Here, surfactant-assisted exfoliated graphene (SAEG) has been used to make transparent conducting graphene films which for the first time were used to make SAEG–silicon Schottky junctions for photovoltaics. The graphene films were characterised using UV-Vis spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and four point probe sheet resistance measurements. The effects of film thickness, thermal annealing and chemical doping of the graphene films on the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the cells were investigated. Mild annealing of thickness optimised films resulted in a doubling of the PCE. Additionally, chemical doping resulted in a further 300% increase of the peak PCE. These results indicate that SAEG has the potential to compete with chemical vapour deposited graphene in graphene–silicon Schottky junction applications.


This paper is a discursive analysis of men's anti-rape organizations that exclude women, either from physically attending meeting or presentations, or representationally, in that women's perspectives about rape and sexual assault are absent from the material. The discursive framings that result from this exclusion often subvert and preclude helpful anti-rape work. Women's points of view are often excluded from the material or entirely misrepresented leading to the communication of dangerously inaccurate information. Positive anti-rape work is often derailed in the literature as the organizations become entangled in unreflexive rhetorical battles. By examining the discourses, as well as what the discourses exclude, we can understand some of the problems that are foundational to these organizations. The stated purpose of these anti-rape groups is to fundamentally change violence against women in this society and therefore they have the potential to profoundly impact men's and women's lives. Due to this possibility, problems within the literature must be taken extremely seriously, analyzed, and, hopefully, reformed. The exclusion of women creates a variety of problems that demonstrate the necessity for a higher standard of accountability and responsibility for men's anti-rape organizations.


BACKGROUND
We previously showed that 3 g American ginseng administered 40 min before an oral glucose challenge significantly reduces postprandial glycemia in subjects without diabetes. Whether this effect can be replicated with doses <3 g and administration times closer to the oral glucose challenge is unclear.

OBJECTIVE
Our objective was to study the dosing and timing effects of American ginseng on postprandial glycemia.

DESIGN
In a random crossover design, 12 healthy individuals [X +/- SEM age: 42 +/- 7 y; body mass index (BMI; in kg/m2): 24.1 +/- 1.1] received 16 treatments: 0 (placebo), 1, 2, or 3 g American ginseng at 40, 20, 10, or 0 min before a 25-g oral glucose challenge. Capillary blood was collected before administration and at 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, and 90 min after the start of the glucose challenge.

RESULTS
Two-way analysis of variance showed that the main effects of treatment and administration time were significant (P < 0.05). Glycemia was lower over the last 45 min of the test after doses of 1, 2, or 3 g ginseng than after placebo (P < 0.05); there were no significant differences between doses. The reductions in the areas under the curve for these 3 doses were 14.4 +/- 6.5%, 10.6 +/- 4.0%, and 9.1 +/- 6%, respectively. Glycemia in the last hour of the test and area under the curve were significantly lower when ginseng was administered 40 min before the challenge than when it was administered 20, 10, or 0 min before the challenge (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
American ginseng reduced postprandial glycemia in subjects without diabetes. These reductions were time dependent but not dose dependent: an effect was seen only when the ginseng was administered 40 min before the challenge. Doses within the range of 1-3 g were equally effective.


The book begins with real world cases of botnet attacks to underscore the need for action. Next the book will explain botnet fundamentals using real world examples. These chapters will cover what they are, how they operate, and the environment and technology that makes them possible. The following chapters will analyze botnets for opportunities to detect, track, and remove them. Then the book will describe intelligence gathering efforts and results obtained to date. Public domain tools like OurMon, developed by Jim Binkley of Portland State University, will be described in detail along with discussions of other tools and resources that are useful in the fight against Botnets.

* This is the first book to explain the newest internet threat - Botnets, zombie armies, bot herders, what is being done, and what you can do to protect your enterprise
* Botnets are the most complicated and difficult threat the hacker world has unleashed - read how to protect yourself


Human interferon-α2b (IFN-α2b) is one of the biopharmaceuticals used to cure
diseases such as hairy cell leukemia, malignant melanoma, and chronic hepatitis (B
and C). Several areas related to the industrial problems, in the development of
soluble IFN-α2b from recombinant Escherichia coli were explored in this study,
which include enhancement of expression in periplasm, cell disruption techniques,
quantification method and purification.
The use of pET 26b(+) plasmid enhanced the periplasmic expression of IFN-α2b
(300 ng/mL) by about 3000 times in E. coli RG 2(DE3) as compared to that
obtained in the previous recombinant strain (0.1 ng /mL) using pFLAG-ATS
plasmid. Difference in the expression level was attributed to the difference in the
promoters and the signal sequences. In silico analysis suggested that the
enhancement was mainly due to the difference in the translation initiation caused by
mRNA secondary structure of the plasmid.The disruption of E. coli cells were investigated using glass bead shaking and
homogenizer for small and large scale purpose, respectively. The optimum
conditions for glass bead shaking were 30 min shaking at 300 rpm with 1.5 g/mL of
glass beads (0.5 mm diameter). This technique was particularly useful for handling
many samples at one time. The operating pressure range in a homogenizer was
classified as low, transition and high pressures based on the characteristics of cell
disintegrates. At low pressures, the protein release was mainly due to point break,
which lead to high selectivity of IFN-α2b release. At higher pressures, the maximum
release of total protein and IFN-α2b with a drastic reduction in cell size was observed
after the first pass. Statistical optimization was used for osmotic shock process to
release IFN-α2b at high concentration, with less process waste. Optimal process was
achieved at cell concentration of 0.05 g/mL in hypertonic and 0.2 g/mL in hypotonic
solutions.
A rapid immunoassay method for quantification of IFN-α2b was developed using
surface plasmon resonance technique. Anti-interferon monoclonal antibody (anti-
IFN) was immobilized onto the CM5 chip using an amine coupling method. The
perfect linearity was observed between 10 and 200 ng/mL. The anti-IFN chip was
found to be useful for more than 1000 cycles and could also be used in continuous
running environment.
The efficacy of two activation methods using N-Hydroxysuccinimide in organic
solvent (M I) and aqueous solution (M II) was assessed on CM Sepharose FF beads
by immobilizing BSA onto it at various pH and ionic strengths. M I activation gave
better immobilization efficiency than M II. Similar binding capacity was obtained with beads immobilized at pH 5 and 8 using anti-IFN; and with crude IFN-α2b as
ligand and ligate.
Knowledge gained from the molecular work gave better understanding of the
expression pathway for future improvement of periplasmic IFN-α2b production by E.
coli. Information and data obtained from this study were very useful for the
development of efficient downstream and purification methods of IFN-α2b from E.
coli fermentation at reduced cost, as well as simple and cheap quantification method
for quality control and process monitoring.


The authors present a second experiment in combining teaching and research: the testing of MOT and its new adaptive patterns. MOT is an adaptive hypermedia authoring tool based on the LAOS adaptive hypermedia authoring framework. The patterns are implemented via an adaptive language that uses a low-granularity domain model, LAOS, to extract the adaptation alternatives. The tests were performed in a class of over thirty students enrolled in the fourth year of the University "Politehnica" of Bucharest, taking a two-week intensive course in adaptive hypermedia. The focus of this article is on the experiment itself and its parameters: the setting and initial planning, the implementation, and the results. The authors comment on and interpret the results.


Prenatal androgens have important organizing effects on brain development and future behavior. The second-to-fourth digit length ratio (2D:4D) has been proposed as a marker of these prenatal androgen effects, a relatively longer fourth finger indicating higher prenatal androgen exposure. 2D:4D has been shown to predict success in highly competitive sports. Yet, little is known about the effects of prenatal androgens on an economically influential class of competitive risk taking—trading in the financial world. Here, we report the findings of a study conducted in the City of London in which we sampled 2D:4D from a group of male traders engaged in what is variously called "noise" or "high-frequency" trading. We found that 2D:4D predicted the traders' long-term profitability as well as the number of years they remained in the business. 2D:4D also predicted the sensitivity of their profitability to increases both in circulating testosterone and in market volatility. Our results suggest that prenatal androgens increase risk preferences and promote more rapid visuomotor scanning and physical reflexes. The success and longevity of traders exposed to high levels of prenatal androgens further suggests that financial markets may select for biological traits rather than rational expectations.


Introduction Vodafone is one of the world's leading mobile communication providers operating in more than 30 countries and partner with networks in over 50 more. Incorporated by the Vodafone Group, Vodafone Turkey, founded in 2006, that is Turkey's second largest mobile communication company since 2014, provides services to 20.4 million subscribers. As the second biggest direct international investment of Turkey, Vodafone TR's investment has exceeded 12 billion Turkish Liras since 2006. Currently Vodafone TR has more than 3300 employees, 1200 retailer stores and 43K stakeholders. Vodafone TR, whose goal is to promote Turkey to the global league in mobile communications, will continue to inspire and lead the digital transformation of Turkey.


ABSTRACT Objective. Lower mortality for Latinos has been reported in high Latino density areas. The objective was to examine the contribution of neighborhood Latino density to mortality among HIV-positive Latinos. Methods. Florida HIV surveillance data for 2005–2008 were merged with the 2007–2011 American Community Survey data using zip code tabulation areas. Hazard ratios (HR) were calculated using multi-level weighted Cox regression and adjusted for individual-level factors and neighborhood poverty. Results. Of 4649 HIV-positive Latinos, 11.8% died. There was no difference in mortality risk across categories of Latino ethnic density for Latinos as a whole. There were subgroup effects wherein mortality risk differed by ethnic density category for Latinos born in some countries/regions. Residing in an area with ≥50% Latinos compared with <25% was associated with increased mortality risk for Latinos born in Puerto Rico (HR 1.67; 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.01–2.70]). Residing in an area where Mexicans were the majority Latino group was associated with increased mortality risk for Latinos born in Mexico (HR 3.57; 95% CI [1.43–10.00]). Conclusions. The survival advantage seen among the Latino population in high Latino density areas was not seen among HIV-positive Latinos. Research is needed to determine if this may be related to stigma or another mechanism.


