For the past decade, the Korean film industry has enjoyed a renaissance. With innovative storytelling and visceral effects, Korean films not only have been commercially viable in the domestic and regional markets but also have appealed to cinephiles everywhere on the international festival circuit. This book provides both an industrial and an aesthetic account of how the Korean film industry managed to turn an economic crisis-triggered in part by globalizing processes in the world film industry-into a fiscal and cultural boom. Jinhee Choi examines the ways in which Korean film production companies, backed by affluent corporations and venture capitalists, concocted a variety of winning production trends. Through close analyses of key films, Choi demonstrates how contemporary Korean cinema portrays issues immediate to its own Korean audiences while incorporating the transnational aesthetics of Hollywood and other national cinemas such as Hong Kong and Japan. Appendices include data on box office rankings, numbers of films produced and released, market shares, and film festival showings.


This paper reports the design, development, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) compatibility evaluation of an actuated transrectal prostate robot for MRI-guided needle intervention in the prostate. The robot performs actuated needle MRI guidance with the goals of providing 1) MRI compatibility; 2) MRI-guided needle placement with accuracy sufficient for targeting clinically significant prostate cancer foci; 3) reducing interventional procedure times (thus increasing patient comfort and reducing opportunity for needle targeting error due to patient motion); 4) enabling real-time MRI monitoring of interventional procedures; and 5) reducing the opportunities for error that arise in manually actuated needle placement. The design of the robot, employing piezoceramic-motor actuated needle guide positioning and manual needle insertion, is reported. Results of an MRI compatibility study show no reduction of MRI signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with the disabled motors. Enabling the motors reduces the SNR by 80% without radio frequency (RF) shielding, but the SNR is only reduced by 40-60% with RF shielding. The addition of RF shielding is shown to significantly reduce image SNR degradation caused by the presence of the robotic device. An accuracy study of MRI-guided biopsy needle placements in a prostate phantom is reported. The study shows an average in-plane targeting error of 2.4 mm with a maximum error of 3.7 mm. These data indicate that the system's needle targeting accuracy is similar to that obtained with a previously reported manually actuated system, and is sufficient to reliably sample clinically significant prostate cancer foci under MRI guidance.


We analyze the behavior of group and phase velocities in optical waveguides supporting strongly confined propagating modes. We discuss the implications of material absorption for electromagnetic properties of nanoguides and develop an analytical description of the interplay between geometry-induced and materials-induced dispersions. In the limit of strong confinement, the phase velocity of waveguide modes becomes vanishingly small, while group velocity can be modulated from negative to positive values. The modulation of group velocity is enhanced by the factor of λ2/R2 with respect to macroscopic systems. Both slow- and fast-light regimes can be achieved in the same nanoguiding structure, and dynamical switching between the two regimes is possible. Applications of the developed formalism lie in the field of ultrafast active nanophotonics.


The rapid growth of ketamine and amphetamine misuse worldwide has led to the development of methods for the detection and analysis of ketamine and amphetamines in biological specimens. Most methods previously developed in forensic toxicology for the detection of ketamine and amphetamines used GC-MS. The present work developed alternative methods based on LC-MS/MS. Ketamine was chosen as the drug of interest because there are no data currently available on the extent of ketamine abuse in Malaysia even though a large amount of ketamine has been seized by the Malaysian Royal Police, while amphetamines are the most widely abused synthetic drugs in South East Asia including Malaysia.

The study addressed some of the challenges facing the forensic toxicologist, such as the need to use new technology (LC-MS/MS) and improve sensitivity and selectivity in forensic toxicology analysis through efficient sample preparation techniques. The general requirements of method validation, including as the parameters linearity, limit of detection (LOD) and Lower Limit of Quantification (LLOQ), recovery, precision and matrix effects were observed. Three main techniques were used in the study: enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and molecularly imprinted polymer solid phase extraction (MISPE). MISPE is a new extraction technique in forensic toxicology applied to biological samples.

Initially work was carried out on the optimization, development and validation of the Neogen® ELISA for screening ketamine and norketamine in urine. The Neogen® ketamine ELISA kit was found to be adequately sensitive and precise for ketamine screening at a cut-off concentration of 25 ng/mL. The ELISA test was shown to be highly specific to ketamine and demonstrated minimal (2.1%) cross-reactivity to its main metabolite norketamine compared to ketamine.

Subsequently, an LC–MS/MS confirmation method for ketamine and norketamine in urine samples was developed and validated with application of the method to urine samples from chronic ketamine users in Malaysia. The method demonstrated good linearity, LOD, LOQ, accuracy and precision and had acceptable matrix effects.
The efficiency of ELISA as a screening method at cut-off of 25 ng/ml and LC-MS/MS as a confirmation method at 2 ng/ml was evaluated. These methods complemented each other and both ELISA and LC-MS methods were 100% sensitive and specific with no false positive results for ketamine and norketamine in urine samples. The results demonstrated that a combination of these two methods can be reliably used for routine screening and confirmation of ketamine and norketamine in urine specimens. Preliminary data from this study provided information on the concentrations of ketamine and norketamine typically found in urine samples collected from individuals frequenting pubs in Malaysia.

The main work in this thesis involved molecularly imprinted polymer materials which were used as sorbents in solid phase extraction (MISPE). Ketamine was used as a model substance for novel in-house synthesised MIPs as no anti-ketamine MIP have previously been reported and because the ketamine structure is suitable for the synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymers. The study was intended to improve the selectivity and sensitivity of the extraction method (MISPE) prior to LC-MS/MS analysis. Evaluation of polymer imprinting was carried out using HPLC-UV.

MIP extraction and LC-MS/MS analysis were applied to the determination of ketamine and norketamine in hair samples and compared with a conventional SPE-based method. MISPE extraction was selective and sensitive with fewer matrix effects than the conventional SPE method and could also be applied to norketamine, the principal metabolite of ketamine, due to the group-selective binding nature of the MIP, but not to structurally dissimilar analytes such as PCP and tiletamine. MISPE was superior to conventional SPE for trace detection of ketamine and norketamine in hair, in terms of improved sensitivity, lower limits of detection and reduced matrix effects.

In addition, the commercial product Amphetamine SupelMIPTM was evaluated for identification of amphetamines in post mortem blood coupled with LC-MS/MS analysis. This work assessed whether the MIP, sold by the manufacturer for the extraction of amphetamines in urine, could also be used for whole blood. The results demonstrated that the MIP can be used successfully for the determination of amphetamines in post mortem blood. The recoveries of five amphetamines were lower than with a comparable GC-MS method but the LODs and LLOQs of the LC-MS/MS method were better and suitable for detection of low levels amphetamines in post mortem blood. Further optimisation is needed to develop an improved protein precipitation method prior to MISPE.

Liquid Chromatography Electro-Spray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (LC–ESI-MS) was used with the MISPE and SPE methods for detection and quantification of ketamine, norketamine and amphetamines in urine, whole blood and hair samples. LC-ESI-MS was found to be easy to use and could detect lower concentrations of drugs and gave reproducible results for all the methods developed in this thesis.


CONTEXT
Low-carbohydrate diets have been popularized without detailed evidence of their efficacy or safety. The literature has no clear consensus as to what amount of carbohydrates per day constitutes a low-carbohydrate diet.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate changes in weight, serum lipids, fasting serum glucose, and fasting serum insulin levels, and blood pressure among adults using low-carbohydrate diets in the outpatient setting.

DATA SOURCES
We performed MEDLINE and bibliographic searches for English-language studies published between January 1, 1966, and February 15, 2003, with key words such as low carbohydrate, ketogenic, and diet.

STUDY SELECTION
We included articles describing adult, outpatient recipients of low-carbohydrate diets of 4 days or more in duration and 500 kcal/d or more, and which reported both carbohydrate content and total calories consumed. Literature searches identified 2609 potentially relevant articles of low-carbohydrate diets. We included 107 articles describing 94 dietary interventions reporting data for 3268 participants; 663 participants received diets of 60 g/d or less of carbohydrates--of whom only 71 received 20 g/d or less of carbohydrates. Study variables (eg, number of participants, design of dietary evaluation), participant variables (eg, age, sex, baseline weight, fasting serum glucose level), diet variables (eg, carbohydrate content, caloric content, duration) were abstracted from each study.

DATA EXTRACTION
Two authors independently reviewed articles meeting inclusion criteria and abstracted data onto pretested abstraction forms.

DATA SYNTHESIS
The included studies were highly heterogeneous with respect to design, carbohydrate content (range, 0-901 g/d), total caloric content (range, 525-4629 kcal/d), diet duration (range, 4-365 days), and participant characteristics (eg, baseline weight range, 57-217 kg). No study evaluated diets of 60 g/d or less of carbohydrates in participants with a mean age older than 53.1 years. Only 5 studies (nonrandomized and no comparison groups) evaluated these diets for more than 90 days. Among obese patients, weight loss was associated with longer diet duration (P =.002), restriction of calorie intake (P =.03), but not with reduced carbohydrate content (P =.90). Low-carbohydrate diets had no significant adverse effect on serum lipid, fasting serum glucose, and fasting serum insulin levels, or blood pressure.

CONCLUSIONS
There is insufficient evidence to make recommendations for or against the use of low-carbohydrate diets, particularly among participants older than age 50 years, for use longer than 90 days, or for diets of 20 g/d or less of carbohydrates. Among the published studies, participant weight loss while using low-carbohydrate diets was principally associated with decreased caloric intake and increased diet duration but not with reduced carbohydrate content.


