The main goal for IS/IT projects is the successful and timely delivery which meets
their planned performance and objectives. However, IS/IT projects frequently fail. It
has been reported that, on average, IS systems are delivered one year behind schedule,
only I% of projects finish on time and within budget. This highlights the need for a
model capable of determining the state of readiness of organisations prior to their
implementation of an IS/IT project. This model should be able to show the way of
improving organizational readiness to increase the likelihood of a successful
implementation of such a project. In spite of the recognition of the main factors which
can affect the success of IS/IT, tools do not exist that addresses those factors in an
integrated manner. The primary aim of this research is to produce a general
practitioner measurement tool that assists organisations in identifying the readiness
gap before the initiation of a new ISAT project, and suggests guidelines for
improvements.
This research is also concerned with the establishment of an evaluation framework for
ISAT. This framework presents a measurement of the success of IS/IT projects at the
business level. Both the evaluation framework and the general practitioner model
would help organizations to predict the level of success of IS/IT projects in meeting
their business objectives.
In order to achieve the aims and objectives of this research a thorough review of
previous related literature from different disciplines was carried out in order to first
build the IS/IT evaluation framework. The literature covered fields such as IS/IT
success literature, organisational effectiveness, strategic planning, communication
thcories, marketing, maturity models and ISAT measurement. The framework was
then verified and modified by an exploratory field work in nine organisations from
which the general practitioner model was established.
To verify and test the model, qualitative non-experimental approach was conducted
using in-depth case studies in four different organisations utilising triangulation of
data collection methods that uses observation, structured interviews, unstructured
interviews, historical data collection, and document review.


In the eastern part of Indonesia a semicular zone known as the Banda Geosyncline coincides with the Outer Banda Arch. This geosynclines persisted from pre-Permian time until the Upper Tertiary. Its maximum extension was attained during Mesozoic time as shown by Mesozoic rocks of the many islands of the arch. The Banda Geosyncline was in existence during Permian time in an area which now occupies the southeastern corner of Indonesia as recorded by Permian rocks found on the islands of Savu, Roti, Timor, Leti, Luang and Babar. Reports of questionable Permian deposits on the islands of Ambon and in the eastern arm of island of Sulawesi (Celebes) may indicate that Permian geosynclines extended even further. Probably the Banda Geosyncline was already in existence in Carboniferous time. Carboniferous fossils are reported from southeastern Indonesia from the island of Leti and in the Tokala Mountains of the eastern arm of Sulawesi. The Carboniferous basin may form the initial stage of the Banda Geosyncline. The Permian Banda Geosyncline bordered a land mass which included the eastern part of Sulawesi, the Sula Spur, southern part of Irian (New Guinea), the Sahul shelf, and extended further to the south into Australia and Tasmania. The trend of geosynclines follows the present geanticlinal ridge of the islands of the Outer Banda Arch. The present Banda Sea apparently was an open sea during the Permian period. The distribution of Permian rocks and overthrust  units in Timor suggests that the Permian geosynclines in the southeastern corner of Indonesia was formed by two almost parallel basins, i.e. the Sonnebait-Mutis basin in the north and the Kekneno basin in the south. These two basins trended approximately northeast-southwest parallel with the trend of geosynclines in this part of Indonesia. The basins were separated by a narrow ridge responsible for the different facies of the sediments deposited in the two basins. The neritic volcanic rocks of the Sonnebait and the Mutis overthrust units indicate that the Sonnebait-Mutis depositional basin was deeper than Keknone basinof flysch facies. The rocks of the Kekneno basin were products of erosion and denudation of that part of the Permian land mass to the south. An abundance of fossils in the Sonnebait overthrust unit indicates favourable life conditions. Probably this basin had a good circulation with the open sea to the north, in the vicinity of present Banda Sea, At times volcano ejected tuffs and extruded lavas over the floor of Sonnebait-Mutis basin. The location of the vents has not been determined. The stratigraphical position and the character of the Mutis overthrust unit in Timor may give an indication that the volcanoes were located in the north of the Kekneno basin. Geographically the volcanic centra belonged to the afore mentioned Permian land mass. This continent had a bay which faced to the west into the present Banda sea.


Strenuous exercise is associated with an immediate decrease in endothelial function. Repeated bouts of ischemia followed by reperfusion, known as remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC), is able to protect the endothelium against ischemia-induced injury beyond the ischemic area. We examined the hypothesis that RIPC prevents the decrease in endothelial function observed after strenuous exercise in healthy men. In a randomized, crossover study, 13 healthy men performed running exercise preceded by RIPC of the lower limbs (4 × 5-min 220-mmHg bilateral occlusion) or a sham intervention (sham; 4 × 5-min 20-mmHg bilateral occlusion). Participants performed a graded maximal treadmill running test, followed by a 5-km time trial (TT). Brachial artery endothelial function was examined before and after RIPC or sham, as well as after the 5-km TT. We measured flow-mediated dilation (FMD), an index of endothelium-dependent function, using high-resolution echo-Doppler. We also calculated the shear rate area-under-the-curve (from cuff deflation to peak dilatation; SR(AUC)). Data are described as mean and 95% confidence intervals. FMD changed by <0.6% immediately after both ischemic preconditioning (IPC) and sham interventions (P > 0.30). In the sham trial, FMD changed from 5.1 (4.4-5.9) to 3.7% (2.6-4.8) following the 5-km TT (P = 0.02). In the RIPC trial, FMD changed negligibly from 5.4 (4.4-6.4) post-IPC and 5.7% (4.6-6.8) post 5-km TT (P = 0.60). Baseline diameter, SR(AUC), and time-to-peak diameter were all increased following the 5-km TT (P < 0.05), but these changes did not influence the IPC-mediated maintenance of FMD. In conclusion, these data indicate that strenuous lower-limb exercise results in an acute decrease in brachial artery FMD of ~1.4% in healthy men. However, we have shown for the first time that prior RIPC of the lower limbs maintains postexercise brachial artery endothelium-dependent function at preexercise levels.


For audio signals, we use the sign of the coefficients of the redundant discrete wavelet transform to generate primary hash vectors assigning bit 1 to positive or zero coefficients and bit 0 in the negative case. Discarding the highest frequency band and using a 6 step transform we get for each sample a 6 bit primary hash value which we may save as an integer. We then select a possible primary hash value (in our experiments we chose 0 or 63) and take the time indices where this primary hash value occurs as the secondary hash vector which is attributed to the whole audio signal. Comparing two audio signals, the number of elements in the intersection of the corresponding time indices are called "number of matches", a high number may indicate a similarity between the files. This secondary hash vector turns out to be robust against addition of noise, GSM-, G.726-, MP3 coding and packet loss. It may therefore be useful to detect spam telephone calls without analyzing the semantic content by the similarity of the corresponding signals. An algorithm is given to detect similar but shifted signals. Results of experiments are reported using a test corpus of 5 000 audio files of regular calls and 200 audio files of different versions of 20 original spam recordings augmented by a set of 45 files of different versions of 9 "special spam" signals.


Many learning algorithms use a metric defined over the input space as a principal tool, and their performance critically depends on the quality of this metric. We address the problem of learning metrics using side-information in the form of equivalence constraints. Unlike labels, we demonstrate that this type of side-information can sometimes be automatically obtained without the need of human intervention. We show how such side-information can be used to modify the representation of the data, leading to improved clustering and classification.Specifically, we present the Relevant Component Analysis (RCA) algorithm, which is a simple and efficient algorithm for learning a Mahalanobis metric. We show that RCA is the solution of an interesting optimization problem, founded on an information theoretic basis. If dimensionality reduction is allowed within RCA, we show that it is optimally accomplished by a version of Fisher's linear discriminant that uses constraints. Moreover, under certain Gaussian assumptions, RCA can be viewed as a Maximum Likelihood estimation of the within class covariance matrix. We conclude with extensive empirical evaluations of RCA, showing its advantage over alternative methods.


We report simulation and experiment results of modal behaviors of photonic crystal (PhC) tapers on InP-based materials designed to improve coupling efficiency of the PhC waveguide mode into a cleaved-facet single-mode fiber. The modal distributions of transmitted power are simulated by two-dimensional finite difference time domain (2D-FDTD) calculation and the measured far-field patterns are in agreement with these calculations. The 34.4 mum-long PhC taper with Gaussian curve geometry is demonstrated to have an enhancement of coupling efficiency by a factor of four compared to the direct coupling from a W3 PhC defect waveguide.