University teaching and learning of vitamins and minerals has been limited to a nutrient by nutrient approach. However, most vitamins and minerals play extensive roles in and interact with multiple body systems. Researchers from Virginia Tech, James Madison, and George Mason Universities are developing a Reusable Learning Object (RLO) for the study of micronutrients needed by the skeletal system. The RLO will be a freely accessible platform and be designed as a layered human body to highlight different micronutrient actions in target systems. Links to scientific research articles, government Dietary Reference Intakes, and other web-based factual information will be provided. Undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in vitamins and minerals courses across the three institutions will serve as the control group (no exposure to RLO) in 2014 and treatment group (exposure to RLO) in 2015. This presentation will address the design of the RLO and provide results from year one regarding type of student learners as well as interest and perceived utility of digital objects. As the RLO can be applied to teach various concepts, this session will be of interest to faculty across the university, particularly science instructors and those who teach online courses.


History of Christianity in India, Vol. III: Eighteenth Century. By E. R. Hambye, S.J. (Bangalore: The Church History Association of India. 1997. Pp. xxiv, 562.$40.00.) This book is Volume III of a six-volume series on the History of Christianity in India prepared under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board and published from Bangalore by the interdenominational Church History Association of India. Together, the six volumes cover the history of Christianity in India from its inception as a result of Apostle Thomas' evangelization in the first century to the present time. This volume, as the title indicates, covers the eighteenth century. The author, a Jesuit priest and Belgian by birth, spent over half a century in various parts of India as a professor in different Catholic institutions of higher learning. During that lengthy period, he gained familiarity with the languages and cultures of many regions of India and became a prime mover of studies in the history of the Church in India. Several books and numerous articles he authored earned him the reputation as the dean of Indian church history. This volume is his last work, his crowning achievement, and it is marked by original research, attention to details, and keen observation of the dynamics of local cultures and customs, typical of Hambye's lifelong scholarship. The author starts the book with an introduction detailing the political conditions in the subcontinent during the eighteenth century; the factors that helped or hindered the extraordinary expansion of Christianity during this century; the religious orders and missionary groups, both foreign and native and Catholic and non-Catholic; and the various archival and bibliographical sources he used for each of the seven sections of the book. Each of these sections deals with a distinct geographical region of the subcontinent. Hambye follows a common organizational scheme in all seven sections of the book that makes the massive amount of details in them manageable to the reader. He starts each section with a description of the political and socio-economic conditions of the region. Then he goes into the origin and historical evolution of the Christian communities in the region-treating each by denomination such as Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and others as well as by their numerical prominence in locations within the region. Here he elaborates in minute detail the dynamics of religious, social, political, communal, and interpersonal relations at play within each sect, between different Christian denominations, between Christians and non-Christians, and between each Christian community and the political authorities of the time. Significant in Hambye's narratives are also the true-to-life pictures he draws of the major Christian personalities of each group and their collaborations or rivalries with other leaders within their own denominations and outside. In the cases of Catholic leaders the author gives much prominence and space in describing their relationships with Rome. Hambye's description of the turmoil in Kerala in the aftermath of the death of Raphael Figueredo, the Vicar Apostolic of St. Thomas Christians, in 1695 is a case in point. He lines up the characters representing various interest groups as if across a chess board and describes their moves to gain dominance over the Malabar Church-the European Carmelites in Malabar persuading the Propaganda to send one of their own confreres, Angelo Francis of St. Teresia, to be consecrated as the successor to Figueredo; the only bishops in India at that time being Padroado (the claim of Portuguese kings that they had the right to oversee the governance of the Church, including the appointment of bishops, in the Eastern Hemisphere by virtue of the 1505 division of the globe by Pope Alexander VI between the Portuguese and Spanish to colonize and christianize) appointees who refused to consecrate Angelo Francis unless he subjected himself to Padroado authority; the sudden arrival of Bishop Simon of Ada, an emissary of the Chaldean Patriarch from the Middle East who traditionally provided bishops to the Catholics of Malabar; Simon of Ada trumping both the Padroado and Propaganda powers by consecrating Angelo Francis as Vicar Apostolic of St. …


The academic literature emphasizes that shared capitalism positively affects employees' attitudes at work. This paper investigates that issue by testing the relationship between shared capitalism and withdrawal behaviors (turnover and absenteeism). Recent literature interprets shared capitalism as a gift exchange between employers and employees. This paper builds on that literature. The analysis, based on an econometric case study, focuses on a five-year panel dataset of more than 800 subsidiaries belonging to a unique French-listed company. Our results show that only long-term shared capitalism translates into better withdrawal behaviors.


Aims To estimate the species richness of gram-positive coccoid morphotypes (GPCM) from untreated and treated root canals of teeth with periapical disease, using partial 16S rRNA gene sequences and biochemical properties for identification. To further characterise the isolates by antibiotic sensitivity profiles and a subset of isolates by 16S-23S intergenic amplicon patterns. Methodology 195 isolates from 20 teeth (GPCM: 117 - untreated teeth; 78 - treated teeth) were investigated. 16S rDNA obtained from all isolates using universal primers was partially sequenced and the sequences aligned with those in databases using RDP and BLAST searches. The process of identity determination was analysed. Biochemical, commercial enzyme, and MIC tests by agar dilution and E-test (8 antibiotics) were also performed. Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Enterococcus and Lactobacillus strains were evaluated by 16S-23S intergenic amplicon profile. The relatedness of like-strains was compared by: phylogenetic tree reconstruction using sequence data; and dendrograms using biochemical data. The putative identities from different approaches were compared. Results DNA concentration, PCR and sequencing primers, PCR protocol and origin of isolates ("untreated" or "treated") influenced sequence acquisition. The 16S rRNA sequence search method (RDP/BLAST), together with treated/untreated tooth origin, influenced putative strain identity. Thirty-eight percent of "untreated" isolates and half the "treated" isolates were identified with ? 98% sequence homology; the majority of the rest varied between 93%-97%. The 16S-23S intergenic amplicon patterns helped confirm genus designation and strain variation. Biochemical profiles were graded "unacceptable" in 38% of all isolates; a higher proportion was from treated teeth (46%:32%). Biochemical identities matched with 16S rRNA identities to genus level in 72% of isolates, to species level in 45%, and the rest did not match. MICs from agar dilution and E-test were within 2 dilutions in 90% of tests. Frequency distributions of MICs showed NCCLS (2003) breakpoint values to give reliable interpretive categories. Thirty-eight percent of isolates showed resistance, which was more common amongst "treated" isolates (53%:26%). Antibiotic resistance helped confirm or query identities and inform strain variation. Conclusions The 16S rRNA gene sequence, 16S-23S intergenic amplicon patterns and biochemical and MIC profiles gave different perspectives on isolates. Each approach provided accumulative evidence of subspecies strain variation and that strains colonising treated teeth may be influenced by treatment history.


A programmable, ultrafast optical delay line with a robust all-fiber configuration is demonstrated. A record scanning rate of 0.5 GHz with a delay range of 19 ps is achieved without any mechanical motion. In addition, we will discuss the challenges and future improvements.


The swordtail Xiphophorus hellerii is a popular ornamental freshwater fish that occurs as an introduced species in the aquatic habitats of at least 31 countries. Although introduced populations are found in other Australian states, the only known Western Australian population occurs in the Irwin River (29°15'S). The biology of X. hellerii in the Irwin River in south-western Australia is described from four seasonal samples, collected by seine net, between spring 2002 and winter 2003. Pregnant females were collected in all seasonal samples, though juveniles were absent in spring, implying that juvenile mortality during late winter is high. Although mean length of pregnant females (38.7mm) and mean gonadosomatic index (GSI) (14.7) were similar to reported data for X. hellerii populations in Queensland, mean fecundity was markedly lower in Western Australia, i.e. 34.1, cf. 60.15. Logistic analysis of the percentage of female and male X. hellerii with developing and mature gonads predicted that the length at which 50% of the sexes mature was 30.8 and 31.5mm SL, respectively. The sex ratios of females to males did not differ statistically from a ratio of 2:1. 5. The diet of all X. hellerii size classes was omnivorous (primarily vegetal matter/algae), although a significant difference was observed between the diet of juveniles and that of the two larger size classes (i.e. juveniles consumed greater quantities of aquatic invertebrates). 6. A melanic polymorphism (i.e. pigmented caudal peduncle and fin) was observed in approximately 5% of X. hellerii collected. 7. If released, the range of X. hellerii is likely to expand in anthropogenically modified habitats in tropical and temperate latitudes of Western Australia. Potential ecological impacts on indigenous fishes may be magnified owing to the depauperate nature of the endemic ichthyofauna including a lack of predators.