We present PAC-Bayes-Empirical-Bernstein inequality. The inequality is based on combination of PAC-Bayesian bounding technique with Empirical Bernstein bound. It allows to take advantage of small empirical variance and is especially useful in regression. We show that when the empirical variance is significantly smaller than the empirical loss PAC-Bayes-Empirical-Bernstein inequality is significantly tighter than PAC-Bayes-kl inequality of Seeger (2002) and otherwise it is comparable. PAC-Bayes-Empirical-Bernstein inequality is an interesting example of application of PAC-Bayesian bounding technique to self-bounding functions. We provide empirical comparison of PAC-Bayes-Empirical-Bernstein inequality with PAC-Bayes-kl inequality on a synthetic example and several UCI datasets.


Low power wearable devices equipped with powerful embedded processors found their place in applications such as personalized health, wellness/sports/fitness, rehabilitation, personal entertainment, social communications and lifestyle computing. In sports, the use of these devices together with powerful machine learning algorithms have opened up opportunity to create so called artificial training expert systems. In this work, an example of such system is discussed with the application in basketball training. The designed system is capable of recognizing basketball training type automatically by sampling data from battery powered wireless wearable device equipped with motion sensors. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used as classification algorithm. The algorithm is capable of achieving 99.5% accuracy on the examined dataset.


Technophilia has been routinely pathologized in the science and technology studies literature. It is variously framed as a type of dangerous psychological deviance, a form of spiritual deficit, and a source of social destruction. This essay seeks to reframe technophilia as a way of life no more pathological than homosexuality, atheism, or other traditionally disparaged identities, and to note how its oppositional forms—much like gay activism or atheist humanism—can be as politically helpful and ethically grounded as any other progressive social movement.


This paper involved the registration of 1,936 cases of infection of the Leishmania tropica parasite observed at hospitals and health centers in Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdadi, and Hit during 2017. The results revealed that the highest rates of infection were found in Ramadi and Fallujah. The 1-10 years age group recorded the highest rate at 35.5%. There was no significant difference (p ≥ 0.05) between the sexes. December and January saw the highest rate of infection, where the rate in rural townships was found to be 65.5%, higher than in urban regions which saw a rate of 34.4%. Facial lesions were the most prominent area of infection, recorded at a rate of 41.3%. The study also included an examination of 180 rodents (94 mice and 86 black rats) - the investigation demonstrated the presence of the amastigote stage at a rate of 43.6% among mice and 53.4% among rats. The study also involved an analysis of the impact of the use of a water extract from the Rhanterium epapposum plant, also locally known as the Arfaj plant, on Leishmania tropica parasite growth. As part of this study, a concentration of between 0.05-5 mg/ml was used. The application of these concentrations led to an inhibitory effect on parasite growth - an application of relatively higher concentrations caused greater effects in times of growth between 1-5 days.


This report studies the effect of introducing a priori knowledge to recover sparse representations when overcomplete dictionaries are used. We focus mainly on Greedy algorithms and Basis Pursuit as for our algorithmic basement, while a priori is incorporated by suitably weighting the elements of the dictionary. A unique sufficient condition is provided under which Orthogonal Matching Pursuit, Matching Pursuit and Basis Pursuit are able to recover the optimally sparse representation of a signal when a priori information is available. Theoretical results show how the use of "reliable" a priori information can improve the performances of these algorithms. In particular, we prove that sufficient conditions to guarantee the retrieval of the sparsest solution can be established for dictionaries unable to satisfy the results of Gribonval and Vandergheynst and Tropp. As one might expect, our results reduce to the classical case when no a priori information is available. Some examples illustrate our theoretical findings.


Recent studies on the Swedish work force show that about half of all jobs demand a high degree of self-governing. In preparing students for the future, the World Economic Forum suggests that schools should also teach social skills, creativity and critical thinking. According to the Swedish upper secondary curriculum, the subject of technology should allow students to develop entrepreneurial skills, defined as supporting curiosity, confidence, creativity and courage, resulting in the ability to act, in innovation and problem solving. This vision is related to the notion of authentic learning. Reeves, Herrington and Oliver define authenticity through nine key elements, namely, authentic context, authentic task, presence of expert performances, multiple perspectives, collaboration, reflection, articulation, metacognitive support and authentic assessment. The aim of this study is to map these key elements of authentic learning onto the development and design of a five-week innovation project for implementation in a Swedish upper secondary school context. The mapping process involved first synthesising literature in the area of authentic learning in conjunction with studying Swedish technology education curriculum materials. This was followed by describing the characteristics of each key element of authentic learning in terms of proposing activities for implementation as an innovation project (IP). The results of this study show how criteria of nine elements of authentic learning could be used in designing an innovation project (IP) module in an authentically cogent way. Thus the authenticity framework served as a valid theoretical tool to produce the authentic learning module.


Students' use of superficial reasoning seems to be a main reason for learning difficulties in mathematics. It is therefore important to investigate the reasons for this use and the components that may affect students' mathematical reasoning development. Assessments have been claimed to be a component that significantly may influence students' learning. The purpose of the study in Paper 1 was to investigate the kind of mathematical reasoning that is required to successfully solve tasks in the written tests students encounter in their learning environment. This study showed that a majority of the tasks in teacher-made assessment could be solved successfully by using only imitative reasoning. The national tests however required creative mathematically founded reasoning to a much higher extent. The question about what kind of reasoning the students really use, regardless of what theoretically has been claimed to be required on these tests, still remains. This question is investigated in Paper 2. Here is also the relation between the theoretically established reasoning requirements, i.e. the kind of reasoning the students have to use in order to successfully solve included tasks, and the reasoning actually used by students studied. The results showed that the students to large extent did apply the same reasoning as were required, which means that the framework and analysis procedure can be valuable tools when developing tests. It also strengthens many of the results throughout this thesis. A consequence of this concordance is that as in the case with national tests with high demands regarding reasoning also resulted in a higher use of such reasoning, i.e. creative mathematically founded reasoning. Paper 2 can thus be seen to have validated the used framework and the analysis procedure for establishing these requirements. Paper 3 investigates the reasons for why the teacher-made tests emphasises low-quality reasoning found in paper I. In short the study showed that the high degree of tasks solvable by imitative reasoning in teacher-made tests seems explainable by amalgamating the following factors: (i) Limited awareness of differences in reasoning requirements, (ii) low expectations of students abilities and (iii) the desire to get students passing the tests, which was believed easier when excluding creative reasoning from the tests. Information about these reasons is decisive for the possibilities of changing this emphasis. Results from this study can also be used heuristically to explain some of the results found in paper 4, concerning those teachers that did not seem to be influenced by the national tests. There are many suggestions in the literature that high-stake tests affect practice in the classroom. Therefore, the national tests may influence teachers in their development of classroom tests. Findings from paper I suggests that this proposed impact seem to have had a limited effect, at least regarding the kind of reasoning required to solve included tasks. What about other competencies described in the policy documents? Paper 4 investigates if the Swedish national tests have had such an impact on teacher-made classroom assessment. Results showed that impact in terms of similar distribution of tested competences is very limited. The study however showed the existence of impact from the national tests on teachers test development and how this impact may operate.


Current law-and-development literature overwhelmingly urges the privatization of the economy and the establishment of a rule-of-law system, which endows citizens with rights and obligations, with the expectation that democracy and equality will inevitably follow. My research interviewing female Chinese divorce litigants about their experiences in the Chinese court system capture a much more ambiguous effect of Chinese reforms on its citizens' sense of rights and entitlements. This article looks at China's recent legal and economic reforms through the eyes of male and female divorce litigants, and examines the kinds of citizenship rights that are being promoted through the Chinese court system. Are the changes occurring within the Chinese legal system encouraging a sense of citizenship rights and equality amongst its citizens? How has the Chinese court system benefited its most vulnerable citizens? Are Chinese legal reforms consistent with its citizens' conceptions of justice?This article focuses on divorce litigation in contemporary China through, among other data, in-depth interviews with twenty-nine divorce litigants. These interviews provide a rich source of insight into how Chinese women view themselves and the divorce process, and how they were affected by recent changes in the legal system. The article considers the ramifications of legal reforms on conceptions of citizenship and the equality of citizenship rights for Chinese women in a changing economy.It especially focuses on whether the increased use of the formal legal process has altered women's sense of entitlement and equality in Chinese society. The way Chinese women use the courts to enforce their rights also provides a lens into whether the law is being used as an instrument for citizen empowerment, and if so, how it is being used. For rule of law ideals truly to take root, the idea of legality and the use of legal instruments to settle rights and social problems must exist at the level of ordinary citizens.


