That most patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) have either very low levels or no leukocyte alkaline phosphatase activity (LAP) is an established fact. In view of our new findings7 that normal mature human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) contain two types of granules, azurophils (1/3) and specifics (2/3), and that alkaline phosphatase is present only in specific granules, we undertook the present studies to determine whether these neoplastic PMN lack a specific granule population or simply lack the enzyme. The cellular buffy coats of five patients with CML (Ph1 plus, LAP minus) were fixed in glutaraldehyde, incubated for peroxidase to identify the azurophil population, and examined by electron microscopy. It was found that the specific granule population was present in all mature PMN. Counts of both azurophil and specific granules per cell were slightly lower than normal but were within an 80%-90% overlap of the normal range. We therefore conclude that the low level of LAP in patients with CML reflects a deficiency of the enzyme rather than a missing granule population. Although the mature PMN appeared relatively normal (with few exceptions), circulating myeloblasts and promyelocytes revealed several abnormalities, the most notable being the presence of large bundles of cytoplasmic microfilaments. The blood of two patients in the terminal phase of disease was reexamined. Most of their cells were immature, with aberrations similar to those in myeloblasts and promyelocytes in the chronic phase of the disorder. In addition, however, we discovered three adnormal populations of mature PMN: (1) PMN containing both populations of granules but lacking peroxidase, (2) PMN lacking specific granules, and (3) PMN lacking azurophil granules. Our findings emphasize the value of electron microscopy and cytochemistry in detecting abnormalities of maturation in the cytoplasm of leukemic PMN.


In this work, we compare the effect of incorporating selenophene versus thienothiophene spacers into pentacyclic lactam-based conjugated polymers for organic solar cells. The two cyclic lactam-based copolymers were obtained via a new synthetic method for the lactam moiety. Selenophene incorporation results in a broader and red-shifted optical absorption while retaining a deep highest occupied molecular orbital level, whereas thienothienophene incorporation results in a blue-shifted optical absorption. Additionally, grazing-incidence wide angle X-ray scattering data indicates edge- and face-on solid state order for the selenophene-based polymer as compared to the thienothiophene-based polymer, which orders predominantly edge-on with respect to the substrate. In polymer : PC71BM bulk heterojunction solar cells both materials show a similar open-circuit voltage of ∼0.80–0.84 V, however the selenophene-based polymer displays a higher fill factor of ∼0.70 vs. ∼0.65. This is due to the partial face-on backbone orientation of the selenophene-based polymer, leading to a higher hole mobility, as confirmed by single-carrier diode measurements, and a concomitantly higher fill factor. Combined with improved spectral coverage of the selenophene-based polymer, as confirmed by quantum efficiency experiments, it offers a larger short-circuit current density of ∼12 mA cm−2. Despite the relatively low molecular weight of both materials, a very robust power conversion efficiency ∼7% is achieved for the selenophene-based polymer, while the thienothiophene-based polymer demonstrates only a moderate maximum PCE of ∼5.5%. Hence, the favorable effects of selenophene incorporation on the photovoltaic performance of pentacyclic lactam-based conjugated polymers are clearly demonstrated.


The CLEVELAND PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE (CPI), established in 1945 as the Cleveland State Receiving Hospital, is a short-term psychiatric-care hospital for the observation, care, and treatment of the mentally ill, especially those patients with mild conditions in the early stages and possibly of short duration. Located at 1708 Aiken Ave., in 1986 CPI was the only state short-term psychiatric-care hospital serving Cuyahoga and its 4 neighboring counties. It employed a staff of 16 full-time and 3 part-time doctors and a support staff of 500. The hospital maintained a 226 bed capacity. CPI has also provided psychiatric training for resident physicians from Metropolitan General Hospital and the Medical School of CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIV. (CWRU); NURSING training for students from Lorain Community College; social-work training for students from CWRU's School of Applied Social Sciences; psychiatric training for students from CWRU, Kent State Univ., and CLEVELAND STATE UNIV.; and psychiatric and counseling training for clergy students at Ashland College. CPI was established when the Ohio legislature approved the creation of a statewide system of receiving hospitals, including one in Cuyahoga County. State officials entered into an agreement with Cleveland City Hospital (Metropolitan General) to assume control of the acute-care facility at Hoover Pavilion (built in 1922) on 1 Nov. 1946. The name CPI has been in use since the early 1960s. Poor state management practices and bureaucratic red tape demoralized the early hospital's staff and delayed improvements as did crowded conditions. Doctors resigned because of low pay and regulations banning private patients. Western Reserve Univ. temporarily withdrew its affiliation in 1949. Program and physical-plant improvements have been slowly made since the 1950s; an out-patient clinic opened in 1952 and a therapy wing was added to Hoover Pavilion in 1957. In 1981 CPI combined its operations with the FAIRHILL MENTAL HEALTH CENTER; the Fairhill Center closed its doors in 1983. See also MEDICINE, HOSPITALS AND HEALTH PLANNING.


There are two forms of contagion associated with COVID-19—one related to the virus, and the other to the economic slowdown it has triggered. This paper outlines a framework to better understand the different phases of COVID-19 crisis response, spanning relief, recovery and the possible "new normal"; and it elaborates on the balancing act between economic and health policies. Drawing on a review of international and Philippine policy responses across these different stages, this paper contributes to the crisis response literature by developing a proposal to use the Philippine healthcare sector as a lynchpin of more inclusive and stable economic recovery. Better healthcare and crisis response systems could effectively contain the virus, while also minimizing the economic costs. Emerging evidence suggests that countries with adequate and more inclusive healthcare and social protection systems did not need to resort to draconian crisis contagion measures. What is needed are robust investments that build stronger inclusiveness and coverage by a country's health system, and enable this to rapidly re-align and ramp up absorptive capacities during a crisis should the need arise.


SHRUBS AS SENTINELS OF ORDNANCE CONTAMINATION: USING PLANT PHYSIOLOGY AND REMOTE SENSING TO DETECT TNT IN SOILS By Kathryn Rubis, M.S. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2011 Major Director: Donald R. Young, Department Chair, Biology Methods for rapid, safe and effective detection of unmapped buried ordnance are vital to the protection of humans and environmental quality throughout the world. This study aimed to investigate the use of phytosensing and to understand the physiological response of woody plants to 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) contamination. Baccharis halimifolia were potted in soils containing various concentrations of TNT and physiological responses were observed over a 9week experimental period. Measurements included the collection of remotely sensed data, such as hyperspectral reflectance and chlorophyll fluorescence, and traditional plant-level physiological data. In accordance with the hypothesis, low levels of TNT improved physiological response in plants due to the slight increase in nitrogen, while high levels of TNT induced stress. Key markers in stress responses were identified, specifically with reflectance indices and derivatives, which may separate TNT-contaminated plants from naturally stressed plants and would allow for accurate detection of buried ordnance at the landscape level.


This paper deals with nonlinear FVM approach based on different kinds of meshing (using grids-C,O,H ).Theory is utilized to obtain the convergence rate, CPU time, coefficient of drag, coefficient of lift, lift/drag of the airfoil(NACA0012). The airfoil considered is studied with three different types of grids viz. O-grid, C-grid and H-grid and accordingly obtain the values of pressure, velocity and temperature. Airfoil is studied with two different flow regimes (i.e., 0.8M & 1.2M). A Finite discretization is applied throughout the process in case of gridding. The computational method does not require any tuning of parameters. The solution obtained shows the good resolution of all flow phenomenon and are obtained by computational analysis.


Adding ascorbic acid to microsomal incubations containing acetaminophen inhibited covalent binding of the reactive metabolite. Adding ascorbic acid to incubations containing acetaminophen and cysteine markedly decreased acetaminophen-cysteine adduct formation. Ascorbic acid addition to aqueous incubations containing N-hydroxyacetaminophen and cysteine similarly inhibited the nonenzymatic formation of an acetaminophen-cysteine adduct. Therefore, the chemical reactions responsible for the nonenzymatic decomposition of N-hydroxyacetaminophen to yield acetaminophen-cysteine adducts were examined. In aqueous solutions above pH 7, N-hydroxyacetaminophen rapidly dehydrated to N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine. In the absence of reducing compounds N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine reacted with another molecule of N-hydroxyacetaminophen to give equal amounts of nitrosophenol and acetaminophen. The addition of cysteine or ascorbic acid slowed the decomposition of N-hydroxyacetaminophen and inhibited the formation of nitrosophenol. Cysteine effected these changes through decreasing the concentration of N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine, primarily by reducing it to acetaminophen at low pH (5.5-7.0) or by conjugating with it to yield an acetaminophen-cysteine adduct at high pH (7.5-11.0). Ascorbic acid produced its effects only through reduction of the N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine intermediate; thus acetaminophen was the only product. These observations provide strong evidence that the reactive intermediate formed in microsomes from acetarninophen and in solution from N-hydroxyacetaminophen is N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine.