We have reported recently that the seizure model and experimental protocol may markedly influence anticonvulsant tolerance and withdrawal characteristics of benzodiazepine (BDZ) receptor ligands so that predictions on tolerance and dependence liability of novel drugs should be based on a battery of chronic experiments. In the present study, we compared BDZ receptor ligands with different intrinsic efficacy and/or gamma-aminobutyric acidA/BDZ receptor subtype selectivity in two seizure models, by using different experimental approaches to assess the tolerance and dependence liability. In one approach, mice were chronically treated with either diazepam, clonazepam, clobazam or the novel anxiolytic and anticonvulsant beta-carboline derivative abecarnil for 4 weeks, at doses which were about equipotent to increase the threshold for myoclonic seizures induced by pentylenetetrazole. Anticonvulsant activity was determined several times during the period of chronic treatment as well as up to 2 weeks after termination of treatment in the same group of animals per drug. The threshold for electroshock-induced tonic seizures was used as a second seizure model in separate groups of mice. In another approach, drug treatment protocols were the same but the seizures were induced only twice during the 4-week period of treatment to reduce the number of trials which could lead to "learned" tolerance. In additional groups of mice, the seizure thresholds were only determined before and after the period of treatment to assess whether repeated seizure induction during the chronic treatment affects the development of dependence. All four drugs lost anticonvulsant activity during the chronic treatment in the different models and experimental approaches, without indication for a significant involvement of learned tolerance. However, marked protocol-related differences were seen with respect to withdrawal symptoms, i.e., measures of physical dependence-inducing properties of the different drugs. For instance, the pentylenetetrazole model was more sensitive than the electroshock-induced tonic seizures model to detect significant decreases in the seizure threshold in the withdrawal period. Both in terms of tolerance- and dependence-inducing properties and adverse effects seen during the chronic treatment in mice, abecarnil did not seem to offer clear advantages compared to the more traditional BDZ receptor ligands. The data substantiate the importance of study design for obtaining predictable informations on the tolerance and withdrawal characteristics of BDZ receptor ligands.


In this research, I conducted a systematic integration of specific calculations for the analysis of the spatial filter that is a critical component of an all-optical analog-to-digital converter. The designed all-optical analog-to-digital converter has special relevance for high-resolution×bandwidth applications such as radar image processing. The design of the spatial filter array is based on the silicon-on-insulator process, a design that fulfills requirements of both lower power consumption and smaller integrated circuit chip size. For the developed calculation model, Babinet's principle is used in order to decompose a complicated structure into different simple components. The decomposed structure is analyzed by modifying the existing diffraction calculation methods. The method of calculating the transmission ratio of the propagating electric field compared to the finite-different-time-domain method is a new approach. The systematic integration is also adaptive to changes in the spatial filter's components. Structural changes do not require changes to the entire calculation model.


The term denture stomatitis describes an inflammation of the oral mucosa in contact with the fitting surface (usually maxillary) of the denture. Although considered to have a multi-factorial aetiology, the incidence of denture stomatitis is strongly associated with poor denture hygiene and the presence of Candida albicans, in denture plaque. Dentures provided an ideal abiotic substratum for microbial attachment, retention and growth, providing hard, non-shedding of variable topography. Although a wide range of denture hygiene products and procedures are available for use, targeted activity towards Candida is not typically reported. In addition, denture cleansing protocols often use abrasive pastes and/or brushes which can alter denture topography and potentially increase the susceptibility to plaque accumulation and reduce cleanability.
The aim of this work was to investigate interactions between denture surface topography and C.albicans, with a view to identifying factors that would enhance denture hygiene.
Two sets of denture acrylic test surfaces were abraded in a linear direction; one using emery papers of increasing grit size, and the other by abrasion using toothbrush and dentifrices. All test surfaces were characterised using white light profilometry, enabling derivation of roughness parameters (Ra/Sa) and measurement of feature dimensions (width, depth). A method was developed that allowed biofilm growth from adherent blastospores or hyphae on these surfaces.
Initial retention on the abraded surfaces increased with increasing roughness values, but there was no effect on topography on the resultant biofilm. Biofilms developed from hyphae had significantly higher biomass than those from blastospores, and also presented a more open network structure. After biofilm removal, surface roughness significantly affected retention of remaining cells: rougher surfaces retained more cells, and retention was increased by the presence of hyphae. The orientation of hyphae on the abraded surfaces did not seem to be effected by topographic features, nor by the proximity of other cells. This latter observation was confirmed using an optical tweezer method, which enabled the specific placement of individual cells, with subsequent monitoring of germ tube formation.
The production of quorum sensing (QS) molecules was investigated as a factor influencing biofilm development. Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, volatile compounds were collected from planktonic and biofilms of C.albicans over time. Ethanol and the QS molecule farnesol were amongst the molecules identified, being produced at 4hour and 10hours respectively during the 24 hour incubation period. Farnesol was also shown to inhibit hyphal production by attached cells, when applied to the surfaces as a conditioning film, as well as in vapour form.
A denture cleanser with improved anti-Candida activity was effective against blastospore and hyphal biofilms during extended 1 and 16 hour soak times. Using confocal scanning laser microscopy (CSLM) live-dead staining of Candida biofilm indicated that the denture cleanser inactivated cells throughout the biofilm, with increased effect and penetration over time, but no difference between hyphal and blastospore biofilms was observed. When mixed biofilms were generated with C.albicans and Streptococcus oralis, the presence of the bacteria appeared to increase the effect of the cleanser on Candida biofilm. It is proposed that the inactivation of the bacteria may have disrupted the biofilm and enhanced its susceptibility. However this requires further investigation.
In order to reduce the accumulation of denture plaque and C.albicans, there is a need to limit substrate abrasion, reduce retention on the surface, prevent hyphal growth and ideally kill and remove denture plaque. Strategies towards these aims include targeted but gentle cleaning and the potential use of quorum sensing molecules.


Background: Congenital heart disease (CHD) occurs in approximately 0.6%–0.8% of live births. Early recognition of CHD is important for appropriate management and decision-making regarding referral. The purpose of this study was to document the common presenting symptoms and signs in the neonates with CHD, definitive diagnosis, and their outcome. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted prospectively in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, G.B Pant Children Hospital, Department of Pediatrics and Neonatology, GMC Srinagar, from January 2016 to January 2018. Echocardiography screening of all neonates suspected of having CHD was done. Details of all neonates having CHD diagnosed by echocardiography were noted in the prescribed pro forma and their incidence, clinical profile, and outcome were studied. Results: Totally 529 cases of CHD diagnosed by echocardiography in the neonatal period were studied, out of which 280 were male and 259 were female (male:female = 1.12:1). 382 (72.2%) had acyanotic CHD and 147 (27.7%) had cyanotic CHD (CCHD). Among the acyanotic CHD, the most common CHD was ventricular septal defects (n = 170, 32.1%), and among cyanotic group, d-transposition of great arteries was most common (n = 41, 7.75%). Majority of CCHDs were diagnosed in 1st week of life (n = 50, 34.01%) and most of the neonates with acyanotic CHD were diagnosed in the 4th week of life (n = 207, 39.1%). The most common presenting problem of neonates was fast breathing 230 (43.4%) followed by feeding difficulty 110 (20.77%), cyanosis 91 (17.2%), shock manifested as decreased urine output (n = 43, 8.1%), 43 neonates (8.1%) had cyanosis along with fast breathing, and 32 neonates (6.04%) presented with murmur only. Sixty neonates (40.8%) with CCHD expired within the neonatal period. Conclusion: Neonates with CHD have a unique presentation and they carry a poor outcome unless diagnosed early and managed appropriately. Infants presenting with multiple anomalies should be screened for any underlying structural heart disease. High index of suspicion is very important as many neonates with CHD are asymptomatic initially.


In spoken languages, disfluent speech, narrative effects, discourse information, and phrase position may influence the lengthening of segments beyond their typical duration. In sign languages, however, the primary use of the visual-gestural modality results in articulatory differences not expressed in spoken languages. This paper looks at sign lengthening in American Sign Language (ASL). Comparing two retellings of the Pear Story narrative from five signers, three primary lengthening mechanisms were identified: elongation, repetition, and deceleration. These mechanisms allow signers to incorporate lengthening into signs which may benefit from decelerated language production due to high information load or complex articulatory processes. Using a mixed effects model, significant differences in duration were found between (i) non-conventionalized forms vs. lexical signs, (ii) signs produced during role shift vs. non-role shift, (iii) signs in phrase-final/initial vs. phrase-medial position, (iv) new vs. given information, and (v) (non-disordered) disfluent signing vs. non-disfluent signing. These results provide insights into duration effects caused by information load and articulatory processes in ASL.


This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between rural poverty and environmental change using district-level data from South, Central and West India. Unlike prior works, this study puts the hypothesis of bi-directional link between poverty and environment to econometric test. Environmental change is measured using a satellite-based vegetation index. Consonant with the dominant view in the literature, the evidence suggests that rural poverty spur vegetation degradation. The results also indicate that the vegetation degradation spurs rural poverty but the magnitude of the effect varies across sub regions classified on the basis of geographic and climatic factors. Thus these results provide evidence in support of existence of a poverty-environment nexus in rural India.


