Germany is widely regarded as a global model for the privacy protection its constitutional regime offers against intrusive intelligence-gathering and law enforcement surveillance. There is some basis for Germany's privacy "exceptionalism," especially as the text of the German constitution (Basic Law) provides explicit textual protections that America's 18th Century constitution lacks. The German Federal Constitutional Court has added to those doctrines with an expansive interpretation of the more general rights to dignity (Article 1 of the Basic Law) and the free development of one's personality (Article 2 of the Basic Law). This jurisprudence includes constitutional liberty guarantees such as the absolute protection of a "core area of privacy," a "right to informational self-determination," and a right to the "security and integrity of information-technology systems." On closer examination, however, Germany's burnished privacy reputation may not be so well-deserved. The Constitutional Court's assessment of challenged intelligence-gathering or investigative powers through the framework of the proportionality principle means, more often than not, that the intrusive measures survive constitutional scrutiny so long as they are adapted to accommodate an array of detailed, finely-tuned safeguards that are meant to minimize and mitigate infringements on privacy. Armed with a close analysis of its recent, seminal decision in the BKA-Act Case, in this article I argue that this adds up to a mere pantomime of privacy – a privacy of precise data retention and deletion timelines, for example – but not the robust "right to be let alone" that contemporary privacy advocates demand.


The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of groundwater abstraction on stream discharge and physical habitat conditions for brown trout ( Salmo trutta ) in a small Danish stream. Stream discharge was simulated using a lumped hydrological model (NAM) and a scenario was set up for stream discharge reference conditions. Stream physical habitat conditions (WUA) were simulated for four life stages of trout using a hydraulic habitat model (RHYHABSIM). The impact of groundwater abstraction on WUA for trout was assessed by combined simulations from the NAM model and the RHYHABSIM model. The model predicted that groundwater abstraction reduced median annual discharge by 37% and mean annual 90th percentile discharge by 82%. Summer discharge was relatively most affected by groundwater abstraction and WUA was therefore particularly affected by groundwater abstraction during summer. WUA for adult trout was mainly controlled by suitable water depths (>40 cm) even under conditions without abstraction. On an annual basis WUA for fry and juvenile trout was most affected by abstraction. Future modelling should consider improving simulation of low discharges and preferably not use general hydrological models.


This paper examines the role of ports in the economy of Sardinia by means of the employment generated by port and port-related industries. The subject is important since Sardinia and other Mediterranean islands suff er from chronic unemployment and poor economic performance. The increase of the Europe-Asia commercial fl ows, the European Union enlargement and the renewed centrality of the Mediterranean have induced optimistic expectations on the development opportunities that may be created for the island communities by the maritime and port sectors. The employment generated by the maritime and port industry is an essential, although partial, measurement of the development impact of ports. Therefore its quantifi cation is indispensable in order to correctly estimate the impacts that a more central role of the Mediterranean might have on the local island economies. In the case of Sardinia, ports generate approximately three percent of the total island employment, and over eight percent on average of the employment of the single municipalities. This result adds to the vital role that ports have to play as transportation nodes and in creating value added.


Carbon and oxygen isotope analyses have been performed on calcium carbonate samples from flysch rocks collected in the south of Tolfa and Allumiere villages (Central Italy). Large variation in delta 18 O occurs from values around +28 per mil (SMOW), typical of marine carbonates, down to values of about +9 per mil (SMOW). The lower values are measured on samples collected close to phanerocrystalline carbonate deposits outcropping in the area and interpreted as part of a hydrothermal vein system. delta 13 C does not show large variation, and, aside from a few outliers, falls within a range of 0 and +2 per mil (PDB). Similar carbon and oxygen isotope spatial relationships between the flysch country rocks and the phanerocrystalline carbonate deposits were determined in a previous study by Ferrini & Masi (1987), who interpreted the 18 O depletion as due to interaction of the host rock with an aqueous fluid at hydrothermal temperatures below 250 degrees C and with a water to rock ratio progressively increasing toward the carbonate vein. The combined results indicate that hydrothermal fluid temperature largely regulates oxygen isotope variation (and possibly the carbon and oxygen deltas co-variation) with respect to the variation of the water to rock ratio.


Machine learning is vulnerable to a wide variety of attacks. It is now well understood that by changing the underlying data distribution, an adversary can poison the model trained with it or introduce backdoors. In this paper we present a novel class of training-time attacks that require no changes to the underlying dataset or model architecture, but instead only change the order in which data are supplied to the model. In particular, we find that the attacker can either prevent the model from learning, or poison it to learn behaviours specified by the attacker. Furthermore, we find that even a single adversarially-ordered epoch can be enough to slow down model learning, or even to reset all of the learning progress. Indeed, the attacks presented here are not specific to the model or dataset, but rather target the stochastic nature of modern learning procedures. We extensively evaluate our attacks on computer vision and natural language benchmarks to find that the adversary can disrupt model training and even introduce backdoors.


STUDY OBJECTIVE--The aim was to analyse occupational mortality differences among women using follow up data from a large nationally representative sample. DESIGN--Occupational information was obtained from the 1971 census records of women in the Longitudinal Study carried out by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) and related to their subsequent mortality in the period between the 1971 and 1981 censuses. SETTING--In the Longitudinal Study, census, vital statistics, and other OPCS records are linked for a 1% sample of the population of England and Wales. The women studied in this paper were drawn from the 513,071 persons in the 1971 census who were included in the Longitudinal Study and whose entries were traced at the National Health Service Central Register by 1977. PARTICIPANTS--The analysis was based on 77,081 women aged 15-59 years in the Longitudinal Study for whom occupational information was collected in the 1971 census (99% of whom were in paid employment in the week before the census). There were 1553 deaths among these women in the follow up period analysed here. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS--Numbers of deaths in each occupational group at census were compared to those expected on the basis of age specific death rates among all women in the study. "Professional, technical workers, and artists" had significantly low mortality while "Engineering and allied trades workers nec" had significantly high mortality. Among the latter, cancer mortality of electrical production process workers was extremely high. A number of other cause specific associations (which appear to confirm proportionate Decennial Supplement analyses) were suggested by the data; examples include high levels of mortality from ischaemic heart disease among cooks, lung cancer and respiratory disease among charwomen and cleaners, and accidents, poisonings, and violence among several groups of professional and technical workers. CONCLUSIONS--By using prospective follow up from the census, occupational differences in mortality can be identified among women in paid employment. As follow up of this study continues, numbers of deaths available for analysis will increase, allowing increasingly comprehensive analyses to be undertaken.


Mortality during the first period at sea is thought to be a primary determinant of salmon productivity and return rates. Here, we test this hypothesis by linking variation in prey resources during the initial phase at sea with measurements of central California Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha diet, condition, and later adult abundance. Specifically, we investi- gate linkages between the distribution and abundance of krill and other prey with juvenile Chi- nook salmon diet and body condition. Hydrographic features of the Gulf of the Farallones during May and June were related to the abundance and spatial organization of Chinook salmon prey. When upwelling was reduced, there were fewer krill on the inner Gulf of the Farallones shelf, thereby less available to outgoing juvenile Chinook salmon smolts. Notably, we found a 1 yr lag in the relationship between the abundance of adult Thysanoessa spinifera and the volume of krill in the diet of juvenile Chinook salmon. Body condition of juvenile Chinook salmon was positively related to the abundance of adult krill the year before and specifically to the proportion of T. spinifera in the diet. In turn, the condition of juvenile Chinook salmon was correlated to the abun- dance of mature Chinook salmon returning from the same cohort the next year. This information may be useful for fisheries management by improving sibling-based forecasting models as well as informing escapement goals.


Hydroxyl defects in pure forsterite are usually ascribed to incorporation of protons fully compensating the electrostatic charge of cationic vacancies. However, partially compensated vacancies have been predicted from theoretical considerations. Here, we theoretically determine the structural, vibrational and infrared spectroscopic properties of partially protonated cationic vacancies in forsterite using a first-principles theoretical modeling approach. The results show that the partial protonation of Si vacancies strongly modifies their spectroscopic properties with respect to those of the fully protonated (4H) x Si defect, leading to a significant downshift of at least one of the OH-stretching absorption bands. Comparison with experimental observations shows that such defects are unlikely to significantly contribute to the speciation of OH groups in pure synthetic forsterite samples. A partial protonation of Mg vacancies has a weak effect on the spectroscopic properties of OH groups, compared with those of the fully protonated defect, making it difficult to assess their occurrence from spectroscopic observations only.


Background: Consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry is the subspecialty of psychiatry dealing with mental health disorders in nonpsychiatric settings. The ubiquity of mental health problems has increased the need for such a service to exist in general hospital psychiatric units, as many psychiatric patients report to a different specialty of medicine for the first time. This study aims to evaluate the utilization of psychiatry C-L services by nonpsychiatric inpatient units in a general hospital psychiatry unit taking into consideration the paucity of data for understanding the trends and improving service provision in the future. Materials and Methods: A retrospective chart review of all inpatient referrals received by the psychiatry department from July 2015 to February 2017 was conducted. The sociodemographic profile, source of referral, reason for referral, and psychiatric diagnosis using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases-10 were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. Results: A total of 605 patients were referred, which comprised 0.86% of total indoor admissions. Maximum number of consultations was sought from internal medicine. "Unexplained physical symptoms" was the most common reason for referral (35%). Consequently, neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorder (25.5%) was the most common psychiatric diagnosis followed by mood disorder (19.8%). Conclusion: Poor and variable referral rate from various departments highlights the increasing need to sensitize all clinicians regarding psychiatric comorbidity. There is a need to explore factors that would result in increasing referral rates and making psychiatric consultation services effective and efficient.


