Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) play a significant role in the chemoprevention of cancer. We recently showed the chemopreventive response of a NSAID, 2-[(3-chloro-2-methylphenyl)amino]benzoic acid) known as tolfenamic acid (TA) in N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine (NMBA)-induced esophageal tumors in rats. Pre-clinical studies showed that TA inhibits Specificity protein (Sp) transcription factors and acts as an anti-cancer agent in several cancer models; however the pertinent mechanisms associated with its chemopreventive response in esophageal cancer are not known. Since the bioactivation of carcinogens through cytochrome P450 (CYP) is critical for the induction of cancer, we have studied the effect of TA on critical CYP isozymes in mouse liver samples. Athymic nude mice were treated with vehicle (corn oil) or TA (50 mg kg(-1), 3 times per week) for 4 weeks. Protein extracts (whole cell lysates and microsomal fractions) were prepared from liver tissue and the expression of various CYP isozymes was determined by Western blot analysis. Rat (Sprague-Dawley) livers were harvested and primary hepatocyte cultures were treated with vehicle (DMSO) or TA (50 μM) and cell viability was assessed at 2 and 5 days post-treatment. TA caused remarkable decrease in the expression of CYP2E1 in both liver lysates and sub-cellular fraction, while its response on other tested isozymes was marginal. TA did not affect the body weight of animals (mice) and viability of rat hepatocytes. These results demonstrate that TA modulates the expression of CYP2E1 which is associated with the bioactivation of carcinogens without causing apparent toxicity. These data suggest that TA-induced inhibition of CYP2E1 attenuates the bioactivation of carcinogens potentially leading to the chemoprevention of NMBA-induced esophageal tumorigenesis in rats.


The amount of political information that voters decide to acquire during an electoral campaign depends, among other things, on prior ideological beliefs about parties and/or candidates. Voters that are ex ante indifferent about the candidates attach little value to information because they perceive that voting itself will have little value. Voters that are ex ante very ideological also attach little value to information because they think that the news will hardly change their opinion. Thus, high incentives to be informed can be found at intermediate levels of partisanship. Moreover, the impact of increased political knowledge on turnout is asymmetric: new information increases the probability of voting of indifferent voters but decreases that of very ideological voters. These results are derived within a decision theoretical model of information acquisition and turnout that combines the Riker—Ordeshook (1968) approach to voting behaviour with the Becker (1965) approach to personal production functions. These predictions are then tested on survey data from the 1997 British Election Study (Heath et al., 1999). Our empirical findings are compatible with all the results of the theoretical exercise.


One of the main problems faced by automatic speech recognition is the variability of the testing conditions. This is due both to the acoustic conditions (different transmission channels, recording devices, noises etc.) and to the variability of speech across different speakers (i.e. due to different accents, coarticulation of phonemes and different vocal tract characteristics). Vocal tract length normalisation (VTLN) aims at normalising the acoustic signal, making it independent from the vocal tract length. This is done by a speaker specific warping of the frequency axis parameterised through a warping factor. In this thesis the application of VTLN to multiparty conversational speech was investigated focusing on the meeting domain. This is a challenging task showing a great variability of the speech acoustics both across different speakers and across time for a given speaker. VTL, the distance between the lips and the glottis, varies over time. We observed that the warping factors estimated using Maximum Likelihood seem to be context dependent: appearing to be influenced by the current conversational partner and being correlated with the behaviour of formant positions and the pitch. This is because VTL also influences the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords and thus the pitch. In this thesis we also investigated pitch-adaptive acoustic features with the goal of further improving the speaker normalisation provided by VTLN. We explored the use of acoustic features obtained using a pitch-adaptive analysis in combination with conventional features such as Mel frequency cepstral coefficients. These spectral representations were combined both at the acoustic feature level using heteroscedastic linear discriminant analysis (HLDA), and at the system level using ROVER. We evaluated this approach on a challenging large vocabulary speech recognition task: multiparty meeting transcription. We found that VTLN benefits the most from pitch-adaptive features. Our experiments also suggested that combining conventional and pitch-adaptive acoustic features using HLDA results in a consistent, significant decrease in the word error rate across all the tasks. Combining at the system level using ROVER resulted in a further significant improvement. Further experiments compared the use of pitch adaptive spectral representation with the adoption of a smoothed spectrogram for the extraction of cepstral coefficients. It was found that pitch adaptive spectral analysis, providing a representation which is less affected by pitch artefacts (especially for high pitched speakers), delivers fea-


Purpose – To investigate how Collaborative Learning Communities (CLC) can be developed and managed in Higher Education Institutions (HEI), involving international HEI partners, business clients, students and staff, with the aim of delivering real value to all parties involved. Design/methodology/approach – Using a case study approach, the paper elaborates on the creation of two CLCs on the modules Electronic Marketing (BA (Hons) Marketing) and Collective Enterprise (Master of Business Administration). Findings – The traditional in-class teaching needs to be extended using multiple platforms if HEIs are to deliver a collaborative student learning experience. The facilitation and management of the CLCs is most effective when supported by online and offline communication channels and supervision. Originality/value – The paper extends the current understanding of CLCs whilst also providing significant insights into the challenges of managing such CLCs in practice. This is useful to other HEIs wanting to integrate external parties in their student learning communities.


Predicted forest losses and a recent government ban on logging build support for trade protection of Malagasy rosewood. Logging in Madagascar, one of the world's most threatened biodiversity hot spots (1, 2), has rapidly increased amid political turmoil since a transitional government assumed power in March 2009 (1, 3). With as much as 90% of the country's primary forest already lost, continued logging will mean species extinctions across all biotic elements of Madagascar's ecosystems, where rates of endemism are unparalleled (2, 4, 5). We demonstrate immediate risk for rosewood (genus Dalbergia) species extinctions and thus the need for protection via international trade regulation under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Protection of Malagasy rosewood species, which suffer from targeted logging because of their high value in international markets, would not only avoid their extinction but also extend the benefits of protection to all biota within these threatened ecosystems.


Although the incidence of unilateral abducens nerve palsy has been reported to be as high as 1% to 2.7% of head trauma cases, bilateral abducens nerve palsy following trauma is extremely rare. In this report, we present the case of a patient who developed a bilateral abducens nerve palsy and hypoglossal nerve palsy 3 days after suffering head trauma. He had a Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) of 15 points. Computed tomography (CT) images demonstrated clivus epidural hematoma and subarachnoid hemorrhage on the basal cistern. Herein, we discuss the possible mechanisms of these nerve palsies and its management.


O. C. EDWARDS, JR. A History of Preaching. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2004. Pp. xxviii + 879, appendix, indices, CD-ROM. $65.00. The word normally reserved for massive, career-capping books like A History of Preaching is "magisterial." O. C. Edwards's work, written over an 18-year period and completed following retirement from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, certainly merits this designation, although, as with most surveys that range over twenty centuries and rely almost entirely on secondary sources, it is not without flaws and inadequacies. The first thing to affirm, however, is that this is a prodigious scholarly achievement, a huge contribution to the field of homiletics, a vital resource for clergy and anyone engaged in theological education. The book is published in two formats, on traditional printed pages bound between covers and as a CD-ROM tucked inside the back. The CD-ROM contains not only the full text of the book, but also a 650-page second volume of primary source material-sermons and homiletic manuals that are cross-referenced in the two volumes. No table of contents is provided listing the documents in volume two, a very unfortunate omission. Edwards begins with the straightforward sentence: "There is no activity more characteristic of the church than preaching" (3). Justin Martyr's second-century description rings true across the centuries: "On the day called Sunday," believers "gather together in one place," and, following the reading of Scripture, "the Ruler in a discourse instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things" (14). Further, the church generally requires not only spiritual gifts but theological training for those authorized to speak. In "A Book About the Way a Sermon Ought to Be Given," the earliest homiletics textbook apart from Augustine's De doctnna Christiana, eleventh-century Abbot Guibert of Nogent warned: "It is extremely dangerous for (one) who has the obligation of preaching ever to stop studying" (175). Twenty-first-century congregations would benefit if this epigraph were above the door in every church office. While common themes persist and proclamation of the Word is perennially understood-along with the sacraments-as theologically constitutive of the church, the making of sermons is also a human activity embedded in history and culture. Edwards effectively charts historical shifts over the centuries, exploring the relationship of preaching to developments in the fields of rhetoric, philosophy, and theology and highlighting the lives of many exemplars. …


Key Points Question What is the clinical presentation to emergency medical services among persons with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? Findings This cohort study of 124 patients with COVID-19 revealed that most patients with COVID-19 presenting to emergency medical services were older and had multiple chronic health conditions. Initial concern, symptoms, and examination findings were heterogeneous and not consistently characterized as febrile respiratory illness. Meaning The findings of this study suggest that the conventional description of febrile respiratory illness may not adequately identify COVID-19 in the prehospital emergency setting.


Extracellular laccase produced by the wood-rotting fungus Cerrena unicolor was immobilised covalently on the mesostructured siliceous foam (MCF) and three hexagonally ordered mesoporous silicas (SBA-15) with different pore sizes. The enzyme was attached covalently via glutaraldehyde (GLA) or by simple adsorption and additionally crosslinked with GLA. The experiments indicated that laccase bound by covalent attachment remains very active and stable. The best biocatalysts were MCF and SBA-15 with Si–F moieties on their surface. Thermal inactivation of immobilised and native laccase at 80°C showed a biphasic-type activity decay, that could be modelled with 3parameter isoenzyme model. It appeared that immobilisation did not significantly change the mechanism of activity loss but stabilised a fraction of a stable isoform. Examination of time needed for 90% initial activity loss revealed that immobilisation prolonged that time from 8 min (native enzyme) up to 155 min (SBA-15SF).