One of the deadliest roads in North America for species at risk fragments a marsh-lake ecosystem. To reduce road mortality, stakeholders installed >5 km of exclusion fencing along a southwestern Ontario, Canada, causeway in 2008–2009. Between 2012 and 2014, 7 culverts were installed to provide safe crossings. We evaluated the success of these mitigation strategies by 1) comparing results of road surveys conducted 5 years before and 5 years after fencing installation; and 2) monitoring use of culverts by turtles using motion-activated cameras at culvert openings and stationary antennas placed to detect movements of passive integrated transponder (PIT)-tagged turtles (68 Blanding's turtles [Emydoidea blandingii] and 30 spotted turtles [Clemmys guttata]). We also radio-tracked 30 Blanding's turtles to measure culvert use in relation to home ranges. Turtle and snake abundance was 89% and 53% lower, respectively, in completely fenced road sections than in unfenced sections; abundance was 6% and 10% higher, respectively, between partially fenced and unfenced sections. After mitigation, locations where we found reptiles on the road were associated with fence ends, underscoring the importance of fence integrity and ineffectiveness of partial fencing as a mitigation strategy. We confirmed use of culverts by Blanding's turtles, northern map turtles (Graptemys geographica), snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina), and midland painted turtles (Chrysemys picta). Through radio-tracking, we determined that male and female Blanding's turtles home ranges overlapped with different segments of the causeway. We recommend that stakeholders emphasize ensuring fence integrity and continuity, limiting impact of edge effects, and conducting a comprehensive monitoring program. © 2017 The Wildlife Society.


Federated Learning (FL) is a promising framework for distributed learning when data is private and sensitive. However, the state-of-the-art solutions in this framework are not optimal when data is heterogeneous and non-Independent and Identically Distributed (non-IID). We propose a practical and robust approach to personalization in FL that adjusts to heterogeneous and non-IID data by balancing exploration and exploitation of several global models. To achieve our aim of personalization, we use a Mixture of Experts (MoE) that learns to group clients that are similar to each other, while using the global models more efficiently. We show that our approach achieves an accuracy up to 29.78 % and up to 4.38 % better compared to a local model in a pathological non-IID setting, even though we tune our approach in the IID setting.


The following thesis typifies a recent current of thought in Trinitarian theology: "The living God can . . . be thought of only as Father and Son, while a non-trinitarian, purely monotheistic God would in fact have to be declared dead." Such an opinion, it would seem, would have struck twentieth-century Jewish thinker Martin Buber as false. After all, the central message of the Shema is "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord" (Deut 6:4, RSV). Buber did not read this prayer as Trinitarian, but he did have "monotheistic" faith in the living God. Were he alive, Buber might register surprise that the author of the thesis is a major proponent of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, Walter Cardinal Kasper. Further, Kasper argues to the thesis by way of a reformulation of Buber's own claim: "An I without a Thou is unthinkable." Did Buber simply fail to grasp the universality of his own insight and so apply it to the God beyond the firmament? Or did Kasper overreach? Kasper presents an iteration of what I call the "I-Thou" argument for the Trinity. The argument is almost always attended by the so-called "Social Analogy," according to which God is contemplated through the iconic similitude of a community of human persons,


Farmed shrimp production and value continue to increase with Asia producing the global majority of shrimp and the USA, Japan and Europe being the main importers. Shrimp farming systems are very diverse in their management, size and impacts. There are many causes for mangrove loss but the conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms has caused considerable attention. The major issues of shrimp farming include the loss of important ecological and socio-economic functions of mangrove ecosystems, changes in hydrology, salinization, introduction of non-native species and diseases, pollution from effluents, chemicals and medicines, use of wild fish for feed, capture of wild shrimp seed and loss of livelihoods and social conflicts. Global awareness about the need to reduce the impacts of shrimp farming and the importance of sustainable use of mangrove ecosystems has led to a number of guidelines being published. Policy to position shrimp farms behind mangroves can be effective but also requires good institutional capacity and coordination, effective enforcement, incentives, land tenure and participation of all stakeholders for success. Better management practices have been identified which reduce impacts, increase efficiency and profits. Community-based management using partnerships, stewardships or multilateral cooperation schemes, together with integrated, mixed or mangrove-friendly aquaculture practices and mangrove rehabilitation should also be promoted. Introduction of certification schemes may further ensure environmental sustainability, social equity and food safety of aquaculture products that can benefit both the local communities and the consumer. Further inclusion of local communities and raising awareness with the consumer is required.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of supervisor and subordinate personality in high quality supervisor-subordinate (leader-member exchange; LMX) relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

In this field study, 142 supervisors drawn from a leadership development program, and 509 of their subordinates, completed a personality survey and reported on the quality of their relationships.

Findings

Self and partner personality (agreeableness and extraversion), and the match between them were predictors of LMX. Consistent with approach/inhibition theory of power, personality traits of relationship partners had a stronger effect when the partner held a position of power (i.e. supervisors) than when the partner was a subordinate.

Practical implications

The results inform organizational selection by showing the importance of supervisory traits for the formation of high quality supervisor-subordinate relationships. They may also help organizations facilitate the development of high quality supervisory relationships. The findings also suggest that it is critical to consider the balance of power when assessing LMX, along with factors that lead to its development, or benefits that ensue from it.

Originality/value

To date, there is an assumption that certain traits predict the development of high quality relationships between supervisors and subordinates. The results point out the importance of considering the role of power in LMX relationships. The paper shows that the effects of supervisory traits, which are rarely examined in the context of LMX relationships, more strongly predict LMX than do the traits of subordinates.


In the Arctic, the thaw of East-West relations in the 1990s led to deeper regional and sub-regional cooperation, and a strengthening of the stability of the region through the establishment of standards. This led in turn to the formation of a patchwork of standards that overlap and intersect: the proliferation of soft law standards was then the only way to put the states and other stakeholders around the table, in a region that has not yet been cleared of past tensions. Few observers would have predicted that a body which so many limitations would have reached such results in terms of norm-making, considering that the Arctic Council (AC) is only 20 years old. The AC has often been viewed as politically ineffective, with lots of talk but little action on issues relating to its mandates of environmental protection and sustainable development. The AC is very far from being a perfect forum but despite or thanks to its " soft " structure, it offers a large place for local voices, which ensures its legitimacy, and it can better adapt over time by facilitating compromise. This paper explores the central role of the AC in Arctic norm setting, stressing the specificities of the Council among the wide range of Arctic-norm producers, and demonstrating how its successes are linked to its soft law structure, as a major factor of legitimacy and socialization, and finally of normative power in the Arctic. It is the flexibility of the AC that contributes to its strength. Thus, despite the absence of any 'hard' power, the AC is the major norm setting instrument in the Arctic.


Making choices between payoffs available at different points in time reliably engages a decision‐making brain circuit that includes medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and ventral striatum (VS). Previous neuroimaging studies produced differing accounts of the functions of these regions, including that these regions: (1) are sensitive to the value of rewards discounted by a function of delay ('subjective value'); (2) are differentially sensitive to the availability of an immediate reward; and (3) are implicated in impulsive decision‐making. In this event‐related fMRI study of 20 volunteers, these hypotheses were investigated simultaneously using a delay discounting task in which magnitude of rewards and stimulus type, i.e., the presence or absence of an immediate option, were independently varied, and in which participants' trait impulsivity was assessed with the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Results showed that mPFC, PCC, and VS are sensitive to the subjective value of rewards, whereas mPFC and PCC, but not VS, are sensitive to the presence of an immediate reward in the choice option. Moderation by individual differences in trait impulsivity was specific to the mPFC. Conjunction analysis showed significant overlap in mPFC and PCC for the main effects of subjective value and stimulus type, indicating these regions may serve multiple distinct roles during intertemporal decision‐making. These findings significantly advance our understanding of the specificity and overlap of functions subserved by different regions involved in intertemporal decision‐making, and help to reconcile conflicting accounts in the literature. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


A substantial body of research on the UK's National Minimum Wage (NMW) has concluded that the the NMW has not had a detrimental effect on employment. This research has directly influenced, through the Low Pay Commission, the conduct of policy, including the subsequent introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW). We revisit this literature and offer a reassessment, motivated by two concerns. First, much of this literature employs difference-in-difference designs, even though there are significant challenges in conducting appropriate inference in such designs, and they can have very low power when inference is conducted appropriately. Second, the literature has focused on the binary outcome of statistical rejection of the null hypothesis, without attention to the range of (positive or negative) impacts on employment that are consistent with the data. In our re-analysis of the data, we conduct inference using recent suggestions for best practice and consider what magnitude of employment effects the data can and cannot rule out. We find that the data are consistent with both large negative and small positive impacts of the UK National Minimum Wage on employment. We conclude that the existing data, combined with difference-in-difference designs, in fact offered very little guidance to policy makers.


Marlowe's Edward II (c. 1594) features a conspicuous recurrence of open sewers both on- and off-stage, and its characters repeatedly invoke the image of "channels" glutted with material and bodily waste. Although most critical readings of the play have interpreted this recurrence as a symptom of the trans-historical psychological associability between the homophobic contempt that Mortimer Junior and his co-conspirators demonstrate for Edward's and Gaveston's relationship and the scatological punishments to which the deposed king is subjected, I argue in this essay that Marlowe likely had additional motivating factors for increasing the role of open sewers in his dramatic adaptation of his historical sources. These additional factors were directly related to the growing controversy over improper waste disposal in late-Elizabethan London. Ultimately, I argue that in adapting the tragic history of Edward II for the popular stage, Marlowe self-consciously draws on the environmentally hazardous landscape immediately surrounding the site of his play's earliest London performances in order to call attention to the socio-environmental politics of waste disposal at a unique historical moment when the collective exposure to improperly disposed waste was increasing as a result of the city's exponential (and arguably unsustainable) population growth.


