Background/aims Proton beam radiotherapy and plaque brachytherapy are commonly applied in primary uveal melanoma (UM); however, their effect on chromosome 3 classification of UM by microsatellite analysis (MSA) for prognostication purposes is unknown, where the tumour is sampled post-irradiation. This study examined the prognostic accuracy of genotyping UM biopsied before or after administration of radiotherapy, by MSA. Methods 407 UM patients treated at the Liverpool Ocular Oncology Centre between January 2011 to December 2017, were genotyped for chromosome 3 by MSA; 172 and 176 primary UM were sampled prior to and post irradiation, respectively. Results Genotyping by MSA was successful in 396/407 (97%) of UM samples (196 males, 211 females; median age of 61 years (range 12 to 93) at primary treatment). There was no demonstrable association between a failure of MSA to produce a chromosome 3 classification and whether radiation was performed pre-biopsy or post-biopsy with an OR of 0.96 (95% CI 0.30 to 3.00, p=0.94). There was no evidence of association (measured as HRs) between risk of metastatic death and sampling of a primary UM before administration of radiotherapy (HR 1.1 (0.49 to 2.50), p=0.81). Monosomy 3 (HR 12.0 (4.1 to 35.0), p<0.001) was significantly associated with increased risk of metastatic death. Conclusions and relevance This study revealed that successful genotyping of UM using MSA is possible, irrespective of irradiation status. Moreover, we found no evidence that biopsy prior to radiotherapy increases metastatic mortality.


Connecting people through scientific or engineering gateways requires effective communication. All gateway users – researchers, educators, public audiences – must understand the purpose, utility, and significance of the gateway if it is to be successful. Therefore, establishing effective communication practices to explain the project becomes critical to developing the gateway and ensuring its longevity. Fortunately, communication skills can be learned and practiced by anyone. Developing communication efforts with goals that align with those of the target audience, using storytelling to convey clear messages, and using appropriate language and visual elements are all key skills of a successful communication strategy. Putting these skills into practice can maximize the utility and benefits of your gateway for all parties involved.


Management and curation of digital data has been becoming ever more important in a higher education and research environment characterised by large and complex data, demand for more interdisciplinary and collaborative work, extended funder requirements and use of e-infrastructures to facilitate new research methods and paradigms. This paper presents the approach, technical infrastructure, findings, challenges and outlook (including future development within the successor project, MiSS) of the 'MaDAM: Pilot data management infrastructure for biomedical researchers at University of Manchester' project funded under the infrastructure strand of the JISC Managing Research Data (JISCMRD) programme. MaDAM developed a pilot research data management solution at the University of Manchester based on biomedical researchers' requirements, which includes technical and governance components with the flexibility to meet future needs across multiple research groups and disciplines.


Objective: To determine the prevalence of diabetic autonomic neuropathy (DAN) in patients with diabetes for five or more years duration. Methods: Two hundred (200) diagnosed diabetics with five or more years duration seen in Diabetic clinic at Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi between 1st June 2006 to 31st May 2007 were included in the study. Standard cardiovascular function tests were applied on the patients. Clinical history included queries about nocturnal diarrhea, constipation, early satiety, impotence and erectile dysfunction. Results: Among the two hundred patients included in the study, diabetes was more than five years duration. The mean duration of illness was 9.6 years (SD 3.8). There were ninety three[ 93 ] males and one hundred seven [107] females. 177 patients [88.5%] in our study were with type -II Diabetes Mellitus and 23 (11.5%) with type -1 diabetes mellitus. In our study 2/3 rd of the patients showed evidence of autonomic neuropathy. Out of two hundred patients, 133 (66%) patients had evidence of autonomic neuropathy, of these 18(11.5%) had type 1and115 (88.5%) had type II diabetes mellitus. Gastro-intestinal system was the most commonly involved system accounting for 93 (46.5%) patients. The next commonly involved system was cardiovascular system 89(43%) followed by genitourinary system in 15 (7.5%) of the patients. When Pearson Chi square test was applied at 5% level of significance, p value was 0.204. Thus there was no statistically significant association between type of diabetes mellitus and autonomic neuropathy. Conclusion: Complications of diabetic autonomic neuropathy contribute significantly to morbidity, mortality and reduced quality of life in a person with diabetes. The treatment of diabetic autonomic neuropathy is unsatisfactory. It is desirable to prevent this complication and if once established, to slow its progression. We recommended that tests for autonomic functions should be included in the annual checkups of all diabetic patients particularly in those with disease of more than five years.


Given the enormous galaxy databases of modern sky surveys, parametrising galaxy morphologies is a very challenging task due to the huge number and variety of objects. We assess the different problems faced by existing parametrisation schemes (CAS, Gini, M20, Sérsic profile, shapelets) in an attempt to understand why parametrisation is so difficult and in order to suggest improvements for future parametrisation schemes. We demonstrate that morphological observables (e.g. steepness of the radial light profile, ellipticity, asymmetry) are intertwined and cannot be measured independently of each other. We present strong arguments in favour of model-based parametrisation schemes, namely reliability assessment, disentanglement of morphological observables, and PSF modelling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that estimates of the concentration and Sérsic index obtained from the Zurich Structure & Morphology catalogue are in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. We also demonstrate that the incautious use of the concentration index for classification purposes can cause a severe loss of the discriminative information contained in a given data sample. Moreover, we show that, for poorly resolved galaxies, concentration index and M20 suffer from strong discontinuities, i.e. similar morphologies are not necessarily mapped to neighbouring points in the parameter space. This limits the reliability of these parameters for classification purposes. Two-dimensional Sérsic profiles accounting for centroid and ellipticity are identified as the currently most reliable parametrisation scheme in the regime of intermediate signal-to-noise ratios and resolutions, where asymmetries and substructures do not play an important role. We argue that basis functions provide good parametrisation schemes in the regimes of high signal-to-noise ratios and resolutions. Concerning Sérsic profiles, we show that scale radii cannot be compared directly for profiles of different Sérsic indices. Furthermore, we show that parameter spaces are typically highly nonlinear. This implies that significant caution is required when distance-based classificaton methods are used.


We present a set of algorithms for simulating and visualizing real-time crowds in GPU (Graphics Processing Units) clusters. First we will present crowd simulation and rendering techniques that take advantage of single GPU machines, then using as an example a wandering crowd behavior simulation algorithm, we explain how this kind of algorithms can be extended for their use in GPU cluster environments. We also present a visualization architecture that renders the simulation results using detailed 3D virtual characters. This architecture is adaptable in order to support the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) infrastructure. Results show that our algorithms are scalable in different hardware platforms including embedded systems, desktop GPUs and GPU clusters, in particular, the BSC's Minotauro cluster.


We present a theoretical and empirical study of the gradient dynamics of overparameterized shallow ReLU networks with one-dimensional input, solving least-squares interpolation. We show that the gradient dynamics of such networks are determined by the gradient flow in a non-redundant parameterization of the network function. We examine the principal qualitative features of this gradient flow. In particular, we determine conditions for two learning regimes:kernel and adaptive, which depend both on the relative magnitude of initialization of weights in different layers and the asymptotic behavior of initialization coefficients in the limit of large network widths. We show that learning in the kernel regime yields smooth interpolants, minimizing curvature, and reduces to cubic splines for uniform initializations. Learning in the adaptive regime favors instead linear splines, where knots cluster adaptively at the sample points.


Abstract. This paper mainly focuses on the validation of temperature estimates derived with the newly launched Constellation Observing System for Meteorology Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC)/Formosa Satellite 3 (FORMOSAT-3) system. The analysis is based on the radio occultation (RO) data samples collected during the first year observation from April 2006 to April 2007. For the validation, we have used the operational stratospheric analyses including the National Centers for Environmental Prediction - Reanalysis (NCEP), the Japanese 25-year Reanalysis (JRA-25), and the United Kingdom Met Office (MetO) data sets. Comparisons done in different formats reveal good agreement between the COSMIC and reanalysis outputs. Spatially, the largest deviations are noted in the polar latitudes, and height-wise, the tropical tropopause region noted the maximum differences (2–4 K). We found that among the three reanalysis data sets the NCEP data sets have the best resemblance with the COSMIC measurements.


for use in the web index This paper explores secondary teachers' views on the role of visualisation in the justification of a claim in the mathematics classroom and how these views could influence instruction. We engaged 91 teachers with tasks that invited them to: reflect on/solve a mathematical problem; examine flawed (fictional) student solutions; and, describe, in writing, feedback to students. Eleven teachers were also interviewed. Here we draw on the interviews and the responses to one Task (which involved recognising a line as a tangent to a curve at an inflection point) in order to explore the influence on the teachers' feedback to students of: persistent images of the tangent line; beliefs about the sufficiency of a visual argument; and, beliefs about the role of visual arguments in student learning. We focus particularly on the influence on the didactical contract regarding mathematical reasoning that teachers with a variation of beliefs about the role of visualisation are likely to offer their students. We conclude with a concise description of a didactical contract which maintains a role for proof in the mathematics classroom that is not disjoint from the creative parts of visually-based classroom activity and that reflects an essential intellectual need. We also conclude with crediting the combination 'task engagement-followed by-interview' for the identification of subtle issues regarding the teachers' pedagogical and epistemological beliefs and for the raising of their awareness of these issues.