Since several decades ago, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have attracted a great deal of attention in academic, industrial and military communities. Recently, multiple cooperative UAVs have been applied in various applications such as forest fire detection and fighting, search and exploration, environmental monitoring and surveillance.
The main objectives of this dissertation are to design novel algorithms for single quadrotor UAV trajectory tracking control and multiple UAVs for cooperative/formation control. Then, applying these algorithms in forest monitoring and fire detection application, where a group of detection UAVs is required to surround and track the fire perimeter for monitoring and observation mission. Furthermore, a new algorithm for fault-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) is proposed, in order to mitigate potential UAV fault effect for reliable and safe mission completion. Finally, a fire fighting algorithm is developed for achieving minimum distances for forest fire UAVs to arrive at their assigned fire spots destinations.
A combination of sliding mode control (SMC) and linear quadratic regulator (LQR) is used to design a single quadrotor UAV controller, which is then used to design a formation controller of multiple UAVs. Moreover, another formation controller is designed based on SMC to achieve robust formation control against modeling uncertainties and disturbances.
Cooperative UAVs are applied in forest monitoring and fire detection application through three stages: search, confirmation and observation. UAVs are assigned to search for potential forest fires in a certain area, once a fire is detected and a fire alarm will be generated by one or more of the UAVs. The UAVs team then reconfigures its formation by following an elliptic fire perimeter, calculated by the ground station (GS) using a fire spread model. Afterward, the fire alarm confirmation stage begins and all UAVs start evenly distributed for surrounding the fire spot according to the UAVs number in the team. When the fire alarm is confirmed, the observation stage starts and UAVs continue tracking the fire along the fire perimeter. SMC is used to design a formation reconfigurable controller to switch between a predefined formation shape during the search stage, to a dynamic surrounding formation. This controller guarantees even distribution of UAVs surrounding the fire spots and the robustness against disturbances. In addition, task assignment is used with multiple fire spots and multiple UAVs teams in order to reduce the mission execution time. Moreover, the proposed control algorithms are implemented to a team of UAVs paired with a team of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), by using these UGVs as a take-off and landing platform in forest monitoring and fire detection application.
Meanwhile, UAVs may need to leave formation for refueling/recharging during the mission of search, confirmation and observation, or if a fault occurred during the mission due to fire flames, heat or UAV's internal fault sources. Therefore, an FTCC algorithm is designed based on the graph theory to mitigate the fault effect on mission completion, and ensure complete surrounding and data gathering of the fire spots using different fire sensors such as infrared cameras, charge-coupled devices (CCD) cameras and thermal cameras etc.
Afterward, data gathered during observation stage are processed in the GS, then dangerous fire spots coordinates are sent to the fire fighting UAVs. The leader UAV, the GS or both can perform the task assignment process using an auction-based or Hungarian algorithms to assign each UAV to a fire spot for deploying fire suppressant. Furthermore, a hybrid approach of control parametrization and time discretization (CPTD) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed to achieve minimum flight distance for each UAV to arrive at its destination, minimizing fuel/battery consumption. Since PSO cannot solve the continuous control inputs, CPTD is used to provide an approximate piecewise linearization of the control inputs. Thus, PSO can be adopted to achieve the global optimum solution.
Finally, the proposed algorithms are being implemented on single and multiple quadrotor UAVs in simulations. While, the leader-follower approach is used in cooperative control in a decentralized manner to avoid the disadvantages of centralization. Thereafter, the proposed algorithms are verified on a set of Qball-X4 quadrotor UAVs and QGV unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) platforms in real-time experiments through different scenarios.


Developmental robotics is a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to robotics that is directly inspired by the developmental principles and mechanisms observed in children's cognitive development. It builds on the idea that the robot, using a set of intrinsic developmental principles regulating the real-time interaction of its body, brain, and environment, can autonomously acquire an increasingly complex set of sensorimotor and mental capabilities. This volume, drawing on insights from psychology, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, and robotics, offers the first comprehensive overview of a rapidly growing field. After providing some essential background information on robotics and developmental psychology, the book looks in detail at how developmental robotics models and experiments have attempted to realize a range of behavioral and cognitive capabilities. The examples in these chapters were chosen because of their direct correspondence with specific issues in child psychology research; each chapter begins with a concise and accessible overview of relevant empirical and theoretical findings in developmental psychology. The chapters cover intrinsic motivation and curiosity; motor development, examining both manipulation and locomotion; perceptual development, including face recognition and perception of space; social learning, emphasizing such phenomena as joint attention and cooperation; language, from phonetic babbling to syntactic processing; and abstract knowledge, including models of number learning and reasoning strategies. Boxed text offers technical and methodological details for both psychology and robotics experiments.


Parameter tuning in Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) generally result in suboptimal choices of values because of the complex dependencies between the parameters. Furthermore, different scenarios during a run of the EA often have different optimal parameter values. This thesis aims to better the understanding of how information about previously successful applications of genetic operators can be used to improve the quality of the search by using derandomised self-adaptive parameter control; We utilise the genetic differences between an offspring its parent to adapt a mutation vector. It also explores two different selection strategies that maintains diversity in the population, and the general effect that diversity has on the exploration and exploitation of the solution space. The adaptive mutation scheme proposed in this thesis has shown to improve the speed of the EA significantly while still being able to solve a wide range of mathematical functions as well as practical problems. Supplemented with a simple scheme that maintains diversity it becomes a more robust implementation well suited for multiple types of problems; especially for problems with computationally expensive fitness tests.


Over the years, aquaculture has developed as one of the fastest growing food production sectors in Nepal. However, local fish supplies have been extremely inadequate to meet the ever increasing demand in the country. Nepal imports substantial quantities of fish and fish products from India, Bangladesh, Thailand, and elsewhere. Integration of pond aquaculture in existing crop-livestock-based farming system is believed to be effective in increasing local fish supply and diversifying livelihood options of a large number of small-holder farmers in southern plains (terai) and mid-hill valleys, thereby also increasing resilience of rural livelihoods. There is growing appreciation of the role of small-scale aquaculture in household food and nutrition security, income generation, and empowerment of women and marginalized communities. This book includes a total of 25 papers presented at the 'Symposium on Small-scale Aquaculture for Increasing Resilience of Rural Livelihoods in Nepal', held in Kathmandu on 5-6 February 2009. The papers cover technological, social, economic and environmental aspects of small-scale aquaculture development emerged from research and development initiatives of governmental, non-governmental and international research organizations in recent decades. All the papers have been reviewed and updated for their inclusion in the book.


We derive optimal long-run inventory stocks of finished goods and input materials in a dynamic flexible accelerator model. The predictions are tested on aggregate Swedish manufacturing data using an error correction approach. Cointegration regressions yield stationary relationships and parameter estimates with signs predicted by theory. Error correction estimations show that inventories adjust to long-run levels in a year. The cross effect of excess material inventories on finished goods inventories is strong. Inventory investment subsidies significantly affect finished goods inventory investment. Input deliveries are slow to adjust to new output rates. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of Brazilian personality, associating them with the cordial man of the book Raízes do Brasil (Roots of Brazil). In addition, it aims to present an agenda for future management studies, suggesting works in several managerial areas which may be influenced by traits of the Brazilian personality.

Design/methodology/approach
A systematic review of studies on Brazil's image was developed, so that it was possible to identify the main characteristics of the Brazilian personality. The main personality traits found were compared to those identified in the cordial man, from the book Raízes do Brasil.

Findings
The results indicate the main traits of Brazilians' personality: sensual, cunning, cheerful, creative, hospitable, friendly and cordial. These traits are directly related to cordiality, mentioned in some studies, and also indirectly through words alluding to the character of the cordial man. These traits are related to the Brazilians image abroad and have created a confused image of Brazil.

Research limitations/implications
Regarding the theoretical contribution, the future studies agenda presented suggests the development of papers that relate Brazilians' personality traits to other areas besides tourism, such as negotiation, organizational culture, exports, foreign direct investment, talent attraction and public diplomacy.

Practical implications
This study indicated that in practice, the Brazilian Government should develop marketing actions to promote a more consistent image of Brazil, reinforcing its positive aspects and creating new associations that allow Brazil to bring not only tourists but also residents, companies and investors for the country. These positive aspects, regarding the country citizens, can be their affability, hospitality, extraversion and generosity, which can improve the foreigners' impressions on Brazil.

Originality/value
The originality of the study is to relate the concept of cordial man to the Brazilian people, showing the main features of their personality and also in the elaboration of an agenda indicating suggestions for future studies that relate the personality traits of Brazilian people with other areas.


