is an urgent need for this to be examined.

Design, methodology and approach: A mixed methods study was conducted in a 372-bed county hospital in two phases. Phase one was a quantitative study, and was followed by a qualitative study in phase two. The aim of the quantitative study was to examine the vital signs documented in the electronic health records of patients who had previously suffered a cardiac arrest. The aim of the qualitative study was to investigate how medical and nursing staff measured, reported and retrieved information on vital signs. Observations were made and interviews were conducted in four clinical areas.

Findings: The quantitative study found that documentation of vital signs was incomplete in relation to current universal standards for monitoring vital signs, and that vital signs were dispersed inconsistently throughout the EHR. The qualitative study provided a detailed understanding of the routines and practices for monitoring vital signs and demonstrated variation in routines and in methods of documentation in the four clinical areas. Documenting and retrieving vital signs in the EHR was problematic because of usability issues and led to workflow problems. Workflow problems were solved at ward level by the creation of paper workarounds.

Contribution to knowledge: This thesis has shown that poor facilities for the documentation of vital signs in EHRs could have a negative impact on patient safety because it reduces the possibility of good record keeping. This leads to limited availability of easily accessible, up-to-date information, essential for identifying clinical deterioration and, thus, is a challenge to patient safety. Related to this, the thesis has identified possible solutions to usability problems in the EHR. Inconsistent routines and practices were also identified and suggestions were made for how this problem might be approached.


Female Genital Cutting (FGC), also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Female Circumcision (FC), continues to be a prevalent practice in many parts of the world and especially in Africa. This is somewhat perplexing given the concerted efforts aimed at eradicating this practice. This article argues that the perpetuation of FGC is due to the unintended effects of marginalization experienced by individuals and groups of women as a result of the approach of some of the anti-FGC global discourses and policies put forward to eradicate the practice. This, we argue, happens when the social structure that provides such groups and individuals with a sense of identity and belonging breaks down. Therefore, the attack on what practicing communities consider to be of crucial cultural value causes a re-focus on the practice resulting in a re-formulation and re-invention of these practices in a bid to counter the feelings of alienation. FGC is thus reframed and reconstructed as a reaction against these campaigns. This article intends to investigate the socio-cultural-symbolic nexus surrounding the practice of FGC, its meaning and implications with respect to its continued existence. It draws examples mainly from communities in Kenya that practice FGM as a rite of passage into adulthood. Herein, perhaps, lies the driving force behind the practice in this contemporary age: it carries a lot of significance with respect to transformational processes, and it is seen as crucial in the representation of the body, identity and belonging. The aim of this article is not to defend FGC's continuation, but rather to explore the interplay between its changing socio-cultural dimensions as a counter-reaction to the eradication discourse and policies. In this way we will try to explore some of the factors that lay behind its perpetuation.


Surgical resection remains the mainstay of treatment for localized gastric adenocarcinoma. The type and extent of resection depends on tumor location. Although the incidence of gastric cancer has been declining, a shift has occurred to more tumors involving the proximal compared with the distal stomach. Appropriate treatment depends on a thorough staging process to exclude the presence of distant metastatic disease. Current staging modalities include high-quality CT scan, endoscopic ultrasound, PET, and laparoscopy. The value of peritoneal lavage to detect occult peritoneal disease is under investigation. The principles of surgical resection have always included negative resection margins and adequate lymph node examination. Controversial topics requiring further study include laparoscopic resections and hepatic metastasectomy. This review highlights the salient points of current surgical management of gastric adenocarcinoma.


This study's main objective was the development of effective low-cost sorbents for the removal of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions. The influence of different factors on the sorption capacity of ash and modified ash as low-cost sorbents obtained by different methods was investigated. The synthesis of new ash-based materials was carried out at ambient temperature (20°C), 70°C, and 90°C, respectively, in an alkaline medium with NaOH concentrations of 2 M and 5 M, respectively, corresponding to a mixture with solid/liquid ratios of 1: 3 and 1: 5, respectively. The prepared materials (sorbents) were characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), X-ray diffraction, and BET surface measurement. Adsorption isotherms were determined using the batch equilibrium method. The results showed that these types of new materials displayed a good capacity to remove copper, nickel, and lead ions (29.97 mg of Cu2+ per g of sorbent, 303 mg of Ni2+ per g of sorbent, and 1111 mg of Pb2+ per g of sorbent) from aqueous solutions. The modified materials were prepared using an alkaline attack (a recognised method used in previous studies), but Romanian ash from a thermal power plant was studied for the above purpose for the first time. Hence, the factors which affect the sorption capacity of the prepared low-cost sorbents were determined and their behaviour was explained, taking into account the composition and structure of the new materials.