This article concentrates on two twenty-first century examples of popular 'ecocinema' in order to ask what moving images accomplish when they take on the scale effects of the Anthropocene at the level of the domestic microcosm. Both Julian Polsler's The Wall (2012) and Stephen Fingleton's The Survivalist (2015) provide ample territory through which to explore questions of cohabitation and encounter, human and non-human animality, as well as the threatening but liberating qualities associated with communicating disaster, sustainability, and responsibility for 'end times'. Significantly, spatial and temporal delimitation is a theme common to both films and so a theoretical framework is established using examples of twentieth-century Continental Philosophy associated with the concept of 'dwelling'. Heidegger's investment in rootedness and belonging is read in conjunction with Levinas's ethics of relationality and otherness; Derrida's study of hostility embedded in hospitality and the spatial category of the 'threshold' are of equal importance to analysis. Not to be ignored is the eco-feminist stance that each film demands in surprisingly.


Gendered Equality and Justice Since the modern approach has offered minimal solution to the current social problems involving women and the recent literature seem devoid of cultural competence, we may examine and retrieve the old wisdom of moral development with hope to find a solution for today's human suffering. Here, author will explore theoretical viewpoints by Crain, Erikson, Gilligan and Kohlberg and others to increase our gendered understanding of equality and justice. We will highlight globe perspectives on the human need for social interaction and emphasize cultural interpretation of human desire for justice, fairness and compassion. Nearly a half century ago (Erikson 1964) identified gender variations in conceptual understanding of equality and justice and later, (Gilligan 1993) echoed this sentiment by sharing vast differences in men and women's views of equality, justice, fairness, assuming responsibility to care for others, maintaining a harmonious relationship, avoiding conflicts, negotiating and compromising. The past theories of human development help to successfully examine and revise public policies aimed to benefit men and women around the globe. No public policy should be written without first exploring the essential ingredients such as cultural value systems and public perceptions of the policies. Most importantly, recognition and understanding of gender role construct must be considered before crossing any of the cultural lines in an effort to help improve justice and equality within that culture. In every society public policies are designed and written to reflect a masculine interpretation of the laws. Few countries around the globe have developed social policies by considering feminine perspectives and life experiences. The authors will attempt to highlight the social problem and convey where some solution may be found. Women's Perceptions on Gender Equality To no one's surprise, historically women have perceived violence rooted in inequality and the desire to dominate, while men have considered violence as "the necessary evil" to defend "what is theirs". However, today, the gender gap is closing as more women are in agreement with the male version of equality and justice and by majority have chosen to remain silent, join forces and train with men to defend "what is theirs". Hence, our discussion on women's struggle for equality and justice continues. And the select few good intentioned women who have tried to awaken our consciousness in favor of global equality and justice are often driven by career responsibilities, upward mobility, pending tenure, getting published and less informed about gender culture and social constructs leading to misfortune for women. (Gilligan, 1993) In a Different Voice asks who are the men and women in favor of equality and justice for all. For centuries men have been blamed for many of social ills and now, author asks who has silenced the women's voices? Isn't true that women, especially the empowered and educated Western women have chosen their own silence? And if men are to be blamed for the women's suffering and social inequalities, shouldn't women carry some burden of the responsibility as they are a major player in raising the family and nurturing sons who potentially grow up to become brutal men? In fact, (Vaillant 1977) disagreed with Erikson's view and wrote how irresponsible mother are when they love their children until the age 2 and quickly despair about taking their nurturing any further. He criticized mothers and wrote the responsibility for raising children is different from growing crops. Does equality and justice begin at home and do women play a major role in showing their children what is fair? Should women take a closer look and see how boys and girls are treated unfairly at home? Are we teaching parents to be gender neutral at home? We read about girls cleaning house and boys doing home work. …


Socioeconomic deprivation accounts for much of the spatial inequality in health in the UK, but a significant proportion remains unexplained. It is highly likely that the physical environment is a key factor in this unexplained variation. The role of the socioeconomic environment in health inequalities has been studied using small-area measures of multiple socioeconomic deprivation that capture the burden of socioeconomic adversity. Although similar composite measures of the physical environment would greatly assist investigations of environmental determinants of health no such measures are available. In this study we developed two small-area measures of health-related multiple physical environmental deprivation for the UK. A thorough review and evidence appraisal process was used to identify health-relevant dimensions of physical environmental deprivation. As a result we selected both health-detrimental (air pollution, cold climate, industrial facilities) and health-beneficial (ultraviolet radiation and green space) dimensions. Datasets describing each of the selected dimensions were acquired, and rendered to UK Census Area Statistics wards (n = 10 654, average population = 5518). We developed two summary measures: the multiple environmental deprivation index (MEDIx) and classification (MEDClass). MEDIx, on an ordinal scale, can be used to distinguish areas exposed to greater or lesser environmental deprivation. MEDClass groups areas with similar environmental characteristics and will be useful for exploring health effects of specific types of environment. Mapping these measures demonstrated a wide variation in physical environmental deprivation across the UK. MEDIx revealed greater environmental deprivation in urban and industrial areas, and at more northerly latitudes. Although created using a different methodology MEDClass also differentiated these environmental types. We concluded that it is possible to capture and characterise multiple attributes of health-related physical environmental deprivation in the UK, at a small area level. The measures we developed offer opportunities to researchers and policy makers for developing our understanding of the role of exposure to multiple dimensions of physical environmental deprivation on health outcomes.


A higher-order shear deformation theory of laminated composite plates is developed. The theory contains the same dependent unknowns as in the first-order shear deformation theory of Whitney and Pagano (1970), but accounts for parabolic distribution of the transverse shear strains through the thickness of the plate. Exact closed-form solutions of symmetric cross-ply laminates are obtained and the results are compared with three-dimensional elasticity solutions and first-order shear deformation theory solutions. The present theory predicts the deflections and stresses more accurately when compared to the first-order theory.


The Regulators of Complement Activation gene cluster on chromosome 1 includes genes for regulatory proteins which interact with complement component C3. The general aim of this project was to explore genetic variation and/or immunological function of certain of these proteins. -- One specific aim was to assess factor H, factor I and complement receptor 2 (CR2) genetic polymorphisms. An immunodetection system was developed to identify factor H variants separated by isoelectric focusing. The method is economical and suitable for population surveys. Allele frequencies estimated from 129 serum samples are FH*1 0.597 and FH*2 0.403. No association was observed between factor H types and rheumatoid arthritis. A new variant, IF*B1, was found when 288 Caucasians were typed for Factor I, The results from this survey also indicated that IF*A is present at a much lower frequency in Caucasians than in Asiatics. SDS-PACE followed by immunoblotting was used to define a new, 75 kDa variant (CR2 L) of CR2 (CR2 H). Six CR2 L heterozygotes and one homozygote were observed in 63 unrelated samples and segregation of CR2 L was demonstrated by a family study. Flow cytometry analysis of the binding of EBV and various anti-CR2 monoclonal antibodies to a CR2 L homozygous cell line did not clarify the molecular basis for the reduced size of CR2 L. -- A second specific objective was to explore in vivo, using a mouse model, the regulatory role of CR2 in the immune response. Pretreatment with anti-CR2 significantly depressed the primary response (mainly IgM) to a T-dependent antigen and impaired the generation of immunological memory, but did not eradicate an already established immunological memory. The suppressive effect was different from that initiated by cobra venom factor pretreatment (C3 depletion) where only the primary igG response was affected. Antigen complexed with anti-CR2 is physiologically analogous to C3d-Ag-Ab. Ag-anti-CR2 complexes evoked an in vivo secondary response at a 100-fold lower Ag dose than Ag alone. Taken together, these results suggest, but do not prove, that (i) when stimulated by a single signal from CR2, B cells can become anergic and (ii) CR2 can enhance the secondary response either by signaling via CR2 complexed to IgM or CD19, or by localizing Ag-Ab complexes on follicular dendritic cells. -- KEY WORDS: Factor H Factor I CR2 Polymorphism Immune response


In recent years, perhaps no institution of American governance has been so thoroughly and consistently excoriated by legal theorists as the familiar American system of winner-take-all elections. The winner-take-all system is said to waste votes, lead to majority monopolization of political power, and cause the under representation and consequent social and economic subordination of political minorities. Some political scientists have attempted to defend winner-take-all systems on the ground that they perform better than PR in maximizing long-term collective and social interests. This article argues, in contrast, that winner-take-all electoral systems rest upon, and can be adequately defended, if at all, only upon an entirely different set of premises. Specifically, this article argues that the concept of winner-take-all electoral systems grew up alongside, and relies heavily upon, a conception that views politics as an arena for identifying and then implementing the common good. Unlike the common good said to arise under interest pluralism from the aggregation of the self-interest of unrelated individuals and groups, the common good on the conception of politics is typically understood as objective, applicable to all members of society, and indivisible - that is why winners can and should take all.