Professional summarizers often reuse original documents to generate summaries. The task of summary sentence decomposition is to deduce whether a summary sentence is constructed by reusing the original text and to identify reused phrases. Specifically, the decomposition program needs to answer three questions for a given summary sentence: (1) Is this summary sentence constructed by reusing the text in the original document? (2) If so, what phrases in the sentence come from the original document? and (3) From where in the document do the phrases come? Solving the decomposition problem can lead to better text generation techniques for summarization. Decomposition can also provide large training and testing corpora for extraction-based summarizers. We propose a hidden Markov model solution to the decomposition problem. Evaluations show that the proposed algorithm performs well.


Recent Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms making use of Kullback-Leibler (KL) regularization as a core component have shown outstanding performance. Yet, only little is understood theoretically about why KL regularization helps, so far. We study KL regularization within an approximate value iteration scheme and show that it implicitly averages q-values. Leveraging this insight, we provide a very strong performance bound, the very first to combine two desirable aspects: a linear dependency to the horizon (instead of quadratic) and an error propagation term involving an averaging effect of the estimation errors (instead of an accumulation effect). We also study the more general case of an additional entropy regularizer. The resulting abstract scheme encompasses many existing RL algorithms. Some of our assumptions do not hold with neural networks, so we complement this theoretical analysis with an extensive empirical study.


Python 3 is a highly dynamic language, but it has introduced a syntax for expressing types with PEP484. This paper explores how developers use these type annotations, the type system semantics provided by type checking and inference tools, and the performance of these tools. We evaluate the types and tools on a corpus of public GitHub repositories. We review MyPy and PyType, two canonical static type checking and inference tools, and their distinct approaches to type analysis. We then address three research questions: (i) How often and in what ways do developers use Python 3 types? (ii) Which type errors do developers make? (iii) How do type errors from different tools compare? Surprisingly, when developers use static types, the code rarely type-checks with either of the tools. MyPy and PyType exhibit false positives, due to their static nature, but also flag many useful errors in our corpus. Lastly, MyPy and PyType embody two distinct type systems, flagging different errors in many cases. Understanding the usage of Python types can help guide tool-builders and researchers. Understanding the performance of popular tools can help increase the adoption of static types and tools by practitioners, ultimately leading to more correct and more robust Python code.


In multicriteria optimization problems the connectedness of the set of efficient solutions (pareto set) is of special interest since it would allow the determination of the efficient solutions without considering non-efficient solutions in the process. In the case of the multicriteria problem to minimize matchings the set of efficient solutions is not connected. The set of minimal solutions E pot with respect to the power ordered set contains the pareto set. In this work theorems about connectedness of E pot are given. These lead to an automated process to detect all efficient solutions.


Due to the differences between regions and sub-regions in the countries, some problems come out especially in economic and social life. The issue of differences of regions has been widely implemented to evaluate the economic performance of Turkey in many disciplines. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of 26 sub-regions of NUTS-2 classification using integration Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The integrated FAHP/DEA method comprises two stages. In the first stage, linguistic terms are used to determine the decision makers' opinion and are converted to quantitative forms by using FAHP methods. Subsequently, in the second stage, DEA method is applied to obtain relative efficiency of sub-regions in Turkey. The integrated FAHP/DEA method is illustrated with a real case study.


In this paper, we evaluate specification and pricing error for the Consumption (C-) CAPM in the case where the model is optimally scaled by consumption-wealth ratio (CAY). Lettau and Ludvigson (2001b) show that the C-CAPM successfully explains a large portion (about 70%) of the cross-section of expected returns on Fama and French's size and book-to-market portfolios, when the model is scaled linearly by CAY. In contrast, we use the methodology developed in Basu and Stremme (2005) to construct the optimal factor scaling as a (possibly non-linear) function of the conditioning variable (CAY), designed to minimize the model's pricing error. We use a new measure of specification error, also developed in Basu and Stremme (2005), which allows us to analyze the performance of the model both in and out-of-sample. We find that the optimal factor loadings are indeed non-linear in the instrument, in contrast to the linear specification prevalent in the literature. While our optimally scaled C-CAPM explains about 80% of the cross-section of expected returns on the size and book-to-market portfolios (thus in fact out-performing the linearly scaled model of Lettau and Ludvigson (2001b)), it fails to explain the returns on portfolios sorted by industry. Moreover, although the optimal use of CAY does dramatically improve the performance of the model, even the scaled model fails our specification test (for either set of base assets), implying that the model still has large pricing errors. Out-of-sample, the performance of the model deteriorates further, failing even to explain any significant portion of the cross-section of expected returns. For comparison, we also test a scaled version of the classic CAPM and find that it has in fact smaller pricing errors than the scaled C-CAPM.


Introduction. As a part of the emergency medical services, the Swedish fire brigade can increase the survival rate in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. Aim. To compare the quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) performed by firefighters at a routine CPR practice versus when involved in a simulated life-saving event. Methods. In this study, 80 firefighters divided into two groups performed CPR according to guidelines: one group indoors during a routine training session; the other group outdoors during a smoke diving exercise wearing personal protective clothing and self-contained breathing apparatus. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Results. The results showed a tendency for the outdoor group to perform CPR with better ventilation and compression quality, as compared to the indoor group. The ventilation of the manikin was not hampered by the firefighters wearing personal protective clothes and self-contained breathing apparatus, as the Swedish firefighters remove their facial mask and ventilate the patient with their mouth using a pocket mask. Conclusions. Overall, the results in both groups showed a high quality of CPR which can be related to the fire brigade training and education traditions. CPR training is regularly performed, which in turn helps to maintain CPR skills.


Hyman Minsky is renowned for his theoretical and empirical investigation of the capitalist economy. In this book, a distinguished group of contributors provides an authoritative account of his contribution to the analysis of capitalism and, more particularly, to the fields of monetary and post Keynesian economics.


Facilitating community engagement in education is promoted and emphasised in university policies and strategic plans. How can a university facilitate innovations to develop collaborative partnerships with its community? This paper presents leadership processes for initiating community engagement with an Australian university and highlights examples of innovations in Science Education for Sustainable Living (SESL) with preservice teachers' reflections on their teaching practices. Data collection included observations of practice, interviews, minutes of meetings, and written correspondence with a wide range of participants (i.e., senior QUT staff, lecturers, preservice teachers, principals, school executives and teachers, and other community members). A four-step process for implementing SESL innovations provided an example of university-community engagement, and was used as a catalyst for preservice teachers (n=14) to reflect on SESL, which provided opportunities for enhancing their science teaching practices. Results indicated that connecting the community with preservice teacher education aided in promoting understandings of sustainable living and kept environmental issues on the agenda. The four-step process implemented by the preservice teachers for SESL assisted to conceptually advance understandings of scientific causes and effects in order to propose appropriate solutions. Initiating university-community engagement required articulating visionary directions, understanding change processes, motivating potential key stakeholders, and promoting collaboration and team effort. In addition, distributing leadership aided in facilitating university-community collaboration and allowed for the implementation of a wider range of innovations. It was concluded that distributing leadership will be essential in order to sustain university-community engagement, particularly as key stakeholders in leadership roles can deploy energy and resources at levels required for successful collaborations.


A complex of the three (αεθ) core subunits and the β2 sliding clamp is responsible for DNA synthesis by Pol III, the Escherichia coli chromosomal DNA replicase. The 1.7 Å crystal structure of a complex between the PHP domain of α (polymerase) and the C-terminal segment of ε (proofreading exonuclease) subunits shows that ε is attached to α at a site far from the polymerase active site. Both α and ε contain clamp-binding motifs (CBMs) that interact simultaneously with β2 in the polymerization mode of DNA replication by Pol III. Strengthening of both CBMs enables isolation of stable αεθ:β2 complexes. Nuclear magnetic resonance experiments with reconstituted αεθ:β2 demonstrate retention of high mobility of a segment of 22 residues in the linker that connects the exonuclease domain of ε with its α-binding segment. In spite of this, small-angle X-ray scattering data show that the isolated complex with strengthened CBMs has a compact, but still flexible, structure. Photo-crosslinking with p-benzoyl-L-phenylalanine incorporated at different sites in the α-PHP domain confirm the conformational variability of the tether. Structural models of the αεθ:β2 replicase complex with primer-template DNA combine all available structural data.


We present here a new solution for the astronomical computation of the insolation quantities on Earth spanning from -250 Myr to 250 Myr. This solution has been improved with respect to La93 (Laskar et al. [CITE]) by using a direct integration of the gravitational equations for the orbital motion, and by improving the dissipative contributions, in particular in the evolution of the Earth–Moon System. The orbital solution has been used for the calibration of the Neogene period (Lourens et al.  [CITE]), and is expected to be used for age calibrations of paleoclimatic data over 40 to 50 Myr, eventually over the full Palaeogene period (65 Myr) with caution. Beyond this time span, the chaotic evolution of the orbits prevents a precise determination of the Earth's motion. However, the most regular components of the orbital solution could still be used over a much longer time span, which is why we provide here the solution over 250 Myr. Over this time interval, the most striking feature of the obliquity solution, apart from a secular global increase due to tidal dissipation, is a strong decrease of about 0.38 degree in the next few millions of years, due to the crossing of the  resonance (Laskar et al. [CITE]). For the calibration of the Mesozoic time scale (about 65 to 250 Myr), we propose to use the term of largest amplitude in the eccentricity, related to , with a fixed frequency of /yr, corresponding to a period of 405 000 yr. The uncertainty of this time scale over 100 Myr should be about , and  over the full Mesozoic era.