Why Do You Think They Call It CAPITAL Punishment? Reading the Killing State Austin Sarat, When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2001. xii + 324 pages. Introduction: The Death Penalty and Socio-Legal Scholarship Austin Sarat is widely known for work on cause lawyering, divorce lawyers, and white collar crime, and for influential arguments on behalf of integrating humanities topics and methods into empirical studies of law and society. Sarat is not, however, particularly known as a death penalty scholar, an intensive sub-field of socio-legal studies that has been dominated by scholars wholly captured by the compelling nature of the subject.1 A reader of Sarat's bibliography would have to go back to 1976 when Sarat, as a young political scientist, published research coauthored with an equally junior psychologist, Neil Vidmar, on how public opinion on the death penalty was affected by targeted education on particular aspects of the death penalty including empirical studies doubting its deterrent effects, and on other information designed to raise concerns about the justice of capital punishment (Sarat & Vidmar 1976). In terms of both its methodology and the logic of its inquiry, When the State Kills could hardly differ more from the Sarat and Vidmar study. Between the two, one can mark significant shifts in both the enterprise of sociolegal studies and the place of capital punishment in American political culture. The 1976 study of public opinion on the death penalty reflected its time in two ways. First, the authors exemplified the flow of young social scientists trained in empirical methods (especially survey research) at the best university social science centers into legal studies via foundation grants and access to prestigious law schools. Theirs was the promise of research that was simultaneously about conjectural policy issues and fundamental questions of social order (Garth & Sterling 1998). It is hard to think of a question that more powerfully presented the hopes and fears of this largely liberal, reform-oriented cohort than the subject of the death penalty and in particular Justice Marshall's provocative claim in Furman v. Georgia (1972) that only if Americans were truly confronted with the racism and arbitrariness of the death penalty in America could their continued assent (if it was indeed forthcoming) indicate that the death penalty was still acceptable in terms of the 8th Amendment's evolving standards of human decency. This is because whether or not a punishment is cruel and unusual depends, not on whether its mere mention "shocks the conscience and sense of justice of the people," but on whether people who were fully informed as to the purposes of the penalty and its liabilities would find the penalty shocking, unjust, and unacceptable. (Furman v. Georgia 1972:361). Second, the study reflected a sense that American public opinion on the death penalty was fluid and in transition. The young socio-legal scholars drew a random sample of subjects living conveniently in the town where one of them taught (not a particularly representative place, to be sure) on their views regarding different aspects of the death penalty. During the course of the interview, subjects were shown short essays containing critical information about the death penalty as unfair, error prone, and discriminatory. Sarat and Vidmar's results offered at best partial support for Marshall's hypothesis. Knowledge about the empirical failures of the death penalty-that is, its lack of deterrent value, only moved those most marginally supportive of the death penalty to begin with. New information about the unfairness of the death penalty led respondents to view the death penalty as less fair overall but, disturbingly, did not erode their general support for it. Despite the rapid pace of legal changes and the fact that a slight majority had opposed the death penalty in the late 1960s, by 1976 public opinion had already swung decidedly in favor of the death penalty and showed little likelihood of shifting through new information (Banner 2002:275). …


This thesis is in two parts. The first discusses many uncertainties associated with the widely used HadCRUT4 global temperature dataset. The second part deals with three other issues in climate science, viz (i) the possible relationship between cloud cover and global average temperature; (ii) a better indicator of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation; and (iii) the probability of severe coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef prior to 1998.

Part 1

The HadCRUT4 dataset provides information about temperatures over as much of the Earth's surface for which historical temperature recordings are available. It is regularly cited by government authorities and by organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and yet very little appears in the scientific literature about its errors and uncertainties other than from within the organizations responsible for its collation. Authors of the IPCC's Fifth Climate Assessment Report (2013) admitted during the review process for that report that no audit of the HadCRUT4 dataset or any associated dataset had been undertaken.

Given that governments are deciding energy and climate policies on claims based on the HadCRUT4 dataset, an independent audit of its accuracy and uncertainties was undertaken using data from 1850 to 2015. The audit covers a broad range of issues but leaves the quantifying of the impact of such errors to others, save for some general comments about the direction of changes in error margins.

Bespoke software revealed many areas of concern. Data coverage was found to vary between 12% and 91% of the Earth's surface, which means that any declared "global average" assumes that temperatures over the part of the world for which no data was available were identical to that average. It also assumes that meaningful trends can be calculated even though the coverage varies. Also revealed was that when coverage was low it was found to be concentrated on particular regions, meaning for example that less than 13% of a hemisphere might account for more than 60% of the data coverage for that hemisphere in a given month.

Sample size was another problem. A single observation station in the entire Southern hemisphere reported data in the first three years of the HadCRUT4 record and only nine were reporting by 1859. The data is processed and presented on a monthly basis as values for each grid cell, each of which covers 5° latitude x 5° longitude. More than 30% of the grid cells derived from sea surface temperature do so from 1850 to about 1950 on the basis of from one to five measurements in the entire month.

Outliers were also discovered in the data, even in the 30-year period from 1961 to 1990 over which long-term average temperatures are calculated and sometimes in the longer period over which standard deviations were calculated. Their presence in these periods firstly widens the range of acceptable values (i.e. includes the inclusion of other outliers) and secondly distorts the crucial long-term average temperatures.

Numerous other inconsistencies and uncertainties were identified, including differences between dataset values that should be identical, unexplained differences between land and sea temperatures, inconsistent sources of coastal temperature data, questionable "bulk adjustment" to sea surface temperature data, poor data quality control and possible errors in the processing of land and sea temperature data prior to their submission for inclusion in the dataset.

Over 25 findings are presented in the summary to part 1of the thesis, the most serious being that HadCRUT4 global averages prior to 1950 are of limited value because for almost all of the period from 1850 to 1950 the coverage of the Earth's surface was less than 50%. The summary also proposes how a new historical dataset with fewer uncertainties and inconsistencies might be constructed from some but not all of the existing data.

Part 2

Three topics are covered in this section. The first is a published paper that attributes the pattern in HadCRUT4 global average temperature anomalies since 1950 firstly to a change in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation after 1977 from having few El Nino events to having many, then from 1987 to 1997 to a general reduction in cloud cover. Since 1997 the trend in global average temperature is minimal but low-level cloud cover has decreased while mid to upper level cloud cover have correspondingly increased.

The second topic focuses on an alternative to the commonly used Troup Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), which is used to indicate the state of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is based on sea-level pressure (SLP) at just two locations - Darwin (Australia) and Tahiti (French Polynesia). It proposes that an ensemble index be created from data at six other locations, three in the eastern Pacific and three in the western Pacific or further west. The ensemble index is shown to have three significant advantages. Firstly, it provides better coverage of the entire region where mean sea level pressure is directly related to ENSO conditions. Secondly, and somewhat related, is that data noise such as that caused by small-scale weather conditions at one or two locations is less likely to have a major impact on the ensemble SOI than in the Troup-SOI. Thirdly, and less significant, it is refining an existing index rather than introducing a new one.

The third topic addresses the often-repeated claim that severe and extensive coral bleaching on Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) driven by warm water first occurred in 1998. Regular aerial surveys of the GBR did not commence until the late 1990s so to address the question of earlier severe bleaching four different techniques are used.

The first approach uses statistical and probability argument based on known recent bleaching events and Willis Island temperature data to conclude that the probability of bleaching in one or more years of the period from 1922 to 1997 is at least 0.6.

The second approach considers previous instances of El Nino events during summer months, such events being related to bleaching overseas and along the GBR in recent years. El Nino events during eighteen summer months over the period 1939 to 1997 were identified, the strongest occurring in 1983 when extensive coral bleaching was reported in the eastern Pacific near Panama and in waters off Indonesia.

The third considers the number of warm summer days and the maximum length of sequences of warm days according to temperature records from the observation station on Willis Island, about 350 km east of the GBR. Warm summers prior to 1998 include those which ended in 1944 and 1964, the latter coming immediately after a short El Nino event that weakened in January of that year.

The final approach was to analyse sea temperature records in the ICOADS database that applied to summer and the GBR, with the data divided into three bands, each spanning 5° of latitude. An examination of the proportion of warm days revealed that of the 37 observations made in the northern third of the reef during March 1970 33 include reports of temperatures ≥29°C and 25 of temperatures ≥30°C. Sequences of warm days were also examined, this revealing sea temperatures ≥30°C on nine successive days in the middle third of the reef commencing 25 December 1923 and seven successive days in the northern third of the reef in late March 1983.

Contrary to various claims, severe coral bleaching on the GBR prior to 1998 seems likely with a probability of ~0.6 that bleaching occurred in one or more summers from 1922 to 1997, with the other methods suggesting it was most likely in the summers ending in 1983 and 1963.


The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 Barbican Art Gallery, London 23 March–25 June 2017

When reviewing, in these pages, the 2015 exhibition The World of Charles and Ray Eames at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, I observed how the building's heavy, windowless gallery had been imbued with some of the sunlight of Southern California.1 In the recent exhibition The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 , curated by Florence Ostende and designed by Lucy Styles, the re-creation by Ryue Nishizawa (the N in SANAA) of his Moriyama House in Tokyo (2005) made the defamiliarization of the gallery almost complete.

Architecture and life started afresh in Japan after 1945 and the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In architecture, this was demonstrated by the rejection of both teikan yōshiki , the Imperial Crown style that recalled the great disaster of the war, and Western modernism, which was the architecture of the conqueror. In their place, Kenzō Tange promoted the zakuri style of the imperial villa at Katsura, while Seiichi Shirai turned to the minka , the vernacular farmhouse architecture that stretched back to the ancient Jōmon period. Both themes reoccurred in photographs, drawings, and the occasional installation throughout the exhibition. More difficult to identify was "life," a concept characterized at the beginning of the exhibition by the films of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse, which …


Key points Immissions (=concentration of air pollutants in the ambient atmosphere) result from the intensity and the type of emissions of air pollutants, the dispersion of air pollutants and their transportation. The main air pollution indicators are SO2, NOx, PM, CO, VOC and O3. Road traffic has become the first source of air pollution in urban areas. Health effects caused by air pollutants depend on the absorbed dose, the type of pollutants and the individual susceptibility. Educational aims To provide a thorough presentation of sources, dispersion and transformation of major air pollutants. To describe the health effects of these air pollutants. To explain the differences between emissions, immissions, exposure and absorbed dose. To help readers to understand what is at stake in the topical scientific and political debate on air pollution. Summary Air pollution, particularly in urban areas, constitutes a public health concern, as it has a harmful effect on the health, survival and activities of humans and other living organisms. Here, the main types of air pollution commonly found in urban environments are presented, along with their sources, levels of emissions, mechanisms of dispersion, transformation, concentrations in ambient air (=immissions), and effects on the environment and health. In particular, the concepts of exposure, absorbed dose and individual susceptibility are explained. The recent evolution in air pollutant emissions and immissions due to the growing weight of road traffic is also described. Finally, European air quality criteria are highlighted.