As a successful conclusion of the Doha Round is highly improbable to materialize in the near future, preferential trade agreements increasingly fill the vacuum which the currently dysfunctional multilateral system leaves behind. Fuelled by various nations' craving for deeper integration, this most recent wave of preferential trade agreements has been gathering force over the course of the 21st century. Including bilateral, plurilateral and cross-regional initiatives as well as countries at different levels of economic development, this movement has additionally been engendered by supplementary motives such as the unprecedented economic growth in Asia, a race for market access and the emergence of global production chains. Moreover, I will provide some evidence whether preferential trade agreements represent "stepping stones" or "stumbling blocks" in the construction of the multilateral trade order. Anyway, the WTO is in desperate need of fundamental reform in order to retain its raison d'etre and play a meaningful role in the long term. I am strongly convinced that a softening of the single undertaking approach must be at the heart of this reform.


Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN 1) is associated with neoplasia and hyperfunction of the parathyroid and pituitary glands, pancreatic islet cells, and neuroendocrine cells of the gut. The inheritance pattern is autosomal dominant, and the underlying genetic defect is situated at chromosome 11q13. The MEN 1 gene behaves as a defective copy of a normally constitutive tumor suppressor gene. Development of the MEN 1 phenotype, however, is a multistep and multifactorial process. The Tasman 1 genealogy is the largest MEN 1 pedigree detected to date. Thus far, 90 related members with MEN 1 have been screened for evidence of prolactinoma. Prolactinomas were found in 18 patients (20%). Prolactinomas were not evenly distributed in the genealogy; in 2 branches of the overall genealogy prolactinomas were present in 50% or more of MEN 1-affected members. The familial distribution of prolactinomas in these branches was consistent with an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance. In the remainder of the pedigree, prolactinomas were uncommon and did not display this inheritance pattern. This pedigree represents one of the largest published MEN 1 genealogies in which the risk of developing prolactinoma follows an autosomal dominant pattern of transmission. It is the first to demonstrate an inheritance pattern for prolactinomas acting in addition to, yet distinct from, the inheritance of the underlying MEN 1 gene defect. These findings are consistent with the existence of an undefined second genetic defect involved in the pathogenesis of prolactinoma in MEN 1.


ABSTRACT Extending our previous analyses to the most recently described monoclonal broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), we confirmed a drift of HIV-1 clade B variants over 2 decades toward higher resistance to bNAbs targeting almost all the identified gp120-neutralizing epitopes. In contrast, the sensitivity to bNAbs targeting the gp41 membrane-proximal external region remained stable, suggesting a selective pressure on gp120 preferentially. Despite this evolution, selected combinations of bNAbs remain capable of neutralizing efficiently most of the circulating variants.


Objectives: To assess self-esteem level among undergraduate pharmacy students, to determine the demographic variables that could have significantly influenced the selfesteem level and to determine the correlation between the self-esteem level and academic performance. Methods: A 10-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) together with demographics section (e.g. age, gender, year of study, marital status, residency, highest achieved qualification), was distributed to all year 1 to year 4 pharmacy students at Universiti Teknologi MARA Puncak Alam, Malaysia. In addition, cumulative grade point average (CGPA) was collected. Data were then analysed using SPSS version 22.0. Results: A total of 239 undergraduate pharmacy students completed the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 93.4%. The majority were female (199/239, 83.3%) age of 20-25 years old (232/239, 97.00%). Most reported an average self-esteem level; the mean (±SD) score of self-esteem was 17.30 ± 3.88. In contrast to previous findings, there was no significant correlation between the self-esteem level and CGPA (p=0.87) in the current study. Also, other demographic variables did not contribute to any significant difference in self-esteem level (p>0.05) among the undergraduate pharmacy students. Conclusion: Internal and external factors are the two distinct aspects that can influence personal perception on the self-belief, further influencing the self-esteem level of an individual. The current study findings revealed that there was negative correlation between the self-esteem level and academic performance among the undergraduate pharmacy students. Self-reported data on CPGA could be the limitation.


The purpose of this study is to provide guidance to those who analyze data from repeated-game experiments. In particular, I propose the use of heteroskedasticity-autocorrelation consistent (HAC) covariance estimators for panel data, which allows researchers to conduct hypothesis tests without having to place structure on the heteroskedasticity and/or serial correlation likely present in econometric models. Through Monte Carlo experiments I explore the properties of three panel HAC covariance estimators within a linear regression framework, including a new HAC covariance estimator proposed in this study, for a range of cross-section (