An in-line photometer setup was designed to measure the transmittance and calculate the trace concentration of methylene blue (MB) in water samples. Different concentrations of MB, with a known peak absorbance at λ ~ 660 nm, were prepared. A test MB solution with known concentration was also prepared. UV-Vis spectrophotometry was initially performed to characterize the dye solutions. A porous Silicon-based (pSi) distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), with experimental peak reflectance centered at λ = 665 nm, was integrated into the setup for wavelength-selective purposes. Using the photometer setup, it was found that the proposed setup exhibited high precision in terms of transmittance measurements of the dye solutions due to low standard deviation, σ. The trace concentration of the test solution was calculated and it was found to be in good agreement with the known value with a 2.74 % deviation. The operation range of the setup was set to be from 1 × 10-5 M to 10 ×10-5 M of MB dye solutions because the measurements in these range were linear with more than 95% linearity.


It is well known that the generalized max-weight matching (GMWM) scheduling policy, and in general throughput-optimal scheduling policies, often require the solution of a complex optimization problem, making their implementation prohibitively difficult in practice. This has motivated many researchers to develop distributed sub-optimal algorithms that approximate the GMWM policy. One major assumption commonly shared in this context is that the time required to find an appropriate schedule vector is negligible compared to the length of a timeslot. This assumption may not be accurate as the time to find schedule vectors usually increases polynomially with the network size. On the other hand, we intuitively expect that for many sub-optimal algorithms, the schedule vector found becomes a better estimate of the one returned by the GMWM policy as more time is given to the algorithm. We thus, in this paper, consider the problem of scheduling from a new perspective through which we carefully incorporate channel variations and time-efficiency of sub-optimal algorithms into the scheduler design. Specifically, we propose a dynamic control policy (DCP) that works on top of a given sub-optimal algorithm, and dynamically but in a large time-scale adjusts the time given to the algorithm according to queue backlog and channel correlations. This policy does not require the knowledge of the structure of the given sub-optimal algorithm, and with low-overhead can be implemented in a distributed manner. Using a novel Lyapunov analysis, we characterize the stability region induced by DCP, and show that our characterization can be tight. We also show that the stability region of DCP is at least as large as the one for any other static policy. Finally, we provide two case studies to gain further intuition into the performance of DCP.


Eukaryo is a 3D, interactive simulation of a eukaryotic cell. In comparison to existing cell simulations, our model illustrates the structures and processes within a biological cell with increased fidelity and a higher degree of real-time interactivity using a virtual reality environment. Implemented in a game engine, Eukaryo is a hybrid model that combines agent-based and mathematical modelling. Through the use of visual scripting, Eukaryo incorporates both agent-based modelling and mathematical representations to describe gene expression, energy production and waste removal within the cell in a highly visual, interactive simulation environment. With the help of virtual reality displays, users can be immersed in the crowded spaces of biomolecular worlds and observe metabolic reactions at a high level of detail. Compared to traditional media, such as illustrations and videos, Eukaryo offers superior representations of cellular architecture, its components and dynamics of the machineries of life.


This paper reviews the development of oil palm with linkages to biofuel in Indonesia and analyzes the associated environmental and socioeconomic impacts. We selected three plantation study sites in West Papua (Manokwari), West Kalimantan (Kubu Raya), and Papua (Boven Digoel) to assess the impacts. Research findings indicate that the development of oil palm in all three sites has caused deforestation, resulting in significant secondary external impacts such as water pollution, soil erosion, and air pollution. In terms of social impacts, many stakeholder groups, i.e., employees, out-growers, and investing households, report significant gains. However, we found these benefits were not evenly distributed. Other stakeholders, particularly traditional landowners, experienced restrictions on traditional land use rights and land losses. We observed increasing land scarcity, rising land prices, and conflicts over land in all sites. Three major trade-offs are associated with the development of oil palm plantations, including those related to biofuels: unevenly distributed economic benefits are generated at the cost of significant environmental losses; there are some winners but also many losers; and economic gains accrue at the expense of weak rule of law. To reduce the negative impacts and trade-offs of oil palm plantations and maximize their economic potential, government decision makers need to restrict the use of forested land for plantation development, enforce existing regulations on concession allocation and environmental management, improve monitoring of labor practices, recognize traditional land use rights, and make land transfer agreements involving customary land more transparent and legally binding.


Biopolymer-encapsulated single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) recognize specific nitroarom. mols. via either a wavelength or intensity change of near IR photoluminescence. A class of peptides from the bombolitin family not previously identified for nitroarom. recognition allows the carbon nanotube around which they are encapsulated to report changes in their conformation, forming a 'chaperone sensor'. Analyte identification is afforded by spectroscopically differentiable changes of eight (n,m) SWNT species which generates a unique spectral fingerprint. An oligonucleotide d(AT)15 enables high selectivity for trinitrotoluene to the exclusion of other nitroaroms. These interactions are probed for the first time at the single mol. level, as stochastic adsorption and desorption events are optically reported by the SWNT. A novel dual-channel single-mol. imaging microscope is demonstrated to image quantized spectral shifts in real-time, resulting in the first single-mol. stochastic detection of solvatochromic events. [on SciFinder(R)]


In many applications, including location-based services, queries may not be precise. In this paper, we study the problem of efficiently computing range aggregates in a multidimensional space when the query location is uncertain. Specifically, for a query point Q whose location is uncertain and a set S of points in a multidimensional space, we want to calculate the aggregate (e.g., count, average and sum) over the subset S' of S such that for each p ϵ S', Q has at least probability θ within the distance γ to p. We propose novel, efficient techniques to solve the problem following the filtering-and-verification paradigm. In particular, two novel filtering techniques are proposed to effectively and efficiently remove data points from verification. Our comprehensive experiments based on both real and synthetic data demonstrate the efficiency and scalability of our techniques.


In Australia, redressing past injustices and recognising Indigenous peoples' spiritual and cultural connections to land have resulted in the return of significant amounts of land to Indigenous people. Parallel to this, in attempts to address declining biodiversity, innovative and neo-liberal approaches to conservation under a new paradigm have been promoted. The role and influence of the non-state sector are increasing, and Indigenous peoples' involvement in conservation is also growing. This paper reviews the history of conservation and Indigenous social justice policy in Australia. It describes how the social justice agenda has been the primary motivator of returning land to Indigenous Australians, and historically has been the driver and catalyst for Indigenous peoples' involvement in conservation, whilst the conservation agenda has increased conservation on private lands and the role and influence of the non-state conservation sector. The paper reveals how the trajectories of conservation and Indigenous social justice have become intrinsically linked with the emergence of new paradigms, providing opportunities for a propitious niche. Yet it also shows how the two trajectories have manifested themselves with a paradox of disparity; achievements secured under an Indigenous social justice agenda are being enjoyed by conservation under the new paradigm, whilst Indigenous social justice is increasingly becoming dependent on a conservation agenda.


Golf courses can be considered as precision agriculture, as being a playing surface, their appearance is of vital importance. Areas with good weather tend to have low rainfall. Therefore, the water management of golf courses in these climates is a crucial issue due to the high water demand of turfgrass. Golf courses are rapidly transitioning to reuse water, e.g., the municipalities in the USA are providing price incentives or mandate the use of reuse water for irrigation purposes; in Europe this is mandatory. So, knowing the turfgrass surfaces of a large area can help plan the treated sewage effluent needs. Recycled water is usually of poor quality, thus it is crucial to check the real turfgrass surface in order to be able to plan the global irrigation needs using this type of water. In this way, the irrigation of golf courses does not detract from the natural water resources of the area. The aim of this paper is to propose a new methodology for analysing geometric patterns of video data acquired from UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) using a new Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) algorithm. A case study concerning maintained turfgrass, especially for golf courses, has been developed. It shows very good results, better than 98% in the confusion matrix. The results obtained in this study represent a first step toward video imagery classification. In summary, technical progress in computing power and software has shown that video imagery is one of the most promising environmental data acquisition techniques available today. This rapid classification of turfgrass can play an important role for planning water management.


Traditionally, the evaluation of surgical procedures in virtual reality (VR) simulators has been restricted to their individual technical aspects disregarding the procedures carried out by teams. However, some decision models have been proposed to support the collaborative training evaluation process of surgical teams in collaborative virtual environments. The main objective of this article is to present a collaborative simulator based on VR, named SimCEC, as a potential solution for education, training, and evaluation in basic surgical routines for teams of undergraduate students. The simulator considers both tasks performed individually and those carried in a collaborative manner. The main contribution of this work is to improve the discussion about VR simulators requirements (design and implementation) to provide team training in relevant topics, such as users' feedback in real time, collaborative training in networks, interdisciplinary integration of curricula, and continuous evaluation.


Energy insecurity is not normally associated with the Middle East. However, away from the oil-rich Persian Gulf, the countries of the eastern Mediterranean are particularly vulnerable. Their fossil fuel endowments are low, while their fractious relationships with each other have long fostered wider political insecurities. Focusing on the Jordan Basin (Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan), this timely volume addresses the prospects for the adoption of renewable energy in the oil-poor Middle East. Featuring regional energy experts, it offers an invaluable survey. After outlining the regional security context, this book first reviews renewable energy policy and practices in the Jordan Basin. It then considers options for greening energy use, including promising pilot projects in North Africa. The initiatives discussed encompass renewable energy finance, energy-efficient rural communities, and solar and wind energy. There is significant potential for an increase in the uptake of renewable energy technologies in the eastern Mediterranean. This window of opportunity has been created by high oil prices, energy infrastructure investment opportunities, and the UN climate change regime. In conclusion, the book considers the institutional conditions for collaborative decision-making on renewable energy. Such cooperation would deliver substantial security and human development benefits to the region, and indeed the world.