Hundreds of fossil marine vertebrates cropping out at Cerro Colorado (Pisco Basin, Peru) are identified and reported on a 1:6500 scale geological map and in a joined stratigraphic section. All the fossils are from the lower strata of the Pisco Formation, dated in this area to the late middle or early late Miocene. They are particularly concentrated (88%) in the stratigraphic interval from 40 to 75 m above the unconformity with the underlying Chilcatay Formation. The impressive fossil assemblage includes more than 300 specimens preserved as bone elements belonging mostly to cetaceans (81%), represented by mysticetes (cetotheriids and balaenopteroids) and odontocetes (kentriodontid-like delphinidans, pontoporiids, ziphiids, and physeteroids, including the giant raptorial sperm whale Livyatan melvillei). Seals, crocodiles, sea turtles, seabirds, bony fish, and sharks are also reported. Isolated large teeth of Carcharocles and Cosmopolitodus are common throughout the investigated stratigraphical interval, whereas other shark teeth, mostly of carcharinids, are concentrated in one sandy interval. This work represents a first detailed census of the extraordinary paleontological heritage of the Pisco Basin and the basis for future taphonomic, paleoecological, and systematic studies, as well as a much needed conservation effort for this extremely rich paleontological site.


Undirected graphs are often used to describe high dimensional distributions. Under sparsity conditions, the graph can be estimated using l1 penalization methods. However, current methods assume that the data are independent and identically distributed. If the distribution, and hence the graph, evolves over time then the data are not longer identically distributed. In this paper, we show how to estimate the sequence of graphs for non-identically distributed data, where the distribution evolves over time.


A self-consistent description is given for the propagation of a weak optical probe beam through a homogeneously broadened two-level medium in the presence of a strong, collinear, near-resonant pump beam. The propagation of the probe beam is given in terms of bichromatic natural modes, which contain frequency components symmetrically displaced from that of the pump beam. The two frequency components have a definite relative amplitude and phase, which are determined solely by the frequency detunings of the optical fields from the atomic resonance and by the intensity of the pump field. A simple method for calculating these natural modes is derived, and their importance in describing nearly degenerate four-wave mixing, optical bistability, and the stability of homogeneously broadened ring lasers is discussed.


AbstractKaatsu training is an exercise method involving the application of pressure to the target muscle, and is being increasingly used in rehabilitation programs for heart disease patients in some hospitals. This method restricts blood flow to the muscles during exercise, and the resultant hypoxia effectively causes muscle hypertrophy and strengthening. However, no medical guidelines or risk factors for its use have been established.We report a case involving a 45-year-old man who suffered from 2 episodes of central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO), both occurring on the day following a Kaatsu training session.As a characteristic of the CRVO and its subsequent complications, the affected eye lost vision despite treatment. The patient had a history of hypertension and diabetes, and thus was at an increased risk of CRVO. Kaatsu training, which changes the heart rate and serum growth hormone levels, may have triggered the onset of CRVO.This case highlights that underlying medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and the consequent inflammation, could be risk factors for vascular side effects resulting from Kaatsu training. Further studies are required before the medical and recreational use of Kaatsu training become widespread.


Background Migraine, particularly chronic migraine (CM), is underdiagnosed and undertreated worldwide. Our objective was to develop and validate a self-administered tool (ID-CM) to identify migraine and CM. Methods ID-CM was developed in four stages. (1) Expert clinicians suggested candidate items from existing instruments and experience (Delphi Panel method). (2) Candidate items were reviewed by people with CM during cognitive debriefing interviews. (3) Items were administered to a Web panel of people with severe headache to assess psychometric properties and refine ID-CM. (4) Classification accuracy was assessed using an ICHD-3β gold-standard clinician diagnosis. Results Stages 1 and 2 identified 20 items selected for psychometric validation in stage 3 (n = 1562). The 12 psychometrically robust items from stage 3 underwent validity testing in stage 4. A scoring algorithm applied to four symptom items (moderate/severe pain intensity, photophobia, phonophobia, nausea) accurately classified most migraine cases among 111 people (sensitivity = 83.5%, specificity = 88.5%). Augmenting this algorithm with eight items assessing headache frequency, disability, medication use, and planning disruption correctly classified most CM cases (sensitivity = 80.6%, specificity = 88.6%). Discussion ID-CM is a simple yet accurate tool that correctly classifies most individuals with migraine and CM. Further testing in other settings will also be valuable.


Currently, the only approved therapy for acute ischemic stroke is tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), initiated within 3 hours of stroke onset. New patient selection criteria are emerging that may improve the effectiveness and safety of thrombolysis. For example, evidence of extensive early ischemia on CT may predict a poor outcome regardless of whether tPA is administered. New imaging techniques, such as diffusion MRI, perfusion MRI, and MR angiography, may be able to identify salvageable tissue and distinguish it from irreversibly damaged tissue. Such findings may allow the 3-hour window for tPA therapy to be extended in certain patients. Other approaches to ischemic stroke therapy that are being studied include intra-arterial thrombolysis, new thrombolytic agents, platelet aggregation inhibitors, endovascular interventional techniques (alone and in combination with pharmacologic thrombolysis), and neuroprotective therapy with various agents to ameliorate the consequences of ischemia in brain tissue.


Raman cross-sections of explosives in solution and in the solid state have been measured using visible and near-infrared excitation via secondary calibration. These measurements are valuable for both fundamental scientific purposes and applications in the standoff detection of explosives. The explosive compounds RDX, HMX, TNT, 2,4-DNT, 2,6-DNT, and ammonium nitrate were measured using discrete excitation wavelengths ranging from 532 nm to 785 nm. A comparison of the spectral features and cross-sections between the solid state and solution was performed. Comparison is also made to cross-sections measured with deep ultraviolet excitation.


Abstract Amorphous silicate sediments comprise most of the upper part of the sedimentary column of the Atlantis II Deep, whereas more crystalline phases are found in the lower part. The objective of this study was to focus on the newly-formed, metastable, hydrothermal phases, that eventually transform into clays or Fe oxides. Short-range ordered Si-Fe phases (Si/Fe = 0.2-0.6) rounded to elliptical in shape, and amorphous Si-Fe platy phases (Si/Fe = 0.09-pure Si) comprise some of the amorphous sediments in Atlantis II Deep. The rounded particles have distinct electron-dense (thicker, relatively ordered) margins and a less crystalline inner core. They have rhombohedral symmetry with unit-cell parameters of a = 0.504 nm and c = 1.08 nm. They presumably transform into crystalline clay minerals in statu nascendi (at the formative stage) in the sediments. Synthesis in NaCl brines designed to simulate crystallization of the rounded particles, was performed successfully. Similar rounded phases (Si/Fe = 0.26) were synthesized under saline, neutral, hydrothermal conditions (40°C, pH 7, 2 M NaCl) with initial Si/Fe = 1.5. We suggest that the metastable rounded particles precipitate from the hot brine created by the encounter between Red Sea Deep Water and the hydrothermal brine underneath. Within a few thousands years they disintegrate and transform into clay minerals, probably nontronite.


Abstract Within the context of services to prevent or treat alcohol-related problems, the terms 'alcohol screening' and 'brief intervention', include all practices used to identify a real or potential alcohol problem, and motivate individuals to take positive action to promote health. Alcohol misuse and dependence affect 8.2 million adults in England, leading to an estimated cost to society of £20bn per annum. Alcohol misuse is now the third leading cause of ill health after tobacco use and high blood pressure. During the past 20 years, randomised controlled trials of brief interventions have been conducted in diverse practice settings. These have included hospital accident and emergency services, medical inpatients units and primary healthcare settings, such as General Practitioner (GP) surgeries. Currently there are no established services or training opportunities in the UK, for community pharmacists to engage in managing alcohol-related problems. It is well known that community pharmacies allow the general public to seek healthcare advice. The potential benefits of preventing alcohol problems through pharmacists' involvement in brief intervention have yet to be measured and further research is required. This paper therefore aims to explore the following questions: • What is the evidence for brief intervention and commutation methodology in public health? • How can community pharmacists be involved in conducting brief alcohol intervention? • What would be a good practice guide for pharmacists to communicate safe drinking advice to harmful and or hazardous drinkers, accessing community pharmacy services? • How could the potential benefits of brief intervention led by community pharmacists be measured?


Enterprise Architecture is seen as instrumental to drive the digital transformation in enterprises. It is also important to achieve the benefits from innovative new business models and technologies. Many organisations have therefore undertaken extensive efforts to implement Enterprise Architecture (EA). It is, however, a challenging task to implement enterprise architecture in an organisation. There is also very limited research on this issue related to the public sector. This study explores the implementation of enterprise architecture (EA) in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration - NAV. While the study revealed that NAV had not defined any clear benefits, we found 12 perceived potential benefits. We also uncovered 16 challenges that impeded the EA implementation.


Results are presented from a search for the rare decays B0s→μ+μ− and B0→μ+μ− in pp collisions at s√=7 and 8 TeV, with data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of 5 and 20  fb−1, respectively, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. An unbinned maximum-likelihood fit to the dimuon invariant mass distribution gives a branching fraction B(B0s→μ+μ−)=(3.0+1.0−0.9)×10−9, where the uncertainty includes both statistical and systematic contributions. An excess of B0s→μ+μ− events with respect to background is observed with a significance of 4.3 standard deviations. For the decay B0→μ+μ− an upper limit of B(B0→μ+μ−)<1.1×10−9 at the 95% confidence level is determined. Both results are in agreement with the expectations from the standard model.