This paper examines the factors that increase the probability of entry into exporting. Using a panel of U.S. manufacturing plants, we test for the role of plant characteristics, spillovers from neighboring exporters, entry costs, and government export promotion expenditures. Entry and exit in the export market by U.S. plants is substantial, past exporters are apt to reenter, and plants are likely to export in consecutive years. However, we find that entry costs are significant and spillovers from the export activity of other plants are negligible. State export promotion expenditures have no significant effect on the probability of exporting. Plant characteristics, especially those indicative of past success, strongly increase the probability of exporting, as does changing industries.


The terminology used by engineering geologists to describe the various inland saline basin environments has evolved separately from that of other disciplines. This reflects their different interests, but it has meant that, in the published literature, the same terms (e.g. sabkha, playa, salina and numerous local terms) are used to describe different landforms. This note focuses on the characteristic hazards (aggressive saline ground, salt weathering, low bearing capacity and flooding) and their environmental controls. In doing so, the note describes how the severity of the geotechnical risks varies between the different basin types, largely controlled by the position of the groundwater table and, to a lesser extent, the presence of evaporite bedrock within the catchment or region (i.e. the source of salts for surface water and aerosols).


Many consumers express concerns about the welfare of animals in agriculture, but often refrain from purchasing animal‐friendly alternatives that address their concerns. To support consumers in making choices in line with their values and attitudes, this study approaches consumer animal‐friendly product choice as a dilemma between maximising the buyer's self‐interest and maximising societal interest. To address this social dilemma, we developed and tested positioning strategies that reinforce the animal welfare label with complementary consumption values (functional, emotional, social and epistemic). The results from a choice experiment with Dutch chicken meat shoppers showed that two strategies ‐ emotional and epistemic ‐ effectively increase consumer value perceptions. These insights imply that animal‐friendly products positioned to invoke emotion or curiosity drive consumers towards animal‐friendly product choices, and that these strategies are most effective for consumers who base their choice solely on maximising either self‐interest or societal interest


Objective: To evaluate the causes of medication list inaccuracy, implement intervention to enhance overall accuracy of medication lists and measure the sustainability of the intervention. Methods: A prospective study of patients seen in an academic, ambulatory primary care internal medicine clinic. Before the intervention, baseline data were analysed, assessing completeness of medication documentation in the electronic medical record. The intervention consisted of standardising the entire visit process from scheduling of the appointment to signing of the final clinical note by the physician. Each healthcare team member was instructed in her role to enhance accuracy of the documented medication list. Immediately after the intervention, a second data collection was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the intervention on the accuracy of individual medications and medication lists. Finally, a year later, a third data collection was undertaken to assess the sustainability of the intervention. Results: Completeness of individual medications improved from 9.7% to 70.7% (p<0.001). However, completeness of the entire medication lists improved only from 7.7% to 18.5%. The incomplete documentation of medication lists was mostly due to lack of route (85.8%) and frequency (22.3%) for individual medications within a medication list. Also, documentation of over-the-counter and "as needed" medications was often incomplete. The incorrectness in a medication list was mostly due to misreporting of medications by patients or failure of clinicians to update the medication list when changes were made. Conclusion: To improve the accuracy of medication lists, active participation of all members of the healthcare team and the patient is needed.


The inversion of reduction of confidence in combination with the need to face lack of resources for public administration has led governments and various governmental institutions to develop and propagate the services of electronic government. Investing millions in these services governments seek for measures and models that will quantify and highlight the profits that come up from these investments. Initially we present a short literature review of the existing indicators applied by the European Union and institutions that measure citizens' satisfaction from the use of electronic government services , as well as the relevant research evaluation models. Afterwards, focusing on the scientific gaps that exist, a conceptual model of citizen acceptance satisfaction with E-government services is proposed and developed. Implications for further research and possible modification to the model are also proposed.


Appearance-based gaze estimation is believed to work well in real-world settings, but existing datasets have been collected under controlled laboratory conditions and methods have been not evaluated across multiple datasets. In this work we study appearance-based gaze estimation in the wild. We present the MPIIGaze dataset that contains 213,659 images we collected from 15 participants during natural everyday laptop use over more than three months. Our dataset is significantly more variable than existing ones with respect to appearance and illumination. We also present a method for in-the-wild appearance-based gaze estimation using multimodal convolutional neural networks that significantly outperforms state-of-the art methods in the most challenging cross-dataset evaluation. We present an extensive evaluation of several state-of-the-art image-based gaze estimation algorithms on three current datasets, including our own. This evaluation provides clear insights and allows us to identify key research challenges of gaze estimation in the wild.


Genome-scale metabolic network models can be used for various analyses including the prediction of metabolic responses to changes in the environment. Legumes are well known for their rhizobial symbiosis that introduces nitrogen into the global nutrient cycle. Here, we describe a fully compartmentalised, mass and charge-balanced, genome-scale model of the clover Medicago truncatula, which has been adopted as a model organism for legumes. We employed flux balance analysis to demonstrate that the network is capable of producing biomass (amino acids, nucleotides, lipids, cell wall) in experimentally observed proportions, during day and night. By connecting the plant model to a model of its rhizobial symbiont, Sinorhizobium meliloti, we were able to investigate the effects of the symbiosis on metabolic fluxes and plant growth and could demonstrate how oxygen availability influences metabolic exchanges between plant and symbiont, thus elucidating potential benefits of amino acid cycling. We thus provide a modelling framework, in which the interlinked metabolism of plants and nodules can be studied from a theoretical perspective.


While the notion of decision costs and limited resources as constraints on law and policy making have found their way into recent legal analyses, few scholars have described the broader political control strategies available to institutions using such resource-based approaches. The political control exercised by Congress, the President, and courts through cost-benefit analysis, and similar strategy-laden instruments, allows one or more policy makers to force a competing policy maker to expend valuable, and limited, resources thereby preventing, or greatly compromising, policies desired by the competing policy maker. Resource-based strategies can be exercised horizontally through separated powers games or vertically (upstream and downstream) in court-agency hierarchies. These strategies are revealed in legislation and agency design by Congress, executive orders by the President, and doctrine and other instruments of legal reasoning by the judiciary. Positive Political Theory offers a framework for thinking about these resource-based strategies and the implications are profound. This article solidifies the current understanding of resource-based strategies from the Positive Political Theory (PPT) perspective and presents extensions, including analyses of (1) the differential resource impacts on policy players from the various types of regulation that may be imposed on agencies (benefits statutes and cost-benefit statutes), and (2) the introduction of regulated targets as resource strategizers with public institutions.


Compared with prototypical universal quantifiers in other languages of the world, dou in Mandarin Chinese presents more complicated semantic behaviors. One of the most disputed issues is what are the relations between dou expressing "universal quantification" (uq) and dou expressing "scalar trigger" (sca). First-hand data that comes from 40 languages demonstrates that Mandarin Chinese is the only language that employs the same form for "universal quantification" and "scalar trigger". The empirical evidence strongly suggests that uq
dou and sca
dou are different, and the two functions uq and sca lack universal conceptual correlations. The special polysemous behavior of Mandarin dou, is proved to come from two language-specific reanalysis processes in dou's diachronic development which also supports the two-dou claim. The study thus instantiates how a cross-linguistic perspective provides insights to explain long-standing language-particular issues. Besides, it is also argued that the cross-linguistic approach is promising in predicting if a future research is on a right track as it can steer us through overgeneralization and undergeneralization.


• When development programmes expand from smallscale evaluations to large-scale implementation, the increase in size requires new administration and management practices. Project administration can potentially limit the effectiveness of programmes at scale even if there are few changes in implementation and delivery of service. • In 2017, in partnership with Evidence Action, the authors set out to test the "at scale" effects of an intervention offering seasonal migration subsidies to over 150,000 poor households in rural northern Bangladesh. Previous iterations of the intervention had demonstrated significant success at smaller scales. • However, the scale-up of the study in 2017 failed to generate a meaningful effect on seasonal migration. This lack of replication may have been caused by various administrative changes in the programme. • The authors make three policy recommendations to improve future scale-ups of such studies. In brief


The present comment examines to what extent science communication has attained the status of an academic discipline and a distinct research field, as opposed to the common view that science communication is merely a sub-discipline of media studies, sociology of science or history of science. Against this background, the authors of this comment chart the progress science communication has made as an emerging subject over the last 50 years in terms of a number of measures. Although discussions are still ongoing about the elements that must be present to constitute a legitimate disciplinary field, we show here that science communication meets four key elements that constitute an analytical framework to classify academic disciplines: the presence of a community; a history of inquiry; a mode of inquiry that defines how data is collected; and the existence of a communications network.


A new approach to mathematical modelling of lightning current derivative is proposed in this paper. It builds on the methodology, previously developed by the authors, for representing lightning currents and electrostatic discharge (ESD) currents waveshapes. It considers usage of a multi-peaked form of the analytically extended function (AEF) for approximation of current derivative waveshapes. The AEF function parameters are estimated using the Marquardt least-squares method (MLSM), and the framework for fitting the multi-peaked AEF to a waveshape with an arbitrary number of peaks is briefly described. This procedure is validated performing a few numerical experiments, including fitting the AEF to single- and multi-peaked waveshapes corresponding to measured current derivatives.