Urban public spaces have always played an important part in urban development process. In this paper, a redesign proposal of Xuanwu Lake Park in Nanjing, China, will be made. This urban lake park is a symbol of the city and has a very long history. I want to make it as an attractive and ecological city public park which can combine human and natural environments together, so that it will be an enjoyable place for both tourists and inhabitants in Nanjing city. I will reconstruct the lake-ring roads and islands inside the lake based on Amos Rapoport and Stephen R Kellert's ideas. Rapoport argues that users are more important than designers in the design project, because whether the designed place is good or not depends on users' perspectives through their use and evaluation. Kellert argues that the human built environments cannot exist independent of the natural environments. If you design a place based on this idea, you can construct a harmonious environment. However, if you do not, it will cause damage to the environment. From this perspective, the human-nature environment should be connected together in design work. Therefore, in my redesign project, I will emphasize the role of the users. I will also combine man-made environments and nature environments together to make the park more balanced and attractive. I developed a set of color guidelines to help me to analyze the presence and use of different elements in Xuanwu Lake Park. From my analysis of the color elements in Xuanwu Lake Park, I found users' and designers' opinions for each element of the lake-ring roads and islands inside the lake. Then, I start my new design proposal of Xuanwu Lake Park in details to make it as a successful city park combine users, designers and human-nature environment together. My design proposal for Xuanwu Lake Park also gives an example to other historical and cultural urban lake parks.


The tritone paradox is produced when two tones that are related by a half- octave (or tritone) are presented in succession. Each tone is composed of a set of octave- related harmonics, whose amplitudes are determined by a bell-shaped spectral envelope; thus the tones are clearly defined in terms of pitch class, but poorly defined in terms of height. When listeners judge whether such tone pairs form ascending or descending patterns, their judgments generally show systematic relationships to the positions of the tones along the pitch-class circle: Tones in one region of the circle are heard as higher and those in the opposite region are heard as lower. However, listeners disagree substantially as to whether a given tone pair forms an ascending or a descending pattern, and therefore as to which tones are heard as higher and which as lower. This paper demonstrates that the basis for the individual differences in perception of this musical pattern lies in the language spoken by the listener. Two groups of subjects made judgments of the tritone paradox. One group had grown up in California, and the other group had grown up in southern England. It was found that when the Californian group tended to hear the pattern as ascending the English group tended to hear it as descending, and when the Californian group tended to hear the pattern as descending the English group tended to hear it as ascending. This finding, coupled with the earlier results of Deutsch, North, and Ray (1990) that showed a correlate between perception of the tritone paradox and the pitch range of the listener9s spontaneous speaking voice, indicates strongly that the same, culturally acquired representation of pitch classes influences both speech production and perception of this musical pattern.


: This work aims to model and simulate an absorption cooling system using solar flat- plate receiver with water lithium bromide (li.Br-H 2 O) mixture as a working fluid, and to select the optimum type for absorption cooling system, which have suitable application in Iraq. Weather conditions for Erbil city have been selected. Coefficient of performance (COP) for a single, double (series and parallel), half and triple effect of an absorption cooling system are calculated and optimized. COP Prediction, hot water temperature, and the rate of heat transfer have been simulated and represented by using TRNSYS and EES programs. Active area of the solar flat-plate receiver is calculated and optimized for five suggested areas of (140, 150, 160, 170, and 180 m 2 ) . Average heating load, average daily - radiation and cooling load for summer months (June, July, August, and September) have been calculated. The results indicated that, the superior type of the four absorption-cooling systems is a single effect, which has COP 80% at generator temperature of (81 °C). Also the results indicated that the optimum area of solar flat-plate receiver was 160 m 2 which has achieved the maximum capacity of cooling power and consumed capacity in the generator (50, and 62.5) kW respectively. I think, according to the previous studies , the current work is the first in Iraq because it approved that, single effect type is an efficient and more relevant type for good working under Iraqi climate by using solar flat –plate receiver and suitable to apply it experimentally in a wide range.


A laboratory study of the factors of that influence the propensity of organisations to copy the strategic decisions of others, based around the BRANDMAPS simulation, investigated the effects of contingencies relating to the environment, the decision and the firm itself, in the absence of binding resource constraints and legal pressures. The proportion of isomorphic decisions diminished with industry age: isomorphic behaviour did not become institutionalised. It was positively associated with industry dynamism - isomorphism was possibly used for risk reduction. No association with industry concentration was found: field structuration did not affect isomorphic behaviour. Pressures to imitate their peers, as perceived by participants, appeared unrelated to firms' performance or socio-cultural characteristics other than team diversity. Isomorphic behaviour was unrelated to isomorphic pressures, suggesting that unconscious rationality in managerial behaviour. Knowledge of opponents' decisions was associated with isomorphic behaviour, indicating that isomorphism was not simply a response to the task environment. However, the association was positive for some decisions and negative for others, inconsistent with common explanations of isomorphism as deriving from a desire for legitimation. Rather, isomorphic behaviour results from managers making efficient use of available information on competitors' practices. Combinatorially complex bundles of decisions were not isomorphic between firms that had taken similar individual decisions. There was no evidence of an "iron cage" constraining them to become more similar. Isomorphism between firms is not necessarily linked to institutionalisation or stimulated by causes - notably legitimation - suggested by institutional theory. A model of isomorphic behaviour in firms is proposed, based on the perceived value of the practice being copied, the nature of the decision, contingent properties of the business environment and of the organisational field and the situation and internal properties of the firm. The implications for managerial praxis are explored


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
The objective of the present study was to investigate the neural mechanisms of dysphagia in suprabulbar palsy (SBP) with multiple lacunar infarct.

METHODS
We evaluated the swallowing disorders of patients with SBP (n=34) and age-matched healthy control subjects (n=35) by means of an electrophysiological method that recorded the oropharyngeal swallowing patterns. With this method, dysphagia limit, the triggering of voluntarily initiated swallows, duration of laryngeal relocation time, and total duration of oropharyngeal swallowing were recorded and measured. In addition, the EMG behavior of the cricopharyngeal (CP) muscle of the upper esophageal sphincter was also assessed.

RESULTS
In patients with SBP, the dysphagia limit in all except 1 patient was pathological with limits of <20-mL bolus volume, which is contrary to normal subjects, in whom the dysphagia limit exceeds the 20-mL bolus volume. Either triggering of swallowing reflex was delayed (P<0.04), or the swallow could hardly be triggered in 7 patients on the voluntary attempts for 3 mL water. Whenever the reflex swallowing could be triggered, it was slow and prolonged (P<0.01). The CP muscle of the upper esophageal sphincter appeared to have become hyperreflexic and incoordinated with laryngeal movements during swallowing.

CONCLUSIONS
It was proposed that the progressive involvement of the excitatory and inhibitory corticobulbar fiber systems linked with the bulbar swallowing center is mainly responsible for the triggering difficulties of the swallowing reflex and for the hyperreflexic/incoordinated nature of the CP sphincter. In addition, the dysfunction of the extrapyramidal system has a specific role in the slowing of oropharyngeal swallowing and the accumulation of saliva in the mouth.


With the growth of the administrative state, agency-promulgated enforcement policy statements, typically referred to as guidelines, have become ubiquitous in the U.S. federal system. Yet, the actual usage and impact of such guidelines is poorly understood. Often the issuing agencies declare the guidelines to be nonbinding, even for themselves. Notwithstanding this disclaimer, the government, private parties, and even the courts frequently rely on the guidelines in a precedent-like manner. In this Article, Professor Greene examines the evolution of one system of enforcement policy guidelines - the U.S. federal antitrust merger guidelines - and finds that these guidelines have acted as a stealth force on the development of antitrust merger law. The influence of this guideline system, she hypothesizes, emerges from a process of institutionalization through which the guidelines become valued for more than the persuasive power of their ideas. This institutionalization process arguably has had an undue influence upon common law development, as courts have failed to fully engage the legal and economic substance of the guidelines. These findings raise the more general concern that the courts have frequently ceded their role as checks on administrative agency power operating through nonbinding policy statements such as enforcement guidelines. Such questions regarding the judiciary's role in the separation of powers are broadly analogous to those raised by Theodore Lowi regarding Congress's role in the legislative process. Professor Greene chronicles the history of the guidelines through a series of case studies involving key elements in merger analysis. Then, based on a review of all rulings from 1969 to 2003 concerning section 7 of the Clayton Act, she generates basic quantitative measures regarding judicial references to the guidelines and then qualitatively assesses the extent to which judicial reference to the guidelines reflects substantive reliance on them. Both the case studies and statistical data provide strong evidence supporting the institutionalization theory. Having raised normative questions regarding guideline institutionalization, she then evaluates several strategies to counter that influence and proposes conduct-oriented recommendations. Though specifics may vary, the unacknowledged phenomenon of guideline institutionalization is not unique to antitrust law. As such, Professor Greene concludes this Article with an examination of guideline institutionalization in other contexts, including the FCC and FERC, state consumer protection, and federal sentencing.