Placenta accreta is described as anchoring placental villi directly contact the myometrium resulting in firm attachment of the placenta to the myometrium. The incidence of placenta accreta is increasing parallel to raising cesarean section rate. Women at greatest risk of placenta accreta are those who have myometrial damage caused by a previous cesarean delivery with either an anterior or posterior placenta previa overlying uterine scar. Control of bleeding is the main goal in such cases, which usually necessitates hysterectomy or hypogastric artery ligation; embolization of uterine artery that is done by expert interventional radiologists. However, alternative methods are useful when retaining fertility is important in young women with low parity. We present a 28-year old G5P2+0+2+2 who was admitted at 33 weeks of period of gestation for antepartum hemorrhage (APH) with previous cesarean. Even after conservative treatment for APH, she delivered still born preterm baby at 34 weeks with retained placenta where manual removal of placenta failed to remove the placenta. Placenta was removed piecemeal leaving major portion of placenta, which was morbidly adherent. After 13 days of delivery ultrasonography (USG) showed plenty of placental tissue in the uterine cavity with peripheral vascularity and increased serum beta-human chorionic gonadotrophin (β-hCG) level (1980mIU/ml). Injection methotrexate was administered on the 18 th post-partum day following the regime of 1, 3, 5 and 7 days. Repeat USG after 1 week of treatment showed decrease size in placental mass with a decrease in serum β-hCG level and after 6 th post-partum week D&E done with complete removal of placental tissue and at 8 th post-partum week USG shows normal with no retained products of conception and the patient was stable. Hence, methotrexate can thus be helpful as conservative treatment for placenta accreta in conserving the uterus and hence, the fertility.


Injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) of the knee are one of the most serious injuries sustained in sports. It has previously been shown that female athletes are at a risk 4-6 times greater than their male counterparts to sustain such an injury. Injury prevention programs (IPP) have been developed that have been shown to successfully reduce the risk of ACL injuries, but data on the implementation of these programs is limited. The purpose of this project was to obtain data on the implementation of ACL IPP among high school girls' soccer coaches in Pennsylvania and to identify barriers that limit the implementation of such programs. An online survey was completed by Pennsylvania high school girls' soccer coaches (N=32) to assess ACL IPP knowledge, attitudes, implementation rates, and barriers to implementation. Overall, coaches reported a higher rate (45%) of implementation than shown in previously studied populations. Only one commonly used ACL IPP was found to be familiar to greater than 50% of participating coaches. When reporting barriers to implementation, lack of knowledge of ACL IPP was reported by 37% of coaches with only 21% of coaches reporting having received formal training on ACL IPP. Time was also reported by 17% of respondents and was the most frequent response in open ended questions regarding barriers. The data suggest that coaches may benefit from training opportunities providing instruction on ACL IPP and instruction on the use of programs that can be utilized with minimal time requirements. More research is needed on implementation strategies and the potential use of policy changes by regulating organizations to encourage the use of IPP.


The TOMO-ETNA experiment was devised to image of the crust underlying the volcanic edifice and, possibly, its plumbing system by using passive and active refraction/reflection seismic methods. This experiment included activities both on-land and offshore with the main objective of obtaining a new high-resolution seismic tomography to improve the knowledge of the crustal structures existing beneath the Etna volcano and northeast Sicily up to Aeolian Islands. The TOMO ETNA experiment was divided in two phases. The first phase started on June 15, 2014 and finalized on July 24, 2014, with the withdrawal of two removable seismic networks (a Short Period Network and a Broadband network composed by 80 and 20 stations respectively) deployed at Etna volcano and surrounding areas. During this first phase the oceanographic research vessel "Sarmiento de Gamboa" and the hydro-oceanographic vessel "Galatea" performed the offshore activities, which includes the deployment of ocean bottom seismometers (OBS), air-gun shooting for Wide Angle Seismic refraction (WAS), Multi-Channel Seismic (MCS) reflection surveys, magnetic surveys and ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) dives. This phase finished with the recovery of the short period seismic network. In the second phase the Broadband seismic network remained operative until October 28, 2014, and the R/V "Aegaeo" performed additional MCS surveys during November 19-27, 2014. Overall, the information deriving from TOMO-ETNA experiment could provide the answer to many uncertainties that have arisen while exploiting the large amount of data provided by the cutting-edge monitoring systems of Etna volcano and seismogenic area of eastern Sicily.


BACKGROUND
Lumbar muscle dysfunction due to pain might be related to altered lumbar muscle structure. Macroscopically, muscle degeneration in low back pain (LBP) is characterized by a decrease in cross-sectional area and an increase in fat infiltration in the lumbar paraspinal muscles. In addition microscopic changes, such as changes in fiber distribution, might occur. Inconsistencies in results from different studies make it difficult to draw firm conclusions on which structural changes are present in the different types of non-specific LBP. Insights regarding structural muscle alterations in LBP are, however, important for prevention and treatment of non-specific LBP.

OBJECTIVE
The goal of this article is to review which macro- and/or microscopic structural alterations of the lumbar muscles occur in case of non-specific chronic low back pain (CLBP), recurrent low back pain (RLBP), and acute low back pain (ALBP).

STUDY DESIGN
Systematic review.

SETTING
All selected studies were case-control studies.

METHODS
A systematic literature search was conducted in the databases PubMed and Web of Science. Only full texts of original studies regarding structural alterations (atrophy, fat infiltration, and fiber type distribution) in lumbar muscles of patients with non-specific LBP compared to healthy controls were included. All included articles were scored on methodological quality.

RESULTS
Fifteen studies were found eligible after screening title, abstract, and full text for inclusion and exclusion criteria. In CLBP, moderate evidence of atrophy was found in the multifidus; whereas, results in the paraspinal and the erector spinae muscle remain inconclusive. Also moderate evidence occurred in RLBP and ALBP, where no atrophy was shown in any lumbar muscle. Conflicting results were seen in undefined LBP groups. Results concerning fat infiltration were inconsistent in CLBP. On the other hand, there is moderate evidence in RLBP that fat infiltration does not occur, although a larger muscle fat index was found in the erector spinae, multifidus, and paraspinal muscles, reflecting an increased relative amount of intramuscular lipids in RLBP. However, no studies were found investigating fat infiltration in ALBP. Restricted evidence indicates no abnormalities in fiber type in the paraspinal muscles in CLBP. No studies have examined fiber type in ALBP and RLBP.

LIMITATIONS
Lack of clarity concerning patient definitions, exact LBP symptoms, and applied methods.

CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate atrophy in CLBP in the multifidus and paraspinal muscles but not in the erector spinae. No atrophy was shown in RLBP and ALBP. Fat infiltration did not occur in RLBP, but results in CLBP were inconsistent. No abnormalities in fiber type in the paraspinal muscles were found in CLBP.

KEY WORDS
Low back pain, non-specific, chronic, recurrent, acute, muscle structure, fat infiltration, cross-sectional area, fiber type, review.


Soft errors induced by energetic particle strikes in on-chip cache memories have become an increasing challenge in designing new generation reliable microprocessors. Previous efforts have exploited information redundancy via parity/ECC codings or cacheline duplication for information integrity in on-chip cache memories. Due to various performance, area/size, and energy constraints in various target systems, many existing unoptimized protection schemes may eventually prove significantly inadequate and ineffective. In this paper, we propose a new framework for conducting comprehensive studies and characterization on the reliability behavior of cache memories, in order to provide insight into cache vulnerability to soft errors as well as design guidance to architects for highly efficient reliable on-chip cache memory design. Our work is based on the development of new lifetime models for data and tag arrays residing in both the data and instruction caches. Those models facilitate the characterization of cache vulnerability of stored items at various lifetime phases. We then exemplify this design methodology by proposing reliability schemes targeting at specific vulnerable phases. Benchmarking is carried out to showcase the effectiveness of our approach.


Mathematical models in form of dynamical systems play an important role in many
disciplines, such as system biology, engineering, or physics. They are widely used to simulate the time evolution of the internal states of systems like cardiac muscle cells, neurons, electrical circuits, or the weather, to give just a few examples. Often the models are nonlinear.
To obtain realistic results the parameterization of the model equations must be adjusted beforehand so that the model describes the real world system one aims to simulate as accurate as possible.
Another task where dynamical systems play an important role is when full states of a real world system are required but only the time evolution of some state variables are actually measured in form of time series. This is a common situation in climatology. There, the temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, etc. are measured at a much smaller number of locations than it would be necessary to obtain the full state of the atmosphere. Nevertheless, the latter is required for example to initialize a weather forecast.
In both situations a state and parameter estimation algorithm can be used to estimate full states of the system and model parameters given some measured data time series and a mathematical model of the system.
If states and parameters are estimated from data, then one is typically also interested in the uncertainty of the estimated values. Whether states and parameters can be uniquely estimated from the data can by analyzed by investigating the observability of the mathematical model.
In this thesis methods for state and parameter estimation as well as for analyzing the uncertainty and observability are presented and discussed. The first part is about the implementation of state and parameter estimation algorithms which are based on solving high dimensional optimization problems. To solve these optimization problems many optimization methods rely on accurate information about derivatives. It is discussed that a technique called automatic differentiation has the capability to provide numerically exact values for derivatives by requiring only a minimum of additional runtime of the estimation method. Using this technique an error prone implementation of derivatives in a computer program is not necessary.
In the following parts a method is presented and evaluated which provides a measure for the uncertainty in state and parameter estimation. Among other things results based on this method are compared to results based on an optimization based state and parameter estimation algorithm. It is also investigated how the initialization of the estimation algorithm and the number and combination of measured model variables affect the accuracy of the estimated states and parameters.
Furthermore, a method is presented which can be used to identify redundant model parameters and state variables which can not be uniquely estimated. This method also provides information about which and how many parameters may be removed from the estimation task so that all remaining state variables and parameters can be uniquely estimated.
Finally, a nonlinear electronic circuit which may exhibit chaotic behavior is realized and used as an experimental system. Based on measured data from this circuit the previously presented methods are evaluated and verified.


