Embryo implantation is a complicated process involving mother and conceptus cells differentiation, proliferation and invasion that are essential for successful pregnancy. Almost every cell in the human body is affected by IGF-1 that is one of the most potent natural activators of cell growth and multiplication, and also a potent inhibitor of the programmed cell death. bFGF, acting via its receptor FGFR1, is one of the factors involved in mediating the angiogenesis, proteolysis and apoptosis during the implantation. OBJECTIVE: To establish pregnancy inducted difference of appearance of bFGF, IGF-1 and their receptors in the embryonic, decidual and tubal tissue. STUDY DESIGN: In this study 14 tubal pregnancy and 10 decidual tissue samples were evaluated immunohistochemically in order to define the distribution of bFGF, FGFR1, IGF-1, IGF-1R. RESULTS: The Mann-Whitney U test was used as appropriate for the evaluation of significant differences. FGFR1 appearance dominated on bFGF in the decidual (z=2.539, p=0.01), tubal (z=2.539, p=0.01) and embryonic (z=2.539, p=0.01) tissue. IGF-1 and IGF-1R appearance in the decidual, tubal and embryonic tissue was not statistically different. It was the same as IGF-1 and IGF-1R expression in gravid endometrium, but in the ectopic implantation site IGF-1R was particularly absent (z=1.935, p=0.05), only mesothelium and some epithelial cells stained. CONCLUSION: IGF-1, IGF-1R, bFGF and FGFR1 are widely appearing growth factors in actively developing and differentiating of the human embryonic tissue during the first trimester. Both endometrial and fallopian tube tissues express more FGFR1 than bFGF that testify the stimulation of compensatory adaptation of the organ during pregnancy. IGF-1 and IGF-1R richly appear in gravid endometrium. IGF-1 is widely distributed in both the mother and the embryo tissues but only some of them are IGF-1R marked in a case of ectopic pregnancy. The deficit of IGF-1R in the fallopian tube might bea result of cell growth restriction and the impaired process of trophoblast invasion.


As citizens of this world, especially Europeans, watched the United States grow from a mere British colony to one of the dominant nations in the world, a pattern of conversation developed among them about the meaning of this new colossus of the New World. A question emerges: is America inevitable or inimitable? (Rose 1). The question is easier to ask than to answer. This essay is a partial effort to shape an answer to that question. The means to that end will be a review of some of the European comments on America on the way to placing Alistair Cooke's journalism in the context of that commentary.Let us be certain, however, before proceeding to the analysis of the question, that we understand the meaning of the question. Bo sides of the question are amply represented in American historiography and in European writing about America. The one stresses the uniqueness of America, that no nation or people on earth can be compared with the unique experience of the Americans. The other stresses that America is the forerunner of what European, even world society will be tomorrow. Can both of these be true at the same time? They are clearly contradictory, but are they mutually exclusive? A contradiction may contain logically exclusive elements but still speak the truth-such is the definition of a paradox. Some observers have suggested this as an interpretive paradigm, that for those who would see America whole they must take it by its parts. Those parts are contradictory and the result of their being held together, if at all, in contrapuntal relation, yields a conclusion that America is a contrapuntal society, inhabited by a people of paradox (Kammen 9). Most Americans, and, indeed, most European observers of the American people seem content to live with that paradox. The differences between them are more of tendency than tenet, of disposition than dogma. For example, even such a passionate observer of America as Simone de Beauvoir believes that, in the end, if you love America you must learn to "love sorrowfully" (248).At this point one must ask a subsidiary question to the main one under review: given the obvious fact that the history of any nation is unique, how is it that the United States came to be seen as the forerunner of world change, the "sign" society for the world (Neuhaus 72-73, 184). To be seen as the laboratory for humankind's future possibilities is a great burden. As J. Martin Evans notes, no other modern nation has had to bear as great a weight of idealism as this (16).The one view--America as model for world development--Ss a creation of European wishful thinking. Right from the beginning of the "discoveries" of America, there was the belief that America was not so much a new Garden of Eden as a place of new beginning for Europe to repair the damages of the first "fall" in the original "Garden." As John Locke remarked, "In the beginning, everything was America" (140), In Thomas More's Utopia we see the first mature reflection on the New World in the literature of the Old World. The genius of More's work was that by 116 one need not merely speculate about an imagined Atlantis southwest of Europe. America was there, and could be traveled to, and settled in (Slavin 136-64). Nevertheless, the Utopean account of Raphael Hythloday was theoretical in that the land of the utopians did not in fact exist in "the real" America.When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s he could put theories behind him and offered Europe a real glimpse of a working democracy, arguably the only one in the world at the time. Everything was available for world scrutiny, from government to economics to the attitudes of the people. Americans welcomed this scrutiny because they wanted to show the world that their beloved nation offered a workable model of the thing Europeans wanted--a society equal and free. Tocqueville believed that democracy (in all the affective meanings of the word) was the way of the future, and that the United States was worthy of examination because it was experiencing first what Europe must experience later on. …


Abstract. The Dual Temperature Difference (DTD) model, introduced by Norman et al. (2000), uses a two source energy balance modelling scheme driven by remotely sensed observations of diurnal changes in land surface temperature (LST) to estimate surface energy fluxes. By using a time-differential temperature measurement as input, the approach reduces model sensitivity to errors in absolute temperature retrieval. The original formulation of the DTD required an early morning LST observation (approximately 1 h after sunrise) when surface fluxes are minimal, limiting application to data provided by geostationary satellites at sub-hourly temporal resolution. The DTD model has been applied primarily during the active growth phase of agricultural crops and rangeland vegetation grasses, and has not been rigorously evaluated during senescence or in forested ecosystems. In this paper we present modifications to the DTD model that enable applications using thermal observations from polar orbiting satellites, such as Terra and Aqua, with day and night overpass times over the area of interest. This allows the application of the DTD model in high latitude regions where large viewing angles preclude the use of geostationary satellites, and also exploits the higher spatial resolution provided by polar orbiting satellites. A method for estimating nocturnal surface fluxes and a scheme for estimating the fraction of green vegetation are developed and evaluated. Modification for green vegetation fraction leads to significantly improved estimation of the heat fluxes from the vegetation canopy during senescence and in forests. When the modified DTD model is run with LST measurements acquired with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra and Aqua satellites, generally satisfactory agreement with field measurements is obtained for a number of ecosystems in Denmark and the United States. Finally, regional maps of energy fluxes are produced for the Danish Hydrological ObsErvatory (HOBE) in western Denmark, indicating realistic patterns based on land use.


Abstract Chondrules were first recognized in 1802 by Edward Howard as 'rounded globules', but their uniqueness to meteorites was not appreciated until 1863, when Henry Sorby produced excellent microscopic descriptions and Gustav Rose distinguished chondritic meteorites from achondrites. The Rose-Tschermak-Brezina classification was devised by 1885 and was used widely until George Prior, in 1916, replaced it with a simpler classification of chondrites. With this the distinction of ordinary chondrites from carbonaceous chondrites as applied today was formalized. This in turn was widely used until the Space Age of the last half of the 20th century when new classifications of meteorites were proposed based on the work of Keil and Fredriksson, Van Schmus and Wood. Gooding and Keil produced a classification with abundance values for types of chondrules in 1981, and Stöffler, Keil and Scott in 1991 added a classification of shock metamorphism for ordinary chondrites. The fall of the Allende meteorite in Mexico, a CV3 class chondrite, initiated prolific studies on calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) of refractory minerals, which may contain daughter isotopes of extinct parents from the presolar and earliest solar history. Presolar grains such as minute diamonds are recognized in the matrix of chondrules. Radiometric dating has shown that the first chondrules and CAIs formed at about the same time, c. 4566–4567 Ma and chondrules appear to have been forming over 3–5 Ma prior to accretion of meteoritic parent bodies. The origin of chondrules has been covered by a proliferation of hypotheses (some absurd, many well thought out), but in the last 20 years a general consensus seems to have been arrived at that chondrules formed in the outer regions of the solar disk very early on where shock processes raised temperature, in regions where the pressures and concentrations of solid material were higher than the canonical solar value. There was some melting early on but no crystallization from a magmatic melt within the accreted body, as in the case of howardite, eucrite and diogenite (HED) achondrites. Such transient heating models remain incompletely formulated and open to objection on observational astronomy or astrophysical grounds, and a recent alternative model linking chondrule formation with the early active Sun is also being developed. Recent research has suggested that, although ordinary chondrites are the commonest of meteorite classes falling to Earth, this may relate to the fact that we sample in this way only meteorites related to asteroids (Apollos, Amors) with near-Earth passing orbits, and carbonaceous chondrites may be the norm in the main asteroid zone between Mars and Jupiter. Attempts to identify ordinary chondrite parent bodies among asteroids by spectrographic and albedo-based methods have proved unrewarding and there is a need to develop the camera-based detection of fireball traces in the sky alongside collection of the fallen meteorite, only three such cases being up to quite recently recorded for chondrites. There may be as many as 134 asteroidal parent bodies of meteorites, and the H, L, LL and E classes of common chondrites may just represent a few different bodies among these. Sorby's attribution of chondrules to a 'fiery rain' in 1877 and his attribution of them to outer regions of the solar system then occupied by the Sun's disk appear remarkably percipient from one using only his microscope and quite unaware of the complexities of the solar system that are familiar to 21st century scientists.