Aim: To identify the prevalence, related viral and non viral risk factors for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Egypt over last 15 years. Methods: All HCC patients attending Agouza Liver Center between January 1996 and December 2010 were enrolled in the study. Trend, demographic features of patients (age, gender, and residence), risk factors (HBsAg, HCV-Ab, schistosomiasis and others). Results: Over 15 years, 1 759 HCC patients out of 29 000 chronic liver disease patients were diagnosed with an overall proportion of 6.1%. The annual proportion of HCC showed a variation ranged from 5.3%to 6.5%. It was evident that the male proportion was significantly increased 84 %(P-value=0.0001). M/F was about 5:1 with high significant increase among age group of 45-60 years (P-value=0.0001). The distribution of viral hepatitis among HCC patients was: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection proportion was 89.8%, hepatitis B virus infection proportion was 1.8%,co infection of HCV and HBV proportion was1.3%, none B none C proportion was 7.1%. As regards distribution of non viral causes among HCC patients: 8 (0.5%) patients suffered from autoimmune hepatitis, 94 (5.3%) cases were due to non alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and the remaining cases were due to idiopathic causes. Conclusion: HCC is an increasing problem. The most related risk factors are viral hepatitis infections; older ages and male gender. NASH is a health problem that must be not ignored as a risk factor for developing HCC.


Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is both valuable and harmful since it contains a large number of profitable and hazardous materials and elements at the same time. At component level, many parts of the discarded equipment are still functional and recoverable. Thus, it is necessary to develop a distributed and intelligent system to support WEEE component recovery and recycling. In recent years, the Cloud concept has gained increasing popularity since it provides a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that integrates various resources over the network. Cloud manufacturing systems are proposed worldwide to support operational manufacturing processes. In this research, Cloud manufacturing is further extended to the WEEE recovery and recycling context. The Cloud services are applied in WEEE recovery and recycling processes by tracking and management services. These services include all the stakeholders from the beginning to the end of life of the electric and electronic equipment. A Cloud-based WEEE recovery system is developed to provide modularized recovery services on the Cloud. A data management system is developed as well, which maintains the knowledge throughout the product lifecycle. A product tracking mechanism is also proposed with the help of the Quick Respond code method.


The operating characteristics of a typical single-node hierarchical element in a multiprocessor network such as might be used for process control are described, and the class of scheduling problems arising from the use of such a network is discussed and related to similar problems which have been reported in the literature. Two measures of system performance are then defined: the "settling time," defined as the maximum of the finishing times of all jobs when a set of jobs is initiated once in the network, and the "steady-state service," a related performance index for the case where jobs are initiated on a periodic basis. Finally, a simulation model is used to evaluate the operating characteristics of the hierarchical network using the two metrics in conjunction with several synthetic workloads; a general optimization procedure is shown to lead to values of scheduling parameters which are close to optimal even for network workloads with many degrees of freedom (i.e., when many computers are initiating jobs).


The Hispanic population is growing rapidly in the U.S. generally and in the southern states particularly. This rapidly growing population is characterized by high poverty rates among children and the elderly compared to other races. The Hispanic population is also less educated, characterized by low income, lacks English language proficiency, and has a need for public assistance. Hispanic total and household participation in the FSP increased rapidly, especially in metro counties. The increase in participation is about three times that of the total population. Participation of Hispanic children in the program was also much higher than for adults. The growing Hispanic population with special needs and requirements and rising participation in the FSP will pose new challenges to food assistance administration to serve this group.


The U.S. retail grocery industry shifted from an industry dominated by small grocers serving local markets to one characterized by large retailers present in international markets. Average retail grocery concentration as measured by CR4 increased from 19.9 in 1997 to 31.0 in 2002 (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 2000; 2005). Wal-Mart's tremendous growth is the catalyst to this change, but little is known about Wal-Mart's effect on market concentration. This analysis evaluates the effects of de novo entry by Wal-Mart Supercenters on retail grocery concentration. The effect of Wal-Mart Supercenters on changes in retail grocery concentration is estimated using econometric modeling. The results show that existing Wal-Mart Supercenter operations and entry by Wal-Mart Supercenters significantly increase the rate of change in retail grocery concentration.


This book studies the impact of Egypt's Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Programme (ERSAP), the effects of which have been of great interest to the international community. Organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF uphold the programme as a success story and example for other countries to follow. ERSAP also has its critics, however, who resent its tendency to downsize government and fear possible negative effects on growth and development. The author discusses these concerns along with those regarding the possible negative social effects of ERSAP.


The Web has experienced an exponential growth in the use of weblogs or blogs. Blog entries are generally organised using tags, informally defined labels which are increasingly being proposed as a 'grassroots' answer to Semantic Web standards. Despite this, tags have been shown to be weak at partitioning blog data. In this paper, we demonstrate how tags provide useful, discriminating information where the blog corpus is initially partitioned using a conventional clustering technique. Using extensive empirical evaluation we demonstrate how tag cloud information within each cluster allows us to identify the most topic-relevant blogs in the cluster. We conclude that tags have a key auxiliary role in refining and confirming the information produced using typical knowledge discovery techniques.


This research article made the case for (gender) partnership as an integral part of effective people-centred participatory development theory. Over the years, development has been taught and practiced in different ways. In the contemporary African context, it is a term that is frequently used and even misused by many people and organisations that are involved in development programmes, which truncate rather than transform the people and communities they claim to develop. This article presented a brief survey of some definitions and views on development and argued for a holistic approach to development, one which is anchored on partnership as an essential element in God's mission; that is, the missio Dei . It highlighted the reasons for, ideals of and obstacles to true partnership in development.


We describe a one-pot strategy for the fabrication of novel slide-ring (SR) gels based on supramolecular polyrotaxane structures with cyclodextrin-derived cross-links and additional free cyclodextrin ring spacers co-threaded onto the polymer backbones. Photoinitiated thiol-yne click coupling leads to facile hydrogel fabrication from pseudo-polyrotaxanes prepared in situ from β-cyclodextrin derivatives and bifunctional polyethylene glycol (PEG). The obtained SR gels were characterized by NMR spectroscopy using a polyrotaxane model compound with the ratio of cyclodextrin sliding spacers to PEG backbone controlled by adjusting the feed ratio of the starting materials. This structural tuning leads to dramatic changes in the rheological properties, mechanical properties, and swelling behavior of the SR gels. In addition, the coupling of simple synthetic procedures with enhanced properties offers a versatile approach to novel elastomeric materials. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017


Radio frequencies at millimeter wavelengths suffer greatly from rain attenuation. It is therefore essential to study rainfall characteristics for efficient and reliable design of radio networks at frequencies above 10GHz. These characteristics of rain are geographically based, which need to be studied for estimation of rain induced attenuation. The ITU-R, through recommendations P.837 and P.838, have presented global approaches to rain-rate variation and rain-induced attenuation in line-of-sight radio links. Therefore, in this dissertation characteristics of rainfall rate and its applications for South Africa are evaluated. The cumulative distributions of rain intensity for 12 locations in seven regions in South Africa are presented in this dissertation based on five-year rainfall data. The rain rate with an integration time of 60 minutes is converted into an integration time of 1 minute in accordance with ITU-R recommendations. The resulting cumulative rain intensities and relations between them are compared with the global figures presented in ITU-R Recommendation P.837, as well as with the work in other African countries, notably by Moupfuma and Martin. Based on this work, additional rain-climatic zones are proposed alongside the five identified by ITU-R for South Africa. Finally, the study compares the semi-empirical raindrop-size distribution models such as Laws and Parsons, Marshall and Palmer, Joss, Thams and Waldvogel, and Gamma distribution with the estimated South Africa models.


Background: People living with HIV and multiple comorbidities have high rates of health service use. This study evaluates system usage before and after admission to a community facility focused on HIV care. Methods: We used Ontario administrative health databases to conduct a pre–post comparison of rates and costs of hospital admissions, emergency department visits, and family physician and home care visits among medically complex people with HIV in the year before and after admission to Casey House, an HIV-specific hospital in Toronto, for all individuals admitted between April 2009 and March 2015. Negative binomial regression was used to compare rates of health care utilization. We used Wilcoxon rank sum tests to compare associated health care costs, standardized to 2015 Canadian dollars. To contextualize our findings, we present rates and costs of health service use among Ontario residents living with HIV. Results: During the study period, 268 people living with HIV were admitted to Casey House. Emergency department use declined from 4.6 to 2.5 visits per person-year (p = 0.02) after discharge from Casey House, and hospitalization rates declined from 1.4 to 1.1 admissions per person-year (p = 0.05). Conversely, home care visits increased from 24.3 to 35.6 visits per person-year (p = 0.01) and family physician visits increased from 18.3 to 22.6 visits per person-year (p < 0.001) in the year after discharge. These changes were associated with reduced overall costs to the health care system. The reduction in overall costs was not significant (p = 0.2); however, costs of emergency department visits (p < 0.001) and physician visits (p < 0.001) were significantly less. Interpretation: Health care utilization by people with HIV was significantly different before and after admission to a community hospital focused on HIV care. This has implications for health care in other complex patient populations.


There were many legal frameworks and engineering conditions of the construction systems in Arab countries. They were developed depending on the importance of the urban boom, taking into account the priorities of the cities in their strategies, which depend on the balance between the characteristics and urban development in the world. The research compares between the data of Dubai city, which became a state that grows in the Arab Gulf as a real estate investment and attraction for capital, the city of Damascus, which is looking for a role through this context, and the development possibility of its building system in accordance with its dreams in order to be in balance with its background heritage.