Background Many of the practices currently underway to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads entering the Chesapeake Bay have also been observed to support reduction of disease-causing pathogen loadings. We quantify how implementation of these practices, proposed to meet the nutrient and sediment caps prescribed by the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), could reduce pathogen loadings and provide public health co-benefits within the Chesapeake Bay system. Methods We used published data on the pathogen reduction potential of management practices and baseline fecal coliform loadings estimated as part of prior modeling to estimate the reduction in pathogen loadings to the mainstem Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay attributable to practices implemented as part of the TMDL. We then compare the estimates with the baseline loadings of fecal coliform loadings to estimate the total pathogen reduction potential of the TMDL. Results We estimate that the TMDL practices have the potential to decrease disease-causing pathogen loads from all point and non-point sources to the mainstem Potomac River and the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed by 19% and 27%, respectively. These numbers are likely to be underestimates due to data limitations that forced us to omit some practices from analysis. Discussion Based on known impairments and disease incidence rates, we conclude that efforts to reduce nutrients may create substantial health co-benefits by improving the safety of water-contact recreation and seafood consumption.


This book provides a perspective by a prominent economist on the problems of debt, recession, and recovery in the 1930s as compared with the 1990s. The book begins with several chapters on the explosion of debt in the public and private sectors during the 1970s and 1980s, and its implications for economic stagnation and recession that seem to plague the economy. Resolution of the debt problem and reform of the banking and financial system are critically important because these problems dampen economic recovery and growth in the future. The second part of the book is a reprint of Albert Hart's classic 1938 study, Debts and Recovery 1929 to 1937, originally published by the 20th Century Fund. The extraordinary parallel between financial problems of the 1930s and the 1990s, solutions of the past, and proposed reforms for the future may provide a fascinating study for scholars and interested citizens alike.


This article is the first complete normative and descriptive treatment of the modern civil rights remedy - the prophylactic injunction. The prophylactic remedy is a public law injunction that uniquely restricts legal conduct that is affiliated with, but distinct from, the illegal wrong. The United States Supreme Court has utilized prophylactic remedies for over forty years, and has used the prophylactic paradigm to shape its jurisprudence on Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Prophylaxis, however, remains an ambiguous concept in the eyes of most scholars and lawyers. This article attempts to fill the academic void by exploring the doctrinal and theoretical parameters of the prophylactic remedy. By so doing, it attempts to establish a framework for the use of prophylactic remedies by the courts and to deflate the criticism of certain skeptics who mischaracterize such remedies as overly broad misuse of judicial power. Ultimately, the article has two goals. The primary purpose of the article is to provide an analytical framework that will enable judges, lawyers, and scholars to understand the contours of prophylactic relief. Accordingly, the article identifies trans-substantive remedial principles of prophylactic relief apparent in modern Supreme Court precedent regarding the appropriate character, scope, and use of prophylactic relief. The second and more ambitious goal of the paper is to dispel the myth that prophylactic relief is an overly broad remedy arising from the judge's personal political activism. A close analysis of the Supreme Court's decisions demonstrates quite the contrary - that prophylactic remedies are based upon solid doctrinal and theoretical principles legitimizing its continued use as a viable and necessary remedy.


Development of intelligent system monitoring and fault detection techniques for spacecraft is of a great interest in the space engineering. In this paper, we propose a "data-driven" anomaly detection framework for spacecraft telemetry data using dimensionality reduction and clustering techniques. In this framework, we first apply dimensionality reduction or/and clustering algorithms to a normal training data set, so that we obtain statistical models representing the normal behavior of spacecraft. After the training, we monitor test data sets and detect anomaly if any, by using the obtained models. This framework is so comprehensive that a variety of clustering, dimensionality reduction and their hybrid algorithms can be used with it. In the experiment, we tested several algorithms on the past artificial satellite data, and found that a hybrid method called VQPCA is more suitable for modeling high-dimensional and multi-modal telemetry than others.


An enforceable undertaking is a promise enforceable in court. The alleged offender, known as the promisor, promises the regulator (for the purpose of this article, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission) to do or not to do certain actions. As an administrative sanction, an enforceable undertaking aims to protect the public, prevent similar breaches from occurring in the future and implement corrective action in the case where the alleged breach affected outsiders. Such aims are desirable, because an undertaking may not only impact the alleged offender but it also has a positive effect on the victim of the alleged breach and the community they live in. Accordingly, this article looks at the notion of restorative justice to assess whether an enforceable undertaking can be restorative in nature.


The aim of the first part of this paper is to provide an overview of information retrieval in Peer–to–Peer (P2P) information systems in the file–sharing domain. Starting with a general overview of the concept of P2P information systems, the paper then focuses on five desktop–accessible P2P information systems: Napster with its clones OpenNap and eDonkey, and Gnutella and FastTrack (i.e., Kazaa). A detailed description is given of the attributes and properties of each P2P file–sharing information system, followed by an evaluation of the respective P2P file–sharing applications, taking each in turn and examining their respective strengths and weaknesses. This paper concludes with a critical comparative analysis and gives some suggestions for further investigation.


Abstract The high affinity IgE receptor, possesses a tetrameric structure. The 243 residue β subunit is a polytopic protein with four hydrophobic membrane-spanning segments, whereas the individual α and γ subunits are bitopic proteins each containing one transmembrane domain in their monomeric form. In the proposed topographical model (Blank et al., 1989), the four trans-membrane α helices of the β subunit are connected by three loop sequences. To study the individual subunits and intact receptor, this membrane protein was divided into domains such as its loop peptides, cytoplasmic peptides and transmembrane helices according to Blank et al., 1989. The 3D structure of the synthesized loop peptides and cytoplasmic peptides were calculated; CD and/or NMR data were used as appropriate to generate the resultant structures which were then used as data basis for the higher level calculations. The four individual transmembrane helices of the β subunit were characterised, first of all, by mapping the relative lipophilicity of their surfaces using lipophilic probes. A second procedure, docking of the individual helices in pairs, was used to predict helix–helix interactions. The data on the relative lipophilicity of the surfaces as well as the surfaces that favoured helix–helix interactions were used in combination with the spectroscopy-based structures of the loops and cytoplasmic domains to calculate via molecular dynamics, the helix arrangement and 3D structure of the β subunit of the high affinity IgE receptor. In the final analysis, the molecular simulations yielded two structures of the β subunit, which should form a basis for the modelling of the whole high affinity IgE receptor.


The Opportunities for the Majority Initiative (OMJ) was originally set up for three years as a time-bound pilot initiative. The OMJ team has worked diligently to test the Base of the Pyramid model and develop the OMJ portfolio, and from that standpoint the initiative has been successful. Regarding OMJ's operational objectives, its achievements on targeting, innovation, learning, and replication have been mixed. OMJ has not found a unique market niche that cannot be served by another IDB Group private sector window with significant operational advantages over OMJ. In light of the findings, the IDB should strengthen OMJ's operations; improve the evaluability, monitoring and evaluation of projects; and adapt risk management, pricing, and legal procedures to facilitate interactions with lower-income clients. The IDB should consider options for consolidating OMJ activities and those of other IDB Group private sector windows.


Emitting alarm calls may directly benefit individuals if callers have an increased chance of surviving, if calling increases the caller's status, or if calling functions through reciprocity. Although previous studies have examined the costs and benefits of alarm calling, few have examined how an individual's social position can influence the propensity to emit calls. An individual's position in its social network may vary and individuals differ in the strength and degree to which they are connected to others. We hypothesized that this variation could influence the rate at which individuals emit calls. We examined how various social attributes (degree centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, strength, and embeddedness) were related to the likelihood that yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) emitted calls. To do so, we first defined 2 principle components—"popularity" and "relationship strength"—and used generalized linear mixed effects models to explain both the natural rate of alarm calling and the rate of trap-induced calling. We found that the natural rate of alarm calling increased for marmots that were less popular (i.e., involved in fewer connections with other marmots) and that the rate of trap-induced calling increased for marmots involved in weaker relationships. These findings refute the reciprocity hypothesis. However, less popular marmots could be seeking to enhance their social status by calling, or they could be deterring predators without the aid of others. Similarly, marmots in traps are faced with an imminent personal threat. Thus, marmots in weaker relationships that cannot rely on other marmots may call to deter predators.


Introduction : Youth are the foundation of any society. Neglecting their sexual and reproductive health leads to high social and economic crisis. However, there is limited information on the sexual and reproductive health aspects of University students in Ethiopia. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess risky sexual behaviours and associated factors among students of Debre Tabor University. Methods and materials: A cross-sectional survey was conducted between 1February and 30 March 2014 using self-administered structured questionnaire to collect data on socio-demographic, sexual and associated risk behaviours among 394 University students. Descriptive and stepwise logistic regression model was carried out using SPSS version 21. A p value of < 0.05 and 95% CI was considered to test statistical significance. Results : A total of 394 students were enrolled in the study. Among these, 347 (88.1%) provided complete responses. About 97 (28.4%) study participants had sexual experience at the mean age of 18.9 years (SD 1.9 years). Out of these, 59 (62.1%) had sexual contact with their regular friends. Female students under the age of 18 were less likely to start sexual intercourse compared with males [AOR=0.2, 95%CI (0.7-0.9)]. Students who had symptoms of sexually transmitted infection (STI) were 16 times more likely to have early sexual contact compared to those students who had no symptoms [AOR = 16.4, 95% CI (1.4-193]. Not using condom at the first [AOR= 3.2 95%CI (1.2-10.5)] and last [AOR= 3.8, 95%CI (1.2-13.6)] sexual engagement were significant predictors of having multiple sexual partners. Conclusions : This study revealed risky sexual behaviours among Debre Tabor University students. Thus, continuous and intensified public health strategies on health education and reproductive health services are required to address the sexual and reproductive health needs of the students. Key words : Risky sexual behaviours, University students, Debre Tabor