The northern Nevada rift is a prominent mafic dike swarm and magnetic anomaly in north-central Nevada inferred to record the Middle Miocene (16.5–15.0 Ma) extension direction in the northern Basin and Range province in the western United States. From the 245°–250° rift direction, Basin and Range extension is inferred to have shifted 45° clockwise to a modern direction of 290°–300° during the late Miocene. The region surrounding the northern Nevada rift was actively extending while the rift formed, and these domains are all characterized by extension oriented 280°–300°. This direction is distinctly different from the rift direction and nearly identical to the modern Basin and Range direction. Although the rate, structural style, and distribution of Basin and Range extension appear to have undergone a significant change in the late Miocene (ca. 10 Ma), the overall spreading direction does not. Middle Miocene extension was directed perpendicular to the axis of the thickest crust formed during Mesozoic shortening and this orientation may reflect gravitational collapse of this thick crust. Orientation of northern Nevada rift dikes may reflect a short-lived regional stress field related to the onset of Yellowstone hotspot volcanism.


York Notes offer an exciting and fresh approach to the study of literature. The easy-to-use guides aim to provide a better understanding and appreciation of each text, encouraging students to form their own ideas and opinions. This makes study more enjoyable and leads to exam success. York Notes will also be of interest to the general reader, as they cover the widest range of popular literature titles. Key Features: How to study the text - Author and historical background - General and detailed summaries - Commentary on themes, structure, characters, language and style - Glossaries - Test questions and issues to consider - Essay-writing advice - Cultural connections - Literary terms - Illustrations - Colour design. General Editors: John Polley - Senior GCSE Examiner Head of English, Harrow Way Community School, Andover; Martin Gray - Head of Literary Studies, University of Luton.


Experiments have been performed on the JET tokamak with 2nd harmonic ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) of hydrogen in deuterium plasmas to assess the role of finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects on the resonant ion distribution function. More specifically, the clamping of high-energy resonant particle distribution due to weak wave-particle interaction at high energy is studied. The distributions of ICRH heated hydrogen ions have been measured with a high-energy neutral particle analyser in the range of 0.29–1.1 MeV. By changing the electron density the energy E*, around which the wave-particle interaction becomes weak, is varied. The dependence of the ion distribution on E* is experimentally observed for a number of discharges and FLR effects are clearly seen to affect the high energy tail shape. Experiments have been analysed with the combination of ICRH modelling codes PION and FIDO, including FLR effects, and good agreement with measurements have been found.


In this paper, crushed lava granulate was used as full silica sand replacement in composition of repair mortars based on hydrated lime, natural hydraulic lime, or cement-lime binder. Lava granules were analyzed by X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Particle size distribution of both silica and lava aggregates was assessed using standard sieve analysis. Hygrothermal function of the developed lightweight materials was characterized by the measurement of complete set of hygric, thermal, and structural parameters of the hardened mortar samples that were tested for both 28 days and 90 days cured specimens. As the repair mortars must also meet requirements on mechanical performance, their compressive strength, flexural strength, and dynamic Young's modulus were tested. The newly developed mortars composed of lava aggregate and hydrated lime or natural hydraulic lime met technical, functional, compatibility, and performance criteria on masonry and rendering materials, and were found well applicable for repair of historically valuable buildings.


Many studies have evaluated the utility of the Word Memory Test (WMT) as a symptom validity test. However, there is a lack of reference data for the WMT conventional memory subtests. The present study examined the demographic characteristics that influence performance on these subtests, in order to develop demographically corrected reference data. For this purpose, we administered the Dutch version of the WMT to 115 healthy Dutch controls, aged 20–80 years. Furthermore, we demonstrated the equivalence of the English and Dutch language versions of the WMT. Stepwise linear regression analyses of the combined Canadian and Dutch samples (N 1⁄4 155) showed that the memory scores declined with increasing age. Participants with lower levels of education performed worse than more highly educated subjects. Reference data stratified by age and level of education are presented for use in research and clinical settings.


Pattern formation of atoms in high-finesse optical resonators results from the mechanical forces of light associated with superradiant scattering into the cavity mode. It occurs when the laser intensity exceeds a threshold value such that the pumping processes counteract the losses. We consider atoms driven by a laser and coupling with a mode of a standing-wave cavity and describe their dynamics with a Fokker-Planck equation, in which the atomic motion is semiclassical but the cavity field is a full quantum variable. The asymptotic state of the atoms is a thermal state, whose temperature is solely controlled by the detuning between the laser and the cavity frequency and by the cavity loss rate. From this result we derive the free energy and show that in the thermodynamic limit self-organization is a second-order phase transition. The order parameter is the field inside the resonator to which one can associate a magnetization in analogy to ferromagnetism, the control field is the laser intensity, but the steady state is intrinsically out of equilibrium. In the symmetry-broken phase, quantum noise induces jumps of the spatial density between two ordered patterns: We characterize the statistical properties of this temporal behavior at steady state and show that the thermodynamic properties of the system can be extracted by detecting the light at the cavity output. The results of our analysis are in full agreement with previous studies; we extend them by deriving a self-consistent theory which is valid also when the cavity field is in the shot-noise limit and elucidate the nature of the self-organization transition.


Keywords: * Bayesian mixture modelling; * catchment characteristics; * climate; * hydrologic metrics; * prediction; * uncertainty Summary 1. The importance of hydrologic variability for shaping the biophysical attributes and functioning of riverine ecosystems is well recognised by ecologists and water resource managers. In addition to the ecological dependences of flow for aquatic organisms, human societies modify natural flow regimes to provide dependable ecological services, including water supply, hydropower generation, flood control, recreation and navigation. Management of scarce water resources needs to be based on sound science that supports the development of environmental flow standards at the regional scale. 2. Hydrological classification has long played an essential role in the ecological sciences for understanding geographic patterns of riverine flow variability and exploring its influence on biological communities, and more recently, has been identified as a critical process in environmental flow assessments. 3. We present the first continental-scale classification of hydrologic regimes for Australia based on 120 metrics describing ecologically relevant characteristics of the natural hydrologic regime derived from discharge data for 830 stream gauges. Metrics were calculated from continuous time series (15-30 years of record constrained within a 36-year period) of mean daily discharge data, and classification was undertaken using a fuzzy partitional method - Bayesian mixture modelling. 4. The analysis resulted in the most likely classification having 12 classes of distinctive flow-regime types differing in the seasonal pattern of discharge, degree of flow permanence (i.e. perennial versus varying degrees of intermittency), variations in flood magnitude and frequency and other aspects of flow predictability and variability. Geographic, climatic and some catchment topographic factors were generally strong discriminators of flow-regime classes. The geographical distribution of flow-regime classes showed varying degrees of spatial cohesion, with stream gauges from certain flow-regime classes often being non-contiguously distributed across the continent. These results support the view that spatial variation in hydrology is determined by interactions among climate, geology, topography and vegetation at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Decision trees were also developed to provide the ability to determine the natural flow-regime class membership of new stream gauges based on their key environmental and/or hydrological characteristics. 5. The need to recognise hydrologic variation at multiple spatial scales is an important first step to setting regional-scale environmental flow management strategies. We expect that the classification produced here can underpin the development of a greater understanding of flow-ecology relationships in Australia, and management efforts aimed at prescribing environmental flows for riverine restoration and conservation.


Developing a water safety plan (WSP) is now a requirement for all service providers of drinking water in the Philippines. To assist compliance with the Philippine Department of Health (DOH), this study develops an index model that the DOH can use for evaluating WSPs and covers the WSPs of 14 water districts and 11 health care facilities. The WSP Index model was developed using a nine-step process and was tested in 25 WSPs to determine the robustness of its weights and benchmark. Approximately 21 WSPs received a passing mark when the 60% benchmark was used but only nine WSPs passed when the benchmark was raised to 74%. This Philippine model may be utilized by countries in evaluating the WSPs, and further adapted to their local context and considerations.


The last decade, electronic voting has evolved from being a mean of counting votes to also offer the possibility of electronically casting votes. From recording votes using punch cards and optical scan systems, electronic voting has evolved into the use of direct-recording-electronic machines. Voting over the Internet has also become a hot research topic, and some implementation and testing have been done. Internet voting systems are significantly more vulnerable to threats from external attackers, than systems to cast ballots in controlled environments. Mechanisms to provide security, accuracy and verification are critical, and issues with coercion and usability also arise. In the first part of this thesis we give a theoretical study about existing electronic voting techniques, as well as requirements and security issues of modern electronic voting systems. We also give a brief background theory of some cryptographic mechanisms and systems. Secondly, we present two modern voting solutions in development. We have included security functionalities provided by the system, the cryptographic techniques used and some threats and attacks to the systems. These systems can be exposed to compromised computers, ballot stuffing, and corrupt infrastructure players, but are using cryptographic proofs to ensure accuracy and counter attacks. In the third part, we create a procedure and perform a usability test on one of these modern voting solutions. Our findings emphasize the fact that there is a tension between verifiable elections and usability. The voters have trust in the privacy and accuracy of such a voting systems if more guidance to utilize the means of verification is included, and a trusted third party verifies the system security. The advantages of electronic voting outweigh the risks. Internet voting is a term of further discussion and testing, but considering coercion and the insecure aspects of the medium, Internet voting will never be 100% safe. It is a question of trade off between the advantages and threats.