Immunoglobulin replacement therapy is the essential treatment of B-cell deficiencies. Because of the high expense of therapy, optimal dose, infusion intervals and serum IgG levels should be well defined. Data of 19 X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA), 7 hyper-IgM syndrome (HIM) and 20 common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) patients were analyzed. Infection frequencies and hospitalization requirements were correlated with the immunoglobulin doses used and serum IgG levels achieved. The characteristics before diagnosis and after treatment were compared among the XLA, HIM and CVID groups. By using a median dose of 370 mg/kg/month immunoglobulin, which maintained serum IgG levels at a median concentration of 440 mg/dl, the annual incidence of infections dropped from 12.4 to 3.2 and annual hospitalization requirements decreased from 1.6 to 0.16 per patient. Serum IgG levels of 300-500 mg/dl were found to be satisfactory, except in the CVID group. Increasing the level over 500 mg/dl neither prevented pneumonia further nor decreased the need for hospitalization. Monthly replacement was found to be adequate, except for XLA patients. Serum IgG levels between 300-500 mg/dl are sufficient for effective treatment of hypogammaglobulinemias. These concentrations can be maintained with 300-400 mg/kg/month doses. Higher doses and IgG levels are not needed.


Simultaneous deployment of multiple Radio Access Technologies (RATs) and multiple bands of the same RATs in a given coverage area, call for an efficient utilization of the overall available resources to carry the complete offered user traffic, and to provide a superior user experience. Traffic steering aims at distributing the offered load in an optimal manner across different RATs and bands in order to fulfil the desires of both the network operators and the end-users. This concise white paper presents the fundamental concepts involved in the design of generic traffic steering algorithms, and provides a brief description of some primitive traffic steering algorithms explaining the intuition behind them. Finally, we present the current status of our system level multi-RAT / multi-band simulation capabilities, and provide an overview of how more sophisticated traffic steering algorithm can be designed, and how could their performance be compared in terms of different performance metrics.


We introduce and study the maximal unipotent finite quotient for algebraic
group schemes in positive characteristics. Applied to Picard schemes, this
quotient encodes unusual torsion. We construct integral Fano threefolds where
such unusual torsion actually appears. The existence of such threefolds is
surprising, because the torsion vanishes for del Pezzo surfaces. Our
construction relies on the theory of exceptional Enriques surfaces, as
developed by Ekedahl and Shepherd-Barron.

 Comment: 29 pages; minor changes


In this paper we consider learning in the context of computer games, in terms of socio-cultural theories on learning and cognition. We emphasise on the tools involved in players' learning activities, such as the use of »social tools«, and their role in the learning situation. Integrating (parts of) the computer game area with socio-cultural learning theories can prove beneficial for a more balanced understanding of learning in computer (game) environments. As a step in this direction, this paper discusses a case study of Counter-strike players and their learning from a cognitive science perspective.


Pain is more than just a physical response to disease or injury. Pain is flexible and varies dependant on psychological state. Personality traits such as depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis can mediate pain. A wealth of research has identified the relationship between personality and pain, but each individual case only centres on specific traits or specific causes of pain. In the first experiment participants were subjected to the MMPI and tests of pain sensitivity and anomalous perception. Correlation coefficients identified a significant negative relationship between hysteria and pain threshold and a positive relationship between gender inversion and pain threshold. A significant negative relationship was observed between pain sensitivity and frequency of anomalous perceptual experiences. This finding is potentially due to a susceptibility to heightened sensory experiences and consequently pain. The second experiment centres on the induction of an anomalous perceptual experience using a modified rubber hand illusion. Participants reported significantly greater pain in the sensory-motor incongruent condition possibly due to the associated heightened sensory experience. This indicates the existence of an anomalously perceptive personality and highlights gender inversion as a new personality trait that mediates pain. Further research is required using modern methods and to test the prevalence of these personality traits in functional pain patients.


Although there are about 30 known members of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) superfamily, only two known cognate receptors have been characterized thus far, and only a few intracellular signal transducing molecules called Smads are known to mediate their effects in the nucleus. Few Smads bind to DNA directly to regulate gene expression, and other Smads bind to transcriptional cofactors that are ubiquitously expressed. Therefore, the wide range and tissue-specific effects of TGF-β-like factors are not well understood. Blokzijl et al. report that, in immune cells, TGF-β induces the Smad3 assocation with GATA-3, a transcription factor whose family has been implicated in regulating cell-fate decisions in the immune and nervous systems. Expression of Smad3 in a T cell line increased GATA-3-mediated activation of a reporter gene in response to TGF-β treatment. GATA-3 specifically associated with Smad3 and not with other Smad proteins when overexpressed in cells, and sites of interaction between the two proteins were identified. TGF-β also stimulated Smad3-GATA-3 complex formation in the nucleus of a T cell line. Overexpression of dominant negative forms of either Smad3 or GATA-3 in a T cell line inhibited cytokine production. Hence, GATA-3 is a tissue-specific partner of Smad3 and may underlie cell type-specific genes expression and T cell development induced by TGF-β. A. Bloksijl, P. ten Dijke, C. F. Ibanez, Physical and functional interaction between GATA-3 and Smad3 allows TGF-β regulation of target genes. Current Biol. 12, 35-45 (2002). [Online Journal]


Components are widely seen by software engineers as an important technology to address the "software crisis". An important aspect of components in other areas of engineering is that system reliability can be estimated from the reliability of the components. We show how commonly proposed methods of reliability estimation and composition for software are inadequate because of differences between the models and the actual software systems, and we show where the assumptions from system reliability theory cause difficulty when applied to software.
This thesis provides an approach to reliability that makes it possible, if not currently plausible, to compose component reliabilities so as to accurately and safely determine system reliability.
Firstly, we extend previous work on input sub-domains, or partitions, such that our sub-domains can be sampled in a statistically sound way. We provide an algorithm to generate the most important partitions first, which is particularly important when there are an infinite number of input sub-domains. We combine analysis and testing to provide useful reliabilities for the various input sub-domains of a system, or component. This provides a methodology for calculating true reliability for a software system for any accurate statistical distribution of input values.
Secondly, we present a calculus for probability density functions that permits accurately modeling the input distribution seen by each component in the system—a critically important issue in dealing with reliability of software components.
Finally, we provide the system structuring calculus that allows a system designer to take components from component suppliers that have been built according to our rules and to determine the resulting system reliability. This can be done without access to the actual components.
This work raises many issues, particularly about scalability of the proposed techniques and about the ability of the system designer to know the input profile to the level and kind of accuracy required. There are also large classes of components where the techniques are currently intractable, but we see this work as an important first step.


To interact with various services in the cloud and to store the data generated/processed by those services, several security capabilities are required. Based on a core set of features in the three common cloud services – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS), we identify a set of security capabilities needed to exercise those features and the cryptographic operations they entail. An analysis of the common state of practice of the cryptographic operations that provide those security capabilities reveals that the management of cryptographic keys takes on an additional complexity in cloud environments compared to enterprise IT environments due to: (a) difference in ownership (between cloud Consumers and cloud Providers) and (b) control of infrastructures on which both the Key Management System (KMS) and protected resources are located. This document identifies the cryptographic key management challenges in the context of architectural solutions that are commonly deployed to perform those cryptographic operations.


Parental consent generally is required for the medical evaluation and treatment of minor children. However, children and adolescents might require evaluation of and treatment for emergency medical conditions in situations in which a parent or legal guardian is not available to provide consent or conditions under which an adolescent patient might possess the legal authority to provide consent. In general, a medical screening examination and any medical care necessary and likely to prevent imminent and significant harm to the pediatric patient with an emergency medical condition should not be withheld or delayed because of problems obtaining consent. The purpose of this policy statement is to provide guidance in those situations in which parental consent is not readily available, in which parental consent is not necessary, or in which parental refusal of consent places a child at risk of significant harm.


The influence of baseline strength or muscle size on adaptations to training is not well-understood. Comparisons between novice and advanced lifters, and between stronger and weaker experienced-lifters, have produced conflicting results. This study examined the effect of baseline muscle strength and size on subsequent adaptations in resistance-trained individuals following a traditional high-volume, short-rest resistance training protocol. Fourteen resistance-trained men (24.0±2.7 y; 90.1±11.7 kg; 169.9±29.0 cm) completed pre-training (PRE) ultrasound measurements of muscle cross-sectional area (CSA) in the rectus femoris (RF), vastus lateralis (VL), pectoralis major, and triceps brachii (TRI) prior to strength assessments (e.g., one-repetition maximum strength bench press and back-squat). Post-training (POST) assessments were completed following 8-wks (4 d·wk−1) of resistance training. Comparisons were made between stronger (STR) and weaker (WKR) participants, and between larger (LGR) and smaller (SMR) participants, based upon PRE-muscle strength and size, respectively. When groups were based on upper-body strength, repeated measures analysis of variance indicated a significant group × time interaction where greater improvements in bench press strength were observed in WKR (12.5±8.6%, p = 0.013) compared to STR (1.3±5.4%, p=0.546). Within this comparison, STR also possessed more resistance training experience than WKR (mean difference=3.1 y, p=0.002). No other differences in experience or adaptations to training were observed. These data suggest that following a short-duration training program (8-weeks), baseline size and strength have little impact on performance gains in resistance-trained individuals who possess similar years of experience. However, when training experience is different, baseline strength may affect adaptations.


Culture as an important element in tourism plays its role in the form of attraction for tourists as well as aspects which influence tourists' behaviour. Several crosscultural studies have been done to find the differences between tourists' behaviour regarding their culture. Although there is no comprehensive definition for culture in literature, Hofstede provided a well-known model which divided national culture into five dimensions. Power distance, individualism /collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation are the dimensions of his mentioned model. Since environment is the fundamental component of tourism, its sustainability, management, and controlling tourism impact on it is important for the industry. This study aims to review tourists' behaviour towards environment and find the influence of tourists' national culture on their certain behaviour. Qualitative analysis was done by using existing literature about "tourist behaviour in relation to environment" and relating them to "tourists' national culture". The result has provided the estimate model of tourist behaviour by different national culture towards environment.