Expanding access to and use of voluntary family planning (FP) services is a well-established global health goal–it is a specific target under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of good health and well-being, an integral component of Every Woman Every Child (EWEC), and the overall objective of the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) partnership, among other initiatives. | One promising approach for achieving global voluntary FP goals is performance-based financing (PBF), which deploys financial incentives to the health system to improve service availability, utilization, and quality as well as addressing some public financial management bottlenecks by directly targeting resources to facilities based on performance. | Setting global voluntary FP goals implies following a rights-based approach to family planning, which uses a set of standards and principles to guide program assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation that enables individuals and couples to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children, to have the information and services to do so, and to be treated equitably and free of discrimination. | While both PBF, which uses financial disbursements to incentivize health service delivery and quality, and rights-based programming have informed efforts to strengthen and scale FP services, there are gaps in understanding the linkages between PBF and a rights-based approach (RBA) to FP services. To address this gap, a review of PBF operations manuals was undertaken together with an analysis of PBF indicators relevant to FP services. This and another report (Mapping the extent to which performance-based financing (PBF) programs reflect quality, informed choice, and voluntarism and implications for family planning services: A review of PBF operational manuals) assess whether existing FP indicators are sensitive to the principles associated with an RBA.


The growth of the tourism industry in Malaysia has resulted in an increasing number of
tourist visits to the natural areas. A series of studies are conducted to thoroughly identify
the perceptual attributes of a nature tourism destination of Penang National Park. The
attributes consist of natural environment, recreational activities, park management and
socio-cultural traits that exist at and surrounding the park. The purpose of the study is to
establish the perceptions of the three main stakeholders of Penang National Park on the
respective attributes selected for this study. The stakeholders are visitors, local villagers
and park personnel of Penang National Park. Three different sets of questionnaire survey
instruments are used to assess the perceptions of each stakeholder group. However, this
study is focused on the visitors because they are the users and the consumers of the
products at Penang National Park. T-test and ANOVA show the differences in the
perceptions of visitors on the attributes selected for the park. The findings show that the
majority of the stakeholders are satisfied with the attributes available at Penang National Park. The main implication of the different perceptions of visitors toward the attributes at
the park is that park management should improve their efforts in order to fulfil the needs
of the different characteristics of visitors. The management should sustain the quality of
services and carry out only environmental-friendly development to maintain nature
tourism in Penang National Park. The management practices should be in tandem with
the principles of nature conservation of national parks.


In this data documentation, we provide detailed information on the data that is used in order to calibrate the GATE model. Since we are looking at the hypothetical German electricity market in 2035 and the resulting investment incentives, we have to select all exogenous parameters based on future predictions for this period. We consider the German market area since excellent data are available from the political processes that accompany the network expansion planning procedure. In order to ensure a high degree of consistency of the exogenous parameters - and in order to allow comparisons with other predictions for that market area - we predominantly use input parameters from the Network Development Plan Electricity (NDP) which is the official basis for network expansion planning in Germany. Hereby, we mainly rely on the NDP 2030, where network expansion required until 2030 is determined, in its 2017 version.


Contemporary women writers have provided a wide range of interpretations of the relationship between motherhood and female identity, drawing into their stories a range of issues related to the various experiences of motherhood. Among this rich variety, I analyse here two contemporary Italian novels: Lo spazio bianco (2008) by Valeria Parrella, and Lettera a un bambino mai nato (1975) by Oriana Fallaci. I argue that Parrella engages with the same question tackled by Fallaci thirty years earlier: can motherhood find its place in the life of an independent woman? Have thirty years opened up any possibility of negotiating a different balance? The two novels share many similarities in structure, length and theme. Both texts centre on female protagonists who are alone in their experience of pregnancy. Neither novel depicts motherhood as an unavoidable destiny for women, but as a choice. However, the change in the social, political and economic context underlying the two texts leads to radically different outcomes. In spite of the obvious differences in style and generational background, the continuity between the two works provides the opportunity for a case study of the shifts (or the lack thereof) in the relationship between motherhood and female identity in contemporary Italian society. In addition, the affinity between the two novels allows a reflection on "the corrective and conflictual nature of inter-female intertextuality" (Giorgio 2002, 13), which I analyse using the tools provided by Italian Feminist Theorists.


The current U.S. patent system is considered to provide the broadest patent protection of all patent systems in existence, especially with respect to the biotechnology industry. Advances in science and technology have been key contributors to the growth and development of legislation controlling patent law. With these advancements have come vivid public debates on the morality of research with embryonic stem cells and the fusion of human and animal DNA to find cures for disease. Despite the rapid developments, the legislation controlling such research has been slow to progress. This paper will explore the legislative history surrounding biotechnology patents, focusing on the specific need for strong, adequate protection to promote the survival of the biotechnology industry.


Instance and temperature-dependent power variation has a direct impact on quality of sensing for battery-powered long-running sensing applications. We measure and characterize the active and leakage power for an ARM Cortex M3 processor and show that, across a temperature range of 20 -60, there is a 10% variation in active power, and a variation in leakage power. We introduce variability-aware duty cycling methods and a duty cycle (DC) abstraction for TinyOS which allows applications to explicitly specify the lifetime and minimum DC requirements for individual tasks, and dynamically adjusts the DC rates so that the overall quality of service is maximized in the presence of power variability. We show that variability-aware duty cycling yields a improvement in total active time over schedules based on worst case estimations of power, with an average improvement of across a wide variety of deployment scenarios based on the collected temperature traces. Conversely, datasheet power specifications fail to meet required lifetimes by 7%-15%, with an average 37 days short of the required lifetime of 1 year. Finally, we show that a target localization application using variability-aware DC yields a 50% improvement in quality of results over one based on worst case estimations of power consumption.


This volume provides a detailed description of the Nubi language of Uganda, including more than one thousand examples and several texts. It also digs into history to reconstruct the development and growth of this most fascinating Arabic creole.


Background Pressure ulcers are very common in hospitalised patients and if not prevented or properly treated may increase the length of hospitalisation, infections due to complications, and patient suffering. Prevention is thus relevant for high quality care. To improve the quality of care and to monitor the incidence of pressure ulcers, a multidisciplinary team was created in our hospital in 2009, and a diagnostic and therapeutic pressure ulcers protocol was defined ('Percorso Diagnostico Terapeutico Assistenziale Lesioni da Pressione'). Purpose To describe the verification, performed by the multidisciplinary team, of the correct use of the protocol, using the indicators specified in the protocol itself. Materials and Methods The protocol, created from the guidelines already in use in the hospital, was implemented with the definition of operational tools for the verification of its application. Adherence to the protocol is intended to prevent and provide the best treatment for pressure ulcers. Two analyses (one in 2010 and one in 2011) of the clinical charts were performed in order to cheque the adherence of the health care professionals to the use of the procedure: this was evaluated using a cheque list composed of nine criteria, each of which was assigned 1 point if 'correct' and 0 if 'incorrect'. Results In 2010 a total of 214 clinical charts were analysed: in general, data was collected correctly (57% of cases). Pressure ulcers were properly identified and prevented in 37% of cases: only some nurses follow the guidelines in the detection and treatment of injuries. Of patients with pressure ulcers, 36% were properly treated. The departments that mainly detected a risk of pressure skin damage and prevented it following the procedure for the treatment of lesions were Neurosurgery, Medicine, and Cardiology. A further analysis of 62 clinical charts in 2011 showed that in 52% of cases, pressure ulcers were correctly identified, but in only 5% of cases were they then properly treated. A third analysis is ongoing, with the aim of identifying and correcting errors in the treatment of the ulcers. A poster will also be distributed to departments, for quick reference to the treatment protocol. Conclusions The protocol is a practical tool applicable in the various departments. Verification of its correct use showed a low adherence to the guidelines: it is fundamental continuing the training of the staff to achieve the required standard. Among the objectives for 2013, another audit with a modified cheque list will be performed, involving a greater number of health care professionals. No conflict of interest.


Power scaling of fiber lasers is challenged by several factors, such as the brightness of the pump source, the nonlinear effect, modal instability, and so on. Pumping active fibers with high-brightness fiber lasers instead of laser diodes is a promising solution for the brightness limitation and modal instability. In this paper, for the first time to our knowledge, we present a general review on the achievements of various kinds of high-power fiber lasers based on the tandem pumping scheme in the past few years. The requirements for tandem pumping ytterbium (Yb), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), and holmium (Ho)-doped fibers are analyzed, and corresponding achievements are summarized. Hundreds of watts of fiber lasers at ∼1020, ∼1500, and 1900 nm and hundred-watt-level fiber lasers at ∼1150 and ∼1180  nm have been successfully achieved. Then, these powerful fiber lasers with high brightness can be employed as pump sources for Yb-, Er-, Tm- and Ho-doped fibers. Moreover, a recent experimental result of a 3.5 kW Yb-doped fiber amplifier in an all-fiber format is reported in addition to previous typical achievements. The underlying challenges for further power scaling, including the nonlinear effect suppression and special fiber design, are briefly discussed. Exploring the tandem pumping scheme in novel application fields is discussed as well.