There is little information concerning how people in the Global South perceive the benefits and costs associated with urban green areas. There is even less information on how governance influences the way people value these highly complex socio-ecological systems. We used semi-structured surveys, statistical analyses, and econometrics to explore the perceptions of users regarding governance and the benefits and costs, or Ecosystem Services (ES) and Ecosystem Disservices (ED), provided by Neotropical green areas and their willingness to invest, or not, for their conservation. The study area was the El Salitre sub-watershed in Bogota, Colombia, and 10 different sites representative of its wetlands, parks, green areas, and socioeconomic contexts. Using a context-specific approach and methods, we identified the most important benefits and costs of green areas and the influence of governance on how people valued these. Our modelling shows that air quality and biodiversity were highly important benefits, while water regulation was the least important; despite the sub-watershed's acute problems with stormwater runoff. In terms of costs, the feeling of insecurity due to crime was related to poor levels of maintenance and infrastructure in the studied green areas. Perceived transparency, corruption, and performance of government institutions influenced people's Unwillingness to Invest (UTI) in green space conservation. Results show that socioeconomic backgrounds, government performance, and environmental education will play a role in the value or importance people place on the benefits, costs, and UTI in conservation efforts in urban green areas. Similarly, care is warranted when directly applying frameworks and typologies developed in high income countries (i.e., ES) to the unique realities of cities in the Global South. Accordingly, alternative frameworks such as Nature's Contributions to People is promising.


The relationship between free travelling speed and the risk of involvement in a casualty crash in 80 km/h or greater speed limit zones in rural South Australia was quantified using a case control study design. The crashes involving the 83 case passenger vehicles were investigated at the scene by the Road Accident Research Unit and reconstructed using the latest computer aided crash reconstruction techniques. The 830 control passenger vehicles were matched to the cases by location, direction of travel, time of day, and day of week, and their speeds were measured with a laser speed gun. It was found that the risk of involvement in a casualty crash increased more than exponentially with increasing free travelling speed above the mean traffic speed and that travelling speeds below the mean traffic speed were associated with a lower risk of being involved in a casualty crash. The effect of hypothetical speed reductions on all of the 167 crashes investigated indicated large potential safety benefits from even small reductions in rural travelling speeds. (a)


Title of dissertation: Single-Microphone Speech Enhancement Inspired by Auditory System Majid Mirbagheri, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation directed by: Professor Shihab Shamma, Department of Electrical and Computer Enhancing quality of speech in noisy environments has been an active area of research due to the abundance of applications dealing with human voice and dependence of their performance on this quality. While original approaches in the field were mostly addressing this problem in a pure statistical framework in which the goal was to estimate speech from its sum with other independent processes (noise), during last decade, the attention of the scientific community has turned to the functionality of human auditory system. A lot of effort has been put to bridge the gap between the performance of speech processing algorithms and that of average human by borrowing the models suggested for the sound processing in the auditory system. In this thesis, we will introduce algorithms for speech enhancement inspired by two of these models i.e. the cortical representation of sounds and the hypothesized role of temporal coherence in the auditory scene analysis. After an introduction to the auditory system and the speech enhancement framework we will first show how traditional speech enhancement technics such as wiener-filtering can benefit on the feature extraction level from discriminatory capabilities of spectro-temporal representation of sounds in the cortex i.e. the cortical model. We will next focus on the feature processing as opposed to the extraction stage in the speech enhancement systems by taking advantage of models hypothesized for human attention for sound segregation. We demonstrate a mask-based enhancement method in which the temporal coherence of features is used as a criterion to elicit information about their sources and more specifically to form the masks needed to suppress the noise. Lastly, we explore how the two blocks for feature extraction and manipulation can be merged into one in a manner consistent with our knowledge about auditory system. We will do this through the use of regularized non-negative matrix factorization to optimize the feature extraction and simultaneously account for temporal dynamics to separate noise from speech. SINGLE-MICROPHONE SPEECH ENHANCEMENT INSPIRED BY AUDITORY SYSTEM


It has already been a few years since the first appearance of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) in academic research. Since then, a broad number of devices have been designed under this generic term. Bulk-acoustic wave (BAW) resonators are among the few of them which have become exploited at industrial level. They are mainly used to implement filters for mainstream telecommunication applications. In a different domain, potential applications for integrated wireless transceivers are flourishing. While some of them require always higher data rates, others need devices with low data rate but even lower power consumption. The goal of this thesis is to explore ways of using BAW resonators to implement building blocks for such a low-power radio and actually verify the postulate that this could help improving power consumption as well as miniaturize key functionalities. For the active integrated circuit part, the choice of a standard digital 0.18µm CMOS process established itself for its low cost and ubiquity. The specifications for the developed radio receiver are calculated for a physical layer derived from the well known Bluetooth communication protocol in the 2.4GHz ISM band with similar applications scenarii but with much lower data rates and wider channel spacing. After presenting the advantages and limitations of the devices, the implications for using BAWresonators to implement a low-power radio are investigated at circuit and system levels and a super-heterodyne architecture is proposed. A selective low-noise amplifier (LNA) is used at the circuit front-end to yield image and blocker rejection. Measurements for the RF front-end comprising an external balun, the selective LNA, a first downconversionmixer and an intermediate-frequency (IF) amplifier showed an overall noise figure of 11dB for a current consumption of 1.5mA under 1.2V. The high selectivity of the design yields an image rejection ratio of at least 50dB and allows to decrease linearity requirements and thus power consumption. A slightly improved version of the same front-end integrated together with the analog baseband signal processing chain but still using external local oscillators showed sensitivities of -96dBm at 100kbps symbol rate and -93dBm at 200kbps with an external state-of-the art FSK demodulator, allowing to extrapolate a global noise figure of 12.2dB for a global current consumption of 2.3mA under 1.2V. The proposed solution for the frequency synthesis uses both a BAW oscillator for the first downconversion to IF and a quadrature quasi-harmonic relaxation oscillator to translate the signals to baseband. The relaxation oscillator is embedded within a phase-locked loop (PLL) for which all the required blocks are discussed. Particularly, a novel modular multi-modulus frequency divider is presented, which does not necessitate complicated logic to yield the wanted division ratio and uses dynamic logic. The necessary digital circuitry to control the frequency generation is discussed as well. Finally, measurements for the complete receiver using the proposed frequency synthesis as well as digital control and demodulator implemented on FPGA are presented.


Statistical Computation for Programmers, Scientists, Quants, Excel Users, and Other Professionals Using the open source R language, you can build powerful statistical models to answer many of your most challenging questions. R has traditionally been difficult for non-statisticians to learn, and most R books assume far too much knowledge to be of help. R for Everyone is the solution. Drawing on his unsurpassed experience teaching new users, professional data scientist Jared P. Lander has written the perfect tutorial for anyone new to statistical programming and modeling. Organized to make learning easy and intuitive, this guide focuses on the 20 percent of R functionality youll need to accomplish 80 percent of modern data tasks. Landers self-contained chapters start with the absolute basics, offering extensive hands-on practice and sample code. Youll download and install R; navigate and use the R environment; master basic program control, data import, and manipulation; and walk through several essential tests. Then, building on this foundation, youll construct several complete models, both linear and nonlinear, and use some data mining techniques. By the time youre done, you wont just know how to write R programs, youll be ready to tackle the statistical problems you care about most. COVERAGE INCLUDES Exploring R, RStudio, and R packages Using R for math: variable types, vectors, calling functions, and more Exploiting data structures, including data.frames, matrices, and lists Creating attractive, intuitive statistical graphics Writing user-defined functions Controlling program flow with if, ifelse, and complex checks Improving program efficiency with group manipulations Combining and reshaping multiple datasets Manipulating strings using Rs facilities and regular expressions Creating normal, binomial, and Poisson probability distributions Programming basic statistics: mean, standard deviation, and t-tests Building linear, generalized linear, and nonlinear models Assessing the quality of models and variable selection Preventing overfitting, using the Elastic Net and Bayesian methods Analyzing univariate and multivariate time series data Grouping data via K-means and hierarchical clustering Preparing reports, slideshows, and web pages with knitr Building reusable R packages with devtools and Rcpp Getting involved with the R global community


Depression in later life is an underrepresented yet important research area. The aim of the study was to explore depressed older persons' need for and expectations of improved health services one year after implementation of the Chronic Care Model (CCM). A qualitative evaluative design was used. Data were collected through individual interviews with older persons living in Norway. The qualitative content analysis revealed two themes: The need to be safeguarded and Expectation of being considered valuable and capable. Evaluation of the improvement in care with focus on the CCM components showed that the most important components for improving the depressed older person's daily life were: delivery system re-design, self-management support, productive interaction and a well-informed active patient. The findings highlight the need for a health services designed for persons suffering from chronic ill-health, where the CCM could serve as a framework for policy change and support the redesign of the existing healthcare system. We conclude that older persons with depression need attention, especially those who have been suffering for many years. The identified components may have implications for health professionals in the promotion of mental healthcare.