The ten chapters in this thesis are presented in the form of nine independent papers and a note. A separate abstract is given below for each chapter. I. The type section of the Kapitean Stage and four other sections in north Westland were examined in detail. The stratigraphy of each section is described and the distribution of 300 species of Foraminifera and 38 species of Mollusca from the Upper Tongaporutuan and Kapitean is discussed. Neogene sediments, previously classed as "Blue Bottom" are separated into four formations. Six zones based on Foraminifera form an essentially continuous sequence ranging from Upper Miocene to Pliocene in age. Four zones based on Mollusca correspond to four of the foraminiferal zones. Depth of deposition for each formation is inferred from paleoecology and a geological history is inferred for the Upper Miocene and Pliocene in north Westland. The type Kapitean and the Kapitean throughout north Westland consists of relatively shallow-water facies. From this study it could not be correlated satisfactorily with deep-water facies elsewhere in New Zealand and its relationship to the Bolivinita compressa Zone could not be determined. The taxonomy of one hundred and five species of Foraminifera is discussed and seven species are described as new: Textularia barnwelli, Quinqueloculina waimea, Virgulina vellai, Florilus olsoni, Notorotalia macinnesi, Globorotalia conomiozea and Cibicides gibsoni. A gradational bioseries of Hofkeruva is described and the evolution and first occurrence of Globorotalia crassaformis (Galloway & Wissler) is discussed. II. About 350 ft. of Kapitean beds exposed in sea cliffs at Cape Foulwind, West Coast, are conformably overlain by Opoitian and Conformably underlain by Tongaporutuan. Seven foraminiferal samples were collected from a uniform and continuous section of marine siltstone. A lithological column and a foraminiferal range chart are presented. Paleoecology and stratigraphic paleontology are discussed. III. At Cape Foulwind specimens of Textularia kapitea Finlay from Six samples show a well defined evolutionary change with time. Two subspecies, one of early to middle Kapitean and one of late Kapitean to early Opoitian age, are established Textularia miozea appears to be the ancestor of T. kapitea. IV. Upper Miocene to Pliocene strata in north Westland and Marlborough contain abundant fossils representing a bioseries of planktonic Foraminifera showing gradual progressive morphological changes. The bioseries commenced with Globorotalia miozea Finlay and ended with Globorotalia crassformis (Galloway and Wissler). The form representing the intermediate stage of the bioseries at Marlborough, differs slightly from the corresponding form at north Westland, 150 miles to the south-west, but the end form is the same in both areas. V. In Marlborough, two stratigraphic sections ranging from Middle Tongaporutuan to Opoitian (Upper Miocene to Lower Pliocene) in age were examined. They lie only 5 miles apart, but one is predominantly deep-water facies and the other is predominantly shallow water facies. Ranges of Foraminifera and Mollusca are shown on charts and local foraminiferal and molluscan zones are established. By correlating key horizons in these sections it has been possible to determine relative stratigraphic ranges of important deep-water and shallow-water fossils, including key Foraminifera and the Kapitean key Mollusca. The base of the Kapitean Stage in the shallow-water section is marked by the first appearance of the key Kapitean Mollusca. The corresponding horizon in the deep-water section can be defined by an evolutionary stage of the Globorotalia crassaformis bioseries. The Kapitean Stage is shown to be relatively thin and to be equivalent to about the upper half of the Bolivinita compressa Zone that is found only in deep-water facies. Paleoecological changes indicate significant changes in depth of deposition in both sections and these depth changes were almost certainly synchronous. The sea was relatively shallow during the Kapitean Age. The biostratigraphic divisions are closely related to the changes in depth of deposition. VI. Six sections through the Upper Miocene and Lower Pliocene in Wairarapa and southern Hawkes Bay were examined in detail. Ranges of Foraminifera and Mollusca are given for each section and lithologies are shown on columnar sections. For the stratigraphic interval from Upper Tongaporutuan to Opoitian, two parallel sets of zones are recognized. One set of zones is based of Foraminifera and is applicable mainly to deep-water facies and the other is based on Mollusca and is applicable only to shallow-water facies. Diagnostic species for each zone are listed. In shallow-water facies the Kapitean Stage is determined mainly by the presence of Sectipecten wollastoni. In deep-water facies which lack the key Mollusca, it is determined by means of the Globorotalia crassaformis bioseries. The absence of the Kapitean in two of the sections is shown mainly by the absence of the characteristic Kapitean parts of the G. crassaformis bioseries and the Siphotextularia wairoana bioseries. The paleoecology throughout each section is described, and indicates that at most places the sea was relatively shallow during the Kapitean Age. VII. Four eastern North Island sections through the Upper Miocene and Lower Pliocene were examined: at Maraetotara River, central Hawkes Bay; at Ruakituri River, northern Hawkes Bay; at Waimata river, Gisborne; and near Te Araroa, East Cape. Distribution of Foraminifera is shown on charts, and lithologies are shown on columnar sections. Four well defined biostratigraphic units can be recognised for the Foraminifera, from oldest to youngest; Pohana Zone, Compressa Zone, Conomiozea Zone, and Crassaformis Zone. Diagnostic Species are listed for each of these zones. In one section the Kapitean Stage is represented by shallow-water facies and is marked by the key Kapitean Mollusca. In two sections it is represented by deep-water facies and is determined by means of the Globorotalia crassaformis bioseries. In the fourth section, the absence of uppermost Upper Tongaporutuan, Kapitean and basal Opoitian is shown by the absence of part of the G. crassaformis bioseries. The paleoecology throughout each section is described, and indicates that the sea shallowed near the end of the Tongaporutuan Age, remained shallow during the Kapitean Age and deepened again at the beginning of the Opoitian Age. VIII. The stratigraphic ranges in inland Taranaki are given for some important Foraminifera relative to those of the Mollusca Sectipecten grangei and S. wollastoni. IX. The following fourteen new species of fossil Foraminifera are described and illustrated from the Upper Miocene and Lower Pliocene of New Zealand: Textularia crater, Siphotextularia dawesi, Ruakituria pseudorobusta, Karreriella fasigatus, Arenodosaria turris, Vaginulinopsis carinata, Bolivinita finlayi, Brizalina srinivasani, Kolesnikovella zealandica, Discorbinella hamasuturalis, Notorotalia mammiligera, Cibicides porrodeliquatus, Cibicides teararus and Pleurostomella parviapertura. Known stratigrahic ranges and inferred depth ranges are given for each species. The new genus Ruakituria (Ataxophragmiidae) is erected for the species formerly know as Dorothia robusta Keyzer. X. The salient features of New Zealand Upper Miocene and Lower Pliocene microfaunas are outlined, and criteria for recognising the Kapitean Stage are summarized. Paleoecology suggests that he Kapitean Stage represents an interval of time when seas were relatively shallow, that the shallowing took place in the latest part of the Tongaporutuan Age and that deepening took place in the earliest part of the Opoitian Age. The changes in depth of sea caused many temporary "facies" changes in fossil faunas at any particular places, but the Kapitean Stage is soundly based on a few permanent changes of both macrofauna and microfauna. The Kapitean Stage is represented by fairly shallow-water facies at many places but by fairly deep-water facies at other places. Shallow-water and deep-water facies contain very few age diagnostic fossils in common, but can be correlated by means of the Globorotalia crassaformis bioseries, a sequence of planktonic Foraminifera showing gradual progressive morphological change. In nearly all sections the Kapitean Stage is thin compared with the overlying Opoitian and underlying Upper Tongaporutuan, and this is attributed to a decreased rate of deposition due to shallowing and increased by-passing of sediment. Kapitean microfaunas show a slight but distinct change from north to south, this being attributed to latitudinal temperature difference. The previously suggested correlation of the Kapitean Stage with the Pontian Stage of Europe is probably correct. The shallow seas during the Kapitean Age in New Zealand appear to have coincided with a phase of regression in Europe and in other parts of the world and may have a eustatic rather than a tectonic cause.


Structure-texture image decomposition is a fundamental but challenging topic in computational graphics and image processing. In this paper, we introduce a structure-aware and a texture-aware measures to facilitate the structure-texture decomposition (STD) of images. Edge strengths and spatial scales that have been widely-used in previous STD researches cannot describe the structures and textures of images well. The proposed two measures differentiate image textures from image structures based on their distinctive characteristics. Specifically, the first one aims to measure the anisotropy of local gradients, and the second one is designed to measure the repeatability degree of signal patterns in a neighboring region. Since these two measures describe different properties of image structures and textures, they are complementary to each other. The STD is achieved by optimizing an objective function based on the two new measures. As using traditional optimization methods to solve the optimization problem will require designing different optimizers for different functional spaces, we employ an architecture of deep neural network to optimize the STD cost function in a unified manner. The experimental results demonstrate that, as compared with some state-of-the-art methods, our method can better separate image structure and texture and result in shaper edges in the structural component. Furthermore, to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed STD method, we have successfully applied it to several applications including detail enhancement, edge detection, and visual quality assessment of super-resolved images.


Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture, by Sheldon H. Lu. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007. xiv + 264 pp. US$56.00 (hardcover), US$22.00 (paperback). Sheldon Lu's Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture is a timely and welcome interrogation of the aesthetic and libidinal politics of globalization, together with the processes of spectatorship and commoditization that underlie those politics. Insistently interdisciplinary and exuberantly eclectic, Chinese Modernity develops its argument through an examination of a wide range of literary and visual texts, as well as social and cultural phenomena. Lu moves effortlessly from discussions of international beauty pageants to avant-garde performance art, from late Qing literature to contemporary television melodramas. The book's strengths lie in its provocative juxtapositions of disparate works and phenomena, and its use of these juxtapositions to explore the biopolitical dimension of transnational cultural production and consumption. Lu opens his book with a thoughtful theoretical introduction that examines the relationship between processes of globalization and transnational circulation, on the one hand, and the dynamics of erotic and affective investment, on the other. In each of the subsequent chapters, he then discusses a different constellation of texts organized loosely by genre (including literature, art, cinema/television and "multi-media"). The book concludes with a "Historical Conclusion" and a "Postscript" that address the notions of "Chinese Modernity" and "Chinese Postsocialism" respectively. The book's analytical perspicuity, together with what is arguably its greatest blind-spot, is dramatically illustrated in the chapter on the work of the contemporary avant-garde performance artists Ma Liuming and Zhang Huan. Both Ma and Zhang began their performance careers in Beijing's "East Village" artist community in the early 1990s, and their subsequent fame is largely predicated on a series of works featuring their own naked bodies-Ma Liuming for his famously transgendered performances as his feminine alter-ego, Fen-Ma Liuming, and Zhang Huan for dramatically masochistic performances in which he places his body in situations of actual or symbolic self-abasement. Lu's analysis of these works emphasizes their status as performances when, in fact, they are actually quite hybrid-with visual representation (such as photography or video) being not only a crucial element of the works themselves but also one of the key ways in which the performances are subsequently viewed, analyzed, disseminated and transformed into commodities. This photographic dimension of Ma's and Zhang's art, however, is all-but-invisible in Lu's discussion. While his book reproduces a dozen photographs of their performances, it at no point identifies the actual photographers responsible for taking the pictures. Perhaps the most intriguing reference to photography in Lu's chapter on Ma and Zhang can be found in a short parenthetical note following his discussion of their famous 1995 collaborative performance work, "To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain": "It is interesting to notice how the ownership of this work is claimed. Ma or Zhang? One person owns the copyright of the photograph and the other the copyright of the video" (p. 81). Even here, however, Lu still doesn't explicitly name the photographer responsible for the image of the performance reproduced in Chinese Modernity (for the record, Lu Nan was responsible for the black and white photographs of the performance, while Ba Gen'na took some color photographs). This question of the identity and perspective of the photographer is not merely academic, since it was only after the "To Add One Meter" performance that Zhang and Ma both began to assert moref interest and control over the visual reproduction of their "own" performances, while many of the images of the earlier performances that helped make them famous were taken by photographers who were artists in their own right (in particular, the fellow "East Village" artist Rong Rong, who subsequently claimed the legal rights to the photographs in question). …


Tumor therapy using cytokines has been developed for last two decades. Several recombinant cytokines and tumor cell vaccines produced by cytokine gene transfer have been in clinical trials, but several side effects hamper routine clinical applications. Many cytokines are originally expressed as membrane-bound form and then processed to secretory form exerting paracrine effects. Though functional differences of these two types of cytokines are elusive yet, the membrane-bound form of cytokine may exert its effects on restricted target cells as a juxtacrine, which are in physical contacts. With the efforts to improve antitumor activities of cytokines in cancer patients, developing new strategies to alleviate life-threatening side effects became an inevitable goal of tumor immunologists. Among these, tumor cell vaccines expressing cytokines as membrane-bound form on tumor cell surface have been developed by genetic engineering techniques with the hope of selective stimulation of the target cells that are in cell-to-cell contacts. In this review, recent progress of tumor cell vaccines expressing membrane-bound form of cytokines will be discussed.


This thesis consists of five chapters. In the first chapter I provide the introduction to the three essays examined in this thesis. In the second chapter I examine the impact of securitization on U.S. bank holding companies' (hereafter BHCs) credit risk, credit risk taking, profitability, and capital level between 2001 and 2013. I also study the effect of the credit enhancements and liquidity provision on BHCs' performance between 2001 and 2013. Since securitization is an endogenous decision, I use the treatment-effects model to control for the selection bias and observe a positive relationship between securitization and credit risk. I also find that securitization decreases BHCs' profitability, but that securitization increases BHCs' capital levels. Although it is possible that relatively risk-averse BHCs may consciously increase their capital buffer by retaining earnings, for example, I do not exclude the possibility that BHCs engaged in regulatory capital arbitrage to increase their capital level. Nevertheless, I find that use of securitization for capital regulatory purposes is mitigated by the risk-retention mechanism, i.e. credit enhancements and liquidity provision—banks had to keep the required capital for their extended guarantees. However, as was uncovered during the financial crisis, these credit and liquidity risk-reducing tools were not sufficient to prevent the recent turmoil in the securitization markets.
The third chapter analyzes information opacity and systemic risk for the U.S. BHCs in the context of the asset-backed commercial paper (hereafter ABCP) between 2001:Q2 and 2012:Q4. Banks which set up costly ABCP conduits might have benefited from the regulatory capital relief and from providing financing alternatives to their clients. However, they faced costs in terms of the increase in information opacity through the provision of ABCP guarantees to BHCs' own and third-party sponsored ABCP conduits. Furthermore, I observe that higher information asymmetry about BHCs' value is associated with higher volatility of returns and also with higher systemic risk.
In the fourth chapter I examine the proposal to limit bank size, which is known as tackling the banks' incentive to become "too big to fail", and also how this regulation to curb bank size may affect banks' operating costs. I examine the relationship between the size of BHCs and BHCs' operating costs from 2001:Q2 to 2014:Q1 to evaluate the costs that the newly suggested regulations on bank size might bring. I find that rules to limit the size of banks could significantly reduce economies of scale. In particular, if large and cost-efficient banks
become split into smaller parts, data processing, legal fees, audit and consulting expenses, in addition to expenses on premises and automated teller machines (hereafter ATMs) are likely to increase.
I also pay particular interest to legal fees and litigation settlement; I find evidence that larger banks, but not necessarily systemically more risky banks, face litigation charges more frequently. I do not find evidence that larger banks face a lower probability of being fined. This suggests that another phenomenon known as "too big to jail" may not be true, if the assumption is that the misconduct detection is perfect. I do, however, observe that penalties had little effect on BHCs' profitability, and that some of the largest banks continuously face litigation charges. In turn, this could possibly imply that benefits from wrongdoing outweighed the costs.
The fifth chapter summarizes major findings and concludes.


The Professional Worker Career Experience Survey (PWCES) contains responses from 752 working professionals who were surveyed between December 2003 and September 2004. The survey contains a combination of data on personal education and work histories, family structure, employment and demographic characteristics, and variety of personality scales. The data were collected originally as part of an investigation of the reasons for the under representation of women and minorities in the Information Technology (IT) workforce.

The survey instrument was made up of two separate sets of questions. The first part, was developed by the KU research team gathered information on the following topics:
 Work history and job characteristics
 Education history and experiences
 Family history and experiences
 Career choice influences
 Family and other non-work obligations
 Attitudes and perceptions of work experiences
 Life/family/work conflicts
 Job and career satisfaction
 Personal attitudes and beliefs
 Demographic and salary information

The second part of the survey consisted of the Strong Interest Inventory (SII), a widely used vocational counseling instrument that is developed and maintained by Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP). After completing the first part of the survey users were transferred to a site maintained by CPP and filled out responses to the SII online. CPP then transferred these responses to the KU team and responses from the two parts were matched based on individual identifiers.

After the data collection phase was completed the KU research team cleaned the responses by examining consistency of responses. In addition a number of additional variables were constructed based on survey responses.

Respondents were classified as either IT or non-IT employees based on self-reported current career field one of 13 categories or "Other"), and specific job title (open ended). Based on this information a total of 749 respondents could be placed in one career field or the other, with 200 being coded as IT and 549 coded as non-IT.

Data collected in the first part of the survey allowed the KU research team to construct a number of instruments that have been used by previous researchers. These include measures of: Work-family conflict, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, work stress, and Big Five personality constructs (NEOAC). Based on responses to the Strong Interest Inventory it was possible to construct measures of Holland's General Occupational Themes (RIASEC). Each of these instruments is described more fully in the glossary included as Appendix A to this users guide.

Because not all respondents completed the entire survey sample sizes will depend on the specific questions being analyzed.

NOTE: Descriptive text in the Documentation and DDI files was revised on 08/06/11 and those files updated in the zipped collection of files.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine violence against separated, divorced, and married women using Statistics Canada's 2004 General Social Survey. Based on a subsample of 6,716 heterosexual women (429 separated; 614 divorced; 5,673 married), available risk markers were examined in the context of a nested ecological framework. Consistent with past research, the results indicated that there may be differences in the dynamics of violence across the 3 groups. Separated women reported 7 times the prevalence of violence and divorced women reported twice the prevalence of violence than married women in the year prior to the study. Young age was an important predictor of violence for separated and divorced women. Unemployment and the presence of children of the ex-partner were important predictors for divorced women. Patriarchal domineering and sexually proprietary behaviors were strong predictors of violence for married women. The results suggested the possibility that motives for postseparation violence tend to differ depending on whether one is separated or divorced. Future research is warranted to uncover these potentially differing dynamics of risk.


The past decade has seen a proliferation of online data collection, processing, analysis and storage capacities leading businesses to employ increasingly sophisticated technologies to track and profile individual users. The use of online behavioral tracking for advertising purposes has drawn criticism from journalists, privacy advocates and regulators. Indeed, the behavioral tracking industry is currently the focus of the online privacy debate. At the center of the discussion is the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Track (DNT) proposal. The debate raging around DNT and the specific details of its implementation disguises a more fundamental disagreement among stakeholders about deeper societal values and norms. Unless policymakers address this underlying normative question – is online behavioral tracking a social good or an unnecessary evil – they may not be able to find a solution for implementing user choice in the context of online privacy. Practical progress advancing user privacy will be best served if policymakers and industry focus their debate on the desirable balance between efficiency and individual rights and if businesses implement tracking mechanisms fairly and responsibly. Policymakers must engage with these underlying normative questions; they cannot continue to sidestep these issues in the hope that "users will decide" for themselves.