We propose a new method for including sparsity constraints into potential field data inversion using
a Laplacian kernel. The method obtains three-dimensional density distributions, which are at best a
proxy for geological structures. Compressive sensing has been used in many domains to recover the
original data from the acquisition data. Compressive sensing is an inversion philosophy where sparsity
constraints are applied, and thus, we use this principle into geophysical inversion. Here, we
extend this algorithm to potential field data inversion. We introduced the Laplacian smoothed L0
norm into the stabiliser function as a sparse constraint, and the density constraint function has been
introduced into our inversion method to guarantee the inverted density to be in the geological and
physical meaning range. Compared to the traditional smooth inverse algorithm, our proposed
method can obtain accurate geological structures with sharp boundary and sub-surface "block"
structures. This method permits reconstruction of (non-smooth) density functions that represent a
blocky geological structure. Our results using synthetic gravity data show that the Laplacian
smoothed L0 norm inversion method with sparsity constraints predicts more focused and accurate
depth and density anomalies than smooth inversion method. Application of this Laplacian smoothed
L0 norm sparsity constraints method to the inversion of gravity data collected over the Humble salt
dome, Harris County, near Houston, United States, leads to improved interpretation of geological
structures. These results confirm the validity of the proposed method and its potential application
for other potential field data inversions to explore geological structures.


New developments in the study of brain are among the most exciting frontiers of contemporary neuroscientific research for the clinical practitioner. Increasing knowledge of neurocomplications and of their discrete localization in the various regions of brain permits new modes of pharmacological management of some major neurological disorders like autism. The research work reported in this scheme is undertaken with an objective to explore the potential molecular targets (AC/cAMP/PKA/CREB) for the development of newer therapeutics strategies (forskolin) for the management of neurological disorders and associated symptoms. Studies aimed at addressing these questions have fallen into two main categories: in-vivo behavioral paradigms and in-vitro differentiation biochemical, morphological and histopathological analysis. Therefore, first time, we aim to gather the propensity of mitochondrial cofactors, neuropathological mechanisms and various diagnostic methods to explore the clinical therapeutic strategies to ameliorate the neurodevelopmental disorder autism.


Crop production risk caused by climate variability cannot be managed in the absence of climate information. Despite the use of various communication strategies by rural communities in Tanzania, access and use of agricultural information is inadequate to cope with challenges in crop production. This study aims at assessing farmers information needs, examine communication strategies used and hence recommend information and knowledge sharing strategies for improved decision making. In addition, the study examined how modern ICT used together with tradition methods can reduce risks and improve crop productivity of smallholder farmers. A cross-sectional research design and simple random sampling techniques were used for the study. Interviews using structured questionnaires and focus group discussion were conducted to collect primary data from farmers and extension workers. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics where Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used. The findings showed that smallholder farmers require climate, market and agricultural inputs information to make strategic and tactical farm-level decisions for managing climate variability and extreme events. Climate information was found to be important factor for making decisions. Radio was found to be an important communication channel by the respondents in the study area, for communicating climate information. In addition, the respondents used extension officers and fellow farmers to access climate, market and agricultural input information. Mobile phones were noted to be preferred by surveyed farmers for communicating agricultural information. The study concluded that, efforts to improve adaptation capacity of smallholder farmers in rural areas should target the extended use of information technology for improved access to climate information and advisories. Furthermore, development initiatives for managing risks of climate variability should focus on improving climate forecasts issued by Tanzania Meteorological Agent (TMA).


The magnetic ground state of the ferromagnetic shape memory alloy of nominal composition Cu2.84Mn0.44Al0.72 was investigated. The sample shows the reentry of a glassy magnetic phase below the martensitic transition temperature, which is found to have complex character with two distinct anomalies in the temperature-dependent ac susceptibility data. The sample retains its glassy phase even below the second transition as evident from the magnetic memory measurements in different protocols. Existence of two transitions along with their observed nature suggest that the system can be described by the mean-field Heisenberg model of reentrant spin glass as proposed by Gabay and Toulous. The sample provides a fascinating example where a Gabay-Toulous–type spin-glass state is triggered by a first-order magneto-structural transition.


This text provides an introduction to the modern theory of economic dynamics, with emphasis on mathematical and computational techniques for modeling dynamic systems. Written to be both rigorous and engaging, the book shows how sound understanding of the underlying theory leads to effective algorithms for solving real world problems. The material makes extensive use of programming examples to illustrate ideas. These programs help bring to life the abstract concepts in the text. Background in computing and analysis is offered for readers without programming experience or upper-level mathematics. Topics covered in detail include nonlinear dynamic systems, finite-state Markov chains, stochastic dynamic programming, stochastic stability and computation of equilibria. The models are predominantly nonlinear, and the emphasis is on studying nonlinear systems in their original form, rather than by means of rudimentary approximation methods such as linearization. Much of the material is new to economics and improves on existing techniques. For graduate students and those already working in the field, Economic Dynamics will serve as an essential resource.


Zeolites (analcime, clinoptilolite, and phillipsite) and K-feldspar of authigenic origin form a stratigraphically zoned succession in the 9065-foot sequence of the Esmeralda Formation (Miocene and Pliocene) in southern Big Smoky Valley, Esmeralda County, Nevada. Analcime and K-feldspar are confined to a 500-foot zone near the base of the sequence. Clinoptilolite, usually associated with opal, occurs within a 7700.foot zone above the analcimeK-feldspar bearing beds, and phillipsite is present in a thin zone at the top of the sequence. Ciinoptilolite and phillipsite occur primarily as pseudomorphic replacements of vitric material, whereas analcime generaliy occurs as subhedral crystals that are thought to have formed directly from vitric material. K-feldspar is present predominantly as overgrowths on detrital grains of orthoclase and plagioclase. The zeolites and K-feldspar formed after burial under the influeuce of groundwater solutions, and the difierent zones are thought to reflect primarily difierences in the composition of the subsurface water in contact with the rocks at the tirne of alteration. The alkalinities and salinities necessary for the formation of the zeolites and K-feldspar are attributed to the solution and hvdrolvsis of vitric material in the altered rocks.


Bayesian sampling has several advantages over conventional optimization approaches to solving inverse problems. It produces the distribution of all possible models sampled proportionally to how much each model is consistent with the data and the specified prior information, and thus images the entire solution space, revealing the uncertainties and trade-offs in the model. Bayesian sampling is applicable to both linear and non-linear modeling, and the values of the model parameters being sampled can be constrained based on the physics of the process being studied and do not have to be regularized. However, these methods are computationally challenging for high-dimensional problems. Until now the computational expense of Bayesian sampling has been too great for it to be practicable for most geophysical problems. I present a new parallel sampling algorithm called CATMIP for Cascading Adaptive Tempered Metropolis In Parallel. This technique, based on Transitional Markov chain Monte Carlo, makes it possible to sample distributions in many hundreds of dimensions, if the forward model is fast, or to sample computationally expensive forward models in smaller numbers of dimensions. The design of the algorithm is independent of the model being sampled, so CATMIP can be applied to many areas of research. I use CATMIP to produce a finite fault source model for the 2007 Mw 7.7 Tocopilla, Chile earthquake. Surface displacements from the earthquake were recorded by six interferograms and twelve local high-rate GPS stations. Because of the wealth of near-fault data, the source process is well-constrained. I find that the near-field high-rate GPS data have significant resolving power above and beyond the slip distribution determined from static displacements. The location and magnitude of the maximum displacement are resolved. The rupture almost certainly propagated at sub-shear velocities. The full posterior distribution can be used not only to calculate source parameters but also to determine their uncertainties. So while kinematic source modeling and the estimation of source parameters is not new, with CATMIP I am able to use Bayesian sampling to determine which parts of the source process are well-constrained and which are not.


Offshore outsourcing-the movement of jobs to lower-wage countries-is one of the defining features of globalization. Routine blue-collar work has been going offshore for decades, but the digital revolution beginning in the 1990s extended this process to many parts of the service economy too. Politically controversial from the beginning, "offshoring" is conventionally seen as a threat to jobs, wages, and economic security in higher-income countries-having become synonymous with the dirty work of globalization. Even though the majority of corporations make some use of offshore outsourcing, fearful of negative publicity most now choose to manage these activities in a discreet manner. Partly as a result, the global sourcing business, now reckoned to be worth more $120 billion, largely operates under the radar, its ocean-spanning activities in low-cost labour arbitrage being poorly documented and poorly understood. Offshore is the first sustained investigation of the workings of the global sourcing industry, its business practices, its market dynamics, its technologies, and its politics. The book traces the complex transformation of the worlds of global sourcing, from its origins in the new international division of labour in the 1970s, through the rapid growth of back-office economies in India and the Philippines since the 1990s, to the development of "nearshore" markets in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Recently, this evolving process of geographical and organizational restructuring has included experiments in "backshoring" within low-cost, ex-urban locations in the United States and a wave of software-enabled automation, which threatens to remove labour from many back offices altogether. In these and other ways, the offshore revolution continues.