Get connected. The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to Creating a Social Network takes reader through the technical aspects of creating a successful site-and addresses the responsibilities involved in running one. Covers how to build and maintain a website through a white label service such as GroupSite or Ning, and by using customized software for creating one's own network Addresses such issues as privacy, authenticity, fostering participation, quality versus quantity, moral and ethical guidelines, and much more Americans now average more than six hours per month on social networks, with an active unique social network audience estimated to be from 149 million-up 29 percent from 2009 Ad revenue taken in by social networking sites is growing rapidly, and many people and companies are looking for ways to get in on this growth


It is recognized that 80% of data have a spatial component (ex. street address, place name, geographic coordinates, map coordinates). Having the possibilities to display data on maps, to compare maps of different phenomena or epochs, and to combine maps with tables and statistical charts allows one to get more insights into spatial datasets. Furthermore, performing fast spatio-temporal analysis, interactively exploring the data by drilling on maps similarly to drilling on tables and charts, and easily synchronizing such operations among these views is nowadays required by more and more users. This can be done by combining Geographical Information Systems (GIS) with On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP), paving the way to " SOLAP " (Spatial OLAP). The present chapter focuses on the spatial characteristics of SOLAP from a geomatics engineering point of view: concepts, architectures, tools and remaining challenges.


With data from over a thousand regional varieties of Chinese, the paper presents a comprehensive survey of ditransitive constructions in Chinese dialects and their alignment types, focusing in particular on delving in system-internal and external factors correlating with the observed typological distinctions. It starts with questioning the validity of one of Hashimoto's (1976) well-known parameters for North-South typological classification of Chinese – i.e., the double object construction (DOC) takes the form of V-OR-OT in Northern Chinese and V-OT-OR in Southern Chinese, the latter also known as the 'Inverted DOC' (IDOC), – based on the fact that two distinct groups of Southern Chinese, i.e., Min and Southwestern Mandarin spoken in Southwestern China, tally unexpectedly with Northern Chinese and only allow the form of V-OR-OT. It is subsequently found that the distinction is strongly correlated with the typology of the generalpurpose verb of giving (the verb 'to give'). All dialects with DOC possess an underived ditransitive verb 'to give', whereas those with IDOC in general lack such as verb, using instead the combination of a monotransitive handling verb and an allative preposition, i.e., the dative construction in the form of 'take OT to OR', to express the 'give'-type ditransitive event. This finding naturally leads to the following conclusions: (1) it is the loss of the verb 'to give' that triggers the loss of DOC in the latter group of dialects, which consequently renders the dative construction as the only 'give'-type ditransitive construction in such dialects; (2) the IDOC is in nature an indirective construction (dative construction) with merely the dative marker left out, and the driving force of the omission is nothing but a high usage frequency of the indirective construction.It is further observed that the English-like dative alternation between the DOC and the dative construction existing in Chinese for thousands of years since Archaic Chinese is only preserved in a small fraction of its modern varieties. The majority of Chinese dialects have undergone a typological shift from the mixed type to either the DOC-type (predominantly Northern Chinese) or the indirectivetype (predominantly Southern Chinese), motivated by the systerm-external factor (Altaization of Northern Chinese in the former case) and the systerm-internal factor (loss of the verb 'to give' in the latter case) respectively


Synthesis of γ-nitroaldehydes from branched chain aldehydes and a range of α,β-unsaturated nitroalkenes was achieved by a whole-cell biocatalytic reaction using 4-oxalocrotonate tautomerase as catalyst. Under mild conditions, cyclic and acyclic branched aldehydes were converted into synthetically valuable quaternary carbon containing γ-nitroaldehydes. The yields of the desired products were influenced by reaction condition parameters such as organic solvent, temperature and pH. The whole-cell biocatalytic approach to the generation of α,α-substituted γ-nitroaldehydes was compared to the organocatalytic approach involving the lithium salt of phenylalanine as a catalyst. As the resulting γ-nitroaldehydes exhibited moderate antifungal activity and mild in vitro cytotoxicity against human fibroblasts (0.2–0.4 mM) they could further be examined as potentially useful pharmaceutical synthons.


Congenital diaphragmatic hernia is a defect in the diaphragm. The diaphragm, which is composed of muscle and other fibrous tissue, separates the organs in the abdomen from those in the chest. Abnormal development of the diaphragm before birth leads to defects ranging from a thinned area in the diaphragm to its complete absence. An absent or partially formed diaphragm results in an abnormal opening (hernia) that allows the stomach and intestines to move into the chest cavity and crowd the heart and lungs. This crowding can lead to underdevelopment of the lungs (pulmonary hypoplasia), potentially resulting in life-threatening breathing difficulties that are apparent from birth.


Welcome to the Spring Simulation Multi-Conference 2013 (SpringSim'13) in San Diego, CA. As the General Chair of this year's SpringSim, it is an honor and privilege to be your host for these exciting four days of activities driven and organized by the various members of our society. Despite challenges in the worldwide economy and the overall decrease of funding for travel and conferences, the interest in Modeling and Simulation (M&S) and its applications is still high enough to ensure a challenging and interesting program. From the opening tutorial day where international experts are providing their knowledge to our community to the presentation of peer-reviewed papers, invited special topic presentations, and expert panel discussions the chairs of our symposia did their best to provide an outstanding choice. Without the work of these volunteers, SpringSim would not have been possible.


Background: Aerva lanata (L) Juss. Ex. Schult. (Amaranthaceae) commonly known as Pashanabheda is used traditionally in Indian system of medicines for various diseases including urolithiasis. Objective: Screening of bioactivity guided fractions of Aerva lanata (L) for antioxidant and antiurolithiatic potency. Materials and Method: The dried hydro alcoholic extract (10%) of the whole plant was fractionated with different organic solvents like dichloromethane (fraction I), ethyl acetate (fraction II), n-butanol (fraction III). Based on preliminary phytochemical tests, only two fractions (II and III) were tested for antioxidant efficacy by DPPH Radical Scavenging assay and antiurolitiathic potentials on male Wistar albino rats by administering ethylene glycol (0.75% v/v) by oral route. Urine and blood serum were collected from all the tested animals and analyzed for the presence of calcium, oxalate, magnesium, phosphate, and BUN. Both kidneys were isolated and subjected to histopathological study. Results: Antioxidant assay has revealed that the tested fractions were equally potent as that of the standard drugs (BHT and Vitamin C). The treatment with ethyl acetate and n-butanol fractions significantly decreased the calcium, phosphate and BUN levels and increase in magnesium level in experimental rats (p<0.001). The urine analysis has also revealed significant (p<0.001) reduction in crystal size in the treated rats. Conclusion: The fractions (ethyl acetate and n-butanol) have shown significant antioxidant effect along with the Antiurolithiatic potency by reducing calculi through different pathways along with mild diuretic activity.


One of the areas that have the potential untapped river water that is in Nagari Padang West Sumatra Ganting Tanah Datar. This area has a rain-fed agricultural land and cultivation can only 1 time in a year, but often failed harvests due to erratic rainfall while irrigated land can grow crops three times a year. From this condition held a mill that is capable of moving the pump to supply the water needs of rainfed rice fields of society. The method used in problem solving is to design a water wheel pump screw propulsion is environmentally friendly. Planning windmill was adapted to the potential presence of the surrounding area. Utilization of river water into a precision that is possible. Before it is delivered to the public for use in the first trial feasibility. From this activity, the target achievement is a model tool that can irrigate agricultural land to grow crops such as paddy rice 1 hectare to 5 hours of operating time / day (without the help of rain). The results of this turbine design produces water flow capacity that can be pumped by 40 ltr / min, with a torque power large enough to dimamfaatkan propulsion pump with a constant flow rate of an average of 5 m / sec. Pump shaft rotation by comparison magnified 5 times to 1500 rpm. Turbine output shaft rotation on average 550 rpm. This screw waterwheel can work continuously so that the pump can be driven over the wheel rotates. With this condition the water being pumped continuously irrigate the fields which are in terrain height of the elevation angle of 300 and a high-lift can reach 10 m.


Spores of Helicophyllum torquatum (Hook.) Brid. (Helicophyllaceae, a monotypic family of tropical mosses) were studied by means of TEM, SEM, and LM. Different techniques of staining were employed to reveal the sporoderm structure. The spores are isomorphic, medium-sized (ranging from 26.40 to 41.80 μm), heteropolar, subcircular amb, plane-convex, catatremate, the surface consists of granules and gemmae. The systematic significance of spore morphology of this species are being considered here for the first time. Spore characteristics are congruent with the hypothesis of an affinity of the Helicophyllaceae with acrocarpous lineages.


Full-Heusler compounds exhibit a variety of magnetic properties such as non-magnetism, ferromagnetism, ferrimagnetism and anti-ferromagnetism. In recent years, they have attracted significant attention as potential thermoelectric (TE) materials that convert thermal energy directly into electricity. This chapter reviews the theoretical and experimental studies on the TE properties of magnetic full-Heusler compounds. In Section 1, a brief outline of TE power generation is described. Section 2 introduces the crystal structures and magnetic properties of full-Heusler compounds. The TE properties of full-Heusler compounds are presented in Sections 3 and 4. The relationship between magnetism, TE properties and order degree of full-Heusler compounds is elaborated.