Since the day that Christopher Columbus first observed native Americans 'with firebrands in their hands and herbs to smoke after their custom', tobacco has wound its way into every corner of modern life. In its various forms smoking has soothed and irritated us, inspired and stupefied us, beguiled us on screen and outraged us in train carriages. Robert Burton wrote in The Anatomy of Melancholy that tobacco was divine, 'a sovereign remedy to all diseases'. Nearly four centuries later, the Oxford Medical Companion dryly noted that tobacco is the only legally available consumer product that kills people when it is used entirely as intended. We've come a long way, baby. With contributions from the likes of Sir Walter Raleigh and Kenneth Williams, Samuel Johnson and Helen Fielding, The Faber Book of Smoking tells the fascinating story of one of humankind's most persistent and peculiar habits.


OFDM/OQAM has been considered as an attractive alternative to classic OFDM with cyclic prefix (CP) over doubly dispersive channels. By utilising well designed pulse shapes and removing CP, OFDM/OQAM has the advantage of reduced out-of-band energy and a theoretically higher spectral efficiency. However, channel estimation over doubly dispersive channels has been a big problem for OFDM/OQAM due to the nonorthogonality between the real and imaginary parts of its modulated signals. Therefore conventional channel estimation (CE) methods used for OFDM cannot be directly applied to OFDM/OQAM. Recently a preamble-based CE method - interference approximation method (IAM) - has been proposed to ease this task. By treating the intrinsic interference from neighbour symbols as known information, two heuristic preamble sequences have been constructed based on tentative observations, which turn out to be suboptimal. In this paper, we present a general theoretical framework for IAM preamble design and apply it to identify the optimal IAM preamble sequence which results in a higher gain. Numerical results have verified the effectiveness of the theoretical framework and a gain of 2.4 dB against CP-OFDM has been demonstrated with the new preamble in various doubly dispersive channels with a QPSK modulation.


The 'CDT Support Through Change' Project was established in 1986 to recruit and, in co-operation with Higher Education, re-train teachers from a variety of subject backgrounds as CDT teachers. The two-year retraining course follows an unusual pattern in that the teachers involved spend alternate terms working in schools teaching CDT as 'Support Teachers' who can offer CDT supply cover, and terms in college developing their own CDT skills. (See Figure I). The participating colleges are Crewe and Alsager, De La Salle and Edge Hill .


Previous multi-model intercomparisons have shown that chemistry-climate models exhibit significant biases in tropospheric ozone compared with observations. We investigate annual-mean tropospheric column ozone in 15 models participating in the SPARC/IGAC (Stratosphere-troposphere Processes and their Role in Climate/International Global Atmospheric Chemistry) Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative (CCMI). These models exhibit a positive bias, on average, of up to 40-50% in the Northern Hemisphere compared with observations derived from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument and Microwave Limb Sounder (OMI/MLS), and a negative bias of up to ~30% in the Southern Hemisphere. SOCOLv3.0 (version 3 of the Solar-Climate Ozone Links CCM), which participated in CCMI, simulates global-mean tropospheric ozone columns of 40.2 DU - approximately 33% larger than the CCMI multi-model mean. Here we introduce an updated version of SOCOLv3.0, "SOCOLv3.1", which includes an improved treatment of ozone sink processes, and results in a reduction in the tropospheric column ozone bias of up to 8 DU, mostly due to the inclusion of N2O5 hydrolysis on tropospheric aerosols. As a result of these developments, tropospheric column ozone amounts simulated by SOCOLv3.1 are comparable with several other CCMI models. We apply Gaussian process emulation and sensitivity analysis to understand the remaining ozone bias in SOCOLv3.1. This shows that ozone precursors (nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide, methane and other volatile organic compounds) are responsible for more than 90% of the variance in tropospheric ozone. However, it may not be the emissions inventories themselves that result in the bias, but how the emissions are handled in SOCOLv3.1, and we discuss this in the wider context of the other CCMI models. Given that the emissions data set to be used for phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project includes approximately 20% more NOx than the data set used for CCMI, further work is urgently needed to address the challenges of simulating sub-grid processes of importance to tropospheric ozone in the current generation of chemistry-climate models.


Background: Cervical cancer is a major cause of women death worldwide. The reduction of the mortality and morbidity of this pathology depends on the early detection based on powerful suitable screening methods that will lead to optimal treatment strategies. However in some rural region of developing countries, it is very difficult to get access to standard screening methods, alternative screening methods, cheaper and easy to handle are then useful.
Objective: The aim of this work was to test the sensitivity and specificity of VIA (Visual inspection with acetic acid) and VILI (Visual inspection with lugol iodine) as screening test of cervical cancer compared to the Pap Smear, evaluating the feasibility in health formation in the North Cameroon region, of implementing epidemiological surveillance of cervical cancer based on early diagnosis using the VIAVILI association.
Method: 309 women age 20 to 62 years were recruited in this study, 307 were included in the statistical analyzes. Each woman was screened for cervical cancer by a conventional Smear and visual inspection with acetic acid 5% and the lugol solution.
Results: We found in our study a prevalence of precancerous lesions of cervix at 12.70%. The risks factors of cervical cancer identified are age, matrimonial status, age of first sexual intercourse and parity. The association of VIA and VILI showed a sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value respectively about 93.58%; 97.01%; 82.01%, 99.04%.
Conclusion: Compared to PAP Smear, VIA or VILI could be used as an alternative screening methods for cervical cancer in developing countries. However, histology test was recommended to use a « Gold Standard » to evaluate the test accuracy of VIA/VILI because it can be used to diagnose cancer, while PAP smear cannot.


Multi-task learning aims at improving the generalization performance of a learning task with the help of some other related tasks. Although many multi-task learning methods have been proposed, they are all based on the assumption that all tasks share the same data representation. This assumption is too restrictive for general applications. In this paper, we propose a multi-task extension of linear discriminant analysis (LDA), called multi-task discriminant analysis (MTDA), which can deal with learning tasks with different data representations. For each task, MTDA learns a separate transformation which consists of two parts, one specific to the task and one common to all tasks. A by-product of MTDA is that it can alleviate the labeled data deficiency problem of LDA. Moreover, unlike many existing multi-task learning methods, MTDA can handle binary and multi-class problems for each task in a generic way. Experimental results on face recognition show that MTDA consistently outperforms related methods.


Diagnostic studies of 14-year, 2 × 2°, Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model off-line simulations of the global terrestrial water budget suggest that, given the annual variability in the major components of continental hydrological cycles (precipitation, evaporation, and runoff), several decades to perhaps centuries of measurements may be needed to detect with high confidence the intensification predicted by recent global climate model (GCM) studies simulating plausible global warming scenarios. Furthermore, these measurements may need to originate from a wider geographic expanse than is currently investigated within large-scale hydrological assessment programmes, such as the Global Energy and Water Experiment (GEWEX). Smaller, geographically dispersed basins, including many of those participating in the International Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data (FRIEND) programme, could therefore play important roles in detection of an intensification in the global water cycle.


New research suggests that higher trace levels of lithium in drinking water can reduce dementia rates in the general population. In a 2017 article in the Archives of General Psychiatry, researcher Lars Kessing and colleagues compared data on 73,731 patients in Denmark with a diagnosis of dementia to 733,653 control participants without this diagnosis between the years 1970 and 2013. They were able to match the data to recorded levels of trace lithium in the drinking water in participants' municipalities of residence. Lithium levels in the water ranged from 0.6 micrograms per liter to 30.7 micrograms per liter in 151 different locations throughout Denmark. Compared to those exposed to 2.0 to 5.0 micrograms of lithium per liter of water, those exposed to more than 15.0 micrograms per liter had a lower incidence rate of dementia. However, those exposed to 5.1 to 10.0 micrograms per liter had a higher incidence of dementia. The same relationship was also found between lithium exposure levels and both Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. The lithium levels in the water were approximately 10,000 to 300 times lower than typical clinical doses (typically 900–1500mg/day, which produce concentrations ranging from 0.6 to 1.2 meq/L in patients' blood). The minute exposures to lithium in the drinking water occurred over decades in the Danish study, and suggest that there may be long-term positive effects to chronic lifetime exposure to very low lithium levels. These data follow others regarding exposure to trace lithium. In 2011, researcher Orestes V. Forlenza and colleagues reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry that low dose lithium (150–600mg/day) over a period of one year decreased the progression of mild cognitive impairment compared to placebo, while researcher Marielza Andrade Nunes and colleagues reported in the journal Current Alzheimer's Research in 2013 that an even smaller dose (0.3mg/day) over a period of 15 months slowed the progression of Alzheimer's dementia. Thus, low or microscopic doses consumed over long periods could slow cognitive deterioration.