This study aimed atexploring the psychometric properties of the Brief Assessment Scale for Depression (BAS-DEP) and the Even Briefer Assessment Scale for Depression (EBAS-DEP) scales as screening instruments in a sample of 104 elderly participants, 41 men and 63 women, residing in two Colombian cities. The BAS-DEP included 21 items assessing depressive mood, worry, suicidal ideation and somatic complaints. Meanwhile, the EBAS-DEP was derived by means of extracting 8 items of the BAS-DEP, and its performance was regarded as equivalent by the authors of the original study (Allen, et al., 1994).Reliability, validity,sensitivity and specificity were assessedand a receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) was obtained. Rasch analyses of adjustment, difficulty, and performance were executed and an item map was obtained.The BAS-DEP showed an appropriate level of reliability (.82).Nonetheless, such value was low for the EBAS-DEP (.56).Low reliability of the EBAS-DEP could be explained in terms of its briefness.Nevertheless, its performance in terms of sensitivity and specificity was appropriate. Factor solutions derived from the analyses revealed that most of the items in the BAS-DEP and EBAS-DEP scales contributed in explaining the total variance.When the Yesavage GDS scale was used as an external criterion of validity, coefficients of sensitivity and specificity above .70 were obtained in addition to cut-off scores of 5/6 for the BAS-DEP and 2/3 for the EBAS-DEP.ROC statistics showed that both scales are similarly efficient to detect depression in the sample.These findings are similar to those reported in studies conducted in Australia, England, Germany, and China. This study has been the first to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish versions of these scales.Further independent studies will enrich the evidence base in favor of the usefulness and validity of these instruments.


The production and comprehension of pronouns and reflexives has been extensively studied in typically-developing children, but has received less attention in children with neurodevelopmental disorders in which language impairment is the primary or secondary deficit, such as in children with specific language impairment, autism spectrum disorders, Williams syndrome and Down syndrome. Research on the acquisition of these core grammatical structures by atypical populations is important for understanding the linguistic nature of the disorders. The present chapter provides a review of experimental studies on the production and comprehension of these structures in different groups of atypical child and adolescent populations from a cross-linguistic perspective. The purpose of the chapter is to unravel similarities and differences between the affected and unaffected groups, and to investigate patterns of delayed and/or deviant performance across modalities and populations.


Introduction: In spite of advances in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with breast cancer, there are still cases that present with locally advanced disease. In this context, cancer control requires extensive resections and complex repair procedures. The participation of the plastic surgeon in the multidisciplinary cancer treatment teams has been increasingly important in both the planning and execution stages. The aim of this study is to prospectively analyze patients who underwent extensive chest resections and thoracic wall reconstruction with regard to their results and complications in the period 2014-2016. Methods: Prospective 6-month follow-up of 15 patients who underwent extensive oncological resections in the chest and reconstruction by the same plastic surgeon in public hospitals of São Paulo was done. The following data were collected: age, diagnosis, preoperative complaint, extent of resection area, and incidence of local complications. Results: Patients had a mean age of 49.2 years, the most common complaint was a papillary mass, the most common diagnosis was breast cancer (80%), the most resection area preserved was the muscular plane, and the mean resection area was 259.2 cm2. The V-Y latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flap was the most used, and the thoracoabdominal flap was the second. Epitheliolysis was detected in 13.3% of the patients, and partial necrosis less than 5% of the flap in 13.3%. Conclusion: In the present study, patients with extensive cancers in the thorax presented a challenge for local reconstruction, requiring detailed preoperative planning and multiple options. The participation of the plastic surgeon in the treatment of these patients contributed to the reduction of morbidity rate and low rate of complications. ■ ABSTRACT


The paper analyses the implications of landowners' option values in land allocation and derives policy recommendations for payments for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). Given that REDD will not represent a permanent change in the cumulative flux of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, payment scheme design is motivated by the need to secure forest carbon sinks over time (the 'permanence criterion') while remaining relatively cost-effective. Alternative payment schemes, combining fixed and variable components, are considered in a framework with two competing land uses, forest and agriculture. Cost-effectiveness depends on the dependency structure between the returns from the indexed component of the payment and the returns from the alternative land use, the relative volatility level of the underlying returns, and the relative combination of fixed and variable payments. After developing the general model, it is is applied to REDD policy scenarios in Parana State, Brazil.


There are two major problems for merging instances from different sources in order to build a datawarehouse: entity identification ambiguity and attribute value conflict. In this paper we propose a data model that facilitates the resolution of value attribute conflicts by explicitly representing them in the integrated schema. In this model, the datawarehouse is an XML tree populated with data imported from one or more XML sources, and nodes are annotated with provenance information. The purpose of annotations is twofold: first, they represent the origin of every element in the datawarehouse. This information is essential for determining the quality and amount of trust one places on the data. Second, they allow the portion of source XML tree used to populate the warehouse to be reconstructed. This capability is important if one needs the original document to compare with new releases from the same source in order to incrementally update the warehouse. Algorithms for populating the warehouse according to the proposed model and for reconstructing the source data are presented. We also report results from an experimental study conducted to determine the impact of the annotations on the size of the warehouse.


Abstract High levels of immigration to Ireland have left an impact on the economy and society, but arguably less of an impact on politics. Though immigration has been an issue in party politics and the subject of a controversial referendum, the immigrants themselves have had little direct impact on parties or the political system. This article treats the immigrant as the political actor of interest, and through a series of interviews examines individual motivations for political participation, status factors (i.e. residency/citizenship) and finally, how social capital interacts and combines with other forms of capital (human and cultural capital) in impacting the political agency of immigrants.


BACKGROUND
A recent systematic review suggests that practice facilitation (PF) is a robust intervention for implementing evidence-based preventive care guidelines in primary care, but the ability of PF to improve chronic illness care remains unclear.

AIMS
To examine the specific activities and Chronic Care model (CCM) components that primary care practices implemented and sustained in response to a 12-month PF intervention.

METHODS
The ABC trial tested the effectiveness of PF to improve care for diabetes in 40 small community-based primary care practices that were randomized to "initial" or "delayed" intervention arms. A trained facilitator met with each practice over 12-months. Facilitators used interactive consensus building to help practices implement one or more of quality improvement activities based on the CCM. Facilitators prospectively recorded implementation activities reported by practice teams during monthly meetings and confirmed which of these were sustained at the end of the intervention.

RESULTS
37 practices implemented and sustained a total of 43 unique activities [range 1-15, average 6.5 (SD=2.9)]. The number (%) of practices that implemented 1 or more key activities in each CCM component varied: Patient Self-Management Support: 37 (100%); Clinical Information Systems: 24 (64.9%), Delivery System Design: 14 (37.8%), Decision Support: 13 (35.1%), Community Linkages: 2 (5.4%); Healthcare System Support: 2 (2.7%). The majority of practices (59%) only implemented activities from 1 or 2 CCM components. The number of sustained activities was associated with the number of PF visits, but not with practice characteristics.

CONCLUSIONS
In spite of the PF intervention, it was difficult for these small practices to implement comprehensive CCM changes. Although practices implemented and sustained a remarkable number and variety of key activities, the majority of these focused on patient self-management support, as opposed to other components of the CCM, such as clinical information systems, decision support, delivery system redesign, and community linkages.


Neck collars of man-made marine debris were seen on 208 Antarctic fur seals (and removed from 170) during the 142 days of the 1988–1989 pup-rearing season at Bird Island, South Georgia. This represents at least 0.1% of the total Bird Island population and a minimum of 0.4% of animals in the best covered areas; a maximum value might approach 1%. Polypropylene straps (packaging bands) formed 59% of collars, nylon string (16%), fishing net (13%) and six other materials comprised the rest. Males accounted for 71% of entanglements, 88% of which were of young (1–4 yr old) animals; females accounted for 64% of animals older than this. Obvious physical injury was being caused to 30% of animals and only on 19% of animals was the collar loose enough potentially to come off. The magnitude of the problem at South Georgia is similar to that with northern fur seals at the Pribilof Islands, where a significant population decline has occurred concurrently. Antarctic fur seals are still increasing in numbers but stricter controls on the jettisoning of debris into the Southern Ocean ate needed if the entanglement problem is not to increase beyond the level of a potential threat.


During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some American soldiers commonly listened to music in order to "motivate" themselves before action. Previous studies have shown that their most frequent choices to this effect pertained to two genres: "gangsta" rap and heavy metal. At another extreme of armed violence, Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik reported listening to a selection of tunes in the preparation of his 2011 massacre and possibly also during its perpetration. His musical choices sounded radically different from metal and rap. Yet, all of these styles of music had previously been associated with graphic violence throughout popular movies and video games. This paper asks how each type of music "worked" in motivating its listener for armed confrontation. The comparison requires going beyond the fact that mainstream media interact with common imaginaries of violence. The hypothesis here is that the differences between the terrorist's and the soldier's playlists reflect deeper contrasts in their engagements with the opponent. This case study of musical "motivation" leads to a broader discussion of the interplay between the agency of the listener, as opposed to the agency which he or she sometimes locates in the music itself.