A combined experimental and computational study was carried out to investigate the laminar flow of a nonlinear viscoplastic fluid through an axisymmetric sudden expansion. The yield-stress, power-law index, and the consistency index of the yield shear-thinning test fluid were 0.733 Pa, 0.68, and 0.33 Pa · s0.68 , respectively, resulting in a Hedstrom number of 1.65. The Reynolds number ranged between 1.8 and 58.7. In addition, the flow of a Newtonian fluid through the same expansion was also studied to form a baseline for comparison. Velocity vectors were obtained on the vertical center plane using a digital particle image velocimeter (PIV). From these measurements. two-dimensional distributions of axial and radial velocity as well as the stream function were calculated covering the separated, reattached and redeveloping flow regions. These results were compared to finite difference numerical solutions of the governing continuity and fully-elliptic momentum equations. The calculations were found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. Both computational and experimental results indicate the existence of two distinct flow regimes. For low Reynolds numbers, a region of nonmoving fluid is observed immediately downstream of the step and no separated flow zone exists. For the higher Reynolds numbers, a recirculating flow zone forms downstream of the expansion step, which is followed by a zone of stagnant fluid adjacent to pipe wall characterizing reattachment.


Road safety is one of the most important emerging applications envisioned for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs). Generally, such applications involve the broadcast of safety messages, consisting of beacons transmitting vehicles' state (e.g. position and velocity) with a regular period, as well as emergency messages warning about unexpected critical events. From the perspective of safety, the application performance depends foremost on two metrics: for the event-driven warning messages, the probability of message reception; and for periodic messages, the variability of the inter-reception time (IRT), which ultimately determines the freshness of the information received by the driver. In this paper, we develop an analytical model to compute the above metrics in an urban traffic scenario. Focusing on a road segment linked to a signalized junction as a basic building block of urban traffic systems, we apply a novel road traffic density model to investigate the dynamics of the reliability metrics and characterize the region(s) on the road segment according to the achieved safety level. Our numerical study shows that in broadcast mode, the hidden terminal effect is the driving factor determining the reliability of transmissions. Furthermore, the impact of hidden terminals has the greatest effect in road sections where vehicles have high velocity, leading to the poorest performance in regions where reliable reception is needed the most in order to minimize the risk of accidents.


This research work addresses the problem of how to enable efficient data query in a Mobile Ad-hoc Social Network (MASON), formed by mobile users who share similar interests and connect with one another by exploiting Bluetooth and/or WiFi connections. The data query in MASONs faces several unique challenges including opportunistic link connectivity, autonomous computing and storage, and unknown or inaccurate data providers. Our goal is to determine an optimal transmission strategy that supports the desired query rate within a delay budget and at the same time minimizes the total communication cost. To this end, we propose a centralized optimization model that offers useful theoretic insights and develop a distributed data query protocol for practical applications. To demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed scheme and to gain useful empirical insights, we carry out a testbed experiment by using 25 off-the-shelf Dell Streak tablets for a period of 15 days. Moreover, extensive simulations are carried out to learn the performance trend under various network settings, which are not practical to build and evaluate in laboratories.
Keywords: Mobile Adhoc Social Network; Delay-Tolerant networks (DTNs); Time-To-Live (TTL); Delegation Query; Delay-tolerant networks; Dynamic Redundancy Control


This paper establishes a randomized algorithm that finds a satisfying assignment for a satisfiable formula F in 3-CNF in O(1.32793n) expected running time. The algorithms is based on the analysis of socalled strings, which are sequences of 3-clauses where non-succeeding clauses do not share a variable and succeeding clauses share one or two variables. One the one hand, if there are not many independent strings, we can solve F with a decent success probability, but on the other hand, if there are many strings, we use them to improve the running time of Schöning's 3-SAT algorithm. Within a string, propagation of unit clauses is used to find successors.


This article analyzes findings on occupied territories, casualties, and damages of the war from economic, political, and social perspectives. The utmost brutality and atrocity of the overall conflict is memorized with Khojaly massacre committed against Azerbaijani civilians on 26 February 1992. Hence, the article unveils evidences through the scrutiny of secondary data from academic sources, publications, and news materials published by international media. The particular focus of the study is concentrated on to what extend special plan was prepared deliberately for ethnic cleansing in Khojaly during the Nagorno-Karabakh war. [R]


Puducherry is a coastal region in India where the growth of Ulva fasciata (Delile) is very abundant on all marine structures. Though the detrimental effect of this macro algae Ulva fasciata is a secondary one, its effect has to ascertain. To know its effect, the basic mechanism by which Ulva fasciata deteriorates concrete structures, M20 grade concrete cubes were casted and kept in the coastal area where there is abundant growth of Ulva fasciata and also laboratory simulation has been carried out. To ascertain the detrimental effect by the macro algae on concrete surface, samples were collected from the concrete cubes kept in the coastal area and also from the laboratory simulated one. The collected samples were analyzed by SEM, EDX and XRD to establish the degree of deterioration done by marine algae on concrete surface. The SEM and EDX results showed that there is a remarkable change in the base materials viz., Ca and Si content and XRD results revealed the absence of Calcium Hydroxide. Both the results confirmed the biodeterioration of concrete by the marine green algae.


This paper develops a semantics for a fragment of English that is based on the idea of `impossible possible worlds'. This idea has earlier been formulated by authors such as Montague, Cresswell, Hintikka, and Rantala, but the present set-up shows how it can be formalized in a completely unproblematic logic---the ordinary classical theory of types. The theory is put to use in an account of propositional attitudes that is `hyperfine-grained', i.e. that does not suffer from the well-known problems involved with replacing expressions by logical equivalents.


Malaria is a disease that affects the world, caused by the parasite Plasmodium which resistance is emerging to medications that usually control it. Therefore, it is essential to seek alternative treatments like this one, our multidisciplinary work pursues, a variable radiofrequency energy at 2.45GHz to decrease the growth of parasitemia in blood. Experiments are carried on in vitro samples of blood infected with Plasmodium falciparum radiated in a microwave cavity controlling the rise of the temperature. The thermal properties of samples infected at different stages of the parasite are analyzed separately without using microwave radiation for thermal characterization. The energy absorbed by the infected sample is estimated using the specific heat of blood with Plasmodium falciparum. For thermo energetic control, radiation is applied in different duty cycles for a determined amount of energy observing an alteration which it is accentuated in energy radiation with more duty cycles and less power in watts. Our preliminary results show that thermo-energetic control system produce alterations in the growth of parasitemia levels. Furthermore, we confirm that using microwave radiation has a negative effect in the growth of Plasmodium falciparum. There is also, an increment of the specific heat as the parasitemia percentage increase in late stage parasites because in schizonts the Plasmodium falciparum changes the biophysical properties of the red blood cell. This thermo-energetic characterization could be transferred to in vivo samples, with the necessary adjustments for future applications.


Signal-transducing adaptor protein-2 (STAP-2) is a recently identified adaptor protein that contains pleckstrin homology- and Src homology 2-like domains as well as a YXXQ motif in its C-terminal region. Our previous studies demonstrated that STAP-2 binds to STAT3 and STAT5, and regulates their signaling pathways. In the present study, we find that STAP-2-deficient splenocytes or T cells exhibit enhanced cell adhesion to fibronectin after PMA treatment, and that STAP-2-deficient T cells contain the increased protein contents of focal adhesion kinase (FAK). Furthermore, overexpression of STAP-2 induces a dramatic decrease in the protein contents of FAK and integrin-mediated T cell adhesion to fibronectin in Jurkat T cells via the degradation of FAK. Regarding the mechanism for this effect, we found that STAP-2 associates with FAK and enhances its degradation, proteasome inhibitors block FAK degradation, and STAP-2 recruits an endogenous E3 ubiquitin ligase, Cbl, to FAK. These results reveal a novel regulation mechanism for integrin-mediated signaling in T cells via STAP-2, which directly interacts with and degrades FAK.