This thesis presents a literature review and two qualitative research papers that explore the under-researched and under-reported topic of iatrogenesis (unintended harm). There seems no clear theory within Counselling Psychology which encompasses the notion of iatrogenesis. Therefore, this research draws upon relevant theories from other domains. The research in this thesis is underpinned by Merton's (1936, 1968, 1972, 2016) sociological theory of unintended consequences, which supports a detailed exploration of what happens when two people meet in the social context of the consultation room.
Each of the three studies which form this research will explore a different aspect of iatrogenesis. This is intended to support an exploration of unintended harm from various epistemological and methodological positions, and different analytical perspectives. For a conceptual consistency across the research, harm is defined as, "a negative effect [that] must be relatively lasting, which excludes from consideration transient effects ... [such as in-session anxiety or between session sadness, and] must be directly attributable to, or a function of, the character or quality of the therapeutic experience or intervention" (Strupp, Hadley, & Gomes-Schwartz, 1977, pp. 91-92). The theoretical grounding of the Literature Review is Merton's (1936) theory of the Unanticipated consequences of purposive social action, which I have used to explore the dilemmas involved when the unintended consequences of actions expected to engender helpful change, can result in an unexpected or unexpected outcome. The research begins with a review of the literature that reports the prevalence of iatrogenesis as 10% of the public attending therapy. Therapists in the role of client report the greatest level of harmful experiences, at up to 40%. In the review, the process of iatrogenesis is explored from the perspectives of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research. Each method reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the research approach when exploring the complex topic of iatrogenesis. The Literature Review concludes by suggesting there is a gap in the literature and indicates the relevance of qualitative studies as a means towards filling it.
The second study will present an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA: Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009), of the experiences of psychotherapists in the role of client. Merton's (1972) distinction between 'insiders-outsiders' is applied, which in this study translates as 'insider' (client) and 'outsider' (therapist) roles, or positions. These positions help explicate potential mechanisms of change that are deemed to engender harmful experiences in psychotherapy sessions. A phenomenological approach was applied by interviewing counselling psychologists about their 'insider' experiences in their personal psychotherapy sessions.
As their philosophical training is rooted in phenomenological, reflexive and humanistic training, counselling psychologists were assumed to be able to speak from the dual focus of being an informed client, as well as being an informed practitioner. Therefore, counselling psychologists were considered the most suitable group who would be best placed to help me explore the research question. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four participants, all qualified psychotherapists. The data was analysed using IPA's methodology. The findings yielded three master themes: Competing world views: clashing epistemologies; How and by whom is therapy constructed?; and Making sense of an experience. The third study builds upon the Literature Review and broadens the findings of the IPA, by applying a qualitative method of Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The Thematic Analysis utilises Merton's (2016) distinction of the 'manifest' and 'latent' functions of purposive social actions. The notion of 'manifest' and 'latent' functions serves to explicate the experience of iatrogenesis from the perspective of psychotherapists delivering psychotherapy, who perceived their delivery of psychotherapy to have engendered unintended harm. The notion of functions serves also to explicate potential latent processes that can be obscured, and also the more subtle influences within and beyond the therapeutic space that impact upon what happens within the consultation room.

The Thematic Analysis is framed by the increasing number of clients who are complaining to professional registration bodies regarding perceived harmful experiences during their psychotherapy. One response has been to introduce new codes of ethics. Applying Thematic Analysis, I conducted interviews with 20 practitioners from various modalities about their experiences of providing psychotherapy sessions. They reported their day-to-day experiences of 'do no harm'. The Thematic Analysis indicated three themes; 'Preparation for practice'; 'Boundaries'; and 'Issues of safety'. An overarching fourth theme was Professionalism. Transcending all the comments was the notion of tensions, which questioned: 'Is therapy an art or a science'? Implications are drawn for training, supervision, practice and the future. Across the three studies, I practice and research from a stance which is critical realist, which is to say we each edit the reality we perceive to accord it with our beliefs. My research position is that of a reflective scientist-practitioner, and I identity strongly with counselling psychology's philosophy and ethical value-base. The research stance is critical-realist.


Data scientists are very much in demand as companies grapple with the challenge of making valuable discoveries from Big Data. Therefore, academic institutions have started to offer different kind of data science DS programs and they strive to prepare students to be data scientists who are capable to face the challenge of the new age. As an interdisciplinary field, DS programs should represent a combination of subject areas from several disciplines. Consequently, schools that host data science programs are diverse. Until now few studies have investigated data science programs within a particular discipline, such as Business (e.g. Chen et al.). However, there are very few empirical studies that explore DS programs and investigate its curriculum structure across disciplines. This study conducted an exploratory content analysis of 30 United States' DS programs from a variety of disciplines. The present study seeks to depict the current state of DS education in the U.S. to explore what discipline DS programs covers at the graduate level. The analysis was conducted on course titles and course descriptions. The results show that DS programs required varying numbers of credit hours, including practicum and capstone. Management schools seem to take the lead and the initiative in lunching and hosting DS programs. It can be said that all DS programs requires the basic knowledge of database design, representation, extraction and management. DS programs delivered information skills through their core courses. Results indicates that almost 40 percent of required courses in DS programs is involved information representations, retrieval and programming. Required courses also addressed communication visualization and mathematics skills.


To break the yield ceiling of rice production, a super rice project was developed in 1996 to breed rice varieties with super high yield. A two-year experiment was conducted to evaluate yield and nitrogen (N)-use response of super rice to different planting methods in the single cropping season. A total of 17 rice varieties, including 13 super rice and four non-super checks (CK), were grown under three N levels [0 (N0), 150 (N150), and 225 (N225) kg ha−1] and two planting methods [transplanting (TP) and direct-seeding in wet conditions (WDS)]. Grain yield under WDS (7.69 t ha−1) was generally lower than TP (8.58 t ha−1). However, grain yield under different planting methods was affected by N rates as well as variety groups. In both years, there was no difference in grain yield between super and CK varieties at N150, irrespective of planting methods. However, grain yield difference was dramatic in japonica groups at N225, that is, there was an 11.3% and 14.1% average increase in super rice than in CK varieties in WDS and TP, respectively. This suggests that high N input contributes to narrowing the yield gap in super rice varieties, which also indicates that super rice was bred for high fertility conditions. In the japonica group, more N was accumulated in super rice than in CK at N225, but no difference was found between super and CK varieties at N0 and N150. Similar results were also found for N agronomic efficiency. The results suggest that super rice varieties have an advantage for N-use efficiency when high N is applied. The response of super rice was greater under TP than under WDS. The results suggest that the need to further improve agronomic and other management practices to achieve high yield and N-use efficiency for super rice varieties in WDS.


Knowledge of patterns and sources of variation in adult reproduction and juvenile recruitment is essential for understanding the dynamics of populations and their capacity to recover from disturbances. In-depth knowledge of this kind is lacking for many species of seagrass. Here we examined the degree to which temporal and spatial variation in seedling density in the surfgrass Phyllospadix torreyi was explained by the local production and deposition of seeds. We did this by measuring floral density, seed production, seed supply and seedling recruitment at 5 sites near Santa Barbara, California, USA, over a 4 yr period. We found that the local density of dehisced female spadices explained nearly 41% of the variation in the number of seeds caught in seed traps. Large seed crops were common in the absence of nearby males and noticeable numbers of seeds were peri- odically caught in traps when female flowers were locally rare or absent, suggesting that pollen and seed dispersal occasionally occurred over distances greater than the scale of our study sites (i.e. >50 m). Overall, the summer densities of female spadices at a site explained >60% of the variation in the density of seedlings that recruited to the site the following winter. Deviations from positive asso- ciations among surfgrass flowers, seeds and seedlings appeared to reflect interannual variability in environmental conditions. Most notable was the coincidence of universally low fruit production and seedling recruitment during the 1997-1998 El Nino event. Seedling density varied independently of rates of seed deposition when all years were examined, but was highly dependent on rates of seed supply when the seedling data from the 1998 El Nino winter were omitted from the analysis. Collec- tively, our observations demonstrated significant coupling between adult reproduction and local recruitment in surfgrass that was interrupted by adverse growing conditions associated with the 1997-1998 El Nino.


Well-executed randomised controlled trials (RCTs) provide high levels of evidence for treatment efficacy. They enable the cause and effect of sports physical therapy treatments to be explored under ideal circumstances, with one treatment element often evaluated at a time. However, treatment elements are rarely delivered in isolation in contemporary practice and are inherently complex. Treatments are customised to address a patient's impairments, with intervention dose, frequency and intensity adjusted for each individual. Treatment elements may also have interacting effects. If an RCT evaluates only one aspect of a treatment, there would be evidence for that individual component's efficacy, but it would be inefficient and expensive to study all components in isolation and interactions between treatment elements would go unrecognised. Therefore, RCTs have potential limitations when considering the most efficient path forward for sports physiotherapy research.

It is not feasible to test every detail in best clinical practice. Thus, clinicians need to incorporate the best available evidence with their own experiences and their …


An HMM-based speaker clustering framework is presented, where the number of speakers and segmentation boundaries are unknown a priori. Ideally, the system aims to create one pure cluster for each speaker. The HMM is ergodic in nature with a minimum duration topology. The final number of clusters is determined automatically by merging closest clusters and retraining this new cluster, until a decrease in likelihood is observed. In the same framework, we also examine the effect of using only the features from highly voiced frames as a means of improving the robustness and computational complexity of the algorithm. The proposed system is assessed on the 1996 HUB-4 evaluation test set in terms of both cluster and speaker purity. It is shown that the number of clusters found often correspond to the actual number of speakers.


In this thoroughly revised Fourth Edition, Glenn Wong provides a comprehensive review of the various sports law issues facing professional, intercollegiate, Olympic, high school, youth, and adult recreational sports. Major topics include tort liability, contracts/waivers, antitrust law, labor law, constitutional law, gender discrimination, drug testing, intellectual property law, broadcasting laws pertaining to sports agents, business and employment law, Internet gambling, and athletes with disabilities. Significant additions here include new court decisions, agreements (contracts and collective bargaining agreements), and legislation (federal, state, association, and institutional rules and regulations). Discussions of legal concepts are supplemented with summaries and excerpts from hundreds of actual sports cases. Wong cites a variety of books, law review articles, newspaper articles, and Web links for those requiring further information on particular topics. This text-professional guide serves as an invaluable resource to those involved, or studying to become involved, in the vast industry of sports.