When using derivative instruments such as futures to hedge a portfolio of risky assets, the primary objective is to estimate the optimal hedge ratio (OHR). When agents have mean-variance utility and the futures price follows a martingale, the OHR is equivalent to the minimum variance hedge ratio,which can be estimated by regressing the spot market return on the futures market return using ordinary least squares. To accommodate time-varying volatility in asset returns, estimators based on rolling windows, GARCH, or EWMA models are commonly employed. However, all of these approaches are based on the sample variance and covariance estimators of returns, which, while consistent irrespective of the underlying distribution of the data, are not in general efficient. In particular, when the distribution of the data is leptokurtic, as is commonly found for short horizon asset returns, these estimators will attach too much weight to extreme observations. This article proposes an alternative to the standard approach to the estimation of the OHR that is robust to the leptokurtosis of returns. We use the robust OHR to construct a dynamic hedging strategy for daily returns on the FTSE100 index using index futures. We estimate the robust OHR using both the rolling window approach and the EWMA approach, and compare our results to those based on the standard rolling window and EWMA estimators. It is shown that the robust OHR yields a hedged portfolio variance that is marginally lower than that based on the standard estimator. Moreover, the variance of the robust OHR is as much as 70% lower than the variance of the standard OHR, substantially reducing the transaction costs that are associated with dynamic hedging strategies. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:799–816, 2003


High-performance platforms are required by modern applications that make use of massive calculations. Actually, low-cost and high-performance specific hardware (e.g. GPU) can be a good alternative along with CPUs, which turned to multiple cores, forming powerful heterogeneous desktop execution platforms. Therefore, self-adaptive computing is a promising paradigm as it can provide flexibility to explore different computing resources, on which heterogeneous cluster can be created to improve performance on different execution scenarios. One approach is to explore run-time tasks migration among node's hardware towards an optimal system load-balancing aiming at performance gains. This way, time requirements and its crosscutting behavior play an important role for task (re)allocation decisions. This paper presents a self-rescheduling task strategy that makes use of aspect-oriented paradigms to address non-functional application timing constraints from earlier design phases. A case study exploring Radar Image Processing tasks is presented to demonstrate the proposed approach. Simulations results for this case study are provided in the context of a surveillance system based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).


This article examines the effects of human rights and transitional justice on memories of Timor-Leste's resistance to the Indonesian occupation, which lasted from 1975 to 1999. Data comes from ethnographic fieldwork in Timor, centered around remembrance of two major acts of resistance: an armed uprising in 1983 and a peaceful demonstration in 1991. The article argues that in Timor, an "apolitical" human rights has caused a post-conflict "democratization of perpetration", in that similar culpability is assigned to all those who caused suffering in the confl ict with Indonesia through physical violence, irrespective of context. Transitional justice has thus expanded the category of perpetrator in Timor, to include some who legally used armed resistance against Indonesian rule. Studies of violence have belatedly turned toward examining perpetrators of state terror; this article examines how discourses of human rights and transitional justice shape perceptions of those who resist state terror with violence.


Ill health, mental and physical, during PhD study, is now becoming more widely recognised, but is still under-researched. For doctoral students, health, stress and wellbeing are fundamentally linked with intellectual development, conceptual threshold crossings (Kiley & Wisker 2009) and achievement at doctoral level. Our established and recent research indicates a close connection between success in the intellectual, doctoral learning journey and sensitive, informed management of and support for physical and mental health issues experienced by doctoral students, whether they are ongoing, or appear as time limited crises. The role of supervisors in supporting students with health issues is also under-researched, and is sparked latterly by recent concerns specifically with doctoral student health (Wisker & Gordon in THE 2016). Our focus here arises from recent work on wellbeing for both students and supervisors, where supervisor empathy and engagement at personal, institutional and learning levels is seen as fundamental in effective supervisory relationships with students. Postgraduate student learning journeys involve the whole person, over time, and both postgraduates and supervisors need to be aware of and develop strategies to minimise the damage done by ill health, emotional and psychological upset, which can hamper general health and affect timely (or any) completion.


Steel structures take the advantages of good stability, good ductility, low construction cost, fast construction and hence high flexibility in shape with high utilization rate. With the rapid economic growth, steel structures are popularly used in modern architecture, particularly in supertall buildings of height over 300 m in China. However, the fire behaviour of steel structures should be watched because the mechanical strength of steel reduces when temperature increases. In this paper, fire protective coatings commonly used in China for steel structures were studied by full-scale fire tests. Three types of ultra-thin, one type of thin and one type of thick coatings were evaluated. Test samples were prepared by applying the coatings on the typical H-type steel load bearing beams following standard fire resistance test. Different sets of fire protective coatings were applied on the surface of the sample as in the actual construction process. The coating thickness for the steel structural members satisfied the Chinese regulation with ultra-thin fire protective coating of 2.00 mm ± 0.02 mm, thin fire protective coating of 5.0 mm ± 0.5 mm and thick fire protective coating of 25 mm ± 2 mm. Experiments were carried out in the large-scale testing facilities at Sichuan Fire Research Institute, Dujiangyan, Sichuan, China. The transient temperatures at different positions inside and outside the steel structure, and structural distortion of the steel structural members with different fire protective coatings under the testing condition were measured. Results on the measured temperatures, middle flexibility change values and corresponding time parameters on related parts of the test samples were then studied. A mathematical model was used for analyzing the result. The associated variables and correlation expressions among different variables were studied. Results can be taken as a reference for drafting new standards on evaluating the fire protective coatings for load bearing steel structures. For example, for the fire test of ultra-thin fire protective coating, it is possible to analyze and generalize the acquired data on temperature-time curve. For the thick-type steel structure fire protective coating, when the maximum temperature of the steel structure approaches 500C and there is a high rate of temperature change, the fire resistance period of the structural members with protective coating can be predicted.


Before carrying out a warrantless search of a person or their property, police officers need to have sufficient information concerning involvement in possible criminal activity to meet the "probable cause" criteria. In U.S. v. Place, the Court held that dog sniffs of vehicles, stopped for lawful purposes, were not a search. Courts have allowed police to search a vehicle or item after a trained narcotics dog indicates that it contains contraband as the positive indication establishes "probable cause". The criteria many courts use to assess the reliability of the dog, the fraction of positive identifications in which drugs were found, however, is the predictive value of a positive test (PVP). While related to the two proper measures of the accuracy of a screening technique, the PVP also depends on the prevalence of contraband in the places the dog has examined. It is will be seen that the same PVP can arise in situations where an accurate dog sniffs items with a low prevalence of contraband or when a much less reliable dog examines items with a high prevalence of drugs. It will be seen that it is mathematically impossible to estimate the two accuracy rates of a narcotics dog from the data typically submitted by the state to show the narcotics dog is reliable. The problem arises because one needs three equations to estimate the prevalence and the two accuracy rates but the data only provides two. These issues will be illustrated on data from actual cases. Rather than continuing to rely on an inappropriate measure of the accuracy of dog sniffs, courts should require more information concerning the accuracy of dogs in their training sessions and in the field as well as better information on the prevalence of drugs in commonly occurring settings, e.g. vehicles stopped for routine traffic violations or items examined after police have received a "tip". Then the legal system would have sufficient information to estimate both measures of accuracy of a narcotics dog and its PVP, which would assist courts in determining whether the police had "probable cause".


After spinal cord injury (SCI), alterations in intrinsic motoneuron properties have been shown to be partly responsible for spastic reflex behaviors in human SCI. In particular, a dysregulation of voltage-dependent depolarizing persistent inward currents (PICs) may permit sustained muscle contraction after the removal of a brief excitatory stimulus. Windup, in which the motor response increases with repeated activation, is an indicator of PICs. Although windup of homonymous stretch reflexes has been shown, multijoint muscle activity is often observed following imposed limb movements and may exhibit a similar windup phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to identify and quantify windup of multijoint reflex responses to repeated imposed hip oscillations. Ten chronic SCI subjects participated in this study. A custom-built servomotor apparatus was used to oscillate the legs about the hip joint bilaterally and unilaterally from 10° of extension to 40° flexion for 10 consecutive cycles. Surface electromyograms (EMGs) and joint torques were recorded from both legs. Consistent with a windup response, hip and knee flexion/extension and ankle plantarflexion torque and EMG responses varied according to movement cycle number. The temporal patterns of windup depended on the muscle groups that were activated, which may suggest a difference in the response of neurons in different spinal pathways. Furthermore, because windup was seen in muscles that were not being stretched, these results imply that changes in interneuronal properties are also likely to be associated with windup of spastic reflexes in human SCI.