A lack of understanding of the fundamental mechanisms governing atomic-scale adhesion and friction creates ongoing challenges as technologically-relevant devices are miniaturized. One major class of failure mechanisms of such devices results from high friction, adhesion, and wear. This thesis presents investigations into methods by which atomic-scale friction and adhesion can be controlled. Using atomic force microscopy (AFM), friction and adhesion properties of graphene were examined. While friction between the tip and graphene depends on thickness, as explained by the â??puckering effectâ??, adhesion is independent of the thickness when measured conventionally. However, adhesion is transiently higher when measured after the tip has slid over the graphene. This effect is caused by increased adhesiveness between graphene and tip due to aging. Second, chemical modification of graphene, specifically fluorination, affects friction strongly, with friction monotonically increases with increasing degree of fluorination. As supported by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, this dependence is attributed to the fact that attachment of fluorine to graphene greatly enhances the local energy barrier for sliding, thereby significantly altering the energy landscape experienced by the tip. Finally, through matched AFM and MD, the speed dependence of atomic friction was explored within the framework of the Prandtl-Tomlinson model with thermal activation (PTT). For the first time, experiments and simulations are performed at overlapping scanning speeds. While friction was found to increase with the log of speed in both AFM and MD, consistent with the PTT model, friction in experiments was larger than in MD. Analysis revealed that the discrepancy was largely attributable to the differences in contact area and tip masses used in experiments vs. in simulation. Accounting for the overall influence of the two with the presence of instrument noise fully resolves the discrepancy. Through those novel studies and findings, it has been demonstrated that atomic-scale friction and adhesion can be controlled and understood, assisting the development of applications where variable or constant friction and adhesion are desired. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics First Advisor Robert W. Carpick


Objective: Uric acid is the last product of purine metabolism and a protective antioxidant against the oxidative stress. The clinical picture is an important diagnostic parameter, serum uric acid; gut disease, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, stroke, kidney and cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, with changes in proteinand amino acid metabolism of living beings exposed to heat stress, protein degradation increases rapidly and serum uric acid levels increase. This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of Eucalytus glabutus labii (eucalyptus), Tymus vulgaris (thyme), Cymbopogon nardus (lemon grass) and Syzgium aromaticum(clove) plants, which were added at different doses to the drinking water of broilers under temperature stress, (EOM) on the serum uric acid level.Materials and methods: In this study, Ross-308 male broiler chicks were used as animal material for 400 days. In each group, there will be 50 animals, and 8 different groups will be grouped as 10 in each segment. The study lasted for 42 days by dividing into 5 subgroups to be applied to 22°C stressed and 36°C stressed groups (control, EOM (essential oil mixture) -250, EOM-500, EOM-750. At the end of the trial, 10 animals randomly selected from each group after the application of 80 animals cervical dislocation methods, the level of uric acid in blood serum samples was examined. Findings: The serum uric acid levels in the experimental groups were 8.04, 11.84, 7.92, 7.96 mg/dl at 22°C and 7.42, 4.66, 12.30, 8.76 mg/dl respectively in the broiler group at 36°C stress. Results: In the study, EOM-250 ml/1000 doses of EOM-500 ml/1000 lt doses of EOM-500 ml/1000 lt doses were increased in stressed groups at 36°C while the addition of EOM was not statistically different at different doses to drinking water at 22°C stress (p<0.05).


Investors require additional expected returns for bearing costs and risks. The equity premium is the compensation investors require for bearing the additional costs and risks of equity investment compared with government bonds (or cash). In this framework, the equity premium is constructed by assembling the premiums paid for each source of cost and risk. The results appeal to intuition and are closer to theoretical expectations than historical equity and bond return comparisons.


The asymmetric bioreduction of α,β-unsaturated γ-keto esters using ene-reductases from the Old Yellow Enzyme family proceeds with excellent stereoselectivity and high conversion levels, covering a broad range of acyclic and cyclic derivatives. Various strategies were employed to provide access to both enantiomers, which are versatile precursors of bioactive molecules. The regioselectivity of hydride addition on di-activated alkenes was elucidated by isotopic labeling experiments and showed strong preference for the keto moiety as activating/binding group as opposed to the ester. Finally, chemoenzymatic synthesis of (R)-2-(2-oxocyclohexyl)acetic acid was achieved in high ee on a preparative scale combining enzymatic reduction followed by ester hydrogenolysis.


Gamification is the next big innovation in the field of rehabilitation, and makes use of remote sensors and aspects of video game design to engage patients in their rehab and make it more accessible, which in turn encourages participation and so keeps costs down.Exergames was our attempt to develop this possibility, and is a successful collaboration between The University of Manchester, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and MIRA REHAB Ltd. It lead to the development of several exergames, designed to use the Microsoft Kinect sensor, and all of which use exercises known to help prevent falls and improve function in older people.Falls are a common problem for the UK?s ever growing ageing population. Every year, around 10% of older people are treated by a doctor due to a fall and approximately 100,000 older people in Europe die from a fall related injury each year, according to 2013 data by the European Association for Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion (Eurosafe).The aims of the project were to develop exergames that took into account the views of older people to ensure that the designs were appropriate, attractive and at the right level in terms of speed and difficulty. Two focus groups made up of older people were held prior to the start of the design phase of the project, and, once completed, the exergames were tested on volunteers in a clinical environment by physiotherapists in order to gain feedback.The exergames themselves were based on the FaME and Otago strength and balance exercise programme, which has been proven to reduce falls in older people. They were also built upon the clinical rehabilitation tool, MIRA. This contains a patient management component, designed for doctors and physiotherapists, and can store detailed patient files, including statistical data obtained during rehab sessions.This data is of the utmost importance, as it offers adherence statistics, which is to say, the number of exergames played, along with their frequency and duration, and progress statistics, such as the number of points scored, distance, speed, acceleration and overall activity level during the games. At the time this project began, the platform contained some exergames, mainly for upper limb rehabilitation.The feedback from the collaborators was very important, as the games were based on exercises that constitute best practice in terms of preventing falls. We also needed feedback regarding gaming and interaction preferences for older people, as they were the primary target. This challenge was easily overcome by using a natural interaction sensor, Microsoft?s Kinect, with an easy to understand intuitive interface and by creating games with a simple interface, interesting content and adapted dynamics


Abstract. The Wilkins Ice Shelf is situated on the Antarctic Peninsula, a region where seven ice shelves disintegrated or retreated between 1995 and 2002. This study combines various remote sensing datasets from Wilkins Ice Shelf, with the aim of detecting its present and recent dynamics as well as recent changes. The survey includes structural mapping, ERS-1/2 SAR interferometry and analysis of ICESat GLAS ice surface elevation data. Ice front retreat rates from 1986 to 2008 showed several distinct break-up events, including one in February 2008, when 40% of a part of the ice shelf that connected two islands broke off. Surface elevations have been used to study tidal effects, crack formation and to estimate the ice thickness over the floating area. The derived interferometric velocities cover the south-eastern part of the ice shelf as well as major tributaries and reveal maximum inflow speeds of up to 330 m a−1. We show that drainage of melt ponds into crevasses were of no relevance for the break-up at Wilkins Ice Shelf. Buoyancy forces caused rift formation before the break-up in February 2008. Additionally, the evolution of failure zones of the order of tenths of kilometres in length in pre-conditioned locations at ice rises is shown. Investigation of the current (February 2009) situation shows that about 3100 km2 at the Northern Wilkins Ice Shelf are endangered, however, there is no visible signature that the remaining 8000 km2 are at risk.


Tunnelling is one of the most paradigmatic and evocative phenomena of quantum physics, underlying processes such as photosynthesis and nuclear fusion, as well as devices ranging from SQUID magnetometers to superconducting qubits for quantum computers. The question of how long a particle takes to tunnel, however, has remained controversial since the first attempts to calculate it, which relied on the group delay. It is now well understood that this delay (the arrival time of the transmitted wave packet peak at the far side of the barrier) can be smaller than the barrier thickness divided by the speed of light, without violating causality. There have been a number of experiments confirming this, and even a recent one claiming that tunnelling may take no time at all. There have also been efforts to identify another timescale, which would better describe how long a given particle spends in the barrier region. Here we present a direct measurement of such a time, studying Bose-condensed $^{87}$Rb atoms tunnelling through a 1.3-${\mu}$m thick optical barrier. By localizing a pseudo-magnetic field inside the barrier, we use the spin precession of the atoms as a clock to measure the time it takes them to cross the classically forbidden region. We find a traversal time of 0.62(7) ms and study its dependence on incident energy. In addition to finally shedding light on the fundamental question of the tunnelling time, this experiment lays the groundwork for addressing deep foundational questions about history in quantum mechanics: for instance, what can we learn about where a particle was at earlier times by observing where it is now?