OBJECTIVE
Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, may play a role in giant cell arteritis (GCA), the most common type of systemic vasculitis in the elderly in Western countries. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is one of the most important proangiogenic mediators. We wanted to assess the potential role of -1154 G-->A (rs1570360) and -634 G-->C (rs2010963) VEGF gene functional variants in GCA susceptibility and clinical ischemic complications.

METHODS
One hundred and three patients with biopsy-proven GCA and 226 ethnically matched controls from the Lugo region (Northwest Spain) were genotyped for the VEGF -1154 G-->A and -634 G-->C polymorphisms using a real time polymerase chain reaction technology based on TaqMan 5' allelic discrimination assay.

RESULTS
No significant differences in allele or genotype frequencies for the 2 VEGF polymorphisms were observed between patients and controls. However, the VEGF -634 G allele was significantly more frequent among GCA patients with severe ischemic complications compared with GCA patients not affected by ischemic events (p = 0.017, odds ratio, OR: 2.05; 95% confidence interval, CI: 1.13-3.71; pc = 0.034) or with controls (p = 0.021, OR: 1.75; 95% CI: 1.08-2.88; pc = 0.042). In this regard, the carriage rate of the risk allele G showed statistically significant skewing comparing GCA patients with severe ischemic events with the remaining GCA patients (GG + GC vs CC: p = 0.009, OR: 5.26; 95% CI: 1.39-19.98; pc= 0.018).

CONCLUSION
Our results suggest a potential implication of the VEGF gene -634 G-->C polymorphism in the development of severe ischemic manifestations of GCA.


The highly personal nature of physical pain is challenging to communicate to others, which makes diagnosis and treatment difficult for those who suffer from chronicillness. Issues of the body are traditionally described in scientific language which overlooks the lived experience of those with this illness. This biological gaze of illnessfails to include social and cultural influences on chronic disease. Despite the difficulty of expressing pain, metaphor and imagery can effectively articulate the invisible toone's self and others. How might design create opportunities to consider a more nuanced approach to articulating symptoms of chronic illness? Currently, people who suffer from autoimmune arthritic conditions experience bias from health care providers leading to delayed diagnosis. In my thesis I will explore how design methods can give a voice tothe daily pain of arthritis sufferers. Health trackers such as Fitbit have grown in popularity in recent years, but such toolsoften reduce wellness to a number. My intervention borrows from self-tracking and builds on it by incorporating metaphor and visual storytelling. Early experiments showed that capturing embodied experiences through imagery and words allowed people to quickly identify their lived experience. This process also supports reflectionand story-telling, inspiring empathy and better conversations. Based on these experiments, I have prototyped a diary kit which enables health self-tracking while creating visual metaphors, empowering users to use their data to visualize barriers and limitations affecting daily life. Further testing will be conducted with people who suffer from arthritis to learn how the diary kit affects their awareness of pain and ability to articulate it to others. I predict this testing would show improved self-management which could result in better care.


The primary drawback of thermoelectric coolers (TECs) for electronics cooling applications is their thermodynamic inefficiency due to material limitations. The present work considers a control strategy to improve the overall coefficient of performance in an engineering system instead of addressing material shortcomings. Typical TECs are composed of several individual thermocouples that are powered in series and remove heat in parallel. If one of the numerous thermocouples is powered, all the thermocouples receive the some power whether or not they are needed. The fact that chips heat nonuniformly provides an opportunity for performance enhancement, by sensing and controlling the power to individual couples within the device. The current work presents evidence that applying distributed control to TEC operation can realize appreciable improvement in performance. Compared to monolithic cooling devices, a distributed control strategy can realize a factor of 2 increase in performance for the device studied. Additionally, this type of control can be used in conjunction with many of the existing material-based research initiatives to further compound the benefits.


On-site storage of waste can be convenient to the waste generators especially to those who generate large amount of wastes every day. Concerns regarding public health and aesthetics considerations of the on-site storage of wastes have also arisen due to the use of unsightly makeshift containers or open ground storage. There has been extensive research conducted to improve the understanding of aesthetic qualities of' natural landscapes. Nevertheless, research on resident's visual preferences and concerns for solid waste management facilities is still limited. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this study is to understand the perceived visual aesthetic quality of on-site storage facilities of wastes at collection points in Kuching District. A survey was conducted in August 2009 using a set of questionnaire consisting of several sections with 60 closed-ended questions, including questions with Likert scales. Since the official privatization of solid waste management in Kuching, the concession company has been providing uniform mobile garbage bins of standard sizes to residents and commercial areas. This has gradually improved the solid waste management systems. In general, the solid waste management problems in Kuching city are perceived to be moderately serious. Other than that only overflowing wastes at containers is the main problem that creates visual pollution. The highest mean ratings/or the visual assessment were 3.43 (physical attribute -clean), 4.60 (feelings – comfortable), and 3.34 (appraisal -attractive). It was also found that the photographs showing the mobile garbage bins provided by the concessionaire had the highest mean ratings for all three scales, i.e. descriptive, affective and appraisal scales.


H istorically, the debate over net neutrality has been between techies, public interest groups, and big telecoms," says activist Steven Renderos. "The real voices of people outside of D.C. haven't really been heard on these issues up until this last year." What made this past year different was an overwhelming public push for stronger net neutrality protections. Back in January 2014, a federal appeals court threw out the bedrock net neutrality rules of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), thereby allowing big telecoms like Comcast to provide faster speeds to websites that could afford to pay for them. It didn't take long for users and activists to push back, and push back they did. By September, the FCC had received more than 3.7 million comments — enough to crash its website. And then this past February, after the petitioning and organizing had gone on for months, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced sweeping new protections for a free and open internet. Called Title II reclassification, the new rules label the web as a public utility that must operate on a level playing field. "This is a big deal," Renderos adds. Renderos is the policy director of the Center for Media Justice, one of many groups at the forefront of the recent net neutrality push. As a nationwide coalition of more than 150 activist groups, the Center for Media Justice (in concert with its activist offshoot, the Media Action Grassroots Network) has worked at the intersection of media policy and social justice for more than a decade. Through popular education, community organizing, and grassroots media projects, the group has worked tirelessly to amplify the voices of communities of color and lowincome people and to challenge corporate control of the media system. The coalition has enjoyed more than a few major victories in recent years, on everything from laws governing municipal broadband to local control of radio. But net neutrality is by far the most critical issue. "Net neutrality is the free speech of the internet," says Malkia A. Cyrus, the executive director of the Center for Media Justice. "It's the principal set of rules that keeps the internet fair and levels the playing field." But like Renderos, Cyrus sees mainstream coverage of these issues as a barrier


Lost in the maze of statutes, regulations, and potential liabilities that identify the current mass of water protection law? This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Water Regulation, which consists of 2-4 page fact sheets that provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal, federal, and state (Florida) laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farmland owners have under both federal and state laws as well as the appropriate contact information to obtain more detailed information. Written by Michael T. Olexa and Zachary Broome, with contributions by Tatiana Borisova, and published by the UF Department of Food and Resource Economics, June 2011.
FE610/FE610: 2021 Handbook of Florida Water Regulation: Northern Everglades and Estuaries Protection Program (ufl.edu)


A practical guide to securing ASP.NET sites Beginning ASP.NET Security is for novice to intermediate ASP.NET programmers and provides a step-by-step solution to securing each area of ASP.NET development. Rather than approaching security from a theoretical direction, MVP Barry Dorrans shows you examples of how everyday code can be attacked, and describes the steps necessary for defense. Inside, you'll learn how you can defend your ASP.NET applications using the .NET framework, industry patterns and best practices, code libraries and resources provided by Microsoft and others. Beginning ASP.NET Security: Explores issues with user input including validation, cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site request forgery (CSRF) Teaches how to securely access your database and defend against SQL injection attacks Shares techniques for keeping secrets, including encryption, hashing and preventing information leaks Examines methods for authenticating and authorizing users, including ASP.NET membership providers and preventing cookie theft Shares tips for securing your web server, including how ASP.NET uses trust levels and locking down IIS Unveils ways to securely use WCF web services Presents security with the Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax framework and Silverlight Includes an overview of security with the Microsoft MVC framework Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved. wrox.com Programmer Forums Join our Programmer to Programmer forums to ask and answer programming questions about this book, join discussions on the hottest topics in the industry, and connect with fellow programmers from around the world. Code Downloads Take advantage of free code samples from this book, as well as code samples from hundreds of other books, all ready to use. Read More Find articles, ebooks, sample chapters and tables of contents for hundreds of books, and more reference resources on programming topics that matter to you.


Asking other people the way has always been a widespread social wayfinding technique. In recent years wayfinding in unknown spatial environments has increasingly been supported by electronic navigation assistants. However, the social aspects of wayfinding, such as using other peoples' experiences, have widely been ignored in the context of electronic navigation systems. In electronic environments such as the WWW the availability of community knowledge also driven by Web 2.0 paradigms becomes more and more valuable to users. Other people's experiences, including recorded browsing paths and activities so called user trails are used for recommendation and navigation support and allow users to navigate vast information spaces more easily. In this paper we propose an approach for trail-based navigation in physical environments. An analysis and comparison of the concept of trails in both application areas establishes the basis for a trail model and the implementation of a trail-based navigation system prototype for mobile phones. Practical experiences with a prototype application and potential applications of trail-based navigation assistants are discussed in the context of a tourist scenario in the old town of Salzburg.