Do industrial relations (IR) influence organizational performance? This remains a fundamental question in IR since it is a matter of credibility and "bread-and-butter" for both academics and practitioners. Economic literature has explored the union impact on organizational performance, especially on the productivity dimension of performance. More recent studies state that performance is not determined by union presence per se but rather by the workplace climate and the union influence on the practices implemented. In the human resource management (HRM) literature, the system of practices is viewed as the proper unit of analysis in order to understand and evaluate the full impact of the IR or HRM practices on performance.This study examines the economic conception of performance through three dimensions: productivity, efficiency (production costs), and profitability. The effects of HRM-IR practices and workplace climate on these dimensions of economic performance are tested here. Three complementary economic models are used in multivariate regression analysis to verify these relationships: production and cost functions, and a profitability determination model. Designed for the banking sector, all these models have already been tested in the same sector or on the same population and they control for many variables such as capital, assets, and labour input.The evidence put forward in this article is based on 1994 data from 241 establishments affiliated with the Desjardins' credit union Federation. Research data came from two main sources. The first source is the Federation where access was granted to information on the financial performance of credit unions and on the work force. The second source is a questionnaire on the HRM-IR practices in effect (presence and age) and on the workplace climate prevailing in each establishment. The questionnaire was distributed to every affiliate (324) and a rate of return of 74.4% was obtained. The establishments studied provide the ideal framework for this type of research in several ways: very similar activities and technologies, autonomy of the credit unions, availability of establishment-level performance data, etc.The following indicators have been introduced in the estimates. First, we introduced indicators of three HRM-IR practices system dimensions that were created on factor analysis conducted on the HRM-IR practices indicators (number of years since implementation). In this sample, the system of workplace practices is found to be made up of three dimensions: (1) Mobilization, involving the presence of a monetary incentive plan, social activity committee, training program, succession plan, performance appraisal and information meetings; (2) Voice, associated with problem/grievance resolution, labour-management/personnel committee, written specification of working conditions, health and safety committee, and training committee; and (3) Involvement, associated with a suggestion system and colloquium. Second, a workplace climate index, based on turnover, disciplinary actions per employee, days of absenteeism per employee, and days lost because of work accidents per employee, was also included in the estimates to test the influence of work climate.Statistical analysis shows that all dimensions have positive and statistically significant links with productivity. None of the factors has a significant impact on production costs or on profitability. Finally, a poor workplace climate is associated significantly in all estimates with lower productivity and higher production costs as expected. The net effect of this variable on profitability is negative although not significantly. This study reveals that IR features have a significant impact on organizational performance.The results suggest that the HRM-IR practices system and workplace climate represent more adequate and precise indicators of the IR system at the establishment level than do for instance, union presence or individual practices. In accordance with the configurational approach, the results confirm that the most substantial effect on performance is obtained when practices are considered as a system. This implies that there is no "magic bullet," no single practice that can achieve the same kind of results. Other results suggest, based on the age of the practices implemented, that costs associated with the IR-HRM practices can be written off over time. The implication is that there is a delay before the practices achieve the desired outcomes and one must be patient before judging the value of the practices implemented. The research also suggests that the workplace climate is a determinant of the economic performance. So climate should also be considered when practitioners are looking for ways to improve their organization's performance. The results show finally that more than one dimension of firm performance should be considered in order to understand how HRM and IR do influence the firm performance. It remains necessary to continue the research with larger data banks, collected over a longer time period, and to study other industries and individual cases in order to corroborate our original contribution to this complex but important question.


Diagnosing different retinal diseases from Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT) images is a challenging task. Different automated approaches such as image processing, machine learning and deep learning algorithms have been used for early detection and diagnosis of retinal diseases. Unfortunately, these are prone to error and computational inefficiency, which requires further intervention from human experts. In this paper, we propose a novel convolution neural network architecture to successfully distinguish between different degeneration of retinal layers and their underlying causes. The proposed novel architecture outperforms other classification models while addressing the issue of gradient explosion. Our approach reaches near perfect accuracy of 99.8% and 100% for two separately available Retinal SD-OCT data-set respectively. Additionally, our architecture predicts retinal diseases in real time while outperforming human diagnosticians.


The tensions existing between faculty and administrators at colleges and universities have come to be an accepted part of postsecondary education. Calls from lawmakers for increasing federal and state oversight, decreasing enrollments, and diminishing resources are among the many issues facing colleges today. Faculty and administrators who work at colleges subscribing to a shared governance model of decision-making attempt to address these and other challenges together, in the same room. Finding ways to assure the success of the shared governance process can be a challenge for most colleges, but one on which the future of such governance relies. The purpose of this heuristic phenomenological, qualitative research study was to look at the phenomenon of faculty's lived experience working in a shared governance environment at small private liberal arts colleges. The researcher presents four themes that emerged from the primary data source, which was three interviews of nine tenured faculty members at three different small, private liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. The four themes are: 1) the relationships between faculty and their administrators influence the level of faculty engagement in shared governance; 2) faculty value communication and transparency and recognize how it influences their participation in decision-making; 3) the extent to which administrators value faculty input influences faculty morale and motivation to participate in governance; and 4) the complexities of power influence faculty engagement in governance. These findings could be used to aid faculty and administrators in the conversations about how to improve their own college's practice of shared governance.


hat are the origins of the ethnic landscapes in contemporary states? Drawing on a preregistered research design, we test the influence of dual socioeconomic revolutions that spread throughout Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — export agriculture and print technologies. We argue these changes transformed ethnicity via their effects on politicization and boundary-making. Print technologies strengthened imagined communities, leading to more salient — yet porous — ethnic identities. Cash crop endowments increased groups ' mobilizational potential but with more exclusionary boundaries to control agricultural rents. Using historical data on cash crops and African language publications, we find that groups exposed to these historical forces are more likely to be politically relevant in the postindependence period, and their members report more salient ethnic identities. We observe heterogenous effects on boundary-making as measured by interethnic marriage; relative to cash crops, printing fostered greater openness to assimilate linguistically related outsiders. Our findings illuminate not only the historical sources of ethnic politicization but also mechanisms shaping boundary formation.


The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two instructional approaches in the teaching of reading in the sixth grade. These approaches are (1) the diagnostic-basal reader approach, and (2) the basal reader approach. This study was conducted with ninety-seven sixth grade pupils from Winans School, one of the thirteen elementary schools in Hutchinson, Kansas. These pupils were divided into two groups, the experimental group and the control group with forty-eight and forty-nine pupils respectively. Each group received a total of sixty minutes of reading instruction and had fifteen minutes of free reading of library books each day. By using a t to test for the significance of difference between the means of pre-test scores on the Henmon-Nelson Intelligence Test (Elementary) and the Metropolitan Reading Test, it was found that the experimental and control groups were comparable at the .05 level. The experimental group and the control group were divided into three subgroups, (1) these pupils with intelligence quotients above 120, (2) those pupils with intelligence quotients between 101-120, and (3) those pupils with intelligence quotients below 100. On the reading post-test there was a significance of difference at the .01 level favoring the experimental group on word knowledge, reading comprehension, and on total reading scores. No significance of difference was evident on the post-test scores at the .05 level for the experimental and control subgroups with intelligence quotients above 120. There was a significance of difference at the .01 level on word knowledge and on total reading scores for the experimental and control subgroups having intelligence quotients between 101-120. On reading comprehension there was a significance of difference at the .025 level. The experimental subgroup with intelligence quotients below 100 was favored at the .01 level of significance on word knowledge, reading comprehension, and on total reading scores. All of the experimental subgroups and two of the control subgroups achieved above 5.7, the standardized test norm, on word knowledge, reading comprehension, and on total reading scores. The low intelligence control subgroup scored below 6.7 in all three areas of reading. The increase in the mean total reading test scores show that all three of the experimental subgroups made higher gains than any of the control subgroups.


From a cognitive point of view, personality perception corresponds to capturing individual differences and can be thought of as positioning the people around us in an ideal personality space. The more similar the personality of two individuals, the closer their position in the space. This work shows that the mutual position of two individuals in the personality space can be inferred from prosodic features. The experiments, based on ordinal regression techniques, have been performed over a corpus of 640 speech samples comprising 322 individuals assessed in terms of personality traits by 11 human judges, which is the largest database of this type in the literature. The results show that the mutual position of two individuals can be predicted with up to 80% accuracy.


Classical rate-distortion theory requires specifying a source distribution. Instead, we analyze rate-distortion properties of individual objects using the recently developed algorithmic rate-distortion theory. The latter is based on the noncomputable notion of Kolmogorov complexity. To apply the theory we approximate the Kolmogorov complexity by standard data compression techniques, and perform a number of experiments with lossy compression and denoising of objects from different domains. We also introduce a natural generalization to lossy compression with side information. To maintain full generality we need to address a difficult searching problem. While our solutions are therefore not time efficient, we do observe good denoising and compression performance.


Financial firms engage in a wide range of private conduct. New rules that address financial risk can regulate elements of that conduct but not all conduct or all the factors that affect conduct. There is, therefore, a real concern that new regulation will have unanticipated consequences, particularly in a system as complex as the financial markets. The result may be new risks or a shift in risk taking away from regulated conduct — responses that regulators can anticipate but may not be able to accurately predict or control.This Article cautions against the rush to adopt new financial risk regulation without first assessing its broader impact on risk taking. Attempting to do so with limited information may be difficult. For illustration, it touches on three areas where new regulation may result in new (or greater) risks: bank capital requirements, a financial transaction tax, and disclosure in the credit default swap market. A better approach may be to introduce new regulation in stages — what I refer to as the "Goldilocks approach." Increasingly, regulators should be authorized to phase in or forego new regulation over time as it becomes clear, through experience, what the likely impact will be. At its heart, the Goldilocks approach relies on real options to develop new rules. Through staging, regulators can acquire additional information on the impact of new rules on conduct and, as necessary, adjust those rules to reflect any unanticipated consequences — perhaps a more effective approach to implementing regulation than efforts to finalize new rules from the outset.


Ogawa has defined sets of Weierstrass points of a holomorphic vector bundle on a compact complex manifold. We generate nontrivial examples of such sets of Weierstrass points by considering the canonical bundle on a product of Riemann surfaces. In the first section, we review Ogawa's definition and some classical facts about Weierstrass points on Riemann surfaces. In §2, we prove our theorems and consider an example to illustrate the proofs. Finally, we remark that a connection between Weierstrass points on a Riemann surface and fixed points of a periodic automorphism does not seem to extend to higher dimensions. We wish to thank Pierre Conner for helpful conversations and Roy Ogawa for useful communications.