An experimental technique was developed that uses infrared tomography to measure the three-dimensional vapor distribution above an evaporating sessile drop. The technique was applied to measure the vapor distributions above evaporating drops of hexane and 3-methylpentane (3MP) at room temperature and pressure. The molecular masses of these two species are heavier than air and the vapor from the evaporating drop forms a flat, disk-shaped cloud. A Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) was used to measure the spectral absorbance along a set of paths passing through the vapor cloud. From a set of pathaveraged absorbance measurements, a two-dimensional spatial concentration distribution was determined using a computed tomography routine. A three-dimensional concentration distribution was obtained from multiple two-dimensional distributions obtained at different elevations above the drop. The vapor distributions for both hexane and 3MP differ significantly from the values predicted by the solutions for diffusionlimited evaporation and indicate the effect of buoyancy-induced convection of the vapor. These measurements are the first quantitative measurements of the vapor distribution above a sessile drop and are important for advancing the understanding of the vapor phase transport mechanisms, and thus sessile drop evaporation.


Abstract Rheological, porosimetric, and SEM studies of cements with additions of natural zeolites (chabazite, mordenite and clinoptilolite) were investigated. The addition of 5% zeolite to cement pastes had a plastifying effect. The increase in the rheological parameters of aqueous cement-zeolite suspensions began after additions of more than 10% zeolite. At a water/solid ratio (w/s) = 0.5 all compositions exhibited similar rheological behaviour for yield stress and maximum shear stress values. At lower w/s values the rheology depended on the zeolite used, decreasing in the order Sl (clinoptilolite, Nižny Hrabovec deposit, Slovakia), M (mordenite, Philipines), Bp (clinoptilolite, Beli Plast deposit, Bulgaria), NM clinoptilolite, Saint Cloud deposit, New Mexico) and Ch (chabazite, Nasm Yan deposit, Korea). After 28 days of hydration the mixtures containing 10% Bp clinoptilolite, mordenite, and Sl clinoptilolite (up to 30%) had unchanged specific pore volumes but additions of 10% and 30% of chabazite and NM clinoptilolite and of 30% mordenite and Bp clinoptilolite lead to increases in the total specific pore volume compared to the neat cement paste. Between the 28th and 180th days of hydration the specific volume of the pores in all the cement-zeolite pastes decreased due to the filling of the pores with products from the pozzolanic reaction between the zeolites and the hydration products of the cement. The pozzolanic reaction between zeolite and the hydration products of cement is enhanced by the zeolite content in the samples and depends on the Si/Al ratio (clinoptilolite (Si/Al >4.5), mordenite (Si/Al >5), chabazite (Si/Al <2.5)) and the surface area (clinoptilolite from Slovakia has the smallest crystallites and, hence, the greatest reactive surface area).


The cardiovascular morbidity is increasing in India in recent years. The present study was done to know the effect of yoga on heart rate and blood pressure in healthy volunteers above the age of 40 years. The cardiovascular status of the subjects was assessed clinically in terms of resting heart rate and blood pressure before the start of yoga practice and again after 6 months of yoga practice. The results were compared and analysed with respect to age, sex and body mass index. From the study it was observed that significant reduction in the heart rate occurs in the subjects practicing yoga (P < 0.001). The systolic blood pressure was lowered to a highly significant level (P < 0.001). The diastolic blood pressure was reduced significantly (P < 0.001). This shows that the yoga provides significant improvement in ageing to reduce the morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular diseases.


Income contingent loans are an increasingly popular tool for funding higher education. These loans have desirable features, but also potentially high overall government write-offs in the long run. This latter fact has been well documented, but little is known about how those write-offs vary by subgroups of borrowers. It is important to quantify this and also to understand how it is affected by the design of the higher education system. Estimation is challenging because it requires the projection of earnings of graduates many years into the future. In this paper, we use English Student Loan Company records with information on borrowing, course, and institution linked to offcial tax records that give earnings for up to 11 years after graduation. Our innovative econometric methods fuse administrative tax records of graduates since they left university with graduate survey data to allow us to extrapolate through the life cycle for the remainder of the loan contract. Our methodology is potentially applicable in a wide range of settings that uses incomplete administrative data. We estimate government subsidies through unpaid loans in England at the subject and institution level for the fi rst time, fi nding considerable heterogeneity in both. England is an interesting case study due to the signi cant reforms to higher education over the past twenty years. We show that these reforms have had strong implications for the distribution of government spending on higher education.


Over the past three decades, government regulation and funding of DNA testing has reshaped the use of genetic evidence across various fields, including criminal law, family law, and employment law. Courts have struggled with questions of when and whether to treat genetic evidence as implicating individual rights, policy trade-offs, or federalism problems. We identify two modes of genetic testing: identification testing, used to establish a person's identity, and predictive testing, which seeks to predict outcomes for a person. Judges and lawmakers have often drawn a bright line at predictive testing, while allowing uninhibited identity testing. The U.S. Supreme Court in Maryland v. King, for example, held that entering arrestee DNA in databanks does not implicate substantial Fourth Amendment concerns, since police do not test for genetic predispositions "not relevant to identity." We argue that policy implications of genetic testing laws cannot be so neatly demarked. For example, federal welfare laws require states to use DNA to establish paternity to collect child support from "deadbeat dads," which may be relevant to identity, but also creates potentially destabilizing effects on families. We explore how genetic testing has been legally regulated across a variety of fields. We identify two dominant modes of regulatory action dealing with genetics: data-driven and ethics-based. Data-driven legislation is ostensibly focused on short-term benefits of gathering a population's genetic information. Ethics-based legislation, in contrast, is concerned with long-term consequences, such as effects on privacy. We particularly critique data-driven legislation, and we argue that judges, legislators and scholars should focus squarely on the individual and government interests at stake. We set out a list of five factors that legal actors should consider when considering genetics regulation: (1) equality, (2) accuracy, (3) privacy, (4) finality, and (5) federalism. In particular, equality concerns permeate the short history of DNA regulation. In each of the areas explored, comparatively disadvantaged groups such as arrestees, convicts, juveniles, noncitizens, and welfare recipients, have received the most intrusive regulation and collection of their genetic evidence, while comparatively privileged persons benefit from enhanced genetic privacy. We conclude that the regulation of genetic evidence deserves far more careful legal scrutiny, since the ways that genetic evidence is deployed can profoundly affect constitutional rights and the structure of legal and social institutions.


Over the last decades, the pressure on the university to facilitate direct application and exploitation of its knowledge and capabilities to contribute to social, cultural, and economic development has steadily increased. As a result, new missions have been recognized to universities, new theoretical frameworks have been developed, and new university models have been proposed, including the "entrepreneurial university", the "civic university", the "community-engaged university", the "transformative university" or the "interconnected university". Thus, a corresponding advancement of performance metrics and indicators used to assess the impact of university activities is required. Through a bibliometric and then a critical review of the extant literature, this study provides: i) an overall picture of the state-of-art of literature on universities' missions and roles in regional development; ii) a systematisation of the contributions on performance measures and indicators of universities' activities.


The origin and propagation of the European sovereign debt crisis can be attributed to the flawed original design of the euro. In particular, there was an incomplete understanding of the fragility of a monetary union under crisis conditions, especially in the absence of banking union and other European-level buffer mechanisms. Moreover, the inherent messiness involved in proposing and implementing incremental multicountry crisis management responses on the fly has been an important destabilizing factor throughout the crisis. After diagnosing the situation, we consider reforms that might improve the resilience of the euro area to future fiscal shocks.


This paper explores the central role of computerized code in shaping the social and geographical politics of inequality in advanced societies. The central argument is that, while such processes are necessarily multifaceted, multiscaled, complex and ambivalent, a great variety of `software-sorting' techniques is now being widely applied in efforts to try to separate privileged and marginalized groups and places across a wide range of sectors and domains. This paper's central demonstration is that the overwhelming bulk of software-sorting applications is closely associated with broader transformations from Keynesian to neoliberal service regimes. To illustrate such processes of software-sorting, the paper analyses recent research addressing three examples of software-sorting in practice. These address physical and electronic mobility systems, online geographical information systems (GIS), and face-recognition closed circuit television (CCTV) systems covering city streets. The paper finishes by identifying theoretical, research and policy implications of the diffusion of software-sorted geographies within which computerized code continually orchestrates inequalities through technological systems embedded within urban environments.


In this paper, we conduct the novel exercise of analyzing the relationship between overall wealth inequality and caste divisions in India using nationally representative surveys on household wealth conducted during 1991–92 and 2002–03. According to our findings, the groups in India that are generally considered disadvantaged (known as Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes) have, as one would expect, substantially lower wealth than the "forward" caste groups, while the Other Backward Classes and non-Hindus occupy positions in the middle. Using the ANOGI decomposition technique, we estimate that between-caste inequality accounted for about 13 percent of overall wealth inequality in 2002–03, in part due to the considerable heterogeneity within the broadly defined caste groups. The stratification parameters indicate that the forward caste Hindus overlap little with the other caste groups, while the latter have significantly higher degrees of overlap with one another and with the overall population. Using this method, we are also able to comment on the emergence and strengthening of a "creamy layer," or relatively well-off group, among the disadvantaged castes, especially the Scheduled Tribes.


Abstract The current strong motivation to explore those traces of the archaeological and prehistoric human heritage that presently lie submerged on the continental shelf requires large-scale and precise underwater mapping. One Mediterranean sector deserving particular attention is the Sicily Channel, which is critical for a better understanding of the Africa–Europe migratory routes and early civilization patterns due to its large expanses of shallow seabed that were partially or totally exposed at times of lower relative sea levels. We have focused our attention on the submerged continental margin of the Maltese archipelago. A detailed bathymetric map is here presented, and is discussed in terms of features interpretable as former subaerial landforms and inundated by sea-level rise following the Last Glacial Maximum lowstand at approximately –130 m. Our datasets combine multibeam surveys, Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR)-derived digital terrain models (DTMs), Chirp sub-bottom profiler records and bottom samples acquired between 2009 and 2012. The main features identified are former river incisions, alluvial plains, karst landscapes (sinkholes, limestone plateaus), slide deposits and palaeoshorelines. This study provides a detailed topographical reconstruction of the palaeolandscape of this key region that is relevant to any future archaeological exploration of the Maltese offshore area.