German public law has developed a far-reaching, strict and unlimited responsibility mainly of polluters and owners for investigation and remediation of contaminated sites as well as prevention of future contamination. In this liability system, which is now codified in the federal Soil Protection Act, the responsible persons and the competent agency are the major players. It is not the polluter who bears the primary responsibility for contaminated sites but the present landowner. Therefore, the recognition of limits to the responsibility of the owner (based on grounds of proportionality) by a recent decision of the German Constitutional Court is of major importance. As to the setting of thresholds for investigation and remediation, German law has taken a pragmatic stance relativising, the basic concept of prevention of danger by recourse to the exercised or admissible use of the affected land. Trigger and remediation standards are designed to ensure a fair degree of uniformity in the investigation and remediation practice. The draft Environmental Code would introduce a new element into the public law liability regime for environmental harm. It proposes to extend the strict liability to pure ecological harm although limited in certain respects. Whilst restoration and replacement are the primary duties of the responsible persons, the draft would also introduce monetary compensation for remaining ecological harm. Moreover, it would deviate, in some cases, from the traditional model of enforcement discretion by obliging the authorities to require remediation. Following an introduction the author examines the legal basis for investigating and managing risks originating from contaminated sites before looking at the position of contaminated sites under both public and private law and finally offering his conclusions.


Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act of 2011 - Amends the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to require: (1) biennial (instead of annual) budget resolutions, (2) biennial appropriations Acts, and (3) biennial government strategic and performance plans. Makes conforming amendments to the Rules of the House of Representatives. Defines the budget biennium as the two consecutive fiscal years beginning on October 1 of any odd-numbered year. Requires: (1) a federal agency, upon request by a congressional committee, to provide appropriate information regarding its appropriations requests and program administration, (2) the Comptroller General to furnish to such committee summaries of any audits or reviews of such program which the Comptroller General has completed during the preceding six years, and (3) the Comptroller General, Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and the Director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to furnish such committee appropriate information, studies, analyses, and reports. Requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to determine and report to Congress on the impact and feasibility of changing the definition of a fiscal year, and the budget process based on that definition, to a two-year fiscal period with a biennial budget process based on such period. Requires the President's budget submission for FY2014 to include: (1) an identification of the budget accounts for which an appropriation should be made for each fiscal year of the FY2014-FY2015 biennium, and (2) budget authority that should be provided for each such fiscal year for the budget accounts. Directs: (1) the House and Senate committees, during the first session of the 113th Congress, to work with the Comptroller General to develop plans to transition program authorizations to a multi-year schedule, and (2) the Comptroller General, during such Congress, to continue to provide assistance to Congress with respect to programmatic oversight, and


This article illuminates the role of international HNGOs in Turkey's peacebuilding. Turkish HNGOs pursue low-level peacebuilding, focusing on interaction with grassroots, as opposed to the high-level peacebuilding of the state based on official interaction. Despite being independent, at times they become subsumed by the discourse, priorities and policies of the government and develop an interest in shaping official policies which carry the risk of politicizing the aid. While some of their key features such as flexibility, absence of conditionality, ensuring sustainability, relying on private donations and pursuing advocacy follow the mainstream peacebuilding lines, others such as culture and religion as catalysts and representing and promoting Turkey abroad demonstrate a deviation. Although the institutional consolidation of these HNGOs as a sector remains a distant goal, they are not likely to disappear given the considerable societal and political will behind their work. Their success depends on building a comprehensive strategy with efficient coordination and cooperation in a pluralist environment.


: Therapeutic control of beta-lactamase-producing bacteria has been a major clinical problem in the past 40 years. Gram-negative bacteria are most often resistant to antibiotics as a result of the acquisition of resistant genes or gene mutation. Studies have shown that newly developed antibiotics will shortly fail to be active against the bacteria because of the emergence of resistance. Some resistant bacteria have been found to exist even before the antibiotic was developed. Selective pressure by the antibiotic is, therefore, one of the major factors to explain the increase of resistance. Recently, numerous resistant mechanisms that differ in their substrate profiles have been described at increasing frequencies. The inappropriate use of new antibiotics with extended spectrum further complicated the problem. Because resistance is a largely unavoidable consequence of widespread use of antibiotics, it is crucial that the use of drugs is selective by exercising prudent judgment and not excessive. The actual prevalence of resistance should be continuously monitored each year. Caution should be paid to the direct extrapolation of study results from other geographic areas, because the local prevalence of resistance is unlikely to be identical to those reported elsewhere. The impact of resistance to an antibiotic and its specific mechanisms, including transmissibility, should also be carefully studied. Such information may help in designing strategies for maximizing the therapeutic usefulness of drugs and minimizing the emergence of resistance.


Breaking down graphene degeneracy Bilayer graphene has two layers of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms stacked on top of each other in a staggered configuration. This spatial arrangement results in degenerate electronic states: distinct states that have the same energy. Interaction between electrons can cause the states to separate in energy, and so can external fields (see the Perspective by LeRoy and Yankowitz). Kou et al., Lee et al., and Maher et al. used three distinct experimental setups that clarify different parameter regimes of bilayer graphene. Science, this issue p. 55, p. 58, p. 61; see also p. 31 The influence of the electric field on electronic properties is studied in dual-gated bilayer graphene. [Also see Perspective by LeRoy and Yankowitz] Symmetry-breaking in a quantum system often leads to complex emergent behavior. In bilayer graphene (BLG), an electric field applied perpendicular to the basal plane breaks the inversion symmetry of the lattice, opening a band gap at the charge neutrality point. In a quantizing magnetic field, electron interactions can cause spontaneous symmetry-breaking within the spin and valley degrees of freedom, resulting in quantum Hall effect (QHE) states with complex order. Here, we report fractional QHE states in BLG that show phase transitions that can be tuned by a transverse electric field. This result provides a model platform with which to study the role of symmetry-breaking in emergent states with topological order.


Purpose 83b1 is a novel quinoline derivative that has been shown to inhibit cancer growth in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). This study was conducted to comprehensively evaluate the cytotoxic effects of 83b1 on a series of ESCC cell lines and investigate the mechanisms by which 83b1 suppresses cancer growth based on molecular docking analysis. Materials and Methods A series of ESCC and nontumor immortalized cell lines were exposed to 83b1 and cisplatin (CDDP) in a dose-dependent manner, and the cytotoxicity was examined by a MTS assay kit. Prediction of the molecular targets of 83b1 was conducted by molecular docking analysis. Expression of cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) mRNA and COX-2–derived prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and enzymelinked immuno-sorbent assay, respectively. In vivo anti-tumor effect was determined using a nude mice xenografted model transplanted with an ESCC cell line, KYSE-450. Results 83b1 showed the significant anti-cancer effects on all ESCC cell lines compared to CDDP; however, 83b1 revealed much lower toxic effects on non-tumor cell lines than CDDP. The predicted molecular target of 83b1 is peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta (PPARδ), which is a widely known oncoprotein. Additionally the expression of COX-2 mRNA and COX-2–derived PGE2 were down-regulated by 83b1 in a dose-dependent manner in ESCC cell lines. Furthermore, 83b1 was shown to significantly reduce the tumor size in nude mice xenograft. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that the potential anti-cancer effects of 83b1 on human esophageal cancers occur through the possible oncotarget, PPARδ, and down-regulation of the cancer related genes and molecules.


This essay deals with product safety and liability, looking in particular at the interaction between regulation, contract and civil liability. Risk definition, assessment and management in product safety has changed in the last 20 years, and a well recognised role is played by private actors both in standard setting, in monitoring and risk management concerning post sale duties. Post-market surveillance has become a crucial part of the risk management strategies, but the regulatory dimension has not been sufficiently linked with that of governance. In the first part, I examine the current review of product safety at EU level with the proposed regulation on market surveillance and its relationship with the broader debate concerning better regulation. In the second part, I show the increasing contractualisation of standard-setting concerning safety and product defectiveness, which influences both regulation and civil liability systems. In both cases, however, insufficient attention has been given to the implications of such a contractualisation for liability standards. I then move to information duties in product safety and product liability and claimed that business models of the supply and distribution chain may be affected by the regulatory design concerning product safety. I contend that a reform of the General Product Safety Directive and Product Liability directive should promote the creation of more structured information networks, aimed at making information production and transmission concerning product safety more effective. Enterprises should be constrained by the safety goals, but they should enjoy discretion in choosing organisational models that best fit with their business models. In particular, the distinction between hierarchical and horizontal networks should be fruitfully employed to design default rules organising the information safety network. This would be particularly important for pan-European networks which have to coordinate enterprises operating in different legal systems with different institutional frameworks. I propose to introduce default rules concerning information networks that parties can adjust to their specific business models. Private law and regulation interplay in the field of product safety. Not only it happens between administrative regulation and civil liability, as it has long been recognised, but also with contract law, given the increasing contractualization of standard-setting and the necessity to build contractual networks to implement monitoring of product safety in modern market economies. These examples suggest that the current approach to harmonisation of European Private Law is limited and does not reflect the necessity to coordinate different instruments to pursue unitary policy objectives: producing higher and more effective product safety in Europe at reasonable costs.


Kasriel grew up around computers and started writing programs when he was 12. In a way, he says, he was like one of today's typical Silicon Valley kids, but for him it was Paris in the 1980s. He recognized in high school that he prefers to be with small numbers of people or to be alone. Getting by in a crowd doesn't come naturally—but as a CEO he now has to mingle at huge networking events or conferences. To manage that, he sets goals: Talk to at least 30 people, get 10 business cards, arrange five follow-up meetings. For 10 years Kasriel has worked to overcome the perception that engineers don't make great leaders. He sought projects and talked his way into jobs that were outside his comfort zone. He read widely to burnish his skills in strategy, leadership, and managing people. (The article includes a list of titles the author deems most influential.) He spent hundreds of hours taking online courses. He got an MBA at INSEAD not because he wanted to make a career change or expand his network but so that he could avoid the mistakes he'd seen other entrepreneurs make. Since assuming his role, in April 2015, he's learned that a lot of the job comes down to helping employees feel excited about their work, empowering them, and giving them the resources they require. When people come to him with difficulties, he must listen first and not see every situation the way an engineer would: as a problem that needs a solution. INSET: A Would-Be CEO's Reading List.