In Ghana, about 73% of households rely on solid fuels for cooking. Over 13,000 annual deaths are attributed to exposure to indoor air pollution from inefficient combustion. In this study, assessment of thermal efficiency, emissions, and total global warming impact of three cookstoves commonly used in Ghana was completed using the International Workshop Agreement (IWA) Water Boiling Test (WBT) protocol. Statistical averages of three replicate tests for each cookstove were computed. Thermal efficiency results were: wood-burning cookstove: 12.2 ± 5.00% (Tier 0); coalpot charcoal stove: 23.3 ± 0.73% (Tier 1–2); and Gyapa charcoal cookstove: 30.00 ± 4.63% (Tier 2–3). The wood-burning cookstove emitted more CO, CO2, and PM2.5 than the coalpot charcoal stove and Gyapa charcoal cookstove. The emission factor (EF) for PM2.5 and the emission rate for the wood-burning cookstove were over four times higher than the coalpot charcoal stove and Gyapa charcoal cookstove. To complete the WBT, the study results showed that, by using the Gyapa charcoal cookstove instead of the wood-burning cookstove, the global warming impact could be potentially reduced by approximately 75% and using the Gyapa charcoal cookstove instead of the coalpot charcoal cookstove by 50%. We conclude that there is the need for awareness, policy, and incentives to enable end-users to switch to, and adopt, Gyapa charcoal cookstoves for increased efficiency and reduced emissions/global warming impact.


The management of the construction projects is exponentially increasing in complexity since it has to deal with highly fragmented, complex and unique combinations of business relations, communications and processes. Each phase in the construction cycle requires effective communication of information/knowledge as well as coordination among project participants and stakeholders, thus leading to timing and technical content transfer
enhancements and/or problems. Recent advances in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are considered essential and promising in improving sharing/exchange of project information as well as communication among construction industry stakeholders
whilst reducing associated costs and time.
One facet of such advances in ICT is evident from the proactive indulgement of the construction supply chain in collaborative extranets. In parallel, the construction industry has recognized the importance of sharing and exchanging project information across the supply chain through project integrated databases. However, such advancements in the ICT utilisation in construction industry were unable to develop a system that exchanges/shares project information, at the element level, over a well defined matrix of communication that can also integrate into the business processes of the members of the supply chain.
This research will discuss the features, limitation and nature of the process and information models which can be integrated into the core business processes of the construction supply chain members. This is basically achieved by investigating the communication processes and
information exchanged across the supply chain during the construction tendering stage and the available process and information modelling techniques.
The objective of this research is to highlight the need to bridge the gap created by the level of satisfaction provided by ICT applications through the development of an augmented process model which will enable integrated databases to support collaborative extranets at the tender stage. This will be developed after validating the models with real world case studies.
The overall findings revealed that the current construction tender processes under the traditional procurement scenario suffer from key problems and impediments, and improvements are needed. Many specific reasons have been identified and grouped together as underpinning causes of the present problems and impediments.
The system architecture developed in this research based on the augmented process model will address and alleviate many of the problems and impediments identified, will improve
the current practices in the construction tender stage under the traditional procurement scenario, will foster greater adoption of ICT applications in CI, will provide a modular research unit to be applied in similar research and will provide recommendation for the successful development and implementation of the related ICT application.


Breast cancer (BC) treatment leads to a reduction in reproductive lifespan due to the use of gonadotoxic agents and prolonged hormonal treatment. With an increasing incidence of BC in the young and better survival rates, fertility issues have come into focus. Pregnancy does not appear to have a detrimental effect and may even improve survival rates. Fertility counseling and offering fertility preservation (FP), therefore, is the standard of care. Among the FP procedures, oocyte freezing is preferred as it allows reproductive autonomy. Ovarian stimulation required for oocyte recruitment does not worsen BC prognosis. Reproductive outcome using cryopreserved gametes gives live birth rates similar to nononcological patients though studies are limited in this aspect. Ovarian tissue cryopreservation can be safely offered if neoadjuvant therapy is required. Fertility issues are extremely relevant in BRCA mutation carriers and FP should be offered to them. Co-administration of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist with chemotherapy is recommended in patients wishing to preserve ovarian function.


Lack of attention to spatial and temporal cross-scale dynamics and effects could be understood as one of the lacunas in scholarship on river basin management. Within the water-climate-food-energy nexus, an integrated and inclusive approach that recognizes traditional knowledge about and experiences of climate change and water resource management can provide crucial assistance in confronting problems in megaprojects and multipurpose river basin management projects. The Mahaweli Development Program (MDP), a megaproject and multipurpose river basin management project, is demonstrating substantial failures with regards to the spatial and temporal impacts of climate change and socioeconomic demands for water allocation and distribution for paddy cultivation in the dry zone area, which was one of the driving goals of the project at the initial stage. This interdisciplinary study explores how spatial and temporal climatic changes and uncertainty in weather conditions impact paddy cultivation in dry zonal areas with competing stakeholders' interest in the Mahaweli River Basin. In the framework of embedded design in the mixed methods research approach, qualitative data is the primary source while quantitative analyses are used as supportive data. The key findings from the research analysis are as follows: close and in-depth consideration of spatial and temporal changes in climate systems and paddy farmers' socioeconomic demands altered by seasonal changes are important factors. These factors should be considered in the future modification of water allocation, application of distribution technologies, and decision-making with regards to water resource management in the dry zonal paddy cultivation of Sri Lanka.


Abstract This article traces the institutional evolution of the Council Secretariat that plans and supports EU civilian peace operations. During the early days of the European Security and Defence Policy in the late 1990s competing political priorities of big EU member states and a dominance of military structures put civilian administrators at a significant disadvantage. Between 2003 and 2007, however, the rising number and complexity of civilian missions generated pressure for reform, which eventually led to the creation of a civilian headquarters. The historical analysis provides the basis for assessing the EU's current institutional capacities for civilian crisis management. While some administrative capacity deficits have been addressed, increased institutional formalization and further politically motivated reforms may increase tensions and hamper the accumulation of expertise.


Peritubular vascular changes and hypoxia after glomerular injury may explain subsequent tubulointerstitial injury and fibrosis. Several studies suggested that the expected tubulointerstitial angiogenic response is actively suppressed in this setting. The mechanism of this aberrant response has not been clearly identified. We used a common model of glomerular injury in rats to assess vascular changes and to identify potential factors associated with this aberrant response. Anti-Thy1.1 antibody administration (1 or 4 weekly doses) led to a dose-dependent renal damage characterized by elevated urea and tubulointerstitial fibrosis as assessed by Picro-Sirius Red staining. We quantified peritubular capillaries using CD31 and CD34 immunohistochemistry and showed that tubular angiogenic dysregulation was associated with peritubular capillary rarefaction. Using laser capture microdissection, we demonstrated an early induction of fibrogenic and angiogenic factors in the glomeruli and a subsequent dysregulated angiogenic response in the tubulointerstitial compartment. Proximal tubules of anti-Thy1.1-treated animals had increased pigment epithelial-derived factor (PEDF) expression by immunohistochemistry. Protein taken by laser capture microdissection also showed that PEDF was upregulated. Temporally associated with PEDF expression was a transient downregulation of tubular hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)1α. In a human proximal tubular cell culture, we show that PEDF downregulates HIF1α protein and gene expression in cells exposed to 1% oxygen. In anti-Thy1.1 glomerulonephritis, there is aberrent tubular angiogenesis associated with glomerular injury and tubulointersititial fibrosis. We showed that PEDF may be involved by downregulating HIF1α. Further work is needed to elucidate the mechanism of PEDF upregulation and action in the tubules.


We present numerical simulations of blood flow through a brain vascular aneurysm with an artificial stent using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). The aim of this work is to analyze how the flow into an aneurysm changes using different stent configurations. The initial conditions for the simulations were constructed from angiographic images of a real patient with an aneurysm. The wall shear stresses, pressure and highest velocity within the artery, and other particular quantities are calculated which are of medical specific interest. The numerical simulations of the cerebral circulation help doctors to determine if the patient's own vascular anatomy has the conditions to allow arterial stenting by endovascular method before the surgery or even evaluate the effect of different stent structure and materials. The results show that the flow downstream the aneurysm is highly modified by the stent configuration and that the best choice for reducing the flow in the aneurysm is to use a completely extended Endeavor stent.


Vadlin, S. 2016. Problematic Gaming and Gambling among Adolescents. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1268. 91 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-9730-9. The overall aims of this thesis were to develop and evaluate a screening instrument designed to detect gaming addiction symptoms in adolescents, to study associations between problematic gaming and psychiatric symptoms, to investigate the stability of problematic gaming, and to examine possible associations between gaming at baseline (W1) with problem gambling three years later (W2). The study population consisted of adolescents from the Survey of Adolescent Life in Västmanland SALVe Cohort (adolescents in Västmanland born in 1997 and 1999, and their parents), in two waves (2012, n = 1887; 2015, n = 1576), and adolescents from child and adolescent psychiatric clinics in Västmanland (2014, n = 242). The development of the Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT) was based upon the research literature on gaming, gambling, and addiction. An expert panel estimated the content validity of the GAIT and found it to be excellent. Additional psychometric evaluations of the GAIT and the parent version, GAIT-P, were conducted and it was found that both versions showed promising psychometric results, with high internal consistency, high concurrent validity, high concordance, unidimensionality, and high factor loadings, although poor model fit in exploratory factor analysis. Selfand parent-rated prevalence of gaming addiction symptoms were estimated at 1.3% with the GAIT and 2.4% with the GAIT-P in 13and 15-year-olds. Self-rated problematic gaming above the cutoff had a boy to girl ratio of approximately 5:1 in both the SALVe Cohort and the clinical sample, whereas more girls than boys reported symptoms above the cutoff for ADHD, depression, anxiety, and psychotic-like-experiences. ADHD, depression, and anxiety symptoms were associated with odds ratios of 2.43, 2.47, and 2.06, respectively, in relation to coexisting problematic gaming. Furthermore, problematic gaming was stable over time, and problematic gaming at the first wave was associated with problem gambling three years later. It is important to screen for possible co-occurring symptoms among those who seek treatment and among those who appear to have symptoms of gaming, gambling, or psychiatric symptoms. Ongoing evaluation of adequate screening and diagnostic measurements, and the development and evaluation of treatments for problematic gaming, gaming addiction, and comorbid conditions are needed.