Reproductive biology of Oreochromis niloticus in Beseka was studied. Samples of O.niloticus were collected monthly during September 2010 to August 2011 using different centimeter mesh sizes of gillnets. The relationship between total length and total weight was curvilinear and sex ratio was different throughout the sampling periods. The 50% sexual maturity length (L50) was estimated at 14 cm TL for females and 17 cm TL for males. Estimated fecundity was linearly related with total length and total weight of the fish. Absolute fecundity was estimated in number and range from 125 to 251 with a mean of 161 ± 2.5. The frequency of ripe gonads suggested that O. niloticus in Lake Beseka breeds throughout the year and intensive breeding coincided with the rainy seasons.

 Key words: Breeding season, length-weight, Oreochromis niloticus, sex ratio, fecundity, Lake Beseka.


Akin to cardiac stress testing, functional integrity of the peripheral vasculature can be interrogated by measuring the response to a stimulus. Recent reports suggest that the reactive hyperemia response, the physiologic reaction following induced ischemia, is associated with disease presence, correlated with disease severity, and may be a sensitive biomarker of pre-clinical disease. In this dissertation, an innovative, interleaved magnetic resonance imaging method is developed, termed Perfusion, Intravascular Venous Oxygen saturation, and T2* (PIVOT), which simultaneously measures microvascular perfusion, venous oxygen saturation (SvO2), and the blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal. PIVOT is first applied in healthy subjects to demonstrate its ability to measure reactive hyperemia response dynamics. Next, reactive hyperemia perfusion is compared between the more temporally efficient pulsed arterial spin labeling (PASL) used in PIVOT and the more recently developed and preferred method for the brain, pseudocontinuous ASL (pCASL). Assessment of the impact of blood flow variability throughout the ischemiareperfusion paradigm on pCASL perfusion quantification is investigated. Then, both PASL and pCASL sequences are used to measure reactive hyperemia perfusion in healthy subjects. No significant differences were detected between perfusion measured with PASL or pCASL despite different labeling strategies, temporal resolutions, and perfusion quantification models. Subsequently, PIVOT is combined with a velocity-encoded dual-echo GRE to create an interleaved three-slice sequence that provides quantification of bulk blood flow in the arteries and veins in addition to the traditional PIVOT measures. This new sequence, termed Velocity and PIVOT (vPIVOT) is used to investigate the relationship of blood flow in the macroand microvasculature and muscle oxygen consumption during the transition from exercise to rest. Finally, PIVOT is applied clinically in a cohort of patients with varying degrees of severity of peripheral artery disease. Increasing disease severity was correlated with a prolongation of the hyperemic response time, measured as a lengthening of time to peak perfusion, SvO2 washout time, and time to peak T2*. In addition, peak perfusion and SvO2 upslope were significantly different between patients with PAD and healthy controls. These results suggest the potential for PIVOT to evaluate disease severity and may present a tool to assess response to therapeutic intervention. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Bioengineering This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1700 First Advisor Felix W. Wehrli


This paper considers the control of a series active filter integrated with a double-series diode rectifier. It is shown that, as result of delays introduced by digital control, current-mode control is preferred to voltage-mode control for digital implementations. A Fourier-based method for generating balanced current references with optimized power factor is presented. The advantage of current-mode control is illustrated by simulation and the Fourier-based method is verified by experiment.


This paper showed the results of a qualitative investigation that looked into intracultural communication between Brazilian teachers and students of English, and intercultural communication between American teachers and Brazilian students of English. The aims were to identify and describe contextualization cues used by both Brazilian and American speakers of English, and to connect these cues with sociocultural differences. Data was collected through footage of English classes in Brazil and through interviews with American English teachers. The analyses of the footage and the interviews have shown that, while assertiveness could be related to the sociological dimension of individualism in the American culture, compliance, as perceived in verbal interactions, could be connected with the collectivist orientation of the Brazilian culture. Moreover, the higher-context communication style in the Brazilian culture and the lower-context communication style in the American culture (when contrasted with each other) were found to be able to account for differences in the use of politeness strategies. The results showed the importance of making English students aware of contextualization conventions.


Integrated reporting (IR) is a new communication tool that is gaining increasing attention among scholars, practitioners, and standard setters in both the private and public sectors. Therefore, it is important to discuss the suitability of the framework proposed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). This paper offers some reflections based on case studies of public entities that differ in terms of legal structures, locations, and business models to demonstrate—despite legal and cultural requirements—that some common features exist. The primary aim is to discuss whether IR represents a new challenge for public sector organisations, specifically regarding their stakeholder engagement and their pursuit of greater accountability. In doing so, the selected case studies are examined through a theoretical framework based on the growing IR literature and specific objectives recognised by the Framework. The results that emerge from this study can be beneficial for both scholars and practitioners, enabling the identification of new paths towards improving reporting in public entities to achieve high stakeholder engagement and overcome the possible limitations of the IR model that has been proposed thus far.

 Key words: Integrated reporting, integrated reporting framework, stakeholder engagement, public sector entities, accountability, state-owned enterprises.


Spike Milligan's letters contain some of the best material he ever wrote...Collected here for the first time are the funniest, rudest and most revealing of them - most of which have never been seen before - from one of the greatest comics of the twentieth century to some of its most famous politicians, actors, celebrities and rock stars (as well as a host of unlikely individuals on some surprising subjects): rounded teabags ('what did you do with the corners?'); backless hospital gowns ('beyond my comprehension'); and heartfelt apologies ('pardon me for being alive') and the imbalance of male and female ducks in London's parks. Here, then, is the real Spike Miligan: obsessive, rude, generous and relentlessly witty. "Milligan's zaniness shines through". (Telegraph). "The godfather of alternative comedy". (Eddie Izzard). Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.


The Danish e-commerce strategy is a highly ambitious effort to become the world's leading IT nation. Instead of a production-led approach aimed at stimulating domestic hardware and software production, Denmark has pursued a demand-oriented approach focused on promoting the widespread adoption of e-commerce in the Danish society. The Danish government has developed a number of e-commerce initiatives via public-private sector partnerships--an approach we refer to as "governance." So far, it appears that Denmark has been successful in promoting business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, with a number of Danish companies being global leaders in the use of B2B applications. On the other hand, Denmark has had less success in achieving widespread use of business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. This article analyzes the Danish national environment for e-commerce, discusses four sets of governance initiatives aimed at the development of e-commerce, and analyzes the reasons for its success in B2B and relative failure in B2C adoption.


Hi-Spot are highly re-aggregated neural cultures grown on PTFE membrane at the liquidair interface. The Hi-Spot protocol was developed by scientists at Capsant Neurotechnologies using embryonic neural tissue. We characterised Hi-Spots made using existing protocols to confirm they represented a maturing neural network with molecular, cellular and functional signatures. We have additionally modified existing protocols to allow use of postnatal tissue as the source for dissociation and re-aggregation. Hi-Spots made from postnatal day zero (P0) rats self organised into a complex 3D tissue-like structure containing anatomically synaptically-interconnected neurons, astroglia and microglia. This CNS analogue of brain tissue provides for the emergence of a co-ordinated excitatory and inhibitory network, demonstrating a maturing pattern of activity involving single spikes developing into bursting behaviour driven by intrinsic synaptic activity. This activity can be represented as frequency or averaged amplitude (RMS), increases with time in culture and is blocked by glutamate receptor antagonists and stimulated by the inhibitory receptor antagonist bicuculline. The validity of its more in vivo-like organization, not observed in more conventional dissociated cultures, is evidenced by a glutamate toxicity resistance in the Hi-Spot cultures. Further, the thesis describes the optimisations to the Hi-Spot protocol to allow viable high density re-aggregated cultures to be made from individual rather than pooled brain dissociations. Modifications to the protocol included dissociation of the mouse tissue using a protease papain kit and cell plating at an increased cell density. Using this as a platform we have gone on to investigate the neuronal dysfunction occurring in Cysteine String Protein (CSP)?-/- mice. CSP? is a presynaptic protein thought to have co-chaperone like functions, mice lacking CSP? are born alive but show progressive weakness and neuronal degeneration soon after birth (Fernandez-Chacon, Wolfel et al. 2004). Hi-Spots formed from CSP? -/- tissue did not show overt neurodegenerative characteristics compared to +/+ controls and functional analysis demonstrated that at~DIV14 CSP? +/+ and -/- mice displayed equal levels of basal spontaneous network activity. Addition of bicuculline (50?M) to +/+ cultures lead to a significantly increasedfrequency and RMS value. However, in -/- cultures there was no increase induced by bicuculline. This may be due to an inability of CSP? -/- cultures to sustain high frequency synaptic transmission that is associated with bursting activity, or a selective degeneration of a sub-population of inhibitory neurons and a homeostatic network plasticity. The data suggest CSP? may act to protect the ability of neurons for high frequency synaptic transmission and/ or protect inhibitory neurons from degeneration.