This paper presents an analysis of the recent evolution of social assistance in the developing world, looking at its complex typological configuration, which has interlinked with, and partly reflects the complex demographic and epidemiological transitions and rapid urbanization and economic convergence that many developing countries have exhibited over the past decades. The paper underscores the principles of the poverty focus of social assistance and presents an overview of existence evidence of first‐ and second‐order effects of social assistance, particularly in the domains of poverty, education, health, and labor markets. Moreover, the paper highlights the knowledge gaps with regard to the longer term and gender‐specific welfare effects of social assistance, and the redistributive effects, and the incentives and distortion mechanisms that transfer programs can generate in the labor and insurance markets.


The set of concepts collectively known as Technical Debt (TD) assume that software liabilities set up a context that can make a future change more costly or impossible; and therefore repaying the debt should be pursued. However, software developers often disagree with an automatically generated list of improvement suggestions, which they consider not fitting or important for their own code. To shed light into the reasons that drive developers to adopt or reject refactoring opportunities (i.e. TD repayment), we have performed an empirical study on the potential factors that affect the developers? decision to agree with the removal of a specific TD liability. The study has been addressed to the developers of four well-known open-source applications. To increase the response rate, a personalized assessment has first been sent to each developer, summarizing his/her own contribution to the TD of the corresponding project. Responds have been collected through a custom built web application that presented code fragments suffering from violations as identified by SonarQube along with information that could possibly affect their level of agreement to the importance of resolving an issue. These factors include data such as the frequency of past changes in the module under study, the number of bugs, the type and intensity of the violation, the level of involvement of the developer and whether he/she is a contributor in the corresponding project. Multivariate statistical analysis methods have been used to understand the importance and the underlying relationships among these factors and the results are expected to be useful for researchers and practitioners in TD Management.


Natural selection and phenotypic plasticity can both produce locally differentiated phenotypes, but novel environments or gene combinations can produce plasticity that works in opposition to adaptive change. The red-shouldered soapberry bug (Jadera haematoloma) was locally adapted to feed on the seeds of an introduced and a native host plant in Florida in the 1980s. By 2014, local differentiation was lost and replaced by phenotypically similar populations all adapted to the introduced host, likely as a result of gene flow. Here, I quantify the effects of these two host plants on individual performance, natural selection, and phenotypic plasticity. I find that the seed coat and seedpod of the native host have strong negative effects on juvenile survival and adult reproduction compared to the introduced host. I find support for the hypothesis that the seedpod is driving diversifying natural selection on beak length, which was previously locally adapted between hosts. I also find maladaptive plasticity induced by host plant: bugs develop beak lengths that are mismatched with the seedpod size of the host they are reared on. This plasticity may be the result of gene flow; hybrids in the 1990s showed the same pattern of maladaptive plasticity, and plasticity is stronger in the present in areas with high gene flow. Although ongoing natural selection has produced locally adapted genotypes in soapberry bugs, maladaptive plasticity has masked the phenotypic difference between populations in the field.


This book guides the reader through perhaps the single most important philosophical work of the twentieth century - Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. The author presents Wittgenstein's Investigations in a radically new light using short sections to clarify the main arguments, including the famous Private Language Argument. This is accomplished through the author's extremely clear and accessible writing style, bringing a new clarity to a reputedly difficult work. The author demonstrates the continuing importance of Wittgenstein's ideas to contemporary debates in cognitive linguistics and psychology.


We present the detection of kinematic infall signatures toward the Class 0 protostellar system SMM4 in the Serpens cloud core. We have observed the dense molecular gas toward the embedded source using millimeter and submillimeter line transitions of density sensitive molecular tracers. High signal-to-noise ratio maps obtained in HCO+ J = 1 → 0, J = 3 → 2, and J = 4 → 3, and CS J = 2 → 1 show the blue-bulge infall signature. The blue-bulge infall signature can be observed in the centroid velocity maps of protostellar objects when infall dominates over rotation. The line profiles of HCO+ and CS exhibit the characteristic blue asymmetric line profile signature consistent with infall. In addition, HCO+ and CS optical depth profiles obtained using isotopic observations show a red asymmetry also consistent with an infall interpretation. Using three-dimensional radiative transfer models based on the rotating, collapse model of Terebey, Shu, & Cassen, we derive infall parameters of the source. To determine the direction and orientation of molecular outflows in the larger Serpens cluster, wide-field mapping of CO J = 1 → 0 emission was also performed.


The development of mathematics is foundational. For the most part in early childhood it is seldom insurmountable. Various constructions exhibit conceptual change in the child, which is evidence of overcoming the learning paradox. If one tries to account for learning by means of mental actions carried out by
the learner, then it is necessary to attribute to the learner a prior structure , one that is as advanced or as complex as the one to be acquired, unless there is emergence. This thesis reinterprets Piaget's theory using research from neurophysiology, biology, machine learning and demonstrates a novel approach to partially resolve the learning paradox for a simulation that experiences a number line world, exhibiting emergence of structure using a model of Drosophila. In doing so, the research evaluates other models of cognitive development against a real-world, worked example of number-sense from childhood mathematics. The purpose is to determine if they assume a prior capacity to solve problems or provide parallel assumptions within the learning process as additional capabilities not seen in children. Technically, the research uses an artificial neural network with reinforcement learning to confirm the emergence of permanent object invariants. It then evaluates an evolved dialectic system with hierarchical finite state automata within a reactive Argos
framework to confirm the reevaluated Piagetian developmental model against the worked example. This research thesis establishes that the emergence of new concepts is a critical need in the development of autonomous evolvable systems that can act, learn and plan in novel ways, in noisy situations.


This thesis documents the design, manufacture and testing of a passive and non-invasive micro-scale planar particle-from-fluid filter for segregating cell types from a homogeneous suspension. The microfluidics system can be used to separate spermatogenic cells from testis biopsy samples, providing a mechanism for filtrate retrieval for assisted reproduction therapy. The system can also be used for point-of-service diagnostics applications for hospitals, lab-on-a-chip pre-processing and field applications such as clinical testing in the third world. Various design concepts are developed and manufactured, and are assessed based on etched structure morphology, robustness to variations in the manufacturing process, and design impacts on fluid flow and particle separation characteristics. Segregation was measured using image processing algorithms that demonstrate efficiency is more than 55% for 1 µl volumes at populations exceeding 1 x 107. the technique supports a significant reduction in time over conventional processing, in the separation and identification of particle groups, offering a potential reduction in the associated cost of the targeted procedure. The thesis has developed a model of quasi-steady wetting flow within the micro channel and identifies the forces across the system during post-wetting equalisation. The model and its underlying assumptions are validated empirically in microfabricated test structures through a novel Micro-Particle Image Velocimetry technique. The prototype devices do not require ancillary equipment nor additional filtration media, and therefore offer fewer opportunities for sample contamination over conventional processing methods. The devices are disposable with minimal reagent volumes and process waste. Optimal processing parameters and production methods are identified with any improvements that could be made to enhance their performance in a number of identified potential applications.


The purpose of experiment one was to test the effects of drink consumed (glucose, artificial sweetener, or water) and stimuli (food or non-food) on cognitive conflict. Glucose has been known to better cognitive functioning, and preoccupation with food worsens cognitive functioning on a food-related task. We hypothesized that participants who received glucose and non-food stimuli will perform best on the cognitive tests, and participants who received aspartame and food-stimuli will perform worst on the cognitive tests. Participants were each given an 8 oz. drink to consume, shown six minutes of stimuli, performed an "X-word" Stroop test, shown six more minutes of stimuli, and finally, performed a "Food-word" Stroop test. There was a significant effect of stimulus shown on reaction time. The purpose of experiment two was to test the effects of stimuli, emotionally positive or negative, on cognitive conflict. The lateral prefrontal cortex shows a crossover between emotion and cognition, predicting behavioral performance. We hypothesized that participants who are shown positive emotion-evoking pictures will have a larger Stroop effect on a "Positive-word" Stroop and participants who are shown negative emotion-evoking pictures will have a larger Stroop effect on a "Negative-word" Stroop. Participants were shown four minutes of assigned stimuli, given a basic "Xword" Stroop test, shown four more minutes of stimuli, given either a "Positive-word" or "Negative-word" Stroop test, shown four more minutes of stimuli, and given the final Stroop test they had not yet taken. No significant results regarding a difference between positive and negative stimuli were found.


The first phase of virtual world development has focused on the novel hardware (3-D input and 3-D output) and the graphics demo. The second phase of virtual worlds development will be to focus in on the more significant part of the problem, the software bed underlying real applications. The focus of this paper is on the software required to support large scale, networked, multiparty virtual environments. We discuss navigation (virtual camera view point control and its coupling to real-time, hidden surface elimination), interaction (software for constructing a dialogue from the inputs read from our devices and for applying that dialogue to display changes), communication (software for passing changes in the world model to other players on the network, and software for allowing the entry of previously undescribed players into the system), autonomy (software for playing autonomous agents in our virtual world against interactive players), scripting (software for recording, playing back, and multitracking previous play against live or autonomous players, with autonomy provided for departures from the recorded script), and hypermedia integration (software for integrating hypermedia data—audio, compressed video, with embedded links—into our geometrically described virtual world). All of this software serves as the base for the fully detailed, fully interactive, seamless environment of the third phase of virtual world development. We discuss the development of such software by describing how a real system, the NPSNET virtual world, is being constructed.