This study was composed of a conceptual analysis of job satisfaction and an empirical research for the relationships between job satisfaction and a set of variables; pay, promotion, positive affectivity/encouragement, job involvement, potential of rest-day/off-day, relations with co-workers, health facilities, relations with supervisor, training and education facilities, autonomy, physical facilities, reconciliation role of supervisor, procedural justice, tangible aids, office tools, level of role clearness, participation in decisions, management style of supervisor. The results, based on a sample of 220 employees from Aydýn Municipality and Nazilli Municipality, indicated that 59% of the variance in job satisfaction was explained by the variables included in the regression test. The variable of management/democratic style of supervisor had the greatest effect on job satisfaction, followed by the variables of "level of role clearness", "health facilities", "autonomy", "participation in decision", "job involvement", and "training and educational facilities". The study found that satisfaction level for "tangible aids" and "potential of rest-day" was significantly higher for employees working in Aydýn Municipality than those working in Nazilli Municipality. But, satisfaction level for "health facilities", "physical facilities" and "relations with supervisor" was significantly higher for employees working in Nazilli Municipality than those working in Aydýn Municipality. So, it is suggested that managers should apply additional/further researches in their organizations to investigate the underpinning variables of job satisfaction and commitment of employees.


The academic literature generally assumes that an aggregate-risk-utility test is employed to determine whether conduct was reasonable or negligent. This aggregate-risk-utility test is a transparent implementation of the basic impartiality and aggregation principles of utilitarianism and the most popular (Kaldor-Hicks) interpretation of economic efficiency. Thus, the test's assumed prevalence as the criterion of reasonableness in negligence law has been highlighted by legal economists as confirmation of the utilitarian efficiency foundations of tort law, while those, including Ronald Dworkin, who think that the law, including tort law, is or should be grounded on principles of justice have sought to demonstrate that, contrary to appearances, the aggregate-risk-utility test is consistent with and best explained and justified by the principles of justice. As this article discusses, the attempts to explain and justify the aggregate-risk-utility test as an elaboration of the principles of justice have all failed. The leading justice theorists all now acknowledge, indeed insist, that the aggregate-risk-utility test cannot be reconciled with the principles of justice. The attempts to affect such a reconciliation were and are based on a fundamental error: treating the basic principles of utilitarianism, which are in direct conflict with the equal-freedom norm that underlies the principles of justice, as principles of justice. These attempts were motivated by a misunderstanding of actual negligence law. As is discussed in related articles (also available on SSRN), the aggregate-risk-utility test, although pervasive in the secondary literature and mentioned by a small minority of courts, is almost never used by the courts to decide whether particular conduct was negligent. Instead, the courts employ, explicitly or implicitly, a number of different criteria, depending on the rights and relationships among the parties, that are based on the principles of justice. Why, then, is the aggregate-risk-utility test pervasive in the secondary literature? The secondary literature is primarily the province of legal academics. The aggregate-risk-utility test of negligence was invented by legal academics and inserted in the first Restatement during the first part of the twentieth century, when utilitarianism was a popular moral and political theory, and its adoption in the Restatement assured its prominence in the secondary literature, although it continued to be infrequently mentioned and almost never used by the courts. Although it is now rarely noted, the risk-utility test in the first and second Restatements was significantly qualified. For example, it emphasized socially valuable rather than purely private benefits, and its drafters seemed to view it as a prohibitive-cost test, which requires risks to be reduced to the maximum extent feasible without significantly impairing (much greater) social benefits, rather than a literal aggregate-risk-utility test. Unfortunately, these qualifications have all been abandoned in the draft Restatement Third, which, despite widespread criticism, for the first time sets forth an explicit, reductionist, aggregate-cost-benefit test of negligence and then implausibly claims that this transparently utilitarian test is consistent with the principles of justice.


Journal of Psychopathology 2015;21:380-389 Summary The concept of addiction, traditionally applied to psychotropic substances, has been officially extended by the DSM-5 to gambling disorder, a "behavioural addiction" (BA), in which the focus of the addiction is represented by a specific behaviour. BAs are emerging psychopathological disorders with an increased in scientific interest and socio-cultural and economic implications. In this paper, we will review the available evidence on the clinical, diagnostic and psychopathological features of BAs, with particular reference to gambling disorder, sex-addiction, compulsive buying, exercise, work, technological and love addictions. Even though each of these addictions may likely meet the requirements for classification as a separate diagnostic entity, at present, the only two disorders included in DSM-5 are gambling disorder and internet gaming disorder. The absence of specific diagnostic criteria, the present of difficulties in differentiating pathological from "normal" behaviours, and blurring of demarcation lines between physiology and pathology complicate the epidemiologic investigation and diagnostic assessment of BAs. Moreover, the lack of valid screening tools and the frequent comorbidity with other mental disorders further hinder the diagnostic approach to BAs. Therefore, clear-cut and welldefined diagnostic classification needs to be established, along with a better understanding of the clinical and psychopathological features of BAs, as a fundamental prerequisite to prevention, early diagnosis and treatment.


This article reports on the problems experienced by the Department of Distance Education, Makerere University, Uganda with the B.Ed. (External) programme with specific reference to the technology needs and expectations of the programme. With a total enrolment of nearly 3,500 students in 2003, this programme was one of the largest distance education programmes for teachers in the country. It was therefore important to establish what technologies the stakeholders of this programme had access to, what technologies they believed could be used for the programme and for what purpose, and finally what prerequisites should be put in place for this technology to work. The article reports on the availability of and access to ICTs, access to telecommunications and sources of funding for ICTs in the distance education programme. The authors also looked critically at a number of prerequisites thought to enhance the effectiveness of ICTs in the B.Ed. (External) programme from an African perspective hoping that the integration of ICT in the programmes would lift the distance education mode of delivery of these programmes from a classical first and second generation, to a third generation level of operation.


Introduction: Tribal Health Care Research Program (THCRP) was initiated by the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS) in 1982. The core objective of the program is to study the living conditions of tribal people, which includes health-related demography, documentation of folk claims, local health traditions (LHTs), use of common medicinal plants and their availability, propagation of knowledge about personnel hygiene, and prevention of diseases besides extending medical aid at their doorsteps. The program has been implemented in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Andaman and Nicobar at different years from 1982 to 2016. During this period, five independent Tribal Health Care Research units have been relocated through reorganization, which came into force in the year 2000. Further, during the year 2014 to 2015 and 2016 to 2017 the program has been extended in 10 more states, viz., Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, and Telangana. Currently, the THCRP is being executed in 14 states through 15 peripheral institutes of CCRAS under tribal subplan (TSP). Materials and methods: The gross physical achievements including the beneficiaries of health care services, details of villages, tribal pockets covered, documentation of disease prevalence, and LHTs during the period 1982 to 2016 were compiled, summarized, and presented based on the information available in the published monographs, technical reports, and annual reports. Conclusion: A critical appraisal of THCRP revealed that from 1982 up to March 2016, CCRAS has extended health care services at 1,358 villages/tribal pockets that represent around 50 tribes across 14 states covering a population of 947,587. Apart from propagation of knowledge about hygiene and prevention of diseases, medical aid was provided to 336,015 seekers. In addition to this, through this program about 734 folklore claims, LHTs, use of common medicinal plants and their availability were documented and also the prevalence of different diseases in the tribal pockets was recorded.


Islamic civilization represents one of the richest and most prolific phases in the cultural history of humanity. Yet it did not generate serious and widespread interest in the West until the beginning of the twentieth century, when art historians and archaeologists began to analyze and evaluate it from their own point of view and according to their own esthetics. This book attempts to appraise the early periods of Islamic art within its own cultural framework and according to Islamic esthetics. It places the development of Islamic art during the early periods within its historical context and social and political environment. It emphasizes the role the Arabs played in the way they molded their culture with that of the conquered peoples and brought about Islamic civilization.


A superacid-promoted "knitting" strategy has been developed for the generation of a novel family of hypercrosslinked nanoporous polycarbazoles for efficient CO2 capture. Using trifluoromethanesulfonic acid, a Brønsted superacid, we demonstrate the facile and rapid synthesis of highly porous polycarbazoles with BET surface areas as high as 1688 m2 g-1, and capable of adsorbing 3.5 mmol g-1 of CO2 at 298 K and 1 bar. This impressive result bestows the material with the highest CO2 uptake capacity for all nanoporous carbazolic polymers and ranks among the best by known porous organic polymers under this condition. This innovative approach affords a metal-free alternative to Friedel-Crafts alkylation, and may open up new possibilities for the rational design and synthesis of new hypercrosslinked nanoporous organic networks for carbon capture.