"Penelope Umbrico (Photographs)" offers a radical reinterpretation of every-day consumer and vernacular images. As the artist describes, she works within the virtual world of consumer marketing and social media, traveling through the relentless flow of seductive images, objects, and information that surrounds us, searching for decisive moments but in these worlds, decisive moments are cultural absurdities. Umbrico finds these moments in the printed pages of consumer product mail-order catalogs, travel and leisure brochures, and online sites such as Craigslist, EBay, and Flickr. By identifying and isolating image typologiescandy-colored horizons and sunsets, books used as propsthe farcical and surreal nature of the lingua franca of consumerism and recrea-tion is brought to new light. "Penelope Umbrico (Photographs)" presents a unique and challenging approach to quintessential issues of representation in contemporary culture, including how images are used to construct and communicate consumer desire, and whether or not the growing volume of images we view online fosters a critical visual literacy. This volume, Umbricos first monograph, is accompanied by a series of essays, appendices of source material, excerpts from theoretical works, and other material serving as resources for engaging further with the work and issues involved.


Analyses of degraded DNA are typically hampered by contamination, especially when employing universal primers such as commonly used in environmental DNA studies. In addition to false‐positive results, the amplification of contaminant DNA may cause false‐negative results because of competition, or bias, during the PCR. In this study, we test the utility of human‐specific blocking primers in mammal diversity analyses of ancient permafrost samples from Siberia. Using quantitative PCR (qPCR) on human and mammoth DNA, we first optimized the design and concentration of blocking primer in the PCR. Subsequently, 454 pyrosequencing of ancient permafrost samples amplified with and without the addition of blocking primer revealed that DNA sequences from a diversity of mammalian representatives of the Beringian megafauna were retrieved only when the blocking primer was added to the PCR. Notably, we observe the first retrieval of woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) DNA from ancient permafrost cores. In contrast, reactions without blocking primer resulted in complete dominance by human DNA sequences. These results demonstrate that in ancient environmental analyses, the PCR can be biased towards the amplification of contaminant sequences to such an extent that retrieval of the endogenous DNA is severely restricted. The application of blocking primers is a promising tool to avoid this bias and can greatly enhance the quantity and the diversity of the endogenous DNA sequences that are amplified.


Using Margaret Archer's constructs, namely structure, culture, and agency, this paper argues that although there are commendable structural changes in the CHE (Council on Higher Education) and RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) policy which accommodate marginalized and unstructured experiential knowledge, thus equating it with 'scientific' knowledge produced by the university, there remains subtle preservations of material interests of the corporate agent (CHE policy maker) and the ideas, beliefs, and theories the latter holds about the place of unstructured learning and knowledge in universities. To advance this argument, a critique is mounted on three accommodative sub-units of the CHE RPL policy, namely: the notion of exemption, residency clause, and the ten percent ceiling on the number of applicants admitted through RPL. The rare allowance for exceptional deviations to the two latter notions (by CHE) is infused in the foregoing critique. In the final analysis, a reconsideration of these provisions is suggested.


This article examines a rare phenomenon in nineteenth-century British print culture, a periodical jointly edited by a husband and wife team. Howitt's Journal, a weekly miscellany with a progressive political agenda, ran for only eighteen months from January 1847 to June 1848, edited by William and Mary Howitt. The history of Howitt's Journal is particularly relevant to the question of women's agency in the world of periodicals, the ways in which women editors could have a public voice and engage in debate on political and social issues. One methodological issue the article raises is how we assess an editor's contribution to any publication, the nature of their input, and the extent to which they drive the agenda. In the case of a joint editorship, how do we identify the contributions and responsibilities of each editor? The paper is based on an examination of Mary Howitt's unpublished letters in the Houghton Library, Harvard, which provide new evidence of the extent of her involvement in the Journal. It tests the Howitts' editorial style, and Mary's in particular, against theories of editorship put forward by Patten and Finkelstein (2006) and Matthew Philpotts (2012) and suggests that these models of editorship are essentially masculine.


Schools have two key legal obligations to students who suffer from serious allergies, severe asthma, or other life-threatening ailments: Make the young scholar academically strong and keep her physically healthy at school. Astute teachers and administrators know they must take precautions when dealing with medical conditions that can strike at any moment and lead to death. Courts are stern about the obligation of districts to safeguard the well-being of such vulnerable children. Make no mistake. This category doesn't include widespread annoyances like viral infections, head lice, or bedbugs. Nor does it include mental or physical impairments that merit special education. Rather, this category includes students with a dire personal health issue marked by sporadic flare-ups. The classic example is peanut allergies, a condition shared by increasing numbers of children. A widely reported study found that the percentage of children with peanut or tree allergies more than tripled between 1997 and 2008 (Sicherer, Munoz-Furlong, God-bold, & Sampson, 2010). Indeed, the National Institutes of Health (2012) concluded that 5 million Americans, including 5% to 8% of children, suffer from food allergies. That reality creates legal and logistical hurdles for educators. Most court cases find that one of three federal laws applies: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Building-level employees literally hold a child's life in their hands. An allergic food reaction can provoke anaphylactic shock, a reaction by the immune system that identifies a food as "foreign" and fights it using antibodies. A student can then experience breathing difficulties, a drop in blood pressure, and other harmful effects. Some 90% of allergies are triggered by eight foods: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (e.g. almonds, walnuts), soy, wheat, fish, and shellfish. That makes breakfast, lunch, sports concession stands, and field trips a hidden maze of legal jeopardy. Safety first There should be no doubt that the duty for school leaders is always safety first. Still, two court cases and a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights drive home the point. In 2010, Hevel Elementary School in the Romeo Community Schools in Michigan banned all tree and peanut foods due to a single student's severe allergy and Section 504 plan. The Michigan Court of Appeals, upholding the district stance, noted that officials tried less intrusive measures, but those were condemned by the student's doctor. The physician said even airborne exposure to peanut products could trigger trouble. Hevel parent Kathleen Liebau sued the district, the superintendent, the principal, the school nurse, and "unknown individuals who approved the 504 plan." She asserted that "because she and her daughter are not parties to the 504 plan, she cannot be bound by the nut-ban policy." The July 2013 unpublished decision by a Michigan appeals court said the well-being of every student is the priority. "[T]he school district had the authority to adopt a schoolwide ban on nuts as part of the 504 plan for [the student] given its determination that the ban was necessary," the court said. A similarly strong lesson was delivered in Iowa. The state's Court of Appeals ruled in January 2013 that a preschool child's tree-nut allergy qualifies under the Americans with Disabilities Act. When Shannon Knudsen's mother attempted to enroll her in school she informed the school of the girl's allergies and suggested an emergency care plan. The school refused. In Knudsen v. Tiger Tots Community Child Care Center, the court cited the ADA as the logic for overturning the school's decision. Nationally, the Education Department's civil rights office rebuked the Gloucester (Va.) County Public Schools for refusing a Section 504 plan for a student with severe allergies. …


Since 2001, HIV incidence has declined by 33% worldwide, and more than 9.7 million people with HIV have gained access to treatment.* The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS launched the Getting to Zero strategy (2011–2015) that includes zero new infections, zero deaths from HIV, and zero discrimination. Aspirational statements such as "the end of AIDS" have also prevailed. However, do such pronouncements help or hurt? Do they motivate action, or do they risk incredulity, leading to inaction? Do such aspirations epitomize hype or hope?


The choice of the right business model is a crucial success factor, particularly in fast evolving industries like the software industry. Business model configuration from scratch but also the monitoring of the business model once it is configured represent important criteria for software companies to establish their business idea at the market. This paper presents an architecture design and its prototypical implementation of a business model assistance system that facilitates companies in the software industry to compose their business model as well as to carry out modifications on an already existing business model through business model monitoring. Therefore, users are provided feedback about the quality of their current business model by the use of KPIs as feedback parameters. The prototype has been developed based on previously carried out research work concerning the definition of business model elements in the software industry and the derivation of a software industry value chain.


Forty-one well-dated fragments of bone from rocks of Tertiary age have been studied by X-ray emission spectrography methods. Fe, Sr, Ba, As, Y, Sb, La, In, and Mn have been detected, and variations in content of certain of the elements have been noted that appear related to the age of the samples. Older bone fragments contain considerably higher Fe and very little As; younger bone fragments contain lower Fe and high As. Combinations of elements also differ in bones of different ages. These variations seem independent of the species of animal studied, but may be dependent on environment of deposition. Preliminary results suggest that spectrographic analyses of bone fragments may be useful in stratigraphic correlation where fossils are too poorly preserved for identification.


Obesity is epidemic in the U.S, and there is an imperative need to identify policy tools that may help fight this epidemic. A recent paper in the economics literature finds an inverse relationship between gasoline prices and obesity-risk --- suggesting that increased gasoline prices via higher gasoline taxes may have the effect of reducing obesity prevalence. This study builds upon that paper. It utilizes cross-sectional time-series data from the American Time Use Survey over 2003-2008, utilizes the increases that occurred in gasoline prices in this period due to Hurricane Katrina and to the global spike in gasoline prices as a 'natural experiment', and explores how time spent by Americans on different forms of physical activity is associated with gasoline price levels.
 Economic theory suggests that higher gasoline prices may alter individual behavior both via a 'substitution effect' whereby people seek alternatives to motorized transportation, and an 'income effect' whereby the effect of higher gasoline prices on the disposable family budget lead people to make various adjustments to what they spend money on. The latter may lead to some increase in physical activity (for example, doing one's own yard work instead of hiring help), but may also lead to decreases in other physical activities that involve expenses, such as team sports or work-outs at the gym. Thus, ultimately, the relationship between gasoline prices and physical activity must be empirically determined.
 Results from multivariate regression models with state and time fixed-effects indicate that higher gasoline prices are associated with an overall increase of physical activity that is at least moderately energy intensive. The increases are most pronounced in periods where gasoline prices fluctuate more sharply. These results appear robust to a number of model specifications. One of the major components of this increase appear to be an increase in housework that is at least moderately energy intensive – such as interior and exterior cleaning, garden and yard work, etc. This tentatively suggests that there is an 'income effect' of higher gasoline prices. However, the increases in physical activity associated with increased gasoline prices are weaker among minorities and low socioeconomic status (SES) individuals. Hence, while a policy which increases gasoline prices via raised gasoline taxes may have benefits in terms of increasing overall physical activity levels in the U.S., one concern is that these benefits may not accrue to low SES individuals to the same extent as to their higher SES counterparts.