To explore further topical antiviral therapy for recurrent genital herpes, 188 culture-proven patients were randomized to receive treatment with topical interferon-alpha in high-dose (10(6) IU/g with 1% nonoxynol-9 in 3.5% methylcellulose) or low-dose (10(3) IU/g with 0.1% nonoxynol-9 in 3.5% methylcellulose) treatments or placebo (3.5% methylcellulose, alone), applied three times daily for 5 days. Of these, 105 experienced prodromal symptoms within the study period and applied the medication, of whom 99 could be evaluated for efficacy. Patients were followed with daily clinical assessments and cultures until reepithelialization. The median time to negative virus culture in high-dose recipients was 2.5 days compared with 3.9 days for placebo recipients (P = .023), and a significant dose response was observed (P = .016). Antiviral effects were more prominent in men than women. High-dose recipients also had reduced median duration of symptoms to 2.7 days from 3.7 days for placebo recipients (P = .03), with a significant dose-response relationship (P = .047). Effects on duration of symptoms were more prominent in women. Times to complete reepithelialization in those who applied the drug during the prodromal phase were 5.8 days for high-dose recipients compared with 6.5 days for placebo recipients (P = .053). A multivariate ranked linear model analysis of four efficacy variables (crusting, healing, virus shedding, symptom duration) also favored the high-dose gel (P = .015). High-dose topical interferon-alpha preparation is effective for patients with recurrent genital herpes. Applied early in the course of a recurrent episode, this treatment is safe and may provide a topical alternative to other types of therapy in the future.


Mineral inclusions were studied with emphasis on the relatively abundant acicular, preferentially oriented rutile in pyrope from the Kolin area. In contrast, rutile inclusions are rare or absent at two other, currently exploited pyrope deposits in northern Bohemia (Podsedice and Vestřev). The aim was also to obtain the first analytical information on variety of other mineral inclusions, some of which were previously indicated in the literature based on qualitative gemmological observation. Host garnet composition shows limited variation with Prp 67.9–71.6, Alm 13.3–18.9, Grs 2.0–7.5 and Uvr 2.6–9.6 mol. %. Electron microprobe study resulted in identification of the following mineral inclusions in pyrope: rutile, magnesian ilmenite, olivine, magnesite, enstatite, pargasite, phlogopite, barian phlogopite, spinel, and a probable crichtonite-series? mineral. Apatite, Ni-sulphide and chalcopyrite were identified based on qualitative spectra. Published Sm-Nd mineral ages point to the presence of two age groups of the Variscan garnet peridotites in the Moldanubian Zone and adjacent units in the Bohemian Massif, i.e. the "neo-Variscan" (~ 339 Ma), and the "palaeo-Variscan" (370–377 Ma). In the Kolin area, the Becvary body was dated at 377 ± 20 Ma. This raises a question, whether the "palaeo-Variscan" garnet peridotites of the Kolin area carry some mineralogical record of protracted annealing or repeated heating, which may have occurred between the two Variscan events. Information from garnet inclusions does not indicate for the Kolin peridotites a history of recycling of older peridotites with pre-Variscan crustal residence. Average TiO2 contents in pyrope from the Kolin area (0.37 wt. %) compare with 0.46 wt. % TiO2 in Vestřev pyropes and 0.52 wt. % TiO2 in Podsedice pyropes (northern Bohemia). This suggests that the relatively low Ti content in Kolin pyrope may be in part due to Ti unmixing in the form of oriented acicular rutile. The data from the present study point to the potential of mineralogical comparative studies on peridotites from individual HP units of the Bohemian Massif.


Chitosan binds to negatively charged tripolyphosphate (TPP) by an electrostatic interaction driven by its positively charged amino group. This interaction allows developing stable nanoparticles suitable as a carrier and controlled release system for drugs and vaccines. We study the effect of chitosan nanoparticles (CNp) on the uptake and antigen presentation of the model protein hen-egg white lysozyme (HEL) to peritoneal macrophages isolated from mice. Results showed that after four hours of pre-incubation with a T-cell hybridoma line cocultured with murine peritoneal macrophages, only trace amounts of IL-2 were detected in treatments with HEL alone, whereas cocultures treated with HEL-CNp had already reached maximum IL-2 expression. Confocal microscopy studies showed that CNp had a higher uptake rate of the fluorescently labelled protein than the protein itself after 30 min of incubation with the peritoneal macrophages. Our results suggest that CNp system is a potential candidate for an oral vaccine delivery system.


Boundaries under negotiation – social services' responsibility for support to women exposed to violence in close relationshipsThis article examines social workers' perceptions of the social services' mission and task as regards support for women who are subjected to violence in close relationships and where the social services are considered to be limited. The study is qualitative and based on interviews with 16 social workers in eleven municipalities. The interviews have been analysed with conventional content analysis. The analysis shows that the task or obligation of the social services can be formulated in two different ways: to offer support to women exposed or previously exposed to violence in close relationships, or to offer support to women who have left or intend to leave a relationship where they have been subjected to violence. In the analysis of social workers' descriptions of support they offer, as well as the boundaries for what is beyond the social services' responsibility, three levels can be identified. The first level, consisting of financial support, placements at women's shelters and a social worker to talk to, forms a sort of core for the work in the social services, which most, albeit to varying degrees, offer. The second level describes forms of enhanced support, and the third level describes such support which only a few state that they work with or where responsibility issues are more diffuse.


The basic idea in public sponsoring of corporate R & D is to increase the level of risk taking in firms. Low levels of exploration of new opportunities (i.e. R & D) is especially prominent in the real estate and construction field. The increase in productivity of the entire real estate cluster has lagged behind almost all other sectors in Finland as well as in most other developed countries. The research question of the paper focuses on this dilemma of low levels of R&D and the slow development of productivity. One explanation put forward is that the cyclical nature of the real estate and construction industry has led to a business environment where the common attitude is that either there are not enough resources to develop new business opportunities or then there is no need for experimentation when the market environment is favourable. The result is a low level of exploration of new ideas and an environment with few innovations. In this paper, we discuss the question how the R&D intensity could be enhanced in the real estate industry and what the main challenges of this process are. We approach this question using a behavioural risk taking approach by March & Shapira (1992, 1987). In addition, we discuss the value added from using a collective R&D program, named a Technology Program, to remedy the issues raised. In the empirical part of the paper we study the structures of past and ongoing Technology Programs in order to test whether our proposed factors, that should enhance the level of risk taking in the industry. can be identified as key-drivers in the programs. We begin by briefly discussing the logic behind the March & Shapira model in explaning risk taking in organisations. Then, we focus on the concepts of exploitation and exploration in relation to R & D activities of an organisation. Our main hypothesis is that the low levels of R&D activities can be explained by a shift of focus from the survival point to a point above the aspiration level of the organisation due to the cyclical nature of the industry. Our main finding is that the main function of a collective sponsoring of the R&D activity an industry (i.e. of a Technology Programme) is not to generate exploration by increasing slack in organisations using public subsidies but to sponsor a collective network to increase the aspiration level of the participating organisations. Thus the Technology Program has a very important networking function, in addition to knowledge sharing, in creating an environment where the aspiration level of the participating firms is raised to induce risk taking in the form of innovative R&D.


OBJECTIVE
Although an excess transmission of type 2 diabetes from mothers has been documented, whether this is an independent trait or whether the effect can be detected early through risk factors for type 2 diabetes remains to be elucidated. The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of and the possible prospective effect of family history on type 2 diabetes incidence adjusted for multiple diabetes risk factors in a 22.5-year follow-up study of healthy men.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
A total of 1,947 apparently healthy nondiabetic men with fasting blood glucose (FBG) levels <110 mg/dl at baseline, in whom an intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) was administered and several conventional risk factors were measured, were followed for 22.5 years. Family history data were obtained at the baseline examination, and morbidity data were obtained from repeated investigations, hospital records, and death certificates.

RESULTS
A total of 131 men reported maternal diabetes family history only, 65 men reported paternal diabetes family history only and 10 men reported both maternal and paternal diabetes family history. Among the 1,947 men, 143 cases of type 2 diabetes developed during 22.5 years of observation. Maternal family history and combined maternal and paternal family history predisposed to future type 2 diabetes both in univariate Cox analysis and in multivariate Cox regression analysis after adjusting for glucose disappearance rate (Rd) during an IVGTT, FBG level, BMI, physical fitness, triglyceride level, and age. Maternal family history showed a relative risk (RR) of 2.51 (95% CI 1.55-4.07), combined maternal and paternal family history showed an RR of 3.96 (1.22-12.9), and paternal family history showed an RR of 1.41 (0.657-3.05) in multivariate analysis.

CONCLUSIONS
Maternal family history appears to be an important risk factor for type 2 diabetes independent of prediabetic Rd, FBG, BMI, and physical fitness levels.