The ability to predict future states of the environment is a central pillar of intelligence. At its core, effective prediction requires an internal model of the world and an understanding of the rules by which the world changes. Here, we explore the internal models developed by deep neural networks trained using a loss based on predicting future frames in synthetic video sequences, using an Encoder-Recurrent-Decoder framework (Fragkiadaki et al., 2015). We first show that this architecture can achieve excellent performance in visual sequence prediction tasks, including state-of-the-art performance in a standard "bouncing balls" dataset (Sutskever et al., 2009). We then train on clips of out-of-the-plane rotations of computer-generated faces, using both mean-squared error and a generative adversarial loss (Goodfellow et al., 2014), extending the latter to a recurrent, conditional setting. Despite being trained end-to-end to predict only pixel-level information, our Predictive Generative Networks learn a representation of the latent variables of the underlying generative process. Importantly, we find that this representation is naturally tolerant to object transformations, and generalizes well to new tasks, such as classification of static images. Similar models trained solely with a reconstruction loss fail to generalize as effectively. We argue that prediction can serve as a powerful unsupervised loss for learning rich internal representations of high-level object features. Under review as a conference paper at ICLR 2016 UNSUPERVISED LEARNING OF VISUAL STRUCTURE USING PREDICTIVE GENERATIVE NETWORKS William Lotter, Gabriel Kreiman & David Cox Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138, USA {lotter,firstname.lastname@example.com firstname.lastname@example.com


We consider the problem of designing a financial instrument aimed at mitigating the joint exposure of energy-linked commitments to random price and volume delivery fluctuations. We formulate a functional optimization problem over a set of regular payoff functions: one is written on energy price, while the other is issued over any index exhibiting statistical correlation to volumetric load. On theoretical grounds, we derive closed-form expressions for both payoff structures under suitable conditions about the statistical properties of the underlying variables; we pursue analytical computations in the context of a lognormal market model and deliver explicit formulas for the optimal derivative instruments. On practical grounds, we first develop a comparative analysis of model output through simulation experiments; next, we perform an empirical study based on data quoted at EPEX SPOT power market. Our results suggest that combined price-volume hedging performance improves along with an increase of the correlation between load and index values. This outcome paves the way for a new class of effective strategies for managing volumetric risk upon extreme temperature waves.


I review the theory of the scattering of a Gaussian laser beam by a dielectric spherical particle and give the details for constructing a computer program to implement the theory. Computational results indicate that if the width of the laser beam is much less than the diameter of the particle and if the axis of the beam is incident near the edge of the particle, the fifth-, sixth-, and ninth-order rainbows should be evident in the far-field scattered intensity. I performed an experiment that yielded tentative evidence for the presence of the sixth-order rainbow.


Objectives: To identify groups within rural and urban Bangladesh demonstrating similar socio-economic characteristics and food consumption patterns. Design: A household survey was conducted in a variety of locations m Dhaka Division to collect inforn1ation from rural , and urban household. Cluster analysis was then used to group the households. Setting: Dhaka Division Results: The analysis highlighted 5 clusters. Cluster I is categorised as an urban lifestyle group, with a mixed poverty profile and a transforn1ing consumption pattern. Cluster 2 is the rural rich also experiencing a transforn1ing consumption pattern. Cluster 3 IS the poor with a traditional consumption pattern that appears to be deteriorating in balance. Cluster 6 is the rural less poor group with a traditional consumption pattern. Cluster 5 is comprised of poor female-headed households with a traditional consumption pattern, excluded by poverty and status from any dietary transition. Conclusions: Household exhibiting a transition in food consumption towards market sourced, packaged, and new food items tend to be either urban in nature or from households classified as rich/surplus. Not only is the diet of the poor not diversifying into these "new food items" but also the diversity of food from traditional sources is declining, with an increased reliance on rice and very low expenditure on high protein food items. There is a distinct dietary pattern for slum dwellers, but female-headed households do share this pattern and appear to be excluded from any transition by poverty and cultural barriers.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE This Medical policy provides assistance in interpreting UnitedHealthcare benefit plans. When deciding coverage, the enrollee specific document must be referenced. The terms of an enrollee's document (e.g., Certificate of Coverage (COC) or Summary Plan Description (SPD)) may differ greatly. In the event of a conflict, the enrollee's specific benefit document supersedes this medical policy. All reviewers must first identify enrollee eligibility, any federal or state regulatory requirements and the plan benefit coverage prior to use of this Medical Policy. Other Policies and Coverage Determination Guidelines may apply. UnitedHealthcare reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify its Policies and Guidelines as necessary. This Medical Policy is provided for informational purposes. It does not constitute medical advice.


Higher plants represent a rich source of new molecules with pharmacological properties, which are lead compounds for the development of new drugs. During the last decades, the renewed interest in investigating natural products has led to the introduction of several important drugs, such as the anticancer drugs vinblastine and taxol, or the antimalarial agent artemisinin. Success in natural products research is conditioned by careful plant selection, based on various criteria such as chemotaxonomic data, information from traditional medicine, field observation, or even random collection. One main strategy in the isolation of new lead compounds consists of so-called bioactivity-guided isolation, in which pharmacological or biological assays are used to target the isolation of bioactive compounds. One major drawback of this strategy is the frequent isolation of known metabolites. Therefore, metabolite profiling using hyphenated techniques such as LC/UV, LC/MS and more recently LC/NMR rapidly provides plenty of structural information, leading to a partial or a complete on-line de novo structure determination of the natural products of interest. The combination of metabolite profiling and LC/bioassays gives the possibility to distinguish between already known bioactive compounds and new molecules directly in crude plant extracts (dereplication). Thus, the tedious isolation of compounds of low interest can be avoided and a targeted isolation of new bioactive products. Some examples of rapid localization of bioactive compounds, based on post-chromatographic bioautographic testing of LC/NMR microfractions and subsequent on-line identification will be illustrated in this review. Possibilities and limitations of LC/UV/NMR/MS and LC/bioassay as well as future developments expected in this field will be discussed.


Abstract. Cloud top height (CTH) affects the radiative properties of clouds. Improved CTH observations will allow for improved parameterizations in large-scale models and accurate information on CTH is also important when studying variations in freezing point and cloud microphysics. NASA's airborne Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) is able to measure cloud top height using a novel multi-angular contrast approach. For the determination of CTH, a set of consecutive nadir reflectances is selected and the cross correlations between this set and collocated sets at other viewing angles are calculated for a range of assumed cloud top heights, yielding a correlation profile. Under the assumption that cloud reflectances are isotropic, local peaks in the correlation profile indicate cloud layers. This technique can be applied to every RSP footprint and we demonstrate that detection of multiple peaks in the correlation profile allows retrieval of heights of multiple cloud layers within single RSP footprints. This paper provides an in-depth description of the architecture and performance of the RSP's CTH retrieval technique using data obtained during the Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) campaign. RSP-retrieved cloud heights are evaluated using collocated data from the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL). The method's accuracy associated with the magnitude of correlation, optical thickness, cloud thickness and cloud height are explored. The technique is applied to measurements at a wavelength of 670 and 1880 nm and their combination. The 1880 nm band is virtually insensitive to the lower troposphere due to strong water vapor absorption. It is found that each band is well suitable for retrieving heights of cloud layers with optical thicknesses above about 0.1 and that RSP cloud layer height retrievals more accurately correspond to CPL cloud middle than cloud top. It is also found that the 1880 nm band yields the most accurate results for clouds at middle and high altitudes (4.0 to 17 km), while the 670 nm band is most accurate at low and middle altitudes (1.0–13.0 km). The dual band performs best over the broadest range and is suitable for accurately retrieving cloud layer heights between 1.0 and 16.0 km. Generally, the accuracy of the retrieved cloud top heights increases with increasing correlation value. Improved accuracy is achieved by using customized filtering techniques for each band with the most significant improvements occurring in the primary layer retrievals. RSP is able to measure a primary layer CTH with a median error of about 0.5 km when compared to CPL. For multilayered scenes, the second and third layer heights are determined median errors of about 1.5 and 2.0–2.5 km, respectively.


The equalization of profit rates as the outcome of free competition is one of the oldest tenets in theoretical economics. Being intuitively convincing its premises and implications, though, are not well defined. As Walras put it: 'To state a theory is one thing; to prove it is another.' First of all a consistent concept of profit is required. In the present paper the structural axiom set is taken as premise. Thereof the determinants of profit and the profit ratio follow. This makes it possible to definitively state the conditions for uniform profit ratios in a hierarchical market structure.


Among the crimes in the South African black townships, mob justice has become a growing concern. Some questions that need to be asked are: Is our police force doing enough to protect the ordinary citizens of this country? If the situation continues, will all suspects be killed in the same manner or will there be a solution to change the situation? What is the impact of mob justice on the families of the victims and the witnesses of the brutal acts? How long are we going to live as a traumatised nation as a result of these violent acts? Is there any hope that our nation will ever have the peace it deserves in the context of democracy? This article intends to investigate the impact of the mob justice system and find out what the role of the Christian church should be in the midst of this escalating violence. This study aims to unveil the negative impact of mob justice on the lives of many township South Africans and giving pastoral-biblical suggestions of the church's role in the elimination of this kind of brutality.


ABSTRACT Agricultural development efforts that do not address persistent gender gaps miss opportunities for greater impact. This synthesis reflects on key findings from integrated quantitative and qualitative analyses at the nexus of gender, agricultural development, and climate change. Linked farm household-, intrahousehold-, community-, and institutional-level data highlight significant and nuanced gender differences in adaptive capacity of individuals and communities to respond to climate change. The gender gap is also substantial in exposure to climate change and its impacts, and uptake of new practices that lower vulnerability. Women in agriculture will remain largely neglected by information and service providers unless their differing needs, access to, and control over resources are considered at policy and project design stage. Yet clear guidelines for addressing the needs of both men and women in different environments and agricultural systems are still lacking. Participatory 'action research' approaches with a focus on co-learning, and using innovative cell phone or social media-based approaches offer exciting new opportunities. Agricultural development decision-makers and project designers need to 'design with gender in mind'. Equipping them with tools and knowledge of innovative gender-transformative practices and intervention options and creating accountability for serving women and men will be key.