Forty years in the making, this long-awaited reinterpretation of Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit is a landmark contribution to philosophy by one of the world's best-known and most influential philosophers. In this much-anticipated work, Robert Brandom presents a completely new retelling of the romantic rationalist adventure of ideas that is Hegel's classic The Phenomenology of Spirit. Connecting analytic, continental, and historical traditions, Brandom shows how dominant modes of thought in contemporary philosophy are challenged by Hegel. A Spirit of Trust is about the massive historical shift in the life of humankind that constitutes the advent of modernity. In his Critiques, Kant talks about the distinction between what things are in themselves and how they appear to us; Hegel sees Kant's distinction as making explicit what separates the ancient and modern worlds. In the ancient world, normative statuses-judgments of what ought to be-were taken to state objective facts. In the modern world, these judgments are taken to be determined by attitudes-subjective stances. Hegel supports a view combining both of those approaches, which Brandom calls "objective idealism": there is an objective reality, but we cannot make sense of it without first making sense of how we think about it. According to Hegel's approach, we become agents only when taken as such by other agents. This means that normative statuses such as commitment, responsibility, and authority are instituted by social practices of reciprocal recognition. Brandom argues that when our self-conscious recognitive attitudes take the radical form of magnanimity and trust that Hegel describes, we can overcome a troubled modernity and enter a new age of spirit.


Gincanas are a traditional event in Brazilian culture where groups of people compete against each other by solving tasks. Recently, the Dutch Waag Society and the Brazilian Mobilefest developed the location-based game called Global Gincana, where players use their phones as interfaces to interact with the game space through solving location-based tasks about the countries' history and culture. By exploring the history of Brazilian gincanas and how they have evolved through the spread and appropriation of mobile technologies, this article addresses two main research questions: (1) how mobility and the configuration of urban space influence the design and performance of location-based mobile games; and (2) how the urban and socio-economic context of developing countries, specifically Brazil, shape mobile technology appropriation and location-based mobile game design. We demonstrate that urban spaces can convey a multiplicity of performances, encompassing a vast arrange of applications, ranging from education and philanthropic to marketing oriented.


PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between fetal and infant growth, as measured by birthweight and weight at 1 year and the development of age-related lens opacities.

METHODS
A total of 1428 men and women who were born in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, between 1920 and 1930, and for whom records of birthweight and weight at 1 year were available, were traced and invited for examination. Of these, 717 (50%) attended for ophthalmic examination. After dilation with tropicamide 1%, lens opacities were graded using the Lens Opacities Classification System (LOCS) III.

RESULTS
In this population of English men and women aged 64 to 74 years, most opacities were of the nuclear type. There was no association between birthweight and nuclear lens opacities. Weight at 1 year was negatively correlated with nuclear opacity score in adult life (P=0.001). Subjects in the highest tertile for weight at 1 year (>23 pounds) had an odds ratio of 0.35 (95% confidence interval, 0.17 to 0.74) for having a significant nuclear lens opacity (LOCS score of > or = 3) compared with people in the lowest tertile for weight at 1 year (<21 pounds). This association remained after controlling for age, sex, smoking, social class, adult height, and diabetes.

CONCLUSIONS
To our knowledge, this is the first time that such an association has been reported; it needs to be replicated in other populations. It could provide part of the explanation for the observed excess risk of cataract in developing countries.


Lower concentration of glucose was often obtained from enzymatic hydrolysis process of agricultural residue due to complexity of the biomass structure and properties. High substrate load feed into the hydrolysis system might solve this problem but has several other drawbacks such as low rate of reaction. In the present study, we have attempted to enhance glucose recovery from agricultural waste, namely, "sago hampas," through three cycles of enzymatic hydrolysis process. The substrate load at 7% (w/v) was seen to be suitable for the hydrolysis process with respect to the gelatinization reaction as well as sufficient mixture of the suspension for saccharification process. However, this study was focused on hydrolyzing starch of sago hampas, and thus to enhance concentration of glucose from 7% substrate load would be impossible. Thus, an alternative method termed as cycles I, II, and III which involved reusing the hydrolysate for subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis process was introduced. Greater improvement of glucose concentration (138.45 g/L) and better conversion yield (52.72%) were achieved with the completion of three cycles of hydrolysis. In comparison, cycle I and cycle II had glucose concentration of 27.79 g/L and 73.00 g/L, respectively. The glucose obtained was subsequently tested as substrate for bioethanol production using commercial baker's yeast. The fermentation process produced 40.30 g/L of ethanol after 16 h, which was equivalent to 93.29% of theoretical yield based on total glucose existing in fermentation media.


PURPOSE Accurate and reproducible methods to diagnose, grade, and report acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) are critical for the evaluation of therapies and biomarkers. PATIENTS AND METHODS The Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network 1202 study is an observational study of 1,709 allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation recipients that implemented weekly data reporting and near real-time data adjudication by an end point review committee (ERC), assigning a confidence level (confirmed, probable, possible, or negative) to the diagnosis of acute GVHD at onset. RESULTS During the first 100 days, symptoms consistent with GVHD developed in 90% of cases but were often determined by centers to be due to causes other than GVHD. Indeed, GVHD was under consideration in only 23% of cases at symptom onset. Diagnostic biopsies were obtained in 40% of cases, but treatment often was incongruous with biopsy findings and 10.5% of biopsies were equivocal. Importantly, more than 40% of steroid courses were started for reasons other than GVHD. The ERC modified the determination of GVHD diagnosis and/or grade in 12.3% of onset cases. The cumulative incidence of acute GVHD as reported by the centers was 62%. When the ERC adjudicated GVHD onset to be present only if the confidence level was probable or confirmed, the incidence of GVHD declined to 49%. CONCLUSION This study demonstrates that the incidence of GVHD may be overestimated at symptom onset, establishes a contemporary benchmark for acute GVHD, and suggests a structured framework for reporting and adjudication of GVHD that could be used in prospective trials.


Background: Early warning scores (EWSs) are used to identify deteriorating patients for appropriate interventions. We performed a systematic review to examine the usefulness of EWSs in predicting inpatient mortality and morbidity (transfer to higher-level care and length of hospital stay) in older people admitted to acute medical units with sepsis, acute cardiovascular events, or pneumonia. Methods: A systematic review of published and unpublished databases was conducted. Cochrane′s tool for assessing Risk of Bias in Non-Randomised Studies—of Interventions (ROBINS-I) was used to appraise the evidence. A narrative synthesis was performed due to substantial heterogeneity. RESULTS: Five studies (n = 12,057) were eligible from 1033 citations. There was an overall "moderate" risk of bias for all studies. The predictive ability of EWSs regarding mortality was reported in one study (n = 274), suggesting EWSs were better at predicting survival, (negative predictive value >90% for all scores). Three studies (n = 1819) demonstrated a significant association between increasing modified EWSs (MEWSs) and increased risk of mortality. Hazards ratios for a composite death/intensive care (ICU) admission with MEWSs ≥5 were significant in one study (p = 0.003). Two studies (n = 1421) demonstrated that a MEWS ≥6 was associated with 21 times higher probability of mortality (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 2.71–170.57) compared with a MEWS ≤1. A MEWS of ≥5 was associated with 22 times higher probability of mortality (95% CI: 10.45–49.16). Conclusion: Increasing EWSs are strongly associated with mortality and ICU admission in older acutely unwell patients. Future research should be targeted at better understanding the usefulness of high and increasing EWSs for specific acute illnesses in older adults.


This report describes an investigation funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to establish greater understanding of the extent of Design theory and practice within the context of health. Led by researchers from Lab4Living, based within the Art & Design Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, researchers from Coventry University, Glasgow School of Art and the Helen Hamlyn Centre at Royal College of Art, formed an expert network that bring together a critical mass of excellence in Design research for healthcare. An expert advisory group was appointed to provide an additional reference point for the network. The report presents background and rationale for the research, outlines the activities undertaken by the expert network partners then describes the research methods adopted. The findings from the research are described and presented visually and exemplar case studies from each of the network partners articulate the valuable contribution of design in healthcare. The report draws some conclusions on the potential implications from the findings.


In a (t,n) secret sharing scheme, a dealer splits a secret into n shares and sends a share to each of n participants. If necessary, any t members can provide their secret shares together and recover the secret by using a publicly specified algorithm. Multisecret sharing schemes allow a dealer to share multiple secrets among a group of participants securely and efficiently. In recent, Shi proposed an efficient multisecret sharing authenticating scheme. In his scheme, not only the shares held by the participants are reusable, but also the shares distributed by the dealer and the shadow shares provided by the participants are verifiable. This paper analyzes the security of Shi's scheme. It first points out a design error in his scheme, and then demonstrates an attack to show that both of his share-authenticating and shadow-key-authenticating methods are insecure. Specifically, using the attacks, a dishonest dealer can distribute false shares to participants, and malicious participants can easily forge false shadow shares such that the authenticating equality is satisfied. The result is that honest participants will be cheated and misled to believe that the recovered secret is correct. In addition, improvements are provided to avoid the identified design error and attacks.