Seismic records from Finnish and Swedish stations were analyzed for a study of two aircraft accidents in Finland and Sweden. A Hornet F-18 fighter crashed in central Finland, and analysis of recorded impact signals from 7 nearby seismic stations yielded in a crash location only 4 km in error. An estimated magnitude (ML) of 0.5 units gave an impact velocity of 335 m/sec (1200 km/h), which was in excellent agreement with that reported by the Finnish Air Force. A Norwegian Hercules transport plane crashed in foul weather near the summit of Mt. Kebnekaise, NW Sweden. Both seismic and infrasound signals were weak, and in our interpretation, this implied that the Hercules aircraft had a less steep impact angle against the mountain. We also examined seismic analyses of other spectacular air accidents like that of Lockerbie, UK in 1988, and terrorist aircraft attacks on September 11th, 2001 in the USA. Likewise, accidents at sea, such as the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk in the Barents sea in 2000, and the freighter M/S Rocknes near Bergen in 2004, were recorded and analyzed seismically. In this study, we demonstrated that it was feasible to use seismic registrations to locate impact sites, and to define the exact time of such accidents. Also, negative evidence, i.e., lack of seismic recordings, may provide some information of such accidents and their consequences.


Background First year sport students have a considerable risk of injuries. Self-regulatory skills may lower this risk by enabling students to better cope with a sudden increase in physical load (sport participation) and psychosocial stressors (i.e. exams, new social networks). Objective The aim of this study was to identify if better self-regulatory skills reduce the risk for athletic injuries in sport students. Design Prospective cohort study with seven months injury follow-up. Setting Educational setting for students in Physical Education and Sport, Health and Management. Participants 341 freshmen sports students participated in the study. Assessment of risk factors Anthropometric characteristics, sports participation, injury history, and self-regulatory skills (planning, self-monitoring, evaluation, reflection, effort and self-efficacy) were assessed at the start of the academic year by digitalized questionnaires. Main outcome measurements The dependent variables were coded as injured (acute or overuse) or non-injured over a seven months period after baseline measures. Data were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. Results A total of 139 athletic injuries were reported. The injury incidence rate per 1000 hours of sports participation was 1.62. Sixty-four percent of the injuries were acute and 36% of the injuries a result of overuse. Increasing hours of sports participation led to a higher risk of overuse injuries (OR: 1.17 95% CI 1.04–1.32), whereas higher scores on planning led to a lower injury risk of overuse injuries (OR: 0.20 95% CI 0.07–0.58). For acute injuries, no significant predictors were found. Conclusions Self-regulation seems an important skill in reducing injury risk in sport students, because better planning is associated with a lower injury risk. Future research is needed to study the effects of prevention programs that focus on improving self-regulatory skills.


Cognitive Grammar in Stylistics: A Practical Guide provides an engaging, accessible and practically-focused introduction to cognitive grammar outlining how central principles of the field can be used in stylistic analyses. Assuming no prior knowledge, the book leads students through the basics of cognitive grammar, outlining its place within the field of cognitive linguistics as a whole, providing clear explanations of key principles and concepts. It then explains how these can be used to study a range of literary and non-literary texts. The book argues that cognitive grammar offers a powerful alternative to more traditional grammatical models when analysing texts. Its primary focus is on the practical application of cognitive grammar to examples of language in context and on its potential for both literary and non-literary material. It offers a clear and facilitating approach to allow students to describe language features carefully and to explore how these descriptions can be developed into full and rich analyses. Suitable for undergraduate students taking modules in stylistics, English language, and cognitive linguistics, as well as postgraduates encountering the field for the first time, the book provides a much-needed and essential guide to this exciting subject.


The open nature of radio propagation enables ubiquitous wireless communication. This allows for seamless data transmission. However, unauthorized users may pose a threat to the security of the data being transmitted to authorized users. This gives rise to network vulnerabilities such as hacking, eavesdropping, and jamming of the transmitted information. Physical layer security (PLS) has been identified as one of the promising security approaches to safeguard the transmission from eavesdroppers in a wireless network. It is an alternative to the computationally demanding and complex cryptographic algorithms and techniques. PLS has continually received exponential research interest owing to the possibility of exploiting the characteristics of the wireless channel. One of the main characteristics includes the random nature of the transmission channel. The aforesaid nature makes it possible for confidential and authentic signal transmission between the sender and the receiver in the physical layer. We start by introducing the basic theories of PLS, including the wiretap channel, information-theoretic security, and a brief discussion of the cryptography security technique. Furthermore, an overview of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication is provided. The main focus of our review is based on the existing key-less PLS optimization techniques, their limitations, and challenges. The paper also looks into the promising key research areas in addressing these shortfalls. Lastly, a comprehensive overview of some of the recent PLS research in 5G and 6G technologies of wireless communication networks is provided.


This thesis addresses the sources and propagation mechanisms of business cycles in small open emerging economies. Vector autoregressive analyses (Chapter 1) of Brazil - whose regularities are common to other emerging economies - show that exogenous global credit disturbances affecting international liquidity, uncertainty and risk appetite account for over 40% of output variability. These disturbances explain the bulk of emerging economies' excess macroeconomic volatility. They transmit via credit frictions, mainly as shocks to the real interest rates that emerging economies face in international markets. They comprise about 60% of the country spread variations. Responses of output and other real aggregates to credit shocks reveal growth persistence, hump-shaped recession and recovery patterns. These regularities are examined within proposed dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models of a small open economy with permanently binding endogenous constraint on foreign credit. When accumulating capital works as collateral in the constraint, the model (Chapter 2) exhibits unprecedented intertemporal propagation, mainly through wedges between consumption's marginal rate of substitution and the return on capital. Interest rate shocks have significant persistent effects which mitigate the dominance of uncorrelated productivity shocks. The model nests properties of real business cycle models and overcomes typical anomalies of small open economy models which are derived from weak consumption substitution effects. A second model (Chapter 3) tackles the macroeconomic implications of country spread as an endogenous state variable affecting credit and business cycles. The spread is built into an endogenous credit constraint, similar to an external financial premium. Amplification and propagation mechanisms are further enhanced through an enriched intertemporal wedge. Independent US real interest rate and exogenous country spread shocks - representing exogenous credit disturbances to emerging economies - are equally important over business cycle horizons. Calibrated for Brazil, both models match qualitative and quantitative regularities empirically observed in response dynamics, second moments and variance decompositions.


The strength of thermally toughened glass is regulated in EN 12150-1 for fully tempered glass (FTG) and EN 1863-1 for heat-strengthened glass (HSG). The manufacturer has to prove the strength by four-point bending tests based on EN 1288-3. A measurement of the residual stresses of thermally toughened glass is not demanded. Consequently, the determination of the strength is containing the amount of residual stresses. As residual stress is depending on the manufacturing process, the amount and distribution can change within one glass pane and between different glass panes. A research project determined the residual stresses at the surfaces and the edges of HSG and FTG with varying glass thicknesses using photoelastic measurements. Thereby, FTG showed lower values of the residual stresses at the edge compared to the surface. Looking at HSG, the results of the residual stresses at the edge and surface were nearly the same. To analyse the edge strength, four-point bending tests were conducted. Thereby, the load was introduced into the strong axis of the specimens to implement constant tensile stresses along the glass edge. The comparison of the edge strengths showed that the edge strength of FTG is in the same range than HSG. Therefore, the lower residual stress at the edge of FTG reflects in significantly lower edge strengths. The paper includes a detailed presentation of the photoelastic measurements at the edge and the surface as well as the determined residual stresses of more than 80 specimens. In addition, the conducted four-point bending tests are described and the obtained edge strengths are correlated to the measured residual stresses. Based on that, the paper contains a discussion of the standardisations, the process of thermally prestressing and the consequences for the final glass strengths.


The goal of neuromorphic engineering is to create electronic systems that model the behavior of biological neural systems. Neuromorphic systems can leverage a combination of analog and digital circuit design techniques to enable computational modeling, with orders of magnitude of reduction in size, weight, and power consumption compared to the traditional modeling approach based upon numerical integration. These benefits of neuromorphic modeling have the potential to facilitate neural modeling in resource-constrained research environments. Moreover, they will make it practical to use neural computation in the design of intelligent machines, including portable, battery-powered, and energy harvesting applications. Floating-gate transistor technology is a powerful tool for neuromorphic engineering because it allows dense implementation of synapses with nonvolatile storage of synaptic weights, cancellation of process mismatch, and reconfigurable system design.
A novel neuromorphic hardware system, featuring compact and efficient channel-based model neurons and floating-gate transistor synapses, was developed. This system was used to model a variety of network topologies with up to 100 neurons. The networks were shown to possess computational capabilities such as spatio-temporal pattern generation and recognition, winner-take-all competition, bistable activity implementing a "volatile memory", and wavefront-based robotic path planning. Some canonical features of synaptic plasticity, such as potentiation of high frequency inputs and potentiation of correlated inputs in the presence of uncorrelated noise, were demonstrated. Preliminary results regarding formation of receptive fields were obtained. Several advances in enabling technologies, including methods for floating-gate transistor array programming, and the creation of a reconfigurable system for studying adaptation in floating-gate transistor circuits, were made.