The paper investigates the drivers of farm size and farm size growth in Slovenia during the period 2007-2017 using a farm-level Farm Accountancy Data Network dataset within a quantile regression framework. Farm size growth is measured by growth in utilized agricultural area per farm. The findings suggest that growth in farm land size is driven by initial farm land size and policy subsidy support. Contrary to expectations, human capital does not play an important role in either farm land size or farm land size growth according to quantile regressions. These findings from inter-quantile comparative analysis are important for farm-related structural and rural development policy.


In the EU, the paradigm is shifting from "take-make-consume and dispose" lifestyle to the full-use of each natural resource. Many companies have taken circular economy thinking into their strategies The transition is complex and requires a whole new way of  re-design, new skills and a change in mindsets of people, especially coming specialists making eco-effective decisions.
This Practical Approach for Teaching Circular Economy is based on the results of the couple of NordPlus projects from Latvia and Lithuania.
The aims of this research are to develop a joint curriculum for teaching in transition to circular economy, find out best pedagogical practices and connect to labor market in order to ensure an economic activity that promotes overall system health.
The study method is based on application of the different size of circular economy modules and best pedagogical solutions gathered into a common toolbox.  Modules and didactic solutions can thereby be used in appropriate combinations for specific purposes.
The analysis of the existing curriculum in Environmental Sciences shows the weak relationship between scientific ideas and their commercialization as well as insufficient insight of profitable development of new business models. Despite the notion of sustainability has been incorporated into the study courses, there is still a lot to be done in putting this kind of wide and systemic thinking into practice. The innovative feature of this Joined Curriculum and Toolbox for Circular Economy is that high level of political and social ambitions will be put into practice in bachelor and master level education.


AACR Annual Meeting-- Apr 14-18, 2007; Los Angeles, CA

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Although lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and is ranked second only to bladder cancer in proportion of cases due to past occupational exposures, the genetic changes associated with progression of the disease are not well understood. We used Spectral Karyotyping (SKY), mapping with fluorescently labeled genomic clones (FISH), comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) on a BAC array, 5 kB NimbleGen CGH array, expression array, real time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot to analyze 15 primary adenocarcinoma and 9 pairs of high and low invasive cell cultures to detect molecular changes. The medial portion of chromosome 4 was deleted in 66.0% + 12.0 of the cell lines. FISH mapping and CGH array further narrowed the region of genetic alteration. The minimal region of deletion occurred at 39.6 centimorgans (cM). Duplication of chromosome 4 at 10 to 35 cM occurred in 68.0% + 11.0 of the cell cultures. Expression array analysis demonstrated increased expression of a proposed oncogene, Kruppel-like factor 4, tyrosine kinase receptor EphA2, Cyclin E, and a group of ubiquintination factors. Analysis of genes within the deleted region of chromosome 4 demonstrated decreased expression of the cell cycle inhibitory factor p16 at 39 cM, the NR4A3 receptor involved in apoptosis at 42.7 cM, the differentiation factor Forkhead Box D3 at 45 cM and the apoptotic factor Cathepsin D at 50 cM. Western blot analysis showed that Cathepsin D protein was produced at very low levels and was not processed to the mature form. IGFII receptor, the processing protein for Cathepsin D, was also expressed at very low levels. The homologous linkage groups on human chromosomes 9p21, 1p36 and 9q are altered in human lung adenocarcinoma. Alteration in copy number and expression of the genes on chromosome 4 may play a functional role in lung cancer development and may aid in the identification of mouse and human lung cancer susceptibility genes.


Beyond prophylactic mastectomy, there are currently very few options available to BRCA1 mutation carriers to help reduce their risk of developing breast cancer. An effective prevention therapy therefore remains a pressing area of need. Accumulating evidence points to amplification of the progesterone signaling axis in precancerous tissue from BRCA1 mutation carriers. Given that RANKL is an important paracrine mediator of hormonal signaling in breast tissue, there has been considerable interest in exploring a potential role for this pathway in oncogenesis. Recent findings indicate that the RANK and NF-κB pathways are aberrantly activated in luminal progenitor cells resident in preneoplastic BRCA1mut/+ breast tissue. The augmented proliferation of these cells and their predilection for DNA damage suggest that they are prime cellular targets for basal-like cancers arising in BRCA1 mutation carriers. The end result is a hyperactive pathway, initiated by progesterone and amplified by DNA damage-induced NF-κB signaling, that likely accounts for the susceptibility of BRCA1mut/+ luminal progenitor cells to oncogenesis and tissue specificity. Specific targeting of this progenitor subset has revealed a compelling new prevention strategy for these and possibly other high-risk women. Cancer Res; 77(3); 595-600. ©2017 AACR.


Image super-resolution (SR) reconstruction is essentially an ill-posed problem, so it is important to design an effective prior. For this purpose, we propose a novel image SR method by learning both non-local and local regularization priors from a given low-resolution image. The non-local prior takes advantage of the redundancy of similar patches in natural images, while the local prior assumes that a target pixel can be estimated by a weighted average of its neighbors. Based on the above considerations, we utilize the non-local means filter to learn a non-local prior and the steering kernel regression to learn a local prior. By assembling the two complementary regularization terms, we propose a maximum a posteriori probability framework for SR recovery. Thorough experimental results suggest that the proposed SR method can reconstruct higher quality results both quantitatively and perceptually.


. The paper discusses systematic realization of second-order sinusoidal oscillators using multiple-output second-generation current controlled conveyor (MO-CCCII) and/or its inverting equivalent, namely the multiple-output inverting second-generation current controlled conveyor (MO-ICCCII) by state variable method. State variable method is a powerful technique and has been used extensively in the past to realize active RC oscillators using a variety of active building blocks (ABB). In this work, a non-interactive relationship between the condition of oscillation (CO) and the frequency of oscillation (FO) has been chosen priori and then state variable method is applied to derive the oscillators with grounded capacitors. All the resulting oscillator circuits, eight of them, are "resistor-less", employ grounded capacitors and do not use more than three (MO)(I)CCCIIs. PSPICE simulation results of a possible CMOS implementation of the oscillators using 0 . 35 µm TSMC CMOS technology parameters have validated their workability.


The present article develops the concept of selective realism to understand how design features and narrative frames of first- and third-person shooters (F/TPS) exclude attention to salient, yet unpleasant, features of warfare such as problematic forms of violence, long-term psychological impacts, or sociopolitical blowbacks. Identifying four specific filters that frame player experiences, I argue that the resulting selectivity is significant because it is characteristic of the F/TPS genre as a whole that, through its wide dissemination, impacts upon the cultural framing of actual warfare. The article illustrates features of selective realism before it conducts in-depth analysis of the titles Spec Ops: The Line and The Last of Us to show how critical game design can invite a conscious unraveling of the generic frames and the ideological positions these invite. The article concludes with a reassessment of arguments regarding alleged sociopolitical impacts of war- and violence-themed computer games.


SUMMARY: In order to investigate the role of bromocriptine (BCR) on immune response we have undertaken an experimental study and its results were compared with those of another immunosuppressive agent, Cyclosporine A (CsA). 63 mole Swiss albino rats were divided into 4 groups. Twenty two of those were used as a control and received intraperitoneal saline for 4 days. The other groups were treated with 3 mg/Kg CsA, 200 µg/Kg of BCR and the combination of these two drugs for the same period. CsA treatment caused significant decrease in T cell proliferation and macrophage phagocytic activity, BCR showed similar depression both in the response of T cell and phagocytic activity. However the combination of these two drugs showed no additive effect on immune system. As a conclusion, a PRL secretion inhibitor BCR has been found to be a potent immunosuppressive agent which is comparable to CsA.


This paper is an attempt to develop the new discipline of ecodynamics as a quest for evolutionary physics. Particular attention is devoted to goal functions, to relations of conceptualizations surrounding matter, energy, space and time, and to the interdisciplinary approach connecting thermodynamics and biology. Entropy is discussed as a fundamental goal function in the far from equilibrium framework. The relationship between entropy, as a non-state function, and the state function energy is stressed and discussed, in the light of the role of information. The evolutionary dynamics of complex systems, ranging from open physical and chemical systems (strange attractors, oscillating reactions, dissipative structures) to ecosystems have been investigated in terms of far from equilibrium thermodynamics (Prigogine). The theory of probability is also discussed in the light of new theoretical findings related to the role of events, and also in terms of entropy and evolutionary thermodynamics.


Using web-based technology, we e-mailed a survey link to all 450 conferees of the 6th North American Duck Symposium (NADS 6), " Ecology and Conservation of North American Waterfowl " (ECNAW), seeking feedback from attendees in order to guide the organisation of future waterfowl and other wildlife symposia. Twelve questions were posed to evaluate the 2013 all-waterfowl symposium and a further 18 questions to assist planning future similar meetings. A total of 284 responses (63%) were received; the feedback suggested that NADS 6 was well organised, that it presented relevant information and that it was valuable to conferees. Perceptions of respondents on the structure of NADS 6 (i.e. whether presentation on all waterfowl should be included, or only on ducks) may not be representative of attendees of previous NADS meetings, as these focused on duck species. Nevertheless, respondents suggested that future symposia should continue on a 3-year rotation and retain its 4-day format with four morning plenary sessions, concurrent afternoon oral presentations and evening poster and mentee-mentor sessions. Respondents also recommended a maximum of three concurrent afternoon sessions and indicated that future symposia might continue to embrace geese and swans as well as ducks. The results suggest a need for officials of NADS to determine future meeting frameworks and venues. Web-based surveys provide a useful tool for conference evaluation and can promote effective design and relevance of future meetings and related events.