Nowadays knowledge is recognized as an important enabler for competitive advantages and many companies are beginning to establish knowledge management systems. Within the last few years many organizations tried to design a suitable knowledge management system and many of them were successful. This paper is to discover critical success factors (CSF) of knowledge management (KM) and their relationships in an effective way. A qualitative case study technique has been used in this paper for data collection and analysis. In this way, grounded theory (GT) research approach has been selected .The collected data are categorized and analyzed through specific stages of GT. A semantic network has been developed by categorized data showing the relationships between the extracted CSFs and finally a theory has been emerged. The semantic network and the emerged theory show the roadmap of success in KM area for the organizations.


A key moment of modernity in English post-war history, the 1966 World Cup has significance far beyond its primary sporting purpose. This book provides an in-depth cultural analysis of the event, situating it within the complex social and political changes of the mid-1960s. However, despite the attention given to non-sport-related connections, the focus remains squarely fixed on football, which is treated as a cultural form worthy of academic discussion. Individual chapters explore the masculinity of the England team, the aesthetic dimension of football tactics and the status of manager Alf Ramsey as a modernist figure. But the key theme running through the book is the victory itself and the various ways in which it has been remembered and discussed, particularly in academic accounts that seek to demonstrate the ideological construction of the myth of 1966. Critical analysis of these accounts provides a fresh view of how English identity might be considered in relation to the England victory. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of history, cultural studies, sport studies, sociology and related fields including art history, design history and media studies. It will also appeal to non-academic readers interested in the cultural history of sport in England and, more generally, English post-war cultural life.


Background: Delusions are defined as false beliefs different from those that almost everyone else believes. The aim was to develop a new measure (the Cardiff Beliefs Questionnaire, CBQ) to establish the range and prevalence of delusion-like beliefs (DLB) and compare these to other types of beliefs in the general population. Sampling and Methods: A total of 1,000 participants completed the CBQ, which uniquely assesses a broader range of currently held beliefs [delusion-like (bizarre and non-bizarre), paranormal and religious and general political/social beliefs) using this large stratified sample. Results: Strong belief in 1 or more DLB was reported by 39% of the participants (91% reporting 'weak', 'moderate' or 'strong' belief in at least 1 DLB). Moreover, 25% endorsed at least 1 bizarre DLB (76% one or more at any strength). Endorsements of DLB were strongly correlated with paranormal and religious beliefs but not general political/social beliefs. Conclusions: Both bizarre and non-bizarre DLB are frequently found in the general population, lending support to the psychosis continuum account and need to revise key clinical criteria used to diagnose delusions. The good psychometric properties demonstrated by the CBQ indicate that this measure is a useful tool to investigate the wider continuum of beliefs held in the general population.


Risk management is one of the prominent issues which are pivotal to the success of a business and may adversely affect profitability if not properly practised. Therefore, the main objective of this paper was to determine risk management practices in manufacturing SMEs in Cape Town. The research conducted was quantitative in nature and constituted the collection of data from 74 SME leaders, all of whom had to adhere to a list of strict delineation criteria. All data collected were thoroughly analyzed through means of descriptive statistics. From the findings made, it is clear that SMEs in the manufacturing sector do in fact understand risk management initiatives applicable to 'manage' their respective businesses towards sustainability, but not to a large extent. It was found that respondents are unaware of the elements which make risk manage- ment effective, which ultimately aids to the development of problems for SMEs. All employees, managers and owners must coordinate their efforts together to identify and manage organizational risks within their ambit to obtain total risk coverage, as well as provide assurance that these risks are effectively managed from a coordinated approach. Further studies may be carried out to identify measures that can be taken to improve the effectiveness of risk management practices in SMEs


Measurements from load tests may lead to numerical models that better reflect structural behavior. This kind of system identification is not straightforward due to important uncertainties in measurement and models. Moreover, since system identification is an inverse engineering task, many models may fit measured behavior. Traditional model updating methods may not provide the correct behavioral model due to uncertainty and parameter compensation. In this paper, a multimodel approach that explicitly incorporates uncertainties and modeling assumptions is described. The approach samples thousands of models starting from a general parametrized finite-element model. The population of selected candidate models may be used to understand and predict behavior, thereby improving structural management decision making. This approach is applied to measurements from structural performance monitoring of the Langensand Bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland. Predictions from the set of candidate models are homogenous and show an average discrepancy of 4-7% from the displacement measurements. The tests demonstrate the applicability of the multimodel approach for the structural identification and performance monitoring of real structures. The multimodel approach reveals that the Langensand Bridge has a reserve capacity of 30% with respect to serviceability requirements.


Abstract An efficient method was developed to fabricate graphene oxide coated cotton wad (GO/W) using self-assembly technique. GO/W could be used as an adsorbent material in remediation of environmental pollutants in a continuous packed bed column. The efficiency of GO/W fixed bed column in the removal of crystal violet (CV) from an aquatic environment was studied. The experimental breakthrough data were modeled using Thomas, Adams-Bohart, and Yoon-Nelson models, and the column parameters for all these models were calculated. Increasing the effluent discharge rate and initial adsorbate concentration make the breakthrough and saturation points to be obtained faster and hence lower the adsorption capacity of column.


Throughout the 1990s, China's stock market was developed as a tool of industrial policy. It was used to supply capital to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that remained controlled by the state and whose performance usually declined after listing. Secondary market trading was poorly regulated, again partly for political reasons. As a result, the market has become infamous for extreme volatility, price manipulation and grossly unreliable accounting. This is a problem for the government since the stock market is ill-equipped to support the government's other increasingly important economic priorities. The government now needs to improve the efficiency of industry in order to sustain employment creation, to raise capital to finance its own liabilities and to put into place a modern pension system. As a result, China's stock market is being slowly reformed. Listed companies are quietly being allowed to privatise. The regulatory framework has been rationalised. The empowered China Securities Regulatory Commission is pushing forward with a range of policies aimed at improving corporate governance. Shareholders have been allowed to pursue civil compensation claims against firms in the courts. Financial intermediaries are being privatised, the fund sector is being rapidly expanded and foreign investors are gradually being allowed in. These changes, although deeply unpopular among some important groups, will mature the market over the next decade.


We report a straightforward way to design polarization-insensitive broadband bandstop filters in terahertz range by fabricating identical metal patterns on both sides of a dielectric substrate with one layer rotated 90° to the other. The unit cells used in such designs are the well-studied split-ring-resonators, hence the frequency range of the stop band can be easily tuned by varying the dimensions of the unit cell structures. Through simulation analysis, we show that such fabrication method requires no alignment in lithography step and works with common dielectric substrates. Two types of substrates, 1-mm-thick quartz and 100-μm-thick polyethylene terephthalate, were used as a demonstration. The transmission level stayed below 12% for a stopband of 0.42-THz frequency range. Lastly, we reasoned with simulation results that the proposed broadband filters give consistent performance regardless of the gap location in the unit cell, which will further extend their use in practical applications.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the pattern and predictors of volumetric change of parotid glands during intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for oropharyngeal cancer.

METHODS
A cohort of patients undergoing weekly CT scans during dose-painted IMRT was considered. The parotid glands were contoured at the time of treatment planning (baseline) and on all subsequent scans. For a given patient, the parotid glands were labelled as higher (H) and lower (L), based on the mean dose at planning. The volume of each gland was determined for each scan and the percent change from baseline computed. Data were fit to both linear and quadratic functions. The role of selected covariates was assessed with both logistic regression and pair-wise comparison between the sides. The analyses were performed considering the whole treatment duration or each separate half.

RESULTS
85 patients, 170 glands and 565 scans were analysed. For all parotids except one, the quadratic function provided a better fit than the linear one. Moreover, according to both the logistic regression and pair-wise comparison, the cumulative mean dose of radiation is independently correlated with the parotid shrinkage during the first but not the second half of the treatment. Conversely, age and weight loss are predictors of relative parotid shrinkage during the entire course of the treatment.

CONCLUSION
Parotid gland shrinkage during IMRT is not linear. Age, weight loss and radiation dose independently predict parotid shrinkage during a course of IMRT.

ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE
The present study adds to the pathophysiology of parotid shrinkage during radiotherapy.


Renewable energy resources, such as photovoltaic panels, typically have very volatile power-injection characteristics, which poses a number of challenges to the real-time control of electrical grids that contain a significant fraction of these resources. Recently, a new paradigm for controlling such grids, termed COMMELEC, was proposed; it uses explicit power setpoints instead of droop-control. Central to this new paradigm is an abstract message format that enables resources to delegate the decisions related to their control actions to a grid controller. This is essential to the feasibility of the approach, as it makes the grid controller device-independent. However, it leaves to the resource agents the burden of translating device-specific information into this abstract format. In this paper, we present a solution to this problem; more specifically, we present a very simple Application Programming Interface (API) that can be used to design a COMMELEC-compliant resource agent. We present an easy-to-use High-Level API, which supports a pre- defined set of resources, such as a battery or a photovoltaic panel. We also describe a Low-Level API that provides full access to the underlying message format, and allows to design a resource agent that is not supported by the High-Level API. For message serialization, we use the Cap'n Proto framework, which allows for efficient manipulations of the mathematical objects used in COMMELEC.