Background: The self-medication practice (SM) has increased worldwide for treating mild ailments without medical consultation and drug prescription. Health information background and proper SM may have positive outcomes. This study is focused on the SM practice among the undergraduate health science students either medicine or paramedical students in different education levels in Sana'a City. Methods: A prospective crosssectional questionnaire was structured and validated to conduct randomly a sample of health science undergraduate students from January to April 2019 in Sana'a City-Yemen. Chi-square test and logistic regressions were the analytical methods used in this study. A 468-health science students involved in this study for 4 months form from January 2019 to April 2019. Results: The prevalence of SM practice was 90% compared with non-selfmedicating respondents (10%) as outcomes of this work. Females (93%) showed significantly higher SM practice than males (87%). The mildness of the illness (90%) and prior experience (82%) were the two most frequently reported source of drug information for self-medication in this study. Cough, common cold (88%) and headache (88%) were the most likely symptoms reported as self-medicated illnesses in the present study. The most frequently consumed medications have been analgesics (87%), common cold preparations (82%) and antipyretics (78%). Self-medication practice was noticeable among health sciences undergraduate students in Sana'a city and this referred to the mildness of the illness and previous experience. There were statistically significant differences between respondents based on gender in the present study, but there were differences, neither according to specific fields nor to educational level.


Abstract Nicholsodiscus anticostiensis new genus and species (Mill Bay Member, Vauréal Formation, Rawtheyan, Upper Ordovician) is described from Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada. Nicholsodiscus anticostiensis n. gen. and sp. is known from two complete specimens preserved in situ with the cupule-bearing side facing toward the bedding surface. Sedimentological, petrographic, and trace fossil evidence suggest that this bedding surface had the consistency of a hardground during the lifetime of the cyclocystoids. This provides the first unequivocal evidence that cyclocystoids lived with their cupule-bearing side (ventral) toward the substratum. A cupules-down orientation results in the ambulacral grooves facing the substratum. Such an orientation excludes suspension-feeding from being a possible feeding mode of the Cyclocystoidea as discussed by Henderson and Shergold (1971). A third Anticosti Island cyclocystoid specimen of unknown affinities is described from the same locality. Furthermore, a re-examination of the holotype of "Cyclocystoides" raymondi Foerste for purposes of comparison with Nicholsodiscus anticostiensis n. gen. and sp. provided evidence that it is a member of Zygocycloides, albeit with missing interseptal plates.


In September 2014, a local theatre company performed "the Tempest" simultaneously at two different locations to two separate audiences. Both audiences were linked together using an advanced video system, where several cameras captured the play. This is just one example of the radical shift in performing arts, where small theatre companies can use the Internet and a range of digital tools for reaching a wider remote audience. The question remains: what is the influence of this shift on the experience of the audience members? In order to better understand the problem space, we conducted two experiments focusing on two common current scenarios: remote asynchronous and synchronous watching of a theatre play. First, a theatre play was recorded and shown at a later date in a cinema to an audience. Second, a play in one theatre was broadcast to another theatre in real time. This paper reports the results of the experiments and discusses the implications towards the audience when bridging technology and performing arts. According to the results, a shift in time has a deep impact, with the audience rating their watching experience less intensive by 25% to the audience at the live venue. In the second experiment, on the other hand, both audiences reported fairly similar experiences, but different parts of the play had significant different impacts depending on the location where the audience was (in front of the stage or at another theatre). In particular it seems that lacking a way to show appreciation to the play e.g., applause has a big impact on the watching experience. The main conclusion though is that better mechanisms for including remote audiences in the experience are needed.


Dark topographic slumps several meters wide, tens of meters in length and up to a meter in depth are observed on the slopes of Juventae Chasma (JC), Valles Marineris (VM), Mars. These slumps usually originate near the terminal points of recurring slope lineae (RSL). Near their initiation points, the slumps have topographic depressions due to the removal of materials; near their lowermost reaches, new materials are deposited in lobes. Over the course of three Mars years, ten active slumps have been observed in JC, all of which formed in or near the same season (areocentric longitude: Ls 0°–120°). Mars Color Imager (MARCI) observations show low-altitude atmospheric obscurations confined within the topography of the VM and JC in the seasons when the slumps form. In one instance, data from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) and MARCI show evidence of H2O ice in the atmospheric obscuration, likely due to the formation of a low-level afternoon cloud above a dust storm, or mixing of condensate clouds with a diffuse dust cloud. The presence of atmospheric obscurations with H2O ice near times when the slumps form is intriguing, but no direct evidence currently exists to support that they aid in slump formation. Further monitoring of this site will help establish if RSL and/or atmospheric events play a role in the creation of contemporary slumps.


This report analyses the proposed reform of the e-communications regulatory
framework presented by the European Commission in September 2016. While many
of the proposed changes appear meaningful, the report argues that overall the
proposal does not entirely reflect the lessons learned from the past two decades of
e-communications regulation in Europe, and ends up being at once too conservative
(i.e. incremental with respect to legacy rules); fragile, since its effectiveness
crucially depends on governance reform; and "retro", since it does not incorporate
principles of flexible, adaptive regulation in its overarching framework. The report
argues that the merits of a lighter, ex post approach to e-communications were not
sufficiently gauged by the European Commission in its impact assessment.
The report was prepared at the request of Policy Department A and the IMCO
Committee.


Data analysis is an important scientific task which is required whenever information needs to be extracted from raw data. Statistical approaches to data analysis, which use methods from probability theory and numerical analysis, are well-founded but difficult to implement: the development of a statistical data analysis program for any given application is time-consuming and requires substantial knowledge and experience in several areas. In this paper, we describe AUTOBAYES, a program synthesis system for the generation of data analysis programs from statistical models. A statistical model specifies the properties for each problem variable (i.e. observation or parameter) and its dependencies in the form of a probability distribution. It is a fully declarative problem description, similar in spirit to a set of differential equations. From such a model, AUTOBAYES generates optimized and fully commented C/C++ code which can be linked dynamically into the Matlab and Octave environments. Code is produced by a schema-guided deductive synthesis process. A schema consists of a code template and applicability constraints which are checked against the model during synthesis using theorem proving technology. AUTOBAYES augments schema-guided synthesis by symbolic-algebraic computation and can thus derive closed form solutions for many problems. It is well-suited for tasks like estimating best-fitting model parameters for the given data. Here, we describe AUTOBAYES's system architecture, in particular the schema-guided synthesis kernel. Its capabilities are illustrated by a number of advanced textbook examples and benchmarks.


Background: Prediabetes is a condition in which the fasting blood glucose is elevated above normal levels but not high enough to be classified as diabetes mellitus. There is clear association between sensory polyneuropathy and diabetes mellitus. But association of neuropathy in prediabetes is still not clear. Forty years ago, Ellenberg suggested that neuropathy may indeed occur in prediabetes. Methods: In the present study, we attempted to study the changes in nerve conduction studies in the patients with glucose intolerance, i.e. impaired fasting blood glucose or impaired glucose tolerance in a tertiary care rural hospital. The study included 65 cases (prediabetic) and 65 controls. Nerve conduction studies were performed on right tibial nerve and right sural in lower limb, with surface recording, using the standardized technique. Results: The compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and nerve conduction velocity (NCV) of right tibial nerve were significantly reduced in the cases as compared to controls and were found to be statistically significant suggesting motor axonal neuropathy. The sensory nerve action potential (SNAP) and NCV of right sural nerve were significantly reduced in the cases as compared to controls which were found out to be statistically significant suggesting that cases had sensory axonal neuropathy. Conclusion: All the patients of prediabetes should also be screened for neuropathy. We conclude prediabetic stage is risk factor for development of neuropathy, with hyperglycemia being acting via same mechanism as in cases of diabetes. Prediabetes patients are at risk of developing full blown neuropathy. Early metabolic aberrations as seen in impaired glucose tolerance may lead to changes in the nerve conduction. J Endocrinol Metab. 2019;9(5):147-150 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jem602


Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has attracted worldwide attention for his break with the public style of his immediate predecessors. This seeming rupture has often incited controversy, particularly between liberals and conservatives in American Catholicism. This division was exacerbated by the 2015 publication of Laudato Si', Francis's encyclical letter on the environment. Yet the apparent divergence of opinion masked a more fundamental agreement that popes should normally steer clear of scientific matters. The belief that science is one thing and religion another rests on what Bruno Latour has called "the Modern Constitution," which draws sharp divisions between science and politics and relegates religion to the private sphere. Laudato Si' rejects this framework in favor of a more holistic analysis articulated through epideictic rhetoric. I name this approach "nonmodern epideictic" and argue that it both confirms and supplements Latour's understanding of religious rhetoric.


Dietary fat is an important source of nutrients and is proven to be beneficial to human health, however excess intake of certain types of fats has also been associated with the development of many chronic diseases. Written by a group of lipid experts who participated in the 2004 AOCS-JOCS Joint Symposium on Bioscience, the material contains information from lectures presented in the meeting, as well as invited papers from authors who could not attend. This text discusses the effects of several different dietary fats on the development of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, inflammation, and immune functions.


The book provides a series of approaches to the ancient question of whether and how God is a matter of experience,or, alternately, to what extent the notion of experience can be true to itself if it does not include God. On the one hand, it seems impossible to experience God: the deity does not offer Himself to sense experience. On the other hand, there have been mystics who have claimed to have encountered God. The essays in this collection seek to explore the topic again, drawing insights from phenomenology, theology, literature, and feminism. Throughout, this stimulating collection maintains a strong connection with concrete rather than abstract approaches to God.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Jeffrey Bloechl, John D. Caputo, Kristine Culp, Kevin Hart, Kevin L. Hughes, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Crystal Lucky, Renee McKenzie, Kim Paffenroth, Michael Purcell, Michael J. Scanlon, O.S.A., James K. A. Smith. Kevin Hart is Notre Dame Professor of English and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame; among his many books are The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology, and Philosophy (Fordham), and The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and the Sacred. His most recent collection of poems is Flame Tree: Selected Poems. Barbara Wall is Special Assistant to the President for Mission Effectiveness and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. She is co-editor of The Journal of Catholic Social Thought and The Journal of Peace and Justice Studies.