Differential absorption lidar (DIAL) has been successfully used to detect vapor material, however limited to detect single vapor using two closely spaced wavelengths. The progress in multiple-wavelength lasers motivates the need for detection and estimation algorithms that have the capability for simultaneous detection of multiple materials. In this paper, a simple and accurate algorithm is presented for simultaneously detecting and estimating multiple vapor materials with multiple-wavelength DIAL, which based on the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) methodology. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by simulation experiments, the results show that this algorithm can separately identify and quantify vapor material in mixtures and perform quite well.


Piezoelectric materials lie at the heart of electromechanical devices. Applications include actuators, ultrasonic imaging, high intensity focused ultrasound, underwater ultrasound, nondestructive evaluation transducer, pressure sensors, and accelerometers, to name a few. In this work, the advantages and disadvantages of relaxor-PbTiO3-based single crystals are discussed, based on the requirements (figure of merit) of various applications, with emphasis on recent developments of the shear properties of single crystals as a function of temperature and applied fields.


Fibrillar structures are important structuring elements for food products. Understanding the behaviour of fibrillar structures in complex food systems is essential for successful industrial applications. This thesis presents the behaviour of two different fibrillar structures, i.e. whey protein isolate (WPI) fibrils and bacterial cellulose (BC) microfibrils in mixtures under various conditions. The WPI fibrils are prepared from WPI and the BC microfibrils are extracted from commercial available 'Nata de Coco' by high-energy de-agglomeration. In Chapter 1, a general introduction is given, where we introduce two different fibrillar structures that were studied in this thesis. Also, the aim and the outline of the thesis are presented. In Chapter 2, 3, 4 and 5, the behaviour of mixtures containing WPI and BC microfibrils under different conditions are investigated. By varying the concentration ratios, pH, NaCl concentration and further applying heating treatment, their physico-chemical properties in mixed solutions, mixed solutions after heating and further heat-induced mixed gels are investigated and characterized at both pH 2 and pH 7. In general, both mixing WPI and BC microfibrils without heating and subsequently applying heating treatment lead to stable and homogeneous mixtures at pH 7, as long as BC microfibril concentration is above a critical value. Microscopic images showed that the WPI aggregates and BC microfibrils co-existed in the system. WPI denatured and aggregated in the mixture in the same way as when it is heated alone. Upon gelation, the WPI and BC microfibrils form a duplex gel consisting of two independent and homogeneous networks spanning the whole system. At pH 2, the WPI and BC microfibrils also form stable and homogeneous mixtures in the liquid state, both before and after heating. Microscopic images showed two fibrillar structures that are uniformly and independently present. Upon gelation at higher WPI concentration, a bi-fibrillar gel is formed consisting of a WPI fibrilllar gel and BC microfibrillar gel that co-exist. In Chapter 6 and 7, the behaviour of WPI fibrils at pH 2 in dispersions containing spheres, i.e. emulsions and polystyrene latex dispersions are studied. When WPI and spheres are both positively charged (i.e. WPI-stabilized emulsion), we observed depletion flocculation and depletion stabilization when the WPI fibril concentration increases. When WPI and the spheres are oppositely charged (i.e. polystyrene latex dispersions), bridging flocculation and steric/electrostatic stabilization were observed at low WPI fibril concentration, followed by depletion flocculation and depletion stabilization upon increasing WPI fibril concentrations. In Chapter 8 the stability of emulsions at pH 2 in the presence of only BC microfibrils and in the presence of both BC microfibrils and WPI fibrils was studied.  When only BC microfibrils added at a sufficiently high concentration, the emulsions are stabilized by the presence of a yield stress as generated by the BC network.  When both WPI fibrils and BC microfibrils are added to the emulsions, the networks they form behave in the same way, as when they are added to the emulsions separately. The WPI fibrils induced depletion flocculation and stabilization of the emulsions, despite the presence of the BC microfibrils. However, at high enough BC microfibril concentrations, the emulsions can be stabilized against depletion flocculation as induced by the WPI fibrils. The competition between stabilization and/or de-stabilization induced by the BC microfibrils and the WPI fibrils can lead to emulsions with different microstructures and rheological properties. A general discussion on the results obtained in this thesis is presented in Chapter 9, which includes recommendations for further research and concluding remarks.


Pretreatment with ionic liquids (ILs) is known to greatly increase the subsequent biomass hydrolysis with enzymes. However, the presence of even low amounts of ILs has negative effects on cellulase action. Most studies on cellulase inactivation by ILs have focused on imidazolium-based ILs, which until recently were one of the few IL classes known to dissolve cellulose. In this article we describe results of cellulase action in matrices containing ILs belonging to two IL classes recently reported as cellulose solvents. These ILs are based on the organic superbases 1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine (TMG) or 1,5-diazabicyclo[4.3.0]non-5-ene (DBN). In this study commercial thermo- and alkaline stabile cellulase products were employed, as these were anticipated to also have a higher stability in ILs. For comparison, hydrolysis experiments were also carried out with a well-characterised endoglucanase (Cel5A) from Trichoderma reesei and in matrices containing 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate, [EMIM]AcO. Two different substrates were used, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and eucalyptus pre-hydrolysis kraft dissolving grade pulp. The hydrolysis yields were on the same level for both of these substrates, but decreases in molecular weight of the cellulose was observed only for the dissolving grade pulp. By using commercial cellulases with good thermo- and alkali-stability some benefits were obtained in terms of IL compatibility. Enzyme thermostability correlated with higher hydrolysis yields in IL-containing matrices, whereas activity at high pH values did not offer benefits in terms of IL tolerance. The new classes of cellulose-dissolving superbase ILs did not differ in terms of cellulase compatibility from the well-studied imidazolium-based ILs. Of the novel superbase ILs tested, [TMGH]AcO was found to inhibit the enzymatic hydrolysis the least.


While posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is most commonly associated with survivors of traumatic events (e.g., combat), PTSD can occur after any situation in which victims perceive that their life or safety is threatened. In sport, athletes often place themselves in dangerous situations and are also exposed to the same lifestyle dangers as the general population. The literature on PTSD among athletes is sparse, and consequently, it is possible that many (non-clinical) sport psychologists would fail to recognize the symptoms and may subsequently fail to refer the athlete to the appropriate professional for clinical assistance. In the following case study, we present an example of an athlete suffering from PTSD following a serious bicycle accident in which she sustained head and facial injuries. We briefly detail the nature of PTSD and discuss how sport psychology services can be implemented alongside a parallel clinical intervention program. Finally, we offer recommendations for practice when working wit...


Quantitative analysis by mass spectrometry (MS) is a major challenge in
proteomics as the correlation between analyte concentration and signal
intensity is often poor due to varying ionisation efficiencies in the
presence of molecular competitors. However, relative quantitation
methods that utilise differential stable isotope labelling and mass
spectrometric detection are available. Many drawbacks inherent to
chemical labelling methods (ICAT, iTRAQ) can be overcome by
metabolic labelling with amino acids containing stable isotopes (e.g. 13C
and/or 15N) in methods such as Stable Isotope Labelling with Amino
acids in Cell culture (SILAC). SILAC has also been used for labelling of
proteins in plant cell cultures (1) but is not suitable for whole plant
labelling. Plants are usually autotrophic (fixing carbon from atmospheric
CO2) and, thus, labelling with carbon isotopes becomes impractical. In
addition, SILAC is expensive.
Recently, Arabidopsis cell cultures were labelled with 15N in a medium
containing nitrate as sole nitrogen source. This was shown to be suitable
for quantifying proteins and nitrogen-containing metabolites from this cell
culture (2,3).
Labelling whole plants, however, offers the advantage of studying
quantitatively the response to stimulation or disease of a whole multicellular
organism or multi-organism systems at the molecular level.
Furthermore, plant metabolism enables the use of inexpensive labelling
media without introducing additional stress to the organism. And finally,
hydroponics is ideal to undertake metabolic labelling under extremely
well-controlled conditions.
We demonstrate the suitability of metabolic 15N hydroponic isotope
labelling of entire plants (HILEP) for relative quantitative proteomic
analysis by mass spectrometry. To evaluate this methodology,
Arabidopsis plants were grown hydroponically in 14N and 15N media and subjected to oxidative stress.


Selenium is a biologically relevant trace element that is a common ingredient of commercially available dietary supplements. Label verification of dietary supplements enriched with selenium has been performed using liquid chromatography with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LC/ICP-MS) in research applications. While this method represents the gold standard, performing LC/ICP-MS analysis on dietary supplements can be cumbersome and comes with the cost of time, ultimately limiting the throughput of this technique. A rapid screening method would improve throughput and reduce the number of samples requiring the complete LC/ICP-MS characterization of selenium for dietary supplement label verification. A rapid screening method for the determination of total selenium using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) (limit of detection 4 μg g−1, limit of quantitation 30 μg g−1) and unbound "selenoamino acids" using direct analysis in real time high resolution accurate mass–mass spectrometry (DART-HRAM-MS) was successfully applied to 13 dietary supplements previously characterized by LC/ICP-MS. Overall, determining total and speciated selenium in enriched dietary supplements using the combined XRF/DART-HRAM-MS approach reduces the analysis time from several hours to less than 40 minutes per sample.