We present Tony, a software tool for the interactive annotation of melodies from monophonic audio recordings, and evaluate its usability and the accuracy of its note extraction method. The scientific study of acoustic performances of melodies, whether sung or played, requires the accurate transcription of notes and pitches. To achieve the desired transcription accuracy for a particular application, researchers manually correct results obtained by automatic methods. Tony is an interactive tool directly aimed at making this correction task efficient. It provides (a) state-of-the art algorithms for pitch and note estimation, (b) visual and auditory feedback for easy error-spotting, (c) an intelligent graphical user interface through which the user can rapidly correct estimation errors, (d) extensive export functions enabling further processing in other applications. We show that Tony's built in automatic note transcription method compares favourably with existing tools. We report how long it takes to annotate recordings on a set of 96 solo vocal recordings and study the effect of piece, the number of edits made and the annotator's increasing mastery of the software. Tony is Open Source software, with source code and compiled binaries for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux available from https://code.soundsoftware.ac.uk/projects/tony/.


Four steroidal aglycones were isolated from acid-hydrolyzed products of Ophiopogon japonicus. The spectral analysis and chemical evidence revealed their chemical structures to be prazerigenin A (1), 1-O-sulfateruscogenin (2), ophiogenin (3) and rugcogenin (4).Among themcompound 1 was isolated fromO. japonicus for the first timeyand compounds 1 and 4 exerted significant anti-inflammatory activity. In this paper, we first focus on the acid-hydrolyzed products of fibrous roots in O. japonicus. These steroidal aglycones in fibrous roots of O. japonicus would be promising sources to explore and utilize


Ultra-dense network (UDN), as well as nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA), has been emerging as promising techniques to meet the growing demand of data traffic in next-generation wireless networks. However, due to the spectrum sharing among SBSs and users, interference management (IM) is becoming a more important issue in NOMA-based UDN. Moreover, the massive small base stations (SBSs) with various types and overlapped coverage require more intelligent and efficient mechanisms for the IM problem. Thus, in this paper, to reduce interference and improve operation efficiency, we propose a self-optimizing resource allocation (SORA) scheme for IM with joint consideration of the dynamic interference conditions and fierce resource competition among SBSs. Concretely, each SBS constructs the interfering SBSs group adaptively to represent the potential interference from other SBSs. Then, to reduce interference and meet users' requirements, each SBS performs the resource allocation including sub-band and power allocation independently. Moreover, we formulate the problem as a non-cooperation satisfaction game, where a satisfaction function is established for evaluating each SBS's utility. When every SBS's utility is above a preset threshold, the game is considered to reach the satisfaction equilibrium. A distributed algorithm is designed to enable each SBS to learn the satisfaction equilibrium and allocate the resource autonomously. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme compared with the traditional schemes.


Placental insufficiency is an important contributor to the intra utero growth restriction (IUGR). Increasing severity of placental insufficiency results in fetal adaptation (diving reflex) leading to preferential blood circulation to the brain and increased comprise of the intestines and the kidneys. Antenatal Doppler abnormalities including absent or reversal of end-diastolic flow (AREDF) in the umbilical artery in IUGR fetus is a reflection of greater severity of utero placental insufficiency and more compromised intestine. Prolonged exposure to fetal hypoxia and ischemia could result in altered development of motor, secretory, mucosal functions and after birth the intestine is more susceptible to stasis, abnormal colonization, and bacterial invasion (1). Post-natal physiological flow studies report persistent mesenteric artery flow abnormalities lasting for almost a week in IUGR infants with AREDF (2,3). Pregnancy induced hypertension in association with IUGR and neonatal neutropenia could further increase the risk of early infections in these neonates. Thus these high risk preterm infants are at risk for early necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) [odds ratio (OR) =2.13; 95% CI: 1.49–3.03] due to ischemia of mesenteric vascular bed emanating from redistribution of blood flow to vital organs in the fetus (1). IUGR and also AREDF are thus independent risk factors for NEC when adjusted for gestational age at birth.


Determining damages for infringement is one of the most important and controversial issues in contemporary patent litigation. The current fifteen-factor Georgia-Pacific standard for determining a reasonable royalty has become increasingly difficult for juries to apply in patent disputes involving complex, high-technology products, resulting in unpredictable damage awards that tend to overcompensate patentees. This Article proposes an alternative standard to Georgia-Pacific when an acceptable noninfringing substitute exists for the patented technology. Specifically, in a hypothetical bargain for a patent license, both economic and negotiation theory explain that a rational patent licensor would agree to pay only the costs it would incur to adopt and implement a noninfringing substitute technology, plus any lost benefits related to the substitute's use. Indeed, the Federal Circuit already has recognized an analogous limitation on damages in the context of lost profits, although it has defined the universe of alternatives too narrowly by refusing to consider imperfect substitutes for the patented technology.


The relationship between motor and intellectual functions was examined in 252 healthy children from 7 to 18 years using the Zurich Neuromotor Assessment and standardized intelligence tests. The magnitude of Spearman correlations between neuromotor and intellectual scores was generally weak (r = 0.15–0.37). The strongest correlations were found between performance in the pegboard task and visuomotor intelligence (r = 0.35) and between contralateral associated movements and intelligence in boys (r = 0.37). We conclude that specific connections between motor and intellectual functions may exist. However, because the magnitude of correlations is generally weak, we suggest that motor and intellectual domains in healthy children are largely independent.


The remote sensing application of multispectral data analysis has been proven as a
useful tool in geological exploration especially in lineament identification and
mapping. This study demonstrates the use of multispectral Landsat TM and ETM+ satellite data obtained in different two acquisition dates in year 1990 and 2002 for
lineament interpretation in a Malaysian tropical forest environment. The Digital
Elevation Model (DEM) was also been utilized to improve the interpretation process.
Utilizing the rose diagram analysis and histogram superimposition, it was found that
most of the major orientations from field station were successfully matched with the
orientations from extracted lineaments obtained from the imageries. The lineaments
also found to be structurally controlled by the river segments. Thus river segments
may be used as a basis in the early stage of interpretation where the knowledge of
general lineament trend is necessary. The results from the study showed that remote sensing technique through the manual extraction is capable of extracting lineament
trends in tropical forest which inaccessible by conventional survey technique. The
undertaken steps may be utilized as an ideal framework of lineaments extraction
utilizing the Landsat imagery in tropical forest environment such as Malaysia.


The use of composite structures in construction is increasing. The optimized combination of the two materials concrete and steel produces particularly cost-efficient structures. This book presents a large number of numerical examples with detailed explanations of the provisions of Eurocode 4. It deals with the most common structural components in building construction: beams, columns and slabs. Furthermore, comprehensive chapters provide insight into the topics of creep and shrinkage, as well as fatigue. This book enables the reader to efficiently perform analyses of composite structures. It is a valuable reference book for professionals as well as an outstanding means for students to become familiar with the Eurocode 4.


The automation experiences of GE's Light Military Electronic Equipment Department are outlined. Military job-shop assembly quantities are established at 200 units. In balancing direct-labor savings against machine costs, it is emphasized that indirect and intangeble savings should be properly evaluated. Examples are given. The five basic problem areas of obsolence, depreciation, factory overhead ratios, cost ratios, and capital investment are discussed. The automation of clerical areas is described and answers are given to some of the associated perplexing questions. These questions are outlined as having to do with people, lack of flexibility, overuse of data processing information, and conversion. Encouragement for the future is voiced.


To give a brief background, chemical investigations of neem were undertaken by Indian pharmaceutical chemists in 1919, whereby they isolated acidic principle in neem oil, which they named as 'margosic acid". However, real chemical research originated in 1942 with isolation of three active constituents, viz, nimbin, nimbidin and nimbinene. In 1963 an Indian scientist extensively examined the chemistry of the active principles of neem. Following the discovery of neem kernel as a locust feeding deterrent, its chemistry has grown considerably. Several compounds have been isolated and characterized. The main feature is that most of them are chemically similar and biogenetically derivable from a tetracyclicterpenes. These are also called liminoids (azadirachtin, meliantrol, salanin etc.) bitter principles and occur in other botanical species as well (Rutaceae and Simaroubaceae). The unraveling of high complex structural features and biogenetic interrelationship represent classic piece of work on natural product chemistry. From the practical side these compounds also exhibit a wide variety of biological activity, for example, pesticides, antifeedants, and cytotoxic properties.


Regression equations can be used to estimate the preharvest neutral detergent fiber (NDF) concentration of alfalfa. In New York, where the stubble height of alfalfa varies due to terrain, predictive accuracy of existing equations may be reduced. The objectives of this experiment were to develop and evaluate alfalfa NDF equations that incorporate intended stubble height. Stands of first-cut alfalfa were sampled in producers' fields in New York in 2007, and cut into 5-cm segments. Predictive NDF equations were developed for each segment and for the whole plant. To develop whole-plant equations, it was necessary to develop and use equations describing the change, with alfalfa height, in the contribution of each segment to the overall dry matter (DM). The r2 values ranged from 0.90 to 0.93 for the individual segments and 0.93 for the whole-plant equations. The whole-plant equations performed comparably to existing models when evaluated using a dataset of 109 alfalfa samples cut at 10 cm, from 19 New York counties in 2004 and 2005. The derived equations were also fitted to samples collected at a range of stubble heights from New York and Minnesota in 2008. For the New York dataset, the r2 values for whole-plant equations ranged from 0.86 to 0.87, compared with 0.66 to 0.68 for existing equations, which were also biased. The r2 values for the Minnesota dataset were also high, but with some translational bias. The equations could be used by New York producers to obtain a more accurate estimate of preharvest NDF concentration.