The majority of terrestrial plants associate with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, which typically facilitate the uptake of limiting mineral nutrients by plants in exchange for plant carbon. However, hundreds of non-photosynthetic plant species—mycoheterotrophs—depend entirely on AM fungi for carbon as well as mineral nutrition. Mycoheterotrophs can provide insight into the operation and regulation of AM fungal relationships, but little is known about the factors, fungal or otherwise, that affect mycoheterotroph abundance and distribution. In a lowland tropical forest in Panama, we conducted the first systematic investigation into the influence of abiotic factors on the abundance and distribution of mycoheterotrophs, to ask whether the availability of nitrogen and phosphorus altered the occurrence of mycoheterotrophs and their AM fungal partners. Across a natural fertility gradient spanning the isthmus of Panama, and also in a long-term nutrient-addition experiment, mycoheterotrophs were entirely absent when soil exchangeable phosphate concentrations exceeded 2 mg P kg−1. Experimental phosphorus addition reduced the abundance of AM fungi, and also reduced the abundance of the specific AM fungal taxa required by the mycoheterotrophs, suggesting that the phosphorus sensitivity of mycoheterotrophs is underpinned by the phosphorus sensitivity of their AM fungal hosts. The soil phosphorus concentration of 2 mg P kg−1 also corresponds to a marked shift in tree community composition and soil phosphatase activity across the fertility gradient, suggesting that our findings have broad ecological significance.


Background:
In the UK alone it is estimated that there are 2.1 million adult electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) users (Action on Smoking and Health, 2014). Introduced to the UK in 2006, ecigarette use has grown rapidly from 700,000 users in 2012 (Kmietowicz, 2014). Given that smoking initiation begins for the most part during adolescence, it is debatable as to whether the e-cigarette could be a gateway into addiction for adolescent non-smokers. This study examined awareness and use of the e-cigarette amongst adolescents, exploring factors that could lead to willingness to try the e-cigarette and susceptibility to smoking conventional cigarettes.

Method:
Using a between-participants survey design, power analysis calculated a sample size of at least 103 for medium effect. Exceeding this, 256 adolescent pupils aged 16 to 19 years consented to take part in the study. Survey data was collected in November 2013, during a series of 45-minute workshops held during school time. Data was analysed using chi-squared analysis and hierarchical multiple regression. RESULTS: Nearly all participants had heard of the e-cigarette (94.5%), with friends/family (49.2%) being the most frequently named source of information, followed by television (35.2%). Of the sample 14.5% had used an e-cigarette. Participants were more willing to try flavoured as opposed to the unflavoured version. Smoking status significantly predicted over a third of the variance of willingness to try an e-cigarette (F(1,254) = 141.81, p < .05) and a further 7.8% of the variance was significantly predicted by a positive prototype of a smoker and a negative prototype of an e-cigarette user (R² change = .078, F (8,246) = 4.27, p < 0.05). Willingness to try an e-cigarette was a significant predictor of susceptibility to use of an e-cigarette in the next year (F (1,253) = 174.71, p < .05) and smoking in the next year, in non-smokers (F(1,190) = 60.34, p < .05).

Conclusion:
Findings illustrated high levels of e-cigarette awareness among adolescents in a London, UK population. Use, whilst at low levels, had increased from the 10% reported in 2012 by Action on Smoking and Health (2014). Willingness to try an e-cigarette was associated with use susceptibility in the next year for both e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes. This could be interpreted as a gateway effect, in terms of adolescents inclined to use e-cigarettes and then switch to conventional cigarettes (Bell and Keane, 2014). Future research using longitudinal methodologies would enable researchers to track the trend in e-cigarette use over time, observing whether e-cigarettes are truly serving as a gateway to addiction for other forms of nicotine products. Furthermore, prevention efforts to minimise smoking in youths should educate them about e-cigarette use as a cessation aid for smokers.


For over a hundred years, the journal of the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852) was thought to have been destroyed. In 1967 the manuscript was found in the archives of the Longman Publishing House in London. This edition, to be published in six volumes, reveals the essential Moore and introduces the reader to the daily, personal record of Moore's life from 1818 to 1847. The journal begins as an accurate rendering of the author's daily life and ends as a tragic reflection of a failing memory and a deteriorating mind. Illustrated.


Abstract. Soil drying and wetting cycles promote carbon (C) release through
large heterotrophic respiration pulses at rewetting, known as the "Birch"
effect. Empirical evidence shows that drier conditions before rewetting and
larger changes in soil moisture at rewetting cause larger respiration
pulses. Because soil moisture varies in response to rainfall, these
respiration pulses also depend on the random timing and intensity of
precipitation. In addition to rewetting pulses, heterotrophic respiration
continues during soil drying, eventually ceasing when soils are too dry to
sustain microbial activity. The importance of respiration pulses in
contributing to the overall soil heterotrophic respiration flux has been
demonstrated empirically, but no theoretical investigation has so far
evaluated how the relative contribution of these pulses may change along
climatic gradients or as precipitation regimes shift in a given location. To
fill this gap, we start by assuming that heterotrophic respiration rates
during soil drying and pulses at rewetting can be treated as random
variables dependent on soil moisture fluctuations, and we develop a stochastic
model for soil heterotrophic respiration rates that analytically links the
statistical properties of respiration to those of precipitation. Model
results show that both the mean rewetting pulse respiration and the mean
respiration during drying increase with increasing mean precipitation.
However, the contribution of respiration pulses to the total heterotrophic
respiration increases with decreasing precipitation frequency and to a
lesser degree with decreasing precipitation depth, leading to an overall
higher contribution of respiration pulses under future more intermittent and
intense precipitation. Specifically, higher rainfall intermittency at
constant total rainfall can increase the contribution of respiration pulses
up to ∼10  % or 20 % of the total heterotrophic respiration in
mineral and organic soils, respectively. Moreover, the variability of both
components of soil heterotrophic respiration is also predicted to increase
under these conditions. Therefore, with future more intermittent
precipitation, respiration pulses and the associated nutrient release will
intensify and become more variable, contributing more to soil biogeochemical
cycling.


Abstract The stigma associated with illegal drug use is nearly universal, but each drug is associated with its own specific level of stigma. This study examined level of stigmatization towards users of various illegal drugs and determined what variables explain such attitudes. A sample of emerging adults (age 18 to 25) was surveyed throughout New York City (N = 1021) and lifetime use, level of exposure to users, and level of stigmatization was assessed regarding use of marijuana, powder cocaine, Ecstasy, and nonmedical use of opioids and amphetamine. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to examine predictors of stigmatization towards each drug. Results suggest that non-illegal drug users reported high levels of stigmatization towards users of all drugs, but lifetime marijuana users reported significantly lower levels of stigmatization towards users of all harder drugs. This may suggest that once an individual enters the realm of illegal drug use, stigmatization towards use of harder drugs decreases, potentially leaving individuals at risk for use of more dangerous substances. Since stigma and social disapproval may be protective factors against illegal drug use, policy experts need to consider the potential flaws associated with classifying marijuana with harder, more dangerous drugs.


BACKGROUND In recent years, the trend for purchasing to establish partnering arrangements that encourage close ties between purchasers and suppliers has taken some industries by storm. The partnering concept, while replete with benefits for purchaser and supplier alike, does raise a new issue which arises from the "open and sharing" arrangements inherent in the concept. One of these issues concerns the security for "trade secrets." Trade secrets are proprietary information about products, processes, research, and customer information that is not general knowledge, from which the owner derives an economic benefit. The trade-secrets issue stems from the fact that in a partnering relationship, suppliers receive more exposure to the internal operations of the purchasing firm, have improved access to the firm's processes, and generally have an increased level of intimacy with personnel in the purchasing organization. In some cases, purchasing firms provide in-house office space to representatives of selected suppliers.[1] As a result, purchasing managers are finding that they are "gatekeepers" of valuable information which flows to and through the purchasing department. It is the need to adequately protect this flow of information that presents a significant risk to the security of proprietary information and, in some cases, the competitive advantage of the firm. For example, General Motors' continuing effort to prosecute its former director of purchasing for allegedly disclosing valuable trade secrets to his current employer emphasizes the increasingly strategic role purchasing managers play in the success of many firms.[2] Purchasing professionals out of necessity have both access and insight into processes, products, and other vital information that may be construed as trade secrets. It is this valuable, secret information to which purchasing managers are privy that often means the difference between success and failure in a particular market. Purchasing managers are exposed to secret information in a variety of ways. Knowledge of the purchased materials going into a product or process gives purchasing managers insights into secret processes and materials content that are not available to the casual or even the determined observer who lacks the knowledge of the purchasing department. Perhaps as a sign of the times, there is another, more onerous path through which trade secrets may be leaked, divulged, or otherwise misappropriated. That path is through malicious misappropriation of proprietary information divulged in purchasing contracts and technology-exchange agreements with suppliers. The Japanese practice of keiretsu, ingrained in the TQM philosophy, encourages close ties between manufacturers and suppliers.[3] From a practical point of view, firms are thus encouraged to minimize the number of suppliers used for a given product or service. In practice, the reliance on only one supplier for a particular item is gaining popularity, since the benefits of such a "partnering" arrangement often outweigh the disadvantages. The ability to leverage financial resources and improvements to just-in-time production systems are seen as major benefits of effective partnering relationships.[4] Other benefits that may result from partnering relate to cost savings that can arise through product design improvements, productivity improvements, reduction of inventory levels, and the reduction of repetitious, time-consuming bidding procedures.[5] For example, improvements in Xerox's cycle time and in its overall performance have been reported as a result of its concurrent engineering/early supplier involvement program that is ingrained in its partnering philosophy.[6] In general, partnering offers and often delivers an improved, symbiotic relationship between the purchaser and the supplier. Still, inherent in such arrangements is the necessity for exchanging information that may be considered secret by one or both of the parties to the agreement. …


Several policies or interventions have been implemented in developing countries with the ultimate goal of improving educational outcomes and human capital. Although many empirical studies have pointed to mixed results of these interventions, the role of uncertainty arising from the state of nature about the educational environment and household characteristics in the efficiency of these interventions still lacks an economic mechanism. This paper aims at developing a theoretical framework that links policy interventions to educational outcomes. We characterize optimal policies and determine the conditions for enhancing social welfare.