Guest Presentation for the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research's World AIDS Day Event, "HIV in Global Context: Multidisciplinary Perspectives."Event description

HIV remains a significant global public health challenge.
Although now a manageable chronic condition, HIV can have serious health
implications if left untreated. The most common additional condition of HIV is
poor mental health, which can be attributed in part to social stigma. In the era
of effective HIV treatment and biomedical approaches to HIV prevention, we have
set ourselves the ambitious target of zero new HIV infections and ending the
AIDS epidemic by 2030. The speed lectures and expert panel will consider the
feasibility of this target, focusing on the opportunities and challenges and
using one of the most powerful tools we possess: research.This event is part of the Doctoral College Series, a series of events showcasing our PhD students and DMU's research excellence. Each event focuses on one of the SDGs, illustrating how the SDGs are embedded in our research.Presentation abstract:Sexualized Drug Use among Gay, Bisexual and Men who have Sex with Men in Leicester: A Mixed Method Study Despite occurring everywhere, research on 'chemsex' is overwhelming conducted on gay, bi-sexual and MSM in London. Outside of London, Sexual Health Clinics report conducting 'chemsex' consultations on a monthly basis. This study begins to close the gap in research by looking at the experiences of sexualized drug use in Leicester.


A metal-insulator-metal (MIM) composite right/left-handed (CRLH) series-mode zeroth-order resonant antenna (ZORA) optimized for the 24 GHz ISM band is presented and compared to a series-fed patch array (SFPA) antenna. The CRLH ZORA exhibits superior performances for relatively short lengths (≪ 3λ0) whereas the SFPA may performs better, depending on the specific design, when the length is very long (≫ 5λ0), so that the resonant antennas operate as leaky-wave antennas with a leakage factor proportional to the density of the radiators along the structure. To our knowledge it the first time that the leaky-wave operation of an electrically very large "resonator" has been explicitly identified. The ZORA is particularly recommended for average electrical sizes in the order of 2λ0, where it should be systematically superior to a SFPA.


Aims: To determine the effects of fresh and freeze‐dried extracts of Allium sativum on the physiology and morphology of Candida albicans.
Methods and Results: Inhibition of growth in glucose‐yeast extract‐peptone was measured using a multiwell plate reader. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy investigations indicated loss of structural integrity. Gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry of extracts was employed to separate and quantify putative inhibitory sulphur‐containing components.
Conclusions: Fresh garlic extract has a greater efficacy than garlic powder extract as indicated both by its effects on morphology and inhibition of growth.
Significance and Impact of the Study: The ubiquitous opportunistic pathogen C. albicans is sensitive to garlic; resistance to the broad spectrum of active principles present is unlikely so that its anticandidal effects may provide an important alternative route to chemotherapy.


Around 70% of circulating alpha-2-antiplasmin (α2AP), the main natural plasmin inhibitor, is N-terminally cleaved between residues Pro12 and Asn13 by antiplasmin-cleaving enzyme. This converts native Met-α2AP into the more potent fibrinolysis inhibitor Asn-α2AP. The Arg6Trp (R6W) polymorphism affects the N-terminal cleavage rate of Met-α2AP in a purified system, with ~8-fold faster conversion of Met(R6)-α2AP than Met(W6)-α2AP. To date, assays to determine N-terminally intact Met-α2AP in plasma have been limited to an ELISA that only measures Met(R6)-α2AP. The aim of this study was to generate and characterize monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against Met(R6)-α2AP, Met(W6)-α2AP and all α2AP forms (total-α2AP) in order to develop specific Met(R6)-α2AP and Met(W6)-α2AP ELISAs. Recombinant Met(R6)-α2AP, Met(W6)-α2AP and Asn-α2AP were expressed in Drosophila S2 cells. Using hybridoma technology, a panel of 25 mAbs was generated against a mixture of recombinant Met(R6)-α2AP and Met(W6)-α2AP. All mAbs were evaluated for their specific reactivity using the three recombinant α2APs in one-site non-competitive ELISAs. Three mAbs were selected to develop sandwich-type ELISAs. MA-AP37E2 and MA-AP34C4 were selected for their specific reactivity against Met(R6)-α2AP and Met(W6)-α2AP, respectively, and used for coating. MA-AP15D7 was selected for its reactivity against total-α2AP and used for detection. With the novel ELISAs we determined Met(R6)-α2AP and Met(W6)-α2AP levels in plasma samples and we showed that Met(R6)-α2AP was converted faster into Asn-α2AP than Met(W6)-α2AP in a plasma milieu. In conclusion, we developed two specific ELISAs for Met(R6)-α2AP and Met(W6)-α2AP, respectively, in plasma. This will enable us to determine N-terminal heterogeneity of α2AP in plasma samples.


Aim: This study was designed to develop peptide analogs of Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD) virus VP5 protein segment having cell penetrating ability to improve their interaction with cargo molecule (Nucleic acid) without affecting the backbone conformation. Materials and Methods: IBDV VP5 protein segment designated as RATH peptide were synthesized using solid phase peptide synthesis and their solution conformation was elucidated using CD spectroscopy in polar (water) and apolar (TFE) solvents. Cell penetrating ability of RATH-CONH was observed using FITC labeled peptide internalization in to HeLa cells 2 under fluorescent microscopy. The efficacy of RATH analog interactions with nucleic acids was evaluated using FITC labeled oligonucleotides by fluorescence spectroscopy and plasmid constructs in gel retardation assay. Results: CD spectra of RATH analogs in water and apolar trifluroethanol (TFE) helped to compare their secondary structures which were almost similar with dominant beta conformations suggesting successful induction of positive charge in the analogs without affecting back bone conformation of CPP designed. Cell penetrating ability of RATH CONH in HeLa cell 2 was more than 90%. The fluorescence spectroscopy and plasmid constructs in gel retardation assay demonstrated successful interaction of amide analogs with nucleic acid. Conclusion: Intentional changes made in IBDV derived peptide RATH COOH to RATH CONH did not showed major 2 changes in backbone conformation and such modifications may help to improve the cationic charge in most CPPs to interact with nucleic acid.


When hotel firms expand internationally, they must determine the ownership strategy and the management strategy that will best maintain the firm's competitive advantage. Those decisions are made separately from each other and depend on the expanding company's own strengths and the strengths found in the local market. That interplay between the company's strengths and local resources drives the type of partnership or affiliation arrangement that the company uses to enter the foreign market. The decision regarding who controls management and marketing, for instance, depends to a large extent on whether the expanding company can rely on local interests to maintain the firm's customer service standards. If the firm does not use customer service as a competitive advantage, it can make more use of third-party interests to operate the hotel. If the hotel facility is itself a point of competitive advantage, the decision on the extent of equity investment by the firm rests on whether local interests have sufficient resources to build and maintain the property.


is published by the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street N.W., Washington, DC 20036 Published by American Chemical Society. Copyright © American Chemical Society. However, no copyright claim is made to original U.S. Government works, or works produced by employees of any Commonwealth realm Crown government in the course of their duties. Bioactive Constituents, Metabolites, and Functions


histamine Study objective: To (1) replicate our prior result of low cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) histamine levels in human narcolepsy in a different sample population and to (2) evaluate if histamine contents are altered in other types of hypersomnia with and without hypocretin deficiency. design: Cross sectional studies. Setting sixty-seven subjects, 26 idiopathic hypersomnia (IHs) subjects, 16 obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) subjects, and 73 neurological controls were included. All patients were Japanese. Diagnoses were made according to ICSD-2. results: We found significant reductions in CSF histamine levels in hypocretin deficient narcolepsy with cataplexy (mean ± SEM; 176.0 ± 25.8 pg/mL), hypocretin non-deficient narcolepsy with cataplexy (97.8 ± 38.4 pg/mL), hypocretin non-deficient narcolepsy without cataplexy (113.6 ± 16.4 pg/mL), and idiopathic hypersomnia (161.0 ± 29.3 pg/ mL); the levels in OSAS (259.3 ± 46.6 pg/mL) did not statistically differ from those in the controls (333.8 ± 22.0 pg/mL). Low CSF histamine levels were mostly observed in non-medicated patients; significant reductions in histamine levels were evident in non-medicated patients with hypocretin deficient narcolepsy with cataplexy (112.1 ± 16.3 pg/ mL) and idiopathic hypersomnia (143.3 ± 28.8 pg/mL), while the levels in the medicated patients were in the normal range. Conclusion: The study confirmed reduced CSF histamine levels in hypocretin-deficient narcolepsy with cataplexy. Similar degrees of reduction were also observed in hypocretin non-deficient narcolepsy and in idiopathic hypersomnia, while those in OsAs (non central nervous system hypersomnia) were not altered. The decrease in histamine in these subjects were more specifically observed in non-medicated subjects, suggesting CSF histamine is a biomarker reflecting the degree of hypersomnia of central origin.