New Zealand Baptist and Methodist Churches' growth and decline between 1948 and 1988 was caused by the manner of their involvement in this world, in their roles of experiencing and telling about God in word and action. These roles link with the three factors - secularisation, evangelical theology and practice and the Charismatic movement. The roles and factors are encompassed within the context of change and discontinuity. 1. The impact of secularisation showed in declining religious profession and membership, yet also in greater involvement in this world through experiencing God immanent within it. 2. Commitment to evangelical theology and practice led to short term Baptist success, but in the long term triggered membership losses. Methodists without this emphasis showed even greater membership decline. 3. The Charismatic movement which was initially divisive holds within it potential for experiencing God in this world, and for dynamic continuity to make sense of the changing world scene. The relationship of the context of change to the three major factors was that the greater the degree of responding to discontinuity with creative dynamic continuity, the greater the growth of the churches. Increasing the degree of static continuity induced decline. The absence of any form of continuity resulted in even greater decline. The Baptist Churches successfully increased membership through relating well to the post-war generation. Through social service and outreach ministries they became more involved in this world. Evangelism, through a variety of methods, provided continuity in sharing the God news. The Charismatic movement as catalyst for church change in times of societal change brought the potential, through emphases of servant theology, to channel God experience into relational outreach. This led to its meshing with the positive effects of secularisation and evangelism. Methodist church growth was restricted by suspicion of the Charismatic movement, loss of evangelical focuses and recruitment programmes. Social action continued to be the Methodist way of being involved in this world. Profiles completed by 200 Baptist and 168 Methodist churches demonstrated the interplay of these factors. These were complemented by surveys completed by 106 resigned ministers, over 170 interviews, 6 case studies, 46 church visits and extensive reading. Analysis of profiles and membership statistics showed that Baptist churches did not do better because of short term ministries, Pastoral terms, membership and evangelical theology. But without evangelical theology and practice Methodist membership declined more. For every 12 members welcomed Baptists would lose 8 and Methodists 15. This indicated that churches not retaining members and clergy needed a balance of evangelism and whole-of-life theology with longer term focuses to provide dynamic continuity in the discontinuity of life.


This article discusses hybrid theory development efforts within industrial ecology. The framework is Latour's (1988) Prince metaphor, which he expanded to describe machines and machinations, technology and society. Technology including industrial ecology is regarded here as mediator between nature and society. Aspects on standard ecology and principles for ecosystem thinking as background for our knowledge of natural environment are discussed, in particular the novel understanding of transformation in human and natural systems by means of panarchy and adaptive cycles. Adaptive cycles are also considered as mediation between nature and society. However, natural, scientific or biological ecology are difficult to use directly as a platform for environmental management. A diversification of ecology into soft, practical and hard ecology facilitates the understanding of the relationship between scientific ecology and industrial ecology. Combining both in a model may emerge illustrating the construction of industrial ecology and sustainable production and consumption society and showing the dynamics between nature and society.


Virtual teams have been researched intensely in the last ten years and there is a growing body of literature on the topic. At this point, the authors need an integrative theory-driven framework through which they can conceptualize the notion of virtual teams and organize and make sense of prior research. This can help them better understand what drives virtual team dynamics and ultimately effectiveness and can guide future research on the topic. Drawing on models of team effectiveness and emergent processes and states, the authors developed a framework for understanding virtual team dynamics. They then use this framework to review and synthesize one hundred and twenty-one empirical studies of virtual teams published since 1990. The authors analyzed the direct and indirect antecedents of virtual team effectiveness and identify key gaps in both their knowledge of, and approach to studying, virtual teams. They outlined areas for future research and discuss, the implications for the authors' paper for practice and for the study of virtual and traditional teams.


Singlet fission is a process whereby a bichromophoric system crosses from an excitonically coupled singlet state to a singlet-coupled triplet pair state. If the electronic structure is described locally, then the process may be described by a formal exchange of electrons. As such, it lends itself to a treatment rooted in the Marcus-Hush description of electron transfer. Here we use ab initio and density functional electronic structure theories to reveal a Marcus-Hush perspective on singlet fission and propose experiments to probe singlet fission in the spirit of photo-induced electron transfer.


Ascorbic acid (AA) is a vital nutritional factor in many fruits and plants, and abnormal levels of AA are closely associated with several diseases. Therefore, the development of convenient methods for monitoring AA levels in biological systems is of great importance. In this work, we designed and synthesized three chemosensors for the rapid turn-on detection of AA via a new strategy for the azido–ascorbic acid reaction. The chemosensors were based on a 1,8-naphthalimide moiety with the azide group at different sites (probes 1, 2, and 3). The experimental results demonstrated that probe 2 showed high selectivity toward AA, having an experimental limit of detection of 74 nM. Its reduction was easier than that of probe 3 with a 3-substituted azide group. Moreover, probe 2 was successfully used for imaging of AA in garlic slice tissue for the first time.


This document describes the MIB module for the Digital Video
Broadcasting Return Channel via Satellite system (DVB-RCS), as defined
by the SatLabs Group. It defines a set of MIB objects to characterize
the behavior and performance of network-layer entities deploying DVB-
RCS. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification;
it is published for informational purposes.


In Europe, as elsewhere, 2000 was a truly spectacular year for equity trading. In France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, the industry as a whole made profits of [euro]6.6 billion ($6.02 billion). (1) But 2001 was an equally spectacular bust--industry profits in the four countries fell by more than half (Exhibit 1, on the next page). And the industry's roller-coaster ride isn't over. A new study conducted by McKinsey and J. P. Morgan shows that equity-trading volumes could grow by 8 to 17 percent a year from 2001 to 2005 but that revenues and profits may be more elusive unless wholesale equity brokers adapt their businesses to the changing requirements of their diverse customer segments. (2) Eckart Windhagen A rising market and new listings alone will increase overall market turnover by 8 percent annually through 2005. (3) Will it grow faster? That depends on trading velocity: the rate at which investors churn their portfolios. (4) During the second half of the 1990s, it increased steadily thanks to new trading and order-handling technologies, falling transaction costs, and volatile share prices in a growing market. In 2001, it fortunately stayed flat--if it had dropped as far as market capital did, trading volumes would have fallen much further. What happens next to trading velocity hangs on changes in demand within market segments and their relative size. Broadly speaking, wholesale brokers serve four customer segments: hedge funds; large active institutional funds and small active institutional funds, both of which pick equities with the aim of outperforming the market average; and passive investment funds (such as index funds), which aim only to mirror the average performance of the equity markets. Although average turnover velocity was approximately 80 percent in 2000 and 2001, the trading velocities of these segments vary a good deal around the mean. A hedge fund, for example, turns over its whole portfolio an average of five times a year, while passive investors typically churn only 15 percent of their holdings annually. By conservative estimates, overall trading velocity is likely to grow by just 1 percentage point from 2002 to 2005. Although pension funds and insurance companies plan to increase their holdings with high-velocity hedge funds, investment in low-velocity passive funds is also expected to increase substantially, so the velocities of the two will largely cancel each other out. But trading velocity might easily increase faster--more managers of large active funds may make greater use of new systems for handling orders, say. If trading velocity matches its growth rate from 1995 to 2001, total equity market revenues, including those from new capital and new listings, could rise by as much as 17 percent a year until 2005. In contrast, overall profits are unlikely to rise proportionately. The revenue margins of the trading services offered by brokers differ a good deal (Exhibit 2). While there has been little downward pressure on margins for particular services, investors have shifted a lot of capital to lower-margin ones such as portfolio trades (the simultaneous purchase and sale of a collection of stocks) and bulk trades (which command price discounts) of liquid stocks. This trend, which may well have reduced wholesale-trading margins by as much as 15 percent from 2000 to 2001, is likely to continue as passive or almost-passive investing becomes more popular and trading technology improves (Exhibit 3, on the next page). How can an individual broker maximize its share of future profits? The outcome depends on how well it adapts its services to the particular needs of each client segment. Most brokers still try to offer the full service: equity research across sectors and countries and the execution of trades in domestic and foreign equities. But not all segments need the whole bundle. …


ABSTRACT Debates on how to address societal challenges have moved to the forefront of academic and policy concerns. Of particular importance is the growing awareness that to deal with issues such as ageing, it will be necessary to implement concerted efforts on technological, social, institutional or political fronts. Drawing on a number of theoretical perspectives – including socio-technical transitions and embedded state theory – the aim of this paper is to identify and understand different approaches to the governance of such system innovations by comparing state responses to assisted living in two contrasting national systems of care, namely that of the UK and Norway. Its findings highlight that state-supported and funded experimentation projects have been instrumental in designing and implementing system innovation: through their emphasis on co-design and co-creation, these projects demonstrated the value of early implementation pilots to explore the 'fit' between novel technologies and prevailing practices and institutional structures in national systems of care. Still, competition, biases or conflicting interests should not be ignored between well-established agents and institutions and experimental solutions whose efficacy remains relatively untested and which involve a combination of new technical, social, organizational and institutional solutions.