Creative play and 'sympathetic presence' in clinical practice and contemporary performance: an interdisciplinary pedagogical collaboration between Nursing and Applied DramaDr Matt Jennings, Lecturer in Drama, School of Creative Arts, Ulster University, email@example.com Deeny, Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing, Ulster, University email@example.com Words: Empathy, Sympathetic Presence, Nursing, Applied Drama, Critical Reflection, Pedagogy. In the wake of critical reports on the National Health Service, there has been a drive to create a culture of care that delivers a dignified patient experience (O'Neill, 2013). Models such as Person-Centred Nursing (PCN) (McCormack and McCance, 2010) have emerged as frameworks for improvement in this area. One key feature of PCN is the concept of 'sympathetic presence', which deepens the notion of empathy and involves the nurse engaging with the patient 'in the moment' (McCormack and McCance, 2010, p 104). In fact, the model of 'sympathetic presence' represents a critique of the limitations of empathy, suggesting that it is neither desirable nor possible 'to fully comprehend another individual's particular experience' (McCormack and McCance, 2010, p 102). Since 2013, students and staff of the Drama and Nursing degree programmes at Ulster University (UU) have collaborated in an interdisciplinary pedagogical project, incorporating approaches to applied drama and actor training to support work-based learning. Mental Health and Adult Nursing students (n= 600) have been introduced to Theatre of the Oppressed techniques (Boal 1979) and aspects of Stanislavski's Method of Physical Action (Benedetti, 1998). These support skills assessments in Clinical Practice, whereby Nursing students engage in role play scenarios based on 'real world' encounters. Students provide a reflective account of the experience, using a framework derived from Asadoorian et al (2011). The evidence suggests that Nursing students have advanced in their understanding of 'sympathetic presence' and gained new insights into the patient experience. This paper will report on the latest iteration of that collaboration, which includes a new performance project. UU Drama students, responding to the collaboration with the School of Nursing, the work of Mark Storor and Bobby Baker (McAvinchey 2014) and the ethics of care (Noddings 1986; Held 1993), are devising a site-specific, interactive performance, Caring, for January 2017.References: Asadoorian, J., Schonwetter, D, J. and Lavigne, S, E. (2011) Developing Reflective Health Care Practitioners: Learning from Experience in Dental Hygiene Education. Journal of Dental Education 75(4), 472-484Benedetti, J. (1998) Stanislavski and the Actor. London: MethuenBoal, A. (1998) Theatre of the Oppressed. Trans. Charles A. and Maria-Odilia Leal McBride. London: Pluto Press.Held, V. (2005) The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political and Global. Oxford: Oxford University Press Noddings, N. (2013) Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley: University of California Press.McAvinchey, C. (ed.) (2014) Performance and Community: Commentary and Case Studies. London: BloomsburyMcCormack,B and McCance,T. (2010) Person-centred Nursing; theory and practice. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.McGarry, J. and Aubeeluck, A. (2013) A Different Drum: An Arts-Based Educational Program. Nursing Science Quarterly, 26(3), 267-273. O'Neill, K (2013) (ed.) Patient-centred Leadership; rediscovering our purpose. London: King's Fund


Our ability to remember new information is often compromised by competition from prior learning, leading to many instances of forgetting. One of the challenges in studying why these lapses occur and how they can be prevented is that it is methodologically difficult to "see" competition between memories as it occurs. Here, we used multi-voxel pattern analysis of human fMRI data to measure the neural reactivation of both older (competing) and newer (target) memories during individual attempts to retrieve newer memories. Of central interest was the following: (1) whether older memories were reactivated during retrieval of newer memories; (2) how reactivation of older memories related to retrieval performance; and (3) whether neural mechanisms engaged during the encoding of newer memories were predictive of neural competition experienced during retrieval. Our results indicate that older and newer visual memories were often simultaneously reactivated in ventral temporal cortex—even when target memories were successfully retrieved. Importantly, stronger reactivation of older memories was associated with less accurate retrieval of newer memories, slower mnemonic decisions, and increased activity in anterior cingulate cortex. Finally, greater activity in the inferior frontal gyrus during the encoding of newer memories (memory updating) predicted lower competition in ventral temporal cortex during subsequent retrieval. Together, these results provide novel insight into how older memories compete with newer memories and specify neural mechanisms that allow competition to be overcome and memories to be updated.


James Harris is widely recognized aspioneering investigator of both the Spanish language and the general principles that underlie the modern generative theories of linguistics. In this book, he outlines important new results that impose strong constraints on the theory of Spanish phonology, with consequences beyond Spanish and beyond the family of Romance languages.The first part of the book deals with problems of syllable structure, and the second part with stress (accentuation). In both, Harris presents evidence and arguments showing that previous analyses are descriptively and theoretically inadequate, and he proposes new interpretations. These include a proposition for analyzing syllable structure by combining a set of rules that apply to strings of phonemes and a set of filters that mark labeled constituents as deviant under specified conditions. Harris provides a systematic description of the stress contours of Spanish words that follows from morphological and markedness considerations.Markedness is in turn interpreted in terms of the universal theory of "extrametricality." The book formulates and illustrates the Peripherality Condition, a universal principle that strongly constrains the theory of extrametricality, with highly desirable consequences for the description of Spanish grammar.James W. Harris is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at MIT. This is the eighth volume in the series Linguistic Inquiry Monographs.


Serbia's EU integration has gained momentum after political change in 2000. From that point, numerous EU initiatives have been employed to facilitate the country's legal, economic and political change in order to prepare it for (potential) EU membership. The cornerstone of the relations between the country and the EU is the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which mandates the full alignment of state aid measures to EU standards. Since 2006, subsequent governments have been working on aligning the substantive rules for the granting of state aid to the (ever-changing) EU framework, with a growing number of state aid measures and schemes being notified to and approved by the Commission for State Aid Control. However, this period was also characterised by a severe economic crisis that created the challenge for the Serbian government of aligning with the EU state aid regime, on the one hand, and facing pressure to save failing banks and companies, and prevent job losses, on the other. By examining the institutional structure of the regime's control body and the overall experiences of the first phase of the implementation of the Law on State aid, this paper draws conclusions on the major challenges and obstacles to introducing a new regulatory regime in the context of a deep economic crisis, ongoing enlargement fatigue and conflicting political legacies.


INTRODUCTION Libraries have a mission to educate users about copyright, and library publishing staff are often involved in that work. This article investigates a concrete point of intersection between the two areas - copyright statements on library-published journals. METHODS Journals published by members of the Library Publishing Coalition were examined for open access status, type and placement of copyright information, copyright ownership, and open licensing. RESULTS Journals in the sample were overwhelmingly (93%) open access. 80% presented copyright information of some kind, but only 30% of those included it at both the journal and the article level. Open licensing was present in 38% of the journals, and the most common ownership scenario was the author retaining copyright while granting a nonexclusive license to the journal or publisher. 9% of the sample journals included two or more conflicting rights statements. DISCUSSION 76% of the journals did not consistently provide accurate, easily-accessible rights information, and numerous problems were found with the use of open licensing, including conflicting licenses, incomplete licenses, and licenses not appearing at the article level. CONCLUSION Recommendations include presenting full copyright and licensing information at both the journal and the article level, careful use of open licenses, and publicly-available author agreements. External Data or Supplements: Schlosser, Melanie, 2016, "Data from: Write Up! A Study of Copyright Information on Library-Published Journals", http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/R36SVZ , Harvard Dataverse.


Resilient systems have the capability to survive and recover from seriously affecting events. Resilience engineering already is established for socio-economic organisations and extended network-like structures e. g. supply systems like power grids. Transferring the known principles and concepts used in these disciplines enables engineering resilient load-carrying systems and subsystems, too. Unexpected load conditions or component damages are summarised as disruptions caused by nesciense that may cause damages to the system or even system breakdowns. Disruptions caused by nescience can be controlled by analysing the resilience characteristics and synthesising resilient load-carrying systems. This paper contributes to a development methodology for resilient load-carrying systems by presenting a resilience applications model to support engineers analysing system resilience characteristics and behaviour. Further a concept of a systematically structured solution catalogue is provided that can be used for the classification of measures to realise resilience functions depending on system adaptivity and disruption progress. The resilience characteristics are illustrated by 3 examples.