Introduction: Sleep is often quantified using self-report or actigraphy. Self-report is practical and less technically challenging, but prone to bias. We sought to determine whether these methods have comparable sensitivity to measure longitudinal changes in adolescent bedtimes. Methods: We measured one week of free-living sleep with wrist actigraphy and usual bedtime on school nights and non-school nights with self-report questionnaire in 144 students at 15 y and 17 y. Results: Self-reported and actigraphy-measured bedtimes were correlated with one another at 15 y and 17 y (p < .001), but reported bedtime was consistently earlier (>30 minutes, p < .001) and with wide inter-method confidence intervals (> ±106 minutes). Mean inter-method discrepancy did not differ on school nights at 15 y and 17 y but was greater at 17 y on non-school nights (p = .002). Inter-method discrepancy at 15 y was not correlated to that at 17 y. Mean change in self-reported school night bedtime from 15 y to 17 y did not differ from that by actigraphy, but self-reported bedtime changed less on non-school nights (p = .002). Two-year changes in self-reported bedtime did not correlate with changes measured by actigraphy. Conclusions: Although methods were correlated, consistently earlier self-reported bedtime suggests report-bias. More varied non-school night bedtimes challenge the accuracy of self-report and actigraphy, reducing sensitivity to change. On school nights, the methods did not differ in group-level sensitivity to changes in bedtime. However, lack of correlation between bedtime changes by each method suggests sensitivity to individual-level change was different. Methodological differences in sensitivity to individual- and group-level change should be considered in longitudinal studies of adolescent sleep patterns.


With the passage of NAFTA and GATT, the steady integration of the European Community, and the emergence of promising new markets in Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim, businesses around the world are globalizing their operations with unprecedented speed. But as executives working in foreign countries have discovered, organizational cultures can differ dramatically from country to country, and management practices effective back home can fail miserably abroad. The Transplanted Executive provides a comprehensive resource for managers of any nationality striving to understand the diversity of workplace values and traditions - and how they can be used to maximize employee efficiency, morale, and the bottom line. Offering sensible solutions to everyday problems, this informative volume shows how employees with different cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds respond to specific managerial techniques. The authors demonstrate, for example, why effective incentive systems in Japan might decrease productivity in United States, and why successful efforts to create team-based cooperation in Russia could alienate rather than motivate workers in England. Each chapter focuses on a different management problem - effective communication, motivation of workers, turning groups into teams, leadership skills, and quality management production - and following each chapter are quick reference charts that neatly summarize the text. The authors also include a table which provides cultural profiles of nearly 50 countries from major business centres around the world. Now more than ever, multinational managers need to be in touch with the range of cultural issues that can affect their overseas operations. With The Transplanted Executive in hand, managers the world over will have a user-friendly guide to understanding and mastering the subject.


In order to solve problems of uncovered region in regionbased motion estimation, we address a novel method which generates the uncovered region memory using backward motion estimation, and present results of the application to very low bit rate video coding. In the proposed algorithm, changed regions are detected by using frame difference (FD) and segment information. For the changed region of previously reconstructed frame, backward motion compensated prediction is performed. Then, with motion information, the uncovered region memory is generated and updated without transmission of shape information. Whenever the uncovered region appears in the scene, the algorithm adaptively selects between spatial prediction from the previously reconstructed image and temporal prediction from a special uncovered memory. The regions with large prediction error are transformed and encoded. Simulation results show an improvement in the subjective and objective image quality due to the remarkable reduction of transmission bits for prediction error.


Sports betting markets continue to receive considerable attention from researchers regarding questions of market efficiency. The vast majority of papers have tested these markets with respect to the outcome of a single game. This article is the first to examine the National Basketball Association (NBA) season wins total over/under betting market. Woodland and Woodland (2013) investigated the analogous market for the National Football League (NFL), and found it to be sufficiently inefficient to provide bettors with profitable wagering opportunities. Betting rules are motivated by bettor biases in assessing publicly available information. Although the NBA season wins total market is slightly more efficient than the NFL, profitable betting strategies are still available for both the over and under bets. Individuals tend to overvalue a team's performance in the previous season and demonstrate a sentiment bias, with a preference towards stronger teams.


Across the major immigrant societies of the European Union, EU-15 countries, migrants and minorities still experience economic disadvantage. This failure of economic integration poses significant questions about the utilization of human capital, the management of mobility and the competitiveness of European labour markets (Cameron, 2011; OECD, 2017). Using a variety of datasets, this special issue pushes the debate forward in several ways. We will consider the integration outcomes of both migrants and second generation minority members in comparison to majority members. Labour market outcomes will be considered broadly: the probability of employment but also overqualification will be taken into account. Offering both analysis of single country cases and a cross-national comparison, the special issue will build a comprehensive picture of the factors associated with labour market disadvantage of migrant men and women, and their descendants—particularly, differential returns to foreign qualifications and educational credentials, differences between public and private sectors placements, and where possible the period of the economic crisis will be examined as well.


Two-thirds of the megacities of the world are standing on the coastal areas. Today, coastal megacities are under the impact of varying factors like human-induced changes such as urbanization and mega projects and the natural ones as global climate change and natural disasters. Many European coastal cities are examining the impacts of the sea level change due to the global climate change. Regarding its long history, interplay with the sea and the drastic population, Istanbul captures a significant place both in Turkey and in the world. It is standing as a city, which is phase by phase losing its interaction with the sea due to the mega projects generated within the last decades. Although their limited number; public squares and parks attached with the promenades are the only openings to the sea and they contribute maintaining the continuity and sustainability of coastal identity. This chapter handles five significant historical squares and interrogates their interplay with the natural and physical challenges of the twenty-first century. Regarding this aim, case areas are evaluated by parameters of morphological attributes, formation of squares, qualification of the surfaces and coastal-based natural disaster impacts such as sea level rise and tsunami through literature-based studies and spatio-temporal diagrammatic maps.


Neurological rehabilitation aims to reduce the restrictions on an individual's participation in society. Psychometrically rigorous and clinically relevant outcome measures, used appropriately, enhance the evidence base of rehabilitation. This Thesis assesses routinely used outcome measures at three time points: inpatient, outpatient, and longer-term follow-up. First, a retrospective analysis of the inpatient database of the Neurorehabilitation Unit was carried out to assess the Barthel index (BI) and Functional Independence Measure (FIM). Second, a prospective study examined the impact of rehabilitation on physical function and emotional wellbeing. Five measures were completed on admission, discharge and three months post-discharge: the BI (clinician and patient scored versions), FIM, General Health Questionnaire and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Finally, the effect of multiple sclerosis (MS) on work retention was assessed in a cross- sectional study using a newly developed outcome measure, the Impact on Work Questionnaire. In the first study, the responsiveness of the Bl and FIM total scores ranged from moderate to large. But item level analyses indicated differential item performance, with effect sizes varying from very low to large, associated with large floor and ceiling effects. The second study demonstrated the significant improvements in physical and psychological functioning in patients undergoing rehabilitation. Physical gains persisted after discharge, however, emotional wellbeing deteriorated. The last study revealed that a combination of MS-related problems, environmental restrictions and poor vocational support impact on work retention in people with MS. Following patients through the rehabilitation process, in the form of three distinct studies, has afforded a unique view of the effect of rehabilitation in neurological conditions. Furthermore, the examination of routinely used measures has provided guidance on the application of these in future research. Choosing the most appropriate measures and analytical techniques provides richer data, facilitates accurate evaluation of rehabilitation interventions, and ultimately improves patient care.


Auto ownership is a critical mediating link in the connection between the built environment and travel behavior: the built environment presumably influences auto ownership, which in turn impacts travel behavior. However, the way in which individual elements of the built environment affect auto-ownership choices is far from understood. Further, residential self-selection may confound the interaction between the built environment and auto ownership. And the absence of panel data impedes our understanding of the causal relationships. Using a survey of 1682 respondents in Northern California, we applied ordered probit and static-score modeling techniques to investigate the causal link from the built environment to auto ownership in both cross-sectional and quasi-panel contexts. Through variable selection in cross-sectional analysis, we found that individuals' attitudes regarding residential neighborhood and travel are more strongly associated with their auto-ownership decision than is the built environment per se. Specifically, when general preferences for various neighborhood traits were allowed to enter the model, they drove out from the model the (perceived) measure of the same trait for the neighborhood of current residence, a pattern suggesting that the observed correlation between neighborhood characteristics and auto ownership is primarily a result of self-selection. On the other hand, the quasi-panel results indicate that some built-environment elements such as outdoor spaciousness and mixed land use are causes of auto ownership (remaining even after attitudes were allowed to enter the model), but their effects are marginal. In contrast, the strong influence of sociodemographics suggests that households' auto-ownership decisions are fundamentally based on their mobility needs and purchasing power. Given the mixed findings, we do not definitively confirm a causal relationship between the built environment and auto ownership. However, we provide encouraging evidence that land-use policies designed to reduce auto ownership and use will lead to a marginal reduction in auto ownership.


Researchers from LISIS conducted a mixed-methods-based study to analyze how the Fairtrade Premium has been used by Fairtrade organizations and how it generates benefits for Fairtrade producers and their communities. Five cases were explored: a coffee/cocoa small-scale producer organization (SPO) in Peru, a cocoa SPO in Cote d'Ivoire, a banana SPO in Ecuador, a banana SPO in Peru and a flower plantation in Kenya. Using a combination of analysis of data from literature and the case studies, the researchers looked at four characteristics of Fairtrade Premium -- use, participation, accountability, and function -- as well as barriers and enablers for effective Premium use. Finally, the researchers analysed the pathways from Premium investment to six Fairtrade impacts (related to income, gender equality, environmental sustainability, dignity and voice for producers, transparency, and fairness and sustainability of business practices, policy and societal norms). The study provides insights that can enable farmers and workers to make transparent and informed decisions about their Premium use.