We introduce a method for egocentric videoconferencing that enables hands-free video calls, for instance by people wearing smart glasses or other mixed-reality devices. Videoconferencing portrays valuable non-verbal communication and face expression cues, but usually requires a front-facing camera. Using a frontal camera in a hands-free setting when a person is on the move is impractical. Even holding a mobile phone camera in the front of the face while sitting for a long duration is not convenient. To overcome these issues, we propose a low-cost wearable egocentric camera setup that can be integrated into smart glasses. Our goal is to mimic a classical video call, and therefore, we transform the egocentric perspective of this camera into a front facing video. To this end, we employ a conditional generative adversarial neural network that learns a transition from the highly distorted egocentric views to frontal views common in videoconferencing. Our approach learns to transfer expression details directly from the egocentric view without using a complex intermediate parametric expressions model, as it is used by related face reenactment methods. We successfully handle subtle expressions, not easily captured by parametric blendshape-based solutions, e.g., tongue movement, eye movements, eye blinking, strong expressions and depth varying movements. To get control over the rigid head movements in the target view, we condition the generator on synthetic renderings of a moving neutral face. This allows us to synthesis results at different head poses. Our technique produces temporally smooth video-realistic renderings in real-time using a video-to-video translation network in conjunction with a temporal discriminator. We demonstrate the improved capabilities of our technique by comparing against related state-of-the art approaches.


Productivity differences can explain differences in economic growth across countries. It has been demonstrated that the presence of a foreign-owned multinational enterprise (MNE) in a developing country is one of the most important methods through which technology transfer occurs. This presence could be in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI), licensing, or imports from the developing country. However, it is still unclear by what means and how effectively each type of foreign presence affects domestic productivity.In this paper, I study licensing as one of the channels through which foreign technology is transferred to domestic plants. This technology transfer can occur in one industry and also in related industries, which results in technology spillovers that can affect both intra- and inter-industry productivity. Moreover, the institutional framework of the country can affect the type of foreign presence adopted by MNEs in the host country. Therefore, it is important to analyze the effect of a change in the institutional framework on technol- ogy spillovers. This can be achieved by analyzing a set of new and stronger intellectual property rights (IPR).Using Chilean firm level data for the 2001?2007 period I find that there are positive inter-industry spillover effects when licensing occurs in downstream sectors which result in higher productivity for domestic plants in upstream sectors (backward spillovers).When evaluating the effect of the IPR measure, I find that stronger IPR measures decrease the backward spillover effect. I also find that the change in policy has a stronger effect on firms that are, on average, smaller and have low productivity.


Abstract We examine the historical development of astrophysical science in Antarctica from the early 20th century until today. We find three temporally overlapping eras, each having a rather distinct beginning. These are the astrogeological era of meteorite discovery, the high energy era of particle detectors, and the photon astronomy era of microwave, submillimetre, and infrared telescopes, sidelined by a few niche experiments at optical wavelengths. The favourable atmospheric and geophysical conditions are briefly examined, followed by an account of the major experiments and a summary of their results.


The present article offers the reflections of the principal of the longest-running two-way immersion school in Southern California on some of the key factors positively impacting the program, namely parental involvement, teacher commitment, and principal support. Additionally, it includes some of the critical challenges she must continuously face as part of her job, i.e., scarcity of qualified and minority language proficient teachers, lack of funding and adequate materials in the minority language, as well as the impact of federal and state education laws on the autonomy of the program. She also gave some recommendations, based on her professional experience, for those schools interested in the implementation of this innovative educational approach. The information provided throughout the article is connected to recent research on two-way programs in the United States and finalizes with some conclusions for the future.


This article outlines a framework of the transformation from the goods-dominant (G-D) to the service-dominant (S-D) logic in firms based on a case study of a bank. Drawing from institutional logic and practice theory, the article also contributes by discussing how the transformation from the G-D to the S-D logic takes place by means of the enactment of value creation practices and how such transformations are driven by institutional entrepreneurs and by conflicts between institutional logics. In addition, the article argues that the studied transformation is interwoven with changes in the professional identities of employees. Managerial implications include how managers may draw on the presented framework to transform their firm and its employees.


This is one of a series of papers on bird distribution dynamics that deals with the six indigenous francolin species of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. These gamebirds are affected by various ecological and anthropogenic drivers such as fire, livestock grazing, agriculture, wing shooting and other forms of habitat modification. Their resident statuses and ground-living habits also renders them vulnerable to predators as well as the aforementioned drivers. Assessing the differences between reporting rates of the two South African Bird Atlas Projects as well as overlaying a recent national land cover spatial dataset we attempted to identify which habitats might have caused declines and/or increases in distribution. Using the same methods as with previous bird distribution dynamics papers, we revealed that most species have declined but, in parts of their distribution increases are evident since the first bird atlas project. Here, the perceived drivers of changes in distribution mostly in the form of land cover, are diverse and varied between species. Unfortunately, we could only speculate on the effects of fire as the land cover dataset does not provide a burnt-area class.


Using quantitative proxy models of peat and bauxite formation, based upon modern analogues, predictions of the distribution of peats (coals) and bauxites for both the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) and mid-Cretaceous (Cenomanian) have been made using a General Circulation Model (GCM). The predictions have been compared with the known distribution of these deposits. Such an approach provides a means of identifying and isolating which components of the GCM accurately reflect palaeoclimate. The prediction of peats and bauxites for the Jurassic and Cretaceous show good correspondence with known coals and bauxites and provides otherwise elusive quantitative estimates of high latitude climate. The GCM is thus successfully replicating precipitation and mean annual temperatures for both the Kimmeridgian and Cenomanian. Investigations of Mesozoic palaeoclimate using General Circulation Models (GCMs) have often focused on qualitative evaluation of results (e.g. Barron & Washington 1982; Valdes et al. 1995; Chandler et al. 1992). A number of recent studies have, however, highlighted the need for GCM predictions to be quantitatively validated against the sedimentological and palaeobiological record (e.g. Poore & Chandler 1994; Pollard & Schulz 1994; Price et al. 1995). Quantitative estimates of terrestrial climate have been produced by physiognomic analysis of floras (e.g. Herman & Spicer 1996; Wolfe & Upchurch 1987), and have also been derived from organisms such as crocodiles (e.g. Markwick 1994). Comparable results have been used effectively for validating GCM predictions (e.g. Sloan & Barron 1992), but data tend to be restricted to North America and are often Latest Cretaceous, or younger, in age.


We propose a subpixel scale elemental image generation method to correct the errors created by finite display pixel size in integral imaging. In this paper, two errors are mainly discussed: pickup-and-display mismatch error and mismatch error between pixel pitch and lens pitch. The proposed method considers the relative positions between lenses and pixels in subpixel scale. Our proposed pickup method calculates the position parameters, generates an elemental image with pixels completely inside the lens, and generates an elemental image with border pixels using a weighted sum method. Appropriate experiments are presented to verify the validity of the proposed method.


Social networking sites and blogs have increasingly become breeding grounds for anonymous online groups that attack women, people of color, and members of other traditionally disadvantaged groups. These destructive groups target individuals with defamation, threats of violence, and technology-based attacks that silence victims and concomitantly destroy their privacy. Victims go offline or assume pseudonyms to prevent future attacks, impoverishing online dialogue and depriving victims of the social and economic opportunities associated with a vibrant online presence. Attackers manipulate search engines to reproduce their lies and threats for employers and clients to see, creating digital "scarlet letters" that ruin reputations. Today's cyber attack groups update a history of anonymous mobs coming together to victimize and subjugate vulnerable people. The social science literature identifies conditions that magnify dangerous group behavior and those that tend to defuse it. Unfortunately, Web 2.0 technologies accelerate mob behavior. With little reason to expect self-correction of this intimidation of vulnerable individuals, the law must respond. General criminal statutes and tort law proscribe much of the mobs' destructive behavior, but the harm they inflict also ought to be understood and addressed as civil rights violations. Civil rights suits reach the societal harm that would otherwise go unaddressed and would play a crucial expressive role. Acting against these attacks does not offend First Amendment principles when they consist of defamation, true threats, intentional infliction of emotional distress, technological sabotage, and bias-motivated abuse aimed to interfere with a victim's employment opportunities. To the contrary, it helps preserve vibrant online dialogue and promote a culture of political, social, and economic equality.


Device characteristics of optical polarization rotators are founded upon the vector properties of the Maxwell equations. Recently, a bending waveguide based polarization rotator has been proposed and demonstrated. To provide a rigorous basis for the analysis and design of this polarization rotator, the full-vectorial wave equations for both E/spl I.oarr/ and H/spl I.oarr/-field in bending waveguides are derived. It is found from these wave equations that under a broad range of circumstances, a bending waveguide can be analyzed using the equivalent straight waveguide approximation. Details of the model for optical polarization rotators, which is based on the coupled-mode theory, will be described in a companion paper.