Complex and controversial, hackers possess a wily, fascinating talent, the machinations of which are shrouded in secrecy. Providing in-depth exploration into this largely uncharted territory, Profiling Hackers: The Science of Criminal Profiling as Applied to the World of Hacking offers insight into the hacking realm by telling attention-grabbing tales about bizarre characters that practice hacking as an art. Focusing on the relationship between technology and crime and drawn from the research conducted by the Hackers Profiling Project (HPP), this volume applies the behavioral science of criminal profiling to the world of internet predators. The authors reveal hidden aspects of the cyber-crime underground, answering questions such as: Who is a real hacker? What life does a hacker lead when not on-line? Is it possible to determine a hackers profile on the basis of his behavior or types of intrusion? What is the motive behind phishing, pharming, viruses, and worms? After gaining notoriety for breaking into many high-profile computer systems, the Italian hacker Raoul Chiesa turned to ethical hacking in 1995. Today he uses his skills and abilities to find ways to protect networks and computer systems. Stefania Ducci is a member of the Counter Human Trafficking and Emerging Crimes Unit at the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). Silvio Ciappi is a criminologist who lectures at the University of Pisa and studies criminal profiling. These three experts with vastly different backgrounds explore the clandestine network of cyber-criminals, providing an unparalleled glimpse into the secret lives of these malevolent individuals.


Structurally adaptive methods -- from decision trees and polynomial networks, to projection pursuit models, additive networks, and cascade correlation neural networks -- iteratively add components in an attempt to construct models with complexity appropriate to the data. The diverse basis functions and search strategies employed usually lead to a distribution of results (with rankings hard to predict priori) yet, robustly combining the output estimates can achieve a consensus model with properties often superior to the best of the individual models. Additionally, other information learned by some of the modeling techniques can be shared to the benefit of the fused system, including identification of key variables to employ and outlying cases to ignore. This paper describes the fused model developed for a small but challenging classification dataset (where one infers the species of a bat from its chirps) and introduces a robust method of combining the outputs of diverse models.


Background:

Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) has an important role in mood disorders. This study aims to investigate whether serum NOx levels are associated with bipolar disorder, manic episodes (BD-ME) and major depressive disorder, depressive episodes (MDD-DE), and to evaluate the impact of treatments on NOx levels and symptoms severity in BD-ME and MDD-DE patients.

Methods:

We enrolled 20 patients with BD-ME, 18 with MDD-DE, and 80 healthy subjects. Serum NOx levels were measured with assay kits. Symptom severity was evaluated using the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) for BD-ME and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) for MDDDE. We collected and analyzed patients' NOx, YMRS, and HAM-D data while pre-treatment (admission) and post-treatment (discharge).

Results:

Serum NOx levels of the healthy controls were higher than patients with BD-ME and lower than patients with MDD-DE, but the difference was not statistically significant. Serum NOx levels were both increased in BD-ME (p=0.0047) and in MDD-DE (p=0.0398) patients after treatment. The changes of NOx levels were not associated with the changes of YMRS scores in BD-ME patients after treatment. However, the changes of NOx levels were negatively correlated with the changes of HAM-D scores in MDD patients after treatment (p=0.0473).

Conclusions:

Our results suggest that increased levels of serum NOx are indicators in patients with BDME and MDD-DE after treatment. In addition, the changes of serum NOx levels might be measuring biomarkers for assessment of treatment response in MDD-DE patients.


BACKGROUND
Identifying patients at nutrition risk proves difficult in the intensive care unit (ICU) due to the nature of critical illness. No consensus exists on the most appropriate method to identify these patients. Traditional screens and assessments are often limited due to their subjective nature. The purpose of the quality improvement project was to compare proportions of ICU patients deemed at nutrition risk using 3 different tools.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
A convenience sample of 294 patients admitted to the ICU was used. Patients were assessed using the institution's routine nutrition screening method, the Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), and the NUTrition Risk in Critically ill (NUTRIC) score. Information was collected on demographics, severity of illness, hospital and ICU length of stay (LOS), and disposition. Descriptive statistics were used to examine counts/proportions of risk categories; means ± SD were used to summarize demographic and clinical variables.

RESULTS
A total of 139 patients (47%) were deemed at nutrition risk or malnourished by at least 1 tool. Patients identified were older and had a lower body mass index, more weight loss, more fat and muscle wasting, more fluid accumulation, and lower average handgrips than those not at nutrition risk; they also had longer hospital and ICU LOS, higher rates of requiring further rehabilitation upon discharge, and higher mortality during hospitalization.

CONCLUSION
Traditional screening and assessment tools did not uniformly identify patients as malnourished or at nutrition risk in the ICU and therefore may be inappropriate for use in this population. Inclusion of physical assessment, functional status, and severity of illness may be useful in predicting nutrition risk in the ICU.


Coral reef systems are in global decline. In Australia, much of this decline has been attributable to cyclic outbreaks (every ~17 years) of the coral-feeding crown-of-thorns seastar. While a native species, when in large enough densities the seastar acts like an invasive pest. Since 2012 the Australian government has invested significantly in a targeted control program using lethal injection. While this program is effective for individual reefs, it is not a complete strategy for the entire Great Barrier Reef (~2,500 reefs). In order to find a longer-term solution to the problem, in 2015, the lead author travelled to New Zealand, the United States, and Canada under a Churchill Fellowship to understand successful aquatic integrated pest management strategies and their potential application to the Great Barrier Reef. Meetings and workshops were convened with experts who specialise in risk assessment, categorisation, and management of aquatic invasive species. The experts comprised academics, applied scientists, policy makers, and a not for profit community based invasive species council. Bioinvasion management and prioritisation of management effort using risk-based frameworks were reviewed for application to the crown-of-thorns seastar. This viewpoint is novel in its approach of applying invasive species tools and perspectives to a non-invasive, native marine pest. Early detection and rapid response is key to preventing the transition of the seastar from natural densities to outbreak densities. However given the seastar is a native species already established, when in outbreak mode a multifaceted post-border management approach is essential. Private support funding models, that bridge conservation and tourism/philanthropy have proved successful in New Zealand to supplement government funded marine reserve management – this is an approach which should be explored by Australia to help manage the seastar. Dedicated support and commitment is needed to break the issue-attention cycle. On the Great Barrier Reef, a dedicated biosecurity approach should be used to maintain the seastar at natural densities, increase the time between outbreaks, protect coral cover and increase resilience of the system.


Hepatitis C virus infection, with both hepatic and extrahepatic manifestations, is an important issue for patients requiring renal replacement therapy (RRT) and for those who receive kidney transplants (KT). Registry studies show a clear adverse impact of HCV-positivity on RRT patient survival and on KT graft and patient survival.1 In pretransplant and post-transplant settings, HCV-positivity (vs uninfected patients) is clearly associated with a relatively increased liver-related mortality and morbidity. However, reflecting the frequent comorbid cardiovascular disease that is observed in these settings, the absolute risk for cardiovascular mortality is much greater than risk of HCV-related mortality in patients with RRT and KT. Remarkably, the risk for cardiovascular disease appears increased in HCV-positive versus HCV-negative patients.

There are obvious merits in HCV clearance for selected patients on RRT. Successful treatment should prevent or substantially reduce the risk for liver-related problems including hepatic decompensation and primary liver cancer. These problems are also avoided by patients with KT who undergo successful treatment before transplantation. Also, HCV-related renal diseases that may affect the transplanted kidney could be prevented by successful antiviral treatment before transplantation. It has not been shown, though it is possible, that HCV clearance might ameliorate the adverse impact of infection on cardiovascular complications before and after transplantation.

There have been major recent and ongoing advances in the antiviral treatment of hepatitis C infection. However, these advances have been mainly translated to the benefit of non-transplant patients with normal or adequate renal function. For more than a decade, pegylated interferon (peg-IFN) and ribavirin combination of drugs was the treatment for all genotypes of HCV infection. Unfortunately, this antiviral treatment has proven toxic and difficult to deliver in the RRT setting. Peg-IFN needs to be given at a reduced …


A functional separator is designed to improve the utilization of sulfur and to inhibit polysulfide shuttling for high performance lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries. Here, we demonstrate a functional separator which is obtained by coating sulfonated UiO-66 metal–organic framework (MOF)/Nafion on a polyethylene separator. This modified separator suppresses the polysulfide diffusion due to a molecular sieving and electrostatic repulsion effect and facilitates the redox kinetics of sulfur conversion because of a fast charge transport by sulfonic groups tethered to the MOF and Nafion. Thus, the Li–S cells based on the MOF/Nafion hybrid-coated separator achieve a discharge capacity of 1127.4 mA h g−1 at 0.1C, a capacity retention of 66.8% at 3C relative to 0.1C, and a cycling stability of 75.5% over 200 charging/discharging cycles. These values are much greater than those of pristine and Nafion-coated separators, which confirms the superiority of MOF/Nafion hybrid coating layers for the design of functional separators.


Analyzing the concept of ḥikmah in early Islamic texts, this book brings earliest scholarly materials to the service of modern readers and thus offers a comprehensive contextualization of this subtle and elusive notion in the collective usage of early Muslim authors, especially in the works of lexicographers, exegetes, philosophers, and Sufis.


This thesis presents a case study of the thinking and practice of an experienced primary teacher as he planned and taught a term's science topic on toys with his class of 9-10 year olds. The teacher planned the topic as a series of activities intended to promote investigation and problem-solving by his pupils. Most of the time pupils worked
in small groups, testing and making vehicles or models. Information about the teacher's theories and his plans for teaching the topic was collected through interviews, conversations and written notes over the school year. In the third term, when the topic was taught, his
actions and thoughts in the lessons were traced through classroom observation and audiorecording.