This paper evaluates the importance of knowledge management in enhancing innovation in the hospital sector in Beirut area. On this emerging economy, organizations are more aware of developing knowledge for a reason to be comparative in the market and gain a sustainable competitive advantage. (Association of Marketing, Bancario, Argentine, 2000).Information and knowledge become an essential resource for all businesses. It is considered a vital concept and process in conducting any business.In this paper, I conduct a study of the importance of knowledge management in achieving innovation and development in the hospital sector. This study consists of two parts: theoretical and practical. In the first part, I try to address the concept of knowledge management, learning, and innovation in general by discussing the processes of knowledge management and the authors' point of views. Then, in the second part, I establish a questionnaire survey about this topic, and I distributed in different hospitals in Beirut. As a result of my study, I realize that knowledge management, in general, is not a priority issue for the selected hospitals, and the relationship that exists between knowledge management and innovation is moderate, and this means that knowledge management in these hospitals is not the main reason for innovation. For this reason, hospitals must care more about knowledge management and must recognize that it is an essential part to reach innovation, development, and survival.


Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum MIK) cultivar Moneymaker, was grown hydroponically in controlled temperature (C.T.) room for 25 days to investigate relationships between phosphorus concentration in leaves and roots with phosphatase enzyme activity in relation to zinc supply. Zinc was added at concentrations of 0.05, 0.5, 1 and 2 mg/L in complete nutrient solution. The 2 mg/L zinc treatment resulted in a reduction in dry weights compared with other treatments, but there were no signifıcant differences in dry weights of seedlings between the other treatments. Zinc concentration in the plant increased with increasing zinc supply and reached a detrimental level with 2 mg/L Zn. However, there were signif ı cant decreases in P concentration in the leaves with increasing Zn supply and this decreased to an inadequate level in 2 mg/L Zn treatment. Phosphorus concentration in root increased with increasing Zn supply. Phosphatase enzyme activity was highest in the highest zinc treatment, with no significant differences in the activity in the other treatments.


The present study demonstrates that the spectral slope coefficient of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) between 275 nm and 295 nm (S275–295) can be used as a tracer of the percent terrigenous dissolved organic carbon (%tDOC) in river‐influenced ocean margins, where rivers exert an important control on carbon dynamics and CO2 fluxes. Absorption coefficients of CDOM and concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved lignin were measured on a seasonal basis in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers and in surface waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGoM). A strong, linear relationship between lignin concentrations and CDOM absorption coefficients indicated lignin is an important chromophore in this environment. The dual nature of lignin as an important chromophore in CDOM and as a terrigenous component of DOC facilitated development of the tracer. The applicability of the tracer relies on the existence of a strong, nonlinear relationship between S275–295 and the DOC‐normalized lignin yield in rivers and along the freshwater–marine continuum in the NGoM. Physical mixing and the effects of photodegradation on S275–295 and dissolved lignin were largely responsible for maintaining this relationship, suggesting the tracer is applicable to surface waters of most river‐influenced ocean margins. The spectral slope coefficient (S275–295) provides new capabilities to trace tDOC on synoptic scales of relevance to ocean margins and represents an important tool for improving ocean carbon budgets.


Sources of Chinese Economic Growth 1978-1996, by Chris Bramall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xi + 558 pp. US$135.00/£82.50 (hardcover). China's Last Steps Across the River: Enterprise and Banking Reforms, by Yiping Huang. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2001. xiv + 246 pp. Aus$35.00/US$32.00 (paperback). The great length of Sources of Chinese Economic Growth-500-plus pages-does not bother me. Nor does Chris Bramall's gladiatorial style, engaging in rhetorical battle against the lions of a "master discourse" that promotes economic liberalization and denies the possibility of a developmental state. Although I personally find the bashing of liberals such as Paul Krugman, or of Jeffrey Sachs and the World Bank, increasingly uncomfortable because of the wider global political context, I agree that authority must be questioned, and Bramall certainly does us all a service in laying out in detail the premises and biases that inhere in what has become common wisdom about China's amazing economic growth ever since it embarked on economic reforms over a quarter of a century ago. My problem is elsewhere. Bramall is an excessively careful gladiator who excels in defining where others stand, including their positive features. He is obviously well-read in both economic theory and the state of the literature on China's economy. Yet he runs around the ring too much to provide us with a clear view of a well-defended position of his own. Let me illustrate with a precis of his introductory chapter, which reflects the structure and style of argumentation of the book as a whole. Bramall argues here that the dominant tradition in economic theory (master discourse) holds that capitalism is the "end of history" and hence denies the success of the East Asian model, based on industrial policy. Propagators of this discourse attempted to destabilize the East Asian economies in the financial crisis of 1997-98, although it must be admitted that Japan's property bubble of the late 1980s, Kirn Daejong's hostility towards the chaebols, and currency depreciations in Southeast Asia were important factors too. Transition-era China's rapid economic growth provides a similarly serious threat to the hegemony of the master discourse, which has responded with an increasing number of attempts at denial. Of course, some writers schooled in the discourse oppose shock therapy and argue that there has been significant growth in China in total factor productivity (TFP), even in the state sector, but they see growth as unsustainable because of the deficits generated by the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and because of rent-seeking behavior caused by contradictions between the market and state sectors. Nonetheless, these are mere cracks in the facade of the master discourse, not fundamental disagreements. Heterodox scholars are concerned about sustainability from other angles, such as the environment, political legitimacy, income inequality or human rights, but they too see the Dengist period as a restoration, not a durable regime, with a final crisis lurking around the next corner. Bramall himself does not focus on long-run sustainability, however, but instead looks at the causes of growth in the period between the deaths of Mao and Deng, as this is where the orthodox school is the most deficient in its analysis, use of data, conclusions and identification of causal factors. The book discusses the "proximate" sources of growth-initial conditions, factor accumulation and productivity growth. Initial conditions are particularly important in conventional growth theory, which hypothesizes that there was a lot of developmental slack in China in 1978, due to low output per capita, technological isolation, a high proportion of rural population, a suppressed personal incentive structure, a disrupted educational system, and an obsession with local grain self-sufficiency. Even heterodox scholars share this negative view. Orthodoxy emphasizes factor accumulation over technical progress, especially in SOEs. …


In this paper, we develop a novel approach to the problem of learning sparse representations in the context of fused sparsity and unknown noise level. We propose an algorithm, termed Scaled Fused Dantzig Selector (SFDS), that accomplishes the aforementioned learning task by means of a second-order cone program. A special emphasize is put on the particular instance of fused sparsity corresponding to the learning in presence of outliers. We establish finite sample risk bounds and carry out an experimental evaluation on both synthetic and real data.


To the Editor Johnsson and Berglund's recent article evaluating two interventions for high-risk drinking in university freshman could be regarded as a model of appropriately conservative interpretation of experimental results (Johnsson and Berglund, 2006). The authors found statistically significant reductions in drinking from baseline to one-year follow-up but little evidence of differences between the two, randomly assigned intervention conditions. Given these findings they make the point that the results could be due to regression to the mean, an admission that is rare in the clinical trials literature. However, some benefit might be derived from considering alternate explanations for this pattern of results. One explanation is provided by the authors—that the results can be explained by regression to the mean. This is a statistical concept which is used to describe the phenomenon that a group of people pre-selected for scoring above the mean on a measure are likely to score lower on average, purely by chance, if the measurement is repeated (Morton and Torgerson, 2003). So, to use the present example, people display variation over time in the amount they drink. If a group of drinkers is pre-selected on the basis that their drinking scores above the mean of the general population of drinkers, then, just by chance, the average amount of drinking reported by these respondents will likely be less than at baseline when the measurement is repeated at a later date. What other explanations are possible to explain this pattern of results? The first is that both interventions might have worked and caused reductions in drinking. This explanation is alluded to at the beginning of the discussion in the Johnsson and Berglund article but the authors appropriately do not try to make the claim that this is necessarily what is happening in their study (Johnsson and Berglund, 2006). The second explanation has to do with the natural history of drinking patterns. University students show a trend towards drinking less as they progress through their college years (Baer et al., 2001). This reduction is not due to chance, as would be the case with regression to the mean, but reflects a real change in the amount students drink as time passes. So, the students in Johnsson and Berglund's study could have been reporting reductions in drinking solely as a reflection of the downward trend that student drinkers display as they progress through college. Finally, the pattern of results could reflect the fact that heavy drinkers are more likely to be concerned about their drinking than moderate drinkers (Wild et al., 2001). As many problem drinkers reduce their alcohol consumption without ever seeking treatment (Cunningham, 1999), the reduction in drinking observed in the Johnsson and Berglund study could be a result of these heavy drinkers having concern about their drinking and deciding to change. Thus, the sample might include many people who would have reduced their drinking anyway without exposure to any intervention. These alternate explanations underline the importance of randomized controlled trials as a means of establishing the effectiveness of any treatment and are the reason why the cautious presentation of experimental results, as Johnsson and Berglund have done, should be encouraged.


The scale, mechanism, and physiological importance of cuticular transpiration were last reviewed in this journal 5 and 10 years ago. Progress in our basic understanding of the underlying processes and their physiological and structural determinants has remained frustratingly slow ever since. There have been major advances in the quantification of cuticular water permeability of stomata-bearing leaf and fruit surfaces and its dependence on leaf temperature in astomatous surfaces, as well as in our understanding of the respective roles of epicuticular and intracuticular waxes and molecular-scale aqueous pores in its physical control. However, understanding the properties that determine the thousand-fold differences between permeabilities of different cuticles remains a huge challenge. Molecular biology offers unique opportunities to elucidate the relationships between cuticular permeability and structure and chemical composition of cuticles, provided care is taken to quantify the effects of genetic manipulation on cuticular permeability by reliable experimental approaches.