Analysis of the teacher's theories identified his beliefs and his repertoire of knowledge on which he drew in planning; his specific subject knowledge in science was related to his general theories of teaching and learning.
His planning was seen to be a layered process in which he formed images of the flow of activity in each layer: the year, term, activity and lesson. The teacher's thinking during lessons, referred to as thinking-in-action, was closely related to the classroom action but involved more than thoughts about immediate interactions and decisions.
The analysis of dilemmas identified by the teacher provided insights into the nature of his thinking-in-action and its influence on his theories.

The relationship of thinking and practice in this case of teaching was compared to Schon's (1983.1987) account of the reflective practice of professionals, particularly to his concept of reflection-in-action. A model was developed within which a teacher's theories, planning and thinking-in-action can be related to one another and to action in a particular situation. Implications for research into teachers' thinking, for primary science and technology, and for the professional development of teachers are discussed.


We study the determinants of stock market development and the growing migration of capital raising, listing, and trading activity to international exchanges. Economies with better fundamentals have larger and more liquid markets. As fundamentals improve, however, the degree of migration to international exchanges also increases. This leads to gains for corporations in the form of lower costs and more liquidly-traded shares. Fully-fledged local stock exchanges are thus becoming less necessary for many economies. Furthermore, migration can leave too little domestic activity to sustain a local exchange. Therefore, the functions and forms of stock exchanges in many economies need rethinking.


In a Manila hospital, 204 mothers were randomized into three groups: two intervention groups receiving home-based counseling visits, one of them (n=68) by counselors trained to use a locally developed, two-tiered program of breastfeeding counseling, and the other by counselors trained in general childcare (n=67), were compared with a control group of mothers (n=69) who did not receive any counseling. All infants were scheduled for seven visits to the hospital for follow-up. During hospital visits, maternal and infant body measurements were made and an independent interviewer asked the mothers individually to recall how the infant had been fed. One study physician, blind to participant groups, was consulted at all scheduled and unscheduled infant visits.At six months, 44% of the breastfeeding-counseled mothers, 7% of the childcare-counseled mothers and none of the mothers in the control group were exclusively breastfeeding. Twenty- four mothers breastfed exclusively during the first six months, of whom 22 received breastfeeding counseling and 2 had no breastfeeding counseling. Among 24 infants who were exclusively breastfed from birth to six months there were no episodes of diarrhea. All infants had gained in weight, length and head circumference. Mean maternal weight loss at six months was similar whether her breastfeeding was exclusive or partial.The reasons why mothers without breastfeeding counseling introduced non-breast milk feeding before six months reflected lack of knowledge and support. Breastfeeding support during the first six months focusing on how to prevent and solve breastfeeding problems, particularly during the first two weeks, will enable mothers to choose to breastfeed exclusively up to six months. This study has provided fundamental evidence of successful intervention by breastfeeding counseling to achieve six months of exclusive breastfeeding among term, low-birthweight infants. The locally developed training program in breastfeeding counseling, which successfully prepared volunteers to counsel mothers at home, could be incorporated into primary health care in the Philippines. Mothers who received breastfeeding counseling appreciated how this helped them to achieve their breastfeeding goals for the first six months. Improved breastfeeding practices as a result of breastfeeding counseling provided infants with protection from diarrhea and respiratory infections, contributing to their health and development.


Title of Document: GENERIC DYNAMIC MODEL FOR A RANGE OF THERMAL SYSTEM COMPONENTS. Shenglan Xuan Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Directed By: Professor, Reinhard Radermacher, Department of Mechanical Engineering The simulation of a thermal system consists of a simulation of its components and their interactions. The advantages of thermal system simulations have been widely recognized. They can be used to explore the performance of a newly designed system, to identify whether the design meets the design criteria, to develop and test controls, and to optimize the system by minimizing the cost or power consumption, and maximizing the energy efficiency and/or capacity. Thermal system simulations can also be applied to existing systems to explore prospective modifications and improvements. Much research has been conducted on aspects of thermal system and component simulation, especially for steady-state simulation. Recently, transient simulations for systems and components have gained attention, since dynamic modeling assists the understanding of the operation of thermal systems and their controls. This research presents the development of a generic component model that allows users to easily create and customize any thermal component with a choice of working fluids and levels of complexity for either transient or steady-state simulation. The underlying challenge here is to design the code such that a single set of governing equations can be used to accurately describe the behavior of any component of interest. The inherent benefits to this approach are that maintenance of the code is greatly facilitated as compared to competing approaches, and that the software is internally consistent. This generic model features a user-friendly description of component geometry and operating conditions, interactive data input and output, and a robust component solver. The open literature pertaining to thermal component models, especially the components of vapor compression systems, is reviewed and commented on in this research. A theoretical evaluation of the problem formulation and solution methodology is conducted and discussed. A generic structure is proposed and developed to simulate thermal components by enabling and disabling a portion of the set of governing equations. In addition, a system solver is developed to solve a system composed of these components. The component/system model is validated with experimental data, and future work is outlined. GENERIC DYNAMIC MODEL FOR A RANGE OF THERMAL SYSTEM COMPONENTS


Nano-contact spin-torque vortex oscillators (STVOs) are anticipated to find application as nanoscale sources of microwave emission in future technological applications. Presently the output power and phase stability of individual STVOs are not competitive with existing oscillator technologies. Synchronisation of multiple nano-contact STVOs via magnetisation dynamics has been proposed to enhance the microwave emission. The control of device-to-device variations, such as mode splitting of the microwave emission, is essential if multiple STVOs are to be successfully synchronised. In this work a combination of electrical measurements and time-resolved scanning Kerr microscopy (TRSKM) was used to demonstrate how mode splitting in the microwave emission of STVOs was related to the magnetisation dynamics that are generated. The free-running STVO response to a DC current only was used to identify devices and bias magnetic field configurations for which single and multiple modes of microwave emission were observed. Stroboscopic Kerr images were acquired by injecting a small amplitude RF current to phase lock the free-running STVO response. The images showed that the magnetisation dynamics of a multimode device with moderate splitting could be controlled by the injected RF current so that they exhibit similar spatial character to that of a single mode. Significant splitting was found to result from a complicated equilibrium magnetic state that was observed in Kerr images as irregular spatial characteristics of the magnetisation dynamics. Such dynamics were observed far from the nano-contact and so their presence cannot be detected in electrical measurements. This work demonstrates that TRSKM is a powerful tool for the direct observation of the magnetisation dynamics generated by STVOs that exhibit complicated microwave emission. Characterisation of such dynamics outside the nano-contact perimeter permits a deeper insight into the requirements for optimal phase-locking of multiple STVOs that share common magnetic layers.


We report the first experimental demonstration of Bragg grating-based nonlinear switching in a bismuth-oxide single-mode fiber. Exploiting the strong χ3-nonlinearity of this fiber in a cross-phase modulation scheme, we change the transmission of a probe near the grating stop band from 90 % to 20 %, a 6.5 dB extinction ratio, at powers as low as 55 W. This is an 18-fold improvement in the switching power compared to the best demonstrations in silica. The experimental results agree well with numerical simulations.


ABSTRACT Objective The most common acquired fistula of the urinary tract is Vesicovaginal fistulae (VVF) (1) posing social stigmata for the patient as well as a surgical challenge for the urologist. Here we present our initial experience with Robotic assisted laparoscopic repair of VVF, its safety and efficacy. Materials and Methods Seven out of eight fistulas were post hysterectomy; five had undergone abdominal while two had laparoscopic hysterectomy while one was due to prolonged labour. Two had associated ureteric injury. All underwent robotic assisted laparoscopic trans abdominal extravesical approach. Three 8 mm ports for robotic arms, one 12 mm port for camera and another 12 mm for assistant were used in a fan shaped manner. All had preoperative ureteric catheter placed. Bladder was closed in two layers and vagina in one layer. Omental flap placed in all cases except two where it was not possible. Drain and per urethral catheter placed in all cases. Double J stents were placed in two cases requiring ureteric implantation additionally. Results The mean age of presentation was 39.25 years (26-47 range) with mean BMI being 26.25 kg/m2 (21-32 range). Mean duration between insult and repair was 9.37 months (3-24 months). Only in single case there was history of previous repair attempt. On cystoscopy four had supratrigonal VVF and four were trigonal with mean size of 13.37 mm (7-20 mm). Mean operative time was 117.5 minutes (90-150). There were no intraoperative/postoperative complications or need for open conversion. Mean haemoglobin drop was 1.4 gm/dL (0.3-2 gm). Drain was removed once 24-48 hours output is negligible. One patient had post-operative urinary leak at 2 weeks which ceased with continuation of catheterisation for another 2 weeks. Catheter was removed after voiding cystourethrogram showed no leak at 2-3 weeks postoperatively. Mean duration of drain was 3.75 days (3-5) and per urethral catheterisation (which was removed after voiding cystourethrography) was 15.75 days (9-28). Mean hospital stay was 6.62 days (4-14). Post-operative bladder capacity was 324.28 cc (280-350) on voiding diary. Follow up ranged from 3-9 months. At 3 months of follow-up, these patients continued to void normally and there was no evidence of recurrence of VVF. Conclusion Robotic repair of VVF is safe and feasible and has additional advantages in the form of precise suturing under 3D vision and certainly a more striking and effective option especially in complex VVF repair associated with ureteric injuries (2).